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?

Today I have an exciting announcement — I have accepted a full-time position with the Atlanta-based “interactive idea agency” THINK Interactive as Senior Strategist, Social Media. I have been working in-house at the agency over the past month to see whether this would be a good fit for both myself and THINK and am very much looking forward to seeing what our future together develops into with this new step.

Since 1994, THINK has focused on helping companies and brands increase the value of their digital investments. The shop’s services entail digital strategy, digital experience design and delivery, digital marketing media and campaigns, and digital channel measurement.

My role as a Senior Strategist is focused on Social Media and encompasses activities such as social research and strategy, management of social research tools and thought leadership in the interactive and social community. Along with client initiatives, I will also be leading internal education at THINK — broadening our overall understanding of the evolving social media landscape, trends and best practices, as well as sharpening up THINK’s social presence.

It was over 500 days from being laid off during Super Deluxe‘s merger with [adult swim] before I was able to find a company and position that could motivate and excite me as much as my role at SDXE. THINK has casted this opportunity for me and I am eager to become a part of their growing team.

Tonight is the September meeting of the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AIMA). I have been invited to attend and live-tweet the event, “Big Brands Discuss Social Media Initiatives,” being held at Georgia Tech’s Global Learning Center. The event is presented by AiMA and sponsored by BLiNQ Media and Google.

DESCRIPTION:
Social media has gone beyond fad status to credible marketing strategy. However, few organizations know how to create “working” tactics. Comcast does. AT&T does. The Red Cross does. On September 30, you’ll hear how Comcast uses Twitter as a customer service strategy, how AT&T creates authentic conversations with the youth market, and how the Red Cross produces enterprise results on a limited budget.

SPEAKERS:
Comcast – Frank Eliason, Senior Director in National Customer Operations @comcastcares
AT&T – Mimi Chan, Director of Wireless Youth Marketing
Red Cross – Wendy Harman, Social Media Manager @wharman
Moderated by BLiNQ Media’s Dave Williams, CEO and Co-Founder @blinqmedia

I’m looking forward to seeing Frank again whom I met last year at BlogWorld as well as meeting the rest of the speakers. If you aren’t familiar with Comcast’s experience with social media, do yourself a favor and Google it. They are a fantastic example of a company that has learned to go where their customers live online and better brand sentiment in the process.

The event is sold out and no walk-ups will be admitted.

To follow the discussion, you can follow my tweets at @tessa.

I’ve been up to a great deal which I will update you all on soon!

One of the most exciting of these activities is an upcoming series of free classes I will be teaching in Atlanta called Hands On Small Business, sponsored by Kirtsy and Microsoft Office Live.

Here is the schedule of Atlanta classes and links to register:

All of the classes will be held at:
ATDC Headquarters at Georgia Tech
Tech Square, 75 5th Street NW, Suite 202 Atlanta, GA 30308
(404) 894-3575

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5TH, 6:00PM-8:00PM

• Click here to Register for this Event

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7TH, 6:00PM-8:00PM

• Click here to Register for this Event

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8TH, 7:00PM-9:00PM

• Click here to Register for this Event

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST, 2:00PM-4:00PM

• Click here to Register for this Event

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH, 2:00PM-4:00PM

• Click here to Register for this Event

Learn more about Hands On Small Business after the jump!

More about Hands On Small Business:

Women across the country are coming together this October and November for the Hands On Small Business (#HOSB) series — all brought to you by the Politics, World and Business section of Kirtsy and the very good people of Microsoft Office Live.

All 100 individual events will happen between October 5 and November 20, in 20 cities across the United States and Canada.

The practical, hands-on sessions will offer direct advice, instruction, and application tips for free online and social media solutions to help small businesses and entrepreneurs.

“The ‘hands-on’ sessions started as things often do, with neighbors and friends asking each other for help and advice on something new,” said Gabrielle Blair, one of the founders of Kirtsy. “Women often get together to compare notes. And there are a lot of us who want to talk right now about how social media and online applications can simplify our lives and enhance our small business pursuits.”

After hosting 10 Hands-On Social Media sessions with Microsoft Office Live in June, Kirtsy received a fleet of requests to host more of these informal, intimate gatherings across the US and Canada. At the events, attendees cover popular platforms and get hands-on direction setting up accounts and applying them to their lives.

The Fall Kirtsy “Hands on Social Business” sessions will be held in the following cities: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Charlotte, Boston, Denver, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Washington DC, Columbus, Seattle, Portland, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Miami and Toronto.

Each session is free and open to the public.

Last night was the inaugural IgniteATL!

About Ignite

Started by Brady Forrest, Technology Evangelist for O’Reilly Media, and Bre Pettis of Etsy.com, formerly of MAKE Magazine, Ignite was inspired by Pecha Kucha Nights, where speakers are given 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds, giving each speaker 6 minutes and 40 seconds of fame. The first Ignite took place in Seattle in 2006, and since then the event has become an international phenomenon, with gatherings in Helsinki, Finland; Paris, France; New York, New York; and many other locations.

Ignite has two parts: the Ignite contest, where people make things, and Ignite talks, where presenters get 20 slides and five minutes to make their point. You can opt to only have talks, but the contest is fun and can serve as a great warm-up for the talks.

I helped organize the event with Colin Ake, Michael Mealling and Brandy Nagel and had almost 500 people RSVP for this kickoff event! The crowd gathered at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in Midtown excited and curious of what the evening had in store.

We saw presentations about everything from beer to liquid nitrogen and transportation to artificial intelligence! Huge thanks to all of our sponsors, especially MailChimp who enabled our great afterparty at Octane Coffee. An official wrap-up of the event will be over on the IgniteATL site soon with links to the presentations, photos, and video coverage of each.

In addition to my help coordinating the event, I also contributed a presentation on “How To Identify A New Media Douchebag (And Save Yourself From Becoming One).” I don’t have video of it yet but below are the slides with commentary — some of which I got to during the presentation, some of which I didn’t (numbered in coordination with slides)! I definitely need to practice with the 15 second time restraint before my next Ignite presentation.

2. You really think you know more than everyone else? Nothing left to learn? Does your intellectual discipline manifest as a divine incarnation? On whose authority?
3. Yeah… because you attract spam bots with the amount of trending topics you partake in and social media lingo you drop. It’s about quality, not quantity. Forget the numbers and pay attention to the value.
4. My Twitter team twold me to twost a twerrific tweetup! He twit. He twat. He twot.
5. Yes! We saw that post you made on Facebook. And FriendFeed. And Twitter. And Digg. And Tumblr. And…
6. Always armed with Flip cam, iPhone, Blackberry/Android/Palm Pre, MacBookPro, digital SLR, USB modem, etc. Always flashes socially and will eagerly discuss with anyone. So where’s the content again?
7. It doesn’t always fit. Just because you have seen it done, know the tools and have read all the critics and evangelists, doesn’t mean you know how to apply those to a company.
8. There’s a big difference between SEO copy, SEM copy, tweets, Facebook status updates, blog content, mailing list content, and so forth. Stop and rethink while considering the format, audience and function before your next communication effort.
9. The 250 is a term “describing the small, cliquey group of self-appointed Web 2.0 insiders who seem to spend their days blogging and Twittering about each other” giving off the appearance that they feel they are “the only people who matter.”
10. Don’t model yourself after this idea and create your own cliques. There’s much less room for fresh ideas, innovation and growth when you’re in bubble.
11. Read or don’t read. Learn. Form your own opinion. Relate it to your own efforts. Don’t imitate.
12. Who would you rather have a drink with? Who would you be able to learn more from? I’d choose the Snakeoil Salesman — at least he has his own stories.
14. These sheep hide easily and many don’t even realize that they are sheep. Look for those with past experience, who work hands-on with fit metrics designed to drive results, and have developed their own roadmaps and processes.
15. Don’t try to impress — try to help. If you are being hired, that is what your client is looking for.
16. Metrics are unique to every project and effort within. What do they mean in relation to these? Does it affect your next steps? Should it?
17. This is where the magic and progress occurs.
18. Not all social networks are created equal. The type of messaging that may be appropriate for one platform, doesn’t necessarily fit on another. Observe and learn the differences.
19. The social web is developing rapidly and because of this, there is always something to learn. Be open to listening to others and evaluating their points before dismissing.

I’m back in Atlanta after three weeks in New York for some conferencing and work!

I may have mentioned before that I co-founded Social Media Club Atlanta? Well tonight, in partnership with PR Camp Atlanta, Social Media Club Atlanta is hosting a tweetup at the new WaterHaven in Midtown’s Technology Square. Complimentary appetizers and cash bar available.

Come out and meet with fellow social media advocates from Atlanta’s business, media, advertising, PR, design, education, non-profit, and government community.

• RSVP for the SMC ATL August Tweetup
• Follow SMCATL on Twitter
• Join our Facebook Group

Over the past year I have been experimenting with how to grow Drive A Faster Car‘s traffic at a more aggressive rate. The blog already has great SEO in place, regular content, good history and structure and a healthy quantity of inbound links. I have brought in additional writers, widened the scope of content and more aggressively promoted the content on syndicate channels and social media.

Below is a chart I just pulled from Compete with Drive A Faster Car’s traffic over the past year in comparison to some of the more popular Atlanta-based music blogs, Ohmpark, Kiss Atlanta, Atlanta Music Guide and Resonator Mag. In comparison to our competitors, we are definitely excelling! DaFC is currently about twice (almost) each of their traffic numbers.

New Goal: To hit that 15K mark by the end of 2009 and 20K by end of Q1 2010.

Just try saying that one five times fast. Tonight is the tweetup!

Here’s the dealio:

• Center For Puppetry Arts is located at 1404 Spring St. NW at 18th Atlanta, GA 30309 in Midtown
• The tweetup is from 7PM to 10PM. There will be guided tours of the museum from 7:30-8:00 and 8:30-9:00. You are free to roam at will for the entire duration.
• There will be a CASH BAR. Go to the ATM right now while you’re thinking about it.
• The tweetup is 21+ because all of ours are and there’s a cash bar involved.
• Hashtag everything with the #atltweet hashtag! Tweets, photos, etc.
• Speaking of photos, you CANNOT take any photos while inside the Center For Puppetry Arts. Sorry!

For those of you who aren’t into puppets, we’re disowning you. (Kidding!) We are also meeting both BEFORE and AFTER the Center For Puppetry Arts at Marlow’s Tavern in Midtown (950 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, GA 30309, one block from the Midtown Marta station) for food and adult beverages.

If you get lost, confused or just need help (preferably in regards to the tweetup), feel free to ping either @maigh or @tessa / 917.512.3650

Also, YES, the Center For Puppetry Arts is on Twitter — @CtrPuppetryArts

See everyone tonight!

Today, I am in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, page D6 (for those of you reading along at home). Earlier this week, I responded to a blog post on AJC’s The Biz Beat blog that encouraged Atlanta citizens who had lost their job in the past year to share their story. I emailed Sunday Business Editor Michael Gray with my story and it was chosen as one of three featured in today’s paper.

< Insert Tangent >
When searching for the article online, I found that it had not been published online. I found this very interesting that they solicited stories for the piece on a blog then didn’t publish the piece online, only print. Yes, the piece is capable of standing completely independent of the solicitation but do they not expect that readers who stumbled across the blog post might be interested in reading the highlighted stories? Are they assuming that their online readers also read the print edition? This move is a disconnect — it is a content-tease for online readers by not delivering online.

While searching to see if the piece had been published online, I stumbled across this interesting error on the AJC site. The search results for “tessa horehled”? The results give me two links to the exact same article on the exact same page. It looks like someone needs to fix their on-site search.

< End Tangent >

For those of you not in Atlanta or not able to grab a paper, here is my story as it was published.

“After 37 interviews, I gave up”
Tessa Horehled, 25, Midtown West
Social Media / Online Marketing Manager
Unemployed since May 2008

Background: Laid off from Turner Broadcasting System last May when Turner dropped the property she worked for as a full-time contractor. Had to drop out of college, move home with her mother (also laid off). Picked up assorted contract work to help her cover the mortgage.
What she’s done: “I spent six solid months applying for jobs, interviewing, working my ample professional network and networking every opportunity I could find. My resume and interviewing skills were reviewed and re-read by dozens of previous bosses and advisers. Even after relenting to a lesser salary, position and even opening up to the idea of temporarily switching industries, I still was unable to find a position that would work. After 37 interviews, I gave up.”
What she’s learned: As a contractor, she was not eligible for severance or unemployment benefits. “Myself and others in my position aren’t even factored into [the] unemployment rate.
How she’s coping: “I have mostly given up on looking for a full-time position at this time and have been offering consulting/contract services under my LLC I founded last year and spending time on growing and generating more income from my culture and entertainment blog, Drive A Faster Car. I have defaulted on my federal student loan, which now mar my credit report. I’ve barely kept up with my private loans, but finally caught up and am in good standing on them. My mother is employed again after having to take a pay cut and learn a new position.”
Her outlook: “As trying as the past year (now 14 months under-employed) has been, it’s also provided me an opportunity to re-evaluate my career goals and path. I have been able to travel more, become actively involved in professional organizations, grow my blog into a business and spend more time with family. I keep one eye on the job listings but don’t expect to be able to find another full-time position until 2010.”

The recession is affecting everyone. This is nothing new. What is new? Scores of individuals are now looking to the internet for how they can empower themselves with the tools to self-supplement and sustain income beyond traditional options.

This afternoon, I was invited by the ever-awesome Hollis Gillespie (humor columnist, author, radio commentator, and morethanyoucanhandle) and Mike Alvear (Huffington Post blogger, co-host of HBO’s Sex Inspectors, author) to contribute to their “Blog Your Way Out Of The Recession” workshop. I spoke with a group of about 15 who were interested in starting blogs — about three had already taken the plunge.

I began by discussing blog publishing software such as WordPress, MovableType, Blogger and Typepad. While all viable options, my personal favorite and the platform I recommend exclusively to others is WordPress. This website is powered by WordPress as are many of the biggest news sources online including the New York Times and The Washington Post. WordPress is fantastic for a number of reasons. Among the notable: It is very easy to use for individuals who are not tech-savvy; and it is very robust and pliable. WordPress can be very slick and professional aesthetically or you can opt for a more plug-and-play traditional blog format. Whatever suits your fancy.

I continued to discuss the upmost importance of owning your domain and the benefits you sacrifice when not opting for a self-hosted blog, tracking and analyzing traffic and referral information, recommended WordPress plugins, how search engines communicate in regards to your blog, and monetization options for both short-term and long-term revenue growth.

For future workshops, I am very interested in putting together a presentation that focuses on the meta of blogs. It will cover meta-tagging, post tagging, categorization as well as archiving and sitemaps. This may be my project on my flight to NYC next week!

All-in-all it was a great time. I highly recommend you check out both Hollis and Mike online for some fantastically entertaining reads. Stay tuned for future workshop collaborations between the three of us!

Some quick cheat-sheet links:

• I register domains with GoDaddy.
• I host with A Small Orange.
• I use WordPress for all my blogging needs.

I will be doing a blog post about my recommended plugins and traffic/analytics tools soon — check back.