Is Writing Your Own Book a Good Idea? | Inc.com

September 22, 2015September 21, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When corporate philanthropy consultant Susan Hyatt wrote a book, Strategy for Good: Business Giving Strategies for the 21st Century, it went on to win four publishing awards and got testimonials from top execs at Pfizer, Timberland, and Starbucks. Most important, it caught the attention of potential clients. “It does open doors,” she says. “The credibility is big. If people know you’ve written a book, they do take notice. It’s attracted new business for me, for sure.” Yet it sold just 1,000 copies. Books by or about entrepreneurs rarely sell well (unless they include the name Musk, Gates, Jobs, or Buffett), so if you’re considering writing a book, know that you most likely won’t make a dime. In fact, if you self-publish instead of working through a traditional publisher, you could spend tens of thousands of dollars. That’s why you should treat your book like a marketing investment that you can use to boost your company’s bottom line.

How dangerous is teeth whitening? | BBC News

September 22, 2015September 21, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Some beauty salons are continuing to provide illegal teeth whitening despite being prosecuted by regulators, an investigation by 5 Live Investigates has found.

Undercover reporters were offered treatment by one therapist who had been fined thousands of pounds just months earlier.

The General Dental Council has already prosecuted 24 people this year – more than the whole of last year. But with the popularity of teeth whitening soaring, who is allowed to do it and what are the dangers if you are treated by someone who isn’t properly qualified?

What is teeth whitening?

Celebrity culture and reality shows such as The Only Way is Essex have made teeth whitening one of the most popular cosmetic treatments in the UK. According to Mintel research, more than a third of adults are considering having it done. It involves bleaching your teeth using a whitening product usually containing hydrogen peroxide.

Is it dangerous?

Quality Matters: How We Do Content Audits at Page19 and Why You Should Do Them, Too | Page19

September 22, 2015September 21, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Page 19 was born in October of last year from the fingers and brains of approximately two-point-five people. When in February we finally came up for air, leaving our little tunnels of writing, design tweaking, reading, research, and publishing, and my editor said, “Maybe you should start thinking about doing a content audit,” I froze. I balked. I was not pleased.

Audit is a horrible word.

Audit summons visions of taxes and suits and paperwork for days, to say nothing of the swirling sense of dread and guilt. So sue me: as a lady of letters, I’m sensitive to the word “audit,”—which may be one of the reasons we never use it when we talk about our review process at Page19.

Personal preferences aside, the more important reason that “audit” is inadequate has much more to do with its rigidity. Audit feels passive and stringent. It implies fact-checking and excavation, but not much in the way of rebuilding a foundation. In an age of scrums and iterative processes galore (including our publishing and writing process), “audit” didn’t quite get the job done for Page19. Befitting an age of emojis and acronyms, we passed on the vast descriptive role of an entire word to two very adequate letters: QA.

Stacy Sanchez: Senior Community Loan Officer

September 21, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Google’s New Logo Marks a Trend of Friendlier Fonts | Bloomberg Business

September 21, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Google updated its logo earlier this month. You’ve surely seen it by now, but let’s take a closer look: It retains the primary colors and playfully tilted “e” but introduces a new typeface. Called Product Sans, the update disposes of serifs, those flicks on the ends of letters, and uses fatter strokes reminiscent of kindergarten lesson books. The spaces within the two “g”s and two “o”s are near-perfect circles. “We think we’ve taken the best of Google (simple, uncluttered, colorful, friendly) and recast it not just for the Google of today, but for the Google of the future,” brand executives wrote in a launch announcement.

An Open Letter to Joy Behar | According to Kateri; a Blog

September 16, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ 1 Comment

As many of you have seen, Miss Colorado delivered a beautifully spoken monologue about nursing during last week’s Miss America pageant. Recently, on The View as the pageant was discussed, Miss Colorado’s scrubs were referred to as a costume, and Joy posed the question of why she was wearing a “doctor’s stethoscope.” Below is my now calmed down reply to all of it. Additionally, I would like to personally and publicly congratulate Kelley Johnson RN on her chosen talent, it is one that will reward you forever.

Dear Joy Behar,

A beautiful woman in a beauty pageant put on baggy clothes and humbly walked across the stage to talk proudly about her career, and her passion for caring for other human beings, and the only thing you could muster in response was an insult grounded in ignorance. Rather than being offended or getting angry, I will instead, take a moment to teach.

What are Tax Extenders for Small Businesses | Morey & Associates

September 15, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Tax extenders are a group of fifty tax breaks that apply not only to small businesses but teachers and individuals as well. What you need to be concerned with are those that apply directly to small businesses. While these tax breaks are temporary in nature, they can have a serious impact on how you conduct your business for the next year.

In 2013, these tax breaks actually expired on December 31st, but the United States Congress retroactively extended the tax breaks into 2014. They typically do this at the last moment of the year, or right after the first of the new year, making it difficult for small businesses to plan ahead. These tax breaks are also only renewed for one year meaning they will have need to extend them again before the end of 2014, so they can carry over into 2015.

The Pickup Truck of Electric Bikes May Be Better Than a Car | WIRED

September 15, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

NEW TO SAN Francisco, I discovered quickly that having a car is terrible, but not as terrible as relying on the city’s horrific public transportation or spending the few dollars I have left after rent on surge-priced Ubers.

For me, and for an increasing number of people in cities all over the world, the answer is a bicycle. 60 percent more people commute to work on a bike now than a decade ago, and cycling infrastructure has grown as cities have become too congested to handle more cars. Bikes rule, cars drool.

For a couple of weeks this summer, I sat in the seat of a bike called the Xtracycle Edgerunner 10e. This is no ordinary bike. This $5,750 beast is a longtail, one in a burgeoning breed of giant, high-tech cargo bikes. The 10e is capable of carrying up to 400 pounds’ worth of people, groceries, and whatever else you can think to throw in its many compartments. It comes with an electric motor, too, which makes it far easier to carry that huge load. This is the Ford F150 of bicycles, sold on its towing capacity—or maybe the Subaru Outback, the family-friendly car you can count on.

3 Easy Strategies to Help You Achieve Your Vision | Getentrepreneurial.com

September 14, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes the simplest tools can lead us to our biggest breakthroughs. Here are three tips that can help you achieve the vision you have for yourself.

Visualize Your Way to Success

If you have a pair of scissors, some old magazines, glue or tape, and some sort of poster board or canvas, you can make your own vision board. You don’t need to be a talented artist – you really don’t even need to be particularly creative – the purpose is to make your vision come alive through meaningful images.

You can cut out pictures, single words, and entire quotes – anything that you can dream of! Choose images that really resonate with the goals you have. You can create multiple boards if you’re the type of person who loves organization – for instance, one board for your personal goals, another for business oriented ones.

To get the most out of this exercise, I recommend setting aside about an hour where you’ll be undisturbed. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to create your board – have fun with this!