doterati evolution • november & december 2008

Until someone invents the ability to pause, fast forward and rewind real-life, I'm doing my best to keep up with what's left of 2008 and getting ready to ring in the new year.

I'm occasionally guilty of moving so fast that I forget to slow down to appreciate and celebrate accomplishments along the way. I've been trying to write a daily digital gratitude journal on my personal blog and I thought it would also be relevant to share some gratitude in this forum. So, here goes with some of the things I'm grateful for in 2008:

• I'm grateful that Orlando has somewhat of an 'underdog' mentality. We're hungry to communicate about our stories, share our knowledge and demystify misconceptions about our community.
• I'm grateful to everyone that has helped to shape doterati thus far, through meetings, conversations, online feedback, comments, focus groups, late nights, weekends and everything in between. Regardless if you spent 5 min. or 50 hours, your time has contributed to our overall development.
• I'm grateful for all that I've learned about the Central Florida community by way of networking online and at our events. We have lots of great things in the work ranging from tech start ups to unique consulting offerings to social media experiments.
• I'm grateful to our founding partners that have provided sweat equity, support and the funding necessary to get things off the ground.
• I'm grateful for differences of opinion. If we all agreed on everything life would be bland and boring. I love healthy discussions, thought provoking questions, those willing to challenge the norm and open minded creative thinkers.
• I'm grateful for my personal mentors and those that have supported me through ambiguity and an exciting beginning to this association.
• I'm grateful for the evolution that is technology. It's hard to believe that a year ago I wasn't on the following daily: Twitter, Tumblr, Pandora, iPhone apps like Shopper & UrbanSpoon, hulu.com, etc.
• I'm grateful to the folks at Ning for developing a social platform that allowed us to put our website up in under a week and grow to close to 500 people in our community in about 8 months.
• Last but not least, I'm grateful to all of you for getting involved, providing direction and being part of our evolving organization.