It was easy for Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx to fine GM $35 million, to declare that “silence can kill” and that “What GM did was break the law.”After all, it is clear that GM delayed a recall of 2.6 million cars after it knew ignition switches were defective, and that the delays caused deaths.Deciding whether to approve Norwegian Air Shuttle’s application to fly to the U.S., after the carrier filed for registration in Ireland, is far tougher.
If you want to do more, learn more, and gain more, you might want to think like surfer.
Surfing is a 1,000-year-old sport, and 20 years ago the biggest wave ever ridden was 25 feet. Today surfers push into waves 100 feet tall. Or consider snowboarding: In 1992, the biggest gap ever cleared was 40 feet; today that jump is 230 feet.
What’s behind the insane progress in adventure sports? Flow, says Steven Kotler, author of The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance.
“Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, when you feel and perform your best,” he says. “It’s the moment of total absorption. Time speeds up or slows down like a freeze-frame effect. Mental and physical ability go through roof, and the brain takes in more information per second, processing it more deeply.”
Sometimes called “being in the zone,” flow isn’t just an experience for record-breaking athletes. “It’s ubiquitous,” says Kotler. “Anybody anywhere can apply the triggers for any task. And the amount of time someone spends in flow has a massive and powerful correlation to life satisfaction.”
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is all the rage among brands today. “Giving back” and “doing good” have become the mantras of many companieshoping to appeal to the modern generation of consumers, who are increasingly concerned about global and social issues. But the motivation behind many companies’ CSR efforts actually provides the very reason that they shouldn’t take on socially responsible initiatives.
You are probably willing to work with any and every client who comes your way when you are just starting out in business. However, not every client is a good one. The emotional, physical, and mental drain caused by a bad client relationship can keep you from enjoying your job and negatively impact the work you do for other clients. At times, the best way to grow your business is to let go of those clients who are holding you back.
How do you know when it’s time to move on? Here are six warning signs for clients who bring more trouble than they are worth:
GM has earned a stunning $22.6 billion since the dark days of the financial crisis, when the automaker was bailed out by the U.S. government. Taxpayers didn’t fare nearly as well. They’d lost $10.6 billion by the time the U.S. Treasury department closed the books on the $49.5 billion bailout in December.GM, which filed for bankruptcy five years ago this Sunday, has repaid everything it was obligated to pay Treasury. Taxpayers came up short because the U.S. decided to buy GM stock to keep the automaker alive instead of giving it a loan and saddling it with more debt.Although GM has been very profitable since 2009, its stock price never rose to a level that let Treasury to recoup that investment.
Web conferences or webinars are a great way to attract new customers, engage with existing ones, or provide training and insights to employees or clients. Making your Web conference engaging can be more challenging than it sounds, however.
The key, experts say, is making the most of your interactions and personalizing the webinar experience. Here are 10 suggestions for making the most of your Web conferences.
An elevator pitch is a concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced description of your business that you could pitch to someone you meet in an “elevator.” Small business owners and managers should have an elevator pitch prepared to sell their products and services at any opportunity. A good elevator pitch should quickly grab the interest of the person you are talking to in the first couple of sentences. It should be short and show your passion and enthusiasm for what you are pitching. Typically, it should end by asking for an appointment or referral.
Follow these six tips to develop a strong, successful elevator pitch to attract customers wherever you might meet them:
MotionWorks allows race teams the ability to measure every aspect of their crew’s performance, from every angle, without the inconvenience of obstruction–of which there can be quite a bit on pit row. The high-frequency location-based system measures proximity within a 3-D space devoid of line-of-sight limitation
You know the feeling. You’re on a bus or sitting outside a coffee shop or walking down the street, reading and responding to email after email on your smartphone, and then you reach the point where your smartphone just doesn’t cut it. “I’ll deal with this when I get back to a real computer,” you tell yourself.
Javier Soltero wants to fix that. “There’s a category of email you simply don’t deal with on your phone,” says the 39-year-old engineer and serial entrepreneur, and with his new company, Acompli, a startup based in San Francisco, he aims to close this hole in your mobile life. The company offers a new kind of mobile email app designed to “get you closer to the actions and information you need.”
In recent months global Internet retail behemoth Amazon.com has green-lit six new original TV shows, announced an online streaming deal with HBO and tested same-day grocery delivery on the West Coast.
Up next? Possibly a smartphone. And, if billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos has his way, packages dropped off by unmanned drone.
Dispatches From The Front 