Shawn Cheatham

So here’s a little diddy, SweetSpot is a sort of fee-based social network for diabetics and their friends/family. Since I have several family diabetic family members SweetSpot hit the spot. It’s sort of light on features/functionality but I think that’s the point, especially if they’re target market is babyboomers, their kids and small groups. Case in point, I found the site and immediately dropped my mom an email and ask her to check it out.

That said, I have to wonder whether the subscription market will backlash because let’s be real, how many $10-$40 subscriptions can your bank account handle? Personally, I tend to try to keep my subscriptions to a minimum because I tend to forget what I’ve subscribed to and could see myself ending up with more monthly fee’s than really necessary. On the other hand, I’m take full advantage of the low barrier to buying when it comes to breaking off bits of services that I deem ‘critical’…but what’s critical? Is SweetSpot or BizNik critical? Do I really need NetFlix, NYT Online, DirectTV or the rest? Perhaps not…I draw the line somewhere between personal and business by trying to keep personal stuff to a bare minimum and only subscribe to business stuff when I don’t like the alternative.

…hmph…i wonder… 

Michael Corleone said it best, “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in”.

Ok, so I must admit, over the past 3 months I’ve registered for nearly every new application that floats by…most of which have been ’social networking’ in some way shape or form. My justification is that it’s been ‘research’ and 95% of the time I mess around for a few hours and then bounce off to another site.

Enter Biznick. Stop the press.

If I were to categorize it…think Facebook+LinkedIn+MeetUp for small business types.

I only registered today but I’ve already spent more time trolling the user-generated articles (very smart people) than several of the other gems I’ve found in the past few weeks.

Interesting play…I’m still debating W.I.I.F.M.

I was told the other day to “stop being cryptic and just tell me what you’re up to!” Patience my dear Daniel-san, there’s a lot going on behind the liquid curtain of oz (L!qu!d Oz is another post in and of itself) but it’s still a little early for specifics…besides if I told straight up what fun would that be? Here’s a little snippet of what I’ve been up to…

1. idea formalized
2. conceptual documentation
3. build prototype
4. business plan drafted
5. company & url’s registered
6. team established
7. phase I kick-off

After what started out to be a fantastic start to the triathlon season, I’m beginning to wonder whether I’m going to hit my races this year. Plagued by a strained hamstring and entirely too much ‘life stuff’, I can’t seem to keep my training consistent. The Hy-Vee Triathlon is a month away and while I think I could probably pull it off with a minimal amount of training, I’m concerned that I may end up sitting the rest of the season out and potentially miss Ironman Wisconsin.

On the other hand, maybe it’s for the best with everything else that’s going on…

• Heading to St. Louis in a couple weeks for a USAT Coach Level 1 clinic which will result in being a certified triathlon coach
• Rina and I will be in San Francisco next month finalizing living arrangements, so that we can get the hell outta Chicago
• Starting in June, I’ll be working on a special personal project (again, more on that later)

I went for my first run in almost 6 weeks yesterday! I’ve been nursing a strained hamstring that just wouldn’t seem to cooperate with my training regime but yesterday I was able to squeeze in a 45 minutes run. It was a bit longer than I probably should have gone but I couldn’t help but push it a little. I went to bed last night wondering whether I would wake up regretting having went so long but I feel surprisingly good. Although I’ve been somewhat active through the recovery, I can definitely tell that I’ve been on the bench…45min is usually an easy run for me but yesterday it was challenging. 

Happy to be back…now all I have to do is take some time to ramp up and not re-injure myself.