Continuing from our earlier cases, American Express is sponsoring more conversations here in the Insight Community concerning how small businesses can handle the current economic environment. Contributions to our past discussions have made their way to American Express' OPEN Forum blog, and we're looking for further insights that will complement the topics on the economy section of the OPEN Forum blog.

For this case, we're looking for small business owners who have found that teaming up with other business has improved both organizations. If you've experienced this phenomenon, tell us how you developed the relationship. How did it evolve? Why do you think the match was successful? Did you actively search out another business to help out yours? If so, how did you go about doing so? What do you think are the most important criteria to evaluate before partnering with another operation?

Ideally, submissions will contain specific examples and personal experience. Any insight that is selected to be published on the American Express OpenForum blog will be awarded a payment. You may submit multiple insights, but make each submission a post that can stand alone.