As mentioned in my last post, I recently attended the POC Conference in Toronto. It was a fabulous experience and, in addition to having the honour of presenting to 70 professional organizers from all over Canada, I heard some excellent speakers, including Joe Roberts, The Skid Row CEO and Margarita Ibbott of Downshifting – Professional Organizing Solutions and Linked Learning. I talked a bit about what I learned on People in Connection Internet TV on Monday.
Learning is an important aspect of any conference, but so is networking, and I did lots of that too. I spoke with 15 of my past and current clients in one day, and was amazed to realize that was more than 10% of the conference delegates! Here are just a few of the special people I connected with:
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I was thrilled to find out that Janine Adams, who came all the way from St. Louis, Missouri, was as excited to meet me as I was to meet her!
The only downside was that after such a long and busy day (I left home at 7:00 AM and was go-go-go until about 10:30 PM), combined with the time change and some noisy hotel guests (not POC members, I’m sure!), I was way too tired to go to WordCamp Toronto as planned.
On Sunday morning, I put on a black sweater and pants and deep red jacket, unintentionally choosing POC colours. I guess you can take Janet out of POC, but you can’t take POC out of Janet!
There are literally hundreds of social media sites with many different purposes, and you could easily devote your entire week to exploring new sites, maintaining your connections, and updating your profiles! Unfortunately, although effective social networking can and does lead to business opportunities, you can’t make a living at it, so it’s important to use your online time effectively.
One of the “special dates” marked on my blogging calendar for March is “Improve Management Skills Month.” I haven’t been able to find any information about the origins of this event, but it did inspire me to write a series of posts last year which, in my humble opinion, are well worth reading again.
At one of the first small business networking events I ever attended, the group leader gave an excellent presentation in which she explained that no matter what you’re working on, you don’t have to learn everything the hard way. Whether it’s a marketing technique, an administrative procedure, or something specific to the services you offer, someone else has already done it.
Today is the Third Annual International Networking Day, part of a week-long celebration for people who grow their business through networking. It’s hard for me to believe that I have only been networking for five years, because it’s now such an important part of my life! Although these days, much of my networking is conducted online through social media such as 
