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About Stimulating Conversation
Stimulating Conversation about your book is an author marketing strategy company. Authors have a story to tell, that is what drives them to write. We think that story is worth talking about. The conversation of books is marketing. Getting people talking about your book is the key. Stimulating that conversation is our specialty. It is our objective to create cohesive, effective author marketing strategies at affordable prices. Every author's story should stimulate conversation.
More company infomation is provided at the bottom of the page.
The Team
Renée Giroux, Author Advocate and Team Lead, spent the first 15 years of her career as a pediatric nurse, and most of her creative energy on a multitude of other artistic outlets. It was on a serendipitous journey that she was encouraged to "follow her passion," and she began searching for it. She discovered her passion was books.
Renée founded Ijustfinished.com the conversation of books with a leap of faith and excitement. The learning curve took her through the process of building and rebuilding Ijustfinished.com. She became immersed in learning the ins and outs of the publishing world, web design, web development, social media, small business, networking, and all things book marketing.
She now leads a team of marketing, writing, and web professionals who are just as passionate about books, and helping authors navigate the book world.
She can often be found speaking at seminars and workshops, guest blogging, and Tweeting her way around the social media world. She is currently editing a book, Expose Your Book; 101 Experts Reveal the Secrets of Book Marketing Through Conversation. The publisher is The Book Connection and should be available 2010.
She still considers herself an author groupie, and often thinks she is very lucky to meet and befriend authors. Read her "This I Believe" NPR contribution here, and get a better glimpse.
Naomi Gi
roux, Author Advocate and Content Writer, is an accomplished author and interviewer. She has the ability to place guests at ease and encourage them to share freely. Naomi has two weekly radio shows. She hosts, Coffee with an Author on BlogTalkRadio for ijustfinished.com. She has interviewed authors both new and accomplished, from a variety of genre. She co-hosts a show she created on KEOS 89.1 FM, called Brazos Valley Health. The show provides health and wellness information to the Brazos Valley residents.
Naomi has 40 years of nursing experience behind her, that she uses to translate medical concerns into usable information. Her writing is designed to be in plain English, no fancy words or slick turns of phrase. Her writing includes articles, short stories, novels, and lots of web posts. She is using her writing skills to help Stimulating Conversation's clients to successfully present their messages and visions.
Robert Johnson, Manager of Development and Programming, has been programming for 8 years and has extensive knowledge in PHP, MySQL, AJAX, HTML, Python, CSS, Standard Javascript and jQuery. Robert runs our web servers and programs all our front end and backend systems. His expertise also extends into SEO (search engine optimization).
Robert's skills of taking a real-world concept or vision and translating it into computer languages are exceptional. Not only can he translate into the computer languages, but then develop the process into one that is easy for novices and the newest compurter users. He also tests and retests to remove any bugs, making computer work easier for all our clients.
Monie Garcia, Media Liaison, is a booklover from her childhood. Her tastes have expanded and she now reads most genres.
In 2008, Monie started the book review blog Reading With Monie to share her thoughts on books ranging from best sellers to debut authors. At that time she also joined I Just Finished as a Featured Reviewer. Monie was active member of the forums where she "met" I Just Finished and Stimulating Conversation owner, Renee Giroux. Monie's organizational skills and knowledge of the publishing industry made her the perfect fit for our team.
As Media Liaison for I Just Finished, Monie responds to reviewer and author email, schedules new authors for Coffee with an Author and Featured Author spotlights, requests new review books from publishers and authors, releases reviews, and updates I Just Finished website weekly. Her organizational skills and dedication to I Just Finished has made her invaluable to us as well as our clients. As part of the Team, she also has input into the activities of Stimulating Conversation. Her organizational skills are much appreciated.
Kendyll Bates, Author Advocate and Virtual Assistant Manager, began her new career with us. She is a quick study. Kendyll is learning to use our CMS, audit new websites, handle the new email program, work the virtual library, mailing to reviewers, and trying to keep our office coordinated as she assists our authors with website updates and research. Wow, she does lots of stuff. She has made herself invaluable in just weeks.
Chelsea Parks, Author Advocate and Media Coordinator, is a graduate of the University of Arizona. She has a degree in film studies, which she enjoys putting to good use every weekend with a trip to the movie theatre or the local video rental store. She previously worked for DisneyWorld and the Food Network star Paula Deen. She moved to Austin from Savannah recently. Chelsea was a "housewife" for 6 months, before we found her hiding her talents. She now works as our media guru for Stimulating Conversation and video creator from her home in Austin. Her creativity is a great help to our projects.
Chris Bratlien, Development Team, began his programming career working in the CPI Insurance industry with Fields Financial Services, and then Teneo Software Solutions. He now collaborates with Always Creative, using WordPress, CodeIgniter, and various Javascript frameworks. Programming influences include Abelson and Sussman’s “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” (SICP), as well as Alan Kay’s “The Computer Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet.”
Chris continues to both learn and unlearn “how” to program computers. He brings another view of communicating with computers and the translation between human and machine. His current skills and the ones he is learning complement our Team.
Stimulating Conversation is a web development and marketing strategy company whose focus is on authors and their needs.
Stimulating Conversation is an Agile based company¹, ensuring our clients the best possible outcomes while providing our employees an empowering culture promoting transparency, and trust.
We begin our client relationship with an initial conversation to determine the entire story behind the project, scope, expected outcome, and goals. Our professional design team will then create an original design to the client's specifications. Once the original design mock up is finished, there is a back and forth process with the client until the design is exactly as the client envisioned. Once the design is approved, the site is developed in Python, on a Django framework. Content is then loaded via our Content Management System (CMS) that allows the client full access to edit their site. After the content is loaded and approved by the client, the website goes through a battery of testing and auditing². Once the site is working and approved by the client, it is put live to the internet on our web server³, and registered with the free search engines. The site is also optimized for search engines (SEO). Some optional features that can be added to any site are: setting up the website's email client, registering the domain name, analytics, content writing, a blog, social media initiation and coaching, marketing program to launch the site.
¹Agile methods generally promote a disciplined project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, a leadership philosophy that encourages teamwork, self-organization and accountability, a set of engineering best practices that allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software, and a business approach that aligns development with customer needs and company goals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development/
²Website testing and auditing includes, but is not limited to: WC3 compliance testing, cross-browser testing, user interface testing, and audits to ensure that all the links and forms are working correctly.
³Stimulating Conversation includes the hosting of the website free for the first year, and then $50 per year after the initial year. The cost may increase if the website has increased bandwidth usage. If the client chooses not to continue hosting with Stimulating Conversation then the HTML may be transferred with all the content intact, but the Python and CMS functionality will not transfer.
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