As if the conference itself weren’t enough excitement for one weekend, we wanted to tell you a little more about two really exciting evening events happening next weekend. Both are open to the public, but CCE attendees and speakers get in free!
The first event is a taco-and-beer party on Friday called Meet. Greet. & Eat.
Read more »
If you’re not familiar with Meylah, you should know that in addition to offering an integrated online storefront and social marketing base, they also offer a TON of free small business resources, including several eBooks, about 4,783 “Byte-size Learnings,” and a whole series of eCourses, including this comprehensive one for Meylah beginners, which covers the following topics…
Jess Chamberlain is the market editor for Sunset magazine (and a contributor for the HomeBySunset blog). She’s always on the hunt for innovative and thoughtfully-made products, inspiring homes and gardens, and creatives making the world a more beautiful place to live. Jess is most passionate about making sustainable choices the obvious ones and converting plastic-baggers into aspiring environmentalists. She also sometimes…
Learn about copyrights, trademarks and licensing in this informal roundtable dealing with any and all intellectual property issues. Bring your own questions and examples to share with the group, where we will discuss the blurry definitions of what constitutes legal, ethical and considerate behavior. With Jenny Hart and Keith Cooper
Read more »Learn how to improve your web site’s search results in this straightforward workshop. We’ll discuss how to choose effective keywords to focus on, and how you can beat the competition by targeting more of your ideal audience right out of the gate. With Karri Carlson
Read more »
Karri leads Marketing and Customer Development at Leadtail, a San Francisco Bay Area based company dedicated to helping small and medium sized businesses succeed with online marketing and advertising. In her role working directly with business owners and entrepreneurs, she specializes in helping businesses navigate the complex and cluttered world of content marketing, social media, and search engine optimization. Prior…
Samantha Barsky is the owner and designer behind note•ify, an eco-friendly stationery company. She worked for 10 years in the San Francisco advertising scene as an art director for almost every shop in town and still does a bit of freelance work on the side to stay up-to-date with design trends….
Alex Dethier is the marketing and business development arm of the Jennifer Vaughn Artist Agency, a boutique agency representing a group of 16 illustrators worldwide. Alex joined the agency in 2009, after a 10 year stretch working in corporate marketing for a Fortune 500 high tech company. Prior to that phase of his career, Alex worked as an art director in publishing and then went on to pursue web and interactive…
Karrie Weaver is a San Francisco Bay Area based entrepreneur, scientist, and all-around crafty gal. She has operated her small business, Girl on the Rocks, for over 5 years during which time it has grown from the occasional craft show table to a thriving business with numerous wholesale accounts. Her work has been recognized by Ponoko as one of the Top Designer Showrooms of 2010, and her designs have been featured in “Sew Magazine”.
Keith Cooper serves on the Board of Directors of California Lawyers for the Arts. Mr. Cooper is a civil litigation, business transaction and entertainment attorney who began practicing in January, 1995. His practice involves representing clients for business entity formation, capital acquisition, contract preparation and negotiation, intellectual property acquirement, protection and licensing. Mr. Cooper has helped clients raise…
Ashley Jennings is co-founder of Checklet, a company that builds web applications dedicated to helping crafters and makers measure their shops and maximize their effectiveness. She has a passion for helping small business owners to be more strategic and savvy without losing precious time that could be spent creating and designing product…
Stephen Fraser is co-founder of Spoonflower, the world’s first Internet-based custom fabric printing service and design community. Since its launch in 2008 Spoonflower has been featured in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, BBC, the Today Show, Bust Magazine, House Beautiful, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Make. Prior to Spoonflower, he provided marketing advice to Internet start-ups and, between 2002 and…
This one goes out to all the crafters out there. I’m talking especially to you doe-eyed folks who spend ten hours behind a table at a craft fair on Saturday, only to stay up until 3AM making more inventory for Sunday. The first year or two you insist that you actually enjoy this lifestyle, but before long it becomes clear that being a one-person sweatshop (complete with sweatshop-level wages) is not the most sustainable business model…
Blakely Bass began the Residents Apparel Gallery (RAG SF) in 2002 with the intent of creating a sustainable community business model in San Francisco. This boutique and art gallery in the SF neighborhood of Hayes Valley exclusively carries over 100 California designers and artists that are required to both design and produce their work in California to remain on consignment in RAG. Blakely encourages the artist to display…
Did you know that all of the DIY Business instructors at WorkshopSF are also CCE speakers? Yeah, we kind of have a monopoly on those guys. If you’re interested in pursuing your CCE education beyond the conference, check out these three upcoming workshops in the DIY Business series: Opening A Brick And Mortar Store with [...]
Read more »
Josh Judkins is Community Manager at Ponoko. Ponoko is the creator of Personal Factory, an online platform that allows people to turn digital design files into physical objects. These objects are made on-demand with digital fabrication technologies and produced at a facility closest to the object’s end destination. Over 100,000 user generated products have been made to date. Josh manages a dedicated support team, assisting customers with…
David Knight, co-owner and founder of WorkshopSF, has been the man behind the curtain of Workshop since its inception in September 2009. David manages many of the behind-the-scenes aspects of Workshop, including licensing, legal issues, taxes, accounting, website, and operations (i.e., sweeping and mopping.) David has worked in retail promotions for record labels in Carrboro, NC and Los Angeles, CA, and…
Caitlin Kuhwald gravitated to graphics at an early age and admits to joining Brownies solely for the craft supplies.
Having collected a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she looped back to San Francisco to teach illustration at CCA….
Read more »
When I first started my toy business seven years ago, I was handcrafting everything myself. This had the advantage of being able to sell my toys on Etsy, but it also meant that I was making less than minimum wage on every product. Clearly, this was not sustainable, so I spent the next two years sourcing responsible manufacturing overseas and starting my own e-Commerce site. Had I started my business in 2011, none of this would have been an issue, because I could have…
Jordan Kushins is the associate editor at Dwell. She very happily spends her days editing the magazine’s In the Modern World section, along with Design Finder and Finishing Touch, and recently launched a DIY column called Home Work on dwell.com as a means to share her love of creating crafty things.
Learn how to get timely and accurate bookkeeping information. Understand the components of business, the importance and purpose of bookkeeping, budgeting and financial reports, accounting and bookkeeping terminology. Topics include cash vs. accrual accounting, proper accounting data flow processes, accounting records & files, the chart of accounts, and the purpose of different financial reports. With [...]
Read more »Whether you’re an artist getting hired for a discernible style or happily adapting your hand to various agency needs, there are ways to ensure your work is seen and that the projects keep coming. Learn the proper etiquette of the pitch, how to break into the biz and what the day to day collaborations are [...]
Read more »Today it is my incredible honor and privilege to share a conversation with our distinguished keynote speaker, Mr. Jeffery Rudell. He is incomparably talented and generous, and I can promise you that his opening address will be one of the most creatively inspiring talks you have ever heard. Mr. Rudell’s writing is single-handedly responsible for the epiphany that got my career back on the right track and I couldn’t be more thrilled for you to meet him.
In the following interview, Mr. Rudell was kind enough to share his story and give us a glimpse into his keynote address.
Can you describe what a typical day might be like for you in your work as a creative professional (if there is such a thing as a “typical” day)?
One of the great joys (and great dangers) of being self employed as a creative professional is that I don’t have many “typical” days, per se. I might be decoupaging a life-sized giraffe, constructing a violin out of paper, or creating a room-sized snowstorm using…
Read more »
Hannah Knapp is the Senior Operations Manager for Flixster, Inc., a San Francisco-based company dedicated to connecting movie lovers with the movies and each other, through its two websites (Flixster.com and RottenTomatoes.com) and its mobile applications. During her five years there, her position has evolved from covering every aspect of the business side of the business to specifically managing the company finances and…
Joshua Zerkel is a Certified Professional Organizer® and the founder of Custom Living Solutions, the San Francisco Bay Area’s top-rated productivity and organizing consultancy. A former graphic, web, and interface designer, Josh now puts his creativity to work by helping home office workers, entrepreneurs, solo service professionals and small businesses find easy ways to get control of their paper, space, information, time…
Ferron is the Community Engagement Coordinator at SFMade, a non-profit corporation focused on building San Francisco’s economic base by developing the local manufacturing sector. SFMade’s mission is to build and support a vibrant manufacturing sector in San Francisco, that sustains companies producing locally-made products, encourages entrepreneurship and innovation, and creates employment opportunities for a…
There’s business, and then there are the things you’re built to do. There are marketing strategies, and then there are the ideas you wake up in the morning and fall asleep at night thinking about. Hidden in every creative person is a mission waiting to be discovered – the core principles that make your work [...]
Read more »If you’ve ever written a blog post, then you’ve shared a bit of yourself with the world for free. Sharing is a cornerstone of not only the online craft community, but of 21st-century businesses. Put your skills out there, the story goes, and the world will notice and bring you opportunities. But if you’re sharing [...]
Read more »
Christina Loff is the Lifestyle Category Manager at Wikia.com, where she generates fresh content and promotes creative communities focusing on photography, craft, food & drink, and much more. Prior to joining Wikia, she worked as a publicist and marketer at Chronicle Books for six years, diligently spreading the word about their amazing roster of lifestyle writers, including Jenny Hart, Amy Butler, and Bobbi Brown. Christina has also…
Brittni Mehlhoff is the founder of papernstitch.com, a curated exhibition space dedicated to showcasing the work of talented artists and indie designers online. Currently, she splits her time between the exhibition site and as the editor of a handmade and diy blog also named Papernstitch, where she writes about small business, blogging, handmade and more….
So, you’ve had your business for a little while. You’ve got your Facebook Page, your blog and your Twitter profile, and maybe you’ve even managed to amass a fairly humble little community. What next? In this session we won’t be covering the basics. Nope. Instead, this session is going to speak to those who have [...]
Read more »The buzz in the creative community this week is all about work-life balance. Earlier this week I read a series of interesting posts on Poppytalk about having “Too Much Success.” The three posts were written by CCE speaker Rena Tom and featured interviews with other CCE speakers Lisa Congdon and Christine Schmidt of Yellow Owl Workshop. Also this week, CCE speaker Willo O’Brien launched a new video series about “Creative Sustainability in Life and Business.”
It all got me thinking, how do we define success, what’s the right speed to grow your business, and how do you take more time for yourself after you’ve “put in your dues” without setting yourself back?….
Read more »While being an independent entrepreneur is exhilarating, there is a considerable amount of responsibility that comes with having to manage all sides of your small business. DIY (Do It Yourself) is empowering, but there’s a point when Doing it ALL Yourself gets downright overwhelming and exhausting. Do you like the idea of working with a [...]
Read more »Connecting with other creatives online, or in your local community, is a great way to kick-start your ideas or support the launch and growth of your business. This session will give you the inspiration and direction to think strategically about collaboration. In this session you’ll learn: When does 1+1 really equal more than 2? How [...]
Read more »
