I’ve been attending the Meyvn Group’s Business Book Club since it began during the summer of 2009 – and I haven’t missed one of the discussions.
As a Free Agent, I value opportunities for professional development and all of the books we’ve read have helped shape me personally and 
as a business owner. Plus it’s amazing networking!
The Business Book Club kicks off its fall line up with their next meeting on September 13th from noon-1pm at the Plymouth Congregational Church. So you best be finding the book to read and start reading!
What books have you been reading this summer? Do you belong to any book clubs?
Earlier this week, I attended the Iowa Summit for Women Entrepreneurs at the DMACC Ankeny Campus and organized by the Sma
ll Business Administration.
While I consider myself a female entrepreneur, most of the attendees represented women owned businesses – I’m talking about the kind that employs other people and that produces a product. In addition to being a GREAT networking opportunity, it was eye-opening to learn of the problems facing women-owned businesses. Some of the issues we discussed can affect men-owned businesses, but there were a few that predominately affected women:
Do I grow my business?
I’m at capacity, either with space or staff. There is the demand, but do I invest (where do I even find the $ to do this) and take the risk to expand or scale back a bit to something that is manageable.
Is it worth my time to become a Targeted Small Business?
The Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals (DIA) certifies businesses owned, operated, and actively managed by women, minority group members, or persons with disabilities as targeted small businesses. Certified TSBs are eligible to apply for low-interest loans and equity grants through the Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED). State purchasing officers also consider TSBs when seeking bids for state-purchased goods and services. While a business does need the TSB designation to apply for particular loans and contracts, one of the women I talked to had purchased an existing business and was told she needed to wait two years to receive her TSB designation (I received mine in one week). While waiting, the existing business she had purchased lost the opportunity to bid on state projects that they had been winning 90% of the time before the sale.
Access to capital
The woman who purchased the small business I mentioned above needed to have her husband co-sign on her loan to purchase the business. She had more assets than he had and was in an outstanding financial position to more than repay the loan (she paid back a 10 year note in 10 months). But she still needed her husband to co-sign. What if a woman doesn’t have a husband to co-sign? What then?
Who are the SBA and SBDC? What do they do?
In the small group discussion I participated in, it was agreed that the SBA and their local SBDC offices need to do a better job of creating awareness for their services. I learned of SBDC after I started my business and have been promoting them to everyone I know. I was informed that the West Des Moines SBDC office has recently hired a designated Marketing professional to take on this challenge.
Are you a women-owned business? What barriers or challenges are you facing?
I’ve been writing on average one blog post a week since I started my business in November 2009. To me, that’s a lot of blog posts.
No, I’m not churning out content like Jay Baer, Chris Brogan or Seth Godin; nor do I aspire to. That’s not my goal.
What I would like to know is:
How important is it for you, as a consumer of blogs, to know when the article was published?
When you read a blogger’s post, do you take into consideration how recently they’ve posted an article as a basis for their credibility? If it’s been a couple weeks since their last post, do you judge the author and accuse them of having “fallen off the blog-wagon”?
Sometimes, the date puts the content into context. If you’re looking for time-sensitive information, you will want to know how current it is to know whether it is applicable or not. Right?
If you write a blog, do you include the date stamp on your blog posts? Why or why not?
At the end of June, Google launched its answer to the social media world with Google+ (Plus for short). It’s basically a tool you can use to organize your online contacts. You can upload your pictures and videos to share with friends, join in on a group video chat or just hang out.
Access continues to be by invitation only, so if you’d like an invitation, just email me your gmail address. When I accepted my 
invitation from a friend, I was able to create my profile, but couldn’t access the application because it was over capacity – some estimates had Plus users at 20 million by July 16th. There’s definitely a lot of curiosity out there.
Here’s my take on each of Plus’ features:
Circles: Circles allow you to organize contacts into groups (similar to Facebook Lists). Other users can view the list of people in your collection of circles, but they can’t see the names of the circles themselves.
- You can view streams of all your Circles or just one; not 2 Circles or 3 Circles. This is a shortcoming that’s being dealt with according to customer support.
- When you share something you can use the @ or + syntax to link to a person (just like Facebook)
- I never really utilized Lists on Facebook (I keep my Facebook Friends limited to my actual Friends) and shared information accordingly. This means I would share different messages on my personal Facebook page versus my LinkedIn page where my Connections are acquaintances or business colleagues. How are you using Circles?
Sparks: Similar to Google Search. Users can search for topics they are interested in and then save the Spark to their profile to peruse whenever they want. Having this search interface within Plus makes sharing with your Circles easy. (similar to Google Reader)
Hangouts: Used for group video chat with a maximum of 10 participating in a single Hangout at a time). Anyone on the web could potentially join the Hangout if they have the unique URL, though. I test drove a Hangout with a Client this week and it went well (I need a microphone!), but we were a little leery about random people joining in. But they can’t do it without us knowing (their face would appear on the screen!), so that helped. (similar to Skype)
Huddle: Group messaging feature available within the Plus mobile app (originally available only for Android and recently made available for the iPhone – search “Google Huddle”). Rather than sending text messages to each person in a Circle, users send Huddle messages to the group. Haven’t played with this yet. Have you? What are your thoughts?
Random Notes:
- Not liking the long, numerical unique username? Visit http://gplus.to/ to create your customized Google+ username – I did this very quickly: http://gplus.to/suzannehull.
- With Facebook, you can mute an individual post OR the person/business. With Plus, you can only mute an individual post which could get annoying.
- Plus also lacks the Facebook Event feature which I hope is coming soon.
- Be warned: If you delete a gmail contact from your gmail account, your contact will also be removed from your circles. When adding people to circles they get added to your “other contacts” within gmail. If you delete that contact, that contact is also removed from your circles.
Here’s a great tutorial on how to get started
Are you using Plus? What are you excited about? Not so excited about?
