Going green for your business doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of green. There are so many practical things you can do to do your part in running a socially responsible and sustainable business.

First tip may seem obvious but if you’re not using it, turn it off. This includes all the electricity in your space and all those tech products when they’re not in use (even those power bars that are flashing red - turn those off too!).

By now, hopefully you already are recycling the paper and all the waste around your office. If not, start. You can also reduce the amount of paper you recycle by printing less by duplexing (printing on both sides).

The next step in recycling: finding ways to donate or ethically dispose of old computers, cell phones and other electronic equipment.

So those are some simple steps that will actually save you money. Here are a few other things to consider.

When your lights are on, use those CFC light bulbs. Sure they’re pricier than regular light bulbs but think of the long-term gains. You’re saving the planet you and your loved ones live on and realizing greater cost savings in reduced energy consumption over the long haul.

If you’re making new capital investments, look for ENERGY STAR graded electronics and the appropriate rebates/tax breaks offered. Consider furniture and accessories made from renewable resources such as corn and bamboo, or made from recycled materials.

A friend of mine recently put in new bamboo flooring in her office and not only does it look great but the price was much cheaper than oak or maple hardwood. And yes, Bamboo is much more environmentally friendly than other forms of hardwood.

Consider using toxic-free products like natural cleaning products. Believe it or not, a little vinegar and water is one of the most useful cleaning products you could use and you and your employees will be breathing better with less toxic chemicals in your space.

Consider enrolling your business in an energy saving program with your local utilities company and enjoy lower overhead costs. In fact I recently enrolled with an alternative utilities company that provides 100% clean energy. I would mention their name here, but if you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll tell u all about it.

Hope this helps and remember, not only will going green make you feel better, it can actually help you make more green.

Spending good times with good friends is what’s most enjoyable about the summer. However, even with the summer holidays over now, there’s no need for you to stop spreading your sunny cheer around especially when it comes to your business. A whole plethora of online tools can keep you socially active. Open your business up more this Fall. It's the open source revolution.

Some experts have used the terms Peer Production, Open Source, Business Transparency or even Wikinomics. I’m going to use the term, Sharenomics. By this, I’m not talking about that diva who was married to Sonny. Brighter days though, will emerge for those who are opening up their business and sharing ideas and information in a way that facilities mutual collaboration to build a better business.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

It's not like information sharing has never happened before, but the online channel is making things a lot easier with the displacement of time and space.

Think of social peering (i.e. Facebook), blogs or wiki (What did we do without Wikipedia before?) tools where individuals are continuously sharing and expressing themselves online, anytime, anywhere. The result is a sharing of culture, camaraderie and commentary.

Scientists are using online communities to share new information about new discoveries or breakthroughs; programmers are using open sourced environments to co-develop better running software; and publishers are using blog and wiki tools to modify or redistribute content much more quickly.

Now imagine harnessing all the creative expression and power of your communities to co-develop better services, products or tools.

Using an open sourced online environment, imagine your customers helping you choose designs for some of the new products/services you’re developing? Some businesses are already doing this and have actually enlisted their communities to help them co-develop things such as their website and even their marketing materials. Free labour or just liberating your masses?

Other businesses are using online tools to allow their employees and customers and partners to openly share content about customer experiences/feedback/usability and then collaborate together for next steps. We’re all family right?

Too complicated? What about simply using a blog or wiki to remain connected with your customers with news, events, and other information on a timely basis? For example, some businesses are using a presence on Facebook to reach out to new and existing customer communities.

More and more businesses are opening up and sharing with their employees, customers, and partners in new collaborative ways to build better products and services.

By empowering all your stakeholders in such a manner, you tap even deeper into the true value of your community. Think about how you can share more this Fall with those who matter most to you.

So how did the Tories do with the latest budget?

Hate em or love me, if you’re an SMB/entrepreneur, you should be cheering.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s days as the Ontario Minister of Entrepreneurship, Opportunity, and Innovation (now since renamed to Economic Development and Trade) served him well as he came out with a budget that feels like Christmas in Spring.

The budget is offering tax relief for SMBs, at a $90-million price tag. There’s tax relief, for small businesses, fishers, jewellers, vintners, brewers, tradespeople, and farmers.

There is an increase in the amount of small-business income eligible for a 12-per-cent tax rate to $400,000 from $300,000, as of Jan. 1, 2007. The rate falls to 11.5 per cent in 2008 and to 11 per cent in 2009.

If you need an extra hand as your business grows, there are new apprenticeship job-creation tax credits for employers, who will get $2,000 per apprentice.

If banging out productivity is your trade, there’s a new $500 tax deduction for the cost of tools.

Fishermen catch a new tax break when they transfer property to their children. Family fishing boats become eligible for a $500,000 lifetime capital-gains tax exemption.

Not to forget farmers, but they’ll be harvesting a $2 billion injection of funding and tax relief over two years.

Even small and mid-sized brewers get a break.

For those who produce less than 300,000 hectolitres of beer -- duties will be reduced on the first 75,000 hectolitres of beer.

If beer isn’t your choice of drink, the budget has ordered up a tax exemption for vintners on the first 500,000 litres of wine produced, on the condition that only Canadian grapes are used. In the spirit of giving, the relief also applies to other products such as ciders, wine coolers, fruit wine and sake.

Now that’s something to drink to.

Think you’re communicating enough with your customers?

Consider this: TV viewership is down, Internet ads are usually ignored, and traditional radio is being challenged by Satellite radio.

With all these challenges to current marketing communications, is your message getting through?

Now I’m not suggested you cease all contact with these channels but consider a new wave of technology communications that SMBs are finding relatively inexpensive, yet simple enough to use.

Blogging, Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, and Podcasting are changing the way SMBs talk. For SMBs, they can create new efficiencies and dynamic ways to communicate with customers.

Want to talk more about these technologies?

Connecting to your Customers:

A Blog is a Web log or online journal. Blogs can be created, posted, and updated very simply and very cheaply, giving small businesses a cost efficient communications tool. As you may already know, this article you’re reading is part of a Blog.

Imagine having a blog on content important to your customers. It could talk about new and upcoming products, have product reviews, and post testimonials to build a critical mass of consumers. Your blog becomes a way of building a community of engaged consumers together that you can market to.

RSS, or real simple syndication, is a way to subscribe to a website's regularly updated content without actually visiting that site. It allows you to look at headlines and stories from as many blogs or relevant sites as you like, all in one place.

Some businesses are using RSS feeds to deliver marketing content such as newsletters, catalogues, product releases, or flyers. Know someone who has an iPod or mp3 player? Podcasting allows you to deliver content to those digital music players. This means your content is available on demand, and can be listened to anywhere, anytime.

Digitally delivering this content can help you eliminate marketing costs such as: printed material collateral or staging events. It also allows you to easily reach out to consumers in a timely manner to keep your information fresh.

And guess what, Podcasting content can be sent via RSS Feeds.

All of the above tools can be combined to offer a varied mix of tools to compliment your current mix of online and off-line marketing to deliver what’s important to your targeted customers.

Is your business ready for new dialogues with your customers?

How many times have you heard someone say something like, “Video games are such a waste of time.” Or worse, are you the one saying it? Are you a Video Game ‘Hater’?

Some of you may think of video games as juvenile, but what’s childish about a $20 billion global industry that’s been growing from 5 to 10% every year for the past decade. Last I checked that $20 billion was bigger than the film industry.

Did you know that the average game player is 30 years old or that 43% of video game players are women? You may be surprised by how many of your employees, customers, and partners play video games.

Now, I know some of you may come up with a million other reasons why Video Games are the apocalypse, but I’m not here to argue with you. All I’m asking is to play along and have fun thinking about the opportunities video games can provide for your SMB.

In fact, understanding the impact, benefits and best practices of this industry might actually help you win more often and have fun doing so.

Helping To Build Tomorrow’s Businesses:
Many studies show that game players are better at making rapid decisions than others. In fact, gamers are helping nurture a number of business related skills such as:

• Multi-tasking abilities for increased productivity.
• Virtual collaborative skills for better teamwork and decision-making.
• Cognitive problem solving skills for greater leadership development.
• Training capabilities for inexpensive yet enhanced employee learning.

Usage of the video game model is being applied in many industries for a variety of audiences and purposes.

Educational video games have become an effective learning tool for kids in classrooms, thus businesses are adopting these lessons by using engaging video game formats to train and educate their employees.

Business schools are using online stock market simulator games and product marketing games to train tomorrow’s high flyers.

Other high flyers such as air pilots and astronauts use flight simulators to learn not only how to fly, but how to deal with emergency situations as well.

Health services companies are using game programs for virtual patient simulations for better product development.

Other companies are using gaming models for more dynamic product demonstrations. Architects are using video game technologies such as 3D graphics, animation, modeling and rendering applications for their work.

The impact of the video game industry cannot be denied. Audiences are growing and becoming so diverse that many companies are increasingly placing ads within the actual game (In-game advertising or product placement) for greater marketing impact.

Overall, more businesses are using elements of the video game model to increase productivity, improve employee skills and deliver more dynamic services and products.

So consider how emulating elements of the video game model can help your business and how much fun you’ll have improving it.

Happy New Year to all and I hope your holidays were most enjoyable.

As that familiar theme of Auld Lang Syne ushered in 2006, I’m sure there were some of you who playfully made resolutions for the New Year. But what about New Year’s Resolutions for your business?

For SMBs, the challenges still remain the same in terms of sustaining growth, increasing your speed to market, and improving your customer service.

With a new year however, comes new ways of helping meet the above challenges. One way of doing this is by looking at emerging technologies that can improve your business operations.

Not a bad idea considering SMBs plan on spending $72.9 Billion in technology, up from $65.8B in 2005, according to research group IDC.

So what technology resolutions should you consider making this year?

Safety First:

The first thing to consider: How secure is your business?

Making sure your business is not vulnerable to potential intrusions or obstructions will go a long way in preventing long, costly downtimes to your operations. You can’t make money, if your business isn’t running, right?

According to a Gartner report, the growth of new applications such as mobile computing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), XML, and Instant Messaging will make security (i.e. viruses, spam) a major challenge for SMBs in 2006.

If beefing up your security becomes too burdensome, consider outsourcing these responsibilities to managed services providers who can take the load off, so your staff can focus on other things.

If you outsource your home security to someone, why not for your business as well?

Shedding Off That Excessive Baggage:

So the holidays are over and you want to shed all that excessive baggage, right?

Being more nimble can also be applied to your business by using wireless technologies that can help you and your staff work unshackle yourselves from all those cumbersome wires for anywhere, anytime for greater productivity.

Help your people achieve a mobile state of utopia by providing employees access to back office data and applications such as order taking, order status, contact info, e-mail and CRM, whenever and wherever they may roam.

Your employees save time in doing tasks, and reduce potential mistakes. This helps increase productivity and customer satisfaction while reducing costs.

Think Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) and maybe even RFID (Radio Frequency Identification).

You Can Always Communicate More:

Are you reaching out to your consumers enough? With so many electronic channels such as e-mail, wireless phones, PDAs, the Internet, satellite radio, interactive television, and digital music players, your opportunities in reaching out to customers can be enhanced through the delivery of dynamic digital media.

Digital media files such as digital photographs, videos, digital audio via podcasting, PDFs, and other images can help your businesses enhance its marketing power by creating new compelling user experiences.

More engaging communications can result in better customer loyalty and brand awareness, and improve your speed-to-market for services and products, to potentially grow new revenue streams.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better:

The proliferation of new customer channels such as wireless, interactive TV, and digital media players have resulted in new potential revenue streams via Microcommerce.

Microcommerce refers to the purchase of low dollar value online goods and services (usually under $5), using electronic payment methods.

Microcommerce caters to those online consumers who buy music, video games and ring-tones yet are the least likely to have a credit card or use their credit card online for such a small charge.

Business can now unbundle products and services and sell it profitably online, in small units. What new opportunities await for your business?

Stick To Your Resolutions:

Staying secure and operational in light of ever growing threats will help your business healthy.

Wireless technologies can help your business be more nimble in its operations for greater productivity, reduced costs and improved customer responsiveness.

Digital Media can enhance your customer reach and impact to keep your customers happy.

Exploring new growth through microcommerce opportunities can help you unleash new revenue streams by tapping into under-utilized products and services.

Make your resolutions now and plan on sticking with them to reap greater long-term benefits for your business.

Investing in Tomorrow:

Each year, the feds spend billions of dollars on research and development in Canada’s universities and research centres but what about investments to help fund new and early stage companies?

Did you know that venture capital investments in Canada are down 10 percent from last year according to Canada’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. (CVCA)

Of more concern is the relatively small size of investment for each transaction. In Q3, 2005, the average Canadian investment was $1.6 million compared to a U.S. average of $10 million over that time, according to the CVCA.

How are we going to fund tomorrow’s companies and economy with such minor support?

One proposed concept is the Innovation and Productivity Tax Credit which is modelled after British Columbia’s extremely successful tax credit program.

In a nutshell, the proposed program would have federal and provincial governments provide qualified and eligible investors (individual and corporate) with a combined 30% Innovation and Productivity Tax Credit.

This would help encourage informal investment in early-stage companies.

There are many examples of early stage, government supported investment programs that demonstrate the payback from targeted tax incentive programs.

One example is in the Alberta Oil Sands industry. Alberta’s early-stage drilling program encourages investors to put their money into the riskiest stage of exploration in the oil business.

Several organizations support the proposed Innovation and Productivity Tax Credit including the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Conference Board of Canada, National Angel Organization, and Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance.

Ask your local candidates if they care about tomorrow’s economy and if so, how are they going to help.

The Final Vote:

I do recommend you spend the time and talk to your local candidates. Don’t get too frustrated when they dance around specifics, because like trained dogs, they only get taught so much.

You provide the specifics and you lead them and hopefully that’ll start a dialogue towards implementing better policies and programs.

Please go out and vote though.

All the best till next time, Shannon.

Jack and Gilles went up the Hill, along with Stephen Harper. Paul fell down, as did his crown, and the House came tumbling after.

And with that, we have a winter election underway with all the politicians promising to stuff our stockings with all sorts of goodies. They say this election will really count. For SMBs, the question is, “How so?”

Now, I’m not an advocate for more or less government, just better government. And I know what you’re thinking, “Better government? Is that like driving a ‘practical sport car’ or dating an ‘obese supermodel’?

Well, better government doesn’t have to be a myth, and no, I’m not campaigning for a federal seat but I am campaigning for better policies or programs to help us, the SMB.

Here are some examples of things to consider so you can ask the right questions, when your candidates come knocking on your door.

Making the Right Investments for SMBs:

SMBs represent 97% of all business in Canada and generate close to 85% of Canadian GDP. We are the driving engine of the economy, so when politicians talk about helping the economy, how will they be helping us?

Believe it or not, here’s something that George W. did right. His 2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act quadrupled the direct expensing of capital purchases allowed from $25,000 to $100,000 for 2003, and to $102,000 in 2004.

Instead of having to depreciate capital items over many years, now you could directly expense these items to update your capital equipment sooner to stay competitive and help grow.

For SMBs that finance capital items over multiple years for better cash flow, no problem, you could still take advantage of the direct expensing.

Has it worked? Well let’s say Q3 growth for 2003 in the U.S. reached an astonishing 8.2% and a very good 4% for Q4 2003, largely due to increased spending on capital goods by SMBs.

In Canada, we’re still stuck on Captial Cost Allowance Classes for different items. They range anywhere from 20% to 45% deductions with software being the item that can be written off 100%.

Spending on capital equipment will help you stay innovative and competitive, which are drivers for growth. Ask your local candidates if this makes sense and then ask them how they can help.