Segue

In November of 2012, DVD Your Memories (now a multi-million dollar business) was sold.  At the very end of my last day consulting for the new owner, I helped a guy named Chuck (this was highly unusual because I almost never work one-on-one with customers anymore, less than once a month).  It was a pretty cool gift from the universe letting me know that things were in-tune.

From April through October 2013, I traveled through the US, much of Asia, Central Europe, and Central America, meeting up with friends in almost every country and having so much fun.  I relocated to Davis, California when I got back not really knowing what to do with myself, so I starting exploring my interests.

My interests consisted mostly of golfing, yoga, eating healthy and visiting friends.  Since I had no plan of what to do next with my life, I started to explore those interests.  I started playing golf almost every weekday.  And my golf game has improved from averaging mid to high 90's, to becoming a 14 handicap, even breaking 80 one time.  I went to yoga class almost every day of the week as well.  I enjoyed my yoga practice so much that I enrolled in a yoga teacher-training program.  That was a great experience that really deepened my understanding of what yoga really is.  Of course eating healthy I always have focused on because it makes my mind sharp, clear and my mood very good.  I traveled to visit with friends and even had a wonderful girlfriend during most of this time.

After about 7 months of exploring my interests and having fun, I am now feeling like something is missing.  This feeling is with me all day long.  I can occupy my mind (golf, yoga, movies), but as soon as I stop, the feeling comes back.  Up until now my life has been really simple because I always knew what I had to do.  Decisions were easy.  Now, when the number of things I can do with my life is infinite, deciding on something has become much more difficult.

This takes us to the present.  My intention is for this blog to follow me on my journey of creating a new life and possibly a wholly new way of living.  I hope that by making this blog public I will feel a greater sense of responsibility to embrace life outside of my own self-interests.

Guide to Google Wave For Business

I love when new technology comes out. And I especially love it when that new technology makes my life easier or more efficient. Google Wave is a new technology that is destined to take it's rightful place right alongside email. (Update: Google Wave can now be integrated with the Thunderbird email client). To get a sense of what Wave is, please watch this short video:

Currently, Wave is useful for collaboration purposes such as planning for projects because of the way multiple people can develop the wave in real-time. In the future Wave will be used for all sorts of things. One of the great things about Wave is that programmers can develop "gadgets" for Wave that can perform all different types of functions from simple surveys to complex games.

How Google Wave is affecting my business:

I use Google Wave to get input from my employees on certain projects I'm working on. Say, for instance, we are looking at adding a 3000DPI slide and negative scanning option. I will ask that question in the wave. Then I will add my image scanning technician into that particular wave, so he can see everything that was written. He will then be able to reply in-line with my question. I can then either leave it at that, or if I want more clarification I can reply back to him right there underneath his reply. This makes a wave sort of like a forum.

Of course projects sometimes have hundreds of questions that are asked to multiple people. Google Wave can handle this no problem. You can even add a group of people at a time for added convenience.

Even though Wave is still in preview mode (not even Beta yet), it is still an extremely powerful tool. If you are wondering how Google Wave can help you in your work or personal life, Lifehacker recently asked its users what uses they have found for Google Wave. See some great examples on their blog. Here is one of my favorites:

Google Wave will be enormously useful to reporters collaborating on stories. Currently a colleague and I are working on a story involving safety issues at Arizona prisons. This involves a lot of digging through records, interviewing people and transcribing the tapes, and writing up what we've found. Because we work in different offices, it can be hard to keep track of where each of us is in our reporting. Wave could help us organize our reporting and collaborate on the writing by making the process transparent in real time. With a couple more invitations, editors could follow our progress and insert questions into our stories. Lastly, there's great potential here for crowdsourcing. We could start waves seeking public input on our stories, and incorporate those questions and answers into our reporting. Because we could supplement our questions with documents and a variety of links, I see the potential for crowdsourcing much greater on Wave than it is (so far, anyway) on Twitter and Facebook.

Resources:

For those of you who do have some time to check out Google Wave further, go to The Complete Guide to Google Wave.

And let me know if you need an invite, I've got a few left.

Astak EZ Reader Review (Device Review)

Now I've actually owned the Astak EZ Reader for about 6 weeks... long enough for a thorough review. Overall I would give this device 4 out of 5 stars. There are just one thing that prevents me from giving it a full 5/5 rating.

Speed of the unit. It does take a little time to load books, navigate folders and turn pages. I can understand there might be some load-time for opening up larger documents (over 5mb). But even going into a folder to see what files are there take about 2-3 seconds. Opening up larger files can take between 6-9 seconds. Not a lot, but this day and age I would expect it to be faster. The most annoying is when you are turning a page in a book. I would have hoped that it would be just as fast as turning a page in a normal, paper book. Well, unfortunately, the paper still holds this over my e-book reader. The page turns in about 5 seconds. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you've got the book open with large text, you are turning the pages quite often and the 5 seconds adds up.

Well, enogh of the bad stuff, lets get to the good points. From what I hear, this is one of the few readers around that actually maintains your file and folder structure. I hear that some of the other readers aggregate all the books together and then use their own sorting system to display the books. I have over 300 books on my e-book reader and they are in about 8 different folders. So it is really nice to go into my "business" folder, or my "traveling" folder.

The screen continues to impress as well. High contrast, easy on the eyes (see previous post about e-ink screen technology) and doesn't use power once the page has been loaded. I continue to leave my e-book reader on almost all the time and I've only lost about 3/4 bars -- in 6 weeks!!! Amazing!

The device comes in actually a pretty nice little case that holds the unit in well. It also comes with an AC adapter and MiniUSB to go to the computer. It comes with a wrist strap (haven't used that yet) and the 2 gigabyte SD memory card*. I really enjoy being able to take out the SD card, throw it into my laptop, drap and drop a file onto the card, and then pop it right back in the reader ready to read. Takes about 40 seconds all-in-all to get the books on there. A lot of people really like the Kindle because it uses wireless technology to download books, but how often are you really downloading new books? Maybe once a week if you are a fast reader. The Kindle is nice if you wanted to download daily newspapers or blogs, but for reading books, I think it is superfluous.

This unit also has the ability to play music through the headphone jack. I apologize for not having tried this function yet. But from everything I can surmise, don't think that this will serve as an MP3 player because it is not that advanced.

This device also shines in that it can handle every type of file that I've thrown at it. Go ahead and try this little gem out, you won't be disappointed.

Update
After reading some comments and other posts, it has come to my attention that:
The memory card is not always 2 gigabytes. I have heard reports that it is only 256mb or 1 gigabyte. The model I bought was from Fry's Electronics in San Diego, CA and it did come with the 2 gigabyte stick. Don't worry too much about the storage capacity as many books are between 30-100k in size and you can purchase a larger card for very cheap.

Astak EZ Reader 6" Review (for Business)

Today, I want to do a review of the e-book reader that I just bought, the Aztak EZ Reader 6". I have been playing around with the idea of getting an e-book reader ever since the first edition Kindle came out. Then the Kindle II came out as well as the Kindle DX, and all of a sudden they are everywhere. And if they aren't everywhere in your city, they will be soon. There are just so many advantages to using e-book readers.

One huge breakthrough that led to the rise in popularity of these devices is e-ink or Electronic Paper Displays (EPD) technology.

• No refresh rate -- that means your eyes will not strain while looking at the screen
  
• Screen is easily viewable in bright light environments
  
• Text on screen is high contrast like books or newspapers
  
• Battery is only used to change the screen -- almost no battery is used when page is "on"
  
• Screen is viewable from many angles
  

For a businessperson like myself I tend to read many books at one time. Currently I'm reading just three books, but I have many more that I really want to get into. The inherent problem is that sometimes I'm in the mood for one book and sometimes I'm in the mood for another. This may sound trivial, but I'm not going to be carrying around three different books with me wherever I go. With an e-book reader, I can read any book I want at any time. What's more, e-book readers allow you to store literally thousands of titles on the device at one time, so if you want to re-read a chapter from "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding" during your next project, you don't have to hunt down the book; you can just click on the title. Finally, every businessperson that works as hard as I do needs to take vacations to relax and get some perspective. I'm planning an extended trip to southeast Asia in the next month and I really want to travel light. I'm not even going to bring my laptop. But I will be packing my new e-book reader because I can catch up on all my reading and even download new books while I'm traveling. Not to mention if I get stuck on one of those planes that don't have the personal in-flight movies, the e-book reader will be my savior.

And speaking of books, almost every book imaginable is available for download online. Many older books are free and my Astak EZ Reader 6" came with 200 of them preloaded on the 2 gigabyte memory card the unit shipped with. I've also heard that public libraries will allow you to download e-book readers from the web. Amazon and other booksellers are making it easier all the time to download books. And, there are easy ways to download some of the newest books online for free, but I am not condoning that behavior. Imagine being able to read any book you ever wanted, any time you desired, and all in one place. I really think that e-book readers are going to follow the same model as MP3s. Within 10 years the sales of e-book readers will overtake paperbacks. And did I mention the environmental impact of e-book readers. Imagine all the paper that will be saved.

Okay, so I know that I haven't actually reviewed the Aztak EZ Reader 6" yet. I just couldn't help suppress my enthusiasm for this promising technology that is going to revolutionize books, magazines and newspapers within the next 10 years. I'll do the specific review for this product later this week.

Save Your Internet Work as You Go

It took me a while, but I learned a great lesson today. The teachers were Google Profiles and my friend Ben Elias.

I was working on my Google Profile (one for myself and I created one for the business). (I really don't know if this is going to help with curing my SEO obsession.) For some reason, Chrome (my previous browser of choice - I recently switched back to Firefox. But back to the story... I was inputting tons of text with hyperlinks. More specifically, I was copying paragraphs of text from different pages from the DVD Your Memories website. For some reason, every time I went to look at the preview of my profile, or even if I saved my profile, many of the sections would be lost and I would have to start all over again. Each time I wasted about 30 minutes. Obviously this was becoming highly frustrating (not to mention that at one point Ben brought me over a beer and as I opened it, it somehow exploded all over the desk and my new laptop).

If you know me, I'm all about efficiency. I devoted two months of my life to learning the GTD (Getting Things Done) systems and "life hacking." I hate to waste time. Now, whenever I'm filling out a web form, I will type it up first in Microsoft Word, and then copy and paste it into the web form. I can't tell you what a time-saver this is. I don't recommend adding the hyperlinks inside of word because it usually won't carry over into the web form.

All Things Being Equal - Why do Larger Orders Come Over Time?

I tend to think of the general public (meaning everyone outside of DVD Your Memories) is like one customer that has an almost unlimited number of orders. When a new business creeps up that fills a need for this customer, then the customer will place some small, tester orders. As time goes on and the business proves that it can successfully handle all the smaller orders, the customer will place larger ones.

That is how business has been for DVD Your Memories. In 2006 we never took an order that was more than about $1000 dollars. Then in 2007, we would get orders around that size all the time. And so on and so on. The size of the orders is getting exponentially larger. Now we are at the point where businesses are taking notice and when they want to get a ton of Video to DVD transfers completed or have some photo scanning, we are getting the phone call. My question is, why now, why not two years ago?

But what doesn't make sense to me is that we've always had an above-average looking website and advertised using the same methods for the last couple of years. Why didn't we get some of these larger orders earlier on in the game? And it's not like all of our previous customers are talking to all the newer ones (well some of them might), but for the most part, our larger orders are coming from the same type of advertising we have always been doing.

Maybe the fact that we now have 2 stores, one in Orange County and one in San Diego. Maybe people think that with two stores the business much be good due to the simple fact that they have more than one location. In our case this may be true but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is true. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, just wondering why sequentially larger orders are always happening. I am most grateful, not only for our clients, but to all of our loyal technicians who faithfully complete their work to nearly 100% accuracy and on-time.

I think that the best answer to this question relys on one word, "trust." Trust isn't gained by looking the best or by having the most flashy website. I think trust is gained most efficiently by a very inefficient means, and that is by being consistent.

One More Year, Many Successes

Ha ha. Almost another year went by without me checking in and writing in this blog. Well, now I know better and it's about time I caught up with the SEO.

I guess I better fill in on what has happened over the last year. DVD Your Memories has continued its success. Of course by the end of the summer of 2008, the economy went down, but it wasn't until the day I left for Thailand (September 14, 2008) that the shit really hit the fan. It was a very weird coincidence that this happened at the same time. I remember being at a diving resort in Ko Tao and finally getting the chance to see the news. It seemed like as soon as I left the country, WWIII happened. But enough about that.

Needless to say, September and October were scary months because no one knew how bad the economy was and when it was going to rebound. We ended up having a fine holiday season. The last week I was in Thailand, I spent by myself contemplating what to do with my life. Go back to school, go travel, work another job, sell the business, or grow the business. Well, I decided during that week to grow the business. I felt like DVD Your Memories has an enormous potential and I have a matching enormous ambition.

So I decided to open up another store in Orange County. It was close to home and I though it would be a good market for family media transfer services. So I ended up purchasing most of what I needed by the end of 2008, which not only helped to lower my taxes, but it also allowed me to focus on starting up the office after the holiday season.

DVD Your Memories Orange County opened in March of 2009 in Costa Mesa, CA. Richard became the manager up there and I moved up with him to help start up that store. On June 30th, the store was successfully and profitably running on its own!

Furthermore, we ended up landing a huge (for us) contract with the City of Irvine to convert all of their city council meetings for the last 40 or so years. We all worked very hard on our proposal (Brandi, Bryan, Richard and myself) and with some great references that really sealed the deal.

So now here we are, working on the City of Irvine project and growing the company. The immediate growth of our company will rely heavily on SEM. We have always worked on PPC and have become very good at that, but SEO has been always lacking. That is my next big project.