BlogSprockit.com

Change is always tough, especially when there’s so many changes all at once.

This week leading up to the close of 2011 I will need to buckle down and really define what I plan to accomplish in 2012. It’s always been tough for me to write out goals or a game plan. I have tried doing it countless times in the past, but I was recently at a networking event where the guest speaker made the process of setting up my path for change extremely easy.

Craig Zuber was the guest speaker and he calls his simple plan the 1 – 3 – 5 method.

• (1) List one business objective you want to accomplish for 2012. Make it big and specific so it can be measured.
• (3) Create three goals that will help you accomplish your objective.
• (5) Create 5 steps to attain each goal

I think the reasons all my prior goal setting activities have failed comes down to complexity. Every time I sat down to write out a plan, it was always too complicated. I often found myself writing goals to complete my goals or plan.

Something Craig said in that meeting that hit me as if he was speaking directly to me was … (paraphrasing) Are you happy with where you’re at right now (professionally) and if you’re not, what are you doing to change that. It’s something I have heard so many times before, that I am responsible for where I am right now. It’s based on the choices I have made. Something was different with the way he spoke, I can’t really explain it, but for some reason I felt a very strong urging that 2012 was going to be a BIG year for me but it wouldn’t include working for someone else. The remainder of Craig’s speech only continued to strengthen this feeling.

To explain things a little better … Sara and I had already been discussing whether or not my current job was where I should be or not. I was having to make a very difficult decision so the message Craig Zuber had couldn’t have been timed any better.

As I say goodbye to 2011, I look forward to the changes and challenges waiting for me in 2012.

Related articles

• Get More Out of Networking Events (jtwomarketing.wordpress.com)
• Ten things entrepreneurs should do before 2012 (theglobeandmail.com)
• Two Compelling Social Media Trends for 2012 (socialmediatoday.com)
• A New Approach To New Years (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)

It was about time I put some shine on this old blog. The only thing that has been keeping it alive has been the automated weekly Twitter updates and I’ll bet those are exactly what everyone has wanted to see here at BlogSprockit.

Not to worry, I have upgraded WordPress, cleaned up the plugins, removed some of the dead weight and installed some neat little tools to help me post more frequently. To be honest, I don’t really know why I haven’t used this more. The whole reason I created this blog was to just write about anything I wanted to regardless of who was reading it.

Hopefully those who still check on this little blog in the corner of the web will like the new changes. If anything, I hope it will help me become more disciplined in regular blog updates. I have a lot of grand ideas for sites I would like to create, but I need to make sure I can be consistent somewhere.

What a bone headed move (thief wants to follow) … my wife logged into her Twitter account today and noticed a new follower had a very similar background as hers. No wait … it’s the exact background.

The only thing I can think of is that the copy-cat didn’t realize that I was the one who designed the background under the site I was running – eTweeple.com – obviously she must have thought, it’s ok to use the same background and then follow the very person she ripped it off of .

The worst part about this is the offending Twit, is not from the USA, and there’s no external link to try and reach this person. Therefore I’m left with reporting this to Twitter. What a joke … I understand there are policies in place to prevent people from abusing the take down notice, but come on.

Why should we as victims have to go through so much in order to protect our copyright. This was something I created for my wife, it’s special to us & unique. Getting to the Twitter backgrounds isn’t something the average person will know how to do either … which makes me wonder if there has been someone else who could have possibly scrapped the html of our backgrounds and possibly others, and illegally offering them to the public.

Anyway … after all the steps I have taken so far to get Twitter to take it down, I now must submit to them a DMCA take down notice.

My wife’s twitter – @sprockgirl

The offending Twit – @josyeblauth

This sucks!

It’s almost here … my latest project … ProckStar Creative Studios

It was bound to happen, as it always does … it seems I’m always working on a new project. TPRweb stalled out (I slipped too many times with keeping it updated) and as I keep trying to fight against the lack of time, I often find myself at the losing end of that battle.

Starting my own web design has been something I always wanted to do, and have tested the waters a few time. After seeing so many poorly done websites, and companies doing web / graphic design with crappy work, I thought … I can certainly do better … so I’m getting ready to launch my own design company.

I hope to have the site available by the end of this weekend, but as time constraints and contract work I have picked up pulls preference, I may not be able to launch until next week.

The only thing that is slowing me down at this point is putting together my portfolio … putting it all together in a creative way takes time

Keep an eye open here for more information .

Greetings!

Are you all ready for the ride of your life?

I just made the decision to get started in a new business venture that I’m sure will prove to be the best decision I have made since I asked my lovely wife (Sarah) to marry me

I’m not sure what the response will be, as I don’t know if this has been done before … I’m going to journal my daily activities in this new business venture and post a daily blog post on a soon to be launched site (currently being built).  Obviously these first days will be absent a blog home for my journal progress, so I have decided to start posting them here on my personal blog. (will transfer them to their new home as soon as I can)

I’ve started a new category titled SOC for those interested in my progress.

My goal with this is two fold …

1) I hope by posting about my daily activities it will act as encouragement to stay the course and keep moving forward. A way for me to be accountable to myself and others. One thing I have noticed from a lot of great blogs, and many blogs my wife reads. People like to read about REAL life, they’re drawn in, and really start to connect with the blog owner. I’m not going to be concerned about creating a mass following, and perhaps no one will be interested at all – lol – but I do know by posting a public time line of my progress, there will come a day where people will be interested in HOW I did it. That’s where it will be fun to look back after a couple of years and see where I was at the beginning of my journey.

2) I hope others will see this as a business that they can do themselves, and be inspired to start taking action.

There will also be changes coming to Blogsprockit as I am getting bored with the current design but only after my new site is ready.

Feel free to add any comments and I look forward to hearing about your successes too.

Enjoy … Scott

I just had to fill out an online employment review in order to continue receiving unemployment but I wonder when the Idaho Labor department is going to update their form for reporting job searches.

With the current economy and … well, being unemployed … one would think Idaho Labor would understand in this age of information online that it would make sense to save money on gas and do your job searching, applications, and interview scheduling online. After all, they do encourage the use of online job searching.

Then why … I can’t figure it out … do they NOT have a section on their form to fill in email contacts, or searches you have done online. Do they not understand that many of the applications only have an email address, some don’t even have the company name.

I have been responding to an average of one job posting per day (most days more) from a number of different online job searches, but there’s no place for me to put that information on the Idaho Labor form … WTF!!!

If you know of anyone hiring in the graphic design field, or looking for freelance work, let me know … also be sure to check out my offer for free blog installation

Enjoy … Scott

After recently learning about Animoto’s video service, I decided to upload some pics of our kids (all 9 of them) to test the service out.

I am so impressed I want to do more pics to see how they render the video. I have to say this video turned out PERFECT and all I did was upload the photos then clicked through the prompts with their default settings.

Enjoy … Scott

A very tough decision was made today … the demise and end to TPRweb.com …

There are a number of reasons I could blame the closure on, but the bottom line is the site stopped making money a long time ago and was barely making enough to pay the expenses of running the site.

The lack of income from TPRweb is completely my fault, and some day I will write about the reasons why TPRweb died a slow death.

For now it’s important for me to make the point that my focus is on my family, and the only way I would have been able to turn TPRweb around would have meant more sacrifices from my family and I just can’t do that any longer.

My goals are a lot differet now, and I hope to be able to come back to my online activities some day, but for now, I must take a leave of absence from a lot of my Internet projects and strengthen what matters most to me which would be my wife and kids.

With that I will sign off for now and will post periodic updates now and then.

Best of success to you … Scott