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I can remember the frantic hassle of adjusting to college as a freshman. First, I arrived on campus with boxes and bags and suitcases full of everything I would need to survive the next few months of the semester, everything from soap to notebooks to the iron to my computer to my handy USB flash drive. I walked into a dorm room, meeting roommates that I had never met before in my life, and whom I would have to live with for the next year. After 17 years of having a room to myself, I would have to share desks, dressers, and a sink with three other people and learn to sleep in a cramped bunk bed.

And that’s not even including classes. What a shock to a high schooler to find the amount of work in his college classes. After he found each building, and each classroom. As I went into class after class on my first day, I looked through each syllabus, seeing quizzes, tests, papers, random assignments, wondering how I would ever get everything done. Would I?

Adjusting to college is certainly a huge hurdle in life for any freshman. What can colleges do to make life easier for clueless high school graduates? Many schools do make a good effort to prepare their new students for what they’re about to face. They’ll receive booklets with info and maps and be able to ask questions to assuage their constant confusion.

And then the new students have to learn to keep track of their assignments. With the amount of work to keep up with, there’s no room to procrastinate and get behind on studying and writing papers if one wants to get decent grades.

What if there was a way to give each freshman a flash drive with lists of classes and assignments, as well as helpful resources for freshman new to the school. The drive could even be custom-made to contain content tailored to the new student’s major of choice. And the surface could contain the name of the university or college and its colors.

What a freshman would give to have a resource like this when he’s starting off his college career! The school could mail these drives to freshmen before they arrive, or give them to the students as they check in on campus.

CFgear makes custom flash drives like these, made to suit whatever a college desires for its students. They offer many different sizes and shapes and colors, with the option of adding your logo to the flash drive. Browse through their website to get an idea of the options available.

Yes, walking onto a college campus for the first time is and always will be somewhat intimidating to a brand-new freshman. But that doesn’t mean the college can’t help to make the adjustment easier. The less hassle the student has to worry about in setting up for classes and organizing his assignments, the more easily he’ll adjust to his new environment.

Ah, the mad dash and scramble of trade shows can sometimes hide the most basic part of your planning – your promotional giveaway.

Ideally, your promotional item will spark an interest in you and your company. Many options exist from branded coffee cups to customized flash drives.

The trick is finding your greatest ROI.

To get a greater return on your investment, or ROI, find an item that:

• can be utilized daily if possible,
• has your brand in frequent view,
• ships well
• and can be bought in bulk

Calendars, coffee cups, pens, tote bags, coasters and paper weights have been the standby of many a tradeshow booth. In the 21st century, the industry can also expect a trend toward tech gadgets being utilized as promotional gear.

All these items become useful to the attendee. First of all, these options in promotional gear remind tradeshow attendees of the company they received it from. These promotional items are also easy to throw in a suitcase for the commute home. For the tradeshow exhibitor, they can be bought in large quantities at lower prices and utilized beyond the tradeshow.
But let’s admit it, most of these items are boring.

For the booming entrepreneur or intense business person, boring is simply not good enough. Who cares if you give away the coolest coffee mug ever, if they don’t bother to take it home with them? Let’s say they do, but it gets left in their cupboard. The mug forlornly migrates into a corner, forgotten, until it resurfaces in time to be thrown out at the next spring cleaning.

Beyond boring, tech gadgets seem to have filled an edgier, more modern niche vacancy that sends boring screaming for the pile of coffee cups at your neighbor’s table.

Flash drives, sometimes called jump drives, thumb drives, USB drives, or compact flash memory, provide ample room for peripheral memory storage. Customize the outside  of the USB drive with your company’s brand or logo and give your tradeshow attendees something they actually want.

A company called CFGear, based in Sioux Falls, SD, offers customized flash drives that can be ordered in bulk and offers their customers different looks, colors and memory options.

Other technological goodies may be a good bet, if money is not an issue. Items such as mp3 players, PDAs, digital cameras and laptops are all great promotional items that drive customer loyalty.

Though most of these items are incredibly high priced, flash drives or even flash mp3 players ordered in bulk from a company like CFGear may be your best bet to gain a higher tech edge.

Flash mp3 players not only hold document files. These little creatures also offer advanced mp3 technology, utilizing .wav and .mp3 files. Flash mp3 players run on a single battery, host built-in microphones for voice recording and even have an FM radio player.

The trick to a better ROI is finding a promotional item that people want to use. Gaining loyalty through an item appropriate to our century gives your target audience confidence in your brand.

Just don’t break the bank. That’s where tech options like flash drives and flash mp3 players might be your best bet.

Without moveable parts flash mp3 players can be utilized by anyone, anywhere. A slim 100mm x 32mm x 32mm, flash mp3 players build up your company, especially in the eyes of up and coming young professionals. Build up their loyalty now, and watch them remember you as they begin making the decisions for their companies.

Sure beats a dusty coffee cup.

In an age of information piracy, such as illegal music downloads, how do bands keep up with tech trends? A new wave of tech-minded musicians are turning to the highly customizable flash drive or MP3 flash players like those by CFGear.

According to Wired magazine, musicians and bands such as The White Stripes, Bob Marley, and The Barenaked Ladies have all released flash drives, with Nine Inch Nails producing an interactive game via their flash drive release.

CFGear, an innovative, solutions-driven company based in Sioux Falls, SD, provides valuable flash marketing options via customized content. Their flash drives and MP3 Flash Players can include music videos, music clips and even bloopers and linkage to the band website.

The options for content seem limitless.

Sometimes called jump drives, thumb drives, USB drives, or compact flash memory, flash drives bring memory storage to a whole new level.

Flash drives drum up some great marketing — a great tool for use by musicians, in an age where booming technological advances are an economic handicap, rather than a financial boon.

Keeping bands styling creates an opportunity for imaginative options. CFGear also creates a band’s look via the external options of a flash drive. This drives a music consumer’s brand loyalty better than a CD, since flash drives can be reused for the consumer’s personal content.

Not a bad return on investment for music producers getting raked over the coals by illegal music sharing and downloading.

Whether bands are selling their flash drives or using them as give-aways for VIPs and concerts, or both, custom USB flash drives offer an unique solution to the typical CD. What CD can be reused once the songs have been downloaded to a computer or portable music player?

With technicapable people such as teenagers, college students and young professionals controlling an ever larger portion of consumer spending, investment in a marketing tool that keeps the consumer’s interest is a necessity.

Every major musician knows that marketing matters. Somewhere in their musical journey, musicians must learn to market themselves. Not only do well-known musicians worry about the content and appeal of the music, but also whether potential fans can find them.

Enter in the ever-versatile music USB drive.

Every musician would rather be doing a gig or practicing their latest songs. But getting that content to fans needs to also be a top priority.

Why do all the work, if you do not try to achieve success?

Sure, one can play for their girlfriend or boyfriend and a handful of buddies forever. Or CFGear can assist a band in working with a local university or sports team to do a mass mailing of flash drives filled with musical content, as well as the partners’ schedules and events calendars.

Does a band have a huge battle of the bands contest coming up? Sending fans home with a flash drive filled with content, music, and band bios to actively engage the music consumer brings staying power to a gig. The more fans connect with a band, the more likely they are to seek out that band’s music.

Fans won’t ignore a flash drive or forget it in their friend’s van after the weekend is over, like they might with a cheap CD.

Or how many times do people promise to borrow out a cd of their’s but never do? Maybe that cheapskate friend, who wouldn’t buy a cd, will buy a flash drive.

USB Flash drives are actually useful to most people.

And as people are making use of it, they most likely are going to listen to the music.

Even just a band’s logo will remind fans in the midst of their daily grind to do a quick web search and get more information.

Say a band already groomed a decent sized fan base and simply wants a viable option to sell their music. Bulk USB flash drives by CFGear can be customized on the outside to showcase that album’s musical content.

Wondering what bands can do about the ever pervasive mp3 player?

Blow your fans out of the water with another option from CFGear – the customizable MP3 Flash Player. Not your old generation mp3 player, this one has plug and play, an FM radio, a flash drive and options for 1GB to 4GB of flash memory for storing MP3 and WMA files. For use with a headset, the MP3 Flash Player runs on a single AAA battery. That’s included.

Oh, yeah. The MP3 Flash Player also does high quality digital voice recording with playback and has room for documents and other files.

Bands could sell this one-of-a-kind MP3 Flash Player complete with their content and generate above-average profit and get an above-average response.

Not bad for a gadget measuring 100mm x 32mm x 32mm.