Small Business Trends is excited to invite you to attend the Small Business Technology Tour 2010. And we have some special offers for you.
This one-day event is coming to one of 5 cities near you:
Mountain View, CA (Sep 28)
Salt Lake City (Oct 14)
Atlanta (Oct 25)
Washington DC (Nov 5)
Boston (Nov 9 )
You’ll network with your peers. Learn from experts. Speak with technology vendors. Participate in discussions. Eat. Win Prizes. And more – all with the goal of seeing how you can leverage technology and empower your business for growth.The tour, which takes place in five cities is all about helping you use technology as a tool to grow your business.
You’ll learn from experts in business and technology and leave with more information on how to strategically leverage technology for the growth of your business. At the tour you’ll learn how to save time, save money, be more productive, increase revenue and enhance relationships all by using technology.
10 FREE Tickets – Twitter Contest
And we have a special treat just for friends and readers of Small Business Trends. We’re giving away 10 free tickets to the event. If you’d like to qualify for the random drawing to win one of the tickets to the city of your choice, then just tweet the following message on Twitter no later than September 15, 2010:
I want to attend the Small Business Technology Tour 2010: http://bit.ly/96udBU RT @Smallbiztrends #smallbiztechtour
We’ll take all the entries and draw the 10 winners by September 17, 2010.
Or Register for 50% Discount
Don’t want to wait for the random drawing? Then just go straight here to register today at http://www.smallbiztechtour.com. If you use the following discount code you can get 50% off the entrance price: SMBTRENDSDISC. Twenty discount tickets are available. Hurry — first come, first served.
From Small Business Trends
Introducing the Small Business Technology Tour: Free Tickets
Join me tomorrow, July 22, 2010, for another interview in the HP Input/Output series. Jason Fried, founder of software company 37 Signals, will be interviewed.
As with other interviews in this series, HP has asked me to live tweet the interview and they are also looking for questions from this community that you wish to ask Jason Fried. I have already collected some questions (listed at the bottom of this post). If you have questions, please leave a comment or tweet it to me on Twitter @Smallbiztrends. Meanwhile, here are the details about this event:
Who: Jason Fried, Founder/CEO of 37 Signals
What: Live Web interview as Fried discusses: “The New Workplace in the New Normal”.
The modern workplace is evolving – everything from the physical layout, management practices and the tech-driven tools that are now indispensable to keeping your workforce happy and most importantly, productive. Jason Fried is the founder of a web design company 37 Signals. While his main product is software, he is perhaps just as well known for his perspective on the optimal workplace. He’s been very vocal about the inefficiencies of the typical workplace (like it’s designed to allow for distractions) and has quite a few commonsense ways to fix it. However, those ideas were originally intended for small and medium businesses – what would he suggest to enterprise level businesses?
When: Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 2pm EST (New York time)
Where: Background information prior to the event can be found here. On the day of the event, go here for the live interview: http://inputcreatesoutput.com
Twitter hashtag: Discuss on Twitter by using or searching for the hashtag: #HPIO
Questions already submitted by members of the Small Business Trends community:
- Marty Lamers of Articulayers asks: “Fried said in an Inc interview: ‘I have about 15,000 followers on Twitter — some are loyal customers, some are people who hate me. I don’t know 99 percent of them, but many of them are waiting for an opportunity to say “you suck.”‘ I wonder if since that interview he has leveraged Twitter or Facebook in any meaningful way for business or work?”
- Shashi Bellamkonda, Social Media Swami asks: “How did their [37 Signals'] perception of user experience match what the users did after they launched their tools?”
- Travis Campbell of Marketing Professor asks: ” In this economy, how important is cashflow management to the survival of a startup company compared to 5-10 years ago — and in what ways are companies being too protective with cashflow?”
- Paul Chaney, the Social Media Handyman asks: “Now that you’re no longer at Coudal Partners, where do you hang your hat?”
- Joel Libava, the Franchise King asks: “What suggestions do you have for new entrepreneurs who want to get their businesses to the next level?”
- Pamela O’Hara, Co-Founder of BatchBlue Software asks: “Do you hug the competition, a la The Small Business Web motto of “hug it out!” under the theory that collaborating with other software companies will help your own (rising tides lift all boats)?”
- Melinda Emerson, author of “Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months” asks: “How does Jason Fried feel about some of his long-time blog readers saying his book Rework was a rehash of the blog — and how should a blogger/author balance that?”
- @PrettyLittleCEO asks (from Twitter): “how do u build legacy and passion among new employees?”
- @SiliconCaribe asks (from Twitter): “Jason,would u speak to the Caribbean Tech community at the next Kingston Beta in person or by skype video this August?”
- @RandySpangler asks from Twitter: “Q for Jason: How does he avoid ‘creeping elegance’? How does he draw the line on the feature set 4 applications?”
- Anita Campbell, of Small Business Trends (that’s me!) asks: “If you had one piece of no-nonsense advice for small business owners/managers about using technology to get more efficient operations, what would that advice be?”
Go ahead — add YOUR question for Jason Fried, Founder of 37 Signals, in a comment below. I can’t guarantee that there will be time for every question to be asked. But I will certainly see that all questions get passed along.
From Small Business Trends
What Would You Ask Jason Fried, Founder of 37 Signals?
Join representatives from Google and Bing for a 4-hour intensive crash course in Internet marketing, to help you get your business found by local people on the Web.
The folks at GetListed.org have created a nationwide series of SEO seminars that are specifically targeted to small business owners. And we are excited to help bring this event to Cleveland, Ohio, on June 30, 2010.
If you have the kind of business where you get many of your customers locally (within a 50-mile radius), this is an event you won’t want to miss. You’ll learn search engine optimization techniques important to local small businesses that want to increase their chances of getting found online and gaining new customers and clients from the local area.
There’s an impressive line-up of speakers, including representatives from the search engines, so that you can “hear it direct from the horse’s mouth”:
Ryan Hayward – Product Marketing Manager for Google Local Business Center, and has been with Google since 2007. He also worked on Google’s AdWords & AdSense advertising products.
Mikko Ollila – Senior product manager working on Bing Local. He’s responsible for defining the value proposition and driving the business strategy for Local Search.
Mike Blumenthal — Mike specializes in web design and search consulting. Mike presents nationally at search conferences & contributes columns to Search Engine Land, focusing on Google Maps, and Google Local.
Patrick Sexton — Co-founder of GetListed.org, and is a top Google gadget developer. He also helps webmasters learn how to follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines, thereby making websites more Google-friendly.
David Mihm — President and CEO of GetListed.org. He’s one of the top experts in Local Search Engine optimization, and consults with small businesses, helping them create and promote search engine friendly websites.
This is just a partial list of speakers — you’ll hear from others too, including a session on the role of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook for local businesses.
Here are just some of the seminar topics being presented:
- Ranking Your Business in Local Search Results
- Understanding Your Website Traffic
- Internet Marketing for the Do-It-Yourselfers
Small Business Trends is pleased to offer attendees a special discount. All you have to do is enter the code “smbtrends” at checkout, and you’ll get $50 off the entrance price.
If you’d like to learn how to increase your business’s local visibility online, go to GetListed.org Local University — Northeast Ohio to register.
From Small Business Trends
Ohio Small Businesses: Get Local Customers Through Search Engines
Please join me for a free webinar called “Small Business, Big Wins: Innovative Tools to Drive Your Business Forward”
This webinar features strategies to thrive in any economy and especially in the environment we’re in now. It will be a roundtable style session, moderated by Rich Sloan of Startup Nation, along with Barbara Corcoran, of Shark Tank, and also yours truly, Anita Campbell.
We’ve been asked to share our strategies for getting ahead — we’ll be discussing these strategies during the session. Here’s Barbara Corcoran’s Strategies:
1. The big guy might have the corner on money, but the little guy always has the corner on creativity.
2. All the best opportunities are found in the silences.
3. Learn how to fail well.
4. Go play outside!
5. You can’t fake passion.
Here is Anita Campbell’s (my) Strategies:
1. Be curious about new productivity technologies, try them out, and master them.
2. Invest in highly efficient forms of marketing that require low financial investment or have a fast response time.
3. Devote an extra 15% of your marketing mix to growing your online market.
4. Get really close with your CPA and/or accounting software program.
5. Be creative when it comes to keeping employees satisfied.
DATE AND TIME: Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:00 pm Eastern time (New York time)
TWITTER HASHTAG: #DYMOandENDICIA
REGISTER: This webinar is free, but you must sign up in advance.
From Small Business Trends
Free Webinar in Honor of National Small Business Week
