Hot Doug’s
Encased meat media with the real sausage king of Chicago.
Problem
When Twitter launched, it seemed prudent to grab a few interesting handles. I snagged @hotdougs for Hot Doug’s, a legendary (and my favorite) Chicago hot dog spot. Doug Sohn, the owner, did not yet know this.
Insight
People who love Hot Doug’s want to know what the daily specials are. The shop’s most precious commodity is its specials board. Twitter is a much faster way to publish it than a chalkboard. Permission, in this case, could be asked for politely — and in the meantime, the right thing to do was add value.
Solution
I emailed Doug letting him know I had the handle and would gladly hand it over if he liked, but in the meantime I’d be tweeting their daily specials until asked to stop. He got back to me two years later — by which point I’d tweeted his specials every weekday and amassed 30,000 followers for him. He offered me a paid job, having heard from friends that I was tweeting very good tweets.
The Christmas Eve envelope
Doug met me in a bar on Christmas Eve and handed me an envelope of cash as back pay. He asked me to help source fan stories for a book being written about Hot Doug’s. He asked me to help with a documentary being made. I eagerly did both, was thanked in a published book, and on the day this fabled joint closed for good I was in the kitchen with the cooks drinking champagne.
Life is funny sometimes.
Why it’s here
It’s the earliest example I have of a pattern I’ve come to recognize in my best work: see something worth caring about, do the right thing for the user without waiting for permission, and keep showing up. The 30,000 followers were a side effect. The point was the specials.