Last night in the Startup Zone they had 2 companies. One was BigBlueHat.com. Ben Young and Brad Garrett were showing off their new Blue Ink CMS platform. I must say it’s very very cool. If you are looking for a great SaaS platform then give these guys a shout. I’m a little biased when it comes to BBH since I’ve known Ben for a good while now. I know his work, his entrepreneurial spirit, and his creativity. He thinks outside the box and their latest version of Blue Ink is definitely cutting-edge IMO.

The company was WeSeeYouMirror.com. Rick Matney, the President, was there showing off the product. Talk about cool! It’s one of those “Why didn’t I think of it before?” type of products. Check out their website for more info and to buy one for your car. I’m thinking that I’ll probably be getting one sometime soon (after November when the baby arrives…)

Anyways, that’s just a quick rehash of last night. Met some new people, networked a bit and got a few leads. Oh, and found out they server Coca-Cola too! Wee!

This week is another big networking week for me. I have an IGNITE Greer event tomorrow night and a GSATC Tech after 5 event on Wednesday night. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue to find some good leads and meet new people at both events.

Going to all these networking events make for a very long day typically and I’m usually wiped out by time I get home. But it’s been enjoyable and so far I’ve been able to get a buzz on what’s new, what companies are the hot companies, and get some potential leads. Plus, most of the events are free to attend so that helps out a lot too.

I’m starting to make some traction in sales calls and getting meetings setup. This week I have a meeting with a large healthcare provider that does use our competition. Hopefully they’ll like what we can bring to the table and go with us instead! If so that would be awesome.

We’re about 2 weeks out from our move to our new offices. That’s gonna be awesome. I’m going to try to bring in my camera to take pictures (which reminds me, I need to take pictures of my current office). The new location is about 3 miles closer to my house. That’s 30 miles a week! Can you say $4.00 a week in gas savings? or roughly $208 a year? That’s like getting a Christmas bonus! hehe

Have a great week everyone! Keep aiming for those goals!

Geeks + Pizza = Happiness. I should know. I’m a geek. I like pizza. Therefore I’m happy when eating pizza and talking tech.

Tomorrow I get to take a class that I won from a networking event I was at a few weeks ago. We’ll see how it goes. I should be a pro after I get done with the class in saying what I want to say in 60 seconds or less.

Hmm..pizza….I’m getting hungry. XD

In about 45 minutes I’ll be headed to a brand new event in Greer sponsored by the Greer Chamber of Commerce called IGNITEGreer called Networking with Impact. I’ll post some thoughts on it tomorrow. I’m excited to see how it goes. Greer is a growing city and I love getting involved with the Greer Chamber of Commerce events.

Tomorrow night is the GSATC Tech After 5 event at Barley’s Taproom. Being that I’m not a beer drinker I don’t really gain full effect of the ‘1st beer is on us’ slogan, but the event itself is a great event. I was able to meet a few people last month and am looking forward to meeting a few more tomorrow night.

I *think* that’s all my event scheduled for this week. Who knows might be some more coming down the pipe…

Oh, and I might be creating a Twitter account soon…I’ve been doing some more reading on it and it might have some great networking facets to it. I’ll keep you posted.

Another thing, my posts have slowed down a good bit. I’m trying to keep things moving but man, work and life have been so busy that by time I think about posting something I forget. Doh! I know, poor discipline. Bear with me folks. I’ll keep things moving forward!

I really enjoyed meeting quite a few new folk and exchanging business cards (aka networking). It was nice to be among people passionate about entrepreneurship and bringing it to the Upstate. I’m planning on being a regular to these monthly meetings in the future and after hearing what is coming down the pipe for the forum this should be an exciting year!

Tomorrow night is the GSATC Tech After Five event. It will be my first tech networking event with the GSATC and I’m excited about the possibilities to network with new people there as well. I’ll post some thoughts on that event on Thursday hopefully.

Well, lunch is done (Yay for turkey and honey wheat bread!) and I need to find a great Sr. Systems Administrator. Why is that when I find a great person, they’re not willing to relocate to this area? Such is life I guess. Makes it more challenging and fun (I hope).

Some people think they can’t network because they are shy, or introverted. I saw pfaw to that! Because they do it every day at their workplace, church, club, or picnic!  They might call it fellowshipping, or homeowner’s association meeting, or board game club meeting, but it’s all the same. When you talk to someone in an online forum you are networking. When you talk to a vendor on the phone, you are networking. When you go to a trade show you definitely are networking!

For a small business, networking is key to being successful. Say you have a good customer and you want more like them. Well, just ask for some referrals. That’s networking. What about using a particular vendor? Ask your customers or even your competition. Many times they’ll gladly refer a vendor to you, especially if it’s a good vendor.

In a lot of these business blogs, or  blogging-for-money sites, you see the authors asking for comments and feedback. They are networking with their reader base and trying to increase the traffic. The blogrolls you see on the side of a blog is networking as well because it’s hobnobbing with other folk that have the same interests as you.

Then there are the social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, etc. that are hugely popular with the tweenies, and  younger generation. Those are potentially huge marketing and revenue streams that companies are just now trying to capitalize on. On the other side are the professional networking sites like LinkedIn, and Plaxo (and others) that bring professionals together without all the bling (for the most part) of other sites.

Still think you have no network? Just open up your e-mail address list or your IM friends list. Start there. It’s up to you to do something with that network. Be it looking for a job, helping a friends business by sending customers their way, or just learning what someone does.

Networking is not evil. It might take you a little bit to warm up too, but you are doing it already. Just change your though process.