GCSS Community Events

by Eric Pudalov, Community Events Coordinator

At the suggestion of Sherry Heyl, our Internet networking advisor, I've decided to switch the location of our GCSS blog (or at least the Community Events part of it).

According to her (and another friend of mine who also works with a non-profit organization), Blogger/Blogspot aren't considered the most professional of websites for business blogs. WordPress, however, has a better reputation with professional bloggers.

I already have a personal WordPress account, and could easily set up one for GCSS. When I do, I'll make sure to notify everyone (as a matter of fact, I may set it up today). If I can figure it out, I'll try and link our Twitter and Facebook accounts to the new blog as well.

Most of these things, in retrospect, are rather simple; they just take a bit of time. Since this blog seems to only get the occasional reader anyway, I'm feeling positive about the transition to WordPress anyway.

As soon as it's up, I promise to e-mail everyone and let them know. I look forward to hearing from you! Happy holidays, once again!

P.S. Don't worry, I've run this by Evan...so it wasn't entirely an impulsive decision on my part.

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by Eric Pudalov, Community Events Coordinator

I'm sure many of you have heard the word "persona" before. Some of you may even be familiar with how it applies to business.

As part of my ongoing business/marketing education, I had a lesson in creating personas, in other words, fictitious consumer types within a target market that might make use of our services.

While I had completed the customer profiles that I talked about in earlier blogs, the persona concept is a bit more in-depth, and requires more field research. Conversation Marketing defines them as "your marketing campaign's imaginary friends." At the site, the blogger, Ian Lurie, goes into detail about customer demographics, personalities, and their relationships with you (meaning the business).

Forgive me if I'm preaching to the choir at all here...some of this information I knew in theory, but certainly couldn't have taught to others. As I'm in the process of storing the knowledge in my own head, it helps tremendously for me to discuss it with others.

One thing that Sherry Heyl (of Concept Hub, Inc. fame) asked me to do was to go out and find out where people in our target market hang out, so to speak. It would help to have more real examples from which to create the fictional personas.

So...how does all this sound? Any ideas to contribute?

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by Eric Pudalov, Community Events Coordinator

Having noticed that most, if not all, of you are on Facebook, I've begun the task of adding you as friends. Once we are "Facebook friends," I'm hoping that you'll join the Facebook Cause "Support Individuals with Developmental Disabilities.

As I stated in my earlier entry, we have only raised a small amount of money thus far. Despite my bragging about my tech abilities, at first I couldn't figure out how to donate money myself. But with a little problem solving, I was able to bypass that, and donated a small amount.

So, as I recruit more people to the Cause, I'm hoping that some people will be willing to donate any money at all (if even just a few dollars). I realize that the economy is still down, and that everyone is trying to save money. But in the long run, this will benefit our organization, and in turn, you!

I also thought I should mention that not long ago, I was a client of another organization, and I still occasionally keep in touch with some of the people I worked with there. A few are on Facebook, and I thought I'd recruit them as well.

I realize not everyone has money to donate, but again, I'm just trying to promote awareness and get our name out there. So the first step is for you to join!

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