Sunday July 15th is the last day to submit nominations for the 2012 SMB Influencer Awards, so make sure you head over to www.smbinfluencer.com to get recognized! You can nominate yourself or your business, as well as any other business, app, solution, or individual that has positively influenced the North American SMB community. All you need to do is fill out a brief form, upload a photo or logo, and submit for review.

What are the Small Business Influencer Awards?

The SMB Influencer Awards seek to recognize top influencers in the small business market through a period of nominations, a panel of judges, and community input. The program is on its second year after a fantastic and successful debut in 2011.

Did you attend the #BBSMBchat Twitter chat?

On Monday, July 9th we held our second annual #BBSMBchat on Twitter® with hundreds of dedicated and enthusiastic small business owners and experts. The chat had record participation, coming close to 1,000 tweets published within the one-hour event. Our very own @BlackBerry4Biz played host, welcoming special guests Anita Campbell and Ramon Ray, co-founders of the SMB Influencer Awards.

Anita Campbell is the CEO of Small Business Trends, a news, tips, and advice site reaching over 4 million small business owners. Ramon Ray is an Editor and Technology Evangelist, as the founder of Small Biz Technology. We’re very excited to be working with both Anita and Ramon, and to seeing them this fall at the awards gala in New York City.

Learn More

For more information, head over to www.smbinfluencer.com, and keep an eye on the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog as important dates approach and the program unfolds.

Are you a small business owner? We’d love to hear about how BlackBerry® solutions have helped you start and grow your business – share your story in the comments below!

A few months ago, we told you about the 2012 Wireless Achievement Awards. Today we are very excited to present the finalists to you, with the winners being announced on May 2nd at the 2012 BlackBerry World™ conference.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are presented to customers who have deployed BlackBerry® smartphones and/or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets to help improve the way they do business. These high achievers are recognized for their vision, efforts, and most of all, their inspiring achievements. Through their use of a BlackBerry solution, they have helped to increase business performance, make a difference to the bottom line, and simplify life for their employees.

We received amazing entries from all around the globe, which made judging even more difficult for the Selection Committee. So without further ado, here is a brief summary of each of the finalists and their innovative solutions. As always, these results are specific to each organization:

FINALISTS FOR: INNOVATION IN PRIVATE SECTOR

Finalists in the Innovation in Private Sector category have deployed innovative BlackBerry solutions to help drive business productivity.

Cablevision S.A. Argentina: Cablevisión S.A. Argentina (Cablevisión) provides cable TV and broadband Internet service for more than 3.5 million customers in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Cablevisión has significantly decreased calls to their support center while improving productivity and service.

IA Clarington Investments Inc.: IA Clarington Investments Inc. markets a wide range of investment products, including mutual funds and segregated funds managed by leading portfolio advisors across Canada. The BlackBerry solution has helped in the company obtain a 21% increase in client interactions captured into the CRM system.

FINALISTS FOR: INNOVATION IN PUBLIC SECTOR

Finalists in the Innovation in Public Sector category use BlackBerry solutions in innovative ways in government and healthcare.

Ministerio de Desarrollo Social Argentina: To help meet its mission of providing humanitarian aid and social assistance, Argentina’s Ministerio de Desarrollo Social turned to BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. The solution allows the Minister and senior ministry officials to quickly respond to community needs, speed up decision-making while helping to improve information accuracy.

Gwent Frailty Consortium: The Gwent Frailty Consortium is a healthcare partnership between the Aneurin Bevan Health Board and five local authorities in Gwent, Wales, UK. The Gwent Frailty Consortium has increased staff productivity by an average of 50 minutes a day, saving approximately £600,000 per year while improving the patient experience.

FINALISTS FOR: BUSINESS IMPACT

Finalists in the Business Impact category have deployed a BlackBerry solution that has made a significant impact on their business.

Nomura International plc: Nomura is a leading financial services group. Mobile users based in the London, UK office represent 14% of the workforce but account for two-thirds of the telecommunications spend. Nomura has reduced their telecommunication spend using a BlackBerry solution.

Eversheds LLP: Eversheds LLP is a law firm with 46 offices across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Eversheds LLP has improved employee productivity, reinforced security best practices and reduced energy consumption, by deploying a BlackBerry solution.

FINALISTS FOR: ATTENDEE CHOICE AWARDS

This award allows BlackBerry World attendees to vote for one of three finalists who have developed applications for their customers in order to help increase business and improve customer experience.

OK! Magazine: The celebrity publication has developed an app for BlackBerry smartphone and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users to amplify content and visuals! Read a detailed description and watch the app demo. Download the app for your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or BlackBerry smartphone.

Cines Unidos: Cines Unidos has developed a mobile movie application that helps to enhance the movie-going experience on BlackBerry smartphones! Read a detailed description and watch the app demo. Download the app for your BlackBerry smartphone.

Banesco Banco Universal: Banesco Banco Universal has developed a mobile banking app for BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets! Read a detailed description and watch the app demo. Download the app for your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or BlackBerry smartphone.

For those attending BlackBerry World 2012, whose app do you think demonstrates the most innovative use of the BlackBerry solution? Make sure to submit your vote by Tuesday, May 1st at 5:00pm ET. Stay tuned on May 2nd to see if your choice takes home the prize! And if you aren’t going to BlackBerry World, check in here at the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog for the latest news.

UPDATE: The deadline for nominations is now Friday, March 9th, 2012!

Every year fans gather to watch the society’s most famous, talented, beautiful people walk down the red carpet. It’s an honor to be nominated, they all claim. “Who are you wearing?” the paparazzi ask. “Where are the best after-parties?” the on-lookers wonder. The Oscars…nope – the Wireless Achievement Awards at the annual BlackBerry World™ conference!

That’s right, it’s Wireless Achievement Awards season once again, and the nominations are open for a short period of time. A mainstay of BlackBerry World, these coveted honors have been garnering increased attention over the past six years. But for those who aren’t familiar with the program, I thought I’d provide a bit more background.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are something we do to give our customers some well-deserved recognition for their innovation and creativity in contributing to their organization’s success.

Back in 2006, we started the program in response to the volume of interesting mobile projects we heard our customers describe. Sometimes customer success stories don’t get much attention beyond the organization that has implemented the change, so we decided we needed a way to showcase these stories – so began the first awards, six years ago.

Since then, we’ve seen hundreds of amazing stories about our customers achieving business value through their BlackBerry® deployments. Remember, this program started back in the days before the BlackBerry App World™ storefront or the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet – and, given all the evolution in technology, I can’t wait to see what this year’s nominees bring to the table.

To address the variety of submissions, we created a few different categories of awards: Innovation in Private Sector, Innovation in Public Sector, and Business Impact. To be selected as one of three finalists in a category from hundreds and hundreds of entries is really quite an honor. Additionally, to deal with the number of great nominations, we recently added a fourth category: Attendee Choice Award. For this award, people registered to attend BlackBerry World, can log in and cast their vote – the audience is in control! This category focuses on B2C applications: applications that businesses create to service their end users. These might touch on mobile marketing, customer service delivery, customer engagement, or any number of other areas. They represent high value to the organization, and are part of a new area of mobile application growth.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are all about achievement and innovation. The most compelling entries are those that are high value, high impact, and novel. The selection committee is typically comprised of executives or senior leaders from RIM®, past award winners, and industry analysts. The committee looks for entries that demonstrate how BlackBerry solutions have helped organizations achieve their business goals, whether the goal has improved customer satisfaction, cost savings, increased efficiency or helped achieve higher sales.

So, if you think you’ve got what it takes (and I know you do), why not submit a nomination? Just visit the Wireless Achievement Awards page on the BlackBerry World website or dive straight in to the web entry form. Follow the step-by-step instructions to submit your information – additionally, you can attach supporting material (we love screenshots!). And for the perfectionists out there, the form allows you to save your entry and come back later to finish it off. Just remember, the deadline – March 5th, 2012 March 9th, 2012 – is coming up fast, so submit your nomination now!