August 2009
2 posts
WhyGoSolo is Going Offline →
Thank to everyone who joined the site and showed us support…unfortunately, the site failed to “take off.” We will be taking WhyGoSolo offline.  Not entirely sure if we’re signing off for good -…
Aug 26th
The End of WhyGoSolo →
We’re sorry to announce that we will be shutting down the site…we have failed to “take off.”  We are grateful to everyone who created an account and used WhyGoSolo.  We are disappointed that our…
Aug 25th
October 2008
3 posts
Let Us Know What Tickets to Get →
This is an exciting time for the WhyGoSolo Community!  If you haven’t read the last few posts, you might be missing out. On Tuesday, I introduced Tickets with a Twist – a new site with tickets…
Oct 18th
Follow Me to Enter Contests for Free Upgrades →
Last night, before heading out to go listen to Lowry play live at Dahlak on U and 18th in DC I sent out a tweet with  a question that would earn someone a free one year upgrade on WhyGoSolo and
Oct 15th
Introducing Tickets with a Twist →
It dawned on me as I’ve been promoting Ticket with a Twist that I haven’t properly introduced Tickets with a Twist to the WhyGoSolo community. (Ironically, that’s who the site was designed…
Oct 14th
September 2008
1 post
I Know You’re Out There on Craigslist – Is it... →
Craigslist is packed with people looking for activity partners all around the United States but particularly in the DC Area. Washington, DC is a very transient community…as a matter of fact, a lot…
Sep 27th
August 2008
2 posts
Special Notice to Members →
Please be advise of the following change to take effect on August 15th.  Starting August 15th, the ownership of WhyGoSolo.com will be transferred from WGS, Inc to Yut Media, Inc.  Yut Media,…
Aug 12th
Where’s My Sister Site?? →
After all you say, WhyGoSolo…right??  WhyGoSolo has been lonely and is patiently awaiting her sister site. Authors will tell you that when they write their stories they let their characters take…
Aug 3rd
June 2008
1 post
A Long Over Due Update →
It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged and since I’ve informed people about what’s going on with WhyGoSolo.  It’s been a turbulent and hectic time to say the least. It started with me…
Jun 15th
May 2008
5 posts
One Year Anniversary as a Blogger →
It was a year ago today that I became a blogger. What a year it’s been!! Blogging has been a journey of growth, learning, self-discovery, new friends, communities, and horizons!! I began…
May 27th
New Features: Site Notification and Search →
We’ve been rather quiet lately, but in the last three weeks we’ve had two releases; I’m just now finally getting around to blogging about them.  I’m pretty excited to announce that we’ve added…
May 23rd
Development Processes...  →
On 02 May, I had the opportunity to return to my alma mater - Rose-Hulman - and speak to a class on Software QA.  It was a great opportunity and discussion spurred by (hopefully funny) war stories…
May 13th
SocialDevCamp Was a Success! →
Wow! What an amazing time we had yesterday.  I want to thank all of the folks who came out to be with us on a rainy Saturday for what turned out to be a true meeting of the minds. The sessions were…
May 11th
Business is a Team Sport →
As many of you already know since I’ve made this announcement rather public – I am returning to the Marine Corps to fill a position for the next year. The immediate reaction everyone has had to the…
May 6th
April 2008
6 posts
Started a New Blog: Don’t Spray and Pray!  →
Just want to make a quick announcement that I have started a new blog at AnnBernard.net called Don’t Spray and Pray! The new blog is where I will continue to capture and tell my entrepreneurial…
Apr 29th
Guesses, Assumptions and Theories: SocialDevCamp... →
We’re happy to announce SocialDevCamp, a BarCamp-style event coming to Baltimore (place TBD) on May 10, 2008.  This is a collaborative effort between WhyGoSolo and Roundhouse Technology…
Apr 14th
Sunday School: Don’t Quit Your Day Job Just Yet →
It’s going to take more time and money than you think and you will likely fail. When I got out of the Marine Corps I had a nice amount of money saved up, had decent equity in my townhouse and all…
Apr 13th
An Entrepreneurial Call To Arms →
You’ve heard us complain about it. You’ve seen us struggle with it. Now we’re going to take a step to change things… and you can help.  In fact, we need you to help. On 26 April 2008, we have the
Apr 8th
An Interesting Day that Included Phil McKinney and... →
I had quite an interesting day yesterday that ran a gamut of interesting events, listening to some great speeches and reminiscing about the past. My day started early because I had to be in Tyson’s…
Apr 5th
Eye Opening Event: Social MatchBox DC →
Last night Keith and I attended Social MatchBox DC which was organized by Robert and Juliana of JobMatchbox.com and sponsored Network Solutions (Shashi) It was a great event – lots of new…
Apr 1st
March 2008
14 posts
Blessed By The Journey: Learning About Sales →
A few months ago I met Doug at Capital Cabal (a networking event)  – we didn’t get to talk much at the event, but we did exchange business cards.  From there we began playing the email game and…
Mar 30th
Not A Rookie Anymore But Ignorance Was Bliss →
I have an extremely large whiteboard in my basement that now has all key future components for WhyGoSolo that need to be developed outlined in relationships to each other and the overall vision of…
Mar 29th
Discover WhyGoSolo: The Social Media Platform at... →
Thanks to a good friend of mine: social media guru, blogger and author Geoff Livingston of Livingston Communications; I have been scheduled as the next speaker for the monthly get together of…
Mar 28th
Leverage, Strategic Planning, Risk and Outcomes →
Ah…the business world and negotiating partnerships – it’s an interesting place and unsteady environment.  Deals and partnerships take a long time to complete because they end up changing along the…
Mar 26th
Build vs Buy: Trade Offs →
Every development team faces it.  There’s a major component which although not key to your applicationevery development team has to make the decision… and odds are that you’ve made the wrong…
Mar 26th
A Little Something About the Nothing →
I know I’ve been very quiet this past week – on the blog and generally speaking all around the web. There are few reasons for that…unfortunately, none of which I’m ready to disclose just yet. I have…
Mar 24th
It’s not a Date – It’s a Handshake!! →
When two single people Handshake together…what makes a Handshake different than a date? The first and most obvious difference is expectations.  There are no expectations attached to a…
Mar 16th
Coffee with Robert McGovern →
Let me preface that having the opportunity to meet with Robert McGovern (founder of CareerBuilder.com and now JobFox.com) this morning and getting to steal an hour and a half of his busy…
Mar 12th
Sunday School: I’ve Been Tagged 8 Things I've... →
I’ve been tagged by Pai to share 8 things people might not know about me – I figured I would use the Sunday School post and do 8 things I have learned and or do as a way to expose some unknowns…
Mar 11th
Forget SXSW Go To DC Independent Film Festival!! →
Did you know that the DC Independent Film Festival kicked off March 6th and is ongoing until March 16th!?!  I didn’t because I was too busy worrying about not being at SXSW!!  11 days…
Mar 11th
Handshake Contest: Washington Walks – Cherry... →
It’s my pleasure to announce that Washington Walks have given us 2 passes for FIVE of their exciting walks, which includes the once a year Blossom Secrets Stroll in conjunction with the
Mar 11th
Out with the Truth: Late for My Handshake... →
You know you are surrounded by amazing people when all of them have the opportunity to spread something which was pretty hilarious, but potentially damaging all over Twitter and they don’t. (Love…
Mar 6th
Handshake Contest: Win Tickets to the Wild &... →
What a great event to win some tickets to!!  Raise your awareness about our environment through having some fun. The Potomac Riverkeeper is bringing the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival…
Mar 4th
Handshake Contest: Win Tickets to See Sematic →
I’m listening Sematic right now on their site…and I tell you what – it’s tempting to keep the tickets for myself!! But I won’t…These tickets are for you to win!! Semantic is a local band…
Mar 3rd
Month in Review →
All I can say is:  Wow. As we headed up to the 05 January release, I expected it to be a huge month.  I knew that we’d have some late nights.  I knew we’d have some stressful coding sessions.  And I…
Mar 1st
February 2008
29 posts
Do you Know the Impact of What you Say?!!? →
Anyone who knows me know a few things about me: I have a sarcastic sense of humor, I pretty much take nothing personal, and it’s extremely difficult (next to) impossible to offend me. Ten years in…
Feb 27th
Appearance on Pulver.tv →
Yesterday morning I was up at 5am and on the road to NYC by 7am…it was a little over a five hour drive to get to Jeff’s office in Melville, NY. Being on the show was a nice experience. They have quite the in-house studio going and Andy runs a great show…he could use a few extra hands. Jeff was a fabulous host and I really enjoyed meeting Dave Troy of Twittervision, Jeff’s other guest, and Dave...
Feb 27th
Targeted Growth Part II →
Last week brought us some interesting new traffic to the site – the coverage was great. We double are amount of visitors, more than doubled the page views and doubled the countries where the traffic came from. We had over a 100 new signups…not too badTwo weeks ago – Map Overlay   Last week’s – Map Overlay   But what’s the most important is what we learned from the traffic that was generated and...
Feb 25th
Intuition and Fred Wilson →
I don’t know how I missed the blog post that Fred Wilson wrote last Thursday, February 21st called Friends.  Fred’s blog is one of the top blogs I always read. Fred writes: “…the truth is that I have friends, hundreds of them, who I haven’t even met. They are people that I’ve met online. Not in chat rooms. Through blogging and other forms of social media. When I get the opportunity to...
Feb 24th
Sunday School: Targeted Growth Part I →
My first lessons of marksmanship came when I went through Marine Corps Boot Camp – not too shabby of a place to learn your marksmanship from – and the number one thing I remember learning at 18 laying in the prone position at the 300 yd line was that hitting the target isn’t easy. I could empty a magazine of ill aimed rounds and not hit a thing…it takes proper techniques, position, aim and...
Feb 24th
Going to a 60/20/20 Split →
These past few weeks have been pretty sweet since my focus has been on the things I love: site development and business development (PR, marketing, growing our community).  It’s been really fun and exciting stuff!! This last week has been particularly nice with all the great write-ups and attention we’ve received from ReadWriteWeb, SomewhatFrank, DemoGirl, Shashi, JoNathan, KillerStartups…to name...
Feb 23rd
First Completed Handshake →
Woohoo!!  Completed my frist handshake request…with someone I didn’t already know and someone who isn’t part of the DC tech community, or into social media…just a simple guy who found his way to WhyGoSolo and posted a listing to go to the movies. See my seesmic video about it… 
Feb 23rd
DC…Still a Dispersed Tech/Startup Community →
Nick O’Neil has been engaged in the quest to figure out how bring and get the startup tech community together for quite a few months now.  I’ve been on the same quest myself, but I’ve had and will continue to have distractions in making that happen. In response to Nick’s latest post on the matter of what’s happening and why; I wanted to congratulate him on what he said but add a few things… We All...
Feb 22nd
Release Notes... Fun Times for All →
You’ve been there.  You’re getting close to release.  Your team is working crazy hours, they’re patching bugs left and right, your documenation team is swearing at everyone for making changes,  your former Marine boss is spending a lot of time cleaning her weapons… and your PR people have one question for you: What’s in this release? Oh… crap.  So how can you...
Feb 21st
Grounding a Visionary: Implementation →
I have some more residual thoughts to the meeting I attended yesterday…for which I was embarrassingly late. It made me feel really nice to listen to another person filled with passion, fire and love for what he believes will be a way to impact the world and do good. I watched his energy level raise as his vision was coming together and he was visualizing where it could go…in front of him stood...
Feb 20th
Who Are You and What do You Know →
I was in interesting meeting today with a diverse crowd that was all gathered to listen to a man’s vision in order to make it possible for him to implement it on the web. It got me thinking about who the heck is who and who knows what about the web…here are the usual suspects I’ve identified: Surfer/Lurker: They read what’s on the web and rarely participate in anything.  They turn on the web the...
Feb 20th
Working on Catching the Wave for a Perfect Ride →
Inhale, exhale, deep inhale, deep exhale…the ocean has been calmed for so long and now I sit on my surf board and in front of me is a wave that’s building up – it’s being fueled first by Jeff Pulver talking about us and getting involved in helping out, to now a write up in ReadWriteWeb and some other pending reviews. As I look at the wave forming in the distance…and I start swimming towards it I...
Feb 19th
Share the Fun!! Invite your Friends →
We have finally just closed out Marco…which was Iteration 5.  Feels like that iteration has been going on for weeks. The reason why it stayed open was for one key component – adding the ability to easily import your contacts and add your friends!! We were breaking our own development policy and rules to get this in…we were making additions to the Marco Branch which was on production, while also...
Feb 18th
Sunday School: Checklist for the Warm and Fuzzies →
In the spirit of getting over being a big pansy – this week’s Sunday School is on a checklist to give you the warm and fuzzy about where you “sit” on wether or not you’re on the right path. I applied the checklist to WhyGoSolo…  And we turn to Paul… Paul Graham puts it nicely in his post Six Principles to Making New Things… …Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to...
Feb 17th
Stop Being a Big Pansy and Get the Word Out →
I just had the epiphany that I’ve been scared to really expose WhyGoSolo to the world through having a talk with Jeff Pulver. Jeff was nice enough to speak with me today and has agreed to offer help, feedback and coaching/mentoring as I keep going.  It means a great deal to me and goes to show how much he believes in helping people make their dreams come true. But back to how I’m a big pansy – I...
Feb 15th