Friday, October 21, 2011

What I SHOULD Have Said

BizFest is winding down tonight with a performance by Graham Greer and Tyler Kealey. The week was full of workshops and presenters, including Gerry Visca and Dennis Van Staalduinen (or DenVan as he, thankfully likes to be called). Last night BizFest put on BizShow, a twist on the Trade Show, featuring local businesses and entrepreneurs in the community. In addition to their booth spaces, exhibitors were encouraged to come up to the podium and speak to the group about why they're awesome. Gerry, and event organizer Joey Gault dared me to tell the crowd about "my brand" which for those of you who may not lunch with me, is The Lunch Tramp.


Never one to back down from a dare, I did venture on over to the microphone and in a minute or two, I did tell everyone who was listening that I was known in the #CornwallTweetup world as The Lunch Tramp. (Feel free to follow me on Twitter at @keithatweets.)

What I SHOULD have told the crowd was that the Tweetups are important, both for the social element but - and more importantly, in the way they bring people who would never know people otherwise together. There are AT LEAST a half dozen people I didn't know a year ago that I consider my friend now - all because they were following me on Twitter - and came to the table one day.

Not only that, I've learned things, connected with people who've helped me in many ways, including giving website advice, where to find really delicious coffee beans, donated door prizes for charitable things I'm involved in and more. The Tweetup is important - and if I get a title from it, so much the better!

I'm not going to pretend it is any sort of official meeting nor do we go with the intent to "network" - but that's what makes it better. There are no expectations and when something cool comes of it, well, to use @iamjoeygault's favourite hashtag, #awesome.

Get out there and be SOCIAL with the people in your social media circles. You never know where it'll take you.

Monday, October 17, 2011

What I Did(n't) Do During My Summer (non) Holiday

For those of you who may not know, I spent my summer managing the Cornwall Farmers' Market in downtown Cornwall. Of course, I had intended to do a tremendous amount of blogging, both about the experience of being part of the market as it was in grown stage and also about meeting the vendors etc. That didn't happen and I'm not writing today to dwell about it. Instead, I'm going to take a few minutes to ask to the blogging universe for suggestions slightly more convincing than "just do it" to get me off my (ahem) procrastinating behind.

Until then, I shall just say I attended BizFest today. It is the first annual event put together by Cornwall's Chamber of Commerce. The speaker today, and in fact, for most of the event, is Gerry Visca. I'll write more (I'd say I promise but well...) about my experience shortly but first I promised some people I'd actually update my also errant foodblog.