Areas of Growth/Opportunity for 2007

Steve Pavlina writes, on his blog, “At the start of each new year, in lieu of creating a New Year’s resolution, my tradition is to select an area of primary focus for the coming year.” Following his excellent example, I’m setting my foci for 2007 and then describing more detailed areas of those foci.

When I think about what I want to accomplish in 2007, the word that comes to mind is “New.” There are a lot of “new” goals and opportunities for me in 2007 — too many for me to post in a single blog entry, but I’ll encompass a few here.

New Stuff. I’ve lived extremely frugally in the past several years. My only major (I consider “major” $1000+) non-work-related purchase since 2000 has been a hot tub, which I bought in 2005 to help me relax. Other than that, I haven’t spent major money on anything not directly related to Simpli in seven years. I’m going to quickly recount what I plan to upgrade or buy new in 2007:

Home stuff:

• A new couch. Now that I have a housemate, I can relax some on the stinginess. This is the top item on the list and will probably happen first. I currently have a futon I bought in 2000 as my couch. It’s time for it to move upstairs to the home office and for me to get a real couch that doesn’t hurt my back…and that everyone else is comfortable sitting on, too.
• A new TV (probably two new TVs; one for the bedroom and one for the living room) is the most expensive item on the list. Last TV purchase: 1999. Now that plasmas have come down in price, I feel that 2007 is the year to buy. This will most likely be later in the year.
• A new bookcase. I need something better to hold the many books I now own. My current bookcase (purchased in 2000) is overwhelmed with a pile of books that just keeps getting bigger. I need a bookcase (probably to complement the one I have now, not to replace.)

Other new stuff: The biggest purchase I’ve needed to make in a while is coming up for me…a new car! I’ve had leetle zoom since 2000, and he’s a 1999 model. He’s starting to get a bit long in the tooth at nearly 130,000 miles. 2007 will probably be the year I replace him with a new zoom (but I’ll keep my LIL ZOOM license plate!)

I may potentially purchase an RV for Burning Man this year, too. Older but still serviceable ones run $10K-$12K used and aren’t a bad investment, considering that renting one for 1 week last year ran $2000+. (I split the rental cost with a friend with whom I shared the RV.) This may also wait. It really depends on whom I go to Burning Man with this year, and what sort of accoutrements he/she/they have.

Wow, that’s a lot of new stuff (and believe me, I think most of my friends would agree that all of those are pretty past-due on my part.) How am I going to afford all of them? That’s where my goals for 2007 come in!

Goals for 2007 (aka Points of Focus; Areas of Growth and Opportunity)

• Raise my salary at Simpli. Frankly, I’m being paid far too little for the CEO position. First-level support techs get paid more than I do. I’m going to raise my salary by 50% this year. That’s long overdue, too. I’ll probably bump it in smaller amounts, and pay some out in dividends if we have a good quarter, but yep, that’s where money for most of this stuff is going to come from.
• Grow SlashChick.com. This, in and of itself, is not really a revenue generator. But it’s important to write about things people are interested in and grow the readership on this blog so I can have better visibility as a whole. Setting aside some time to write at least once a week will be a good growth experience for me.
• Start a new blog. Ruh-roh! What’s that, you say? She’s committing to writing another blog? Yep, and this one has a specific goal (I’ve already decided what that is and registered the domain name, but I’m not ready to introduce it yet.) I’m a writer by nature and I really love writing — it’s a release for me. This will be a very special project that is dear to my heart, and I will likely continue it for years. I’ve already been planning it for a couple months and hashing out details as I go. I’ve got the site structure down, but now I need to write my first entry. I’m not quite there yet, but expect to see it in the next couple of months.

There you go…three big goals for 2007! I have a couple others, but those won’t be public yet. I have to have some surprises…I wouldn’t want you to get bored!

Gosh, I’m really excited about 2007. Simpli is about ready to move into a new office (we’ll post that on the Simpli blog soon; as soon as we finalize the new lease!), we’re getting even more datacenter space, and I feel like the company has really turned a corner. It’s not crazy hectic any more. We’re still growing like mad, but we’re also taking our time and making sure things are done right. We’ve built a fantastic foundation for even more growth in 2007. It’s going to be a great year.

And now a big goal for you in 2007, if I may be so presumptuous: Take advantage of the economy while you still can!