Last weekend I had the great pleasure of traveling to The Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah for the EVO Conference: The Evolution of Women in Social Media. I was honored to be on the Small Business Success panel along with some amazing women: Ciaran Blumenfeld from Francie Pants and Momfluential, Lara Galloway the Mom Biz Coach, Lisa Leonard of Lisa Leonard Designs, and Ana Roca-Castro of Premier Social Media.
{L - R} me, Lisa Leonard, Ciaran Blumenfeld, Ana Roca-Castro, Lara Galloway
I was inspired by everyone I met at the conference. Blogging and social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube have come so far so fast, and the conversations throughout the conference were truly engaging and intriguing. As a communications geek through and through, I ate up every bite of delicious social media conversation with great hunger and I left with a full belly, full heart. (Well, the full belly is partly from the food workshop: check out my foodie post on Lola’s Table!).
In addition to speaking, I attended some pretty powerful sessions, including one with Jon Sinclair and Andrea Wishom, producers for The Oprah Winfrey Show. Now, if you’ve followed Urban Bliss since we first opened up as Event Bliss in 2005, you know that we started out as a custom stationery company. During the second year of business, we had the pleasure of being recommended to Andrea and working with her on some custom stationery. Since she lived in Chicago and I lived in Portland, we did all business over email. So I was absolutely GIDDY with excitement when not only did I get to hear her speak about the future of television and social media, but I also got to chat with her briefly afterward and she remembered the work I did for her! Giddy! She is an amazingly smart, talented, kind woman and it was such an honor to meet her in person at last. I’m not the type to get starstruck with Hollywood types, but when I get to meet a customer or client for the first time in person after working with them long distance? It’s THE BEST thing in the whole world! I love, love, LOVE our Urban Bliss design + strategy clients!
Me & Andrea Wishom
One big take-away that I got from the conference was that I just need to start vlogging. I watched Lara Galloway do at least five Flip cam videos & post them to YouTube over the weekend. She’s amazing! I watched as others posted their videos from the conference to YouTube. So at the end of my work day yesterday, about 10 minutes before I had to pick up the kids, I grabbed my Flip Mino, and pressed record. I had no make-up on, hadn’t cleaned my desk, but I was going to just do it and be done with it. And I did. A vlogging virgin no more, my very first ever vlog…and since I’m going off the premise that these can only get better and not worse (right?), this won’t be the last!
[youtube]nWsyIbDzE-o[/youtube]
Finally, starting next week, our Urban Bliss Design + Strategy Summer Hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 9:30am – 5:30 pm.
Happy 4th of July weekend, everyone!
-Marlynn
