Here at Solutions Are Power we have an amazing team of community builders and bloggers that provide us fantastic content and perform community outreach that keeps our customers and readers engaged. When you see that name in the byline there is always a person and a story behind it. Here are our current and alumni Solution Are Power team:
Current Bloggers
Shashi Bellamkonda – “The Swami”
Who doesn’t know the Swami? Or in the case of the picture to the left, the Cowboy. He got that hat at SXSW where he spoke and he now has two names. He has been the driving force with helping Network Solutions dive into the social media pool as head of Social Media and Strategy for Network Solutions. Under Shashi Bellamkonda’s leadership we have grown into a family of blogs covering numerous small business related topics. Our presence on twitter as @netsolcares has helped transform our reputation management program so much that he won the 2008 Excellence in New Communications Award from SNCR and the 2009 Golden Quill Award for Excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).Google
Here are some of his best posts from the last year:
10 Reasons to Use Facebook for Business
How Small Businesses Can Use Social Media
How I became a Social Media Swami at Network Solutions
Aesops Fables and Corporate Blogs
A Hard Sell? Social Media and Your Boss – Part 2 Becoming an Expert
To reach out to Shashi:
Steve Fisher – Small Business Evangelist
Steve joined the team back in June as a writer to add content to this growing blog. Prior to that he was writing VentureFiles for about four years which focused on small business and raising funding from the entrepreneur’s perspective.
In November he “leveled up” and became the Social Media and Community Manager under the guidance and mentorship of “The Swami”. Over that time he has helped increase the size of the team, launched new blogs, bring in tons of guest contributors and done Social Media training courses for groups here at Network Solutions. I have had some great experiences meeting extremely talented small business owners and have had the opportunity to interview many great entrepreneurs. Most are customers of Network Solutions and it is always great to reach out to those who might become customers in the future.
Here are some of his best posts over the last year:
The Business Plan Series (15 Parts)
The Marketing Plan Series (15 Parts)
Rules for Entrepreneurs – Rule #1: Make Sure Your Business Card Doesn’t Get Thrown Out
Getting Productive in 2009 – Spending a Year with GTD
Thoughts on Coworking: What is it and is it for you?
To reach out to Steve:
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenfisher
- Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=556407032&ref=ts
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevenfisher
Jill Foster – “Our Most Passionate Blogger”
Not to be confused with the character on Young and the Restless, Jill signed on in November to contribute as a writer to Solutions Are Power and a few months ago we launched a new blog in our growing family of blogs. This blog focused on Women Entrepreneurs Growing their Businesses is appropriately called Women Grow Business where Jill is the editor. She has written awesome content on both Solutions Are Power and Women Grow Business.
Here is some her best stuff from Solutions Are Power:
Web 2.0 in mostly plain English: a workshop take down
Obama’s White House: forecasts & challenges for digital America
Ego surfs and action plans: your roadmap to transparency
To reach out to Jill:
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jillfoster
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=683742585&ref=ts
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/jillfoster
Joe Loong – “King of the Subject Line”
Joe knows how to write a catchy subject line. So much that most of his posts stay in the top read posts. You might call that search engine bait but we call it good content. Joe joined around the same time as Jill and has written some really informative and timely stories as well as providing great coverage of our local events.
Here are a few of his golden “SEO bait” posts:
Fake Your Way to Being a Social Media Expert: Strategies for Keeping Up
Stupid Link Tricks: A Daisy Chain of URL Shorteners
5 Stories of Twittering Gone Bad
Using Bacon and Social Media to Promote Your Business
How to Write Catchy, Clicky Blog Headlines
To reach out to Joe:
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelogon
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=500972962&ref=ts
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/joelogon
Looking to the Future
As we begin our journey writing our next 500 posts, we have two new bloggers that will be gracing our pages in the next week. They are Ken Yeung and Michael Dougherty.
Ken Yeung – “Mr. Everywhere”
Ken is someone I have known for about three years and while he was here in DC he was always the guy with a camera taking really awesome photos that showed up on his Flickr feed. I saw him at almost every event and I called him “Mr. Everywhere”. Now that he is living in San Francisco, I consider him our new West Coast blogger and correspondent. Most importantly he is a great writer and brings a new perspective along with new topics that this blog has been looking to expand into for a while.
He has a great marketing background and will be writing about online marketing, and because he is on the west coast, covering events in that region to expand beyond the many DC events you have read about.
To reach out to Ken:
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kyeung
- Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=682674282&ref=ts
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/kyeung808
Michael Dougherty – “Wicked Java”
Mike AKA “WickedJava” is a long time entrepreneur, marketing expert, print/web designer, and social media guru. He has worked on the marketing agency side as well as in corporate marketing departments for large and small firms. His perspective for small business owners on navigating the online and offline worlds of branding, print, web design and social media has been a missing element here and one frequently requested by readers.
In his other life, Mike is also a budding film Director and accomplished screenwriter. In the interest of full disclosure, Steve Fisher and Mike are both co-founders of a non-profit film production company called Big Damn Fan Films that is about to begin principal photography on “Browncoats:Redemption”, a project that is based on expanding the Firefly/Serenity universe created by Joss Whedon. The project will raise money for five select charities and will be released in fall of 2010.
Mike often uses humor and wit, along with his real world experience in Design, Social Media, and Marketing, to relay small business information, in his “conversational tone” of lessons learned and plane speak, to our small business/future entrepreneur readership.
To reach out to Mike:
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mcdougherty
- Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=677591948&ref=ts
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/wickedjava
Contributing Bloggers
Raj Malik – Sr. Director, Legal & Business Affairs, Network Solutions
Raj Malik is Sr. Director of Legal & Business Affairs here at Network Solutions. He is a friendly and very conversational person who is passionate about social media. As a matter of fact, he was the one who suggested to Shashi, our fearless Editor, that he should become the Social Media “Guy” at Network Solutions. Eventually, marketing and other departments agreed and Shashi moved the mountains that needed to be moved to become the Social Media Swami. Meanwhile, Raj continued to be a sounding board for blog topics and great content finds for the Solutions Are Power blog. He has even posted a few items on the blog himself and hopes to do more in the near future.
Alumni Bloggers
Connie Bensen
Connie joined the team in July as the first community manager and wrote tons of great stuff until her departure in October. She has moved on to work with other companies to help build their communities. Her presence is missed but we still have her awesome content.
Here are a few of her greatest hits:
Building Your Business Online Series (6 Parts)
Building Your Brand Series (5 Parts)
10 Reasons to Choose Network Solutions to Register Your Domain Name
Use Social Networking to Grow Your Small Business
Does Your Business Need a Community?
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