Evolve Your Biz Through Coworking in 2010!
Happy New Year to all! As we look back over 2009 and look forward to 2010 a great mantra comes to mind- Rather than creating a list of “resolutions” that quickly fade away (and leave us with deflated egos!), decide to evolve instead! As business owners and entrepreneurs, we are constantly forced to evolve our businesses to stay ahead of the curve and remain competitive. Evolution is simply that- change over time.
What better way to focus on your biz evolutions than to spend the day working side by side with like-minded entrepreneurs! Coworking is a great way to get a change of scenery from your home (or bland corporate) office and hang in the presence of some of Philly’s brightest entreps. Share ideas, make connections and gain new perspectives- all of which are limited by the confines of your isolated cube!
Coworking is at it’s core about reciprocity- The mutual or cooperative interchange of favors or privileges; i.e., you give, you get. Your ideas and hindsight 20/20 reflections on lessons learned can translate across industries to help other professionals (new or veteran). In turn, those same peers have perspectives to share from their unique experiences that can help you as you work on your own business. This organic approach to business development promotes the open share of ideas with the common goal of improving all of our businesses in a collaborative process.
If you are committed to evolving your business in 2010, coworking is for you. Our group represents the open share of ideas and the strengthening of the entrepreneurial community here in Philadelphia across all industries.
We had a great turnout at our last event, and have an even bigger crowd registered for our event on 1/7. Check out some of our coworkers from December in our quickie vlog post: http://www.watchuslaunch.com/ and check out the pic below:
We would love to have you join us for our next coworking day!
Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010 starting at 10am
Location: Chapterhouse Cafe- we will be downstairs
620 South 9th Street Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia, PA 19147-2028
Learn more about the event and be sure to RSVP on our site. Follow all of our participant tweets #EECoworking.
Announcing: Coworking and Networking Days in Philly!
- At a desk
- 2 monitors running
- Large coffee resting dangerously close to the keyboard
- USB hub filled to capacity
- Music playing
- IMing with partner as emailing 2 different clients
- 8 Internet tabs and 4 spreadsheets open
- Dog sleeping at your feet…which are still in slippers
Describe your working environment on Thursday, December 10th:
- At a big round table surrounded by great art, hardwood floors and rich burgundy walls
- Hot fresh chai, latte, or coffee in hand, made by someone else
- Engaging in great conversation with an entrepreneur about a new project idea
- Making new connections with local business owners
- Music playing overhead
- Still answering emails and IMing with partners
Interested?
Emily Morgan and Cheryl Amaya of Entrepreneur’s Entourage are!
Entrepreneur’s Entourage will be hosting our first off-site Coworking & Networking Day in Philadelphia! This month’s will be Thursday, December 10th at Double Shots Coffee, located at 211 Chestnut Street in Old City. We will be there starting at 10am, so drop by anytime, open up your laptop, start a conversation, grab some great coffee or a pastry and get some work done…or at least some good networking done! Maybe we can even convince our favorite Double Shots owner, Steve to make us some fresh gingerbread cookies like he did for us today!
Coworking may be a new concept to you, or coworking may be something you are big fan of and are currently supporting in Philadelphia through jelly sessions or established coworking office spaces. Whether you run a virtual or brick and mortar business, coworking not only provides you with an escape from your office for the day but it also facilitates connections and offers opportunities to think and communicate more creatively about your business, bounce ideas off of other entreps and could even lead to new business!
So, bust out of your lonely office for the morning or afternoon and experience a new type of collaborative work environment; Coworking in Center City Philadelphia!
Please RSVP to let us know you will be joining this fabulous group, and check for any updates on the Entrepreneur’s Entourage website as well! Be sure to leave your comments below with any suggestions or feedback you might have on the event.
All day we will be tweeting and blogging to bring you updates about this coworking and networking day. If you are going to share your comments or posts from the event please use #EECoworking.
Keep up with us:
Finding The Relevance of the GCECS/Innovation Philadelphia Conference
The Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit was not only a mouthful to say but an earful of information. From workshops to panel presentations to pecha kucha slide shows one could gain insight on just about any topic closely related to the creative workforce. Both Emily and I were glad to be a part of this convergence summit on October 5th & 6th, 2009, and pleased with what we got out of it.
Day one started off with a welcome by Kelly Lee, President of Innovation Philadelphia, and was followed by an interesting breakfast talk by Elizabeth Gilbert. We all know her from her famous book, Eat Pray Love, but few of us knew (before this week) about the next book she is putting out early 2010 about marriage! Yup, you guessed it with whom she got remarried to! Elizabeth told us of her life and dreams and inspired us to find our creativity in ours.
Entrepreneur’s Entourage gave a Social Media workshop following the breakfast keynote. We expected a much different crowd, and not knowing anything about our participants’ backgrounds, nor how many were planning on attending, we decided to be creative in our presentation to better meet the needs of our participants. Our workshop introduced effective ways to build any social media campaign and then turned it into a Q&A/Discussion. We found that many people had specific questions about their current practices and wanted feedback on how to do it all better. I am so thankful that our web guru Mary was presenting with me to help answer the dozens of questions. All in all I think we helped a ton of people understand how to run their campaign with differentiation, relevance, efficiency and quality.
Later that afternoon Emily, Founder of Entrepreneur’s Entourage, sat on a panel discussing alternative workspaces. Many participants here were interested in the co-working buzz and how to find ways to make their office use some of the alternative practices to save money and go green. Emily talked a lot about industries that are ideal candidates for outsourcing and the benefits of using virtual professionals. Her other fellow panelists included David Walker, who runs a co-working space in Austin, Todd Sundsted, a manager of Shift101, and Nathan Gasser, Founder of Rock River Star.
The second day of the event was kicked off, rather abruptly, but the one and only Peter Shankman. He was his usual entertaining self and focused on the importance of relevance in a social media campaign and how to effectively market your business. Other great sessions throughout the event were delivered by Jane McGonigal, via Skype, all about the use of gaming to optimize human ability (which was really fascinating); Gloria Bell, Hajj Flemings and Melinda Emerson on growing your creative passion; and Emily Morgan on taking your office virtual and the green benefits. You can see that presentation at: http://watchuslaunch.com
The opportunities for networking each night of this 2-day event felt rushed. We had so many contacts lined up to speak with and ended up speaking to only 1 each night! Just one! But, that one conversation each night was fun, insightful and meaningful. We thank David Walker of Conjunctured and Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, for their time and open discussions about business growth and networking!
Innovation Philadelphia hosted a great event and brought together some very talented entrepreneurs and professionals as speakers, sponsors, attendees and volunteers. We look forward to working with them again in the future. We also look forward to following up with everyone who attended our sessions and provided us with such great feedback and support.
EE Live! We are excited to be a part of the GCECS Summit 2009!
Creative industry types from across the world are coming to the City of Brotherly Love for Innovation Philadelphia’s second Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit on October 5-6, 2009. Whether you are an entrepreneur, a graphic or web designer, business exec, or something in between, there is sure to be something for everyone with more than 100 speakers scheduled for this year’s event. With a variety of panels and workshops, and keynote speakers such as Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert and social media guru Peter Shankman, the Summit is bringing together the best of the best from an assortment of creative industries to network, exchange ideas, and share information. Check out www.GCECS2009.com to register and to see all the latest news about the Summit.
Emily and Cheryl will be giving three presentations, all focused around the topic of “Going Virtual!”
We are presenting on:
- 20 Ways to Take your Business Virtual
- Breaking the Cube: Alternative Workspace- for freelancers and those looking to source them
- Social Media for your Business
We would love to meet you in person and learn more about your creative industry!
Blog, Blogging, Video Blogging – How much is enough?
Social Media is all the rage right now, and rightfully so. Where else can you tap into your target market, share your content, and even get their feedback? One of the other big draws to social marketing is the affordability. One aspect of social media that is often overlooked is blogging. Blogging is creating posts online, relating to a specific subject, your business, your passion, your hobby, or just what you happen to see that day walking to work. There is no right or wrong answer about what to post, as long as you keep it clean and are sharing relevant information.
Did you know that it is National Blog Posting Month? Of course you did because you are in touch with the latest trends and have your pulse on the social market. And if you didn’t know about NaBloPoMo09 then don’t think your career is doomed, just get involved with the internet and become active in social media campaigns, namely blogging! Blogging is also good for the environment, it saves trees, it lets you share your thoughts with your target market in a non-intimidating manner, and it is low cost.
In case you are not a blogger, here are some more reasons for you to become a believer. Blogging helps improve your search engine rankings through easy to implement SEO, increases your customer base, and gets your name and brand out there to your target market. Blogging is just journaling online and can live on a variety of free and inexpensive hosting sites once you figure out a catchy domain name for your blog! This blog becomes your first image and your web page to promote your brand.
If you are running a blog, good for you! Share it with us in your comments and we will take a peek and hopefully learn some new information or at least have a good read! Do you have a good audience for your blog? While we are proud of you for getting your thoughts and ideas out there, how effective is your time being spent if no one is listening? Marketing, email campaigns, and building an audience is an essential part of your social media, namely blogging, campaign.
Have you thought about video blogging? Vlogs are more involved that posting a video of you talking on your website. A Vlog is more along the lines of a video journal or a video post as just another way to share your information. You can vlog on anything you can blog on; for example we vlogged about the launch of our business! I can’t tell you how many takes we did some days and how much fun we had documenting this process in such a unique way. It sure beat coming home after a long business development day and feeling obligated to write a long blog post. Check it out if you want some good insight as well as some good laughs! http://www.watchuslaunch.com
At the end of the day, blogging and vlogs are just good business practice. Take a moment to set yours up, talk to a friend, or call us to make it happen. As long as the content is relevant and interesting keep on posting!
What is a “Virtual Professional?”
Times are changing in our Virtual industry! With more and more highly skilled people out of work, and the concept of virtual work environments becoming more widely accepted; it’s a natural progression within our economy to blend the two into a new hybrid, now termed the “Virtual Professional.”
A Virtual Professional can essentially be described as any creative or technically-skilled professional performing services remotely. Because the terminology is so new, it’s not surprising that we are writing the definition in real-time. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most active VPs within this growing industry:
Graphic Designers- Web Designers
- Copywriters
- Bookkeepers
- Business Consultants
- Social Media experts
- Online Marketers
- Public Relations Reps
- Sales Reps
Let’s face it, Going Virtual is a greening, cost-effective option for companies and a freeing, results-only work environment for employees or freelancers. Entrepreneurs with little or no office space can effectively partner with VPs to launch new products, start-up a side business or build out an existing business. In Corporate America, even large companies like Best Buy, IBM and AT&T have a reported 40% of their workforce working “remotely.” Couple that massive acceptance of virtual office arrangements with a floundering economy and talented employees looking to create some sense of stability in their lives, and you have set the stage for the emergence of Virtual Professionals.
What the heck is a Vlog and why do I need one in my biz?
Video Blogs, also known as vlogs, are entries that are primarily composted of embedded video or video links rather than text. Vlogs are taking on almost any topic imaginable from documenting research, to delivering news, to sharing a special moment. Video Blogs have been around for almost a decade, but it was just in the last couple of years that they have become an accepted form of marketing and communication. Vlogging started gaining momentum in 2005-2006 with the launch of YouTube and then the creation of the first annual video blogging awards – the Vloggies in November of 2006!
And the users of video blogging might surprise you. While all vlogs are experimental, some have a little further reach than others. Politicians are hosting their own vlogs to share information and answer questions. Radio and TV shows are using video blogs to interact with more listeners and viewers. Even iTunes allows you to upload video through their podcasts! Check out a sample here:
There are many sites to host your video blog. If you already have a blog check there first, as almost all allow video uploads. Some good sites for hosting a blog as well as a video blog are WordPress, Blogger, and Typepad. If you are launching with just a vlog then look into a video hosting site. Sites like WordPress have specific video themes (skins) that you can purchase to kick up your vlog. We went with a Woo Theme, “Groovy” to host our vlog, www.watchuslaunch.com. Install some google analytics and you’re good to go!
Tip: To shoot easy video for your vlog, check out a Flip Cam- available at Best Buy, etc for around $100! This cool, palm-sized camera has a built in USB port that snaps right into your computer. Just shoot, flip and upload it right to your YouTube account. And it even comes in cool colors like pink, orange and green, so you can fully personalize your vlogging experience!
Getting your message out there: Whether you want to share your birthday party video with your sister, show a new product about to be released to your end users, or just give some insight into starting a business (www.watchuslaunch.com) you have to promote and market your vlog. Social media tools are an excellent grass roots campaign starter. Depending on the scope of your reach you may just want to keep the videos public on YouTube and promote them within your industry circle. Either way, using RSS allows others to subscribe to your site or have your content feed into their reader. This is simple if you have an existing blog that you can add your video to. Record yourself, post it, and share it! We hope to hear about more of your joining the video blogging world!
The Basics of Social Marketing – Is it Meaningful?
Social Marketing through social media is a hot buzz word right now, but it actually has some weight to it, so it is time you put together your social marketing campaign. There are a plethora of social media outlets to tap into, but for this free marketing to pay off and grow your business you need to focus your efforts on what is meaningful. Here are just the basics to consider when planning your campaign.
Twittering can be fun as well as lead generating! Twitter is essentially mobile blogging and an easy way to share thoughts while keeping up with fellow enthusiasts, industry professionals and friends. Be leery of the proposals to grow your followers to 10,000 with one easy step. Do you really want that many followers? Is it meaningful? http://twitter.com/EntrepEntourage
Facebook is the next generation of Myspace. Facebook allows you to create a business page, let others comment on it, find old friends, make new friends, and send group emails. Facebook needs special attention to not become a sales tool. It will be more meaningful as a marketing tool. http://www.facebook.com/people/Cheryl-Lever-Amaya/1587900093
LinkedIn should also be a part of your social marketing campaign. This site is strictly professional and great for networking with specific target markets. Use LinkedIn for press release circulation, Q&A from industry specific groups, and as a place for meaningful professional associations. http://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylamaya
Blogging lets the world know your thoughts, your actions and your intentions. It is a great way to get your name circulated to establish your brand. Blogs can feed into almost any social media site. Video blogging is also starting to break ground; even Barnes & Noble are video blogging to give you the experience of chatting with a knowledgeable bookseller on the Internet!
Yelp is a user-generated review site for all businesses and services and is organized by geographic location. You, your family, your neighbors, your friends, and your customers need to Yelp about your business. Not only is this a great social marketing tool and a way for potential customers to find your products and services, but it also is a free tool to get feedback and constructive criticism without having to ask for it! Absolutely meaningful.
Keep Connected!
Entrepreneur’s Entourage: Customize * Strategize * Organize * Realize
Next Social Media update: Tools to use to make your social updates more productive.
