The Roanoke Times has created an interesting tool to connect all local college students in the Roanoke and New River Valley called BigLickU. Thanks to Eric for sending the article found at NRV News.

There is no doubt the newspaper industry has been trying to find a creative way to connect to this demographic audience. Many are no longer reading traditional newspapers.

The site leaked out some time ago and it remained live for public view. However, the latest version is much different and focuses heavily on YouTube videos for content and has a plethora of advertisements throughout the site ro support the maintenance. There are also opportunities for visitors to give feedback and post comments.

Overall, it is a site you definitely want to visit and congrats to the Roanoke Times for recognizing a need and executing.

The question is will college students embrace it and spread it though viral channels to make BigLickU as popular as Facebook? That is to be seen.

This past Thursday, Roanoke Biz2Biz hosted a bloggers workshop at WDBJ 7. Over 50 individuals – half bloggers, and half non-bloggers – attended the event.

The event provided an opportunity for people to learn more about the concept of blogging for business and community efforts, as well as, providing an offline opportunity for local bloggers to meet face-to-face.

Below are some posts about the event…

Andrew Cohill

Biz Talk

Fragments from Floyd

Roanoke Found – Keith Clinton

Roanoke Fire Blog

All young adults and anyone reading this blog, if you are looking for something to do in Roanoke this weekend, then come to the Roanoke St. Patrick’s Day Celebration on March 16th & 17th.

This annual event is one of the biggest and best of its kind around. If you have never been, then try it out this weekend.

Today, I spoke to two entrepreneurship classes at Virginia Tech with the CEO of Webmail.us – Pat Matthews. The classes are taught by another local young entrepreneur J.B. Hite. There were 50 students in the class – mostly seniors who were very engaged in learning more about the opportunities in the region.

For instance, how do you start internet companies when you do not have programming skills? Are relationships with your friends at risk when you start businesses with them?

A couple of points raised to the students were – would you rather be a big fish in a small sea or a small fish in a large sea? Are you factoring in the cost of living when making your living decision or does it matter? Not sure if they had thought of these concepts.

Additionally, Pat challenged the students to follow their passion instead of the money or location – and that passion does not necessarily mean you have to start your own business.

Overall, it was a great exchange between local students wanting to start a business. The challenge is to convert some of those.

Perhaps that next step is to attend the Roanoke Entrepreneurship Workshop on April 4. 

The folks at Roanoke Biz2Biz have launched a new blog focused on small business in the Roanoke Valley called Biz Talk. The blog is divided into four segments – business, government, health and entrepreneur – offering unique perspectives from each vantage point.

Subscribe to this blog and add to your blogroll as there will be more content added in the days to come.