As people are recovering from the holidays, you might have noticed that you may have started to receive mail (snail and electronic) and phone calls from non-profit organizations for the holiday season. There are ways to be confident about who, and what you are giving to.

Here are a couple of posts that may be helpful when making a decision to donate:

Where are your charitable dollars going?

It’s not too late to think about Charitable Year-End Contributions

Posted via email from nextSTEPH’s posterous

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

My presentation, “Stats Showdown” from WordCampNYC is now posted.

Download here.

Here’s what people thought about the presentation:
@andrew_cpht: @nextsteph I heard that from a lot of ppl. Must’ve been really good. #wcnyc

@viviane212: @nextsteph Your presentation on WordPress stats very helpful. Old Statcounter fan, have Analytics installed, will try WordPress.com #wcnyc

@ArieRich: After plugins we learned about Stats Showdown by Steph from @nextsteph, she talked bout analytics, simple stats, etc… #blog

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

One thing I have learned not necessarily through business, but through volunteering is that if there are too many cooks in the kitchen, walk away and do what you know best instead of trying to be all over the place.

Its good to be helpful, but sometimes being helpful can do more harm than good,which leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

At the end of the day, at least one can go to bed knowing that they at least tried to make a difference.

Posted via email from nextSTEPH’s posterous

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

I finally have a recap in SlideShare of my Geek Lab talk on TypePad. There is only so much that was covered in such a short amount of time, that I decided to put what I wanted to say in a presentation.

Disclosure: I know I have screenshots that are in Pre-launch format of the new TypePad. I prepared most of the images before the launch. In the future, I plan to edit the presentation with the new images when time permits.

@vdebolt posted:

#BlogHer09 Recap from the Geek Lab on Web Teacher http://bit.ly/shlmJ

Others that were in the Geek Lab included:

• fellow NYC Webgrrl, @DigitalWoman


• fellow WordPress enthusiast and a cook to boot (can’t wait to try those crockpot recipes:) @RonisWeigh


• and Super Geek Sarah Dopp, @sarahdopp.

All or most of the sessions are now up on the Blogher site as well. This helps because there were so many great sessions at the same time that I either had to make a decision or leave the room halfway to make some of the other session(s).

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

How lucky was I to attend 2 conferences (technically 3) in the same city in the same week? At both EduWeb and Blogher , I listened to some great insights on Education, Women, Blogging and Business. If you want a glimpse of what happened, check my Twitter @nextsteph.

I will be back to full blogging next week after I fully recouperate.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

Before the presentation, I got to mingle with the audience to see where their interests lie and what they were hoping to get out of the talk. Some wrote reviews, others work in the industry, so it was interesting to hear about the different viewpoints of being in theatre.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

View and learn more about the award.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

Roberta Washington, AIA, NOMA – my first architecture internship;

Laura Allen – for helping me find my pitch;

Adrian Miller – For her sales savvy tips

Ilise Benun – for helping me and other creative professionals find their focus and for introducing me to:

Colleen Wainwright (a.k.a. the communicatrix) for being my virtual guide through the podcasts of  Veteran’s version of The 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar. She  also gave me the idea to do this post and I also started re-posting to Shop By Subway.

Laura Thieme, Bizresearch – for being my search mentor as well as a friend.

Bridgette Raes – for helping me to find my style.

Lisa Zaslow, Gotham Organizers – for helping me to clear my environment to make way for creativity.

Stacy Francis, Francis Financial – for helping me to stay financially on track

Wild Women Entrepreneurs – new website coming soon.

Webgrrls – Gave me a sense of community when I was first starting out.

If I forgot anyone, feel free to add via the comments.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

Lately, I have been busy working. I did however managed to get one of my tips featured in an interview blog at The Dabbling Mum.

However, in a week, I will have a chance to escape from the office. I’m back to speaking (at least in a local/giving back kind of way).

February 26, 2009 -
Metropolitan College of New York

February 28, 2009 –
Brooklyn Technical High School

Both events are Career Day panels where I with others discuss having a career in multimedia.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

Grandma used to take me inside the voting booth when I was little. She wanted to make sure that I understood the voting process and how important it is to be heard. With the General Election being less than a week away. I cannot begin the stress the importance of getting kids involved and aware of voting.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.