4 Tips for Effective Conference Note-Taking

Improv Writing by Mary Gow
Improv Writing, Digital Image by Mary Gow
Do you go to a lot of conferences and take a lot of notes?

Don Crowther is an internet marketing expert and creator of the Social Profit Formula. I haven’t enrolled in his workshops yet but in a one of his many generously informative webinars he shared tips on effective conference note-taking. Here’s some points I thought were worth remembering:

1) Write down as much as you can. Later type up your notes. Something registers when you use you write rather than type.

2) Write all your notes in one place. He takes all his notes in the 5.2” wide Moleskine ruled.

3) Teach the content you just learned within 24 hours of receiving it.

4) Develop your own code for key take away points, like putting dashes one quarter inch closer to the left margin as an action item.

As an aside, there was a whole segment about business cards.

Put your photo on your business card. People at conferences will remember you better.

Don’t get business cards that are glossy on both sides. It makes writing notes on the back too difficult.

Do you like to type your notes instead of write them? How do you register names with faces of people you meet at conferences?

Startling Statistics Reveal a Video Revolution


I hope you enjoy this fun informative short video I got from James Wedmore.

Mind boggling,isn’t it, that in ONE minute online, 2.8 million videos are viewed on YouTube?

I signed up for Wedmore’s Video Traffic Academy. He offers an on-line set of modules which take you step-by-step on how to use YouTube to drive more traffic to your business.

I’m still going through the material and I just found out he’s produced a new version of his course! The course unbelievably priced at only $97. As you may know I rarely promote a product on my blog. And I am recommending Video Traffic Academy if you want to learn how to drive your business to the top of Google rankings.

To sign up, click on this link to sign up. Just so you know in advance, that is an affiliate link. If you sign up from that link, I would receive a commission at no added expense to you.

Are you part of the video revolution or want to be?

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Who Can Tell Your Mother’s Story?


“You should tell the story of your mother.”

The movie may have prompted her to say that to me.

Whatever prompted her, it hit me like a thunderstorm in the desert.

Not many people really knew my mother the way I knew her.

Actually, no one knew her like I did.

And that special knowingness between mother and daughter, and honoring those who paid our way is what Felicia Lowe inspects in her one hour documentary, Chinese Couplets.

The film tells the story of her mother’s identity and what drove her to secrecy about where she was really from.

It’s a heroine’s journey that many immigrant families can identify with. There’s just three days left in her current Indiegogo campaign.

Thank you Ms. Lowe and the lady sitting next to me at the California Historical Society screening of segments from Chinese Couplets.

Here’s a photo of my mother when she visited me in San Francisco. She was a courageous woman who withstood tremendous hardships, like surviving near death giving birth and braving wartime invasions.

She paid meticulous attention to details and wrote beautifully.

She loved to recite poetry.

Who knew?

Moma Gow
My mother at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco

Sense the Space: Improvise!

Here’s another Rock Star in the World of Calligraphy.

She just gave a five day workshop at Fort Mason in San Francisco. It was sold out.

Sense the Space, by Monica Dengo
Sense the Space, by Monica Dengo
Thank you, Monica Dengo, for a great reason to travel to Italy.

Dengo lives in Arezzo, about an hour south of Florence. I met her for a nanosecond during the time she lived in San Francisco in the 1990’s.

She teaches in Italy and worldwide and her work is in public and private collections. You can find out all about her courses at her calligraphy teaching website, freehandwriting.net.

I’m especially drawn to artists like Dengo, whose work exudes a vibrant aliveness.

It’s not about a literal reproduction of what we see.

It’s more an EXPRESSION of it.

It’s art that goes where words can’t.

Gestural art captures a feeling.

Gestural art is alive!

I did my own experiment and created some improvisational calligraphy. The piece below I worked a little further on with some improv digital a la Adobe Photoshop.

Improv + Digital by Mary Gow
Improv + Digital by Mary Gow

Hopefully Monica Dengo will be back next year for another demo and class. You can find one of her large scale pieces in the permanent collection of the Mountain View Public Library on the second floor.

Though Kalligraphia 13 is over, there’s a calligraphy demo by David Goggin on Friday, August 31, 6:30 to 8pm, at the Red Vic, at 1665 Haight Street, San Francisco, and he’s teaching a class there on September 1st.

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