Beth Blecherman started her career in application development then Senior Manager, Computer Process Integrity, for Deloitte. After senior management she took on family management blogging as her career 2.0. She is a Co-Founder of the Silicon Valley Moms Group, a collaborative of mom blogs across the country, and their first international blog Canada Moms Blog.

Blecherman founded her personal blog, TechMamas.com, as a platform to discuss technology and gadgets for families. Beth vlogs with other female tech bloggers at Gadgetspin.com. She also consults with companies on blogger outreach and social media strategies and speaks at conferences on parenting, social media and technology. TechMamas.com was chosen as one of the Nielson Power Mom 50 influencers. On Twitter as @TechMama she was chosen as one of the 25 Influential Moms to Follow on Twitter and BizTechDay’s 25 Influential Business Women in the Bay Area. Beth is on the Board of Advisors for MommyTech at CES.

No matter what content you watch online or on TV, there is nothing like attending the theater or a live concert performance. As a kid, I my mother made a special effort to take me to see local theater shows and then go out for brunch. We had interesting discussions over sandwiches after the show and I was soon inspired to act in the local shows as a tween – a journey that lasted into college. I credit that time acting in local children’s theater as helping me to feel comfortable giving presentations and appearing on video and TV as an adult.

While the West Coast has great Theater, I decided to enlist a show buff I know near New York City to attend plays and share her thoughts. Her name is DocMamaEast and listed below is her review of the play Godspell – currently on Broadway. Here is a link to the Godspell main page and images. DocMamaEast is a professional mom with four kids who enjoys going to shows with family, friends or even as a date night with her husband. What better way to have a night out?

DocMamaEast’s night at Godspell on Broadway

We Godspell on Broadway and loved it. The show is running at Circle in the Square, an intimate theatre in the round. The staging takes advantage of this small venue; the actors are often in the crowd and audience members are included in the performance in creative ways. The band is scattered throughout the theater. We really felt like we were a part of the show.

Each cast member is a talented actor and singer. The show is written so that each actor is the lead singer in at least one song. Just as one number ended and we thought “that can’t be topped,” the next performer was just as amazing. Part of what made the show so much fun was the feeling that the actors were having a blast on stage – we truly felt the camaraderie amongst the disciples.

One of the challenges for any revival is making the show relevant today. Godspell’s writers have done a terrific job. Entertaining updates to the show include imitations of Donald Trump, hip-hop and rap, and clever references to Steve Jobs and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Another challenge the show faced was a small stage in the round. This provided limited opportunities for elaborate sets and effects.

The production does an outstanding job of creating exciting scenes with these limited resources, including but not limited to baptismal waters and a fun trampoline scene. Act II was not as fun as Act I but then again, the same was true of the life of Jesus. All in all we had a great night on Broadway and would recommend Godspell to anyone.

The winter holidays are around the corner, with time split between two of my favorite things: family and shopping. The pressure to find “just the right gift” can change shopping for the worse, causing people to shop impulsively and not look for the right deal. When it comes to consumer electronics, prices may look great on “Black Friday” but waiting for the price drops of early December may be an even better deal.

So what is a bargain hunting consumer to do? I am excited to be partnering with Decide.com, a company that empowers consumers to make smart electronic decisions with a 60 terabyte historical pricing database, 8 billion price observations and growing. Decide.com’s shopping service predicts when to buy consumer electronics with no regrets by providing information such as price comparison, average release cycle, last release, device’s age, average rating and product details. Their just announced Decide.com mobile app for iPhone and iPod touch will enable consumers to have the power of prediction in the palm of their hands while shopping. Here are my no regrets shopping tips to make sure consumers are armed with the right information to make the best decisions.

1. Don’t be a sale chaser – while it’s true that a few select products go on sale in the wee hours of the morning, you’ll likely regret rushing out to fight the crowds at 5am only to discover there were only 5 TVs available at that price. Spending hours chasing down a special holiday deal can be a big cause of buyer’s remorse. Do your homework and find the real holiday sales.
2. Stock up and save on electronics for the family – wait for the holiday season to upgrade on the latest gadgets and electronics for her family. For practical and smart gift giving, holiday is a great time to stock up on those items that your family needs – a family computer, TV, other devices for family – and save big.
3. Don’t be fooled – buying an older product model at a fire sale price is not necessarily cheaper. For example, by doing a search on cameras I realized that some of the newer models have better pricing then the models they replaced.
4. Arm yourself at the moment of purchase: With Decide’s new prediction app for iPhone, when you’re shopping in the store this holiday, you can know if that product is a deal or not by simply scanning the barcode for an instant prediction.  You don’t need to give up on finding a deal even if you are making a spontaneous purchase (like we all do).

Full Disclosure:  This post is in partnership with Decide.com.

Win a $5K Shopping Spree Contest: Download and install the Decide.com App for iPhone and iPod touch for your chance to win an American Express gift card for $5,000. Contest ends December 25^th, 2011.

THERE’S A NEW ANN IN TOWN

Ann Taylor Opens New Concept Store at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California

NEW YORK,  2011 – Ann Taylor announces the opening of the brand’s new concept store at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto on Friday, September 2, 2011, marking the brand’s second new concept store in California. Ann Taylor opened its first concept store in South Coast Plaza in June and a third is set to open in Manhattan Village next week.

With a heritage dating back to 1954, Ann Taylor has always been synonymous with iconic, all American style for modern working women. Having evolved throughout the decades to meet women’s changing needs, aspirations and roles, Ann Taylor has recently gone through its most significant evolution, starting with the revamped collection launched in Fall 2009 under the brand’s new Head of Design, Lisa Axelson. The next phase of the rejuvenation is the brand’s new store concept.

Designed in partnership with S. Russell Groves architects, the new Ann Taylor boutiques are inspired by a stylish modern contemporary home and provide a more intimate shopping experience that is chic, warm and inviting. The residential influence is brought to life through white washed maple hardwood floors, luxurious crystal chandeliers, modern tufted furniture and sleek feminine fixtures inspired by the ultimate closet. Wardrobing niches allow for stronger fashion stories as well as a broader assortment of product than other Ann Taylor stores. Decorative items add the finishing touch with an assortment of fashion books, jewelry vitrines and framed images on display throughout the space.

Special attention was also given to the design of the new styling rooms which feature unique floral wall coverings, luxe ottomans, plush carpeting, and a new proprietary lighting system with flattering back lit mirrors. Adjacent to the styling rooms is a private lounge area featuring an oversized touch screen monitor that provides access to anntaylor.com. The immediate access to the brand’s website allows clients to view and order the complete product assortment outside of what that particular store may carry – including additional fashion and wear-to-work styles, a broader assortment of shoes and petites, and online exclusives such as tall sizes and a Weddings and Events collection.

Curated fashion presentations and expert styling services add to the new store experience and make shopping easy. An impactful runway of mannequins showcasing Lisa’s favorite looks of the season greets the client and helps with wardrobing and styling ideas. The key fashion message is complemented by shop-in-shop destinations including the Career Chic shop, a petites shop and an accessories shop. Dedicated stylists are also on staff and available for both walk-ins and appointments to help clients put together perfect individualized looks for any occasion.

“The new Ann Taylor is chic and stylish with a more fashion forward direction to address the needs of today’s modern working women,” said Lisa Axelson, Head Designer and a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). “Our new concept stores are a reflection of our new fashion direction. They are light, modern, feminine, and designed to showcase the full Ann Taylor collection while making our client feel comfortable and welcome.”

I coveted many of the new looks, including a beautiful cape, cool blue shirts and dresses, shimmery black Gigi Paillette Skirt, accessories and more. Picture of the lovely models that showed off the outfits at the event.

Photo Credit: Colson Griffith for Gustavo Fernandez Photography

Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk with the team and see a demo over at Striiv, a new Silicon Valley Start-Up that developed a portable fitness device for the “rest of us”.

What does “rest of us” mean?

There are already great devices for runners but how about the “rest of us” that count running in and out of the grocery store or up and down the steps to their office as their only exercise? Striiv is a device small enough to hang on your keychain but is filled with big features that everyone can use to fit in more exercise into their daily routine.

The device follows your movement (including steps,  cadence and more) assigning points to track personal goals, unlock rewards, progess steps in a gaming environment and best yet contribute to charity in what is considered a “walk-a-thon” in your pocket. Future features inlcude big plans for social.

The age range is from kids to adults, so the whole family can use the device. I will be testing a Striiv device very soon and can’t wait to share more details. For now, here is the press release for today’s announcement.

Press Release:

INTRODUCING STRIIV: A SLEEK PORTABLE DEVICE THAT MAKES FITNESS FUN; LAUNCHING THIS FALL
Silicon Valley Start-Up Unveils Product that Motivates and Rewards Exercise through Games, Challenges and Donations

REDWOOD CITY, CA, August 31, 2011 – Fitness is about to become a lot more fun with Striiv. The Silicon Valley-based start-up today revealed its first product which takes active gaming outside of the living room to turn everyday activities into fitness opportunities.  A sleek, portable fitness device, Striiv motivates activity throughout the day via games, personal goals, and donation opportunities — all powered by physical activity.

Striiv offers a playful approach to fitness. Comprised of social game and technology industry veterans, the team behind Striiv brings a wealth of business and development experience to defining this new product category at the forefront of gaming and personal health.  Whether it’s a real workout or simple daily interactions like walking to lunch, taking the stairs, or shopping – with Striiv any activity is earned, tracked and transformed into an opportunity to get fit, give back, and have fun.

“Fitness and health are top-of-mind today. But for many people, especially moms juggling careers and family, finding time for exercise is hard to fit in to a busy day,” says David Wang, CEO and co-founder of Striiv. “We’ve combined charities, gaming, and personal challenges with cutting-edge technology to create a seamless way to motivate physical activity.  We’re building a playful and inspiring ‘movement around movement’ so that fitness now fits throughout your day. ”

Small, convenient and designed to easily move between a key chain, belt clip, or pocket, Striiv is always with you and always on.  Striiv features a high-resolution color touch screen to track your progress.  Key features include:
•    Walkathon in Your Pocket:  With Striiv every step counts toward a donation to charity.  At launch, Striiv is partnering with GlobalGiving to donate clean water to children in South America or a polio vaccine to a child in India. New charitable partners will be added over time.
•    Activity-Based Games: Unlike traditional time-based social games, Striiv games are completely powered by physical activity. In the first game, MyLand, the more you move, the more your enchanted island fills with exotic wildlife and plants. More games will be added.
•    Daily Challenges and Trophies: Earn rewards and bonuses for walking to lunch or taking the stairs. Unlock daily challenges based on real-world distances, from climbing the Eiffel Tower to crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.
•    TruMotion Technology: Striiv’s proprietary TruMotion technology is always on and can sense if you are walking, running, and even climbing stairs or hiking.

Striiv is designed to be used directly out of the box, no set up required. Tutorials are built into the device. Additionally, Striiv can be connected to an online portal via a computer USB port to upgrade new applications, charities, and games, or post updates to Facebook.

Many work at home moms use their home or cell phones for their business calls. I just recently had the chance to review another alternative for work at home communications (or for any businesses): VoIP. VoIP is not a word many recognize, but it simply means a communications protocol over the Internet. So when using VoIP, instead of make calls using a cell services, an internet connection is used.

Alteva is a cloud (or internet) based communications solution. The phone I am testing is a wireless business phone that will be using the Alteva solution. I am excited to try it for a couple of reasons.

1. First, my cell coverage is always not so great at home and my cell phone speaker is not a perfect solution for business calls.

2. I have a home broadband service but there are limits on how many “mbps” (mega bits per second) that I can use. With all the wireless gadgets I have in the house, our broadband can sometimes be slow. It would be great to have a different communications protocol for my business calls so it won’t interfere with the broadband demands of our many other home wireless devices.

The  Alteva VoIP phone I’m currently using at home allows you not only to manage your email in Outlook from your phone, but also to automatically redirect phone calls to mobile, desk phone or voicemail, depending on your Outlook calendar.  And, using VoIP to make my calls over the internet gets around international long distance charges.

The service Alteva is offering incorporates MSFT Comms Svcs – Outlook/hosted Exchange, Office live Meeting, Office Communications Suite – with Broadsoft’s VoIP telephony.

3. No matter if you are a work at home parent or have an office these days everyone seems to work with a virtual team. This solution offers an advantage because it is a Unified Communications platform (UC Platform) that supports the concept of a virtual team. One of the other bloggers in the review, Joseph Mutidjo, explains  a Unified Communications platform as this “Unified communications is the concept of taking all the ways we communicate and seamlessly integrating them into a single interface. For businesses, this translates into pulling communication modes like voice calls, video conferencing, instant messaging, mobile communication, email, voicemail and fax into one platform.”.

When I first starting blogging in 2006 one of the first people I followed on Twitter was Guy Kawasaki.

He already had a successful business career and was one of the early ones to fully realize the potential of social media.

I also read Guy Kawasaki’s books. His tips are explained in a authentic way that helped me understand the intricacies of business and social media, and he reinforces these key messages by reaching out to his community with presentations and social media events.

One of my favorite social media events was the USS Nimitz Blogger Embark, which Guy, I and a team of bloggers went on together.

Last week I interviewed Kawasaki about his book Enchantment for a REP Interactive video (more details to come on my video).

Using his hints and tips were invaluable to me; I now have my own online brand, TechMama, so I can say his tips worked! I looked forward to reading Enchantment to learn more.

Deal alert, read on to find out details..

Guy Kawasaki and Beth Blecherman talking about Guy's book "Enchantment" during a REP Interactive video.

Guy Kawasaki’s most recent book, Enchantment, “explains how to influence what people will do while maintaining your highest standards of ethics“. Enchantment is about a journey – bringing to market a cause, more than a temporary or shallow relationship to get the job done. While my TechMama brand is the intersection between tech and family, a key part of my brand it holding myself to the highest standards of ethics to respect the influence I have.

The book discusses how to use push technologies such as Twitter and pull technologies like Facebook, websites and blogs to achieve likability, trustworthiness, and to overcome resistance.

There are great tips in this book for anyone in business and social media.  Even those who are social-media obsessed like me need to read the book and learn about influence, ethics and the best uses of “push” and “pull” technologies.

On that note, I saw that there is also a deal going on for those who buy Enchantment. Here are the details:

Guy Kawasaki recently teamed up with friends at Peachpit Press to create a special promotion. When people anywhere in the world buy a copy of Enchantment in any form (paper, recording, or ebook), they can get a free copy of Garr’s book called Presentation Zen. Presentation Zen is one of the best books ever written about making great presentations. Seth Godin said this about it: “Please don’t buy this book! Once people start making better presentations, mine won’t look so good.”

The deal is valid for the first 750 entrants. But deal or no deal, I recommend the book Enchantment as a must read for those in business and social media.

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book Enchantment for review purposes.

I am the proud mother of three boys, two of which are twins. All siblings have a special connection (and sometimes special brawls), but twins have an extra connection that is hard to describe. When I think back to the days my twins were babies, there were many special moments that they communicated to each other in their own secret language. I could even call it babble with meaning.

The other day a friend, who knows I have twins, sent me a link to the new viral sensation: Talking Twins taken by Twinmamarama (hat tip to SFGate for helping me figure out who the brillant mama who took the video is).

So… when I saw this YouTube video of the now famous Talking Twins, it brought back so many memories, made me laugh and made me cry (in a positive way). With over 15 millions views on YouTube, the twins may also be the new web super stars. These type of viral videos are what YouTube videos should be about. And to any adults who are doing the Talking Twin take off videos wearing adult diapers and babbling, sorry- give it up – no one can compete with the original Talking Twins!

As I ramp up my new website (in construction) after taking a blogging break to do family stuff, it is always fun to have a surprise recognize the time I did spend to keep up the “relevance”.

Yesterday one of my favorite tweeters (@SocialMoms) shared that @TechMama was on the @PCMag ‘s Twitter Top 100 list. Yes, between @BarackObama and @Bill Gates.

Ok, Well the list was alphabetical order but still – how often do I get to be “seated” next to Barack Obama and Bill Gates – even if it is online?

Umm, never before this time.

Best of all there was also some great women tweeters on the list that I am also honored to be in good company with. No – not Lady Gaga although I love her music. But technology reporter and mom extraordinaire @NataliMorris and @rachelsterne (and that is just a few of the “R”s).

People have asked me if I automate any of my tweets, which I am surprised they even ask (and I promptly say “no”). I am an information obsessed person – so when I read online articles that I think are relevant to my Twitter audience, I tweet them. Yes – the good old fashioned, non- automatic sharing of something interesting. I share things with my Twitter community like I would share information with an interesting book group. I also enjoy reading my communities’ Tweets as well.

Sharing on Twitter was (and is) something that I could keep up with no matter how busy I got with family commitments.  Twitter became a solace that was my connection to the outside world while balancing taking care of boyz world. I even find out about events from my Twitter stream before I read about it in the news or online. As soon as I turned on my computer the morning of the Japan Tsunami and Earthquake, I saw the Twitter chatter and raced to the news sites to read more.

After this post goes live I will be off to carpool to pickup my boyz, wondering what it would be like to really sit next to Bill Gates and Barack Obama. As well as feeling excited that a magazine (PC Magazine) that I have been reading for years decided to visit my Twitter stream.