FINE Business Networking

Next FINE networking meeting, May 16th

Ed Fitzgerald — Fri, 03 May 2013 19:40:03 +0000

The new format was a success! Feedback from the attendees at the April meeting was very positive.

The venue worked well, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Food was good, the breakfast buffet offered eggs, bacon, etc.

The “gather around the table” format gave us all a chance to get to know each other better. The intros extended beyond the 30 seconds with questions being asked. Those who needed help were able to get answers, suggestions from others.

We decided to start a bit later going forward, at 8:30.

Here are the specifics for the next meeting:

Date: May 16th
Time: 8:30 to 9:30+
Location: Whole Foods in Fairfield
Format: Just networking. We will still do our 30 second elevator speeches so everyone knows who is there.

Whole Foods is located at 350 Grasmere Avenue, next to Home Depot, minutes from I95.

There is no charge for the meeting. Coffee, tea, muffins, a breakfast buffet are available for purchase.

FINE’s objective continues to be to provide a forum to “Meet People. Exchange Ideas. Grow Your Business”.

Hope to see you there!

Ed and Bette Lynn

New time, new location, new format … April 18th meeting

Ed Fitzgerald — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:19:15 +0000

We are trying something new. Hope it works for all the long time FINE members and for new ones as well!

Time: 8AM to 9AM

Location: Whole Foods in Fairfield

Format: Just networking. We will still do our 30 second elevator speeches so everyone knows who is there.

Next meeting is Thursday, April 18th

Whole Foods is located at 350 Grasmere Avenue, next to Home Depot, minutes from I95.

There is no charge for the meeting. Coffee, tea, muffins, a breakfast buffet are available for purchase.

FINE’s objective continues to be to provide a forum to “Meet People. Exchange Ideas. Grow Your Business”.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Ed and Bette Lynn

The FINE winter break continues – No March meeting

Ed Fitzgerald — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:56:38 +0000

After 19 years the future of FINE is in doubt. We are evaluating our options and should know within the next month or so if we will continue to operate. As soon as we know, we will make an announcement here.

Missed the October YouTube Presentation?

Ed Fitzgerald — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:47:04 +0000

If you missed the presentation and demonstration that Steve Goethner (an independent Macintosh consultant and owner of www.SoftKare.net) did at the October FINE Meeting, about creating YouTube videos to increase your page rank, he will be presenting to the Connecticut PC Users Group (CTPC).

Location: Silver Star Diner, 200 Connecticut Ave, Norwalk
Date: Tuesday, Feb 26^th
Time: 6:30 to 8:30PM (Pizza and refreshments after the meeting, shared cost)
The meeting is free and open to the public.

For more information about CTPC, visit www.CTPC.org.

FINE is taking a winter break, next meeting is in March

Ed Fitzgerald — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:36:22 +0000

FINE is taking a winter break. There will be no January or February meetings. The next meeting will be in March.

We will no longer be meeting at the Wilton Library. While it is a great facility with a welcoming and supportive staff, the traffic in the morning has become an issue. As a result, while we have seen some new faces, which is great, overall attendance has been down. We are looking for a meeting location in the Westport or Fairfield area.

If you have any suggestions, please let us know.

“The Power of Email Marketing” – FINE Meeting 12/12

Ed Fitzgerald — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 23:08:15 +0000

Today, more than ever before, business success is measured by the strength of the relationships each business builds. You’ll learn how to build those relationships using easy, inexpensive and highly effective email marketing! We will explore the basics of what email marketing is, why it works so well, how it easily integrates with social networking sites, and how to use it in your business planning and marketing strategy to achieve special goals. You will learn email marketing best practices and how easy it is to implement them.

Our speaker is Ellen Williams, Regional Development Director, Constant Contact, an email marketing service provider. She has over 20 years of technology and marketing experience and has presented to over 4,000 small businesses, nonprofits, and associations. Her advice on best practices help organizations understand how to build great customer relationships that inevitable grow their businesses.

The author of It’s About Time: Time Management Tips From The Software Revitalist™, Ellen has been published in numerous magazines including Crain’s New York Small Business, The New York Enterprise Report, Self-Employed Professional, and Success.

The meeting, on 12/12, from 9:30 to 11:00, starts with networking, followed by a welcome and each attendee giving their 30 second elevator speech, followed by our speaker and more networking. It takes place at the Wilton Library, in the President’s Room on the second floor. The library is located at 137 Old Ridgefield Road in Wilton Center, just off Route 7.

There is no admission charge, however a $5 donation will help cover the room rental expense. You are welcome to bring in coffee or other refreshments, there is a Starbucks and Steve’s Bagels nearby.

Note new time – 9:30 to 11:00. We changed to a later start time in response to the rush hour traffic a number of people encounter.

FINE Meeting – Wednesday, 11/14 – “Windows 8: Is it right for your business?”

Ed Fitzgerald — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 22:03:53 +0000

The new version of Windows is now available from Microsoft. Is it right for you? What is good about it, what is not? Should you upgrade now or wait? Richard Frisch, a Microsoft partner, will help answer those questions, share his experiences with Windows 8 as an early tester and answer questions about how it may or may not benefit your business.

Richard is owner of RHFtech, a company that provides technology support for small business and residential clients as well as digital home entertainment, video production and post-production services.

He started using computers in 1972 when he was introduced to BASIC programming as an MBA student at the Harvard Business School. A member of the team at Citibank in the 1970s that developed the modern ATM, in 1981, Richard was the first person at Smith Barney to use an electronic spreadsheet, Lotus 1-2-3 on a PC.

A blogger and former journalist, he wrote a column, The RHFtech Help Desk, which was published in a number of local publications. Richard makes frequent public presentations about evolving technology topics, is a member of the Connecticut PC Users Group, moderates the Random Access program at their monthly meetings and is a past president of the Fairfield County Computer Users Group.

New news – Microsoft has made copies of Windows 8 and Windows Office available and some lucky attendees will go home with them.

Note new time – 9:30 to 11:00. We changed to a later start time in response to the rush hour traffic a number of people encounter.

The meeting starts with networking, followed by a welcome and each attendee giving their 30 second elevator speech, followed by our speaker and more networking. It takes place at the Wilton Library, in the President’s Room on the second floor. The library is located at 137 Old Ridgefield Road in Wilton Center, just off Route 7.

Next FINE Meeting, Wednesday, October 10th

Ed Fitzgerald — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:02:58 +0000

“How YouTube can boost visitors to your website ….. and boost your bottom line, too!”

Search engine spiders follow, or “crawl” throughout the Internet grabbing content from sites and adding it to search engine indexes.

One of the best ways to help your organic Google page rank is to make a series of short videos and post them on YouTube. Google, who owns YouTube, uses a variety of relevant “puzzle” pieces to determine your website’s page rank. YouTube is a very big piece of that puzzle.

Come and learn from Mac Pro, Steve Goethner, who will shoot a one minute video on a FINE attendee as part of his presentation. He’ll explain what kind of equipment and software you need to use. Then he’ll explain how to upload the video to YouTube, talk about some of the important points to make it effective and adding it to your website and other places as well.

Steve will clear up the dos and don’ts in a fun, fact-filled workshop for attendees. You don’t need to be a Mac user to benefit.

If you are interested in being the one who is “shot” at the meeting, email Anne DiFrancesco, anne@am-studios.net, owner of A&M Studios. Your name will be placed “in a hat” and we will draw a name at the beginning of the meeting. That person will be videoed by Steve as the demo.

Steven Goethner, owner of SoftKare, is an independent Macintosh consultant, Steve has been teaching, troubleshooting, networking, and offering database development since 1986. He works with his clients on a one-on-one basis and has helped hundreds of small business owners navigate through today’s complex digital challenges.

In 2012, he introduced a new service to help local businesses get to the top of Google’s organic search using keywords and video. He believes that video is still an untapped resource. When done properly, video can be a vital link in your marketing program.

The meeting starts at 9AM with networking, followed by a welcome and each attendee giving their 30 second elevator speech, followed by our speaker, more networking, and ends at 10:30. It takes place at the Wilton Library, in the President’s Room on the second floor. The library is located at 137 Old Ridgefield Road in Wilton Center, just off Route 7. There is no admission charge, however a $5 donation will help cover the room rental expense. You are welcome to bring in coffee or other refreshments, there is a Starbucks and Steve’s Bagels nearby.

FINE Changes Starting in October

Ed Fitzgerald — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 23:02:21 +0000

Something new is happening at FINE.

1. Starting in October, we will be meeting on the second Wednesday of the month, 10/10, same time, 9AM. The location continues to be the Wilton Library where we have been meeting for the past few months.

2. The theme of our presentations will be technology. Not tech for the “techie” but for the business person. We will cover timely tech topics that will give attendees valuable information that they can apply to their businesses.

3. To help keep expenses down and simplify the logistics, we have decided not to provide coffee. Hopefully everyone understands. There are a couple of places near the library, a Starbucks, and right across the street from the parking lot is Steve’s Bagels. They have good coffee … and bagels.

FINE’s primary objectives will continue to be the opportunity to ”Meet People. Exchange Ideas. Grow Your Business. “

Look forward to seeing you there!

FINE 19th Anniversary Meeting – Sept. 20th

Ed Fitzgerald — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 23:01:35 +0000

Sophfronia Scott presents “I Believe”: Belief Systems and How Understanding Yours Can Make Your Book, Your Business and Your Life Absolutely Magnetic!

Whether you realize it or not, every choice you make and every action you take is sending a message about how you think about yourself, your work and the world. And people are making decisions about YOU based on those messages. Do you know what you believe and how that belief is playing out in your life? Join us for this enlightening discussion in which we will:

**learn how to verbalize our personal belief systems

**recognize what we do to make our beliefs show up in our lives

**decide how to make changes so we better reflect our belief systems

Sophfronia Scott, executive editor of The Done For You Writing & Publishing Company, is also a novelist (All I Need to Get By; St. Martins Press) and life coach with over twenty years of experience as a professional writer.

The meeting starts at 9AM with networking, followed by a welcome and each attendee giving their 30 second elevator speech, followed by our speaker, more networking, and ends at 10:30. It takes place at the Wilton Library, in the President’s Room on the second floor. The library is located at 137 Old Ridgefield Road in Wilton Center, just off Route 7. Coffee will be available. There is no admission charge, however a $5 donation will help cover the room expense.