[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of heading down to New York City to attend the 2011 Small Business Influencer awards event run by Anita Campbell and Ramon Ray, along with dozens of SMBs and SMB influencers from all types of industries who were in attendance. It was truly inspiring to be in the midst of so much energy and enthusiasm for small business! We were pleased to sponsor the event and honored to have Alan Panezic, VP of Enterprise Product Management & Marketing for Research In Motion® (RIM®), be invited to speak and hand out the awards to all of the 100 SMB influencer champions. Check out the video above to see Ramon Ray, one of the event organizers, interview Alan on stage to discuss how mobility impacts the work of SMB’s.

Over the past few months, small business owners and entrepreneurs submitted 520 nominations and cast around 125,000 votes to decide the 100 top SMB influencers in North America. It was our honour to present all 100 of the champions with their choice of a BlackBerry smartphone with BlackBerry® 7 OS to further support their businesses.

Each champion had the opportunity to say a few words on what it means to be an influencer as they received their award, and the responses were both inspiring and insightful. Small and medium businesses truly drive our economies and serve as examples of dreaming big and being passionate about your work. We look forward to working with this community in the future, as well as continuing to help SMBs with mobile solutions. For more information about the event, the competition itself, and to view a list of the champions, head over to www.smbinfluencer.com. Also, be sure to check out this attendee Q&A video from the awards ceremony:

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

What have been the major influences on your small business? Share yours in the comments!