Today is Thanksgiving, so I though it would be a good idea to list some things I am grateful for. :)

This past year has been quite an interesting year for me. I’ve experienced joys and struggles in life and in business. From childhood I’ve always had to preserver through life which had helped me to see the goodness in life, in people, and in myself. With the number 34 being my favorite number (football # of Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears) I’ve always expected my 34th year to be an interesting one, if not my best. The past year has been a year that I have never expected to be, so many life curves and discoveries. Without a doubt, the past year has been the best year of my life. It has been a year of highs, lows, joys, and struggles, though all in all, the best. The past year, I’ve learned to rediscover many truths about my life, about what I love, and what I should love. Most importantly, I’ve learned to start a new journey, a journey of peace.

Thankful For – IN 2009

Here are a few things I am grateful for in the past year.

1. Journey of Peace

This year started off high in life, then life threw a curve ball (or two) and experienced much sorrow and pain. It wasn’t until many of the things I took for granted in life were gone that I experienced true gratefulness. This past year I reached rock bottom in some areas in life and I started to see how many of the problems in my life were nobody’s fault but my own. I started to see a newness in life, a newness is me, and an opportunity to make a better life for myself. I felt like this past year was a year of redemption for me, a second chance to be a good and decent man, a better man. I simply learned to embrace Peace, to share Peace, to be a man of Peace.

2. Good Friends – Old and New

I could not have survived this past year without the support of my close and dear friends. My life-long friend of 20 years Rafael Dodge who always finds the fun in life. My best friend of 10 years Erica Twining who remains my friend through thick and thin. My new and dear friend Carisa Boatright who helped me embrace the new peace I found and to truly appreciate life. Also, my dear friends who believed in and supported me in the crazy and unpredictable path of entrepreneurship, my friends Lee Waterman, Colleen McPhillips, Tanya Milhaud, Mary Salvatera, Marzena K, Johan Viberg, Greg Wasmuth, and Lisa Leonte.

3. Family, Family, Family

I grew up with a very large family in Chicago, lots of uncles, aunts, and cousins. When I was 12, my mother, sisters, and bother moved here to California, it was just us 5 (Mom, Tanya, Tawana, Noah, and me). We learned to become very close and to help each other out in need. My family has never hesitated to support one another and no matter what life throws at us, we can always count on each other to be there. I am thankful that my family is a family of unconditional love.

4. Entrepreneurship in Social Media

I was fortunate enough to venture out into the entrepreneur life and start a small business, even more grateful to start with investors. Starting a business in social media has been an experience like none other. Lots of networking events, launch parties, and a vast pool of others entrepreneurs trying to build their idea. I found an unique niche in social media data and found investors whom I will always be thankful to for believing in the idea, the product SocialSimple.

5. Rise In Social Media

I’ve been in the web industry for 13 years and have seen an increase in the online communities and the distribution of user-generated content early on. I’ve always tried to get places I worked at or clients to embrace social media though it always seemed to fall on deaf ears. I was always asked “Why” or “How do we make money”, there was never a good ROI for corporate America go get into social media and the agencies I worked at, the sales groups didn’t understand much about the potential. Now it seems like everyone and everything is into social media, my dog has a Facebook page. Even my 55 year old mother is on MySpace and Facebook. Maybe now with the rise of social media, more people/companies/clients will learn to embrace the true power of the internet — user generated content.

Thankful For – IN LIFE

Here are a few things I am grateful for in life.

1. My Stuttering

Throughout my life I’ve always stuttered (still do). Growing up as a child, I’ve been to speech therapists, hypnosis doctors, and all sorts of “cure” stuttering techniques. I grew up thinking my stuttering was a disability, something that limited me to being successful. I even thought it was a curse by God, that God did not love me and that I was damaged goods. In school, I was a smart kid, though never showed it because it required talking, talking in front of people. When there was a problem on the board and the teacher asked for the answer, I knew it, though never raised my hand because I knew I would stutter. I lived a life like this for a long time. It wasn’t until my mid-20s that I decided that stuttering would not and should not limit me. I learned to accept it and embrace it. I am grateful and thankful that I live the life of a stutterer, that I have something unique and something that is special about me. I am capable of anything, no matter what!

2. Ashley – Such a Wonderful Dog

Eight years ago my wife and  I decided to get a dog, at the time it was a big decision for us. After a long search we found our little girl, our Ashley. She is such an amazing dog, the most gentle, and warm spirited dog. When she greets you, she has nothing but licks, licks, licks. She has been an abundance of joy, every day I am grateful that she is my little girl, my precious little girl.

3. Married* To My Best Friend

I am thankful to have had been married to my best friend Erica, more than a wife, a best friend. Even though we are divorced now, she is still my best friend. Most know that I could write more on this topic, I’ll just leave it as is.

4. Successful Career In Web

I love web, all things web. I am thankful that I get to work each day working in an industry that I love. How cool is it that I get paid to do what I love, what I do best – web. I’ve had a career in web as an Web Application Engineer, Web Developer, Manager, and Founder. I am also very thankful to have worked with many great web teams, many who have become life long friends.

5. Saved From Humbled Beginnings

Only a few people know this, though now that I am posting it on my blog, guess the mouse is out of the bag. I grew up very poor, in the slums of Chicago, my family was on welfare, ate government food from the local churches, and always wore hand me downs. In the ghetto, not many good influences around, many friends were recruited into gangs and just about everyone I knew was trouble of some sorts. My mother knew this and wanted to provide a better life for us. When you live in the ghetto it’s very very very hard to get out. My mother, found a way, found a way to get us out. With all her might and through the ridicule of our family, she moved us to California. The slums of San Diego are still 10x better than the slums of Chicago. I’ve always wondered what would have happened to my life if we stayed in Chicago, would I have joined a gang, would I have forever stayed trapped. I do not know, though I do know my life now is a better life. Thank you mom!

Today’s economy is keeping us business owners on our toes. The financial recession has reached the web industry, which has resulted in a rise in many internet startups folding and venture capital firms drastically pulling back on investments. Within the last three days (including today) there have been 15,600+ layoffs in the technology industry alone. According to TechCrunch, in the tech industry, since August 27, 2008 there has been a reported 131,000+ layoffs, that’s 963 a day or 10 every 15 minutes.

TechCrunch Layoff Tracker

Fortunately in 2008 I was lucky enough to start an investor funded internet startup here in San Diego (http://www.socialsimple.com/). We are all very excited to be developing an innovative social networking platform that utilizes social analytics and user permission data to deliver a more personalized user experience throughout the web.

To stay ahead of the curve and adapt to today’s market, we are shifting our business model and committing to new priorities. We are moving from an investor-based startup to a client services company and taking on our investor as our first client. Yes, that’s right ditching the guaranteed paychecks for a “Project” based revenue. This may seem a little off to some, especially those who are bootstrapping their business and are struggling to find investments.

Our decisions to do this came after a Lunch 2.0 event hosted at a local startup just like us. The event was at their nice spacious office a block from the beach (just like us, excluding the “spacious” part). The following week, we learned the entire company was laid off the same day due to investors pulling out. Well, we are in a similar situation, if our investors pull out, well, its time to bust out the resume again! Where did I put those shinny shoes and fancy ties?

We have built such a great top talent team who has an unmatched commitment to helping change our modern web to a more personalized web experience. Although, I am a new entrepreneur, business is business, corporate or startup, it’s about ensuring growth and long-term stability. This gives us the ability to try to survive independently if the roof falls in. I am not a serial entrepreneur, from the start it was a risky to leave a stable executive job at a large successful Fortune 40 corporation.

It’s a game of chess and to protect your king, strategically moving your pieces, and planning out all the next possible moves.

To adapt, we are now offering tailored web services and already have clients who are eager to embrace the new and emerging trends and technologies in web. We are not going to take on the world and be a “full-services” agency. To keep to our core competencies we are specializing in eBusiness and Social Media. We’ve taken down our old ideablue.com website and now our website is a network of Ideablue employees and blog contributors.

One of the biggest changes which will have a big benefit to the development community is we are working to make our existing social media application platform into an Open Source project. Our investors and myself have been highly impressed with what our team has developed, a platform for rapid application development with a robust modular/API architecture. I’m starting to sound like a sales guy, in truth, I’m just excited to get the community involved.

We are firm believers in success through collaboration.

Subscribe to our blog for more updates as we have some great ideas planned to write and collaborate on. I’ll also keep you guys posted on what it’s like turning your investor into a client (not an easy task).

Johnny Negretti
CEO, Ideablue Networks