Wake up, world, to today’s way of doing business. This is no time to hide behind a rock and think you have every good reason not to produce results in 2010. Guess again. All vital signs on globalization indicate that the best is yet to come.

How so? For one, longevity. Globalization has been around since well before I started my business in 1985. Even back then I was tooting the “go global” horn loud and clear, but in a very different manner — through Telexes, faxes, expensive overseas telephone calls, in person visits with customers 12,000 miles away and, eventually, e-mails.

Second, the Internet. This powerhouse tool makes it a heck of a lot easier and cheaper to find and connect with folks worldwide, transact business across borders, get paid efficiently, follow up whenever needed and continue this precious and prosperous business cycle until we retire.

So what can I tell you that you don’t already know? Let’s start with last year and review the “Top 10 Global Trends for Small Businesses for 2009” that we put together. How did we fare? Nine out of ten of our predictions are pretty much on target. No. 2, where we said dotMobi “will take global root in 2009,” did not happen. Everyone lately is reporting that mobile computing is going to be hot, hot, hot in 2010. And we can’t fail here to reference our admired and trusty colleague Steve King’s forecast at Small Business Labs, for he always stretches our minds with his spot-on trends for the year. He didn’t let us down this year, either. In particular, look at No. 7: Social, Mobile and Cloud Computing Converge. Need we say more about this segment?

Back to what you might not know for 2010. When it comes to globalization, whether for big companies or small, new trends are on the horizon. Let’s examine them.

Read more...