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In his post “Going, Going, Gone Social in 2009”, Joe Loong started with “The end of the year is as good of a time as any to look back at what you’ve done, and this is triply true for bloggers.” I can say with full certainty that he’s absolutely right.
As I look back on my 2009, mainly on blogging for Network Solutions, it is with a bit of a heavy heart that this is my last post with GrowSmartBusiness, and for blogging for Network Solutions as a whole. It’s not for a lack of want on my part, but my focus is in one thousand places at once. Thanks to Shashi and Steve, I get an opportunity to explain what I mean rather than fade off into the background.
During the entirety of this last year, working with Steve, I’ve been working on a passion project that merges all of my loves (story telling, marketing, design, social media, movies, and science fiction (look…if you didn’t know I was a geek by now…)) into a great philanthropic adventure by creating a not-for-profit independent feature length film, “Browncoats: Redemption”. The focus of that film is to create fundraising opportunities, and raise awareness for, for five charities (Equality Now, Kids Need to Read, Dyslexia Foundation, the Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center, and the Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation) to date we have raised over six thousand dollars and brought people from all over the United States together for some amazing volunteer work. I’m proud to say Network Solutions has been behind Steve and I from the start and is one of the sponsors of the project. Their hosting package and domain help has been critical for a website about the film, browncoatsmovie.com.
Also back in June, I accepted a full time position at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation as their Emerging Media Manager. This is going to give me a great opportunity to roll up my sleeves and show them the enthusiasm, passion, and knowledge of marketing, design, and social media that I talked about here. It’s a great organization and I am truly excited. I will have a lot to do, but some of the fun is that I help raise awareness of their actions, and cause, on their Twitter account @chesapeakebay and other social media avenues, as well as assisting with the technical side of their website cbf.org.
As you can imagine all of this has taken up a huge amount of my time and, more than once, caused me to miss some critical deadlines with my postings here. Like I said, I’d rather make sure someone that can be a bit more diligent than I try to be greedy and just take this spot. I would rather leave a door open to come back and guest post than wait till I’ve pushed it too far and have burnt a bridge. I also know that the content here on GrowSmartBusiness is solid and will continue to grow under Steve Fisher’s watchful eye.
I hope to connect with you sometime down the road and here your thoughts on my past posts. You might have learned something new, riff off of one of my topics, or even got inspired by one of them to do something new yourself. If you would like to keep following what I’m doing, you can reach me on my website wickedjava.com, on Twitter @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.
And one last thing, I am asking you to make me a promise. In 2010, do something, just one thing, you’ve all ways wanted to accomplish and see it through to the end. Regardless of what people say (please make sure it’s legal), win or loose…I can’t begin to tell you how great a feeling that is.
As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.
This year has been one of massive changes for small businesses. We started this year in the middle of what has been the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Many people are calling this period “The Great Recession” because of the convergence of economic forces the impact across the planet and the length of time that this downturn has been going on. Only now are some sectors seen an improvement but we are still faced with higher unemployment, massive federal debt and the prospect of stability still a ways away. In order for small businesses to grow you need three things – stability, predictability and reasonable access to capital.
Ok, so you have your billion dollar idea and you have a few trusted people that want to build this product and a few advisors to help you along the way. Most great ideas sit on the shelf because they are lacking in one thing – money. The second thing is execution but if you don’t have money you usually can only execute things so far. We have gathered a few great resources to help you get the basics down.
When I started my first business it was obviously brand new and banks do not usually lend or give you credit cards until you are about 2 years old. I ended up using many personal cards and extending my credit cards up to $80-100K in revolving credit. I know, that’s insane but that was the go-go days of the Internet boom. Eventually as all of you know, the bubble burst and those credit cards need to be paid – by me alone. Luckily, the balances were low and we had enough cash flow to pay almost everything off before I had to lay everyone off after 9/11. I spent the next year paying the remaining cards off and closing the accounts promising never to do that again.
