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Chain Link July 2008: I'm a Featured Speaker!


Amy

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Guess what, everyone? I've been asked to be the featured speaker at the luncheon on Professional Development Day at CGOA's Chain Link Conference this summer! I'll be giving a presentation to professionals in the crochet industry, sharing information about Crochetville and how they can use the 'Ville and other online resources to tap into the "pulse" of the customers in the crochet industry.

 

Can you believe this will be my first time attending a CGOA event and I also get to be a speaker? I'm so thrilled! I feel like I'm moving in the ranks of crochet royalty now, because Lily Chin was the featured speaker for the 2007 luncheon!

 

There are going to be so many fabulous classes and workshops on Wednesday, 7/23, for professional in the crochet industry. And for those who want to be professionals some day, too!

 

Thursday through Sunday are going to be filled with all sorts of wonderful crochet classes for non-professionals. There are some fabulous classes on the schedule. The hard part will be deciding what classes I can afford to take AND leaving enough time to go shopping in the vendor area!

 

I've heard the rooms at the convention hotel go quickly, so I just got online and made a reservation for Tuesday through Saturday. (I may end up extending it to Sunday, but I don't know yet.)

 

Now to investigate airfares, at which time I'll have to know my final decision about how long I'm staying!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Congrats Amy - you're going to do great!!! :woo

 

:bounce

 

I hope so! Now I'm going to have to dig REALLY deep back into my high school memories when I did competitive public speaking. Not that I was that great at it, but at least I'm not terrified to be in front of a microphone. :lol

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Congratulations! CGOA's weakest link is their electronic communications. It's improved, but the Yahoo discussion group is pretty weak. They rely too much on asking general group questions such as "What's the first think you crocheted?" to get members to post. The Yahoo Group format doesn't lend itself too well to interactions. There's odd rules about members can advertise a link to their website, but they can't directly state that's something is for sale.

 

I hope you can inspire them to consider other options.

 

PS: Maybe you can sell CGOA their own members section here on Crochetville!

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Congratulations! CGOA's weakest link is their electronic communications. It's improved, but the Yahoo discussion group is pretty weak. They rely too much on asking general group questions such as "What's the first think you crocheted?" to get members to post. The Yahoo Group format doesn't lend itself too well to interactions. There's odd rules about members can advertise a link to their website, but they can't directly state that's something is for sale.

 

I hope you can inspire them to consider other options.

 

PS: Maybe you can sell CGOA their own members section here on Crochetville!

 

I'm a member of the CGOA Yahoo discussion group, too. Email lists are structured entirely differently than message boards. I much prefer the organization that you can have with the message board structure.

 

I wish I had more time to participate on the CGOA Yahoo group, but all my time is taken up over here!

 

As far as the "odd rule" about advertising, we actually have a similar policy in place here. :) Members can have their business link in their signature, but they can't start threads promoting their business. (Although this will be changing for paid advertisers in the near future, but limited to a very specific place in the forum.) In limited instances, we do allow members to respond within a thread to let a member know they carry an item the member has specifically stated they are looking for.

 

However, the focus of my presentation isn't going to be about what CGOA as an organization should do. It will be about how individual professionals in the crochet industry can use online resources such as forums and email lists to help improve/grow their businesses, while at the same time being sure to follow proper "netiquette" for the individual groups in which they're participating.

 

Different groups allow different things, and it's important to take the time to learn what those things are before jumping in and getting yourself a bad reputation with a certain group. :) Because that can be very difficult to recover from!

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Congratulations Amy! I'm sure you'll do great. :) That's a really informative and fun day!

 

The class list is up now but registration doesn't open till mid-March for signing up.

We can't get there till Wednesday but are staying through Sunday.

If you can manage it, try to stay for Saturday night...you'd love the Dinner and Fashion Show!

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Wow! Crochetville is really on the map now! I'm so happy for you Amy! All the hard work everyone has put in here is really paying off. This really is a wonderful comunity and the fact that CGOA wants you to talk to the pros is amazing! I really hope that some of the yarn and pattern companies out there listen up and even if they only browse forums like this (or Ravelry...) to really get the pulse of what we think is the next big thing that'll be an improvement.

 

Congrats to the Dude too for getting to MC the fashion show. We have so many talented people here, I'm constantly in awe...

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