We’re delighted to be sponsoring the 2012 SMB Influencer program yet again, and this year’s Awards Gala is in full swing here in New York City. Influencers and members of the SMB community have come from far and wide to honor their peers and take part in the awards ceremony. Research In Motion® (RIM®) is a huge supporter of small and medium-sized businesses around the world, with smartphones and mobile device management solutions that are affordable and scalable. Over the years we’ve heard some amazing success stories of businesses that have used BlackBerry® solutions to help grow, expand, and communicate with customers and stakeholders.

I’ve managed to catch up with RIM Sr. Director for Enterprise Accounts Bryan Lee here at the event to chat about RIM’s commitment to the SMB community, Bryan’s role and impact at RIM, and the SMB Influencer program. Check it out below for the full scoop!

Biz Blog: Hi Bryan – tell me about what you do at RIM

I have the great pleasure of leading our U.S. enterprise sales division, which includes support for both large enterprises and small to medium-sized customers. In addition, I work closely with our VAR community who sell and support the BlackBerry solution.

Biz Blog: How has RIM been involved in SMB communities around the world?

Being connected, keeping your ideas and information secure, and engaging in real-time communication with your customers is crucial for starting and growing a business. These are areas that we focus on and work to constantly improve. Being reliably connected to everyone that you need to be connected with, and having access to all of the information that you need, really enables success. You know, as we’ve designed our business product roadmap and launched business solutions over the past 10 years, we’ve had SMB’s in mind with products like BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express, BlackBerry Business® Cloud Services, and the upcoming BlackBerry® 10 platform. We love the passion and dedication that this community embodies, and we love to support them.

Biz Blog: We’re all very excited about BlackBerry 10. How will this new platform enable small and medium-sized businesses and business owners?

The flow of BlackBerry 10 will enable new levels of productivity – we’ve had some sneak peeks of this at BlackBerry World™ and the recent BlackBerry® Jam Americas event in San Jose. The platform has been designed for rapid and functional interaction to help you get things done quickly and efficiently, staying on top of the many tasks and communications that you engage in on a daily basis. BlackBerry Hub, for example, lets you access all of the information that you need at a glance, and the people view in the calendar shows you who you’re meeting with and collects all the information you have about that particular person without having to jump between different applications. Integration with services that small businesses use is a major aspect, like Box being built right into the OS along with other cloud storage providers.

Ease of setup and implementation is also an important point for small businesses. ActiveSync® connectivity is available right out of the box, providing a free option for connecting the devices to your work mail server. For more robust device and application management, security, and BlackBerry Balance™, BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10 will be available at launch. We’ve even enhanced the process for getting work mail, calendar, and contacts set up from a user experience perspective, which we shared at BlackBerry Jam Americas 2012.

Biz Blog: Why are programs like the 2012 SMB Influencer initiative important?

Providing solutions for small and medium sized businesses is a good thing, but it’s also important to get out there and meet with the members of the community. It’s a real pleasure to do that and get to discuss challenges and solutions that are faced every day. We’re also here to honor the top 100 influencers; it’s fantastic to see the impact that many of these individuals and organizations have had.

Biz Blog: Any final thoughts for the SMB community?

Stay tuned for more details on BlackBerry 10; we’re very excited to share this with you and show you how it can help in your business. There will be more sneak peeks ahead of the launch in Q1 2013, so be sure to visit the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog. Lastly, a big “congratulations” to each of the top 100 SMB influencer champions!

Biz Blog: Thanks for joining us, Bryan!

Stay tuned for more coverage of the SMB Influencer Awards Gala, and more details about BlackBerry 10. How have BlackBerry solutions or products helped you grow and operate your small or medium-sized business? We love to hear your stories – share in the comments below!

As you may be aware, the 2012 SMB Influencer program is in full swing for its second year running. Similar to last year, we have the privilege of sponsoring the initiative and working with Anita Campbell and Ramon Ray to remain active in the small and medium business community. The nomination and voting period for the top 100 SMB influencers of 2012 is now over (and the winners have been announced!), but the real fun is about to begin with the awards gala being held in New York City on October 17th.

The event serves to honor the SMB champions for their contributions to the community, but also represents a fantastic networking opportunity. This year it’s being held in the Javits Center (Hall 1A) from 5:30pm to 9pm. Check out the details below and grab your ticket today:

October 17, 2012 at 5:30pm
Javits Center, Hall 1A, New York City

Our own Bryan Lee, Sr. Director in our B2B & IT channel sales group at Research In Motion® (RIM®), will be helping with the awards and discussing mobility in business at the gala. I’ll be there too to capture all of the action, so stay tuned on the Inside BlackBerry® for Business Blog to see a recap after the event!

BlackBerry Solutions for Small Businesses

The SMB community holds so much enthusiasm and energy, and we love to be involved to help mobilize workers and keep business owners completely connected wherever they may be. It can be challenging to keep track of all of the details and to manage and unify mobile devices within a small organization. We’ve got a few great tools that can help:

BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets

When it comes to the device in your hand, it’s important that you have access to information, contacts, email, BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™), and a ton of fantastic business apps that can help keep you on top of your work and available to colleagues and customers. When your smartphone works together with your BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, BlackBerry devices become the ultimate productivity and communications tool at work and at home.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

There comes a point in time during the growth of a business where it’s important to begin unifying and managing the mobile devices being used for work. For businesses using BlackBerry® 5, BlackBerry® 6, and BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones, BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express is a fantastic (and free) option for connecting devices to your mail server, utilizing security controls, remotely protecting devices, and much more.

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion

Many small businesses use a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy to help cut costs. When you have a mix of BlackBerry, iOS, and Android™ devices at work in your business, managing all of them doesn’t need to be a challenge. BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion allows you to extend to these smartphones and tablets the security and management capabilities that RIM has offered for years. Deploying BlackBerry Mobile Fusion is also a step towards the upcoming BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10, which will provide a complete and unified solution for enterprise mobility management. Find more BlackBerry solutions for SMBs here.

See you in New York!

Check out the wrap up of last year’s event to learn more. Register at www.smbinfluencer.com for this year’s event, and we’ll see you on the 17th.

Does your BlackBerry smartphone or BlackBerry PlayBook tablet help you in your small business? Share in the comments below.

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!

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Social Media and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are walking hand-in-hand in the current digital landscape of business. In New York City at the SMB Influencer Awards event, I had a chance to chat with Brent Leary, an expert in this space, to chat about mobility, CRM, and social media – not only the complex relationship between these three concepts, but the impact that they have on small business today. Check out the video above for the full scoop!

Does your business leverage social media to engage in CRM? Share in the comments.