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2010-04-06T11:34:00.001-04:00

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Local Business Award Recognition

2010-04-01T14:46:00.004-04:00

As many of you follow the awards circuit that recognizes some of the top companies in this region, here are the finalists recently announced for the SECAF 2nd Annual Awards Gala.

SECAF (the organization for the small and emerging government contractor) announced its finalists last week; over 90 applications were received, so competition was tough. Finalist companies include:

SECAF Contractor of the Year (under $6 million):

· Attotek, Inc.

· Berico Tailored Systems

· Credence Management Solutions

· Foxhole Technology

· Integrity Management Consulting, Inc.

· Link Solutions, Inc.

SECAF Contractor of the Year ($6 to $12 million):

· Culmen International

· Dozier Technologies, Inc.

· Edgesource Corporation

· OGSystems, Inc.

· SMSi

SECAF Contractor of the Year ($12 to $25 million):

· Advanced Technology & Research Corp

· Digital Management, Inc.

· Morgan Borszcz Consulting

· SENTECH, inc.

· Technical & Project Engineering, LLC

Small Business Partner (Privately-owned greater than $25 million):

· Development Alternatives, Inc.

· Invizion, Inc.

· LMI

Small Business Partner (Publicly-owned greater than $25M)

· CACI International

· Lockheed Martin

· SAIC

If you want to attend the gala, you can purchase tickets via SECAF. Please join me in congratulating these finalists!

Social Media and B2B Tech Companies: The SAP Story

2010-03-25T19:12:00.000-04:00

I’m a big fan of the BrightTalk Webinar series, and yesterday I listened to a Webinar on “Enterprise Marketing with Communities and Social Media,” featuring Salim Ali, VP of Enterprise Solutions and Community Marketing at SAP.

He effectively illustrated how a B2B technology company like SAP is using social media in their marketing efforts by focusing on two significant assets – SAP Communities and SAP EcoHub, an app store for the enterprise software industry.

SAP didn’t just launch one community, they launched six discrete groups and an app store serving both technical and business professionals. SAP has been widely praised for their approach with accolades from BusinessWeek and Forrester. Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group says, SAP ranks in the top ten of “the world’s most valuable brands based on how they leverage social media to interact with customers.” These accolades seem justified. With more than two million community members and six thousand posts per day, clearly SAP is on to something.

SAP has a systematic process for leveraging this vast community for product feedback, demand creation, product launches, customer references and evangelism. One of many examples that he shared was a customer reference program where community members (from SAP communities and other social networks) were encouraged to “showcase your innovative SAP interactive form” and qualify to win a book ($60 value). This program alone generated 24 quality customer references that were then leveraged online as part of a demand generation program.

It’s refreshing to see a B2B company with such exciting social media and community engagement programs underway. Take a look and see what you think.

-- Katie Hanusik

Cloud Computing: The Good, the Bad, the ROI

2010-03-16T21:02:00.001-04:00

Phil Horvitz, Apptis and Tim Silk, Cisco

Last Thursday, WIT’s Technology SIG held their third event in the Tech Talk series, this one on the topic of Cloud Computing. The speakers were Phil Horvitz, CTO of Apptis and Tim Silk, Engineering Sales Manager at Cisco Systems.

Both speakers were gracious enough to share their presentations here, but a few highlights are worth noting.

Tim Silk started the discussion by offering NIST’s definition of cloud computing; “Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

He also explained how cloud computing is deployed and discussed the difference between public, private and hybrid clouds. Check out Tim’s full presentation here:

Phil Horvitz explained how government is leading the adoption of cloud computing – and has mandated that every agency conduct a cloud pilot in 2010. According to Phil, “The last time this happened? Never.”

Two other interesting data points in Phil’s presentation:

According to Gartner’s 2009 Technology Hype Cycle, cloud is at the absolute peak of inflated expectations (a position shared with e-book readers). This means, to use Gartner’s descriptive terminology, that cloud still has to go through the trough of disillusionment and the slope of enlightenment before it reaches the plateau of productivity (see page 4 of the PPT).

The ROI of cloud computing becomes apparent on page 5. Eli Lilly documented the server provisioning times for traditional IT compared to cloud. The differences are impressive.

Phil finished up by sharing a success story of his own. Apptis has a financial report that took 15 hours to run. By moving this application to the cloud, Phil’s team was able to produce the same report in under an hour. This is a great example of what Phil calls "cloud bursting," a temporary need for additional computing power that is efficiently managed by cloud computing.

Phil's full presentation can be found below.

Let me know what you think about the speakers' presentations -- and hope to see you at the next Tech Talk.

- Katie Hanusik

Spring is in the air: Market optimism in the Washington, DC tech community

2010-03-15T19:43:00.000-04:00

As we spring our clocks forward, I look to the future. When I woke up this morning with the sun still not in sight, rather than bemoan the dark early hours, I think about how positive things have been for our clients lately, and reflect on how a new time is upon us.

Perhaps its the New Normal, a term coined and recoined every time the market corrects itself or we find ourselves in a new phase of reality. Call it an awakening, or liken it to Spring. All of which I believe we are experiencing at this moment. I find myself thinking about how 2010 has started out for many to be just what we hoped, a period of resettling and moving onward and upward as we inherently wish to do.

I'm not one to pontificate, but I have found myself in several conversations in the past few weeks with clients and business partners reflecting on the start of the year and what we have seen. They ask with cautious optimism if our other clients are experiencing the same things? Are businesses investing again? Could we be out of the woods? Are other clients really hiring too? No one wants to have their head in the clouds, but they don't want to miss a growth opportunity as it awaits. There is comfort in knowing what other B2B tech companies see.

The last couple of years have taken their toll on our clients, our vendors, our employees and our families. Our anectdotal conversations could go something like this: "Small businesses still don't have access to the credit they need, the unemployment rate is still higher than anyone likes, and clients all want us to slash our fees."

But what I find most encouraging, is that CEOs in our technology community are quick to say: "We're hiring again!" Or, "This region has been good to us with some of the best talent in the industry." Or, "We just had our second best quarter in a row!" We're not quoting statistics or trends, but what we are experiencing in the field, where it really happens.

In just the past months, some of our clients and friends have exited successfully, and some have made strategic acquisitions. A few are raising money...yes, in this market. All are experiencing growth in various forms.

So, I'm here to be a dose of optimism. Things may not be the same for a while, but there is a general fervor and excitement that comes with getting back to business, and the "New Normal" that we embrace with pride.

--- Elizabeth Shea

Engaging with Social Technologies - Part II

2010-03-10T09:59:00.002-05:00

As a follow-up to my earlier post about the TMA webinar with Charlene Li, I wanted to highlight a couple of her recommendations that really resonated with me.

1. Start Small. Many people I speak to are overwhelmed by all that they can (and feel should) do with Social Media. Li advises clients in much the same way we do – start small and tie it to a business goal. The easiest way to step in is by listening, see what others are saying about you or your market and start joining the conversation. Regularly watching and commenting on blogs will give you a sense of the time required to start your own. Plus you start to build relationships with communities that someone else has already built. When it comes time to launch your own blog or Facebook page, you’ll have some credibility and a built-in audience.

When considering how to approach social media, look at your annual goals. Be it a new sales goal, improving customer service, or recruiting top talent – pick one area and focus on that.

2. Think beyond your customers. I’ve heard many people say “but our customers are not on Facebook/Linkedin/Twittter.” Even if that were true, look at who influences your customers’ buying decisions? Are they getting their information from social sites?

3. Defining ROI. Look beyond number of followers or fans. Coca-Cola has 4 million fans on Facebook, a pretty impressive number, but when you think about the market for Coke, they should have close to 200 million fans. Does that mean their Facebook page is a failure? No. They just need to consider the influence as well as the quantity of their fans. How can they give those 4 million fans the information and experience they are looking for so they will go out and evangelize the brand. She presented an equation for determining value (stay with me here, I know we communicators shy away from heavy math…)

Value of purchase – cost of acquisition + value of new customers from referrals + value of insights + value of support + value of ideas = customer lifetime value.

This complicated equation reminds us that our customers aren’t just valuable because they purchase our products – but also because they influence their friends, provide customer service, and share insights and ideas with the brands they love (or don’t). Brands can tap into all this collective wisdom by listening, sharing and engaging with customers using the many social media tools that are available.

These were just the top three thoughts I took away from the session. Anyone else that listened in have thoughts to add?
- Piper Conrad

Engaging with Social Technologies

2010-03-05T14:54:00.000-05:00

This week the SpeakerBox team huddled up in our lounge and sat in on a webinar given by Charlene Li, author of Groundswell and the forthcoming Open Leadership. She started the session by stating that social media is no longer the “bright shiny object” and that companies need to get serious about how to use the technology to create relationships. As she said, Social Media is not about technology, it’s about relationships.

In defining strategy, organizations should plan against the following tenants -- Learn, Dialog, Support, and Innovate.

In learning mode, companies monitor what is being said about them online and use that information to make change. Evaluating what information is credible or worth listening to is always a challenge. She suggested that once you do a google search on blog mentions, then look up those posts on del.icio.us to see how many people have bookmarked it, how they’ve tagged it, and what they are saying about it. This gives a sense of how many people are paying attention to the blogger which informs how seriously you should take it. The tagging shows how people categorize the information being written about which can inform your search marketing.

In a dialog, she presented the engagement pyramid which from bottom to top includes watching, sharing, commenting, producing, curating. She said that most organizations want to focus their efforts directly on creating the curators --people who organize and disseminate your information for you. Her advice was to start at the bottom, doing those elements well will naturally build an influential group of curators.

Many companies are using social media, specifically Twitter, as a new vein of customer support. Li advised that you do not need to change your support model to use social media. The Wells Fargo Customer Support Twitter handle states up front that they keep bankers hours and will respond within those defined times.

Organizations that are truly reaping the benefits of social media are those that are able to use it for Innovation. Procter and Gamble solicits comments on products as seemingly mundane as soap and receives incredibly thoughtful and innovative ideas on how to improve the product.

Stay tuned for another post on her recommendations for getting started and making the most out of a social media strategy.

Thank you to the Technology Marketing Alliance for hosting the event!

-Piper Conrad

PR, SEO, ROI: A Discussion on Marketing with Young Entrepreneurs

2010-03-03T13:30:00.019-05:00

Left to right: Prof. Jim Wolfe,
David Andrukonis
and Prof. Mahesh Joshi

I had the pleasure of being a part of the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) at George Mason University on February 19th. The day started with a keynote from David Andrukonis, Co-Founder of Alumni Fidelity, who has harnessed the best practices of political fundraising and translated them into a social fundraising tool for educational institutions. The counsel from David that resonated with me, was one of his big lessons learned: investing in solid Website design is critical.

David's Web discussion was a good segue into the marketing panel discussion. Jim Wolfe, Entrepreneur in Residence and Assistant Professor of Management at GMU's School of Management, moderated the discussion and I was joined on the panel by Kim Guarino of Evolve Marketing, Bob Gaudian of MediaForce PR and Lisa Martin of LeapFrog.

Left to right: Prof. Jim Wolfe,
Kim Guarino, Bob Guadian,
Lisa Throckmorton and Lisa Martin
Photo credit (both photos): Evan Cantwell

We had a lively, interactive session with the Mason students and used our hour to discuss and debate the merits of various marketing strategies and tactical options for any business trying to get off the ground. The discussion touched on a range of topics from building an online presence, to SEO and how to focus marketing efforts to see the most ROI. Overall it was a great discussion and further affirmation that the various practices under the marketing umbrella have really fused over the past few years. A big thank you to Jim Wolfe for including me in what was, start to finish, a very impressive event.

- Lisa Throckmorton

MAVA's Seven on Seven: A Recap

2010-02-26T12:12:00.001-05:00

I attended MAVA’s “Seven on Seven,” billed as Seven Topics, Seven Speakers, Seven Minutes. Speakers included:

• Dr. Srini Mirmira, Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, Dept. of Energy
• Jack Davies, Venture Philanthropist, Venture Philanthropy Partners
• Robert Kipps, Managing Director, KippsDeSanto
• George Daly, Dean, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
• Patrick Coffey, Managing Director, Healthcare Credit Group, CapitalSource
• Geoff Tracy, Owner, Geoff Geoff’s and Lia’s Restaurants
• Kiran Hebbar, Partner, Valhalla Partners

Though all the speakers had an interesting perspective, Chef Geoff brought down the house with his passion as an entrepreneur and his story of starting his first restaurant in a foreclosed space with a kitchen full of rotting food. He aptly described entrepreneurs as, “people who see opportunity where others don’t – and think ‘how hard could it be?’ By the time they realize how hard it is, it’s too late.”

The common denominator, if there was one, was that opportunity exists for entrepreneurs and investors in almost every sector if you look hard enough. In energy, government, healthcare, higher education, technology -- even retail and restaurants, the passionate entrepreneur can see something that others might miss, clean out the proverbial kitchen, and come out smelling like roses – or at least like soup.

-- Katie Hanusik

March's Must-Attend Webinar: Technology Marketing Alliance's Webinar Featuring Charlene Li

2010-02-26T10:44:00.001-05:00

If you're only able to attend one webinar next month, I highly recommend checking out the free event hosted by the Technology Marketing Alliance (TMA), which features renowned social media analyst and best selling author Charlene Li.

In 2008, Charlene co-authored the bestseller "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Tecnologies" with Josh Bernoff - a book that has become required reading for any executive or marketer looking to launch a successful social strategy. Since Groundswell published, Li has continued her role as a thought leader on emerging technologies and evangelist on the impact of social technologies in business, and also founded Altimeter Group, a consulting firm that provides companies with a pragmatic approach to disruptive technologies. Charlene's next book, "Open: How Leaders Win By Letting Go," is set to publish this May.

TMA's webinar is a great opportunity to hear Li's thoughts on social media for the enterprise, and best practices for developing a social strategy. If you want more information on the webinar, TMA has more on their site. You can also register by visiting http://charleneli.eventbrite.com/.

-Stephanie

@stephstad

2010 Fed 100

2010-02-15T11:00:00.002-05:00

About a week ago, Federal Computer Week released the 2010 version of its Federal 100 list. As always, it's an impressive "who's who" list for the federal IT community. In 1990, when the Fed 100 was born, FCW's then-editor Edith Holmes noted that the agency officials, industry leaders and executives on the Fed 100 “have acted as agents for change in the way agencies and companies develop, acquire and manage information technology. ... In many cases, the results of their efforts will be lasting.” Years later, those words still define what the awards represent.

This year, we're excited to see Red Hat's Gunnar Hellekson named as one of the Fed 100 honorees. Gunnar's work furthering open government initiatives and open source adoption in federal agencies is impressive, and he's someone we're proud to work with and know. Congratulations to Gunnar and everyone at Red Hat on the honor!

-Stephanie
@stephstad

How the Federal Workforce Consumes Media

2010-02-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

Last week I attended Market Connections’ unveiling of the 2009-2010 Federal Media and Marketing Study. In its second year, this study aims to uncover how Federal decision makers get their news and information. Some interesting findings (from my perspective):

Respondents named 36 outlets that are key to daily news and information gathering. These broke out to 14 social sites, 28 federally-focused publications, and 12 general business and news outlets.
Top ranking federal pubs (across the whole respondent base) were Government Executive, Federal Times, Federal Computer Week, Government Computer News, and Defense News.
Top ranking websites were CNN, Govexec.com, MSNBC, Fox News, and the Washington Post.
While 45% of respondents said they prefer to read trade news as a combination of print and online, another 34% said they preferred print as compared to only 13% preferring online only.
Tradeshow attendance is skewing lower with only 46% reporting they attended a show in the past year.
Social media continues to grow, with the biggest jump from last year’s survey being the usage of LinkedIn (up to 16% from 4%).
Social media faces hurdles in becoming a business tool for government with 55% of respondents unable to access social sites at work.

-Piper Conrad

Walk the Red Carpet During Awards Season in DC

2010-01-31T20:09:00.001-05:00

As we await the announcement on February 2nd of the official nominations for this year's 82nd Academy Awards, we can also look to this regional area, where we are awash with own awards circuit recognizing excellence in business, growth, leadership, employee development and more.

The awards season started out strong last week, with two of the hottest award celebrations in town, which (unfortunately) were on the same night, but both attracted sold out crowds. SmartCEO held its annual SmartCEO Future 50 Gala, recognizing the fastest growing companies in the Washington, DC region over a three year period, and the Washington Business Journal held its annual Book of Lists party, recognizing all of the businesses, organizations and associations that claimed a spot on the top of each of their respective lists throughout the year.

In case you missed these two "See and Be Seen" galas, here are a few more hot tickets to explore that are right around the corner. It's not too late to nominate and be nominated...you can't win if you don't enter! I've been to each of these in past years, and they are not to be missed. Here are the ones top of mind, listed in order of when nominations are due:

Apollo Awards 2010 / Produced by Helios HR

Deadline: February 19, 2010

The Apollo Awards has raised the bar in its annual recognition of a company's effort toward employee development and retention. Particularly in these troubled times, taking care of your company's biggest asset--people--never goes out of style. We entered this program last year and were proud to emerge as a finalist. This is a nomination process that enables one to truly your own practices of employee development and its importance in building great companies. Awards Gala: June 3, 2010.

Women In Technology - Leadership Awards Banquet

Deadline: February 19, 2010

Women in Technology (WIT) is holding its Annual Leadership Awards Gala in May which recognizes women in leadership in the categories of entrepreneurship, global impact, corporate excellence, government accomplishments and more. Last year, this Awards Gala inspired the book, No One Path, released last year with a special forward from Maureen Bunyan, co-anchor at WJLA-TV. The book highlights previous winners from over the past decade, sharing their leadership stories. Awards Gala: May 20, 2010.

Best Places to Work in Greater Washington 2010

Deadline: February 26, 2010

This award is cool to enter, not only for the accolades and bragging rights for finalists, but also because regardless of how you finish, you will receive a complementary employee survey administered by third-party Quantum Research, which can provide insight into your company's morale, retention, leadership, trust, alignment, etc. You need to apply online, and ask your employees to submit an anonymous online evaluation to augment your nomination. The WBJ is hosting a nominations "how to" webinar on 2/2/10. Awards Gala: TBD.

SECAF (Small and Emerging Contractor Advisory Forum) 2nd Annual Awards Gala

Deadline: February 28, 2010
SECAF held its Inaugural Awards Gala last year, as a way to recognize the often overlooked marketplace of small, growing and emerging government contractors. Companies will be recognized in the categories of $0-$6M, $6-$12M and $12-$25M, and a special award will be given to a Small Business Partner of the Year (greater than $25M) and a Government Advocate of the Year. Last year's Gala was a sellout, so mark your calendars! Awards Gala: April 29, 2010.

I am certain there are more out there that aren't on this succinct list, so please share and we'll keep you updated on deadlines!

--Elizabeth Shea

The ‘Fish at CES 2010

2010-01-19T11:59:00.003-05:00

The beginning of January marked my first trip to geek nirvana (not to mention Vegas), as I attended CES 2010 to help SpeakerBox client Cernium launch their newest consumer product: Archerfish Solo, the world’s first Thinking Camera. Being a CES virgin, I was completely blown away by the scale and the lengths that many companies go to just to drive booth traffic. Never mind the nearly naked models hawking Ed Hardy gadget accessories – Marvell, a semiconductor company, had Stan Lee at their booth…because nothing screams semiconductors like the father of Marvel comics, right?

At any rate, the show was successful from Cernium’s perspective: The overall response to Archerfish Solo was positive and came with a lot of media interest. Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret from the Wall Street Journal even stopped by the booth for a demonstration from Cernium’s CEO, Craig Chambers!

Being that this was my initial experience with the technology wonderland that is CES, I have some thoughts for PR folks and their client companies looking to get through the noise that surrounds the event.

Press events are your friend. Seriously. Even though this pre-show activities cost extra (and some aren’t even produced by CES, like ShowStoppers), they are well worth the price from the exposure alone. Events like Unveiled and ShowStoppers are press-only, so you are ensuring that you’re getting your product in front of the media you care about. And they’re more intimate (Unveiled was about 50 companies this year), so the odds of a high-profile journalist stopping by for a chat are much greater than during CES itself.
Treat everyone who comes to your booth as important. I always stress this in every post I write, but it’s never more important than at CES. Often attendee badges, particularly for the media, don’t reflect who they actually work or write for. Someone registered as press for their own, low-profile blog might actually be a columnist for CNET, so give all visitors respect, no matter who they are.
Make time to see the floor. It’s important for both you and your client to get out to the show floor to see what other vendors (and competitors) are doing. Maybe it will give you ideas for next year or you might even run into some key press or industry contacts at an unrelated demo. At the very least it gives you some insight as to what the rest of your industry and your competitors are up to.

--John Terrill

New Year, Growing Team

2010-01-15T16:48:00.002-05:00

2010 is off to a great start at SpeakerBox! We're hiring and looking for smart, happy people to join what we consider a powerhouse team. If you are a senior to mid-level communications expert, we'd love to meet you or anyone you know that might fit the bill.

I'm approaching 8 years here (February 18), so can personally vouch for a great workplace, inclusive of talented and fun people and amazing opportunities to contribute to our dynamic client base and SpeakerBox as a whole.

We look forward to meeting you and your friends!

- Lisa Throckmorton

Know a Woman in Tech that is Blazing her own Path?

2010-01-15T14:53:00.001-05:00

Women in Technology has opened their nominations for the 2010 WIT Leadership Awards. These annual awards honor DC-area women who have exemplified the core WIT values of Connect. Lead. Succeed. through their professional lives.

The first ten years of award winners were chronicled in No One Path, a book produced by a tenacious team of over 50 WIT volunteers. The book, featuring the story of over 40 award winners (including our own Lisa Throckmorton and Elizabeth Shea), has enjoyed brisk sales since the October launch.

The next decade of Leadership Awards ushers in some changes with new categories, opening the award to even more deserving women. Categories include: Corporate Commercial Small Business, Corporate Commercial Large Business, Corporate Public Sector Small Business, Corporate Public Sector Large Business, Entrepreneur, Government, Health IT, Global Impact, Unsung Hero, and Rising Star.

Nominations are due February 19th. Winners will be honored at the Awards dinner on May 20, 2010 at the Ritz Carlton Tysons.

-Piper Conrad

Green Energy and Green IT: Change is Coming

2010-01-15T14:29:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's Women in Technology event on Green Energy and Green IT featured three knowledgeable local speakers:

Hank Dearden of Virsant
Bill Lyons of Seneca Creek Partners
Marco Luzuriaga of Limeleap

The come from different perspectives, but all three agreed that we can't rely on social responsibility alone to drive environmental policies and change.

Bill set the stage by explaining the macro factors that are driving interest in green energy:

Fossil fuels are becoming increasingly scarce and increasingly difficult and expensive to extract. Many experts predict that we'll run out of oil in 30-50 years if we continue consumption at the current rates.
Global interest in energy security and independence -- especially given the locations of the world's remaining oil reserves
Cost savings
Global mandates for clean/renewable energy and fuel efficiency
And the environmental impact of current practices

Marco and Hank turned the conversation to Green I.T. The first strategies many people think of are cloud computing and virtualization, though Marco pointed out that Green I.T. also means decreasing the hazardous materials in computer equipment, increasing energy efficiency and designing for recyclability and biodegradability.

Hank was quick to point out that though cloud computing is a green I.T. strategy because resources can be shared -- there are many social networks that are only available because of cloud computing that are tremendous energy hogs. Facebook has 30,000 servers supporting its operations, the equivalent of five power plants. In Hank's words, "every time you tweet, you kill a butterfly," which helps remind us all of the delicate balancing act between the habits of the modern day world and environmental stewardship.

On the topic of virtualization, Hank explained that there are five to six reasons to virtualize a data center or desktop -- only one of them is green; "virtualization is good I.T., and you essentially get the green for free."

The speakers agreed that a paradigm shift is necessary and inevitable, and that we'll see increased technology innovation over the next decade. The cost savings are just too significant to ignore, which should keep everyone seeing green.

- Katie Hanusik

Photo 1: Speakers - Hank Dearden, Virsant; Bill Lyons, Seneca Creek Partners; Marco Luzuriaga of LimeLeap
Photo 2: Event Attendees - Royela Kim, Boscobel; Toni Townes-Whitley, Unisys and WIT President; Gina Pagliaro, Boscobel

Got a Story to Tell? Nominate Your Company for an Apollo Award

2010-01-13T17:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I attended Helios HR’s 2010 Apollo Awards nominations workshop, along with nearly 100 local area business leaders, to get some inside tips from previous winners about drafting a winning award submission. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Helios HR is an HR services provider that developed the Apollo Awards in 2007 to recognize Washington-area employers that promote employee development initiatives. SpeakerBox is proud to say that it was a finalist last year, having been recognized for its learning opportunities and cross-training offerings for employees. Having experienced much success from being named a finalist, this year SpeakerBox is teaming up with Helios HR to spread the word about the awards and encourage companies to share their best practices with the greater metropolitan area.

If you weren’t able to attend the workshop, then I must say, you missed out on some great insight. Attendees heard from a handful of 2009 winners about the ways in which they went about compiling their award submission and what, in their opinions, set them apart from their competition. Here are a few suggestions that were shared:

Get various people within your company involved in the nomination process. Ask those who are excited and passionate about the corporate initiatives to take a stab at drafting or editing the submission – this could potentially highlight new ideas never before considered.
Exemplify how your business is all about your people. In other words, illustrate the ways in which your company makes its employees feel like they’re a part of something meaningful, rather than just another job. Explain how your environment encourages personal well-being and overall happiness.
Go heavy on the results language. Don’t just explain the initiatives in place, but prove in words the kind of impact they have had or are having on employees and the business itself.

While the call for nominations doesn’t open until Tuesday, January 19, I encourage interested applicants to visit Helios HR’s website today to learn more about the Apollo Awards and begin thinking about their company’s learning, training and employee development initiatives. Be sure to stay connected to Helios HR on Facebook and Twitter for updates and don’t forget to mark your calendar for Tuesday!

-Mary Evans

In Case You Missed It…

2010-01-12T18:30:00.001-05:00

In case you couldn’t tune in to the Channel 7 news on Friday at 6:15, we’ve got a clip of Elizabeth talking about hiring in the high-tech and cleantech verticals in our region.

The full story is on President Obama’s quick response to dismal unemployment numbers with $2.3 billion in new tax incentives for companies promoting clean energy technology jobs. Elizabeth explains that she is very hopeful that we are almost through the downturn and that this stimulus will help, citing some of our clients growth in Q4 09 as proof.

-Ali Smith

Bob McDonnell Visits NoVa's TiE-DC Business Leaders

2010-01-06T21:30:00.001-05:00

Virginia's Governer-elect Bob McDonnell is making the rounds to several Northern Virginia business leaders groups before his official inauguration in ten days, including our friends over at TiE-DC. Today he spent over an hour meeting, greeting and chatting up the TiE-DC entrepreneur community, and then outlined his key initiatives for 2010, including plans to solve the legacy transportation issues and economic development. It was wonderful to meet him in-person and hear his specific thoughts on the opportunities for small businesses and the entrepreneurs that fuel our nation and our state's health.

He also shared today's breaking news of three important cabinet post appointments, including Northern Virginia's own Jim Duffey, who is well-known in the Northern Virginia technology community. Also appointed today were Doug Domenech as Secretary of Natural Resources, and Terrie Suit as Assistant to the Governor for Commonwealth Preparedness.

About 80 attendees came to the joint event open to TiE-DC charter-members and Republican Indian Community guests. Thank you Governer-elect McDonnell!

- Elizabeth Shea

Content For Customers: Search, Content, Social

2009-11-25T15:20:00.009-05:00

Having a well integrated marketing plan is more important than ever and no matter what type of media marketing you use, the goal should be the same: to develop leads.

If you are among the many marketing professionals and business leaders who are trying to stay up to speed on best practices relative SEO, content and social media - our fearless leader, Elizabeth Shea, is joining forces with Janet Driscoll Miller, President & Lead Strategist of Search Mojo on a Webinar that will discuss how to leverage Search, content, and social media resources to help your company gain higher rankings, increase traffic, and get more leads.

Elizabeth and Janet presented on a panel at a recent seminar that SpeakerBox hosted and I can attest to the wealth of knowledge that they have to share (and the great questions and furious note taking of participants when they are imparting their wisdom and first-hand examples).

Here are the specifics:

Thursday December 3, 2009 at 3-4pm ET
Register at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/130920963
Still have questions? webinar@search-mojo.com

- Lisa Throckmorton

LinkedIn for Personal Branding – Part 1

2009-11-25T10:26:00.004-05:00

The WIT Sales & Marketing and Technology SIGs hosted a special member workshop last week on “Supersizing Your LinkedIn Profile: Using LinkedIn for Personal and Corporate Branding.” Catherine Read led the highly interactive, sold-out workshop where attendees were encouraged to bring their laptop so everyone could make real-time profile enhancements.

Catherine is a true-believer in LinkedIn, and apparently she’s not the only one. In October, LinkedIn announced that they’d hit the 50M mark.

Her best ideas are below. If available, I’ve linked to instructions for each of these tips.

1. Confirm that you have only one profile and delete any duplicate accounts. Apparently, this is quite common if you’re invited to connect using an email address that LinkedIn doesn’t recognize (one of my contacts has four accounts). Next make sure all your email accounts are associated with your LinkedIn profile.

2. Update your personal profile. Consider a “vanity URL,” (mine is http://www.linkedin.com/in/katiehanusik)

and add the name of your Website and blogs.

3. Use the status updates to remind your contacts what you do for a living. This is increasingly easy as LinkedIn recently announced a partnership with Twitter.

4. Invite people to connect but never use the standard invitation. Explain how you met and why you’re interested in connecting – or consider a more creative approach. Offset the chance of rejection with some of these tips.

5. Don’t accept an invitation without looking at the profile and sending a follow up email. Presumably, the person that sent you the invitation is interested in connecting, not just adding your name to their giant rolodex of contacts.

6. Build your recommendations. If you have hundreds of contacts, shouldn’t you be able to find at least one person that can say something nice about you? And the best way to get recommendations? Give them (especially to your boss).

We covered so much that it’s too much for one post. Part II will be coming shortly and will cover Groups, Events and Applications.

- Katie Hanusik

* Photo: Catherine Read (center) and from left Marge Niedzwicz (GWU), Krista Curtiss (HP), Debbie Moore and Janet Sifers (IBM).

"The Social CEO" Hits The Entrepreneur Institute

2009-11-19T16:21:00.000-05:00

I was quite honored to be asked to present this morning to The Presidents' Forum of MetroWashington, which is sponsored by The Entrepreneur Institute, an organization for small business presidents and CEOs ($3M-$300M range). What a great group!

Several folks asked for the presentation, so since this is geared toward CEOs and not marketing types, I thought I would share it on Plugged In.

Hope you enjoy. And thanks Entrepreneur Institute!

- Elizabeth Shea

The Social CEO: New Rules of Engagement

View more presentations from eliz2shea.

Announcing GovEvents.com

2009-11-17T14:50:00.001-05:00

SpeakerBox is proud to support GovEvents in the launch of their portal for government-related events. The site provides in-depth information on a wide variety of events, from major industry tradeshows, to government conferences, to agency-sponsored roundtables, and webcasts.

Like the Hair Club for Men pitchman, “I’m not only the PR rep, but also a client.” Searching for events for my clients to speak, sponsor, exhibit, and attend has meant visiting numerous sites and many times falling down the Google rabbit hole trying any and all combinations of search terms to uncover applicable events. GovEvents is a lifesaver in this respect. It can be the first stop in information gathering, providing a pretty comprehensive list of events on any (government-related) topic available. Event organizers can also upload their event for free – yet another channel to promote events big and small.

I’ve already started using it with great success and encourage all government marketers to give it a try, I think you’ll find that a lot of the pain in researching events has been alleviated.
-Piper Conrad