It is all too common for modern couples to have a hard time making time for each other and their relationships, so Paul and Debbie Lamb are using technology to provide a new way to help couples reconnect. They founded Lambs on Love, Inc., the company that launched Be A Better Partner online. The program includes activities to help couples re-ignite their fire in a “fun, interactive and thoroughly modern way.” In other words, the Lambs use technology to create solutions for personal challenges that traditionally called for a face-to-face with a counselor or therapist.

Working from an internet base, the couple have devised a plan to bring more fun and closeness to other couples. It’s not just a matter of logging onto the website to complete exercises; the Lambs encourage their clients to use other technologies, including cell phones, PDAs and email, to bring the fun back to their relationships.

The Be A Better Partner website offers the plan workbook for sale, as well as other merchandise, through an online store. The Lambs also utilize a blog that not only offers practical solutions and light-hearted information for couples, but also serves to drive traffic to their website. And it’s a very functional website.

And here’s the amazing thing: according to Paul Lamb, the couple put their website together using free tools they found on the internet. It took them a bit of time, but the end result is great. And it’s just one more example of how good technology begets even more good technology to solve problems and meet needs in entirely new ways.

You might wonder how a refrigerator repair business would be linked to the world of high tech. The relationship is no mystery to John Jowers, creator and operator of AntiqueAppliances.com. A line of work that started almost as a lark grew so quickly by word of mouth in his local area that Jowers realized he had a winner and sought some way to go national with it. High tech was his answer.

John Jowers’s dad, Marvin, got into the appliance business after World War II. In its earliest years, the business was mostly a repair business; in the 1950s, the elder Jowers opened a franchise to sell appliances. John learned about appliances working alongside his father, and turned them into his career in the 1980s. Located in a vacation community in Georgia, the store and its employees experienced seasonal down time each year, until John and crew turned that time into paydirt.

After restoring their first several antique refrigerators and stoves, which seemed to fly out the door, John Jowers realized there was a much broader market for antique appliances that actually work. His challenge was in finding a way to tap into that market. His answer: AntiqueAppliances.com. He enlisted the aid of a professional web developer and launched his site, which gets over 500,000 hits every month.

Today, AntiqueAppliances.com not only restores old appliances but they sell parts for older units, they do appraisals, and they can put you in touch with modern reproductions of the vintage pieces. Jowers’s team will even customize your antique to match your décor perfectly. You can learn all about the business at the website, which tells you everything you want to know about his store, including store hours for the brick-and-mortar location. And if you just can’t make it to Clayton, Georgia to see his inventory, you can browse his aisles online.

How did one old refrigerator bring him to this point? In a word – the Web. The know-how of his web developer has brought thousands of visits to the site and more than a hundred sites link to AntiqueAppliances. For Jowers, the marriage of early 20th century consumer products and 21st century internet technology is a happy union. In fact, the website has become a business of its own, accepting paid advertising from others who want to buy or sell antique appliances.

The business of insurance has a long history – for many years, businesses have paid a premium to ensure they won’t be wiped out in the event of a property loss. Naturally, the party providing insurance does not want to pay out more than they must, so they avoid unnecessarily risky propositions and we tend to think of the industry as being pretty conservative. Today, one successful insurance man has embraced technology to reach out to other entrepreneurs who make their livelihood with technology and help them meet their insurance needs.

Fred Gaston’s family have been in the insurance business since the 19th century; today, they operate a successful agency in New York, Gaston & Associates. Like his father and grandfather before him, Fred Gaston sells insurance. In a departure from the firm’s traditional business, however, Fred saw an opportunity and seized it. In 1999, he embarked on a venture to provide specialized, niche insurance coverage for businesses that work in technology sectors.

Technology opened a new avenue of business for Gaston & Associates, but rather than starting from scratch, Fred launched his new enterprise, InsureNewMedia.com, as a part of the family’s established, traditional insurance firm. It is not surprising, though, that he pursues his clients in a new, high-tech way: he finds new clients over the internet and they apply for coverage the same way.

The company’s website claims nearly 4,000 clients, all doing business in the computer and data technology industries, as well as online publishing and media. InsureNewMedia.com will let you know if you are eligible for the company’s products. The site is all business, right down to the gray pinstripe motif. And the technology firm’s mission statement is Gaston & Associates’ mission statement, keeping traditional values alive while recognizing the needs of a new technology-oriented sector.

Fred has actually created four separate brands in response to the need he perceived among niche groups. Through his startup initiative InsureNewMedia.com and its offshoots, Gaston has employed the power of technology to provide liability and loss protection to entrepreneurs in IT and software development, as well as other internet enterprise.

Lextech will provide technology expertise for the 2008 Whiteboard Challenge held on June 17th. This event gives local applicants an opportunity to present their innovative ideas to members of the Chicago entrepreneurial community and a chance win a $5,000 prize courtesy of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd.

Presenters have 5 minutes to describe their innovative idea, business concept or solution to a known problem to a panel of experts using an interactive whiteboard system. Lextech will provide the interactive systems and act as a technology resource. Recording devices will be set up on the whiteboards to capture and display each presenterʼs notes and drawings on additional screens.

“As an active member of the Chicagoland entrepreneurial community, Lextech understands the need to encourage new innovations and novel ideas that can be the catalyst for future growth,” says Program Leader of Early Market Partners, Inc. David Smith, “We are delighted to have their involvement in the 2008 Whiteboard Challenge as a demonstration of their commitment to the vitality of our local technology community.”

Submit your innovation or learn more about the event at http://www.mitefchicago.org. Applications are due by May 18, 2008. Final presenters will be selected by a team of experienced entrepreneurs by June 2, 2008.