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Advice for Entrepreneurs

9 Feb

Last night I spoke to the Women’s Economic Venture’s Self Employment Training Class about my experience last spring taking the class. I used my notes from speaking to the fall 2010 class; last night I was joined by three graduates of that class who clearly remembered me when I walked in.

In addition to what I mentioned last time, I added a bit about participating in the Women’s Conference in October and how that spurred me to publish my 3:15 experiment poetry collection as well as the value of saying “yes” as I also learned on my recent trip to Egypt. Before I left, I handed out business cards and bookmarks and invited them all to subscribe to this blog!

Below are the notes I used for my talk; the advice applies to taking many classes!

Women’s Economic Ventures (WEV) asked me to be on a panel tonight to talk with the new students in the Self-Employment Training (SET)  … Read More

via The Write Alley

How To Be A Part of A Creative Community

2 Feb

Eric Wallner sent me an email about a new project the City of Ventura is embarking on where seven community members bring in slides to show about one idea or another; the presentations are followed by conversation. The first community building event is being held tonight in downtown Ventura; it starts with food and networking and features several architects as well as ArtBarn founder Lynne Okun; I will be involved in a future event. Learn more about 20×20 below.

Contribute to A Creative Community What kind of a creative community do YOU want to live in? On Wednesday, head to downtown Ventura to see the vision of seven individuals and to participate in conversations to make these visions become reality! Ventura’s 20×20 event this Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011 offers food and good times.  Take this as an opportunity to mix with the community and push forward fresh dialogue on what’s happening in Ventura! Time:    6-9pm Where:  230 E. Main S … Read More

via art predator

Tuesday Tips: 7 Ways to Success With Twitter

1 Feb

Are you using Twitter for yourself or for your business? Are you getting anything out of it?

What I hear from folks (all the time!) is that they don’t get Twitter or they’re on it and they’re not getting anything out of it.

So when I read this email from @Biz, @Ev, and @Jack co-founders of Twitter http://twitter.com, and saw these four basic tips for you to improve your experience on Twitter in 2011, I knew I should pass them on.

1) Follow your interests.

The Twitter founders say they’ve found that the people who enjoy Twitter most tend to follow a variety of accounts: friends, family, people in their profession, local shops and events, and most importantly, people who share their passions.

That’s true for me, too! I follow about 1200 people, many of them social media savvy and from the wine industry, but I also follow poets, and travelers, and artists…  a wide range of people who share content of interest to me.

2) Get specific. Like sports? Follow your favorite leagues, teams, players, coaches, commentators, writers and fellow fans. Love food? Follow chefs, restaurants, critics, bloggers, specialty shops and respected foodies.

As I said above, I follow a number of my interests, but a lot of it is related to wine and social media. My husband, who does not have a Twitter account, went to Twitter first to see if I was posting anything on it while I was in Egypt (and yes, he did find a tweet or two and a link to a some photos!) From there, he went to various hashtags (#) on topics of his interest. He’s gone back to Twitter to find out about specific events or people and he’s surprised to find out how useful it is.

3) Don’t panic. People turn to Twitter during emergencies. Snowstorms, power outages and fires are just a few emergencies where Twitter may be helpful. Search for #hashtags and follow local civic accounts to stay informed.

This is similar to my husband’s approach–turning to Twitter for specific information. You don’t have to have an account or follow anyone or be followed in order to use Twitter.

4) Return to Twitter. There are about 200 million accounts on Twitter now – that means new interests, new voices, and new ideas every day. Twitter offers services in seven languages, apps for most devices, and SMS worldwide.

The truth is, while there may be 200 million accounts on Twitter (according to Twitter), but most of them are barely active or they fall into the “This is what I had for lunch” and “I’m bored” and “I’m at the gym” etc type tweets. Just ignore the content that doesn’t interest you. It’s not necessary to judge a whole social media platform based on how some people use it.

Curious if you have any Twitter “clout”? Want to know how to get more? (more…)

Tuesday Tips: 25 Best Practices for Email Marketing

25 Jan

Kelly Flint, self-professed email geek says “Stay in front of your customers by landing in their inbox.  Less is more; get it out the door!”

In this blog post, I go over some of what I learned from Kelly about email marketing: why and how it works, tips, strategy, techniques, list building, permission marketing, and content tips.

So why should you use email marketing? 91% internet users use email; 225 million people in the US, including seniors which is the biggest growing segment of the internet population. Direct mail costs 20x more than email.

Email ROI: average $43. 52 returned for every $1 (WOW!)  Learning how to do it well by increasing your use of the following best practices, your open rate will increase that ROI. Average open rate is 12%, but if you have great content, the open rate can increase greatly–and your return on investment.

Here are 25 Best Practices for Email Marketing: (more…)

Why I Love WordPress; Why I Teach WordPress

6 Jan

Is one of your New Year’s Resolutions to explore social media and learn what it can do for you?

Yesterday I had two meetings with two very different people about how to use various social media platforms for business and pleasure.

Both are comfortable with facebook and understand the basics of how to use it for themselves. One had a twitter account but didn’t do much with it beyond broadcasting links to products (which is basically kind of spammy) and the other thought it was only a place where people posted about what they had for lunch. Both were curious about blogging and whether it might be a worthwhile endeavor.

Our sessions were incredibly productive, satisfying, and rewarding for them and for myself. One person I knew quite well already and we were able to jump right in while with the other person we spent some time getting to know each other to learn how social media might be useful and how we might work together. Both learned quite a bit more about facebook, twitter, and blogging.

Whenever I talk about blogging, I talk about WordPress. While there are many different platforms out there, and sometimes people who I talk to already are on one of them.

But I’m convinced WordPress is the best blogging platform out there whether you’re looking for something that’s free or you’re going to host a blog or website yourself. The result is that both are very interesting in learning the basics of blogging. Since so much of it is introductory, it makes sense to offer another class on blogging using WordPress. Watch for more news on that soon.

A few of my reasons for using WordPress:

easy and intuitive

beautiful, flexible, graceful easy to read themes

open-source supportive helpful community

intuitive and easy

nice people

Watch the video and you’ll learn more!

How to get a Facebook biz page in 3 easy steps & what’s next

23 Dec

Is your business on Facebook? Or have you avoided the Facebook revolution even though you know you should be using Facebook for your business?

Here’s how to get a Facebook account for your business and not really be on Facebook yourself, and what to do with your Facebook page once you have it. (more…)

Are You Smarter in a Group?

22 Dec

“There’s been a tendency to focus on the negative, the mob psychology, the idea that people can bring out the worst in each other,”  says Robert Goldstone, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University. “There’s just as much evidence that people can bring out the best in each other.”

While we’ve all sat through tedious meetings that accomplished little if anything, we’ve also seen the opposite where group intelligence was greater than our own.

Recent research says yes, you are smarter when you work in a group: group intelligence outperforms what you would expect to find by averaging the IQs of individuals in the group. Carolyn Y. Johnson reports  in her article “Group IQ” in The Boston Globe that group intelligence “is not strongly tied to either the average intelligence of the members or the team’s smartest member.” The research also found that, surprisingly,

a group’s motivation, satisfaction, and unity were unimportant. Instead, the researchers found that when a group had a high level of collective intelligence, the members tended to score well on a test that measured how good they were at reading other people’s emotions. They also found that groups with overbearing leaders who were reluctant to cede the floor and let the others talk did worse than those in which participation was better distributed and people took turns speaking.

Research also indicated that groups with the best performance change over time and that

the proportion of women in the group was a predictor of collective intelligence — a factor they believe was likely influenced by women’s generally superior social sensitivity.

“Instead of seeing groups as nameless and faceless affiliations that swallow up an individual’s identity, the new work on collective behavior suggests that in company lies opportunity,” writes Carolyn Y. Johnson in her article “Group IQ” in The Boston Globe December 19, 2010.

In company lies opportunity for YOU!

This reminds me of the importance of networking. Not just to make contacts for your business and maybe a sale, but for the benefits of connecting with the group intelligence.

I think this is one of the reasons why I enjoy the Women’s Business Socials held each month in Ojai (the next one is Tuesday January 18 from 6-pm at Azu). My intelligence quotient goes up exponentially when I engage with these other smart, interesting business women.

In 2011, one of my resolutions is to attend at least two networking events a month with people I enjoy and admire. That means I’m going to do my best to attend gatherings of Linchpins, Green Drinks, Thirsty Girls, and, of course, the Women’s Business Socials!

What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

winter solstice lunar eclipse: rituals for self, world, business!

20 Dec

Here in the northern hemisphere, tonight is the last night of fall 2010 which means tomorrow the day’s will start to get longer and the night’s shorter.

Tonight is also unusual because the moon is full AND there’s a lunar eclipse which will be in full swing around midnight.

So that means tonight’s the kind of night to “reset” your clock and to set in motion your intentions for the coming year of growth and change.

While many of the ancient peoples found events like these to be full of fear, they also found ways to meet the challenge.

This blog post from Art Predator shares some rituals I’ve used to mark the winter solstice and a lunar eclipse.

At the very least, light a candle and set down in words goals you have for yourself personally, for your business, and for how you want to be in the world around you.

winter solstice lunar eclipse: rites of passage …[existential] changes of condition do not occur without disturbing the life of society and the individual, and it is the function of rites of passage to reduce their harmful effects. That such are regarded as real and important is demonstrated by the occurrence of rites, in important ceremonies among widely differing peoples, enacting death in one condition and resurrection in another. — Arn … Read More

via art predator

Women’s Business Social Meets at Ojai Valley Inn: bring books!

16 Dec

On Thursday, December 16 from 5:30-7pm the Women’s Business Social meets at the Ojai Valley Inn.

Join in the spirit of the season by bringing books to give to young people who are incarcerated at the local California Youth Authority facility. Patti Michaels suggested this idea to No More Nylons founder and host of the Socials Jodi Womack and the idea took off from there. Here’s an article from examiner.com about donating books which quotes yours truly.

“Ventura Youth Correctional Facility (VYCF) oversees 360 Youth here in Ventura County who have been incarcerated for major crimes,” posted Patti on the No More Nylons facebook page. “The ages of the Youth are as young as 12 years old and on up to 24 years. If you have books within your library that have touched you and have changed your life in a profound way, please consider donating them to this cause by bringing your books to the next Women’s Business Social Event Thursday night at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa.”

I taught writing and literature course for Ventura College to incarcerated young men out at CYA and saw for myself how hungry they were for reading materials that engaged their minds and inspired their souls.

This can be a great way to turn the young people there onto literature–to feed their minds and their imaginations. Many of them are quite bright; they just lack educational opportunities and cultural capital.

For the literature class, I had the guys select from several novel choices to form “book club” discussion groups for class. I asked friends and family to donate the books so the students could write in them and keep them.

They were really fascinated by all the “hidden” meanings in the literature we studied. It got them thinking about symbolism in art and all around us. I also brought in a huge pile of Rolling Stone magazines–that really made them happy!

So please think back to when you were in high school and your early years of college and please bring books to the Social to donate!

More Social Media Tips & Tools

15 Dec

I’m attending Constant Contact’s free social media workshop…so you don’t have to…and will be sharing the highlights here for you! See the previous post for the first part of this two part blog post.

While social media tools are free or low-cost, they can have a huge price: your time.

The presenter argues that all a small business needs to do is 15 minutes a day three days a week to maintain a social media presence that’s consistent and active.

I would disagree: if you have plenty of time, if your business is young, or if you’re underemployed, invest time in social media, especially if you are blogging–which she isn’t addressing in this workshop.

Recycle and reuse content. Post the link to your email or blog post to social media sites. You can even break down information from a larger article into smaller Facebook or Twitter sized updates.

Make sure you cross promote your various social media platforms.

Social networks offer YOU a chance to share your message but also a chance for OTHERS to talk about you, so you’d better monitor the web for what people are saying.

If someone says something, respond! If it’s positive, thank them! Engage them! If what they said is NOT positive, you need to respond immediately and take it offline quickly.

Bad feedback? Contact the person immediately and take it offline. Don’t be defensive: fix the problem.

In addition to monitoring, it’s important to measure your impact. Start with a baseline. Figure out what you want to measure and get that information, possibly into a spreadsheet like Excel. Then experiment with the different platforms and see what the results are.

Some tools:

NutshellMail.com is a monitoring tool.

Google Alerts sends you an email notice about whatever topic you want to know about: your name, your business, your blog, your community.

HootSuite and TweetDeck help you to monitor what’s happening on various social media platforms.

bit.ly shortens links and provides tracking information.

Constantcontact.com offers more free tools and free trial for 60 days.

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