Yes, the video is in German, but you’ll still get it.
Category: Everything Else
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Here’s a quick bit of inspiration this morning courtesy of Jeff Haden and Inc. Magazine.
It’s some advice on how to be a remarkable employee. The concepts are fairly straightforward and of course are easier said than done. However, the eight principles discussed can be applied to your work ethic over time to produce long term dividends.
These are also great ideas to look for in new employees, and to praise your existing employees.
So, how will you be remarkable today?
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I just love it when a big company with lots of financial resources puts its money where it’s mouth is.
Today, Google basically put a bounty on any exploits of its Chrome browser by offering cash rewards if hackers can find a bone fide exploit.
This does two things:
First, it’s a public display of Google’s belief that Chrome is solid. In other words, you wouldn’t spend a million bucks (even if you have tons of cash) if you knew you had exploits. So this is Google saying, “we know we’re good” and we’ll prove it with this contest.
Next, its a relatively good way to take advantage of “free” resources within the hacking community that Google would otherwise have to pay. In essence, it’s crowd-sourcing the browser and it will compensate any results. Of course if you don’t find an exploit, you don’t get compensated. So basically Google gets to test Chrome without having to pay the testers.
I’m glad Google continues to invest in keeping Chrome malware and exploit free. It’s not something new (paying hackers for exploits), but it’s still a innovative approach.
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I’m looking for a few good folks who want to be a part of the best interactive marketing team! My team (maybe I’m biased?)
All positions are located in Manassas, VA and require 2-5 years of experience.
- Search Marketing Coordinator
- Social Communities Coordinator
- Email/CRM Marketing Coordinator
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One of my least favorite category of ‘internet companies’ are those like About.com and Demand Media’s eHow.com. These sites create basically useless, non-authorative content that misleads consumers, provides little value and prevents higher quality content from appear in search engine results because that better content is not marketed as well.
Needless to say, it’s a billion dollar business.
And to prove it Demand Media bested Wall Street’s most recent quarterly earnings expectations. The question is, with all the changes Google and the other engines are making to the search algorithms, will that continue to affect DM’s future prospects, or will they remain highly reactive step-in-step?
Like I said, I despise this type of content. It sucks.
The problem is not that they are taking advantage of this market. The problem is the consumer. We need to educate non-technical people that when they are doing searches, sites that purvey low quality content should be ignored. Often this means avoiding the first few search results; or at least understanding which companies produce shitty content, like About.com and eHow.com.
Educate your friends and family and let high quality content prevail.
Amen.
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Erik Qualman at ClickZ posted an article a while back entitled, “Steve Jobs: 10 Lessons in Leadership.” It’s a quick read and I highly recommend the post, whether you love Steve Jobs or hate him (or fall somewhere in between), there are some interesting concepts that will really make you think.
Now, it’s much easier to Monday-morning-QB Steve’s success after the fact, but since that’s all we have to go on, it’s not a bad place to start.
What the post by Erik fails to mention was that Jobs was not perfect. There were many failed products at Apple. The post points out that Jobs cancelled many products and that was okay, but do you think those failures tormented him? Perhaps… they may have also served as great motivators. After all, aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes?
Interestingly, people often forget to talk about Apple’s greatest mistake – the fact that it did not license its computing technology during the great home computer race in the 80’s. Instead, it kept the technology close to the vest and that allowed the PC market (dominated by IBM) to capture something upwards of 90%. Imagine if Apple had gone the other way? Where would we be today? Perhaps Apple would have had more innovative products or perhaps there would be no PC?
Regardless of the magnitude of that failed business decision one can argue it helped keep Apple products wholesome to Job’s vision without being muddled by inferior third parties. I would argue that while PCs got cheaper over the past 20 years, many of them got crappier too. After all, I am a firm believer of “you get what you pay for” in life.
I got my first iPod around 2003 or thereabouts, and am currently on my third one… I recently acquired an iPad for work, and after pleading incessantly with me, I purchased an iPhone 4 for my wonderful wife. I can tell you this, when I am awake, I have an Apple device with me nearly 100% of the time. My wife has yet to let go of the iPhone since December. I can’t really think of any other brand of technology that has become such a crutch in my household.
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I have an open position available for immediate hire at American Public University System in Manassas, Virginia. For more details on this position, please review the job posting.
To apply, please follow the directions in the posting. Once you have applied, please drop me a line and connect via LinkedIn.
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In higher education, we all know that the cost of text books is significant. These days at American Public University, we estimate that on average, course materials will run between $125 and $175 per course. With a typical bachelor’s degree requiring 120 credits, that’s about 40 courses or about $5,000 to $7,000! The University realized early on that this can be quite a burden, so the school provides a Book Grant to degree-seeking undergrads which picks up most course material costs. Other students, including those in graduate programs can take advantage of purchasing books from discounters such as Chegg.com and Amazon.com, and can also purchases used books and sell their books back to various vendors when they complete courses.
However, there is innovation in the textbook industry, and it is coming mostly from outside the publishers.
There is a rumor that Apple will be hosting an event related to the publishing industry (possible textbooks) in New York in January 2012. Could it center around electronic editions of textbooks? Could it be new software for the iPad that makes etextbooks more like printed books? Could it be a sub-$100 text book ereader? Could it be related to iTunesU and making more texts available for purchase?
There’s certainly a lot of speculation, and you can read more about it here.
Only time will tell. One thing is for sure, with the heavy market adoption of ereaders and tablets, the migration of textbooks from the print to electronic will be sooner than we think. The impact will most certainly be greater than we imagined on the economy, industry, how we use and interact with texts and how we use tablets for our studies.
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I’ve written a few bits about handling negative buzz and developing a crisis response plan when it comes to gaffs and complaints, but what about dealing with your mistakes?
- Act quickly to correct the error
- Post the correct and an explanation of what happened
- Be honest, humble and transparent
- Acknowledge that you will have disappointed customers
- For retail, understand that some customers would only have been your customers because of the error (offering a tablet for $10 instead of $100). These people would never have come to your site to purchase the product if it was $100. They were only interested in a $10 one. So focus on your important customers first and don’t take the complaints personally.
What you need to do, is avoid ignoring people and don’t be rude (even if people are rude to you).
Here’s a great article about this topic that I recommend from Denise Keller at MarketingProfs.com.
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We moved into some new administrative offices here at American Public University System in Manassas, Virginia (Washington DC metro region). About 40 of us had been staring at blank (off-white) walls and then a few months ago we decided to invite employees to submit photos they had taken over the years. A small group of staff sorted through the submissions and picked two dozen photos to be enlarged, matted and framed. The end result is fantastic! While I might be biased (a few of my photos were chosen, and now employees are calling it the Dan Soschin art gallery), I will say it was an inexpensive and diversely captivating way of decorating our office. It also has a bit of an academic element, which is extremely appropriate given that we are a university.
During this project, which was incorporated into our other buildings as well, we happen to come across this article which is extremely relevant to the project.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-we-work/201112/the-power-workplace-do-it-yourself
Have you thought about updating the decor at your office? Maybe employee art is the way to go. You might be surprised at how talented some of your staff can be outside the office.
Dan Soschin 