Why I left HubSpot to do nuCloud full-time

I have been very bad about blogging lately.  Not just bad about blogging here, but also on the .eduGuru and nuCloud blogs also.  If you look at the timeline you will see that my last blog post here was July 28th, 2011!  I promise I’m going to fix that. One of the reasons for my lack of blogging was I spent the last five months at HubSpot learning sales.  I say learning sales instead of “doing” sales because it was absolutely a learning experience for me.  The psychology of sales is something that everyone should learn.  Sales is one of those skills, like customer service and people management, that are invaluable no matter what profession you are in.  Sales is also an all-consuming beast that has kept me so focused on it that I haven’t been a...

Book Highlights: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

I recently read what was one best books of 2010 and after reading it I completely understand why.  Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is the true story of Louie Zamperini who was young athlete in the 1936 Olympics before joining the Army Air Corps and becoming a bombardier.  On a rescue trip his plane crash-landed into the ocean and one of the most fascinating stories of survival and tradgey begins.  This book will suck you into his story and amazing resilence through it all. Here is a story of a young man who’s life couldn’t look much brighter and then he is thrown into war.  As a POW to the Japanese everything is stripped from him but he survives years of this to come back and live a life of meaning and happiness again.  I think there are lessons in this...

4th of July Weekend in Boston

Heather’s parents were in town over the 4th of July weekend so we did what any good host would do and took them all over Boston.  Here are the most interesting pictures of the weekend.  Sorry no firework pictures this year but if you want those then you should check out my 4th of July firework extravaganza post from last...

First Fly Fishing Trip to Vermont

One of my HubSpot work buds, Dave Shepherd, and myself went fly fishing in Vermont yesterday.  We spent the day out on the Black River which feeds into the Connecticut River.  Before doing Dave bought his new canister filter special for this trip. Dave is a regular fly fisherman and this was my first fly fishing experience.  Although I’ve done quite a bit of fishing in my life I’ve just never used a fly rod before.  He was nice enough to teach me enough of the basics you need to dig in. One of Dave’s sayings is, “If you can catch three fish in a day then it was a GREAT day!”.  Combined that is exactly how many fish we caught although we did hook more than twice that many other fish that got away. I really do miss just getting away...

Book Notes: Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox

Here is another book that I recently completed.  Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox was an interesting read.  It was interesting learning the story of artificial light and how it has changed human life so much over the last few centuries.  Can you image a time when the sun went down people lived in darkness until the next morning? Instead of reading the whole book here are 18 quotes from the book that really stood out in my mind. The story of this increase—just a few centuries old—is one of technology and power, of politics, grievances, and class: the wealthy and powerful have always been the first to acquire new kinds of light and have always had more of it than others. But the story of light is also one of constancy and mystery, of...