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+1 1 vote

A New Business Model For A New Era

by DJ Francis on 01/05/2009 07:09 0 comments ,54 views
Categories: Leadership, Marketing Ideas

businessmen

I think Mitch Joel is one of the brightest minds in social media. But today, I’ve gotta take issue.

Mitch recently responded to a new Pew Research Center poll showing that television has been overtaken by the internet as a primary news source. I highly encourage you to read Mitch’s thoughts here: Breaking News On The Internet. His concern is that new media (blogs, Twitter, etc.) has overtaken traditional media too quickly for a replacement advert...

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Startups are hard work…

by Alexander Muse on 01/03/2009 17:54 0 comments ,35 views

It may seem obvious, but I think it is worth noting: Building a company from the ground-up is really hard and it takes time - more time than you may have been lead to believe. How long do you think it took Dell, Jobs or Gates to build their companies? To start, they aren’t done building (well maybe Gates is).

It took Jobs 4 years to get Apple off the ground
It took Dell 4 years to get Dell off the ground
It took Gates 6 years to get Microsoft off...

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Zero Love for Toyota’s “Saved by Zero”

by Bazzarblog on 01/05/2009 18:23 0 comments ,15 views

TIME recently reported on the consumer backlash against Toyota’s “Saved by Zero” advertising campaign. The ad annoyed one consumer, a freshman student at Binghampton University in New York, so much that he started a Facebook group called “Stop Playing Toyota’s ‘Saved by Zero’ Commercial.” In its first week, the group attracted 400 members. As of today, total membership is approaching 10,000. I hadn’t seen the commercial until yesterday, when ...

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My four goal words for 2009

by Paul Chaney on 01/05/2009 17:54 0 comments ,14 views
Categories: Marketing Ideas

IStock_000007736556XSmall

Chris Brogan has a practice he's used since 2006, that of distilling his goals for the new year into three or four words. Seems like a good one to follow, so I'm giving it a try this year.

My four goal words for 2009 are:

Degree

At 211 degress water is hot. And while it would burn you if you stepped in a shower, its uses are somewhat limited. But turn it up one more degree to 212 and you can change the world. At 212 degrees water is not just hot...

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Brand-Free January

by Gavin Heaton on 01/05/2009 17:44 0 comments ,15 views
Categories: Leadership, Your Tax Advisor, Sales, Managing Technology, Managing People, Managing Money, Marketing Ideas, Finance, Startups

Scrabble Letter B
Originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds

Jargon can be a great tool ... using it can help us feel part of a movement, an industry or company; and it can help condense difficult concepts so that we can demonstrate linkages. It can, however, become a problem.

Overuse can make us lazy in our thinking and communications. It can separate those who "get it" from those who don't - and it can suck the marrow from the language that we...

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2009 Predictions from John Battelle

by tacanderson on 01/05/2009 17:39 0 comments ,14 views
Categories: Business Transformaton, Social Enterprise, Managing Technology, Marketing Ideas, Startups

Image via WikipediaI don’t know why, but we just love predictions. They are almost always wrong but that doesn’t stop us. I guess it’s a good way to try and make us feel more secure in an insecure environment. Or for some of us it’s a way to try and figure out what’s next and how can we capitalize on it.

There are few people I take seriously when it comes to predictions (myself included), but John Battelle is always someone I pay special attenti...

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A Tale of Two Sales People

by tacanderson on 01/05/2009 17:39 0 comments ,14 views
Categories: Business Transformaton, Social Enterprise, Managing Technology, Marketing Ideas, Startups

One leads his clients to believe he knows more than he does.
The other leads his clients to believe that he doesn’t know as much as he really does.

Both of their clients are surprised when they learn how much they really know.

One client is unhappy about their discovery.
The other client is pleasantly surprised.

One does most of the talking in meetings
The other lets his clients do most of the talking

All good sales people are hungry.

One is hungry beca...

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Some Economic Forecasters Optimistic About 2009

by Steve King on 01/05/2009 17:38 0 comments ,11 views

The NY Times article Some Forecasters See a Fast Economic Recovery covers the relatively optimistic 2009 consensus economic forecast of 50 professional forecasters compiled by Blue Chip Economic Indicators. Key quote:

"In the midst of the deepest recession in the experience of most Americans, many professional forecasters are optimistically heading into the new year declaring that the worst may soon be over."

The consensus of this group is the ec...

0 0 votes

Tax Breaks for V.C.'s

by Robin Fray Carey on 01/05/2009 12:21 0 comments ,16 views
Categories: Dealmakers, Finance
Tags: venture capital, federal, contracting

The Huffington Post is reporting that the Obama administration is considering adding venture-backed firms to the federal contracting provisions for small business.

+1 1 vote

“Nickel and Dimeing” Small Businesses

by Barbara Weltman on 01/05/2009 10:22 1 comment ,26 views
Categories: Business Transformaton

As states and municipalities scramble to find revenue in this tough economy, many are looking to small businesses to pay a greater share of tax revenues. For example, NY’s proposed budget would apply a range of new taxes to various items; the higher taxes could greatly depress the sales of products and services offered by [...]

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A Drop in IRS Interest Rates for the First Quarter of 2009

by Barbara Weltman on 01/05/2009 10:22 0 comments ,9 views
Categories: Business Transformaton

The IRS announced a drop of one percentage point in the interest rate it charges on underpayments—the rate applies from January 1, 2009, through March 31, 2009. The rate for this period is 5%. This is the same rate that the IRS pays on noncorporate overpayments during this period (different rates apply to corporations). This rate [...]

+1 1 vote

Whatever a Tax Increase is Called, Someone Needs to Sell It

by James Maule on 01/05/2009 08:14 0 comments ,17 views
Categories: Your Tax Advisor

On Friday, reports such as this Philadelphia Inquirer story brought the news that the National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing (NCSTIF) has recommended a 50% increase in the federal gasoline tax to provide funding for road construction and repair. The increase is required simply to keep pace with previous year fuel tax revenues, because declining gasoline use has reduced revenues. Gasoline use is declining because m...

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+3 3 votes

The Expertise of Experts

by David Armano on 01/02/2009 17:16 0 comments ,37 views
Categories: Marketing Ideas

I've been called an expert. An expert blogger, an expert "social media" person—whatever that is. An expert in user/consumer/customer experience or "Web 2.0". If the "expert" label gets thrown my way, I don't give it much thought. It's just a label that helps people wrap their heads around something abstract to make it more concrete. Sometimes we need to categorize in order to make sense of things.

The thing is, I'll never see myself as an exper...

+2 2 votes

The Impact of Small Business on Job Creation

by Jeff Cornwall on 01/02/2009 07:09 0 comments ,36 views

A study by John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland and Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda of the Census Bureau offers support to those of us who have been preaching that bailouts to floundering corporations and huge public works projects will not create sustainable job growth.

Take a look at this graph from their study that shows net job creation by company size:

See that really tall column in the cor...

+2 2 votes

We Need a Second Secularism

by Albert Wenger on 01/05/2009 07:17 2 comments ,30 views

One of the founding principles of the United States is a clear separation between church and state. This kind of secularism was a huge break-through in government at a time when most European countries had fairly significant roles for the church in government. Much of the early motivation for the principle of secularism in the US can be traced back to the desire to escape the intolerance and prosecution that so frequently resulted in Europe from...

+1 1 vote

A New Business Model For A New Era

by DJ Francis on 01/05/2009 07:09 0 comments ,54 views
Categories: Leadership, Marketing Ideas

businessmen

I think Mitch Joel is one of the brightest minds in social media. But today, I’ve gotta take issue.

Mitch recently responded to a new Pew Research Center poll showing that television has been overtaken by the internet as a primary news source. I highly encourage you to read Mitch’s thoughts here: Breaking News On The Internet. His concern is that new media (blogs, Twitter, etc.) has overtaken traditional media too quickly for a replacement advert...

+1 1 vote

Social Marketing Operations Software Ideas -- The SMO "Wish List"

by Sam Decker on 01/04/2009 17:36 0 comments ,25 views

Let's consider how businesses are run. Businesses are made up of process, policies, people and technologies. Results of anything are analyzed on how it impacts the P&L, in an effort to increase the predictability of results. Efficiency is measured and improved, with practices such as Six Sigma. Prioritization is ruthless as everyone has more to do in a growing (or struggling) company. People have objectives, goals and processes to follow. They h...

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