James L. Paris Christian Financial Advice: 15 Fantastic & Free Computer Programs A few months ago I took a computer repair class sponsored by our local adult education department. It was a lot of fun taking apart and fixing computers. I also picked up quite a few tips on free software that can be helpful to rid your computer of viruses, malware, or simply speed things up. Along with what I learned from this class, I have also been keeping my own list of free computer programs that I use and can recommend. Open Office Most people need something along the lines of Microsoft Office Suite. Viruses & Malware One of the procedures I learned in the computer repair class was to start by running the free program Malwarebytes. There was a debate in class about which free anti-virus program was better. Speeding Up Your Computer Another little jewel I picked up from my class was learning about C Cleaner. Password Managers At this point in my life I have so many passwords to remember that I am about to lose my mind. KeePass KeyWallet MyWallet Free Website Software Internet Browsers
Can Private Equity Save Playboy? -- Daily Intelligencer Keach Hagey at The Wall Street Journal has a good story today about Playboy Enterprises' attempt to reinvent itself as a leaner, meaner soft smut purveyor. The company was run by Hugh Hefner's daughter Christie until 2011, when Hefner himself — in collaboration with a private-equity firm called Rizvi Traverse Management — took it private in a leveraged buyout. Since then, it has gotten a new CEO (Scott Flanders, whom the Journal implies is a bit of a lecher) and embarked on a restructuring plan that has reduced its staff from 585 people to 165, and shaved millions of dollars in costs from its operations. Now it's trying to reinvent itself as a licensing giant — a business that makes money by sticking Playboy's name on all kinds of clubs, TV shows, and merchandise. Put less gently, today's Playboy is much more focused on branding than boobs. In many ways, Playboy is a classic media story. The new strategy seems to be working, sort of: Today, Playboy is both smaller and more profitable.
How to Determine Pricing for your Products and Coaching It’s another Expert Briefs, where I ask really smart business owners to answer your burning questions. This week I asked our panel of experts a question that I get asked often from Virtual Assistants, Coaches, Authors, and Infoproduct Sellers… “How do you decide how to price your products and coaching and what if any struggle did you come through to charge what you’re worth?” I think you will like the responses. Terry Dean of My Marketing Coach says: I have to admit that pricing is one of the toughest issues we face in marketing. Here’s why. You can also price yourself out of the market you’re serving. And the lowest price doesn’t even mean you get the maximum sales. Does that mean you should run out and price your product at $67? When I started out, my tendency was to undervalue and underprice what I was offering. Here’s an exercise everyone reading this should practice today. Read it cover to cover. What words do they use to describe them? It’s not cheap though. Pricing isn’t a science.
5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Try To Be Apple In 2011, struggling department store chain J.C. Penney hired the guy who was behind the Apple stores. He applied the same principles that had made Apple’s geek chic boutiques some of the most profitable retail spaces on Earth. So much for all those “five ways you can be as successful as Apple” articles that have been churned out over the past few years. Everybody, it seems, wants to be Apple. Employing Oompa Loompas won’t turn you into Willy Wonka, then. But really it’s not. 1. Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth are two of the great iconic figures of our time. Apple is the corporate equivalent of the queen. 2. Management gurus who reverse engineer Apple’s go-to-market strategies tend to look upward into the sky and point at the glittering stars. Apple’s commitment to integrating hardware, operating systems, and software has been hailed as the reason it’s been able to create a glistening and slick user experience. 3. Strategy guys have been asking an awkward question recently. 4.
How to Create an Ebook Workshop So you wrote an ebook… now what? Most people just slap their ebook up on their website and offer it to blog subscribers as a free download. A few others stick a price tag on their ebook and try to make a few bucks. Want an idea that turns your ebook into your best business asset ever? Use your ebook to create a workshop. Ebooks don’t have to stay online. It’s easy to create a 3-hour ebook workshop using your ebook content. Or you could put together a presentation that takes your ebook material to the next level, discussing advanced techniques or relevant strategies you didn’t cover in the ebook content. Or you could write a speech that helps people understand why your ebook’s topic is important to them, and how they could apply the advice to their business. This isn’t hard: You have all the material. A workshop can be a powerful event for your business. And that, my friends, is a wonderful thing. In-person workshops work. Most people actually have lives outside the computer. Start small.
The 5 Questions Every Company Should Ask Itself “One does not begin with answers,” the legendary business consultant Peter Drucker once said. “One begins by asking, ‘What are our questions?’” The notion that questions may at times be more valuable to a business than answers is counterintuitive. But as Yamashita notes, that can only happen if business leaders are willing to question boldly. What follows are five big, bold questions every company should be asking, according to Yamashita, Ries, Harvard Business School professor and author Clayton Christensen, and consultants Jack Bergstrand of Brand Velocity and Tim Ogilvie of Peer Insight. 1. Keith Yamashita Sure, it’s a bit grand, as Yamashita acknowledges. In terms of tackling the first two questions, Yamashita believes companies “must develop a culture that is excessively curious about the outside world”--and be able to identify deep needs as well as the right “hairy problem” to focus on. 2. Jack Bergstrand 3. Clayton Christensen 4. Tim Ogilvie 5. Eric Ries
Bitcasa Infinite Storage | Your External Hard Drive in the Cloud Emotional Brand – Why Emotions Sell Better Than Discounts Why do people open, click and convert in response to your message? Is it the competitive price that drives their interest and engagement? Or is it something else – the elusive, indefinable IT THING that some marketers manage to grasp in their emails and that touches and engages the recipients deeper that discounts? What drives buying decisions? As the latest Creston Limited “Brand Enrichment” research shows, the most important factor that drives peoples’ choices is not the monetary value; it’s actually the emotional value brands offer via their product. The research clearly shows that it’s not only the products and services that you sell. The other 5 emotions that affect consumer choices are: Confidence 17%Status 14%Responsibility 14%Effectiveness 11%Individuality 9% Material value comes next, with impact on only 7% of respondents’ decisions. This sheds a completely new light on how brands should construct their emails, starting with the subject line. Other factors behind buying patterns
Mobile App Designers | We. Do. Apps. What Steve Jobs Taught Me After I Said "No" To Him I worked for Steve Jobs at Pixar Animation Studios in 1997 and '98 before he sold Pixar to Disney. I don't have many heroes in my life, but Steve was (and still is) one of them. Meeting him and having him ask me to work for him were dreams come true. Like so many dreams, reality was very different from what I had envisioned. John Lasseter, the director of the early Pixar movies (he now runs Disney animation) recommended me for the position. Pixar is an awesome place to work. The combination of my enthusiasm for Pixar and Steve's relentless vision ended up with my job looking more and more like the one I said no to: the marketing middle man between Pixar and Disney. So what did I learn from Steve Jobs? I learned that you must pay incredible attention to what someone wants to do when you hire them. Steve also taught me about transparency. Building relationships first and doing business second is another lesson I learned from working with Steve. [Red Light: Bloody via Shutterstock]