My name is Tina Su. That’s me on the right. The little smiling boy I’m holding is my son, Ryan.

I’m the proud new owner here on Work Awesome. I just wanted to spend a moment to say hello and to introduce myself.

I am a writer, a photographer and a mom. I live in Seattle with my husband Jeremy, our son Ryan and our fluffy dog Tommy. I am Canadian from Toronto. I was born in Beijing, China.

I used to work as a Software Engineer for amazon.com, and later as a User Experience Designer. Somewhere along my cubical existence at amazon, I became obsessed with the topic of happiness, productivity and personal motivation.

In 2007, I began writing on these topics, sharing the life lessons I’ve learned on my blog–Think Simple Now. In 2008, I left my fulltime job to focus on my blog, thus transitioning into my new career as a professional blogger and online publisher.  This is what I do today.

I am passionate about many things: helping people lead happy lives is at the top of that list. And I am extremely honored to be able to oversee the direction for Work Awesome. I really want to maintain the current publication quality, and directing it such that the site continues to be a valuable resource to help you work happily and productively.

This site is about you and I am committed to creating the best experience for you. As such, please take a minute to tell me what type of content will make you happy via this quick survey.

More Personal Stuff

Besides being passionate about my family, and writing. I am also passionate about photography. I wrote about my journey to becoming a pro photographer here: Dreams Come True. I am also passionate about Apple products.

My husband is a commercial photographer and he teaches me all the technical things that I never learned as a self-taught photographer. Jeremy is also an aspiring filmmaker. We hope to put up many more videos with motivational content later this year.

Our son Ryan is 16 month old. He’s very active and curious little boy. He gets into everything he’s not supposed to. His favorite word is “Ba!!” and his best friend is a toy bunny.

I’m currently focused on finishing a book on Life Purpose.

Perhaps the best way to get to know someone is through reading about the thoughts closest to their heart. Here are some articles I’ve written in the past that you may enjoy:

• Focus – How to Get It Done
• Problem Solving Secrets
• A Story of Parenting & Happiness
• Living Enlightenment – A Personal Report
• How to Quiet Your Mind
• Dealing with Difficult People
• How to Find True Love
• How to Get Over a Break Up
• 6 Steps to Eliminate Limited Beliefs

Here are some popular articles written by one of the passionate and talented contributing authors on Think Simple Now:

• The Perfect New Year’s Resolution
• The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget (This one made a lot of people cry)
• The 4 Hour Workday
• How to Wake Up Early
• The Art of Embracing Change

Elsewhere Online

• Facebook Page – Where I share daily inspirational quotes and other inspiring shares.  Click on the Like button to join us. You’ll be happy that you did.
• Facebook Personal – Personal announcements and photos are shared on here.
• TSN Inside Newsletter – The insider’s newsletter is a free email list where I send out personal thought and additional motivational ideas. Most recently, I started sharing audio recordings with productivity ideas.
• Twitter – click on follow
• LinkedIn

New Editor

I wanted to introduce to you my friend Pooja who helps me run Think Simple Now. She will be leading the publication on Work Awesome and will be helping me to keep this site even more awesome and beautiful.

Interestingly, Pooja also used to work as a Software Engineer before pursuing her love for writing full-time (perhaps that’s why there are so few women in engineering—writing took them all!).

Pooja lives in Melbourne, Australia. She blogs at Of Parchments & Inks.

Mike Vardy is still part of the team and will continue to lead the awesome podcast.

How Are You?

I’d love to know you better. Please leave a comment below to introduce yourself (completely optional, of course. But I’d be happy if you do).

Suggestions, ideas, thoughts? Leave them in the comments below. I will see you there!

If you haven’t already, take a minute to fill out this short survey.

Thank you for taking the time to get to know me.

Nice to meet you!

Warmly,
–Tina

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Each of the winners will receive 200 business cards from MOO. Below is each of the winners’ photos — along with a brief description of what makes their “new-look workspace” far more awesome than their old one.

1. Kevin Wammer

BEFORE

“Thanks to your blogpost I finally decided to clean up my desk. Since it is in my bedroom I usually throw my sweatshirts on it. I decided to close my Macbook and to use only the larger screen. I threw away a couple of magazines and sorted my books (…and yes, those are Envato books!).”

AFTER

“I still have to find a way how to make it even more minimalistic but I finally took the time to clean this mess. (By the way, it took me two cups of coffee to get through this…) I didn’t change much but I think it looks clean enough.”

2. Hilary Stoddard

BEFORE

Hilary went for a more playful look with her refreshed workspace.

“I made my cubicle more Domo-friendly!”

AFTER

3. Juliet Fieldew

BEFORE

“It’s not the best view of the room in the after shot, but it was the pic with the best lighting… unfortunately that’s what happens with a room reno- you start with an ugly room and great light, and finish at the end of the day with bad light and (hopefully) a great room!”

AFTER

“I’m pretty happy with mine — my new table (eBay, $53) totally fits the bill for my blog/uni/bookkeeping/daily life mess — there’s lots of space to spread out and be creative! Of course the trip out to Richmond to pick up the table also warranted a stop off at Ikea, where I had great fun picking out new desk accessories & decor! Gotta love that!”

4. Drew Podwal

BEFORE

Drew was one of our later entrants, but it just goes to show that even late inspiration is better than no inspiration! His makeover is minimal — only slight changes, such as tidying up and changing overall decor — but it’s often the subtle changes that lead to bigger ones.

AFTER

5. Cassie Boom

Cassie offered us a whole series of photos that reveals her office transformation — which was anything but minimal. Rather than post them all here, you can view all of the “before” shots here and the “after” shots here.

Thanks to everyone who entered — and a big thanks to our friends at MOO who not only delivered the prizes for this competition, but deliver awesome business cards 24/7!

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Lastly, I’ll let you in on a little secret: if you enter, the odds of winning a set of business cards are very, very good!

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The WorkAwesome + MOO Workspace Before and After Competition challenges you to give your workspace a makeover. Will you create a sleek minimalist setup? Clean away years of detritus? Give your workspace a theme? Cover your desk with cherished photos? Display your collection of Star Wars action figures? Or will you do something nobody else has ever thought of?

To enter, take a photo of your workspace Before the makeover. Then, create a workspace you truly love. Next, take an After picture to show us the complete transformation. Our five favorite transformations will win 200 crisp new business cards from MOO.

Just like your new workspace, MOO business cards let you try something different, with up to 50 unique designs per pack. Never settle for boring at work again.

How to Enter

Take a Before and After photo of your workspace and upload both photos to an image hosting service like Flickr. Then, fill out the entry form. Entries close at midnight on Thursday the 17th of March, AEST.

Winners will be contacted via email within two weeks of competition close.

Inspiration

Check out Flickr’s desk and workspace tagged photos for a dose of inspiration!

Terms and Conditions

• This competition is not open to Envato or MOO employees.
• Entries will be accepted worldwide.
• If you do not respond within 7 days to a notification that you have won a prize, we reserve the right to select another winner.

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A few months ago, our website design was called “enchanting” by Guy Kawasaki (who knows something about enchantment; he’s recently written a book on the subject). We’re happy to see that he’s not the only one!

Here’s what the UDA had to say about WorkAwesome:

Work Awesome is an online resource for people who want to improve at work. Packed with useful articles on how to improve your work productivity, the site caters for a wide range of industries. As well as providing essential gems of information, the site is designed in an incredibly user friendly way, allowing users to navigate easily and find the right info for them. A more than worthy winner!

We’d like to thank the UDA for their consideration. A big thanks also goes out to the design team at Envato who helped put the design of the site together, to all of our contributors who augment the design with great content and to all of our readers — you’re who we’re doing it for!

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Find out more about advertising on WorkAwesome

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This book is designed with the beginner in mind, introducing you to the world of Google AdWords. Once you start to get a handle on them, you’ll be bidding on keywords that will help push your site higher in the Google rankings — without all of the time it usually takes for that to happen organically.

Nguyen has put together an “easy to grasp” guide on what AdWords are, what using them can do to give your site that added exposure and how to get started using them right away.

In this book you will:

• Learn how to put together AdWords campaigns that are simple and effective
• Gain a better understanding of your audience’s search behavior
• Discover ways to draw more people to your website
• Find practical examples offered throughout, and find other tools that you can use to get started with Google AdWords right away.

So if you’re new to Google AdWords and what an easy-to-understand guide of how to get started or if you just haven’t been able to wrap your head around this valuable tool before, this book is for you. You can pick up a copy of Get Going with Google AdWords by clicking on the link below — the book is available now!

Rockable Press: Get Going with Google AdWords

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This weekly podcast will feature tips and tricks, motivation and inspiration, reviews and interviews – and much more. Hosted by yours truly, WorkAwesome editor Mike Vardy, the aim of the podcast is to bring you some of the things we’re doing at WorkAwesome in a different context – and with additional content to boot.

Our inaugural podcast features an interview with Jonathan Mead, best known for his website Illuminated Mind. Not only was he kind enough to share his take on doing awesome work, but he offered our WorkAwesome faithful a chance to win a free enrollment to his Paid to Exist program. To win, you need to leave a comment answering the following:

“What you would create or do if you had the ultimate freedom to do so?”

We’ll compile all the comments and draw one lucky winner to be announced here at WorkAwesome on Monday November 22.

As always, we want to know what you’d like to see in the WorkAwesome podcast – share your thoughts with us below as well. We’ll be sure to announce when the podcast shows up in iTunes — we’re still waiting on that. Follow us on Twitter and our Facebook page and you’ll be brought up to speed when we go live.

Enjoy the podcast!

Subscribe to the podcast
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UPDATE: You can now subscribe to the podcast in iTunes here.

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A site like this isn’t just fuelled by readers like yourselves — it’s also due to the support we have from our awesome advertisers. We take the time to show our readers appreciation through regular Follow Friday shout-outs on Twitter and the like, so we’re going to take the time here to show our gratitude to our advertisers…

Every time I pull out my MOO mini-card holder (which is hard to miss because of its flashy orange hue) I’m asked where I got such cool cards.  When I tell them I made them, they’re shocked. Then I confess that I kind of made them, largely in part to the tremendous folks at MOO and their easy-to-use card generation service. Check out all of the products they have to offer at their site. Simple and stylish card creation — and more — is just a click away.

Our thanks also go out to our other advertisers:

• MediaTemple
• BillingsPro
• Harvest
• BPOVIA

Thanks again to all of our supporters for helping us keep this site as awesome as it can be!

(Image courtesy of SOCIALisBETTER under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.)