Events, Media & Communications

Celebrating Small Businesses In Philly May 13-17

May 8, 2013 4:30 PM ET

Post from the Verizon Small Biz Blog.

Small businesses are the backbone of our country, and Verizon is joining with the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce  to present the region’s inaugural Small Business Week May 13-17.  Over these five days, we will be celebrating and recognizing the critical contributions of the region’s more than 150,000 small businesses.

Small Business Week in Philadelphia will feature a series of events allowing small business owners to gain insights to better run their business and opportunities to network.  While most of the activities will take place in or near Philadelphia, there is a webinar next Thursday, May 16, that anyone with a broadband connection can join.

Highlights of Small Business Week in Philadelphia include:

  • Tuesday, May 14: Small Business Week Educational Workshop – At the GPCC offices, DiBona Room, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., Delivering Exceptional Customer Service.  The panel discussion will focus on the best techniques to connect with clients and deliver exceptional customer service. The workshop is free for chamber members and $35 for nonmembers.
  • Friday, May 17: Keynote Event featuring Wharton School Professor Jonah Berger  – Jonah Berger, author of “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” and one of the world’s foremost experts on what goes viral and why, will deliver the week’s keynote program, Create Contagious Content for Your Business.  Berger, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, studies social epidemics, or how products, ideas and behaviors catch on and become popular. He is an expert on how individual decision-making and social dynamics between people generate collective outcomes such as social contagion and trends. The event will be held at the WHYY Studios in downtown Philadelphia from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. The registration fee for the event is $45 for Chamber of Commerce members and $90 for nonmembers.  Attendees also will receive a free copy of Berger’s book, courtesy of Verizon. 

[Verizon’s customers and friends can use code “VERIZONSBW” to purchase tickets to this event at the member fee of $45. Go to http://vz.to/11QCVyQ and follow the prompts to purchase ticket as a “Non-member”; register then enter the promo code.]

Also, as part of the Small Business Week celebration, Verizon will be holding street team events at various locations across the city of Philadelphia, so if you are in the following areas please stop by for some great give away prizes: 

On Monday, May 13

8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. at the Navy Yard – Yardbird Grille at Kittyhawk Avenue & 15th Street; and

11:30 a.m. –12:30 p.m. at the lobby area of 21 South Street.

On Thursday, May 16

8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. at the lobby of One Penn Center;

10 a.m. – 11 a.m. at a Verizon FiOS retail store (7110 Ridge Avenue); and

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the lobby of the Philly Enterprise Center at 4548 Market Street.

 

Tim Smith, Verizon area president of consumer and mass business markets for Pennsylvania and Delaware and a member of the chamber’s executive board, said: “Verizon serves many small businesses in southeastern Pennsylvania, and we’ve teamed with the chamber to provide a variety of resources to help them advance their business.  We’re looking forward to celebrating this week with them.”

Every year since 1963, the president of the United States has issued a proclamation announcing National Small Business Week, which recognizes the critical contributions of America’s entrepreneurs and small-business owners. More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and they create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year.

For more information about the GPCC/Verizon Small Business Week, visit www.gpcc.com/smallbizwk.  Follow us on Twitter for more information: @VerizonSmallBiz or @PhillyChamber or search for #PHLSmallBizWk.