Oregon Calling

By Lori Richardson, Northwest Bureau Chief Lori's Bio

In the family-friendly town of Salem, Ore., a woman is working to build a mammoth, worldwide network of business people. She is convinced that this network should be accessible, affordable, and enjoyable.

Elaine Block believes that success is built one relationship at a time. Her site, called Women Who Network (www.womenwhonetwork.com) is a virtual meeting place for local women as well as those around the globe. The portal, which includes a member center, member directory, and article library, is free to join and free to use. Elaine’s goal is to never charge for the services on this site.

An already successful entrepreneur, Elaine has been a teacher, a business owner, a writer, a producer, a director, a private consultant, and a speaker to entrepreneurs. Why create this web site?

Elaine told me that people need more good places to connect with others, and as a lifelong student herself, she enjoys seeing business women meet others, learn from them, and share their knowledge. Currently the site holds a number of resources, and Elaine wants to build it into an even richer site. Members come from every state, and Elaine sees no limit to the growth potential.

Here’s the site mission: “WomenWhoNetwork.com is established as a resource community for women to network both professionally and personally without limitation to geographic boundaries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long.”

A great strategy in getting your name out through the Internet is to write and post articles, so just the ability to post articles for free would be reason enough to join—but there are other reasons. Two of the biggest issues of being a small business owner or entrepreneur are isolation and being overwhelmed. By becoming part of a virtual group, you can network from your office during those times when you just can’t get out into your local community.

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I once worked for an old fashioned CEO from Oklahoma who called in-person sales meetings “belly-to-belly” selling. For those who want to meet local business people (maybe not belly-to-belly, but indeed live and in-person), Oregon has a wealth of events—starting in Elaine’s town of Salem. The Salem Area Chamber of Commerce (www.salemchamber.org) is a vibrant organization with a host of events. They’re planning an event called, “How to Take the Work Out of Networking,” led by their director of member services.

Heading north to Portland—recently rated the #5 top technology hub, beating out Silicon Valley—the 1,000-pound gorilla of business networking in Oregon is the Portland Business Alliance (www.portlandalliance.com), representing 325,000 business people. In December alone, the Business Alliance is hosting eight events.

In addition to the public policy work and lobbying that business organizations like the Portland Business Alliance do, they are fantastic ways to meet like-minded business professionals.

Finally, a favorite networking group in Portland for me is the WEO, the Women Entrepreneurs of Oregon (www.oregonweo.org/welcome). Their mission, since 1980, is: Where women in business come to connect and grow personally and professionally. They plan a mid-December event on putting more meaning into your life, led by Sarah Victory.

Contact Lori Richardson at LoriR@TheNationalNetWorker.com or Post a Comment on TNNW Blog.