What can girls teach women? That was the catalyst for the conversation in Vivanista’s panel during UN Week. On Wednesday September 22, 2010 in New York City Vivanistabrought together a lively group of powerful women at the Mashable/UN Foundation Digital Media Lounge in New York City to discuss how young women in developed countries can have a major impact on improving the lives of girls in developing countries.
Panel participants include (from left to right): Kimberly Perry, Director of Girl Up, Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International, Nancy Lublin, CEO of DoSomething, Nancy Zhang, International Trustee of Key Club, and Layne Gray, CEO of Vivanista. Each member of the panel bring a wealth of experience and inspiration to both young girls and women.
Layne Gray led the panel in a discussion to draw their insights and experiences. She explains. “As philanthropic women, we want to share our message and values with girls.”, by quoting Nelson Mandela in saying “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation.” Layne asked the youngest member of the panel Nancy Zhang, to tell everyone what she thought it would take for America’s youth to be ‘That Great Generation”. Read more about the panel discussion at Vivanista or watch highlights below:
Everything but your company. Why? No one cares. Where is the you?
Merlin Mann of 43 Folders kicked off the morning at Reno-Tahoe WordCamp on June 12, 2010 with a keynote address: “There Is No Plug-in For Awesome (And the only tool here is you)”. He stressed the importance of bringing your own voice and passion into the way you project your business or blog. It is not always the way the latest and greatest functionality or plug-in on your site looks, what the tabs say or how they are positioned, but the material and audience in which your site reaches. He validated a great point which many of us try to avoid, and it is stressing “Everything but your company. Why? No one cares. Where is the you?” Sometimes it is as little as stepping back to acknowledge what you bring to the company or blog, which makes it unique.
Lacking slides Mann stressed simplicity and flexibility, without them we stress about the small things that lead up to what really matters. Although I had to laugh at his reasoning which was “Slides are like ski poles. You know who needs poles, children and professionals.” Coming from a professional ski background I would like to opt for slides, but they are by no means a crutch. With heavy emphasis on caring intensely about what you do and what you do different than the competition Mann explained that it is very difficult to be the next TechCrunch, instead your should focus on a niche. This carried very well into my presentation at WordCamp which was on Building a niche community with BuddyPress.
BuddyPress is a social networking platform/ plug-in that works with WordPress to create a community or add one to your content driven website. I gave a brief tour of BuddyPress and what it is like out of the box, how it can be customized, disguised and optimized. Although it is a social networking platform, it’s NOT Facebook, and it is not going to be Facebook. Thus the importance of focusing on a niche and providing elements such as content that Facebook cannot do.
MYTH – build it and they will come…
Be Different, BuddyPress can be leveraged to build your own brand and community. I emphasize the importance of design; people should not know your site is built with BuddyPress. There are some websites such as Hmag, Irrational Games, GigaOM and Vivanista that do this very nicely. Although design is very important, it is not the only thing to focus on. You cannot just build it and they will come. Providing visitors with something unique, a niche focus, something they will not find elsewhere is how you will captivate and build a community. To validate my point, I Lead by Example and walked people through my companies website Vivanista, a community for philanthropic living and giving. Some of the key customizations we did were to the navigation, profiles, login and widgetized design.
A few other things to keep and grow your user base:
Join me this Saturday June 12th 2010 for a full day of WordPress at the University of Nevada, Reno.
If you asked me a year ago what WordPress was I would have told you it was a blogging platform. Little did I know that I would quickly become a savvy WordPress user and ambassador. I have a love-hate relationship with WordPress and it comes from the countless hours I have logged playing, hacking, tweaking it and learning along the way. I know too much to be your average user and I know too little to be a developer, but it doesn’t stop me from dabbling in code, testing out new plug-ins and contributing to the WordPress community.
Working closely with Colin Loretz, last fall we built one of the most robust BuddyPress sites, Vivanista.com. Vivanista blends webzine, blog and social networking with an assortment of plug-ings and widgets to engage a niche community of philanthropic women. You could say that I am more than intimately close to Vivanista, in that I spend most my days in the dashboard publishing articles, images, events, managing the community, integrating advertising, social media and optimizing the site design and development. I also run my own blogon WordPress and have set several friends up with there own WordPress sites.
Now less than a year after my introduction to WordPress I am going to be talking about building a community with BuddyPress. I will be discussing the many benefits of using BuddyPress, how it has evolved, which plug-ins I recommend, as well as the trials and tribulations along the way.
What I am going to tell you is that WordPress is a chameleon; it is not just a blogging platform. It is a language, a business tool, content management system, community platform, e-commerce site, full of plugins, waiting to be shaped and designed however you wish it to be. In a geeky kind of way I can say WordPress is a dangerous and fun tool, which can be harnessed to change the world.
I want to extend the opportunity for others to learn about WordPress and how you too can leverage it in your everyday life and business. Join me this Saturday June 12th 2010 for a full day of WordPress at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Just What is WordCamp About?
The Reno-Tahoe WordCamp is an event put on by the community, for the community. Organized by Reno Collective this one day conference brings together casual users and developers from all over the country to learn more about what WordPress has to offer to become even better communicators, designers, developers, journalists and marketers.
For developers and designers, it’s a great opportunity to learn new tips and tricks. For writers and bloggers it’s an informative source for improving copy, increasing search engine optimization, incorporating social media and understanding how your site can be tweaked- and for everyone, it’s fantastic for meeting others who are working in your field. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran on the net or a complete newbie, you can get a lot out of it.
What to Expect?
The event brings together people from non-profits, small business, news organizations, and local agencies, as well as many independent developers and designers. The first 150 attendees will receive a limited run of the Reno-Tahoe WordCamp shirt that was designed for us by Diego Sabogal and printed by Reno Envy. Register here >>
The day will kick off with a keynote from Merlin Mann, There Is No Plugin For Awesome (And the only tool here is you). Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster based in San Francisco. Merlin created 43 Folders, co-hosts You Look Nice Today, appears on MacBreak Weekly, and speaks and consults about things like email, time & attention, and creative work. Through his work in 43Folders Merlin been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time Magazine and has also been tapped to present to tech giants such as Apple, Google and Yahoo.
The day will be broken up into two tracks for Community & Business and Designers & Developers. Sessions on the following topics will be addressed:
Designing on WordPress
Creating your first WordPress plugin
Using WordPress as a marketing tool
Running a business on WordPress
Freelancing with WordPress
Using WordPress as a multimedia platform
Creating your own niche social network with WordPress & BuddyPress
At the recent Nevada Interactive Media Summit, Colin Loretz and I presented a rapid fire round of the top 50 applications and websites we use to collaborate on projects and run our day-to-day business.
Colin and I have a few things in common not the least being we work together on Vivanista, but we are both entrepreneurs wearing constantly changing hats. Colin is a web developer, designer and recently opened a co-working space and development company of his own. I would consider myself a marketer, but I dabble in code, video, content/publishing, social media and have found some amazing tools to help me along the way. There are so many new tools online that it is hard to keep track – we’ve distilled our favorites into this presentation.
In what seemed to be a quick fifty minutes, Colin and I took turns sharing our favorite fifty applications. We broke things up into relevant categories and took turns explaining what each provided and how we personally use them. We covered everything from collaborating on projects, creating stunning presentations, sharing files effortlessly, monitoring finances, and managing endless to-do lists in the hustle and bustle of our wired lives.
The tools we shared during this session shed light on the many innovative, web-based and even free solutions for organizations and individuals of any size in building a company or non-profit organization, managing a classroom, schoolwork or family life. I have included the slides and a breakdown of each of the applications below.
Basecamp provides simple project management for you and your clients.
ActionMethodis visual way to organize a project into basic steps such as actions, references, events, backburners and more.
Harvest provides time tracking, invoicing, expense management and allows you to keep track of your accounts receivable and revenue.
Communication
Skype is software that enables the world’s conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users.
Adiumis a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more.
Campaign Monitor is email marketing software for designers and their clients.
iChat is a rich instant messaging application that works with your AIM or MobileMe account and makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using text and video, whether they’re on a Mac or a PC.*
Presentations
280slides lets you create presentations on the web and its features are most comparable to Keynote on the Mac.
Slidshare lets you share your presentation files on the web and allows for comments, sharing and embedding on blogs.
Audio/Video
ScreenFlowprovides all the elements needed to create professional-looking product demonstrations of software applications, including games. $99
iMovie Maybe you want to throw together a few video clips. Maybe you have more time and want to fine-tune every edit. Or maybe you just want to flip through clips the way you flip through album covers in iTunes. iMovie lets you do it all — then share it all. $79 for iLife package.
Ustream.TV is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size.
Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder you can use Audacity to Record live audio, Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files, Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together, and hange the speed or pitch of a recording.
To-do
Teux Deuxis an application that is as simple as they come. Manage items on a day to day basis and see what is coming up for the week.
TaDaList allows you to create to-do lists and share them with others.
Toodledois most complex to-do system listed here but it is the the most appropriate for anyone following the “Getting Things Done” (GTD) method.
Surveys & Forms
Wufoois an Internet application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. Free version available.
SurveyMonkey is an online survey tool that enables people of all experience levels to create their own surveys quickly and easily. Free for 10 questions.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Highrisegives you what you need to track your leads, contacts and deals. Highrise prepares you for your next call, email, meeting, pitch or sale.
Salesforce is much more robust than Highrise and can quite literally help you run every function of your business online thanks to Apps available on the Salefsorce.com AppExchange. Salesforce gives you a 360-view of your company from leads, accounts & contacts, dollar opportunities, contracts and even allows you to manage documents, customer support and cases.
Google
Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.
Google CalendarsNever forget another event. Get event reminders via email or have text messages sent right to your mobile phone.
Google DocsCreate and edit web-based documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Store documents online and access them from any computer.
Google Readeris a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline.
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, new, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Google Apps for Your Domain- Help your business reduce IT costs and improve the way employees work together.
Google Voicegives you one number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, free US long distance, low rates on international calls, and many calling.
Publishing
WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform but it’s features have grown to make it customizable for building websites that are easy to manage and maintain.
ExpressionEngine is also a blogging platform that can be used for web development. Whether you need a blog or a website, ExpressionEngine can help power it and make it easy for users to maintain and publish new content.
Social Media
Twitter is a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.
TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more.
Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things
1Password is available on the Mac and iPhone. It works with all internet browsers to allow you to save passwords and login information that are protected under a single, secure master password.
Readability allows you to simplify content on the web for easier reading. -
Bit.ly allows you to shorten web URLs and track the traffic that uses that link.
Divvylets you setup resources and assets to be reserved or scheduled my groups or individuals. For instance, sharing a conference room, video projector or even a person’s time.
RescueTime is for the productivity nazis. It tracks what applications you’re using, idle time and more to help you identify where your time is being spent and where you might be able to recover hours worth of productive time in a week.
File Sharing
Snagit screen capture sofware allows you to create an image of all or part of what you see you see on your computer monitor.
Scribd On Scribd, you can quickly and easily turn nearly any file—including PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel—into a Web document and share it with the world.
Flickris almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos and videos to the world
Acrobat.comis the swiss-army knife of web applications. It is a set of online tools you can use to create and collaboratively edit documents, communicate in real time and simplify working with others.
Dropbox makes online backup and file syncing very easy and seamless, across both Mac and PC and even the iPhone.
Evernote lets you save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use.
Finance
Mintis a free way to manager your money. It syncs securely with your bank accounts, credit cards and other assets/liabilities so that you can make informed decisions in budgeting, saving and investing. Mint will even help you find money. If it notices that using a different credit card or moving to a different kind of savings account will save or make you more money, it will let you know.
Freshbooks allows you to create and manage online invoices.
BallPark lets freelancers and companies create online estimates, invoices and centralize conversations with clients all in one place.
Invoice Machineis a simple way to create and manage invoices online.
Colin Loretz and I will be presenting a rapid fire round of the top 50 applications and websites you probably didn’t know existed but will help you make sense of your business, and in many cases, your life online. We will cover everything from collaborating on projects, creating stunning presentations, sharing files effortlessly, monitoring your finances, and managing your endless to-do lists in the hustle and bustle of our wired lives.
Presentation Objectives:
There are so many new tools online that it is hard to keep track – we’ve distilled them into this presentation
Teaching through example, both of us use these applications in running our companies and how the audience might use these tools in their daily life
Using tech to automate or improve our work, making life a little easier
Attendees will be given a handout with all 50 web apps and their URLs
This session will benefit anyone who uses the web or wishes to use the web to better manage their busy life and even automate some of it. Students to top-level management will find new applications and tools to not only manage a brand, online communications and precious time, but also fuel your business.
Nevada Interact will bring together business owners, non-profit advocates, publishers, newsmakers, bloggers, podcasters, filmmakers, media, PR and advertising professionals and anyone else interested in interactive media together for hands-on learning, rich discussions, opportunities to meet with local companies working in interactive media and plentiful networking opportunities
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? This is the basis of any Ignite Presentation.
I had the opportunity to participate in the recent Ignite Reno, where entrepreneurs, geeks and young professionals gathered to share ideas, inspire one another or learn something new. The presentations addressed varying topics from The Rise of Geek Culture, 2010 Predictions, and Getting out of Debt Fast. I chose to focus my five minutes spiel on why GenY, is the entrepreneurial generation.
My presentation was inspired by Donna Fenn’s The Upstarts Are Coming: How GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business. In this article excerpt from Upstarts she explores the potential impact that today’s young entrepreneurs will have on the U.S. economy. Being both an entrepreneur and a part of GenY, I find it fascinating what unique opportunity we are granted and want to inspire others to jump on board.
In an Ignite presentation your slides move faster than you can imagine (15 seconds), I was forced to cut and go with the flow. Below you can find video of my presentation and slides followed by an outlined and flow of my talk.
E= (Entreprenur) A person who has possession of a new venture or idea and assumes the risk + return and so much more…
Risk what? Risk implies you have something to lose. When you start a company in your 20’s there is far less to lose than when you are in your 30’s, 40’s, or 50’s.
Generation Wh”Y” Not. GenY is the Generation who asks “Why”, the “Millenial Generation”, the “Generation Next”, the “Net Generation”, “iPod Generation”, the “Entrepreneurial Generation”
Technology is the air we breathe. GenY is the first grown up digital generation. Our lives revolve around and are interconnected through technology.
Our generation is different… armed with self-confidence, independence and lack of trust in large corporations; our generation is more inclined to look out for themselves.
Rock Stars. Nothing inspires others like role models, young entrepreneurs these days attract the kind of media and public adoration typically reserved for rock stars and athletes. Take for example Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Matt Mullenweg of WordPress, both were highly successful under the age of 25. “Entrepreneur’s ages are skewing younger and their ideas getting smarter.”
An Entrepreneurial Revolution. According to Fenn we are “an emerging group of young, brash, and highly educated “upstart” entrepreneurs beginning to raise the bar for mature companies in every industry.” “Naivly unaware” and willing to “adapt to change”.
It’s not for the faint of heart. Ask yourself; do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Its incredibly hard, stressful, chaotic and more often than not results in failure.
Show Me the money. It’s not about the money, “Starting your own business is the most creative thing you can do. It’s living, breathing work of art.” – Shazi Visram, happy baby food.
Why be an Entrepreneur? It is the most rewarding thing you can ever do. You can change the world, make customers lives better and create an organization of lasting value.
Being and Entrepreneur means you get to wear Multiple hat’s. You never do the same thing one day after the other. For example: I manage the strategic direction of my Co., Development, build community awareness, code HTML, Tweet, use WordPress, make videos, Photoshop cool stuff and whatever else needs to happen.
Do you have what it takes? Give yourself a personality check. Am I…. passionate, self motivated and willing to take risks and try new things.
Be Patient. Things don’t happen over night.
Learn as much as possible. Read, Learn new skills, follow trends and learn from your own mistakes as well as others.
Juggle. The Key to success is prioritization, determining what needs to get done when and being flexible if it doesn’t happen the way you expect.
Unplug. My motto “Word Hard, Play Hard”, you must maintain a work-life balance. You need to disconnect every once and a while and extract yourself from you work, you usually come back with inspired with fresh ideas.
Just Do It. You will never know if you don’t try, so “Fail fast then quickly move on to the next big thing”
Are you Crazy? No I am an entrepreneur. I may have a few loose screws, work like crazy, always be thinking of my business, but what I do challenges me, teaches me new things and it is something I am proud of.
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds?
Around the world entrepreneurs, geeks, leaders and activists have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers. Ignite is a style of presentation where participates are given five minutes to speak on a subject accompanied by 20 slides that auto-rotate every 15 seconds. These are not supposed to be business pitches, but how to’s, entertaining history lessons, and stories.
Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis. Since then hundreds of 5 minute talks have been given across the world. Each Ignite is organized independently on the local level, there are thriving Ignite communities in Seattle, Portland, Paris, and NYC. The international community site is sponsored by O’Reilly where you can find more information and watch videos from other Ignite communities.
On December 8th, 2009 I attended my first Ignite event in Berkeley, Ca – Ignite Bay Area Women: Women Innovators. Some of the Bay Area’s most notable female thinkers came together to explore innovation across communications, entrepreneurship, programming, and development at the David Brower Center.
There were twelve five-minute presentations from leaders, founders and activists, that explored a variety of topics from Un-Conferences and Ritual Coffee roasting to Roller Derby and Awkward Moments. It was a great event for not only the fast-paced, fun creative presentation style and learning something new, but the networking and gathering of intelligent and savvy individuals that attended.
Ever since I heard about Ignite I was intrigued and curious about doing one myself. When Colin Loretz, a friend and business associate invited me to speak at his upcoming Ignite Reno, I leapt at the opportunity. When I accepted I had no clue what I was going to discuss, but I knew it would be a good challenge. I played around with a few ideas, topics that I am knowledgeable in and selected entrepreneurship. My presentation titled “Aren’t you a little young to be an entrepreneur?” Will address the age advantages of being a young entrepreneur as well as some of risk, benefits, and things you learn along the way.
Come join me at The Amendment 21 for a few drinks while geeking out on life. 5 minute speed presentations will be given on topics of all sorts of topics including technology, business, art, philosophy, life and more!
Terry Chay, of Automattic Inc.wrote an in depth analysis of the technology applied at Vivanista.com. He highlights both the advantages and a few of the issues.
