Fast forward to 2009 when I began training for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Half-Marathon. I picked up running again in the Fall of ’09 and found myself well ahead of schedule with my training. I was actually so much ahead of schedule that I registered for an earlier race. Some of you may have heard the story but, one week prior to that race, I strained my Achilles tendon. Plagued with the injury, initially disappointed, I was determined to get over the injury and run the race.

The crew at the office teased me as I could barely walk to my desk. They asked me not to come in without a medal the following Monday. One person even said that they will see my stubborn tail in a wheelchair when I return. Determined to get through it, I finished the race. However, the disappointments did not cease.

As I continued to train for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon I was mindful of the prior injury but the therapy seemed to take care of it. I was excited to see what I could do in my next race. I was disappointed. After all of the training, I actually finished with a worse time than the first race. Overall, I think that I was too conservative with my pace. Determined to get back on track, I continue to train for the next half-marathon. With a prior average pace of 9:35 for a five-mile run, it was ridiculous. I had to do better.

Running for me is therapeutic. I really think that running and people’s performance at the gym reflects their personal drive and determination. I have always liked the idea of going to the gym with a business partner and have in the past. When the person would give up mid-set that says a ton about their drive. They probably don’t think of it that way but it is true.

Being able to bounce back from adverse conditions builds strength and character and those experiences are priceless. As of today, not only have I been able to beat my former pace of 9:35, I was able to shatter it with an 8:11 pace. So remember, when life throws you a curveball, hit it out of the park.

I admit that I had my doubts but then noticed that it is the number one selling application in several countries. I was reluctant to use it last night because I had to be up this morning to take my car into the shop. I set my normal alarm as a back up and decided to give the appplication a shot.

The way that it works is that it will wake you in a 30 minute range based on when you would like to wake up but, no later than the time you enter. You place the phone at the head of your bed and go to sleep. When I woke up this morning I was absolutely astonished at how refreshed I felt. For someone that has been getting very little sleep lately, this was the best 99 cents I have ever spent! I thought about putting off this rave review until I had two or three nights of awesome sleep but, the amount of energy that I have right now could not be ignored.

Seriously, I have responded to all of my emails, taken the car in, have had breakfast and coffee and am the first one in the office. For you iPhone users, there are other similar applications out there, some higher priced, but this is the one that I have and it works great so far.

The following is a summary of the information that I will be speaking about:

“The introduction to blogging will cover information on some of the tips and techniques that you can use to get your blog up and running with full steam. From choosing your domain name to marketing your blog, this presentation will provide you with all of the information that you need to get your blog started on the right foot. Picking the right blogging platform will be reviewed, in addition to tips and tricks to improving your blog’s traffic and visibility. Questions will also be presented to help prospective bloggers identify on whether or not a blog is right for them. This presentation will be geared to new and prospective bloggers and promises to provide relevant information for them.”

There is another presentation focusing on the business aspect. My presentation is more of a general overview than business focused. Regardless, I would love to see any and all of you that can make it. The event schedule for CenPhoCamp can also be found on their website.

Resolutions

I have never been one for setting resolutions on New Year’s and even the ones that I will share may be obscure at best. Nevertheless, I thought that they are worth sharing. I think that often resolutions that are set as goals really need to be set as smaller items that are the means to achieving those goals. For example, I would like for my baseball blog to do better in 2010. Solution: I need to do more writing. I also am the proud owner of the famous get in better shape resolution. I am in decent shape but I would like to do more running. Overall I just want to be cooler to everyone. Less sarcasm among friends will not make for boring conversation, it will just be more pleasant. Okay… if you can handle it, I know who you are, you might get some. I do want to focus on being positive and making sure that I see the good in everything. I try to have an objective point of view on things so that might be a challenge when things just are bad.

I hope that your new year brings you all that you can ever ask for in 2010. Stay awesome and keep in touch!

Byline – An application that allows you to import and read you Google Reader subscriptions.

Jaadu VNC Client – A virtual desktop connection client to your Mac from your iPhone.

Merlin – An iPhone application for the Mac Project Management tool.

To Do – A task management application for the iPhone.

Things – Another task management application for the iPhone but, this one synchs with its desktop counterpart.

Evernote – A note management application that synchs to an online note service.

MLB At Bat – MLB baseball scores, news and video.

HR Battle – A homerun derby video game application.

WordPress – An application to help with managing my blogs.

Tweetie 2 – Twitter client for iPhone that allows me to tweet on the go.

MyPantone – Pantone color guide that helps with selecting colors for a client’s project.

Color Expert – Another color guide that helps with selecting colors for a client’s project.

WhatTheFont – A tool that allows you to upload a photo of a font, upload it to the provider’s site for analysis to compare with available fonts.

Analytics – Access to Google Analytics for the iPhone.

Easy WhoIs – Access the WhoIs, DNS and IP information from the iPhone.

This is just a friendly reminder to have a contingency plan. Preparing for the best and worst case scenarios can tremendously help your confidence when managing a complicated project. When you are confident, your client is confident and everyone is happy after another successful engagement.

In order to better conceptualize the situation, it is important to note that MLBAM is it’s own entity. MLB Advanced Media controls everything digital for MLB. This includes mailing lists, iPhone applications, team websites, specific Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and the list goes on. In order for a club to get any interactive marketing campaign going, it all has to be approved by MLBAM. This creates a bit of a challenge when it comes to credentialing bloggers as members of the media. This new understanding of what is required behind the scenes puts things into a whole new perspective.

I would personally like to thank the Arizona Diamondbacks and their Marketing Director Karina Bohn for taking the time to communicate this to the audience at the AZIMA event. There is no doubt that this was a difficult item of discussion and their presence and candid response is invaluable to enthusiasts and bloggers. I, for one, will continue to blog and pledge to continue to keep my posts within the highest regard of MLB and it’s clubs in an effort to keep the community properly informed.

Having key words in your domain name that have to do with your content and that are prevalent in the copy really help out in search. Never have I stumbled upon a better case study than azfallball.com. Without going into too much detail on the stats, the particularly interesting statistic is the fact that the site has not been up that long and it gets heavy search engine referral traffic. I guess that would make sense but, actually seeing the different variations of “rangers fall ball”, “peoria az fall ball”, “az fall ball schedules”, etc. kind of blew me away. Quite honestly, this site has been up shorter than it’s parent and had more traffic in it’s first four weeks of existence than most of the Fall League of 2008.

Sorry for the rambling. It’s late, I thought that it was worth mentioning and I thought that I would share. Have you ever stumbled upon something on the web that has greatly benefited your traffic? Someone else’s bad links or similar domains?

One of the most effective task management tools that I have had the opportunity to use was Lotus Organizer. I had used the tool for several years and IBM had stopped updates and new releases. Despite this, it was still a pretty powerful tool. It allowed you the ability to synchronize your data with the Palm OS which came in handy back in the day. I have since begun to do more and more work on a Mac rather than a PC.

I had decided to install a couple of task management applications on my iPhone to see which one would be the most useful. The two that I decided to try out are Appigo’s To Do and Cultures Code’s Things. Being a project manager there are a few things that I looked for in a task management application that some of the “lite” versions did not offer. For this reason, I decided to give them both a try. Which one did this PM end up picking? Both. Here’s why.

To Do Dashboard

Ideally it would have been nice to have the ability to manage all of my tasks with one handheld application and it may seem a little inefficient to some that I am using both quite frequently. Like Internet Service Providers, Cable Companies and other products, some are better than others in some areas. For this reason, I decided to stick with both.

Some of the similar features that both products contain include a “focus” feature that allows the notification badge to show you what tasks and/ or projects are coming due within a given duration. Both applications let you customize the notifications in reference to how far out you would like to be notified. Both allow you to categorize tasks by project. Both allow you to create recurring due dates for tasks that you may want to see again.  Both have a task inbox to allow you to create tasks on the fly without categorizing them. Finally, both allow you to tag your tasks.

Appigo’s To Do is primarily an iPhone only application. Unlike Things, it does not have a desktop application that accompanies it. It’s ease of use and feature set are everything that you would need in a task management tool. I would venture to say that it is actually easier to enter tasks into your handheld than its counterparts. The user interface allows you to enter tasks in less time than it does in Things.  Selecting tags, contexts and list make it faster to create a task. Also, the date picker interface is an actual calendar rather than a scroll bar, which is extremely helpful in speeding things up.

If you are looking for a robust task management application for your iPhone without the desktop counterpart, I highly recommend To Do. I use To Do because it is fast. If I do not have my laptop, it is a quicker and more efficient way of entering the tasks. Additionally, it integrates with Apppigo’s Notebook application, which allows you to link data across applications. I also like the presentation of completed items. It makes getting tasks done fun.

Things Dashboard

Cultured Code’s Things task management application for the iPhone is a bit more involved. It requires more steps to get the tasks into the phone without the desktop application. Some of the additional steps in creating a task make it take just a little bit longer to enter tasks. Its user interface is a bit more streamlined than that of To Do since it allows you the ability to do just a little bit less from the phone itself.

Why do I still use it? The desktop application that compliments the mobile counterpart is extremely powerful. When I do have my laptop, I will usually plow through adding tasks and doing the majority of the organization on the laptop. If you have the ability for constant use of the laptop application and rely on the iPhone application solely for status and/ or updates, then this would be the way to go. I cannot say enough about the application itself. It is truly amazing and you can preview it in action on the Cultured Code website. Additionally, the iPhone application syncs with the desktop application over the air, which is quite helpful.

One last determining factor that you may want to take into consideration is the price points. Things desktop application will run you about $49.95 and the iPhone counterpart another $9.99. Appigo’s To Do will run you $9.99. Both of which are excellent products and have received rave reviews. If you have any questions about any of the other features, please feel free to submit them in the comments below. I love both of the applications and use them everyday to help make task management more effective.