I Passed My Inbound Marketing Certification Test!

success stories of the weekEven though I'm moving away from the inbound marketing/content marketing business, I started my inbound marketing certification from HubSpot way back in April. It's a program where you watch a series of nine webinars, or classes, on the various topics. Once you finish the classes, you can then take the test for the certification. I've finally completed the classes and took the test today. I'm excited to say that I passed, and part of my reward is that cool little badge to the right there. It's one of my several successes of the week.

Other Success Stories of the Week

Opportunity International

Last night, I attended a neat little networking event with Opportunity International and the Young Ambassadors for Opportunity St. Louis chapter. The chapter is new, and the organization is about economic empowerment and providing micro-loans, both of which I am all about. I do like that the organization also works on building savings and providing insurance, instead of just funding loans and getting people to start businesses. Sometimes, getting the loan and having the successful business isn't enough because factors outside of the control of the owner can cause the business to fail.

Since the chapter was new, part of the point of the event was to have some sort of a meet-and-greet and to do something to build awareness for the chapter and the organization. When we think of micro-lending organizations, we think of Kiva.org and the Grameen Bank. However, Opportunity International was one of the first organizations to work on this issue, and it's great to encounter an organization that's actually working on some of the issues featured in Half the Sky. Up until now, it seems like these groups existed by were located somewhere other than St. Louis.

Speaking of the which, what's also great is that this chapter and this organization are going to partner with me on showing a screening of the Half of Sky documentary (of course, it would be a screening of the economic empowerment section). It turns out that Opportunity International is a partner organization of the Half the Sky movement, so this upcoming screening should be a huge hit.

Although, part of the success of last night was the peppermint patty cocktail, which was absolutely delicious. It had brownie batter vodka, peppermint schnapps, something else, and the glass was lined with chocolate sauce. The drink was absolutely amazing. Since the event was at Cafe Napoli, I recommend asking for the peppermint patty cocktail the next time you visit.

Amazing Pizza!

A brand new, very tasty pizza place opened up down the street from me the other day. It's called Papa Murphy's, and they make the pizza in front of you and then you take it home and put it in the oven. We tried it today and it's absolutely fantastic pizza! I ate the gourmet vegetarian, which included neat toppings like zucchini and artichoke hearts, and the entire thing was yummy. Fortunately, I have a whole bunch of coupons, so next time I can get their Hawaiian pizza, or their smores pizza for dessert, or their normal vegetarian pizza (the gourmet one has creamy garlic sauce instead of normal tomato sauce, and has a different combination of vegetables on it). I'm excited about it, and especially like the idea that you can buy it and you don't have to eat it right away.

It's Friday

It's always a success if you can make it until the end of the week without dying, or having a total meltdown, or losing everything you have. Cheers to that! I'm going to spend my night playing a little bit of Wii, reading a little bit of book, playing with the kitty, and perhaps getting some work done. There's always fun work to be done.