Hello, and welcome to my blog.  So....a little bit about the title and the header picture.  The title is one I've been kicking around for the better part of a year.  I think the title of a blog is critical to its virality--who can forget www.dooce.com?  I wanted to chose something easy to remember, but also something that has meaning to me.    A few years back I read Steven Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.   His story in the beginning about imagining your own funeral and its tombstone was very effective in getting me to work on the question--just what do I want out of life?  Begin with the end in mind is Habit #2--Here's a good summary.

So, When it comes to websites or even my life, this motto of "Begin with the end in mind" has always been a mantra.  It's hard to plan a strategy when you don't have goals.  Very Specific Goals.  So specific you can smell them and imagine every detail about them.  When I wanted to start losing weight, I imagined not just the general idea of "thinner."  I envisioned the exact piece of clothing I wanted. ( I can't share it here--it's a custom made Dior Suit.)  I envisioned the feeling of climbing Half Dome.  I envisioned the feeling of simply walking up the stairs without getting winded.  I haven't climbed Half Dome yet, but I made it half way (quarter dome?) last summer and I can walk up stairs without getting winded. 

This past January I travelled to Antarctica with my boyfriend Frank and his family.  This picture was taken at the farthest point south we went, 65 degrees latitude.  It really felt like the end of the Earth.  In time I may find something more appropriate but I thought it was a good start.

So....Now you know where Begin with the end in Mind comes from and what it means to me.

So, what's the end here?

Someone who makes a living figuring out ecommerce needs to be eating her own dog food.  As yummy as that sounds. 

So look for that from me--various musings on what I see, mostly about eCommerce, but I reserve the right to opine about what suits my fancy.  My friend Adam Nash has really been my inspiration.  His blog is here. I aim to be as thoughtful as he is.  Another really great blogger,  Avinash Kaushik, shaped my views on web analytics and their use in business strategy.  He's done an amazing thing by donating all the proceeds from a book he wrote to charity.  The book wouldn't have been possible without the readership he developed just writing a blog.  Amazing what a blog can do.

So, with that end in mind, let's begin.

Disclaimer:  My opinions do not in any way represent those of my employer and this blog is not intended to reflect the thoughts of anyone, or any thing, other than myself.  I am solely responsible for its content--so send all those brick bats to me, personally.