This Site Was Long Overdue For A Redesign

It has been years since I last updated the template on this personal blog.  For the last three weeks I’ve been pretty hardcore in the backend of WordPress launching the new redesign on the nuCloud website.  For some reason it just felt right to redesign this site.  I’m sure that I’ll have additional tweaks that I’ll want to make but for now I really like this WordPress Theme from Elegant Themes. Three years ago I knew the ins and outs of WordPress.  Over the last three years while I was becoming a master of the HubSpot CMS I’d put WordPress to the side.  WordPress Themes and Plugins are the true power of the system and both have come a long way over my absence.  If you are looking for themes I’d highly recommend Elegant Themes and Theme Forest for incredible...

Bentley made the Braves Facebook Page

Bentley made the Braves Facebook Page

This one was just too good not to share and keep archived here.  Today my brother, Todd, and I took his two year old son Bentley to see the Braves Caravan.  The Braves Caravan is where the team sends players to locations in “Braves Country” where fans can get autographs and meet the players.  They were in Greenville today so for die-hard fans like my family it was a no-brainer to go.  After waiting in a line for about 30 minutes we were able to meet a couple of players, get autographs and apparently they snapped a picture of us too.  Or more specifically they snapped a  picture of Bentley.  Bentley was getting his jacket signed by the players as as you can see in the picture below he was getting it signed by future Rookie of the Year Julio Teheran....

Book Highlights: The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

Book Highlights: The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

A little over six months ago I heard Clay Christensen speak at one of HubSpot’s BizTalks.  The ideas and research that he presented were eye opening in quite a few ways.  The concept of the innovator’s dilemma was something that I had understood at an uncanny fundamental level for what feels like forever, but I wasn’t sure why. Check out The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail The power of the innovator’s dilemma revolves around the problems that sometimes occur when perfectly smart and able businesses making rational decisions in the pursuit of future growth and profits.  Sometimes this same rational and the right sort of innovation comes along which ultimately undercuts them and lets a smaller,...

#BlogTalkRadio on SEO & Inbound Marketing with Yours Truly

Today I was on BlogTalkRadio with Apple Capital Group on SEO & Inbound Marketing on their Financing Your Business Today show.  Interestingly enough this whole opportunity came about because of the blog post I wrote two weeks ago where I shared the news that I left HubSpot to go run my own business full time. If you are interested in listening to the episode here is the embed. Listen to internet radio with applecapitalgroup on Blog Talk Radio I can’t help but get fired up and passionate about this stuff still!  Although my focus is on making the best interactive campus mapping platform I still want to spread the news of inbound marketing.  Also any extra exposure I can do for nuCloud and .eduGuru has to be a good thing...

My Latest Hobby – Investing in the Stock Market

Some of you might know that I’ve picked up a pretty serious hobby over the last 6-9 months.  I’ve become absolutely fascinated by the stock market.  I’ve always been the type of person who can’t just beat a video game but has to dominate it and playing the stock market has always been something that I’ve just never had much success with until recently.  I’ve actually made various plays in the stock market since 1999 and the middle of that crazy tech bubble.  Maybe one day I’ll tell you about the most expensive mistake I ever made about Apple. Anyway with some extra money in savings and some bonus money that I acquired last year I wanted to do something besides letting it sit in a savings account making minimal interest.  Well I haven’t had a lot of luck with the...

Why I left HubSpot to do nuCloud full-time

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

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

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

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...