Gaaa, is that what I think it is?

Yep, twenty years of hair, lopped off the back of my head to donate to Locks of Love so that a child suffering from Alopecia areata can have normal hair, just like their classmates and friends.
It’s strange, not having all that hair anymore. In the past people have developed a strange obsession with my ponytail, some going so far as to offer hundreds of dollars for it (and later apologizing for such crude behavior.)

At the end of the day it turned out that it was only hair and nothing magical or worthy of such attention. The fact that I grew it for twenty years — over half my life — is perhaps more strange than the fact that I cut it off. The fact that I’m blogging about it details the depth the obsession.

People are strange, huh?

If you want to see how I look now, much the same but with substantially shorter hair, you can find me at the following events in the next handful of months:

BusinessOnline’s Online Marketing Summit ‘07 in San Diego on February 22nd
WebSideStory/Visual Sciences’s Digital Marketing University in San Diego on March 8th and 9th
Silicon Valley WebGuild Web Analytyics Panel in Mountain View on March 14th
Jim Sterne’s Emetric Summit in San Francisco on May 7th (note the agenda has been released and looks very good in my humble and short-haired opinion)
WebSideStory/Visual Sciences annual customer event in San Diego the week of May 14th

Also, you won’t be able to see me, but don’t forget my free AMA/Aquent webcast “Web Analytics Demystified: Ten Simple Strategies for Using Web Analytics to Improve Your Online Marketing Efforts” on March 6th at 10 AM Pacific/1 PM Eastern. You can sign up for this free event at marketingpower.com.

Posted Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 | 11 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Clint

All I can say is ‘OUCH’

Of course, kudos to you for doing something worthwhile in the process.

eric

Clint: Tell me about it! The “artistic consultant” who did my hair pulled out a straight razor and I freaked! Fortunately she was a professional and I had nothing to worry about …

… now if only I could figure out this damn hair gel!

Clint

So now you’re going to start styling? HAH!

Julien Coquet

There go all ponytail comments… I have to admit the Flickr reference is kinda creepy :)

I salute you for your decision (hey it’s for a good cause), but that must have meant a lot to you!

Do you intend to grow a new one or you just getting used to your new hair?

Jeff Katz

I think Eric said something about wanting to bring the 80’s back :-)

eric

Julien: Tell me about it! But, as if my life wasn’t strange enough, Jim Sterne INSISTED on taking a picture of the “new look” Eric Peterson at the conference we’re at this morning. I suspect that my friend Mr. Sterne won’t be satisfied until I have the same hairdo as he.

Jeff: Ha! So you heard that the new ‘do is “Flock of Seagulls” already, huh? LOL.

Okay, I’ll try to post something meaningful so we can drop the whole “hair” thing …

Kurtis Kroon

What a wonderful gift and a great cause! That definitely qualifies this post as “something meaningful”. (It’s too bad they didn’t exist yet when I cut off my hair in ‘96 … but I’m definitely going to pass the URL along to my sister.)

Besides, this is a blog … it’s okay to wander off the topic from time to time.

I greaty appreciate the insights you offer here (though I have some difficulty applying them professionally — I work for a gov’t agency, so no cookies and no (useful) visitor history, etc.)

eric

Kurtis: Thanks for the feedback and for appreciating my occasional “off topic” ruminations. I’d love to know more about the challenges you face as a government agency vis-a-vis web analytics if you’d like to write to me directly sometime (eric at webanalyticsdemystified dot com.)

Chris

No way! As a former owner of a long blond ponytail myself I can relate somewhat to what that’s like, definitely a momentous decision. (Although I can’t say my mine ever had a Flickr photostream about it.)

Great cause too, and hope to check out the new ‘do at Emetrics.

Rejuvenating WebTrends « Web Analytics .be Blog

[...] sense: it’s a great product with great futures. Again, as an analyst, my first demo of VS, when Eric still had a pony tail, was an eye opener: I couldn’t have dreamt about a more flexible solution. The former [...]

Web Analytics Demystified » Blog Archive » Barack Obama should not fear cookies!

[...] maybe I’m just taking Chris to task since he still has his street-cred inducing ponytail and I cut mine off. But at this point the hand-wringing about cookies in general much less because of the mandate set [...]

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