I’ve often thought about him, wondered what he was doing. I even Googled his name, and searched for him on Facebook a time or two. But I never really tried to find him. I never really tried to reconnect.

Tonight his mom, who was like a mother to me, found me on Facebook and soon after I learned that Andrew had passed away. Wow.

What Will You Regret?

I don’t regret many things I’ve done in my life. In fact, the only things that I truly regret are the things I haven’t done. Today, I just added one more to that list. I wish I had reconnected with my old friend before it was too late. I regret not being a better friend.

This has reminded me to never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Hug your parents. Tell your children you love them. Reconnect with an old friend. Do it today, because you may not be able to tomorrow.

Don’t Waste Time

Andrew was my age and died suddenly, before his time. That is incredibly sobering news. I am not one to spend much time watching TV or playing video games, but honestly I do my share of time-wasting. We all do, in our own ways.

I don’t want to waste my life… I want it to mean something. A few days ago, I wondered aloud on Twitter:

I don’t know what it was I was put here to do, but I do know I am going to figure it out. I’m not going to wait until next year, next month, or even tomorrow. I’m starting right now. I am going to make a promise to myself to not only figure out how I want to make a difference, but start doing it.

Don’t Wait For Your Wake-Up Call

We all get wake-up calls from time to time. Sometimes it’s a small one… something someone says just resonates with us or we barely escape a car accident. But from time to time, we get big wake-up calls. I got one tonight.

Don’t wait for your own wake-up call to make changes in your life. Let this little reminder be a wake-up call for you too. Now is the perfect time to take a look at your dreams, your career, your life. Do you wish you spent more time with your family? Do you wish you could start your own business? Do you really wish you could go back to school, but “don’t have time?”

Don’t put it off anymore, because life is short and you may wake up one day and realize your whole life has passed you by. Or you may not wake up at all.

The first clue was on the outside of the envelope. It addressed my first name (I’m called by my middle name). Could have easily been an oversight, I guess. On the post-it note inside, also addressed to Michael. And as I looked at the newspaper clipping, it had nothing to do with me, personally. It was a fake newspaper article about a local car dealership who was running a “special pricing event.”

This is a car dealership I’ve bought from before, and I have a family friend that works there. I have shopped with them several times looking for new cars. People there know my name when I walk in. I don’t honestly know what’s more insulting, that they couldn’t even take the time to address it to the correct name, or that they actually thought I would believe this was a real newspaper article.

You Can’t Fake Personal

This car dealership went to a lot of effort to trick people into thinking a newspaper wrote a positive article about them. This plays on people’s need for social proof. The personal style of mailing the newspaper clipping and note are intended to build trust and rapport. Only one problem – you can’t build trust on top of a lie.

Instead of building trust and rapport, this car dealership has lost trust with me. How many more people got the same “article” in the mail and instantly saw through the facade? This is a major problem for industries like theirs, that are already seen as less than trustworthy.

Make Deposits, Not Withdrawals

Stephen Covey describes the emotional bank account in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Essentially, every relationship (even business relationships) work like a bank account. Acts of kindness, helpfulness and trust make deposits. Uncaring, deceitful or disrespectful acts make withdrawals. The balance of the bank account is your level of trust with the person or company at any given time.

You can’t make a withdrawal (asking someone to buy something, or even consider buying something) until you’ve made enough deposits just like you can’t open a checking account and withdraw $10,000 before depositing any money. Deposits can’t be fake. In this case, sending a fake newspaper clipping was actually a big withdrawal.

It’s Not That Hard

The really sad part of this story is that it’s just as easy to be thoughtful and truly personal as it is to fake it. I have been in this dealership recently looking at new vehicles for my wife. This dealership could have easily seen that in the file, and found a real newspaper clipping or online article about how interest rates were at all time low or now was the time to buy a car. They could’ve even sent the same newspaper clipping to everyone… as long as it was legitimate.

How Are You Faking Personal?

We’re all guilty of being impersonal from time to time. Look at your business processes – Where are you trying to appear personal? Are you truly being personal, or are you taking a shortcut? Would it really take more time to be truly personal?

But what do you do when you really love everything that you’ve committed yourself to do? How do you choose what to give up when everything that you’re doing is in line with your career goals?

I’ve been struggling with this for a few months now, and I don’t really have an answer. I don’t really want to give up any of the things I’m doing, but I need more time with my family and more time for myself.

So for the next few months, I’m going to try something new. I’m the work on being more productive, and I’m not cut out everything in my life that doesn’t help me reach the goals I’ve set for myself. No TV, movies, video games (not that I was into gaming anyway), or other distractions. I’m going to really focus on the things that are important to me, and try to forget about things that don’t really matter. In 10 years, I won’t miss the TV show I never watched or the time I didn’t spend on Facebook or Twitter…

I’m not going to ignore my family or friends. I want to spend time with my them, but will try to make them productive activities. For instance, instead of watching a movie or TV show with the kids, we can all go outside and work in the yard together. That way we spend quality time together, and also get things done around the house, killing two birds with one stone.

So as of right now, I’m cutting out all television, movies, games (not that I played many anyway), and general web surfing and social media. I’ll still check into Twitter and Facebook once or twice a day but it will be to just manage my account, post something, then get off.

I’m going to limit my meetups and association meetings too – for the forseeable future I’m only going to meetings where I am the speaker. It takes a considerable amount of time between the travel, the meetup itself, and the mingling afterward. I could be spending that time working on projects or with my family.

I’ll also be limiting email to checking 3 or 4 times a day, at set intervals. If you happen to email me or message me on a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter and I don’t respond, pick up the phone and give me a call.

Like Gary Vaynerchuk also said recently, I feel like I’ve lost my focus… like I’ve said “yes” to too many things. Before I start saying “no” to anything, I need to take a step back from all of the things I know aren’t priorities in my life.

We’ll see how it goes over the next few months. With a busy speaking schedule, and even busier list of projects at Kelsey, it’ll be a interesting experiment.

The conference is huge, the parties are over the top, the venue is amazing (who doesn’t love Austin?) and the people are what it’s all about.

This was the first year I was speaking at SxSWi, I had a book reading for Online Marketing Inside Out on Saturday, March 13 at 11 AM (well, a little later because the previous speaker ran into my time slot). So I was incredibly excited about going this year, but decided to take a slightly different approach.

Instead of trying to go to a lot of panels and sessions, and trying to hit all the big parties, I would just take it as it came. The last two years at SxSW seemed to fly by so quickly and it seemed like I never had time to just sit down and enjoy the company of friends or really connect with people. This year I was determined to really make the most of it.

So what follows is a daily recap of my SxSW experience (with many thanks to Foursquare for the helpful history tool!). Be forewarned… it’s long and incredibly detailed. If you’d rather skip all the minute details and just read my takeaways, you can jump to the conclusion.

Thursday

We have a client in Austin, and it was actually a trip to meet with them that led me to my first SxSW in 2008. It just so happened that our client meeting and the conference were extremely close, so we got tickets to the conference. For the past two years we’ve repeated that coincidence by scheduling our meeting around the conference.

We flew into Austin pretty early, and Donna (our client) picked us up from the airport. We went to their offices for a short time and then went to Rudy’s BBQ for lunch. We stuffed ourselves, then headed back to the office to get some work done.

Went out to The Salt Lick for dinner, one of my favorite places in Austin to eat. It’s located in a dry county, but you can take a cooler filled with beer. It’s got a great atmosphere and even better Texas BBQ.

After dinner I hitched a ride to the hotel and checked in. It was 9:45 PM when I got to my room and dropped my bags, so I decided to run over to the convention center to try to get a badge. I ran past Jim Caruso in the Hilton lobby, and he walked with me to the convention center. I barely got my badge before they closed at 10, then Jim and I went to the lounge in the Hilton and had a drink. Chrispian Burks met us there and we hung out for a few before calling it a night.

Friday

I went back over to our client’s office for a while and wrapped things there, then had Mighty Fine Burgers for lunch (owned by the same folks as Rudy’s). We finished up around 4 PM and I headed to the hotel and convention center. I went up to the day stage for Darren Rowse’s book reading of the second edition of his ProBlogger book co-authored by Chris Garrett. I met up with Julie Taylor, Josh Coffee, Patrick O’Keefe, Chrispian Burks, Deb Ng, and Chris.

Someone pulled the fire alarm right in the middle of Darren’s book reading and the entire convention center was evacuated. It was a little funny how slowly people were evacuating. If there was a real fire, I think half the world’s bloggers would have been lost. When we got the all-clear, we went back to the book reading and Darren finished. After the reading, Darren and Chris had a book signing at the SxSW Bookstore. I bought another copy of Problogger Book and got them to sign it.

I went back to the room briefly and then went downstairs to meet up with Jeremy Wright and head to dinner with some friends. He was in the Hilton lounge with a few friends. I grabbed a drink and he introduced me to Loren Feldman of 1938 Media. Loren seems like a pretty cool guy, the kind of guy that’d be fun to just hang out and have a few drinks with. We threw down our drink pretty fast because we were running late and then headed to Roy’s where we met Darren Rowse, Deb, Chris, Patrick, Chrispian, and some others. The food was great, but it was a little dark.

After dinner, we went to Emo’s and I saw Jim Caruso, Courtenay Bird, Scott Lockhart and a few others. The scene at Emo’s was a little… err… different. We didn’t stay there all that long.

We headed to the Driskill Hotel (that’s where all the cool kids said the party was at) and it was packed. I saw lots of cewebrities there like Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, etc. Whoohooo! (note the sarcasm). I stayed at the bar upstairs for a while but then heard a few friends were downstairs at the 1886 Cafe and Bakery. I headed down and the atmosphere was much better. We could actually hear each other talk. We stayed there for a bit then I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep because I had a book reading Saturday.

Saturday

I woke up early to prepare for my book reading, and as I was going over my notes and slides I decided to completely change my talk. Instead of going through several chapters in the book giving tips and tricks, I decided to tell a few stories about our experience at 2BigFeet.com over the years. I frantically retooled my slides to be much simpler and prepared some notes for the talk at 11am.

I got to the Day Stage around 10 minutes before 11, and the presenter before me was still going strong. Book reading presentations are supposed to be 20 minutes, but the time slot is 30 minutes. This gives the AV team time to get the next presenter setup and gives the people in the audience time to get up and leave or new arrivals time to find a seat. The guy before me ran really long, cutting well into my time. At 11am, I looked at the AV folks and they said he was wrapping up. 5 minutes later, still talking. Playing videos. Talking more. 10 minutes… STILL talking. Then as he was playing a video he told us he’d take ONE question after it was over. As soon as the video stopped, he said “I’ve got time for a couple questions” and proceeded to take two, and give extremely long-winded answers.

If people came at 11am for my book reading, I can only imagine what they were thinking. Did it get cancelled? Was it already over?

He finally got off the stage, and we setup the AV and I started. I was a little worked up about going on late and the previous presenter’s lack of respect, so I stumbled a bit over the first few slides. I think it went well as soon as I got into the three stories, and my talk was even covered on HubSpot’s Internet Marketing Blog.

Immediately after the book reading, I walked over to the SxSW Bookstore (a few tables across from the Day Stage) for a book signing. I sold lots of books and met some really cool people… and some really great friends like Patrick, Josh, Julie, Chrispian, Deb and Taryn Pisaneschi were there to support me.

Then we went to Patrick O’Keefe and Twanna Hines’ core conversation, “Shameless Self Promotion Without Looking Like an @#$%^&!“. It was originally submitted as a panel with Patric, Twanna, Darren Rowse and me, but was converted to a core conversation so Darren and I just attended and participated from the audience.

We were pretty hungry after Patrick’s panel, and one of my friends James Paden and Deb Ng had never had Texas BBQ, so I took a group of friends to Rudy’s BBQ (worst bbq in texas) for some brisket and beef ribs. It was me, Josh Coffee, Julie Taylor, Deb Ng, James Paden and Chrispian Burks. We had a blast, and have photos to prove it! We had to take a couple cabs out there, but it was worth it. Next year I’m taking them to The Salt Lick though!

It took a while to get there and back, so not much was accomplished that afternoon. We had RSVP’d for the Old Timers meetup so Patrick, Jared Smtih and I headed over there. We met some great folks like Alyce Lindquist from the Silicon Valley Social Media Club and Brian O’Shaughnessy from Skype.

We left there with intentions of finding a place to eat, but had trouble getting a cab back to the convention center area. When we finally got there we saw Lucretia Pruitt and Allison Worthington in the Hilton lobby. We were all hungry, so we just decided to get something to eat in the Hilton Lounge (food by Finn & Porter). The group ended up being me, Lucretia, Allison, Patrick, Josh, Julie and Chrispian. I had a great time talking to Allison about her BlissDom conference.

From there, we tried to go to the TechKaraoke party but the line wrapped all the way around the building. One of my goals this year was to not stand in any lines… you can waste so much time waiting to get in and there are so many parties going on. Why wait to get into that one cool party? We eventually ended up at the Bellmont bar and had a great time. They had live music and the weather was great, so we stayed outside on the roof most of the time. We closed it down, then went to Jimmy Johns for a late night snack.

Got back to the hotel really late, and suddenly remembered I was going to have to be up early because Patrick and I had RSVP’d for something Sunday morning. I set my alarm and tried to get a few hours of sleep.

Sunday

I had to wake up early for Social Media Breakfast… but of course slept late. I woke up at 9, and was supposed to meet Patrick in the lobby at 9:30 to grab a cab. I jumped in the shower and threw on some clothes as fast as I could. We left the hotel by cab at 9:45, got there, got some grub and sat down at a table with Deb Ng, Chris Garrett and later Dave Barger. The presentations were very interesting and I met a few people afterward. I even scored a free Skype headset they were giving away. We snagged a ride with Patrick’s friend Nathan Wright back to the hotel.

The breakfast lasted until noon, and we were pretty hungry by the time we got back to the hotel. I went to Champions for lunch with Patrick, Chrispian, Julie, Josh and Jared. After lunch I dropped by the blogger lounge and said hello to a few people. Outside the blogger lounge Patrick introduced me to Rafael Marquez of MarketingLatinos.com and he interviewed me for his blog. Then I headed to the Interactive Agency Workflow session. The session started out great, going from requirements gathering and wireframing but seemed to linger about wireframes way too long. Most of the people got up and left about halfway through.

We skipped out a few minutes early and went over to the Twitter Dating panel at the Courtyard Mariott supporting Jeremy Wright (one of the speakers). The panel was hilarious… there was lots of participation and interesting online dating stories (probably helped by the free beer).

After the panel I went back to the Hilton and met up with Joe Hamm and the usual Patrick, Julie, Josh and Chrispian and headed to dinner at Cantina Laredo. We had some awesome gourmet mexican food and then headed to Lanai for the Big Omaha party. Nathan Wright was a sponsor and we spoke to him for a moment when we got there. It wasn’t very busy at all, nice group of people until Gary Vaynerchuk announced his “secret” wine party was there (about midnight). It packed out with hundreds more people and they cranked up the music. I got a pretty bad headache and decided to call it a night… went back to the hotel and got some sleep.

Monday

I think my body was trying to tell me I needed some rest, because I woke up around 7 and felt much better. I got ready and headed to the Blogger Lounge to catch up on some email and work before the sessions. Jeremy came in and sat next to me and we caught up on our SxSW adventures to that point — I think he had much more eventful time than I had at that point! I also talked to Rohit Bhargava and Patrick about professional speaking.

For lunch, Julie wanted to find some gluen-free pizza. She’s gluten-intolerant so she’d been just eating a little of this and that wherever we went. She did some research and found a couple of pizza places in Austin, but none of them close enough to walk to. We took a cab to one of the restaurants she found but it had closed down. We were sitting in two cabs with meters running so we decided to just go to Conan’s Pizza. We original and thought they had gluten-free pizza, but it turns out they didn’t. We decided to eat there anyway, and it turned out to be a very interesting place.

After lunch, we took a few cabs back to the convention center. As Patrick and I were walking through the convention center floor, we ran into Thom Singer and had a great conversation about professional speaking. Thom is a professional speaker and spoke over 50 times last year. He is a wealth of information about speaking and presenting, so I picked his brain for a while and asked a ton of questions.

Patrick and I walked back over to the Hilton and saw Jacqui Chew, who I had met earlier (but when and where is escaping me right now). We decided to head over to the Frost Tower for Gary Vaynerchuk and Brian Solis’ joint wine tasting and book signing. I saw a lot of people there including Courtenay, Taryn, and Jim. Taryn introduced me to Stephanie Lichtenstein and Lindsay Burck.

We were getting hungry, so we decided to find a place to eat. We had a decent sized party, and went to one restaurant that wasn’t going to be able to seat us for 30-45 minutes. They recommended Sullivan’s Steak House which was right down the street, and we got a table there almost immediately. Me, Patrick, Jacqui, Jim, Julie, Josh and Chris all had dinner, and it was great. The service and food were excellent, and they got us in and out relatively quickly. After dinner, Patrick went to watch the premier of MacGruber. We all went to the TechSet party but several of us weren’t on “the list” so we couldn’t get in. Josh, Julie and Chrispian decided to call it a night.

Jim, Jacqui, and I decided to go to the Rackspace Revolutions party, since Jim and I are both customers. When we got there, Jim spotted the chairman and he and Jackie ran off to find him and take a picture with him. I hung around the bar area, and ran into several people like Robert Scoble, who is now working with RackSpace. I also bumped into James Paden, Taryn, Stephanie and several others.

Later that evening, I noticed a crowd gathering around a table. They have hired someone to hand-roll cigars. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes I finally got a hand rolled cigar. After enjoying my cigar, I met up with Taryn and Lindsay. We stayed at the party until closing, when I walked them back to Lindsay’s car. Her car was dead so we asked someone else who just left the party if they could jump start her car. They just got in the car and left. I called AAA and they sent someone out to give us a hand. After waiting about an hour, a tow truck showed up and helped us get her car started. They gave me a ride back to the Hilton and I called it a night.

Tuesday

I went to a few sessions about mobile development and had lunch again at Champions with Patrick, Chris, Josh and Jared Smith. After lunch we went to the Press Lounge to wait for Abby Johnson of WebProNews who had scheduled an interview with Patrick.

After their interview, she asked if I’d like to interview again (of course I would!) so I talked about my book reading a bit. Afterward, I went to one final session on mobile advertising and then went back to the hotel to work a bit. Later that evening I joined Jim, Stephanie Frost, Chris Turner and Jackui for dinner at Eddie V’s. I had Ahi Tuna (rare, of course) and it was amazing.

I decided to go back to my room and work, forgoing the closing party since I had an early flight.

Wednesday

I originally thought my flight back to Atlanta was at 5am, but fortunately that was when I needed to be at the airport. My flight was at 6:55 and I was joined on the flight by lots of Atlantans heading home from SxSW. I sat with Joe Hamm and Stephanie Frost waiting to board.

The Big Picture Takeaways

SxSW was epic as usual. This blog post is a testament to that. This was my third South-by and was by far the most productive. My first year I tried to attend ALL the sessions and ALL the parties. As a result, I was always running around like crazy and can barely remember who I met or what I did. Last year I took it a little easier, but still tried to go to all the parties and meet as many people as possible.

This year I just decided to go with the flow. We made dinner plans at the last minute, hung out in the halls, went to meetups, and generally just bummed around the conference. If you just looked at my schedule, you might think I completely wasted my conference pass… maybe I did. But I got more from this year at SxSW than the two previous years combined.

I spent time with great friends (including some new ones like Deb and Chris), met some truly awesome people, and made some connections that I am sure will be extremely valuable. I stuck by my original goal and didn’t wait in lines to get into a party (with the exception of a short line to have my ID checked).

The overall takeaway for me is to experience SxSW like you’d experience a great little city you’ve never been to. If you’ve never been, you don’t know all the cool places to go see, you just go exploring, meeting people as you go. Not only is it much more fun, but I think you get a lot more out of it that way.

People that Made SxSW Rawk

I met literally hundreds of people at SxSW. I had great conversations, learned a lot, and really had a great time. But there were some people who really stood out and helped made SxSW 2010 really special. In no particular order…

• Patrick O’Keefe
• Chrispian Burks
• Josh Coffee
• Julie Taylor
• Jeremy Wright
• Jim Caruso
• Stephanie Frost
• Darren Rowse
• Chris Garrett
• Jacqui Chew
• Taryn Pisaneschi
• Thom Singer

I’m also excited about participating in my good friend Patrick O’Keefe’s core conversation, Shameless Self Promotion Without Looking Like an @#$%^&!.

I’m also looking forward to hanging out with good friends like Patrick O’Keefe, Jeremy Wright, Darren Rowse, Chrispian Burks, Aaron Brazell, Jason Falls, and many many more — as always. I have some new friends coming to SxSW for the first time this year… Julie Taylor and Josh Coffee. I’d also love to see you there. If you see me, come up and say hi.

I’m notoriously horrible with names (I’m the polar opposite of Chris Brogan in that regard… I think I could forget my own name)… so I apologize in advance if I don’t instantly know your name. I’m going to try really hard this year to remember everyone I meet. Call me out on it and see how I’m doing.

See you there!

As you might remember from my post last year, I don’t really make New Years resolutions. I am constantly reviewing my goals… I do it weekly, monthly, quarterly and yes, annually. A year is a good time frame by which to set larger goals, though, so I do like to take a little time every year to review my progress and look at what’s in store for the next year.

Looking Back

Looking back on 2009, here are a few of the highlights…

I Wrote a Book

I coauthored “Online Marketing Inside Out” with Shayne Tilley. What a great way to start the year… on January 14, Shayne Tilley (marketing manager at SitePoint) contacted me about the possibility of me coauthoring a book with him (then tentatively titled “The Art & Science of Online Marketing”).

It came as a complete shock but was a great start to the year. Of course, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I never could have imagined I’d have to have all my first drafts in by the end of February! After a few gruelling months of edits and impatiently waiting, Online Marketing Inside Out hit the shelves at the end of May.

I Really Started Speaking

After the book launched, I started looking for opportunities to speak about online marketing, both to help promote the book and because professional speaking has been a long-time goal of mine. With the help of some friends and colleagues, I was able to quickly find several opportunities and kick-started my professional speaking career.

My speaking engagements included a book signing at Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas, several American Advertising Federation chapters, a few trade organizations, and a private college. All in all, I traveled 12,000 miles from June to November (I took December to myself to wrap up projects and spend time with my family and catch up on some projects I’d been neglecting).

Although I do have experience speaking at conferences, it’s been almost 10 years since I’ve spoken to more than 10 people. It took a few times to get back in the swing of things, but once I got used to it I really started to enjoy it.

I’ve already lined up several speaking engagements for 2010 and am still looking for conferences and industry associations looking for online marketing speakers (check out my speaking page for more information).

3 Years at Kelsey

November 13 marked my 3-year anniversary at Kelsey Advertising and Design. When I sold my consulting company to Brant Kelsey in 2006, I never thought I would stay on board for over 3 years.

I’m kind of a rebel… I don’t really fit into the corporate culture. I’ve worked for a few small businesses (less than 25 employees) and it’s easier, but I’m still not comfortable taking orders or conforming.

I’m definitely more of an entrepreneur at heart (obvious by all my other endeavors I guess). Fortunately, the work at Kelsey is extremely exciting and I’m free to do things however I see fit, as long as the job gets done. It’s been extremely rewarding so far and I’m looking forward to many more anniversaries.

I Became Editor of the SitePoint Tribune Newsletter

After five years as editor of the SitePoint Tribune, Brendon Sinclair stepped down. His coauthor, Miles Burke, continued to write issues every other week and SitePoint asked several people to be guest authors to fill in until a permanent replacement could be found.

I wrote a guest issue for October 22, 2009. I enjoyed it so much, I dropped a few hints that if they ever needed someone for a more permanent commitment, I’d be extremely interested. I was extremely excited when SitePoint asked me to be an editor of the SitePoint Tribune and penn issues alternating with Miles.

My first official issue was published on November 23, 2009.

I’m Speaking at SxSW

I found out that I would be doing an official book reading and book signing at South by Southwest in March 2010 in November 2009, but couldn’t announce anything until December 2. I’ve been to SxSW twice now, and it’s been a goal of mine to speak there since I first discovered the conference.

2BigFeet Had Another Record-Breaking Year

In 2007, Tracy (my wife) and I took over sole ownership of 2BigFeet, our e-commerce retailer of big shoes. 2007 was a rebuilding year… we replenished depleted inventory, cut unnecessary expenses and paid off debt. In 2008 we kicked into high gear and more than doubled 2007 sales.

I didn’t think we’d be able to come close to repeating that, but from early estimates (we haven’t really taken a good look at the books yet) it seems we’ve still had a 25% increase over 2008… amazing in this economic climate. We had an amazing holiday season, and are still going strong the first week in January.

Looking Forward

2010 is sure to be an amazing year. Unlike hoards of A-list bloggers, I’m not writing a “predictions” post. I think they’re a crapshoot at best, anyway. As selfish as it sounds, I’m more concerned about what I’m going to do in 2010 than what everyone else is working on.

So what do I have in store for next year?

More Speaking

I’m really interested in more speaking opportunities. I have several speaking engagements lined up already (like a book reading/presentation at SxSW in March) but am looking for more. If you know of any conferences that have a call for online marketing speakers, let me know!

Podcasting Time

I’m starting a podcast about e-commerce and online marketing. I’ve already acquired all the equipment I need… microphone, software, video camera, etc. I’m lining up a few interviews for the first episode and testing out my editing skills (anyone offering video editing services?).

Hopefully by the end of January I’ll have the first episode ready to publish.

My Next Book

By the end of 2010 I’d like to be pitching my next book. I already know what it’s going to be about (mostly business, not just online marketing). I don’t think it’s feasible to have a contract by the end of the year, but it’s not impossible either.

I’m going to be hitting up all my friends who are published and will be asking for tons of advice, introductions to agents, etc. It’ll be a fun and interesting process pitching a book idea, since I was approached for my first book.

I really think the idea is unique… something that hasn’t been done before and yet something that people need to know. I’m excited about both pitching the idea and writing the book.

Unknown Projects

Well, if I gave away all my ideas for 2010, where would that leave me? I need to keep a few aces in the hole so I can have a few surprises for next years post.

Seriously, I have a few ideas that I’m working on that aren’t even close to the point of realization (doesn’t everybody?). They’re exciting, somewhat risky and a little different (at least to me). I’m sure some will be hits, and some will completely flops… only time will tell.

All in all, I couldn’t be more excited about 2010. It’s sure to be my most exciting year yet. I’m most excited about the opportunities that haven’t even presented themselves yet. Looking back at last year, so many things that were the highlights of my year weren’t in my “roadmap” or predictions. They were a complete surprise.

You have to keep your eyes open for opportunities and seize them when they present themselves… After all, we make our own luck.

Have a great 2010!

A lot of people slow down or take vacation, but this is actually my busiest time of year. It may not be normal for interactive agencies, but Kelsey is always slammed with work this time of year. We have so many projects we’re having to prioritize which we are going to be able to work on.

On top of that, this is the busiest time of year for 2BigFeet.com. We’re overwhelmed with orders and are constantly sending out email newsletters and adding new products to the website. We’re so fortunate that we’ve still grown a good 30% over last year despite the economy.

As if I wasn’t busy enough, I just recently signed on to be the co-editor of the weekly SitePoint Tribune email newsletter, and we’re remodeling a bit at the Eley household. Busy times!

Though it’s hectic and busy, I’m loving every minute of it!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I really enjoyed writing the newsletter and told SitePoint if they ever needed another guest author, or had a more regular position come available, I’d be very interested and would like to be considered.

I’m excited that SitePoint has asked me to coauthor the Tribune with the current host, Miles Burke. I’ll be writing every other weekly issue, starting with the very next issue, coming out this Thursday.

I’ll be writing about the business side of our industry, client dealings, productivity and anything else that comes to mind. If you’re not already getting the Tribune, go subscribe now.

Thank you to everyone who came by and congratulated me, it really meant a lot. Special thanks to cousins David & Christi Burroughs and Scot & Debra McEwen who drove down from north of Atlanta to be there. And thank you to our good friends Rick & Donna Beauford who came down from just south of Atlanta.

Thank you Charles and Chase Hudson of C’sons for all you did to help make the book signing a success. The hors d’oeuvres were delicious, and the service was excellent. Some family and friends stayed with us after the book signing for dinner and they were all extremely impressed both with the quality of food and the service.

Below are some photos my wife Tracy took at the book signing.

Back in February I mentioned that I was writing a book about Online Marketing with Shayne Tilley. I’m excited to announce that the book, now titled Online Marketing Inside Out, has been released and is now available for purchase on SitePoint.

If you have a web site and you want to promote it but are unsure where to start, this book is for you. It covers all aspects of Online Marketing including press releases, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media, email marketing, and more.

Special Bonus from Darren Rowse of ProBlogger

As a special bonus, if you order from SitePoint direct you’ll also get ProBlogger Darren Rowse’s “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” workbook FREE (a $20 value). Darren’s workbook is packed with valuable content from his recent “31 Days” series on ProBlogger.net, plus over 6,000 words of new content in a professionally designed ebook. Hear what Darren had to say about Online Marketing Inside Out:

It is a great resource for those wanting to market products or services on the Web. This book shows you how to reach customers through podcasting, blogs, social networks, video, email, and contextual advertising and much more.

You’ll also get the satisfaction of knowing you helped me feed my family… SitePoint giving me a generous commission on books sold through the links on my site.

Here’s a peek at the Table of Contents:

1. The Changing Face of Marketing
2. 21st Century Public Relations and Media
3. Turn Page Views into Profit
4. Search Engine Optimization
5. Social Media
6. Email Marketing
7. Affiliate Marketing
8. Online Advertising
9. Tying It All Together

So what are you still doing here? Go over to SitePoint and buy Online Marketing Inside Out today!

Still with me? Okay, if you’re still not convinced, check out this awesome shot of the book after it arrived at SitePoint headquarters earlier today, fresh off the presses…

To go straight to my interview, hit play below then move the progress bar to 10:30.

So far I haven’t attended many panels, but have met a lot of great people in the halls and at the parties at night (the real reason for coming). I’ll write a follow-up post reviewing the conference and all the people I’ve met, but just wanted to throw out what I was up to…

The next exhibit we saw was Bodies. About a year ago I saw a 20/20 special on Bodies, and I remember it vividly. I’m not huge into television, but as I was flipping channels it caught my eye, and I couldn’t turn the channel.

20/20: Secret Trade in Chinese Bodies

My reaction to the plastinated bodies was curiosity… were they real or mannequins? Oh, they’re real? Where did they come from? The 20/20 special traveled to China, the source of the bodies on exhibit, to answer some questions about where these people came from and who they were.

What they found was a little shocking.

What’s odd about the bodies is they are all young, very healthy-looking oriental people with no apparent reason for being dead. Did these people all donate their bodies to science? If so, why did they die so young? What did they die from?

The German doctor who invented the plastination process said he had to “cremate several bodies he received in China after detecting injuries that led him to suspect they had been executed prisoners” according to the 20/20 show summary.

According to the Bodies official website, the source of the bodies is a little less controversial:

The full body specimens are persons who lived in China and died from natural causes. After the bodies were unclaimed at death, pursuant to Chinese law, they were ultimately delivered to a medical school for education and research. Where known, information about the identities, medical histories and causes of death is kept strictly confidential.

The Bodies Exhibit

Walking through the exhibit was surreal. There were tables with organs, muscles, and body parts everywhere. One table had two severed arms, skinned to show the muscles. There were tables with virtually every part of the human body from the nervous system, circulatory system, skeleton, muscular, etc. One very interesting display was the human brain, with spinal chord and all nerves attached. (sorry I couldn’t snag a picture of that one).

Then there were the “bodies.” The bodies were not just parts, they were entire, complete, human bodies that were posed in activities. One was drawing, with his brain and muscles exposed. One was holding a basketball and another throwing a football. They were all skinned or dissected to some degree or another (as seen in my very graphic photographs).

While it was interesting, I’m not sure of the educational value of seeing bodies posed like that. For medical students, maybe, but on display for everyone to see it just seems to be entertainment. And I wonder if the families of those people would’ve wanted to see them like that.

My Thoughts

I wouldn’t have paid money to see the exhibit because I don’t want to support what could be exploitation of Chinese political prisoners, or even just poor people. Without identifying these specimens, we’ll never know whether they were really just accidental deaths or just a part of a very profitable new export from China.

Since it was already organized and paid for, I went to see what it was about. It was interesting… it got me thinking. Looking at their bodies you really see how fragile and yet how resilient we are. How everything works together to form a perfect system. That is amazing. But you also see a lot of dead people on display for public entertainment, and that’s a little sad, or at least it was to me.

I know one thing, I wouldn’t want my body on display like that for my children or grandchildren to see one day.

UPDATE

Thanks to my friend Patrick, I’ve found that some of the bodies could be from Chinese prisoners. The debate sparked a lot of questions and even a congressional hearing. Below is a disclaimer once posted on the Bodies official website:

Disclaimer:

-This exhibit displays human remains of Chinese citizens or residents which were originally received by the Chinese Bureau of Police. The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons. Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you are viewing are not those of persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons.

-This exhibit displays full body cadavers as well as human body parts, organs, fetuses and embryos that come from cadavers of Chinese citizens or residents. With respect to the human parts, organs, fetuses and embryos you are viewing, Premier relies solely on the representations of its Chinese partners and cannot independently verify that they do not belong to persons executed while incarcerated in Chinese prisons.

Thanks to Patrick for the heads-up.

Fifty finalists will win $5,000 plus a Flip Mino camcorder to help compete for the top prize. Four First Place Prize winners each earn a $10,000 small business grant plus $2500 in Intuit products and services, and the Grand Prize Winner gets a $25,000 small business grant plus $2500 in Intuit products and services.

That’s a lot of prizes for just sharing your story. If you own a small business and have a story that could inspire or educate other business owners, you should definitely enter the contest.

I was a little surprised when Shayne contacted me and asked if I would co-author the book. I’ve been involved with SitePoint since 2001, so I think it’s only fitting that my first book is published by them. I have wanted to publish a book for a couple of years now, but life has always gotten in the way. Things have really just fallen into place for this to work out…

I’m extremely excited about the book… it will be an excellent resource for people who are interested in online marketing but don’t know where to start. The book will cover online advertising, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media and PR, email marketing, and affiliate marketing.

I’ve owned an e-commerce business since 1999, and have been consulting with clients on online marketing since 2000. In that time, I’ve seen Google grow from a tiny search engine to the most powerful force in online marketing in the world. I’ve seen search engine optimization change and evolve to really focus on quality content and incoming links. And I’ve seen Facebook and Twitter spring up and create an entirely new market, social media.

Online marketing is exciting, but it can also be complicated. Hopefully, Shayne and I, with our years of combined experience, can explain online marketing in a way that anyone can understand.

Things are still in the early stages, but I’ll post more details (such as links to preorder, book cover, etc.) as they become available.

Thanks to Patrick O’Keefe, for his advice and encouragement (having done this before) and Brant Kelsey, for pushing me to set ambitious goals this year.

New Year’s Resolutions are made in good faith, really. Most people think they’re doing something positive by making a goal to get something done (or stop doing something, or start) in a new year. The problem is simply that life moves at you so fast, things change and you may be in a completely different place in another 365 days.

Ever year I do revisit my goals… I revisit the same short and long-term goals that I had in the previous year and re-evaluate whether they’re still appropriate moving forward. Maybe I don’t really want to keep learning the guitar, or maybe I want to start kickboxing instead of running a marathon. So what? You shouldn’t feel bad about breaking a “resolution” you made with yourself just because you changed your mind, or because life threw a curveball at you.

So around the beginning of each year I like to look back at the previous year, review my successes and failures, goals and accomplishments. And I look forward to the next year to see what might be in store.

A Look Back at 2008: Pure Awesomeness

2008 was a great year. In the words of Po, it was “Pure Awesomeness.” New Year’s Eve marked 10 years since I met my beautiful wife. After a decade together, and 6 years of being married I have to say I’m the luckiest man on the planet. I’m fortunate enough to be married to my best friend and have two wonderful children.

We more than doubled revenues in our big shoe business 2BigFeet.com, smashing record after record, and hired our first employee, Katie.

I was promoted to Interactive Director at Kelsey Advertising & Design, along with increased responsibilities and exciting challenges. I developed a mobile web application for McDonald’s and was invited to Orlando to show it off to owners from all over the world. And in just a few months, it has been adopted as the official mobile website of McDonald’s.

We went to SXSW and Blog World Expo, had an absolute blast, and I was able to finally meet two good friends, Patrick and Chris, in person. I won the “E-Commerce Guru of the Year” award in the 2008 SitePoint Community Awards. I really started using Twitter.

Of course there were some downs too. I made the difficult decision to stop writing for The Apple Blog. I just had to cut back on my commitments. I also didn’t complete several of the sites and projects I had planned to work on this year. Some I just decided needed to be postponed, some I decided not to do at all. Others I really wish I’d have had more time to work on, but that’s that.

My Thoughts on 2009 and Beyond

I’m so excited about 2009 I can’t stand it. I just have so many great projects I want to work on, so many ideas. I’ve always been an “idea man” though, and I know, realistically, I won’t get half of them done. That’s okay, though. If it’s anything like 2008, even completing one of them will be wildly fulfilling.

Some of the things I’m looking forward to in 2009… 

• Steady Growth. We have big goals for 2BigFeet.com this year, but I know we can grow steadily in 2009 despite a slowing economy. We’ve set really challenging goals and I’m looking forward to smashing them again.
• Challenging Projects. We have some really interesting projects at Kelsey this year and I’m excited about working on them. I’ll be pushed to be both an innovator and a leader, and that excites me.
• Getting Out of Debt. We’ve realized that consumer debt is crippling, and the only way to build true wealth is to earn interest, not pay it. We won’t be completely out of debt in 2009, but we’re on the path. I look forward to paying off the credit cards and auto loans, and only having a mortgage left!
• SXSW. I can’t wait… it was an absolute blast and I can’t wait to see all my friends and colleagues again.
• Opportunities. 2009 is going to be the year of opportunity. We aren’t given opportunities, you have to find them and take them! Keep your eyes peeled for them, because I have a feeling they’ll be everywhere this year!
• Family. I’m looking forward to spending time with my wife and kids, and all my family and friends this year. They’re why I do all this.

Words of Wisdom

You can get depressed about the future (especially looking at the news media) but it’s important to take it all in perspective. According to some, 2009 will be the worst year ever… and if you listen to them it will be. Forget all the drivel about the economy and think about what you can do in 2009. Think about what you can change.

I can’t do anything about the economy, the weather or world politics. But I can work on being a better person. I can always strive for perfection, and learn from my mistakes when I fail at it. 

I’m looking forward to an awesome 2009. If I were to make a “New Year’s Resolution” I think it would be to try to take 2009 one day at a time. Loving, learning, living life. Okay, so maybe resolutions don’t sound so bad after all…

While I still love Apple products (probably more than ever), I just don’t have time to blog about them anymore. With a demanding career and growing business, I’ve had to rethink my priorities and make the tough decision to let some things go. My writing at The Apple Blog is just the first in a list of commitments I’m evaluating.

I am extremely thankful to Josh Pigford at The Apple Blog for giving me the opportunity to voice my (sometimes controversial) opinion. They have an incredibly talented staff of writers, and I’m sure they’ll continue to be a leading source of news and information about Apple and their products.

While writing for TAB was only a part-time gig for me, it taught me a lot about blogging professionally. It’s made me rethink some of my blogs and the writing on them… made me strive to be a better writer.

So what’s next? I’m focusing on my career as Interactive Director at Kelsey, and my e-commerce business 2BigFeet.com. I also have a few side projects I’ve been working on for a while that I’m excited about launching soon. Between that and our growing family, I have my hands full.

I’ll be posting updates to Twitter, Pownce and Qik throughout the conference and expo.

Ever year I remember where I was on that day on 9/11/01 like it was yesterday. I made it to the work early, sitting in my office facing Downtown LaGrange. It was eerily quiet in our office because there were only two of us there, out of about 9 people. We drank our coffee and discussed trivialities for a while, until the phone rang.

Someone said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, and my co-worker turned on a radio so we could hear what was going on. We listened for in disbelief as different news agencies gave conflicting reports.

When the second plane crashed into the Twin Towers, we left the office and went to find a TV so we could get better information on what was going on. We found a gathering of people in the jewelry store downstairs. We watched the news replay the crashes again and again and again, with commentators debating over who was responsible for the attacks. I’ll never forget watching the first tower collapse, and saying “Oh my God” out loud along with several other people.

We walked back up to the office and tried to get more information online, but it seemed like the Internet was down. No matter what website we visited… CNN, Fox, ABC. There were so many people trying to get updates that the sites were just buckling under the sheer volume of visitors.

I think 50 years from now, I’ll still vividly remember the events of that day. Thinking of the nearly 3,000 people that died in the September 11 attacks, I am very fortunate that I did not lose any loved ones or personally know anyone that died that day.

I think it’s good to remember the September 11 attacks, and not just once a year. It reminds us that life is precious and short. That freedom is expensive. It reminds us to be thankful for everything we have, to be thankful that we live in the United States of America.

To all those that are fighting for our freedom, all over the world, thank you. To all the families of servicemen who died trying to rescue people, and to all the families of the victims of 9/11, we still remember.

This was a little different. Diane lost a good friend to breast cancer so this cause is close to her heart. And since 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer, it is very likely it will affect you at some point in your life, whether you or a loved one contracts the disease.

Please take a moment to read the letter below, and if you are able please donate to their cause.

Brandon

Five years ago on August 7, 2003, I lost my dear friend, Ann Cooper to breast cancer. Ann had a very aggressive form of the disease. When she was diagnosed her daughter Rachael was 10 and Laura was 8. She died two years later when Rachael was 12 and one day after Laura turned 11. As you can imagine it has been a very difficult five years for these two girls. Their father, Michael Curran, has done all he can but loosing your mother as maturing young ladies has been hard on the entire family.

I have made donations to many people over the years when they have undertaken 3-Day walks in support of a cure for breast cancer. I have felt too raw and emotionally spent to commit to the walk myself as a result of what I saw breast cancer do to not only Ann but my other dear friend Denise Bryant in both of their long battles with the disease. I always said that if Rachael, was ever brave enough to make this journey, then I would be brave enough too. On this 5th anniversary of Ann succumbing to this horrible disease, Rachel Curran has pulled us all together to form the Friends and Family of Ann Cooper Team and we will be walking in the Washington, DC Breast Cancer 3-Day on October 3-5.

Together, we will walk 60 miles over the course of three days with thousands of other women and men. The net proceeds will support breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment through Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.

I have agreed to raise at least $2,500 in donations but I know I can raise even more and have set my personal goal at $5,000. So, I need your help. Please consider making a donation of any amount that you can to help us fund more research to stop this horrible disease. Keep in mind how far I’m walking – and how hard I’ll have to train. You can donate online at http://www.the3day.org/. Just click on Donate Now and search for my personal fundraising page. You can also call 800.996.3DAY to donate over the phone.

According to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, more than 200,000 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and nearly 40,000 will die from the disease. That’s why I’m walking so far. I HATE BREAST CANCER. I do not want any more of my friends becoming ill or dying from this disease. I have cried and my heart has been broken by this disease. Now it is time for me to walk 60 miles with Ann’s daughter Rachael and her husband Michael as well as thousands of others with cancer loss and survival stories. Now is the time to do something bold about breast cancer. Please help me make a difference by sharing this incredible adventure with me and by supporting me in my fundraising efforts.

Thanks in advance for your generosity.

Diane

About a week ago I noticed that an EFT payment I should have received was not showing in my checking account. We’re not talking a lot of money, so it wasn’t that big a deal. I am a member of an affiliate program and get recurring commissions, which have generally been very small. So small, in fact, that I haven’t even noticed not getting them for the past 2 years. Completely my fault. After noticing that I had missed an EFT deposit (I get an email once a month letting me know it’s coming) I decided to check on last months, and then the previous and the previous. I got back to May 2006, over 24 months, before I found the last successful EFT deposit! Whoah.

Some would say that it’s clearly the company’s fault for not catching the error. Sure, they have some responsibility, but they did in fact initiate the EFT transfers. I had changed banking account information back in May of 2006, and somehow that change wasn’t successful. I should have made sure I was successfully receiving the transfers after the change.

When I contacted them about the issue, the support representative looked into it as much as she could, but I’m sure she didn’t have access to all the information or access needed to resolve the issue. She got another representative involved who got one of the management team involved. It took a total of 10 days to resolve and 14 days – 2 weeks – to get an EFT payment of the total owed for over 2 years.

Some might say, “What took so long?” Not me. They kept in close contact with me, updating me every step of the way. They were polite and understanding, even though a brunt of the blame was on me for not noticing sooner. They were happy to give me my money, even though some of it was from over 2 years ago.

The company, CDG Commerce has earned my respect. I appreciate that there are still companies out there who know what “customer service” means.

If you want to get extraordinary customer service, here are a few tips:

• Don’t overreact. It’s most likely not this particular representative’s fault, they’re just trying to help.
• Always err to the side of accepting blame instead of dishing it out. It’s much more likely that you’ll get help if you’re accepting part of the responsibility (even if it isn’t your fault at all). People like humility.
• Give it time. Don’t expect resolution in one hour or one day (depending on the issue, of course). Understand that there are hoops to jump through and simply ask to stay informed.
• Be polite and always thank them for everything they are doing to help. This is self-explanatory, treat them how you want to be treated and they will probably bend over backwards to help you. These people get yelled at all day, day after day. Speaking to a compassionate and thankful person will really make their day, and could make yours too.

Just remember that most companies and support representatives want to help you.

My MacBook Pro has a tiny issue with the keyboard. The caps-lock and shift keys on the left side stopped working a few months ago, and since I work mainly plugged into a keyboard and mouse it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. Still, it needs to be fixed so I thought it would be best to send it off for repair when I’m going to be out of the office.

I’m heading to Orlando for 8 days on business – we’re setting up and manning a trade show booth for the McDonald’s Worldwide owner’s convention. While I’m there, I won’t be working on client projects because we’ll be in the booth answering questions, etc… so I don’t need the laptop to actually produce anything.

Still, I’ve never been away from my laptop/computer for an extended period of time. For 8 days, starting tomorrow, I will only have my iPhone. I’ll be checking email and communicating with clients, posting to Twitter, and reading my RSS feeds.

I’ll post an update when I get back… this should be an interesting experiment.

Currently, I listen to or watch the following:

• Wine Library TV
• Ask a Ninja
• Chase Jarvis Photography

I used to listen to a lot of podcasts, but haven’t found any that I really like recently. I’d love to get some suggestions.

So, I came by for a much needed cup of joe and was intending to use my Verizon Wireless EVDO Expresscard to connect to the Internet and get some work done. After trying to access a few websites and email, disconnecting and reconnecting several times, I realized something was wrong. I have had my card since around November of last year and have been very happy with it so far. The service has been very reliable and though not really “broadband” speeds, it does everything I need.

I called Verizon from my iPhone and talked with two very nice support representatives. Neither knew much (if anything) about Macs (they actually called them “Macintoshes” — how long has it’s been since you’ve heard them referred to as that?) and I had a feeling it was going to be a rough night. The first rep suggested I upgrade my software, which I did. The new software was touted as being compatible with 10.5 (according to the website, not the rep) so I thought it might help. Nope. Still couldn’t actually download pages or email… though it would connect just fine.

The second rep walked me through much the same troubleshooting steps as the first, but also tried a few speed tests and other tricks. None worked, and so he offered to enter a trouble ticket with the network team. After another hour on the phone, he finally had all the information about my system, card, software, network problem, address, etc. he needed and I got off the phone. I spent roughly 3 1/2 hours tonight dealing with this, and of course have gotten zero work done.

There are a lot of “tools” and “things” out there that offer “increased productivity.” Be leery of them, however. Spending 3 1/2 hours on NOTHING productive has drained my will to do anything now. I can barely finish this post! I would have been much more productive (though thirsty and craving caffeine) if I had just stayed at the office or gone home instead.

BTW, it seems after spending all that time opening the trouble ticket my internet is working (though sporadically) and hopefully this post will make it through.

I signed up for a Twitter account several months ago, and never really used it. I would login and update it from the website maybe once a month… not that accurate a description of what I’m up to.

Then I went to SXSW, and I found the real beauty behind Twitter. It seemed like everyone at SXSW was Twittering, and they were using it to keep up with all their friends, the conference and post back to everyone back home as to their status.

It was especially important at night, when you could get an invite to a semi-private party simply by Twitter. Or you could get valuable information in a message, like that some rock star just crashed a party.

After Twittering a good bit at SXSW, I decided it did have some actual benefits and I would do my best to give it a shot. Since I’ve been back, I honestly haven’t updated it that often, but then again I haven’t been up to much either.

I have, however, really enjoyed following all my friends on Twitter — especially the people I met in Austin.

I think my hangup with Twitter was because I was trying to use it from my dekstop. Once I was separated from my computer, and used Twitter from my iPhone I found its true potential. Keep up with people on the road, much quicker than using email (which isn’t even an option for most people who don’t have a smartphone), and much cheaper than mass texting.

I’ll be giving Twitter a real trial over the next couple of months to see if it fits my lifestyle. We’ll see.

I’m back from Austin and while I definitely have enough catchup work to keep me busy, I thought I’d post a quick review since it was my first time at the conference.

First, I finally got to meet a lot of people in person that I’ve known for years… Patrick O’Keefe, Chrispian Burks, Jeremy Wright, Aaron Brazell, Stephan Segraves and more. It was great hanging out with you guys.

This was my first trip to Austin and my first SXSW conference. I had a great time, and wish I could have stayed for the whole week, but we stayed only for the Interactive portion. I learned one thing almost immediately — SXSW has two worlds — the panels and conference during the day and the parties and networking events at night. I’ll give a brief review of each.

The SXSW Conference and Expo

All of the panels and discussions were between 30 minutes and 1 hour long. It seemed like in many of the discussions we were really just getting started and it was over. In a way, this is good because it gets you thinking about a subject and asking yourself questions, and leaves you to finish on your own. Hopefully you go back with some unanswered questions and continue the discussion online and with colleagues back home.

The layout of the convention center made it difficult to get from one room to another. Several times we just could not physically make it to another panel in time because it required walking clear across the convention center (which was big).

The trade show itself was a bit smaller than I expected. Since it is an Interactive, Film and Music conference I expected to see a fairly large trade show, maybe divided into sections for each. The exhibitors had fairly small booths and were giving out schwag like t-shirts, pins, stickers, etc. I saw companies like O’Reilly, Opera, Mapquest, Google, and Yahoo. A few people I expected to see but didn’t: Mozilla/Firefox, Microsoft, Apple.

Overall it was very organized and the panels discussed interesting topics related to our industry. I learned a good bit and enjoyed bumping into interesting people on the show floor.

The Parties and Networking Events

I was fortunate to know a good number of people going to Austin for SXSW, many whom I have never met in person. Several of us got together Friday night to meet and have dinner, and had some discussions on industry topics and generally just hang out.

Every night after that it seems there was a party or networking event planned that seemed interesting. There were a few blog-specific events that I enjoyed in particular, including the Chitika/ProBlogger Beer Bus and the b5media Blog Network Camp. I learned a lot about blogging and met some great people.

I realized quickly that the sessions and panels are great but they just spark your creativity and get your wheels turning. It’s the Austin night life that really makes SXSW what it is. I had a great time at SXSW and can’t wait for next year.

We got here last Thursday, and I’ll be returning home on Wednesday. I’m really enjoying the panels and meeting new people but am ready to go home. I miss Tracy and the kids, especially the kids. After the Vegas trip and getting ready to come here I haven’t spent much time at home in the last few weeks.

http://www.askpalpatine.com/

Sometimes I refrain from writing in my blog about personal topics. Why? Maybe I care that the two people who read my blog won’t give a rats. Maybe because I’m not comfortable putting my personal life on the Internet for everyone to see. Who knows.

I do know that I don’t post very often to my personal blog. I should post more, I know. But being a full-time consultant, entrepreneur and Internet publisher takes a lot of time and work, and by the time I actually get a decent idea about business or the Internet, it’s all I can do to simply execute it myself.

I could fill in the gaps in my blog by posting random personal topics, like pictures of my kids tormenting my cat. Or I could just post sparingly…

I hope you and your families have a wonderful Christmas and relaxing time off from work.

A few months ago, I came across a help-wanted ad on a competitor’s website. I have thoroughly enjoyed owning a small web development company, but it was time to move on to the next level. I really only saw two ways to do that. I could hire full-time employees and expand my company. We’d need a new location, marketing and a lot of business. Or, I could grow quickly by acquiring or being acquired.

I initiated a dialog with BKD, and with Brant Kelsey, the owner. From the start it was clear that we would make a good team and our companies had many complimenting strengths. Their focus and a great deal of their experience has been in branding, print design and traditional marketing. Our focus was web development, e-commerce and online marketing. Together we could offer a full-range of services to our clients.

After several successful meetings and negotiations, BKD acquired EleyTech in November of 2006. In addition to acquiring the business and clients, BKD hired me full-time.

As a full-service ad agency, design firm and web development company, we now have the capabilities in-house to tackle just about any project, large or small. We have a full-time staff of 6, which includes award-winning graphic designers, programmers, and a marketing and e-commerce
consultant.

I’m excited to be a part of such a talented and diverse team, and look forward to providing our clients with amazing service and proven results.

I plan on using my personal blog to write about my experiences at a growing advertising and design firm, about personal productivity, and about building businesses. I will share experiences from the field, and from my personal endeavors. I will continue to build my own websites, as I always have, and will continue to write. In fact, I hope that I will have more time to focus on my writing and personal ventures now that I do not have the responsibility of running a business atop developing successful websites for our clients.

So stay tuned… I’m embarking on a new and interesting journey. It has been a long time since I’ve been gainfully employed, and I’m looking forward to the potential for growth and positive change that this brings.

I have been “settled in” to my current lifestyle and career for some time and I think it’s about time for a change. So I’m in the process of making that change and look forward to the directions it takes me. I’ll be outlining it here, so stay tuned (all 2 of you)!

It’s tiny too… much smaller than a regular iPod. It’s probably very comparable in size to an iPod Mini, though I haven’t held one to see for sure. It’s smaller than my Treo 600.

I haven’t used it that much yet, so can’t give it a definite review just yet but will post again when I’ve had some time to put it through the trials.

I’ve been looking at dozens of MP3 players (all with hard drives) and have come down to this, the Dell Jukebox, and a few others. The Apple iPod is not in my list because I’m not very happy with iTunes music service. I got hooked on Napster and Napster To Go services. Being able to download 5GB of songs to my MP3 player for a small monthly fee. Then if you want to buy a CD or song, you can.

So, if anyone has any opinions I’d love to hear them. I’m selling my Xbox on Ebay right now. I never get to play it anymore and thought a MP3 player would get more use anyway. I should be able to buy one in about a week.

I’m very overweight and have been wanting to get in shape and lose some inches so I decided to try the challenge. I took some before photos, but won’t post them yet. I don’t want to make anyone sick. When I have both before and after pics I may post them. Right now I’m just over 200 lbs. and have a 36″ waist. I am not so much concerned about my weight as I am with my waist size… I want to get lean abs and cut down to a 33″ or 34″ waist in the 6 week challenge. Overall I want to be back to a 32″ waist.

They give suggestions for workout schedules and diet, which I’m going to give a try. I’ve got some free weights and a workout bench I can use at home, plus I’m going to scout the town for local gyms. Hopefully I can stick to it… hey for a 2005 Mustang I think I can lose a few inches!

Hopefully I’ll find time to post more soon… but right now it’s back to work!

It teaches you all about the tools of the trade, techniques, ingredients and substitutions, and yes – it has some great recipes too. I’ve watched Alton Brown’s shows on the Food Network and really enjoy his style. If you’re into cooking, definately check out his book and TV show.

All of my family came over last night to exchange gifts and eat dinner. We had a good time and just socialized until about 11. My mom and grandmother spent the night so they could be here for Peyton’s first Christmas. My dad came over this morning and we all had a huge breakfast. Pork tenderloin, sausage, eggs, buscuits, grits and more.

Now I’ve finally had some time to relax and Tracy’s family is starting to arrive. Her sister (and her husband), brother (and his wife), mom and grandmother are all coming over for dinner tonight and to exchange gifts… most of which go to Peyton.

Anyway, we’ve been truly blessed this Christmas. We got the server moved and setup with just small minor glitches on the way, and most everything is back running smoothly. We’ve got great food and family to share it with. You couldn’t ask for a better Christmas.

Maybe if I can find a program I am happy with I’ll get back into blogging and actually start posting regularly. WordPress seems really easy to use so far. We’ll see.