AMA and the joy of 1000!

Yesterday was my short presentation/ speaking "engagement" for the AMA seminar on Web 2.0/ Social Media.

I came in just in time to catch the end of an excellent presentation by Bill Flitter of Pheedo. Made me wish I'd gotten there earlier to hear the entire thing.

My new friend (and fellow cyclist) Dana VanDen Heuvel and my dear friend Toby Bloomberg warmly and generously introduced me to the seminar attendees and turned me loose for my very informal discussion on blogging and other social media, as it pertains to businesses and marketing.


Not something I get to see every day; the Masiguy blog on a big projector screen. Suddenly felt a little self-conscious...


For those who have seen me speak before in any kind of setting- Interbike, Sales Meetings, etc- I get pretty "animated" with hands/ arms flailing. I tried to keep it in check during the presentation... tried.


I managed to do "ok" with the restrained flailing. Donna would have been impressed- she's seen me in the midst of a full-on, coffee-fueled, bike rant before, so she's seen me at my worst.


Overall though, it went really well and I was very happy to have been given such a chance to speak. I am still very flattered by the offer from Dana and Toby be a part of the seminar discussion.

While sitting in the conference room after the close of the seminar, I had a conversation with Barbara Janszen from the local AMA chapter and discussed possibly speaking at one of their meetings as well. So maybe I'll get another chance to provide the same sort of rambling goofballery and blogging/ social media cheerleading.

After things were officially done with the seminar Toby, Dana, Bill, Bill's business partner Lohn Liberatore and myself went and had a couple beers and some great food at the Yard House. It was a great evening full of great conversations... including the numerous bike geek rants between Dana and myself. Not only is Dana a cyclist himself, but he's also a former shop owner.

As the night drew to a close, Toby was kind enough to do one of her short Flip videos with me outside on the sidewalk- which was pretty funny on a busy sidewalk on a Friday night in downtown San Diego.

All in all, it was a great time and a real honor for me to get to speak to the group of attendees at the seminar. I hope they all received something of value from the discussion. I know I had a great time having the opportunity to speak and hopefully I'll get to do it again.

This post is also post number 1000 for me since I began this blog on March 4th 2005. This March marks 3 years of Masiguy. There wouldn't be 1000 posts here and I never would have spoken yesterday at the AMA group if it weren't for those of you who stop here to read this stuff. I am constantly amazed by the community of readers that has grown here. If I miss a few days of posting, I get comments and emails asking if things are ok. When I share news about my life, I get an amazing outpouring of support. When I post pictures of beautiful bikes, I get wonderful comments of support, critique and sometimes great discoveries happen. This blog has served as a forum for those of you who read this thing and/ or have an interest in the Masi brand. It has also served as a way to shape the future of the brand and the products we produce. In short- it's become something much larger than I ever dreamed in March of 2004. So even though my 3 year anniversary is still a few days away, post number 1000 has me feeling pretty nostalgic and introspective... and sincerely thankful to you all.

I hope I manage another 1000 posts (and some more podcasts and video... I know) and that you all continue to read this thing because even though I would keep doing this without any readers at all, it sure is a helluva lot better with you guys participating.

A million thanks.

Tim

Not as late tonight...

Today I got to leave work at 7:00PM and got home just in time to tuck my daughter in to bed and read her a short book. So it ain't all bad... plus I just made myself a nice, cool Pina Colada (yeah, I know it's foofy... but it's also tasty and it's hotter-n-hell here right now).

Today, thanks to Jim and Susan and the entire crew at CyclArt, I got all of my last remaining samples of new products... and damn do they look great! I am supper excited about the bikes and I am confident you will all be pretty impressed too. A big thanks has to go to the fine folks who did a lot of work at Masi/ Haro to help make this happen; Wayne Doran (my Product Manager), Rick Ortiz (my graphic artist who created the look of the new bikes), Pat Crosby (who is the MTB Product Manager) and Brian Hayman (who has recently moved into a new sales roll with Haro, but has been an employee with the company for many years). It's a huge effort to get bikes into the world, from concept to artwork to parts spec and final product... it's a big effort. Needless to say, it's a very stressful and wonderful experience when the first bikes show up... and I'm pretty fried at the moment. The new stuff makes it all worth the headache and long hours.

Yesterday, I took a short break from work and left the office long enough to take part in a blog related talk show. One of my BBF's- Best Blogging Friends- Toby Bloomberg has a show on Blog Talk Radio and I got to be a guest, along with Donna Lyons-Miller. The topic was Leveraging Social Media to Support Niche Consumer Brands. It was a great conversation, so go give it a listen! Thanks again to Toby for being kind enough to invite me and to Donna for suffering through my usual ramblings.

Ok, I gotta finish my laundry before the sales meeting starts on Friday. Tomorrow is final prep and set up, so it's gonna be another very long day. I'll try to get a few more spy pics for you though... so be patient.

Tim

5 Reasons Why I blog

My good friend and Blog Best Friend (BBF) Toby Bloomberg tagged me with another meme going around about 5 reasons why I blog.

So, in good blogger fashion... here are my 5 Reasons Why I Blog;

1) Community- I blog because of the community of bloggers that I am now connected to. I get to share and grow and participate in a rich and vibrant world. The members of this community are some of the smartest and most generous people I have ever known. I've only ever met a few of them and yet I count them as friends- dear friends at that.

2) Learning- I blog because the blogosphere teaches me all kinds of things nearly every day. From marketing, to politics, to music, to cycling, to... you name it... the blogosphere is a great teacher.

3) Practice- I blog because, as a writer, I need the practice. I don't write poetry, essays or other literary endeavors nearly as often as I would like, but I keep my writing mind "sharp" by coming here and sharing thoughts and ideas. It's like training my mind, rather than my legs.

4) Communication- I blog because blogging allows me to communicate with a large audience very easily. I can let the world know a new product is on the way, a new color is being considered, a new idea is being hatched or simply that I am going to be in Washington DC for the National Bike Summit from March 13-16th trying to help further promote cycling related issues at our nation's capitol. Simply hitting the "publish" button means that millions of people will potentially receive a message from me. (That's really cool!)

5) You- I blog because of you, the readers of this blog. Sincerely, all of you who come here and read this blog and participate in the conversation and offer up ideas and thoughts spur me on to keep this project going. I openly admit that I started this blog just a few days short of two years ago because I wanted and needed to let people know that Masi Bicycles was alive and kicking. I needed to get the word out and do some guerrilla marketing... get viral. However, it didn't take long for this blog to attract a much bigger audience than I ever expected. This blog has gotten far greater attention than I ever dreamed or thought possible- believe me, I never, ever thought this would get me in the New York Times! The community of readers of this blog have given me so much in trade for my endless ramblings and pictures of my socks! (I never thought you guys would like the socks so damned much!) So really, thank you from the bottom of my blogging heart. You folks have made this far more rewarding to me than I ever dreamed- you have no idea just how much I mean that.

Now, in keeping with the true meaning of being a blogger... I am tagging a few folks to get them to share their reasons for blogging... and this will be fun!

1) Paul McEnany; Hee-Haw Marketing. Paul is my buddy in Texas with a marketing blog and who also knows a little about music. He's a great read and a funny damned guy (and I did a guest post on his site that just might shock a few of my regular readers... sorry. It was all in proper context... I swear.)
2) Gavin Heaton; Servant of Chaos. Gavin is my blogging friend in Sydney, Australia. I also mentioned Gavin a few months ago after his father-in-law was involved in an accident, where a car plowed into his riding group, severely injuring him. Gavin happens to be one of the brightest minds I know and regularly floors me with his intelligence, wit and writing.
3) Nick Navarro; Cornerstone Life. Nick is a fellow San Diego rider and blogger. His blog is routinely funny and often also very insightful and thoughtful. Nick doesn't exactly blog as often as a dork like me, but he blogs enough to have a good library of some really great reading. AND he's a super nice guy, so give him a read.
4) Fritz (aka Richard Masoner); Cycle-licious. Fritz has one of the best bike blogs around. He compiles tons of great information in one location, as well as writes some great stuff on his own. He's another one of the people I love to read everyday... and he's a true computer genius- he's a programming genius with Sun Microsystems. Basically, he knows how to find the "any" key on his keyboard.
5) Donna Tocci; Tidbits and More. Donna is the super-genius marketing/ PR/ media diva at Kryptonite and happens to be one of the best friends I have. I met Donna through blogging and we have become great friends. She's a true Boston girl, so she says "chowdah" and "pocks the caw"... and she's likely to kick my ass now in Vegas at Interbike.

So, tag! You guys are all IT. Thanks to Toby for calling me out.

Tim