By Jonathan Hawkes

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) came to be in 1985. In 1991, the Susan G. Komen foundation passed out pink ribbons for the first time to racers in New York at a race for breast cancer survivors.

Cancer awareness month has been around since I was 11, but until the last few years, it has never really had such a major impact on my life. Over the last few years, you have seen NFL teams sport pink cleats and wear ribbons on their jerseys. Needless to say, it is becoming more mainstream to support cancer research and unite everyone into helping support finding the cure.

My wife was diagnosed with her second round of cancer in July 2009. Prior to that, she was cancer free for 9 years. We thought we were in the clear. However it came back very aggressively. Stage 4 melanoma in her liver. After 2nd, 3rd, and 4th opinions, the oncologists all said the same thing. She has 6 months to live without treatments, and maybe a year and a half with treatments.

We discussed it, and she wanted to fight as hard as she could. We have 5 children, and she wanted to do whatever she could for them and for me. There was a 30% chance that she would make it through. I thought that 30% was great and so did she. That is how we looked at the whole experience. WE will get through this.

As her treatments became more intense. I had to leave IOGEAR to help her and the children. I dedicated all of my time to her. Doctor visits, and treatments in all forms. Since her cancer was at such a late stage, the only options we had were experimental treatments. One of them worked amazingly. It started to reduce the size of her tumors in her liver. However as with all experiments, they could not predict what would happen next. The cancer still spread to other parts of her body. However the experimental treatments are something that have made amazing progress over the years and are getting better and better. One of the experiments she was on is now up for review from the FDA, and could very soon be a recommended treatment for people with liver cancer.

This October 4th will mark the first anniversary of my wife passing. Oddly enough during cancer awareness month.

From the time she was diagnosed, we started to make videos and posting them on YouTube. It was for the family members across the country, and helped eliminate 30-40 calls a day to check on her status. For a year and a half we posted a little over 200 videos. It became something she would look forward to especially when she was having a good day. If you wish to view the fight, go to www.youtube.com/jhawkes68 It will make you laugh and cry, and sometimes both at the same time.

A few months after she passed, I came back to work for IOGEAR. My new manager knew my situation, and presented me with something on my first day back.

It was a pink card reader. I looked at it, and said, “ummm ok?”

He was trying to get approval to work with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® (SGK) foundation. Our marketing director was also pushing for this to get approved. Needless to say, I thought how awesome it would be to put this little card reader into every retailer I could possibly think of and sell a million units. For every one that we sell, $1.00 goes to the SGK foundation. Just don’t tell my boss my goal is a million units, or my quota will get raised.

So I worked and thought of what I could do to support this great cause. Sell a product our company is really good at making, open up new channels, and shoot for the biggest new customers I could think of for the biggest impact of trying to get to 1 million card readers sold.

Sales is all about timing and luck, and both just happened to align. I was able to get a meeting with Walgreens. I have recently seen their commercials on TV regarding the partnership with Walgreens and SGK for the walk for the cure. The buyer was very happy with the product, liked the idea, and immediately set us up as new vendor. As I am writing this blog, the product is being placed on the shelves of 6,500 Walgreens across the country, and will be up and ready before October 1st. I was also able to get Barnes and Noble to pick this up, and it is already selling on their site BN.com. The buyer over there has been amazed at the initial response.

For every unit that is sold, $1.00 will go to the SGK Foundation. That $1.00 could make the difference in finding the cure. Cancer awareness month is going to take on a whole new meaning for me this year. I want this disease to end, and I may not be able to raise $1 Million dollars myself, but with the help and support of IOGEAR, Walgreens, Barnes and Noble, and others that I am sure to follow, they are helping me with my personal and professional goals of doing something within my power.

My wife is still my inspiration and it is because of her I have realized how devastating this disease is, and how close we are getting to finding the cure. I hope that in my children’s lifetime, a cure can be found.

Find out how you can help and thanks for the support!!

As I sit here and type this out, I look at the items on my desk. A 56 in 1 card reader, a mouse & keyboard plugged into my KVM; then I have a 4 port USB hub plugged into my desktop, in my hub are my Logitech web cam, my Mobile Scribe, and my Blackberry. Then there is my IOGEAR Micro Bluetooth dongle to pair up to my Bluetooth headphones with mic built in.

My main monitor is a HP 22inch that I am in love with. I have a second 17inch monitor to my right. Cables and wires snake around my desk in a fashion that would cause my mother to growl at my cluttered desk.

I have a set of some really cool Logitech speakers, but I can only turn up the volume to 2 while in my office. Not sure why I have them since I can never take advantage of the awesome capabilities of them and the fact the subwoofer is the size of a basketball. There is my Wireless N1 Router, and my Lexmark printer.

Are any of these items really making my life easier? Lets list them on a scale of 1-10 – 10 being making my life easy:

RANK 1:
- Logitech Speakers – nothing improves but at least I can hear my music or my games
- Logitech Webcam – does not make life easier – just enhances it a bit
- IOGEAR Micro Bluetooth – only needed for my BT headphones, I don’t sync my phone to my home pc

RANK 2:
- IOGEAR BT Headphones – no wires running to my pc for my headphones, very convenient
- Lexmark Printer – I guess I don’t have to use my crayons to get a document, but printers are as much of a necessity as a phone these days
- Blackberry – actually does not make my life easier, but causes me to work long after I have clocked out now. Needed, but not wanted ? (should be ranked a lot higher, but I refuse)

RANK 3:

- IOGEAR 56-in-1 Card Reader – pretty cool, but I only have 2 types of media I use anyway

RANK 6:
- IOGEAR 4 port USB Hub – I have ports in the front of my desk top, this just keeps me from bending over to unplug

RANK 7:
- HP 22-inch Monitor – I can see things now a bit better, and that does make it a bit easier
- Belkin N1 Router – I can connect to my network from anywhere in the house wirelessly. Makes it easy, and its really fast

RANK 8:
- 2nd Monitor – with second monitor, I can now work on a few more things at once. Actually that makes work allot easier.
- IOGEAR KVM – I don’t have to keep unplugging monitor cables, and I can use my mouse and keyboard on my laptop

RANK 10:
- IOGEAR Mobile Scribe – I will explain below

Not to say that any of these products are not easy to use, and in fact, I love all of the items listed above, but as a sales person and someone who travels a lot I need something that just makes my life a lot easier. I have a lot of gadgets, and I am a bit of a tech freak.

So one product that I actually use on almost a daily basis is my Mobile Scribe. This thing is great for anyone taking notes in meetings or sending personalized letters to customers, which seems to have a bigger impact on my sales numbers that taking notes in a meeting.

What makes this a product that makes my life easier is the fact that it stores 50 pages of notes, and while I have never been on a trip that has taken up more than 12 pages worth of notes, I can see the advantage.
When I get to my hotel room or get back to the office, I just connect the adapter to my computer and upload the notes.

Then I use the software that comes with it and just with a click of a button convert all of my notes to a word doc for easy recaps.

As we all know, to type out a recap after a meeting is tedious and can take some time. Also my handwriting is not the greatest; this cleans it up for me.

It is not 100% accurate all the time, but it is still close enough for me that all I have to do is spell check some of the words it does not get, or refer back to my hand written notes.

Normally it takes me 5 to 10 minutes to convert 1 page of hand written notes when typing them out myself, and that is being very liberal and leaving some things out.

It takes about 10 seconds to upload and another 5 – 10 seconds to convert to a word document. It literally has saved me hours worth of retyping notes from sales meetings and customer visits. Also I now have a digital copy of all my notes so I can save them in appropriate files to review later.

Not sure about you guys and gals but my little Office Max steno pad is not so great at reminding me where that particular meeting was or what page I have that phone number on.

I have now gotten in the habit of using this while I am working, and uploading my notes at the end of the day. Anything I have written down is now stored and I can recall it with simple push of a button.

If you have any products that make your life easier- please comment on this post, I would love to see what you are using, and what products make your life easier. I am sure there are more things out there that I am missing. And I could use some ideas to make my life a little easier.

Yours Truly,

Jonathan Hawkes