Corporate Blog

February is an eventful month. Families are hitting the ski slopes, children are celebrating getting the day off school for President’s Day, and men everywhere are scrambling to find the perfect Valentine’s Day gift.

For a holiday that celebrates love and happiness, Valentine’s Day can occasionally be a little stressful. Luckily, it is yet another holiday where navigation can be extremely useful. We hope that everyone has a fantastic Valentine’s Day, and with that said, here are 5 tips for making sure you have a great day with your loved one.

1. Don’t be late. Maybe more than any other day of the year, Valentine’s Day is a time to put your partner first, and you should avoid being late at all costs. Not only should you make sure to use your navigation device to avoid getting lost, but we recommend using the traffic functionality too, so you know ahead of time if you are going to be a little late (and have an excuse).

2. Don’t forget the gift. Whether you choose to go the chocolate and flowers route, or if you decide to make a personalized card, having a great gift is essential. When you are out in your car the days before Valentine’s Day, use the search functionality of your nav device and spend some time trying to find the perfect gift.

3. Book your dinner ahead of time. No matter how much time you spend trying to track down a romantic place, all the work could go for naught if you don’t book ahead of time. If you happen to be searching for restaurants and reading local reviews on your navigation device, we recommend immediately calling when you find a place that looks good. It often goes without saying, but one of the great things about mobile navigation is that you are actually using a phone as well.

4. Go out somewhere fun during the day. Your mobile navigation device not only lets you search for restaurants, but it also allows you to search for local events as well. Valentine’s Day can be the perfect opportunity to take your loved one to a place that you don’t usually go, and if you have your mobile nav device, you don’t have to worry about getting lost traveling there.

5. Drive safe. Valentine’s Day is a holiday that celebrates relationships and often reminds us how much we care about other people. Navigation devices in many ways can make us safer on the road, but it is important to be smart and not do any complex searching when you are driving. Often times, being together is the best gift you can give on Valentines’s Day, so with that in mind, we hope that everyone has safe travels.

As the holiday season approaches, we’ve made it a goal of ours to try and give something back to all the navigation users that have made the last year such a success for us. We have been throwing around some ideas for a while, but most of the good ones (“trade in your old paper maps for a cell phone!”) simply aren’t feasible. What we ended up deciding on, was the simple gift of advice, and there is nothing we are more qualified to give advice about than how to get the most out of turn-by-turn navigation.

For the millions who decide to brave the madness that is the after-Christmas sales on the 26th, we decided to look at where the crowds will be the worst, so you can try and avoid the mayhem. On December 26, the top five most searched destinations include Walmart, Best Buy, and Target (we like to think this is more about cashing in on those new gift cards, as opposed to returning bad gifts), Starbucks (to re-energize), and Bank of America (because even the best sales won’t make products free). Well, it may not be possible to avoid all these places, our advice is to go to the smaller stores on your list first, and save the Walmart’s of the world for the next week.

Along with Christmas, we also wanted to give some advice on how to best use navigation on New Years. One of the best parts of New Year’s Eve is that we often don’t know exactly how our nights are going to end up, and although this can be exciting, it can also lead to disaster. With navigation, you should never feel lost. Top searches on New Year’s Eve include Bars and Nightclubs, Hotels and Motels, and of course Taxi’s. No matter what your plans are, we recommend using your navigation device to help make sure you end up where you want to.

We hope that this may help a little bit, and we want to wish everyone a wonderful and safe holiday.

Everyone knows somebody that, to put it nicely, is “navigationally challenged.” Some people will admit it and some will not, but if ten minute trips are routinely taking half an hour, it is safe to say that these people can benefit from a navigation device.

Finding the right gift for someone can often be a challenging ordeal, and with this in mind, we wanted to throw out the idea of giving someone turn-by-turn navigation this holiday season. While the new sweaters and random bread makers sit around the house and go largely unused, turn-by-turn navigation will often provide immediate benefits, and can be a gift that makes you stand out from the crowd.

When giving navigation as a gift, there are two important steps to follow. The first is to find the people who need navigation. Not surprisingly—this is not that difficult. Key signs to look for are people showing up perpetually late, trips routinely taking longer than they should, or a car filled with crumpled up directions printed from the Internet.

Secondly, you need to know how to position your gift. Some people are aware of their direction difficulties, but many people are not. If you have someone who you are worried about offending, we recommend telling them that you know they are “tech savvy” and thought that they would find this interesting. The fact that it will give them directions is besides the point (saying this with a straight face is key).

No matter what gifts you decide on, we wish you a stress-free holiday shopping season, and if you know a certain someone who seems to get lost a little more than they should, think about turn-by-turn nav.

To see a full list of the turn-by-turn nav options offered by NIM, check out: http://www.networksinmotion.com/products/default.php

Thanksgiving is a holiday filled with traditions and familiar routines. Whether it is going to the store to pick up a turkey, learning about the pilgrims in school, or daydreaming about pumpkin pie, there are certain activities that simply go along with the time of year.

In the last few years, however, there has been a new Thanksgiving activity that’s gaining popularity…GPS navigation! We have been checking out the numbers, and it turns out that navigation use on Thanksgiving Day is rising, and it has become one of the busiest GPS holidays of the year.

We can think of numerous reasons why people may need to use their nav system on Thanksgiving, ranging from people searching for where they can find the perfect ingredient, to travelers who need a little assistance getting to their relative’s house.

However you choose to you use your navigation system though, we hope you have smooth travels and a great holiday. As you head out over the river and through the woods…don’t be afraid to pull out your GPS system to get to grandma’s house–it can be tough to find, and we all deserve a relaxing trip.

From everyone here at NIM, we would like to wish you a Happy Labor Day weekend.

We know that many people will take advantage of the long weekend with a trip somewhere, and whether you are going to a barbeque, visiting family, or taking that final trip of the summer to the beach, if you can remember to bring the sunscreen, we can cover you with the directions.

If you choose to stay at home, we hope you have a relaxing weekend, and if you do decide to take a trip somewhere, we wish you safe travels, warm weather, and hopefully no crying babies in the car (even the best navigation systems can’t help with that).