As I look back on 2007, it was a year of change – both big and small – for me and my family. It was a good year, a year of personal growth and self-actualization. It was a year of playing offense. It was also a year of great sadness.
My father passed away. As an only child, it was sad to spend the holidays without both my mom and my dad for the first time. I am now the man in the family. I am now the elder statesman. Time to grow up. My son went away to college. He has flown the coop. I am pleased to say he is flourishing as a student but I miss him. Time flies when you are having fun. I left AOL, the company where I spent the last 15 years of my life. Even though the company has been nice to me and allows me to use the title of Vice Chairman Emeritus, I am retired and no longer have any say or responsibility at AOL. I wish the company only good tidings and I am hopeful that AOL as a company prospers. I miss the employees and the mission of the company. I am spending more time at Lincoln Holdings with the teams, the Capitals and Mystics. We have new offices; the Capitals have new players; a new head coach; new uniforms; a new brand; lots of new employees; and finally a good month of winning results to end the year. I expect great things from the Mystics this next season as well. I love working out of our new offices at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex. The new offices and the youthfulness of our staff and their high levels of energy is a great change for me. I made two independent films: "Nanking", which as I have reported during the year, has done quite well and of which I am very proud and "Kicking It", which will premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. I coined a term "Filmanthropy" which I truly believe in. Watch this blog for big news about "Kicking It" and about some new plans in the Filmanthropy space. I learned a lot about moviemaking and the distribution and marketing side of the business and want to add value to the benefit of the industry. I think the industry needs positive change. I plan to help in 2008. I became very involved with two companies as an investor/board member and as Chairman: 1. Revolution Money which is positioned as "PayPal meets MasterCard without the high charges". We launched our services; we raised $50 million in venture capital; and we are now scaling quickly on both the merchant acceptance side and the consumer side. I expect lots of big and positive news from Revolution Money in 2008.2. I also am pleased to be so involved with Clearspring Technologies, a leading Web 2.0 widget syndication company that will pioneer widget advertising and syndicated atomized media networks. This is an exciting space that will explode in 2008. I made a bunch of angel investments in so many companies it is too long to list. I even made an investment last week in a cool alternative energy company called Gridpoint. In all, I made 15 private investments during the year and I plan to now take a rest and NOT make any new investments for a while. I need to see how this first wave of investments do and keep some money for the inevitable next rounds of financing. I fell in love with blogging. I am very religious about how often I blog. I also am very helpful to all bloggers out there. Join the blogosphere and have your voice be heard.
I went onto Facebook during 2007 and now have more than 1,100 friends. I stay connected to lots of folks in this way. I made lots of widgets during the year at the Caps, for some of the startups I am invested in and for my films. This Web 2.0 syndication stuff really works. I will do more of it in 2008. My good friend, Steve Case, invited me to set up shop at Revolution HQ and gave me a really beautiful office to work out of. I very much enjoy working in downtown DC surrounded by such great and talented people, many of them my long term friends and people that I enjoy being with and respect working with on a daily basis. Revolution is doing some very important work and I am pleased to be part of this evolving network of companies. I intend to do even more in the New Year. The Case Foundation is also doing amazing work and I fell in love with their work on PlayPumps International.
I spent more quality time with my friends and partners during the year. I am blessed to have such a tight-knit group of friends. Here is to even more quality time spent in 2008. It was a great year filled with love; with hard work; and with change. Thanks for being a part of the journey. Here
