Anne Ruthmann is a wedding & lifestyle photographer in Boston, MA. She spent 10 years practicing marketing & management in corporate and non-profit businesses before pursuing her passion for photography in 2004 as an independent small business. She is a regular contributor to PhotoLovecat.com and loves helping others find creative and smarter solutions to business problems. Follow her on Twitter to see her daily adventures and thoughts.

You went to WPPI, you saw lots of awesome speakers and products, but now what?! Here are some step-by-step tips for implementing what you gained at WPPI (or other photography conferences). Start with paper, sticky notes, or an electronic document that makes it easy to move ideas around on a page.

1. Create Top 5 Action List

List the top 5 actions you want to take in your photography and/or business this year. It's critical to build this list from your memory and capture your top 5 action items without influence from any other factors. The 5 most important things for you will already be on the top of your mind and looking at materials will only remind you of less important things you might want to do.

2. Create Awesome Ideas List

List everything else you learned or thought was a great idea. List as much as you can- fill pages upon pages if you need to- the key is to get all of those awesome ideas buzzing in your head out on to a page so you can physically organize them outside of your brain. This is where you can pour through your notes and brochures if you'd like in order to recapture ideas you forgot about. Reflecting on everything you experienced and putting it into a tangible medium is a critical step in learning and moving beyond ideas floating in your mind.

3. Map Ideas onto Actions

For each of your Top 5 Actions – find Awesome Ideas that support those actions, and list the supporting ideas under each action. For example, if one of your Actions is: “Start Selling Albums”, look for ideas related to albums: brochures from album companies you like, sales ideas you heard in a seminar, designers you might be able to work with, album software that could help you, etc. Do this for each of your Top 5 Actions.

4. Eliminate The Waste

Even though you probably picked up a TON of awesome ideas at WPPI, you really need to let go of things that you can't take action on in the next couple of months. Get rid of any brochures that don't relate to your top 5 action items. You still have your written list where all of the awesome ideas are stored and you can return to them at any time, but there's no need to keep clutter around that isn't going to be immediately useful. There's always next year or the year afterward, and by that time, there may be even better ideas out there that will blow away any ideas you captured this year.

5. Schedule Time to Take Action

Block out time in your calendar to implement your action items. Maybe you create one day a week to focus on them, maybe you set aside an hour each day. Whatever you do- put it in your calendar with an alert or reminder so that you aren't filling that time with less important things, like social media, when you could be creating action that directly benefits you and your clients.

6. Prioritize Actions for Importance

Decide which action is most important to begin moving on immediately, versus what can wait a few weeks. This will help you focus and invest your time wisely toward completing actions that are most critical to your photography business. Put your prioritized Top 5 Action List in a place where you will see it every day, so that even as you get in the thick of your business, you have a regular reminder of what you need to do in order to move to the next level.

7. Connect With Helpful People

Once you start taking action on your items, you'll inevitably want some help figuring things out or getting feedback on what works and doesn't work. If you don't already have a network of people near you that you can bounce ideas off of, search Facebook for Groups titled “[Major City or State] Photographers” – there's a good chance someone has already created a group on Facebook where you can connect with other photographers near you. Make sure you have your website displayed in your profile in case moderation is required to join the group.

If you liked this post by Anne, you should read the wildly popular one she wrote for Tiffinbox called “6 Reasons Why Photographers Suck At Business.”

Yep, sound off below! Anne and I want to hear from you in the comments section below.

I am incredibly fortunate to have two amazing photography conferences within stone's throw of each other and my home in Connecticut. I just came home from the Mystic Seminars. The other conference I enjoy attending is Inspire Photo Seminars. As a photographer who is eager to keep abreast of all that is happening in this industry, I have found going to these two local or regional conventions (and they are tiny compared to WPPI or Imaging USA) to be refreshing. I asked my friend Mark Higgins to give us an idea of what to expect at this year's Inspire Photo Seminars.

Inspire Photo Seminars is an intimate retreat-style conference of 150 people with an emphasis on building a stronger community. The conference is designed to establish professional relationships and even create friendships among your peers – which can be a sustainable support system to help you grow your business over the years to come. We do this by designing the conference around networking, education, and fun community time. This year, the conference runs from February 11 through February 13 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.

We will be kicking the conference of Monday afternoon with some intensive pre-conference classes that are free to all attendees. This will be a great afternoon including “Building an All-Star Team” with Jason Aten, “Portfolio Hack” with Allana Taranto, “Lightroom Workflow with Tim and Chris Riley from RPG Keys, and ”Pricing for Profit” with Jared Bauman.

Amy Deputy will be the keynote speaker Monday night after dinner setting the tone of the conference with her talk on “Creating authentic imagery in the land of eye candy: a discussion of seeing clearly through the heart with a camera.”

There will be a talk by Abby Larson of Style Me Pretty on how and what it takes to get published Wednesday afternoon and this is something we’re really excited and proud to offer the studios attending Inspire.

We’ve designed Inspire so you can learn what you need to learn. The schedule is set up so that attendees can choose between sessions in different tracks for each time slot (Business, Technical Skills, and Inspiration). We realize everyone has different needs when it comes to photography and business education so we provide choices to ensure you’re not sitting in a class that doesn’t fit your goals and needs.

Check out the schedule here.

This year we’ve broadened the focus outside the business of wedding photography. You may be looking for more creative outlets or a new type of photography to rejuvenate you and your business. Make sure to check out speakers like Brian Friedman, Christa Acosta and Nicole Taylor, Michael Connor, and Tomas Flint.

We’re also excited to have David Murray as a speaker and David will be doing an Intensive Critique/Editing Process. I have seen David do this on the Fearless Photographers Forum and it was one of the most enlightening and educational three hours I’ve had in during my 8 year tenure in wedding photography.

On Tuesday afternoon we will offer an intimate tradeshow that’s a hit every year. Come see the latest offerings from Pictage or the folks at LensProtoGo and their technical demonstrations. Check out what Couture Books has been cooking up and see how Shoot dot Edit can help optimize your business giving you precious time back with their great editing service or see how to design an album quickly with Fundy Software.

On Wednesday afternoon we offer extended shooting courses with everything from baby portraiture, shooting headshots, intimate posing for boudoir, stepping into the light, learning how lenses affect your perspective.

We include all meals from Monday night until the conference ends, and plan fun late night activities because we want to maximize the opportunities for everyone to come together and connect outside the classroom. We encourage everyone who comes to step out of their comfort zone, and their circle of friends, and meet some new people each day. What better way to break the ice than to sing karaoke with some of your new friends!

This year one of the new things we’ll be doing is assigned seating for the staff so that an Inspire Team Member or Speaker will be at every table. We realize that sometimes it’s intimidating to walk into a room full of strangers so we hope a friendly face at every table will get the ball rolling.

We really hard to create a unique retreat style conference where we all get to know one another while accessing education that will help propel your studio forward. We want to grow this year, and we can’t wait for you to join us on the journey!

This guest post is by Josh Solar, a wedding and family photographer based in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to running their own business, he and his wife, Jenny, help other photographers run their businesses. Read also about their Happy Family Movement. For even more positive energy follow Josh on Twitter. Good vibes all around!

Workshops, conferences, trade shows … being a photographer, you've got many options when it comes to choosing where you go to learn and grow. It's all a bit overwhelming when you think about it.

The thing I've learned about these events in the photography industry is to trust your gut. If you feel a pull towards one over another, trust it. That's how I found myself at a Life as An Artform workshop with Jesh De Rox three and a half years ago, and that's how I ended up at the Beloved Collective Festival two weeks ago in Palm Springs. My life has been forever changed.

I was treated to 3 days of fun in the hot California sun. I heard Jonas Peterson share his story…that you should be the best possible you, you can be. Kristen Kalp made us laugh, made marketing fun, and we collectively jumped in the pool with our clothes on. Bob Goff was there smiling and sharing some of the wonderful stories that have shaped his life (Speaking of Bob, if you haven't read his book, Love Does, you should). Jeff Goelitz from Heart Math helped shed some light on how our hearts are connected in more ways than we can possibly imagine (mind-blowing). Marianne Taylor, Jeremy Bircher, Nicole Polk, Liz Arcus, Amy Seeley, Brooke Snow, and James Moes all gave inspiring, deeply personal talks with a similar overarching theme as the other … be yourself. Follow your heart. Trust your gut. Love life.

And, the fun didn't stop at the speakers. The reason I will attend every single Beloved Festival is for the conversations that happen throughout the day and well into the night. All the wonderfully kind souls in attendance, willing to open their hearts, searching for meaning and purpose in our lives. The why's behind the way we live. For the community built on connection and honesty and delivering THAT to our clients. I will attend for the sunrise concerts, the evening concerts (both planned and unplanned). It's just a great time to kick back, relax, be yourself and celebrate our precious life together!

I was asked to share a few images from Palm Springs, but I didn't actually take any. So, enjoy a few images from my most recent Beloved session. Her name is Teresa. She's had some major changes thrown her way by life, and we spent a few hours belly-laughing, telling stories and celebrating that we get to be alive.

Beloved has forever changed my life. I hope it gets to you as well. The next one is planned for October 21-23, 2013 in Los Angeles.

Will you be there to learn, get inspired and celebrate life with us?

Portrait and wedding photographers, listen up! You have WPPI, Imaging USA and a slew of other conferences you can potentially attend year in and year out. While there is some merit in going to those events at least once to see what they are about, I wholly recommend you check out The Musea Gathering. It will take place from February 4th, 2013 through February 8th, 2013.

It's an event that promises to be free of hype, free of rockstars and free of gear talk. Can I hear an “Amen”?

Musea, as some of you already know is an online proofing site but Michael Howard, its founder will quickly correct me to say, “for now.” The man has all kinds of ideas of where the photography industry should be going, what photographers should be focusing on, how photographers can elevate their businesses without going broke and keeping it all real. In some respects, Musea is a kind of rudder on a very big ship. So, look for more under the Musea brand in the years to come.

In the 7 months I have been using the service, I have seen tremendous growth in its features. If you are looking for an online proofing solution that also has a strong “give back” component built into it, look no further. Musea supports Water.org and soon, photographers pursuing personal and meaningful projects. A full review of it is coming soon.

Before all of that can happen, however, Michael is very clear that Musea needs to grow without going into debt or become tied to a bee hive of investors whose only motive will be to milk the system for profit.

I spoke with Michael yesterday and he describes how an event he has called The Musea Gathering will help him achieve his goal to fully fund his vision and help a bunch of photographers grow their craft and or their business too. It's a win-win for all.

For more information about The Musea Gathering click here and if you are a photographer looking for an alternative to one of the standard industry conferences, please sign up right away. If you sign up for any of the workshops, the entry to the opening day and the day full of presentations is FREE. And there are so many wonderful photographers coming to Nashville, Tennessee to teach at this new event.

If my schedule will permit it, I hope to attend. I think I would really enjoy Spencer Lum's workshop. His Ground-Glass blog is a must-read for all photographers and has prompted me to rethink my business.