So when someone says, “TeleNav” to you, what do you think? Most likely your first thoughts have something to do with GPS, Sprint Navigation, AT&T Navigator, or something along those lines. Am I right? But one word that may not come to mind is the word “people.”

You see, here at TeleNav, we’re really proud of the team we’ve put together because without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today, building you the best GPS applications anywhere. From our people in our engineering and product teams all the way to our marketing and customer care teams, we truly feel we’ve put together an all star cast. And it’s because of this, we wanted to try something new.

Today, for the first time, we’re going to be sharing with you a little bit about the employees who work for us by profiling one of them. Who’s up first? Please get to know Mary Beth Lowell, our Senior Public Relations Manager.

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Name: Mary Beth Lowell

What do you do at TeleNav? Senior Public Relations Manager

How long have you been at TeleNav? 3.5 years

What is a normal day at TeleNav for you like?
It usually starts with a big cup of coffee because I work the early shift – in the office by 6:30am. We’re running a variety of different projects now so it’s hard to say any day is typical but each day usually includes several conversations with reporters/bloggers, strategy/planning meetings with other team members and our executives, a lot of monitoring news, industry and customer conversations online via blogs and Twitter, and of course trying to keep up with the daily deluge of email.

What’s the best thing about your job?
There are a three things that come to mind immediately. I love the people I work with – both the team at TeleNav and the bloggers/reporters/analysts who work in the industry. I have developed many friendships that I’m sure will last for years to come. There are just some really cool people working in this industry. The second is the creativity and independence that is fostered at the company. I have always felt empowered to try new things as long as I can provide a rationale and am willing to work hard to succeed. Many companies aren’t so entrepreneurial and I am very appreciative that I have this flexibility. The third is the challenge. Although I hate it at the time, the most challenging and frustrating moments have always led to the best learning experiences. I have really learned a lot here and I am extremely grateful for that.

What were you doing before you were at TeleNav?
Most recently, I worked for Sprint, managing regional PR for some of the West Coast states. In my past, I’ve also worked for Nextel and AT&T. Once I started working in the wireless industry, I never really wanted to leave.

What kind of advice would you give to someone who wants to do what you do?
1) Start with internships if you can. I tried four internships while I was in college and only one of them was in tech. It’s a really great way to find out what you enjoy doing without having to make a long-term commitment. It also helps to build out your resume.

2) Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are and are running successful programs. A good mentor can be invaluable throughout your career. Several good mentors are even better.

3) Always keep learning. The PR industry has changed quite a bit in the past few years and will probably continue to change annually. On the job training is critical but don’t forget about other sources of learning – industry events, books, courses, online training, etc. You can never know too much.

4) Work hard, push yourself and be flexible – as our CEO says, you learn more from what doesn’t work than what does. It’s ok if something doesn’t succeed the first time – don’t lose your enthusiasm.

5) Stand out – be different by being better and working harder. Anyone can get a job in PR – this is evident by how much bashing we take from media. You should always be pushing yourself to be the gold medal level (I’ve been watching the Olympics too much). How can you be the best at it? I recommend Chris Brogran’s book, Trust Agents, for some good inspiration.

6) Make sure you enjoy what you do. You’ll be better at what you love than what you hate. Besides, life is just way too short.

What’s your favorite gadget?
You expect me to say the iPhone or my BlackBerry right? True, I couldn’t live without my phone, but I also couldn’t live without my video baby monitor which allows me to keep an eye on my toddler without waking her up. Best gadget out there for new parents.

What app do you use the most (besides TeleNav)?
Other than accessing Outlook, the other apps I use the most are TweetGenius, Facebook for BlackBerry and Yahoo IM for BlackBerry.

If you could have one super power, what would it be?
I wish I didn’t have to sleep. There are so many things I want to do that I don’t ever seem to have time for. It would be nice if I could have that extra 6 or 7 hours back in my day.

What’s your guilty pleasure road trip song?
Probably Neil Diamond. Reminds me of my honeymoon in New Zealand. Our rental car only had a tape deck and that was the only tape we could find in the local store. We drove around for miles listening to his Greatest Hits. Still brings back good memories.

What is one thing you want to learn to do in the next year?
As a compulsive overachiever, I actually have a few: become fluent in Spanish, finish all the books I’ve got lining my shelves, completely rid my house of clutter, clean out my office at work and eat more whole foods (more natural). Most importantly, give birth to a healthy and happy baby (due in Sept).

What’s your favorite dish to make?
I am a horrible cook – my husband does all the cooking and is amazing at it so I’m totally spoiled. I do enjoy baking though and he claims my banana bread is the best he’s ever eaten. But I think he just wants me to make it more.

What phrase do you say too much?
I have no idea – I have to think about this one!

So here we are folks – we’ve widdled it down to five finalists and you now get to choose who will win an Apple iPad.

Starting today you can vote for your favorite 7 Words Contest entry and we will continue to take your votes up until Friday, March 19th. After that, we will close the polls and will announce the winner on Monday, March 22nd!

Don’t feel too bad about choosing one over the other though – at this point, they will all walk away with a prize! However, only the one (Neo?) will walk away with an Apple iPad.

Who should that person be? That’s our question for YOU - so get out there and get voting!

Aaron B.

Shawn S.

Robert C.

Tashanna F.

Alexander F.

It’s Hump Day folks and as I told you I would be, here I am with the top five photos submitted to our 7 Words Contest. Was it an easy process to pick the top five knowing that one of these folks would walk away with an Apple iPad? Absolutely not. It was very difficult – painstakingly so. In fact,I believe one of our judges even ended up with an injury – a paper cut… So to say that this contest hasn’t taken a toll on us, would not be the truth. But it’s all been worth it because we think we’ve chosen the best of the best of the photos which were submitted to the contest.

So here they are folks – the final five. Now it’s up to you to decide who walks away with a brand new, fresh from the tree, Apple iPad!

On Friday, we’re going to be taking votes for who you think should win our 7 Words Contest and we’ll leave it up till Friday, March 19th. Then on Monday, March 22nd, we’ll announce the winner!

It’s that simple so take a good, long look and evaluate which one you think is the best because now YOU get to choose who walks away with our prize!

Aaron B.

Shawn S.

Robert C.

Tashanna F.

Alexander F.

Life is busy. Very busy. Whether you have to rush to pick the kids up after soccer practice or zip to your next meeting, we know getting where you have to go with the least amount of hassle is important to you. And that’s where we come in.

Here at TeleNav, we have over 13 million customers who at all times of the day are trying to get to their next destination and use our product in different ways to make it easier. For example, some people use us to find the best restaurants, other customers use us to optimize their route to avoid traffic, and some others use us to search for the cheapest gas prices. With all of this different activity, you could probably imagine that this creates some pretty interesting data, which brings me back to my original question: What do Walmart, pizza, and Los Angeles all have in common?

They’re all at the top of a list.

• The most preferred food of the TeleNav user on the move? You guessed it – pizza. This is based on search data from December 2009. Also on the list Chinese food, hamburgers, American food, and Mexican food. No word on whether New York or Chicago-style is preferred.



• Maybe not shockingly, the most searched business listing, based on usage in Dec. 09, was Walmart. A close second was coffee giant, Starbucks, followed by Target, Best Buy, and Bank of America.



• What list is Los Angeles at the top of? For the entire year of 2009, the users in L.A. used GPS searches more than any other city in the US. Trailing them were the good people of Dallas/FT. Worth, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta.



• Known for it’s heavy rush hours and bad traffic, it may not be a surprise to many that Los Angeles also topped another list – Users there chose to reroute around traffic using GPS more than any other city in the US.

Other tidbits worth noting are:

• Phoenix users may be the most gas conscious drivers in America – In Dec. 2009, they did more searches for gas stations based on price than any other city.



• Users in the state of Maryland were the most frequent users of GPS guidance in the US, using it for twice as many trips per month than the national average.

While some of this information may not be shocking to many of you (traffic rerouting in LA for example), some of it is very interesting. To me, it’s interesting that not one fast food restaurant made the top five business searches.

What do you think? Anything surprise you about this?

Yup, so as many of you may know, yesterday was the last day to enter our 7 Words Contest and after the two week submission period, I gotta say – we received some VERY cool photos!

Don’t know what the 7 Words Contest is? Here’s a quick rundown. To enter the contest, we had people submit photos of themselves at their favorite locations holding a message that starts out, “Dear TeleNav,” and in the following seven words say why they like that place. Oh yeah, did I mention the winner will receive an Apple iPad and a one year subscription to TeleNav GPS Navigator? And second place winners won’t walk away empty handed either – we’ll be giving them a one-year subscription to TeleNav GPS Navigator as well!

Check out a lot of these photos which were submitted and be sure to check back on Wednesday when we will post the top five entries as chosen by a panel of judges here at TeleNav!

Don’t forget – we’re running our comment of the month contest right now!

For the next few hours, TeleNav-ers were living our Indy 500 dreams as we raced head-to-head with one another for the title of “Fastest Karter at TeleNav” and all of the eternal glory that comes with it. The competition was stiff and the track was fast, but not one of us back downed. *Start humming “Eye of the Tiger HERE”*

In the end, it turned out to be a night full of fun and laughter and after the checkered flag was waved, there were definitely some interesting stories to be told, including about some incidents that will live on at TeleNav for the rest of eternity! (Okay, maybe not…)

Here’s a short video recapping our trip to the race tracks. Enjoy!

But now it’s 2010, the start of a new decade, and we’re are kicking it up another level. One way we want to do that actually starts with YOU, our customers. You see, we’re dedicated to constantly improving and we think the best way to do that doesn’t start with talking about what we’re doing but by listening to what you have to say and what really matters to you.

As some of you may recall, a couple of months back, we put out a call for participants to our First Look program. For this program, we were looking for our most passionate and loyal customers in the Seattle and Bay Area who wanted to give us feedback on some of the things we’re working on. Well, recently we held kickoff events in both cities where we invited the participants out just for a night of food and drinks. We enjoyed getting to know everyone who came and we think they had a good time as well. Thanks to all of the participants!

We also wanted to thank everyone who responded to us during our search for participants for the First Look program. What we learned while recruiting people to join the group is that there are many passionate TeleNav users who don’t live in the two First Look cities who wanted to participate. We’ve definitely heard you and we will look at expanding to greater parts of the country in the future.

Wait, You're Where?

“Hey, come find me in the middle of the park, by the big fountain and the blond wearing a red shirt”

“Where are you tailgating? I’m right by Gate D”

“Can you come pick me up? I’m by the Macy’s entrance at the Mall”

Ever had one of those conversations? Probably. Each of these quotes are from real conversations I’ve had in the last six

months. I was somewhere completely new to me or usually, somewhere that didn’t have a road or intersection right by it.

Think about all the times you’ve ever wanted to tell someone where you are, but either
A) You don’t know the exact address,
B) You’re too busy or it’s too complicated to type in the exact address into a text,
C) There’s no exact address for your location

This happens more often than you think and for all of you out there, TeleNav has actually created a solution just for this problem: It’s called “Share Location”. The dirty secret, though, is that you can share a lot more than just addresses, you can share exact coordinates, to within 10ft. It’s kind of like having a homing device from a James Bond movie in your phone. And more importantly, you can send your location to almost anyone. It doesn’t matter what kind of phone they have or what network they are on. All they need is to have internet access on their phone. They do not need to have the TeleNav app.

Here’s how it works (sorry, iPhone folks – we haven’t enabled it yet on the iPhone):
1) Open up your TeleNav app
2) Click on “Maps” to see a map of where you’re at
3) Click on your Menu button (for Blackberry users and most others)
4) Click on “Share Location”
5) Pick a contact or enter the phone number of someone you want to send the address to, and you’re done!

So what does your contact receive? They get text message that has a custom, temporary link to a map they can open up on their mobile browser that shows them where you are.

Here’s the best part. We automatically know if the person you shared your location with has TeleNav. If they do, it’ll open up right in their TeleNav Navigator application, and they can even get driving directions to that exact spot, if roads lead there.

So the next time you are in a random location, use your TeleNav App to share your location and let your friends figure out how to get to you!

All of us here at TeleNav really enjoyed speaking with and getting to know all of the Waypoint participants, which included many people from your favorite blogs like CrackBerry, ZDNet, LifeOnMyMobile, SlashGear, BlackBerryCool, and a whole lot more!