Tag Archives: downeast learning

This Week In Business: Gas Station Coffee Edition

24 September

I always know I’m going on a big trip when I am drinking terrible gas station coffee. I kind of look forward to it actually!

After my presentation at Social Media FTW with Lenny Tracy of the Maine Real Estate Network, who sat through it. See how relieved I look? -Photo Courtesy of Maine Today

After my presentation at Social Media FTW with Lenny Tracy of the Maine Real Estate Network, who sat through it. See how relieved I look? -Photo Courtesy of Maine Today

This week, I headed to Social Media FTW in Portland to present about business blogging. Nothing like standing up in front of 150ish people with a mic on knowing you’re being videotaped. I had a good time but I was also really nervous… I think it went well anyway!

If/when the presentations go online, I’ll link them on this blog. But for the moment, here is a link to the slides of my presentation. You know, in case you want to feel like you were there.

Here’s what else happened this week:

Matt and I got a little more organized with the Downeast Learning workshops.

There seems to be two groups of people we contact about our workshops. 1) Publications who need to know about something way ahead of time to be able to publish it. and 2) People who only need it about a week ahead (as in they need a time constraint to actually register). Matt organized our press email list (and we have a separate email list we maintain off the Downeast Learning website of other people).  Now we can make sure the notification goes out twice: once a month ahead for the publications (and people) and once one week ahead to remind folks to sign up.

Matt and I are also going to try to live stream this next workshop to see if we can have people remotely register to attend workshops. We’ll keep you posted about if it worked.

To make sure we got in the print version of the Ellsworth Chamber newsletter, we also decided on our workshop topic for next month. You’ve Been Yelped! is all about the use of online review websites and how they can help businesses and non-profits can get and use online reviews to their advantage. There, now you know a month ahead! Though honestly, if anyone would sign up this early, you’d officially shock me.

My blog continued its move to WordPress.

At the talk I gave, I told people how I’ve moved my blog three times to different software/domains. I swear this move to WordPress was the last (from MyBlog, a Joomla component, in case you were curious).

Last week was the big move: making the software live and making sure everything worked overall. This past week has been tweaking things. I’ve been adding plugins, tagging blog posts, and otherwise polishing the content that’s on this site.

Do you believe it’s been four years since I’ve started the Breaking Even blog? Crazy!

I decided to tell people I would have to hold off on their work for a few days… and the world didn’t end.

I think those of us who work alone can think the world will don’t end if we don’t do everything right away. I had applied to be part of the Social Media FTW conference a few months ago and the last few weeks, work has gotten really busy. Ah, timing.

I had two choices: 1) Not sleep for the next month. or 2) Tell people there was going to be a bit of a delay. Since I need sleep so I don’t become Crazy Sleep-Deprived Nicole, I opted for option 2. Guess what? The world did not end. My clients were ok waiting a couple days. I love that people are reasonable…

I had breakfast with someone absolutely inspiring.

Samantha Warren is one of those rare people that has managed to be friends with a lot of my friends on Facebook without me having met her. And it’s not one of those cases where she knows people from one part of my life. I decided we should meet for breakfast, as cool people and fellow small business owners.

We had such a nice time: great conversation about life, work, and all the people we have in common. One idea she had that I thought was great was making a ‘procedures’ document, in case someone ever has to take over work for her (and also as a checklist to make sure all things she does get done on schedule). Anyway, if I ever need a wedding photographer, I think I’ve got one.

So while this week was a lot of driving, it was a great week in terms of meeting people and networking.

If you met me this week, I do hope you’ll comment below so I can follow you online as well. Have a good rest of the week!

This Week In Business: The Too Much Information Edition

04 June

Do you ever ask yourself what you think is an innocent question involving a bit of internet research only to find two weeks later, you know way too much about what doesn’t work and why?

I researched different web conferencing software packages including GoTo Meeting, Teamviewer, WebEx, iLinc, DimDim, and MegaMeeting. (I am only listing them here to make myself feel like I did something during that seemingly wasted work time!)

Besides doing a lot that didn’t work, here’s what happened:

I found Skype (with the Mikogo add-on) was perfect for holding free and productive web conferences.

I was looking for a cost effective (read: free or cheap) way to hold virtual meetings. It began with Skype until I realized that I couldn’t share my screen on a group conference call. After this, I tried all kinds of different web conferencing solutions including the ones that didn’t work above. They were either cost prohibitive ($50 or more per month) or they lacked in an important way (like having a 2.5 second sound delay). Continue Reading →

This Week In Business: Lack Of Sleep Edition

16 April

It’s been an interesting week here at Breaking Even Communications and in my life in general.

I’ve had a hard time sleeping, which is uncharacteristic of me. Most of what’s on my mind was thoughts of my grandfather. It was confirmed yesterday that he has liver cancer. He is one of my favorite people in the world, and one of my role models as far as being a good person.

I used to think that there would be times in my life that would be easier and times that would be harder. The older I get though, the more I realize that most times in life will be sort of mixed, and there is importance and even satisfaction in just moving forward. So onward for Pepere, and myself…

Here’s what’s been going on businesswise this week:

Matt and my workshop went really well…and we’re already planning another.

Besides running out of time and not having a good system to answer people’s questions, things went smoothly last Saturday. We have been asked about follow-up workshops, not only by people who came but by people who heard about it.

We decided to use our common website to post information about upcoming workshops and how-tos about the topics we didn’t get to. If you want to check it out: http://www.downeastlearning.com. We’re planning one in May about making websites search engine friendly. Stay tuned!

I gave a talk about blogging at my local library.

Last night, I gave a talk with a fellow local blogger at the Jessup Memorial Library. Four people showed up, which was a lower turnout than I was hoping.

Continue Reading →

This Week In Business: Dress Rehearsal Edition

09 April

It’s finally spring in this corner of the world, I hope you’ve been enjoying nature equally where you are at!

Matt and I are finally giving our workshop Saturday and in regards to that, it’s been a week of learning software here at Breaking Even Communications. Here’s what’s been going on:

I am trying ManyMoon project management software.
I use Google Applications a lot for my business. (Full disclosure: I own one share of Google one thing I was looking for was integration of project management software with my Google Calendar. It was in looking around that I stumbled on the Google Apps marketplace. This is kind of misleading, as I assumed all these programs would cost money. Au contraire!

I looked for the highest rated project management apps and found Manymoon. There are both paid and non-paid versions of the software (I’m clearly trying out the free one) but it allows me to schedule tasks that I can associate with individual projects and that will be imported into my Google Calendar. Also, I can collaborate with multiple people on the same project, though I think we all need Google accounts to sign in.

Continue Reading →