When Dan Smith suggested publishing a collection of the workplace advice columns I have been honored to write for him and Tom Field for Valley Business FRONT since December of 2008, as I reviewed the series of more than 30 questions and answers, I was struck by how topics might be work-related, but how profoundly the questioner sought personal clarity and meaning.  "Don't take it personally," we are told.  But we do. We are told, "Separate personal from professional."  But we don't.  Along with our "skill sets," "core competencies" and "thought leadership," we take our hearts and minds to work with us every day.

Hence the title:  Work: It's Personal.

Creating Work: It's Personal was a delightful team effort.  Dan Smith, editor of Valley Business FRONT wrote a humblingly beautiful foreword, Kelsey Sarles designed the book's cover and interior with her distinctive artistry and its accompanying cartoons with her inimitable creative view of the world.  I had my first studio photo shoot ever with Wayne Dunford and thank him for helping me be myself for the camera.  We used CreateSpace to publish the book in print and Kindle Direct Publishing for the Kindle version.

Dan Smith kindly circulated the manuscript prior to publication and I am awed and grateful for the reviews readers offered. 

Work: It's Personal is on Handshake 2.0 with those reviews and all the book's details. These are links to Work: It's Personal on Amazon.com and Work: It's Personal for the Kindle.

To all who have shared personal workplace challenges with me, I thank you.  If you haven't shared one yet, feel free to send me your question at anne@handshake20.com. I’ll do my best to answer it in Valley Business FRONT.

The latest Handshake(R) brand mobile application from Handshake Mobile, a division of Handshake Media, Incorporated, was released today.  She Chooses(R), the personal awareness and social sharing software platform for women - first released as a web app on March 22, 2011 - is now available as a mobile app in the iTunes App Store.

She ChoosesR) mobile was developed by Alex Edelman using Titanium Appcelerator and designed by Kelsey Sarles.

Please read more about the She Chooses mobile app on the She Chooses blog.

You're invited to read our extensive coverage of the Mobile Industry on Handshake 2.0 and all about our Handshake apps on Handshake 2.0.

Handshake 2.0 launched on July 28, 2008 as a business news blog. According to the New York Times, even then, 95% of all blogs were abandoned. On its three-year anniversary, with the help of dozens of writers, artists and filmmakers, Handshake 2.0 has almost 1500 posts, an average of 500 posts per year.  It has evolved into a business news, social media, and public relations services site with almost three dozen clients.  According to Google Analytics, from January 2011 to July 2011, "Visits" to the site were up 4.55% over the same period in 2010, and "New Visits" were up a whopping 17.77%.  Visits to the site were just under 35,000 in 2010 with Google searches as the top source of traffic.  When someone tells me, "I can't Google anything without finding Handshake 2.0!", that is music to my ears.

And in the three-year history of Handshake 2.0, the premiere of the "Handshake" music video on the big screen at Bull & Bones, where I was surrounded by clients, supporters, friends and family, is still, for me, the very best moment. 

"Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts..."
- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act 4, Scene 6

Thank you to all for three amazing years.

The original music, Handshake, was written by Joseph Masciello and is available on iTunes.

The "Handshake" viideo was directed by Jarred Foresman of Blacksburg Media and produced by Handshake Media, Incorporated. It premiered in a blog post on Handshake 2.0 on December 1, 2009. It can be seen on YouTube and AOL Video.

Short. is by Matthew Yourshaw, an intern with Handshake Media, Incorporated and a student at Virginia Tech.  Matthew Yourshaw created the how-to video for She Chooses(TM).

From Automations Creations, Inc. and Handshake Media, Incorporated. She Chooses(TM), the social network for women, is a joint spin-out of both companies:

She Chooses was co-founded by Anne Giles Clelland, Alex Edelman, Henry Bass, and Laureen Fleming.  The She Chooses team has worked remotely from its beginnings, “meeting” weekly via Skype.  Alex Edelman will fly into the Blacksburg, Virginia area this week and he and Henry Bass and Laureen Fleming will share their first handshake at their She Chooses team meeting on Wednesday, May 11, 2011.  They will gather again on Thursday, May 12 for TechNite. 

Here's an updated version of the press release first issued April 27, 2010:

What do women want?  The four co-founders of She Chooses (TM), the social network for women, think She Chooses is part of the answer.

She Chooses launched to the public on March 22, 2011.  She Chooses members met to celebrate the launch, both actually and virtually, on Tuesday, May 3, 2011.  The She Chooses Launch Partywas held at restaurant 622 North in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.  The first-ever She Chooses Chat – Live! - the online version of the party - was held on the She Chooses site with guest host Janeson Keeley, an early supporter and friend of She Chooses.

The She Chooses network was nominated for the Rising Star Award from the NewVa Corridor Technology Council (NCTC).  Winners will be announced at the TechNite Awards Banquet on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in Roanoke, Virginia, USA.  Here's a list of all the TechNite award nominees. When the parent company of She Chooses, Wasabi Enterprises, Incorporated, was formed on September 9, 2010, the founders ranged in age from 19 to 51.  

She Chooses (TM) is the social network for women whose members choose what, how, and with whom they share.  She Chooses features an algorithm-based sharing component that helps women ask themselves what they’re feeling and thinking prior to making a choice - Feel. Think. Choose.  Offering the opportunity to privately consider members’ publicly shared choices ranked appreciatively by other members, She Chooses fosters uniquely meaningful personal reflection and authentic communication in the company of other women.

I am neither an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
- Socrates

Looking ahead five years - maybe fewer - if the VT KnowledgeWorks Global Partnership's vision plays out, my university-rich locale will be enlivened not only by the presence of global students, researchers and faculty members, but by global corporate leaders and professionals as well.

To achieve that vision, here are the VT KnowledgeWorks Global Partnership's recommendations (my numbering and bold):

Cities with strong universities are particularly well-positioned to be among the globally competitive regions as the economy of the 21st century evolves. To do so, they must:

1. pro-actively embrace globalization
2. expand their regional brand recognition by deliberately creating multi-layered global networks, and
3. act in a regionally coherent manner at every opportunity.

My company, Handshake Media, Incorporated, is a VT KnowledgeWorks member company, as is Automation Creations, Inc., from which She Chooses(TM), the social network for women, is a co-spin-out enterprise. From my upbringing with parents who quoted Socrates and from the myriad powerful experiences I've had through my association with VT KnowledgeWorks, I have natural buy-in to the idea of "going global."

Although to create "globally competitive region" using the Partnership's list of "musts" requires regional consciousness and effort, let's see how I'm contributing personally to the mission.  I'll use a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is "Who needs global? I have a local company." and 5 is "I'll be in Beijing then, too.  Shall we meet?"

1. pro-actively embrace globalization

Handshake Media's fundamental mission is to create global handshakes, first of greeting, then on deals.  Every time a post goes live on Handshake 2.0, it's globally available.  That's an on-going, proactive reaching out to the world. This is definitely a 4.  An actual handshake beats a virtual one, but a virtual handshake is better than not even knowing the other hand exists!

2. expand their regional brand recognition by deliberately creating multi-layered global networks

Handshake 2.0 is a "multi-layered global network" by definition, so that's good.  Handshake Media developed the VT KnowledgeWorks Global Directory, a mobile app for both iOS and Android, also a global network by definition, also good.

Those are the more cerebral facets of creating a multi-layered global network.  More personally, I loved being a host from the community for student entrepreneurs competing for the VT KnowledgeWorks Global Student Challenge Trophy.  We had the delight of spending a week with Martin Houdbine and Charles-Eric Gorron of Artbeating in 2010 and look forward to hosting a team of this year's competitors. Professor Nikola Hale, a scholar visiting Radford University from Hochschule Furtwangen University, was also a recent welcome guest at Handshake 2.0 Headquarters.

Overnight guests were infrequent in my childhood years and rare also in many of my adult years, so I will acknowledge that opening my home to people I've never met feels more like a leap off a cliff than a leap of faith, but the global-made-local in my very own home has generated priceless, unforeseen insights for me. More, please!  Let's go with a 3 on this one.

3. act in a regionally coherent manner at every opportunity

My best effort to date to "act regionally" - by which I was joined with the support and sponsorship of Coldwell Banker, Townside REALTORS, First Bank & Trust Company, Hutchison Law Group and Ryan Hagan - was to organize a network of women mobile application developersto address the shortage of mobile app developers in the New River Valley of Virginia.  This shortage may well lead to a regional loss of current and future market opportunities in the mobile industry.  Now known as the Brava Network of Women Mobile Application Developers, the group has met regularly for three months. 

Software development is difficult and takes more resources for training than we have.  This initiative was well-intentioned but points out that "acting regionally" requires a budget.  Pats on the back for everyone who tried and is still trying.  But able only to start this, but not yet sustain it, this is a 1 while I plan next steps.

Three 5s would be great, but a 4, 3, and 1 will do for now.  I want to be part of a globally competitive region.  I know what to do and where I stand in contributing to getting that done.  I'm going global.

Added 5/4/11: You're invited to take the Global Handshake Survey. 

Handshake 2.0 is the flagship site of Handshake Media, Incorporated. VT KnowledgeWorks is a client of Handshake Media.

Traits of our company that make it a match for Handshake 2.0:

• We seek local, national and global customers and clients for our products and services.
• Our products and services can be accessed, sold and used nationally and internationally.
• We want to continue to establish ourselves as experts in our industry.
• Handshake 2.0 is a business news site and we're making news!

Traits of Handshake 2.0 that make it a match for our company:

• Handshake 2.0, since it is on the Internet, is global.  According to Google Analytics, in the past year Handshake 2.0 had 35,000 visits from 153 countries and territories.  In the past month, the top sources of traffic were the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Mexico and China.
• The top source of traffic to Handshake 2.0 is Google.  If Google knows you, then the globe knows you.
• The mission of the site is based on a fundamental business principle: "It's who you know." All of us do business, and do better business, with people we know, primarily in person and, secondarily, online.  How to get to know people online - enough to do business with them - is problematic.  Hence, Handshake 2.0:  "It's still who you know."
• Online presence is an endurance sport - it takes consistent training - posting - over a long period of time for results to show. Handshake 2.0 is updated constantly - and has been since July, 2008 - with original, highly-valued content (explaining why Google is the top source of traffic) by a community of clients, freelance writers, guests, and its founder. When my company doesn't have news, Handshake 2.0 does.  My content is showcased in a dynamic site, not in the well-meaning, barely-visited, abandoned CEO blog I thought I would maintain on my own.
• My company's news doesn't just "sit" on Handshake 2.0.  It gets shared on Facebook and Twitter, too.
• I'm busy. 100 words, a pic, a link, $49, done. Well, since I run Handshake 2.0, the $49 transaction is a virtual one, but I love a pretty pic with our company's news!
• And look at the good company my company gets to keep.

When I use search terms I think my company's customers might be using - say, for example, with and without quotes, "slide puzzle mobile app" and"women and mobile apps" - and I see my company's products, services or initiatives in first page Google results listing links to Handshake 2.0 or its social media channels?  I know my company and Handshake 2.0 are definitely a match. 

Anne Giles Clelland is the founder of Handshake 2.0 and the president and CEO of Handshake Media, Incorporated, a public relations technology company.  Handshake Media develops Handshake(TM) app brand mobile applications.

A mobile application begins with an idea.

To take a mobile application from an idea to the marketplace requires that idea, then specifications for that idea - design of the app, how it will function, and the graphics that will be integral parts of it - developing and writing code for the app, testing and debugging, fixing or redeveloping the app, creation of the graphics and accompanying text required to prepare the app for market, business infrastructure such as developer and merchant accounts with app stores and markets, placement of the app in those stores, and marketing the app.  If the app has sales itself, generates ad revenue, generates in-app sales, or uses other revenue-generating models, expenses are deducted from revenue to determine profit.

Our proposed Network of Women Mobile Application Developers will create mobile application development skills among its participants.  Once the participants reach a certain level of mastery, they’ll be ready for business.

For individuals and companies with ideas for mobile apps, the current challenges are 1) having the know-how to create the app themselves or in-house, 2) finding a developer to create the app for them, 3) paying that developer to do so.  (Here’s our research on how much a mobile app costs.)

For the mobile app developer approached by individuals and companies with ideas for mobile apps, the challenges are 1) lack of specifications for the app, i.e. the answer to the question, “How will the app work?” is “It’s a great idea!  Can’t you figure out how it will work?!”, 2) ability to create the app but not the infrastructure to take it to market or to market it, and 3) getting paid.

Ah.  Paying and getting paid.

I see several options for business models that may be ways to address the funding challenges facing those who want mobile applications made and those who can make them. 

Getting Started in the Business of Mobile Application Development is a two-page white paper (.pdf) that includes an expanded version of this post and a table showing potential business models for the new mobile application developer beginning business as an independent contractor or as the founder of a mobile application development business or company. 

Our company, Handshake Media, released its first mobile application on August 9, 2010.  We released our most recent mobile application, Foto Puzzler, on February 18, 2011.  We’ve learned much along the way and hope sharing some of our trial-and-error learning with those entering the mobile application development industry can decrease their challenges and increase their opportunities.

Added 2/25/2011:  More to consider on the business of mobile application development from Mashable: Is Developing a Mobile App Worth the Cost?

***

We're delighted to announce that thanks to the generous sponsorship of Coldwell Banker, Townside REALTORS, First Bank & Trust Company, and Hutchison Law Group joining us at Handshake Media, we will be able to host a reception for the very first meeting of the Network of Women Mobile Application Developers.  The meeting will be on Monday, March 7, 2011 in Blacksburg, Virginia.  Please email me, anne@handshake20.com, to receive an invitation.

Coldwell Banker, Townside REALTORS(R) and First Bank & Trust Company are clients of Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0.

Pictured left to right:
Sony Cybershot camera on a Gorillapod, its battery recharger in bottom socket of outlet, HP laptop, iPod touch, Droid X, Kindle, a gives-up-its-life CyberPower surge protector plug taking the top socket in the outlet, and a lot of wires.

 
Ken Maready, attorney with Hutchison Law Group, and Anne Giles Clelland, founder of Handshake Media, are contributing authors to the just-released two-volume Enterprise 2.0.

You're invited to read more about Enterprise 2.0: How Technology, eCommerce, and Web 2.0 Are Transforming Business Virtually on Amazon.com.

Photo credit: Catherine "Kate" L. deGastyne