BUSINESS SPEED-DATING
On Tuesday, Feb. 13, the Small Business Association (SBA) held its Western Regional Business Match-Making Event in the Oakland Convention Center. The event is held quarterly at venues across the country. The purpose it to facilitate business meetings (and hopefully contracts and transactions) between small businesses, large businesses and government agencies by providing small businesses face-time with decision-makers from government agencies and large firms, who might never meet between the thousands of cold calls and mailers.

Approximately 160 large firms, including Chevron and HP, were represented at the event. Representatives from the larger firms and government agencies set 15-minute appointments with some of the nearly 600 small businesses in attendance. The appointments were opportunities for the small businesses to sell and demonstrate their products and services, while representatives from larger firms and/or government agencies asked pointed questions about the quality and benefits of those products and services. The moderator kept the appointments, and the event, on schedule by making timely announcements.

Business representatives seemed pleased overall with the event. Though it seemed for different reasons. The small business representatives were thrilled to have the opportunity to reach large firms with whom they dreamed of working; representatives of larger firms were satisfied with the opportunity to further corporate supplier diversity and other business goals.

While attending the Chevron-sponsored luncheon, Hector Baretto, the Bush-appointed Administrator of the SBA, talked about the success of the Business Matchmaking events, an initiative he began prior to his appointment. He told the group that due to great demand for events in cities across the country, there would soon be an online business matchmaking workshop.

Other notable attendees included Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown and Ken Yancy, the CEO of the Senior Corp of Retired Executives (SCORE).