I really envy bloggers who are able to stay on topic. The Pioneer Woman always sticks to life in the country. Seth Godin is good for an inspirational and informative thought once a day about business and marketing. And you can always count on Penelope Trunk to post about…well…anything that has anything to do with her life as long as it ties back to career advice.

I lack that same sort of focus and it has left me feeling rather mute. After being somewhat of an early adopter when it comes to all things digital, I decided to take a break from publishing much of anything online. Since October of last year, my blog has been dormant, my Twitter account has been collecting cobwebs and I’m on Mark Zuckerberg’s hit list for not sharing any personal information on Facebook.

My hiatus from an online social identity came after a period of time when the idea of communicating online became overwhelming. With so many social networks to update and a shortage of interesting things to say, I grew less motivated to participate. The awesome thing about social networking is the same thing that makes it suck so badly: everyone is a publisher. Millions of people are sharing everything from well-thought opinions to what they ate for dinner that I felt lost in the crowd. In other words, I felt no value in becoming part of the white noise–and there is lots of it even without me.

The awesome thing about social networking is the same thing that makes it suck so badly: everyone is a publisher.

I always thought my blog would a place I could jot everything from witty musings to the mundane events of my life. And I suppose it already is that in many ways. However, there came a time when I began writing posts for other people besides myself and that’s when I lost interest. It’s easy for me to write a post like this on the spot as long as I don’t care about other people reading it, because it’s filled with content from my thoughts in this very moment. There are no drafts involved, no ideas bouncing around ahead of time and no research going into anything I say.

When I say that I lack that focus necessary to maintain a blog, it probably has more to do with my inability to define a purpose for my blog. The same goes for Twitter, Facebook and the handful of other social networking accounts I opened at one time or another and quickly abandoned in true love ‘em and leave ‘em fashion. Perhaps I need to let go of the need to say something meaningful and impressive and focus instead on my my experiences. For example, if some life-changing event happens that may be something I can expand upon in a lengthy blog post. Conversely, if the only thing I experienced in the course of a day was a great meal, then I can document it in a quick tweet with a filtered photo from Instragram. Done and handled.

The bottom line is that ny online identity is my own, notwithstanding the damning data Google already has on me and the painful ads they serve me as a result. In fact, I already have a post on this sitting in my blog inbox and it might sit there a while longer while I figure things out. Regardless, stepping back from the social media noise is probably something everyone should try at least for a brief time to truly understand what it is they share and why they share it.

Otherwise, we all just become a part of the noise.

I waited all day. you waited all day.. but you left before sunset…and I just wanted to tell you the moment was beautiful. Just wanted to dance to bad music…drive bad cars…watch bad TV…should have stayed for the sunset… if not for me.

Eddie Vedder

I spent the better part of the last four months studying for the GMAT. Going to grad school has always been a bit of dream for me since I graduated college, but it was only this past year when my wife and I finally found a way (and a justification) to make it happen.

Studying for the GMAT is a grueling experience, if you put genuine effort into it. Punching in two to three hours a day over a span of 120 days can really add up and take a toll on anyone. I would even argue that studying is more difficult than the actual exam. In fact, walking into the exam felt like a piece of cake after taking a half dozen full-length practice tests.

The GMAT is unlike many standardized tests because it delivers your results to you immediately following the exam. In some ways, this is disconcerting because how terrible would it feel to be given a poor score after sitting in a chair for four hours? Then again, getting the results right away rids you of the suspense of waiting weeks for the score to be mailed to you. Either way, the score is supposed to be your consolation prize for enduring such a terrible experience. In other words, it’s done and you can go home and relax. Following the test, I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment. Not only was my score higher than any practice exam I took leading up to it, but it was well in the range of what I need to get into grad school. I worked really hard to accomplish something and followed it through successfully until the very end.

If anyone is like me, my tendency is to shove an accomplishment aside and move onto the next project. We all have long lists of things we want (and need) to get done that sometimes we forget to bask in the glory of what we already did. It’s a shame how often we brush past the hard work we put into something for the next task. It’s as if we care more about the journey than the destination.

For that reason, my wife and I decided to celebrate the end of my GMAT era. I certainly put in a lot of time to finish it, but my wife had to put up with my studying and incessant conversations about what I was learning. We both deserved to stop, take a break and relish in the success.

It’s also a reminder that we ought to celebrate more often. It’s easy to celebrate big accomplishments, but when was the last time you celebrated something as small as cleaning the houe or receiving kudos from your boss on a job well done? They may not be life-changing, but they are certainly worth noting.

I obsess over small details, which is probably why my wife is driven crazy by me on a daily basis. I believe everything has a place and ought to be returned to that place at the end of the day. Yes, it’s part Adrian Monk and part Danny Tanner, but I can’t help my appreciation for simplicity, minimalism and organization.

Couple that with my love of digital toys and you’ll understand why I really want a Nest Thermometer. My house is already outfitted with a pretty slick thermometer that has a digital display and easy program settings. It’s amazingly simple to use and is as good as any thermometer can be. Or so I thought.

The Nest Thermometer literally breaks the traditional house thermostat out of its box. Aesthetically speaking, this thing is a work of art. I love the clean, round design with a large sans-serif temperature reading. Shelled in a gunmetal casing with using a turn-wheel dial to set the levels, it would be easy for anyone to think that Apple got into the thermostat business or that the thing stuck to wall controls the iMac upstairs. The design is a small touch, but like I said, that’s a big deal for me and goes a long way to making my home look and feel the way I would design it myself if I could.

I haven’t even touched on the geek factor. Rather than programming the temperature to a specific time on a set schedule, Nest simply adapts to your schedule. According to the Nest website, every time the temperature is set to a new level, the thermostat “learns” from the new setting and adjusts itself for future levels, setting the temperature to the right degree at the right time based on your settings. And, of course, if you hate what it’s learned from you, feel free to override it and it will just adjust again. Genius.

Like an infomercial…wait, there’s more! Toss in the ability to control the thermostat online or through your mobile phone and this thing is a Grade A energy saver. As it stands, Nest is probably the closest thing that we have to the elusive Smart Grid. I’d love to see this technology applied to other consumer electronics and appliances, such as dishwashers, washing machines and ovens.

It’s a thermostat, so how important can it be? I don’t know, but it’s a nice detail and represents a very cool promise for the future of technology and environmentalism.

I had a blast the other day going through a box of childhood things (read: crap) my mom gave me. The box has been sitting on the floor of my living room for the last three months and I finally took a few minutes to rummage through it.

The first thing I found was hard to miss: my original Nintendo Gameboy. It was practically staring straight at me when I opened the box and looked untouched, even after 21 years of silence. All it took were four new AA batteries to make that thing light back up and have me playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles all over again. I still can’t pass level two.

The rest of my box was surprisingly sparse, which made me wonder whether my mom is a sentimental person or if my anti-hording personality began much earlier than I remember. I’m sure it’s the latter, although the habit of throwing things away was something I picked up from my mom, so maybe it is all her fault. I guess it will go down as one of those Chicken vs. The Egg controversies.  :)

However, I struck gold when I uncovered a third grade writing project. It was obviously a year-long assignment, containing written stories and recollections accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations. Some of the entries were about experiences on class field trips, such as going to a farm and what we thought about seeing pigs rolling around in their own filth. Others asked us to describe personal experiences, such as a time we broke something and how it made us feel. And others even asked us about real-world issues, such as world peace and violence. One particular piece stood out to me and made me smile as I tried to imagine my nine-year old self putting pencil to paper. I thought I’d share my third grade advice to achieving peace in the world.

We should have no fighting. All orphans should have a home. The world needs more caring for each other. If you give an orphan a home, you could be doing a lot for the orphans. We should stop the wars. If we have peace in the world, we will all be happy. We should stop using words that hurt and start using words that help. Everybody should stop being mean. We should all be together. There should be no gangsters in the world.

I should point out that gangsters were a real problem in the Central Valley at that time. Very scary stuff.

The words we use to communicate, regardless of subtlety, have an incredible impact on other people. I came to realize this early on when I did freelance copywriting and practiced the skill of writing persuasive marketing content, but it’s only been recently that I’ve noticed how word choice in day-to-day interactions makes a difference in the way we relate with others.

So here’s an exercise I’ve started. Before I say or write anything, I edit out any and all instances of negative tone. Usually, this means re-structuring a sentence to avoid using the word “not.” Consider the difference between:

• I don’t think the new Coldplay album is very good.
• I think Coldplay has better albums than this.

The first example is a turn-off. What if you’re talking with a major Coldplay fan (God help her) and all you said is that you think the new album sucks? You’re probably going to lose a fan that way. You mean well, but it comes off poorly and gets twisted out of context as a result.

So what’s the solution? You’ve got to transform yourself from a critic to a spin doctor. In addition to being the band name of a one-hit wonder from the Nineties, spin doctor is a term for public relations specialists. You’ve probably seen them following a presidential State of the Union address or taking up your TV screen on Fox News. Yes, it technically has a negative connotation, but the idea still holds: the goal is to spin your grammar from negative to positive.

The second sentence above is the work of a spin doctor. It weeds out the negatives and actually sounds like you’re paying the band a compliment, even if you really do think the new album bites the big one. You can really see how a small edit in your language might score you really big points in just about any relationship (i.e. your wife, boss, client, mom, customer, etc.) while maintaining your own sense of opinion. Win-win!

However, I have also found this technique to be fairly difficult, at least while I’m getting the hang of it. Maybe it’s my natural inclination to respond negatively or my inner critic is the one who controls my thoughts, but on-the-spot editing in a typical one-on-one interaction does make for some awkward pauses and gaps while I’m figuring out exactly what I want to say.

Then again, the world would probably be a better place if we all filtered the more of the thoughts the traveled between our brains and mouths (or thumbs). Much, much better.

I agreed to take on a project last month that not just made me step past my level of comfort, but figuratively cross the line altogether and dance all over it.

And I’m a pretty bad dancer.

Most of the projects I take on are web-based, but I recognized an opportunity for Foursquare to create a book based on a year-long series of it was posting online throughout 2011. The basic idea was to compile the posts into a single collection with additional content (such as study questions, a forward and updates). My imagination envisioned the final product looking something like the phenomenal A Book Apart series, which I clamor over with every new release.

The book is a great idea for a company like Foursquare that rarely creates its own materials, because repurposing content offers a chance to reach people that wouldn’t have otherwise seen it on a website. However, I realized the reason Foursquare rarely creates its own resources: there is no one to own the creation of them. At least, that’s what I learned when my boss asked me to lead this project.

I’ll be excited to show off the book when it’s done in February of next year, but until then, I’ve been working on a strategy to promote the book after it releases. Although we’re still in September and have four months to look forward to, I’m laying down the foundation that will get the word out so we can hit the ground running right at launch.

One of the various ways we’ll be promoting the book is online (surprise, surprise), but rather than use it in the traditional marketing sense (e.g. buying AdWords) we’re going to use a landing page as the central hub for all sales. That’s right. No brick and mortar. No phone number. No email.

Just a landing page.

The inspiration comes from advice that Penelope trunk published early this year when she released her least book and claimed that no one cares about a book title or a cover any more. Rather than spend the time and effort to create those, use it to create a stunning and helpful landing page that anyone can link to easily. Books travel by word-of-mouth, Trunk says, and that happens most effectively online when people have something to link to.

Penelope used a service called Unbounce to create her landing page. But since I have the time (kinda) and the skill (sorta) to do it myself, I went ahead and took a stab at it.

After designing a new email that would combine four of Foursquare’s newsletters into a single HTML template, the code has been finished and the first email is scheduled to go out the first week of September.

Aside from being a massive step forward for Foursquare visually, the new template is a perfect example of just how powerful the new changes to Campaign Monitor are. Rather than being locked up in a single layout, Campaign Monitor has opened up their code for programmers to create layout options, which are elements that can be added to an email on the fly. For example, the new Foursquare template sports multiple single-column, two-column and three-column options that can be dropped anywhere in the template. This makes the email more like a curated page of content than a typical newsletter. Just swap out the header image, select some different layout options and you have an entirely different email than what went out before!

The trick for the design was to find a balance between the current look and feel of the Foursquare website and where Foursquare wants to go in the future. While the previous email template was a direct translation of the website, the new email can stand on its own, with a real minimalist appeal. I used a lot of neutral tones so the email would look natural with any masthead that’s dropped in the design. When your logo features red, blue, gold and purple, you practically have practically the entire spectrum to deal with. Better to keep things simple than go way overboard with a paintbrush.

This template also has to pack a lot of content into a tiny amount of space. While most websites have the luxury of sprawling out to at least 960 pixels, email etiquette suggests keeping your design down to no more than 650 pixels since there is so much discrepancy among the window sizes of email applications. So that doesn’t leave a content-driven organization like Foursquare a whole lot of breathing space to pack in the two dozen articles and links they like to include in most newsletters. To avoid a traffic jam of content, I made sure to design several layout options, including one-, two- and three-column elements (both with and without images) that can be used anywhere in the email at any time while keeping the minimalist appeal I was going for in the design. Nothing will ever look out of place and Foursquare now has the most flexible and manageable email template they’ve ever had.

The new template makes its debut the first week of September and I’m excited to see it!

Ownership used to be the pinnacle of The American Dream. As the theory went, hard work meant more money which translated to the accumulation of more material goods. But in the last few years, I’ve noticed fewer people (including myself) striving for more capital. If consumerism were fashion (which I suppose it can be), borrowing is the new black and ownership is more out of date than a pant suit. Blame it on the recession, Obamacare, Rebecca Black or whatever you like, but the cost of ownership looks a lot less attractive these days and many people are choosing to support their lifestyles by renting instead.

We’re already starting to see this trend take hold in the housing market. It’s no secret that sales of new and existing homes has plummeted since the great real estate bust of 2008. Toxic loans were written, home prices took off, buyers purchased above their means, and everything was turned upside down when the defaults started pouring in, forcing families out of their homes and many workers out of their jobs. In addition to learning what a credit default swap does, the big lesson learned from the housing bubble and subsequent bust is just how great a liability it is to own a home. Your well-being is literally contained under one roof and all of your assets are at stake if you fall behind. It’s a scary place to be in and many Americans found that out the hard way. Despite research that suggests that owning a home is better than renting after five years, the taste of fear is fresh to everyone and the perception is that renting is a safe haven.

And the trend extends way beyond homes and into our day-to-day lives. We no longer need to buy movies. Netflix will loan (or stream them) to us anytime, any place for a monthly subscription. Same with music. As I write this, I’m streaming a Pearl Jam album on Spotify for free in exchange for some occasional commercials between tracks. Heck, my wife can even rent designer handbags anytime she needs one. I’ve even considered Zip Car as an option for replacing at least one of the two cars I own but rarely drive.

We’re creeping towards an economy built on borrowing and that’s kind of exciting. Rather than coughing up big bucks to have unlimited use of one thing, subscription models are giving us unlimited use of unlimited choices. It’s like an all-you-can-eat meal at Hometown Buffet, without the gag reflex. I’m a huge fan of Chris Anderson’s theory of the Long Tail and the Borrower’s Economy plays right into it, offering any flavor of any ice cream to any person at any time, regardless of how much demand is out there. As Clive Thompson described it in a column he wrote in WIRED last year, access trumps ownership.

I think there will always be things that we will have to own, or at least prefer to own. For example, I really like that Spotify gives me instant access to more than 12 million songs, but I still really enjoy the feeling of owning my music. Whether it’s CD or vinyl, there’s a certain nostalgia that comes with cracking open a new album, reading through the liner notes and following along with the lyrics while spinning the disc the first time through. Eddie Vedder says it best in Pearl Jam’s “Spin the Black Circle”:

Pull it out, a paper sleeve
Oh, my joy, only you deserve conceit.
I’m so big, a-my whole world
I’d rather you, rather you. than her

You’re so warm…oh, the ritual…when I lay down your crooked arm

The Borrower’s Economy may be in its early stages, but I see it coming. I may only represent a small segment of the population, but speaking as a 30-something white male in Southern California, renting is all the rage. Very few of the people I know care much at all about owning anything, at least compared to our parent’s generation. And I’m convinced our children and the generations that follow will grow to see us as horders compared to the borrowed lifestyles the live. It’s not a bad thing at all, but maybe a positive indication that we’re finally realizing that the things we own do not have to own us.

I think an overabundance of choice is the new American Dream and it’s sounding like a good alternative.

Parkcrest Christian Church knows that filling pews is not enough when it comes to sharing the gospel. As a church, they’re more interested in creating active believers who are engaged in their neighborhoods than people who merely consume a weekly sermon.

It’s one of the reason I decided to keep going to Parkcrest after spending six months of church-hopping around Long Beach and Orange County when I haphazardly landed in Southern California six years ago. So when they asked me if I could help them build a microsite to help people connect with a small group, I had no hesitation. Not only have I been a part of a small group for the entire time I’ve been at Parkcrest, but it’s hosted by my Be Thou Awesome business partner, who would be building the site with me.

The site is pretty simple, really, and came together in less than a day of design and coding. It’s not that we didn’t put a lot of forethought into the site, but that the tools we used really streamlined our process. We painted the design on top of Nathan Smith’s awesome 960 Grid System, then developed a working wireframe in WordPress. From there, we discovered SimpleMap, a plugin that allows you to create a database of locations and ties them into an interactive map using the Google Map API. Very slick and straightforward.

I only started going to Brent’s small group after his wife badgered me in person to visit. It took a lot of guts for her to approach me and I’m sure not everyone has that kind of courage. I’m pretty dense socially, so I probably would have benefited a lot from a simple website I could use to find a small group rather than having to approach someone myself. I hope this site does that for someone.

Launch the Site

And oh as I fade away,
They’ll all look at me and say, and they’ll say,
“Hey look at him, I’ll never live that way.”
But that’s okay, they’re just afraid to change.

-Blind Melon, “Change”

The thing about change is that many of us claim to like it while doing everything we can to avoid it. Change, we argue, is what builds character and leads us to live full and interesting lives. Deep down, however, we know that leading happy and interesting lives is not the same, so we avoid change and interestingness like the plague.

Or, better yet, we’ll use the small adjustments (or material possessions) we add to our lives as a front for change. The house we bought two years ago? Sure, that was a big fat change for us, but one that ensures we’re settled in for the next thirty years. Obama won the presidency in a landslide, defining his campaign as “Change we can believe in.” We turned out and voted, not to change the foundation of our country in a new direction, but rather to return to a more prosperous and familiar economy we had under Obama’s Democratic predecessors.

It seems to me that some of us want change but only in tidy, controlled environments or in sizes that are easy to digest. We’ll jump in and take any risk…insofar as we can easily hit the reset button if things go wrong and we need to go back to “normal” again. It’s the Nintendo approach to life.

This is what I think about as I decide whether or not I will go back to school. Everyone I seem to talk to about it says it’s a great idea and worth pursuing. But for every encouraging word, there seem to be arguments and data that persuasively push the other way. In fact, the amount of research and time that have gone into measuring and debating the merits of going back for a graduate degree is flat out overwhelming and inconclusive, at best. No matter what decision I make, there is no such thing as a guarantee on positive outcomes and the best analysis is to put a price tag on the regret of having done nothing at all. There’s no currency more valuable than that.

So how can you spot change? There are a couple of things I’m already noticing along the way:

Your priorities shift

This is the biggest of them all. You can always spot change when you realize that the things that are important in your life now will take a backseat to newer priorities. That’s not to say that big bucket items like family, faith and career will suddenly disappear, but you’ll find yourself devoting more brain and muscle and power to new areas that will demand time away from what you already hold dear.

You ditch your hobbies

In addition to your priorities going haywire, you may find yourself doing fewer of the things you once thought you did for fun. Like reading. Or watching TV. Maybe reading blogs. For me, I see myself missing new episodes of Parks and Recreation and spending less (if any) time on my freelance gig in order to read big fat textbooks and write long-winded semi-coherent term papers. Fun stuff.

I expect to learn more as I go. If I’m ready for change, you’ll probably see me posting a lot less here than I already do. If not, well, I’ll still be posting as little as I already do.