Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Live Tweeting & Maybe Some Blogging too from 2011 Small Business Summit in NYC

Today the KikScore team is making the trek up to New York city to attend the 2011 Small Business Summit.  This is the sixth annual summit and it is organized by the fabulous Ramon Ray and his team.  We have had to miss the last few years events so this year when we were offered an opportunity to attend we jumped at it.  It is even true I picked the Small Business Summit over attending SXSWi which is coming up this weekend (well 14 month old Asha had a roll in that decision too!).  And yes, the trip up to New York did include me getting up at 3:50am this morning to catch a cab at 4:20am so I could grab the 5am train out of DC’s Union Station! You read those times right!  As I tweeted earlier this morning either I need to find a mimosa or some really strong Red Bull type drink. In all seriousness, the excitement that we feel at KikScore about attending the event will more than keep us rolling throughout the day.

If you can not make it to New York, the Summit will be live streamed.  The agenda is jam packed with great speakers that include DC’s own Warren Brown (Cakelove), Mark Gambill (Dell), Christopher McCann (1-800-Flowers), John “ColderICE” Lawson (Ecommerce Expert) Elen Pack (ELance), Kirk Averett (Rackspace), Jim Fowler (Jigzaw), Pamela O’Hara (BatchBlue Software) as well as Ramon Ray and many others.

Watch out here for some updates (if we get a break between all the great content and networking) or check the Twitter stream under #smallbizsummit.

If you are in attendance, please look for me and say hello.  I will be the person wearing two hats!  Well at least figuratively (our nights and weekend entrepreneurs know what I am talking about there!).

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Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

5 Reasons to Go to Friday’s Small Business Happy Hour in DC

Our good friend of KikScore, the Swami Shashi B is organizing a fun night this Friday for small businesses in the DC metro area.  It will be a night of networking, learning, probably one or two tweets, maybe even some tweets while folks are networking and learning.  The networking happy hour is for small businesses in the area and it is at the fabulous Indique Heights in Chevy Chase, Maryland.   Indique Heights is also metro accessible and is located on the Red Line.

So for those who need some convincing here are 5 reasons to attend the small business meetup/happy hour.

1. You get your chance to have a drink with THE Swami.

2. It is a long three day weekend for many so you have an extra day to shrug off that hangover from too many Taj Mahal beers.

3. You get to celebrate an assortment of birthdays from Paris Hilton, Dave Klingler, Denise Richards, Michael Jordan, Lou Diamond Phillips, Cleveland Brown legend Jim Brown. – Ha I fooled you, all of these people were born on Thursday the 17th, but lets celebrate them on Friday!

4. Its Pluto-palooza meets Motley Crue – We can all celebrate the anniversary of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovering the planet Pluto in 1933 or better yet the anniversary of Pamela Anderson & Motley Crue’s drummer Tommy Lee getting married in 1995.  Fun fact by the way about myself. In 1992, as a part of my final exam in Aerobics 101 at Miami University, I had to lead an aerobics class to the classic Motley Crue song Kickstart My Heart!  Yes, the beats per minute for that song are insane and I nearly had a heart attack after the first 45 seconds!

5. Drinking red wine can cut rates of heart disease so do your part to help your heart!

So if you have a small business, startup or an aspiring entrepreneur or just want to join a good group of people for some drinks, we hope to see you there on Friday! Here is more information about Friday’s happy hour.

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Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

DC Area Friends, SmallBiz & Startups – Come to the 28Corridor Tweetup This Thurs #28ctweetup

I talk to the Swami on my way home nearly every night from Herndon.  No I do not talk to myself or my imaginary friend in the passenger seat (though if I had one, I would imagine I was sitting with Mike Holmgren and ask him when will the Browns return to relevance in the NFL?).  The person that I talk to is the Social Media Swami, Shashi B.  That call often begins on Route 28, right off the Dulles Toll Road and next to beautiful Dulles Airport.  We typically chat about our day, what is going on with KikScore, how Shashi’s daughter (and Kikscore intern) Mitali is enjoying college as well as a host of other things.  It allows us to catch up with each other during the nearly 40 minute drive home to our respective homes in the District and in Maryland.

So it is only fitting that Thursday, Shashi is organizing the first ever 28 Corridor Tweetup.  That would be the same 28 that we drive on every day.  For those not familiar with Route 28 in Northern Virginia, here are some “beautiful” aerial pics!  The “excuse” (as if we need one!) for the tweetup is to get together to welcome the wonderful Lisa Byrne, @dceventjunkie, to Network Solutions  (our co-sponsor from last year’s fantastic Social Commerce Camp). Lisa just started working on Shashi’s fantastic team last week.

As more folks started to tweet about the tweetup, it dawned on us that lets try to get area small businesses, startups, bloggers, nearby airport baggage handlers (bet they have some great stories!) and anyone else together to join us at Ned Devine’s in Herndon, VA for the tweetup.  So please come on out on Thursday.  We would love to see you there.  Spread the word and tell your friends.

By the way here is some extra incentive, if we get more than 30 attendees, the Swami will sing the Lady Gaga song of the crowd’s choice (I hear there are a lot of people voting for Poker Face!”).

Click here for the details on the 28 Corridor Tweetup. The hashtag by the way for Thursday’s event is #28ctweetup.

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Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

4 Reasons SmallBiz & Startups Should Attend Friday's GrowSmartBiz Conference in DC

On Friday, November 5, 2010, the Second Annual GrowSmartBiz Conference will take place at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Washington DC.  If last year’s conference gives us any idea about how this year’s one will be, you can expect a full day of great tips from real subject matter experts across a wide range of topics that impact small business and startups. I have to say last year my wife (who owns a small business) and I both attended and we could not stop talking about the energy, the people we met, the important tips we learned and frankly all of the fun we had in one day.  Besides our experience going to SXSW in 2009 when I co-presented, this is hands down one of my personal favorite conferences I have attended – and I even worked the conference last year manning the “SmallBiz Answers Booth” with PR specialists, lawyers, marketers, developers and startup founders.

So here are 4 independent reasons to attend this year’s GrowSmartBiz Conference:

1. The Speakers Are Awesome and Experienced Starting with the keynotes that include Successful Entrepreneur Raul Fernandez all the way to the speakers and moderator at the four track sessions and excellent.  The speaker list includes small business, technology, social media and PR kings like Ramon Ray (recently on MSNBC), Brent Leary, Marissa Levin, Joe Libava, Steven King, Jill Foster, Shonali Burke, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Ken Yancey and Rohit Bhargava. And this is just a few of the names that will be there on Friday.  The full speaker list can be found here and Jill Foster has a great summary of the lineup on her excellent blog Live Your Talk.

2. The Topics Are Going to be Highly Informative Building off last year’s conference, the organizers this year broke the conference into four main tracks: 1) Marketing & Innovation; 2) Small Business, Government & Non-Profits; 3) Technology as a Tool for Your Business; and 4) Entrepreneur Bootcamp.  Each of these four tracks has a dense topic list that includes Socal Media Marketing, Learning How to Tell Your Business Story, How to Track and Keep Customers, 6 Rules for Tech Success and Tips for Smart Hiring Practices.  These are just some of the great topics (see full agenda)  that will help any small business and startup.

3. Great Networking Opportunities It has been reported in many places (and I have heard first hand) that small businesses would like to spend more time networking and learning from each other.  Well GrowSmartBiz took the feedback from last year;’s conference and created more opportunities for the small business attendees to network and meet each other.  This year there are multiple times during the day when you can meet the fellow attendees and also ask the speakers questions after their presentations.  More networking means more learning and more business opportunities for your business.

4. Pre-Event Happy Hour This year a night before the conference happy hour for speakers, bloggers, the media, attendees and sponsors is being organized.  This way you can start networking even before the conference begins!  Who knows your question or story may end up being referenced or mentioned on Friday by one of the speakers.  My wife’s website got mentioned last year during Ramon Ray’s presentation after he met her right before his speaking session. Here is the information on the Thursday evening Happy Hour!

These are just some of the reasons to sign up and attend on Friday.   Last year there were well over 400 attendees live in person and hundreds more that watched it streaming live from as far as Australia.

Hope to see you there! By the way, here is the signup information at the Washington Business Journal site.

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All Things Small & Medium Business – Free Focus.com Interactive Summit on 10/28/10

On October 28, 2010 Focus.com is putting on a great FREE online interactive small business summit that is a must attend event for small and medium businesses, entrepreneurs and startups.   The agenda is jam packed with a list of heavy hitters and small business thought leaders like Fran Tarkenton (calm down Mike, we know he was your hero while you grew up in MN),  Anita Campbell, Brent Leary, Ramon Ray, the Swami Shashi Bellamkonda and many many more. The sign up information and full list of speakers and topics is available at Focus.com.   The FREE online event lasts from 11am-6pm ET.  and the range of topics is wide and covers items such as:

1) The Small Business Survival Guide;

2) Accounting and Finance Secrets;

3) Connecting with Customers through New Media Channels;

4) Socialization of the SMB;

5) Top 10 Web Marketing Strategies;

6) IT for SMBs;

7) New Revenue Streams for SMBs with Partner Marketing; and

8) Security for SMBs (Ok Mike and I are representing KikScore and are speakers for this presentation – by the way, we are not heavy weights, but just heavy!).

Anyway, this really is a very exciting online summit and is going to have a ton of valuable information for entrepreneurs.  We have to say a special thanks to Anita Campbell for recommending us to Focus to be a part of this presentation and also Courtney Sato from Focus.com who has been great with preparing for next week’s session.

So please sign up.  The event should be excellent and we are really excited about the opportunity to be a part of this great small business event next week!

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Disaster? Social Media can help save the day!

Taken by Shashi Bellamkonda(yes there is a relation)

Everyone in the DC area remembers yesterday right….of course you do! Who could forget hearing, seeing or being in the flood that covered Rock Creek! (For those of you who have been living under rocks to get away from climate change or in the Denver area, you can read about it here) My father(most of you know who he is) and I were on our way to the Emergency Social Data Summit(hands up if you were there or following along on some social media website….*sees tons of hands*….good, good!) hosted by the American Red Cross when we heard that Canal Road was closed near Arizona Avenue(see map). Immediately(and he was driving by the way….the rest of you don’t text and drive!…thank you) he sent out a tweet(it wasn’t spelled properly, but it was understandable) saying that Canal Road was blocked, then later he got a reply thanking him for the help.

The conference focused on how to use social media(Twitter, Facebook, Google, Skype…etc) in times of crises and  to try and come up with a way to filter the information, get it back out into the social media network, and get it to the professionals .  There are about 6 million people using Twitter, more than 5 million use Facebook and almost everyone uses Google. That’s more information than there is water on Earth! And like water, the sheer volume is overwhelming, especially if a disaster happens. That makes it harder for the professionals(firefighters, police, medical personnel…anyone who is trained for disaster situations) to determine what information is the most relevant, needs immediate attention, can be acted on a little later…ect.

The case study most often referenced was the earthquake in Haiti. After the quake, there were texts, and tweets coming in from all over Haiti about people who needed help and where they were. Those texts and tweets got picked up by other social networks and spread all over the internet. However, many of those pieces of information were not verified and rescue crews who were following the information often went to the same place twice because there was no follow up saying that “yes, this problem has been taken care of”.

After hearing many speakers(the event was streamed live; sorry I have no idea what the weird diagram is on the right),  every table participated in a ’round table’ discussion. This was where many of the ideas about how to connect the  social media network to the already existing ‘disaster response network’ . The discussion was guided by a set of  questions; each table had a different set of questions(see the blog Emergency Social Data Summit for questions).  Our table came up with a very interesting idea for the question of what to do with the “emergency social data”(the red cross’ words , not mine) after it has been aggregated. Anyone remember the Ad Council? The group that’s responsible for public service announcements on TV and radio? Yes? No? Well, if you don’t that’s ok; I’d heard of them, but I didn’t know what they did until yesterday. Our group’s idea was to create a Social Media Ad Council, responsible for giving victims, professionals and everyone else accurate,  verified and up to date information about the disaster. There were many more speakers after that, but seeing as the ‘fun’ part of the conference was over, my father and I decided to leave.  You can participate in the ongoing conversation about the use of social media in emergencies on twitter, the red cross’ website,  the Emergency Social Data Summit blog and various other social media websites(see the red cross for more details).

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Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

TECH Cocktail During DC Week Rocked – Event Pics & Wrap Up

With Digital Capital Week upon us, last night was a great time for the huge (and growing!) DC tech community to come together for Tech Cocktail.  As with previous Tech Cocktail events, this event was billed as a time for us all to “connect, educate and amplify” the local tech signal all while having a few drinks.  A number of startups also put on demos on the second floor of the party at Lux Lounge.  The great thing about this Tech Cocktail compared to others as it took place right in the middle of the first ever DC Tech Week.  DC Tech Week has been a week full of great tech related activities dealing with a whole range of issues from social media, government, future of media to a bunch of cool tech events, lectures even a 140Conference too.  It was also cool to have the backdrop of the World Cup going on too.

Here some of the pictures from last night.  The event got off to a great start and kept rolling.  There just was not enough time to talk to everyone, but it was great to see so many friends and meet a bunch of new people too.  I brought the KikScore force for our east coast team last night as our Colorado team will have to wait for the next one in Boulder.

Picture of Raj Malik from KikScore, Deanna McNeil from among others Ruiz McPherson, Steven Fisher from Appsolve, Browncoats Redemption and Network Solutions and Andrew Bates from Eye Traffic.

Picture of Keith Casey who is Austin bound and the CTO of Blue Parabola,  Steven Fisher a filmmaker and author and  Justin Thorp, Social Media Guru at ClearSpring.

Joe Loong from DelTek and the best title creator for a blog! and Jeremy.

There have been Tech Cocktail events now in Chicago, DC, Boston, Boulder, San Diego (look out Ron Burgundy) and Barcelona. So look out for one of these events coming to your city soon.  You will not regret attending. Thanks to Frank Gruber, the founder of Tech Cocktail, for putting on last night’s event.

Did you attend Tech Cocktail last night? If so, tell us your stories.

Pictures care of the Social Media Swami, Shashi B.

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Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Digital Capital Week & World Cup Start Tomorrow – Are You Going?

So tomorrow begins the once every four year madness of the World Cup. The 2010 World Cup will be played in South Africa and should be a blast if you are attending it.  For DC folks, on Saturday the first game that the US plays in against England will actually be broadcast live from Dupont Circle – they are calling it Soccer in the Circle – brought to you by the same folks that had the epic snowball fight back in February during the massive blizzard.  I will be there on Saturday afternoon.  It should be a packed house there for a great game.

About 12 hours after the World Cup literally kicks off tomorrow, the first ever DC Digital Capital Week gets rolling in Washington DC.  This more than a week long event is being billed as 10 days of Creative Technology Events.  There are some fantastic tech events that include Zappos.com CEO, Tony Hsieh a #140 Conference by Jeff Pulver, a large Tech Cocktail event and much much more. Check out the full schedule here.

I will be attending some of the DC Week events over the next week and am really excited.  Stay tuned for our updates on Twitter and here on our blog.

Which events will you be attending?

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KikScore Says Goodbye to Windy, a One of a Kind Horse – RIP

Part of the KikScore family yesterday lost a wonderful horse, named Windy.  After nearly 30 years eating, playing, trotting, bringing a lot of joy to many people’s lives and making lots of friends with so many horses at his home at Missing Maple Farm in Centreville, Virginia, Windy moved on.  I could have easily disliked Windy because he came from Pittsburgh, and as many people know since I am from Cleveland I generally have a dislike for all things Pittsburgh (except from wife who happens to be from there!).  We moved Windy up from just outside of Pittsburgh around 2002 where he had been living on my wife’s mom’s farm since my wife was 11 years old!  Windy immediately liked his new surroundings on Missing Maple Farm where the owners Vickie and Frank showered Windy with huge amounts of love and gave Windy dozens of new horse friends to meet, hang out with on literally dozens of acres of gorgeous land that bordered historic Civil War battle fields.

One of my favorite stories about Windy was actually a story about how clueless I can be at times.  I have to try to set the scene for you.  Imagine a beautiful wintery, Saturday afternoon where there was probably 3 inches of snow on the ground.  My wife and I had gone out to one of the far fields at Missing Maple where all you are surrounded by are the vast rolling Virginia hills. There was a mass of trees off in the distance that bordered the outer boundary of the multi-acre farm.  The wind was cool but the air was not super cold.  It was really nice as you could see for miles and the field all around us were dotted with other horses and bails of hay.  In the distance well behind us was the owner’s farm where we had parked.

So after walking a considerable distance through these rolling fields, my wife, Rebecca, went off  find Windy to feed him his favorite treats which consisted of a bag of carrots, a few apples and some sugar cubes.  (If we all could just eat so simply!).  There she was walking through the field as I stayed some distance behind her.  What was I doing?  To set the stage, this was back when I was working at my old law firm job and 24/7 work was just something we unfortunately did.  So I was doing the Blackberry death march through the field.  You know that, look down at your Blackberry tap a few keys, look up to make sure you dont step into a pile of horse manure, walk a bit more, bury yourself in the latest email and respond because it is just “so urgent.”  As I spent the next 10 minutes reading, typing, looking up for a second, returning to reading, typing, cursing the client (or my boss!), narrowly avoiding stepping in some fresh steaming droppings, typing some more I was in a world far from that snowy, beautiful farm.

I can not really now remember why, but for some reason I suddenly stopped in the middle of this snowy field, where all I was surrounded by was a few horses, some wood fencing that separated the fields from the trees and just acres of space and quiet. I looked up from my Blackberry.  There I could see my wife off in the distance feeding Windy his carrots and the last remnants of those apples.  You could tell from his face and how he was jumping around softly in the snowy field that he was so excited for the sugar cubes that were coming for dessert.  Windy was just so so happy eating away and all I could think was here I am buried in my Blackberry and I was missing this amazingly cool moment out here in the snow, deep in nature and so far from my law firm’s office that had me sucked into a Blackberry instead!

So Windy, thanks so much for making me realize I have to put that darn Blackberry (and now Iphone) down and take in these special moments!  You brought such special happiness to our family….when you were not trying to toss my wife out of the saddle, and we will all miss you.

Keep trotting Windy!  Make sure you now go see Blue from Old School because I am sure he will want to take a ride with you. We also want to thank Frank and Vickie for doing such a wonderful and amazing job taking care of Windy throughout the years.  We will never forget that and it is so appreciated. If anyone has a horse that needs bordered in the DC/VA/MD area, check out Missing Maple Farm.

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Small Business Interview with History In Action Toy's Sterling Ashby

We met Sterling Ashby at the KikScore sponsored Social Commerce Camp DC and he has a very intriguing story that any small business would be interested in hearing.  Sterling is a lawyer by trade (like a couple of us at KikScore), but his real passion is his business that sells children’s toys that are based on real-life American heroes. Using real heroes from history, Sterling has created a series of action figures for children that are fun, can be positive role models, and whose real-life stories awaken both a child’s imagination and appeal to the kid within us all. History in Action Toys was born from this.  He now sells these highly popular action figures online at www.hiatoys.com. I can tell you when my two month old gets a little bigger, I am buying some action figures from Sterling’s site!

In this 5 minute small business video interview of Sterling, we cover a wide range of issues including:

1) the challenges of having a business online;

2) crowdsourcing  marketing and ideas;

3) building buzz on Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels for your  online store and business;

4) a few of the tips that Sterling learned from Social Commerce Camp; and

5) a few examples of real life heroes that Sterling now offers as action figures at HIA Toys that the community should check out.

Please tell us your thoughts on this interview in the comments section below.

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