Indispensable Community Tour with Pamela Slim

Indispensable Community Tour

Build your network, build your business, build your confidence

Every November, I watch tens of thousands of people participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and see them encourage each other to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

I give knowing nods to fellow Peet’s Coffee customers as we stand in line to receive the nectar of the gods.

I actually understand people who camp in line at Apple stores for days when a new product comes out. Feeling a sleek new iPhone in my hand is physical poetry.

I watch with delight as my kids and their friends build fantastic new worlds in Minecraft, and share their creations on YouTube with access to millions of other fans.

Your favorite communities might be Harley Davidson or The Grateful Dead or St Jude.

When we connect with others who share our interests, we feel good. We are part of something bigger. We feel accepted and loved.

In my husband’s Diné (Navajo) language, this feeling is described in the word  Ak’éí – meaning my family, my relatives, my relations.

Hamming it up with Hugh McLeod and Brian Solis in the Blogger’s Lounge at SXSW (a community building paradise, when you know how to manage the overwhelm)

Creating the feeling of connection in your company or non-profit organization, then building specific business processes, marketing  and customer engagement strategies to make community grow will set you up for a successful, fun and meaningful business.

As a business owner for almost 20 years, my greatest joy has been cultivating a strong, supportive, thriving community of clients and partners who have not only supported me and my family with their business over the years, but have connected with each other in deep ways that has grown the influence, income and success of the community as a whole.

How do you build community?

The biggest questions I get from business owners and companies who serve the small business market are:

• Where do I start to build my community?
• How do I find people who would be ideal customers or colleagues?
• How do I choose great partners or funders?
• How do I nurture my connection with those in my community while still having time to do my actual work?
• How do I develop a more robust and diverse community of peers and customers?
• How do I develop a real business from a random collection of friends, colleagues and social media connections?

Fun with friends at The Small Business Web Summit in May, 2015.

Announcing the Indispensable Community Tour!

I am traveling to 18 21 cities to do an intensive, hands-on, super practical workshop to share what I have learned in two decades building communities online and offline. I will also be sharing lessons from your communities with my global audience.

My super hidden extremely explicit agenda for the tour: introduce you to other great people in your own community who you can collaborate with.

Amanda Wang of Rethink BPD, Serge Sognonvi of UMA, a sweaty Pam Slim, and Carmen Sognonvi of UMA, and the Sognonvi kids. Serge and Carmen lead a passionate community of martial artists at their studio in Brooklyn, New York, Urban Martial Arts.

Who this event is for:

• Entrepreneurs
• Artists
• Writers who want to sell books
• Social entrepreneurs
• Civic and governmental organizations
• Faith organizations
• Corporate employees
• Anyone not mentioned above who would like to come!

What will you learn in the workshop?

• 8 part model for powerful community building
• Lessons from the best community building brands and organizations in the world today
• How to choose, create and share content that supports and builds community
• Top tips for creating in-person and online meetups that work
• Answers to your specific community building questions, in the Q&A portion of the workshop

Washington, DC meetup last year at Busboys and Poets.

What are the tour dates?

July

28 – Berkeley, CA
29 – Sunnyvale, CA

August

17 – Boston, MA
18 – New York, NY
20 – Philadelphia, PA
21 – Washington, DC
31 – Portland, OR

September

1 – Seattle, WA
3 – Vancouver, BC Canada
15 – Sioux Falls, SD
16 – Fargo, ND
17 – Minneapolis, MN
18 – Chicago, IL
30 – Austin, TX

October

7 – Los Angeles, CA
28 – Denver, CO
29 – Las Vegas, NV

November

2 – Phoenix, AZ
6 – San Diego, CA
9 – Charlotte, NC
10 – Raleigh, NC
12 – Atlanta, GA – With special guests Lamar and Ronnie Tyler of blackandmarriedwithkids.com
13 – Orlando, FL

Investment:

$99 per person.

or just $149 for two!

The fee includes:

1. 4 hour intensive workshop from 8am-12pm
2. Coffee and morning snacks
3. Access to follow up resources including an Indispensable Community Directory including all tour participants and sponsors (participation will be voluntary), an e-book filled with community building tips and access to the Indispensable Community Tour Facebook Group.
4. The opportunity to be in a room filled with truly warm, friendly, diverse, smart peers and allies from your local area.

Sign me up!

Are you ready to expand your community building skills to grow your business, your organization or your cause?

Step 1: Choose Your City

Step 2: Sign up. (Sign up for 2 people and get a $49 discount! Just add 2 registrations to your shopping cart, enter “149TOUR” and hit Apply)

Step 3: Stay tuned for location specifics. Prepare for a fun, useful and engaging day!

Location	Date	Local Time	Host
Raleigh, NC	Nov. 10		Center For Excellence
Atlanta, GA	Nov. 12		Center for Civic Innovation (Joined by Lamar + Ronnie Tyler)
Orlando, FL	Nov. 13		Nur Corner
Austin, TX	Sept. 30		The Driskill
Boston, MA	Aug. 17		Tufts University
Charlotte, NC	Nov. 9		Packard Place
Chicago, IL	Sept. 18		Columbia College
Denver, CO	Oct. 28		Artwork Network Gallery & Event Center
Fargo, ND	Sept. 16		The Prairie Den
Las Vegas, NV	Oct. 29		Work In Progress
Los Angeles, CA	Oct. 7		NextSpace
Minneapolis, MN	Sept. 17		Schmidt Artists Lofts
New York City, NY	Aug. 18		School of Visual Arts
Philadelphia, PA	Aug. 20		The Hactory
Phoenix, AZ	Nov. 2		Infusionsoft
Portland, OR	Aug. 31		Ruby Receptionists
San Diego, CA	Nov. 6		Rancho Bernardo Inn
San Francisco Bay (Berkeley, CA)	July 28		Mothership Hackermoms
Seattle, WA	Sept. 1		Chase Jarvis Studio
Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale, CA)	July 29		Duarte
Sioux Falls, SD	Sept. 15		Sioux Falls Design Center
Vancouver, BC Canada	Sept. 3		Vancouver Public Library
Washington, DC (Arlington, VA)	Aug. 21		1776 Crystal City

 

Don’t see your city on the list and want me to come to your town?

Drop us a line at support@pamelaslim.com. We will see what we can do!

Getting down and funky at Body of Work Live

Most Awesome Sponsors:

It takes a village to manage a tour! Special thanks to our sponsors:

 

Do you want to be a sponsor? We would love to talk to you! Send a message to support@pamelaslim.com or call 480-455-1441.

FAQs

I am an introvert. Will there be forced hugging and mandatory Soul Train lines?

No! Wait, maybe! What I mean is that hugging and Soul Train lines are totally optional. I have worked with Susan Cain’s Quiet Revolution for a long time, and understand that not everyone wants to engage in spontaneous acts of public exuberance. You are welcome to attend and participate in the workshop in a way that makes you comfortable. I will not shout “Yes or Yes?!?” from the front of the room. I will only hug you with your complicity. (I love to hug)

What if I don’t plan to start a huge company, or global movement. Will this still apply?

 Absolutely. Your idea of a  big community might be 5 carefully selected partners, and a customer base of 100 . The basics still apply!

I have an (online) (brick and mortar) (global) (local) (small) (big) (social good) business. Will this apply to me?

Yes! I am teaching community and business building principles that I have used in the non-profit, fundraising, large corporate and small business worlds. My clients have come from every industry and type of business you can imagine.

Why don’t you have the addresses of the locations listed yet?

When we see the total number of registrants in each area, we will confirm locations. We aim to find locations that will be near public transportation, accessible and comfortable. We are working with partner companies, co-working spaces and organizations to host the workshop groups. This will not be a stuffy, coffee-stained hotel room event. If you are a company in that area that wants to host a delightful group at your facility, let us know by sending an email to support@pamelaslim.com. 

How many people will be there?

 We are aiming for an upper limit of 50 in each location. But if we have big demand and can find a good venue, we will stretch the capacity, while maintaining comfort and intimacy.

Will this be one of  those events with a bunch of speakers where I just sit in my chair, passively taking notes?

Nope! While I may invite a special guest from each location to share their story of successful community building, this workshop is taught by me. I believe in interaction, sharing examples from participants, and engaging in conversation.

How can you be sure that great people will show up at the event in my city? 

In the last 10 years, I have hosted hundreds of community events, online and offline. In every case, I have attracted smart, kind, ambitious, funny, hard-working people. To set modesty aside for one moment, I have the greatest community in the world. If I were a betting woman, I would say that if you don’t meet at least 5 cool people at your event that I would hand you a hundred dollar bill.

 

Fellow speakers at Jullien Gordon and Mike Ambassador Bruny at Scholarcon, where we built community with the top high school scholars in the country.

About Pam

 

Pamela Slim is an award-winning author, speaker and business consultant who has been an entrepreneur for nineteen years. Her passion for career and organizational development spans many different work modes and client engagements.

A former Director of Training and Development at Barclays Global Investors in San Francisco, she spent the first 10 years of her business as a consultant to large companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab and Cisco Systems, where she worked with thousands of executives, managers and employees.

In the second decade of her business, she helped hundreds of people to start successful companies. She built a powerful online presence at Escape from Cubicle Nation, a site designed for corporate employees who wanted to make the shift to entrepreneur.  At Escape, Pam developed and taught business building courses for thousands of entrepreneurs. She has worked with companies serving the small business market such as Infusionsoft and Citrix.

Pam is a passionate community builder. Pam was the volunteer Executive Director for ten years for Omulu Capoeira Group, where she taught martial arts to over 250 youth, and over a thousand adults. Her degree is in International Service and Development.

 

Participants from Build a Movement, Change the World, a fundraiser at the Port Costa School. Photo by Eugene Chan.

Fine Print:

Due to the mountain of logistics required to carry off a multi-city tour like this, registration for this workshop is non-refundable, but fully transferrable. In plain English, if for whatever reason you sign up for a workshop and cannot make it — you get a cold, you win a free ticket to Hawaii, your client calls you the night before with a crushing amount of work — you can either sell your ticket to a friend, or a ticket will be gifted to someone in your local area who wants to attend and cannot afford it. We will have a waiting list for stand-bys to fill in. You will still get full access to the bonus materials and the Facebook group.

Questions?