Just click on the title above and you will be automagically transported to an interesting article which was originally published on SiliconRepublic.com. It was brought to my attention by Darina Loakman; who's always one for great tips on how us WAHM's can make the best of what's out there.
In this case however, I wonder what's out there for those of us who have passed the age 44 years bracket...
To your good health!
Polly Pierce
Vinca Cards:- Handmade Wedding Stationary & Greeting Cards from Ireland
Showing posts with label Darina Loakman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darina Loakman. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Polly's Mind Cues
This post is a little thank you to the people who have been so kind and provided me with huge quanities of inspiration and encouragement. It is not often that you come across someone who is willing to give honest and reliable advice; but somehow I seem to have been lucky enough to have found some truly great critics...
Darina Loakman who introduced me to the concept of WHAM'ing and all the resources out there for people like me. Without her influence I certainly wouldn't be the confident blogger and website owner promoting my very own brand of handmade wedding stationary over at Vinca Cards!
Despite Fibromyalgia/ME; for several years I haven't checked myself into a nearby institution for the clinically bored and terminally insane! Thanks to the stimulation provided by the whole business of WHAM'ing, my memory is 100% better than it was a year ago and I am using my time constructively even while I am resting...
I have developed a keen interest in business from a pleasant past-time; with astounding results; having been forced to take a leave of absence from my profession as a health care worker. While my energy levels may not be what they could be; they are certainly much improved. I can do my weekly shopping with relative ease; which is largely due to a first class family doctor and an understanding consultant.
Jean, Lorna, Niamh, and so many others have put themselves out to answer my questions or send me messages on subjects that few would even show interest in. I even received a telephone call from a total stranger the other day; advising me to sort out my e-mail address as soon as possible.
All I could do was laugh the laugh of the embarrassed and agree with her - I had simply not got around to changing it to a dedicated e-mail address and let's face it; yahoo.co.uk doesn't sound as good as pollypierce@vincacards.com does it? I was thankful to her for being courageous and acting on her convictions. I just wish I'd thought about it before I re-vamped my business cards and placed my ad in the paper!DG, the two boys and BJK have all been so supportive and patient with me. The house is a mess and unfortunately my good friends Fly Lady & The Household Helper haven't succeeded in converting me from slob to housekeeper just yet. Rome wasn't built in a day; I'm getting there and my family are right behind me...
What happens next is a mystery. I have resources and tools at my disposal to help me over the next hurdle; and an interest in business development. I hope to report back in another year that things have gone from strength to strength. This will take both time and money to achieve; but hopefully I am on the write (sic) track...
Polly Pierce
Vinca Hand Made Greeting Cards & Wedding Stationary
Polly Conomy
Damien Mulley, whose blog I have bookmarked is presenting the Irish Web Awards this evening at the Radisson SAS Royal Dublin Hotel and fair play to him! There's been a lot of work involved in this event and he's the man to do it...
In particular I'd like to wish Good Luck to Deborah Hadley and Darina Loakman; both members of IBW; both of whom has been nominated and shortlisted to the top five in a total of three categories. That is some achievement ladies; and I'm proud of you!
Elsewhere in Damien's blog I discovered this rather cynical take by Jonathan on the present state of the World Wide Economy. As commentator's have already mentioned it is succinct and to the point...
For those of you with delicate sensibilities; I apologise, however this is what the dog's on the street reckon and for once it seems that they agree with the experts...
Polly Pierce
Vinca Cards - Handmade Wedding Stationary
Monday, December 17, 2007
Internet Recovery Therapy In The Approach To Christmas
Hi there, I'm backkk!
Goodness, it seems like such a long time since I was on the blog!
The whole idea of setting up a blog was to make a little cash from selling my cards. That was of course on my other blog Vinca's-A-Thinka! over on my Freewebs site, I can't actually remember quite when I started it all off as it seems like forever, rather than the few months it has been.
Being a total novice at all this I decided that I had to start somewhere and to be honest was much more comfortable with the degree of anonymity that the web offers. Seeing as I knew very little about web development I started to play on the Microsoft Office desk top publishing program and whipped up a few very amateur ideas to be thinking about.
Unfortunately, I also discovered some lovely templates on free-web hosting sites and blog sites. This now means that I end up devoting much of my time to designing and redesigning my sites. The actual blogging is relatively easy by comparison; assuming that you can find the time to do so in the first place!
This morning I decided to take the world by storm and tackle my mail boxes; considering that between them there was the best part of five hundred e-mails this is quite a time consuming past-time. My new friend Fly-Lady is responsible for at least a quarter of them, and this is after careful deletions of testimonials galore!
Don't get me wrong now. I am not accusing Fly Lady of nagging; or anything like that, but when your back is at you and the Fibro shoulder/neck pain has resulted in the consumption of pain killers galore; talk about housework is the last thing you need. That said, some of the testimonials are truly inspiring and despite my many complaints, we are still getting there; slowly!
Getting back to my commercial website; Vinca Cards, we haven't actually sold a single card - yet! There is a very good reason for this which is that I haven't yet to put one card up for sale! Yes, I know; that does sound a little odd. However, I decided that rather than jump right in with both feet and make a load of expensive mistakes, I would suss out my market.
I used the website as an opportunity to conduct market research into what my market was all about. I included a questionnaire's and a guest book asking for comments, a members forum and a comments section at the end of each post in my blog. Unfortunately my feedback hasn't been high in numbers, ie less than a thousand returned questionnaire's. However the less formal feed back, ie comments and remarks made has been very encouraging, much of which I have already put into action.
At the moment I am thinking about re-designing the layout of my website to offer my products for sale on-line. Of course this will involve the inclusion of a lot of modern cyber tecnology and the applation of a great deal of patience & common sense on my part.
What makes this transition difficult is the fact that the whole business of inter-net trading, blogging, etc, is just so new. To people who are working crazy hours outside of the home, then commuting large distances on top there is often little chance to familiarize themselves with the inner workings of their computers, and so; there is little common sense in this area.
Luckily, I am blessed with a number of contacts who are kind enough to share the benefits of their experiences, all of it free of charge. Unfortunately there are also those who are only too happy to charge ridiculous amounts for what is slightly outdated advice; packaging it differently and peddling it as the new answer to our prayers.
With so much going on in the blogosphere, it can be difficult to manage one's time. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Fly Lady's book and set my timer in an effort to control my surfing time? There are so many great sources of inspiration out there that it can be very difficult to self regulate and be self disciplined; I have met some lovely people, who have been willing to give so much of themselves.
I wonder if The Priory; our local treatment centre for a rehabilitation of addictions deals with addiction to the internet? If so, who would be prepared to pay for my treatment? After all, while I have been so busy on the net, who has been making the money out of my card business? The quick answer is no-one; which is why over the next couple of weeks I expect to see a turn around in the structure of my VINCA Cards website.
There are a number of people that I should be thankful to, not least Darina Loakman, Angela Willis, Yarrow Stark, Lynette Chandler, Kirsty T, Alice Seba & Kelly McCausey & Rich Shefren. More recently I have found just what I needed on the craft side of things with Chewing Paper, The Worsted Witch, Amy Peters, and several others who's url's & names seem to have disappeared into the annals of Google Bookmarks; which I am unable to access at the moment!
A word of caution, be careful regarding the bookmark button on the google or firefox tool bars, they are a great idea and very easy to use; unless for some reason the server is having problems, like mine seem to be at the moment. From this day forth I proclaim that I will be using my own favourites and cataloguing each address into an appropriate file. Hmmmh, that sounds like another days work!
Christmas is just around the corner now, and still I have great intentions. We have yet to bring home a tree, all our decorations are still in the attic and the presents bought so long ago need to be wrapped! On top of this, we must find the large living room; ie the one I started to renovate two years ago; our small house is too small for five of us to live for twenty-four hours in what used to be LB's bedroom!
It's not that my plans are particularly grandiose; rather I need urgent treatment for my internetproblems; they are beginning to impact on other areas of my life, to the point that I am quite adept at hiding my efforts. Unlike the alcoholic I can't hide it under the bath or in the hot-press; and yet still I try! Now, where is that timer, again...?
Goodness, it seems like such a long time since I was on the blog!
The whole idea of setting up a blog was to make a little cash from selling my cards. That was of course on my other blog Vinca's-A-Thinka! over on my Freewebs site, I can't actually remember quite when I started it all off as it seems like forever, rather than the few months it has been.
Being a total novice at all this I decided that I had to start somewhere and to be honest was much more comfortable with the degree of anonymity that the web offers. Seeing as I knew very little about web development I started to play on the Microsoft Office desk top publishing program and whipped up a few very amateur ideas to be thinking about.
Unfortunately, I also discovered some lovely templates on free-web hosting sites and blog sites. This now means that I end up devoting much of my time to designing and redesigning my sites. The actual blogging is relatively easy by comparison; assuming that you can find the time to do so in the first place!
This morning I decided to take the world by storm and tackle my mail boxes; considering that between them there was the best part of five hundred e-mails this is quite a time consuming past-time. My new friend Fly-Lady is responsible for at least a quarter of them, and this is after careful deletions of testimonials galore!
Don't get me wrong now. I am not accusing Fly Lady of nagging; or anything like that, but when your back is at you and the Fibro shoulder/neck pain has resulted in the consumption of pain killers galore; talk about housework is the last thing you need. That said, some of the testimonials are truly inspiring and despite my many complaints, we are still getting there; slowly!
Getting back to my commercial website; Vinca Cards, we haven't actually sold a single card - yet! There is a very good reason for this which is that I haven't yet to put one card up for sale! Yes, I know; that does sound a little odd. However, I decided that rather than jump right in with both feet and make a load of expensive mistakes, I would suss out my market.
I used the website as an opportunity to conduct market research into what my market was all about. I included a questionnaire's and a guest book asking for comments, a members forum and a comments section at the end of each post in my blog. Unfortunately my feedback hasn't been high in numbers, ie less than a thousand returned questionnaire's. However the less formal feed back, ie comments and remarks made has been very encouraging, much of which I have already put into action.
At the moment I am thinking about re-designing the layout of my website to offer my products for sale on-line. Of course this will involve the inclusion of a lot of modern cyber tecnology and the applation of a great deal of patience & common sense on my part.
What makes this transition difficult is the fact that the whole business of inter-net trading, blogging, etc, is just so new. To people who are working crazy hours outside of the home, then commuting large distances on top there is often little chance to familiarize themselves with the inner workings of their computers, and so; there is little common sense in this area.
Luckily, I am blessed with a number of contacts who are kind enough to share the benefits of their experiences, all of it free of charge. Unfortunately there are also those who are only too happy to charge ridiculous amounts for what is slightly outdated advice; packaging it differently and peddling it as the new answer to our prayers.
With so much going on in the blogosphere, it can be difficult to manage one's time. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Fly Lady's book and set my timer in an effort to control my surfing time? There are so many great sources of inspiration out there that it can be very difficult to self regulate and be self disciplined; I have met some lovely people, who have been willing to give so much of themselves.
I wonder if The Priory; our local treatment centre for a rehabilitation of addictions deals with addiction to the internet? If so, who would be prepared to pay for my treatment? After all, while I have been so busy on the net, who has been making the money out of my card business? The quick answer is no-one; which is why over the next couple of weeks I expect to see a turn around in the structure of my VINCA Cards website.
There are a number of people that I should be thankful to, not least Darina Loakman, Angela Willis, Yarrow Stark, Lynette Chandler, Kirsty T, Alice Seba & Kelly McCausey & Rich Shefren. More recently I have found just what I needed on the craft side of things with Chewing Paper, The Worsted Witch, Amy Peters, and several others who's url's & names seem to have disappeared into the annals of Google Bookmarks; which I am unable to access at the moment!
A word of caution, be careful regarding the bookmark button on the google or firefox tool bars, they are a great idea and very easy to use; unless for some reason the server is having problems, like mine seem to be at the moment. From this day forth I proclaim that I will be using my own favourites and cataloguing each address into an appropriate file. Hmmmh, that sounds like another days work!
Christmas is just around the corner now, and still I have great intentions. We have yet to bring home a tree, all our decorations are still in the attic and the presents bought so long ago need to be wrapped! On top of this, we must find the large living room; ie the one I started to renovate two years ago; our small house is too small for five of us to live for twenty-four hours in what used to be LB's bedroom!
It's not that my plans are particularly grandiose; rather I need urgent treatment for my internetproblems; they are beginning to impact on other areas of my life, to the point that I am quite adept at hiding my efforts. Unlike the alcoholic I can't hide it under the bath or in the hot-press; and yet still I try! Now, where is that timer, again...?
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Top Prize Winner!
…I followed Darina's site(http://www.iamawham.com/) with interest; logging in on an almost daily basis. I even enrolled in a seven day e-course, regarding motivation, planning, etc.
One fine morning in March (?) I opened an e-mail from StarVA (internetprofitplanning.com); Darina’s virtual assistant, at that time; Angela. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I had WON a major prize of a two day course entitled 'Create the Life You Want' with the lady who had kindly donated the prize Erica McKinney(http:www/pathwaytothesoul.com/) To quote my thank-you e-mail to Darina; I was “thrilled”!
Unfortunately, having made arrangements to attend the course in beautiful Glendalough; psyched myself up for it and even booked myself the very last bed at the local youth hostel; it was cancelled. Not one to be done out of a weekend away I took myself, DG & Littlest Son off to County Clare for the weekend instead. Biggest Son had a date with the 1st Tullamore Scout Troup instead.
My consolation prize was the fantastic offer of four personal coaching sessions with Erica up in Dun Laoghaire. The original prize had offered three coaching sessions as an alternative to the course! But of course, being awkward I decided to hang on in there for the new schedule in August.
I learned recently that poor Erica had been involved in an accident during the summer. Because of this the Autumn/Winter Schedule has been pushed back a little; allowing for her recovery. Meanwhile I am waiting for her to publish her newsletter with details of what the future holds and I can’t wait to meet her and participating in what should be a very interesting and worthwhile course.
Meanwhile I have put a lot of time and effort into my fledgling cottage industry, being thoroughly motivated by Darina & all the WAHM’s stories; information & links on the site. BJK has been kind and generous in her support; moral and financial, as has my long suffering bank account. DG has been great, his ears are well & truly bent at this stage and the two boys have really helped me in practical terms, patience, ideas, imagination and just about everything else too! Thank you.
Really what I should be doing is to get out there; into my studio(http://www/freewebs.com/vincacards); start making some more stock -including a batch of thank you cards and a special get well card for Erica. I wonder how much I will get done before DG scoops me up and carry me off to ‘the ploughing’…!?
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Looking for Inspiration?
Just to inspire you all out there, sometime at the beginning of the year, I entered the bizarrely named on-line: 'A Day in Your Bathrobe Competition!’. That is a strange name for a competition, on-line, off-line, or any type of line; it’s an odd name.
'A Day in Your Bathrobe Competition!’ was organised by Darina Loakman; who was named female entrepreneur in 2006; who runs the Supporting Work from Home Mums in Ireland and the UK website.
After a tip off from my Mum I started to follow the comings and goings on the website; which proved to be not only interesting, but it also helped me through what has been a very difficult time for me, (another story altogether).
Through the website and newsletters Darina has provided mentoring for even the bravest and most driven of WHAM’s (Work At Home Mom’s) & wannabe’s; by publishing articles of relevance to encourage just about anyone wishing to escape the tyranny of the corporate workplace.
Darina has also been featured on TV3’s morning show a number of times; show casing WAHM success stories and generally providing inspiration for a whole generation of women to consider WAHM’ing as a lifestyle. Her business has gone from strength to strength, and with such widespread exposure continues to do so.
Going back the bizarrely named ‘A Day in Your Bathrobe Competition’; it was essentially a celebration of all those women who were brave enough to take that leap of faith; enabling them to work from home. The actual date of the competition draw I don’t recall; largely due to technical hitches, it had been postponed a couple of times before it took place!
All that had to be done was to tell how working at home could or did change my life and what its’ greatest advantages are for me, record my details & press the submit button. I was in with a chance!
After that I followed Darina’s site with interest...
Polly Px
'A Day in Your Bathrobe Competition!’ was organised by Darina Loakman; who was named female entrepreneur in 2006; who runs the Supporting Work from Home Mums in Ireland and the UK website.
After a tip off from my Mum I started to follow the comings and goings on the website; which proved to be not only interesting, but it also helped me through what has been a very difficult time for me, (another story altogether).
Through the website and newsletters Darina has provided mentoring for even the bravest and most driven of WHAM’s (Work At Home Mom’s) & wannabe’s; by publishing articles of relevance to encourage just about anyone wishing to escape the tyranny of the corporate workplace.
Darina has also been featured on TV3’s morning show a number of times; show casing WAHM success stories and generally providing inspiration for a whole generation of women to consider WAHM’ing as a lifestyle. Her business has gone from strength to strength, and with such widespread exposure continues to do so.
Going back the bizarrely named ‘A Day in Your Bathrobe Competition’; it was essentially a celebration of all those women who were brave enough to take that leap of faith; enabling them to work from home. The actual date of the competition draw I don’t recall; largely due to technical hitches, it had been postponed a couple of times before it took place!
All that had to be done was to tell how working at home could or did change my life and what its’ greatest advantages are for me, record my details & press the submit button. I was in with a chance!
After that I followed Darina’s site with interest...
Polly Px
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