Check Out a Small Business Event, Award or Contest

Welcome to our latest curated list of events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies.

To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Access to Capital ChicagoAccess to Capital Chicago
May 22, 2013, Chicago, Illinois

Join us at the Navy Pier to learn how you can raise capital for your small business. Meet 1:1 with loan officers. Attend panels on traditional and alternative lending options, start-ups, crowd-funding, and more.
Discount Code
sbtrends (Get 30% off)

Making Money Online: Ecommerce Done Right with John LawsonMaking Money Online: Ecommerce Done Right with John Lawson
June 25, 2013, New York City

Looking to create independence from this shifting job economy?
Want a stream of income that works for you around the clock?
Have a great idea of what to sell online but don’t know how to get started?
Dreaming of growing your online store from a hobby to a full fledged, profitable business?
Join John Lawson, award winning Social Commerce Strategist, American Express featured businessman, author, and founder of 3rd Power Outlet - an online clothing retail outlet that has exceeded $25 million in sales.
John will be sharing his practical, down-to-earth methods for building your own ecommerce business from the ground up in this two part workshop, packed with resources, tips, and how-to instruction.
Discount Code
SBTRENDS ( $25 off)

WBENC National Conference & Business FairWBENC National Conference & Business Fair
June 26, 2013, Minneapolis, MN

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) will convene 3,500 decision makers from the nation’s leading corporations, government entities and women’s business enterprises (WBEs) to generate business together and stimulate economic growth at the 2013 WBENC National Conference & Business Fair in Minneapolis, MN, June 25-27, 2013.

Big Awards for BusinessBig Awards for Business
August 14, 2013, Online

The Big Awards started with a mission of recognizing real talent and performance. Real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the Big Awards. Request an entry kit today and submit your nomination by August 14, 2013.
Discount Code
SBT50 ($50.00 off)

More Events

More Awards and Contests

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.




Check Out a Small Business Event, Award or Contest

Welcome to our latest curated list of events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies.

To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Access to Capital ChicagoAccess to Capital Chicago
May 22, 2013, Chicago, Illinois

Join us at the Navy Pier to learn how you can raise capital for your small business. Meet 1:1 with loan officers. Attend panels on traditional and alternative lending options, start-ups, crowd-funding, and more.
Discount Code
sbtrends (Get 30% off)

Making Money Online: Ecommerce Done Right with John LawsonMaking Money Online: Ecommerce Done Right with John Lawson
June 25, 2013, New York City

Looking to create independence from this shifting job economy?
Want a stream of income that works for you around the clock?
Have a great idea of what to sell online but don’t know how to get started?
Dreaming of growing your online store from a hobby to a full fledged, profitable business?
Join John Lawson, award winning Social Commerce Strategist, American Express featured businessman, author, and founder of 3rd Power Outlet - an online clothing retail outlet that has exceeded $25 million in sales.
John will be sharing his practical, down-to-earth methods for building your own ecommerce business from the ground up in this two part workshop, packed with resources, tips, and how-to instruction.
Discount Code
SBTRENDS ( $25 off)

WBENC National Conference & Business FairWBENC National Conference & Business Fair
June 26, 2013, Minneapolis, MN

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) will convene 3,500 decision makers from the nation’s leading corporations, government entities and women’s business enterprises (WBEs) to generate business together and stimulate economic growth at the 2013 WBENC National Conference & Business Fair in Minneapolis, MN, June 25-27, 2013.

Big Awards for BusinessBig Awards for Business
August 14, 2013, Online

The Big Awards started with a mission of recognizing real talent and performance. Real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the Big Awards. Request an entry kit today and submit your nomination by August 14, 2013.
Discount Code
SBT50 ($50.00 off)

More Events

More Awards and Contests

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.




This Week in Small Business News

Washington and small business news

This week’s once again focused on the Internet Sales Tax bill. Other topics were mobile trends, leadership and more. The Small Business Trends editorial team brings you not just the news- but the important context around the important small business news stories of the week.

Internet Sales Tax Update

A proposed Internet sales tax has passed the U.S. Senate - The bill passed the Senate 69-27 on Monday. It gives states the power to require online retailers to collect sales tax for purchases made by their residents. Businesses are divided on the bill. Brick and mortar retailers claim it levels the playing field with online retailers out of state. Online small businesses are strongly against it. Affiliate marketers like it because they’ve been hurt by individual state laws. Ebay says its sellers will find it too complicated.

But the tax bill may stall in the U.S. House - Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) is sending the Senate version of the legislation to the House Judiciary Committee. This may delay it indefinitely. Though the bill is technically called the Marketplace Fairness Act, “fairness” is a matter of perspective, notes Small Business Trends publisher Anita Campbell. Big online retailers like Amazon and big brick and mortar retailers like WalMart support the bill. But it will likely hit small businesses hard because they lack the resources to handle ongoing compliance in 9600 taxing jurisdictions.

Mobile Trends

98% of small businesses use wireless now - An AT&T poll shows some other trends about how important the technology has become to running a business. For example, the poll says two-thirds (about 66 percent) of the owners who say they use wireless to operate their businesses believe they couldn’t survive or would face severe challenges without it. The poll also shows an increase in tablet usage, especially in small businesses less than two years old.

34% of small businesses do not use mobile tech in their businesses - In a counterpoint to the AT&T poll, roughly one third of small businesses report they do NOT use mobile technologies in their businesses.  Constant Contact did this survey instead of a wireless provider. An existing bias in the survey base may explain the difference between the two results.  Another reason for the difference may be in choice of terminology: wireless vs mobile.

Smartphones surpass regular phones - And tablets are also becoming more popular. Marketing intelligence firm International Data Corporation says 51 percent of the mobile phones shipped out in the first quarter of 2013 were smartphones.  Tablets saw a 117 percent increase in units shipped over last year. Time to upgrade that old cell phone or perhaps buy a tablet?

A new 8-inch tablet is coming from Samsung in June - Samsung already has two other tablets in its Galaxy Tab 2 series of budget devices. An 8-inch tablet would be more portable than the bigger 10.1-inch Samsung tablet. The screen would also be bigger and easier to see than the smaller 7-inch Samsung tablet. The new Samsung device would be smaller than the 9.7-inch iPad. And it’s closer in dimensions to the iPad mini, which has a screen size of 7.9 inches. But it will likely be cheaper than both.

Kayak and Travelocity founder discusses changes due to mobile - In this exclusive interview, Terry Jones, the founder of two popular travel sites, discusses what’s different today versus 10 years ago. One difference: mobile usage for travel.

Entrepreneurship

Last Sunday was National Lemonade Day. The annual event leverages the lemonade stand, the ultimate symbol of childhood entrepreneurship, to help kids get a taste of what it’s like to run a business. This year, event organizers expected to reach 50 cities in the U.S. and Canada and have more than 200,000 children participating. Read about how Lemonade Day has grown fr0m its launch in 2007 â€" and get busy planning an event to help budding entrepreneurs in your community next year. It’s never too early!

Bitcoins still not widely known but getting more popular. We ran a story last week about the risks of using online Bitcoin exchanges, and followed up with a second story about usage of bitcoins. Exchanges are necessary to convert the popular digital currency into national currencies. But in an email interview, entrepreneur Assaf Scialom of iQDesk.net explains why the “currency” holds interest, especially for online entrepreneurs working internationally.

Technology

Is your website “responsive”? If you don’t know, you may want to read this easy-to-understand explanation of the latest trend in website design. The fact is, visitors to your website are likely viewing it in a wide variety of devices and screen resolutions â€" oversized 42-inch desktop monitors, 8-inch tablets and 4-inch smartphones.   Sites designed in a traditional manner may be hard to view on smaller screens. Responsive websites resize themselves to fit.

You can now make video calls on Viber. The service’s new desktop app lets users place video calls to each other. Viber already has apps for smartphones. Observers call the service a rival to Microsoft’s Skype, and maybe with good reason. Viber already has 200 million users worldwide. It’s similar to Skype in some ways, but not in others. The two services are quite different. Check out some specifics on how they differ.

Social Media

Don’t believe the hype about the Facebook exodus. We couldn’t help grabbing this one from the headlines and uncovering the true facts for our readers. The Guardian newspaper last month reported that Facebook was hemorrhaging members. The trouble is, the numbers were flawed. We delved into other numbers provided to us by Facebook and in Facebook’s quarterly earnings call, to uncover the true state of small businesses using Facebook. And we discovered 16 million small businesses have Facebook Pages, up 3 million in one quarter alone.

Financing

Higher home prices are good for small business. Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, Scott Shane, provides research evidence of a trend people don’t usually think of when considering small business growth. Shane points out that many business owners finance their businesses through home equity loans. Lower home values mean less funding available.

Small manufacturing is reinventing itself. The PayNet Manufacturing Index says manufacturing by small businesses has risen 48 percent since the Great Recession of 2009. The index looks at investments made by small manufacturing companies. Those investments are in property, equipment, tools and business units. William Phelan, president of PayNet, said that small manufacturers that managed to reinvent themselves are a key reason for the rebound.

Leadership and Strategy

Go Daddy makes changes, still not there yet as a “small business platform” - Scott Wagner, from KKR Capstone, the company leading the leveraged buyout of GoDaddy in 2011, moved from an interim position to COO and CFO this week. The company claims to be on its way to becoming “the largest platform for small businesses around the world.” But as we point out in this deeper analysis, Go Daddy will have to do much more for small businesses, if it wants to earn that designation.

Tough times make better leaders. Respected small business journalist Rieva Lesonsky shares data on what tough times do to managers and executives. Lesonsky quotes a Gallup poll showing engagement by these leaders during 2009 in the depths of the Great Recession was 10 percent higher than it is today. Does your engagement as a leader improve in tough times? And if you’re wondering just what engagement means, read Lesonsky’s full article for more detail.

Union poster rule overturned - A proposed rule by the NLRB that would have restricted business owners’ free speech rights when it comes to unionizing, was overturned on appeal.  The NFIB hailed this as a victory for small businesses.




“Team Renaissance” Brings New Insights into Working with Teams

business teamsMulti-functional work teams were a hot trend in the 1990’s.

If you can remember back when American manufacturing was reeling from the onslaught of Japanese high-quality products hitting our shores, you’ll recall that the culture of American individualism was considered passé.  That’s when U.S. corporations made a commitment to figure out how to work in teams so they could gain back their competitive advantage.

I was part of that culture â€" excited about the prospect of leveraging our creative strengths to create even greater growth than we thought was possible.

So, when I went to get my MBA, I chose to focus on multi-functional work teams.  As you’d imagine, we studied many different team models. Some were better than others.  And what I learned from that experience was that not every team model is right for every organization.

Choosing a model that your organization can work with and follow is a lot like choosing a spouse or a friend or a religion for that matter.  In a strange way, it’s a personal decision that you make with a group.

So why am I telling you all of this? Simple: so that you can read my review from the perspective of someone who’s lived through and studied “trends” in business teams.  I received a review copy of Team Renaissance: The Art, Science & Politics of Great Teams from a publicist. I wanted to read it because I was curious about what the latest strategies were in team management.

In this case, I’m not just going to review a book. I’m also going to provide my personal insights about how to use or read this book based on my experience with a variety of team models.

You Are Always Part of a Team

Whether you acknowledge it or not, your business is founded on a team.  You may have a team of full time employees or you may have a team of virtual employees.

Even if you are a true solopreneur, you actually have an invisible team in place â€" your customers, your family and friends, your networking group and even the vendor companies you use to help you run your business.  These days, none of us is truly alone in running our business (whether we want to be or not).

Teams Need a Solid Structure

Once you’ve acknowledged that there is a team dynamic going on in your business, this will completely transform the context from which you run your business.  And suddenly, you will see the issues that appeared to be random hiccups as part of a pattern that, when mastered, will have your business standing on a much firmer structure.

Team Renaissance Offers Structures and Tools for Today’s Teams

In the past, team models were fairly simple.  There was the “Forming, Norming, Storming and Performing” model you may have heard of, for example.  Today’s team environments are understandably a little more complicated than that with a few more pieces and parts.

Team Renaissance is a book that gives readers the opportunity to choose what works best for them and their organization.

You’ll find real life examples and stories throughout the book to guide you on your particular journey of building a strong and stable work team.

Like every other team model out there, Team Renaissance has a graphic representational model of its process, called the Team Arch.  There’s also an assessment tool, the Team Renaissance Survey. This is an interactive tool that helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team.

About the Authors

Team Renaissance is written (as you’d expect) by a team: Richard Spoon and Jan Risher.  Richard Spoon founded ArchPoint Consulting after spending more than 15 years working in large organizations like Proctor and Gamble and Campbell’s Soup.  He’s led large organizations through change efforts and worked with a diverse group of clients.

Jan Risher is a freelance writer with international experience that includes writing a regular column, traveling around the world and running a PR firm.

There are two additional authors who are mentioned inside the book, but not on the jacket flap.  Jesse Edelman is also a Proctor and Gamble veteran with broad experience in sales and marketing.  Stephen Peele is an independent consultant with an expertise in technology and marketing.

The fact that these four authors were able to pull together such a beautifully written and designed book should tell you that the process works.

Can Beauty and Substance Exist at the Same Time?

This is a beautifully designed and high quality book.  You may want to display it on a coffee table in your office or home - but only do that after you’ve read it.  There really are a lot of wonderful tools and insights inside.

Simple in its Complexity

As I mentioned before, the “Arch” is the guiding model for the content inside the book.  One of the statements about why they chose an arch as the foundation for their team model also says a lot about the book itself - it’s simple in its complexity. Team_Arch_Gold

“Just as the arch provides support for a structure, teams act as the foundation for any successful organization.  The individual pieces hold the arch together, uniting to form a design that allows for the equal distribution of weight across the entire structure.”

The authors take you through each component of the model.  If you’ve been used to the overly simplified models of business teams like I talked about at the beginning of the article, you might have a freak-out.

Even though the authors say it’s “simple,” if you’re just stepping into the space of running a team and you’re a small business owner - you might feel overwhelmed at first. Stick with it.

I can’t lie to you, gentle readers.  This is a book that is targeted to larger organizations more used to complex human interactions and processes than a bootstrapping startup.

But that doesn’t mean that won’t find valuable tools and strategies that you can use in your small business.  Each element of the model is easy enough to understand. You can certainly use pieces and parts of the model in your small organization.  You just won’t have the complex structure in your application of the model that a larger multi-national company might have.

Team Renaissance is a wonderful book for managers inside of larger organizations. It can be used by small business owners of organizations that use a lot of teams, especially small manufacturers or design and development firms.   This book is definitely worth reading if you are interested in team management.




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