I’ve been radio silent lately. That’s kind of a big duh.

Figuring out my way and who I want to be is a constant struggle. And there is nothing worse than writing when you don’t know any of that.

And there is the fact that I’ve moved a big chunk of my posts elsewhere. Yes, if you haven’t figured it out yet, this is now a personal-only blog.

I had a wake up call in February. What’s going on in my head has to change. Bouts of depression need to be battled more effectively. And if something is not okay, I need to speak up.

To accomplish this, I think this blog is going to go in a different direction. I see myself talking about my relationship with depression, entrepreneurship and being a woman. That’s not interesting to everyone, which is understandable. I’m not interesting to everyone. AND THAT’S ALRIGHT. (I decided that if I put it all in caps that maybe I’d believe it.)

What is surprising to me is that I want to talk about being a woman now. I’ve always had a rocky relationship with that word (I prefer girl because I think of myself as a six year old). But my jump into being an entrepreneur has meant that that word has slapped me in the face time and time again. I had to make some peace with it. So here’s to being a sometimes woman, I guess.

Being an entrepreneur has brought depression front and center as well. I had a relationship with it that I was semi-comfortable with. And then I had to change it right along with all of the other drastic changes in my life.

So yes, I’ve been dealing with a lot of uncomfortableness, and now that I’m getting there, it’s time to figure out what all of it means to me. I hope you’ll continue with me on that journey. Let’s just be messes together.

Okay, so I do a lot of crazy things. But this is probably the craziest things I’ve ever done. Crazy in a good way, but still crazy.

At the ripe old age of 31, I realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. I moved slowly towards that goal, but almost every movement I’ve made has been to make the goal possible. And today, I can proudly announce that it’s no longer a goal. It’s reality. And I’ll probably throw up. Or hide under a blanket fort.

As of November 14, Betsy A Decillis Consulting, LLC will go from being a fun project that I do to being my full-time job. When I started it, I had no clue that it would be anything other than an opportunity for me to work with the most fun client in the world. There was this moment where I just realized it could be more. That it didn’t need to be stepping stone. It could be something all on its own. And then I had to stop and just say, “Whoa.” Yeah and I totally said it just like Keanu Reeves.

So I’m going to fight through the impulse to hide. I’m going to take that blanket fort and turn it into a cape. With my sidekick, Cesare the Super Kitten, I plan on becoming a digital superhero that can help people realize their own goals. It’ll rarely be perfect, and it’ll rarely be easy. But I think it’s worth it. That’s all that matters.

Thank you to everyone that has supported me. A big woot to those that listened to me go on and on trying to make this decision. And an even bigger woot to those that had to deal with me being a little extra nuts during this process. You were all a part of this, even if it was just a kind word when I needed it. And because I don’t really have my own words when it comes to being schmoopy, I have to borrow Sara Santiago‘s saying: “I’ll eat you up I love you so.”

My client said something to me a couple of weeks ago that has been rattling around in my head: “She gave them cookies. Not because she was thinking of the PR, but because that’s just who she is.” This was in regards to a blogger that I sent up there. My client took her to lunch at the place the locals love, and magically, a plate of cookies appeared at their table. The owner just did something nice to be nice. It was a simple gesture that left an impression. And that’s one of the many reasons why when I send a blogger up there, her place of business will always be on my list of must-sees.

It happened to me again last week in my client’s town. I was by myself eating dinner, as I’m apt to do when I’m there. The waitress and I got along, and she ended up sending the owner out to meet me. I know… the idea of me making such a good impression on someone that they end up sending the owner out to meet me is pretty laughable, but it did happen. The waitress had meant for him to tell me about all of their upcoming events. Instead, we talked food, Italian to Italian. The reasons behind what he did and a bit about what he loves. He had completely forgotten about the PR opportunity and went towards talking about his passion instead. And it left an impression that turned what would have been yet another “FAT BETSY LOVES FOOD!” piece into what now will be about love and how I was proud of myself for not proposing to this guy on the spot. I’m thinking the latter will leave a bigger impression on my clients’ fans, don’t you?

So I guess what I’m saying is that if you are doing things for PR sake, stop it. Do it because it’s who you are and what you love. Less talk and more living this person that you say you are. It will go further, and frankly, it will be easier to keep up in the long run. And if you are living what you love, it will rub off on your front end employees. It’s rare for me to run into service that was as good as the latter business, and the quirkiness that the owner in the former business possesses is alive and well in her employees. It’s pretty cool.

Something I believe firmly in is that I should always attempt to treat others better than they treat me. That’s right. I didn’t say as well. I said better. But there are times that it’s beyond hard. And this is one of those times.

Casey Canevari has been great to me. He never had to be. He never got much out of supporting me and yet he just did.

When this blog was brand new, he commented like crazy. And not on just the social media and tourism posts. He was there on the stupid, Betsy is maybe a little full of herself posts too. That’s how you know someone is good people. I know that’s hard to explain, but just go with me there.

Casey has also been a vital part of the tourism geek community. If someone has a question, he’s always there if he can answer it. He helps us, challenges us and makes us all better. We would be a sadder community without him and not just because he knows how to crack a killer joke.

You probably can already tell that Casey is a supremely kind and caring person, but I will add one more story: Someone I know was going off to her first DMAI conference last July. I knew she’d do well and that she even knew a couple people that were going. But I kept thinking about how hard it is to go all by yourself to a conference and I wanted to make sure that the edge was taken off for her. Casey thought nothing of making a promise to me that he’d look out for her and made she sure she got in with the “cool kids.” And he followed through on that promise. Anyone that knows how protective of my peeps I am knows that meant a lot to me.

So now we’ve come to the real reason why I’m writing about him. Casey moved with his family from his home in Florida and consequently had to leave his job with Visit St. Pete/Clearwater. He’s in the New England area and is hopeful to find something to keep him in tourism. Do you know of something that would be a good fit for him? Help us keep one of our favorite tourism geeks in the industry and help an organization realize just how awesome they can be by forwarding opportunities along to Casey.

And if you don’t know of any opportunities but still think Casey is awesome, leave a comment with why someone should hire him. Let’s show Casey just how great our community is by doing every little bit we can to help him out, because in the end, we tourism geeks need to stick together.

Since I soft launched this, let’s just get into the list without any sappy, sappy words from me.

Rank	Twitter Screenname	# of Tourism Pros Following	Klout Score
1.	@DaveSerino	89	63
2.	@SheilaS	86	65
3.	@WhosYourAnnie	90	59
4.	@TomMartin	80	69
5.	@andrewghayes	75	73
6.	@theresaoverby	77	67
7.	@katiecook	84	59
8.	@pagetx	81	62
9.	@mobethann	79	62
10.	@travel2dot0	79	59
11.	@oregonkat	78	59
12.	@decillis	74	59
13.	@wilhelmus	65	67
14.	@billgeist	71	59
15.	@jeremy_harvey	68	59
16.	@scullyano	67	60
17.	@jeremyawilliams	66	60
18.	@BeckyMcCray	59	67
19. – TIE	@Banff_Squirrel	66	58
19. – TIE	@Beaumartian	66	58
21.	@EverywhereTrip	43	81
22.	@MJManzanares	54	69
23.	@CygnetUpdates	66	56
24.	@Joe_ExpCols	60	62
25.	@Andrea_VisitGR	63	58
26.	@BVMatson	69	51
27.	@RickRodriguezTN	58	62
28.	@traveldudes	49	71
29.	@Amy_Brock	62	57
30. – TIE	@nathankam	55	64
30. – TIE	@theslynch	55	64
32.	@earthXplorer	47	72
33.	@elliottdotorg	39	80
34.	@PeterSGreenberg	43	75
35.	@mosherifdeen	69	48
36.	@thePRguy	53	63
37.	@TravelBlggr	51	65
38.	@karasw	50	66
39.	@CajunMama	47	69
40.	@theplanetd	45	71
41.	@lbach22	57	58
42.	@robertpatterson	49	66
43.	@CAroundTheWorld	45	68
44.	@LeslieMcLellan	48	64
45.	@nomadicmatt	40	72
46.	@Ted_Sullivan	67	44
47.	@mike_vstpcola	62	49
48.	@DCtravelgirl	61	50
49.	@laurably	42	69
50.	@AshleyTravels	62	48
51.	@laynadugan	49	61
52.	@KellyDeanOttawa	54	55
53.	@SandiMcKenna	42	67
54.	@claudiabia	47	61
55.	@DeepDishCreates	45	62
56.	@GregRuby	42	65
57.	@SeattleMaven	37	70
58.	@kristaparry	48	58
59.	@hmaust	44	62
60.	@AEylon	42	64
61.	@chris2x	40	66
62. – TIE	@MommyMusings	37	69
62. – TIE	@sschandler	37	69
64.	@bobf_vstpgh	53	52
65.	@jccjhiggins	47	58
66.	@KellyTravels	45	60
67.	@TroutLine	44	61
68.	@barbdelollis	35	70
69.	@ChatterBachs	47	57
70.	@rodneyp	42	62
71.	@ToshaTD	53	50
72.	@GathanDBorden	45	58
73.	@wendyperrin	42	61
74.	@nerdseyeview	36	67
75.	@konupka	43	59
76.	@Travelogged	37	65
77.	@kagray	45	56
78.	@stephenjoyce	41	60
79.	@Marilyn_Res	39	62
80.	@chrissydani	46	54
81.	@Susantravels	36	64
82.	@coldinpdx	56	43
83.	@thetripchicks	42	57
84.	@ilovememphis	36	63
85.	@emilyforsha	47	51
86.	@KimMance	33	65
87.	@toddlucier	48	49
88.	@JEBworks	44	53
89.	@NinaSunshine	39	58
90.	@JoeDuck	37	60
91.	@Shalyn_M	45	51
92.	@KelseyIvey	39	57
93.	@TravelSocial	49	46
94.	@melissayaohille	42	53
95.	@MeileeAnderson	36	59
96.	@ElenaNW	46	46
97.	@JoyLinDMAI	40	52
98.	@CL_Blackwell	39	53
99.	@LauraJean325	34	58
100.	@deliciousbaby	32	57

METHODOLOGY: I took the top ten from the October list and looked up who they followed. I then determined who was followed by seven or more of the ten and was also an account possessed by an individual in tourism. I looked up who those accounts followed and then from that determined the 115 top followed accounts by an individual in tourism. From there I looked up Klout scores. The combination of the number of tourism pros following and Klout score gave rank. Due to the closeness of the tourism community on Twitter now, there were a lot of ties, so I had to come up with a deciding factor. I ran a couple of variables, but to me, the best result came when I broke ties by who had the most tourism professionals following.

I will say that this was kind of sad for me. We lost two individuals on this list that I think we all highly respect. Not because they fell off the list, but because they left tourism. That’s always sad. So I just want to take a second to say to Tom Rowe and Mandi Engram… Y’all will always be tourism geeks and don’t either of you ever forget it.

And I also want to thank everyone that helps make this list possible. It would take days upon days to name everyone, but you guys know who you are.

Lastly, I have a Twitter list. Love it, hug it and follow it. And cheers to Jeremy Williams who figured out this morning that this was coming out because of the appearance of the list.

Enjoy!

Soon after I graduated college and I was still new to living in Ohio as a permanent resident, I received an emergency phone call. A camera crew needed to film a phone bank ASAP and they were having trouble locating people that were willing to give up their Saturday night. I agreed, even though I wasn’t hot for the candidate and didn’t make any phone calls for him before or after this. I threw on some clothes and showed up at the office.

They placed me in the front, gave me a script and I went to work. I was a veteran at this by this point and was even immune to being cursed out phone call after phone call. So the requested hour was no biggie. The camera crew arrived. Somebody brought their baby and they filmed the heck out of that baby. And then they focused in on me, despite there being many others there. They pushed the camera right into my face and got a microphone up close so they could record my increasingly quiet voice that I was using to get them to go away. In my head, I was only there to show a full phone bank, not to be the star.

I came home after my hour was up and plopped down on my couch. That’s when I realized that my shirt was on backwards. So yes, that night, I watched myself on the news in a backwards shirt looking embarrassed as all get out and shrinking away from the camera as much as possible. And yes, I did receive phone calls from people that saw me.

I want to say that in the 10ish years since this happened that things have changed. But no. I try really, really hard, but my brain is always elsewhere. And no matter how much I overfret about what I’ve put on, there’s always something that’s simply not right. In college, I had someone that would check me over before I left my dorm room. I tried to get the guy that I live with to do that, but the requisite answers are usually, “You do realize that I don’t care?” or “Do you realize that you have some fat hanging over your pants?” Not helpful.

So I’m stuck looking slightly off and a little bizarre. And possibly with a food stain. Maybe a button undone. But I have learned to put my shirt on the right way… on most of my shirts… except the one I’m wearing today. It kind of took me ten minutes to realize I put it on wrong. Have I mentioned that I’m pretty?

Something I don’t think we think enough about is that none of the networks we’re on are permanent. They could go away tomorrow and what would you honestly have then? For most of us, the answer is not much.

We spend hours agonizing over Facebook, years come off our lives as we scan Twitter and don’t get me started on Pinterest. But we don’t actually own anything that is on any of these networks. Yup. Complete truth there. So if Facebook exploded tomorrow, where would you be?

Here are a few things I think you should do:

1. Start a blog: Blogs get a bad rap. People look at them as just being long wordy posts. Nope. Blogs can be a picture, a quote, a video, etc. A blog can be whatever you want it to be and by starting a community of your own on a network that you own, you are insuring that your network will be with you for years to come.
2. Start a newsletter: Email. Yup, it’s still around. Crazy, I know. But it’s been around for a very long time. I’ve had an email address for over fifteen years and most others can brag longer. And at this point, I have about four that I check regularly (Yes, I’m fully aware of how much of a life I don’t have). The chances of email going away anytime soon are slim to none. So come up with reasons to collect email addresses. A good one is a newsletter. Once again, this can be whatever you want it to be, so don’t get stuck by the traditional definition. Just make sure it’s always useful and something your audience is interested in.
3. Make real relationships: On your networks, make yourself so awesome that people would look for you. Do you do that by posting calendar events and other informational topics? No. You become their friend. You ask them about their hopes and dreams and show a real interest. Although you can’t count on this, if you do it well, they will look for you well after Facebook is gone.
4. Snail to the mail: Hey, remember that thing called print? Did you know that it’s making a comeback? But not that old stuffy direct mail. Real mail. Handwritten notes. Things that show that you care. But that’s not really the point of this. The point is that if the internet blew up and your data went everywhere, you still have your friend, the post office. Get basic contact info and you’ll always be able to stay in touch.

This all comes down to one thing: Don’t rely on networks you don’t own to sustain you. Remember that you need to own your own data and actually use it.

What else can you do to prepare?

Last month, my niece had a big birthday. She was turning 18 and I was thinking it was time to slap a chastity belt on her. Instead, our conversations turned to presents:

Me: What do you want?

Her: I don’t know.

Me: Then send me a list of books.

Her: No, I want you to get me something meaningful.

Crap. Crappity crap crap crap. She was right. Meaningful was where I needed to go, but I’m just no good with those kinds of presents. I pushed her further and she just wouldn’t use any other words.

I searched and searched to no avail. I finally broke down and looked at what Amazon suggested for her age range. There it was, staring me in the eye: She NEEDED her first adult purse. Yes, she’s been using purses for years, but she needed a special one… One that came from Coach.

Honestly, I had no real hope for this. I knew it was the right present, but I’m cheap. And that stuff’s expensive times ten. I scoured the website though and found the perfect wristlet for an 18 year old. It was just big enough to fit some stuff in and it was versatile. YES! The bells were chiming. Lights were glowing. I had my niece’s present. There was one problem: I had to actually pick it up. Ugh.

I don’t do well in expensive stores, which is why I usually buy online. If I do end up in the store, I want to pick what I want up and leave. However, I really needed to go in to Coach. I walked in and I felt myself kind of marked as probably just looking. Once again, I’m cheap. I don’t own things like Coach purses. I bargain shop, so I’m rarely found wearing exactly what’s in style right now. I’m just not a Coach shopper.

This was all fine by me. I found my mark, made sure it was the right color, found the hidden price tag to confirm the price and got into what I thought was the line to check out. Um, nope. The purse I was holding wasn’t going home with me. They had the real purses in the back. What the what?! A lovely salesgirl clued me into this and we ended up talking a bit. She agreed that I had picked well. It was just enough to be special, but I wouldn’t have a heart attack if she ruined it. We talked about how I was going to see my niece and how I missed her dearly. It was all in all a very friendly conversation and she ended up making the present feel as special as I wanted it to.

As eventful as the planning had been, my niece didn’t know what Coach was. She told me that she’d happily put this little purse in her big purse because she really only carries big purses. Yes, there was horror on my face. But she knew how much thought went into it, so she kept trying to make up for her lack of knowledge of how special it was. Yup, that’s how it goes.

So I really thought this was the end of my story with Coach. Like I said, I just don’t shop there. They sent me a follow-up email a week later with other things that went with that purse. I laughed. My niece had finished her Coach journey for now and no way was she getting those. But it really was a nice touch. I noted to myself that if it were my purse, I might seriously look at the items.

Where they got it right was with what I got a few days after the email:

Yup, that there is a thank you note. It even touched on some things that I talked about with the salesgirl. It made my day. And it made me dream of that purse that I eyed while I was waiting for my niece’s purse to be brought up from the back. Do any of you have a spare $600 so I can make that dream a reality?

In the end, it comes down to saying, “Thank you.” We don’t do that enough as a society and that’s why it’s so special when we do. If someone has been working with you for a while or made a purchase with, a simple, handwritten thank you note goes a long way. For me, I pin them up as a reminder of doing it right.

I’ve been seeing a series of blog posts lately with lists of things to blog on. That’s nice. It’s swell. And not really helpful to me. But maybe it would be to you. I guess. Oh I don’t know.

Anyways, I have a few places where I get my blog topics and I thought I’d share:

1. By reading other blogs: I read a ton of blogs on a daily basis. Most are just meh. They don’t really deserve much more than a skim. But every once in a while there’s that one that makes me so flippin’ angry that a torrential downpour storms down upon my computer. And then I click publish without even reading it through (let’s be honest, I always do that). Other blogs are usually the best inspiration for me if I want to write something that is full of usable content. Hence why I’m writing this particular blog post. See how that works? Kind of cool.
2. Actually living the life: For my one client, I do these experiential trips. I basically just go up and play for a day. Sounds fun, right? Well, yeah, it can be. And fattening. Very, very fattening. But if you are stuck with what to talk about in your area, it’s time to step back and become a tourist again. Spend a day doing nothing but fun things. Bring your electronic devices with you to document your experiences and I guarantee you will have more than a month’s full of blog posts.
   This also works in your personal life. If you are writing a personal blog and find that you’re stuck, GO OUT AND HAVE FUN. Not only will you get some topics out of it, but you are actively working on getting your mojo back. Two birds, one stone.
3. Talking to others: I can’t even tell you how many times talking to others has turned into a blog post. For a destination, this kind of goes hand-in-hand with the previous blog post. Ask your fans what they love about you and then take their advice. You’ll see your destination from a whole different perspective and the blogging will follow. You can also network within your industry. You would be amazed at what a simple conversation can spark. I find this happens a lot in Facebook groups and Twitter chats, only because I talk more freely there. For you, it may be that in-person chat that sparks it. Wherever it is, get yourself there, so that you can be inspired as much as possible.

So where do you go when you are out of blogging ideas? And the liquor cabinet is not an option. Except on Sundays.