happywilkie asked: I don't have anything to ask you right now. I'll think of something and get back to you.

… And with that, ladies and gents, I open up my ask (—ohmyword. we need to think of a better name for this thing) to you all. Come ask me anything at:

http://obviouslybenhughes.com/ask

Mid-Year Resolutions

I don’t know why, but I’ve never been a big fan of New Years resolutions. Maybe it’s the time of the year - New Years is sandwiched between the happiness of being surrounded by loved ones at Christmas, and my upcoming birthday eight days later. So every year at January 1st I feel pretty content with where I am in life. I’m usually surrounded by family, enjoying time at home and living with few regrets. But July, on the other hand…

July is a hectic, albeit fun time of my year. Work, life, YouTube, family and more become woven together into a full schedule with trips and activities and all-around action. I think it’s more appropriate for us to assess our lives at this point, when everything is so close to boiling over, and make the necessary changes to keep things going smoothly. Thus, my mid-year resolutions. I’m making these resolutions with full intent to keep them until at least the end of the year, and I hope they’ll be drastic enough to change a lot of my life but not so difficult that I can’t accomplish them. Without further ado,

One: find a happy balance between writing and photo-blogging. I’ve always loved to write. Even in sixth grade when I had a horrid teacher who made us write in our journals every day - which I despised - I could still see the beauty of written words and appreciate how they share information. I have always tried to write blogs frequently, but recently the content of ObviouslyBenHughes.com has turned more to photography on-the-go and videos from my YouTube. While that’s all well and good, I miss the writing. I miss getting thoughts out of my head and having them become a conversation between myself and the audience. If you have users who are willing to sit and read an entire blog post and comment on it as well, that’s dedication. So from here on out I’m going to write much more and document things, ideas and anecdotes. Sounds fun, right?

Two: revamp my Flickr. I used to have a Flickr Pro account for a year or two when I first started really getting in to photography, but then I let my membership expire and fell away from using the site due to non-Pro limitations. Well one of my fantastic followers recently gifted me with a Pro account, so I suppose I have no excuse now. Flickr has always been the one website and community that seems a bit impenetrable to me. Not that there are cliques or snobbery, but it seems like everything I do to get ahead on YouTube, Twitter or Facebook aren’t working on Flickr. I know it’ll take some trial-and-error (and lots of SEO… how fun…) but I’m willing to take a stab at it.

Three: more water than your body has room for. I’ve had an inkling that I wasn’t getting enough water for a few months now. I’m a vegetarian, which is enough of a bodily change as it is, but I also recently turned 21 years old. Now I’m not a heavy drinker - heck, I’m probably the least likely person to go out and get drinks with people. BUT if I’m drinking alcohol instead of water my body is increasing its salt content, decreasing its water content during urination, and flushing a lot of nutrients from my body down the toilet. Water, however, is the answer. I’m not saying that I’ll drink water ten times more just so I can drink heavily. What I’m going to do is increase my water intake daily to well above the recommended 64 ounces per day so I can be thoroughly hydrated and active in the insane Georgia heat and not feel like passing out, or sweating all of my clothing to smithereens. If I’m hydrated, my body will be happy.

Four: soda is a frenemy. Soda is all-around bad for you in, like, way too many ways to keep track of. And working at a place that allows us to take soda as we please isn’t always a healthy thing - especially if you’re having soda at work, then soda while out on a lunch break, and more soda when you get back, plus another soda or two when you get home. That’s got to be one of the biggest unhealthy things I do. I don’t smoke, hardly drink and take no drugs. Soda, however, has always been my friend. Now it’s time to make it my frenemy. I’ll have soda once or twice a month at most from here on out, on special occasions. But water and juice will be my go-to drink of choice throughout the day. I think this will make my body more energetic, healthy and - as mentioned above - happy.

Five: YouTube full time, ASAP. I’ve been doing YouTube for almost four years now, since starting a now defunct channel way back in 2007. The fact that I have gone this long is not only surprising to me but also encouraging to the idea of doing it as a full-time job. Now I know I’m a long way from reaching that goal, but everyone has to start somewhere. I think I’ve built up enough connections, clout and respect within the community to begin some large scale projects that not only will be insanely fun, but also build my audience and brand. There is a quote that I’ve always loved and hoped to live by. “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I yearn more than anything to turn my online presence into something that becomes everything I am. I want to wake up, write, shoot, edit and post videos as often as possible. Right now the only thing standing between myself and that goal is time, effort and abilities. I know what I have to improve on, so starting today I’m going to do it. I’m going to make it there some day, I just dont know when.

If you made it all the way through this, thanks for reading. I would love to hear your feedback in the form of comments, Twitter replies to @ObviouslyBen or even an email at benhughes8/at/gmail/dot/com.

Here’s to the second half of 2011! :)

CLT

Sitting in Charlotte International Airport. This has always been a place of change for me. I’m only here when I’m leaving one environment to experience another. This airport is my life’s crossroads, in a way.

I’ve been reminiscing the summer and every way I changed during it. Also considering the many roads in front of me. The next seven days could change me drastically but I think I’m up for it. I realize what needs to happen and have the targets locked.

I talked at the beginning of this summer about setting my sails to match the winds. Now it’s time to reset those sails. They’ve directed me well this far in my journey… hopefully they bring me back to a familiar place where I can truly grow. <3

#Geekend Day 2, @MajorNelson’s Keynote!

Day two was the meat-and-potatoes day of Geekend. Six timeslots, two or three presentations during each. Yes, admittedly, I missed the first session because I was sleeping (bad Ben!) but the ones that followed were mind-blowingly good. Some of them got me thinking to the point of wanting to launch a new venture… More on that down the road.

Building Whuffie: Reputation and The Future of the Social Web
This presentation talked about concepts and ideas that blew me away and made possibilities open up in my mind that I had never considered or conceived before. Truly awesome. Done by @kplawver

Why the @#$! Aren’t You Blogging
I found myself nodding my head in agreement more in this session than any other because it talked about things that I’ve been experienced with for the last three years or so. The interesting part, for me, was talking with both @doycave and @filljoyner afterwards and getting their perspectives on things I’m doing right now. Outside input is always a good thing! Thanks for the great presentation, you two.

I’m My Own Boss! Now What?
Jen and Frank gave an amazing presentation on how they started their own company and joint venture, and what they realied along the way down the road towards success. Their “Tale of Two Products” was really worth considering, since there’s the one hand with one project which has had so much effort put into it, and yet still isn’t launched, and then the other case where they made a tiny product within a short time span and it launched with a lot of hype.

Digital Trends Among Digital Natives
Not so much a “here’s what and how to do something” presentatio, but more along the lines of presenting facts and figures. All in all, though, @sloanekelley presented some incredibly stimulating statistics that I had never stopped to wonder about or question. Really incredible stuff, and I hope to talk with her more about it down the road.

How To Be A Great Interrogator Designer: What They Don’t Teach You In Design School
This panel-style presentation had the four speakers, Andrew, Cari, Ariel & Janna, talking about the things that you need to think about when entering the design field and how you should approach clients to sustain not only your own business, but also a living. I got to talk with Janna after about some opportunities in the future and it should be interesting to (hopefully!) work with her here at SCAD.

Saturday Keynote: Major Nelson
Larry Hryb, more commonly known as Major Nelson (his Xbox Gamer ID) gave a really fun presentation that centered around the job that he does at Xbox and Microsoft and how he does it. I talked with him later and had a really nice photo taken with him, which I’ll insert below. The thing that struck me, and I told him this, was that he wasn’t ust spouting off facts and figures from some pre-made Microsoft sheet of PR. He was a real, relatable, personable guy who greeted everyone well and had no problem talking with all sorts of people. He also twisted my arm a bit toward getting an Xbox system… What can I say, he’s just that nice. Hah!


All in all, a fun day of events that will be great to expand upon tomorrow at the Unconference, lead by Kevin Lawver. I’m heading out to the Geekend Block Party (a whole section of Montgomery Street is blocked off with fun stuff!) so I’ll be posting more about tomorrow… well, tomorrow!

Thanks for reading! :)