Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

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Best of 2008

I know I am suppose to write this post before the year end, but with travel and children I ran out of time.

So, in no particular order here is what has happened and what rises above the rest when I think of 2008:

• E started kindergarten and Z started preschool.
  
• I posted my favorite business books of 2008 over on the 800-CEO-READ blog and Inc.com worked with us on their selections.
• Jack and I turned in the manuscript for The 100 Best Business Books of All Time in April. And we just got finished books today and they look great. The book hits shelves February 5th.
• My 91 del.icio.us bookmarks remind of these yummy sites:
  
  • Spoonflower for custom fabrics based on your designs
  • Sticker Robot for custom stickers
  • Moo for business cards, holiday cards, and sticker books from your Flickr photos
• We survived the snowiest winter on record in Waukesha. I think it was 109".
• That turned into a flooded basement after warm weather and some huge rains.
• Mac Apps you should be using: NetNewsWire for RSS feeds, Ecto for blogging, VoodooPad for note taking, and possibly WriteRoom for a clutter-free writing space.
• Mac Apps to consider: Things (I use to manage to-dos in BaseCamp, but I think I like this desktop/iPhone combo better) and TweetDeck (allows filtering, grouping, and searching all in one Tweeter app)
• I posted 305 tweets this year. I would have never guessed that and TweetStats tells me I have been accelerating my use of Twitter.
• Music that worked for me:
  • Juniper Tar
  • The Refugees
  • Bon Iver
  • What Made Milwaukee Famous
• This American Life provided the best description of the credit crisis I heard, read or watched anywhere. Listen to The Giant Pool of Money. It is worth all 58 minutes. In second place is Michael Lewis' Panic, an anthology of articles, reports, and missives on the bubbles we have gone through since 1989.

Four Things...

1. If you really are interested in what is going on with me, bookmark my tumblr blog or subscribe to the RSS feed. I pull together my blog posts from here and 800-CEO-READ, my del.icio.us bookmarks, flickr photos of the family and twitter posts from when I am in a hurry.
2. I have been feverishly writing to finish a book manuscript for a title that will be coming out early next year. It is a part of my gig at 800-CEO-READ. The book is the 100 business everyone in business should read. It has been a great project in a million different ways and I'll be talking about that more over this coming year. So, that explains why there has been close to nothing here at the Astronaut Projects blog.
3. Marc Orchant's More Space essay Work Is Broken was published on ChangeThis last month.
4. Check out Grant McCracken's This Blog Sits at the : Intersection of Anthropology and Economics. I was hestiant to recommend it because I was having problems with the RSS feed. I upgraded to NetNewsWire 3.1.3 and don't see any issues.

First Real Evening in Austin

I had all sorts of trouble getting into Austin on Friday, so the only thing I could do was make the Blogher meetup.

Last night, I hung out with John Moore of Brand Autopsy. We talking blogging and business books. You might have seen allusions to his upcoming book Tribal Knowledge and I am sure see his many reviews.

After dinner, he took me to some great spots. Whichwich is a really interesting sandwich place. John wanted to make sure I saw this place. You can read his post on why he thinks they are so cool. I agree wholeheartedly with his conclusions. My only addition would be that this is designed to scale.

Our next stop was BookPeople. It is an outstanding independent bookstore here in Austin. I really enjoyed the experience. The story of store owner Steve Bercu and his campaign to Keep Austin Weird is a great story. It has been told a number of places, most recently in Starting From Scratch. Bercu managed to expose and rally the community here against a $2 million economic package that was being given to a developer. The development included a Borders bookstore. You can read Bercu's letter to the editor at Publisher's Weekly. It might scare you to know that we stood in the business book section for about an hour talking about titles.

We then walked over to Amy's Ice Cream. This is another Austin original. Each store has it's own culture and the employees are themselves. Each person behind the counter was wearing a different hat and all of them were spending time with customers. There was a line out the down and employees didn't start hurrying people through. Notice that the last thing I am telling you about is the product---the ice cream was good. Again, I will give you another book reference if you are interested in finding out more. You can check out Donna Fenn's Alpha Dogs.

The last stop was Gingerman. It has a great atmosphere and an amazing selection of beers.

Thanks John for hosting!

Rollyo Yo!

I remember hearing about Rollyo when it first launched and I couldn't think of a way it could be useful. Walt Mossenberg reviewed it this week in WSJ and it got me thinking again.

At 800ceoread, we are always looking for good material on business books. If you do a general search, you get a couple of good hits, but I know we are missing alot of good things. So, I decided to create a Rollyo search to see if I could do better.

In my searchroll, I have all the major business publications, some good business blogs and the 800ceoread family of sites.

http://rollyo.com/800ceoread/business_books/

The short answer is that I think there is something to limiting the number of sites that are searched. I looked up "alpha dogs", a new book from Donna Fenn. Check out the google results and the rollyo results. The Rollyo results are so much more relevant, such as finding the Inc. video interview with Fenn.

Others of you out there might similar needs, so I thought I would point you to this cool tool.

Kaospilots A-Z sold out

I sold my last copy of Kaospilots A-Z and the folks in Denmark are also sold out.

Thanks for all who support that little project.

My year in review

This year has been great and so much has happpened.

When I started the year, I was working with my father. A month later, I decided that I needed to do something else. That something else started with staying home with my one year old.

That gave me some time to do things with this blog. The Business Blog Book Tour started in February. I held Brand Week and Finetuning later in the year. I also tried wikis with the BizBlog Directory Wiki.

I tried my hand my hand at distribution with the Kaospilots A-Z book. Fast Company reviewed the book and I stepped in to provide US distribution. I sold 40 copies of the $50 book. It was not a runaway success, but it was a great learning experience. What was better was getting the chance to visit Uffe and the school in September.

The BBBT led to an introduction with Jack Covert and 800-CEO-READ. We hit it off and started a blog to see what would happen. That led to another blog to run book excerpts. And that led to starting a podcast about business books.

On a sadder note, I lost my grandfather after a year of poor health.

We were able to travel quite a bit this year. We spent five weeks in Europe on two different trips. I spent a weekend in San Francisco after BlogOn. This last week I have been able to enjoy the beauty of the Colorado Rockies.

Finally, I have met so many wonderful people this year. I would not even know where to start in listing everyone here. I think you all know who you are.

At the beginning of last year, I could have never predicted where I would be now. Some might say I didn't plan very well. I don't see it like that at all. I think I am going the right direction. I think it will be interesting how opportunity presents itself in 2005.

To an even better 2005!!!

Liars, Liars

Seth has a new book coming out in May - All Marketers Are Liars. Here is my post from the 800-CEO-READ Blog.

KaosPilot at NextD

Uffe Elbaek, KaosPilots Principal and author of KaosPilot A-Z, is interviewed at NextD.

The interview is outstanding. It give you another great look at the thought behind the Danish business school.

Read the interview, get inspired, and come back to get a copy of KaosPilot A-Z to find out more about this amazing place.

Essays from KaosPilot A-Z

Scattered among the pages are essays by various friends of the school. Some of the authors you will recognize, but what's better is that many of them you won't.

Here's a partial list of what you'll find:

• "Sharing Makes Us Bigger" - Ketan Lakahani, South Africa
• "F$@# Heirarchy, Give Me The Gestalt" - Richard Stanley, Finland
• "The Corporate Chaplain" - Steen Hindebrandt, Denmark
• "Willing To Be Disturbed" - Margaret Wheatley, USA
• "Time And Again I Asked" - Dee Hock, USA
• "The Grassroots Entreprenuer" - Anita Roddick, UK
• "Dr. Michael Copass and The Four Square Mode"l - Andy Stefanovich, USA
• "Black Box" - Wy Wong, Hong Kong

I wanted to quote this passage from Andy Stefanovich, founder and director of Richmond, VA- based Play. I think this captures one aspect of what making blogging so wonderful. He tell the story of Dr. Michael Copass and Medic One, the country's first medical emergency response system:

The Medic One story now serves as a point of inspiration for other people who may not have known about this development to create new ideas. The very fact that you have read this paragraph and have been affected by the story make you part of the collective consciousness. And the process will continue.