I recently read another article about how business cards are changing due to technology and found that people have started using Quick Response Codes (QR Codes) on their business cards. QR Codes are 2 dimensional codes that can be scanned using smartphone cameras to upload contact info, photos, MP3s and more. If you have a [...]
Every employee must add value to their company’s bottom line. For some, it could be the ideas that you contribute, your likeability factor or your work ethic. But most likely it’s purely adding to the bottom line. This is especially true in small businesses. This blog post from Just Sell discusses questions you should ask [...]
With all of the noise being made about Apple’s recent “Antennagate” fiasco, people may have overlooked Apple’s recent foray into mobile marketing with the iPhone OS 4: iAd. iAd, a mobile marketing service that works through iPhone’s applications. Like Google’s Adsense, the ads are targeting to specific users using location and interests based on what [...]
I am continually amazed at how companies can let simple public relations matters become total corporate disasters. Most recently we have discussed PR disasters such as the BP Oil Spill, Tiger Woods, Toyota and John Edwards. Denials and cover-ups make the story bigger and harder to resolve. We can now add Apple to the list [...]
On this blog, we have been following Starbucks astounding success with social media platforms, the most recent one being with Foursquare. Starbucks has recently reached another milestone in social media success by being the first consumer brand to acquire over 10 million Facebook fans. As of today, Starbucks has 10,030,184 Facebook fans and 955,181 Twitter [...]
I recently read an article in the London Evening Standard titled “Why Morning People Rule the World” and it got me thinking about how to best utilize your employees strengths throughout the work day. As a manager, it’s easy to know who your morning and night people are. Your morning people probably got up a [...]
As managers, we continually face decisions how to address difficult employee matters. Governor Perdue gave us a lesson yesterday in dealing with the troubles facing the North Carolina Highway Patrol. On Wednesday, July 7, 2010, Governor Beverly Perdue met with 160 of the top officers in the North Carolina Highway Patrol. Here was her message: [...]
I recently read this article in Entrepreneur by George Cloutier. Cloutier is Harvard Business Graduate and is widely known as a small business expert. He argues that companies should be run like a dictatorship, using fear as a motivator in order to be successful. I agree with some of his points, such as owners giving [...]
We have all experienced poor customer service. Not every company is as customer-centric as Zappos, but perhaps they should strive to be so. No one expects companies to be 100% perfect all the time, but it IS reasonable to expect wrongs to be righted in a professional manner. In theory, customer service should be easy. [...]
