Have you seen Jack-In-The-Green?
With his long tail hanging down.
He sits quietly under every tree —
in the folds of his velvet gown.
– tull

Spread out on the floor is a 10,000 piece puzzle. Each piece meticulously up-turned and laid out so one can see every piece from above. It’s all there. Everything you need to know is right in front of you. So why the hell does it take so long to put it all together? Well, that’s the thing isn’t it?

Recently I’ve been trying to figure out how all the pieces fit. It’s like when I first started my business. At the time I simply developed websites. Of course it was not long before I realized that many of my new clients not only needed websites, but they needed web hosts and commercial artists, commercial photographers, copywriters, and marketing consultants. Hiring someone to work on their website was quite possibly the first time since they started their businesses years back that they had to go back and figure out what they were doing and why. Often the first time they had tried putting it into a concise, attractive package as well. Thus begins the slippery slope that puts the “web guy” in a room full of crazy hats.  Small businesses simply don’t have the budget for marketing teams and are often busy themselves just doing whatever it is they do.  That’s the moment you realize that there actually is an “I” in TEAM.  Which may not be a bad thing IF you can pull it off without suffering a break down.

Jet on ahead.  Time Warp. Years pass. One day you find the “web guy” feeling the need to figure out what he’s doing and why… quite possibly the first time since he started his own business many years back. He’s looking around at this room full of hats. Ok, so … sea kayaking instructor, web developer, tourism publisher, web host, commercial artist, photographer & marketing consultant. So why the heck am I not rich?? (well, that’s another story..) But it really jumped out at me as I started playing around with this twitter thing. Yeah, I couldn’t quite use my paddling twitter account for my other endeavors.. almost.. But there are strings… It’s not that I’m in the Outdoor Recreation business…. But I’m orbiting it. Paddling around it, as it were. Talking about it sure, living it.. yeah. But I’m not an outfitter and I don’t sell carabiners off the back of a truck. Yeah I teach at a shop and do some private instruction but even that is sort of fringe.. (well, not fringe in a “fringe” sort of sense… dig??).

So anyway I’ve been sort of quiet recently. Like a caveman contemplating a fractal. A bit stuck, a tad confused, and maybe a bit in fear. Somehow it all has to come together a bit better.

My first move was to recognize the “Outdoor” leaning of much of what I’ve been doing.  Once I got a grip on that I’ve decided to pull all my projects in this direction. It seems logical. The first thing was to take my over 10 year old Wisconsin Dells travel guide and dramatically change it into a Wisconsin Dells Outdoor Recreation Guide. Not kill it, or remove the classic tourism lodging & attraction stuff… but expand it.. take it for a walk. Lots of work to go there, but I’ve made the start. Along with my 2 popular Wisconsin State Park guides this should all sync up well.  State Park Guides? You can’t get more outdoorsy that that.  Lots more to go.. Still staring at fractals to be honest.. “So much time, so little to do… hold it! Reverse it.” Sometimes I think what I need is a company with a lot more hands and a lot more brains to simply buy me out. . .

Ok, so now what has THAT got to do with kayaking??

BTW.. If you’re in the Mid-West and travel in the Madison-Wisconsin Dells area of Wisconsin you may enjoy my new regional Twitter at http://twitter.com/DevilsLake

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