Austin calls again. Last year was all time. This year should be even better.

• I’ll be there from March 11-19th, will you?
  
• I’m on a panel too talking about the “RoadTwip” we took across America last year.

• Here’s the event info–> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=300891299233&ref=ts

CitySourced has been nominated as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer.

It doesn’t get any bigger than this. Davos is most well known for organizing the Annual Meetings in Davos, Switzerland in January and in the People’s Republic of China in September every year where top decision-makers from all sectors of global society are brought together to discuss current and pressing issues in the most representative way.

The Technology Pioneers Community is one of the most widely recognized initiatives of the World Economic Forum. To be selected as a Technology Pioneer, a company must be involved in the development of technology innovation and have the potential for long-term impact on business and society. In addition, it must demonstrate visionary leadership, show the signs of being a long-standing market leader, and its technology must be proven.

Past recipients of this recognition include Google, Business Objects, Mozilla and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, among others. When selected, Technology Pioneers attract worldwide media attention.

Help Us Make Your Government Suck Less!

• We’re in the running to win $250,000 – last count we were #13 in the voting (up from 235) and the top two get $250,000 grants.
• Your votes count and we’ll throw a big party when we win. Please help us get the word out so that your government can suck less
• http://www.refresheverything.com/513connect

“Kurty D” Performing Live Stand Up Comedy at the Improv

• Debut Live Stand Up Comedy Performance at the Improv on March 9th 6:00 PM
  
• My fear of public speaking is being purged. Amazing what a solid framework and some coaching can do!
  
• Would love to see ya, here’s the facebook event info

The past two months has been a blur. I wake up early, at my desk by 7am. It’s back to back meetings till really late at night.

Highlights:

• We’ve closed significant funding for CitySourced/FreedomSpeaks.
• We’ve been nominated to Davos.
• We were selected to the Finals of the Knight Foundation grant

Lord knows I’ve been busy, but even though we’re seeing traction, I still don’t feel like I’m really getting that much done, sorta spinning my wheels.  Even lately I’ve been feeling a bit paralyzed and at the end of the day my focus and concentration has been toast. I’m terribly behind on some personal correspondence and taking care of personal business. The start up has officially consumed my life.

I was starting to get a bit concerned and burned out, and regardless that my diet has been good, I’m getting enough sleep and exercise, I still wasn’t performing at my peak.  Also, I truly sense that we’re on the right about to break through and deliver some major game changing technology, and that little voice inside my head that tries to tell me I ‘don’t deserve it’ or that I ’should go back to bed” has been really trying to throw me under the bus. Seth Godin calls this voice “the resistance“. That little voice has been really confusing me lately, reminding me of all the things that need to be done, and it’s been causing me some anxiety and tempting me to work from a place of desperation rather than inspiration.

Today I had a cool breakthrough. My pal and coach Aaron Ross aka @MotoCeo really helped me break  some things down. Aaron has been helping us think through our sales process and we’re currently getting ready to launch our sales efforts using Salesforce.com, where Aaron used to be Sr. Director of Sales.

Aaron showed me how he manages his calendar and as cliche as this may sound, this was a big ‘aha’ for me, and something I’m implementing immediately.

• His Mondays are for planning and thinking about the non urgent important.
• Tues are for new clients calls and meetings.
• Weds are reserved for existing accounts and clients.
• Thurs is a ‘catch all’ day.
• Friday is errands, bookkeeping and some ‘catch all’.

Aaron helped me focus on the fact that if I want my business to catch a fire that I really need to get the “magnifying glass” positioned in the right place and hold it steady so that it burns the leaf, that’s the spark that catches fire. I have a strong sense that the calendar trick is to work really well for me. For example, the tools I need and documents I have open for new sales calls is much different that what I need for existing clients. By batching the work in a focused fashion I can dive deeper and batch all the work. Then I can deliver a list to my asst or project manager in a bunch, rather than piecemeal through out the week, which delivers better process and efficiency to my team and saves them time too.

Aaron has a gift of taking complex processes with many moving parts and break it down into bite sized pieces that are digestible, which I so needed to hear because I have a tendency to let my eyes get bigger than my stomach, plus I tend to run projects  in parallel. What I’ve been really thinking about lots lately is the need for me to dive deeper in a serial sequence vs. parallel multi-tasking.  Aaron challenged me to focus on the task at hand before moving onto the next one, which is virtually IMPOSSIBLE when launching a start up it seems.  Even thinking about big projects in quarterly basis.  So Q1 is “Launch” and March with be “Salesforce Month” where I set up the system and get staff trained up, then Q2 is “Sales Quarter” and we break it down by month.

Okay so that’s that for. Time to enjoy my Friday night and prep for my comedy class tomorrow.  My big debut at the Improv in two weeks and I’ve taken this on as my way to ‘fight the resistance’ and confront my fear of public speaking.

Bam!

Another @KurtyD Production

Folks over estimate what they can do in a year and under estimate what they can do in ten.

No doubt you’d agree how quickly this past decade has flown by.  My one regret is that I wasn’t nearly as intentional about the effects I wanted to create. I didn’t find my North Star (community empowerment) until quite recently.  As I reflect upon the past decade and get clear about my vision for my life by 2020 there are a few stories  that I would like to share with you:

Petunia Pickle Bottom

My best friend Braden Jones and his wife Denai started a company in my hometown of Ventura in 2001 called Petunia Pickle Bottom and gave birth to a new industry.  Even more remarkable than the amount of jobs they’ve created and profits they’ve generated, is how they did it. They were true to their passion around design and quality, and this has generated countless wins and amazing experiences. For example, the time that Oprah gave Julia Roberts a Petunia bag live on the show once, or how about the time that Martha Stewart gave her entire live studio audience Petunia bags! Bottom line, they love what they do. It sustains them through growing pains and gives them an opportunity to travel all the time and also be with their two young kids.

Jack Johnson

Another example that has inspired me to follow my dreams is watching my college buddy Jack Johnson follow his passion around songwriting.  One of the things I most admire about Jack is how humble he’s remained, considering that he’s now a bona fide international pop star.

What Jack did was simple, he followed his passion, curiosity and talent around songwriting. He didn’t have any big vision to instantly boil the ocean. Although, I think Jack knew instinctively that he has the power to manifest a sea change, and no doubt he’s on that path, but he simply seems to be enjoying the journey one mile at a time and not getting ahead of himself. He once told me that if it (the tours, albums, lifestyle) were to end tomorrow he’d be grateful for the experience and go right on living his life. Jack seems to have a zen like detachment from the material and any results, but still balancing each foot forward and riding the wave that he paddled into.

Elliot Smith

Here’s a sad story to illustrate the effects of NOT having a vision and hope for the future.  Elliot Smith came to my 27th birthday party at the Derby in Los Feliz, a year later he stabbed himself in the heart.  He was dating my friend Jen Chiba and I had been to that fated “Basement on a Hill” many times and have stood in the very spot that he died.

My sense about Elliot from the few times that I met him was that he was a ship without a rudder. He had lost hope and it was expressed in his most haunting (and beautiful) music.  I often wonder what Elliot’s life could have been had he had a clear and positive vision for the future.

Now what is your Northstar?

What effects do you want to create by 2020?

Or in other words, what do you want to have occurred ten years from now?

Consider this: who you are now has everything to do with how your perceive your future to be. For example, if you really really knew that you were picking up a  million dollar check tomorrow from closing a big deal, or embarking on the most amazing all expenses paid vacation how would you feel? Now, imagine the doctor just told you that you have cancer, there is no cure, and you have a month to live, how would you feel then?

Who we are, and how we feel, has everything to do with how we perceive our future to be. The trick is that first we have to be able to put the past where it belongs, behind us.

Most of the time this takes a fair amount of work and I don’t recommend going about it alone.

Zero out the compass. Remove any skew in your navigation system. Tune your radar.

Jack called me in 2000 and invited me to go on the road with him as his road manager. I turned him down because I didn’t think I’d do a good job, mainly because part of the gig would require me to run sound which was was something I wasn’t comfortable doing because I was born without ear canals and had 35-40% hearing loss and had always struggled with being hard of hearing. I have to admit, I’ve looked back at the choice and wondered what my life would be like had I taken that path.

April 2007 I had a miracle surgery and they implanted a digital hearing device into my brain (i know right!) and I’m like the Million Dollar Man, complete with bionic hearing.  I guess this is a good example of tuning your radar. I spent a lot of time in my life with doctors trying to find a solution to my hearing problems.

Early 2009 I stopped drinking alcohol and putting damaging substances into my body and this has been given me remarking clarity and performance benefits. At risk of sounding preachy, I’m just going to say it, some folks just aren’t willing to make the sorts of sacrifices that are required to win. I truly believe if you have a strong enough ‘why’ (desire) you’ll invent the ‘how’. Here’s my post on the difference between winners and losers.

Who you gonna call? Got mentors?

All champions have coaches. I have tons of them and I meet with them monthly or quarterly, or hop on the phone or shoot an e-mail when I have a question or need some help.  Here’s a flavor of what I’m talking about.

Scott Leese

*Scott is graciously giving my friends a free coaching session to help discover and align mission and mark out well defined New Years resolutions for the first 50 people that respond to this blog post or contact him at scott/at/scottleese/dot/com. No catch. Just helping folk get launched on the start of a great new journey of your life.

Scott has been a executive life coach and consultant for than 20 years, working with high performance Olympic athletes, entrepreneurs, artists, actors, political consultants to help align their next level of goals and performance.

Working with Scott has transformed me. We did some exercises where we went back into the past and cleared up lots of static and then created a future that I’m finding myself living into right now. One of the biggest benefits working with Scott is quieting the static and noise in my head, having more confidence, and believe or not being able to look people in the eye with a sense of peace and empowerment. I did not have these things prior to my work with Scott. He has a steady hand and asks great questions too. Scott has been a great role model for me too.

The Landmark Forum

If everyone in the world completed the Landmark Forum the world would work. What I love about the folks at Landmark is that they’re truly commuted to their vision of empowering folks with ‘living a life you love, and loving the life you live’. They do this through a Socratic styled Q & A classroom lecture format that I really respond well to.  Disclaimer, their format and concepts can occur are rigorous and not everyone can stomach it. Here’s an example of how they hold integrity.

Arthur Joseph @ Vocal Awareness

My friend Shira Lazar introduced me to Arthur at Vocal Awareness. His client list is mind blowing, folks like Pat Riley, Quincey Jones, Pierce Brosnan, Arnold Schwartenegger, and so on. Arthur’s gift is helping you discover your breath and empowering you through voice. Before working with Arthur I didn’t know how to breathe. Literally, in one session he transformed my life by showing me how to ‘allow’ a loving breath, and then we started to work on how to harness this into my speech.  Growing up hard of hearing naturally gave me some speech impediments, and we’ve been having some great success getting me ‘camera ready’ as Arthur likes to say. I’ve noticed a remarkable improvement in my diction, tonality, and appearance of my speech, and it’s been lots of fun playing with this energy, not to mention another major boost in confidence.

Duke Stump @ The Northstar Manifesto

Duke was VP Brand at Nike, then CMO at Seventh Generation. Duke has embarked a brand new adventure with The Northstar Manifesto,  a dynamic culture and leadership studio focused on cultivating and nurturing Bonfires with Soul.

Model nature,  be like the Japanese gardener, and let your vision and the effects you want to create inform your strategy and positioning; and you’ll eventually get there. This is what I’ve been learning from my friend and mentor Duke Stump.  His blogs are a great place to think about what ‘bonfires’ you’d like to build around your personal and corporate brands.

Got 2020 Clear Vision?

So, get clear on your vision.

• What effects do you want to create?
• What major milestones do you want to have occurred three years, five years, ten years out!?
• Have you always wanted to learn to play guitar? Perhaps you learned how to play and you’ve always wanted to play in a band?

Whatever your dream is, I encourage and applaud folks to live life by design, wherever possible:

• Tune in to your passion, curiosity,  and talents.
• Have joy,  regardless of the circumstances and challenges
• Put the systems in place to support you
• Any skews in your navigation system you could dial in?
• Enjoy the journey, remember it’s not a sprint, and eventually you will get there.

Most folks over estimate what they can do in a year and under estimate what they can do

in ten.

These road trips are great for making new connections with interesting people and forming mutually beneficial relationships, as my RoadTwip gang did in Nashville. They’re great for finally meeting up with longtime (or not so longtime) online friends in real life, as we did in Toledo. They can give a person some perspective on tech “scenes,” especially in terms of engendering respect for non-Silicon Valley communities.

Even better, it’s great for brands, as our friend Sara Lopez has learned this year while tripping around for soymilk company 8th Continent. Ford recognized the public’s fascination with road trip-related media with its highly successful Fiesta campaign this year, which involved mini-trips and missions documented on YouTube. These trips capture a great audience, both regionally with one-on-one interactions in communities and internationally as curious and amused Internet users stumble upon and share related content. More on that later.

As promised, here are ten must-haves for planning and executing a successful social media road trip.

1. Get sponsorship.

Remember the part where I told you that social media road trips are great for brands? These days, brands are often more than willing to help a geek out with gas money, hardware, goods and services in exchange for a little light plugging now and then. If there’s a good fit between your trip and a brand, from soft drinks to software, don’t hesitate to ask for a partnership.

2. Plan for WiFi.

This might be your biggest challenge. Whether you’re using Bluetooth, a MiFi device, a USB-connected wireless modem or simply tethering to your mobile phone, make sure your preferred method works and that you have a backup. We also recommend downloading WeFi in case your plans fail and you need to find emergency coffee house WiFi in a strange place.

3. Have a mission and destination.

One great piece of advice my road team got from NorthStar Manifesto founder Duke Stump was to define our purpose before our itinerary. Another important part of these trips can be a geographical highlight, such as a conference, a hometown or a tech hub. It’ll solidify your position and help you focus your content.

4. Meet everyone and go everywhere.

Part of the excitement of a social media road trip is accepting unexpected invitations and discovering friends in strangers. Entering into situations with an open mind is the best way to use your trip as a learning experience. While on the road, I met up with just about everyone I could, and I got to see amazing new hardware, apps, innovators and entrepreneurs as a result.

5. Plan for power.

Power is up there with WiFi as one of the primary pain points of being on the road. We recommend packing extra battery units and chargers (you lose them at home, and you’ll most certainly lose them on the road). Definitely invest in a 12V adapter so you can charge devices while mobile, but know that one adapter may only charge a certain number or type of device. E.g., mine can handle a laptop, an iPod, and a curling iron, but on two laptops, it blows a fuse. And yes, you’ll want to pick up a pack of fuses for your 12V adapter, too.

6. Deviate from your plan, map and schedule.

Some of the best moments of my own social media road trips were completely unplanned. Get curious, pull over now and then, make a few extra stops and definitely get in touch with new people. Although it’s vital to have a timeline for your travels, don’t forget to smell the roses; great opportunities will present themselves when you allow for serendipity.

7. Make content creation your job.

The biggest difference between a social media road trip and a non-geek vacation is the work you’ll put into creating and publishing content. You’ll be pumping out pics, videos, tweets, blog posts, live video chats and every kind of app update imaginable while you’re on the road. You need to do this well and consistently. Make sure you’ve got the hardware and software for the job, and since your time on the road is limited, prioritize posting content over lame stuff like eating and sleeping, which isn’t really bloggable, anyhow. (Just kidding – but you know what we mean.)

8. Make sure your network works.

This section isn’t (only) an AT&T slam. Almost any network can let a user down in the uninhabited wilds of Iowa. If you’re traveling with buddies, it can help to have a diverse representation of networks in case one person’s cell reception fails in a critical moment. Also, not all WiFi devices will work all over the country; for example, Cricket’s wireless Internet connection devices only work in certain major metro areas. Check with your provider to make sure your network is going to be reliable for your entire route.

9. Plan for mobile site and server maintenance.

If you are the kind of geek who runs one or several websites or your own servers, you’ll want to keep an eye on your babies while away from home. For this item, it’s all about the SSH. Get a client that jives with your mobile, and as with every other tech solution we’ve recommended so far, test it before you drive off into the sunset.

10. Use an aggregator to push mobile updates all over the place.

Whether you’re using a service like PixelPipe or something more like FriendFeed, you’re going to want your content to get all over the tubes without your having to duplicate your efforts. Test out some solutions for one-click, cross-site publishing of pics, posts and videos, and be sure it’ll be quick and simple from your mobile device.

Those are the words of wisdom I can offer right now, and probably what I’ll be sharing at SxSW in a few months. If you’ve got more helpful hints from your own journeys, please let us know in the comments!

As an eleventh bonus tip, be prepared for failure. Your car will get a flat tire, you’ll argue with your road buddies, you’ll miss a meetup due to weather or oversleeping – things will go horrifically wrong. And in the end, it’ll be just fine anyhow.

Yep that’s Kurty D showing you how to keep you community clean.  C’mon!

So check out this excerpt in a recent Rolling Stone article on Al Gore, and I’m not necessarily a fan or advocating, but read on…

So we’re starting to see the kind of digital democracy you envisioned when you entered Congress as an “Atari Democrat”?

The Internet is now getting close to the stage where it will be possible for it to eclipse television, making it possible for people to really participate in representative democracy. But we’re not there yet. We’re still at a stage where TV is completely dominant in our political culture, which enables those with a lot of money to exercise enormous influence in the political system.

Is that why online activism hasn’t been able to galvanize action on climate change?
It’s the quintessential example of how the broad public interest is directly contrary to the passionately held special interest of large carbon polluters. The entire world is waiting for the United States to get its act together and become a champion for the broad public interest in saving the future of civilization. But the system is still so dysfunctional and the influence of these special interests is so obscenely great that they have paralyzed the political system to the point where it’s not responding to the most powerful public interest of all: survival for future generations.

But can’t the same social-networking tools Obama used to mobilize voters be used by carbon polluters to defend their interests?
I don’t think it’s an accident that every major progressive reform movement is based on the Internet. The nature of the medium is such that it invites new ideas and a regular challenge to orthodoxy. And that’s a good thing for human civilization at this stage of history, where we’re confronting this brand-new reality, where the relationship between the species and the planet has been radically altered. We have to quickly find a new pattern, one that doesn’t continue the process of destroying the ecosphere on which human life depends. Eventually, as the Internet eclipses television, politics will emerge at a higher level of complexity where the individual’s role is restored. But the individual has to fight for it. And the individual has to feel like it’s worth fighting for.

So here’s what I’m thinking…

1) Obviously I’m interested in this conversation, considering I co-founded CitySourced and FreedomSpeaks.  Regardless of what you or I think about Al Gore, what captured my imagination was this notion that “The entire world is waiting for the United States to get its act together and become a champion for the broad public interest in saving the future of civilization.” Is this really true?? If so this is an amazing opportunity for us, especially those of us that live in LA, SF, NY and DC.

2) Al Gore makes this point “But the system is still so dysfunctional and the influence of these special interests is so obscenely great that they have paralyzed the political system to the point where it’s not responding to the most powerful public interest of all: survival for future generations.”  Well, duh!  Our friends at the Sunlight Foundation are doing their best to battle on this front, and I’m sure they’d love your help too.  Follow Sunlight Labs Director Clay Johnson and/or Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s Exec Director to get the real time feed.

3) So Al goes on to make this next point ” Eventually, as the Internet eclipses television, politics will emerge at a higher level of complexity where the individual’s role is restored. But the individual has to fight forit. And the individual has to feel like it’s worth fighting for.” This last point triggers a reminder of a profound and timely quote from Buckminster Fuller that transformed my thinking, “If the livelihood of humanity and of the planet depended on what I did and who I was, what would I do and who would I be?” How do we get folks asking these questions is something I’m interested in finding out.

If you were in charge of designing the  marketing campaign to save humanity from self destruction what/how would you do it??