There really is not a short answer for that question, but I'll break it down into three categories; Family, Business, and Life in General.
Family: 
2009 started with the scary news that my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Cancers are not a new thing to my family, so I am thankful that my Mom is as strong as she is, and that the cancer was caught in very early stages and that radiation was the only treatment that was needed. This incident brought my entire family closer. I am closer now to my Mom than ever, and see how great she is even more than I ever have.
My children, except for a few bouts with the flu, are otherwise healthy and thriving. I am thankful that they continue to do well in school and remain role models for their peers.
Business:
This year has been the biggest year for Squish yet. We moved into our first office after working out of a home office for 4 years. Doors have opened, through networking, that have put us in front of people and companies that have the ability to change and improve everything that we have done in the past. This has been the year that we have learned the most about our business from either mistakes that we have made in the past or just from learning from our peers.
I am thankful for Doc Weesner, Becki Shafer, Barbara Weaver-Smith, Duke Brown and Jennifer Quigley, Robert Glidden, Chad Whaley, Susie Wood and Dan McMichael, Randy Zentz, Jeff Jones Sr and Jeff Jones Sr, Jon Bright, MT and Phil Ray, Doug Karr, Amy Foris, Dan Hill, Jeff Pipkin, Kari Mann, Tom Hirons, and all that have referred business to Squish. I appreciate you.
I am thankful that I was able to be a part of great fund raising, food collection, and awareness events such as the Tyson Foods Hunger Relief , The Susan G Komen Race for the Cure, Indy Zoobilation, The Indianapolis International Film Festival, Salvation Army's Homelessness Bites Apple Fest, Mooresville Kiwanis Taste of Mooresville, Ike & Jonesy's Matt Miller Benefit, United Way of Central Indiana's Live United Give United commercial, and various other efforts around Indy.
I was also nominated for my first two awards ever! NOWIB's Indianapolis Woman to Watch and Blog Indiana's BLINDY Social Media Superstar!
Life in General:
Aside from my children and family, I am so thankful to be in my third year of dating my boyfriend, George. Being my business partner and my boyfriend, we've been through a lot together. The best thing about him is that he helps me see the good in me, helps me to focus on the big picture, and to continue to be better no matter what. The best thing about us is that we are an awesome team. He gives the five dollar answer, I give the five cent answer. He thinks deeply, I bring all those deep thoughts together into one short answer. It just works.
I'm thankful for my health. I'm thankful that I've not had any major home repairs that have needed to be done. I'm thankful that I can still learn and that I can still teach. I'm thankful for my car that runs even after I drown it in water this deep:
There is a lot more to list. I'm hoping that this blog post helps with the fund raising efforts in Tanzania to help with the building of the orphanage, library, school, cafeteria, classrooms, and entrepreneurs. Everyone should have a life to be thankful for. You can donate now if you would like, by visiting Epic Change.
More about Tweetsgiving
Tweetvite to Tweetsgiving
Other Indy folks that are participating in Tweetsgiving are:
Scott Wise
Angie Six
Robby Slaughter
Nila Nealy
Lindsay Manfredi
Michael Reynolds
Jon Speer
Pamela Reilly
Nancy Myrland
Kenan Farrell
Douglas Karr
Amy Stark
#tweetsgiving (#indytweetsgiving) is a fundraiser of a 5013c us Nonprofit, Epic Change. http://tweetsgiving.epicchange.org/. The schedule for this year is for November 24-26, a 48 hour event created by US nonprofit Epic Change. There are two simple ways to participate: on twitter tag what you are thankful for with #tweetsgiving. The attempt is to get #tweetsgiving to be a trending topic, and thus -- encourage participation and exposure. Last year, Epic Change with only a #hashtag and accepting donations online in a 48 hour period, raised over $10,000 for a school in Tanzania. Tweetsgiving 2009 will go partly to create a dormitory/orphanage, library, school, cafeteria and additional classrooms are needed in partnership with Kamptoni in Tanzania. The other portion will go towards funded future change makers and social entrepreneurs in less fortunate conditions. The second way to participate is to donate. Donations can be made online, or in cash form on Tuesday at the #indytweetup at Scotty's downtown.
Simple answer: raise money for less fortunate entrepreneurs, giving everyone a voice.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
#Tweetsgiving-What Am I Thankful For?
Friday, December 5, 2008
Twitter Basic Info
I've realized recently, from a new friend, that what regular Twitter users know is not common knowledge. Here are a few basic how-to's for those of you that are just getting started and need to know how to have conversations-private and public. This information is for those that are using the Twitter web interface, and not a third party application.
If you go to www.HeartlandCrossingCommunity.com and check my blog post about Twitter, that should also give you some great insight.
Blog post:
http://heartlandcrossing.ning.com/profiles/blogs/twitterare-you-tweeting
To reply to a Tweet, if you hover in the lower right hand corner of the Tweet you are wanting to reply to, there is a small arrow that appears. This puts @ and the persons name in the reply box, you type your message hit send, and it goes to their @replies box. To see people that have replied to you, click on @replies on the right side of your page, and voila! there they are!
For direct messaging (DM), which are private, that person has to be following you. You can DM a couple of ways:
1- Go to that persons profile and on the right side you will see a link that says "message". Click that and type the message, and they will only see it. It will be in their Direct Message tab. 2- Another way is to click the Direct Messages tab on your profile, and select a name from your list of friends, select the person you want to DM, type your 140 characters, and hit send!
When you Tweet either an @ reply or a general message, the entire Twitter network can see it. That is one of the awesome things about Twitter! It's a great PR tool. If you want to have a private conversation just make sure it's in the form of a direct message!
You can also use your phone to text message Tweets. From your profile, click the Settings link.
From there, click the Devices tab. Enter the information, and your
phone is now set up to send and receive messages! You will get a text from Twitter confirming your phone number. Be sure to save 
that number in your phone as "Twitter" so that you don't forget the number and can Tweet when you are away from your computer!
A tool that I use A LOT is the 
Shareaholic FireFox add-on.
If you download this add-on, you'll be able to share links without having to visit Twitter, you don't have to worry about shortening the links with Tinyurl or Tiny.cc, it does it for you! It is a must for those of you that enjoy social bookmarking or link sharing via Twitter.
Hope this helped!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
It's 7:15 a.m.-Social Media=Nicki's News Feed
I fell asleep on last night on my living room floor with my laptop in front of me while trying to find the perfect font for a logo that we are doing for a new client, working on videos for an almost complete project, and generating some potential business from a new follower that I have on Twitter that is from Chicago. By the way, if after all my raves about Twitter, you still haven't checked it out, it's not too late!
I woke up to my Meatloaf-"I Would Do Anything For Love" alarm at 6:30 a.m. to make sure my oldest was up and at 'em. She was. I helped her fix her hair, then it was back downstairs to see what exactly I left off on last night before I dozed off.
-Check email. My Smaller Indiana folder had one message. Kelly Thrasher had replied to the latest Seth Godin forum discussion-"Anyone interested in meeting Seth Godin?!" Smaller Indiana is trying to get one of the best selling authors of marketing books to Indy!
-Check Twitter- I use Twitter as my news feed. Some things that I was led to from Twitter.
*5 Best Places to Travel in a Recession
*Wells Fargo is the first bank to use social media.
*Even though Obama stopped Tweeting, the amount of followers he is getting is increasing since the election.
*The new Indianapolis Airport ROCKS!
*MSNBC has an exclusive web-only interview with Sarah Palin.
Even if you don't have time to participate all the time, just taking the time to briefly visit a few different social media venues can provide you with a view on current info that you probably won't get from watching the 6:00 news. Try it! It's news you control.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Twitterfeed
Just a brief info tidbit:
Twitterfeed informs your Tweeps that you have written a new blog post!
www.twitterfeed.com
How to Use Twitter for Marketing & PR -Thanks HubSpot!
I attended this webinar yesterday, Friday, October 10. It is approximately 50 minutes long, so if you want to learn more about Twitter, open your notebook, grab a snack, and enjoy all the useful information that HubSpot has put together.
Please feel free to contact me via email with any questions or if you would like me to help you put Twitter to work for your organization. nicki at squishdesigns dot com
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
FreshBooks Is A Breath Of Fresh Air...
After much frustration, I decided to stop using QuickBooks and opt for an alternative; FreshBooks.
FreshBooks handles:
Invoicing-both one-time and recurring
Cost estimating
Expense tracking
Time tracking
Online payment options for your clients via your merchant
Paper bills sent out with the click of a button
Reporting
It is very easy to set up and is very easy to use.
If you haven't tried it out, and are looking for a painless accounting solution, give it a shot! You can use it for up to 3 clients free and upgrade when you are ready to!
Here's a comment from one of our clients:
Holy crap that is much easier to pay that way! Very nice!
You can also follow them on Twitter! http://twitter.com/freshbooks
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
What's Your Lunch Special?
Ike & Jonesy's, a downtown Indianapolis pub and nightclub, has a wide age range of patrons. A lot of the patrons downtown business people from companies such as Lilly, IUPUI, The State of Indiana, etc... Ike's serves lunch Monday through Friday and unless you called or went to the restaurant to see the sign outside, you couldn't find out what their daily specials were.
Until now! Squish Designs has set up a Twitter account for Ike's. If you follow Ike's on Twitter; www.twitter.com/ikeandjonesys, check their website daily; www.ikeandjonesys.com, or via www.myspace.com/ikeandjonesys you can plan your lunch break with just the touch of a few keys on your computer!
Today's special was $5.95-Lasagna with Caesre salad or Italian Sausage Sandwich with potato salad and baked beans.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Flock-The Social Web Browser
I just learned of a new web browser as a result of thread that I started on Smaller Indiana. It is called Flock. I am still exploring all it has to offer, but it has implemented a concept that I was just wishing for-to be able to access several social networking sites, and not have to log in to each one individually. Wow. I am impressed! I suggest checking it out, especially if you have more than one blog or social networking profile. The sites that you are able to affect from this browser are; Facebook, Twitter, flickr, photobucket, YouTube, Blogger, Blogsome, LiveJournal, WordPress, Xanga.com, del.icio.us, ma.gnolia, TypePad, and Piczo.
