Yesterday morning I was lucky enough to participate on a panel with David Fischer, VP of Online Sales, Google, moderated by a fantastic young speaker Arel Moodie. Arel is also a great motivational speaker on the college circuit, getting college students excited about the possibility of being an entrepreneur.
The questions we got from the crowd were really prevalent to small business. We talked about how small businesses can use online tools to help them be a more global business. Questions came about like: "Why should I blog, what will I get out of it?" and "Tell us what we need to do to get noticed by the Google search engine" and more. I'll post the video when it's available.
Lunch was served and I sat with some really great small business owners including, to my surprise, Mark from PetCamp. You may have remembered my blog about his great business and all of the marketing he's doing.
Facebook & WIRED Magazine
revenue will come from in the future. More and more small businesses are looking to other vehicles like Facebook and Twitter to drive more customers. He also spoke about the risk you take from doing something with Facebook is worth it, however I disagree, I don't think it's risky at all, in fact I think it's easy. He did say that because of the transparency that Facebook offers, now small businesses need to be authentic, build a better product, and be real. I couldn't agree more.
Louis Rossetto then spoke. He started WIRED Magazine (and now has the chocolate company Tcho). He showed us his rocket ride to stardom, which was pretty powerful as WIRED has been a real cornerstone of the tech movement for the past 10 years. He touched on the complexity of the new network since he started the publication 5000 days ago. He also talked about how millennials are the largest demographic in the US and it's really their destiny to make the web even more than it is today. He previewed this fantastic Coke video to show the power the millennials have with this new network. It's a great example of millennials in fast action.
Marty Keller, Director, Office of Small Business Advocate, brought the house down with his moving speech about how small businesses should be awakened and get stronger with the power of all of the new collaboration tools to enable us as a group to rise up and take advantage now. Believe it or not, the crowd was teary eyed.
VOTE
Then it was time for the recommendation of issues from the previous day and a vote from
all of the attendees.
Using remote voters, we all voted on the issues to put forth to the governor enabling small businesses to have their voice in CA. The lobbying got crazy!
The day ended with the top 11 issues small businesses are facing today. Here are just the top 3 to give you an idea of the types of issues that are important.
1. Restore investment in programs the support small business.
2. California Air Resources Board needs to assess costs for AB 32 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) while assessing how it effects small business.
3. Small business need to be a larger part of the regulatory process.
The day ended with a wonderful bevy of speeches from small businesses on how this conference could and can change our lives. There was talk about doing this every year and growing it beyond belief because the business power in our nation is in the hands of the small businesses.
I met a ton of great people that I'm sure I'll keep in touch with.
Marty, let's do it again next year, I pledge to bring 20 people!
Janine, sounds like it was a fantastic event. Congratulations on your participation and I'm sure you were a great inspiration to the small businesses who attended!
Posted by: Carey Ransom | November 24, 2008 at 11:15 PM