2010 Wrap-Up

Wow, 2010 was a hell of a year! I got engaged, got a dog, started up a company, lived in Switzerland for the summer, and really advanced a number of my personal and professional goals. A year ago I posted my resolutions for 2010 and periodically I have posted status updates (one week, one month, three months, and seven months into the year). Now is an appropriate time to look back at what was accomplished, what was not (and why) before putting forth goals for 2011.

Relationships

1. Date night once a week with Katie

2. Spend social time in person with friends or family once a week

3. At lease one Skype or phone call with distant friends or family once a week

I am pleased that these relationship goals were far exceeded almost every single week. The Switzerland trip was helpful in keeping distant relationships alive with personal contact but, even without it, I was Skyping with friends and colleagues around the world frequently.

Health

1. Calories in less than 3,000 per day: I originally targeted 3,250 calories per day then revised down to 3,000 as it became clear that that would be necessary for me to reduce body fat. By midyear I was still averaging 3,141 calories consumed per day and my final average for the entire year was 3,119. While I failed to meet my goal, 3,119 is MUCH less than the 3,700 I averaged last year and the 3,900 I averaged the year before. At my age my base metabolic rate should be getting a little slower each year so this trend of improvement is good.

2. Calories out greater than 3,250 per day: I originally targeted 3,500 calories per day but revised down at the same time that I adjusted my consumption goal. By midyear I was averaging 3,163 calories burned per day and my final average for the entire year was 3,168 so I failed to achieve this goal as well. This is a huge drop from my 3,750 average the year before (although it's unfair to make a direct comparison; the year before my expenditure was based on estimates while this year I have been using BodyMedia, a much more consistent measurement), which I attribute to the non-pedestrian lifestyle of Houston, lots of sitting at a desk (When there are no other employees in your company you rarely get up to go ask someone down the hall a question!), and more socializing leading to more skipped workouts. For the first half of the year, some of the workouts I was doing simply didn't burn very many calories either. Wii Fit, for example, really is fun but not hard. Midway through the year I eliminated it from the workout rotation and my average daily expenditure increased a bit after that.

Even though I missed both my intake and expenditure goals, I still maintained a caloric deficit throughout the year. By the end of the year I theoretically burned about 17,500 more calories than I consumed, meaning I theoretically should have shed about 5 pounds of body fat. But did I? Bod Pod analysis at the end of the year indicated that in fact I lost about 2 pounds of body fat. While that is positive, it is far short of my goal. In the year to come I will multiply the BodyMedia measured caloric expenditure by 99% as that produces results more in line with the actual fat loss I achieved last year.

3. Maintain lean weight greater than 155 lbs: Although cutting was a higher priority for me than gaining muscle, I didn't want to lose strength and lean mass. Despite a few dips throughout the year, I generally stayed above this 155 lb lean mass threshold and finished the year with about 1 lb of extra muscle.

4. Less than 90 g fat intake per day: I failed to achieve this goal every single week and ultimately disregarded it. Fat gets kind of a bad rap in the US; it is a very essential part of a complete diet. The calories I was consuming were relatively balanced and came from fresh (mostly local) sources and that is my real priority.

5. 1 hour of Wii workout / week: See above for explanation about why I eliminated this goal.

6. 1 hour of flexibility work / week: I adhered to this pretty strictly for the first half of the year but A. it was tough to meet my calorie burn goals when devoting so much time to stretching and B. I just really had a hard time getting psyched up for it. I'm a big believer in doing what motivates you; exercise shouldn't be a chore. So eventually I began incorporating flexibility into other areas of my life (like reading), freeing up dedicated exercise time for higher-intensity activities.

7. Win Men's doubles "A" beach volleyball tourney: Failed. I competed in only two tournaments this year with a #3 out of 5 best placing. Heading to Switzerland for the summer (prime tourney season) hurt my opportunities and the last tournament of the season here in Houston (in which I was scheduled to compete) was canceled, wiping out my last chance. Doh!

8. Run three races: Accomplished by early April

9. Run a 5k race under 22:00: Accomplished by the end of January! My PR going into 2010 was 23:45 but my first race of the season brought me a new PR of 21:43. As I trained throughout the rest of the year I brought my best time down to 21:07.

10. Run a 10k race under 47:00: Accomplished by early April! I originally set this goal at 55:00 but my training run times were coming in in the low 50s in January. So I revised this down to 50:00 but my first really hard training run (in preparation for a March 10k race) finished in 47:50. So I set my new target at 47:00, which I barely missed in the March race (47:02!) but blew through at a 10k race in April (45:56).

11. Swim 2,000 consecutive meters: Accomplished by the end of March.

12. Read one book for pleasure each month: Accomplished (even read one more!)

Professional

Relationships

1. Mentor / help at least one person each week: Accomplished!

2. Engage at least one of my own mentors each week: Accomplished!

Development

1. Read at least one professional book, book summary, or article each week: Accomplished!

2. Develop foreign language skills at least once each week: Accomplished!

Productivity

1. Post "to do" goals at the beginning of each day and accomplishments at the end of each day: Accomplished but I'm not sure this was as useful as it could have been. Look for a subsequent post from me about this issue in greater detail.

Smart Office Energy Solutions

1. Close $100k seed investment round by end of March: Accomplished! Even oversubscribed by 50%!

2. Several other goals that were no longer relevant weeks into 2010! Perhaps it was a bit naive to post annual goals for a business so young and dynamic; more fundamental targets might be more appropriate.

Professional Brand

1. Present original thought leadership / research: Accomplished by end of July (Leveraging Social Media for Executive Careers)

2. Earn 300 twitter followers: Accomplished by end of August (finished the year with 400 followers)

3. Achieve Klout level of 50 for social media influence: Accomplished by end of December

4. 5 daily LinkedIn profile views: Failed. There were some peaks and troughs but I spent most of the year at the same level: 2-3 views per day.

5. 1000 blog hits per month: Failed. Again, peaks and troughs but most of the year was spent between 300 and 500 views per month. One reason I'm sure was my decline in content production (53 posts in 2010 vs. 78 in 2009 and 197 in 2008!).

As hinted at earlier, I'm currently giving serious thought to my social media strategy for 2011. 2010 was a great year of experimenting and data collection but 2011 needs to be more focused.

So there you have it: some successes, some failures, some almost-successes, and some total flops. I'm proud of the successes and have tried to learn from the failures. I'm also proud of having adapted goals as I moved throughout the year; some goals became irrelevant and I didn't stick to them blindly; some goals needed to be tweaked and I did. Goals are great to have, but one must not lose sight of the bigger picture. The next post will be about adapting these learnings into goals for 2011!

New Wii Games

Santa was good to us this year and brought us many new Wii games:

Beatles Rock Band - words really can't describe how awesome this game is. Those already tiring of the rhythm game genre might not be as impressed with it as I am but this is our first such game and wow, what a way to start! Katie sings beautifully while I strum along on the guitar parts. Like so we're making our way (chronologically, of course!) through the entire Beatles repertoire. Very few things feel as awesome as getting a 100% score on the guitar part of While My Guitar Gently Weeps--hours and hours of endless fun and great music!

Wii Fit Plus - This is an example of evolution-not-revolution as there really isn't that much different from the original Wii Fit. However, I love the original game so the addition of 15 new mini-games was very welcome. I'm not sure how long it will take me to master all the new features but I do know that I'll have a lot of fun and burn a lot of low-impact calories while I'm trying.

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout - This should really be titled "Gold's Gym Cardio Kickboxing" as it is exclusively kickboxing content, no other cardio. Actually, so far it seems really to be only boxing, not even kickboxing. The jury is still out on it as I have only been through one session so far, but it seems like a good way to work up a sweat without leaving my living room.

Big Beach Sports - I wished for this aggregation of beach-based mini-games because it is one of the very few Wii titles to feature beach volleyball. The game on the whole is really weak, maybe even weaker than Deca Sports. However, the beach volleyball is this game's best feature and is definitely better than the Deca version. It's certainly not great, but it could be fun for groups.

Wii Motion Plus - This new technology makes the Wiimote controller infinitely more interesting. Instead of just detecting movement, the Wii can now tell the exact angle at which your Wiimote is being held and moving with great precision. Although there are still only ~10 games available for it, I see this as opening new doors for Wii possibilities--finally we can have a Star Wars game with real light saber action!

Wii Sports Resort - This was one of the very first games available to take advantage of the Wii Motion Plus. It is essentially a sequel to Wii Sports and is a lot of fun. The highlight for most people will be sword fighting, which allows much higher fidelity blocking, parrying, and striking than anything to date. However, the highlight for me by far is . . . TABLE TENNIS! Finally I can virtually return to my IMD days and get back to work on my smashes. It's not quite the same, of course, but it's a much, much more decent proxy than it could have been. I miss the fitness and training modes from the original Wii Sports but I guess you can't have everything.

We're awaiting the arrival of not one, not two, but three tennis games that use the Motion Plus so I'll review them once I've had a chance to form an adequate opinion!

2010

Having looked back at 2009 in my last post, now it is time to look ahead to 2010. Following are my New Year's resolutions laid out by category. I would like to publish these online and report on regular progress to maintain accountability. Can anyone recommend any good tools for this?

Relationships

1. Weekly date night with Katie--now that we're not on separate continents, I'll have to keep things interesting so she doesn't tire of me and kick me out!

2. Weekly personal contact with family/friends--even though I'm very, very extroverted and a very, very social creature, I tend to "turtle in" during times of stress or great work load (pretty much all the time these days!). This is exactly the opposite of what I should do since I draw my strength from my personal relationships. As much of a technologist as I am, I also can't let myself fall into the trap of believing that tweeting, blogging, and emailing are a substitute for real, in-person human contact. Therefore I resolve to reach out to my friends and family for in-person meet-ups at least once a week. This begins this weekend when my brother and favorite nephew are in town.

Health

Nutrition

1. Daily caloric intake under 3,250 calories--in 2008 I ingested ~3700 calories/day, 3500 in 2009. This year I'm going for a bigger jump. This will be tough now that I am back in the US--and Texas specifically--where portion sizes are crazy. I'll need strength of will to avoid my natural instinct of eating things just because they're there, even when I'm no longer hungry. I'll also focus on chewing slowly and staying hydrated.

2. Consume 60% of calories from carbs, 15% from protein and, at most, 25% from fat--2010 will not just be about how much I eat, but also what I eat. In Switzerland it was so easy to eat well with the farmer's market just below my window, fresh, healthy foods at restaurants, and plenty of support from like-minded peers. It will be harder to meet this goal now that I'm back in the land of Food, Inc. but I'm fortunate to have a tremendous asset in Katie. Her commitment to inventive and delicious cooking with fresh, natural foods may well be my saving grace; here again I'll just need to play my cards right so that she'll share with me.

Flexibility

1. Weekly yoga--The first half of 2009 saw my flexibility increase for the first time since . . . well, maybe ever . . . largely due to my weekly 1.5-hour sessions of ashtanga yoga. I got away from that commitment in the second half of the year and I can feel it. 2010 must see a return to yoga throughout the year. This starts tonight.

Cardiovascular Fitness

1. Daily caloric expenditure of at least 3,500 calories--this will put me on pace to reduce bodyfat by ~10 pounds this year. Sitting at my desk all day and in front of the computer or a football game on TV all evening will leave me with only 2,800 calories burned each day. I must find a way to burn an additional 700 calories each day, whether through more activity at the office, intentional exercise, or both. This should be achievable as last year I averaged 3,750 calories burned each day--but I was also walking around mountainous Switzerland much of the time so I'll need to step it up here in Houston.

2. Maintain lean muscle mass--Although I've been working toward "getting huge" for practically two decades now with, in all modesty, significant success, I am plenty strong and don't really need to be stronger. Although I will still be going all out in the gym, my priorities for 2010 are clearly focused on reducing bodyfat and that will take precedence over gaining strength--no more gorging myself after workouts in the name of protein!

3. Weekly Wii workouts--I'm really impressed with the Nintendo Wii and its ability to provide fun activities that elevate heart rate, burn calories, and improve neuromechanics. This year I will regularly involve the Wii in my workouts and track my progress using Wii Fit.

Sports

1. Win a men's doubles tournament at the A level--although my favorite partner is currently based in the UK, I'd really like to take my play up a notch this year.

2. Run at least three races

3. Run a 5k race in under 22 minutes--current PR is 23:45

4. Run a 10k race in under 55 minutes--I've never run a 10k race before but, when I run 10k as an aerobic jog, keeping my heart rate below 160, I currently finish in ~60 minutes.

5. Swim 2k--this weekend I swam 500m contiguously for the first time ever so this should be very feasible. Those who know me are aware that I sink like a rock in water so I've traditionally had to sprint to stay afloat--not very conducive to swimming long distances! However, after recent modifications to my freestyle mechanics, I've found a way to swim ~indefinitely, subject to my fitness level.

Professional

Relationships

1. Help/mentor a peer or colleague at least weekly--as it will be some time before Smart Office Energy Solutions has grown to the point of having many employees and business partners, I really need to be proactive in the early parts of 2010 to reach out to others who could benefit from any expertise, experience, or even just sounding board ability I can provide.

2. Touch base with one of my own mentors at least once weekly--I'm blessed to have some great, talented, brilliant, resourceful, high integrity mentors in my life and I need be proactive about keeping them abreast of how their influence is helping me along.

Time Management

1. Daily tweets of my goals and accomplishments--When you're the general manager of a start-up that faces a laundry list of to-dos in every business area every day, it is a real challenge to stay focused on the most urgent, critical issues. Therefore I am experimenting with using new media to create some accountability for myself. I will begin each day by tweeting my top few goals to accomplish before I hit the sack (One of today's was to write this blog entry!) and I will finish each day by reporting in on how I fared. 140 characters isn't enough to make excuses so the [peer] pressure will be on to nail them. This creates a virtual board of sorts to whom I am accountable and I certainly hope my followers will chide me when I fail. Perhaps they will also offer helpful suggestions when they see a goal that resonates with them. Each goal tweet will use the #dailygoal tag and my progress can be viewed at TrackDailyGoals. Hopefully this will also create a cool record of Smart OES's entrepreneurial journey.

Smart Office Energy Solutions

1. Close seed friends and family funding round by the end of March--I have $20k already committed and it's time to shake the trees for the remaining $80k.

2. Close first private placement round of funding by July--This will either be $500k of angel money or $3m+ from a VC, depending on a few factors. Either way, I need to begin laying the groundwork for it now.

3. Break even with $1.3m revenue for FY 2010--The clock is ticking and I need to close some more sales myself before we're able to hire up business development staff.

4. Reduce client energy bills by $500k--it will take some time for their savings to accrue but half a million is achievable if we begin installing this month.

5. Reduce US CO2 production by 300 tons--this will occur in the first year if we reach our sales targets. This is the double bottom line that attracted me to this business in the first place: the better we do, the better it is for the environment--and for our clients!

The Bryan Guido Hassin Professional Brand

1. Present original research/thought leadership at least once via conference presentation or article publication--I found the experience at the AAS's imagine09 conference to be very rewarding so I'll need to identify another such opportunity in 2010.

2. Earn 300 total twitter followers--I currently have over 100 after my first year of tweeting and I am very careful about pruning out the spammers. Doubling my growth rate would show increasing professional brand awareness. Here again I am eager to experiment with social media tools to see how they might benefit a a green technology executive in a new decade.

3. 5 daily LinkedIn profile views--this is currently 2-3 views daily. My LinkedIn profile is a good representation of my experience, accomplishments, skills, and recommendations, a great tool for making potential business partners, employees, investors, and others aware of what I offer. I'm not sure what a reasonable target is here as I have only my own historical data to go on--any suggestions?

There you have it, many personal and professional goals for 2010. I really would love to maintain a management-style dashboard for these so that I can map out intermediate progress and publish it. I can use a spreadsheet, of course, but a Web 2.0 tool would really be more appropriate. Suggestions welcome!

Happy 2010 everyone! May we all accomplish all our goals and more this year!

Back in H-Town

Before signing on with Poken in December I had a previous obligation to attend an Association of Rice Alumni board meeting in Houston January 23 - 24. I could have nipped back for just a quick weekend but the airfare was literally an order of magnitude less expensive to come back for the entire week.

The flight over was good and featured stunning views of the snow-capped and fog-enshrouded Alps. I spent most of the flight working and planning out Poken's Web UI refresh, which is coming in February. Once on the ground, my wingman and I had Niko Niko's (the best Greek food around), watched Zoolander, and crashed.

Saturday night was a wonderful time. Four of my best friends in Houston had a guy's night. We ate lots of red meat (buffalo, mmmm), drank some great wine, and played Wii until the wee (no pun intended) hours of the morning. Wii games included tennis, curling, left-handed bowling, and light saber duels, complete with light saber remote accessories!

The week has been an intense march of Poken work. We have so many improvements to the site and new features we want to offer our users that just wrapping my head around all of it is a major task. Plus, with the team back in Europe, communication is more difficult too. Fortunately the team is composed of really smart, highly qualified individuals and I know that they will rise to the challenge, no matter how hard the tasks are that we throw at them.

On Wednesday Larry McMurtry, one of Rice's most accomplished literary alumni, gave a talk on-campus. I wanted to go but opted to focus on Poken work instead. Yesterday I managed to make time for a meeting with another distinguished Rice alum, the CEO of El Paso Energy. We had a good chat about the energy industry, the economy, and Houston's future. While it is clear that dark financial times are ahead of us, it is hard not to feel optimistic after Obama's inauguration on Tuesday.

It also hard not to feel optimistic about Poken as we now have over 20,000 website hits each month. There are challenges and competitors entering the market but I'm confident that, if we keep our focus on serving our users, we really can re-personalize the world of online social networking.