Free Geek Twin Cities - a non-profit recycler and trainer

I had the opportunity to get a tour of Free Geek Twin Cities this summeer.  Located at 2537 25th Ave, across the alley from Memory Lanes Bowling Alley at 26th Ave S and E 26th St., it provides computer recycling and sells parts and computers.  It also can train people in computer maintenance, and teardown.  Their mission is to help with the digital divide, and electronic waste.  They have a few core volunteers who are dedicated to this cause, and then about 100 on the list of volunteers. 

It, like many non-profits these days, is in a bit of financial trouble and needs money, volunteers and promotion help.  This is good place to take your surplus and damaged computers and electronics.  It is also a good place to find basic computers and parts at very reasonable prices.

See www.freegeektwincities.org for more information and hours.

Winning Investment Presentations by Joan Moser

I was happy I had a chance to catch the presentation by Joan Moser to the St. Paul SCORE monthly meeting on Tuesday, August 13.  She is the best speaker I’ve seen in some time.  Joan runs Spoken Impact, a business where she does consulting and coaching on presentations for businesses, particularly small and medium businesses want to ask for money, www.spokenimpact.com .

She started early on with a joke, asking the presenter “Did you skip the interesting part of your talk on purpose?”  She kept going on that theme – keep your presentation exciting and interesting.  Don’t start out with an agenda or topic list.  Start with an interesting question, quote, story, etc.  Then, make your proposal clear in an exciting way.  She talks about various ways to organize the main part of the presentation.  Usually it is “Problem – Solution”, but you can also use a story and an example, or an analogy, etc.

She says that when you ask for money, you need to answer three questions:
• How big and great is the need
• Is your differentiation unique, exciting and defensible? A unique selling proposition or the secret sauce is required.
• Can you answer my major objection which is …
The hardest one is probably the last, because it could be anything.  But, your initial discussion should address any major objections you anticipate, before they get raised as questions or, worse, keep your audience from focusing on what else you are saying.

You probably already have a presentation in hand, and then you should go through it with an eye to “So What?”  If you can, move all the details out of the main path, and into the appendix, or into the notes to the slides.

The best recommendation in my eyes was her recommendation that you go to www.ted.com and watch the very good presentations there.  It is a wonderful site for observing good presentation technique, and better yet, you will be educated at the same time in some useful topic.  You can keep coming back and learn new things every day. 

But, here are a few tips from Joan on developing engaging delivery –
• Connect with the audience and not with the slides – slides reinforce the presenter, not the reverse
• Use confident, open body language – no fig leaf posture
• Add meaningful gestures that pull the audience in
• Add some REAL personality

Joan went into a large number of recommendations that I won’t repeat.  You can get in on one of her small group presentations via her website, or many other offerings.  She did cite Guy Kawasaki’s guidelines http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html.  I recommend you look at the other material in Guy’s  blog or get his books.

Joan also volunteers with the Minnesota Cup, coaching the finalist presenters in this contest.  See www.breakthroughideas.org for information on this great opportunity for entrepreneurs.

General Services Administration (GSA) Small Business Utilization

Each region of the GSA has an Office of Small Business Utilization to help facilitate companies doing business with the federal government.  The one for Minnesota is at www.gsa.gov/r5smallbusiness.

The Rocky Mountain Region web page has a bit more information:
The SBUC is especially interested in locating businesses in these categories (links to Small Business Administration pages): small, small disadvantaged and Section 8(a), woman-owned small, HUBZone small, veteran-owned small and service-disabled veteran owned small businesses that are interested in competing for federal government contracts.

The SBUC provides informational workshops and also one-on-one counseling to small business owners. Businesses interested in contracting with federal civilian and military agencies within the Rocky Mountain Region should review the procurement directory [DOCX 125 KB] , a comprehensive guide to the federal marketplace.