As usual, I have a whole slew of excuses explaining my blog silence.  One was preparing for Ignite Portland where I gave a talk on How to Run a Startup and Not Lose Your Mind.  For the record, I don't actually know the answer because that week was so crazy that I really was losing my mind. 

In a related excuse, I actually have an unplublished draft of a blog post about the correlation of locus of control and leadership.  The reason it is unplublished, is because it frankly sucked.  I was also using it as a way to think through some issues and it just went nowhere.

I have also been working with SCORE and OTBC to plan some joint workshops and Lunch and Learn's to help support local microbusinesses. 

Given all of the things business owners need to get done in a day, it is a wonder businesses exist at all.  But, as I am learning (albeit slowly) business owners (and their businesses) survive by making judicious decisions about how to spend their time.  When we first started CubeSpace, that meant that I was at networking events all the time.  But unsurprisingly, I burnt out on that approach fairly early on.  Then we tried a systematic approach of looking at which networking efforts were successful and which were less so.  That turned out to be harder than we expected because the time delay between an intiial connection and someone coming in to check out CubeSpace was fairly long.  That left us fairly stumped.

David and I have always maintained that successful networking is about quality, not quantity.  So I limited my networking to places where I was able to make connections with people, rather than a one-off business card exchange.  And that strategy worked fairly well.  I have made some really great friends through networking, and that has, and will continue to lead to business for us.

One of the better reasons to have friends is that they are the ones who will tell you when you have spinach in your teeth or check to see if you are still alive if you haven't posted anything to your blog in a while.  Today I experienced the latter.  Then I went and looked at the CubeSpace blog and that was when I realized that somehow, without my permission, two weeks had passed since my last posting.  I have all sorts of good excuses, but I will not bore you with the full litany.  Instead I will focus on why microbusinesses need friends.  Badly.

 I have a short list of people I go to when I am feeling stymied by a problem.  I have the one whose advice I seek when I get stuck on a staff professional development issue.  I have the one who I ask about financial decisions and I have the one I go to when I get overwhelmed and just need to be reminded that I am a capable and competent person, and that this too shall pass.  

This is the second in the series of Eva catch-up blog posts.  This one is all about our Open House scheduled for May 14th from 4-8pm.

So, given all of my complaints lately about being over-worked and under-slept, why would we think throwing yet another party would be a good idea?  That's a fair point, perhaps I should take that up with the Powers that Be.  Oh wait, I am one of the Powers that Be.  So, I must have had a good reason.

The best reason I can come up with is because we love having people over to CubeSpace.  CubeSpace is not just our home away from home (yes, we really do go home to sleep), but it is our community and we love to get to know our community better.  

The second best reason is so we can show off how cool CubeSpace is.  Whenever people come to CubeSpace for the first time, we hear all sorts of accolades about how much bigger it is then people imagined, or how comfortable the space feels or how many great people they meet at our events.  

The past couple of weeks have been a real whirlwind here at CubeSpace, and this week only gives me a bit of a breather before taking off full bore again.

This past weekend was the second BarCamp Portland and once again it was held at CubeSpace. I have not yet fully recovered after having worked an additional 40.5 hours on top of an already full week, but suffice it to say it was once again an experience to behold. There is a kind of energy that comes with BarCamp that we don't see enough of during the rest of the year. It is a combination of tons of people (I love seeing groups and individuals in every nook and cranny of this place) and their collective energy. There are people who are sharing and learning and teaching and brainstorming and sometimes just staring in awe or exhaustion or in thought at the schedule wall. It always serves to remind me why we went into the community-building business.

The topic for April's WNG meeting was Networking.  I already shared some musings about networking in my April 8th post, but as I expected, the conversation took on a life of its own.  We wandered into questions of gender, communication style and, of course, shared some do's and don't with each other.

One of my favorite parts of the conversation was the advice proffered by networking "guru's" (often men) and the question of which advice is good advice.  Aja shared something she read suggesting that people track relevant information about a person, including spouse name, children, favorite foods and anything else that might "personalize" a future conversation.  Some members of the group do track bit of personal information.  Often on a client's folder or business card, so that they can follow up on conversations in the future.  Others of us rely on our memory to keep track of what we learn about others.  

You may wonder why I am writing a blog post about search engine history on the CubeSpace blog. Believe it or not, there is actually a connection there.

Today I am working at home until the WNG meeting at CubeSpace this evening. I am doing this so that I can get some projects done that require more attention than I can give them at CubeSpace, where my day is usually a constant stream of distractions. At some point late in the morning I got hungry and reheated some leftovers. I decided a meal was as good an excuse as any to take a break, so I picked up the issue of New Scientist that I am currently in the midst of reading. That is where I found an article about the Mundaneum, an index card proto-internet with librarians functioning as search engines.

Friday I did something that was very unusual for me. I took a day off. This was done in preparation for Startupalooza, which in some ways (from our perspective, at least) was a dress rehearsal for BarCamp. Startupalooza went very well, and while I don't have the final count, my guess is that we had 200+ people through here on Saturday and we managed to stay on top of dishes and logistics (in that order) so I am happy.

The topic of this month's WNG meeting was Nourishing Ourselves.  If you recall, this topic was suggested as a follow-up to last month's discussion, putting a proactive spon on the perennial issues of time management and work/life balance.  No surprise, but last night we had yet another invigorating WNG meeting.  Each time we have had these small group discussions, we have had a different mix of people and personalities and that really shapes the direction the conversation takes. 

Last night, Mary and Aja made my job as facilitator extremely easy.  Mary is a very social and outgoing woman, and she did a fabulous job encouraging attendees to introduce themselves and really talk about their businesses.  Aja played the role of  talk show host, with insightful follow-up questions and and thoughtful responses.  

So, as I cryptically wrote last night, I have been voted on to yet another Island.  By this I mean that I have accepted a seat on yet another committee.  In some ways that is bad.  I am already horribly over-committed and have had to schedule weekly check-in meetings with my staff because I am not here enough for us to connect just by virtue of being behind the front desk together.  That being said, I am actually really excited about this new committment.