About a month ago my mother sent me a very cheesy “I’m so proud of you” email. In her email she points out how much I’ve changed and how much I’ve accomplished in the 10 years since May of 2000 when I graduated high school. YES, I am about to have my 10 year high school reunion, and YES it makes me feel OLD, and it reminds me that I’m getting very close to THAT birthday!

This idea of 10 years did however get me thinking. I have changed and I have certainly grown. So I thought it might be fun to do a quick breakdown of the highlights and major life impacting events of the past ten years. And of course I catalog milestones based on how old I was at the time. So here goes nothing:

18: I graduated high school and decided 3 weeks before college started that I did not want to attend the local private college in Texas I was already enrolled in. During a vacation in Phoenix I drove from Phoenix to California on a whim, applied to a college in Southern California, decided I was going there. In a little under 2 weeks I came home and told my dad (who thought I was crazy), packed up my stuff and moved to Orange County.
19: I moved back to Texas and opted for the large state school route and decided to move into the dorms (even though I was a Sophomore) and tried alcohol for the first time (yep I was that girl). I met many of my close friends this year.
20: I had a 13 hour jaw surgery and hibernated for 3 months to heal.
21: I moved into a 4 bedroom/4 bath with 2 friends and a stranger. I also went through an intense entrance process to get into an exclusive design program.
22: I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep the entire year, I can recall many 48 hour must get this project done or I will die times.
23: I graduated college and got my first “office” job.
24: I worked full time and started freelancing and moved in with my then boyfriend.
25: I started blogging as a way to have a sense of community about the craziness that is life in your twenties. I got engaged. I was convinced I had life all planned out for the next 80 years. I went though 10 painstaking months of watching, hopelessly, someone struggle and lose the battle with cancer. I attended 7 weddings.
26: A three year relationship ended and I got unengaged. I celebrated getting laid off from a job I didn’t like. I was convinced I had no idea what I was going to do with myself, my job or my life. I went through a personal effectiveness leadership training that completely altered my outlook on life. At which point I decided I wasn’t shy anymore. I moved into my first no roommate, living alone apartment. I decided I wanted to work for myself. I networked my face-off (credit for this term goes to Miss Sydney Owen). I worked night and day, sometimes forgetting to eat, and certainly there was no time for laundry.
27: I decided I wanted to go back to the office environment and for the first time experienced the cubicle lifestyle. I worked long hours, I was thinking about work even when I wasn’t working, I traveled. I was challenged and pushed and made a huge contribution to business and an industry I was a noose to. I started speaking in public, me the person who was too shy to talk to people speaking to large audiences of people. I got to speak at the ultimate nerd conference, SXSW!
28: I traveled to Memphis, Las Vegas, Boston, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Cape Cod, and Houston. I got a job offer without ever applying for jobs. I turned in my first letter of resignation. I am moving in with the current boyfriend. I paid off a crazy amount of debt by changing my lifestyle and living frugally. And as of this writing I still have 6 months left of being 28!

I’m sitting on an airplane flying to New England to attend my best friend’s (of 14 years wedding) so I guess you could say I am in a bit of retrospective mood. I think the reason there are so many 20-something bloggers (did you know there are 13k plus members on 20sb.net?) is because most of us have 10 years of roller-coastering, life changing, job jumping, breakups, marriages, babies, celebrations and tragedy. I’m not sure that once the clock hits 30 that all those things change but I can definitely say if someone asked me 10 years ago when I graduated high-school if I had any desire to become a public speaker I was have RUN the other way!

This exercise was fun for me, I challenge you to think about all that you’ve done, who you’ve met what you’ve contributed to and how you’ve changed in the past 10 years.

The news clips starts out … "you ‘digital divas’ already love Facebook and Twitter, so why not take your passion to the next level, like the 600+ members of the Social Media Club of Dallas are doing. We learned about this club from a popular North Texas blogger who writes about and for Generation Y. So tonight, this digital diva takes us into her world". You guessed it, that digital diva is ME! I’m sorry I have to say it again, tonight I was on TV, I have officially had my 2 minutes (2:19 to be exact) of fame and I couldn’t be more excited!

You can watch it here on CBS11tv.com
*I am a little disappointed that I can’t embed the video directly on the blog

Insider trading (stuff you wouldn’t otherwise know):

• I’m glad they said my name right – seems like a small thing, but for those of you who have names other than Amy & Jennifer you know what I mean
• I talk really fast … I mean really
• I lovingly call Social Media Club people nerds, I hope no one takes offense.
• Speaking of offense, no disrespect intended for the mommy bloggers.
• Moments after it aired I received a tweet from Frank who had videoed his TV screen with the following message "If u missed @elysa on tv check it out http://ivtweet.com/video?qk"
• I laughed that my dad called me 20 seconds after it ended to ask if I really drove someone home (from sxsw) that I met on twitter. Um sorry dad I did – Zane calls it twitter trust.
• Also, you will likely not be surprised to know my mom (aka the proud peacock) has already emailed out the video to everyone she knows … and she knows a lot of people!

I love what they said about GenPink

Her blog GenPink is described as an explosive, creative, running commentary of life as a twentysomething.

In a about a month GenPink.com will have it’s 3rd birthday! In these 3 years I have had so much fun, and most certainly learned a lot about myself and so many others.

Tonight, I’m being featured on the local television because of this blog. It’s all a little surreal. So in honor of my almost blogiversary and tonight’s newcast I’ve decided to pull my favorite posts from the past 3 years.

I wonder how many GenPink readers have been with us since the beginning? I know at least a few that started in the blogging world about the time I did.

Some of my favorite GenPink posts (some written by me and some by guest bloggers):

• my month long guest post series on the ABCs of Gen Y: I chose 26 words, all representing one letter of the alphabet – A is for Activism, B is for Balance, etc and then researched out to my fellow 20something blogger community for input. I had no idea how much fun, and how much I was going to learn when I had this idea in April of 2008. A little birdie told me there’s plans for another series this April.
• When does Gen X end and Gen Y begin? what started as me researching out of curiosity has come to be my most popular post to date
• Things to do before your 30th (birthday) I wish only I had saved all of the twitter comments that added to the conversation from this blog post.
• Twenty Something Advice: Don’t plan your life based on what other people expect: a great guest post by a college friend of mine
• What do you know in your 30s that you didn’t know in your 20s? are you seeing a trend yet?
• Twenty Something Advice: Make your goals measurable: I’ve been told I’m a "water is hard, rocks are wet results oriented girl" I’m not sure that I can confirm or deny these accusations but I am certainly a goal setter. I think you have to be in today’s competitive workforce.
• N is for Naked: a great guest post from the ABCs of Gen Y series.
• Do you call yourself a feminist?: a pretty intense debate came from this post
• Saying "No": Men vs. Women: some of my best material has been sparked by one quote. This quote still gets me …
  “When a man says no in this culture, it’s the end of the discussion. When a woman says no, it’s the beginning of a negotiation.” – Gavin De Becker (author of The Gift of Fear) – as seen on Oprah’s episode Trusting Your Intuition.
• 25 Questions You Should Ask Yourself Every Sunday
• Gen Y Generalized
• Things Every 18-Year-Old Should Know
• Twenty Something Advice: Is it time for a job change?
• Gen Y: Waking Up Unemployed
• Economic Mess: Are we better off than our parents?

And I’m sure I could keep going. Instead, if by some off change that’s not enough reading for you, all you need to do if press [Browse] at the top of my blog and there are numerous topics to choose from.

So, my question to you GenPink readers – both first timers and veterans – what would you like to see next on GenPink?

This upcoming month is going to be jam packed with excitement, and traveling, and meeting fabulous people. Pretty sure I’ve never been so excited!

What’ I’m looking forward to this month:

• 3rd: I’m going to be on TV! I was interviewed by a local new station about my blog and life in the social media world. It airs Wednesday night the 3rd in Dallas some time in the 7-9pm slot on channel 21. I know it’s also set to re-air on channel 11, not sure of the date yet. If I figure out how to get a version online I will most definitely share.
• 3rd-4th: I’m going to Memphis for work. This is my first traveling by myself adventure since I’ve been at my current job (June 09).
• 10th: I’m on the board of the local Social Media Club (Dallas) – we are having a tweetup (aka geek happy hour) after work just for fun. If you’re in the Dallas area – join us!
• 11th-17th: This deserves about 47 exclamation points – I’m going to Austin for SXSW!! Since this blog is targeted to Gen Y, and you may not all be as nerdtastic as I am, I’ll be blogging about the panels from SXSW on my personal blog Elysa Says. Also, I have an ever-growin twitter list of who to watch/meet at SXSW, if you want to be added to the list just let me know.
• Monday the 15th @ 3:30pm: For all of you lucky enough to be attending SXSW mark your calendars. I’m on a panel with 4 fabulous Gen Yers. We are speaking about Why Gen Y Wants to Work ‘With’ You, Not ‘For’ You. Though we all are gen y, our work experience and current working environments are very different.
  • Sydney Owen work out of the Chicago office of Weber Shandwick – one of the world’s leading global public relations firms with offices in major media, business and government capitals around the world
  • Ryan Paugh is the Co-Founder and Director of Community at Brazen Careerist, Inc. His job is to manage and develop one of the top social networks for Generation Y professionals.
  • Nisha Chittal is a writer, blogger, and new media consultant, she’s based out of Washington D.C. working as a Digital Strategist for New Media Strategies which has about 100 employees.
  • Ben Smithee (aka my glober trotter friend) is a founder and Managing Partner of Sypch Research, he works with a small team but gets to travel to work directly with his large client base.
  • and then there’s me: Elysa Rice, I work for Ellipse Communications, Inc. we provide websites and develop software for the multifamily industry (apartments). Our company can best be described as entrepreneur owned and operated with a little less than 50 employees, if we don’t count the Spiderman cut-out (he’s doesn’t produce a lot of work these days).
• 23rd-24th: I will be attending the Optimization Summits, two days of unconventional conferencing which is sure to give us a few ideas for what’s next in our marketing plan.
• Tuesday 23rd @ 6pm: Jason Falls, will be our featured speaker at the Social Media Club of Dallas talking about social media best practices for agencies and corporate marketers.

And so there you have it ladies and gents! What are you looking forward to this month?

Proud as a peacock …
Those are the words that my mother sent back to me in an email this afternoon when I asked her to check out the blog post my boss had written about me. Yes, I did say my boss blogs… she blogs a lot actually.

I could tell you about my boss or I could just tell you that she blogs under the domain imstartingashitstorm.com – no I’m not kidding.

Anyway, this has been an exciting few months for me and I haven’t taken the time to blog about all my fun news, and it looks like I don’t have to because Lisa was bragging about me on her blog this week. And, well it’s a lot more fun for people to be “proud as a peacock” of me than to brag about myself. Dontcha think?

Here’s what she had to say …

Tonight, I welcomed the numbing entertainment, as my day was crammed with tons of business, inclusive of calls and meetings. Typical for a new year, when the entire nation sat idly by for a few weeks with no decisions or processes being engaged, let alone purchasing or upgrading technology programs such as ours. I am really encouraged on what our sales team is developing, an insightful industry engaging social media program inclusive of our clients, products and services. Elysa Rice, our Emerging Media Consultant, is working on an outbound communications schedule that will feature education and client interaction. I have personally agreed to travel the country providing consultative services and complimentary education programs with whoever will hear me. Interested? There are so many programs we can provide that are designed for anyone who wants to be better at what they do. Personally, I like the concept of Transactional vs. Transformational management and tools that engage your employee base within your corporate intentions. Elysa can certainly facilitate, using the latest in Web 2.0 and social media. If you follow her Ellipse Tips, with her 15,000 or so page views monthly, then wouldn’t it be grand to have her in your Ohio office in February??? Ok, how about Florida or California? She’s so tiny, I’ll make sure she dresses warm when heading your way. Let us know via email or phone call, this is really a serious offer here; you’d be crazy to pass this up!

Interestingly enough, this young lady is so powerful in her Internet messaging that a reporter from the local CBS affiliate contacted her for an interview. They have heard how she is speaking at South by Southwest Media Conference in Austin, followed up with her personal blog, www.genpink.com so now they want an interview.

Oh, she is also presenting at NAA Student Housing conference as well in February. Man, I am so very proud of her. When I hired her, I did tell her I would sharpen her up for her professional consulting gig of instructing Fortune 500 companies on the art of social networking. But, I didn’t expect her exposure to be so swift… She should know that I will beat her tiny little ass if she cuts me loose prior to the two year commitment I suggested it would take:)

On that note, as a leader of a company, portfolio, or community, what are you doing to feed the passion for your rockstar employee? Getting serious for just one second, and then I am going to bed… if we don’t feed their need for challenge, knowledge and exposure, they will find someplace else to share their wares. Nobody ever questioned me for not engaging my key employees in new development ideologies, along with skill sharpening opportunities within Ellipse. I know when I’ve got a winner on my team. And they will be jettisoned into what makes them shine, even if it means sometimes that it takes leaving the nest and away my tutelage, but frankly that is ok. I know I did my part. See Gen X look for respect and recognition amongst their peers and family, Gen Y need a more extended circle for the accolades and high fives that come with success. To me there is nothing better in my world to support and grow a future, successful business person, ‘cause the personal, social conscience side goes right along with it. You know, isn’t that the "pay it forward" type stuff, right?

So yes folks you did read that right … in the next few months I will be on the news, speaking at NAA in Vegas!, speaking at SXSW and who knows whatelse. Craziness!

Long story short: 200 nominees and 15 judges later, Constructive Grumpiness has announced the Mentors crowned with the very first 30 Under 30 Tweeters and guess who is one of them!

Surprisingly enough, I only recognize two other people DShan of 20sb and Julia Roy. I look forward to connecting with the other mentors. Being given the title of mentor makes me feel like I should offer up some sort of twitter advice — all I’ve got for you is be who you are in real life (IRL). If you read fun articles and like to share them … do that. If you love ridiculous youtube videos … share those. If you respond to people when they talk to you … I might recommend that as well .

I actually spoke for the DFW Social Media group back in May about Utilizing Twitter for Small Business (be warned the presentation was 1 hour long and this video is unedited). If you are involved in marketing, PR, do freelance work or just want to know more about networking, or perhaps growing your blog, through twitter feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. I’m always happy to help!

If you’re on twitter and want to follow me, I’m @elysa. To follow along with the discussion watch the hashtag #30u30t. New to twitter and want to know about hashtags?

Thank you to the judges of 30 under 30!

GenPink is featured today on iwearyourshirt – 26 year old Jason Sadler’s brainchild and fun marketing endeavor.

If this is your first time to GenPink checkout some of the Featured posts. Also, here is a collection of a few of my favorite tees! Where do you find fun t-shirts?

While I was in Austin for SXSW I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Ben Smithee of Spych Research. Since somehow it’s the middle of April already and south by was a month ago (crazy!) I forgot that I hadn’t seen the end results. That was … until I got a text message last night that said "Hey, just watched your sxsw interview on youtube. You are amazing!". My first reaction to this text was "umm why is this guy stalking me on youtube?" that thought lasted for about .57 seconds before I went to the tube to watch it.

This morning I decided to watch a few of the other videos that Spych Research posted. The commonality I saw in the videos is that Ben asks some great questions. While I was being interviewed I felt like we were just two friends hangin’ out having a conversation. I think that’s what’s great about Ben’s interview style. He is casual and comfortable yet he obviously knows how to move the conversation along to have quality content in a short amount of time. So without further adu here are the videos:

My interview

Shama Hyder | Shama.tv

Ryan Paugh | Brazen Careerist

The questions that Ben asked that you can steal:

• Tell us a little bit about yourself …
• Tell me a little bit about the new product/company/idea you just launched …
• Where do you see _____ going/evolving into?
• What advice would you give beginners?
• Your top 5 ____?
• What’s your experience been …
• What do you love about what you do?
• When you first started, what was the vision for your company?
• When was the point that you realized "now we have something"?
• Tell me about your mentor …
• What’s new and next for your future?

I feel like if I could ask just these questions to every person I meet that I’d feel like we were long time friends. In social media and in the working world it’s all about building relationships. The first step to building relationships is asking the right questions. Thanks Ben for some great relationship building questions.

sidenote: Ben & I are speaking together at the end of May at Big D Conference on Video and Social Media for Youth Markets (Gen Y and Millennials)

In this case a picture is worth a thousand words!
I am excited! Can you tell?!!

Yes, it’s Christmas and yes I am on a rant! Before I go there let me just say, today was lots of fun, just got back to our hotel room. For those of you don’t follow me on twitter – I’m in Kentucky (long way from TX home) with the fam. We are staying in a fun little hotel not too far from the house where all the festivities are.

So, I just got back and decided to turn on good ‘ol tweetdeck to see if there were any fun Gen Y posts I may have missed today. And to my excitement someone had tweeted a link to Gen Y: When You Wake Up Unemployed. This has a been a fairly popular post of mine around the interwebz but I still get excited to see links to my work. So of course I click through to the link and to my amazement it did not go to MY website. So … let me get this straight, a blog post that I wrote is published IN FULL on another website without my permission. NOT COOL! Not cool at all man. Come to find out several popular posts are being “syndicated” onto this blog, and this guy is republishing full content. My initial thought was I was going to contact the original authors of the “posts” on this guy’s blog to let them know their feed was being scrapped. BUT there were over 20 posts today on Christmas Day. I don’t really want to link to the website from here and drive traffic to him – but I also want people to know about this ridiculous shady activity. I’ve already contacted him, telling him to take my post down. I hope that there is an easy way for the other bloggers who’s content is being scrapped to find out about this dude.