Tips to Inspire Any Company, Any Size

Company culture? We've all tried to define it; most of us have tried to create it. In fact, large companies spend millions of dollars a year with surveys, management training to foster sustainability and events to spur creativity and engagement with employees. Let me re-peat: Millions. For us small businesses, that number is what we'd like to make in revenue, let alone company culture.

So what can you do as a small business owner to create an environment so your employees can sing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

Think Ben and Jerrys, IBM, Southwest Airlines all of these companies have it or at least did at one time. What do these companies have in common?

1. Be an industry leader and demonstrate sustainability for your industry and others as a whole. Your employees will feel empowered and inspired by doing something good, which creates passion for coming to work every single day. Ben & Jerrys cofounder, Ben Cohen and Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, are two of the icons that have embraced this and created a respectable company culture.

2. Make sure growth doesn't dilute company culture. Starbucks does this even though they have a bazillion stores. No matter what size you are, act like a smaller company. As the CEO, keep an open door policy; talk to interns; liberate employees of all levels to try and experiment with new things you never know what new ideas will stick.

3. Recognize and address employee concerns immediately. By ignoring them, your employees will gossip, wander and do anything but be productive. If you notice your culture is becoming more and more dysfunctional, address it (see next post) and involve employees to make it change.

4. Do more for your employees, after all, every single patent, product and process came from a person. Wegmans Food Markets, a large grocery chain headquartered in Rochester, NY, is listed as one of the best places to work. Why? By treating their employees' right, which makes them work harder and makes the company more money. A previous employee for the company who I interviewed said he got a bonus each year on his hire date for the average amount of hours worked that year and an extra bonus every six months. In addition, he received cheap prescriptions and even a college scholarship all for being a part-time employee.

5. Evaluate employees not only on performance, but on core values you want your company to embrace. Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba.com (the largest B2B marketplace in the world) evaluates each employee on six core values: customer first, team work, embracing change, integrity, passion and commitment. The company's IPO value in November 2007 was the second largest in Internet history at $36 billion, second only to Google. That said, he must be doing something right.

Betsy Brottlund, Guest Blogger
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Companies have long recognized that the best ideas can come from those in the figurative trenches, since they're the ones closest to the organization's day-to-day operations. That's a less common notion in government circles, but recently we spotted an example in the form of Canada's new incentive program to reward public servants for their best budget-cutting ideas.

Beginning this fall, the new Employee Innovation Program will offer cash awards to public service employees with creative and practical ideas that lead to tangible savings and improved services to citizens. Through the two-year pilot program, which is being implemented in eight departments of Canada's federal government, individuals or teams will need to develop an approved plan to deliver a required service in a better way while reducing costs. They will then have an opportunity to put that plan into action. If an audit after six months can show real savings and improved service, then the employee(s) will be given 10 percent of the savings measured in the first year of implementation, up to a maximum of CAD 10,000.

There's nothing better than a win-win propositionand never more so than when it's effected in government. Other governments around the worldwhat are you waiting for? (Related: Contest chooses apps to help fight childhood obesity Site helps businesses reward consumers for positive actions Helping citizens keep tabs on legislators Rewarding consumers who drive less.)

Website: www.canada.gc.ca
Contact: www.canada.gc.ca/comments-commentaires/contact-eng.html

Spotted by: CTV via R.P.

Journal Entry: reflecting the past few months, not doubting ability or faith in one's self, just reflecting.

Again, we rebuild. The past few months have been brutal. Our house suffered severe water damage, laptops stolen, and business lost due to it. It hurts. Bad. As always, we take the remnants of our lives and rebuild. It is something I've learned throughout my life. Do I pick up the pieces or walk away? The answer isn't always black and white. Today though I choose to rebuild, to seek refuge in hope, to a future that is sustainable and adaptable, I am tired. Tired of continuously having to rebuild, clinging to another hope of tomorrow but what are my options? It's been so long, risking everything, money, reputation, all for the dream. Maybe the dream isn't a destination but more a journey. Maybe it is similar to what the founding fathers said the pursuit of happiness. Maybe that's what it's all about, the pursuit of the dream. Maybe I search and yearn for the destination and I'm ignoring the wondrous experience of my own story unfolding. Maybe the beauty is in the details and not where you end up. For every place we arrive at is the beginning of a new story, a new destination. So, today, brick by brick, I lay the foundation of my future knowing full well that I may have to rebuild soon.

Photo Credit: Peter Kaminski

When I was growing up, $50,000 sounded like a gigantic mountain of money to me. And it was actually a very significant amount of money in those days.

But in 2010 it just does not go that far. Today, the median household income in the United States for a year is approximately $50,000. About half of all American households make more than that, and about half of all American households make less than that.

So if your family brings in $50,000 this year that would put you about right in the middle. So can a family of four survive on $50,000 in America today? The answer might surprise you. Twenty years ago a middle class American family of four would have been doing quite well on $50,000 per year. But things have changed.

You see, despite government efforts to manipulate the official inflation numbers, the price of everything just keeps going up. The price of food slowly but surely keeps moving up each year. The price of gas is far higher than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Taxes just keep going up. Utility bills just keep going up. Each year middle class American families have found themselves increasingly squeezed as their expenses have risen much more rapidly than their incomes.

So just how far will $50,000 go for a middle class American family of four today? Well, $50,000 breaks down to about $4,000 a month. So how far will $4,000 a month stretch for a family of four in today's economy?....

First of all, the family of four needs some place to live. Even though house prices have come down a bit recently, they are still quite expensive compared to a decade ago. Let's assume that our family of four has found a great deal and is only spending $1000 a month on rent or on a mortgage payment. In many of the larger U.S. cities this is a completely unrealistic number, but let's go with it for now.

Next, our family of four has to pay for power and water for their home. This amount can vary dramatically depending on the climate, but let's assume that the average utility bill is somewhere around $300 a month.

Our family is also going to need phone and Internet service. Cell phone bills for a family of four can balloon to ridiculous proportions, but let's assume that our family of four is extremely budget conscious and has found a package where they can get basic phone service, Internet and cable for $100 a month. Most middle class American families spend far more than that.

Both parents are also going to need cars to get to work. Let's assume that both cars were purchased used, so the car payments will only total about $400 a month. If the vehicles were purchased new this number could potentially be much higher.

If our family has two cars that means that they will also be paying for automobile insurance. Let's assume that they both have exemplary driving records and so they are only spending about $100 a month on car insurance.

Our hypothetical family of four is also going to need health insurance. In the past, families could choose to go without health insurance (at least for a while), but now thanks to Barack Obama all American families will essentially be forced to purchase health insurance. Health insurance premiums are absolutely skyrocketing, but let's assume that our family has somehow been able to find an amazing deal where they only pay $500 a month for health insurance.

Our hypothetical family is also going to have to eat. Let's assume that our family clips coupons and cuts corners any way that it can and only spends about $50 for each member of the family on food and toiletries each week. That works out to a total of $800 a month for the entire family.

Lastly, the parents are also going to need to buy gas to get to and from work each week. Let's assume that they don't live too far from work and only need to fill up both cars about once per week. That would give them a gasoline bill of about $50 a week or $200 a month. Of course if either of them lived a good distance from work or if a lot of extra driving was required for other reasons this expense could be far, far higher.

So far our family has spent $3400 out of a total of $4000 for the month. Not bad, eh?

Wrong.

We haven't taken federal, state and local taxes out of the paycheck yet. Depending on where our family lives, this will be at least $1000 a month.

So now we are $400 in the hole.

But to this point we have assumed that our family does not have any credit card debt or student loan debt at all. If they do, those payments will have to be made as well.

In addition, the budget above includes no money for clothing, no money for dining out, no money for additional entertainment, no money for medications, no money for pets, no money for hobbies, no money for life insurance, no money for vacations, no money for car repairs and maintenance, no money for child care, no money for birthday or holiday gifts and no money for retirement.

On top of all that, if our family of four has a catastrophic health expense that their health insurance won't pay for (and health insurance companies try to weasel out of as many claims as they can), then our family of four is not just broke - they are totally bankrupt.

Are you starting to get the picture?

It is getting really, really hard out there for middle class American families these days.

And unfortunately, many American families now have at least one parent that is not working. In some areas of the nation it just seems like there are virtually no jobs available. For example, at 14.3%, the state of Nevada now has the highest unemployment rate in the nation. Michigan (which had been number one) is not very far behind.

But even those Americans who are able to find work are finding themselves increasingly squeezed. For many Americans, a new job means much lower pay. Millions of highly educated people who once worked in professional positions now find themselves working in retail positions or in the food service industry. Many are hoping that the economy will "turn around" soon and that they will be able to go back to higher paying jobs, but the truth is that the U.S. economy is simply not producing enough good jobs for everyone any longer.

So where did all the good jobs go? Well, millions of them have been shipped off to China, India and dozens of other nations around the globe. Today the United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that China spends on goods from the United States. A Chinese factory worker makes about a tenth of what an American factory worker makes. And China continues to keep their currency artificially low so that jobs will continue to flow into China and so that we will continue to run a massive trade imbalance with them.

In a previous article, "Winners And Losers", I went into much greater detail about how globalism is destroying middle class jobs. We are rapidly moving toward an America where there will be a small group of "haves" and a very large group of "have nots".

The middle class in America is going to continue to shrink and shrink and shrink in the years ahead. Not only are both parents going to have to work to pay the bills, but both parents in many families will be forced to take two or three jobs each just to make it each month.

So what do you think? Do you think that a family of four can make it on a middle class income in America today? Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts....

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This guest post previously appeared at The Economic Collapse Blog >

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It's a clich to note that the internet has completely changed business. For big companies and small, the web has allowed businesses to be more efficient, advertise better, and scale faster.

However, the impact is not uniform. While technology has revolutionized the travel, advertising, jobs and financial services, some industries still seem to be chugging along unscathed by the web revolution.

The real estate industry is one of them. Yes, classified advertising has migrated to the web in the form of real estate search, but the sell side of real estate may be web's biggest relative laggard.

There are several reasons why technology adoption has lagged the Real Estate brokerage industry.

Brokerages compete with each other not on their differentiated offerings, but simply by bringing on more agents. And agents are typically attracted by brand and commission split. So as a broker, that's where you spend your money. Developing technology based differentiation is low on the list of priorities because brokers and agents are not technologists, and the off the rack options don't fit the needs of the real estate community anyway.

The one size doesn't fit all problem is particularly acute for real estate sales. Real estate is a different beast because there are two sales that need to happen prior to closing a transaction. First, the home owner needs to be sold so the agent gets the listing, and then the home buyer needs to be sold the home. Any complete technology based selling solution needs to take into account both parts of the sales equation.

Layer on top of this, a solution that needs to span online and offline media and be local in nature, and it's no wonder real estate sales has been such a late adopter of technology.

However, never before has there been such an opportunity for an industry to embrace technology. Social networking allows the real estate brokerage to tap into their contacts and the contacts of their agents and clients. And analytics software can measure marketing response and determine what's effective and ineffective and direct ad dollars to where there is the biggest bang for the buck. And structured real estate data can dramatically improve matching buyers to sellers, and reduce transaction costs for clients, all the while improving overall margins for the industry.

However, to do this, Real Estate brokerages need to embrace their inner CTO and become technology companies first, and sales organizations second. Until this happens, this industry will continue to lag the opportunity in front of them.

Doug Perlson is the CEO of RealDirect, a technology driven real estate company.

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Google has quietly launched a new feature: search for blogs on any topic. The company announced the new type of search in a weekly round-up of search updates last week, and respected SEO blogger Bill Slawski argues that the launch may be related to a new Google patent.

This has the potential to be a wildly useful service. How many of you have had professional or personal reasons to seek a list of the top blogs on a new topic? I know I, and many people I talk to, find themselves in such need frequently. How do you access the new search? How well does it work? Read on.

Sponsor

How to Search Google for Blogs by Topic

The Google Blogsearch service has for a long time surfaced a small number of blogs related to any search query, above the list of results from a search of blog posts, or entries. This new search is different, though, and surfaces different results.

Do a search on the general web search interface, google.com. Then, click on the "more" link in the left-hand sidebar if "blogs" doesn't already appear as an option. Once you're looking at blogs from this perspective, then a new option will appear in the sidebar: search for posts or blog home pages related to your query.

I searched for ceramics blogs, semantic web blogs, cloud blogs, social media blogs and more. All those searches brought up pages and pages of clearly topical sources. I imagine that different searches may have different degrees of success, but this is Google - so it ought to work well.

How Good Are the Search Results?

The search results in this new search by blog feature look pretty good to me. The ranking of those results, however, seems questionable. The more closely tied the title of the blog is to your search query, the higher the blog shows up in search results. That's not the best indicator of quality or authority.

That said, in as much as I know about the topics I searched for, the top blogs in those fields definitely peppered the search results, to greater or lesser degrees.

What would I do with these search results? To be honest, I'd ask our fabulous staff developer (whom you may not steal from us) to whip up some scripts that pulled down the first 300 search results (or more) from any query I searched for, grab the RSS feeds from those sites using another script and autodiscovery, turn the feeds into an OPML file, upload them to Postrank, sort them by degrees of reader engagement, then chop off the top number from that list as suits your needs. Your mileage may vary, of course. I'd likely then use some other processes to make sure I wasn't missing too many obvious sites or including too many false positives. (And then I'd do some other stuff with it too.)

Now that the sun has set of the Technorati blog directory, and no one has done as good a job in its place as it once did, it's great to see a new option at all. The fact that full-text search is the method employed here, along with some patented analysis of the sites, is great. The patent that Slawski points to, (Indexing and retrieval of blogs, filed September 2005), "describes how it may create a 'hybrid document' about a blog out of information from both XML feeds, blog posts, and pages linked to from those feeds and posts such as profile pages," he writes.

That great. Add some ranking, some OPML export, and then we're really talking.

Long live blog search!

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and big directory publisher Dex One are expanding their local advertising partnership, which lets advertisers who buy listings on Dex One's DexKnows search site place their ads on Yahoo Local search results as well. The deal comes as Yahoo is renewing focus on local ad sales and has announced local advertising partnerships in recent months with Gannett (NYSE: GCI) and direct marketer Valassis.

Yahoo and Dex One, which was known known until this spring as R.H. Donnelley, had already been partnering on local ad sales since 2007. The companies' previous agreement, however, covered only a 14-state region (where Dex One publishes print directories for Qwest). The two companies say that geography has now been doubled.

Related

• Gannett And Yahoo Strike Local Ad Partnership
• Another Directory Publisher Exits Bankruptcy

That's me! ;)

Hey everyone. It's been a while. I hope you're doing great, and that your blog is doing just as well :)

A while ago I was asked to write a book about blogging. My editor ended up leaving the publishing house, and the project was never completed, so for some time I've had about 130 pages - approximately half - of a book on creating a popular blog, sitting on my hard drive. I had always wanted to use the content in some other way, and today I'm making it available for the first time. It's a little nerve wracking, but I know the content is high quality, and extremely thorough. It's an outpouring of everything I know about blogging.

At my company, Envato, we've just launched a new Tuts+ Marketplace - a site where you can buy and sell screencasts, tutorials and courses. It's now possible to make a passive income from teaching what you know. There's a category for Business and blogging, so I urge you to create something and get involved!

My Tutorials

I decided to split the three hefty book chapters I had written into three hefty tutorials, each coming in at over 40 typed pages worth of content. The series is called Blogging: From Zero to Hero'. I teach everything I know on each topic, and it's written so that both beginning and advanced bloggers can learn something from the strategies inside.

The first tutorial is Blogging: From Zero to Hero - Getting Started. It details the perfect planning and setup process for your blog, from choosing a niche, to defining your target audience, to selecting the content types that will work best on your blog. If you already have a blog, this chapter can help you refocus your blog to become more successful.

The second tutorial is Blogging: From Zero to Hero - Blog Design and Usability. This tutorial goes into detail on how to make your blog design as simple and effective as possible, making it much easier for your blog visitors to do exactly what you want them to do - from sharing your posts on social media, to leaving comments. You'll also learn how to unclutter your blog, helping it to look clean and professional.

The third tutorial is Blogging: From Zero to Hero - Awesome Blog Content. This tutorial is full of all my best advice on creating great content, from viral post ideas, to writing great titles, to making all your content unique.

Remember that if you use deposits to purchase the tutorials, each tutorial will be $5 rather than $7. You can save $6 across the series by using deposits, and can use any remaining credit on any other marketplace, such as ThemeForest, which sells WordPress themes.

If you already have an account on the Envato Marketplaces, let's Follow' each other :)

Thanks everyone! I'll have something else for you soon :)

(In other news, the blog network I manage - Tuts+ - was just nominated for Blog of the Year by .net Magazine. Woot!)

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) continues to buy up social-related firms in preparation for the launch of the new social networking effort it has under way. Its latest acquisition is mobile game startup SocialDeck, which is behind several very-addicting mobile games, including Shake & Spell, a spelling game that users can simultaneously access and play from various platforms, including BlackBerry, the iPhone and Facebook.

As we've reported previously, Google has lately been concentrating many of its purchases on the social space, although its acquisitions have spanned a wide range of specialties. On Friday, for instance, Google acquired social search startup Angstro. Over the last month, it has also bought virtual currency firm Jambool and app maker Slide.

By all accounts, though, the new service, which is reportedly called Google Me, will be centered around gamingSocialDeck's expertise. SocialDeck says in a short statement on its site that its staff is joining Google but doesn't offer any other details about how it will fit.

Here's a video the company made, which describes its platform:

Related

• Mobile Gaming Wrap: EA, SocialDeck Stock Up The BlackBerry App World
• The Look Ahead: Google Narrows Its Acquisition Focus

The local news sites being developed by Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), AOL (NYSE: AOL), Huffington Post and a growing number of other online players will dash the hopes of most newspaper publishers of charging for access to their online content. While newspaper executives have agonized for the better part of two years about whether and how to charge for their costly-to-produce content, every indication is that the portals, local broadcasters and other media companies have no intention of asking anyone to pay for access to the increasingly ambitious local sites they are building.

See full story at Mutter's blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur.

I got a link the other day to a massive resource list of social media tips. (80? I think it was 80.) I will not find it and link to it because I think it was not just stupid, but damaging.

The advice from social media experts, God help us fell in two categories.

1. Approximately 64 versions of contribute to the conversation.

I think we all know what I think about that.

2. Give really useful tips.

This got me thinking if every expert in Christendom is saying this, perhaps there's something to it.

But, see, personally? I HATE useful tips. HATEHATEHATE. I am on Twitter to waste time and screw around with my peeps. Twitter is not my study group, it's my water cooler. And if you came up to me out of the blue at the water cooler and gave me a bullet point on how to optimize my email subject lines, I would first ignore you, then avoid you, then punch you in the nose.

However! Since I like nothing more than a good argument on social media, I put it out there to my followers to see what they thought. Here's what I asked:

Question: All the Twitter how-to experts say tweet useful advice and tips. Considerate? Obnoxious? Harmless but missing the point?

And here's what I got in response:

@julianowebpages tweeting advice, considerate but obnoxious with a great quantity

@JenGresham Considerate, unless it's all self-promo. Then obnoxious. I look for a PERSON behind all that advice.

@thecopycorner Harmless but missing the point. An example of a useful tweet IN CONTEXT from said experts would be nice. :)

@darinpersinger i want engagement and conversation BUT also want tips and insights from people I admire..like you

@thedoodledaily Just don't go for overkill. Understated is better and gets the message across.

@TonyIdem If ur good at being HUMAN (non annoying) you should be fairly decent on Twitter. Tweet tips & advice? Misguided I'd say

@OLSoundAdvice Could it be a combo? Pt neighborhood bar, pt info sharing? After all, no one really likes Cliff Clavin

@AmnaAhmad Mostly annoying. If they manage to pack in some comedy, I forgive them.

@ElizabethPW awesome if you do it in the way you would tell your friend. and if it's kind of funny or inappropriate.

@AndyFogarty Eh, I think all of the above at times. Depends on how it's done. I think interesting and relevant yield stronger relationships

@who_is_matt Missing the point. Advice and tips are pretty boring to read all day, whereas f-bombs are always funny

@Juno360 Missing the point running into obnoxious. Twitter is about personality. Advice only works if you establish a Twitterself 1st

@Juno360 And then only if your twitterself turns out to have useful advice to give. Helps to be funny. Otherwise you look like a dork

@MarekZee don't think there are rules on what should be tweeted any more than there are rules on what should be e-mailed or texted

@MarekZee though, I rather see useful advice and tips than what people had for breakfast or where they are (through Foursquare)

@JimValeri Half the time I'm wondering what the heck to tweet. I don't want to be a knob, but I don't want to be a know-it-all either.

@MarkDykeman Useful

@MaLindaLou Considerate! Especially when the tips involve discounts and career opportunities.

@havi d) obnoxious AND missing the point. (Or: okay if people want to but tweeting useful tips is so unfollow-worthy in my book)

@chrisgarrett @havi depends. When @unmarketing or @chrisbrogan tweet tips/wisdom/advice I listen. Most of what I read is automated and bland

@kizmiazuk What @havi said, plus I'd rather read a good article with some context I can relate to than a disembodied tip

@alisonjgolden I don't mind a bit of usefulness but mostly I like the inane funny stuff.

@fabeku Mostly obnoxious, unless there's some funny there. But also kind of missing the point.

@ingridtappin you just walked into a bar all by yourself. what do you do? the answer is your twitter how to'.

@joannapaterson twitter is awash with advice. you need an umbrella to shelter from it.

@bluestreakblog tips go in the blog, masked by chuck norris jokes. twitter is for snarky potty-mouth.

@richardmiller As far as I'm concerned, it's the ideal way to get unfollowed. #usefultips #spareme

WELL. Isn't THIS interesting?

Here's what I make of all of this.

1. Tip means different things to different people.

If you send me a link to Mashable.com's list of 1,000,000,000 best Facebook resources, I am thrilled. Nicely done, sir or madam. If you tweet, Tip: Personally engage with Facebook fans to make them feel special!!!, well, out comes the old punch in the nose. What's the difference?

The embarrassing, elitist, ugly truth? The second one sounds inane and amateurish and, well, lame. Cheesy. Maybe there are some people reading that and saying, Holy SHIT! Yes! I SHOULD engage with my fans as if they're people and not just credit cards! But I think those people are stupid. So if I read that tip, I think YOU think I'm one of those people, which is to say stupid.

To use a non-social-media example, it's like when a parenting expert says, Make sure to listen to your kids. They're people too. What are you, my father? I was sitting here innocently making Chuck Norris jokes and you essentially accused me (quite condescendingly) of ignoring my children. Screw you, random internet person.

2. Social media savviness and saturation.

It seems like the less involved in social media you are, and especially the less involved in TALKING about social media you are, the more likely you are to be pleased with tips. If you're really IN social media, you hate it. This means that if you're selling hats, you're probably pretty safe to tweet hat maintenance tips. If you're running a social media blog, stick to Chuck Norris.

3. Size of network.

The fewer people you're following, the less you're likely to mind tips. If the people in your network tend to follow less than 500 people, they (generally) won't mind tips. If they're heavy users with sizeable networks, they're sick of it.

4. Tone.

This is probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. If you can be funny or self-deprecating or ironic, you can give as many tips as you want. If you're all earnest and serious about it, people get annoyed. It's Twitter, for Christ's sake. It's not the fucking Magna Carta.

Which leads me to:

What's the point of social media, again?

Then we got this tweet, and I think it deserves some airplay:

@massbehavior What is the point? PLEASE tell me, I swear I will tell no one or everyone what ever is your wish. I am waiting

I'm pretty sure the point of social media is being social.

My favorite answer to my question came from @LJonte. I liked it so much, I'm giving it a box.

@LJonte I'd say, harmless but missing the point. Twitter is a conversation. You can't have a conversation with a fortune cookie

As far as I am concerned, this is the wisest thing said about Twitter ever. We can now officially never talk about it again because all that needs to be said has been said and we can get on with Chuck.

Which brings me to

You, me, social media and the healing comfort that comes from spitting in Frodo Baggins' eye

Working from home, while delightful, is a bitch sometimes. It's lonely. Your family doesn't understand you. At least 50% of your real life circle is pretty sure you're doing something illegal but they like you enough to keep quiet about it. While I don't want to go back to working in an office unless it's MY office I do miss the water cooler. I miss the group slackoff.

So let's start a group slackoff. One in which you ask me if I liked Lord of the Rings and I say I liked all of it except I fast forward through the bits with Frodo because I want to spit in his eye.

Introducing #msms: Make Social Media Social

Starting today, I'm going to start asking you (if you're following me on Twitter) embarrassingly personal questions under the guise of being friendly. We're going to start with lame stuff like what's your favourite movie? and allow the conversation to organically degenerate into jokes about your mother.

Let's get to know each other as humans, instead of businesses, blogs, or profiles.

How to join in:

First, make sure you're following me on Twitter. (Click that link, and then click the Follow button.)

When you see something with the hashtag #msms and want to chime in, do so by saying whatever you want to say, but make sure you ALSO add the hashtag #msms. You don't need to actually reply to me as in, you don't have to start with @NaomiDunford. (That's a waste of 14 perfectly good characters.) Just by adding the hashtag, I'll see your response, and other people will too.

If you want to make SURE a specific person sees your tweet, make sure you include their handle (the @Whoever part) somewhere in your tweet.

To see what other people are saying, click on the #msms in my (or anybody else's) tweet, or search for it in the search box. That will get you to a page with real time results, refreshing every few seconds.

Ideally, this will turn into unintelligible mayhem and nobody will get any work done all day. But it'll be fun!

(Oh, and for those of you bugging me for Tweet This buttons? Here. Have a button.)

Tweet

Your company brand is your mark of distinction; it's what sets you apart from your competitors. When you establish and ahere to a brand management strategy, your level of commitment reassures consumers, suppliers, and anyone else that your company does business with that they can trust you.

Brand management is so important that Reputations Corporation, a Vancouver-based consultancy group, reports that 72 percent of consumers say reputation influences their buying decisions; 80 percent of employees will accept less pay to work with a company with an excellent reputation; while another 89 percent say reputation is a tiebreaker between equal products. Whether you're trying to influence key decision makers or attract and retain top talent, you'll want to consider the following tips on managing your company's brand.

How to Manage Your Company's Brand: Finding the Right Marketing Vehicle

There are many marketing vehicles that can drive home your brand message, including:

Public relations and publicity
Trade shows
Phone directories
Online (your website, blog, social media such as Twitter and Facebook, advertising)
Broadcast media (television, radio)
Print media (newspapers, magazines, specialty publications)
Print displays and direct mail (brochures, fliers, signage)
Professional assistance (consultants, designers, and agencies)

It's best to choose the communications vehicle that you're comfortable implementing and that will reach your intended audience, says Kirsten Dixon, a Boston-based Personal Branding Strategist. Otherwise, "If you don't enjoy the mediums you use for marketing, you won't use them often enough to keep your brand top of mind," she warns.

Another aspect that business owners often overlook, Dixon says, is to think about how to maximize those brand communications activities that you currently use. For example, if you are going to be speaking at a conference, how can you use social media to publicize that event, get feedback on the content your audience would like to hear, and use that content in an enduring way after the live event (like video clips)? "What happens most of the time is that we show up at the event, deliver our speech, hand out a few business cards, and cross our fingers that it turns into something more," says Dixon.

Dig Deeper: How to Build Your Personal Brand


How to Manage Your Company's Brand: Utilizing New Media

Ed Roach, founder of The Brand Experts, a brand management consultancy in West Leamington, Ontario, goes further to suggests that even if you're not 100 percent comfortable with social media you should make an effort to learn it. Branding strategies have expanded to include smartphones and phone apps, mobile websites and mobile ads as well as social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Ning.

"Social media has one very important perspective to share with brand management - the conversation. Like branding, social media is all about the conversation and building effective relationships. They are perfectly suited to one another," says Roach, the author of The Reluctant Salesperson, a free e-book available at www.thebrandingexperts.ca. The rules for brand messaging through new media versus traditional channels haven't changed, but "the game sure got better and more interesting," says Roach.

It's not enough to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, you must participate in the conversation by making regular posts and replying to direct messages from your customers.

Ron Smith, president and founder of S&A's Cherokee, a public relations and marketing firm in Cary, North Carolina, agrees, adding that you'll want to stay on top of what people are saying about you and your brand online.
"Monitoring social media is a must for all companies. Social media has shortened the time frame for company responses to complaints or accusations. These days, companies need to acknowledge any issues and control the messaging in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days," says Smith.

Dixon adds, "In the past, if a customer had a gripe, their recourse would have been to write a letter or call customer service. Now, he can Tweet his concerns for all the world to see."

Dixon suggests that the most basic thing is to have a website that serves as a mashup of a consulting site, a portfolio with proof-of-performance content, and blogs from company leaders packed with relevant key words. The website should be powered by TypePad or Wrodpress for easy manageability, and the domain name should include the name of the business. With a strong domain name and consistently new content from blogs, the company should rank high in search engine results.

"Search engine optimization strategies are a constant exercise. It's important to keep information flowing and to harness key search words that can lead searchers to the brand. Like any advertising media it's all about awareness," says Roach.

Dig Deeper: 6 Tools for Monitoring Your Reputation


How to Manage Your Company's Brand: Always Keep a High Profile

S&A Cherokee's Smith says your brand must be visible in good times and bad. "The foxhole mentality of waiting out economic downturns will put you behind your competitors when things start turning around. Trying economic times can also be opportunities to fully engage your creativity and explore alternate means of generating revenue. If you don't like the way the game is played, change the rules," says Smith.

Smith offers several tips for keeping your brand top of mind in the marketplace during trying times:

Network with your local Chambers of Commerce and professional associations. You never know when an acquaintance or colleague will pass along a lead to you.

Barter with companies for exposure. For example, co-exhibiting at an expo or negotiating a trade of your service for ad space.

Encourage your staff to become active in local charities and boards of directors. Again you never know where that next lead will come from.

Hold webinars for free or for minimal fees. Share knowledge and promote your company as an industry leader.

Dig Deeper: How to Network Effectively


How to manage Your Company's Brand: Establish Brand Consistency

Whether, it's your company website, your ranking in search engine optimization, or your Facebook and Twitter pages, you should strive for consistency in image and reputation in managing your brand. It will save you money and eliminate any confusion about what your brand stands for in the marketplace, says Roach.

"Look at your competition," advises Roach. "Are their images and positioning strategy different than yours? Do you all blend in - same colors, same slogans, same offers?" If so, Roach says you may want to reevaluate your strategy.

According to Sam Waltz, founder and president of Sam Waltz & Associates Business and Communications Counsel of Wilmington, Delaware, most audiences are way too sophisticated to get distracted by flashy drawings that designers tend to hold in front of executives as being what branding is all about. "It's about finding, creating, and perpetuating a resonant win-win relationship with your critical stakeholders," says Waltz.

To stand out, Dixon adds, you need to have an understanding of your competitors and peers. "If you are strongly known for somethingbecause you are very clear and consistent with that messagethen the people who benefit from your offering will come to you instead of your competitor," says Dixon.

She recommends doing a same-different analysis of the competition initially in the personal brand discovery phase and then doing quarterly or biannual check research of your competition. "Too much concern over what the competition is doing isn't productive. You aren't moving forward as fast when you are constantly looking over your shoulder," Dixon says.

A good example of this strategy is UPS, says Roach. "Most delivery companies' color palettes are bright. UPS on the other hand is brown. They own brown in their category so much so that their color icon has become their slogan 'What can brown do for you today?'"

Ultimately, you should be prepared to develop, monitor and constantly push your brand message in the marketplace. Your message should be simple and as consistent as possible in every marketing venue you choose to ensure that when people think of your brand that their perception is inline with your perception of your company.

Dig Deeper: An Extreme Brand Makeover

I have a little room in my entrepreneurial journalism class at CUNY.

I'd especially like a few under- or unemployed journalists looking to start businesses in the class to add to the mix of experience among the students. I've also had students from other schools in the past. Tuition is about $1k (sorry; I'm looking for scholarship money for various categories such as unemployed, career-shifting, journalists and ethnic and community journalists but don't have it yet).

In the class, you will create and present a business plan for a sustainable (read: profitable) journalistic enterprise. We will work through:
* Your elevator pitch; the essential description of your business.
* Product plan.
* Needs statement why does the world need this thing?
* Market research and analysis who are your customers and what do you know from them?
* Competitive analysis.
* Revenue plan.
* Distribution/marketing plan.
* Operations plan.
* Technology plan.
* Launch plan.
* Investment ask.

At the end of the class in December, you present your plan to a jury of investors, entrepreneurs, journalists, publishers, and technologists (it's great fun, that day).

The class meets Monday afternoons, 130-430p at CUNY.

If you're interested, I have just a few spots. Email me at the school: jeff.jarvis at journalism dot cuny dot edu. Tell me what you want to build an entirely new business or a hyperlocal site. Tell me about you and your experience. I'll select a few based on the mix of the class and how complementary you, your business, and your experience are with the other students and their projects. If it doesn't work out this time, fret not. We're going to launch a larger entrepreneurial journalism program soon. If accepted, you'd need to be in class starting Sept. 6 (we've held one class so far).

Because is the place where experience ends and faith begins.

Children have two ways of discovering how the universe works: one is to experiment, and the other is to ask why. The result is a complex series of if-then conditions that tell a child what can be done, and what can't, creating flags that are used later to navigate the environment.

We've already talked about the first type now let's talk about the second.

Children don't ask why to be careful with a knife if they've already cut themselves they only ask with something that is outside their experience, that is abstract. This is the evolution of because, an if-then condition that is outside of experience, and that we don't really understand.

The danger of because is that we take things on faith because it comes from an authority. As time goes on and our understanding advances, more of our questions now have actual answers, but the because remains anyway.

God is because. Zeus is why the lightning strikes and good people die but God has a plan for them.

Science can be because. We have faith in doctors who reflexively prescribe medicine instead of get to the root cause, and don't get second opinions.

Dogma and rules are because. Gay is wrong because it is against nature, and you need to eat breakfast because it's the most important meal of the day.

Everytime we don't understand something, because takes its place and we stop there instead of testing. We have faith in the system, even though its purpose is to sustain itself, not to help you.

This is a way that the social system has protected itself since the beginning of time, ensuring that we can work together to build a better world. This works for the system that we live in and can make our lives better, but if you don't want to be a middle manager, it may leave you feeling incomplete. It isn't the only way.

You can be outside the system, and you can live well doing it. But your first step will be to ignore because and to start asking why again.

Not to state the obvious, but it ain't easy launching a magazine these days. Especially when you're a small group of friends with limited resources trying to create something new and experimental, and a big corporate media entity tries to screw you.

That's what happened to the founders of Longshot magazine, formerly 48 HR magazine, which CBS swiftly cease-&-desisted for infringing on the trademark of the not quite same-named TV show "48 Hours" after the debut issue made a big splash back in May.

Long story short: there was a legal fracas ("CBS is going to try to f*ck us pretty hard. Horrible to see a huge, dying media property kill something you love for no goddamn reason," co-creator Mat Honan tweeted on June 11) that the 48 HR team didn't have the resources to really get into. So they had to cave to some of CBS' demands, the main one being that they change the name of the magazine, which kind of defeats the purpose considering the whole idea is that each issue gets produced in 48 hours.

Point is, instead of throwing in the towel, they decided to go full steam ahead. Work begins today on the second issue, which is the first under the name Longshot.

This time around, in addition to the print product, they're also going to whip up an iPad app and website, all in two-days time. MagCloud will power both the magazine and the app, but the "more technically challenging issue will be getting a website up, where we'll publish selections from the magazine, in kind of a Freemium model," Honan told us.

Staff from GOOD magazine will be filming the entire thing.

As for the contributors, Honan said: "We never know who will make it in the magazine. We're hoping to get pieces in from folks who didn't send us anything last time, like Choire Sicha, Ann Friedman, and Steve Silberman."

The theme for issue No. 2 will be announced at noon Pacific time and contributors will have 24 hours to file their copy. The editors will then edit, design and lay it all out over the following 24 hours.

We're eager to see how it all turns out.

The Wire is Business Insider's go-to source for media news. Click here to read more >>

Join the conversation about this story

See Also:

• 48 HR Magazine Gets A New Name That CBS Can't Sue Them Over
• 48 HR Magazine Will Cease Sales On June 27
• CBS Tosses Some Snark At 48 HR Magazine

Customer referrals are one of the most powerful selling and marketing tools available. In fact, the best source of new business is a referral from a satisfied customer. According to Forrester Research, 71 percent of online shoppers read reviews before buying. Other studies also show that customers also say that referrals are of the utmost importance in determining who they buy from and what they buy.

Given the business potential from garnering customer referrals, it's important to know how to get good word of mouth from your regulars. Being able to build a high percentage of business from customers, and even prospects, through referrals is an enviable characteristic of exceptional sales professionals. There is an art to asking for referrals and getting them.

The sections below will outline how to satisfy a customer so they will make referrals, when to ask for customer referrals, and the right way to ask for them.

The first rule of generating customer referrals is quite basic: make your customer happy. "The very first thing you have to do is provide a great product or service," says Whitney Wood, managing partner of the Phelon Group, a consultancy based in Palo Alto, California, which focuses on helping companies develop better relations with customers. "You shouldn't be trying to get customers who aren't happy with you to give you referrals. First give them something they love."

Encouraging referrals begins with your very first contact and continues throughout the entire selling and serving process, says Jeff Thull, president and CEO of Prime Resource Group, a strategy and consulting group that advises companies large and small. Thull recommends that you ask yourself the following questions:

"All of these questions are within your control and should be guiding your conversation," Thull says.

Keep in mind the importance of word of mouth as you focus on making the buying process effective and enjoyable before, during, and even after the sale.

"Make sure you understand expectations in great detail and follow up after the sale to ensure that your customers are seeing the results they should expect," Thull says. "If the customer is pleased with how they have been treated and served, and with the value they've received, they certainly will be more willing to attach their name to you and your solution. They will be proud to be seen as the source of a great idea."

Dig Deeper: How to Build Personal Relationships With Customers

There is a right time and a wrong time to ask your customers to help you market your product or service. If your business is one where a customer can quickly see the benefit of what they bought from you, then you should ask for a referral soon after the purchase, when they are still excited about the product. On the other hand, if you sell a product or service and the benefit of that is not clear for some time say enterprise software then the customer is not necessarily in a position to give you a referral immediately. It may take a long time for the product to be implemented and benefits realized.

"When you deliver the value your customers expect and you've verified that they recognize it, they see you as a very credible, valued resource," Thull says. "For those customers, a referral is a very logical and comfortable next step in the relationship."

Due to advancements in technology, there are ways to ask for customer refe