Month: January 2009

There’s been a lot going on lately, and of course that gets in the way of blogging here.

The good news is that Marketing Over Coffee continues to heat up, so much so that our host shut us down. The good news is that my co-host’s secret identity is CTO, so we shifted to a more able host and were back and running in less than a day.

In addition to the regular show I have some extra content coming along, including a great interview with author James Connor that I can’t wait to get posted.

Meanwhile the rest of the world found out about Facebook. Although it’s a little odd getting friended by people I’ve never seen in the tech circle before, I’m excited for them finally getting a taste of the blogging world.

On that note I’m very happy to say that I’ve signed on for Blogger Social 2009. The good news is that it’s here in my backyard in Boston this year so I’ll have an inside edge. For those who don’t know, Blogger Social ran for the first time last year in New York City, an event that makes no bones about the fact that it’s just about getting together to socialize with folks you probably have only met online. It’s a big Friday night event and then a formal dinner on Saturday, and any other social stuff you can pack in between.

I had a blast last year, including surviving an encounter with The Beast. Past attendees get first shot at tickets (there were about 80 attendees), and this year there will be 100 tickets, that will be opening up probably in the next week or so.

Just about a year ago I was discussing my annual goals on an Oovoo call. Among the attendees were Sherman and Sean, and we were discussing what we planned to accomplish, and reporting back on it.

So here are my results. The diagram above is generated from MindManager from Mindjet (although I am a good two versions back it seems). It’s a great tool for brainstorming and organizing information that tends to run all over the place.

The Rundown:

• Family – This tends to revolve around health and taking care of the people around me, 1 for 3 here, some room for improvement, the one I completed was critical while the other 2 were forward looking so things are actually going well enough here.
• Personal – The 25% hit was to work on Photography, which I did by spending a long weekend at photocamp. You can check out the results there on Flickr. The other 75% was 10% weight loss, and I’ve kept 5 pounds off for almost all year, but nowhere near where I wanted to be. My workout routine went through some radical changes. I spent the first half of the year doing my normal running, which was doing next to nothing for me. I switched to Crossfit, which gave me huge strentgh gains, but the muscle gained outweighed the fat lost. Great for power but no gain for my back or knees. By Q4 with another dog I’ve been walking every day and that is working well. There’s also the tale of the negotiation with my old gym, but that’s another post. After the New Year’s rush (I give it 1 month for the resolution crowd to crumble) I’ll be at a new gym by the office.
• Financial – The big goal here was to double charitable giving, and that was a big success. Of course many will note that any goal to spend more money is not much of a challenge and I’d have to agree. The other goals were to clean up and organize my investments – no problem there. The last goal was a savings target, and I only got to 30% of where I wanted to be. The backbreaker here was 5 weddings all over the US. I wouldn’t have traded those trips for anything, but they did make a financial impact. The interesting part is that after weddings and the cash spent on the charitable goal there’s no other category of spending alone that could have hit that traget.
• Professional – As you can see from the results this was weighted to the day job, and it was a strong year. Like any VC backed company, an “event” is always on the list and there was none this year, but otherwise a very strong year, even with the ecomomy being unpredictable. Locking down my name as a domain was done and important, I also had networking events there because the only time to network is when you are not in the middle of a career change, but I chose to spend free time on M Show Productions (made up of Marketing Over Coffee, The M Show and the best marketing blog) rather than random networking. It seems to have paid off, I’m meeting great people and the podcast is growing quickly.

Bob, the host of the Beancast, where I get to play 3rd rate John Dvorak, tagged me on the 7 Things Meme, so here we go:

1. I’ve already done a “Hey! It’s me post!”, here’s a bunch of J-Funk trivia.
2. I ran the Boston Marathon in 2002, and regret the fact that it’s far enough away that it makes me sound like a has-been. Just as important as running was getting to work with the Franciscan Hospital for Children.
3. My 2 favorite restaurants are The Greek Corner in Cambridge by the Arlington Line, and Tlaloc in San Francisco
4. I have only one first cousin on my Dad’s side of the family, 11 on my Mom’s side. The 11 are all out in Michigan, and when we go up north we go to the Dockside.
5. The secret unpublished reason I created Marketing Over Coffee, the best internet marketing podcast, was to get books about marketing for free before they are published. This sinister plot has been working perfectly.
6. I have almost no short term memory for random words or numbers, when tested I am in the bottom 5% for recall.
7. I used to have the top corner office in the 2nd tallest building on the Seattle skyline, could see the Piers and Mt. Rainier.

One thing that I’ve found is that when I tag my friends they are about as likely to ignore tagging as anyone else, so I might as well shoot at the A-List – I’d like to see 7 things from Seth Godin, Jason Calacanis (it’s ok, you can do it via email), Adam Curry,  John Dvorak (Channel Dvorak is what the future of Journalism will look like (how about some graphic design though?), and Chris Pirillo (if he has any secrets left after years of lifecasting). I’ll even throw in a meal at a good restaurant if anyone steps up.