Keeping Up With Commerce

December is bringing loads of seminars and talks for entrepreneurs who want to create businesses with a difference, or make a difference with their businesses. One of these is being presented by Women’s Economic Ventures, which began a couple of decades ago as a microlender and home-business incubator to help women gain some economic independence. At the beginning of 2007, WEV started branch out into helping women grow and sustain their businesses. On December 7, for its fourth quarterly “Think Big” conference since it began that venture, WEV Executive Director Judy Hawkins has assembled a power-hitting lineup of “local women who have managed highly successful, long-term business growth, both in Santa Barbara and in worldwide markets.” The theme is growing, stabilizing and exiting one’s business, and the presenters include Sage Publications publisher Sara Miller McCune; Money Camp founder Elisabeth Donati; MedSeek founder Gale Wilson-Steele; Walter Claudio Salon co-owner Angele Tasca-Zungri; Nouveau Eyewear founder Pat Aptaker; Fresco Cafe and Fresco at the Beach founder Jill Brouillard; Landscape ArtDesign founder Lori Ann David; and PHR Environmental Consultants (now part of Internet Technology Corporation) founder Shelley Bookspan. The focus is on growing, stabilizing, and exiting one’s business, and the date is Friday, December 7, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort, and the cost is $175 at the door.

The internet is the topic on Wednesday, December 5, from 5-7:30 p.m. when the Santa Barbara Chapter of the Association for Women in Communications brings Lorrie Thomas and Michelle Shapiro to the Maritime Museum, at the Harbor, to talk about “Websites: Make Them Beautiful! Make Them Work! Make Them Sell!” Thomas knows whereof she speaks. She was on the founding teams at ValueClick Media and CallWave, Inc., and served as an internal web marketing consultant to Affinity Group Inc., and as web marketing director at ProHealth, Inc. Shapiro, meanwhile, said she started her own graphic design agency, Ipso Facto Creative Group, after working with the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group for 13 years. The cost to non-members is $30.

Finally, on December 12, Conscious Business Institute founder Peter Matthies will be at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum to talk about Combining Money with Meaning. A 16-year veteran of the finance and internet technology industries, Matthies teaches about dealing effectively with problems and financial uncertainties to “create a life and career that fulfills our deeper needs.” His free talk starts at 7 p.m.