If vanilla and fresh linen was still feeling too feminine to scent the man cave, fear not, manly men, Yankee Candle has heard your barbaric yawp and is now offering Man Candles. Offered in macho scents such as 2x4, Riding Mower, First Down and Man Town, you need never hang your head again after being dragged into the candle store. They even offer a sports-themed candle holder so you don’t ruin the tabletop. Just in time for Father’s Day. Full story at Yankee Candle via Buzzfeed. You know you want a Man Candle. Permalink | Leave a comment »
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Most Topular Stories
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The scent of man, now available at Yankee Candle
Holy Kaw!16 May 2012 | 1:31 pm -
5 Effective Tricks to Create a Killer Call to Action
@ProBlogger16 May 2012 | 7:04 amThis guest post is by Greg Digneo of Sales Leads in Thirty Days. Here’s the dirty little secret: there are actually two steps to building an extremely popular blog. The first and most popular step is to drive traffic by guest posting, social media, and SEO. The far less sexy step is to convert that traffic into loyal readers who will become the backbone of your community. Who will share every piece of content you produce with their friends. And who will ensure that every post sparks an engaging discussion. But most of all, they will be the first to buy your products and services. The… -
What Does it Take to Write a Billion-Dollar Marketing Story?
Copyblogger16 May 2012 | 4:00 amIn 1984, two artists used a simple process to create a story that captivated an audience for years and generated billions of dollars in revenue. That same process is being used today by a master copywriter to attract hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers. With companies creating millions of web pages of content marketing, finding an untold story or a new angle can feel like an impossible task. Especially when you want to avoid creating a story so unique nobody understands it … or wants to pay for it. So how do you create a story that cuts through the noise and strikes at the heart… -
Find Your One Thing
Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image15 May 2012 | 11:15 amCan you sum up your professional you in one or two words? I was very touched watching the documentary, Being Elmo, on PBS' Independent Lens. The movie is about Kevin Clash (the puppeteer behind Sesame Street's Elmo). From a very young age, Clash demonstrated a strong desire to be a puppeteer. While that seems quaint and points to someone who was focused on what they wanted to do in life from a very young age, you can imagine the struggles he faced growing up in Baltimore. While all of the other kids were out playing baseball or causing mischief, Clash was at home sewing puppets together and… -
Digital analogs are no longer sufficient
Seth's Blog16 May 2012 | 2:00 amThe parking meter was rebooting. I guess we're supposed to walk to the other end of the garage and find one that's working. We're seeing digital awareness coming to just about everything. In this case, it was the parking meter near the library. Of course, it's not really a parking meter, it's a centralized fee collection system that saves the town a lot of money. It's easier to collect from, certainly, it doesn't waste the time of meter readers (who get alerted as to what spaces aren't paid for, as opposed to checking them all) plus it doesn't let a new parker enjoy a few minutes of the last…
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Holy Kaw!
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The scent of man, now available at Yankee Candle
16 May 2012 | 1:31 pmIf vanilla and fresh linen was still feeling too feminine to scent the man cave, fear not, manly men, Yankee Candle has heard your barbaric yawp and is now offering Man Candles. Offered in macho scents such as 2x4, Riding Mower, First Down and Man Town, you need never hang your head again after being dragged into the candle store. They even offer a sports-themed candle holder so you don’t ruin the tabletop. Just in time for Father’s Day. Full story at Yankee Candle via Buzzfeed. You know you want a Man Candle. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Dirty Disney cartoons? [video]
16 May 2012 | 1:16 pmIt’s hard to imagine Disney cartoons have ever been the subject of censorship, but like many beloved cartoons, there’s a seamier side that’s bound to offend if you get the references. Such was the case with “The Shindig” where Clarabelle Cow’s exposed udders were deemed too risqué for Ohio audiences as was her reading material; Three Weeks was an early example of “women’s mass market erotic fiction.” As the old saying goes, "What happens in the barn, stays in the barn." Full story at Neatorama. The evil underbelly of Disney. -
Mammals may not get to cool climates in time
16 May 2012 | 12:09 pmNine percent of the Western Hemisphere’s mammals—and up to 40 percent in some regions—may not be able to outpace climate change. “I think it’s important to point out that in the past when climates have changed—between glacial and interglacial periods when species ranges contracted and expanded—the landscape wasn’t covered with agricultural fields, four-lane highways and parking lots, so species could move much more freely across the landscape,” says Joshua Lawler, associate professor of environmental and forest sciences at University of… -
Time of year matters for vitamin D risk
16 May 2012 | 12:08 pmWhen considering a patient’s blood vitamin D levels, it may be best to consider a lower threshold for concern, as well as the time of year. "In evaluating health risk," the University of Washington researchers conclude, "season-specific targets for Vitamin D blood concentration may be more appropriate than a static target when evaluating patients health risk." Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
The (not so correct) anatomy of sea life
16 May 2012 | 11:52 amMarine biology, scharine schiology. Pleated Jeans skips scientific facts for its series of sea life diagrams. Via Pleated Jeans. (H/T @laughingsquid) Laughing is good for you. Permalink | Leave a comment »
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@ProBlogger
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5 Effective Tricks to Create a Killer Call to Action
16 May 2012 | 7:04 amThis guest post is by Greg Digneo of Sales Leads in Thirty Days. Here’s the dirty little secret: there are actually two steps to building an extremely popular blog. The first and most popular step is to drive traffic by guest posting, social media, and SEO. The far less sexy step is to convert that traffic into loyal readers who will become the backbone of your community. Who will share every piece of content you produce with their friends. And who will ensure that every post sparks an engaging discussion. But most of all, they will be the first to buy your products and services. The… -
Get Obsessed with Your Message
15 May 2012 | 1:01 pmThis guest post is by Danielle LaPorte of DanielleLaPorte.com. Blog = up? Posts = rolling? It’s time to get obsessed with your message. A quick dictionary moment, to differentiate between your voice, your topics and your message. Your voice is what makes your writing distinctive, compelling, unmistakably you. You’ll carry your voice from your blog, right into your book. Seamless, identifiable. Individual. Your topics are the categories or subjects you write about (Eco-luxe weddings on a shoestring budget! Savvy corporate management, with heart and soul! Thrifty vegan recipes!) Your… -
On the Elusive “Next Level” of Blogging
15 May 2012 | 7:04 amWe’ve all heard of it—the elusive “next level” that so many bloggers talk about online. But what is the next level? How many levels are there? Is there an end point in leveling up? These are all worthwhile questions—especially for more experienced bloggers who have spent a lot of time and energy in reaching the level they’re already at. For these bloggers, trying to reach the next level can involve a degree of risk, so the steps that get us toward the next level might be taken slowly and with care. On the other hand, the web isn’t exactly undersupplied with… -
Grab Your BWE Virtual Ticket for $100 Off—24 Hours Left
14 May 2012 | 5:09 pmWish you could get to Blog World Expo this year, but can’t make it to New York? Me too. I’ll be in Queensland with the winners of my blogging competition, but I know there are plenty of bloggers from other countries, as well as within the States, who won’t be able to attend Blog World this year. Fortunately, you and I don’t need to miss out on the information and fun of the Expo (and if the speaker list for this year is anything to go by, the conference is going to be really impressive). We “remote” bloggers can still “attend” on a BWE virtual… -
Install Your First WordPress Theme
14 May 2012 | 7:09 amThis guest post is by Karol K of ThemeFuse. Seeing a headline like “How to Install a WordPress Theme” on ProBlogger might seem strange at first. This doesn’t sound like a “pro”-thing at all, right? If you’ve been dealing with WordPress for a while then this is probably even more than obvious to you. However, everyone starts somewhere, and there are plenty of experienced bloggers who haven’t ever installed a WordPress theme—but would like to give it a try. Maybe you’re installing your first theme right now, and you’re searching for a…
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Copyblogger
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What Does it Take to Write a Billion-Dollar Marketing Story?
16 May 2012 | 4:00 amIn 1984, two artists used a simple process to create a story that captivated an audience for years and generated billions of dollars in revenue. That same process is being used today by a master copywriter to attract hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers. With companies creating millions of web pages of content marketing, finding an untold story or a new angle can feel like an impossible task. Especially when you want to avoid creating a story so unique nobody understands it … or wants to pay for it. So how do you create a story that cuts through the noise and strikes at the heart… -
How to be a World-Changing Writer
15 May 2012 | 4:00 amAs a copywriter, you know that words have power. You know words can influence, inform, and inspire. They can persuade your fellow humans to do some amazing things (or to do the wrong things, but we won’t go there today). What you may not realize is that your words can change the world. Here’s something else that’s really cool that you might not have realized … The keys to world-changing writing are also the keys to damn good copywriting. But as you know, good writing doesn’t happen all by itself. So let’s talk about what it takes to be damned good …… -
WordPress Hosting That Means Business
14 May 2012 | 8:00 amDid you know Copyblogger Media has a WordPress hosting division? Many people don’t, because it’s been a bit under-the-radar. The whole thing started with our frustration with web hosting in general. Specifically, the fact that a lot of “WordPress hosting” amounts to generic one-click installation of the CMS on a standardly-configured box — which simply doesn’t cut it for optimal performance and security. So, last year we decided to manage our high-traffic network of content and product sites ourselves. We did this by bringing into the family a team of people who themselves… -
The Truth About Making Money While You Sleep
14 May 2012 | 4:00 amWant to hear about the day in the life of a so-called “successful entrepreneur?” Yesterday, I stayed in bed until about 2 PM. I watched the last few episodes of Mad Men. Around sunset, I took a leisurely stroll down the beach. When I got back, I hung out with a friend for a couple of hours, ate dinner, and went to bed. In other words … I goofed off. And while I was goofing off, my business generated a pretty decent chunk of revenue. You want to know the coolest part? I did absolutely nothing to “earn” it. I didn’t check my email. I didn’t talk to… -
7 Instructive Content Marketing Links
12 May 2012 | 6:00 amThis week on The Lede … Are Content Publishers Waking Up from Their App Dreams Nightmares? An Email Marketing Autoresponder Schedule that Sells 3 Quick Tips To Conquering Your Fear of Public Speaking Does Your Domain Say “Trust Me?” Why “Freemium” Fails for Startups: 3 Business Lessons from the Band New Order 5 Basic SEO Truths We Can Learn from Star Wars Peter Shankman on the Value of an Audience If you want to grab more useful links (than the seven we highlight here) every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter. Are Content Publishers Waking Up from Their App Dreams…
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Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
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Find Your One Thing
15 May 2012 | 11:15 amCan you sum up your professional you in one or two words? I was very touched watching the documentary, Being Elmo, on PBS' Independent Lens. The movie is about Kevin Clash (the puppeteer behind Sesame Street's Elmo). From a very young age, Clash demonstrated a strong desire to be a puppeteer. While that seems quaint and points to someone who was focused on what they wanted to do in life from a very young age, you can imagine the struggles he faced growing up in Baltimore. While all of the other kids were out playing baseball or causing mischief, Clash was at home sewing puppets together and… -
Can Breastfeeding Save Time Magazine?
15 May 2012 | 10:01 amWhen was the last time you discussed Time Magazine around the dinner table? I found myself giving a dissertation on mass media at dinner the other night. It all started when one friend leaned into the table and spoke (in an almost embarrassed whisper), "Did any of you see the cover of Time Magazine? The one with the mother and her older child... breastfeeding?" I knew that they were talking about the issue dated May 21st, 2012 titled, Are You Mom Enough? by Kate Pickert. The article about Dr. Sears and the attachment parenting movement has created quite a stir, but I wanted to tease… -
Listen. Engage. Connect.
14 May 2012 | 11:10 amOne of the largest gatherings of professional marketers is about to take place. The Canadian Marketing Association's 2012 CMA Summit is happening next week (May 16th - 17th, 2012 at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto, Ontario). I'm fortunate to be the chairman of the board of the directors of this association and prior to that role, I was co-chair of these national annual gatherings. Each and every year offered professional marketers from across the globe the opportunity to connect and share. This year will be no exception. All under one roof. During the two days, just some of the… -
The Virtual Self And The New Trend Of Self-Tracking
13 May 2012 | 8:09 amEpisode #305 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. Now, with the ubiquity of smartphones and mobile connectedness, it has never been easier to share with the world our each and every move (look no further than Facebook's one billion dollar acquisition of Instagram). And we're publishing our lives. All of the time - in text, images, audio and video - for the world to see. In fact, it's happening more and more with each and every passing day. Why are we doing all of this self-tracking? It's a topic that has fascinated Nora Young for a… -
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #99
12 May 2012 | 6:09 am93Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see? My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see". Check out these six links that we're…
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Seth's Blog
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Digital analogs are no longer sufficient
16 May 2012 | 2:00 amThe parking meter was rebooting. I guess we're supposed to walk to the other end of the garage and find one that's working. We're seeing digital awareness coming to just about everything. In this case, it was the parking meter near the library. Of course, it's not really a parking meter, it's a centralized fee collection system that saves the town a lot of money. It's easier to collect from, certainly, it doesn't waste the time of meter readers (who get alerted as to what spaces aren't paid for, as opposed to checking them all) plus it doesn't let a new parker enjoy a few minutes of the last… -
Hard work on the right things
15 May 2012 | 2:00 amI don't think winners beat the competition because they work harder. And it's not even clear that they win because they have more creativity. The secret, I think, is in understanding what matters. It's not obvious, and it changes. It changes by culture, by buyer, by product and even by the day of the week. But those that manage to capture the imagination, make sales and grow are doing it by perfecting the things that matter and ignoring the rest. Both parts are difficult, particularly when you are surrounded by people who insist on fretting about and working on the stuff that makes no… -
Worldliness
14 May 2012 | 2:41 amIntelligence is the combination of knowing a lot about a little while you also know a little about a lot. Deep domain understanding helps you create analyses. Your ability to understand how a particular system (no matter how small) works allows you apply a confident analysis to new systems you encounter. Once you know everything there is to know about nuclear physics, soccer or the praying mantis, it makes it easier to understand new systems. At the same time, it's impossible to be smart without also being aware of the wider world. That's because it's the random interactions and the… -
The reason the customer is always right...
14 May 2012 | 2:08 amIf you insist that they are wrong, they stop being your customer* (if given half a chance). People spend their time and attention and money in places that make them feel valued. *There's nothing wrong with asking customers who are wrong to leave. Just be sure you do it on purpose. -
Dedicating the merit
13 May 2012 | 2:02 amFor an author, one of the nicest parts of the traditional book is the dedication page. The dedication is far more than an acknowledgement to someone who helped you write the book, it's a permanent signpost, a capstone to the work of a year or more. Even if the person you've dedicated the book to can't read it, the writer benefits from the knowledge that a connection was made and that a memory was preserved. Here's the thing: you can dedicate just about anything. A project, a meeting, a tweet. You don't have to tell anyone but yourself. This blog post, like all the posts before it, has a…
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Charlene Li
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Beyond the IPO: Ten Implications of a Public Facebook
8 May 2012 | 8:05 amBy Susan Etlinger, Charlene Li and Rebecca Lieb The run-up to Facebook’s IPO reminds me a bit of a wedding: everyone’s attention is on the big day (expected to be Friday May 18), without much regard for the weeks, months and years afterward. Charlene Li, Rebecca Lieb, and I sat down to discuss some of the implications of a newly public Facebook: on shareholders, business and Facebook itself. — SE (Cross-posted from altimetergroup.com.) Whether or not Facebook’s IPO ends up being one of the world’s largest (this Washington Post article places it 6th, between… -
Webinar: A Foundation For Mobile Business
20 Mar 2012 | 10:46 amNow for a word on mobile in the enterprise. Altimeter’s mobile analyst, Chris Silva, is working on a report that explores how managers on the business-side – not the IT – side of the organization are increasingly leading the charge to bring mobility to their workforce. A key challenge is how to build the control and security foundation for a mobile business strategy. Chris and I will be hosting an open, no-cost webinar on Wed March 28th at 10am PT/1pm ET that will discuss the key elements of the mobile control layer, its importance, and how both the technologies and leadership… -
Report: Making The Business Case For Enterprise Social Networks
22 Feb 2012 | 1:58 amIn 2011, the US hit a milestone — more than half of all adults visit social networking sites at least once a month. But when it comes to using social-networking technologies inside organizations, many business leaders are at a loss to understand what value can be created from Facebook-like status updates within the enterprise. Some organizations have deployed social-networking features with an initial enthusiastic reception, only to see these early efforts wither to just a few stalwart participants. The problem: Most companies approach enterprise social networks as a technology deployment… -
New Report: “Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retailers”
7 Feb 2012 | 10:16 amWhen it comes to shopping, I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone. Some apps are actually helpful, letting me explore products or buy something immediate. But the vast majority of the retailer apps litter my screens, sitting unused after an initial, disappointing whirl. My frustration is reflected in the findings of my colleague Chris Silva‘s new report, entitled “Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retailers“. Of particular value is that Chris pivots the report around two major strategies retails can use when it comes to mobile: Enrich: These strategies are… -
Jerry Yang’s departure signals a New Day for Yahoo!, the passing of an era for Tech
17 Jan 2012 | 4:30 pmMy first reaction to the news that Jerry Yang is leaving Yahoo! was that this was the passing of an era. I first met Jerry in 1994 when he was still a PhD student at Stanford, before he and David Filo left to run Yahoo! full time. Through bubbles and two economic downturns, Jerry has always been omnipresent in Silicon Valley. But all good things come to pass. With the arrival of Scott Thompson as the new CEO of Yahoo!, it makes sense that Scott be given a clean slate upon which to write the future of Yahoo!. This is very much the norm for incoming CEOs, where founders are asked to take a…
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Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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5 Reasons Why Landing Pages Are a Must
16 May 2012 | 5:25 amOnline marketers have used the term “landing page” for many years to describe a sales tactic focused on getting people to take one, specific action. Today, landing pages have simply become a required element in the marketing toolbox for every imaginable business, including local brick and mortar types. Example of a personalized lead capture landing page A landing page is just the page people land on because an ad or email directed them to that specific page as opposed to your site’s homepage. Effective landing pages make it very clear what a visitor is going to get from a page and how… -
13 Questions That Will Lead You To Your Perfect Marketing Strategy
15 May 2012 | 5:54 amPlenty of startups try to determine the perfect business model to take to market only to find that the market doesn’t need, want or understand what they are presenting. The fact is most books or courses on business models take this into consideration by suggesting trial and error scenarios and market hypothesizes prior to launch. Any business model, or plan for that matter, is little more than a guess and I believe that your best chance for getting that guess right is to build your business model based on a marketing strategy. This assumes the role a fully developed marketing strategy… -
5 Non Spammy Ways To Get a Blogger’s Attention
14 May 2012 | 5:28 amEveryone, from PR firms to individuals with a product to sell, pitches bloggers these days. Getting coverage or exposure for your business by way of a number of highly read blogs should be a foundational element of your PR approach. So, I thought I would share of few of my thoughts on the most effective ways to get a blogger’s attention and stand out in a way that gives your pitch a far better chance of garnering coverage. Sadly, it would much easier to write a post on what not to do, but I like to stay on the positive side here. Whether your goal is to land a guest post, get a review of… -
Weekend Favs May Twelve
12 May 2012 | 5:39 amMy weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road. New Duct Tape Marketing t-shirt design via Hugh MacLeod Gapingvoid Good stuff I found this week: Ming.ly – A personal relationship manager that aggregates your contacts from Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter into a searchable merged address book that allows… -
Engaging Your Macro Metric As a True Measure of Success
11 May 2012 | 5:59 amBusiness owners and marketers are told to measure and quantify everything. The problem is this practice alone can lead to false assumptions and a fixation on things that simply don’t matter that much. lollipolluza via FlickrAre website visits, Facebook Likes, newsletter signups or even revenue the true measure of success for your business? Perhaps, but how so? When we simply create a list of what we might call key performance indicators without the proper focus with which to weight them, it all simply becomes an exercise in collecting. It’s a lot like having a bunch of puzzle pieces…
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Conversation Agent
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Most Marketers Still Not Making Data-Driven Decisions Surveys Find
16 May 2012 | 2:00 amHow do large corporate marketers collect and use data? Are practices in marketing measurement and ROI changing? How about the integration of digital and traditional marketing? Has the excitement around big data brought about a shift in how marketers conduct their business? These are some of the topics for investigation in a recent study conducted by Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association (NYAMA). The short answer: there is still a big gap between where organizations would like to be and where they actually are in… -
Answering Common Inquiries About Content
15 May 2012 | 2:00 amThree kinds of inquiries I receive regularly: write about us give us your content allow us to post Many of you find the contact form for consulting work. In that case, I'm happy to provide a quote and scope of work. If that's not what you're after, the quickest way to find out what is accepted for review and publication is by following the link to -- submit your question on the top menu. In all cases, the best outcomes come when the ask is appropriate. Note the term "pro" is part of the word. Making the ask Don't know how to ask? Here's how to write an email that stands out for your review. -
Why Experience is Key to Customer Loyalty
14 May 2012 | 2:00 amWhenever I travel, I'm reminded of the many amazing opportunities that come from being able to reach many parts of the world relatively easily. Let's face it, things can go wrong with the weather and with technology. It is how an airline -- or any company, for that matter -- handles customer fairness that will make a big difference to its bottom line. Will they have to discount fares more deeply so people will do business with them again next time? There is plenty of room left for improving customer experience in the travel industry -- airlines, hotels, car services, even airports, with a few… -
Business Lessons I Learned from my Mother
13 May 2012 | 3:00 amMy mother was Miss Romagna. Her name is Anna Laura. I wanted to have her purple blue eyes and ready smile. She has the welcoming spirit of a woman always ahead of the times and comfortable in her own skin. In addition to being a mother of three (all girls), she has had multiple careers -- accounting, sales, public office, geriatric care, and beautician; some overlapping for years. Mother really gets communications -- the listening part especially -- the organization of work, along with the care of the individual. Whether she negotiated credit rates or the recovery of the elderly, she made… -
Fair Pay, Participation Value, and The Intention Economy
12 May 2012 | 3:00 amDo you know the pay scale for your industry? I'm not talking about the job wanted ads -- those may mislead you and take you down the generic path. You're not generic, you have specific skills, and you should be able to calculate market value. Just like with salary, where you don't have a cut and dry answer, interaction and involvement are not exactly the same thing. Community participation has highs and lows, and they may not follow the touted 1% route. How active are people online? Has it changed in the last couple of years? Marketers can optimize campaigns and programs only so far. Without…
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SmartBrief on Social Media
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Study: More Brits contact brands via social media
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amUp to 18 million Web users in the U.K. -More- -
Developer plans to build underwater hotel in Dubai
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amA hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will guarantee an ocean view to every guest -- because the hotel itself will built on -More- Web Content Manager Corporate Executive Board -
We still like Facebook, Ford exec says:
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amFacebook is a "growing and critical part" of Ford's marketing, says Matt VanDyke, the automaker's director of marketing commu -More- 7 Whiteboard Sessions for every social strategist. Learn how to implement & scale a social program across your enterprise company with this 36-page framework by Spredfast by delivering good customer experience, adopting social media company-wide, gaining insight into your social customer, & showing an ROI on social. Download 7 Whiteboard Sessions. -
Does your company archive its social media activities?
16 May 2012 | 9:28 am-More- -
Analysis: Google+ needs to leverage search to catch Facebook
16 May 2012 | 9:28 amIf Google can harness an "integrated socially enhanced search engine," it has a shot of activating all those inorganically gr -More-
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SmartBrief on Entrepreneurs
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Brands@socialmedia: Can't live with it, or without it
16 May 2012 | 6:42 amSocial media offer brands infinite possibilities for creative marketing -- and for making missteps that become politicized, G -More- -
Do you inspire your team?
16 May 2012 | 6:42 amLeaders must get results, but they must also do so in a style that motivates and inspires others -- a step that's easy to ove -More- Your business deserves easy savings Staples has low prices on everything you need to run your business. As the champions of easy, we offer a huge selection of high-quality, low-cost products and expert services. Enjoy extra savings with this $5 off coupon.Get it now. -
Simplicity is the secret of a successful product
16 May 2012 | 6:42 amSimplicity is vital to creating a successful product, Mike Figliuolo writes. -More- -
Companies with "B Corp" designation focus on social responsibility
16 May 2012 | 6:42 amSome organizations are declaring their commitment to social responsibility by becoming "B Corporations," Ki Mae Heussner writ -More- -
One entrepreneur, 2 complementary businesses
16 May 2012 | 6:42 amAfter spending time helping victims of human trafficking overseas, Christina Stoltz returned to the U.S. -More-
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SmartBrief on Leadership
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The Chinese flap over high-stakes pigeon racing
16 May 2012 | 6:43 amHorse racing is banned in mainland China, so sporting types have embraced pigeon racing as the next best thing. -More- Chief Innovation Executive City of Phoenix -
What leaders can learn from your average burger
16 May 2012 | 6:43 amThe best bosses are like tasty burgers, Kevin Eikenberry writes. -More- -
Why Fab.com's founder killed his own company
16 May 2012 | 6:43 amSuccessful innovation means taking big risks -- and nobody knows that better than Fab.com co-founder Bradford Shellhammer. -More- -
Can Facebook manage a team of millionaires?
16 May 2012 | 6:43 amFacebook's initial public offering will leave about 1,000 people worth at least $1 million on paper, many of whom are employe -More- -
Find creativity where you don't expect it
16 May 2012 | 6:43 amLarge research labs with accommodations and funding have their place, but they aren't always equipped for rapid discovery lik -More-
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IAB SmartBrief
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Moto Guzzi's social site rides brand authenticity
16 May 2012 | 8:28 amA new microsite for Italian motorbike manufacturer Moto Guzzi will promote the brand with a social media approach to expand b -More- -
In advance of Facebook IPO, GM pulls off the highway
16 May 2012 | 8:28 amGeneral Motors is putting on the brakes when it comes to its Facebook advertising, pulling ads and proclaiming that the site -More- -
Local social ad revenue to exceed $3 billion by 2016
16 May 2012 | 8:28 amLocal advertising via social media is a fast growing slice of the pie, according to a BIA/Kelsey report. -More- -
TV fans use social networks for viewing tips, interaction
16 May 2012 | 8:28 amA combined 19% of U.S. -More- -
Why SMBs should stop ignoring digital co-op ads
16 May 2012 | 8:28 amThe market for co-op digital advertising will reach $1.7 billion in 2012, according to a Borrell Associates report -- but 70% -More-
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800 CEO Read
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Jack Covert Selects – The Good Food Revolution
10 May 2012 | 3:49 pmTweet The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities by Will Allen, Gotham Books, 272 pages, $26.00, Hardcover, May 2012, ISBN 9781592407101 For an average-sized book, there is a lot within this one. From the title, one might expect sociological research on trends in organic food, or an analysis of a health food business and how they became successful. While it certainly has traces of those things, it is so much more. This book is by and about a man named Will Allen, who grew up around farming, played professional basketball, managed a chain of restaurants, was an… -
Jack Covert Selects – The Reinventors
10 May 2012 | 3:43 pmTweet The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change by Jason Jennings, Portfolio, 256page, $26.95, May 2012, ISBN 9781591844235 The once vital Main Streets of America are all but out of business, boarded up or filled with antique stores shopping the delights and detritus of another era. Jason Jennings visits the main street of his own abandoned hometown at the beginning of The Reinventors to use it as a metaphor for “what will happen to you, your job, and your business unless you become a reinventor completely committed to constant radical change and… -
Jack Covert Selects – How Will You Measure Your Life?
10 May 2012 | 3:38 pmTweet How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen, James Allworth & Karen Dillon, Harper Business, 240 pages, $25.99, Hardcover, May 2012, ISBN 9780062102416 Clayton Christensen is a business theorist who, in 1997, wrote the renowned Innovator’s Dilemma which introduced the idea that most well-established companies are overtaken not by behemoth competitors but by “disruptive” innovations that rise up and cut down giants in part because the giants were oblivious to the threat, and/or unable to invest in new emerging technologies. Christensen is also a dedicated professor… -
LeaveSmarter: Stephen Shapiro
10 May 2012 | 2:09 pmTweetYesterday, Stephen Shapiro was in town for our private LeaveSmarter event, sponsored by BMO Harris/M&I Bank and Whyte Hirschboek Dudek. His talked focused on ideas from his recent book, and 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award winner for 2011, Best Practices Are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition. According to Shapiro, the main problems we have with being innovative, is how we think about things, the kind of questions we ask, and what we already know about the challenges we face. Here’s a clip from his talk that gives examples of this: Following this, Shapiro… -
ChangeThis: Issue 94
9 May 2012 | 2:43 pmTweet Unleashing the Creative Reservoir: The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited by Richard Florida “A new social compact—a Creative Compact—can turn our Creative Economy into a just and Creative Society, in which prosperity is widely shared. While driven and shaped by economic logic, the key institutions and initiatives of the future will be shaped, as they always have, by human agency.” Build This: Your Culturematic Laboratory by Grant McCracken “Ruled by pragmatism and play, your laboratory is fast becoming the place you come to look out into the future. This the bridge from…
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Knockout Presentations Blog
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Stop the Verbal Vomiting
14 May 2012 | 12:51 pmA few weeks ago I was exhibiting at a trade show and experienced a communication pattern which I now realize is not so uncommon. People would walk by the booth and I’d ask a qualifying question. If they answered affirmatively, I’d continue the conversation. One of the quickest ways to learn that someone is not a buyer is to listen to their conversational pattern. They don’t stop talking. These people don’t pick up on subtle cues such as noticing I’m moving away or using an exit line. They get caught up in their own loquaciousness. I call it verbal vomiting. … -
Va Bene: What the Italians Taught Me About Public Speaking
19 Apr 2012 | 12:53 pmIt’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. I just got back from vacation in Northern Italy. In the big cities, a lot of people speak English but in the smaller towns, it helps to speak a few words of Italian. We were in the town of Quinto, a suburb of Vicenza. While we were paying for our food, the cashier asked my husband if he spoke Italian. He shook his head and said, “No parla Italiano.” The woman broke into a smile and said, in English, “Yes, you speak Italian!” She was delighted that he spoke those few words in her native tongue. She then went on… -
What Are Your Presentation Disciplines?
3 Apr 2012 | 1:38 pmMy coaching client was practicing his presentation. As he talked about the company process for managing a stock portfolio, he explained their stock picking discipline. Regardless of the portfolio manager’s expertise, it’s required to drop a stock when it dips below a certain level. In other words, they may carry big winners, small winners or small losers, but they don’t tolerate stocks that are big losers. This number or percentage is how they factor out emotions and manage risk. After explaining the stock picking discipline, he looked up and asked me, “What are my… -
Why PowerPoint Doesn’t Suck, After All
27 Mar 2012 | 5:36 amBy Dan Janal, Guest blogger Speakers love to criticize PowerPoint. I was one of them. I’m not any longer. When speakers slam PowerPoint, they say things like: “You shouldn’t read your presentation.” “If they can read your presentation, then what extra value do you bring?” “PowerPoint takes the attention from the speaker – and you’re the reason they are there.” “John Kennedy didn’t need PowerPoint.” Well, yes, those are all true. But those arguments ignore a few realities. I wish you could have been there when I was sitting in a presentation at the SMX Search… -
What Seasoned Speakers Know That You Don’t
26 Mar 2012 | 5:07 amNational Speakers Association convention is where you’ll find the top speakers in the world on the main stage. A number of years ago, I attended a convention. One of the keynote speakers gave an inspiring and tear jerking presentation. He spoke about how he and his wife couldn’t have children so they adopted a couple of boys. They were brothers who were not well treated and were put up for adoption. He told the audience about how difficult it was to gain their trust and parent them. He recounted all the troubled times. In the end, the little boys flourished and his wife discovered…
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HBR.org
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Putting Facebook in Perspective
16 May 2012 | 12:12 pmEvery day brings some new bit of information — or hype — about social business. If you actively follow the social space, it's easy to get caught in the never-ending stream. If you don't, you may find all the talk about social overwhelming. So it's useful to step back, gain some perspective and see the bigger picture. And it is a big picture. Communication revolutions like this have happened before, but you have to go back to Gutenberg in 1450 to find one as significant. Before Gutenberg's printing press, monks laboriously produced written manuscripts and few people could read. The… -
The Inexperience Advantage
16 May 2012 | 8:53 amEver been shut down by someone who supposedly knows more than you? It happens to me daily. I get denied by people that are more senior, more polished, and more knowledgeable than me. I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed professional rejection, but I try my best to dust myself off and move forward, reminding myself that that a series of controlled failures are necessary for eventual success. Not surprisingly, I'm not the only one getting ignored because of my inexperience, and the rejections can be downright vicious. Just last week, Kate called me in tears after attending a media conference with… -
Are Women Held Back by Colleagues' Wives?
16 May 2012 | 8:33 amThe new millennium has not brought much progress for women seeking top leadership roles in the workplace. Although female graduates continue to pour out of colleges and professional schools, the percentages of women running large companies, or serving as managing partners of their law firms, or sitting on corporate boards have barely budged in the past decade. Why has progress stalled? A recent study suggests the unlikeliest of reasons: the marriage structure of men in the workplace. A group of researchers from several universities recently published a report on the attitudes and beliefs of… -
Great Businesses Don't Start With a Plan
16 May 2012 | 8:29 amYou want to start a business. So you need a plan, right? No. Not really. As part of the research for a book I'm co-authoring — Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck, due out in August from HBR Press — my colleagues and I interviewed and surveyed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs around the globe to better understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur and build a really great business. One of our most striking findings was that of the entrepreneurs we surveyed who had a successful exit (that is, an IPO or sale to another firm), about 70% did NOT start with a business plan. Instead,… -
The Myths That Prevent Change
16 May 2012 | 8:14 amYou probably think that the barriers to innovation are negative elements of your organization — that is, the wrong people, behaviors, and processes. But the most subtle and pernicious barriers to innovation may be the seemingly positive myths about what has made your organization successful. Every organization has myths about who are the great leaders, what are the behaviors to admire and imitate, what business you are in, what customers want, what are the best skills to run a process. Whenever someone proposes an idea, it is explicitly or implicitly screened with the myths.
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HBR IdeaCast
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300: The Myth of American Decline
10 May 2012 | 4:14 pmDaniel Gross, columnist and economics editor for Yahoo! Finance and author of "Better, Stronger, Faster: The Myth of American Decline . . . and the Rise of a New Economy." -
299: Welcome to the G-Zero World
3 May 2012 | 3:35 pmIan Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and author of "Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World." -
298: Winning in the Intention Economy
26 Apr 2012 | 10:27 amDoc Searls, alumnus fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and author of "The Intention Economy." -
297: Growth Isn't Rocket Science
19 Apr 2012 | 2:49 pmKen Favaro, senior partner at Booz & Company and coauthor of the HBR article "Creating an Organic Growth Machine." -
296: Christiane Amanpour on Leadership and Ambition
12 Apr 2012 | 4:22 pmChristiane Amanpour, renowned war correspondent and news anchor.
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Best Practices
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How to Get Feedback When You're the Boss
15 May 2012 | 6:55 amThe higher up in the organization you get, the less likely you'll receive constructive feedback on your ideas, performance, or strategy. No one wants to offend the boss, right? But without input, your development will suffer, you may become isolated, and you're likely to miss out on hearing some great ideas. So, what can you do to get people to tell you what you may not want to hear? What the Experts Say Most people have good reasons for keeping their opinions from higher ups. "People with formal power can affect our fate in many ways — they can withhold critical resources, they can… -
How to Negotiate Your Next Salary
6 Apr 2012 | 8:00 amNegotiating a salary can be an uncomfortable process. You want to get what you're worth but you also don't want to offend or scare off your future employer. This situation is only more complicated in a tough job market. When offers are few and job seekers are plenty, you might be tempted to take whatever is offered to you. But, that's rarely the smartest thing to do. What the Experts Say Regardless of the state of the job market, you should always negotiate. "You don't ever want to just say thank you," says Katherine McGinn, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and… -
Accept the Job Offer or Walk Away?
26 Mar 2012 | 10:02 amThe hiring manager calls with great news: the job is yours. Phew, the hard part is over, right? Maybe not. Determining whether to take a job offer can — and should — be a difficult decision. In a bad economy or if you're eager to get out of your current job, it can be tempting to accept any offer. But before you take on job, you need to evaluate the situation carefully. What the Experts Say "Over the last 40 years we've transitioned from an economy where you work for 30 years and retire with a gold watch to something that is much more transactional," says Boris Groysberg, a… -
How to Keep a Job Search Discreet
1 Mar 2012 | 6:32 amLooking for a job while you already have one can be stressful, especially in the age of social media when privacy is scarce. You don't want to rock the boat at your current company but you want to find the next great opportunity. Should you tell your boss you're looking? How do you handle references? If you get an offer, is two weeks notice really enough? Since how you leave your current job can be as important to your career as how you perform in the next one, you need to know the answers to these questions. What the Experts Say The job market may be bleak, but that doesn't mean you're… -
Stop Email Overload
21 Feb 2012 | 11:02 amComplaints about email abound. Perhaps you've heard some of these or uttered them in pain yourself: I receive hundreds of emails a day. I can spend my whole day responding to incoming messages. I can't find anything in my inbox. In response, some companies are taking drastic steps to help workers manage the number of messages they receive. The CEO of Atos, a French IT services company, has vowed to ban internal email by 2013. Volkswagen in Germany has agreed to stop sending emails to certain employees after work hours. If these companies are taking radical action, is it time for you to do the…
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Anthony Tjan
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Great Businesses Don't Start With a Plan
16 May 2012 | 8:29 amYou want to start a business. So you need a plan, right? No. Not really. As part of the research for a book I'm co-authoring — Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck, due out in August from HBR Press — my colleagues and I interviewed and surveyed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs around the globe to better understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur and build a really great business. One of our most striking findings was that of the entrepreneurs we surveyed who had a successful exit (that is, an IPO or sale to another firm), about 70% did NOT start with a business plan. Instead,… -
Listen to Your Frontline Employees
4 Apr 2012 | 8:05 amA basic prerequisite for business success is to know — really know — your customers. There's a variety of traditional research methods aimed at better understanding customers: usage analysis, conjoint analysis, cluster analysis, roundtables, panels. But there are a few reasons why traditional research sometimes fails to deliver: 1) Customers don't always say what is really on their mind; 2) Customers often don't know what they don't know; and 3) Those conducting the research may bias results with the types of questions they are asking (wrong questions mean wrong answers). During a… -
How Leaders Lose Their Luck
29 Feb 2012 | 8:00 amWhile researching our forthcoming book — Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck — my co-authors and I made a fascinating discovery: a surprising number of company founders and business-builders attribute much of their success to luck. Almost 25% of those we surveyed came out as "luck-dominant" on the Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test we devised; many more gave luck at least partial credit. As we dug deeper, it became clear that it was not just random chance that these people were talking about. Luck in business can be cultivated, through the combination of what we call a lucky attitude and a… -
Business Needs More Judo, Less Karate
24 Jan 2012 | 9:19 amConsider two hypothetical restaurants: type one and type two. Restaurant type one: Imagine yourself wandering the streets of a new city. You could be on Ocean Drive in South Beach, or Piazza Navona in Rome. You're thinking about dinner, and you come across a restaurant conveniently located on a busy stretch of street. Outside, it displays its panoply of meal choices in wax replica splendor, or "freshly cooked" under Saran wrap. On the sidewalk, an aspiring tan model flanks a manager-host, who wears a loud tie to go with the even louder voice he uses to solicit passersby. "Would you like to… -
Make Time for Time
22 Dec 2011 | 7:00 am"Donner du temps au temps," the late French President François Mitterrand used to say. "Give time for time." The notion being that you need to make time in order to appreciate the ultimate gift we have been given: time on this earth. Every day, we make conscious and less conscious choices on time allocation. Some uses of our time are routine — dropping off kids, eating meals, or going for a daily run. In between those routines, we look to our agendas to see what we are meant to be doing, whom to meet, when and where to go next. Most of us will spend more than one-third of our lives and…
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Fast Company
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Mapping New York's Tech Jobs
16 May 2012 | 2:26 pmNew York City's government just announced a new listing service for tech jobs. But what about that pesky poor-business-broadband-in-NYC problem?New York City matters to tech. It's also a place where the high-tech sector is largely tied into existing industries such as fashion (Gilt Groupe), marketing (Foursquare), and media (Tumblr). Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been outspoken in the past about diversifying New York's high-tech scene, and the city government has just unveiled a new tech job directory--Made in NY--that lists jobs from hundreds of local firms.Bloomberg announced the initiative… -
How To Make The Most Of Your Too-Short Work Break
16 May 2012 | 1:34 pmIf you’re not the type who can sit on a park bench and contemplate nothing, and the conversation around the Keurig machine bores you, what can you do with 15 minutes that isn’t really work but pays off in productivity?After 90 minutes of meeting, working, thinking, and pushing emails, your glucose is in a bad place. That’s what project management consultant Tony Wong tells his clients. And everyone from NASA to the Berlin Academy of Music have run tests that prove you truly need the equivalent of a smoke break, a shift change, whatever you want to call it. But let’s say you’re… -
Little Wows, And Other Ways To Make Your Business Remarkable
16 May 2012 | 1:13 pmBy establishing your business as the truly remarkable option in a field full of snoozers and look-alikes, you will get more free and effective publicity than any traditional advertising budget can buy.Being remarkable is a never-ending process. To differentiate yourself from your competitors, you need to commit to the pursuit of constant innovation. As soon as you change the game by offering your customers remarkable products and services and talking to them in new and exciting ways, your competition will have to respond, upping the ante with innovations of their own. This means that if you… -
Why You Should Start A Company In... Savannah
16 May 2012 | 1:10 pmSteve Weathers, president and CEO of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, shares five things you need to know about opening a business in the Hostess City of the South. UNITED STATES OF INNOVATION New Ideas, New Markets, New Insights It used to be, if you were serious about starting a tech company, you went to Silicon Valley. But emerging entrepreneurial hubs around the country are giving startups new options. In this series, we talk to leading figures in those communities about what makes them tick. CLICK HERE for pockets of innovation in other U.S. cities. Can you name the top four… -
Why You (Yes, You!) Are The Future Of Branding
16 May 2012 | 12:44 pmNew research shows just how much we love to talk about ourselves. Twitter and Facebook have built massive platforms on this premise. How long before many other brands grab a piece of our action? You run through the latest collection of your party photos, psyched to share the best ones with a few good friends. You email them and post them on Instagram and Facebook. Then you realize what everyone will really be looking at in the pics. Hint: It’s not you, it's them. The first thing they’re scanning for is to make sure they look good. They then look at the people surrounding themselves in the…
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OPEN Forum Articles
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Obama Announces Tax Break for Small Businesses
16 May 2012 | 1:15 pmFrom Courtney Rubin: President Barack Obama today urged Congress to pass a bill that would give a 10 percent tax credit to small businesses that create new jobs or increase wages this year. Under the White House proposal, previewed in a video address last weekend, a company would get credit against income taxes worth up to 10 percent of the increase in total 2012 wages (either salaries for new hires or raises). For example, if you raise your payroll by $1 million, you’ll see a $100,000 tax credit. To make it more valuable for small businesses in particular, the credit is capped at… -
Special Feature: A Winning Company Culture
16 May 2012 | 7:15 amFrom Erik Rhey: Culture affects so many aspects of your business, including profitability, turnover, employee satisfaction and your own happiness. That's why we are tackling the big issue of company culture in our May Special Feature. In Part 1 of this series, our experts show you how to define “company culture” and its impact on your business. Management and culture expert Bruna Martinuzzi explores the four kinds of cultures that exist and tells you how to determine which model fits you. And our Culture Beat columnist, Alexandra Levit, will give you tips on building a strong… -
Fostering a Strong Company Culture
16 May 2012 | 7:00 amFrom Alexandra Levit: Greg Smith, formerly of Goldman Sachs, recently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about why he was leaving the company. The piece is an eloquent testament to how a strong culture affects organizations. Goldman would probably prefer to block out this PR nightmare, but Smith put it out there: "Culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for… -
What Culture Is Right for Your Business?
16 May 2012 | 6:45 amFrom Bruna Martinuzzi: “If you do not manage culture," says Edgar Schein, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, "it manages you. And you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.” Culture has a significant impact on a company's long-term economic well-being: A 2000 study published in the Harvard Business Review found that company culture can account for nearly a third of financial performance. This is too high an impact to ignore. An encrusted culture can sometimes impede a company's adaptability and prevent it from changing course in order to… -
Chef Thomas Keller on Building a Supply Community
16 May 2012 | 6:30 amFrom Donna Fenn: There are plenty of entrepreneurs who will tell you that corporate culture informs every facet of how they manage their companies. But those who walk that walk are rare. And those who extend that philosophy to their suppliers and business partners are even rarer. Count Thomas Keller among them. Keller, the owner of two Michelin three-star restaurants–The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., and Per Se in New York–knows that the fishermen, foragers, gardeners, and farmers who supply his restaurants with the freshest ingredients are an integral part of the…
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Inc.com
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Would You Give Up Citizenship for $1 Billion?
16 May 2012 | 12:14 pmEduardo Saverin turned in his passport ahead of the Facebook IPO. Proof that entrepreneurs are fleeing because of high taxes?It's a fun thought exercise for most of us. But whether or not to drop his U.S. citizenship for $1 billion was a legitimate question for Eduardo Saverin, one of Facebook's co-founders. Depending on what happens when the IPO actually launches, Saverin could get more than $3 billion. As an American, he might have owed about a billion in capital gains tax, but he won't owe any now because he decided to renounce his American citizenship.Reactions have fallen into two… -
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16 May 2012 | 12:14 pm -
How I Use YouTube to Market My Business
16 May 2012 | 11:40 amTerrence Kelleman, owner of Dynomighty Design, a product development firm, found a huge audience on YouTube. Here's how. -
How to Ask Better Questions
16 May 2012 | 11:38 amYou may have what sounds like the best idea in the world. But before you do anything else, try to poke as many holes in it as you can.Some newfangled ideas are just too tempting to pass up. So entrepreneurs and managers rush to jump on them. Never mind asking key questions like, "How exactly will this work?" and "What do we want to accomplish?"Take C&A Brazil, a South American clothing store that recently launched an interesting marketing campaign. Customers can go to a special collection online and press a Facebook "like" button on specific articles of clothing. The votes get tallied and… -
Inc. Business Owners Council holds its first CEO Roundtable and announces its third event for 2012!!
16 May 2012 | 11:24 am15 members get to discuss burning issues at the top of San Francisco!On April 19th, fifteen business owners gathered on the 59th floor of the luxurious and newest high-rise in San Francisco, One Rincon Hill at 489 Harrison St. Besides the spectacular views, the participants engaged in a meaningful, moderated discussion on challenges they face in their respective businesses. This CEO Roundtable is a feature of the Inc. Business Owners Council and brings together CEOs and business owners in a confidential setting where they can discuss burning issues they face in their businesses and/or give…
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Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends
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Does Flextime Benefit You More Than Your Employees?
16 May 2012 | 11:30 amAre you resisting offering employees at your small business flexible working hours because you think it’ll give them an excuse to slack off? Well, some new research should convince you otherwise. It seems flextime may actually be less flexible than a regular schedule. The 2012 National Study of Employers, released by the Families and Work Institute (FWI) andthe Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), found that U.S. employers are offering employees more options for managing when and where they work. The tradeoff for the employees, however, is that employers offering more flexibility… -
Navigating the Recruiting Maze
16 May 2012 | 8:30 amFor a lot of hiring managers and small business leaders, hiring remains the most crucial pain point. If you magically get the right people, stuff just gets executed. However, we never make the perfect hiring decisions all the time. Sometimes we are in a hurry to fill the role, and the options available seem more attractive than the list of skills and qualities we carefully created. Of course, every manager has a different outlook – some of us “hire fast, learn fast and fail fast,” whereas some of us passively look at many resumes and only make an addition to the team when it feels… -
New Bulk Listing Management Tool From Google Places
16 May 2012 | 6:00 amBusinesses with multiple locations should be breathing a heavy sigh of relief now that Google has introduced a new and improved bulk listing management tool designed to make the whole process easier and faster for business owners. Google revealed several new changes last week which have been implemented to help SMBs and enable the follow actions: Edit one or more of your listings’ data at once Search through your listings, filtering by specific information or for listings with errors Upload new listings using a data file or by adding them individually within the interface Tell us how we can… -
All Eyes Are on Facebook With Multibillion-Dollar IPO
16 May 2012 | 2:30 amFacebook is a big deal these days, not just because of its multibillion IPO, but also because of the impact the social networking giant has on the 900 million who use its tools. Some of those are small business owners who depend upon FaceBook to provide services they cannot do without. That’s why today all eyes are on Facebook. Facebook in the News Facebook raises its IPO range to meet demand. The price range on the social network’s public offering rises from $34 to $38 per share, targeting a valuation exceeding $100 billion. As big as it has become, Facebook started from humble… -
Judgment Marketplace: Turning Uncollected Judgments Into Cash
15 May 2012 | 8:23 pmHas your business ever gotten a judgment in a court, only to find it was worthless because you didn’t have the time or the know-how to collect it? Judgment Marketplace aims to solve that problem for you. JudgmentMarketplace.com is a website for selling and buying judgments. Small business owners, corporations and consumers who have won a court judgment against another party can list the judgment for sale. Collection agencies and law firms that specialize in skip tracing debtors and collecting on judgments, can negotiate to buy your judgment or, just like on eBay, can “buy it…
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Fistful of Talent
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3 Reasons You Should Be Video Interviewing
16 May 2012 | 7:57 amA week from today, Kris Dunn and I will be dropping some knowledge on some of our HR peers on How To Use Video in Your HR Shop – It’s Free – It’s 60 minutes – you’ll probably waste at least that much time next week talking with Sandy at the water cooler about the new Bachelorette and how much the new girl so totally doesn’t deserve to be there. While we will be talking about 5 Ways to Use Video to Raise Your HR and Recruiting Game. Sales pitch aside, I can’t get off one of those ways, which is completely changing HR and Talent across the… -
Steve Boese writes Regrets of the Retiring
16 May 2012 | 6:33 amThere is a pretty internet-famous post titled, ‘Regrets of the Dying‘, written by Bronnie Ware a long-time nurse who worked with serously ill and terminal patients. Her ‘regrets’ post was really a summary and distillation of what she had heard over the years from patients, most very ill and dying, when they talked about what they might have regretted in their lives.The article, and the five most common regrets are not that really surprising or hard to guess, (‘I wish I didn’t work so hard’, interestingly made the list), and is worth a read. Read the… -
Low pay and no training. The next great retention strategy?
15 May 2012 | 7:46 amWhile normal and well-adjusted people were celebrating Mother’s Day this past weekend, I was scouting for interesting stuff to blog about. One fascinating article that I caught was from HR Magazine out of the UK – ‘Money and skills are all that’s stopping an exodus of passive jobseekers, finds survey of 3,000.’ If you can’t be bothered to click on the piece, (really, it’s better that you don’t, we want eyeballs over here on FOT as long as possible), I’ll sum it up for you in a couple of sentences. A recent survey of 3,000 people and sponsored by Microsoft’s Bing… -
Tim Sackett calls out Rookie Hiring Mistakes
15 May 2012 | 6:22 amThe New York Times recently had a good article titles “The Top 10 Rookie Mistakes for Entrepreneurs” which looks at the top reasons people usually fail when starting a new business. As you can imagine many of the reasons where typical: expense control, fiscal responsibility, having a strong value proposition, etc. But out of all 10 reasons there was one glaring omission on why so many new business owners fail – when it comes to hiring and the HR side of the business: 11. Holding on to Bad Hires too long. Read the whole post over at The Tim Sackett Project (an FOT contributor blog) -
Half The Battle Is Showing Up…On Time
14 May 2012 | 7:55 amNothing makes me crazier than a corporate culture where it’s socially acceptable to show up to meetings late. When meetings start late, they typically end late, and that means another group of people are left waiting…for conference rooms to become available, for people to show up to their meetings, for interviewers to show up to interview a candidate. It’s such a waste of resources. Cultures of late-ness are just a huge freakin’ peeve of mine. The other day, I was talking to another consultant about this topic and it turns out some of his clients had the same…
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A Daring Adventure
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Do You Want More Willpower?
16 May 2012 | 11:56 amProbably my all-time favorite book on self development is ‘Your Brain At Work’ by David Rock. In the book Rock talks about the fact that willpower is a finite resource driven by your energy levels, and as such it usually depletes as the day goes along. Your brain acquires energy via sleep and oxygen as well as food and drink that it then converts to glucose to keep itself going. A deficit of one or more of those things means your brain gets very cranky and stops working properly and your decision making abilities decrease rapidly. You can of course give yourself a boost of willpower by… -
Get Your Message Out There!
13 May 2012 | 10:44 amI recently had an e-mail from a newsletter subscriber asking me a very specific question. I was about to reply when I had the thought of sharing it with you because I know lots of people who are in, if not the exact same situation, then one very similar. Before I give you my take (and this is definitely one of those posts that I’d love you to offer your input in the comments), let me share with you the e-mail that Vic (real name) was happy for me to share. Note: I have edited out some parts that aren’t really relevant for brevity’s sake. -
When Is An Assclown Not An Assclown?
9 May 2012 | 9:46 amIf you didn’t read my previous post this one won’t make a whole lot of sense to you, so check it out here. Shortly after the post went live I got an e-mail from Bob that simply read: “Hi Tim Please give me your address and I will send you a check before the end of the month. I apologize.” That really cheered me up. Not because of the money, but because it led me to think I hadn’t misjudged Bob as badly as I thought I had and that maybe a lot more was going on in his life that I wasn’t privy to. I responded with this e-mail: “Thanks a lot for responding, I greatly… -
4 Takeaways After Being Ripped Off
6 May 2012 | 3:15 pmA month or so ago he I was contacted by one of my readers (let’s call him Bob for the purposes of this post) and asked if I could help him with his issue of chronic procrastination. I’ve had quite lot of experience in helping people who procrastinate and it’s work that can under the right circumstances be highly enjoyable and challenging, so we set up a time to do a consult call shortly after. To cut a long story short, not only did I like Bob, but I felt relatively confident that I could help him even though his issues reached back over two decades. I say relatively confident… -
Do Cancer Victims Deserve Our Sympathy?
3 May 2012 | 2:18 pmThis week one of the greatest Linebackers to ever play the game of (American) football, Junior Seau, took his own life at the age of just 43. It was shocking news to anybody that follows the game made worse by the fact that most people had no idea there was a problem in the first place. There have been deaths of other players in recent years that were of no surprise, but Seau didn’t fit into the ‘problem child’ category that most of the others did. I was reading about the sad news on the St Louis Rams message board when a another Rams fan who happens to be a firefighter posted that he…
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Life Optimizer
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An Essential Way to Be a Wise Person
15 May 2012 | 6:50 pmDo you want to be a wise person? I certainly do, and I believe you do too. Being wise is different from just being smart though. Here is a definition of wise from Dictionary.com: having the power of discerning and judging properly as to what is true or right; possessing discernment, judgment, or discretion. And, to complement that, here is Wikipedia’s definition of wisdom: Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgments and actions in keeping with this understanding. As a comparison, here is a… -
Why Growing Slowly Is the Best Way to Grow
26 Apr 2012 | 3:03 amThe trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. Moliere If there are two ways to success, the first one is instant and the second one takes a long time, which one would you choose? I think most people will take the first one. After all, who doesn’t want to get a quick reward? But there is a difference between achieving a quick success and a lasting success. If you just want a quick success, then sure, the first way the best way to go. However, if you want a lasting success, I believe you should choose the second way. It’s a slow way, but it’s the best way to grow. Here are two… -
HabitMaster Is Now Available for iPad
4 Apr 2012 | 10:29 amBack in January, I wrote a post announcing HabitMaster for iPhone and iPod touch. Now, after a couple of months of development, I’m glad to announce that HabitMaster is also available for iPad. Better yet, you just need to buy it once to get the app on all your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. If you already bought HabitMaster before, all you need to do is downloading the latest free update to get the iPad version. What Is HabitMaster? HabitMaster is an app that helps you build positive habits in your life. It works by tracking how you keep the habits that you want to build. For each habit,… -
How to Break Bad Habits and Develop Good Ones
31 Mar 2012 | 9:14 amThere is no question that habits are important parts of our lives. We do many things in our lives not from conscious decisions, but from habits. So understanding how habits work is essential. For that reason, I was excited when I learned that there was a new book on this topic titled The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I bought the book through Kobo and read it. As it turns out, the book covers not just personal habits, but also organizational and social habits. Here, however, I will focus only on personal habits. There are several things I learn from the book about how to break bad habits… -
5 Ways to Train Your Taste Buds and Eat Healthier
15 Mar 2012 | 11:30 pmNote: This is a guest post from Varsha Aditya of CaloriesAndMore.com When eating healthfully seems like a chore, it’s often because we are slaves of our taste buds. Our tongues can be like little dictators in our body, demanding that everything have sugar, chocolate, oils, butter, cream…The list goes on. Why do we crave just those things that we’re supposed to eat in moderation? Why don’t healthy things like greens and steamed vegetables give us that “feel-good” feeling? And what’s the solution—is there actually a way to enjoy and love healthy foods without being a gourmet…
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Lifehacker: Iphone
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In Memoriam: Our Favorite Apps and Services That Have Gone Belly Up (and Their Replacements)
15 May 2012 | 5:00 pmMore » -
Chrome Likely Heading to iPhone and iPad
15 May 2012 | 8:15 amMore » -
Change the Font Size on iPhone and iPad Web Sites with Bookmarklets
14 May 2012 | 7:30 amMore » -
Instacorder Is a No-Frills App For Emailing Yourself Voice Memos
13 May 2012 | 4:00 pm -
SloPro captures beautiful, 60 frames per second video with your iPhone 4S
12 May 2012 | 2:00 pmMore »
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iDownloadBlog.com
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Apple files motion to dismiss Siri-related lawsuit
16 May 2012 | 12:47 pmA few months ago, a New York man by the name of Frank M. Fazio filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple over its voice assistant, claiming that the company’s Siri TV ads were misleading of its capabilities. A similar suit popped up a few weeks later.Apple, obviously, doesn’t agree. And it feels that if a customer isn’t happy with Siri — which is still labeled as Beta, mind you — or the iPhone 4S itself, then he or she is more than welcome to return the handset within 30 days for a refund…(...)Read the rest of Apple files motion to dismiss Siri-related lawsuit… -
Verizon to end grandfathered unlimited data plans in LTE switch
16 May 2012 | 11:31 amBad news for folks with unlimited data plans on Verizon looking to buy Apple’s new [purported] LTE-flavored iPhone later this year. It appears that the carrier won’t be honoring grandfathered unlimited plans in the switch to LTE.Fierce Wireless is reporting that customers on the Big Red network will be forced to choose from a data-share plan when moving from a 3G handset to an LTE one. The news comes straight from Verizon’s CFO Fran Shammo…(...)Read the rest of Verizon to end grandfathered unlimited data plans in LTE switch "Verizon to end grandfathered unlimited data… -
iPhone tops another customer satisfaction survey
16 May 2012 | 11:07 amEven though the Android platform sits on top of several major smartphone categories — marketshare, hardware specs, etc. — there’s one list that it can’t seem to climb: customer satisfaction. That particular stat belongs to iOS.The iPhone has taken home more than 6 J.D. Power Satisfaction awards, and countless other smaller surveys. And it just added another notch to its belt, coming in first in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index report…(...)Read the rest of iPhone tops another customer satisfaction survey "iPhone tops another customer satisfaction survey" is… -
Samsung just lost $10B market value on Apple order stoppage rumor
16 May 2012 | 10:51 amSamsung has lost a whopping ten billion dollars of market value on rumors of order stoppage concerning DRAM chips. The iPhone maker has reportedly secured half the manufacturing output from Elpida, a struggling Japanese maker of dynamic random access memory chips.Apple is Samsung’s biggest client and Cupertino’s business contributes substantially to their fortunes so no wonder Samsung’s shares fell yesterday more than six percent to a nine-week low, effectively wiping out a cool $10 billion of the company’s market capitalization…(...)Read the rest of Samsung just… -
Poll: should the next iPhone have a bigger screen?
16 May 2012 | 9:14 amWith Android devices typically sporting displays measuring between 4.3 and 4.8 inches diagonally (and beyond) and the usually credible Wall Street Journal throwing its weight behind recent reports asserting a four-inch iPhone, we’re eager to learn about your take on this drama.Would you prefer the next iPhone to sport the same 3.5-inch display as prior iPhones? A four-inch iPhone, you say? How do you feel about a monstrous 4.8-inch iPhone?(...)Read the rest of Poll: should the next iPhone have a bigger screen? "Poll: should the next iPhone have a bigger screen?" is an article by…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Create a Setting and Connect With Emotions
13 May 2012 | 10:26 pmI recently moved the delivery time of my beloved newsletter to be Sunday morning (well, that’s when it launches here, though my New Zealander and Australian friends all get it on Monday). In the process, I talked to people about sharing this information over breakfast, and with a “second cup of coffee” sometimes. I basically set a scene in the reader’s head that we were having a personal chat over breakfast. Ask yourself this: in trying to reach others for whatever your goal may be, is it facts or emotions that will win them over? Which do you think plays the bigger… -
Nobody Reads Agency Blogs- Or Why You Need Skin in the Game
7 May 2012 | 6:57 amThanks to Jason Falls, I just read this post about how many marketing agencies are closing down their blogs and tweeting and Facebooking instead. “Nobody reads agency blogs, and there are so many out there it’s impossible for people to keep up anyway,” said Sam Weston, director of communications at digital agency Huge. Nobody Reads ANY Blogs- If They’re Boring I’ll tell you without even having to look why nobody reads a blog: because it’s boring. Because it’s poorly written. Because it’s utterly self-referential. Nobody has time to read junk. Why would you? -
Constraints
5 May 2012 | 9:43 amI was at a live performance the other night where Jacq sang and played with Girish, and I had a great conversation with Reggie, the drummer for the night. (I am SO sorry that I don’t know your last name, Reggie.) We talked about the fact that his typical drum kit for events is usually like 30 or so pieces, but that he decided to go minimal for the event. He had a kick drum, a snare, a tom, two cymbals, and a cowbell. What Reggie said was something like this, “I really enjoy this, because it means I really have to use what I have to get the expression I’m aiming for. I… -
Pattern Break
2 May 2012 | 9:17 pmWhen you wake up in the morning, you check your emails, probably from your phone. First thing. Yes? Why? There’s no good answer to why. Even brain surgeons can wait until they’ve done other things before checking in on the world outside of your immediate proximity. So why do you do it? Because it’s a habit, a pattern. Do you read the top tech and marketing blogs? Why? Why do you read this blog? Because you’re subscribed? Are you getting something from it? If no, then why are you still doing it? Twitter and Facebook are hugely pattern-driven. They thrive off the same… -
Where Should You Put Your Content?
30 Apr 2012 | 7:44 amI’ve been asked by subscribers of my personal newsletter how I decide what goes on my blog and what goes into my newsletter. I think the answer differs depending on your strategy, but I’m more than happy to tell you how I view it. I put information that sells on my blog, and information that nurtures in my newsletter. Information that Sells My job, because people seem confused these days as to what exactly it is I do or am selling, is to help mid-sized to larger companies build business (revenue and growth) by improving their use of the human digital channel (social media, email…
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TED Blog
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Unseen Narratives: The TEDSalon in London
14 May 2012 | 4:43 pmBooks, film, art, food — and science and social issues — were at the center of the talks at the sixth TEDSalon in London. The event took place on May 10 in a packed Unicorn Theatre, with the support of longtime TED partner frog. “Our bodies are made of atoms, but our lives are made of stories”, host and TEDGlobal curator Bruno Giussani said, introducing the event’s theme: “Unseen Narratives.” We are our stories, he suggested, our memories, desires, passions, dramas. Stories are what our imagination projects, what our creativity produces, what helps us… -
Reports from the road: TED Talent Search in Nairobi …
12 May 2012 | 8:38 amAs the TED team travels around the world hosting salons in 14 cities, we’re collecting great local stories. Start with this Storify from Nanjira Sambuli that rounds up tweets from TED@Nairobi: 62% of secondary school students are reading #ShujaazFM. 'It's not about ideas,it's about how you deliver them'. @awelltoldstory this is!— Nanjira Sambuli (@NiNanjira) May 05, 2012 From the blog “Inflation, Stilettos, Pacifiers & An African Dream,” this generous and insightful blog post: For 6 minutes, I learned about the bees that make it possible to have… -
Life on Mars: Fellows Friday with Angelo Vermeulen
11 May 2012 | 8:21 amWhen artist and scientist Angelo Vermeulen (watch his TED Talk) first started weaving together biological and technological systems in his artwork, little did he know he’d someday be asked to consider how to create living ecosystems for future space habitation… Do you consider yourself an artist or scientist first? I usually describe myself as an artist with a background in science, but I feel first and foremost an artist. Artist, biologist, space researcher, and TED Fellow — that’s how I describe myself now, but it changes. It seems when people are confronted with a hybrid… -
Watch Vidal Sassoon’s moving, funny TEDx talk
10 May 2012 | 4:48 pmAt TEDxOxford last September, legendary stylist Vidal Sassoon, who died this week at 84, shared this moving talk about his extraordinary life. As a YouTube commenter writes: “A good way to remember this humble and inspirational man.” Plus! See this talk (and many others from TEDxOxford) illustrated by the Livescribes, a British group of live illustrators. -
Revealed! Speaker lineup for TEDGlobal 2012: Radical Openness
8 May 2012 | 8:23 amToday, we’re thrilled to announce the TEDGlobal 2012 speaker lineup — exploring the theme “Radical Openness.” As the world becomes ever more interconnected, the ways we relate, the means by which we learn about one another and develop mutual understanding, and the rules about what we hide and what we share are changing. That’s the inspiration for the theme — and it’ll be explored by scientists, artists, technologists, students and visionaries from around the globe. Explore the full program guide, or scroll down for the full lineup … TEDGlobal…
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Escape From Cubicle Nation
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Announcing … Fantastic lineup of Spring classes from Power Teaching students
16 May 2012 | 10:56 amIn April, I ran another session of my Power Teaching class. Another extremely smart and enthusiastic group joined in intensive study of effective training design and development, and worked on real, live classes that they are launching this Spring. I love teaching this class for three reasons: It is exceptionally energizing to share my passion for teaching with completely open and eager participants They really worked their hearts out to apply great design to their classes, ensuring a superior learning experience for their students They were extremely generous with each other, sharing ideas… -
Expand your comfort zone, expand your market
14 May 2012 | 2:04 pmIsn’t it wonderful to get to a place in your business or career where you don’t have to work very hard to make a happy, healthy living? Jim Collins calls it the “sweet spot” and Martha Beck calls it “The Promise Land” in her four-square model of change. Before you get to this spot, you long for it. You work hard to make it happen. And then when you reach it, and hang out there for awhile, a funny thing happens: you get itchy to get to a new place. You start to yearn to grow, and to leverage the success you have had to date in new and interesting areas. My… -
How blogging changed my life
27 Apr 2012 | 11:14 amOnce upon a time, I was sitting in my home office in Mesa, Arizona with a tiny baby boy in my arms, and a big idea in my head. “What if I could help all those people I met in my years consulting in large corporations who wanted to start a business?” It felt like crazy talk. I imagined disguising myself and going into the cafeterias of Silicon Valley companies and handing out flyers. I had no idea where to begin. Thankfully, through Andrea Lee, I met Suzanne Falter-Barns. Her course about building an online presence had an assignment to start a thing called a blog. I didn’t… -
Small Town Rules That Can Help Your Business, No Matter the Size
26 Apr 2012 | 4:04 pmBecky McCray and Barry Moltz have just released their new book Small Town Rules: How Big Brands and Small Businesses Can Prosper in a Connected Economy. It is a fascinating resource with genuinely new insights for everyone in business. In my 20-minute interview with Becky McCray, we discuss: Common misconceptions people have about small, local businesses What large corporations can learn about branding from small business The formula for instant social media success (I am only sort of kidding – the way that Becky explained it made so much sense!) Download the podcast here:… -
Calling on your inner badass to step up to the plate
24 Apr 2012 | 11:52 amDine’ (Navajo) Chief Manuelito In the seven years that I have been parenting, I have had a few less than proud moments. Like the potato chip for dinner situation. And the losing the birthday invitation that my 4-year old had been looking forward to all week, resulting in a missed party. And, well, I don’t want to make this too long of a blog post. You get the idea. But sometimes I have what could be construed as a not-so-proud moment with one of my kids that turns into something that is actually quite profound. The potty mouth badass recognizing moment The other day, I was driving…
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Zencast
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Zencast 365 - Mindfulness Up Close
13 May 2012 | 4:00 amMindfulness Up Close - Robert Cusick This teaching is given freely courtesy of Audio Dharma. Audio Dharma ; IMC ; Robert Cusick -
Zencast 364 - Equanimity
6 May 2012 | 4:00 amEquanimity - Joseph Goldstein This teaching is given freely courtesy of Dharma Seed. Dharma.org ; Joseph Goldstein -
Zencast 363 - Wise Livelihood
29 Apr 2012 | 4:00 amWise Livelihood - Andrea Fella This teaching is given freely courtesy of Audio Dharma. Audio Dharma ; IMC ; Andrea Fella -
Zencast 362 - Letting Go: Clinging and Peace
22 Apr 2012 | 4:00 amLetting Go: Clinging and Peace - Gil Fronsdal This teaching is given freely courtesy of Audio Dharma. Audio Dharma ; IMC ; Gil Fronsdal -
Zencast 361 - Wise Action - Part 2
8 Apr 2012 | 4:53 amWise Action, Part 2 - Andrea Fella This teaching is given freely courtesy of Audio Dharma. Audio Dharma ; IMC ; Andrea Fella
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The Zennist
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No time to read the Buddha's discourses
16 May 2012 | 5:06 amThe usefulness of the Buddha's discourses, as found in the Pali and Mahayana canon, including other sources, are not useful or relevant if we don't study them delegating their study, instead, to others. I can almost hear some people saying, "I haven't the time to read all this stuff—sitting in zazen for ten or twenty minutes a day is much easier." This response assumes that some good will follow from sitting still for a while. But his is not authentic Buddhism. It is an excellent example of what the Buddha did not teach. What allows such a… -
A bird's eye view of Buddhism
15 May 2012 | 5:00 amA bird’s eye view of where the Buddha is coming from before one looks at the various aspects of Buddhism is very helpful to say the least. Such a view, however should not be taken to be an oversimplification. Nor is such a view a historical one. When Gautama awakened, becoming Buddha, he awakened to the absolute from which this world, including his human body and mental life were composed. Although phenomena still existed as did his thoughts, etc., from his new standpoint their existence became illusory. In other words, the only thing that truly exists is… -
Watkin's spiritual list to the rescue
13 May 2012 | 10:19 pmSpiritual wisdom is supposed to be direct knowledge of spirit or absolute Mind, itself. This is something only a sage knows or has realized. Everybody else is drifting along more or less deluded who have other important things to do besides sitting in a cave focused on seeing the clear light Mind. They have a job, their family and children to worry about. All this is important, but only from a relative point of view. So somebody has to minister to these lost people. But who can do it? Watkin's Spiritual 100 List is a list of the who's… -
Sentient beings are not Buddhas
12 May 2012 | 10:36 pmBadly taught Buddhists or just raw beginners seem to believe that the Buddha taught that all creatures are Buddhas. To borrow from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra this is like believing fresh milk from a cow is already butter. Well, it is not and neither are sentient beings anuttara-samyak-sambuddhas. It is one thing to have the potential to become a Buddha and quite another matter to actuallize the state of Buddha or buddhata. If the potential were identical with the actual state, as some Buddhists seem wont to believe, we might sell an acorn for the price of a cord of… -
Buddhism with and without faith
9 May 2012 | 9:20 pmThe Pali word for faith is saddhâ (in Sanskrit it is shradhâ) which is not unlike the English sense of faith or belief. In early Buddhism saddhâ, while being very close to the English sense had, also, a more cognitive meaning which made it instrumental in leading to enlightenment. This is evident in this passage: “The faculty of faith, bhikkhus, is a state conducive to enlightenment; it leads to enlightenment” (S. v. 227). The cognitive sense is better illustrated in this passage from the Bodhirajakumara Sutta. “What do you think about this,…
