New Tech Business Ideas Trends | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

October 3, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

2016 is the year of entrepreneurship, especially for smaller, work-from-home business ideas! And thanks to dozens of fantastic technological innovations in recent years, many of the best new business opportunities are all in tech-related fields. It’s a fast-paced industry that’s changing almost any other field it touches: hotels have lost substantial market share to companies like Airbnb, and Uber has transformed urban transportation.

How can you ride the tech wave to even bigger and better opportunities? We’ve got several picks for new tech business ideas trends which you can capitalize on to begin living the dream of owning your own business.

Cutest Face-Plant Ever? Baby Panda Falls Off Stage | Live Science

October 3, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Roly-poly can be a plus for a giant panda tumbling around in the wild. But on stage with 22 of your cute-and-cuddly kin, the pudge can lead to a spill. And that’s what happened during the public debut of 23 panda cubs that were born this year at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

As soon as the little furball took a nosedive off the low platform, a staff member scooped him or her up and placed the cub back on the stage. The pile of cuteness on display Thursday (Sept. 29) ranged in age from about 4 months to just 1 month old.

Why Selling Without Sales Goals Is Bad for Sales | All Business

September 30, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The following headline read in The Dallas Morning News: “Wells Fargo says it’s dropping sales goals.” I couldn’t disagree more. Dropping sales goals is bad for sales, for management, and for customers.

You may have read about the problems the bank had in signing up new customers. Newspaper reports discussed an out of control sales culture. Management wanted sales numbers up at any cost; cross selling was the primary strategy. The Wall Street Journal reported that Wells Fargo opened as many as two million deposit and credit-card accounts without customers’ knowledge.

Too many managers set the wrong goals.

It seems that the sales culture was hijacked by a few misguided managers. Yes, the “sell at all costs strategy” is wrong; eliminating sales goals isn’t the solution. The real problem is that the goals that management set were the wrong goals.

Why Audio Advertising Could Be Your Campaign’s Secret Weapon, from The Trade Desk | Adweek

September 30, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Everybody seems to be talking digital video, but another attractive opportunity for many marketers has emerged in digital audio.

Streams. Playlists. Podcasts. They’re the soundtrack of today’s life experiences. That’s hardly anything new. Advertisers have long turned to audio as a way to connect with people in a way that feels both authentic and contextually relevant—as years of radio success will attest. But what’s different are the technologies that make audio advertising more effective and more targeted than ever.

To Keep Female Leaders, Learn What They Need to Succeed | Business News Daily

September 30, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Women don’t rise to the top of the corporate ladder as much as men because employers aren’t doing enough to keep their ambitions alive, new research suggests.

The study from the consulting firm Women’s Success Coaching finds that women start out their careers extremely ambitious, but employers damage that drive to succeed by not creating enough programs that have an impact on their advancement. The result is a decline in that ambition by the midpoint in women’s careers.

Of the women surveyed, 67 percent admitted that there was a time in their career when they were more ambitious than they currently are. Specifically, 31 percent said they were most ambitious between the 5th and 10th year of their careers, compared with 18 percent who said their ambition was at its highest following their first decade of working.

Techstars selects the first class of its New York-based IoT accelerator | TechCrunch

September 29, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Techstars has selected the first class for its New York-based internet of things accelerator. It’s the first program that Techstars has done with a consortium of industry partners instead of just linking up with a single, large corporate partner.

For the accelerator, the first class is the culmination of a year of work putting the pieces together for the new initiative. One of the big four accounting and consulting firms, PWC, was the first company to sign on to the Techstars vision.

Since the first agreement last October with PWC, General Electric, Verizon, Bosch and SAP have all come on board. General Electric has been pushing hard to remake itself as a more innovative company; while Bosch is making similar efforts. For its part, SAP has announced its own partnership with Bosch, and is aggressively pushing into the Internet of Things to counter moves made by its arch-nemesis, Cisco.

Apple To Abandon Lightning Port? iPhone’s Next Massive Gamble | Forbes

September 29, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

First they came for the bulky 30-pin docking connector. Then the 3.5mm headphone jack was removed from the iPhone. What will Apple remove next? A newly granted patent published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office offers another clue. In a bid to reduce the physical imperfections on the iPhone’s external design, Apple could drop the lightning port.

Patent #9,453,976 was granted today, and details a system where data could flow between two devices through an optical interface. This would use a series of tiny holes that in concert would allow enough optical information to pass through:

5 Cool Ways Creative Talent Can Help You Market Your Business | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

September 28, 2016September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It takes a village to grow a business. The creatives of the professional world bring an intangible element to a marketing campaign. Without their unique skills, brands wouldn’t be memorable and a logo wouldn’t be able to convey an idea.

Creative professionals think outside of the box. They’re the ones revolutionizing the way we market and the mediums that are used. They give us new channels to connect with customers.

Here are a few of the most creative ways creative types are winning over customers.

Venezuela crisis: I flew to U.S. to buy toilet paper | CNN Money

September 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Carmen Mendoza came to New York to visit her daughter Anabella — and also to buy toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, beans, corn flour, tuna fish, mayonnaise and aspirin.

Mendoza, 66, can’t find these basic goods in her home country: Venezuela.

Venezuela’s deep economic recession has spiraled into a humanitarian crisis. Venezuelans are suffering through severe food and medical shortages while crime skyrockets and massive protests call for President Nicolas Maduro to resign.

Mendoza has spent the past month in New York with her daughter and realizes she’s lost a sense of what normalcy means. In Venezuela, she lived without toilet paper for a month in July, using paper napkins instead