Innovation Week 2015
Monday, May 11th
9:00-10:00 AM
Topic: Basics of Business Planning
Speaker: Carleton Smith, SCORE volunteer
Description: The Business Plan presentation will show how to build a business plan using a standard format. Key points covered in a business plan include what is your company product or service, your strengths and weaknesses, what organizational structure will you use, who are your competitors, what is your marketing and sales plan and what are your financial details.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
10:00-11:00 AM
Topic: Leadership at Every Stage
Speaker: Stacey McCracken, Baylor University Executive MBA Program
Description: Whether you are seeking funding for a new business idea, working for a start-up or leveraging your skills at a well-established organization, dynamic leadership is vital to your success. It tdoesn’t matter if you lead people today or hope to lead people it the future, it is never too early to consider your leadership legacy. What would your life, career or business look like if you were more intentional about the legacy you hope to leave? What leadership skills are critical to leaving a lasting, positive legacy? Join Stacey to discover three secrets only the best leaders know. This workshop will help you understand the most critical leadership skills that successful business leaders have and help you create your own personal action plan to refine your own leadership skills. After the workshop, you will be ready to take meaningful action to intentionally create your leadership legacy.
Location: 1st floor conference room
11:00 AM-Noon
Topic: Saving Money and Time with Marketing and Sales Automation
Speaker: Diana Ying, Lionshare Partners
Description: Is your business growing faster than you can hire new talent? Using simple, affordable technology tools can give you back the precious hours you need to really drive new sales and focus on the business decisions that matter…and enjoy some down time. Find out how you can leverage databases, spreadsheets, and more to build your company and boost your revenue.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
Noon-1:00 PM
Topic: Becoming a Innovative Leader – How CEO’s Approach Leadership and Innovation.
Speaker: Ruben Cantu, Core Media
Description: Creating a culture of innovation is key to a businesses’ success. Finding and fostering a team that lives by this mentality is the differentiator between companies who thrive and ones who survive. Furthermore, all innovative companies have one thing in common, at the top, a CEO who truly understands how innovation works and how to create a path to allow it to flourish. sIn this panel talk you will hear from CEO’s, Leaders and Executive Coaches that will share with you some of the inside steps that it takes to turn around a company and have it thrive? What are the elements you need to consider? When is it too late to make the shift? How expensive will it be to make this change at the top? How much more expensive will it be not to make the shift?
Location: 1st floor conference room
1:00-2:00 PM
Topic: 99% of Ideas Fail to Launch – Will Yours?
Speaker: Elizabeth Frisch, The Thrival School
Description: How many times have you tried to make a big idea happen and failed? Mission to Million$ by Elizabeth Frisch has captured over 20 years of experience in making the impossible with everyone from global Fortune 500 companies and government agencies to the U.S. Military and nonprofit organizations in one book. In this fun, fast-paced session, Elizabeth will provide 8 practices to ensure your avoid the 99.9% and become part of the select and successful 0.1% around your big idea!
Location: 2nd floor conference room
2:00-3:00 PM
Topic: Cloning Yourself — How to Safely & Profitably Hire & Bring Your 1st Employee Up to Speed Faster
Speaker: Jan Triplet, Business Success Center
Description: You can’t clone all of you but you can get help to do some of your work without it taking all of your time and money. There’s a lot to think about and that’s before you hire. Even if it’s just you and them, you will need to be prepared in order to make this all worthwhile. Learn what to do and what not to do when it comes to hiring, onboarding, pay, benefits, and compliance. To be successful, you can’t do it all by yourself. We can’t cover it all but we can get you thinking on how to do it faster and better.
Location: 1st floor conference room
3:00-4:00 PM
Topic: When YOU are also the HR Department
Speaker: Cherlyann Occhipinti Campbell, C2 HR Solutions
Description: Small Business owners have to wear a lot of hats. This workshop focuses on best practices critical when hiring, retaining, and managing an effective workforce, while staying in compliance with the myriad of Human Resources regulations. Practical checklists and resources will be provided.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
4:00-5:00 PM
Topic: WordPress for Business
Speaker: David Bradley, Patterns in the Cloud
Description: In this introductory workshop, David Bradley sets up a live website while explaining how small business owners and startups can leverage WordPress, the most popular software in the world for building and managing websites, to begin implementing their business outline.
Location: 1st floor conference room
Tuesday, May 12th
9:00-10:00 AM
Topic: The Power of Your 30 Second Message
Speaker: LeAnn Pashina, Creatively Communicate
Description: Whether you are at a business networking meeting, social function or a chance meeting in public, it is important to be prepared to share your message and make an impact. Sever steps go into this seemingly short 30 second introduction to create a message that will make you memorable. Learn to formulate a message that will create results for you.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
10:00-11:00 AM
Topic: 3 Technologies to Use to Disrupt Your Company
Speaker: A.C. Smith
Description: In this session, we’ll discuss emerging technologies that will impact your business. You’ll also have the opportunity to learn about big data, the “cloud” and how to best secure your company.
Location: 1st floor conference room
11:00 AM – noon
Topic: Paperwork – What Records do I Really Need and Why?
Speaker: Lisa Bargsley, Operational Strategies
Description: Paperwork! I don’t have the time to spend keeping up with details – I’m too busy growing my business and doing the work! Is this your thinking? Have you ever asked yourself – what do I really need to have and to keep as records for the IRS, the State of Texas, my bank, or even the people I want to do business with? If so, this class is for you! Learn the basics of what records to create, how long to keep them, and how to use this information to grow your business even more!
Location: 2nd floor conference room
Noon-1:00 PM
Topic: Small Business Banking
Speaker: Banker Panel
Description:
Location: 1st floor conference room
1:00-2:00 PM
Topic: From the Page to the Stage – Elevator Speeches,Your Mission and You
Speaker: Julie Gillis, Women’s Community Center of Central Texas
Description: Ever find yourself in the perfect time and place to promote your organization but the words just wouldn’t come out? Trying to jazz up your elevator speech and get more practice in talking to others about your mission? This hour long workshop will address common concerns of writing and delivering the “Elevator speech” both in small groups but also in public speaking.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
2:00-3:00 PM
Topic: Are You Ready for Success?
Speaker: Koy McDermott, Leaders Inspire Leaders
Description: In this workshop, participants will be taken through Koy’s inspirational journey of leaving the largest tech company in Silicon Valley to becoming a successful leadership coach. The session will be interactive and will include a free copy of the exercises from my upcoming book “Passion to Cash.”
Location: 1st floor conference room
3:00-4:00 PM
Topic: Outsmart the Competition and Save Money
Speaker: Steve Pearson, Pearson Strategies
Description: Entrepreneurs and inventors have lots of big ideas and typically a lot fewer resources, money and time. This presentation will attempt to bring out some ideas on how what you should consider along the way to having a viable company, when it makes sense to invest in service providers, and minimize the risk of a business failure or legal risks.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
4:00-5:00 PM
Topic: Getting to Know the Austin Tech Scene
Speaker: Johan Borge, The Tech Map
Description:If you have a business or looking to create a startup there several things you need to know about getting started in Austin TX. Come listen to Johan Borge and his experience in the tech scene is Austin. He runs the Cofounder meetup which is well attended with over 100 people every month at Capital Factory and from having this event he spin of the techmap where all IT companies in Austin and other location are starting to get on the map and get to be known.
Location: 1st floor conference room
Wednesday, May 13th
7:30-9:30 AM
Topic:
Speaker: Social Media Breakfast
Description:
Location: 1st floor conference room
10:00-11:00 AM
Topic: Scaling your business. Opportunities and competitors are now global. How entrepreneurs can leverage globalization to grow fast
Speaker: Sandeep Kumar, TechRanch
Description: Sandeep has been successfully building global teams and startup businesses for the past 25 years. He will share his insights and experiences . The workshop attendees will work on a few of their ideas with Sandeep exploring with them on how to scale their business in a globally connected world
Location: 1st floor conference room
11:00 AM – Noon
Topic: Business Taxes- What You Need to Know When Starting a Business
Speaker: Lisa Bargsley, Operational Strategies
Description: This workshop will provide an overview of the IRS and State of Texas forms needed to comply with the various taxing authorities. You will take away skills that will assist you in gathering data for completing various tax returns as required by the business entity structures. Understanding the tax forms and the required data needed to accurately prepare your tax returns will reduce the cost of preparation as well as reduce your stress and frustrations. This workshop will also give you the key to understanding that tax is a good thing.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
Noon-1:00 PM
Topic: Consumer Products
Speaker: Banker Panel
Description:
Location: 1st floor conference room
1:00-2:00 PM
Topic: Trademarks for the Startup and Early Stage Entrepreneur
Speaker: Andrew Eisenberg, Lee and Hayes PLLC
Description: Andrew will cover the basics of trademarks and when you need one, what to know before filing, how they work and your responsibilities once your trademark issues. He’ll also look at untraditional uses of trademarks that provide additional protection for your products and creative works. Finally, he’ll cover how to use trademarks to enhance marketing campaigns and ideas for monetizing trademarks to earn a tangible return on your investment.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
2:00-3:00 PM
Topic: 3 Kinds of Successful Business Owners/ 3 Kinds of Growth: Which are you and what should be your growth strategy?
Speaker: Jan Triplet, Business Success Center
Description: There are three types of successful business owners. Which one are you? Find out which of the three you are and how to use that knowledge to grow your business by playing to your strengths and addressing weak areas.
Location: 1st floor conference room
3:00-4:00 PM
Topic: What is Strategy, Really?
Speaker: Tim Hamilton, Astonish Design
Description: We can all agree that taking time to work on our businesses (as opposed to working in your business) is important. But by working on our business, are we in fact working on the right things? I wasn’t. For years I worked tirelessly to write systems and improve processes and felt satisfied knowing that our operations got better and better. We were more efficient than ever. However, what I failed to recognize was that I was optimizing our engines without setting the steering wheel in the right direction. What I needed to be working on was strategy, not operations. This, I have learned, is a common problem. Many entrepreneurs spend their time striving for operational excellence thinking that they are doing strategy work. The problem with operational excellence, however, is that it doesn’t create a sustainable competitive advantage. As you improve, so too do your competitors. The whole industry adopts best practices and becomes increasingly similar. In order to achieve an advantage, you must choose how to be different, not how to be better. With research from Clayton Christensen, Michael Porter, Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, this presentation will provide you with answers to your growth questions. We’ll define strategy and start working on actionable questions that will enable you to find your point of difference. In time, this work will give you a path to your competitive advantage and the growth that has seemed so elusive.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
4:00-5:00 PM
Topic: The Marketing Core
Speaker: Grant Chambers
Description: There is a core set of often overlooked marketing activities that any small business should execute in order to acquire and retain customers. Grant Chambers and Theresa Andrews have spent the last 12 years helping small businesses achieve big marketing results through affordable combinations of design, people, strategy and technology. This presentation will leave you with at least one transformational idea that you can start executing tomorrow to achieve great results.
Location: 1st floor conference room
Thursday, May 14th
9:00-10:00 AM
Topic: Marshmallow Leadership: How to Stay Puffed Under Pressure
Speaker: Courtney Clark
Description: Adaptability is one of the leading indicators of true leadership. Based on resilience theories, Courtney’s three strategies for resilient leadership are designed to help your team find a new leadership perspective and recover quickly when dealing with change and challenges.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
10:00-11:00 AM
Topic: From Idea to Action – The First Steps
Speaker: Kevin Koym, Tech Ranch
Description: Embarking on the building of your first business and taking on the journey of the entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart… planning is important, but only action defines the entrepreneur. In this workshop, Kevin Koym will demonstrate how to take those first steps by illustrating some of the successes and scars he has had throughout his own journey. Both for the first time entrepreneur and the entrepreneur that is already engaged, this workshop promises to be engaging and valuable.
Location: 1st floor conference room
11:00 AM-noon
Topic: Shrek: A True Executive Leader
Speaker: Penny Crow, Operational Strategies
Description: In this presentation, Penny will discuss her personal story: Shrek- A True Executive Leader. Those experiences created a passion for leadership development. Her research resulted in PILLARS – a toolbox that can further develop a leader at any stage of life. Penny will inspire you to be more like Shrek: he had a plan, he was intentional in his quest, he was an informal leader that rose from the crowd, he used language understood by all, he knew when to take action and when to wait, he used resources that didn’t always cost money and lead to create a sustainable kingdom. You can’t be a leader unless someone is following you. Who is following you?
Location: 2nd floor conference room
Noon-1:00 PM
Topic: Retirement Planning
Speaker: Banker Panel
Description:
Location:
1:00-2:00 PM
Topic: Build Your Marketing Toolkit
Speaker: Amy Hajdu, Say It Said Marketing
Description: Many small businesses and organizations find themselves seeking the right strategies to make their marketing efforts as effective as possible. Learn how Constant Contact suggests you should think about marketing and what tools will help accomplish your goals. Core concepts include: marketing goal = measureable response, engagement marketing, word of mouth now online, marketing goals and objectives, 4 Pillars of marketing success, and campaigns that drive action. With so many different marketing activities that small businesses can focus on, you often miss some of the important marketing concepts that define why those activities are so important. Learn some of those core concepts and how a little bit of marketing knowledge can go a long way.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
2:00-3:00 PM
Topic: 5 Keys to Delivering Successful Projects
Speaker: Tarik Aossey
Description: Many organizations big and small don’t realize how much of their vital resources are being wasted on mismanaged project initiatives. As we all work to do more with less, there is much to be gained from understanding and applying some basic project management principles to our efforts. Based upon over 20 years of practical experience, this short interactive workshop will present 5 key best practices that could be the difference between success and failure on your next project initiative.
Location: 1st floor conference room
3:00-4:00 PM
Topic: Essential PR Tips for Startups and Small Businesses
Speaker: Dave Manzer
Description: This workshop will help startups and small businesses learn the basics of PR. We will discuss how to find newsworthy stories about what you are doing, which kinds of media to approach with your story ideas, how to pitch reporters, and even discuss some pointers on how to write news pitches and press releases. The workshop is designed to be interactive so plan to share your stories and have a little fun along the way.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
Friday, May 15th
9:00-10:00 AM
Topic: How to Network Like a Pro, Even if You’re a Rookie!
Speaker: Anthony Abron, The Magnetic Networker
Description: Anthony will share with you a system that he used in his early days of social networking that helped him increase his income and fast track his business.
Location: 2nd floor conference room
10:00-11:00 AM
Topic: Kick Time Management to the Curb
Speaker: Maura Thomas, Regain Your Time
Description: The rapid advance in technology over the last 50 years is literally shaping the evolution of our brains. The old ideas of multitasking and time management in the “information age” are being replaces by new ideas of focus, control and the Attention Age. The secret of productivity, of getting things done, of living the life we want now comes down to the ability to manage our attention. Multi-tasking is becoming less desirable and the ability to focus, more rare. In this presentation, Maura will debunk the myths about “time management” and “information overload”, empowering attendees with secrets and strategies to: more easily manage all the details of life and work, master technology that supports productivity-or sabotages it, find joy and exhilaration in daily activities instead of exhaustion, lower stress and improve clarity and peace of mind.
Location: 1st floor conference room
11:30 AM-1:00 PM
PeopleConnect
Description: Sit down with local professionals at our PeopleConnect event and build your business network over a delicious lunch. Meet a new vendor or prospective client, share your business offerings and expand your business reach in a comfortable setting in Central East Austin.
Location: 1st floor conference room
1:00-2:00 PM
Title: How to be a Green Business Leader
Speaker: Mary Priddy, City of Austin Office of Sustainability
Description: This workshop will offer tips on how business can be more sustainable and give an overview of our offices’ Austin Green Business Leader program.
Location: 2nd Floor conference room
2:00-3:00 PM
Topic: Bootstrapping or Raising Capital – When to do each
Speaker: Sam Thacker, Business Finance Solutions
Description: Start-up entrepreneurs face the challenge of funding their small business. Most start-ups begin by “bootstrapping” their company’s growth. While bootstrapping has worked for many young companies, there are other options to consider. Eventually, most companies will need access to working capital. In this seminar we will explore bootstrapping and when other financing options make more sense. We’ll cover financing options for different stages of growth, how to prepare for raising capital and what lenders and investors want to see.
Location: 1st floor conference room
3:00-4:00 PM
Topic: Branding Essentials for Small Business
Speaker: Francoise Luca, Business Finance Solutions
Description: Branding and marketing can be confusing for small business owners. Add in the time and expense of advertising and the complexities of social media and many owners are just overwhelmed. This brief seminar will review the basic elements required for branding and marketing a small business today. We’ll cover what should be included in your marketing plan, logos and corporate identity, when to pay for advertising and how to choose a social media platform.
Location: 2nd floor conference room