The old adage of “People do business with people” has never been more real than in this day and age. You can see this particularly in the networking world. Over the years there has been an ever growing shift in how people network.

Every networking group has their “networking gurus”. These face-to-face networkers attend almost every networking event, work the room getting to know the people and the businesses they represent and make connections wherever they can. Some of these prominent people frequently hold business meetings in local coffee shops and restaurants. In addition to supporting local businesses by enjoying a cup of coffee with an associate the brief but important introductions that happen as other people pass by their table are invaluable.

It was the networking gurus that were quick to see how social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, could help them make stronger connections to existing people as well as to new ones. These individuals saw that it was beneficial for the line between their business life and personal life to blur a bit. It was the act of sharing their stories, their successes, and their upsets in business and in their personal life that would quickly allow others to relate and form a level of trust. And so they continued to build their communities online.

The communities are mutually beneficial in that anyone can ask for advice, offer condolences, recommend a product or service they have experienced, and so forth. It’s this trust between people that eventually resulted in new business with specific individuals or business by referral.

In observing networking patterns for many years, the face-to-face networkers who added social media into their networking strategies strengthened their relationships with their existing contacts, facilitated many more connections than was possible before and in turn increased their visibility in their community.

Everyday business people are embracing these social media techniques by sharing with their community and as this trend continues it can only mean good things for business.

Since September 2010 I have had the pleasure of participating in a program called Leadership Guelph Wellington. It's a program that fosters community leaders through once a month, 1 day seminars from September to June.

While normally I would spend time education myself on best business practices I always wanted to further enhance my leadership skills and this program was a great opportunity to do so.

I have been involved in my community for quite some time through various not profit organizations and have enjoyed my time volunteering at events, on committees as well as being a board member.

Over the past months I have learned more about inclusivity, board governance, green initatives, conflict resolution, and much more. All of which will of course affect how I continue on my leaderhsip journey within the community but at the same time I have been able to apply a lot of these lessons to my daily buisness practices.

I knew that after this program I was going to be able to serve my community better and be proud to have this program appear on my CV but I don't believe that I consciously though that this would directly affect every aspect of my life. Personal leaderhsip, business leadership, community leadership - they are all intertwined and I'm a better person for it.

I still have a few months left of this program and I get excited knowing that a leadership day is coming up. It's one more chance to learn more about who I am, how I function and what I can do for my community.

For those of you who are looking to grow your leadership skills and learn more about who you are and how you can make your community a better place Leadership Guelph Wellington is where it is at.

My primary hub is my home office. This is where my computer with dual monitor set up is, my server, access to all my files as well as my creature comforts.

But since returning to the business scene I'm starting to think that I want to expand my number of hubs to 2 rather than just one. Naturally I'll keep my home office but my other hub will be Williams Coffee Pub in Guelph.

I have been back for 3 weeks and I have held and attended various business meetings at this location. It's the go-to spot for business networking it seems. Every time I go I run into old associates who introduce me to whom they are meeting with and so the cycle of networking continues.

Technology being what it is today I can do most, if not all, of my work from a coffee shop and while my monitor on my laptop isn't as perfect as at my home office I believe the networking connections being made and the added exposure from just being seen "out and about" is worth giving the coffee shop hub a try.

The other reason that I'm excited about giving this a try is because sometimes I find my home office to be a bit quiet. I have my pets and my iTunes but no human conversation to spark my creativity. I figure that if I combine my home office time with coffee shop time I'll have the best of both worlds.

This is something new that I'm going to try and I'll see where it takes me.

In the past I used to try and use Outlook Tasks to keep track of different projects and other "To Do" items that needed to get done. However each attempt would last about a week or so and then I would be back to my written down lists on various sticky notes and note pads cluttering my desk.

While this system worked alright, it was a bit frustrating to work from multiple lists, and there was always the chance that a list might go missing due to my cat thinking it was a great thing to knock off my desk and play with!

I realized that the reason the collection of lists were effective is because it was always infront of my face. Outlook Tasks was in my Outlook software suite but not displayed infront of me most of the time.

Over the past 2 weeks I have been using a neat software called Outlook on the Desktop that takes my tasks and displays them on my desktop. As I'm constantly moving from program to program I see my desktop and refer to it all the time to figure out what need my attention the most. This is the longest that I have used Outlook Task and I believe it has helped me keep on track.

My last post to the Platypi blog was in September 2009. I announced in that post that I started up another company which was a division to Platypi Designs called Otter Ideas & Consulting. While I never left the web design and development world, I started to focus my attention on helping people develop their own businesses.

While running Otter Ideas, I was able to interview a variety of amazing business people, create podcasts, post video logs of my business reflections and continue to explore what it meant to me to run a business.

Throughout 2010, I ran Platypi Designs as well as Otter Ideas in tandum and had a great time. I enjoyed the experience of helping people with their businesses in a variety of manners. For about 3 months at the end of 2010, I even tried going back to full-time employment. I wasn't sure if the entrepreneur path was my true calling and decided to take a bit of time away.

I communicated with my clients that I would still be working on Platypi on evenings and weekends but that full-time employment was the right decision for me. I was honoured by the emails that came into me wishing me the best of luck and looking forward to working with me on a part-time basis when they needed my help. I was thrilled to know that I was able to retain almost 100% of my clients even with this annoucement.

And so I went to work for another entrepreneur who had great vision for his company. I worked a lot of long days and in January 2011 the increase of work on the Platypi side of things called me back to my senses.

I missed my clients. I missed networking with them. I truly felt out of the loop on how my client's personal and business lives were coming along. And so February 14, 2011 marked the day that I returned to Playtpi full-time. I had a tremendous week and am looking forward to another exciting on this week.

For the time being Otter Ideas has been absorbed into Platypi as I found it difficult to be both of them at the same time. This all came about as current clients came to me asking for Platypi to help them with their marketing and communications. So Otter Ideas still lives but runs under a new service within Platypi.

I have found my true calling and I'm thrilled to be back :)

Things never get boring around my office.  Over the summer months I needed to downsize my company but at the same time I was developing a new one. 

Today I launched Otter Ideas & Consulting at a networking breakfast in Guelph.  It was a great experience and I am glad that this company is now on its way.

Otter Ideas is a new business consulting company that will allow me to share my business experiences as well as the ones of my business associates with the business community.  I will be using a variety of mediums to engage my audience.  While my main offerign right now is in person or over the phone consultations, I have a blog, twitter account and will offer podcasts in the near future.

Over the years this blog has really been a journal of my business experiences.  I rarely actually referred the tech side of my web design/development company as I really wanted to capture the adventures of running a business.

With this said, I'm going to continue to do this kind of blogging at www.otterideas.com/blog/.  Please join me over there to follow my progress with my 2 companies. 

Thank you for your readership and I hope to see you subscribe to my Otter blog soon.

Sincerely,

Tanya Riemann

Ok so it has been over a month now since I had to deliver the bad news of layoffs to my staff.  When mid August comes that will mark the official time when I actually was back to being a one man show with contractors.

The things that I have noticed from this process is that the office is a little quieter than I would like it.  I have been trying to make appointments more often with current clients or prospects so that I can socialize a little more often.  As well it helps me keep in touch and find out how everyone else is doing with their business.

I know that what I will owe the government in payroll remittance will be much less this August and less again in September which is really the whole reason for doing this kind of change in the first place.  So it hasn't be instant gratification but I know that I will soon see the reason why I needed to do what I did.

My team are still with me on contract and have been terrific.  I have enjoyed learning how to work with them as contractors as they juggle their new jobs and lives and somehow manage to get the work I have for them done.  Naturally there are always struggles and miscommunications but it has been a great learning experience to figure out how to motivate my contracting team and also be firm and ask for what I need as I am now their client. 

While I miss my full time team around me, I have been able to grow my web developer division by another person and I'm looking at having another designer join my contracting team as well. 

While I would love to say that this is all going according to plan I have to admit that there wasn't a real plan that I was following.  I just saw what was happening, took action and now I think I'm better off as a business for the decisions I made.  So I suppose if there is anything that I can take away from this experience it is that taking action is better than sitting still.  At least you feel like you're doing something to help the situation at hand. 

Where did June go?  I guess that is what happens when you are concentrating so hard on the business.  Time just slips away.

I always knew that my business would ebb and flow.  There would be good times and not so good times.  Over the past almost 7 years I have seen my company grow from a 1 person company all the way to 5 people on staff only to decrease down to 3-4 people on board. 

With careful assessment and analysis, the time has come to restructure my company and explore the world of having web development and design contractors help my business out as projects come on board.

It was a tough decision to make.  I employed a team of people that I trusted with my clients, the well being of my company and over the years have become my friends. I didn't want to change their status from full time to contractor but it was necessary to do.

So I started to think about how this was going to affect my team.  What would they need from me in order to make a smooth transition from being full time employed to becoming a contractor?  How could I help them land a new job?

In mid June I sat down with my team and told them honestly what I needed to do and why I needed to do this company restructure.  It was one of the toughest things that I have had to do in my life.  I had people relying on my for their livelihood and now I was causing an imbalance in their lives.  I told them that I would very much like to have them on board as contractors as I have gained a great respect for them.  I made sure that my business would foot the bill if they wanted to talk to an accountant about the advantages/disadvantages of being self-employed as this is what would happen if they contracted their services to my business.  I also opened up the floor to any questions they might have.  They could contact me through email, voicemail, one-on-one meetings or whatever means they were comfortable with to share their thoughts, ideas and ask for assistance.

By mid July my company will be run by myself and I will have a team of highly qualified contractors to help me run the business in the same manner it ran before but with less financial strain.  While I hated to make the decision to restructure, I believe it was the right thing to do. 

And so a new chapter of my business starts....