New Blog

I'm moving over to www.carolynnduncan.com. Keep reading there for my adventures in life and at Provo Labs!

It's All Good

Third day at Provo Labs.

I need to stop being surprised at how much I am enjoying the people, conversations, projects, and concepts flowing through this place.

So far, it's been a smorgasbord of being surrounded by energetic people and projects in all the things I'm interested: writing, business plans, entrepreneurship, business development, networking, relationship building, communication, authors, media, blogging, covert tech learning skills, etc.

I couldn't be happier! :)

More Vocab Section 1.3

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Good to Great

So, I read through the first several sections of "Good to Great," one of the books Phil is having me read to get started with Provo Labs.

My friends, this book, and the fact that I've been asked to read it, is exactly what I loved reading about when I was researching Provo Labs. How much easier is it to accomplish things as a business when you have tremendous people pushing projects, ideas, and team efforts towards the same kind of achievement level?

I would definitely rather invest my time reading a book like Good to Great, to differentiate between the habits and management philosophies of companies with amazing & successful track records, and then apply that to my work method, than wrestle with personality conflicts or watercooler gossip. (Yeah, ok, there's nothing like a mid-day soap opera story in the breakroom, but I can get that same buzz at home on the TV later, right?)

So. Finishing thought: "Ahh. This approach to work feels good."

:)

More Vocabulary

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WordPerfect Campus (I'll just say I put about 20 miles on my car trying to hunt that down...)
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I AM the newest member of Provo Labs Team!!!

Great day!

I have officially been hired as Phil Burns' executive assistant. :) I am tremendously excited to jump in and get things going! As someone stepping in from outside the Web 2.0 bubble, my first task is to google all of the new words I'm learning, hopefully before anyone from Provo Labs realizes I don't know them. Sneaky.

This includes:

Web 2.0
mashup
Wiki
Carma
Treo
BlackBerry (I understand there is a Treo/BlackBerry war-- and the Treo side has just acquired a new member.)
asynchronous
PHP
Bar Camps
podcast (I kinda know this one/just want more info)
Google alerts
manager-tools.com
Good to Great
Getting Things Done

They're as good as learned. But I think it could be useful to have a glossary of sorts as a community offering to newbies to the tech scene. Better coming in to the geek domain late than never, right?

A Sampling of the Problems I Could Solve At Provo Labs

Provo Labs, look out. I am a problem solving machine, and a great employee to boot. (This is not a platitude, I really do focus on accomplishing my responsibilities in a professional, time-and-money-saving, friendly manner.)

Here is a brief list of the kinds of problems I would like to solve for you. There may be others I haven't thought of yet, which you need assistance with, so let me know.

1. Develop, operate, and train others to implement a communications system for Provo Labs and its affiliate portfolio companies which will preserve and retain client relationships.

2. Build relationships with your staff and clients which will be well known for follow-up, integrity, and increased productivity.

3. Complete any writing tasks in 1/2 or less of the time someone else would take.

4. Improve any content, communications, websites, and written materials through editing text, layout, and overall message.

5. Provide leadership to any previously challenging and digressing obstacle which is currently impeding company growth; resolve the issues and carry the project toward success.

6. Teach corporate training workships on any topic needed, provided I have one hour to research and lesson plan beforehand. (I can improv teach, but for maximum effectiveness, let's plan ahead a little.)

7. Organize any chaotic system, problem, or challenge, re-structure a fitting solution, and teach others to maintain and improve the new approach.

8. Translate and interact with clients and staff who speak Spanish, make occasional jokes in my limited conversational Russian, and improve the vocabularies of my co-workers through friendly pronounciation and spelling assistance (if needed).

9. Brainstorm lists such as this one of options, solutions, ideas, and strategies.

10. Teach the incubated companies how to improve and maximize their business plans through writing workshops that target the business plan as a way to guide and grow the company.

11. Teach the incubated companies how to prepare and deploy a marketing campaign that will knock the socks off any new client or potential investor, increasing revenue, funding, self-reliance, and confidence to acquire any project or client, every time.

This is me. I'd like to introduce myself, I am Carolynn Duncan, originally from San Diego, CA and Rexburg, ID. I like to think of myself as the newest member of the Provo Labs team.

Fate, Adam Eshenroder & More

First, here's the complex chain of how I even found out about the amazingness that is Provo Labs:

1. I work for a marketing firm, who contracts with BTH2, 10x Marketing, 10Speed Media, etc.

2. I read about BTH2 in the BusinessQ magazine (which I also actually made contact with to do freelance writing once upon a time), and therein read an article about Paul Allen.

3. Not being from Utah, I have no idea who Paul is. (I'm sorry!) Well, until I spent the last three weeks reading about him, Provo Labs, Phil, vSpring's 100 Best Executives in Utah, etc. Y'all, I have done my homework. I even called Corporate Alliance (somewhere mentioned on Paul's blog) http://carma.corporatealliance.net/default.aspx to schedule a tour; pending.

4. Then, I researched all 100 of the executives' companies. Ok, actually, I only researched 70, but come on. Of all 70, only Provo Labs makes me stay up at night thinking about how exciting it will be to work for a group of proactive, zany, connected people who obviously are running the kinds of operations I have only attempted to run in the last opportunities I've had, but which are pretty hard to accomplish when you're dragging and kicking non-proactive types with you. (Trust me).

5. Adam Eshenroder, from 10Speed Media, comes in for a meeting about our video project, and we start chatting. Turns out 10Speed is one of Provo Labs' incubator companies, which I already happened to know thanks to looking at the "Our Companies" section on http://www.provolabs.com/. I mentioned that I wanted to go to the Brainstorm Lunch, but hey, I don't [yet] have my own company. "No prob," he says, "go to the Geek Dinner." (Shall I also mention that Adam's roommate Cody, who just barely moved, is the one who hired me at my current job? Are we seeing a fate trend yet?)

6. So Adam sends me the invite. I send the invite to five others, 4 of whom are coming along with me. P.S. These are some of the most productive and self-starting people I know, and they definitely need to be hooked into the community. Just a thought. [Their names are Jedi, Jeremy, Clancey, and Steve. I actually hired Clancey at my current job because she knocked my socks off, I've worked extensively with Steve in the trenches of a failing start-up (despite our best overextended efforts), and I can vouch also for the sharp and proactive abilities of Jedi and Jeremy from www.ti4technologies.com.]

7. Having read Phil and Paul's blogs for the last few weeks-- http://www.phil801.com/wpblog/ and http://www.paulallen.net/ and knowing my own skills and strengths, I write a seemingly-too-good-to-be-true, but highly accurate, resume and cover letter, and send these on to Phil, Provo Labs COO.

8. The next day, Adam comes in again for another meeting, gives me an invite to his http://www.provobse.com/ blog to get hooked into some fun activities (longboarding, I am definitely there for that one), and hey, BTH2 calls me and they tell me they're looking for a project manager, which is something I definitely also wouldn't mind doing.

Your basic sum up is: something is definitely going on here, and Provo Labs better snap me up so I don't have to turn everyone else down and wait in dire unemployment (not a chance) until something comes up. Y'all, I dig Provo Labs. There's nothing else I can add to that.

Carolynn Duncan
Future Provo Labs Employee, Insert Title Here:_____________
olynnduncan@hotmail.com
(801) 529-2885

P.S. This whole blog was Adam's idea. If it works, it was mine. If not, you should fire him and give me his job, unless you realize my tech skills are only slightly inferior to my very excellent communications/leadership/organization forte.