If you’ve read this blog long enough, most of you know that I don’t claim to have Jedi-level knowledge of vermiculture, vermicompost, or soil biology (or how to please women or dance in ways that don’t make other people really uncomfortable).
So it’s with great honor and a huge dose of humility to announce that Rhonda Sherman looked past my relative inexperience in the field and has extended an opportunity for me to present at the 2017 NCSU Vermiculture Conference on October 27-28 in Raleigh-Durham, NC!
I hope the conference can survive this turn of events! 😉
(If you don’t believe me, check out the list of speakers!)
My Vermiculture Conference Presentation Topic
Note: If you’re interested in going to the conference and don’t care about business topics, just skip to the bottom!
All kidding aside, I am absolutely thrilled to be doing this. Here’s a bit of the back story.
Rhonda, to her great credit in my opinion, stresses the need for prospective business owners to find their markets.
I agree 100%.
Too many small businesses sink a lot of effort, time, and money into growing worms, or producing compost or other products without giving much thought about whether they can profitably sell what they produce. And some of the easiest customers to find, especially at first, are the ones closest to you.
Something I’ve noticed over the past couple years is that way too many small (and large, to be honest) worm businesses aren’t optimizing their web presence to attract local customers. The lack of attention is understandable as it’s not terribly intuitive to think of a global technology as a way to find the customer in your town.
But search engines, namely Google, are making it easier and easier to do that. And simply put, worm-related businesses are behind the curve on making that happen and I am going to deliver a presentation on how non-technical folks can do it.
So I approached Rhonda with the idea to present about this issue and we had a really nice conversation. And she saw fit to invite me to speak!
Now for obvious reasons, I won’t be making my presentation content public until after the conference, but I’ll be sure to report back on this blog as well as creating a more in-depth guide for release to members of the Worm Farming Alliance as well as Urban Worm Network Pro members.
I researched about attending but it seemed pricy to my small farm budget. Not saying it isn’t worth it, just not affordable to most.
It’s pricy, no doubt about that. But if you win, maybe that would help defray the cost!
I think I will be in that general neighborhood at that time due to the fact that we are selling our overpriced hovel in the Soviet Socialist Republic of California (SSRC) and moving to Oklahoma where we are buying approximately 40 acres for a homestead that will, among many other things, be the home of millions of composting worms! This conference sounds like a lot of fun! What could be better than meeting wormy people?
But with all due affection, I think you meant to say ‘saw fit’ instead of “sought fit” in your humble and entertaining narrative above. It’s a sorta uncommon mistake. They didn’t even say that in Medieval English and you could claim poetic license except that a few others make that same mistake too… 🙂 It’s kinda like saying “I could care less”…. instead of “I couldn’t care less” 🙂 See ya there hopefully if I can haul my acerbic self on over!
You’re right Gary! Fixed it. 🙂
Hope to meet you at NCSU!
Hi Stephen,
I joined UWC today and am excited about the conference.
How may I get in the running for the prizes that would help someone afford the event?
Thank you,
Marty
Oh man, Marty! The deadline passed yesterday 31 Jul. I selected the winner this morning and will be announcing it soon. Are you local to the Raleigh area, by any chance?