An Ignoble Experiment: Small Business Conversations by Network Solutions

Here are the latest updates for ignoble.experiment@arconati.us

Wow, this has been one heck of a year in the online and offline world. We have seen the explosion of Twitter into the mainstream, the continued growth of Social Media in general as a channel to market our businesses online, we have seen an economy rocked up and down with the light at end of tunnel slowly starting to emerge. We wrap 2009 with Solutions Are Power at 18 months old and almost 1000 posts with a new look and feel for the blog going into 2010 and things could not look any better.

Small businesses are the focus of Network Solutions and this blog along with our outposts on Twitter and Facebook continue to reach out to customers and those thinking about becoming customers. We are passionate about helping you grow your business online and offline and Solutions Are Power in 2009 has had some great content appear on this blog and what a better way to highlight our columnists and some great series that would be great to review as you prepare for 2010.

Here are some great posts and series from 2009 that you should check out in case you missed them:

Great Stuff from Smart Working

Thoughts on Coworking: What is it and is it for you?

Series: Getting Productive in 2009 – Spending a Year with GTD

Series: 15 Steps to Writing a Killer Business Plan

Series: 15 Steps to Writing a Killer Marketing Plan

Getting Started on Twitter in Plain English

One Year and 500 Posts – The Best of the Best and the Future is Looking Bright

5 Ways to Strike a Work-Life Balance with Social Media

Understanding the Twitterverse

Three Minutes to SEO Mastery

30 Must Have Wordpress Plugins – Two Lists Compared and Merged

Smart Working: Avoid Burnout and Get Your Work-Life Balance Back

The Five Key Elements Needed to Build an E-Commerce Web Site

Insightful Perspective from Being Social

Hey, I'm Not a Machine: How Often Is Often Enough?

Using Bacon and Social Media to Promote Your Business

5 Stories of Twittering Gone Bad

Resources for Faking Your Way Through Social Media Metrics

The Absence of Presence and the Presence of Absence

Best of from the Digital Coast

Do You Practice Safe New Media Etiquette?

Learning all you can through 100 Interviews

Twitter-cabulary

Exploring It All With The Conversation Prism

Helping Startups Understand Promotion & Survival Using Social Media

How To Promote A Product When PR, Marketing & Advertising Sucks

The Future is Looking Bright

The upcoming year is looking great and 2010 is going to be the best year yet. We have lots of great content in pipeline, new announcements to make that we know you will love and building a blog that continues to help our small business customers be successful in 2010. Happy New Year!

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Rate 'Solutions Are Power Best of 2009 -The Year in Review'

2009 Rocked as year of partnership between Small Business and Network Solutions

As 2009 slowly fades away into the horizon I will remember it fondly for the strong bonds that Network Solutions created with Small Businesses and partners helping Small Business. Here is a list of my thoughts that made me proud of this year:

Small Business Success Index : Despite the economy being gloomy Network Solutions along with the University of Maryland and Rockbridge Research went into the heart of the small business issues with 2 surveys to get to the core issues that affected small business. The results can be seen at GrowSmartBusiness.com/
Year of the Web Site Builder and Free Websites : Network Solutions went to bat for the little guys ( part of the 47% of Small Business not yet online) to offer them a new cool web site builder tool and for those 47% businesses who are not online yet we gave them a choice to start with a Free web site
Saluting the Folks at SCORE and partners at the Chambers of Commerce : Network Solutions collaborated with SCORE ( Where you can get some excellent business advice ) and our hats off to some great folks Ken Yancey, Christine Banning and DevonJopp at SCORE.Thanks also to The DC Chamber of Commerce, Greater Manassas Chamber, Loudoun Chamber, Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce , Arlington Chamber , Prince William Regional Chamber and several other small business organizations and partners who helped us extend our reach to help more small businesses.

Small Business Gurus : Shaking hands and collaborating with Small Business Gurus was a thrill. Starting with Ramon Ray’s SmallBizTechnology conference in Feb to our first ever Webinar with Anita Campbell of SmallBiztrends.com .

Other panelists were :
Kristina Bouweiri, CEO of Reston Limo, the largest independent limousine service in the Washington D.C. area
Anita Campbell, Editor of Small Business Trends
Kelly Muccio, Founder of Lost Boys, a fashionable clothing store recently featured featured in the Wall Street Journal
Surfy Rahman, Co-owner of Indique, a popular DC-area restaurant chain
GrowSmartBusiness Conference : In a amazing event that Network Solutions organized for Small Business, of Small Business and by Small Business, attendees were exposed to what many called a Bootcamp for small Business. See the whole GrowSmartBiz Conference online. Thank you panelists, speakers, sponsors , attendees and media for making this conference a success. You folks are rockstars and Network Solutions was glad to share a stage with you.
Unintentional Entrepreneurs : The job numbers being what they are along with partner Outright did a 5 city tour of San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington DC , New York to encourage entrepreneurs and other innovators on ways to start their own business. The guys at Outright knew the cool and innovative spots in each city to have these events .Thank you Bob London, Wray Rives, Shannon Nash, Patrick Ford, Brent Leary, Dave Berkowitz, Paul O’Brien, Kevin Reeth.
WomenGrowBusiness : In a amazing show of community support, the WomenGrowBiz community contributed excellent tips and advice to grow this amazing dynamic community. Kudos to Jill Foster and her amazing #WGbiz contributors.
GrowSmartBiz Blog : Steve Fisher conducted the orchestra of more than 50 odd expert contributors who signed up to share their expertise on the GrowSmartbusiness Blog. Thanks everyone.
SocStardom : Johns Hopkins in the Montgomery county ( Thank you Robin Ferrier) collaborated with Network Solutions and Mayra Ruiz to hold 4 events in the Montgomery County area where well known speakers shared their advice and expertise with folks from the DC area. Thank you Frank Warren, Rohit Bhargava, Jay Berkowitz, Jason Alba, Dave Evans.
Saluting our Small Business audience : You folks who have supported us by visiting our blogs and commenting and encouraging nees a special salute. I hope we can count on your support in 2010. We depend on you to help us continue on the right path to provide the best resources for Small Business to succeed.

It is inevitable I have left out many people and organizations from this list. Believe me, I would probably blame my old age . But we remember the contribution of everyone who helped us in 2009 and here are a few more folks that come to mind – The excellent team at crt-tanaka, our blogger editorial team ( Jill Foster, Joe Loong, Ken Yeung, Mike Dougherty, Mayra Ruiz) , DC area folks and organizations like Larissa Fair – SMCDC, Frank Gruber – Tech Cocktail, Jimmy Gardner – East Coast Blogging, Kathy Korman Frey, Larissa Fair, Chris Geno, Kristina Bouweiri, Paul Worsham, Chris Abraham, Shonali Burke, Shana Glickfield, Shireen Mitchell, Geoff Livingston – traveling somewhere at the end of the world , DC Web Women, American Independent Writers and Kristen King, Liz Strauss and SOBCON, Alex Orfinger, David Stegon TechBisnow, the legal team at Network Solutions who took our calls even at major holidays, Shawn Collins of the Affiliate Summit, Network Solutions Social Media Advisory Board and all my colleagues at Network Solutions who helped in many ways than they realize. Of course our more than 200k visitors to our blogs and the millions of Network Solutions customers who help us help small businesses succeed.

Thank you everyone and looking forward to a successful 2010 for all of us. There are countless other folks who deserve thanks and we will always remember your help in our common goal of small business success.