What is Dropbox? Does it really make file sharing easier?

Maryl stops downloading files and starts sharing them on the cloud

That’s not a picture of a moving box. I'm not relocating but I am packing up my photos, Word docs, spreadsheets, PDF’s, slides and videos and taking them on the road. That’s essentially what Dropbox does. It’s a free and simple service that saves all your larger, more conventional files on the cloud. And it saves you time in two important ways: 1) you don’t have to email attachments to anyone, including yourself, ever again and 2) you can work from any location, computer, tablet or smart phone. I can get you up and running in two easy steps! 

What is Evernote.

Maryl answers:  The 3 ways Evernote helped me get a memory like an elephant

“To help the world remember everything, communicate effectively and get things done”.  Now that’s a corporate mission statement I can support.  So in my ongoing effort to do less, be more efficient and productive (especially online) and save time, I’m mastering Evernote.  This is a suite of software tools that organizes my ideas and projects together in one place regardless of their format or original source. I’ve already found three ways I can clean up my clutter and stop losing files, photos, bookmarked web pages, emails, video, audio…easily got another hour back to my day!

Maryl Found: An Extra Hour in Her Day

I recently attended a seminar titled, The Art of Less Doing, which is about how to be more productive and spend less time doing fewer things.  There were a number of automation tools proffered that could take the rest of the year to integrate into my daily or weekly agendas.  So I started out slowly with a change that I knew about but needed someone standing over me to do.  As a result I estimate I got an hour back each day.

Maryl relearns: How to Compute, easy as Apple pie

I finally made the change. After months and months of ruminating over whether to buy a new PC or switch to a MacBook Pro with the new retina display and solidstate hard drive, I bought an Apple. Having a second life is all about making transformations – big and small. Change starts to become more difficult as we move into and through our 20s and beyond. The good news is that of the Big Five Personality Categories, openness, in particular to new experiences, seems to pick up again about age 60 according to a Scientific American report.

Maryl asks: Do you really "like" us?

"You like me.  Right now, you like me!"

Remember those immortal words from Sally Field’s 1985 Academy Award acceptance speech? As much as they’ve been bandied about since then, who would have guessed they’d become the catchphrase for the current social networking craze? Today “you like me” is more than just words though; it’s a button that you click on a Facebook fan or business page and it’s not to be confused with “friends” on one’s personal profile page. The distinction can be fuzzy because big name brand companies have fan pages to ultimately promote their products whereas sites and blogs like SecondLivesClub have them to create a community that is united around a topic or manifesto. So we use Facebook to get followers and to follow others and ultimately to get people to this web site. The more people who “like” you the more people have the opportunity to see what you’re posting on your page. 

As much as I hate to admit it, we’re caught up in the hustle of getting more “likes” on Facebook. But if someone likes me is she really going to follow me? I try to keep up with all the pages we’re following but there’s over 300 now. SecondLivesClub currently has nearly 400 “likes” but some of the pages I go to have thousands. It takes time to build those kinds of numbers although I have a hunch some of them cheat. Well it’s kind of cheating: you can go to web sites like www.coffeeandpower.com or www.fivrr.com and someone will get you 200 “likes” for $20, for example. These small job sites can fulfill a range of work assignments and needs for reasonable prices and have received favorable reviews. The issue with the 200 “likes” is that they will most likely not include your target audience and most likely not follow you.

SecondLivesClub targets Gen X and Boomer women, the fastest growing groups on social networks. A very effective way we’ve increased our “likes” and a following at the same time is with a practice started by a few of my LinkedIn women’s, business and reinvention groups. One person will start a discussion asking for members to leave their Facebook page addresses so others can check them out and “like” them if it’s to their liking, which it typically is since the group is already made up of like-minded people. I was part of a recent group discussion on the legitimacy of using one of these small jobber sites. In the long run it doesn’t pay off but it can be helpful for new business fan pages that need some early momentum.

So we’ll keep working the “like” numbers just because, but real success for us is when our followers comment after our blog posts. That’s how we find out what they think and are interested in and we love the input. Not everyone participates in this way and that’s okay too. I attended a social marketing seminar this week and learned that typically only three to six percent of a community actively comment and 30 percent occasionally. So like us on Facebook if you like but if you really like us, you can make a comment here.

Maryl writes: A Start Over, A Clean Slate

I have several friends who are writing books…..their first books. One is giving me her manuscript to read soon. She won’t tell me what it’s about. I’m looking forward to it but afraid I’ll recognize myself in one of the characters. We worked together at several companies. I think she’s getting back….not at me but at them. Oh well, I’ll be brave.

Anyway she called frantic because her laptop was getting a bit fluzzy on her and she needs to finish this draft by Sunday. She’s had her computer since two jobs back. It was time. She called back quite thrilled. She bought an Apple Macbook. She went back to that operating system remembering how much she liked it when working at an advertising agency. Her subsequent corporate jobs pushed her into the PC world.

But even more poignant than what system or brand she had bought was that her excitement seemed to stem from the feeling she was starting fresh with a clean slate so to speak. It seemed kind of like getting a new binder or notebook the first day of school. You hadn’t made any mistakes yet; you could only do good and you were going to ace this class.  So knowing my friend I’m sure she left a lot of  baggage on her old hard drive and is making a fresh start this coming semester.  That’s a second life….not a do over, another start over.  I can’t wait to read her book.    
  
Is a new computer really a symbol of a second life? Something to think about…..
   1) Hm, Apple or PC? Which operating system to buy.
   2) Everyone has a book in them.
  3) Cynthia Cooper got back in her book, "Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower"!

Maryl writes: Get LinkedIn and MeetUp



I may not have mentioned this before but I’m starting my own business after decades of working for a number of corporations.  It’s exhilarating and frustrating at the same time.  I’ve been funding it myself for awhile now but the website needs a major upgrade and I have reached a point where I need to find a funder and/or  partner.  I also need some financial expertise to help me update the start up costs and profit and loss estimates.  

NYCBNG Meetup

I’ve attempted to do the latter piece of work myself but after a month of excruciating pain and tremendous anxiety, I’ve given up.  I have to recognize that it’s just not my area of expertise and even if I manage to complete the task, how good and accurate will the numbers be.  I have advertising and marketing experience and can easily complete those sections of my business plan but I need to accept that I can’t and don’t need to do everything myself and should delegate …….but for not too much money.  I’ve got to be very discriminating as to how I go after this resource but the big step was admitting I shouldn’t be wasting my time on something that is better farmed out.

There’s no one in my immediate day-to-day network so I went to my virtual one on LinkedIn.  Specifically I left a comment on my profile page and then with the dozen groups of like minded people there that I’ve joined.  Hadn’t done this before so didn’t know what to expect.  Well, much to my surprise over the past week I’ve gotten more than enough responses from some folks I know personally, some I haven’t spoken to in a while and others I’ll never meet face to face.  I received some great ideas and offers, most importantly resources that not only won’t cost me but might actually has some dollars to help kick off my web site upgrade.  Coincidently, I sat in on a webinar today where we learned how to make the best use of LinkedIn to better position ourselves in that social network.  Hint:  it’s all about how you sprinkle your profile with keywords that would commonly be searched when looking for people with background like yours.

But it’s not all virtual.  I also left a comment with my many meetup groups.  Now there’s an idea that counters the number one worry of the internet generation…..that they won’t leave their rooms and interface with live human beings.  Meetup.com is an online community that's organized by various topics and categories and actually gets together live at breakfast, lunch and evening events where seminars, pitches, entertainment and networking happens.  Got more ideas from those contacts and promises to get together at our next meetup.  

There’s something quite refreshing and comforting about being able to reach out to people we might have referred to as strangers in the past and get sincere and seemingly caring responses back.  I didn’t feel that when I worked for those many corporations.  Work was less personal then.  I like this way better.

Please share any successes you’ve had with social networks? If not yet, then try some of these:
     1) You’ve tried LinkedIn already, right?
     2) If you haven’t, try meetup.com
       3) Here’s a list of the top ten social networks for
         entrepreneurs.