Category Archives: Tech Tools

Intel “What About Me?” – Picture Of Your Digital Life (Twitter Party)

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Like many entrepreneurs these days, I share my professional brand and parts of my personal life online using various social media platforms. While my main focus online is to curate the most relevant tech information , I also consider myself a fashionista who has found stylish heels that can make it through a week at Consumer Electronics Show (fashion), clueless in the kitchen and always looking for easy recipes (food) and a number one fan of her twin sons’ Little League baseball team (sports).  But I do wonder what a snapshot of my digital life would look like. That is why I was excited to try a tool created by Intel called “What About Me?”. The tool captured a snapshot of my social media life in an infographic to represent the topics and updates I share.

 

 

So, what would a snapshot of your digital life look like? Here are the steps to create your own digital snapshot:

 

Step 1: Visit the “What About Me?” page and follow the prompts and approvals to add your Twitter, YouTube and/or connect with Facebook:

 

 

 

 

Step 2: Wait until it processes – and run a mouse over the circles to have some fun while waiting.

 

 

 

 

Next, click on the results and see your digital life. There image has different areas that cover the topics, stories, popular updates, pictures, mood, connections and when you clock in.  The areas represent different types of updates – but it mainly covers Facebook. There are also buttons to share the results on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Google+ and save as an image.

 

 

 

 

What shocked me about my results? Please join co-hosts @IntelEdge @LittleTechGirl @TechMama as well as panelists @TechSavvyMama @Tech4Moms @scrappinmichele and @c2cmom for a Twitter Party where we share our results and discuss how we use social media (and hope to find out how you use yours). After the Twitter Party I will update this post with my results and a video discussion on the topic.

 

 

Details:

Intel “What About Me?” Twitter Party
Date: Thursday May 17 5-7pm pst (7-9pm cst and 8-10pm est)

Co-hosts: @IntelEdge @LittleTechGirl @TechMama  Panelists: @TechSavvyMama @Tech4Moms @scrappinmichele and @c2cmom

Hashtag: #IntelSocialButterfly
Create a snapshot of your social media life by visiting this link http://bit.ly/JNQUwk  to create your own infographic. Then share your results and how you use social media during the Twitter Party.
Prizes are: Five (5) $50 Best Buy gift cards and (1) $250 Best Buy gift card will be randomly awarded.
To qualify for the prizes please follow 3 steps: (1) please RSVP here (link will be added TBD) , (2) tweet out your What About Me? image with the hashtag #Intelsocialbutterfly and (3) participate in the Twitter Party.
For details and contest rules visit Little Tech Girl and TechMamas (click to bottom of this post link for contest rules).

 

 

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Intel. All opinions are my own.

 

 

Also check out CoolMomTech ‘s also post on the What About Me tool

 

 

SOCIAL BUTTERFLY TWITTER SWEEPSTAKES Official Rules:

 

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Connecting With Ricki Lake – Tech Accessories To Extend Battery Life

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phone out of chargeAdvances in technology such as 4G, video streaming, social networking, high definition digital pictures/video and morphing the features of smartphones, tablets and laptops in “all in one” devices has offered so many new ways to create, share and consume media. The biggest challenge created by all of these new feature-packed devices are keeping them charged.  For my action packed week at CES (Consumer Electronics Show), I thought I came prepared with different mobile chargers for my smartphone and laptop – but nothing prevented the dreaded (what I call) the black screen of “your device is out of power, and will be shutting down” (nooo…)

 

As one of the Founding Members of the Friends of Ricki (Lake), I had the fun opportunity to ask her questions about her favorite tech devices. On the same topic that happens to be my daily challenge, Ricki Lake shared with me a tech accessory that keeps her phone charged:

 

 

 

 

 

The device Ricki Lake discussed in her video is one of the cases made by Mophie that also charges the battery.  This all-in-one device does not take away from your battery life – it actually charges it. What a great recommendation!

 

My journey at CES did not include a Mophie case only because the cases are not yet made for Android phones. Mophie does make a portable Powerstation that can be used with smartphones or tablets that I had on my list to try. But it was not until I arrived at the CES Mophie booth that I saw a demo of what I hope will be the answer to my battery-charging challenge: Mophie Powerstation PRO.
.Mophie Powerstation PRO

 

The Mophie Powerstation PRO has an expected release date of March 2012 for $130 on Mophie.com and will work with many USB-enabled devices including smartphones, iPads and other tablets. The 6000 mAh battery capacity (the Mophie Powerstation has only 4000mAh),  impact-resistant exterior combined with up to 2.1amp, high-output charging would of kept me going throughout the long days of CES. I look forward to giving the Mophie Powerstation PRO a test run when it comes out, with the hopes that someday my device’s batteries will actually last throughout the day.

 

What are your favorite ways to charge your devices?

 

 

 

Building Your Fashion+Tech Professional Brand Online

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Tonight I am thrilled to be speaking at the FASHION+TECHSF Presents: Mentors & Apprentices event in San Francisco about social media branding. My fellow speakers are NEELU JAIN (Founder of Soulstice & Allergy Haven and Strategic Consultant for Grow Think & Madera Group), JOANNA RILEY WEIDENMILLER (CEO/Founder of The One Page Company  & Partner of 360 Fashion Network ) and LILI BALFOUR ( Founder of Atelier Advisors). Moderators are  OWEN GERONIMO  (San Francisco Fashion And Merchants Alliance, Inc. &  San Francisco Fashion Week ™ / CEO/FOUNDER) and  BRAD CARRICK  CEO of Solz Shoes. The event was at the San Francisco location of the FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.


Because there is a “fashion” focus to this event (a topic I enjoy discussing), I decided to take a look at some social media branding resources relevant for those in fashion and design careers (both of which have many aspects of technology).

 

My advice to a student in fashion/design looking for work after they graduate (or someone changing careers) is to create an online brand for themselves. This “brand” should be focused on the professional niche related to your career goals.

 

 

Step1: Create Your Online Brand

 

 

About.me

 

Building a professional brand means that you need to define what that brand is then translate that online. Forbes wrote an article titled “The First Step To Building Your Personal Brand” which covers many of the main branding points.   In general, I suggest to build an online brand you need to:  define your “professional”  brand, setup your brand online, define and connect with other relevant brands/communities and then set up a daily social media schedule. Guy Kawaski’s book Enchantment is a great resource for tips on engaging with a social media community. A key part of building the brand will be investing in the right devices and resources such as a laptop, tablet, smartphone, digital camera, video camera, professional headshot/logo and “outsourced” training  (web designer, video training) when needed.

 

The first part of setting up your brand online is to create a landing page. Lifehacker posted with the “Best professional NamePlate Sites” including About.me, Flavors.me, Zerply, Re.vu. A  good example of About.me is Owen Geronimo’s page.

 

Two professional sites to look into are Intern Sushi  (a great resource for finding Internships) and LinkedIn professional networking site.  For LinkedIn, an example of a professional page is from one of co-speakers from the event Joanna Weidenmiller – CEO, The One Page Company. The One Page Company has great information on tools needed to create a  1 Page Job Proposal. Another fellow speaker,  Lily Balfour – Founder of Atelier Advisors,  also has a great LinkedIn page.

 

Another alternative for setting up a landing page is to set up a blog or website. I self-hosted my about page on my blog TechMamas.com.  Neelu Jain (a fellow panelists) also has a great landing page. An example of a fashion blogger that has an about page on her blog is Mira Torres of Beauty Bohemian.

 

 

Step 2: Set up your brand online and connect with your community

 

 

The next step is develop your social media channels to curate, share and develop an online community.  The brand on your social media channels should match your professional brand. It is important to keep any personal sharing on your social media platforms to information that is “public” and fits with your brand. This step will be the “daily” process as maintaining social media channels requires daily interaction. Here is a list of some of the top social media channels:

 

Twitter is a “micro blogging” social media platform to share whats going on at that moment (in 140 characters).  Twitter is highly relevant because the information shared is very current. The community on Twitter is engaging and it is a great platform to reach out and gather a public following.  My TechMama twitter feed is focused on the niche of curating content for family technology & social media and has let to accolades such as Time 140 Best Twitter Feeds, Working Mother.com List of Most Powerful Moms in Social Media and PCMag twitter top 100 ). Twitter also plays an important part with Fashion week including “live tweeting” fashion shows.  SF Fashion Week also has a Twitter ID that is a must follow for anyone that follows fashion. The FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising main site and the  Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising’s Career Center are on Twitter to share current updates.

 

Creating a Facebook page with your professional branding will allow you to interact with your community on Facebook.    H&M, Zara and Burberry are good examples of fashion brands with interactive Facebook pages.  Mari Smith has a Facebook page that focuses on her professional image of Facebook Marketing. Getting Gorgeous has a fashion focused Facebook page for the mom community. Ricki Lake is coming out with her new talk show next fall, but has already started a social TV community called “FriendsofRicki” which has a great Facebook page. The key to Facebook interaction to not only share your own content – but share other relevant content to your brand and interact with your Facebook community by asking questions or sharing thoughts that spark discussion.

 

Video: YouTube & Livestream for creating a video and/or livestream presence: NYMag had a list of 50 Livestream and videos for last Spring’s New York Fashion Week.  The San Francisco Fashion Week site shared across multi-media platforms.

 

Google+: For social search purposes, create a “professional” Google+ presence to share content relevant to your brand. Owen Geronimo also has a good example of a Google+ page. Setting up a Google+ Page can also enable you to appear on Google+ related people and pages, one of the new parts of the Google social search features.

 

Pinterest:  Pinterest is one of the top sites for sharing visual content – especially those with a design focus. Mashable picked the ” 10 Most-Followed Users on Pinterest – one of which is a design student from Boston name Caitlin Cawley has over 790,000 followers. One local Pinterest example is SF Indie Fashion’s board. Another example is the Independent Fashion Bloggers boards. One of my main (TechMama) Pinterest board’s. focus is on Interesting tech I find each day to match with my “tech” niche. The Pinterest boards with the top following are design and crafts (including photos of handmade items in Etsy).

 

Blogging on WordPress or other blogging platforms: Fashion Bloggers are making a big splash with their online fashion coverage which means starting a fashion blog can lead to big opportunities. Tumblr is a “micro” blogging platform that is used for shorter versions of blog posts. Whether you either work for a fashion company – or work for yourself – creating a blog is a great way to share your voice online and identify yourself as an influencer. A video by Coveted Media discusses the impact of Fashion Bloggers. There are many blogging communities to connect with, but a few such as  Fashion Bloggers Connect, Independent Fashion Bloggers and BlogHer have communities of fashion bloggers.   360Fashion also has a blogger network of Fashion Professionals. One of the key features of a fashion blog is either beautiful digital pictures or high quality video that showcases the artistic and design skills of the blog author. Because of this focus on design, choosing a high quality digital photo or video camera (and getting training if needed) will be important to the success of a fashion blog.

 

There are many other social media platforms if you have time! Please do share your favorites.

 

 

Adventures in Budgeting With The American Express Prepaid Card

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see disclosures at bottom of post*

My new career blogging about technology began after I left full time employment in the field of technology consulting to focus on raising three wonderful boys. Blogging introduced me to an amazing social media community, not only online but also at meetups, conferences and social media events. Even though I had traveled plenty for business before having kids, I found traveling for my own business very different than traveling for an employer. It really started to add up. First a conference ticket, then a hotel and taxi. Add in food and a “must have” new pair of shoes, as well as other assorted travel expenses, and I seemed to always exceed my target for travel expenses. Like others who followed a passion that lead to a business, I too learned a little too late that when running your own company, budgeting is a must.

 

OK, maybe I did not need the new pair of shoes and a new outfit, but considering I spend most work days at home dressed in sweats, I like to spruce it up a bit for business conferences.

 

So instead of spending less – I increased the budget. This works for the trip – but when I return home reality takes over. I need better fiscal control.

 

Enter American Express Prepaid Card for my trip to BlogWorld LA and my first attempt to stay on budget.

 

 

Business Trip Tips Using The American Express Prepaid Card from Beth Blecherman on Vimeo.

 

For my trip to BlogWorld Los Angeles in November, I used the American Express prepaid card to manage my spending and pre-loaded it with, for the first time, only the amount in my budget. Because it is prepaid I could only spend the amount I loaded on the card.

 

 

As a first step, I estimated how much the hotel, airfare and travel expenses would cost for the trip. I even included funds for a new shirt. Next, I signed up for the American Express prepaid card a few weeks in advance so that I could load only the *budgeted* amount onto the card. Signing up for the card was easy, and although it took a few weeks to set up, I was happy that the validation steps were put in place to protect me. One feature that helped me manage my spending was not paying any fees: The American Express prepaid card has no annual, customer services, overdraft or transaction fees. No fees saves me money.

 

Before Blogworld, I used the American Express prepaid card to pay for airfare, register for an Expo pass and buy a new blue shirt.  Examining the card’s balance, I decided to close my eyes and walk past the beautiful new pair of shoes in the store window, wearing a pair from my closet instead. At Blogworld, I used the prepaid card for my hotel, meals, incidentals and taxis. Easily checking the balance online, I verified there was had enough left over to take a business associate out to lunch. Arriving home after Blogworld, trip complete and budget met, there were no remaining funds on the card. For the first time in a while, I had stuck to my budget.

 

Another neat feature of American Express prepaid card is that I can order up to three cards. if I hired a personal assistant, I can give that person a card to cover their business purchases. And when I hire a video editor (my son, he’s 12 years old and VERY talented, that is my unbiased opinion of course) – I can give him a card to buy new video editing software.  Because the card is prepaid, it would also protect me from any un-expected purchases my son may spontaneously decide to attempt (like a new video game or 2). He will need to wait for his birthday for that!

 

Disclosure: Travel Expenses for my trip to Blogworld were covered by (and on) The American Express Prepaid Card.

 

Technology Enabled Remote Working

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Like many in the technology industry, I gave up my desk long ago and adopted the lifestyle of a mobile worker. First as an international auditor for a large pharmaceutical firm and then as a consultant for Deloitte, I was frequently traveling and remote work was just part of the job.  Clients’ offices were frequently outfitted with all the technology and infrastructure to get the job done. It wasn’t a struggle at all. Now, as a work-at-home mom and entrepreneur, I continue to see the value of working remotely and the need to create a professional remote work infrastructure.

The WhiteHouse.gov recently published a study on remote work that found “Almost one-third of firms cite costs or limited funds as obstacles to implementing workplace flexibility arrangements. However, the benefits of adopting such management practices can outweigh the costs by reducing absenteeism, lowering turnover, improving the health of workers, and increasing productivity.”

My own informal study of neighborhood parents who travel each morning to work outside of the home confirms that while their companies may offer some flexibility to work remotely, they also require that a majority of the work be done at the office. Why? Can’t a video teleconference or online collaboration do the job just as effectively? Why don’t more companies save travel time and costs by offering the option to work remotely?

Collaboration is certainly important, but with many online collaboration tools now available a face to face meeting is not essential. Remote working arrangements enable working mothers and fathers with great skills and family commitments (i.e. child or elder care) to return to work.

Some of the true trailblazers for remote work are my fellow social media mom entrepreneurs. Many of them have day jobs at an office while also working at home, and all of them have harnessed the latest and greatest gadgets to make sure they can work remotely on a flexible schedule. This may even include a conference call while waiting in the school carpool lane (oh wait – I did that yesterday).

 

Kris Cain (LittleTechieGirl), Michele Rasner McGraw (Scraps of My Geek Life) and Lori Cunningham  (WellConnectedMom)  shared with me their list of remote work technologies, including online storage and productivity sites, smartphones, tablets, laptops, chargers, Bluetooth keyboards, cameras, accessories (device cases), storage (i.e. the EyeFi card) and most importantly, mobile broadband options to stay connected. Here are some of the key technologies in their and my “office on the go.”

Computers: My laptop and netbook are my workhorse devices. At home I have a laptop with a 17” screen and top features including a fast processor, lots of RAM and plenty of storage. For mobile use I have a netbook, small and light enough to fit into my purse. But after seeing the new Ultrabooks, the latest thinner and lighter laptops, I may just need to add one to my suite of mobile tools.

 

Tablet: I use my tablet mostly for media consumption and light work tasks. It also offers a wide range of entertainment and education apps for my kids.

 

Smartphone: One of my top remote work tools is a smartphone. Beyond making calls, smartphones enable work on the go with mobile productivity apps, voice dictation, internet browsing, document editing and updating of your professional network.

Online collaboration and productivity tools: I use online tools to create, store, share and collaborate on work projects. As my business grows, I realize that I also need professional suites of productivity tools for support (and recovery) of my work projects.

 

Broadband: There are multiple personal broadband devices that allow one (or more) people to connect mobile devices to the Internet on the go. While WiFi is available in many locations, mobile broadband offers access independent of location. At my home office, I upgraded the wireless router and broadband to the fastest available in my neighborhood.

 

Video conferencing: As computer features improve, so does the quality of video conferencing on computers. I use video conferencing for everything from basic meetings to paid presentations.

 

Wireless accessories: At my home office I enjoy using a big ergonomic keyboard and mouse. For remote work, I have a selection of wireless devices including Bluetooth keyboards, headsets, mouse and storage devices. Really – who needs wires anymore these days?

 

Fashionable devices bags and cases: I always say that tech is the new fashion statement so I prefer laptop bags, cases and accessories that not only protect my devices but also add a touch of my personal style. When it comes to tech accessories, I say colors and dynamic designs are the new black.

 

This commentary is part of Microsoft’s Your Office, Your Terms Forum  – http://msft.it/YOYT  #Blog #YOYT

TRY Office 365 today for Free – http://msft.it/try

 

Test Drive: Using VoIP for My Home Business Solution

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Many work at home moms use their home or cell phones for their business calls. I just recently had the chance to review another alternative for work at home communications (or for any businesses): VoIP. VoIP is not a word many recognize, but it simply means a communications protocol over the Internet. So when using VoIP, instead of make calls using a cell services, an internet connection is used.

Alteva is a cloud (or internet) based communications solution. The phone I am testing is a wireless business phone that will be using the Alteva solution. I am excited to try it for a couple of reasons.

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