Light, Motion and Magic

Happy Birthday to me! I began this Light, Motion and Magic blog a year ago - and what a great year it has been! Today I’d like to write a little about what I’ve learned from the blogging experience - and since this blog is all about being a woman entrepreneur starting my business - I’ll outline where my business efforts are right now.

This blogging experience has been terrific. There have been both outward and inward benefits to this blog. I started it because I realized that there is an online community that I would need to understand, reach out to and be a part of if I were ever going to make a success of my online business. That online community is every bit as robust as I thought it would be, and more. The other blogs and bloggers that I’ve followed, those I’ve communicated with in forums, and the additional Twitter community that I engage with has simply become a part of my life now. Yes, it takes up time, but it’s well, well worth it. I have a genuine fondness and respect for the friends I’ve made online, and the times I’ve reached out, I’ve rarely been disappointed.

On an internal level, I can’t overstate how important it has been, as I’ve gone through this business start-up process, to take the time to concentrate my thoughts and experiences as I’ve gone along. Yes, it’s been hard to think of exactly what to write about sometimes, but the effort has always been rewarding, and has often crystallized my thinking, or spurred me to more needed research.

I am very, very glad that I took the leap to try this online format, and I look forward to another year with you!

My latest test of patience in getting Miri Market off the ground is finally drawing to an end. Johannes will be done with the design enhancements soon, which I am very excited to see. After that, I look forward to getting reactions to the concept from people through online surveys and face-to-face research.

The economic conditions in which we find ourselves is going to affect my business decisions, without a doubt. It’s tough enough to get a business off the ground, even without the tremors of a looming economic crisis shaking that very ground. I will continue to move forward very cautiously. Admittedly, getting Miri Market going has been s-l-o-w-w-w-w, but I’ve always believed that the process will unfold as it should, in due time. Perhaps the delays have been a good thing, and I should be grateful that the nervousness of watching the economy this week was not compounded by having a container of new product to launch and sell! These are uncertain times, for sure, highlighting the need to minimize risk and do my research to make sure this is a product that will be well-received.

Thus, I start out on Year Two of this blog. As I proceed with my business plans through the months ahead I will continue to write about my experiences and bring to you my honest observations and insights. I thank all my readers, and I hope you’ll keep stopping by to take this journey with me.

Tags:blog, Blogging, business decisions, economy, Light Motion and Magic, Miri Market, online community

I was honored to be asked by Matt over at the Hill Library Blog to be interviewed by a guest blogger writing an article for them about online networking. I happily agreed!

I was contacted and interviewed by Michael Benidt at HiddenBusinessTreasures.com. We had a great conversation. He offered some solid tips on online networking, and I shared with him some of my experiences. The result is the article Your Blog Can Beat LinkedIn At The Networking Game.

The gist of the article is that maintaining a blog makes you a part of the online community, and gives you a legitimate reason for contacting anyone else with an online presence. Like networking at an in-person event, you just have to reach out and make the contact. And most of the time, Michael Benidt says, people are happy to respond! Although it’s very difficult to build a dedicated readership for your blog, it’s much more effective to concentrate on building your network through your blog.

Michael relayed one of my networking experiences this way:

Want another way to use your blog to make an initial contact with a big wig in your industry or topic area?

Anne Florenzano writes the blog Light, Motion and Magic. While starting her business she’s simultaneously tracing and documenting her own experiences as a way to help other women entrepreneurs benefit from her experiences.

Anne also happens to live in the Twin Cities, so she hangs out at the physical James J. Hill Library (yes, there is one) in St. Paul. Which just means that she’s pretty adept at finding people’s contact information.

One of the craftiest ways that Anne found to network using her blog was her To-Do List for Starting a Company. She read four top-notch entrepreneurial books and then collated the information from all four of them into an incredibly useful checklist.

You can probably guess what Anne did next. She contacted all four authors to let them know about her To-Do List and to ask permission to use the material. All four wrote back to her – including Guy Kawasaki and David Meerman Scott.

Now, I don’t know about you – but I haven’t written to Kawasaki or Meerman Scott lately. Anne has. And certainly, her contact with these famous authors is “brought to you in part” by her blog.

I left a comment on the article clarifying one point:

Thanks so much for mentioning me in this article! I must correct you on one small point, however. Contacting the four authors before posting my To-Do List For Starting A Company was not a “crafty” strategy. I contacted them with the honest intent of being totally transparent and to get permission to use their ideas from their books in my own way. I had no ulterior networking ambitions. Perhaps that is why they all did respond to me, and very kindly - because I was clearly being honest and straightforward. That being said, I agree very much that all the people we see online in blogs and forums - the well-known and the obscure - are just an email away. We just have to reach out to them.

I do think that Michael Benidt is on to something here. It’s true with online networking as it is in everything in life: we can’t just “sign up and sit back.” We’ll get poor results by waiting for something to happen or someone to come to us. We’ll get much better networking results by actively reaching out. I personally believe you need to have a very real and transparent reason for contacting people, but if you really do have a legitimate purpose, don’t hesitate. Networking is what this “blog” thing is all about, anyway!

Tags:Blogging, blogging community, HiddenBusinessTreasures.com, Hill Library Blog, Michael Benidt, networking, To-Do List for Starting a Company, Your Blog Can Beat LinkedIn At The Networking Game

Today’s post is a question, actually. First brought up (I think) by Kate at Neato Keen.

IS THERE A SITE TO FIND OUT ABOUT SPECIAL BLOG-WIDE POSTING CHALLENGES?

Like the day we were all challenged to post about what we could do for the environment, or like NaBloPoMo, the widely accepted “National Blog Posting Month” when bloggers are challenged to blog every day in November…

Who starts them? Is it different bloggers? Does one site propose a challenge and it goes viral and the whole blogging community seems to know about it? Is there a supreme blogging guru who issues, and every blog writes?

Would someone please tell me?

Tags:blog-wide posting challenge, Blogging, blogging community, Neato Keen

Part of the long-term process of starting my company is starting this blog. To participate in the online network of connections and community is an indispensable part of doing business these days. And besides that - I enjoy it!

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the social and blogging networks Facebook, Entrecard and Work It! Mom over the last week. Learning the ropes, making connections and visiting other sites is very time-consuming but well worth the effort. I wanted to write about it today when I ran across this post from Dazzlin Donna called Friendship Pockets Form Via Social Networks.

“Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Mixx…need I go on?
There are too many social networks to even begin to list them all these
days, and keeping up with them can be a chore. But the advantages of
networking and connecting with others via these sites far outweighs the
hassles. You just have to find the few that you like best and
concentrate on spending time there, rather than dividing your time up
between too many places.”

Considering the time it takes to participate, she’s absolutely right about having to pick judiciously. Donna goes on to talk about the familiar names that one begins to run across - those that participate in several of the same circles. They begin to form what she calls “Friendship Pockets”.

“So who cares about these friendship pockets anyway? Well, I
think they do matter, because the pockets represent your strongest
networks. Those people who befriend you in several overlapping
networks are generally the ones who you can depend upon the most. These
are the ones you can rely on to help you share your sites with others,
the ones who will come to your aid when needed, and the ones who will
reciprocate when you help them out.

If you don’t already know these friends well, make an effort to get
to know them better. You obviously all share some common traits, and
together you can grow each others’ businesses faster than you can
alone. The tighter your friendship pockets become, the more strength they collectively have. Take a little time to develop these pockets further and your site will only benefit.“

You took the words right out of my mouth, Donna. Thanks for the great post!

Tags:Blogging, blogging communicty, business, Dazzlin Donna, Entrecard, Facebook, Friendship Pockets Form Via Social Networks, social networks, Work it! Mom

I am really beginning to appreciate the value of the blogging community. (If you’re interested, you can read about how I was led to blogging in the first place in my post Blogworld.)

What are blogs? Why do people care about blogs? For those of you who do not follow any, here’s the way I think of Blogworld:

I imagine I’m wandering the streets of a virtual world, where people in their homes have their front doors open to anyone strolling by who wants to come in and stay for a while.  Where people in businesses and community centers have their front doors open to anyone who wants to stop by and chat with others gathered there.  People wander in and out of the homes and businesses and community centers, often silently observing, sometimes jumping into the conversation. The people with their front doors open may live in New York City, or California, or Kentucky and may care passionately about technology, or photography, or politics, or cooking.  They show you pictures of their pets, their homes, their families. The discussions taking place in the community centers may be about sports, or juggling work and family, or decorating for the holidays, or the hottest new trends in tech.  Theres some show-and-tell: people share pictures, and videos and podcasts that they like. There’s a home, a business, a community center with conversations taking place on every subject you can think of.

That’s how I think of Blogworld.

As someone new to Blogworld, it all seemed a bit strange at first.  I wandered around and poked my head in here and there…I heard about some good places to stop and found that yes, I enjoyed being there too, and from there heard about others.  Some places were really, really crowded with thousands of people going there every day!  Some places were quiet, drawing only a few.  I wandered in and out of different sites, different conversations, and slowly have built up my own map, my list, of the places I like to visit regularly.

There are some blogs where I’ve grown very fond of the owners.  I enjoy following their lives and I appreciate their unique take on the world and their place in it.  There are some online communities that I now drop in on and can always can find an interesting conversation.  The people that I’ve “met” in Blogworld are very real, their lives every bit as busy and dynamic as yours and mine, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know them as I have with my face-to-face friends.  And I marvel that I can belong to this community of people living, working and talking that spans the nation and bridges many differences.

I have always felt that there is a paradox with any form of expression,
and it is this: the more personal the expression, the more universal is it’s relevance.  The blogs I really enjoy most are the ones that have a truly unique and personal voice, and are well-written.  Those are the ones where I feel pulled into their lives and way of looking at things, and I want to keep up with what’s going on in their lives.  That’s also what I’m striving for as a blogger: to really be me, not a “public” version of me, and to share this experience of a lifetime of starting my business, and all the ups and downs and confusions that come with it.  I hope that my personal expression of this adventure will resonate with many, and that my Blogworld door will always be filled with many friends.

Here is my current list of personal blogs that I follow:

My Italian Adventure
Elizabeth Baines
Baking Delights
Vanielje Kitchen
Because I Said So
Dooce
WWdN: in Exile
I Can Has Cheeseburger?
LOL: The Life of Leo

Tags:Blogging, blogging community, blogs, blogworld, personal expression, virtual world, What are blogs

I was a lucky gal yesterday…I was able to attend a great event and hear Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.  Jeff Rabkin of WOWZA and Terri Whitesel of Interpret-her also spoke at the co-sponsored the event titled, “Word of Mouth: Your Perpetual Marketing Machine.”

I loved the book Word of Mouth Marketing, and have referred to it already in my previous Blogworld post. In fact, it was one of the inspirations for me to start this blog.  The book is very amusing and accessible - Sernovitz writes in a conversational, easy-to-read way - and I was curious whether his speaking style would be as fun as the book style.

In a word, yes, it was.  He has a very relaxed speaking stye and yes, he was very funny.  The audience of about 100 was very responsive to his anecdotes, and laughed often at his observations.  He was also very genuine and approachable.

Before the program started he was standing by his table and not very busy, so I decided to introduce myself to him and tell him how much I enjoyed his book.  He was very gracious.  I told him that his book was an inspiration to me. That I found it to have an exciting message, but was very accessible as well, and he answered, “That’s great!  I’d love it if you’d write a review on Amazon.”  I said, “Really?  Aren’t there already a lot of reviews there?” He answered, “Yes, but every one helps.  ‘Exciting and accessible’ - that’s a great comment.  I’d love it if you would write a review - really.”  So I said, “Sure!  I will.”  He thanked me, and I enjoyed the rest of the program.

Can you guess what I did as soon as I got to my computer that afternoon?  I wrote a review of “Word of Mouth Marketing” on Amazon.com.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you” and yesterday, that was it.  I’ve never written a review on Amazon before.  I wasn’t sure how to write an Amazon review,  nor did I feel
particularly worthy of having my opinion on an Amazon review, but I did it anyway.

So, to recap…I read a great book on word of mouth marketing, and one month later I have my own blog,  meet the author in person, hear him speak, at his request write an Amazon review, which appears on the top right hand side under “Most Recent Customer Reviews.” And to top it all off, I get a personal thank-you email from him.
How cool is that !?!?

Thank you, Andy Sernovitz.

Tags:Amazon.com, Andy Sernovitz, blog, Blogging, blogworld, Eleanor Roosevelt, Interpret-her, Jeff Rabkin, Terri Whitesel, Word of Mouth marketing, WOWZA