Archive for March 2010
I’ll Have a Slurpee and… a FarmVille Card!
Mashable reports Zynga’s legion of social gamers have a new way to buy virtual goods –- pre-paid game cards that will be available for purchase at a combined more than 12,800 7-Eleven, Best Buy, Target and Gamestore stores. The deal sees $10 and $25 cards for FarmVille, Mafia Wars and YoVille go on sale at [...]
How can you avoid burnout and stay in a productive rhythm? According to Lifehack here are 11 ways you can start safeguarding your life against burnout: 1. Schedule regular social activities 2. Follow a fitness plan 3. Pursue a hobby 4. Volunteer 5. Write a manifesto 6. Ask for help 7. Make others laugh 8. [...]
Biz Cards Help Remember Contact
If you’re great at taking business cards when they’re handed to you but not so great at remembering who gave them to you, where, and what you were talking about, Lifehacker reader meep offers a simple but smart trick: A friend told me about this excellent networking tip: when you get a business card, write [...]
Letting Teen Entrepreneurs Connect
KillerStartups reports that a site that is powered by Twitter, Btwitt is aimed at teens who have clear entrepreneurial goals and are looking for a chance to find collaborators before they can bring themselves to convey their ideas to the world. The site is certainly interesting because today a lot of young people are smart [...]
Small Bizs Grapple With New Health Care Law
Inc.com reports that one important aspect of the legislation: Two part-timers count as one full-timer for the purposes of determining whether a business is required by law to provide health insurance. For small businesses, it may be a case of the best of times and the worst of times. A group long distrustful of government [...]
Mom’s Business Is To Teach Families How To Save Money
The moment Danielle Pettiford walks through the door of her favorite grocery store, she walks in prepared says NJ.com. With her book of coupons she is ready to shop. As she checks her register receipt at the exit door, Pettiford quietly celebrates another grocery store victory that saved her hundreds in the check out line. [...]
Mom’s Invention Cleans The Grime Out Of Sippy Cup Straws
As any parent knows, a sippy cup that was lost and suddenly materializes a few days later isn’t a pretty sight. Depending on what was in the cup it is almost guaranteed that the liquid has congealed or simply clogged up the built in straw, rendering the cup useless. Of course that would mean you’d [...]
Niche Biz: Tooth Fairy Business
OCLN: Most adults are in on the secret. Now they can join a club – The Secret of the Tooth Fairy Club. San Clemente resident Diana Farnsworth invented her new business and Web store dedicated to the tooth fairy tradition. She launched the business, she said, to honor her father Peter De Francisci, an architect [...]
Matt Mireles the founder of SpeakerText has defined his formula for choosing an investor: Pitching your startup to investors is a deeply personal matter. More often than not, they––politely or not––call your baby ugly. And that hurts. Good founders, I think, learn to not take the criticism too personally. But in the end, it is [...]
According to the B’more Green blog, PBS is looking for creative kids and young inventors ages 5-19 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this April by participating in the 2010 Trash to Treasure competition. This award-winning series challenges contestants to recycle, reuse, and re-engineer everyday materials into new inventions. Three young innovators will [...]
According to a story at Entrepreneur.com, putzing around during a sustainable supply chain management course at Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business in 2008, then-MBA student Sam Hogg opened his wallet and stared at one of several plastic gift cards he had received for Christmas. I thought: ‘This is so stupid and wasteful,’” he [...]
Sydney Barrows at Entrepreneur.com reports letting customers take your product home on a trial basis may clinch the sale. Take the so-called puppy-dog close, one of the most powerful sales techniques ever invented (and it’s totally based on customer experience). This is how it works: A customer is in the pet store with a child [...]
Barbara Findlay Schenck over at Entrepreneur.com gives your business a boost with these no-cost marketing resources. Market research: MapStats. Don’t rely on guesswork to determine whether the region you serve can support your growth goals or whether new markets are good choices for business expansion. Instead, tap into government-assembled facts about any U.S. state, county, [...]
Play Games With Your Employees
According to Inc.com, College Hunks Hauling Junk uses sales contests to encourage rivalries and boost employee motivation. Nick Friedman had an idea. Suppose you could take the natural high spirits that compel college students to kidnap one another’s team mascots and toilet-paper rival frat houses and harness it for good? Friedman is president of College [...]
Their shoe is not on the market yet, but if students at A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet School have their way, it will be in the near future, reports The Augusta Chronicle. Step It Up is a flat women’s shoe that comes with a short heel, a high heel and a wedge heel. [...]
New Bizop Classified Ads This Week
New listing this week on the Business Opportunities Weblog Classifieds. Create Your Own Website By 3.45 This Afternoon Your Own Home Based Business – No Financial Investment Ever!! Free Online Business – No Financial Investment Ever!! Have You Recently Been Laid Off 888*572*7746 Do Something That Is Fun! Have A Fun Party! Earn Some Extra [...]
Have you ever wished that you could paint a snowman green? Well, 5-year-old Seppa Francis did. It was a wish that she went on to share with her mother, Lora Treat, says the Great Falls Tribune. Her 4-year-old son Ryan Francis then piped up and asked mom for a yellow cat. Treat grew up in [...]
Mother/Daughter Promote Pastime Through Business
The love of scrapbooking began for Jessica Stucki and her mom Suzanne Smith 15 years ago. It was through that passion that they went on to launch Scrap N Fanatics Inc., says the Idaho State Journal. “We bought the store in 2005, sold it in 2007, and my mom bought it back again in 2009,” [...]
Baking Invention Gives Users An Edge
Matt Griffin was a young bachelor just trying to figure out how to bake some brownies when he hit on an idea that has really cooked, reports The Indianapolis Star. In this case, Griffin’s idea was a better baking pan for brownies. His goal was to cook every piece of the popular comfort food so [...]
Every business should offer an enticing phrase differentiating it from competitors. Communications coach Carmine Gallo over at BusinessWeek offers pointers. CNN rarely covers the introduction of a new Internet router, but it did on Tuesday, Mar. 9. I can’t remember when a radio station in my area covered the launch of a router, but it [...]
Cheaper Way To Process Small Transactions
PayPal Inc., the payment processor, plans to introduce a cheaper way for businesses to handle online transactions that are less than $10, a company executive said. BusinessWeek reports that PayPal will let companies accumulate so-called micropayments until a certain volume is reached, at which point PayPal will charge merchants a single processing fee, Francesco Rovetta, [...]
According to a story in The Tampa Tribune, area schoolchildren are flocking to Walgreens stores in droves – but not for vaccinations. The draw is a must-have bracelet. And a Walgreens manager says the store is doing everything it can to keep up with the demand. Silly Bandz, multicolored silicone bracelets, come in a variety [...]
Boost Sales With Mobile Coupons
Marketers have long been giddy about the prospect of sending ads to consumers’ cell phones, but consumers haven’t always been too keen on the idea, reports Inc.com. That, however, is starting to change. Though cell-phone owners still seem resistant to the idea of advertisers randomly pinging their phones, a recent survey by HipCricket, a mobile [...]
Student Invention Deployed In Haiti To Save Lives
While many MIT students busily build break-dancing robots or websites that let your pets network better at doggie daycare, PhD candidate Danielle Zurovcik has designed a $3 pump to drastically speed up the healing of countless patients in the aftermath of Haiti’s recent earthquake. Popular Science magazine reports that the device simplifies and lightens a [...]
When was the last time you received a business card made out of chocolate? How about a chocolate spoon in your favorite coffee at your local cafe? A unique touch like that is hardly ever forgotten. That is exactly what Chocolate Graphics is banking on. While they couldn’t tell us exactly how they print on [...]
Need More Inspiration? 137 Years Of Popular Science for Free
Need even more inspiration? 137 years of Popular Science are now freely available online here.
Niche: Clear View Screen Doors
An invisible screen door is a retractable screen door is a product that is attached to the exterior face or to the interior frame of a doorway. The screening material itself is attached to a roller tube which spins on a vertical axis within the assembly’s housing. The screen is also attached to a vertical [...]
Obsolete Occupations: Jobs of Yesterday
More at NPR.
The Mercury News reports that they’re swilling Google-tinis in Sarasota, Fla., and vowing to Google-ize the names of their firstborn children up in Duluth. Topeka has been temporarily re-christened Google, Kan. And mayors throughout the realm are vying for the search giant’s favor, from sucking up to it on Twitter to jumping into icy Lake [...]
Rose Associates, an 80-year-old real estate marketing and management company based in New York City. Rose has 200 employees and manages some 20,000 luxury apartment units. According to a story at Inc.com, Bob Scaglion, Rose’s senior managing director of residential marketing, uses Twitter’s search function for lead generation, which works well, because people often send [...]
How Cheap Could Computing Get…Free?
If you assume a desktop computer’s a big box full of chips, hard drives and other paraphernalia, it’s hard to see how to make it cheaper. Unless you go down the virtualization route: NComputing thinks the ultimate cost could be zero, reports Fast Company. Ncomputing makes powerful chips that make thin clients work: Essentially turning [...]
Sometimes, the most memorable moments happen during the daily clatter of life. Especially when they involve children. Those adorable half-asleep eyes in the early morning hours. A serious case of giggles at bath time. The excitement after scoring a soccer goal. Even a temper tantrum, in hindsight. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports many parents are preserving [...]
Pittsburgh-based Small Farm Central offers a service that helps farmers create websites for their farms, reports trendspotter Springwise. Small Farm Central’s core service provides farms with a website, email addresses, a domain name, photo upload capability, page creation, template customisation and more through an easy-to-use control panel. Additional features include phone support, mailing list handling, [...]
Independent Inventors Roundtable
David Kappos, director of the United States Patent and Trademark (USPTO) will host a roundtable for independent and small entity inventors on Monday, March 29. The event will be held at the Madison Auditorium on the Agency’s campus in Alexandria, Virginia. It will also be webcast live on www.uspto.gov. Director Kappos will make opening remarks [...]
Anne Roberts has fond memories of helping her grandfather tend his garden from when she was young but it never occurred to her that it could potentially become her career. That was until now, says Crain’s Chicago Business. While away from the workplace, she enrolled in the University of Illinois Extension program for master gardening, [...]
Dean Kamen’s Newest Invention: Stirling Hybrid Scooter
Dean Kamen’s Segway has been a modest success, but it certainly hasn’t become “to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy,” as the inventor once predicted. Still, that hasn’t stopped Kamen from continuing to invent new types of transportation. The latest is a hybrid electric scooter that uses a Stirling engine [...]
The Financial Impact of March Madness
Editor note: The NCAA is streaming all the games free online at ncaa.com. Sweet 16! Photo by Fast Company.
The BIG Idea Group is crowdsourcing names for two different product concepts on behalf of their client, Jarden. Concept 1: Professional Salon/Barber Clipper (for humans) The first product is a heavy-duty hair clipper ideal for barber and salon (people) “all-day-use.” The clipper is ergonomically designed and features detachable blades. Advantages: It performs non-stop, is powerful, [...]
Could School Bus Ads Save School Budgets?
School districts have imposed all sorts of drastic cuts to save money during the down economy, canceling field trips and making parents pay for everything from tissues to sports transportation. And some have now resorted to placing advertisements on school buses, reports The Associated Press. School districts say it’s practically free money, and advertisers love [...]
Dropbox: Backup Online for Free
I’ve recently discovered Dropbox and I love it. For free, Dropbox allows me to easily backup my most important files and access my home computer files from anywhere. Dropbox acts like an external disk drive only it lives somewhere else on the internet — and won’t be destroyed if my house catches on fire. Install [...]
FunkyDiva Business Opportunity
FunkyDiva is a digital jukebox, loaded with over 12,000 songs to suit all tastes of music. The company operates as a network of independent partners who run their own jukebox-for-hire business locally under the FunkyDiva brand. The customers who have hired a FunkyDiva from one of their local partners/distributors for their party were extremely happy [...]
Attention Getting Press Releases
photo credit: mikebaird When you’re setting out to write a press release for your company, you must think of many different ways that you can word your release in order to not only get your point across but to attract attention. Below are some helpful hints that I feel will help you on this mission [...]
The Business Of Diaper Changing
As a mother to two young children, it is needless to say that Karen Creed-Thompson has changed quite a few diapers in her time. While it’s not necessarily a task that parents enjoy it is a part of life when you have children in diapers. However, it was the flimsy, cheap changing pads that really [...]
Using E-Mail During A Blizzard To Drive Sales
Just in case you missed it, the Washington, DC area has been hit by numerous snow storms this year. Some smart businesses used e-mail to communicate with customers and prospects, build goodwill and, in some cases, drive sales, reports clickz.com. Did you do anything special for the blizzard of 2010? If not, here’s some food [...]
Patent Reform Bill Close To Passing?
Beltway blog The Hill reports that senators involved in the patent reform bill have reached agreement on language in the legislation that has lingered in Congress for much of the last decade. There’s a certain good news-bad news aspect to this. I’m for language in the bill that allows the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office [...]
Recession Sparks Boom In Personal-Assistant Biz
Imagine if you could hire someone to do all those pesky chores that you always hate to do — pick up the dry cleaning, make the kids’ lunches, finally set up your online bill payments, asks WalletPop. The good news for those of us who aren’t Brad or Angelina is that the recession — the [...]
Recipe Kits Bring World To Dinner Table
Global warming and the recession may have delivered a one-two punch to many consumers’ travel plans, but that doesn’t mean people can’t still enjoy an exotic escape of a different kind. Enter Destination Dinners, a San Francisco company that offers a wide variety of dinner kits replicating dining experiences from around the world, reports trendspotter [...]
Like many aspiring rock stars, Jared Gutstadt, 32, used to split his life in half. He held down a day job editing television shows for clients like Disney, MTV and VH1. He kept his nights free for what he really wanted to do: make music, reports CNNMoney. That changed two years ago, while Gutstadt was [...]
Stress Relieving Vending Machine
The “Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine” is a machine that allows you break a dish or two until you feel better. All you have to do is insert a dollar, and a piece of china will slowly move towards you until it falls to the bottom and breaks into a million pieces. Want to do [...]
Attention All Chicago Area Inventors
Can you build amazing gadgets out of just about anything? Are you a self-proclaimed Mad Scientist? Or are you a soccer mom who loves tinkering with crafts? An Emmy nominated Production Company is now casting for a new series with a top cable network. If you live to create wacky inventions or are an amateur [...]
