Delano, Jack,, 1914-, photographer.  find it here

Retiring a locomotive driver wheel in the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railway locomotive shops, Shopton, near Fort Madison, Iowa. The tire is heated by means of gas until it can be slipped over the wheel. Contraction on cooling will hold it firmly in place. Santa Fe R.R.

1943 – March

If you’ve seen much of my blog, you might have noticed that I’m using pictures for most of my posts these days.  I’m a visual person and really drawn to photography – hopefully it’s something that other people enjoy.

What’s really cool is that I’ve found a couple of resources to use as a free and legal source for great images.

The first resource is a great article from Skelliewag (a blogger from Australia that does a great job on blogging in general).  Her article: Guide to finding and using incredible Flickr Images gives a step by step process on how to find Creative Commons (i.e. not copyrighted) photos that you can legally use by attributing the photographer.  Copyright infringement is a big deal and she gives a very clear explanation on how to avoid it.

The second resource I just discovered today on Wisebread in this article:  Help Yourself to Amazing Photos from the Library of Congress.  Earlier this month, the Library of Congress announced that they were working with Flickr to make thousands of their most popular photographs available to the public without any copyright restrictions!

Not only is that a great resource for blogging, publishing, etc, but the pictures themselves are fascinating.  I haven’t had a chance to go through in any detail yet but there are some really amazing historical images on there.  I have a feeling you’ll be seeing quite a few more of these in future posts.

You can find the primary page Here.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Shawn Kinkade   www.aspirekc.com

The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation (KTEC) has been been around for about 20 years and unfortunately there are a lot of people that haven’t heard about it.  From their website here’s a brief description of what KTEC is:

The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation is a state-owned corporation established to promote advanced technology economic development in Kansas. We strive to meet the technical needs of Kansas companies by providing access to individuals with expertise and state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. We even provide or help secure financing for research and development.

This is a really progressive program that most states don’t have, and it’s right here in our backyard!

One of the newer things that KTEC is doing has been the addition in the last 2 years of the KTEC Pipeline initiative – http://www.ktecpipeline.com/ .  The idea is to select up to 10 ‘innovators’ every year, specifically in the technology or bioscience fields and hook them up with resources (including a $35,000 grant), special training from top of the line entrepreneurial experts and access and introductions to partnerships and capital markets.

Getting selected for the Pipeline is extremely challenging and a very big deal.  This year there were over 400 applications and over 60 in-depth interviews to select the 9 winners.

The reason I’m familiar with all of this is because I’m thrilled to report that one of my clients was accepted into the Pipeline program last week.  (Not because of anything I did, but because he’s a brilliant guy with some really revolutionary ideas…!).

Dan Melton is the President of NonProfit Technologies, which is a “a socially conscious for-profit think-tank that develops web-driven products and solutions to improve the effectiveness, cost-savings or impact of public-sector organizations.”

Essentially what Dan and his team are doing is creating cutting edge Web 2.0 applications that are targeted towards the public sector.  Historically the public sector lags the for profit world when it comes to technology but there is a huge need and viable marketplace for the right ideas.

Luckily Dan is full of great ideas that are not only great business opportunities, but will also drive dramatic benefits to the public sector – a true win-win situation.

Congratulations to Dan and the team at NonProfit Technologies!

Stop by his site and check out some of the cool stuff he’s got going on.  NPT

Shawn Kinkade   www.aspirekc.com

By now, as a small business owner, you’ve likely seen all sorts of articles and posts on why it’s important to have a blog to promote your business.

www.Entrepreneur.com  has a great article from almost a year ago Should You Start A Business Blog?  The answer is yes and their primary reason is as a marketing tool to help generate sales leads.  Here are some other key points from the article:

• A blog allows you to interact with your clients in a totally different way than any other marketing approach.  You can educate and get to know prospects without ‘selling’ to them.
• Because they are interactive, a blog can be used for real-time candid feedback and product development ideas.
• A blog gives your company a personal side and a personality (although this is less of an issue for small businesses, it’s still important).

Read More…

Photo by Flyfshrmn98 

One of the key things that can make the networking process much easier is developing and getting extremely comfortable with your elevator pitch.

An elevator pitch is a concise, focused and interesting description of who you are and what you do, imagine if you were riding on an elevator with your perfect business prospect and you had just a few seconds to get your most important points across.

The intention – just like a 30 second commercial on radio or TV is to pique interest, give them just enough to get a glimmer of something interesting…and nothing more. You want to engage your audience, give them an interesting overview of what you can do – and then promptly move on to talking about them.

You’re not trying to sell, you’re networking and the primary focus of networking is to establish a connection by focusing on the other person. However, even if you get the ball rolling by asking them questions, at some point they will ask you what you do. By having a response that you’re comfortable with and that is intriguing / not boring you can convey the important up front stuff, make an impression and go back to focusing on making a connection.

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photo by Amnemona

There are a lot of great ways to market your business, but a lot of really effective, inexpensive marketing ideas are related to networking.

In the book Endless Referrals by Bob Burg, Networking is defined as follows:

The cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships.

The first couple of steps is to establish a network of relationships that meet the definition above.  Although it’s not easy and it is an ongoing effort that takes time, there are a several good books on how to do that, including Endless Referrals and The Little Black Book of Connections by Jeffrey Gitomer.

But once you have a network in place, how can you fast track those relationships, in a win-win fashion to build your business?

Read More…