Celebrating Social Media

by Marna on February 1, 2010

Woman with Laptop and Cellphone in cafe Social Media Week.   Celebrating being social?  But I guess it’s like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day…all those holidays created to remind us of things we need to appreciate every day, but take for granted.  And today, social media is something that users take for granted.

Remember when Twitter was down?  When it came back up, all the tweets were about what we did when it was down!  And now that it is more consistent, we go back to taking it for granted.  We have the ability to tweet, update our status on Facebook and continue to communicate through our blogs.  So why do we need a “Social Media Week”?  I think we need it to stop and think.  How much do you appreciate Social Media?  Are you using it to build your community?  How many relationships have you built from  a tweet?  Take a look around and think about the impact Social Media has had on your life.  And then  think about how Social Media impacts your “off-line” relaationships.

While I treasure the friends and relationships I have with people from high school, college and pre-Social Media, I am amazed at the community I have built with the help of Social Media.  Are you using LinkedIn? Twitter? Facebook? Foursquare?  With the help of Social Media, I have reconnected with old friends, connected with new friends, and through these connections, built even more relationships.  And through tweetups and other events, I am able to personalize Social Media.

For those non-believers, Social Media IS social!  It helps to increase your community and your world.  So what are your options?  You can be an observer of Social Media by joining the sites and just reading what everybody else says.  You can participate by updating your status and sharing your news.  And then you can be a motivator by using your community to pay it forward and help others. 

So if you aren’t involved, you should be.  Celebrate Social Media week by becoming more social! 

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Accelerating Into 2010

by Marna on January 28, 2010

 invitation New year, new ventures.  Over the past few weeks I have continued to work on my new business  venture in the hopes of quietly launching it before the end of this month.  While I achieved my original goal of completing the site by the end of 2009, it was still not ready to launch.  Domain names, technical issues and more plagued me.   It was a new year and I needed a new outlook.

I found new excitement  last week when I took the opportunity to pitch this business to Startup Chicks.  The pitch would offer me the opportunity to participate in the Startup Chicks Accelerator Program.  I also had the opportunity to practice my pitch the night before at Startup Gauntlet.

The program not only offered me the opportunity to gain valuable insights from the Startup Chicks Advisory Board; but also networking and sharing information with nine other startups in the program.  This would be the first program of its kind for women starting businesses in Atlanta, and while I was apprehensive, I really wanted to be part of this!  So while I continued to work on fine tuning my website, I needed to complete my Executive Summary and prepare a slide presentation of 5 slides.  The criteria to pitch was:

  • must be a startup chick (female founder)
  • need a well-formulated idea
  • committed to working in business for at least 10 hours / week.
  • willingness to be coached
  • willingness to spend min. of 5 hours in coaching program/month

Flash forward to the competition.  For those of you that have never been involved in pitch competition, it is truly remarkable.   So after each of us presented our pitches, the judges excused themselves to vote.   In order to win, we were judged on:

  • viability of idea/growth potential
  • credibility of founding team
  • ability to be coached

And even though there were great prizes for the top three winners, thanks to the generosity of the Advisory Board, we soon discovered that we would all spend the next 90 days working together receiving coaching and sharing information.  So regardless of the results, we were all winners!  I can only imagine where these businesses will be in 90 days!

Oh, I guess you want to know the results.  Well, I didn’t win.  But I did come in second!  I did win some amazing prizes, but as I have already stated, the community that we will build together as a team will help us move our businesses forward and learn from each other.  I can hardly wait to share more with you after our first meeting….

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Do You Remember Downtown?

January 21, 2010

In the movie, “You’ve Got Mail”, we watch how a large bookstore quickly put the small neighborhood shop out of business.  And while we were all rooting for the “Shop Around the Corner” to survive, it was not to be.  As small business owners, do we support each other?  Do we even remember the [...]

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Satisfying the UI

December 30, 2009

Technorati Tags: UI,customer service
One day left.  I am still working on launching my new website and having difficulty with plugins.  And as I continue to struggle, I think about support and what they means.  What will we all improve on in 2010?  This experience has helped me to understand the importance of customer service [...]

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Tuning In

December 10, 2009
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Giving thanks …
As a small business owner, I am required to wear a lot of hats. Sometimes that hat is Marketing and PR, which can be overwhelming. But thanks to the help of High Velocity Radio and Gravity Free Radio, (both part of Atlanta Business RadioX), I had the opportunity to share [...]

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Friends

December 10, 2009
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Giving thanks …
Over this past year I made the decision to embrace social media. And with the help of Twitter and WordPress, I have been able to build a community of new friends and acquaintances. I want to thank them for their participation and comments on my blog. They are always challenging [...]

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What If?

December 8, 2009
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As the year draws to a close and I begin to compile all of my year-end paperwork, I cannot help but stop and be thankful that it is organized and accessible, mostly because it is stored online or on flash drives. One of the things I accomplished this year was storing all of [...]

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My (sometimes) Paperless Office

December 7, 2009
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Giving thanks …
I learned about Neat Receipts this year. And while I don’t need it so much for my own business, I have certainly made good use of it. I consolidated all of my mother’s files down to one small tote. And after watching a friend gather all of their paperwork [...]

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Organizing Systems

December 7, 2009
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Giving thanks …
I started this series with my thanks for all I have learned, but I also need to give thanks for some things I already knew. I started my business as a professional organizer. Because I do know how to be organized. After running a business and then entering the corporate [...]

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Money Well Spent

December 4, 2009

Another thing I am thankful for…
I continued to learn more about WordPress, and one of the things I learned about was premium themes. Yes, the best thing about WordPress is that it is free! But there are limitations to free. First of all, there’s absolutely free, which is launching your blog on [...]

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