Kevin D. Hendricks's Blog, page 46

Props to Single Parents

Sometimes kids can be monsters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we love ‘em. But some days they drive you nuts. That’s why single parents need special props.

Last week Abby took a last minute, 6-day trip to Mississippi to help some friends. School had just ended, it was the start of summer and suddenly she was gone for nearly a week.

I instantly became a full-time single parent. Not fun.

And not because my kids were monsters. If anything, they were easy. We had enough stuff scheduled that nobody was bored (th...

Spider-Man: Reboots are Boring

I grabbed The Amazing Spider-Man at the library the other day and finally got around to watching it. It came out last summer and is a reboot of the Spider-Man series. For those not in the know (i.e., me) it stars Andrew Garfield () instead of Tobey Maguire. Basically swapping one geek for another (Garfield had a role in The Social Network playing the techie geek who got screwed out of Facebook).

I’m not a big fan of Spider-Man, but it’s another super hero movie and those can be fun.

Instead...

Talking Books on the Human Business Way

Back in February I talked books with Chris Brogan. He’s a social media/marketing/business guy who does the Human Business Way podcast. He titled the show “Kevin Hendricks is a Book Fiend,” which is pretty accurate. We spent about 20 minutes talking books, swapping titles and even get into Star Wars:

Chris: “This is the nerdiest podcast I’ve ever done and I’m blaming you.”

And I accept the credit.

Books to Read

It’s a fun little interview. A few of the great books mentioned include Ready Player On...

137 Books at Ignite

On Wednesday night I spoke at the Ignite Minneapolis event, as I mentioned earlier, and I survived.

I talked about reading a lot of books and basically just geeked about reading. Good fun. I tried not to be too obnoxious plugging my own book, 137 Books in One Year.

In the end it was great fun. My talk went well, I got some laughs and heard from a lot of folks afterward. It started a lot of conversations about books, which is the whole goal. It’s fun hearing from people who are trying out my boo...

Speaking at Ignite Minneapolis

Tonight I’m speaking at Ignite Minneapolis. It’s a unique conference where presenters only get 5 minutes. You’re also given 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. It’s kind of a lightning round approach to presentations and it should both be fascinating and scary.

The topics are all over the map, but the general theme is good ideas. I’ll be talking about how to read a lot, basically drawing on my book 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading.

I’ll be covering some of my re...

Love Runs

I love it when things come together. When different concepts merge into a brilliant idea and when overlapping people start working together toward the same goal. That’s good stuff.

That’s what is happening with Love Runs. It’s a remote 5K that’s happening on Saturday to raise money to build a classroom in Uganda. What’s a remote 5K? It means you can do it anywhere. You don’t have to be part of any official run.

I’ve been running lately. Some days it’s horrible and I hate it and (less frequently...

Dangerous: More Books!

Yesterday I released a new book, Dangerous: A Go-to Guide for Church Communication. It’s a collaborative effort published by one of my clients in cooperation with another awesome organization, Creative Missions. I got to work with some great contributors and some great co-editors. You can read more about the basics of the book over at Church Marketing Sucks.

I’ve done enough last-minute marketing about the book. Rather than do that here, I’d rather just talk honestly about it. Four quick lesso...

Book #50 of 2013: The Martian

Last night I finished my 50th book of 2013. I read a lot, yeah, yeah, yeah, wrote a book about it. Book #50 was awesome. It was The Martian by Andy Weir and it’s a contender for my favorite book of the year.

It’s a Robinson Crusoe type story where an astronaut is abandoned on Mars. But he’s a mechanical engineer and botanist who puts his know-how to work to stay alive and wait for rescue (which will take years). He has to use spare parts, his own excrement and controlled explosions to create w...

Boston Bombings: I Want to Run

Yesterday two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 150.

It’s always difficult marshaling my thoughts in the wake of these tragedies. Everything is a little scattered and disjointed.

News Coverage

As has become the norm, this is another event I learned about through social media. I saw the first comments about an explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon (my first thought: They run the Boston Marathon on a Monday?) on Facebook....

Support Homeless Documentary & Game

I’ve been a big support of Mark Horvath and his work with InvisiblePeople.tv for a while. His passion and resolve to fight homelessness is inspirational.

Mark always has cool stuff up his sleeve. Now there’s an Indiegogo project to fund a documentary about Mark’s work and a social game to help fight homelessness. It’s a cool concept and more than just a movie about Mark, there’s a smartphone game that can get people involved and push them towards real activism.

They’re trying to raise $100,000...