Can a Vision Board Help Your Business? |All Business

February 24, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever heard of (or used) a vision board? A bulletin board or poster board with photos, magazine images and other visuals pasted on it, vision boards are used to help people focus on achieving their goals. While the idea might sound pretty “out there,” visualization techniques have helped many athletes improve performance, and lots of legendary salespeople swear by them.

Visualization and vision boards can work for you, too, according to a survey by TD Bank that polled over 500 small business owners. Nearly half (46 percent) of those surveyed say they started their own businesses in order to follow their vision—but they didn’t stop there.

To Keep Children Engaged During Prime Time, PBS Will Launch a 24/7 Kids Network | Adweek

February 23, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Viewers might have wondered if PBS was rethinking its commitment to children’s programming after it allowed HBO to snap up Sesame Street last summer. But today the network announced a big play to keep kids watching its shows around the clock.

Later this year, the network will launch a free, 24-hour network for children’s programming called PBS Kids. This will let children watch during prime time and other hours when PBS doesn’t air kid-centric content.

The channel will be available as a digital subchannel on PBS stations nationwide (joining other PBS digital subchannels like Create and World). The network will also stream it online at pbskids.org and via the PBS Kids Video app, which is available on iOS and Android devices, as well as Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Android TV and Xbox One. The livestream will join the on-demand full episodes and clips that are currently available on the app and online.

Nokia: We’re In No Rush To Get Our Brand Back On Phones | TechCrunch

February 23, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

After exiting the smartphone market dramatically by selling its mobile making division to Microsoft for $7.2 billion back in 2013, Nokia has hinted it is looking to return to the phone business by a different route — taking advantage of a clause in its sale agreement that allows it to use the Nokia brand on handsets again starting from this year.

The company has a history of radical reinventions. But returning to a market where it excelled for so long is something it views as an “opportunity” given the residual brand recognition of Nokia and handsets, CEO Rajeev Suri said today. He was speaking at a Nokia press and analyst briefing in Barcelona this evening, ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show which kicks off tomorrow.

Millennials: 10 Things Old Farts Won’t Tell You About Entrepreneurship ( Fourth in the Series) | Peter Mehit

February 22, 2016March 7, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

4. Minimum Viable Products Can Be Missing Valuable Pieces

Fail fast. Fail forward. Nice, glib encouragements that old farts will give you from the security of their wealth and comfort. Use lean start up techniques to consolidate your ideas into a minimum viable product (MVP) that you can get in front of the market to see if there’s interest. Use the least amount of effort and treasure to see if there are buyers. Once you get a spark, pivot toward a business model that you can monetize by adding costly but more unique aspects to your product or app.

It makes sense. Think of your start-up effort as more of a lab than a business. You’re experimenting more than launching and using the results to fine tune the next moves toward the market. If you’ve done everything properly, even your failures will teach you something as you assemble the information you need to identify your ideal customers and build the product they want to buy.

Continue reading “Millennials: 10 Things Old Farts Won’t Tell You About Entrepreneurship ( Fourth in the Series) | Peter Mehit” →

Crazy Sounding Tax Deductions That IRS (Or The Tax Court) Says Are Legit | Forbes

February 22, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Are you searching high and low for tax deductions? In the run up to April 15, you aren’t the only one. Unfortunately, it is too late to date checks December 31, 2015! Since taxes are annual, you must think about last year, 2015. Still, if your facts are right and you feel adventurous, here are some unusual deductions taxpayers managed to get approved. Admittedly, some had to take the IRS to court to get their deduction approved.

Cosmetic surgery costs are usually non-deductible, but an exotic dancer named Chesty Love tested this rule. If you want bigger tips, you go bigger, she reasoned. So she decided to go way bigger, shelling out for breast implants that would bloat her bra size to 56-FF. When she wrote off the bill, the IRS said it was nondeductible cosmetic surgery. But in Hess v. Commissioner,the Tax Court allowed tax benefits, allowing her to claim the implants as depreciable assets, a type of stage prop.

‘I can’t afford to buy groceries’: Yelp employee fired for public letter to the CEO | Mashable

February 22, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

One of the perks of Silicon Valley work culture is a stocked kitchen. But as convenient as free cereal and peaches may be, they are no substitute for getting paid enough to buy groceries.

At least, that’s how former Yelp employee Talia Jane felt. On Friday, she wrote a blog post on Medium addressed to CEO Jeremy Stoppelman that detailed her low pay and struggle to afford both her rent and groceries in the pricey San Francisco Bay Area. A few hours later, she was fired.

How This Startup Trading Venue Deals With Criticism From Heavyweight Competitors | Inc

February 19, 2016February 19, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Incumbent companies don’t take kindly to upstarts threatening to change the way an industry works. Whether you’re Uber or Lyft undercutting taxi companies or Airbnb pulling guests away from hotels, someone is going to be upset about having to compete with an idea that seemed to come out of left field.

The situation is no different for private “dark pool” trading venue IEX, which expects to find out March 21 whether the Securities and Exchange Commission will grant it approval to become a public stock exchange. Billing itself as the good guy stock market where high-frequency traders don’t have an unfair advantage, IEX has predictably caught more than a little flak from heavyweight competitors Nasdaq, NYSE and BATS.

Excruciating New Credit Cards Finally Give Apple Pay a Problem to Solve | WIRED

February 19, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

IF YOU WANT high comedy, try buying something at my local drugstore.

As you wait in line with your razor blades and Softsoap, some other poor soul will swipe their credit card through the reader on the counter—and nothing will happen, because it’s one of those new chip cards designed for better security. Then, a (slightly exasperated) cashier will tell this poor soul to push the card into a slot at the front of the reader. The poor soul will do this—and nothing will happen again, because the new chip tech is horribly slow.

Just when it looks like the reader is about to die—strange pixelations appearing on the screen—a legible message will finally appear, asking the poor soul to approve the transaction—and nothing will happen yet again, because the new chip tech is even slower than anyone remembers. Then the reader will start honking like an air-raid siren, as if something has gone horribly wrong. But eventually, the poor soul realizes the siren is trying to tell her it’s time to remove the card.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport warned the TSA | Business Insider

February 19, 2016February 19, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world’s busiest, has issued a warning to the US Transportation Safety Administration to get its act together or be replaced.

According to a letter from Hartsfield-Jackson general manager Miguel Southwell to TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger, the airport’s security screening checkpoints are woefully understaffed with no sign of significant improvement in sight.

This House Costs Just $20,000—But It’s Nicer Than Yours | Co.Exist

February 18, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

For over a decade, architecture students at Rural Studio, Auburn University’s design-build program in a tiny town in West Alabama, have worked on a nearly impossible problem. How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford, but that anyone would want—while also providing a living wage for the local construction team that builds it?

In January, after years of building prototypes, the team finished their first pilot project in the real world. Partnering with a commercial developer outside Atlanta, in a tiny community called Serenbe, they built two one-bedroom houses, with materials that cost just $14,000 each.