Today I headed over to Le Pain Quotidien Café in Leichhardt on a rainy Sydney morning, looking forward to catching up with the Inner West Sydney Coffee Morning crowd - Twitter group #wscm

I met the organiser over Twitter a while back -- Tony @TheLatteGuy -- and one never knows who will show up each week, which makes it all the more fun.  I missed out on quite a few weeks, but I was determined to go today -- for the vibrant conversations as well as the delicious coffee and croissants.

I was the first to arrive, with Sue hot on my heels, and we quickly got chatting about teething problems for small businesses starting out. One of the main topics was HOW and WHERE to find new customers/clients.

As they others arrived -- Sean, Tony, Heidi and Ken -- the conversations went hurtling along new roads and into sometimes often unchartered territory, and we all learnt so much from each other.

I do love this opportunity to get to know other locals and to have the opportunity to learn from them and also share with them. We each have experience in our own fields and niches, and it's great to be able to give back and help someone out.

Today's topics in which I participated included:

• small business marketing
• using online Press Releases to target local business areas
• how to do a 301 Redirect when a business decides to change their domain name (and the pitfalls if not done properly)
• signing up for Gmail.com and using Google Docs Forms feature for all kinds of things, including creating a simple way to enter financial details which need to be tracked
• how to login to different types of websites so the website owner can have control over the content of their site (and why some people would rather outsource this)
• creating a Page on a Facebook account, specifically for your business - the pro's and cons.

Not a bad list for an hour and a half! And I was just warming up :D

I won't be able to attend next week as I have been invited to showcase my handpainted silk skills at the Royal Easter Show on Mon to Wed, 12-14th April. Three days of demonstrations and talking the crowds? I'll love it!

That's it for this week

Cheers
Teena!