Begin at the beginning... "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop." - Lewis Carroll That seems like a great quote and a perfect place to start both the new year, and my business plan. For those of you who don't know me and haven't heard "the elevator speech" ad nausea over lunch or dinner, this is it in a nutshell: Travel the state in an RV, discovering, video-taping, writing about rural businesses then post them to a website which is fed by the five social networks I co-run for small rural businesses. On the days I'm not producing, I'm presenting - talking to groups about "Tribes" and the use of social media to promote their business. Between now (Jan. 1, 2009) and then (June 1, 2009) I've got to secure private and corporate sponsors, raise money, buy and outfit a van, RV or step-van and create a website. I'm looking at a Wordpress theme created by http://www.revolutiontwo.com/demo/church.html Every single one of their themes are incredible. Perfect for what I want to do - which includes uploading the video, some stills for a slideshow/multi-media thing and feature stories. I'm going to see if they'd be interested in being sponsors. I found one of many musicians I want to use for background music. His name is Patrick Smith and he's older, a guitar player late in life and his music is incredible. Patrick is my first contact. I'm using his music in exchange for credits on the video and site. I'm psyched. Listen to his stuff here: PatrickSmithMusic.com. I heard "Dandelion Wish" and have already visualized the intro to a couple of videos I can use it for. Oh - that's the other part of the plan - to find and promote small town, rural musicians and bands - feature them, use their music for background sound and promote them as well. I think it'll be fun. Since the music scene now is all about youth, sex and looks and not so much about music, finding real musicians - most will be older and have experienced the life they're singing about, I think it'll be fun. The big ticket item? The RV...or van...or preferably a Step-Van - is going to take some wrangling, but I'm convinced there's someone out there wanting to sponsor this gig!