Dan Harbison resides in Portland, dreams of Scotland and lives here.

Jack is here!

Monday, March 26, 2007


That's right, a week ago at 5:38pm John Gary Harbison (aka Jack) was born at Good Samaritan Hospital here in Portland. He was born 8lbs and 21 inches. If he waited until his due date (March 28th) he would've been 9+ lbs. He has his own blog here. Plenty of pictures on the blog and some on Picasa.

Also, I will be speaking at the March meeting for the Portland Social Media club. Tim Germer saw me speak at SEMPDX and asked me to speak. Here are details:

March 27th
7pm - 9pm
Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave
Portland, OR 97253
(503) 708-0851

Should be a really cool setting to talk with some of Portland's bright minds in blogs, podcasts, social networks and other social things, like drinking? Does karaoke qualify as social media? We'll talk about why we're using Web 2.0 at the Trail Blazers and how it is working for us. Hope to see you there.

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posted by darb at 10:04 PM 3 Comments Links to this post  

SEMpdx Search Fest '07

Monday, March 5, 2007


On Wednesday I will be speaking on a panel with other Web 2.0 enthusiasts at SEMpdx Search Fest 07. The panel will consist of:
Web 2.0 / RSS
Utilizing RSS Feeds as a Powerful SEO Tool
Doug Hay, Expansion+;
Janet Johnson; SnapNames;
John Anthony Hartman, Feedia;
Dan Harbison, Portland Trail Blazers;

I'm always excited to interact with other people who understand why Web 2.0 is exciting and share ideas on what we're all doing. I also get really excited to brainstorm on where we go from here.

One constant battle I see from Web 2.0 is the amount of crap that gets out in the internet. Now with Web 2.0, everyone has a voice and everyone has the ability to converse. My thought of Web 2.0 is to improve the knowledge that is out there. A collective brain is smarter than a singular one. You can have more rounded knowledge on a larger breadth of topics if you have multiple people who are experts in their own field. Where it breaks down is not having a "crap filter" on comments, or tags. Many times I have gone to someones MySpace page, looked at the first 5 comments and then bailed... instead getting carpal tunnel by wading through 200 comments and scrolling down to the bottom of their page. That is what I consider poor use of Web 2.0. Having all those comments didn't better my knowledge of who that person is, or help me decide if I want to be friends with them. A lot of the time it's for some DJ's party in St. Louis or someone's really bad hip-hop that they made in their mom's basement (DJ SharpTongue I'm looking in your direction...) Editing on Web 2.0 by authors and users is essential. Wikipedia does a great job of doing that. Allowing everyone to contribute, but if it's crap... out it goes.

I will post my presentation about Web 2.0 and what we're doing at the Trail Blazers after the panel on Wednesday. I recommend you check it out if you are interested in SEM. Here is a quick "3 questions" I did with their blog.

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posted by darb at 5:41 PM 0 Comments Links to this post  

AMA Luncheon

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Thanks so much to everyone that came to the American Marketing Association's February luncheon today. I really enjoyed a lot of the questions that people asked and it always inspires me when you get a room full of people in the conversations you can have.

One of the questions had to do with culture. This is something that we continue to work on. Your company's culture can A) Help or hinder productivity B) Help or hinder creativity C) Help dictate on how you are perceived (in other words, shape your brand). Some of the people we have had talk or I have seen speak recently include:
Patrick Lencioni, phenomenal speaker about building team and creating a healthy working environment.
Doug Mendenhall, who help build teamwork from the inside out.

I will be blogging often about this topic as I think this is one of the most important aspects of a business. For example, if you manufacture toilet plungers (and my apologizing for singling out manufacturers of toilet plungers) and your work environment is fun, engaging and rewarding. Your employees will rave these are the best "damn toilet plungers in the world". Your turnover will be low and you will continue to be efficient and productive. If you have a crappy work environment and people are always looking for a way out... your business will fail due to turn-over and lack of passion.

For the presentation I did today, you can click here.

To get a sweetheart of a deal on tickets go to:
http:tickets.trailblazers.com/deals
promocode: danismyfriend
Or, click here

Once again, thank you Tara and the rest of the crew at the American Marketing Associationama.ppt

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posted by darb at 2:48 PM 1 Comments Links to this post