Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
So, remember that post I made asking how you would leverage local flexibility for the benefit of growing your business?
Well, I found my answer.
As I write this, I’m in Boston. I’ve been here for three days, and will be here for the entire month of July. After Boston, I’ll be going to Chicago for August and September. Denver/Boulder for October.
And so on, and so forth. For 12 months.
Through the trip, I intend to make use of my physical location to meet some great and interesting people, grow my business, and see some fantastic cities around the USA.
Since you subscribe to this blog, you might be interested in that blog, being kept at:
nuudl: Musings of Ben Wills
This blog will still be updated on it’s usual sporadoc schedule, with the atypical quirks you’d expect to leave my brain. Like this crazy trip.
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
Sometimes, I find it useful set goals that are contingent upon other goals.
What I mean by that is that if I am unsure if I can develop the capacity to achieve a larger goal, I’ll set an interim one that will give me an idea of if I can develop the capacity to hit the larger one. There’s no use in having a goal of $10M in the bank, if you can’t get $10k in there.
In January, the morning of this (and before I found out about his death), I decided I wanted to do the same thing…ascend Everest, and two other difficult peaks in the world. The reality is that, other than rock climbing, I hadn’t intensely training for anything since playing hockey in high school…almost 10 years ago.
So, what I did is I set an aggressive goal, with an aggressive time frame, to ride my fixed-gear, brakeless bike a full 20 miles in an hour. I chose this because it would force me to exercise my legs in a similar way as mountaineering, and it would force me to develop my lungs - which I hadn’t taken care of with 8 years of heavy smoking (I quit last April).
Today, I hit that goal. More than three weeks ahead of schedule. (it sucked) (and I did it on 3 hours of sleep and after 3 hours of climbing/weight lifting last night…more on that later.)
The point is: If I had only focused on the larger goal, I probably wouldn’t have progressed nearly as quickly. Sometimes, making a larger goal contingent upon a smaller goal (rather than the smaller goal merely being an interim milestone) forces you to perform at a faster rate.
As a personal note, if you know anyone who has ascended Everest, K2, Kilamanjaro, or done any similar alpine mountaineering/climbing (ie: Patagonia, Africa, etc), if it would be possible to arrange some sort of meeting/communication that would be awesome. As much as informal education is a wonderful thing, there are some things that just can’t compare to the experience.
Monday, March 24th, 2008
So, I don’t really like sleep…other than the fact that it’s nice after significant physical exertion. But still, it kinda cramps my productivity. So I’m going to try and do less of it.
Those that know me, know that I’m fairly particular about sleep. I usually keep uncommon hours and often have no sleep schedule whatsoever other than “when I’m tired.”
This year, I’ve been trying to hack at the system of sleep a bit more precisely. I’ve done a fair amount of research and have discovered that, simply put, sleep is a series of chemical reactions in your body. I’ll explain more about what those are and what they do in a later post.
I’m definitely not up for polyphasic sleep in 20 minute cycles. It’s just not socially convenient in any way, shape, or form, and I can’t even imagine not getting into a longer flow-state.
However, 3 hours of sleep at night, with a 90 minute nap, like this guy, seems plausible. It would also fit in with my natural sleep habits.
So, my question to you all is this: What sleep experiments have you done? What research do you know about that I may benefit from?
I’ll be putting together the results of my research before next week - which is when I plan on starting the new sleep habit.
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
I got tired of thinking about clothes.
When I got to calculating the real cost of wearing clothes, I was appalled about how expensive it is to try and keep up with fashion. That awesome shirt you bought for $80 and wore twice? Yeah, that cost you $40 to wear it. That’s stupid.
So I got rid of almost all of my clothes and did this:
I expect to save several hundred dollars this year on clothes by wearing only white shirts and jeans. Exceptions: Special occasions.
When is a white shirt unacceptable? Nice jeans? I’ve got khakis but haven’t had to wear them once this year. And I won’t need to for another 5 weeks.
I’ve been doing this since the new year (beta test from Thanksgiving to the new year), and the mental space this clears up is amazing.
Saturday, March 15th, 2008
This place just opened at a nearby shopping center called “Wild Wing Cafe.” A friend of my brother’s (Chris), Dave, works there and Chris has been trying to get me to go to it ever since I made a big deal about hot sauce.
Well, apparently, their hottest wings are called “Braveheart.” I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know if there’s an apparent connection or if the word is just sufficient as it is.
So, I get there the other night and Jonathan (my other brother) has agreed to a challenge to eat 8 of them, as they come in sets of 16. If he finishes 5, Dave will pay for them. I get asked to join the challenge. Since I’m not one to back down from a food challenge, I, of course, say yes.
Now, I’ve had my fair share of hot foods in my day. I eat the hell out of some wasabi tobiko, and have, in the past three months, expanded my palette to include more intense pepper and vinegar based heat.
I get situated and Dave pushes a paper dixie cup my way and says “Taste this.” Knowing that this is the Braveheart sauce, I dab my finger in it and put it on my tongue…
I have to say, it’s got a really great flavor. It’s a bit fruity, like raspberry, and has a great depth to it, while at the same time, having a fiery edge.
After about 5 seconds, though, your entire mouth is hating your own existence in every way possible. The heat and taste will.not.go.away. It haunts you like the time you shot your brother in the arm with a bow and arrow, but your parents don’t know about it…yet.
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on those wings.
So, we’re waiting on these famous wings…chugging water after only a small taste of this sauce…when it finally comes. We divvy up the wings, eight and eight.
Then, Dave pulls a real…notsonice…move: he dumps the entire cup of the sauce that was in the dixie cup on our Braveheart wings. Excellent.
So, my strategy is to eat these things as fast as I can, knowing that the faster I eat them, the longer the heat will be at bay. I’m hoping that I can shove it all down my gullet before it catches up.
Four wings in, (Jonathan had five to meet his quota) and I have to take a breather. I hadn’t had water yet, so I’m suckling the straw like Romulus and the mother wolf’s teet. I kill two huge glasses of water, some celery sticks and am trying like mad to figure out how to get this hellfire from eating my face off.
This is the kind of heat that all it has to do is touch your face and sensitive skin like your lips, and it burns with the wrath of Mike Tyson when he’s hungry and fighting. Since wings are eaten only with extreme care and elegance as if eating with The Queen, it wasn’t like my face was burning off, or my lips were melting toward my ears or anything. No, that wasn’t happening at all.
Jonathan and I decide that we’re ready to finish what we started and demolish the rest of the wings.
“It can’t get much worse than this, right?”
God, are we stupid.
We eat the rest and two minutes after we finish, we’re hating life worse than ever. Jonathan’s curled up and complaining of stomach pains like a little schoolgirl. I’m chugging water, swirling it in my mouth (it helped), and trying everything I can think of to get this taste - or lack thereof, due to numbness - out of my mouth. Note for later: the fresh, hot French fries were a mistake.
Together, Jonathan and I had already consumed three pitchers of water, so it was definitely time to hit the loo. And, let me tell you, it sucked not having immediate access to water. I washed my hands, did my business, and the whole time was trying to keep the burning feeling from reaching my ears as it had already hit Jonathan’s.
I come back and immediately start chugging water again, bringing much relief.
I devise a strategy to eat some of the sweeter tasting wings at the table and the idea seems to work a bit, so I kill eight or ten more wings.
But…then…I get this really weird feeling a little unlike any other feeling I’ve had before, though slightly reminiscent of something else.
It’s a little bit tingly and unpronounced at first. Then, it starts getting uncomfortable.
As I’m trying to at least be present for the conversations at the table, I’m still lost in my head trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
Dave looks at me and asks if I’m alright, as Jonathan is still hunched over and groaning about his stomach, and I realize what it is…
I should’ve washed my hands better before going to the bathroom.
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
Today, Andy Beal decided to make fun of the fact that there are 13 months missing from the time-line in the right-hand navigation of my blog. See here:
http://twitter.com/andybeal/statuses/770025530
We all had a great chuckle…at least on the outside.
I got to thinking…perhaps I’ll write in here every day for the next 30 days. Heck, I’ve done much more difficult things with a greater length of consistency.
So, as a way to enact revenge on Andy’s fighting words (and to conscientiously develop the writing habit), you get 30 days, every day, of going deep inside the mind of Ben Wills.
Friday, December 15th, 2006
Usually, stuff like this would get glossed over. I’ve never sent a piece of chain email, but it’s fun and I could use the mental break after two all-nighters in a row. Plus, I could say that it’s “viral,” “social” and “engaging” if I really needed to justify its presence. ;)
So, Andy has tagged me to play “Blog Tag.” Basically, I share five things about me that you probably don’t know, and pass on the tagging to 5 others.
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I used to DJ progressive house music and throw raves. You know, the scary parties that you don’t want your kids going to.
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I wanted to be a paleontologist for about 10 years before finally giving in to the reality during high school that I was going to end up some form of online business.
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At my first online marketing job, I was hired as a salesperson. If you know me, didn’t know this and just shot soda out of your nose due to the fantastical humor in that, I apologize for my timing. I almost sold an account to the Bank of Qatar. Well, not really.
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I went to UT Austin for computer science. I dropped out after that year. It was a fun year.
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I love lamp.
And, next up:
Cord Silverstein, Abhilash Patel, Todd Malicoat, Garrett French, and one I’ve never met: Tom Chandler
Monday, October 30th, 2006
Hello, my name is: Ben Wills.
Work History
I’ve recently made the decision to move into online marketing consulting after spending almost four years at KeywordRanking.com/ WebSourced/ MarketSmartInteractive and the past year working with Andy Beal to start Fortune Interactive, both search engine optimization/marketing companies. At both companies, my role was in the operations side of the company, designing and improving the services for our clients and our internal processes to do so.
At KeywordRanking.com, I saw and helped to lead the service and operations growth from myself, a Vice President and an intern handling very basic SEO services for a couple-hundred campaigns, to over 75 people directly managing over 1,200 search marketing campaigns. Some of these projects were quite impressive to the extent that I’ve never known of larger campaigns to be executed; This included designing, developing and implementing a search marketing campaign for a B2C Fortune 500 company that operated in over 35 countries and over a dozen languages. It was amazingly complex and I’m quite proud of the team that saw this through.
At Fortune Interactive, we were able to apply some very valuable lessons that we learned at KeywordRanking.com to a new company with a potentially great technology. Within the first nine months, we grew to over 20 people and hit many significant milestones in terms of profitability, customer retention, technology development and an amazing level of service not before seen in the industry. I say that not out of arrogance, but from a level of confidence that comes with understanding your competitors’ businesses and offerings.
It’s About the People
I’ve always known (thanks, Dad) that business, and life, is about the people your surround yourself with. Period. Between both experiences over the past five years, I can say with great certainty that I now not only know this as information one might carry with them and discuss at a cocktail party, but that I know this with a level of conviction and defensibility that is only gained through a great range of experiences. That said, as aware of one’s youth as one can be, I look forward to further developing this understanding.
I’ve seen the great things that can happen when passionate people are set free to leverage their own unique talents to reach a unified goal. I’ve seen how there not only comes the satisfaction of accomplishment with this, but also the fulfillment of being a part of something larger than yourself that pushes you harder toward a greater achievement than you could have imagined on your own.
For this reason, it may seem a bit enigmatic that I would make the decision to work independently, and for that reason you would be right. However, I will continue working with amazing people. Only now, I will not only be working with them on projects, but also in a new capacity…
Social Change…Not Just for Web 2.0
Social media is not just a Web 2.0 revolution. This is a social revolution. This change is not only impacting the way that we interact online, but this same fundamental change is occurring in the ways that we volunteer our time and talents, collaborate for the purpose of commerce and education, make political decisions, involve ourselves in our community and in the ways that we manage our businesses.
Call it a Tipping Point of the Flattening of the World that allows us to tap into the Wisdom of Crowds during a time when we face the largest Paradox of Choice in the history of humananity. If that’s what you want to call it, then, by all means go for it. Regardless, it can’t be ignored.
My passions lie in business, sociology, philosophy, ethics, morals, communication and how the Internet is changing the human race (both for better and for worse). Being involved in online marketing allows me to work with many other businesses of all shapes, sizes, forms, purposes, etc, and authentically become involved in understanding their market for the benefit of their business in ways that I would never be able to do so, otherwise.
“For the Sake of…”
A small part of me used to believe that I missed “my time” to make a difference in the 60’s and the 70’s. I wanted to be a hippie and change the world. I wanted to be a part of a revolution.
But I now see that this is the best time for anyone with a similar desire to do so. I do believe that business, with its eternal evolution and emphasis on continuous performance and improvement, can change the world by setting new standards and practices for our performance outside of the workplace. And I also believe that the Internet gives anyone who wishes to change the world the ability to do so with a greater chance for effectiveness than ever before.
I love the idea of Social Media and Marketing. I love its complexity, its necessity to uphold extreme ethics, its peer- and merit- based natural organization and its ability to communicate today’s message to the audience of tomorrow.
I sincerely hope that I am able to bring value to your organization, and I look forward to sharing with everyone our thoughts and seeing where this crazy train will go. :)
Ben
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