Part of buying a Mac Book Air a few months ago, my dad picked up one of those all-in-one printer, scanner, fax machines.   In my parents basement there are tons of box of amazing old photographs.  I’ve been encouraging him to scan them and throw them on Flickr, as kind of a family digital preservation strategy.

It’s been a blast watching my childhood and family history flash before my eyes as my dad has loaded up the photos one after another.

Yesterday, he loaded up a scan of something, which is slightly blown my mind.  It was a newspaper clipping from an article that the Lansing State Journal did about me back in 1998 when I made the Web site for my school, Our Savior Lutheran (obviously the site has changed a lot since I made it in 1998).

The school bought me a copy of Microsoft Front Page, which at the time was top of the line software.  Still, I wrote most of the site by hand using HTML.   The Web server was a computer in the school principal’s office which I often edited the Web site on directly.

A perk of my current job is that I’m out there talking everyday to folks who are trying to use the Web as a medium for getting their message out to the world and keeping their community in touch. It’s scary to think about how similar the concepts I consult folks around today are to the things we were talking about 10 years ago.

Seeing this article has definitely reminded me to the extent which the Lord has blessed me with amazing people in my life who’ve encouraged me to step out into the vast unknown and try new things, like making Web sites in the early 1990s.

I still vividly remember the day when my dad called me into the back room of the house, where our family kept the computer.  It was 1996-ish (maybe) and we used AOL 2.x.   My dad told me that there were these online classes in HTML and encouraged me to give it a whirl.  The rest is history.

I guess I can say that the AOL online class in HTML was a turning point in my life.  It helped to set the direction for what turned into a career.  God’s hand was definitely at work.

Looking back, what’s one turning point you’ve had in your life, where your like “wow with out this I’m not sure this would have gone this way”?

As long as I can remember, every year during the Christmas break, my dad has written some type of Christmas letter to family and friends about what has happened in the life of my family… The Thorp Family.

My dad is such a masterful writer.  Each year, not only does he give the typical update of each member of the family, he really tries to encapsulate a major theme or lesson that during the course of the year we’ve all experienced and learned first hand. (Someday, It’d be so cool to get all our family Christmas letters and bind them in a book.  That’d be the kind of thing I’d love to give my kids.)

In years past, I can remember us all sitting around the kitchen table folding, addressing, and mailing the letters.  Inevitably a half dozen of them would get sent back because my sister’s hand writing was so bad. :-p (Love you Krista!)

Well these last few years, with the Web and blogs being what they are, we’ve put it online. This year you can learn about what happened with Wes (dad), Gladys (mom), Krista (sister), Adam (bro-in-law), and me in the Thorp Family Christmas Letter on my Dad’s Blog.

Merry Christmas.

Last Wednesday, I gave a talk at the DC Chapter of the Social Media Club entitled “How Sharing Can Help You Reach More Users Online”.  My friend and Viget Labs‘ Director of Marketing Services Jen Krupey who was there for the talk summarized what I said over on the Viget Engage blog.  Check it out and join the conversation.

Here are my powerpoint slides from the talk, if you want those.

On Thursday, I was at a party and having a conversation with a friend of mine which ended up helping me articulate a realization about myself.  I love story telling.

All too often, it seems like I run into folks who are doing amazing things but don’t know how to tell the world about what they’re doing.  I love working with them so that I can tell their story and get others excited about their achievements.

A desire to tell their story is what got me in the door at Clearspring as their Community Manager.   Last year, I was at the Library of Congress developing a strategy that ran me again and again into a problem that Clearspring’s widget platform solved.  I kept on asking myself, “Why do people not know about this?”  Ever since I joined the team, I’ve been traveling to the far corners of the country and the Internet telling it’s story.

Speaking of the Library of Congress, during my tenure there, I was running into the same feeling.  ”Why do people not know about this?”  There are so many amazing people that people need to meet.  There was so much amazing content and history that people need to experience.  I wanted to tell it’s story. I still do.

I think the Library’s Flickr project helped people get to know and experience the breadth of history in the content at the Library, which is REALLY cool.

For me, this love of story telling isn’t a recent development.  When I was much younger, I always loved imagining stories and acting in children’s theater.  In middle school, I was even in a story telling competition.  We had to memorize a children’s story and recite it to an audience.

Often, it feels like the difference between a great idea and a sensation which everyone is taking about is the ability of someone to tell their story.

So… when’s the last time that you talked to someone about what they’re doing and got excited to the point where you wanted to go out and tell their story?

I know we all have incredibly busy lives.  Everywhich way you turn, there’s something that’s asking for your attention.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for inviting me into your life and being a part of my community.  It’s been a huge blessing to me.  You all have given me more then you can ever imagine.

If you’ve been reading the blog and we haven’t met or talked yet, speak up.  I’d love to meet you, chat or at the very least exchange e-mail.  Drop me a line – justin@ clearspring.com