Thank You for a Great 2008
A year ago today I was booking my trip to Austin for South By Southwest Interactive. In March, I decided to give blogging a try starting with the conference. The nine months since have been nothing short of the most rewarding and challenging in my career.
The biggest reason has been my family, and their unconditional compassion for my interactive afflictions. You, the reader, should know this operation runs on two main ingredients: love (96%), and poop jokes (4%).
With that, a look back:
I hate writing
The problem is, I’m terrible at avoiding it. I’ve unsuccessfully avoided writing somewhere around 170 times this year in blog and industry articles. Many more people have stopped to read it than I could have ever expected. Some have thought enough to comment, or continue conversations over twitter, phone and/or email.
The response has been gratifying and flattering, to say the least. Writing has helped me learn from so many new people, it’s kinda silly.
Rewarding Work
This year folks gave me incredible opportunities to put brand money where my mouth is, and I am truly grateful. Managing the partnership between Emerge and Upshot, we helped launch two US brands (Emmi and Gogo). We created a scalable b2b platform and an Operation Homefront Texas site for Miller (both in Flex). Then there’s Kraft and Cover Girl Lookfab.
The work we did for Visa International was an incredible educaton. Creating widget models for Singapore and Korea continues to shape my thinking. To have a video played as part of the global executive keynote stands as a highlight.
Another company worth mentioning is Consumer Reports. What many people don’t realize is the culture of altruistic advocacy living there. They do important work in our consumer culture.
Social Networking
This was a year I definitely clicked into the dynamics of social networking — which makes sense as an extension of all the portable-computing-as-widget stuff I’ve written on. If someone would have told me in January that I’d have Stumbled over 2,000 pages and sent more than 10,000 Tweets I’d have called them crazy. Yet here we are.
Aside from showing me the first signs of ubiquitous computing, social networks have introduced me to so many people I respect and admire, personally and professionally.
Even better have been the people whom I’ve had the chance to get together with in person. After 2008, I can say there’s a whole crew of people in Chicago, Ottawa, Toronto, NYC, and Miami that I look forward to getting together with and learning more from. Last but not least is home in Philadelphia, where the social media crew has been incredibly thought-provoking and supportive.
You know who you are
There are so many individual people to thank that this one blog post would be clearly ineffective. A crazy year like this one doesn’t happen on its own. Thank you for everything.
I don’t know what kind of antics 2009 has in store. But I’m excited to find out, and for you to be a part of it.
Thanks again!
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