Missing dad lately (his anniversary was this past weekend) and well, he may be gone but his lessons live on! BTW, he’s somewhere in the universe right now reveling in the attention I’m giving him by writing this blog. haha Perhaps one of his random lessons will apply to you today. Perhaps not. Perhaps you can save these for a rainy day. Or if you’re in Boston right now, some other rainy day. ;) 

“Forget boys, eat chocolate.” - Ah, what a good one. haha Yes, my chemist father made sure that I knew that chocolate contained phenylethylamine, the same chemical that is released in your brain when you fall in love. Being the youngest and only girl of 4, I think this was his way of preventing any type of heartbreak. That and a good piece of chocolate is far easier to attain. ;) 

“When you wake up in the morning, you decide what your day will be like.” - I try to hold tight to this one when I go underground and I’m pressed up to a foggy window in an overcrowded train. This one is the hardest… me? I’m totally responsible for my emotions? But I like to blame others for my bad days! 

“Even the pope goes to the toilet.” - This one is pretty classic. No matter how much money someone made or how famous they were or if they had somehow wronged me… he wanted to make sure that I knew that we all have this connection of being human. He wasn’t a huge fan of celebrity and didn’t want me to be intimidated by anyone. 

Oh pops… 

I was sending some vsnaps today and someone said they were into TED talks, so I attached this one from Sarah Kay. In her talk, she mentions getting people to write by making them write lists. Hopefully this will give me a little jumpstart. So here’s mine… Three Things I Know To Be True… today… 

1) I have a really fantastic boss. After I accepted my job… I kept bumping into people telling me how lucky I was to be working with him… how they’d “go to war” with him… etc. A part of me thought, “Awesome!” and of course the other part of me thought, “Well what about me?”. Now after almost a year of working with him, it’s really starting to sink in how lucky I am to have a boss that listens to me. Don’t get me wrong, we do have little spats… but he really respects what I have to say. :) 

2) The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (@cduhigg) is an amazing book. If you’re into psychology or or marketing or you just wanna figure out why people do what they do, pick it up. It’s really helped me figure out work a little more… my life a little more… and it’s given me insight into the world around me. Fo serious. 

3) There are some really badass women in Boston. They’re working hard, blazing trails, and using their connections for good. Great meeting tonight with the Wonder Women of Boston event committee. They motivate to do more and to reach more people. http://www.wonderwomenboston.com

12 days this month I was either at a conference or traveling because of one. And if you calculate the prep and recovery time, well I guess you could say that conferences pretty much took up my March. So, yeah. Hi! ;) 

Mid-March, I went to my very first SXSW (just for the interactive part of the festival, sadly not music or film) and got to demo Vsnap (@Vsnap) at TechCocktail (@TechCocktail) as well as at the Microsoft Bing/MassChallenge (@BingBooster / @MassChallenge) party. It did rain a bit during the first half of the week, which was kind of a bummer… 

When I wasn’t demoing or being sick (lost my voice after all the presentations and interviews), I was eating. This came off the Snarkys Moo Bawk Oink food truck (yes)… it’s chocolate and cream cheese frosting with cocoa krispies on top of a gourmet doughnut…  

And these frickin’ delicious looking chocolate croissants came from Easy Tiger (@EasyTigerATX)… a bakery AND beer garden in Austin. Why am I in Boston? haha 

I did see several great panels which I’ll probably post about later. It was one of the most exhausting and invigorating weeks I’ve had in the past several years. If you’re a startup or small biz, I did a recap with some SXSW tips on the company blog here. Thanks to my boss for sending me! :) 

A few days after I came back from SXSW, it was time for Music 2.0: Tools + Tech for Musicians, Marketers, and Managers (FB page linked so you can see all the presos and recaps). It was a tougher year sponsor-wise, but we had some really awesome folks come through for us. Another shout out to popchips (@popchipsboston), Notch Session Ale (@notchbrewing), and vitaminwater (@vitaminwater)! In addition to helping Charlie organize this year, I also presented Vsnap as a great tool for musicians. I did clarify at the beginning that I was there as a music fan who thinks Vsnap would be awesome to use, as opposed to a Vsnap employee trying to pitch it as a music tool. Here’s a pic Joselin Mane took… kinda crazy. haha 

And, today I got up at 4:30AM to hop on a flight back from the SheStreams (@SheStreams) conference in Florida. It was a very interesting experience and outside of a university guest lecture, I’ve never had to prep an hour long presentation. I talked about Vsnap indirectly, but it was mostly about the power of authenticity and empowering your staff to be brand evangelists. View from dinner the first evening: 

And glance at my badge. The whole “speaker” thing will probably never get old. I feel like in the digital space, I spent so many years listening… the fact that people are even asking me to speak still boggles my mind and makes me giddy and nervous. 

I put this photo of me and my cousins in the Philippines in my presentation. See that? Even when I was 4/5, I was a brand evangelist. 

And a pic of my last night there…

I’m not a huge fan of 80 degree weather, but I do miss regularly going to the beach. It so so so so reminded me of the trips to the Jersey Shore/Wildwood with my family when I was little and it made me miss them so much. I think I’m probably going to plan a week-long trip to NJ/NYC/the Shore in June to coincide with my high school reunion. 

Hope y’all have been well. :)