We know, and we’re here to tell you it’s okay. It’s okay, that you broke down, and you bought that product off social media that you kept seeing over and over again. We promise, it’s okay! You are not alone.

In fact, social media platforms are becoming the next big shopping hub. Here’s what you need to know about buying and selling on social media.

Wellness and self care often SEEM to be in conflict with hard work and hustle. We often think that self care means putting yourself first, taking it easy, giving yourself a break, and getting some ‘perspective’. Meanwhile, we often think ‘Hustle’ means breaking your back, pushing harder, pain equaling gain, and other unpleasant concepts like this… These definitions leave us thinking that we can’t always be productive if we want to take good care of ourselves, and that we can’t take good care of ourselves if we want to prioritize productivity.

At the beginning of this year, I declared 2023 “The Year of the Website”. I believe it is pivotal to stay ahead of the curve between a good and a great website when there are so many out there. Believe it or not, there are a few simple steps you can take to increase traffic and SEO scores and get yourself ahead of your competitors. Here are 4 Things that Your Website is Missing.

The “space race” to become the first Ai chatbot-powered search engine is happening now. What does this mean for small organizations?

We all feel stuck sometimes; creative blocks are no joke!

There are a lot of great websites out there for inspiration, staying on trend, and learning new tips and tricks. In this blog, we are going to touch on 5 different websites that are great for finding inspiration to keep those creative juices flowing!

Maximizing Your Time And Making It More Efficient!

Here at eGuide Tech Allies, we live by five core values that bond us to become the best version of ourselves. Since day one, we’ve always committed ourselves to provide the highest-quality service for our clients in need. We want to give them the best solutions to help them pursue their goals and achieve exciting feats.

Kirsten grew up in Northwest Indiana and attended Indiana University as an undergraduate student and Marquette University as a graduate student. During her years in higher education, she found her passion for event operations and logistics. She has spent the last thirteen years of her career in events and operations having experience in multiple areas, including higher education, nonprofit and wedding industries. She thrives working behind the scenes and has been a part of the eGuide team for over a year supporting both the operations and digital teams.

Erin has been a Professional Graphic Designer for over 10 years and a Small Business Owner for 3 years. She has a wide range of experience from food packaging design to web design. She loves helping other creatives make their dreams into realities, whether it's a new brand creation, creating a new a website, designing wedding invitations, or anything else you might need designed she's here to help. ​She lives for a good lavender latte, Soaking up the Southern California sun and hiking with her husband.

Andrea Pikscher has had a unique journey to Content and Social Media Marketing Manager at eGuide. Andrea started her career as actor and musical theatre performer. She then moved to teacher, which led her to working at Paramount School of the Arts in Aurora, IL. The school's mission was to provide arts to all. To make classes affordable and accessible to the community.

Hello! I am Andy Tretow, and I have been with eGuide as a Content Marketing Manager since the Fall of 2021. Getting to work on the digital creative team is always exciting as we are constantly presented with opportunities to work on new designs, features, or visions that allow us to tap into the creative minds of our clients. My previous work experience has spanned different areas of the communications world. I have worked as a Director of Communications for non-profit organizations and as a promotional staffer, on-air radio personality, and sports play-by-play host in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Cindi Webber, a 27 year veteran in the Chicago event industry, serves as our Director of Strategic Partnerships. She helps execute the strategy for business development and continued growth for eGuide Tech Allies. She was previously the Director of Business Development for Sound Investment AV and held catering sales executive roles for Blue Plate Catering, Jewell Events Catering and Limelight Catering.

Maximizing Your Time And Making It More Efficient!

Social Media Is A Tough Nut To Crack! Let’s dive in and learn.

From growing up eating at his grandma's restaurant, watching his dad and uncles organize demolition derby's, and seeing other relatives using their crafting passions as side-hustles, the entrepreneurial spirit is in Greg's blood.

Misunderstanding Collaboration (Intro)

People tend to retreat from collaborative opportunities for many reasons, not least of which is the memory of doing group projects in school. The goal of such an exercise was to understand the importance of teamwork, but many of us walked away from the experience with not-so-pleasant feelings. There are very specific scenarios that we tend to think of when talking about collaborating in a group. One scenario is where one person does all of the work and everyone else in the group gets to take credit. The flip side of that is when one person refuses to let anyone else in the group help with the project. In these situations, no one wants to be taken advantage of and no one wants to feel like their contribution is unwanted, so they’d rather not collaborate at all.

Another scenario is that of the “divide and conquer” strategy where everyone gets part of the project to complete and then comes back at the end to put it all together. This is arguably the most common way people think collaboration is supposed to look like. It makes sense because this scenario fairly divides the work so no one is doing it all alone, but the lack of communication makes this strategy very risky. What if someone doesn’t do their part? What if everyone had a different understanding of the project? This has happened to many of us in school and no one ever bothered to demonstrate what true collaboration actually looks like. The first time you work on a team in a truly collaborative way…it’s life-changing. You’ll see that true collaboration is built on communication, trust, and understanding, and it starts with the environment and culture of the workplace.

Flexibility is the name of the game for small organizations. In any given day your Chief Operating Officer may need to be the front line, the accountant, human resources, compliance and try to carve out the time to actually work on moving the business forward as the CEO. Especially if you are a self-funded organization, job descriptions may not carry much weight, since everyone has to be willing to do what it takes to grow.

Sure, I’ve been there, setting the intention of creating a job description as something to aspire to, hitting up Google and looking for similar roles in the ether and picking and choosing some bullet points that align with my thoughts. No matter which way you spin it, those outlines, bullet points, and expectations don’t mean much of anything if they are not referenced and put into practices.

Having gone through this with eGuide, there will come a time (probably 2-4 employees in) where you realize that just because you can run around and do all the roles, doesn’t mean you should. You will start to hear a few passing comments from team members about who they should go to with questions, and you might find yourself saying, “Here is the answer, I’ll just follow up with X to make sure they know we talked later.”

THIS IS A SIGN TO NOT FALL INTO THAT TRAP.

There’s a narrative fed to us from a young age that we must always be self-sufficient, independent leaders. Being a trailblazer is an endearing professional quality, but most teams realistically need a balance of individuals with avid organizational skills to guide and encourage others throughout the duration of a project. In fact, having a sort of conductor focused purely on making sure teams communicate and depend on each other in a healthy fashion can end up separating the best teams far beyond the others. Introducing: our savvy scrum master!

Remember when life was simple and this sign - # - was known only as the pound key? We only needed to worry about it existing if we called into a company with a long menu and pound was one of the options. That, or when making a numbered list. Ah yes…the good ole days.

Now though, it’s not just called a pound sign, but a hashtag, and they seem to be everywhere. When, how, and why should a person be hashtagging? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

At the beginning of every year, trend forecasters for thousands of industries around the world give their insight to retailers and consumers about what is going to be the “next big thing”. The world of website design is no different. In the last few years, research and analytics of consumer expectations have given us a good look at what we will be seeing from website layout and functionality for this year and the foreseeable future. Here are the Top 5 Website Trends you can expect to see become the norm this year: