Author: knjohn

What’s for Dinner? 3 One-Minute Tips to Eat More Mindfully | Page19

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Eating is one of our basic human needs, but it’s more than a mere utilitarian must-do. Eating can be a great pleasure, a social occasion, or a route to greater physical and mental health. But what does that really mean?

While awareness about the benefits of a healthy diet is on the rise, so are confusion and misinformation. What does it actually mean to be a mindful eater? From that question springs a cornucopia of others, like what should the bulk of my grocery haul be? Should I eat meat or not? Are there techniques to better enjoy a meal?

Read More

3 Key Things to Learn About Your Target Customer | Business News Daily

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you’re starting a business, you’ve probably defined your “target customer.” You know their age, gender, location and perhaps even their income and education levels. But demographics alone won’t give you a complete picture of who’s buying your products.

“Understand intimately who your customer is,” said TJ Parker, CEO and founder of PillPack, an online pharmacy and medication management service. “If you don’t know your customers, it’s hard to … communicate [your product’s] benefits so they react positively.”

So what else should you be learning about your customers, aside from basic demographics? Here are the top three things you should find out, and how to incorporate that information into your strategy.

Read More

Is Your Small Business Truly Organized? How to Overcome Challenges | All Business

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

To effectively run a small business, there are a number of tasks you have to do that are not only necessary, but oftentimes tough to swallow.

Sometimes a small business has to let staff go in order to stay financially afloat. Other businesses cut their advertising and marketing budgets, and then take the chance of missing out on new clients. Still others close their doors altogether because they were not organized enough in the first place.

If any of this sounds scary, it should. Running a small business comes with many challenges, but they can certainly be overcome with smart leadership and a determination to learn from past mistakes.

With that in mind, ask yourself if your small business is truly organized. And if it isn’t, let’s find out how can you better organize it for this year and beyond.

Read More

5 Major Benefits of Business Video Conferencing for Your Business in 2016 | Get Entrepreneurial

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Organizations of any size and every industry are adopting to business video conferencing as a best way to stay connected, increase their productivity and the last but not the least cutting down the costs in these difficult economic times. And as the prices on all these equipment’s drop down and technology tends to become easier especially while using video conferencing, it generally turns out to be the most effective way of communicating with the employees, customers and the sales prospects. Below given are the 7 major benefits business video conferencing for your business in 2016.

Read More

Why an Ex-Google Coder Makes Twice as Much Freelancing | Bloomberg Business

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

James Knight recently made an unorthodox career move for a 27-year-old coder: quitting a well-paid gig writing software for Google to go freelance. No more catered lunches, gold-plated benefits or million-dollar views from the search giant’s Manhattan office.

Knight is willing to sacrifice those perks because as an independent he’s pulling down about twice as much as he did at Google. Plus, he has more freedom. In March, Knight and his wife plan to travel to Spain and hopscotch across Europe—all the while writing code for a dating app and a self-portrait app, among others.

“I’d rather control my own destiny and take on the risk and forgo the benefits of nap pods and food,” Knight says.

Read More

How Arby’s Turned Its Brand Around After Years With an Identity Crisis | Adweek

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

 Arby’s brand president and marketing boss Rob Lynch realized shortly after joining the fast-food chain famous for those stacked-to-the-ceiling roast beef sandwiches that he had his work cut out for him. Standing at the counter of one of his restaurants one afternoon, Lynch recalls, he overheard a customer remark: “Arby’s makes really big, meaty sandwiches—I wish they had a chicken sandwich.” And yet right there on the menu board were four chicken sandwiches.

Read More

Millennials: 10 Things Old Farts Won’t Tell You About Entrepreneurship (First of a series) | Peter Mehit

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

1.   You’re not going to win the pitch contest – even if you win it

imagesShark Tank is great entertainment.  It’s the perfect reality TV format.  Entrepreneurs, fresh with enthusiasm and ideas vs. hostile moneyed elites tearing their dreams asunder for the entertainment of the viewing audience.  America loves a good fight, and Shark Tank delivers the humiliation and put downs that make great television.  But the link between it and actual reality is tenuous at best.

“But there are winners,” you protest, “Checks get written.”

Do they?  We had the privilege of participating in an event where some of the contestants of Shark Tank came out to meet the faithful who were dreaming of following in their footsteps.

Continue reading “Millennials: 10 Things Old Farts Won’t Tell You About Entrepreneurship (First of a series) | Peter Mehit” →

Keep your stash: Paper cash is here to stay | The Orange County Register

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

While paying for that Starbucks latte on Apple Pay and using Venmo to split the restaurant bill with friends, you might be tempted to think paper money is becoming a thing of the past.

But smartphones aside, cash isn’t going away anytime soon, says currency expert Bill Maurer.

A cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the relationship between currency and technology, Maurer was part of a small group of academics asked by the U.S. Treasury to offer input on the $10 bill redesign. Buzz has surrounded the new bill after news broke that it would feature a prominent female figure.

Maurer, UC Irvine’s dean of social sciences and director of the school’s Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion, had a lot to say on the topic when the group convened in August at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Read More

London’s Black Cabs Turn To Crowdfunding To Fight Uber | TechCrunch

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The battle between London’s black cabs and upstart incomer Uber has been a relatively subdued affair thus far — aside from the odd scuffle and some roadblocking demonstrations last year. Not for Brits the violent displays of anger seen over the channel in France last summer.

But despite the lack of open street warfare in London there’s still no love lost between London’s distinctive — and heavily regulated — Black Cabs and the Silicon Valley upstart.

And now a group of London Black Cab supporters, called Action for Cabbies, is hoping to step up the fight by launching a crowdfunding campaign to push for a judicial review of Transport for London’s 2012 decision to grant Uber a licence to operate in the city.

It’s arguing that the procedures followed were wrong and that TfL has subsequently failed to enforce the law. The group is led by Artemis Mercer, the wife of a cabbie, who has also been running a campaign group on Facebook.

Read More