Membership committee – We need someone to help Cathy Quaranta at the membership table for the next two meetings. This is a great opportunity for you to meet and greet everyone who comes to our general meeting and is one of the more enjoyable responsibilities at DACS. Cathy cannot be at our May meeting and will step you through the process at our April 7th meeting.
Tag line – Your opinion counts. We need a short but descriptive tag line to describe DACS that will be used consistently with our newsletter, website, social media, email, and all printed material. I like and have been using “From mobile to desktop, we inform, enlighten, and educate”. Do you agree or do you think we should use something else? Please let us know at http://dacs.org/feedback/.
25th anniversary – Let’s make this yearlong celebration a success. We want to create a much broader awareness of DACS as we participate in new activities, and create collectables of interest to DACS members and the general public. Talk about your ideas with Cathy Quaranta at the check-in table at our next general meeting or let her know by email.
Business Backstory on WXCI 91.7 FM – I just finished an interview about DACS this afternoon at WestConn’s WXCI radio station. It should air sometime in April. Thanks to Tom Zarecki for arranging the interview, and to Mimi Kelly, the News and Public Affairs Director, who did most of the interview. This was a “first” for me and I have no idea how it will come across, but it was an enjoyable experience and they tell me it went very well. I just wish I remembered all the things I wanted to say during the interview instead of afterwards.
Upcoming Events – Bring a friend to our future meetings. Make more effective use of social media (April 7th), and get updated about the Future of Healthcare and the Internet (May 5th). Let us know what topics you would like to know more about or email us directly at programs@dacs.org. Don’t forget our new meeting time is 7:30pm and starts with our main presentation. Don’t be late.
DACS co-sponsored Workshops and Events – We have co-sponsored a series of four Small Business Workshops with SCORE that finish on March 31st. The topics covered were: “Your Marketing Tool Kit”, “Keys to a Great Website”, “SEO Deep Dive”, and “Branding”. These Web-centric workshops were hosted by the Danbury Library and were well attended by DACS members.
We are co-sponsoring another FREE workshop, this time with Microsoft on April 1st, on the topic “Building Websites in the Cloud”, where you will learn the basics of how to use Microsoft Azure to power your website. This is a topic gaining more traction in the industry and is highly recommended to any of you doing web application and database development work.
We are also completing the finishing touches on a series of Microsoft Office workshops which we are co-sponsoring with both SCORE and Microsoft, to be held in May. These will be aimed at small start-up businesses and be about the powerful capabilities baked into MS Office and how to benefit from them. DACS contributed to the structure of these workshops. My hope is that upon completion of these workshops there will be enough interest to hold regular monthly DACS workshops on this topic.
New DACS Online Business Workshop – Many of you expressed an interest in starting and participating in an “Online Business” workshop after our March General Meeting. Mike Brooks has agreed to kick-off our first workshop, which will be held at 5:30 PM on Monday April 6th (the day before our General Meeting). I have reserved the Robilotti conference room directly across the hall from the Danbury Hospital auditorium for this event.
From mobile to desktop, we inform, enlighten, and educate.
Dick Gingras, President