More and more I’m thinking about this blog and what its purpose will become over the next year, or two years, or five years. With the social media landscape being completely different now than it was a year ago. How will people continue to share information with each other?

I’m getting more and more of the viral videos and updates from Facebook , and more of my articles and research through RSS. For now I’m going to continue using both this blog and my facebook account to keep people updated.

Right now I’m using facebook to post things that don’t necessarily have a long ‘information lifespan’, and instead use the blog where I want to post content that I think should stick around for longer. Plus the blog acts like a personal diary rather than just a string of updates. Something I can look back on to see what things were like. There’s only a few of you who read this blog whenever I make updates, and most of the traffic comes from the long-tail of google search results.

For those of you who do read my blog, thank you for giving me the gift of your time! I will continue to blog in 2010, though its certainly going to take a back seat to all the other exciting things I have planned.

PS: Here’s a cool magic video I found on youtube last night. (Skip to 40 seconds in)

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Life has been super busy, but in a good way! The Christmas season is going to get absolutely insane starting this weekend for the next few weeks. I’ve been booked for the usual Family Christmas events, Company banquet events, birthday parties, pre-schools, and even a funeral home. The funeral home is a repeat booking from last year, and I had a blast performing for a group of people who needed a smile in their lives.

Thanks for stopping by, I’ve got magic to practice. ttyl.

PS: Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.

Sneak peek- Listen below to the Ali K. Zam Productions “Season of Magic” radio commercial that will be airing on AM1150!

Planning a Christmas Party in Kelowna, West Kelowna (Westbank), Peachland, Summerland, Penticton, or Vernon? Check out my various Christmas Party entertainment packages!

Well its time for a vacation and like last year I’m headed off to the magic center of the world – Las Vegas! I’ll try and take lots of pictures and footage while I’m there and post some of it when I get back home.

Below is some footage I recorded for my monthly Magical Moments newsletter (You can sign up for it here).

Kelowna Magician Leif David from Ali K. Zam Productions performs Magic on the Streets.

I read an interesting quote the other day; I think @tferris posted it on Twitter. It was something like “If you feel like you’ve got everything under control… you aren’t moving fast enough”. An interesting idea.. and sometimes it sure does feel that way!

I’m kind of a control freak, which is probably my best quality but not all of the time! This month I have a huge list of goals that I want to complete, but it sure can be challenging when you’ve got so many shows to do.

I love it though. I love performing. Over the past couple weeks I’ve been invited to perform for a fundraiser gala evening, a grand opening, a school fun fair, a BBQ event, an afterschool care center, and a birthday party. I love being able to perform in different venues for different types of people, it keeps things interesting. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the shows I have booked this month as well. More birthday’s, more school events, a large children’s show, and a huge family event and a few others—Woohoo!

Between all those shows I’m excited about all the projects I’m working on too. For those of you who receive my Magical Moments eNewsletter you’ll know that I just launched a brand new website for brides who are looking for Kelowna Wedding entertainment. I love the tagline of “Write the story of your wedding with magic.” While building the site I had my older sister and her friends critique my site and all the girls were disappointed that they already had their weddings because they thought that having a magician was such a great idea! Many people immediately just think of only a DJ for their wedding, but there are so many benefits of adding a magician to your wedding to entertain your guests. By far my favourite show option, and my most popular option, is Mingling Magic. I have a few wedding shows coming up this summer and I know I’ll have a blast. Everybody at weddings is always in such a great mood.

Also I’ve just ordered some new banner stands for my show. I got some printed up last year, but they need to be updated. I’ll post some pictures of them once I receive them.

I hope you’re all enjoying the nice weather we’re FINALLY getting here in the Okanagan. Until next time, take care.

I love networking events. This week there was a Business After Hours for the Westbank Chamber. There were something like 16 people who had RSVP’ed for the event, but there ended up being about 60 people there! It was a great opportunity to mix and mingle with different people from local businesses. I met some great people and a few of them were also interested in hiring me for different events. The next afterhours is coming up again in just a few weeks and I’m hoping it’s going to be just as big.

I’m really excited because on May 14th at Nk’mip Cellars in Osoyoos is going to be the the 11th Annual Vally Wide Afterhours! Last year this was the best networking event for me and I had a blast meeting people and performing some magic.

For more information on the Chamber or their events check out www.WestbankChamber.com

This week I got together with another magician from out of town and worked on some magic together. I always love getting together with other magicians and performers- It never fails to provide fuel and inspiration for whatever I’m working on at the time.

I’m slowly working on some new material that will eventually work itself into my Children’s Stage Show, and my Adult Stage Show. I’m really excited about the new magic I’m working on. I really feel that it matches my performing style, and the magic is so strong, I know my audiences will love it! I’ve recently added a new piece to my close-up/mingling magic and the reactions have been really great. It’s a trick that I’ve been working on for a while now, I’m glad that I’ve gotten it to a point where it fits in with the rest of my close-up material.

I’m always amazed when I look back on material that gets added into my show, and how long it takes to find its way there. There have been a few effects that I’ve been working on for a few years now, but no matter what I do they don’t fit. And then in other cases there’s new material that just fit me right away, and after just a few months of practice it finds its way into the show.

Hopefully the new effects I’m working on make their way into the show sometime soon- I look forward to sharing them with you.

Today I had two really awesome shows. The first one was some mingling magic at the Lil’ Sproutz Children’s Market. There were a bunch of young families there with their young children making for a really great atmosphere. One of the little girls had seen me before and was really excited to see me perform again- she was telling me about all the tricks she saw me perform and how much she loved them. I love having fans.

There was also another family who had seen me perform last year at Westside Daze and were wondering if I would be there again this year. Yes, I’ll be performing at Westside Daze again this year. The date hasn’t been finalized yet, but it will probably be on Saturday July 4th during the Children’s day. For the first time, this year the Saturday is going to feature a FULL DAY designed especially for kids including children’s entertainment all day long. I’m really excited about this because it means that there’s going to be a huge audience for my Children’s Stage Show.

Also Westside Daze 2009 is also going to have West Coast Amusement Midway and Amusement Park. Apparently it’s the only stop they make in the Okananagan, so even for the big kids this year will be an event you do NOT want to miss.

My second show today was a birthday party show for a 7 year old girl who invited over 11 of her closest friends. The show went really well and everyone had a blast. I’m constantly tweaking various tricks on my show, and there’s one routine that I’ve been tweaking recently and I’m very very happy with the results.

I love learning new time management skills. As an entrepreneur the greatest skill you require is that of continued motivation, self control, and focus. Sounds easy enough, but for most … it’s an impossible task.

Fellow magician and magic business teacher Eric Paul has often mentioned the benefit of taking chunks of time to stay focused on a single task and work on it without being interrupted. He advocates the use of an egg timer. You sit down at your computer ready to work, you close the door, turn off the phone, turn off the email, turn off the Facebook and messenger, set the egg timer to an hour, and begin your focused work.

It sounded like a great idea, I even went out looking for an egg timer! Sadly though I couldn’t find one. I forgot about the time management technique- until today.

I was watching a video blog by Tim Ferris, Author of “The 4 Hour Workweek”, and he mentioned a website called www.e.ggtimer.com. E.ggtimer is an online virtual “egg timer”. You can set it for 5 seconds, 5 minutes, 5 hours, or however long you want. Once the time is up the alarm goes off. I’ve added this website to my quick launch bar in Firefox . Now it will always be ready at my fingertips.

I haven’t fully had time to rigorously test the “egg timer” yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a great tip. Why not try it yourself?

Set an hour aside to work on a task that you’ve been delaying for far too long.

Only 59minutes and 59 seconds to go- Now get working!

On Saturday April 4th from 10:30-11:30am I will be performing at the Lil’ Sproutz Children’s Boutique performing mingling magic. The entire event runs from 10:00am-2:00pm at Evangel Church in Kelowna BC @ 3261 Gordon Drive.

Lil’ Sproutz is a new West Kelowna company that sells gently used and new children’s clothing. For more information about the event or Lil’ Sproutz please contact Sarah at (250)212-9227.