4 Reason to Start a Business Blog Now
Increase the reputation of your company:
Blogging helps you to create your company’s reputation online, as well as other companies can trust you and can do business with you. Posting your companies mission, values etc will help you in telling people what exactly your business is about and what your company’s goals are. Telling your company history will help you in getting connected with your clients or prospective customers. You can also tell them with which all companies you have links or contacts. Answer to all their queries, problems which will help you in building your online image and brand reputation.
Increase sales:
The online business faces only one big disadvantage that is considered to be is one to one interaction with the clients. However, blogging helps you to know what are your strengths and weakness. Blog readers can become your best customers as you will get to share all the important information with them as well as it will help you in selling your products and services by simply telling them the advantages of your products or services through your blog.
Increase traffic from search engines:
Web searchers always search for fresh content and every time updating your business blog means it will increase the websites ranking very fast as Blogs are very search engines friendly and they ranks high on the search engines like Google. So, with regular updates on blog and rich content will further increase the traffic on your blog.
Create authority:
Website and blog have a major difference as websites only tell about the company’s profile, whereas blogs helps us telling the current status of the company and the events taking place in it. In a Blog you can allow your customers to leave the comments, queries as well as feedback regarding your blog, whereas these facilities are not available on the website. To grow your business than this is the way to let your customers leave a voice in action.
http://www.techiemania.com/4-reason-to-start-a-business-blog-now.html
Friday, October 15, 2010
Spotlighting Your Social Responsibility
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/publicrelations/prcolumnistrachelmeranus/article206850.html
Spotlighting Your Social Responsibility
Strategies to keep people from thinking you're only in it for the money
By Rachel Meranus | May 28, 2010
Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is a term for describing activities and initiatives that businesses undertake as a means to connect with or give back to the communities in which they do business. CSR can range from charitable programs and community service, to environmental-impact awareness. The goal of CSR is to ensure that companies uphold and promote high ethical standards as they simultaneously pursue profits.
While CSR activities have long been part of the business fabric, companies have wrangled with the best approach for communicating these efforts. To some, making the public aware of charitable work is an excellent way to extend visibility and create goodwill for a company. However, to others CSR and PR should be kept separate to avoid the perception that a business is engaged in such activities for only self-serving purposes. It's essential to understand the latest trends and regulations that companies now must consider as they strategize about their CSR activities.
Why Bring Attention to "Non-profit" Work?
The rise toward greater transparency has impacted all aspects of how companies are expected to communicate to their public. Investors, employees, customers, stakeholders and the media are all seeking more information on the companies with which they're directly involved or have interactions.
This focus on disclosure most often involves business activities and financial performance, but to many--especially those in the local community--the degree to which a company gives back to the greater good can be a deciding factor in how that business is perceived. Given this reality, one could argue that companies that fail to communicate their CSR work could be doing themselves more harm than good.
Whether a company is a global behemoth or a mom-and-pop, the value of communicating one's hidden assets cannot be understated. In many cases, the value of a business is expressed as much by how it treats its employees, the programs it has for environmental sustainability or its charitable associations as it is its revenues or sales projections. Companies that are looking to gain an edge on the competition can actually benefit from making such hidden assets more widely visible.
Tools and Tactics to Communicate CSR
The press release remains a very effective way to communicate CSR initiatives and milestones, especially when companies make a fundamental change to the way they do business or address community concerns. Companies that make an effort to address social inequities and obstacles interest the media. A news story detailing such initiatives can create a great deal of social capital in the minds of consumers.
But it's not necessary to rely solely on traditional marketing to communicate CSR causes. Some companies use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to communicate their CSR activities in real time as well as to garner feedback from the online community. Tweeting during a community cleanup or posting a status update heralding an upcoming food drive is a simple and effective way to communicate a company's CSR initiatives.
Lastly, many companies are now building CSR-focused pages on their corporate websites where they are able to post press releases, news articles and even create interactive "calls-to-action" that highlight CSR programs and encourage engagement among all interested parties. Given the importance of maintaining a CSR presence online, many companies are turning to outside resources to help keep consumers informed about their CSR practices.
Will CSR Disclosure Become a Government Mandate?
On January 28, 2010, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued interpretive guidance on existing SEC disclosure requirements. The guidance indicates that companies must disclose to investors the physical impact that climate change has on assets and the consequences of regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions. This is still not an official policy, but it clearly suggests that the SEC believes that environmental impact--a non-financial metric--may be material information to investors and should be properly disclosed. This is definitely the blossoming of a trend, no doubt.
CSR's Shining Stars
Some companies are very successful at communicating their CSR activities by marketing a socially responsible service or product. Zipcar , for example, uses its website to promote the company's positive impact on the environment as well as its cost-savings to drivers. Zipcar's mission to reduce dependence on personally owned vehicles resonates with socially minded pragmatic consumers looking to cut pollution and lessen the consumption of oil. It's estimated that each Zipcar takes 15-20 personal vehicles off the road.
Ben & Jerry's earned a reputation for incorporating socially responsible and sustainable practices directly into their business model. When Ben & Jerry's pledged only to use RBST-free milk in their products, they paved the way for others to follow suit and pressured the FDA to allow companies to label their products BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) free. The company's pledge to use hormone-free milk in their products and their strong support of family dairy farms garnered excellent media coverage both locally and nationally and cemented their reputation as a socially responsible business leader.
Starbucks is another example of a company that leads the way in showcasing their CSR efforts. The website includes a full "responsibility" page that features updated CSR practices and initiatives in community, environment, ethical sourcing, wellness and diversity. The responsibility page includes embedded video content for each area of CSR concentration, among them an extended clip about how the company spearheaded a grassroots effort to aid the city of New Orleans post-Katrina. There's even a featured post each month written by a Starbucks employee detailing their personal social responsibility goals.
CSR Activities Worth Pursuing and Promoting
Most people associate charitable work, like fundraisers, volunteer programs and sponsorships, with CSR. All of these activities are suitable for promotion, not only for added visibility, but also for increasing participation in the events themselves. But charitable work is just one element of CSR. Environmental sustainability, public education and employee safety all fall under the umbrella of CSR and should be incorporated into a company's overall communication effort.
Tips to Gain More Visibility for CSR Efforts
Build exposure into your website: A company's website can be an effective tool to communicate its CSR efforts. In order to demonstrate an authentic commitment, it's important to embed pieces of CSR stories within each page as well as to have a dedicated page within the site that details CSR efforts.
Use social media: Social media is a tremendous tool for issues advocacy. Through its use companies can better understand the concerns of their communities and direct their CSR efforts to address those concerns. Companies that are in touch with their communities and actively assist or lead efforts to better them (globally or locally), can use social media to organize and enlist others in their cause. This grassroots action can build supporters who take it upon themselves to help communicate the company's efforts.
Tap employees: Often employees are just as powerful as consumers in getting the word out about a company's business practices. Encourage your employees to engage in the company's CSR efforts. They'll feel good doing it and will likely tell others about it.
Rachel Meranus is vice president of communications at PR Newswire, an online press release distribution network based in New York. Get more information about PR Newswire and public relations with their PR Toolkit for small businesses.
Spotlighting Your Social Responsibility
Strategies to keep people from thinking you're only in it for the money
By Rachel Meranus | May 28, 2010
Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is a term for describing activities and initiatives that businesses undertake as a means to connect with or give back to the communities in which they do business. CSR can range from charitable programs and community service, to environmental-impact awareness. The goal of CSR is to ensure that companies uphold and promote high ethical standards as they simultaneously pursue profits.
While CSR activities have long been part of the business fabric, companies have wrangled with the best approach for communicating these efforts. To some, making the public aware of charitable work is an excellent way to extend visibility and create goodwill for a company. However, to others CSR and PR should be kept separate to avoid the perception that a business is engaged in such activities for only self-serving purposes. It's essential to understand the latest trends and regulations that companies now must consider as they strategize about their CSR activities.
Why Bring Attention to "Non-profit" Work?
The rise toward greater transparency has impacted all aspects of how companies are expected to communicate to their public. Investors, employees, customers, stakeholders and the media are all seeking more information on the companies with which they're directly involved or have interactions.
This focus on disclosure most often involves business activities and financial performance, but to many--especially those in the local community--the degree to which a company gives back to the greater good can be a deciding factor in how that business is perceived. Given this reality, one could argue that companies that fail to communicate their CSR work could be doing themselves more harm than good.
Whether a company is a global behemoth or a mom-and-pop, the value of communicating one's hidden assets cannot be understated. In many cases, the value of a business is expressed as much by how it treats its employees, the programs it has for environmental sustainability or its charitable associations as it is its revenues or sales projections. Companies that are looking to gain an edge on the competition can actually benefit from making such hidden assets more widely visible.
Tools and Tactics to Communicate CSR
The press release remains a very effective way to communicate CSR initiatives and milestones, especially when companies make a fundamental change to the way they do business or address community concerns. Companies that make an effort to address social inequities and obstacles interest the media. A news story detailing such initiatives can create a great deal of social capital in the minds of consumers.
But it's not necessary to rely solely on traditional marketing to communicate CSR causes. Some companies use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to communicate their CSR activities in real time as well as to garner feedback from the online community. Tweeting during a community cleanup or posting a status update heralding an upcoming food drive is a simple and effective way to communicate a company's CSR initiatives.
Lastly, many companies are now building CSR-focused pages on their corporate websites where they are able to post press releases, news articles and even create interactive "calls-to-action" that highlight CSR programs and encourage engagement among all interested parties. Given the importance of maintaining a CSR presence online, many companies are turning to outside resources to help keep consumers informed about their CSR practices.
Will CSR Disclosure Become a Government Mandate?
On January 28, 2010, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued interpretive guidance on existing SEC disclosure requirements. The guidance indicates that companies must disclose to investors the physical impact that climate change has on assets and the consequences of regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions. This is still not an official policy, but it clearly suggests that the SEC believes that environmental impact--a non-financial metric--may be material information to investors and should be properly disclosed. This is definitely the blossoming of a trend, no doubt.
CSR's Shining Stars
Some companies are very successful at communicating their CSR activities by marketing a socially responsible service or product. Zipcar , for example, uses its website to promote the company's positive impact on the environment as well as its cost-savings to drivers. Zipcar's mission to reduce dependence on personally owned vehicles resonates with socially minded pragmatic consumers looking to cut pollution and lessen the consumption of oil. It's estimated that each Zipcar takes 15-20 personal vehicles off the road.
Ben & Jerry's earned a reputation for incorporating socially responsible and sustainable practices directly into their business model. When Ben & Jerry's pledged only to use RBST-free milk in their products, they paved the way for others to follow suit and pressured the FDA to allow companies to label their products BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) free. The company's pledge to use hormone-free milk in their products and their strong support of family dairy farms garnered excellent media coverage both locally and nationally and cemented their reputation as a socially responsible business leader.
Starbucks is another example of a company that leads the way in showcasing their CSR efforts. The website includes a full "responsibility" page that features updated CSR practices and initiatives in community, environment, ethical sourcing, wellness and diversity. The responsibility page includes embedded video content for each area of CSR concentration, among them an extended clip about how the company spearheaded a grassroots effort to aid the city of New Orleans post-Katrina. There's even a featured post each month written by a Starbucks employee detailing their personal social responsibility goals.
CSR Activities Worth Pursuing and Promoting
Most people associate charitable work, like fundraisers, volunteer programs and sponsorships, with CSR. All of these activities are suitable for promotion, not only for added visibility, but also for increasing participation in the events themselves. But charitable work is just one element of CSR. Environmental sustainability, public education and employee safety all fall under the umbrella of CSR and should be incorporated into a company's overall communication effort.
Tips to Gain More Visibility for CSR Efforts
Build exposure into your website: A company's website can be an effective tool to communicate its CSR efforts. In order to demonstrate an authentic commitment, it's important to embed pieces of CSR stories within each page as well as to have a dedicated page within the site that details CSR efforts.
Use social media: Social media is a tremendous tool for issues advocacy. Through its use companies can better understand the concerns of their communities and direct their CSR efforts to address those concerns. Companies that are in touch with their communities and actively assist or lead efforts to better them (globally or locally), can use social media to organize and enlist others in their cause. This grassroots action can build supporters who take it upon themselves to help communicate the company's efforts.
Tap employees: Often employees are just as powerful as consumers in getting the word out about a company's business practices. Encourage your employees to engage in the company's CSR efforts. They'll feel good doing it and will likely tell others about it.
Rachel Meranus is vice president of communications at PR Newswire, an online press release distribution network based in New York. Get more information about PR Newswire and public relations with their PR Toolkit for small businesses.
BULLY TACTICS at workplace
BULLY TACTICS
1. Top 25 Tactics Adopted by All Bullies
RANK
1. falsely accused someone of "errors" not actually made (71%)
2. stared, glared, was nonverbally intimidating and was clearly showing hostility (68%)
3. discounted the person's thoughts or feelings ("oh, that's silly") in meetings (64%)
4. used the "silent treatment" to "ice out" & separate from others (64%)
5. exhibited presumably uncontrollable mood swings in front of the group (61%)
6. made up own rules on the fly that even she/he did not follow (61%)
7. disregarded satisfactory or exemplary quality of completed work despite evidence (58%)
8. harshly and constantly criticized having a different 'standard' for the Target (57%)
9. started, or failed to stop, destructive rumors or gossip about the person (56%)
10. encouraged people to turn against the person being tormented (55%)
11. singled out and isolated one person from co-workers, either socially or physically (54%)
12. publicly displayed "gross," undignified, but not illegal, behavior (53%)
13. yelled, screamed, threw tantrums in front of others to humiliate a person (53%)
14. stole credit for work done by others (47%)
15. abused the evaluation process by lying about the person's performance (46%)
16. "insubordinate" for failing to follow arbitrary commands (46%) 17. used confidential information about a person to humiliate privately or publicly (45%)
18. retaliated against the person after a complaint was filed (45%)
19. made verbal put-downs/insults based on gender, race, accent or language, disability (44%)
20. assigned undesirable work as punishment (44%)
21. made undoable demands-- workload, deadlines, duties -- for person singled out (44%)
22. launched a baseless campaign to oust the person and not stopped by the employer (43%)
23. encouraged the person to quit or transfer rather than to face more mistreatment (43%)
24. sabotaged the person's contribution to a team goal and reward (41%)
25. ensured failure of person's project by not performing required tasks: signoffs, taking calls, working with collaborators (40%)
1. Top 25 Tactics Adopted by All Bullies
RANK
1. falsely accused someone of "errors" not actually made (71%)
2. stared, glared, was nonverbally intimidating and was clearly showing hostility (68%)
3. discounted the person's thoughts or feelings ("oh, that's silly") in meetings (64%)
4. used the "silent treatment" to "ice out" & separate from others (64%)
5. exhibited presumably uncontrollable mood swings in front of the group (61%)
6. made up own rules on the fly that even she/he did not follow (61%)
7. disregarded satisfactory or exemplary quality of completed work despite evidence (58%)
8. harshly and constantly criticized having a different 'standard' for the Target (57%)
9. started, or failed to stop, destructive rumors or gossip about the person (56%)
10. encouraged people to turn against the person being tormented (55%)
11. singled out and isolated one person from co-workers, either socially or physically (54%)
12. publicly displayed "gross," undignified, but not illegal, behavior (53%)
13. yelled, screamed, threw tantrums in front of others to humiliate a person (53%)
14. stole credit for work done by others (47%)
15. abused the evaluation process by lying about the person's performance (46%)
16. "insubordinate" for failing to follow arbitrary commands (46%) 17. used confidential information about a person to humiliate privately or publicly (45%)
18. retaliated against the person after a complaint was filed (45%)
19. made verbal put-downs/insults based on gender, race, accent or language, disability (44%)
20. assigned undesirable work as punishment (44%)
21. made undoable demands-- workload, deadlines, duties -- for person singled out (44%)
22. launched a baseless campaign to oust the person and not stopped by the employer (43%)
23. encouraged the person to quit or transfer rather than to face more mistreatment (43%)
24. sabotaged the person's contribution to a team goal and reward (41%)
25. ensured failure of person's project by not performing required tasks: signoffs, taking calls, working with collaborators (40%)
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Rise of the Mega-Rich
The Rise of the Mega-Rich
by Robert Kiyosaki
Posted on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 12:00AM
The first decade of the 21st century is over. Many people find themselves off to a bad start. The new century began with the Y2K scare -- the threat of computers shutting down around the world. Then 9/11 came, followed by two long and expensive wars. The Nasdaq bubble and crash were followed by the real estate bubble then subprime crash, which led to the unprecedented printing of trillions of dollars in an attempt to prevent a global depression. The result is a lingering financial crisis that has expanded the gap between the haves and have-nots.
Most decades have their characters. In the 1960s, we had the hippies. By the 1970s the peace movement evolved into John Travolta and disco. In the 1980s, capitalists took center stage. Techies dominated the 1990s and suddenly geeks were cool.
The question is, what character will emerge to represent the first decade of the 21st century? Will it be the religious terrorists flying into tall buildings or the financial terrorists stealing our wealth from inside tall buildings? Will the first decade be known for Ponzi scheme notables such as Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford… or Social Security and mutual funds? Could it be known for odd couples such as Barack and Hillary or John and Sarah? Or will the first decade be known as the era of celebrity philandering with confessions from the likes of Tiger Woods, Elliot Spitzer, and John Edwards? (All three should get together to co-author a book entitled “Family First”.)
The Century's Exciting Start
All in all, the first decade was an exciting start to the 21st century. What will the second decade bring? What new character will emerge if hippies, disco-ducks, techies, and philanderers are yesterday’s news?
I believe there will be two newsworthy groups to emerge between 2010 and 2020. One big group will be the Dumpies, so named because life leaves them down in the dumps. Many in this group are old hippies who flourished during the ‘60s and forgot to grow up. Not all Dumpies were hippies. Many Dumpies became Dumpies simply because, like dinosaurs, they failed to notice the weather changing. They simply followed in their parents’ footsteps, faithfully believing that all they had to do was go to school, get a job, buy a house, save money, retire on a company pension, collect Social Security, and live happily ever after at the country club. The formula worked for their parents -- the WWII generation – so why shouldn’t it work for them?
The problem is, the rules of money changed. In 1971 President Nixon took the world off the gold standard and in 1974 the predecessor to the 401(k) plan emerged. Suddenly savers were losers as inflation took off, debtors were winners, and people turned to gambling with real estate and in the stock market as the guarantee of a retirement check for life disappeared.
In the coming decade, I believe we will be hearing more and more stories of Dumpies -- well educated, hard-working, successful, prosperous people who will find themselves out of time, out of money, and dependent upon government or family support in their golden years.
The New, the Young, the Prosperous
The second group you will hear more about is the new, young, global mega-rich. They are internationally minded plutocrats who are the beneficiaries of globalization and the technical revolution. They are being pushed along by the fall of communism, the spread of economic globalization, and the impact of the internet as technology makes information and communication free or almost free. Most are 40 or younger today.
This rise of the new global mega-rich is happening as established institutions are falling. The fall runs the gamut from the music business and traditional media to the Detroit automakers who find themselves obsolete, outmaneuvered, and out-priced by entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Mumbai, Shanghai, and even Siberia.
We live in an era of unprecedented opportunity for the smartest, most persistent, and creative among us. Whole new businesses will emerge around breakthrough products as revolutionary technologies accelerate capitalism’s creative destruction of slower industries.
In this second decade, you will see the middle class of the West being hollowed out, creating the Dumpies of the world…modern dinosaurs of the evolutionary process. Both globalization and technology will have a punishing impact on those without intellect, luck, or chutzpah to profit from the changes. Machines, technology, and cheap labor in low-wage countries have pushed down wages in the West, aggravating the financial crisis for the obsolete and ill-informed.
Unprecedented Openness
We live in an age of unprecedented openness. As stated earlier, technology has made information and communication free or almost free. There is more opportunity than ever before…yet that opportunity is largely theoretical: In America social mobility will reverse as many in the middle class become Dumpies.
Between 1997 and 2001 the gap was as follows:
1. The top 1% earned 24% of earnings growth.
2. The top 10% earned 49% of earnings growth.
3. The bottom 50% earned 13% of growth.
Until 2008 none of this seemed to matter. The wonderful inventions, such as iphones, ipods, Twitter, Google, and Facebook kept us entertained like kids at Disneyland.
At the same time, the expanding bubble of debt created a surreal environment of monetary nirvana. You could buy what you wanted, max out your credit cards, and pay off the cards with a home equity loan, as Santa’s sleigh ride continued. Who cared if the bottom 50% were being left behind? Who cared if the top 10% earned 49% of earning’s growth? Who cared if 10% of the population got richer while 90% were left behind? We had toys, we were hip, we had designer bling from China that made us look rich, and we could buy the house of our dreams for no money down. What could be better?
As this financial crisis lingers on, the gap between the new plutocracy and the new Dumpies is becoming a pressing political issue. During the 1960s, the hippies dropped acid and dropped out. Today, as Dumpies, the largest demographic group (a.k.a. baby boomers, approximately 75 million strong…of which I am one) may wake up and drop back in. If they do, who knows where the political process, driven by their hippie values, will go? This is why the second decade of the 21st century will be more important than the first.
Financial education is an important objective for this next decade. We cannot allow the gap to grow bigger. We must have financial education in our schools. Money will not close the gap -- only financial education will. If we do nothing, who knows what creature will emerge as the mascot of the new decade?
To see the future, look to the past. Throughout history, political despots have emerged during times of economic crisis. Some famous characters are Mao, Stalin, Napoleon, and Milosevic.
In 1933, four years after the 1929 crash, two figures arose from the Depression. One was Adolf Hitler. The other was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Many people believe Barack Obama is modeling himself after FDR. Which leads to the question: Who will play Hitler?
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/richricher/237392;_ylt=Akkeq6Q7rseydek9Xex1HIqER4V4;_ylu=X3oDMTFibjdhOTRhBHBvcwMxNQRzZWMDYmxvZ0luZGV4Q2h1bmtzBHNsawN0aGVyaXNlb2Z0aGU-
Robert Kiyosaki Why the Rich Get Richer
Sunday, October 10, 2010
2 Plastic Garbage Bags
2 Plastic Garbage Bags
A little old lady was walking down the street dragging two large plastic garbage bags behind her.
One of the bags rips, and every once in a while a $20 bill falls out onto the sidewalk. Noticing this, a policeman stops her, and says, "Ma'am, there are $20 bills falling out of your bag."
"Oh, really? Darn!" said the little old lady. "I'd better go back and see if I can find them. Thanks for telling me."
"Well, now, not so fast," says the cop. "How did you get all that money? You didn't steal it, did you?"
"Oh, no", said the little old lady. "You see, my backyard is right next to the football stadium parking lot. On game days, a lot of fans come and pee through the fence into my flower garden, so, I stand behind the fence with my hedge clippers. Each time some guy sticks his thing through the fence, I grab it and say, '$20 or off it comes'."
"Well, that seems only fair" laughs the cop. "OK. Good luck! Oh, by the way, what's in the other bag?"
She shrugs and replies, "Well, you know, not everybody pays."
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