Think you have an idea for the NEXT GREAT PRODUCT? Want to sell your product in Walmart stores? 

I wanted to.  See below.  Now there's a contest for that.

On January 18, 2012, Walmart announced the launch of Get on the Shelf, an online video competition whereby product developers have a shot at getting their product sold on Walmart.com and in Walmart stores.

According to a Walmart press release, anyone with a great product in any of the Walmart product categories is invited to participate. 

Here's what you do:

• Create your prototype.
• Make a video demonstrating your product.
• Submit your video to Walmart's new product competition: Get on the Shelf

Who decides who wins? We do. The public. Inventors will create videos of their products and the public gets to decide who wins. The grand prize winner gets their product on Walmart's shelves.

Contestants have until February 22, 2012 to submit an entry. First-round voting will take place March 7th - April 4th. Ten finalists will move to round two which takes place on April 11 – April 24, culminating in the announcement of the top three contestants and the grand prize winner. 

If you think you have the next great product idea, go to GetOnTheShelf.com and enter the competition. All you need is a good idea and a YouTube account to enter.

Having attempted to get a product in front of Walmart buyers the "old" way (Apply. Wait. Hope for a 10-minute pitch session with a buyer if lucky enough. Wait. "Thank you,  not at this time."), this video competition seems like a terrific alternative. 

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Z. Kelly Queijo is founder of Smart College Visit, Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia-based higher-ed marketing company focused on mobile app and mobile web development with a special interest in creating travel and location-based tools and services. SmartCollegeVisit.com, a college search and college visit planning portal, has been listed in the Top 100 education advice blogs and as one of the top 5 college visit sites. You are invited to follow her on Twitter @collegevisit.

Z. Kelly Queijo is a client columnist for Handshake 2.0.  Smart College Visit, Inc. is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0.

When I founded Smart College Visit, Inc. the goal was simple: to make planning travel to college campuses easier for college-bound teens and their families. SmartCollegeVisit.com was designed to do just that by providing the travel booking tools necessary for college visit travel.

Once we had these tools in place and began to demo them to colleges and other businesses, people would ask, "Can I get that for my web site?" Immediately, we realized we had created a solution to a problem that was portable to other sites. We named this solution The Smart Visit Widget and we're happy to announce that the widget debuted on eduLaunchPad.com.

The widget is a location-based-service (LBS) that matches colleges with destination details all under one "roof" so to speak. To accommodate as many web design styles as possible, the widget is available in four sizes, three of which should fit most sidebar widths, and a larger one to fit other web page designs. 

The Smart Visit Widget is free and anyone interested in adding a location-based travel widget to their sites, even companies not associated with higher-ed, are invited to contact me for more information. 

We're excited to work with eduLaunchPad and are looking forward to seeing the widget at work during the fall college visit season. Please read the complete press release Smart Visit Widget Debut for more information.

From Anne Clelland:  When I learned The Smart Visit Widget offers 5 travel planning tools in one - book flight, rent hotel room, rent car, get directions, and calculate fuel - I said, "I want a widget!" We're delighted to feature the Smart Visit Widget linked to our client, VT KnowledgeWorks, on Handshake 2.0's sidebar!  Congratulations to Smart College Visit!

And we're delighted and honored to support Z. Kelly Queijo's participation in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.

Z. Kelly Queijo is a client columnist for Handshake 2.0. and founder of Smart College Visit, Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia-based higher-ed marketing company focused on mobile app and mobile web development with a special interest in creating travel and location-based tools and services. SmartCollegeVisit.com, a college search and college visit planning portal, has been listed in the Top 100 education advice blogs and as one of the top 5 college visit sites. Smart College Visit, Inc. is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated.

What do you get when you take 10 or more people passionate about their work with college-bound and college-going students and ask them all to show up for one hour on Twitter to tweet their best back-to-school advice? You get Back-to-School SUPER #CampusChat! 

I've been hosting a weekly chat on Twitter (#CampusChat) every Wednesday night at 9:00 PM for the past 15 months. Topics have included planning campus visits, college test prep, admissions, college life, academic planning, internships, careers...you name it and we've likely covered it.

Tonight, instead of one expert guest, I've invited ALL of my 2011 previous co-hosts and other long-time supporters of #CampusChat to come prepared to share their "back-to-school" tips, promos, and guides. The response from past guests has been fantastic and many of them have offered give-aways as prize drawings for participants. There are at least 10 prizes to give away - that's a lot for a chat that only lasts an hour! Talk about crowdsourcing an event - what was I thinking?! 

And, we're not talking about pencils and erasers as prizes. The list of give-aways includes resources and services to help throughout the life of a college student. Here are just a few of the prizes we'll give away:

• Get into college: 10 copies of Getting In: The Zinch Guide to College Admissions and Financial Aid in the Digital Age
• Stay fit while in college: a FitKitDORM and a free one year membership to the FitKitCLUB - $50 value from www.FitKit.com.
• Plan your career while in college: A one-hour mentor call for students interested in finding the right internship with Mark Babbitt, founder of YouTern, a college internship matching and counseling service. The call can be used to discuss career goals, mentorship, entrepreneurial aspirations – whatever the student would like to focus on. 

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Prizes are cool, but it's really the opportunity to meet and chat with industry experts, experienced parents and college students that makes #CampusChat an awesome hour. Multiply that "awesomeness" by 10 or 15 and you can see why I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by how much information there will be to manage, push out and later curate. Is this mashup on Twitter a really great marketing innovation in the making or is it more like trying to squeeze 60 college kids into a VW-Bug?

To register for tonight's #Campuschat - Wednesday, August 3, 2011, 9:00 PM ET - and to be entered into the prize drawing, please RSVP by posting your Twitter ID in the Comment section of this post on SmartCollegeVisit: There Will Be Prizes: Back to School Super #CampusChat. 

Do you want to build more "buzz" on Facebook?

With two web sites and a weekly Twitter chat to promote, I know I do. That's why I signed up for Patsy Stewart's HandZon Social Media Facebook Workshop.

In one afternoon, I greatly expanded my knowledge of how to gain more user interaction, increase the number of fans for my business pages, and create a strategy to continue to build buzz for my brand. 

Here are 3 Facebook tips I took away from the workshop:

1. Your Facebook Page can be viewed by anyone even if they are not on Facebook.
2. The content posted on your Facebook page is indexed by Google. 
3. "WHEN" you post something to Facebook can be as important as "WHAT" you post. Look at "View Insights" as an admin on your business fan page. "Interactions" will show you time-of-day activity.

Having arrived at the workshop without my laptop, I pulled out my iPod Touch and created a Facebook page for Blacksburg Lodging. Using the strategies Patsy outlined in the workshop, I had enough "fans" within 24 hours to enable me to claim my page name and establish ownership of the Blacksburg Lodging fan page: http://www.facebook.com/BlacksburgLodging. The buzz is just beginning.

You're invited to read more from Z. Kelly Queijo on Handshake 2.0.

Z. Kelly Queijo is a client columnist for Handshake 2.0.  Blacksburg Lodging is a division of Smart College Visit, Inc., a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0.

On June 10, 2011, I sat in the sweltering hot Burruss Hall auditorium at Virginia Tech, fanning myself with the Blacksburg High School graduation program, waiting for the ceremony to begin. My interest in being there was singular: I was there to watch my daughter walk across that stage and accept her diploma. Five minutes before the graduation ceremony was to begin, I stopped fanning and thought to open the program to find out who was scheduled be the commencement speaker. I smiled as I read the name “John Boyer.” 

John is a professor of geography at Virginia Tech and creator of the freedom fighting web comic persona, The Plaid Avenger. I knew, at the very least, his speech would be entertaining. What I did not know was that John's message was not “just for the kids.”

As John began to talk about the future, the next steps these teens would take on their journey into adulthood, he said there were three things they needed to do:

• Execute ideas – it's not just enough to have great ideas, you have to execute them, to put them into action in order for ideas to matter.
• Find out what you are passionate about and pursue it.
• Be near the game. If you want to be in the game, get near the game. 

I listened as John made these statements, adding anecdotes and examples to help the kids visualize what they needed to do in order to get where they wanted to be in life. But, all the while I thought he was speaking to me about what entrepreneurs need to do to be successful, especially the part about executing ideas. It was a great takeaway and I've started each day since then asking myself “Which idea can I put into action today?” 

Blacksburg High School's commencement address was not the only one I took lessons away from this month. Jonathan Hoster, assistant director of undergraduate admissions at Syracuse University, sent me the link to the speech given by Dennis Crowley, Foursquare co-founder and Syracuse alumnus, who spoke at the graduation ceremony for the university's School of Information Studies (iSchool). 

Here, Dennis told the story of his own pursuit of passion and ideas and how in a relatively short time, following graduation from college, he went from a six-figure income to making $6 per hour before creating the success Foursquare has achieved. One thing both commencement speeches had in common was this: whether you're just getting started in life or business, you have to execute ideas in order to have any chance at success. Now that's a lesson worth taking away.

You're invited to read more from Z. Kelly Queijo on Handshake 2.0.

Z. Kelly Queijo is founder of Smart College Visit, Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia-based higher-ed marketing company focused on mobile app and mobile web development with a special interest in creating travel and location-based tools and services. SmartCollegeVisit.com, a college search and college visit planning portal, has been listed in the Top 100 education advice blogs and as one of the top 5 college visit sites. You are invited to follow her on Twitter @collegevisit.

Z. Kelly Queijo is a client columnist for Handshake 2.0.  Smart College Visit, Inc. is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0.

You know that feeling you get when the air is charged with excitement - the hair on your arms sticks straight up, you scream and cheer along with everyone else in the crowd, and you can't wait to see what happens next? If this sounds like a Virginia Tech football game, you'd be only half right. The location would be correct, but would you believe it was not a not a winning touchdown that drove the crowd crazy on the campus of Virginia Tech on Wednesday, April 27, 2011? It was seed money to fund a start-up business.

After giving away thousands of dollars in drawings for prizes that ranged from $500 gift cards to internships at a choice of Facebook or Apple, wine-expert-turned-entrepreneur-turned-author Gary Vaynerchuk ended his talk to a gathering of over 1800 students and guests with an offer of $10,000 to help get a business off the ground.

The deal: $10,000 in seed-money with Gary retaining 5% interest in the company and an invitation to come to New York.  The winner: Becca Favret.

Becca received her bachelor's degree in English from Virginia Tech in December 2010. With her sights set on attending law school at the University of Richmond in the fall, starting a business was the furthest thing from her mind. "To come up with an idea for a business because I have the opportunity did not seem to be the reason to start a business."

The fact that Becca was more focused on a career in law rather than becoming an entrepreneur did not faze Gary. "He told me to follow my passion and that we can talk now or talk later - even three years later." Becca definitely felt the impact of Gary's passion and generosity. "I was blown away by his presence. You could tell he was excited about what he was talking about. There's no doubt he grew a loyal following of college students that night. He left a lasting mark on everyone who was there."

Gary Vaynerchuk is currently on tour promoting his new book The Thank You Economy. His visit to Virginia Tech was the brainchild of Professor John Boyer and his Geography of Wine class who used video and social media to invite Gary V to come to Tech and to waive his usual speaking fee. 

To see Gary in action at Virginia Tech, check out this cell-phone video taken by an audience member: Gary Vaynerchuk Epic Prizes Giveaway at Virginia Tech!

Z. Kelly Queijo is founder of Smart College Visit, Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia-based higher-ed marketing company focused on mobile app and mobile web development with a special interest in creating travel and location-based tools and services. SmartCollegeVisit.com, a college search and college visit planning portal, has been listed in the Top 100 education advice blogs and as one of the top 5 college visit sites. You are invited to follow her on Twitter @collegevisit.

Smart College Visit, Inc. is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated.

As founder of a startup and as a mom, I've learned that running a business and a family are not without challenges. Knowing there's room for improvement with both, I turned to some mom-CEOs - "mompreneurs" - who have gone before me and asked them: How is managing a corporation different from managing a family?

Here's what they had to say:

Penelope Trunk, founder of Brazen Careerist and blogger at Penelope Trunk

A family loves you. A company doesn't. A family is boring on a day-to-day basis. A company is exciting on a day-to-day basis. The external world rewards you for managing a company. Managing a family generates internal rewards.

Kim Orlando, founder of TravelingMom.com and the TravelingMom Blogger Network

Two huge differences in running a company and running a family immediately come to mind.  The people you manage in a company generally do what you tell them to and the people you manage in a family generally do not. Also you can replace insubordinate employees but not family members!

Jeannie Borin, M.Ed, president & founder of College Connections

Certainly, there is unconditional love in most families where errors and inappropriate actions are forgiven. Try acting out in a business setting and see what happens. My family can run me at times where I am more reactive versus my company that I run. Seems like there is less emotional control in a family and the true self is often revealed. Business is business and “keeping it together” is crucial. I can bring “new blood” into our company – not so easy to do in a family. Also, it’s simpler to control who leaves and who stays in a company. After all, you can’t fire family members. Within our family, I support more decisions than I make.  Whereas, I have more control in decision making for College Connections. In either scenario, there is an emotional investment and I relish in the accomplishments of my family, students and parents.

Mary Guy Miller, Ph.D., president, IDD, Inc.

Anyone who has the privilege and responsibility to lead (whether it be a family or a corporation) understands how to juggle many tasks and prioritize the critical path. No one should pretend to be able to 'do it all.'  Families and businesses that run the best share responsibility and understand the value of great communication. Many women excel in their ability to build cooperation and establish an environment of effective communication and so it is not surprising that we have seen a great increase in successful women CEOs.

Nancy Phillips, REALTOR and founder of Legacy Builders, named 2010 Builder of the Year for the New River Valley Homebuilders Association

Both are fun!

Z. Kelly Queijo is founder of Smart College Visit, Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia-based higher-ed marketing company focused on mobile app and mobile web development with a special interest in creating travel and location-based tools and services. SmartCollegeVisit.com, a college search and college visit planning portal, has been listed in the Top 100 education advice blogs and as one of the top 5 college visit sites. You are invited to follow her on Twitter @collegevisit.

Smart College Visit, Inc. is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated.

It's been a little over a year since I started Smart College Visit, Inc. and while the business began as a blog in 2009, it was in April of 2010 when I sold myself on the idea that I could create a business based on my passions: higher-ed marketing, technology, and travel.

Winning an award for "best business concept" was the affirmation I needed to move forward faster. Now, it's been a year and SmartCollegeVisit.com has morphed into a college search and full-service college visit planning portal. Through collaboration with others, we've been able to take college visits mobile with the launch of the Visit Virginia Tech iPhone app.

The takeaway advice, set by the panel of judges at the 2010 VTKnowledgeWorks Entrepreneurship Summit was "Think Big and Focus." These two concepts can easily be perceived as at odds with one another, but not in my case. Marketing, technology and travel are the BIG ideas; higher education, the focus.

From a Blog to a Business 2011 on Prezi

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Z. Kelly Queijo is founder of Smart College Visit, Inc., a Blacksburg, Virginia-based higher-ed marketing company focused on mobile app and mobile web development with a special interest in creating travel and location-based tools and services. SmartCollegeVisit.com, a college search and college visit planning portal, has been listed in the Top 100 education advice blogs and as one of the top 5 college visit sites. You are invited to follow her on Twitter @collegevisit.

Smart College Visit, Inc. is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated.

If you live in the Roanoke or New River Valley region of Virginia, then it's likely you've heard of Donna Dilley or seen her on TV giving etiquette advice on everything from cell phones to global business. 

Donna wrote an excellent post for Smart College Visit on how to dress and engage during a college admissions interview. It's one of the most frequently read posts on SmartCollgeVisit and it sparked my interest in getting to know her better. Now, she's become my go-to person for any question I have about responding with grace or thoughtfulness in certain situations.

This works great when I can wait until we can talk or exchange email, but during a recent Twitter chat a manners question was directed to me about college admission visits. A participant asked whether or not a student should respond to a thank-you-for-visiting letter from the admissions office following a campus tour. 

As my mind raced to find an appropriate answer, the thought "What would Donna Dilley do?" popped into my head. Would she ignore the opportunity to respond with thanks? Is this an opportunity for the student to stand out with grace and intelligence to someone who has the power to make a decision that could impact the future path of a teen? Does someone's future hang on the value of a thank you note?

I responded as I think Donna would have advised: 

@collegevisit: "So few ppl will respond to the TY letter, that if you do, you will def stand out in a good way #collegechat"

When it comes to college admissions, standing out is a good thing and saying thank you is an easy, accessible way to make a difference that counts, and as Donna has proven many, many times: manners count. 

Donna Dilley will speak to Women in Leadership on "Etiquette in the Digital Age" on Wednesday, March 23, 2011.

Z. Kelly Queijo is the founder of Smart College Visit, Inc., developer of mobile campus guides for colleges and universities and owner of SmartCollegeVisit.com, a college visit portal.  Smart College Visit, Inc. is a client of Handshake Media, the parent company of Handshake 2.0.

You're invited posts by Z. Kelly Queijo on Handshake 2.0 and by Donna Dilley on Handshake 2.0.

Veteran business coach Melinda F. Emerson, president, MFE Consulting, LLC, is a woman on a mission and that mission is to end small business failure. Knowing the critical importance of building a strong network, Emerson turned to Twitter and began hosting SmallBizChat in April of 2009.  “I wanted to create a vehicle for start-up and emerging entrepreneurs to ask questions in a safe environment and learn about things that could come up as a problem in their small businesses down the road.”

Together with Cathy Larkin (@cathywebsavvypr) as co-host, and her virtual assistant, Sonia Schenker (@yourjobmyoffice) who transcribes the chat, these three women have built a following that draws over a hundred participants contributing more than 800 tweets for the hour-long chat. 

Even with 59 chats under her belt, Emerson doesn't claim to know it all. “I learn something every week. Technology is great, but it is not guaranteed to work. There are limits to communicating in 140 characters.”

To compensate for these limitations, Emerson not only publishes the chat's transcript, but also publishes a Q&A from each #Smallbizchat on her blog every Thursday morning, following the chat so that  people who do not use Twitter can benefit from the information as well.

SmallBizLady formula for a successful online chat

1. Use a script.  Emerson posts questions for the experts using Q1 for the first question, Q2, Q3, and so on, with answers carrying the notation A1, A2, etc. to make it easy to follow the conversation and the transcript.

2. Have an expert guest and network of supporters who will chime in and add great value to the conversation.

3. Publish a Q & A the next day for non-Twitter users.

Emerson is finding chats work.  "As a small business coach, my mission is to end small business failure.  #Smallbizchat is one way that I work towards my goal."

#SmallBizChat takes place every Wednesday at 8 p.m., Eastern. You're invited to follow Melinda Emerson @SmallBizLady on Twitter.

From Handshake 2.0:

Melinda Emerson is a Virginia Tech alumna and spoke at Virginia Tech on March 16, 2010.

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Z. Kelly Queijo is the founder of SmartCollegeVisit and a frequent contributor ro Handshake 2.0. You're invited to follow SmartCollegeVisit on Twitter, @collegevisit where she hosts #CampusChat on Wednesdays at 9 PM Eastern, immediately following #SmallBizChat.

Those posts by Z. Kelly Queijo may also be of interest:

Easy Ways to Keep in Step with a Twitter Chat
How to Rock on a Twitter Chat
Twitter Tools for #CampusChat