Small Business

• 
  American Express Open Forum

• What We Can Learn From Designers

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm

  From Matthew E. May: Warren Berger is the author of Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World, just published by Penguin Press. I found the book to be a breed apart from all of the many design thinking books hitting the shelves, and worth a further look. Question: Why did you write Glimmer? Answer: This book started with me trying to answer for myself the basic question, “What is design?” I’d been writing about it on and off for years, for magazines like Wired, and it was always interesting to me that the term was used in so many different ways. As…

• Market Using Your Grandfather's Business Model: Barter

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:15 pm

  From Shira Levine: No overhead is quite the pleasant notion for small businesses struggling to stay alive and profitable in this economy. Often times advertising, marketing and PR budgets are the first to be slashed when times get tough. Yet those are the very legs that bring more business. Businesses that think outside of the box and even a bit Old Country, using the classic old school barter and applying it online and using social media are finding it easier to keep costs down and their communications departments alive. Bottom line: Hustling an online barter can remove the exchange of…

• The 40-30-30 Rule: Why Risk is Worth It

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pm

  From Michael Schwalbe: Many of the strategies employed in competitive and recreational sports are often applicable in business and our personal lives. One lesson I learned from alpine ski racing was the "40-30-30 Rule." During training, early on, I tried to go fast and I also focused on not falling. On a ride up the ski lift, my coach told me I was missing the point. He explained that success in ski racing, or most sports for that matter, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. And of that, the first 30% was technical skill and experience. The second 30% was the willingness…

• Student Entrepreneurs Turn Dorm Rooms into Business Offices

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:52 pm

  From Jill Fehrenbacher: Few stages in life are as ripe with learning and experimentation, curiosity and exploration, as one’s college years. College used to be viewed as the last rite of passage prior to entering the ‘real world’ -- the last stop before figuring out what you really wanted to do with your life before taking the plunge. But an increasing amount of enthusiastic college students are pairing their diploma earning efforts with entrepreneurial endeavors, resulting in lofty, passion fueled businesses with dorm room roots. Boldness is a crucial element required…

• Choose the Right Metrics...or Make the Wrong Decisions

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:43 pm

  From John Mariotti: Have you been ill and had a temperature lately?  You probably compared your temperature to “normal” which you were taught for years was 98.6 F.  Wrong.  The correct human body temperature is closer to 98.25F (and that is an average, because there are variations from person to person).  The 98.6F reading was developed in 1868, when Carl Wunderlich published a seminal paper on body temperature in 25,000 adults.  But his study was done using imprecise measuring devices and techniques of that era, yet it has been widely accepted over 100…

• 
  Entrepreneur Magazine

• Cash Shy? Try Bootstrapping

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Try these tips for building a successful business with little capital.

• The Irony of the Safe Bet

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Michael Kahan became a successful entrepreneur after walking away from a 10-year career on Wall Street.

• Offers in Compromise

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  If you're in dire straights, there may be help for you yet.

• Save Money by Renegotiating Your Lease

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Carefully consider the economic benefits to reach a win-win agreement.

• 10 Reasons to Upgrade to Windows 7

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  A host of significant upgrades makes Microsoft's newest operating system well worth the wait for any small business.

• 
  Fast Company Feature Articles

• BlueBeat’s Hank Risan: That’s Not the Beatles, It’s a ‘Virtual Cover Band’

  Tyler Gray

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:30 pm

  If you thought that was AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles you streamed for free or downloaded this week for $.25 from BlueBeat.com, it’s an understandable error. The site’s owner Hank Risan tells FastCompany his catalog of music doesn’t include tracks by the original artists, who, of course, own the publishing rights to their music (many have long resisted posting their music for sale online). His tunes aren’t technically Beatles tracks at all but, rather, "psycho-acoustic simulations" of Beatles songs performed and broadcast on BlueBeat and made available for download.

• Mon Dieu! Apple Store Coming the Louvre

  Cliff Kuang

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:30 pm

  There's a price for everything, even in the Louvre: Tomorrow, Apple will be opening up their very first Parisian Apple Store, and it'll sit in the concourse right below I.M. Pei's glass pyramid. According to Bloomberg, this'll be Apple's 277th store, worldwide. It's set to be slightly smaller than the one on Oxford Circus in London. But it's not tiny: The bilevel store will employ 150 people. You can expect the place to be mobbed. The Louvre concourse is one of the most heavily trafficked places in Paris. It links all of the wings of the Louvre, and visitors to the museum have to pass by…

• Winners Announced in the 2009 World Architecture Festival

  Cliff Kuang

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

• Streaming Video? Forget Myka or Roku and Get Windows 7

  Chris Dannen

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:45 pm

  We already know Netflix users are begging for easier ways to get streaming video to their TVs--Xbox, PS3, Roku, and Blu-ray players apparently aren't simple enough solutions. Instead, more and more people watch TV and film on their computers while fuming because they can't easily get all that content--Hulu, Netflix, Amazon--in one place. The Myka ION aims to bridge that gap as the first gizmo to stream both Hulu and Boxee to big screens (in addition to running full-fledged PC apps, which let you add other streaming services). But it's not cheap. At $379 (more if you add on a wireless card and…

• Lamp Powered by Phone Lines Is a Sneaky Way to Get Around Energy Costs

  Ariel Schwartz

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

  Is hooking up electronics to a phone jack unethical? Maybe, but the RJ11 lamp can at least save some cash. The lamp, which features 8 LED bulbs, gets power from your phone socket instead of the grid or a USB port. It's a sneaky way to skirt around power meters, but it does siphon cash from the local telco. Still, the RJ11 does bring a new use to increasingly-abandoned landline jacks. And while the lamp may be incredibly ugly, the $4.69 product is a worthwhile science experiment at the very least. Before trying to hook up all your electronics to the phone line, think twice: the voltage that…

• 
  Escape From Cubicle Nation

• 10 ways to stimulate the economy with your brain

  Pamela

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:58 am

  I don’t know about you, but I get mighty tired of reading newspaper articles and blog rants about the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of stimulus money on our economy. What makes me frustrated is that we waste hours a day fighting with each other about things outside of our control, instead of using our own brains to do something about our local economy. So here is my list of 10 things you can do, right now, to stimulate a small corner of your local economy without spending a dime: Mentor a new business owner.  If you know how to build an effective website or display goods more…

• Spreading the addiction of the TED conference one city at a time

  Pamela

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:24 pm

  There are few things that get me fired up late at night like watching TED videos. For the uninitiated, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and is a conference that takes place once a year. The videos from TED are shared free on their website, and the talks are enough to get you standing up with your fist in the air, clutching your heart with tears streaming down your cheeks, or doubling over with laughter. TED is undertaking a new initiative which is to encourage local communities to sponsor their own events, called “TEDx.” We are hosting ours here in Phoenix,…

• Last chance to attend live Escape from Cubicle Nation workshop in 2009

  Pamela

  28 Oct 2009 | 4:20 pm

  The fabulous and enthusiastic crew from last week’s Escape from Cubicle Nation Workshop in London. Photo by the handsome and talented TMSRuge. I communicate on Twitter so frequently that I just realized some blog readers may not know that my last live Escape from Cubicle Nation workshop will take place on Wednesday, November 4 at the Hotel Belamar in Southern California.  I will be joined by the fabulous and talented Colleen Wainwright, otherwise known as Communicatrix, who is an amazing resource for branding and social media. This will be my last workshop of the year, and the last…

• Response to Chris Brogan about Overnight Success

  Pamela

  25 Oct 2009 | 4:05 pm

  Sitting in the Dallas airport after having spent the weekend speaking and participating in Milana Leshinsky’s Coaching Millions Super Summit, I watched Chris Brogan’s 3-part video series on Overnight Success and felt my heart melt. I related to so much of what he talked about, since I have spent so much time this summer on the road, promoting my book. Getting out in front of people is critical, spreading the message of hope and connection through entrepreneurship is imperative, and creating a powerful business model that serves people well and provides well for my family is a…

• The beauty of dirty laundry

  Pamela

  19 Oct 2009 | 2:38 pm

  At the management conference I attended in Pärnu, Estonia last week, we had a speaker from Denmark, Morten Lund,  a long-time entrepreneur who had, among other things, made good money investing in Skype. As he launched into his presentation, he said: “I have founded over 88 startups. And at the moment, I am bankrupt.” Due to a failed investment in a newspaper business in his native Denmark, he had lost a lot of money. But, he said, he actually was feeling quite good. He was spending lots of time with his four kids, whom he obviously adored. And he remained passionate about…

• 
  Small Business Labs

• Intuit Trends - Social Data on Small Businesses

  Steve

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  "Social data" is the buzzword that describes sharing aggregate or summarized data collected from or contributed by large numbers of users.  A good example of social data is Intuit Trends, an early alpha product available on Intuit Labs.  Trends uses aggregated company financial data collected from the online version of the accounting package Quickbooks.  The application lets small business owners, managers and their advisers explore industry financial trends, share observations, and compare their performance with their peers and/or competitors.

• The Growth of Small Business Analytics

  Steve

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:06 am

  There were two very interesting blog posts related to the use of analytics by small businesses over the last week.  Both caught my eye as interesting examples of the trend towards analytical software and automation. The first comes from Tim Berry's blog via MyVenturepad.  Tim writes about the Huffington Post using A/B testing to pick article headlines.  Online A/B testing is a process where different people are randomly shown different versions of a web page, or in this case different article headlines.  After testing with a number of people, the…

• When Do Megatrends Matter?

  Steve

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:45 am

  An interesting part of the trends business is trend identification is easy.  The hard part is figuring out when a trend will have broad impact and matter to businesses.  iMedia Connection's article 5 Marketing Megatrends You Can't Ignore looks at megatrends that marketers should care about.  The author defines megatrends as: "What's a megatrend, you ask? It's something big. I'm talking really big. Think of a giant unstoppable tsunami of change transforming society as we know it. Think global warming scale -- then apply it to mass human…

• Traditional Business Media Cuts; New Media Grows

  Steve

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  Good article in the NY Times about traditional media business publications reducing staff and coverage.  The usual reasons - lack of advertising, readers fleeing print publications for online, etc. - are given for the decline.  The article goes on to talk about readers being less interested in business news.  This simply isn't true.  If you add in business coverage coming from new media companies like TechCrunch and others, you find that overall business related media coverage and readership has increased over the last decade. What is true is there much less…

• Is Facebook Taking Over the Web?

  Steve

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  With Twitter getting so much attention these days, Facebook almost seems to have drifted into the background.  But the more you look at data on web traffic, the more you realize how big a force Facebook has become.  The chart below is from Mary Meeker's presentation at the Web 2.0 conference a few weeks ago.  It clearly illustrates Facebook's rapid rise to key web player status.   Marketing Charts has another angle on the growth of Facebook.  Their chart (below and sourced from Nielsen) shows the top 10 U.S. Web brands by unique visitors and time…

• 
  Smartbrief: National Federation of Independent Business

• 3 strategies for cutting IT costs

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Recession-battered small companies are looking at every way possible to cut costs, and it is possible for a reduction in spen -More- 

• Study: Small firms create two-thirds of jobs

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  A new Kauffman Foundation analysis of 2007 Census data found that companies younger than 5 years old were responsible for two -More- Save Time and Money Advertising Your Business Avenue Right makes it easy to plan and buy local advertising media that reaches the right audience. Find out how with a free Avenue Right account! Simply login to plan and buy local radio, broadcast TV, print, and online media. Sign up now and get a complimentary white paper, "7 Steps to a Multi-Channel Advertising Campaign."

• Congress extends payroll surtax

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Congress on Thursday approved a sweeping measure that, among other things, extends the life of a 0.2% employer payroll surtax -More- 

• House may delay vote on health care reform bill

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  President Barack Obama is scheduled to make a personal appeal to Democrats today in advance of the scheduled House vote on he -More- 

• 15 reasons to vote against House bill

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Andy Warren, NFIB/Iowa, has a list of 15 reasons why Iowa's congressional delegation should oppose the House health-care ref -More- 

• Photostream from Daylife
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
  How to Change the World

• The 19 bloggers Inc. thinks you should read

  GuyKawasaki

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 pm

  Inc. named 19 bloggers that you should read. We’ve aggregated them all in one place: Inc19.alltop.

• How to Get Found

  GuyKawasaki

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:29 pm

  The reality is that people and technology is getting better and better a blocking out unwanted interruptions—aka, “marketing.” Brian Halligan is the CEO of HubSpot, and he explains in my post on the American Express Open Forum “how to get found.” It’s all about creating great stuff and letting Google et al do what they do: find great stuff.

• How I tweet

  GuyKawasaki

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:47 am

  By popular demand (and some complaints), I’ve done a FAQ with myself about how I tweet. Hope this helps you use Twitter for your business too. I explain how I use ghostwriters and why I repeat my tweets among other “unusual” practices.

• Current Twitter Demo Script

  GuyKawasaki

  28 Oct 2009 | 2:26 am

  This is the set of links that I used to demo Twitter by going down through this list to show why Twitter is such a valuable marketing tool. Introduction Home page Profile page Monitor Search Guy Kawasaki or Alltop Starbucks VIA introduction Search for “Prius” or “Civic” Sell Dell Outlet Kogi BBQ Support Comcast Cares Engage JetBlue Virgin America Fandango Prospect Camaro Camaro near Palo Alto Advanced searches Surfing or skateboarding (shows how to eliminate extraneous results such as “surfing the web” How I Tweet - Find Alltop MyAlltop helped me find this.

• How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness

  GuyKawasaki

  26 Oct 2009 | 4:24 pm

  Over at the American Express Open Forum blog, I explain how to not look clueless on Twitter. The first five ways are: Don’t tell other people how to tweet. Don’t tell the world that you unfollowed someone. Don’t ask people why they unfollowed you. Don’t constantly tweet mundane updates and babble. Don’t use a small picture for an avatar. To read all ten and why they impugn your intelligence, click here.

• 
  Tim Berry: Planning, Startups, Stories

• The Best Startup Funding is Initial Sales

  Tim Berry

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:06 am

  We all forget too easily: the best startup funding is sales. Sure, angel investment, friends and family, SBA loans, all of those options are necessary for most startups. But sales is better. If you can, find the early customers. Give them a deal, make them important, work with them to optimize their needs; but make a sale. Even if you need to go out and find investment — and I speak now as an actual angel investor — there’s almost nothing as convincing as actual sales. People are spending money. It makes a new business proposal far more credible. True, not all businesses can…

• One Problem with Entrepreurship Education

  Tim Berry

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:57 am

  I’m not saying this is the only problem. And, by the way, I’m in favor of entrepreneurship education, when it’s done well. I think it helps … but that’s another post. It’s a simple story. It’s a real problem with business education concerning entrepreneurship in top institutions. It happens way too often. Not that it’s the only problem with entrepreneurship education, but it’s harder to spot. Take an imaginary person named Leslie who’s interested in entrepreneurship and wants to study it and then teach it, as a career. Here’s…

• The Joy of User Revolts

  Tim Berry

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:47 am

  It’s not that surprising, really; and we’ve seen it before with Facebook. When Twitter released a new feature, and it’s users didn’t like it, they had to change it back. The Wired Magazine online story is Mob Rule! How Users Took Over Twitter. I found it interesting reading. For the same kind of thing in Facebook, here’s a link to a Google search for “Facebook user revolt.” The user revolt is a high-class problem. It’s the trappings of success. It means 1) you have users; 2) they care about what you’re doing with the site they use; and 3) there’s a forum or medium they can…

• Why Worry About Spelling? Who Cares!

  Tim Berry

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:05 am

  I’ve complained before, on this blog, about some common misspellings that get to me like fingernails on a chalkboard. Yesterday Megan tipped me off to 11 Gorgeously Ironic Misspellings In Protest Signs on 11Points.com, by Sam Greenspan. Misspelling is bad, yes, but it’s got to be worse, or at the very least more ironic, when people butcher the language while complaining about language.  The post includes pictures showing the following exact quotes taken from protest signs defending the English language: Get a brain, morans Respect Are Country, Speak English This is America and our only…

• Why I’ll Never Retire

  Tim Berry

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:55 am

  Ugh, baby boomers, retirement, selling the business … ouch. Strikes me like “lions, tigers, and bears,” in the Wizard of Oz. Scary. I’m 61. It was my choice to change my job more than two years ago, so that now instead of managing my company with 45 employees I’m writing, speaking, blogging, and teaching. And I thank God that I had that choice. The company’s better off with a new management team, and I’m better off with a new job. But I worry about the rest of us. Retirement scares the hell out of me. One of my closest friends retired two years ago. Now he’s bored out of his…

• 
  Inc.com

• The Truth about Cyber Monday; Tour the Gawker Offices

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:02 am

  Tour a Start-up's Office: The Gawker edition. Gawker Media, the parent company behind blogs like Valleywag and io9, has been experiencing a growth spurt of 40 percent year-over-year. Now Silicon Alley Insider takes us inside CEO Nick Denton's "steampunk" headquarters in downtown New York as part of its new tour a startup photo feature. What should you expect from inside the belly of the blogging beast?: A couch straight out of the Matrix, a roof deck for courting advertisers, the requisite glass-walled conference room, and a "comfortingly familiar" library-like atmosphere to soothe recent…

• Robots in Medicine

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  According to the Telegraph, researchers have designed the world's smallest motor, allowing a robot submarine the width of two human hairs to potentially enter a stroke victim's bloodstream and travel to sensitive parts of the body like the brain. A spokesperson from the Institute of Physics says this device could "save lives by reaching parts of the body, like a stroke-damaged cranial artery, that (other instruments) have previously been unable to reach ." If robots are able to enter patient's bodies, what else could they potentially treat years from now? My good buddy, Jim Tulenko, has been…

• Biz Lessons from the Poker Table; Google's New Idea

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:19 am

  Yanks win, but few spoils for Bronx businesses. Congratulations to the New York Yankees, for winning (yet another) World Series championship. But while the team celebrates, owners of the struggling small businesses whose shops flank the new $1.5 billion House that Steinbrenner Built, are feeling more like the defeated Phillies. As the New York Times reported earlier this week, despite the Bronx Bombers' winning season, sales at local businesses were down significantly from previous years. New traffic patterns around the stadium are one reason for the drop, but some vendors blame the team's…

• Advertisement:

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:19 am

• The Bill In Congress To Censor Fraud Sites

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pm

  It sounds like a well-intentioned bill. The U.S. House of Representatives has a piece of legislation making its way through (it passed the Financial Services Committee this week) that would make Internet Service Providers subject to fines for not blocking fraudulent web sites. Specifically, they are targeting bogus financial scams. Well, who wouldn't want those kinds of sites blocked (besides the criminals committing actual scams)? Once again, Washington looks like it is still living in the time of Washington. Here's why this is a bad idea: - When sites are blocked, it is inevitable that some…

• 
  NYT: Small Business

• Tool Kit: Helpful Hints From the Printed Page

  By PAUL B. BROWN

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:24 am

  Several recently published books may help entrepreneurs cope with tough times.

• Practically Speaking: One in Four Businesses Calls the Owner ‘Ma’am’

  By MICKEY MEECE

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:37 pm

  More than a quarter of all businesses are women-owned, but a high proportion of those are one-woman shops. Organizations are working to help them size up.

• Op-Ed Contributor: Help Small Businesses Hire Again

  By MARK ZANDI

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:14 pm

  In order to ensure that the economic recovery becomes a lasting expansion, the government must enact policy to deal with employment, particularly for small businesses.

• In the Shadow of Yankee Stadium, an Off Year

  By PATRICK McGEEHAN

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:33 pm

  Businesses near the team’s new stadium say they have not shared in the team’s success this season.

• Burden of Safety Law Imperils Small Toymakers

  By LESLIE WAYNE

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:40 pm

  The law requiring safety standards for products used by children is costly for handcrafters and small businesses.

• 
  Copyblogger

• The Oscar the Grouch Guide to Building a More Remarkable Blog

  Sonia Simone

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:33 am

  This week marked the 40th anniversary of the breakthrough TV program Sesame Street. I’ve written before about some of the many lessons you can learn from this cultural icon, but today I’m going to zero in something new. You might have an Elmo blog, a Cookie Monster blog, or a Big Bird blog. (How you define those is up to you.) But some of the smartest and most successful bloggers out there bear more in common with the show’s least-likeable character: Oscar the Grouch. Oscar was an important character from the show’s beginning, and on the surface he doesn’t seem to quite fit in.

• Here’s Something to Think (and Talk) About

  Brian Clark

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:55 am

  I’m flying to New York City today for the Audience Conference, so I thought I’d share a quotation about the relationship between writers (or any content creator) and the people they hope to connect with. When talented people write badly it’s generally for one of two reasons: Either they’re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they’re driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They’re moved by a desire to touch the audience. ~Robert McKee Let’s discuss. What do McKee’s words mean to you? About the…

• Get Off Your Computer and Become a Better Blogger

  James Chartrand

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:45 am

  Bloggers spend a lot of time on their computers. They’re posting, reading, commenting on other blogs, sending Tweets, checking half a dozen social networking sites, and generally being web-geeky. They find something interesting or random, and then clue in other people to that interesting or random thing. This is how blog posts gain steam on Digg or go viral. This is how we find out about new YouTube videos. This is how we communicate now. Except we don’t. We were people before we were bloggers Think about the blogs that you like the most. Like, to pick a totally random example,…

• The Quentin Tarantino Guide to Creating Killer Content

  Sean Platt

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:58 am

  In a recent Copyblogger post discussing how the king of content is being slowly usurped by the Crown Prince of Context, author Larry Brooks referenced the remarkable opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Inglourious Basterds. There are few writers like Tarantino, and though his verbal carpet bombs and kinetic escalation of violence aren’t for everyone, there is no doubt that the dude follows his muse. Those who love him will eagerly wait in lines wrapped around the block to show their support. In short, Tarantino sells it every time. And by it, I mean an ironclad belief in…

• How to Get Lucky With Content Marketing

  Traci Feit Love

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:36 am

  Do you feel like you’re fighting for every page view your blog receives? Do you wonder why you’re struggling to find readers when other bloggers seem to just hit “publish” and the world comes running? It may be tempting to throw up your hands and say, “those other guys have all the luck,” but it won’t get you anywhere. The truth is, those “lucky” people are doing something you’re not doing. (Or they’re doing what you are doing, but better.) If you want to get lucky, you’re going to have to give up the “poor…

• 
  crowdSPRING Blog

• Small Business Spotlight of the Week

  Bethany

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:39 am

  end povertee I just love when I find a project posted on our site from a company that is just an amazing feel-good.  And this company mixes fashion with the feel-good.  To me, it doesn’t get any better than that! end povertee® clothing line was created as a platform that would inspire, bring awareness and empower every one of its customers to make an impact to reduce extreme poverty in our Global family. Every time you purchase end povertee® tees and products 50% of the net profits raised from the sale of the goods is given directly to charities/organizations working to eradicate…

• Twitter Link Roundup #19 - Design, Small Business, Social Media And More

  Ross

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:02 pm

  Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week! Web Design Trends for 2010 - http://bit.ly/458nIe 45 Animal Inspired Logo Designs - http://bit.ly/u5JWi 40 Incredibly Useful Web Design Tools You Should Use Daily - http://bit.ly/44p4ik The 16 Most Influential Web Design Blogs of 2009 - http://bit.ly/2K8sRX…

• We’re not Burger King, but we still want you to ‘Have it Your Way’

  Bethany

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:21 am

  The crowdSPRING message is all over the place - we have a blog, we use Twitter, we have Facebook, we have email, we have customer support tickets and oh yeah, we even have phones. We’ve tried to cover all our bases on how to get out our message and constantly work on ensuring you’re able to talk to us as well. We think we’ve hit all the angles, but being the matchmaker that I am, I want to make sure you’re 1. getting information from us that you’re looking for and 2. able to contact us any way you want to. We want to know: - what news/information do you want to…

• 10 Ways Small Businesses Can Harness Big Crowds

  Ross

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:36 am

  Would your small business benefit from reducing costs, improving product and/or service quality, more effectively competing with bigger companies, innovating more, enhancing your expertise, and better managing your own capacity and the capacity of your small team? You bet! In this post, I discuss 10 ways that your small business can leverage crowdsourcing. I’ll explain each suggestion and will recommend ways that you could take advantage of the service for your small business. I’ll include examples for each suggestion to show how a small businesses can leverage each service. First…

• Small business, startup founders, and leadership.

  Mike

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:55 am

  Thinking about leadership in crisis, I was remembering the story of one particular venture. The leader who put together this tiny company was a visionary, a learner, and an insatiably curious individual. The venture was not his first; he had already served as a founding member of one team which launched a successful enterprise; had started another successful enterprise himself; and had eventually gone on to found a third triumphant (though almost disastrous) venture three years later. I have been pondering the success of this last venture and considering why, against incredible, fierce odds…

• 
  800 CEO Read Blog

• The Future

  jack

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  “The future you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.” –Aeschylus

• Lee Eisenberg’s Shoptimism (and 50% off of The Number)

  dylan

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:20 am

  One of the books we really tried to get people to read in 2006 was Lee Eisenberg’s The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think about the Rest of Your Life, published by Simon & Schuster imprint Free Press. We were huge evangelists of the book, constantly blogging and telling everyone we could about it. It was a Jack Covert Selects and Todd picked it as one of his best books of 2006. And, even though it was a best-seller, it never caught on as much as we thought it should. As Todd wrote looking back on it that year: The book was released with high hopes from Free Press and the…

• The Portfolio Catalog & Business Beat

  dylan

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:43 am

  Being the publisher of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, we’re obviously fond of the folks at Portfolio. Beyond the personal connection, though, we feel they have consistently put out some of most intriguing books in the business genre over the past decade, and continue to do so. The list below contains the titles coming out of that publishing house in hardcover before year end. (In the interest of full disclosure, I nabbed this list from the Portfolio Javelin blog.) Working for You Isn’t Working for Me: The Ultimate Guide to Managing Your Boss by Katherine Crowley & Kathi…

• October’s Best Selling International Titles

  Roy

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

  It’s been awhile! A whole summer, in fact! Have you felt as much out of the loop as to what’s HOT across the seas, oceans and borders of the world as I have? Well fear no longer, gentle reader for I have got 800CEOREADs listings of what business types and cohorts are reading! So, if you’re wondering what’s shakin’ in Shanghai or what’s new in Newfoundland – hang on tight, for we’re going around the globe – Take a look at our TOP TEN INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLING BOOKS of OCTOBER 2009: No. 1 - Australia: Put More Cash in Your Pocket by Loral…

• Brainstorming?

  jon

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:08 pm

  Every day, people come together in groups to brainstorm: share ideas, create projects, and turn dreams into reality. The leaders of those groups would be well advised to serve the appetizer, The Art of the Idea: And How It Can Change Your Life by John Hunt before those meetings get under way. Because, let’s be honest, oftentimes, there are people who think they have “the answer” before the question has really been explored. And others feel like they have nothing to say at all. Both cases, of course, are untrue, and this uniquely designed book creates a great starting point…

• 
  Smallbiztechnology.com

• Survey Results: Growing Small Businesses to Spend More on Marketing, Especially Online

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:48 am

  The results are in from the survey we brought you last July in partnership with Campaigner and research firm Hurwitz & Associates. Respondents were small businesses with 1-20 employees, and shared how they are succeeding today and adapting their marketing plans and budgets to compete more effectively. The survey found that small businesses expecting growth are more likely to spend more on marketing, and are shifting more of their marketing efforts from traditional media to online tools like social media and email marketing. “The survey clearly reveals that the use of low-cost Web-based…

• New Online Advertising Service Reinforces Your Brand: ReTargeter

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  ReTargeter is an innovative online advertising service that lets you follow customers who visit your web site, to other web sites. This increases the visibility of your brand in front of them. I met Arjun Dev Arora, CEO and Founder of ReTargeter at BizTechDay 2009. ReTargeter is pretty simple.

• New Contests & Awards for Small Businesses

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:02 am

  Every other week we update our list of contests and awards for growing companies - here are some new ones. This listing is brought to you by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com. 2009 Home Business Awards (United Kingdom Only) Enter by: November 6, 2009 Run by UK home-business website, Enterprise Nation, there are five categories with thousands of pounds worth of profiles and prizes to be won. Deadline date for entry is 6 November with winners being announced at the Enterprise Nation Conference on Home Enterprise Day on Friday 20 November. * Home Business of the Year * Home…

• 5 Easy Steps To Safer Computing For You and Your Employees

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  Security is like the forsaken child of technology. It's something we all think about, yet few of us have policies in place to ensure our businesses are as secure as they should be. We know about social media, we're still struggling with email marketing, many of our web sites are useful and impotent tools (but at least we know it), our sales could be so much better, I could go on. But security - we don't have the faintest clue what to do or how to protect ourselves. We think we'll never be hacked or attacked. Yet many businesses, yeah, small businesses are attacked each month. The National…

• Is It Time to Starting Loving A Particular Phone? HTC's New Campaign

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  Many people either love or hate a particular wireless service provider? I love Verizon Wireless and have been a long time customer. Others of you are in love (or hate) with Sprint, AT&T or T-Mobile. What I see coming (or am I late?) is where more customers are in love with particular telephones and/or particular telephone vendors and wireless carriers. I think at this time many businesses focus on the carrier and the monthly fee. Unless there is a specific application they are building that needs a particular device. Motorola, Samsung, LG, Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple and HTC. They and others all…

• 
  Small Business Trends

• Is the Economy Really Improving for Small Business? You Decide

  Denise O'Berry

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:20 am

  As the economists declare we are coming out of the recession, I bet your bottom line tells a different story. After all, they declared the recession months after you had already been knee deep in the throes of the struggle to keep your head above water for many months. But the good news is that the talking heads are discussing a positive outlook on the horizon. That alone helps people feel better about the future. There are plenty of groups talking about how the signs for small business are improving. Let’s take a look at a few of the statistics. PNC Economic Outlook Survey According to the…

• Jumping Through Hoops of Red Tape

  Mark Anderson

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Every company has those rules or policies that just make no sense. I was in sales and wanted to send some promotional items to a promising potential client. I grabbed some golf balls from the supply room and was heading back to my desk when I met my supervisor in the hallway. Excitedly I talked up my great lead and was immediately rebuffed. “Are you crazy?! Do you know how much those cost? We can’t send those out!” I persisted, and after 20 minutes was told I’d have to fill out some paperwork. I’d know in a few weeks. After muttering about jumping through a hoop…

• New IRS Site Simplifies Small-Business Retirement Plans

  Anita Campbell

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:40 am

  The average American’s retirement plan isn’t worth as much as it was a few years ago — but offering such plans is still a huge perk that helps small businesses attract potential employees. No longer are retirement plans just for big companies. You’ll find a good selection of plans out there for companies with only a few employees and even for sole proprietors. However, wading through all your options can be intimidating. To help, the IRS just launched a new Web site, IRS Retirement Plans Navigator, that simplifies the process of choosing and managing a retirement plan by putting…

• How to Be a Renegade At Home

  Lisa Barone

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

  If you don’t know Jonathan Fields, he’s the author of a book called Career Renegade that shows people how to become entrepreneurs and make a career out of something the love. He’s also a wonderful blogger. In a recent post, Jonathan talks about the renegade employee — basically, how to love what you do in the confines of working for someone else – and outlines eight qualities that must exist. In reading the post, there were a couple of things that struck me. First, I noticed that many of the factors outlined by Jonathan on how to love your job were dependent on your…

• Green Business Tips Contest Winners Announced

  Anita Campbell

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:46 pm

  This past September we asked you to contribute your best tips for going green with your small business.  As a token of our appreciation, we gave every U.S. resident who contributed a chance to win a Free HP Desktop Computing Suite. And the winner is… Congratulations to Lizette Pirtle! Lizette is the co-founder and CEO of International Expansion Experts and blogs regularly on Small Biz Franchise Blog and Franchise Success: The New Formula. You can learn more about Lizette by following her on Twitter and LinkedIn. Lizette wins the beautiful HP Compaq dc7900 Ultra Slim Business PC, 22-inch…

• 
  Seth's Blog

• Take what you can get (?)

  Seth Godin

  7 Nov 2009 | 3:34 am

  When you're just starting out or when your organization is struggling or when the economy isn't hot, it's very tempting to take what you can get.You just graduated from law school and you have a lot of debt and the best job you can get is doing collections work. Should you take it?Your consulting firm is organized around providing high-value work for large corporations, but the only gigs you can get in the consideration set for are small, struggling companies looking to spend a few hundred dollars a day. Should you take them?The list goes on and on.There are two things worth remembering here:…

• Everyone is clueless

  Seth Godin

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:29 am

  The problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've got you end up with almost nothing.Everyone doesn't go to the chiropractor, everyone doesn't give to charity, everyone has never been to Starbucks. Everyone, in fact, lives a decade behind the times and needs hundreds of impressions and lots of direct experience before they realize something is going on.You don't want everyone. You want the right someone.Someone who cares about what you do. Someone who will make a contribution that matters. Someone who…

• The unclicking 84%

  Seth Godin

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:36 am

  Mark points us to this great set of stats.Basically, all of the clicks for all the ads online come from only 16% of the surfers, and most of them come from just 4% of all internet users.So, if you optimize your ads for clicks, it means you're ignoring a huge population.If your business is built around the kind of person who clicks, you win. If it isn't, you either need to not buy ads online or buy ads optimized for attention and familiarity, not clicks.Imagine that only left-handed people clicked on ads (it's about the same percent). What are you going to do if you make a product for the…

• When data and decisions collide

  Seth Godin

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:54 am

  Until recently, most of the decisions we were called on to make were based on hunches, insight and a little bit of data. Occasionally, a field like direct marketing would develop into something quite data-driven ("I don't care if you like mailer one, Smythe, mailer #2 did three times, better! Number 2 it is.") but not often.It took Ignaz Semmelweis more than twenty years (he died before it happened, actually) to persuade doctors that washing their hands could save the lives of mothers giving birth. He had the data, he had the proof, but that wasn't enough to change minds.Data mining and the…

• Limited edition boxed set available today SOLD OUT!

  Seth Godin

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:41 am

  [We ended up selling more than three a minute. You guys are so cool. We had a few counter problems, but it didn't effect the number we sold...they're all gone, 800 in total, and I won't be able to sell any more. Thank you for the energy and support!]It seems as though the Apple tablet is unlikely to be ready in time for the holidays... what to get? How about a boxed (a wooden box) set of five of my books? Very limited (only 800 will be sold, ever). Sold at a discount from retail, with cool packaging, assembled by elves, delivered by Martians, blessed by enlightened goats. My goal was to make…

• 
  Marshall Goldsmith

• Build Your Self Confidence Like a Leader

  Marshall Goldsmith

  30 Oct 2009 | 11:38 am

  This week's question for Ask the Coach: What can I do to build my confidence in my capabilities as a leader? You won't get to the top without self-confidence; to build it, you have to believe in yourself. Don't worry about being perfect — put up a brave front and do the best you can. That's it in a nutshell. Here's a little more background for you. Last year, as I often do, I taught a seminar for MBA students at the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business. A second-year student approached me and told me he'd read my book What Got You Here Won't Get You There. "In…

• How Entrepreneurs Should Handle Succession

  Marshall Goldsmith

  15 Oct 2009 | 7:42 am

  This is second of two columns in which I address, in collaboration with my good friend and colleague, Dr. Steven Berglas, the unique challenges that entrepreneurial family businesses builders face in leadership succession. The first post describes how entrepreneurial founders can unwittingly sabotage the succession process. Entrepreneurs who create and build businesses from scratch are nothing if not street smart. They know business, as well as the trends that impact businesses. I am not certain that all successful family business founders know this statistic: most (60-70%) of all family…

• Why Entrepreneurs Sabotage the Succession Process

  Marshall Goldsmith

  8 Oct 2009 | 12:50 pm

  This week's question for Ask the Coach: In your book, Succession: Are You Ready? you describe the challenge of succession for the CEOs of major corporations. What unique challenges do you see for succession in entrepreneurial family businesses? My good friend and colleague, Dr. Steven Berglas, and I are currently writing a book that addresses this specific question. Given major demographic trends in the United States, this topic has become more critical today than at any time in our country's history. Millions of aging Baby Boomers who have founded businesses are now past or approaching the…

• Why You Should Choose an Internal Successor

  Marshall Goldsmith

  17 Sep 2009 | 11:11 am

  This week's question for Ask the Coach: I'm getting ready to move on. Should I look for my successor inside the organization or find a candidate on the outside? Developing a great successor is one of the most important accomplishments that a CEO — or any senior-level executive — can achieve. But, what's best for your organization, and for you? Should you develop an internal or an external successor? There are many reasons, both personal and professional, to invest in development for an internal candidate. To start, if a new CEO comes from outside the company, the board will expect…

• Don't Give Up on Change

  Marshall Goldsmith

  4 Sep 2009 | 7:12 am

  This week's question for Ask the Coach: Change is hard. It takes forever and I don't even know if it's working. Any tips for making this process easier? Change takes longer than we think and the process is difficult. Acknowledging these facts can make your attempts more successful. My co-author Dr. Kelly Goldsmith, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, and I researched why people give up on their goals. We discovered that there are five common reasons. Understanding these roadblocks will help you apply some preventive medicine — and increase…

• 
  HBR Editors' Blog

• Is Listening an Endangered Skill?

  Bronwyn Fryer

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:30 am

  Is listening important? "Yes, of course," you say. But then why would anyone pay thousands of dollars to hear someone speak, and then not listen? I recently attended the PopTech conference in Camden, Maine, a mind-bending affair attended by several hundred idea junkies, each of whom paid several thousand dollars to (ostensibly) hear what really smart people like Daniel Goleman, Dan Ariely, and Michael Pollan had to say. Yet as I stood up to stretch in the back aisle of the dark auditorium, I noticed dozens of lit-up BlackBerries throughout the audience, as people rapidly clicked away. The…

• Coping with "Career Menopause"

  Bronwyn Fryer

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:04 am

  Night sweats. Heart palpitations. Crying jags. Mood swings. I'm a 55-year old woman, well and gratefully past that hormonal "change of life." So what the heck was this thing? My brilliant (and younger) colleague Julia Kirby took me out for a glass of wine and patted my arm. "Don't worry," she told me sympathetically. "It's career menopause." Count on Julia to consistently deliver le mot juste. I've always loved my job, but for ages I've been feeling something else — call it a longing for greater self-fulfillment — tugging at me. Relatives and friends have had brushes with death,…

• Throwing Money at the Energy Problem Isn't Enough

  Gardiner Morse

  26 Oct 2009 | 9:18 am

  Today the U.S. Energy Department announced major funding for 37 cutting-edge energy research projects, from biofuel-producing bacteria to CO2-eating enzymes. The goal, as department secretary Steven Chu put it, is to "spur the next industrial revolution in clean energy technologies." That's an inspiring notion — but throwing money at clean-tech is a partial solution at best, no matter how revolutionary the research. America has always had a love affair with technology, and president Obama is as smitten as Secretary Chu. Obama was in Boston on Friday just a few miles from our offices,…

• HBR Issue Highlights | November 2009

  Roberta Fusaro

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:53 am

  Welcome to HBR's Issue Highlights. Each month, this interactive table of contents will highlight some of the magazine's best features, tell you who should read them, why they're relevant, and what you'll take away from them, all in under five minutes. Share this with others by clicking on the "Share" button in the bottom right hand corner. Let us know what you think by commenting below, or by emailing us at issuehighlights@harvardbusiness.org.

• Drucker at 100: What Will You Do Differently on Monday?

  Ellen Peebles

  15 Oct 2009 | 9:09 am

  Among business conversations I've witnessed over my career, the topics of corporate social responsibility and sustainability have tended to invoke a collective yawn. Yes they're important, but such concerns were frequently considered a bore, separate from the business of doing business. An extra, a luxury--not suited to the every day pressures of work. I know because we at HBR spend our lives discussing article ideas along those lines, and our obligation to readers and authors is to give them something they can get passionate about. Until recently, it took some effort to work up the passion…

• 
  Tom Davenport

• The US Is GM

  Tom Davenport

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:02 pm

  The United States, my beloved home country, has become the General Motors of nations in its lethargy and complacency. This is ironic, because the US (and Canada) own a majority share of GM, but I am focused more on economic similarity rather than ownership. The height of complacency for GM was probably about 2004. In that year the automaker still had the title as the world's largest maker of cars, a title it relinquished in 2007. GM was still profitable in 2004 — but not very much so — and it was losing market share in many of its major markets. That was the year that GM abandoned…

• Forwarding Is the New Networking

  Tom Davenport

  30 Sep 2009 | 7:57 am

  Michael Schrage recently wrote a post on this site about the importance of forwarding information as a way to enhance network relationships. He's right about this, although the title — "The Disadvantage of Twitter and Facebook" — is misleading (and inaccurate, since people retweet things all the time — but sadly, editors know that anything with Facebook and Twitter in the title gets a lot of page views and retweets). Forwarding is the new networking. The fact that you can't do it easily on Facebook is about as relevant as the inability to do it over the telephone or the…

• Are Social Media Contributing to the Decline of Civilization?

  Tom Davenport

  10 Sep 2009 | 11:40 am

  I was recently sent a PR message encouraging me to blog about a new "social media for celebrity sightings" website called "OMGICU." (Get it?) Given the sad state of our society, the site will probably be successful. How could it not be, having combined the two greatest time-wasters of the current era: social technologies and celebrity worship! To save you from visiting the site and increasing its page view count, here's a typical sighting: Jill Zarin seen in Upper East Side nnekaj10 says: "And now Jill Zarin and husband have joined their daughter at California Pizza Kitchen... Jill looks…

• How to Make the Classroom as Exciting as a Video Game

  Tom Davenport

  1 Sep 2009 | 11:50 am

  Children in the Northern Hemisphere are headed back to school this time of year. The great majority of them will go back to the traditional classroom, in which every student studies the same subjects in the same way at the same time. The fact that this approach doesn't work very well doesn't seem to hinder its popularity. We know that students are interested in different things, learn in different ways, and proceed at different paces. So why the "forced march" approach to education? This time-honored but silly approach to education, however, is beginning to crack. This summer, for example, 80…

• Singapore: A Model of Judgment for the United States?

  Tom Davenport

  21 Aug 2009 | 12:01 pm

  We often talk about judgment with regard to individuals, but organizations and countries can have good and bad judgment as well. I was recently in Singapore for a SAS customer event. Every time I visit, it has struck me as a country with good judgment. Singapore just celebrated its forth-fourth birthday as an independent country, and it deserves to congratulate itself (although it rarely engages in self-congratulation — another aspect of good judgment). In fact, I'd argue that in many ways Singapore is a great example for the United States. Why? Here are a few reasons: 1. Singapore is a…

• 
  Bill Taylor on HarvardBusiness.org

• The New Logic of R&D: Rip Off and Duplicate

  Bill Taylor

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:40 am

  There's not a lot of good news coming from the business side of newspapers these days, and nowhere is the situation more grim than at the Tribune Company, which just sold the beloved Chicago Cubs, still owns the struggling Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, and has been operating under bankruptcy protection since December 2008, with little hope of emerging any time soon. But as Plato, that noted corporate strategist, famously said, necessity is the mother of invention — and the troubles at the Tribune Company have inspired at least one intriguing approach to unleashing some…

• Amazon and Zappos: A Savvy Deal

  Bill Taylor

  23 Jul 2009 | 1:40 pm

  It's been one heck of a July for Tony Hsieh, CEO of Internet superstar Zappos.com. A week or so ago, Hsieh passed the one-million-follower mark on Twitter — putting him in the company of Martha Stewart, Miley Cyrus, and 50 Cent. And just yesterday, Amazon.com accounted it would spend more than $800 million worth of its stock to buy Zappos — even as it promised to keep its hands off the company, so Hsieh and his colleagues could keep doing things their own way. So good for Tony! Congratulations. Good for Jeff Bezos, too. Not only is he adding a huge new category of products —…

• Decoding Steve Jobs: Trust the Art, Not the Artist

  Bill Taylor

  23 Jun 2009 | 12:47 pm

  Steve Jobs is back in the headlines, which got me thinking about this unique leader's legacy — and what, if anything, the rest of us can learn from how Jobs does his job. Whoever uttered the words, "trust the art, not the artist" must have had Steve Jobs in mind. There's no doubt that the Apple CEO will go down as one of the most creative, visionary, and high-impact leaders of his generation — or any generation. How many corporate executives can make a legitimate claim to have reshaped not just one industry but four: computing (the Mac), music (the iPod), mobile communications…

• The 10 Questions Every Change Agent Must Answer

  Bill Taylor

  18 Jun 2009 | 10:43 am

  As leaders, we have no control over how fast markets grow or how wisely banks lend. But we do control our own mindsets and "animal spirits" — the phrase coined by John Maynard Keynes in the depth of the Great Depression. If all you've got is a spreadsheet filled with red ink and dire forecasts, it's easy to be paralyzed by fear and resistant to change. But if you can summon some leadership nerve, then hard times can be a great time to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for years to come. Indeed, when it comes to creating the future, the only thing more worrisome than…

• Recession Leadership: On Sinking the Boat, Missing the Boat, and Rocking the Boat

  Bill Taylor

  18 May 2009 | 8:45 am

  For months, I have argued that a down economy can be a great opportunity for companies to try something different or start something new. I don't mean to minimize the pressures and setbacks that are part of unleashing real change in tough times. If all you've got is a spreadsheet filled with red ink and dire forecasts, it's easy to be paralyzed by fear. But if you've got some leadership nerve, and can muster a few good ideas, then hard times can be great times to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for years to come. Don't believe me? You can read it for yourself in The New…

• 
  Scott Anthony

• Why Great Innovators Spend Less Than Good Ones

  Scott Anthony

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:25 am

  A story last week about the Obama administration committing more than $3 billion to smart grid initiatives caught my eye. It wasn't really an unusual story. It seems like every day features a slew of stories where leaders commit billions to new geographies, technologies, or acquisitions to demonstrate how serious they are about innovation and growth. Here's the thing — these kinds of commitments paradoxically can make it harder for organizations to achieve their aim. In other words, the very act of making a serious financial commitment to solve a problem can make it harder to solve the…

• Constant Transformation Is the New Normal

  Scott Anthony

  27 Oct 2009 | 9:13 am

  I picked up an interesting vibe at the Magazine Publishers Association Innovation Conference the other week. For the most part, the industry has had a tough year as it grapples with recession, changing consumer behavior, and a range of disruptive technologies. Yet signs of economic recovery and a sense that the magazine industry could learn from missteps from cousins in the music and newspaper business produced an unexpected sense of optimism. One point I made in my remarks is that the forces at work in the magazine business — increased competition, rapidly shifting technologies, and…

• Nook: Too Soon To Call It a Kindle-Killer

  Scott Anthony

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:01 am

  If nothing else, developments in the e-reader market provide substantial fodder for online commentary. It seems that every week features a story in a mainstream publication about the latest "Kindle killer" followed by endless chatter and eager speculation in blogs and on Twitter. This week's discussion centered on Barnes & Noble's "Nook" device. It's not hard to see why this particular device sparked such discussion. The slick-looking device has unique features, such as the ability to "lend" books that friends can view on multiple platforms for 14 days, use of Google's Android operating…

• Procter & Gamble and the Beauty of Small Wins

  Scott Anthony

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:52 am

  Yesterday I facilitated a discussion at the Magazine Publishers Association annual Innovation Conference with Melanie Healey, the Group President of North America for Procter & Gamble. She told a story with some important innovation implications. The story dates back to the 1990s, when Healey was a brand manager in Brazil. She was responsible for growing P&G's Hipoglos brand of diaper rash ointments. The problem? The product already had 99 percent household penetration. A tough challenge, right? Healey did what good P&G people do — she went out to talk to consumers to find out what they…

• What Baseball Can Teach Us About Innovation

  Scott Anthony

  6 Oct 2009 | 10:55 am

  In a chat last week, Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein explained why he wasn't bothered by J.D. Drew's relatively low number of runs batted in (quotes from Joe Posnanski's blog): "When you're putting together a winning team, that honestly doesn't matter. When you have a player who takes a ton of walks, who doesn't put the ball in play at an above average rate, and is a certain type of hitter, he's not going to drive in a lot of runs. Runs scored, you couldn't be more wrong. If you look at a rate basis, J.D. scores a ton of runs. And the reason he scores a ton of runs is because he…

• 
  Rita McGrath

• Create a Special Unit to Drive Growth

  Rita McGrath

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:08 am

  As the economy shows some signs of shrugging off its doldrums, growth is back on the agenda. After cutting costs for a year or more while repeating the mantra "do more with less," should companies be looking to special groups to jump-start growth? Corporate venture groups, incubator "greenhouses," and other units dedicated to identifying and incubating growth opportunities have a checkered corporate history. Often begun with flashes of significant enthusiasm, they are often first on the chopping block when executive sponsors change, costs need to be cut, or the fashion of the day swings away…

• Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Battle for E-Books

  Rita McGrath

  5 Aug 2009 | 11:01 am

  There's a battle emerging over the industry structure of e-books: Amazon has one approach, Barnes & Noble another. Will the clash play out like the computer wars of the late 80s, or the music wars of the late 90s? Let's take a look. Years of declining music sales reflect a grim story for the music business — the amount of music people are willing to pay for has dropped dramatically, the unit of business has shifted fundamentally to music by the song, and the preferred medium for acquiring music is now downloading individual songs, rather than purchasing a complete CD. Who is winning in…

• Hiring the Already-Employed: Savvy or Sad?

  Rita McGrath

  2 Jul 2009 | 7:06 am

  A fascinating article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal caught my eye. It suggests that even with so many great people out there looking for work, employers would still rather hire someone who is already working, thank you very much. Apparently, many believe that those that are unemployed were their former employers' lower-priorities, poor performers or otherwise non-superstars. By hiring someone who already has a job, they reason, they are reducing their risk of picking up someone who is a second-class performer. I guess this is the modern-day version of Groucho Marx's old line that he…

• Competitive Advantage Is Fleeting (And It's Okay to Admit It)

  Rita McGrath

  8 Jun 2009 | 8:55 am

  For as long as I've been working in the field of strategy, a taken-for granted assumption among executives, students and academics has been that the goal of a great strategy is achieving a "sustainable competitive advantage." As the field migrated from a subject called "Business Policy," having to do mostly with the job of the general manager, to the current conception of "Strategic Management," we picked up a vast number of tools, frameworks and analytical approaches that promised to make the world of strategy one of greater rigor, science and analytical depth. The ultimate goal was to…

• Using Smell to Sell

  Rita McGrath

  12 May 2009 | 11:19 am

  It never fails to astonish me how adroit companies can innovate to improve customers' experiences in ways that make me ask, "Why didn't I think of that?" Among the best types of these innovations are those that improve a particular 'link' in a customers' experience to make it better by making more pleasant, less inconvenient or just more fun. So here's one for the record: UK parking-garage firm NCP has explored new technology that can actually make the stairwells in parking garages smell nicer, instead of smelling like...well, to be honest, I'd rather not go into what they smell like,…

• 
  HarvardBusiness.org

• Is Your Business Ready for H1N1?

  Harvard Business IdeaCast

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:26 am

  Featured Guest: Dr. Robert Blendon, professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Kennedy School of Government. RELATED:Business Preparedness for Pandemic: Executive Briefing for Corporate and Governmental Decision Makers More than 200 corporate and government leaders came together at Harvard Medical School in Boston to learn about the most effective practices in preparing for a pandemic. This report captures the key takeaways from this leadership summit.

• Can We Simplify Financial Regulation?

  Ron Ashkenas

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:50 am

  There's a common saying that you never pay attention to your electricity provider unless the lights don't come on. Well, it's the same thing with the various regulatory systems throughout the world. For the most part, they tend to be invisible, unless there's a problem. Unfortunately, over the past year the financial regulatory system has been extremely visible, and not in a good way. As the post-mortems on the economic downturn continue, regulatory bodies are being put in the spotlight. Why didn't they prevent the crisis or at least send early warning signals? How did the examiners allow…

• How to Ask for Help — Without Looking Stupid

  Jodi Glickman Brown

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:24 am

  Last week, more evidence emerged in the Securities and Exchange Commission's debacle over the mishandling of the Bernie Madoff über-fraud. While the SEC failed repeatedly to uncover the greatest Ponzi scheme in our country's history ($50 billion and counting), the New York Times revealed a tale of "unseasoned people uncertain about what to do and unwilling to ask for help." But learning how to ask for help — and how to do it right — is critical to doing your job well and setting yourself up for success. You may be afraid of looking dumb, but to be afraid to ask for and get the…

• When Should You Let an Employee Make a Mistake?

  Peter Bregman

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:43 pm

  "Put my training wheels back on," Sophia said in a stern tone, "Or I'm not going to ride my bike!" She had just turned four that day and wanted to learn to ride a bike like her older sister. Now she wasn't so sure. After a lot of encouraging and a little stubbornness of my own, she was willing to try. We agreed to practice 15 minutes a day until she got it. A couple of days later we weren't getting anywhere. It's not that she wasn't trying, it's just that she didn't seem to be able to get her balance on her own. Then it dawned on me: I was getting in the way. I didn't want my baby girl to get…

• Washington Must Help the U.S. Regain the Lead in Manufacturing

  Deborah L. Wince-Smith

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:41 pm

  The federal government can and should play a much bigger role in helping American companies regain the lead in manufacturing. We need to invest a commensurate amount of federal R&D dollars in advanced manufacturing technologies as we do in other areas of science, technology, and engineering. The last administration created an assistant secretary for manufacturing in the Commerce Department, but that position really didn't come with any significant resources, and that's still true. There is some government investment in manufacturing R&D. For example, the National Institute of Standards and…

• 
  Michael Watkins

• In the Talent War, the Ceasefire Is Over

  Michael Watkins

  14 Oct 2009 | 8:16 am

  With so many companies focused on simple survival during the downturn, with so much job loss and anxiety among those who survived, it was easy to forget about the war for top talent. But the downturn was just a temporary truce; the battle is about to erupt again in full force. And ironically the companies are the most at risk of losing their best leaders are ones that responded most vigorously (but often misguidedly) during the recession. Why? Because there is tremendous pent-up demand for new opportunities and advancement among high-potential leaders. According to a recent study just 10% of…

• Obama and the Peace Prize: "A" for Attitude

  Michael Watkins

  9 Oct 2009 | 7:03 am

  Beyond the obvious snub to the Bush Administration, what was the Nobel Committee's goal in awarding President Obama the Peace Prize? Certainly this is not an "A" for accomplishment, as it will take years, if not decades, to discern whether the Obama administration's international overtures and embrace of the UN system will bear fruit. (Let's remember to acknowledge the hard work of Hillary Clinton here too.) Rather it is an "A" for attitude; it's for Obama's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," as the Nobel Committee put it, lauding…

• Job 1 at GM

  Michael Watkins

  1 Jun 2009 | 10:36 am

  With the declaration of Chapter 11, GM is poised to enter a new era. Deciding to place a big bet that a massive, tax-payer funded restructuring will truly turn the company around, the Obama Administration is forcing changes that should have occurred a decade or more ago. The core of the transformation strategy is a separation of "New GM" from "Old GM." Essentially the company will be split in two with the assets of the old being sold or otherwise liquidated. So far, we know that several smaller units such as Hummer and Saturn will be disposed of, as well as one long-time GM brand —…

• Obama and the Vision Thing

  Michael Watkins

  13 May 2009 | 6:15 am

  In this post, I continue my evaluation of President Obama's first stretch in office, focusing on the third and final evaluative dimension: creating a compelling vision. Has he begun to articulate an inspiring vision for what he will accomplish during his first term? Transitioning executives must begin to lay out a vision for what they will accomplish during their tenure in the role. For President Obama, this means defining and communicating what he hopes to accomplish during his first full term in office. The vision must be one that pulls people forward and energizes them to make the right…

• Has Obama Built a Strong Foundation?

  Michael Watkins

  4 May 2009 | 5:58 am

  In this post, I continue my evaluation of President Obama's first stretch in office, focusing on a second key dimension: laying a foundation. Has he laid a solid foundation for accomplishing his A-item priorities during the remainder of his first year in office? Early wins - the first dimension - help new leaders get off to a good start, but they are not sufficient for continued success. Like all newly-appointed executives, President Obama should also have begun to lay a foundation for the deeper changes he plans to make. The process is not unlike the launching of a multi-stage rocket into…

• 
  Gill Corkindale

• What Will You Pledge to Your Team?

  Gill Corkindale

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:57 am

  I was reminded last week of a simple but important truth: if you want to manage people effectively, ask them what they need from you in order to succeed. The realisation came as I was coaching a executive who had been finding it very difficult to manage the disparate people in her team. Some were old hands, experienced but cynical; others were new recruits, enthusiastic but very junior. She had tried to sit down and work out all their different needs, but was finding it perplexing. Some wanted to be left alone, others craved attention; some needed structure, others a free rein. After…

• Don't Let Your Strength Become Your Weakness

  Gill Corkindale

  21 Oct 2009 | 11:21 am

  One of the first things I ask my new clients to do is write down three of their key strengths and three of their flaws. Typically, strengths might be attention to detail, focus, and drive; flaws can be delegation, lack of creativity, and people-management skills. I then ask clients to look carefully at what they have written. Often, they will stare at the paper and then at me. They will ask me to explain. Rarely do they see the connection. The fact is that our flaws are often the mirror image of our strengths, and it's important to realize that we should not over-develop our strengths,…

• Why Are France Telecom Workers Committing Suicide?

  Gill Corkindale

  7 Oct 2009 | 2:38 pm

  Some years ago, I wrote a short article about stress at work, referring to some groundbreaking research by organisational psychologists at London University. The UK Heath and Safety Executive (HSE) had asked the researchers to identify workplace stressors and they came up with nine, including heavy workloads, lack of control, poor communication, role ambiguity, job security, and lack of management support. At the time, the UK was facing a flood of legal claims for workplace stress, even though the law was unclear about whether responsibility lay with the individual or the company. The HSE…

• Is Work Taking Over Your Life?

  Gill Corkindale

  16 Sep 2009 | 11:56 am

  When I left a large company several years ago to start up my own firm, I imagined a more streamlined life, with less demands on my time from new projects and change initiatives. I could decide how much work I wanted to do and — critically — what I didn't want to do. For the first time in my life, I had the luxury of deciding what I did and when. Then I encountered reality. When you start a small business, you have to work long hours to get the company established: marketing, administration, and business development all take as much time as delivering the work itself, and you take…

• When Work Doesn't Make You Happy

  Gill Corkindale

  3 Sep 2009 | 8:37 am

  Thanks to everyone who responded to last week's post about whether work should make us happy. There are some great insights and suggestions from readers on how they manage this difficult balance, from the philosophical to the personal and practical. Your responses were further confirmation that this is an important subject and I shall certainly be reflecting on them in the weeks ahead as I work with my clients. One of the reasons why I am especially interested in this subject is because I became unhappy at work some years ago and felt I had to make a change. I had been a journalist for 16…

• 
  Susan Cramm

• Can You Get the Business and IT to Agree?

  Susan Cramm

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:09 pm

  My last post asked you to help resolve the business-IT standoff concerning the approach for a large transformation project. To recap, the business leader wants to use a three-year "big bang" consultant-driven approach while the VP of IT wants to use an iterative, fast-cycle approach. The standoff has become apparent to the powers-that-be and the two leaders have been tasked with developing a joint recommendation. With some additional education, the business leader is ready to adopt the iterative approach but is uncertain how to do so. Based on the quality of the advice you shared in the last…

• The Business and IT Must Work Together. Can You Help?

  Susan Cramm

  15 Oct 2009 | 1:17 pm

  My last post asked you to be the judge of whether a business sponsor of a major initiative should take the advice of their consultants to "go big" or the advice of their IT counterparts to "go small." Your advice was virtually unanimous: Break large projects into a series of small projects ("Remember: the larger the project, the larger the risk of failure. I would much rather see a dozen small successes than one huge failure"). Place your faith in your internal IT group — provided they have earned your trust ("IT are stakeholders too and they are raising valid concerns"). Select…

• IT Versus the Consultants. And You're the Judge.

  Susan Cramm

  7 Oct 2009 | 10:18 am

  This is not what you need. Yet again, the IT folks and consultants are at odds and you are stuck in the middle. You are the business leader in charge of redefining the way your company performs its back office functions. You have been with the company for many years and worked in a number of roles — both field and corporate — with some level of acclaim, you might add. You have always worked hard, but are finding that working in field operations is a breeze compared to getting this transformation project launched. The last 365 days have been spent in a series of non-stop meetings,…

• How Are You Defying "Best Practice"?

  Susan Cramm

  11 Sep 2009 | 12:45 pm

  My last post raised the question, "Why does management behavior often diverge from "broadly accepted" theory or best practice?" In response, you shared insights as to why best practices aren't always practical or desirable and, instead, what should be done to (in your words) avoid "giving up on differentiation" and use best practices as "the basis for innovative practices." Here's what I heard you say on the difficult realities you've experienced and how you've overcome them: In reality, "best practice"... 1 ...isn't always the "best." Best practices work for a particular company in a…

• Why Do We Ignore "Best Practices"?

  Susan Cramm

  31 Aug 2009 | 7:11 am

  Why does management behavior often diverge from "broadly accepted" theory or best practice? This question hit me over the head (once again) during a conversation with a talented, young CIO about a big project that was significantly late and over budget. Ask anyone experienced in the world of IT or change management, and they will tell you that the best way to pull off a big project is to break it up in to a series of small ones. Yet, this CIO decided to push forward with an approach that he knew was risky and likely to stumble and possibly fail. When I asked him why he pursued this course, he…

• 
  cool global BIZ

• Disney and Shanghai: A New Global Brand Icon & Business Partnership

  Edward Iwata

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:56 pm

  "Admiring Shanghai from the Bund" by Stuck in Customs, under a Creative Commons license on flickr.com. In the popular mindset of globe-trotting consumers, a new Disneyland-style theme park in Shanghai will be hard to top as a business/vacation destination.  Disney, of course, has been an iconic corporate brand and pop culture symbol for much of the last century, and Shanghai will be one of the great megacities of the new century.  This business fusion of cross-border media and entertainment will be fascinating to watch evolve in the coming years.

• Michael Jackson: Media Freak Show, or Global & Cultural Revolutionary?

  Edward Iwata

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:42 am

  Note:  This post on Michael Jackson's death, plus another post on the superstar's global brand, ran originally in July.  The Michael Jackson documentary, "This Is It," premiers today.  Interesting Time magazine story below on Sony's global marketing of the film. Sony forked over $60 million for the rights to the movie, according to the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times, "Michael Jackson Should Have Been There." MTV Music Television, "Michael Jackson's 'This is It': The Reviews Are In." Bloomberg…

• Western Union's Global Branding Campaign Says Yes! Si! हाँ! Oo! 唉! to Immigrant Consumers

  Edward Iwata

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:14 am

  Western Union and Publicis Hong Kong's "Yes!" global brand campaign. PHOENIX, ARIZONA, U.S.A. -- During the frontier era of the American West in the 1800s, Western Union helped pioneers send telegrams to their loved ones many miles away by train or horse.  Today, the money-transfer corporation in Colorado sends billions of dollars in "remittances" from immigrants on all continents to their loved ones around the world.  "The multicultural consumer is front and center," says Gail Galuppo, chief marketing officer at Western…

• Global Rapper, Entrepreneur & Tech Evangelist MC Hammer: "Music is a Global Language"

  Edward Iwata

  12 Oct 2009 | 12:08 pm

  MC Hammer speaks on global and Web 2.0 branding at an ANA Multicultural Marketing & Diversity conference in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A., at the Arizona Biltmore (10-5-09).   PHOENIX, ARIZONA, U.S.A. -- HammerTime is in real time, and still legit.  If you don't follow tech news, you might not know that rapper MC Hammer is a serious social-media evangelist and Twitter freak (over 1 million followers at twitter.com/mchammer) who rivals actor Ashton Kutcher for digital savvy.  Hammer hangs with legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and…

• CNN Anchor Soledad O'Brien, Latinos and the New Multicultural Mainstream

  Edward Iwata

  8 Oct 2009 | 10:40 am

  CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien speaking at the ANA Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. (10-5-09).   PHOENIX, ARIZONA, U.S.A. -- Countless studies, books and news reports boil down to this storyline:  While U.S. ethnic groups of all hues take pride in their ancestral cultures, the great crucible of acculturation melds all of us into Americans.  Perhaps moreso than President Obama and others, CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien symbolizes the New Multicultural America -- what former Time journalist Guy Garcia calls "the new…

• 
  Duct Tape Marketing

• 3 Sources of Grammar Inspiration

  John Jantsch

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 am

  3 Sources of Grammar InspirationThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing About once a week I amuse the grammar troops by torturing some aspect of the language in my writing. Hey, I don’t do it on purpose and I love that I’m able to provide an otherwise cuddly group of individuals with a steady flow of chuckles. I’ve had this post in the back of my mind for some time, but I was prompted to write it today by a LinkedIn status update I saw yesterday. (Name of victim withheld) – “Excited to attend my first titter conference today.” In the always on, say…

• Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma

  John Jantsch

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:16 am

  Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and CharismaThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Nick Morgan (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes Trust – can’t get enough of that as a brand, business, or person these days. Everyone knows that, but what they may not know is that there are things each of is doing that may be unintentionally eroding trust – particularly when it comes to the topic of speaking and presenting. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast Nick Morgan, author of Trust Me, talks…

• Social Media Training Course Beta Testers Needed

  John Jantsch

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:03 am

  Social Media Training Course Beta Testers NeededThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing This whole social media thing for small business can be confusing, I know, I speak to groups of small business owner routinely and hear things like – “I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired of the hype, what do I do first, how do I find the time.” Update: The good news is a lot of people really want to beta test this program – over 125 left comments for the 10 spots, but I guess that’s the bad news too. Here’s what I’ve decided to do – I will choose 20 beta…

• Biznik Blends High Tech with High Touch

  John Jantsch

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:13 pm

  Biznik Blends High Tech with High TouchThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Fortunately, it’s starting to feel like the wave of social media hype has crested and small businesses can turn their attention to understanding social media “best practices” rather than obsessing over next week’s new tool. Today’s greatest small business opportunity awaits those who learn to skillfully blend the awareness creating, automating, and filtering aspects of social media platforms with the trust and customer building aspects of education based, face-to-face networking.

• Weekend Favs October Thirty-One

  John Jantsch

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:20 am

  Weekend Favs October Thirty-OneThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve added a weekend post routine that I hope you enjoy. Each weekend I write a post that features 3-4 things I read during the week that I found interesting. Generally speaking it doesn’t involve much analysis and may range widely in topic. (Flickr image included here is also fav image of the week) Enjoy! Good stuff I ran across this week: Twitter Gallery - Nice collection of free twitter backgrounds. This is an asset that should be branded, but at least dress it up a bit. KnowEm – Search over 340 popular social…

• 
  Bootstrapping a Startup - Business Exchange

• 20 of the Best Resources to Get Your Startup Off the Ground

  Business Exchange

  et’s face it: as an entrepreneur, the odds are stacked against you. Most businesses fail after the first few years, and even if you do manage to survive, that doesn’t mean your business will redefine an industry, become profitable, or change the world. Getting off on the right foot is essential to navigating a startup from its infancy to profitability.

• Social Media for Business Development

  Business Exchange

  Have you ever thought about what information the web retains and keeps about you, your favorite subject or the person you just shook hands with at a recent social event? This conversation is not about topics today, but the “topics of every day” that...

• Small Business, Social Media Not Mixing

  Business Exchange

  Few U.S. small businesses have adopted social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for business uses, according to research released Thursday. Three-quarters of small businesses say they have not found sites such as...

• Optimizing Your Business With Social Media

  Business Exchange

  Optimizing your internet business with Social Media will boost out your business. Social Media is one of the powerful tools in defining your business practices toward improving your site’s performance in the cyberspace.

• How to Start Your Own Business Without Wasting Time and Money, Part I

  Business Exchange

  How to Start Your Own Business Without Wasting Time and Money, Part I March 4, 2009 Starting your own business can be daunting. Here is some practical advice to get started.

• 
  Word of Mouth Marketing

• Pow! Right Between the Eyes — live with author Andy Nulman

  Andy Sernovitz

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  We’re bringing together an all-star group of word of mouth marketers for Word of Mouth Supergenius: The “How to be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing” Conference on December 16 in Chicago. We’ll feature 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’re going to learn practical, hands-on techniques to get people talking about you the next day. Our lineup of speakers includes word of mouth supergenius Andy Nulman, author of Pow! Right Between the Eyes: Profiting from the Power of Surprise. Here Andy shares a few of the ideas he’ll be…

• Buy one, give one, send 5 bucks

  Andy Sernovitz

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  I’ve written before about how I’m a big fan of how Adagio Teas uses simple offers to get great word of mouth.  They may have the best word of mouth execution of any site I’ve seen — learn from them.  Here are a few more examples that you could do too: 1. Make it easy to give. After you place an order, you get this offer, which lets you send the exact same order to a friend as a gift, for 10% off.  In 30 seconds they get a second sale and impressive word of mouth. 2. Make it easy to share. Customers can send unlimited $5 gift certificated to their friends.  I like…

• How to create buzzworthy topics — live with WOMMA’s John Moore

  Andy Sernovitz

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  We’re bringing together an all-star group of word of mouth marketers for Word of Mouth Supergenius: The “How to be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing” Conference on December 16 in Chicago. We’ll feature 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’re going to learn practical, hands-on techniques to get people talking about you the next day. Our lineup of speakers includes word of mouth supergenius John Moore, WOMMA’s WOM Enthusiast, who will be presenting a class on creating buzzworthy topics. Here are three tips he shared as a…

• Newsletter #755: The “Find a Partner” Issue

  Andy Sernovitz

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:15 am

  {Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I Thought of That Email Newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.} You don’t always have to go it alone. The next time you’re about to do something big, take a minute to think if there are any similar companies that could join in for some mutual benefits. Three ideas to get you started: 1> For a sampling 2> For an event 3> For a neighbor 4> Check it out: Let me Google that for you 1> For a giveaway If you’re looking to get your…

• How to create offline word of mouth — live with Zoocasa’s Saul Colt

  Andy Sernovitz

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  We’re bringing together an all-star group of word of mouth marketers for Word of Mouth Supergenius: The “How to be Great at Word of Mouth Marketing” Conference on December 16 in Chicago. We’ll feature 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’re going to learn practical, hands-on techniques to get people talking about you the next day. Our lineup of speakers includes word of mouth supergenius and Zoocasa Head of Magic, Saul Colt. Saul will be hosting the class, “How to Create Offline Word of Mouth” based on his experience…

• 
  The Franchise King Blog

• Is The US Economy Really Improving?

  The Franchise King

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:54 am

  I keep hearing that the US economy is showing signs of improvement. But, where am I hearing that? Cable news networks Some newspapers Some small business owners  I'm also hearing the opposite. I'm hearing some negative economic news from; Local franchisees Sales managers Auto dealers Family friends Who should I believe? Should I believe; Millionaire news anchors Millionaire business owners Politicians (Some millionaire's there too, by the way) Or should I believe folks that; May be on the verge of losing their homes Have been out of work for 8-9 months Are politicians Do you…

• Social Media Marketing By Franchise Companies Can't Be A Part-Time Gig

  The Franchise King

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:52 am

                If you are an executive, or even the owner of a franchise concept, don't worry about all the buzz around social media. Don't pressure yourself into doing social media, just because a growing number of other franchisors have started getting their feet wet. Just keep doing what you're doing. I'm sure that you are totally euphoric about your current franchise marketing successes... Being the Community Promotions Director for a powerful and influential website like Small Business Trends has some perks. One of them includes spending a great deal of time…

• Canadian Franchise Attorney Calls Franchise Ownership "Renting A Business"

  The Franchise King

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:38 am

  Canada has a thriving franchise industry, and a Canadian franchise attorney Tony Wilson points out 3 advantages of franchise ownership; Training in the business model. "They're training you to use their system; training is a huge component in franchising," Wilson says.  Access to a trademark and brand advertising. "That's what franchisees should expect -- to get the benefit of the brand."  Joint purchasing power. "If you're in a buying group with 16 other restaurants, you're going to get your food cheaper than if you're one restaurant buying…

• Green Auto News; Is This Electric Automaker The Next Green Franchise?

  The Franchise King

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:16 pm

  A Reva Reva has more all-electric vehicles on the road than any other company, but it still has a long haul before it can make the vehicles marketable for the masses. However, last month, the company won a huge and important stamp of approval when GM said it would use Reva’s technology in the electric version of its Chevrolet Spark, a small car whose conventional petrol version GM sells here already. The electric version of the Spark is expected to go on sale in India by the end of next year, according to GM officials. Reva’s technology is “second to none”, said Karl Slym, president…

• CIT Bankruptcy Could Affect Franchise And Small Business Lending

  The Franchise King

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:32 am

  Small business loans have been fairly difficult to come by, to say the least. CIT, a huge small business lender, although not the only game in town, is in trouble, but has done a nice volume of loans for the franchise and small business start-up community in years past. So now what?Now, it's time to start seriously thinking of creative financing arrangements. Although controversial, maybe tapping into your 401K's for some of your start-up funds, isn't a bad idea. I have noticed that most of the negative comments concerning the 401K rollover plan ideas come from CPA's.

• 
  The Get Smart Blog

• Interactive Marketing: Less Talk, More Listening, Stronger Data Integration

  image by Duchesssa I had the pleasure of attending the Blog World Expo this year, on top of the joy of finally meeting in-person those that I have thus far only known online, the conference had some great topics given by some highly educated and creative speakers. I almost missed out ...

• Bringing Relevancy to Your Research: Real-Time Search Tools

  Are you tapping into the power of real-time information? The face of communication, research, and marketing is rapidly changing.....and the result is that the Id is controlling the Internet! If you can't remember what the Id is it comes from Sigmund Freud's theory of personality where the id is the ...

• Not So “Community” Networks: Digg for Digg’s Sake

  Social Networks, Community Sites, Wiki's, Forums, etc. these are virtual places for people to come together based off of common interests to share and engage, through discussions and by posting content in one form or another (video, images, stories, links, etc.) right? At least that is how I understood a community ...

• TwitterGate

  Twitter and TechCrunch is there a Conspiracy?? Inspiration JD Rucker aka Oboy (You can find JD's profiles here) Watergate Scandal Social Blade Show (Show discussing Social Media Topics - Thursday Evenings 7 pm PST) The Drill Down (Show discussing Tech Topics - Friday Evenings 8:30 pm PST) The Drill Down Podcast 7/20 (We discuss TwitterGate) Go ...

• 5 Tools to Turn a Local Presentation into a Global One

  You have a presentation that just rocks! You have given this presentation, training, and/or workshop to people in your local area and the response was phenomenal.....so why not bring it to a wider audience? Price? Don't Know How? Don't Have the Time? ...........We have some tools that will help. In a previous ...

• 
  ChangeThis Newsletter

• 63.01 - Moving Beyond “Short-termism” by Bill George

  changethis@gmail.com (ChangeThis)

  14 Oct 2009 | 2:21 pm

  Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. “In the summer of 2008, Lehman Brothers and AIG were renowned power-players and titans of finance. They were innovative, profitable… nearly untouchable. Now, they are insolvent. These are just two in a long line of now-clichéd Wall Street stories: successful company—under pressure to earn bigger profits faster—succumbs to appeal of short-term gains, makes bad bets, and goes bust. Negligent and cavalier investment strategies created overly-leveraged balance sheets, causing these companies, and many others, to place…

• 63.02 - Borrowing Brilliance: And Other Oxymorons by David Kord Murray

  changethis@gmail.com (ChangeThis)

  14 Oct 2009 | 2:20 pm

  Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. "... As I go out into the world and teach people about creative thought, I’m often asked by managers 'how to' apply this in an organization. They want me to talk about 'corporate creativity' and 'innovation management' and at first blush, to me, 'corporate creativity' seems like a [George] Carlinesque oxymoron. It seems like two words that contradict each other, like 'jumbo shrimp,' 'military intelligence' and 'borrowing brilliance.' Corporations are typically highly structured and highly political, and typically NOT very…

• 63.03 - Sustainability, The Complete Concept: Environment, Healthcare, and Economy by Hunter Lewis

  changethis@gmail.com (ChangeThis)

  14 Oct 2009 | 2:19 pm

  Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. "Most of us would agree that the principal difference between children and real adults is that the latter look ahead, consider consequences, act responsibly and sustainably. Sustainability is not, however, just the essence of maturity. It is also the essence of morality. [...] Whether one looks at our ailing planet, our ever less affordable healthcare, or our failing economy, we see the same underlying problem: a rejection of maturity in favor of a childish refusal to look ahead. What we need instead is a more complete and…

• 63.04 - Decide to Say Sorry: The “Peace Process” for Growing Your Business by Jeanne Bliss

  changethis@gmail.com (ChangeThis)

  14 Oct 2009 | 2:18 pm

  Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. “How you apologize is your humanity litmus test. Let’s face it, at some point; your business will suffer a failure that disappoints customers. How your company reacts, explains, removes the pain, and takes accountability for actions signals how you think about customers, and the collective heart of your organization. Grace and wisdom guide decisions of beloved companies toward accepting responsibility and resolving the situation when the chips are down—not accusations and skirting accountability. Repairing the emotional…

• 63.05 - Self-Promotion for Introverts�: Get Heard More. Even If You Talk Less by Nancy Ancowitz

  changethis@gmail.com (ChangeThis)

  14 Oct 2009 | 2:15 pm

  Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. “Introverts. The world needs us, can't live without us, and often doesn't quite get us. However, we persist, mostly behind the scenes, quietly contributing to society—writing, creating, designing, researching, solving problems, and digging for treasures ancient and new. Are you one of us? If you're more of a Warren Buffett than a Donald Trump, and more of a Greta Garbo than a Madonna, you've come to the right place. It's time for you to stop hiding from the spotlight. Time to get recognized and compensated for your gifts.

• 
  Dane Carlson: Business Opportunities

• Dumb Inventions

  Rich Whittle

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:12 pm

  YODEL METER, 1925 An early version of American Idol? VENETIAN BLIND SUNGLASSES, 1950 It was a bad idea then, it’s a bad idea now. Sorry, Kanye. TV GLASSES, 1963 MUST see TV. DOG RESTRAINER, 1940 Yes, it’s so much easier to use than a leash. Photo by LIFE Magazine. From Business Opportunities Weblog.

• The Power Of Women-Owned Bizs

  Rich Whittle

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:11 am

  Last month, the Center for Women’s Business Research released a study which found that 28 percent, or an estimated 8 million, of all U.S. businesses were women-owned, reports The New York Times. The study also showed that those 8 million cross-industry businesses created or maintained 16 percent of the country’s jobs. However, only 4.2 percent of the nation’s revenue is generated by women-owned businesses. The Center plans to approach the Obama administration, the Small Business Administration, and House and Senate small-business committees to request more resources and…

• Internet Use Won’t Cause Social Isolation

  Rich Whittle

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:10 am

  Although technology and the Internet have taken a beating in the past for potentially limiting people’s social interaction, a new study from the Pew Research Center has found that the opposite might be true, reports CNet News. According to a Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey, which polled 2,512 adults, the dawn of new technology and the Internet has not caused people to withdraw from society. In fact, the study found that “the extent of social isolation has hardly changed since 1985, contrary to concerns that the prevalence of severe isolation has tripled since…

• Lessons Learned From Poker

  Rich Whittle

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:09 am

  In business, as in poker, sometimes you have to know when to fold ‘em. So says serial entrepreneur and blogger Eric Ries on GigaOM. Ries takes the lessons he’s learned from watching the World Series of Poker and explains how entrepreneurs and poker players share many of the same qualities. Namely, “Both rely on acting strategically under conditions of extreme uncertainty. And, in both, small changes in your odds of winning can have a big impact on the final outcome.” Ries goes on to point out that just as in poker where amateur players sometimes beat the pros, many…

• Finding The Right Biz Partner

  Rich Whittle

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:08 am

  Tech entrepreneur Neil Patel shares some advice on his blog, QuickSprout, about the benefits of having a business partner, and how to find the right one. Patel, who admits he’s been through his share of partnerships, warns that the union can be as tumultuous as a marriage and recommends setting expectations for each partner on day one. To that end, he suggests “sealing the deal” by putting both names on the LLC — with clearly delineated percentages — to prevent issues with money or ownership. Photo by spekulator . From Business Opportunities Weblog.

• 
  DONNA MARIA @ INDIE BUSINESS

• Announcing The Beauti-Fall Bath & Body Recipe Contest!

  Donna Maria

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:12 pm

  As you may know, I am the founder and CEO of the Indie Beauty Network, a trade organization representing small and independent manufacturers of cosmetics, candles, aromatherapy products, soaps, jewelry, confectionery products and other health, beauty and lifestyle accessories. My members manufacture products on a micro-scale, often by hand from scratch. In addition to manufacturers, my members include companies that supply raw materials, supplies and ingredients to the trades represented. One of the first companies to join IBN back in 2000 was From Nature With Love. Founded by Kibby Mitra and…

• Twitter List Widgets Use RSS To Help Small Business Owners Expand Their Reach

  Donna Maria

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:01 am

  If you enjoyed my article containing 10 ways small business owners can use Twitter Lists to expand their sphere of influence and build trust and credibility, then you’ll be happy to know about this new Twitter widget creator allowing you to quickly and easily aggregate specific List content into a widget that can be displayed anywhere by anyone . Using the IBN Member List I created on Twitter, I created this widget containing the RSS feed of my IBN members. It is now displayed here of course, but more importantly, it’s displayed at our social network where 4,000+ people have…

• Top 10 Ways For Small Business Owners To Use Twitter Lists

  Donna Maria

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:59 am

  [This post was inadvertently published yesterday. I recalled it, but not before Feedburner picked it up. I apologize for the inconvenience.] A few days ago, Twitter announced Twitter Lists, a great new feature that allows users to create pubic and private lists of people on Twitter. If you read Item #9 on Top Ten Actions To Increase Your Twitter Influence, you know that even after a few days, I think that creating and using Twitter lists is important. This video shows you how to create Twitter lists and discusses how they can expand your productivity and sphere of influence as a small…

• Does Your Website Answer The Question, “How Can I Meet Other People?”

  Donna Maria

  1 Nov 2009 | 2:54 pm

  Yesterday, my husband and I hosted a party to celebrate our daughter’s eighth birthday. One of her favorite gifts was a Webkinz toy given to her by a neighbor. I had heard of Webkinz before, but since I’m the type of mom who likes to wait until my kids are as old as possible before introducing them to toys made my companies that blur the line between online games and advertisements, she had never had a Webkinz before. After helping her long onto the site, I observed carefully as she set up her account. She clicked a few icons and quickly clicked on “Help,” where she…

• T-H-I-N-K Before You Speak

  Donna Maria

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:27 am

  I strive consistently to help my young children understand the importance of thinking before speaking. As kids, they are prone to blurt out what’s on their mind as it occurs to them. While I praise their honesty, I also emphasize that, the fact that you believe something does not always mean that you should say it out loud. As business leaders, we too must be mindful of what we say and how we say it. Recently, a friend shared five questions she asks when deciding whether to speak or remain silent. I am sharing it with my kids and incorporating it into my own life. Here are the…

• 
  Signal vs. Noise

• VIDEO: Ken Burn’s documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright s

  Matt

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:10 am

  Ken Burn’s documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright shows Wright did the actual drawings for the famous Falling Water house in less than three hours! [via TSY] Related:Picasso, Paula Scher, and the lifetime behind every second [SvN]

• INSIGHT: Designs take a leap forward when you kill

  Ryan

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:20 pm

  Designs take a leap forward when you kill the things you didn’t know you were holding on to.

• Haystack: Two Week Anniversary + Latest Updates

  Jason F.

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:43 am

  Haystack is off to a great start. We launched two weeks ago on October 21st, and so far over over 2,500 web designers have been listed. Lots are finding clients as well. That’s exciting. We’ve been hard at work improving Haystack. Here are some of the improvements we’ve made since launch: Call to action footer At the bottom of each company page, we’ve added a call to action after their portfolio shots. This way it’s easier to scroll through someone’s work and then get in touch with them. It says “Like what you see? Contact via email or web.”…

• New Car Camo

  Jason F.

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:01 am

  Car companies go to great lengths to hide new models from from the public (or car paparazzi) during road testing. They’ve gotta drive the cars, but they don’t want to give away their designs too early. Car camouflage used to be handled with wraps, fake bodies, or fake pieces attached to the actual body. Like: But lately I’ve noticed more companies using swirly decals or geometric stickers to mask the shape. Check these out: I would assume once cars get deeper into the testing phase, and aerodynamics, wind noise, and overall ride quality need to be fined tuned, the bulky camp…

• VIDEO: Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company

  37signals

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:06 pm

  Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company designs and builds small houses ranging from 65 to 837 square feet. He’s spent the last 10 years living in his tiny houses. In this video he gives a tour of a 96 square foot house.

• 
  Small Biz Survival

• Join the Brag Basket

  Becky McCray

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:38 am

  Every week, I open a Brag Basket, so you can introduce yourself or share some good news. So speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.  This particular basket is open from Nov. 6-Nov. 8, 2009. (I put dates so you won't accidentally leave a comment on an old basket.) How does it work? You write a comment on this post. You tell something great about your week, or you give plaudits to someone who did good stuff this…

• 3 Speaking tips for wired audiences

  Becky McCray

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:09 pm

  More audiences today are wired, with laptops or smart phones. They are taking notes, Tweeting, and much more. This changes the dynamic of speaking, so here are three tips I picked up at BlogWorld Expo this year. 1. Using a visual can make people stop taking notes and listen to you. This one came from @armano during his presentation on creating visuals. He was right, too. 2. Put a copy of your presentation online ahead of time. If the projector or video fails, all those with laptops in the audience can pull it up and flip through it with you. This one was suggested by @digitalandy when the…

• 6 big Facebook tips for small business

  Becky McCray

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:24 pm

  Facebook can be a powerful tool for small business, and our friend Shama Kabani of Click to Client shared some outstanding tips in her presentation at BlogWorld Expo. Tip 1: Create a fan Page, not a personal Profile, for your business.  Fan pages are the best way for small businesses to interact with customer and potential customers on Facebook, Shama said. If you don't have a Facebook account yet, create one in your own name. Then go create your Facebook Page. Tip 2. Build your page with your purpose in mind.  Start with the little box that appears under your photo. Put something…

• Tips for setting business hours

  Becky McCray

  1 Nov 2009 | 11:20 am

  Every so often, we feature common small business mistakes, so you can learn from them. Lots of small business make a mistake in setting and keeping their business hours. Here's an example from a retail business, open only 11 hours per week. But hey, they do say you can call and they'll come open up. This may be more common in small towns, where we're more informal. It's still a mistake. How many potential customers are you turning away? Two years ago, I wrote about a couple of other local business, one with inconsistent hours that were always changing and one that wasn't always open when it…

• Is it worth paying for help with free tools

  Becky McCray

  31 Oct 2009 | 8:59 am

  Many times, it is worth paying for help with what seem like free tools like social media, websites, or even photography. Look at it this way. If you want to build a house, you probably already have a hammer and all the tools you need. You can find some lumber pretty cheap. There are even books full of house plans and instructions. Or you can hire a professional home builder. Or only subcontract out the parts you need. It depends on what kind of results you want, how much time you can invest, and your personal skill level. Photo by Becky McCray. New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you…

• 
  Superinnovator

• Zebras

  W Burnett LLC

  1 Nov 2009 | 12:40 pm

  I have been using Zebra Steel G-301 pens for several months. They are great, inexpensive pens that write really well and feel great in your hands. One of my business partners also uses the pens and when we discovered this we both held up our pens giving each other that conspiratorial look that says we both understand what a great writing instrument it is. That same thing has happened in coffee houses where occasionally someone across the room will notice and hold up their Zebra as well. A few weeks ago I was looking for one of my Zebra Pens and my wife asked what I was searching for. I said.

• Mountain Trivia

  W Burnett LLC

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:14 pm

  Question:What does the second highest mountain in Canada have in common with the second highest mountain in the United States? Answer:Pretty much everything.

• Competitive Initiatives

  W Burnett LLC

  25 Oct 2009 | 6:54 pm

  During the past couple of decades many companies have created competitive advantage by focussing on techniques to boost productivity. These include outsourcing, reengineering, automation, and getting incrementally better at doing the same thing over and over again through six sigma like programs. The trouble with competitive advantage created in this way is that it erodes easily since the competition can easily match it. For the most part, these productivity gains were around routine, non-complex jobs. Now several leading companies are focussing on making their talented, highly paid, most…

• New CEO of Largest Automaker Apologizes

  W Burnett LLC

  21 Oct 2009 | 1:09 pm

  The other day, the recently installed new CEO of the worlds largest automaker made a public apology for his company’s performance.Astonished reporters heard him apologize for the company being shamefully unprepared for the global economic crisis; apologize for billions in losses both last year and again this year; apologize for a manufacturing fault which caused the death of a California highway patrol officer and three family members; and apologize for the unfortunate closing of the company’s joint venture assembly plant in Fremont California.Who was this CEO? Well it wasn’t GM’s new…

• Korean Electric Car

  W Burnett LLC

  13 Sep 2009 | 9:26 am

  At the Korean Products Show in Chicago this week CT&T showed off their ezone electric cars.They are ‘in town’ cars with a maximum speed of 35 mph and will travel up to 80 miles on a single charge. According to the show, these cars cost about $12,000- $13,000 but are eligible for a $5,000 Federal Income Tax Credit.They looked pretty slick for tiny two seaters. Not surprisingly, the company makes golf carts too!

• 
  Marketing Practice

• Mahindra Rodeo : Power Scooter

  Harish B

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:06 pm

  Brand : RodeoCompany : Mahindra Two WheelersBrand Analysis Count : 426After acquiring Kinetic Scooters in 2008, Mahindra two wheelers is on an overdrive to capture a fair share of India's emerging scooter market. While retaining Kinetic Flyte, Mahindra has launched two new scooters - Rodeo and Duro into the market.Rodeo is positioned as a power scooter . The brand sports a 125 cc engine which churns out 8 bhp . Rodeo competes with Honda's Activa, Aviator , Hero Honda's Pleasure and Suzuki Access.Indian scooter market is a classic example which shows how difficult it is for marketers to…

• Marketing Funda : Articles on Marketing #4

  Harish B

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:19 am

  The Secret Sauce: Leveraging Social Media for Business http://bit.ly/1yDGr6 II common sense tips Mobile App’onomy – Mobile users aren’t Loyal to Cool Apps http://bit.ly/RqXCk interesting stats How To Attack The Leading Brand http://bit.ly/zAgmf II Must read for marketers Sir, May I Clean Your Glasses? http://bit.ly/O276F II WOW Tom Peters love Kingfisher airlines.. Kill the Elevator Speech http://bit.ly/1GVPua II must read article on business communication 10 Traits of High-Performance Leaders http://bit.ly/3GltNa II how many u have? 5 Questions with GTD's David Allen…

• Marketing Funda : Articles on Marketing 3

  Harish B

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:23 pm

  Selling Simplicity — Not Just Marketing It http://bit.ly/23tGgd II simple is complex Five Mind-Blowing Web Stats You Should Know http://bit.ly/MXCna II interesting Becoming a Collections Expert: Seven Basic Tips http://bit.ly/2uPWp8 II the most difficult part Celebrate Your Customers http://bit.ly/4SSHn II I wish business listened to this Becoming P2P: Principal characteristics of the new Social Business http://bit.ly/1XdTc7 II nice read Can We Break the Tyranny of Quarterly Results? http://bit.ly/9ETLL II nice insights The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations http://bit.ly/uiD2q II nice…

• Smith & Jones : Tadka Marke

  Harish B

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:09 am

  Brand : Smith & JonesCompany : Capital FoodsBrand Analysis Count : 425When I recently saw the ad of Smith & Jones, I thought that a new foreign player has entered the Indian noodles market. Much to my amusement, Smith & Jones is an Indian brand and has been in the market for a while.Smith & Jones is a brand from Capital Foods - which are famous for its Ching's secret range of Chinese food products especially instant noodles.Smith & Jones is popular in ready to eat, sauce and jelly etc.Smith & Jones is making lot of noise in the media for its masala noodles. The brand…

• Brand Update : Lux

  Harish B

  30 Oct 2009 | 3:29 am

  Lux got bigger. The brand has come back in style. Lux released its first commercial featuring the most famous "Star Couple " of bollywood - Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. The brand is currently running this high profile campaign across the media space.Watch the ad here : Lux new adHUL has been facing lot of heat from the competition. Most of its best sellers were losing market share and competition getting aggressive day by day. Despite having very popular brands, HUL began losing shares especially in the personal care category.The HUL brands are facing tough competition from players…

• 
  Tecoris

• The Best Price Is Not Always The Best Deal

  awebb

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:50 am

  If I’ve learned anything in my career, it’s that the best price is not always the best deal.  In fact, I’d say it’s seldom the best deal.  What so many people fail to realize is that price is less than half the equation.  What you’re really looking for is value — or more accurately stated, what you’re looking for is the price / value relationship. For example: there are two cars, same model year, same color, same equipment.  One has 100,000 miles and costs $5,000.  The other has 50,000 miles and is $5,500.  Even though the second car is $500…

• Much Happens You’re Unaware Of

  awebb

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:22 pm

  I got a call today from a man who was interested in a business I had been working on.  He had spoken to someone who knows me reasonably well and another person with whom I am acquainted.  While neither of these people really know me well, they both know me well enough that they were complimentary as they spoke of me to this man.  We had a good conversation and arranged an “in-person” meeting to see if we want to go forward. As I have pondered this call I got from out of the blue, I have to wonder what might have happened had my two friends said, “Oh, you don’t want…

• No Lack Of Opportunity

  awebb

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:37 am

  Well, winter has officially come to the Yellowstone eco-system.  We’ve been having snow (a skiff at a time) almost every day for two or three weeks.  But today looks like real winter.  The color of the sky, the depth of the snow (about 8″), the colder temperatures (about 15 degrees,) all have changed and all speak of the arrival of winter. I know there are a lot of people who don’t like winter.  I’m not one of them.  It’s quiet, it’s clean, it’s crisp, it’s cold, and most of all, the majority of the “vacation-travel” crowd has…

• Profit Is Not A Dirty Word

  awebb

  29 Oct 2009 | 10:46 am

  Somewhere,  somehow, people in our government and in our society have gotten the idea that profit is somehow wrong.  They would tell you that those who make a profit are “in it only for the money.” I’d like to remind everyone of a few things.  Every great invention, every meaningful, rewarding job was created by someone who created the thing or the business with the expectation of “making money.”  Isn’t that the American dream, after all?  You can come here to the land of opportunity with nothing but the clothes on your back and you can become all that…

• Work Ethic, Not Talent Or Experience Best Predictor Of Success

  awebb

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:09 pm

  I had an interesting experience while building my wood shop these last few weeks.  I got a bid from a framer for $3,000 to frame and sheet the whole thing (40 X 50.)  That’s a great price and I knew it.  I knew of the framer and had seen his work.  He does excellent quality work, so I was surprised when he was willing to do it so cheap. But after talking to him, I hired him.  He told me that with his crew he could frame it in two days.  Wow!  That sounded good, but I figured I’d have to watch him to make sure he did quality work if he was going to do it so quickly.  We…

• 
  StartupNation

• Why you should pay for this content

  Rich Sloan

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:10 pm

  Weird that I’d write a blog post about paying for content in a free content world, isn’t it?! Weirder yet that StartupNation has for years on end been a STRICTLY free content site and hosts many tens of thousands of pages of free content and features. So why have we recently launched a paid content offering (in our new Quarterly Marketing Trends eReports)? Because they’re worth it. Our experts and co-authors spend weeks amassing research and drawing out takeaways and distill those down into clear trends and action items that could have a profound impact on your business. For…

• Exceed Expectations to Boost Sales

  Melanie Rembrandt

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:35 am

  If you want to increase your level of returning customers, there is one major thing that you need to take care of at the very beginning of every relationship - Expectations. This may sound simple, but if you don’t spell out what you are going to provide for the money, you can run into major confusion and complications in the future. And it goes both ways. Your customers need to tell you what they expect too. With this in mind, here are three key tips to think about when you begin to work on any new projects or customer sales: 1. Communicate goals. Before you exchange funds, products…

• Make Your Website Stand Out in 30 Minutes or Less

  Tom Now

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:44 am

  In the time it takes you to shop at your local grocery store, you could implement simple and easy changes to your website to make it stand out from the crowd. Online competition is fierce. Consumers and B2B (Business to Business) buyers have many choices. Checking out your competitors is merely a click away. So it’s more critical than ever that your website is remarkable and compels your site visitors to take notice. Either you are going to be different than your competition, or you are going to lose many prospective customers who just can’t seem to remember your company’s…

• Secrets to Accelerating Your Business Success

  Rich Sloan

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:10 pm

  As a business owner, I love being my company’s “evangelist.” I get huge kicks from educating and exciting people about becoming a customer. But frankly, there’s an even more important—though arguably less exhilarating—aspect to closing new business. We call it, the art of follow up. My feelings about this were confirmed and further fueled at a recent networking event in Phoenix where Clate Mask, CEO of Infusionsoft, presented his thoughts on the way to make following up work for you. Because entrepreneurs like me are among the most passionate people on earth, and we love pitching…

• Target is re-branding to “Real MOMS”…..Bye-Bye Bullseye!

  Kim Babjak

  31 Oct 2009 | 3:05 pm

  Is that bull’s-eye logo going bye-bye to survive the Wal-Mart effect? What does Wal-Mart know that may save business everywhere? Is it true- is Target steering away from their famous Bullseye logo? Since March of 2009, they have been pulling it to implement an ARROW; that is being targeted right to “Real MOMs” and how they are saving real money at Target. The MOM demographic just happens to be the largest growing consumer base, next to the Hispanic market, which both carry allot of weight behind their dollar buyer power. Target has been under pressure from its largest majority stock…

• 
  Mobile Marketing Watch

• RFID Enabled iPhone a Boon to Mobile Marketing?

  michael

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:16 am

  The future of monetizing mobile marketing campaigns will be greatly simplified in tandem with the advent of newer, more convenient payment tools for consumers. As a result, the mobile marketing community is buzzing this week over the recent speculation by Einar Rosenberg, Chief Technology Officer of Narian Technologies, Apple is currently tinkering with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip for possible inclusion in the next generation iPhone. Apple’s impetus for seeking an RFID enabled iPhone is obvious. For Apple, turning the device into a handy payment tool makes the iPhone a…

• TwitterPeek’s Non-Impact on Mobile Marketing

  michael

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am

  While there are few doubts that the advent of social media has done anything but help mobile marketing, there are some concerns that the new TwitterPeek device (a handset designed especially for use with Twitter) might be more of a dud than a stud when it comes to assisting mobile marketers. The TwitterPeek device, which is solely built around Twitter, does exactly what you would expect from it. Using the device’s small keyboard, you can compose 140 character messages and follow your friends and associates on the popular social networking service. However, that’s about all you can…

• Mogreet Debuts Mobile Video Marketing Platform

  justin

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:59 am

  Mogreet, a new company focusing on mobile video-based marketing, debuted it’s new all-inclusive mobile video platform yesterday at Ad:Tech- a platform that gives advertisers access to “hundreds of millions of Americans across all top U.S carriers,” and is available on feature flip-phones and the latest smartphones alike. Put simply, the platform makes it easy for marketers to send short-format mobile videos via MMS to almost all mobile users in the U.S.- regardless of whether they use a high-end smartphone or the latest free feature phone.  Furthermore, the platform allows…

• Survey: Future Spend For Mobile Marketing

  justin

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:02 pm

  We hear a lot from so-called “industry experts” or analysts who make huge claims as to how mobile marketing is going to “take off” this year, or that this year “isn’t quite the year for mobile marketing” and so on.  Most of the time these claims are based purely on opinion and lack any real substance. A new survey sponsored by a partnership between Millennial Media and DM2PRO decided to go directly to the source — meaning major brands and advertisers themselves– to see just how mobile marketing is working out for them, and to get an…

• MMA Chooses 2009 Global Award Finalists

  justin

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:24 am

  The fifth annual Global Mobile Marketing Awards are upon us, and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has chosen its finalists in all categories to compete for the MMA’s highest honors- awards that recognize companies and their campaigns for “spearheading the adoption of the mobile channel for marketing purposes.” The MMA received hundreds of submissions in 12 categories from companies across the globe regarding completed mobile marketing campaigns and their outcomes.  Finalists were selected by the MMA Awards Selection Committee, which is comprised of global industry…

• 
  Business Blogs on Blogged

• Your Take: Will Your Recession Changes Stick?

  Blueprint for Financial Prosperity While most of us don’t believe we’re out of the recession, no matter what the statistics say, we can all agree that we made a few sacrifices over the last year and a half. Some have made a lot of sacrifices. One of the things my wife and ...

• Dry Cleaning: Hazard to Your Wallet

  Wisebread Of course we all like to look good. For some of us, professional attire is a job requirement. We spend a lot of money to look good but we are also doing a lot more homework about...

• Shell Oil to pay California $19 mln over violations

  The City & My Life Shell Oil Company will pay California more than 19 million dollars because of environmental violations at service stations throughout the state, officials said Friday.

• Buffett Offers Possible 22% Profit to Arbitrageurs on Burlington

  Climateer Investing Warren Buffett is giving arbitrage traders the chance to capture annualized earnings of 22 percent on his bid for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. offered $100 a share for the largest U.S. railroad on Nov. 3 in a deal the Omaha, Nebraska- based insurance and investment company said would probably close during the first quarter. Based on that schedule and Burlington’s closing price of $96.98 yesterday, the acquisition offers an annualized return of 8 percent to 22 percent.

• Consumer Credit Plunges

  Silicon Alley Insider Consumers are still in full-on saving mode according to the latest Fed data on consumer credit: Reuters: Total U.S. consumer credit dropped by a bigger-than-expected $14.80 billion in September, Federal Reserve data showed on Friday, indicating households prefer to reduce debt and are still reluctant to spend.

• 
  Branding Strategy Insider

• 9 Digital Trends For 2010

  Derrick Daye

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  1: Facebook replaces personal emailQuestion: Google has it, Hoover has it (in the UK anyway), TiVo had it, lost it and has somewhat got it back. Xerox had it, but nobody really cares anymore. So what is it?It's when a brand name becomes the verb associated with its use. So rather than searching, you Google, or TiVo when digital recording a television show. Arguably an even more powerful synonym is when a brand becomes a noun, such as Polaroid, for instant developed photographs, although that didn't end so well.The newest one would seem to Facebook, although it has too meanings.'I Facebooked…

• The Anti-laws of Luxury Marketing #16

  Derrick Daye

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  16. Keep celebrities out of your advertisingIn traditional marketing, stars of stage and screen are very often used in advertising: there is nothing like a David Beckham for selling sunglasses or shaving cream. Nestlé has also got in on the act, with premium brand Nespresso calling on the services of George Clooney, and Nescafé recruiting the famous English soccer player Ian Wright. Nestlé, the world’s number one in food marketing, knows what it’s doing.However, using celebrities to promote luxury products is extremely dangerous. A luxury brand is courted by the stars, in the same way…

• Brands and the Ladder of Life

  Al Ries

  1 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  One of the typical questions marketing people ask themselves is, What’s the lifetime value of a customer?Presumably a company benefits by keeping its customers satisfied over an extended period of time. Nice idea in theory, but this kind of thinking often leads a company down the wrong path.Take Saturn, for example. Here was a brand built on the ultimate in customer satisfaction. Comfortable showrooms, no high-pressure sales people, no haggling over prices. ‘A different kind of company. A different kind of car.’The first Saturn model, the S series, was wildly successful. For a number of…

• Uniting Naming and Promotion

  Steve Rivkin

  31 Oct 2009 | 9:10 pm

  X-13D? What kind of name is that for something you pop into your mouth?Doritos turned naming conventions upside down with its savvy plan in 2007 to generate buzz – and, oh yes, a new name – for its new flavored chips. How? By submitting suggestions on the Web, prompted by these eye-catching black bags of cheeseburger-like chips with the 'classified' moniker.“This is the X-13D flavor experiment,” said the text box on the bag. “Objective: taste and name Doritos flavor X-13D.” This was followed by directions to a website that linked to yet another website. And when snack-happy teens…

• When The Name You Want Is Taken

  Steve Rivkin

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:05 pm

  You've just found out the name you want for your brand is owned by somebody else. So, the temptation is to say, "Let's move on."Not so fast. Names are property, and can be bought and sold (or leased) like real estate.Coors licensed the name of its upscale beer Irish Red from a long-defunct brewery. Yves St. Laurent bought the name of its Opium fragrance for only $200 from two elderly perfumers.The 1999 relaunch of National Airlines came about after the new owners paid $175,000 to buy the name at a bankruptcy sale from defunct Pan Am. (Pan Am had acquired the carrier in 1980.)Not that long…

• 
  OPEN Forum Articles

• What We Can Learn From Designers

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm

  From Matthew E. May: Warren Berger is the author of Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World, just published by Penguin Press. I found the book to be a breed apart from all of the many design thinking books hitting the shelves, and worth a further look. Question: Why did you write Glimmer? Answer: This book started with me trying to answer for myself the basic question, “What is design?” I’d been writing about it on and off for years, for magazines like Wired, and it was always interesting to me that the term was used in so many different ways. As…

• Market Using Your Grandfather's Business Model: Barter

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:15 pm

  From Shira Levine: No overhead is quite the pleasant notion for small businesses struggling to stay alive and profitable in this economy. Often times advertising, marketing and PR budgets are the first to be slashed when times get tough. Yet those are the very legs that bring more business. Businesses that think outside of the box and even a bit Old Country, using the classic old school barter and applying it online and using social media are finding it easier to keep costs down and their communications departments alive. Bottom line: Hustling an online barter can remove the exchange of…

• The 40-30-30 Rule: Why Risk is Worth It

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pm

  From Michael Schwalbe: Many of the strategies employed in competitive and recreational sports are often applicable in business and our personal lives. One lesson I learned from alpine ski racing was the "40-30-30 Rule." During training, early on, I tried to go fast and I also focused on not falling. On a ride up the ski lift, my coach told me I was missing the point. He explained that success in ski racing, or most sports for that matter, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. And of that, the first 30% was technical skill and experience. The second 30% was the willingness…

• Student Entrepreneurs Turn Dorm Rooms into Business Offices

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:52 pm

  From Jill Fehrenbacher: Few stages in life are as ripe with learning and experimentation, curiosity and exploration, as one’s college years. College used to be viewed as the last rite of passage prior to entering the ‘real world’ -- the last stop before figuring out what you really wanted to do with your life before taking the plunge. But an increasing amount of enthusiastic college students are pairing their diploma earning efforts with entrepreneurial endeavors, resulting in lofty, passion fueled businesses with dorm room roots. Boldness is a crucial element required…

• Choose the Right Metrics...or Make the Wrong Decisions

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:43 pm

  From John Mariotti: Have you been ill and had a temperature lately?  You probably compared your temperature to “normal” which you were taught for years was 98.6 F.  Wrong.  The correct human body temperature is closer to 98.25F (and that is an average, because there are variations from person to person).  The 98.6F reading was developed in 1868, when Carl Wunderlich published a seminal paper on body temperature in 25,000 adults.  But his study was done using imprecise measuring devices and techniques of that era, yet it has been widely accepted over 100…

• 
  Ideablob News

• Healthcare for Haiti wins $10k

  11 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Healthcare for Haiti wins $10k. For more news see http://www.ideablob.com/posts.

• National Marriage Boycott wins $10k

  14 Sep 2009 | 10:00 pm

  National Marriage Boycott wins $10k. For more news see http://www.ideablob.com/posts.

• 5 Top Trends to Turn into Business Ideas

  12 Aug 2009 | 10:00 pm

  5 Top Trends to Turn into Business Ideas. For more news see http://www.ideablob.com/posts.

• CollaborAid Wins $10k

  4 Aug 2009 | 10:00 pm

  CollaborAid Wins $10k. For more news see http://www.ideablob.com/posts.

• Play For Hope Wins $10k

  12 Jul 2009 | 10:00 pm

  Play For Hope Wins $10k. For more news see http://www.ideablob.com/posts.

• 
  Men With Pens

• Special Fiction Writing Week: Creating Prejudice in Fantasy

  Taylor

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  In honor of the super-exclusive offer for Men with Pens readers only in regards on the Gamer Lifestyle Course, we’re turning our attention in this latter half of the special fiction week towards how to write realistically in fantasy worlds. If you’ve missed the first posts in this special fiction writing series, you can read them here: Day One: How to create a believable character Day Two: How to create a setting for your story. Day Three: How to create plot Day Four: How to get serious and make money from fiction writing Day Five: How to create character flaws Today, for our last…

• Special Fiction Writing Week: Creating Character Flaws

  Taylor

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  In honor of the super-exclusive offer for Men with Pens readers only in regards on the Gamer Lifestyle Course, we’re turning our attention in this latter half of the special fiction week towards how to write realistically in fantasy worlds. If you’ve missed the first posts in this special fiction writing series, you can read them here: Day One: How to create a believable character Day Two: How to create a setting for your story. Day Three: How to create plot Day Four: How to get serious and make money from fiction writing Today, we’re tackling a topic that has plagued fantasy…

• Special Fiction Week: Your Exclusive Men with Pens Offer

  James

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  We’re going to ask you a serious question: Is copywriting really what you want to do to make money? Because I’ll tell you right now, it’s not what I want to do. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy copywriting immensely. It’s hard to find a better job than being a freelance writer. I like the hours, I like the work, I like the vast majority of the people I work with. Of all the possible jobs I could have, copywriting is right up there in the top 10. It’s not at the very top, though. At the very top of my ultimate top 10 jobs is being paid to write fiction. That’s what I’ve wanted to do…

• Special Fiction Writing Week: Creating a Plot

  Taylor

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  If you’re one of those people who writes copy for a living in order to make enough money to support your fiction writing endeavors, then this series is for you. This week, Men with Pens offers a full six days of posts, each on writing fiction and boosting your potential to create a kick-ass novel. We’ll also have an exclusive Men with Pens offer for readers this week – stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, where you’ll discover how to earn money from fiction writing. The series began with tips on how to create a believable character, and the next installment discussed how to…

• Special Fiction Writing Week: Creating a Setting

  Taylor

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  If you’re one of those people who writes articles or ebooks or website copy for a living in order to make enough money to do the other kind of writing – yes, fiction – then this series is for you. We’re offering a full week (yes, six posts) all about writing fiction and improving your skills. We’ll also have an exclusive offer for Men with Pens readers later on this week; you’ll be able to put your fiction to work for you and earn money off its originality. Yesterday’s post began the series with tips and tricks on how to create a believable character. We…

• 
  My Venture Pad

• Will Android blow iPhone OS away?

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:11 am

  Here is an interesting post from Chris Dannen on FastCompany.com on Android vs. iPhone OS. While he misses the entire point on the 100k+ apps in the iPhone apps store, he does make a compelling point ...

• Startup Version 1.0

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:58 am

  Great post by Mark Geller What Goes in V1.0? He talks about something that I end up discussing a lot with startups. What do you put in that first version? Or more appropriately, the first few versions...

• You’re Facing a Reputation Crisis, Now What?

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:51 am

  There’s a growing interest in online reputation management. Over at Wildfire Marketing, I answered some reputation management questions for their Thought Leader Thursday series. Here’s a taster… ...

• End of a Worrisome Week on the Employment Front

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:11 am

  The official unemployment numbers are just out for October, and the data reinforces all of the worrisome surveys that have been coming out all week:The unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in October, from...

• Changing spaces in media

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:04 am

  The Media 140 Conference in Sydney has offered a vast amount of food for thought my brain is buzzing with ideas, issues and concerns. The first thing that struck me was the level of fear and fear-m...

• 
  Home Business Ideas

• Marketing School: Your Check Is In The Mail

  Naomi Dunford

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:52 am

  I wonder, if someone were to go through this blog and count, how many times I’ve said, “after much ado…” There’s really no better phrase, under the circumstances. But it’s Friday, and you want to just finish your day and get on with going out and getting drunk, so I’ll try to keep the ado to a minimum. The story so far Once upon a time, we wrote an e-book called SEO School. Lots of people bought it. (Thank you, lots of people. And if you’re the voyeuristic type and want to know what we mean by “lots of people”, check out the How To Make $12,246 In A Day series. Also…

• Anti-Social Media: The Dark Side of Authenticity

  Naomi Dunford

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:25 am

  A couple of hours ago – it’s 2 am right now — as I was getting ready to close up shop for the night, I went onto Twitter one last time before heading for bath and bed. I tweeted this. For those of you whose bosses don’t let you on Twitter, it read: Getting ready for a hot bath and glass of wine with @chrisbrogan and @julien. Well, their book, anyway. #illtakewhaticanget I went. I had my bath. As I was getting ready to go to bed, I remembered I was waiting on something, so I logged back on. I had a handful of DMs from someone I know who didn’t like what I said. Not a troll.

• 101+1 Small Business Marketing Questions For People Who Don’t Speak Marketing

  Naomi Dunford

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am

  How To Use This List: Pick 25-50 questions. Answer them as honestly and expansively as you can. Follow your intuition. Trust the answers to lead you to make the right decisions. Come back in three months and do it again, with the same or different questions. Do that and you’ll have a better marketing plan than anybody I know. Including me. 1. What do I love to do so much that it doesn’t feel like work? 2. What parts of that activity are my favorite parts? 3. Is there anybody else on earth who might really dig doing the parts I don’t really dig? 4. Why are you different than…

• Social Media and Social Proof: On Twitter Lists, Metrics, Mammals and Marketing

  Naomi Dunford

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am

  First, I’ll give you some background before I get into my screaming, raging rant. Cool? (Oh, and please do not take this explanation as endorsement, OK? Some people have never heard of Twitter and I want them to be able to experience the full force of my rancor just as much as you can.) Twitter is a social media site. The people who choose to be alerted to your updates (tweets) are called followers. For a long time, your worth as a human being was calculated by subtracting the amount of people you follow from the number of people who follow you. This little junior high…

• How to stop being an information product slut and start creating the business you want

  Naomi Dunford

  30 Oct 2009 | 12:40 pm

  This is a guest post from Cath Duncan at The Bottom-line Bookclub Be honest… how many e-books and e-courses have you bought that are languishing un-opened on your computer right now? Search your harddrive and inbox, and you’ll probably be shocked to find e-books and e-courses that you don’t even remember buying or downloading and a membership site or two that you haven’t logged into for months. And for the few information products that you have actually read cover to cover, ask yourself, “How much of it have I actively applied?” Why do we spend our hard-earned,…

• 
  All You Need Is A Good Idea!

• DON’T COUNT ON THE WORDS

  Jay Heyman

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:25 am

  It’s not that words don’t count. It’s that you shouldn’t fall into the trap of counting words  because you believe short headlines will always be better. Here, for example, are two different ten-word headlines. In both instances they are the only copy in the message, so the words are obviously very important. The first example was reported in the New York Times. It was commissioned by FirstBank of Colorado, which hired a local marketing firm to design ads that promoted the regional bank’s conservative lending practices. At the Colorado Rockies’ first home game of the season,…

• FREE BONUS CHAPTER

  Jay Heyman

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  This bonus chapter contains some insights that never made it into my book, All You Need Is A Good Idea!, as well as a gathering of more recent observations and ideas. Just click "Free bonus Chapter" in the sidebar, under my photo, to download the (FREE) PDF. (Yes, it is FREE. As in no cost, no e-mail address required, no hidden “gotchas,” no need for you to buy something else to get the bonus.) WHY AM I DOING THIS? Giving information away is the new business model. Ideally the result is that one person tells another, more and more people hear about your product, viral word of…

• WHAT’S A NICE PRODUCT LIKE YOU DOING IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?

  Jay Heyman

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:59 am

  It was a long ago copy exploratory for Anacin. (A copy exploratory is where the ad agency is in crisis mode and the entire creative department pitches in to come up with new ideas. It is more panicky than a new business pitch, because here the business is yours to lose.) You can read the exciting details about my good idea for the TV campaign in my book, pages 134-138. But it is the print executions I want to discuss. My plan was to put my tag line, with no other copy, in places no aspirin ads had gone before. Sections of a newspaper, for example, that were inherently headache provoking, such…

• DON'T PUT ME TO SLEEP

  Jay Heyman

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:30 am

  There is a saying that there are no dull subjects, only dull writers. And I have done several blogs over the past year or so about the importance of passion when creating your marketing. (Here is the link to the post about audacity.) Basically, if you don’t care, why should I? I’ve got a lot on my mind, mostly dealing with my problems. I certainly don’t care about your stuff even if it can help me solve a crisis…unless I hear about it. And with 5,000 or so messages a day fighting for my attention, a me-too, bland, halfhearted attempt to get my attention probably won’t work. So even…

• HAVE A MOST SPECTACULAR, INCREDIBLE DAY

  Jay Heyman

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:37 am

  I first noticed it at my local Starbucks. It started out, as I recall, with, “Have a nice day.” This was fine for a while, but then escalated to, ‘Have a great day.” When this had worn itself out as a welcome, it was replaced with, “Have a wonderful day,” and, “Have a glorious day,” soon, I am sure, to be one-upped to, “Have the most fantastic day you have ever had, including past birthdays and the day you won the lottery.” It is difficult to stick to one adjective; repetition quickly causes it to lose its original purpose of offering something extra, especially when all…

• 
  Online Business Blog -- erica.biz -- Erica Douglass teaches you how to start and grow an online business!

• Review: Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp

  Erica Douglass

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:10 am

  Review: Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp. Have you ever felt like your money was in control of you, instead of the other way around? Do you desperately wish your life wasn’t controlled by credit card payments and bills–and you just need a little help to get turned around? I’m excited to help my friend Ramit Sethi in his quest to help you take back control of your financial future. This video explains everything, but the story is also below for you… My Story In 2007, I nearly bankrupted my business because I didn’t keep track of my…

• How To Make A Mind Map

  Erica Douglass

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:45 am

  How to make a mind map. Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed by some of the projects you are working on…like you’ve set an impossible goal? I felt that way when I first started writing my Blog Success Manifesto. I started with a blank document and quickly got lost. I had so many ideas, and it just seemed impossible that I could address all of them. The document gathered dust on my hard drive for a few months…until I figured out how to make a mind map. I brainstormed out at least 20 topics I wanted to talk about, then realized I could sort them into five sections. Once I…

• Creating A New Product

  Erica Douglass

  21 Oct 2009 | 10:53 am

  Creating a new product by interviewing others and selling it online.Back in July, I wrote 20 Scam-Free Ways to Make Money Online, which has since become my most popular post. It is an honest look at various ways that you can make money online, from quick ways to make a few extra bucks to entire businesses that can be started from your home. Instead of posting affiliate links and hoping to gain a few dollars, I instead asked you for your feedback. And feedback poured in — from the 48 comments on the post, to email after email and Tweet after Tweet. I wanted to know which of the 20 ways…

• Diagnosis: Celiac Disease

  Erica Douglass

  13 Oct 2009 | 11:25 am

  My journey toward my diagnosis with Celiac disease. It may have started as early as age 16. I can remember eating lunch and feeling tired afterward. I took a 2-hour break for lunch in high school so I could go back to my room and rest (I lived at a residential school for the last 2 years of high school.) I also got sick a lot. I often complained of exhaustion, and my moods were all over the place. The doctors I went to told me to get more sleep. Things got worse as I got older. By the time I was 25, I was sleeping for a few hours every day after lunch, and not feeling any better after I woke…

• How Do All Those “Idiots” Make So Much Money?

  Erica Douglass

  8 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  Does it drive you nuts that some idiot with a terrible product seems to be constantly making sales, when you know your product is better? What’s the difference between you and that “idiot”? Why Many “Idiots” Are So Successful Idiots Successful entrepreneurs truly believe in their products/services, and aren’t afraid to show it. When I was young, my dad told me, “Erica, no one wants to hear about your success.” What he meant was, “Don’t brag about all your stuff.” (For many of his cohorts, “stuff” equaled success;…

• 
  Forbes.com

• The Perils Of Outsourcing

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:44 pm

  One entrepreneur's tale of woe--and the valuable lessons learned.

• Are You An Empire Builder?

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

  The answer involves a lot more than having a sound growth strategy.

• Toppers Pizza Wants A Big Slice Of A Small Pie

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

  Soused college kids are a great growth market--if you can handle the late nights.

• Your Online Growth Serum

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

  Is YouTube a one-off hit maker or a strategic marketing tool?

• Extreme Growth Gambles

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

  Aggressive strategies--some wise, some worrisome--for dealing with stubbornly flat demand.

• 
  Business Week: Small Business

• Don't Be Tempted by 'Shelf Corporations'

  7 Nov 2009 | 4:27 am

• The R&D Tax Credit Plays Hard to Get

  7 Nov 2009 | 4:27 am

• A Typical Entrepreneur's Aspirations

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:45 am

  Most believe new businesses provide substantial economic benefits. Scott Shane explains why this isn't normally the case

• Tax Planning in 2009

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:43 am

  Because of poor sales and pending legislation, common tax strategies might not apply to this year. Meet with your accountant and consider this advice

• Watchdogs: 'Shell' Schemes Are on the Rise

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:40 pm

  When corporate identities and credit histories are for sale, the potential for fraud is part of the package

• 
  Entrepreneur: Up and Running

• WSJ on Why You Need a Business Plan

  Tim Berry

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:43 am

  Browsing and searching last night, I discovered “Why You Need a Business Plan” by Colleen Debaise on the Wall Street Journal’s website. This is a good, strong post and a good reminder. Her five reasons: Identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Figure out how much money you’ll need. Get clear direction, which can help eliminate stress. Summarize for lenders, investors or partners. Evaluate the market for your product or service and size up the competition. My personal favorite is No. 3, particularly the phrase “help eliminate stress.”…

• The Gift of Not Getting Funded

  Tim Berry

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am

  There was a good reminder placed on The Funded yesterday. It’s a note from an entrepreneur entitled The Gift of Not Getting Funded (Early). I really like this quote: What our lack of funding made us do is go back to basics. We know we had the seed of a good idea but struggled to come up with a sustainable model. Along with lots of hard work we talked with potential customers and came up with a solid way to generate revenue. Our potential customers are now signing letters of support saying they like our product and find it beneficial for their business and are willing to be contacted by…

• Understanding the Healthy Company Money Trap

  Tim Berry

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:38 am

  This may surprise you. From an investor’s point of view, self-sufficiency in a startup or emerging company isn’t always a good thing. In many cases, it’s an investor’s nightmare. Here’s a hypothetical example. Suppose you just invested $250,000 in Acme LLC, a promising startup. Let’s say you got 25 percent ownership for your money. Years go by, and Acme grows in sales, profits and cash flow. In fact, it’s so good that it becomes cash-flow independent, meaning it’s generating enough cash, month by month, to pay salaries and fund growth. As a…

• You Will Make Mistakes. Deal With It

  Tim Berry

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:48 am

  I’m not a baseball fan, and I don’t particularly like sports metaphors. But there’s a lot of baseball in prime time these days, and one of the fundamentals of baseball that applies beautifully to entrepreneurship is about making mistakes. In baseball, pitchers don’t always throw strikes (good pitches). They get up to three bad pitches per batter. And batters don’t always hit the ball. Players who get successful hits more then 30 percent of their times at bat are really good. In the major leagues, fewer than 10 have ever gotten 40 percent for a season. And the…

• 5 Things Missing From Most Entrepreneur Pitches

  Tim Berry

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  I found this list in a very good post from Charlie O’Donnell on his blog This is going to be BIG. I don’t know him, and I didn’t know his site, but on digging I discover he has done time with Union Square Ventures, teaches entrepreneurship and practices what he preaches with a couple of startups that he runs. But what really matters is that this is a very good list. It matches my dealings with startups and investors, on both sides of the table. 1) Strong sense of the key milestones–Entrepreneurs often ask what metrics they need to get to in order to get an…

• 
  San Jose Mercury News: Good Morning Silicon Valley

• Skype founders ring up their second big eBay payday

  John Murrell

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am

  Strictly as a fan of business hardball, you have to tip your cap to the Scandinavian team of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. First the founders of Skype got eBay to pay close to $3 billion for the Net telephony pioneer while somehow retaining control of its key technology. And now, after being...

• Windows 7 enjoys a good opening

  John Murrell

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:57 am

  Making straight-up comparisons of sales figures for the launches of various Windows versions is tricky business for the same reason that you can’t step in the same river twice — too many variables in the natural flow of things. But even with that caveat, it appears Windows 7 has gotten...

• Quoted: Avatars gone wild

  John Murrell

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:15 am

  “While No Doubt are avid fans of the Rolling Stones and even have performed in concerts with the Rolling Stones, the Character Manipulation Feature results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes ['Honky Tonk...

• Off Topic

  John Murrell

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:02 am

  Philman George, the rhyming chef of Barbuda; a collection of amusingly mangled bootleg DVD covers; and I Love Local Commercials. Also, Google Books has made it easier to navigate its magazine archives. a2a_linkname="Off...

• Fortune names Steve Jobs as CEO of the Century, So Far

  John Murrell

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:46 am

  A case could be made for the Google guys, Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim, Oprah Winfrey and others, but in the end, decided the editors of Fortune, there was but one clear choice for the title of CEO of the Decade: Apple’s Steve Jobs. His place in history was already assured by his...

• 
  Bizsugar

• Turning Your Customers into Fanatic Fans

  ShawnHessinger

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am

  This blog post discusses how to turn satisfied customers into true fans using social media tools, customer service above and beyond, and consistency, among other things...10 Vote(s)

• Email Subject Lines That Avoid Spam Filter

  jsternal

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am

  Here is a discussion along with excellent tips on how to develop email subject lines that help you stay out of the spam filter.9 Vote(s)

• Using Social Media to Manage Your Brand

  webdotcom

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am

  Thanks to social media, the role of branding has changed. All businesses-even individuals-need to recognize the importance of managing their brand online. If you don't manage it, others will manage it for you, which is never a good thing.10 Vote(s)

• Social Media for Business - Who's Doing it Well & How

  VictoriaJones

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:21 am

  Marketers today are caught up in a jumble of buzzwords that mean very little. It's a confusing time, but to get the marketing right, you need to start thinking about relationships first. "It's not about selling something anymore; that might be the end result, but to get there, you need to work on the relationship."10 Vote(s)

• Making Claims in your Marketing (Kellogg's Example)

  jsternal

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:10 am

  Here's an update on the story of the cereal maker we blogged about the other day. You'll recall that this particular company, now identified as Kellogg's and its Cocoa Krispies cereal, was being questioned for a marketing claim it used in big letters across the front of its box saying the cereal "Now helps support your child's IMMUNITY."11 Vote(s)

• 
  The BIG Kahuna

• Lend America Playing On Our Fears?

  BIG Kahuna

  29 Oct 2009 | 3:19 pm

  I’m sure you’ve all seen this cheeseball commercial: Click here to view the embedded video. Do you believe this brand called “Lend America”? Do you find it insulting how they pretend to be a newscast? In this day of mortgage crisis do you believe a bad credit score is okay?  Have you done a Google search for the phrase “Lend America Scam”? Would you be surprised to learn there are over 51,000 results? http://www.google.com/search?q=lend+america+scam&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGLG_en Your…

• Good Branding Is A Safety Net

  BIG Kahuna

  24 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm

  As I walk the mall shopping and making buying decisions I always question why I buy one product over another. The other day I had a new home alarm installed. I shopped around and know for certain I could have saved a few bucks with a lot of other people. Who did I go with? Brinks. Sorry, Broadview. Why? I know if there’s ever a problem they’ll take care of me. I’m safe. Same thinking applies to all my shopping. Whenever I’m faced with a decision between two brands I’ll always choose the one that makes me feel the most comfortable. I’ll pay extra for that…

• Fox News – Fair and Balanced?

  BIG Kahuna

  13 Oct 2009 | 7:18 am

  Ah, no you’re not, and I watch you all the time. Let’s face it, you’re a conservative, Republican promoting TV News outlet. Get rid of this ridiculous tagline “Fair and Balanced”. It only makes you look weak.  Embrace your brand identity of representing the right. No one else is. You’ll automatically stand for much, much more by embracing the brand. We all know CNN and MSNBC go way left. Liberals love those stations. They don’t have the guts to come out and say they are liberals either. You do Fox. Just proclaim your rightness and be done with it.

• Are You Blocking Your Employees From Social Networks Like Facebook?

  BIG Kahuna

  12 Oct 2009 | 10:45 am

  If you are stop it. Now. Really, cut the crap! This sort of practice just gets morale down and makes your company an undesirable place to work at. Go ahead, tell me your employees will be less productive. Hogwash. They’re doing it anyway from their SmartPhones, iPhones and whoziedoozzies. Soon we will all have chips surgically implanted in our heads and we won’t need a device. Here’s a great article on the issues, read it: Access to social media improves productivity. According to Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, “Using social networking sites…

• Obama Wins Nobel Smoke And Mirrors Prize

  BIG Kahuna

  9 Oct 2009 | 1:23 pm

  Today I have lost all respect from the brand Nobel. Today they awarded President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. A fine prize to win based on one’s dedication and hard-work to peace. None of which President Obama has accomplished or worked hard at (he’s only been in office for 9 months). President Obama says:  “I am both surprised and deeply humbled,” Obama said at the White House. “I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments. But rather as an affirmation of American leadership. … I will accept this award as a call to action.” I’m…

• 
  Bringing Brands to Life!

• Employee Engagement Lessons from Fast Company’s “30 Second MBA” Part 1

  Thomas R. Clifford

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:04 am

  I’m a big fan of Fast Company’s “30 Second MBA” site. The minute it launched, I felt it offered a simple yet highly effective way for organizations to integrate social media concepts into their internal communication strategies. I wanted to know more. So I asked Ellen McGirt, the Senior Writer and Dean of “30 Second MBA,” a few questions about her experiences in launching the site. I was particularly interested in seeing how the “30 Second MBA” framework could be adapted for internal communication purposes. Here’s part one of the interview. And many thanks, Ellen, for…

• 5 Big Ideas: What Honda’s Mini-Documentaries Can Teach Non-Filmmakers

  Thomas R. Clifford

  21 Oct 2009 | 7:05 pm

  Here are five ideas from Honda’s new corporate documentary, “Racing Against Time,” to help you take your videos from talking heads to interesting and believable stories. (RSS readers click thru to see the video.) Have you checked out Honda’s “Dream the Impossible” mini-documentary series? The video series features several big ideas in a series of mini-documentaries. And yes, they’re beautifully produced. But here’s the thing. If you deconstruct Honda’s new documentary, “Racing Against Time,” you’ll find five big ideas you can use to make your own videos just as…

• Tom's SpeedLink #12

  Thomas R. Clifford

  20 Oct 2009 | 5:52 am

  Time to share some pretty cool links... 1. New book: "Believe Me: Why Your Vision, Brand, and Leadership Need a Bigger Story." Michael Margolis, my friend and remarkable business storyteller, just released his first book yesterday entitled, "Believe Me: Why Your Vision, Brand, and Leadership Need a Bigger Story." It's a "storytelling manifesto for change-makers and innovators." Yes, I ordered my copy and can't wait to dive in to it! 2. Honda Launches New Docu-Series On Twitter Honda's corporate mini-documentaries are some of my favorite programs. I'll have a full article on this new video…

• 9 Super Simple Ways to Rock Your Company Video

  Thomas R. Clifford

  7 Oct 2009 | 7:18 pm

  It’s the small things that can make a big difference. Anyone can implement these ideas. And the cool part? They’re free or next to free. See if you can sneak a few of these tricks into your next project. It will help your video story feel more believable and interesting. And rockin'. 1. Talk first. Your best storytellers are hiding right under your nose– your employees. Figure our what your video is about. Pull up a chair and get talking. Ask lots of different questions. Employees rarely get this kind of chance to be heard and recognized. You’ll be amazed at what you hear and capture.

• 7 Fascinating Filmmakers to Follow on Twitter

  Thomas R. Clifford

  23 Sep 2009 | 6:00 am

  Think today’s filmmakers are stuck behind the camera? Or the edit room? Think again. Many filmmakers are harnessing the power of the web to tell another side of the story– their story. Readers enjoyed my earlier post, “7 Interesting Storytellers to Follow on Twitter,” so let’s continue this series with some interesting filmmakers. Keeping in the spirit of Twitter, the following “tweets” are 140 characters or less. 7 Fascinating Filmmakers to Follow on Twitter 1. Errol Morris @errolmorris The Oscar-winning director of ‘Fog of War” often tweets zen-like koans. Witty and always…

• 
  SpringWise

• Cooking wiki can be edited by anyone

  Springwise

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:01 am

  We've seen the Wikipedia model applied to car design, a video dictionary and an online publishing platform. The latest? Foodista, an online cooking encyclopedia whose recipes can be edited by anyone. Launched late last year, Seattle-based Foodista is a collaborative project to build the world's largest, highest-quality cooking encyclopedia. The site says it is the first to organize and cross-link the basic elements of cooking: foods, or the basic ingredients; recipes, or combinations of ingredients; cooking techniques; and kitchen tools. Rather than include hundreds of recipes for the same…

• Personalized plates and placemats for kids

  Springwise

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:44 pm

  There's nothing like a baby to inspire adults to seek new heights of design and personalization. Last week we covered RoomsByYou's customizable fabrics for baby rooms, after which we were happy to spot Alphabet Plates, a line of plates and placemats that can be customized for young kids. With bright, bold designs and BPA-free construction, Alphabet Plates can be personalized to reflect kids' favourite foods, sports, faces or monograms. Those approximating a child's face, for example, allow customization of the 10-inch melamine plate's colour as well as the child's hair, eye colour, skin tone…

• ModCloth asks customers to "be the buyer"

  Springwise

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:38 pm

  A retailer's primary role may be that of curator and tastemaker, but that doesn't mean that the crowds can't pitch in to help. Online indie clothing retailer ModCloth asks its customers to help choose which items to take into production. ModCloth launched its Be the Buyer initiative two weeks ago. The voting process is reminiscent of t-shirt purveyor Threadless. But whereas t-shirts are almost a commodity from a manufacturing point of view, ModCloth sells dresses, shirts, jackets and skirts that are more complicated to produce. Which is where the virtual buyers come in. As ModCloth explains:…

• Puzzle books given a design makeover

  Springwise

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:27 pm

  Puzzle books are big sellers, but generally not much to look at. Aiming to capture that gap in the market is a series of eyecatching, pocket-sized books. The Pocket Posh line includes about two dozen books, which retail for USD 7.99. Each features 100 puzzles: crosswords, hangman, word searches, logic puzzles and various forms of sodoku. Floral and geometric designs grace their covers, and the books have rounded corners and elastic band closures that mimic Moleskine notebooks. Developed by The Puzzle Society and published by Andrews McMeel, Pocket Posh is targeting female puzzlers. Proof once…

• Bottled water brand encourages positive thinking

  Springwise

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:50 am

  From France to Fiji, bottled water brands rely on spring-based provenance to lure customers. A newcomer is focusing on a different kind of message: positivity. A Bottle Of, which claims to be Australia's first Naturally Positive spring water, currently comes in three varieties: wellbeing, love and strength. Launched last December by Heidi Albertiri, a flower stylist who believes in the power of positivity, A Bottle Of hopes to lift people's moods, encouraging them to "Sip it - Say it - Absorb it - Feel it - Think about it - Repeat it - Believe it". Given the size of both the self-help market…

• 
  Venture Hacks

• Best of the startup blogs

  Nivi

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:31 am

  We read the startup blogs so you don’t have to. Jason Cohen explains how to hire employee #1 (practical, tested advice). Fred Wilson explains how to make an email intro without making yourself look bad (this is how I do it). Bill Gurley explains why Google will pay mobile device companies to use their OS. Fred Destin explains why, much of the time, he doesn’t know why he passes on investments (finally someone admits it — I look for reasons to say yes, not reasons to say no). Chris Dixon explains why he’s reassured when Sequoia invests in a Y Combinator company. Fake Steve…

• Lean startups aren’t Cheap Startups

  Mr. Guest

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:03 am

  This post is by Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur with eight startups under his belt, including two large craters (Rocket Science and Ardent), one dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany), and several base hits. Steve is also the creator of customer development and this is one of his best posts on the topic. If you like it, check out his blog and tweets @sgblank.– Nivi At an entrepreneur’s panel last week, questions from the audience made me realize that the phrase “Lean Startup” was being confused with “Cheap Startup.” For those of you who have been following the discussion, a…

• Customer development by the book

  Nivi

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Ash Maurya’s new blog documents his journey through customer development. This is the most by-the-book application of customer development that I have ever seen. I am following this blog very closely; it’s thoughtful and well written. Some highlights: Is AdWords the right MVP for your product? “For Timothy Ferris, his MVP for testing new products that don’t yet exist (micro-testing) comprises of a landing page, signup page, and Google Adwords to drive traffic. However, this approach presupposes that: You can create a good landing page You can write good adwords copy…

• Our first online workshop: How to pitch investors

  Nivi

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:00 am

  We’re teaching our first ever online workshop on “How to pitch investors” about eduFire — a platform for live video teaching online. Sign up here. I’ve taken classes on eduFire and it works really well; here are some recordings of their classes. (Update: This class is full so I’ve opened up a second class. Sign up here.) (Another update: The second class is also full. E-mail me to get on the waiting list for the next class. And if you want to buy a recording of the class, e-mail me or contact me on eduFire. We obviously won’t be able to work on your pitch…

• Notes from Startup School 2009

  Nivi

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  Mark Bao has posted his notes from this year’s Startup School. Here are my favorite parts (everything below is cut-and-pasted directly from his notes — read the full collection): Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga: My Startup Experience what really matters is that YOU CONTROL YOUR BOARD. Mark Zuckerberg claps. How? (1) Create a board that reflects the ownership of the company. (2) Make a new board seat for a new CEO, (3) Do a term sheet tune-up. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook: Q&A with Jessica Livingston he says he never pitched Facebook a lot. Just got introduced to people…

• 
  Hacker News

• The Unemployment Rate for People Like You

  Comments

• Kiwi - A little javascript framework I wrote that saved me a lot of time

  Comments

• Running a freemium web app? Here's a big reason we're growing.

  Comments

• Perl vs Python vs Ruby (2002..2009)

  Comments

• Ask HN: Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice.

  Comments

• 
  YoungEntrepreneur.com

• What is your favorite WordPress Theme and why? – Entrepreneur Poll Update

  Adam

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:05 pm

  Time for a Young Entrepreneur poll update! Last week we asked you, “What is your favorite WordPress Theme and why?” To be in with a chance of winning our $25 Amazon Gift Voucher offer, please simply enter our poll and this voucher could be on it’s way to you! WordPress is dominating the blogging scene more than ever and there are some great themes out there, including ones from sites like StudioPress.com and WooThemes.com. So, what are the best WordPress Theme and why? Demonstrate your expert knowledge and share your advice in this months Young Entrepreneur Poll! If you would like to…

• 8 Pitfalls to Avoid When Using Social Media for Marketing

  bizguy

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:05 pm

  Social media is in the process of rewriting many marketing textbooks and is being hastily added to the curriculum of many business-oriented schools of education, complete no doubt with many footnotes, asterisks, disclaimers and question marks. A business must be involved with social media, but the question is to what extent. Further, what level of risk is acceptable when entering such virgin territory? It would seem that there is a lot more to gain than there is to lose when you consider whether to entertain a social media campaign, so long as you exercise a modicum of common sense. A lot of…

• Interview with Jake Nickell

  Adam

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:05 pm

  For this week’s interview I was lucky enough to catch up with Jake Nickell. Jake is the founder of Threadless, a t-shirt design community where users submit designs, community votes, and staff choose between the most popular design Adam: You had an extremely successful partnership with Jeffrey Kalmikoff, how did you meet? Jake: We met about 2 years after I started Threadless. Jeffrey ordered a poster and it arrived damaged. In our communications with him to get him a new one, he invited us over for dinner. We went and met a lot of local designers. We started working with Jeffrey as a…

• Profile on Vera Wang

  bizguy

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:05 pm

  “Don’t be afraid to take time to learn. It’s good to work for other people. I worked for others for 20 years. They paid me to learn” – Vera Wang. Vera Wang fully understands that life is all about a long journey through experience. She often talks about life’s rich learning curve and is clearly a product of the experience gained. Her belief that “success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learned along the way,” fits nicely with her assertion that previous employers paid her as she learned her life skills. Wang may be very inward…

• How to Find the Right Financial Planner for You and Your Business

  bizguy

  1 Nov 2009 | 9:02 pm

  Financial planning seems to be more important than ever these days. Few would have imagined the catastrophic changes that we are seeing all around us, the “too big to fail” failures and the highly publicized fraud cases. Many people and businesses have suffered lasting damage and understand that their definition of security has changed almost overnight. Against this backdrop, the selection of a financial planner takes on additional urgency and must be approached with some care, if we are to avoid some of the pitfalls and past performance horrors that are all too fresh in our minds. Many…

• 
  Zdnet: Entrepreneurship resources

• IndustryPlayer 6.6 build 660 (Windows)

  27 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  IndustryPlayer is a business simulation game which realistically reproduces all aspects of a corporation's business, including it's relationships with the workforce, suppliers, competitors, consumers, banks, insurers, and the government. The simulation is based on real world economic models and genuine industry data. Players take the role of an entrepreneur and...

• Tivoli Foundations: Designed and priced for your growing business

  15 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  You're invited to a very special Virtual Event for IBM Tivoli Foundations. During these difficult economic times, mid-size companies have unique challenges and may struggle to find equally powerful yet affordable solutions, designed and priced specifically for them. Look no further! ...

• Photos: Start-ups step up at DemoFall

  22 Sep 2009 | 3:10 pm

  Twice a year at Demo events, well-funded entrepreneurs face off with venture capitalists and the press. Here's the scene. by CNET News.com

• CABSG (Speed Dialer for Singapore cabs) (Mobile)

  19 Sep 2009 | 12:00 am

  Save the nightmare in remember what number to call when you are in Singapore.Comfort / CityCab / SMRT / Premier / Trans Cab / SMART Cab / Prime Taxi / Yellow TopFor more freeware, visit http://www.bak2u.comTop 10 Best Life Hacking Award - SpringWise.comNew services help consumers, keep track of their...

• Andreessen joins HP's board

  17 Sep 2009 | 1:24 pm

  HP said Thursday that Marc Andreessen will join its board of directors. Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz and co-founder and chairman of Ning, will join HP's board immediately. The total board members will move from 10 to 11. Andreessen knows HP well since the...

• 
  Slate: BizBox

• What You Should Be Reading

  Marc Tracy

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:40 pm

  The NFL season continues apace, and with it, the Redskins' utter ineptitude. Money for your clean-tech business. How to land some of those federal stimulus dollars. [OPEN Forum] Get to know the 8(a). Rieva Lesonsky educates you about the lesser-known Small Business Administration lending program. [AllBusiness] Getting your wings. How to navigate angel investors. [NYT] The small business bailout. Journalist Jon Cook considers President Obama's lending plan. [Entrepreneurial]

• Microlending Program To See 60% Default

  Marc Tracy

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:47 am

  Well, we were skeptical of America's Recovery Capital from the beginning. The program has the Small Business Administration guaranteeing 100% of small loans (capped at $35,000) made to "viable" small businesses that are trying to pay off pre-existing debt. We wondered how useful the program was; we wondered whether it was really trying to help small businesses or banks; and we wondered whether banks would participate without much incentive to do so. Now, today, the Washington Post reports that 60% (!) of all ARC loans are expected to default. Turns out the program's genesis was as a way to…

• Here Come the Credit Unions

  Marc Tracy

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:20 pm

  OPEN Forum (published by our sponsor, American Express OPEN) runs a good primer on credit unions, and why they are probably a very good borrowing option for you if you are a small business. (The post does note the prime downside to credit unions: in order to borrow from one, you generally first need to be a member.) The post got us thinking about whatever happened to that credit union bill? The one that would allow them to devote a far greater portion of their resources to small-business lending? If policymakers wish to signal that they truly do care about small businesses' credit situation,…

• Homepreneurship!

  Marc Tracy

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am

  How have we never come across this word before? It turns out that "homepreneurs"--those who run their own home-office businesses--account for 13 million jobs. Over one-third of such businesses generate over $125,000 in annual revenue; 8% generate over $500,000. They may not be the mom-and-pop hardware store on Main Street, but these are small businesses, too, and as such, we would hope that federal policy is geared toward helping them thrive. One good first step would be to simplify the home-office deduction; another would be to make the self-employment tax fair. Any other ideas from our…

• 4 Owners, 1 Woman

  Marc Tracy

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:58 am

  The New York Times confirms what we would already have suspected: over one quarter of all businesses are owned by women. Of course, the next step is apprising the powers that be, including the Small Business Administration (which is also run by a woman, Karen G. Mills), of this fact. Woman-owned businesses still do not receive their (meager) 5% quota of federal contracts; they are still disadvantaged by a biased health-care system; and meanwhile there numbers are, if anything, only growing. It's time everyone took a bit more notice.

• 
  Big Marketing For Small Business

• Banner Ads Are Better Than Clicks Suggest

  Rajan Sodhi

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:08 pm

  I attended the ad:tech Digital Marketing event in London back in September and sat in on an intriguing presentation by ComScore about online banner advertising and how more and more people are clicking on less and less of them. In fact, only 8% of Internet users account for 85% of all clicks according to their study. Compared to search engine marketing (SEM), click-through on banner ads seem pitiful and almost a waste of resources and money. But wait. Before you decide to kill your banner ad campaign, consider this: using just click-through to measure the performance of your banner ad…

• Cloud Hosting Still Cloudy for Many Businesses

  Rajan Sodhi

  26 Oct 2009 | 11:48 am

  Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison believes cloud is just water vapor. All the buzz in web hosting these days is around cloud hosting. From large providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) to the Rackspace Cloud, to a whole bunch of tiny providers, you can’t find a corner on the Internet that isn’t talking about or trying to offer up a cloud service. But what exactly is cloud? If you aren’t quite sure, you’re not alone. A recent independent cloud hosting study of 200 IT decision makers showed that 88 percent of them do not use cloud technologies, while 39 percent said that…

• Make Your Website Your Best Salesperson

  Ryan Kelly

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:35 pm

  While stacking up your sales department is a good way to drive inbound leads and sales, I find that many businesses are overlooking the potential for a rockstar salesperson: their website. Don’t be afraid to invest in your website just as you would a training and education budget for a salesperson. You may be tempted to throw a lot of money into paid search, but investing in organic search will last much longer, making it the most effective way to drive leads for your business. That means once the ad budget runs out, the leads and the traffic stops, but the work you put into organic…

• Early Bird Tickets Available for Malcolm Gladwell in Vancouver

  Rajan Sodhi

  6 Oct 2009 | 3:34 pm

  Lindsay Smith announced today on her blog that early bird tickets are now available for the F5 Expo featuring bestselling author of Tipping Point and Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell. As I mentioned in an earlier post, F5 Expo will focus on future trends in the online space including social media, digital media, SEO, and mobile apps. I’ve seen a preliminary list of additional speakers being added to the event, and it looks very impressive. Vancouver is starving for this type of an event. The first block of etickets released are available for $220 and includes: Malcolm Gladwell’s keynote…

• Google Wave Reinvents Email

  Rajan Sodhi

  5 Oct 2009 | 11:27 am

  Just watched the demonstration of the new Google Wave. Very impressive product that I can’t wait to try out! Does someone out there have an invite they can send me? (Thanks for the hook up Summit Media!) It takes the best features of online communication – social media, instant messaging, and email – and integrates them into a seamless stream of communication rather than the traditional back and forth, piling on of messages. Watch the video to see how it works.

• 
  CNN/FORTUNE/Money: Small Business

• Getting by with a skeleton staff

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:36 am

  Small business owners are still whittling away at their payroll, but the deluge of pink slips on Main Street is slowing down.

• Freebies for the jobless

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:23 am

  From free dry cleaning to a no-cost vacation, these 5 businesses have come up with creative ways to help out unemployed residents in their communities.

• Alone in an abandoned car plant

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:28 am

  Most people assume the Packard Plant in Detroit is vacant. It's an industrial ruin where the last car was manufactured 53 years ago.

• How Build-a-Bear invented a market

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:03 am

  Cute sells: Stuffed animals are a $1.5 billion industry in the U.S. Commanding nearly a third of that market is Build-a-Bear Workshop, a St. Louis-based retailer that lets customers personalize plush teddies, bunnies and other fuzzy friends. Founder Maxine Clark got the idea for the company in the mid-1990s while toy shopping with a 10-year-old girl who suggested that she and Clark could make their own stuffed animals.

• Fighting the five-finger discount

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:56 am

  Inventory losses are on the rise, thanks mostly to cashiers giving themselves and friends five-finger discounts. Employees stole an estimated $15 billion from retailers last year, according to University of Florida criminologist Richard Hollinger, who conducts an annual survey of the country's top stores. That's 25% more than stores lost to shoplifters.

• 
  Sales Management 2.0

• Infectious Leadership

  Kathie Bloom

  What kind of infectious agent do you want to be? Infectious like humor or infectious like the plague? For good or ill the senior leadership of every organization is infectious. By this I mean that leaders’ behaviors tend to be transmitted to their direct reports, who pass them on to the next level, and so on down through their organizations. Over time, they permeate the organization from top to bottom, influencing activity at all levels. Eventually they become embodied in the organizational culture, influencing the types of people who get promoted and hired into the organization, creating a…

• Conducting Corporate Diplomacy

  Kathie Bloom

  The higher you rise in organizations the more you need to be able to practice the corporate equivalent of international diplomacy. Whether you are striving to transform your organization internally or working to shape the rules of the game with government officials externally, the essential challenge is the same: If you want to achieve your objectives, you need to learn how to effectively identify alignment and build alliances in order to get things done. Failure to master this critical skill can lead to trouble: it’s easy for leaders who are used to wielding authority (and making decisions…

• Dispelling The Salesperson Stereotype: The Key To Being More Effective In Today's Economy

  Xavier Sotelo

  As salespeople, we can get very enthusiastic about our business and offerings. As tempered as this enthusiasm may be, we run the risk of being overwhelming, or worse being too “salesy.” This has contributed to the stereotype of the average salesperson as pushy, aggressive, and overly excited. The result is, invariably, a degradation of the sales process. By virtue of this stereotype, internal feelings of pressure and tension are instantly created within prospects and clients alike. The prospect feels he or she would rather be anywhere else other than speaking with you. The reality is that…

• Building Trust through Empathy: A Practical Guide

  Eric Gilroy

  Trust is the single most important purchasing factor in any sale. Trust is the buyer’s confidence that the seller will do right by them, and becomes more important as the level of vulnerability (risk, significance of the decision) and dependence (technical, knowledge, time) rises. As I am sure you can imagine, the importance of trust is highest in a strategic sale. Buyers will never work with a seller that they don’t trust, and will most likely choose to work with the supplier that they trust the most. The irony with trust is that most buyers don’t trust sellers. Look at mainstream…

• Differentiating the IT Services Menu

  Ben Bradley

  It seems every week we talk to just another IT services shop trying to kick-start their marketing and sales process. We sit down with the founder and ask the same question: “so how are you different from all the other firms out there?” When we ask that question, we get the same answer: we have a global delivery model, we are client centric, we put people first, we are domain experts and/or we really understand our clients. Woop do flipping do. Welcome to the club. With those credentials, you are beautiful and unique, just like everyone else. Your competitors have the same answer. They…

• 
  Chief Home Officer Home Office, Home-Based Business, Remote Work, Telework & Cloud Computing

• Big Back-Up Goes Ultra Portable

  Jeff Zbar

  31 Oct 2009 | 1:12 am

  It seems the more digital detritus we amass in the home office or telework / road warrior workplace, the more of it we expect to wedge into a smaller and smaller space. That’s where the Sandisk UltraBackup USB Flash Drive comes in. This flash drive — or “thumb drive” as some people call it, referring to its digit-like size — is small on size but huge on capacity. Measuring from 8 gigabytes to 32 gigs, this traditional flash drive offers one-touch back-up. It’s ideal for traditional back-up, or just stashing stuff to take on the road. Good thing, since…

• Verizon Droid vs. iPhone: A Battle of Similarities – and Differences

  Jeff Zbar

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:46 am

  A funny thing happened while I was reviewing the new Verizon Droid smart phone for Home Office Highway and Chief Home Officer. I never made a call. With 10,000 available apps, Verizon’s 3G network, and Google’s Android 2.0 operating system, there’s a lot to do with a phone without ever making a call. In fact, that’s why I may never buy one. Listen as I review the Droid with Jim Blasingame. Read on below the widget to hear why I’m a tried-and-true BlackBerry person – at least for the moment… . Find interviews with Small Business experts on the Small…

• Future of Digital Storage: Disney Unlocks ‘Keychest’ Online Digital Storage Locker

  Jeff Zbar

  28 Oct 2009 | 1:28 am

  Networked storage is the future home of your stuff. It’s just that many of us have a very narrow view of what “our stuff” really entails. And we haven’t really defined what that home should entail. Take me, for example. My “stuff” includes more than 20,000 Word documents, PDFs, Powerpoints, and other files; another 2,000 or so digital images; and 1,579 MP3s (to date) that comprise my musical library. Even as a home office worker who tends to mingle the digital detritus of this shared existence, apparently I’ve got blinders on. The Walt Disney Company…

• Starting Conversations From Your Home Business

  Jeff Zbar

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:51 am

  Adam Singer with The Future Buzz doesn’t work from a home office. But he knows the power of “voice” for today’s home-based and small business owners. In this recent post, Singer discusses the role of conversations as a “starting point” of dialogue. As participation by companies and individuals explodes, social media is fast losing shiny new object syndrome.  Even those who ignore the social web probably realize that at this point social media is not new. The advantage of being early is probably gone for most industries.  Yet, if you’ve got the right…

• Marriott’s Residence Inn Taps Home Office Expert for Ad Campaign

  Jeff Zbar

  26 Oct 2009 | 1:00 am

  Home office, telework and road warrior technology tips from leading home-business and work-at-home expert Jeff Zbar will be featured in more than two million copies of TIME, Fortune and Money magazines and Time Inc. websites beginning this week. In a unique promotional campaign for Marriott International Inc.’s Residence Inn brand, Zbar provides two dozen tips on remote work strategies, “cloud” computing and online security. The tips are presented on “bookmarks” bound into the magazines and linked to from the websites. View the bookmark here. “Road warriors, digital nomads and…

• 
  Lip-Sticking

• Are You Showing Your Face on Facebook?

  Mary Schmidt

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:59 am

  …or another unsightly part of your anatomy, further south? By Guest Blogger, Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubleshooter People are still figuring out how to use FB in their business. And, I think it can be a valuable tool, depending on your industry and target customer. Facebook - unlike LinkedIn (which is all business, or should be) - is/can be a combination of personal and professional - which is both good and bad. Where's the line? It's your decision; what works for one may not for another. (All "rules" aside.) As Yvonne noted in another post, My Facebook is not your Facebook. To be…

• Traveling from South Carolina to Chicago...Covering PMA's Annual Marketing Law Conference

  Donna DeClemente

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:55 am

  By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo TalkThe last couple of days I've spent in Myrtle Beach, SC visiting my parents who moved down here about three years ago from New York. My mom's been battling breast cancer which spread to her lungs, so it's been rough on her and my dad, especially the last couple of months. She seems to be improving from an infection she caught a month ago. That's the thing with cancer, it doesn't always kill you. But once you have it any little thing your body catches can. Anyhow, I've been trying to talk them into hooking up the old computer that all us…

• Come to my Social Media Seminar

  Yvonne

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:39 am

    True story: Recently I received an email from someone I did not know, about a topic I am quite familiar... the subject line was: How to Create & Monitor Your Social Media. I, along with dozens of others - whose emails were displayed in the CC column NOT the BCC, were invited. Turns out I likely met the sender at a conference. It seems to be common practice to add conference attendees to your email marketing list, with or without permission, which is why I received this invitation. We can discuss the inaccuracies around doing that (really, just because we met over coffee at a…

• Kicking & Screaming all the Way to Facebook

  Lena West

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:33 am

  by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia It's bedtime, but little Caleb wants a story. And after the story, he needs to pee. Then, he needs a glass of water. And, then he wants you to leave the light on. And, then he wants a kiss goodnight. And, then...and, then...and, then.He knows it's time for bed. He's sleepy as a cat. He knows sleep is unavoidable and yet he keeps holding onto that one last minute of being awake. The above scenario usually ends up with Caleb falling into some sort of crying/whining jag and then eventually passing out in sleep from sheer…

• Your Questions and Concerns on HealthCare

  Yvonne

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:23 pm

  Early this week I posted a video of Michelle Obama speaking about healthcare. This is a touchy subject, I guess...with a lot of misinformation and disagreement. I'm leaning toward the passage of the bill...and I also think a public option is a good idea (after all, my mother is on Medicare - that's government funded, and it works). But, I don't have all the answers. I also get it when some people voice opinions against a public option. So, I trust you will all make an educated choice. With that in mind, here's a follow-up video where Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius,…

• 
  OnStartups

• Startups: How To Build A Barrier To Entry With Inbound Marketing

  Dharmesh Shah

  20 Oct 2009 | 1:16 am

  I’ve been doing a fair amount of speaking lately.  It’s partly driven by my recently released book, Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs (which is doing exceptionally well -- more below on this). The topics I usually speak on are startups (surprise) and marketing (surprise, surprise).  And, when I’m really on a roll and feeling adventurous, I talk about startup marketing. First off, a quick confession.  I’m not really a marketer, and I don’t play one on TV.  I’ve never had the word marketing in my job title, ever.  The closest…

• Holy Crap! HubSpot Has Now Raised A Total Of $33 Million

  Dharmesh Shah

  19 Oct 2009 | 2:12 am

  It has been a little over a year since I announced the news that my marketing software startup closed it’s Series B round of funding.  The article, “Insanity? Why A Bootstrap Entrepreneur Raised $17 Million in Venture Funding”, was a candid glimpse into the rationale for raising what seemed like a huge amount of money to me at the time (it seemed huge, because it was — at least to me). Today, we’ve released news that HubSpot has just closed on another $16 million funding round (our Series C) bringing our total capital raised to a whopping $33…

• Answers.OnStartups: Community Q&A For Startup Entrepreneurs

  Dharmesh Shah

  8 Oct 2009 | 3:14 pm

  I’m a big fan of a site called Stack Overflow.  It’s a surprisingly useful Q&A site for posting programming questions, and getting answers from the community.  The site has been immensely successful and is now often the first place I go to find answers to those vexing questions.  One of the things I like most about it is that both the questions and answers get voted on by the community.  As a result, the best stuff surfaces to the top.  You have to really use it to appreciate it. In any case, I’m a big fan of the site.  So, I was thrilled…

• 12 Facts About Entrepreneurs That Will Likely Surprise You

  Dharmesh Shah

  21 Sep 2009 | 2:29 am

  I have a picture in my head of what the average entrepreneur is like.  I’d guess pretty young (think Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) living the red beans and rice lifestyle and working 80+ hours a week and sleeping under their desk.  On some parts, I’m probably right — but on many, I’m flat-out wrong.  This is demonstrated by a recent report from the Kauffman foundation for entrepreneurship.  The report is titled “The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur”.  It’s based on a survey of 549 company founders across a variety of industries (that’s my first…

• Why Raising Venture Capital Requires Helmets and Shovels [cartoon]

  Dharmesh Shah

  18 Sep 2009 | 5:16 am

  Looking for other startup fanatics?  Request access to the OnStartups LinkedIn Group.  100,000+ members and growing daily.Oh, and by the way, you should follow me on twitter here (that's @dharmesh).

• 
  Junta42 blog

• Custom Print Magazines - Why Can't MasterCard Produce Inc. Magazine?

  Joe Pulizzi

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  I don't know about you, but I've been reading more print magazines lately.  Seems odd at first, but in a way, it makes perfect sense. I spend most of my business day and night on the computer. When I'm on my computer, I need to get things done. But when I want to relax and engage in an inspiring story, print is my choice...books and magazines. At the top of the list is probably Inc. magazine. This month's article about how 37Signals founder Jason Fried spends his day was priceless. Speaking of "priceless", shouldn't MasterCard be producing an Inc-type…

• Less of Me, More of You - A Stella Pop Content Marketing Video

  Joe Pulizzi

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:38 pm

  Big thanks to Mike O'Grady at Stella Pop for putting out the latest edition of eVidmagazine featuring yours truly.   Although Mike was originally thinking a two or three minute video interview, he decided that the video worked best as a 10 minute segment.  Hey, he's the expert, so I'm not going to disagree with him. My biggest takeaway from the video was this - Less of me and more of you (well, not literally since it's almost 10 minutes of me).  What I mean is that brands are starting to focus much more on you (the buyer) and much less on the "me" (themselves). In simplest…

• BtoB Custom Media / Custom Publishing Special Report

  Joe Pulizzi

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:49 am

  BtoB Magazine just did an outstanding custom media special report for business-to-business brands. Here's an overview of the special report. Media, Agencies Battle to be Kings of Content: Publishers, advertising agencies, direct firms, pr firms - everyone is battling for the money flowing into content marketing and custom media. This article offers perspectives from both media companies and agencies on the battle for content. Custom Media Moves Closer to the Core: Great examples from the CME Group, Sherwin-Williams and IDG on how brands are leveraging both print and online custom media as…

• Who's Outsourcing Content? - A Junta42 Annual Report

  Joe Pulizzi

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:33 am

  We just delivered the Junta42 annual report email to the Junta42 content marketing vendors and I thought I would share it with the community.As you'll see in the email, these are high-level numbers.  Over the next few weeks, we'll be putting together a "State of Content Marketing Outsourcing" (better title to come) that will take the mounds of data we have on content marketing projects and put it together in a handy report.  If there is anything specific you'd like to see, please let me know.>>>>Start of EmailHi John:  First off, I wanted to…

• Personal Branding Success in 15 Steps

  Joe Pulizzi

  27 Oct 2009 | 7:35 pm

  Dan Schawbel has put together a first-rate magazine about personal branding called (of course) Personal Branding Magazine. The latest issue includes an article from yours truly, which I've included below.  I also included one of my PowerPoint presentations when I do in-person workshops on personal branding (this article was based on that presentation). If this topic is important to you, I suggest you check out Dan's magazine (get the free trial issue here). 15 Steps to Personal Branding SuccessBefore talking about the how of personal branding, it’s essential to talk about why…

• 
  Shoestring Branding

• Rediscovering Your Personal Brand Assets

  31 Oct 2009 | 6:52 pm

  I was browsing through my advance copy of the next issue of Personal Branding Magazine, and found an interesting interview with MC Hammer. Hammer, as you probably know, is a hip hop artist who had his fifteen minutes of fame back in the 1980’s, and after many years under the media radar has now resurfaced as a social media celebrity. He has been blogging since 2006 and now boasts more than 1.6 million Twitter followers. The lesson MC Hammer’s story teaches us is that we can start with whatever assets we have today, and leverage them to take us closer to our goals. In his case, he took…

• Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Book Review)

  24 Oct 2009 | 7:46 am

  I just finished reading Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. It is a fascinating read, following in the footsteps of Freakonomics, the book that a few years ago taught us that a subject as dry and technical as economics could be entertaining if used to explain why ordinary things around us turn out the way they do. Free has generated a lively debate in the blogosphere, with some questioning the validity of its conclusions, others finding some merit to them but hoping that we can find a way out, and others fully embracing them as the inevitable way things will be from…

• Leveraging your content online

  26 Sep 2009 | 9:42 am

  Chart Credits: Fred Cavazza These days you can’t build a strong personal brand without a web presence. As professionals and small business owners, whatever our field, we need to become publishers, and use tools like blogs and social media profiles to publish and share information. The most important element of our web presence is a blog, followed by our profiles in the main social media networks (for me, those are LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook). We can also set up an account with a simple blogging platform like Posterous to share shorter and lighter posts. Finally, we can put it all…

• Are you rewarding your most profitable customers?

  13 Sep 2009 | 8:06 pm

  Photo Credits: Kevin H I recently went online to buy a couple of tickets for a show and got slapped with a $7.75 per ticket “convenience” charge. If I had bought the tickets at the theater’s ticket window I would have avoided the convenience charge. That episode let me thinking: who’s convenience are you really paying for? Let’s see: by ordering online you do all the work (you don’t need an expensive human to interact with you), and the theater receives your payment hassle-free through your credit card company. If you buy from the ticket window, on the other hand, the theater has…

• Do you have a powerful slogan?

  5 Sep 2009 | 12:59 pm

  Good brands have succinct, compelling slogans that clearly explain what makes them unique. To illustrate the point, let me bring up the example of two large retailers: a thriving one with a clear purpose and an unbeatable position (Wal-Mart), and a struggling one, grappling with identity issues and with no clear message (Sears): In 2007, Wal-Mart adopted the slogan: “Save money. Live better.” It is a clear, concise and powerful statement, easy to understand and communicate. It is also the company’s four word mission statement.  So, what did Sears do? More than a year later, it adopted…

• 
  BNET Articles

• Chip Conley: Should I Take My Burning Man Pics off Facebook?

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:24 pm

  When hotelier Chip Conley posted pictures from his Burning Man trip on his Facebook page, some of his employees complained that they were inappropriate for a CEO.

• South Korea: Get Gold Card, Rake in Gold

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:43 pm

  Low unemployment and powerhouses like Samsung are making South Korea a land of opportunity for expats.

• Vietnam: Opportunity Is Everywhere

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:42 pm

  For Westerners with little management experience can have their pick of good jobs in Vietnam.

• Brazil: Hot Beaches, Hot Parties, and a Hot Job Market

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:42 pm

  Latin Americas biggest economy has weathered the downturn well and is in need of talent. Plus, its gearing up for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

• China: Jobs Abound! (But Do Your Homework)

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:41 pm

  Chinese companies are aggressively going after U.S. managers willing to move there.

• 
  Selling to Big Companies

• 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management

  Jill Konrath

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:30 am

  The Sales Lead Management Association wants to know who you think are the 50 most influential people in sales lead management. Here are some of my favorites on the list. • Trish Bertuzzi: The Bridge Group• Brian Carroll: InTouch• John Coe: B2B Marketing• Mary Dedrick: Performark Inc• John Doerr: Wellesly Hills Group• Susan Friedmann: Trade Show Coach• Andrew Gaffney: Demand Gen Report• Gerhard Gschwandtner: Selling Power• Jill Konrath: Selling to Big Companies• "Mac" McIntosh: Mac McIntosh Inc.• Ruth Stevens: eMarketing Strategy Click here to vote NOW. …

• eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale

  Jill Konrath

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pm

  E-Marketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, the new book by Ardath Albee, offers fresh perspectives and lots of meaty how-to advice on how to:• Catch your prospect’s attention• Amplify your e-messaging• Increase urgency, and • Build a relationship online. I highly recommend this much-needed book! It's totally aligned with my Selling to Big Companies strategies, so I know you'll get a ton out of it. Read 2 chapters right now.  Here's what I wrote as the foreward______________If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Sales is really tough in today’s…

• Got Friends Who are Struggling to Find a Job Right Now?

  Jill Konrath

  2 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am

  Last December my brother lost his job. Two other friends were laid off about the same time. All struggled to find a new position - a tough challenge with so many people out of work. That's when I decided to write a book on how to get back to work faster. You see, job hunting is really about selling yourself. No self-respecting seller would ever send out a 1000 brochures and hope for prospects to call. Yet that's exactly what job hunters do with resumes and job boards. They wait and wait for employers to call, but it doesn't happen. It's time for job seekers to stop playing the…

• It's Time to Get Close to Your Pipeline - And Stay Close!

  Jill Konrath

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:17 am

  Today's article is by Jonathan Farrington is Chairman of The Sales Corporation based in London and Paris. We are already well into the final “selling phase” of 2009 and, as all my clients will confirm at this time of year, I always urge a total focus on “closable opportunities” for a really big finish.It takes courage, and a real sense of realism to focus in on what is probable – not just possible! This is not a time to be optimistic. We need realistic.The ability to leverage your probability for converting potential business in your pipeline is a vital part of the sales process…

• The Right Sales Questions Will Get the Right Answers

  Jill Konrath

  19 Oct 2009 | 7:57 am

  Today's blog post was written by Andrew Rudin, Managing Principal of Outside Technologies, Inc., specializing in sales strategy for technology companies.What happens when we make assumptions? The movie, The Return of the Pink Panther, provides a great lesson. Peter Sellers, playing the immortal character, Inspector Clouseau, sees a hotel clerk holding a dog on a leash and asks, "Does your dog bite?"The clerk responds "no," and Clouseau reaches to pet the dog, which immediately bites his hand."I thought you said your dog did not bite!" he exclaims. To which,…

• 
  CASKEY Sales Training

• Rewire The Sales Mind - Lesson 3 -”Fear”

  Bill Caskey

  24 Oct 2009 | 11:27 am

  No one ever admits they’re afraid. Yet, sales people seem to live in fear. Fear of the sale going bad. Fear that this is the last prospect on the planet. Fear of push-back and resistance. Fear my manager won’t see my potential. The list goes on forever. Fear Affects You. Q: But did you ever wonder how that fear affects you on a daily basis. And is it possible that the fear paralyzes you–or makes you less effective than you could be? A: Yes. Look at this list and see if you can relate. These are some of the things fear causes you to do–(and the result). fail to dream…

• Rewire The Sales Mind - Lesson 2

  Bill Caskey

  24 Oct 2009 | 7:55 am

  What are you listening for when speaking with a prospect? Are you listening for buying signals like you’ve taught since the 70’s? If so, that’s wrong. So Why Do People Buy? Our philosophy is really quite simple–people buy when they are either a) in pain with their current situation– or b) have a vision that will be accomplished easier with you in their life. The “rewiring” here is for all professional sales people to understand what they’re listening for–so that when they hear it they’ll know they’re close. How do you know when…

• Is It Uncool To Have A Vision?

  Bill Caskey

  23 Oct 2009 | 5:52 pm

  I would love it if once–just once–when I asked a person what their vision was, they had some answer. Even a lame answer would be better than the blank look I get when I ask the question. In the last few weeks, I’ve had a chance to ask a few people that question–and I’m convinced that there’s something deep down inside us that says it’s uncool to have a dream. We were told early in life ‘not to dream.’ We talked about dreaming as if it was cool–but when any of us did it, we got crapped on. Here’s What I’d Like You To Tell…

• “Wipe That Smile Off Your Face! I’ve Got A Problem.”

  Bill Caskey

  21 Oct 2009 | 2:54 pm

  Why do we sales people feel like we have to smile when we’re in front of a prospect? Answer? We shouldn’t. I was called on last week by a guy who seemed like an OK chap. But he never stopped smiling. It was some kind of a “put on” smile. Pretty obvious. He seemed overly enthusiastic–and you know what I think about fake enthusiasm (I hate it!). So, when it came to him asking me some questions about what I was looking for–and any problems I was experiencing with my current vendor–I thought he’d hide the smile. But No!  Similar to the “tell…

• Rewire The Sales Mind - Lesson 1

  Bill Caskey

  19 Oct 2009 | 6:20 pm

  Well, with our big seminar/workshop coming up on November 4 (in Indianapolis), we thought it useful to review what we mean by “rewire the sales mind.” Today’s Lesson: How We Think Determines How We Act (And Achieve) This is step # 1 in rewiring the sales mind–to understand that if you want to make quantum changes in your results–you must not just change your actions—you must change your thinking (which is the entire essence of “rewire the sales mind.”) “How you think about what”, you are asking? How you think about yourself and the…

• 
  B2B Lead Generation

• Steps for creating a true lead nurturing program

  Brian Carroll

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:53 am

  Sometimes in an attempt to vamp up lead nurturing efforts, misguided and well-meaning organizations simply start sending out more emails. When email is misused in this manner, companies are really just training prospects to ignore or delete their messages.  See What IS and ISN'T Lead Nurturing If your organization lacks a well-defined process for nurturing early-stage leads and building relationships before the buying process, you are missing out on opportunities. True lead nurturing involves creating and maintaining relevant and consistent dialog with viable potential customers -…

• A multi-modal approach to lead nurturing

  Brian Carroll

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:03 am

  To be successful at lead nurturing marketers can't rely on one specific channel but rather they need to leverage a multi-modal portfolio of channels especially when you have a complex sale.  Why? The goal of lead nurturing is to maintain a relevant and consistent dialog with viable future customers - regardless of their timing to buy. In short, it’s about relationships. To help illustrate, I created a mind map of what multi-modal lead nurturing looks like (click image to enlarge). Are there any lead nurturing channels/modalities that I'm missing? Download Multi-Modal_Lead_Nurturing If…

• Seven prospecting rules that produce leads

  Brian Carroll

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:22 am

  The phone is still a powerful and effective lead generation tool. It is inarguably the human touch of a lead nurturing program.   That’s why every opportunity - including cold calling -  should be treated with great respect. Each time you pick up the phone, whether it’s the first or third call, it's important you create value in that touch. Your goal with each call should be to give your prospects something useful in a digestible, bite-size chunk. That being said, the phone must be used as a part of a holistic lead generation strategy. Whether you create a specialized sales…

• Effective Lead Management

  Brian Carroll

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:07 am

  We had a great turn out for our recent B2B Lead Generation Rountable Webinar “Effective Lead Management: Learn How to Convert Marketing Leads into Sales Pipeline.” In case you missed the live presentation, there are still two ways you can review it: Watch the Presentation recording (no registration) Read the Effective Lead Management Executive Summary I discussed steps for overcoming one of the biggest challenges organizations face today: converting leads to sales pipeline revenue. For most organizations, these problems stem from perception and communication issues between Marketing and…

• Lead generation metrics should emphasize opportunities not just leads

  Brian Carroll

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:30 am

  I was asked to write a response to this question, "In what ways have metrics evolved with the increase in digital B2B marketing? Suggest one ROI metric that you have found to be very effective." Read ClickInsights: What ROI metric should B2B marketers use in this digital marketing era? Here's my response.... The use of the Internet, mobile and other interactive channels has certainly increased the number of leads marketers receive today. Many organizations spend thousands of dollars each month on search marketing to take advantage of this increase.   This increase, however, causes…

• 
  About.com Entrepreneurs

• SCORE Offers Quick Start Business Plan Tool

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:56 am

  SCORE just announced a new "Quick Start Business Plan" tool online.  And it is FREE!  In addition to helping you understand how to write a business plan, SCORE offers free templates to help you assess how financially viable your idea is, including: Quick start business plan action plan An Excel cashflow template Break-even calculator Chargeable hours template Business plan template A Market Research Questionnaire To access this free lesson and their template tools, visit SCORE. You can also take advantage of Entrepreneur's articles for creating a Step-By-Step Business Plan Outline.SCORE…

• Business Advice for Military Personnel

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:07 am

  Entrepreneur's gives a thumbs up to SCORE for recognizing and filling a need to provide seasoned business mentors for our military personnel! I just received a notice from SCORE promoting an exciting program called, "Veterans: Succeeding in Business." To connect with a fellow vet in business visit SCORE's online counseling system and select, "Veteran Owned Businesses," for advice from a mentor with prior military experience.  You can also visit SCORE's page exclusively for Veteran, National Guard & Reservist Small Biz Owners. Related Articles: When Your Employees Go to War Business…

• How to Grow Your Business Through Knowledge Acquisition

  26 Oct 2009 | 3:22 am

  The entrepreneur who thinks they have all the answers is an entrepreneur doomed to fail.  No one has all the answers.  Not to get religious on you, but even the Bible repeatedly states there is "wisdom" and "safety"and even "victory" in a multitude of counselors" in regards to waging war. Well, business is a lot like war. There are many ways to learn new business tricks, philosophies, and strategies.  This can be done through networking and exchanging ideas with other business professionals.  But it can also be done while you work or even putter by listening to online webinars and…

• How to Create a Great Business Name

  25 Oct 2009 | 5:12 am

  Question: What do these three things all have in common? A thesaurus; A writing pad and pen; Friends for feedback. Answer: They are all valuable tools to help you decide on a name for your business. Your company name is a critical part of your overall corporate identity. It should reflect something important about who you are, or what you do. The name of your business will appear on your letterhead, your promotional materials, and website. Choosing the right name is an important factor in communicating the right message about you and your business. With new businesses being launched at near…

• How to Get Free PR Leads by Subscribing to HARO

  23 Oct 2009 | 2:36 am

  If you follow HARO (Help a Reporter Out) you may have recently read a listing for an opening for a senior PR account manager at Boston company (due to HARO rules I cannot tell you the name of the company or risk getting booted off HARO's list myself.) The listing queried for prospects with flair: "You must have sick consumer experience, consider yourself a social media junkie and kick-butt at getting media coverage (traditional and social). "Company Name Removed" has a culture that rocks the house -- from Sam Adams on tap in the office (for after hours) to "Bring Your Parents To Work Day" to…

• 
  Solutions Are Power

• Lessons from the VCR Clock Flashing 12:00

  Joe Loong

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  So, continuing some thoughts I started in my earlier entry, “Things That I Don’t Understand” (a limitless topic, to be sure), I revisit the VCR Clock Flashing “12:00″ Scenario (where the inability to program one’s VCR, as demonstrated by the flashing 12:00 on the VCR display, was an indicator of other forms of technological incompetence.) Now that I think about it… you don’t really hear about this anymore. I forget sometimes that VCRs are obsolete; I guess it shows my own generational and technological bias (I still use mine occasionally to…

• #140conf – Day 2 Recap from 140Conf LA

  Steve Fisher

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Starting out on Day 2, my brain needed some caffeine fuel so once I hit a very popular chain and got my Cafe Americano to jump onto the 140 Conference here in LA. This day started with some intense topics – education, public health and the mainstream media.  So let’s get to the recap of day 2. Highlight #1 – Twitter and Education On of the first panels was on education and was comprised of Aparna Vashisht (@Parentella) – Founder, Parentella, Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) – New Milford High School, NJ, Shelly S Terrell (@ShellTerrell) – Educator and…

• PSA : Network Solutions Email Latency Nov 4th

  Shashi Bellamkonda

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:32 am

  Update Nov 5th, 2009 12.38 p.m The  email services for customers impacted from yesterday’s issue should be back to normal. In cases where customers are still having issues we are advising them to contact our 24/7  Network Solutions Customer Support at 1-800-333-7680 or open a ticket on our support page at http://www.networksolutions.com/help/email.jsp Update : Nov 4, 2009 @ 14:34 The email issue has been isolated to incoming email which is temporarily queued.  Network Solutions is working to restore inbound mail to normalcy. We have resolved any issue with outbound email or the…

• Get Your Message Across Better With Presenter Pro.

  Kenneth Yeung

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  Several weeks ago, I met with an an interesting company that produces perhaps a most useful product…all currently available on the iPhone. Remarkably, this is perhaps one of the most important apps out there right now that provides useful and business-specific help to professionals who often times may have to go out and talk in front of colleagues, investors or conference attendees. Just what is this modern miracle that has some real day-to-day applicability? It’s Presenter Pro and it’s created by Rexi Media, available now on the Apple iTunes Store. Some of the cool features…

• #140conf – Day 1 Recap from 140Conf LA

  Steve Fisher

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  I arrived on Monday in Los Angeles to attend the “Very Important Characters (VIC)” event and got to see some old friends and meet some new ones. After a great evening I got a great night’s sleep and got to the Kodak Theatre early to see everything kick off. I have been to LA more times than I can count but I had never been to the Kodak Theatre which is where they hold the Oscars every year. What was really suprising was that it was connected to a kind of outdoor California mall but the place has so much history and our event co-host Jeffrey Hazlett along with the Kodak…

• 
  Mine Your Own Business

• Gain Community Support

  Randy Alletag

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:42 pm

  We've done several postings in the past about the importance of supporting local businesses such as the 3/50 Project posted on May 20th of this year. What we haven't mentioned is how small businesses can gain local support from their...

• Vaccum Blowups Revisited

  Randy Alletag

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:05 pm

  We did a posting on January 9th this year on how many municipalities were relaxing restrictions on sign ordinances due to the weak economy at Vacuum Blowups. The thought was that allowing more signs, banners, and other creative marketing could...

• The Big Picture

  Randy Alletag

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:43 pm

  Many of the postings on Mine Your Own Business concern the daily running of a small business such as keeping good employees, effective advertising, sales and salesmanship, or customer service. Here's an interesting piece that instead focuses more on the...

• Something Really Scary

  Randy Alletag

  1 Nov 2009 | 10:29 am

  Halloween is over, but here is something really scary. You go into work on Monday morning and turn on your computer and nothing happens or you get the dreaded blue screen of death. When was the last time you did...

• Small Business Tips from Infomercials

  Randy Alletag

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:53 pm

  Everyone is familiar with infomercials (especially insomniacs who catch them on late night TV). Who would think that they could provide some valuable tips to increase small business sales? Here is an article that provides 10 ideas that small businesses...

• 
  Bizinformer

• Seen that? - A Question Of Ethics

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:18 pm

  A Question Of Ethics at Bizinformer This morning's The WallStreet Journal has a cover article (subscription required) about the prescription drug trade, Internet marketing of said drugs, and the entrepreneurs that profit from differing laws between countries regarding prescription drug access. This post ...

• Obama Focusing on Small Business?

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:04 pm

  Twice in October, President Obama aimed his weekly address in the direction of small business. The President discusses his move earlier this week to have the federal government increase the maximize size of loans available through the Small Business Administration, and the effort the feds are undertaking to pump money into smaller, community banks.Of course, credit is a big part of the picture being discussed. Since the banks aren't loaning money, maybe the government can...

• More Internet Regulations to Come?

  23 Oct 2009 | 8:14 pm

  © Fosforix I'm sure it's been said in other places, but Venture Chronicles articuled the anxiety of the online business world well recently when it discussed the general feeling that more Internet regulation could just be a matter of time...I am a proponent of net neutrality but in the pit of my stomach I have a strong fear that now that the FCC has determined they can broadly regulate the relationship between internet technical service providers and content providers that they will have a reflexive desire ...

• Seen that? - How Do You Spell That?

  20 Oct 2009 | 6:18 pm

  How Do You Spell That? at Bizinformer The name of my company used to be Accelerate Business Group. I liked the name and thought it accurately described our purpose and offering. Many people liked the name too. But there was a problem with ...

• The US Chamber of Commerce Faces a Meltdown

  11 Oct 2009 | 11:51 am

  When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently took a strong stance against federal policy and legislative proposals to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, several companies left the Chamber in protest. The event has brought scrutiny to bear on the Chamber’s president, Tom Donohue. A number of news sources have covered the Chamber mess: VentureBeat, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Politico, BusinessWeek. Chamber president Donohue is on the board of Union Pacific Railroad. The railroad thinks climate legislation would hurt its finances, since much of its income comes from ...

• 
  the Selling Sherpa

• Sales Tip of the Day: YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES

  The Selling Sherpa

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:01 am

  Have you ever taken over someone else’s client list? Maybe you just started at a company that had an opening on the sales team, or perhaps you inherited a list from someone who was promoted or left the region. Whatever the situation, you may feel a little uncertain about approaching customers who’ve gotten used to working with someone else. Just make sure you are thoroughly prepared before you meet them for the first time. Research the history of the account, the background of the decision-maker(s), and as much information about the market and competition as you can. The goal is NOT to…

• Sales Tip of the Day: THE LOCOMOTION

  The Selling Sherpa

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:01 am

  On this day in 1988, The Locomotion became the first single to reach the Top 5 in the US in three different releases. Back in 1962, it hit #1 for Little Eva, then it hit #1 again in 1974 for Grand Funk Railroad, and made it to #3 for Kylie Minogue in 1988. Have you seen the famous pumpkin-carving kits with the small tools featuring plastic handles that are orange?  What about the newer watermelon-carving kits with the same tools except for the green color? What do either of these have to do with selling?  Plenty! The concept is called “repackaging” and it could be a goldmine for you. By…

• Sales Tip of the Day: KISS HIM GOODBYE

  The Selling Sherpa

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:06 am

   Once in awhile, we all end up dealing with a customer situation that is difficult.  But there are customers who seem to be difficult no matter what. Whenever you find yourself spending a lot of time with one problematic customer, it might be time to assess whether or not that customer is really worth all the extra effort. The time you burn trying to make them happy might be better spent on customers that are a better fit and not as high maintenance. If you find yourself baby-sitting a problem customer too often, kiss him goodbye and move on to more profitable (or at least less difficult)…

• Sales Tip of the Day: SOME THING ARE BETTER LEFT UNSAID

  The Selling Sherpa

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:30 am

  How often do you make a call to a prospect or customer, get their voicemail, and leave some basic info and then ask the person to call you back? You shouldn’t do it at all! I don’t mean you shouldn’t leave a voicemail.  I am saying you shouldn’t have to say, “call me back.” If you called your client with information or assistance they have asked for, or to follow up on a previous promise, they already know they need to call you back. So the next time you leave a voicemail, just tell them who you are, the best number to reach you, and the reason you called. If they are interested,…

• Sales Tip of the Day: EVERYBODY’S EVERYTHING

  The Selling Sherpa

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:01 am

  Wouldn’t it be great if everyone in the world was your customer? It’s fun to daydream about, but you really don’t need to have that many customers to be successful.   Truth is, you only need a strong core of loyal fans to really do well, regardless of what you sell.  The key is to know who they are and cater directly to them. Narrow your focus, pinpoint your marketing, and serve only the people or business who are a perfect fit for what you sell.  Find out who your best customers are and shower them with attention, service, and value.  Concentrate on being the best option for your…

• 
  Future Changes

• Video: Jordan Frank on the “Responsibility to Collaborate”

  Stewart Mader

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:44 am

• Video: Traction User Group 2009 Closing Keynote – “Designing for Collaboration”

  Stewart Mader

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:10 pm

  Providence, RI – October 14, 2009. Thanks to Traction Software for the video!

• Brand: Information Wants to be Free. It Also Wants to be Expensive.

  Stewart Mader

  26 Oct 2009 | 12:52 pm

  Anyone who does anything with information these days should know this entire quote. Many people know the famous short version: “Information wants to be free.” but the rest of the quote makes those first five words sound naive and utopian. The rest of the quote is what industries from the obvious – media and publishing – to the not so obvious – almost everything else – are struggling with in equal measure these days. Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to…

• If These Idiots Would Just Take the Bus, I Could be Home by Now

  Stewart Mader

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:03 pm

  © Kirk Anderson (Source) From 1932: Make Street Intersections Pay a Profit

• Wiki: A More Productive Medium for Living Documents

  Stewart Mader

  21 Oct 2009 | 11:09 pm

  Richard Fahey, writing about using wikis for gathering requirements on the SAP Community Network: Documents need to ‘live’ throughout a project; their usefulness should not end once the project phase has been completed. Having information on a wiki allows it to be easily edited and updated thoughout a project. Modifying Word documents requires updating versions, tracking changes, emailing the latest versions etc. Within a wiki, the software handles all of this, and as such it’s a more productive medium for living documents.

• 
  ScottFox.com - Internet Riches - e-Riches 2.0

• Traffic Building School coming soon...

  Scott Fox, eRiches 2.0 and Internet Riches Author

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:46 pm

  There's a lot to know about online marketing today. In fact, it's hard to keep up with all the new marketing and social media promotional strategies, isn't it? Coming Soon: The Traffic Building School Video Series How about spending just 3 minutes each day to upgrade your Web marketing expertise?  That's what my new Traffic Building School video course will deliver to you:  A daily email with a 2-3 minute video explaining a different marketing tactic each day! This is a new service I'll be launching very soon.  Subscribers to my f-ree E-Commerce Success email newsletters will get a great…

• Video: How to Beat the Competition Today

  Scott Fox, eRiches 2.0 and Internet Riches Author

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:59 pm

  You're probably worried about the competition. Especially if you are starting a NEW e-business, the competition may already have you running scared. It makes sense to respect your competitors, but there's less reason to fear competition than ever before.  How to Beat the Competition Today This 7 minute video shares my thoughts on how you can re-evaluate the competition online, reinvent yourself and your online business, and beat the competition by differentiating your e-business starting today.   This video clip is from my private Click Millionaires coaching forum.  If you'd like more…

• William Shedd says...

  Scott Fox, eRiches 2.0 and Internet Riches Author

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:43 am

  “A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for." - William Shedd (1820 - 1894), Presbyterian Theologian Thanks to Karen Allan of www.marketplacestories.com A quotation from the 365SuccessQuotes.com collection. Subscribe for a fre-e daily dose of inspiration delivered directly to your email inbox

• Ask Scott Fox: How to Get Google to Index All My Web Site Pages?

  Scott Fox, eRiches 2.0 and Internet Riches Author

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:54 pm

  Dear Scott Fox, My new web site has been indexed by Google but I’ve noticed that some of my most important pages are nowhere to be seen (mainly the main categories of my site). How do I get the search engines to recognize a particular page and fill in these gaps in my site’s search engine results? Thanks, Billy Click Millionaires Member County Durham, UK Scott Fox's Answer Hi Billy, The search engines will index any pages that they find. But they may only choose to display results from those that they deem relevant. While all of your site's pages seem relevant to you, the search engines…

• Make Money Expo DEAL for Saturday in San Francisco

  Scott Fox, eRiches 2.0 and Internet Riches Author

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:49 pm

  SUZE ORMAN! SCOTT FOX! Live at the Make Money Expo this Saturday in San Francisco! If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to meet me, please come to the Make Money Expo at the Moscone Center this SATURDAY 11/7. SPECIAL TICKET DEALYou can get tickets for this event for only $9.95 (plus a $5.00 registration fee)!  Just CALL 212-371-0280 to register and give them the special offer PROMOTIONAL DISCOUNT coupon code "SCOTTFOX".  More details on the Learning Annex's Make Money Expo event are here and here. I hope to see you in San Francisco on Saturday!

• 
  MyBusiness Magazine

• Fighting the Recession Together

  Amber Garner

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am

  Whoever said that people didn’t care about people was dead wrong. They obviously haven’t met this group of generous small business owners. In this article on CNNmoney.com, meet five businesses that are helping the jobless get back on their feet and prepare for interviews by giving away free services. Among these services include free haircuts, dry cleaning and shoes. It hasn’t been bad for business either, especially with all of the press coverage these companies are getting for their extraordinary acts. Whoever said that people didn’t care about people was dead wrong. They obviously…

• Small Business Owners Are Hopeful and Confident, Survey Says

  Emily McMackin

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pm

  Who says small business owners are feeling down and out? According to a recent poll conducted by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute and posted by Reuters, the majority of owners surveyed say they will emerge from the recession stronger than ever and well-positioned for growth. In the survey, 92 percent of small business owners expressed optimism about their enterprises, with 54 percent expecting to maintain business as usual and 38 percent confidently looking forward to expanding their businesses over the next 12 to 24 months. Another interesting finding? Owners ranked…

• Selling Your Vision

  Megan Pacella

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:12 pm

  A few weeks ago I grabbed coffee with an old friend, who is in the process of launching his own consulting firm. Mid-way through the conversation, I started to feel like he was trying to sell me on his business. When I asked why, he said, "The more people I present my ideas to, the better I get at communicating my business -- and the more customers I'll have." I couldn't help but think about that conversation when I read this post on TechDrawl.com. At the end of the day, no matter how great your vision or business plan is, you have to be able to sell it to other people, including family,…

• Capitalizing on the 'Buy Local' Trend

  Lena Anthony

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:18 am

  I'm planning a big trip for February, but I haven't pinpointed where I want to go yet. All I know is it will definitely be somewhere in the U.S. Why would I spend my money overseas when my own country could use the boost? OK, so that's not exactly the best example of buying local, but you get the point. Consumers are wanting to boost their own economies, and they can offer no greater impact than in their own communities. Want to encourage shoppers to look no further than down the street? Then read this Wall Street Journal article, which offers strategies for showcasing your local roots. I'm…

• There's No Such Thing As Free Money

  Amber Garner

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:13 am

  One of the hardest parts of starting a small business is finding the startup money. This article on CNNmoney.com warns small business owners not to fall into the false promises of consulting companies and quick grant Web sites, but to instead find the money yourself. The article offers the following suggestions: Look for technological startup grants that are sometimes offered by third- party organizations. Be specific when applying. Often the smallest detail may be a unique category that gets you the grant. Lastly, sign up at grants.gov so that you can get information on what kinds of federal…

• 
  Innovation Weblog

• Understanding the value of a strategic innovation approach

  For companies desiring organic growth and whose innovation efforts are not yielding the results demanded, using a Strategic Innovation approach using structured tools and methods will produce higher value products, services, systems, and environments that will resonate deeper with people to encourage them to become loyal customers. This approach delivers better solutions that are feasible to build, viable for profit, and desirable to the user.

• Ford Motor Company's impressive Skunk Works

  Ford has revisited the classic skunk works model to a good end.

• Almost here: My new Creativity Hacks e-book

  Next week, I plan to launch my new Creativity Hacks e-book, which will help readers to leverage the opportunities that the coming economic upturn will make possible.

• What are 'creativity hacks' and how can they help you be more profitable?

  I just published the second preview video for my new Creativity Hacks e-book.

• The critical connection between trust, collaboration and innovation

  Trust is fundamental to the highest levels of collaboration, but how do you know if that level of trust exists?

• 
  FreelanceFolder

• Five Ways To Find Revenue Sharing Opportunities

  Laura Spencer

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:38 am

  A few weeks ago, we posted an article about how to maximize freelance income. In that post, I got an excellent question from one of our FreelanceFolder readers in the comments — they wanted to learn more about earning income through revenue sharing.You may be asking yourself the same question.In this post, we’ll explain all about revenue sharing and show you five methods that you can use to find and initiate revenue sharing opportunities. We’ll also help you recognize and avoid some possible revenue sharing traps.What Is Revenue Sharing?In most projects, you are paid for the…

• Calling All Freelancers On Twitter

  Ritu

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:40 pm

  Have you ever wondered how many freelancers in your specialty are on twitter? Well, Freelance Folder is going to help you find out.As most you already know, Twitter recently launched a new feature called Twitter Lists. Here at Freelance Folder, we’ve been hard at work compiling lists of freelancers on Twitter so that our readers can benefit by following freelancers in a particular field.We recently finished compiling a list of freelance designers (web design, graphic design, typography, etc.). Next, we will be creating a list of freelance writers and so on and so forth.If you are…

• The Basics of Freelancing on the Go

  Laura Spencer

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:19 am

  Are you a mobile freelancer?If you’re trying to live the freelance dream, chances are that you answered “yes” to the previous question, or are at least thinking about it.The old stereotype of the freelancer who works alone in his or her home office is changing. The image is being replaced by a newer, more mobile freelancer.In this post we examine the growing trend of “freelancing on the go” and the essential tools that make it possible. Read on to find out just how easy it is to become a mobile freelancer.What Is Mobile Freelancing?For a large number of…

• 3 Fail-Proof Rules for Creating a Viral Post

  Ritu

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:18 am

  If you want to be successful on the web, you need an audience. This is true whether you are a designer, writer, developer or a freelancer in any other field. Without an audience, success is hard to come by.Most freelancers maintain a blog that they use for promotional purposes. A writer writes articles consistently to showcase his/her writing skills, a designer showcases his designs, and so on and so forth.In this article, we will explore three practical ways that you can create content and titles that are bound to take off. If you can make your blog more popular, more freelance work is right…

• How to Get Started with Twitter Lists

  Laura Spencer

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:23 am

  Can you benefit from the new Twitter Lists feature?If you’ve been using Twitter to search for jobs and make professional contacts, then Twitter’s new list feature can help you to better organize the tweets of those you follow. It can also help you find interesting groups of people to keep track of.Over the past few weeks Twitter has been testing the new Lists feature with a portion of its users and, although it is still in Beta, last week they made Lists available to everyone.In this article we’ll take a look at how Twitter Lists can help your freelance business and how you…

• 
  The Global Small Business Blog

• Are There No Worlds Left To Conquer?

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:04 am

  According to Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, "hardly."There are still vast new business frontiers left unexplored. -- thank goodness!Here are 14 questions that Jim addresses with interviewer Jennifer Robison of GALLUP Management Journal® (GMJ) on the future of corporate leadership.GMJ: Before you talk about the next generation of leadership, what was the last generation of leadership?GMJ: How is the business jungle more dangerous? And what should the next generation of leaders know?GMJ: What do you mean by "states of mind"?GMJ: Explain what you mean by "mathematically describing…

• What's Your Push Into China?

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 am

  If you run a global small business, and I am assuming many of you do, what should you be doing to swing open that door to China? The first step is to track what others are doing and determine success rates.For example, innovative healthcare product company Novartis announced on Tuesday that it will spend U.S. $1 billion spread over five years to make China (starting in Shanghai -- pictured) a third global pillar for its research and development. Why? Couple of good reasons:1. Rapid growth is one key reason for the expansion.2. Projected to become one of Novartis's three biggest markets by…

• Are You Growing Global At the Right Rate?

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:18 am

  The Impact of Emerging Markets Now PlayingDeloitte CEO Barry Salzberg (pictured) on the challenges companies face when operating in emerging markets.Challenge No. 1: How to fuel growth.

• Everything You Want To Know About The State of Blogosphere

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:02 am

  To find out about the growth and trends in blogosphere, catch the State of the Blogosphere 2009 report released, starting October 19th, in five consecutive daily segments.Here's a snippet of Day 1:Overall, bloggers are a highly educated and affluent group. Nearly half of all bloggers we surveyed have earned a graduate degree, and the majority have a household income of $75,000 per year or higher. As blogging is now firmly a part of the mainstream, we see that the average blogger has three or more blogs and has been blogging for two or more years. We are also noticing an ever-increasing…

• How To Chart an Export Course Right Out of the Recession

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:47 am

  Here's the task at hand for 46-year-old chief executive N. Chandrasekaran (better known as "Chandra" -- pictured) at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.: To chart a course for India's largest software exporter out of a recession that deflated global technology spending and exposed the reliance of Indian outsourcing firms on the U.S. and U.K. markets.In an interview conducted by WSJ reporters Amol Sharma and Paul Beckett, Chandra shares his mind about how he plans to navigate Tata out of the downturn.Let's focus primarily on the 21 takeaways that I picked up on that might enable you to get a better…

• 
  Art Biz Blog

• Recording available for artists’ rights phone call with John T. Unger

  Alyson Stanfield

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:47 am

  John T. Unger is an artist based in Michigan who uses scrap metal or his creations. He is perhaps best known for his Great Bowls of Fire: sculptures that double as firepits. Yesterday, John was my guest on a call on which he gave us insight into a copyright lawsuit that has been brought against him and how it might affect other artists. You can listen to that 30-minute call here. John T. Unger, Waves O' Fire. Recycled steel. Design ©2007-09 John T. Unger. Neither John nor I are attorneys, so this recording shouldn’t be construed as legal advice. You should always consult an…

• Deep Thought(s) Thursday: Do you owe your gallery?

  Alyson Stanfield

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:40 am

  Here are two scenarios for you. Let’s tackle both (notice the plural in today’s post title). Pam Spika Nicholson, Momentum. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas. ©The Artist Scenario 1 I have paintings in a gallery but I also do summer outdoor art festivals. Someone who has never step foot in the gallery sees my work on the gallery’s website and looks me up. He finds my website and decides to come to an art festival to see other work. He then wants me to do a custom painting. Do I pay the gallery owner the 50/50 commission on the custom painting even though the client never set foot in…

• Sending your first email blast–what to say

  Alyson Stanfield

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:24 am

  An email blast is a message you send to a number of people simultaneously. Someone emailed me once that “email blast” sounded violent and undesirable. She was right. It’s probably not the best terminology to use, but we’re stuck with it. It’s appropriate because an email blast is a big burst that happens all at once, rather than a trickle of messages or mailing pieces. Lee McVey, 3 Young Cottonwoods, Autumn. Pastel, 12 x 16 inches. ©The Artist Email blasts are often promotional. They can be newsletters, announcements, invitations, or the like. Because they are promotional, you may…

• Art Marketing Action: Finish Off the Sale & Follow Up

  Alyson Stanfield

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:46 am

  Someone buys a piece of art directly from you. You’re about to hand over the art, but then you wonder if you should be providing anything else at the same time. Consider including the following six items with each sales transaction. Leiann Klein, Cowgirl Hardware. Linocut, 16 x 12 inches. ©The Artist A receipt of sale Your business card A brochure about your art Instructions on caring for the art Copyright notice Certificate of Authenticity–if needed The fifth item on the list is important. Most buyers will not know or may not understand that you retain copyright or what that even…

• Free call about how one artist is fighting to protect artists’ rights

  Alyson Stanfield

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:36 am

  Artist John T. Unger – creator of copyrighted sculptural Artisanal Firebowls – is getting an unwanted education in copyright law. His court case could have far-reaching intellectual property implications for the original work created by other artists and creative entrepreneurs. Join us on this special call to find out how it could affect you. A Conversation with John T. Unger ©Preston S. Cole, TAPS Photography Thursday, November 5 4pm ET, 3pm PT, 2pm MT, 1pm PT 30 minutes FREE As John explains it, he has had to spend over $50,000 so far to defend himself against an imitator who…

• 
  Meryl's Notes at meryl.net by Writer Meryl K. Evans

• Links: November 2009. Seriously? Edition

  Meryl

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:43 am

  Congratulations to Kim Priestap! She won a copy of Claudine Wolk’s book. Stay tuned for more books! Wanted: Dallas area company in need of personable and experienced IT manager in hardware and networking (just about everything except software development) among other things. I have just the guy for you. Articles with valuable advice… Ask the editor: The top 5 secrets to getting a book deal: Must read for every author with a book needing a publisher [Link: Maria Schneider] Chrome Extensions: Extend your Google Chrome browser. I love Google Chrome and use it almost as much as Firefox.

• Book Review: The Last Will of Moira Leahy

  Meryl

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:29 am

  Therese Walsh’s debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, opens with Maeve Leahy remembering losing her twin “on a harsh November nine years ago.” So it’s obvious why she has struggled with every November. That is, until now. On a whim, she attends an auction to bid on a keris, a Javanese-style dagger that launches her extraordinary journey where her past and present collide. Though Maeve becomes a successful professor of languages at a university in Bethany, New York; it’s no surprise that she feels incomplete without her twin. So the keris reminds her of…

• PC Game Review: World of Zellians: Kingdom Builder

  Meryl

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:43 pm

  In World of Zellians: Kingdom Builder, you take on the role master builder Zorn’s student. The city planner teaches you how to work with the kings and queens to build and fix up their kingdoms. It doesn’t take long before the student becomes the master causing the jealous Zorn to respond no-so-kindly by creating disasters and setting madmen loose to mess with your hard work. Build-a-lot fans will recognize some similar game play, but this one doesn’t spend as much time on the building aspect as Build-a-lot does. World of Zellians: Kingdom Builder also has a different…

• Using Twitter’s Lists Feature for Writing

  Meryl

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am

  If you haven’t heard by now, Twitter now has Lists that lets you put Twitter users into groups. It doesn’t matter if you’re following someone or not, you can add anyone into a list or two or three. Here’s an introduction and a how to use Twitter Lists at Web Worker Daily. Twitter users have their own rules for who they follow and not follow. Some follow those who fall into a specific field, career and whatnot. Guy LeCharles Gonzalez follows those with some connection to publishing. It’s not elitist if someone doesn’t follow you back. They use Twitter in a…

• Game du Jour: Week of 1 November 2009

  Meryl

  1 Nov 2009 | 11:28 am

  The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the first ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games: Sun. November 1st: 65% off on Trapped The Abduction Mon. November 2nd: 65% off on The Jolly Gang’s Spooky Adventure Tue. November 3rd: 65% off on Mystery Masterpiece: The Moonstone Wed. November 4th: 50% off on Sally’s Quick Clips Thu. November 5th: 50% off on Campfire Legends: The Hookman Fri. November 6th: 60% off on Kelly Green Garden Queen Sat. November 7th: 50% off on HdO Adventure: Frankenstein

• 
  Capital Solutions Bancorp Blog

• Natural Gas May Last up to 30 Years

  Capital Solutions Bancorp

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  In a speech at the University of Texas at Dallas, T. Boone Pickens says that we have enough natural gas to last for about 30 years before it dries up. We'll need to find another solution like fuel cells or battery. It doesn't have to be bad news for companies in the natural gas business.read more

• Stall Your Way to Better Cash Flow

  Capital Solutions Bancorp

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:23 pm

  Make this your cash flow mantra: "Take your time paying your bills while sending out invoices as soon as you can." You might ask if paying late will affect your credit rating. The timing of when you pay your vendors has no impact on your credit score. Rather, you'll hurt yourself worst if you don't have available cash flow to pay taxes or use up all of your line of credit.read more

• Keep Your Online Reputation Clean

  Capital Solutions Bancorp

  30 Oct 2009 | 8:31 am

  What does online reputation have to do with cash flow? If it's poorly managed, then you could lose loan and client opportunities leading to reduced cash flow. You don't have to become a regular participant in social networks or anything -- although it can help bring in new clients. Nonetheless, the key is to monitor your reputation.read more

• Piping Hot News from Marcellus Shale

  Capital Solutions Bancorp

  22 Oct 2009 | 4:52 pm

  Marcellus Shale Committee Responds to Newspaper's Claims The Marcellus Shale play, a source of natural gas in the Appalachian Basin, has lots of goings on. First, the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette wrote a story that Marcellus Shale had something to do with toxic alien algae found in Dunkard Creek.read more

• Why Bother with a Business Plan?

  Capital Solutions Bancorp

  17 Oct 2009 | 8:11 am

  Whether you've just started your business or have been doing it for a while, you have it in your head what you want to do with your business and your business goals. Of course, you want to grow your business. If you don't have a business plan, it's time to make one. They don't have to be pages long—in fact; one-page business plans work very well.read more

• 
  survivalware.wordpress.com

• SurvivalWare Version 3.0 – What’s New?

  survivalware

  10 Oct 2009 | 10:33 am

  We’re targeting October 15th to make the formal announcement.  This version has been in “soft release” since August 31, 2009.  It has been available as a 30 day trial, or for purchase.  We just didn’t tell anyone about it (unless they stumbled onto our website). Now we’re about to start telling the world.    Here’s the top 10 list of what’s new in SurvivalWare version 3.0: Drilldown enabled from Projections module Export to Excel;  streamlined import from Excel Comparanator now available in projections module for doing scenario comparisons…

• Shining the light on Key Performance Indicators – works for personal life as well as business

  survivalware

  15 Jul 2009 | 5:13 am

  I decided to test the theory that analyzing and publishing Key Performance Indicators will improve performance by designing what I call the “FaceBook Diet.”  You can eat anything you want, but must publish your weight on FaceBook for friends and family to see every day. I used myself as a guinea pig and lost 15 pounds in 90 days.  See details at Rusty’s Blog: http://www.survivalware.com/rustysblog/?cat=5

• ARC Loan analysis using SurvivalWare

  survivalware

  12 Jul 2009 | 5:56 am

  We recently had a prospect (now customer) express the need for a tool to do the cash flow projections in support of his ARC Loan application.  I was putting the finishing touches on the new Fort Knox model (solid, substantial, money-focused, good as gold) for SurvivalWare Version 3.0, which according to an April blog post, is just around the corner.   He needed something right away so he could get his application in.  He had found SurvivalWare via Philip Campbell’s website.  I’ve kept the advertising turned off since February so the whole company can focus on getting this…

• Computer Modeling in the News

  survivalware

  12 Jul 2009 | 5:34 am

  It really is amazing how important computer modeling has become.  This is where the computer really plays to its strengths. The latest Scientific American (July, 2009) has a cover story article entitled “Grassoline at the Pump” and goes on to paint a very optimistic picture of using non-food plant material to provide 50% of our liquid fueld needs. From page 55,” “Scientists.  have recently enjoyed an explosion of progress.  Powerful tools such as quantum-chemical computational models allow chemical engineers to build structures that can control reactions at the…

• SurvivalWare Version 3.0

  survivalware

  5 Apr 2009 | 9:46 am

  What a terrible communicator I have been recently: the last post to this blog was 3 months ago, about the same amount of time since the last newsletter. I am turning over a new leaf.  As a company, we finally figured out what we are good at, and what customers are willing to pay for.  Luckily there is some overlap. Version 3.0 is all about SurvivalWare coming of age as the ultimate small business analysis tool.  Every business is unique, and with version 3.0 we hope to make a quantum leap forward in the ability of customers to customize a Survivalware model.  You can customize in layers…

• 
  BusinessCast Podcast

• Business Success: It’s About Time!

  Andrew - BusinessCast Co-Host

  2 Nov 2009 | 10:03 am

  One of the many things that all successful entrepreneurs have in common is an insatiable need to bring their innovations (i.e products, services and/or processes) to the market. But, a key question that often gets trampled in the midst of entrepreneurs’ enthusiasm is “When is the right time?” Because short- and long-term success depends so much on timing, for BusinessCast episode #128 Robert and I sat down with Steve Taylor, President of Resolver Inc. to gather his insights about evaluating the right time to launch/grow a successful business. Listen to BusinessCast episode…

• Finding, Hiring and Motivating the Right People

  Andrew - BusinessCast Co-Host

  19 Oct 2009 | 11:04 am

  Whenever Robert and I sit down and talk with entrepreneurs about their historic, current and future successes, one theme constantly emerges: entrepreneurs need strong teams. And that means they are always looking for ways to optimize how they find, hire and motivate staff. That’s why for BusinessCast episode #127, we sat down with an entrepreneur renowned for effectively recruiting and retaining exceptional employees — in an industry where people are highly skilled, in great demand and highly mobile. Chris Carder, President of ThinData, A Transcontinental Company, shares with us…

• Investing in Innovation — What You Need to Bring to the Table

  Andrew - BusinessCast Co-Host

  12 Oct 2009 | 9:14 am

  Successful entrepreneurs are by their very nature innovators — it’s very nearly a pre-requisite. But, before determining if their business is going to attract customers and attention, every entrepreneur has to answer a key question: Is their business innovative enough to attract funding? To answer this question, in BusinessCast episode #126 — Investing in Innovation — Robert and I sat down with David Ceolin who spends his time evaluating, and investing in, entrepreneurs and their innovative business ideas.  David shares with us his criteria for innovation and the…

• Starting and Growing Your Business: Success Now and in the Future

  Andrew - BusinessCast Co-Host

  6 Oct 2009 | 9:33 am

  All successful entrepreneurs are forward-looking. So much so that even when entrepreneurs are in the very early stages of starting their business, they are typically actively searching for future ways to improve it, grow it and expand it. One of the greatest examples of successfully applying this approach is the disciplined and innovative mind behind Verity – Canada’s premiere Women’s networking club.  The club’s founder Mary Aitken began Verity as a stand-alone business where women could meet, network, relax and have fun. But, Mary, who is a very successful entrepreneur,…

• Buying Technology To Help Your Business Grow

  Andrew - BusinessCast Co-Host

  20 Sep 2009 | 4:25 pm

  A few weeks ago in BusinessCast 109 — I.T. Support for Entrepreneurs– Robert and I got the “low down” on the best ways of selecting and working with a competent I.T support professional. After all, all entrepreneurs require technologies to work 24/7. But, here’s a critical technology question that many entrepreneurs have trouble answering: “Are we evaluating, purchasing and integrating our technologies in ways that ensure it is allowing us to focus on our business — rather than on our business technologies?” So, in BusinessCast #124 —…

• 
  MakingTheMogul.com

• Jermaine Dupri Discusses The Effects of Blogs & Social Media On The Music Industry

  Moe Arora

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:01 am

  Jermaine Dupri recently spoke at BlogWorld Expo 09 about the effects of blogs and social networking sites like Twitter, on the music business.Here are 2 videos of the panels he spoke on:Also, social media blogger, Wayne Sutton caught up with JD for a quick convo about his talking points on the above panels:What are your thoughts on what JD said?Do you agree/disagree, and why?// © Moe Arora // MakingTheMogul.com //

• Tony J Is Bringing Romance Back To R&B

  Moe Arora

  20 Oct 2009 | 4:53 pm

  I wanted to let you guys know about a new R&B artist/producer I’ve recently began working with, Tony J.He’s been making a name for himself in his hometown of Houston, and today, we’re releasing his new single, “U Need A Man”.Here’s a quick bio rundown:“With the new generation of R&B artists singing tales of promiscuous lifestyles, today’s R&B music has lost its connection with love and romance. Houston native, Tony J, wants to change that.Having been raised in Houston (a primarily hip-hop market), Tony’s musical influences range from…

• MUSIC BIZ FRAUD ALERT: Antoine Keane a.k.a Dominic Edmonds

  Moe Arora

  14 Oct 2009 | 1:47 pm

  One of the biggest problems with the music business (or any business, for that matter) is that you’re never quite sure who you can trust. People talk a lot; the difference is some can back up their talk, while others simply can’t.And other times, not only can they not back it up – they go to the extreme to create an entire façade.Fakes.Frauds.One of those frauds is Antoine Keane a.k.a “Dominic Edmonds”.I got contacted by this guy a couple months ago about doing some consultation work for his independent label, SRB/WongGee Records. He claimed to have distribution…

• Video Games Becoming More Lucrative For Musicians

  Moe Arora

  8 Oct 2009 | 12:38 pm

  DJ AM (R.I.P) in DJ Hero video gameIn this struggling state of the record industry, most artists, producers and labels are desperately looking for different streams to generate revenue.Video games have long been a great alternative revenue stream, however in recent years games are becoming even more dependent on musical content (Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ Hero, etc), making this an even more attractive option to consider.Below is a great slideshow presentation offering a quick overview of the Top 10 Trends in Music & Games prepared and presented by Stuart Dredge of MusicAlly.com:// ©…

• SOUNDBITE: Imagination

  Moe Arora

  4 Oct 2009 | 1:26 am

  Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.- Albert Einstein// © Moe Arora // MakingTheMogul.com //

• 
  Biz Crusader

• Why Evil Corporate Deeds Will Not Go Unpunished

  John Park

  19 Oct 2009 | 1:26 pm

    IT NEVER FAILS.   Bad economic conditions always lead to poor customer service.   Don’t ask me why this happens but it always does.  Whenever companies (mostly large ones) are faced with tighter budgets, the group that inevitably pays the price are their customers.  It can be an onerous return policy, a hike in fees or maybe headcount sacrifices in customer service departments.  Instead of a phone tree, you are faced with a “phone forest”.     CAUTION:   This… I’ll screw them over now and deal with it later approach is not what it used to be. …

• Obama Goes Toe-To-Toe With Stephanopoulos On “Tax Increases”

  John Park

  20 Sep 2009 | 1:31 pm

  Is this a TAX Increase or not??? If the Government forces me to purchase something via a MANDATE, how is this not a tax increase?  How will this effect small businesses everywhere? Chime In. Let me know what you think. Until Next Time…

• A Marketing Lesson From The Vegas Water Guy

  John Park

  18 Sep 2009 | 12:50 pm

    I see dead people… I mean marketing opportunities everywhere and what I noticed on a Vegas walkway in the middle of August was no exception.   It was an “Africa Hot” day and making money from everyone’s discomfort were entrepreneurially minded individuals selling chilled bottled waters to passersby tourists.  They were poorly dressed, disheveled looking and not exactly professional in their approach or presentation.  Nevertheless, they were selling these waters just by waving them around standing in front of their coolers, which were filled with all generic…

• Suddenly They’re Blind.

  John Park

  27 Aug 2009 | 6:28 pm

    As my readers know very well,  I am often writing about the good things happening in business.  However, in some cases, I have to bring to everyone’s attention a very bad thing happening in the business community.   So… as of today, I’ve decided to start a SHAME ON YOU BUSINESS category.   All of the businesses listed or mentioned in these postings are doing or have done something really STUPID to damage their brand and customer loyalty.  And more importantly, their acts are damaging small businesses and their owners—the people I fight for.  Sometimes these…

• Facebook added 100 million users in 9 months!

  John Park

  25 Aug 2009 | 11:34 pm

  It took Radio 38 years and TV 13 years to reach an audience of 50 million.  Facebook added 100 million users in 9 months!  This is a very important video for all business owners.  Social Media Marketing is here to stay.  As the video states… It is not a fad. Until Next Time… By the way, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter.

• 
  Connie Bensen

• Should you Accept the Job Offer?

  conniebensen@gmail.com (Connie Bensen)

  29 Oct 2009 | 8:53 pm

  Your dream is to work in social media. You’ve been blogging, building your brand and know your stuff. After doing all the right things you have a job offer, so now what? As with any potential new job there are many questions & many unknowns in regard to one in social media. And to make it worse, I believe that there are many more because the space is so new. I have been advising both employers and job seekers for quite awhile. Here’s a review of practical things to consider when you’re on that emotional high of having received a job offer: 1. job expectations? Do you know what your…

• In San Francisco next week

  conniebensen@gmail.com (Connie Bensen)

  27 Oct 2009 | 3:22 pm

  It’s a busy time of year! Next week I’ll be in San Francisco for two events. I’m doing a 3 hour workshop at Enterprise 2.0 on Frameworks for utilizing social media. The diagram in my last blog post outlines the potential that a community manager offers an organization. I will share how to use social media to: Build brand & PR, social media marketing, business development & collaborations Connect with customers in terms of customer service, peer support, product development Augment sales by shortening sales cycle, new forms of prospecting (reducing cold calling) I was really…

• Community Manager + Sales Funnel = ROI

  conniebensen@gmail.com (Connie Bensen)

  20 Oct 2009 | 7:25 pm

  This diagram summarizes what I have learned over the past year about how my role as a Community Manager influences the sales funnel. We are in agreement that social media efforts need to be measured. I will contend that the role of community manager or social media specialist requires you to show how you contribute to your organization’s business objectives in order to justify your presence (and paycheck). I created the diagram to help us as practitioners describe our position and influence in the sales funnel. The concepts apply to B2B sales as much as to B2C. Too often I think that…

• Seven Business Objectives and their ROI for Monitoring Social Media

  conniebensen@gmail.com (Connie Bensen)

  8 Oct 2009 | 9:43 pm

  Michael Leander Nielson of Oslo  invited me to present a webinar on Business Objectives for Social Media Monitoring. It’s a popular topic and we had great attendance! I covered the following: Which objectives to consider when defining your social media monitoring (SMM) strategy What types of tools are available How to make sense of the data that is gathered The ROI and benefits of social media monitoring During the webinar it was interesting the exchange of Twitter usernames transition to  requesting to continue the conversation in a community. It underlined how people with a…

• THE REASON You Should Be At Blogworld 09

  conniebensen@gmail.com (Connie Bensen)

  3 Oct 2009 | 9:06 pm

  Not too long ago I was in a traditional professional job. Ironically that same job is what introduced me to Web 2.0. Fast forwarding finds me deeply entrenched in working online and advocating for the role of Community Manager and working remotely. THE Reason You Should Be At Blogworld 09 is the people. As much as I enjoy working remotely there is a huge value to meeting people in person. The power of connecting face to face is incredible. Last year’s BlogWorld was a turning point for me. I had the opportunity to meet many of the people who had influenced my work & inspire so many of…

• 
  Virtually Ready - "Extend Your Reach!"

• How Effective Are Facebook Ads?

  admin

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:18 am

  Virtuallly Ready Fan Page on Facebook® At Virtually Ready, we’re reaching out to our connections to find some questions that may be looming out there about the social web and how to best manage your web presence.  As a result, we received the following inquiry from one of our Fans on the Virtually Ready Fan Page on Facebook and wanted to share it with you. “I think the thing that I have been wondering the most is how effective are the ads on here (Facebook)? I have been going back and forth on doing one for both the business and the podcasts, but I am wondering if they actually…

• Business Owners Have A Chance To Win A Customized Flip® MinoHD Video Camera from Virtually Ready

  admin

  15 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  Do you own a business? Here’s your opportunity to get connected and promote your business at the same time using the latest “on the go” video camera technology – The New Customizable flip® minoHD 120! This handy little gadget can boost your online business promotions with its FlipShare software feature, that “makes it easy to email videos, edit individual clips, make custom movies, capture still-image snapshots, and upload video to Facebook™, MySpace™ , YouTube™ and other sharing sites!” Virtually Ready is giving away a top-of-the-line 120 minute…

• Soundwave Merchandising Extends Social Web Presence for Business with Virtually Ready

  admin

  21 Sep 2009 | 2:09 pm

  Soundwave Merchandising - Specializing in Band Touring Merch & Webstores A couple of months ago, Virtually Ready announced our new partnership with Campus Customs, which offers custom imprinted apparel, promotional screen printing & embroidery to their customers.  Today, we are  introducing an extension to that partnership with Soundwave Merchandising, a division of Campus Customs. Soundwave Merchandising is known for having “major company muscle with independent company thinking and accessibility”, especially in the music industry. The company specializes in band…

• Springbak Springsoles Spring Into Action On The Social Web

  admin

  2 Sep 2009 | 7:00 am

  Official Springbak Springsoles Virtually Ready has recently partnered with Springbak Springsoles, the official provider of the sales and manufacturing of Springbak performance boosting Springsoles (insoles) designed for professional athletes, to revamp their website and bring them up to speed with a new Social Web Fusion(SM) website. To compliment their new site, they are also utilizing Virtually Ready’s website and social web management solutions program to boost their web presence and extend their reach. Springbak’s new website accommodates all of the detailed information they…

• J. Joseph Salon Builds Social Web Presence with Facebook Promotions

  admin

  24 Aug 2009 | 4:58 pm

  After launching the recent redesign of www.jjosephsalon.com, Virtually Ready expands its long-term business relationship with J. Joseph Salon, upscale Tampa hair salon located in Land O Lakes, FL.  We have been providing the salon with ongoing web presence solutions that includes the opportunity to participate and reap the many benefits available from building a professional social web presence. Today, J. Joseph Salon launched their Facebook Fan Page campaign to reach out to its existing and future clientele on a regular basis. The current short-term goal is to reach 100 Facebook fans on J.

• 
  NC State of Business

• Integrating Lean and Six Sigma for Optimal Organizational Performance

  Christy Guion

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:12 pm

  Organizations often seek opportunities to improve their competitive advantage within their respective industries. Many organizations struggle to accomplish this goal without the use of a systematic approach to improve their organizational performance as it relates to quality products or services. Lean and Six Sigma are proven quality techniques that can help improve organizational performance. Although most organizations want to improve quality and cut costs, the deployment and implementation of continuous improvement methodologies is commonly viewed as a daunting undertaking. For various…

• A New Link Between Risk Management and Project Management

  Sonja Hughes

  2 Nov 2009 | 10:11 am

  There is always a level of risk associated with managing projects. Often discussed as individual topics, risk management and project management are now being integrated into general discussions of systems management. More specifically, the new version of AS9100 – Quality Management Systems - Requirements for Aviation, Space and Defense Organizations actually includes specific references to the need for risk and project management processes. Risk Management AS9100 (Rev. C) has now added requirements for companies to assess and manage the risks involved with providing their product or…

• Will OSHA's Recordkeeping Emphasis Target Your Company?

  Holli Singleton

  26 Oct 2009 | 2:26 pm

  What do Mobile Home Manufacturers, Nursing Homes and Marine Cargo Handlers have in common? They, along with 19 other industries, appear on OSHA’s list of industries being targeted for recordkeeping compliance. In light of several studies suggesting that businesses may be under-reporting workplace injuries and illnesses, OSHA has announced plans to initiate a national emphasis program (NEP) on recordkeeping!In the press release, acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab stated that “accurate and honest recordkeeping is vitally important to workers' health and…

• Small Business: Mining for Opportunities

  Joe Sauve

  26 Oct 2009 | 11:49 am

  Did you know that over the last decade, more than 65% of new jobs were created by Small Business. In these difficult times, the Small Business might be our version of the ‘Small engine that can!’ Innovation and business growth programs try to teach Big Business to act like Small Business; to act entrepreneurial with a purpose! Maybe the small business guys really have the edge. I have seen some reports that indicate that a small business is 10X more likely to be successful than the Big ventures. More than likely, you can count on dedication and perseverance as contributing…

• Passion for What You Do

  Gene Beneduce

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:36 pm

  I had the privilege of recently seeing one of the great guitarists of my generation, Robin Trower, at a small venue in Charlotte. Although Robin is about 65 years old, (and looks every bit of it) he performs with the talent he has always had and demonstrates a passion for the guitar. You can see the passion in his face, and feel it through his music. You see this same passion in the faces of other great musicians (from my generation) such as Bruce Springsteen, Robbie Robertson and Eric Clapton. And their talent and success shines through this passion. I believe a similar passion inspired many…

• 
  Business of Software Blog

• How to take advantage of your time at Business of Software 2009 - tips from @asmartbear (#bos2009)

  Neil Davidson

  2 Nov 2009 | 11:35 pm

  This is a guest post by Jason Cohen, founder of Smart Bear Software and blogger about startups, marketing, and geekery. Jason gave a Pecha Kecha speach at BoS 2008 and has this advice for 2009 attendees. So you're going to Business of Software 2009! It's going to be awesome. There's a 100% chance you'll get your time and money's worth from the speakers alone, but that's not the only benefit of the conference. In fact, most of the folks I've talked to agree that getting to know the other attendees is half the experience. This conference is unlike any other, and you should take full advantage…

• #codingbythesea – throw four smart people into a house by the seaside and shake

  Neil Davidson

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:55 am

  At Red Gate we like to try new things. The million dollar challenge and the accidental incubator are a couple of examples. Combine this with an occasional but nagging frustration at how long it can take to get stuff done nowadays and a curiosity about how much a small team can achieve if we just leave them alone, we’ve shipped Alex (developer), Dom (designer), Nagashree (tester), Rob (developer), and – oops, I forgot to send a project manager or scrum master - off to a house by the sea for a week. I’m not entirely sure what they’ll be working on, but take smart people, a fast internet…

• Business of Software 2009 program

  Neil Davidson

  21 Oct 2009 | 2:31 am

  I’ve just posted up the BoS 2009 program (thank you @thatdesigner). You can download it here (.pdf). It’s going to be awesome. There are still some places left. You can sign up here.

• Don't just roll the dice - a usefully short guide to software pricing

  Neil Davidson

  20 Oct 2009 | 8:00 am

  In 1938, two young engineers were ready to launch their first product. They'd struggled with what to build. After considering amplifiers, radio equipment, air controllers, harmonicas and even muscle-building electrodes for housewives, they'd finally decided to create an oscilloscope. Not wanting customers to be put off by a version one product, they sensibly called it the Model 200A.The next step? Decide the pricing.They eventually settled on $54.40. Was that because it represented the cost of manufacturing, plus a decent markup? No. These engineers hadn't taken that into account.

• Pecha Kucha finalists for Business of Software 2009

  Neil Davidson

  25 Sep 2009 | 1:52 am

  This year's Pecha Kucha finalists have got their work cut out for them. Twenty slides, twenty seconds each, it’s the haiku of presentations. Here they are: Jurgen Appelo, Chief Information Officer of ISM eCompany on “Managing agility: from complex to simple” JD Brennan, Distinguished Technologist at HP, on "The 6.6 minute design school” Daniel Kuperman, Director of Marketing and Product Management of Quadrant Software, on “5 marketing secrets for software success” Glen Lipka, Director of User Experience and Product Design of Marketo, on “UX design – building products…

• 
  The AppGap

• JackBe Leads Formation of Open Mashup Alliance to Advance Adoption of Enterprise Mashup Solutions

  Bill Ives

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:52 am

  A consortium of technology companies announced the creation of the Open Mashup Alliance in late September. This effort is being led by JackBe and provides open access to their Enterprise Mashup Markup Language (EMML) language through a Creative Commons arrangement. I have written about Jackbe before (see: Jackbe is Refining its Enterprise Mashup Offering). Recently I spoke with John Crupi CTO of JackBe about this new move and other things going on at the company. John said that the alliance is open to any organization with an interest in the advancement of EMML and Enterprise Mashup…

• 40 Years On: The History & Evolution of Social Media

  Jenny Ambrozek

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:37 pm

  This post began as a response  (unpublished) to @DesignerDepot ’s popular The History & Evolution of Social Media post. Discovering I was reflecting on  the evolution of social media and projecting forward on October 29, 2009,  the 4oth Anniversary of ARPANET and the beginning of the Internet,  I was inspired to share more widely and honor the occasion. I wonder as you look back at the evolution of social media and then forecast forward what do you see? For me that landscape scan focuses on sociologist Moreno’s sociograms and social network analysis dating from the…

• TinEye, an image search engine

  Celine Roque

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:47 am

  Have you ever looked at an image and thought, I think I’ve seen that somewhere. Problem is, you couldn’t quite place it. Wouldn’t it be great to just grab a picture and run it through a search engine? Google has an image search, but it runs on keywords, not real image comparisons. As we wait for them to develop and polish one, in the meantime, we can use tools such as TinEye. TinEye, created by Idée Inc, is a reverse image search engine. Upload an image and this tool will tell you where matches can be found on the web, so that you can trace the original source, possibly…

• Equivio Releases Relevance™ to Enhance eDiscovery

  Bill Ives

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:35 am

  Equivio recently introduced Equivio>Relevance™, an expert-guided system that enhances the eDiscovery process through automated document prioritization. Traditionally, people, such as attorneys, engaged in intense investigations use keywords to pre-filter documents prior to detailed review. According to the TREC (Text Retrieval Conference) studies, the keywords method tends to miss most of the relevant documents, while yielding mainly irrelevant documents. Equivio>Relevance is designed to address these limitations, introducing a higher level of flexibility, control and accuracy into…

• Tomoye Announces New Community and Social Networking Platform for Microsoft SharePoint

  Bill Ives

  30 Oct 2009 | 1:04 am

  Tomoye is a community platform based in Ottawa Canada, that provides Sharepoint integration as I wrote about on this blog. They recently announced a new community and social networking platform for use on SharePoint, Tomoye Community Software.  It is available for WSS and MOSS enabling large organizations to leverage existing SharePoint infrastructure and data.  Tomoye`s approach to community and social networking is based on their experiences and industry best practices from the consumer market. They have been developing and deploying communities in the consumer market for nearly ten…

• 
  Rise of the Innerpreneur

• The Toronto Meetup Is Exactly What I Need

  Tara Joyce

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am

  This past Monday It was a rainy night in a slightly pretentious Italian restaurant in downtown Toronto where mid-level suits go to wine and dine. I’m standing at the bar, expecting two confirmed attendees and wondering what I was thinking when I picked the place. The first person to arrive is Nathalie Lussier, the Raw Food Witch. We stand, waiting and start chat about where we live and what our passions are. She’s a black belt and a computer geek. She’s f’ing cool to me. It’s a natural connection. One of these things just doesn’t belong It’s too loud.

• The Truth About Compromise

  Tara Joyce

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:52 am

  I’ve noticed that people often use the word “compromise” not in relation to a mutual concession or a trade, but to describe the betrayal of their principles, the surrender of their belief to the groundless claim of another. A “compromise” in this instance could be a wife’s surrender to her husband’s irrational demands for social conformity or pretended religious observance. Or a writer creating books to please “the public”, against their own judgment and standards. Let’s make a deal A compromise, by definition, is an agreement or a…

• My Utopia Exists. You’re Surfing It Right Now.

  Tara Joyce

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:54 pm

  Does this sound like your ideal community? It’s pretty damn close to mine. 1. Constantly growing organically The web consists of millions of pages, and it grows by the moment. A page can be added by anyone, anywhere. Hyperlinks are what connects these millions of pages and they can be created by anyone, anywhere. The web is constantly growing and interconnecting as the many small pieces (pages) are joining together (via hyperlinks) as they see fit. 2. Decentralized No one is in charge of the web. There is no one to fix it and no one to thank for it. 3. Commitment-free You have complete…

• Thinking You Need to Accept It? That’s So Conventional.

  Tara Joyce

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:33 am

  Door A: “Either” accept the world as it is This is conventional thinking. It’s a self-reinforcing lesson that life is about accepting unattractive and unpleasant trade-offs. e.g., Either you are an artist and know little about business or you are an economist and have no understanding of creativity, art, culture and growth. Door B: “Or” accept the world as it is This is conventional thinking. It’s seeing all aspects of life as an “either/or” exchange. Life is full of dichotomies, and you just need to pick the lesser of two evils. e.g., You are a…

• One Week ‘Till We Meetup in Tdot

  Tara Joyce

  26 Oct 2009 | 1:47 pm

  There are still 2 empty chairs at dinner with me and 8 other Innerpreneurs in Toronto next Monday. If your in Toronto, why not stop by and have some delicious Southern Italian food and great conversation. I’m confident you’ll get value from the night. Toronto Meet-up Monday, November 2, 2009, 7:30 PM EST at Terroni restaurant 57 Adelaide St. E. RSVP here Can you help me? I don’t know a damn thing about leading a group meetup. What’s a great way to break the ice? I was thinking we’d each introduce our self and our business… and go from there. Do I need more…

• 
  The Entrepreneurial Mind

• End of a Worrisome Week on the Employment Front

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:07 am

  The official unemployment numbers are just out for October, and the data reinforces all of the worrisome surveys that have been coming out all week:The unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in October, from 9.8% in September.The unemployment rate was 4.9% at the start of the recession in December, 2007.There were 15.7 million unemployed persons in October.  The number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million since the start of the recession.Government stimuli will not fix the problem in this economy.  We need to stimulate real growth, and do so quickly.  Even with a massive tax…

• Better Marketing in Tight Times

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:46 am

  Trying to use social media and the latest in personal technology as a means to bootstrap your marketing in these tight economic times?  Myventurepad offers several useful articles including an overview of why social media is so important for marketing and P.R., six tips for using Facebook more effectively, current trends in mobile web technology, some of the limitations of social media as a tool within traditional marketing systems, and how to manage Twitter more effectively and efficiently.

• More on October Employment in Small Business

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:59 pm

  The NFIB has just released their employment report for October.  It is consistent with other reports we are seeing this week.William C. Dunkelberg, chief economist for the NFIB, issued the following statement: "Once again, the 'good news' is less bad news. Small business owners in October reported a decline in average employment per firm of 0.5 workers (seasonally adjusted) during the third quarter (prior three months to the survey), a marked improvement from the losses of about 0.8 employees reported in the prior three months and much better than the record loss of 1.26 workers…

• Hiring Up, But Pay is Down

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:50 am

  According to SurePayroll's monthly Small Business Scorecard survey (customer survey based on 25,000 small businesses nationwide), small business hiring is up slightly in October from the month of September, bringing us to a 2.2 percent increase year-to-date. Unfortunately, small business salaries are headed in the opposite direction, with a year-to-date decline of 7.3 percent.  Studies like this one reinforce my belief that we are in a prolonged recession from which there is no clear end in sight.  Wall Street's ups and downs do not mea