WalkaboutNYC: Campfire - Immersive Marketing Experiences

Welcome to Part Three of my personal WalkaboutNYC 2012 Startup Tour! To read more about why exactly startups in the city opened their doors on this day, check out my first post in this series: Walkabout NYC 2012 Recap: Startup-Hopping In the City.

I started out the day at OpenPlans (WalkaboutNYC: OpenPlans - Trip Planning At Its Best), and from there it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to the next stop on my list - Campfire.

Campfire

First impressions are important, and after sliding yourself into the old-fashioned elevator, you can't help but wonder what this place has in store for you. But the well-appointed office with an open floor plan, an interesting wall full of clocks (just don't try and use them to tell time) and a well-stocked kitchen offering tantalizing snacks and drinks soon set me at ease.

Walkabout NYC 2012 Recap: Startup-Hopping In the City

This year, I was lucky enough to hear about Walkabout NYC, a semi-annual startup-hopping event, just days before it took place.

What inspired me to sign up for an afternoon spent rushing around SoHo, Bowery, and the Flatiron District? Well, for starters, I love going to events in the city where I'm likely to run into cool and interesting people. And, as a freelancer writer, I'm basically running the "startup of me" - so it never hurts to get new ideas, especially when they're related to marketing, media, branding, or technology.

Walkabout NYC turned out to be a great opportunity to visit the beautiful Silicon Alley offices of OpenPlans, Campfire, Gin Lane Media, and Flightpath. At each location, my fellow Walkabouters and I were treated to insights into the company's products and services, customer base, and origins, along with some great views and tasty treats. The startups were forced to get creative with squeezing a lot of content into a small amount of time - within the space of the hour, participants had to arrive from their previous location, listen to a presentation, indulge in snacks, ask questions, and be off on their merry way to the next destination.

Second Meeting of the Writeous Writers

Okay, it's about time I posted about the second meeting of my new writer's group, Writeous Writers. Once again, I met with amazing women, ate some amazing food, and learned some amazing things.

Suzy, who is new to the group since last month, is working on a non-fiction book about making workers more productive. I think she's got a great shot at it, because she already has regular speaking engagements presenting material similar to what she plans to put in the book, which will form an important part of her marketing plan. She gave us some great information about formatting non-fiction submissions for publication: note that the process can be very different from submitting fiction, so make sure that you have the right information. Dee brought in a short story (yay for rounding out our genre count!), and we worked more on novel manuscripts by Michille and myself. I was glad to hear that my critiquers approved of the brief poems I've included in my manuscript. I love the way that Tolkien incorporates poetry and song into his works, but I know that those forms can be very hit or miss, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see with those.

Next month we're going to have a quick session about websites before we get into the critiquing. Remember, a website is a great way to promote your work, and Weebly is a great way to set up your website!