This is one of the largest and most well-attended independent Fashion showcases in the Pacific Northwest, and we love nothing more than to debut little-known, fresh talent, so Portland-area apparel and accessory designers interested in participating should send us an introductory statement about you and your designs, including your background, materials, objectives, inspirations—anything that will help paint a better picture of your point of view. Additionally, please send us photographs of at least three completed pieces (the more the merrier). Supplementary materials like sketches, process photos, swatches, etc. are welcome, but *please do not send anything you need returned to you*.

We call the show “Open Season” to reflect our inclusiveness of a variety of business models and design seasons. We are interested in providing a snapshot of the best in current Portland design, and less so in uniformity of production schedules. We also love to showcase pattern and textile designers, but non-apparel designers should be prepared to present their work in complete, full-body looks that can stand alone on the runway (get creative, and feel free to think outside …

To recap the list from part one (of this three part series) titled “3 Ways to Qualify Marketing Help:”

• Google them.
• LinkedIn Profile.
• Website Bio.
• Find out how well they know Social Media.
• Results.
• The Work.

Now, for my final few:

7.) Awards and Press: This one can be a bit controversial because while awards can be a great litmus test for some, for others, not so much. The argument is that few award shows factor in “results” as a winning criteria. I can appreciate that argument. Also, if an agency is doing lots of boasting about their awards, it’s often a way of overcompensating for weaknesses in other areas. On the other hand, if someone has no awards, that’s not good either. So, seek a happy medium.

Press-worthy work is another good litmus test because great press can be a great, free, added benefit for you. So, find out if they’ve gotten any. If they have, are we talking the local Penny Saver, or The New York Times?

8.) Are they a respected industry thought leader? The more respected they are in their industry, the better the chance they’re truly good at what they do. How can you know? Do they get invited to speak? Do they get interviewed? Have the agency principals been published in the trades? Are they on Wikipedia?

9.) Do they make it easy to work together? This is one you might not have considered. The fact is that investing in marketing help is a scary proposition for most business owners, especially first-timers. A smart marketing resource will be aware of that and have an easy way to start the process and test the waters.

10.) Are they driven and truly passionate about their business? It’s one of the most important, yet most overlooked items on the list. If you’re passionate about your business you’ll want to work with someone equally passionate about theirs. Sometimes you can simply hear it in their voice or see it in their eyes. You can also tell by how they present themselves online. Does it feel inspired, or rudimentary?

11.) How well do they market themselves? This one almost seems dumb because you’d assume that any marketing firm looking to help you would be awesome at their own marketing. Not true and I’ve heard all the excuses: “Well, I guess I’m like the shoemaker with no shoes.”…. “Hey, I’m just way too busy with my clients.”… yada, yada, yada.

Don’t buy it. The last thing you want to do is to hire a marketing firm that sucks at marketing themselves.

To conclude I’ll repeat a last key point that I mentioned in my first post regarding referrals. Referrals are an obvious, logical way to find help and they often work out fine. I don’t list “getting referrals” as a qualifier because everyone already knows that. What they may not know — and what this series addresses — is that a referral is just a starting point.

I could probably add a couple more to this list, but if you follow these 11 guidelines you’ll be well on your way to finding the right, qualified, marketing help. This is the final installment of this three part series. Check out part two, “3 More Ways to Qualify Marketing Help.”

Good luck, and “Happy Qualifying.”

Handshake Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

5 Final Ways to Qualify Marketing Help

It’s happening.

On March 30th, your company’s Facebook page will look very different than it does right now and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. That means you only have a couple of weeks to get your Facebook brand page in working order so you don’t look oh-so-outdated when the update is officially rolled out to everyone. To help get you prepared, below are some of the biggest areas you should be concerned with to get yourself ready for the big dance.

Your Cover Photo

First it happened to your personal profile, now it’s coming for your business page.

One of the most dramatic changes that will happen to your Facebook brand page is the adoption of a cover photo. Just like your personal cover image, your company image should be 852 pixels wide by 351 pixels high and should be something that will grab a user’s attention. Use your cover image to get across your business’ key message, to shock and awe a potential customer, to compel someone to take an action, to generate interest, etc. Whatever you pick, make sure it introduces and represents your brand in a positive way.

It’s worth noting that Facebook has already banned the use of certain words inside your cover image to prevent businesses from using these photos as advertisements. You can’t talk about prices or percentages off, you can’t include an email address or Web site URL, and you can’t include any commercial calls to action. There are Facebook ads for that.

This post has some really creative tips to rock your timeline cover photo to help you get the most out of it.

Your Profile Photo

Now that your cover image is being used to really draw in and attract users, Facebook is recommending that you use your logo as your profile photo from here on out. Remember that his box will overlap slightly with your cover photo, so don’t be afraid to work in some integration if creativity strikes.

Give Important Stories More Prominence

No two (or three or four) Facebook updates are the same, nor do they mean the same to your business. Some updates are created to start a conversation, while others may be important updates about your brand or customer alerts. To help differentiate, Facebook has released three new features to make some updates stand out from the rest – highlighting, pinning, and milestones.

1. Highlighting: Highlighting an update allows you to do just that – it allows you to make the update more prominent by making it larger and easier to find. To highlight a story on your timeline, click on the star icon located in the top right-hand corner of your update. What this does is expand your update so that it will take up the full width of your page (usually updates appear on either the right-hand or left-hand side of the page). By making the box larger, you highlight it to your users.
2. Pinning: No, no, we’re not talking about a Facebook/Pinterest integration here. Pinning allows you to pick one update and “pin” it to the top of your timeline. Once that update is pinned, it will stay there for seven days before falling back into your timeline. To pin a post, click on the pencil icon in the top right-hand corner of your update. From there, you’ll see the option to pin that update to the top of your timeline. If you’re running a promotion or if there’s an event happening you want people to be aware of, by pinning the status, it will remain at the top of your profile page and make sure anyone who visits your page sees it.
3. Milestones:Lastly, brands will have the option to add “milestone” or life events to their timeline. To add a milestone to your timeline, you can click the book icon located in the update status box. Once you do, you’ll be asked to add a headline, location, date, details and photo. Milestone photos display at 843×403 pixels and become permanent parts of your profile.

Potential business milestones to consider:

• The date you started business
• When you moved into your new office
• When you signed that major client

Admin Panel

To access your Admin panel in Facebook, click the radio button located on the right-hand side of your screen to maximize it. Once in there, business owners will be able to see new notifications, new likes, see Facebook insight data, and access their new message center (detailed later). Because it appears directly in-page, it’s easier to access and more top of mind for business owners. I’m hoping this will encourage SMBs to take advantage of this data and use it to make social-sharing decisions.

New Message Center

The new messaging feature is one that I’m most excited about because it will help marketers deal with customer service issues in a more private, effective manner. According to Facebook, fans will now be able to message business owners directly, instead of simply leaving comments on your wall. While this unfortunately does give small business owners another inbox to check (which Jay Baer isn’t too thrilled about), it does allow customers to be more discrete with sensitive issues and gives them a new way to engage with your brand.

It’s worth noting that business owners will NOT be able to initiate a message conversation with users. The user must be the one to start it.

The new Facebook Timeline brand pages about to roll out are a big change for everyone using the social sharing site for business. However, by preparing for it and getting your page in order before things officially roll out, you can increase your engagement and interest with your audience.

From Small Business Trends

Are You Ready For The New Facebook Pages?

Firefox for Windows 8 was announced earlier this year and will support both the traditional desktop Windows environment and the new Metro interface designed for tablets and other touchscreen devices.

While Apple’s App Store rules don’t allow Firefox to run on iOS devices, Mozilla has already created a tablet-friendly version of Firefox for Android and is now hoping to do the same for Windows 8.

According to the team already at work on Firefox for Windows 8, Firefox will take a hybrid approach to Windows 8′s dual desktop and Metro modes. The desktop and Metro options aren’t the only way to develop for Windows 8; there is in fact a third path — “Metro style enabled desktop browsers.” These hybrid apps can be run as desktop applications or as Metro apps. The hybrid approach means that Firefox will work as it always has for those that choose to ignore Metro, but will also fit in with Metro for those that prefer it.

There’s another reason for choosing the hybrid route — Metro style enabled desktop browsers have the ability to run outside of the Metro sandbox. Metro style enabled desktop browsers have access to most of the Win32 API and the entire new WinRT API.

As Mozilla developer Brian Bondy writes in a recent blog post, taking the hybrid approach will give Firefox more power: “We can build a powerful browser which gives an experience equal to that of a classic Desktop browser.”

That doesn’t mean that everything with Firefox 8 for Windows will be smooth sailing though. For example, the current rules for the Metro environment allow for only one browser in Metro mode. That means that if you don’t set Firefox to be the default browser then it can’t be used in Metro mode. Given how few users change the default settings, most may never even realize that Firefox can run in Metro mode.

Bondy also points out that it remains to be seen whether or not Microsoft will let a hybrid Firefox in the coming Windows Store since it won’t technically be a Metro application. Other unknowns include whether or not Firefox for Windows 8 will work with the ARM-based version of Windows 8 or whether that will require another port.

For more details on just what it will take to create Firefox for Windows 8, be sure to read through Bondy’s post.

We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out what they’re looking for when they put applicants to the test, and how even the safest and most confident answers are sometimes the worst things to say:

“What is one unique interview question that you ask every potential new employee?”

Here’s what the YEC community had to say:

1. TV Queens and Bookworms?

“When you ask, “Tell me about your favorite show/book,” see if they are passionate about what they are talking about. When I hire people onto my Sweet T Team, I am looking for high energy and passionate teammates. If they can’t express how much they love they favorite show/book, they’ll never be passionate about our brand.” ~ Nancy T. Nguyen, Sweet T

2. Verify Your Value System

“If you want to be sure you’re hiring someone who will be a good fit for a specific position, it’s wise to ask about the candidate’s top three values. Answers like “perseverance” and “ambition” likely mean he or she is a good fit for a sales oriented role, while answers like “peacefulness” and “creativity” may indicate well suitedness to an entirely different area.” ~ Amanda Aitken, The Girl’s Guide to Web Design

3. How Shall I Praise Thee?

“I ask, “How would you like me to tell you you’re doing a great job?” Knowing what motivates people – cash, awards, recognition – helps me keep them happy when they’re performing well.” ~ Sam Davidson, Cool People Care, Inc.

4. Dream Occupations

“If you could be doing anything, what would it be?” As a startup, we want to make sure we’re bringing people on board who are passionate and excited about their work. Knowing what a potential employee loves to do, above all else, is critically important in aligning their passions and skills with the core needs of the business, to create a harmonious and prosperous relationship.” ~ Matt Cheuvront, Proof Branding

5. As If You Were Already Hired

“What is a “blind spot” in our business and how would you implement improvement?” This one question will give you everything you need to know. Have they done their homework about your business or are you just another interview to them? Are they results oriented and do they understand how to comprehensively improve a product or service? What value will they bring in exchange for their pay?” ~ Josh Shipp, JSP, Inc.

6. Count Parking Lots, Please

“Never had the chance to ask it, but I’ve heard this is a great question, ”How many cars are in the United States?” Do they blurt out a random number with no thought? Do they mumble and stumble and say nothing? Do they use some logic and try to figure it out? It’s not about knowing the number, it’s about their process for finding an answer.” ~ Therese Kuster, TargetClick Marketing Solutions

7. Are You Looking Up?

“I ask candidates interviewing for positions with Thinking Caps to tell me about a role model and why they look up to that person. Not only does the question require the candidate to respond with a thoughtful answer, but it also gives me an opportunity to hear about the candidate’s values and goals.” ~ Alexandra Mayzler, Thinking Caps Tutoring

8. Turn the Tables

“I start every interview with the same question, ”What would you like to ask me?” I learn more about the person from their first question then I do from the rest of the interview. If they ask about pay or vacation time, I already know what they are looking for. If they start to ask about things they saw on one of my Websites, then I know I have someone who is serious about the job.” ~ Roger Bryan, RCBryan & Associates

9. Superman? Batman?

“What Superhero would you be?” Sounds cheesy but it’s amazing to see the answers people come up with and then to see those that literally freeze. It’s a simple question and it’s mostly about how creative they can be and how quick they can be answer. In business, you can’t teach personality and this question gives you a quick glimpse into theirs.” ~ Ashley Bodi, Business Beware

10. Who Do You Really Want to Work With?

“Every time we bring a potential new employee through the door we ask them a series of questions pertinent to the position. The one question we always end with is, “If you could work on a project for any company in the world, who would it be and why?” This shows us where their interests really are and it’s really all about identifying people’s passions.” ~ Bobby Emamian, Prolific Interactive

11. Which Drink Would You Be?

“We use this question to see how quickly someone can think on their feet and how creative they are. We’ve had answers that run the gamut from ice water to Jack Daniels, to Guiness to orange juice. Each answer reveals something about the person who is answering and because we like to have a great time in the office, seeing how someone reacts to this question shows how well they will fit in.” ~ Nathan Lustig, Entrustet

12. Let’s Go to the Theater!

“What was the last movie you saw?” It’s crucial to make sure all employees have a life outside of the office and are capable of talking about things other than business.” ~ Josh Weiss, Bluegala

13. Literary Tightrope

“This is our make or break question, “What do you read on a weekly basis?” If a potential employee can’t list at least one resource that he or she reads to keep up on what’s happening in the world, how can we expect them to keep up with changes in our industry?” ~ Allie Siarto, Loudpixel

14. Why Are Manhole Covers Round?

“Most people will not know the answer, but I am just curious to see if they are going to tell me the truth or make something up. If they don’t know, they can always tell me they can get me the answer; if they make something up, they’re out. How could I trust them with me or my customers?” ~ Justin Nowak, Mobile Business Advisors

15. Show Me the Money!

“Justify to me why paying the salary that you’re requesting is a good investment for me.” ~ John Hall, Digital Talent Agents

16. What Do You Think You Are Best in the World At?

“When building a team, you have to learn what is most important to your potential employees and if they are a fit within your company. At our company, we want to be the best in the world at certain things and leave a legacy through the work that we do. This question sets the standards for employees upfront and, as an employer, you begin to understand what your candidates values, strengths and aspirations are.” ~ Matt Wilson, Under30CEO.com

17. The Stickiest Question

“Here’s a roll of duct tape. What are ten things you can do with it?” It doesn’t have to be duct tape; it can be any item sitting anywhere in the room. The reason we ask this question is to measure an interviewee’s creativity (and limitations). If they can come up with ten things to do with an item, we know they’re a good fit. Why? Because creativity is seeing what others don’t.” ~ Brett Farmiloe, Blind Society

18. Time to Prioritize

“If I ask you to put together a list of clients from our database and you see the database is corrupted with incomplete and duplicate entries, what would you do?  Put together the list I asked for first or fix the database first?” Their answer tells me many things about their personality – shortsightedness, attitude towards work, detail orientation, and time management.” ~ Devesh Dwivedi, Breaking The 9 To 5 Jail

Interview Concept Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

Unique, Useful Interview Questions To Prepare For

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), a consortium of university researchers around the globe who track entrepreneurial activity, “defines high-growth entrepreneurs as those who expect to have 20 or more employees (other than the owners) within the next five years.” By that definition, 17 percent of Americans founding a company expect to have a “high growth company,” as the figure below shows:

Expected and Actual Job Creation

Source: Created from data from the U.S. Census and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor

This percentage is much higher than the share of entrepreneurs that actually has a high growth company. According to Census’s Business Dynamics database, only 2 percent of five-year-old companies have 20 or more employees.

Moreover, this number overstates the share of new businesses that are “high growth.” Census data show that slightly less than half of new businesses survive to age five. Adjusting the share of surviving five-year-old businesses with 20 or more employees by the failure rate of new companies reveals that less than 1 percent of businesses started in a given year have 20 or more employees at the time of their fifth birthday.

If only about 1 out of every 20 entrepreneurs who expect to employ 20 or more people when their businesses are five years old actually does so, then entrepreneurs are overoptimistic about their job creation capabilities, just as they are about the survival, sales and profits of their businesses.

Policy makers should respond to this over-optimism the way investors do – by discounting entrepreneurs’ projections.

While investors might focus their discounting on entrepreneurs’ estimates of sales and profits, the principle is the same for policy makers and estimates of job creation.

From Small Business Trends

Entrepreneurs’ Job Creation: Expectations Versus Reality

Photo: dark_ghetto28/Flickr

Twitter has embraced Google’s vision of a faster web and is now serving webpages over the SPDY protocol to browsers that support it.

SPDY, pronounced “speedy,” is a replacement for the HTTP protocol — the language currently used when your browser talks to a web server. When you request a webpage or a file from a server, chances are your browser sends that request using HTTP. The server answers using HTTP, too. This is why “http” appears at the beginning of most web addresses.

The SPDY protocol handles all the same tasks as HTTP, but SPDY can do it all about 50 percent faster.

SPDY started life as a proprietary protocol at Google and worked only in the company’s Chrome web browser. SPDY has since won support elsewhere. Firefox will have SPDY support when version 11 hits prime time in the near future [Update: As Mozilla's Chris Blizzard points out, SPDY is disabled by default in Firefox 11. If you're using the beta and want to give it a try, you'll need to visit about:config, search for network.http.spdy.enabled and set the value to true. If all goes well SPDY will be turned on by default in Firefox 13.]. Amazon also baked SPDY support into its Silk browser for the Kindle.

The IETF’s HTTPbis Working Group — the standards body charged with creating and maintaining the HTTP specification — is now considering adding SPDY to HTTP 2.0, which will improve the speed of HTTP connections.

Despite the web standards backing, SPDY still has a long way to go before it’s an everyday part of the web. With only Chrome and Firefox behind it, SPDY is still only available for about 40 percent of desktop users. But with large services like Twitter throwing their weight behind it, SPDY may well start to take the web by storm — the more websites that embrace SPDY the more likely it is that other browsers will add support for the faster protocol.

If you’d like to follow Twitter’s lead and get your own site serving over SPDY, check out mod_spdy, a SPDY module for the Apache server (currently a beta release).

Photo: tobias.munich/Flickr

Think your three-second page loads are “just fine”? Think again.

According to engineers at Google, even the blink of an eye — which takes around 400 milliseconds — is too long.

That’s the word from the New York Times, which makes an unusual foray into the world of web development with its article “For Impatient Web Users, an Eye Blink Is Just Too Long to Wait.”

Some web developers may remember the days of the two-second rule (and no, not the one that applies to dropping food on the floor). The established wisdom — well-tested at the time by usability experts like Jakob Nielsen and others — was that after two seconds the number of users willing to wait for your page to load dropped off significantly.

That rule still holds, it’s just the amount of time that’s changed. Nowadays, the Times claims, users drop off after a mere 400 milliseconds, and a difference in page load time of just 250 milliseconds is enough to convey a distinct advantage over your competitors.

It’s that last number that’s perhaps most interesting. Anyone who’s browsing the web via a 3G connection can tell you that if you’re only willing to wait 400 milliseconds for a page to load, you aren’t going to see much of the web. On mobile networks bandwidth constraints are even more of an issue than they were when the two-second maximum was popularized. Users seem to understand this, but they don’t see it as an excuse. Now, perhaps more than ever, slight differences in page load time can give your site a significant advantage over competitors, according to the Google and Microsoft engineers quoted in the Times piece.

In other words, users may still, in some circumstance, be willing a wait a second, but if your competitor’s page is even 250 milliseconds faster, you can kiss your users goodbye.

Don’t believe us? Head over to the Times article and see if Google’s engineers don’t convince you. When you’re done we’ve got a few tips on how to speed up your website and make sure that no one has the edge on you. Here are a few helpful articles from the Webmonkey archives:

• A Guide to Understanding Page-Speed Tests — Before you can optimize you need to know what you’re looking at.
• Build Faster Mobile Websites With ‘Adaptive Images’ — Every byte counts in the mobile world, make sure your images aren’t slowing down your site.
• Google’s New Page Speed Service Promises to Speed Up Your Website — Google’s Page Speed tool works just about everywhere and will give you some helpful tips for speeding up your website.
• Speed Up Your WordPress Site With Google’s New Page Speed API — WordPress has its own built-in Page Speed tool.
• How to Speed Up Your Site With YSlow and Page Speed — YSlow is slightly different than Google’s Page speed, this article offers some tips on how to use each.
• Speed Up Your Website Using CDN JS — External code can be a serious drag on your page loads, make sure you’re loading your JavaScript from a CDN.
• Clock Browser Speeds with Webmonkey’s Stopwatch — You can never have too many page speed timing tools, this is our older, but still functional, stopwatch for timing websites.

Looking for a healthier alternative to breadcrumbs? Try ground nuts.

I am constantly looking for new ways to incorporate healthy ingredients into my meals, and that does not have to mean creating boring, uninspired dishes. I decided to challenge myself to take some good-old staple ingredients I use in several recipes and swap them out for more exciting and often more nutritious picks. The result was fun, tasty and oh-so-good spins on traditional dishes. Here are my top 5 swaps:

1. When breading fish, chicken or meat use ground nuts or seeds instead of breadcrumbs. The result is a nutrient-rich topping so packed with flavor the breadcrumbs should be jealous.

2. If I’m feeling tired of traditional pasta, I grate ribbons of vegetables like butternut squash, zucchini and carrots and flash steam or boil before shocking them in ice water. The result is a colorful, flavorful noodle that is rich in antioxidants. Your kids may be begging for seconds!

3. Growing up in an Italian family I have always been a fan of stuffed peppers, especially in the winter.  Once when craving comfort food, I had planned to whip up a batch but soon found I was out of rice.  No worries–I swapped out the rice and opted for cooked quinoa and it was a hit.

4. Speaking of comfort food, meatloaf made with ground bison or turkey is a staple meal for my clients, athletes and family but with so many gluten-free clients, I decided to ditch the breadcrumbs (again!) and used cooked millet (or quinoa) instead. Grains add a hearty texture that makes the meatloaf more satisfying than ever.

5. I love adding crunch to my salad but chow mein noodles and crispy onions downgrade the goodness factor quickly.  Quick fix: I pop up some amaranth and use it as a topping for salads and veggies. The amaranth, along with the addition of ground nuts and seeds makes everyday veggies much more exciting.

Popped Amaranth:  Warm a dry skillet over high heat. A spoonful at a time, put the amaranth in the skillet until the tiny seeds pop (15-20 seconds). Remove the popped seeds and repeat.

What are your favorite healthy swaps?

Have you tried saffron? A little pinch goes a long way.

It’s hard to believe that a tiny part of a flower can also be a highly prized spice. Have you ever tasted the most expensive spice in the world?

What Is Saffron?
The delicate threads of saffron are actually the stigma of the purple crocus. Each flower gives only three strands that must be hand-picked. An acre of crocus flowers will yield 5 to 7 pounds of saffron, which is why the price tag for one ounce (approximately 13,000 threads) can easily approach $500.00! You may be able to find ground powdered saffron for less money but it’s not nearly as flavorful and loses its “umph” quickly.

Thankfully a little goes a long way. Trying to figure on how much to buy? The spice gurus at Penzey’s give these helpful conversions: 1 gram = 2 teaspoons whole, 1 teaspoon crumbled or ½ teaspoon powdered.

Once you bring some home, store in a cool, dark place for up to six months.

Healthy Attributes
Known for its spicy-sweet and somewhat floral flavor, saffron also imparts a distinct burnt orange hue when cooked. Across many cultures it’s an integral ingredient in bouillabaisse, paella and rice dishes like risotto.

Once used for medicinal purposes for treatment of digestive issues, nowadays we focus on the benefits of its carotenoid content (those health protecting red and orange antioxidants).

5 Ways to Love Saffron

1. Roasted with fish
2. In creamy risotto
3. To flavor up couscous
4. In marinades for chicken
5. Infused into a dipping sauce

Tell Us: Have you tried saffron?