Crunch time
TechCrunch, a popular technology blog, is sponsoring a Web 2.0 party tonight at ConWorks. The event is free, and from the looks of the names on their Wiki, will be a great place to network with local techies and entrepreneur types. I’m going to head down with Shelly Farnham and check it out.
Location: Conworks, 500 Boren Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 (Map) (View)
Time: 6:30 - 11:00 pm
RSVP: Please add your name to the TechCrunch wiki
0 Comments One Year Ago Today
At 7am on Wednesday, May 25, 2005 Dan and I met with twelve other independent professionals in Seattle for the first breakfast meeting of a business networking group we referred to as the BizGroup. Our motto was “Radical Self Promotion” and the tongue-in-cheek image we put on our web site - www.bizgroup.biz - was from the Soviet era of 2 workers united. We thought it was funny - it was probably a little extreme, but it worked for the time being. The site Dan built for us listed the names and contact information of those who wanted to be a part of the group. We posted the upcoming events and we met once a week - every other Wednesday morning at 7am for a breakfast meeting, and every other Thursday afternoon on alternating weeks for a noon lunch meeting. Meetings were generally attended by 8-12 people and were spent with five minute introductions and Q&A for each person.
Our first meeting was attended by Robert Allen, Dane Ballard, Kate Basart, Matthew Bollen, Tricia Bollen, Pat Cole, Barbara Crummins, Lara Feltin, Ellen Forney, Jessica Hale, Marco Mazzoni, Dan McComb and Paul Sockwell.
One year later we’ve become Biznik - a business networking group that doesn’t suck and our membership has grown to 751. 278 of those members are outside Seattle and Washington state. 31 of those members are outside the U.S. We have a Biznik Manifesto penned by Chris Hadad and a logo and brand designed by Nadja Haldiamann. Beth Cosker has helped us put together some group health insurance packages that we can offer to our members. We’ve passed 340 referrals through the group (a number that in reality can’t accurately be measured because not all business happens online or is being passed throught the web site and recorded in our database.) Our networking breakfast and lunch meetings have become fewer and further between, but our happy hour socials and educational events hosted by members dominate the events calendar. We’ve become a community of progressive independent professionals who have developed an affinity for one another.
Because we started this in Seattle and the majority of our members are here, Seattle is where Biznik is growing most rapidly. To date, even though we have added an Add Event and easy RSVP system online, only one Biznik event has been held outside of Seattle - a happy hour hosted by David Amann in San Francisco.
Our advisory board made up of Christopher Braxtan, Jill Braxtan, Danny Bronski, Dominic Canterbury, Shelly Farnham, Chris Hadad, Nadja Haldiamann, along with Dan and myself, recently asked exactly what value is Biznik bringing to it’s members? Dan and I have felt that one of the radical pieces is that Biznik’s primary focuses is not to drum up business for it’s members, but to foster a community for it’s members. Once a sense of community has been achieved, business will follow. I’m much more inclined to refer business to and hire others that I share an affinity with and the BizGroup began as a group of people we were already referring to and sharing business with whom we wanted to bring together. Dominic Canterbury summed it up really well in an email discussion between the board that followed our last meeting, “If we do it right Bizniks will see tremendous economic self interest. The payback won’t be in the form of individual ‘tips’. It’s going to be in the form of community and connections. Think of how the truly powerful people in the world do it. They don’t have business card exchanges. They just travel in circles of people they can work with, and hatch big plans and swap ideas over martinis.” Biznik’s focus is social networking for indie professionals.
The diversity of the Biznik community includes brand new enterprisers who are still figuring out licensing requirements, successful business owners who are interested in taking things to the next level, and seasoned entrepreneurs who have sold their company and are here to share experience and comradeship. In that spectrum there’s room for a mentorship program and possibly even a place to post available internships.
Not every member is here for referrals. Jim Dickeson, “Chief Import Geek” of Import Geeks LLC told me the other night at a Biznik happy hour, that it’s unlikely he’ll find clients inside the Biznik community, he’s here for support. I’ve heard that from many others too. Though you may land your next big contract through a Biznik connection, in the meantime you’ve built relationships with other like-minded independent professionals.
Biznik is missing a few things. In addition to seeing events being held in other cities, we’d like to see more members teaching educational networking events. When we reached 200 members we killed the group email list and replaced it with Biz Talk - a forum with blog-style commenting. But discussions have dwindled on Biz Talk and we’re brainstorming what needs to change in order to enliven it. We also see room for an additional events calendar for members to advertise their own personal events like open houses, industry fairs, and workshops.
And a few things are under construction like Biz Pods - a way for members to create smaller groups centered around common interest, industry or support; and a business book club. Dan’s announced the first meeting to discuss “Making Meaning - How successful businesses deliver meaningful customer experiences” by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea on June 26.
We’ve heard of lots of success stories through Biznik and I’ll be sharing those in a separate post. Today I wanted to acknowledge how far we’ve come and take the opportunity to thank each one of you for contributing to the force that has brought us to this point.
Occasionally I’m Grateful for the Dead
Stumbled across this quote this morning and it made my great big marketing mind spark wild. Here it is:
“You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best.
You want to be considered the only one who does what you do.”
- Jerry Garcia
For those of you who have been to the “Top Ten Marketing Mistakes” class, this should resonate for you already. For those of you who haven’t: What do you do? What do you really do? What do you do that nobody else in your field or out can say that they do as well? What makes you so special that the very concept of competition has no meaning?
1 CommentMarine photographer Brandon Cole gets the picture
A couple of months ago I was hunting for the perfect image to illustrate the concept of social software for another project I’m working on. The image I had in my head was of playful dolphins - incredibly communicative, sociable creatures that live in groups. But everything I found on the major stock photo sites sucked. So I started Googling the word, and after an hour or two of less-than-exciting discoveries, I stumbled upon this photo by Spokane-based marine photographer Brandon Cole.
Wow! It was THE picture. I got in touch with Brandon, and after a really pleasant negotiation, was able to secure the rights to use the image. And I’m thrilled to announce that he’s also now a member of Biznik. Because Brandon isn’t just a great photographer - he’s also got a sharp eye for business, a requirement for anyone who hopes to succeed in a creative field. I interviewed him recently about what he does for a living, and how he does it.
Q: Where are you at right now, and what are you working on?
I’m actually in Morehead City, North Carolina as I write this, sitting in my hotel room tapping on my laptop as I wait for the weather to cooperate. I’m here to photograph sand tiger sharks on the shipwrecks offshore, but the sea conditions have been too rough to dive safely for the last two days. I think we’ll get a break tomorrow. I’ll pile all of my diving gear and two underwater cameras onto a 40′ boat and head 30 to 40 miles offshore. Then dive down to 120′ to photograph the sharks which congregate around the rusting hulks of the many sunken shipwrecks in the area such as the “Papoose” and the “Aeolus.” Though rather menacing in appearance, snaggle-toothed sand tigers are really quite docile.
Q: Your photographs are just breathtaking - full of drama, color, and the richness of ocean life. It’s no wonder your work has been published internationally in magazines like National Geographic and in literally hundreds of books. What’s left for you to accomplish?
Plenty. There are still many marine animals I’ve yet to photograph, many places I’ve yet to visit. Just a few examples: Narwhals and Bowhead Whales in the Canadian Arctic, the coral reefs of the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the kelp forests off Tasmania. And of course I plan to return to some locations and re-photograph familiar subjects in new ways. My ultimate goal, or achievement, is to be able to keep doing this for as long as it remains my passion. Few people are fortunate enough to combine work and play into a life-long financially viable career, so I’m thankful for every expedition I make and every year I survive in this competitive field.
Q: Which came first, your passion for photography or love of the sea? And how did you learn both?
As a little kid, I was mesmerized by all of the weird life forms featured on Cousteau specials. The idea of gliding beneath the waves through “innerspace” was every bit as exciting as our other uncharted frontier, outerspace. I was a voracious reader, ingesting cool factoids about even cooler creatures, bragging to my friends that an octopus was as a smart as a housecat, etc.
In school, I battled between pursuing marine biology and something more “practical,” something with “better job prospects” such as medicine. It was only after I listened to my heart instead of my head, choosing marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that I developed my interest in photography. I wanted to show landlubbers the magic they were missing. I realized that I was most interested in actually being in the ocean observing the animals, interacting with them not stuck in a classroom teaching or research lab gene-crunching. Roaming about the globe as a natural history photography offered something different. More freedom, more fun, more time in and on the water. I read every book I could find on underwater photography, and incessantly pestered a professional underwater photographer until he relented, allowing me to hang around for a year and learn about underwater photography first hand.
I cobbled together my first camera system and gave myself a two-year ultimatum- I would pour all of my energy (and money) into this, and if after two years I saw a glimmer of hope to turn this passion into a “real job” I’d continue. If not, I’d go back to school. That was almost fifteen years ago. It’s been a very exciting, very challenging, very rewarding ride.
Q: How much time do you spend running your business vs. actually taking pictures?
A while back, I was averaging about 200 days in the field each year in pursuit of new photos. Now it’s down to about 150. The rest of the time I’m in my home office, taking care of the same things any other successful small business must attend to- correspondence with clients old and new, billing and taxes, marketing, tedious but important busywork and maintenance, learning about new equipment, data entry, researching my next project, networking with others in my field, etc. But even while I’m on location for an underwater shoot, I’m usually taking care of at least some office work, perhaps writing a magazine article, pitching an idea to someone via e-mail, or editing and captioning digital pictures. Some people think my job is non-stop “play”- swimming with dolphins and watching tropical fish. There’s a lot more “business” required than most think.
Q: Are you concerned about the environmental state of the world’s oceans? What do you view as the biggest threats facing marine wildlife today?
Absolutely. Every person on our planet should be concerned about the environmental state of our world Ocean, regardless of whether she is a banker in Nebraska or an engineer in a China. Life as we live it now is dependent on a healthy marine ecosystem. For too long people assumed the ocean’s resources were inexhaustible, that the sea was immune to all of the pollution we poured into it. It’s only been in the last decade or so that we are starting to realize a very different reality. Unfortunately, I could rant and rave for hours on the manifold threats. Plainly stated, our six billion plus, rapidly growing global population can not continue the rape and pillage attitude towards the Oceans so prevalent in many countries, ours included. Fish stocks are crashing, critical habitat is being destroyed, and marine life large and small are being poisoned.
Q: Swimming with sharks implies a certain amount of risk. Have you had any close calls in pursuit of the perfect picture?
Yes, but not really with sharks. Remember that far more people are killed in car accidents, by cancer, and by bee stings than by sharks. Statistically, it’s more dangerous to commute to an office job than dive with sharks. But working on the sea certainly does have its challenges, its dangers. I’ve been adrift at sea when my small boat’s motor died, pinned to the bottom by a 10-ton playful whale baby, and experienced equipment malfunction at depth. I’ve also found myself in dangerous situations while working in bad conditions or as the result of pushing safety limits. The vast majority of risks in my business can be avoided through proper training, equipment maintenance, and knowing one’s limits, and diving within them. No picture is worth paying the ultimate price.
Q: Based on what you’ve learned over the years, what one piece of advice would you give to someone embarking on the path of self employment?
Research, and then “soulsearch.” Research to make sure there’s a need for your product or service, and that you have the skills/capital/resources/creativity/commitment to deliver it profitably and professionally. And soulsearch- be honest with yourself. Make sure this is what you really want to do. I wouldn’t pour my blood, sweat, and tears into something this demanding if it wasn’t so important to me. Self-employment isn’t for everybody.
Brandon’s website, which contains a vast catalog of his stunning work, is www.brandoncole.com
Karl Long on customer experience: “Do you ever provide pleasant surprises to customers?”
When I first heard the phrase “customer experience,” I thought it sounded suspiciously like a term from the faceless-megacorporation dictionary of doublespeak. That is, a term someone would choose not for its ability to clarify, but for it’s ability to camouflage. Happily, I was wrong. Because “customer experience” is a term that is owned and defined (on Google, at least) by member Karl Long, a business blogger and consultant from Florida, who helps businesses of all sizes understand what “customer experience” means to them. So, what does it mean to us indie professionals? Let’s find out, in this interview with Karl.
Q: How would you describe what you do for a living?
In essence I am an online marketing/business consultant, the caveat being that I help companies “attract and motivate” their customers. If that sounds a little wishy washy, I apologize, but I’m currently in the process of trying to distill my marketing message. My main two sources of revenue are in managing keyword advertising campaigns for clients, and consulting with companies who want to start marketing/corporate blogs.
Q: Your blog, experiencecurve.com, is ranked #2 on Google under the keywords “customer experience.” Can you talk a little bit about what “customer experience” is all about, and its relevancy to independent professionals?
I’m pleased to say that in the last couple of weeks experiencecurve.com has moved to #1 on Google for “customer experience.” I’ve been hanging around at #2 for over a year, so this is quite exciting. Not to get off topic, but there is a noticeable difference in traffic between #1 and #2.
So what is customer experience? Well, it is acknowledging that when customers interact with your company, they have an “experience” with whatever medium or “agent” they are dealing with, and that will be a positive or negative experience. By the way, an agent could be an employee, an IVR (interactive voice response system), a web site etc. It’s worth being distinct there, because agents exhibit behavior which can influence a customer’s experience. Clearly, the customer experience is an enormous and wide-reaching concept, which is why I really like to talk about it in conjunction with branding.
Some people have said that “the experience is the brand.” But I like to look at brand and experience as two sides of the same coin. The brand is a promise, and the customer experience is the delivery of that promise (or not). It’s not a coincidence that expectation and experience seem to have a similar root. In the end, traditional brand communication vehicles like advertising and marketing are all about giving us some expectation of feature, benefit, technical improvment, or even emotional state. Customer experience is looking at what happens next, which is simple enough for fast-moving consumer goods, but becomes infinitely more complicated when you’re AT&T.
Q: What about when you’re a company of one, like a lot of Biznik members are (independent consultants, graphic designers, massage therapists, etc.)?
Well, small businesses have an enormous opportunity to differentiate themselves through focusing on “customer experience,” especially service-based businesses. In a lot of ways, customer experience is just about being empathetic, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Think about the life cycle of a customer: from becoming aware of your service, to getting to know you, to purchasing, etc. At each stage in the process there are elements that will color the customer’s impression of your product or service. How do existing customers continue to feel valued? Do you proactively call existing customers to see how things are going? Do you ever provide pleasant surprises to customers?
I love the story of the restaurateur who once in a blue moon would pick up everyone’s check in the restaurant, a very pleasant surprise to his customers that generated a ton of buzz, and yet because he only did it every so often, didn’t cost him a lot of money.
BTW, I highly recommend the book “Selling the invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing” by Harry Beckwith if your are marketing any kind of service.
Q: What’s your approach to SEO?
Pick a niche you can win, one you want to win, and take into account halo effect. Take experiencecurve.com. This was a blog that initially talked about “experience design and competitive advantage”. After wrestling with what I wanted to talk about and who I wanted to talk to, I settled on the term “customer experience” as the area that I wanted to target. At that time I was invisible on Google for that term, and there seemed to me to be plenty of other people talking about it, relatively speaking, so I added a qualifier “customer experience strategy”, no one was really talking about that, and it included the term that I really was interested in. So I named the blog “customer experience strategy”, when ever I asked anyone to link to me I asked them to use customer experience strategy as the link text, and anyone that linked to me spontaneously, I just emailed them and asked them to change the link text to “customer experience strategy.” Additionally, write something controversial some time: this article got more link backs than anything: Marketing Absinthe as the Date Rape Drink?
Q: So, in regard to blogging, is your advice to make sure you’re using your chosen keywords in as many blog posts as possible? And if so, how come it seems to work better in some search engines than others? (We chose the keywords “business networking” for Biznik, and today we’re number 2 on MSN, but nowhere to be seen on Google yet).
Not really, no. The important thing is that other people use those chosen keywords when linking to you. The text contained in “incoming links” is far more important than the text on the web site.
Q: By my count, you maintain four regular blogs: ExperienceCurve.com, LocalZing.com, Customersonfire.com, Tcritic.com. And you are a regular contributor to blog.futurelab.net (which includes heavyweights like Guy Kawasaki), and blog.marketingprofs.com. I’d like to pass on a question I hear from my clients: Ohmygod, how do you find the time to run a business AND do all that blogging?
Ouch. When you put it in those terms it does look like a lot of work. What can I say - I’m single. Anyway, I am in the process of trying to pull some together, as four is way too many to really do well. And to be quite honest, my business blog has got the least amount of attention. My challenge is that I believe blogs are more useful when they are topical, or vertical, and therefore I find it difficult to put all of my interests on one blog. The two most difficult blogs for me are experiencecurve and customersonfire, because they require a modicum of critical thinking. Tcritic is like a blogging vacation for me; I can easily update that daily, and it takes up about 5 minutes of my day. As for contributing to other blogs, I admit I reuse content from my other blogs. FutureLab actually does a great job of just reading my blog and republishing what it wants to - zero effort on my part there.
Q: How’d you like to add another one to your list and contribute to the Biznik blog sometimes? I think Biznik members would find what you have to say incredibly valuable.
I would certainly be very happy to contribute to the Biznik blog and I really appreciate the offer.
Q: You’ve been a member of Biznik since mid March. What do you think of the group so far, and what could we be doing to improve and grow?
I wrote recently about how Biznik does a good job of rewarding behavior it wants to encourage, and therein lies the key to growth in my opinion. People get rewarded for referring people business internally, and for showing up at meetings. I think what you need to add is some kind of kudo for referring traffic or people to Biznik. Not an email form, but some way to measure people linking back to Biznik. For instance, I wrote an article about you guys and linked to the site. Is there some way to encourage that behavior? Give people unique URLs to link back to Biznik, like an affiliate program, but with community rewards as opposed to financial. People might be more motivated to use those sweeet little Biznik graphics on their blogs if they got a check mark on their profile. Back to my “attract & motivate” mantra. Check out my Monday morning post: Attract & Motivate.
Great idea. I could log every clickthrough to Biznik, and have a page that, in real time, shows the member with the highest amount of click-throughs. Love it! No wonder you get paid the big bucks.
Ha, I wish someone would pay me big bucks for my ideas, really, I am for hire 
Anyway, needless to say if the strategy works I hope we can build a case study so I might get some bucks in the future.
Karl blogs at:
Local Zing - Customer Experience Strategy & Management
ExperienceCurve - Customer Experience Strategy & Management
Customersonfire.com - Micromarketing & Microbrands
Tcritic - Daily T-Shirt Blog new, cool, smart, funny
…and is a regular contributor to:
blog.futurelab.net - Marketing Strategy & Innovation
blog.marketingprofs.com - Daily Fix from the guys behind marketingprofs.com
What’s a Biznik Business Networking Event?
Biznik is a business networking community of independent professionals who have an affinity for one another. One way we foster that community vibe is through face to face interaction at business networking events. However, with the addition of our new ‘Add Event’ tool, we’ve found that not all the events being submitted for publication meet our definition of a Biznik event and we’d like to clarify.
Social happy hours and networking over a meal (like a lunch or breakfast meeting) are pretty self-explanatory. Our other events need more explanation. At this time, they can pretty much be summed up as “educational” events.
Educational events are opportunities to teach and to learn. Typically 2 hours in length, these events are a great way to share what you know on topics of interest to other independent professionals. Keep in mind that these events are primarily educational, and MAY NOT be a 2-hour infomercial on your services. Of course, you will teach what you know, so attendees will naturally learn about your services in the process. But no hard sales pitches are allowed at these events.
So, what’s in it for you? By teaching an educational event, you’re saying “listen to me, I’ve got something valuable to say,” and if members who attend your event agree, you’re likely be viewed as an expert in your field. And the business that flows from that can be significant. At the same time members will receive a valuable opportunity to learn something new, and network with each other. So it’s a win-win for everyone involved.
Educational events are also a fantastic way for you to introduce yourself to the Biznik community and differentiate yourself from other Bizniks who may offer a similar service. And, if your service is obscure (think “Business Shaman,” “Emotional Coach,” or “Feng Shui Redesigner”), It’s a great way to introduce it.
Events that do not fit in one of the three categories above are occasionally being sumbitted for publication in the Biznik events calendar. Though they are hosted by a member, and other members might benefit from it, they are essentially promoting other businesses or networking groups. Open houses, industry fairs (like a “health & wellness fair”), and regional networking events (like Chamber of Commerce events) do not qualify as Biznik events.
How can you tell if the event you’d like to publish is a Biznik event? If you can put the name “Biznik” in the title of the event, then it most likely qualifies. If the health and wellness fair is being hosted by 5 Biznik health practitioners for Biznik members and could be called a “Biznik Health and Wellness Fair,” then it qualifies. Likewise, if a regional networking gathering is intended to pull all the Bizniks from north Seattle together to meet each other, then it could be called the “North Seattle Biznik BBQ.”
If you’re hosting an event for your business but can’t put the name “Biznik” in the title, then you are invited to advertise your event in Biz Talk and in the member Biz Promotions section. Please email us (info@biznik.com) with any questions.
Active business networking group members now get 20 minutes of fame
If you’ve noticed that Biznik.com seems to be running a LOT faster today, that’s because it is. Some key pages are about twice as fast as before, in fact. I’m blown away by how much difference a little database query optimization can make, combined with careful indexing and page caching. If your eyes glaze over at the mention of such terms, here’s something you can relate to: BizTalk was taking up to 4 full seconds to load; it now comes up in half that time. The Members page was taking up to 6 seconds to serve - now it comes back in 3 seconds. And the home page is fastest of all - it’s now delivered in 1 second.
The home page is so fast because I’m caching (storing temporarily so it doesn’t have to query the database) most of the contents of that page for 20 minutes. So, if you just joined Biznik, it will take up to 20 minutes for your name to appear in the home page sidebar, and the blog headlines and events headlines will be refreshed every 20 minutes as well. That means that the featured member, instead of losing his or her celebrity every time the page is refreshed, will now get a full five more minutes of fame than Andy Worhol predicted. Enjoy it!
P.S. In order for your profile rotate on the home page, you must have attended an event within the past 30 days.
Pierre Marchildon wants to change the way people think about beauty
Guess who is the 700th member to join Biznik? It’s Pierre Marchildon, who hails from Edmonton, Alberta. We now have a total of nine members in Canada, woo hoo! (But no events there — yet.) So, how is it that Pierre is already listed as an active member? Because he attended his first Biznik event at Liberty Bar on Wednesday. He happened to be in Seattle on a business trip, raising funds to open a handful of new beauty salons on the west coast, including a location in Seattle, and stopped by to meet the Bizniks. Let’s meet him, shall we?
Q: Where are you from originally, and what’s the Pierre story in a paragraph?
I was born in Valdor Quebec, the last of nine kids. Started hairdressing in 1977 and did that for 13 years in British Columbia then spent six years as a salon consultant and beauty supply distributor, after which I launched a sub franchise called BeautyClub with two business partners and continued to consult with beauty supply distributors as a sales force specialist to distributors in the US and Canada. I would teach a two-day course called “KRAZYideas Seminar” teaching sales people on Creative sales strategies to reach the BIG CLIENT… like a proposal on a 28″ x 18″ CAKE with the pun ” with us you can have your cake and eat it too” to get the final call returned from the pending client…After six years of consulting I got tired of telling others of my great ideas and decided to “just go do it.. and that’s what gave PERUGIA conception. I am passionate about the beauty industry and intend to cause a shift on how people look upon their own beauty.
Q: What sort of shift do you have in mind?
In the traditional salon, a mystical shroud is thrown over both the processes used in hair coloring and the products that the stylist uses, and the latter are not available to the general public to purchase. Up until now, it has been the practice of the industry to maintain this mystique – a practice that Perugia is now poised to shatter.
The shift in the industry will happen at different levels:
1. That people would look at beauty and personal grooming in a different way…where all things are possible no matter what your budget… a shift away from the drugstore/supermarket as the only affordable access to changing your look.
2. That hairstylist would open up and let clients in on the inside… to give clients the same tools and knowledge that the pros have…and that they (hairstylist) would give up the fear that … clients will never come back to the salon… since we have shown them how to do it at home… that they( stylist) would be free of this scarcity mentality that there is only so much to go around…. Today you can make your own lattee at home but we still line up at starbucks for a $4 lattee… when we can do it at home for 0.80 cents… we still go to movies and pay $25 for a movie, popcorn and a coke… when we could rent a DVD for $5 and make popcorn for $1-3….conclusion there is a market for both. And that’s the way it is as well with haircolor and all beauty products and service.
Q: Tell me about Perugia.ca. What do you do there?
We do salonspa services (high end) but we also have a large boutique like a Saphora but with a more varied product offering… and what bridges the two is the PERUGIA workshop where client come to learn in an evening session how to do services (theory and practical) like hair coloring, pedicures etc… and we then sell them the professional products never before available to the consumer market. What I do is I am in the proccess of presenting to angel investors and VC’s to raise 5 million to launch 3 more PERUGIA locations along the west coast… with a 100% ROI promise in 3rd year.
Q: I noticed Biznik member Susanna Tran also works at Perugia, and she lists a Seattle phone - do you have a Seattle location?
Not yet we are in the process of raising the rest of the money to get the Seattle location opened in Westlake Center Mall… our target opening date is end of September 06…
Q: What are the differences in your approach to growing your business between the US and Canada?
We market pretty much the same in both places.
Q: What’s interesting to you about being part of a business network
like Biznik?
Well what I liked about BIZNIK was the way you communicate as
its very fresh and fun and straight to the point.. and is not stuffy and
seems like you guys are gutsy to do the out of the box type of stuff… in
ONE word INNOVATION.
Pierre’s website is www.perugia.ca
Business networking, Biznik style
Progressive indie professionals meeting each other, sipping cocktails, discovering ways that we can help each other build our businesses - that’s the essence of Biznik, and it was the essence of yesterday’s happy hour at Andrew Friedman’s sexy new bar, Liberty. I snapped a few pictures to share the flavor of the event.
Left to right, Hendrik vanRensburg, Marshall Carter, Laura Totten (top with drink) and Matthew Bollen at Liberty last night.
I’m excited about Biznik because we mix a solid online social networking tool with face-to-face interaction among people who are predisposed to like each other, and the result: genuine connections. Something I really liked last night was the the way that the new RSVP tool made it possible for me to recognize people I hadn’t met before, because I’d previously seen their photo in the event RSVP list. Bringing it all together like this, and we had the conditions for building the foundation of every successful business relationship: trust.
Just Christo, left, and Pierre Marchildon, who is traveling on business from Edmonton, Alberta.
This is a great time to remind everyone who attended the event last night - did you know that you can now post blog-style comments about last night on the new events page? Check it out, it’s a great way to sum up your experience of the evening or share your thoughts with the host and have an open conversation with others who attended. There’s also a link to everyone who attended last night (I know I missed a few members who attended, so if you don’t see yourself in the list, just drop me a line to dan [at] biznik.com, and I’ll add you). And thanks for coming, everyone - we’ll be doing it again soon at The Irish Immigrant happy hour hosted by Matt Hanson.
Marketing wonk Dominic Canterbury, left, and fitness coach Ila Barlean engage in a little “radical self promotion”;-)
Get happy with your fellow Bizniks tonight at Liberty
Hey, guys.
Just a reminder that we’re having a Biznik Happy Hour (actually multiple hours. Who knows how long we’ll be there? Who said that happiness has to be limited to just one hour anyway?) tonight at Liberty. It’s a fine, fine bar run by a fine, fine man and featuring fine, fine drinks mixed by fine, fine bartenders.
So come by, say hi, network, pass cards, get drunk and enjoy the absolutely glorious weather we’re having.
Details here.
Mark Lacas aims for a home run with his new venture, Max Home
Rumor has it that Seattle entrepreneur/dj/alpha geek Mark Lacas has said goodbye to the company he co-founded, Singlestep Technology, and has been working on a new project. Also, his new baby is old enough to walk and talk, so will we be seeing more of him on the decks at local clubs again? Let’s find out…
Q: What happened with SingleStep?
Singlestep, a company that I founded as Lone Wolf 18 years ago, has been going in a direction that, though a big market, was not something I was very excited about.
Having started in the music business, and developed and delivered technologies that toured with the likes of U2, INXS, Grateful Dead, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Jimmy Buffet, Simple Minds and Brooks and Dunn, I was finding myself bored and uninterested in continuing to work in the very staid Fortune 500 Enterprise IT market.
In our earlier days when my company was called Lone Wolf, we built and installed systems into stadiums and recording studios around the world, where sound and lighting were completely controlled by my technology. GM place in Vancouver and The Rose Garden in Portland are still using them, and they were installed in 1993. Other systems include the Houston Astrodome, The Grand Ole Opry and the Mormon Tabernacle.
So after six months of working my day job as an R&D guy for a corporate entity of my own making, and spending my nights hunkered down in my lab cooking up my new vision, I decided to make a break with the corporate world and become entrepreneurial again. I’ve missed it so.
My new company harks back to the “whole venue, intelligent networked systems” we used to do for tours, stadiums and recording studios, but is directed toward the intelligent home, condo and office building. Going back to my old roots, but directing it toward the place in which we live. It feels so much more right to be improving people’s home experience.
Q: What’s the name of your new venture, and how did it develop?>
My current endeavor is called “Max Home” and the tag line is “Security, Energy Management, Automation and Lifestyle.
I had a baby last year with my lovely wife Casey Ann, and bought a home in Magnolia. These two events made me start thinking about my home with an eye toward “how can I make this better,” as I always do when presented with a blank slate.
The first thing I did was install an alarm system that would monitor not only the security of my family, but would allow us to know if anything went wrong in the house, like gas or water leaks. That didn’t cost much or take very long to do, and it brought a new level of relaxing in the notion that “our backs were covered”.
Being the kind of guy I am, I hooked it up to my server and started monitoring all the household events into a database, and made a nice human interface for the family.
Before long I integrated my new system with the lighting so we could use room occupancy to automatically turn lights on and off with our movements. This saved a lot of stressful conversations about turning lights off when not in use.
Then I added the ability to monitor electricity usage on a circuit by circuit basis. That was an eye opener! We discovered that our fridge was out of whack and needed replacing (never would have known otherwise). All in all the beautiful graphical feedback that the system provides has helped us to understand our energy usage and to adapt in ways (without any discomfort) to lower our total overall energy profile as a family.
About this time energy bills started climbing rapidly and it became clear to me that the trend would only continue as Earth’s population grew and resources dwindled. This hit me like a ton of bricks. . .we were already saving quite a bit on energy costs through the use of my system, and I surmised, “why not take it to the next level” and really integrate, monitor and control the home and office the way I used to do for huge venues and concerts. Over the next six months I developed a computing appliance that is small, low cost and very powerful for whole home integration, energy management and lifestyle automation.
The concept and system has become what I call “Max Home,” and has saved our family greatly in energy costs as well as made our home easier to use, safer and much more enjoyable.
Casey and I can keep an eye on our baby, home, and energy usage and interact with our living space in ways that have become second nature to us now. We use our cell phones and our computers to detect changes that need our attention, and as human interfaces for instigating changes to suit our needs. The system does the rest to take care of doing what is needed, and already has a proven a solid “Return on Investment” from the initial costs. It will pay for itself much sooner than I expected, and that will only be more true as energy prices rise.
Anecdotally, one of my favorite features is what I call “On The Go Unified Caller ID.” When I’m out and about, any calls to my home or office show up in a list on my cellphones browser. I simply click on one of those links to call back from my cell phone, any call that came in to my land lines. Priceless, no more having to listen to a bunch of voice mails to know who called and what is happening.
Q: Tell me more about what Max Home does - and who are your ideal customers?
The system is becoming very mature and is garnering quite a bit of interest in the intelligent building community, condos, multi-home residential additions and smart homes. The price makes it accessible to the everyday homeowner but the system scales well to large installations. Were talking with one group about installing in 400 homes in a new residential addition in Florida.
There has also been a lot of interest in using the “Max Home Appliance” as a monitoring and data logging tool for realtors, tradesmen, and home buyers and sellers, to generate reports showing the efficacy of a home and it’s construction. It can be set up as a portable system that is installed for an assessment period to collect data and make reports. This helps to justify resale value and certifying the quality of construction, or on the opposite side, pointing out what needs to be improved to get more value.
In the beginning my ideal customers are existing homeowners that want to upgrade their homes, and people who are doing new construction. My current installs range from simple homes like mine to very high end homes that have a lot of systems to integrate and manage.
In the longer term my customers will be value added resellers, architects, builders and security companies who will use the Max Home system to take their businesses into new areas, and onto the Internet. In a lot of ways the initial system install is like the razor and many new services can be sold onto the system as razor blades. This will pull the system into the larger corporate sphere of managed services from the big providers and installers.
More info can be found on my new website: maxhome.org.
Q: How’s the dj’ing going? Any gigs we should know about?
In spite of starting a new business and taking care of the baby I have a spate of new gigs coming up that should be a lot of fun. With over 500 records that have never been played, I’m armed and dangerous.
The first upcoming event is Wed, May 24th at the See Sound Lounge. A plush, swanky lounge at 110 Blanchard (between First and Second) in Belltown, that draws the best DJs from around the country. I’m dedicating this event to be a replacement for past burner nights around town. With a good turnout at the trial show, it would become a monthly event (probably the last Wednesday of the month) for the community and friends to come and hang, have drinks and get their groove on. Casey Ann, Marco and I are providing the entertainment for the first show, and I have plans for other local and touring talent to grace the decks ongoing. See Sound is setup so you can chat easily and has very comfortable furniture, as well as a nice area for dancing. Beautiful tropical fish tanks and projectors provide a vibrant aesthetic touch. The full scoop can be found on the DjML website: djml.com
Super Duper!
Looks like it’s filling up quick already (gotta love the new RSVP tools that Dan put together. Good Dan, you get a biscuit.) but I just wanted to take a moment to shamelessly promote an upcoming Biznik event. On June 20th at 7PM Dan McComb (master of all things web-like), Michelle Bates (mistress of all things photo-like) and good old word-slinging me are going to host a Super Awesome Biznik Profile Extravaganze Creation Party.
Now a few things make this event kind of super special.
1. The name. What an awesome name that is, huh? Must be a pretty awesome event to have a name like that.
2. The locale. We’ll be having the event at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center over in West Seattle. Dan and I went to an event at Youngstown last month and it’s just a really cool space that is, unfortunately, in West Seattle. If we could transplant the whole thing to right outside my apartment on Cap Hill, believe me, we would.
3. The cost. That’s right, this is going to be the first ever Biznik event that you actually have to pay for. Don’t worry, we aren’t getting rich off this, but Youngstown has bills to pay, so we’re charging $5 per head.
4. The cool stuff. For your five bucks you’ll get a head shot taken by the mysterious and talented Michelle, some on-the-spot word smithing from me (no, I’m not going to write all your profiles from scratch. Yes, I’m going to give you the tools you need to make your profile great and will be doing editing for you) and some great words of encouragement from Dan. And for the Biznik who comes up with the best profile, we’re going to give away some very cheap and highly symbolic prize.
So sign up. Join us. It’s gonna be a party.
And go give the new RSVP system a workout. Host your own events. Share your knowledge. That’s an order!
RSS Feeds now working as expected
It felt like Summer in Seattle today (can you believe 85 degrees F?). I was stuck inside doing some overdue Spring cleaning in the Biznik code: I fixed a bunch of bugs in the Biznik RSS feeds today. There’s now six feeds that you can subscribe to, and they all should work smoothly now. The names of each feed should be pretty self-explanatory:
Events Calendar
Member Profiles
Member Promotions
Biznik Blog
BizTalk Topics
BizTalk Comments
If you encounter any problems, drop me a line to dan at biznik.com.
Stay on top of your business networking group referrals
Thanks to a head’s up from Megan Groves, I’ve made a bunch of improvements to the Biznik business networking group’s referral manager, located on your account page. You can now see at a glance the status of all referrals that you’ve sent and received (using those fantastic famfamfam icons), and also act on pending referrals.
Megan’s problem was that the referrals she received were being intercepted by her spam filter. When she looked at her referral manager, it wasn’t readily apparent which referrals she’d approved, and which she hadn’t. Worse, there was no way for her to approve a pending referral through the referral manager (she had to click a link in the email to do that, and since she didn’t have the email, she was out of luck).
All that is fixed now. It’s now easy to see the status of all your referrals, and approve any pending business referrals. And, you can send a reminder to someone you’ve sent a referral to, if they haven’t yet approved or declined it.
Remember that it’s important to act on referrals you’ve received - the person who sent you the referral won’t be added to your referral network until you’ve approved the referral. Oh, and if you’re wondering, “what exactly is a referral, anyway?” check out this excellent “What is a referral” discussion from earlier this week on BizTalk.
Got something to say about a Biznik event you attended? Now you can.
That’s right, you can now post blog-style comments about any event, which means you can post your comments on events that go all the way back to the first Biz Group event, which was held almost a year ago, on May 25, 2005. (Biznik is almost a year old if you include our original incarnation as The Biz Group - we didn’t take the name Biznik until late October.)
To post comments about an event, first you must have attended it (your picture and name must appear in the list of attendees). Then, make sure you’re logged in before trying to post a comment. Once you’re logged in, you’ll see a comment form like the one at right. Members (and non-members) who did not attend the event will only be able to view comments, not post them.
I would like to encourage everyone who attends an event to post comments about it. It’s a great place to have a discussion or continue discussions that were started at the event itself. It’s also a great way to let other members know if it was valuable or not, and to share your feedback to the event host. And, if you’re the host of the event, posting a comment here is a great way for you to recap the event for anyone who couldn’t make it.
Sam Trout: designer of graphics, illustrations and life
Sam Trout. God, I love that name. Just hearing it makes me think of The Rattlesnake, a creek in Montana where I used to go hiking when I was a college student. Every indie business person should be lucky enough to have a name as evocative as that.
Sam’s not a character from a Norman Maclean novel, though - he’s an illustrator and designer here in urban Seattle, whose work has appeared for years in The Stranger and Seattle Weekly. But I know him as the guy who makes those really cool t-shirts. I met Sam a couple of weeks ago, at Bazr, a new shop in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, under a clotheslines stretched tight with the weight of his creations.
Q: How would you describe what you do for a living today?
I’m currently going from temp job to temp job doing some design work in different places. When I’m not at one of those jobs I’m working on my clothing line. I just came out with seven new shirts and my website www.samtrout.com is undergoing a major facelift. I haven’t had a chance to get the new shirts into stores or even online but they’ve been selling really well at the events I’ve had them at. I’m also organizing a book that DIY clothing labels can use to help market their wares. It’s a huge list of stores across the nation open to carrying up and coming designers.
Q: How’d you get started with design - and what are some career highlights that led you to what you’re doing today?
The first time I got my name mentioned in The Stranger was a pretty exciting moment. That year I got a lot of press and it felt a little overwhelming because suddenly a lot of people knew my work and my face and I couldn’t remember anyone’s name because I would only talk to them for a few minutes and then not see them for months. That still happens but I’m getting a little better at remembering people’s names and faces.
Q: What is it about the design work you do that’s most uniquely you?
My line quality and often my color choices. People can always recognize my drawings by the line quality. I also have a tendency to overpopulate my designs with eye candy. I want the viewer to be able to look at things a few times and enjoy the details. Sometimes it works but sometimes it’s a little much.
Q: Tell me about I Heart Rummage, and your interest and involvement with that.
I Heart Rummage was started in 2001 by a woman named Gia Bahm. After a year of organizing it she moved to New York. That’s when Matthew Parker and I took over. I knew that it had a lot of potential and could be something really cool where like-minded crafters could come together to sell their work. Our first year was really exciting and we put a lot of effort into organizing and expanding. After about two years we started to lose energy and desire to run the event but still wanted it to keep going because we really believe in the event and scene. It took about a year to find the right people to manage it. The three ladies that run it now had put together an event they called Urban Craft Uprising and it was really successful. We saw that they had the same energy for the scene that we had three years ago and asked them to take over and now the event is doing even better. We’re so glad to have the event doing well. I still vend there every month selling T-shirts but it’s nice to not have to organize it anymore.
Q: And for people who haven’t been to I Heart Rummage, can you explain what it is?
I Heart Rummage is a monthly event that occurs on the first Sunday of every month (minus july, august, september and January) at the Crocodile Cafe. It brings together around 50 local artists and designers from as far as Vancouver and Portland to sell their work. We have DJ’s spin music, brunch is available and so are drinks. It’s an all-ages event and it’s really inspiring to so many people. Most people that come want to go home and make something.
Q: How can Biznik help you grow your business?
Well, it’s already brought a few people to my last event, thanks to the blog and I’m looking forward to attending some of the seminars. I was just wondering if there’s a feature that helps put people in contact with one another easily. Here’s what I’m thinking: let’s say I want to find out about stores that would sell my t-shirts that are registered on Biznik. It would be great to have a place where I could collect and edit my own personal cache of store profiles on Biznik and then became alerted to new stores when they were added to the site, then I could contact them easily or add them to my cache. Kind of like the friends feature on myspace.com but instead it would be a resource list specifically tailored to my interest. Each person could have multiple resource lists too. Suppose I also wanted to have my own group of graphic designers that I wanted to stay in contact easily with, I could have a graphic designer list on my profile.
Q: Yes, those are great ideas, in particular the last one - the ability to have a group that you create and manage, possibly even a private group that you could have with just your people in it. We’ve got two things in mind that we’re gettting close to starting work on - something we’re calling BizPods. How much do you use social networking apps such as MySpace or Tribe currently to promote what you’re doing? Any other web tools you find useful to indy business types like yourself?
I usually do a little posting on MySpace and I use Yahoo for my mailing list. mroutbox.com was a really great mailing list server but they go too big and had to shut down, they just couldn’t maintain it anymore, but I really liked the way it functioned. I could probably stand to do a little more research on finding some more ways to promote via the web but I haven’t done it yet.
Sam’s website is www.samtrout.com
And I’m back
I know, you missed me. You were crying. You were on a street corner, dripping tears into a tin cup, fighting back to urge to scream at the thought of not having my random ramblings to fill out your Biznik day. You scared strangers and puppies with your pain, but it’s OK. It’s OK dear Bizniks because I’m back.
I just want to take a moment to thank Biznik and University Village Apple Store guy Nick Shulman for helping me get through the pain of an exploded laptop as quickly and easily and possible. Nick’s got a deft touch with overemotional bald copywriters who think they might have just lost 10 years worth of work and you should definitely drop him a line if you’re looking to either cross over to the wonderful world of Macs or want to upgrade your gruff and grungy clamshell ibook to a spiffy, spuffy and spectacular Macbook Pro.
Anyway, it’s good to be back in the world. I’ll have a real post for you tomorrow.
Dustin Luther: blogging benefits real estate agents who “stick their neck out”
If you search for “seattle real estate” on Google, among the top 10 results will be almost certainly be Rain City Guide, a blog started just over a year ago by Dustin Luther to help promote his wife Anna’s real estate business. In that time, the blog has grown to include a dozen frequent contributors, and is a great example of how blogging can help promote a business in a dramatic way. I met Dustin at Seattle MindCamp a couple of weeks ago, and I found him refreshingly willing to talk freely about how he does what he does so well. So listen up, bloggers.
How’d you get started with blogging?
On a personal level, I began with an online travel journal in the late ’90s where I would describe my various travels in text and photos. however, that was back when I would code the HTML pages by hand and was a real pain… I kept up with a blog of one kind or another since then, so when my wife and I were talking about ways to market her real estate business, a real estate blog seemed like a natural fit.
Tell me more about Rain City Guide. What was the original goal of the blog, how did it evolve, and where’s it at today?
Blogging began as a way for me to market my wife’s business… but when I look back at our first few months of posts, I cringe because we made all the classic business blogging errors. Most notable, we simply were not very interesting.
Luckily, however, I’m a pretty astute observer of our traffic logs and I quickly realized that what people were interested in was an honest dialog on real estate and not the same old real estate brochure that exists on almost every real estate website in the country.
I like to think that because we were doing something different and I was an “outsider” we were able to attract a very interesting group of contributors to help me out with the day-to-day blogging. Real estate blogging is hard stuff, so I’m extremely fortunate to have a great group of people working with me to keep things interesting.
Can you describe in a bit more detail what you see as other classic mistakes that new bloggers make?
A while back I wrote a blog post where I describe the 8 common mistakes made by real estate bloggers.
Looking back over the list (the list includes things like “posting listings”, “creating multiple blogs” and “too much self promotion”), I’d add “not linking” and “bubble talk”. Linking is the currency of the web and has the wonderful ability to build up trust among readers, other bloggers, and the search engines. Bubble Talk is a no-win topic for real estate professionals. If you think there is no bubble, no one is going to believe you and the internet trolls come alive. If you think there is a bubble, you’re not helping your business…
If I type in “seattle real estate” to google, RCG comes up number 6 today. Did you have to pay some SEO company the big bucks for that?
We’ve never paid any money for SEO. The SEO work that we have done has all been organic in that I focus on writing quality content and including lots and lots of links. Linking is such a foreign concept to most real estate professionals, that I’m able to quickly build up some good will by simply linking, and I’ve received a substantial number of quality inbound links to Rain City Guide content as a result.
Can you explain what you mean by linking? How does that generate good will?
By linking, I’m thinking of the many articles I’ve written where I try to build off of an idea that other agents have started. When I write my article, I try to liberally link to all the people that have inspired my thoughts.
In terms of generating good will, just about every real estate blogger I’ve met has a healthy ego and when you link to them, it is a way of saying “I find your thoughts valuable”. Bloggers eat that stuff up (I know I do!), and so it is really not hard to build up some good will through a few simple links.
The consequence of my liberal linking is that other real estate sites have been generous in linking back to Rain City Guide as evidenced by the fact that we are listed as #5 on Technorati as the most linked to “real estate” blogs. For me, linking is the “secret sauce” that has made Rain City Guide interesting and I like to explain the power to real estate professionals as linkation, linkation, linkation…
You said in a recent blog post that most real estate professionals are far behind the curve in effectively using online networking tools. For an industry that’s all about relationships, why do you think that is?
I have a theory that networking is about differentiation. People use social networking tools to let the world know how their services are different than everyone else’s. In real estate, agents have had a HUGE disincentive to differentiate in that their real power is in when they cooperate to ensure that the “data” is maintained by them. In the past, the agents that really differentiated their services were outcast by the agent community, so there is a gap in knowledge among agents about how to really use networking tools.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Is there still huge disincentives for real estate agents to differentiate? If so, what? Or is that a left-over from another time?
In the past there has been a huge disincentive for real estate agents to do any radical differentiation. There is a huge backlash against any agents who stick their neck out to give unfiltered (read: informative) information to the buying and selling public.
For example, just a few years ago you would have been hard-pressed to find an agent who would write about how to negotiate a lower commission. Now, that information is easy to find on the internet and it is being written by a small subset of real estate agents who have realized that they can benefit by really differentiating their services (and their business model) from other agents. Blogging changes this equation because if flips the situation by giving a real benefit to the agents who do stick their neck out in a very public way.
What are you looking for in a networking group like Biznik?
Because I’m not a real estate agent, I’m looking for a way to meet up with interesting people. My new position at Move allows me to get paid for trolling the internet in search of good ideas, and I know from experience that the people involved with Biznik are likely to have an interesting story.
What’s next for you?
As I mentioned, I recently started a new position with Move, the company that runs Realtor.com (among a few other sites). They’ve given me the dream title of Director of Consumer Innovations which allows me to search out creative ways that internet technologies can serve real estate consumers. I’m on the hunt for network tools that both empower real estate professionals and better serve real estate consumers.
Dustin’s blog is Rain City Guide.
Health Insurance for Indy Businesses
As all of us who are self-employed know, getting the right health insurance can be a real challenge. Last night Beth Cosker untangled the options to more than a dozen Biznik members in Seattle. She’s a Biznik member herself, a health insurance broker, and owner of CGA Benefits. Over the course of the evening, she answered over an hour’s worth of great questions, and introduced representatives from Regents Blue Shield, Colonial and Dental Health Services.
Her presentation came down to this: At this time Biznik is not considered a “group” or an “association” by Regents, Group Health and Premera LifeWise for medical insurance coverage because we are less than a year old and need to build a reputation. In another year that might change and we might be able to actually offer discounted group rates to members for medical insurance. The good news, however, is that Biznik is being considered a “group” by Colonial and Dental Health Services for supplemental coverage (like disability, life, accident, cancer, etc.) and for dental coverage, right now. Which means that if you are interested in those products, you’ll get a great deal by going through Biznik to obtain them.
What’s in this for Biznik? Nothing but a good feeling, and our passion for progressive, independent business people. And I have to say after getting my questions answered and hearing everyone else’s questions being answered last night by someone who could compare all the different companies, I was in a room full of good feelings. Beth is a health insurance broker as opposed to a health insurance agent. An agent is an employee of the insurance company and represents the company offering coverage. A broker is self-employed and represents us, the clients. Does Beth charge an hourly rate for her services? No. She is paid by the insurance carrier.
If you call up customer service at Regents and ask about their plans, they will quote you the same price that Beth quotes you. The difference is that the quote they charge for health insurance already has a brokerage fee built into it. If you hire a broker like Beth, the fee will go to her and you will have someone in the health insurance industry representing you and your interests. Because she represents all of these companies, she can go through the options for you and find the best policy to match your needs.
If you already have insurance and are just wondering if one of these other policies is a better fit - you can still call Beth. I did. I had her look over my current policy, she compared the numbers and told me not to change a thing. A little while later things changed, she let me know and I added an accident policy from Colonial to our gamut of coverage.
If you missed last night’s presentation, Beth’s planning to hold these meetings quarterly, so watch the Events calendar late this summer. But you needn’t wait til the next meeting to get your policy reviewed or to sign up for a new one. You can contact Beth any time and schedule a one-on-one meeting with her. And if you don’t live in Seattle and are interested if any of this can apply to you - ask Beth.
For more information on the event and to see who was there - check out the new post-event page. If you have a question about the presentation and don’t want to ask Beth or me - and this goes for any Biznik event - consider contacting a Biznik who was there to find out if it was really as cool as I’m suggesting it was.
Host your business networking event with Biznik’s new RSVP tools
Today I’m delighted to announce the launch of a vastly improved event RSVP system that Biznik members can begin using immediately. Got an event you’ve been thinking about hosting? Now you can, simply and easily. At the same time, if you’re thinking about attending an event that someone else is hosting, you can simply click “RSVP for this event” on the event page, which will add you instantly to the RSVP list. No more cumbersome emailing your reservation. And when you RSVP for an event, it will also display your name and photo on the event page immediately, so everyone can see at a glance who’s coming to the event beforehand. Good stuff.
Why does this matter? Because it means that no matter where you live, it’s now easy to host a Biznik event of your own, keep track of who’s coming, and record attendance after the fact. This is a tool that encourages participation. And participation is what Biznik is all about.
Here’s what the add-an-event screen looks like, above.
Initially, we’re going to review all the events that come in prior to publishing them, to make sure that your event is in line with the Biznik event guidelines. We’ll see how this goes initially, and may open things up further if it goes well. But we’d rather make sure that the events are of a high quality rather than have a ton of low-quality events posted to Biznik, and hence the short screening process.
Recording who attended your event is a snap with the RSVP tool, above.
There are likely a few bugs that will emerge as you start using the tools, so please email me (dan [at] biznik.com) when you encounter one, or when you simply don’t like something about the way it currently works. Or if you think of a better way - I’m very responsive to your feedback, as lots of members who use the website can attest. So have fun thinking about what kind of event you’d like to host, and then, go for it.