I tried to keep it simple and have boiled it down to four main points:

Budget
Define your budget for the project and make sure you stick to it. Do research on the front end and determine all the potential costs.  Plan for the worst. Project costs can start to add up pretty quickly. It can be easy to get carried away, leaving you with an empty wallet.

ROI
Make sure the project is worthwhile and you can get a decent return on your investment. Projects with higher ROI should be examined and potentially implemented before others with lower return on investment.

No tangible return? Try to quantify the value you will derive from the project. I understand it can be a bit of a gray area, but it would be unwise to look only at financial return.

Your Purpose
Why would you want to undertake the project? Are you adding something new? Simply improving something that already exists? Define your purpose and make sure that everything you do will contribute to your goal.  You could end up arriving in a very different place than you expected if you have no purpose.

Your Skills
Do you have the skills to complete the project yourself? What areas can you handle personally? Assess your skills first before you start the project. Don’t lie to yourself during the assessment either; small mistakes can end up costing you more time and money. Handle tasks that you know you can do. For complicated tasks, seek out someone who can help. The internet has a vast wealth of knowledge, growing by the second and is a wonderful place to start.

Take the time to consider these 4 things first before you start your project. Good luck with those upcoming projects! As always, let me know if you have other ideas or want to chime in via the Comments section below.

Lauren: How was lunch?
KP: It was Brio.

For those of you not in the know to the term “brio”, I have attempted to define it below:

Brio [bree-oh; It. bree-aw]
–adjective

1. occurring, coming, or being after the usual or proper time: Brio frosts; a Brio spring.
2. continued until after the usual time or hour; protracted: a Brio business meeting.
3. near or at the end of day or well into the night: a Brio hour.
4. belonging to the time just before the present moment; most recent: a Brio news bulletin.
5. immediately preceding the present one; former: the Brio attorney general.
6. recently deceased: the Brio Mr. Phipps.
7. occurring at an advanced stage in life: a Brio marriage.
8. belonging to an advanced period or stage in the history or development of something: the Brio phase of feudalism.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Just enjoy some quotes/samplings of other diners who clearly know the term “brio”:

• “Not That Great…at all!‎” - yichibann (AccessAtlanta.com)
• “Our waiter was very sweaty” - nutmegsugar (Citysearch.com)
• “The service is poor, but the food is worse” - JosephS4581 (Zagat.com)
• “I was expecting this to be a more upscale experience” - Freemynd78 (Insiderpages.com)
• “this multi-location grille is as pretentious as the spelling of their name” - StuartK539849 (Zagat.com)

more Brio reviews [Google]
Brio itself [Brio]

Mark makes lots of good points, and I can personally attest to the massive spam (ha.. twam!) infusion that has spiked over the past few months. Twitter is actively taking actions against this and seems to be making strides. They are also starting to add some automated support for this to allow the user community to moderate twammers. If they can alleviate this problem and their business plan right, I think the service will continue to be viable.

It sure would have simplified things if Facebook would have gobbled them up a few months back.  The Facebook profile page does all the stuff twitter can do sans the public time line search.  I would also venture to say that it seems to offer a better platform to start introducing more video support over the coming months.

Let’s fast forward 12-24 months to higher speed 3G or LTE cell networks.  This is closer than we think… handsets start having a camera on the phone face for video conferencing. Google’s already built a top notch conferencing solution into GMail, which has been an easy integration into Android phones. Apple’s iChat will be a likely competitor, especially if the next or future-gen iPhone is equipped. If not the iPhone, then certainly their upcoming “Apple Pad” that has been heavily speculated as of late.

There is even buzz that the iPhone 3.0 update may enable video capabilities on 1st gen and 3G iphones with the software release in June. Consider this: 17.4 million iphones sold through 1Q this year… what happens, from a social perspective, if that many people instantly have a video camera that they can put anything they want directly on the web at anytime, from any place?

I guess my question is: does adding the video component have the potential to be a huge spam-combat tool and increase the overall value of the social network? I don’t know. It takes a little over 2 minutes to watch ten 12 second video status updates on 12seconds.tv. I can scan and read 10 tweets in a matter of seconds.

I will say, through my very limited use of 12seconds.tv, that the “feeling of connectivity” is immensely greater than 140 characters of text. The ability to instantly connect with others in a visual manner is more appealing.  The average person would be able to connect in a more _ manner than with simple text. From a product marketing angle, a short clip of me drinking some of my Adagio Teas and exclaiming how enjoyable it is is more valuable than a short textual quip “love this new @AdagioTeas tea set!” Or is it?

Hornung closes the article perfectly and is completely right: regardless of the platform, its just another part of your communications plan.

1990 was easy: Phone, fax, snail mail.
2000 added in email, which was and still is fraught with spam.
2009: It’s getting damn crowded in here! Consider the accounts I have with “communication” services:
flickr for photos, youtube for video, Vimeo for video, facebook, linkedin, 12seconds, twitter, twitpic, blog… whew.

No doubt: there will be ones that evolve and prosper and those that live and die. Will twitter be one of the major players that fosters human-to-human social interaction, or will it just become an abbreviated aggregation stream of links to every man/woman/child/car/dog/cat/company/government’s web activity? I can tell you that as of today it is becoming more of the latter for me, but time will tell.  I think the key will be how they decide to monetize the service.

Read the original article here

Your thoughts? Light up the comment section.

Today, I overheard my dad’s friend complaining to my dad that his new baby boy is a ginger. I continued listening, and heard my dad saying, “Yeah, there’s nothing worse than having a ginger.” I’m his daughter. I’m a ginger. FML

via FML

• I think the only way I’ll be able to beat this swine flu is through a liberal application of oinkment.
• The Swine Flu epidemic has just been upgraded by the World Health Organization to Level: Aporkalypse.
• So my doctor told me I’ve got a bad case of pig flu, but I honestly feel just swine.

Katie Brinkworth also contributed some pickup lines she plans to use in bars this weekend:

• I’ve got swine flu. Wanna pork?
• You’re causing a pandemic in my pants.
• Damn you look swine!

But really, we should not be joking.  This is a serious issue. Do the right thing. Get tested. Find out for yourself: http://doihaveswineflu.org/

The Arch Society is a unique student organization for students in their third year or higher. The Arch Society provides service to the University of Georgia as official hosts and goodwill ambassadors. The Men and Women of the Arch seek to serve the University of Georgia at all functions where it is desired to have students welcome guests and visitors to the University of Georgia. The Arch Society seeks to advance the University of Georgia through service to the offices of the President, the Provost, the Vice President for Student Affairs, the Senior Vice President for External Affairs, Alumni Relations, the Athletic Association and other University offices or officials at appropriate functions.

The Arch Society is named after the most prominent symbol of the University, the Arch. In 1857, an iron fence was erected along the northern borders of the campus. The Arch, located on Broad Street at College Avenue, became the main entrance and was modeled after the Great Seal of the State of Georgia with three columns representing wisdom, justice, and moderation.

At the University, the columns also represent teaching, research, and service. Over the years the Arch has come to be one of the most recognizable symbols of the University of Georgia.

Find out more about the University of Georgia Arch Society at uga.edu/cls/programs/arch/archmission.htm