Basically when Facebook bought FriendFeed, it broke our site.  After much debugging by someone other than us, we are back live.

The real shame is that a ton has happened while our site was down.  We’ve added folks to our team (more on that in future posts), we had another awesome annual meeting and a bunch of folks are going to China this fall.  I “promise” this will all be covered in future posts soon.  Don’t give up on this site.  Nobody said this relationship was healthy, but we’re fun and worth the trouble.

See what I did there???

My first 30 minutes of BarCamp

Today’s BarCamp at UCA marks a milestone in the next generation of job creation in Conway and central Arkansas. I challenge someone to name an event in central Arkansas that matched BarCamp Conway in talent, conversation or entrepreneurial spirit. I came to this event expecting to be overwhelmed with tech speak and obscure social media platforms. Don’t get me wrong, I got plenty of that. But the heart of this event is a group of attendees who have a passion and committment to improve their business, organization or themselves. 

I’m not equipped to absorb the vast majority of info (see photo) presented today.  I’m active enough in social media and technology to post irratically on this little piece of web real estate.  However, I encourage all of you to get outside of your comfort zone. I did today and I feel better than ever about the future of entrepreneurship in Central Arkansas. Traditional business folks, go dunk your head in the technology tank.  Techies, put away the acronyms and remember that people, not computers, buy things.

Why was BarCampConway important?  I’ve got a few reasons.  Central Arkansas is long on talent and passion when it comes to new economy innovation.  Today is a big step towards creating the social infrastructure necessary to blow those good ideas up.  The most crucial component of technology infrastructure is local talent.  This event nurtured and celebrated that.  Finally, the tech/marketing/developer community can offer all of our small businesses tools to save money and grow profits.  They offer the professional services that can help your business survive and thrive.

I hope the BarCampConway attendees enjoyed the event as much as I did.  I also hope they will consider the benefits of chamber membership.  We are the perfect organization to marry these new economy business services with our 1,400 members.

If you are in the market for a new or used car, you care about the environment and you want unmatched quality and service then you won’t beat Caldwell Toyota.  I can’t say enough about the guys.  They built Arkansas’s only LEED Gold Certified retail facility.  In fact, it’s one of the only Gold Certified LEED buildings in Arkansas.  They did this because Toyota is committed to environmentally responsible vehicles and the guys at Caldwell thought they should be too.

Five of us spent the day yesterday driving Toyota vehicles. I drove the Tacoma, @chamberchad drove the Sienna (the Swagger Wagon), @chamberkathy drove the Avalon, @chambermary and @chamberwhitney drove the new 4Runner and Scion.  In short, great vehicles across the board.  It’s been a while since this guy has driven a new car much less a tricked out truck.  @chamberchad’s car has like 800,000 miles on it, so I know he enjoyed the break.

Toyota is a cool company.  Caldwell Toyota is a family owned business committed to unmatched service and quality.  They are an asset to our community and the Chamber.  Give them a chance to earn your business.  You won’t regret it.

The topping out ceremony is when they hang the final steel for a major project.  It’s a milestone in the construction process. Sometimes you see a tree mounted on top.  In the interest of preservation, we all just signed the beam.

Some Facts

-  100k square feet

-  Approx $25 million facility

-  Will support up to 450 employees

-  GOLD LEED certified.  That is a pretty serious commitment to sustainability.

Did you know you can burn 140 calories per hour bowling!

In lieu of witty prose, I’m cutting to the chase.  Bowling for Business. New business networking event. July 9th. Conway Family Bowl.  Not convinced?  Read below. 

1. Golf tournaments are not good business networking events. At Bowling for Business you will be in position to network with 240 local businessfolk.

2. July is too hot to do anything fun outside (in the daytime).

3. Bowling is air conditioned, fun, affordable and good for you. *see caption above

4. The Chamber that bowls together, stays together.

5. For only $200, you can get a team of 5 entered into Conway’s newest business networking event. This includes two games and lunch for your team!

6. This event will accomodate 48 teams. It will sell out.

7. Two “flights” for your convenience. 10am-12pm or 1pm-3pm. We will all eat lunch together.

8. This is a great opportunity for the folks in your office who don’t golf or don’t have 6 hours to “spare” networking.

9. There are sponsorships remaining for businesses of every size. It’s a great way to advertise your business. Email chad@conwayarkansas.org or jamie@conwayarkansas.org  for info.

10. Individual bowlers are of course welcome. $50. We will assign you to a team full of fun people.

Bowling for Business is presented by US CosmeCeuticals. They will have skin care products and professionals on hand at the event. Seriously.

If you or your business are ready to participate in Conway’s most fun filled business networking event please email mary@conwayarkansas.org

Til then, TheChamberLife abides.

By special request from @chambermary

I just want to take a moment and thank my friend and our Chamber President Brad Lacy for being a great boss and a great sport.  Because he always has a good sense of humor about the things we do to torment him daily.  Like the following:

Over 900 folks (a record and sell out crowd) came together to celebrate our local economy.  The UCA HPER center provided an awesome setting.  Our in-house design superstar @chamberjamie transformed the gym into a really classy setting.  Our keynote speaker was Johnelle Hunt, co-founder of trucking industry giant JB Hunt.  We’ve never had a better speaker.  She was honest, funny and thoughtful.  We took a look back at some of the exciting things that took place during 2009: Kris Allen, building the HP facility, our biggest business expo ever, launching the Conway2025 process and of course…starting TheChamberLife.com

We also took time to honor some standout businesses and individuals.  Our Good Neighbor Award went to lifetime servant, do-gooder and business owner Mary Acklin.  Our Distinguished Service Award went to First Security President Johnny Adams for a host of reasons.  One big reason was his work as the “architect” of the financing package for HP.  Our Business Executive(s) of the Year were Mike Coats and Mike Kraft for changing permanantly the evening scene in downtown Conway with Mike’s Place and Michelangelo’s. 

The Chamber’s Annual Meeting seriously gets better every year.  It sold out in record time this year.  The speakers have been world class.  Very soon, we will start working on next year’s event.  I would love to hear some suggestions on speakers.  Til then, enjoy this video that shows the transformation and hard work that took place getting ready for the event.

I thought I was better than this. I was wrong.

It can be a little awkward when you tell someone that you’re gonna call, meet up, write, or blog and then you don’t for a couple months. Let me apologize. TheChamberLife has not set the standard in dependability. Sure, we’re still cute. But that only lasts so long.

In what is truly a case of cruel irony, when we have the most stuff going on over here, we don’t have time to blog about it. Terrible. It needs a remedy. I’m really beginning to worry that only solution is hard work. Unless someone has any other ideas, that will have to do for now. I promise I will do my best to catch everyone up on some of the cool stuff we have been up to this spring. Fun filled posts coming soon! We cool?

We made enough money this year to get cordless phones for the 2012 Membership Event.

It’s the third and final day of the biennial Conway Chamber Membership Event.  Over the last two days we have added more than 200 new members.  We are now the 3rd largest chamber in Arkansas (approx 1,500 members).  Today is dedicated mainly to gathering checks and celebrating our volunteers. 

For the second time we hired Your Chamber Connection to help us orchestrate the event. They bring a unique model and energy to this event.  However, the backbone of this event is a group of committed volunteers who get their friends and co-workers to join them in some intense and competitive phone banking.

We can’t write any more without thanking the event chairs who worked to make this event successful: Amy Reed, Richard Henley, Lori Ross, Jay Bernard, Pam McDowell, Aaron Beard, Jeff Standridge, David Druey and Preston Scroggin.  These folks all recruited several volunteer salesman to help us beef up Chamber rolls and revenue.  They did more than they know to help us keep the lights on and the copier full of toner.

If I have to give you the reasons why you should join the Chamber, you are obviously new to this website.  I invite you to take a look around and see what we’ve been up to.  There’s no better way to advertise your business, grow our local economy or develop the contacts and resources you need to succeed. You can always call us at 501.327.7788 or email at getsmart@conwayarkansas.org. We will hook you up. Operators are standing by.

Last year's annual meeting led to a wholesale revision of the Chamber staff dress code

The Chamber Annual Meeting is almost here.  Boy am I nervous/excited.  In case you didn’t notice,  this is almost like prom for your business.  By definition, annual meetings only come once a year.  You miss it.  Tough luck. You can’t unmiss it.  Trust me, the last thing you want to happen at work Friday, March 5th is for everyone to talk about how great annual meeting was and you have nothing to say.  So let me be clear.  Your competition and the rest of the cool kids will be there. You want someone to ask you to come? I’m asking. “Will you please come to annual meeting with me?” Good.  It’s a date. (dutch though)

——–DETAILS——–

Thursday – March 4th – 6:30 – UCA HPER Facility

Conway Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting featuring “A Conversation with Johnelle Hunt”

Johnelle Hunt will talk about her time at then ASTC (now UCA) and helping her husband Johnnie Bryan Hunt grow J.B. Hunt into one of the country’s largest transportation and logistics companies.  The Chamber will celebrate 2009 accomplishments, recognize outstanding businesses and individuals and look forward to an exciting 2010.

Tickets are $50.  Reserved tables of 8 are $500.  For more information or to make your reservation call 501.327.7788 or email getsmart@conwayarkansas.org.  Act now.  This event will sell out.