Best of...

I recently came into tickets to the upcoming Hour Detroit Best of 2011 party and it got me thinking - when the heck is the last time I updated this thing with my personal best of's? As I round the corner to May, 2011 I'm proud to say that there are a lot of best of's to list this year. Highlights? I thought you'd never ask.

• Best of the gig: I'm still loving my job at Livio Radio. I get to do all of the things I love including PR, events, weird pitches and even a bit of travel to cool industry events like the Consumer Electronics Show, CTIA and of course, New York for press visits. Also, I've had the pleasure of testing out and launching new, cool products for car Internet radio and it's seriously cool.
  
• Best of the friends: my friends are all such talented and focused men and women I feel like a proud family member (which, I suppose they should be referred to at this point)...here are some exciting highlights: one bought a house right next to my office, one just got into MSU's medical school, my sister & friend bought a house, my husband & friend has a hell of a baseball team, another has become a social media go-to and regular speaker at her marketing agency
  
• Best of the home: In addition to looking forward to opening our pool again this summer, I recently spent a whole weekend redecorating the master bedroom along with all of the decorations in the bathroom and kitchen to make things look a bit more spring-like!
• Best of the life: It's good. I can't complain. I'm happy and really am looking forward to another beautiful Michigan summer and the adventures it will bring. I'm also promising myself to blog more. It makes me happy.

As for the Hour Best of Detroit party, I'm looking forward to celebrating the city I left Dallas and Denver to be a part of and the very best music, food, shopping and entertainment it has to offer. Feeling left out? My friends at MotorCity Casino Hotel shared some cool offers I'm happy to share with all 5 of my readership - so check it out here, get some tickets and come party with me:

What: Hour Detroit Best of 2011 Party
Code for $25 Off your tickets: FBBOD2011
How to get a discount on a sweet hotel room: http://playm.cc/lnT4pY
Event Hashtag: #BestofDetroit

I'll be sure to post some updates leading up to both this event and the Detroit Social Media Day over the next couple weeks.

More to come,
Nicole

Changes

After a quick dinner with a great friend, I realized that as many changes as 2009 brought, 2010 has been and incredible year so far. From exciting professional milestones to big home improvements and even travels, this has certainly already been a crazy year. I guess that's what life is about though: changing and continuing to move forward to get the most out of every day. If it isn't it certainly should be.

All things considered, here are some my big changes:

• Found a way to make printed programs more interactive by using QR codes and attracted national attention from media and other professional leagues from the success.
  
• Stopped making excuses and started making time to spend with wonderful friends for random nights, adventures, workouts or even lunches. Laughed more. A LOT more.
  
• Hosted a party worthy of the Detroit blogging community at MotorCity Casino Hotel's Amnesia Ultra Lounge in celebration of social media day, where I got to physically see what our over 400 blogger strong social media community looks like in one room (determined, enterprising and excited to name a few).
• Found a better way to cope with allergies and started gardening with Mr. NWlife (despite my aversion to pollen, flowers or any other allergic-reaction-inducing plant life).
  
• Made the decision to leave the new amazing friends and colleagues Detroit Red Wings (those really, really great kinds of friends made at work who make plans and keep them) to become the brand manager at Livio Radio.
  
• Found the time to open and use the Yelland house pool.
• Convinced Mr. NWlife to (finally) get on a plane and celebrate our second wedding anniversary in Mexico. Had the time of our lives.
  
• Picked up more books for fun, remembered why I love fun reading so much.
  

Every day I'm inspired by my incredible friends (professionally and personally), technology, art and businesses continuing to thrive in this economy. I have a feeling if this was the first half of 2010, the second is only going to be better.

More to come,
Nicole

Livestrong

I love working out. Not only because of it's physical benefits, but also because of the opportunity it presents to do some good in my community. Over the past year and a half, this opportunity presented itself through spinning.

Spinning is something I've always liked but it took getting involved in a local fundraiser for Livestrong get me hooked. The Ultimate Cycling Challenge (started by a fantastic group in Grand Rapids) is a 12 or 24 hour event (depending upon your team's stamina and availability) with live entertainment, food, music and dozens of spinning bikes that annually come together to raise money for the Livestrong Foundation.

It's a truly inspiring event, I met both cycling enthusiasts, cancer survivors, cancer patients and families of those fighting cancer. These people share their stories and help put a face to a cause. My team included 3 other women (my sister and two friends Amanda and Cat) who have all been affected by cancer in our lives at some point and had been looking for a way to become more active in our communities - needless to say, we couldn't say no when our friend Katy emailed us about this event.

Team Old School was born. To date, we've participated in 3 events and plan to keep it going. This past year was our first pass at the 24 hour challenge and it was great motivation to get into shape to compete with other teams. I'm hooked.

So now I'm challenging you - how are you getting involved in your community and using your passions to make a difference?

More to come,

Nicole

Catching up

Now that I'm back from the dead, it seems the most appropriate thing to do is recap the past eight months - in true NWLife style: bullets and photos!

• In July, Greg (or for those of you on Twitter @CoachYelland) and I celebrated our first year of marriage in Mackinac Island
  
• After nearly four crazy years, I chose to leave my wonderful friends, coworkers and clients at Airfoil Public Relations for a new job as Social Networking Coordinator with the Detroit Red Wings
• In my first month at new the new gig, I not only traveled to training camp with the team in Traverse City, MI but also got the opportunity of a lifetime to go to Sweden with the team where I live blogged from the road.
• Feel deeply in love with our new Akita-Chocolate lab mix, Coach.

• Made new friends (like the really good kind) at work. Breathed a deep sigh of relief.
  
• Made the best EVER Halloween duo combo with my sister.
• Celebrated my birthday tradition by heading to Crossroads Village to see the Christmas lights (I'm a Christmas Eve baby) with great friends.
• With the help of Medical Weight Loss Clinics I learned how to eat right for my body and celebrated the loss of 20 pounds and a new beginning.
• Took some time for myself during the Olympic break with my best friend from childhood and spent Valentine's Day in NYC for Fashion Week and was inspired by art.
• Headed to Grand Rapids for my annual Ultimate Cycling Challenge spinning event with Team Old School where we not only raised money for Livestrong but also managed to clinch the most spirited team award after 24 hours of spinning.
• Celebrated the birth of William Louis Urbanik, the son of Nikki and Phil Urbanik - my first friends to have a baby.
• Celebrated Coach's first birthday with special doggie cookies from Doodle Dog Bakery.
• Adopted and temporarily housed a siamese kitten as a gift to my dad for his 49th birthday.
• Started taking boxing lessons and really loving my time at the gym.

This brings us to today. At home, blogging while snuggling up with my puppy (I still call her a pup) waiting for Mr. Y to get home from his baseball tourney and have a date night. There's so much to be thankful for and happy about. This post doesn't come close to capturing it all, but it's a snapshot of my wonderfully charmed life.

More to come,

Nicole

I'm alive

Hello bloggosphere! I know, I know I'm very guilty of not posting for a long time. The good news is that I have inspiration to post. For the past eight months I've been manning my post at my new gig as the social networking coordinator with the Detroit Red Wings. It's been a whirlwind few months but I really do love it and am inspired every day by bloggers, social media types and becoming even more of a nerd than even I thought I'd ever be.

Not only am I inspired by Wings bloggers, but even my own sister-in-law has started a blog full of deep thoughts and mental deep breaths.

So thanks guys, I'm back from the dead!

Rockin' Robin, Tweet Tweet, Tweet Tweet!

If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm a big fan of the newest social media phenomenons - Twitter the microblog. For those of you who are either new to the service or wondering what's next, I thought I would post my top 5 favorite new tools available to help you measure your effectiveness on the site. With no futher adieu...

1. Twinfluence - Twinfluence is a scientific approach to measuring the influence of Twitter users. This can serve as another set of metrics to help you figure out how successful our client twitter accounts are proving to be in their respective industries. Plus, it’s pretty cool to get your overall rank. It’s hard to say though how valid this information means as we have no way of knowing what it is measured against and exactly what criterion the service is using to rank users.

2. Tweetcloud - Creates a tag cloud of a person’s tweets to give you a bird’s eye view of the type of things they tweet about, this tool allows you to zero out and see which words we are using for our clients most often, look up other users and check what they are writing about or even look to see which users are tweeting most often about a certain word and allow you to follow them from the application. Check it out to see if you’re on message with your tweets.

3. Qwitter – Ever wondered when certain users quit following your client accounts? Qwitter is a nice app that will update you via email whenever someone stops following you. It will even let you know what you tweeted that caused them to stop following you, which could be useful for continuing to grow you following

4. Twitvid – Have a cool client video on your desktop but not on youtube? Never fear, Twitvid is here! It’s just like twitpic, only for video application.

5. Tweepler - Of course our clients want us to follow users, but when it comes to following everyone, sometimes we need to be a bit more choosey and do it quick! Tweepler is a new follower management application that lets you make quick, one click decisions about whether to follow people back or drop them into an ignore pile (out of sight, out of mind). In addition to being able to view recent tweets, Tweepler gives helpful stats about new followers, such as average tweets per day.

If anything, it's fun to see how others are viewing the value of what you are sharing and how you can work to improve in the future. Happy tweeting!

More to come,

Nicole

And they called it - puppy love

Well, we finally did it folks. My husband Greg and I brought home a puppy today!

She's a 13 week old lab-akita mix and has brown and white coloring. It has been a wait though, due to the poor economy and owners not vaccinating grown parent dogs before bringing puppies to a rescue, potential disease in her litter left us waiting 4 weeks before we could bring her home. Now that we have her home, we're both convinced it was well worth the wait. Considering the things a little dog is bound to teach a newly married couple about ourselves and each other, we decided to name her Coach.

Surprisingly, though Coach has only been home for 3 hours, she's had 8 visitors, several presents, a walk and lots of kisses - better than either of our last birthday! No matter how you slice it, this is going to be one spoiled little dog.

And here's the part I know you logged on for...adorable puppy pictures below...enjoy!

A puppy's life is so tough.

Coach takes a breather from trying to buck off the leash.

I love her speckled legs and curley tail.

My husband, Greg already in love...

Last, but not least, Coach and I share a hug in the livingroom!

More to come,

Nicole