I am back! It took me a week to get my head straight, catch up on work related stuff, and read all of YOUR wonderful blogs.  For those of you curious of where I have been, I was in San Francisco to meet up with the fine folks behind Seesmic and to attend the amazing Tech Crunch 50 Conference. Here is my story... Tuesday, September 3rd- I sign on to Seesmic at about 10:00 p.m. and find out there is a contest running to win a ticket to be a Seesmic Reporter at Tech Crunch 50 the following week.  Rules were simple: Make a 30 second video (which I broke the rules! whoops.) explaining why you should be the Seesmic Reporter at the conference. I stay up till around 1:30 am figuring out what I was going to do. I came up with an idea, did a few takes and then finally submitted. Wait... What happened to my video? It got lost in cyberspace and I went to bed slightly annoyed. Wednesday, September 4th- After I find out that my video was in fact "gone," I rushed home after work to record my final chance for the ticket. To tell you the ...

How about it? a credit card that helps your charity go even further. For those of you unaware of Kiva, it is organization that allows users to finance entrepreneurs in developing countries with small loans. People just like you and I can sign up through their website and support a butcher looking to open his/her own shop, or a designer looking to sell his or her clothes to their community. Here is the back story: Credit card issuer Advanta entered into a partnership with Kiva. The initiative is called KivaB4BProject and Advanta will match the loans made by business card holders with up to 200 US$ per card. Card holders simply select a business owner to sponsor through Kiva and make a grant using their Advanta Business Card. Advanta matches that grant, dollar for dollar, and Kiva distributes the total resulting funds. If you are a business owner, I urge you to at least give this card a try. I think it would be a great way to instill philanthropic initiatives; give the Kiva B2B Card to managers and employees that have expense reporting, and be satisfied with a shared contribution. For more information please visit their site here. Best wishes, Taylor

Greetings! As responsibilities and activities in my life start to re-develop, I have been somewhat, "slackish" on my website and blog posts. I would like to thank all the people who comment and subscribe (I truly appreciate all your support), and apologize for the recent lackadaisical attitude. Now on to the post... How do you know your following your heart and choosing what is best for you? When do you know to leave a certain situation to seek better opportunities both professionally and personally? I have asked myself these questions, more than once in the past few months. Here are a few tips that walked me through a positive transition: Find what motivates you, then go after it! Sometimes it takes people years to find their niche or area of specialty. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself on what inspires you- day in, day out. Break those Excuses: Never make excuses for yourself. People get comfortable with situations. Regardless if the situation or activity provides a positive or negative outcome in their lives, it is sometimes human nature that tells us to stay comfortable. Don't be afraid to ask yourself, "Is this the job I can't wait to get out of bed for in ...

Me + CNBC =Awesomeness What better way to premiere my blog/website than to meander into the half frame spotlight, and shout that I made it onto CNBC! For all my close friends who know me, CNBC is probably the only legitimate TV programming out there I actually choose to watch. People call me, "Katherine Harris Crazy" but I often talk of wanting to be on such shows as, "Donny Deutsch and the Big Idea" or kick it with Jim Kramer on his show, "Mad Money." I made a couple of quick shots on two different segments , but thought the super close shot of my nose, best represented me in the spotlight (chuckle...). To give my audience more depth, I happened to be on CNBC because I participated in Startup Weekend. The concept of Startup weekend is to get a bunch of entrepreneurial, techie, and marketing gurus together to see if it is possible to create and launch a company within 54 hours. Our amazing organizers were able to convince CNBC to come down to the RTP area to shoot a segment on the concept. The RTP Startup weekend was filled with idea generation, mucho coffee, coding (none of which ...