BOMST - More money for Farecast

Thanks to Techcrunch - fare compare with a twist site Farecast had raised a monster sized $12.1 million in their second round of funding. Still in beta (though it is of course very cool to be in beta), Farecast's claim to fame is that as well as providing fare meta-search it aims to predict whether or not fares will go up or down. Currently covers departures from 75 US cities (all domestic results). Great idea and with more than $20mm raised so far, there is plenty more to be spent making this come true. The VP of Marketing and Product Development has an interesting blog of his own. While it is updated only frequently, you will find a link in my blog roll on the right hand side (or here).

Downside of independent property listings

Nice little legal battle is engulfing some of Sydney's "elite" over desires to list apartments for short term leases (ie a week or so) on online hotel sites. The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting on an imminent court battle between a number of owners of apartments at the AEA Grand building in Sydney's Darling Harbour and the City of Sydney Council over zoning. The owners want to rent out their apartments by the week, the Council wants to stop them and Wotif.com is caught in the middle (according to the SMH article but I could not find a listing on Wotif of the AEA Grand).

Is an example of the regulatory and operational problems that have been hitting a number of the extranet only, flexible data structure online hotel players like Wotif.com, RatesToGo.com and Priceline's Activehotels in accessing and supporting rentals of independent property inventory. It does not take much for a property owner to put up a property for rent of sites like these - a couple of photographs, text, rates and a process for picking up a key. It is hard and expensive for the product/inventory managers at the sites to verify the legality of using the premises for short stay. If lawyer had to be involved in every approach from an independent property then hotel acquisition would grind to a halt. But you cannot ignore this inventory - independent properties are the last frontier of sale online.

The answer is:

• for product/inventory managers to be trained on how to minimise the risks (ie reject private homes, search the web for other listings and yank the property as soon as there is a hint of problems);
  
• to prepare the customer care team with an action plan for dealing with customers that are stung by a lock-out; and
• develop new products for supplier access. The "old fashioned" extranet approach needs to be reworked to support a property that has only one room.
  

Web Conferencing and Your Home-Based Business

This actually is a neat tool to use. While I have not used it myself, I have particpated in a few web conferences and liked it. Here is why using this resource is powerful.

Web Conferencing
By Butch Hamilton

Web conferencing will be the subject of my article today. You might ask what is my area of expertise in choosing to write an article about web conferencing and web conferencing software? I have used the online conference room for training in Veretekk. I have been a guest lecturer for several online businesses and I find that the environment of the online conference is a very good tool to use to convey thoughts and push pages to large groups of people.

My primary function is an seo specialist. I have been involved in internet activities for quite some time. I find that online meetings are a great way to be in contact with people in all sorts of online endeavors. MLM companies that have decided to walk away from conventional teleconferences and moved into the 21st century of the web meetings, are being much more effective. They can hold training sessions and the capability of recording these sessions give an even greater value to the people wanting to learn how to more effectively grow their online businesses.

While the subject of online meeting groups is a huge category on Google, there is no doubt that many companies are seeing the utility value to their companies. The telecommunications community is growing steadily. What once was novel is now the commonplace among the giants of the web conferencing industry. Finding the particular service that is suited to the small online business person takes due diligence, but the effort is well worth it when the systems are found. Like any online service, it may take users some time before really seeing the full benefit of internet conferencing.

I think that it is a great tool from the aspect of being able to send people a link and simply having them login to the conference room. It gives the internet marketer of today the ability to grow a global business without spending a fortune on long distance calling across the big waters. The use of online conferencing systems has caused by seo business to become global. At virtually no cost to the people logging into the systems, this value is even becomes greater. I can meet with my potential seo clients and push results pages to them for them to view and it gives an almost one on one atmosphere. It also allows them to express their goals and aspirations for their particular online projects. Its a win-win situation.

If anyone is searching for the best online conferencing tools and services available, you can literally be overwhelmed by all the systems online. It will take time to check each one thoroughly before spending huge amounts of money. The really great online conferencing systems available are really not expensive in terms of earning value for the room owners. In my opinion, you need to find stable and reliable web conferencing systems that are designed with the user in mind. Some systems that I have seen are highly technical with very time consuming back office administration functions. One almost needs to be a programmer to walk through a simple online meeting.

I look for the system that is the most cost effective and has the best back office features. I also look for the whiteboard capacity, as I find this one of the most appealing of all the webinar systems I have considered. You actually have the ability to write on the whiteboard screen with a simulated pencil, or you can place check marks beside key areas that you wish people to view. I think that this amazing technology is amazing and I wonder why more people are not taking full advantage in the online community of features that will assist them in building a significant online business.

If you truly are building a strong online global business, the conference room systems of today are for you. You will be amazed at your possibilities with them. You need to search for the best value at the best price. I can tell you that once you begin to use an online conference room, the telephone will become a thing of the past.

Butch Hamilton is an SEO Specialist. His record stands heads above the competition.

Mr. Hamilton is also a trainer for the internet marketing training system known as Veretekk. He learned his trade from Tom Prendergast, owner and founder of the phenomenal internet marketing system.

Mr. Hamilton works in close contact with Tom to provide the members of the Veretekk system with essential techniques and strategies that allow them great results in Google marketing.

Butch Hamilton
806-874-3314
806-205-0648
vereconference@butchhamilton.com
http://butchhamiltonsays.com
http://vereconference.com

Flight Centre - doing in right in corporate travel

e-travel blackboard are reporting that Flight Centre's corporate travel management arm - FCm - have made a play for the east coast market in the US with the acquisition of a 25% stake in Garber Travel Services. I have been (rightly) critical of Flight Centre's mistakes in the online market, however as both a consumer and observer of business travel I believe they have made a number of smart strategic and tactical moves in the corporate market - so while I do not know Garber Travel Services, I congratulate FCm on continuing their expansion. As a consumer of travel I have a previously commented (here) on FCm's great service and the need for an air-warrior/warrioress to have a strong travel management company - even in this age of online. As an observer, Flight Centre have managed to acquire and integrate a number of smaller travel management company with little or no observable integration headaches, maintaining standards and bringing scale and savings.

Have to end this quote with a "curse you Google" moment. Is it just me or is publishing using Blogger becoming a risky business. This is the second time I had to write this post due to Blogger eating the last attempt.

Blogger fighting airline delays

Blogger and real estate broker Kate Hanni is angry - and with every right. She and 100 other passengers were on diverted flight AA 1358 from San Francisco to Dallas. The flight ended up in Austin Texas due to bad weather. The plane, passengers and crew were stranded on the tarmac with no way out or off for more than 8 hours. Bottled water and substantive food quickly ran out and it was down to pretzels and that crappy water in the toilet taps. Kate is leading a charge in the US for legislation to protect consumers here. Here is her blog and here is an article in the NY Times on the story. The airline says

“There is some dispute over exactly how dire the circumstance were on that flight. I do have flight attendants reports saying no toilets overflowed. We ran out of bottled water but we still had plenty of drinking water.”

Another piece of brilliance in airline customer service. You are a customer stranded on an American Airlines plane - no real food, no bottled water, no way off, surrounded by screaming kids, receiving irregular updates on what may or may not be happening, dreading the stench from the toilets and the passengers etc etc etc - but according to the airline there is uncertainty as to how bad things were.

I have almost been there. On a trip last July from Sydney to New York I had the "pleasure" of AA from San Fran to NY. We landed in NY ahead of a storm but were stranded on the tarmac for three and half hours waiting for the lightening to clear to allow the ground crew to return to work. That was a tough period - especially as we were 50 meters from our destination - I can only imagine how bad it would have been for more than twice that time. On a good day you cannot find a seat on an AA flight that anyone would describe as good.

Customize the columns in your account

Are there certain statistics in your account that you don't need to see each time you log in? Now, you can use our Customizable Columns feature to choose the columns you'd like to view. Simply select the new 'Customize Columns' link from the Campaign Summary, Campaign Detail, and/or Ad Group Detail page, and indicate which column you'd like to hide. The column selected will immediately stop showing and will remain hidden until you choose to unhide it.

And, if you decide that you'd like to view this column again in the future, simply select the 'Customize Columns' link again and choose to unhide the column. Check it out below:



Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

Top Ten Creative Leadership Traits

Creative leaders continually meet new challenges, and recognize and pursue new opportunities through bold innovations.

What are the top ten characteristics and traits of Creative Leaders?

1. Great at generating many ideas – innovative, game changing and even commonplace.
2. Always looking to experiment with good ideas. Sometimes, trying out a few times.
3. Unwavering belief in their creativity and innovation, coupled with originality in thinking.
4. Smart and bright with a positive self-image. More often, they are not born geniuses.
5. Passionate, expressive and sensitive to their teams, colleagues and surroundings.
6. Demonstrate superior judgment, and do not make quick decisions (although have a gut feel).
7. Non-conformists and independent, requiring less social approval than most people.
8. Innate ability to understand and solve the problem, and manage the consequences.
9. Born dreamers with strong imagination; however, manage to keep things in perspective.
10. Create and launch game changing products meeting a high level of quality and design.

Which creative leaders demonstrate these qualities among the top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index?

Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc., immediately comes to mind with market leading innovations including iPod, iMac and soon to be launched iPhone.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, developed the innovative search technology that provides relevant answers which went on to become the world’s largest search engine.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, made the world’s largest online bookstore and the most popular online retail site.

Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of eBay, changed the face of Internet commerce in 1995 when he launched eBay which went on to become the world’s largest marketplace.

A.G. Lafley, CEO of Proctor & Gamble, states: “Great leaders create conditions that get people organized to attack problems. They help others learn how to think, how to exercise judgment and how to take action.” (at a Kellogg event)

Michael Dell, founder and chairman of Dell, who always thought big, and made Dell the number one computer company, and is on a mission to connect the next billion people all over the world.

Jim Donald, president and CEO of Starbucks, who is fanatical about communicating using his Treo, replies to every email, returns calls at 6 a.m., and always stays close to the customers.

How about Steve Ballmer, CEO, and Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, who made Microsoft the world's largest software company.

Every CEO and founder of the Top 20 Innovators on The Innovation Index is a Creative Leader.
As Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, once said:

“I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.”

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

References:
eCornell: Leading through Creativity

Google Groups re-groups and revamps

If you're a participant in the AdSense Help Forum or if you read AdSense blog posts on Google Groups, you've probably noticed that Google Groups has a completely new look. But it's not just the colors and the layout that have changed; there are also a number of exciting new features you can take advantage of.

First, we've added more customization options for Group owners. As the owner of a Group, you now have the ability to change the look and feel of your pages by specifying a color scheme and logo. You can also collaborate with your members by creating web pages together -- members can then view and edit the pages.

In addition, Group members can interact with each other in new ways. You can now upload and share files such as photos and word documents with other members. Want to let other members know more about you? Create a profile complete with a bio, a picture, and a quote.

The new version of Google Groups is available in more than a dozen languages -- visit today to join or create your own Group.

Posted by Griff Hazen - Software Engineer

Little Blue Box: Big Business Tech for Everyone

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing, Google Enterprise

Just two years ago we made enterprise search technology accessible to small business when we released the Google Mini, and it was only last April that we revamped the Mini with a new design and more powerful features. And yet, we were convinced that we could deliver even more technology and a better experience to our users.

Today we're pleased to announce some Mini innovations that mean large improvements for the Mini's use on your intranet or public website. We've also added features that will let you search the business applications across your enterprise for an affordable price - big business power in the same Mini package.

The most frequent request we heard from our intranet users was the ability to search across various data sources that weren't websites. We previously introduced a feature called OneBox for Enterprise in the Google Search Appliance, and now our engineers have squeezed it into the Mini's small but powerful package. OneBox allows users to search across various systems -- Salesforce.com, Oracle, and Cognos to name just a few -- all from the same search box. Results are delivered in real time.

We also introduced the notion of document-level security into the search results. The Mini can crawl and serve search results for sites protected by HTTP Basic and NTLM v1 and v2 security and can integrate with your LDAP system. This enables both authentication and authorization at serve time, so you can make sure individual users see only the results they have clearance to access.

For those customers who use the Mini on public websites, we integrated with Google's webmaster tools. A new administrative interface makes it simple to add Google Analytics tracking code to your search pages, so you can better understand how visitors search your website. And to help Google.com more accurately index your public website, the Mini auto-generates a Sitemap file that helps us learn which pages are most important to you and how often those pages change.

Existing customers can upgrade their Google Minis through our support website. If you don't already have a Mini, check it out.

Qantas Entertainment - a Very Obvious Defect (VOD)

I have already bored/amused you with my stories on how bad the roll out and performance of the new Qantas VOD/entertainment system has been (they are calling it simply "Q"). As a quick reminder, Qantas launched a new VOD system about a year ago claiming that it was a revolution in airline entertainment. Never mind that the system as described was at best on par with that offered by Cathay Pacific and Singapore but realistically still behind the great offerings from those airlines, the real issue was that the system never worked. It crashed on every flight I was on within an hour of launch. My experience was by no means isolated as similar stories were retold by other flyers in Qantas Clubs around the globe.

I am used to Qantas management being immune to the complaints and comments of its customers. Now however there is news from the Qantas cabin crew that they are suffering significant abuse from customers due the constant failures of the system. The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that this is resulting in stress related issues and physical illness. As a result on Jan 19 the cabin crew association wrote to management to alert them of the constant abuse and failures. Here is the response in the article from the manager in charge David Cox (E-GM of Engineering)

"As with any complex system there have been some technical issues,...The problems usually involve a small number of seats and the passenger can be moved to a different seat in these cases. We are dedicating considerable resources to address these reliability issues, including through the supplier Rockwell Collins."

In other words - this is not a big problem, if you don't like it move seats and it is the suppliers mistake not ours. Shame on you Mr Cox and shame on you Qantas. Your customers are telling you the system is busted, your staff are telling you the system is busted and the best solution you can come up with is moving seats. This is completely useless advice for two reasons. Firstly the flights I have been on the VOD system has been broken in whole sections, if not the whole plane. Secondly, I mainly fly Qantas to the US and UK. These are very busy (or monopoly routes) and I cannot remember the last time I was on a plane with spare seat. In fact I spend half my time on wait-lists in effect begging to get on a flight. My suggestion to Qantas is to can the useless, head in the sand advice and over-haul the system.

My second piece of advice is that if Qantas does not believe me that this is an issue for their customers then here is a quick test that David Cox and his team can try - dress in business casual, grab an on cabin bag and head for the nearest Qantas lounge. In the lounge blend in by grabbing a drink, sit next to the nearest bunch of flyers and start a conversation about in-air entertainment. My bet is that this will be the first time Qantas has solicited the feedback of its top flyers and I am confident the results will be along these lines "the system is crap, it never works, the Cathay and Singapore systems are better but I have to fly Qantas anyway because they dominate the routes I need to fly".

Automotive Upholstery Care

Automotive Upholstery Care by James Williams

There's nothing quite like that "new car smell", but chances are, time has caused your vehicle to smell like a combination of tennis shoes, tobacco and wet dog. There's no magic potion to regain the original luster of your car's interior, but with a little elbow grease and detailing, you can breath new life, and a fresher scent, into tired upholstery.

Automotive upholstery comes in a variety of materials and fabrics including vinyl, leather, cloth and velour. Maintaining the durability and cleanliness of automotive upholstery can be quite expensive, as many upholstery professionals charge expensive rates to remove the smallest stain. Fortunately, there are a number of inexpensive tricks that you can do to clean up the kind of minor accidents you'll encounter during your daily drive.

These automotive upholstery care tips can involve the use of common household products that are easy to use and readily available. However, you must keep in mind that major stains or marks might require the assistance of a professional automotive upholstery service to avoid further damage caused by improper treatment.

* Cleaning Automotive Upholstery
Common automotive upholstery, like many fabrics, can be easily cleaned. Eliminate all surface dust using a small vacuum, and then use a crevice tool for detailing between small cracks and spaces in the upholstery. Leather and vinyl upholstery must be cleaned using a suitable cleaning solution with protector. This added protection helps to maintain a pliable leather surface, and prolongs its beautiful appearance.

* Spills
It's bound to happen to any commuter: you hit the tiniest bump or hit the brakes, and you've got a spill on your upholstery. When it happens, try to soak up as much of the liquid from the surface of the upholstery as you can, as quickly as possible. On cloth or velour seats, use a cotton rag or wads of paper towels to soak up the liquid. You'll need to apply heavy pressure to get as much of the liquid as possible from the upholstery.

* Heavy Stains
Heavy stains can give you a heavy heart, but don't be too quick to bring out stain removing chemicals that can damage upholstery. For most colored stains on automotive upholstery, especially noticeable ones, try dabbing the affected area with a baby wipe. If that does not lift the stain, try pre-treating the spot with a little soda water.

* Odor Removal
Aside from obvious sources like spilled beverages, automotive upholstery can easily pick up odors that circulate throughout the rest of the vehicle. After a while, the scent of the upholstery itself can be quite overwhelming, even after the odorous perpetrator has long since vanished. Cigarettes, drive-thru fast food bags and even innocent cups of coffee will all leave a lasting impression. In most cases, deodorizing sprays can clear the air. Make sure that the windows are open when you spray, to let harmful fumes escape. If your stinky culprit is cigarette smoke, more drastic measures can be in order to drive the odor away. Try to snuff out the smoke smell by shampooing the carpet with a quality commercial product. If the smell persists, you'll need to seek professional help.

* Leather Upholstery Care
There is nothing more luxurious than a car with leather seats. Automotive leather is the pinnacle of upholstery options, but can also be the hardest to maintain. If your automobile is clad in leather, you've already made quite an investment, and you know that it requires meticulous care. Most leather interiors undergo more wear and tear than fine leather furniture, and require the same degree of care. As with any type of leather, automotive leather upholstery reacts unfavorably to extreme temperatures. Premature deterioration, cracked surfaces and a dull appearance can be caused by severe hot and cold, water and excess dryness.

* Spills on Leather
Unlike fabric seats, sudden spills on leather upholstery can be easily cleaned with a damp cloth. Leather upholstery must be maintained with protectant. Purchase protectant specially developed for leather automotive upholstery, and apply it regularly to preserve the supple feel and natural moisture of the leather. Your beautiful leather seats can easily become a sticky, grubby mess. Avoid build-up by wiping away surface residue and dust on a regular basis.

Automobiles are big investments, and maintaining your car will help retain its value. With proper automotive upholstery care, you'll be able to keep your automobile looking--and smelling--just like a new car.

About the Author

James Williams writes for several well-known web sites, on recreation tips and hobbies and recreation issues.

The Car Detailing Guide recommends Domains at Retail for your web site solutions!

4 Easy Ways to Boost Your Sales of Your Home-Based Business Products

Are you looking for ways to increase the sales of your home-based business products? If so, I hope these tips will help.


4 Easy Ways to Boost Your Sales

by: Bob Leduc

Here are 4 easy ways you can boost your sales for little or no new expense ...and without making major changes in your selling process.

1. Focus on What Your Customers Really Want

Your customers really don't want your products or services. They don't even want what those products or services do for them. What they really want is to gain the specific feeling they get after buying and using your products or services.

Keep this in mind when you create web pages, sales letters and other selling presentations. Emphasize the feelings produced by using your product instead of talking about what your product is - or how it works.

Tip: Convert the benefits delivered by your product or service into vivid word pictures. Then put your prospect in the picture by dramatizing what it feels like to be enjoying those benefits.

Example, if you sell financial products, describe what it feels like to enjoy an affluent life style without debt.

2. Keep Communicating With Your Previous Non-Buyers

You've heard it before - but I'll say it here again. Most prospective customers will not buy the first time they see or hear about your product or service. You're losing a lot of sales if you do not persistently follow up with those prospects.

Your follow up procedure can be as simple as periodically contacting them with a new offer. Or it can be more complex like distributing a newsletter or providing updated product information.

Tip: You cannot follow up with prospects if you don't know how to reach them. Set up a system for collecting the names and contact information of all prospects who do not buy from you.

Example, offer a special report, a list of sources or some other valuable information your prospects cannot get anywhere else. Deliver it only by email or postal mail so you can get their contact address.

3. Encourage Questions

Questions from prospects may be a nuisance. But answering them can be very profitable.

Prospective customers only take time to ask questions when they have a high level of interest in your product or service. Providing a satisfactory answer to a prospect's question often leads directly to a sale.

Invite prospects to ask questions when in live selling situations. And make it easy for them to ask questions when they are not ...such as at your web site. For example, list a phone number or email address where you or someone else can answer their questions.

Tip: Include a Questions and Answers page on your web site with answers to frequently asked questions. It will reduce the number of questions you have to answer individually.

4. Make Buying Easier

Every non-essential action in the buying process is an opportunity for the customer to reverse their decision ...causing you to lose the sale.

Look for ways you can make your buying procedure easier and faster. For example, many marketers use a multi-step shopping cart to get online orders when a simple online order form would do the job with just 1 or 2 quick clicks.

Tip: Don't ask for unnecessary information during the ordering process. Instead, send a personalized "thank you" message after the sale and include a brief request for the information.

These 4 selling tactics may not be new to you. But are you using all (or any) of them? If not, they can easily boost your sales ...for little or no new expense - and without making major changes in your sales process.

Copyright 2004 Bob Leduc

http://BobLeduc.com

About The Author Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards ...and launched *BizTips from Bob*, a newsletter to help small businesses grow and prosper. You'll find his low-cost marketing methods at: http://BobLeduc.com or call: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

Free Targeted Traffic

Ok, so here's the thing.Somebody said you should start your own home business.You need to start developing residual income.So you took the plunge and signed up as an affiliate with XYZ company.You found out they give you a website with a url that you are supposed to market so you can sell products or sign other people up with.The only problem is the url is big and long and not search engine friendly.Don't get discouraged with your new online business.You have a couple of choices here.So you did some research and you heard it was a good thing to have a website.After checking into it with various website building companies you discovered this can be a bit of a bottomless money pit and you weren't sure about this route.After all you haven't even made your first sale yet.

Sadly I have watched this happen a few times.People who are naive spend a whole bunch of money setting up a website only to find they can't afford it in the long run and two months down the road they are gone.The truth is an internet business is not an overnight thing.In the beginning of your journey you are going to have to wade through a river of bald face liars to get to what really works or what the truth really is.Every time you hear phrases like "make a thousand a day " or "we do all the work" or even"we will generate $100,000 in business for you or your money back" you ought to take a step back and slap yourself across the face(like Jim Carey did in the washroom of his movie Liar Liar) because that's how it is going to feel when you sucker for any of these ploys.Ask yourself when you go to work everyday if everyone else does all the work for you.Not a chance!Only if you live in the twilight zone.We get to believing that the internet is somehow different than the real world and it just isn't.

Alright enough rambling and babbling.If you have a little work ethic I am going to lay it out for you with long range thinking.This is how you can be thrifty in the process of establishing a web presence over time.

#1Get a blog instead of a website.What's a blog you ask?It's a journal or diary or a web log about yourself.The possibilities are endless but you are going to use it for your affiliate business.Why?Because it absolutely FREE to get one.You can put your big long affiliate link in the back office of your blog and people will only see the title you give it.A blog will do everything that a website will and the search engines love them because search engines are looking for good quality content.The one I use is www.blogger.com. and I am set up with the new blogger.Recently they have made some changes to their whole set up and it really is amazing now.There are a bunch of templates to choose from and you can change the template,colors,fonts, pictures, links, banners..etc every ten minutes if you wanted.Also you will be able to pick a domain name that the search engines will pick up on.It will look like this http://whateveryouwant.blogspot.com.Take your time and pick a good name.

#2Next you are going to learn to write articles and join article submission companies.Don't let this scare you.It is easier than you think.They can be about anything you feel confident talking about.Stay at home moms can write about child raising.Men can write about good fishing techniques.It doesn't matter what type of articles you write about.What matters is the link you put in your articles that direct people back to your blog site.It is a little box called "resource box" or "about the author".You are going to post your articles with articles directories and on your blog site.Set a goal for yourself. Weekly I will join 3 article submission companies and write one article.Something according to the time you have to work every week.Every time you post to your blog you are going to use a little tool called pingomatic.com/ which simply lets the search engines know you have a new post.After a little while you will get the viral effect going as people start sharing your articles.You'll be amazed how effective this is.

#3You are also going to be able to do link exchanges with other sites.Go to Google and punch in "link exchange with other websites" or anything along those lines.You will have a few million possibilities to choose from.After you pick one in your back office (or dashboard area)of your blog you will see posts,settings,layout.Click on layout.Then click add a page element.Then you will see html/javascript which is where you will paste any html you have copied from sites you want to link with.Don't do too many as this will make your blog look tacky.This is also where you paste banners from your affiliate back office.Paste it here and there it is on your blog.Simple!Now you are getting hits from other sites.

#4 Another way of getting free targeted hits to your new blog(and of course your affiliate site which is on your blog)is to participate in forums.All the articles sites I suggested earlier have forums on them also you can join or once again punch "discussion business forums" or "message board about marketing" into google.In your profile area (on these article sites or message boards)you will have a box called signature.This is where you put your blog url.Some of them have codes to make them click able when you post but you'll figure it out.Usually it means putting [URL] in front of your blog url and something similar at the back.Once you figure it out start posting to these discussions and don't be afraid to ask questions.But be sincere a don't say anything too offensive.This is of course another way to get your link out there in cyberspace.These discussions don't go away and it's like they are trapped in time for future surfers.Set a goal like 2 posts a day and watch what happens over a month or two.If your affiliate program has key code tracking you will be able to see where your hits are coming from.

So there are a few solid ways I bet you didn't know about.Pace yourself financially before you start your own home business.It is a learning curve that takes time.Get going and remember we eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Nine forums a-helping

A short while ago, we introduced you to the Spanish Help Forum. We've been working to bring more publishers together in these sorts of online communities, so we're happy to let you know that there are now two more Help Forums: AdSense Yardım Forumu for Turkish-speaking publishers, and Forum Pomocy AdSense for those of you who speak Polish. Join today to post your questions and share AdSense advice.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

How do you measure the value of a CM / DM system?

Posted by Engin Yilmaz, Product Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise Europe Team

How do you measure the value of a CM / DM system? Do you measure it by its purchase price? The time it takes to deploy? The cost of maintaining it over time? Or do you tend to measure it more subjectively - do you calculate the benefit to your organisation in terms of its potential efficiency and productivity in time saving and document location?

Whichever way you calculate the value of your systems, your users may have a very different view of the world and ask just one simple question: What Can It Do For Me? And the truth of the matter is, if what is on offer is not as effective, as quick, or as easy as their current behaviours of ringing around to find documents or duplicating work, then users will feel underserved and adoption will undoubtedly suffer. Which of course will have disastrous effects on value, whichever way you calculate it.

This was just the case with the Hampshire Police, here in England, who spent £11m (well over $20m USD) during 2 years in their customization a much needed records management system aimed at making the working lives of county's police more pleasant and productive. But, it missed simply because it was just too difficult to use and too time consuming to learn how to use. So the net result here was that officers just simply chose not to use the system, leaving a large hole in the budget and even larger one in the deployment calendar.

There is a lesson to be learnt from this cautionary tale, and in this case the calculation of value and the route to success would have been: Usability = Adoption = Value.

How much Creativity is enough?

How much creativity is enough? Is there an optimal level of creativity for a person to have? Is it possible to be “too creative?” Is it true, or a myth, that creative people can be difficult to manage?

Creativity generates Ideas. Ideas generate Innovations. Innovations generate New Products. New Products make company successful in the long term. A company can never have too much creativity. Creativity can give rise to new products that may fail. However, without creativity, there are no new products. Creativity and Innovation define the future of any business. The day creativity is thought to be enough, the company stops innovating, stops creating great new products, becomes complacent and eventually ceases to exist.

Too much creativity or optimal level of creativity depends on the company, its culture and its individuals. Creativity in a corporate environment needs to be channelled to produce great products. Employing creative individuals in specific business units such as marketing, desktop publishing, web business, advertising or new product development makes business sense. An optimal level of creativity can be achieved within the organization as a whole, where the appropriate guidelines and frameworks are in place for creative individuals and their ideas, and to convert such creativity into viable business solutions. If the individual is employed in a role that requires creativity, there cannot be too much of it – however a defined structure that sets boundaries, such as market needs, financial constraints, resource availability, project checklist and milestones, etc. can drive measurable, sustainable and innovative results. When the business risks grow, a methodical framework or business process needs to be implemented to translate creative ideas into viable business enterprises.

An experienced manager knows how to manage creativity and creative individuals without coming in the way of generating new ideas. Creative individuals have the innate ability to visualize the end product; however, at times this is also coupled with the complexity to execute on a plan to get there. The key is to provide the creative individuals a platform to be creative, and lead their ideas into markets. Surrounding creative individuals with the appropriate infrastructure and resources to convert their ideas into workable solutions can be very rewarding and profitable. On the contrary, leaving them to their own devices can potentially result in chaos, delayed delivery, under delivery on commitments, overspending and incomplete end results.

Creative individuals can tend to be independent, expressive and passionate. Their mindset stems from the cultural differences between highly creative and operational organizational norms. For example, creative individuals thrive on generating ideas, and asking the "what if" questions. Some managers may prefer efficiency to unproven ideas and rhetorical questions. A manager can nurture their entrepreneurial spirit, and yet manage them well in group settings and staff meetings. There is also the possibility of expansive dialogs and debates, especially when a manager rejects an idea or two from a creative individual. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of managing a creative individual: how to say "No" to certain ideas that may make compelling sense to the individual?

Creativity is paramount to the success of any business. Creativity drives Ideas. Ideas drive Innovations. Innovations drive New Products and Markets. Creativity And Innovation drive business.

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

References:

eCornell: Leading Through Creativity

3 Tips to Create An Article Fast In No Time Flat

3 Tips to Create An Article Fast In No Time Flat
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com

If you have had a home-based business website for any length of time, you know the one essential thing you need to achieve success-traffic to your site.

You probably also have heard how article writing can result in increased targeted traffic to your site. If you make it a habit of writing articles on an on-going basis, you also will be viewed as an expert.

The following tips will help you in creating an article fast. Using them will enable you to write an article in less than one hour. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tip #1: Come up with a top 10 (or any other number) list of a problem that you can solve for your particular niche. Here are some examples:

*For those in MLM
“Top Ten Reasons Why Members In Your Downline Quit”

*Mistakes people make when buying something
“Top 5 Mistakes People Make When Buying Auto Insurance

*Resources for Solving a Problem
“Top 3 Places to Find Help When Facing Bankruptcy”

Once you come up with your list, write a few sentences to expand on each point.

Tip #2: Make Sure Your Article is Compelling. This is done by:
-Having a attention grabbing headline
-Introducing your article with a few sentences that explains your position on the subject
-Make a list of points
-In a few sentences, elaborate on each point.
-Finish the article with a sentence or two and a call to action.

Tip #3: Always include a resource box. Believe it or not, some people forget to do this. Your resource box should tell your audience in a few sentences what you do and include a link to your website. Make it interesting enough so that people will want to click on it.

So, there you have it; 3 tips to write an article in less than hour. Do this on a consistent basis and you will surely notice a significant increase in traffic to your website.


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

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Subscribing to the BOOT - now with email updates

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The Twin Paradox

My friend King sent me a link to this wonderfully perverse anecdote about how an insurance company was unable to handle twins: Disjoint Twins - The Daily WTF

To make a short story shorter:
"It turns out that a new version of their software was installed that tracked each person's budget based on their last name, plan number, and month/year of birth. Hence, having two people born in the same month and year on one plan would cause all claims to be booked against one of the two's budget, risking a premature budget exhaustion."

This is the sort of myopic tunnel vision that makes one cringe. The programmers were obviously given pretty specific requirements for how to track budget, but nobody did a sanity check on those requirements.

Programmers don't dictate requirements... and in many shops they are even discouraged from questioning any requirements... but this anecdote points out something pervasively wrong.

My guess is that the technical aspects of the problem overwhelmed the practical aspects of the problem. Dealing with large numbers of users and high transaction rates consumed the intellectual bandwidth of the development and testing team.

Some times the hard problems demand attention, and the simple question "Will this really do what it is supposed to?" gets lost in the shuffle.

AdWords Editor now available for Mac

Here's a quick update from Lewis L., a member of the AdWords Editor team:

We're excited to announce that AdWords Editor is now available for Mac users. Just like the Windows version, AdWords Editor for Mac allows you to navigate your AdWords account quickly and easily as well as make bulk changes to keywords and ad text. Mac users running OS X (10.4 or later) can download the application from the AdWords Editor website. For a full list of features, check out the release notes section of the website.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

3 Things You Should NEVER Do in a Joint Venture

For those who have been involved in Internet Marketing for sometime, you know how joint ventures can be a great strategy to promote, get traffic, and profit for your home-based business venture.

What you may not know is that there is a good way to do this and a bad way. It's important to know the difference. Let's discover the right way to do this.

3 Things You Should NEVER Do in a Joint Venture

by: Jinger Jarrett

A joint venture can be one of the most profitable and fastest ways to make money on the Internet. It can also destroy your reputation, get you ignored, or worse, accused of spam if you if you don't take the proper care to create a valuable offer.

There are three things you should NEVER do when creating a joint venture proposal for a potential partner. Below are three things NOT to do, with several tips to help you do it right.

1. Fail to Plan.

Before you send out any emails to potential partners, you need to plan your offering, decide who you are going to send it to, and what you expect in return.

First, create your offer. Ask yourself these questions:

What am I going to give the potential partner to make him/her want to joint venture with me? i.e. Are you going to give the partner a copy of the product, do you have bonuses available, what's the commission you are paying, are you offering a large one time commission, or a recurring monthly commission?

My rule of thumb is to never offer less than 50 percent. What you want to do is make the partner an offer that is not only fair, but more beneficial up front for him/her than it is for you.

Once you know what your offer is, you want to create solo ads, a review, or something that the partner can plug his/her information into so that you have something to give him/her when you make the offer.

Include the affiliate sign up link, and make it as easy as possible to sign up. Also include the link to the product, as well as tell the partner how to get the download, the membership, or whatever you are selling.

The point is, make it easy. My joint venture partners are busy people. They don't have time to write ads for me, or spend a lot of time getting prepared. They need something they can set up in a few minutes, send it out, and move on. Remember, your potential partners are probably the same.

2. Forget to Target Your Market.

I get over 500 emails a day. Mind you, they aren't all joint ventures although I get a lot of those too.

The point is this: research your market. Find products, services, memberships, etc. that complement yours. Then you have a market.

3. Send Your Offer to the Wrong Person.

No one wants to read offers that say, "Dear Publisher", "Dear Friend", or anything like that.

The first, and most important thing about creating a joint venture is to make sure that you send it to the right person at the right email address.

Although I don't recommend it, you can send your joint venture proposal to someone you don't know provided you have properly targeted your market. This doesn't mean you can send your message to 100s who just happen to be in your target market.

What I recommend you do is this: build a relationship with the person. Build a lot of relationships with a lot of people. If you have something relevant to say about someone's newsletter, write him/her.

I get so many bogus offers that when I get something I appreciate, or I enjoy, I always write the publisher a complimentary email. If there's a survey, I answer it. If the publisher needs help, and I can, I answer.

This is how great business relationships are built online. You would be amazed at how much others are willing to help you when you take the time to get to know them.

Finally, unless you know one of the "gurus", and very well, I wouldn't advise sending them your offer. Most of them already have joint venture arrangements in place and aren't really willing to work with someone they don't know, or who hasn't made it to "guru" status.

There are plenty of potential partners out there with nice sized mailing lists who are hungry for more ways to make more money. With millions online, you have a wide range of potential partners to choose from.

Remember, it really doesn't matter if you sell gardening tools or ebooks, or anything else for that matter, a joint venture can quickly and easily add to your bottom line.

About The Author Jinger Jarrett has partnered with Russ Moore to create the Killer Marketing Arsenal, a membership site offering all the tools you need to market your business for maximum traffic and sales. To celebrate, they are helping to sponsor a monthly contest where you can win over $10,500 per month. Enter today. It's free. http://www.killermarketingarsenal.com/contest.html *****************************************************************

Everything in its place(ment)

As you may know, custom channels are a great way to track the performance of individual ad units on your pages. Starting this week, with just a few extra steps you can make your site more attractive to advertisers by allowing them to target these channels as ad placements. Creating ad placements for more visible and desirable ad locations on your site increases their value to advertisers using site targeting and encourages those advertisers to bid more.

Thanks to the feedback of publishers who helped us test out this feature early on, here are some answers to a few commonly asked questions that you may also have about ad placements:

How are ad placements different from custom channels?
Think of ad placements as 'enhanced' custom channels. To create an ad placement, you create and implement a custom channel just as you normally would. The only change is the additional step of providing attributes and an accurate description for your ad placement. On the 'Channels' page in your account, click the appropriate 'edit settings' link on the right. As you can see below, there will be a box labeled 'Targeting' on the next page which, once checked, will show this channel to advertisers as an ad placement. From there, you'll just need to provide some details on where the ad unit appears on your site:



Advertisers will see the 'External name' and 'Description' along with the domain on which that placement appears, so a meaningful name and detailed description clarifying where the ads will show can make your placement more appealing. Be sure to highlight your most valuable and best-performing ad units as placements. For example, try a description like 'Ads will appear in a 300x250 rectangle embedded within articles on the Travel section' or 'Ads will appear only in the leaderboard ad unit directly above any page on the site.'

If nobody bids on my placement, does that mean I won't get any money?
Ads that are targeted through ad placements compete in the same auction against all other ads that are eligible to appear in that space, so you'll still be able to generate earnings. For example, suppose you created a 'Homepage, Top center' placement. When we see an impression from this placement, we round up advertisers who match the content of your homepage, as well as those targeting your site and this placement and include them in an auction. We'll then display the ad which our system has determined will earn you the most money, regardless of how it was targeted.

What kind of placements should I create?
Remember that advertisers will rely on your ad placement descriptions in order to decide whether to target their ads to your site. That said, here are a few tips to get started:

1. If you have multiple ad units on a page, let advertisers target the high visibility ones separately
   
2. If you have a wide range of topics on your site and you think certain topics will appeal to different types of advertisers, then break them out accordingly
   
3. Break out high visibility pages such as your homepage and any above-the-fold spots
   

For more on ad placements, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Sasank Mudunuri - AdSense Product Manager

Report Center Series (Part 1)

In a recent Inside AdWords post, Ronnie C. from the Optimization team encouraged you to not only test and iterate, but to also evaluate your account's performance. If you’re using Google Analytics or any other web analytics program, you’re probably already doing this. For those who haven’t gotten around to implementing any sort of tracking, you might consider using a powerful, but sometimes forgotten, tool that lives right in your AdWords account – the Report Center.

To help you begin (or improve) your account performance evaluation process, we thought we’d cover the ins and outs in a series devoted to the Report Center. Part 1 is a basic overview of what you’ll find within the Reports section of your account. And while this post is a bit longer than our usual posts, the subject is very important to advertiser success -- and we think you'll find it worth your time.

(For the best learning experience, you may want to open your AdWords account and follow along as we review the various sections below.)

I. REPORT CENTER PAGE
After logging into your account, select the Reports tab. You’ll be taken to the Report Center page – one of two pages within the Reports tab. On the Report Center page, you’ll find two sections (Last 5 Reports and Saved Templates) and a link to the Create Report page.

Last 5 Reports
Aptly named, the Last 5 Reports section shows you the last 5 reports you ran. This includes both on-demand and scheduled reports. This section comes in handy if you run a report and then decide to leave your AdWords account before the report is finished.

Saved Templates
Below the Last 5 Reports section, you’ll notice Saved Templates. If you find yourself running the same report repeatedly, you might consider saving the report as a template. Templates are also editable in case you need to change the information you need included in the report.

Create a Report Now link
The Create a Report Now link at the top of the Report Center page, takes you to the Create Report page. This is where you’ll select the type of report you want, as well as the type and amount of data you need.

II. CREATE REPORT PAGE
The Create Report page comprises 4 sections: Report Type; Settings; Advanced Settings; and Templates, Scheduling, and Email.

Report Type
The first step in creating a report is selecting the type of report you want to run. You’ll find a wide variety of reports that are all aimed at helping you get precisely the information you need.

For example, say in November you added a slew of holiday ads with varying URLs (to test different landing pages) to your “Holiday” campaign. Now that the holidays are over, you want to know how each URL performed. Which type of report would you run? Though several reports could do the job, the URL Performance report would likely provide you with the most relevant report parameters.

Settings
The Settings section allows you to determine the scope of your report's data. This is where you'll determine the report’s unit of time (e.g. daily or weekly), date range (use the predetermined ranges or set your own date range), and the campaigns and ad groups to be included.

Advanced Settings
Use the Advanced Settings section to fine tune your report. You can add or remove columns of data and also filter your results.

Using the "Holiday" campaign example from above, say you want to know not only how your holiday URLs performed overall, but also how they performed on the search network versus the content network. To break out your report by search versus content data, check the ‘Ad Distribution’ box under Attributes. The resulting report would indicate the URLs’ performance on search and content on separate lines. One thing to note is that not all settings are available for all report types; however, the Create Report page is dynamic and will adjust based on the selections you make.

Templates, Scheduling, and Email
This is where you’ll name your report, decide whether you’d like to save it as a template, schedule it to run automatically (if desired), and choose whether you want it emailed to you after it finishes running. Scheduling reports is a great way to establish a regular performance evaluation process. And, if you work with others on managing your AdWords account, reports can be emailed to multiple recipients.

This concludes part 1 of our Report Center series. Stayed tuned for part 2 in which we'll do a deeper dive into the different types of reports and why they’re used.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

Yahoo!, Google and Target Leading The Innovation Index

The Innovation Index Weekly Report for the Week Ending 01-24-2007



Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Target (NYSE: TGT) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) are the early 2007 leaders of The Innovation Index notching stock gains of 8%, 8% and 13% respectively. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) round out the Top Five with stock performance gains of 4% and 5% each. What's remarkable is that both Target and Wal-Mart have already performed better than all of 2006. The big mover of the week was America Movile (NYSE: AMX) gaining 4% last week, and is now up 1% for the year. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) led all decliners with a 9% drop in just one week; Apple is still up 2% for the year. It was a tough week for the Top 20 Innovators. 8 of the 20 Innovators declined last week. 8 Innovators stayed even, and only 4 Innovators stayed in the black. Yahoo! leads all Innovators in 2007 in stock performance.

Yahoo! had solid results in its latest quarter. Not only did Yahoo! beat the analyst estimates, Yahoo! also pre-announced Panama, the souped up Search technology that will rival Google and bring in more revenues and profits for Yahoo! in 2007 and beyond. Yahoo! is planning to roll out Panama in first week of February, 2007. Overall, the market seems bullish on Yahoo!'s Panama innovation.

eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) announced its earnings today beating the analyst estimates; the stock is already up in after market by more than 10%. eBay's 2006 innovations are finally paying off in 2007 in the core auction business. PayPal business is also doing well for eBay. Watch out for eBay's turnaround, and wild ride up in stock performance.

Who is benefiting from these solid results of Yahoo! and eBay? Google of course, gaining 8% for the year. Google is planning to digitize more than a million books from my Alma Matter, The University of Texas at Austin, including their famous Latin American collection. Google also announced new innovations for the Google Earth, SketchUp, Groups, Search Appliance, Mobile and partnerships with Samsung and China Mobile.

Target Stores (NYSE: TGT) is off to a great start in 2007. Target announced a dividend of 12 cents a share, reaffirmed the sales forecasts for January, and is leading the retail boom.

The Innovation Index closed at 72.01, down 1% for the week, up 4% in 2007. NASDAQ is up 2%, whereas S & P 500 and the Dow Jones Index are each up 2% in 2007. The Innovation Index continues to perform well versus the major indices. Would this trend continue for the rest of 2007?

About The Innovation Index

The Innovation Index introduced in December, 2006 is a weighted stock price index of the top 20 Innovators in North America.

The Innovation Index has returned 119% over the last five years. This assumes an investment in each stock of The Innovation Index (buying each stock). An average of $100 invested in The Innovation Index on December 31, 2001 returned $219 as of December 29, 2006. By comparison, $100 invested in each of S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index returned $124. The Innovation Index beats the S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index by 77% over the last five years.

The Normalized Innovation Index is even more impressive, and has returned 174% over the last five years. This assumes equal investment in each stock of The Innovation Index.

The alphabetical list of the top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index along with their stock ticker symbols is presented below:

3M Company - (NYSE: MMM)
Amazon.com, Inc. - (NASDAQ: AMZN)
America Movile - (NYSE: AMX)
Apple Inc. - (NASDAQ: AAPL)
Cisco Systems, Inc. - (NASDAQ: CSCO)
Dell Inc. - (NASDAQ: DELL)
eBay Inc. - (NASDAQ: EBAY)
General Electric Co. - (NYSE: GE)
Google Inc. - (NASDAQ: GOOG)
Hewlett-Packard Co. - (NYSE: HPQ)
Intel Corporation - (NYSE: INTC)
International Business Machines Corp. - (NYSE: IBM)
Microsoft Corporation - (NASDAQ: MSFT)
Research In Motion Limited - (NASDAQ: RIMM)
Southwest Airlines Co. - (NYSE: LUV)
Starbucks Corporation - (NASDAQ: SBUX)
Target Corp. - (NYSE: TGT)
The Proctor & Gamble Company - (NYSE: PG)
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. - (NYSE: WMT)
Yahoo! Inc. - (NASDAQ: YHOO)

The Innovation Index will analyze the positions and standings of the top 20 Innovators at the end of each year. For 2007, there will be no further changes in The Innovation Index.

Disclaimer: I began investing in the Innovators comprising The Innovation Index starting in 2007.

Free List Building Report for Your Home-Business

If you have been on the Internet looking for a hoome-based business opportunity, you likely will have run across statements like "the money is in the list".

The guru's have different opinions about something, but they are right on about this.

If you are going to have any type of success with your home-business, you need a list.

I have news of a new report that was recently released.

You can be one of the first to read the “CLB List Building Strategies Report” now available at:

http://tophomebasedbusinesstips.ws

Download your free copy and inside, you will find branding information to brand a copy with your affiliate links-for free.

I have read the report and think it is very helpful.

Contact me if you have any questions.

monique@tophomebasedbusinesstips.ws

Video post: Laura Chen answers your referrals questions

We often receive questions about the policies related to AdSense referrals. In this post we answer some of your most common concerns. Live (OK -- pre-recorded) from the Googleplex, here's Laura Chen:



Laura addresses these burning questions:

1. Why am I receiving less than the full amount for each conversion in my reports? Is something wrong?

2. After I've referred a person to AdSense, can I see how much they've earned so far?

3. Can I ask users to click my referral buttons?

See full transcript

As Laura notes, you can find more information about referrals in the AdSense Help Center. Don't forget, with our recent program policy update, you can now display more referral units on your pages.

UPDATED with link to transcript

Posted by Dobromir Montauk - AdSense Publisher Support

2007 - the year of the Travelport break up

As I have been anticipating for some time, 2007 is gearing up to be the year that the three Traveport divisions - GTA, Galileo and Orbitz - are spun off. First rumour (care of e-tid) is that UBS has been appointed to float Orbitz in London at a valuation of US$2.5-$3bil. Why London? Best reason I can think of is to avoid Sarbanes-Oxley regulation. London is liquid enough a market to provide the same capital value as New York or Nasdaq while removing the onerous/costly burden of SOX compliance.

UPDATE - in related Travelport news here is an interview with Graham Nichols (Worldspan vice president and general manager EMEA) on the merger between Worldspan and Galileo. The questions I most want to ask is "What is the future of the Worldspan brand?". Here is Graham's answer (or non-answer as the case may be)

Should the merger proceed as expected, Worldspan will become a Travelport company and will operate under its own brand, similar to how Galileo currently operates. Until we are merged we will operate as two separate companies.

Innovation And Stock Performance Correlation

In Chapter Two of the Innovation Index Annual Report, I compared the Stock Performance of The Top 20 Innovators with Total Innovations - Innovation Activity comprising of new products, collaborations and acquisitions for 2006.

I have created the Innovation - Stock Performance Correlation Chart that demonstrates this correlation between the two variables:

What are some insights to be gained from this?

There is a very high probability between Positive Stock Performance and Total Innovations with the magic number of 70.

Eight of the Nine Innovators, or 89%, who had Total Innovations of about 70 or higher exhibited a Positive Stock Performance in 2006 (Apple had 69 innovations). The average Stock Performance gain of these eight Innovators was 34% in 2006. Only Yahoo! exhibited negative stock gains in 2006 out of this group.

On the other hand, there is a good probability between Negative or Even Stock Performance and Total Innovations that are less than 65.

Six of the Eleven Innovators, or 54%, who had Total Innovations less than 65 exhibited a Negative or Even Stock Performance in 2006. Clearly, the correlation between Negative Stock Performance and Total Innovations less than 65 is demonstrably weak.

We will check again in 2007 on whether this correlation holds, the magic Total Innovation number of 70 stays at 70, or new trends emerge.

I am not trying to imply that Stock Performance only depends on Total Innovations. As we know very well, Stock Performance depends heavily on Current Earnings, Future Outlook, Revenue and Earnings Growth besides other environmental factors. However, it is interesting to correlate Stock Performance with Total Innovations, and whether the Innovation Output of an Organization leads to current or future Stock Performance gains.

For instance, are Yahoo!'s 77 Innovations in 2006 helping Yahoo!’s Stock Performance in 2007? Did the pipeline of New Innovations introduced in 2006 is resulting in positive Stock Performance in 2007? What about IBM who had a whopping 187 new Innovations? IBM should clearly do well in 2007. Or would it?

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

About The Innovation Index

The Innovation Index introduced in December, 2006 is a weighted stock price index of the top 20 Innovators in North America.The Innovation Index has returned 119% over the last five years. This assumes an investment in each stock of The Innovation Index (buying each stock). An average of $100 invested in The Innovation Index on December 31, 2001 returned $219 as of December 29, 2006. By comparison, $100 invested in each of S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index returned $124. The Innovation Index beats the S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index by 77% over the last five years.

The Normalized Innovation Index is even more impressive, and has returned 174% over the last five years. This assumes equal investment in each stock of The Innovation Index.

The alphabetical list of the top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index along with their stock ticker symbols are presented below:

3M Company - (NYSE: MMM)

Amazon.com, Inc. - (NASDAQ: AMZN)

America Movile - (NYSE: AMX)

Apple Inc. - (NASDAQ: AAPL)

Cisco Systems, Inc. - (NASDAQ: CSCO)

Dell Inc. - (NASDAQ: DELL)

eBay Inc. - (NASDAQ: EBAY)

General Electric Co. - (NYSE: GE)

Google Inc. - (NASDAQ: GOOG)

Hewlett-Packard Co. - (NYSE: HPQ)

Intel Corporation - (NYSE: INTC)

International Business Machines Corp. - (NYSE: IBM)

Microsoft Corporation - (NASDAQ: MSFT)

Research In Motion Limited - (NASDAQ: RIMM)

Southwest Airlines Co. - (NYSE: LUV)

Starbucks Corporation - (NASDAQ: SBUX)

Target Corp. - (NYSE: TGT)

The Proctor & Gamble Company - (NYSE: PG)

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. - (NYSE: WMT)

Yahoo! Inc. - (NASDAQ: YHOO)

The Innovation Index will analyze the positions and standings of the top 20 Innovators at the end of each year. For 2007, there will be no further changes in The Innovation Index.

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

3 Tips to Get the Best Out of Yellow Page Advertising For Your Home-Business

Have you looked into offline advertising for your home-based business? If not, there is a whole world of prospects you are potentially missing out on if you don't! Here are some great tips on how to use yellow page advertising effectively.

3 Things Every Yellow Pages Advertiser Needs to Know

by: Alan Saltz

Too many business owners and marketers know that Yellow Pages advertising has an incredible amount of potential… but they don’t quite know how to take advantage of it.

Fortunately, it’s a mystery that’s solved pretty easily once an advertiser knows where to turn for advice. There are fundamental truths about Yellow Page advertising that so many businesses fail to recognize, but once they do, they stand to capitalize on a sizeable reward. That said… let’s try to understand it a bit better, shall we?

1. Common Yellow Page advertising mistakes are simple to fix.

Very simple. You don’t have to be a graphic designer or marketing expert to drastically improve your ad either—you just need to know your customers.

You see, most Yellow Page ads make the very same mistakes… year after year …directory after directory …category after category. Some of the ads I see from professional design firms are riddled with mistakes too.

Of course they may look nicer... but that won’t cut it in the Yellow Pages! While a professionally designed ad can certainly help grab attention, there is no substitute for ad content (read: words) if your goal is to generate a phone call.

And when it comes to Yellow Pages advertising, that's all that really matters.

By learning what makes a good headline, good body copy, and how to develop a strong offer—your Yellow Pages ad will run circles around an ad that just “looks great,” but makes the same mistakes most others are making.

An example? Using your name and logo as the headline...

It’s disastrous and yet more advertisers do it than not. No one cares what you call yourself until they've decided to pick up the phone and actually call you.

Your company name does not win you business. So if your name and logo is at the top of your ad… if it’s big and bold and takes up space… if it takes the place of an attention grabbing, hard-hitting headline… you’ve made a big mistake.

Next, here’s fundamental truth number 2…

2. Most Yellow Page ads are developed by the directory publisher.

That’s right—the directory itself develops most of the ads you see. That’s a pretty unfortunate scenario if you think about it. What happens if they design your ad and 4 of your competitors’ ads? Whose ad stands out? Who gets the best ad content and the most original headline?

That’s not a risk you’ll want to take.

When it comes to Yellow Pages advertising those that know how to set themselves apart from the pack fare well. Nice design might get you noticed, but good ad copy grabs attention like a magnet and doesn’t let it go.

Don’t just hand the reins to someone else and let them develop your ad for you. Learn what it takes to generate response and play a role in developing that winning ad for your business.

Your design department will be happy to design your ad free of charge, but make sure you play an active role in developing the content. Because no one knows what makes your customers “tick” like you do!

3. Yellow Pages Advertising is different from just about EVERY other medium you use.

You might want to re-read that. Yellow Pages advertising is different because people see your ad when they are ready to buy. This is huge! Almost every Yellow Page ad I see takes the approach: “This is who I am and this is what I offer.”

Guess what—that’s dead wrong!

All that matters in Yellow Pages Advertising are “the reasons someone should choose you over your competition.” Telling them what you offer does no good. They know what you offer! They’re looking at your ad because their tooth hurts and they turned to the “Dentist” category.

Focus on “why, with all of these options, they should choose you” and you’ll be doing what so many advertisers before you have failed to include.

That is the information your prospects looked in the Yellow Pages to uncover. Give it to them. Give them a reason to pick up the phone and know you’ll provide them with something different… something better.

Your prospects are a skeptical bunch. Make contacting you and giving your business a shot a risk-free, value-filled proposition for them. When done correctly this will give any usiness a tremendous edge over the competition.

Care to learn a little more?

About The Author Alan Saltz, the author, teaches Yellow Pages Advertisers how to boost their response and return on investment, using simple, but extremely effective techniques. To learn more about how to improve your own Yellow Pages ad, visit: http://www.YellowPagesProfit.com.

Site exclusion is now unlimited

As we've mentioned in the past, the Site Exclusion tool provides you with more control for your campaigns that are targeting the Google Content Network by allowing you to exclude your ads from showing up on particular sites or sections of sites (such as the sports section of an online newspaper).

Today, we'd like to let you know about a recent change: you can now exclude an unlimited number of sites. We hope you'll use the Site Exclusion tool to improve your ROI and refine your targeting across the network. And, as always, we'd like to remind you that excluding a site (or a section of a site) from one of your campaigns will prevent your ad from showing on all of the pages of that site (or section). Therefore, to ensure you don't miss out on any potential customers, we suggest that you review a site carefully before deciding to exclude it from your campaign.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew