How being unplugged can be good for you, your business
The first Friday in March is “National Day of Unplugging” and it’s worth taking this time not only to enjoy a respite from the Internet, but to critically examine our connections to the virtual world. You may have read the news earlier that France enacted a law requiring companies with 50 or more employees to establish hours when their workers should not send or answer emails. The ideas behind the law were that employees should be paid for their time and that “unplugged” time would decrease burnout. (Will it impact productivity in France? I’m not sure and that’s one issue Allison DeNisco examines in this TechRepublic article.) It’s difficult to argue with either of those points and we should all keep them in mind for ourselves and for our employees. I’m not in favor of government regulating details like these, however, you should have policies and create a work environment that provides flexibility while protecting your team from undue off-hour work pressures. Sleep on it There is a bigger picture to see here, however, and that is the personal downside of being plugged in all day long. Use the National Day of Unplugging to educate yourself and your employees on the dangers of digital addiction. The connection between staring at glowing small screens and sleep disorders is well established. The blue light emitted from our mobile device screens disturbs our melatonin production, which makes it difficult for us to fall asleep. Apple has an optional screen setting that reduces this blue light during specified hours of the day, but I don’t know how well it works to reduce the sleep issues. Perhaps one of the biggest problems caused by small-screen dependency is a breakdown in personal relationships. We don’t interact with people eye-to-eye very much today; we interact message-to-message. Plug in personal connections That can’t be entirely good. Further, if you take time to develop more personal – as in “in-person” – relationships with your customers or clients, there is a good chance that it will set you apart from many of your competitors. I was talking to a friend about the difficulty of finding healthcare providers in a new city. He told me how much he liked his previous dentist and one of the reasons he cited was that his dentist would personally call to check if everything was okay after a procedure. His new dentist does a lot of notifying via text message, which is convenient, but there is no personal touch. Our connection dependency – the new co-dependency – reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon I saw. A couple is sitting at a restaurant table. The man says to the woman, “Is there anything wrong? You’ve hardly touched your phone.” So how about making this pledge and encouraging your employees to do the same: For one day, restrict your smartphone use to just making voice calls and experience the difference it makes. If it’s not too bad, extend it....
read moreThis week in small business: How non-techies can start tech companies and more practical advice!
There is a lot of practical advice out there this week, from keyboard shortcuts that you’ll use every day to the bad habits you need to break in order to succeed. Also, given today’s startup climate, you’re certain to get something from the article about how a non-techie can found a tech company. Leadership, management, and productivity Counselor and entrepreneur Tori Utley offers four pieces of advice to help Millennial entrepreneurs develop their leadership abilities. Enough theorizing! Here are “60 Essential Keyboard Shortcuts To Boost Your Productivity.” When Courtney Hurst bought a second business, it created a lot of challenges. Learn from how she was able to cope with the stress and handle the problems in this Business 2 Community article. Let go and let yourself succeed: “18 Destructive Habits Holding You Back from Success” by Deep Patel. Marketing and sales If you need to uncomplicate inbound marketing a little, you’ll appreciate this Forbes article by Mike Templeman. Jill Schiefelbein tells us how to give away content and marketing to gain customers in this video. There are a lot of unknowns when marketing a startup. James Nguyen says that means you need to start with what you know. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Is it sheer madness to reject a $40-million offer for a $9-million dollar company? John Warrillow tells us the story. Need to land a flexible position with a company to have time to dedicate to your startup or other activities? Manon DeFelice tells you how to negotiate for it. In this interview, Philip Salter picks the brain of a successful tech entrepreneur to find the best ways for managing a remote global workforce. Even non-techies can have success founding a tech company…and these six keys from Geri Stengel will help....
read moreFor increased productivity, these chrome extensions are must-haves
Without a doubt, Google’s Chrome web browser is currently being used more than any other single browser. I have no idea how many hours are spent each day peering intently at Chrome windows, but I know that for more productivity, chrome extensions – if they line up to your web browsing and Internet usage habits – can be important additions. And, they are almost always free. The first two productivity chrome extensions I’d like to mention function in conjunction with other productivity-boosting services or apps. Evernote web clipper. I, and other small business experts, often recommend Evernote. It’s like a Swiss Army Knife for digital documents and communication. I use the Evernote Chrome extension to save web pages that I know I’d like to come back to later, or pages I’d like others I work with to see. You can save web pages or articles in a variety of formats or simply capture the URL. Hootsuite (or Buffer) chrome extension. If you use a social media productivity booster, such as Hootsuite, get familiar with its chrome extension. This makes posting very easy. With Hootsuite, you can either schedule a post for a specific date and time or let the app “auto schedule” the post for you. Every social media platform and related app has an extension. Sandy Stachowiak has a good rundown of some of the others you might find useful. Rescue Time. Think of this as the anti-social-media productivity chrome extension. If you feel you waste too much time browsing social media sites (or any other specific site), you can set up Rescue Time to measure how long you are on those sites. It acts as a kind of coach, leading you away from your bad habits and encouraging you to spend more time productively. Be Limitless is also a worthy competitor in this niche. Marinara, a Pomodoro timer. You probably know about the Pomodoro technique for timing bursts of work followed by short breaks. The basic routine is 25 minutes of work followed by a five-minute break. Every fourth cycle, you take a 15-minute break. This app will cycle you through the routine. Toggl. This is essentially a time clock extension. Keeping track of how much time you’re spending on activities such as blog writing, making cold calls, or on Skype, for example, can be very revealing. There is some crossover between Toggl, Rescue Time, and even Marinara. Toggl, for example, has a Pomodoro function you can use. Gistnote. This productivity Chrome extension does the work of a highlighter marking pen in your browser window. It also helps you organize your highlighted passages. Gistnote speeds up your online research. If you’re like most of us and have several tabs open at the same time, it’s a great help to have relevant passages highlighted. Gistnote takes it a step further; by clicking on a passage in a “collection” you can go straight to that place on the web page. There are some of my favorite productivity chrome extensions. Do you have some that have given your daily output a shot in the arm? If so, please share them with us in the...
read moreA ‘convenient’ truth to use in your small business
What do these business ventures below have in common? Grubhub Blueapron Amazon Go Yelp WeFuel Mac & Mia Four of these are business models centered around home delivery: GrubHub, which delivers restaurant meals; Blueapron, which delivers meal ingredients and instructions to the home, WeFuel, which will fill your gas tank when it’s parked at home or at work; and Mac & Mia, which sends parents a box of children’s clothes – families keep what they like and send back the rest. Amazon Go, is the new experimental grocery store where you don’t have to bother with any kind of checkout system. Yelp, as you probably know, is a vast resource for online reviews and ratings – you can quickly and easily find the kind of service that fits your needs. All of these leverage an increasingly valuable resource to appeal to their prospects: convenience. Several social and economic currents are coming together to make convenience one of the hottest items you can “sell”: One-parent families, Families having children later in life (when parents have less energy!), Two-parent families where both work, The need to work a second job, Digital work connections that extend well beyond 9-5, Super-scheduled kids who require rides and supervision, Increased commute times, and more. All of these changes in our lives and the way business is conducted have put a premium on our personal time. We are now willing to pay more for something if it will save us a little time. Consider Grubhub. This service allows you to enjoy a restaurant meal without having to spend the time driving to the restaurant and waiting for your table. I also believe that many of us now shop online more for convenience than for lower prices. After all, today many stores will meet or beat online prices. And, I’ve seen people crunch the numbers around Amazon Prime and it turns out that for most people, the money you save in shipping doesn’t offset the cost of the service. However, it’s as convenient as heck! My question for you today is “How are you cashing in on the value of convenience?” It appears that convenience is a commodity that will only increase in value in coming years. We know that it is very important to Millennials, who will work themselves through the entire purchasing continuum over the next several decades. I don’t see anything changing that will make us less busy in coming years and I think the group coming up behind the Millennials, the so-called Generation Z, will value their time just as much, if not more, than their elders. Don’t miss out on the opportunities this gives you. Build “convenience” into the attributes of your product or service...
read moreSocial media marketing importance growth and what it means for you
The writing is on the wall, on television screens, and in print: traditional forms of media consumption are falling by the wayside. At the same time, social media marketing importance is growing…big time. Let’s look at some figures behind the trends. During the recent NFL season, almost every week there was a story in the press on how viewership was down. I’m sure there were a variety of reasons, but one major movement in society has to be among the most important causes: Traditional daily TV viewership in the 18-24-year-old demographic dropped by an hour and 20 minutes between 2011 and 2016. This is according to Neilsen figures as reported by MarketingCharts. Do you expect the generation coming up behind this group to turn that around? Not going to happen. In the same way, you’ve probably experienced a local newspaper closing its doors in recent years and we know that national magazines have been going out of business as well. Time spent on the Internet, on the other hand, continues to rise. Globalwebindex says that it has gone up from 5.55 hours in 2012 to 6.15 hours in 2014. Further, daily engagement on social media networks has risen from 1.61 hours to 1.72 hours daily over that same time frame. Included in this social media statistic is .81 hours per day on micro-blogs, such as Twitter. I make these points because if you are not yet serious about social media marketing, these statistics and trends should be enough to convince you that now’s the time. And, if you need a good foundation to get started or renew your efforts, check out this recent post. I will, however, put in a little plug for the traditional marketing and advertising channels. Given the struggles that they are experiencing, you might be able to find some good values. Local businesses should touch bases with local publications and broadcasters and see if they can find some bargains. But with that said, my primary message today is that social media marketing importance continues to grow and there is nothing visible in the near term to reverse that....
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