Creativity. Cause. Family. Life.
If you’d like to hear me talk about me, my faith, Intersection Creative Strategies, Laundry Love Santa Ana, 511, baby making, making tough decisions,Seattle, productivity, the will of God, limericks, software, GoDaddy, music, Santa Ana, the interwebz, ROI, Souplantation, community development and a whole host of other fun things check out Darin’s hard hitting interview of me on the Orbiter. Also, against the white backdrop, my hair looks really gray and I need a hair cut.
Most of you know that my company helps non profits and social enterprises develop effective communication strategies. We also help with the implementation of those strategies. So I was pretty excited when the organizers of Cultivate 2011 reached out and asked me to be a part of their very unique conference.
Rather than just getting experts to talk up front, they are bringing in a panel after each short talk to discuss implementation and contextualization. This is really a passion of mine and I am excited to help lead those discussions. Many friends and folks I really respect will be either speaking or a part of various panels including Charles Lee and Mark Horvath.
The line up appears to be geared towards the faith based sector but it is being marketed heavily towards the general non profit market as well. Regardless of which camp you fit into, if you are looking to better communicate, market, fund raise, etc I am quite certain that this will be a rewarding experience.
If you will be there, please let me know so we can be sure to grab a cup of coffee or some tequila.
Every time I thumb through a catalog I wonder why I’m not looking up the item on the Internet. Then I realize: Catalogs create need by suggesting items you weren’t thinking about. The Internet is better at fulfilling the need once it’s identified. ~ Alan Weiss
Here is a slide show of pics taken at the Freedom and Fashion show. Working on a full write up for Intersection (one of the partners for the event is a client) but in the meantime I wanted to get these pics up…
With the exception of my lovely wife, few people know the totality of things I am currently involved in, as I often see folks in the context of one project or another. This frequently leads to the question, “so, do you do this full time?”
So, I thought I would quickly give you all the run down, as a few things have changed recently as well:
These are the biggest areas of my current time split. I also have a few smaller, or infrequent things that I work on or have under development.
So there you have it. If as some believe, you are what you do, then that is me. When time permits (it rarely does these days) perhaps I can do a tech walk through on how I attempt to remain productive while wearing so many hats. One hint, less personal blogging (;
Working on a new, still undercover, initiative. It has the potential to be one of the biggest things I have ever pulled off. By the same token, it has the potential to be the most colossal failure.
The interesting thing, though, to me, is the ease at which the early stage things are going. I am crazy. I have crazy ideas, like, at least, once a week. Realistically, this one is far crazier than many of the other ones that have never made it past the “google to make sure I didn’t read about it and then think it was my idea because I was up way past my bedtime when I read it” stage, or the “tell my wife I think it would be cool if someone did (insert crazy idea here) and have her tell me I need to focus on the last 4 ideas that she didn’t think were WAY TOO crazy to consider pursuing, prior to even thinking about this one” stage.
So here is my theory. I think people won’t invest time or resources in something small. If they think it could be done alone, then they have no reason to get involved. They wonder why I don’t just make it happen. They wonder why someone else hasn’t already done it, if it is truly valuable and truly simple.
So lots of (I think) good ideas get cast aside simply because I:
Hmmm. I guess I need to fix that.
Now, the really big take away is this. People want to bite off more than they can chew. They want to be inspired. They want to tackle audacious problems with never before thought of creative solutions. They want to go IPO in a year. They want to stop wars, eradicate hunger and provide water to a continent. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something paradigm shifting, something dangerous, something beautiful.
Small thinking does not seem to get people on the phone. But shoot someone a huge audacious vision, prove you have a plan to accomplish that vision and you never know who you might end up on the phone with next week.
What are you working on? Is it big? Do you need partners?
My company started a simple branding project last week. Fully anticipated being done before I went to !deation. Five rejected mock ups later, today I am sending over revision eight of the logo and getting ready to start on some print collateral, a website and some social media integration.
While at !deation my friend Dan Portnoy showed me this incredible post from the Oatmeal on web design and how it can go south.
It makes me feel just a little bit better to know that I am not alone. No it doesn’t.
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They are fine. No one was injured. Unless you count our car. It didn’t do so hot. Totally kept the passengers safe though. Shannon has a bruise on her hip from her iPod being in her pocket and Micah bit his tongue, though it is still fully intact.
Our insurance is good so we are not too concerned long term, but we do have some immediate issues we may need your help with. We have a second car, but it is a small economy car that won’t fit both car seats in the back. Our insurance will cover a rental for up to $200, but looking at prices that means about a week. Once we know how long the car will take we will have a better idea of how this will impact us, but my experience says that we will probably need some help with some errands after a while. Also, if anyone is a member of one of them fancy frequent car renter clubs and can get a good deal on a mid size (not to be greedy, but we sort of need one with a big backseat for the two toddler sized car seats) that would also be super awesome.
Shannon is pretty shaken up and upset so a word of encouragement for her would be nice and maybe not grilling her too much on the details. (;
Thanks all for being super fantastic and what not.
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Check out this amazing video on the value of social media for your organization. I first saw it on Michael Hyatt’s site.
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As you can see, things are a bit sparse right now. That will change. Also, this site will be shifting in focus as I build out Intersection Creative Strategies. My business oriented posts will migrate over there and this will be mostly musings, ramblings and family stuff.
A huge thanks to DJ Chuang for his MySQL ninja(ery?).
