Creation|Collaboration - Founder Members and a Little History

So, you might be wondering, just who are and what is Creation|Collaboration?

Creation|Collaboration was set up by eight women, all existing friends, who run small businesses from their homes. We discussed the concept of networking and synergy in order to work together to:

• Promote our own products and companies to a wider audience
• Offer any assistance and advice we could to other women starting new business, especially in this economic downturn

The founding members of Creation|Collaboration are:

Alison Tinlin – Plans and Presents
Alison Thomson – Nujoolz
Brenda Panter - Splash
Carmen Maidment - CarmenJean
Celine Blacow – Soaperstar
Lois Bartley – Beads and More by Lois
Rachael Dunseath – Milly & Flossy and Myroo Skincare
Susie Mc Kinstray – Pot of Gold

All ably assisted by our partners in crime, Geraldine Holland (promoter extraordinaire) and Rebecca Spencer (graphics & moderator for features).

What do we want to achieve? 
Our main aim is to promote our companies, products and services to a wider audience.

We also are in discusscions with regard to listing featured companies (on a regular basis) as part of our promotional campaign.

We believe that any companies featured shouldn't duplicate the types of goods and services already provided by members – but we are interested in featuring small businesses specifically run by women only, whose offerings would compliment our current provision. We all love handmade, handcrafted items and are very interested in all types of creative offerings of any kind (products and services alike).

A Potted History:
Some of us have known each other for 5+ years – the two Alison’s met over 5 years, then along came Celine, Lois and Susie about 2 year later and, more recently Brenda, then Carmen and, most recently, Rachael.

We are all members of a private forum which was set up in order that we would have somewhere private to speak together about all sorts of everything – from kids, to clothes, to food (food features a lot!) to work and life in general.

When we met originally, the thoughts of running our own businesses were probably none existent for some, maybe only a dream for others.

5+ years later and here we are … 8 women running eight successful businesses from home!

We firmly believe in the concept of networking and, as small businesses starting out in a recession bound environment, we all agree that social marketing gives us opportunities for networking and promotion that didn’t exist when we all met many moons ago.

Brenda, Carmen and Rachael all joined our private forum because of social networking – Brenda was a member of another forum, Carmen and Rachael knew the previous members via Twitter – Rachael having purchased several items from Lois because of Twitter! We are living proof that social marketing works as a concept for our businesses. We also all have business focused individual Facebook pages and all were fans of each others pages since they began.

We believe in the power of social marketing, and in the power of synergy (the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual parts), and the power of women working together to make something good and positive happen!

We are currently developing guidelines in order that we can feature new woman run businesses on our Facebook page and in this blog and are also planning specific profiles of each of the member.

If you would like to follow our Facebook page, just click this link to be brought straight there!