Sep
22

Why I Wouldn’t Be Mad if I Lost My Computer

cloud computing

No, I’m not asking you to come steal my computer. I have become so cloud-based that even if my computer one day disappeared, I would not lose much of anything in terms of data.

I do most all of my work and communications on Google Apps. I use Gmail for all of my mail communications (work, personal and blogging), Docs for anything I need to write up, and Contacts to keep up-to-date with coworkers and colleagues. Since Google Apps is 100% on the cloud, I would never have to worry about losing a file if my computer was ever stolen or broken.

All of my local computer files are stored on Dropbox, a cloud-based backup service that allows you to virtually and locally backup your computer data. If I ever needed to access a file I created on one computer that I saved on Dropbox and was not at the computer with which it was created, I could easily log onto Dropbox via the web and access it. Dropbox also works great for me since I have both a personal and work computer. If I am not with one of the two computers at a given time and have been working on a document, I can easily access it on the second computer since you can store Dropbox on multiple computers.

For my online data, I use Backupify (disclosure: I work there). I currently back up my tweet stream, Facebook data,  Gmail, Google Docs, Google Contacts, Flickr and Picasa accounts on Backupify. If I ever accidentally deleted an email (which I have done on occasion), Twitter goes down, a friend leaves Facebook and takes their tagged pictures of me with them, etc., I will still have access to that data via Backupify. Backupify came into a great use case for me recently while I was importing files and applications to my new work computer. I had to install a few Gmail accounts in iMail on my new Mac but forgot the passwords. I panicked for about a half second, then realized if I went into my Gmail archives, I could easily find the email with the password and link. Simple as that.

Today, between being in my young twenty’s and always on the go, working for a small start up with high aspirations, and being an avid blogger not only for this site but for BostInnovation as well, I seek simplicity wherever and whenever I can. Dropbox and Backupify solve this for me. I can rest assured that whenever I am working on something online or offline, it will be saved.

I find total peace of mind that my data will always be available to me, no matter where I am or what device I am using. This is a HUGE relief, because if I was to ever lose a document or online file, my work would be significantly compromised.

In what ways do you ensure that your data is not lost? Have you ever tried Dropbox, Backupify, or another backup service provider? What gives you peace of mind, if any, with your data?

Sep
21

Observations from a Train Ride

boston transportation

I live in Boston, where the main means of transportation is via busses and trains intricately winding over and under the bustling city. To get to work, I have to take the bus to the train stop and then take the train three stops up. Today, I decided to put away my iPod, newspaper and book (one or two of which I usually occupy myself with every day during my commute) to truly observe what was going on around me.

Across from me was an older man holding, what seemed to be, his most valued possessions in a Trader Joe’s bag, warily looking around, seeming a bit nervous or on edge – he seemed to be the outcast during my trip to work, and soon you’ll read why. Diagonal from me was a hispanic mother with her daughter who was engulfed in her cell phone (she must not have been older than eight). At the back of the bus I saw a bunch of teenage boys, all with ear buds in one ear, blasting rap music, while talking about what happened the day before.

Once off the bus and now on the train underground, I noticed a huge influx in technology on everyone. I would estimate 9 out of 10 people on this very packed train had earphones in, listening to some sort of MP3 player. A few had Kindles or iPads, catching up on work emails, books, news, etc. A girl next to me was listening to music while playing some game on her phone (I only glanced quickly during my scan). Most had newspapers in their hands (a man hands out free newspapers by the entrance to the train every morning) but instead chose to read their tablets or listen to music. Hardly any were reading a book or any tangible source of writing.

While I use these same technologies and have many of the same habits, it’s incredible to see the influx in technology that is pervasive in every part of our lives, from a morning commute to a stroll in the park, trip to the mall, and commute home from work. The age gap in technological adoption, from my observations, seems to be lessened. Kids as young as eight and adults upwards in their 50′s were all using the same technologies.

children using technology

Just a few years ago, children were accustomed to using their imaginations by playing games with friends to pass time. Now, they absorb themselves with technology, digital games and music. Many adults were not akin to using high tech products yet; they still preferred their books and newspapers for sources of information, and friendly conversations with others in person. Now, it seems that they too have fallen victim to using technology in all facets of their lives to connect with others and learn about the world around them.

As a forward thinking person, I stopped scanning the crowd on the bus and train and wondered what this same scene would look like even just two years from now. Would every person on the train have a few devices going on at once? Everyone stands in silence as they tune into their digital accomplices?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge proponent of technology. However, what does scare me is the pervasive effect it has had on our society and the thought of how this will progress in the near future. People talk about implanting chips in our heads to receive the same technology without the need for a physical device. Really?! No thank you! (Well, I say this now).

While I don’t have a definitive answer as to what will become of humans and technology in the future (and no one can make an accurate statement on this either), it definitely makes you think.

This week, take some time to put down your devices and observe those around you and what they are doing. What do you notice? How has this changed in the past few years? What do you fear will happen to us in the future with our ever growing dependance on technology to run our daily lives.

This sure is some food for thought….

Sep
14

Google Instant Review in an Instant

google instant

Google Instant will forever change the way we search. While not a major change, it has altered the way we will search for things online. When I first tried out Google Instant, I began typing in a search phrase and found that the initial results were not what I was looking for. This caused me to backspace a few words and change my phrase before ever hitting enter.

Before, I would have finished my query, hit enter, scanned about 5-6 articles and then decided if that was what I was looking for. Instead, I am saved a few seconds (while not significant, it will add up over time and make searching online more efficient) and able to fine tune my searches more effectively.

There are debates over the effect that Instant will have on SEO value. Quite frankly, I think we all knew that SEO was ‘going out of stye’ for awhile now and Instant may be the tipping point to make that happen. However, I think Google Instant can help marketers better fine tune SEO so their pages show up just as fast and high up in the results list. It may make it a bit more difficult to optimize a site for all the variations of a similar search, but we can at least try, right?

Overall I think Google Instant will be good for searchers. We will save time, learn to refine our searches, and improve SEO on each page we create.

What are your observations of Google Instant? How do you think it will affect SEO?

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Sep
01

Being a Female in Tech Rocks!

rosie female power

One of my favorite quotes of all time is by Ghandi, “We must become the change we want to see.”

If you want change to happen, don’t wait for someone else to do it, do it yourself!

So many people, as pointed out in this TechCrunch post, have written meaningless posts about this problem and why it may be the men’s fault. Why don’t we all stop complaining and wondering and start embracing and encouraging? We never thought we’d see a woman in the running for the president, but we did. We never thought more women would be in college than men, but they are. We never thought women would become up and coming CEOs today, but they are. What is to stop females from rising in the high tech scene?

I know many other females around Boston that are in the same situation as I am: one of the only females at our workplace. I have spoken with many of them, including Lindsay Goldner, Ali Powell, Cait Downey, and Victoria Song about the current deficit of women in the Boston tech scene but that is not stopping us, it only empowers us to keep going. We find ourselves just as interested in high tech as many of the men we work with, and we want others to feel the same.

There have been many misconceptions about women in tech and that we will never grow to a large population, but I’d like to see that change happen in my lifetime. I saw this misconception come to life at an event in San Francisco that I attended a few months ago, Structure 2010. Structure was an intensive two-day cloud computing conference, discussing top trends, issues, opportunities and challenges in the cloud industry. I was forewarned that I was going to be significantly outnumbered at this event, and that I was! Being a 22 year old female left me sorely out of place in a conference packed with middle-aged men. People looked at me funny like I walked into the wrong event, but once I started talking with others about my career and interests, I felt right at home.

Having been raised on technology (setting up my family’s first home computer, getting my first cell phone at 13, and using AIM and MySpace in my early teen years) stirred my initial interest in the subject. Once I bought my first Mac computer in college, I was a complete tech innovation lover. I started exploring all types of techie things such as setting up Google Apps, creating a self hosted blog, studying SEO, checking out HTML, and then on the side I did reviews of various mobile apps (on my iPhone).

A few months ago, as you may have read, I landed a job at a high tech start up here in Boston. I’ve been here for four months now as the only female in the company and can’t even begin to explain how much I have learned and grown. I have been surrounded by some of the smartest minds in cloud computing, internet marketing, and website design. Four months ago I could never have imagined that I would learn as much as I have already.

Just because women aren’t the majority in the tech scene yet (or maybe ever) doesn’t mean we can’t still make a huge impact and learn like crazy. Although several of my female friends and I are the minority at events and in our workplace, that only adds oxygen to our fire. I actually enjoy being part of an underrepresented group of motivated individuals ready to take on the ‘impossible.’

Many women don’t want to be in this industry because of the misconceptions that it is a nerdy, masculine arena. Those few of us that don’t fall for that misconception need to be given a shot.

In the start up world, it is not about who or what gender formulated an idea for a start up; it is the idea that counts. If your idea rocks, it will go far (and probably make you a millionaire). Silicon Valley is a great example of this happening left and right.

I don’t regret joining this industry for even a second. It shouldn’t matter what gender you are that determines if you will succeed in a given area of interest, it should be your ideas, passion and determination that gets you far. I love what I do and will keep doing it for as long as I can.

There are many awesome groups around Boston that act as female tech incubators, including Girls in Tech, Boston Womenpreneurs (founded by Ali Powell whom I mentioned above) and Boston Women’s Network. This is a great network of groups to facilitate female interest and advancement in a previously male-only industry.

What are your thoughts? Do you have a minority of females working at your company? Share your ideas and stories below!

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Aug
25

Is the Internet draining us or do we lack focus?

information overload

Five years ago you would never have had access to as much information as you do today. Now the question arises, “Is there too much information available at my fingertips?”

You might not have thought twice about the slow yet apparent increase of information that is available on the web until now. In fact, I hardly thought much into it until I read this article.

The upside to the matter is that no longer do you have to dig through a book, purchase a $500 research report or conduct a focus group to gain information that seems quite simple to obtain today.

On the other hand, our eyes are glazing over so much of this information that we are becoming far less able to soak in pages of data and would rather read quick snippets of information from article titles. For example, say you conduct a Google search for “Percentage of businesses on Twitter.” You might get a great result from eMarketer offering an extensive three to ten page report all about this. But do you choose it? Probably not. Instead, you take in what the title says, “Study finds 56% of businesses use Twitter” and do a quick scan of the first few paragraphs.

This demonstrates the inability and time deficiency that we have to sit down and read a real report anymore. Our depth of knowledge is limited but our breadth is expanding. We are now taking in more types of data but at a shallower level. Many psychologists and scientists question if this will in turn make us more stupid.

They worry that we will not be able to think deeply and thoughtfully into any one topic anymore. While we may be well versed in many topics, what does that do when we are asked to go into detail on a particular subject and can’t?

This debate boils down to focus vs. plethora of information. I stand on the fence about the issue but would have to lean in the direction of saying that in general it will be a good thing. I believe that the more well versed a person is in the world on many different topics, the better off they will be. This is not to say you should know a little about biology, green energy, social media marketing, architecture and pollution, but that you should have a broad focus on a particular industry or topic and take in bits and pieces of data all over about that.

For example, my specialty is high tech internet marketing. Do I read intensive reports on this regularly? Nope. Instead, I set up Google Alerts, subscribe to about twenty blogs, follow around 350 people that are tech and marketing related on Twitter and watch videos related to these subjects. This gives me an expansive and thorough understanding of the general state of Internet marketing. Instead of honing in on one very particular part of my speciality, I like to use the plethora of data to my advantage by expanding my knowledge and expertise to a more general category.

A few months ago I wrote a post titled ‘Information Overload or Filter Failure’ which discussed that maybe we are just having trouble creating our own data filters in our minds. To combat this, pick out particular topics you want to be aware of while scanning the web. While scanning through your Google Reader, email and Twitter feed, act as a keyword catcher and focus on picking up only articles related to those. Don’t let the data explosion overtake your whole Internet experience and let it ‘dumb you down’ as experts are calling it.

As a tip, I try to read a book a month to allow myself to not become too entrenched in only learning from what the Internet has to teach me. I also do this to be able to immerse myself into a longer story and focus on reading hundreds of pages of the same piece rather than snippets. I have realized recently that this has been a bit of a struggle to do since I read so much online now, but I am sticking to my mission to do this and it definitely helps. Try that out too and let me know if it works!

How do you react to this issue? Do you feel dumbed down by the Internet or do you think it can provide us with an opportunity? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!

You might also want to follow me on Twitter to learn more @kristinedziadul.

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Jun
03

7th Annual MITX Awards Recap

Last night the 7th Annual MITX Awards were held at the Boston Copley Marriott Place. Between a great turnout, high energy and tons of well-qualified candidates, the event was a blast! Being on the younger side of people who were there (as I am a recent college grad) it was really inspiring to be in a room full of successful entrepreneurs in the tech industry.

It is evident that Massachusetts is becoming more and more innovative despite the condition of the economy. An indication was the large amount of people who entered to be considered for each category, the governor’s support of the Boston innovation hub, and the strong encouragement of the MA community as a whole for start-ups. Right now it is apparent that the Boston tech scene is thriving with continued innovation.

Boston played a large role in the start of the Internet itself and both Napster and Facebook were created here. This is a major epicenter of technology in the country today and the community allows it to thrive and succeed. As Bill Bulkely, Lifetime Achievement Award recipent and professional journalist stated, “Watching this space has never been more fun.” He entered the tech scene in Boston in 1978 and has seen it grow from tapes to iTunes and libraries to Google. He realized quickly that “no business model can survive by being flipped on its head”, having seen many businesses succeed and fail with the quick changing technology and the introduction of the Internet in the work place.

And what allows for a great company to succeed? As Matt Lauzon, founder of Gemvara (winner of the e-Commerce and Alternative Retail category) stated that it takes 1. Great advisors, 2. Great team, and 3. (well he forgot at first, but then tweeted that it was investors!) to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Across the board, award recipients last night stated that if it wasn’t for the undying support of the Boston community, they may not have survived. Jeremy Allaire, Innovation Hall of Fame Honoree at the event stated that Boston is considered the cradle of liberty because of its high rate of success for tech start ups. Most entrepreneurs also found that the fresh talent and great local resources also attributed to the great success.

Allaire went on to state five aspects that allow an entrepreneur to succeed:

1. Vision – a person must have a deep intution about a transformation in the economy. They must be able to see not only the larger picture but also the small incremental steps to get there.

2. Passion – they must have a deep conviction channeled into motivation to allow them to succeed.

3. Tenacity – they must be willing to do something disruptive and innovative. This is hard to do, but if they have passion, it is possible.

4. Patience – any company takes awhile to disrupt and innovate in the economy, so an entrepreneur must be ready to take a lot of time and effort in order for it to succeed.

5. Execution – many people have ideas and theories, but 90% of them fail. Execution, as Allaire stated, “is about surrounding yourself with incredible people who share your vision.” This allows the ideas to turn into actionable items.

The MITX Tech Awards were definitely a must-attend event this summer. It was a time to celebrate our peers’ achievements and those of ourselves and also an opportunity to find inspiration for our own business pursuits.

May
25

10 Most Outstanding Viral Media Pieces

1. Incredible graphics and technology! Step into the Sensory Box by Superbien

2. High speed water picture. See more here.
high speed water picture

3. Interesting take on a bag design…
duck bag

4. Take a second look at this…notice 3D to 2D?
3D image

5. Wait, what?
marlboro and campbells

6. Amazing techie wallpaper. See the site here.

Hirzberger Events – Digital Wallpaper from Strukt Studio on Vimeo.

7. Pretty intriguing music video production, especially since they did it all in only one take. Definitely watch the whole thing and you’ll get it.

8. The skill that this guy has is incredible! Danny MacAskill – Inspired Bicycles.

I like how he fakes messing up at first then stuns everyone with his skills.

9. One word: AMAZING! The best soccer goals street style. Via YouTube.

10. I find beatboxing so incredible. Check out Rahzel – If your Mother Only Knew

May
21

6 Reasons Why Blog and Internet Security Matter

website hackerAs some of you may have noticed in the past week, I was unable to post any new blog posts. This being because my site was hit by the Pharma hacker attack since my site is hosted through GoDaddy. I thought my site was safe and passwords secure, but that simply was not enough. Thus, the entire Site Admin page’s skin was nearly impossible to navigate.

Having never dealt with an issue like this, it took awhile to find out how to fix it. I got the run around from GoDaddy and they finally took out the malware JavaScript that was in my stylesheet. However, it was still not functioning correctly so I tried to look up information on the WordPress blog forum to no resolve.

After researching, calling GoDaddy and running my own tests, I found the following ways to keep your online life safer, not just to avoid hacks, but avoid identity theft and break-ins to your sites.

1. Ensure that your passwords are unique and not the same for all your sites. If you make the password the same for all your social media sites, website and email, and someone hacks into one of them, there is a high likelihood that they will try to get into your other sites. You can use a program called KeePass which is a password manager to save all your passwords across all sites. It also allows users to easily copy and past usernames and passwords right into the site login.

2. Run regular tests on your site for malware or other hacks. I had no idea for a few days that my site was hacked since I was not familiar with what a hack looked like. The front end of my site looked normal, so I never thought to check. A colleague then told me about the Pharma attack, I contacted GoDaddy and the malware was finally removed.

3. Run security and virus checks on your computer regularly. If your computer is infected with a bug or virus, it may transfer over to your site. Some bugs are designed to attack as much as possible and can get into your cookies, which then transfers over to the data on your sites. Keeping all aspects of your computer and online life safe and secure helps avoid any security issues.

4. If you have a website, occasionally check that no other person has hacked into your site and made themselves an admin or user. This can be done fairly easily if they are a good hacker, so ensure no one has done this since they can have full access to all your information and even lock you out of your site.

5. Keep your account information private. Never tell someone over the Internet what your login is to any site, give them access to a site, approve access to your site from a third party site that you aren’t familiar with, or talk about site specifics over the Internet. Believe it or not, people are searching for that data and can pick it up if you leave it out there for them. For example, if you are promoted to approve or deny access to a site of yours from a site you don’t know, just deny it since it may be a malicious program. I would even be hesitant to give a well known site or person access to my site to go in and fix it since you never know what they do with that data afterwards (you hope they are ethical and dispose of it properly).

6. Backup all your information on a regular basis. You never know when your site will go down, an account could be accidently deleted or you decide to deactivate your account. In order to prevent data loss, you must backup your information. Backupify offers a full line of services to backup accounts from Facebook to Twitter to WordPress and many more. You then can easily go into your account there and find any information that has been backed up so you never lose important data. This process is so important today, especially when your website is compromised like mine and you could lose data. [disclosure: I just started a new job at Backupify]

While some of these precautions did not apply to what happened to my site and how it could have been prevented, they are issues I have come across and would like to warn all against. The Pharma attack I had was fairly unpreventable since it was more on the side of web hosting servers being vulnerable. After reading a lot about the attack on GoDaddy sites, I have read much more negative feedback on the company than positive and am considering switching from them to a more reliable one.

Even if attacks like these are unavoidable, it is still so important to protect your information as much as possible on the Internet. As business has moved online so much and there are more and more malicous hackers, you must be that much more cautious.

Readers: Have you encountered a similar situation or know other ways to help protect yourself online?

May
06

Stop Making Excuses!

Stop making excuses for not being on social media!

Yes, it means you lose control of your content. Yes, it means being in places your buyers are, not where you want to be. Yes, it means you must take a leap out of your comfort zone.

However, it is more than worth it. Why? Read on…

You don’t have anything to lose because you can always delete something that is not working out. Social media can actually be very fun and exciting for you and your company.

So why social media?

1. Tell Your Story. If you create buyer personas for your market demographics, you can then tailor your company’s story directly to an interested market. You may have different personas in or between social media sites, and every persona has different needs. You can create several different stories and promote them on social media and your interested market will pick that up. It would be great to even interview your market and find out what they want or hear their story to share on your community site.

2. Earn Attention by Publishing Your Way In. The old way of marketing was to buy advertising space, beg your way into media through PR and buy your way in by direct selling. Now, you must earn this attention by publishing your content on YouTube, a blog, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and more.

On the web, you are what you publish.

3. Encourage Sharing. Those interested markets will willingly want to share information they find valuable. It is not word of mouth anymore, it is word of mouse. The mouse (or trackpad) helps listeners share your story with others. Consider yourself lucky to have these Internet marketing capabilities which allow interested people to share your information so quickly and to a large following. You can encourage sharing by making a link on your blog for readers to retweet, share on Facebook or Google Buzz, send in an email, or submit to delicious or other bookmarking sites. You can add the same capabilities to an email as well.

4. Lose Control of Your Content. This may sound like a scary statement, but it is the best and fastest way to gain viral attention. You must lose control of your content in order for it to be shared and spread around the Internet. You can do this by giving out free information or tools to help your market succeed and solve their problems. They will appreciate this and spread the word. Hubspot does this VERY well with all their free webinars, tools, and blogs.

5. Put Down Roots. Be in the places where your buyers are, not where you want to be. It is much easier to gain attention in spots where your market is already comfortable being instead of enticing them to join a site where you are. For example, if your market is a huge NFL following, you must be on NFL related blogs and sites to talk to them and gain attention.

6. Point the World to Your Virtual Doorstep. One you have established great content, a firm standing on social media sites, and a good following, then drive people to your site through inbound marketing. No one will visit your site if they have no idea who you are, what you do, and what you write about. That is why you must first get involved on sites where your market is, develop relationships, THEN drive them to your site and get a lead.

Although social media may seem scary to a company who is afraid of negative feedback, wants a firm hold on their content, and does not know how people will react to them on social media, it can gain you rewards two-fold. By allowing yourself to lose control of your content, share it, and manage your fear, you are taking a great leap and starting a viral rave.

You may find markets that you didn’t even know existed who want your product or service, people may love what you do and are willing to share it, and your market may need and want your free content and become very loyal to you. The possibilities are endless when it comes to social media.

Social media is actually a very natural thing for the Internet. The Internet was designed to be a collaborative, social environment and up until recently, it really was not. Finally it has come full-circle and people are using it in a social, collaborative way. So by getting on social media, you are doing exactly what the Internet was intended for.

Get out there and make those valuable connections and talk to and listen to your market!

May
05

PlacePop Demo Review Part II

A few months ago I was introduced to a new entrant into the location-based market called PlacePop. They contacted me and asked for my input because I am active in the smart phone and location-based markets. I made my first demo review of this application here.

There have been many new improvements to this application recently, including a much simpler user interface, ability to search for people to follow, affinity programs, and integration with other languages.

Check out my second demo below and let me know what you think!

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