Picture this: 600 of the world's preeminent thinkers on small and medium business issues (scholars, policy makers, researchers) from 61 different countries, and little bitty me (ok, so I'm 6'4", 225lbs, which isn't too little given how much I love cookies lately, but I think you get my point - I'm the one on the left in the photo).

Well, that was the situation last week at the 2008 ICSB World Conference I attended in lovely Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The theme of the conference was "Advancing Small Business and Entrepreneurship: From Research to Results". The goal of the conference is to find a way to bridge the gap between research and action in driving small business growth and success around the world.

The International Council for Small Business (ICSB) was the first international membership organization to promote the growth and development of small businesses worldwide. I was part of a global dialog series focused on technology transfer and usage for small business. One thing is certain, experts from Botswana to Korea-- and Argentina to Germany-- recognize how the small business market is large, vibrant, and eager to embrace technology to manage and grow small businesses.

Here are some preliminary findings from the conference research I thought were interesting:

• 98% of the experts reported that IT is important for small business growth;
• 92% said that keeping up with the competition, with regard to IT, is important;
• 99% said that investment in the use of IT by small businesses would bring long-term benefits, and
• 81% felt that those benefits would be great or very great;

Also at the event, Kevin Peesker, Vice President and General Manager Small and Medium Business, Dell Canada, announced the 10 finalists from the Canadian Small Business Excellence Awards which honors small businesses that have used technology in innovative ways to drive their businesses. Each of the finalists will receive a Dell business-class laptop computer, and a national winner will be named in August following another round of judging. The national winner will then be considered from among 12 country winners for the first global Dell Small Business Excellence Award that will be announced in fall 2008.

In addition to all that fun, I had some of the best lobster ever (they actually even serve lobster at McDonald's up there). I had a conversation with the Deputy Head, Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs & Local Development, Head of the SME Division (I loved that title for some reason), and I had an opportunity to spend time with some of our small business customers to hear first-hand how they are using our products and solutions to run successful businesses.

Here is a cool little trick for resizing your icons in Vista.  Similar to how some online maps, such as Google Maps, now allow you to zoom in and out with the simple scroll of a mouse wheel, you can now resize your file icons from small to huge by pressing the Ctrl key and scrolling the mouse wheel.  Since different media types are typically viewed in different ways, resizing your icons with the mouse wheel can cut down on the time it takes to view large thumbnails of your photos or small icons for data files.

When you do your online shopping, most store fronts have an electronic shopping cart or basket so you can get all that you want and only check out once, similar to your everyday local grocery store.  Well, when it comes to copying and pasting files from multiple locations on your local computer, there is a new free program that lets you practice the same “basket” concept.  Piky Basket is a simple, yet ingenious, little utility which extends the right-click “copy” and “paste” functionalities of Windows by allowing you to select and drop files into a virtual basket until you decide where they all should go or paste them into their final destination. 

While Piky Basket can definitely minimize the overall “back and forth” when copying, moving or backing up files and folders, specifically I find it extremely helpful for a non-business purpose—picking and choosing songs from different locations when burning various artists’ music CD.  

Piky is integrated within Windows and works from the shell so it doesn't use any additional resources.  You can download Piky Basket from Download.com.

Beginning today, logging on to Dell.com will look a lot different. The redesign of our home page -more than a year in the making- provides clearer navigation, more product highlights and creates a user experience that goes beyond shopping. For more details on the new home page and how customer feedback helped us with the redesign, check out the blog post from Fara Howard, Global Site Design Sr. Manager.

Last week my colleague called me and told me to open a free account with Zoho.  Not wanting to sign up for another social networking site, I initially refused.  However, as she assured me that this had nothing to do with finding me a date, I gave in. 

Zoho, according to their Google description, is a “suite of online web applications geared towards increasing your productivity and offering easy collaboration.”  In the case of my co-worker, she told me that she had uploaded a multiple user spreadsheet to Zoho Sheet that previously was flying around via e-mail to users in different offices and even different companies. 

So I took two minutes to run through the formalities and—ta-da—just as she had said, I was able to access the spreadsheet through the Zoho portal.  Now, you may be thinking that this tip is not so interesting; there are other products that offer the same “file hosting” or “virtual server” services.  While that may be true, what I find super cool about this site is that Zoho Sheet allows multiple user to access the file at the same time and make real-time edits.  You can see who is accessing the document and send messages to other users.  Messages to other users?  Oh no, it may be just another social networking site!   All joking aside, I find Zoho Sheet to be a great way to collaborate on spreadsheets and when I need to take a copy on the road with me, I just export a local Excel file to my machine.

Zoho has many other features besides Zoho Sheet, including Zoho Writer and Zoho Show which I presume are kin to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.  There are also Business Apps for more complex things such as invoicing and project management, though it appears you only get a free trial with some.  You can explore all things that Zoho has to offer at www.zoho.com.

Today we’ve launched Dell ProSupport Mobility Services - an expansion of Dell ProSupport - the newest group of services designed to help customers stay protected while connected. Check the blog from Dell Services Architect Suzanne Atkinson on Inside IT for all the details on the service.

As promised, here is part two of my series about starting your own business.  In this part we will discuss: Naming your Business, Finding the Right Location, and Tips on Marketing Your Business.

Naming your Business

After I figured out what type of business I was going to do, what accounting method I was going to use, and how I was going to fund my business, I needed to call it something.  Entrepreneur.com has some good ideas on some of the things to consider while thinking of a name for your business, as does the SBA.  Ideally, your name should convey the expertise, value and uniqueness of the product or service you've developed.  The particular type of business I had was one where just about any kind of name would be popular, but I wanted something very unique.  Most of my customers were members of the Hispanic community, so I wanted a name that would be familiar.  The name I chose was "El Sapo Verde", which when translated to English means The Green Frog, however in Spanish the word for frog is raña, and the word sapo means toad (which are usually brown colored).  So I had all kinds of people coming in to find out why I named the place El Sapo Verde, which when translated actually meant The Green Toad, but, a toad is supposed to be brown.  This contradiction in terms proved to pique the curiosity of everyone who came in, and was very successful. 

Finding the Right Location

Most everyone has heard the saying; "location, location, location.  These words are very true and can sometimes make the difference between success and failure of a new business. 

So, where should you locate your business?  Some experts will tell you location is absolutely vital to your company's success; others will argue that it really doesn't matter where you are-and they're both right. How important location is for your new company depends on the type of business, the facilities and other resources you need, as well as where your customers are. 

I chose to locate my business on a street right in the middle of several other similar businesses, my theory was that customers would want to go from location to location along the strip sampling the ambiance and flavor of each of the businesses, even though the basic prices, services, and products were similar.  The theory proved correct, and everyone profited from it, customers had fun and enjoyed walking from business to business, up and down the strip.

If your business or organization focuses on local clients and customers, another effective way to make sure they find you, is to get listed on an online map.  Cynthia Closkey of Big Big Design has some great ideas on using free web searches to get customers to your business.  Sites like Google maps, MSN, and MapQuest will all display your company's location for free.  They are fairly easy to set up and activate.

Tips on Marketing Your Business

There are several ways to market your business, through word of mouth, another through print media, and now in the age of the Internet, electronic media.  Dell Small Business 360 has some great ideas, as well as some free online courses to get started promoting your business.

Here are some inexpensive everyday tips that can be used to promote your business:

1. Take steps to make customers feel special. Customers respond to being recognized, especially in these hurried and impatient times.  I would always try to greet the customers when they entered my establishment with a smile, a greeting, and their favorite product out and ready.
   
2. Create a destination. Bookstore chain Barnes & Noble has its coffee bars. Furnishings giant Ikea offers child-care centers and cafeterias. Why? So customers gravitate to the stores to enjoy an experience, to hang out for a while. Sunday morning at Barnes & Noble becomes a pleasant weekend routine, rather than a shopping errand. Steal this idea.
   
3. Don't let customers simply slip away. Make an effort to reel them back in. It costs a lot less to retain a disgruntled or inactive customer than to acquire a new one. If you haven't heard from a customer in awhile, send a personalized e-mail (you can automate this process), inquiring whether all is well. For a customer who suffered a bad experience, pick up the phone, acknowledging the unpleasantness and ask if there's anything you can do. A discount can't hurt either. Being kind to customers is the smartest low-cost marketing you can do.

Ok, that about does it for Part Two of the series, so stay tuned to this blog for future editions of So, You Want to Start Your Own Business.

We’ve blogged a lot about social media and its importance to small businesses. We’ve done Q&As with Mack Collier and Jackie Huba and a vlog with John Jantsch - just to name a few. I wanted to let you know about a free online course about using Facebook and other social networks to promote your business. It’s three short webcasts (and they don’t have to be watched all in the same session!) and the course will be available until November 22, 2008. Did I mention that it’s FREE? I took the course and my favorite session was #3 – Examples of Business Promotion on Social Networks.

Tuesday, Sharon McLoone, blogger for Washington Post’s Small Business blog, posted a profile on our 2006 Dell/NFIB Small Business Excellence Award winner SewWhat?Inc. Here at Dell, we know Megan and Adam Duckett’s story very well and stay in touch regularly on how their business is going and how Dell can help them be successful.

I did pick up a few tips from the story that I wasn’t aware of in terms of what they are doing to stay ahead in today’s tough economy. I thought you might be able apply these ideas to your own business. Congratulations SewWhat? for your continued success and innovative business practices.

New Sales Division: RentWhat?Inc. As reported by Sharon, they are “…rolling out a new rental division, enabling customers to buy products for the short-term rather than requiring them to make purchases flat-out.”

Continuing Education: From the Post: “SewWhat? also has capitalized on state programs like the Small Manufacturers Advantage initiative that's run by California Manufacturing Technology Consulting, a private, non-profit consulting firm that receives federal funding from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. MEP has offices in every state, but the program's funding is perennially in jeopardy. The program helps manufacturers with less than $15 million in annual revenue become more efficient. ‘They've really helped train us on how to be more efficient on the manufacturing floor," said Duckett. ‘We've learned things we never would have without going to school for shop floor manufacturing...and I went to the school of hard knocks.’”

The great thing about the Internet vs. traditional media is that you can personalize your news.  However, this often means searching around to do so.  What if there was a way to find the content that matters most to you and have it delivered straight to your doorstep, or in this case to your e-mail provider?  Well there is, my friends.  It is called Really Simple Syndication technology, or RSS.

Take a look at this great video by www.commoncraft.com which clearly illustrates RSS and explains the two-step approach to setting up an RSS feed on your computer.