Do you hate staring at a blank document on Microsoft Word?

Does your stomach tighten at the thought of your impending deadlines?

Try this solution. As soon as you possibly can. It just might save your ass.

By the way, this basic idea came from (and was authorized for distribution by) a Yale University grad who routinely got between a B+ and an A+ by handing in his FIRST DRAFTS, despite being a relentless procrastinator and starting his papers the night before they were due. It works.

It works for blogging, academic essays, personal statements, important emails, sales letters, screenplays, scripts. You name it.

1. Capture your thoughts on a tape recorder, stream-of-consciousness style, in a relaxed state of mind and emotion.

I learn better with audio stimuli (listening and talking) than I do with the written word, and I recommend that you try this step even if you don’t think it applies to you.

I speak MUCH faster than I type, so this method helps me retain ALL of my crazy ideas. And unlike rushed hand-written notes, which I usually can’t read or remember anyway, recorded soundbites keep my emotional inflection intact and save my hand from unnecessary, painful cramps.

As you do this, take a walk around your city or campus listening to your iPod. Drive around solo in your car with some music on. Talk to your best friend while watching TV or playing video games.

I recommend doing this AWAY FROM your work desk. Brainstorming works best if you are relaxed and free from momentary pressure. Even if you have an imminent deadline, the fresh air you get by walking around the block to Starbucks will help you generate a better batch of ideas than sitting hunched in front of your Thinkpad ever will.

Options for capturing your voice

• Old-school cassette tapes
  • I prefer old-school cassette tapes, and enthusiastically use this model, even though it is heavy as a brick and can be used as a weapon. You may prefer a lighter, digital recorder.
• BlackBerry Voice Notes Recorder
  • If you have a recent model BlackBerry, you can record Voice Notes using their built-in software.
• iPhone Voice Memos
  • If you have an iPhone, you can record via iPhone Voice Memos.
• MacSpeech Dictate
  • Mac users who have $199.00 USD to spare can invest in the MacSpeech Dictate program. MacSpeech automatically transcribes your spoken words into typed text. This takes care of Step 1 and Step 2 (below) simultaneously in this process of writing articles quickly.  Exclusive offer for my readers for MacSpeech Dictate – Save 10% on MacSpeech Dictate with Microphone. Use coupon MACSPEECH during checkout.

STANDARD CASSETTE TAPES
Tape Recorder: Sony TCM-200DV Standard Cassette Voice Recorder
Blank Tapes: MAXELL UR-60 Blank Audio Cassette Tape (Package of 8 )

MICROCASSETTE TAPES
Microcassette Recorder: Olympus Pearlcorder S701 Microcassette Recorder (S701ACC)
Blank Tapes: TDK MC60-6PK Microcassette Recording Tape

STANDALONE DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER
Tape Recorder: Olympus Digital Voice Recorder (VN 6200PC)

Now, if you’re impatient like me and would rather drive at 3 AM to quench your impulses than wait 7-10 days for shipping, then go to Duane Reade, CVS, or Staples, or Radioshack and buy one in person. Mine cost about $45 USD at Staples and I was perfectly fine with that.

TAKE A BREAK.

2. Play back your ENTIRE recording while sitting in front of your computer, and type out EVERYTHING as bullet points.

Do not edit anything out as “not good enough.” As you think of additional ideas, add them in as bullet points as well.

(By the way, whenever I’m working at my computer, I personally work best with a digital timer set to a 30 or 60 minute limit, dedicated “focus music” playing on iTunes, a glass of water, and a cup of either coffee or tea.)

Print out your bullet list, and TAKE A BREAK.

3. Using a red pen, put your bullet points into groups organized by common theme.

Go 1-by-1 and assign each point to a group (A, B, C, etc.) Using cut-paste (or copy-paste), put all the groups together.

CONGRATULATIONS! You now have an outline. Print it out, and TAKE A BREAK.

4. Type each theme as a paragraph. At this point, use grammatical sentences.

CONGRATULATIONS! You now have your first draft! Print that baby out!

***NOTE: If this is an academic essay with a page requirement, USE SINGLE-SPACE until the end of the first draft. Once the draft is complete, THEN select-all and convert it to double-space. Watching your paper explode from 5 to 10 pages all at once is psychologically rewarding.

4B. Reward yourself. Positive Reinforcement works.

Take a deep breath.

Heck, take 10.

And actually congratulate yourself, because you have killed the blank page and won the emotional battle. Your job is about 80% done.

…By the way, I bet $20 USD you WON’T congratulate yourself, which is a problem that is actually hurting your productivity. According to Wikipedia’s article on reinforcement, B.F. Skinner (the most influential behavioral psychologist in history) concluded that,

“positive reinforcement is superior to Punishment in altering behavior. He maintained that punishment was not simply the opposite of positive reinforcement; positive reinforcement results in lasting behavioral modification, whereas punishment only temporarily changes behavior and presents many detrimental side effects.”

5. Revise your draft as needed, get outside feedback, and publish or hand in the final version!

It is FAR easier to revise, even re-write, an existing draft of an essay than it is to fill up the pages that first time.

If a lot of new content is needed this time around, feel free to reuse Steps 1-4 to go from generating ideas vocally to typing polished paragraphs. (In my experience, I usually don’t need to do this, though.)

At this point, feel free to reward yourself with some retail therapy… just not too much!

Soooo… Go try this TODAY, on your next written assignment, starting from Step 1 all the way through, and comment below on how it works!

Rants and thoughts are welcome too.

Hope to meet you at Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas on October 15-17, 2009. This conference is the only industry-wide tradeshow, conference, and media event devoted to promoting new media including: Blogging, Social Media, Podcasting, Video Blogging, Music, TV, Radio, Gaming, Entertainment, and Communities.

There is discount pricing for BlogWorld Expo that I’m offering to my readers – Save 20% at BlogWorldExpo with code “BWESEP20″

Let me know if you are coming to the Expo so we can get in some face time.  I’m really looking forward to finally meeting everyone in the Blogosphere.

Vegas baby…..here we come.

Before you read too much into the title of this post, let’s get one thing straight. No, I’m not propositioning you with a double entendre. So get your mind out of the gutter! What I am here to do is to tell you about a new piece of computer technology that is poised to become the next big social media craze. If you haven’t heard of a poken yet, you soon will (@WarrenCorpus popped my Poken cherry). That’s because this thumb-size device is on the verge of taking the uber-popular social media world by storm.

What’s all the fuss about?
Well, first off, it eliminates the printing of business cards, personal cards or scraps of paper with your contact information on it. Just give someone a “high four” with their poken and your contact information including social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace, etc.) are synced. No more printing and data entry of contact information again! Also, one can’t overlook the cuteness factor. Currently available in panda, alien, bee, ninja, pig, voodoo and fire varieties, pokens are just so darn cute that they’re almost irresistible. But rest assured, they’re not the 21st century’s Furbie. Oh no, these cutie pies actually serve a genuine and useful purpose.

It’s what’s on the inside that counts!
But a poken is more than just a pretty face. Inside lies a hand-shaped appendage. When you pull out the hidden hand, you reveal a USB connector. Plug that bad boy into your Internet-connected computer and the way you Facebook, Twitter, etc. will never be the same. As the poken site explains, pokens “instantly bridge the gap between the people you meet in the real world and those you stay connected to online.”

So how does it work?
When you purchase a poken, you’ll be set up with a “Poken Card.” Think of it kind of like a business card but without all the personal information. Your privacy is ensured because a Poken Card reveals only your most basic information.

Now, you load your Poken Card with the social network profiles of your choosing. Want to share your Facebook profile with new people when you meet them in the offline world? Then add Facebook to your card. Want to keep your Twitter profile private? Then leave it off your card. The nice thing about a poken is that it’s all up to you.

The networks you choose to display will be shown as a link on your Poken Card. And that’s where the real fun begins. Your new contacts log onto DoYouPoken.com to view your Poken Card. When they do, they can click on your logo to see your full profile on the social networking sites you’ve elected to share with them.

The social networking fun doesn’t stop there though. DoYouPoken.com points out, “You can also send messages, group contacts with a label, write notes for yourself about each contact, and so much more.”

Poken Account Interface

Where can I get my hands on my very own poken?
Visit DoYouPoken.com. Click on the “Buy a Poken” link. From there, you can choose to either find a retailer or webshop selling individual pokens or buy a 12-pack on the spot.

Do you have any questions that weren’t answered in this post? Are you a poken enthusiast who wants to come out of the closet and share it with the world? Shout it out in the comments section!

This is a guest post written by Brian Burns, who runs a copywriting and communications consultancy out of Boulder, CO. You can find Brian on Twitter, or on his blog at BrianLBurns.com

Tammy Camp, a friend, asked me to write a guest post for this blog. Not being an adventure traveler, a kiteboarder, or for that matter, a particularly successful businessperson, you can imagine I was intimidated. I mean, what was I going to write about, that she couldn’t cover better?

When in doubt, fall back on your expertise. While I joke that I’m an expert in domestic beer and seducing women, those are actually both false. All I’m really good at is copywriting. So here, for your enjoyment, are my 5 hot copywriting secrets:

1. Always talk directly to your customers. Especially in the web 2.0 era of the Internet, the interactions you have with your customers should be conversations, not one-way dictations. Your copy should reflect this approach, addressing your readers, users, and customers the way you’d talk to them. Directly. In a conversation.

2. Always write in your tone. Talking with people, say at a bar, you can always tell when someone is trying to put on a personality that’s not theirs. Why would you think writing would be different? Avoid coming off as awkward by being true to your voice, and writing in the style that fits your personality.

3. Always write with passion. Readers can see passion. They can also hear it. Write with passion for your ideas, and they’ll jump off the page. Just go through the writing motions, and your final product will be flat, uninspiring, and frankly, not worth reading.

4. Never follow the rules. There are a lot of copywriting rules out there. Heck, I’m even giving you another 5 here. I’ll try to undo my own damage by passing along this advice: never follow the rules. Talk the way you want to talk, to the customers you want to attract. Your business (and sanity) will be better for it.

5. Always read blogs. Simply stated, you can’t expect to write if you don’t read. So make sure to spend your time scanning books, periodicals, newspapers, and the blogosphere. You may just run across some awesome post from a copywriting genius. You never know.

If you have any questions about copywriting — or domestic beer for that matter — feel free to ask them in the comments section. I’ll be here all night.

A few months ago I took it upon myself to change my voicemail on my mobile phone to something absolutely hilarious by using AT&T Labs Text to Speech. I’ve gotten all sorts of responses that range from fits of laughter to people thinking I have a serious mental problem.

Text to Speech for Tammy's Mobile Voicemail

The text of my voicemail is the following:

“You have reached Tammy’s mobile. Tammy is currently mobile and is not able to be reached on her mobile, so please leave a message on her mobile for when she returns from being mobile.”

Check out the original audio file:
Tammy’s Mobile Voicemail

If you want to make your own robotic voice voicemail, go to the Text to Speech page provided by AT&T. Write your text in the field that is provided and press “speak” or “download”. Replay the sound file and hold your phone up to the speaker while it is recording a new voicemail. You should be all set!

Got any funny voicemail ideas or stories? Please share them below.

Recession, recession, recession—you can’t tune in to any media outlet on the planet and not hear that we’re in the midst of a global recession.

Unemployment is at its highest levels since the early 1980s, once big-name businesses like General Motors and retailers like Circuit City are declaring bankruptcy, and the housing marketing has plummeted into a wretched abyss.

Instead of focusing on all this negativity, perhaps we should redirect our attention on the recession’s upside. That’s right, you heard correctly. Now is the perfect time to start looking at some interesting angles in which this global meltdown can actually be leveraged to our advantage.

With housing prices reportedly devalued by up to 50% in some regions of the United States, there’s no time like the present for property owners to reap the financial rewards of a property tax reassessment.

No joke—this single action alone could save you thousands of dollars per year.

Now, your local tax collectors are banking on you finding it too complicated and time-consuming to make the effort, but we’re here to assure you otherwise. In fact, all you need to do to take advantage of such savings is call your County Tax Assessment office and appeal your property tax value.

Once you have filed an appeal, one of two things will happen: 1) county assessors will come to your home to reappraise its value or 2) you will have to appear before the appeals panel. Don’t let this latter prospect intimidate you.

Making an appeal requires only that you show the real estate comps in your area along with the recent sales supporting the argument that your home is overvalued in comparison to its last assessment. Once you’ve made your case, the assessment office will adjust your tax bill accordingly.

Still feeling a bit hesitant? Your local Property Appraiser’s Office can give you advice and can often be found online. For example, if you live in Palm Beach County, you can reach the office online at Palm Beach County Tax Appraiser.

What happens if you don’t agree with your property’s assessment and would like to make an appeal? Advice is just a mouse click away at Value Adjustment Board. A Petition to Value Adjustment Board Form can be accessed here: Value Adjustment Board Petition.

Easy, breezy, right? So why not use fallen house prices to your advantage?

Feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts on this issue, and please let us know if you have any other money-saving tips to beat this recession at its own game.

Jeff, a hard-working 1L law student with a heart of gold, is burning the midnight oil again working on a paper for tomorrow morning.

At 2:13 AM, as he reaches over to take a sip from his third cup of coffee, he accidentally knocks it over, spilling the contents all over his MacBook.

AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

F&#*ING PIECE OF $#!+!!!

His paper, due at 9:00 AM, is gone, along with dozens of essential papers and notes.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of personal photos lost, never to be seen again.

Thousands of songs, some of them actually legally purchased, made up his carefully crafted iTunes collection, which now needs to be rebuilt from scratch.

He doesn’t have the several thousands of dollars in cash that it would take to professionally recover the data.

…But wait a minute…

Jeff is actually fine. He knows how important it is to back up his files, so he has his hard drive cloned using SuperDuper on an external Western Digital Passport, and he’s been emailing updated drafts of his paper to himself on his Gmail account every 30 minutes.

Things certainly could be better. His laptop is toast, and that will cost a thousand bucks to replace. He’ll be working out of the school’s computer cluster for the rest of the semester until he saves up to buy a new one.

But things could also be MUCH worse.

If you’re thinking this won’t happen to you, think again. From my days working IT as a university student, I know that laptop hard drives fail, on average, within two years of purchase. It’s happened to me and almost all of my friends who use laptops.

How do we keep this nightmare scenario from happening?

Back up your files.

You’ve heard it before, several times. Now it’s time to do it.

It isn’t that hard. It’s not as simple as putting on your seat belt, but it’s close. Once you have the backup hard drive and the software, you’re all set.

Which brand for a hard drive?

Western Digital and Seagate have outstanding reputations. I’ve also seen consistently solid reviews for LaCie.

I use a Western Digital Passport with a USB 2.0 cable. (Having a Firewire drive makes things much faster.) It has worked well for me for 3 years, even before I had Time Machine, and it is small enough to fit in my pocket.

Just make sure your backup drive holds more space in GB than your laptop or desktop drive.

*NOTE: Windows users can go here or here for software recommendations.

Time Machine Or Cloning?

I used to use Time Machine, but I recently dumped it so I could clone my hard drive. SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner both create “bootable” exact backups of your laptop hard drive. This means it is a 1-to-1 copy with the operating system installed and everything. If your hard drive dies, you can plug in the backup and run your computer off of it.

For me, cloning was a more important feature than having several updated versions of certain documents (which is Time Machine’s specialty).

Technically, if you really want to, you can use both a cloning program and Time Machine. All you need to do is buy a large enough hard drive and “partition” it (split it into two separately dedicated sections). But I won’t go into more detail here.

SuperDuper Or Carbon Copy Cloner?

I’ve heard that Carbon Copy Cloner is very reliable.

I have personal experience with SuperDuper, and I recommend it. Apparently it is better than Carbon Copy Cloner by a hair, and costs a bit more, but I made the investment because I didn’t want to scrimp when I backed up my files.

With an 80 GB laptop hard drive and the Western Digital USB Passport mentioned above, the entire SuperDuper backup took about 3 hours.

Can the backup drive go bad at the very moment I need it?

This rarely happens. And this discussion can quickly devolve into increasing paranoia about how many backups you need and what happens if they all get lost in a fire.

You could get that unlucky once in your life, but you probably won’t, so that won’t be addressed here.

For 99% + of the cases, having one backup and regularly checking on the health of your primary hard drive will be enough.

How do you check up on your hard drive’s health?

• SMARTReporter: This freeware app, once installed, automatically checks on your hard drive and alerts you with a color-coded icon. Green means good, gray means unknown, and red means failing. Simple and useful.
• MainMenu: Another freeware app that can be easily set up to perform maintentance tasks, repair disk permissions on your hard drive, and clean out cache on an automated schedule.

So go back up your files NOW! Protect yourself!

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Are you going into business alone by the seat of your pants, trusting your own gut instincts and relying on no one else? That might not be the smartest strategy, at least according to a recent Forbes article. Regardless of your business’s overall size, “having a reliable group of advisers who can offer objective analysis and a few timely introductions can make all the difference,” the magazine asserts.

Before you defiantly stomp off muttering, “I went into business for myself so that I didn’t have to listen to someone else,” don’t get the wrong idea. The role of an advisory board is to mentor, not dictate. Think of them as a group of individuals who have already successfully walked the corporate tightrope and can now impart their wisdom to you—and help you avoid making the mistakes they made along the way.

Obviously, if your company is just starting out, a board of advisors can prove especially beneficial, but even established companies can leverage a board of advisors’ expertise to get them out of a rut. They can also help you navigate the complicated web of business regulations a company may be caught in.

So now that you’re convinced of the effectiveness of a board of advisors, how do you construct one of your own? The following are six strategies you can implement.

1. Start with the people “you know and trust,” advises Forbes. Consider what types of business advice you’ll be seeking from your board members. It never hurts to have a financial and/or legal professional you can call upon when necessary, so consider these types of experts as requisite additions. Once you’ve exhausted your inner circle, seek out professional associations, like your local Chamber of Commerce or Small Business Administration, for advice on rounding out your board.

2. Forget about nice round numbers. An odd number of board members will serve you well in the event that key issues are put to vote. And keep your membership small. Three to seven advisors should be sufficient.

3. It’s okay to name-drop; in fact, it’s advisable to place a recognizable name on your board. S/he will provide credibility to your business, which is “perhaps the greatest asset an advisor lends,” the magazine stresses.

4. Diversify your membership. Like a good stock portfolio, you’ll want board members who balance each other out in terms of their areas of expertise.

5. Expect to compensate your board members fairly, with the price tag growing as you grow. Although many will take on the role complimentarily, it’s nice to “offer some kind of compensation, if just enough to cover traveling costs to and from meetings.”

6. Don’t lock yourself in long term. Your needs will change as your business grows. Forbes recommends, “Set adviser term limits from 12 to 24 months so that you don’t have to deal with sudden, awkward dismissals.”

Have any questions on the benefits of an advisory board or want to share a thought? Drop a line below and let’s discuss.

Join Tammy Camp and the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA) on June 11, 2009 for the “The Glitter of Twitter and Social Media” Event.

The glitter of social media is that everyone can participate at no or low cost. Yet how do you stand out from the 100 million others online everyday? The panel will discuss how to use Twitter and social media as well as the impact each has on Interactive Marketing. The meeting will address the pros and cons of using Twitter to enhance your marketing campaigns and which forms of social media are best for your organization.

Panelists
Chris Tiedje – Promotions Manager with the Sun-Sentinel @SunSentinel
Jeffrey Yaniga – Business Development Executive at Pitney Bowes Management Services @MyWorkAccount
Alex de Carvalho – Co-Founder of StartPR @alexdc
John Dowdy – Coordinator of Regional Marketing for JetBlue Airways @jetblue

Moderator
Tammy Camp (@TammyCamp)
Acting as moderator will be Tammy Camp, a serial Internet entrepreneur and extreme adventurer, with more than 16,000 twitter followers. Her areas of expertise lie in social media marketing, pay per click marketing and search engine optimization.

New Member Orientation
Come early for the New Member Orientation at 6pm – 6:30pm on the 8th floor of the Riverside Hotel. Get acquainted with SFIMA and make a few friends before the show starts.
Please RSVP for this special engagement by emailing: Membership@SFIMA.com

Follow SFIMA on Twitter @SFIMA

Registration Details
Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009
Time: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Place: Riverside Hotel
620 East Las Olas Blvd
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

Registration for SFIMA Members: No charge with paid membership.

Registration for SFIMA Non-members: $39 (why not join and attend monthly educational events for no charge?)

For more information on the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA) please visit their website at www.sfima.com.

As soon as I announced I would be traveling to Kuwait, the calls of concern came rushing in from all corners of the United States and other westernized cultures. Controversial issues such as safety in the region, women’s rights and cultural/language conflicts were the most popular topics of concern. What is it with most Americans and their need to believe everything the media tells them?

Safety in the Middle East

Concerned American #1
“Be careful, a war is over there!”

My reply
“Last I checked, there was a war in the country north of Kuwait — Iraq. It technically ended a few years ago.”

Concerned American #2 (My Favorite)
“Watch out for those Kuwaitis, they invaded Iraq a few years back.”

My dumbfounded reply, “Excuse me? You can’t be serious? Kuwait was invaded by Iraq in 1990 and was occupied by Iraqi Republican Guard for seven months.”

Come on people! Let’s try to educate ourselves on what is happening in the world. Most safety issues people were talking to me about were based on the lack of education in history and current international affairs. Only certain areas in the region are potentially dangerous much like the ghettos and projects in the United States. About 95% of the region is completely safe just like any other place in the world.

Women’s Rights Issues in the Middle East

Tammy wearing an abaya to visit the Grand Mosque in Kuwait.

Despite what most people may think, women in the middle east are treated with the utmost amount of respect. My girlfriends were very concerned when I told them I was traveling to the Middle East, especially as a single western women. Of all my travels all over the world, I’ve never been treated with as much respect for being a woman until I visited Kuwait. If you are a woman alone in the queue, you are automatically escorted to the front of the line so you do not have to wait. This also goes for anything else service related. Ladies first! The perception from media these days are men in Saudi Arabia beating their wives. Realistically, domestic abuse happens worldwide including the United States. Why the media focuses on such issues in that region is puzzling for me.

In regards to the abaya or the traditional Muslim outfit that I am wearing in this picture, it is not required. I simply put it on one time during my month long exploration of the Middle East while visiting the Grand Mosque in Kuwait.
As for the local women in Kuwait, they are not required to wear it either. About 50% of women in Kuwait wear it by choice in public because they are religious or traditional. Don’t be fooled though! Beneath their black attire, they are sporting Sex in the City type outfits such as Armani, Dior, Versace, Gucci and other high fashion couture.

Getting past the language barrier.

I have to admit I traveled like a rockstar to Kuwait. As soon as I hit the ground and stepped off the airplane, a lady was waiting for me from the Hala Service and had a sign that read “Tammy Camp”. From the gate, she escorted me to obtain my visa. She filled out all my paperwork, cut to the front of the line and paid my visa fees. After that, we whizzed past customs and I was off to my adventures beyond the airport. I recommend the Hala Service to anyone traveling to Kuwait the first time.

As far as the getting past the language barrier — Everyone speaks English. The barrier doesn’t exist!

Conflicting News Information

Here’s a bit of juicy news information. While in Kuwait, I was reading the Arab Times, the leading newspaper for the Middle East. On the front page of the newspaper they reported, “The majority of Middle East, including Israelis agrees Palestine should have their own state.”

This is not what the US is reporting. Who do you believe?

Interesting Traffic Sign – “Crossing the Red Signal Leads to Death or Prison”

Death or Prison Traffic Sign

The first time I saw this sign, I thought I was going to be hung to death if I drove through a red light. I had a case of western paranoia! After a few days, my interpretation of the sign had changed and new perspective came into play.

If you were a westerner in the Middle East, how would you interpret this photo?

Please leave your answer and feedback below.