Brad Meltzer's website, circa 2000

I recently saw this Ted Video by Brad Meltzer called How to Write Your Own Obituary, which I highly recommend.  Brad was a client of mine from 2000-2005 in the days of small, narrow, author websites (see screenshot to the right).  We say howdy via email every couple of years, and I guess it’s about time to say hi again.  So, “Hi Brad, loved the website! Let’s have lunch next time you’re in Colorado!”

Anyway, I’d like to add a bit to his legacy that he can choose to use in his obituary or not.

Early on in our relationship, at about the time when The First Counsel had come out, He had a book signing in Denver at the Tattered Cover.  I jumped in the car and headed down there. He was a client from the DC area at this point and I’d never met him in person and wanted to finally meet him.  I enjoyed the book reading and the quick chat we had in the long line afterwards.  Since my Mom had just finished reading The Tenth Justice and really liked it, I purchased The First Counsel and Brad gratefully autographed it for my Mom.  He didn’t know my Mom, but that was ok.  He said just the right thing that a Mom wants to hear about her son.  It shows just how much that a “Mom” means to Brad and I’m very grateful for it (as a side note, it’s a nice compliment to me too! Thanks again!).  It supports everything he talks about in the video about his Mom and what I’ve heard from him about her since her passing.

In his Ted talk, he speaks about his mother and her impact on his life as part of her legacy after her passing.  There’s much that he says about his mother that I could say about mine, but you can view his talk below.

Jump ahead 11 years.

Last January, my Mom passed away too.  In being home in VA and helping my family go through some things, I discovered The First Counsel on the book shelf and opened it up to see the inscription that had been there for more than 10 years and had to smile.  It brought back the memory of meeting Brad and working with him over the years.  I also still have a post card he sent promoting another book with a handwritten note on it about my Mom. It’s so easy to not take the time for a personal note, but so meaningful when you do.

A couple days later as I was waiting in the airport for my flight home, I started reading it.  Unfortunately, at the book signing, I only bought the one copy and had neglected to get a copy for myself, but was grateful to have a chance to read it… finally.  I read almost all of it on my 2 flights across the country (and a long layover in Atlanta) and, Brad, this is a long time coming, but I loved it!  Keep ‘em coming! I’m working through the ones I’ve missed.

So, Thanks to Brad for increasing his legacy by making an impact in my life and my Mom’s life (and being a great client).  I know she was a fan of your books and I wish you could have met her – and I wish I could have met your Mom too (who knows, maybe there’s a place for them to meet and share stories about us).

It’s amazing what a simple inscription to a fan in a book can do.  And that night at the Tattered Cover, you weren’t a client, but you certainly turned me into a fan (and I still am).

So, as part of finishing Brad’s Obituary: “He was a… son who loves his Mom.”

Thank you!

P.S. here’s Brad’s great talk:

TEDxMIA – Brad Meltzer – How To Write Your Own Obituary

Or to see it on the BP site, go here:

NOTE: Please be aware, this is a live stream and may freeze or be unavailable from time to time.

Loveland Pass Panorama - Click for larger image

You can read more about it and download it here:

http://debaclesoftware.com/

How long can they lose so much money?  $470,000,000 this year alone.

I agree that You Tube is one of the strongest online communities, if not THE strongest, but somehow, they’ll need to figure out the monetization problems.  No business can run with losses that continue for too long.

That said, taking advantage of You Tube’s channels for all of your company video is a pretty good way to broadcast yourself.

Jimmy is a brand unto himself.  So are Parrotheads.  And now, he’s taken the stadium naming rights away from Corporate America and into the social, entertainment, fun world.  Too bad this is only for one year, and that it’s supposed to end by the Superbowl, but, I expect it will live on forever and this will always be Landshark Stadium as Jimmy Buffett turns corporate branding on it’s ear.

Many of the articles say that one of the primary reasons is to get more people to football games.  I didn’t actually think that declining attendance to football games was a problem, but I bet this will work in terms of making them more fun.  You know he’ll be at many games and I expect he’ll play a lot too.  It’s the next step in the Margaritaville world.

Read one of the articles here.

See a short AP video here:

AWESOME!

See the other ads below:

Then, there’s http://www.viralvideos.com/ which has a completely different set of top viral videos…

I’m not really sure where they’re getting their data, but do know that viral videos are a popular way to get attention and if your video is good, it’ll get attention somewhere. A google search for “viral videos” brought back 7.4 million results.

According to YouTube’s fact sheet:

Traffic and Stats

People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, ten hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.

That’s a lot of video competition…