About the DIY Business Association
The DIY Business Association empowers, educates, and connects creative small businesses and self-employed/freelancers to help them grow their businesses—because it takes a community to do it yourself.
Hatched in late 2010, the DIY Business Association is growing exactly as it should—DIY-style. The options are endless for the future of the DIYT (do-it-yourself-together) community.
The Brooklyn DIYBA Conference is the kickoff event. In addition to follow-up events for the rest of 2011 in New York, in 2012, the DIYBA plans to organize a tour of events in Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Austin, and Boston. After that, who knows: A video or radio series? A TV show? A book series? Why not?
Thank you for attending the very first DIY Business Association Conference. We look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions. We couldn’t do this without you.
With respect, Amy Schroeder [email protected] diyba.org
1 Credits
DIY Business Association Founder and CEO AMY SCHROEDER founded Venus Zine and venuszine.com in her Michigan State University dorm room at age 19. After about a decade of growing the publication from a cut-and-paste fanzine into an internationally circulated magazine with a starting budget of zero, she sold the company to an independent Chicago publisher and moved to New York. For her first year and a half in New York, she worked for inkpop.com and Girl Scouts of the USA. She now works full time for the DIY Business Association, organizing conferences and consulting with creatives to grow their businesses. Schroeder writes a column about entrepreneurship for Splashlife.com and is working on a book about creative entrepreneurs’ success stories. o f B
Christen Carter, Founder, Busy Beaver Buttons o A d v i sers a
Sue Daly, Co-Founder, Renegade Craft Fair r Mauricio Garcia, Fellowship Program Manager, the Financial Clinic d Jenny Hart, Founder, Sublime Stitching Samara Kaufman, Business Process Improvement Manager, Girl Scouts of the USA Dixie Laite, Senior Editorial Director, TeenNick Maile Ohye, Google Search Engineer Julie Showers, Independent Web designer Laura Strom, Freelance designer for Travel + Leisure Andrew Wagner, Editor-in-Chief, ReadyMade
n Katie Frichtel + Troy Farmer, Program Designers (Raven + Crow Studio, ravenandcrowstudio.com) y Martin Cuevas, Associate Coordinator
C rew Stefanie Nieves, Associate Coordinator (The Petite Soiree Events, thepetitesoiree.com)
rookl Lesley Ware, Blogger (thecreativecookie.net) B Niema Jordan, Blogger (niemajordan.com) Stephanie Tardy Duimstra, Sponsorship Sales (yourphantomlimb.com/) Audrey Seilheimer, Sponsorship Sales (audreyeditor.wordpress.com) C on f erence
Sarah Barrett, elemental-interiors.com C on f erence Amber Drea, Writer, newyorkdrinkie.com Jeb Gleason-Allured Anjali Goyal, Graduate student
Frieda Klotz, Journalist, friedaklotz.com V olunteers
Laura Leebove, Production Editor, eMusic B Jen Ng, Jill-of-all-trades rookl Kirstyn Soles, Content manager, alloymarketing.com
Marti Trgovich, Copy editor, Health.com y Original DIYBA logo design by Mat Daly Erin Wengrovius, Graphic designer/art director, BUST n Cover photo and conference logo design, Raven + Crow Studio 1 Sponsors w i th
ROASTING COMPANY th a nks
2 3 About the Panelists
Creating a New Way of Work: How to Embrace, Empower, and Maximize Your Creativity
In typical Millennial fashion, MARCOS SALAZAR is a renaissance worker who wears many hats. By day, Salazar is a leadership researcher and technology integrator for Girl Scouts of the USA. By night he is the co-founder of BeSocialChange.com, curator of BeSocialChange Digest NYC, owner of the New York City clothing business BoroThreads.com, author of two books, a speaker on the psychology of life after college, Gen Y, and Millennial topics, and an elected official in the state of New York. Salazar is working on a new book about the psychology of social entrepreneurship and Millennials.
JESSICA H. LAWRENCE, Managing Director at New York Tech Meetup, is a columnist, blogger, nonprofit leader, Seth Godin MBA recipient, Regret Me Not Creator, ROWE warrior, and event curator. She is an expert on co-working spaces and the future of the self-employed economy.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: Decision #1: I decided to start living in the “now” instead of the “when.” I used to put off doing things I was truly passionate about or learning something that satisfied my curiosity because I always had some excuse that I was too busy with work. I would say, “I’ll start taking ballet again when this project gets done,” or “I’ll read that book when work gets less crazy.” Well, guess what? Things never got less busy. One project was just replaced by another one, and I never did the things I said were important to me. When I started replacing “when” with “now,” life started to get even better. Decision #2: I decided that my brain is precious real estate. Eighty perfect of my brain used to be taken up thinking about crap on a daily basis that I wasn’t actually that passionate about. What a waste. I decided to start filling my life and mind with things that actually mattered to me. Decision #3: I decided to write down my own fears. We often walk around with these nebulous fears in our heads that make us feel like doing something (like quitting our jobs to start our own company) is going to have disastrous consequences. When you write it down, the fear that has been masquerading as a lion usually turns into a kitten.
2 3 Increase Your Income: How to Get Paid What You’re Worth, How to Tap Into Funds That You Don’t Even Know Exist, and Practical Ways to Earn Extra Income
Emmy award–winning artist DEAN HASPIEL is a native New Yorker who created the Eisner Award nominated Billy Dogma, the semi-autobiographical Street Code, and helped pioneer personal webcomics with the invention of ACT-I-VATE. Haspiel has drawn many great superhero and semi- autobiographical comic books published by Marvel, DC/Vertigo, Dark Horse, Image, Scholastic, Toon Books, Top Shelf, and the New York Times, including collaborations with Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, and Inverna Lockpez, and illustrates for HBO’s Bored To Death.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: If waking up every day to the struggles of anxiety and insecurity is what keeps me innovative and productive, then rejection was the best thing that happened to me early on in my graphic-novel career. See, I had pipe dreams of becoming a penciler for The Fantastic Four, and I wanted to be the next Jack Kirby. Alas, I wasn’t good enough and, despite my unyielding commitment to create stories, failure forced me to think different, strive harder, and, ultimately, manifest a unique sensibility to brand and barter with. After he proved himself on Daredevil, it was Frank Miller’s vision that sold Batman and that profound success gave him latitude to create the hard-boiled Sin City series, the histrionic 300, and more. Miller’s bold tactics influenced me to take risks and collaborate on semi-autobiographical fare with Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, and Inverna Lockpez, while writing my own semi-auto-bio Street Code, and psychotronic Billy Dogma, sans apology and permission. These days, I get hired by franchise publishers to create mythology for their heroes while drawing for high-profile television shows and develop original content for other print and digital media. I’ve finally come to a crossroad where people are getting unexpurgated Dean Haspiel.
AMBER RAE is a starter of meaningful things who lives for inspiring people to chase what makes them feel alive. She accidentally started a “Passion Experiment” business in April 2011 when she decided to turn her love for challenging people to get outside their comfort zone into a four-week program. When she’s not helping people get unstuck, Rae is the chief evangelist of Seth Godin’s Domino Project, a new publishing venture powered by Amazon. She also created revolution.is, a site that curates weekly stories of change- makers and culture-shapers who take initiative and trust their gut to create revolutions in their work. In 2010, Amber turned insomnia into a social movement when she co-founded late-night co-working group NY Nightowls, which is active in 14 countries and 30 cities. Rae has appeared in the New York Times, ABC World News, Forbes, on the BBC, and at TEDxCMU, where she spoke about the art of being unreasonable and how to astray from traditional cultural expectations.
4 5 As the Editorial Director for Yoxi (pronounced “yo-see”), JOSHUA FISCHER specializes in storytelling, content strategy, and concept development. Yoxi is a creative competition to discover big ideas and bright stars to solve social problems; the winning team scores start-up funds, mentorship, and connections to put their idea to action. Fischer first got a taste for social innovation at the global digital agency Razorfish where he helped create two pro-bono projects for TED, the “nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.” His work for the rebrand of the Razorfish company site was featured on the cover of Communication Arts magazine and received a 2009 HOW Interactive Design Award. Having served as a senior writer for a variety of leading creative agencies, Fischer has crafted digital experiences and ideas for Microsoft, Hulu, and Universal Music, among many others. He has also acted as a Senior Writing consultant at 19 Entertainment, the company known for creating American Idol. Fischer has a master’s in journalism from NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism program, and his music and cultural writing has appeared in publications such as Salon, Nylon, and Zink.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: Give up on my dream. But that’s the negative way of saying it. The positive way of saying it is: The best thing I’ve done for my career was try new things. My dream was to be a magazine writer. I published stories and interviews, and I climbed higher to greater exposure. However, as it wore on, I felt limited by what the medium allowed; I didn’t like how my work was being edited, and, actually, I began losing interest. I gave up on my dream and tried something new by joining an agency and becoming a writer and idea developer for big brands online. Soon enough, though, I ran into similar problems. However, by working on a different platform, I expanded my skill set tenfold, experienced working on pro-bono projects, and most importantly, I met extremely creative people who I’d work with later. Now I’m one of the principle players at an ambitious, socially conscious start-up that I enjoy and believe in. I never could have arrived at this point without letting go of the dreams and ideas I held dear and exploring areas I had never wanted to go. It was only after doing those things that I was able to pursue this bigger, better dream I’m building now. This dream I would have never even known that I had.
MAURICIO GARCIA is the Fellowship Program Manager at The Financial Clinic, an organization focused on building the financial security of working-poor families and individuals. A native Detroiter and corporate convert, he has been involved in the New York nonprofit community for more than five years, providing program development, grants administration, and financial-management services for the likes of Business Outreach Center Network, LISC, and The Financial Clinic. It takes a community to
4 5 Gurus of Communication and Content
ANDREW WAGNER is the editor-in-chief of ReadyMade magazine. Prior to coming to ReadyMade, he was the editor-in-chief of American Craft magazine. Wagner was also the executive editor and founding managing editor of Dwell magazine, where he helped push the boundaries of architecture and design journalism, garnering the publication the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) General Excellence Award in 2005. In 1997, Wagner founded LIMN, the unorthodox design and arts magazine published by the equally unorthodox furniture and design company of the same name, and served as its editor-in-chief until 2000. Wagner was also the founding editor of Dodge City Journal, a magazine dedicated to documenting life in America’s under-explored cities. In addition to his work at ReadyMade, Wagner is a consulting editor at Places magazine and has been a guest lecturer at University of California Berkeley, Southern California Institute of Architecture, California College of the Arts, and Columbia University. His writing has been published in, among others, Azure, Blueprint, Breathe, Loud Paper, Vanity Fair, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Travel and Leisure. Wagner also is a member of the DIY Business Association Board of Advisers.
GRACE BONNEY founded Design*Sponge, the daily blog dedicated to design, in 2004. In 2007, Bonney founded the Design*Sponge Scholarship and the Biz Ladies series to support design students and women running their own design-based businesses. In fall 2011, Bonney will publish her first book, Design*Sponge at Home (Artisan Books), a 400-page guide to homes, do-it-yourself projects, furniture makeovers, and floral design. Follow Grace Bonney on Twitter: @designsponge.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: Trust my gut. Because I was young when I started my business, people felt free to advise me to do, and not do, everything under the sun. I nodded politely and trusted my own feelings on important decisions and have never regretted it. I know when to recognize my own weaknesses, but I’ve also learned that I know what’s best for my business and to trust my own convictions, even when they feel like going against the grain. Sometimes you The have to stick your neck out to make a difference and inspire positive change in your community. Entrepreneurial Age is just getting 6 warmed up. 7 JUSTIN BILICKI is the 2000 winner of the prestigious Locher Award, and his cartoons have appeared on the cover of Congressional Quarterly and inside The Los Angeles Times, amNewYork, Metro, New York Press, San Francisco Examiner, Cincinnati Enquirer, New York Press, and hundreds of other publications you’ve never heard of. In addition to editorial, he has illustrated advertisements for Citibank, Absolut Vodka, Snapple, DSW, TBS, and Toyota. He also teaches a summer journalism workshop on editorial cartooning at Michigan State University.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: The best thing I’ve ever done for my career happened before my career even started. I asked myself one simple question. Regardless of money, what would I do with myself if I had all the spare time in the world? I chose political cartooning. Shortly after that, when I ran out of money, I asked myself a second question. If I had to make money during the day to support my political cartooning, what would I do with myself ?” I found advertising. I quickly realized that one career could not survive without the other. Both were completely different creative platforms that make going into work during the day, and at night, worth the lack of sleep.
JESSICA DELFINO is a controversial singer, songwriter, and comedian. She has been featured in many publications, including the New York Times, Time Out New York, The New York Daily News, New York Magazine, JANE Magazine, and The Guardian. She has won numerous awards, including beating out Flight of the Conchords to win a Best Musical Comedy Act ECNY award, and a Village Voice “Best of ” Award, in which the Village Voice declared her to be “fall-off-your-chair hilarious,” as well as the Arlene’s Grocery “Gong Show,” which later became The Gong Show with Dave Attell on Comedy Central. She has appeared on Good Morning America as a finalist in a national comedy competition, on The Russell Brand Radio Show, Red Eye With Greg Gutfeld, and more. Coincidentally, she’s been publicly denounced by the U.S. Catholic League for some of her viral videos, alongside other performers, such as Bill Maher, Marilyn Manson, and Sarah Silverman. You can find Delfino playing the guitar, the ukulele, and sometimes, the rape whistle, regularly around New York. For more info, visit JessicaDelfino.com. Follow Delfino on Twitter: @jessicadelfino.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: I took a break, re-evaluated, and spent some quality time with my family and myself. Due to this, I was able to formulate a new plan and come back swingin’. When I returned to my work, I felt rejuvenated and refreshed, confident and ready to kick some ass, balls, and vagina (in the kindest, gentlest possible way, of course).
6 7 CAROLINE SUH is a New York–based documentary director-producer. Her first independent feature film, Frontrunners, was released theatrically in 2008 by Oscilloscope Productions (with a premiere at the New Yorker Festival and Film Forum), aired on the Sundance Channel in fall 2010, and was featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Newsweek. She also has produced numerous films and television documentaries for the History Channel (10 Days That Changed America: Antietam, Trio (Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking of Heaven’s Gate), A&E, and PBS. Most recently, she was the series producer for Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts, for which she has produced six episodes, overseeing the fifth anniversary season.
JENN PELLY, the event’s youngest panelist, is a New York–based writer, blogger, and DJ. A student at NYU, she hosts the “New Afternoon Show” on WNYU 89.1 FM, contributes to the Pitchfork site Altered Zones, and books DIY shows in Brooklyn and beyond. Her writing has been published online by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, SPIN, and the Village Voice, and in print by Nylon, the Long Island Press, and more. Jenn and her twin sister, Liz, blog about music and DIY culture at Pellytwins.blogspot.com. Her most played track on iTunes is “One More Hour” by Sleater-Kinney.
Photographer SETH KUSHNER has been freelancing since graduating from School of Visual Arts, and his work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek, L’Uomo Vogue, the New Yorker, and others. Kushner was chosen by Photo District News magazine as one of its “30 under 30” and is twice-winner of their Photo Annual Competition. Kushner’s first book, The Brooklynites, published by powerHouse Books in 2007, was considered a “terrific coffee-table book” by the New York Times. Kushner is working on his Web series CulturePOP Photocomix, mixing his photography with a comic book-type format on ACT-I-VATE.com, and on his next book, Leaping Tall Buildings: The History of American Comic Books.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: The single best thing I’ve ever done for my career was taking on my first long-term project which became my first book, The Brooklynites. Working on the project gave me a direction in my work and constant new material to promote. Once published, having the book gave me a 240-page, hardcover promo piece to show to prospective clients. It also helped me to create a branding tool for my work, and now, over three years later, I’m still booking Brooklyn-centric branding projects. I am now working on finishing Leaping Tall Buildings: The Origins of American Comic Books and working on my latest project, CulturePOP: Photocomix, which fuses my photos with a comic book-type format to profile subjects.
Moderator: SHAINA FEINBERG is a jack-of-all-trades. She has contributed to This American Life, collaborates with comedian Dave Hill, has worked as an editor for various people and publications including The New York Observer, produces audio for museums, nonprofits and more, and is the creator of hypercrafting. 8 The Art and Craft of Commerce
SUSAN GREGG KOGER is the Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder of ModCloth (modcloth. com), the online retailer selling independent designer fashion and decor with a highly engaged following of millions of female shoppers. Gregg Koger started ModCloth when she was just 17, taking her love of thrifting to start an online business. ModCloth was operated out of dorm rooms and basements for four years, and after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006, Gregg Koger and husband/co-founder Eric Koger decided to expand by selling vintage-inspired clothing from talented indie designers around the world. Today ModCloth has grown into a thriving business of more than 230 employees, and the company has since gained attention for its dedication to customer engagement on the site, as well as for being a vanguard in the social-media sphere. Their goal is to democratize fashion and build a social-shopping community that empowers both indie designers and customers. Koger was recognized by Inc. magazine as the “#2 Top Entrepreneur under 30” and named to BusinessWeek’s 2010 list of the “Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs.” Koger is living her dream, and now she has made it her mission to build a community that allows her customers to do the same.
DANIELLE MAVEAL, Etsy’s Education Coordinator, works to help artists, crafters, and makers earn a creative living selling their work. She shares tips on Etsy’s blog, in Etsy Success (a biweekly newsletter), and hosts live workshops through Etsy’s online classrooms. Maveal started making and selling her etched jewelry on Etsy in 2007 and has sold more than 1,000 unique pieces. Since then she’s been featured in magazines and shopping blogs, and her work has been carried by more than 50 galleries and boutiques worldwide. Her focus is to encourage, motivate, and educate crafters running their own small, independent businesses.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: The very proudest day of my Etsy career was February 8, 2011, a day of workshops I organized at Etsy and called the Etsy Success Symposium. The year before I attended small business conferences all over North America, and I learned so much (and met so many interesting people)! I knew that many Etsy sellers couldn’t afford to attend or travel to these conferences, so I wanted to have an accessible and inspiring day-long event here at the Etsy Labs. We broadcast many of the workshops online and had over 4,000 people tuning in! I love seeing creative people—who are usually fighting the good fight at home alone in their offices and studios—get together. The energy here at the Etsy Labs that day was incredible.
LAURYN BALLESTEROS is a partnership and special-sales ninja and works as the head of sales for Seth Godin’s The Domino Project, working with cutting-edge companies to help them use books as an effective marketing tool. She started her first company almost two years ago in real estate where she had the chance to work with gurus Paul Esajian and Than Merrill from Flip This House in San Diego.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: The best thing I did for my career was quit and persist. Oppositional thoughts? Not so much. I quit my job, I quit my first business, and I quit my toxic relation- ships. I quit bad clients, poor leads, and the NYC bus system. Then I persisted in working with people I admired 8 and hoped to learn from. And when I learned what I could, I quit again and persisted in something else... The New Music Industry
MOLLY NEUMAN began her career in music as a founding member of feminist punk band Bratmobile and continued on into nearly every job imaginable from there—from label owner, to artist manager to label relations executive for a digital retailer. In short, she’s nearly done it all in the music industry. Now she’s added natural-foods chef and nutritional consultant to her résumé and hopes to connect all these dots into a scalable health and wellness program for young women and artists. She’s the owner of Simple Social Kitchen and Simple Social Graces Discos and is Senior Director of Label and Artist Relations at eMusic.com. Follow Neuman on Twitter: @simplesocial.
GREGORY JACKSON rocked many concert halls as touring bassist for Burning Spear a.k.a. Winston Rodney. He also has performance and writing credits with the Brit-, Mercury-, and Grammy-winning artist Amy Winehouse. He has a Source Magazine award nomination for best remix, through his work with Dead Prez featuring Jay-Z. Originally from Yorktown Heights, New York, he was classically trained on the bass violin by Dr. Arthur Davis. Jackson toured and recorded with the Westchester, New York State, and Toronto Youth Symphonies. He earned his BA and MPA degrees from Lafayette College and Rutgers University. Jackson’s experiences include extensive world tours, major festivals, and broadcast appearances across cities in North and South America, Africa, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Jackson’s performance, recording, and writing credits include Erykah Badu, Amy Winehouse, Simply Red, Leela James, Joss Stone, Wild Cookie, Jeru, Midnite, David Banner, Dead Prez, and Snoop Dogg.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: Making the tough choice to quit my job when I had no real reason to do so. I was comfortable, making a great salary, and living in a New Jersey suburb with a big car. I had a position of authority but had to face what seemed like my biggest fear—but also my biggest desire—to see what life was truly like on the other side, as a creative soul. I kept a list of the kind of things I would be doing if money weren’t an object and failure wasn’t an option. Being a full-time musician, performing in New York, touring the world, and making recordings with established artists were high on the list. It took a while, but after some self-assessing, I found the confidence to shift gears—even if it would turn out to only be temporary. But after living much of my life with dual careers—one that paid the bills, and the other that brought a special kind of pleasure and happiness—I said, “Why not give it a whirl?” I convinced myself that nothing really is a failure except to not pursue my own dreams. Of course, I had to have a plan, so I tried to save some money to live on. I cut expenses and truly lived on a budget. I left my house and moved into a studio. I got rid of the car and bought a bike. I planned networking and other music-career relationship-building opportunities into my time. Having the courage to trust my judgment and to cash in on the music- business relationships I had developed over the years turned into huge opportunities that came very quickly. I grew my dreads as a reminder of my decision to trust in my own judgments and not worry about what others may think. In the end, I had to choose between working with Lauryn Hill on the short term, or with Burning Spear on the longer term. I took the Spear gig, and went out on the road. I turned that exposure into
10 11 endorsement opportunities, which netted me the resources to upgrade my sound and my groove. In the end, the big lesson for me, is that it’s fine to embrace uncertainty. That part of my development as a creative individual requires me to make space for something completely new, challenging, and meaningful in my own grand scheme of how I wish to live my life. It’s not set in stone. As I progress with my careers, my self-assessment brings me new and different ideas, based on the experiences I’ve had.
Moderator: Evie Nagy is Managing Editor of RollingStone.com. She previously worked at Billboard for five years, where she was first an intern and then associate editor for the print magazine before becoming the editor of Billboard Pro, Billboard’s site for independent and developing musicians. With an interest in the developing sector of the music business, she started a series of artist-focused how-to’s for the magazine, which offered advice from industry leaders and innovative DIY musicians. A former university administrator and speech writer, she has a master’s degree from NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism program, and was secretly once in a girl group. She has written about music, comic books, and culture for a variety of publications, and her writing was published in Best Music Writing 2010. She also co-wrote the afterword for a new anthology of rock writing by the late Ellen Willis, the first pop music critic for the New Yorker.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: The best thing I’ve done for my career is probably not what everyone wants to hear, nor was it very creative: I went back to grad school. I had been working in the education field for about seven years, and started freelancing for local music publications in Boston when I decided I wanted to do it full time. I was already in my late 20s, and a complete career change, especially to something riskier like music journalism, seemed too scary to do without some kind of guiding hand. I read about Ellen Willis’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at NYU, and it was exactly what I was looking for, so it was the only place I applied. There is obviously a wide range of opinions on the value and usefulness of journalism school, and I won’t say every moment of it fed my career, but what it did do was focus me, introduce me to others in the field, and genuinely improve my writing and reporting. Most importantly, it gave me access to internships, many of which are only open to students for credit. I was an intern at Billboard when I was 30 years old, which might not sound very desirable or smart, but it was the reason I got a job. Going back to school isn’t the right option for everyone, and the amount of debt I’m in as a result could buy me a second home, but it was the key for me. 14 million Americans are .
10 11 DIY Content Strategy
MARY S. BUTLER is a Senior Content Strategist for Razorfish, one of the world’s largest interactive agencies. She is the content-strategy lead for consumer automotive site-content requirements and oversees a team of content strategists and content-strategy deliverables across project lifecycles. Butler collaborates with other discipline leads on social-media content strategy, consumer lifecycle strategy, user experience, and user research to create engaging consumer-focused experiences that surpass user expectations and align with business objectives. “While it is relatively easy to create a Twitter profile and a Facebook page, creating content that will engage your audience and achieve your business objectives is more difficult,” Butler says, discussing her thoughts about planning the panel. “Without the money to hire a content strategist, copy writer, and social media specialist, what should DIYers do?” In short, Butler will provide examples of ways that creative small businesses and freelancers can maximize their budgets with engaging content.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: One of the best things I did for my career came about when I transitioned from print to online in the ’90s. At the time, it wasn’t just publishers who were skeptical of the digital medium. I went from being a senior editor of a seven-figure circulation national magazine and website to an editorial producer at a pre-launch website and had difficulty obtaining media kits and getting my calls returned. That experience motivated me to build my own brand, and to not rely on the name of my employer to open doors for me.
RYAN J. DAVIS writes and video-blogs about politics and entertainment for The Huffington Post, and is a political pundit on The Hill. By day, he works as the Social Media Director for Blue State Digital, a full-service digital agency that develops engagement campaigns for advocacy campaigns; clients include American Red Cross, HBO, NAACP, National Geographic, and Vogue.
“You have to yourself, because no one else knows what you dream of.” —Catharina Bruns, workisnotajob
12 13 SCOTT LINDENBAUM is the Co-Publisher and Editor of Electric Literature, a quarterly anthology of top-notch short stories, delivered in every viable medium. Electric Literature uses new media and innovative distribution to return the short story to a place of prominence in popular culture. Lindenbaum’s roots are unconventional in the field of publishing; for almost 10 years, he was a half-pipe snowboard competitor who rode for Burton. It was only after a near-fatal collision with a birch tree in 2001 that reading, writing, and editing became central in his life. In 2010, Lindenbaum was included in L Magazine’s “Young New Yorkers Who Are Better Than You.”
SAMARA KAUFMAN is the DIYBA Conference MC for Etsy Labs. She is a nonprofit strategist, innovation junkie, idea generator, and change maker. She is currently the Business Process Improvement Manager at Girl Scouts of the USA. She has been working in the social sector for more than 12 years to help organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters, Jumpstart, and the Girl Scouts grow, thrive, and innovate.
Moderator: DIXIE LAITE, the Senior Editorial Director for MTV Networks’ TeenNick, has been working in (and watching way too much) television for over 20 years. Laite has put the “broad” in broadcasting for a host of TV and Web brands, including PBS, Oxygen, Oprah, AMC, WE, the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and Nickelodeon’s digital channels for teens and preschoolers. She works with producers, marketers, and writers on branding, scripts, promo copy, and the occasional song. (Laite created, and wrote most of the songs for, popular animated hosts Moose A. Moose and Zee.) Laite also works as an editorial and social media marketing consultant.
Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career So Far: Years ago I had an epiphany where I realized no matter for whom or what company I worked, in reality I always “work for myself.” I decided no matter what my employment situation, I had the power—and the responsibility—to shape my path, explore my passions, support other people, and to always do my very best. This perspective has fostered curiosity, initiative, and a sense of personal freedom and accountability. Although I haven’t always followed through like I should (I’m a work in progress, people!), this outlook has helped me take stock of what I care about and what I have to offer; to investigate where I need to learn more and grow; and to explore what unique value I can bring to the different types of work and people I encounter. It’s helped me take on new challenges, leave my comfort zone, and to own what I do—and what I don’t know—with confidence and a genuine desire to be of service to consumers and co-workers. Also, I’m mindful that I am always in the customer service business—whether those customers are TV viewers, clients, or people purchasing my nutty tchotchkes on Etsy.
12 13 We’re defining a new generation of workers— the DIYT community.
14 15 NOTES What did I Learn/ Who did I Meet/ What Do I want For Dinner?
14 15 NOTES
16 17 NOTES
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