SO, IT’S OFFICIAL. NYC. HERE I COME!

Our pursuits – in life, love (and TECHYNESS, in my case) can take us many places, many of which we wouldn’t exactly expect or predict.

It’s taken me to Syracuse, Florence, Atlanta, Houston, Cincinnati, Shanghai, Danbury, and Schenectady, NY. Each location has had it’s pros and its cons, ups and downs, but the main outcome can be best summarized by a quote from The Alchemist.

“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Like many wide-eyed and eager youngsters, I’m moving to NYC.

The reason? To continue the pursuit of techyness.

One major aspect of this pursuit of techyness is a job. Not just a “job” – but something that will take me to that next level of techyness.  On that end, I’ll be working at Big Fuel, a social media/digital marketing company as a Tech Lead/Interactive Producer (wish me luck!!).

Overall, I’m very much looking forward to writing about this change and set of experiences to come with you- so stay tuned!

Techyness turns 24, and celebrates it with a cross-country move.

I must have some sense of twisted sense of congratulatory celebration, as my moving date happens to fall on the same day as my 24th birthday.

Hopefully this move won’t include similar stories from my last move — movers who asked me if I wanted to “party” later or go hit up the bar across the street — #professionalismfail.

If you’d like to follow my move and the crazy stories that happen, you can see them come through on Twitter with the hashtag #alanasmove2010.

Which brings me to my next point – when you’re moving, and people come and take away all your stuff, what are you left with?

It’s you, your gadgets, and a suitcase – usually hanging out in a corner, like me.

We tend to trust people with many items that we own, but refuse to hand over the gadgetry. I know I’m one of those crazies going through security with two laptops.

September marks a westward move in the life of the Techyness. This time, I’m off to Houston, Texas: land of everything “big” and warmer weather!

I’ve heard that there are some great new media think tanks in the greater Houston area (and I am excited to visit Austin as well – SXSW anyone!?!).  Readers – if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment or send me an email – would love to hear your feedback!

And I did join the Kappa Alpha Theta Alumni Club of Houston as well – there should be some good techyness stories coming out of my interactions with the greater sorority alumni networkp>

Here is a fun video on the Texas “Texaplex” that a friend shared with me  that was truly enlightening on how things work in Texas?

Saying goodbye for a few days...

One major aspect of my current role is relocating – different places, roles, projects, managers, teams and… climates.

Last Monday, both the moving company and car relocation specialist came to Atlanta to  pack up and move everything across the country for me, as I had finished my first rotation.

It was a day filled with bittersweet moments– watching my room transition from full to empty, handing over the keys of my car to the man with the flatbed truck, turning in my keys and signed paperwork to the apartment community…

And I thought to myself, how could this day be more techy? Well, for starters, I probably should have attached some sort of tracker to my car so I knew where it was at all times…

But anyway, my new place of residence is in the “heart of Albany,” and I’m hoping to bring together area bloggers for a few events this summer…

PadMapper - Amazing.

I’ve been living my life in 6-month increments, mainly due to the fact that I’m in a rotational leadership program where I move every 6 months (call me crazy, I know.)

People are usually concerned for me- but the worst part of it is finding a cool place to live for 6 months in a short amount of time, within your price range.

So, my initial approach was somewhat similar to most- updating my facebook status, e-mailing contacts, and of course, checking Craigslist numerous times per day.

After the stress of excel to Craigslist copy and paste efforts, my lean/six sigma training kicked in: There has to be a better way to do this… Are there applications available that I just don’t know about or don’t have access to?

Well, I was right.

I found PadMapper… this would have seriously saved me HOURS. Basically, PadMapper pulls location data listed in craigslist, and displays it in (our favorite) google maps interface, where you can also FILTER LISTINGS based on bedrooms, # bathrooms, total price, and price per bedroom (great for roommates).

If you’re particularly interested in a place, you can zoom in very close, and nearby restaurants, bars, shopping and more will show up on the map (in most cities), and you can click on them to see their Yelp Ratings.

The only thing to watch out for is not PadMapper’s fault- but just the inconsistency of how data is entered into Craigslist. When posting an ad on CraigsList, some enter the “weekly” or “bi-weekly” rate instead of the monthly rate, and that can throw PadMapper off… so just keep an eye out for this. Now, this is an improvement CraigsList needs to change- simply adding a new field or a button to choose if it is a weekly/daily/monthly rate, which would allow for easier searching.

It really just boils down to their tagline- “Making Apartment Huting Suck Less.” basically.

Ok so this post isn’t about a technology…really, but moreso me just sharing something really cool that can help ya’ll out there.

I’m moving to Atlanta soon, and when I was online hunting for apartments, I realized that I was relying heavily on organic search results through Google. Basically, if you have a good web presence, thats how I found out about your apartment offering. This frustrated me. So, when I was visiting Atlanta, one of my friends told me to consider ProMove.

Promove is an Atlanta, GA based company that assists people like me (and you!) to find the best apartment at the best price. Not only do these people know where you SHOULD look, but they also know when you’re getting ripped off. My first question is probably the same as yours- how do these people get paid? They get paid only when you find a place to live- they get the referral payment (usually $300-500) when you sign your lease.

Since promove only works in Atlanta and Dallas, I was curious if other cities offer similar services. And they do!

• http://www.chicagoapartmentfinders.com/
  • This one is really cool, they will even drive you around Chicago to find you a place to live!!!
• http://www.aptselector.com/
• http://www.apartmenthunters.com/Default.aspx
• http://www.apartmentsavvy.com/