May 25 2009

Volunteer Work (Week of May 17th): No More Homeless Pets

May 25, 2009 – 10:13 am
By WasatchGirl | Posted in utah, volunteer | Tagged , , , , | Comments

Previous to my climbing sabbatical, I would strive to volunteer on a weekly basis.  This past Wednesday my 10-month trip came to a close and I immediately jumped back into my service regime as I truly had missed this weekly routine while away. In the past I have put up a few blog posts about volunteering and certain non-profits, but have decided to start posting where I volunteer each week in hopes of spreading the organization’s mission and encouraging others to get involved. (Note that I might post the updates between both my blogs, this one and the CragBaby, especially if I volunteer for the same organization two weeks in a row.)

This Week’s Service

This week I worked with the organization No More Homeless Pets in Utah, this being my first time to volunteer with this group.  No More Homeless Pets in Utah’s  mission is to end the euthanasia of dogs and cats in Utah and to promote humane alternatives for feral cats. They have a no kill policy, sheltering the animals until adoption. I was introduced to the group by my friend Melissa, a strong advocate for animal rights who regularly helps out NMHPU and has fostered pets.

Each week No More Homeless Pets brings the animals to either the West Valley or Taylorsville PetSmart (PetSmart has partnered with NMHPU) to try and find them a home with a shopper.  NMHPU showcases their pets for the whole day, therefore needing volunteers to help walk and play with them.  I showed up at 10:30am and stayed until 1:30pm, walking and playing with each animal as my friend and other volunteers (who had worked with this non-profit previously) spoke with customers about the pets.  It was yet another fabulous volunteer experience.

Hanging out with my friend Melissa and Sparky, one of the dogs up for adoption.  Sparky is a 9-month-old pit bull and a fabulous dog.  He is completely mellow, a snuggler and great with other animals.

Interested in Helping?

There are many ways to help No More Homeless Pets in Utah.

  1. Adopt a Pet – The animals in this program are excellent animals, many of which have been pulled off of euthanasia lists due to their high likelihood for adoption.  Adopting a pet through this program saves an animal from unnecessary euthanasia and gives another animal a second chance.  You can view the available animals on Petfinder.  Petfinder and the NMHPU also list which PetSmart the animals will be at that week so that you can meet and play with them in person.
  2. Volunteer – No More Homeless Pets is always in need of volunteers and lists their current needs on their site.
  3. Foster a Pet – With the no kill policy, No More Homeless Pets is often in need of additional temporary homes for dogs.  Fostering a pet opens up more room for NMHPU to bring on additional animals. If interested in fostering a pet, visit this link.
  4. Donate to the Cause – Like many organizations, donations are needed to keep the organization going.  The organization gladly accepts non-monetary donations such as toys, pet food, leashes and cleaning supplies.
  5. Vote for NMHPU to Receive A Grant – Rescue Site gives out grants to shelters. You can vote for No More Homeless Pets in Utah, using these instructions.

Staying Informed

If you want to stay up to date with the progress of NMHPU, you can read about their current events on their site, subscribe to their newsletter, or follow them on Twitter.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in utah, volunteer | Tagged , , , , | Comments
May 23 2009

The Zen of the Zero Inbox

May 23, 2009 – 12:14 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in business | Tagged , , | Comments

My email account has always been a pseudo to-do list that I actively attempted to work through. Last year I was turned to the idea of striving to achieve the zero inbox due to a tweet by Tim Walker exclaiming his current zero inbox mastery.  Over the year I would occasionally hit the zero inbox in an individual account, but today I finally hit it in all my active email accounts, a true zen moment knowing that I have absolutely zero emails awaiting.

I have a handful of accounts, but pictured below are my two main accounts.

My empty personal email account. =)

My empty work account. =)

How To Achieve the Zero Inbox

There are a handful of strategies and techniques that can be implemented, but the following worked the best for me.

  1. Organize Emails by Type – Tim Walker writes a great post titled Inbox-Fu: The Mystery of Resadoth.  Essentially you need separate your emails by type.  Tim suggests folders, whereas I left them all in the inbox but would address each type in the appropriate order.  Essentially you want to separate into “Read”, “Say”, “Do” and “Think” which Tim suggests addressing in reverse order.  I noticed that in each email session I would address all 4 of the email types, always finishing by with a couple of the “read” emails.
  2. You Don’t Have to Answer – Just because you get an email, doesn’t mean you have to respond.  If the email lacks a question or any reason to respond (besides a nicety), archive it.
  3. Be Succinct – Get to the point of the email briefly. It is easier for you to write and easier for your reader to respond.
  4. Set A Goal – Set a goal of how many emails to accomplish in a day and stick to it. If the goal is 20, complete ALL 20.
  5. Focus On One Task – Emails can be a time suck. Decide how long you want to work on the inbox, and focus solely on that task.  When done, close down your email and work on another project.
  6. Emails Don’t Age Nicely – Unlike wine, emails don’t get better with time.  If you haven’t responded to an email for 6+ months, it obviously isn’t important. Archive it.
  7. Utilize Your Mobile Phone – Have a couple minutes on the train?  Waiting for someone to show for an appointment?  Hurry and knock out a couple emails on your blackberry or mobile device.  Make those spare minutes valuable.

Tim has written a handful of excellent posts on what he calls Inbox-Fu.

What about you readers? What techniques work for you?

By WasatchGirl | Posted in business | Tagged , , | Comments
Mar 18 2009

Links of Interest 03/18/09

March 18, 2009 – 7:26 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in articles | Tagged , | Comments
By WasatchGirl | Posted in articles | Tagged , | Comments
Jan 30 2009

Welcome Back

January 30, 2009 – 11:47 am
By WasatchGirl | Posted in blog, community | Tagged | Comments

GGPHT

As you may have noticed (that is, if I still actually have any readers to this blog.. *smile*), this blog has been quite dormant for some time.  The reason?  In August 2008 I decided to take some time off to travel, moving from a full time to part time role with my firm.  I’m single and still somewhat young… so why not travel a bit? 

I am an avid rock climber (which you can read about on the CragBaby, a crag being an outcropping of rock and CragBaby being the name of my chihuahua) and decided to go on a 9 month rock climbing road trip.  I am currently hitting month 6 and am temporarily located in Hueco Tanks State Park in El Paso, TX.

Though I will probably still travel for 3 months, I figure it is about time to pull the WasatchGirl out of dormancy, striving to write about something other than climbing. =)  Hopefully a new post will come to fruition within the week’s end.  

Aahhhhh, it feels nice to be back.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in blog, community | Tagged | Comments
Dec 09 2008

Converting mp4 to mp3

December 9, 2008 – 1:01 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments

The other day I came across the need to convert some mp4 files to mp3 and was actively reading up on freeware converters.  Yet after reading some articles and installing the iTunes update, I discovered freeware isn’t even needed. Nice.

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  1. Right click on the song you want to convert.  (Or for us Mac users, ctrl + click)
  2. Choose Create MP3 Version
  3. Under Playlists a Convert icon will pop up that shows the process is taking place.  A sound, similar to the upload completion sound, will chime when the conversion is completed and the icon will disappear.
  4. The file will automatically appear in your iTunes list.  It will look the same as the other file, but by right clicking and looking at get info / summary  / kind , you can distinguish between the two files.

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By WasatchGirl | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments
Nov 24 2008

Forbes Web Article: An S.O.S. to Silicon Valley

November 24, 2008 – 1:23 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in articles, business | Tagged , , | Comments

I came across this Forbes’ article through a work contact.  I really enjoyed the content and wanted to save for future reference and figured I might as well post it to my blog in case it was of interest to any of you readers. 

An S.O.S. To Silicon Valley 
Sramana Mitra 10.10.08, 6:00 AM ET

An Open Letter to the Leaders of Silicon Valley:

The world needs you.

You, more than anyone else, have the track record of rejuvenating an economy in dire straits.

We have, today, an economy Washington will not be able to handle–and that Wall Street certainly can’t handle. It is you, Silicon Valley, who needs to step up to the plate.

Remember the Clinton years? Sure, Bill Clinton takes credit for the prosperity, but anyone who pays attention knows that ’90s boom was Silicon Valley’s doing. Valley-inspired entrepreneurship washed away most of the $300 billion deficit that haunted the U.S. economy early in the decade.

The Internet created millions of jobs through active entrepreneurship, and Silicon Valley gave life to the Internet through bold and visionary investing. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers set the Internet bonanza in motion with his investment in Marc Andreessen’s Netscape, followed by Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.com. Sequoia’s Mike Moritz followed by putting money into the hands of Jerry Yang and his fellow Yahoos. The guys at Benchmark backed Pierre Omidyar’s eBay in 1997. And eBay alone, as John McCain reminded us this week in the presidential debate, today supports the livelihood of 1.3 million people (see “Stimulus Package For Entrepreneurs”).

Soon, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists were rushing to build companies around e-commerce and search. Many failed, and the market collapsed in 2000–but not before it spawned yet another milestone venture: Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s Google in 1998.

The early years of the 21st century might have seemed dry as the economy tried to recover from the dot-com collapse and the tragedy of 9/11. But during those early years a group of entrepreneurs led by Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com laid the foundation for a whole new movement now known as Software as a Service (SaaS), which has more recently broadened its scope to cloud computing. (See “‘SaaS-ing’ Back At The Economy.”)

Most of Silicon Valley’s VCs missed this trend in the beginning–with one notable exception. Brian Jacobs, Jason Green and Gordon Ritter started a firm called Emergence Capital at a time when Silicon Valley companies stuck to business models built around “products.” Emergence Capital would, instead, invest in “services” companies. Today, its leadership has played a pivotal role in creating a thriving eco-system that supports numerous entrepreneurs building ventures aligned with this trend, and funding is abundantly available for them to move forward. (See my account of Brian Jacobs here.)

John Doerr’s remark, in the middle of the ’90s boom, that the Internet was “underhyped” provoked more than a few snarky comments. But he was right. Now we have SaaS, Web 2.0 and cloud computing–with the prospect of Web 3.0 on the horizon.

Doerr and his former Kleiner colleague Vinod Khosla also provided exemplary leadership in jump-starting the clean-tech industry. T.J. Rogers, then chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor, spotted the trend early as well and invested in SunPower, which has become one of the darlings of the solar-energy boom. From electric cars to alternative energy and clean air to clean water, those early successes are validating the industry’s potential to create wealth. Entrepreneurship is active, jobs are being created and problems will get solved.

In all this, leaders of Silicon Valley, you have identified problems, found technology-leveraged solutions and built industries, not just companies.

I ask you, then, to rise up to the challenge again. Education, health care, social security: These domains need your voices, your intellect, your credibility, your time and your money.

In each of these domains, there are some early successes. Edward Fields is breaking through the morass of education problems with his start-up, HotChalk (see “A Technological Fix For Education”). Kirk Loevner is cracking health care with Epocrates. Their experiences offer some insight into alternative business models, marketing models and approaches to problem solving–most notably using advertising dollars to fund resources for teachers, students, doctors and patients.

In education and health care, a tremendous amount of inefficiencies can be tackled with technology. Barack Obama, if he wins, will need help figuring out how to reform health care and education from within the system without further ballooning the deficit.

In 2007, the U.S. spent about $2.26 trillion on health care, or $7,439 per person. It spends $1,000 per year per person in administrative costs, which puts the cost of the system at over $250 billion. This jaw-dropping number stares at me like a bottomless sewage pit of wasted resources, yet it’s also an indicator of where technology can make huge improvements.

Education faces similar problems. Administrative costs eat up budgets, leaving little left over for teachers.

As the smart-phone movement marches on, led by Steve Jobs’ iPhone, can we not create seamless bridges between doctors, patients and insurance providers that can reduce the $250 billion expenditure in health care administration?

And on the Internet, can we not create a body of standardized content and methodology for teachers all over the U.S.–or the world–that includes parents in the process and engages children via “edutainment,” the same way MySpace and “World of Warcraft” engage kids?

Leaders of Silicon Valley, your answer to all these questions should be “yes.” Don’t let the current miasma of fear slow you down.

You have to lead. You have to create. You have to build. You have to invest.

You, Silicon Valley, need to pull the U.S. and world economies out of the mess that Wall Street and Washington have created.

I know you can do it.

By WasatchGirl | Posted in articles, business | Tagged , , | Comments
Sep 22 2008

Too Busy Having Fun

September 22, 2008 – 4:04 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments

I apologize to any readers who might have visited this blog in the past 6 weeks.  There has been an extreme lack of posts lately because as of August 1st I moved into a part time role with my firm as I am focusing on traveling and climbing for quite a few months (of which you can read about here ).  I have all these thoughts on new technology, the current market state and venture capital in general, but have yet to get any of these posts on the blog.  I will be residing in Colorado for a couple more days and will strive to get a new post up soon.

I apologize for my absence and hope all you readers are well. =)

By WasatchGirl | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments
Jul 31 2008

The Digital Life

July 31, 2008 – 4:08 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in technology | Tagged , , | Comments

In quest to rid myself of unnecessary material belongings, I recently researched out photo scanning services to scan my thousands of print photos. I compared similar services then finally decided that FotoBridge offered the best rates for the quality.

As instructed, I packed up my photos, all 32 lbs of them, and shipped them to the New Jersey location.

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Within a few days, I received confirmation that my pictures were received and that the scanning would commence. About two weeks later I received back all the original pictures and a DVD, with a nice hand written note.

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Superb. =)

By WasatchGirl | Posted in technology | Tagged , , | Comments
Jul 24 2008

PC Gaining Television Audience

July 24, 2008 – 3:54 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in Web2.0, research, video | Tagged , , , , | Comments

I sold my television over two years ago, preferring to watch all video content on my computer, personally considering the computer sufficient for my media consumption needs. Within the past 3 months I moved in with a friend who happened to own a television but without cable access; its sole purpose being for guitar hero and movies for his children.

All television episode consumption in our household is done via the Internet site Hulu.com , yet often hooked to the television’s bigger screen. Movie consumption done by us adults in the household is split approximately 50/50% between streaming and DVD (usually watched on a television even when streaming) and for the children is 100% DVD (95% watched on television and 5% on laptop, however both the 7 and 9 year old often stream small videos through YouTube).

Within the past months I have seen a couple write-ups by the KenRadio newsletter discussing the PC’s gain on television.

While TV’s place as the preeminent channel for Americans to watch video content remains safe for now, the PC is slowly encroaching on the TV’s dominance, capturing an increasing amount of screen time among those who download or stream video online, according to a new study by Ipsos Media. The percentage of video consumed on a TV among video downloaders and streamers declined from 75% in February 2007 to 70% in February 2008 – a small, yet significant drop in overall ‘share of screen time’ with the growing contingent of digital video users. In addition, the percentage of total screen time captured by movie theaters also declined significantly in the past year. Streaming video online has become an activity many Americans aren’t just experimenting with, but enjoy on a regular basis. About half of all Internet users aged 12 and up have streamed a video file online in the past 30 days. The growing sophistication of home PCs, as well as the ubiquity of high-speed Internet connections in the home and outside, really facilitated the experimentation process with the digital video medium, and subsequently caused many to adopt the PC as a channel they rely on for video entertainment.

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Coinciding with the drop in these more traditional channels’ share of screen time is an equally significant year-over-year gain in overall screen time for the PC, which nearly doubled its overall share (19%) with digital video consumers since early in 2007 (11%). Today, among the 52% of American’s age 12+ whom have ever streamed or downloaded a digital video file online, about one out of every five hours spent watching movies, TV shows and/or other types of videos is done so on a PC. Perhaps just as interesting as the PC’s ascent in video entertainment is the relative lack of growth in the overall share of screen time being allocated to other, more portable video devices such as portable DVD players, digital media players and mobile phones. Wright goes on to explain why growth in share of screen time with portable devices may be limited. While the number of device options are growing for consumers to access and watch their favorite video content, what isn’t necessarily changing is the location where we enjoy this video content – our homes. This, combined with the growing demand for digital video content, is why we’re seeing the shift in share of screen time away from traditional video channels to the PC right now.

Interesting write up as I fall into this category of users. In accordance with the article, most of my video and episode consumption is done in my home and even when Rob and I do decide to take a movie with us to watch while camping, it is a laptop we take rather than my portable DVD player.

It seems that a big reason for the shift to PC from television is the want for on-demand without the need of cable (and Tivo). Prior to the NBC loading its Office episodes to their network site, I gladly paid the $1.99 weekly charge through Apple to download each weekly episode. The want of on-demand and the ability to re-watch each episode was worth the minimal $1.99 charge. When NBC pulled the shows from Apple and put them on the network site, I gladly transitioned as the episodes were free, though rudely interrupted by completely annoying commercial breaks. However, the viewing on Hulu is the best of all worlds with the free episodes and seamlessly integrated advertisements. From my consumer viewpoint Hulu is:

  • substantially easier to navigate than the network sites, definitely easier to find full episodes versus clips
  • the ad placements are better integrated, not as intrusive and actually quite interesting (a point discussed below)
  • consumer friendly due to its aggregation of partner content on one site, allowing the user to jump from different episodes and movies, simply enjoying the content rather than worrying what network produces what content.

Looking at the users who do shift to online viewing, Hulu has been able to capture a significant amount of viewers in comparison to the network landing page. Hulu (according to the numbers below) is able to hold the interest twice as long (in comparison to the network landing pages) for users seeking comedies, while users seeking drama usually revert to the network sites.

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Plus, the commercials on Hulu are definitely not as intrusive and actually quite interesting, lately integrating a cyber ethics theme. For instance, one of the last advertisements I viewed showed a teenage girl highly criticizing another teenager girl in a face-to-face confrontation. The commercial then flashed to text stating if you wouldn’t criticize a person in a face-to-face scenario what makes it alright online. Another commercial focused on the idea of piracy being theft and how a user wouldn’t steal a purse or a car, so why would it then be ok to pirate music online.

The most amazing takeaway for me is I have noticed that now that Hulu has launched I watch substantially more television episodes than when I owned cable television. It just seems so easy to quickly watch an episode after a long day at work. =)

What is the feedback from you readers? What is your watching behavior? Have you checked out the network sites or Hulu?

By WasatchGirl | Posted in Web2.0, research, video | Tagged , , , , | Comments
Jul 13 2008

Impact of the Chip-In Widget

July 13, 2008 – 9:13 pm
By WasatchGirl | Posted in community, social media, volunteer | Tagged , | Comments

In May Phil Burn’s daughter, Serenity, was diagnosed with leukemia . Phil Burns is a local entrepreneur, blogger, and technologist and well known in the local technology scene. With the announcement of the news, fellow bloggers immediately responded by distributing the Chip In Widget (created by Jesse Stay) amongst their online presence and pitching in donations. Jesse had initially set the targeted donation goal at $500 to hopefully be achieved within the one month period. The $500 goal was quickly exceeded, resulting in Jesse bumping the goal to $1,000. Yet, the donations kept rolling in and by the time the month had passed, $10,600 was raised through the simple addition of a couple lines of code on a number of blogs. (I swapped emails with Jesse in hopes of understanding the exact distribution of the widget, but unfortunately the widget creation site used does not provide the statistics. Bummer.)

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This simple campaign made me ponder how a good sum of money could be raised over such a short period of time and if it was a model that could be used in the non-profit realm. Looking back on the Chip In Widget, it seemed to be have such an impact for four main reasons.

  1. It Hit A Pain Point – many of us probably know someone who has been diagnosed with cancer. But the pain point in Serenity’s case is that she is young, being diagnosed at the age of 22 months. An age that shouldn’t have to endure pain or a terrible disease.
  2. It was Personal – often with non-profits you see a picture of a child or a family but you don’t personally know that family. I don’t know the exact distribution of the widget, but it seemed that many of us personally knew Phil.
  3. It was Targeted – The widget was distributed through the technology community with which Phil is a member.
  4. There was a Deadline – It is human nature (or at least in my case) to procrastinate. The creation of a deadline made people respond.

Would this be able to work in a non-profit scenario if they had an online presence and following? Seems like the targeted and deadline points could easily be achieved, but hitting a main pain point and making It personal are the tricky aspects. What do you readers think?

By WasatchGirl | Posted in community, social media, volunteer | Tagged , | Comments