My house is a mess. There is clothing, suitcases and papers everywhere. Emails are pouring in with last minute questions from clients, and I am trying to get 2 projects finished before 5pm. Why? Because tonight, the hubby and I are boarding a red-eye flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico where we will be spending 6 very relaxing days with my best friend.

Even better? I am taking a completely tech free vacation. That means as of 4pm today, I will have no computer, no email, no blog, no twitter, no facebook (okay, maybe a few tweets/FB updates to share pictures of the amazing places we’ll be!)…the point is, there will be no technology and a lot of relaxation!

Our itinerary includes:

• Relaxing at Manati Beach
• Kayaking in the bioluminescent bay
• Rum Tasting
• A Catamaran and snorkeling trip
• Dinner at Bottles Restaurant
• Charco Frio (the natural waterslides)
• and a whole lot more

I will be back in the office on March 17th returning emails and getting in touch with everyone. I will not be writing over my vacation, so while I am gone, I would love if you would peruse some of my archives and check out some of my older posts. I would love to come home to lots of great new comments!!

Oh, and for a little sharing…this is a photo my friend took of one of the many beaches we will be visiting while we are there to tempt me into coming

Blogging at its root is simple: it is words on a (web)page, put together and reachable by anyone with internet and your blog address. There are life bloggers, business bloggers, mommy bloggers, pet bloggers, food bloggers, pretty-much-anything-you-can-think-of bloggers, and every single one of them is doing the exact same thing: putting words on a screen for their readers to see. Blogging is not segregated. There is no restrictions to whom can have a blog. It is not picky on what is written or how often. It doesn’t require advanced degrees and (judging by some of the posts I have stumbled across) doesn’t even require a firm grasp on the language it is written in. Blogging is open to the world, and because of that, bloggers seem to be taking over.

But, because there are no set rules for joining or leaving, and there is almost no limit to what can be done with a blog, I often struggle to explain what blogging really is about.

Everyone has their own ideas – Ask 5 people and you will get a different answer every time, depending on whether or not they have a blog, what type of blog they have, or the types of blogs they read. The only comment I hear regularly is that a “blog is a way to communicate quickly with a large group of people”. Which, of course, tells us nothing. Even my own explanation – “A blog is a means to communicate with an audience who is interested in you, your service or your products. It creates a 2 way communication, opening the conversation and allowing you and the reader to learn” – isn’t perfect because it doesn’t incorporate all types of blogs, only the ones I know.

So let’s get talking, I want your thoughts! No matter which type of blogs you read or write, your voice needs to be heard. So tell me…

What do you think blogging is really about?

*image credit to The Glamorous Life’s Shirts

Recently, I have attended a bunch of great networking events, and in the next few months, I plan on attending a lot more. I know that making a good first impression is important, so I always make sure to be on point, and act properly. Overtime, I have learned a lot, both from watching what others do and my own experience with people. With that experience, I have put together a great list of networking advice. Here are the 10 steps you should always follow to make sure everything goes just right:

1. Tell anyone and everyone who will listen your personal life details. They really want to know everything about you.
2. If you have to give a presentation, don’t practice. People expect you mess up, and forget what you were saying.
3. Leave your phone on loud, then answer it as soon as it rings, no matter who you’re talking to already. Don’t worry, they’ll wait.
4. Drink as much as you want, and eat as many appetizers as you can. It may be awhile before you get more free food and discounted drinks!
5. When other people are telling you about them is the perfect time to think about what you will say next. You’ve got to be prepared.
6. Start every conversation with how amazing your product/service is and why this person you just met needs it. Because you know best, and need to tell them.
7. Don’t email or call people when you tell them you will follow up. They should contact you if they are interested.
8. Wearing whatever you want is perfectly acceptable. There is no reason to follow common dress code courtesy. After all, sweats can be ‘business casual’, right?
9. Talk about your business at every break in the conversation, and sometimes, interrupt to remind them about it. You don’t want people to forget what you do.
10. If there is someone there who you don’t really get along with, make sure everyone in the room knows about it so that they can help you avoid them.

If you follow these steps, there is no way you can fail at your next networking event!

Of course, if you take any of them seriously, you get what you deserve

This awesome photo was taken (and enhanced) by Adam Lee at his home in Corona last July. He snapped the pic of his son with his iPhone and other than the added text, it is unedited.

A few weeks ago, we covered strategy questions. Those questions were created to help you determine more about your business in general. But, your business is not just work, phone calls and clients. Your business is you, your good things, your bad things, your personal life and your business life. Learning more about who you are and who you are in your business will help you to figure out how to make it grow more effectively. After all, you are the most important piece of your business puzzle! IN order to get you to open up and learn more about yourself, I am giving you 20 questions to answer. The questions span from personal to business, as you need to understand both sides of you. I would love for you to share the answers you come up with, as many as you feel comfortable sharing.

1. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my personal life?
2. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my business life?
3. What does my ideal day look like?
4. What is my biggest strength?
5. What is my biggest weakness?
6. What part of me do I love the most?
7. What do I dislike about myself?
8. Which tasks to I perform the best?
9. Which tasks should I be delegating?
10. How do I act at networking events?
11. What would my friends say about me?
12. What would my enemies say about me?
13. Does my business make me happy?
14. What is my favorite thing to do outside of business?
15. What is my favorite thing to do in my business?
16. Do i feel supported by my family?
17. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my personal life?
18. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my business life?
19. What do I need to learn about me?
20. What can I change today to make tomorrow better?

Now onto my answers (it’s only fair if I ask you to answer them, that I need to too!):

1. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my personal life? Still happily married, working on 4 days a week, finally getting all my school and debt paid off.
2. Where do I want to be in 6 months in my business life? Hiring an assistant and building my business to the next level.
3. What does my ideal day look like? Sleeping in, breakfast with my hubby, an hour and a half massage, a relaxing afternoon and then dinner at Mastro’s with my hubby.
4. What is my biggest strength? My desire to succeed in my business.
5. What is my biggest weakness? Being afraid to fail so I don’t take a lot of risks.
6. What part of me do I love the most? My personality – I’m strong, and stubborn but also very loving and caring.
7. What do I dislike about myself? My need to please people.
8. Which tasks to I perform the best? Writing, when I have the freedom to write about what I want.
9. Which tasks should I be delegating? Coding and new client phone calls.
10. How do I act at networking events? The same way I act everywhere. What you see is what you get.
11. What would my friends say about me? That I am dedicated and caring, sarcastic, stubborn, very outgoing and a lot of fun.
12. What would my enemies say about me? That I am stubborn, pretentious and a little too sarcastic.
13. Does my business make me happy? Absolutely!! I love it!
14. What is my favorite thing to do outside of business? Spend time with my hubby, family and friends.
15. What is my favorite thing to do in my business? Talk with other business owners and write!
16. Do I feel supported by my family? Yes, they are all awesome and all very willing to help.
17. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my personal life? A mom of two, enjoying time with my hubby, helping with sports and school.
18. Where do I want to be in 10 years in my business life? Still running my business part time, but having my staff mostly manage it for me, just doing the pieces I love.
19. What do I need to learn about me? Where my limit is. I often overwork myself and regret it later.
20. What can I change today to make tomorrow better? Learning to compartmentalize a bit more so I can spend more time with my hubby without work getting in the way.

Are you ready to share?

After spending the better part of my day under a fog of photoshop,  I surfaced just long enough to browse some tweets and respond to some emails. While looking through the twitter stream, a question from @Gizmodo caught my attention: When is it okay to check email during dinner?

I think the answers depends on the type of person you are talking about…

If someone is an employee of a company and they were to check email during dinner (after work hours) I would be offended. They are off the clock and have zero need to check in. If they are working on a large project, once 5 or 5:30 hits, the day is over and it waits for the next day. They get to keep business and home life separate. In this case, it is never okay to check email during dinner.

But, this is a tough question for a small business owner. I find that I check my email a lot in the evening, sometimes during dinner. Usually, this is because I am just taking a quick break from work to eat and then heading back into my office/closet. Then again, there are also nights that I am still checking emails even after I have shut down my computer and made myself cozy on the couch. Do I respond to a lot of the emails? No. But I do write notes on some of them, or create email drafts. This is helpful when the project is fresh in my mind and I am not overwhelmed with everything else that goes on during normal hours. It is hard for a small business owner to separate work from normal life because the separation doesn’t really exist.

What do you think? Should small business owners have different rules?

On February 22nd, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about websites – more to the point – how expensive websites can and can’t be and what the benefit is for the business. The article discussed two female business owners, what they spent for their websites and how the sites were doing for them. Both were running successful businesses, and both had active websites. That’s about all they had in common.

Business owner 1: According to the article, “Katrina Garnett, 48, is an Australian-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose Crossworlds Software sold to IBM in 2001. Garnett has invested $2 million of her money to create My Little Swans, an adventure-travel business catering to wealthy families”. The portion of that she used on her website? An astounding $250,000. Her site, My Little Swans, sells luxury travel. (not really sure what swans and luxury travel have in common, but hey, she really wanted those swans!) Take a look through the site.What did you think?

If you’re anything like me, my first response was “you have GOT to be kidding me?!?!” Okay, so I will give the woman some credit, at first glance, I thought the site was pretty, and well put together. It was easy to use and captured what she does. There are a lot of cool features, and it is easy to connect with her on social channels. Overall, I would have given the site two thumbs up. But then…I remember that she spent $250,000 on it. More than I spent to buy my condo! And my thumbs drop. A lot. The site is good – but she easily spent $230,000 more than she should have. The site is nothing that special, in fact I have seen hundreds of sites that are much better than hers, and I can guarantee cost less than a tenth of what she spent. Seriously, that design team saw her coming a mile away. I hope they have trouble sleeping at night for the highway robbery they made out of her site.

Business owner 2: The WSJ says “Joan Bradford is a former schoolteacher and a theatrical costume–shop owner who bought and renovated an 1840s house 15 years ago in New Windsor, Md., and turned it into a bed-and-breakfast. She named it the Yellow Turtle Inn after she had a dream about such creatures and learned that they’re the only turtles that guard their nests.” And her site? She spent almost zero on her site, Yellow Turtle Inn. She used a program that came with her hosting and set it up in a few weeks. She says she has made tons of tweaks, but that she has never paid someone to work on her site. So take a look at this one. What you you think?

My first response, “Okay, it’s time to cough up a little money, because this needs a face lift”. The site is boring, simple, and obviously home-made, right? It has all the content that is needed, but it just doesn’t make you feel all warm and cozy like an inn should. I don’t really have any desire to call them because with a site that rudimentary, I worry that the service won’t be great and that they won’t deliver a good experience. A little goes a long way, and even a $5,000 investment would really help her to turn her website, and her image around. But, she does get a little more respect from me than Miss Swan because while the site is poor, at least she didn’t get hog-tied and taken for all she was worth!

A website is one of the first things that a customer is going to see – it needs to represent who you are and how they can expect you to deal with them. Clean, simple and concise websites make people feel like the person will be easy to understand. Glamor, elegance and extravagance will make them feel special and important. There are hundreds of other emotions websites can bring out  and what matters is that yours brings out the right ones from your visitors. But, you shouldn’t have to break the bank to get this to happen.

What do you think about the sites?

With all of the tweets and news stories going on around the newest web tool, Chat Roulette, I have to admit, I was curious. Although most of the conversation about the tool touted how awful it was, that every other person was behaving obscenely and it was a bored teenagers strange idea…I still wondered about it (darn that curiosity!). But, I hadn’t checked it out, I just simply didn’t have the time. I pushed it to the back of my mind, and kind of forgot about it.

Yesterday, me, my hubby, @vetlovingpetshb and @elecsecurityguy had brunch at Memphis in Santa Ana, and over unlimited mimosas and french toast, we got on the topic of weird tools and unique websites. Which of course, brought up Chat Roulette. We started talking about what we’d heard about it and what it was really like. None of us new more than the basic principal – go to the site, click play and wait to see who (or what) shows up. It was basically a video chat room, where you just clicked next to move onto another person/conversation. We had all heard that it was definitely nsfw, and that the majority of people on there were men, showing body parts that we had zero desire to see…but of course, after those mimosas, the curiosity came back and so we decided we just had to check it out (curiosity will getcha every time!).

The first tries to get the site to work completely failed…apparently Chat Roulette does not like Firefox. So, we switched over to Internet Explorer, got the ‘play’ button and took the chance. We clicked play, and waited. Three things we realized right away:

1. It auto turns on your own webcam which means the other person can see you laughing.
2. It auto turns on your microphone which means the other person can hear you laughing.
3. No one can prepare you for it, but you’ll definitely be laughing!

As all the news stories and tweets had told us, it was a strong mix of obscenity, with a few normal (albeit bored) people. We lasted about an hour on the site, clicking through about 15-20 different people, and had only one normal conversation, with a college kid in the UK who couldn’t sleep.

My final verdict? This site is a wreck, will end up the late night game at many sleepovers or drunken fraternity parties, and I doubt it will have any real staying power. That is unless they can figure out how to clean it up, segregate the types of conversations and turn it into a safer site for viewing…either way, I wouldn’t venture back.

Have you been to ChatRoulette? What did you discover?

Photo taken by Pamela @Enobytes in Point Arena, California, October 2009 with her iPhone:

Do you have an incredible photo on your phone? Send it in and get yours featured (any subject, anywhere in the world!)

I do not know everything. In fact, there are a lot of things I don’t know. And when I want to learn…I read other brilliant business men and women’s blogs.

So if you’re like me and you want to learn more today about  your blog, your brand, or your business, read these 5 blogs posts before you do anything else today!

• From Jon Buscall – 5 reasons your business blog is failing
• From FreshID – How people power brand identities
• From IncSlingers – When to build your business out and when to build up
• From Steve Woodruff – Getting a GRIP on ROI
• From Kneale Mann – Do you know why?

Oh, and then leave a comment on at least one of them, because they deserve it!