If it’s your first meeting, shoot me an email or you can find directions and RSVP here: http://vegaspug.wordpress.com

Also, here’s some photos from our semi-annual group PUG shoot!! It was a blast and great seeing everyone who made it out.

In this photo: Chris Inman, Adam and Raquel Trujillo, George Godor, Rachel Garcia, Trevor, Terrence Lighten, Gabriel Troncoso, Jayse, Chelsea (me), Heather, and Suzi Lighten

Jayse and I are unimpressed with Mozy as of recent. It’s just too slow for the large amount of data that we typically use it for. So having solved one of the main issues of keeping your files on-location, we may be getting a couple of these to use along with Time Machine to back up our computers. And of course, I’ll still be using Pictage for an extra safe off-site back-up of all my client files.

Our next PUG meeting is Wednesday, June 24th! We’ll be doing something a little different for this meeting; I’m planning an on-location group shoot! It’s always a great experience to get out and shoot with fellow photographers and I hope it will be something that will benefit everyone.

I’ll be updating the PUG Page with additional details soon. But in the meantime, mark your calendars - this will be one not to miss!

This also inspired me to share my experience and thoughts on storage solutions. Jayse does video work and I photograph all in RAW so this is something that we are constantly battling and exploring to find the best options out there. SO if you’re looking for tips this should be a good help getting started!

When storing and backing up your files, images, and all that important stuff that you’d hate to loose there’s a couple different types that you should have in mind. First there’s your local storage. These are drives that you can access at anytime in your network. This way if one hard-drive crashes (which will inevitably happen at some point in time) you can quickly and easily access your backup. It always seems that drive failures happen at the worst possible timing (not like it would ever be convenient) so why not make it easy on yourself by making it painless to get your system back up and going as quick as possible.

• Mirrored-Raid System - There’s many positives to this type of system. In theory, every time you write a file, it’s actually being written twice - if one hard drive fails you have a duplicated on the ‘mirrored’ drive. I say in theory because - what they don’t tell you is that with most of the consumer raids that you get you can’t just switch out a new drive when one fails. Instead, you have to pay the manufacturer a recovery fee starting around $700. Also, there is a chance of them failing around the same time since most of the time the installed drives were manufactured at the same time - in the same batch.
• Time Machine - Anything Apple ROCKS! Need I say more? Definitely worth checking out if you aren’t using this already.
  
• Drobo - This is the ultimate. The Drobo is similar to a raid system, however your files are copied across 4 drives offering a higher level of protection. And if one (or two) drive fails the Drobo will inform you and all you will have to do is switch it out. It will then immediately back everything up again to the new drive. All this with no down time! Even with 2 hard drive crashes all your files are still safe and accessible.

In addition, the Drobo utilizes a special way of maximizing the drive space. For example, with a typical mirrored-raid you would loose half of the space (for a 2TB raid, you’d have 1TB of storage). With the drobo you would get up to 1.4TBs of storage out of that same 2TBs worth of drives.

Another bonus: Drobo is 100% compatible with Time Machine!

Next you’ll need an off site storage option. As much as I hope we never have to face the problem of a fire or burglary where all our equipment (and yes, backups too) somehow get destroyed, deleted or stolen… as they say, it’s better to be safe than sorry. These things happen. So it’s important to be ready and prepared for whatever life throws at us. And this is especially important as photographers since we’re dealing with precious irreplaceable memories. So here’s a few different off site storage solutions that I think are awesome investments - all of which can be accessed anywhere you happen to be:

• Mac Account - For a limited amount of storage
• Mozy Online Backup - I love Mozy! This offers unlimited online backup for only $4.95 a month
  

• Pictage - Every image uploaded to Pictage is stored on their server for the life of your membership. You may access your images from anywhere any time. And you can easily FTP images back to yourself from any of your live Pictage events. To learn more on retrieving images you can click here.
  

Other options:

• Backing up to CD/DVD - While this isn’t an option I’m particularity fond of since it doesn’t fit in with my work-flow quite as seamlessly, I know a lot of people that this solution works for. This is a relatively inexpensive option, however if this is your preferred method of backing up you should look into getting a data protected water & fire proof safe.

Hope that helps!!

And without furthur ado, meet Drobo… the world’s first data robot:
(once you press play - hit the little HQ button to see it in good quality)

**Update to the video: Now with the 2TB drives you can have up to 5.5TBs of storage space!! Pretty sweet!! Check out the spiffy “Drobolator Capacity Calculator” to see how to make the best use of your drives, or the product demo here.

Seeing as though there’s 55 weeks in a year… I’m calling my project “28 BOOKS”! The goal will be to read one book every other week, then take the following week to digest and start putting whatever it is I’ve just learned into action! I’m hoping to keep this up for a full year, and will be sharing little thoughts and tips from my readings here! So be sure to check back! And if anyone else is up for the challenge I would love to hear about it.

Have suggestions on books to read? Leave it in the comments! I already have a long list of amazing books that I’ve been meaning to pick up for some time, but am totally down for suggestions.

Some for-sure reads already on my list include:

“Creating Customer Evangelists” - Jackie Hube & Ben McConnell

“How to Win Friends and Influence People” - Dale Carnegie

“Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands” - Kevin Roberts

“Fast Track Photographer” - Dane Sanders

“All Marketers are Liars: The Power of Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World” - Seth Godin

““The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” - Michael Gerber

“Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends” - Tim Sanders

By Chels (www.chelsea-nicole.com) and Jayse (www.jayse.us)

If you haven’t reached your goals before… chances are they’re just not exciting enough. Make something up that sounds bad ass and a little crazy!
They say… sometimes just putting it all on paper is enough to set you in the right direction without much further effort. Who knows if that’s true, but re-read this once a week, modify it, think about a few things you can do towards it and… well we’ll see…

The idea: It’s five years from now - the economy is back in swing - especially for YOU because you’ve
learned to cope with down times.

The Goal: In your most so totally awesome future you are living the following answers:

1. What kind of fantastic relationship do you have with your lover, immediate family?

b: What kind of time is needed for that?

2. What are you known most for? (in words - or a sentence)

Personally:
(compassionate? giving? loving? responsible? a leader? ALIVE? Adventurous?)

Professionally:
(a Leader? Uniquely different? A photographer that cares more than the rest? Reliable?)

b: Name 4 or more places you, or your name and image need to appear to get them known
professionally.

3. What super-fun and practical things do you have enough money for?

(Simply enough to live comfortably? Or enough to travel twice a year to exotic locations?
Enough to take expensive workshops and amp your training? Enough to buy your family _____?
Enough to contribute to causes you care about? Enough for a bigger house?)

b: What is your guess to a yearly income range needed to for those ideals? (20k - 50k? 100k -
150k? 250k+?)

4. Who have you helped along the way?

(Other photographers? Employing others? Helping children in need? Parents? Friends? Family?)

b: How do you need to take care of yourself to be able to help others?
(Health? Finances? Time?)

5. What are two things you can do this minute (not tomorrow) towards your most awesome 5 years from now?

Make a phone call? Schedule an appointment? Buy ad space? Draft in pencil a rough ad idea for a magazine?

.
.
**CLICK HERE for a printable version of this! Print it out! Fill it up! And keep it close to check up on yo-self!!

For everyone else…

Here’s some helpful networking tips:

• Make helping others your main focus
• Become a great listener
  • Learn more about others than you tell about you.
• Remember names
  • Have a bad memory? Of course it’s a given that it’s good to make an effort to get better with this, since remembering a peoples names is a huge part of building friendships. But a quick solution that really helps for conventions or situations where you’ll meet a lot of people at one time is to make a short note about each person you meet - on the back of their card, in a little notebook, or your iPhone. This way, when you’re looking through that huge stack of cards to follow up on later, you’ll be able to remember who’s card is who’s. Which brings us to…
    
• Business cards:
  • It’s usually better to collect business cards than giving out your own.
  • Instead of immediately putting someones business card in your pocket - take a good look at it, make a positive comment, and find a way to connect it to the person so that you can remember them better later.
• Follow up!
  • Whether it be a quick email, phone call, some blog lovin’, a thank you card, or small gift - following up is one of the most important parts of networking.

Some great ways to network with clients, vendors and other photographers:

• Visit your local PUG or other photographer meetup groups
• Online: Blogs, forums (such as the pictage forums or opensourcephoto.com), facebook, twitter, etc.
• Go out for coffee, lunch, or drinks
• Thank you or ‘Just because’ Gifts and cards
  • Sending a little gift is one of the best ways of showing someone you are thinking of them - and it keeps you fresh in their mind.
    For example, I know I love getting little packages in the mail! Getting something besides junk mail and bills can really brighten a persons day. That simple. So I challenge you to think of those little things that make you happy, then try passing some of that joy onto others. =)
• Get out there!
  • Participate in tradeshows, bridal shows, workshops, seminars, whatever! Just get out there - meet people and build relationships however you can. Not only does it help you grow, but it’s also tons of fun and will help keep you inspired!

Hope everyone had an awesome holiday. We have a lot in store for the PUG group this year!! Our first meeting of the year will be on Wednesday, January 28th! We’ll be starting things off at 6:30 for those who want to come early to socialize, then we’ll get the meet started at 7:00 sharp! Be sure to make it out to this one! We have some great stuff that we’ll be going over, as well as some some fun announcements that you wont want to miss.

This months agenda includes:

• Goal-setting: we’ll continue our goal-setting workshop with the ability to refine/enhance new goals for 2009. We’ll be keeping a list here to revisit member goals at each meeting throughout the year to keep us inspired and on track!
• Networking - Gearing up for new networking opportunities at WPPI and throughout the new year.

• Pictage Agenda: Photographer Enhancements

Please RSVP on the Las Vegas pug page!

There’s been a few people that have emailed with common questions about the PUG so I thought I’d post them here for any other photographers who are interested…

What’s a PUG?
A PUG is a Pictage User Group! We get together monthly to network-socialize, share tips, host fabulous speakers, and pump each other up! We’re still a fairly small group, and welcome any new members! So don’t be shy, come on out! It’s a nice chance to get away from the kids and connect with local photographers.

What if I’m not a Pictage member?
If you’re not a Pictage member, but curious about joining Pictage and the PUG, we’d love for you to join us for a meet or two!! You can join in the fun, talk with our members, and see what it’s all about.

Lastly, I wanted to do a small recap on 2008’s PUG get-togethers! It was an awesome first year… I’m so excited to finally see our Vegas community come together! And know that it will only become stronger with time. But anyways, here’s the good stuff…

In this photo: Iris, Trevor, Suzi, Ashley, Chris, Bill, Chris, Jayse and me.

The fabulous Michael and Anna Costa came to speak at our PUG. I think it goes without saying, but these two ROCK!In this photo: top row - Chris, Danny, Michael, Anna, me, Candace, Melissa, Bill; bottom row - Mary, Spencer, Rachel, Trevor, Iris - photo by Jayse!

In this photo: top row - Josh, Eric, and Chris; bottom row - Rafael, Ashley, Keny, me, Rachel, Trish

And of course, the famous Mike Larson CAMERA TOSS!

Starting from top middle and going counter clockwise:
Jenna, Rachel, Iris, Jayse, me, Carla, Danny, Mary, Chris, Bill, Chris, Ashley, and Mike in the center!

Thanks for all the fun times guys! Looking forward to much more!

This blog will be updated weekly with new information on upcoming LV PUG meetings, new marketing tips and ideas, inspiration for photographers and small business owners, along with other fun stuff. Just as many people have given so much to me, I want to reach out to help, connect with, and inspire the best in others. And I hope in time this little blog will become one outlet that enables me do just that!

If you have have something that you would like to contribute to the reach! blog or have a question you’d like me to cover, feel free to shoot me an email or contact me through the contact form in the menu bar above!

<3 Chelsea Nicole