Jessie's Biz Talk posts

Green Event Resources

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to introduce our free green event industry tool. It helps save time sourcing green vendors and eco-resources for events and event businesses.

http://www.greenyourtheme.com/page/free-green-requests

Please pass it on to those you think will benefit from this tool!

Please update us on your green ventures!

Delete Group How?

Can't see how to delete a group I administer...

Thanks for helping!

Promote Your Green Offering!

In just a few words, please promote your product/service here and describe why it's green, organic, sustainable, or eco-friendly!

This Group is Merging and Then Going Bye-Bye!

Below is the newly formed online group on Biznik, dedicated to promoting green in the indie community!

http://biznik.com/groups/greenies

Because the Biznik online group called "Green Events" is so similar to the newly branded group called “Greenies”, I will be discontinuing this Green Events group within one week.

To keep informed and share your green business events related to eco-awareness, please be sure to join Greenies.

I'll send one more reminder the day before I delete this group.

Thanks for your interest in greening events!!

Jessie Upp

Eco Planning - 30 Ways To Green Your Events

A good friend of mine is planning on presenting this informative event!

Heather Smith Teegarden, CSEP
Donor Relations Event Coordinator - Stewardship
Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle, WA

Are you becoming environmentally responsible in your work, life and in your events. We all know it and we all hear about it but how many are actually doing something about it and how many even know HOW? It doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't take much to make a difference and lower your events carbon foot print.

The first step starts with you - the planner. It’s not enough to use glass instead of plastic and low wattage lights. You need to KNOW what to do to make your events matter, make them cost effective and make them environmentally responsible. This quickie teaser session will get you started.

http://www.canadianspecialevents.com/cseme/index_vancouver.html

It's a wrap for Green Your Theme Seattle!

Green Your Theme Seattle (Sept 16, 2009) was a wildly successful event!

The foods and beverages were outstanding, the panel discussion was informative and inspiring, the eco-fashion show was an amazing factor in this event, and we closed the event with fun music and dancing!

A BIG thanks for ALL that contributed.

Check out the media and comments being posted here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=135774051510

Invitation to Eco-Experiential Event Sept 16

I already sent this message out to all my Biznik Buddies, but wanted to post it here as well.

Along with others, I've worked over 6 months putting an amazing eco-event together. I'd like to extend a BIG thank you to all Biznik members contributing to this edutainment event, including Amy, Carol, Raeleen, Annika, Rita, Dale, Susan, Tracy, Deborah, Gina, Karin & Goldie!

Haven't heard about this Sept 16th event? If you're into business sustainability, greening events, or eco-fashion, this experiential B2B event is also for YOU! I'd like to personally invite you to attend.

Enjoy tasty eco-appetizers, wines, beverages, panel discussion, fashion show & dancing:

https://biznik.com/members/jessie-upp-ms/events/green-your-theme-seattle

Biznik Member Fee: $30 ($50 @door)

This eco-party is surely a great way to kick off fall Biznik events!

~ Jessie Upp

Invitation to Eco-Experiential Event Sept 16

I already sent this message out to all my Biznik Buddies, but wanted to post it here as well.

Along with others, I've worked over 6 months putting an amazing eco-event together. I'd like to extend a BIG thank you to all Biznik members contributing to this edutainment event, including Amy, Carol, Raeleen, Annika, Rita, Dale, Susan, Tracy, Deborah, Gina, Karin & Goldie!

Haven't heard about this Sept 16th event? If you're into business sustainability, greening events, or eco-fashion, this experiential B2B event is also for YOU! I'd like to personally invite you to attend.

Enjoy tasty eco-appetizers, wines, beverages, panel discussion, fashion show & dancing:

https://biznik.com/members/jessie-upp-ms/events/green-your-theme-seattle

Biznik Member Fee: $30 ($50 @door)

This eco-party is surely a great way to kick off fall Biznik events!

~ Jessie Upp

Sell/ Create Eco-Friendly Promotional Items?

We've just made a formal decision to start promoting companies focusing on selling green promotional items and gifts.

At first, we were going to provide these products to our B2B community of event planners, vendors and suppliers, but we now know we make a bigger impact by allowing other green-minded distributors to join this community.

So, if you are a distributor (or manufacturer/artist) providing eco-friendly or green products and gifts for events, we welcome you to create your Virtual Booth on http:/www.GreenYourTheme.com and the basic profile is free.

It takes less than 5 minutes to create a profile.

We look forward to promoting you!

~ Jessie

Seattle Greenest City in U.S.??

Did you know that Seattle was noted as the greenest city in the U.S.? How do you think Seattle events meet up to this tribute?

To maintain this high praise, you are invited to an event that will help kick off the necessary conversations needed for Seattle to produce the GREENEST events in the United States.

Are you an event planner, vendor, venue rep, or organization leader seeking to promote and/or deepen your shade of green? Come to this carbon-neutral event, happening September 16, 2009 at Sodo Park.

It’s a party. It’s a fashion show. It’s a B2B networking event. It’s tasty foods, wine samples, education, and music for the dance floor. It is ALL environmentally responsible. It’s Green Your Theme Seattle!

Ticket discounts for Biznik members here:

http://biznik.com/members/jessie-upp-ms/events/green-your-theme-seattle

Green Your Theme Seattle!

We just confirmed the date for Green Your Theme Seattle!

Taking place on Sept 16th, we are providing an outstanding event filled with education, networking, food & beverage sampling, entertainment and a rockin' dance floor!

Please stay tuned as we build a website for this event.

Seattle's BayouFest happening August 1st!

This is a solar-powered green extravaganza. Discounts for ridesharing, transit, walking or biking here:

http://seattlebayoufest.com

The 2009 Inaugural BayouFest will be held on Saturday August 1st at Magunson Park, surrounded by spectacular 270 degree vistas of the Cascades and Lake Washington. Offering a unique mix of Blues, Jazz, Funk, and Folk music from some of the biggest names in music today, BayouFest, a green-oriented option for a summer weekend, will host music lovers in one of the Northwest’s most beautiful venues. A wide array of community based activities including the Cajun cook-off, BayouFest pet parade, as well as several highly anticipated contests and drawings will be highlighted over the entire year, culminating at the event. Come join us this year for a beautiful summer day in Seattle when we kick off the annual BayouFest!

Request for Suggestions to Promote "Green Your Theme Seattle"

Hi Bizniks!

We are hosting an event on June 1st and the purpose is to provide awareness and resources on how to "green" events, from practices to vendors.

I'd like to pack the house, of course!

Right now, I'm experiencing typical indie side effects and this is when I wish I worked at a shared office space like Office Nomads ;)

So, this my second idea. Post my inquiry to all of you here :)

We have such great contributors for this entertaining/networking/education event, from vendors to speakers...now we just need to get the word out!

I just started to promote Green Your Theme Seattle! last week and my main q's are:

Does our homepage effectively communicate this event and do you have any suggestions to get the word out?

www.GreenYourTheme.com

Thank you for your suggestions and connections.

~ Jessie

5 New Biznik Virtual Events!

Here are some upcoming virtual events, not requiring you to even get out of your PJs to join!

• Indie Book Discussion on "Be Unreasonable"
• Mastermind Net-together Tele-Conference
• Time Management or Management of Your Time, Which Will it Be?
• Career Tele-class: A Different Approach to Job Search and Career Transition
• Tame Your Money Fears

Here's to virtual events! It definitely is a green way to go and I fully support actually talking with human beings. Email and discussion boards don't carry all the great dynamics of real conversations!

Visit the Virtual Events group to learn more, RVSP, or just join the group for updates.

Helpful Teleconference/Webinar Resources?

I often use these technologies as they are very simple to set-up, intuitive and some options are completely free.

• freeconference.com A free teleconference resource, including online invites, attendee RSVP system, call-in number (L.D.) and stats.
• gotomeeting.com If you haven't used this yet and plan to host any type of meeting, this is one of my favorites. Within under 5 minutes, you can start a meeting, invite attendees, start a conversation and share your computer screen with others. You can choose between VoIP (voice over computer mic) and phone conferencing or allow both options for audio.
• For more than 15 attendees, they offer gotowebinar.com and you can try either for free.

Please feel free to share other suggestions!

Virtual Events on Biznik

If you are exploring the idea of hosting or attending a virtual event, here is the place on Biznik to have all your questions answered and needs sated.

Virtual events will be posted in this group, including tele-classes, webinars, virtual tours, 3D Trade Shows and more.

Also, if anyone has "how to" articles, or technology resources to post like freeconference.com or gotomeeting.com, we welcome you to post them here!

I look forward to your help in building this virtual event resource for Biznik.

So, what can we do here?

Well, we can make this into anything we want! Here are some kick-off suggestions:

• Post your upcoming virtual event by creating a "new event" under this group. People interested in attending virtual events will be able to RSVP for your events just as if you posted it in the main Biznik Events page. I'll be sure to start a discussion on the BizTalk Forum so we can promote our event visibility to those outside this group.

• Ask questions about how to produce, market, execute and analyze virtual events.

• Post articles, resources and those oh-so interesting findings about virtual events.

Any other ideas, please do share...

TIP #1: Calculate your event's carbon footprint.

Using simple online tools that take about 3 minutes is one of the easiest things to do to start greening your event.

These calculators factor in your event's water, waste and energy usage.

Many calculators out there calculate lifestyle, travel and accommodations, but I had a hard time finding those that calculate events. This is what led me to find a way to offer an event calculator to event planners.

Beware! Many times, you are offered to purchase "carbon offset credits." These aren't always legit, so do your research.

If you don't know, a "carbon offset" is a way to reduce emissions from one activity to make up for emissions that is difficult to reduce from another, such as air travel (the biggest one out there).

When you score your event, the next step is to lower it by taking the first step! That is to make up your mind to lower your event's carbon footprint.

In upcoming tips, I'll share how you can do just that.

Your responses, questions and resources on event carbon calculation are welcomed below!

Vegfest this Weekend

Biznik's Bob Gerrish mentioned to me that Vegfest, the largest vegetarian food show in the US, is happening at the Seattle Center Exhibition hall this Saturday and Sunday.

His company, Pizza Works, will there giving sample bites of cheese (real & soy) pizza.

There seems to be cross posting for events b/w this group and the Green Events group, so I'll be sharing events here from now on if you want to stay up-to-date on Green Events:

http://biznik.com/groups/green-events/discussions/upcoming-green-events

Feel free to continue to cross-post your events for best exposure!

Branding Your Event Business

If you own your own event planning business, going green reduces your costs, attracts business, attracts young talent and increases job retention. By offering a green service, or product, this is all amplified.

There are many reasons and countless ways to brand and market your green business and green solutions.

Please use this thread for discussions surrounding the branding, marketing and advertising of your event planning business.

Here's to greening the Event Industry!