When most of you hear or think “New York”, you think New York City, right?

That’s understandable. The amount of face time Manhattan, which usually represents the city, gets compared to the everywhere else here  is ridiculous.

But New York is huge, and broken into many regions:

-New York City

-Long Island (but not Queens and Brooklyn, which geographically sit on Long Island. Also worth noting that when people think of “Long Island” they generally think and refer to Nassau County, which is crawling with assholes, my friends and family excluded.)

-The Hudson Valley (See I-87 on a map? From the end of NYC to Albany is the Hudson Valley).

-The Adirondacks (everything within the Adirondack Park boundaries, otherwise known as “The Blue Line” or “The place I saw Bigfoot”.)

-The Frozen Frontier (the part of New York after the Adirondacks but not in Canada. Guess why it has this name? Go ahead. I dare you. )

-The Southern Tier (Binghamton to Buffalo)

-The Capital Region (Albany to Lake George),

-Thousand Islands (Watertown to Alexandria Bay, which sits on Lake Ontario.)

- Central New York (generally the ring around Syracuse up to Watertown and down to Cortland. )

Why Is This Important To Know?

Perception

New York State is not just New York City, and New York City is not just Manhattan.

As open-minded as we would like to think we are, we still hold on to some terrible perceptions in life, and those perceptions still matter. I’m guilty of this, I think most people are stupid. And it’s hard to shake those perceptions, even in the days of Google freely organizing the world’s information and Wikipedia giving us a crack at editing that information ourselves.

It’s very important when attempting to work on a project, or get into a new field, or operate a brand, that you understand your perception, as well as those of the people you plan to work with or target.

Think. Work it out. Talk about it. All the information in the world is useless unless you go in with the right frame of mind, and no negative perceptions.

Common sense? Sure. But if it’s so common, why aren’t you doing it?

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