Make Mine a $Million Southwest

Make Mine a $Million Southwest

A group of California and Arizona Make Mine a $Million finalists and awardees gathered at my house on February 20, 2007 for some informal networking and a business development workshop led by Natalie Armstrong, President and Founder of Golden Media, http://www.golden-media.com/ .

Together, with Natalie’s help, we tackled topics like outsourcing, independent contractors vs. employees, profitability, business development, blogs, financial advisor teams, motivation, isolation when you’re a solo businessperson, and dealing with difficult people and conversations.

In the crazy excitement of the larger Make Mine a $Million events, sometimes it’s hard to find time to really get to know each other. It was great to take a pause and spend a day together, taking our time a little more than usual, relaxing together, sharing a meal and also talking business. The finalists were a great addition to the group, too, bringing an additional level of enthusiasm and connection to our larger community of women entrepreneurs pledged and destined to break the $1 million barrier. www.makemineamillion.org rules!

We had such a good time, and the event was easy to set up: we used my house since it’s near the airport. Because we didn’t have to rent a room, we could take as long or short a day as we needed, and people coming from a distance didn’t need to micro-manage their arrival or departure times. My sister-in-law (also a budding entrepreneur) helped with the food and airport pickups, and let Patricia and me focus on the people and not the cleanup. At $20 a person, along with Natalie’s donated time, we put together the world’s most cost-effective event. I’d encourage all of the local Make Mine a $Million applicants, finalists, participants---and everyone who’s made the pledge to get past the $1 million mark to set up similar get-togethers in your own community. It’s easy! And so valuable. We are so much stronger together than we are all alone in our entrepreneurial isolation!

Mad props to Natalie Armstrong from Golden Media, our facilitator, and Patricia Kelly from Limerick (,http://www.limerickinc.com/index.htm) our co-host, and her daughter Joan, our Bay Area flyers, Molly Fuller from Hands On Gourmet (San Francisco), (www.handsongourmet.com), and Erica Douglass from Simpli Hosting (San Jose)http://www.simplihosting.com/, our Arizona flyers, Sharla Hartgraves and Lisa Bayne from Here on the Corner (Tempe, http://www.hereonthecorner.com/) and our local LA $Millionaires, Lena Badali from Badali Design, http://www.badalidesign.com/, Garnett Newcombe from Human Potential Consultants, http://www.hpcemployment.org/contact.htm, Vanessa O’Neill from Cedar Spring, http://www.cspring.com/, http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/06/million_winners/source/16.htm, and Julie Fogg from Active Port. www.activeport.com.

Like my blog? Then you'll love my web sites, www.premaritalmediation.com, and www.peace-talks.com.

Divorce Story Pilot Update

Divorce Story Pilot Update

Pilgrim Films and TV, http://www.pilgrim-films.com/, came back to the office to do some additional pick-up shots on February 3, 2007. I was able to see a little bit of the rough edit on the pilot, and it looks AMAZING! The editor has really captured the essence of mediation and family conflict, as well as the role of the mediator. He really "got it", and it shows through on the screen.

HOORAY!

I was worried that the show might depict mediation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediation, as being all about yelling and conflict, and not about the complexities of human relationships and the grief of divorce. I was worried that the show would miss the subtleties of what a mediator does in trying to help people through their emotional turmoil while fashioning an agreement. No More Worries!

And, of course, not completely off my personal radar screen: they've expanded my role in the project, using me as a narrator to bridge the gap between different phases of the mediation. Love that. This photo is from one of the early mediation sessions, and I also like that I look great (if I do say so myself) and like I know what I'm doing. http://www.peace-talks.com/about.php

WHEW!

Now I'm so excited about this project that I could jump out of my skin!

Visit my divorce mediation blog at http://www.peace-talks.com/divorcemediation/index.php

Cisco Rocks!

Cisco Rocks!

Kerri Page,http://www.novasim.com/ , Garnett Newcombe, http://www.hpcemployment.org/contact.htm, and I went to Cisco, yes, me, Diana Mercer from Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc., www.peace-talks.com, (here's the press release from Make Mine a $Million about the Cisco awards, www.makemineamillion.org), http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2006/prod_073106.html, in San Jose for a focus group about small business technology needs on January 31. While I figured that they’d spend time asking us about our Cisco Systems IP Phones, http://www.ciscosystems.com/en/US/netsol/ns641/networking_solutions_packages_list.html, the technology package which we won as part of the Make Mine a $Million program, I didn’t realize that they’d also give us an interactive demonstration of all of the different applications for the phones as well as related technology.

Cisco is doing some amazing stuff. The IP Phones they installed for us can be customized in an incredible number of ways. Just one example: We can use an auto-attendant which clients may access after hours, with a second auto-attendant for mediators to use so that when they check their voice mail without interrupting office personnel. That tiny feature, which barely scrapes the surface of the features the phone can offer, will be incredibly valuable for our practice.

That same phone can be customized to include a database….including things like taking attendance for schools, or checking inventory availability for a warehouse or retail application. It was mind blowing, frankly.

My favorite application is that we can expand the system using either software phones installed on laptops and connected to the internet, or additional handsets in remote locations. For example, our Cisco technology package includes a handset for me at home, so if I’m working from my home office, the phone rings just as it would if I was at Headquarters….apart from the inevitable barking dogs at my house, callers would be unaware that I wasn’t at my Peace Talks desk. When I place outgoing calls, recipients’ caller ID shows the Peace Talks number, so I don’t have to worry about client calls on my home or cell phone at 3 am.

And, I must say, we love our Cisco partners, Creative Business Concepts, Inc.,http://www.cbconcepts.com/, Larry Boyd and Jim Froggatt have been terrific. They’ve really listened to our needs. They came ready to not only install and program the phones, but to switch gears as we discovered additional possibilities for applications and programming. Jim, especially, is a huge asset. He was a technology trainer with the US Army, so he knows how to teach technology applications without going over our heads. We decided to learn the basic features of the phones, installed February 2, 2007, for a couple of months and then Jim will come back to do some additional programming for some features we’d love to have but didn’t want to overwhelm ourselves with all at once.

Last but not least, Cisco treated us like rockstars. They gave us a demonstration of their [very amazing] videoconferencing technology, which is so realistic that it looks like you’re actually in the room with folks who are half a world away. While that application is a bit expensive for Peace Talks at the moment, as it’s installed in business centers and business hotels, and later adapted for small business use, it’s a technology we’ll be able to use to do mediations. The 3 large screen TV’s gave us so much real time detail that I was able to read micro-expressions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-expression on people’s faces. Before, when I thought of videoconferencing, I imagined pixellated web cams with sound that didn’t sync with the jerky movements on the screen. Now, it’s 99% as good as being in the same room with someone. Unbelievable!

Thanks, Cisco!