For the last few years I’ve slowly been growing and solidifying a consulting business centered around internet marketing, specifically in Search Marketing, as the demons of jargon would tempt me. It’s had its high points and low points, but in the last year, things have been going very well (so well in fact, that I haven’t made time to post anything new on this site since November…shame on me).

One of the original goals of my consulting gig was to give me a modicum of freedom – both in time and place. Timothy Ferris fans rejoice, because I’m about to attempt the latter, hopefully not resulting in astounding failure.

I’m moving for Europe for the summer.

Specifically, Sevilla, Spain – but let’s not get into too many specifics (largely because I don’t know or have them).

I’m writing this single post about my travels, simply to illustrate the lack of them that will come after. My site will not become a travel blog. I’m not retiring. I’m simply moving to Spain for the summer.

If, for some seeming-at-the-time-good-idea reason, you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, you will see the occasion picture of a Spanish landscape, but hopefully not moreso than you would if I were traversing a highway in Colorado or Indiana.

Basically, I promise to be as minimally annoying as possible…

Or maybe I’ll put together something really cool and inspiring about my travels…not likely, so enjoy this guy’s jig instead:

In the meantime, I welcome you to e-mail or phone me like you always have, but just know that I’ll be favoring early morning calls from the States.

(nobody cares….I know)

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This evening I’m in Denver, and following a good jog around Washington Park, I’m leaving to go watch the election results come in. This felt like a good a time as any to relay my political opinions, before someone can say I’m a fair weather fan.

This is my message to you:

Regardless of the election results, I expect something from you as an American citizen. It has to do with you role and the bigger picture of what we, as Americans want our nation to become. This has nothing to do with partisan politics, and after the latest 2 year go round the horn with pundits and wizard predictors, I’ve had it with the incivil discourse.

So.

If, for some reason your chosen candidate does not get elected to their desired office, I have a charge for you. It is one that I will follow.

1) Get behind your President.

I don’t care if it’s Romney. I don’t care if it’s Obama. If the American public elected him, he’s your leader, so quit whining and show some respect for the leader of the free world.

“I didn’t vote for him” is a bullshit copout.  I have no room for you if that is your view post November, 2012.

2) Criticize him on poor decisions. Support him on good ones.

George Bush did good things in office. George Bush did shitty things in office. Did the good outweigh the bad? That’s subjective – so call it as such. Did Barack Obama do shitty things in office? Yes. Did he do good things in office? Yes. The MSNBC and Fox approaches to Presidential criticism do not apply here. I find both to be skewed views of actual fact, where both sides have an agenda to make the other look bad. Both networks have behaved in recent years like argumentative, red-headed stepchildren.

If you want to influence what they do after they’re in office, then do that. Get involved at the issue level if you want to see change.

3) Take responsibility for your own situation.

I’m worried about the economy, but less than most people. My average pay went up in the last 4 years. I graduated from college, worked, and got better at my job. Did presidential politics play a role in that? Maybe. But a damned minimal one if at all. I hustled, I worked, and I got paid.

You have the tools at your disposal to do better. Make your own job security.

I do not apologize for the tone of this post. It’s how I feel. We, as Americans, have some of the greatest opportunities this world has known. To squander that time and opportunity pointing fingers within Presidential politics is petty and short sighted.

I applaud you if you voted. I welcome either candidate into the Oval Office to move our nation toward a brighter future. But more importantly, we all have to pick up the pieces of our own lives and go to work tomorrow, knowing that what we do every day either makes us stronger, or it doesn’t.

If you feel the same way, please share this message. Thank you.

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Last weekend I slipped up.Not in any meaningful, life-changing way, but after a conversation takes hold of a sticky subject that you don’t like, it can be hard to reel things back in. The subject this past Saturday was the nebulous nature of my career. It doesn’t help that I just performed my now-seemingly-habitual winter relocation to Colorado, which begs the question:

“What will you do while you’re out there?”

Probably the same thing I’ve been doing for the last 12 calendar months. Killing it as a digital marketing consultant. Granted, that sounds cocky as hell (and it is). Sometimes when sharing a cocktail with friends and the subject of my occupation comes up, I feel that should be my knee jerk reaction: “Killing it.”

Saturday, my answer was more non-specific. “SEO.” – or some similar acronymbus (that’s acronym and nimbus) answer that left me with a cross-eyed stare from my partner in conversation. This then lead into a running joke of conversation – with Gangnam-style stickiness.

“So, you work in the cloud?”

“You work for Google?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Where’s the vodka?”

At points I wished I had made up a Timothy Ferris-like “Drug Dealer” job description, halting conversation before the swirling cloud of “SEO” came crashing down around my ears. My conclusion is that I’m out of practice, and haven’t been networking enough and answering the question as often.

The epiphany.

At the time (two cocktails in) it occurred to me to share my revelation with another self-proclaimed SEO (and a good one, at that), that the nebulous nature of search marketing is a new economy, where we have no previous economy to compare it to.

If Search (Google/Bing) is a faith-based fiat system of supply and demand, search and content – then what came before? What’s the gold standard? Print? Broadcast? The knee jerk reaction is “No, you idiot – these are nothing alike.” And that reaction has merit. Functionally, the way in which one markets to a search engine algorithm versus placing a newspaper ad is like comparing orange juice to an eel. Sure – you can eat them both, but the preparation is…well…you get the picture.

Put another way, SEOs and Content Marketers are the accountants and financiers of this new economy. We have in our short tenure helped others navigate the pathways of a more complex marketing system than is easy for even an intelligent non-practitioner to manage.

So I console myself about difficult explanations of what I do by equating my profession to that of the man who first had to explain the concept of paper money to an isolated South American tribesman.

It seemed valid two cocktails in.

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Earlier today I had the pleasure of guesting on ‘More Than a Few Words’ – a Podcast program put on by Roundpeg – a small business marketing company in Indianapolis.

We spent a half hour on the current state of SEO, some tactics and theory – head on over there and check it out. I had a great time.

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A few weeks ago a Kickstarter project called ClassRealm showed up on my radar. I was instantly interested in it because I’ve previously worked with the startup’s UX guy, and simply put, he’s got skills.

If you know my personal objections to the current education bubble in formal college education, it’s obvious why I’d be interested in a process enhancement to primary education, and especially one that came at it from a new-ish angle.

Even without the personal connection, I’d still be interested. There’s an innate value to the startup mindset in Indiana, and it’s the shared culture that says “Hey, I’ve got your back.” It’s one of the easiest things in the world to tweet and share a new concept, so I find myself doing so for projects like ClassRealm.

There are others in the community who go out of their way to support the startup scene. Their company cultures and personal contributions come readily to mind. If you aren’t familiar with these companies, you should be.

Roundpeg – Principal Lorraine Ball
Smallbox Web Design – Principal Jeb Banner
Kristian Andersen and Associates – Principal Kristian Andersen

The irksome title of this post however, is aimed at a very specific response that I got when trying to raise local awareness about the project. The short summation of the message I received was this:

“They’ve got a better chance of getting X into schools than that. Interesting idea though.”

At first glance, not a very negative response – but not supportive either.

Here’s my beef – startup founders and entrepreneurs risk their time, energy and hard earned money to form new companies, often times aimed at solving problems and making the world a better place to be. If you aren’t helping them, or at least offering constructive criticism, go away.

It has to do with that simple lesson your mother may or may not have taught you…’if you don’t have anything nice to say.’

I’m reminded of what speaker Ed Eppley had to say about entrepreneurs. During his talk at the 2011 Rocky Mountain YP Summit, he made an adamant statement that I’m now paraphrasing 6 months later.

Entrepreneurs are the saviors of the American economy. I applaud anyone creating new jobs and risking their capital in doing so.

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but most young entrepreneurs don’t know what risk is. We don’t have families to provide for, mortgages and car payments to sweat. Now I realize that it would be much easier, fiscally speaking, to take a job and scoot along until middle age, insanity, retirement or outright demise. Not rewarding at all, but fiscally easier.

I return to the haters. Bad ideas abound, surely, but if a startup is asking for $5 to further public education – trash the armchair commentary and give them $20. Better yet, tell your network about it while you do it.

So comments – was my reaction on par or did I overreact?

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After moving back to Indy (Broad Ripple, specifically) last month I made myself a commitment that I would try to drive less. Broad Ripple being a more walkable community than most, combined with $4/gallon gas, a $20 thrift store bike (below), and IndyGo finally getting their act in gear (re: Google Maps integration), and Indianapolis might just be a summer city able to sustain a less-consumerist-Andrew.

My goal is to drive once a week or less. Thus far, weather, distant meetings and laziness have me in my truck 2-3 times a week, however my gas bill for the month of April was less than $50 – impressive considering that my truck tops out at 21 mpg on a good day.

In essence, I’m writing this post to further the purpose and public knowledge about green transit options, and I want ideas about how to make my summer better, Schwinn LeTour in tow.

Comments please!

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The month of march has been interesting. In a nutshell, I put over 3400 miles on my truck traveled through 8 states, resulting in stopping points in Little Rock, AR, Texarkana, TX, Austin, TX, Denver, CO and Kansas City, MO.

Even by my own travel standards, nutty. The travels were largely put in play by my having purchased a ticket to South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) and needing to visit Denver and Boulder, CO for business reasons.

SXSW was, for its first few days – a clusterf*$%. Between weather, a first time SXSW attendee, coordinating between several groups of friends on colleagues, it’s a miracle that my mind survived. Out of the madness, I do have 5 tips for would be SXSW future attendees:

Don’t plan on getting any work done.

I have described SXSW to outsiders as ‘Spring Break for geeks’ in its amenities and interested parties. Not knowing anything about the music and film portions of the festivals, and how my cell phone scrambled and died (even with multiple charge packs), I can tell you that geeks flocked to Austin.

Network Serendipitously.

This can be done. Hang out in lounges, hotel lobbies, and charge stations – and the common denominator of your networking weight class emerges. Everyone has to sleep, eat, drink, and charge their devices. Serendipitous networking at SXSW can be planned.

If marketing at SXSW, don’t buy a badge.

The post hours SXSW crowd is an indcredibly active one, so don’t limit yourself to the panels and ‘thought leadership’ (I was unimpressed) which the event has prided itself on for so many years. Especially if you are marketing a launch, app, product or service – skip the badge and put the budget toward a better hotel and materials (event related would be best) by which to
attract the specific audience you desire. Take this advice with the grain of salt that is the gnat-like attention span which SXSW attendees will be able to afford you. Call to action. Call to action. Call to action.

For Heaven’s sake, stay downtown.

This I didn’t do. If you can’t swing an early hotel or late Air B&B within a mile of the convention center, I wouldn’t bother with the
event at all. Trust someone who has made the mistake of not fully investing in accommodations only to suffer the consequences of several hundred thousand converging on Austin’s public transit and taxi system (which crashed utterly Friday night of SXSWi and didn’t revive until several days later – conspiracy? Hrmmm)

Lone Star Tall Boys and Crawfish Boils for the win.

This advice comes from Jeb Banner of Small Box, who advised me on the management of my drinking experience at SXSW under the ‘less is more’ category of sage advice in managing my metabolism.

And on the subject of consumption and pure indulgence, make sure you check out the Crawfish Boil put on by Kristian Andersen and the folks at KA+A. Delicious and good times for the Indianapolis startup crowd.

Some additional shout outs from the weekend – thanks to the guys at SproutBox for throwing an early-conference Hoosier basketball viewing party – much fun.

Have you checked out the Miss Pivot Interactive Blind Date at Stop Awkward Dating.com? You should.

Awesome hang out during the SXSW rainy season at Conduit Corner (complete with mac+cheese, ice cream, beer, hammocks, and a kick-ass DJ). For all of its confusion and bewilderness, SXSW offered up jewels like this one for better connections with fellow SXSW’ers. All in all, I’m looking forward to applying all this wisdom to a better execution next year.

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Going on three years ago Josh Mitchell pitched me on the idea of ‘Pivots’ – a professional wingman or wingwoman – I’m pretty sure the title is gender specific to female, and doubly sure that the Urban Dictionary could clear up my confusion, should I want to verify my memory’s guesswork. I honestly didn’t give it much thought at the first, but the idea grew on me.

We brought the concept to life over the course of a Startup Weekend in Raleigh, NC in April 2009, about the time I thought it wise to start recording things online in blog format. Dubbed ‘Pivot’ and then quickly changed to ‘Miss Pivot’, the company went through some phases.

As I first wrote this post, I forgot that Miss Pivot is an incredibly media rich company, so you may choose to ignore my blathering and just watch the cool videos.

With @ryanrobbins – who was part of the core group of launched Miss Pivot at the Triangle Startup Weekend.

Escort service, right?

I kid about the escorts, of course, but it was a conversation that we had a lot. Differentiating between the sex and the science was a regular thing.

Nothing altogether meaningful was done with Miss Pivot until Kevin Emmons came into the picture. We struggled early on with the branding issues that arose from the idea of having a woman on your arm who wasn’t your date, but was helping you negotiate the pathways of the social stratosphere. It became clear very quickly that we had to change the narrative about Miss Pivot from its focus on ‘help from a female in your dating life’ to what having a female on your arm provided in terms of social proof and overall confidence.

Party like it’s 2009

Having ignored our fledgling concept for the majority of the summer, we set up a September launch party in Indianapolis to drive some interest and buzz around the concept of Miss Pivot. In a word, it succeeded. The party got the attention of some local press, got the company in front of some of its first clients, and it was a damned good time.

Later on, one of the dating ‘boot camps’

By partnering with local bars and clubs during their early and off hours, we were able to negotiate venues for little or no cash, and raise awareness about what we were working on. (Imagine the SXSW party strategy, but without the saturation and outrageous cost). We found that we were good at throwing events, and there was some money to be made in them.

The Confidence Company

Josh and Kevin found in their one-on-one consulting engagements that a lot of the same topics were coming up. How do I approach someone in a bar? How do I keep the conversation moving? How do I tell if he/she is interested?

The fix to these problems presented itself in events that focused on education instead of strictly mingling. Miss Pivot began offering seminars and we put our own spin on speed dating for a while, using Pivots as the X factor that kept conversations from getting stagnant. We called it Elemental Dating, and it was by all accounts a social exercise that had someone looking out for you (Pivots) in case you got stuck in the corner with the cat lady from eHarmony.

By the time Miss Pivot had set up its 3rd and 4th topical seminars, something was becoming obvious and apparent to us: our content and message has a more universal application than the one we’re currently giving it. The search for a more ‘broadcast’ medium was underway.

I put my camera on.

Miss Pivot TV offered itself as the immediate answer to “how do we show what we’re doing without physically being in front of someone?” This one explains itself more readily in video format, and there are several other episodes as I’m sure you’ll find out.

Let’s write a book?

By the time 2011 rolled around, Miss Pivot had developed enough valuable content that an obvious next step was to package it up in a more concise form. What was the best medium? A DVD of Miss Pivot TV and our seminars? A book? As the actual topical theme of the piece emerged (a book on body language) – it was obvious that our efforts would have to be delivered on a visually stimulating medium. Boring way to say – we chose to build for the mobile (tablet) markets. And the rest, well it’s not history yet, but the videos do a MUCH better job of explaining. Enjoy.

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I have no idea whether that is true or not, but given the infrequent use of my own ‘.com’ and the nature of this post – it’s fitting.

The first part of this year I’ve been concerned with updating my company’s (Rella Group) image and portrayal online. Fresh content, new face, better description of our services and our reason for existing a year later. My colleague and partner, Joshua Mitchell, challenged that my ‘Why’ – the reason for Rella’s being was not strong enough in the drafts I had created.

Enters today my viewing of a TED talk on the subject, and suddenly my stable, rational reasoning for Rella’s USP and cultural legs are faltering (stay tuned for a relaunch of Rella’s site yet this month). Another close friend suggested earlier today that it might be time for a ‘self-check’ in regard to my own passions and interest.

Sobering reality. Over the last six months I’ve allowed the daily grind of trying to build a company get in the way of why I would actually do it to begin with. It has to do with being able to provide for the family which has given me opportunities, support and a roof with little regard to their own expense while I build things that may or may not make money.

I’ve been reproached with the comment “What’s in it for you?”

I reject the premise of the question. Seeing my parents retire. Pick one. If I sound angry it’s because I am; I’m not satisfied with the progress toward certain family goals that are clearly within my grasp, but require more discipline than I’ve been willing to give them.

It’s important that I be clear about my identity and reason for being. I am a Maker and a Provider.  The fact that I work in technology is secondary, if but a critical How to the process of my extending my identity to those around me.

Now, with a renewed sense of purpose, onward into 2012. A belated Happy New Year! to you all.

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It’s all the latest rage to hate on Facebook, and it happens about once a year it seems – that some minor or major UI changes that Facebook implements tend to piss everyone off in some minor or major way.

That’s not what this post is about.

I wanted to put out in the open a single thought about Facebook’s e-mail policy as a question. Considering that many users engage Facebook on the reaction of receiving an e-mail (someone posted something, sent you a message etc?) what could be the reason why Facebook would diminish their quantity of e-mail notifications? I have a single conjecture that makes sense to me, at least…

Facebook traffic sourced from e-mail notifications is less likely to click ads.

I have no data to prove this (Facebook would), and it would be easy to imagine that the specific source of users coming from e-mail notifications are less likely to engage the money-making avenues of Facebook. Enough said.
–
My knee-jerk reaction to the ‘We’re going to send you less e-mails’ message from Facebook was along the lines of “What penny-pincher decided to cut costs that way?!”
And, upon momentary examination, I doubt that even a juggernaut like Facebook would make that sort of corporate-esqe decision.

Why do you think Facebook is sending us less e-mails?

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