Tessa Horehled | Strategic Marketer, Community Manager, Brand Strategist, Digital Communications Specialist | ATL / NYC

Happy 2010 – Digitalutions For A New Decade

Happy New Decade! (We are all tired of hearing “New Year” at this point.)

WHERE I’VE BEEN

Things have been very busy over at THINK, in addition to co-founding and organizing the inaugural WordCamp Atlanta with Brandon Sheats, one of my perpetual partners-in-crime, and moving to a very cute new apartment in the Poncey-Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta. I also didn’t seem to be able to stay away and, as of a couple months ago, have rejoined the Atlanta Rollergirls, flat-track roller derby league.

While I’m catching up on things, here is a quick run-down of my upcoming speaking engagements.

UPCOMING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
January 9
WordCamp Atlanta (Atlanta, GA)
Making Your Blog Your Business: Scale & Monetization

January 11
Social Fresh Nashville (Nashville, TN)
Social Media in the Music Industry (10:30am)
Corporate Blogging (5:30pm)

January 29
SoCon 2010 (Kennesaw, GA)
Blog Monetization (not yet titled)

February 8
Social Fresh Tampa (Tampa, FL)
(panel to be announced)

March 12-17
SXSW Interactive (Austin, TX)
The State of Music Blogs in 2010

March 29
Social Fresh Portland (Portland, OR)
(panel to be announced)

If you’re looking for a speaker for your upcoming event or conference, I’d love to be a part of it. Feel free to contact me about availability.

DIGITALUTIONS FOR A NEW DECADE

Phew! Now that most of the catching up is taken care of, here are my “digitalutions” for the new decade. My digitalutions are my digital resolutions (see what I did there?) that I am going to try my best to keep up with over the new few years or so. Each of the resolutions are influenced, if not powered by, my digital presence and interactions. My resolutions usually trend around a 60% long-term achievement rate which I am pleased with — let’s hope the same is possible for these longer term goals.

1. 1. BLOG DAILY
   It doesn’t have to be on the same blog every day but contribute at least one thought-out post per day. Between TessaHorehled.com, Drive A Faster Car, Tumblr and a small handful of other niche ones I’ve collected, I should never fall short of subject content.
2. 2. TAKE ENOUGH BREAKS AND SLEEP REGULARLY
   Nothing good comes from a lack of proper downtime.  I often sacrifice sleep because I tend to get very project-oriented in the middle of the night when there isn’t half as much incoming email, text messages, tweets, phone calls and other communication. Take two steps back from the computer, phone and every other potential gadget.
3. 3. SPEAK MORE
   I enjoy speaking and attending conferences/events very much because it offers a terribly unique environment for learning, networking and socializing. They’re almost little microcosms of the social web reflecting very similar offline (and mobile) behavior and roles.  Public speaking is something I have done a fair bit but a skill I would like to spend more time sharpening.
4. 4. SPEND MORE TIME ON DRIVE A FASTER CAR
   I have very big long-term plans for Drive A Faster Car and a detailed plan for how it will all be executed.  Unfortunately, I tend to stay pretty busy and DaFC is usually the first to suffer when things get stressful.  I need to determine the best way to tackle this massive but deserving project effectively without sacrificing my other activities.

What are your digitalutions for the year or decade? Any bad habits?