How to Stay Productive When Working at Home | The Simple Dollar

January 19, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The phone keeps ringing. The kitchen sink is full of dishes. The dog has been snoring for 30 minutes and you desperately need to write out your monthly budget and pay your bills.

But those things have to wait, and it’s not always by choice. When you work at home, you have to ignore your everyday concerns and responsibilities until your actual work is done. Because, let’s face it, folding laundry doesn’t pay the bills.

Can You Stay on the Job at Home?

So how do you stay productive when you’re expected to live and work at the same address? Ask most work-at-home professionals and they’ll give you a list of strategies they use to stay on task when the dishes, the garden, and the neighborhood pool keep calling their name.

How to Help Keep Disasters from Putting You Out of Business | Bloomberg

January 19, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ 2 Comments

When a catastrophic event flattens part of your production facility or disrupts your supply chain, it’s easy to forget that the rest of the world is carrying on with commerce as usual—with or without you.

Just a few years ago, a U.S. supplier of ground beef ground to a halt after a devastating fire left its facility inoperable. The business owner had solid insurance coverage that helped keep the business afloat while its facilities were rebuilt, but what he didn’t plan for was the fact that his customers had to continue with their businesses. While the process of rebuilding his beef facility was underway, his customers were gravitating to other suppliers. When all was said and done, the business owner never won back his customers in sufficient numbers to reopen his doors.

As the now former beef supplier learned the hard way, the lack of a formal disaster recovery plan can prove fatal to your business. In the beef supplier’s case, such a plan could have included a pre-catastrophe arrangement with another business—perhaps even a reciprocal agreement with a competitor—to produce his products in the event his business suffered a prolonged shutdown.

How ‘Venture Builders’ are Changing the Startup Model | VentureBeat

January 19, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you haven’t yet heard of venture-builders — also called tech studios, startup factories, or venture production studios — let me introduce them to you: They’re organizations that build companies using their own ideas and resources.

Unlike incubators and accelerators, venture builders don’t take any applications, nor do they run any sort of competitive program that culminates in a Demo Day. Instead, they pull business ideas from within their own network of resources and assign internal teams to develop them (engineers, advisors, business developers, sales managers, etc.).

You’ll want to get used to the idea because we’re going to see a lot more venture-building organizations emerging.

If You Search Google, It’s Painfully Easy to See Why Google Glass Needs a Reinvention | Adweek

January 16, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A simple Google search for “glass wearer” makes it abundantly clear why Google Glass as we know it is no longer available in the marketplace and is being moved under Nest founder Tony Fadell for an overhaul. Here are some of the top results:

“Another Google Glass Wearer Attacked in San Francisco.”

“Google Glass wearers can steal your password.”

“Google Glass wearer removed from AMC theater.”

“Google Glass wearer interrogated.”

“Google Glass wearer robbed at Taser point.”

“The revolt against Goggle Glassholes.”

And that’s just the first page of the results. Also, type “Google Glass wearer” into the search bar, and it will auto-fill these words: attacked, kicked out, assaulted.

This was the kind of attention that tarnished Google’s high-tech moonshot, an initially pure concept to bring the utility of mobile devices to glasses. But the world had other ideas, and despite a core enthusiastic group of Glass Explorers anointed by Google to test-drive the gadget over the past two years, the search giant said today it was rethinking the whole project. It would no longer selectively sell Google Glass, the company announced today. The Mountain View, Calif.-based giant had been asking $1,500 for the device.

Communications Trends for 2015 | Allbusiness

January 16, 2015January 16, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s the time of year that all of the experts predict what will happen in the new year.

Of course, no one really has a crystal ball, but there are certain things you can tell are going to happen, just based on experience and perspective.

The communications industry is no different and it’s important for business owners to stay abreast of how an industry is changing, if only so you know the right questions to ask when you’re hiring for that particular skill set.

Will Bitcoin ever rebound? | Money Cnn

January 15, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If they handed out awards to financial assets like they did to movies, then Bitcoin would definitely be the winner of the Razzie for worst currency.

Bitcoin lost more than 60% of its value last year. The digital currency has already plunged another 30% in the first few days of 2015 — and that includes a 30% rebound on Thursday!

The price of Bitcoin (XBT) briefly fell below $200 on Wednesday, an important psychological barrier, before bouncing back.

Hiring the right people for the right position | Business tips

January 15, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In my last article I mentioned my business mantra, “get the right people, in the right seats, doing the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons and you win! Don’t, and its struggle and strife.” I wanted to expand on each of those points, to further explain why each one is important and relies on the other to create the best outcome for your business.

The Right People

The first thing to consider when hiring someone is their attitude. Do they believe in your company, do they seem excited by it? Or are they just looking for a job, without any real connection to the industry or your company? If they fall into the second category then it’s best to keep looking. Equally important to attitude is trust and good character, integrity, and intention. This person takes ownership, accountability, and responsibility for themselves, their work, and their lives.

Six Mobile Marketing Tips for Small Businesses | Businessweek

January 14, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Mobile phones are essential to shopping these days, and a majority of cell phone owners say they’re willing to share personal data with merchants in exchange for such things as coupons and discounts.

But navigating mobile marketing can be confusing for small business owners, who must avoid bombarding people with unwanted texts while they’re slogging through crowds of holiday shoppers. So how can local merchants use mobile marketing effectively? Here are six tips.

Lower Employee Turnover and Improve the Bottom Line | Entrepreneur

January 14, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Employee turnover costs money.

A 2012 study by the Center for American Progress shows that it costs a business roughly one-fifth of an employee’s salary to replace that employee once they’re gone.

These costs show up in obvious and subtle ways.

They show up in the hard costs of hiring a new person (what’s involved with advertising, interviewing and screening). They surface in the training and management time spent onboarding a new employee. More subtly, but no less significantly, these costs also show up in the time it takes a new hire to reach a predecessor’s productivity.

The more turnover a company has, the more these costs eat away at the bottom line. While there’s no way to eliminate employee turnover completely, here are five strategies that companies can implement to make it the exception and not the rule: