Funki and oh-so-helpful organizing & life-hacking tips by yours truly.  Like McGyver, who could dismantle a bomb with a roll of duct tape, a toothpick and a nail file, I am Ma-Gyver, organizer of everything and life-hacker extraordinaire.  From time to time I will be bringing you my tips and tricks for keeping an orderly house and mind.

It’s officially just 1 WEEK until the Disney Social Media Moms Conference at Walt Disney World and the excitement is palatable in my house.  As the person who makes sure that we get there with toothbrushes, underwear and socks, I’m channeling my excitement into planning and packing.   I’m also a little anxious that I have 2 more trips to Florida planned right after this one.  If I’m not organized something will get left behind.

Thank God that I am usually very organized.  I have been making packing lists in Word for years.  I worked from a master list and cut, paste and added items as I needed for each trip.   Then I printed them out and crossed them off as I packed.  It was a good system.  It worked.

But when I got an iPad, my world changed.  Pen and paper lists seemed clunky and outdated, so 2009.  I had learned to use my iPad for so many other tasks, surely I could figure out how to put packing lists on there.  Maybe there’s an app for that! I thought. There is; the people at QuinnScape certainly had me in mind when they created the Packing Pro app.

It seems a little daunting at first, but it’s really simple to use and customize.  There is a huge Master Catalog on Packing Pro that I used to make general packing lists for myself and each of my kids.  These are the lists that I will use as a foundation for each trip.  So far I have custom packing lists made for 2 of my upcoming trips.

While I use Packing Pro on my iPad because it’s bigger, I also have the app on my iPhone and I was able to export my packing lists between the devices.  First I exported the lists from my iPad and they were stored in Contacts.   Then I synced to iTunes and imported the lists to my iPhone.  Easy.

The photo below is a part of my packing list, the gadgets section, for the Disney Social Media Moms Conference.  (This is a screen shot from my iPhone; obviously the screen on the iPad would show more items.)   It’s a paid app, but worth every penny–and another reason to love my iPad.

© 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

I haven’t blog in a week, but I’ve been doing some much needed geeky things behind the scenes: fixing bugs on my website, adding cool new plug-ins and joining various online communities, all to make Funkidivagirl.com a better experience for you, dear reader.

Something that has been on my “to do” for awhile is making a About.me page and I finally got around to it last week.   While my name is not typical, it’s not that unusual either and I wanted to make sure that I got the url before someone else did.   Although About.me hasn’t really caught on with the masses as of yet, I believe that will quickly change.  I think it’s a great idea.  Right now you know me as Funkidivagirl, but as my interests diversify this can be a central place to capture all of my personas and created communities.   I like that I can give someone just one url that contains all of my contact information instead of several.

Before creating my page I poked around a bit and saw that I liked the profiles that were cool and esoteric rather than straight forward.  That’s more my style and also I don’t have any straight-forward photos of myself (it seems like I need to schedule a photo shoot, hmm?).  So I played around with one of my favorite photos and I like the results.

This is the original photo.

Next, I turned it black & white and added a cool border.

I liked it in black & white, but wanted to keep my pink toenails.  It was tricky, but I I figured it out.

Finally, I uploaded my photo to my About.me profile page and added my name and a brief bio.  There are links to all my online profiles and “Dig it” actually links back to my Funkidivagirl.com About Me page.   Check it out at About.me/Sherrelle and let me know what you think!

© 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

Let me say this first: I like Live With Regis And Kelly.    I have watched Kelly evolve from playing a rebel teen on All My Children to her current co-host spot and I have rooted for her all the way.  I think that if we ever met, we would be friends.  And Regis is fantastic; I will be sad to see him leave.  So, I like the show.  I don’t watch it too often because I have a rule about watching television during the day, but sometimes I will watch the opening banter (my favorite part) while I hoop.

I watched this morning and Ashton Kutcher was subbing for Regis.  This is a transcript of the banter between Kelly and Ashton (the transcript is from Livedash.com; I don’t know if it is exactly word-for-word accurate, but I heard it myself and it’s pretty on point):

00:05:07	The woman that was texting and could have slipped anything and meanwhile knell fell on a city fine.
00:05:15	Get off the twitter!
00:05:16	Look around!
00:05:18	[Laughter] kelly: how dare you?
00:05:22	Had us hooked on twitter as a nation and then tell us to get off the twitter?
00:05:28	I felt responsible for it.
00:05:29	I’m going to get subpoenaed.
00:05:30	I’m going to end up in courpt it’s going to a bad, bad day.
00:05:35	I cannot believe that they do not give you money for twitter.
00:05:39	At twitter.
00:05:41	You made this twitt thing happen.
00:05:43	I helped the twitter thing happen.
00:05:45	Here’s the greatest thing about it.
00:05:47	No, they don’t give me money but I’m connected from the streams.
00:05:50	So I see the coolest new stuff in technology before anybody sees i.

There it is, the line in bold that made me I drop my hoop and start tweeting myself.  Ashton Kutcher “made” Twitter?  Excuse me?   I don’t think so!

Nothing against Ashton.  I don’t know him and I’m sure he’s a great guy.  His celebrity-dom, his trillion Twitter followers–I don’t begrudge him any of it.  More power to him.  And yes, I’m sure he somehow helped bring Twitter out of Geekdom and into Mainstream America, but he didn’t “make” Twitter.   Twitter was made by ALL OF US IN SOCIAL MEDIA!

We who chat with each other so much that we actually become friends and step out of the social media anonymous bubble and  meet up In Real Life.  Like @dcanoli who upon meeting Twitter followers for the first time greets them like old friends. Or @hangingwitmrsc who is planning a trip this summer just to see her Twitter pals.

We moms like @theblogrollers and @banteringblonde who have learned how to turn social media into a business while still being present enough to attend to our children.

We business masterminds like my husband @keyinfluencer who makes his living showing major brands how to use Twitter effectively–not to pimp out their customers, but to develop real relationships with them.  Or @mariohouston who has figured out how to walk that fine line between tweeting about his career in telecommunications and authentically as himself.

We visionaires like @brokesocialite, a Twitter personality in her own right, who saw a void in social media conferences and created one of her own.

I could go on forever…..through the whole Twitter community.  We–all of us who use social media–made Twitter!  We made Twitter by using it every day, all day, to entertain, inform and engage.

@mariohouston created the hashtag #IAmSocialMedia and I’ve been using it all day.  If you believe that YOU are social media, use it too.

And chant.  Chant like Jesse Jackson while clicking your computer mouse in the air.

I Am.

Social Media.

© 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

I just got back from Blogalicious 2010, a conference dedicated to celebrating diversity in social media.  This was my second year attending and as usual, the conference was informative, inspiring and educational.   And fun.  Held at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach, the hotel was gorgeous and South Beach was right outside our door.

But there are many social media conferences, so just what is it that makes Blogalicious special?

First of all there is childcare at Blogalicious.  Did you hear me?  Childcare–for free.  I think that it is absolutely brilliant to include childcare at a conference primarily for women.    I brought my daughter with me to Miami and she was in Ritz Kids–for free–each day and had a ball.   When she wasn’t in Ritz Kids, she was hanging with me or her dad, who was a keynote speaker again this year.   I loved that I was able to bring her to Blogalicious and surround her with such positive women.   To show her great women doing great things, and as an added bonus, most of them looked like her!

Me & Girly ready to hang.

One night there was a Beauty Bash party and since my husband was the DJ (taking his usual Friday night UStream show, DJ GeekSexy, live), my daughter was in attendance too.  She’s known as DJ Sushi Roll and had created a whole DJ set herself to play at the event, but once she got there, she was too busy playing at the So In Style Barbie table, presented by designer Stacey McBride-Irby.

Stacey MrBride-Irby & Girly

The childcare, the swanky hotel, the sessions, the swag–they are all good, but the real draw of Blogalicious is the women.  The women who attend and present at Blogalicious are so smart and so tech savvy and so nice.  Yes, nice; its not a dirty world.   The snarky, sarcastic people that you love to read online?  Great in cyberspace, but who wants to interact with people like that in the real world?

And finally Blogalicious is special because of the 3 incredible women of  MamaLaw: Justice Ny, Justice Fergie and Justice Jonesie.

They get it.  They get how to put on a top-notch conference with great sponsors, fantastic speakers and interesting workshops.   And fun….don’t forget about fun.  Fun is important.  We all have enough heavy in our everyday life.  A little time on the beach after conference sessions with other like-minded geeky chicks was a much-needed respite for all attendees.  Cocktail parties, a Latin dance party at Set nightclub, a live performance by Kindred the Family Soul, and a Wii Just Dance 2 competition were just some of the fun events at Blogalicious.  Here I am Wii-dancing to “Hey Yah”.  And yes, I won.  Twice.

I won’t list all the fantastic women in attendance at Blogalicious this year because there were just too many (everyone!), but if you follow the hashtag on Twitter, #Blogalicious10, you will be introduced to some phenomenal women who are taking the social media world by storm.  It may be a quiet storm in some cases, but make no mistake, these are women to watch.

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Other posts you may like about Blogalicious:

Why I Blog (thoughts inspired by Blogalicious 2009)

© 2010 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

You didn’t think that you could get off that easy, just buying the iPad, did you?  At the bare minimum you need a case and as with all gadgets, there is a whole world of accessories out there just begging to be bought.  Check out some of the accessories that I have for my Apple iPad:

Here are the products that I mention in the video and where to buy them:

Hard Candy Sleek Skin iPad Case

Hard Candy Bubble Sleeve iPad Case

Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit

Pogo Sketch Pen

Griffin A-Frame Stand for iPad

Apple Wireless Keyboard

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Other posts you may like about Apple products and accessories:

What I Like (and don’t like) About The Apple Ipad

Uncommon Deflector Case For iPhone 4: Whomp, Whomp, Try Again

Believe The Hype: Apple

© 2010, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.