Escape artist

Strong and brave and inspiring and unafraid

Heroes live on, transcending space and time.

Embedded in the soul of the world

Forever on down the line.

Austen Everett's spirit will always inspire me.  What an incredible person.

To learn to sail

To learn to move and be moved; to trust yourself to trust the elements. Positioning yourself to make the most of what you're dealt. 

Moving, being moved; sailing, racing, relaxing, enjoying the ride. Without control, without concern.

Alamere Falls and the non-existent Bay Area winter

Super Bowl Sunday (February 5th) and still we've only had a few days of rain this winter. It feels like late spring and I'm sure all is not well in our eco-system.

Since I can't make it rain and am not the type to sit inside, I took advantage of the warm, dry day and headed to the Palomarin Trail, probably my favorite day hike in Marin. The sets of waves were suspiciously consistent, steadily crashing into shore at a therapeutic cadence.

Past the rope swing at Bass Lake and out to the falls we went. The poison oak was just beginning to sprout leaves and irises were popping up in all shades of purple.

Somehow there was enough water to create the usual spectacular cascading waterfall that spilled onto the quartz-filled beach, fighting back meagerly against the salted ocean waves.



Falls and flowers checked off the list, we headed back the way we came and drove off just in time to see the sun disappear glowing into the sea.



Want to experience this? Go through the small town of Bolinas to the Palomarin Trail. Start before noon, bring lunch, a swimsuit & towel, long pants and a sweatshirt. Hike two miles to Bass Lake. Go swimming and test out the rope swing on the far side of the lake. Eat lunch in the meadow or down by the lake and then walk another two miles to the trail to Alamere Falls. Put on your pants and long sleeves (poison oak alert) and walk all the way down to the falls and beach. Make sure you're back before sundown...

I've learned a few things running BrightTALK Summits

Some people sponsor trade shows and conferences. They set up booths and spend tens of thousands of dollars on gimmicks and equipment.

Other marketers sponsor online events. They eliminate the cost of equipment, gimmicks and people. Instead they focus on the aspects that drive the most significant results: branding, content, engagement and lead generation.

Over the last three years I've seen hundreds of online events come and go. BrightTALK Summits are really just a combination of webinars and/or videos on an interesting topic that are presented live throughout a day by presenters from around the world. If you can't watch them live, you can watch them afterward on demand. We open the events up to the leading experts from all aspects of professional life - academics, end-users, association leaders, analysts, authors, vendors and journalists. Each has a unique perspective on the trending issues, and audiences all gravitate toward different speakers that they trust. Thousands of people attend the summits and the vendors who sponsor the event get great value out of it through lead generation and follow-up.

If you're a marketer interested in what the heck an online event is, how to sponsor it, and/or how to make the most of the events you're already sponsoring, watch this:

SF Bay

What will change the business world in 2012?

It depends who you are, but there are some mega-trends that permeate through a variety of job functions and industries. Here are some that are flying up the adoption curve:

Social business

The last 20 years of behavioral and technological change have taken us to the point where interactions on the web are starting to replace face-to-face interactions. This is going far beyond membership and presence in social networks and you will see new tools enabling new forms of collaboration, transparency and monitoring both internally and externally.

Mobile business

“The Pew Internet Project finds that one third of American adults – 35% – own smartphones” and this number will only continue to rise. Whether it’s a tablet, smartphone or virtual desktop, work and information consumption are happening anywhere and anytime. The adoption curve is still in its early stages here but you’ll see applications, advertising, email, video and work productivity optimized for mobile devices in the coming years.

Cloud computing

Remember when the Internet would tie up your phone line, it took minutes for pages to load and nobody over 30 knew how to use it? 15 years later it has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. Email and online notifications are standard communication tools, your global sales team can see and sync real-time contact data thanks to SaaS CRM, anybody can share calendars and edit documents with collaboration tools like Google Docs, and you can present to anyone in the world live through the Web. The Internet will grow more powerful and data will increasingly flow through “the cloud.”

Business intelligence and analytics

Do you know the value of the work you do every day? Do you know how you could be more efficient and valuable to your company? Software can tell you. No matter what function or sector you work in you are producing data that should be analyzed. IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign encapsulates this perfectly. Costs will be reduced, people will be more productive, and products or services that aren’t proving their worth will be exposed. Everything can and should be measured. Soon you’ll know whether all your investments and efforts are worthwhile.

Automation

The world is going to be run by robots! Not yet, but technology can reduce error, free up resources and make every business more efficient. Data center IT automation is getting off the ground, CRM systems can be integrated with web forms and engagement data and automated for lead distribution, content can be automatically published and controlled with RSS feeds, trading floors are losing ground to trading algorithms and the days of real people at the other end of phone calls are numbered. The positive is that automation doesn’t necessarily mean loss of jobs – it just means people will get to stop doing busy work and start making a bigger impact.

Instability

Disruptive companies are getting millions and billions of dollars in investment to take down tradition and change the way we live. Companies and industries are starting and stopping at a breakneck pace while governments and banks are at risk of default around the world. It won't be next year, but maybe sometime soon the world will be able to look back at the innovations of 2012, take a deep breath and watch the economy grow again.