Guest post by Raymond McConville with Verizon corporate media relations’ team.

With great power, comes great responsibility. As the operator of some of the most advanced wireless and broadband networks in the world, Verizon has the power to transform lives, and the responsibility to make the world we live in a better place.

It’s with that mindset that we launched the Powerful Answers Award at the International CES this week in Las Vegas.  With $10 million total in prize money, the Powerful Answers Award will be a year-long competition to challenge the best technology minds in the industry to develop wireless, wireline, or cloud-based solutions that address issues in health care, education and sustainability.

This post is from the Verizon Small Business team.

In the spirit of supporting all small business owners, the Verizon Small Business team wants to alert you to an outstanding opportunity from our partners at Chase. 

Have you heard about “Mission Small Business”? 

It’s a joint promotion between Chase and LivingSocial to help up to 12 worthy small business owners during these tough economic times.  It demonstrates their commitment to small businesses, and was developed to provide small businesses with resources needed to make a positive impact on their business. The program will award grants of up to $3 million to small business owners nationwide. 

How would you grow or improve your business if you had an extra $250,000 to work with?

Guest post from Shirley Chun in California, small business marketing manager for Verizon.  To get news specific to California, follow @VZCABiz (www.twitter.com/vzcabiz).

To continue our work to assist small businesses in southern California, my local team sponsored the Verizon Small Business Makeover contest earlier this year. Small business owners entered for a chance to win a $5,000 technology makeover. 

I’m happy to announce that Raquel and John Anthony from Temecula, CA are the grand prize winners! Read about their business and how my team will help get their store the technology they need to run their business more efficiently and productively.

It’s Father’s Day Weekend!  I bet some businesses like restaurants probably get a nice boost in traffic during these celebrated days.  Let us know if your business gets a boost at certain times throughout the year.

The big news in my book this week is the Verizon Hardest Working Small Biz Dad contest.  There is still time for Verizon’s customers who are dads and run their own business to enter for the chance to win $5,000.  Check out these articles I found of interest this week: