My business partner and I launched CitySourced Sept 2009, so we’ve been at it for just over two years now. In December we announced we closed $1.33 million series A investment round, which has helped us scale the team to over 15 people, up from just Jason and I when we started. We’ve launched some high profile clients this year including Honolulu, San Diego, Abu Dhabi and dozens more worldwide. We’re now in live in 5 countries and have dozens of major partnerships including IBM, Microsoft, & Esri.

Public Speaking. I stepped up my public speaking profile this year, and this video< from the Esri partner conference is a great example. All the work I’ve been doing with Toastmasters, stand up comedy and so on are paying off. Putting myself into more public speaking opportunities was a big priority for me, and the rewards including generating lots of visibility and new business for the company, plus increased confidence in delivering in high stakes situations.

Vancouver Left. On the artistic front, the band I started with my friend Tim Rhodes, Vancouver Left, released a 7 song EP. We had been working on it for a few years, and considering how busy we both are, it’s a minor miracle that we finished it.  You can download it for free. I play electric guitar in this project.  One of the highlights on this project was the caliber of talent that contributed. We were fortunate enough to have Aaaron Embry play keys, Josh Moreau on bass, and Dwayne Larring lent a hand on guitars. What do you think?

Travel. I was able to travel a whole bunch too, and spend time in San Diego, Palm Springs, Mammoth, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, & Texas.  Mexico was the highlight hands down. I was with my pal Kris Krug and some of his friends staying in this cozy brick bungaloo right on the water overlooking a groovy little rock reef surf break. We surfed, played music, ate amazing food, laughed, talked story, and gazed under the stars for four nights. I had a major music breakthrough that led to me diving into jazz guitar study for the remainder of the year. We’re planning another trip July 2012 for a week this time.  The other travel highlight was fishing in the Owens River and Crater Lake with my Dad this Summer. We caught some tasty trout and saw some amazing sunrises and sunsets.

Exercise & Diet. I had a good run with exercise and diet this year. I did over do it though and hurt my knee doing heavy squats. I’ve been on a regime of rest and physical therapy in what’s feeling like a much too long road to recovery. The lesson here is how important it is to maintain form. Shortcuts only slow me down in the long run.

Meditation. Saving the best for last, 2011 also got me into a very consistent meditation practice that gave me the energy and focus to generate these results. Here is a free sample of a 30 min guided meditation that I practice with. The goal of this practice for me is presence / mindfulness and dissolving fear and anxiety.

2012 will be more speaking, music, and business exploits. Who knows maybe some lovely lady will finally get me to slow down.  Only God knows what’s next, and I’m having a blast following my bliss.

]]> Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:48 GMT http://daradics.com/blog/detail/buckminster-fuller-san-quentin-prison-31-jan-1959/ http://daradics.com/blog/detail/buckminster-fuller-san-quentin-prison-31-jan-1959/#id:4470#date:21:26 ]]> Mon, 05 Sep 2011 21:26 GMT http://daradics.com/blog/detail/the-world-is-now-a-global-village/ http://daradics.com/blog/detail/the-world-is-now-a-global-village/#id:4469#date:00:11 Marshall McLuhan was a post modern day prophet. Read his prediction of the internet from 1962, "The next medium, whatever it is it may be the extension of consciousness will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual's encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind" (Marshall McLuhan 1962).

Get 'with it', this short video is worth the few minutes.

Check out this short video of CitySourced Co-Founder Kurt Daradics presenting at the Cityworks 2011 User Conference in St. George, UT.

Good Magazine and What's Trending bring you are "People Are Awesome" segment, which focuses on innovative ideas that will change your digital and real life (CBS/What's Trending) - In this week's What's Trending and Good Magazine's "People are Awesome" segment Kurt Daradics, co- founder of the CitySourced smart phone app, explains the app and all that it can do to raise civic awareness.

Meeting Geography Pioneer Roger Tomlinson at Esri HQ was a memory. We had some fun telling jokes, talking about koala bears, and hearing the story about how Roger and Jack Dangermond met in Santa Barbara in the late 60's.

Now I just need to pick up a copy of Thinking About GIS

Presenting to the 2500+ partners at the Esri Partner Conference was another milestone for me. I was able to speak from the heart about our vision to transform civic engagement.The positive feedback was humbling and encouraging.

What seems to be capturing folks imagination is our BIG vision and our strategy of building products for the mobile and web that take the friction out of the of the process. It is clearer than ever how Esris vision to make the world a better place is perfectly aligned with ours.

This photo highlights another moment with Jack Dangermond, Scott Morehouse, & our partner manager Myles Sutherland.

"This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the happiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and at least indeavour to promote those two primary objects of human existance, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestowed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself." Meriwether Lewis