On Monday, a group from Network Solutions went to New York to participate in the Small Business Technology Summit. The event was a good one: not too big, some very good speakers, and not just a meeting place for the business development types. Though many companies were present and there were many industries represented, one thing became clear after a few hours: It was all about the Web.

At 10:00am I arrived at the booth, where our New York sales team members Greg Breen and Dave LaMere were already hard at work, talking with various business owners all about, you guessed it…online marketing.

There were a few notable sessions… Lunch was highlighted by a talk given by Barry Moltz of How Do You Bounce fame. Barry’s talk was certainly entertaining. I’m still not sure if I am supposed to be pumped up about setting my goals so low that I am sure to hit them, but I am sure there was a profound lesson to be learned in his talk somewhere, nonetheless. He did strike a chord when he talked about moving forward - whether you succeed or fail, you need to keep on keeping on…well done, Barry.

The afternoon session was marked by some fast paced and hard hitting presentations. One of the event organizers, the sharp and energetic Ramon Ray took the stage. Ramon packed a college course worth of business lessons into a 15 minute presentation. I personally like his message about “not technologizing bad processes.”

Ramon’s presentation was followed by yours truly. I did a crash course in SEM and it seemed to be well received. It’s always hard to tell if I am presenting coherent thoughts when I’m up on my soap box, but the always insightful Windsor Tanner, Network Solutions Director of Sales, told me that the presentation was a hit. I have a distinct feeling she’d let me know if I messed it up!

Rounding out the Network Solutions team was Shashi Bellamkonda, our very own Social Media Swami. Shashi got some great pictures of the NetSol team as well as videos of many of the presentations - we’ll get linked to them ASAP.

In the end, it was all about the Web. Virtually every presentation, even from no-so-web-oriented companies, were in the context of using the Web to further business goals. From CRM to Web 2.0 to SEM, most conversations centered around one question: How do I generate success using the Web. Of course, this may just be what I wanted to hear. I am, afterall, biased in this regard…