Archives for June 2011

Trying on Clothes, Time to Run

I have two emotions, super-excited or not interested. Anything that falls in between registers in my subconscious and I might devote brain power to it or do my best to ignore it so it goes away.

I am super-excited for the New Kids on the Block and Back Street Boys concert. So excited that my friend Sonia & I devoted a shopping expedition to find a new outfit for our groupie night out. I’m fully aware I have a closet full of clothes, shoes, and accessories. I also understand being new in town, no one will point out that I wore a particular outfit to an event before. My justification is without the ritual of buying something new for a special event, the event then diminishes to something ordinary.

Shopping
I found a great pair of dark jeans and a deep plum top to wear with my super cute red knee-high boots at the first store…so lucky! The second stop was at Arden B since they were having a ridiculous sale. I found a pair of distressed jeans with rips going down the thigh for $5, they fit great when I first put them on. Then I did the sit down test and half my bootie popped out so I couldn’t get them. I know $5 is the cost of a latte but no amount is worth having a wardrobe malfunction. I’m not a kid anymore.

Mental Note: Start Running
The image I saw in the mirror was a bit horrifying and I decided to add running to my workout. It was easier to shop for Vegas dresses [pictured] than skinny jeans. The last few weeks have been crazy and I haven’t been as diligent with my diet. I realized, my metabolism isn’t what it used to be and running should fix things. The problem is the last time I ran was in Seattle and that was only enjoyable because I was staying 3 blocks from the beach and it was awesome to run in cold weather right next to the water.

The Goal
I’m not a fan of running, in fact I hate it, it falls in the completely not interested in this activity category. Yet training for a 10k and half marathon has shown me that it really works to shed pounds and develop discipline. The goal is to add running 3x a week to my yoga, zumba, and weights program. I am also going back to following the 4 hour body diet and only having the cheat day once a week. I still love food.

Swamped in Social Media & Startup Activity

The last couple weeks have been BA-nanas (with Rachel Zoe inflection). In case you’re wondering who she is, she’s a personal stylist with a reality show. I seriously need a stylist. Most days I dress like a boy; in wifebeaters and jeans except with makeup. This is probably weird, I don’t feel productive until I have makeup on my face even if I’m just sitting in front of the computer all day. I like to think that the makeup hides my red eyes from screen fatigue.

So yes, back to the last couple of weeks being crazy. I’ve been working until 4 or 5 am most nights because in between working during the day and consulting, there are the kid errands and events. My body likes to remind me that I need sleep when I can barely keep my eyes open or when I can’t wake up to save my life. Last week, I had early meetings on Monday and Wednesday, with Wednesday ending a with dinner meeting. Two alarm clocks and lots of coffee kept me alert and productive for both meetings.

Good news is the month is starting to wrap-up and the workshop I ran for Social Media Club Phoenix on How to Develop Your Persona and Brand was well-attended. We didn’t announce that people would need to break into groups because we didn’t want to scare them away. In hindsight, we probably should have mentioned the group work. It was a good learning experience to try a format other than a panel discussion and at least everyone was talking to each other. There was also too much content to cover with the worksheets in the time allotted for the group exercise, I have content for at least a 2 hour workshop for online personas. I’ll create separate post with the worksheets attached on How to Develop your Online Persona or Brand.

On the technical front, I’m super-excited my co-founder got the Hand Things Down app approved in iTunes. It is available by invitation only (10 invites with the code “bananas”). This has been a milestone I’ve been looking forward to since we graduated from Founder’s Institute at the end of March. The trouble with reaching milestones in a startup is once you get there, the journey towards another milestone immediately begins.

I finished updating our landing pages to include the upcoming Android app. They are connected to our email campaign software and I’m creating rules to auto-respond based on whether or not someone has an invitation code or if they’ve been invited to Hand Things Down by a friend who is currently using the app.

I sometimes feel like my head might explode with all the things I’ve learned in the last few months. Blending social media with landing page optimization and an email campaign to run a beta has taken some of what I’ve done before and mashed them all together. I’m hoping some of the work in the last couple of weeks will make it easier for us to get the app in to our consumers when it goes public.

This coming Friday, I am hosting a networking event for women entrepreneurs for Women 2.0 and I was up all night to get some of those invites out. I’m nervous about attendance, event planners make everything look so easy!

Alright, it’s about 4:30 am so I need to go to sleep. I have a pile of legal docs I need to read through and send to the lawyers. I will need to work away from the home office, since the kids are on summer vacation and I need every ounce of focus to read legal agreements.

I Want to Love My Android

I bought an LG Optimus V (Android phone) on Virgin Mobile USA a couple weeks ago because the Mifi (mobile wifi) was getting dismal battery life. I went from paying $40/month for “unlimited” data to $25/month for 300 minutes + unlimited data + unlimited text + unlimited web surfing + about 5 hours of battery life on this phone. Financially, I’m very happy with the deal I’m getting along with better signal and service at my house. The AT&T iPhone barely got any signal. I thought NO ONE ever called me because it never rang or registered any missed calls. That could also be because I was always instant messaging or using the web so in low signal areas voice and data can’t both be active at once. Therefore, I was only getting data and my constant use of the phone blocked incoming phone calls from pinging the phone. Either way, I think the iPhone I had was a lemon.

I’ve been using a Google Voice number since it became available so I can forward that number to any phone I’m using including landlines. I could even have Google Voice ring the house, my cell, and work number simultaneously. What’s great is I’ve changed through 3 different carriers and more phone numbers than I can remember in the last year and a half, yet I haven’t had to ask everyone to change my number.

Going back to my original point, Google Voice integrates beautifully with this phone because once I downloaded the Google Voice app and told it to make all my outgoing calls and text messages to show my 415 number I could dial calls directly from the phone without having to launch a separate app to make a phone call. All my contacts were downloaded after entering my Gmail username and password.

Why can’t I love this phone?

It comes with only 160 MB of memory. Being a former iPhone user who loves apps, this is clearly unacceptable. I was out of space by day 2 and text messages were being rejected because the phone memory was full. I text more than I talk so rejecting text messages is like cutting off air.
It comes with apps I don’t use but can’t delete: airG chat, Poynt, Where, SCVNGR, Twidroyd
If I root the phone and use the command line to delete the systems apps (apps listed in bullet 2), it won’t free user accessible space because these apps are stored in the system space. Dumb!
With the limited memory available on the phone, apps should automatically install to the SD card which can accommodate up to 32 GB. Unfortunately, unless your phone is rooted, some apps won’t install to the SD card.
I had to delete Facebook and Food on the Table to free up enough space to continue receiving text messages. Facebook can’t be moved to the SD card and once you are using it it ends up storing a lot of data which fills up memory quickly. Ummm…yea mad that I can’t FB on this phone, which is fine because I bought it to use a hotspot for my netbook and iPod Touch anyway.

Other than LG’s lack of planning for app-obsessed users, the phone is fine. It’s easier to send pictures to Facebook or Hootsuite from the camera app, that is if you have enough space to accommodate Facebook. The other annoyance for me is that I can’t take a screenshot of the phone which I need to do to send examples of different apps to my business partner. The only “easy” way to take screenshots to is to download the Android SDK and plug the phone into the computer using a USB cable. If you are a casual smartphone user, these gripes shouldn’t affect you too much and seriously, this is a low-end Android phone so my expectations shouldn’t have been high at all.

I am impressed with Virgin Mobile service (it runs on the Sprint network) and would gladly pay for an “unlocked” high-end Android phone to use with it. If you decide you want to get Virgin Mobile service use the coupon code below to get 60 free minutes when you activate your service and each time you top-up with at least $20, you will get another 60 free minutes.

Coupon code: kDsQV7uF