Sponsor My Wardrobe!
That’s right – I’m whoring myself out for sponsors! As I mentioned awhile ago, I’ll be attending Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston this August. This is entirely on my own dime. So I’m looking to soften the costs a bit.
So, space is now available on the back of my shirt! I will be making a custom t-shirt with my logo on the front and YOURS on the back. I will be selling the 5″x2″ logo areas, 10 total. Each area will cost a SUPER CHEAP $15. The shirt will be worn on the first day of Affiliate Summit, guaranteed. The t-shirt itself it simply white. And I will wear my hair up so all logos can be seen!
I am also selling button sponsorship. For $5 you can have a 2.5″ round button of your logo pinned to my messenger bag that I’ll be carrying during the entire conference. Of course, I will also feature your logo here in a blog post as a thanks.
If you’re interested, please contact me at blog@trishalyn.com with “Affiliate Summit Sponsorship” in the subject line.
Read MoreBoston Tips
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
As this is not a travel blog, I have little business posting any travel tips for Boston. However, as many of us are returning to Boston in August for Affiliate Summit East 08, it will be good to know these things for any first-time traveler to the Boston area.
- Boston Cab Co. is the most reliable and easiest to get ahold of when you need a taxi. Keep their number handy – (617) 536-5010. Rates are reasonable for a big city, too.
- Faneuil Hall is pronounced “fan-you-ill” and is home to (among cool historic things) the Hollywood Replica Cheers Bar (complete with gift shop). If you want the original Cheers, it’s in the Beacon Hill district on Beacon St. Faneuil Hall is right in front of Quincy Market, South Market, & North Market. It’ll take probably an afternoon to see everything if you want to just wander around. Very picturesque.
- The Cheers Beer is nothing special, but you do get to keep the glass. I guess that makes it worth $15. The Irish Stew is really good on an overcast Boston day. The Boston Cream Pie was “meh”.
- Delivery.com has HUNDREDS of local places to choose from if you’re too lazy to leave your hotel. A lot have late delivery hours too. Thank you, college town!
- Charlie’s Pizza & Cafe has good burgers (they’re on Delivery.com!)
- There are like a million colleges there – it’s almost ridiculous.
- Duck Boats truly caught my imagination – I wanted to take a Duck Boat tour, but it’s too expensive for my blood (~$32).
- New England Style Clam Chowder eaten IN New England isn’t any better than what we have here in San Francisco. At least not at the Boston Chowda Co. (I tried it at the Prudential Center Food Court).
Boston really is a beautiful coastal city.
Read MoreHOW Conference Post-Game Show
Well I’m back in the Pacific Standard Time Zone after 4 days in Boston. To date, it’s safe for me to say that the HOW Design Conference has been the best for PsPrint to attend so far! About 80% of people stopping by our booth had never heard of us before, which isn’t necessarily bad. This has been a relatively untapped resource for us, and we excitedly passed out samples of our printing, paper stocks, and information on the Reseller Program.
A neat feature of this show was that the expo hall wasn’t open the entire day – we only had to staff the booth from 8-9 am, 12-2 pm, and then 5-6:30p on Monday only. I believe the “Resource Center” hours (their moniker) were set this way to avoid stepping on the toes of too many special sessions. The real star of this conference is, of course, the educational sessions for designers. The expo hall is just a bonus for vendors to be able to toss some marketing voodoo at a prime audience.
I think we’ll definitely go back next year to the HOW Conference, being held in Austin, TX. Of all the trade shows I’ve been to as a representative of PsPrint, this was by far the most successful. Everything arrived on time, our booth looked great, and the audience was truly interested in what we have to offer. Overall, a great feeling!
Of course, I had to visit Faneuil Hall & Cheers, and did take some pictures that I’ll share tomorrow once I pull them off my camera. My hotel (pictured above) was pretty decent for a Best Western, and I have some tips & such to share about Boston for those of us going back for Affiliate Summit East in August. But that, my friends, I’ll leave for another day.
Read MoreFree Toolsday for May 20th
I learn so much just by hanging out on Twitter most of my day. I learned about a spectacular travel site called TripIt.com from Sam Harrelson.
This knocks TripAdvisor out of the park. I got on TripAdvisor thinking that it would be great a resource with all the reviews of hotels and attractions in the areas. But in the last year 99% of the travel I’ve done has been for work, where I’m not there for pleasure and I’m not necessarily choosing where we stay or go. So I don’t think I’ve logged into TripAdvisor in months. At least 6.
TripIt is a much more suitable replacement for me. And the user ease is AMAZING. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let me tell you the purpose of TripIt. The site works as a great organizational tool that aggregates your activities, meetings, hotel information, flight information, etc into a centrally located personal travel assistant. Just email your confirmation emails directly to plans@tripit.com and it integrates the details into your trip itinerary.
The itinerary itself is spectacularly thorough. Not only does it add your hotel info and flight info through the email, but you can also add different types of events, restaurant outings, and meetings. Everything is color coded and the site automatically adds Google Maps and Directions from one location to another into the itinerary. Here’s an example from my current trip to Boston:
TripIt also integrates well with Google Calendar, which is my online calendar of choice, and adds exact time and details for each appointment, flight, check in, check out, etc. The site has a printable itinerary that is currently keeping me on track here in Boston, and if you’re more of a mobile/smart phone reliant person there’s mobile features as well. I only wish the printable version was color coded as well, but I understand why it’s not.
If you travel a lot for business, you should give this site a try at the least. As all the free toolsday features, it’s FREE! So you have no reason not to go check it out.
Read MoreMaking It Big
This week has been full of win, and it’s only Tuesday!
All the Cool Kids (and me)
My humble little blog TrishaLyn.com has been featured on Alltop.com under the Marketing category. Alltop is a digital magazine rack, per se. At each Alltop site, they display the latest five stories from 30+ sites on a single page, aggregating the information as a starting point. Alltop is a great way to expose yourself to blogs and websites relating to your interests that you may not have stumbled upon before. The interests range from women’s interests to sports, religion to geekery. In the marketing category my humble blog is mentioned amongst the likes of Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim, Michael Martine’s Remarkablogger, and Seth Godin’s blog. I’d say that lives up to the “all the cool kids (and me)” slogan!
Guest Co-Host of AffiliateThing on WebmasterRadio.fm
Regular host Shawn Collins of AffiliateTip.com and co-founder of Affiliate Summit invited me on to co-host the weekly Affiliate Thing podcast in lieu of regular co-host Lisa Picarille of Revenue Magazine who can’t make it tomorrow. I’m excited as I know this is a well-produced, professional podcast broadcast on Cranberry Radio, so I can’t wait. I’ll be recording from the pleasure of my own home in the morning and can’t wait to chew the affiliate fat with Shawn. I will say that I’m glad I’m not the one who has to edit it! it’s all recorded over Skype, so it’ll be great quality I’m sure!
Featured Expert on EzineArticles.com
That’s right, yours truly is also now a featured expert author on article site EzineArticles.com. So far I’ve submitted my Top 10 Things That Improve Work Ethic article and plan on submitting many more. If you’d like to see any of my former blog posts as articles on Ezine, drop me a line and let me know!
So that’s it! I feel like all this work I’ve been doing is paying off, and let me tell you, it’s a terrific feeling! I’ll be sure to report back on how the recording of Affiliate Thing goes tomorrow!
Read MoreTradeshow Madness
Is there really a “trade show season”? I’ve heard this referred to time & again, but I seem to go year ’round so I don’t know what that season is! Yes, soon it will be time for me to hit the road again and make my rounds of the country in search of truth, justice, and the American Business Way!
Actually, both of the conferences in my future take me to Boston, MA. I’m hoping since it’s on the coast that it won’t be as muggy and terrible as when I visited New Jersey in 2006 for a film festival. That was awful. I’ve never been to Boston, so I’m excited. This next trip is quick and won’t allow for a lot of time to see any sights except in the evenings, but for the second show I’ve worked a day or so in to see some stuff.
Boston, MA
First stop, the HOW Design Conference May 18th through 21st. I’m on booth duty the entire time, so no sessions for me. Which makes me sad, but I’m relying on a co-worker that is attending the sessions to take good notes because I’m sure it’ll be interesting. In a geeky designer way. In booking this trip, it was pretty last minute for the company to make up it’s mind in who would be sent, so costs were pretty expensive. I managed to get one hell of a deal on a flight for $380 on Hotwire, a feat which seems to not be repeatable as looking for the flight for my second outing only returned prices in the $420-460 range. Since it was also the last minute and there has GOT to be some other conferences or events going on the same week, almost every decent hotel in the area was booked solid or $500/night. So we’re staying at the Best Western near Longview Medical for $300/night. Never have I stayed in such a poorly valued Best Western – but we’ll see.
Next on my list, the always great Affiliate Summit. I won’t be attending this as a representative of PsPrint. This is on my own dime. I’ll be going as a member of the press, and will be reporting live (hopefully) on the sessions I attend and the different events I go to. I’m stoked, and BIG Shout Out to Missy Ward, one of the co-founders, for helping make this happen for me. I’ve booked my hotel already, luckily getting on on super fair group rate of $189/night at the Seaport Hotel where the event will be happening. As I mentioned above, I tried to get a great deal on a flight booking 3 months in advance, but still only got higher…so I’ll watch the fares for awhile and see what I can do to swing a cheaper flight. I’ve built a day into my schedule out there to HOPEFULLY see some cool Boston stuff…maybe if I win the lottery I can go to a Red Sox game at Fenway! I’m really excited and can’t wait.
And BEST news of all, the wonderful Scott Jangro found out the problem I was having with the RSS feed – Revver & PodPress were just not playing nicely together. It has been fixed so PLEASE remember to subscribe to my RSS feed!
Be sure to share some travel tips with me!
Read More
