Tim Courtney has emailed me and invited myself and all of you to attend the very first Silicon Prairie Social, to be held on Thursday, September 20 at Mullen’s Bar and Grill in Lisle, IL. This is being billed as a suburban tech networking event, as Lisle is about 30 minutes west of Chicago. That is, 30 minutes without the occasional traffic tie-ups on the Chicagoland roads.

And to answer your next question, yes, there will be free drinks. They have an impressive list of sponsors on their Web site already. I am glad to hear about and share information on such events. At events in Chicago proper, many people come in from the ‘burbs to attend, and I hope some folks from the city venture west. You may want to head out earlier and do some shopping, as the tax is less outside of the city!

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I just got off the phone with David Carman, and he told me the Breakfast Network Club is now Business Network Chicago, and has relaunched its Web site. The name change is a good one, especially as they don’t hold too many morning meetings anymore, and the new name is better focused on their goals and intent.

BNC has many special interest groups, including venture capital, healthcare and IT, which focus on these particular industries, as well as larger networking events. Their newsletter is a good source for job positions and leads. I have made many great contacts through the BNC, and have been proud to sponsor their meeting nametags.

BNC is kicking off its new branding and the fall with Fall n-Counter, to be held on Wednesday, September 19 at the W Chicago City Center hotel on Adams in the Loop. More information and registration is available on their Web site. This will surely bring out a large attendance at such a great venue.

Good luck to David, the president of the BNC, and all of its SIG chairs on the rebranding and ongoing work to bring the Chicago business community together.

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The next likemind will be next Friday, August 17 in dozens of cities around the world. In Chicago, it will be back at Intelligentsia Coffee,, 53 E. Randolph, at the corner of Wabash.

What is likemind? I call it a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines. For my friends and readers in Boston, they are looking for someone to organize it, which just means paying for coffee and getting reimbursed, and being somewhat awake at that hour.

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I saw this item posted on Spoofee.com, a site that usually just lists discounted items available on various eCommerce Web sites. But never jobs. I guess everyone will make an exception for Google.

The search giant is seeking Business Referral Representatives. These are people who will canvass their neighborhood or local businesses to get their information into presumably their local search directory. More information is available on their FAQ including a link to apply.

Recently when adding some clients into Google Local, they already had listings. Some of them were correct, some were not, and some lacked details like hours of operations, logos and fax numbers. Some already had photos of the businesses! I was then able to submit revisions to the information, which required an automated callback from Google to verify it.

Where these representatives will take these few hours of work from my business, this marks a concerted effort for Google to encroach even more so on local print directories – how hard would it be to print information it already has?

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I would like to pass along an article entitled, Applying Retail Concepts to the Web, which I was interviewed for. Its author is Lisa Rummler and is published on the Web site for Certification Magazine, a periodical on technical certifications that features both the nuts and bolts of technology and the business concepts that drive the use of technology. The article is in their “CRM and e-Commerce” community. Lisa is a great interviewer and it shows in the final product.

As the article states, Dunkirk Systems has brought many companies to the Internet, both traditional brick and mortar and solely online businesses. It’s what I enjoy doing! I hope this article helps demystify the Internet for those who are either exploring eCommerce or re-evaluating what they have. And of course I welcome the opportunity to see how we may be able to help them achieve their goals.

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