Nominations for the 4th Annual Small Business Influencer Awards are Open!

It’s time, once again folks, to start thinking about those leaders and experts in the small business community who have guided you to success with your own company.

Yes, it’s the 4th annual Small Business Influencer Awards, and nominations are currently being accepted.

If You’re New to the Awards

The Small Business Influencer Awards are a joint effort between Small Business Trends and Small Biz Technology. Each year, we honor people, tools, and companies that have positively impacted small businesses in North America. We divide our nominees into eight categories (and there are new ones this year).

The six primary categories are:

• News Outlets (media companies)
• Corporations (providers of products and services to the small business market)
• Media (individual journalists, reporters, broadcasters, bloggers)
• Leaders (executives or other key employees that are part of corporations serving the small business market)
• Experts (mavens, authors, speakers, consultants)
• Apps (software, mobile apps, tablet apps)

In addition, we’ve added two special categories:

• Small Business Marketing Campaign of the Year
• Small Business Growth Story of the Year

The two special categories are interesting. We’ve decided to spice things up by honoring consultants or vendors that have assisted small business clients with noteworthy marketing campaigns, as well as consultants or vendors that have assisted small business clients with growing their businesses or increasing revenues or profits.

We expect to hear some pretty amazing stories in these categories…maybe even yours!

The Timeline

Right now, you are invited to nominate as many Small Business Influencers as you’d like. Nominations are open until August 29, 2014.

Then we move to the voting phase, where you get to vote for the nominees through September 15, 2014. You’ll be able to submit one vote per nominee, and your efforts will help us identify the  top 5 most popular votes in each of the six main categories.

After that, our esteemed panel of Judges will make its selection from the pool of nominees for the Top 100 Small Business Influencer Champions.

Then we top off the Small Business Influencer Awards with a special ceremony in October 2014 in New York City!

We hope to see you there. It’s always a fabulous opportunity to mix and mingle not only with our Small Business Influencers, but also other key members of the small business community as well as well-known journalists and industry leaders.

So Start Nominating Today!

I encourage you to start thinking about who has influenced you in the past year. Perhaps a mentor? A business colleague? Client? Partner? Or maybe it’s a business that’s helped you take your company to the next level.

There’s no rule that says you can’t nominate yourself, so if you think you’ve made a splash in the small business community, by all means, nominate yourself.

The rules for the Small Business Influencer Awards are simple and fair:

• Nominees must be based in North America.
• Entrants must be involved in supporting, assisting, serving or enabling small businesses, through products, services, information and/or expertise used by those in the small business market.

Sounds reasonable, right? So go nominate your favorite people and brands in the small business world now!

Be sure to follow @SMBInfluencer on Twitter, as well as the hashtag #SMBInfluencer to get the latest news on the awards.

The post Nominations for the 4th Annual Small Business Influencer Awards are Open! appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Makes Great Business Accessory

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 4 has a lot of features that should suit small business owners but it won’t be a replacement for your laptop.

For small business owners on the go more often than not, this tablet is definitely suited for keeping in touch with clients. And it’s more than capable of accessing and editing business files stored in your cloud.

A multi-pane view permits you to work on two different apps on the same 10.1-inch screen simultaneously.

The battery on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 allows you to stay on the Internet for about 10 hours. Some other positives with this tablet are that it’s lightweight and its stock 16 GB of internal storage can be expanded with up to 64 GB of external memory (microSD card in expansion slot).

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 also has a 3 megapixel rear-mounted camera and 1.3 megapixel camera that can be used for video conferencing or shooting photos to upload to social media sites.

This tablet operates Android KitKat 4.4 on a 1.2 GHz Quad-Core processor. It has 1.5 GB of RAM. These specs, along with a 1280×800 resolution screen don’t exactly make this tablet a replacement for your laptop. But at a $349 retail mark, this tablet is an affordable alternative for a larger device.

Think of this as more of an accessory. And while the hardware on the Galaxy Tab 4 may lag behind newer high-end tablets, it has more than enough power to complete most office tasks, even two at a time.

It certainly can allow you access to your cloud files. This Samsung 10-inch tablet is touted as “enterprise-ready” and is Microsoft Office-compatible.

There is a somewhat limited market for apps compatible with the tablet, however. And the diminished technical capabilities will limit what apps run smoothly or can be stored on the device. Based on our review, of the 16 GB of internal storage, about one-third of that is consumed from the start by the Android operating system.

Also, a warning. For those small business owners who enjoy mixing business with binge-watching Netflix, that app is not available on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4. You’ll have to look elsewhere.

The post Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Makes Great Business Accessory appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Microsoft says cybercrime bust frees 4.7 million infected PCs

BOSTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said it has freed at least 4.7 million infected personal computers from control of cyber crooks in its most successful digital crime-busting operation, which interrupted service at an Internet-services firm last week.

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U.S. House panel approves bill to rein in patent fights

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on Thursday approved a draft bill aimed at reining in companies that seek licensing fees for invalid patents or are otherwise dishonest in writing what are known as "demand letters."

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Tech-focused firm Spectrum Equity raises new $1 billion fund

(Reuters) - Private equity firm Spectrum Equity said on Thursday it had raised $1 billion for its seventh fund focused on investments in information technology services.

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U.S. sues Amazon over purchases by kids using mobile apps

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government sued Amazon.com on Thursday for allowing children to collectively run up millions of dollars in purchases on the credit cards of their unsuspecting parents while playing mobile apps like "Tap Zoo" and "Ice Age Village."

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Microsoft CEO signals change, defers talk on job cuts

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp MSFT.O Chief Executive Satya Nadella deferred any comment on widely expected job cuts at the software company on Thursday, after circulating a memo to employees promising to "flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes."

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