Going With The Flow – SXSW Interactive Days 3 and 4
Mar 14 2011

Following up on my Day 1 and 2 post on SXSW Interactive, I continued days 3 and 4 following my zen-like strategy.  On Day 3 (Sunday), I went to the Girl + Guy party hosted by Guy Kawasaki (well known in the tech start-up world and a big supporter of women entrepreneurs) and companies like Culture Map.  Last year, I got a picture with Guy at the party they hosted at Allen Boots which I think was why I was wearing a pink cowboy hat.  Afterwards, I went to eat Indian food with some new friends that I met at the party and one of them emailed me the picture of her friend wearing the t-shirt that I put in this post because it’s pretty funny.

Today, I caught a panel led by my friend Thom Singer called You Can Impact Charity Without Being Rich.  Eugene Sepulveda (also a friend), who runs the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Central Texas (where our company’s at ATI donate a portion of their equity) was on the panel.  I caught most of the keynote with Felica Day, a former World of Warcraft gamer who created an online TV series called The Guild, and although I had no idea who she was before I walked into the room, I was impressed with her youth and energy.

I walked the Trade Show (a whole separate blog post to come about that experience) before going to a panel run by another friend, Enrique Ortiz, on mobile development and applications.  He had the founder of Rovio Mobile, which makes Angry Birds on the panel.  My kids love playing Angry Birds so I asked him if he had a couple of those stuffed animals he could give away.  He didn’t have the big ones, but he gave me two small ones.  He was also giving away t-shirts that said “Chillin’ Like A Villian” with a St. Patrick’s Day theme.  My kids thought I was awesome for a few short moments.  He said they have surpassed $100 million in revenue, Angry Birds was the 52nd game they made, and it had 1.2 billion hours of played time last year.  Amazing!

Then it was off to the ATI co-hosted Entrepreneur’s Lounge to network with a bunch of folks and I got a Fandor (facebook fan page) video/flip book done with one of my co-workers that is supposed to be uploaded to their facebook fan page sometime tomorrow.  Then a few of us headed over to the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)/NEA party which was pretty rockin’.  The CEO of Groupon was there playing the keyboards for one song that apparently had to do with some lost bet.  I’m not sure who the singer was, but it wasn’t his best voice night.

Overall, this year’s SXSW has been pretty low-key for me.  I think I tweeted (@aruni) more these past few days than I have all of last year.  I’ve been home by 10:30 pm each night despite the lure to stay at the parties longer and go to yet another party afterward.

One more day to go…

My Calves Hurt But My Toes Are Fine – SXSW Interactive Days 1 and 2
Mar 12 2011

The second day of SXSW Interactive is still going on in downtown Austin.  I called it a night early since I’m too old for this stuff it’s become too mainstream and there are too many people.  I’m not a big crowd person, which is one of the reasons I have no real interest in going to Mardi Gras in New Orleans…I like a little bit of personal space.  As I mentioned in my first post about the conference, I was approaching this one in a zen-like, floating manner and so far I’m succeeding and my stress level and need to stay late at events has been very much reduced.

Yesterday, I made it to the keynote by Marissa Mayer, vice president of consumer products at Google.  As some of the panels/keynotes at SXSW Interactive are, her talk was pretty much a big commercial for Google.  They are focusing on location based services and maps.  I love Google Maps.  I don’t know how I lived without it since I’m directionally challenged and having a map on my iPhone telling me where to go, despite it being wrong about 10% of the time, has saved me much angst.  I have since transferred that angst to other things in my life, but still.

I then went to the Entrepreneur’s Lounge, co-hosted by the Austin Technology Incubator, where I work, (awesome new website alert!! – designed by Clutch Creative) and connected with people I hadn’t seen in a while and met some new people.  After that I went to Ignite Austin, but didn’t stay long because it was very loud so my friend Karen Banteverus who founded VolunteerSpot and I went next door to a restaurant to have hot tea and tortilla soup and catch up.  I did see Michael Dell and his brother Adam who were sitting a couple rows ahead of me at Ignite Austin.  I had met Adam for lunch with a couple of my co-workers before, but had never seen Michael that up close and personal before.  Then I went home.

I checked out the Blogger’s Lounge (sponsored by Samsung) yesterday and today and was surprised at how few people I knew there.  In just a few short years, the people I know/knew either aren’t here or aren’t at the Blogger’s Lounge.  Things and people move on fast in Internet time.

Today, I saw the keynote by Seth Priebatsch, chief Ninja at SCVNGR.  He’s something like 21 years old and dropped out of Princeton after his first year.  I was really impressed with his talk and how he delivered it especially given his age.  I think he’s someone to watch who will be doing some game changing things in the future.  It made me wish I was 21 again and knew what I knew now…how differently I would approach life and business.  He basically spoke about ways to apply a gaming layer to the world.  In other words, applying game theory to solving some of our biggest problems.  It’s not the first time to hear someone talk about this, but he presented it in a unique way.  The room was completely full and there were several overfill rooms where his talk was being simulcast.

Then I headed to the Entrepreneur’s Lounge again this evening and then to the uShip party at their new offices on 3rd and Brazos (sweet!).  I know the uShip founders from activities around the UT Austin business school and the CEO/Founder and I used to be in a Business to Consumer (B2C) group when I was running Babble Soft.  After that party, I realized my calves were killing me from all the walking around downtown in my Skechers, but my toes/feet were fine because I wasn’t wearing heels!  So I headed home to write this blog post and to see if there was a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy this past week that I could watch.

SXSW Interactive – 2011
Mar 11 2011

It’s that time of year again.  The time in Austin, Texas where South by Southwest and Spring Break combine.  Thousands of people descend on Austin for SXSW Interactive, Film, & Music.  I think the attendees for Interactive surpassed that for music last year.

I’m approaching the experience in a more zen like fashion this year and seeing where the tides pull me.  I know I’ll be at the Entrepreneur’s Lounge, co-hosted by The Austin Technology Incubator (where I work) a few times this week and a few other events including Ignite Austin this evening thanks to the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Central Texas.  I plan to attend some panels and meet up with people I haven’t seen since last year.

Some of you may remember that I coordinated a panel a couple of years ago called Building A Web Business After Hours.  My advice is don’t do it unless you have a clear path to get out of your day job, don’t have young kids, and aren’t going through personal turmoil.  So this year I’m going to float and see what happens.  I haven’t even uploaded my picture online for my badge so I’ll get an on site picture if I can find parking this afternoon.

Thankfully, the weather is gorgeous with high’s in the upper 70’s predicted for most of the week.  I hope to see some of you (my readers) during my floating around…

The Best Thing That Happened Today
Mar 9 2011

According to my 8 year old son, the best thing that happened to him today was that he got to buy real things from the 2nd graders with fake money.  They apparently did some exercise involving exchange or purchasing things.  He got a few little trinkets, cards, and a little wind-up robot.  I suppose there aren’t many times in life where you can buy real things with fake money so in his mind that was a pretty cool thing.  I wish I could buy real things with fake money…

Timing Is Everything – Babble Soft Update
Mar 7 2011

It’s taken me quite some time to write about this because of a crazy busy schedule and I wasn’t really sure how to write about it.  In addition to my day job, I’ve also taken on a side consulting job in order to learn about a different industry and to bring in some additional income.  The last 20+ months seem like a blur to me with all the changes I’ve had to absorb and process in my life personally and professionally.  A few months ago my partner at Babble Soft, Nicole Johnson, who has been running the company for over a year, told me she needed to put the company on hiatus so she could better manage her life.

Nicole also has a day job as well as another side job (baby sleep advice), and as I and a few others on the panel I coordinated called Building A Web Business After Hours at SXSW Interactive (starting here in Austin later this week) a couple of years ago have subsequently realized: it’s very hard to do.  We had to pass the baton to someone else who could spend more time on our respective companies.  Since I had been in her shoes juggling kids, family, day job, oh and just a handful of personal transitions not too long ago, I told her to do what she felt was best for her and her family.

They say timing is everything and it is so true and especially with businesses.  So many things have to go right for an endeavor to be successful.  There has to be the right balance of personal situation, market acceptance, technology working, right people, etc. that sometimes it’s a wonder any businesses survive!

So it was a bitter sweet transition that happened a few months ago and maybe someone will be interested in buying our intellectual property, the domain name, or Nicole will be able to reduce hours at one of her other jobs to re-launch fresh in a year or so!  A few months ago, we moved everything (including my blog) off of a dedicated Rackspace server to a much lower cost alternative.

So goes life.  If things aren’t working out, it’s better to recognize that something is about to break (whether it’s you or your business) to make changes earlier rather than later.  Sometimes things don’t work out as planned, and I’m so glad I live in the US where we can learn from every business success or failure and still be respected and get another job.  As an example, check out the interview by Fareed Zakaria, CNN news/TIME editor, did of the Foursquare founders.

A Song To Sing
Mar 3 2011

I hired someone recently to update (way overdue) my blog design.  His name is Brian Hurdle (photographer extraordinaire), and I think it’s going to look very nice, clean, and professional…oh and cool.  He’s going to add a musical element to it since my current entrepreneurial endeavor is songwriting related.  He’s going to remove the clip art girl on the phone, change the font, put a nice graphic, move it to a 2 column theme, etc.  I can’t wait for it to be ready as I’m hoping it will inspire a new wave and direction of blog writing for me.

Speaking of songwriting, I forwarded a quote from Jeffrey Fry’s quotables to my songwriting partner, Brett Jason Wintermeyer that said:

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.” –Chinese Proverb

To me it meant that a bird sings because she is born to…because the bird cannot be herself without singing her song.  Or maybe it’s boy birds that sing…well, it doesn’t matter.  He replied by saying “Reminds me of someone I know who has a song to sing  🙂”  I was not expecting that response as I had not connected that saying to one of the songs we are working on based on my lyrics.  The title of the song is called “I Have A Song To Sing.”  I don’t know why I didn’t connect the two, but the second line in the song after “I have a song to sing” is “But you won’t let me sing it.”  That lyric is (c) copyright 2010-2011 Aruni S. Gunasegaram by the way!

I guess that’s why it’s important to have a songwriting partner or talented people in your life…to help you connect the dots…

Google Translate
Mar 1 2011

Since I don’t have time to write a long post, I figure I’d post about a neat Google tool called Google Translate at http://translate.google.com/.  Since my kids are learning Spanish and Mandarin at their school, and I don’t really know either language, this tool is an awesome way to translate from a variety of languages to another variety of languages.  Well, I know more Spanish than I do Mandarin/Chinese.  You can type in a word and pick what language you want it translated to and not only does it give you a text translation, it also (for most languages) also gives you a verbal/audio translation.  How cool is that?

My kids were typing all sorts of things in with some as simple as “little cat” or “little dog” and listening to the translation in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, etc.  They thought it was fun and funny and so did I.

Parenting Epiphany #1
Feb 21 2011

I’ve had more than a few parenting epiphanies in the last several years.  I’ve tried to stay away from posting advice on parenting since parenting style depends on the parent and the nature of the child.  There are very few right and wrong ways to parent, but those few are very important.  For example, don’t physically abuse your child or do give your kids lots of love and encouragement!  I have published baby tips and things to try in the past but most of those were pretty basic, but I thought I’d share an observation I’ve noticed with my kids and other kids and that is:

You have to say “yes” enough times to a kid, that they respect when you say “no.”

If you are always saying “no” and don’t let them experiment or try new things or play the Wii, then they get discouraged or find ways to work around you.  If you say “yes” to the right amount of things at the right time, when you tell them “no,” they seem to listen.  They somehow seem to get that you are respecting their individuality to try different things and in return respect you (even if it might not make sense to them at the time) when you put limits.  I believe it’s important to have limits so kids know where their boundaries are and they feel safe.  If you say “yes” to everything, then you end up with a spoiled kid.  The trick is finding the right balance  of “yes” and “no” given our hectic, highly scheduled lives of work and school.

Anyway, take that epiphany for what it’s worth.  It may very well be documented in all the child psychology books out there, and I have no idea.

Stay tuned for my recent plant growing epiphany.  I’m lucky with house plants and have a couple that are over 15 years old and still alive.

5 Solid Tips for Marketing Your Small Business Now
Feb 20 2011

Following is a guest post by Maria Rainier.  Maria is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she writes about education, online universities, and what an online degree means in an increasingly technological world. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

As the only employee of an entrepreneur who has recently started renting space for her growing business, I know how important marketing can be. She’s still at the small business stage and wants to keep it that way, but her increased sales can be traced directly to recently implemented marketing strategies that every small business can use. I have been responsible for the majority of the marketing ploys we’ve been using and would like to share the top five with you. Even with a low (or nonexistent) marketing budget, you can still use these tips to generate more sales for your small business.

1. Get a Professional Logo & Letterhead

You might already have a logo in mind, but consulting with a graphic artist is the best way to ensure that you start things off well. You don’t want to use a half-baked logo that ends up being changed a year or two down the road. Commit time and energy to getting the perfect logo and letterhead designs because this decision will pay off for years to come. If you don’t have enough of a marketing budget to hire a graphic designer, try bartering. Talk to friends to see if they know any graphic artists who could use your services in return for theirs. You can even post an ad on Craigslist to see if you get any takers. No matter how you make it happen, having a professional logo and letterhead is an important priority.

2. Start and Regularly Update a Business Blog

A blog is one of the best marketing tools a small business can have, but like most online marketing strategies, it requires regular attention if it’s going to be truly successful. It’s pretty tough to update a blog too often, but many people make the mistake of updating too infrequently. Let your readers know about you, your staff, your business, and even your life philosophy. With small businesses, it’s all about being personable and putting a face (or several faces) on your products and services. Include regular photo updates, write a few survey posts to find out how customers are reacting to your products and services, and request topics from readers so you can write about what they want to know. You’ll be surprised at how well your membership starts to grow.

3. Use Social Media Consistently

Get a Facebook page, start using Twitter, and add yourself to LinkedIn. Spend a few minutes every day on each of these so you can connect with users, let them know that you’re available to answer questions, and update your status or send a quick Tweet to get some attention. Increasing your visibility on these sites can encourage existing customers to interact with you, purchase more products and services, and recommend you to others. It can also attract new customers who search for you on these sites or see your activity on friends’ pages.

4. Send a Monthly Newsletter with Discounts & Special Offers

You can use any email marketing site to do this, but in my experience with Constant Contact, I’ve been impressed with the quantity and quality of newsletters and other emails I can send to customers for a low membership rate. You can try it free of charge for 60 days to see if you think you would use it on a regular basis. If not, there’s no commitment. The most inexpensive plan, which is the one I use, costs $15 per month and lets you send emails to a maximum of 500 contacts. Simply put together a monthly newsletter, preferably with at least one photo and a special offer or coupon code along with an interesting bit of news about your business, then send it to your contacts. To build your contact list, collect email addresses and permission to send a newsletter when customers place orders with you.

5. Synthesize and Brand

Now, connect the dots. Use that logo and letterhead to brand the banner of your blog and website along with the top section of your newsletter. Use the free ColorCop tool to pull the exact colors from your logo so you can use them in HTML for your blog, website, and newsletters. These details really do matter and will increase the likelihood of recognition for your business based on a certain color palette and logo. You should also link to your social media pages from your blog, website, and newsletter so current customers can easily find and “follow” or “like” your business. Finally, create an email signature with links to your social media sites, your website, and your blog. It’s also a good idea to insert a link that takes customers to a sign-up page for your newsletter. These strategies will generate new revenue as well as increased profit from existing customers, so get started today and do something great for your small business.

Race To Nowhere
Feb 14 2011

This past weekend, I saw the documentary called Race To Nowhere.  It was screened by the school my kids go to called Magellan International School.  It was a fascinating documentary about the pressures put on kids in the public school system and in school in general.  They interviewed many parents and teens about the amount of homework, studying, extra curricular activities, etc. that they all felt compelled to do in order to be able to get into a “good” college.  It depicted the stress levels of these kids, and highlighted one really smart kid who committed suicide because of the fear of doing badly in school.

Honestly, it was crazy the amount of homework these kids had to do.  I don’t remember having 2 to 3 hours of homework every night of the week when I was in middle or high school!  I also don’t remember requiring a parent to help me with my homework.  I agree with their premise that less homework is better and kids should spend their time learning in school and after school they should have downtime.  I don’t think you should eliminate homework all together as some experts suggested in the movie, but I think expecting elementary school kids to have homework every night is excessive.  They need time to be kids and have unstructured play with their friends or siblings.

I like the homework schedule at my kid’s school.  They usually get homework on Friday and it’s not due until the following Thursday so you can help them learn to pace working on their homework during the week.  Apparently, the country who has the highest amount of homework is Turkey and they perform the worst in tests when compared to Finland which has the least amount of homework and their kids out perform the kids in most of the rest of the world.  But then again, the social structure in Finland is different than most places.  They have liberal parenting leave, flexible work schedules, etc.

Since my kids aren’t yet in middle or high school, I can’t really say from first hand experience how stressed out those kids are these days.  However, if they are taking lessons from their overworked, stressed out parents who are trying to do everything without much of a family support system, then really we should look at the entire social system in the US.  Many of us are so used to working all the time, that we sometimes miss the forest for the trees.

The movie was a good reminder to pay attention to our kids and their signals about what’s going on in their life.  We all still need to live in the existing academic infrastructure so we need to make sure our kids know how to navigate that system but at the same time make efforts to begin changing the system by looking at different ways of educating our kids like they do at the Magellan International School.

Happy Valentine’s Day! <3

Happy Snow Day!
Feb 4 2011

We’ve had record low temperatures and snow here in Texas.  Today pretty much the whole city, including The University of Texas at Austin (who I work for at the Austin Technology Incubator), is closed today.  I’m not a big fan of the cold, but it’s nice to look at pretty white snow on the ground one or two days per year.  My friends in Dallas have had 4 days of no school and 4+ inches of snow.  I don’t envy them.

I had already planned to take the day off for personal relaxation reasons and had a few appointments scheduled that I’m not sure I’ll make.  I’m still thinking about venturing out and braving the weather so I can do the capitalistic thing and stimulate the economy!

Stay warm!

Signal to Noise
Jan 30 2011

A couple of years ago someone I know mentioned the term ‘signal to noise’ when talking about social media and my tweet stream in particular.  His comment indicated that he thought I was putting out more noise than signal, which was probably true.  I used to tweet a lot more than I do now and he said this during South by Southwest Interactive when everyone was tweeting.  Currently, most of my tweets are just links to my blog posts.  I had already been using twitter for some time and he was new to twitter. I had close to 2,000 followers and was following maybe 700 people at the time and he was probably following 50 people so, in proportion, my tweets appeared more often in his twitter stream than most people’s appear in mine.

It’s true that social media tools have provided a platform for noisiness.  People put out a lot of noise and seemingly irrelevant information about themselves and others.  But people are noisy in person whether they are talking a lot, writing a lot, or paradoxically not saying anything at all.  There can be a lot of ‘noise’ in silence.  When I say ‘noise,’ I mean information.  Some people can decide that what a person is saying or not saying is irrelevant and dismiss it as mere noise, but, in my opinion, there is always ‘signal’ in there somewhere.  Whether we want to spend time or care to understand the signal and what it’s telling us is another thing.

Interestingly, a company called Mass Relevance (Austin Startup blog post), recently launched and funded here in Austin, seems to me to be trying to separate signal from noise based on one of the executives answers to a question in the blog post:

Q: Only a small fraction of social status messages (like tweets) get viewed. Is there real value in that data?

That’s exactly the point. More user generated and social content is being created than we can consume. The future is in finding relevance, curating for context, and syndicating this to the right audience at the right place. A good analogy of the value of all this data is like web analytics. If there’s only two web analytics report you view about your web site, is there value in the rest of the log data? Of course there is, you’re just not getting at it. We know that there’s tremendous untapped value in data, as there is in social content. The value is in how to aggregate, curate, display relevant content, create participation around the conversation, and analyze how it drives real business metrics. And it’s more than just technology. We have the expertise, service and support to make this work for large companies.

I wish them luck in finding relevant, poignant signals for their clients.  I just hope people don’t stop looking at and listening to people directly instead of just sifting through their words on a social media platform.  If you pay attention, you can pick up very strong signals directly from a “noisy” person that can help you work with and manage people and even understand your customer better than just what they write down in 140 characters or less.  As they say, close to 80% of human communication is non-verbal and never gets put on a computer screen or paper.

Bootstrapping Your Start-Up Business with Little or No Money
Jan 26 2011

The following is a guest post by Bill Hazelton, Managing Director of Credit Card Assist, a leading credit card resource site for consumers and small business owners and Sell It! On The Web, an e-commerce and online marketing blog. For other local bootstrapping resources here in Austin, check out the Bootstrap Austin site.

In periods of high unemployment, many of those having a hard time finding a job consider starting their own business as an alternative.  The thought of being your own boss could never be more appealing when you’ve been unemployed for awhile.

Typically, the biggest challenge for most new business start-ups is capital, or more specifically, the lack of capital.  The reality is that traditional sources of financing a new business are a long shot at best, especially in the new economy.

That’s the bad news.  The good news, however, is that many new start-ups are launched with very little money at all.  Michael Dell started his company, Dell Computer, out of his college dorm room for less than $1,000.

There are a countless number of creative ways that you can finance a start-up.  Here are just a few tips on bootstrapping your new startup that I have found particularly beneficial from my own experience:

Outsourcing

Many start-ups don’t have the financial means to hire full-time employees early on so business owners are left no choice but to bootstrap their operations by outsourcing.  Three primary areas in any business that you can effectively outsource are computer programming, web design and software development.  Eventually, my business grew to the point where I needed to hire several full-time employees, but outsourcing was the keystone that provided that opportunity.

Barter and Trade

Instead of paying cash for products and services, bartering can be an extremely effective bootstrapping tool.  Bartering involves trading products and services between complimentary businesses, which is probably more suitable for service-oriented businesses but if you are selling tangible products, there are still opportunities to barter creatively as well.

Partnering with a Complimentary Business

Another effective bootstrapping technique you can use is partnering with a complementary business. Any business in a non-competitive but complementary industry would qualify where you can share costs on facilities, equipment, employees, rent, and advertising.

Internships

Local colleges in your area are a great place to find internship programs that are loaded with students looking for opportunities to earn school credit and gain experience in their field of choice.  Interns are highly motivated laborers and they’re willing to work for next to nothing but they can do more than just save you money.  Internship programs have started to play a much bigger role in transforming smaller businesses.

SCORE Business Counseling

SCORE, also known as “Counselors to America’s Small Business” is a nonprofit association partnered with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) whose mission is to educate entrepreneurs and small business owners, helping them start and grow their companies.

SCORE has 350 offices nationwide that are staffed with more than 13,000 mentor volunteers with extensive business experience and a wide range of business skills.  The mentors are retired business owners and corporate leaders who share their experience and lessons they have learned in their careers.  The advice offered by SCORE’s mentors is free and confidential and has provided guidance for more than 8.5 million small businesses.  You can choose your own mentor, attend free online workshops and get advice online or in-person.

Helping Young Moms Go To School
Jan 22 2011

Here’s a guest post about getting your degree when you still have kids at home by Lisa Darling.  Lisa is a twenty something internet consultant and freelance writer.   She has two degrees in marketing and creative writing.   She loves watching sports, golfing, traveling and supporting the arts.  In her free time, she designs jewelry and spends time with her family.

There Are Options For You!

An article about helping young mothers earn a degree.

As a busy mother I totally understand the obstacles we face when deciding to continue our educations. If you are a working mother like me, you are probably asking yourself, how will I find the time? Who will be with the kids? Can I afford school, plus full time daycare? There are tons of questions that come to mind when you are trying to decide if you are ready to continue your education. These questions aren’t only difficult to answer, but they require you to map out your future life. We, as busy moms, put many things on the back burner, education being one of the main things. It can be a really big step to make.

Now for the good news!

With the advances in not only distance, but online educations as well, we as mothers can now get our education on our terms, in our free time! Sounds too good to be true, huh?  I will admit, I was skeptical, but I have done my research and am here to share my findings.

When my daughter was younger I attempted a campus education and managed to make it through one semester. It not only took me away from all of her newborn moments, but also made me feel like getting things done at home was impossible. It was a stressful situation and adding work on top of that was almost unbearable. So, after that experience I decided to better explore my options and check out what other opportunities were out there for working mothers. What I found was a great outlet and opportunity that I believe every working mother should take advantage of.

Being the skeptic I am, there were plenty of questions that I had. I wanted to know if my degree would hold the same value, what are the requirements, are the prices the same, etc. I’m sure some of you have the same questions, the great news is I have answers!

First is the value of the degree or certification that you receive when earning your education through an online or distance program. This really all depends on the school you choose, which is a very important aspect of earning your education. Finding a school that is nationally recognized and accredited should be first on your check list. You can find tons of information online and can even contact the schools if you have more questions. I always checked the FAQ pages and a lot of my questions would be answered there. When you choose your school, if you choose an accredited school your degree will hold the same value, some well known institutions are even offering some of their programs online. What is so important is that your degree will be just as recognized; the only difference is in the way that you earned it.

Something else that is so important, and is sometimes the reasons that we as mothers don’t take the next step towards a continued education, is the price of tuition. The tuition prices can be more than overwhelming, and trying to find not only the extra time but the extra money is hard. With online and distance education you will save a ton of money. Not only on the schools tuition itself, but also on the money you would have spent traveling to and from. Most online educations are much cheaper because they don’t include some of the campus fees, for recreation and organizations, or even on campus eating. Not to mention, of course, the gas money and other traveling expenses. I was pleasantly surprised at the difference in price between a traditional campus education and an online education.

There are many advantages to earning your education at an online university, and some disadvantages as well. Finding the school that suits you depends of course, on your own personal requirements. I was excited by my findings and wanted to share them with other mothers who may have had the same issues as me. I have since started a distance education program and thoroughly enjoy it! I work at my own pace, on my own time and that is something as a busy mother that is crucial. I hope that this information answered some of the questions you may have had, and sparked your interest in a continued education. In today’s working world it is coming increasingly important to have a college education, and we as mothers deserve the same opportunities as everyone else. Taking advantage of these new opportunities was an easy decision for me, but may not be as easy for you. I do hope that you will find a school that suits your needs and take your education to the next level. Do some exploring and find the education path that is right for you, you are sure to be surprised at all of the opportunities!

Posts In Progress
Jan 17 2011

I know it’s been a little while since I’ve posted. I have a few mulling around in my head and a guest post waiting to be published that I haven’t had time to review. In case you are interested, here are the potential titles of those posts: “Signal to Noise – What Really Is Noise?” and “Everything In Moderation – What Really Is Moderation?” and “Helping Young Moms Go To School” and “Something About Entrepreneurship (well, that’s not really the title but I guess it could be!).”