There is only ONE WEEK LEFT in the Invented In Utah submission phase. For more information, please visit the Invented In Utah website.

Submit it today!

Participants have a chance at winning valuable prizes and opportunities including:

• Over $50,000 in awards and services and growing!
• Mentoring and consulting with professionals in the industry.
• Connections with some of Utah’s top organizations in:
• Design, development, engineering, manufacturing, IP law, funding, and more.
• Visit: www.inventedinutah.com/submit/  for more details
• Regular submissions at $20 close Sept. 7th.
• Up to 5 submissions with a single fee.
• Late entries (with $5 late fee) accepted until Sept. 10th.

According to a story in the Deseret News this past June, BlendTec won the case for $11 million in federal district court. The jury confirmed that the blender was “considered a direct copy.” What’s most surprising is that they had an actual email from Vita-Mix saying that they planned to copy BlendTec.

I’m at Wordcamp Utah and heard BlendTec owner Tom Dickson speak about the case. He’s the famous “mad scientist” in all the videos. He blends everything from glow sticks to broom handles. Dickson is also the engineer who designed the 5-sided blender. His design is key to helping pull the contents of the blender to the blade.

Apparently Vita-Mix isn’t the only one to copy the blender design. The company wants to send a strong message to copycats. They plan to ask the judge in the case to triple the payout to over $30 million.

This is a huge victory for BlendTec and for Utah. BlendTec is a hero for marketers – their videos are #67 in the all time most subscribed to videos on YouTube. Their starting marketing budget of $50 and a few videos that went viral put this Utah company on the map. Now they’ve shown they can hold their own against bigger more well-known competitors.

Related post by Janet Thaeler

PR Pros – Will you Blend?

Dave Bascom steps down as president and CEO but continues as an owner and advisor. Nelson James takes over as president, and Mike Mann as CEO. New management has big plans to surpass the SEO firm’s past rapid growth. Dave Bascom stepped down as CEO and President of SEO.com on Monday to take a position with a new division of Deseret Digital Media. Bascom will continue to have part ownership in the SEO company and will act in an advisory role.

“I helped build this company to a point where it’s established,” Bascom said. “Now I’m moving on to a new challenge with Deseret Digital Media. SEO.com has an amazing team and incredible leadership. It’s on a great growth track and is headed in the right direction. I’m confident SEO.com will have even more success in the future.”

From his basement, Bascom started the SEO company in 2003 under the name Web Targeted. In 2007, he obtained the SEO.com domain with Mike Mann, renamed the company, and since dramatically grew SEO.com despite tough economic times. In the last year, Utah Business Magazine named Bascom as a Top 40 Under 40; and V|Spring Capital named him a top 100 entrepreneur in Utah.

Mann will be the acting CEO and placed Nelson James as the president of the company. James was formerly SEO.com’s vice president of client services, and has worked directly under Bascom for the past five years.

“Dave has been a great leader for this company and a mentor of mine for the past five years,” James said. “We have a great opportunity and strong leadership in place, and I look forward to continuing SEO.com’s growth. I wish Dave all the success he deserves.”

In the last two years, the search marketing firm grew from 12 employees to more than 60, moved to a larger office in Salt Lake County, and increased monthly revenue by more than 600 percent.

SEO.com was named the No. 2 SEO firm by Website Magazine, among the top 10 SEO firms in the country by PromotionWorld, and one of the top 25 fastest growing companies in Utah by the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum two years running, including No. 6 in 2010. SEO.com also has been named among the Emerging Elite by MountainWest Capital Network.

“I want to thank Dave for bringing SEO.com to where it is today,” Mann said. “He has done an incredible job. His efforts to date have, and will, perpetually benefit the charities we support, which is extremely important and the main impetus for all of my work. With Nelson, we will carry on the tradition of providing great results for clients, and we will continue to grow.”

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a search marketing firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization, pay per click management, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through search-optimized Web design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit http://www.seo.com/

Pitched as ‘The American Idol for Entrepreneurs’, CrowdPitch is a very entertaining and informative review of entrepreneurial companies vying for funding and support. You’ll hear five companies pitch their business proposition in front of a panel of judges. Judges offer points of advice and the audience gets to vote for their favorite.

To sweeten the pot, Funding Universe is buying lunch for all attendees!

The event happens August 4 from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm at the Karen Gail Miller Conference Center in the Lone Peak and Cottonwood Rooms. You’ll find it at 9570 S. 300 W. in Sandy, UT 84070.

RSVP here!

When: Wednesday July 28th 9 am – 11 am
Where: City Center at 351 W Center St, Provo
What:

9:00 – 9:05 : Intro and some light breakfast
9:05 – 9:45 : “Getting Started on Foursquare – Play your way to more customers” by Jon Sheppard
9:45 – 11:00 : “Facebook and Twitter oh my, Building Business through Social Media” by Brian Seethaler and Pete Codella

OrangeSoda is a leading SEO company in American Fork, Utah with expertise in the area of online search engine marketing.

RSVP on Facebook for this event.

Check out the flyer below and please pass the word to your associates.

If you are a Wordpress blogger, or interested at all in starting a blog for your business; consider attending WordCamp.

WordCamp Utah 2010 will be held August 28th at University of Utah, in the Skaggs Biology Building.  This is a great opportunity to spend a day with local WordPress developers, users, and fans of all kinds! Presentations will cover a range of topics, with two tracks running throughout the day.

Just getting started or looking for a little help with your WordPress questions?  We’ll have a Genius Bar where you get some help.  Already a WordPress whiz?  Come volunteer at Genius Bar!  Contact WordCamp to Volunteer and they’ll get you on the list.

And finally, at WordCamp Utah 2010 we’ll get an answer to that question we’ve always wondered about, Will WordPress Blend? Tom Dickson of Blendtec will be one of the speakers this year, promising some entertaining insights into corporate blogging and, if we’re lucky; he’ll throw something in the blender for us.

If you are interested in sponsoring, presenting, or helping make everything run smoothly please let them know. WordCamp is looking for help with video recording in both rooms so if you know someone who can help in that area they’d really like to hear from you.

Register For WordCamp Utah 2010 for only $20.

Follow the news on Twitter at using hashtag: #WCUT

See you there!

Enspark

Bonus: Check out Enspark’s latest free customizable elearning game.

Three Areas that Stand to Change the Face of eLearning

Instructional and educational technologists who see value in eLearning are constantly finding new ways to answer and rebut arguments against it. eLearning and its implementations may be considered still in an infancy stage, but will evolve as quickly as its creators adapt and innovate with new tools like augmented reality development, interactive courseware, etc. A few of the areas that most likely to change the eLearning landscape:

• mLearning. The next revolution in personal computing has come in the palms of our hands. While many still spend a great deal of time on personal computers, the huge degree of penetration by mobile devices into mainstream society has got us all wondering how learning happens for a very mobile population. Maybe mLearning, much like e-mail or e-commerce, will eventually seem like a misnomer because that’s how we’ll all use the internet of the [very near] future.
• Social Learning and Collaboration. Let’s face it: whether you like Facebook or not, it (and sites like it) have changed the face of the internet. And although users already spend over 300 percent more time on Facebook than Google, social media websites are continuing to find ways to keep users on their sites longer. The wild popularity of social tools like Facebook has left educational technologists questioning the value traditional, lonely, self-paced learning. Is learning more effective (if not at least more exciting) in groups, collaboratively?
• Accountability. Similar to early ventures by brick and mortar stores into e-commerce, eLearning is too young to be able to give stakeholders solid ROI reports, benchmarks, and actionable insights. But with recession-constricted budgets, uneducated workforces, and pressing training needs banging on the door, eLearning will have to find a way to prove its value and place.  Once it’s seen as worthwhile and budget-worthy cause then the learning analytics and data can focus more on optimizing and solving for the learner rather than justifying its existence.

eLearning has been seeing amazing changes in our society. The ways people work, access information, communicate, socialize and even consume (think consumers) has changed in basic, fundamental ways. And, inevitably, the way that they learn will change too.

“The first five years are the most challenging for a new startup,” said UVEF 2010 chairman John Pilmer. “These companies not only demonstrate impressive growth in these early years, but do so during the greatest recession of our lifetime. If these companies can excel in a down economy, we can’t wait to see what they do in a recovery.”

David Bradford, Chairman of Fusion-io, emceed the ceremony. He praised all finalists for their entrepreneurial spirit and contributions to Utah’s business community.

“These companies prove to the business community that Utah entrepreneurs continue our state’s remarkable history of entrepreneurial leadership,” Bradford said. “New business startups here remain a strong and thriving force in the development of our local and national economy.”

This year’s other award recipients are Imagine Learning, Local Results, High West Distillery and Saloon, FundingUniverse, SEO.com, Simply Mac, FamilyLink.com, Entice Labs, Pounders Hawaiian Island Grill, Jive Communications, Campus Book Rentals, Kynetx, Parallel HR Solutions, Zoobies, Franchise Foundry, ILLUMRA, Snapp Conner PR, Appigo, CFOwise, Lumos, Xcelus, Fiftyfilms, Qualified Address and Izatt International.

Nominations were judged on several factors including revenue growth and job creation.

This is UVEF’s eleventh Top 25 Under Five competition. UVEF has highlighted the development of more than 200 individuals and their companies through the ceremony, including Utah success stories like Omniture, Skullcandy and Xango, among many others.

About UVEF
The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF) is a volunteer non-profit support group linking entrepreneurs to Money, Markets, and Mentors. Celebrating 21 years of new business success, UVEF empowers current and future business leaders to thrive in today’s competitive market. We provide real-world, practical education and valuable resources on how to access needed capital, attract new customers and tap into industry experts. For information on upcoming meetings, speakers and exclusive membership benefits visit www.uvef.net.

Press Contact:
Andon Carling
PilmerPR
801-368-7249
acarling@pilmerpr.com

Solution Services, Inc

What are the Real Benefits?

The most obvious benefit to hiring someone else to do your human resources management is the amount of time it will free up. When you don’t have to spend as much time on employee administration, you can start to look at many other opportunities for growing the business. On the Solution Services website (www.ssihr.com) they list the top reasons to consider outsourcing options. Outsourced HR will:

• Prepare payroll and pay employees
• Pay all payroll and statutory taxes
• Provide assistance with regulatory compliance
• Pay state and federal unemployment insurance
• Provide workers’ compensation insurance, audits, and claims management
• Consult and develop a workplace safety program
• Provide a complete insurance and fringe benefits package
• Provide HR consulting services
• Administer and procure health insurance
• Prepare customized employee handbooks

Why Use a Utah Payroll Outsourcing Company?

Modern businesses face a world of complexities and challenges every day. There are employees to care for, customers to appease, and industry regulations to follow. Even in the best of times, these demands can cause a lot of stress on managers and employers. This is why so many companies are looking at different options for outsourced HR in Utah. Professionals, like the ones at Solutions Services, can usually consult these companies to discover its needs and suggest the best strategies for dealing with benefits, payroll, worksite safety, and employee risk management.

Side note: Solution Services is currently offering a complimentary set of federal and Utah State regulatory compliance posters for local businesses.