I spent all of last week in San Jose for the annual Search Engine Strategies conference. I learned a lot, met some very cool people, visited San Francisco and Carmel and even played Rock Band for the first time. (Photos coming to Flickr soon, I promise. Besides, don’t you follow me on Twitter?) And just as with my trip to New York in April, I came back to Chattanooga with a lot of ideas (and questions) about life and work.

I’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into my hyperlocal Chattanooga blog, Chattarati. Last week excluded, I typically spend a couple hours each night looking for story ideas, writing or pondering tactics to help spread the word beyond our (wonderful and loyal) audience of the “connected” crowd. I’ve also got a few other web/social media project ideas swirling around, and every new web site sparks another idea. My book list– which includes everything from Surprised by Hope to Made to Stick to How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone to The 4-Hour Work Week –grows longer by the day. And tonight, for the second time in recent weeks, I had to declare RSS bankruptcy and just mark everything as “read.”

At this point, I believe I’m suffering from “inspiration overload.” Anyone researching a cure for that?

If you read today’s Times Free Press article about Google Street View and decided to look me up, thanks!

Most of my blogging is done at Chattarati, a Chattanooga-centric news and opinion blog.

My older daughter Bailey found this tonight, probably on our evening walk around the neighborhood. She’s 4, and I’m frequently surprised by what can fascinate her or grab her attention. Tonight, this is what did and she gave it to me with strict instructions to keep it.

One day, long after it is inevitably lost, at least I can show her this blog post about her special gift.

This was the quote on my Starbucks cup today:

By the time executives get married, take on a mortgage, raise kids, cope with the crabgrass, climb the corporate ladder, do their best to manage career pressures, build their net worth and get into their 40s, they’ve lost touch with what they believe in and care about most deeply. -Allan Cox, CEO coach and author

I refuse to believe that it has to be this way, that you can’t have it all and be true to yourself. Then again, I’m not interested in most people’s definition of having it all. Do I want a satisfying career? Yes, but my goal is not to reach the top of the corporate ladder. I want to build my own ladder, chart my own course, and enjoy the journey with my family by my side.

My Dad would have turned 67 years old today. He didn’t quite make it, as he passed away last Sunday after an 18 month battle with mantle cell lymphoma, an aggressive yet rare form of lymphoma. The picture above, taken a couple years ago with my older daughter Bailey, is one of my favorites.

Dad was diagnosed in February 2007 and began treatments immediately. After several months of chemotherapy, it appeared that he was in remission and his oncologist recommended he undergo an autologous stem cell transplant. This type of treatment is very aggressive and rare for someone at his age, but it was believed to be his best chance at an extended life. He underwent the nearly three month process at Vanderbilt and returned home around Thanksgiving, officially in remission.

He had remained upbeat and optimistic throughout all his treatments, but was positively joyful to return home. In some ways, he was a different person. He was doing things he’d always wanted to do but never had before. He and my sister took a trip to his hometown of Paw Paw, Illinois (population 800). Later, he drove to Florida (in his new car, which was a shocking purchase as his old car had not yet died on the side of the road somewhere) to see the Dodgers play in Spring Training. In retrospect, perhaps he knew better than we did how little time he had left. The month of May brought news that his cancer had returned with a vengeance. In less than six weeks, it was decided that the potential benefits of further chemotherapy treatments did not outweigh the risks.

This past Wednesday he was buried at the National Cemetery here in Chattanooga. Sunday, we held a memorial service at his church of more than 15 years, St. Mark UMC in Anniston, AL. My younger brother, who is writing a book about Dad’s life, gave a very nice prepared eulogy, sharing a brief version of Dad’s life story and some of the things that made him such a great man. I spoke briefly, off the cuff, about a great gift he gave me. My remarks went something like this:

Dad was always funny about birthday gifts. Joel, Julie and Genia and April could tell you that to Dad, a birthday gift wasn’t about how much money he could spend, but rather about finding something that would really represent us. As a result, he was often a bit late with those gifts.

Another thing we remember about Dad was his stubbornness. Once he got an idea in his head, once he decided to do something, he rarely–if ever–changed his mind. When he was diagnosed with cancer, we decided as a family that he should be treated in Chattanooga instead of in Anniston. As a result, we also decided he should move to Chattanooga to be closer to his doctors. And so Dad began searching for an apartment. He found one–across the street from Genia and myself. The problem was that it wasn’t yet available, and we didn’t know when the tenants would be moving out. This was of no concern to Dad. He wanted it, and to our occasional frustration, he was going to wait for it.

Six or seven months later, he got it. And little did I know at the time, but this may have been the greatest gift he ever gave to me. I was able to spend more time with him during the year he spent staying with us and then living across the street than I would have in five years of him living in Anniston. My favorite memories of Dad are of him with my two girls.

Today I am thrilled to announce the launch of Chattarati, a collaborative Chattanooga news and opinion blog. We’re going to be “blogging everything we love and hate about Chattanooga.”

Chattarati began as a small idea I had several months ago for a daily photoblog to chronicle Chattanooga’s evolving downtown. After much discussion and planning with other local bloggers, the idea grew and evolved into a full-blown hyperlocal news and opinion blog in the vein of Gothamist or, closer to home, Nashvillest.

Chattarati is being published by a great team who have all put in a tremendous amount of work to pursue our goal of not only creating a great Chattanooga-centric blog, but becoming a vital part of the flourishing blog community in our city. I’m honored to have such great minds collaborating on this project, and we have loads of compelling content planned to inform–and entertain–our fellow Chattanoogans.

Naturally, we’ve gone through the social networking checklist and integrated everything from multiple Twitter feeds to an Alltop-inspired RSS aggregator to a Flickr pool and Facebook group.

If you live in or love Chattanooga, I hope you’ll check out Chattarati.

Oh, and yes… I did design the bold, classy logo and stylish web site. Thanks for asking!

Hyperlocal Blogging
SEO consultant Matt McGee discusses the growing trend of “hyperlocal” blogs. He mentions the big names like Gothamist, but surprisingly left out a number of localized blogging communities like the Chattanooga-founded Terrablogs, which has been around for years. Coincidentally (or not), I’ll be announcing an exciting new group adventure into this space in just a few days. Stay tuned!

Can Android Vanquish the iPhone?
In a word, no. Seriously, though, Business Week is asking the question. Fair enough, but the fact is that Android is just a software platform at this point. There is no “gPhone” and there probably won’t be a handset manufactured by Google. Perhaps one of the big handset makers will take Android and do something great with it, but I don’t expect any Android phone to be as big a hit as the iPhone. Apple’s “closed system” — which is often lamented by that same crowd waiting for Android — is what makes their products successful and beloved. They control the user experience more than anyone else in this space, and they are the hands-down experts.

Sketch Notes
If you, like me, missed the SEED 3 conference put on by 37Signals, you’ll want to check out these incredible sketch notes from the event. There’s also a great profile of the conference in the Chicago Reader. I’m still processing the vast amounts of info and insights…

Summer on Prince Edward Island
Chattanooga may be the “scenic city,” but PEI looks absolutely gorgeous. I suppose Dan deserves summer vistas like this after enduring the frigid Canadian winter.

Based almost entirely on the recommendation of Brett McCracken, I picked up the new Coldplay disc on Friday night. I’d been wavering about it, because I really enjoyed Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head, but never even bought X&Y. I’m glad I gave Viva la Vida a chance, because it’s quite good. Coldplay took an unexpected turn with this album and there are a few songs that are stuck in my head.

One of the cool things that Brett pointed out in his blog post about the album is Coldplay’s take on “the single” — in particular, their merging of two very different pieces of music into one track. A perfect example of this approach also happens to be my favorite track right now: “Lovers in Japan / Reign of Love.” This could have easily been two songs, and two very good songs at that. I’m still trying to wrap my head around why they were put together as one track. The styles are obviously different. Is “Lovers” a study in contrast, or compliment? Is it purely random?

I came up with two other good examples of this songwriting approach. The first is the excellent “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand. The differences between the two sections (movements?) aren’t as stark as the Coldplay track, but there’s a very distinct moment when the song goes into a completely different direction. The second example is Arcade Fire’s “Black Wave / Bad Vibrations” which is more similar to “Lovers in Japan / Reign of Love.” “Black Wave” feels more like two “complete” pieces of music that were joined together, albeit with more related lyrics. I remember reading an interview with Win Butler where he said that the song is basically two sides of one story, or two approaches to the same problem.

Who has another good example of a sonic double feature?

You’ve heard it before; a brand is more than just a logo, a visual identity or a slogan. According to Brand Tags, your brand is whatever people say it is. They’ve set out on a “collective experiment in brand perception” by inviting users to tag well-known brands with the first word that comes to mind when presented with their logo.

The first thing I noticed was how fun it was to participate:

• Chevrolet? Trucks.
• Apple? Innovation.
• MySpace? Tired.
• Zappos? Service.
• Snickers? Satisfies.

Digging into the user-generated perceptions of these brands was equally exciting. The most interesting brands to look at were those with the strongest polarizing effects. People are rarely ambivilent towards Apple, for instance, and their tag cloud reflects that perfectly. Their tags range from “overrated” and “pretentious” to “beautiful,” “innovative” and “amazing.” Contrast those results with a middle-of-the-road brand like Bridgestone or Xerox. Their tags are primarily generic terms for their products, which likely means they are failing to communicate any differentiating passion or personality.

It’s often said that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. The brands with a sharp focus and a unique voice risk creating a few negative tags, but they also stand to gain the type of devoted followers every company craves. What kind of brand tags are you inspiring?

Oil & Heaven
Originally uploaded by JHawbaker1800

Graffiti artist, I honor the place where your craziness and my amusement become one.