I am back from my winter hibernation and ready to post! In some ways, blogging is an expression that is akin to singing. My voice is rested and I have some things to sing about.

I have enjoyed people's different posts and approaches to New Year's Resolutions for 2008.

• Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, wants you to set goals and enlist others (via his Facebook application, cleverly named "Goal Post") to keep you accountable.


• My friend, Lisa, is determined to focus on 9 or so concepts this year, short enough that she can capture each on a Post-It Note.


• Penelope Trunk, of Brazen Careerist fame, says pick just one goal (and really commit to it).


• Others, like the folks at Andy Wibbels' BlogWild, have suggested picking a theme, instead of a laundry list of resolutions (destined to be ignored come January 7th).


• Ali Edwards, a gifted visual artist and scrapbooker, suggested selecting a word for the year. Her's is "Vitality." Here is everyone else's who responded to her challenge. I, of course, love the custom product tie-in possibilities for a one word resolution!

For myself, I am following the general gist above and selecting fewer things to focus on, making sure they are specific and attainable, and asking for your help.

My resolutions this year are simple. The personal ones including celebrating my 15th wedding anniversary this Summer in some memorable way and some specific ones for my family. The business ones include the successful management of a huge project at work and launching a new offering from Creative Outlet Labs.

However, there are two goals that I'd like to accomplish this year with the help of this community.

1. I'd like to learn how to draw one-frame cartoons. As the cartoon above illustrates, I am a fan of Hugh MacLeod (warning: some of his cartoons are not family-friendly) and wish I had thought about drawing on the back of business cards first, as I think it is brilliant format. Not only that, but I can try out my new Christmas gift from my husband, a Wacom tablet. This year, I want to have some blog posts that are just cartoons that I have drawn.

You can help with this in a number of ways: encouraging my early attempts that I might post here with positive comments/trackbacks and sending me your cartoon ideas (I understand that is how Scott Adams has gotten most of his Dilbert material for years). I will never be a professional cartoonist, but I'd like to be able to find new ways to communicate insights on business, innovation, and life... and cartoon drawing is it.

2. I'd like to make 1 million people smile. I mean be personally responsible for enabling 1 million people to have a positive, encouraging moment in time. I have some specific ideas of how to accomplish this, so stay tuned for more specific requests in the coming weeks.

I hope you are already off to a pulse-racing, mind-blowing new year!