Our plan was not as smooth sailing as we had hoped it would be, but we managed to pull it off.  The MiFi 2200 is supposed to support up to five devices, but we were unable to get it to support more than two of us.  We found out this was because we did not yet have 4G access in our area.  Even with one or two people, the connection was not constant.  There were several times throughout the day where everyone using the MiFi 2200 lost connection and had to wait for it to return.  Unfortunately, we did not have the most convenient timing.  In fact, we barely missed a major expansion of the Verizon 4G network in our city!

MiFi 2200 Mobile Hotspot

We had fewer problems with the other MiFi devices.  Both of the other devices plug right into the USB port and come with software to install.  After plugging them in and installing the software, most of us had no problems establishing a connection and staying connected.  The connection was even fairly quick.  I had no issues playing streaming video on YouTube with the USB UM175.  However, a coworker was unable to get it to work for his PC.  We are not sure why it wouldn’t connect.  I have a PC as well and we followed the same process to set it up.  We also tested the UM175 on a Mac and had no issues.

Even though we hit a few potholes along the way, we are grateful that the Verizon WiFi devices were able to sustain our internet connection during the week we were waiting to get our internet provider to move our access point.  When working properly, the connection was efficient enough to run our business.  However, its a good thing it wasn’t any more than a week!

If you are considering buying the USB UM175, UML290, or MiFi 2200 3G Mobile Hotspot, we recommend doing your homework first!  Try to seek advice from people who have your operating system and have used the model you are considering.  Also, find out if anyone near your location is using it and if the connection is strong in the area.  If you take the time to make sure they will work for your location and setup, Verizon MiFi devices can be very handy!

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HR departments are having to reorganize all that their system entails to please the generation who refuses to live to work. So who is asking for too much? It is a matter of change and accepting change. It is hard to believe that no one can see the good in this generation – a generation that thrives on creativity rather than money, who would rather own a small business than work for a large one – a generation that truly does not understand what the hold up has been on green energy and refuses to move anywhere but forward – a generation that wants the time to enjoy life and success while they’re still young rather than waste away in an office building just to say they’re “productive” or “responsible”.

Generation Y wants more money for less face-time, notice I said “face-time”. Who said we need brick and mortar to be considered “working”? I wrote a post a while back on Social Media Mom, that discussed the digital revolution, one very interesting avenue big businesses were taking was working through avatars. Yes, this is initially very creepy, but think of the freedom. Of course, the host who was not a fellow “generation-y-not?”, sadly walked through the empty building that was once littered with busy people who couldn’t wait for lunch. Where were they? They were at home, cleaning the house, drinking tea, and dressing their avatars to meet colleagues from China in a digital conference room. Uh Sweet! Seriously though, there is an unease because the change is so great, but the work is creative and it still makes money – which is what we are all so worried about anyway, right?

It is true, Human Resources will have to get new statistics, maybe change their testing process – however, it will have to change eventually, why not now when it is for the better? We want the generations to speak out rather than lash out, and really think – is this really a matter of laziness or is this simply a resistance to change?

Jennifer Kane got me thinking. Her wonderfully well-written take on this year’s SXSW Interactive was definitely on point. However, I’d like to take you on a trip from my POV in what this place does to you.

credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET

SXSW surprisingly teaches you a fair amount about yourself. Not a self-reliance trip like Burning Man might, but more about your limits (dehydration + walking + drinking + no sleep = SXSW every 2 years), as well as how you define success. Quite rightly, Jennifer talks about the mass over-consumption that bigger is better and hey, let’s all throw exclusive parties! Naked! With dancing electric chickens!

Look, there’s nothing wrong with partying. Just don’t pretend that it’s a business trip.

Maybe I don’t spend enough time at the panels, but I feel like I really don’t get much from them. The keynote/popular ones usually get mobbed before you can get there since your over ADD enhanced reality can’t take it anymore to just walk a b-line to the conference room (which by the way, was in more venues than ever).

You don’t necessarily need conferences to get good at what you do.

You need to learn how to work your ass off and never stop learning. Don’t expect a 1 hour panel to show you more than that. So I think Jennifer’s points are valid. Getting the inside tracks of info behind the panels rock. And you build rapport with people over time.

For me, I was able to get the things I needed to get done for the most part, and that was to reinforce relationships I’ve been building for some time.

Success suddenly seems hard to quantify. We live in a success driven world. But what is success? Checking a bunch of things that you had on your to do list? Doing tasks for the sake of getting them done?

I think not.

Refocusing is important. I went through a stretch where I slept 9 hours over 3 days. Part of me was saying “but there’s so much to do!”

You’ve got to stay focused. Yet, SXSW certainly has given us the opposite of that. it is physically impossible to get everything done. There’s always that one more meeting, one more check-in on Foursquare. One more party.

Less is more. When you stop trying to “get everything done” and embrace that you’ll notice you would actually get nothing done in the pursuit of everything.

By staying focused on a few key areas, I felt that this event was a success:

1 – Helping our clients with created new and develop existing connections. You can’t expect everything to be the next Twitter overnight. Twitter sure didn’t.

2 – Meeting a number of people that I’ve known for a while online but never met in person. Having real face time and meaningful conversations rocks.

3 – Meeting people I’ve never met and spoken to. this is a certain realm of when all our “careful planning” efforts meets serendipity and some really cool stuff happens. I had a chance to go to the show floor and see some great, some not so great technology. I met lots of great people when going to places I hadn’t planned and that was a wonderful feeling and result.

You’ll notice that sleep didn’t make the list.
That comes now.

Instead, many site owners hide their Excalibur (or light saber, if that’s more your thing) in a dark corner somewhere and rarely bring it out into daylight. But, if you’re brave enough to fight off the spiders, bats, and killer dust bunnies, you’ll be able to expand and grow your business far beyond its current expectations.

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Where Businesses Go Wrong

I love writing and I love working with my clients, but if there’s one thing that drives me around the bend, it’s this common scenario:

A client contacts me looking for a piece of link bait, buzz content, or a marketing plan. So, I have them fill out a profile, we discuss goals, direction, and all the other specifics. But, as soon as it comes to choosing a topic, they disagree with every one of my suggestions. In the end, they choose a standard topic with a frame that confines their article to ‘safe’ subjects and constraints. The piece never generates much attention, and they end up disappointed.

Now, I’m not saying I always come up with the best topics to match a business all the time. I’m human. But, these clients turn down most good topic suggestions because they’re terrified. They’re scared stiff they might upset or offend someone. They’re worried they may come off looking silly or stupid and damage the brand they’ve worked so hard to build. Sadly, they likely do more damage to themselves by not taking a risk than they ever would have if they’d have just bit the bullet and done something a little differently.

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Bring Out the Chutzpah!

If you look at the Internet’s most successful people, particularly big-name bloggers, you’ll see they have one common trait: they’re not afraid to get creative. They’re different and not afraid to cause backlash, offend someone, or have someone walk away hard feelings. They’re not trying to fit into a specific mold, or at least not a standard one. Most struggling companies and websites, however, are.

When companies fail get creative, they fail to demonstrate to a visitor or potential customer they’re different or better than their competition. And let’s face it, this is vital. If I go car shopping, I look for the one that makes me go ‘Yes! That’s the one I want’. If I want to buy a dress, I look for the one that looks better than all the rest. When I vote for a political figure, I vote for the one that stood out as being different and portraying the type of person I want representing me. If you don’t stand out, there’s no reason for someone to choose you!

Even businesses in the real world are learning this hard reality. Take the Apple/PC commercials, for example. One of the reasons they’ve been so successful is because they were funny, but they’re also quite creative. They appear different from any other commercial that’s been on TV or Internet lately. Comparing themselves directly to PC was risky, and let’s face it, they could have been facing some serious legal trouble had they done it wrong. But, they bit the bullet, they took the risk, and it’s certainly paid off.

Most people who own a PC or Apple have seen these commercials or heard them at one point in time or another. These commercials have also spawned numerous spoofs, generated all sorts of links to spread its reach, and even helped build and emphasize the brand. In the end, Apple comes off looking like THE high-end, elite product. It looks trendy and people want it because it’s different and THE thing to have.

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Using Your Own Chutzpah

Other brands and businesses can do the same and it doesn’t have to cost millions of dollars or an entirely new marketing campaign either. It could be something as simple as creating an article that’s different from anything else out there; something that shocks, amazes, or maybe it’s even a little controversial. The important thing to remember when getting creative is that you need to sound intelligent, show professionalism, and you need to demonstrate all the qualities that you want your customers to associate with your business. Otherwise, you could end up doing more harm than good.

Outspoken bloggers and popular blogs have this down to an art form. These guys tell their stories straight up. There’s no beating around the bush and no candy coating. They give their opinions straight out and don’t care whether somebody likes it or not. In fact, they like it if somebody disagrees because it creates buzz, interest, and it gets people passionate and emotional about the subject.

This, my friends, is what drives sales and pushes people to follow your call to action. This is the exact same thing a writer works hard to accomplish in a piece of sales copy. You don’t need to be a jerk to accomplish it either.

If you want to take your site over the threshold and bring it into the realm of success, do yourself a favor and get out of your own way. Take the leap. It’s worth the risk. Worst-case scenario, this online world gets just a little more interesting!

Based in the Canadian Prairies, Angie Nikoleychuk (Haggstrom) is the Senior Copywriter & Content Consultant for Angie’s Copywriting, a premium business copywriting service providing offline & offline content to organizations of all sizes. In addition to online copywriting, Angie is a diehard coffee addict, avid Twitter user, and enjoys chatting about SEO, SM, branding, marketing, and business. (Besides writing, of course!)

(note: this post was written at 30,000 feet on the way in to Austin, Texas)

While most of my inspirational posts are original, it is worth noting when other hit gold.  Peter Shankman, of HARO fame, recently posted an excellent list of tips when traveling.  Peter is a true social media road warrior, and I trust that he’s been through enough bumps and bruises along the way to save us the trouble.

I highly recommend that you read the original post if you are even an occasional traveler, and let me add one to Peter’s list:

Spend some time reflecting about where you are in life.  Sometimes a change in perspective can really shed some light on areas in which you are succeeding, as well as areas that need more focus and attention.

Happy Memorial Day, dear readers, even if you are working today, try to step back and see where you measure up – compared to where you want to be.

Twitter, while excellent, short circuits the full potential of the thoughts that we seed into it. I’m putting a clock to the amount of time that it takes to write this blog post from start to finish, and will have it take no longer than 2 minutes.

Why? Because I’d like to get some of my brain back away from Twitter

Kidding aside – it’s important to elaborate on one’s thoughts. For me personally, I seek to strive in full abundance theory mode. People from all around seek advice from myself and my company, and we’re here to deliver. Sure, I could have lead in by putting out a short Twitter post. But this goes slightly beyond that 140 characters. File this away and before you do, let it serve as a reminder and a word of caution. Your thoughts should remain yours. Tweet away, but don’t forget that important lesson.

Welcome to the final installment of the 10in10 experiment! Week 10 I had a chance to catch up with John Stammerman aka JStam, currently a web administrator for Indiana University.  Right away I could tell that John really gets the web, both as a designer and a programmer.   It was interesting to see his views on social media, as he has been an early adopter and a ‘behind the scenes’ man for some time now. We chatted about usability, spending time looking at Prezi.com.  It was great meeting up with John and hearing about his transition from agency work to University work as well.

John had a fresh perspective on social media, one coming from a social media user, rather than marketer point of view.

We have a winner!

And we have a winner, folks! Congratulations to Kevin Mason, who drove the furthest to meet for the 10in10 experiment – Kevin has won an iPod Nano, courtesy of Geeks.com!

I had a lot of fun with the 10in10 experiment and hope you found it to be an enjoyable read.  Let’s not let it stop here.  We’re going to try to get the 10in10 crew together and see how it helped them grow in social media.

Previous 10 in 10 posts:

• Week 9: Meeting Ben Ray
• Week 8: Meeting My Neighbor?
• Week 7: Meeting Louisville Soup
• Week 6: Meeting Erin McMahon aka Firestar9s
• Week 5: Meeting Scott Hack
• Week 4:Week 4 – Todd Mundt from NPR
• Week 3: meeting with Jaime Mack
• iPod Nano / Geeks.com sponsor announcement
• Week 2: meeting with Kevin Mason
• Week 1: meeting with David Finch
• Taking it to the Streets: Initial post

Be sure to make a motivational poster of your own with the parody motivator generator.

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The Internet (says it all)

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Related posts

• 10 Rules of Social Media (nowsourcing.com)
• Quasi-motivational posters (dougbelshaw.com)
• SEO Motivators (wiep.net)

Sometimes reading other people’s motivational stories just isn’t enough to lift your spirits. I’ve tried to make it a habit of posting motivational pieces every Monday (yes, yes, I know… it’s Tuesday… all the more reason to get motivated!), this one coming from Lisa Barone – It’s Not the Recession, You Just Suck. With a title like that the comments were closed over there pretty quickly. The ranters were delivering a serious tongue lashing. Perhaps Lisa didn’t convey her message in the friendliest of terms, but several of her points still stand. In this economy, feeling bad for yourself and wasting away your time on Twitter won’t change a damn thing. You have to be willing to work harder; that goes double for those of you who intend on becoming entrepreneurs amidst one of the worst employment famines in United States history.

This isn’t the time to feel bad for yourself.  Now is the time for action.  Work harder.  Don’t let self-doubt, peer pressure and blame get you down.

Nobody’s gonna break your stride! Onward and upward you must press, dear readers!

(see the rest of War 1/3)

Nothing beats riling up the Digg masses on a Monday, lol.  The Drill Down discussed War on this past Friday’s show as well.  Ncomment says that quite a few social media folks will be appearing in the next 2 installments – can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.  Always on point with visual commentary, more people should take notice.

Several days ago I put together 10 rules of social media.  For those of you that missed them amist the Twitter chatter, here they are, nice and concise:

Rule #10 in social media: multitasking makes you stupid. Do a single task and increase quality (props @kathysierra – http://bit.ly/sM8D)

Rule #9 in social media: be a wellspring of thoughts and inspiration to others. On the fly. Come on, I dare ya.

Rule #8 in social media: be careful what you say. If you think only social media folks are watching this space, think again.

Rule #7 in social media: know when to take a break – and going on Twitter doesn’t count as taking a break

Rule #6 in social media: be adept at thought, speech, and action – and know that they are all connected.

Rule #5 in social media: learn to type 80+ words per minute, you’ll need it

Rule #4 in social media: your goal ultimately should be to help change the world.

Rule #3 of social media: love what you do.

Rule #2 of social media: more coffee (good guess, @localseoguide)

Rule #1 of social media: coffee.

Related posts:

• Is Social Media an Industry? (mashable.com)
• How to Use Social Media to Land the Job of your Dreams (problogger.net)
• Do You Make These Social Media Mistakes? (cathystucker.com)
• Jacob Morgan: Social Media Translated into the Real World (mpdailyfix.com)

As this is my first SXSW Interactive, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  You can spend all day looking at guides on SXSW, tips for newbies, and my.sxsw, watch #sxsw and the like.  In short, this is all overflow.  It’s overwhelming when you basically have all of Twitter in your living room.  

Once you jump into the flow, you go with it and see where it takes you.  I spent the time meeting all sorts of friends old and new: @RCSAustin, @dberkowitz, @tamar @catone @corvida @nickcobb @explicitmemory @rizoh and many many more.  It is really an amazing feeling to finally meet people that you have chatted online with for a long time.  Here’s a brief recap in pics:

RCS Austin blogging away

@nowsourcing and @corvida

@catone

@rizoh winning a Texas Social Media Award #tsma

Related posts:

• The Real Purpose of SXSWi (adamhcohen.com)
• The Real Purpose of SXSWi (socialmediatoday.com)
• SrexSW: The Twitter of SXSW 2009 is Twitter (RexBlog.com)
• Download Squad are in the house at SXSW! (downloadsquad.com)

This post is a combination between motivation, meeting for the #10in10 experiment, and social media.  I find that people sometimes have trouble “keeping it all together” sometimes.  It’s easy to get burned out and overwhelmed in social media.  My advice: take things one step at a time.  Of course you have your overall game plan, but what I’m talking about here are all the baby steps in order to get there.

Which brings me to the #10in10 experiment.  10in10 has been a lot of fun, though it is also a lot of work and time commitment.  We also had a huge ice storm in between.  So when considering balancing work and family, you would think that 10in10 might be something that might fall through the cracks.  Well, fear not, dear reader! We will finish 10in10 and also have some fun bringing it all full-circle shortly.

Now without further ado, let’s meet 10in10 #9: Ben Ray.

We had a chance to bring 10in10 back on track this weekend meeting Ben Ray, who is currently working for the Ohio State Treasurer up on Columbus, OH.  Ben is an interesting and smart guy, and it was a pleasure talking shop over a cup of coffee.  Though we can’t share all of the details, let’s just say that they are working on some truly useful and engaging things!

It’s interesting that Ben grew in social media from being both a writer and Digger.  Most social media practitioners out there tend to only specialize in a single network, I can recognize that being a content contributor and Digger is a real talent.

While Ben technically came from Columbus, he still also lives in Louisville, so that counts him out from winning the iPod Nano, which Kevin Mason is still on track to win as he drove all the way from Nashville.

So who of you would like to close out the 10in10 experiment? We have one more to do and the Nano is still at stake (sponsored by Geeks.com).

Previous 10 in 10 posts:

• Week 8: Meeting My Neighbor?
• Week 7: Meeting Louisville Soup
• Week 6: Meeting Erin McMahon aka Firestar9s
• Week 5: Meeting Scott Hack
• Week 4:Week 4 – Todd Mundt from NPR
• Week 3: meeting with Jaime Mack
• iPod Nano / Geeks.com sponsor announcement
• Week 2: meeting with Kevin Mason
• Week 1: meeting with David Finch
• Taking it to the Streets: Initial post

For those that know of me through Twitter, you’ve probably come across my morning greetings that go out nearly every day.

Some have told me privately that this is a source of inspiration for them.  When I was chatting with a client recently and he had brought up my positivity in these morning tweets, I told him that nobody was doing it so I had to come in and fill the gap.  A bit tongue in cheek, though why be so positive you might ask?
I believe this is a positive character trait – a quality even powerful enough to make a statesman out of a mere politician.  (Amazing, but true!) People sometimes lose sight of how good they have it, how many things they take for granted.  A month ago we were affected by the worst ice storm in the history of the state, and were driven away from our home.  Many people faced much worse conditions yet we all have something we can  find that’s worth being grateful for.

Was just reading a bit of New York Times Bestseller Dave Pelzer’s Book, Help Yourself.  In it, Pelzer talks about people always waiting to reach their goals and then they’ll be happy.  Once I get that promotion, once the kids go off to school, once we take that vacation, then we’ll truly be living it up.  Well folks, goals are great, though we are not just automotons going through the motions and checking off items on our to do lists.  If you aren’t living life to the fullest while you are trying to reach for your goals, you may lose yourself in the process and become a resentful, tired person.

So until tomorrow, I tweet you good day!