John Mac's Travels

This weeks column is directed specifically to my Team at DIRECTV .  For the last 8 months I have been writing a weekly column on my travels across the country working for DTV. Before the column, I used to write a weekly email to my management team so they were aware of my work promoting the DIRECTV brand. six months ago I started posting my weekly columns on LinkedIn . I didn't really have a plan, I just wanted a place to post my thoughts.  I was so excited every week when my Blogspot stats would come out and showed that I had "50 Likes".  I was over the moon with joy.   This week I received an email from LinkedIn that basically said, "You have never looked at your analytics, and you should probably do that sometime..."  I didn't know that LinkedIn kept track of that kind of thing, so I did.  In the last 90 days my weekly columns have had over 30,000 impressions on LinkedIn. In the last 22 days my four latest columns have had over 10,000 impressions. M...

When I am traveling, my diet is always a challenge.  For the most part I get to choose when, what and where I eat. I can save a lot of money if I were to eat fast food, gas station food, or truck stop cuisine. The trade off is that this food is just NOT GOOD for you.  My children call it "Mystery food" as the only two ingredients you can count on to be present are MSG and deep fried oil. When I say my diet is a "Challenge" it's because this food is on almost every street corner. Healthy food on the other hand is much harder to find in a foreign city, and is usually twice the price(or more) than fast food. I value my body though, and I value my health, so I make a conscious decision to eat better. I am willing to spend more money to eat healthy. Like millions of Americans I have insurance. I have several different insurance policies. I know that I do not have the cheapest insurance available, but I am confident that I have the right policies for me and my family....

  This week finds me back in Peoria, IL and of course back at the Pere Marquette Marriott hotel . I stay in this hotel frequently because I can support two different DMAs(Designated Market Areas) from one single location. When I arrived on Monday the manager met me at the front desk when I checked in and thanked me once again for helping to resolve their DIRECTV issues during my previous visit in November. To read more about my last visit to central Illinois click HERE .   I was able to watch the NCAA Men’s championship game from the Great Room Restaurant in the Hotel Lobby.   Not the best game, but always a good time.   Thanks to Jessica and her team for always treating me so well when I am in town and allowing me to interview her for this article. Originally built in 1926, this historic hotel was the anchor property for downtown Peoria during the roaring 20’s and set the bar for upscale lodging.   The hotel was painstakingly remodeled and restored to it's ...

  Over the last seven years or so the most common question I get as I travel around this great country of ours is “What do you do for DIRECTV anyway?” For those interested, this week’s column is dedicated to my “Day Job”. Enjoy… Greetings from St. Louis! It's Sunday morning and my Battlehawks won a nail biter last night against the Arlington Renegades.  It was an amazing game and I was one of the 40,315 in attendance. Life is good.  Here is this weeks update. I decided to take a week to dedicate a column to my Field Engineering team. I am sure the optics might lead one to believe that I travel around the country staying in hotels, meeting with the hotel and bar staff and promoting DIRECTV. That is maybe 5-10% of my week though.  I am part of a team of 11 Field Engineers who are strategically placed throughout the country to support local channel contributions to DIRECTV in all continental US markets.  We are 100% travel allocated engineers, so we are on the r...

I still remember the day he was born like it was yesterday.  I was a first time father and over the moon with joy! I had so many plans, so many things I wanted to do, so many experiences to share with him just like my father did with me. When he turned one, we thought something was “off”.  He wouldn’t sleep.  At the time we just chalked it up to the natural process of a growth spurt. When he turned two, we knew something was wrong but just couldn’t pinpoint the issue. He still wouldn’t sleep at night.  He fought the sleep daily only succumbing to it when his body finally gave out. What we didn’t know is that his brain was running a high speed marathon and he didn’t know how to shut it off. Neither did we. We started showing Disney movies on VHS tapes to pass the time in the evenings. My wife slept on the couch night after night, changing the movies every two hours until the sleep would finally creep in. When he turned four and could talk, we realized t...

 This week finds me back in Kentucky.  When I arrived at the Marriott Hotel  Louisville I was instantly overwhelmed by the 1800 Engineering students who were at the hotel for Kentucky's Technology Student Association State finals. it literally took 30min. to get from the lobby to the 11th floor where my room was located all week. So many young people at the hotel! No complaints though... The Louisville Marriott is a DIRECTVforBUSINESS hotel and restaurant I always reach out to the sales manager to say hello and thank her for being a DIRECTV customer. This is a great hotel based right in the middle of the downtown district. This hotel is highly recommended.  I was able to engage with many of the students at this event as you couldn't go anywhere in the hotel without running into dozens of groups congregating in the public areas. These students were smart, whitty, and full of opinions and energy. It was great to see so many young people who care about STEM , wh...

 This week I am making a swing through our Kansas LRF(Local Receive Facility) sites completing my quarterly RF checks to make sure that Local Channel Contributions to DIRECTV look good, that our systems are stable and that our landlords and vendors are all happy.  It's an exciting time to be in Kansas because the Jayhawks are currently ranked 16th and play tonight at 830pm.  March Madness is CRAZY here.  I am not much of a basketball fan, but I love sports in general and will be happy to root for the Local team tonight at the Hyatt Regency . Did you know that DIRECTV offers some stellar viewing options for the College Basketball Playoffs and March Madness?  At DIRECTV, we've got you covered.  Check out our DIRECTV Sports Programming page for more information by clicking HERE . Last week I attended the DIRECTVforBUSINESS group's All Hands Meeting in Los Angeles. One of the takeaways from that meeting is that I can do better.  I think I can improve ...

Good morning and greetings from Los Angeles, California. I took a detour from my usual travel schedule of maintenance and support to use a few days to take stock of my performance, professional trajectory and take a look at my collective relationships with my team and employer. Earlier in February I completed my professional performance goals for 2024. I was not completely satisfied with our company's performance numbers for 2023. They should have been better.  I should have performed better. I recently wrote about my successes in 2023 (You can read about those  HERE ) and this year I need to build on those successes and grow. Sometimes, stepping away for a bit is needed to focus on things outside outside of our normal reach. Changing my landscape for a few days made all the difference in the world. Dropping the routines I follow and stepping out of my comfort zone is exactly what I needed. This week I was honored to be invited to the DIRECTV for BUSINESS All hands meeting in...

 I am working in Jefferson City, Missouri this week which is Missouri's capital. Tough to get a hotel when things are hoppin at the capital building so I diverted to Columbia and stayed at the DoubleTree by Hilton. "The Broadway" is a beautiful Hotel with great food in-house, a 1st floor bar as well as a rooftop bar with views of the city.  What a great place.  My thanks to Jason and the team for the corner suite upgrade and the gracious hospitality. I will definately be back.  Did I mention that the Broadway is a #DIRECTVforBUSINESS property?? Yes it is... I would like to offer a sincere congratulations to our engineering and marketing teams for the combined effort that has resulted in NOT ONE, BUT TWO Technical Emmy Awards in 2024 for our work bringing SIGNAL SAVER and PAUSE ADS to our DIRECTV platforms.  I have been talking about Signal Saver for a while now.  This service allows our customers the option to convert their live signal from DIRECTV to...

 This week I made my first trek through Northern Arkansas since 2019.  I didn't support this region in the past but now I do.  Many thanks to the Embassy Suites in Rogers for having me. No conferences this week at the hotel, but lots of student athletes.  It's always sports season in Arkansas.  I had an unexpected gift of sharing breakfast with former Governor Asa Hutchinson who is local to this area. We had a great conversation about Northern Arkansas' growth in recent years, his plans now that he's out of office, and NO, I did not bring up his recent presidential campaign or even politics in general.  Asa is a very smart man, and very humble. One of the reasons I always stay with Hilton, Hyatt or Marriott Hotels when I travel is because of the perks they offer their frequent and corporate travelers. As a Lifetime Platinum Elite Member of Marriott I get an early check-in, 400pm checkout, Food and beverage credits, executive lounge access, and room upgrad...

  Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on their 2023 SuperBowl victory! I worked the event out of our Mission Kansas Network Operations Center to ensure that  DIRECTV  provided the best programming to millions of Midwest customers through all of our platforms. Hopefully my beloved  Seattle Seahawks  can make it to the big game next year! I am based in KC, and couldn't get outta town quick enough on Monday morning. I know the parade and downtown district is going to be crazy this week.  NFL, I miss you already... the Nielsen ratings were released today and this year's game proved to be the 2nd most watched SuperBowl event in Nielsen ratings history with 113 million average users. I am proud to report that our platform was STELLAR with no national issues reported and only a very small number of customers experienced issues, all stemming from station diven issues before our handoff.  My hat is off to our engineering and technical support teams who w...

This week DIRECTV's CEO Bill Morrow announced our 2023 Success Performance results . Overall I think we did pretty well, but there was one area where the results were quite frankly, lackluster. That area was retaining and adding subscribers.  No one should have been shocked by the numbers that were released. We know all know that the marketplace has gone through monumental change the last eight or so years.  The numbers are down across all providers including Cable, DBS, streaming, etc.   DIRECTV has been working hard to stem the receding tide of customers leaving the platform. Our new Gemini device  is a market game changer.  Advancements in cloud technology and our engineering team's work to migrate our systems to the cloud are reaping financial benefits to help us sustain growth in a cost effective manner. As an Engineer in our Technical operations group, I see these advancements real time and first hand, and I am so proud of our teams for the...