NAWBO-Columbus Member Blog

Today starts the 3 Day National Womens Business Conference and the celebration of 35 years of NAWBO.  It is great to see some of the wonderful people that we met from the Indianapolis Chapter at the regional meeting this past spring.

Today is the National Leadership Summit — where we have the opportunity to exchange ideas with members from other chapters on how to grow and run the chapter better.  Our Chapter has been really growing and we are at a “tipping point” and so I am looking for ideas to help get us were we want to go.

This morning we have a panel covering trends impacting women business owners and women’s business organizations.  Deborah Collins Stephens, author, is the lunchtime speaker.  I heard her speak in Indianapolis and am excited to hear her again.

We have a reception tonight at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.  I was a literature and art history major in college, so really looking forward to reconnecting with the Power of NAWBO at this great venue.

More soon.  Is there anything anyone needs?  E-mail me and I’ll do my best to track it down while here at the conference.

Check out the compilation video that was played during the last general session during the WBC.  It’s really quite wonderful!

http://www.sbtv.com/Partners/NAWBO/NAWBO2008/?segid=3827

Power Your Dream © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

Well folks, it’s over. It went incredibly quickly, but we certainly learned so much, not only for our businesses, but NAWBO-Columbus, too. And it was great to get to know everyone better!

It was announced that next year’s Women’s Business Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. We can’t wait!

Stay tuned to this blog for more information on NAWBO-Columbus.

Thanks to Leroy Hamilton and NAWBO for the some of the photographs in this blog.

Suzy Welch © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

The final keynote address of the conference was delivered by Suzy Welch. Mrs. Welch is a well-regarded business journalist and author and is now also writing a monthly column in O magazine.

She highlighted her 10-10-10 plan, the topic behind her latest book 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea. The concept is relatively simple in concept, yet sometimes difficult to execute and profound once you see how you’ve answered: What are the consequences of my decision in 10 minutes? In 10 months? And in 10 years?

Welch talked quite a lot about her experiences as a woman in the corporate world in the early 1990s and how it still hadn’t begun to fully accept women, especially single moms, as she eventually was. She continued to speak candidly about her relationship with Peter Welch, which at the time was quite a shocking affair as he was still married, and how it changed her business and personal life immensely. All throughout these trying times, she used this 10-10-10 process (something she came up with in the early ‘90s) and she eventually realized how it was a powerful decision making tool.

Welch was an engaging and humorous speaker, and when I met her afterwards during the book signing, she was quite nice and genuinely interested in talking to people. I can’t wait to read the book!

Girls Going Places Entrepreneurship Conference © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

During one of the breaks in the morning, we were fortunate enough to visit the Girls Going Places Entrepreneurship Conference which was taking place concurrently with the WBC.  Girls Going Places is an event in which girls from the local community are selected to attend an all day conference where they learn about the benefits and burdens of starting a company, speak with women business owners and learn from their experiences, and participate in interactive games and projects where they learn what it’s like to be a woman business owner.

Girls Going Places also gives annual awards to young women ages 12-18 who have started a business.  They’re awarded cash prizes ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.  During Friday’s luncheon, a young lady was awarded $1,000 for starting an interactive video game business which found fun ways to teach children Latin.  Girls Going Places is sponsored by Guardian Life, a NAWBO corporate partner.

It was very exciting to get to watch some of these girls interact with each other, as well as the women business owners.  NAWBO-Columbus would love to hold a Girls Going Places event in the future!

Friday’s breakout sessions were again very informative, although the Columbus delegation missed the second session because we needed to leave to get back home. But here are the topics:

Breakout Session 1:
An Economic Outlook for Women-Owned Businesses
Negotiating from a Woman’s Advantage
Success is 90% Attitude

Breakout Session 2:
What it takes to Secure a Government Contract
How the Best of the Best Find Success
Creating a Culture of Courage

Friday morning’s breakfast session was a really captivating panel comprised:
• Catherine Corley, Vice President of Small Business at Sam’s Club
• Diane MacEachern, Author and founder of BigGreenPurse.com
• Melissa Bradley-Burns, Senior Strategist for Green for All

Environmental Stability Panel © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

Moderated by Cynthia McClain-Hill, it focused on environmental stability in modern business, but it really broke off into two different areas:

1. How to make your company more environmentally friendly
A number of really basic ideas were thrown out, from recycling paper and having a paperless office, to using the right kind of lightbulbs and turning off unused electronics. Several audience questions took this topic into some more depth, mostly highlighting the difficulties people have (especially in certain locales) with recycling, etc.

The concept of environmentally friendly certification was also brought up, and apparently there are several out there, but many aren’t worth it. The panelists recommended going to greenforall.org for a list of available certifications.

Melissa Bradley highlighted upon the federal stimulus bill and how there is a great deal of money available (both for your business and personally) for environmentally sustainable projects. She recommended going to her organization’s website for more information.

2. How to create and produce environmentally sustainable products:
This topic is a lot more in depth, and so it was only touched upon. Catherine Corley from Sam’s Club was able to highlight this practice best by describing how they required of their manufacturers to start using less packaging, and how it made such a phenomenal impact on the environment. Of course, when you’re as big as Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart, any small change will likely have a huge impact, but she was making a point that when everyone starts making these changes, an overall impact can be incredible.

Both Diane and Melissa’s websites have a great wealth of information and resources on environmental sustainability. Melissa also mentioned a great recycling program at RecycleBank.

Amanda, Andrea, Jeanne, & Gail at Giordano's

Thursday evening, Gail, Andrea, Jeanne, and Amanda went to Giordano’s for dinner because you can’t come to Chicago and not have deep dish pizza!

The merriment continued as we headed back to the hotel/conference for the evening cocktail reception which was held on the riverwalk. The weather had finally begun to cool down in Chicago and it was a beautiful evening!

We met so many new people, including Millie, who is hoping to start a chapter in Maryland and came to the WBC to get more information. She was absolutely amazed with NAWBO and was so generous when she spoke about how inspired she was by all the women she’d met! We also spent some time with an old friend of NAWBO-Columbus, former NAWBO National President Suzanne Pease.

Jeanne, Gail, Millie, Amanda, Andrea, & Nicole at Cocktails © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

Most of the Thursday was spent in breakout sessions. We decided that we’d all split up so that all the content would be covered. If you have interest in any of the below topics, be sure to ask one of us in attendance for a summary!

Amanda asking a question during the Global Entrepreneurship session. © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

Breakout Session 1
Meet the Experts Workshop
Social Networking and the Power of Connections
Make Mine a Million Panel

Breakout Session 2
Get Noticed in a Sea of Competition
Global Entrepreneurship and Women’s Economic Development
Jetnetting: The Networking Alternative

Full disclosure: we missed the NAWBO/Wells Fargo Trailblazer Awards event, because, well, we went shopping. We did however, spend some quality time in the Power Your Connections Exhibit Hall & Marketplace, getting some great product samples and meeting some really interesting people!

Peter Walsh © Leroy Hamilton/NAWBO

This morning’s keynote speaker during breakfast was Peter Walsh, organizational expert and designer of Clean Sweep and OfficeMax fame.  I was somewhat familiar with him, however, as an anal-retentive organizational freak myself, I was already an admirer of his new OfficeMax InPlace System.  (Full disclosure: we were all given free InPlace Organization Kits from OfficeMax, since they were a major sponsor, but I haven’t played with it yet.)

Anyway, he was terribly funny but also very profound and full of wonderful advice.  He stared off by asking two really intriguing questions:

• What is the vision you have for the life you want?
• Don’t ask/say what you need for your business, ask what you want from your business.

In tune with the conference’s theme of “Power your Dreams,” he referenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s infamous “I have a Dream” speech, as well President John F. Kennedy’s dream of having men walking on the moon by the end of the 1960s.  Walsh vehemently defended the concept of daring to dream and said it was wrong to tease people about dreaming, or to put their visions down.  I think the best thing he said all morning was, “Without a Dream, all you have is spectacle.”

He highlighted the concept of “leaving threads,” an interesting visual analogy to leaving a legacy.  He again referenced King and Kennedy, noting the threads that their dreams had left behind and how they were tied to so many people.  It’s a very powerful image when you think about how fulfilling your own dream could eventually touch so many people, as well.

Walsh would have been remiss if he hadn’t mentioned the word that seems to surround everything he does: clutter.  He says that clutter gets between you and the life you want to be living, not only the physical clutter but also the mental clutter.  He suggests that truly cleaning, clearing, and organizing one space, such as the top of your desk, can give you so much clarity, and also start the ball rolling on more decluttering activities.  “Small steps consistently applied create great change.”

His final gems of wisdom were summed up in a list, that he simply titled Peter’s Visions and Dreams:

1. Dream big and dream often. It’s the clarity of your vision that helps achieve your dream.
2. Reassess the material.  It’s about quality of life, not the quantity of stuff.
3. Stay connected.  Find balance, motivation, and focus.  How does your dream power those around you?
4. Be mindful.  Will “x” move me closer or further from my dreams?
5. Organization will bring you closer to your dreams.
6. Change is possible.