1. Show up ready to board. Always check-in and have your boarding pass in hand before you get to the airport. This allows you to skip the crowded counters, eliminates a potential delay, and allows you to head right for the security line when you get to the airport.

2. Never check luggage. I mean ever. As long as you can avoid it. I realize this can be tough for some people, but I can easily go 5 days on the road with a carry on suitcase and a separate carry on shoulder bag. This is key for travel flow, as it allows you to get right on the plane, and right off the plane then get on your way. More importantly, you never have to worry about losing your luggage, something that happens way too much these days.

3. Choose the right airline. Depending on where you are going you should give serious thought to which airline you choose. For business, Airtran & Southwest go almost everywhere for a decent fare, but if you are going cross country, Virgin America is the only way to go. They’ve got flying down.

4. Buy good luggage. Don’t take this one too lightly either. I have had a ton of luggage over the last few years and its all been beaten & broken. Nothing is worse than when the zipper on your suitcase breaks! If you travel a lot don’t skimp on the luggage. I finally upgraded to a nice set of Tumi luggage, a wheeled carry on and a shoulder bag. I can’t believe the difference its made in my travel experience and its only been a month.

5. Stay hydrated. Drink a LOT of water when you travel. Although you should drink water all of the time, drink it even more of it when you travel. Its easy to get dehydrated when you are at 30,000 ft. Stay hydrated it helps all around.

6. Boost your immune system. I try to stay healthy in general, but prior to flying I always go for that extra immune system boost of vitamins and nutrients with Airborne. Let’s face it, airplanes are pretty much germ central. Giving your body that extra boost can’t do you any harm at all. I try to do it before every flight, it’s easy and it doesn’t taste bad at all.

7. Always sleep in a good bed. This is probably one of the more important ones to me. Anytime business takes me away from home, I make sure I am comfortable. Fortunately, a lot of hotels these days have good beds and plenty of other amenities. I am personally a fan of Kimpton Hotels, they offer a good selection of hotels in almost every major market, and they have a great loyalty program (plus free wi-fi).

8. Make time to exercise. This is sometimes hard to do on the road, but I always bring work out clothes with me when I travel. I try to hit the gym at the hotel or hit a local yoga class if convenient. When you travel, sometimes a good sweat makes you feel great and completely rejuvenates you.

9. Pace yourself. Depending on your travel itinerary, you may, like I do, often find yourself faced with back-to-back activities day and night. Take it easy and find a pace. Watch your alcohol intake, and make sure you get enough sleep every night. You know what your body needs to be on point. Try to keep that balance (easier said than done, I know).

10. Eat well my friends. Yes, we all know it’s VERY easy to go off of your diet when you are constantly traveling. But it is possible to eat healthy and stay on track when on the road. I’m a pescatarian (I’m vegetarian but eat fish as well), so my diet is usually limited. I try to research decent restaurants and food establishments before I head out just to get a sense of what’s out there. This is hard with groups of people, etc, but do your best and try to eat well.

Have a tip you would like to add? Please do so in the comments, I’m always looking for more travel tips to streamline the process! What works for you?

I look forward to sharing my story and advice around building businesses with little to no funding at all. It certainly isn’t easy, but it can be done with, as Jared states “drive, brains and little creativity.” Details on the event are below, or you can click here. If you are thinking of starting a company, or already are out of the gate and are looking for some additional inspiration. Hope to see you there on May 2nd.

Bootstrap Maryland brings together young entrepreneurs and the necessary tools for running a lean and successful technology business.

At the Bootstrap Maryland Conference on May 2, 2009 you will learn how to turn your web or technology idea into a business. The presentations will cover topics such as:

* What you need (and don’t need) to get your business off the ground.
* Most products fail due to lack of marketing, not failed technology. How to get the word out inexpensively with social media, events, and creative PR
* The most relevant technologies people are using today, and ways to get the technology right the first time
* Stories, lessons learned, and discussions from young people who have built successful businesses

1. Technology Council leaders of North America
2. A global provider of testing & certification centers.
3. A large law firm.

This proved to be very interesting for me, because 99.9% of the time I speak to marketers. So, taking essentially the same message and applying it to the non-profit, testing & education, and legal professions proved to be interesting, and it worked.

The one nugget that I found to be the most interesting of all was that EVERYONE GETS IT (for the most part). I started every presentation with 4 key MACRO trends, the first one being that marketers finally understand, and get the fact that we are now in a two way media landscape. The batch and blast mentality of one way media is so old school, and so foreign to the modern marketer. I feel people are starting to get this on a broader level, and they are embracing it.

Why do I feel this way? There wasn’t anyone in the room at ANY of the three talks I gave that challenged or countered some of the statements and trends that clearly outline a shifting landscape of communication for organizations and businesses. In the past someone always didn’t agree, or there was big push back on some level, once we got into the details. I actually always look forward to it, because a healthy debate / friction is always good. The closest we got on a debate was the whole personal vs. company profile, mixing the two together, or not, etc. Good one for sure.

Maybe it was just that the folks I spoke with were primed and ready to hear more. Either way, as a person who goes to a ton of events and speaks to a variety of audiences, in my mind companies are beginning to adapt. More and more marketers and organizations are applying more social marketing tactics and mediums to their outreach programs. Its not just marketers that get it either, the “organization” as a whole is starting to get it. This is good, because as many of you well know, it is happening. We are in a world of dialog marketing, so embrace it.

Would love to hear your thoughts below.

Email as the Digital Glue

Email & Social Media

The first stop in Austin for me is participating in New Marketing Lab’s Bootcamp. I will be joining Justin Levy & Chris Brogan along with representatives from Hubspot and Radian6, at AMD’s headquarters for a one day, hands on, keyboard level training bootcamp on social marketing. I will be covering “Email Marketing in the New Web.” If you are interested in attending there are still a few slots left, and as a presenter if you register and use the code “camper” it will drop the price from $395 to $99. You can sign up here.

Thursday night we will also be holding an event, taking advantage of the calm before the storm. For those of you who will be coming in town, make sure you stay tuned into my twitter stream for announcements on details. We will be holding an open bar, with appetizers courteousy of Blue Sky Factory, but details will be coming out shortly, and through twitter exclusively. I am www.twitter.com/gregcangialosi.

After Thursday, it’s non-stop action, sessions, events, parties, etc. I look forward to taking it all in. If you are going to be at SXSW, drop me a comment or shoot me an email at gcangialosi [at] gmail [dot] com. Lets link up. I look forward to it.

My basic premise is that email has been - and continues to be - the backbone of all online marketing, while social media and the mobile landscape continue to emerge as key tools for today’s marketers. Each one of these mediums are cost effective, informative, and have the potential to reach millions of people, making them a very powerful combination when they are used in unison.

So, join me as I navigate through the convergence of email, mobile, and social media - 3 core mediums that are currently on the hearts and minds of marketers everywhere. I’ll be discussing how marketers can leverage these tools to drive new sales and increase brand awareness.

You can register for this webinar here. If you can’t make it, I will be posting the recorded session here on my blog.