Building connections, getting social, sparking creativity

Go with the ☄flow. #yycliving #bloggerlife #grafitti

A photo posted by Irene Seto (@heyseto) on Jun 16, 2016 at 1:04pm PDT

Living in a social media world has opened up my life into some great relationships and experiences. A couple of cool opportunities have come my way that I will be taking part in this October. Squee!

First up is the Next Big Thing, a “conference-like experience for creative people.” My lovely friends Kait Kucy and Mike Morrison have put together this one-day event for the innovative and imaginative folks out there that need a little help and advice to get them on their way to become the next big thing. I’m super honoured and stoked to be asked to take part in their panel on “So You Want to Be an Influencer.”

I live and breathe a creative lifestyle every day in my many different roles at work, at home, and at play. I’ve been able to shape my passions and skills into jobs and experiences that let me get really hands-on and involved in the things that I’m interested in. For example, I’m a born-and-raised Calgarian who loves to help build and support my community. This has led to public service roles working on environmental initiatives, managing a community group of bloggers, and ultimately leading me to create Mint & Heritage as my personal creative writing outlet. I feel really blessed and lucky to be able to blog, share stories and be a local influencer. It usually doesn’t feel like work as I consider all the roles I play to weave together in harmony to let me grow, develop and become a better version of myself.

Being an “influencer” seems like such an odd thing as it definitely wasn’t on the list of career choices when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up. But I’m excited to chat about what that title means to me, how I balance the responsibilities, and how I made the journey to influencer status. Next Big Thing runs all day October 15^th and tickets are going fast. Grab one before it sells out!

The other project I’m happy to be involved with is The Post Forum, a two-day conference that’s filled to the brim with speakers, sessions and workshops about social media, digital marketing and communications. I’m always looking for ways to improve my marketing game so having local access to internationally-acclaimed authors and innovators is such a blessing. I’ll be volunteering at the event so be sure to come say hi if you see me around.

The organizers asked me to take part in this fun promotional video for the conference. I’m going to have my thinking cap on and ready to absorb as much learning as I can.

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/thepostforum/videos/277856035932710/” width=”500″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”1″]

October is definitely going to be a month of building connections, getting social and sparking creativity. Come join me!