By Roving Social Media Reporter: Kristen Weaver

I can’t tell you the last time I was actually awake at 6am…. but this morning I woke up bright and early to get ready for Meredith Oliver’s new seminar as part of the WOAMTEC Social Media Bootcamp! Today’s session is on LinkedIn, and I’m looking forward to learning more about this powerful business networking tool.

My drive across town was an eclectic mix of old school Janet Jackson (Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty), The Ting Tings and Iron Maiden. Fashionably arriving about 40 minutes early (in true Kristen Weaver style), grabbed a blueberry bagel (from Via Panera), a banana and some orange juice – I’m set up, logged in and ready to learn about LinkedIn!

Meredith’s boot camps are really great because she does so much hands-on training. We all were able to bring our personal laptops to plug in and follow along. Because honestly, hands-on is one of the best ways to learn and become familiar with these new tools.

Ahh, Allen has arrived and decided to harass me about my upcoming housewarming party. If you don’t know Allen, he’s Meredith’s husband (aka Partner in Crime) and super-dad to Brady and Molly Oliver (Molly is the fabulous facebooking dog and infamous, in her own right).

8:30 am – Meredith just kicked off the lesson! Everyone is so attentive! She’s opening by asking everyone what new ideas they took with them following last week’s Facebook session and how they’ve used them. Lots of great accomplishments! Everyone’s been working on their Fan pages, linking and “being wild” – ok, well some of them got the message

Social media can be tedious, long and sometimes overwhelming. But let’s talk about ways to fix that on days when time is money – and you’re short on both! There are 86,400 seconds in a day. If you can spare 300 of them, we’ll be in good shape.

First – using a web client that specifically targets your needs is critical. I prefer to use Mozilla Firefox because of their new improved speed features. Browsing has never been faster, bookmarking has never been simpler, and finding things in a crunch has never been better. Consider it your own “PIA” (Personal Internet Assistant). Firefox has this cool “Awesome Bar” (you may know it as the address bar) that will use your words to find things you’re looking for quickly and easily. Over time, it actually adapts to your preferences to find your favorite websites faster!