Kansas City business owners have a great opportunity to learn how to put technology to work for their businesses in the coming weeks. But before we discuss that, let’s talk a little about technology—and what it means for you and your business.
David Smith, a futurist at a tech conference hosted by McGladrey that I attended last week, challenged the audience to define technology. Many in the room gestured towards their iPads, pointed at the projector or referenced an object in their attempt to offer a definition. Asserting that technology is not a “thing,” Smith asked us to think about technology from a different perspective: technology as a way to apply knowledge to reach a desired objective.
Remembering that today as I worked on two speaker programs Thinking Bigger Business Media is offering the business community next week, I smiled. Learning how to make technology work for your business – isn’t that what every business these days needs to know? For the business owners that we come into contact with, our readers, our advertisers, our clients–that’s certainly the case.
What dawned on me was that the very core of both speakers’ presentations next week will be focused on technology and crafted to teach the audience how to maximize it for their businesses—no matter what they might be.
While many of us probably think that as long we have safeguards in place to keep the office computers from crashing and if we know how to use email, our “technology” is working for us.
But if business owners would think bigger and embrace the broader definition of technology, the one that looks at technology as a way to apply knowledge to reach a desired objective, then the possibilities for growing our businesses using technology and profiting from it could potentially soar.
How Priceline.com Used Technology
Jeff Hoffman, probably best known as the cofounder and CEO of Priceline.com, is our speaker on Wednesday, April 18. Hoffman became a millionaire at 29 when he sold the tech company he founded to modernize the travel industry to American Express. Then he helped launch Priceline.com, one of the world’s most successful companies.
Hoffman and his team at Priceline figured out that technology isn’t just the Internet – it was leveraging their knowledge of the Internet to bring great travel deals to customers. The rest is history. And Jeff is busy now helping other entrepreneurs do the same thing. As the founder of ColorJar, a venture accelerator firm that helps entrepreneurs and small business owners launch and grow new business ventures, Jeff works as a virtual CEO with companies all over the world to help turn great ideas into profitable businesses. When he’s in Kansas City next Wednesday, Jeff will be talking to business owners in the audience about “Growing Your Business in Today’s Changing World.” You can bet that Jeff won’t be talking about buying more robust hard drives to keep up with the pace of technological change.
What’s Thumbonomics and Why Does It Matter?
Good question! And I’m glad you asked. Heather Lutze is an online marketing consultant who travels internationally with Tony Robbins, has appeared on Oprah, and spent several years training advertisers in paid search techniques for Yahoo! Search Marketing. Heather is the author of Thumbonomics: The Essential Business Roadmap for Social Media & Mobile Marketing and she’s speaking at our session on Friday, April 20th.
Thumbonomics comes from an observation Heather made while sitting in the Denver airport one day. She noticed that there was a lot of “thumb action” going on. And that started her on the path to writing a book about how business owners can tap into that thumb action, join the conversation, talk about their companies, find out how others are talking about them, and leveraging the power of the thumb. Don’t worry, she won’t be talking to you about how to build or operate a smartphone—she’s going to be talking about how to leverage social media and mobile marketing to grow your business.
Technology is a part of everything we do—from a personal or a business standpoint. If you want to know how to put technology to work for your company, we hope you’ll join us. Heather and Jeff will have you thinking about new ways to apply technology and grow your business in the process.
You can register for one or both events at http://ithinkbigger.com/thinking-bigger-speaker-series.
And while we’re at it, if you’re interested in using a little “technology” to spread the word, then share this blog post or the event registration link through one of your social media channels, and send me a screenshot of the post. You can send it to me via Twitter at @ithinkbigger or post it to our Facebook page . I’ll put you in a pool and draw a name to give away a copy of Thumbonomics—it’s as easy as that. And we hope to see you there.
Kelly Scanlon is the owner of Thinking Bigger Business Media, Inc., a company that publishes and produces a variety of products and events that connect growth-minded business owners with practical strategies, resources and information that will take them to the next level of success. You can find her on Twitter at @ithinkbigger, read her blog and stalk her on LinkedIn.
Image by GregDawson via Creative Commons
