It all Started on a Facebook chat wall, we created a TRIBE!

January 23rd, 2012 View Comments

We started a vision.

Quite some months ago I was sitting on a FaceBook  wall chatting with some new friends about a myriad of subject matters. And of course sitting at my basement desk having a glass of wine, our conversations naturally took a turn towards the grape. We spoke of wines we liked, regions of wine producing areas we had all traveled, and from that we said how fun it would be to get together to do a wine tasting.
Well one of our group is based out in the wine country of California and unbeknownst to us she was wanting to do something for the benefit of her community and create an event that would highlight the Mendocino region of grape producers, and wine producers that made their homes and businesses in that area.

And so, after some brainstorming, vision boarding, endless skype sessions, analysis measurements of risk vs. reward, it was born.

ReverbCon a vision of an un-conference that will marry social media with the wine country. It will be an event that will allow those entrepreneurs in the wine industry the opportunity look at differing methodologies of brand and product awareness using the tools of the electronic median of the world wide web.
It’s going to bring together those qualified individuals that dwell in the social spaces throughout the days, weeks and months and marry them with the uniquely niche driven wine industry for an event that has never been done before.
It’s a vision started and fueled by several people from all points of the globe.

We are creating a tribe, not just a crowd. A crowd has no leader, no common message. A tribe has a vision that all the followers want to be part of. We have amassed a strong set of individual leaders, each one capable of leading her or his specific section, and each one humble enough to fall back and allow another to lead when the time permits. Our TRIBE is fueled by a vision, we have no traction, we have never done an event centering around this common connection. But we have been quietly working in the background, giving of our own time and value, preparing for this event in April.

We are so excited to see how far, and brightly, our rocket will burn into the hemisphere.

Your welcome to come join us April 10,11,12, 2012 in Hopland, California.

From wine tasting’s to social media training to networking, the agenda will not disappoint.  Look for more from me very soon on the web site launch.

Follow me on twitter/mikebaltus and fb.me/mikebaltus  for more details as we release them.

Cheers!

 

 

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I saw a shooting star…

October 23rd, 2011 View Comments

I’m glad my week is over!

My Monday started like nothing I have ever experienced in my life!
My alarm went off as normal, but my garage door slammed as I was waking up, it was my wife. Now this wouldn’t seem all that weird, except she was due in her office in 15 minutes, and she was still home!
I heard her run up the two flights of stairs to our bedroom, and she said “get up!” in  a tone of voice I have NEVER heard her utter.

“Our neighbor is DEAD!”  With that she said grab a sweat shirt it’s cold outside, and she ran back down the stairs & out the garage door.

I was in a fog, What neighbor? Where? I ran down the two flights of stairs grabbed shoes hopping one on my foot as I broke the plain of my garage door, only to see 7 sheriffs cars surrounding the 4 corners of my street.

I made eye contact with neighbors I never see at this hour of the day, unless we get a big snow and we are all out shoveling simultaneously, and the teary eyes told me a story I was in NO WAY prepared for.

My 42 year old neighbor was dead, his two sleeping children & now widow were in the house, and I’m L O S T !!!

My incredible wife said we need to get the kids out and to our home, the issue was, their father was dead in the doorway of their home, and we sure as hell didn’t want them waking to that vision! I ran to the officer on guard at the front door and pleaded with him to let me go in & get the children, NO DICE..there asleep and we are trying to figure out how to get them out the back of the house. FINE I said ~walking off. Still in a teary fog! A few minutes later the officer motioned to me “their coming out the back side of there house, you can take them to your home.”

In the mean time another couple detectives showed up,  a crises counselor, and a coroner, it was shift change for the sheriffs office, so  a few new officers showed up, and others dispersed. One officer said “we don’t see this often, he’s only 42.” With no real reason to be deceased, the officer walked away from our teary eyed group, as if to try and make sense of the whole thing in his mind. ( I assume he went home & hugged his family a little harder that day, the officer exclaimed he was “our age”)

Many tears flowed, my home became the base of operation until the body of my neighbor was removed. Through many tears, multiple neighbors made there way to my home, the community was in rally mode.

The coroner needed to do an investigation interview, and ask the children to leave, we decided to take them next door to await the arrival of their grandparents. Just as we were breaking the plain of my garage door, the coroners were wheeling out a gurney, with my neighbor covered on a blue blanket, just at the same time as I was seeing the children to another neighbors house. This was JUST THE SCENE i WANTED TO PROTECT THEM FROM!
I told them to keep eyes forward as we crossed the street, but all I  heard was the sniffling, and whimpering of my fallen neighbors two children, those tears & that pain was just about to do me in! I watched as they got my neighbor into the van, and made my way back into my home.

With the interviews wrapped up, the children safely with their grandparents, and neighbors dispersing, it was all I could do to not just sit & stare at a wall. It was now 9:01AM I awoke at 6:41AM. All this took place in less than two hours, twenty minutes, it was now quite, the widow in  her home alone, my teary eyed wife, upset, trying to make her way to her office, and me trying to prepare for a statistics quiz at 12~noon.

My head pounded all that day, it was all I could do to sit through my class. I made my way home after the quiz and lecture, and it was time to gather the neighbors and see where we were. While not quite as emotional, we were still all in the same space, headaches, breaking hearts, sorrow, but we were we ARE community!

The week has come & gone, Friday night I made a bonfire, we gathered  our neighbors, we had hot chocolate for the kids, I swilled a whole bottle of red wine, others had a beer, we were together on Friday night still reeling from Monday, but we started laughing a bit. The kids loved playing around the fire & in the dark. Our community was healing, we have a long way to go but we are making those first steps.

That night his daughter had written a note to her father, and decided to put it into the flames to have the ashes carried aloft. The most AMAZING thing happened. Not 3 minutes later after the paper had been burned completely, a shooting star came over one of my neighbors homes, BRIGHT , LONG TAILED, and was SLOW MOVING FOR US ALL TO SEE! I screamed to get everyones attention, we were all amazed.

I looked at his daughter and said “your dad musta got your message.”

The truly weird thing was, several weeks ago she had told her dad she wanted to see a shooting star one day…

I have traveled regularly to Utah & points South West in Colorado to watch meter showers, but NEVER IN MY LIFE, have I seen one this close, bright, slow moving, and purpose serving!

I saw a shooting star that night, but I believe it was something more.

 

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How has social media changed YOU as a person?

September 13th, 2011 View Comments

Today I continue with excerpts from my luncheon in Orlando, Florida where I took the opportunity to take my online relationship’s off line.

Oscar Bowen is a really cool dude, caring, deep, and a heck of allot of fun!
In this exchange I got the extreme pleasure of being Oscars, FIRST EVER, filmed interview!
I ask Oscar how his life had changed over the last year given his interactions on social media, his answer may surprise you.

Here is the video answer to my query:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkmCh4CojUA

So the question begged to be ask;
ARE YOU POLLINATING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GARDEN?

The best angle from which to approach any problem is the try-angle.  ~Author Unknown

Post your thoughts below, we all love to hear about them.
Peace!
Mike

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What’s the dumbest thing You’ve done on Social Media?

September 12th, 2011 View Comments

In this segment of taking social media off line:

I ask Chris Hughes about the dumber things he’s done on social media.

His answer’s may have you laughing, or, asking have you looking inward and remembering just what it was YOU have done.


Either way please enjoy the interaction on this question.

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So the question still is:  Whats the Dumbest thing YOU”VE ever done on Social Media?
Leave a post we would all love to hear from you~

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Taking social media engagement off line

September 9th, 2011 View Comments

As the summer of 2011 has concluded, I look back at all the marvelous things myself and family got accomplished. Summer found us traveling, camping, going to parties, and my big project refurbishing and repainting the exterior of our home. (the last item wasn’t so sexy, but the outcome is really a bonus for the look of the house)

In our travels we ended up in Orlando , Florida- this trip was two fold: to reconnect wit extended family and take my daughter to Disney World! But, I had a personal bonus as well, I took the opportunity to connect with some social media friends whilst I had a down day between Disney World visit’s to connect with my friends Chris Hughes & Oscar Bowen.  These two guys are supporting each other as individual friends and entrepreneur’s.

You can visit Chris here: http://whosChrisHughes.com

Oscar Here: https://www.facebook.com/fluxeorlando

We decided to meet near my condo for what was scheduled as a couple hour bull session on a multitude of subject matters relating to social media, branding etc.
But what came of the meeting turned into a nearly 5 hour event in which we covered TONS of ground, while we covered some of the aformentioned information, we also covered goals, life, challenges, triumphs and more! Taking the opportunity to meet in person is one thing I love about social media and travel, by interacting online, the barrieres of entry are already knocked down, the trust factor is already established, and one can ease into a personal meeting with the speed of light!

And of course I had my ever trusty Flip cam with me, and so follows just one of several videos I have compiled to commerate our engagement.
I can’t thank Chris & Oscar enough for taking time out of the schedules to hang with me. I look forward to the opportunity when I can host Chris and/or Oscar should they get the chance to come visit Colorado! And again I will have my trusty video cam along to capture some of our time together.

In this segment we discuss 3 things Chris wants to get out of social media and what book he’s reading.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miRQ8AdKeCg

Over time I will share more insites from my visit with the boys, but for now please enjoy this segment.

What are your thoughts? What do you hope to gain from books and online activities over the next year?
Please feel free to leave a comment below.

Be Well~

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What a “SPUR” of the moment outting can do…

September 6th, 2011 View Comments

How BUDDY impacted our day!

This is Buddy, he was a spur of the moment surprise gift I offered my daughter for doing really  well on some of  her new spelling words from second grade (well I didn’t GIVE her the  horse, merely a ride) at a horse rescue  ranch that specializes in working with disabled children  and they are expanding to help out adults as well.

You can check out there site and see what type of amazing work they do here: http://www.hhdcranch.com/

By the look on my daughters face, one can see her joy in being in the presence of one of these animals! And I was just as happy seeing other children and adults working with their individual horses.
I found out about this facility via Craigslist, they where having a customer appreciation day, and I decided to surprise my daughter with this opportunity to get up close and personal with these rescue horses.

This horse and fowl were saved from a starvation, near death experience, she could not produce  enough milk for the fowl, so the fowl was forced to eat the excrement of her mother to survive. She was so emaciated that the trainer/caregiver could put 3/4 length of her finger into her rid cage. But within two weeks of tender care, nourishing meals and clean water the mother was doing so much better, and producing more milk for the fowl. The fowl, was un-named to date, they are raffling off an opportunity to name her, she is very friendly and walked up to me several times throughout the day.

I’m really glad we found this place, it’s not far from our home, and the work they do is really amazing! If your in the SW side of Denver please  consider paying them a visit. As you can see, SMILES were in abundance that afternoon, and they carried well into the night!

Be Well!

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Just a weekend away

August 24th, 2011 View Comments

I took some time to do a bit of traveling this summer. I had decided not to attend classes at college and just be a dad, do some needed home projects, meet some social media friends, read, and generally have fun.

And in the spirit of that mental position I went camping quite a few times in various parts of Colorado.

Here’s a look at one of those places.

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As you can see…there’s a good reason I enjoy my adopted home state!

Let me know below what you have been up to this summer!

Peace!

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What map did we follow?

August 2nd, 2011 View Comments

When the map you thought you had figured out~takes you on a different path.

This summer we (my family) have been spending a bunch of time traveling around various parts of the USA. And we also have spent time in our own back yard of Colorado.
One weekend we set out with a map in hand and a destination in mind we all thought was where we wanted to be. It turns out the path we ended up on took us far from our original point of destenation to a new and very different point in the Colorado high country.

This would not have been a problem if not for the metal picture my wife and I had in our minds of our established, researched, destination. See we were supposed to have ended up in a small “hut”, one we were doing a recon visit for in hopes of pulling off a snow shoe excursion in the coming winter months. But today’s destination and travel energy had a different deliverable in mind.

While the distance was roughly the same in hiking time, the ability needed for the unknown excursion was much different.

The traverse up hill was a bit more taxing than we had planned for a midday hike, we hadn’t packed as much food stores

as we would normally use for a strenuous hike, and we had not really been prepared to tax our seven year old daughter

as much as we did.

But what we found was the gift of the unknown!

Little did we know that the path the universe had in store for us that day was just the right one we needed!

The trail we knocked out was not on the map we had researched, but it was even better than what we had planned for that day! Ends up my daughter did an amazing job at high altitude, and my wife and I shared some much needed time together reliving on of the passions we did while we were dating. Hiking in the Colorado high country and just enjoying the state of being in each others company.

Sometimes despite our best laid out plans, the universal energies have a way of directing us in a manner we do not (and cannot) always see. But that means the end results are no less worth the work of the journey. I just hope we all have the ease of mind to welcome a change in direction when the powers outside of our scope, decide to rewite the direction the map is showing us.

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Networking In Denver

April 27th, 2011 View Comments

A few weeks ago I had the extreme pleasure to reconnect with an author named Bob Burg http://www.burg.com/

Bob is a keynote speaker, author, mentor, and an all around good guy. I’ve read  his book the Go-Giver he co-authored with John David Mann twice now, and have referenced its message in a couple of papers I’ve written for my studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver in Denver.

The best thing Bob brings is the energy to the room, and to the people that come to hear him speak. One will always find themselves nodding their heads in agreement, laughing aloud, and pondering the various business and life teachings that Bob brings to the event.

Not only was Bob in attendence, but many of my local networking friends were there as well, we had come to see who would win the Go-Giver of the year award for Denver.  And I’m so proud to know both of them.
One of the winners ~we had two in Denver cause “thats just how we roll!” ~ was a lady of incredible makeup, courage, community, selflessness, (I could go on) but truly an inspiration on many fronts, and a past adjunct professor of mine Dafna Michaelson Jenet http://www.dafnam.com/
If you don’t know about her, I would encourage you to do some research on her. She really is AMAZING! Here’s a link to something she did that not many would (or have) done. http://www.50in52journey.com/

The other winner was Mark Crowley a really great guy, who continues to deliver TONS of value into our Denver community! http://markcrowley.com/ Congrats to the both of them and I encourage you to look them up and be INSPIRED!

I also of course ran into my dear friend Avram Ganzales ( Mr. InspirACTION! ) http://AvramGonzales.com we both were working the event as volunteers, and as we were tearing down, we had a moment to speak to some of the points Bob had brought up. One question came to our minds that we could not answer umongst ourselves, so I said “hey lets ask the master!” and a video blog was born.

So here’s that question Avram & I had for Bob

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Of course all this could not have happened if it were not for Sabrina Risley of  Behind the Moon http://www.behindthemooninc.com/ she hosted this successful networking event in Denver, and we all benefited from the opportunity! A huge shout out to Sabrina, Thank You so much for putting this event together!

Local networking in your community is one of the best ways to help lift up your local economy. I encourage you to find local networking groups, not only will you enjoy the spoils of business offerings, but you can also start and create those unique relationships that you can carry off line as well.

Speaking of local networks and those helping lift my community.. I wanted to give shouts to:

Cory Michelle Johnson of http://conscious360.com

Meghann Lorean Conter of  http://www.OutsourceLocally.com

George Ira Carroll of http://www.GeorgeIraCarroll.com

Rebecca Saltman of http://www.foot-in-door.com

These people represent only a small fraction of those people who are constantly helping to grow not only there businesses, but also help grow our community.

Many Thanks to Bob Burg and John David Mann for their time in creating  such a great book that can be applied to life and business.  I recomend it, its a great short read! http://www.amazon.com/dp/159184200X/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=4739790415&ref=pd_sl_45rmn6u56c_e

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A moment with Gary Vaynerchuk

April 22nd, 2011 View Comments

I love to read, and it’s even more fun is when one gets to meet the author, and interact with him or her from some position of the book or text.

And I got that chance recently with Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary V (as most people know and refer to him) is a really nice guy who continually professes his love for wine & the NY JETS!

On this occasion Gary was in Denver to promote his most recent book: “Thank You Economy” http://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Economy-Gary-Vaynerchuk/dp/0061914185 and after his lecture he took a few questions from the audience.

I had convinced my friend Meghann Conter of  Out Source Locally http://www.outsourcelocally.com/ to go with me and, as luck  would have it, Gary picked Meghann for one of the three post lecture questions. Actually Gary spent more time  answering Meghann’s  question than any of the others. I had a blast hanging with Meghann she has such a great mind and passion for  the work she does.

And then it was my turn, as always I had my trusty “FLIP” video camera with me and had prepared a few questions in my head when and if i got the opportunity to speak with Gary. And I really got my chance, as Gary was nearing the end of audience members whom had come out to hear and support him, I finally got my chance to meet him face to face.
Now in all transparency I have read “CRUSH IT” twice and actually did reference that book in a marketing term paper I wrote for a class at school. And when I got to the table, I let Gary know about this, along with other ways in which he has influenced me.  As you will see in the video he was gracious, and funny with his delivery to my query.
Oh Yea and ONE other thing I had made an off color joke just before I started taping, and you’ll hear Gary cracking up as we roll into my question.  Enjoy!
Mike Baltus with Gary Vaynerchuk
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Again a big shout out of thanks to Tattered Cover book store for hosting the event http://www.tatteredcover.com/
Meghann for being my partner in crime.
And Gary for being so gracious with his time.

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