Learning the Biz

Every morning, I check my google reader list for new ideas, inspiration, and tips over breakfast and the Today Show. With my commitment to take Connect the Dots to the next level, I especially look forward to learning about the biz skills required to start building products, a brand, and a business.

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite resources here. In the wide world of the internet, there is so much information about everything that it's completely overwhelming. I've narrowed my intake to three main blogs - they feed my curiosity in bite-sized, manageable, and delicious chunks.

Meylah - http://meylah.com/meylah

Meylah is a fabulous blog with lots of information about biz skills like marketing, communicating with customers, and keeping your work fresh. I love how everything is always broken into steps, like "Branding You: 5 Ways to Build a Community." They're focused on connecting people together (see why I love??) to share information and resources, and they even recently completely changed the site so that readers can add content, set up shops, and share byte-size learning (mini tutorials). One thing that I particularly like about Meylah is that while the strategies apply to businesses across the board, it's specifically crafts focused - so it's directly relevant to my work.

Art Biz Blog - www.artbizblog.com

Art Biz Blog was created by Alyson Stanfield, an artist consultant, as a resource for artists to learn more effective ways of promoting their work. After following her daily bits of advice on things like promoting your work by guest blogging and strategies for collecting contact information for a mailing list, I was convinced to buy her book, I'd Rather Be in the Studio: The Artist's No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion. The book is helping me realize how being artist means so much more than just creating art - there are so many things that need to be done to effectively share and sell that art! This book is FULL of resources and guidance. It's mostly geared toward more fine art, but I think the ideas can apply to any business. I highly recommend it!

Crafting an MBA - www.craftmba.com

I just started following this blog by Megan Auman when I saw her post on Running Your Business vs. Pursuing Your Hobby. She shares daily business skills and strategies for crafters, and also offers ebooks and workshops on specific topics. I can already tell that this is going to be a directly relevant, useful resource.

Your turn: What are your favorite online resources? I'd like to hear about what blogs you look at. Share them below!

Carole Ann