Did you know May is National Inventors Month? In honor of all the innovators out there, Edison Nation and the public television show Everyday Edisons are hosting an online casting call for new product ideas. Everyday Edisons narrates the development of an idea into a product, and showcases 10 new products per season. Each idea is developed into a commercially viable product at no cost to the inventor; the inventor receives 50 percent of any royalties from the licensing of their product. Enter your ideas and chance to be on the show at the EdisonNation.com website. The final casting call ends May 31, 2012.
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Edison Nation: Product Developer and Online Inventor Social Community: Small Business Resource
May 17th, 2012 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichThe “3 Rs” to Raise Your Small Business Metabolism #12SMBTips
December 15th, 2011 :: Karen AxeltonDeborah Shane, Branding Strategist (@deborahshane)
The 3 Rs for 2012 will help you raise your business metabolism. Deborah Shane helps you find out how to reinvent, reimagine and reinvigorate yourself in 2012. With her fresh ideas, you will hit the ground running in 2012 feeling renewed.
About Deborah: Deborah delivers smart, no-nonsense ideas and solutions, which make her a popular go-to resource for clients, national media and influential blogs. Connect with her on Twitter (@deborahshane), Facebook and LinkedIn and visit her on the web at DeborahShane.com.
Ring in the New Year for your small business with a new domain name. This month only, purchase a domain name for $1.99, the lowest price of the year. This offer expires December 31st. Visit http://bit.ly/12SMBtips to redeem. Terms, conditions and limitations to this offer apply.
Google+Small Biz Resource Tip: Global Entrepreneurship Week
October 21st, 2011 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichThe world’s largest celebration of innovators and job creators takes place this year November 14-20, 2011, in 120 countries across the globe. Activities vary from country to country but include innovation competitions, networking opportunities, mentoring and more. Some of the U.S. events include the Young Entrepreneurial Spirits Expo in Virginia and the Entrepreneurial Task Force in Indiana. Also, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards take place November 17-19 in New York City. Anyone can get involved and the event is a perfect forum to connect companies that help entrepreneurs with innovative entrepreneurs themselves.
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Hot Trend: Food Truck Operators Add New Services
July 25th, 2011 :: Rieva LesonskyBy Rieva Lesonsky
If you’re in the food service or restaurant industry (or even if you aren’t), you know that food trucks are hot. These restaurants-on-wheels are a far cry from the “roach coaches” of the past. Selling everything from Korean tacos to cupcakes to schnitzel, food trucks roam the streets attracting crowds of customers in busy urban areas like downtown Los Angeles and New York City.
And apparently, food trucks aren’t a flash in the pan. The Wall Street Journal recently took a look at how New York City-area food trucks are expanding into new business models. Here’s how the trucks are expanding their offerings (and incomes):
Catering: Gourmet food trucks are now catering everything from movie and television film crews to private parties such as bar mitzvahs. Some trendy customers are even renting food trucks to cater their weddings!
Corporate clients: Some food trucks cater corporate events, of course, but companies are also using food trucks to attract clients. For instance, Yahoo! recently rented a truck to give out free whoopie pies at an event. Another truck cited in the article spends half an hour each week at one corporate office providing coffee for the company’s employees.
Advertising and promotions: Food truck owners can bring in even more money by “wrapping” the truck in the logo of a corporation so it’s a mobile promotional tool. Many corporate clients request this during events, for instance, but the trucks can also do it while they’re driving around.
Companies mentioned in the article are making from 20 to 50 percent of their income from these additional events. While some food truck owners look down at these type of events as disturbing the “purity” of their businesses, others are simply happy to have an additional source of revenue for their trucks. Trucks can typically charge more for catering and corporate events than they would make just serving food to customers on the street, so the profit margins are tempting.
If you own a food truck, or have been thinking about adding one to your restaurant, consider getting involved with catering, corporate clients or advertising options. These additional sources of income might be just what you need to make a food truck highly profitable.
Image by Flickr user Ricardo Diaz (Creative Commons)
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How to Get Real Results From Virtual Events
July 13th, 2011 :: Rieva LesonskyBy Rieva Lesonsky
Are you using virtual trade shows or other virtual events to market your business? Then there’s some interesting new research you should know about.
At traditional, in-person trade shows or conferences, attendees place a heavy emphasis on networking and collecting contact information or leads to follow up on. In virtual events, however, the picture is a little different, according to research by MarketingProfs and virtual events provider ON24, reported by eMarketer.
Their survey found that although nearly three-quarters (71%) of virtual event attendees did visit a virtual booth (just like at traditional events), a mere 20% exchanged contact information with an exhibitor. Only 17% traded contact information with other attendees at the virtual event. Fewer than half (45%) used online networking tools such as chat to network with others at the event.
So if virtual event attendees aren’t trading contacts or networking, what are they doing? Gathering information seems to be the top priority for virtual attendees. More than three-fourths (77 percent) downloaded materials such as ebooks or white papers, 74% watched live webcasts and 55% watched on-demand webcasts.
If you’re getting ready to exhibit at a virtual event, what can you learn from this? First, the study found, good-quality content is essential to getting attention. Sixty-one percent of attendees surveyed said they had never paid for a virtual event, but would be willing to do so if the content was compelling enough. Specifically, they were looking for content that aligns with the agenda and breakout sessions of the event. In contrast, attendees said networking opportunities were the least important factor that would convince them to pay to attend an event. So if you’re trying to get attendees to interact with you, develop content that’s closely tied to the event’s themes, and play that up in your online presence.
It’s a little disconcerting to find out that attendees aren’t networking. Without getting X number of leads or contacts from your virtual booth, the results of your exhibit are harder to measure. However, if you follow up with those who download or view your content, and keep in mind that you’ll need to nurture them more gently and work with them longer than people who come up and hand you their business cards at a real-life booth, you’ll have an edge in adapting to the new world of virtual events.
Image Courtesy: Karen Axelton
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Small Biz Resource Tip: TechShop
July 4th, 2011 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichIf you’ve got the entrepreneurial bug, you’re most likely bursting with ideas for new products and services, but get stuck when trying to figure out how to make these brilliant ideas happen. Your first stop should be TechShop. Still expanding and adding more locations, TechShop is a member-based and member-operated idea workshop that provides the tools, services and equipment to help people build the products and services they want to build. Membership is $99 per month and with that you get access to tons of helpful workshops, expert advice, tools and equipment, sophisticated software and more. Locations are mainly in the Bay Area of California, but TechShop is expanding to Oregon, Michigan and New York.
Google+Patent Reform Is Getting Closer
July 4th, 2011 :: Rieva LesonskyBy Rieva Lesonsky
The U.S. patent system has been mired in problems for years, ranging from a huge backlog of unexamined applications (more than 700,000, according to CNNMoney.com) and a three-year wait to get approved (or denied) for a patent. With more people inventing things or processes (including intellectual property and technological inventions), the examination process has become more complex and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is struggling to keep up.
But now real change to the system is finally in the wings. In March, CNNMoney.com reports, the Senate passed a bill to revamp U.S. patent law; in late June, the House of Representatives passed a similar bill. The America Invents Act and the Senate bill have several key aspects in common:
- They would change U.S. patent law from a “first to invent” to a “first to file” system, meaning the first person to apply for a patent—rather than the first person to come up with the idea—would receive the patent. While this may sound odd to us, it’s actually the system used by most other nations, and it helps prevent conflicting claims by individuals who contest patents after they are granted.
- They include provisions that would help keep patent battles from going to court.
- They enable the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to set fees and possibly keep them. (Right now, Congress sets fees, keeps the money and then gives a budget to the USPTO.) The change would enable the USPTO to charge higher fees for more complex patent reviews and lower fees for simpler ones, helping alleviate the underfunding that has contributed to the current backlog.
Next step: The two bodies just need to reconcile the differences between the bills—which should be fairly simple, since the only major difference in the two bills is how the Patent Office collects fees. Although no timetable has been set for reconciliation, President Obama has said he would sign a patent reform bill; once signed, this would be the first major change to the U.S. patent system since the 1950s.
How will the proposed changes help—or hurt—small business? There’s good news and bad news for inventors, depending on how you look at it. First, the good. According to David Kappos, director of the USPTO, being able to set and keep its own fees would allow the office to hire staff and update its IT infrastructure. Kappos has estimated the changes would allow the office to cut its backlog in half, ensuring that most patents are processed within one year of application.
Now, the bad: Many small business advocates are concerned the bill will hurt independent inventors by forcing them to compete with huge corporations for who can file first. With big companies having financial resources, R&D teams and legal armies on their side, will small businesses win?
Image by Flickr user Cliff 1066 (Creative Commons)
Google+Small Biz Resource Tip: IdeaOffer
June 28th, 2011 :: Maria Valdez HaubrichHave a business idea and want some feedback? Jumping on the trend of crowdsourcing, IdeaOffer is an open call for small companies or startups with big ideas who want help making their idea a reality by throwing the idea out there to get feedback—both good and bad. Create a free account, set up a prize amount you’re offering for the help, and then see what the world has to say about your new product or service idea. You can ask the entire community, or set up a specific community of your family and friends. You can also embed the IdeaOffer project on your own website.
Google+New Apple Offerings Will Streamline Small Business Life
June 28th, 2011 :: Karen AxeltonBy Karen Axelton
Do you use Macs in your business? If you do, your work life is about to get a lot simpler. If you don’t, you might be ready to switch after learning about the upgrades Apple is planning to its desktop, laptop and mobile operating systems. Combined with Apple’s iCloud service, the changes will streamline the way business users are able to work and may even help the company change its image to being more business-friendly.
One of the features I’m most excited about with Mac OS X (Lion), the desktop/laptop operating system upgrade, is how much it will simplify saving, storing and retrieving data. Whether it’s documents, photos, videos or PowerPoints, saving will be done automatically. The new system saves “Versions” of each document so you can always go back and look at prior versions. The “Resume” feature enables you to shut down your computer, then instantly return to the applications you were working in last wherever you left off. You’ll even be able to update software without restarting and reopening your applications.
Another exciting aspect of Lion is AirDrop–WiFi networking capability that enables you to drag-and-drop share documents with co-workers without having to set up a wireless network. The Mac’s Mail application will be streamlined too so you can view conversations all at once (rather than toggling among emails). And the new OS will enable users to use gestures on the trackpad or Magic Mouse to open apps, drag files and zoom in or out—making the desktop/laptop experience more similar to the iPhone/iPad experience.
With more than 250 new features, there’s much more than I’ve discussed here. OS Lion will be available in July for $29.99 and sold only from the Mac App Store.
Combining Lion with Apple’s iCloud storage option, to be released in the fall, will make it even more useful for business users. While iCloud is largely being promoted to the general public as a way to store music files (competing with Amazon’s recently launched storage offering), for business users, the good news is it offers a way to store all your data—documents, contacts, calendars and mail.
iCloud stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices — automatically–so it’s always accessible from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac or PC, offering instant access to your music, apps, latest photos and more. One of the most exciting features is that it keeps your email, contacts and calendars up to date across all your devices, which means no management or syncing.
Apple already offers a cloud storage service, MobileMe—but it has failed to become widely popular. I use MobileMe for business, and the system’s big downfall (aside from general clunkiness) is it requires you to actively save data to the cloud instead of doing it for you. iCloud will save a huge amount of time in this regard.
iCloud will be free with iOS5, the new operating system for Apple’s mobile devices including iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. iOS5 offers more than 200 new features for mobile devices, including improved Twitter integration and the ability to update your device wirelessly without the use of a desktop or laptop.
Image by Flickr user Kazuho Okui (Creative Commons)
Google+Is Your Office Space Outdated?
June 17th, 2011 :: Rieva LesonskyBy Rieva Lesonsky
Does your company still have cubicles for employees? Perhaps you’ve even got some offices—you know, those old-fashioned rooms with doors that actually close. If so, you might want to do some updating when it comes to your office space. MarketWatch recently took a look at the latest trends in office space, and one key word stands out: open.
While businesses and employees typically fear the idea of open-plan office space will mean endless noise and distraction, in reality, the opposite seems to be true. Without walls, ”we have found that, without exception, the noise level goes down,” Matthew J. Fanoe, vice president of real estate for Coca-Cola Refreshments, told MarketWatch.
How can this be? Fanoe explains that while cubicle walls create a false sense of a traditional “office,” encouraging employees to talk loudly, they don’t really block sound. However, in an open floor plan, employees are more aware of those around them and keep their voices down. (If for some reason yours don’t, inexpensive white noise systems can be used to blur the sounds.)
Here are some of the trends MarketWatch found in open plan offices:
- Quiet zones. Some companies have areas where cell phones aren’t allowed, so workers can focus in complete silence.
- Natural light. Open plan floor spaces allow natural light from windows to flood the office. This stimulates and energizes workers and makes them feel more positive.
- Relaxation areas. Areas with tables and vending machines that employees are encouraged to gather whenever they want—not just at lunch—help provide breaks and encourage interaction. Other companies have living-room-like areas.
- Get moving. Some offices use treadmills rigged with laptops, or standing desks, to help employees be more active.
- Hoteling. In the hoteling concept, employees don’t have a designated desk. Instead, they check in to get assigned to a space for the day.
- Think small. The average square footage per employee is now less than 200 square feet in the U.S. and 100 square feet in Europe. Companies are using the space they gain to create more shared space for collaboration.
Indeed, if there’s one overall goal for the new, open office, it’s collaboration. With mobile technology and the growth of remote work, people no longer need to come in to an office to access equipment and technology. When they do come in to the physical space, what’s most important is meeting with others and interacting. As a result, new office designs are putting the priority on collaborative environments that stimulate creativity and innovation.
That’s why, as one expert cited in the story says, the office is here to stay. Even though the way the workplace looks is changing, the need for us to socialize and interact with our co-workers will never change.
Image by Flickr user Ian Lamont (Creative Commons)
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