This past year was an interesting year for me personally and professionally. There were ups and there were downs. As I sit here having my homemade pumpkin spice latte and reflecting on our Christmas celebration, I'm once again completely shocked at how fast the year went by. As we drove … Keep reading >>>
Month: December 2015
How to define “brand”
When we deliver the Digital Marketing class at General Assembly, we start off with branding. Not digital branding -- just branding. Digital marketing is, after all, still marketing, and in order to market effectively, you must first define your brand. Early in the very first day of Digital Marketing, we … Keep reading >>>
Pitch Practice 2015: The Year In Review
Looking back and measuring progress is a powerful exercise. I have not done this exercise on an annual basis with Pitch Practice, mainly because I guess I'm still surprised that it's still going on every week. We did a little look back when Pitch Practice celebrated its unofficial 2nd birthday … Keep reading >>>
Atlanta Tech Blogs 2015 by the numbers (and experiments)
I am always in awe when I read Mailchimp's annual report about how many billions of emails they send. It's fantastic that the most awesome email service provider in the galaxy lives right here in Atlanta! So, I thought, on a much, much smaller scale, that it would be cool … Keep reading >>>
I signed up to teach one class, and ended up teaching 46
In addition to writing a bunch of blog posts, the second half of my business in 2015 was teaching classes at General Assembly. This one kind of started on a whim. In late summer of 2014, just a few months after shutting down CD8A, I learned that GA was opening … Keep reading >>>
Lessons from writing 500 blog posts in 2015
2014 was not a good year (1 failed business, 2nd bout with cancer, and 3 surgeries), but 2014 turned out to be a great year. It was at the end of 2014, after another failed tech startup (my 5th fail) that I learned that I could make a living creating … Keep reading >>>
How to Meet Your Target Audience Online
This post originally published on the General Assembly blog. Your target audience is the first place you go to spread awareness about your product, and likely your first adoptors, too. Assuming you’ve done the necessary amount of customer discovery -- identifing and validating the problem that you’re solving, and identifing … Keep reading >>>
Social Media tracking on Atlanta Tech Blogs
First, a great thank you to all our Twitter followers. We're rapidly approaching 5,000 followers, which is nothing compared to Bieber, Perry, and Swift, but with $0 marketing spend ever, we're not complaining. Twitter is, and has always been, the largest driver of traffic to and through atlantatechblogs.com; however, since … Keep reading >>>
Advice from An Old Farmer
I am not sure of the origin of these words, and I cannot take credit for any of them, but they are pure genius. This Christmas, live a little more simply. We get caught up in our tech, devices, Wi-Fi, startups, and everything else that detracts from actual living. Enjoy, … Keep reading >>>
Recap of the last Pitch Practice of 2015
David Cummings says often that a startup becomes a business when the entrepreneur is no longer required in the day to day operations. I hope that's also true for meetups like Pitch Practice. I hope Pitch Practice meets for years long after I'm off in the wild blue yonder. To … Keep reading >>>