101 Not Out

Have now completed more than 100 posts in this blog and am enjoying myself - hope you are too. Being part of a smaller team focused on more than the travel biz I was missing having people to rant at. Nothing beats coming out of your office and ranting (in)coherently at people who have to look like they're interested because you are their boss..but this comes close.

Lots has happened in a hundred posts

• Wotif floated, did its first major online marketing deal and hinted at acquisions
• Webjet (eventually) put together its hotel strategy, came out with some big results (and charges) and is working on some creative marketing plans
• I ranted about Qantas and the the airline gods paid me back by sending me to Brisbane and denying me a chance to walk around Tokyo and charging me a fortune for free tickets
  
• Expedia went live in Australia, raised a shed load of money for as yet unknown reasons and (presumably) fired their auditors for being idiots
• Travelocity branding spread to Asia and the CEO was so excited about the product that he ...well...quitely mentioned it to a few friends
• The boom came back because RedHerring said so and meta-search is attracting millions
• Oh...and a few things happended at Cendant/Travelport but I wasn't really paying attention....

Hope you have enjoyed the story so far

Helping Your Customers Choose a Paint Color

When it comes to choosing a color, as a rule you should never pick the color for the customer. It is fine to assist them but make it known that the final decision is 100% their choice.

Paint half of a small 12” x 12” piece of drywall black and the other half medium-gray. Take the paint chip and hold it up against each half of the drywall. This will give the customer an idea of how the color will look on the walls once it dries.

Most of the time customers can pretty much narrow down their color choice to a couple of shades. Your best bet is to like them both.

Say something like:

“They are both really nice colors that would be very easy to decorate around... Which do you like best and why”?

This is a good way to stay involved in the process and lead your customers into making their own decisions.

Remember the homeowner is looking to you for your professional advice but you should never be directly making the decisions for them.

How to Avoid Scheduling Conflicts in Your Painting Business

For most busy painting business owners scheduling conflicts rank at the top of the "Avoid at all cost" list.

Not only do scheduling conflicts cause added stress, they upset the customer and makes you look unorganized and unprofessional.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that sometimes rescheduling a job is unavoidable and necessary but it should be the exception, not the rule.

One way to make sure that your schedule stays on track is to allow yourself a two day grace period between jobs. Notice I did not say take two days off between jobs...

Here is how it works.

When you are doing the estimate for the customer let them know when you are available to do the work. Say something like "I have an opening in my schedule the week of..."

It is much easier to call a customer and ask them if you can start their job a day or two early rather than a week or to later.

Working on a floating schedule like this reduces stress and allows you the flexibility to squeeze in smaller jobs between the larger ones (or just take a nice day off during the week).

In the end you will make more money and not get burned out.

If you would like 100's of tips and tricks for growing your painting business subscribe to my Paintig for Profits newsletter.

Failures and Stumbles driving Innovation

"Failure is our most important product." R W Johnson, Jr., Former CEO, Johnson & Johnson, 1954

"Our company has, indeed, stumbled onto some of its new products. But never forget that you can only stumble if you're moving." Richard P. Carlton, Former CEO, 3M Corporation, 1950

Great wisdom shared by two great business leaders.

"Purposeful Accidents"

Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, authors of the bestseller "Built to Last", discuss the role of Creativity and Innovation that drives some of the successful habits of Visionary companies. They observe that "some of their (visionary companies) best moves were not by detailed strategic planning, but rather by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and--quite literally--accident." But they were no ordinary accidents. Rather "purposeful accidents" according to the authors.

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Opportunistic or Planned Innovations

The authors give several examples of visionary companies including Johnson & Johnson's accidental move into Consumer Products with discovery of "Johnson's Toilet and Baby Powder" and "Band-Aid", Marriot's opportunistic step into Airport Services from providing meals in the airports to inside the airplanes, American Express's unintended evolution into Financial and Travel Services with the introduction of "American Express Travelers Cheque" and then Tourism and Travel, HP's unplanned move into computer business (when it designed its first small computer simply to add power to its line of instruments products) and more. These innovations were neither aberrations, nor they represented random luck--the authors discovered there was more to these innovations than what appeared on the surface--something bigger at work.

Darwin and the Evolutionary Progress

The authors label this type of progress by visionary companies as "evolutionary progress". Because evolutionary progress is unplanned progress, beginning with "small incremental steps or mutations, often in the form of quickly seizing unexpected opportunities that eventually grow into major--and often unanticipated--strategic shifts." Authors believe this is comparable to Darwin's theory of Evolution--species evolving by a process of undirected variation and natural selection--the survival of the fittest. Of course the difference with visionary companies being that there is a plan in place that stimulates these experiments and variations, and ultimately creates the meaningful inventions.

Johnson and Johnson - Failures to Innovations

Johnson & Johnson, one of the visionary companies in the book, has never in its 107-year history, posted a loss. It has had many failed ventures such as a foray into Kola stimulants, colored casts for children, heart valves, kidney dialysis, and ibuprofen pain relievers - the list is quite big. The failures result at J & J from the fact that the company emphasizes placing bets on many potential opportunities--most opportunities possibly fail, but the ones that do succeed, they succeed big. The bets, or the experimentation, are an essential price to pay for successful Innovation and Long-term growth. At General Electric, Jack Welch the then CEO, called this "planful opportunism"--directing a business by setting only a few clear, overarching goals and letting the people seize any opportunities they saw to further these goals.

3M - Accidents to Innovation Machine

What about 3M, quite possibly the most innovative company of our times that even CEOs of other visionary companies admire? 3M is best known for its household brands such as Post-It note, Masking tape, Scotch tape, and many more. 3M initially failed in its mining business, and eventually stumbled onto most of the successful innovations that we know 3M for, including Post-It, Masking and Scotch tape. According to the authors, "Although the invention of the Post-it note might have been somewhat accidental, the creation of the 3M environment that allowed it was anything but an accident." 3M institutionalized such mechanisms to drive Innovation as the "15 percent rule" - technical people spend up to 15 percent of their time on projects of their own choosing or initiative, "25 percent rule" - each division should produce 25 percent of annual sales from new products and services introduced in the previous five years, "Golden Step" award - given to those creating successful new business ventures originated within 3M. More mechanisms were created to stimulate internal entrepreneurship, test new ideas, create unplanned experimentation, share new ideas, develop new innovation, cross-fertilize technology, ideas and innovation, stimulate innovation via customer problems, speed product development and market introduction cycles, provide profit sharing, and promote "a small company within a big company feel" by creating small autonomous business units and product divisions - in early 1990 3M had over sixty thousand products and over forty separate product divisions.

Norton - Lessons Learned

The authors argue that whereas 3M created the mechanisms and management practices to encourage individual initiatives and experimentation, Norton was the exact opposite. 3M took the approach of "try a lot of stuff and keep what works", whereas Norton was centralized, bureaucratic and stagnant. Not only that, the authors discovered that Norton had explicit policies discouraging entrepreneurship; there were no incentives for creativity and towards looking outside for new opportunities beyond the traditional products and businesses. Norton emphasized too much planning from the top down, and made it a way of life. Norton eventually tried to innovate and expand with acquisitions, but it was too little, too late. Norton, a company that at one time was ten times the size of 3M, ceased to exist (was acquired on its way down in the nineties).

Five takeaways stimulating Innovation

The authors summarize their findings from 3M and provide five takeaways to drive Innovation at any business:

1. "Give it a try--and quick!" - Essentially echoing on having a process to try out a lot of stuff, and keeping what really works. The key here is to do something. Keep on trying something new.

2. "Accept that mistakes will be made." - Learn from the mistakes quickly, and move on. Failures are part and parcel of what creates new innovation. Don't repeat the same mistakes.

3. "Take small steps." - Experiment, but on a small scale. When something looks promising, go all out and seize the opportunity. This way one can do plenty of inexpensive experiments that create a funnel of would-be innovations.

4. "Give people the room they need." - Without entrepreneurship, there is no experiment. Without experiment there is no success or failure. People need some time and room to experiment.

5. "Mechanisms - build that ticking clock!" - How do you harness creativity and build innovation? It cannot happen simply by chance. Companies need to create practices and tangible mechanisms to experiment, try out new ideas and innovate.

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

If you enjoyed reading this Creativity and Innovation best practice, I recommend the complete list of Creativity Innovation Best Practices.

Acknowledgements:

Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras - Built to Last - Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Customer Service Tip for Painting Business Owners

It is important for house painters to realize that customer service doesn't end after the paint job is done.

A great way to insure that your customers remember you is to send a "Thank You" letter a few days later.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a polite thank you letter letting the customer know that you appreciate them and look forward to working for them in the future.

This simple yet powerful marketing tip is overlooked by MOST painting business owners.

Painting Business Yard Signs

One of the least expensive and best forms of advertising you can do for your painting business is invest in a few quality yard signs.

Keep the theme consistent with your business cards and letter head. Use the same logo and font and display your phone number large across the bottom.

Put a yard sign up at the job you are working on as well as one in the yard where you will be working next...

You will be amazed how many jobs you can get from this inexpensive form of advertising.

A very small Innovation

Small is beautiful when it comes to cell phones and MP3 players.

For instance, the new Motorola Pebl cell phone, which weighs about 3.8 oz and is about the size of a credit card.

Or the new cell phone from a company Pantech offered by Cingular - the Pantech C300. It weighs only 2.5 oz (about the weight of a "C" battery), and is 35% smaller in size than a credit card. It is the world's smallest flip phone. And then the obvious question comes to mind? Does it pack a punch? Does it have the cool features? The answer is Yes. It has all the standard features of a cell phone and then some. How about a VGA camera with flash, multimedia messaging, tri-bands, instant messaging, speakerphone, MP3 and Music tone ringtones and more. And 35% smaller in size than a credit card. A very small Innovation that consumers are racing to buy, use and enjoy.


How about a new MP3 player? It is smaller than the size of an iPod Shuffle. According to PC Magazine, "The bite-size MobiBLU DAH-1500i is the smallest, most impressively full-featured flash player we've seen yet." The new MobiBlu DAH-1500 MP3 player is less than an inch in length, width and height. It has a OLED display (read cool lights) and sports a 20 hours playback time. It features a FM tuner and the headset plug doubles up as the data connector. It has 1 GB of memory for all those songs, and even makes its own recordings. And it is made by a relatively new player in the MP3 marketplace, Hyon Won Inc. Well not for too long. Another very small Innovation that has become a must-have for all the MP3 fans.

New advances in semiconductor, power storage, composites, processing and interrelated technologies are making these very small disruptive innovations possible today. A cell phone or an MP3 player is a sum of all the miniature innovations that goes underneath. It appears that Moore's law may be holding true for these most innovative cell phones and MP3 players in the same vein as the microprocessors and memories. And this is only the beginning. With superior advances in technologies across the board, it will be a matter of time when we will have really cool electronic devices made by new players in the market place smaller than the size of a dime. And all for a reasonable price. Very small innovations causing disruptions in perception, making, buying, adoption and image. Amazing indeed.

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Are we clicking on AdWords ads?

The AdWords Help community has really grown since we last posted about them -- with more than 7790 members as of a few minutes ago.

AdWords Help members are a straightforward bunch, and have been known to ask some rather blunt questions. Today, we'd like to briefly answer one such question, quoted verbatim below, though excerpted from a longer message:

So, here's my question...Has anybody heard of Google artificially inflating hits by having someone in their office click on their AdWords client links to improve the click through (and make themselves money)?

The AdWords team does in fact click on AdWords ads, for a variety of reasons, but primarily during the ad review process in which we check that the Destination URL is functional, that the back button works, etc. However, Google does not charge advertisers for these clicks.

To go into a little more detail: any and all clicks and/or impressions that originate from the Google team are automatically filtered out of advertiser accounts, and do not become a part of an account's statistics (or reports of those statistics). This means that neither impressions nor clicks made by Google folks will impact an advertiser's clickthrough rate (CTR) and, as mentioned, advertisers will never be charged for any clicks made by our team.

We hope this information will set a few minds at ease and, perhaps, inspire you to visit AdWords Help (on Google Groups) every so often. You're likely to find it both interesting and informative.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Gift Basket Home Business in Five Easy Steps

Gift Basket Home Business in Five Easy Steps b>
Copyright © Monique Hawkins
http://moniquerh.payitforward4profits.com >

http://moniquerh.payitforward4profits.com

Gift Basket Home Business in Five Easy Steps

According to the May 2004 survey of the Department of Labor, there are 10 million Americans who generate income from home-based activities. Among the top three industries in this category is wholesale and retail trading. Definitely, gift basket making belongs to this. Create your own gift basket home business in five easy steps.

1. Create your business objective. The first step when putting up the gift basket business is to define your reason for going into business and how you envision your perfect business to be. Write this vision down and use it to inspire you to create specific goals that will propel your business. Create short-term (from start-up to 3 years) and long-term goals (from 4 years - 20 years or more) to provide a clear path throughout your journey of success.

2. Understand your client base. Next is to determine who is your client. You can start by targeting a certain age group in the society, say the busy working Moms from 30 – 45. They have the money to pay for ready-made gift baskets yet do not have the time for doing it themselves.

3. Know your competition. There are already almost a million Americans ahead of you in the gift basket home business, so you should know how they have crafted their success and how you can use their learning to apply to your own. Ensure that you have a unique idea or product that your closest competition will not be able to provide to your client base. Focus on this unique idea and use that as the principal product that makes you better than competition.

4. Plan for marketing and advertising. Just because this gift basket business is home-based, it does not mean that you can scrimp on advertising. As in any business, you should allot a portion of your capital (say 20%) for marketing it. The most effective marketing technique by far is direct mailing, because it has the highest response rate. If your client base is within the neighborhood, then you can use this technique to target around your area.

5. Plan for on-going support. Your relationship with your client will not stop the minute they pay. Especially if the gift basket is ordered for a recurring occasion, you would prefer that your client come back and order from you again. Ensure that you have set-up a consistent means of supporting and staying in-touch with your clients to guarantee continuation of your business.

Follow the five steps above and jumpstart your gift basket home business.

About the Author:
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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://moniquerh.payitforward4profits.com "> http://moniquerh.payitforward4profits.com
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Wotif white label live on Ninemsn

First affiliate white label deal for Wotif has just gone live on the ninemsn travel channel (Australian joint venture version of Microsoft's msn and the largest portal). They announced it a few months ago and how it is up and running. Ninemsn has traditionally avoided all attempts to do revenue share deals, traditionally asking for large up-front financial commitments. If this is the case here then this is likely to be the largest single marketing spend by Wotif. If there is a revenue share component it will be the first time that I know of that Wotif has had to build a commission tracking and sharing component to their engine. With a margin of only 10% there is not a lot of money to go around to affiliates compared to the larger margin programs run by Expedia and Octopustravel however RatesToGo has shown that you can still build a strong affiliate program off low margins if the content is good. Either way it is a new marketing approach and channel for Wotif.

I like the integration on the ninemsn travel page, however if I was Wotif I would be unhappy with the widget/engine being below the fold as it lessens the brand impact and if I was ninemsn I would want Wotif to work on a next generation co-branded landing page on the Wotif site to strengthen the ties back to the ninemsn travel channel.

Home Business Success Tips

Yes everyone starting a business online needs an auto responder.Why?Well because it is kind of like a pushy salesman.You know the one that continues to pursue you until you buy from him.So after you buy from him what happens next?A good salesman knows that if he takes care of his customers he can continue to make that repeat sale over and over.Take my profession for instance.I have a window cleaning business that I have built up over many years.I actually have some customers that I have been doing their house every year for 10 years.Just like window cleaning it will prove true with an online business.We have to remember there is a person behind the newbie looking to start a business.Chances are he is not really sure if your online business is the right one.So now newbie signs up with your program.Now what happens?Do we say "thanks for the signup" and "hope you make it and if you don't sorry about your luck".Most likely most newbies know nothing about autoresponders, blogs, forums, article writing, or any other avenue of successful online marketing.The question now becomes how willing are we to help the newbie get going.Personally I like programs that benefit both the newbie and the sponsor.The newbie's success should also be your success.You ought to be accountable to your newbie also.What does that mean you ask?Well that means you keep pushing for your newbie's success even if it takes awhile.I believe if you put on this attitude you'll go far in your online business because now all you do is the same thing over and over with the next newbie.Zig Ziglar said it best when he said "you can get whatever you want in life if you'll just help enough people get what they want."

Embed and enjoy

Over the past few months, we've drawn attention to the value of video, and specifically, of embedding video on your sites. We're happy to announce that Google Video is now available for Australia!

Our Australian friends can search for the most popular videos in Australia and embed them on their own sites, all within a localized (or rather "localised") interface. Not only is there the usual treasure trove of footage uploaded by individual users already on Google Video, but the AU team has worked closely with great partners like ABC, AFTRS (the Australian Film, Television and Radio School), Channel 10, Film Australia, Fairfax and SonyBMG. We're sure you'll find some great content amongst these partners and others to enhance your website.

In addition, there are now many ways for you to customize the video player itself and the surrounding page. This way, the player is integrated with your content and will help engage your users. You can:

• Resize the player to fit the design of your site by editing the pixel width and height
  
• Set the player to autoplay on page load, or start playing at a specific point in the video
  
• Get creative in the way you design the area surrounding the player (there's a great example here)
  

There's always something new on Google Video, so keep users coming back to your site by varying the videos you use on your site. Happy embedding!

Posted by Julian Sonego - Country Marketing Manager for 'The Land Down Under'

RIP Cendant - Tim, it is time to get over it.

Comment on today's post on the lastest Travelport announcement deserves a post of it's own.

" Mr hughes, time to let sleep dogs from your past lie"

I try not to blog about Travelport - honest I do. But how can I run a commentary on online travel and ignore a company that in the last nine months has be bought out, written off more than a billion dollars, had a turn over of half of its senior executives, shut down under-performing business units, is leading the charge for re-invention the GDS business, had two significant restructures and is setting itself up for a break-up. The eventual sales of the separated GTA, Galileo and Orbitz will be among the biggest if not the biggest travel industry stories of 2007 (barring an airline collapse or terrorist attack). Compared to that Expedia and Travelocity have had a very quiet 2006. That said, "Mr Anonymous", I will try harder.

Education driving Innovation in The World Is Flat

In his bestseller, "The World Is Flat", Thomas L. Friedman elaborates on the role of our style of Education driving Innovation.

Bill Gates View

Specifically, when Friedman asked Bill Gates, the Founder of Microsoft, about the the "supposed American Education advantage - an education that stresses creativity, not rote learning", Gates dismissed this entirely. Gates believes that it is a sad mistake for the (American) people to think that the rote-learning systems of China and Japan can't turn out Innovation. Gates even goes on to say "Who has the most creative video games in the world? Japan! I never met those 'rote people' ...Some of my best software developers are Japanese."

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Race to the Top

Friedman stresses that "Young Chinese, Indians, and Poles are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top." Further, Friedman claims that they want to dominate the world "by creating the companies of the future, ones that people all over the world will admire and clamor to work for." He gives an example of a Chinese American who was working for Microsoft, and accompanied Gates on visits to China. According to him, Gates is the equivalent of the modern rock star in China. The young people in China would do anything to hear Gates speak, including scalping tickets. Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!, is also in the same category.

And then Friedman makes a statement that reverberates with a loud echo (and bass) throughout the entire book:

"In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears - and that is our problem"

Indeed.

Our Production

According to most statistics, the number of foreign graduate students in the U.S. colleges in Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering are greater than 60%, in some cases even more than 90%. Most graduate students are from Asia. We are not producing the high number of Scientists, Mathematicians and the Engineers of the future, as we used to throughout the Twentieth century, to create future Innovations. It appears that the world is producing more intellectual talent, and will continue to produce more in the immediate future - and the irony is that the world is coming to the U.S. colleges to learn to become Innovative.

Growth of Education in China

Friedman observes that China today is becoming increasingly confident of their K-12 education system, of their fundamental strengths in Math and Sciences, and the Chinese youth are getting ready to "unleash their creative, innovative juices." Wu Qidi, China's vice minister of education, believes that nurturing more "creative thinking and entrepreneurship are the exact issues we are putting attention to today." Education overhaul is undergoing a massive movement in China. Large number of scholars, teachers and professors who have been educated in America and Europe are returning and are imparting changes to the classrooms and learning in China - even Arts is now getting taught. China believes that Education will pave the road to the future. And China has the roots of inventions dating back to the compass, papermaking, printing and gunpowder to back this claim. It is just a matter of time. And according to Gates, the Microsoft Research Asia based in Beijing has become the most productive research arm in the Microsoft system "in terms of the quality of ideas that they are turning out. It is mind-blowing."

Questions, Questions

These raises some important questions about the future of Education and Innovation here in the U.S.:

Do we need to change our Education system to compete versus the world, and create more Innovation in the future?

How do we create more Scientists, Mathematicians and Engineers today and in the future?

Do we believe that we can simply "outsource" the intellectual talent from abroad and create the type of Innovation that we have been known for?

In thirty years, which Innovative companies in the world will be in the Top 100 list?

There are no easy answers to any of these questions as our policy makers will ascertain.

But at least this much is certain: The role of Education, and in particular, Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering, is fundamental to Innovation. And the more Scientists, Mathematicians and Engineers we produce, the more Innovation we can expect in the future.

Download market leading Creativity and Innovation in Business eBook. 212-page collection of over 55 best practices, case studies, and insights on the current state of Creativity and Innovation in Business at Top Innovators including Apple, Google, Netflix, 3M, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, GE, BMW, Deloitte, Southwest, Nike, IBM, Dell and more. "Your report from the eBook and definitive guide was the primary reference that we used." Used by over 500 leading organizations including HP, Pepsi, EDS, J&J, Nokia...Learn more
Download Now

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Acknowledgement:

Thomas L. Friedman, "The World Is Flat"

Video ads tips and tricks (part 3 of 3)

Alas, our video ads series comes to a close today. In this final installment, Bismarck provides some quick tips to help you set up your video ad campaign.

Running a successful video ad campaign isn’t just about creating engaging ads; your campaign settings are also crucial. Below are four tips to keep in mind when designing your campaign:

• Geo-Targeting: When you set your language and location settings, focus your advertising to regions or areas where you conduct business.

• Selecting Sites: If you’re using site targeting, use the site tool to select sites that are of interest to your audience. If there is a specific demographic that you’re trying to reach, use demographic site selection to find the right sites.

• Selecting Keywords: If you’re running a keyword-targeted campaign, it is important that you have tightly formed AdGroups; make sure that all of the keywords in an AdGroup revolve around a specific theme or topic.

• Bidding: Bid appropriately. Manage to cost-per-play goals: set the maximum you would like to pay per impression, but optimize to achieve target cost-per-play and audience reach goals.

Thanks for joining us for this three part series - we hope you've found it helpful. You can find additional information on video ads and the content network online, or send us an email and we may just answer your question on the blog.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

New International Trade Business Opportunity

After working in and researching everything I can get my hands
on relating to international trade over the last 18 1/2 years,
there has not been much new come along that goes beyond the
tried and true import export business model .... that was, until
about 10 days ago.

Now before we continue, let me tell you up front - this new
global trade opportunity you are about to discover is
not MLM, Network or Referral marketing or anything
of that nature.

When I said it is a "new" home based "International Trade"
business opportunity and that's "exactly" what it is.

There is one very stringent requirement that we will get out
of the way right now --- you must be a resident of the
United States or Canada to participate. If you live in
any other country, sorry, but this is a highly targeted and
because of the unique mode of operation. It is a very limited
and highly unique new international business opportunity -
you are welcome to watch the video, if you like.

Now to our USA and Canadian friends - it has not been often
in the 18 1/2 years we have been in this business that an
international trade business opportunity, or resource for
that matter, has excited me as much as the one you are going
to learn about in the next few minutes.

Almost every day I talk with people who dream of starting their
own international trade business...escaping the nine to five
grind... achieving financial independence... and giving their
families (and themselves) the lifestyle they so richly deserve.

Yet they have been frustrated by the many supposed
money-making opportunities they've come across.

Perhaps you've seen a few of these offers yourself. Sure, it
looks like you can make good money with them, but they take
far too much time, money, and effort. Even 10 or 20 hours a
week piled on top of your already exhausting work schedule is
too much. After all, most people are looking for ways to spend
more time with their families - not less - and have money to
do the things they have always dreamed about.

It is no wonder so many of the people I talk to are ready to
throw in the towel and resign themselves to doing the best
they can with the job they've got right now, for the rest of
their life.

The good news for you is this - it doesn't have to be that
way for you or anyone else thanks to the unique new (and I
do mean 'unique') international trade program you are going
to hear described in an all new video and slide show posted
on our web site.

In this video, you are going to discover (as I did) that there
is a very, very "Unique" niche opportunity that exists within
the international trade business model. This 'niche' is very
profitable and what sets it apart from most global trade
business opportunities is the fact you will be working
"directly" with the founder of the unique and highly profitable
business model.

I quite frankly have not seen this unique international business
model offered anywhere else and I spend countless hours
researching the Internet, trade publications, etc..

Because this is so unique in your being able to actually
partner with the founder and have access to what only can be
described as a "special secret weapon", he has asked us to
partner with him in identifying 130 highly motivated people to
work with him.

Are you one of those 130? Go watch the video now and after it
ends, click on the links at the bottom or top of the video
screen for a Question and Answer page.

Go watch the video now and discover what this unique
opportunity might hold for you and your family..........
New International Trade Business Opportunity Video -
the video may take some time to begin depending upon
the speed of your Internet connection so be patient
because it is 'well' worth the short wait.

Until next time,

Ron Coble

Three companies - a world of opportunity

Cendant TDS' motto on banner ads used to be "One Relationship: A world of opportunities". With the announcement of a split into three "decentralised" business units - GTA, Orbitz and Galileo - I am announcing a competition for a new motto. Early entries for new banner campaigns are:

• "Three Companies: Click here to make an offer"
  
• "Travelport: Bought 15 to make 1 to sell 3"
  
• "Travelport: There used to be only one"
  

First prize is my Cendant branded first anniversary collectors edition pen. I have given up efforts to blog less about Travelport as I can't ignore the unstoppable path to the break-up. When we wrap up this competition we can start working on rumours for who the buyers will be.

On the serious side - many congratulations to Gordon Wilson on being named CEO of the Galileo business.

Ebay Home-Based Business in Five Easy Steps

Ebay Home-Based Business in Five Easy Steps
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.payitforward4profits.com

Ebay Home-Based Business in Five Easy Steps

You are probably reading this because you KNOW that you can make money from eBay. Well, what you know is correct and what this article will teach you will help you even more. Read on to know how to set-up your eBay business in five easy steps.

Unique Idea

The first step in starting up your eBay business is to have a unique item that you can sell, though that maybe very had to do. Among the millions of listings on eBay, there is no product or idea that you can think of, that is not yet listed. This maybe 95% correct, though it’s always worth a try. Your unique idea should be close to your heart, a hobby, an industry or a service that you are very interested in.

Know the Competition

After that, then search through the eBay listings for similar items. Again, 95% of the time, items on your list are already being sold. Don’t worry about that. That’s the beauty of free trade – everyone can sell the same item and the consumer has the option to choose whichever one he or she will take. It is ideal that you focus on the item that is closest to your heart and yet has the least listings on eBay. This gives you a better chance of competing in the market.

Make it Visual

To make your listing more appealing, take a digital picture of your item and include it in the ad. No matter how good and detailed your listings are, it is still best to have a picture of the item, which will say everything, nothing more, nothing less. Try to research also on the highest hitting listings and see why their visual representation is very appealing to many surfers.
Price it Right
The power of the dollar is always at work in eBay. Because you allow interested parties to bid on your product, every dollar counts. Some recommend starting your price at $1, which if you were in the shoes of the buyer, sounds very appealing. Just make sure that you are selling an item that will eventually be bidded to the price that you like, say $500, even if it start from a dollar.

Online Payment Availability

PayPal is eBay’s partner in it’s payment system. And to be successful in you eBay business, you must be a member of PayPal as well. It is easy to set-up, in fact, you can do it simultaneously with your eBay membership and security is highly rated. Fees are also very reasonable.

Five easy steps in you eBay business set-up. Start it today!

About the Author:
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To find the best home based business ideas and
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TRAFFIC TIP: Natural Search Engine Traffic Is Not Dead!

By Luis Galarza

In fact the last Search Engine research test made by Google shows that web surfers eyes focus first on the results from the natural search and PPC, Sponsors Links, or Adword's are the last to be view by Internet surfers...

Dear Marketer,

Natural Search Engine generates most of the web targeted traffic that top websites get. Well, look like net surfers don't pay attention to PPC or Adword's until they check all the results generated by Natural Search. Now the top 3 or 5 natural links get most of the attention, but even the links at the end of the search results page get far more attention that the PPC ads.

Don't get me wrong, PPC advertising work... But if you spend some time on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to build your Natural Search Engine top position for your website you can save a TON of your money and get massive targeted traffic to your web site, and as you may know: Targeted Traffic means Sales, and Sales mean Profit!

Actually, me and Anna Phommatham just finished writing a new report that teach how to get on the top results of the search engines no matter if you have no content, no meta tags, no title, no headline, and even if your site is just a image, multimedia, or flash... I will post the link where you can get your own copy of this secret report later this week...

Conclusion: Who cares what Gurus said! Natural Search Engine is way better than PPC and almost any other way to bring high quality targeted traffic to your web site... I recommend you to start some kind of viral marketing campaign, because this can help you generate targeted visitors to your web site while your working on optimizing your sites to gain the power of Natural Search Engine traffic... The easiest viral marketing campaign that you can start is giving away your own viral ebook with quality information and encourage people to pass it on to their friends.

To Your Success,

Luis Galarza

P.S. If you asking yourself, is there a better, faster, and quicker way to generate traffic, my own opti-in list, and make money online? Well, there are two system that I strongly recommend that doesn't required you to have your own product NOTE: You need a small investment on each: One is the Viral Marketing Experiment which is excellent to build a mailing list and market others people products (Warning: This one works really fast and can have you bank call you to ask you if you doing anything iligal). The second one is the Freedom Income System this one help you launch your own niche information product and they help you make at least $10,000 in 90 days or they pay you $500 dollars just for trying their system.

About Author: Luis Galarza is a respectable Marketing and Telecommunication Consultant & CEO of Cogni360 and Associates (http://www.Cogni360.com/ ). Also, he teach 100's of entrepreneurs how to make money online without a their own website, or product. For more information about his Free Affiliate Marketing training service go to: http://www.AffiliateCashSecretsClub.com/

A proud member of The International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs

.

Who's The Coolest Guy On The Planet?

.

China heating up

Couple of news stories converging to show that the online travel market in China is heating up

1. Despite three months of declining stock prices, Ctrip is back in the news with a new overseas hotel platform and some good commentary from analysts;

2. Expedia has closed a WWTE distribution deal with Air China and promoted AsiaPac President Barney Harford from board member to Chairman of majority owned and market number two eLong;

3. Travelport and CYTS joint venture Aoyou brought on a local manager - Xiaodong Guo - with the promotion of Dan Wacksman to more senior regional roles within Travelport's GTA division. Aoyou is a long way behind the other two but the market should be big enough; and

4. New entrant Qunar.com (who I only heard of recently) growing with a travel meta search model including doing a deal with Hilton.

Who said China was going off the boil....

The Best Building Innovation of 2006 - The Louisiana Superdome

Best Building Innovation of 2006 - The Louisiana Superdome

On Monday, September 25, 2006, The Louisiana Superdome reopened its door to the first home game for the New Orleans Saints, completely renovated, rebuilt and restored within a record twelve months after the devastating blow of Hurricane Katrina. The reopening is a historical event for the city of New Orleans, the New Orleans Saints and for America - symbolic of the economic turnaround, spirited revival and renewal of hope.

The rebuilding of the Superdome represents the Best Building Innovation of 2006 - it quite possibly is the Best Innovation of 2006. The first home game of the Saints and the reopening event was a smashing success.

Not only were the damaged portions of the Superdome reconstructed within a record time, significant upgrades were also included that notably improved upon the experience and comfort for the event attendees.

How did the Superdome achieve this massive Innovation within such a short time?

First, the leadership of the government of Louisiana - Governor Kathleen Blanco issuing an executive order in December 2005 to make the Superdome a priority, enabling the rebuilding to be fast-tracked.

Second, the smart financing by LSED (Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District) that generated $40 million capital funding for the rebuilding.

Third, the management and execution by a Team of managers, project leaders, builders and architects including SMG, the Superdome Commission representing LSED, Trahan Architects, Sizeler Architects, Billes Architecture, Ellerbe Becket, Broadmoor LLC, about 35 sub-contractors and 1,000 workers.

Fourth, the partnership with NFL that provided the Superdome a grant of $15 million for the rebuilding. The partnership was instrumental towards driving many team members joining hands for a common cause.

Why is the rebuilding of a stadium an Innovation?

It is unprecedented. It is symbolic. It is iconic. It is historic. It is an awesome feat accomplished within a record time. And it looks great.

What is amazing is that the rebuilding project is even ahead of schedule. This embodies the spirit and the drive by all the people involved in the project united together in their belief of bringing back to the city their superstar, the icon, the one building that represents the hope, the joy and the enduring spirit of New Orleans.

Some of the Superdome improvements include new video board system, remodeling of 38 permanent concessions stands and all 3 kitchens, upgrading of 8,000 Club Level sideline seats and 4,000 Box Suite seats, and fully remodeled 137 suites and 4 Club Lounges (final completion in 2007).

The most notable renovation was removing about 10 acres of the old roof and replacing it with a brand new roof.

Superdome's new roof is now the new icon of New Orleans - one that signifies that "New Orleans is coming back". "It proclaims the resolve of New Orleanians to rebuild and restore the unique character of one of America’s great cities."

In words of the Governor Kathleen Blanco: "What I’m looking at here is nothing short of a miracle and is symbolic of the great rebirth that this city and this state are experiencing......It (the rebuilding of the Superdome) absolutely proves that the people of Louisiana have the strength, fortitude and dedication to overcome what no other people in this nation have had to endure.”

The Louisiana Superdome - Best Building Innovation of 2006

Acknowledgements:
The Superdome website

Originally published: September 2006
Republished: February 2010, to celebrate New Orleans Saints Super Bowl Victory

Try out the new weekly report view

The Report Center team is happy to announce the arrival of a frequently requested feature – weekly reports. The new weekly report view aggregates your report data on a weekly basis, making it easy for you to see how your account, campaigns, Ad Groups, ads, keywords, or URLs performed each week. Since the "start day" of a week can vary depending on individual needs, you can define your week (e.g. Mon. to Sun. or Wed. to Tue.) when creating a weekly report.

When daily data is too specific and monthly data too broad, weekly may be just right – check it out in the Report Center today.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

Focus on your content -- we'll do the rest

Provide a great user experience, and the money will follow. We've found this to be true time and time again with our own products and services. For publishers like you, this starts with offering content that's meaningful to your visitors. The more you can focus on your core asset -- your site's content -- the more successful you can be with AdSense.

We just launched a service that can help you spend less time, energy, and money on one of the biggest distractions for publishers: maintaining IT systems. Google Apps for Your Domain lets you offer powerful communication and collaboration tools including Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk to everyone with an account on your own domain, people within your organization and/or members of your community. You can private-label the interfaces to make them your own, and best of all, everything is managed on Google's scalable, secure systems, just like AdSense. No servers to install or maintain, no spam upgrades to think about, and no special software required.

And sticking with our own credo to focus on the user experience above all else, Google Apps for Your Domain is free. Learn more and get started here.




Posted by Jeremy Milo - Product Marketing Manager for Google Apps for Your Domain

Finally Revealed: The Essential Guide to Data Entry Home Business

Essential Guide to Data Entry Home Business
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.payitforward4profits.com


In May 2004, a survey conducted by the US Labor Department showed that 20.7 million Americans, 16 years old and older, did some type of home-based work as part of their primary means of living. A significant portion of that, about 2 million, offered professional business services, which include data entry. More and more people are taking that bold step to strike a balance between family and work. The most common solution: data entry home business. Read this article to know all about it.

Right smack in the middle of the Information Age, data entry home businesses have been on the rise since 2001. Companies need to handle enormous amount of information on a daily basis, thus the need for data entry personnel to process them. If left untouched, corporations will need to contend with massive paperwork that tend to take up valuable office space. They may also lose data, information, and revenue in the process. By staying abreast with all the data and keeping their records organized, businesses resort to the data entry industry to augment their labor and ensure continuation of their businesses.

The main equipment used in the Information Age is a computer. That box which churns out words and numbers faster than you can imagine. If you have one at your home, then you are already riding the wave. However, having one is not the key to being successful at data entry home business. You must be an EXPERT at using it. Ensure proper training and practice especially on word processors and spreadsheet applications as well as audio processing software used in transcription.

Work of data entry varies from simple name and address entry into a list or database to more challenging work as medical transcription. One thing is common in all of them: All can be done at home.

Data entry inputers or keyers create lists of information like numbers, names, addresses and the like. The data is keyed into forms that show up on the computer screen. They are also tasked to edit existing information or spot errors in existing entries, like proofreading.

Word processing involves preparing letters, professional reports, etc. Most companies provide templates or standard formats for all documents that will be processed, so that makes the work easier. For more experienced data entry processors, they can handle more complicated work like spreadsheets, statistical tables, legal transcriptions and medical transcriptions.

Potential earning from full-time data entry work range from $30,000 to $50,000 a month. With such a high earning potential, why do you have to leave home? Make a living by doing the data entry home business.

About the Author:
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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
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Come on Tim - stop complaining and use a Travel Agent

Yesterday I spoke of the difficulties in booking a combined London and Tel Aviv trip and longed for the old direct access to Galileo.

Good comment was posted in response -

"Here's a wild concept, Try a Travel Agent Amazing when you delegate this sort of task how much more time one has to spend with family..."

It is a good point - but - I am. I use a great corporate travel agency - Fcm. Worked with them in my old job and very happy to bring them across to my new company. I find that as a heavy user business traveller I cannot get the service I need as an online only self booker. That might sound hypocritical given my rants about trying to book leisure travel offline but hear me out.

There a couple of things that a great corporate agent gives me that I can't do on my own online:

• pricing - despite all the advances in loading of net fares and search and matching technology I have not found a site that gives me access to the cream of the negotiated business class fares, especially those that are more complicated that London or San Fran return and even more so now that I am in a very small company (6 people). This is certainly the case ex-Australia but I think is also true if I was based in Europe or the US;
• panic in the middle of the night service - I have had half a dozen occasions in which I have had to find someone to speak to out of business hours to fix a big problem: stranded in Paris trying to get home on a Friday with Heathrow shut-down due to a fuel spill; re-routed to Brisbane due to fog; called on a Saturday morning by boss needing me to be in London by Monday morning etc....; and
  
• billing, expensing and reporting - I know that the various corporate arms of Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and more have great compliance and expensing mechanisms but none of those are available in Australia.

They are the good points. On the bad side, I find that the individual agents (while very responsive) are not as upto date in their knowledge of non-conventional routings. With each complicated booking combination I find that I have to send suggestions as to which routing to take and airline to use. So while the "panic in the middle of the night" service is fantastic from a good corporate agent, the "find the creative/crazy options" service is not. This is why I want Galileo/GDS access to search and explore. Leads to a product recommendation for corporate travel providers - self booking tools and nice but for complicated users like me I would love:

• web access to itineraries that can be stored on multiple devices and feed into outlook;
• search tool that looks at native GDS for scheduling options (no need to prove availability and pricing); and
• hotel review information

Of course - if you want this level of service you have to be prepared to pay more for it in service fees...I am.

UPDATE - Anonymous commentator recommended that I save time and follow the advice in this link - oh that I could. (link fell off the comment page so am reposting here)

Unlocking the relationship between CTR and earnings

Here's an AdSense mystery worthy of intrepid detective Veronica Mars: Why are increases in clickthrough rate (CTR) sometimes accompanied by decreases in earnings per click?

Occasionally, we hear from publishers who are perplexed that their earnings don't change despite an increase in CTR. This phenomenon can seem inexplicable, and when it happens, publishers may suspect that 'smart pricing' has taken effect, or that Google is making revenue share changes. What's really going on?

AdSense is unique because it's designed to maximize eCPM for our publishers, taking into account both the advertiser's cost-per-click (CPC) bid and the likelihood that the ad will be clicked. Some ads are attractive to a broad range of site visitors and will be clicked on more frequently. While this can be great for your CTR, advertisers are often bidding less for these kinds of broadly targeted ads. Other ads are attractive only to a small niche of users. Advertisers will typically pay more for these tightly targeted ads, but those ads are also less likely to get clicked.

Depending on ad inventory, you may see some days on which AdSense will show a lot of high CTR/low CPC variety ads. On other days, you may see the reverse. If you see this correlation in your own AdSense reports, keep in mind that we're always working hard to maximize revenue for our publishers. One aspect of that is being able to best take advantage of the earnings characteristics of different kinds of ads.

Posted by Bryan Vu - AdSense Optimization Team

The Disruptive Innovation Gap

When does a Business become a dominant business in its market, achieve outright market leadership, and continue the market growth onwards and upwards.

Answer: Innovation.

Innovation driven by creativity and excellence in products, operations, and distribution.

Christensen's Hypothesis

According to Clayton Christensen, author of "Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fall", companies that become attached to "Sustaining Innovation" eventually disappear or lose their market leadership position. "Sustaining Innovation" is innovation derived from evolving the current product, serving profitable customers' needs, and focusing on investments driven by profit margins. On the other hand, companies that drive "Disruptive Innovation" create new markets with opportunistic and creative Innovation, take away market shares from existing players of "Sustaining Innovation", and eventually become market share leaders. "Disruptive Innovation" is derived from creating simple, easy to use products that appeal to the low-end of the market, or a new, untapped market. Frequently "Sustaining Innovation" companies are driven up-market in a response to the low-end "Disrupting Innovation" players thus relegating them to a smaller segment of the market.

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Christensen observes that as the market need evolves from early market to market maturity, the performance requirement associated with use and adoption of products by the broader market changes, and companies that are only focused on "Sustaining Innovation" typically do not react to this change. These companies are serving the needs of their current customers (profits), and frequently, these customers are not representative of the broader market. Even though these companies know about this change in customer habits and needs, they are not in any position to re-define themselves to embrace this changing market environment. On the other hand, companies driving "Disruptive Innovation" frequently observe this change in customer adoption, and create innovative products for the low-end market or a particular untapped market that allow them to achieve leadership.

Further, Disruption and Commoditization happen in parallel - so for the companies attached to "Sustaining Innovation", it is a double whammy - lose market to Disruption and lose profits to Commoditization. What ends up happening is the "Sustaining Innovation" company creating a product that is too good for the broader market and hence cannot command the premium price any more. On the other hand, the Disruptor, who is not worried about price margins, provides a product that is initially focused on the low-end market need or a particular unserved market segment, and begins capturing market share.

Some Questions

What happens to the "Disruptive Innovator" as we travel in time and as the markets evolve?

When and how does the "Disruptive Innovator" overtake the "Sustaining Innovator" ?

How does the market share for the "Disruptive Innovator" grow beyond the market share of the "Sustaining Innovator"?

To understand this further, let us look at the chart below titled "The Innovation Gap". (This is a variation from the model discussed by Christensen; I have tried to piece together the underlying concept)

The X axis is the "Time" axis, the Y axis is the "Evolution" axis.
The chart showcases Market Need, Sustaining Innovator, and Disruptive Innovator. For chart simplicity, the Market Need and associated Market Growth is demonstrated on a straight line (a bell curve, or variable curve could be used instead).

Early Lead

The "Sustaining Innovator" or the Sustainer has the Early Lead in the Early Market. It has launched its product at point in time "X" as shown in the chart, a product that not only meets the current need of the customers in the Early Market, but also exceeds it. As a matter of fact, the Sustainer continues meeting this need of the Early Market customers, and some of the need of the Emerging Market customers as the market evolves.

The Disruptive Innovator or the Disruptor is not even present when the Sustainer began marketing its product to the Early Market customers at a point in time "X" on the chart. The Sustainer has this Early Lead on the Disruptor, both in terms of Market and Innovation, until the Disruptor launches its own product at point in time "Y" as shown in the chart.

First Innovation Gap

The Gap exists wherein the Sustainer has simply better Innovation than the Disruptor at the "Y" point of time in the Market evolution, has better understanding of the customer and has greater market share. We call this Gap, the "First Innovation Gap". The Sustainer has the lead on the Disruptor. It is precisely this Gap that drives the Disruptor to create new Innovation that is simple, easy to use and at relatively better price points. The Disruptor targets the low-end of the market or an untapped market. The Disruptor remains "under the radar" for some time as it starts building up this market that the Sustainer largely ignores (for the Sustainer is focused elsewhere, on the larger profitable customers, and meeting their needs).

Of course, this type of "First Innovation Gap" is not simply associated in the Early Market. It could happen at any stage of the Market. The Sustainer will have this Early Lead on the Disruptor always at some point in time.

While the Sustainer is Innovating at a different pace and trajectory serving the needs of its profitable and larger customers, and focused on profitable investments, the Disrupter is Innovating at a faster pace and trajectory serving the needs of the broader market, and creating new market share. The Disruptor has created Innovation that has a broader market appeal, owing to the simplicity and ease of use, and relatively better price points.

Innovation Parity

At point in time "Z" of the market evolution, the Disruptor has caught up with the Sustainer in Innovation, albeit on separate trajectories. We call this intersection as the "Innovation Parity". As is evident, it took the Disruptor less time to get to "Innovation Parity". The "Innovation Parity" is a significant milestone for both the Disruptor and the Sustainer - for the Sustainer has larger market share and profits at this point in time of the market evolution. The Disruptor has a growing share of the market and is also seeing some profits. And both the Disruptor and Sustainer are now matched up in terms of Innovation. The Sustainer's Innovation and market growth is tapered as it crosses the "Innovation Parity". The Sustainer has lost its market pulse and eye on the market, and is now losing head to head versus the Disruptor in its current market and customer base. The Sustainer has seen the growth of the Disruptor and growth of the broader market. However, the Sustainer has not changed with the changing environment and changing customer need. On the other hand, the Disruptor's Innovation and market growth is aligned and even faster than the pace of the market as it crosses the "Innovation Parity". The Disruptor is gaining significant market share, competing and winning head-on versus the Sustainer, and is beginning to create a Market Lead over the Sustainer.

Second Innovation Gap

What begins to emerge after the "Innovation Parity" is the "Second Innovation Gap". The Disruptor continues its Innovation momentum, is in tune with the market need, is winning consistently against the Sustainer, and has increased the market share. The Disruptor becomes the new market share leader at point in time "T" as shown in the chart. The Sustainer has fallen behind in Innovation, lost the momentum, is losing consistently against the Disruptor and lost the market leadership. The "Second Innovation Gap" is much wider than the "First Innovation Gap". For most Sustainers, the "Second Innovation Gap" is Game, Set, Match for the Disruptor that caused the Second Gap in the first place. The Disruptor is the newly crowned market leader and will remain the market leader for the longest time. This is not to say that the Sustainer cannot turn its Innovation and Growth trajectory and has the potential to itself become the Disruptor. However, as with the laws of probability, the probability for the same Sustainer to turn around and become a Disruptor again is minimal at best. Rather it is likely that the newly crowned Disruptor and market leader will at some point in time become complacent, become a Sustainer and leave the door open for a new Disruptor to come from behind. This could happen with a shift in the market, shift in customer need, significant market events, and significant new Innovation. And the Innovation Cycle continues.

How easy is it to cause Disruptive Innovation?

According to Christensen, Disruptive Innovation necessitates a disparate strategy process - not on what is already known to work, and incremental improvements. The process is driven by Creativity, unconventional and out-of-the-box thought, and without any anticipation. Further, the process design does not begin with addressing the needs of current customers (this is what the Sustainer does); rather the process design targets what's underneath the need. What drives customers to do what they do. Where is the unanticipated need? And finally, Disruptive Innovators are not profit driven - at least not initially. Their focus is on creating something of intrinsic value that will apppeal to a much larger market, yet is intuitive, easy to use and simple.

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

If you enjoyed reading this Creativity best practice, I recommend the complete list of Creativity Innovation Best Practices.

Acknowledgements

Clayton M. Christensen - The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, Seeing What's Next

Strangely, I am missing GDS access

I try to cram all of my business travel into the shortest amount of time to minimise days away from the family. Has resulted in some interesting itineraries in the past including a 4 hour layover in Istanbul airport, a 10 hour backtrack from Greece to Australia via Frankfurt and manufacturing an red eye flight from Sydney to Singapore (much harder than it sounds).

I have a new trip I am working on that I did not think would be hard but is proving frustratingly hard to figure out. Across a five day week I want to spend two days in London and two days in Tel Aviv (with a day in between to travel between the two). This should be easy - Tel Aviv is only 5.5 hours from London and almost in a straight line from Sydney. However the benefits of this geography are not reflected in airline schedules or the politics of the Middle East. Therefore I am struggling to find a way that does not involve going through London both ways - which means leaving on a Saturday not a Sunday, increases the security delays and therefore costs a lot of time. I have tried a few of the new generation websites and information destinations for tips - but have found nothing.

Have found myself missing the access to native Galileo that I had in my old job where I was able to look deep into airline schedules without the biasing and deal dependencies that exist in the online travel agent world. Wow...I just said that I missed GDS access...who'd have thought it.

How to put up a Home Business without Spending a Fortune

How to put up a Home Business without Spending a Fortune
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.payitforward4profits.com

The cost of putting up a home business need not be extravagant. In fact putting up a home business from home is a lot cheaper than renting an office space or shop downtown. Many entrepreneurs often do not have much money in their pocket to start a large business from home. However, just having a dream is sometimes the biggest capital one needs to start a business from home.

However like any business enterprise, cost is a major consideration that should not be left unrestrained. Many people that go into business for themselves tend to lose track and start spending on a variety of items even before the business has had the chance to take off. Before starting a home business, it is best to create a financial plan that will incorporate where the money should be invested first in order to make a profit.

Putting up a home business should be approached with caution. Heading into the home business without taking into account costs and income will only lead to failure. Remember to be prudent with regards to expenses so as not to go over board and at the same allow the business to grow steadily and strong.

Tips to Cut Costs of Putting Up a Home Business

The costs involved in putting up a home business will depend largely on the type of business. However in most cases, entrepreneurs can start using most of the items already found within the home to help cut down on costs. Most homes today already have a slew of technical equipment like computers, printers, and fax machines. These items will be sufficient enough to cover some of the basic office equipment until substantial profits are met. In fact, using these items can cut down the initial cost of putting up a home business by about half.

As much as possible, keep extras to a minimum such as business cards, stationary as well as supplies. Although it can be exciting to have one’s own name on a card as business owner or manager, the costs of these items can add up to a considerable amount when ordered at a professional shop. Fortunately, there are numerous software graphics programs that are simple enough for even a non-technical person to operate.

The cost of advertising a home business is another expense that most entrepreneurs can keep at a minimum. The World Wide Web is a wonderful medium to advertise a home business as it does not cost much to set-up a website.

About the Author:
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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
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Disclosure and Comments Policy - Updated

This is my personal blog. If you want to know who I am look at my linkedin profile.

The views in this blog are mine and not the views of Orbitz World Wide (OWW) or HotelClub. I am not a spokesperson for OWW or HotelClub and neither OWW nor HotelClub endorse any material, content and/or links or assume any liability for any of my actions.

If you would like to comment on any story on this blog please do. The settings are such that anonymous comments are accepted and will be automatically published un-moderated. However I will delete anything that is defamatory, spam, nonsensical or full of vitriol/personal insults.

Ten Percent of Sales from Innovation

Here's a great story that appeared in Ireland's Top Business Site, Business World.

According to the Irish Industrial Policy Body Forfas, "Firms in Ireland reckon that 10 percent of their turnover (sales) is due to product innovation."

This is a great testimony to the role of Creativity and Innovation in Business.

"A total of 34.6 Billion Euro was estimated to be a result of product innovation between 2002 and 2004," says Forfas. "This amounted to 10.1 percent of total turnover (sales) in 2004."

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

Forfas further revealed that:
"29.1 Billion Euro of this came from firms in the industrial sector, and 5.5 Billion Euro from the services sector."

Industrial sector is big on innovation since it contributed 17.1 percent of its sales from Innovation, whereas the Services sector of the business only contributed 3.1 percent of the sales owing to Innovation.

This further validates the successful role that Innovation and Creativity plays towards topline sales growth.

Forfas further claims that 52.2 percent of all businesses were "Innovation Active", meaning that some portion of their sales resulted from successful product innovation.

What were the top issues that blocked or compromised innovation?

Companies surveyed indicated "lack of funds, high costs of innovation and lack of skills." This could mean that some companies are either not profitable, have minimum profits or perhaps losing money that they are not able to fund innovation. Or some companies have done their homework and believe the cost of innovating is considerable, and perhaps detrimental to their current growth plans. Finally, companies may not have sufficient creative talent that can help fuel the innovation.

Forfas defined Innovation quite broadly to include R and D, engineering development work, purchases of machinery, software acquisition, purchases of external knowledge and training, and design and marketing - essentially new development or new investments that fueled new growth.

Forfas rightfully claims that "The percent of total turnover from new-to-market product innovations is an indicator of creativity and novelty across the economy." Indeed.

What percent of your sales are contributed by Innovation? Is it more than ten percent? Do you even track your sales to Innovation? And what hinders Innovation at your company?

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

For the complete story, please click here.

AdWords 101: Setting up a campaign (Part 2 of 2)

Now that summer has drawn to a close, it's time to get back into the classroom and learn more about the basics of AdWords. In our last AdWords 101 post before the summer, we discussed how to set up a keyword-targeted campaign. Today, we'll finish up this two-part post by discussing how to set up a site-targeted campaign. To begin let's first explore how keyword-targeted campaigns are different from site-targeted ones; the most important differences include how the ads are targeted, where your ads appear, how you are charged for the ads, and which ad types can be used.

With site-targeted campaigns, you choose specific sites, not keywords, where you would like your ads to appear. Ads will only appear on sites within the Google content network, and not on Google.com or Google's search network. In addition, site-targeted campaigns are priced by CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) -- that is, you set the price you'd like to pay for each 1,000 impressions the ad receives. Clicks do not factor into the price you pay; you will be charged whenever the ad is shown to a user.

How do you know if a site-targeted campaign is right for you? Site-targeted campaigns can be a good option for businesses that want to promote an existing brand or a new product to a large audience. But they also work for small advertisers who want to reach a very precise audience; for example, if you sell fishing gear, you may want to target your ads specifically to sites that fishing enthusiasts visit frequently. The best way to gauge if site targeting is right for you is to set up a campaign and experiment to see what works best.



To get started with a site-targeted campaign, click the "site-targeted" link next to "Create a new campaign" on your Campaign Summary page. The setup wizard will then run you through each step to creating your site-targeted campaign; here are a few tips:

1) You'll find that the first few steps in the setup wizard are almost identical to those of the keyword-targeted campaign setup process. As with keyword-targeted campaigns, you'll want to choose a descriptive title so that you can locate it easily in your list of campaigns.

2) When asked about your language and location targeting preferences, be sure to consider where your potential customers are located, and what language(s) they may speak. If your product or service is only available to customers in a specific geographical location, you may want to target your ads to users in that location only. (Even though you're targeting a specific site, we'll only show your ad on this site to users in your specified location).

3) With site-targeted campaigns, you also have the option of creating an image ad. Image ads can be created in a variety of standard sizes, and you can read more on the specifics of image ad guidelines and requirements. (Note: Video ads have a separate setup process, which is outlined here.)

4) The next screen takes you to the Site Tool. You have a variety of options when it comes to choosing the actual sites for your campaigns:

• Browse categories - you can browse categories such as "Beauty and Personal Care" or "Health" to select specific sites from a list generated by Google


• Describe topics - you can enter specific terms such as "organic hair care products" or "diabetes" to see a list of sites that are related to those topics


• List URLs - if you have specific websites in mind, you can enter them here to find out if they are available on the Google Network to display your ads


• Select demographics - you can choose to target a specific demographic audience, or you can choose options such as gender, age, household income and ethnicity. This option is only available for campaigns targeting the US.
  

When the list of suggested sites is displayed, you can click to add individual sites or all of the suggested sites to your list of selected sites shown on the right hand side.

5) The "Set Pricing" step will review the list of sites you've selected, and indicate which sites will accept text ads, image ads, or both. This is also where you'll be able to select your daily budget for this campaign, and specify your max CPM. Recall that site-targeted campaigns are priced per-thousand impressions, and not per click.

6) After choosing your budget and max CPM, you'll be taken to a review page so that you can confirm all of your campaign setup selections. Hit "Save Campaign" at the bottom.

7) Please be aware that your site-targeted campaigns, which show only on the content network, must be reviewed and approved before they will begin running.

Here are some additional topics in the AdWords Help Center that you may find useful:

• What is Site Targeting?
• Site Targeting Overview
• About the Content Network
• Image Ads Overview
• Video Ads Overview

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew