You have to be brave with your life so that others can be brave with theirs.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Steve Jobs

Wednesday, March 23 was my last day as an employee of Engauge. It was a friendly parting. In short, it wasn’t the best fit for either one of us. Nothing but happy thoughts. What have I been doing since this separation? Relaxing. Refocusing. It’s been lovely.

Jeff Hilimire, Engauge’s Chief Digital Officer, who recruited me and ran the Digital Innovation Group, once called me a free spirit. These feelings are echoed in a few blog posts published on my personal blog back in February when I hit a particularly frustrating block at work. I’ve since readdressed these frustrations and testaments to decipher the “why”. What caused this position and how could I avoid falling back into it moving forward? By making a few changes.

The Non-Traditional (aka “Scary”) Approach

My friends and family know I haven’t exactly taken a traditional or safe approach to life to date.

Some examples:
- I dropped out of six Advanced Placement/International Baccalaureate courses my senior year of high school to accept a Marketing Coordinator position in the music industry, opting to complete a GED instead of graduating.
- I co-founded and lead marketing initiatives for a nationally distributed record label through eleven albums at nineteen years old.
- I became a certified lifeguard with no previous non-recreational swimming experience.
- I recently drove 5000 miles by myself across 32 states and Canada during two weeks of deep winter.

These are the stories that typically gain me incredulous stares, admiration or eye-rolling. Who does these things? Plenty of people. I’m by no means alone in my drive or impulse. The more I read of others’ similarly atypical experiences and lives, the more I want to pursue myself. Commence the finger pointing at Tim Ferriss, Chris Guillebeau, and the like.

Adventures Ahead

What’s next? A voyage towards finding my best fit. How do I do this? Stop taking the safe approach. Begin taking bigger risks. Stop doing what people tell me I should be doing. Do what is best for me. I’m starting with a one-way plane ticket to Spain. I have family in Barcelona I have never met and hear it is a fantastic city, especially for young people. From there, I have allocated roughly the following five months to cities around Europe and Asia, with possible stops in Jordan, Canada and the States.

For Hire

I plan to pursue remote contract and freelance projects to fund my travels, in addition to my initial fund. See LinkedIn and my bio for information on my experience and qualifications. References are available.

Examples of contract/freelance work you could hire me for:
- Strategy (digital, social, mobile, search, experiential)
- Creative (user experience, copywriting, web design)
- Development (front-end, blogs, soon: iPhone)
- Social Media (analytics, research, process, infrastructure/workflow)
- Publicity (blogger outreach)

I intend to only take on a maximum of two projects at a time, dependent on scope, and must be able to work remotely. This is to ensure I can deliver quality without latching myself to a 9-5 or 40 hour working week, as that would cheat my adventure. I am open to brands, agencies, startups and local businesses alike. I want to help you achieve your goals while pursuing my own.

I may be crazy. I may run out of money. I may never come back. I may find my best fit. I’m working on the logistics right now of what to do with my car, apartment, and expenses. I’m very excited to begin this adventure because as the saying goes, even if I fall short, I haven’t landed in a terrible place. At any point, I am free to stop. I can go back to Atlanta. I can pursue a new home. I can commit to new directions.

This year I volunteered to be an iReporter for CNN at SXSW. The concept was to “demystify” the conference and in my seventh year attending, I felt qualified to help portray this. The hitch? I’m a bit of a video amateur. It’s an area I’ve been dying to get more experience in so I jumped with two feet into this opportunity and hurriedly borrowed a video camera and tripod to bring with me to Austin.

Cue SXSW overload. What was I thinking? I already have difficulties managing my schedule with so many options, the last thing I had time to do was teach myself any video and it was too awkward to carry around to many places when it wasn’t my primary focus. On top of this, I was having issues getting into the CNN Lounge to upload the bits of video I did take and join the relevant meetings. I ended up contacting Lila from iReport to tell her I wasn’t going to be able to contribute, which I felt terrible about but she assured me they had plenty of content.

Here is a great video from CNN, “SXSW By The Numbers,” that still credits me in the end which I don’t quite deserve. Props to those who did contribute… and much respect! I will work on my video skills in a less stressful environment and be better prepared for badassery next year.

It is longtime common practice for SXSW Music attendees to jump in a car with a few friends (or bandmates) and trek down to Austin mid-March. Over the past couple years, marketers and startups have been enabling geeks to follow suit with scavenger hunts and tours across their respective paths to Texas. Below are a few I’m interacting with this year.

Judging the Chevy SXSW Roadtrip Challenge

Last March, I led a team of Atlantans on Chevy’s scavenger hunt roadtrip to SXSW completing a wide range of activities along the way, racing against a handful of other teams from across the country. This year, I’m still in the action — I will be judging the entries from this year’s teams. The 2011 teams hit the road tomorrow and will continue their tasks and travel through the end of the day on Thursday!

Our Revolution! social good tour hits Atlanta Mon, March 7

“Sparked by the need to share the social good that is occurring in the world, Revolution! Road trip will connect these sustainable models and  the innovators who are creating them in totally new and wildly playful ways. Our trip is designed to change the world — and will be curated by a team of award-winning creatives and entrepreneurs  with more than a decade’s experience making breakthrough social, independent and grassroot change.”

Engauge is hosting Boxee’s Atlanta Meetup Wed, March 9

From Boxee’s blog: “We’d love to meet up and talk with users and developers. We’ll give an update about where Boxee is, and where we are headed, but hope to spend most of the time talking with you, answering questions, and generally having a good time meeting new people . We can talk about Boxee, movies, music, beer, art, programming, entrepreneurship, coffee…. we’re open to pretty much anything.”

StartupBus (Update: Miami StartupBus drinks is Tue, March 8 and NYC StartupBus Atlanta Breakfast is Wed, March 9!)

Ever get into a discussion over drinks with friends and later learn that idea became a reality? That is what happened here for me. I met Elias Bizannes at a party, randomly bumped into StartupBus online and soon learned they were one and the same and in their second year. Teams of entrepreneurs hit the road on the way to SXSW and try to develop and launch a startup before arriving in Austin. Follow their voyage along at #startupbus.

I created this for the team at Engauge but received many requests to share. Hope this gets you started and let me know if you have any questions! See you at SXSW.

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Update 3/4/2011: Slideshare has featured my presentation on their How-To & DIY page. Thanks guys.
Update 3/5/2011: It is now one of the most tweeted presentations and featured on the front page! Thanks again.

I’m a total geek. What did I dress up as for Halloween this year? Why the Twitter bird, of course! I even made my own custom tweet to carry around with me.

My costume:

Happy New Decade! (We are all tired of hearing “New Year” at this point.)

WHERE I’VE BEEN

Things have been very busy over at THINK, in addition to co-founding and organizing the inaugural WordCamp Atlanta with Brandon Sheats, one of my perpetual partners-in-crime, and moving to a very cute new apartment in the Poncey-Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta. I also didn’t seem to be able to stay away and, as of a couple months ago, have rejoined the Atlanta Rollergirls, flat-track roller derby league.

While I’m catching up on things, here is a quick run-down of my upcoming speaking engagements.

UPCOMING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
January 9
WordCamp Atlanta (Atlanta, GA)
Making Your Blog Your Business: Scale & Monetization

January 11
Social Fresh Nashville (Nashville, TN)
Social Media in the Music Industry (10:30am)
Corporate Blogging (5:30pm)

January 29
SoCon 2010 (Kennesaw, GA)
Blog Monetization (not yet titled)

February 8
Social Fresh Tampa (Tampa, FL)
(panel to be announced)

March 12-17
SXSW Interactive (Austin, TX)
The State of Music Blogs in 2010

March 29
Social Fresh Portland (Portland, OR)
(panel to be announced)

If you’re looking for a speaker for your upcoming event or conference, I’d love to be a part of it. Feel free to contact me about availability.

DIGITALUTIONS FOR A NEW DECADE

Phew! Now that most of the catching up is taken care of, here are my “digitalutions” for the new decade. My digitalutions are my digital resolutions (see what I did there?) that I am going to try my best to keep up with over the new few years or so. Each of the resolutions are influenced, if not powered by, my digital presence and interactions. My resolutions usually trend around a 60% long-term achievement rate which I am pleased with — let’s hope the same is possible for these longer term goals.

1. 1. BLOG DAILY
   It doesn’t have to be on the same blog every day but contribute at least one thought-out post per day. Between TessaHorehled.com, Drive A Faster Car, Tumblr and a small handful of other niche ones I’ve collected, I should never fall short of subject content.
2. 2. TAKE ENOUGH BREAKS AND SLEEP REGULARLY
   Nothing good comes from a lack of proper downtime.  I often sacrifice sleep because I tend to get very project-oriented in the middle of the night when there isn’t half as much incoming email, text messages, tweets, phone calls and other communication. Take two steps back from the computer, phone and every other potential gadget.
3. 3. SPEAK MORE
   I enjoy speaking and attending conferences/events very much because it offers a terribly unique environment for learning, networking and socializing. They’re almost little microcosms of the social web reflecting very similar offline (and mobile) behavior and roles.  Public speaking is something I have done a fair bit but a skill I would like to spend more time sharpening.
4. 4. SPEND MORE TIME ON DRIVE A FASTER CAR
   I have very big long-term plans for Drive A Faster Car and a detailed plan for how it will all be executed.  Unfortunately, I tend to stay pretty busy and DaFC is usually the first to suffer when things get stressful.  I need to determine the best way to tackle this massive but deserving project effectively without sacrificing my other activities.

What are your digitalutions for the year or decade? Any bad habits?

Today I have an exciting announcement — I have accepted a full-time position with the Atlanta-based “interactive idea agency” THINK Interactive as Senior Strategist, Social Media. I have been working in-house at the agency over the past month to see whether this would be a good fit for both myself and THINK and am very much looking forward to seeing what our future together develops into with this new step.

Since 1994, THINK has focused on helping companies and brands increase the value of their digital investments. The shop’s services entail digital strategy, digital experience design and delivery, digital marketing media and campaigns, and digital channel measurement.

My role as a Senior Strategist is focused on Social Media and encompasses activities such as social research and strategy, management of social research tools and thought leadership in the interactive and social community. Along with client initiatives, I will also be leading internal education at THINK — broadening our overall understanding of the evolving social media landscape, trends and best practices, as well as sharpening up THINK’s social presence.

It was over 500 days from being laid off during Super Deluxe‘s merger with [adult swim] before I was able to find a company and position that could motivate and excite me as much as my role at SDXE. THINK has casted this opportunity for me and I am eager to become a part of their growing team.

Last night was the inaugural IgniteATL!

About Ignite

Started by Brady Forrest, Technology Evangelist for O’Reilly Media, and Bre Pettis of Etsy.com, formerly of MAKE Magazine, Ignite was inspired by Pecha Kucha Nights, where speakers are given 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds, giving each speaker 6 minutes and 40 seconds of fame. The first Ignite took place in Seattle in 2006, and since then the event has become an international phenomenon, with gatherings in Helsinki, Finland; Paris, France; New York, New York; and many other locations.

Ignite has two parts: the Ignite contest, where people make things, and Ignite talks, where presenters get 20 slides and five minutes to make their point. You can opt to only have talks, but the contest is fun and can serve as a great warm-up for the talks.

I helped organize the event with Colin Ake, Michael Mealling and Brandy Nagel and had almost 500 people RSVP for this kickoff event! The crowd gathered at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in Midtown excited and curious of what the evening had in store.

We saw presentations about everything from beer to liquid nitrogen and transportation to artificial intelligence! Huge thanks to all of our sponsors, especially MailChimp who enabled our great afterparty at Octane Coffee. An official wrap-up of the event will be over on the IgniteATL site soon with links to the presentations, photos, and video coverage of each.

In addition to my help coordinating the event, I also contributed a presentation on “How To Identify A New Media Douchebag (And Save Yourself From Becoming One).” I don’t have video of it yet but below are the slides with commentary — some of which I got to during the presentation, some of which I didn’t (numbered in coordination with slides)! I definitely need to practice with the 15 second time restraint before my next Ignite presentation.

2. You really think you know more than everyone else? Nothing left to learn? Does your intellectual discipline manifest as a divine incarnation? On whose authority?
3. Yeah… because you attract spam bots with the amount of trending topics you partake in and social media lingo you drop. It’s about quality, not quantity. Forget the numbers and pay attention to the value.
4. My Twitter team twold me to twost a twerrific tweetup! He twit. He twat. He twot.
5. Yes! We saw that post you made on Facebook. And FriendFeed. And Twitter. And Digg. And Tumblr. And…
6. Always armed with Flip cam, iPhone, Blackberry/Android/Palm Pre, MacBookPro, digital SLR, USB modem, etc. Always flashes socially and will eagerly discuss with anyone. So where’s the content again?
7. It doesn’t always fit. Just because you have seen it done, know the tools and have read all the critics and evangelists, doesn’t mean you know how to apply those to a company.
8. There’s a big difference between SEO copy, SEM copy, tweets, Facebook status updates, blog content, mailing list content, and so forth. Stop and rethink while considering the format, audience and function before your next communication effort.
9. The 250 is a term “describing the small, cliquey group of self-appointed Web 2.0 insiders who seem to spend their days blogging and Twittering about each other” giving off the appearance that they feel they are “the only people who matter.”
10. Don’t model yourself after this idea and create your own cliques. There’s much less room for fresh ideas, innovation and growth when you’re in bubble.
11. Read or don’t read. Learn. Form your own opinion. Relate it to your own efforts. Don’t imitate.
12. Who would you rather have a drink with? Who would you be able to learn more from? I’d choose the Snakeoil Salesman — at least he has his own stories.
14. These sheep hide easily and many don’t even realize that they are sheep. Look for those with past experience, who work hands-on with fit metrics designed to drive results, and have developed their own roadmaps and processes.
15. Don’t try to impress — try to help. If you are being hired, that is what your client is looking for.
16. Metrics are unique to every project and effort within. What do they mean in relation to these? Does it affect your next steps? Should it?
17. This is where the magic and progress occurs.
18. Not all social networks are created equal. The type of messaging that may be appropriate for one platform, doesn’t necessarily fit on another. Observe and learn the differences.
19. The social web is developing rapidly and because of this, there is always something to learn. Be open to listening to others and evaluating their points before dismissing.