We’ve been busy blogging in light of National Small Business Week.  Check out Stacey’s small business superheroes for example.  Today, we take a quick scan at some of the news and stories that have jumped out at us so far this week’s events for a mid-week round up.

Here are the top five: 

1. Small businesses, cautious but confident.  “Small business owners are more confident about their local economies than they are about the national economy,” the Associated Press reported. “In the next 12 months, 42 percent of the participants expect their local economic conditions to improve, while 35 percent expect the national economy to get better, according to Bank of America’s small business owner report, which surveyed small business owners from across the nation.”

2. Small biz super heroes. Inc.com writes up the 10 Standouts at Small Business Week, which gives us the skinny on 10 of the 51 total nominees for Small 2012 Small Business Person of the Year. That honor, as @SBAgov tweeted, went to Victoria Tifft of THE State of Ohio. Meanwhile, the #2 spot on Inc.com’s list is First State Manufacturing, which employs 50 people and earned $4.5 million in 2010.  What stood out for me was that the company was founded in a garage – so too was PRWeb’s parent company, Vocus.

3. Small business evangelist. Small business owners might know Ramon Ray from the media site he started, Smallbiztechnology.com. This week he announced he was joiningvendor Infusionsoft but his fans and followers should think of him the Robert Scoble of small business. Scoble, it might well be argued, can be credited with legitimizing corporate blogging.  As for the oulet he founded, it’ll remain on course and speed.  “Smallbiztechnology.com will remain the same as it’s always been, a great resources for small businesses,” wrote Ray. “The editorial integrity will be the same, we’ll always cover companies, even Infusionsoft competitors, who provide technology solutions to growing businesses.”

4. Banking on small business. Which bank is making the most loans to small businesses? That tittle goes to Wells Fargo, which says “it approved more than $548 million in SBA 7(a) loans nationwide in the first-half of federal fiscal year 2012.”  This struck me as rather big news, in a time where credit is short, and loans hard to come by, and banking news that’s generally dismal, that’s been underreported. Want to know more about small business loans?  Check out Wells Fargo’s FAQs.

5. What’s on PRWeb for small business? In doing some searches for good news, I took a scan to see what our customers were saying in preparation for National Small Business Week: Cablevision offers small business “thrivability” tips; The UPS Store is recruiting entrepreneurs with free franchise seminars; CityMax.com announced a survey that says one-third of online entrepreneurs are over 50; Sam’s Club gets social and launches a Small Business Exchange.

Photo credits:  Joan Stewart, Pintrest and Smallbiztechnology.

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Filed under: Small Business by Frank Strong