We've had pretty bad blackouts here in New York before. Remember the Northeast power outage that hit in the summer of 2003? But I don't think any has been as bad as what the people of India are facing today.

According to the New York Times, "About 600 million people lost power in India on Tuesday when the country’s northern and eastern electricity grids failed, crippling the country for a second consecutive day." Included in the blackout is the capital city of New Delhi.

Although officials are saying the power failure occurred with no warning, hopefully police and citizens were ready with promotional flashlights and other emergency preparedness items on hand.

What's most troubling is the reason for the power outage is yet to be determined. However, Reuters reports that Sushilkumar Shinde, India's Power Minister, "blamed the system collapse on some states drawing more than their share of electricity from the over-burdened grid."

Earlier this week, Greg blogged about his favorite promotional flashlight. It is a pig shaped flashlight that is rechargable just by the squeeze of a hand. Living in New York City, I understand the flashlight concern, as we have had our share of blackouts over time. The thing is, during a blackout, light is only one of the many concerns you will have to deal with. Especially, during the summer, one of the biggest concerns during a blackout is staying comfortable. That is why I think our customized personal fan with light is so fantastic. You can stand it up on a table and accomplish two needs at once, it will provide light as well as helping to circulate air around a small room. In general, especially during these 90 degree heatwaves, it is always important to be prepared for all possibilities. 

"Student warning!  Do your homework early.  Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa"

That's just one of the many alarming Tweets sent out by Wikipedia Co-Founder Jimmy Wales yesterday.  What's Wales talking about?

According to Mashable, "Wikipedia will go offline Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)."  SOPA is a bill that's meant to expand the rights for U.S. law enforcement and copyright owners who want to fight online piracy. 

SOPA's opponents claim the bill would have an extremely negative effect on user-generated sites like YouTube, and could potentially lead to complete shut-downs of popular social Web sites like Etsy, where individuals sell handmade jewelry, customized totes, and more.  "The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar," Journalist Rebecca MacKinnon asserted in an op-ed piece.

Those who oppose SOPA also worry that the bill could weaken Internet safe harbor protections, kill E-commerce businesses, and threaten virtual private networks (VPNs).

The scheduled blackout will affect a massive amount of people -- approximately 25 million Internet users access Wikipedia's English content each day.  Mashable reports that "Wikipedia’s decision means those millions of visitors will be greeted not with the usual digital tome of knowledge, but with a screen explaining the company’s stance on the bill and information on how to take action against SOPA."

Do you think Wikipedia's Wednesday Blackout will help prevent the passing of SOPA?  Share your thoughts below!

It seems that this is the weekend that many of my friends (and perhaps you) have decided to do haunted houses. I know a few people considering the haunted house in Bayville while a few select others are attempting to brave Blackout, a haunted house in NYC in which a person goes in one at a time and faces realistic, hellish experiences in the vein of tourture, abuse and sexual-violence - much of which can't be discussed on a company blog. (hint: you actually get waterboarded and you get handcuffed to a doctor's chair while [very convincing] actors put a sack over your head, hit you and demand you to bark like a dog) But instead of going to a haunted house for a few minutes, I will be spending this weekend completely immersed in the culture and legend.

I am heading up to Tarrytown, NY for a concert and am treating the weekend as a way to "get away from it all." If Tarrytown sounds familiar, you're either a big fan of Keeping Up With The Kardashians (Bruce Jenner was born in Tarrytown) or you know about the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Washington Irving was the brain behind the story of Ichabod Crane and his run-in with the now-legendary Headless Horseman. The town received a tip-of-the-hat in the book and (because of its popularity) would eventually inspire North Tarrytown to change its name to "Sleepy Hollow." (Sunnyside - Washington Irving's house - is located here) I am spending my weekend in both Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow.

There is a large Halloween celebration in Sleepy Hollow during the weekend. Everything from tours of Sunnyside to haunted houses to promotional candy tastings will be offered as well as a costume contest. I sure hope there is plenty of candy and promotional food. Note to self: bring a custom imprinted Halloween themed bag.

Yesterday was a stormy day here on Long Island.  So stormy, in fact, that at a certain point the power in our office flickered!  As many of you probably know, social media never sleeps, so when I thought our power might go out, I had to devise a plan.

I knew that if our lamps went out, it wouldn't necessarily be a problem.  After all, we work for a promotional products company, and therefore have dozens of promotional flashlights lying around.  I even have one or two in my desk drawer, so I'd totally be prepared. 

But how would I get my work done without a computer?  Because I work in social media, my iPhone certainly would come in handy here.  I've got a few useful apps that'd help me get through the blackout:  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more!  Still, just in case, I saved many of my projects to my promotional flash drive.  This way, I could work from home later on if needed.

I think my plan was pretty foolproof, but I wasn't able to test it out anyway.  The power stayed intact, and life here at the Motivators office went on as usual.  But at least I've got a course of action in place if it ever happens again!