While the nation wonders what our new president may accomplish in his first hundred days, here's what I've been up to since I launched Diligent Creative back on October 1st.

Okay, technically it's been one-hundred eleven days and I'm deliberating leaving client work out—rest assured that I am indeed getting business, not performing at my local Gentlemen's Club or something—at any rate, it's not an exhaustive list but here it is.

October

I was very pleased to find out, amidst all of the banks falling apart and the economy cratering, that I was selected as a speaker at South by Southwest. I get to run the discussion that I've always wanted from SXSW, namely "Non-profits: Be the web you want to see!" We'll cover topics like: putting together an online strategy that addresses your mission and not just your fundraising goals, how to get things accomplished when no one at your job cares about the Internet as much as you do, and how many activism quotes I can purposefully mangle in 60 minutes. Should be a blast.

Hanging with Internet luminaries Timoni and Geoff back in '06.

If you've never attended SXSW, you should really try to attend. I consider it to be the most vital web-related gathering there is. As a webworker, I can remember how in the dark I felt before attending yearly. It sets the tone for the year to come and provides an outstanding opportunity to get beyond the hype of this technology or that platform and meet the people "who make the Internet".

November

I discover, to my surprise, that becoming a "real" business in San Francisco requires applying for a "Fictitious Business Name". I was assured that this the fictitious name of a business, and not the name of a fictitious business. You can search for me here.

Yeah, like that, only with real people who love each other.

Getting this form completed put me in line at SF City Hall on Election Day, where couples were being shuffled through marital rites as quickly as possible for fear that the next day their right to marry would be revoked. Indeed it was.

December

I break even for 2008. To be fair, it's not like I had to pay off a shiny new office building or a deluxe server room that could scale to the gazillions of hits my website was getting. But still, in the middle of an economic meltdownturn, I managed to turn a profit. I can be happy about that.

January

We're only halfway, but I have managed to submit an entry for the Design 21 "Wood, Paper, Checkmark" competition featuring FSC. I've been familiar with the Forest Stewardship Council for a long time now and was thrilled to potentially work with them. I even brought in a friend of mine to do some really excellent voice-over work.

You can indeed help me win by voting for my submission, but voting requires a profile on Design 21 and the entries are shown in random order without designer names, so you'd potentially have to sit through 123 entries before getting to mine. If you're a designer that concerns yourself with social responsibility issues, you really should join Design 21 anyway and—once you have—I certainly won't stop you from voting for me in the competition (hint: toilet paper).

So far, 2009 is looking great and... despite the financial turmoil going on around me, including costing several friends their jobs... Diligent Creative is managing to hold on and even thrive.