So my friend Erica O’Grady wrote an inspired post the other day outlining her “Perfect Man.” It got me thinking of a few things, one being whether or not it was a good idea for me to even touch upon the Perfect Woman idea, and the other being how much freaking flack would I get if I wrote it. So I thought about it some more, and figured, screw it, its a great exercise, and its not like I’m some misogynistic pig, I only joke around about that stuff j/k. (Also I am told this is exactly what the movie the ugly truth is all about)

I do have some issues with women (or men) making these defacto lists of what their perfect mate would be, namely that people think they cannot settle for someone who doesn’t adhere to the entire list, or that they can never attain someone close to their ideal. There is no perfect man or woman people. There I said it. We set ourselves up with crazy expectations and delusions when we set these lists up as rules and not guidelines. That being said, it is great to have things to strive for, and to know what one is looking for in life. I’d argue I really don’t know what I’m looking for yet, I have some ideas, but still need more experiences to fill out how I formulate my “bucket list” of life.

All that aside, here are some of the ideal qualities I’d like to see in a woman (note the use of the word IDEAL and not PERFECT):

1. Not a project – (meaning I don’t have to “fix her”)
2. Independent – I don’t want their life focusing on me, or depending on me. I want to complement, but not compose their life. I want to make her life better.
3. Driven – Must want to excel in life, and improve
4. Intelligent/challenging – I get bored very easily and need someone who can keep up with my conversations. They need to challenge my senses, keep me on my toes intellectually, call out my bullshit when necessary.
5. Cultured/worldly – I don’t mean loving the opera, I mean at least being open to diversity and new experiences
6. Adventurous – Back to #4, I get bored, and need to try new things, seek out new places.
7. Active – I don’t want someone who just sits around all day. I do enough of that while working.
8. Passionate – This isn’t a lust thing, but passionate about something that drives them, gets their gears going up there.
9. Funny – Or at least have a great sense of humor.
10. Thick skinned – Life is tough, I want someone who is aware of that. She doesn’t have to be tough, just not melodramatic about trivial things
11. Stable (mentally) – I’m not good at dealing with crazy. Especially when its crazy for the sake of attention only.
12. Stable (financially) – She doesn’t have to be rich, just have a career trajectory in mind. Having a professional plan is all I want.
13. Able to be an extrovert and an introvert too – Sometimes I’m shy and need someone to balance me out, othertimes i need someone happy to sit back as I’m the center of attention
14. Willing to compete – With me, or with others in life. I don’t want someone who lacks that fire inside them
15. Makes up their own opinions – I want someone who comes to their own conclusions, not what they were fed blindly as a child. Also don’t agree with everything I say, I say dumb shit on PURPOSE to gauge reactions.
16. Attractive – Do I really need to explain this?

So there you have it, a list of ideal qualities I’d like to see in a woman. Please take this with a grain of salt, as I firmly believe one shouldn’t go around making these lists and using them as shopping lists or grades. So what am I missing here? Should I not have put this out there?

So I mentioned during my panel at WordcampMiami today that I have a cookie recipe, which I believe kicks ass. So someone called me out for not having posted said recipe on my blog. So here it is. I’d love it if you guys contributed improvements or feedback. If you know me, you know I have a weakness for chocolate chip cookies.

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks) or margarine – softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 4 Teaspoons of Cocoa Powder/Ground Chocolate
• 2 & 1/4 Teaspoons Cinnamon Powder
• 2 standard eggs
• 2 Teaspoons vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup Double Chocolate Chips (not quite as bitter as Dark Chocolate Chips)
• 1/2 cup Dark Chocolate Chips
• Handful of white chocolate chips – (optional but highly recommended)

Heat oven to 375° F.
Stir flour with baking soda, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.
In large mixer bowl, cream butter with sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla.
Gradually blend dry mixture into creamed mixture.
Stir in chocolate chips (and nuts if you decide to add those, your call really).
Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake at 375° F for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
Makes about 48 cookies (this is if you make them all small).

Tips & Tricks
I’ve noticed that when I refrigerate the dough, then cook it, they come out better. One idea is to wrap the dough in non-stick wax paper or parchment paper and then roll it up into a log (like those pre-made cookies you buy at the grocery store), then when you are ready, just cut off a couple of cookies and voila!

Every year I decide to write up resolutions. So far I’ve consistently failed to adhere to them all on a regular basis. So this year I’m just saying things I’m shooting for, my general goals. I think resolutions should be more like “quit smoking” and resolving to change bad habits. Since I don’t smoke, I figure I should just set out goals.

So here they are in no order of importance:
1. Release a few iphone apps.
Ideally I want to have 4-6 apps out by the end of the year, a couple being games I have in mind already, and a couple would be mobile related services. You’ll just have to wait and see.

2. Turn StartPR into a solid business.
This year I’m going to be pushing the pedal to the metal on marketing and building the business end of startpr. We’ve invested a lot of time and money into it, and now need to turn on the revenue spigot so to speak. We’ve got a number of great add-ons and features and related products we plan on building around the StartPR platform this year, and are hoping we can turn this into a serious cash flow business.

3. Play more sports
I already play a lot of soccer, at least 3x a week, but this year I want to vary it up. Try different sports. I figure it will help to diversify the types of activities I put my body through, which will reduce stress on my knees/ankles (which take a beating due to soccer), and improve my overall fitness.

4. Grow Infinimedia
So we’ve posted respectable growth every year for the last 4. This most recent year we did 35% growth in revenue despite the worst recession in ages, and most certainly in my career. We grew our team, and matured as a company, however, we have a ways to go. So this year we will be rolling out more products, and refining our processes. My goal is to beat last year’s growth, and hit closer to 50% growth in gross revenue in 2010.

I rarely plug my own products and services (which you would know if you were a regular of this blog), but if you’re looking for someone to guide your social strategy (from a strategic and implementation standpoint) then contact us. /plug

5. Grow my own brand
Every time I hear someone talk about being personal branding experts, I kind of throw up a little in my mouth, but there is some value to the idea (its just so poorly represented by many of these newfangled social media experts and others). So this year I’m going to reinforce who I am through my content, speaking, and social activism efforts. I also am going to work more on not censoring myself and using this medium to share my opinions/theories more often, and hopefully spark some interesting discussions from them. Social media is about authenticity so I need to be more authentic. Less self-censorship, more hilariousness, more Brian.

6. Optimize my life.
I’m going to break things down to tangible chunks. Like lose 5lbs by March; doable I think. I figure that I don’t set out super broad/high level requirements when I build a website/app, I break those down to manageable chunks/sprints. So in essence I am going to apply the agile principles to my life.

7. Do more charity.
Last year with your help I raised $1700 for charity:water. This year I’d like to raise a lot more for a number of charities. Post suggestions on who I should rally my community around this year, what causes are near and dear to your hearts.

Brian’s Birthday Charity Video from brbreslin on Vimeo.

These past 26 years I’ve led an incredibly fortunate life, I’ve had great family, friends, and the good fortune of never being truly in need. I’ve worked hard for what I’ve gotten, but still feel the need to effect change on the world in a positive way. So this 27th year of my life I would like to be the change I’d like to see in the world. To do that, I need your help. I’m starting this year of positive giving with this charity water campaign.

Last year I tried to raise awareness for Charity Water, but didn’t get very far. So this year I wanted to step it up a notch and really put some social media muscle behind it. So this year, with your help on my 27th birthday we can raise $2,700 for CharityWater. This might not seem like a huge amount, but its a significant amount. $2700 can build wells that will positively impact 135 people’s lives.

In case you were wondering: $2700 can give water to 135 people, 27 families, and 1 community. So please open up your wallets and give to this cause. 100% of your donation directly funds clean water projects in developing nations.

Thanks to those of you who have already donated.

• Celine Clark
• Davide Di Cillo – @davidedicillo
• Pete Bernardo – @petebernardo
• Jethro Rebollar – @jethror
• Adriana Vega – @ideas4solutions
• Mike LaMonica – @MikeLamonica

Click here to donate and view the campaign page. $27 is the suggested donation amount, but feel free to give whatever you feel comfortable with. Also sharing the link would be greatly appreciated.

This friday the 25th, there will be a birthday bar crawl for charity water in Coconut Grove, FL. So if you’d rather donate in person, I will be selling refreshmiami wristbands for $27. 100% of your donation will go to this charity water campaign. Details and to RSVP, go here.

I’m giving up my birthday. What’re you doing?

aka My upcoming speaking engagements.

Some of you who know me, know of my narcissistic love of hearing my own voice, but for those of you who don’t you are now fortunate enough to get a bunch of chances to see me/hear me rant and rave about technology. Actually, its you guys who can help me get even more exposure by voting for my panel at SXSW.

Mozilla Add-Ons Meetup (September 15, 2009)
Organized by South Florida local techie Rey Bango, community manager of the Mozilla Add-Ons website, this meetup will explore every aspect of getting into firefox development. If you’ve ever wondered what Mozilla add-ons are or wanted to explore building the next great web experience via add-ons, this meetup is for you. We’ll discuss some of the newest initiatives going on in the Mozilla add-on ecosystem including Collections, Contributions & more. I’ll be covering my experiences developing Twitbin and working with the Add-ons website.

Pubcon Las Vegas 2009 (November 9-13 2009)
I’m going back to Vegas baby! Woohoo! This year I’ll be talking about twitter. Specifically the latest and greatest twitter applications out there. Last year we talked about tagging at pubcon, this year its going to be all about using twitter applications to maximize your social media influence. The title of my panel is “Killer Twitter Apps, Services and API Trends” and I’m joined by 3 very talented and knowledgeable twitter experts: Dan Zarrella, Joe Fernandez, and Alexander Barbara.

SXSW 2010 (March 12-16 2010)
Coconut Valley – Building a Tech Community on the Beach
With your help, aka your votes, I’ll be able to present this panel in front of the crowds at SXSW next spring in Austin, TX. The premise of the panel is as much about what we’ve built so far in South Florida, what we are trying to build, and how you too can build a tech community in your hometown whether its Anchorage, Alaska or Zephyrhills, Florida. We’ll cover everything from our missteps, to the best practices we’ve learned, and everything in between. So please register and vote, it would mean a lot to me. – Don’t forget there are a bunch of other South Floridians with panel ideas for SXSW.

I’m also available to speak at your event, conference, resort, etc. Just talk to my agent. Wait I don’t have an agent, so if you’d like to be my agent, please let me know.

So back in January I wrote about my resolutions for 2009, they were pretty simple ideas overall, which I had hoped would make achieving them easier. So in this spirit, I think I should make some resolutions for the second half of the year as well. First however, lets do a progress report. I’ll grade myself on the progress of each resolution.

Resolution #1 – Lose weight (yeah yeah, cliche, I know)
Grade: C+
I’ll give myself a C+ on this one. I had lost almost 10 pounds by May, but regained a bunch and am only at -5 for the year now. Why did I reverse course? Well I got lazy, spent less time in the gym, and allowed myself to eat fast food and such. So my goal for the rest of the year is still to end the year at -15lbs. Though I should really set a target of -20 to make it more challenging.

Resolution #2 – Make more money (screw you recession!)
Grade: B+/A-
So my resolution was to grow 10% per quarter. I don’t think I have the accurate numbers with me (that’s @bacariza’s job), but I’m pretty certain we’ve almost broken last year’s total already. So I think that’s on track to be accomplished. Why not higher than a B+ ? Well if I was truly knocking it out of the park, I’d say we had doubled last year’s revenue by midyear this year. THAT would be counter-recessionary earnings.

Resolution #3 – Monetize my ideas
Grade: C+
So I am making some more money now than I was at the beginning of the year, mainly by dumb luck. Twitbin is generating more now than last year (traffic is way up, usage is way up, etc.). I’ve also started making some $ from my blog, about $100/month so far. Nowhere near the 5 figures I had hoped for. But there are still 5 months left.

Resolution #4 – Be a better friend
Grade: B+
I think I’ve forged a number of new or improved friendships this year, and made more of an effort to engage with existing friends a lot more. I think I’ve done a decent job on this one so far. Though this one is hard to rate/grade.

Resolution #5 – Say yes more often
Grade: B
So I think I’ve opened myself up for more opportunities, adventures and other things, but I could probably still be less hesitant to try things. I’m still planning on doing some new things this year (like get my scuba license), and hoping to say yes to more things in the next 5 months. This is ultimately about keeping an open mind.

Resolution #6 – Create more
Grade: A-
So I have been blogging a lot more this year than last. Partially motivated by trafficwars 2009. But also it’s a bit cathartic. I have been working on a number of new projects, which will emerge at some point during the summer. These projects were just as much about fun as about creating new business ideas and running with them.

So I asked my friends on various sites what I should resolve to do in 2009, some responses were funny, others offensive, some even offensively funny, but in the end it really meant I was being lazy and should have come up with the list myself.  I am a huge believer in small iterations in software and web development, so I think I am going to approach my resolutions the same way. Everything will be made up of smaller steps.  The other thing is by posting them here, I will hopefully have a public record of this and it will force me to do some of these things.

Resolution #1 – Lose weight (yeah yeah, cliche, I know)
So my goal for the end of the year is to lose 15lbs. So every season my goal should be to lose 5lbs. 52 weeks to accomplish this. Should be doable. This means 1/3lb a week. So by the end of the year, I should be close to what I weighed when I was a first year in college (aka freshman).  This goes hand in hand with just getting in better physical shape overall.

Resolution #2 – Make more money (screw you recession!)
How much more money? Well I think I’d like to peg my fiscal growth at a 10% per quarter bump. Thats my goal. Each quarter to generate 10% more than last quarter. So if I can continuously optimize all my revenue streams, and make my money work for me harder each quarter, I think this should be doable. So by the end of the year I’d like to have way more stashed in the bank, and be running a more efficient business.  This also means I am going to start doing sales (yup, never done any sales on my own till this point, all power of word of mouth), and tracking everything more quantitatively.

Resolution #3 – Monetize my ideas
If you know me well, you know I ALWAYS have thousands of ideas floating around which I bounce off of everyone I know. The thing is most of these ideas really just require a few weeks of dedication and investment, something I haven’t been affording myself due to client work. So this year I am putting my foot down and making things like Twitbin generate revenue, and monetizing my other side projects. My goal is to be generating 5 figures monthly by the third quarter from these passive investments.

Resolution #4 – Be a better friend
So sometimes I notice I have the ability to help friends and acquaintances and don’t always do it. Other times I have noticed I don’t always make that extra effort to show up on time to things my friends are organizing (parties, events, gatherings, etc.), and I feel bad about that. So this year I am going to make an effort to improve my friends and acquaintances lives in as many ways as I can. I also am going to make a better effort to befriend lots of you whom I know, but don’t know very well. So this year, I am inviting you all to a cup of coffee. Let me know if we don’t know each other very well and I will happily buy you a cup of joe.  This I hope would go under @rjsaylor’s suggestion of being awesome in 2009. thanks Rebecca   This also means building up more good karma.

Resolution #5 – Say yes more often
So this might seem ridiculous, but I saw the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey a few weeks ago, and really felt inspired. I tend to be a no-person way more often than I think I should be. So I internally tell myself negative things about potential situations and then avoid them. I need to try new things, and be open to more opportunities.  So this year I am going to learn to scuba (which I won last year and haven’t gone yet), maybe go do something else adventurous (sky diving?), or just be willing to try things I normally wouldn’t.  I would like to learn to fly a plane, so if anyone wants to teach me for free….

Resolution #6 – Create more
This means take more photos, videos, blog more, share more, and launch more websites.

So what are your resolutions?

I sit here late at night, on my 26th birthday no less, and reflect on where we are today.  I like to think that I am a fairly sharp individual, with a solid education and all that, but I came to realize something recently: what good is it to be capable of doing if you aren’t actively doing?  So in the spirit of change and progress I’ve decided that I am going to be more vocal, more active, and make an effort to effect change whenever possible.  This post is inspired by a recent post by Jeremy Schoemaker entitled “What is sticking your pecker out?“

The last 18 months have re-awoken the spirit of a rebel in me that I grew up believing I was.  I have always fancied myself a revolutionary at heart, though I probably wouldn’t fit the definition in the traditional sense.  In the last 18 months we’ve seen what can happen to our society when we allow people to let greed consume us, fear paralyze us, ignorance guide us, and leadership fail us.  We’ve seen the dollar fall, the housing market pop (you HAD to see that coming), the stock markets lose trillions in value, an unpopular war march on, and a ridiculous presidential race emerge. Now it hasn’t been all bad, we as a people have come together to help our fellow man in times of need, and many have been inspired by the symbol of change.

It is that change, the mere symbol of change, that has sparked this renewed spirit of enlightenment in me, and hopefully many others. When in the past many might have refrained from speaking their voices (a very troubling fact in my opinion) for fear of upsetting or offending people, now many share their views openly, and hopefully many more will follow their lead.  I for one was very tight lipped in the past about my support of liberal candidates and liberal policies for fear of upsetting people and having it negatively affect my business and personal lives.  Now though I know that by being tight lipped about my desire for change, or my disgust in the current political leadership (not limited to solely the executive branch), I was really giving in to the oppressive nature of the culture of fear we are allowing ourselves to submit to.  So with that in mind, I think that we cannot expect to grow as a culture and a society if we remain afraid to voice our opinions.  The old adage of “opinions are like assholes, everyone has one” might hold true, but if you keep your opinions to yourself aren’t you really just constipating yourself?

I’ve been following Garyvee’s posts and videos a lot lately and have decided to heed his advice and start building my personal brand.

So what does that mean?
It means I’ll be posting all my content here on BrianBreslin.com, it means I will no longer be posting on my webpl.us blog or on any other blogs I may have started. Why spread the effort when it can be concentrated here and put to better use.

I will also be posting more videos and multi media content here, so keep your eyes peeled for that stuff.  I also intend on tweaking what we think of as a personal homepage.

This post was inspired by Allen Stern’s post of people he’d like to meet in 2008 (sadly, I was not included in his list!). So I am going to list out the things I’d like to do in 2008.

• Speak at a barcamp
• Speak at a major conference (FOWA, or SXSW, etc.)
• Travel more (targets this year: South America, Australia, Europe, and Asia)
• Learn more portuguese and japanese.
• Get some snowboarding in. (either in this hemisphere or the southern…)
• meet more famous people so i can name drop j/k
• Blog more
• do more videos
• become an international man of mystery…. or just internet famous. whichever is easier
• expand my real like social graph
• have more fun.

so what do you want to do this year?