2007 in Review (Part 1) - Andrew Johnson

Well…I’m thinking that another “Year in Review” is in order.

Let’s begin.

We’ll start off 2007 with a lot of new things happening in my life. For those of you who remember, I started two new jobs at the same time: 1. working for the family business keeping them going with technology, and 2. starting my own business Sonic Interactive Solutions: Specializing in Web Design and Video Editing.

Now, January and February are the busiest months for financial planners because everyone is thinking about RRSP’s and taxes and stuff and have until the beginning of March to invest in RRSP’s and get a tax break for the previous year (ie. get money back on their tax return instead of paying money on their tax return). So, I ended up working pretty much full time hours at Allan L Johnson Financial Group (even though I was only supposed to work part time…but everything works out…you’ll see).

I also got to work on making my own website for SIS. I wanted it to be an amazing website…it needed to stand out and be something that makes you say, “Merde, I want this guy to make ME a website!” (pardon my French). And so, www.sonicinteractivesolutions.com was born. What an amazing investment of time it was. It has proven to be my single most effective advertising tool. Since then, I’ve made sites like:

And a computer application website for keeping track of engineering schematics that are custom tailored for various engineering projects. It’s called Design Standards, but I don’t have a link to it because it’s not open for the general public to access. But I’ll get a little more into Design Standards later in another post.

Now, let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, I was working full time for the family business and full time for my own business. During the first couple months though, I didn’t make much money through my own business. But as time went on and I finished my website, Peter had some ammo to let someone in Toronto know about me and my new website business. He connected me up with a graphic design and promotions company called Plank Creative and they immediately got me to start working on a website they’d been designing for The Vapor Music Group. At this time, I also found some super cheap tickets to fly to Toronto, so I booked them and made arrangements to stay with Peter in downtown Toronto for a few days in March. While in Toronto, I got to do something that I haven’t done for more than 7 years: Participate in a retreat. Yes, I finally got to be a participant and have a good time and not worry about anything. Just show up and retreat. It was lots of fun for sure, but it was also a challenge. I only knew Peter…I had no idea who the other 50 people were and I was going to spend a whole weekend with them. In some ways it was a lot of fun because it forced me to step out of my comfort zone and get to know
people because I had to. But, in other ways, it was very draining for me…I’m not an extrovert…I don’t get energy from that kind of stuff. Needless to say, I slept very well each night of that retreat, but that is to be expected at a retreat. Anyways, I got to visit the CN tower and see some things in downtown Toronto. It was grand. Here are some pictures from the retreat.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/supersonic.johnson/RetreatInTO

That’s it for part 1. I’ll continue with part 2 soon.