Take Back Your Brain! is one year old this week, and what a year it has been! Researching and writing these articles for you has been a fascinating adventure, so thanks to each of you for a great ride.

If you’re a new reader, welcome. I invite you to check out the article index for over 60 articles on the topic of advertising to yourself. I started writing about this topic because I’d been experimenting with some of these techniques and found out that they work. Although I’d never published anything before, it seemed like it would be interesting to share the idea with others to what they think, and it sure has been. Knowing that I need to stay a step ahead on the R & D cycle has also pushed me to keep trying out new advertising techniques, and that in turn has paid off in great stuff happening in my life.

Apparently your favorite article, or at least the one that has been downloaded the most often, was was How to send yourself text messages with Backpack. I think my favorite to write was the Psychology of Persuasion series, because I learned so much reading that research. The project that was the most interesting to live was the RV advertising campaign – the results on that one just blew me away.

I have plenty of new articles planned for 2008, including a series that should be really interesting about the psychological hooks copywriters use. Of course there will also be a bunch of ideas and tips about ways to create and deliver advertising to yourself, using things like Vista widgets, audio reminders, avatars, passwords, and much more. As always, I’ll cover both technical hacks and easy low-tech projects. Plus we’re going to get a pet.

TBYB! will be branching out in a couple of new directions in 2008 as well. Winter quarter I’ll be taking an integrated marketing course, and expect that to provide a lot of new insights about how the big guys do advertising that we can borrow for our own purposes. I’m also planning to take the TBYB! show on the road in the form of talks and workshops. I’ve always loved teaching, so I’m really looking forward to that. Please use the contact form if your group has any interest in bringing me in for a personal marketing workshop, especially if you are in or near the Pacific Northwest area of the United States.

So year two is going to be fun.

But before we get into all that let’s have a birthday party! In the whole month of November 2006 Take Back Your Brain! had about 300 readers. A year later more than 400 people a day download these articles. In October we had over 14,000 visits! I’d love it if some of you would say “hi” in the comments below and let us know that you’re here at the party. Who are you? How have you been using advertising in your life? Which techniques have you tried? What results have you seen? Do you have any ideas of your own to share with us? Come on, don’t be shy! If you haven’t tried it yet, why not? What goals/problems do you have that you’d like to advance with advertising but can’t think of a way to do it? Finally, what topics would you like to see me write about in more depth or more often?

Thanks for reading TBYB! Without you this would not be nearly as much fun! And remember that whatever you think about and imagine yourself doing will happen more. Advertising to yourself is one way – apparently a pretty effective way – to influence what you think about.