We’ve been working with many of our Small Business Web friends in planning a Big Party for Small Business. If you’re going to be in Texas next week, we hope you’ll stop by from some food, drinks and conversation with the smashing hosts of the party (and the people who love them!)
Here are some of the small business SaaS companies who will be in attendance and eager to meet up:
FreshBooks
Formspring
Handset Detection
MailChimp
oDesk
Outright
Rackspace
Shipwire
shoeboxed
surveygizmo
TeamSupport.com
Wufoo
…and of course, good old BatchBlue (hint: look for the blue cupcakes!)
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Tags: batchblue, small business, small business web, SXSW, SXSW10
Since we saw so many nice pictures of folks using the BatchBlue holiday tumblers, we thought we’d do a round-up of “spotted in the wild” pictures of folks wearing their fancy new BatchBook: the Social CRM t-shirts.
Our good friend TJ Sonderman (@sondernagle) had the inspiration for the t-shirts we gave out at SXSW this year. Since we’d recently launched a “social media” SuperTag that can pull feeds from Twitter, flickr, delicious, blogs etc. into your BatchBook account, he thought it would be cool to design a shirt that allowed people to write their Twitter handles on it. We took the concept to Adam (@adarowski), our Designer Extraordinaire and the rest is SXSW history!
Here’s a bunch of folks wearing their Twitter handles with pride. Pictured left to right are Alex de Carvalho (@alexdc), Davide DiCillo (@davidedicillo), Shashi Bellamkonda (@shashib), Betsy McDonald (@splashet), and Pamela O’Hara (@pmohara). Photo via Shashi’s flickrstream
We brought shirts to the SXSW Blogger’s Lounge, where we were mobbed by the folks wanting to get their hands on a t-shirt! Here I am (wearing a Social CRM t-shirt) and carefully writing out Twitter handles for the Twitterati. Photo by Alexdesigns
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Tags: alexdc, batchblue, communicatrix, davidedicillo, mriggen, pmohara, saulcolt, shashib, sondernagle, splashet, SXSW, t-shirts
We’re back and finally somewhat recovered from the madness that is SXSW. This year, Michelle, Pam and Matt attended (Michelle’s usual partner in social media crime, Adam, was out having a baby – congrads, Adam!)
Like last year, the event was blur of meet-ups, panels, interviews, intense hallway conversations and non-stop activity. Sadly, the BatchBlue team didn’t get to attend too many panels, but as a networking event, it was great. And a lot of cool stuff came out of it.
In the days (okay, more like hours) leading up to SXSW, we put the finishing touches on the beta of BatchBook sync, which was hugely exciting for us as it brings us one step closer to the idea of true data portability. Our plan was to soft launch BatchBook sync at SXSW, then return home to do some tweaking and de-bugging before really getting the word out. But like many well-intentioned plans (especially as they pertain to SXSW), this got tossed out the window and instead we found ourselves buckling our virtual seatbelts for a wild web app ride. Lots of new traffic and an ill-fated server move resulted in some growing pains for BatchBook, but thanks largely to the superhuman, nocturnal efforts of Sean and Matt, we’ve made it through and are better than ever. We also give a huge thanks to our customers both old and new for bearing with us through that rocky week.
T-Shirts and a Texas-sized small business brunch
Since we knew how much people depend on Twitter in Austin to help them plan, we brought a bunch of “BatchBook Social CRM” t-shirts with us that had a space for people’s Twitter handles on the front. The t-shirts were a big hit: we literally had people chasing us down to get one! Thanks to our friend and unofficial BatchBlue mascot TJ Sondermann for the concept.
On Sunday, we planned on hosting a Small Business Brunch with our friend Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions. We expected maybe twenty or so folks to come by the delicious Moonshine Cafe to meet up, network and talk small business. We were pleasantly surprised when more than double that number showed up, thanks in large part ot Shashi’s mad Twitter skills. The restaurant was extremely accommodating and graciously set up extra tables so everyone could enjoy their delicious Sunday brunch. We hung out with social media man Jeff Pulver, Lisa Rodwell from Moo cards, Saul Colt from Freshbooks, Becky McCray from Small Biz Survival, and many many others. Perhaps the most important connection made that morning was when Matt learned chicken-fried steak is best eaten with gravy.
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Tags: freshbooks, outright, partnerships, shoeboxed, small business web, SXSW, SXSW09, sync
Later this week, three folks from the BatchBlue Crew will be shipping down to Austin for South by Southwest Interactive. I won’t be with them.
After going to SXSW 2007 and 2008, this year I’ll be home. We’re expecting our third child… just about any minute now. But that doesn’t mean I can’t share my infinite SXSW wisdom with folks heading down for the first time.
So, here you are… 9 SXSW Tips From a Guy Who Can’t Go This Year:
Know the turf
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Tags: SXSW, sxsw tips, SXSW09, SXSWi
We feel so strongly about finding the best tools and procedures for turning our customer’s conversations into new product features that we convinced a few of our high-profile friends to join us in telling some inside secrets. And they are doing it publicly (if we can get your help voting us in!) as part of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference’s panel discussion titled “Customer Service is the New RD.”
The current lineup includes:
- Sean Ransom, BatchBlue.com
- Sunir Shah, FreshBooks.com
- Mario Sundar, LinkedIn.com
- Lane Becker, GetSatisfaction.com
The plan is to talk with these folks about the tools they are using to connect with customers and how these conversations are integrated back into the product development process. It’s easy to say you are listening to your customers, but unless you can act on what they are saying and give them what they need it is not a very productive conversation.
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Tags: batchblue, Customer Service, freshbooks, get satisfaction, linkedin, SXSW, SXSW09, SXSWi
