November Entrepreneur Meetup!

November 18(Thu) 7:00PM

Location: 422 Richards Street 3rd floor Vancouver, BC V6B 2Z3  

The Network Hub (www.thenetworkhub.ca)

Where has the year gone? We are nearing the end of 2010 and this will be the last Vancouver Entrepreneur Meetup of the year! We are going out on a bang with a topic that everyone has been asking for – generating more traffic to your website! I hope to see you all at this last Vancouver Entrepreneur Meetup of the year!!!

For many years, a lot of questions have been raised about Search Engine Marketing – How do I get listed on the 1st page of Google? How can I get more targeted traffic to my website? What can I do to increase lead conversion on my website? What is this local marketing or targeted local online marketing?

It is all very dizzying to keep up and get going for entrepreneurs and small business owners. This month we are fortunate to have a leading expert in Search Marketing who will be giving practical tips that you can take and use right away. No lingo, no theory – just useful and practical tips that help you see the impact right away.

Search Marketing is very important for entrepreneurs – it’s an effective method for driving highly targeted visitors to your website. Without search marketing, your website and online store is buried deep in the thousands of results that a search engine produces.

This month, our guest speaker is Adrian Eden. Adrian has experienced a great deal of success in increasing visibility and profitability of his clients thanks to his ability to consistently deliver exceptional results.

Adrian, borned and raised in Salmon Arm is a small town boy who moved to Vancouver after many years in Costa Rica, is the founder of YaletownSEO.ca – an online search marketing company. He spent many years holding key marketing roles in Fiver Media and Riptown Media, executing results for the Bodog Brand. Right now, Adrian is one of the key people behind the Search Marketing and Social Media Strategy for Coleman Heating and Air Conditioning.

If you want to get practical tips to increase traffic to your website, increase engagement online and more importantly, increasing your online profitability – make sure you RSVP to hear Adrian Edenspeak!
The event is FREE but we do appreciate a bottle of wine to share with everyone.

Sign Up!

http://www.meetup.com/vancouver-entrepreneurs-startup-vancouver-office-space/calendar/15383841/?from=list&offset=0

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October Entrepreneur Meetup!

October Entrepreneur Meetup!  “Can social media help grow your business?”

On October 21, The Network Hub held the Vancouver Entrepreneur Meetup at the office (422 Richards Street, Vancouver).

 We had a guest speaker Yu-kai Chou and over 150 people in attendance. Yu-kai is a Serial Entrepreneur and Social Media Advisor with over 5 years of adventures in the high tech startup world. He is the Founder and CEO of Viralogy Inc., a Social Personalization and Analytics Platform for eCommerce sites. Yu-kai’s team has also run many successful social media campaigns for LG, Levi’s, Los Angeles Lakers, Activision and more.

He spoke about the importance of social media. When he asked the audience if they were using social media, almost everyone raised their hand. Social media is one of biggest marketing tools and strategies out there. So, the audience listened carefully and asked lots of questions.

The meetup was packed with energetic people! There were lots of different business ideas being discussed. I think new connections and resources for business were made!  

I enjoyed meeting, chatting, and wine-ing with cheerful and dedicated people. In addition, Goldies Pizza supplied us with a few tasty pizzas and those were gone instantly! And thank you to Lonsdale Event Rentals for sponsoring us with beautiful glasses and tables!

  The Network Hub is planning a bigger meetup in early December. Don’t miss out!

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Programs For Kids At The Vancouver Public Library

“Please get married and have a baby soon!” my father said to me when I lived in Japan, even though I didn’t have such a plan and I didn’t have a boyfriend! At that time I felt bad because of him but I’m a very good and serious girl. To prepare for unknown future, I visited the Vancouver Central Library to attend a program for kids without kids.

These programs are offered in many branches and are divided by children’s age.

http://www.vpl.ca/cgi-bin/api/calendar.cgi?audience_idx=9

Today I visited “Babytime”. It’s a program for children 1-2 years old. I enjoyed rhymes, songs, finger puppet plays and stories for babies.

When I was a child, my mum took me to these kinds of programs. I made many friends there and I learned lots from the picture book stories.  For example, a picture book taught me to tell the truth – if I told a lie, my tongue would be pulled out by the King of Hell! I’m honest with people because of the Hell King from my childhood!

Growing up, we often forget beautiful experiences of when we were children. But my memories with my childhood friends still remain as my treasures.

The Vancouver Public Library has a unique program for male caregivers called “MAN IN THE MOON”.  It’s a program for male caregivers who are busy or want a closer relationship with their child. The program is for dads, stepdads, foster dads, granddads and all male caregivers and their little ones!

Male caregivers can learn how to communicate and play with their children. It is offered in English, Cantonese and Spanish. Sessions are for newborns to 36 months and admission is free. Also, registration is required for this program. For more information about the programs, you can call 604-331-3657. It is a chance to learn to have a great connection with your children. Otherwise, they’ll grow up and move out from your house soon!

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Community Building And Social Media

I’ve been having an on going and spirited debate with a good friend about the value of online social networks, and the usefulness of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

The other day, he sent a provocative email addressed to me and our group of friends. In it, he quoted several articles from psychology magazines that in essence claims the only value of Twitter is to create and nurture a narcissistic society. My friend goes on to say that there is no real use for it other than for marketing and creating ‘plastic relationships’.

I understood, in part, where my friend was coming from. There are definitely aspects of social media that are narcissistic and plastic. But that’s because the online world is made up of people from the real world, which is a mix of the good and the bad. Unfortunately, just like the real world, it takes time and a bit of effort to find and connect with the good people amongst all the noise.

I also understand that his email was partly motivated by the difficulty he’s been having in getting in touch with me via phone, email or in person. He’s right to be frustrated, and he’s right that I need to put in more face time with my friends. However, I take exception with the claim that these tools create nothing but ‘plastic relationships’.

I’ve been using these social media tools lately to reach out to Filipinos in Vancouver, as well as across the globe.  My friend, 

RJ Aquino, and  I have been trying to connect with the younger generation of Filipinos in Vancouver, in an effort to bridge the perceived gaps between the more established Filipinos in Vancouver and the more recent Filipino immigrants and overseas foreign workers. The experience I have had with this group these past few weeks has shown me that these relationships do not have to be merely ‘plastic’.

Below is an excerpt of the email response that I sent out to my friend. Please forgive the slightly brassy tone of the email, as it was sent to an old friend and we’re used to talking to each other in this manner :

Through my experience in the past few weeks, I’ve met a lot of caring and passionate Filipinos online, some through Facebook, and some through Twitter.

I’ve always emphasized that these tools, if you wanna use them to make connections, should only be a starting point. (Using it as a curative tool for finding reliable interesting info is a totally different application)

By sharing ideas, articles or engaging in conversation through Twitter, you get an idea of where people’s minds and hearts are at.

At this point you can move from being like-minded strangers online and into a real-world community.

This is what’s happened with our little Filipino group. We are slowly but surely, building a community of passionate and caring young Filipinos, who wants to a) connect with other Filipinos and their culture b) Help pass our heritage onto 2nd and 3rd
generation Filipinos c) Enable positive cultural identification in a group that is sorely lacking it, and d) Help new immigrants who have a difficult time adjusting to this new land due to point c.

The open system of Twitter has allowed us to find each other here, and connect with Filipinos back home, through exchange of ideas. Lacking a geographic centre was no longer as big of a drawback. Nothing replaces face to face contact, and we have had several events since then, including the Wine & Keso night on Friday, where several young people spoke up about being tremendously excited and happy to find this ‘Community’ that we’re building. Everyone is enthusiastic about finding out what the others are doing, and seeing what they can do to support each other’s causes and events, and learning from each other through volunteer run workshops.

….., my very good friend, do you want to attend our next gathering and speak to these teens that have been sparked up with hope and excitement, and tell them what they are feeling in their heart is all merely ‘plastic’.

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Next phase of working at home is coworking

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Restless at-home workers improve by collaborating face to face
• Home-based workers say “coworking” balances freedom, teamwork
• Coworking groups are meeting or forming in more than 40 U.S. cities
• The trend comes as single-person businesses increase

“The reason people work alone, is because they’re looking for freedom,” said Bachman, a 34-year-old Web developer who telecommutes part time. “It may be ironic that you crave isolation, but you also want to be socially interactive with others like you.”

“Starbucks was a place to get out of the house and be around other people,” said Sherry Heyl, a Jelly coworker and home-based social media consultant. “But you can’t turn to the person next to you at Starbucks and say, ‘Can you look at this proposal and tell me if it looks all right or check it for typos?’”

Read more about: Next phase of working at home: Leaving home

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5 Reasons Coworking is More Productive than Working Alone

On my daily reading, I came across this awesome blog post about coworking!

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Why wouldn’t people like us just stick to our home offices? Simple: 1. It’s lonely, and 2. Two brains (or three or four or five) are smarter than one.

So without belaboring the topic, here are 5 Reasons Coworking is More Productive than Working Alone

Read more here: 5 Reasons Coworking is More Productive than Working Alone.

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