If you’ve been following this blog or my other website, Simple Meal Plan, you might remember that we’ve been raising chickens for the past few months (for eggs). A lot of people have been asking us when we’re going to start getting eggs, and to be honest, we’ve been wondering the same thing.

Well, a week or so ago, we finally got the answer:

Those are the first 18 eggs we found last week; they were in a makeshift nest the chickens made next to the garden. Now that we have the nestboxes in the coop, they’ve been laying about a half-dozen eggs a day. We figure that about half the eggs are laying; the rest should follow suit in the next few weeks.

So, omelet, anyone?

(Oh, and by the way – they’re REALLY REALLY YUMMY! And yes, we’ll probably be selling them when production ramps up a bit. If you’re interested in purchasing any, follow me on Twitter – @Astrogirl426 – and I’ll update when we’re ready to sell.)

The final presentation of the day was by Erin Youngquist, and was a good quick primer to looking for jobs online. Her presentation, which was informative, was a good example of the presentations I saw today. They were educational without being pushy or trying to “hard sell” the participants, and they did a great job at informing people at their level, instead of expecting them to already have a certain level of knowledge.

Overall, the event was (in my opinion) well-run, informative, and a terrific opportunity to meet local business owners. Larry Zimbled and his team did a great job of keeping the day flowing, keeping the bloggers (well, this blogger anyway) happy, and creating an informative program.

I have just a couple of recommendations for next year’s event:

1. Have copies of the agenda on hand. Although the agenda *is* online, for the most part people need agendas while they’re walking around the venue, and they’re not necessarily looking at their computer at the time.
2. Have a copy of the map for people, with presentation rooms clearly marked.
3. Build in time cushions at the end of each presentation, so that presenters and participants have time to get from one presentation to another. It speaks to the quality of the event that the biggest complaint I heard was, “There were so many good presentations, I wanted to catch every minute of them!” This can be hard to do when you don’t have time to get from the first floor to the second.
4. Enlist volunteers who are assigned to each room; their responsibilities should include making sure the A/V is working, that presenters have water, and that presenters stay on time. If you decide to have a feedback form given out at the end of presentations, they can serve to collect the forms after each presenter.
5. Better signage – especially as regards refreshments (there was a little confusion as to where the food was for bloggers, as well as where the water was and whether it was available for everyone).
6. A couple of large maps posted so that people know where exhibitors are.
7. Time for bloggers/staff to have lunch.
8. A morning coffee/bagels session, sponsored by the companies with booths.

All in all though, it was a very enjoyable and productive day. I made quite a few good connections, got to talk about social media with others, and generally enjoyed myself immensely.

Good job, Larry and team, and I look forward to next year’s event!

This panel consisted of three gentleman involved in the insurance and legal businesses who discussed ways small business owners can save money. Some of the things they touched on included long-term ways to save money, such as making sure sufficient insurance policies are in place (if appropriate) to avoid losing money down the road in lawsuits. They also – and I think this was a good point – discuss the fact that sometimes, saving money in the present actually loses you money in the long run, such as when a business-owner is selling a business but doesn’t hire a lawyer to help them with that. The tax issues alone really do require the involvement of professionals; as in most things, it’s always best to know what you don’t know, and be willing to bring people in when you don’t.

Unfortunately, this was not a very well-attended seminar, which is a pity because it was an issue that affects every single business-owner here. The big take-away from the seminar was, be the expert at what you do best, and bring in the people who are experts in other fields to take care of the rest.

This was a presentation by Darcy Knapp on, of course, social media. There were a few things she said that I disagreed with:

1. I don’t believe it’s a good idea to just create a profile on every social network you can find. First, maintaining your profile on that many sites is extremely hard. Second, if you don’t plan on connecting with people on those sites (such as Twitter), then you’re not going to benefit from them.

2. No, IM was not “sci-fi” ten years ago. In fact, ICQ (one of the first widely-used IM services) started fourteen years ago. I used it back in ’96, myself.

3. Related to #1, I don’t believe it helps your brand to create a profile on MySpace. In fact, I believe it hurts your brand to associate with MySpace, especially since it’s essentially losing market share anyway.

Besides those points though, I did like her push to get people to just go out there and jump in with social media, because I believe that’s the biggest stumbling block to people getting their businesses connected with others via social media – fear. Just do it!

More on social media, and how to begin incorporating it into your business efforts. This session really reinforced the idea that social media isn’t going away, it’s free (well, to an extent), and it’s vital if you want to keep building your business. They touched on a lot of the different social media options available for businesses, and talked about some recommendations to keep in mind when establishing a presence on these sites. Great introduction for businesses looking to start their social media journey.

Another presentation by Melissa Ward, though this one is more of a roundtable/problem-solving workshop. It’s a chance for people to sit down with Melissa and pick her brain for information on everything to do with social media. There were about 12 of us sharing ideas and information – overall, a great idea for getting new ideas and helping others solve their social media problems (let’s not forget that the opportunity to give back to others is a great reason to come to these events!).

The second talk of the day (well, the second talk I attended) was given by Melissa Ward of New Ward Development. Her talk, “Why smAll is Cool: Touting your smAllness Online”, discussed concrete ways to develop an effective social media strategy, and covered specific ideas for using social media to build a customer base and connect with those customers. It was a great segue from the last presentation from Lisbeth Calandrino, and covered strategies to engage people through Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, and other tools. Melissa can be found at http://www.newward.com as well as on various social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

We move on to the keynote, which is presented by Lisbeth Calandrino from Fabulous Floors. She’s talking about how the changes in the economy have demanded that we change our business practices – instead of selling to customers, we need to partner with them. She explores the changing demographics of our customer base as well, and how that’s impacting the strategies we use (and don’t use). She comes from the perspective of a company that only recently began using social media tools, which is a refreshing change from the usual “social media expert” that usually present at these things.

She touches on what the new customer base looks like – the morph from Baby Boomers to Gen X-ers/Gen Y-ers – and how the “old” customer base is changing to look more like the “new” customer base. The harsh reality is, when the fastest-growing group joining Facebook is the over-60 group, the marketing strategies must change.

It’s all about change, folks. Sounds like a pretty good conference theme to me.

I’m here at the smAlbany Small Buisness Day, at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. We start the day with a presentation from the local newspaper, the Times Union, on using the mespaper to promote your business. All in all, the day has started well – the logistics of the event seem well-handled (including signage, parking, and registration), and the organizers have told me that they have 700 registered attendees. I’ll be blogging and tweeting (from my account, @astrogirl426) throughout the day using the #smalbany hashtag, so check back often (or keep an eye on Twitter!) to hear all about the day. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the presentations, and checking out the other businesses that have booths and tables here. Should be a great day!

For the past five years in Albany, NY, Libertek has organized a Small Business Expo and Career Fair. This year’s event is on July 27 at 10am in the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, 255 Fuller Rd. It promises to be bigger and better than ever, with small business seminars, a career fair with national recruiters, tours of the facility (it’s an incredible building – check it out here), local companies with business products/services on display, and more! The event runs from 10am-6pm, and entry is free! For more information, check out the website.

So why am I advertising for this event? Because I will be there all day as a VIP Guest Blogger. That’s a fancy way of saying I’ll be there all day and chatting about the event on all the various social media networks I belong to.

Sound interesting? Of course it is! So click on the link, find out more info, and we’ll see you on July 27!