Author: lmehit

Ex-U.S. Ambassador Helps Companies Break Into China | Businessweek.com

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Frank Lavin is a guy with lots of guanxi—which loosely translated means “connections” in Chinese. The Ohio native has served as U.S. ambassador to Singapore, led trade negotiations with China while working at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and held senior posts in the Asian offices of Bank of America (BAC), Citibank, and public-relations firm Edelman. When Lavin published a business guide on how to conquer overseas markets last year, his friend Karl Rove blogged a positive review.

Lavin is using those contacts to build an unusual type of export business. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Akron, Export Now’s 15 employees handle customs clearance, trademark registration, order fulfillment and other back-end tasks for 24 U.S. companies. Rather than negotiate for shelf space with Chinese retailers as a traditional distributor would, Export Now runs its own virtual storefront on Alibaba Group’s Tmall.com, an Amazon.com (AMZN)-like e-tailing colossus with nearly 500 million registered Chinese users. “China is the fastest-growing consumer market in the world, but it’s still viewed as largely inaccessible for all but the top-tier U.S. companies or global [multinationals],” says Lavin, whose outfit also has an office in Shanghai. “We have a department store in the shopping mall, and any U.S. company can have shelf space in the department store.”

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Babies Driving Robots and Racecars Helps Tiny Needs | LiveScience.com

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At the 2012 USA Science & Engineering Festival, children swarmed a National Science Foundation exhibit booth featuring electric-powered, child-sized toy cars. Assistants carefully explained how to operate the cars, which featured unique designs and operating features. One of cars, for example, would move only if the child driver remained standing. To stop, the driver had to sit down.

Excited children and their parents wondered about the cars’ purpose; after all, these cars weren’t being exhibited at a science and engineering event for being ordinary toys.

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6 Ways to Delegate More Effectively | Inc.com

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“The surest way for an executive to kill himself is to refuse to learn how, and when, and to whom to delegate work,” said James Cash Penney, founder of the J.C. Penney retail chain.

When you grow, you have to know when to let go. You have to know when to delegate down so you can rise up. I’ve learned that people will seldom let you down if they understand that your destiny is in their hands, and vice versa.

The inability to delegate properly is the main reason that executives fail. But managers often mistake delegation for passing off work. So they don’t do it–and they wind up wasting their time as well as the company’s time and resources.

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Third Pole Melting Down | scientificamerican.com

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Image:flickr/rao.anirudh(Image:flickr/rao.anirudh)

Himalayan glaciers have been the subject of intense debate amid growing concern that melting ice could imperil a wide swath of South Asia that relies on groundwater from the “Third Pole.”

Scientists have struggled to improve their understanding of the glaciers’ fate using satellite data and limited ground measurements, bumping up against the limits of the region’s extreme topography and political barriers.

The picture that has emerged is complex, with wide variation among ice in the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Tibetan Plateau. Studies suggest glaciers are stable or accumulating in the Karakoram Range on the Pakistan-China border. But in the eastern Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, they appear to be shrinking.

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Dogs Reduce Stress, Make Job More Satisfying | LifesLittleMysteries.com

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It’s long been known that owning a pet can be good for your mental and physical health, but new research indicates that it can also make your office a much happier and productive place.

That’s the finding of a first-of-its kind study, which looked at the effects that man’s best friend has on employees. In that research, dogs were demonstrated to have many positive benefits in the workplace, most notably that they reduce stress and make working more satisfying.

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Brand Management Techniques | smallbusiness.chron.com

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Brand management is vital to gaining market dominance.

Brand management involves the art of crafting and maintaining a brand image in the marketplace and of managing the product lines associated with individual brands. Marketers employ a repertoire of techniques to influence consumers’ perception of and preference for their brands. Focusing on continuous brand management can help your brand to solidify a position of dominance in your chosen industry or niche.

Industry Analysis

Analyze competing brands in your industry to determine where you would like to position your brand. Map out competitors and rank each by size, service model, reputation and target market segment. Determine how many players are serving the high end of the market and how many are serving value- or cost-conscious market segments. Determine which competitors feature full-service business models and which operate lean. Rank your competitors according to their reputation in the industry by comparing customer reviews and news articles.

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British Airways New Customer Service Initiative | Airlinereporter.com

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Recently, British Airways started keeping information on some of their VIP customers and searching for their images online all in the name of service. The program, called “Know Me,” has some privacy advocates worried.

“Last year we re-committed to the ethos: To Fly. To Serve. That’s what ‘Know Me’ is all about – enabling us to recognise our customers in a way that is individual to them,” Jo Boswell, head of customer analysis at British Airways, stated. “We’re essentially trying to recreate the feeling of recognition you get in a favourite restaurant when you’re welcomed there, but in our case it will be delivered by thousands of staff to millions of customers.”

The idea is simple enough. Airline employees have iPads which contain information on high-end passengers. What kind of food they prefer, if it is the first time they have flown with a certain product and if they might have had previous issues flying on the airline. The software also allows the crew to identify a passenger by searching Google Images.

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SmartThings will let you run your world by smartphone| cnn.money.com

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Kickstarter’s latest tech darling promises to let you run your entire world from your smartphone: Control your air conditioning, lock your doors, or get an alert when your plumbing starts leaking. It’s called SmartThings, and it’s slated to start shipping in December.

SmartThings founder Alex Hawkinson got the idea for a system linking regular household items to the Internet after a power outage in his vacation home caused the basement pipes to explode. When Hawkinson showed up at the house a month later, he wished there had been a way for him to get a notification that something was up before chaos broke out.

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Driving Solar Electric | Green Car Institute.org

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Driving Solar Electric

Ford is offering an innovative package that pairs electric car ownership with a rooftop solar energy system generating enough electricity to offset an average of 1,000 miles of driving each month. The result is what many electric vehicle owners dream of – the ability to drive with zero emissions and effectively, without additional load on the grid. While the SunPower system doesn’t actually charge Ford’s upcoming 2012 Focus Electric directly, it does feed enough solar-generated electricity into the grid to offset the energy required for keeping batteries charged. Focus Electric owners can add the solar option for less than $10,000 after federal incentives.

The ‘Drive Green for Life’ program not only provides an all-new option for those who want to go the extra mile to drive sustainably, but also is big win for solar energy. Moves like this will motivate consumers to embrace solar energy who may not have done so otherwise.

via Driving Solar Electric | Green Car Institute.