How to Make Your Office an Inviting Place to Work | Getentrepreneurial.com

June 2, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The office is your space to be productive. It’s where you do most of your work, spend most of your weekday waking hours and where you need to be able to focus. The same can be said for your employees. Because of this, many business owners focus on productivity – on having the right equipment in the right spaces to ensure every task can be accomplished on time.

What about making your space more inviting? What about making it a place that you and your employees want to show up at every day, where collaboration that leads to measurable results can happen and where each person can be the best they can be to reach company goals? It all starts with making your office a little more inviting. Follow the 10 tips below to get started.

Eliminate Awkward Silences

Silence happens. While many business owners see silence as a positive, a sign that progress is taking place, many others see it as a distraction. While distracting noises and loud music might be detrimental to a positive working environment, other sounds may be more beneficial. In fact, one study found that work output increased 6.3 percent by adding background noise.

This Texas Gas Station Turned Camels and Karaoke Into a $30 Million Business | Inc.com

June 1, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Editor’s note: This tour of small businesses across the country highlights the imagination, diversity, and resilience of American enterprise.

Come for the cheap gas and tacos. Stay for the livestock and karaoke.

This is a typical Saturday night at Fuel City in Dallas. Two police officers direct traffic as cars line up for unleaded gas at $2.39 a gallon. All three taco windows are mobbed, as are the carts peddling elote en vaso (corn in a cup). Customers wander into the karaoke trailer (complete with disco ball) to belt out Tejana favorites, country classics, and oldies. Out back, longhorn cattle snooze on the ground. The zebra remains standing.

“Our slogan is ‘Where dreams come true,'” says Fuel City founder John Benda. “Maybe that’s a little corny. But that’s what I want this place to be.”

5 Horrible Traits That Push People Away | Entrepreneur

May 29, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There are certain horrible habits that some people have that simply drive others away. As the old saying goes, every person has something good to offer. But for some, it’s when they leave the room. Are people happy when you walk in or overjoyed when you walk out?

Here are five horrible traits that push people away, how to recognize if you have them and how to get rid of them for good.

1. You’re a downer.

We’ve all been around these people. They whine, they complain, they talk about how much is going wrong in their lives and they want to tell you every detail of it.

How do you know if it’s you that’s the downer? Pay attention to what you’re talking about the most. Did you complain about traffic as your opening line when you got to your meeting this morning? Did you make sure to tell those around you how little sleep you got last night, how hard you’re working or how busy you are?

Steps to a Successful Product Launch | Business News Daily

May 28, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Got a great idea for a new product? In addition to its design and logistics, you’re probably already thinking about how you’re going to launch it.

A well-executed launch is your chance to grab customers’ attention and make a strong impression with your product. But like all first impressions, it’s hard to correct a product launch if it doesn’t go smoothly right off the bat — especially if it’s your very first product.

“Product launches are tricky because, unlike other marketing efforts, you really only have one chance to get it right,” said Daniel Waldman, president of PR and marketing firm Evolve Communications. “There’s not a lot of room for testing and refining tactics. Launches need to pack a punch.”

Train Employees to Avoid Inadvertent Cyber-Security Breaches | Payroll Link

May 27, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

How much do you know about cybersecurity? Small business owners often lack the resources to enact a strong defense against cybercrimes and take for granted that their IT systems are relatively safe. To better understand some of the common ways employees can unwittingly become a conduit for hackers, take the following quiz. This quiz was adapted from a resource offered as a public service by AFCEA, an association of data security professionals.

True or False

1. Mobile applications downloaded from major brand online stores are generally safe.

False: These stores may try to vet mobile applications for malicious behavior, but there’s no guarantee they’re safe. Some online stores may not assess the legitimacy of an app at all, or not adequately.

2. The address or URL you see in the link is always the actual website to which you’re being directed.

False: Masking the real website address in links is a common way cybercriminals use to fool unsuspecting victims into visiting malicious websites. To see where a link actually leads, let your mouse hover over the link without clicking on it.

3. What you or your employees do on social media could have a negative impact on you or your organization.

True: Identity thieves, robbers and other criminals are adept at piecing together data bits from various social media sites, and using the information to plan online and physical attacks.

Selling your Android phone? Don’t. It keeps your data. | Money CNN

May 27, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you recently sold your old Android phone, chances are your text messages, emails, pictures and Facebook key are still in there, even if you wiped its memory clean.

A new study by computer researchers at the University of Cambridge shows that “factory reset” — at least on Android devices — doesn’t actually erase everything.

Sometimes it doesn’t even come close.

The used smartphone market is huge and about 630 million phones out there are susceptible to this problem, according to the study. Wall Street analysts expect the market will keep blowing up in size until at least 2018.

Researchers tested 21 phones made by Google (GOOGL, Tech30), HTC, LG, Motorola (MSI) and Samsung (SSNLF). In every case, they were able to recover text messages, Google account credentials and conversations on messaging apps. A few emails remained on the device 80% of the time.

Security Awareness: Phishing up the weakest links! | TekSec

May 27, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Who (in their right mind) would like to appear as the corporate dunce who infected their company network (by clicking on an email attachment or url)? Not you, not me, and certainly not the PR department or the company CEO’s administrative assistant, or even the CEO himself.

Phishing is an activity that cybercriminals utilize to acquire personal and sensitive information. Whether it is an account username and password, credit card details, a social security number, or other personal data — it is designed to coax you into giving up your personal information for criminal gain. For those of us who have been unfortunate enough to click on a deceptive phishing link or email attachment, it is an event that most of us would probably rather forget.

Phishing it up

Most of us are aware that if an email arrives unsolicited and includes grammatical errors, we should just delete it and continue on with our day. Not all phishing emails contain bad grammar, unsolicited attachments, or immediately request sensitive information. Last summer I received an email that appeared quite genuine, so genuine in fact — that I almost became victim to a very clever phishing scheme.

Young people are buying real estate — just not the same kind as their parents | Business Insider

May 26, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Millennials and younger members of Gen X appear to be delaying the financial responsibility of homeownership.

But it’s hard to blame a group who watched the housing market skyrocket and plummet just as they were entering college or becoming young professionals gearing up to buy a starter home.

As the economy improved, and financial arrested development started to end, some 20- to 30-somethings have started to invest in real estate, but not in the traditional sense.

Many have turned to turnkey properties, which offer the opportunity to become a homeowner while adding another revenue stream to an investment portfolio.

Lessons from the Worst Managers – and the Best | Payroll Link

May 26, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Robert Goodell is an executive coach who helps companies and individuals make the most of their human potential. During his more than 25 years in the field, he has found about 20 percent of managers are very good, another 20 percent are very bad, and the rest fall in between. He asked a group of managers to describe their best and worst bosses. Goodell distilled their responses in a series of articles issued by WJM Associates, a New York-based executive leadership organization whose faculty he serves on. Here is some of what Goodell reported:

Bad managers are “preoccupied with how they are viewed by influential stakeholders” in the organization. This trait is indicated by their tendency to:

Blame their own mistakes on others, particularly their subordinates, while also taking credit for subordinates’ good work,

Act deferentially towards superiors and demeaning towards subordinates,

Be fearful or suspicious of change until it is embraced by superiors, and

Embarrass or become offended easily.

How Do Tesla’s Home Batteries Work? | Live Science

May 22, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Last week, Tesla Motors announced an ambitious new product line: batteries to power homes or businesses.

The idea is that homes and businesses powered by solar panels could harvest and store energy during the day that could be used to run homes at night, or be used as a backup during a power outage.

“Our goal is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy,” the company’s founder, Elon Musk, said at a news conference April 30. [Creative Genius: The World’s Greatest Minds]

Although the exact technology involved in the battery, called Powerwall, is a closely guarded secret, it probably isn’t based on revolutionary concepts, said Jordi Cabana, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies new battery materials.

“Just looking at the specs that they publicize, it doesn’t look very different — in terms of the cost — to what they’re putting in their cars,” Cabana told Live Science.