For Geeks that Like to Twiddle
Posts tagged marketing
Lauding local literature
278 days
The only local literary award that rewards Malaysian authors turns five this year.
With Online Video, You Have 20 Seconds To Capture Your Viewer. Go. « ALLWEBTUTS
291 days
1. It Follows the Same Format as Television
2. It Relies On User-Generated Content
Bad Online Dates Rushes to the Rescue with BODFortune, a Cyber Feast of Good Fortunes to Make Bad Dates and Bad Days Feel Better
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) June 13, 2012 In keeping with its reputation as an online oasis of healing, laughter and hope, Bad Online Dates, a humorous and informative online source of encouragement for people who have experienced bad dates, launched a new online service to soothe the souls of...
3. It Doesn’t Engage the Viewer
4. It is too heavy handed with marketing.
5. It’s Difficult To Find
Ken’s Key takeawy. Until someone gets content curation right, people will keep the current habbit of simply checing facebook friends videos
Kerrin Sheldon: “With ever-increasing YouTube lunch breaks and Vimeo dinner dates, online video is becoming a constant companion–one that every brand is rushing to take advantage of. Follow these five tips so you don’t turn off would-be viewers.”
How To Run A Successful Virtual Office: Some Important Tips
331 days
by TwiddleGeek
in office 97
Working Together while Sitting on the Opposite Side of Earth:
Running a successful virtual office has become an increasingly popular phenomenon all over the world today. this is a kind of arrangement where the focus and the mission of the businesses are similar but it is not necessary that the personnel also sit in the same office. on the contrary, there is no limit to the physical distance and the other person may be sitting on the other side of the planet.
Virtual Relationship:
To run a successful virtual office, you need to understand the reasons why the virtual office is becoming so popular. in fact, whatever kind of business you are running, no matter how small it is, you need someone else also to operate it smoothly. Every business demands different types of skills, and you need different personalities to fulfill the requirements. while running a successful virtual office, one may get ideas for the marketing of products from a person whom he might never meet in his life face-to-face. So, the virtual office is building virtual relationships also.
Avoid Feeling of Isolation among Employees:
To run a successful virtual office, you have to adopt certain specific strategies. here are some of them to help you in running your virtual office. the first and very important point to keep in mind is that your employees should never feel they are isolated. how can you prevent this from happening? For this purpose, you should organize conferences at regular intervals so that the employees get an opportunity to interact with each other, thereby getting rid of the feeling of loneliness. here, making use of Web conferencing services will be very useful.
Develop good Working Habits:
To run a successful virtual office, you have to train your employees for working habits also, along with making them expert in technology. Methods of training employees for the virtual office are different from that of centralized offices. in addition to learning the proper use of the technical items like laptops, PDAs, and other similar things, they also have to learn how to make best use of their time. they have to learn the art of not mixing the things like house cleaning and child care with their office work.
Have Faith in Your Employees:
Another important requirement for running a virtual office successfully is trust between the employees of different levels. as the physical distance is a great barrier in seeing them more often, you have to manage all the office work by developing a sense of mutual faith. the communication should be more frequent and there must be no confusion regarding the work at hand at the deadline to finish it.
VIA introduces amazing $49 APC Android computer, we go hands-on
333 days
by TwiddleGeek
in mini Itx
tweaktown.com Earlier on today we were invited down to the VIA headquarters where we met up with marketing director Richard Brown who introduced us to its new APC computer system. The APC computer is a Android system based on the brand new Neo-ITX form factor which measures in at roughly half the size of standard Mini-ITX based motherboards. It features an 800MHz ARM SOC with 512MB of DRAM and 2GB of onboard flash memory for storage. a modified version of Google Android 2.3 uses up most of that 2GB of flash storage, but there are external storage options. On the back I is a SD slot and of course you could hook in an external USB 2.0 drive. VIA spent a lot of time customizing Android to enable keyboard and mouse support which natively it does not support. The system also comes with the modified apps such as a YouTube player, angry Birds, a file manager, web browser and more. However, the VIA APC is not designed to be about local storage. It is designed to stream your content from the cloud and does so at an amazing price and within a very tiny footprint. The APC will fit in normal Mini-ITX cases with room to spare for something like a 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch hard drive. On the I/O panel you get VGA output, HDMI output, four USB 2.0 ports, gigabit LAN and audio out and microphone in. there is not much on the motherboard / computer itself. there is just the few chips required to power the system along with a four pin fan header if you wish to add a cooling fan to the …Video Rating: 4 / 5
The Future of Research in Motion (RIM) and Blackberry, or What Happens When You Don’t Use Predictive Metrics?
333 days
by TwiddleGeek
in Pdas
Remember Palm? they started the handheld revolution with PDAs and ended up with phones. for a while they were top of the heap when it came to “smartphones,” but that’s when the category was just being created. The problem was that other companies entered the marketplace and were able to better meet those pesky (and constantly increasing) customer expectations. So Palm tried to leverage its own smartphone operating system, but failed to connect with consumers at any significant level of engagement. by the time Hewlett-Packard came up with the highest bid for the floundering company, Palm stock had dropped 50% from the prior year. Yikes!
OK, it may be true that history repeats itself. Or that history is wonderful because it allows you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. but we specialize in – and, thus, recommend to brands – predictive engagement metrics that inform as to what consumers want and where the marketplace is heading, we think that it’s a really good thing to have in your marketing toolbox. in the absence of that, RIM may just have to read their future by looking at their own palms or examine the history of the Palm brand – and find a really different strategy for themselves. RIM had, for a very long time, rejected the idea of selling their company. but last week they announced the company was “considering strategic business model alternatives,” which is desperation-speak for “make me an offer, any offer!”
And desperation it is indeed. According to our Customer Loyalty Engagement Index – rankings that have been independently validated to correlate very, very highly with consumer engagement and corporate profitability in the corollary range of 0.75 upwards of 0.90 depending upon the category – the current lines of smartphones rank as follows
- Apple
- Samsung
- HTC
- LG
- Motorola
- Nokia
- RIM (Blackberry)
RIM/Blackberry, which once was at the top of our rankings (remember Palm?), has been nattering about an imminent “turnaround” based on new phone models equipped with RIM’s vaunted email, a new touch screen, and an operating system that was supposed to have rivaled the iPad. but as our list correlates with consumer behavior, customers, in fact, migrated in droves to iPhone and Android devices instead. Defections, lack of meaningful brand engagement, all accompanied by rolling blackouts resulted in RIM’s sales being down 20%, with its market value down nearly 76% from a year ago. oh, and more losses forecast for the future.
Today, when both markets and technology move at the speed of the consumer, we recommend a healthy infusion of engagement metrics, especially if one is interested in having a better fix on your brand’s future. because when it comes to the future, there are 3 kinds of companies: 1) those that let it happen, 2) those that make it happen, and 3) those that wonder what happened.
For companies looking to predict a bright future for their brands, we strongly recommend option #2.
Vital Laptop Gadgets
345 days
by TwiddleGeek
in usb Laptop Lights
Technology today is very advanced and because of that you can find many different gadgets or devices that have become basic needs in our everyday lives. like laptops, during the earlier years life was different but today we always bring along with us our laptops just to have access to our business or work even during vacation. This is especially true to all individuals who are in the marketing field. We also have to take into consideration adding some very important gadgets to help enhance the performance of your laptops. In this article we will be going to discuss some of the very important gadgets that we should have and always bring along with us if we want our laptop to function at its prime just like a Laptop Keyboard Light.
Security is always your top priority especially when you do travel a lot. it is really very important to secure your laptop not only because they are very expensive it is also because they contain very important documents related to your business or work. Security cables are very easy to use and you can purchase them at a very reasonable price. Most cables are made from very strong alloy and you can simply lock and unlock them with passwords.
Another very important gadget is the laptop optical mouse. These are very handy and useful device for your laptop. Plus they are very accurate and very easy to use, you simply need to attach them to your laptop using a USB cable.
Wireless Keyboard is another very crucial gadget you should have. they will allow you to manipulate your laptop even if you are meters away. they are perfect for those individuals who want to work but not stay in front of the laptop for a very long period of time.
If you love to listen to music and want to be sure that you will have great sounds then you should install a USB 3D sound adapter.
The next gadget we will be talking about is the Laptop keyboard light. Keyboard lights are very important for you to work in dark rooms, especially when you travel a lot in a plane and you do not want to disturb the person next to you and you really need to do work, with a laptop keyboard light it will be possible for you to work even without lights.
These are only some of the great and very important laptop gadgets you can add to your laptop. there are still many different kinds of gadgets available but they are not that important as these gadgets which we have already discussed.
2012: Trends in utility-scale wind turbines
358 days
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Three trends are driving the design of new turbines. one is a turbine for less than ideal wind farm locations, which might have lower winds and more turbulence. the other trends include greater reliability and larger designs.
As developers look to build in more challenging locations, OEMS have responded with a variety of designs. for instance, Leitwind’s LTW77 has modular construction making it easy to transport over and assemble on rough terrain. Likewise, the company’s LTW101 and LTW104 feature higher energy yields and improved availability. With about 3.500 full load hours (gross AEP at 6,5 m/s) the company says the models are some of the most efficient on the market.
All turbine OEMs say they are working on reliability improvements. for most turbines, the improvements will lower operating costs. Upgrades will span all through the machine, from pitch to hydraulics to yaw and to the gearbox.
Suzlon, GE, and Gamesa also have large-rotor units intended for lesser windy regions. Marketing directors have recognized that there are a lot of moderate wind sites around the globe. Why not a turbine for them? such units would allow placing turbines closer to loads–cities. one example is Acciona. the company’s AW3000/116 has a larger rotor, which makes it well-suited for less windy sites (those with low to medium wind speeds). Expect larger rotors and taller towers to go together.
There also seems to be a growing number of community wind and smaller-scale turbines. for instance, Cleveland-based manufacturer of welding products Lincoln electric recently installed a 2.5-MW turbine and expects to save about $500,000 a year in power costs. It’s one of the largest urban wind turbines in North America and manufacturer Kenersys‘ first in the U.S.
Network compatibility is another feature that is becoming increasingly important. Turbines like Dewind’s D9.2 is said to offer a reliable drivetrain that ensures good grid support. the design operates with dynamic reacitve power to support the grid though extreme events, while a generator works at high voltage to connect to the grid directly though a synchonizing switch without power conversion electronics, converters, or a min power transformer.
Direct drives may be another trend. the design gets rid of the problematic gearbox but then generators grow in size and complexity. the trend will continue if neodymium, a material ideal for high-flux-density magnets, says relatively inexpensive. Should Chinese sources decide to withhold the material from world markets for internal use, prices will climb. then it will be necessary to develop new sources. however, creative electrical engineers have already suggested there are ways to build efficient generators without the material, or less of it.
One obvious trend in utility-scale turbines is taller towers. Taller towers make sense because their cost is justified through increased power production. Taller towers also allow larger turbines to enter the market and allow putting them in less turbulent winds, thus decreasing wear and fatigue. In the U.S., the 80-m tower is about standard but another 20m will make best use of the larger rotors. In Europe, the 100-m tower is standard and will soon be here.
However, taller towers have their challenges and limitations. Going forward, OEMs are increasingly interested in reducing their cost (because the tower cost portion of the overall turbine is increasing from 10% to 20% of total cost), the interaction between tower and turbine, cutting tower transportation costs, and reducing weight. WPE
Discount Ink Cartridges – Worth Your Money?
380 days
Discount ink cartridges are the dream of almost every printer owner. Ink itself seems to be excessively expensive, and many people end up putting off purchasing it because of the high prices that manufacturers charge be default.
Manufacturers typically sell printers dirt cheap and then make the money back on the ink later on. sometimes the printer itself is only around fifty dollars, with the replacement ink cartridges sitting at around around thirty dollars. Depending on the print quality you set, each cartridge may last up to 1,000 documents. this is the standard for those that come from the manufacturer themselves — discount ink cartridges will often last for less than 1,000 sheets, but are often far less expensive.
A manufacturer will not recommend discounted off-brand cartridges as they do not make money from them. It’s even common for them to use marketing scare tactics to keep the consumer form purchasing them. In some extreme cases, the manufacturing company may even threaten to void the warranty of the printer if anything other than original brand.
Compatible is usually a term given to discount ink cartridges because other companies manufacture them. all this means is that the cartridges themselves are made to work with more than one brand or model of printer. most work fine and do what they are intended to do.
Discounted ink can be purchased through many office supply stores, as well as through discount warehouse stores. you can also find them online through various vendors offering slashed prices.
Discount ink cartridges may not last as long as manufacturer’s replacement parts. A result of this is possibly paying more over time because of having to replace them so often. this is a very real possibility that must be considered.
What Does Your Company Stand For
401 days
by TwiddleGeek
in office 2003
Business gets easier when you have a recognizable brand. Think about BMW or Coca-Cola, for example. all you need to do is mention the names and millions of people throughout the world have an immediate perception and expectation of what that company stands for. There’s an emotional connection between the customer and the company name.
With a strong brand, you don’t have to sell nearly as long or as hard. Customers know what you stand for before the proposal.
Here’s how to give your company the kind of brand identity that will help drive sales. Here, too, are tips for customising a brand personality toolkit that will keep that brand alive and growing.
Define Your Personality
A brand is the promise you make to customers combined with the customers’ judgement about how well you deliver on that promise. a successful brand becomes an emotional bond that builds customer loyalty. a brand includes your logo, colour scheme, taglines, slogan, design elements and more.
Think of branding as the personality of your enterprise. Define that and the logo and other marketing messages will follow.
To build your brand, begin by thinking through exactly what it is you sell and why customers choose your product or service. Identify the promise you are making to your customers. For instance, you may manufacture vacuum cleaners, but what you’re really selling is a better way to clean house. You must also define what makes your product more desirable to the customers you’re targeting than that of your competition.
For help in creating logos and taglines, you might meet with one of the many non-profit small business advisory groups. also gather family advisors, staff or friends to brainstorm about taglines. And don’t forget to survey customers. You want to leverage the way they see you.
Use Brand Tools
When you’re ready, Publisher 2003 can help you conveniently create the visual look of your brand personality. Publisher can also become the custodian of the brand by assembling all your brand elements into a convenient and cost-effective toolkit that you can use to store your brand elements.
You can start with one of the 45 professionally designed Master Design Sets in Microsoft Office Publisher 2003. Each Master Design Set carries that consistent design look – coordinated colours, fonts and layouts – for commonly used business publications, from newsletters and brochures to flyers, postcards and business cards to e-mail and websites. Use them as they are, change the Colour Scheme or Font Scheme, or customise even more to suit your taste. Publisher templates include a place for key marketing messages and tag lines, company or product logos, graphics, colours, fonts, product trademarks or names and more. You’ll find many of the same designs in Microsoft Office Word 2003 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003.
You might also want to download new marketing templates from Office Online or hire a design agency that caters to small businesses to create your own unique set of templates in Publisher 2003. that way you and your staff will be able to use and customise as needed, but maintain a consistent brand identity.
Build Recognition
You want the company personality to be easily identifiable at every customer touch point, from word of mouth to final sale. make sure that every bit of packaging, presentations, communications and marketing speaks with a brand-consistent look and voice.
The same branding should appear on your entire range of advertising and promotional options, not just stationery or sales brochures. that includes press releases, e-mail signatures, trade show displays and booths, store or office signage, banners and highway billboards, print ads, posters and marketing for sponsored or charity events – in other words, everything.
Appoint a Brand Cop
Educate everyone on staff, from assistants to the CFO, about your brand and its tools as well. otherwise, each employee, including the all-important sales team, could create their own version and confuse your customers. once you assemble the brand toolkit, every employee can then access it and draw upon whatever is needed.
Even so, over time, logos tend to shape shift. Someone adds a shoreline to the water’s edge that floats your sailboat logo. Someone else re-draws the boat so the prow faces into the sun. Pretty soon, your little sailboat is sinking.
To prevent this, appoint a designer or staff member to police the brand toolkit, especially if you work with outside vendors. keep track of who accesses the toolkit and which consultants or vendors use it for what marketing channels. You want to track all branding appearances and changes.
Brand Power
Many business owners don’t bother with branding because they’re busy chasing sales, impressing investors or recruiting talent. who has time for it? they say. Yet success comes from differentiating your offerings in the marketplace and rigorously serving your best customers. if you take the time to brand – that is, figure out how to articulate who you are, what you sell and which customers to target – all your marketing efforts become more focused.
Finally, honour what your brand symbolizes. The greatest tagline in the world won’t get customers to come back if you don’t fulfill your marketing promises.
Gangplank bringing new life to Avondale
406 days
by TwiddleGeek
in Desktop Pcs
Gangplank Avondale has a contract with Avondale to bring innovation, creativity, jobs and community-minded businesses to the city.
In exchange, Gangplank pays $1 a year in rent to Avondale and gets $60,000 a year from the city.
The agreement with Avondale says Gangplank must work to create technology-related jobs and train businesspeople; those who participate in Gangplank are required to give back to the community.
Avondale Councilman Charles Vierhout brought the concept to the City Council after visiting the Gangplank operation in Chandler.
He said the city tried the “brute-force model” to bring new life to Old Town Avondale, which the city now calls Historic Avondale. the city narrowed the streets, painted the businesses and refurbished the look of the area.
“It’s more than just an incubator. It’s bringing life into Old Town, the historic area,” Vierhout said of Gangplank. “It’s building a social network, too. It’s not buying marketing. It’s creating marketing.”
Crissy Saint, 25, co-director of operations of Gangplank Avondale, said Gangplank offers mentoring classes for small-business owners and workshops on entrepreneurship. In return, businesses are to be civically engaged.
3rd Gangplank in Arizona
Gangplank Avondale is the third Gangplank to open in the state. Headquarters are in Chandler, where the business concept was created in 2008. there is also a Gangplank Tucson.
The Avondale location had its soft opening March 5 and a grand opening March 20.
Five businesses are working out of the location, in a building that once housed the West Valley Arts Council.
“The Gangplank model is based off of cooperation,” said Saint, who is a Glendale resident.
“It’s collaboration over competition. It’s hugs over handshakes. It’s basically building a community based on the sharing of ideas, the coming together of people’s creative forces. It’s really making those strong connections with others in the community to change the community.”
Gangplank is open to the public. Although business owners and entrepreneurs don’t pay to work there, they pay by giving back to the community, Saint said.
“We trade in social capital,” she said, “so it’s very important that if a person works out of here often or a business is interested in anchoring here that they understand that they do need to take an active leadership role and there is a give-back to the community and to the people here.”
The give-back could be giving presentations to others in the group, introducing people to the facility or being active and not just sitting at one’s desk and using it as a free office, Saint said.
Although Gangplank is Web-oriented, Saint said, it doesn’t limit itself or those who come there.
“We’re very open to anybody,” she said. “Anybody with any interest in business and changing the community. there are a few Web-design companies based out of here.”
Saint works in social media for the Phoenix office of branding agency MM Identity Lab. She said her boss encourages her to work at Gangplank Avondale.
“So I get to work out of here and do my thing and be a happy person,” she said.
Anchor companies that work out of Gangplank set up their own desktop or laptop computers in their own space.
“But we do have drop-in space for anybody who wants to come in and collaborate with others and maybe get out of their house because they’re tired of working alone,” Saint said.
Saint said that Gangplank Chandler has almost 15 anchor companies and that 50 to 100 people visit there every day.
She hopes the Avondale facility reaches that kind of success. So far, five to 10 people a day visit.
Dharma Kelleher, 45, owner of Kelleher Web Design, drove about 60 miles from her Sun City West home to work at Gangplank Chandler. now she drives 18 miles one way to Gangplank Avondale. She said it beats working at her kitchen table.
“I can come here and there are fewer distractions,” Kelleher said. “There’s the ability to collaborate with other people, to get feedback on ideas, ask questions.”
Kelleher said at Gangplank she gets professional feedback. Friends and family may know what looks good, but they may not know Web design, so they don’t understand the basic parameters or what things are supposed to look like or how they are supposed to work.
Kelleher comes to Gangplank five days a week, and if she needs to come in on the weekends, she can, because Kelleher Web Design is an anchor of Gangplank Avondale.
She said the brown-bag lunches are valuable because she can see what others are specializing in, and she learns.
“We had a presentation on intellectual property,” she said. “It’s something a Web designer needs to be aware of, especially with things like new laws potentially being passed, and copyrights.”
Kelleher said that a goal of Gangplank Avondale is to create a Gangplank Jr., which would be geared toward children.
Councilman Vierhout said Gangplank is succeeding in bringing that young life to Historic Avondale.
“They are already out there eating at the local restaurants,” he said. “These guys are going to go back and tell people and hopefully bring in more people.”
Vierhout hopes to see those working out of Gangplank open offices nearby when they are ready to move on.
The economy needs more innovation and creativity, Saint said.
“What has happened with the economy is it’s kind of just been taken over by this complacency, and it’s not been good,” Saint said. “It’s kind of hard to step out of that, but we’re really about disrupting that and really reawakening the creativity that lies inherently in people and really changing it up and taking everyone to the next step.”
Open: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
Address: 525 N. Central Ave., Avondale.
Information: gangplankhq.com or e-mail info@gangplankhq.com.