Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: StephenPSmith.com

Whakate has posted their 2008 Web awards and we are pleased to announce that this humble site has been voted the best discussion group of 2008! We would like to thank our members and contributors for this amazing honor, and invite you all to join in the conversations to make 2009 an even better year.

See the Whakate site for the complete listing, and visit the other winners as well:

The Whakate Best of Web 2008 Award

The top websites in each category are as follows:

Best Discussion Group 2008

Work. Life. Creativity (Whakate Rank: 8 out of 10)

Making Sense of Personal Development and Productivity

The goal of the Whakate eMonitor and the “Best Of Web Award” is to help our readers make sense of the plethora of personal development resources that exist on the web at a glance. Our calculation of the final score incorporates traffic ranking as well as article quality, and because most of our sources boast good traffic rankings, this allows the reader to immediately assess if a source is credible.

This is a very exciting piece of news and we are grateful for the attention. Be sure to get involved with the Work.Life.Creativity forum soon!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/7tmxjj. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Phil Gerbyshak at Slacker Manager has tagged me with this meme, and since I am sick and unable to concentrate too much, I’ll play along. First, the Rules:

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on my blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of my post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

7 Facts About Me

1. I’m 39 years old, as of December 1st, 2008. I have just under one year to complete my goal of making a million $$$ before I am 40. (I set that goal when I graduated from High School and everything looked peachy)
2. I went to college for Mechanical Engineering, loved college and my friends - hated engineering. If I could go back and do it again I would major in History.
3. I got married for the very first time in March of 2005. Since then the lovely bride and I have lived in three states (CT, NC, ME) and visited 11 more in the last 5 weeks.
4. I have had a wide variety of jobs and a “career” in Hospitality Management, but I have never loved any job as much as I love working for myself, helping other people learn the skills that have helped me.
5. I do not really like dessert.
6. I have ADD and I manage it thru diet, suuplements and lifestyle management.
7. My hobby is collecting and painting miniature soldiers.

NOw, I get to tag 7 other folks to share information about themselves, and then let them know they have to play.

I have a good feeling about these 7 fellow tweeters and bloggers!

• Styletime
• Ross Hill
• eDragonu
• Sarah Lewis
• Heidi Miller
• Becky McCray
• communicatrix

Please do feel free to stop by. These blogs are not all about productivity, but they may have some helpful tidbits for you in other parts of your life.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5wvd4q. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Drew and Gavin have completed the gargantuan task of pulling together all of the submissions for The Age of Conversation 2. I am very excited to be part of this project, and I believe that it will be a great success.

The book is available as a downloadable e-book beginning October 29, at a cost of $12.50, of which $10 will be contributed to the children’s charity Variety. Beginning on the same date, orders will be taken for a limited number of printed books in hardcover ($29.95, with $6.04 to charity) and softcover ($19.95, with $8.02 donated to charity).

Buy this book!

Purchases can be made online at Lulu.com.
More information can be found at the Age of Conversation website. Please do consider purchasing this book, you can learn a lot and support a good cause.

The following is a link-rich list of all of the 237 contributors, please do take the time to visit their sites and leave a thoughtful comment.

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

I am looking forward to working on something exiting with each of the authors on this list in the future.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5uajl8. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

I was introduced to lijit by my friend Ryan Rasmussen recently, so I have added the wijit to the sidebar so that you all can find other projects that I am working on.

It looks like this:

Lijit Search

Please let me know what you think.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6p6y5v. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen