Business Technology Radio

Show : Microsoft's Small Business Summit
Guest : Frederic De Wulf, Microsoft Web Director for SMBs
Aired : Sunday March 23rd, 2008

We're back! After taking the first break in almost a year and a half, TFBS is back in action.  And we're glad to have Microsoft's Frederic De Wulf on to talk about the 3rd annual  Microsoft Small Business Summittaking place online March 24th-27th.  Frederic tells us what's in store this year and how it differs from the previous two.  He also fills us in how the role small businesses will play in the event, how they can participate from the comfort of your office, and what kind of takeaways you can come away with after the event is over.

 Plus Brent talks about his travels to Infusion Software's user conference as well as his experiences at Microsoft Convergence.  Plus he covers his thoughts on participating in Oracle's first ever blogger's call.

Frédéric De Wulf is a 15-year veteran of Microsoft, and has spent the past 11 years in capacities serving small-business customers. Prior to joining Microsoft,  he accumulated firsthand experience running his own small business film-production company, and running an interactive division for a 250 employee mid-size company. He has served as the host and overseer of the Microsoft Small Business Summit since its inauguration in 2006 and oversees Microsoft's Small Business Center site, the Microsoft Startup Center, The Microsoft Small Business Show, the Microsoft Mid Size Business Center and the Microsoft Business site. 

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Show : Will CRM Finally Be Fully Embraced By Small Business in 2008?
Guest : Dave Lee, VP of Marketing for Infusion Software
Aired : Sunday March 2nd, 2008

In an article written for Inc.com, Brent put forth a few reasons why he feels 2008 will be the year small businesses turn en mass to customer relationship management (CRM) services to find, catch and keep good customers.  With more choices available, affordable solutions, and easy to use services it all seems there for the choosing.  One of the companies focused on small business crm is Infusion Software.  Our guest this week, Infusion's Dave Lee, talks about why his company is changing how they approach serving the small business CRM market by focusing more heavily on e-marketing.  He also shares with us how posting a spoof of NBC's hit show "The Office" on YouTube brought in over 450 leads in a few weeks.  Plus download Infusion's free eBook - The Entrepreneur's Guide to Mastering Follow-up.

Also this week Ken McGaffin from Wordtracker is back with his monthly segment, Keyword Rich.  This time around Ken talks about the importance of uncovering words that might not come to mind, but can drive great amounts of targeted traffic - lateral keywords.  And Brent talks about the Dale Carnegie 2.0 kick he's been on lately. 

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Show : Citizen Journailsm and Your Small Business
Guest : Leonard Witt, Kennesaw State University
Aired : Sunday February 24th, 2008

As people continue to learn more about social media and its growing impact on our personal lives, small business people are struggling with how it affects the way they do business today.  Leonard Witt, Fowler Distinguished Chair at Kennesaw State University in metro Atlanta, joins us to talk about how social media is propelling the citizen journalism movement.  He also fills us in on how he and a small team of people put together the very successful SoCon '08 conference held a few weeks ago.  Billed as the Southeast's first "unconference", SoCon brought hundreds of people together for a 2 day social media event, mostly from word-of-mouth marketing efforts.

Plus Michael talks about the upcoming Customer Relationship Management Association (CRMA) national conference, which takes place in Atlanta on April 1st and 2nd.  And Brent talks about two essentials tools solopreneurs should be using to enhance their Networking 1.0 activities.  That's right, you still have to do regular networking, even in the days of online social networks.  

Leonard Wittis the Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University. His academic interests include public and citizen journalism and how to get citizens' voices heard. He is founding president of the Public Journalism Network, an online network of citizens, journalists and academics interested in public and citizen journalism. He is now developing what he calls Representative Journalism, an idea to build small journalism-centered communities. He is past chair of the Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group with the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). His weblog PJNet.org has about 15,000 unique visitors each month, and if you do a Google search for "public journalism," his site tops the list. He has organized major academic conferences for the AEJMC, including one at Kennesaw State University and others in Toronto and San Antonio. He was a co-sponsor of the SoCon07 conference at Kennesaw State in February 2007 and the Journalism that Matters D.C. Session in August 2007.

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Show : Top Small Business Trends for 2008
Guest : Steven D. Strauss, USA Today columnist
Aired : Sunday February 17th, 2008

At the beginning of the year, USA Today columnist Steven Strauss laid out in a two part series his top ten trends in 2008 for small business.  And with Steve being the author of the Small Business Bible, he has some very interesting insights on the subject.  Steve fills us in on why it's time for entrepreneurs of the world to unite, why green is the new black, and why  Networking 2.0 tops his list of trends.  Plus Steve tells us how Martin Luther King, Mohandes Gandhi and Buckminster Fuller influenced is outlook on business, and life.

Also Brent and Michael give their impressions of the SoCon 08 "uncoference" recently held in metro Atlanta.  And Brent shares his experience participating in the Small Business Summit that took place in New York last week. Also check out Brent's latest article for Inc.com on why he feels 2008 is THE year small businesses finally embrace CRM.    

Steven D. Straussis the country's leading small business expert. An internationally recognized lawyer, columnist, speaker,, he is also the author of 15 books, including the best-selling Small Business Bible. Steve's column, Ask an Expert, appears weekly at USATODAY.com and is one of the most highly syndicated business columns in the world. He is also the online small business columnist for Microsoft, and AT&T who calls him "America's Small Business Expert."

A highly sought after commentator and media guest, Steve has been featured on CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg Television, The O'Reilly Factor, and the BBC. He is a regular guest on MSNBC's small business show, Your Business. Steve has been seen in many magazines and newspapers, including Time, Inc., Entrepreneur, New York, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Investors Business Daily, The New York Daily News, and scores of others.

Finally, Steve is also an entrepreneur. He is president of The Strauss Group, Inc: The Strauss Law Firm, Strauss Seminar Co., Strauss Syndication. And MrAllBiz.com.

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Show : John Jantsch on Social Media and Small Business Marketing
Guest : John Jantsch, Founder of Duct Tape Marketing
Aired : Sunday February 10th, 2008

Marketing is the life blood of successful small businesses, even if many of them don't treat it as such.  And its importance has grown exponentially as the web makes it easier and more affordable to reach your target audience, and to make it easier for that audience to reach you when they need help.  And John Jantsch is the guy many small business people turn to get their marketing efforts successfully off the ground.  John shares with us how small businesses can begin using web 2.0 strategies to begin passing "The Google Test", the importance of blogging to small businesses, the best ways to learn about RSS and its potential impact, and many other great tips to help you through today's marketing maze. He also fills us in on The Workbench, Duct Tape Marketing's new social community.  

John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.  He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/

His Duct Tape Marketing Blog was chosen as a Forbes favorite for small business and marketing and is a Harvard Business School featured marketing site. 

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Show :  Toolkits and Marketing Tips for Your Small Business
Guest : Marilyn Johnson, VP of Market Development, IBM
             Anita Campbell, Editor of Small Business Trends
Aired : Sunday February 3rd, 2008

Marilyn Johnson of IBM visits us again to share information about their newly launched SME Toolkit. IBM and the International Finance Corporation, a private sector of the World Bank, partnered to launch the US version of the toolkit.  The SME Toolkit gives companies, from start-up to experienced, more than 500 pieces of high value content and tools that address business needs such as accounting, finance, business planning, human resources, legal and insurance, sales and marketing, operations and technology. Information on how to start and help businesses grow and succeed can be found on the site.  The site also houses how-to articles, business forms and software, on-line training, and self assessment quizzes.

Leading an organization responsible for developing IBM’s strategy for and marketing to businesses owned or operated by Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Women in the United States, Marilyn also gives us her take on how these groups are investing in technology to compete, thrive and survive in today's marketplace.

We're also joined by a good friend of the show (FOTS) Anita Campbell to talk about a very interesting post she wrote for her site SmallBizTrends.com.  Anita invited a great group of A-list marketers to share one of their best kept marketing secrets.  The likes of Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Tim Berry and a host of other great marketers, including Anita,  shared some really great tips that can be put into play right away.  Plus you can add your tips in the comment section to be included in a document Anita is putting together.   


Marilyn Johnson is Vice President, Market Development based in White Plains, New York. In this capacity, she leads an organization responsible for developing IBM’s strategy for and marketing to businesses owned or operated by Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Women in the Americas. She recently expanded her mission to include women owned and women led businesses in selected global markets.  She is an executive with extensive management experience in sales and marketing in the information technology industry. Ms. Johnson’s previous IBM positions, with US and worldwide responsibility, include director of financial services sector marketing, director of eBusiness infrastructure, and director of worldwide sales operations.

Anita Campbell is CEO of Small Business Trends, LLC, a media and information company. In that role she closely follows trends in both the small business market and technology. A respected speaker and emerging trends resource, Ms. Campbell's expertise has been noted or her opinion quoted in numerous major business and entrepreneurial publications.  Her popular website, Small Business Trends, is regularly noted as a rich informational resource. In 2005 the site won the "Best of the Web" award for small business blogs from Forbes and numerous other awards and honors.

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Show :  Why SaaS Will Take Off in 2008, But Should You Jump Into Web 2.0?
Guest : Phil Wainewright - ZDNet SaaS Blog
             Gene Marks - President of Marks Group
Aired : Sunday January 27th, 2008

Phil Wainewright of ZDNet returns to talk about SaaS and why he feels 2008 is the year software as a service will hit the mainstream.  Based on his recent entry, he fills us in on some of the driving factors for this, the role of virtualization, how SaaS is "recession-proof", and the expected impact Microsoft Live CRM will have on the industry.  Phil also talks about the companies shaping the future of SaaS and how it will affect how we'll do business.  Plus fill shares with us his ideas on how companies can make money with Web 2.0 tools and strategies, like Amazon.com's newDevPay service.



Speaking of Web 2.0, our other featured guest, Gene Marks, fills us in on the article he wrote for BusinessWeek that explains why he feels small businesses should avoid certain technologies....like web 2.0, blogging, CRM and RSS, to name a few.  Gene has a lot of explaining to do, but he's up to the task. He talks about why spam filters haven't worked for him, his negative experiences with SEO consultants, and why he included customer relationship management software on his list of things to avoid.  And he even fills us in on the special name he was called by someone who didn't necessarily agree with his list, and no that person wasn't Brent or Michael.  Gene finishes things off by talking about the right way to execute email marketing campaigns. 


Phil Wainewright is an influential commentator and strategist on emerging software industry trends. He first spotted the significance of on-demand software services in 1998, when he set up ASPnews.com, which rapidly became a standard-bearer for the nascent industry. He sold ASPnews in January 2000 and went on to found Loosely Coupled, a specialist website covering enterprise adoption of web services and business process automation. He recently completed a series of analyst reports for Summit Strategies on current trends in software-as-services.

Gene Marks owns and operates the Marks Group PC, a highly successful ten-person firm that provides technology and consulting services to small and medium sized businesses. The Marks Group PC, launched in 1994, has grown to help more than 500 companies and more than two thousand individuals throughout the country.

Gene's books include the #1 Amazon Small Business Best Seller The Streetwise Small Business Book of Lists (Adams Media), The Small Business Desk Reference (Alpha Books, 2004), Outfoxing The Small Business Owner - Crafty Techniques for Creating a Profitable Relationship (Adams Media, 2005) and The Complete Idiot's Guide To Successful Outsourcing (Alpha Books, 2005).

Gene's column, "The Penny Pincher's Almanac" appears nationally in American City Business Journals (www.bizjournals.com) publications weekly.

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Show : Building an Effective Web Presence in 2008 for Your Small Business
Guest : Michael Schultz, Marketing Director - Microsoft Office Live
Aired : Sunday January 13th, 2008

Even now in 2008, many studies still show only half of all small businesses have a website.  Those small businesses without a real presence on the web still perceive it to be to difficult and costly to create and maintain a website.  Others still don't see where a website would be of any real value to their businesses.  Our featured guest, Microsoft's Michael Schultz, gives any small business thinking along these lines many reasons to reconsider.  Michael explains why it's more important than ever before for small businesses to get on the web.  He fills us in on how much easier it is to get started than many small business owners may think it is, some best practices for getting started, and how a great web presence can improve the image of any small business.  And if you think only targeting local prospects means you don't need a website, Michael points out why you're probably wrong with that assessment.  Plus check out the free 64-page ebook from Microsoft and Startup Nation on how to create a successful website.

Plus we have a great conversation with the organizers of the upcoming third annual Small Business Summit taking place in New York next month.  Marian Banker, president of Prime Strategies, and small business technology evangelist (and friend of the show)  Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com share with us in why this year's summit will be a can't-miss event for small businesses looking to put technology to use in order to compete, thrive and survive.  Marian and Ramon fill us in on all the scheduled topics, speakers, networking opportunities and demonstrations that will help the expected crowd of 400 small business people get a jump on figuring out which tools and services are right for them.  To learn more about the event, please go to http://www.smallbiztechsummit.com.

Michael Schultz is passionate about helping small companies take their business online. Michael currently leads U.S. Marketing for Microsoft Office Live Small Business (http://smallbusiness.officelive.com), a Microsoft service for small business. Since the beta launched in February 2006, Office Live now has over 500,000 customers. Michael has deep expertise in online marketing and customer acquisition, where the team recently won an OMMA award for best Interstitial Ad.

Michael has written a number of articles and given radio interviews and presentations on how to build successful Web sites and generate business online. At Microsoft he has worked in various worldwide Sales and Marketing roles for a number of real-time technology solutions.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Michael was Senior Director of Product Marketing and Channel Development for PlaceWare, Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft in 2003 (now called Microsoft Office Live Meeting), and the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Voxeo, a startup company that offered hosted IVR, speech recognition and call center solutions for small- and mid-sized companies.

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Show : OpenSocial, Facebook Beacon and Social Network Portability
Guest : David Recordon, Open Platforms Tech Lead, Six Apart
Aired : Sunday January 6th, 2008

Welcome to the first show of 2008.  And we start the year off trying to figure out when we'll be able to utilize online social networks more efficiently and effectively, to improve both our personal and professional lives.  Our featured guest, Six Apart's David Recordon, shares with us his unique perspective on the social networking landscape, working closely with both Google and Facebook on the subject of social network portability.  David fills us in on the impact of social network fatigue, the potential impact of OpenSocial, the importance of Facebook Beacon and the controversy surrounding it, and how services like OpenID may make our lives online easier to manage.  David also shares how Six Apart tools like TypePad, Vox and MovableType will utilize these platforms to make it easier to build and cultivate successful online communities.  And check out how this Generation Y leader uses Web 2.0 tools to keep in touch with his parents.

We're also excited to kick off our first "Solopreneur Spotlight", featuring Jennifer Hammock, founder of  Divinely Orchestrated Events.   Jennifer fills us in on why she thinks 2008 is the year of the international solopreneur.  And Brent has a special welcome for the newest technology entrepreneur Stanley Burrell.  You may know him by his stage name, MC Hammer.   

David Recordon is Open Platforms Tech Lead for Six Apart, the largest independent blogging company in the world. Recordon has played a pivotal role in the development and popularization of key social media technologies such as OpenID. In 2005, Recordon collaborated with Brad Fitzpatrick in the original development of OpenID, which has since become the most popular decentralized single-sign-on protocol in the history of the web. During a year and a half at VeriSign, Recordon played an active role in refining and evangelizing OpenID, bringing it from an experimental technology to one that's been endorsed by major companies ranging from AOL to Microsoft, and implemented for over 120 million identities on the web. Recordon's history with open source software and open standards stretches back to the beginning of his career, when as a sophomore in high school he volunteered his time to lead an open source message board project with over forty members worldwide. This interest led to his co-founding of a message board hosting provider that still services tens of thousands of users around the world, and that he has since sold. Recordon was recently recognized by Google and O'Reilly as the recipient of a 2007 Open Source Award for his efforts with OpenID and is the youngest recipient in the history of the award.

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Show : Building Successful Online Communities for Small Business
Guest : Scott K. Wilder, Intuit GM of Small Business Online Communities
 Aired : Sunday December 30th, 2007

We're saying good-bye to 2007 on a high note!  Many large companies are trying to build online communities to get closer to small business people they wish to serve, but few have been successful.  In fact a good number of companies end up very disappointed with the reaction (or lack there of) coming from the small business community.  We finish up our first full year on the air (and web) with a great conversation talking about building online communities with Intuit's Scott K. Wilder.  Scott was at the forefront of building Intuit's popular QuickBooks virtual user community.  He talks about why they decided to build an online community long before they became popular, the challenges Intuit faced both internally and externally, and how the community has aided Intuit relate to their customers. Scott also fills us in on the book he recently co-authored, Millennial Leaders: Success Stories From Today's Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders.

Plus Brent shares some of the responses he received from his article on proclaiming 2008 to be the year of the international solopreneur, and Michael fills us in on a positive experience he had unsubscribing to Eastbay.com's email list.  

Scott K. Wilder is the GM for Intuit`s Small Business Online Communities. Before joining Intuit, Scott was the VP of Marketing and Product Development at KBToys and eToys, the director of Internet services at Borders.com and Apple Computer, and has held senior management positions at American Express and Silicon Graphics. Scott worked on the following online communities: eWorld at Apple, Borders Cafe at Borders.com, KBToys Community at KBToys.com. Scott also is a board member of the Word of Mouth Association (WOMMA) and the Society of New Communications. He received graduate degrees from The Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Georgetown University.

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