I had the opportunity to spend some time in Boulder, CO yesterday after the Defrag 2011 conference came to an end. I have also had the pleasure to get to know some of the tech startups from that area over the past few years, and I must say I am impressed.

As I walked through the Pearl Street pedestrian mall I saw the diverse and somewhat contradictory elements of Boulder’s culture. There was a group of folks who clearly were stuck in the 1960′s. There were current college students. And there were entrepreneurs and tech company employees who had either already made it big or are working hard to do so.

What all these groups had in common was energy. Not the frantic energy of overworked, stressed-out people that one often sees in big cities like Boston or New York. Instead an energy that drove each person toward whatever goal was important to them.

New Hampshire has a lot of what Boulder has from an entrepreneurial perspective, albeit at a less-developed point in our lifecycle. We have a strong culture of education, including schools like Dartmouth and UNH. We have a great quality of life, with easy access to outdoors and fresh air. We have activists and entrepreneurs. We have easy access to larger cities and major airports. We have innovative tech companies and groups like the Amoskeag Business Incubator that want to help foster that community. We have access to local venture capital and angel investors. We have a culture of support for non-profits through financial resources and time.

Boulder serves as a great model for the New Hampshire entrepreneurial tech community in many ways. Now if only we could get the same high concentration of great restaurants…

When I was a kid one of my coaches told me: “you run like you have a refrigerator on your back!” And that’s likely true. A speed demon I was not. As a baseball player, I suspect there were times when my coach and teammates wondered if I’d be the first player ever to be called out after drawing a walk for failure to get to first base in a timely fashion. As a soccer player, I was the goalie so my running ability would remain hidden from the opposition.

So it will surprise many to know that I have turned into a runner. No, I’m not about to declare myself a competitive runner by any means, but I’m bordering on respectable (or perhaps just not embarrassing) for my age. Of course, if you follow me on Twitter or are a Facebook friend, you no doubt have picked up on my new running habit over the past few months as my runs have started showing up in those streams courtesy of the RunKeeper app I use on my iPhone to track time and distance.

Running is not an entirely new thing for me, it is just the fact that I am now regularly running for distance that is. When I worked on Capitol Hill almost two decades ago, I was a regular runner, logging almost daily runs of about 2 miles, with very occasional slightly longer runs. I even had a memorable unintended long run when I got lost in the Woodley Park area of Washington, DC and kept running around until I found a street I recognized.

Over the past few years, I have run for fitness on a treadmill, but not with any real regularity. Historically, I have been more of a stationary bike person when it comes to cardio workouts. I do like to run when I travel for business — especially in the early morning in cities like New York where you get an entirely different feel for the place. And when I’m in cities like New York, I do spend a lot of time walking — including for miles at a time — if my schedule permits time between meetings, events or activities and the weather cooperates.

A few months ago my treadmill at home broke, however, and so I took to the streets near my house as an alternative. As I started to run outside near my home more regularly, I rediscovered my interest in it. Soon I found myself pushing for longer distances and better times.

I still run a bit like I have a refrigerator on my back — or perhaps more accurately a 50 pound weight on my midsection — but I have been able to steadily increase my weekly distance, the length of my long runs, and improve my pace. Oh, and that 50 pound weight I’m carrying is smaller than the almost 100 pound weight I was carrying around 18 months ago.

Today, I achieved a real milestone — my first 10 mile run. I completed it at — for me — a respectable 10:59/mi. pace.

I plan to run in the CIGNA/Elliot 5k race in Manchester, NH this Thursday — my first official race. My goal is modest: I’d like to finish in less than 30 minutes. Based on my recent times, that should be achievable unless the temperature and humidity are too high.

In the fall, I have the Cape Cod Marathon on my calendar to participate in as part of a relay team. Then a few weeks later I plan to tackle the Seacoast Half Marathon in Portsmouth, NH as my first attempt at that distance in a race. Since my 10 miler went well today, I’m confident that by then I should be able to complete the 13.1 miles in a respectable time.

I’m still a pretty novice runner and picking up lots of tips and advice from my many friends who have been running farther, faster, and longer than me. If you can’t stand running and you’re following me here or on other social networks, my apologies for the increased chatter about the sport that will likely continue. It’s something that has a lot of my attention of late, so it’s one of the things I’ll be writing about.

And now, it’s time to spend some time recovering from today’s run and thinking about my training schedule for the coming week since I have to work it around running in the 5k on Thursday.

I had a conversation yesterday that spurred me to think back to the “old days” of the World Wide Web. You see, I’ve been at this game long enough to remember Yahoo before it was at Yahoo.com. Most of you probably don’t know that it used to live at http://akebono.stanford.edu.

In any case, I took a dip into the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine (a great tool for peeking at what web sites looked like on various dates in the past) to check out what some of my own early efforts online looked like.

I thought I might share some of my nostalgia with you — and then explain why it matters.

My First Web Site

My site itself no longer exists, but NCSA Mosaic, the organization that gave birth to the first popular web browser (which would later become Netscape), lists my site called CyberPolitics in a September 1995 list of “What’s New” on the web.

My First Web Site Listed in Yahoo

Ironically, the ad at the top of the page showing my CyberPolitics site when the Wayback Machine archived Yahoo on December 20, 1996 was for Townhall.com, a company I would become CEO of a few months later.

My First CEO Gig

Here’s what Townhall.com looked like around the time that I left my role as CEO there. It sure was green!

My First Blog

I started my first blog in 1999. It was called PrimaryScoop and it chronicled the presidential primary campaigns of 2000. It would serve in a roundabout way as the inspiration for CustomScoop.

The First CustomScoop Web Site

On September 1, 2000, not long after we launched the company, the Wayback Machine captured the first look we had for our web site. I especially like the big dip in the “p” to tie in the tagline — classy!

So there you have it. A brief trip down memory lane. What’s the point you ask? Besides a bit of nostalgia, I often find that the past often gives you good ideas for the future. It’s not worthwhile to linger in times gone by, but to check in to what you and others were doing years or decades ago may provide valuable insight that helps gel your thinking today.

I get a lot of email. And a lot of that email reflects pretty poorly on the sender.

Some of the emails I receive wouldn’t even make the cut as amateur ransom notes. They are often laden with misspellings or typos. Frequently they fail to make a succinct point. They routinely seem to be disorganized thoughts. And they regularly get sent without the author paying enough attention to important details that would have eliminated the need for the email or at least changed its content.

It seems to me there are several fundamental causes for poor email:

1. Mobile devices. I love being able to email while I’m on the go. But it leads all of us to take shortcuts that result in less than ideal messages. We overuse abbreviations and slang. We forgo proper capitalization and punctuation. To make up for this, many of us (myself included) include an automatic disclaimer in the email signature confessing to having sent from a mobile device, hoping that begs forgiveness in advance from the recipient for anything that feels as if a two year old may have intercepted my email account.

2. Atrocious writing skills. Far too many professionals lack the ability to write properly. Not a week goes by that I am not stunned by the utter lack of writing skill possessed by someone sending me an email. I’m not talking about the ability to write an artful speech, a compelling editorial, or a riveting novel. I just want people to be able to write using a rough approximation of correct grammar, spelling, and composition.

3. Carelessness. Inattention to detail turns even good emails into bad ones. When failing to perform rudimentary proofreading, an email author leaves the impression of not caring about the recipient. It takes but a few seconds to scan a typical email to ensure it doesn’t have red squiggly lines under key words and that the sentences read in a coherent fashion.

4. Laziness. Many of the emails in my inbox could be eliminated if the sender took a moment to even briefly research something before hitting send. Questions could be answered. Points could be made more clear. And the email could be made more relevant to the recipient.

5. A rush to judgment. Don’t forward an article without reading and understanding it. Don’t hit reply with a bombastic or indignant response without taking time to digest the meaning and purpose of the original email.

6. Under-utilization of technology. Your email program likely has a spell checker. It may even perform grammar checks. Take advantage of these tools. There’s no good excuse for most typos these days given the amount of technology we have built into our daily tools to save even the worst writer from himself.

7. Over-reliance on technology. The flip side to technology is that it can make bad writers worse — and even make good writers look bad. If one relies purely on technology to solve grammar and spelling issues, one will never understand the proper way to write. In addition, some modern “auto-correction” features do their level best to butcher even the best prose. I have found myself so frustrated by the bizarre auto-correction functionality of my iPhone that I have turned it off periodically because I would prefer to manually edit my fat-fingered typos (or even leave them in place!) rather than accept “corrections” that completely distort my original meaning (sometimes in unintentionally embarrassing ways!).

8. Misunderstanding the audience. When you write — an email or anything else — it is important to understand who the reader will be. If your text is not tailored to that audience, your message will likely fall flat. If you’re pitching a story, know what the recipient likes to write about or report on. If you’re asking for something from a supervisor, understand what makes them tick. If you want to sell something, know the needs of your target.

9. Lack of respect. All too often emails end up coming across as snide and sarcastic not because of actual writing skills, but because of actual intent. The disrespect may be intentional or it may be a result of subconscious thought, but either way it is important to understand that the email reflects on the sender. By all means be brief and direct, but make sure you demonstrate respect.

10. The misconception that “it’s just email.” I frequently hear people dismiss poorly composed email as insignificant. After all, “it’s just email.” Baloney. In today’s business environment your emails are your most frequent means of communication with your supervisor, direct reports, colleagues, prospects, clients, vendors, and more. The impression that your email leaves does not reflect on the devices you use, but on you personally. Remember that the next time you hit “send.”

We’re all guilty of some of these email shortcomings from time to time. There are occasions where I get lazy and my email looks a bit more like something written by e.e. cummings than someone who actually understands where to find the shift key. And we all do things in a rush on occasion.

The better your email quality, the better it reflects on you. If you don’t fancy yourself a good writer, take the time to improve that skill. The ability to write clearly and succinctly will take you farther in your career than your colleagues who still can’t string words together properly — in email or otherwise.

For the last couple of years, I spent more than 200 days a year on the road. That’s a grueling schedule that doesn’t lend itself to healthy habits – especially for someone like me who has a lot of friends in the restaurant industry and a passion for trying great food.

Despite the challenges – and some setbacks along the way – I actually managed to come out of those two years slightly ahead of where I started. When I shifted back to being CEO of CustomScoop on May 1, I was about 10 pounds lighter and a bit more fit than when I started at DCI Group in 2009.

But it is still clear that being home more is better for my overall health and wellness. In just over 3 weeks, I have already lost nearly 10 more pounds. I’m able to work out in my home gym almost every day. My home pantry is stocked with much healthier fare than what I would find on the road. I no longer face the near daily temptation of friends and food at fancy restaurants in major cities.

Of course, the extra sleep I get at home doesn’t hurt either. Hanging out with restaurant industry friends almost always means late nights. The difference is I need to be at work at 7 or 8 AM, while they’re not even contemplating being awake yet.

Though I am far from a fitness nut, I have generally found that I am at my most creative and productive as an entrepreneur the more focused I am on working out and eating well. If I were to chart my fitness against my business success, there would be a pretty close correlation.

For me, here’s why I think health & fitness drives my business success:

• Fitness gives me more energy. Being an entrepreneur is hard work. To keep charging forward, it’s important to fuel those efforts. The more I focus on eating well and working out, the more likely it is for me to be energetic.

• Working out helps me clear my mind. I have talked about how my mind is usually churning on something. When I’m working out, I’m able to select a couple of different brain speeds – both of which help in their own way. If I’m doing a high intensity workout, it clears my mind completely, giving it a valuable respite. During more moderately paced sessions, it allows me to relax just enough that more creative thoughts and problem-solving can take place.

• Eating well saves time. Even when I account for the extra time it takes to cook my own food versus having a chef somewhere prepare it, I still spend less time eating – and more time doing more productive things – when I’m eating better. Restaurants for me are a social experience whereas eating at home is simply a task to check off.

• Healthy behavior means better sleep. I have never been a guy who likes a lot of sleep. In fact, eight hours is pretty hard for me to achieve – and unless I’m incredibly sick, ten hours is impossible. But the sleep I do get tends to be deeper and more restful when I’m eating well and working out. In particular, laying off of booze makes a significant difference for me (as it does with most people).

Succeeding in this area isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard either. A lot of it just comes down to establishing healthy habits and then finding ways to reinforce them. Fortunately, there are a lot of technology-based tools that make it easier than ever – but that’s a subject for another post.

I’m an early morning person. I generally rise around 5:30 AM. In fact, even on vacation I’m hard-pressed to sleep in beyond 6:30 or 7:00.

One of the reasons I like getting up early is that it is quiet. At home, the wife and kids are still asleep. It gives me a chance to knock out some reading before another hectic day begins, full of unplanned distractions. I can head down to my study, put the news on the TV or some classical music on the stereo, and plow through newspapers, magazines, feeds, and email on my iPad.

On the road, there’s not much better than going for a walk around whatever city I’m in as the sun comes up. In Washington, DC, I love walking along the National Mall before the tourists are out in force. You can hear the crisp footfalls along the gravel paths that run along the perimeter. When I arrive at the World War II Memorial near the Washington Monument, I often take a seat near the fountain and enjoy the solitude of the environment.

Even cities that one may not associate with peace and quiet have it in those early morning hours. Walking the streets of Manhattan on a weekend morning at sunrise would make you forget that you’re in a city of millions of people. It almost feels abandoned. Even on weekday mornings, the traffic tends to be light before 6 AM, making it a great time for a walk.

Ultimately, the result of these early morning hours is a lot of quality thinking. Whenever it is quiet and I am relaxed, my brain fires up. I’m not alone in this. CC Chapman inspired this post through a tweet he wrote early today: “Ahhh..morning and an overly awake brain. Sometimes a blessing. Sometimes a pain in the ass. ”

CC is right. Sometimes an overactive brain can be annoying. There are times when I just want to rest and not think. Ironically, I usually find a need to do something to truly relax. That’s when I watch junk TV, read some fiction, or play the occasional video game.

On the other hand, I often try to arrange for time to relax — and thus think. I have written in this space before about my semi-annual Think Week exercise where I go off to a hotel somewhere on my own to clear my head and organize my thoughts.

All of these thinking exercises are great. I get most of my good ideas during these quiet times. Turning the early morning hours into a ritual many years ago makes sure I get the day off to a good thinking start.

Photo by Scott Ableman via Flickr

I was just two years old when Larry Barnett served as the home plate umpire of Game 3 of the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds. Needless to say, I have no contemporaneous memory of the game, but I came to learn as a young boy that he had made a controversial non-call in that game that many believe cost the Red Sox a victory.  By refusing to cite the Reds’ Ed Armbrister with interference, the umpire unwittingly wrote a significant chunk of his own obituary, even though disagreement exists to this day as to whether it was the correct call.

At Fenway Park, Barnett’s name was an expletive for years to come. Two decades later some fans would still boo when the stadium’s public address announcer would utter Barnett’s name prior to a game. Today, Barnett’s Wikipedia entry highlights that call and notes that he was also the home plate umpire during the infamous 1996 American League Championship Series game in which fellow umpire Rich Garcia clearly made an incorrect call awarding the Yankees’ Derek Jeter a home run on a ball that was clearly interfered with by a young boy named Jeffrey Maier who reached over the fence with a glove from  the outfield stands.

Virtually any baseball fan can relate a complaint about a blown call that cost their team an important game. This week we saw even non-baseball fans getting engaged in the debate after umpire Jim Joyce admittedly blew a call that cost Detroit’s Armando Galarraga a perfect game by failing to correctly call an out at first base that should have been the final play of the game.

It’s hard not to feel for Galarraga – the would-be perfect game could well end up being the highlight of his career. At the same time, he is now virtually assured of a prominent place in baseball history after receiving widespread praise for his poise in accepting the frustrating outcome.

Setting aside the emotion of the moment, it is difficult for me to muster extraordinary outrage over this blown call. It was the textbook definition of a “bang-bang play.” Indeed, only with the benefit of slow motion and freeze frame technology on a high definition monitor can one be certain that the call was wrong. Any number of other missed decisions in the history of the game have been more obvious and arguably more consequential. The real surprise was that umpire Joyce gave the benefit of the doubt to the runner – one can make a strong argument that major league umpires frequently err on the side of making calls that complete dramatic moments.

The discussion this week inevitably turned to how to prevent similar injustices in the future. Instant replay was introduced less than two years ago to MLB games, but its use has been limited to so-called “boundary” decisions – mostly home run calls. Some would now like to see replay expanded to cover a wider range of plays.

Although I consider myself a baseball traditionalist, I support enhanced use of in-game reviews of umpires’ decisions. Sure, blown calls add to the game’s lore, but it’s too easy to avoid missed decisions in the current technological age.

However, I don’t want to see the existing system expanded. Indeed, I would like to see and end to the current approach where the umpires adjourn to a nearby video room to review the play and make a decision. I do believe this interrupts the flow of the game and that’s simply not necessary.

Some have argued that an NFL-style challenge system should be adopted by Major League Baseball that provides each manager with the ability to contest one or two calls per game. The argument goes that by limiting the number of reviews in each game, it would detract the least from the tradition of the sport. If that path were pursued, I think there would need to be an option for an umpires’ decision to review in the ninth inning or later to ensure that a manager who had previously exhausted his challenges was not forced to accept an egregious, game-deciding blown call.

There’s a better way, however. Why not follow the NHL booth review model? In hockey games goal scoring decisions are reviewed not by the on-ice officials but by the league office who looks at instant replay while the game action continues. Only at the next whistle is the outcome officially reviewed, thus ensuring no unnecessary interruption.

I would like to see a “booth umpire” introduced at major league games who would keep an eye on the broadcast feed of each game. The natural pauses in baseball games – especially on disputed calls – make it an ideal sport for this approach. There’s no clock that needs to be stopped and truly egregious calls can be spotted on replays that are customary in every baseball TV broadcast. The only interruption would occur if the booth umpire needs to call down to the on-field crew chief to let him know that a call was being overturned and why.

The only real drawback that I can see is that this system might lead to an increase in the frequency and length of manager arguments on-field in an attempt to delay the game long enough to ensure that the booth umpire gets a good look. I discount the likelihood of this becoming a problem, though, because close plays today almost always draw an argument anyway. Unlike hockey or football where a pile up of bodies may make it time-consuming to review a call, baseball’s blown calls are usually fairly obvious.

Of course, the cost of this proposal might cause MLB to balk. After all, it would probably cost a few million dollars a year to employ an additional umpire at each game. But that’s a small price to pay to eliminate obvious blown calls from the game while detracting minimally from the history and tradition of the game.

World War II veterans visit their memorial in Washington, DC courtesy of Honor Flight (photo by Gene Bonventre via Flickr)

A few weeks ago, I found myself at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC early on a Saturday morning. The terminal tends to be quiet at that time of week, so I was a bit surprised to see more people than I expected waiting in the security line. As I looked closer, I noticed that many folks did not seem to be toting any luggage – a bit of an oddity in these days of checked baggage charges.

As I advanced toward the metal detector, it occurred to me that many people in line were wearing similar t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Honor Flight.” The phrase is generic enough that it does not immediately give away its purpose, so my mind cycled through various options. Could it be soldiers returning home from Iraq or Afghanistan? Possibly. Or perhaps it was to welcome a flight bringing home an American man or woman killed or wounded in combat.

It turns out my guesses were incorrect. As I made my way to my gate, I heard an announcement over the public address system. A US Airways gate agent was announcing the imminent arrival of an “Honor Flight” carrying World War II veterans on a visit to the nation’s capital to see the memorial to their service. We were told that many of these elderly individuals had never even visited Washington, let alone the World War II Memorial on the Mall.

The Honor Flight volunteers I had seen at security were there to serve as a welcoming party – in part to greet these American heroes, but also to help meet their needs as they arrived. Soon enough the jet dedicated to bringing in these veterans and their traveling party came into sight on the tarmac. It was then that I realized there were a couple of fire trucks positioned at the entrance to the “alley” approaching the arrival gate. As the 737 taxied between those trucks, they fired plumes of water to create an arc of honor. This represents a rare tribute, often reserved for retiring pilots and other significant milestones.

With the jetway in place, the veterans of the battles in the Atlantic and Pacific slowly made their way into the terminal. The Honor Flight volunteers were joined by passengers like me waiting for our flights in providing a standing ovation to these former soldiers. As armed forces music played in the background, these elderly individuals were clearly moved by the experience. Some bystanders leaned in to offer personal words of thanks, while others explained to their children why the event was so important.

The Honor Flight ceremony was all the more significant to me as someone who has a particular interest in World War II history. It also happens that the memorial to that war is my favorite monument in Washington, DC – it’s a place that I like to visit in the early morning hours when it is largely empty and the fountains provide a great audio backdrop to the tremendous view of the Lincoln Memorial it provides.

On this Memorial Day weekend when we Americans traditionally honor the fallen heroes of past conflicts, we now do well to recognize the service of those who survived as well. Efforts like Honor Flight remind us that our society also has many heroes who may not wear a military uniform but nonetheless contribute to the effort of our nation to preserve our freedoms.

Additional Resources:

• Honor Flight Network
• National WWII Memorial

Sometimes it’s a good idea to eat one’s own dog food. Or so they say. I often complain that folks overlook the power of email as an effective tool for communications and idea-sharing. Sure, blogs are great. RSS feeds are useful. And automated emails alerting to new blog posts are simple enough to set up.

But more personal email communications also have real value. That’s where Letters from Chip comes in. It wasn’t that long ago that I opined on the disappearance of letters from the communications toolbox, and while I was referring mostly to the handwritten variety, thoughtful electronic letters have a place, too.

Letters from Chip will be precisely what it sounds like. I will periodically send a letter to subscribers with what’s on my mind — perhaps a few times a month. This won’t be like those holiday card letters you get once a year, though I may touch on similar topics from time to time. And it’s not going to be a direct mail piece urging you to buy this or that.

I’m not going to get all fancy and lard it up with graphics and elaborate design. The focus will be purely on communicating my thoughts in electronic writing.

The only way to get the content of these letters is to get them by email. I won’t be posting them here on the blog or anywhere else. That’s not the way I’m choosing to use them.

I expect these Letters from Chip will have some value. I’m not nearly arrogant enough to think that they’ll be devoured and distributed like some social media luminaries have done with their own email. But I’m confident enough that they will offer something useful to my readers to head down this path.

The letters will focus on the challenges I face, the solutions I’ve come across, and the ideas I have. They will blend a bit of the personal that I might not share publicly on my blog. They will be short and to the point.

I think you will enjoy these letters. If I have stirred your curiosity, I’d encourage you to sign up for Letters from Chip. You can unsubscribe very easily at any time if I don’t meet your expectations.

My team at DCI Group is expanding again. I’m looking for some talented communicators to join our group to help develop and implement effective digital strategies for Fortune 50 clients, major trade associations, and other public affairs campaigns.

DCI Digital works collaboratively with the others at our firm to create an integrated communications approach for our clients. We don’t operate in a silo, but instead tie everything we do together with other activities, including grassroots outreach, earned media, paid media, and more.

Our current needs include junior staff who may be recent college graduates or have a couple of years of work experience. In addition, we need a director-level individual who has 5 or more years of experience in communications.

Here are some specifics, but you can visit the DCI Careers page for more information or to apply:

• Director of Digital Services. This person will lead a team of account managers to implement our strategic vision for the client. The individual will work extensively with our internal team, as well as with clients, to coordinate activities and manage vendor relationships.

• Digital Account Manager. Our digital account managers work on the front lines of helping to implement online and mobile strategies by coordinating with internal and external resources to produce and promote content and messaging.

• Digital Field Account Manager. The digital field team works to conduct outreach to bloggers, social networkers, and other online activists. Their role is to educate digital audiences and recruit informed spokespeople for specific coalitions and campaigns.

We need people who are excellent communicators with a passion for and understanding of the digital space.

If you’re interested in joining our team of digital communicators here at DCI, I urge you to get more information about each of these openings and apply for them through the online career page.