Posts by Erin Blaskie

Business Lessons Learned in 2011

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Dec 20, 2011 in Business Tips | 11 comments

2011 is swiftly coming to a close and when I saw this MSN Business on Main article “Lessons Learned in 2011“, I was inspired to post a blog to ask YOU to contribute your lessons learned in business in 2011.  So, go ahead, post them in the comments!  On January 1, 2012, I will choose two winners to win a $50 Amazon gift card each!  Your business lesson can be long or short, good or bad and the only rule is that it has to be something that you personally learned in 2011.

This was a huge year for me and I experienced some of my highest highs and my lowest lows but through it all, I’ve learned one really, really big lesson that I will take with me into 2012.  That lesson is: “Say yes to what you love and no to what you don’t.”  It’s a short and sweet lesson and one that we’ve heard often but I really could have used this motto during 2011.  There were many things I said yes to that I should have said no to and sometimes, when I said yes, had to say no to things that in hindsight should have been my yeses.  So, I’m going to try and be more critical in 2012 of the reasons behind my yes and no responses and make sure they sit well in my gut.

There are some really awesome responses over at the Business on Main article that you should check out too!

Remember, leave a comment and tell me YOUR biggest learning lesson in 2011.

Oh Business, You Silly Thing You

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Dec 5, 2011 in blog, Business Tips | 4 comments

This isn’t one of those posts I write with advice embedded into it and this isn’t even going to be a post with much of a beginning, middle and an end.

Nope, this is a post that I am writing on my iPhone while I soak in a glorious, peaceful bubble bath.

I was talking to a client and very dear friend of mine today about business and life and how the two end up affecting each other so much. In my case, my daughter is cutting her first year molars and it’s killing me… Figuratively speaking of course but the late nights, endless suffering she is experiencing and my insane work schedule has created this space where I feel slightly trapped.

You see, business is not an easy journey to choose. Over the past seven years, I have not gone a day (literally not a day – probably not even an hour) where someone has not needed me for something. If you are in business too, you might be able to relate. Regardless of how many hours you put in, regardless of how much support you have around you, someone ALWAYS needs you.

I am fairly certain that this is why I started my business in the first place. I loved feeling needed and like I was making a difference and more importantly, I loved when my clients relied on me to make their life easier. I had a place in the universe – a purpose. However, sometimes I wish that I had a day, or an hour, where I could disappear and not be needed.

You see, with being needed comes a lot of guilt. Guilt when you can’t produce the way you want to, perform the way you want to and be the kind of person you want to be for everyone you know. The guilt then turns into resentment and that isn’t healthy for anyone.

So, I’ve been learning. I’ve been learning that it’s okay to be imperfect, it’s okay to say no to things, it’s okay to choose what or who I give my time to.

I was talking to Steve tonight about our daughter and I was telling him that I want to make her growing up experience memorable and exciting. I don’t want to focus on material things or keeping a perfect house or having her in the best schools (not that I don’t think education is important but I do believe it should be chosen based on the individual needs of the child and not because of the school’s status in the community). I kind of feel that way about my business too. It’s more important to me to get my offerings / talent / skills / whatever out to the world than it is to worry that everything has to be perfect.

I’m also learning that when you balance life and a business so delicately on your shoulders, something somewhere has to give a little and that is okay too.

What are your big learning lessons about business as you make your way through?

Brand & Message Essentials for Creatives on Social Media

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Nov 23, 2011 in Facebook, How-To, Internet Marketing, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter | 0 comments

I had the honor of speaking yesterday at Ottawa’s Make Art Work! conference put on by OCRI and I spoke on the topic of, “Brand and Message Essentials for Creatives on Social Media.”

The presentation was designed to highlight the ways that creatives and artists could use social media and maintain an authentic expression of selves.

Here is the slide deck from that session:

Launch Strategy for a New Blog

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Nov 10, 2011 in Business Tips, How-To, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Web & Technology | 4 comments

Launch Strategy for a New Blog

Announcing a new blog is an exciting thing for most web-based business owners because you now have this interactive platform for your audience to engage with you from.  If you didn’t have a blog before (and if you were also lacking a social media presence), you may not have any idea who is out there enjoying your work.  Launching a blog opens the doors to get to know your online audience in a more intimate way.

Since you have two groups of people — those who know you now and those who don’t yet know you — the blog strategy needs to incorporate both of these groups.  It is important to personally invite the people who know, like and trust you into the environment but it is equally as important to set up some things that will attract in new prospects as that is the goal of your blog.

The Cost of App Development – An Interview with iWatchLife

Posted by Erin Blaskie on Oct 4, 2011 in Internet Marketing, Marketing, Web & Technology | 5 comments

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring interviews with various individuals and companies that have gone through the app development process. The focus of these interviews is specifically on the costs associated with developing and marketing an app.  You can catch the first interview here.

If you have any follow-up questions, please post them as a comment and I will let our interviewees know that they are here.

The Cost of Developing an App – Interview #2

1. Tell us a little bit about your app.

iWatchLife for Android and iOS lets you see what’s happening around your house when you are not there. iWatchLife works with any webcam or two models of Axis wireless IP cameras.

We have developed a better version of motion detection that we call smart event detection. It reduces false alerts by letting alerting you only when something important happens like your child standing up in the crib, your pet doing something it shouldn’t or when a delivery arrives at your front door.

iWatchLife also uses 5 times less bandwidth than anything else streaming full motion video so you won’t use up your bandwidth cap or data plan.

2. Can you describe the initial costs that went into the development of the app?

We’ll discuss this from the viewpoint of most apps being built and our specific experience. Generally for most apps, you can build the app fairly cheaply using the tool kit supplied for the mobile device. A simple app can be prototyped by a developer who is familiar with the tools in a few days to a couple of weeks. Testing for most startups depends on getting enough friends to load the test version of the app and provide feedback.

For mobile apps, it helps keep costs down by keeping your functionality as simple and as useful as possible and to stay with the UI as people expect it to work rather than letting you creativity run wild. Think what people are used to not what you think would be awesome. Get it out the door, working well and build off that. The cost then is the cost of those couple days to two weeks of dev. time. If you have developer skills you would do this yourself. If you aren’t you need to network into the app development community. There are several local networking meetings in any city for people focused on mobile apps, games or startups. You need to get there, talk and network to find developer resources. So you need to set aside money for finding the right resources to build your app.