Archive for November 2010
Chances are, given the time of year and all, you’re about to go shopping (and shopping and shopping and shopping and shopping). But beware says The Los Angeles Times, it won’t be just a walk in the mall. Shopping is a far more complex undertaking than you probably realize, according to researchers who delve into [...]
Mom’s Nonprofit Provides Computers For Sick Kids
Jennifer Varner recently launched a nonprofit that helps connect sick kids with a computer of their own reports WRAL.com. Kilian, her youngest child, is her inspiration. Last August, Varner was three months pregnant with Kilian when she was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. She and her husband had just returned from a trip to Chicago [...]
When Retirement Doesn’t Work Out
From The Minneapolis Star Tribune comes the inspiring and entertaining story of Rob Sheeley, a 55-year-old entrepreneur whose short-lived retirement gave birth to a $28 million business. As the story goes, Sheeley initially retired in 2002 following a big windfall he received after selling a teleconferencing business he started in 1987. Six months into that [...]
Body Scanner Blocking Underwear
A Colorado man has created what he feels is a product that can help people that do not want to bare all to full body scanners reports 6 KFDM News. Pads made of metals, can be placed inside a bra or for men, the fig leaf design has the same flexible properties providing the kind [...]
Legendary Inventor: Margaret Knight
Born in Maine in 1838 and raised by a widowed mother, Margaret Knight showed a proclivity toward inventing from a very young age – a characteristic of many of the world’s famous inventors. After observing an accident at a textile mill at the age of 12, Margaret went to work producing her first real invention. [...]
According to The Los Angeles Times sometime in the next two weeks, a converted fishing boat called the Sikuk is due to sail from St. John’s, in Canada’s Newfoundland province, bound for a fjord in Greenland and a rendezvous with an iceberg. Where most vessels give icebergs a wide berth, the Sikuk intends to sidle [...]
Tech-Savvy Put Biz Intelligence To Work
According to a story in USA Today, Danny Kennedy and Andrew Birch talked about all the valuable free data Microsoft and Google float out on the Internet. In particular, they wondered if they could tap into the tech giants’ mapping services to remotely design rooftop solar energy systems using satellite images and aerial photos. Turns [...]
Listen Now: Or download: Weekend Wrap-up November 20, 2010
Video: Maximizing Your Marketing ROI
My first video from the YellowBook360 Building Success series is out. In this one, I speak with Carmen and Serge Sognonvi of Urban Martial Arts in Brooklyn, New York about Maximizing Your ROI. Video after the jump, or on the site.
Bacon-related products to inspire and amuse. Effervescent Bacon Drink Tablets. If you drop one of these magic tablets into a glass of water it will instantly begin to dissolve, creating a cascade of bubbles that will infuse the water with a delicious bacon flavor. Great for making bizarre beverages or slipping into a friend’s drink [...]
When you look at them from the outside, inventors and entrepreneurs can look very similar. According to The Globe and Mail, they are both quite “creative, pioneering, and driven to solve problems.” However, that is where the similarities end. An entrepreneur may also happen to be an inventor, or he or she may borrow something [...]
Companies Quit Printing White-Pages Phone Books
What’s black and white and read all over? Not the white pages, which is why regulators have begun granting telecommunications companies the go-ahead to stop mass-printing residential phone books, a musty fixture of Americans’ kitchen counters, refrigerator tops and junk drawers. According to The Associated Press, in the past month alone, New York, Florida and [...]
Mom Inventor To Compete On “Homemade Millionaire”
You could say that Marcy McKenna was born into a home filled with inventors reports The Orange County Register. As a child, her home was filled with ideas. Over breakfast they would bounce ideas off each other, even joking with her mom that they must be “cereal inventors.” We call ourselves cereal inventors because we [...]
Mark McGuinness over at the99percent.com shares his productivity secret…the Post-It note. Not the smallest size, but the 3″ x 3″ squares. The Post-It contains my to-do list for today, and today only. Because my day is a limited size, I figure it makes sense to limit the size of my to-do list. If I can’t [...]
App Connects Singles Spontaneously
Singles are always on the look out for a way to connect with fellow singles, and one app entrepreneur has given them something a little different to try. Chris Klotz is the creator of Singles Around Me, an app that uses the GPS in a smart phone to help singles locate other singles that are [...]
Third Of Shoppers Still Haven’t Heard Of Cyber Monday
Everyone seems to know that Black Friday is the shopping day after Thanksgiving. However, Cyber Monday — the online analogue of Black Friday, on the Monday following Thanksgiving —is still something of an unknown quantity. A new poll released exclusively to dealnews by Lightspeed Research shows that one third of shoppers still don’t know what [...]
12 Places You Didn’t Know Had Free WiFi
Sure, we all know many airports and cafes have free WiFi, but what about your local big box retailer? Recently Unplggd.com were surprised to discover a free WiFi hotspot where they did not expect it which got them thinking about all of the unexpected places where they’ve found free WiFi. 1. The Laundromat 2. Best [...]
Making Ads That Whisper To The Brain
What happens in our brains when we watch a compelling TV commercial? According to The New York Times for one thing, certain brain waves that correlate with heightened attention become more active, according to researchers who have used EEGs, or electroencephalographs, to study the brain’s electrical frequencies. Brain waves that signal less-focused attention, meanwhile, tend [...]
Turn Your Expertise Into Dollars Online
If you are an expert in something, you can offer your advice online — and turn that expertise into dollars. Mashable reports that small business owners are especially good candidates to become online experts, because they know their industries inside and out. Michele Gorham, owner of the Andover, Mass.-based Cookie Central bakery, is one small [...]
Life After A ‘Terrific Failure’
Recently imeem founder, Dalton Caldwell, came home to his alma mater so he could speak to a room full of budding entrepreneurs reports Peninsula Press. “I know half of you probably saw me on the program and asked ‘Who’s this guy? Didn’t his company just blow up about nine months ago?’ Yes, that is me.” [...]
Profiting From Cheating Students
If you’re in school right now, you’re probably aware of this already, but if you came of age before the internet, you’re in for a shock: you can get a doctorate without every writing an essay. It’s not a dumbing down of our educational system that is to blame, it’s the internet and the “essay [...]
Social media may get all the ink, but it is not getting most of the dollars – at least not from small businesses, says a new report. Inc.com reports the majority of small companies will plow most of their marketing funds into traditional websites and e-mail, says a report by online survey firm Zoomerang and [...]
Turning Black iPhones White Creates Trouble For Entrepreneur
A young entrepreneur might be in serious trouble for his business that allows iPhone users to turn their black phones into white ones reports PC World. 17-year-old Fei Lam has apparently struck an agreement with Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer contracted by Apple to produce the iPhone to send him white iPhone 4 cases for those [...]
Via: Time
Artist Uses Old Chewing Gum To Beautify Sidewalks
Inhabitat.com reports that artist Ben Wilson has been hot on your trail – literally crawling on his hands and knees, making little tiny paintings on the flattened spats of gum you’ve left behind. Once he’s set his sights on a sidewalk, he doesn’t pass up a potential canvas, painting on every flattened blob for hours [...]
Lolliposh Brings Kids Consignment To South Florida
At a time when people seem to be tightening their purse strings, three women have created a consignment sale that has them opening those wallets back up. Lina Uribe, Juliana Ruiz, and Alejandra Marrero-Brelage are the great minds behind Lolliposh, a seasonal consignment business that specializes in kid’s products. They offer South Florida parents an [...]
Hotel Biz Ramps Up Around Black Friday
It was the night before Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, and hotels started noticing a quirky phenomenon, reports USA Today. People stuffed with turkey and pumpkin pie were walking into their lobbies to book rooms for Thanksgiving night. Call it Black Friday shopping — to the extreme. Instead of waking up [...]
DollarDays Introduces SBA Backed Small Biz Loans
According to SFGate, DollarDays and Superior Financial Group have teamed up to help small businesses receive SBA backed loans. “With lenders giving preference to larger businesses with more assets, there are less dollars for small businesses like start-ups and mom & pop stores,” says DollarDays Founder and President Marc Joseph. “DollarDays’ main principle is about [...]
Marketing is a long term investment, just like buying real estate. Sales are immediate, and the selling you do today will have a direct impact on your bottom line today. Marketing is just the opposite; the marketing you do today may not have an impact on your profits for weeks, months or maybe even years. [...]
Sell On Youtube Without Showing A Video
According to The Wall Street Journal, for Shelley Davis, the secret to promoting a business on YouTube isn’t making videos. It’s talking to customers. Two years ago, Davis decided to set up a YouTube account to show videos about her hair-care company, Kinky-Curly Hair Products LLC. While poking around the site, she found that lots [...]
It is pretty safe to say that most coffee shops do not cater to children. As a matter of fact, there probably won’t be a kid in sight. That is not true for the Kid Kaf. Adeline Chapron had noticed a trend in her own neighborhood. When she would visit a coffee shop she soon [...]
Yesterday we showed you a new product and asked you what its function was. The answer: Several readers guessed correctly, thanks for participating. But there’s more to this invention, the way it’s being financed. The inventors Robert Haleluk and his wife Julie are looking to raise $10,000 through Kickstarter.com to manufacture the first batch of [...]
Georgia Anderson was born and raised in Italy reports benzinga. It was there that Georgia attended law school. However, it was her move to the US that lead her to her first job and inspiration. From there, she found herself working in Futures and Forex, which inspired her to write a beginner’s guide on the [...]
According to CNNMoney, when hunting for cash, desperate small business owners may find themselves sucked into buying books and software packages promising “Billions in Free Grants!” from Web sites with names like NeverPayItBack.com, or hiring consultants who promise to find them gads of money. All they’re likely to get, though, are empty promises. Grants are [...]
Billboards can be a surprisingly effective platform (literally) for environmental causes, as exemplified by these creative setups, which destroy expectations of what’s possible with a rectangular space. Via: Weburbanist Photos by artatm/davewilliamsdesigns/thecrapbox/fistofblog.
According to Fast Company, David Rees may well be the world’s first and only artisanal pencil sharpener. Yes, it’s real,” says David Rees of his budding pencil-sharpening business. “It’s as real as artisanal cheese-making or artisanal honey production or artisanal anything else that’s part of this movement.” Unlike his electric counterparts, Rees promises the “care [...]
Richard Wylie has created a device that will help keep a dog at bay if it tries to attack reports The Evening Telegraph. Known as the Dazer, his device emits a sound that cannot be heard by humans but can still be heard by dogs. The sound is apparently so annoying that it makes dogs [...]
Can you tell what this new invention is? I’ll give you a hint, it involves food. Put your guesses in the comments and we’ll give you the real answer and tell you about the inventor behind it tomorrow. via: The Red Ferret Journal
Celebrating Kentucky Entrepreneurs With Hall Of Fame
Entrepreneurs in the state of Kentucky have a new form of recognition to look forward to: Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. According to Kentucky.com, the hall of fame will launch tomorrow with the induction of nine well-known Kentucky entrepreneurs. Brian Raney, founder of Awesome Inc., said the idea was first discussed a year ago, and [...]
Remember that awesome
Tarpy Is Keeping It Clean And Easy
Kids are messy. Ask any parent and they will tell you. Whether it is food strewn across the floor while they eat or an art project gone awry, kids love to make messes and the parents are left to clean it up. A new product hopes to help relieve some of that stress. “Keep it [...]
Tweezerman founder Dal LaMagna says his company grew by being frugal with money and keeping stakeholders interests at heart in this report from CNNMoney.
According to the Beverly Hills Courier, Media4Women, a full-service online media and marketing company, is offering to launch your new business online, for free. The company’s “New Year New Business” contest offers startup companies the chance to win a 3-month contract with Media4Women including an online marketing plan proven to get results, website design and [...]
According to a story at ReadWrteWeb, regardless of industry, there is one age-old relic of professional networking that refuses to die: the business card. Even at the most high-tech and cutting edge of events, you still can’t mingle without collecting a pocket full of paper cards. Surely, this can’t go on forever. The business card [...]
Jumping On The Snuggie Bandwagon
Snuggies — the famous “blankets with sleeves” from those cheesy TV infomercials — may look frumpy, but with a little imagination, they can be hotter than lingerie in the bedroom, reports AOL News. You’ve probably heard of the myriad sexual positions associated with the ancient Kama Sutra, but what about those practiced in “Snuggie Sutra”? [...]
Every so often an idea comes along that stops you in your tracks. sOccket is an incredible demonstration of the power of a simple idea, of the collision between science and sport, of the application of minds to mending hearts. One part soccer ball, one part portable energy generator, another community builder and finally one [...]
According to CNNMoney, Tyler Marsh grew up surfing in Hawaii, so he’s used to living in what many consider an ideal vacation spot. But after visiting his older brother, Tim, who was living in Costa Rica in 1997, he found his paradise: “It was just someplace that was a little foreign and really open,” Tyler [...]
Biz Boost To Military Families
The Wall Street Journal reports that several new programs that aim to help military family members and veterans start businesses were announced last week. The Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, along with sponsor Ernst & Young, is offering “boot camp” for entrepreneurs. The program—open to family members who are full-time caretakers of wounded [...]
The “Path” To Being More Personal
How well do you really know your social media pals? I imagine it would be a bit overwhelming if you had to meet all of the people that you follow on Twitter or Facebook. According to The New York Times, a new service is working hard to connect you with only the people you know [...]
“The New York Times” To Launch Bestseller Lists For E-Books
The New York Times announced that it will begin publishing bestseller lists for e-book fiction and nonfiction in early 2011. According to Mashable.com, the Times’s bestseller lists, established in 1935, are arguably the definitive metric for success in the book publishing world. The addition of two new lists for e-books points to the growing importance [...]
