Gary Vaynerchuk is the host of Wine Library TV (with over 80,000 viewers a day) and Director of Operations at his family’s company, Wine Library, in Springfield, NJ. He grew that business from $4 million to $60 million in only five years, and is now the co-founder of VaynerMedia and a consultant for Fortune 100 companies. An in-demand public speaker, Vaynerchuk has keynoted at events such as FOWA and South by Southwest, and also appeared on many television shows such as “Ellen DeGeneres”, “Late Night With Conan O’Brien”, “The Today Show”, and CNBC’s “Mad Money With Jim Cramer”.  Vaynerchuk’s second book, “Crush It!“, came out earlier this month.

I sat down with Gary at LessConf in Jacksonville, Fla., to talk about working hard and building brands.

Nancy: You are famous for cheerleading, for telling people to work an 18 hour day. How has being a dad changed your perspective on that?

Vaynerchuk: It hasn’t. I don’t necessarily need people to work 24 hours a day. I need them to not do stupid stuff when they’re unhappy. If that ends up being 12 hours a day, or seven, or four, that’s fine. Because obviously family is first. And a lot of times for a lot of people, your first job is first, because that’s what pays your mortgage. It’s just at night, instead of plopping on the couch and eating junk food and watching Baywatch re-runs, there’s a lot of opportunity to build brand.

Nancy: Although you are known for doing all that motivational speaking, recently it seems to me that your focus has shifted a little bit away from pure motivation into a little more practical advice, especially with the book. Can you talk about that shift a little bit?

Vaynerchuk: It’s always been there. It’s just that the “rah-rah” stuff is so sexy, and people focus on it. I’m not a motivational speaker as my profession, or a life coach, or a self-help dude. I build businesses. I built a $70 million wine company. AJ and I, my dad and I, our partners and family have spearheaded Vaynermedia, which is well on its way to being a million dollar company. And Gourmet Library. And I was the kid that was making a thousand dollars a weekend selling baseball cards, which if you prorate it is $52,000 a year for one day a week’s work. So, this is a knack, this is a skill. I’ve always said be patient, hustle, you know, practical advice, but it always got pushed to the side. So this is no shift…this is probably why I wrote the book. Because in a book environment, I think it comes through more for a lot of people. It doesn’t get lost as much, because there are sections just devoted to it.

Nancy: You’ve been investing in a lot of startups lately. What gets your attention or gets you excited about one? Like at my house, when we’re looking at a new tech product, it has to pass the mom test of “could our moms use it?”

Vaynerchuk: Well, I don’t think that I would invest in any startup if that had to be my barometer, because moms get involved later. Products iterate to become mom-friendly. Mine is, is this valuable? And does it invoke emotion? Those are the two things that I’d look at. Does this product make people think about something, feel something? Facebook inherently created an environment of your world, gave you a feel of speed, almost like having a fast Porsche that you never saw before. So those are the kind of things that I look at.

Nancy: So you assume that if it brings that kind of feeling, that that’s a good investment down the road, because it’ll gain some traction?

Vaynerchuk: No, that’s just some of the things I look for from a product standpoint. Then I look at who’s the entrepreneur — who’s driving the car. That’s imperative to me. And so, there’s a lot of factors. Is the product over-hyped in the mind of the entrepreneur, which means it’s not going to be as good of a deal for me? There’s a lot of practical things that I look at.

Nancy: You’re talking a lot about personal branding, finding your passion. What are the top three skills that you think people need to be able to craft that sort of branding for themselves?

Vaynerchuk: I think this is what’s important: I think everybody can win. Everybody is going to win. Not everybody is going to be Oprah, there’s going to be a lot of Donahues, and a lot of Sally Jesse Raphaels, and a lot of Geraldos, right? What I think is important is this, for people to understand: The fact that we all can now go to Yankee Stadium and tap the plate and get a swing at the bat, was not real three years ago. You couldn’t become a brand. What you were going to do — leave your kids and your husband and fly to LA and find an agent? You had no shot. So that’s what I’m screaming about. Not that necessarily everybody’s going to win on this epic level and everybody’s going to make a trillion dollars, but do not disrespect the fact that everybody has a swing at the plate. And that’s a big deal.

Nancy: Everybody knows you want to buy the Jets. Do you have any other goals?

Vaynerchuk: The only goal that I have is that, and to spend time with my family and make sure that they’re healthy. And even the Jets goal is a big one but not something I’ll let define me. I’m not going to jump off a cliff if I don’t end up buying them.

Nancy: A lot of web workers spend a lot of time on the road, just like you do. What’s the number one piece of travel advice that you’ve picked up in your time on the road?

Vaynerchuk: That’s a great question. I do a lot of interviews, so when I get a new question, they’re good. The number one piece of advice? I think there’s only two things you should do as a businessperson in this web world when you’re flying. Two: Sleep or do email…no in between. Hardcore get in the trenches with your audience and answer their questions, or get the rest you need to execute it. Don’t watch a movie. And I understand you need time to unwind, people need that. But that stuff needs to be cut out a little bit. That part, where you’re watching Seinfeld reruns on your flight. That’s those two hours that really are the difference in building a big business. Now if you’re happy, and content, then watch Seinfeld.

Are you really working towards your goals? What are you giving up?

First, Twitter announced it would be bringing a new Lists feature online to build groups right into the popular social networking site. Now it’s going a step further towards making the service more professionally relevant by introducing a Twitter Labs feature, according to The Next Web.

Like Google Labs and Facebook Prototypes before it, Twitter Labs will allow developers to test out new features for the site with a voluntary beta community prior to their official release. Not only that, but Labs would allow outside developers to create and work on add-ons and other features that could then become deeply integrated with Twitter itself, instead of just being relegated to external clients that use the API.

The news comes via the Future of Web Apps conference currently taking place in London, where Twitter engineer Britt Selvitelle made the announcement earlier today. Based on the announcement, it sounds like Twitter is planning something in between Mozilla’s Firefox add-ons and Google’s Labs playground for experimental features.

While this is undoubtedly good news for people looking to get something more out of Twitter, I’m wondering if it doesn’t run counter to the core idea behind the service’s success to date. What I like about Twitter is its simplicity, as opposed to the layers and complexity of Facebook. While browsing Facebook is a time-consuming, involved process for me, it’s easy to keep Twitter active in the background all day, popping in and out when the mood strikes while still easily disengaging when necessary.

Twitter add-ons and apps threaten to complicate the process. I dread the day when my tweet timeline is cluttered with survey results and invitations to try out such-and-such disguised personal data mining application. Perhaps I’m being overly fatalistic, but Facebook’s track record shows that such things are possible.

On the other hand, with enough oversight on the part of Twitter, and with responsible API usage, Twitter Labs could open the door to making the service perfectly suited for each individual user. Until evidence proves otherwise, though, I remain skeptical.

What do you think of this announcement?

With the U.S. tech conference season – TED, ETech & SXSW – behind us, the European scene is starting to warm up for spring with the Futuresonic festival, Thinking Digital, Future of Web Design and, more immediately, Amsterdam’s The Next Web.

The Next Web is now in its fourth year and will open with a day of unconference events as a lead-in to two days of scheduled keynotes, startup demos, awards and an expo hall. Speakers include Google’s Bradley Horowitz, CSS expert Eric Meyer and Andrew Keen, author of “Cult of the Amateur”.

We’ve got a special 20 percent discount for WebWorkerDaily readers wishing to attend The Next Web. Simply register here to claim your discount.

A couple of weeks ago, the White African blog discussed the need for coworking spaces in African cities, driven by the needs of emerging tech communities in some of the continent’s major cities.

Writer Erik Hersman argues the case for communities that are part coworking communities, part startup incubator and part VC/investor hubs. Establishing a coworking space isn’t trivial or easy, requiring some time for a healthy community culture to emerge; developing and leasing the physical space is relatively straightforward.

Hersman cites a couple of interesting African coworking options, such as the Regus-owned Habitatz (more like a serviced office than coworking), but it’s uncertain whether they see the same need to conflate investment, coworking and incubation.

I’ve been heavily involved in developing a coworking space that’s funded by one of the city’s universities, but populated and run by coworking residents and the university’s tech training arm. We all believe that aligning web workers, entrepreneurs, students, academics, investors and mentors will ultimately bring value to our city. In that regard, Hersman’s ideas are portable across cultures, but do require the development of their own shared culture.

It’s a long journey that requires a lot of diplomacy, development of enduring institutions and some values for everyone to cohere around. Without these values, or a shared vision, it’s tricky to bring together the diverse interests necessary in the infrastructure of innovation that Hersman speaks of, but not impossible. Done well, a perfect storm of meetups and coworkers, coupled with a pipeline of young, student entrepreneurs full of ideas can create an exciting nexus that’ll begin to get on the radar of potential investors…if, indeed, investment is necessary or desirable.

At the other end of the spectrum, existing coworking communities are beginning to reach their physical limits and grow beyond their current leases. The granddaddy of coworking spaces, San Francisco’s Citizen Space, is shortly moving to a space more than double its existing size (though at the same property).

As the first generation of spaces begins to outgrow their locations, they face the issue of whether coworking communities can scale without diminishing their values and cohesion, as well as avoiding the development of cliques. Is a “classroom” size of 20-30 people ideal? Do you simply start a parallel community or keep adding to the existing group? Both open and interesting questions that coworking operators will begin to consider as the phenomenon matures.

Interestingly, an established UK-based tech company, Carsonified, is launching its Carsonispace project to open its unique corporate culture to hotdesking workers – firstly perhaps as a way of raising revenue in tough times, but also as a means to bring new ideas and people into the company’s intimate culture. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see larger employers like Google, Apple and Microsoft embracing such a notion? How’s that for an infrastructure for innovation in African cities!

Read more at African Cities Need Tech Coworking Spaces, Changes and expansion at Citizen Space and Carsonispace.

Whether it’s vacuuming your keyboard, taking a long walk, or making a pot of coffee, you probably have a routine that you do before you get started with work.  This routine seems so mundane and simple, yet, without it, you can’t get started.

Many artists and writers have their own rituals before working.  Carson McCullers reportedly made sure to wear her lucky sweater before writing, while W. Somerset Maugham would read Voltaire’s Candide.  Henry James has a longer ritual that starts at breakfast and ends after lunch, with occasional interruptions in the afternoon.  Despite half his day devoted to these rituals, James penned 23 novels during his career, plus several other shorter works.

Whether you clean your office or have a more elaborate routine, pre-work rituals are an essential part of your workday. Here are some ways in which they help:

• Builds your mindset. You might not be aware of it, but pre-work rituals can help you establish your work rhythms for the rest of the day.
• Keeps you energized. Before you start work, whether your workday has just begun or you’re returning from a short break, it’s important to have rituals that will energize you and allow you to regroup after grueling mental gymnastics.
• Shifts your perspective. This is especially true for the things you do during breaks.  For me, I find that walking my dog or working on a carpentry project for a brief period allows me to stop my train of thought and focus on something else.  After I’m done with that, I go back to my work with a fresh perspective and approach it in unexpected ways.

But what if the hours you spend on your rituals really take away from your productivity?

Find your ideal working hours. Before you tighten up your schedule, you need to define your ideal working hours first.  This is the span of time where you produce the most amount of work in the least amount of time.  For some reason, you just feel as if you’re more focused and creative during this time.  The reason why you work better might be the weather, the lack of distractions, your body clock – it doesn’t matter.  Find those hours, make sure you factor them into your schedule, and guard those hours with your life.

Once you’ve defined your ideal work hours, it’s time to cut back on your “ritual time,” if you really think that you should be spending time on your work, with your family, or on other projects.  The most important thing is to decrease the time spent on these rituals gradually, over 1 or 2 months, rather than quitting cold turkey.

Let’s say your pre-work ritual currently starts with an hour of walking, a half-hour preparing breakfast, and another two hours of leisurely reading.  Look at all those activities and see which ones are the most essential to you, and which ones you can reduce without hurting your creativity or productivity.  If you feel you’d rather spend less time reading, you can lessen your reading hours to an hour and 45 minutes for one week, then reducing 15 minutes each week until you reach your target time.  You can always make up the lost reading time after work.  Or, if you also feel like you can spend less time making breakfast, find a way to at least prepare part of it the night before.

Your pre-work rituals should be there to allow more creativity into your life and enhance the way you work.  They are, after all, one of the perks of web working.  In a traditional office setup, most employees probably don’t get to customize their schedules and activities the way web workers can.  Take advantage of your ability to do this.

What is your pre-work routine?  How does it affect your work?

Image by Luis Alves from sxc.hu

Morning: so full of promise and potential. While the night owls sleep, early birds get out of bed and write about morning routines.

Ryan Carson finishes at least two things from his daily to do list before checking email — that’s part of his strategy for a productive morning. WWD contributing writer Leo Babauta suggests that writers create a morning writing ritual because that gives your writing first priority in your life and provides a peaceful time to do it. Leo’s suggestion reminds me of creativity maven Julia Cameron’s morning pages, uncensored writing that she recommends you do each morning.

Steven Fisher thinks that it’s important to get showered and dressed before starting to work. And Pete Thomas brings a business process management (BPM) perspective to the morning routine, looking for ways to optimize for time and health by doing things like switching out bacon and eggs for fruit, yogurt, and granola. He means that as an introduction to BPM, but if you’re really into systematizing your life, it just might work for you.

Amy J. Kearns spends an hour before work each day checking her email, Facebook, and RSS. I’d do that too if I had a job other than checking email, Facebook, and RSS.

I hop out of bed and right onto the web, getting an immediate start onto my work day while the kids sleep. I do a quick scan of email and RSS and then either edit or write the first post of the day for Web Worker Daily. Only after I’ve completed that job do I have breakfast (often a Pop-Tart, healthy for the soul if not for the body) and read The Denver Post and The Wall Street Journal.

What’s your morning routine?

Related posts:

• Do you get up early to boost your productivity?
• Getting on the treadmill of life
• Lunch break, web worker style
• How to transition between work and home

Ranking resumes — TalentSpring launched this week with a resume marketplace using ranking instead of search to help employers find potential new hires.

In order to have your resume included in their database, you must rank 12 other resumes using pairwise comparisons (i.e., do you like Jane or Joe better? Jane or Elizabeth? Joe or Elizabeth? and so forth). Then the system uses various algorithms to control for potential ranking misbehavior, like downgrading people who might compete with you for the same job.

Instead of subjecting yourself to that ranking — and having to rank resumes yourself — why not use a blog as your resume? [TalentSpring via TechCrunch]

Get creative with your business cards — Metallic, translucent, folded… you’ll find tons of ideas in this gallery of fun designs. [creativebits]

Sendmail for arseholes — From the author of The No Asshole Rule comes the ArseMail page, for helping your coworkers and friends deal with difficult people or for apologizing for the difficult person you’ve been. [ArseMail]

More online mind mapping — Comapping offers real-time collaboration web-based mind mapping with auto-layout. Want to read about other options? Check the Daily Iteration’s review of web and Windows-based mind mapping software including mindmeister, bubbl.us, Freemind, and others. [Comapping via jkOnTheRun]

More online lists — Listigator lets you make lists. Online. Then share them, either read-only or editable. [Listigator]

In/out board for virtual teams — Use a chat room so team members can say when they’re “in” and what they’re working on. Ryan Carson’s team uses their chat room for daily check-ins, weekly check-ins, and virtual over-the-cube conversations. [Carsonified]

Simple strategy for getting things done. “Every day, I grab about 10 things off my “This Week” list and put them on my “Today” list. Then (and this is the key) before I even open my email program, I try to knock at least two things off my Today list.”

Zirr.us: Tag clouds meets To Do lists. Zirr.us could have been number 21 on our list of 20 ways to manage your to dos. Do a braindump. Put near-term tasks on the Now list. Tag your items. Set due date and priority. View as a task cloud.

18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work. Lots of great tips, including this one: “5. Do not check personal email in the morning. Checking personal emails can be very distracting even with filters setup.”

Workflow for New Year’s Resolutions. A reminder for GTD disciples: “you should find a way to create the next task for any task you complete. This is where the process breaks for even the most disciplined among us, for two reasons: First, we usually do not know in advance the full sequence of tasks that will lead us to the completion of a relatively abstract goal. Second, the tools we are using to track the completion of tasks do a pretty bad job at suggesting follow-up action items.”

How many ways are there to manage your task list? Almost as many as there are people with tasks to do. Here are 20 different ways of tracking your to dos, with examples of each.

You probably use more than one of these options, depending on what you’re trying to manage and what suits your temperament. Or maybe you have some other ideas. If so, share them here.

1. Free web-based to do list managers. Remember the Milk supports sharing lists, email add of tasks, and SMS reminders. Ta-da List is 37Signals’ stripped-down version of their for-pay Backpack information manager. Voo2Do includes project management capabilities like support for software scheduling and tasks organized by project.

2. The Hipster PDA. A pile of index cards held together with a small binder clip plus a Fisher Space Pen as a stylus. Carry it in your pocket. Take notes on the cards. Categorize using rainbow-colored cards. Reorder as necessary. Learn more on the Hipster PDA wiki.

3. Text files. You can put everything in one big text file. You can implement GTD with text files. If you get really excited about your text files, try the Todo.txt scripts that give you powerful editing, searching, sorting, and progress reporting.

4. Task list integrated with your desktop or online calendar. The 30 Boxes online calendar offers taggable to do lists. Yahoo’s calendar incorporates a simple task list. Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage, and the Mac’s iCal software all offer task management capabilities.

5. Word processor or spreadsheet, desktop or online. Of course you can use Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. Create task lists that look just as you want, print them out, and get the tactile pleasure of scribbling off tasks as you complete them. Online versions make it super-easy to share lists with your family members or coworkers, like when you want to add items to the grocery list. Two biggies in this category are Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho Office.

6. The Emergent Task Planner. PDF files that you print out. Developed by David Seah, these pages guide your work each day using time boxing. You list what you need to do, estimate how long each will take, and schedule them in blocks of time.

7. To do list widget on an Ajax start page. I like Netvibes’ to do list module. When you check off an item, it remains on the list, but crossed out, giving you feel-good feedback as to what you’ve completed. But you don’t have to use an actual task list widget. The start pages offer various sticky notes and text editor widgets that could be used also.

8. Paper-based 1980s-era planner. Remember Filofax? The Franklin Planner? No self-respecting Gordon Gekko wannabe of the late eighties would be without a bulging binder of to dos and calendar items and contacts. Then the Palm Pilot came along and it was named the “Filofax of the nineties.” Now paper planners are still used, but they no longer qualify as status symbols.

9. Desktop note taking app. You might use this as an intermediate spot between your brain and a more structured to do list or project planner. Check out our profile of four of them: Sidenote and mynotes on the Mac, EverNote and OneNote on Windows. Readers also mentioned VoodooPad (Mac), Yojimbo (Mac), and Tomboy (Linux) among possibilities to consider.

10. Build-your-own custom online to do list manager with Dabble DB, Ning, or Coghead. This new breed of do-it-yourself web app platforms make it easier than ever before to create sharable online software. Creating a to do list app would be a good way of checking out how capable these services are.

11. Sticky notes everywhere. Not electronic stickies–real stickies. They’re not ideal as a primary means of managing tasks but come on, admit it, haven’t you put a sticky note on the bezel of your computer monitor to remind yourself to do something? I also put stickies on the front door when I need to remember to take something with me the next time I leave. Plus, sticky notes are great for doing preliminary project planning–write each task on a sticky note, perhaps categorized by color–and shift them around on a big board to see how tasks fit together.

12. Mind mapping. Feeling stuck in a rut? Not making progress on your goals? Mind mapping can open up new ways of thinking about how you should move forward. You can doodle a mind map on a piece of paper or use mind mapping software. You can choose from open source (e.g., FreeMind), freeware or shareware (e.g., Compendium), or for-purchase (e.g., MindManager).

13. Open-source personal information manager (PIM) on your own web server. Perfect for someone who knows how to hack and wants to customize their information management. Tudu lists is available as source code or in a hosted version. Tracks, built in Ruby, implements GTD and can be installed as desktop software because it comes with a built-in webserver. Gravity GTD also implements GTD.

14. Fancy notebook with a fancy pen. If you love interacting with beautiful, well-made things, maybe this is the choice for you. Moleskine is the most well-known of the prestige notebooks, but it’s not the only one. Paperblanks offers beautifully designed notebooks that are almost works of art in themselves. What kind of pen is worthy of those notebooks? Perhaps a Montblanc or a Conway Stewart.

15. PDA software with its desktop counterpart. For example, Palm devices like the Treo come with Palm Desktop. Makes sync ultra-easy. But you might give up some features you want in your task manager in exchange for ease of synchronization.

16. Desktop to do list app for your PC or Mac. To Do X for Mac allows you to print in many different ways–great if you like to enter and manage tasks online, but print and carry lists with you. There are, of course, lots of shareware options for Windows and Mac including To-do List 2.2.1 for Windows.

17. Or create your own desktop app. If you’re at all familiar with Microsoft Access or another desktop database management program, it’d be easy to create a table of tasks with whatever attributes you want: due date, category, project, and so forth.

18. Outliner software, web or desktop-based. Good if you are managing multiple projects but don’t want the overhead or extra complexity of a project management app with Gantt and PERT charts. Buy a Mac, and you’ll get OmniOutliner. If you’re an RSS geek, you might like to use Dave Winer’s OPML Editor. On Windows, you might try NoteMap. Want to combine your outliner with a mobile PDA? Try the Carson method, one geek’s method that uses OmniOutliner with the Hipster PDA.

19. Online wiki. Free wiki services like PBwiki and Wikispaces make it easy to create, edit, and share web pages. Some wiki platforms support interaction beyond simple creation and editing of pages. Have you heard of Monkey GTD, a “GTD inspired task manager” that uses TiddlyWiki plus plugins to implement getting things done? Here’s Monkey GTD in action.

20. A piece of paper with a pen. Easiest and cheapest. I use looseleaf paper, one page per “context” (at computer, at home, errands, to call) and staple them together. It’s completely mobile, just fold and go, and I love scribbling out items when I complete them.

What tools do you use to manage your to dos? And how do you combine them into an overall system?

If you’re a Simpson’s fan, you’ll remember Principal Skinner’s advice to Bart Simpson in the episode, “Bart the Murderer:”

Principal Skinner: Here’s a whole box of unsealed envelopes for the PTA!
Bart: You’re making me lick envelopes?
P.S.: Oh, licking envelopes can be fun! All you have to do is make a game of it.
Bart: What kind of game?
P.S.: Well, for example, you could see how many you could lick in an hour, then try to break that record.
Bart: Sounds like a pretty crappy game to me.
P.S.: Yes, well… Get started.

Ryan Carson of Carsonified suggests pretty much the same technique for tackling daily tasks, with the twist of counting points to weigh critical tasks more heavily. [Note: Skinner does use this system to save himself from certain death later in the episode, in case you think we're making fun.]

The system was inspired by an article on Printable CEO by David Seah which outlines the program in more detail. And because productivity nuts love a good web app, Rough Underbelly’s Geoffrey Grosenbach has written one to keep track of your score online.

Check out this video by Ryan Carson, a super-organized guy who often blogs earnest explanations of his work methods. For his to-do list, Carson uses a combination of OmniOutliner and Hipster PDA. His method requires quite a bit of dedication on a daily basis, but it’s simple enough for us mortals to imagine giving it a whirl.

Every Monday morning Carson spend a half an hour reviewing his list of tasks and moving items to a “This Week” folder. Then, each day, he culls items from the week for a “Today” folder. At the end of each day, unfinished tasks go back in “This Week.” And while on the go, Carson takes notes on future tasks using pen and paper, and makes a point of inputting them into OmniOutliner upon his return to his desk.

Chris has reviewed Todoz and Stikkit for WWD. Anne is a steadfast devotee of pen and paper. Me? Well… I don’t have a favorite to-do tool at the moment. After watching Carson’s testimonial, I just downloaded OmniOutliner, though. Suffice to say I’d take any suggestions under careful consideration!