Thursday, December 18 – OEN Webinar - Generational Competence, with Sydney Joyner Generation Y is coming. By the end of the decade, 64 million workers will be able to retire. Generation Y, the children of Baby Boomers, will replace them. These people were raised on different values, and will work differently in the workplace. How will your business handle the transition?

By studying the differences in the generations, we can understand how these groups act individually and how they will interact together in a business environment. You will also learn what business leaders need to know to motivate their employees across generations, as well as what the employees expect from a business.

This webinar is presented by Sydney Joyner, President of The Joyner Group LTD. Sydney works with executives on transforming and accelerating leadership capabilities, talent acquisition and management, and employee engagement. She is a frequent lecturer and writer on emergent leadership models, organization change issues, and the development of talent within companies.

Date and Time: Dec 18, 2008; 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Location: Online
Member Price: $20, Non-member Price: $30

Sponsored by:JONES PARTNERS

If so, then you might consider signing up for the upcoming workshop "Annual Accounting Update for Privately Held Companies," hosted by Ernst & Young. The event takes place on Tuesday, Dec. 2nd, at 2 PM.

You can find out more about this workshop by visiting their event registration page.

PAN Submission - Companies interested in applying to present at the January 22 PAN/OAF meeting must do so by Friday, December 4th by 5:00 p.m. Learn more about PAN.

OEN Angel Oregon 2009 - Early bird deadline to apply to present is Friday, December 12. OEN Angel Oregon 2009 will be held at the Governor Hotel in Portland on March 12th.

Round 3 OEN Seed Oregon Pubtalk - Deadline to apply to present is Wednesday, December 17. Round 3 will take place on Thursday, January 15, 2009 at Bridgeport Brewpub.

In case you missed it, CEO Tom Szaky of TerraCycle Inc gave a presentation today at a StarveUps event. Tom gave a great keynote on the origins of TerraCycle, how he and his team made a million dollar plus company from collecting worm droppings and selling it collected bottles.

Tom's keynote was excellent, especially in the way he challeged conventional ways of thinking about garbage, recycling, the green movement and how we as a society consume goods.

So check out "the coolest startup in America" at http://www.terracycle.net/.

OEN's Angel Oregon is the nation's premier investor/entrepreneur matchmaking event. Angel Oregon brings together Oregon and SW Washington's brightest entrepreneurial talent with qualified angel investors. The top six companies who apply, including the OEN Seed Oregon PubTalk winner, will present at the OEN Angel Oregon conference on March 12th at the Governor Hotel. At the conference a final vote of the OEN Angel Oregon investment committee will take place. Two investment prizes will be awarded.

This must-attend event combines valuable networking, interesting presentations from emerging companies and an exciting competition for angel investment.

OEN is currently accepting applications. Click on the following link to learn more about how to apply .

Rick Turoczy provided a handy primer on today's OEN Webinar: Social Networking 101. He broke the whole web 2.0 Social Networking world down into manageable bits and gave participants a place to start.

First you need to know the rules of the road:

1) Jump in. - Get over your fear and go for it.

2) Be polite. - Be nice and ethical.

3) Have fun. - This is fun, there is a lot of interesting things you are about to learn.

4) Listen more than you talk. - It will help you find something interesting to say.

5) Give more than you get. - In that spirit here is the link to his presentation & links: http://twurl.cc/70n

Now for some suggestions:

Don't start with blogging. It is just too much pressure. Boy is he right there. Rick suggest to start slowly and with one thing at a time. Give yourself time to get the hang of things before moving on to the next step. There is always time to add more as you get more involved.

Step 1: Say it. - Start commenting on other people's/ organizations' blogs such as this one. Or visit news sites such as the Portland Business Journal or The Oregonian

to get your opinions out there. It is still not super social but it is a start.

Step 2: Learn to share. - Start tagging things you like. Try a social bookmarks manager like delicious. Share photos on Flickr.

Or look for and share events on Upcoming. There's much more you can do but you're still getting your feet wet.

Step 3: Be yourself. - Get social and start networking. Join Linkedin, or get a profie on Facebook. You will be surprised who you find and who finds you. There are conversations to be had. Information to be shared and questions to be answered. These are all opportunities for you to get involved and share your expertise as well as learn from other experts.

Step 4: Get involved. - Set up an account on Twitter, a micro blogging site. Start following people and listen to what they say. You can use the search function on twitter to search out topics of interest and you can use Twellow to help you find people to follow. You will find they share interesting bits of news and information that can be very useful to business communication. You can share information about your organization or just interesting articles and information you come across. As your network grows you will find it to be a handy way to interact with customers or colleagues.

Thanks again to Rick Turoczy for sharing his insights. Perhaps you all could take an opportunity to get your feet wet and write a comment on this blog post. All you have to do is log in or set up an account and you're on your way.