We (Stefan, Kerrie, Eric, Danielle, Emily, Rob, Christine, Deborah, Tommy and Sam) met for our bi-weekly meetup at the Office Junction midday on Wednesday.

Kerrie introduced herself. She is a writer, also does web copy writing and academical/technical text.

Eric is a screenwriter and is looking for contacts to the Seattle Film Industry as his screenplay advances. He is also a Travel Mediator for Conde Naste Travel and always has great advice on travelling. 

Danielle joined our group for the first time and introduced us to Affleck Insurance. She explained how Afflecks pays cash for specific events that happen to make circumstances easier to handle. Afflecks insures small companies with a minimum of 3 employees.

Emily writes Children's books, fiction and non-fiction, is a fact checker and currently works on a sequel to 'Myths Busted!' with the surprising title 'Myths Busted! 2'.

Rob is in charge of Operations for a Tech Consulting Firm. 

Christine reported on the process of her Bee Garden, Festival and Parade coming up on May 19th. 

Deborah started a Consulting business on providing retirement in style. She currently takes Coaching Classes, is interested in networking and new clients.

Tommy just added a Software Company and a Cleaning Service to his portfolio. He talked about his challenges to create a Cancer Center.

Sam told us about her Design work and her focus on Customer Service, being able to take the time to deliver high quality work that is satisfying to the customer. She looks for small businesses as new clients. 

We talked about the struggles to work long distance with colleagues and business partners and the challenges of working from home. How to deliver constructive critism over phone, email, how to stay task oriented, do one-on-ones, create ownership and responsibility for remote workers, being hands on even over a long distance. Schedule more contacts, guided feedback, owner manuals and how phone proves to be a better communication tool for performance reviews. 

We also talked a lot about insurance and a possible Coworking Union in the future supporting self-employed workers. 

We finished the meeting at 1.15 pm - almost on schedule.

We hosted our artists Walter Scheirer and J. Conrad Nivens. For a little bit of extra fun we added an interactive component. On the first floor 
we asked for a drawing, to craft an alter-ego bug on the second floor, 
a playdough bird on the third floor to advance to the roof deck for a  drink and the final assignment: a poem. The weather was wonderful and we had a lot of fun being creative! Thanks everyone for coming!

This month topic was Social Media and our group of female business owners and managers shared ideas.
We introduced our businesses, our Social Media experience and strategy and did some active networking aka exchanging business cards.

Bridget, Carl, Deborah, Eric, Kelly K., Emily and Stefan met for our Coworking Meetup on May 1st. Bridget and Kelly joined us for the first time. The weather was fantastic, so we decided to head up to our roof deck.

Kelly works on a business to provide Vocal Training Online and needs help with WordPress.

Emily shared her frustration with legal documents (work for hire) and wants to read her contracts more carefully. She got a referral from Bridget for a lawyer to help her and Eric advised her to make a name for herself as an author and 'being known' helps with finding better work.

Eric is working on a script for a screen play excited to put an application in for a screen writer lab. 

Bridget, a Nutrition Consultant, shared about her partnership with doctors and chiropractors for getting new patient referrals.

We took a quick break for a piece of birthday cake.

Retirement Coach Deborah shared her progress joining an business group and publishing an ebook on an ipad. 

Carl shared he feels he has lots to learn transitioning from Sales to Marketing, currently looking for a CRM system.

Quote of the day: It's amazing how much gets done if someone else does it! 
from Stefan

Our next meetup is on 5/15 from 12 to 1 pm.