An introduction to The Digital Paperweight

May it entertain you better than jokes that get you sent to HR.

Greetings friends,

Welcome to The Digital Paperweight – the best water cooler talk on the internet! This is a website about business, technology, and everything that’s gone wrong with them. The posts will have a fairly humor-based tone. If I had to express it in fancy business terms, the tone would be 80% serious and 20% jokes, which equals 💯% a good time for all! My writing style is like me: fairly minimalist, but extra. In other words, it is simple and direct while sometimes adding unnecessary elements to enhance humor or provide further context.

I have always wanted to write The Digital Paperweight, but I never found the time. Recent life events have opened up my schedule, allowing me to focus on things I have always wanted to do, which includes extensive writing.

Who am I?

A render of me. But yeah, this is what I look like.

My name is Mark Christopher Smith the 1st, but I’m more well known by my online handle MCS1.  

I’m a published author who enjoys writing about things from a very philosophical standpoint with a mix of humor. My education includes:

Associate of Arts in Business Administration - Management
Bachelor of Science in Digital Media - Project & Information Management
Google Project Management Certificate

I have worked a variety of jobs throughout my career. Here is a brief description of most of them.

• Floppy Disk Duplication Supervisor: This was when floppy disks were already obsolete. You can probably see how my love for 3.5 inch floppy disks translated over to The Digital Paperweight’s logo.
• Corporate Cult Recruiter: It’s best not ask.
• Resident Assistant: In college to help make ends meet, I was an RA. I did this for a few years and eventually became an assistant apartment complex manager then later upgrading even further.
• Apartment complex manager: This was entertaining, but also overly dramatic. Rent week is the worst.
• Project manager: My first gig related to my degree. It was for a tech company that made software for evil MLMs (pyramid schemes). Watch the documentary Lularich for more fun details!
• General Manager - This was for a marketing firm that I actually had an internship at. It was during my internship here that I first became exposed to remote work (2013). Years later I was offered a project management position which evolved into being a general manager. With this firm, I saw how the sausage is made in the world of marketing (and being vegetarian that is definitely a huge turn off).
• Project Manager & Copywriter: After I left the marketing firm I continued to do project management for various web and software projects while learning to also be a copywriter. (see SublightServices.com for portfolio)
• Operations Manager: While being a project manager and copywriter, I was working a day job where I went to community college running various operations with billing, software, housing, and a bit of marketing.
• Project Manager: Frustrated with the drama and low pay of the college (and the eventual promise of student loan forgiveness for seven more years of working in the public sector), I went back to full time project management for a startup studio. We helped other startups build their products utilizing the MVP method then assisted them with scaling.
• Digital Project Manager: This was for a company that had been around for 15 years, but never established basic processes and procedures for building their software (oops). I was hired to organize their chaos, but I could only take them so far.
• Senior Project Manager: It was heavy mix of project management, product management, account management, UI/UX designing, writing user stories, QA, and sheer insanity. A good portion of my time was spent working with team members from all over the world. Some of the best people I have ever worked were with this position.
• Project Manager: See other above project manager positions.
• COO (but I’m trying to convince them to let me change my title to “Business Bro”: I have a side hustle with some friends at company called Leave your mark. The website can be found here.

Oh, and I had a podcast called The MCS1 Show. 

The podcast made a comeback after a few years of being dormant (as I’ve been working at all those fancy jobs I listed above). On the podcast, I discussed issues related to society and counterculture. Lately, the topics have focused on cultural shifts caused by the pandemic, as well as letting my former co-host rant about the MCU. The podcast used to be fairly Utah-based, but since I moved out of Utah, I shifted focus. The MCS1 Show is currently inactive, but the website and podcast links remain. Like The Digital Paperweight, The MCS1 Show is 80% serious, 20% jokes. If The Digital Paperweight has enough interest I would love to also make it into a podcast rather than only being a website. But for now, it’s a website only (free time is limited).

What topics will be covered?

Specific items that will be covered in the near future are: Startups, Linkedin (there’s a lot to unpack with this terrible platform), issues with AI, job hunting, remote work, streaming, side hustles, eCommerce, and various business book/movies/tv shows reviews.

Thanks for reading

I appreciate you taking the time to read my first post. If you have enjoyed this, please subscribe to The Digital Paperweight as there is more to come!

TTFN - MCS1