Great Contests With Awesome Prizes for Small Business Owners

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• Great Contests With Awesome Prizes for Small Business Owners
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This list of contests, competitions and awards for small businesses is brought to you every other week as a community service by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.

If you’ve entered and won a contest or award listed here, let us know so we can share your news.

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Top 10 Facebook Page Contest
Enter by August 22, 2011

Social Media Examiner is accepting nominations for its “Top 10 Small Business Facebook Page” contest. Nominations are made via comment on this post about why you like the page you are nominating.

Winners will be selected based on the quality of their Facebook pages, the frequency and quality of their wall activities and fan engagement. Think part readers’ choice and part Oscars. In addition to online exposure, each of the top 10 winners will also get free tickets to Facebook Success Summit 2011—the Web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference.

Avaya Small Business Innovators Contest
Enter by August 30, 2011

Do you have an idea that will change the way your business serves your customers? Innovation is the engine that makes every business more productive and helps it to grow. To enter Avaya’s Small Business Innovators contest, fill out their ROI tool and send them the results. Include how you would spend the winnings over the next five years to innovate new ways to serve your customers, staff and suppliers. Grand prize of $50,000 worth of IP Office equipment and software and $5,000 cash. Five runner-up prizes of $10,000 worth of IP Office equipment and software.

Supreme Studio Makeover Contest
Enter by August 31, 2011

MacMall’s second annual Supreme Studio Makeover Contest features $26,000 in total tech prizes for small businesses and creative studios, including highly sought-after products such as Maya 2012, Adobe CS5.5, HP Designjet large format printers, an HP 24-inch DreamColor monitor, Microsoft Office for Mac and Apple Time Capsule storage units.

The Promotion Promotion
Enter by August 31, 2011

The UPS Store is launching an online contest to give one lucky entrepreneur a $50,000 marketing makeover. “Like” the UPS Store’s corporate Facebook page for a chance to win up to $3,000 in weekly prizes including American Express gift cards, Square mobile card readers and more. See Facebook page for details.

Vonage iPad 2 Giveaway
Enter by August 31, 2011

Vonage is introducing the Time To Call app for Apple iPhone and iPad mobile devices, bringing affordable phone calls that can be charged to your iTunes account. To spread the word Vonage has partnered with blogs from around the world: each blog listed on the left of this page has an Apple iPad 2 32GB WiFi mobile device with US$15 of credit for voice calls to give away to their readers.

Small Business, Big Innovation Competition
Enter by September 5, 2011

The recession that started in December 2007 dealt a crippling blow to U.S. small businesses. Facing tough times, many entrepreneurs did something creative, imaginative or cutting-edge with their business models, which allowed them to survive and thrive. The Wall Street Journal invites eligible businesses to apply by telling them about the challenge your business faced; the innovative solution you put in place; and the significant milestone – such as vastly improved revenue or expansion into new markets – that has resulted since Jan. 1, 2009.

All entries that match the criteria will be featured on this blog. Readers will vote for their favorite stories and a panel of judges will select 10 finalists – and an ultimate winner – who will be featured in the Journal’s Small Business report, which publishes Nov. 21, 2011

Intuit Entrepreneur Day 2011
Enter by September 9, 2011

Intuit is scouting for start-ups and entrepreneurs to partner with. Whether it’s mobile, cloud computing, or data analytics technology, Intuit is looking for companies that have a solution that will support its mission to improve the financial lives of its millions of customers. Those companies who apply and then get selected will meet with Intuit business leaders and have one-on-one time to demo their products.

The deadline to apply is September 9th and the actual event with Intuit’s founder, Scott Cook, and CEO, Brad Smith, along with many other influential executives, will be held on October 6th at Intuit’s Mountain View, Calif. campus.

America’s Favorite Small Business
Enter by September 11, 2011

Dell, MasterCard and Microsoft are teaming together to search for “America’s Favorite Small Business.” This 13- week contest invites small businesses to submit a short video explaining why they should be America’s Favorite Small Business (AFSB) and claim the $75,000 prize package.

Cleantech Open Idea Competition
Enter by September 12, 2011

The Cleantech Open runs the world’s largest clean technology business competition, and they’re looking for the best clean technology ideas from around the world.

Enter to win a prize package of services worth $100,000 to help you start a business and grow your idea. If your idea beats out the competition in the National Competition, you get to represent your country as a Global Ideas finalist at the annual Cleantech Open Awards Gala on November 17, 2011, in San Francisco. There, your idea will be presented in a five-minute pitch in front of a crowd of 2,500 investors, entrepreneurs, sponsoring companies, corporations, members of academia, press and others interested in hearing your ideas and getting involved. The crowd will vote via text message for the “People’s Choice” winner.

Women Who Mean Business 2011
Enter by September 16, 2011

The Washington Business Journal announces the eighth annual Women Who Mean Business awards program. This award is designed to honor the region’s most influential businesswomen. We’re looking for women from every industry and profession; women who’ve made a difference in their communities, blazed a trail for the rest of us and are leaving a mark on the Washington-area community.
Nominees must be female residents of the Washington area who are employed in the region.
A nominee should be an established business leader with a strong record of innovation in her field, outstanding performance in her business and/or a clear track record of meaningful community involvement.

Dream Big Grow Here Business Grant Contest
Enter by September 23, 2011

Northeast Iowa Business Network and MyEntre.Net, Iowa’s online community for Iowa entrepreneurs and small business, have announced the launch of the new “Dream Big, Grow Here” contest for small businesses in Northeast Iowa.
Applicants can submit a video or email about their business and share their dreams for how they would like to grow their Iowa company and what it means to them to be in business in Iowa.

Other visitors to Dream Big Grow Here will have the opportunity to vote on the ideas they like the best, with the winning entrepreneur will receive $5,000 for their business. Regional winners can then go on to compete for the grand prize of $10,000 against the other regional winners.

ProjectREV
Enter by September 30, 2011

Project REV was launched in 2010 as a contest that gives small business owners a chance to receive a yearlong marketing makeover. Each participant is teamed up with a Deluxe marketing advisor and a business counselor from SCORE. At the kick-off event, the business owner will work with their advisor to analyze the business’s current marketplace situation and create a customized plan applying up to $15,000 in marketing products and services from Deluxe, including website design and hosting, branding, social media marketing, SEO, email marketing and more. See the website for more details.

Road Warrior 2.0 Challenge
Enter by October 6, 2011

Hyatt Place has launched the Road Warrior 2.0 Challenge, asking real-world business travelers to help redefine today’s Road Warrior for a chance to win a head-to-toe business traveler makeover. To enter the contest, visit www.facebook.com/hyattplace and tell how you embody or define the modern day Road Warrior, and create an original, fun name for the modern day Road Warrior.

Weekly winners receive a free night at Hyatt Place, and a grand prize winner will win a complete head-to-toe business makeover to help this “Road Warrior 2.0” maximize their efficiency on the road, and have a little fun along the way.

To find more small business events, contests and awards, visit our Small Business Events Calendar.
If you are putting on a small business contest, award or competition, and want to get the word out to the community, please submit it through our Small Business Event and Contests Form (it’s free).

Please note: The descriptions provided here are for convenience only and are NOT the official rules. ALWAYS read official rules carefully at the site holding the competition, contest or award.

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Great Contests With Awesome Prizes for Small Business Owners

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Google+ pins ‘verification badges’ on users

Is that really Larry Page behind that Google+ profile? Or is it Mark Zuckerberg stealthily gathering some intelligence?

A new verification system being rolled out by Google+ is designed to help + users answer such questions and avoid falling victim to such nefarious schemes (or at least feel confident adding people to their various friend Circles without fear of imposters).

As Google employee Wen-Ai Yu (that’s who this entity claims to be, anyway) explains in a blog post, the + team is “focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles, but we’re working on expanding this to more folks.”

Not Mark Zuckerberg.

The user-facing part of the system takes the form of “badges,” actually little checkmarks by a person’s name on his or her + profile page. When users mouse over the checkmark, a small banner scrolls out, bearing the words “verified name.”

Yu doesn’t explain how the + team actually verifies the user’s identity.

The use of real names on social networks–as espoused by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and others–has sparked a debate involving, on the one hand, ideas about civility and accountability, and on the other, the very real need for anonymity on the part of political activists, whistle-blowers, and others.

Recently, Facebook marketing director and Zuckerberg sibling Randi Zuckerberg talked up the real-name approach during a panel discussion on social media, saying that, among other things, it could alleviate cyberbullying. The Electronic Frontier Foundation offered up a riposte on its Deeplinks blog.

And Google+, which requires the use of real-world names, has opened a new chapter in the controversy.

Here’s Wen-Ai Yu’s video announcing the “badges” program:

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