Author: knjohn

10 Things Your Kids Will Live Without | Fox Business

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Fifty years ago photos were black and white, music players were mono, phones were rotary, TVs had maybe five stations, milk came to your door, and if you wanted to send someone a message, you had to put a stamp on it and drop it in the mailbox.

If you could somehow go back to 1964 and show someone a video of a day in the life of a modern teenager, the guy would probably become catatonic and you’d have to literally dial the operator for help because 911 didn’t even exist yet.

Now, I’m no futurist but if you’ve got little kids, I’d be willing to bet they’ll be living in a world without these 10 indispensable things you and I grew up with:

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Are You More Productive At The Office When Your Team Includes Both Genders? | Forbes

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imagesIn one of my first jobs out of college I worked in a small San Francisco public relations firm, Horne, McClatchy & Associates, whose eight employees were all women. Now defunct, the firm raised money and staged special events for non-profit groups like UNICEF and the Exploratorium science museum. I liked my executive assistant job and I especially liked my boss, a kind, creative woman who was also a published poet.

But the longer I worked there, the more I realized I didn’t like that there were no men in the office. I feel like a bad feminist saying this, and it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it was about the atmosphere that grated on me. A former colleague recalls a kind of “mean girls” targeting of one of the managers, who wasn’t as efficient and well-turned-out as the other three, and there was a competitive atmosphere that I found unpleasant, which seemed tied to the fact that we were all female. Hastings law professor Joan Williams, author of What Works for Women at Work, has called the competition between women at work the “tug of war.”

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For Entrepreneurs, Is Impatience a Blessing or a Curse? | All Business

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downloadI have never been a patient person; it’s the way I’m wired. Once I have an idea of where I want to go, I want to get there as soon as possible … even if it means getting out of bed at 3:00 a.m. I don’t see the point in waiting.

I know this internal sense of urgency can annoy others and my haste has stung me a few times in life. But I firmly believe an entrepreneur needs some level of impatience in order to succeed. Over the course of my career, impatience has been my friend – but like anything, moderation (or management) is the key.

Many smart people never succeed as an entrepreneur. We often chalk this up to risk aversion, fear of failure, or just plain old bad luck. However, I think the worst thing you can do as an entrepreneur is wait for things to come to you.

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Why Entrepreneurs Are Important for the Economy | Investopedia

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imagesEntrepreneurs are frequently thought of as national assets to be cultivated, motivated and remunerated to the greatest possible extent.

Entrepreneurs can change the way we live and work. If successful, their innovations may improve our standard of living. In short, in addition to creating wealth from their entrepreneurial ventures, they also create jobs and the conditions for a prosperous society.

The following are six reasons why entrepreneurs are important to the economy.

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This bike path is made entirely of solar panels | Public Radio International

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If you could get up on the roof of our offices in Boston, you’d be standing amongst a bunch of solar panels. That’s not so unusual.

But in The Netherlands, they’re experimenting with putting solar panels in a much more unusual place: Bike paths.

A bike path made of solar panels opened today in a suburb outside of Amsterdam. Just 230 feet of it exist. Designers say it’s enough to power three homes.

But is it worth the cost? Many in this cycling crazed culture say yes.

“It’s incredible. It’s the world’s first ever public, solar cycle path,” says the BBC’s Anna Holligan. “There are actually more bikes than people in this country. It’s famous for cycling. So it’s the right place to be testing this pioneering technology.”

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Amazon’s Bargain Button Could Actually Be Good for the Economy | Businessweek

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Amazon (AMZN) is now taking bids. Venders who sell on Amazon can enable a “make an offer” feature that allows customers to offer a lower than list price. The seller can accept, reject, or counter the offer. If one makes a counteroffer, buyer and seller can haggle over e-mail and—if they reach an agreement—pay Amazon its commission. So far, the option is available only for 150,000 goods on the website, mostly art and collectables.

Amazon may extended the option to hundreds of thousands of items for sale within the next year. Amazon calls the offer process a “game-changer.”While that’s probably an exaggeration, bargaining does have the potential to change American retail, quite possibly for the better.

In plenty of countries, people negotiate for nearly everything. Not so in the U.S., where bargaining on price tends to be limited to cars, real estate, and cable service. Research suggests that Americans are uncomfortable with the little haggling they do. In a LinkedIn (LNKD)survey of 2000 professionals in 2012, Americans (especially women) reported being more anxious than any other nationality when it comes to negotiating. (Indians feel most confident, followed by Germans.)

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Public Relations Tips and Tricks for Your Business | Inc.com

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getty_483612403_44942Creating an efficient PR and marketing plan is a cornerstone to building up your organization’s success. Marketing and PR, unfortunately, sometimes can be costly, particularly if you’re running a lean operation and just starting out. Thankfully, there will include a few affordable PR and marketing tips and tricks which may offer your small business a cost-effective way to successfully increase sales and grow your consumer base.

You may have an excellent service or product, yet if nobody has knowledge of it, generating sales might be difficult. Effective public relations and marketing include proactive methods for you to spread the message to your market and attract potential customers and clients.

Marketing is about discovering methods of reaching your targeted audience–these potential customers and clients who possess an interest in and possible necessity for what you are selling. Public relations includes obtaining positive press and publicity in regard to your business concerning its most recent services, brands, and innovations.

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Predicting Self Control and Success with Sweets | Page 19

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Should you check your email just once more or keep on working? Jam that marshmallow in your mouth, or resist it? No matter how good instant gratification might feel, here’s a scientific case for delaying your rewards to double them.

If you’re one of the lucky ones endowed with strong willpower, you’re probably the envy of all your friends – and with good reason. Having strong willpower is a great predictor of success.

Self control depends on two systems: the hot system, which instantly reacts to the environment, and the cool system, which is responsible for controlled, rational behavior. It’s the hot system that gets us to give in to the temptation of eating that chocolate we shouldn’t or checking Facebook when we have a report due. By contrast, the cool system focuses our attention away from our impulses to instead engage in wholesome and productive behavior.

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