Rochestopia!

Announcing…
A NETWORKING EVENT:
Five Things I Can’t Live Without
…for techies and gadgeteers.

Friday, April 24, at 12:00 PM in the backroom of The Bagel Bin.

It’s an informal table meeting and networking session where you can meet people who will demonstrate and talk about the latest gadgets and geek-ware.  Bring your wishlists and your business cards.

Presenters who are regular consumers just like you will demonstrate their gadgets and describe what they love and not-so love about the hottest items for sale these days.

On the agenda so far are the following items:
- Kindle2
- BlueAnt Headset
- HP NETbook
…and two more items, to be announced, as soon as we can find ‘em!  [Send suggestions]

To help keep The Bin in business, we’re renting the room and providing lunches. Accordingly, there’s a $10 registration fee (which includes lunch).

Please RSVP using this the button below, order your lunch and settle payment by end-of-day Wednesday, April 22.

Thanks! And see you at The Bin.

Kelly Cheatle
Creative Director at Greener Pastures
www.greener-pastures.net | (585) 284-2769

Robert Kostin
Director of Marketing at Callfinity, Inc.
www.rkostin.com | (585) 330-5035

Posted in Not Digital Rochester |  | No Comments »

I am pleased to have been asked by Hanna Morgan, Career Services Advisor & Workshop Specialist of RochesterWorks! to participate as a panel member at the Job Search Success Panel Discussion on Wednesday, earlier this week.  It was an honor to be called upon, and I only hope that anything I said helped any of the 22 folks who attended.
 

There were four of us on the panel:

- Carol White Llewellyn, Director of Marketing, Ganondagan State Historic Site
- Me, Robert Kostin, Director of Marketing, Callfinity, Inc.
- Jay Bachstein, Financial Analyst, IEC Electronics
- and Jim Peters, Program Manager, The Salvation Army - Rochester Area Services (not shown)

Hanna (also, not shown - under protest) hosted the discussion, and Tracey Aiello of The August Group fame was the moderator. 

My two-cents to the job searchers was to NOT blow-off all that touchy feely stuff about finding your inner compass, analyzing your behaviors, and getting lots and lots of feedback about your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  (Ye olde SWOT analysis — thanks Carol!)  Knowing such things as you begin your job search makes it much easier and faster.

Gotta hand it to the RochesterWorks! folks.  Dan Owens (RochWorks employee), made an audio recording of the session which he is attempting to get on the RochesterWorks! web site.  If (or when) he is successful, Hanna will let us know by publishing the link. 

Posted in Not Digital Rochester |  | 1 Comment »

Holy cow, that was a lot of fun! Digital Rochester hosted another get-together, this time downtown at MAX of Eastman Place.

As you can see in the pictures, the event was well attended and felt more like a class reunion than a networking event.

A long time ago, I used to attend DR events and thought that that was “networking.” Not so much anymore.

Now that I really know what it means to Network (with a capital “N”), DR events are more fun, and somehow, empowering. Knowing that I’m part of this business community really helps me keep my head on.

As always, photos of people holding beer can be deleted from the collection for a nominal charge.

There are a lot more pictures for you to enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Digital Rochester |  | 1 Comment »

We hit critical mass! As of this morning (Tuesday, April 7) there are 10 of us who have signed up to join the iPhone User Group. Sounds like a quorum. I’ll be setting up the distribution list and guidelines later today.

Of course, more folks may join anytime by entering their info here.

Posted in Not Digital Rochester |  | No Comments »

I had the chance to meet Ellie Phillips thanks to Mark Waxenberg.  It was a classic case of Networking, 101.

Ellie and I sat down in her restaurant after the lunch rush started to settle down.  A waitress brought us water; Ellie offered me coffee, but I was well-caffeinated after finishing lunch, there at the restaurant, moments earlier.  (I had a turkey walnut salad sandwich with a cup of tomato soup, and coffee. Very nice.)

I thought we were just going to talk about her restaurant’s web site , but we talked about Marketing (with a capital “M”) and how all her business ventures we’re going off in different directions and needed some oversight. 

Wow!  Ellie is a busy business woman.  Not only did I learn about the history of Phillips European, but also her dentistry business, her line of Xylitol products (Zellies), her lecture-circuit plans, and (big news here…) her soon-to-be-released book!  All of this were more-or-less separate projects being handled by well recommended and competent people.  However, Ellie noted that there was a lack of overall coordination — and that’s what we talked about. 

Make no mistake, I fully see the potential here.  Someday, Ellie Phillips will have some big New York City agency handle her account and line up her interview on Oprah.  But in the meantime, there’s some work to do locally, and I’m glad I had the chance to help.

I forgot to get Ellie’s autograph.

Posted in Professional Networking |  | 1 Comment »

On Tuesday, March 31, I got branding therapy from Samantha Tassone and Luis Martinez.  The Ad Council Academy hosted: Is Your Brand Supported By the Right Behaviors?

Samantha Tassone and Luis Martinez are the managing partners of Human Capital Strategy Partners. 

Since I’m relatively new in my marketing job at Callfinity, Inc., I thought it’d be good to get a leg up on the subject. The presentation did not disappoint.  In the upstairs annex of the Ad Council, we comfortably fit about 25 people. 

Interestingly, everyone in the room — 25 people — except Luis and me, was female. I don’t know what that says about (1) the Ad Council, (2) Samantha and Luis, or (3) the topic of marketing.  Why so many women? 

Anyway, the coffee, donuts and bagels provided by Wegmans was much appreciated.  And the entire event was a steal at only $25.

My feedback on the event: Maybe the Ad Council can charge a few more bucks to upgrade the AV equipment; it was a little lacking.  The little PC projector in the front row cast a terribly distorted (keystoned) image that was too small for the room.  (See the photo, left.)  And Samantha’s presentation featured a video that required an audio hook-up, but none was available.  (To Samantha’s credit, she placed her wireless microphone on her laptop as a workaround.)

More feedback: The first half of the session had the appropriate amount of interaction - which apparently took up too much time.  Then Samantha had to rush the second half of the presentation, which lessened the impact of it.  It also meant that we didn’t have time at the end for networking.  Too bad.  As an avid networker, that was a room full of business contacts that got away.

But that minor criticism aside, all in all my assessment of the event is: two marketing thumbs: way up! 

I got a lot of good actionable information out of the presentation that I plan to put to work at Callfinity.

Posted in Not Digital Rochester |  | No Comments »

Last Thursday, the Green Energy Panel at Colgate, hosted by the Johnson School at Cornell, was pretty cool.  The two hour session was well attended by a lot of familiar faces from the networking community.

But for me, the ride in the Fuel Cell car before the event was one of the high points.

Posted in Not Digital Rochester |  | No Comments »

Digital Rochester is hosting one of their free beer and pizza events at Max of Eastman Place on Tuesday, April 7, starting at 5:30 PM.

• Beer will be provided by High Falls.
• Digital pictures will be taken by Robert.
• Pictures of you and your beer will be removed from Robertopia for a nominal charge.

More info on the Digital Rochester web site.

Posted in Digital Rochester |  | No Comments »

There was a time when it was “cool” just having a email address on your business card. Sometime after that, it was cool to blog. Soon after that, it was cool to “used to” blog, but to have given it up.

Fast forward through Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, now it’s cool to blog again.

Here we are.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now you can blog from your iPhone, and update your LinkedIn status, Tweet on Twitter, and whatever people do on Facebook, all at the same time.  Congratulations!

Just don’t do that while driving.

Posted in Whatever |  | 2 Comments »