Archive for the 'competition' Category
November 4, 2008
I haven’t written about politics on my blog for a variety of reasons but mostly because I think everyone has a right to their own opinion and my blog is primarily about business and parenting…not politics.
However, given that a historic, unprecedented event has just happened in our lifetime, I felt compelled to write this post. I am SO excited that Barack Obama was elected to be the next president of the United States! Not just because I agree with much of his political philosophy, but also because he’s brown, has brains, and has the potential to heal wounds created throughout the world.
If you are someone who has not grown up with brown skin, this might not make sense to you but in my opinion this is a huge affirmation of the American dream. My uncle, a geography professor, was turned away from a restaurant while visiting Virginia New Mexico because of the color of his skin. When I was 8 or 9 years old, a blonde little boy turned to me in the walkways outside my elementary school and yelled at me calling me the ‘n’ word. I had never heard that word before, yet I felt the hate emanating from this young boy, and I still remember the fear I felt standing there all alone wondering why this boy hated me so much.
I’m not even Black (I’m South Asian), but I (and other members of my family) were lumped into the non-White category. When I lived in West Texas, the difference was even more pronounced. I grew up self conscious of my skin color and even now I have moments where I wonder if I truly fit in…despite being married to a White man! Women and Black men have had to consistently work twice as hard and be twice as good to be recognized at the same level as White men in this country.
Time will tell if Obama was the right pick, but the fact that he was picked in this country in 2008 means to me that we’ve reached a turning point in our history. People who are not White and not even men (thanks to Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin) now have a living breathing example of how it can be done.
Obama, to me, epitomizes working hard (no riding daddy’s coattails), focusing on education, prioritizing family values, and taking a thoughtful analytic (that man is smart!) approach before acting. As an added bonus, he appears to know how to speak proper English! 
Not only has he broken color barriers, he has broken social media barriers. He has run the biggest, first, and most effective political campaign that has ever been run (oh what money can buy)! By his campaign’s avid use of twitter, YouTube, blogs, MySpace, email campaigns, etc., he has single handedly affirmed an entire new industry and demonstrated how using the Internet and social media can have a huge impact on the success of campaigns, businesses, and causes. If there was any doubt by individuals and big companies as to the efficacy of social media, it has now been shattered!
I was 3 when I came to the United States with my parents, and we landed in Pennsylvania. I was 21 when I became a naturalized citizen in New Mexico. I am now many years older, live in Texas, and tonight I saw the window of opportunity open wider for my light brown kids…
God Bless America!
August 29, 2008
The Summer 2008 Olympics are now over. The national conventions for the Democrats and Republicans are happening. Democrats just wrapped up theirs and Barack Obama is the official candidate. The Republicans are up soon and John McCain just announced his VP, Sarah Palin. School has started for all kids across the country. Summer vacations are over. And life goes on.
Like many I watched the Olympics when I found the time in the evening and was fortunate enough to see some of the men and women’s gymnastics, swimming, track and field, and volleyball. I saw the US women’s beach volleyball team win. I saw the women’s gymnastics team win and saw Nastia Lukin win gold. I saw Michael Phelps win several of his gold medals for swimming. One weekend I even caught the Chinese synchronized swimming team. Wow, that was impressive! My husband stayed up later and saw the women’s and men’s volleyball teams as well as the men’s basketball team.
I actually think I was able to watch more of the events during this Olympics than any other Olympics in my life. I’m not sure why that is given that my life is so much busier than it used to be. It’s probably because my husband was watching it and it was a nice (often nerve wracking) way to end the day and see several of the events “live.”
What struck me was how hard all of these athletes have been preparing for the vast majority of their lives for this one shot at gold, fame, and potential sponsorship opportunities from big name brands/companies. All their preparation comes down to a single point in time to succeed or fail. The pressure and mental stress must be extreme, and yet they get up every day to prepare for that one moment in time.
Every individual who competes tries hard, practices hard, prepares hard and only 1 receives the gold medal. The same is true for entrepreneurs but fortunately there aren’t hundreds of little kids competing to win in one particular business (e.g., selling widget X). There may be several competitors in a space but it’s doubtful that the leaders of your competitors started practicing to compete to sell “widget X” when they were 10 or even 5 years old!
However, there seem to be many more factors way out of the control of the entrepreneur that determine their company’s success or failure (e.g., the economy, people issues, product issues, market timing, etc.). An athlete has much more control on whether they get up and practice every day with the major big unknown being a devastating injury. They are rarely blindsided by a last minute entry who ends up being a well-funded Superman/Superwoman athlete!
Building a successful business is extremely hard, costs money, and is time consuming, but after watching the Olympics, my guess is that preparing and then winning a gold medal is harder, requires more discipline, and is more time consuming but with more defined parameters. Even more so if you happen to be a Chinese Olympic team member who are often taken from their parents at a very young age.
People expect athletes to take years or even a decade to train to even make it to the Olympic games, but many expect entrepreneurs to make it big in just a few years and in the process they often burn themselves and others out. I’m guessing that fewer entrepreneurs earn ‘gold medals’ than individuals and teams do every four years in the summer Olympics.
July 13, 2008
I recently received the following email from one of Whirlpool’s PR reps. Although I don’t recall being upset (maybe disappointed) about not knowing about the program (which I can’t recall at the moment) she was referring to, I figured I’d share her email about this contest because it seems like a cool idea. I do have a vague recollection of commenting on a Washington Post article and if I didn’t, she’s a pretty good PR rep to tell me about this contest, because I like to post about programs that support entrepreneurs!
The cool thing is that if you win you not only win cash but also appliances! Also, upon reading their site you cannot submit a company/idea for a new appliance. Your business idea has to be totally unrelated to Whirlpool’s primary business of appliance creation and manufacturing.
I also noticed that one of the guest judges is Julie Aigner-Clarke, founder of Baby Einstein!
I haven’t figured out yet if I can apply for Babble Soft (no issue about us being an appliance ) but I haven’t read all of the fine print yet. The application looks pretty simple and straight forward so chances are I will apply. I encourage you all to check it out too and tell other mom-inventors out there about the competition.
Hi Aruni,
I saw that you commented on a Washington Post blog entry about a grant program and that you were upset you didn’t know the program was going on. Just wanted to share with you another grant program that I thought might be of interest to you and your readers.
Whirlpool brand has recently kicked-off the fourth annual Mother of Invention Grant Program. In the past three years, Whirlpool brand has recognized and helped more than 15 moms turn their innovative ideas into reality.
The Whirlpool brand Mother of Invention Grant Program provides seed money and expert guidance to moms to turn their invention, business or service ideas into full-fledged businesses. Contest winners receive:
- A $20,000 grant for the grand prize winner
- $24,000 in grant money for the four runners-up
- Appliance prizes
- Invitation to business boot camp where winners will receive guidance from Whirlpool and industry experts
This year, we are greening the program by adding a new category focused on moms who create an environmentally friendly product/service or use natural/recycled materials to create their invention.
More information and entry forms can be found at www.whirlpool.com/moms. Entries are accepted through July 31, 2008.
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like additional information about the program. I’d also be happy to share information about our past winners, should you be interested.
Best,
Laura
May 16, 2008
So here’s the rest of my Women 2.0 Conference story. If you want to see tons of pictures (which sadly I and my deep pink Banana Republic shirt don’t appear) please check out the official Women 2.0 Conference Wrap Up post. You can also see Sophia Perl’s (another semi-finalist) post on it here.
Friday - May 9, 2008
I took my rented yellow car and drove around the Palo Alto/Menlo Park area to meet some people. I met Jeff Nolan, who was one of the venture investors in my first company, for lunch at a place called Buck’s. We only just got to know each other while at my last company before I left, but he seemed to be one of the good guys. I mentioned him in a post I did about angels and venture capitalists a while back. We might get to work together again and this time in hopefully a more creative and collaborative way.
I tried to meet up with Guy Kawasaki later that afternoon but he had something mildly important to do like make some sort of silly book submission deadline, so we traded tweets and emails instead. Then I went to the Stanford mall. I’m not a big shopper, but since I had a few hours to kill, and my husband wanted me to get him a Stanford t-shirt (It’s one of his alma-maters) I wandered around a bit and read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but was not feeling in the “now” at the time so didn’t make much progress. So I got some hot chocolate, my rings cleaned, and happened to find a couple of light-weight jackets at really good sale prices to protect me from the Bay Area cool evenings!
Later I had the pleasure of meeting up with Maryam Scoble for wine and fabulous brie with a flakey crust. Yum! Maryam and I met through our blogs. I initially heard about her and her husband Robert Scoble from our very own Austin based Connie Reece. Robert even did a Qik video of me at SXSW but I don’t think that many pregnant moms or parents with newborn babies, preemies or twins are watching those videos. Go figure!
Saturday - May 10, 2008 (conference day)
You can see the agenda for the conference here. It was an interesting day in a tent near the Stanford golf course. Walking in grass was a challenge for many of us who were wearing heels. Those wearing pointed heels especially suffered by sinking into the grass/dirt, but since I would trip and fall on my face in pointed heels, I wear more flat ones.
The most interesting sound bites, in my opinion, came from the Power Panel: “Igniting the spark through strategies taught and lessons learned”
Terri Ghio, Unique Solutions and TBS Connect said: Make sure you have an audience, a secret sauce, strategic alliances, and ability to build the blocks and barriers for success.
Amy Love, Protégé Performance Group said: Build an inner circle, share your dream, think big, and have the confidence & energy to move forward.
Dr. Jwala Karnik, JwalaCo said: Be open to inspiration, tell people what you want to do, and just take the first step!
Dr. Maggie Haertsch, VOICEMAP said: Have passion and be totally committed, focused, and fearless!
Pat McEntee, AuxoGlobal said: Women entrepreneurs are different and that’s OK. Women look at things they want to spend their time on differently. Women build different companies. The fact that many retail companies are currently dominated by men is not going to last long, but women should build companies that men feel comfortable in. By the way, Pat is a guy!
I mentioned the winners of the napkin business plan challenge in my yellow car post, so I won’t mention it here again, but I did want to mention one company and founder who was on one of the panels: Erica Estrada of d.light design. She is impressive and her company is very cool! They make affordable, small, solar power lighting units for people in third world countries who have no access to electricity. So the kids in who live in shacks can study/read after dark and parents can cook or work after dark without having to use a kerosene lamp that not only stinks and has to be bad for your lungs, but also doesn’t last very long. I really do wish her and her company great luck, good partners, fabulous investors and perfect timing!
I ended the day by eating sushi with the friends I was staying with. They even took a picture of me (see below) drinking this huge cup of sake! The waitress finished the bottle on me, so the sake overflowed into its holding bowl. I was glad I wasn’t the one driving us home in my rented yellow car. 
Coming soon I’ll post an update on my SEO experiences, so you might want to subscribe to read more about the birth pains of a web business. It’s not pretty.
May 7, 2008
You might have heard, I was a semi-finalist for the Women 2.0 napkin business plan competition. Well, they informed me on May 3, I didn’t make the finals. Sigh. But trying to look on the bright side, I’m actually kind of relieved because now I can focus on networking and learning instead of being stressed out about giving my pitch! I’m starting to think I’ll have to get a job to support my entrepreneurial addiction. Too bad I didn’t get rich off of my first entrepreneurial endeavor…
I’d like to profusely thank Sylvester Becker (a.k.a. German Cowboy) of Dana Lynn Media for helping me pull together a very cool 2 minute pitch video which I can’t share with the world yet, but maybe soon. Sylvester was awesome to work with and so creative! We used crayons. We used Little People to illustrate our future customers as well as small figures of Dora the Explorer and her friends Boots and Benny. Although I think Boots got cut out in editing. My daughter loves Dora and in fact some people say she looks like her especially now with her new haircut.
I had already decided that even if I didn’t make the finals, I was going to the Women 2.0 conference (check out the site for the fabulous list of panel speakers - entrepreneurs and venture capitalists) this weekend in the Bay Area where the skies are blue, the weather is usually predictable, the money made in tech is gigantic, and everything is way too expensive. Except for, oddly, the reasonably priced rental car I got from Hertz. Thankfully, some friends are letting me crash at their place so I can save money by not getting a hotel.
Anyway, in case you are interested in the names of the finalists, here you go:
I’ll do a post about it after I get back, so Subscribe Now so you don’t miss a thing about my sure-to-be idyllic, fantastic, jaw dropping trip to Cali! I wonder if I can find a way to eat some sushi while I’m there…
April 17, 2008
I made it to the semi-finals for the Women 2.0 business plan competition in California for my company Babble Soft! It’s so exciting because it’s a great opportunity to meet people who ‘get’ what I’m trying to do. People in Silicon Valley live & breathe social media and social networks which is very different than here in Texas. The grand prize includes some money ($1500) but more importantly access to a network of people with great experience! Here’s the email I got this morning:
Congratulations! You’ve made it to the semi-finals of Pitch 2008. This is the next step you should take.
Please log into your application via Angelsoft and upload a 2 min video pitch. Any pitches that are more than 2 mins will be disqualified.
Upload your video by Apr 20 2008, 11.59PM (PST). If we do not receive your video pitch by Apr 20 2008, you will be eliminated from the competition.
If you have already submitted a video, please ignore this message. You are only required to upload a 2 min video pitch. Do not upload any other files or presentations.
Please RSVP to this message so that we know you have received this email. Thanks.
All the Best,
Women2.0 Team
I guess my napkin handwriting skills were better than I thought! My husband, who has much better handwriting than I do, didn’t have time to help me, so I ended up doing it myself.
Now I have to submit a 2 minute video for a chance to make the finals. I haven’t done a video pitch for Babble Soft before so I’m not exactly sure what to do. Actually, I have never done a video pitch. Should I be formal about it? Should I have my kids in it? Should I walk through a slide deck? Should I beg, borrow, or steal a professional to help me with it? Should I just use our digital camera and record something in our house or should I do it outside, etc., etc., etc.?!?
Help!
April 7, 2008
I’m applying for the Women 2.0 business plan competition in California for my company Babble Soft. Thanks to Angie Chang for leaving a comment on my recent Economy and Entrepreneurs post letting me know about it. At the time the deadline was April 1, but they’ve since extended it to April 15. They encourage companies located outside of California (and the Bay Area) to apply so we’ll see if they will actually select a company from l’il ‘ole Austin, Texas.
It’s a pretty short application form that challenges even the most frequent twitter user (i.e., type your thoughts in less than 140 characters) with maximum character requirements between 210 to 410 characters to describe things like your target market, business summary, or competitive advantage! It sure made me focus on picking what I believe are the right words. The online application form is run by Angelsoft, which I mentioned in one of my SXSW posts.
I will be submitting my application later today and then mailing in my paper napkin with my best paper napkin handwriting ability (UGH!) soon thereafter. I might have to ask my husband to write it for me because his napkin handwriting talent is much better than mine.
Wish me luck!!
March 14, 2008
BlogHer’s Annual Survey
BlogHer is doing their annual survey and would love your opinions. This helps them attract advertisers to be a part of their network. In return, they get great ads (which I and other bloggers give valuable space to on our blogs) and they share a little of the money with us. So please click on the image above or right here to take a brief survey.
Contest for Parents of Teens at NeenMachine.com
If you are a parent of a college bound high school junior or senior, here is a contest that you won’t want to miss! NeenMachine.com has teamed up with ApplyWise (a leader in college admission counseling) to offer one lucky winner the ApplyWise College Admission Counseling package for free - (a $299 value). To enter just leave a comment on this contest post at Parenting Tips at NeenMachine.com and give your child an edge over the competion.
But hurry - contest ends March 28, 2008.
March 8, 2008
For the past few years I have served as an Advisor to The University of Texas at Austin MBA team that competes in the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC).
It all started when I was an adjunct lecturer of entrepreneurship at UT Austin and since then I’ve continued to advise as they need me and my schedule permits. This competition did not exist when I got my MBA, and even if I had the opportunity to participate I was too busy trying to start my first venture. What a plus it would have been for any entrepreneur to have seen a term sheet presented by experienced investors in an academic environment rather than in real life when you feel like you have to learn another language just to understand parts of the investment terms!
This year the regional competition was held at USC in LA on March 7, 2008. The UT team this year was comprised of:
Ben Jones - MBA 2008
Kyle Reese - MBA 2008
Rajiv Bala - MBA 2009
Ryan Sanders - MBA 2009
Scott Chiou - MBA 2009
I connect them with local venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to help them prepare but we had a late start with only about 5 weeks to get ready and midterms in between this year. Other teams have semester long classes to prepare for this competition!
At the competition, 6 teams were given business plans for 3 real companies including NiLA, makers of environmentally friendly lighting, on Wednesday, March 5 at 5:00 pm. They use the Internet and other relevant sources to research the companies and come up with questions for the entrepreneurs. On Friday, they heard the entrepreneurs pitch their business concepts in front of 11 real live venture capitalists, including Aditya Mathur of Revolution Ventures, Nathan Joyner of Pacific Ridge Capital, Neal Hansch of Rustic Canyon Ventures, representatives from Tech Coast Angel Group and many more.
They then go into little rooms and subject the entrepreneurs to answering several of the same questions over and over again from the 6 different teams. Why would any entrepreneur do this you might wonder? Because the VCs are in the room while they are being asked the questions so they are getting exposure that they might not have had otherwise to them.
After the questioning sessions are over, the teams again regroup and come up with a PowerPoint presentation which outlines which company they would chose to invest in and why. For the company they choose to invest in, they create a term sheet. They present their choice in 3 minutes in front of the VCs. The VCs then grill them for about 15 minutes on their company choice and investment terms.
At the end of the day, the judges decide who wins and who takes 2nd place. The 1st and 2nd place winners get money and the opportunity to compete in the national competition at University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School in April. I have personally seen one student get a job on a team I advised in venture capital because of participating in this competition.
As an advisor I get to be a fly on the wall and watch the VCs deliberate and observe the decision making process. Plus I build my network in areas outside of Austin. Personally, I believe this experience has helped me gain better perspective on what venture capitalists are looking for which is why I’m currently seeking money from angel investors or smaller boutique/seed stage venture firms.
So I’m sure the suspense is killing you as to whether or not our team placed and unfortunately they did not. They picked the company with the biggest market potential but with the highest risk and the VC judges picked NiLa, which has a great opportunity but less risk and less upside. Goes to show you that most VCs are not early stage investors!
There are so many variables that go into winning from judges backgrounds, to student’s experience, to understanding of the market of the presenting companies, etc. that you can’t always prepare for everything. But what an experience!
Flying back to Austin today for SXSW Interactive and will post about my experience as a newbie SXSW attendee. I’m looking forward to meeting many of the people I’ve met through blogging and twitter!
December 16, 2007
Picture by Sandy Blanchard
As I contemplate a plan to raise angel financing for Babble Soft in 2008, I have begun mentally preparing myself for the inevitable ups and downs of the process. I have raised funds to the tune of $15 million as founding CEO of my first start-up, Isochron, back before the first Internet bubble burst, so I have that experience to leverage. But that was just over 7 years ago and a lot has changed since then.
Isochron, which we started as part of a business plan competition back in 1997, was sold in 2002 after the bubble burst. I had already left in 2001, but Erin stayed on for two more years until 2003. The Founders/employees were washed out (i.e., got nothing) and the Investors got only a small fraction of their invested capital back. At that time many companies were just disappearing all together. When it was sold, Isochron was on its 4th CEO with me being the first. Now it’s on its 5th, is still operating and as I understand it doing reasonably well, but not the high growth trajectory we had hoped for back when we started. Looking back, if we (and our investors) had truly understood Porter’s 5 Forces we would have approached the business differently or maybe even run the other way because with a customer like Coca-Cola you don’t have much negotiating power! But hey, we were young entrepreneurs (I was 27 - what did I know? ) who felt we could conquer the world of distribution to and maintenance of vending machines and other equipment after that. Mostly because we were tired of going to school vending machines and them being out of stock of what we wanted so we figured we could help sove that problem with creative technology.
Since then, I have taken time to decompress, teach entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at Austin business school, have two amazing kids, consult, and dabble with the notion of Babble Soft. Erin and I did some development and had a beta product ready in 2005 to use when our daughter was born, but it really wasn’t until 2007 when we launched our Web application and she started full time care, that I became serious about committing to the bigger vision of Babble Soft. I quit straddling the mental fence probably around October of 2007 and jumped squarely onto the side of the fence that has a vast open field with mountains, land mines, cool rivers, placid lakes, tornados, sunny skies, rainy days, ego bruises, good decisions, bad decisions, no money, fun, and most importantly a yet to be discovered journey!
After Isochron, I didn’t think I’d ever want to do a tech startup again. It was hard. It was tiring. I aged. It was stressful. I was disillusioned. It didn’t end like I had hoped/planned it would. But if you read my Entrepreneurial Self Portrait, you’ll see that I since discovered that it is in my blood. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade the experience and lessons learned for anything!
Do I wish I had made the decision earlier to dive head first into Babble Soft or another tech company? Sometimes, because I spent money on the wrong things due to not being focused/committed, which leaves us less money to spend now and means I have to raise funds sooner than I might have had to. But I know deep down I will not regret the decision I made to stay home with my kids when they were babies, work from home, and maintain a fairly flexible schedule for them. So maybe now’s the right time to really scratch my 7 year entrepreneurial itch! This time I want to make sure I laugh a lot more…which is not hard to do with little kids around.
Stay tuned for more stories about my start-up journey. Next up in this series will be a subjective post on the pros and cons of raising outside capital.
If you are interested in reading ‘the rest of the story,’ you might consider subscribing to this blog’s feed (tell your friends too) so you won’t miss a thing! Even if you just can’t bring yourself to subscribe right now because you have a boulder on your head, would you mind helping me increase my chances at winning $50K from Intuit in their Just Start competition by clicking on the Quickbooks widget on the top right hand side of my blog or clicking here. Thank you!
December 13, 2007
Wendy at eMoms at Home did a post recently where she asked her readers “How do you Use Social Media to Promote Your Business?“ I didn’t have time to answer then and I’m sure I missed out on the free books, which is OK because I never seem to have time to read any books these days. I’ve had a few days off from software testing, so I figured I’d do a post about it.
There are so many aspects to social media that it’s tough for an entrepreneur to keep up. I mean we still have to sleep! Fortunately, I’m fairly social. I mentioned on a post that Liz Strauss did recently called Business and Life: Are You Making the Most of the Conversation? that “I am a Participant, rarely a Lurker, and often a Listener.”
It is fun making friends all over the world and it’s easy to be social from behind your computer when it fits with your schedule. In the past I resisted joining sites like facebook because of the time commitment.
To do a social network right, I figure it means committing significant time to it. When you are launching a start-up, planning to raise funds, taking care of kids, maintaining a house, etc., it’s not easy to be as active as one should be in these networks over time. But so far it’s been fascinating to see how other people interact with the networks. I mean can you believe that facebook has over 55 million users all over the world? That is amazing! So here’s what I’ve done and what I’ve observed:
I started this blog (it had a different name before) with the help of Connie Reece. She gave me the kick start I needed! I think I did my first post back in May 2007. The blog has been fun and I know it has driven some additional traffic to my company site, Babble Soft, but to date I haven’t seen that it’s resulted in more than just a few additional sales. As a result of having a blog, I joined MyBlogLog, FeedBurner, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Digg, and BlogHer. Wendy was also kind enough to invite me to join the Home Business & Entrepreneur FeedBurner Ad Network. I haven’t made much money from these particular ad networks (maybe in total $100) but it has given me exposure to other bloggers and made me aware of other businesses.
I entered some competitions to hopefully win prizes and get additional exposure. I can’t remember all of them but I know I did one at Alpha Moms and I just entered Intuit’s Just Start challenge where I have the potential to win $50K for my business! The ‘vote for me’ widget will be on the right hand side of my blog until shortly after their voting deadline of December 16. After I sent an email to some friends asking if they would vote for me, I found out that people had to log in to do so. Knowing how much I hate to create unnecessary logins, my guess is that I won’t win on votes, but I might win in the unique idea category and because we have jokingly referred to our Baby Insights application as “Quicken for Baby.”
I have participated in some blog memes: 8 Random Things About Me and Blogging Tip Meme. Neena just tagged me again for a My Favorite Words theme. Memes give you exposure but they are time consuming so I think after doing this last meme, I will have to put a notice somewhere to let people know not to tag me unless they let me know first because I would hate to leave a meme go unanswered. I’m answering the Favorite Word meme by bolding my favorite words in this post (in case you were wondering why some of the words are in bold text). Isabella at Change Therapy I hope that’s OK with you! What do these words say about me? I guess that I’m a driven, committed, somewhat zany, looking to learn, searching for connection/peace, sleep deprived, mom-ified, and sometimes creative.
I joined LinkedIn. I’ve found LinkedIn to be useful for business related networking…for answers to specific questions. I haven’t yet established a deal or attempted to look for employees there which I hear is what it’s meant for. I’ve been able to answer a few questions on LinkedIn but I don’t think I’ve contributed to the increase of anyone’s business yet.
I joined facebook. Mostly to learn from the king of social networking sites. I may do some targeted ads there some day when time and money permit. I also set up a company page on facebook for Babble Soft.
I engaged a full service SEO/SEM firm.
I just joined twitter. I even added the little widget to my sidebar, and I integrated it with facebook. I really resisted joining twitter. I had no idea why anyone would be interested in my day to day activities. More importantly I didn’t think I would be interested in anyone else’s day to day activities! I already have about 20 followers. You may be wondering what pushed me over the edge and made me join twitter…well it was the Duran Duran concert I attended earlier this week. I was there and I suddenly thought ‘wouldn’t it be great if I could tell my friends and random strangers about the fact I’m at this cool concert?’ and then all of a sudden I “got” twitter! Will it result in additional business? I’m not sure. Time will tell.
I have not yet joined MySpace or YouTube (but I’ve been to the site many times). If I had to guess, I will probably join YouTube before MySpace, but first I need to create some videos!
Overall, I think I’m still at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to building a powerful online network and I’m a little bit afraid of getting in too deep and getting stuck in a networking hole somewhere. I’m not sure if that makes sense to anyone, but it’s a fear I face nonetheless. Maybe I’ll find peace there instead.
November 3, 2007
Yesterday I served as a feedback judge for the international I2P competition. I have served as a judge before and every time they ask me I usually say ‘yes’ and every time the date approaches I wonder to myself why I said ‘yes’ because of all the other things I have going on. And every time I do it I am so glad I said ‘yes!’
In 2001, I was one of the original committee members involved in early discussions on how to set up the program and now through the hard work and dedication of the Engineering and Business schools faculty and staff, it is the premier tech commercialization competition in major universities around the world!
The Idea to Product® Competitions, founded at The University of Texas at Austin, are early-stage technology commercialization plan competitions that aim for unique product ideas with clear market demand that use innovative technologies. The goal is educating and developing the next generation of technology entrepreneurs. The program is particularly interested in matching technologies resulting from a university’s fundamental research programs with potential markets.
It is a wonderful experience. The students are brilliant. They travel to Austin, Texas from all over the world. The technology is amazing (even ground breaking). The different approaches to the markets are fascinating. It’s a great break from the day to day of my own start-up and so energizing to see the entrepreneurial spirit and drive so alive. The set of student teams I gave feedback to included ideas ranging from technology to increase the life of wireless sensor batteries, tests to help pathologists decrease the time to identify and diagnose certain types of cancer, and tests to decrease the time it takes to get a cancer drug to market.
One of the most rewarding things for me is the fact that I might be able to help a couple of these teams (assuming they are serious about obtaining the full rights to the technology and starting a business) with some introductions to other people who could quite possibly help them out.
Who wouldn’t get excited about the potential of these types of technology and more importantly these students who want to change the world!
Go Teams!
October 7, 2007
There are in mine! My husband and I watch the NBC Heroes TV show every week (thank goodness for DVRs). We got hooked in the first season and are hooked again. This season has started off a bit slower than I expected, but I am hopeful that some really cool stuff is up the writers’ sleeves.
The characters are great. The drama is intense. The science fiction is way cool. Wikipedia has a list of all the characters if you are interested in knowing their names and backgrounds. I know that several critics say the show reminds them too much of X-Men but to them I say ‘pfftph’ because who actually gets enough of the X-Men (and Women)?!? Plus since this is a TV show, there is more time to develop the lives and characters of each of the actors and actresses.
The one major criticism/comment I have is: How is it possible that the genetics genius Dr. Mohinder Suresh did not have a clue for such a long time that he was hanging out with the infamous Sylar? How could that smart and extremely handsome Dr. Suresh not realize he was leading the EVIL dude Sylar to all of the other genetically gifted individuals so Sylar could cut their heads off and steal their gifts? That did not make sense to me. Oh well…he better make up for that lapse in judgment in the current season!
NOTE: I was motivated to do this review for Problogger’s Last 24 Hour Giveaway competition. I really, really need want to win that $2,000 Internet marketing package being donated by IttyBiz. Since one kid is taking a nap and the other is at soccer with hubby, I said to myself “what better thing do I have to do on a Sunday afternoon than enter (by writing a review) for a great prize that if I won would really help me with my business.” It’s strange how us entrepreneurs think, isn’t it.
UPDATE October 9, 2007: As Pearl at Interesting Observations mentioned in the comments below, I wrote a little poem for my entry. Since she mentioned it, I thought I’d share it here:
IttyBitty spider crawled up and about the web
Down came the spam upon the spider’s head
Up came the Google juice (should have written Akismet) and dried up all the spam
And IttyBitty spider crawled through the web again.
August 8, 2007
Randa Clay at randa clay Design is running a Pimp My Blog contest and a lucky winner will win a custom blog logo with a custom header! Oh I so hope it’s me because I desparately need to figure out a better blog design but I don’t have the time or more importantly the design skills to do it properly. As I mentioned in my 8 Random Things About Me post, I love Randa’s lime graphic in her header. It’s so vibrant and makes me think about sitting on the beach sipping margaritas!
I’ve been keeping up with her blog for a while now and she writes such informative posts for us new bloggers! Her post on The Ultimate Guide to Free Website Analytics is a MUST read.
I have even added her blog to My Technorati Faves and joined her community on MyBlogLog.
Randa - please, please, oh pretty please pick me!
Aruni
June 24, 2007
I submitted an application for the Yahoo Search Marketing Ultimate Connection Competition several weeks ago in the hopes of winning $25,000 in search marketing dollars and introductions to Ivanka Trump and other top business people. I got the automated reply saying they had received my application, and I thought they were going to notify me when the voting began but I never heard anything. So I went back to the site to see when the decision would be made, and I discovered they had already picked the finalists and Babble Soft was not one of them. 
I was hoping we would be selected because I could sure use a lot of help with picking keywords and optimizing our online advertising. Online search is all new to me so any help I can get in making our online awareness strategy better is hugely appreciated! I even took off the Google AdSense ads from our site (because they said no competitor ads could be running on our site during the competition). Apparently there were over 8,500 applicants and judging from the finalists it looks like they are much more established than Babble Soft. Oh well. Maybe next time…
Of the 5 finalists, I decided to vote for Moms on the Edge because they had some pretty neat products plus they have a blog but it had been a while since their next to last previous post. After submitting my vote, I noticed that Kid’s Crooked Houses was in the lead and they have a pretty neat product too.
I was disappointed that we weren’t notified of the beginning of voting especially since I am pretty sure I checked the option to be notified, but luckily I checked back and was able to submit my vote for one of the cool companies who made the first cut. Check it out and vote for who you think should win such a fabulous award!
Aruni
I haven’t written about politics on my blog for a variety of reasons but mostly because I think everyone has a right to their own opinion and my blog is primarily about business and parenting…not politics.
