Over the years I’ve worked in plenty of offices, and plenty of cubicles. Unfortunately, each and every single one of those cubicles has included a Windows computer. Me being a Mac user, I’ve done lots of research to make these inferior computers (in my humble opinion…!) my own, installing software to make my life a bit easier.

Some of these applications are just nice alternatives to some of my favorite Mac apps, and some are just great apps that I use at home as well. Others make it easier to sync your work between computers. Regardless, they’re all great apps and features, and I couldn’t recommend them enough.

Without further ado, I present my list for making your cubicle your own.

Read more »

This morning we had a guest speaker in my Organizational Behavior class, and she was incredible! Suzanne Clark, CEO of the Potomac Research Group, spoke with us on some of the things she’s learned managing over the years. It’s not often I’ll write a blog post for a guest speaker in a class, but the things she said were just so incredibly practical and valuable, I thought I’d share them on here.

Are you a manager? A team leader? A business owner? Well read on, hopefully you’ll find this as useful as I did.

Read more »

There are plenty of networks online for connecting people. You’ve got Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, you name it, they’re all meant to connect people who might not have otherwise been connected. And that’s all well and good, but what if you want to get to know someone in a better way than just online?

Just today, actually, I had a follower on Twitter, @Sullivan_Smith tweet at me, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRIEND I ONLY KNOW ON TWITTER!” (Yes, today is my birthday.)

So what if you want to move those connections into the ::gasp:: REAL WORLD? Well there are tools for that too, and they’re fantastic for strengthening friendships, networking, and even meeting new people you might not have ever found through the mass that is online social networks. Check below for some examples of sites to use, as well as a list of D.C. networking and meetup groups that I’m involved in (and you should be too!).

Read more »

This morning was Social Media Club DC‘s first ever Social Media Breakfast, and it was great! Held at Teaism here in downtown DC, we had great food, great conversation, and some excellent speakers. I’d never even been to Teaism before, but if this morning’s breakfast was a good indication of their normal food, I’m excited to go back.

The speakers included Geoff Livingston (on Twitter, @geoffliving), Alex Howard (on Twitter, @Digiphile), and Shashi Bellamkonda (on Twitter, @shashib). They had a lot of great things to say, and I even had the great opportunity to continue into a conversation with Geoff Livingston at our table after the speakers had all presented. Unfortunately, I had to jet a little early because of class, but here’s some of what I gleaned from the speakers.

Geoff Livingston had a simple message: “get mobile, get mobile now,” he said. Appropriate. I think most people in the social media and technology world are well aware now that mobile is certainly the next big revolution in communication and media tech. The iPhone and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have led the way to a more digital, more mobile, more connected life–24/7, wherever you are. He said that this next evolution in the industry is “your opportunity to be a visionary” and if you want to lead then “load up [your] reader” with every tech blog you can find. Thankfully, I’m well-covered on that front–Mashable is like the gospel for social media tech, and I must subscribe to at least 10 or 15 other big blogs, in addition to all the smaller, more personal format ones. There’s lots of info out there. Always learning.

Shashi Bellamkonda had much the same message–it’s all about mobile, it’s all about staying on top of trends, and it’s all about staying connected and active in the social media sphere. You can’t read about this and know it, you have to use it to know it.

Speaking of trends, Alex Howard rounded out the group and gave us a great list of what he thinks are the biggest trends coming for 2010. They are:

1. Search – traditional search engines being replaced by social media
2. Niche networks – using OAuth to log on, individual networks, platforms such as Ning
3. Privacy – much discussion on the “privacy is dead” controversy spoken by people like Pete Cashmore, Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg; Howard disagrees, says there will be a big debate both in social realm and in congress this year
4. Social gaming – games like foursquare, “Farmville” on Facebook, etc. becoming huge players
5. Security - key: “STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER 6″
6. Open web - no more locked into platforms
7. App as the new Web site – quoted from Mathew Ingram, making mobile apps for revenue; es
   timated $7 billion in revenue
   for mobile apps in 2010
8. Geolocation – Twitter integrated geolocation, games like Foursquare, etc.
9. Online video – continuation of the growth seen since 2006, more mainstream content online, CNN streaming, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, Boxee; also, organizations like CNN and the White House using Facebook, YouTube as outlets for online video

And that about wraps it up. It was a great morning–I’m already looking forward to the next event!

Update: I’ve added Alex Howard’s presentation from the event to this post. It’s embedded below the jump, check it out, it’s pretty awesome! He uses Prezi, which has been one of my favorite tools since early last year.

Read more »

I, like any busy person, love lists. I love being able to flick through a news article or blog post, read a two-sentence introduction, and allow my eyes to flip quickly from bullet point to bullet point. I love numbered lists, where I can tell not only how far I am down the list, but how many more I have to go.

It’s a psychological thing. Anyone versed in business writing knows that it’s easier, quicker and simply more efficient to read lists and bullets than big long paragraphs. And nowadays, we’re all about reading short things, quickly (i.e. Twitter–140 characters, doesn’t get much shorter and quicker than that).

But I’ve just about reached my limit of end-of-the-year/decade/whatever top 10 lists. I just can’t handle it anymore! It seems like every where I’ve looked–starting December 1st and still ongoing–there’s another top 10 list for something. There’s lists of the top celebrities, top people on twitter, top books, top gadgets, top political scandals, top news stories, top movies, top albums… everybody and their brother has their top 10 list of [insert subject here] they want to share.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m guilty too. Even today, I’ve tweeted at least one link to a top 10 list (Engadget’s wonderful Top 10 Gadgets of the Decade). But there just needs to be some kind of restraint here, it’s overwhelming!

I like how Time Magazine does it. They put ALL of their top 10 lists in one place, a neat little index for you to flip through, nice and organized and not too much to handle. But for things like Twitter, I feel like the service is just swamped with everyone’s lists for this and lists for that. It’s drowning out the content. The breaking news. The #FollowFridays (it seems I’m not the only one who almost forgot about that today–it seems totally absent from my feed, at least).

Thankfully, this only comes around once a year. And in a way, it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, reading all these lists. But when it gets to the point where all media is just saturated with it–like now–and the real content seems to disappear, I feel like it’s time to step back and ask: do we really need all these lists? What do you think?