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review

Reade Milner | December 19, 2014 | 5 Comments

2014 in Review – Plus Goals for 2015 – Reade Milner

 

This is the most transparent post I have ever written. I’ve long been a fan of the year-in-review blog posts, but have always been afraid to write my own, but I’m taking the leap now. This is my honest assessment of my year, mostly relating to social media and business, but there’s some bigger picture stuff in here as well.

Social media reach: 4/5
I was able to grow my influence by several thousand connections including my Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and Pinterest networks. Clever use of hashtags, effective content curation, and perhaps most importantly, writing more often (this was my first year writing for the Adam Smith Blog). I definitely want to see this trend continue.

Consistency: 2/5
I’ve not been very good about regularly posting and engaging on social media. Even with all of the resources a guy could need, my own social media presence has taken a back seat to that of my clients (as has my website, more on this below). I’m making a commitment to improve in this area in the next year.

Blogging: 3/5
While I’ve been consistently publishing a new blog at least once a week for the entire year, I still have not committed to writing on my own blog. Most of this is due to heavy client load as I build my digital marketing business, but that’s still no excuse. I’m already working on my new website, which is expected to be ready by mid-January.

Reading: 4/5
I had a decent year in this category as I exposed myself to lots of new material that really helped me become a better businessperson. Although, I definitely read a lot for fun this year, which I consider a positive. I can’t quite justify a 5/5 because I fell just short of my 50 books-in-a-year goal, though I came pretty close, considering the year I had (wedding, finding out we were expecting one month later, starting a new business, family tragedies).

Focus: 3/5
My use of this term refers to the frequency with which I apply the 80/20 principle to my life and work and focus on the areas in which I am most gifted. While I don’t claim to be an expert at anything, I’m definitely more confident in my skills in sales and marketing than I am in, say, my programming or operations skills. Knowing that, I’ve outsourced a large chunk of those areas of my business in which I don’t contribute as much as a specialist could.

Finally, I’ll leave off with three areas in which I plan to really improve upon with my goals for 2015.

1) Growing my business

Beyond just increasing sales and retainer clients, I am going to make a concerted effort to explore additional revenue streams and strategic partnerships that will make for a more sustainable enterprise. Also, it will be very important to establish processes that allow for me to take on additional work without burning out. This means documenting recurring tasks and off-loading or automating them when possible.

2) Writing more original content

Like I mentioned above, I’m going to focus on establishing a habit of writing every day so that I’ve got plenty of original content for my business blog as well as this one. I’ve already seen small improvements since implementing a 100 word per day maximum (yes, I said maximum). This keeps me from feeling overwhelmed at the total word count. I’m going to slowly increase that maximum as I get more comfortable.

3) Implementing things I read

I’m a big reader and I don’t see that changing, but I really feel like I could make that activity more worth-while by picking out one thing from every book I read to actually implement into my life. Instead of either reading and forgetting or trying to revamp my entire life after each book, I’m going to read each book like a gold-miner looking for that one nugget of information that will help me move the needle in my life and work.

I’ve really gained a lot of value in writing a yearly review. Even if you decide against publishing your self-evaluation for the whole world to see, I highly recommend writing your own, if only for your private records.

Adam Smith | May 4, 2010 | 27 Comments

My iPad Review

 

I will now add an Apple iPad review to the other million or so. This review comes after having my iPad for only one week, but I feel I have had enough time to give an honest opinion on it. My opinion is probably not what you are thinking, though.

I feel like I should say that I won my iPad from Dealsplus and the iPad is not a “need” item. If I were to spend $600 on something, it would not be an Apple iPad. If I had $600 to spend, I would keep using my Macbook Pro as my mobile device and I would buy a Mac Mini because I could really use a desktop computer. That’s just my need right now, but yours might be different.

First, I would like to focus on the positive things about this device in my iPad review. It has an amazing picture quality, has great battery life, is lightweight, and the sound is great as well. The iBooks is amazing given the screen size of the iPad. I would definitely rather use it than a smaller kindle or nook. For what you get, the Apple iPad has a great price tag, too. That alone might sell this product to you. When I think about other items in the market at this price, I would rather have an Apple product any day. Those are the best things I have found with the iPad.

The iPad will not replace your laptop, however. It is a new device that is great for surfing the internet and composing and checking mail. After having the iPad for a few days, I was back to using my laptop 95% of the time. This is the reason I cannot recommend the Apple iPad. I can’t find a reason to pull it out of my bad instead of my laptop. I think this is because the functionality I wanted and expected from the iPad was missing.

After hearing my thoughts from this iPad review, what do you think?

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Hi, my name is Adam Smith and welcome to asmithblog.com. I am the author of the book, The Bravest You. Because of my work as an entrepreneur, consultant, writer, and speaker, I have been named a top industry influencer by American Genius. I live with my wife, Jasmine, and three children in Shenandoah, IA.

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