my Daily Mile

A few years ago, I was running, a LOT (up to 12 miles on my "long runs)!! When I injured my knee playing Ultimate Frisbee (a piece of my knee fell off), I had to stop running. A few years later, I started again and I was using a website called "Daily Mile". It was in "beta" at the time and you had to sign up for an invite to participate. It had an awesome way to log your runs and compare with friends. Then, I stopped running and started P90X. I did that for about 2 months. It was awesome, but I got busy and stopped that. I had also stopped running - which I really missed.

I started up again and posted a few of the runs on DM & then I stopped again (got too busy with the restaurant was my excuse, but I was working 18 hour days).

Now, I've started up again. I am not putting any pressure on myself this time around. I am just going to run. I'd like to sign up for a few 5Ks this year and complete a 10K. I have some running goals that should get me to the ultimate goal of running & finishing my first 10K sometime this year. So, I logged my first run of the year on daily mile. It was a tough run and chilly. I don't have the appropriate cold weather run gear. But it was a pretty good run. I did 1.5 miles in 16:50. That is an 11:13 pace. Then I went back and looked at my previous times: 12:00 was one of my fastest paces at the time. Most were around 13:00 or 14:00. WOW! This was really encouraging. I thought the run was slow and cold, but it was actually one of my best outside run times and it was the first run of the new year!

Then I realized, that is EXACTLY what Daily Mile is for! It isn't just to connect with other runners and get advice/encouragement. It is to see just how far you've come in overall fitness, focused on running.

Last year, I logged 100 miles. That sounds like a lot, but that really isn't much. This year, I want to run 350 miles. That is less than 7 miles a week on average and will be very doable with other fitness goals I have in mind. If I hit 350 early, I'll target 500, but it depends on how much time & effort are required from P90X at the start of the year and CrossFit by the end of the year. Follow along with me with the milage counter on the right side of the page. Jan 1, 2012 it was at 100 (unless I figure out how to make it count YTD only). 1.5 down, 348.5 to go!

This is why I've deemed 2012 is the Birth Year of the BEAST. Join up with Daily Mile and train with me. BEAST MODE!

Q: Website, Facebook, or Twitter for business? A: ALL

A few days ago, I refrenced the fact that facebook business pages were going to lose some "eyeballs" with the addition of limited social networks. It looks like this is already happening. According to a recent study by Pew Research Center states that only 3% of individuals look to the "social networks" (facebook & twitter) for information on a business. 51% use other internet sources (38% use search engines & 17% use specilaty websites). Here is a recent study on Mashable: Consumers Not Turning to Social Media Sites for Local Business Info [STUDY]

Take note businesses! Your website is still the number one way that your consumers connect with you, but you must be able to connect to the consumers through your website using the social networks.

iPad Today 75: Path 2.0, Office on iPad, ...

In the first half of the show, iPad Today takes on "Limited Social" applications for IOS. Path wins out!

I think Leo gets it a little more than Sarah. Path is NOT a facebook replacement. Path is a life sharing tool for CLOSE friends and family, not a public social network.

Next Wave with Gary Vaynerchuk: The Friendship Business

Gary Vaynerchuk refrences Path on the "Next Wave" when he talks about "The Friendship Business".

He brings up a great point for business owners and marketing reps to consider. I contend that unless you are a "power user" most people will not get over 10-20 brands that they will regularlly follow and interact with. One thing that owners and marketing reps should remember is that services that offer a "limited social" environment (like Path) will pull eyeballs away from Facebook and other social networks. I see websites (with social connections to facebook, twitter, foursquare, etc) making a comeback and being the main social connection between the consumer and companies.

Path

Over 7 months ago, I downloaded an iPhone app called Path. At the time, it was just "alright". It was a way to share some photos or photos of an event with a close friend or a family member. I wasn't sure if I would ever have a chance to use it. I didn't see much more to it than that at the time.

About a week ago, I got an "alert" message on my phone. My friend Jacob Slaton downloaded the app and added me to his Path. I hadn't checked the ap in a while, despite leaving it on my phone and downloading the updates, so I decided to check it out again.

WOW! What a difference. Path 2.0 is light years ahead of Path and any other social network I have ever used! The idea is to share your "Path" (your life) with your closest friends and family all from your mobile device (iphone or android). You can also use it like a "third party application" and update your facebook, twitter, tumblr, or foursquare status from the app. Below is a promotional video.

You can share photos, videos, check in at a location, tag your friends, note what music you are listening to, or just post a thought to share with your close friends and family. The interface is amazing & very easy to use. It is so smooth too. So far, I have no privacy concerns as no one can see anything until you approve them.

My family is currently using "Group Me" to share text, photos, and videos with each other. It works most of the time, but the quailty of video isn't as good after it goes through compression over the cellular networks. However, Path is the prefect tool to take the next step. I will only be adding CLOSE friends and Family to this "network" in an effort to share MORE of my life with those I love.

Here is a video that talks about all of the features of Path 2.0. 

Visit www.path.com to download the app to your phone (iphone/android) and find out more information.

Enjoy sharing your Path!

I would love to hear your freedback on what you think of this app! Or if you have any questoins, feel free to comment below.

From Public to Private

Should I post Publicly or Privately on social networks? (see update at bottom)

That seems to be the first question social media users have to ask them themselves. After almost 10 years of social media participation, I have finally answered the question for myself.

I was an early adopter of Facebook (but was out of college so I had to wait until they opened it up to the public) and of Twitter. I only accepted people I KNEW into Facebook. High school, college, childhood friends and family or people I worked with.

I signed up for Twitter and Gary Vaynerchuck was on of my first followers and the ability to connect and have short conversations with him about favorite wines or "stream of consciousness tweeting" during a Razorback football game was tons of fun. I even connected with news anchors and my tweets were regularly featured on TV locally.

Gary Vaynerchuck was big into the "creating your brand" and branding yourself. He even wrote a book about it! I was too. At the time, I was a real estate agent and doing everything I could to become KNOWN online as THE agent in Northwest Arkansas. I received a lot of web traffic and leads, so it was working! Then, as a Business Broker, I had to be a little more careful about what I shared & who I shared it with.

Fast forward a few years: We opened a restaurant. Again, I thought it would be a good idea to be as public as possible to promote the business and get it off the ground. That worked too. We have more people following our restaurants Facebook page than any other local Facebook page! That's a pretty cool stat! Even more than the local college! I was able to connect with hundreds and hundreds of Foodies, which I LOVED! But after amassing thousands of followers, friends, & connections, I began to moderate myself too much.

I changed. As I became a G+ user, (read about that here) I started to share only with "my circles" -- users who I have accepted into my social network and not necessarily those who have added me. The reason was that I was catching myself temper and adjust my posts because they were going to be public. So instead of sharing specifics about a dining experience I had at a local restaurant and discussing how this restaurant could do this or that to improve. I would only post, "I wish all restaurants would focus on services and quality of food as much as we do." That isn't informative, constructive, or helpful. It is too vague to be interesting. I thought more and more about Facebook & Twitter... I was doing the same thing on those networks. I wouldn't share photos with my family on Facebook because I didn't want to share my family photos with "friends" I have in high school who barely know me or former staff that I may have forgotten to "unfriend" when they quit. My private life is supposed to be private, but how can I share my life JUST with those I want to??

The Lockdown

twitter: As I approached 1000 followers on Twitter, I began to wonder about "all of these people" who were following me and reading what I was saying. I immediately jettisoned almost 200 users who were companies, spam, or weirdos that I had no connection with. I am in the process of filtering even more! I only follow about half that many users who I follow and started to "weed through" them as well. Now, I am also creating lists of my followers, divided by interests and topics they post about. I will only follow those who I want constant updates from on my main stream. I can check my lists for others.

facebook: I locked it down completely and then chose what to open up to friends only. I also banned a few users. Then, I created a list to share my life with. These are friends and family who know me now and people who I am CLOSE to. I also created an "extended share" list who have old friends and distant relatives that I want to share some things with, but not everything. Now, I can chose who to share my life with.

What about building the brand and marketing??

I can still do that! Now with "pages" on Facebook & G+, each company can have their own page and twitter account. Now, the brand is the company and THAT is a sellable asset in the future.

For my own hobbies and interest, I can still share with everyone I choose to. I believe that a small group of active and engaged followers is far better than a mass of people who may or maynot really care. The hard part is that I have to continue to reach out to everyone I wish to connect with. I have to become an "active" participant in the discussion instead of a passive user. I don't think that is a bad thing at all and wish more people would do the same thing. It would help get rid of a lot of meaningless "chatter" and might provoke more focused discussion.

Moving my personal social steams from "wasted time attempting to find things that matter" to "engaged & focused discussion on topics I care about from people I care about" is something I am REALLY looking forward to participating in!

UPDATE

Since this post, I have starting using an application called "Path". See my post here.

G+

I joined GooglePlus (G+) in beta. At the time, ONLY tech users were active on G+. I invited several friends, but none of them are active G+ users. The reason was simple: noone else they knew where on G+ and I'm sure the just now got their parents used to Facebook! I really didn't use it much either. The point of the entire "social" network was lost on me due to the lack of integration into other google servcies and users that I had a real relationship with. It was all "tech industry" heavy and tech news posts filled my stream.

This was useless for me. I have a google reader stream FULL of the sources everyone was posting, so I already read them. I read it daily on Flipboard. G+ was just another Flipboard or "GoogleReader Tech" Stream that was curated by its users.

And then it happened: I found other Foodies on G+! Not just people that like food, but people who wrote about food, posted photos of food and even cooked LIVE via Google Hangout. Now THIS was something I could get in to and VERY excited about. I created a circle of these Foodies. With a few interatctions, I was circled in other people's G+ circles and people began sharing those circles and vuala a G+ user was born!

What was the switch that flipped?

Connection with like minded users -- amateurs, professionals, and everyone inbetween. I still have some difficulty starting a conversation, but commenting on their posts can often lead to awesome discussion & interaction (not limited to 140 characters). The problem now is that there are SO MANY people following SO MANY other people that your comment or post can be easily lost similar to other social networks.

Circles will Win

In the future, more people will began limited their circles and posts will become deeper & more involved. I've also started organizing and sorting my circles into "Food Posters" and "Foodies" (those who love to read about food) and "Shared Foodies" (foodie circles that have been shared by others). I have a circle, in a circle, in a circle. Here is a little graphic that will help explain what I mean:

I'd love to hear your comments about how you are organizing your circles and what you think about G+! Find me on G+ and put me in your FOOD & Tech circles!