2006 in Review Part Two: Books Read This Year

1. McCain - Worth The Fighting For
2. McCain - Faith of My Father
3. McCain - Character is Destiny
4. Collins - Good to Great
5. Collins - Built to Last
6. Albright - The Mighty and the Almighty
7. Albright - Madame Secretary: A Memoir
8. Noor - Leap of Faith: An Unexpected Life
9. Halperin - The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008
10. Sachs - The End of Poverty
11. Morris - Because He Could
12. Lowndes - How to Talk to Anyone
13. Chomsky - Understanding Power
14. Bossidy - Execution
15. Madson - Improv Wisdon
16. Diamond - Collapse
17. Burns - Running Alone: Presendential Leadership
18. Lipman-Blueman - The Allure of Toxic Leaders
19. Obama - The Audacity of Hope
20. Obama - Dreams from My father
21. Smith - Zero to IPO

2006 in Review Part 1: Favorite Songs of 2006

1. Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado
2. Smack That by Akon
3. Gold Digger by Kanye West
4. Ridin’ by Chamillionaire
5. Remember the Name by Fort Minor
6. How to Save a Life by the Fray
7. Over My Head by the Fray
8. Breath (2am) by Anna Nalick
9. Boston by Augustana
10. You Haven’t Earned It by Assemblage 23
11. Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand
12. Unlike Me by Kate Havnevik

Want to Go to Tanzania in June to Discuss the Future of Africa?

As a follow-up to the last post on TED, I learned today that TED is having a Global Conference called TEDGlobal at the Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge in Arusha, Tanzania June 4-7, 2007 to bring together the top world innovators, thinkers, doers, and leaders to discuss the future of Africa. The speakers look amazing and the conference center is right at the edge of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Ten Videos That May Change the Way You View the World

When I was in Aspen in June for the Fortune Brainstorm Conference I heard quite a few people talking about TED. I wasn’t quite sure who or what TED was, so I asked one of the attendees. I found out that TED was an annual conference in Monterrey, CA held in March that brings together about 1,000 of the world’s top leaders to talk about the pressing issues of the day.

Today, I ran into a blog post about TED Talks, a new series of videos that were just launched on the TED website. On this site they have videos of speakers from past TED Conferences. The below videos are especially noteworthy:

1. Peter Gabiel, founder of Witness
2. Bono, talking about the economic incentive to lift Africa out of poverty
3. Jacqueline Novogratz, the founder of the Acumen Fund
4. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink
5. Stephen Levitt, author of Freaknomics
6. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
7. Larry Brilliant, Exec. Director of the Google Foundation
8. Al Gore, talking about Climate Change
9. Tony Robbins, motivational speaker
10. Iqbal Quadir, founder of GrameenPhone

The Best Christmas Gift You Can Give

A close friend of mine suggested instead of getting each other traditional Christmas gifts we get each other Global Giving Gift Certificates this year.

GlobalGiving.org allows visitors to donate directly to over 400 screened international projects within the categories of Aids Epidemic, Climate Change, Democracy & Governance, Economic Development, Education, Evironment, Gender & Equality, Health, Human Rights, Technology, Sustainable Agriculture, and Water Health.

The site’s founder Dennis Whittle was a UNC c/o ‘83 Alum and previously the Lead Economist at the World Bank from 1986 to 2000.

Example projects include a Girls Scholarship program in Ethiopia, AIDS Vaccine Research in Kenya, Low-cost Primary Schools in Nigeria, Supplying Drinking Water for a Hatian Hospital, and a Clinic for Former Child Slaves in India.

The best part of the gift certificate, is that the recipient gets to choose exactly which projects to donate to. So if you’re looking for a last minute Christmas gift for a person who seems to have it all materially and cares about the world, consider giving a Global Giving Gift Certificate.

I’ve Been Elfed

I just wanted to send a shout out to a certain Russ Jones, CTO of Virante, for spending his work time turning me into an Elf and sending it out to the everyone@ listserv at work. I really appreciated that. Really.

An Extra Optical Inch on my #$@!

This has to be one of the funniest ad campaigns I’ve ever seen.

Not to mention, it’s effective. I just threw down $29 on Amazon :-).

Go to www.shaveeverywhere.com and click on Main Menu > Music Video.

Props to Philips for being, well, ballsy.

Second Life Not Really That Cool Yet

So I’m a reader of TechCrunch on a fairly regular basis. I ran into a post today on SecondLife, the online multiplayer world.

I’ve never really been a fan of online worlds, but with over 2 million users, feature articles in the Economist, in-game hotel launches, $19 million in VC, and a heck of a lot of hype I figured I’d download the 29MB app and try it out.

Long story short, I got bored after about 15 minutes. I managed to figure out how to fly, take off my clothes (weird), walk in the water, bump people, and throw a beach ball. All while running into quite a bit of lag on a T1 connection.

I’m sure lots of people are having lots of fun, and spending real money ($728,000 in the last 24 hours). It’s just not fully ready for the mainstream… yet.

How to Get to the Top of Google for Competitive Terms

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Book Contract from McGraw-Hill

So I’ve got really cool news. McGraw-Hill has agreed to publish my 2003 book Zero to One Million: How to Build a Company to $1 Million in Sales.

I’ll be completely updating the book based on my experience building Broadwick over the past 4 years.

The updated manuscript is due to them by June 30 and then the book will be launching in January 2008 most likely.

I’m really excited about the publishing because this will allow the book to actually get onto the shelves of the major bookstores.

I’m also glad that I’ll get the chance to tell the Broadwick story.

Originally the book was based mainly on my experience building Synflex America back in 2001 and 2002 as a marketing consultant.

Now I’ll be able to focus the text on the much richer story of building Broadwick to (by then) over 50 employees, $5 million in annual sales, and 10,000+ customers.

I will be cutting out much of the globalization/economics material per the request of McGraw-Hill and really focusing in on how to build a company to $1 million dollars in sales and beyond.

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