november 2007

For those of you who are not my wife or who work with me at one of the 2 places I frequent, I have been extremely busy these days and am on the verge, like 11:30 this morning, of putting an end to it and piling the majority of my time back into 1 full time endeavor instead of 2. Not sure yet which one that will be.

The past 4 months have been an absolute whirlwind and between spending time with family and the 2 endeavors I formerly spoke of, I have been completely neglecting myself. I don’t play Frisbee any more, house hold projects aren’t getting done, I have put back on 10 pounds of the 30 I had lost in the past year (prior to the past 4 months) and I don’t even know what friends are anymore.

As far as cycles go, mine are completely out of whack. In fact, I would presently consider myself in the middle of an anti-cycle.

Funny thing about cycles. Everyone has them and a wise man once told me that cycles need busting, good or bad.

A bout a week ago I decided that I needed to make some hard decisions in order to be fair to my family, my employees, my clients and most importantly myself. No sooner had I done that than one of my good friends and marketing hipster came back online and started blogging again. His first post back was about cycles and timing no doubt!

Little did I know that without his dialog, I had been missing an important voice in my life.

A couple of days ago, I was in bed and all of a sudden I began to miss another important voice that had inspired me from March 17, 2006 to March 17, 2007. Ze Frank is a creatively inspiring power house. I don’t know him like I do Cord but he is also a motivating force in my life. I was thinking, “Man, I wish Ze would start vlogging again”. I’m not sure what made me think about it, it’s just with all the stress lately, I needed a release.

Then, on today of all days, when I am stressed to wits end and my body is actually showing physically painful symptoms of my mental strain, He answers my prayers with this. (As an Athiest, answering my prayers is a hard thing to do)

This gave me a boost and reminded me that no matter what is going on, I need not be stressed and that no matter what happens today, I have 2 strong directions to travel. Either one is a big step in the right direction and either one will bring plenty of challenges and rewards.

Wish me luck!

Take Home Quiz:

How have your cycles been lately? Do you think Ze is back for another year?

I set up this code a good while ago but recently realized that I needed to be sharing this information with the general public.

Basically, If you want to track an external link in Google Analytics as a goal or just to know what’s happening, here is some code to get it done.

Code for JS incude function goNow(location, linkType){ urchinTracker("/aff-link/" + linkType); //document.location = location; window.open(location); }

Code for your header in every page (remove spaces in open and closing script tags) < script src="/javascripts/aff-track.js" type="text/javascript">< /script>

Code for your links(remove spaces in open and closing a tags) < a href="javascript:void(0);" onClick="goNow(' http://www.site.com/affvar=AFFID','linkID');">Link Text< /a >

Use the linkID for whatever you want to show up to differentiate different link types. It will show up in GA as a page load for www.site.com/aff-link/linkID

Once you get it working, you can set up www.site.com/aff-link/ as a goal page with a $$ value.

Good luck and happy tracking.

A couple of weeks ago I finally caved and joined the new Killer Social Media App for Online Marketers Gooruze.

About 20 hours and 2 weeks later, I won a $500 AdWords credit and am ranked #12 out of a thousand. So far, so cool. At this point it’s a fun site and I am learning a lot about the correct way to launch a social media app.

I even got some love from the Marketing Pilgrim himself. (A founding member of Gooruze)

Then, they asked if they could use a quote from a recent blog post I wrote about Gooruze to announce the win. Again, no problem. I was actually quite flattered and IMHO it was a nice little metaphor.

Here is the part of the post they pulled from.

In order to ensure success you need:

• People with a shared passion (interest isn’t enough)
• A clear UI
• Participation Incentives

But what’s different about Gooruze that has me acting like Tyrone Biggums?

• They are focused on MY passion. On-Line Marketing.
• They targeted the right people in the industry to be a part of the founding community members to seed the site before even the beta launch.

That being said, I’m hooked.

Then, I log on and see this.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, seeing my face in a banner ad kind of creeps me out.

I’m still excited about the site, the win, that they are using my quote all over the site, the pats on the back from my online marketing buddies and the fun project I am going to do with the prize but seeing my face in a banner ad just creeps me out.

Here is the banner.

Does this creep you out?

Have you ever had an experience where online attention made you uncomfortable?

Post Script:

Another thing that makes sense but also creeps me out a little is that no one associated with or in Gooruze is linking to my personal or my company blog in association with my quote. I clearly link to it form my profile but I guess they want to keep their link juice all in the family.

A little outbound linking never killed anyone did it?

Wouldn’t it add some umph to the testimonial if Adam Schultz, CEO of Bold Interactive had said that wonderfully creative metaphor?

Post Script Update:

The amazing Bealdini “hooked me up the bomb” by updating his post with a sweet juicy link. I guess the english aren’t so bad after all. CHEERS!

For those of you who are as of yet unawares, Heather and I are expecting our second child. It is due early in March 08. We are leaving the Sex of the baby a surprise.

Say hello to the newest member of the Schultz family.