Kiva: Microloans Supporting Entrepreneurial Spirit

Kiva is a microfinance program with a praiseworthy philosophy, and you might have heard about Kiva on Oprah. By giving microloans to business owners, people around the world can make a difference in the success of a small business venture.  And until December 31, you can sign up for a Groupon to donate another $10 for Kiva!

How does Kiva work? Basically you loan a small amount of money to an entrepreneur or a group of entrepreneurs in a community, they pay you back, and then you can re-loan your money for another venture!  

How do you choose the recipient of your microloan?  You can read about the small business owners and entrepreneurial projects at Kiva online, searching by country or by type of project. You can even join a ‘Kiva group’ to support their donation goals.   

Wind-Flower Web Design has just made our first Kiva loan as part of our donation program.   

Happy holidays!  May your business endeavors all be blessed this year and in the future!

Wufoo Who? Creating Online Forms

Wufoo is a snazzy little online program that allows you to create forms on your website or even email a form as a separate link for your clients or customers to fill out.  You can create many different types of forms, such as Order forms, Survey forms, Registration forms, and Contact forms.  You can easily tailor them to your specifications  or you can also choose from the many pre-made forms.  When your customers fill out a form, the data is sent to your email address as well as to your Wufoo account. 

Wufoo is super simple to use and there is a free version for when you only need 3 forms a month.  For paid Wufoo subscribers starting at between $15 and $30 a month, you can integrate online payment with the Wufoo forms, create an unlimited number of forms, and redirect customers to a new page when the form is completed.

Email Marketing: Keeping in Touch with Customers and Connecting with Visitors

Our clients at Wind-Flower Web Design are always asking how to keep in touch with their existing customers as well as how to connect with their new visitors.  For most growing businesses, we recommend MailChimp because this email marketing program is easy to use, has vibrant templates for designing engaging email newsletters, and the free version allows any business to send 1,000 contacts many, many emails a month.  For businesses with more contacts, the MailChimp pay version starts at $30 a month.

Once you sign up for MailChimp, you can place a simple subscribe button at the top of your website, and when your new visitors sign up, they will be automatically included in your future marketing emails.  You can also integrate your MailChimp sign up form with your Facebook page, share your marketing campaigns on Twitter, track subscriber activity and more. Also MailChimp is well integrated with Wufoo, an easy-to-use form maker. Wufoo who…?  More about Wufoo next!

Another Five Star App: Star Walk

The Star Walk App illustrates the heavens for everyone. It really is like holding the universe in your hands!

Star Walk is so amazing to see in action, because as you rotate the phone around, the real-time sky is visible on your phone!   All the stars and their constellations are shown day or night.  Here’s a Star Walk picture I took on my mom’s birthday -- I just scanned the sky with my phone until I found the Libra constellation, took a picture of that part of the sky and emailed it to her from the Star Walk App directly.  Happy Birthday, Mom!

Here are 2 YouTube videos that show many more features of the Star Walk App:

Add the Square App for Credit Cards

Today I am recommending a new Smartphone App for accepting credit cards called Square -- http://squareup.com -- I think it's a perfect addition for any on-the-go business!  This App was created by Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey.  Read more history behind the new App.

Basically, you download the free App to your Smartphone and then complete the registration process online. It took less than 10 minutes to get set up, there are no monthly fees, and the charge is about 3% more or less depending on if the credit card is manually keyed in or read with the free swiper attachment. Once the credit card is read, the customer signs the phone and then receives an emailed receipt.  Note that you definitely need WiFi to run the reader!!  An optional way to compute sales tax would be helpful, but overall the Square format is clear, easy and very fun to use!

The Artist's Way at Work

Have you read The Artist's Way at Work by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan?  This is my most recommended book for job seekers, people who want to improve their job situation, and those who want to transition to a new career.  You will find lots of great ideas if you're wondering “what’s next?” in your life. 

Also, related to finding the perfect job or your next passion, check out this article by Elizabeth Gilbert on The Importance of Curiosity.

Edmodo for Teachers & Students

Recently I read this interesting blog on 7 fantastic free social media tools for teachers.  So this semester I am implementing one of those social media tools, Edmodo, in my classroom.  Edmodo is kind of like a teacher / student version of Facebook with a potential library of activities & a grade book.     

Here is a Basic Demo from Edmodo:

And here is a more Advanced Demo created by another teacher.

At the Crossroads of Education, Technology and Web Design

I started teaching college-level English as a second language classes more than 15 years ago.  I was using many websites in my classes, and after a few years of emailing links to my students, I wanted to create a centralized place for all of these online resources. 

In 2003 I took a web design class and started playing around with many web design programs.  And as I designed my first website, the Academic English Café online, I found that I really liked web design & learning about technology!   

Over the next year, I designed a few more websites for other classes and for friends, and then I decided to start my own web design company:  Wind-Flower Web Design.  So that’s how I got here, at the crossroads of education, technology and web design. 

I still teach English as a second language part-time, develop websites for small businesses, and enjoy learning about new technology for my classroom, phone applications, and for my web design business.