Some Thoughts on “Cutting Back” on Frugality | The Simple Dollar

June 10, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s a pretty typical story.

Person reaches a financial breaking point. Person begins to use frugality to cut back strongly on their expenses. Person pays down their debts and begins saving for the future. Person begins to feel a whole lot better about their financial state.

At that point, many people reach a crossroads. They begin to ask whether or not it makes sense to keep being so frugal. Once you have a healthy amount of savings or investments, is there really a reason to continue being so frugal?

Whenever I hear that question, it serves as a recognition to me that there are two ways to look at frugality.

Some people look at frugality as a tool. Frugality is something you choose to do to extract more money by doing things differently than you would normally do them. If you begin to feel like things are in a financially good place, it’s tempting to put that tool down and not “work” as much.

Understand Your Entrepreneurial DNA Before You Start Up | Entrepreneur

June 10, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As an angel investor, I get requests almost every day to review a new product or website, and provide feedback on its potential success. Yet I can’t remember the last time any entrepreneur asked me to assess personal potential, despite the fact that most investors will admit they invest in the person more than the product. It is people who drive successful businesses.

So it behooves every aspiring entrepreneur to understand their own DNA before picking a project to bet their life on, and to facilitate effective communication with all constituents, including partners, investors, team members and customers. We all have strengths and special interests, and it always pays to capitalize on these, rather than assume all opportunities are the same.

Fact or Fiction? 5 Myths About EMV Clarified | Business News Daily

June 9, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If they haven’t heard already, brick-and-mortar retailers are going to be hearing the term “EMV” a lot more in the coming months. As payment card issuers continue to roll out their newer, more secure cards containing a data-encrypting chip, merchants are feeling the pressure to upgrade their point-of-sale (POS) terminals to make sure they’re up to date with EMV technology.

As with any widespread technological update, many businesses may hear confusing or conflicting information regarding how the changes will affect them. Business News Daily spoke with security and payment industry experts to get to the bottom of five common beliefs (and misbeliefs) about EMV.

Myth 1: EMV will make credit card transactions completely safe and secure.

Verdict: False.

Comma Queen: “Who/Whom” for Dummies | The New Yorker

June 8, 2015June 17, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

“Who” and “whom” are relative pronouns, and the trick for choosing the right one is to switch the clause around so that you can substitute a personal pronoun. Personal pronouns have a property called case. “I,” “he,” “she,” “we,” and “they” are in the nominative case, and function as subjects of a sentence or a clause. “Me,” “him,” “her,” “us,” and “them” are in the objective case, and are used as direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of a preposition. Your ear will tell you which personal pronoun is correct.

Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds | Live Science

June 8, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve ever wondered who’s in control, you or your cat, a new studypoints to the obvious. It’s your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore.

“The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response,” said Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. “Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is likely to get cats ejected from the bedroom.”

EMarketer Report Cites Major Challenges Facing Mobile Video Advertising | Adweek

June 5, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There is a consensus in advertising that mobile video is the future, but that future is still hazy.

Mobile video can run in apps like Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube or be bought through ad networks that serve the mobile Web. There are six-second, 15-second and 30-second formats, and there are Gifs. There also are ways to measure by impression or engagement.

It’s this fragmented landscape that is creating uncertainty at an otherwise golden moment for mobile video, according to eMarketer, which released a report today taking a comprehensive look at the forces shaping the sector.

“There’s still some inconsistency with the ad formats for mobile video,” said eMarketer analyst Jeremy Kressmann. “There’s in-stream video working off publishers’ native players; there’s interstitials that pop up; there’s in-app, in-game video; interactive video; in banner and in-feed video.”

“It’s confusing on the ad-buyer side trying to figure out what they’re buying and how to get scale,” he said.

Interactive Map Lets You Find Dinosaur Tracks, Extinct Volcanoes | Live Science

June 4, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Want to trace the footsteps of dinosaurs or pinpoint the exact location of extinct volcanoes? A new interactive geological map of Texas lets people browse everything from where dinos once roamed to the whereabouts of oil and gas formations.

The U.S. Geological Survey map, which can be accessed for free online, offers a unique window into the history of the ground beneath the Lone Star State. The map shows Texas at a scale of 1:250,000, and allows users to zero in on geographic layers of interest, such as specific fault lines or types of rocks.

5 Ways to Monitor Competitor Website Traffic | Small Biz Trends

June 4, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The entire goal of SEO (search engine optimization) is to get ahead of your competitors, by whatever Google-friendly means necessary. And just like in warfare, if you want to know how to get ahead of your adversary, you need to know their strategies.

Luckily, Google and other search engines make it pretty easy for you to monitor competitor website traffic strategies by using a number of useful tools.

Identify Competitors

To begin, know your enemy. You can’t expect to get ahead of your competitors if you don’t know exactly who they are, what their mission is, and how they plan to execute it. Your biggest competitors may not be who you think they are. Search engines no longer base comparable companies on size. Just because a company is small, doesn’t mean that they won’t be dangerous to your business.

Take the time to jot down a list of your biggest challengers by searching your own top keywords in search engines. The first 10-20 most common competitors on the list are most likely your biggest threat, and those are the companies you’ll want to closely analyze in order to learn what they’re doing right for such high rankings.

Why You Should Be Asking Your Customers for Referrals | All Business

June 4, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

I have said this time and time again: you must ask for referrals if you want to grow your business. Referrals can contribute to a larger percentage of your revenue if done correctly. In fact, approximately 50 percent of my revenue is generated from referrals. Without them, I would be stuck putting in countless hours online trying to drum up fresh leads.

Referrals are easier to generate than you may think. The hardest part is getting up the courage to ask. Some people think they will offend customers by asking for more business. In reality, your customers will be more than happy to send people your way if they are satisfied with your work. As such, it is important that you develop a good relationship with your clients and develop a plan to seek referral business from each and every one of them.

If you are not yet sold on asking for referral business, here are a few facts that will hopefully convince you:

Referrals don’t cost anything.

People always know someone who can benefit from your services.

Your customers are better at marketing than you.

Referrals can lead to more referrals.

Here’s How Disney is Controlling Your Mind | Page19

June 3, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

What does it take to be the Happiest Place on Earth? You can use a lot of words to describe it—fantastic, magical, paradisiacal—but one thing it isn’t is accidental.

Though the atmosphere might feel fanciful, at The Magic Kingdom, every sight, sound, and smell has been painstakingly calibrated and adjusted to create an atmosphere. Be Our Guest, by Theodore Kinni, goes in-depth to explain just what kinds of sugar and spice go into everything nice at Disney.

Smell

Have you ever wondered why you can smell popcorn first thing in the morning at Disneyland? Much like a real estate agent spraying fresh baked cookie smell all over a house he’s about to show, the popcorn smell is used to create a cozy and festive atmosphere.