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Calling All Owners & Partners in Local Small Businesses
Posted: Feb 15 2005, 11:43 AM
Attention owners and partners in locally owned small businesses in Silicon Valley, we're trying to establish a peer network for support, advice, and other information. This is the first message posted to this group's forums, so I'll take a minute to lay out details for this group.
Who it's for: Owners, partners, and supporters of Silicon Valley based small businesses.
Why start this group: I've taken limited part in some other small business online networks, but didn't like them because some of its members treated it primarily as a sales lead generation pipeline or the group had minimal ties to the Silicon Valley community. I think we have the right mix of people, knowledge, and connections to do better.
What this is for: This group is for discussions and information of specific interest to small businesses in Silicon Valley. We're here to help each other survive and thrive. This is not a place to shamelessly pitch your products or services. You're free to mention what you have to offer, but please do it in context. If you simply want people to know about your local business, create a Merchant Profile instead.
Here's what we need to get this group started:
Members: Join this group (Silicon Valley Small Business Network) if it applies to you. You'll receive some communications that you otherwise may not get.
Volunteer to be a subject expert: If you have skills or knowledge highly needed by small business owners, I'd like to name some subject experts to lead discussion areas and do Q&A. For example, Steven W Schnur, CPA (schnur), has volunteered to answer some general questions about accounting.
Post questions or commentary for other members: Don't be shy, ask business related questions to subject experts or to the group in general or start a discussion about topics of interest to small businesses in Silicon Valley. This group will be made private and open only to approved members after things get rolling.
Create a merchant profile: Social Wave is a community network that integrates the interests of locally owned businesses into the foundations of its services. The more Social Wave members who create a detailed Merchant Profile the larger our directory becomes. I estimate that we need 100 quality Merchant Profiles before there's enough content in the directory for me to promote seriously.
Ideas and Suggestions: We need your thoughts about how to make this group the most useful to you and others like you. Since Social Wave is my personal project, ideas and suggestions can include feature requests in Social Wave to extend its functionality.
This post has been edited by Sheldon on Feb 15 2005, 12:51 PM
Who it's for: Owners, partners, and supporters of Silicon Valley based small businesses.
Why start this group: I've taken limited part in some other small business online networks, but didn't like them because some of its members treated it primarily as a sales lead generation pipeline or the group had minimal ties to the Silicon Valley community. I think we have the right mix of people, knowledge, and connections to do better.
What this is for: This group is for discussions and information of specific interest to small businesses in Silicon Valley. We're here to help each other survive and thrive. This is not a place to shamelessly pitch your products or services. You're free to mention what you have to offer, but please do it in context. If you simply want people to know about your local business, create a Merchant Profile instead.
Here's what we need to get this group started:
Members: Join this group (Silicon Valley Small Business Network) if it applies to you. You'll receive some communications that you otherwise may not get.
Volunteer to be a subject expert: If you have skills or knowledge highly needed by small business owners, I'd like to name some subject experts to lead discussion areas and do Q&A. For example, Steven W Schnur, CPA (schnur), has volunteered to answer some general questions about accounting.
Post questions or commentary for other members: Don't be shy, ask business related questions to subject experts or to the group in general or start a discussion about topics of interest to small businesses in Silicon Valley. This group will be made private and open only to approved members after things get rolling.
Create a merchant profile: Social Wave is a community network that integrates the interests of locally owned businesses into the foundations of its services. The more Social Wave members who create a detailed Merchant Profile the larger our directory becomes. I estimate that we need 100 quality Merchant Profiles before there's enough content in the directory for me to promote seriously.
Ideas and Suggestions: We need your thoughts about how to make this group the most useful to you and others like you. Since Social Wave is my personal project, ideas and suggestions can include feature requests in Social Wave to extend its functionality.
This post has been edited by Sheldon on Feb 15 2005, 12:51 PM
Posted: Feb 15 2005, 02:44 PM
Hi Sheldon,
I'm interested in learning more.
Thank you for pulling this group
together.
Susan
I'm interested in learning more.
Thank you for pulling this group
together.
Susan
Posted: Feb 15 2005, 05:42 PM
Hey Susan! If you have some questions, go ahead and give a shout over the forum - I'm sure they're questions other people are asking, too. But if you're just curious to see what's going on, feel free to go ahead and join the group - it's easy and you can always jump off the group if you decide it's not right for you. Just click on this link: Silicon Valley Small Business Network and click on "Join Group".
(It was great to meet you in person at the Shop and Spa, by the way - what a great event!! It was really well-managed - I was very impressed.)
(It was great to meet you in person at the Shop and Spa, by the way - what a great event!! It was really well-managed - I was very impressed.)
Posted: Feb 16 2005, 12:15 AM
Susan, I'll second what Mary said. Join the group, strike up some suggestions of things you'd like to see, concerns you may have for a group like this, or just ask a question. For one, I think it'd be interesting to explore how we might be able to help your efforts in networking women owned businesses. I'm assuming that's part of your mission with Aspire Life Coaching. Am I correct?
If you goto the SV Small Business Network Forums Main Page and click on "New Topic" at the bottom of the page you can start a completely new discussion subject thread.
I'm really interested in joining forces with traditional business organizations that meet face to face. I'm strongly against reinventing the wheel. Social Wave doesn't have the resources that a Chamber of Commerce or other business associations have, but we do have a strong foundation of collaborative tools that are managed and that's something that most traditional business networks lack. For example, perhaps we could set-up a sub-group to this main Small Business group for the women you work with or even integrate new services that might give you better reach to people online.
When I was first drawing up the operational philosophy for Social Wave over a year ago, businesses were not in my thinking for Social Wave at all. The purpose was a lot easier to summarize back then. It was simply to encourage neighborhood and town based community building, but while I was coming up with the first draft of my plan for Social Wave, a saw a bunch of my favorite local businesses go under or change ownership.
All this convinced me that unless the plan was revised to also support locally owned businesses Social Wave would have little chance of providing long term social value and just become stuck as an entertainment outlet. Looping back to join efforts with existing groups has been a part of the plan all along, but we'll need more minds and hands to make it happen.
This post has been edited by ArsNova on Feb 16 2005, 02:29 AM
If you goto the SV Small Business Network Forums Main Page and click on "New Topic" at the bottom of the page you can start a completely new discussion subject thread.
I'm really interested in joining forces with traditional business organizations that meet face to face. I'm strongly against reinventing the wheel. Social Wave doesn't have the resources that a Chamber of Commerce or other business associations have, but we do have a strong foundation of collaborative tools that are managed and that's something that most traditional business networks lack. For example, perhaps we could set-up a sub-group to this main Small Business group for the women you work with or even integrate new services that might give you better reach to people online.
When I was first drawing up the operational philosophy for Social Wave over a year ago, businesses were not in my thinking for Social Wave at all. The purpose was a lot easier to summarize back then. It was simply to encourage neighborhood and town based community building, but while I was coming up with the first draft of my plan for Social Wave, a saw a bunch of my favorite local businesses go under or change ownership.
All this convinced me that unless the plan was revised to also support locally owned businesses Social Wave would have little chance of providing long term social value and just become stuck as an entertainment outlet. Looping back to join efforts with existing groups has been a part of the plan all along, but we'll need more minds and hands to make it happen.
This post has been edited by ArsNova on Feb 16 2005, 02:29 AM
