Sylviebead Journal

It's STRESS FREE THURSDAY!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!
Good Morning World!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(and I DO mean world...)

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Denmark
• Canada
• Australia
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• Italy
• Germany
• New Zealand
• Singapore
• Turkey
• Unknown (scary!)
• Netherlands
• Hong Kong
• France
• Hungary
• Israel
• China
• Ireland
• Russia
• Belgium

TOO CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone or someones in all these countries read my blog. That just blows my mind!!! The internet is such a cool cool thing. I was talking yesterday to someone about my online class and how I have people in 6 different countries participating. That's crazy isn't it???

In what other workshop could people be around the globe and STILL in the same class??!! I think it's super cool that I'm uniting the world (ok... I'm being silly here, I KNOW I am not personally responsible for any form of world peace. LOL... I'm just saying it's cool that people geographically far away can participate in something together all at the same time that I'm responsible for.) Very cool indeed.

That said... my workshop needs tweaking. <--- that reminds me of a scene from You've Got Mail when Tom Hanks tells Meg Ryan that he's been away because he has a project that needs "tweaking" (when he's figured out it's her-his rival that he's been e-mailing and he's trying to figure out how to win her over even though she hates him) ANYWAYS, I digress... I have 4 groups of people participating in the workshop. Each group has 10-12 members. I have a waiting list of 17 people waiting to start when I'm ready for them.

My challenge is that not ALL the members of the other groups are participating. All for different reasons... some people have busy schedules and can't do their assignments every week... some have just not participated, but I don't know why... some have family things that have come up unexpectedly. I have to figure out how to deal with this. The classes NEED a good number of people participating to make it work. Right now I've got about 1/3 of the people in each group doing their work regularly and a few others in each group doing something sporadically. (I do have one group where 75%ish are participating every week... I THINK it's because a lot of them already know each other, so there's sort of an accountability factor there)

No one is paying for the workshop and I'm sure that's part of it. We tend to commit to things that we have attached monetary value to... sort of like going to the gym for me. I really do love going to the gym, but a lot of times I get busy and it's easy to put that on the back burner. If I've PAID the trainer, however, I always show up... even if my schedule is crazy busy. I didn't PLAN on charging for this workshop, but should I consider it... just to get people committed??? I hope to charge for it someday... but I wasn't going to yet because I wanted the positive word-of-mouth advertising from those who participated in it with these groups first.

And do I EVER want to charge for it anyways??? If I do it online and I can get it fairly self-sufficient... shouldn't I just be proud that I'm helping people develop creatively and let that be its own reward??? I am truly proud that I help people find those "aha" moments every now and then. What if I could be partially responsible for a whole group of beadmakers descending on bead-world with such wonderfully unique work that it really mixed things up???!!

ok... I'm talking too much today. I'm just thinking 'out loud" and have to figure out how to "tweak" the classes... put people together that are actually participating. But how to do that without offending those who aren't??? hmmmmm.... more to think on.

tiny blah blah blah...

coffee - yummy cinnamon dolce latte made by Omar the genius barista

music - my ipod playlist "Chick Flick Songs (or should be)" Right now it's Kelly Clarkson's "The Trouble With Love" which IS from a Chick Flick. Love Actually which is one of my very very favorite movies. It's just about the time of year that they play it on TV since it has a holiday theme. YAY!