1. I have an amazing sense of direction… we “Seeneys” have named it the “Seeney sense of Direction”. It’s a big embarrassment for me to be driving with my brother and sisters and make a a wrong turn – I feel I’ve tarnished the family name.
2. When I was 12 I could play the entire first level of Super Mario Brothers with my eyes closed.
3. Sometimes Chinese food makes my face swell up but I still eat it occasionally. It kind of adds to the fun.
4. I played the french horn in high school and married a french horn player. (Hot.)
5. Love, love, love todo lists and project planning software. Basecamp, Omniplan, Calendars…. I’m getting misty-eyed just thinking about them.
6. Considering my love of to-do lists, half of them end up not finished and then I beat myself up about it. It’s kind of my thing.
7. I hate digital alarm clocks that have green or blue illuminated numbers. They make me feel bathed in a “Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle” glow and the light gets through my eyelids. Only red digital numbers for this girl.
8. I don’t make a stupid face when I’m reversing in a car. I decided a long time ago when watching my dad’s face as he backed up our car that I wouldn’t.
9. I knew basically nothing about computers until I was 20 and in university. When I saw my first SUM() in MS Excel it sent shivers down my spine. I’ve never looked back.
10. I once I killed a deer in my car. Of the 6 people in my immediate family, there is no one that hasn’t been involved in killing a deer in some way. I have eaten much deer meat.
11. I hate raisins.
12. In grade eight I once recited from memory the entire script of the Lion King movie, just for kicks.
13. When I get nervous and speak in public my voice shakes and it sounds like I’m crying. Not cool… but once it worked in my favour when I narrated a Remembrance Day poem in elementary school.
14. I can’t relax until things are “perfect”… this may or may not have contributed to my Lion King recital and my “eyes closed” Nintendo fixation…
15. I am great at Balderdash. I love spinning deceptive definitions.
16. Once I lip-synced Britney Spears and did a dance in front of my entire high school with Jen Wilms. I block this memory whenever it comes into my head.
17. I want to enjoy reading fiction novels, but I usually don’t. Give me something “real life”, “how to” or a programming language book. (Unless of course it’s Lord of the Rings… that somehow slipped by QA.)
18. I once had my personal MSN conversations with Jesse read by my employer.
19. I hate the photos from my wedding almost 7 years ago. I cheaped out on a photographer and got what I paid for.
20. I still have to make an “L” with my left hand to know which way is right and which is left.
21. I used to have a crush on JTT. (Who didn’t). I saw a “JTT” license plate on a bastardized hyundai excel (80s model) in San Francisco and it made me wonder how JTT is doing these days.
22. I am a night hawk. I work so much better during the night hours.
23. I trained my dog Parker to spoon with me perfectly.
24. Most of these items in the list were told to me by my husband Jesse. I guess he does know me better than I do.
25. As much as everyone else acts like they are only writing this list to appease their friends, that they are too cool for lists like this, or that they are “only doing it because their bored”, I’ve been WAITING to be tagged. Much love to Lindsay Hare on Facebook and Ryan Parman on his blog.

Tagging Muneeb

View and tag your transactions

You can see how you’re doing in any number of customizable categories. Most of your transactions will immediately go into the right category when you add the bank account.

You can also tag transactions… for example, you might have tons of expenses for a vacation. All of those expenses fall under a variety of categories (food, lodging, gas). If you tag each individual expense with “vacation” you can analyze your spending for that particular tag.

What gives mint its soul?

The vision of the Mint.com crew is not only to create a super-easy and super-helpful finance tool, but it is to shed light on the financial industry in a way that’s never been done before.

The average consumer is getting hosed by financial institutions. Mint provides consumers with information that lets them compare their interest rates on banking and debt. The software shows you which of your bank accounts may be charging you too much in fees, high interest rates on debt and provides options that help you know where you could get a better deal.

Aaron assured me that they evaluate each provider on Mint.com based on the value they provide to the customer. For example, in my screenshot example, they wouldn’t have recommended me the HSBC account if it involved fees that would screw me over. They really do make all their decisions on what is best for the consumer, not what’s best for their own pockets.

Mint vs Quicken

If you haven’t tried Mint for your personal finances yet, you should. Check out the website hit comparison of Mint.com and Quicken (courtesy of compete.com). Mint outshines Quicken with it’s sleek interface and ever-so-easy interface. No user manuals necessary!

** One caveat… if you are Canadian, you might not find your account in their yet, but they promise you will soon!

I decided to use his template as an exercise in simplifying my current resume into a high-level overview.  It forced me to be concise.

I like this format because it puts my skills and expertise into a separate area which helps to aggregate the “big picture” of who I am and what I have to offer.

Check out my new resume and let me know what you think.

The speaker line up looks good, considering it’s just one short day. I hope I can just go and absorb and get inspired from other bloggers. It’s kinda cool they’re using our gravatars for our name tags (in the true spririt of blogging).

I’m looking forward to:

• Alan Levine on The Future of Education and WordPress
• Chuck Lewis aka the SEO Rapper (see video below)
• and of course Matt Mullenweg himself.

I’ll try to post some updates tomorrow!

These two tools have let me stay accountable to where my time really goes.

Tool 1: David Seah’s Printable CEO Series (old school)

I say “old school” only because it uses pencil and paper, but it is definitely modern and a gorgeous way to plan out your day.  These printable CEO and day planners make it so easy to work on a project especially when you are jumping back and forth between tasks.  They are a joy to work on cause they look so hot.  David has definitely thought through usability and what it’s like to have  ton of work to do and to focus on what’s important.  You will need to have a colour printer to get the full effects these awesome planning sheets.

Tool 2: RescueTime (new school)

When perhaps I let my pen and paper tracking slide, RescueTime always has my back. It’s a neat little app that constantly runs and records which programs you have open.  You can then review the time you spent in each and “tag” each application or URL.  Tagging what you do is the real brains behind the operation, because you can also assign a tag a “level” of productivity from -2 to +2.

For example, when I see my own blog URL in the list, I tag it with “blogging” and I give blogging a productivity level of +1.  Then, you can easily see how productive you are over time  (for example, on my list, youtube.com gets a -2 on productivity).

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the program’s intelligence and its ease of use.  It’s saved my butt more than a few times, when I tried to remember what I was working on the day before.

Usability-wise,  I feel the app could use a little more ajax in their app to aid with multi-tagging items, but overall the information it gives me is invaluable.

I’ve been blogging now for about 3 months and I still have a very small readership.  (Nothing like the image above I borrowed from Flickr!)  Even still, I’m motivated because every once in a while I get a decent comment on something I’ve written. Heck, at this point, I don’t even care if it’s decent, just as long as someone is there on the other end and they aren’t spamming me.

Why comment?

If you don’t blog write your own blog, then you may not have felt what it’s like to post and wait for comments:  You post your article… you wait a bit, you twiddle your thumbs.  You refresh your inbox for potential comments.  You wait.  Days go by.  Check analytics.  Wait.  Check feedburner.  Gradually, your enthusiasm fizzles.

But that one comment, that one jewel that pops up unexpectedly is enough to keep you going.

Comments = Blogger’s currency

If you read someones blog and you love it, then comment on it!  Participate in the conversation the author has started.  Add a new point, a counter point, or a similar link/post you may know of.  If you find yourself in awe of how great the post is, and you notice yourself adding it to your faves, then say that too!  Think of your comment as a donation or a vote for the author and what they are doing. Let them know you appreciate it.

Join the 1 Percent

One percent of people are producers.  1 percent of all the people who use wikipedia write all of the content for it.  1 out of 100 people will ever comment on a blog.  Probably only 1 percent of people who eat at a restaurant will post up a review on Yelp or other review sites.

The other ninety-nine percent absorb and don’t actively participate.  Which isn’t wrong, but I wonder if for some people (like me) it’s as simple as forgetfulness.  Commenting hasn’t been hardwired into my routine – almost like forgetting my manners when I’m ripping through my feed reader.

For more on where I got these numbers, see my post called The One Percenters.  While you’re there, notice that the first comment on this post was from Jackie Huba who authored the book I was writing about… and she totally made my week when she did!!  Comments really are love.

Realize that often a freelancer’s livelihood often depends on a steady trickle (or flood) work.  Make sure that you tell them you appreciate them often and remember to give recommendations in public places (like LinkedIn) if you can.

All of these will lead to a happy freelancer and a happy relationship.

A few ideas for sharing the love

• Buy them something on their Amazon wishlist.
• Write them a fabulous recommendation on LinkedIn
• Read their blog and comment!
• Keep in touch especially in times when you don’t have work for them to do.
• Give them a heads up if there may not be work for a while.
• Give them a tip if they really go above and beyond!
• Ask them to go to a conference with you.
• Write a nice little blog post about how great they are if they help you out.

Two days ago Jesse and I shot Mark and Kelly’s wedding. It was a beautiful day but it was SO hot.

I may be unreachable for a while, but I’ll be checking email periodically. We fly on Tuesday.

Good news though, I’ve been added to the team at Synonym. I feel honoured to be in the midst of such talent. I still need to send along a little blurb about myself for their about us page!

It’s awkward because

1. For one, it’s really hard to communicate in text the emphasis you need on the word “she”.
2. Given the sexual connotation of the quote, it doesn’t help my cause of being (1) a woman, (2) a blonde and (3) wanting to be taken seriously.

That said, I don’t want to be a prude. I value the free, raw and unedited nature of the web.  The web is true democracy – it gives everyone their voice.  It flies in the face of formal edits, re-writes and the stodgy “company speak” that awkwardly spews off company websites and brochures (who talks like that anyway?).

I’ve been thinking about my voice and how I write about what I’m passionate about.  It’s taken a while to get into the groove of writing what I really think and not apologizing for my own opinions. I can’t tell you how many posts are still sitting as drafts!  It’s also taken a while for me to see that it’s OK to write articles, even if  everyone around me doesn’t agree with my opinion.

Of course, I can’t be so brash as to say I’m always right – far from it!  But at least I can say everything is up for discussion and nothing is off limits when it’s mine and its here in my blog.

I need a blog name that’s really me.  I’ve got to stop hiding behind the word “she”.  Something really x10.

I’ll keep you posted…

no pun intended.

Remove the barrier between your employees and your clients – the barrier being “the company”.

Let conversations happen between real people. Stop with the rhetoric and the protocol and let employees take ownership of their relationships with clients.  You’ll be surprised how much creativity can occur with a few small changes.

A few ideas:

• Get Basecamp and use it freely with every client. Don’t edit anything. Don’t hide stuff. Be transparent.
• Don’t monitor employee email or employee IM.
• Empower your employees with decision making power. If that means giving them a budget to work with do it! Stop stifling creativity by making yourself the go-to decision maker on everything.
• Reward your employees for having conversations with clients.  Make it OK for an employee to take a client’s side on an issue.
• Encourage your employees to criticize your internal processes – how else will you grow and change?
• Put your product(s) or your company on GetSatisfaction.com and get your employees in there joining the conversation. This gives everyone a name and a face and really shows you care.