Dr. Veno

Controversy Bad for Business

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:14:33 +0000

In deciding what impact a little, or a lot, of controversy might have on a company, we have to consider all the variables involved in the situation from which the controversy arises. Case in point: just this past week, Google got into more hot water when it was outed that they had circumvented their own privacy policy with regards to Apple’s mobile Safari browser and user data collection. More and more, Google, once the undisputed “good guy” of the Internet, is being regarded as less than virtuous in its methods of doing whatever it does with all that personal information is gleans from its millions of users.

And speaking of Apple, one of the top business stories in recent weeks has surrounded the working conditions of people slaving away at the infamous Foxconn plant in China, for the equivalent of about $1.50 per hour USD. This news broke in the same week that Apple’s stock shares reached $500 for the first time in the company’s history. Granted, Apple is the not the only company who outsources to Foxconn for manufacturing its parts and components, indeed entire devices, but Apple is the “big baddy” right now because, theoretically speaking, Apple is on top right now. Whoever is on top tends to be the company that will market controversy the best, making it the subject of great debate and discussion all over the media. In other words, thanks to the controversy, the media gets something interesting to go on about until real news breaks.

Every time I turn the news on my Dish network El Paso, I feel like all I hear are reports about companies doing controversial things! So, what do you think of controversy when it comes to helping or hindering a business? Is it good or bad for a company to be the subject of stories like Foxconn and the Google Safari privacy violation? Does it change your usage habits? Could it ever influence you to boycott or avoid certain products? Many of the Americans polled on the Foxconn scandal reported that they intended to boycott Apple until the situation with the workers there improved — but in a follow-up poll, most of them replied using their iPhones. Go figure.

My conclusion is that controversy isn’t bad for business. And maybe it should be. But it goes back to that old saying, “Any publicity is good publicity.” What do you think? Leave us your comments.

The Business of Christmas

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:49:32 +0000

The most wonderful time of the year, a season full of greetings, merry, and more are used to describe the holidays and festivities this time of the year. People might not think about it, but this joyous time of the year is also one of the biggest times for retail and businesses. The economy might not be in the best shape and families and businesses might be cutting back, but that does not mean that Christmas is not a big business. People are still spending this year just like every year in the past.

The spending goes well beyond just getting a few gifts for family members too. Think about all of the things that people spend money on this year. Some of the things that require us to shell out cash are Christmas trees, lights, ornaments, wrapping papers, ribbons, bows, and gift tags. On top of decorations and gift accessories, many people opt to get gifts for friends and coworkers too which just keeps the costs of Christmas high.

This year things are not slowed down at all though. Almost 40% of people started doing their shopping even before the Halloween holiday. More than half began before Thanksgiving. People are still buying, and though it might only be for a few months out of the year, it is still good news for business. Check out the infographic below to see more ways the business of Christmas is affecting businesses and people this year.

Starbucks Is Getting Healthy

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:14:48 +0000

In the United States, the health and wellness industries and business exceeds $50 billion. That is a pretty high number, and it would make sense that businesses would want to hop on board and become a part of this growing trend. You have probably noticed many chains and fast food restaurants hopping on this healthy train offering options that appeal to the more health conscious person. Starbucks was definitely listening and the company heard those numbers loud and clear. Now the coffee retailer is jumping on the healthy juice craze, acquiring the Evolution Juice company for $30 million cash.

The plan is to tackle the juice like Starbucks did with coffee in the beginning. It took a general thing like coffee and turned it into something major. That’s the hope for the juice side of business. Next year, you will most likely see a new concept to the retail side featuring health and wellness hopefully encouraging the juice sales.

The Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, has a three step plan to introduce the juice:

All Starbucks locations will carry fresh Evolution Juice to create brand awareness.
The juice will then be distributed to grocery stores.
Specialty stores will be introduced and incorporated into the Starbucks family.

Find out more about how Starbucks is getting healthy from an interview with Howard Schultz below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Using Social Media to Recruit

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:07:39 +0000

Social media is more and more becoming an integral part of people’s daily life. Sometimes it even seems that there are no ways around having to use social media. Even grandparents are using it to keep in touch with their families and grandchildren. Honestly, does it not seem like everyone and their dog has a Facebook profile now? With social media being all the rage, it’s no wonder that job recruiting has taken that route as well. In fact many businesses will use social media networks as a way to find potential employees.

Since most people use social media, businesses have found a great way to take advantage of that and find the best candidates for open and available positions. If your business has yet to get on board with using social media as a recruiting method, then what are you waiting for? It is easy to set up accounts and look for candidates through LinkedIn and other social media outlets. You will find that this method of recruiting might even save you some time and money overall. To find out more details on utilizing social media for finding employees, look at the infographic below.

Improve Productivity Effectively

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:05:52 +0000

Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? Remember your small business in the 1980s? The pencil and calculator bookkeeping methods and the bulky credit card swipe “machine” were daily realities. If you wanted to go back to review customer’s histories, look at past invoices, or things like that, then you were forced to check in filing cabinet draws in your organized folders. Now, at that time, it was not so bad. Looking back though, are you not glad that technology has made some great strides that have allowed for great things from your business?

As a small business owner, it is very likely that you have a great understanding of how important technology and innovative features are to your business. Each year it seems like the technology that can be utilized by small businesses is making processes faster and simpler, allowing for more work to get done, and overall just helping to improve productivity. The good news is that all of this technology is not so expensive that it will end up putting a huge dent in your business’ pocket.

Watch this video that was posted by Cisco Small Business. With a wireless solution one small business went from an office to an big workstation. This has allowed for more productivity and some cost cuts. Check it out.

Keep the Creativity Flowing With Herbs

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:32:57 +0000

When you are responsible for a team of people or an entire business then you understand what it is like to have a lot of things on your plate. All leaders know that they need to find all the ways possible to promote and encourage creativity and ideas from the members of the business team in order to keep things fresh, new, and on the right track. The only issue with that is the fact that often times you might not be able to pinpoint exactly what it is that will do just that. No matter the size of the group that you are heading up, there are a few things that you must always keep in mind to make certain that every team member is encouraged to use their own creative ideas and thoughts in order to help you and the business as a whole to grow.

Work Together – You and your group might not ever have to even talk to one another to get daily tasks and jobs done, however it is so important for the team and the individuals to have time together to brainstorm and collaborate. when you get a whole group together, the ideas will really start to flow. If you want even more group brainpower action, then hop look into legal herbs direct to find some wholesale incense to get it going.

Be Adaptable – When you are able to adapt to a variety of circumstances and situations, your employees will definitely be able to tell that is the case. While sometimes it might be difficult to always go with the flow, you might find that the more you do, the more your employees will to. When everyone is adapting and finding new ways to handle old situations, creativity will take center stage without even trying.

Always Communicate – Most people are going to tell you that communicating with employees individually and as a team is probably the most important thing in a business, and that is pretty accurate. Make sure that the lines of communication are always open. That way if someone has an idea they can always feel free to share it.

Your Major Matters

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:40:24 +0000

It wasn’t that long ago that I was roaming the halls of my university, but a lot has changed since then. When I was in college, the majority of my friends were studying liberal arts and education. It wasn’t rare to find that half of your friends were majoring in psychology and minoring in sociology. My class had the luxury of an economy that hadn’t failed us yet. We knew people who had graduated with such degrees and found success and jobs quickly after graduation.

According to new statistics, this is no longer the case. I found this great infographic the other day, which illustrates the importance of picking a major that makes sense. As you can see, even today, the most popular degree is education, however, we all know teachers are being laid off left and right.

The take away: Make sure you pick a major with potential. Business, science, health, and technology are your best bets for long term success. If you feel absolutely compelled to pursue education or liberal arts, make sure you are constantly gaining experience in your field so that your job hunt isn’t so horrifying.

It’s Getting CLOUD-y

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:54:13 +0000

As of recent, many different businesses and organizations are ready to make some serious changes when it comes to their technology. Instead of being forced to house all of their own technology and technological footing, the idea of computing and using the cloud is becoming a popular idea. The only problem with that is that there are still many companies who are quite new to this idea of the cloud, and getting ready to begin the process is the very most important step. If you are considering making the switch pretty much completely to the cloud, or just implementing it for some things, you should take the following things into account.

Evaluate Needs

At this point in the game, the cloud cannot be your all-in-all for every need inside of your business, but it can take the bulk of the load. It is up to you to decide what exactly your needs for your business will be. You can still keep some internal things in practice and use cloud computing for other things. It is all up to you. The best place to start the consideration process is by choosing the certain applications that will benefit the most from being changed over to the cloud.

Ensure it’s Secure

The provider of your cloud will need to give you proof of its security. Cloud computing companies for the most part have round the clock teams ensuring the ultimate security, because let’s face it, it is their job to make sure their customer’s are secure. Just make sure to find out about the company’s security measures and such prior to making that leap.

Conformity

With anything in business there are rules of conformity and compliance that must be adhered to. Making a change to the cloud means that your cloud computing company should understand and also help to ensure that they can stick to these compliance standards and issues, addressing all of the concerns and issues.

Agreements and Services

There are two different routes that you have the option of taking when going to the cloud. Some cloud companies can give you the option of a cloud that is something you manage yourself. Others might offer services and agreements with those on managing your cloud operations. You must be aware first of your businesses needs prior to getting involved in a service agreement.

SCORE for Entrepreneurs

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:01:11 +0000

Anyone who has ever envisioned starting a new small business from the ground up knows the challenges of entrepreneurship can be, at times, seemingly insurmountable. There is the question of where the start up capital (money needed to go into business) will come from. Most small business owners use at least some of their own money when beginning a new business endeavor, and many use most of their own money, relying as little as possible on funding (and thus, input) from outside investors or lenders. But sometimes, a business needs a little outside help to get things rolling. That’s where SCORE comes in. SCORE stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives, and it is an organization for assisting entrepreneurs and helping small businesses to get started and to grow. About 13,000 retired executive volunteers donate their time, free of charge, to providing business guidance and mentoring services to those wanting to start a new business or grow an existing one. cable internet bundles

Founded in 1964, SCORE now has 364 chapters throughout the United States and its territories. There are chapters in every state who network with more localized volunteers and small business centers and community colleges. When a new entrepreneur applies for financing through a bank, having worked closely with a SCORE mentor and a local small business center looks good on an application. SCORE is partially funded by the Small Business Administration (SBA,) so it carries quite a lot of clout. A person who has worked closely with volunteers in the formulation of a business plan and in developing the projections required to take out a loan tend to fare better than people who have not taken these steps. They are funded more often, and their businesses have a longer life.

Other big name sponsors include Microsoft, Best Buy, AT&T, Cisco, Google, American Airlines, Hess, Entrepreneur Magazine, AOL, and the Wall Street Journal. With companies like these backing the organization, count on SCORE being around for a long, long time.

Communication

admin — Fri, 13 May 2011 09:12:31 +0000

Communication is the art of conveying information from one person to another. Communication in the office is very important and can be done through different mediums like telephone, email or letters. Henceforth, in any business set up, the need to establish clear ways of communication is very imperative.
Communication can be classified into two categories; human communication and nonhuman communication. In the office it is human communication that normally takes place so we classify it further down to; verbal / oral communication, non verbal communication, visual communication and written communication. In order to make sure that instruction are well put across in the office environment and each and every employee knows what needs to be done and how to do it, there has to be a well organized flow of communication.
Verbal or oral communication is the kind of communication that can takes place between two or more persons by use of mouth. They speak words that form sentences and convey their information. In this kind of communication, the two or more parties have to be either close to each other or connected by a medium like the telephone. You may need to ask someone a question or give some instructions and you do this by directly talking to them face to face or via telephone. This is a quick way of conveying your message and it also gets a response very fast. When you have an urgent need of a response, then verbal communication is best.
Nonverbal communication refers to all types of communication that do not involve responding by words or even use of words. It could be use of charts, graphs or sign language. This kind of communication is used normally where there is a need to be silent or when both or one party cannot speak. Visual communication is a type of conveying information by use of sight only. Again, here charts or graphs can be used. Visual communication is not really good especially when you need to get an opinion or respond from the other party since they are just using their sight to get your message. They will need to respond to you by visual communication and this may take time to convey even the slightest explanation. The use of direct hd tv sets or video files is normally a common way of communication in visual sense but even TV’s add some sound to it and words hence combining both visual and verbal communication. This is a good kind of way to communicate since both kinds will increase the ability of expressing your message much more clearly. Lastly but not least, there is written communication. This kind of conveying information involves the use of written words and documents. Examples include letters, contracts, and newspapers, electronic kinds like email or short message services via handsets. This kind of communication does not get immediate responses quite fast since it gives the other party time to think about it and an option of replying later.
Communication is very important in any business to allow a good flow of things.