In a quick change of events, I am going to be spending another week in California. Specifically, I’ll be busy with some meetings Monday, the On Hollywood conference from Tuesday until Thursday, and then podcasting on the weekend.

I’m curious if anyone’s going to be at OnHollywood and looking for a roommate :)

It’s pretty nice out here in San Francisco for the moment. The people ain’t bad either :). This is a quick reminder that tomorrow night, I’m arranging a little Happy Hour.

We’ll be at a place called 21st Amendment. Here’s the info and link:

21st Amendment Brewery Cafe
(415) 369-0900
(415) 369-0909
563 2nd St
San Francisco, CA 94107

I’d link to the calendar invitation, but, well, I’m not smart enough to work through Google’s insanely difficult process of creating links to their events.

If you want to come, please send me an e-mail: greg AT syncpeople DOT com or just show up :)

I’m here in San Francisco, planning to tour ad:tech for the next couple of days. If you’re in town, or here for the show, let’s try to meet up. Shoot me an e-mail: greg AT syncpeople DOT com.

Hope to see you.

I was writing more this morning and then Firefox crashed on me - what a pain. I’ve been busy working on presentation files and other arrangements all day so I haven’t had a chance to come back and write.

It’s 2am. My flights in 5 hours, I’m leaving in 4. This is the first trip out of 4 (5 if you count LA) in the next month. I’m not looking forward to all the time away, but, well, it’s part of getting what we need done.

See you all on the Left side.

Worst part is there’s 4 flights not listed on there since I have to punish through on OTHER airlines - bleh.

I’m planning on attending the Mesh Conference in Toronto next month. I think I’ve bought more than 1K in plane tickets in the last few weeks so I’m considering driving up to save some cash.

That is doubly annoying since I have to be in Toronto the week before to do some podcasting for a client’s conference but MUST be back on Saturday for my cousin’s Wedding Vow Renewal thingy.. I was originally planning on staying through to make my life easier.

In any event, I’ve got a car but no license to speak of (long story - don’t ask). I’m wondering if anyone from NYC is considering going and would want to drive up on Sunday May 14th. I have to come back pretty much at the end of the conference so I can make my plane to Salt Lake.

Sooo… any takers? Shoot me an e-mail: greg AT syncpeople DOT com

I’ll be in the Bay Area from April 25th - May 1st. My schedule is pretty booked at this point in time, but I am definitely looking to meet many new friends while in town. I’m specifically looking to talk to folks involved with microformats, music, and pr. If you’re in one or more of those buckets - ping me.

Here’s the tentative schedule:

• Tuesday, April 25th - Random Meetings
• Wednesday, April 25th - ad:tech
• Thursday, April 27th - ad:tech
• Friday, April 28th - Random Meetings / Happy Hour Madness
• Saturday, April 29th - Strategy Consulting Numero Uno
• Sunday, April 30th - Strategy Consulting Part Deux
• Monday, May 1 - SJC -> LAX -> OAK -> JFK - nuff said.

Now I’ve not messed with Google Calendar much, but I figure I will try it now. I’ve created a special calendar for this trip. It’s located here:

As best I understand, you can add this calendar to your own and then schedule time for us to meet. Pretty neat if it works. Give it a shot.

And in case it don’t work - send me an e-mail -> greg AT syncpeople DOT com.

I won’t bother you with the blur that is my life (not yet anyway) but it’s worth pointing out three key sets of data that have come about in the last couple of weeks that show us just how fast the universe we call home is expanding.

State of the Blogosphere

Well, if there was any question, it’s answered. There’s more and more blogs in the world every second of every day. Dave Sifry gives us the first installment of his State of the Blogosphere. Here are the summary bullets:

• Technorati now tracks over 35.3 Million blogs
• The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
• It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
• On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
• 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
• Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour

Podcasting Market Update

This subset of the whole social media world is growing like mad. Despite reports that no one’s listening, there’s plenty of people making stuff it seems. Feedburner, the mavericks of RSS tracking, report they are managing more than 44,000 podcast feeds - wow. But there’s more:

• FeedBurner alone manages more podcasts than there are radio stations worldwide (yep, we looked it up)
• Podcasting is outpacing the speed of adoption of the last “most successful consumer product launch in history” (more on that in a minute)
• Podcast directories are growing, and driving activity back to podcasters’ originating Web sites. As we saw with text feeds, distribution begins as a mechanism to drive traffic back to the originating source and then evolves to become its own consumption medium

Alternative Media Outlook Looks Promising

A little week back or so, PQ Media made waves as they released their new study that took a look at the future of Alternative Media (you know, blogging, podcasting, RSS). As someone who’s building a company around monetizing this sort of content, it was encouraging to see some numbers (mostly since investor-types get excited by this).

The Center for Media Research leaks some of the details from the Executive Summary:

• User-generated media remains primarily national in scope with 98.1%, or $20.0 million, of all advertising spending coming from the broader market in 2005
• Advertising networks and click-throughs are the largest ad insertion methods, generating $8.0 million and $7.8 million, respectively
• Blog advertising accounted for 81.4%, or $16.6 million, of total spending on user-generated online media in 2005, but blog ads will comprise only 39.7%, or $300.4 million, of overall spending in 2010
• Podcast advertising totaled only $3.1 million in 2005, but is projected to reach $327.0 million in 2010, when it will account for 43.2% of all user-generated media advertising
• Spending on RSS (Really Simple Syndication) advertising totaled $650,000 in 2005 and will grow to $129.6 million in 2010
• Total spending on user-generated online media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 106.1% from 2005 to 2010, reaching $757.0 million in 2010

With all this news, it makes me wonder how long you can deny that things are changing in ways we didn’t necessarily anticipate. We used to talk about this thang as life on the edges. Maybe Stowe’s had it right all along - the edge is folding in on the center.

I’ve written a couple of posts in the last few days that really drive at some of the decisions and choices I’ve had to make in the past few weeks - and years if you want to be literal. My schedule continues to get more and more packed as the week goes by, but there’s something inside of me that really needs to get this one last sentiment out. So here it is.

It seems that so often, we find ourselves shipwrecked at the end of some voyage, be it personal, business, social, or some messy offspring of them. For the majority of my life, I’d say that I found myself trying to make reason out of things - seeking out a means to justify the results of that voyage. It was one particular voyage, however, that finally corrected my course.

Since the day I was born, I suppose, my father had quite high expectations for me. He was a successful entrepreneur but always wanted more for his two youngest sons. I was destined to be a doctor. I did all the motions in my attempts to satisfy his vision, but ultimately, I chose the road less traveled - the one often walled by isolation and disappointment, and pursued my current career path.

I can vividly remember my first approach to the problem - RUN. I can stil hear my older brother’s advice the night I called him contemplating just picking up and heading west. Naturally, he advised that I should just talk to Pops. Nonetheless, the fear of disappointing him was greater than that of leaving everything I knew. Ironically enough, though, it was my dad who conceded first. We were on the phone when he half asked me “So what are you thinking, you might not want to go?” I don’t know if he was giving me that opportunity or was just testing the edges, but I lurched towards it like the first morsel of sanity I had seen in years.

I’m sure I heard the sigh come from him in that moment. I remember, as well, my mom telling me how broken my dad was and the shame that fell on them with my decision. Yes, shame. They had made promises with my future and I let them down. It was something hard to reconcile. The over-achiever, straight A, scholarship son was a shame. A milestone, to say the least.

For the next few years, I worked furiously to prove that I had chosen the right path. Idea after idea, business after business - the only reward I sought was approval in their eyes.

In May of 1999, I got my break. Our small company had been approached for acquisition by a major automotive group. We were in talks with one of the largest providers of web sites to dealerships as well. I was close to cashing in and proving that I had done good. So close I could taste it.

In May of 1999, I was broken as well. The morning of the 18th, I rushed to the hospital, hours too late, unfortunately, to say goodbye to my dad. I can still hear the thoughts oscillating in my head as the car drove there “He’s strong, he’ll be fine. My God, he’s gone.” as I hid my tears from the cab driver. When I finally arrived in the room, to see him there in the bed, I was beside myself. Rattling in my mind is a thought that at least he knew I was about to make it - odd I thought at the time, but so natural now.

Later that month, the deal fell apart. Everything was lost. I spent more than enough months quite depressed that I had failed him, failed myself. I didn’t know how to settle the events, how to get closure and let my own life go on. I was lost.

Release and closure are related terms, but not one and the same in my book. Release is the act of letting go, closure is the result of that act. I’ll share a quote that came to me just today, as fate would have it:

It stems from the way traps were set for monkeys. A coconut was hollowed out through an opening that was cut to the size of a monkey’s open hand. Rice was then placed in the carved-out fruit which was left in the path of the monkeys. Sooner or later, a hungry monkey would smell the rice and reach its hand in. But once fisting the rice, its hand could no longer fit back out through the opening. The monkeys that were caught were those who would not let go of the rice.

As long as the monkey maintained its grip on the rice, it was a prisoner of its own making. The trap worked because the monkey’s hunger was the master of its reach. The lesson for us is profound. We need to always ask ourselves, What is our rice and what is keeping us from opening our grip and letting it go?

My own release came in understanding the nature of closure. I think we often look for external sources for closure, but I’m convinced it can only come from within. I was in the situation where there would never be an answer, never a second opinion. If I could not uncover a way on my own, I would be trapped in the same prism. It was then that I released myself of the constraints. I chose, on my own, to not define myself in terms of my dad’s definitions. I chose, on my own, to accept the strengths and weaknesses I had - not the ones he perceived. I chose to release the rice.

In that moment, everything was different. I was at peace with my dad. I was at peace with our circumstance. I’ve been the same since then, some 7 years now.

This notion has applied in may other places since then, and I am sure it will continue to serve me going forward. Recently, we changed gears and focus with our company, literally shelving months of work and thousands of dollars to pursue what we knew was the right path. It was a difficult decision, but there was really no choice in the matter.

The question left to you all, now, is simple. What are you holding on to that should, could, must be released? What is your rice? What is holding your grip?

Well, I’ve been home for a week straight so that means it’s time to start thinking about my next trip (haha, it’s scary that’s almost true).

I’m considering heading out to the Bay Area, specifically to attend the ad:tech conference on April 26-28th. I’m also hoping to poke my head into the Startup School happening in Stanford on Saturday, April 29th.

My goal with the trip is to continue conversations about x:posted and to begin to meeting with individuals, companies and other organizations that are considering utlizing social media as a source for their content needs.

I’m contemplating coming out on the 25th and and leaving on the 1st. If you’re curious about what we’re doing and would like to know more, please let me know.

Update: Did I say forming? It’s officially booked. Now time to put the meetings on the calendar.

Well, it seems I have more life lessons in me than I planned this week, but I think it’s important to let the things flow out as they bubble up.

Yesterday, I mentioned the value of milestones and their smaller sibling, the breadcrumb. I received a few comments from different people that know me - some online and some offline. My favorite, and part of why I love the guy so much, was from Bre Pettis. I got a call from Bre around 5PM as he was heading home. He really could relate to what I wrote, but, more importantly, he cared what happened.

Naturally, I gave him the complete low-down and he fully understood. The most challenging part of yesterday’s post was weaving it into a lesson, avoiding it’s more natural posture as a rant. Anyway, Bre made a great comment: “Milestones are for passing, nothing else.” I agree wholeheartedly.

But today - I want to talk about dialog. I don’t mean it in the “blogging is conversation” approach - I am talking about the good old fashioned version where people talk to each other, sometimes even face to face. It’s another one of those critical building blocks to life.

Last week, it’s clear that the progress we made really can only be attributed to our ability to communicate our ideas to each other. I don’t care what 37 Signals says about meetings, I’ll never turn down the opportunity to really explain something to one of my partners. I’ve yet to find that talking it through has led to a worst product - though I’ve seen plenty of instances where the lack of it has led to complete chaos.

But there’s another kind of dialog that’s, really, more important. It’s the dialog that happens between people, not partners. It’s the dialog, often unspoken, that’s communicated between two people when they share something - an interest, a passion, a history. This dialog is what sustains us. Without it, our milestones are meaningless. Though we may reach some designated position, we need to talk to each other to contextualize it, to give it the proper weight.

Ultimately, only one rule prevails in these types of dialogs - say it like it is and say it as soon as possible. Last week, I learned just what happens when too too much time passes without dialog. I suppose it’s not the first time I’ve had this reminder, and it most likely won’t be the last, but in the spirit of appreciating those pesky milestones, I’m making note of it.

Are there conversations you’ve neglected? What would happen if you had them? What will happen if you never do?