Jumpstart your business with a Field Trip July 15, 2010
Posted by theinfosearcher in Business Tips & Resources, General, Information Research.Tags: collaboration, Creative ideas, idea generation, ideas sharing, innovation, small business, small business idea generation
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Yes, you heard right! How about a little field trip?
As a small business owner it can often be hard to “think-outside-the-box” when you are steeped with work, juggling the demands of daily business operations, management and leadership while trying to come up with creative ways to run a business. Does that sound familiar to you?
As entrepreneurs continue to attend roundtables, forums, networking sessions, workshops, or form discussion groups in the hopes of coming away from the experience, inspired, and motivated to make some much needed changes in the way they handle business, why not schedule a field trip to a local business to get those creative juices flowing?
There’s a lot that you can take away from businesses that are not similar to your own. And it could also be beneficial to schedule one of these every quarter, if not every month (if possible), to generate some creative ideas on how other businesses are innovating or coping with similar problems.
But as you ponder this idea and decide to meet with a local business of choice, be candid about your intentions when you schedule a meeting with the CEO or owner of the business. You never know, they just may even be able to provide you with solutions to some of those pesky little problems through your interaction during the field trip.
At a loss for Keywords/Phrases? June 17, 2010
Posted by theinfosearcher in General, Information Research, Internet Marketing.Tags: Google Wonder Wheel, Internet Marketing, Keyword mapping, Keyword search, Phrases, SEO
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Trying to decide on the optimal keywords to use for website SEO can often be daunting and painstaking. The latest tool provided by Google may just be what you need to trigger keywords/phrases that would be most suitable for use on your website or any other searchable sites. Google’s Wonder Wheel mind maps the search terms and phrases and provides you with alternatives to the direct search term that you use to describe the products or services. It is remarkable! Give it a shot.
Financing Small Businesses in this economy December 14, 2009
Posted by theinfosearcher in General.Tags: Banks, Community banking, credit to businesses, financing, funding for small businesses, Grants, lending, small business, stimulating the economy, stimulus program
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As most banks have drastically reduced their credit to businesses, Dime Bank has realized that it has to do something to impact its local economy.
The loans are also being offered at a half percentage point lower. So why is Dime Bank taking this risk? To which the socially conscious bank responds, “Because that’s what community banking is all about”.
Kudos to Dime Bank for stepping up and making a difference in their lending practices. If more banks could follow its lead, perhaps the economy would probably be in better shape.
Interested in Executive Buzz? March 25, 2009
Posted by theinfosearcher in Business Tips & Resources, General, Information Research, Internet Marketing.Tags: Exectweet, executive buzz, executive chatter, Executive twitter, Federated Media, Twitter, Twittering executives
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Wasn’t it just yesterday that Twitter got off the ground? It has quickly segmented its market, and now, has expanded to ExecTweets, a site devoted to what executives are saying on Twitter. ExecTweets is a partnership between Federated Media and Microsoft. It is a platform that “aggregates the tweets of top execs and empowers the community to surface valuable and insightful business-related tweets”.
ExecTweets, still in its infancy and currently being offered as a beta site, boasts of 75-80 top executives. The Twitter craze has definitely caught on and is poised to grow.
ExecTweets gives you the option of joining the tweet or recommending an executive that should be on the site by replying to @exectweets via Twitter, or alternatively, you can follow the executive chatter on ExecTweet.
How effective is virtual business networking? March 9, 2008
Posted by theinfosearcher in General.Tags: online networking, virtual business networking
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While there are many like LinkedIn, Ryze, Friendster, Spoke, EntreMate, Facebook and the list goes on……how do you decide which is the best business networking site for you? Once you decide that, how do you determine who you should include in your network? It can be overwhelming to register on some of these sites and make the necessary connections. The idea behind these sites is to have a “warm” contact. The ”six degrees of separation” supposedly makes one feel a little better about connecting with another person that is 3-4 or possibly more connections down along the networking chain. Odd sentiment but, it exists.
I suppose there is some merit in the idea of networking this way but I can’t imagine that everyone would be comfortable connecting with you when they are not too sure of your intentions. Are they looking to build a large base of contacts so that they can say brag about having one or, is it purely to make a business connection with individuals in your network? Then, the question is, what if they are competitors, looking to tap into your network? What then?
Recently, I had several people send me a LinkedIn invite after a webinar that I did. At first I was flattered, but then when I thought about it further, it didn’t really make any sense because I hardly knew these people except for knowing that they had attended my webinar. Is it advisable to accept an invitation from someone that you hardly know and include them in your network? Or, should you wait to get to know them before you invite them into your network?
Let’s hear your thoughts.
Netweaving February 15, 2008
Posted by theinfosearcher in General.Tags: business connections, helping others, netweaving, networking
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Alas, I have been hesitant long enough and have finally decided to make my foray into the blog-sphere. Just don’t ask me what I was waiting for…. Anyway, I came across the term “Netweaving” while I was at a seminar sometime back. Though I thought it was an interesting concept didn’t really do much in the way of applying this concept till I observed several people at a recent conference handle this process very effectively. I do believe it has been circulating for a while based on an article that I had read and since I think at some level all of us that network, do it, I thought I should revisit the concept and include it in my upcoming presentation on “Networking”.
Most of us have been conditioned to Network, for the most part, to connect with other individuals whether it be, for social or business reasons. But the impetus is generally on achieving a personal goal, ie; to form alliances to promote your business or at a social level, to form alliances to promote yourself. Netweaving works off of a slightly different model. The impetus is to help as many people. The focus shifts from self to others! For those of us who dread the thought of networking, this could really take the edge off. Hmmm! Something to think about…..
