Shop to Benefit Ronald McDonald House

So excited to  be helping the Texas Hill Country / North Austin ADPi Alumnae group with another fundraiser to benefit Ronald McDonald House (RMH) in Austin.

We've made it both a physical even and a virtual event.

If you're in the Austin area we'd love for you to stop by, but if not you can shop ONLINE NOW by clicking the pic above!

Not familiar with RMH? Check out this great video: 

Movember Austin Growing By Leaps and Bounds

Movember, movember the second movember . . . there's a quote that goes something like that.

This is my second year to participate in the Movember movement. See my post from last year here.

If you aren't familiar with Movember it's a movement that started down under in Australia in 2003 to both be a silly way to bring back the mustache (Mo) and in turn as a way to raise awareness and funds to fight cancers that affect men's lives.

'Cmon. When you see pink what do you think? Breast cancer awareness, right? When you think about what cause is talked about the most during October it's what? Cancers that affect women.

But did you know that in 2010 tragically more than 32,000 men will die as a direct result of prostate cancer?

My husband, Charles was diagnosed with prostate cancer and subsequently underwent a radical prostatectomy last October. I blogged about it as "Our Life After Three Words."

In the last week he's had a one of many followup appointments with his urologist and he's completely cancer free and has NO PSA level.

Men, it's so important to talk about PSA levels with your physician. Women, it's so important to encourage the men in your lives to get consistent checkups that can catch things like cancer.

Charles' doctor told him that his cancer probably grew over a period of about five years. Yikes. That's a long time. There were definitely symptoms that were disregarded and thank God that he decided to get a check up and be completely honest with his physician when he did.

If you'd like to get involved with Movember please visit www.movember.com. If you're in the Austin area we're hoping to have 250 members by the end of November and as of tonight we're at about 150. Join us - Team AUS!

If you aren't in the Austin area, see if you can find a team near you or consider making a donation.

And tell me about your stories either here on this post or on my Movember page. We'd love to have you share!

I'm Beginning To See The Light

Tonight I attended the Austin Technology Council's Tech Tailgate. An annual event and I was happy to get out and be encouraged by the attendance. Austin's technology community is not dead. In fact it's very vibrant and very alive.

I was encouraged to hear from Mike Mayeux, Founder and CEO of Novotus who always speaks from the heart and in particularly I enjoyed hearing him say,

"We (Austin) are on the front end of the rebound."

Here. Here. Mayeux! I wholeheartedly agree.

I'm hopeful. I'm watching candidates accept jobs. I'm watching companies turning their hiring plans back on. I'm watching as companies grow and stretch and tackle new challenges head on.

And then as I was shutting down my computer for the night I ran across one more piece of encouagement. Really. It really is encouraging. Peter Kim's post from a couple of days ago on the Dow when it FIRST hit 10,000.

Kudo's to Peter for keeping this piece of history and thank you kindly for reminding us to learn from where we are today and press on to greater things tomorrow.

Great Fundraiser Event to Benefit Caritas of Austin

So, for those of you who may not know it, I've left Bulldog Solutions and have joined Kershner Trading as a Recruiting Specialist. I know I need to update a ton of things on my blog, but first things first.

If you're in Austin today (Wed., Dec. 3) we'd love to have you join us tonight!

This year, my new employer, Kershner Trading has partnered with Ten Thousand Village's Austin's SoCo location and Caritas of Austin to create a unity holiday shopping evening.

When: December 3 from 5-8 pm

Where: 10,000 Villages, 1317 S. Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78704

Come support two great charitable causes and find unique gift ideas for the upcoming holidays. For those unfamiliar with 10,000 Villages, here is the mission statement from their webpage:

At Ten Thousand Villages, we work with over 120 artisan groups in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to bring you fair trade jewelry, home decor, gifts and more. As one of the world's oldest and largest fair trade organizations, we build long-term relationships with artisans that are based on mutual understanding and respect. Fair trade enables artisans to earn a fair wage and provides the opportunity for a better quality of life.

Additionally, since Kershner is sponsoring the event through their volunteer support, we are able to donate 20% of the total sales from 5-8 PM to Caritas of Austin. Caritas is another great organization fighting hunger, homelessness, and poverty in our greater Austin community.

Questions? Please contact me.

Mass Communications Week at Texas State Adds Web 2.0 to Schedule

Sheila Scarborough, blogger-writer, asked me to join her and Omar Gallaga, reporter at the Austin American Statesman, on a panel discussion entitled Web 2.0 in the Real World. (photo shows left to right, Sheila, Omar and me). The panel is just one of Texas State's Mass Communications Week events set to occur October 20 - 23, 2008.

This is a super exciting honor for me as I'm a TX State (SWT) alumni and hold my degree in Journalism, it became Mass Communications the following semester, with a focus in Advertising.

I'm always eager to share with people on how to interact with each other on the internet. Talking to students about it will simply be a bonus. I think they are much more familiar and already take part in so many Web 2.0 forums that they probably don't even think twice about it. Talking to adults is a whole other topic.

In the Human Resources world, that is my profession, I think it's a struggle right now to define where we can and can't join in on conversations. About five months ago I set up a Ning site for a group of my HR colleagues in and around the Austin area. We're involved in HR departments of technology companies so one would think that this would be an easy step.

For the most part it has been pretty easy. And I believe that's probably one of the large misconceptions. Web 2.0 is all about interaction and conversations. It's not a stagnet website that tells me this and that and doesn't allow me to take part.

Our HR Ning allows us to communicate in a much more efficient way then we did when we blasted e-mails to the entire group several times a day. It also allows us the ability to keep our group closed and we don't accidently give our member's personal contact information away to the rest of the world.

I've been so impressed with our little Ning site that I've also set up one for my Home Owner's Association. I'm the Communication / Newsletter Chairperson and the Ning site is simply an extension of that group. It allows the members of our HOA to connect in a way we haven't before. It personalizes our neighbors and brings a sense of a better community.

Web 2.0 to me simply brings the world to my doorstep and allows me to interact with others from the comfort of my living room and from time to time allows me the chance to put on events, host events, speak at events with the people I've become friends with in my cyber world.

What does your company offer you for a referral?

When I talk to people who are looking for a job I always tell them the number one way to most of your best positions is through networking.

According to Roberta Chinsky Matuson in her article entitled, Networking 101 on Monster.com, a leading career website,

A vast number of job openings never make it to the newspaper or job boards.
These positions are often referred to as the "hidden job market." Candidates
find out about these positions through word of mouth. The higher up the ladder
you go, the more likely a position will be filled this way.

And since recruiting is one of my key responsibilites at Bulldog Solutions I network in various locations always keeping my eyes open for a potential recruit.

When I joined Bulldog Solutions in March of 2006 I was recruited by our Vice President of Strategic Accounts, Heather Hoetger. She and I had worked together at CyberTrader, now a fully owned entity of Charles Schwab, as HR Managers. Since she knew that Bulldog was looking to hire their first HR manager and she knew that I was in the job market and had experience working with me, she contacted me and well the rest is history. What I found in joining Bulldog Solutions is that most of the people in our company were recruited simply from our own networks and that we'd recruited just about everyone that we knew to fill what positions we had. So my next task . . . find new blood.

Which we did and over the last two years we've been recruiting through a variety of sources and while we've continued to hire referrals there hasn't been a big push to really hone in on each others networks. Until now . . .

We are looking at starting an employee referral program and I thought I'd reach out to YOU! If your company has an employee referral program would you mind sharing how it works here on my blog. We're looking for both its successes and pitfalls.

Oh, and by the way . . . if you're looking for a job in the Austin, Texas area be sure to stop by our Career page and if you don't see something of interest that's okay too. Sign up to be part of our Kennel Club where we'll keep you abreast of positions as they become available.

Get Out And Give!

Virtually join the Austin Twitter/Tech community to save lives by donating blood on Thursday, July 3, at the Blood and Tissue Center of Central Texas. Connie had the idea to do a blood drive in association with the Frozen Pea Fund, and Michelle Greer and David Neff stepped up to help organize the Austin event.

The idea is to gather with some friends from your favorite social network — Twitter, Plurk, Ning, Facebook, for example — at your local blood donation center and give a few pints for a good cause. It’s especially timely this Thursday, which is the day before a major summer holiday, when the blood banks need extra inventory.

Choose a sign-up time for the Austin blood drive here. And if you organize a drive in another location, please let us know in the comments below.

Let's Go Fly a Kite

This was the song playing in my head as I got dressed this morning. Okay. This is the song I was singing out loud as I got dressed this morning.




After church today I joined a couple of friends to attend my first ever Zilker Park Kite Festival. In it's 80th year, it seems that there are a number of folks who have attended it and known about its existence much longer than myself. There must have been thousands of people, families, kiddos, moms, dads, grandparents and lots of dogs.

Seemed that most folks were actually flying their own kites and then there were professional kite flyers with contraptions that must have been as large as my house. The professionals did kite acrobatics to new age jazz music that was broadcast throughout the event via huge speakers.

All kinds of colors and shapes and sizes and amazingly I didn't see one political one and yet we have the US President Texas primaries happening in two days. My favorites included tails with spinny things on them. There was a beareded dragon that was beautiful, lots of butterflies, a few Austin bats, and even a flying man.

Check out all the photos from the event on my Flickr site.

Yet another reason why I LOVE Austin so much with all it's weirdness. Keep Austin Weird!

SXSW Interactive Here I Come

I'm a newbie. I live in the Austin area, but I've never attended any part of a past SXSW event. Sad to think that I've lived in and out of Austin for going on 11 years and haven't been a part of it until this year.

So this year I'm going in full force. Not only am I planning on getting my feet wet, but I'm determined to simply wear myself out by attending and chatting with everyone at the Interactive portion of the festival.

Mostly I'm connected with folks from all over the world on Twitter and we've set up a Wiki to keep up with who's planning on attending. And this morning I just joined a Ning site for attendees.

My company, Bulldog Solutions, is a cosponsor with Federated Media and Dell, The Conversation Group, and Social Media Club Austin, an evening of “Conversation Starters” at the Iron Cactus on Monday, March 10, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Over drinks and appetizers, attendees will have a chance to share ideas with a number of people who have volunteered to start conversations: Shel Israel, Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, Charlene Li, Chris Heuer, Mack Collier and Lionel Menchaca, as well as several Federated Media authors. If you know anything about social media then you'll know that these folks are the big guns in the arena.

I can't wait. If you've thought about going and they still have badges left to SXSW Interactive then come. Be a newbie with me.

Let the hiring begin

I've been in the HR / Recruiting world for going on close to a decade now and one of the things I know is the fourth quarter of any year is generally not the time for huge hiring sprees. Then when the calendar flips to January the frenzy begins.

That's exactly where I find myself these days. With awards like this it's not surprising that Bulldog Solutions is about to undergo tremendous growth, yet again! Do you have what it takes to be a Bulldog?

2006 Listed as one of the Top 50 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies by the Austin Business Journal

2007 Listed as one of the Top 50 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies by the Austin Business Journal

2007 Listed as one of the Inc 500s Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies

2007 Listed as one of the Best Companies to Work for in Texas

And now . . . I'm in need (or soon will be in need) of the following:

• Event Manager - In essence a DJ for our clients Webinars. Folks with 2-3 years of professional experience and RTF degrees usually fit well in this positions.
  
• Account Director - The bridge between our sales department and our project campaign managers. We're looking for folks with 5-7 years of strategic marketing experience. Interactive advertising / marketing a huge plus.
  
• Web Production Developer - HTML proficient and graphic / design background who is comfortable with an incredibly fast-paced work environment and is fanatical about quality.
  
• Campaign Manager - If you've led campaigns for the Democratic or Republic party goody for you, but this title is all about project managing our client events and marketing objectives.

There will be more listed very soon so if you're in the job market, if you know someone in the job market, if you live in Austin or can't wait to get here, then bookmark this page or subscribe to my RSS feed.

Oh, and you have to like working with dogs. I'm not saying our employees are dogs, we actually allow our employees to bring their well-behaved dogs to work with them.

Why Social Media Matters

Within the last six months I've developed an affinity for online social media and networking. I know that it honestly drives some of my colleagues nuts. Good thing I have a slew of friends on Twitter that share in my passion and my desire to spread the works of my new love.

Mostly people want to know what they'll get from using sites like Twitter or Facebook. I think many people have come to realize that MySpace tends to be a fun place and with LinkedIn is easy to see the business connections and networking. But Twitter? Facebook? And seriously, why would anyone over the age of 15 want to join any of these or even Second Life for that matter?

And a few weeks ago everything changed. Twitter suddenly mattered. Twitter mattered to Susan Reynolds and the host of friends that follower her Twitter posts and blog and artwork. Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer.

In addition to being an avid Twitter poster and artist, Susan dabbles in other fun things like Second Life and various other social media. Susan is not 15. Susan is way past 15 and I'm sure she doesn't mind me saying so.

Susan has become our friend, our sister, our confidant, our playmate.

And Twitter rallied.

Many people who call Twitter one of their social networking sites of choice decided to make a stand against cancer by creating a site and a movement based on one of Susan's postings about frozen peas. Frozen Pea Friday began last Friday on the Frozen Pea Fund site and all money raised each Friday goes to the American Cancer Society's initiative Making Strides Against Breast Cancer.

I had already had the opportunity to participate in November in the Austin Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and personally raised over $200 in donations, one donation actually came from a Twitter friend of mine. Around the same time I followed others on Twitter also participating in Race for the Cures around the U.S. So, the thought that the good people of Twitter would create such an effort for one of our own really didn't surprise me.

But what it should prove is the power of online social networking.

Any more questions?

Networking Schmetworking

Network, social network, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. . . Geesh, where's a person to go?

Is online social networking just as powerful as face-to-face networking?

Where are you spending more of your time - online or face-to-face?

What do you find more valuable?

Before the creation of online social networking were you a good face-to-face networker?

Has online social networking helped you become a better face-to-face networker?

In Austin there are so many groups to network with it simply depends on where you want to network and I have to imagine in larger organizations there's even more networking going on.

All questions on my mind today. Looking forward to seeing YOUR answers.

Would You Believe I'm in the Old Category?

(Photo: ABC News)

Okay, maybe not the old category, but definitely in the 30+ category. The reality is I hit the 40s group back in September and goodness I don't feel that old. Even fifty's beginning to look younger.

A few weeks ago, Sarah Lindner of the Austin American Statesman newspaper read one of my blog posts and sent me a note to see if I might be interested in her interviewing me for a story she was writing about Facebook users over the age of 30. I told her that I'd love to be included.

Her story was published today, Facebook for thirtysomethings, it helps those of us that haven't started an online persona gain a better understanding of its uses, benefits and reasons to be on such a site.

It's not that I think everyone of us should be on MySpace and Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter, but for me, especially as the recruiter part of me, being involved on these and other social networking sites is a super advantage to my career. For others it may simply be a way of connecting with people of like interests and learning from their new network of friends. Most of all it's learning how to begin conversations.

Chris Brogan, a friend I connected with first on Facebook, introduced me to Twitter is the King of Conversations. He's a huge proponent of social communities and the benefits of getting to know each other on a personal level - beyond simply wanting to connect with someone that may be of benefit to you on either a personal or professional level.

I like to think that I subscribe to Chris' philosophies on social networking and that beyond my trying to help others with their careers and help me learn from their knowledge of the things that interest me that I am adding to my connections lives in a positive way.

So, get out there, find a site that works for you and begin your own conversations. You'll be amazed at your results.

Today's Life in the Fast Lane

My dear friend Jamie moved from the Dallas area to our beautiful Austin in July of this year, but she wasn't able to move all of her things and chose to store some of her belongings in a storage unit near her old home. Today we trekked up to her storage facility to bring a few things back down to Austin including a 10x10 tent that we use for craft shows.

I'm the lucky keeper of the tent because I have a craft show that I will be attending the first weekend of December - Angleton's 20th Annual Christmas on the Square.

It's been over a year since I attended my last craft fair as Crimson Threads, which is my online side business. In fact the last show was the same Christmas show back in 2005. In 2006 and apparently in 2007, I was much more focused on directing all of my working energy to becoming the best HR Manager I could for Bulldog Solutions. My niece, Claire, was so sad that we didn't do the Christmas show last year. She's my number one sales girl.

In 2004, at the age of 9, Claire sold around $950 worth of products from 10 am - 9 pm. In 2005, she sold just a little shy of that, but both times I was absolutely amazed at her sales skills at such a young age.

Okay, I have to admit, she's a cute strawberry blonde thing and I have this sweet little apron for her to wear and the main product she hocks for me are Northridge Gardens Lotions in a Bar. The women that attend the craft for simply can't pass her up, when she's standing their with lotions in her hand asking them to try the different fragrances.
I'm anxious to see what happens in a few weeks at the show.

I suspect that Jamie's and my trip wasn't in vain and we made the most of our time in Big D. Just before we started the rearranging of her storage unit and packing up, we thought it best to grab a bite for lunch and stopped at one of our favorite places - Blue Mesa Grill in Frisco, yummy Southwestern cuisine. And the sign out front reads, "Catering Anywhere Anytime". Somehow I think that might not be the case, but if they're serious, I'll take some sweet potato chips, an Adobe pie, the Mesa Sampler, and Passion Fruit Tea please.

Who Said Austin Doesn't Have Culture?

So, we may not have the Metropolitan museum, unless we still have one of those wannabe Metropolitan Museum stores in one our malls, Austin still has a great theater community.

Tonight Charles and I had the opportunity to attend Tuna Does Vegas - Jaston Williams and Joe Sears latest addition to the Tuna creations.

I've wanted to see any of the Tuna shows for years and just never got around to making plans to actually go see one. So, when my dear friend Sue sent out a note that she had extra tickets earlier this week, I jumped at the chance and knew Charles would enjoy it too.

Going to the Paramount in Downtown Austin is always a treat. The first time I went to see a performance there it was several well respected guitarists. The second time was to see one of my all time favorite shows - A Chorus Line. I knew it was a special place and thrilled that I was introducing the venue to Charles. It's a beautiful theater and as you enter you can feel its history. It turns 100 in 2015.

We weren't disappointed by Tuna Does Vegas - not a big surprise. Jason and Joe perform as all of the characters throughout this 2+ hour production often cross dressed as women. Tuna is a fictious small Texas town, which Charles and I relate to all too well. In the characters portrayed I could put names of people I knew as I was growing up in West Columbia and I'm certain Charles could do the same from Brazoria. Somehow the small town never really leaves you no matter how many years you've been away.

We laughed and laughed and laughed and gasped at the off colored remarks. If you're in Austin or you have the opportunity to be in a town where a Tuna show is produced, I'd highly recommend that you go see it.

Bulldog Solutions Applauded in New List

A couple of weeks ago Bulldog Solutions found out that we were named to the Best Companies to Work for in Texas. This third annual program was created by the Texas Association of Business (TAB), the Texas State Council of the Society for Human Resource Management (TSC-SHRM), and Best Companies Group.

Bulldog Solutions was one of only 20 in the 25 - 74 employee category and one of but a few from Austin.

Read more about this encouraging news here: Bulldog Solutions One of the Best Companies to Work for in Texas.

Bulldog Solutions' Company Party Proves Muy Bueno!

Bulldog Solutions has held an annual company party for three years now. Pretty impressive considering we're going into our fifth year of business. It's always near Halloween and costumes are highly encouraged.

The first year's theme, which I missed, was a Headbangers Ball. Last year was Boogie Nights. This year's occurred last night and the theme was Latino, which had a wide breadth to interpret and undoubtedly saw some of our best costume choices to date.

We've encouraged our employees to upload their own personal photos to a Flickr site we've created and we'll also soon upload some of the professional photographs we had taken as well.

Wanna know what crazy Bulldog Solutions' employees look like when their partying? Check it out the first sets of photos here: Bulldog Solutions Halloween.

Prior to the event we had created a set of three "Telenovellas" about a fictional story line happening in our offices and sent it out to those that received an invite. It was a great way for us to begin getting psyched for the night on the town.

We danced until after Midnight to the sounds of Grupo Fantasma at The Mohawk in downtown Austin. There was even a guy handrolling cigars. A huge hit of the night.

Ohhhh, what will we do next year . . .?

Austin Ranks #9 According to CNNMoney.com

The 360 Bridge by MacFarland Photography.

In today's article on CNNMoney.com, editors ranked Austin ninth in Best Jobs in the Hottest Markets.

Of course, I'm a bit biased and always think of Austin as the absolutely best place to work anyway.

Tweet Reasons on Why You Should Twitter

Part of our corporate intiative of late is to encourage our employees at Bulldog Solutions in Austin, Texas, to become more involved in Social Media and Networking and step beyond our city limits. We see it as a win-win both for them as individuals and obviously from a corporate standing as well. It simply makes sense to connect, to learn, to share.

On Twitter this evening, I found a post from Connie Reece to Sheila Scarborough. I briefly met Connie a few weekends ago down at Blogtoberfest down in San Marcos. We're connected on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I've never connected with Sheila before, but after I finish posting this I'll add her to those I follow on Twitter and see where else we can connect.

Sheila posted a great article on ProBlogger today on why Twitter isn't a waste of time and included a great graphic of when other social media outlets showed up in our history and how they worked along with why you would use them. She notes, just as many of my friends ponder:

As a freelance writer/entrepreneur in her mid-forties, married with two kids, it’s hard to justify fitting one more thing into my life. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all of the available social media options; Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, StumbleUpon, etc.

So, why Twitter?

Think of it as a stream of mini blog posts (and we all know why blogging isn’t a waste of time.) Think of it as an interesting news feed. Don’t judge it by the continuously-updated public timeline of often pointless blather. The value is in your own micro-community of followers and who you choose to follow.

Great point and great commentary. If you're still trying to figure out where you fit into this new mix, check out the full article of: "Why Twitter Isn't a Waste of Time."

It's a Small World Afterall

It really is. It's especially small the more time you spend online. In case your not in the know it's called Social Media. It's connecting interests and genres and all sorts of things and quite simply making this huge world of ours smaller.

While I'm not amazed to the point of falling over in awe, I am amazed daily as I find more and more of my friends are of the virtual sort. We may have met briefly at some point or we may have met on line through friends of friends or we may have accidently bumped into each other on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace. However we connected, the fact of the matter is we connected. And most of these friends and I chat in our pajamas for goodness sake.

I like to think that I use my social network first and foremost for business connections. Since I'm the HR Manager / Recruiter for one of Central Texas' fastest growing companies, Bulldog Solutions, I'm always on the look out for our next potential hire.

But secondarily, I find myself using my network for socializing and peering into lives whether near or far.

This weekend I putzed around the house, but was also doing searches for a friend's project up in Boston. Laura Athavale Fitton and a slew of folks were taking part in Startup Weekend Boston where they created from scratch a company, DeskHappy and I believe will be launching its beta version before the night's over.

As I played around with that this evening I was also able to stay up to date on the Boston Redsox and I'm so not a sports watcher.

And all of this is what makes me think, yet again, how small our world has become.