It’s wild to think that it was almost exactly eight years ago that we got together in Boulder, Colorado and planned out what kind of company we wanted Viget to be.  Last Friday, everyone from both offices got together for an incredible afternoon out of the Lab at the Marriott Ranch.  We broke from tradition a bit and combined our Third Third Thursday event with our annual “Viget’s birthday” dinner.

The afternoon was spent horseback riding, skeet shooting, jeep driving, and generally having fun together outside of work.  We played our annual game of Vigetry (sorry, you’ll have to join us to learn more) and enjoyed a round of toasts that varied from hilarious to sentimental — all great.

As we reflected, I was reminded of all the hard work we’ve put in over the years to get to where we are today.  As I mentioned during the Refresh panel discussion last week, I’ll never be completely satisfied with what we accomplish at Viget — I’ll never say “we’ve made it” – but I will celebrate along the way. 

There were times years ago where you could have easily made the argument that we should have quit.  In fact, looking back, if I were advising me 5 five years ago, I’d probably tell myself to pack it in.  But we just kept working hard then like we still do now, and I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish as a team.  We still have a lot of great work to do ahead of us, but I’m glad we have traditions like last Friday to remind us that hard work pays off and sticking is a good thing.

It’s an especially social week for me (having 3 small kids tends to limit your evenings out, assuming you like your kids). 

Tonight, I’ll be joining the panel discussion at Refresh DC’s April event along with Andrew Lee of Publi.us, Sean Greene of LaunchBox Digital, Eddie Frederick of Hungry Machine, and Eric Rupert of Odeo. 

Refresh DC April Meetup: Startups 101
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
3601 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 600
Arlington, Virginia

Jackson’s moderating, and judging by the growing list of attendees, I’m looking forward to a lively discussion.

Tomorrow night is TECH Cocktail. 

Thursday, April 24, 2008
6:30pm - 9pm
MCCXXIII: 1223 Connecticut Avenue, NW - Washington, DC
techcocktaildc2.eventbrite.com

Viget’s one of the sponsors and a bunch of us will be down there.  Hope to see you out at both of these events!

When Mike wrote about James Karl Buck’s use of Twitter this week to alert his friends when he was arrested in Egypt for photographing a demonstration, I wondered if my little hometown paper would pick up the story.  Today, they did, with a good article by Mike Musgrove.  It’s another example of the benefit of being able to make your friends aware of what’s going on in your life right now whenever you want or need to. 

Then again, it also hints to some concerns about documenting your day to day life.  Does your company have a list of keywords it searches for in a Twitter feed before it makes a hiring decision?  If so, do they take things out of context or really try to understand the situation?

One of the things I love about Viget is working with clients who are really making a positive impact on the world, especially when it comes to kids.  Healthy Child Healthy World is one of them. 

Healthy Child Healthy World is a national non-profit dedicated to protecting the health and well-being of children and families through cleaner, greener, and safer lifestyle changes.

Today, CEO Christopher Gavigan released his book Healthy Child Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home on Amazon.  I’m just helping to spread the word.

While I’m in a book promotion kind of mood, I can’t help but join the rest of the universe and plug Gary V’s new book Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines: Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World.  Gary’s not a client.  He’s also not yet our VP of Strategy, despite my best efforts to recruit him.

Nick at Web Designer Wall worked with our designers at Viget to tell the story of how our new blogs came to be.  Great post!