Thought Splash
Random Thoughts of a Micropreneur
Giving Back with GiveCamp
Jan 17th
Today’s Thought Splash: Giving Back with GiveCamp!
This weekend I participated in the GiveCamp event as a volunteer developer. For me GiveCamp was the opportunity to help local charities while coding, learning new platforms, eating all the free Domino’s Pizza and Subway I wanted, geeking out with local geeks, and getting some cool swag!
Give Camp St. Louis 2011
GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where technology professionals from designers, developers and database administrators to marketers and web strategists donate their time to provide solutions for non-profit organizations. Since its inception in 2007, the GiveCamp program has provided benefits to over 150 charities, with a value of developer and designer time exceeding $1,000,000 in services! — GiveCamp.org
There were 15 cities participating this weekend and St. Louis was one of them. Everything kicked off Friday at 6pm at the CAIT facility in Clayton. CAIT was generous enough to open their facility for the whole the weekend. We had access to internet and any software they had at our disposal. We closed out with demos of the solutions that were implemented over the weekend at around 5:30pm on Sunday.
Here is a list of some of the charities we helped:
- Emmaus Homes – provides homes and programming for individuals with developmental disabilities.
- Provident STL – provides a community of care that creates hope, builds self-reliance and drives social impact.
- United Way STL – works to elevate the quality of life for thousands of people in the ST. Louis area.
- The Crisis Food Center – alleviate hunger and provide food for those in need.
- Jewish Family & Children Services – provides assistance to people of all ages from all economic circumstances.
Even though this event was sponsored by Microsoft, solutions were implemented on both open source and proprietary platforms, which was really cool.
Here are some of the platforms used to deliver solutions:
- Joomla – Open Source PHP Content Management System (CMS)
- Drupal – Open Source PHP Content Management System (CMS)
- Kentico – ASP.NET Content Management System (CMS)
- Silverlight - Powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web, desktop, and mobile applications when online or offline
- Microsoft Access Forms – Database and Forms builder
- DotNetNuke – Open Source ASP.NET Web Content Management System
Bottom line the charities were all very appreciative of the solutions that were provided. (Thanks to Chris at Emmaus House for the tasty chocolate chip cookies!) Many volunteers were so dedicated that no one could prove if they ever left the facility at all this weekend!
Thanks to all the sponsors: Microsoft, Domino’s Pizza, Telerik, Component One, O’reilly, assembla, and discountasp.net.
Also, a special thanks to Kevin Grossnicklaus of ArchitectNow for organizing and leading the St. Louis GiveCamp event. I had a blast and hope that next’s year event is bigger and better!
Today’s Thought Splash: Giving Back with GiveCamp!
Dominating My Lizard Brain
Jan 5th
Today’s Thought Splash: Dominating My Lizard Brain!
I first heard of the lizard brain concept in Seth Godin’s latest book “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?“. Seth explains that:
The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive. – Seth Godin
Lately, my lizard brain has been working overtime. It’s been screaming telling me I don’t have what it takes to be a blogger, micropreneur, or thought leader. It goes on and on saying that I don’t have enough charisma, I’m not creative enough, and that people will laugh at me.
The Lizard Brain
The lizard brain’s goal in life is to make sure that you and I go unnoticed. Being unnoticed is a survival technique that has worked in primitive times and still works today (to some degree). But going unnoticed isn’t going help me become a successful micropreneur and blogger, so for the last several months or so I’ve been training myself to control my lizard brain. Making sure I don’t let it make any of the decisions.
Steps I’ve taken to dominate my lizard brain:
- Understand when it’s rearing its ugly head and calling it out.
- Acknowledge the uncomfortable feeling and press forward anyway.
- Review past conquests with the lizard brain for inspiration.
When the lizard brain said don’t write this post because it’s too transparent and it will make you look vulnerable. I pressed through anyway. And when it said nobody cares what you think about the lizard brain because you’re not Seth Godin, you’re nobody. I pressed through again. That’s how it is every day, every hour, every minute I try to do something to move towards my goals and step out of my safe zone; the lizard brain is there and every day, every hour, and minute I have to fight it. The good news is that it does get easier with practice!
Today’s Thought Splash: Dominating My Lizard Brain!
Building My Team Through Mentorship
Dec 28th
Today’s Thought Splash: Start Building Your Team Now!
When I first started thinking about becoming a Micropreneur I was overwhelmed by all the different skills I was going to need. I was seriously freaking about things like:
- How many different programming languages will I have to learn
- How will I connect with prospective customers and partners via social media
- How do I perform market research
- How will I become a SEO Guru
- What webhost should I use
- How will I market my products
Since I knew I would have to get up to speed quickly on a lot of subjects I didn’t know much about, I started reaching out to people in my network and asking them for help. Being able to connect with people with experience in my growth areas helped to subdue that feeling of being overwhelmed.
Usually I just need some direction, advice, or just a ear to bounce ideas off of; but sometimes I need some structured feedback, and mostly I need to have someone to be accountable to. This is where having a mentor comes in handy. Being able to share my goals with someone who cares enough to follow up and see if I’m still on track and gives me a gentle nudge or kick in the butt when needed is an invaluable asset.
Over the last several months I have connected with two mentors: Vernon Ross (@RossPR), Branding Coach and Blogger & Nicholas Cloud (@nicholacloud), Software Developer, Entrepreneur, and Blogger.
When I first met with Vernon Ross (@RossPR) to discus my aspirations of becoming a Micropreneur and Blogger he eagerly agreed to be my mentor. During that first meeting Vernon asked questions about my goals, and by the end of the meeting had a set of actions items for me to complete within the next week. He then followed up with an email with links to various resources we had discussed, as well as, an outline of the actions items. One of those actions items was to get this blog up and going, this was something that I had only talked about for almost a year! As I completed a few steps I kept Vernon up to date on my progress. When I missed one of my deadlines Vernon contacted me and asked how things were going (*** gentle nudge ***). Vernon continues to help me grow my personal brand and, connects me with resources and people when needed.
I met Nicholas Cloud(@nicholacloud) in person a couple times at local .NET User Group sponsored events. From those meeting I started following him on twitter and reading his blog. He’s blog has some awesome content about .NET software development. I decided that I wanted to seriously develop my .NET skills, so reached out to Nicholas for some assistance. By my surprise Nicholas jumped at the opportunity to be my mentor. We connected via Skype and talked for several hours about software development and entrepreneurship. Nicholas also shared some resources that would help me develop my skills, such as books, screencasts, and blogs. Nicholas checks in with me from time to time to see how I’m doing. We have a meeting coming up in January of 2011 to work through some questions I have about .NET.
So far these mentorships have been great! I have only one regret, not getting started sooner!
Thought Splash: Start Building Your Team Now!
What’s a Micropreneur Anyway?
Dec 24th
My business card reads: “Aiesha Dotson, Micropreneur & Blogger”
This is how it usually goes:
Me: (Hands my card to someone.)
Someone: Hmmm … what’s a Micropreneur anyway? (scratches head)
Me: A Micropreneur is a developer who wants to create software applications primarily for niche markets.
Someone: So you’re a software developer?
Me: Yes, that’s one of my skills, but being a Micropreneur is a little more involved than that. Being a Micropreneur means I drive every aspect of a software product from idea conception, market research, design, coding, implementation, automation, marketing, marketing (yea I said it twice!), to support.
Someone: Sounds interesting, I always wanted to do something like this but I never knew how to get started.
Me: You should check out my blog, ThoughtSplash.com.
I’m new to being a Micropreneur and I’m excited about overcoming the challenges it brings. On this blog I will share techniques, tips, HowTos, my successes and failures, as well as, encouragement and inspiration. My posts may seem random if you are used to reading blogs that focus on specific topics like internet marketing or how to create WordPress plugins. On this blog you can expect to see a splash of my thoughts as I go through my Micropreneur journey!
For more info on what’s a Micropreneur and on this blog check out the About Thought Splash page.
