I have decided that I want to run the Ragner Relay Florida in November. It’s a 191 mile run across the state of Florida from ClearWater to Daytona Beach. This run will be in addition to The New York Marathon I am doing on Nov 1st and the Atlanta Marathon Nov 26th. Maddy Hubbard convinced me to do an ultra team, which means 6 of us will run about 30 miles each. Robert Nelson will be joining Maddy and I, so we just need three more people. You don’t need to be a rockstar, you just need to be able to finish.
If you are interested drop me an email ted@izea.com.
I put together this list with the help of my readers. Thanks to all that contributed.
- A parachute
- Toilet paper
- Birth control
- Bacon
- Postage
- Sunscreen
- Brakes
- Bottled water in a foreign country
- A boob job
- Your financial advisor
- Whiskey
- Trash bags
- Underwear
- Shoes
- Tattoos
- Butter
- Your family
- Cheese
- Psychiatric therapy
- Internet connection
- An education
- A haircut
- Building materials
- Paying a parking meter
- Deodorant
But the best answer of all…. Life. Don’t skimp on one bit of it. Live life to the fullest.
I haven’t blogged about running much lately, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still in training. I have three more marathons that I am running before the end of the year. My goal was to run three marathons this year, I will run five barring any unforseen injuries.
I’ll be running:
The Air Force Marathon
September 19th in Dayton, Ohio
The New York Marathon
November 1st in New York City
The Atlanta Marathon
November 26th in Atlanta, Georgia
I’m also registered for a few races in 2010.
Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge
This is a half marathon one day then a full marathon the next day. January 9-10 at Disney World in Orlando, Florida
Miami Marathon
January 31st in Miami, Florida
How about you? Are you sticking with it?
If you are reading this blog post there is 40% chance (I include ow.ly visits) that you wound up here via a Twitter link. That’s an amazing fact when you consider that 8 months ago Twitter drove only 6.8% of traffic to this site. Part of this increase has to do with my Twitter followers growing, but the other aspect is the growth of Twitter and Twitter related sites.
If you are one of the people not following me on Twitter you can do so here.
While Google is still a major source of traffic it’s something I have little control over. No matter how much I tag, link and SEO my blog it is still a big crap shoot. On the other hand Twitter is something I can invest time in and see immediate results from. My investment has paid off and the numbers prove it. If you are serious about growing traffic to your blog you should be equally serious about creating a trusted community of followers on Twitter.
Special shout out to the guys over at Unique Blog Designs. They coded this blog for me and continue to promote me as a client. I am trying out their new affiliate theme for a side project. I will let you know how that works out on a later post.
Earlier this morning I made an observation on Twitter that seems to have sparked a healthy amount of RTs and discussion. That inspired me to expand on my list and solicit feedback from my readers. I am hoping we can come up with a list of 100 things for a later post.
Things you should never skimp on
- A Parachute
- Toilet Paper
- Birth Control
- Bacon
- Postage
What do you think? Help me complete the list! Leave a lashing below.
A few weeks back I had the opportunity to attend PepsiCo Innovation Day thanks to Stephanie Agresta of Porter Novelli and Bonin Bough of Pepsi. They bused a group of bloggers and new media types up to Pepsi headquarters in Purchase, NY for a day of learning, sharing and fun. I am going to break up the experience into a series of posts, starting with the fun.
Making My Own Soda
In the interest of dislcosure I want to share that PepsiCo provided me with lunch, Pepsi swag and the most soda I have ever had in a single day.
Over the past few months I have been gearing up for my big keynote on personal
branding during IZEAFest at SeaWorld in October. One of the foundations I will touch upon during my presentation is the importance of imagery and design in building a brand. Corporations invest millions of dollars developing graphical assets for their brand and as an blogger you should be investing too (though probably not on the same scale ; ).
While your logo and blog design are your most important graphical assets you can’t forget about supporting assets like photos. I am amazed by how many big name bloggers have crappy headshots or no headshot at all. We constantly struggle with bloggers to provide us with quality images for our sites and other promotional efforts.
On blogger who stands out from the crowd is Sarah Austin. Check out the speaker photo she provided for the IZEAFest website. It is fun, professional and truly reflects her personal brand.
I have been using this self portrait since 2005. While I like the photo it doesn’t really reflect my personality or my brand. I mean….where is the tongue in that photo??? It was time for a change. I linked up with orlando photographer Adam Wiggall to create a series of photos that I can use for promotion of myself and IZEA. I absolutely love what he came up with, I can’t wait to share these photos with the media. You can see the whole collection here.
It’s time for you to get some quality photos taken as well. If you can’t hire Adam (which you should if you live in central florida) find a local photographer and make it happen. Professional photos can add signifcant value to your personal brand.
As many of you know I have been working with SeaWorld on a variety of social media programs over the past few months. They are truly wonderful people to partner with, my interaction with the SeaWorld team has become a highlight of my job at IZEA.
I recently completed a case study for two of the programs I worked on with SeaWorld. For those of you who are marketers or bloggers you can see how it all came together.
What’s that? You’re weekend was too short and lacked a substantial amount of smiles? No worries. Bonzo has got you covered : )