Welcome 2007: Beginning of the Year Thoughts
Happy New Year! I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007! I always enjoy the beginning of a new year. You get to reset, renew and refocus on many different levels. 2007 is here, and we all get to make of it what we will. With that, here are just a few of the things that I am looking forward to in 2007:
Blue Sky Factory:
I am particularly excited to get things rolling business wise in 2007. I look forward to continuing to grow Blue Sky Factory and taking it to the next level. We have many new things in the pipeline for the first quarter of the year. This month we will roll out a new RSS publishing module within Publicaster, which will allow current and future customers to manage and publish various feeds and “channels” of content. I have been looking forward to this, as I believe RSS is becoming more important than ever for marketers to embrace as a distribution medium.
In addition to getting RSS rolling, we also have a few new partnerships that we will be annoucing in the next few weeks that will allow us to have the best of breed deliverability solutions in place for our exisiting and future email marketing clients. There will be a lot of good things coming from us product wise in 2007, and I am excited that we will continue to deliver value to our clients in the new year.
SoBotanical:
SoBotanical is my wife’s new venture. She is a pioneer in the aromatherapy industry and has run an aromatherapy bar, retail boutique and massage studio for the past 18 years. Starting fresh in 2007 she is launching, SoBotanical. SoBotanical is the culmination of her experience working with 100% pure essential oils. After studying aromatherapy for many years and having done over 50,000 unique essential oil blends, she will be launching two signature natural body product lines called Sobo Essentials & Sobo Apothecary.
My wife has been working effortlessly over the past year pulling this together. We have been working with a design agency, photographers, printers, etc to get this right. SoBotanical has a fresh look, slick labels, and a soon to be kick ass e-commerce based website. Aside from being able to purchase her entire product line on the site, you will be able to get custom blended body products as well. She has a new retail location opening this month (we are moving her shop this week from its current location). We will also be launching the new website soon, feel free to enter your email to stay up to date on the launch.
As an entrepreneur I absolutely love this stuff. Although my wife has been in business for many many years, this is essentially a startup. This is the ground floor launch of a new brand, and I am really excited to see where we can take it. I will post more when the site launches.
Podcasting:
I am thinking alot about podcasting these days, and I am enjoying being involved with a regular podcast again. This past fall I launched ROI Radio. Andy Mueller and I produce the show on an almost weekly basis. I speak with CEO’s or senior management from companies involved in online media and marketing from either a technology or services standpoint. I look forward to developing that show further in 07, as I believe there is a lot of potential on where it can go.
I have also just been asked to speak again at what will be the fifth Podcast Academy. The event will take place on February 14-15 at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. This will be the first two day Podcast Academy. I look forward to working with Michael and Doug from Gigavox Media once again on this great event.
I think the podcasting industry will continue to develop quickly into 2007. Everyday I see more and more businesses using podcasting to extend their marketing and corporate communications. Companies are using podcasting as a medium to promote their products and services through sponsorship, education, and outreach among many other uses like secure internal communications.
There is no doubt that this space is hot. I think you will see the podcasting and media distribution landscape continue to evolve rapidly into 2007. I look forward to participating in this progress.
Health & Fitness:
At the sake of sounding too “typical” in the new year resolution mania, I am actually thinking alot about health and fitness going into 2007. Not as a “man its time to get my ass off the couch” resolution, as I have already made the committment to fitness. 2006 was the first year that I went to the gym on an average of three times a week, doing at least 40 minutes of cardio each time. I have already renewed my committment in 2007 having already hit the gym for a 3.5 mile run earlier this afternoon.
What I am thinking about is how to enhance my routine. I need to make it interesting again for myself. Although I keep showing up and sweating, there is always room for enhancement to your workout. My wife bought me 4 sessions for a personal trainer as a gift this holiday season. I am expecting that will give me some new ideas 
I also am thinking I should add yoga to the mix in 07. I used to go and always enjoyed it.
The one thing I have decided for the new year, without a doubt, is committing to get at least one massage & spa treatment per month. I can’t say enough about how important stuff like this can be for your health. With my wife being a former massage therapist and an active spa junkie, I have had many treatments over the years. However, I have never had them on a monthly basis. I am aiming to achieve this in 07. This is good stuff
At the sake of rambling on, I am thinking about and looking forward to many things in the new year and I hope you are as well. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we will each make of it what we will. To that, I wish you all the best and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007!
June 17th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
I wandered into your wife’s shop on March 27th. I was there for a conference and was browsing during some free time. I began to ask her about facial treatments. Having just been prescribed hormones for my adult acne, i was balking at this–having taken Accutane twice and been through tons of medical “solutions.” She talked me into the Face nourish…the cucumber and rose serum…told me to use it 2 times a day and give it a month. I scoffed at her seeing her amazing skin that was blemish free and thought, she has no idea what it is like to have “troubled skin” and was I really going to put OIL on my acne plagued face?! Ok, I figured, it was better than taking hormones! Can I tell you what an incredible feat? My face is so clear, my dermatologist is ticked off completely and I have not had a PIMPLE at all since mid April. This is tremendous. I’m coming to DC this week and we’re coming to SOBO purely so I can restock. I hope you are open!