Jeff Simmermon

Director, Digital Communications
Time Warner Cable

Why Him? Time Warner Cable’s social media voice, Simmermon puts a human face on the MSO. “Customers hate what they don’t understand. I just try to use whatever media I can to demonstrate what a constant, complicated miracle cable is and show that I’m an actual human being who happens to work here,” he says. “Today, it’s social media. Someday it’ll be something else. The principles are constant, though.”

Let Me Entertain You: Simmermon’s Untangled blog is anything but corporate. “I operate under two principles: corporate blogs are boring; and the Internet was created by and for people who are screwing around at work. People want to laugh, get mad, learn something new, and share something cool,” he says. “I try to feed those desires without seeming needy or desperate.”

When Will Authentication Be A Success? “Shortly after the first automobile accident caused by watching streaming television behind the wheel.”

What You Miss About Analog: “The default setting for society used to be ‘focus on what you’re doing before moving onto something else.’ Multi-tasking is a myth, it’s actually half-assing several things simultaneously rather than doing one thing at a time and doing it well. The phrase ‘there’s no such thing as a stupid question’ was definitely coined before the Internet era.”