Waiting for some friends to show up in Austin. It's 10.30am but a beautiful day already, so I'm going to go sit by the pool. I'll be here for 11 more days and then back in Calgary for at least a couple of months.
As previously mentioned, I had a great meeting for Game Plan Systems on Tuesday. I was also able to stop in and chat with my client the Calgary International Film Festival. Aside from those 2 projects, I'm not too sure how much I want to get back involved with web marketing. It's not that I don't love the industry, but the hard part is that from a service provider standpoint it is a real grind. Sites like Clients from Hell illustrate the lack of respect for people in our industry. We don't sell anything tangible - we sell ideas, pretty pictures and lines of code - and I can understand where clients are coming from when dealing with us. I'm as guilty as anyone - when dealing with contractors I am bound by the limits of my budget and although I always try to be as fair as possible, often it is hard to justify paying as much as is asked for when there is such a variance in the outcome. So my number one goal is still to make Game Plan's hockey training and coaching software successful. Over the next couple of months there is a lot I can do in Calgary to continue towards that objective. Beyond that, I'm wondering about the best place for me to be. New York was light years ahead of Calgary in fostering web entrepreneurship and my understanding is that San Francisco is even better. However, this is not possible due to visa restrictions - I will need some other work until Game Plan is self-sufficient and I can't do that in the US without a visa. Toronto has a hotter hockey market and is on the East coast (which makes it closer to the important markets of NY, Boston and Montreal). Vancouver has a hotter interactive market than Calgary and is closer to Seattle and SF. Calgary has been home for a long time and it is a good hockey market and there is promise on the interactive front but I also have this Mashable article about the time-honored location, location, location in the back of my mind. So now I'm going to put that in my brain-hole, take my orange book and sit by the pool for 3 hours. Sunburns await.