Women Grow Business

Last Monday, J-Lab i.e. The Institute for Interactive Journalism hosted the New Media Women Entrepreneurs 2009 Summit in downtown Washington, DC. The one day event brought together female panelists from diverse backgrounds in journalism to discuss how new forms of online journalism are emerging new entrepreneurial opportunities – and the steps you can take to cultivate them.

From savvy bloggers to entrepreneurship
Many of the panelists have had their own successes in transitioning from local bloggers, niche bloggers, and citizen journalists to full-fledged new media entrepreneurs just by being savvy online publishers.

Here are just a few of my takeaways from the summit including the keynote speaker from Placeblogger’s Lisa Williams:

• It’s okay not to know everything, just start.
• Include your personality in your site and take a personal approach.
• But don’t let your personality be so engrained in your site that it could not function without you (be able to let go).
• There are revenue models that work, often in combination (consider business models around ads, conferences, and content).
• Don’t do anything for free that you wouldn’t do for free indefinitely.

The gist?
As the journalism landscape is rapidly changing, new media entrepreneurs see this as an opportunity, while traditional media outlets see it as a threat.

So whether you are exploring a career – in blogging, online community building, citizen reporting, aggregating, publishing, creative writing, or any other forms of interactive journalism – it’s absolutely possible in today’s online environment. There’s a career there if you carve it out!

More from Women Grow Business:

• Shana Glickfield and her series on starting a business and event coverage for business owners;
• Top women in tech entrepreneurs and the SmallBizCool video series at Blogworld Expo this year;
• Jen Consalvo on bold entrepreneurship.

Guest post by Shana Glickfield, regular guest contributor to Women Grow Business and Founder of DC Concierge. Shana’s company directs the online community for NextGenWeb, the blog of USTelecom, a broadband association. Shana can be reached at www.twitter.com/dcconcierge.

Pictured:
From the New Media Women Entrepreneurs Summit are Maria Ivancin and Jan Schaffer (among others) presenting a new study of women and media. The image is used with permission by photographer Anna Tauzin.

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She’s a former presidential appointee to the National Women’s Business Council. And she’s an advocate for entrepreneurs and small business, working with national plus state agencies on ensuring interests of small business owners are heard. She’s Vivian Shimoyama who founded Breakthru Solutions.

Vivian was so eager to share what she values most about her company when we met at the Blogworld Expo. She talks shop on that and how small companies can level the playing field with larger competitors.

She’s that cool!

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Entrepreneur Magazine has listed The Startup Princess as a top resource for women entrepreneurs. And she’s been voted by her home state as one of 30 Women to Watch.

She’s that cool.

Kelly King Anderson aka Fairy Godmother of helping business-owner dreams come true … founded Startup Princess a while ago to convene like-minded women entrepreneurs as she was getting a business idea off the ground. Yet so much success emerged from Startup Princess itself, that she committed to building that instead, putting aside the original idea that first motivated Startup Princess to launch.

I randomly turned around last week at the Blogworld Expo. When Kelly mentioned “Hi, I’m Startup Princess on Twitter” – I almost jumped out of my skin from glee. It was the first time to meet her face to face.

-and a pleasure to get her entrepreneur magic apart of the SmallBizCool series.

So from Blogworld’s floor, here’s Kelly for SmallBizCool!

More from:

• The full (and so cool) video series SmallBizCool at Women Grow Business;
• Michael Dougherty catches some great SmallBizCool conversation and meets up with Chris Brogan (oh the humor!) from Blogworld.

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Transporting back to last week, Las Vegas, early a.m. pacific time:
It’s the opening keynote address for the Blogworld Expo and first time many attendees were convened in the same room. We enter a large meeting hall where rows and rows of chairs are filling up and projected up front is one huge phrase on screen:

How dare you not be awesome?!

That bold question was the most effective ‘mental caffeine’.

It’s a question posed by the hip, wise, and awesome entrepreneur Laura Fitton aka @Pistachio on Twitter. She’s a Twitter champ and founder of OneForty.com and Pistachio Consulting.

And she gets more cool — enough to talk shop for the SmallBizCool series!

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It just seems inevitable that something cool will happen when hearing the phrase: “Jill meet Jill!”
And at last week’s Blogworld Expo, that’s exactly what happened when being introduced to another ‘Jill’ (yet she spells her name with a cool, artistic spelling that she chose when she was six years old). I met entrepreneur (or rather mompreneur) Jyl Johnson Pattee through Beth Harte just recently – thanks Beth!

Jyl founded Mom It Forward and shares at least two reasons why her business is cool, as in SmallBizCool! Think weekly Twitter parties and more…

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It was fantastic meeting Nelly Yusupova, CTO of Webgrrls Internationals ( and founder of DigitalWoman).

She’s shares on her cool projects (with a keen insight on what she’s surmounted to be of stronger service to her clients).

Welcome to another segment of SmallBizCool(!), straight from Blogworld last weekend.

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In meeting Mari Smith at last weekend’s Blogworld Expo, I felt delighted and also a bit like a hobbit standing next to Gandolph (I think she’s at least 6′ tall!). Fast Company calls Mari “the Pied Piper of the Online World.” And she’s president of the International Social Media Association.

She’s known for launching major profitable success for numerous businesses, especially through Facebook and Twitter relationship building. So it was a flat out pleasure learning why her biz is cool for the SmallBizCool video series!

Thanks Mari for talking shop with Women Grow Business!

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How cool is Janet Fouts?

Well she co-founded ONTHERAIL and is former director of the dynamic organization San Francisco Women on the Web.
She’s a forward, resourceful thinker in the social media space – savvy and with a distinct humor to boot. She’s also founded the Social Media Coaching Center and at Blogworld Expo last weekend, she was perfectly clear on why her biz is cool.

…with a SmartBizCool conversation from Blogworld’s floor to prove it!

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Blogworld’s opening keynote speaker Laura Fitton aka @pistachio on Twitter said in the middle of her address “And Becky McCray is awesome!”

Cool -and- awesome
Becky, founder of Small Biz Survival and numerous businesses, presented at last weekend’s Blogworld Expo on how small business makes big impact. In between morning bagels and networking, Becky shared a memorable “and cool moment” with SmallBizCool and Women Grow Business.

Join us! … straight from the Blogworld floor:

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She’s been featured in media outlets worldwide for her pioneering work on the Web and as a female tech entrepreneur and author.

She presented at last week’s Blogworld Expo on stimulating brand conversations with women in the social mediasphere. She’s Aliza Sherman who answered – the one question – for our SmallBizCool series straight from Blogworld:

“What’s the coolest part about your business?”

And she answered without hesitation with a response that caught me off guard.

Please join us for a few minutes on the Blogworld floor!

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