Bluesmart smart carry on brings luggage into the 21st century | Gizmag.com

November 6, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Let’s face it, air travel sucks. You are crammed in a small cylinder at 35,000 feet with a herd of other people like cattle, noshing on junk food a cranky flight attendant pitches at you while hurrying by. Worst of all, you forgot to charge your tablet and now can’t watch all those Marvel movies you wanted to catch up on. A solution could exist to at least this last problem though, courtesy of a new so-called “connected carry-on” called Bluesmart that packs a built-in battery capable of charging your gadgets many times over.

It is, admittedly, a little weird to think about a suitcase as being technology-enabled. In a world where leaving cell phones and tablets on in airplane mode during take offs and landings was only recently given the green light, the idea of a carry-on that communicates to your smartphone wirelessly through Bluetooth seems quite foreign. It is something those behind Bluesmart swear the travel industry is ready for though, claiming they’ve gotten through airport security many times with prototypes without any problems.

Deadline or Alive Entrepreneurfail | Getentrepreneurial.com

November 5, 2014November 18, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Ravaging through the rough, grunting and seeking out the next victim….Scavenging anyone and anything that comes in the way…

No, we aren’t describing the latest wildlife channel special about predatory beasts in the jungle. We are referring to the angry, stressed, tense new entrepreneurs on a tight deadline. At this stage in the startup journey, fresh-faced founders may get a little anxious, as the viability of their new startups is dependent on each deadline. Sure, you could argue that it is just the passion coming through, but this attitude could cost a new entrepreneur his/her business.

If your actions are making your employees cower in fear of being the next stop in your slaughter trail, these are a few pointers to help you:

7 Most Useful Truths You Missed from Psychology Class | Page 19

November 5, 2014 ~ CBPS ~ Leave a comment

The following 7 truths are what I consider the most valuable things you can learn from the past few decades’ best books on brains. They’ll offer you some insight into why you make decisions the way you do, what that potential client is thinking, and why you should worry about your slightly sinister boss.

Count Your Eaches | Peter Mehit

November 3, 2014January 22, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In the pursuit of multi-million dollar outsourcing contracts, the company I worked for required me to defend my financial projections. The auditor who usually ran these reviews, was one of the kindest yet toughest auditors I’ve ever worked with. He’d always start with the same question, ‘What are the eaches?’ He wanted to know how many hours, square feet or cubic yards of something we had to sell to reach a specific revenue or profit goal. This experience taught me that looking at a business in terms of units made or sold provides critical clues about the viability of it.

Many projections and budgets lack any real precision. Typically, a desired revenue number is plucked from the air, or other suitable location, as a starting point. Some ‘standard’ percentage is applied to this number for cost of goods to arrive at gross profit, which then has some ‘standard’ expense number applied to it to determine at operating revenue and so on, all the way to the bottom line. If the profit number isn’t satisfying then lather, rinse, repeat.

Continue reading “Count Your Eaches | Peter Mehit” →

How to Make Your Seasonal Business Profitable Year-Round | Business News Daily

November 3, 2014November 2, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When you’re running a seasonal business, it’s often difficult to stretch the profits you made during the height of your sales throughout the rest of the year. But with the right tactics, you can make sure you stay afloat — and maybe even turn a profit — in your off-season. Whether you’re gearing up for your holiday season peak or slowing down after your summertime rush, here’s how you can keep your business in the black all year round.

Minimize your expenses in the off-season

If your business shuts down completely during your non-peak seasons, then it’s unlikely you’ll have to worry about many overhead expenses eating into your profits. However, if you’re open for business all year, the easiest and most obvious way to stay profitable when sales are slow is to cut down on your bills.

Once and for All: Is It Duck Tape or Duct Tape? | Adweek

October 31, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you happen to be working on a Halloween costume this week, remember two things: Nothing beats duck tape when you need to fashion a quick coffin or a knight’s shield, and if you do a really good job of it, you can enter the annual Stick or Treat contest first prize: a thousand bucks, which crowns the most innovative use of duck tape.

Wait—or is it duct tape?

Ah, yes, this time of year often gives voice to one of the world’s great unanswered questions: Is the proper term for America’s favorite waterproof, polyethylene and fabric-mesh strip adhesive duct tape or duck tape?

Five science ‘facts’ we learnt at school that are plain wrong | The Conversation

October 30, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Let’s start with a quiz…

How many senses do you have?
Which of the following are magnetic: a tomato, you, paperclips?
What are the primary colours of pigments and paints?
What region of the tongue is responsible for sensing bitter tastes?
What are the states of matter?

If you answered five; paperclips; red, yellow and blue; the back of the tongue; and gas, liquid and solid, then you would have got full marks in any school exam. But you would have been wrong.

How to Respond to Customers Who Want Your Work for Free | All business

October 30, 2014October 31, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Do you want to sell your products or your work for free? I’m sure you don’t. But it happens all the time. Customers want what you have to sell and pay you nothing for it. What should you do when customers want your work for free?

Be ready with a response. This recently happened to a client of mine. My client prepares very well for prospect meetings. He uses some expensive business analytic tools to generate reports about their business. Prospects are very impressed to learn the breadth of his knowledge about their business.

Generation X: America’s neglected ‘middle child’ | Pew Research Center

October 30, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Generation X has a gripe with pulse takers, zeitgeist keepers and population counters. We keep squeezing them out of the frame.

This overlooked generation currently ranges in age from 34 to 49, which may be one reason they’re so often missing from stories about demographic, social and political change. They’re smack in the middle innings of life, which tend to be short on drama and scant of theme.

But there are other explanations that have nothing to do with their stage of the life cycle.

Gen Xers are bookended by two much larger generations – the Baby Boomers ahead and the Millennials behind – that are strikingly different from one another. And in most of the ways we take stock of generations – their racial and ethnic makeup; their political, social and religious values; their economic and educational circumstances; their technology usage – Gen Xers are a low-slung, straight-line bridge between two noisy behemoths.

How the Swash Got Laughed Out of the Room — and Into Your Home It Hopes | Bloomberg

October 28, 2014 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The new product pitched to Whirlpool Corp. WHR executive Marc Bitzer three years ago wasn’t all that new. Whirlpool had tried to sell two previous versions of the device, which was designed to clean clothes that didn’t need much cleaning. Both flopped.

So, when about 20 designers and technicians came to Bitzer in July 2011 to propose yet another iteration of the same gadget, he was prepared to nix it.

“I was lukewarm, very honestly, because I had seen excitement before,” recalls Bitzer, who oversees North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for the home appliance giant.

Within two hours, Bitzer was a cheerleader for something called a Swash. He was converted by devotees who’d traveled from the Cincinnati headquarters of Procter & Gamble Co.

Three months ago, Swashes developed jointly by Whirlpool and P&G started showing up in select Bloomingdale’s stores and Delta airport lounges. Salespeople explained how the Swash, a four-foot-high, steel-and-plastic box shaped like a radiator, could in just 10 minutes unrumple a cocktail dress or whisk cigar stench from a sport jacket, almost as if they’d gone through a wash cycle or a trip to the dry cleaner.

Online ads and videos said the Swash would cut dry cleaning bills in half by letting people re-wear dress shirts, sequined dresses, wool sweaters, and other clothes they’d normally toss in a hamper after one wearing or, in the case of $300 designer jeans, never wash at all.