Sometimes the best place to catch fish is not the easiest place to reach!

Growing up, I had the very special pleasure of spending a lot of time with my grandfather. I loved being around him, copy-catting everything he did. It wasn’t always obvious at the time, but there were also lots of important life lessons shared walking through the garden or learning to skip rocks. One of them seemed so simple to him at the time and yet so baffling to me. He said, “If you want to catch some fish, you have to fish where the fish are.”

How the heck am I supposed to know where the fish are?
It just seemed natural to him that fishing where the fish were was what you were supposed to do. And now with some, um, “experience” under my belt, makes sense to me too. But how do you know where they are.

You get the best rod and reel you can afford, the best looking bait and find the most comfortable spot on the bank to spend the afternoon. You cast and cast, over and over without even a nibble. Why?
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Now, before you descend on me like a swarm of locust for backpeddling… read on!

I’ve long been a proponent of the idea that social media marketing, or trying to make sales through “the social media channel” is a beyond a waste of time… it is driving potential business away, never to return. And for everyone’s sanity, including my own, I still feel that way! This past weekend at BarCamp Memphis, I had the opportunity to have some extended discussions that included this very topic. One blog owner was very concerned about having any advertising on their site saying they had made a huge investment gaining the trust of their readership and didn’t want to risk that by selling ads. At the same time, there has to be a viable revenue model or many sites, including some pretty popular ones, will not be able to continue. Well, maybe there is a way…
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I’ve been thinking about a series for a while now that explains my bio that seems to be floating all over the Internet these days. It never even occurred to me that it needed explaining until I was quizzed on it recently. Since then I’ve refined it a bit, swapped out a few words, and now I think it is a pretty good description of, well… me. I’ve actually struggled with whether to do this or not, I didn’t want to come off too "about me" but, after all, this is my blog… its kinda like visiting my house and seeing the collection of stuff that describes me… so why not. Oh, BTW, its not really going to be in any particular order. For instance, today’s entry is about the Digital Nomad Lifestyle, mainly because I saw a related post on GigaOM that got me thinking on the topic. I’ll update this post as a Table of Contents of sorts when new posts in the series go up. Hopefully, when they’re all done they’ll make more sense. Thanks for reading so far! SO, without further ado… here we go!

Confirmed Internet junkie, blogger, and marketer pursuing the digital nomad lifestyle. Oh, and I LOVE a good debate, Shiner, and my Bride!

Enjoy,

 @jtrigsby