RIP Steve Jobs, one of the world's greatest leaders and visionaries

I don't think I have ever felt so personally saddened by the loss of a public figure as I have today with the loss of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a brilliant innovator and an inspiration to us all to "Think different." He changed the world by putting the tools in our homes and in our hands so we can all be innovators. 

I wanted to share an excerpt from Steve Job's epic 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

--Steve Jobs

We all owe it to Steve to use our MacBooks, our iPads, our iPhones and other devices to change the world for the better.

Tech and social media New Year's resolutions

With the holiday hustle bustle, I have gotten completely behind on being productive online. Aside from shopping, I haven't had much time to network, stay updated on the latest tech trends or share content online (updating this blog or my Tumblr, for example). So, I've made some resolutions to help me be more productive online as well as some overall tech resolutions that are just good practice. Here's what I've come up with.

1. I will get a handle on my e-mails. Personally, I hate dealing with e-mail. I would prefer friends to Facebook me, everyone else out there to tweet me and subscribe to RSS feeds rather than e-mail newsletters. Still, everyone uses e-mail, which means I need to be better at handling the inbox influx. I remember when I was in graduate school at Syracuse University, my professor Brenda Wrigley guaranteed to her students that if you e-mailed her, she would respond within 24 hours. In my eyes, that made her amazing. Just think, she was making everyone happy while at the same time, never getting behind on her e-mails. I'm going to follow her example. The trick is, keeping your responses short. I like the three.sentenc.es idea of treating your e-mails like sms messages or tweets and limiting them to only three sentences. That would seem to work well, especially if you are checking e-mail on your phone. I'll experiment and let you know how it goes. I also plan to unsubscribe to unnecessary e-newsletters and notifications.

2. I will share create and share good content on a regular basis. With all the time I'm saving by not writing long e-mails, I'll be able to spend more time sharing content and updating my Web site, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. It's takes a lot of commitment to have a blog and create content. Admittedly, I end up doing that more for my clients and neglecting my own blog. This is a tough one...just gotta find more time.

3. I will use Twitter lists. Twitter lists allow you to create your own categories of the people you follow. What a great way to manage Twitter, especially if you are following thousands of people. I haven't taken full advantage of this feature. But I know if I max it out, it's gonna be another time saver!

4. I will clean up my hard drive, back up regularly and run updates. This is nothing new, and it's so simple. Yet, I always give everything else priority. I remember when my iBook hard drive failed a few years ago, I vowed never again to be left in a lurch without a back up. But I honestly can't say that I've backed up regularly. In fact, I have turned off scheduled back ups and updates many times because they've gotten in the way when I had something timely to work on. Very bad!

5. I'll review,  update and reorganize my RSS feeds for blogs and podcasts I consume. My feeds have gotten out of control. I remember the time when I was addicted to my Google Reader. Now, I can't find the blogs I want to scan each morning because I haven't kept up by categorizing them with folders. So I've abandoned my feeds for the most part, which causes me to miss out on so much information. Time to get organized.

These are my tech resolutions for 2010. Wish me luck, I'll need it. I hope these will inspire you to make resolutions of your own. Happy New Year and all the best in 2010!