Last week I started the journey with many other Vayniacs to bring Gary Vaynerchuk to their town as part of his book signing tour. For those of you just coming up to speed on Wine Library TV, Gary opened the tour to the community to make what probably is the biggest decisions of the tour, the cities he is visiting. The whole process started with a simple tweet which then turned into an email and then spilled into the blogosphere and every other aspect of the social web. In a weeks time Des Moines responded in a big way and locked Gary into stopping at East Village Books on June 21st. 

To me this is amazing and speaks to the power of community driven actions. To make this Des Moines book signing happen it took just a few small actions and a lot of word of mouth. Over the last week, word of mouth allowed me to connect with more people than ever through my blog and from the response I know all of them are passionate as I am and wanted to help out any way possible to make the event successful.

For those of you looking for advice, help or nearly anything else the internet provides an endless wealth of knowledge and talent from infinite niches of people who are probably just as passionate as you.  To tap into this resource it just takes you being out there, open, polling and listening. A drill down into these steps is coming in the near future but before I begin I want your thoughts and feedback on the subject. How do you use the social web and how has it provided value back to you?

From my previous post you know I am working with others in the Des Moines area to bring Gary Vaynerchuk to Iowa as part of his book signing tour but to make this a truly epic event we are going to have to introduce others, including close friends and family, to the Thunder Show for the first time. So here are a few links and events you may want to share while out spreading the word and generating interests.

Wine Library TV, episode #459. This is just a great show. Gary continues to bring the thunder but it also shows how his fans have contributed to show and how he brings the wine tasting experience to their homes. Gary also expresses his excitement about coming to Des Moines so you have to love that! Link

Gary’s announcement page for his book. This is the page that started it all and also lists the special buy two books offer. The official video announcement is also available on this page along with a list of other cities already confirmed for the book tour. Link

Upcoming TV appearances. Over the next week Gary is going to be on a number of TV shows; pass it along so others can watch and learn more about Gary. Upcoming appearances include:

• Wed, May 7th, The Big Idea w/Donny Deutsch which airs on CNBC at 10pm EST.
• Mon, May 12th, The Late Night Show w/Conan O’Brien which airs on NBC at 12:30am EST (technically Tues. 5/13).
• Tues, May 13th, Mad Money w/Jim Cramer which airs on CNBC at 6pm and 11pm EST.

Upcoming.org event page. And lastly, don’t let anyone get away without directing them to our Upcoming event page. Have them register and show their interest in coming to the book signing. Link

Thank you again, all for the support in making this event happen! We are so close to locking down the event so please continue to spread the word and I promise this will truly be an epic event!

The Outstanding Club’s writing contest has ended and the entries have been posted to their site. As follow up to the contest those who have entered including myself have been asked to vote for their favorite two.

After reading the posts, my two votes go to:

• Jake Dahn’s Personal Mission Statement published at jakedahn.com by Jake Dahn
• Rob Jensen’s Personal Mission Statement published at jensenrf.wordpress.com by Rob Jensen

Jake’s post is my favorite and I feel is most deserving of the $25 Amazon gift card. In fact, my post was modeled/inspired by his format and I am sure if you compared the two you can see the similarities in how the post was broken out. I appreciate how he outlined his conclusions and let that shape his mission statement. I sense the self discovery that must have been involved to come to statement and greatly appreciate him sharing this with the internets.

I do want to give credit to Chris Brown. The mission statement is perfect in simplicity and it is key to note all of the words are actions which I believe is truly important because your mission statement should resonate through your actions, and I am sure Chris walks the talk. The only reason I wasn’t able to throw a vote to this post is because I felt it lacked the sharing of the personal discovery of Jake’s post. Once again I can identify with Jake but I don’t have enough meat in the post to know Chris and what drives the mission statement.

*Last update on this post - We have a tentative date and it looks like we are in the home stretch. Mark June 21st at 5:30pm on your calendars and sign up at http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/594746/ so we, including Gary, have an idea of how many are going to show up!*

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Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV recently completed his first book, 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World . To get the word out he is kicking off a book signing tour and has asked his fan base to provide suggestions for where to go.

This weekend I was able to exchange some emails with Gary and we ended with a little deal. So here it is, Gary is seriously considering a stop in Des Moines but he needs to see the demand. If we can get 50 peeps to confirm their interest he will make it happen and schedule a stop sometime during the 3rd week of June.

This is huge and I am determined to make this happen! The great people of East Village Books have already stepped up host the event and we are kicking around ideas and spreading the word but we can use your help. So here is what we need:

1. Comment here if you are interested. We need 50 to confirm and we are looking to create a sign up list but I wanted to get this ball rolling and generating buzz now.

2. Spread the word to friends, families and everyone else. If you have any connections to radio stations, newspapers or anyone else who can help get this event exposure let us know.

3. Share your ideas. I am looking to create some flyers to post at wine shops, libraries and other free bulletin boards but the more creative ideas the better so share them here!

4. Pre-order the book. It’s a book signing tour so make sure you have your copy in advance. Gary is also offering a special deal if you order two or more books so now is a great time to capitalize.

5. Post the event on your blog, facebook page or on any other social network your are a part of!

Let’s make this happen Des Moines!

*Update: Check out the latest episode of Wine Library TV. A small comment about the event and Gary calls out 150 peeps are needed. Either way, we want something epic so I stress we need your help!

*Second Update: You can also order your book through East Village Books. For store information or to order it online check out this link.

I have been reading some of the follow up posts on the Outstanding Club and have decided it was time to take a crack at my own personal mission statement. I am hoping by doing so it will help reshape my own blog and get me back on track with my career development.

I started creating my personal mission statement by looking at the activities in my life the gave me joy and energy in my life. Not the short term burst of happiness but the true fulfilling moments in my life that still make me smile when I look back at them. The events that stick out are:

• The day I said “I do” to my wife
• The day my first child was born and I became a father for the first time
• The day I became a father for a second time
• Meeting with other innovators at work to discuss new ideas
• Working in a close team and learning through sharing experiences with each other
• Reflecting with friends and having discussing where we are and where we are going

I also started to look at what I am passionate about. Those things that I can talk about for hours with friends, family or someone I just met. Some of my favorite topics include

• Use and need of technology
• Social media and currently twitter
• Process tools and methodologies
• Setting goals and continuous self-improvement

After some reflection I have decided that what drives me really boils down to:

Working with people to create trusting relationship to understand their needs and help discover and apply the right tools to help them be successful on their own goals.  

I would say that is me in a nutshell. I love working with people and listening to their stories. There is so much self-discovery in just talking to someone else openly and when you create that relationship I just can’t help but want to work with them and help them be successful. 

Tumblr for a long time has been my microblogging service of choice, and recently I have discovered a great little facebook application to further promote ElephantsCrossing.com. Appropriately named, Tumblelog, the application is easy to setup and cleanly sits in your facebook profile.  

The screen grab demonstrates the customization options and it is great to see that users have the ability to filter out content based on type and even further promote their tumblelog via News Feed. Because I like to keep a minimalist profile I was also relieved to find I can set the number of posts to be displayed in my profile and videos I have posted on my tumblelog first show as a play button versus the video screen.  It should be noted however you can play the video from your facebook page and images are shown without requiring any additional clicks.

Overall this is a great facebook app and way to promote your tumblelog. I will surely keep this one around for a while and add one more reason for keeping a facebook profile to my list.  

This week I am Lean training and after completing just the first day of this bootcamp it has been an eye opening experience. Whether it is work or personal life, process is everywhere and the Lean methodology is a way of looking at the process and making it as efficient as possible. What I enjoy most about it is it takes a no nonsense approach to getting the job done.

Lean is designed for quick wins or at least as quick as possible when challenging an established way of doing work. Through this act of challenging it is looking to make a cultural change. It requires a deep dive into a process and at every step asking why do we do this and what value does this step add for the customer.

Some of my biggest take-aways from the first day of the bootcamp include:

1. Defining value add of a process step is difficult and can have grey areas however the general rule of thumb is would the customer pay for this activity.
2. Simple things like floor layout play a huge role in reducing lead time even outside of the manufacturing floor. Things like walking to the fax or copier machine add bloat to a process and overtime add up to huge costs.
3. Lean is the not the end all. In fact, it should be treated as one of many tools in your process management tool box and can be used many times over in a process for continuos improvement.

In previous posts I have asked and discussed what you should be blogging about and overall entrepreneurship. Overwhelming feedback has come back time and time again that if you go down either route it needs to be about something you are passionate about. This means before you can even begin you need to be able to discover and know yourself. Once you have this you can create a cornerstone to build on and that is your personal or company mission statement. Outstanding Club, a blog I recently subscribed to and launched by a good friend of mine, is hosting a contest to do just that.

I encourage readers looking to enhance their personal brand or evaluating a business venture to take this challenge and create a mission statement. Blog about it and put your hat in for a chance at an Amazon gift card. I’ll be following the trackbacks and looking for additional inspiration as I need to also work on my mission statement.

What is Your Mission Statement - Outstanding Club Group Writing Contest

The leadership of Outstanding Club is busily working away at refining the vision and mission of the group. A great mission statement is one that is succinct but thorough, simple but all-encompassing. It is a filter through which all things must pass to be considered a part of what the group is and does. If you intend to use it as that filter, it has to be, deserves to be, chiseled to near-perfection.

With that in mind, the challenge to you this month is to define your own mission statement. What are the things that define you to the core? With a clearly defined mission statement and vision for your life, it becomes far easier to know what to say no to, what to embrace in your life, and how to spend more of your time doing what is unmistakably “you”.

Write your personal mission statement and the process you go through to determine what it ought to be, and you might win one of two US $25 Amazon Gift Certificates! For an example, here’s a link to the Personal Mission Statement of one of the Outstanding Club members. Yours does not have to be as long, structured in the same way - heck, you don’t even need to succeed in coming up with one! The process of trying to develop one is the important part.

How to Win

Write a blog entry on your own blog describing what your personal mission statement is, along with a description of the process you went through to come up with it. Only one entry per participant! It should be recent and original (up to 60 days old is OK). You’re strongly encouraged (though not required) to link back to this blog to acknowledge your participation.

Contact us via a comment on this post (see the little comment link near the top of this newsletter) or via e-mail at iainhamp at gmail no later than Wednesday, April 30, at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Include your name and the URL of your list. On May 7, we’ll post a list with all valid entries.You have until Wednesday, May 14 to read the participants’ entries and post a list with your favorite entries in your own blog. You should pick at least 3 favorite entries, and as many as you like (all, if you are so inclined).

Note: While we certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from linking to their favorite entries, regardless of whether they participated, only those who submit entries and then vote on their favorites will be eligible to win.

On May 21 the winners will be announced. Every time an entry gets mentioned as a favorite it gets one point, regardless of position. The two entries with the most votes get the prizes (if there’s a draw, the entry that was submitted first gets ranked higher).

Prizes

As mentioned before, the two top entries in the group writing contest will win US $25 Amazon Gift Certificates! Good luck, and we can’t wait to read your entries!

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[From What is Your Mission Statement - A Group Writing Contest]

Last weekend Chris Pirillo was back in Des Moines, IA visiting family. A couple days before his flight from Seattle he organized a meet up over twitter. The dmtweetup crew was quick to respond to the call and the meetup was held on Sunday at East Village Books.

I, unfortunately, had to miss this outing, or more fittingly I should say I had chosen to skip this one at the last minute to have a day of family time, however being the tech savvy group they are the event was well documented.

Nathan Wright has a video clip on his site from his interview with Chris. Chris’s response to retaining a creative class in Iowa strikes the closest for me but overall I have mix emotions about his comments. I agree that Des Moines is still not a technology hipster town however I can without a doubt state that Des Moines is making improvements to that cultural change. Through Twitter I have found a strong network of like-minded technology and social media followers which has expanded my network to a collection of bloggers open to supporting each other and most recently a budding group entrepreneurs.

In today’s environment the city you live can no longer be an excuse for not launching your own project nor finding others to have a dialogue with. There are a wide variety of tools to find the network and the support. It takes a little digging to find but this is true for any city and I for one applaud Des Moines for its progress and the network it has created to support its developers, bloggers and other freelancers.

Tonight ended up being a short night for computer productivity however I did have the opportunity to play around with some new software. My MarsEdit 30-day demo ended today and overall I can say I wasn’t impressed. In fact, the last couple of posts to my blog were drafted and published through the editor available on wordpress.com. So with tonight I did some googling and came across an old post on Problogger.net list 5 essential OSX blogging tools. This post lead me to ecto.

Ecto, much like MarsEdit supports a number of blogging platforms and after installing can be used in minutes to started drafting your post. The editor provides all of my main features needed to support your blog publishing and additional features can be added through plugins.

First impressions… I am liking it so far. Deep dive to come in the following weeks however one important note is the cost. I couldn’t justify MarEdit for $29.95 however if all of the same features are there in ecto and possibly more I have no problem paying 17.95 for a license.