Me, a dog and a really nice house

If you haven't heard, seen my posts on Facebook or followed a tweet or two on Twitter...I'm sort of back with the work force.

But not really.  I've agreed to help a really small start up get up and started for no pay.  Why? Because I'm insane. But also because I really think their product has merit, and a need and can change how parents interact with their children when it pertains to the scary world that is the internet.

I'll be sharing statistics with you all soon...but right now, I'd love if you'd check out http://www.screenretriever.com and let me know what you think...I'm talking to you Mommy Bloggers and Daddy Bloggers. You "get" technology and I'll be hitting you all up for ideas and suggestions, don't you worry.

But for now, I haven't had my first official start date with them yet so I'm not going to say much more - and I'm  trying to learn better time management so I don't give all my free time away for free, literally. 

If there are any Mamas or Dads who want to offer their expansive network a discount on Screen Retriever, let me know.  That can be arranged :)

Oh, and the dog? His name is Tucker. He's awesome.  And the really nice house...that's the headquarters for now.  I have staircase and finished basement-envy.

How you been? Good summer so far?

Hey there visitors. How's it going?

Me? I'm hanging in there.

I'd love to share some pictures with you from our recent vacation but I can't. You see, on Thursday, about 5 hours after my last and final meeting for my "old" job, my laptop from my "old" job that I was using and borrowing for a few weeks while I cleaned it and moved some files and did some final projects decided that since I no longer had a job, it no longer needed to work.

It quit. Kaput. No juice. No power. No battery. No reboot. Black screen of death.

So, all those pictures I had recently uploaded to post on facebook are sitting on that dead laptop. Along with my iTunes folder, resume, crackberry software, passwords, cookies, etc.

I'm holding off on buying a new laptop until work things are figured out and will be relying on our little netbook which gives me a browser and a trial version of Microsoft Office to post and stay in touch.  Excuse me if there a bunch of typos -this puppy has a keyboard the size of a slice of bread. We're still figuring out how to work together.

Hope your 4th was fun. See you soon.

Natures calm

When things are beyond your control and it seems like you'll never get back to that place that was so familiar and comfortable, nature has a sweet way of reminding you to stop...breathe...and instills a welcome calm into the madness.

Sunset   June 28, 2010

Tipped upside down

I always proclaim, "It's harder to find a new job when you have a job, then when you don't!"

I guess I'm about to find out if that is true.

Sneaking around on job interviews and to meetings is so stressful when you are unhappy at your place of work. The lies. The fake sick days. Ugh.  However, when you love your place of work, it is just as stressful to find out that you no longer have that happy place. The shock. The sadness. The despair. Ugh.

My draft post for last week was supposed to be a tribute to my husband and my Dad for Father's Day.  Instead, that got dumped in a bucket when I found out that the world as I have known it for 3 years was about to change.

I explained to my children what happened so they wouldn't be freaked out when I started picking food out of the garbage and shouting (more than normal) "This toast is too damn expensive to throw away without eating the crust!" My daughter started brainstorming ideas. They are as follows:

Work at school
Work at a restaurant "You'd be really good at that" (been there, done that)
Work at the Mall (her favorite pick)

and after her shower last night:

Work at....uhm...well...I can't think of any more

Yeah kid, neither can I.

Onward. Upward. Outward. Chin up. Can't cry until they foreclose on the house. There are no tears in unemployment.

Keep the wine away. The pity party could get ugly.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

I tweet. A lot. At least for me it's a lot. For some it may not be much and for others it's insane.

I have followers that are from my Mom network. I have followers from my Business network.  And then I just have followers. Not sure who some of them are, but I don't care. If they get any value from what I tweet, well then I'm glad to oblige.

I also follow a bunch of people. Smart people. Funny people. Celebrities. Sports fans. Beach lovers and foodies. There is usually a common interest and a reason to engage.

I often get asked by folks who aren't sure if they should join Twitter how it can work for them - that applies to both individuals who are looking to be social and businesses looking for prospects.  I can't explain what it can do for you personally, or professionally, but I did want to share my latest Twitter story to give you something to think about, if you are on the fence.

So, here is my personal case study on the joy of Twitter:

I was reading through my stream of tweets  recently, catching up on news, information, jokes, and updates when I saw a retweet (fancy term for copy and paste) from someone mentioning an iPad contest.  I checked out the link in her tweet, read the rules, and learned all you had to do was retweet the same message/link and follow the President of a company on Twitter and Voila! you'd be entered.

Not hard at all. I didn't have to provide field after field of data on some form about myself or my company.  I didn't have to "like" a fan page on Facebook.  I just had to follow a guy who seemed pretty intelligent and could actually provide some insight and tips for my job and then let others know I followed him in case they wanted to join in.

The result?  Check it out for yourself:

Congratulations iPad Winner!

In conjunction with our sponsorship and presentation at Silverpop’s recent Annual Client Summit in Atlanta, The Annuitas Group connected with almost 1,000 B2B marketing professionals both attending and not attending the conference. We did so by encouraging marketers to follow Carlos Hidalgo, President and co-founder of The Annuitas Group, on Twitter, and to enter to win an iPad. Congratulations to @christinelexa, the winner. 

On the business side (NO they did not pay me for this post - although in all honesty if I hadn't won I wouldn't have shared this story) this an example of how Twitter can increase prospects and is also about why community is important and how one satisfied person in your network can generate some brand awareness by simply bragging, "Hey!! I won an iPad from Annuitas Group!!" And you never know how many people that one person touches when it comes to social media (for example,  I have over 1,000 people following me and you never know how many those 1,000 have).

On the personal side, I took my iPad to bed last night - so that one little tweet was totally worth the 2 seconds it took to cut and paste 140 characters!  Now, to think of a clever name for it because iPad is lame on so many levels...