This month Shashi and I were asked to speak at the Small Business Tech Summit in New York City. There were many great speakers as you can see from the agenda. I have had a small business for 10 years and I learned a few new things which is why I like Ramon’s event so much. They keep it relevant, have good content and with Ramon’s trademark delivery never let it get dull. The summit had over 500 folks registered and you can see the details of the conference at http://www.smallbiztechsummit.com. You can follow the conversation on Twitter by searching the conference hashtag #smallbizsummit

Highlight: Seth Godin Keynote

Image via Wikipedia

This year they had Seth Godin keynote in the afternoon and I have to tell you that for never having seen him speak I can see why people pay lots of money to have him at their event and why he sells tons of books. He is that good. Granted, all of his books I haven’t liked or they just didn’t speak to me personally but I have to admit his one hour delivery that centered around his new book Linchpin (which we just reviewed yesterday) it was really informative and entertaining.

He took the audience through an informative set of info graphics and distilled being a linchpin when he described Marissa Mayer at Google. From his book “If you could write Marissa’s duties into a manual, you wouldn’t need her. But the minute you wrote it down, it wouldn’t be accurate anyway. That’s the key. She solves problems that people haven’t predicate, see things people haven’t seen and connects people who need to be connected. She is a linchpin.”

For more on his book, check out our book review of Seth’s Godin’s Lichpin.

Highlight: Small Business Tech Hot Demos

This year they had something new to fill the space between speakers and that was the Small Business Tech Hot Demos. These were new or existing companies that had a really hot technology that would benefit any small business owner. The winners were:

Broadlook Mobile Profiler
http://www.broadlook.com/products/profilerx/

Automatically acquire accurate and more information about your contacts from the Internet, in particular social networks.

Ez Texting
http://www.eztexting.com

Send SMS (text) messages to customers (clients). Send to 10 clients or 500 clients. Send to all or a segmented groups.

Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901
http://www.lexmark.com

One of the first printers with customizable applications

SugarSync for Business
http://www.sugarsync.com

Synchronize files or folders, instantly, across computers or mobile devices

ReTargeter
http://www.retargeter.com

Display online advertising in front of customers when they visit other popular web sites, after they’ve left your web site.

Pixability Business Video
http://pixability.com

Take video footage of your business. Send it to Pixability for creation of a professional video about your business.

Highlight: Meeting Awesome People

This year there were about 500 people and it was bigger than last year with great small business owners and those who work with small business

We met some great folks at the event  and here is a list of some of them:

• Stephanie Singer of http://www.bajdesign.com @bajdesign
• Darcey howard http://www.getlifestyled.com
• Mark Grahan Rightsleeve.com
• Melton Littlepage concurbreeze.com
• Norman Schreiber normanschreiber.com
• Laurie McCabe smb-group.com @lauriemccabe
• Anne Lupton SandHillWebsiteDesign.com
• Tom O’ Shea Waspbarcode.com
• Brian Moran smallbusinessedge.com
• Mel Parker dell.com
• Alec Stern ConstantContact.com
• Prasad Thammineni OfficeDrop.com
• Land Grant growsthroots.com
• Jimmy Izquierdo RNS Marketing Inc ( advise – put your website on your card
• Dion P Kenney y2strategic.com
• Bill Manos favrav.com
• Kelley A Cox uschamber.com
• Lady from Jojo’s Jewels ( wish the website was listed on the card)
• Sri Narayana Bupan  drugwrite.com
• Jagannath Raghavan 8kmiles.com
• Sara Ruh TecAccess.com
• Sylvester J Di Diego StrategyDynamix.com
• Joshua Newman Integrateny.com

Highlight: The Swami Presents his Great Social Media Presentation

Here is the presentation Shashi Bellamkonda gave at the Small Business Tech Summit New York March 16th 2010.

We Have 10 Tickets to the Small Business Technology Summit in NYC to Give Away! Check out our contest, running this week and over the weekend:

Next Tuesday, March 16 in New York City, Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com and many other talented people are putting on the annual small business technology summit at Digital Sandbox in downtown Manhattan.

The event is being keynoted by famous author and marketing guru, Seth Godin. Other speakers include Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions, Angus Thomson of Intuit, Grant Wickes of Wasp Barcode, Mel Parker of Dell Small Business, many others and your’s truly giving an updated version of my rules for killer business cards (2010 edition).

It is an all day event that covers the most relevant and high impact topics and issues that small businesses are dealing with today.

To see the entire list of speakers and agenda, head to http://www.smallbiztechsummit.com/index.php

We Are Giving Away 10 Tickets for FREE Admission to the Event!

Since Shashi and I are both speakers at this event, we have been given 10 tickets to give away to small business owners that can make it to the event.

How to enter the contest:

To be eligible, we need you to do the following:

1. Go to our Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Network-Solutions/190173166019
2. If you are not a fan, become one. You must be a fan to win.
3. Talk about your small business and one issue you are facing as a small business owner.
4. Mention your business name and include a link to your business.
5. Mention the Small Business Tech Summit.

THAT’S IT!

We will award the tickets to the first 10 small business owners that put something on the wall with those details above. Good luck!

If you win or not, here are the details on the event:

Date
Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Time
8:00 am – 5:00 pm

Location
Digital Sandbox
New York Information Technology Center
55 Broad Street
New York, NY 10004

Web Site: http://www.smallbiztechsummit.com/index.php