Passionate Blog

Inspirational speaker to boost credit crunch beating business conference

INSPIRATIONAL charity boss Sheila Brown will share her top tips for success with an audience of entrepreneurs at a Cannock business exhibition to help firms overcome the credit crunch.

Mrs Brown OBE, chief executive at Newlife Foundation for Disabled Children, will be one of the key speakers at the Wings business network exhibition, being held at Chase Park (Cannock Cricket and Hockey Club), Church Lane, Hatherton, on Friday October 16 from 9am to 4pm.

And support of a different kind is hoped for at the event, as another charity is asking businesswomen attending to donate unwanted bras.

Why blog? Women’s business conference set to show how social media can boost your bottom line

ASPIRING and established businesswomen will be shown how social media can boost their bottom line at a major conference to be held in Birmingham next week.

The event, to be held at The Pavilion in Moor Lane, Perry Barr, includes an interactive workshop, led by experts from the Connect Culture initiative, based at Coventry University, on social networking phenomenon Twitter, plus blogging for business.

How we use social media - some notes gathered for the Black Country Social Media Cafe

THE Black Country Social Media Cafe is described as a place for people interested in social media to gather, get acquainted, chat, plot, scheme, and share.

I attended the first meeting a few weeks back when guest speakers Pete Ashton and Chris Unitt outlined lessons learned on a visit to SXSW.

At the next meeting, to be held on Tuesday, May 12, at 2.30pm in the Alchemy Bar in Wolverhampton city centre, there'll be a chance for members to say a little about who they are and what they do, with a particular emphasis on how they have been able to use social media in their work.

It's unclear whether I am going to be able to make it to the next meeting, because of a work commitment. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about how our work has been transformed by social media, so am posting here about its impact on my professional life. As I think about tomorrow's JEE Camp, I also thought it would be useful to pull some of my experience together in this way.

Overall, I'd say that a growing knowledge of social media has allowed me to:

* Survive and diversify in my chosen career.

* Make and strengthen new contacts whom I never would have met previously.

* Improve ways of finding, researching and completing existing work

* Find new income streams - both directly and indirectly through blogging but also in offering my services to help others get to grips with the concept of social media and understand that it's not about technology for the sake of it 

* Better promote my work across various disciplines

Happy Birthday Cannock Chase Chamber of Commerce

CONGRATULATIONS to all at Cannock Chase Chamber of Commerce and Industry for a fantastic event this week which marked a decade of serving the local business community.

In a thought-provoking address, David Frost from the British Chambers of Commerce spoke eloquently about current concerns facing business and praised Cannock Chase for leading the way in regeneration, thanks to a partnership between public and private money.

Chase Chamber President Philippa Smart,of Smart Ideas, was dubbed a 'rainmaker' as storms lashed The Ramada Hotel, but its impressive Sky Room nevertheless proved a wonderful vantage point to see across Bridgtown, into Cheslyn Hay, and beyond.

Passionate on the move

THE Passionate team literally stopped traffic the other day, as we had photos taken for our own press release - in the middle of the road! The lorry driver didn't look impressed as he sat waiting for the wind to die down so our hair wasn't blowing in our faces for the shot.

Thanks to Jim at Gingersnaps Photography for putting up with five vain women!

Linda's now regretting using the whole bottle of fake tan beforehand, but we had to get the word out about our move and recent successes.

Read on for the press release that accompanies it.

Women's business group co-founded by Passionate Media soars

I'M delighted to report that a recent visitors' day organised by the Cannock and Stone Wings groups proved a huge hit.

More than 40 people turned up to find out more about what we get up to.

The idea of the joint event was to bring together Wings' longest-serving and most recent members, to help give visitors a real idea of what the group is about.

"Virtual" success with The Independent

THANKS to education and careers writer Hazel Davis and her interest in Carmen's training for virtual assistants, there was a great piece in the Independent earlier this week.

The story is now being followed up by another national paper. What's particularly interesting for me on this is that Linda didn't send Hazel a press release, but trusted her instincts as to what she may be interested in pitching to one of her regular outlets.

A story we worked on with Carmen for Red magazine resulted in hundreds of enquiries. I wonder what this latest coverage will bring. [Carol]

Passionate highlighted in UK flexible working survey

We were delighted to welcome employee relations adviser Mike Emmott from the CIPD recently to help him in his mission to compile a report on how small businesses can embrace flexible working.

Olympic boost for Midlands firms

Hundreds of West Midlands companies are going for gold in the race to win vital contracts for the 2012 London Olympics.

The firms have signed up to an innovative alert service from our client the West Midlands Collaborative Commerce Marketplace which matches opportunities to bid with the companies’ expertise.

Here's the story over at BBC Online.

Carole's one step ahead

We always like to report on what our clients are getting up to, especially when they're raising money for charity.Here's a couple of pictures of Carole Doyle from Acutec when she took part in the Breakthrough Breast Cancer 60km walk in Birmingham. You can read more about it here.  Hey Carole, I wonder if you'll be signing up for this next? [Carol]