Tech Forward:

I met the Make Mine Pink ladies (the Pink People) while speaking at the Country Living Magazine Entrepreneur Conference earlier this year in Chicago.

It was love at first sight for me and for them.

They just interviewed me about social media, and I’ll be keynoting their private retreat in September.

I say some smart stuff about social media and offer some great advice. Check it out!

I’m on the advisory board of the Center for Women’s Business Research (CfWBR) , and it’s offering an organizational discount of 15 percent to attend this conference in mid-August: http://www.semphonic.com/conf/registration.asp.

As you register, just show your affiliation to CfWBR, and you’ll receive a 15 percent discount. You shouldn’t have any problems but, if anyone asks, just mention my name or this blog.

If you attend, please come back and comment to let me know how it was.

OK, OK. I’ve been promising the results from the Communitelligence Social Media Resistance survey, which were released at the Executing Social Media Conference in Pasadena, California, with the help of USC’s Marshall School of Business.

Here they are. Don’t say I never gave you anything (opens in PPT)

I think the results are interesting and telling. I love how the larger a company is, the more it thinks podcasting isn’t useful for its branding. Nope, bigger companies think RSS feeds are all the rage for branding. (Are they serious?)

However, the scrappy small businesses know that online video is where it’s at. For all the small business owners reading this, don’t feel bad–you “get it” more than corporate at this point. Good on ya’!

And of all the respondents, a full 89 percent of companies think their social media adoption is below average or average. Whooty whoot! That means more business for my company!

What are your thoughts about the results?

Tonight I’ll be live blogging from the networking reception hosted by the Network of Executive Women. Very appropriately, the theme of the evening is “Leadership in a Virtual World.”

The moderator is Shon Gables, host of the Black Enterprise Business Report.

The room is packed, and there’s a buzz of networking, forks clanking and laughter.

I’ve been to a NEW event before and, just as sure as these ladies (and some men) are chatting now, they’ll deep dive into the agenda shortly.

At the last NEW event I attended, Lisa Gersh of Oxygen Networks was the keynote, and she bought a high level of approachability and realism to women who work hard every day. She talked about how there really is no such thing as balance and how women should embrace the imbalance.

I agree. People often tell me that they see me everywhere, and they askwhether I ever take a break. Believe you me, I know how to cut the cords and let my hair down.

Anyway, we’re about to get started . . . I’ll be back.

Well, two possibly new clients and two new speaking invites later, I made it home from the Executing Social Media conference in lovely Pasadena. (I could so totally live there!)

We all had a great time, and what was most important to me, I think, was that all the attendees finally realized that they’re not “losers” for not being fully engaged with social media. There are multibillion-dollar brands that can’t yet use social media effectively, so no one should feel bad.

Social media has such a “keep up with the Joneses” element to it that companies with perfectly good marketing strategies and strong brands sometimes feel like they’re doing a horrible job.

Take that energy and put it into getting started. If you don’t have the resources or interest (or are just too leery) to launch your own social media initiative, use what I call O.P.S. (Other People’s Social) to dip your toe in the water . . . comment on other blogs and connect with people through offering advice and guidance in online communities. Never forget that you have to give to get.

And if you don’t want to be that active, just listen. Set up a Google Alert for your name, the name of your company, products, services and other phrases or unique words associated with your brand. You might even set up a Google Alert for the name of your industry–commercial construction, for example–to find out what’s being said about your industry overall.

The point is to start.

P.S. I’m still trying to get my hands on the social media resistance survey results from the Executing Social Media conference. When they’re uploaded, I’ll link to them. Thanks for your patience.

We’re doing the wrap up for Day One, and we’re all holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.“

No seriously, we are talking about what we all got out of the day; and Chris Heuer made the good point that 10 years later, we’re seeing the predictions in Cluetrain Manifesto come to life.

Heuer also shared a particularly poignant Shel Israel quote, “People usually overestimate the ability to create change in the short term and underestimate their ability to create change in the long term.” Amen to that.

George Wright from Blendtec just said, “Either you’re going to be a big boy and hike your skirt up and do something or you’re not.” Amen to that, too.

And I added to that: “As of now, everyone in this room has the potential to be a leader, and what you do with all this information that you get from this conference is going to separate the true leaders from people who can’t step up and effect change. And as of right now, you can’t say you don’t know about social media. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.”

We also spent a good deal of time talking about risk aversion and managing the legal department and its objections. To which, Jake McKee says, “Legal doesn’t own and operate your company. You do.” You tell ‘em, Jake.

Well, we’re just about to wrap up our last roundtable session, and then we’ll move into the evening cocktail hour–and that means drinks!

I also like the fact that there are some fresh faces speaking at this conference. There are some of the “usual suspects,” but there are also many new people leading roundtables and, as usual, many of the “usual suspects” are trying to take over the conversation from the new leaders. Ahhh, men in social media

Once the social media resistance survey results are released, I’ll let you know. Apparently, there is much interest about the results. I’ve been speaking and live blogging so I haven’t had much time to really look at the results, but when I post them, I’ll be sure to give you my two cents’ worth.

Oh, and did I mention that Jake McKee of Ant’s Eye View is here? The funny thing is, I didn’t know who he was until I went to his website. Then I put two and two together. Jake is a cool guy with a lot of insights about social media. (Isn’t it funny how I know people based on their websites and e-mail addresses? That says a lot about how times have changed.)

Oh, and if you want to check out photos from the conference, visit Flickr.

One of the things I like about small conferences is that they give you the opportunity to have real conversations with people. I mean really connect.

Today we had an awesome keynote from George Wright of Blendtec. You know . . . the brains behind willitblend? He actually blended a garden rake–live in front of us! It was the coolest thing!

But seriously, we are working here. I spoke with one attendee about social media for the Harley Davidson brand; we talked about the benefit in calculating your NetPromoter Score; we heard from Brian Solis, author of Now is Gone (well, I didn’t hear him because I had my own session to lead); and I also led a roundtable about getting social media projects approved by upper management and legal.

We also got a first look at the results of the social media resistance survey, and I’ll be sharing that information later. I can tell you that the results show that larger companies find online video and podcasts particularly helpful. What does that mean to you? If your market consists of large companies, you might want to consider launching a podcast or videocast.

More later. . .

Oh, and P.S. I got to have dinner with my WomanEntrepreneur.com editor, Eve, last night. She’s even cooler in person.

Well, I arrived safely here in Los Angeles to speak at the Executing Social Media conference tomorrow. I could have done without the toddler who screamed all the way from Kansas to Los Angeles, though. Someone should have told her that’s not the kind of social media we mean.

I read on Peter Shankman’s Twitter feed that he’s arrived here, as well. If you don’t know who Peter Shankman is, find out by subscribing to his Help A Reporter Out (HARO) service. It’s real, legitimate, free leads for media coverage. My company has received some great coverage by responding to some of the queries that come through his mailing list–and no, it’s not just tech stuff.

I took a nice walk around Old Town Pasadena today and I really like it. I can live here, but lately I’ve been saying that a lot about everyplace but New York. Hmmm . . . maybe there’s a small change brewing?

Pasadena is great, relaxed and the peeps are really friendly. You can wear flip-flops in just about every fancy restaurant. I collect art and I try to pick up pieces from my travels, so I asked a few local Pasadenans what Pasadena is famous for and they all said the Rose Parade. Soooooo . . . since I missed that, I’ll take a few pictures of the gorgeous architecture and leave it at that. Maybe I’ll have a fewshots framed.

Anyway . . . the conference starts tomorrow. I’ll try to do some live blogging, but I have a session to lead and a roundtable to orchestrate, so I’ll do what I can to keep you informed of what’s going on here.

Stay tuned…

My pals over at WME Books are thinking about creating a conference called Publishing 3.0: Books, Blogs and Beyond, but they want to make sure they develop a conference that people really want to attend.

If you’ve ever wanted to write a book, publish a book you’ve already written, write a blog or use a blog to market your book, then this is the conference for you.

To weigh in on exactly what you want to see, whom you want to speak and when you think the conference should be held, take two minutes and let them know.

Question: How many other conferences ask the participants before they schedule one single session?

Answer: Not many.

So, hop to it.

You know your events are popular when people don’t want to leave the room. That was the scene yesterday as we wrapped up the CfWBR Research to Roadmap symposium.

The facilities crew was literally taking the room down around us as we continued to share ideas and network.

Check out the Center’s live blog site (yes, CfWBR had its own freelance blogger!), which is sponsored by Verizon (had to plug the sponsors!)

I made a comment at the event that I’ll share with you here:

I thank the center for putting money, time and energy toward this research. No other organization had the gumption to nail down sponsors and commit to this process. And because of that, for the first time in 10 years as a business owner and as a woman of color, I feel heard. Thank you, CfWBR.

If you’re not involved with the center in some way, you should be. Reach out to the organization: 202-638-3060, tell  how you can help, ask for the help you need . . . just start talking.  Visit the website. Feel free to use my name or the name of this blog as an introductory point. Just do something . . .

Good grief, I’m tired! But in a good way…

I spent the entire day yesterday in Washington, D.C., attending the Center for Women’s Business Research’s Research to Roadmap event, and I must say it was first class all the way. There’s something about CfWBR events . . . you’re networking, learning about your business, planning for change. You leave physically exhausted, but your cup runneth over with ideas! Amazing. (And I’m not just saying that because I’m on the advisory board!)

Speaking of amazing, the research results are out and I’m absolutely floored. Check it out:

• There are 1.9 million businesses owned by women of color (gosh, I hope they counted my company!).
• Women-of-color-owned companies employ 1.2 million people and;
• Collectively generate $165 billon dollars in revenue (hello, Oprah!)

And, here are some more stats for your noggin:

In the six years between 2002 and 2008, the number of firms owned by women of color increased by 32 percent, the number of employees increased by 27 percent and revenues increased by a whopping 48 percent.

• Women of color-owned businesses make up 26.5 percent of all women businesses.
• Out of all the employees working at women-owned businesses, 15.8 percent of them work at a company owned by a woman of color.
• 15.6 percent of all revenue generated by women-owned businesses come from a business owned by a woman of color.

These numbers finally tell the rich story that I knew all along. Women of color are making money and, more important, we’re making a difference.