Join Biznik for “Innovators in Sustainability” panel discussion Saturday at the 4th annual Sustainable Ballard Festival in Seattle
I’m excited to announce that Biznik has been invited to be participate in a panel discussion titled “Innovators in Sustainability” on Saturday afternoon (sometime between 4-6pm - more info to follow) at the 4th Annual Sustainable Ballard Festival. Come down and catch me and a couple of other entrepreneurs - Steve Butcher and Derek Hoshiko (who also happen to be Biznik members) - for a lively discussion about sustainable entrepreneurship. We’ll be sharing our stories, inspirations, philosophies, and values with the goal of inspiring others to create new sustainable ways of doing business that improve our community. I’ll also be manning a booth all weekend by myself, so come say hi, tell me about your business, and keep me company!
0 Comments Biznik partners with Marketing Mix to offer biz tips
One of the things I’ve wanted to have on the Biznik home page for a long time is a regular column offering business tips aimed specifically at indie professionals. We’ve had some success in the past inviting members to contribute their tips to the Biznik blog, but we found it difficult to get a steady stream of high-quality, focused business tips that were truly relevant. So I was thrilled to discover Biznik member Ilise Benum recently, when she dropped me a line asking for some help promoting a webinar, Get Rich in a Niche, that she’s teaching in partnership with HOW Magazine. Ilise has been teaching independent business owners in creative professions how to succeed in business for 20 years, has written 6 books, and is incredibly prolific in sharing her wisdom at a blog she co-authors with several partners, Marketing Mix. I took one look at that, and at her website, Marketing Mentor, and called her up. The result of that conversation is that we now have her latest posts appearing on the home page of Biznik.com, where you’ll a find fresh business tip from Marketing Mix at least three times a week.
Ilise is based in the New York area, where she hosts regular seminars. But good news: you don’t have to be in NY to attend her seminars. In partnership with HOW Magazine, she is teaching a series of webinars on subjects relevant to indie professionals in creative professions. Her first one is coming up tomorrow, Sept. 27th, at 1pm Pacific time (4pm Eastern). Here’s the scoop:
Have you done lots of small jobs for many different clients and as a result, have no particular niche?
And do you know that you could be getting better projects and earning higher fees if you did have a niche?
If so, I hope you’ll join us this Thursday, Sept. 27 at 4:00 PM Eastern (1:00 PM Pacific) for Get Rich in a Niche.
This is the first of four online live webinars in the series, Grow Your Business from Your Desktop, presented in partnership with HOW Magazine.
So what’s different about this webinar? (And why should you pay for it when there’s so much free info out there?)
This live webinar is a preview of our new book, A Designer’s Guide to Marketing and Pricing, due out in Spring 2008, but it’s even better than the book (don’t tell our publisher that!) because it’s interactive. You can submit your burning questions directly to us and we’ll answer them during the session.
Here’s what you’ll learn during this 60-minute webinar (which takes place online and in real time):
- Why focusing on a market really is the only way to succeed in business
- How to identify the ideal target market for your design business
- How to choose a target market that blends your passion and personal interests with the needs of the market
- How to make sure the target market you’ve chosen is a viable one
- How to find and reach the best prospects in your target market
All attendees get copies of the presentation materials plus easy-to-follow Marketing Mentor exercises designed to help you zero in on your target market and build your client roster. Plus, you’ll have 12-month access to the webinar, so you can watch it again and again as a refresher course.
Isn’t it about time you stopped taking the unsatisfying (and often not lucrative) work that comes along and get the work you really want?
If so, find out more here.
Sandbox Suites co-working venue and Biznik team up in San Francisco
I’m thrilled to announce that Biznik is teaming up with a brand-new co-working space in San Francisco, Sandbox Suites, to begin hosting regular events in the Bay Area. If you haven’t heard about co-working yet, you will soon: two similar venues are set to open soon here in Seattle (both of them created by Biznik members!). We’re excited to be partnering with Sasha Vasilyuk, who soft-launched Sandbox Suites with her fiance on Sept. 17th.
“We are trying to form a community that would be beneficial for all the members,” says Sasha. “I’d like to get a diverse group together and we’re starting to do that - we have a writer, a journalist, an executive coach and a couple of web people interested in working at our space.” Sasha will be hosting one networking or educational event per month at the new space, and the first one is already in the San Francisco Biznik events calendar for October 11, a grand opening party for the new venue.
The idea behind co-working is simple: to provide a shared workspace for freelancers, entrepreneurs and anyone in need of a flexible and affordable place to work. Sanbox Suites is conveniently located in downtown San Francisco, and offers hot desks, private desks, a comfortable lounge with an espresso service, and conference rooms. Best of all: it offers the company of like-minded professionals, just like you.
This collaboration has also caused a significant first on the Biznik website: for the first time, we’ve added a Sponsor section to the top right column on the Events page, that provides more information about the events page sponsor and links to their website. And in the case of Sandbox, you’ll also noticed a sponsored area on every event page that Sandbox hosts.
Thank you Sandbox Suites for launching a fantastic resource for indie professionals in San Francisco!
business networking co working collaboration community independent professional indie business officeNew Biznik feature promotes Supporting Member websites
As if one major upgrade wasn’t enough (this morning we added major enhancements to Biz Talk), this afternoon we posted a second new feature: a customizable signature line that allows you to insert a link to your website in the footer of every post you make on Biznik (both in event comments and Biz Talk).
At first glance it may seem like a minor improvement, but in reality this one packs serious promotional punch: Not only will all members reading discussion posts see your URL, but equally important to those of you promoting your own sites, so will Google. Now, the more you post in Biz Talk and comment on events, the more often Google will see links to your site, which translates into increased findability for your site on Google.
To get started using this dandy feature, head to your profile, and select the “personal settings” tab. Just above your privacy settings, you’ll see a new element labled “Biznik post signature.” Here’s what it looks like:
Insert your website link, and then the text you’d like to be linked below that, like so:
This is the first of several significant new features we’re planning to release to Supporting Members by mid-October.
Up next: Promotions, which will allow anyone to post a special offer or promotion to their profile. The extra value to Supporting Members is that their promotion will be featured prominently on the member page, where many more users will see it.
Biznik member promotion websiteBig improvements to Biz Talk are coming Monday
I’m happy to announce that we’re on the verge of adding another frequently-requested feature: a tool that allows you to subscribe to Biz Talk comments via email. Not only that, but you can also bookmark a topic, and you can now share a favorite topic on popular sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Facebook and del.icio.us. But the most significant change is to how the topic is presented. We’ve completely re-worked the format, so that it is consistent with the profile and event pages. The result is a page that feels a little bit more like a blog post than a forum entry. We like how that spotlights the member starting the post, and we hope that’ll provide a little bit more incentive for you to start great topics!
Here’s what it all looks like. First up: the topic-level screen, which is what you see when viewing a topic in Biz Talk:
Next, the details. This shows how to subscribe to email notifications.
And this is how you cancel email notification for a topic you’re following.
If you want to email a topic to a friend, it’s this simple:
And finally, sharing a topic on any of these major sites happens with a click:
1 CommentSome preliminary age statistics for business networking members of Biznik
Since we started Biznik as a social network aimed at connecting independent business owners almost two years ago, I’ve casually observed (based on people I’ve met at nearly 100 events) that most people I’ve met are in their 30s. But until recently, we didn’t collect birth date information from members, so there was no way to tell for sure. On July 1, when we launched Biznik 2.0, we added a field (which I hope all of you fill out) under your “personal info” tab that allows you to specify your birthday. Since July 1, 350 members have provided their date of birth, enough for us to draw some preliminary, unscientific, but nevertheless anecdotally supported conclusions about the age of members in this community.
Check out these numbers: The average age is 41. But that’s skewed by a long tail of a few older members - the median age turns out to be 35. Viewing the chart above, it’s clear that the biggest age demographic on Biznik is 30 - 39. But there’s an interesting mid-twenties spike. It’ll be interesting to see if this distribution remains roughly the same or changes significantly as more members complete their profile. You can help us find out by logging into your account and updating your demographic information right now - it’s located on your profile under the “personal settings” tab.
So, what to make of these numbers? My hunch is that, since starting a successful business requires a certain amount of life/work experience, most people don’t feel they have it until they hit 30. It doesn’t surprise me that the numbers are biggest from 30 - 39, because younger entrepreneurs are generally less established, and more interested in networking on an open platform like Biznik than established business owners. Older, established business owners may also be less likely to be early adopters of new technology such as a social networking community like Biznik represents. What do you think?
ages business networking demographicsForthcoming improvements to business network feature
We’re on the verge of releasing a significant change to the way the “add to network” feature works, thanks to a lot of feedback from you guys, and I’d like to outline what the new feature looks like, how it’s different from the current one, and ask for your feedback in advance of releasing this update.
Currently, anyone can add anyone to their Biznik network. As it turns out, lots of people are using it as a way of introducing themselves - which is causing some angst among the recipients of such requests, who want to be friendly and polite, but (correctly) feel uncomfortable adding someone they don’t know in their network. To be clear: when we created this tool, we intended it to be used for adding people you know to your network. You should only add people with whom you have established a relationship of some kind. Of course, “relationship” is necessarily vague - perhaps you established the relationship by chatting in Biz Talk; perhaps you established it face-to-face at a Biznik event; perhaps you went to college with the person or are married to them. The bottom line, though, is that you shouldn’t use this feature unless you know them and they know you PRIOR to adding them.
So, to fix things, we’ve added a dropdown menu that requires you to specify your relationship to the person you’re adding, at the time you add them, and for you to add a personal note to them as well (which will replace the generic and previously uneditable “Hey, come join my network!” message).
Here’s what it looks like:
There are five options in the dropdown (and this is what we really want your feedback on):
Do those five options capture it? We want to keep it short and simple, but is this the right wording? Please post your suggested changes in the comments field below, and let’s get this one launched.
business networking connections friends network social networkBiznik adds 5,000th member
Biznik got it’s 5,000th member early this morning, when Lori Dennis signed up. We don’t know much about Lori yet (she didn’t return my email asking for more information about her, and so far her profile only lists her job title: “learning and development”), but we’re thrilled to have her as a member, and look forward to learning more about her.
Passing the 5,000th member got me thinking. It’s such a small number, really, in the social networking space. The local press, for example, has almost completely ignored Biznik since we launched two years ago. And I can see why, sort of - we have no funding, which means they probably figure we won’t be around next time this year, and besides, who’s interested in talking about social networks that have anything less than a few million users? (Unless, that is, the founder was on a reality TV show…)
Breaking that number down a bit, Biznik is really booming in just one city: Seattle, where there are about 2,700 members (depending on how far you draw a circle around the city - 2,771 within 50 miles, 2,611 within 25 miles, 2,127 within 10 miles and 1,346 within 5 miles). Outside of Seattle, there are members in 83 countries (most of which have only one or two curious people who found Biznik on Google and signed up to check it out). With a couple of successful events already and more in the works, there are signs that Portland, Oregon will be the next happening urban area for Biznik, followed by San Francisco (web developer Frank Wong is hosting a happy hour in Berkeley on Sept. 19).
As I was thinking about this last night, it occurred to me that actually, we’re doing pretty good here in Seattle. In fact, it suddenly dawned on me as I was thinking, is it possible that Biznik might actually be among the largest business networking organizations in Seattle with that many members? A quick trip to the website of BNI Northwest - the 500-pound gorilla of business networking - revealed that organization has 60 chapters in the northwest. I glanced through their directory and observed that the average chapter has about 20 members, which means they have 1,200 members. So we’re more than twice the size of BNI. Could it be we’re the biggest? I decided to ask Gerard Wirz, the founder of The Seattle Networking Guide, who probably knows more about networking than anyone else in Seattle from his position running a website that aggregates all the networking organizations and events into a single website. So I sent him a message asking him what he thought. His thoughtful answer bears quoting at length:
Depends on how you define a networking group & membership.
Certainly, with 2700, Biznik is one of biggest if you base it on non-paying “members”. If you count only paying members, then a fair number of Professional Associations (WSA, KCBA, MBA), Private Clubs (CTC, Rainier, WAC, Bellevue Club), and Business Groups (Seattlle, GSBA) and Social Groups (Space City Mixer, BEAN, Bravo) would likely be same size or bigger.
Other ways to define size might include:
Revenue (membership + sponsorship)
Total number of event participants per year
Organizational influence and reach
Number of connections facilitated
Gulp. Biznik so far has been successful in convincing just six percent of our members to pay for the service. So we’ve got miles to go on that front. But Gerard ended his note with this: “Irrespective of the above, there is no doubt that you have built Biznik into an important, credible and leading networking group in Seattle.” That makes me feel good. And I’d like to pass his quote along to you, the 5,000 members of Biznik who, truly, have made Biznik into what it is today, and what it will be tomorrow and beyond. You rock!
Biznik business networking business social network community small business social webAll 7,000+ posts on Biz Talk are now fully searchable
Good news: as of this afternoon, all of the content in Biz Talk is again fully searchable. Members have made more than 7,000 posts in Biz Talk since we launched Biznik’s discussion forum on Feb. 12, 2006. And now you can locate the one you’re looking for almost instantly. The new search is lightning fast, and allows you to search either all the forums at once (if you execute your search from the Biz Talk index page), or limit your search to a specific forum (by typing your search inside the specific forum).
Why did it take so long, you might rightly wonder? After all, adding search isn’t THAT complicated… Well, when we launched the current version of the site on July 1, we had to cut a few corners to get it out the door, because we implemented a fairly complicated - but incredibly fast - search on the new site (called Ferrett, a Ruby version of Apache Lucene, for those of you who care about that kind of thing). So we had to drop the Biz Talk search, planning to add it back again as soon as we had time. Then John took off for a much-needed vacation to Spain for a month.
During the interim, plenty of you gave us your feedback: make Biz Talk searchable. Now! Leif Hanson, bless him, hacked together a custom Google search page using Google’s new Co-op tool to tide us all over - see this page). Cere Davis went a big step further, and actually invested five hundred bucks of her own money in a Google business search account, which she donated to Biznik, in hopes that we’d deploy it right away (which I couldn’t do until lead developer John Adair returned - and when he got back, we opted to implement search using the aforementioned technology already in place). One last thing to note about how the search works: results are ordered by recency - the most recent post that matches your query is listed first, at the top of the results, and the oldest is listed last.
Anyway, thank you Cere, thank you Leif, and thank you everyone else who let us know that search was high on your priority list. We appreciate your patience, and we want to keep hearing from you about what you think is missing from Biznik, or what could be improved. Here’s the place to post them: http://biznik.com/forums/website-discussion-and-bug-reports.
We’re jamming on new features now, and I’ve got a lot of forthcoming announcements about new features that I’ll be making in the coming days and weeks. There’s lots of exciting new stuff in the pipeline!
business business networking chat feature findable optimization search tipsTo flag or not to flag: Biznik’s self-policing Flag and Block tools explained
The least-used feature on the Biznik website, happily, is the Flag tool, and the related Block tool. In fact, these are used so infrequently that a few members have asked me to clarify exactly how they are intended to be used. So here’s how it works: If you get spammed by a member or see something on a profile that you believe is a violation of Biznik’s terms of service, don’t send Lara or I a personal message - use the Flag tool. If you receive an unwelcome message from someone (but you don’t want to make a big deal out of it) you can use the Block tool, which fixes things so that member can never send you another message (until you Unblock them).
Selecting the flag gives you a popup menu that allows you to define what the violation is for, and to optionally specify details, which you should fill out to help us make sense of your complaint.
The first rule of flagging is: don’t flag someone unless you believe they are violating Biznik’s terms of service. For example, if you receive a spam message from someone, or if they are operating an MLM - both are examples where it’s appropriate to flag them. If you simply don’t like someone and don’t want to receive messages from them, then use the Block tool.
Sending a flag does not automatically mean the member’s account will be closed - it just alerts a Biznik administrator who will investigate the complaint. Sometimes the violation is clear-cut, and the member’s account will be immediately closed. Other times it’s more grey, and we’ll wait to see if the member gets flagged again before taking action. But we’ve noticed that patterns emerge pretty quickly, and the tool helps the community monitor itself very well. So use it sparingly, but don’t hesitate to use it when you see violations.
block community flag self policing social networkBiznik business networking events: now supporting Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook
John’s back from a month in Spain and Lara and I are back from Burning Man, and the first new feature we’re pleased to announce, now that summer’s over and we’re back in action, is a much-requested addition to the events page: support for Google Calendar. We already had support built-in for iCal and Outlook, but there were a few bugs in the iCal support that we’ve now ironed out as well. Here’s what it looks like on an event page: You select the “Add to Calendar” link under the host’s photo, and then choose from the three supported formats which calendar you’d like to add your event to.
Selecting Google Calendar brings up your Google Calendar if you’re logged into your Google account, and adds the event like so:
Question: Are there any other calendar formats you’d like Biznik to support?
Business networking works - when you actively participate
After you’ve created your Biznik profile, it’s tempting to sit back and “see what happens.” That’s what Jeff Collins did a few months ago, after he joined Biznik, but it wasn’t until he became an active member - posting in Biz Talk and initiating contact with other members online - that he begin to realize the real benefits. Jeff posted about his experience in Biz Talk recently, and his experience illustrates what happens when you go from lurking to participating. In his own words:
I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know Biznik has really worked well for my business. After Kevin Selkowitz told me about it in November 2006 I spent 6 months considering creating a profile. After I created a profile in April I left it alone for 4 months. About 1 to 3 people visited my profile every week.
Then I decided to start participating. I looked around at all of the interesting people and businesses. I read and wrote about topics in the Biz Talk pages and I met quite a few professionals with whom I exchanged Biznik messages. After one week my profile was being viewed by 50+ people a week and I began to schedule appointments to meet professionals from my local Biznik community.
Biznik has been really fun and at $0-$25/month it’s hard to beat the return on investment. I enjoy the people and the camaraderie.
If you are looking at Biznik without having created a profile, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Don’t waist 6 months thinking about it like I did.
Jeff Collins, Professional Haberdasher www.myhaberdasher.com
One final tip: Biznik’s social networking software is built on an ethic of participation. Members are ordered in the membership directory based on how active they are, with most active members appearing at the top. Members who aren’t active are pretty much consigned to invisibility deep in the directory. (Note that paying members always sort above non-paying members, no matter how active, because we view payment as a very important form of activity: it lets us continue to add new features and expand Biznik. Click here to upgrade your account!). So in a very real way, how active you are equates to how visible you are, and the more visible you are, the more likely you are to benefit from your membership in Biznik.
Biznik business networking participating