March 2011

“Upscale bowling” was an oxymoron until Tom Shannon got in the game. In 1997, he bought Bowlmor Lanes, the rapidly dilapidating Greenwich Village institution, and reinvented the place as a marriage between hospitality and bowling.

If your business stagnates, it will not be around for very long. One of your top priorities should be constantly searching for ways to grow.

You know you should be blogging for your business, but maybe you just don’t know where to start, or you are fearful of how to sustain the momentum once you begin. Join the club.

f you make it beautiful, they will come. In essence, that was the business strategy behind Squarespace.com, a web publishing platform and content management system launched from a dorm at the University of Maryland in 2004.

New Jersey’s Internet phenomena and wine business owner Gary Vaynerchuk speaks about mastering social media and promoting a book before it’s written.

f you haven’t become active on Quora already, you may soon miss the opportunity to use the platform before it gets as crowded and competitive as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn

The prospect of moving out of your home office, or the local coffee shop, to procure your dream office space, and designing it just the way you want it can be quite exhilarating.

Created in Harlem 45 years ago, The Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO) teaches budding entrepreneurs and business owners the fundamentals of launching and running their own businesses.

According to a recent survey conducted by The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute (smallbizdom.com) there are specific demographics of the small business community that see the value in social media’s opportunities.

To help entrepreneurs looking to expand overseas, a new online tool, export.gov, was recently launched by the Small Business Administration and the US Department of Commerce to answer frequently asked questions.

Amidst the 2009 economic meltdown, New York City Mayor Bloomberg announced his plan to promote business innovation and entrepreneurship to help stimulate the market. One item on this agenda was to support business incubators.

There are times when you or your staff are feeling less than inspired but creative problem solving is essential. And there are some people— maybe even you—who fear the blank page or any situation in which they must use their creativity (technical term: getting creative-now-o-phobia).

Strengthening online presence is a high priority for business owners, according to a survey of 751 American businesses with less than 1,000 employees conducted by Zoomerang, in partnership with GrowBiz Media.

A few months ago I wrote about not doing business as usual. Since then, I have spoken with several dozen business owners that are, in fact, making 2011 a big year for change.