Yesterday I spoke to an Entrepreneur class at Kent State University about how I started my own business. It was a big class with 98 students. It is encouraging to me that more and more students are interested in entrepreneurship and that KSU is now offering both a minor and a major in the subject.
After answering a question about online marketing, one of the students asked me, “How did you learn all this?”
I had to stop and smile.
Constant learning is something that many students haven’t grasped yet. Just getting a degree is only one step in the journey.
My answer:
“I hang out with people who are constantly learning and trying new things. I try to attend bloggers conferences, podcamps and meet monthly with the Akron Bloggers Community where we discuss everything from mobile tags to the best interfaces for your merchant account to download information products. ”
I’d thought I’d take a minute to share some great information tools from some of those conferences:
FitBloggin’10 — May in Baltimore, great sponsors, great speakers. This link goes to the videos from each of the sessions. I’m going again this year. Great conference. Settle in for 5 hours of how to videos:
- How to Pitch to the Traditional Media
- Making Money From Your Blog
- Using Social Media to Reach Goals: The Power of an Online Community
- Beyond the Blog- Getting Published
- WordPress from .com to Self Hosted
PodCampCleveland: Last year was the first year, 2011 session is April 30th at the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center from 8 am -5 pm. Should be awesome. Here’s the link to my presentation called Out of the Blog Fog: Intro to Blogging. It’s got my audio and slides so almost as good as a video.
PodCamp Pittsburgh: P’burg was one of the first cities with Podcamp and celebrated it’s 5th session this year. Here’s the link to my Pittsburgh PodCamp post about it earlier this year.
PodCamps are not just about podcasting, but social media, blogging, how to use Google AdWords, Google Places, and just about any online marketing you can think of. Interested in owning and operating a radio show? Come to podcamp. Just Google it. I bet there’s a PodCamp in a city near you. And if not, come to Cleveland’s PodCamp on April 30th! You’ll be glad you did.
How do YOU stay current? Please share links. Use your real name and email so I know I can approve any comments that get blocked. Thanks!
