Some time back Network Solutions launched the Grow Smart Business blog and ever since has been providing great information for the small business owner on a variety of topics.  Well now they are taking the blog to the people so to speak and are looking to put on a really cool event in DC coming up on September 29th 2009 at the Renaissance Hotel.

According to their web page

Small business owners and entrepreneurs should attend to learn how to overcome challenges that all small businesses face. Attendees will hear from an outstanding group of panelists for concrete takeaways including:

• Proven strategies for business growth despite the current economy
• Executable, cost-effective ways to market and promote their businesses
• Knowledge of what banks believe is the key to securing small business financing
• Actionable ideas for integrating and leveraging social media into existing marketing and communications efforts

What is really exciting to me is the keynote speaker they have lined up, Chris Anderson. Chris is editor of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail and his newest effort, Free.  I just started to read Free recently and it is very interesting.  The Long Tail has been a book that has been talked about for years as it pertains to the new internet “industry” we find ourselves in and I do not go a day without hearing a reference to it in some fashion.

So make sure to get over to the site and REGISTER for what is sure to be a great event. Here are the details of the event. Also make sure to follow event news on twitter HERE.

When : Tuesday, September 29, 2009 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Where

GovLoop is celebrating its 1 year anniversary and we need to honor the 14,000+ brilliant GovLoop innovators who are connecting, sharing ideas, and leading change across all levels of government in the U.S. and across the globe.

For those of you unawares GovLoop is Social Network connecting the government community.

Here are the details
When:
Thursday, July 16th, 2009, from 6:00pm-9pm
Where:
@ Local 16 – on U Street between 16th and 17th St. NW. Parking is available at The Reeves Center (MAP) two blocks away for $7. The U Street Metro stop is 4 blocks away (MAP).

Sounds like a great time.  The event is limited to the first 300 people so make sure to head over and register HERE.

an open discussion forum of how broadband, and the networks that support it, affect our lives. NGW is where real people from all across our country talk about how they use broadband to solve some of America’s most pressing societal issues; keeping and creating jobs, enhancing health care, helping modernize our education system, protecting our environment and making public safety a priority.

Exciting stuff.  Well they recently went through a big update to their online presence and are throwing a party to celebrate their relaunch.  So make sure to head on over to the Darlington House in Dupont tonight from 6pm – 8pm and enjoy the festivities.

I am taking on duties as unofficial event photographer so make sure to check back here for the after event review and pics of the crowd.

According to the press release

The June 11th event is the first known Twitter Conference on the East Coast and the first in the US aimed at both business and consumer communities. In addition to the conference, there will be a “Twitter Beginner Boot Camp” in session from 8:00am – 9:30am, aimed at educating and helping participants to become more familiar with the basics of Twitter and its potential applications. A “Twitter Intermediate Boot Camp” examining very specific applications and tools available for use with Twitter closes the day at 5:30pm.

They have a great lineup of speakers so far, to include one of our favorite social media folks, Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions along with many others.  Head over to their site to see the rest of the lineup.

Here are the event details:

WHEN:  THURSDAY, JUNE 11TH, 2009, 10:00AM – 4:30PM

WHERE:  Busboys & Poets, 2021 14th Street NW, Washington DC 20009

Registration is now open and the costs are as follows

Early-Bird Registration through June 7th, 2009: $195.00 USD

Registration from June 8th through June 10th, 2009: $295.00 USD

On-Site Registration – June 11th, 2009: $395.00 USD

Twitter Beginner Boot-Camp: $95.00 USD

Twitter Intermediate Boot-Camp: $95.00 USD

Voluntary Carbon Offset: $5.00 USD*

Register HERE.

Now, DC wants to hear citizens’ ideas about problems that could be solved through technology, as well as their ideas about the perfect system to receive feedback and service requests.  Through blog posts, email surveys, video testimonials, voice call-in captures, twitter update submissions, and in-person town halls, iStrategyLabs will seek to engage the populace of Washington, DC to ask for their input into what they’d like to see in the form of a DC Community Platform.

Recently, Peter held Social Citizen Sunday, where he invited people to head out into the city and

1) Go to a library, church or another busy public area

2) Let people know you’re helping the city by collecting insights from your neighbors

3) Ask if they can answer this one question for you “What problems or ideas do you have for DC that you think better technology can solve?” If you can, please ask “Do you have access to high speed internet and if so, where?”

4) The answers you gather in #3 are what you’ll put into a ‘field report’. That report can take any form – video, audio, powerpoint/PDF etc. The $1000 prize will be judged based on the following:

• Quality of responses gathered
• Diversity of responses (different answers from different people in different neighborhoods)
• Quantity of responses
• Uniqueness of your field report

Well they got a lot of insights gathered from around town, you can check out the summary HERE.  But in the meantime they have announced the winner of the Social Citizen Award, they are our very own friends and incredible community members, Shireen Mitchell and Jill Foster.  They did a really incredible in depth fied report to include video, audio, etc.  Check it out below:

They did an incredible job in proposing Mobile Technology Education Labs (METL) that would

be comprised of a car fleet, traveling around the city to neighborhoods with the greatest computer access needs. This car fleet would be equipped with volunteers, laptops, and digital tools to not only offer computer/Web access to neighborhoods but also instruction on educational/professional resources available online.

Make sure to check out their presentation and while you at it, head over and propose your own idea and vote on the others submitted by other community members.

A quick note about the event from the web page

Businesses that have the most success with social media are the ones who approach it strategically. If you’re considering whether or not to use social media, or if you want to learn to use it more effectively, this is the place to learn!

This special event features breakout sessions for beginning, intermediate, and advanced participants. Those with little or no experience will have as much to gain as those who are skilled users!

The keynote is going to be done by none other than our good friend Mario Armstrong who is sure to give an animated and energetic time to all the attendees.  As the note above states, there will  be three tracks during the day for those who self identify themselves in a category of beginner, intermediate, and advanced.  My session that I will be holding is titled ‘Social Media 102 – HR and Administrative” and I will be covering topics like, Who will be responsible for your organization’s social media outreach? How will employees and/or volunteers contribute? Are employees allowed to discuss their work online? As well as any other questions the audience has for me.

I am really excited to be able to help some new people to the community be able to understand better the tools they have at their disposal.  Besides some other events, like Ignite Baltimore, this is my first official conference speaking engagement of many I hope will come.

Make sure to follow HERE for any event updates.  And also follow and use the hashtag on #fredsmc on Twitter, Flickr, and anywhere else updates are posted to get the latest news.

Last time, we had a great set and this time is no exception. So take a few minutes to look through a quick preview of the companies you will be seeing on Wednesday night at the Left Bank in Adams Morgan.

Think of tweetmart as classifieds for Twitter. It is a free an easy way to buy and sell “stuff” on Twitter. We had ease of use in mind when we created tweetmart. Have something to sell? Login, click on “List an Item” and in a minute or two you are finished. Your item will remain active for 7 days. We will send a tweet out to all your friends letting them know you have listed something and at any time you can re-tweet the item (to your heart’s content we might add). If one of your friends likes what you are selling, they can send you a direct message letting you know they are interested. Even better, for those that are not on Twitter but like what you have to offer, they will be able to send you an e-mail letting you know they are interested.

FitFeud is a competitive wellness platform that gives individuals,
groups, and organizations the ability to harness their competitive
nature as a motivational tool for weight loss, wellness, and a
healthier lifestyle. With FitFeud, you can challenge friends, family,
and co-workers to a weight loss competition without having to worry about tracking spreadsheets and weigh-ins.

FitFeud is based on the idea that what most folks really need to reach their goals is a kick in that ass rather than a pat on the back. With FitFeud, competition and the desire to win serves as that motivational kick.

Diditz is a social media website where you can get popular by sharing the coolest experiences and achievements of your life, and discover the incredible experiences of people from around the globe on topics that you are passionate about.  Choose who you want to share your did-its with: all your friends, selected few, registered users or everyone on the internet! Get voted for your did-its by people you share them with.  Get more viewers: Did-its rated high show up on the main page and the search rankings, making more people share your experiences and making you more popular!

Arlington Soho has developed InSide Job, a Facebook application that now allows users to contact people who have interviewed, worked, or are currently employed at the places you want to work at next! They have created a tool that replicates the best features of business sites like LinkedIn.
InSide Job users can also:
• Get the inside scoop on their prospective employer before the interview;
• Network with people in similar fields; and
• Find the right people to hire as service providers.

PointAbout wraps robust web applications with a thin-client springboard to harness the power of a native application while maintaining the flexibility of the web, creating mobile applications across multiple phone platforms without any ramp-up time, no need for proprietary programming expertise and little or no re-development of your current site.

Wegora is Creative Darwinism.
People come to wegora to read, write and remix posts. Remixes compete against the original and other posts for the attention of users. Interesting posts, whether originals or remixes will continue to be read and remixed. They will be rated well by users and they will survive. Less interesting posts, whether remixes or originals will find themselves moving ever farther into the ether until one day, by random chance, they are read and remixed into something more interesting.

messagepub is a web service to allow communication from your application to your users. It provides a simple API to communicate via email, IM, Twitter, SMS, and phone. With messagepub, you can start sending multichannel messages in minutes with a single interface across many platforms. It lets you save a lot of development and testing cycles so that you can focus on your core business and competency.

Messagepub provides client libraries in many programming languages: Ruby, C#, Python, Java, PHP… It supports escalating messages, scheduling of messages for future delivery, and automatic handling of replies.

BuddyCast is a virtual theater that allows people to program their viewing and to watch movies and TV shows together simultaneously over the Web.  Founded: January 2007  We bring people together! BuddyCast is a platform enabling a new business model that offers a Social Networking and Community Collaborative service to view Premium Video content. People work together to program their Internet Theater and they get together to watch it and interact among themselves. Our service offers paid as well as free movies and TV show, whether they are Hollywood Blockbusters or Niche-Foreign content.

Earth Aid has developed a free service that measures your monthly energy use and pays you based on how much you save.

1. We review your household’s energy use from your utility company and use it to create a “baseline.”
2. Earth Aid then provides you with customized advice to become more energy-efficient, and then measures your next year of energy use.
3. Last (and most importantly), Earth Aid sends you a check based on the amount of energy you have conserved.

Mpowerplayer is the leading provider of online mobile game trial and merchandising solutions to mobile operators and publishers, allowing consumers to easily try, buy and share mobile content on any website or social network. Our web-based technology platform enables the rapid deployment of online app stores, social networking strategies and integrated marketing programs designed to help our partners drive mobile content sales. We partner and offer white label solutions for carriers, MVNO’s, mobile game and application developers, OEM’s and mobile content providers to engage consumers more effectively..

Consumer Healthcare Advisers Inc. is a Maryland company that offers consumer-oriented health management products and services to large self-insured employers. The focus of the enterprise is maintaining a robust flow of reliable information to employees and their dependents, who now face a new set of expectations about financial responsibility and self-management of their health and health care benefits. In this new environment, consumers need help to make better healthcare decisions for their families and themselves.

• The foundation of the firm is a web-based technology platform called the Consumer Health Data Center (CHDC). CHDC is directly licensed to plan sponsors as an employee benefit.
• A unique aspect of the enterprise is the availability of a wide range of on-demand coaching and counseling services in conjunction with CHDC. The on-demand advisory services will be paid for by the consumer.

Well I know it’s a lot but I know you will all have a great time networking and checking them all out.  See you soon.

From the speakers dinner, where I was fortunate to be able to meet some great industry folks like Anil Dash of Six Apart, Mark Jaquith a wordpress developer extraordinaire, Eric Skiff of Amplify.com, Jared Goralnick of Awyfind, and Brad Williams of WebDevStudios, to the actual conference and all the great attendees that came from near and far, it was an incredible experience

It is very hard to relay all of the great speakers and information that we all took in, but I will try to highlight a few of the major points.  One ironic thing about one of the speakers, Anil Dash, is that he works for what some would consider a major Wordpress competitor and many were curious about what he might have to say.  Well after his keynote we were all very happy he was there.  He talked a bit about blogging and how now it is time to come together and present common goals.  In that vein, he even went so far to announce that Six Apart was releasing open source free plugins that work in wordpress.  It was big news that was broken locally by Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions and later picked up by Techcrunch with the initial interview video from the floor of Wordcamp !! Big news.Anil Dash Interview

Other topics during the day included Thesis theme hacks, SEO for Wordpress blogs, Photoblogging with Wordpress, caching Wordpress and MattJaquith wrapped it all up by giving us a State of Wordpress.  The comments were all very positive.

Some of the sessions were recorded on video and we will try to pull it all together and repost here and on the Wordcamp Mid Atlantic site as well.  For now enjoy the video collage I made of the pics I took during the day

Below are a list I have compiled so far of the slide decks the speakers used.  I will update as I gather others

• Brad Williams – Advanced Thesis Techniques and Tricks
• Mark Jaquith – State of the Word
• Brandon Savage – Wordpress Caching

On Thursday night I was lucky enough to be able to attend Ignite DC #1.  I wrote a bit about it here, but basically it is 16 speakers who have 5 minutes to get through 20 slides about a WIDE variety of topics.  I can not even begin to do the talks justice, but you can check out all of them right HERE.  It was a great combo of guests and the vibe was incredible.

Here are some pics I took from the event.

Make sure to keep your eyes open for another Ignite to take place in DC in the near future.

Ken Burge, President of InfoMedia and creator of iFart, the wildly successful iPhone application
Jason Siegel, Managing Director of Qorvis, creator of the Washington Post’s Going Out Guide iPhone app
Isaac Mosquera, Co Founder of PointAbout
Samuli Hanninen, Director, Head of Ovi Product Marketing, Nokia

They touched on a range of subjects on the world of mobile. The first question posed to them was what they felt the “next big thing” was going to be in mobile with regards to geolocation. The consensus was that the personalization of the mobile experience in conjunction with the geo location’ing was going to deliver a better user experience. Especially when combined with features on the platform like the camera and navigation capabilities. Of course the voice of reason that went along with this conversation was the topic of privacy and to make sure the services provided were of the opt in type, allowing the consumer to decide whether or not to participate.

Viq then went to the next topic, Mobile Advertising.  He mentioned that spending on mobile ads wilr increase almost 36% over the next year by the end of 2010.  The key is how are ads delivered in an unobtrusive manner.  Samuli, of Nokia, said one of the most important steps was to actually define what mobile advertising was.  The other points were:

• Make sure you brand properly since there is not much screen space
• Make the ads interactive.  In some cases the application can be the ad
• Make the ads relevant and make sense to the customer

Viq then posed to the panel what advice they would have to startups looking to build a mobile application.  There was some great advice from the panel.

• context with location and address book, make the service and advertisement more relevant to the consumer
• dont put all eggs in one basket and pace your self on $$, odds a great against you
• how to leverage the crowd, aggregate view
• create niche and focused message
• get the right people on your team
• create different apps to go with different business models (some may monetize data on the backend, not the app itself)
• build in the ability to direct message your user to move them to look at other of your apps

They added that it was important for startups it was important to be careful and not spend too much money on the application.  They need to ensure the app is on a scalable platform, that it works across mutliple platforms, and finally, choose your target audience before you begin.

One of the final topics posed to the panel was how to properly market the mobile applcation.  All of them said, the days of just throwing an app into the app store were over.  Pains need to be taken in order to get the word out there.

• blogging, mashable, techcrunch, friends and family digging to make sure if it was in the news
• just get people talking about it, bad press is still press
• pitching traditional media is still good, earned media still provides big hit
• Word of mouth
• sharing functionality embedded in app is a must

Over all this was a great event with a great crowd at a terrific venue.  Would have been nice if there was wifi so we could have streamed some of the event, or twtitered a little more of the vibe and wisdom.  I am looking forard to their event next mont (June 22) Is Mobile Advertising Recession Proof.