For the last year I have been all over the country from conference to conference and with all that travel I have met a lot of great people and gained a lot of insight.   I wanted to wrap up this conference with a question. When you travel how do you decompress when you get home?

It can be easy to get discouraged when you are experiencing a lull in your work or even kinda lonely after a big event.  For weeks at a time you have people around you 24-7 then all of the sudden real life. Having a plan to keep yourself busy during those times, one that can also help you prepare to get through the times on the road is a win-win.

I just got back from Search Engine Strategies San Jose and have been on the road for a week.  After arriving home on Friday I admit I was a bit bored.   So I decided to try a couple of things to get back to my normal self.

So with that in mind here is what I have come up with:

1. Get some exercise

This is something that is important before, during, and after travel.  Keeping a routine of exercise  is a great way not to have the blahs after travel. I have been reading the book Brain Rules and Dr. Medina’s number one rule for boosting brain power is exercise.

2. Write up a trip report
What did you learn?  Did you meet anyone interesting? Are there trrends to be tracked?  Whether for your team or just yourself write up your thoughts and file them away. Time box this for a hour, because you don’t want to over think it.  I used to struggle to get trip reports out, but I think it is because I didn’t do it right away. I think there is a lot I can do to improve this process for myself but I the sooner I get it done the better it is for me to get back to normal.

3. Do something that is totally a waste of time
For me I love to be busy cramming away at any little thing, but most of the time I am focused on work tasks. 

the best way to decompress is to find something fun to do that has nothing to do with your job or your trip.  I am a huge fan of the movies or the gun range.  This Saturday I went to a matinee of the new Star Wars ,(which was terrible by the way.)  because it was in the middle of the day I couldn’t “do” anything else.  By the time I got home it was time for dinner and then on to bigger and better things.

So this is what I do, when I get home.  I admit I need a lot of help from friends and family along the way, but with a little practice I am getting better and better at it.

What do you do to decompress after a work event?

Yesterday, was SocialMediaCamp Seattle and the the SummerMashbash Seattle.   It has been a long couple of months of conferencing for me prior to BarCamp and SocialMediaCamp but the these two BarCamp events have really been rejuvenating for me.  I thought it would be good to stop and take a few minutes to explain why I really like these events.

First a brief explanation, SocialMediaCamp brings together the brightest minds in Social Media with people interested in learning more about the power of Community Based Marketing. See that was brief.  If you want to know more about the BarCamp format and how BarCamps came about check out the BarCamp wiki.

Here are three reasons I love this format:

1. The content is accessible. Because the format is open, a lot of content is generated on the quick.   It takes wits and a little bit of humor to pull something together and face an audience you were a member of just a few minutes before.
2. The people.   Some of the best most interesting people I have met, I met at a BarCamp. People Like: Erica O’Grady and AnWith1n.   These people are passionate about their space and love to challenge the audience to think outside of their comfort zones. 
3. The iron on iron.   The best part of a bunch nerds in a room is that there is probably some one there smarter than you.  You will get challenged for sure and hopefully the next time you sign up to talk you will think through things a little more.   Oh and you can take what you learn home.

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So above is my presentation on Measuring Social Media.  I was talking with Anwith1n and Erica about measurement in the hallway when I first I arrived.  It gave me the idea that An and I should do a presentation together on the topic.  I pulled together the slides in about 15 mins.  So the deck is not a “walking deck”  where the slides speak for themselves, but I will try to evolve this over time. 

So that is my quick thoughts on social media camp.  

Scottish accent and all.

The good folks at Mashable, are about to Kick off their U.S. Summer Tour in the great city of Seattle.  I have had the pleasure of hanging our with Pete Cashmore before and I can tell you it is always a good time.  When I first heard about this event from my favorite person Tamar, I was pretty stoked, because these kind of things are much more common to the Valley.  

So I got pinged by Adam from Mashable about some free tickets to the event.  I think this is an important enough event that I want to share these tickets with you.   I am limited to 50 tickets and when they are out they are out.   I will give the code to anyone who adds me on twitter and pings me for the code.  You can follow me at jandrick

You can read more about the event at upcoming.

All about startups

This event is all about startups.   If you are a part of a Seattle or PNW startup and want to get some attention you can submit a startup, just drop Mashable an email at news@mashable.com and include “SummerMash” in the subject line. Be sure to note the name, a brief description, and of course the SummerMash city in which you’re located.

Join me and my team from Live Search we will be there at Showbox SODO.  The good folks from Mashable will have food and drink, and DJ El Toro mixing things up.

So the Ariel and Microspotting team is having a little linkfest in an effort to spread their newly printed t-shirts.   At first I thought “why would I want another ‘nerd’ shirt?”  but I followed the link and  true to form Ariel and team came up with something unique that caught my attention.

The post on Microspotting asks for the following:

Here’s how to get your own “I am the empire” or “my job gives me special feelings” shirt:

• Write a post on your blog about Microspotting
• Leave a comment here with a link to your blog post
• Agree to post a photo of you wearing the shirt after you get it

So as someone who works with SEO’s on a regular basis my link bait alarm went off.  Not only does Ariel have a site that focuses on some of the most outstanding Microsofties; a unique content proposition. Now she is creatively offering tees in exchange for an article and a link.  Kudos Ariel!    When I look at alexa to see where Microspotting sits, it isn’t yet on the radar.   There are lots of popular blogs at Microsoft.  Good chance this will really help those traffic numbers and pass a bunch of link juice your way.

Ok, to be fair I might be overdoing it, but I just want a free t-shirt. 

Microspotting | Microspotting tshirts (want one?)

Again,  Marketplace provides a very interesting piece that you should listen too.   I have heard that Petrobras was an innovative company but  comparing them to the space program for the innovations in deep sea drilling is fascinating.   Please listen to this…  Business unusual.

Marketplace: The Petrobras way