Direct Marketing: Perhaps the Most Effective Way to Do Marketing on a Budget

November 7, 2015, 9:20 pm

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Ever since the World Wide Web began to be commercialized in 1995, the center of gravity in the marketing universe seems to have shifted toward the Internet and, more recently, social media and mobile devices. The problem for marketers is how to effectively use these tools to develop brand relationships and sell products. Many marketers seem lost, and one of the reasons is that they have not learned how these new tools fit into the marketing strategy hierarchy. Those that have achieved considerable success have recognized that the Internet and its "offspring" are really forms of Direct Marketing. Why? Because Direct Marketing channels are where buyers and sellers can transact business and communicate on smaller budgets without ever meeting face-to-face or touching and feeling the merchandise. To make more effective use of these new tools, marketers need to become better educated in the concepts of Direct Marketing. The most commonly recognized Direct Marketing methods in historical order of discovery are:

1. Direct Mail,


2. Telemarketing,


3. Direct Response Advertising,


4. Internet, or online, marketing.

Direct Mail

In the United States, the roots of Direct Marketing can be traced to Benjamin Franklin who used Direct Mail to market Poor Richard's Almanac throughout the American colonies starting in 1732. Direct Mail continued to flourish with the creation of the Montgomery Ward catalog in 1872 and the Sears catalog in 1888. These catalogs were popular since a large segment of the American population lived outside of cities and towns that had stores with sufficient product choices. As more people migrated to cities and suburbs, direct mail became popular for those that wanted to shop anonymously or could not easily travel to available stores. In its best form, Direct Mail provides a convenient way for prospects to receive information about products they want and order them without leaving the comfort of their home or office. In its worst form, organizations send unwanted mailings to people that are not interested in the products being promoted. Of course, unwanted mailings are also known as "junk" mail, and their electronic equivalent is called "spam."

Telemarketing

Some might argue that telemarketing began with the invention of the telephone, but marketers began to use it on a significant scale in the late 1970's with the introduction of WATS lines for economically calling out to prospective customers and toll-free numbers for prospects to call in without paying for the call. This created the two main components of telemarketing - (1) Inbound (toll-free numbers are provided for customers to call in) and (2) Outbound (telemarketers call prospects). In its best form, companies use outbound telemarketing to answer questions, provide customer service, facilitate the ordering of desired products, and cross-selling (which some mistakenly confuse with upselling). In its most hated form, strangers "cold call" prospects, interrupt what they are doing, and try to sell them something they do not want. Some uses of outbound telemarketing became so annoying that a law was passed creating a Do Not Call Registry.

Even so, outbound telemarketing can be very effective under the following conditions:

1. Prospect has given prior permission or wants the company to call,


2. Product is highly desirable or greatly needed,


3. Telemarketer is skillful and properly trained,


4. Telemarketer listens to the desires of the people that answer the phone (rather than try to keep them on the line when they want to end the call).

Direct Response Advertising

Direct Response Advertising is advertising with a goal of getting the prospect to order the product directly from the ad. Some examples of direct response advertising are a direct mail piece with a postage-paid business reply card that is used to order the product, a TV ad that provides a toll-free phone number to order, and an email that provides a link to order the product from a Web site.

Internet and Mobile

Perhaps the method that has caused the most explosive growth of Direct Marketing is Internet marketing. There are two main reasons for this - (1) convenience and (2) economics. Even though the Internet has not reached "adulthood" (in reference to the beginning of its commercial use in 1995), nothing is more convenient or economical than the Internet for researching and ordering products. Even so, those that are using the Internet and related mobile technologies for marketing would be far more effective if they better understood the other Direct Marketing methods described above. Knowing how to use the Internet and its mobile "offspring" in conjunction with direct mail, telemarketing, and direct response advertising can create a synergistic force for marketing products most efficiently and effectively. Some people live online and some people don't. Those that live on the Internet may not be online when a company needs to get their attention. Additionally, repetition of the information off-line helps them remember any exposure online. Similarly, those that spend most of their time off-line, can learn more about products when off-line marketing drives them online. A poster in a shopping mall, a direct mail post card with a coupon, or a display in a retail store may get their attention. If these offline devices have a link or QR code, prospects can be transported to a Web site that gives them the opportunity to find out more about the product, provides them with reviews from product users, helps them find where they can buy it, and enables them to order it directly. Taking this integration of direct marketing methods further by combining them with other off-line marketing methods can give marketers the greatest power at the lowest cost.

Direct Marketing can lower sales costs

One powerful example of integrated Direct Marketing used in conjunction other forms of marketing is in the area of personal selling. In a previous post, I talked about the importance of personal selling to success in business. When it comes to promoting products, however, personal selling is also one of the most expensive methods in a marketer's toolkit. According to the latest studies by McGraw-Hill, it costs $137.02 for an industrial sales call and takes an average of 4.3 calls, or a total cost of $589.18, to close a sale. Since it is not possible to make a fraction of a call, the real-world cost (using 5 calls to close a deal) is $685.10. That might work for selling airplanes and satellite systems to billion-dollar clients. It would be too expensive for selling many other products. That's the bad news. The good news is that sales people can use the Internet and other Direct Marketing techniques for some (or even all) of the calls - thereby lowering overall sales costs.

Social media

As discussed above, just about everyone is talking about using social media in marketing products. The problem is too many don't know how to effectively do it. While "earned media" techniques such as hauling videos represent very exciting new ways for promoting products, most of them are experimental and outside the control of your business. In an effort to take advantage of social media without ceding too much control, marketers need to have some understanding of popular social media channels and how to integrate them with other Direct Marketing methods.

• Facebook has a large number of active users (over 1.55 billion at last count) and a lot of data on users so that advertisers can better target them. Since people go to Facebook to interact with friends and family, they do not like intrusions from companies. However, a lot of friends and family recommend products on Facebook, and company pages are very popular places for prospects to learn about products, discover new uses, find discounts, and share all this with their friends. At the very least, Facebook can make more brand impressions than other media. Companies pay3 million for the opportunity to reach roughly 110 million Super Bowl viewers one day a year. On Facebook, they have potential to reach a much larger audience at a much lower cost every day of the week. While Facebook limits ad sizes to very small spaces so as not to ruin user experiences, good marketers can make effective use of the space allotted with concise headlines.


• Twitter is great for those that know how to write good headlines since it limits users to 140 characters. While it accounts for much less Web traffic than Facebook and other social media, Twitter users tend to be more influential. Also, Twitter can easily be linked to other SM sites, such as Facebook, so that if you post on Twitter, your Tweet can automatically appear on Facebook simultaneously. Twitter has proven to be very effective in responding to complaints, rumors, and factual mistakes for damage control and to provide better customer service. Companies that have learned to use Twitter in this way have been able to "turn negatives into positives" and build closer relationships with their constituents.


• YouTube provides a place for companies large and small to reach their target audience without paying the high "real estate" costs of commercial TV channels. Furthermore, YouTube videos can be shared, and if they go viral, the numbers of viewers that actually watch the commercial can rival and even surpass TV audiences. YouTube viewers can also play the videos over and over again as well as share them with even larger networks of viewers enabling advertisers to make more brand impressions and greater sales.


• Linked In is good for business markets. The HR departments of businesses use it to find candidates, and businesses can put profiles of their products and white papers on the site, and use it to promote their business. According to Linked In, 43% of marketers have found a customer on Linked In during 2014.

Integrating Social Media

To increase the marketing power of social media, marketers should be sure to integrate it with all other direct and non-direct channels. Direct mail, telemarketing, and direct response advertising should have links to social media, and vice versa. A lot of companies ask market targets to visit their Web site and "like" or "follow" them on social media, but too often they do not provide the benefit for doing so. Similarly, social media rarely ties campaigns to off-line and other direct marketing efforts - missing opportunities for marketing synergy, making additional brand impressions, and increasing sales. Companies with effective campaigns have linked product packaging and off-line media to social and online media. In addition to asking people to "like" or "follow" or visit social media and Web sites, they have given people codes in traditional media and on product packaging that give those that make the effort a chance to win something or save money. The feedback and contact information provided is more than worth the costs of the prize, rebate, or discount, and gives the company a chance to improve the product or add contact information to their database.

Advergaming

Some companies have successfully used Advergaming as a way to tie their media efforts together. When it works best, users have to go online and off for clues that teach them about the benefits of the products and company. They have fun while they are learning, are engaged, and remember the benefits. As a result, brand impressions and reasons to buy the products are better planted in the brains of market targets.

The power of Direct Marketing

Direct marketing has grown in power for a variety of factors that include the following.

1. Less time. Market targets are busier than ever before since they have to work harder to earn a living.


2. Less hassles and dangers. Increasing traffic, parking costs, and other hassles have reduced the desire for buyers to go to retail stores to do their shopping.


3. Less expensive. The costs of buying and marketing products in "non-direct" ways has skyrocketed at the same time that financial disruptions, natural disasters, and government dysfunction has forced buyers to become more frugal.


4. More convenient. The Internet is perhaps the most convenient way for buyers to research products, comparison shop, and order from their home, office, or mobile device.


5. Anonymous. Some buyers prefer shopping for certain products anonymously.

Based on these economic and convenience factors, Direct Marketing is expected to grow rapidly. Marketers that better understand Direct Marketing and how to integrate its various components into a synergistic mix of marketing strategies will reap the benefits. And, the benefits are substantial since the Direct Marketing Association estimates that Direct Marketing produced $2.05 trillion in sales in 2012 - representing roughly 8.7% if US GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Since the economy has improved over the past 3 years, current numbers, while not readily available, are sure to be significantly higher. If you want to do better marketing without blowing your budget, Direct Marketing is likely to be very good for you. Best of luck.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Christians and Coffee Cups

November 8, 2015, 5:58 am

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It's early November and already this year's installment of so-called "War on Christmas" has begun. All over social media I'm seeing rants from angry Christians who are trying to "Keep Christ in Christmas". And the first volley of shots has already been launched against an unlikely target: Starbucks.

Apparently people are mad that the seasonal cups at Starbucks this year are just plain red. No mention of Christmas or Jesus at all. And, clearly that means that Christians are being persecuted. I mean, my faith is just destroyed if I don't get my Venti Blonde Roast with room for milk in a cup that features the name of my Lord and Savior.

So, obviously I think this is a little ridiculous. Because, Christians, I promise you that Starbucks red cups are not going to destroy the Christian faith. Seriously, the Roman Empire couldn't do it, and they could kill you with lions. And I don't think Starbucks has the death penalty. Yet.

But it's even more ridiculous to me because of the timing this year. I'm kind of baffled because it's early November. And it seems to me that people of faith, people who should be keenly aware of the grace God has given us, should be focused on the holiday that is coming up in just a few weeks: the one where we say "thank you, God".

When Christians start to lose sight of gratitude and instead develop a major persecution complex then we have a huge faith crisis on our hands that is far bigger than whether the red cups at Starbucks make any reference to Jesus.

This year we didn't even wait until Advent to start claiming persecution. We are joining the rest of the world in skipping right over Thanksgiving, and we are joining the Christmas rush. We are spoiling for a fight and those red cups are just the thing to give it to us.

We're kind of like the religious equivalent those Black Friday shoppers who trample other Black Friday shoppers in order to get a good deal on a flat screen TV. We are so incensed by any perceived omission of our personal faith from the public sphere that we go on a rampage. Except instead of other shoppers, we just trample things like inclusivity, diversity, tolerance, and pluralism instead.

And you don't get a TV in the end either. In fact, now you can't even get a latte. (Not if you are boycotting Starbucks, anyway.) Really, all you get is the smug satisfaction of knowing that you are part of a dominant faith that can try to impose it's religion on coffee drinkers everywhere.

This is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, "Love your neighbors as yourself," right?

But maybe, for at least some of us who are Christians, there's another way. One where we don't overlook the celebration of gratitude that comes later this month. And one that doesn't overshadow the season of Advent, a time when Christians are asked to prepare their hearts that Christ may be born in the anew. One where we are asked to focus on hope, peace, joy and love.

In a world where so much pain exists, that is hard to do. And that is even harder when we focus our energy in the wrong places. If we are outraged, we should be outraged at a world where violence is rampant, where children still starve, where people are displaced from their homes, and where veterans are homeless on the streets. We should be taking Jesus command to love every child of God seriously. And we should stop wasting our time complaining about coffee cups that don't acknowledge his birthday.

Because, seriously, do you think Jesus would rather we remember his birthday by putting it on a coffee cup that's going in the trash? Or would he rather we remember it by stop treating one another as disposable?

Maybe this is the year that we can shift our priorities away from what doesn't matter to what matters more than we know. Maybe this year we can set our sights a little higher than changing red cups, and instead try to change the world. And maybe this year we can stop yelling at others to "Keep Christ in Christmas" and instead focus on being Christlike ourselves.

So, here's a suggestion of how to start: buy someone a coffee. In one of those red cups. Seriously, you will not go to hell for going to Starbucks this Christmas. But if you look closely enough, you just might find Jesus in the guy behind you in line. Because Christ is already at Starbucks, just as Christ is everywhere.

I don't need his name on a paper cup to tell me that.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Leadership Lessons From a Badass Leader

November 8, 2015, 9:31 am

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Captain John Havlik is a badass. In 2015, Havlik retired from the U.S. Navy after 31 years of distinguished service. For 29 of those years, he was a member of the SEALs -- the Navy's elite special operations forces. He has been a part of all of the SEAL teams, including SEAL Team six, considered the SEAL's best-of-the-best. His stories -- or at least those he's at liberty to share -- are hard-earned, colorful and salty. When Captain Havlik speaks to groups about leadership and teaming, it's not based on abstract pie-in-the-sky leadership theories. Havlik isn't some well-manicured leadership author. He's a rough-and-tumble guy who has actually led... often in do-or-die situations. He's got a bullet hole in his right forearm. Like I said, badass.

I've had the honor of knowing Captain Havlik since before he joined the Navy. We were teammates on the swimming and diving team at West Virginia University. Even back then Havlik was an impressive guy, the team member that everyone else looked up to. Since he retired from the Navy, I've brought him in to work with a number of clients for whom I've designed leadership and succession programs. I bring the leadership best practices, John brings them to life.

One lesson Captain Havlik shares is particularly powerful. It's about the SEAL's grueling candidate training school in San Diego, California. During the training there is a conspicuous bell, ever-present, that any candidate can ring any time they decide to quit. Nearly 75% of the candidates typically do just that, and during "Hell Week" the bell rings with disturbing frequency.

Midway through Havlik's Hell Week experience, he was miserable. He was sleep deprived, physically exhausted, wet, and shivering cold. Most of the training is spent in the frigid waters of the Pacific ocean. Havlik whispered to one of the other candidates that he was ready to ring the bell. But before he could, one of the officers pulled him out of the exercises and said, "Havlik, get your ass over here. It has come to my attention that you're going to ring the bell. Why?"

Havlik explained that it was just too much. He didn't have what it takes, and that he just wanted to be warm. The officer looked at him sternly and said, "Don't make a decision in 30 seconds that you will regret for the rest of your life. Stop thinking about your goddamn self and start thinking about your team." Then the officer said that he was going to pour himself a cup of coffee and when he came back he wanted Havlik to give him his final decision. When the officer came back, Havlik just said two words: I'm in.

While you and I might not be badass like a Navy SEAL, certainly we can relate to wanting to give up when the work gets really hard. When faced with hardship, when the project we might be leading is going south, or when we're tempted to compromise our character and integrity for some relief from pain, ringing the bell is easier than doing the right thing and sticking it out. But, as Captain Havlik's story suggests, ringing the bell is not just the easy choice, it's the selfish choice.

The next time you're tempted to ring the bell, stop yourself and think, will doing the easy thing now cause me to carry regret forever?

Ultimately being a leader means putting the needs of the team above your own. You do that by enduring through hardship, focusing on the people you're leading, and not ringing the bell. Doing those things is your best shot at becoming a badass leader.




Bill Treasurer is the founder of Giant Leap Consulting, and the author of numerous books including Leaders Open Doors. Bill has designed and delivered comprehensive leadership programs for NASA, Accenture, PNC Bank, SPANX, Saks Fifth Avenue, Walsh Construction, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. To inquire about having Bill work with your organization, contact info@giantleapconsulting.com.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

How Positivity Makes You Healthy and Successful

November 8, 2015, 10:24 am

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When faced with setbacks and challenges, we've all received the well-meaning advice to "stay positive." The greater the challenge, the more this glass-half-full wisdom can come across as Pollyannaish and unrealistic. It's hard to find the motivation to focus on the positive when positivity seems like nothing more than wishful thinking.



The real obstacle to positivity is that our brains are hard-wired to look for and focus on threats. This survival mechanism served humankind well back when we were hunters and gatherers, living each day with the very real threat of being killed by someone or something in our immediate surroundings.

That was eons ago. Today, this mechanism breeds pessimism and negativity through the mind's tendency to wander until it finds a threat. These "threats" magnify the perceived likelihood that things are going--and/or are going to go--poorly. When the threat is real and lurking in the bushes down the path, this mechanism serves you well. When the threat is imagined and you spend two months convinced the project you're working on is going to flop, this mechanism leaves you with a soured view of reality that wreaks havoc in your life.

Positivity and Your Health

Pessimism is trouble because it's bad for your health. Numerous studies have shown that optimists are physically and psychologically healthier than pessimists.

Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania has conducted extensive research on the topic. Seligman finds much higher rates of depression in people who pessimistically attribute their failures to personal deficits. Optimists, however, treat failure as a learning experience and believe they can do better in the future.

To examine physical health, Seligman worked with researchers from Dartmouth and the University of Michigan on a study that followed people from age 25 to 65 to see how their levels of pessimism or optimism influenced or correlated with their overall health. The researchers found that pessimists' health deteriorated far more rapidly as they aged.

Seligman's findings are similar to research conducted by the Mayo Clinic that found optimists have lower levels of cardiovascular disease and longer life-spans. Although the exact mechanism through which pessimism affects health hasn't been identified, researchers at Yale and the University of Colorado found that pessimism is associated with a weakened immune response to tumors and infection.

Researchers from the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville went so far as to inject optimists and pessimists with a virus to measure their immune response. The researchers found optimists had a significantly stronger immune response than pessimists.

Positivity and Performance

Keeping a positive attitude isn't just good for your health. Martin Seligman has also studied the connection between positivity and performance. In one study in particular, he measured the degree to which insurance salespeople were optimistic or pessimistic in their work, including whether they attributed failed sales to personal deficits beyond their control or circumstances they could improve with effort. Optimistic salespeople sold 37% more policies than pessimists, who were twice as likely to leave the company during their first year of employment.

Seligman has studied positivity more than anyone, and he believes in the ability to turn pessimistic thoughts and tendencies around with simple effort and know-how. But Seligman doesn't just believe this. His research shows that people can transform a tendency toward pessimistic thinking into positive thinking through simple techniques that create lasting changes in behavior long after they are discovered.

Your brain just needs a little help to defeat its negative inner voice. Here are two simple steps you can take that will train your brain to focus on the positive.

Step 1. Separate Fact from Fiction

The first step in learning to focus on the positive requires knowing how to stop negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that--thoughts, not facts.

When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it's time to stop and write them down. Literally stop what you're doing and write down what you're thinking. Once you've taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity. Evaluate these statements to see if they're factual. You can bet the statements aren't true any time you see words like never, always, worst, ever, etc.

Do you really always lose your keys? Of course not. Perhaps you forget them frequently, but most days you do remember them. Are you never going to find a solution to your problem? If you really are that stuck, maybe you've been resisting asking for help. Or if it really is an intractable problem, then why are you wasting your time beating your head against the wall? If your statements still look like facts once they're on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you can trust, and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out.

When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain's natural threat tendency inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Identifying and labeling your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive new outlook.

Step 2. Identify a Positive

Now that you have a tool to snap yourself out of self-defeating, negative thoughts, it's time to help your brain learn what you want it to focus on--the positive.

This will come naturally after some practice, but first you have to give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about. Any positive thought will do to refocus your brain's attention. When things are going well, and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge. In these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter how small. If you can't think of something from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the previous week. Or perhaps there is an exciting event you are looking forward to that you can focus your attention on.

The point here is you must have something positive that you're ready to shift your attention to when your thoughts turn negative. In step one, you learned how to strip the power from negative thoughts by separating fact from fiction. Step two is to replace the negative with a positive. Once you have identified a positive thought, draw your attention to that thought each time you find yourself dwelling on the negative. If that proves difficult, you can repeat the process of writing down the negative thoughts to discredit their validity, and then allow yourself to freely enjoy positive thoughts.

Bringing It All Together

I realize these two steps sound incredibly basic, but they have tremendous power because they retrain your brain to have a positive focus. These steps break old habits, if you force yourself to use them. Given the mind's natural tendency to wander toward negative thoughts, we can all use a little help with staying positive. Put these steps to use, and you'll reap the physical, mental, and performance benefits that come with a positive frame of mind.

How do you stay positive? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

How This Student Entrepreneur Started 4 Business & Partnered with the FIFA World Cup

November 8, 2015, 11:57 pm

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This article is part of the Young & Entrepreneurial series that features young startup founders and entrepreneurs. You can see past features here. To stay up to date with future posts, sign-up here.

Named one of TIME Magazine's Top 25 International Leaders of Tomorrow (TOMORROW 25) and one of the World's Top 5 Young Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneurs' Organization, Daniel Fine has made headlines for being a student entrepreneur who gets things done.

His current company GlassU, which makes fully folding sunglasses, is licensed to hundreds of universities and has been featured at events ranging from the Rose Bowl to the FIFA World Cup. Daniel is one of the most impressive student entrepreneurs I've met so far (He recently graduated last May 2015 from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business but my first interview with him once done before he graduated). Yet what makes him really special is the energy he carries with him.

Daniel Fine lived the college dream -- starting a dorm room business that has turned into his full-time job (Photo taken from Philly.com)

Daniel has clearly made the most out of his stay in college. It was cool seeing him interact with almost every single person who walked into the HubBub coffee shop where we had our interview in. It's just hard not to get along with Daniel. Fun fact? He always has multiple GlassU sunglasses with him whether it's in his pocket or his bag.

Having recently graduated from college last May, Daniel has gone on to work on GlassU fulltime, focusing on building national and international partnerships. I got to chat with Daniel on how everything started, his college experience, what he has learned and memorable moments along the way.

Jake Fine, Diabetes and the Birth of Team Brotherly Love

One thing Daniel emphasized during his interview was how everything he's done in the past decade can all be traced to one moment--his younger brother Jake Fine getting diagnosed with diabetes when he was 11 years old. It was that moment that drove Daniel to start his first initiative, Team Brotherly Love, a non-profit organization with the goal of raising money for diabetes research.

Hand in hand with his brother's help, Team Brotherly Love has raised over $2 million towards their goal. Daniel recalls selling apparels for lacrosse players in their "Lacrosse Against Diabetes" campaign. This was Daniel's first experience in sourcing products from factories. There would be many more to come.

After seeing how high the margins could be when you sourced your products from factories then sold them, Daniel decided to launch another company called Fine Prints that sold products and merchandise to schools in the East Coast. This would subsequently be followed by another venture the summer before Daniel's freshman year in college called NextTutor, now called Match Tutors.

Daniel's keys to success? Passion and focus

Daniel shared, "Those are probably the two most important things that if anybody has they'll be able to achieve something. You need the passion and the drive in order to achieve something. Early on, you can create things without being incredibly passionate about it but you can't consistently create things without being passionate about it."

He added, "Focus is probably the next thing by a very very close shot. The focus and drive overlap are two things that are just so necessary for you to be able to create what you're shooting for. This is something I struggled with in running a company, trying to balance being a student, running companies, being an athlete and being part of a fraternity."

Daniel admits up to now he still has FOMO (short for 'fear of missing out') and has a hard time striking the balance. He recalls the time he represented the US at the G20 Summit in Moscow then flew to New York right after to catch a friend's birthday party.

He shared, "I think a big part of being able to continuously balance everything is the taste of success. Once you start to feel and understand what you can achieve, that taste of success can drive you so hard because it feels good that as you get that consistently, you realize that nothing can get in the way of your dreams."

The GlassU team at Bonnaroo

Lessons Learned from College

With Daniel having just graduated last May, I took the opportunity to ask him about his college life and how he has changed throughout the four years. He shared, "Honestly everything. I honestly carry myself in a different manner. I learned a tremendous amount how to lead and manage people. I have failed so many times. I literally failed so many times. Probably almost every single day, there's some sort of failure."

While Daniel made sure to clarify that failure doesn't just mean your company died. He shared examples of failures when he missed responding to an email, or being unable to seal a deal with a customer that could have been a 5 figure sale.

He added, "These are horrendous lessons but you learn the hard way. I've failed in terms of how I've led people. For example, last summer, we had a team of probably 26 people but a lot of them were really acting as tasks managers to the admin team and myself. But that doesn't work. It doesn't motivate people. They were there and they were bored and suddenly there was more work for me thinking about what to make them do."

From this experience Daniel learned how to empower his employees and interns by giving them something they can own and be passionate about. He shared, "I give them a project that they're excited about then tell them, 'only come to me when you really have questions but I'm trusting you do this and you've got this power'. With this strategy, they love it and now it's a win for them, a win for me and a win for the company."

On the value of college

Daniel is one of the biggest believers in college. He is against this whole notion of students dropping out and truly believes in the value of college.

He shared, "For me, that (dropping out) was never a huge question. First, I'm fortunate to be at Penn and Wharton where a degree can be so valuable and not having that would be a disservice to myself in the long term when I have that opportunity right in front of me. Second, I'm a pretty normal social guy. I didn't want to leave my friends and my core group of friends here at Penn."

He added, "It's not just about what you take away from being an academic but how you grow from being a person from your own cohort form your peer group of thousands of others. You learn from the people, you learn from the social sphere."

Graduation... guess who's wearing the GlassU sunglasses (Photo taken from Matthew Gibstein's Facebook post)

Favorite Memories

Feeling a bit nostalgic when I asked him about his favorite memories at Penn, Daniel took me down memory lane to the very first time he found out that he had made it to Penn.

Daniel was in his Spanish class when he got the email that he had made it to Penn. He was a recruited athlete and had spoken to his coach about it but for him, it was only official when he received the email. That would be the start of so many more memories.

He added, "From fraternity rush freshman year and meeting new friends to coming to spring fling... I guess some of the coolest ones on a daily basis, when I see people wearing my product, the sense of pride from that is extraordinary. The first frat parties--they were a ton of fun. The sports. There's a bunch of it. I guess the press has always been usually nice as well."

Continuing on to the professional side of things, Daniel recalls getting a call from the head of the US delegation for the G20 entrepreneurship summit in Moscow after he placed second in the Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards. He recalls, "I was 20 and I was by far the youngest person in a 400 person delegation. That was just an extraordinary experience."

He also enjoyed being one of the clients for Wharton's Management 100 class, where students work in teams on a project for a client's business or organization. Daniel shared, "People can tell you you're doing a good job and they enjoy what you're doing but it really means something else when a lot of the kids who are in my classes and teams in Management 100 actually ask to intern with us following the course."

Advice to college students and aspiring entrepreneurs

Daniel shared a few of the lessons he has learned in the last decade. He said, "Optimize your time. Do what you're supposed to be doing when you're doing it. Mess around less. Know who your peeps are. Your best friends will care about you and respect what you're doing. Understand that most people don't care but that's okay. Don't be afraid to follow your dreams."

He also recalled the days when GlassU was just starting and he $20,000 went down the drain because the first batch of glasses he ordered would snap in the middle. He shared, "I was 18 years old and that was money I had made and I was like, oh crap what do I do and you just have to keep hustling."

And indeed, Daniel's hustling has gotten him partnerships with the likes of the Rosebowl and just last year, the FIFA World Cup. He shared a few tips on securing partnerships, "You have to understand what people are looking for and what they're shooting for and you have to also understand what your goals are. For us, we're an interesting kind because when we go into partnership, our product becomes a multiproduct and cobranded thing. We're not a random company just trying to sell our own company and swag." Given this, Daniel highlighted the importance of being clear in negotiations and having an outline and getting things on paper.

Along the way, Daniel has gotten the opportunity to meet some incredible people. He shared, "That's probably one of the most exciting parts in the last few years. The exposure and the access to people that I've met ranging from high school kids that I mentor now that reached out just to talk and I look at as little siblings up to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies."

Daniel back on campus at the Penn vs Yale game this year

Future Plans

Daniel emphasized how graduation means game time. He shared, "The focus is scale. We have built an incredible licensing company and we've brought in a bunch of people who are exceptional in their spheres and realms of expertise. Bringing them on and focusing on bringing our brains together. It's go time."

Daniel mentioned integrating a mobile retail product and expanding to other customizable products as well. Daniel is also looking forward to expanding and hiring extensively, both locally and internationally.

In terms of long term plans and dreams, Daniel hopes to build the Fine companies into something like the Virgin group. He shared, "And I want to change the world and do so through these dreams and businesses and people around me now and the people who will come and work with me in the future."

AUTHOR'S NOTE & UPDATE: The first interview was done in May before Daniel graduated but I had a follow-up interview with him recently this past October when he visited Penn. Since graduating Penn, Daniel has focused on growing GlassU's partnerships and licensing gigs both nationally and internationally.

--- About the author ---

David Ongchoco is a student entrepreneur and avid storyteller from the Philippines studying at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in what he likes to call, LIFE. He is currently working on expanding his for-purpose organization YouthHack. It's David's goal to make an impact in the lives of as many people possible while constantly learning new things every single day. If you have any interesting startup stories, David can be reached via Twitter @DOitChoco. You can also email him at david@youthhack.net.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Out of Our Digital Daze: Aligning Top-Down and Bottom-Up Marketing

November 9, 2015, 3:47 am

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The communications industry is at a disorienting crossroad, with two concurrent models competing for minds and resources. The first is a timeless "top-down" approach rooted in generating broad awareness of a unique selling proposition (USP) through broadcast media. The second is a morphing, shape-shifting "bottom-up" model, fueled by digital technology and one-on-one engagement.

Cold Data

"Big data," the algorithmic aggregation of multiple data points from different platforms into predictive behavioral modeling, has enhanced our ability to target with great precision - for example, to runners who also like heavy metal music or theater aficionados who love European travel. This new power has, in turn, made media buying and planning sexy again, while unhelpfully deemphasizing creativity. In fact, the eclipse of the creative department began several years ago. Many communications professionals rue the day media buying and planning functions were taken out of creative advertising agencies and aggregated into powerful media holding companies that control where and when ad dollars are invested.

Then came the emergence of a new industry - the high-tech, low-charm "marketing as a service." These vendors help companies manage marketing-intensive activities such landing page creation, campaign design, lead scoring, lead generation and marketing analytics -- capabilities often given short shrift in traditional sales management systems that focus on sales force automation and customer service. Marketing as a Service providers, sporting names such as Eloqua, Primo and SilverPop, operate in the cloud, hosting "applications" that ensure integration with existing customer relationship marketing (CRM) systems.

Thus quantitative rationalism might appear to compete with ideation and inspiration as drivers of behavior change.

There must be room for both.

Data informs, and can increasingly predict, the decisions consumers make along their paths to purchase. But statistics don't exist in a vaccum. The underlying concepts are the connective tissue that brings these tactics together into a cohesive selling idea.

Advertisers and marketers need not only be fluent in both but also to find new ways to reconcile the two. This divide is often exacerbated by intellectual and culture gaps. For example, digital agencies tend to celebrate entrepreneurialism and technology-led invention. Experimentation and design are obsessions, traits of a workforce with honed analytic and technical skills. On the other hand, advertising agencies tend to nurture conceptual precision and communication of abstract ideas.

Marketing in a Digital World

Clive Sirkin, Kimberly-Clark's global Chief Marketing Officer, neatly expresses the reality of needing to reconcile two paradigms: "We don't believe in digital marketing. We believe in marketing in a digital world, and there's a huge difference." In other words, we must permit consumers to participate with brands without surrendering the ability to manage the message and what people say about their products.

Engagement that changes behavior is now the imperative--so let's agree on a proper definition. Most north Asian languages have no equivalent for the word engage. Whenever I have to explain it in China, I use the context of an engagement to be married. As Jim Stengel, Procter & Gamble's chief marketing officer, said back in 2007 at the 4As Media Conference and Trade Show: "It's not about telling and selling. It's about bringing a relationship mind-set to everything we do." Engagement must be a long-term connection that blossoms over time. It is a behavioral commitment between two parties--the brand and consumer--to remain together and withstand challenges over time. It must be dynamic, capable of responding to change and a variety of different needs but also consistent. Engaging consumers is not achieved by discrete messages aimed at holding their attention. It is a lifelong relationship.

New technology presents a breathtaking, yet overwhelming, array of combinations. Many marketers have become intoxicated by the sheer scope of what's possible, reassuring themselves that doing something is at least better than doing nothing--How many times have we heard, "Let's create an app" without first asking why? While all brand leaders need to experiment, it's not enough. Marketers need to wield technology to build brand equity and strengthen consumer loyalty. Too often technology does neither.

Losing the Plot

Mercedes Benz, for example, established dominance in the luxury auto segment by owning "engineering perfection," a fusion of mechanical performance and sensuous indulgence. In a typical ad shot in Taiwan in 2005, the dashing owner of a 700 series Benz celebrates his birthday with colleagues. He is unable to blow out the candles on his birthday cake because he has nothing left to wish for. The message is clear: once a driver has a Mercedes, nothing--or no one--else measures up. However, a few recent high-tech initiatives have done little to reinforce the brand's role as a statement of ultimate arrival in society. And it is worth noting that back in 2005 Mercedes lost its leadership in the luxury segment to BMW. Audi now ranks second.

To promote Mercedes' zero-emissions fuel cell technology, Jung von Matt, the Hamburg advertising agency, created an animated light-emitting diode clock that made the car invisible. The technological innovation turned heads but was inconsistent with Mercedes' aspirational image. A year later in the United Kingdom, Mercedes attempted to "move brand perceptions away from 'sedate luxury' as well as drive 50,000 leads" with YouDrive, the world's first "audience-driven commercial." According to Maxus Global, Mercedes' media agency: "Our young audience hates being passengers. They're used to driving content and conversations. So we gave them power over something they'd never had power over before--the world's first real-time audience-driven TV commercials."

Oh.

While the series was designed to promote a new A-class vehicle to younger consumers, plot options had little to do with Mercedes' engineering craftsmanship. Even if this effort managed to boost short-term sales amongst young car buyers, it probably did little to strengthen long-term equity.

In our role as strategically led idea pioneers, we must be better at navigating between what can be done and what should be done to achieve set objectives, from brand engagement to sales, in order to build the brand and business. We achieve this by knowing--through superior analytic capabilities made possible by the era of 'big data' and technology--and fusing it with an idea.

Brand stewards should avoid the temptation to deploy technology in a manner that dilutes long-term equity in exchange for a short-term sales fix. In 2013 several McDonald's franchises in Spain took advantage of their powerful wi-fi network signal to hijack customers who were eating in nearby establishments. By changing their signal name into a message--for example, "Free drink with your McMenu," or "Come eat with us and have a sundae on the house"--the McDonald's franchises lured people into their restaurants. The local stunt was clever and generated a burst of incremental sales. But the fast-food chain missed an opportunity to combine hard-hitting discounts with reminders of why people love McDonald's--that is, its reputation for quality food and family friendliness.

Sometimes even the best brands succumb to high-tech expedience. Uniqlo is one of the world's most inspired digital marketers. The Japanese apparel retailer sells stylish mix-and-match clothing so even fashion-challenged individuals can create their own style. Ahead of the reopening of its UK e-commerce site, Uniqlo ran a "Lucky Counter" Twitter in which more tweets yielded deeper discounts. A temporary web "micro-site" displayed ten items. When users clicked on an article, a tweet appeared with the hashtag #luckycounter that users could personalize and send. Prices dropped in relation to the number of tweets elicited by each article. This exercise in unabashed discounting lacked even the faintest brand message and as such did nothing to enhance brand equity or strengthen loyalty.

Timeless and New Tools: Beautiful Harmony

Compare the debasement of virtual discounts with the inspiration of "Project Re: Brief," rolled out jointly in 2013 by Google and Coca-Cola. The breakthrough initiative captures the spirit of the famous "Hilltop" advertisement from the early '70s in which all colors of humanity bonded on a mountain with a Coke. Internet users can record a message and send it with a Coca-Cola to someone on the other side of the world at a specially designed vending machine. And the receivers can then send a thank-you message back to the sender.

In one of my favorite campaigns of recent years, Oreo celebrated its 100th birthday in a way that beautifully aligned long-term idea consistency -- "Liberate your childhood spirit" -- with consumer-driven engagement. In the "daily twist" initiative, cute images released across social media linked cookies to trending world news. There was a Gay Pride Oreo, a Psy Oreo inspired by the eponymous Korean rap sensation, a Shark Week Oreo, even a Mars Land Rover Oreo. Across all channels the campaign filtered the world through Oreo's distinctively playful imagination. By the time the 100-day initiative ended, Oreo had achieved a 280 percent increase in Facebook shares, 433 million Facebook views, and 231 million offline media impressions. It had become part of the conversation.

Technology, properly deployed, can strengthen engagement between people and between consumers and brands. If not, brands and their relationships with consumers will be degraded and ultimately become commodities.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

How to Start a Side Hustle That Won't Break the Bank

November 9, 2015, 12:37 pm

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Maybe you are looking for a way to make some extra cash on the side. Maybe you have a passion you want to pursue. Whatever your reason for doing so, there are many benefits to starting a side hustle. And now, thanks to the Internet, there are also many ways to do so.

You don't have to quit your current job to pursue a side hustle. It's a great way to test how it might be if you were to switch to doing it full-time in the future. Not only can a side hustle supplement your current income, but it also awards you the opportunity to pursue passions and skills outside your current field.




Don't believe the old adage that, "You have to spend money to make money." There are many ways to start a side hustle that won't break the bank. Below are just a few!

Choose something you genuinely enjoy... otherwise it will only be a matter of time before your patience wears thin and you get burnt out. When you work a full-time job, the thought of going home to put in more hours of work can be exhausting. But if you choose something you like, it won't feel like work. It can be both personally and financially rewarding.

Research, research, research. There is no uniform approach to starting a successful side hustle. But doing as much research about the market as possible ahead of time will help you avoid silly mistakes and prepare for obstacles ahead. What have other people in the field done to get where they are? Learn from both their successes and failures. Contact and connect with as many consultants or professionals in the field as possible who can give you advice and guidance.

Take advantage of social media and other free online tools. You don't need to hire a big marketing agency to help promote your business. Social media is one of the best marketing tools, and it is completely free. If you know there are some skills you need but don't currently have, enroll in a free online course. For example, Coursera offers a plethora of free classes that you can take on your own time to help build your resume and skills.

Choose the right selling platform. Today, there are many side hustles that can be done entirely online. If this is something you are doing in your "free" time while balancing a full work schedule, you want to streamline the process. Don't waste time or money on tasks that aren't absolutely necessary. When selling through a platform such as Spaces, you don't have to deal with the frustration, time or costs associated with designing, creating and maintaining a secure website yourself. The platform is free and easy to use, and will provide you with a professional "storefront"-- whether it is for a tangible good or product, or a service.

On the other hand, if you are looking for contract work, for example as a freelance writer or designer, check out sites such as Elance, where you will be able to find and "bid" on client projects.

Don't undercharge. Avoid suffering from "foot-in-the-door" syndrome and pricing too low because you are afraid it will turn potential customers away. Remember, people often think price reflects quality. You have a skill or product that is valuable. As Ramit Sethi, New York Times Bestselling author of I Will Teach You To Be Reach says, "You don't need to be the world's best; you just need to be better than some other people who want your help." Confidence can take you pretty far -- even if your budget seems limiting.

Crowd fund. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. You may be surprised at how much other people are willing to help you once they realize what you are trying to do. When you are first starting your side hustle, looking to get your name out there and maximize your budget, every bit counts. Consider crowd funding platforms, such as GoFundMe or Kickstarter, that help get your project off the ground by creating a fundraiser-type campaign to which people can contribute.

Be patient. Despite what you see on TV, overnight success is rare. It takes time, perseverance and patience. Be realistic about the time you are willing to dedicate to this side hustle each week, and adjust as you go. It may not be a lucrative side job straight out of the gate, but you have to start somewhere!

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

5 Essential PR Tips for Small Businesses

November 9, 2015, 12:44 pm

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(photo credit: Desai Henderson Photography)



Elaborate public relations campaigns can often be an expensive undertaking. Creating a PR campaign to fit the needs of your small business will require focused time and effort, but doesn't have to break the bank. Below are a few tips to keep in mind when considering a public relations push:

1. Create a press kit. Your press kit should be a digital compilation of background documents including executive bios, headshots, hi-res logos, 'about us' information, and other items to introduce yourself to the media. If you sell products, product descriptions and hi-res images should also be included. The easiest place to store your press kit is in a sharable, online folder, for example DropBox. This way, if the media ever requests your press kit you can send a link for download- rather than a very large file. Folders within press kits should be clearly labeled, and easily navigable for media.



2. Set up Google Alerts for your business -- and your competitors. It is equally as important to be aware of how your competitors are positioning themselves, as it is to know whenever you are mentioned in the media. Consider setting up free Google Alerts for your business and for your competitors, as well as a few key industry words. This will allow you to stay abreast of 'breaking' news -a pivotal time to reach out to media to secure opportunistic stories. If you receive an alert for an article you really enjoy, you may want to consider reaching out to the author to compliment them on the story, and offer to lend your expertise for any future features.



3. Be pro-active and on the lookout for opportunities to position yourself as an expert. Connect with your local newspaper or news website to explore quid pro quo opportunities to lend your expertise to a column or standalone article. Writing content is mutually beneficial, and if you are lucky enough to secure a column online it may also help boost your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).



4. Draft an op-ed. Is there something happening in the media that you want to comment on? Are you launching a new, noteworthy campaign? Or maybe you have an opinion that you need to get out there, in your own words? Consider drafting an op-ed to share your news or opinion. A quick Google search will give you guidelines for submitting op-eds to different media outlets.



5. Set aside time each day to discover opportunities to connect with the media. This could mean running a quick Twitter search of journalists putting out queries- or subscribing to HARO (Help a Reporter Out), a series of free daily e-mail alerts that connect journalists on deadline with relevant experts and brands.

As important as PR is to building and sustaining a successful business, small business owners are busy and often good public relations practices fall by the wayside.

If you are short on time but looking to build brand awareness, consider working with a PR agency, or freelancer, that focuses primarily on servicing small business clients. Not all public relations agencies require hefty annual retainers. Many PR professionals will work with small businesses on a month-to-month or project basis.

If you are looking for a PR agency, be sure to check out ODwyerpr.com. Consider searching for freelancers or small business-specific public relations firms within coworking office platforms, like the WeWork network.

Small businesses often have the best stories to tell -- so get out and tell yours!

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Three Years Ago, These Chicago Workers Took Over a Window Factory. Today, They're Thriving.

November 9, 2015, 1:17 pm

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When Republic Windows and Doors closed down without giving workers notice, the issue drew national attention. Since then, they've turned the factory into a worker-owned co-op -- where they hold the power.

Back in the day, factory workers at the Chicago-based Republic Windows and Doors were just told what to do. Workers might have seen ways to improve the production process, but at Republic, their supervisor wasn't interested, said former employee Armando Robles.



Armando Robles and Beatriz Gurrola, worker-owners of New Era Windows Cooperative.

"Whatever the bosses want, we do it. We'd say, 'Look, this is a better way,' and they say, 'No, we say you have to do it this way.' Even when they make a mistake, they just continue," Robles explained.

Things are very different today. Employees of what is now called New Era Windows Cooperative are also the owners. And their ideas matter. Any of them can propose improvements, and if they can convince a majority of their co-workers, things can change quickly.

"If we make a mistake, we talk to each other and we find a solution," Robles told me when I visited the factory in late September. "We try to do the best for everyone. We work harder because we're working for ourselves. But it's more enjoyable. We work with passion."

We work harder because we're working for ourselves. But it's more enjoyable. We work with passion.

It was a long journey to becoming a worker cooperative, and it was not a journey anyone had planned. In 2008, Republic's owners closed the factory and laid off the work force without the required 60-days notice. Workers occupied the factory and refused to leave the premises until they were paid what they were owed. The story went nationwide. Pressure from the union, area activists, and even President Obama led to a victory. The workers were paid, and instead of shutting down, the factory was sold to California-based Serious Materials.

The workers kept their jobs, though the experience radicalized them. Some visited Argentina where they learned that other workers facing the same situation had occupied their factories and eventually became worker-owners.

So Robles and his co-workers were prepared when, three years later, Serious Materials announced they would shut down and liquidate the factory. Once again, the workers occupied. With a nationwide petition drive, support from United Electrical Workers, financing from The Working World (an organization that helps establish worker cooperatives), support from the local Occupy movement, and the memory of the previous occupation still fresh in the minds of the Chicago power elite, the protest turned into a buyout.

The New Era Windows Cooperative has been in operation since 2013. It hasn't been easy, but the worker-owners have learned together how to operate their own business. And then there were the meetings: "It was difficult to make decisions together," Robles said. "But it's kind of fun, because at the end of the day it's for the benefit of everyone."

The good thing is we don't have the CEO making millions of dollars, so we have the ability to compete with the industry.

Sales are modest, but growing. Last year the company sold about a half million dollars worth of windows. This year, they anticipate the number will be significantly higher. There are 23 worker-owners, and two staff members who Robles hopes will opt to become worker-owners.

His vision is for New Era to help spawn other cooperatives. Instead of expanding by hiring drivers, for example, he'd like to see the company help start a cooperative of drivers.

How is this company staying alive when other owners have failed? The worker-owners made tough decisions about what equipment they could get rid of to save money. And they did a lot of sales via word of mouth.

"The good thing is we don't have the CEO making millions of dollars," Robles said, "so we have the ability to compete with the industry." Also, they don't have to generate big profits to keep investors happy; they just have to make enough to pay expenses and pay back their debt.

This business model is based on "enough." Enough pay and benefits to live with dignity ... opportunities for more people to have enough to live and thrive; instead of keeping some at the edge of poverty while others prosper.

This business model is based on "enough." Enough pay and benefits to live with dignity. Enough of the machinery that is necessary, but not the sort that is too expensive. Opportunities for employee-owners to draw on their full capacities, not to be relegated to repetitive work while a few make all the decisions and much of the money. Their more equitable pay structure creates opportunities for more people to have enough to live and thrive; instead of keeping some at the edge of poverty while others prosper.

This is what local power looks like: companies like New Era Windows Cooperative creating the stability that comes with locally rooted employment, insulated from the speculative finance that, in the case of publicly traded companies, requires many jobs be moved to low-wage regions. These worker-owners focus on values, including the possibility for others to also be worker-owners, and the importance of producing ecologically smart products. The company prides itself on selling energy-efficient windows and doors, and customizing them to the climate and location of the client.

If this and other locally rooted companies can survive government policies that favor big corporations over local business, they could help lay the foundation for an inclusive and sustainable rebirth of our society.

***
Sarah van Gelder is co-founder of YES! Magazine, currently traveling the country, telling stories about the power of communities. Follow her road trip here, and connect with Sarah on Twitter @sarahvangelder.

Read more about worker-owned cooperatives from YES! Magazine:

• How America's Largest Worker-Owned Co-op Lifts People Out of Poverty



• Three Ways to Jump Start a Community-Grounded Economy



• This Maine Co-op's Trying to Bring Fresh, Local Food to 10,000 College Students

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Should You Save for Retirement or Pay for College?

November 9, 2015, 1:40 pm

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By Paula Pant

When you hold your first child for the first time, 18 years sounds like a long time. You assume you'll be able to save for college in that length of time. After all, it's almost two decades away, right?

Not really. Life's other expenses catch up with the best of us, and before you realize it, both retirement and your kids' college expenses are coming around the corner.

If you don't have enough time and money to reach your ideal financial goals for both college and retirement, one goal will need to take priority.

And here's the hard truth: retirement should be your priority. We know it's hard to focus on yourself and not your children, but saving for retirement needs to take precedence. Here's why.

Your kids have time, you don't

Your kids have time on their side to repay debt, build savings and grow wealth. They have their entire life and careers ahead of them. You don't.

As terrible as it sounds, time is not your friend. In the next 20 or 30 years you could start to have serious medical problems or difficulty with movement. You won't have the energy, drive, or ability to work as hard as you once did. If you spend all of your retirement savings on sending your child to college, you could face serious financial struggles during retirement.

Your kids have access to student loans

Any student at any level of financial need can receive an education loan. Whether it's a fully-funded Pell grant or just an unsubsidized Stafford loan, your child will have options for financing their college tuition.

You can't take a retirement loan. You don't have access to the same buffet of financial options as your children. There's no Pell Grant that pays for retirement.

If you forgo retirement savings for the sake of their college, there's a chance you'll become financially dependent on your adult children during your golden years. There's nothing more stressful than the idea that Mom and Dad are broke, but they're too old or sick to help themselves.

If your kids can't help you, you may need to scrape together paychecks from any part-time jobs you can handle or any Social Security you may qualify for (which may not be enough.)

Don't lock yourself into high-interest debt

If you inadequately save for retirement, you may have to rely on credit cards with much higher interest rates to pay for food, gas, and clothing while you're in retirement.

Federal student loans carry reasonable interest rates that your child will be able to pay off without undue hardship. They'll be better-able to pay low-interest student loans than you would be if you were forced to rely on credit cards.

At first glance, a home equity loan may look like a decent option to pay for your child's college education, but think carefully about the financial implications. You don't want to risk losing your house if you aren't able to make payments on the loan. Student loans are a much safer financing option for your child's college education.

Stake in the game

College is filled with distractions, ranging from parties to video games. There are plenty of justifications for skipping class, not studying hard, and scraping by.

If your child knows that he or she is paying for a portion, or all, of their college education, they'll have a stronger stake in the game. This might be the impetus they need to get motivated to study. After all, why skip class when you're the person who's paying for it?

Additionally, sheltering your children from the realities of budgeting, saving and debt payoff might not be in their best interests. Your children will start their adult life balancing rent payments, car payments and grocery bills with their student loans. This balancing act may teach them the importance of avoiding debt and managing money wisely.

Provide Support, Without Putting Yourself at Risk

The best gift you can give your children is the peace-of-mind that mom and dad will be fine in retirement.

Don't put your quality of life or your home on the line to help pay for their education. You did your job by raising them into adulthood. Now it's their turn to start taking care of themselves.

Your children have the skills, talent and energy to be able to pay for their college education. They will be fine, and so will you.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Don't Do These 7 Things When Getting on TEDx Talks

November 9, 2015, 1:52 pm

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You want to speak at TED, share your message and make a difference, and grow your business. There are some terrible mistakes you must avoid in order to be successful. If you make these mistakes, you will never get on TED talks. Worse, you may waste time and lose clients.

After giving a TEDx talk and interviewing successful TEDx speakers, I discovered seven mistakes business leaders make when getting on TED talks.

1. Wait to get invited to speak at TED
To speak at TED, you need to get invited. Some people have to wait for years in order to be selected as a TED speaker. Successful people don't wait; they take action.

The short-cut to speaking at TED is giving a TEDx talk.

TEDx talk is your audition to getting on the TED stage. When you give a great TEDx talk, you stand a higher chance to get invited to speak at TED.

2. Promote yourself or your business
TED hates people promoting themselves and their business. TED loves people who share ideas worth spreading.

Treat TEDx events as your first date. Do what your first date loves: share ideas worth spreading.

Make your idea so great that people can't wait to share your TEDx talk with their friends. When people like your talk, they will google your name and want to do business with you.

3. Have poor relationships with event organizers and speakers
If a stranger asks you to work with him immediately, would you say yes?

Make friends with TEDx event organizers and past speakers. Offer to promote their event. Join their organizing team. I even volunteered to be the MC at TEDxHong Kong Live.

Build relationships with decision makers by adding great value. Next time when they need a TEDx speaker, guess who will be on their mind? You.

4. Contact event organizers when it's too late
TEDx event organizers start selecting speakers months before their event. I once contacted the organizing team two weeks before their event. Guess what? They've confirmed the speaker list already.

Contact TEDx event organizers three to six months in advance. This action shows that you are well-prepared and serious about sharing your big idea with the community.

5. Focus on yourself
Many business leaders only focus on what they want to say. They ignore what the TEDx organizers want.

Every TEDx event has a main theme, for example, "Predicting the Future." If you suggest a TED talk about the history of men fashion, do you think the event organizer will let you speak?

Relate your talk to the theme of the TEDx event. Explain to the organizer how your talk supports the main theme. You'll be more likely to get a yes.

6. Nervous about public speaking
TEDx organizers want to look good; they don't want speakers who are nervous and uncomfortable in front of the audience.

People who get on TED talks speak with confidence. How do you speak with confidence? Prepare, practice, perform.

Prepare your talk with a clear message. Practice your talk with feedback. Perform by picturing the audience as your friends.

7. Follow the wrong steps
Our most valuable resource is time. You can earn more money, but you can't earn more time. Stop wasting time.

The most effective way to get on TEDx talks is to learn from an expert who has been a TEDx speaker and interviewed other TEDx speakers. You will save months of frustration. You will share your message and make a difference.

If you can avoid these seven mistakes, you'll stand out from the crowd - but of course, these aren't the only mistakes to avoid.

There are many, many more -- too many for me to list in a short post.

What mistakes do you see people make when getting on TEDx talks? I look forward to reading your comments.

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How To Prevent Millennials From Quitting

November 9, 2015, 1:55 pm

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What are ways to prevent millennials from quitting their jobs? originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question.


Answer by Elijah Medge, Long Beach Entrepreneur and Mentor, on Quora.


Here's the short answer:

1. An awesome work environment
2. A reason to work hard every day: a big picture to work towards
3. The opportunity to learn and grow daily

Now for some details!...I am the owner of several direct marketing firms and I employ dozens of millennials. As a millennial myself, I am well aware of the tendency of my generation to pickup and quit because the grass looks greener elsewhere. However, if you can create an opportunity for your people that is truly worth their while, you'll find that it's much easier to keep your awesome millennial employees around. 

I'm going to share a few tips that I've found to work very well:

Facilitate team bonding outside of the office. You'll be surprised how far guacamole, chips and a happy hour will get you. We millennials are social creatures, and we aren't as inclined to separate "work" from "play" to the degree that our parents do. If you proactively create opportunities for your people to develop genuine relationships, you'll notice that they actually look forward to coming to work each day.

Mix it up and have a little fun. A certain degree of consistency is important to run a smooth business; but if you look around your office and see people staring at the four walls of a cubicle all day long, you are doing something wrong. No millennial wants to come to work each day and be bored. Think about what the standard routine looks like and plan something completely different. Sometimes I walk into the room and start an impromptu game of office-wide Pictionary. It's important to keep your people laughing and having fun!

Take the time to coach, train, and develop successful mentalities. I'm the first to admit about my own generation that millennials are often seeking instant gratification or looking for the next best thing. But, just because we're inclined to think this way, doesn't mean you should give up on us. It's important to identify the reasons for which a millennial is looking to quit her job. For example, if she's leaving because she's outside of her comfort zone and feels stressed out, then this is an excellent coaching opportunity. You might need to get better at having some of the tougher conversations with your people. As a mentor, it's important to coach your team on the value of seeing something through.

Offer awesome incentives. Even the most self-motivated go-getter millennial needs a reason to perform at her peak performance. As a manager, you must find ways to regularly incentivize your people. This might mean weekly bonuses for top performers or cool gifts when a goal is achieved. The best way to find out what your millennials want is to ask them! While at first it might hurt to spend the extra cash, you'll be amazed at how much more you'll get out of your people.

Encourage learning and mistakes.Remember, millennials are new to the business world, which means that rookie mistakes are inevitable.  The worst environment you can create is one in which people are afraid to get their heads bitten off each time they make a mistake. To retain your millennials, you must facilitate opportunities for professional development and openly encourage your people to take on new roles. In doing so, the most important thing is that your people know that it's okay to mess up. They need to know that mistakes are a natural part of the learning process, and that you have their backs. As a manager, you must learn how to keep your cool and give constructive feedback when a mistake is made.

Don't micromanage.The fastest way to scare away an independent-minded millennial is to micromanage him. Not to mention, micromanaging your people is a sure fire way to encourage a bare-minimum mentality. Would you rather work with people who think like minimum wage employees or CEOs? If you want your people to be able to think for themselves, you absolutely have to give them the freedom to succeed or fail on their own sometimes.

Consistently recognize top performers. Millennials love recognition! We're human, after all. Taking the time to publicly recognize top performers will have three fantastic results: (1) The individual being recognized will feel appreciated and special, and will therefore be more motivated to continue doing a great job. (2) Watching another be recognized usually inspires us to want to be recognized too. When we see a peer succeeding before we do, we immediately become curious about what they are doing differently. This curiosity leads to great conversations and coaching opportunities. (3) Recognition lets people see the results of struggle and hard work. It's important to show your people that they are not alone in the challenges they may be facing. If their peers can overcome obstacles, they can too.

Talk to your people about their goals. Especially with millennials, it's important to have frequent and regularly scheduled conversations about goals. You need to know what motivates your team to work hard each day. If your goal is to retain millennial employees, find out what they want, and then make sure the company's goals are aligned. This means not being afraid to ask your people for your feedback. Millennials need to fully buy into the company's mission if they are going to stick around.

This questionoriginally appeared on Quora. Ask a question, get a great answer. Learn from experts and access insider knowledge. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.



More questions:

• Millennial Generation: What are the differences between Generation X and Millennial Generation?


• Jobs and Careers: As a CEO, do you prefer an arrogant high performer or a mediocre employee?


• Psychology of Everyday Life: What are some things that look easy but are difficult?

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How an Integrated Eurasian Market Can Promote Biosphere Consciousness and Digital Entrepreneurialism

November 9, 2015, 2:14 pm

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This essay is the last in a four-part series on the theme, "The Third Industrial Revolution." An introduction by Arianna Huffington is available here. Part one is available here. Part two is here. Part three is here. Stay tuned for responses from leading global figures and technologists.

Addressing climate change and healing the biosphere

The upcoming COP 21 United Nations climate conference, scheduled to take place in Paris in December, revolves around a series of benchmarks: an increase in energy efficiency, a reduction of CO2 and other global warming gases and an increase in renewable energies. However, without an economic vision and development plan for transitioning participating nations into a post-carbon era, governments are reluctant to commit their countries to these benchmarks in a period where GDP is slowing, productivity is waning and unemployment remains high. They are far more likely to perceive the benchmarks as punishments that will only serve to further constrict their economies. The nations of the world would be far more likely to make commitments to the U.N. climate conference benchmarks if they were pegged to a new economic paradigm that can increase productivity, create new economic opportunities and put people back to work, ensuring a more vibrant and sustainable society, while transitioning their economies out of carbon-based energies and technologies and into renewable energies. That vision is already taking hold in Germany and other countries.

In a fully digitalized economy, extreme productivity, triggered by the optimization of aggregate efficiency in the managing, powering and moving of economic activity, decreases the amount of information, energy, material resources, labor and logistics necessary to produce, store, distribute, consume and recycle economic goods and services toward near zero marginal cost. The partial shift from ownership to access in a growing "Sharing Economy" also means more people are sharing fewer items -- the birth of the circular economy -- significantly reducing the number of new products sold, which results in fewer resources being used up and less global warming gases being emitted into the Earth's atmosphere. In other words, the headlong push to a near zero marginal cost society and the sharing of nearly free green energy and redistributed goods and services in the Sharing Economy is the most ecologically efficient economy achievable. The drive to near zero marginal cost is the ultimate benchmark for establishing a sustainable future for the human race on Earth. And the Third Industrial Revolution paradigm will transform the U.N. climate conference benchmarks from perceived punitive measures to goalposts on the journey to a more prosperous and sustainable post-carbon economic era.

A new smart infrastructure, made up of an interactive "Communications Internet," "Renewable Energy Internet" and "Transportation Internet" is beginning to spread nodally, like Wi-Fi, from region to region, crossing continents and connecting society in a vast global neural network. Connecting every thing with every being -- the Internet of Things -- is a transformational event in human history, allowing our species to empathize and socialize as a single extended human family for the first time in history. A younger generation is studying in global classrooms via Skype; socializing with cohorts around the world on Facebook; gossiping with hundreds of millions of peers on Twitter; sharing homes, clothes and just about everything else online in the Communications Internet; generating and sharing green electricity across continents over the Energy Internet; sharing cars, bikes and public transport on the evolving Transportation and Logistics Internet; and, in the process, shifting the human journey from an unswerving allegiance to unlimited and unrestrained material growth to a species commitment to sustainable economic development. This transformation is being accompanied by a change in the human psyche -- the leap to biosphere consciousness and the Collaborative Age.

The biosphere is the integrated living and life-supporting system comprising the peripheral envelope of the planet together with its surrounding atmosphere. The biosphere extends only about 40 miles up from the ocean floor, inhabited by the most primitive life forms, to the stratosphere. Within this narrow realm, Earth's biological and geochemical processes are continually interacting in a complex choreography that determines the evolutionary path of life on the planet.

We are beginning to realize that the Earth's biosphere functions more like a self-regulating organism and that human activity that undermines the biochemical balance of the planet can lead to the catastrophic destabilization of the entire system. The spewing of massive amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere over the course of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions has done just that. The rising temperature from industrial emissions of global warming gases has now dramatically altered the Earth's hydrological cycle, throwing ecosystems into rapid decline and ushering in the sixth extinction event in the past 450 million years, with untold consequences for both human civilization and the future health of the planet.

A camel skeleton in the Tenere desert, Niger. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Humanity is quickly becoming aware that the biosphere is the indivisible overarching community to which we all belong and whose well-being is indispensable to assuring our own well-being as well as our survival. This dawning awareness comes with a new sense of responsibility -- living our individual and collective lives in our homes, businesses and communities in ways that advance the health of the larger biosphere. Children all over the world are learning about their "ecological footprint." They are coming to understand that everything we human beings do -- and for that matter every other creature -- leaves an ecological footprint that affects the well-being of some other human being or creature in some other part of the Earth's biosphere. They are connecting the dots and realizing that every creature is embedded in myriad symbiotic and synergistic relationships in ecosystems across the biosphere and that the proper functioning of the whole system depends on the sustainable relationships of each of the parts. A younger generation is learning that the biosphere is our planetary community, whose health and well-being determines our own.

Their newfound openness is tearing down the walls that have long divided people by gender, class, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Empathic sensitivity is expanding laterally as quickly as global networks are connecting everyone together. Hundreds of millions of human beings -- I suspect even several billion -- are beginning to experience "the other" as "one's self," as empathy becomes the ultimate litmus test of a truly democratic society. Millions of individuals, especially young people, are also beginning to extend their empathic drive to include our fellow creatures, from the penguins and polar bears adrift on the poles to the other endangered species inhabiting the few remaining pristine, wild ecosystems. The young are just beginning to glimpse the opportunity of forging an empathic civilization tucked inside a biosphere community. At this stage, much of the anticipation is more hope than expectation. Still, there is an unmistakable feeling of possibility in the air.

Spurring new business opportunities in the emerging digital economy

The European Union is potentially the largest internal market in the world, with 500 million consumers, and hundreds of millions of additional consumers in its associated partnership regions that stretch into the Mediterranean and North Africa. The build-out of an Internet of Things platform for a Third Industrial Revolution, connecting Europe and its partnership regions in a single integrated economic space, will allow business enterprises and prosumers to produce and distribute information, renewable energy, 3-D-printed products and a wide range of other products and services at low marginal cost in the conventional marketplace, or at near zero marginal cost in the Sharing Economy, with vast economic benefits for society.

Erecting the Internet of Things infrastructure for a digital Third Industrial Revolution economy will require a significant investment of public and private funds, just as was the case in the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. European investment on infrastructure-related projects totaled $741 billion in 2012, much of it to shore up a general purpose technology platform that is outmoded and whose productivity potential has long since been reached. If just 25 percent of these funds were redirected and earmarked in every region of the European Union to assemble an Internet of Things infrastructure, the "Digital Union" could be phased-in between now and 2040.

The EU communication network will have to be upgraded with the inclusion of universal broadband and free Wi-Fi. The energy infrastructure will need to be transformed from fossil fuel and nuclear power to renewable energies. Millions of buildings will need to be retrofitted and equipped with renewable energy-harvesting installations and converted into micro power plants. Hydrogen and other storage technologies will have to be built into every layer of the infrastructure to secure intermittent renewable energy. The electricity grid of the European Union will have to be transformed into a smart digital Energy Internet to accommodate the flow of energy produced by millions of green micro power plants. The transportation and logistics sector will have to be digitalized and transformed into an automated GPS-guided driverless network running on smart roads and rail systems. The introduction of electric and fuel cell transportation will require millions of charging stations. Smart roads, equipped with millions of sensors that feed real-time information on traffic flows and the movement of freight, will also have to be installed.

A worker loads a service vessel from a wind turbine at an offshore wind farm in the North Sea. (TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP/Getty Images)

The establishment of the Third Industrial Revolution Internet of Things infrastructure will necessitate the active engagement of virtually every commercial sector, spur commercial innovations, promote small and medium-sized enterprises and employ millions of workers over the next 40 years. The power and electricity transmission companies, the telecommunication industry, the construction industry, the information and communication technology sector, the electronics industry, transportation and logistics, the manufacturing sector, the life-sciences industry and retail trade will all need to be brought into the process. Many of today's leading companies, as well as new commercial players, will help establish and manage the Internet of Things platform, allowing millions of others -- small, medium and large businesses, nonprofit enterprises and prosumers -- to produce and use renewable energy, transportation and logistics and a panoply of other goods and services at low marginal cost in the exchange economy or at near zero marginal cost in the Sharing Economy.

Semi-skilled, skilled, professional and knowledge workers will need to be employed across every region of the world to construct and service the three Internets that make up the digital platform of a Third Industrial Revolution economy. Transforming the world's energy regime from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewable energies is extremely labor intensive and will require millions of workers and spawn thousands of new businesses. Retrofitting and converting hundreds of millions of existing buildings into green micro power plants and erecting millions of new micro power buildings will likewise require tens of millions of workers and open up new entrepreneurial opportunities for energy-saving companies, smart-construction companies and green-appliance producers. Installing hydrogen and other storage technologies across the entire economic infrastructure to manage the flow of green electricity will generate comparable mass employment and new businesses as well. The reconfiguration of the European electricity grid into an Energy Internet will generate millions of installation jobs and give birth to thousands of clean Web app start-up companies. And finally, rebooting the transport sector from the internal combustion engine to electric and fuel-cell vehicles will necessitate the makeover of the continent's road system and fueling infrastructure. Installing millions of charging stations along roads and in every parking space is labor-intensive employment that will require a sizable workforce.

The massive build-out of the IoT infrastructure for a Third Industrial Revolution in every locality and region of the world is going to spur an extended surge of salaried labor that will run for 40 years or more, spanning two generations. However, in the long run, the phase-in of a smart industrial plan like "Digital Europe" will ultimately lead to a highly automated capitalist market economy by midcentury, operated by small professional and supervisory workforces using advanced analytics, algorithms and artificial intelligence. The maturing of this smart infrastructure will lead to a migration of employment from an increasingly automated capitalist market to the growing social economy. While fewer human beings will be required to produce goods and services in the market economy, machine surrogates will play a smaller role in the nonprofit social economy for the evident reason that deep social engagement and the amassing of social capital is an inherently human enterprise. The social economy is a vast realm that includes education, charities, health care, child and senior care, stewardship of the environment, cultural activity and the arts, sports and entertainment -- all of which require human-to-human engagement.

Nissan's self-driving prototype vehicle on a test drive in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

In dollar terms, the world of nonprofits is a powerful force. Nonprofit revenues grew at a robust rate of 41 percent -- after adjusting for inflation -- from 2000 to 2010, more than doubling the growth of gross domestic product, which increased by 16.4 percent during the same period. In 2010, the nonprofit sector in the United States accounted for 5.5 percent of GDP.

The nonprofit sphere is already the fastest-growing employment sector in many of the advanced industrial economies of the world. Aside from the millions of volunteers who freely give of their time, millions of others are actively employed. In the 22 countries surveyed by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies some years ago, 19 million full-time workers are currently employed in the nonprofit sector. In some countries, employment in the nonprofit arena makes up more than 10 percent of the workforce. In the Netherlands, nonprofits account for 12.6 percent of paid employment. In Ireland it's 11.5 percent. In Belgium, 10.5 percent of the workforce is in the nonprofit sector. In the United States, nonprofit employment accounts for 7.8 percent of the workforce. These percentages will likely rise steadily in the coming decades as employment switches from a highly automated market economy to a highly labor-intensive social economy.

Despite the dramatic growth curve in employment in the social economy, many economists look at it askance, with the rejoinder that the nonprofit sector is not an independent economic force but rather largely dependent on government procurement contracts and private philanthropy. One could say the same about the enormous government procurements, subsidies and incentives meted out to the private sector. But this aside, the Johns Hopkins study of 22 countries revealed that contrary to the view of many economists, nearly 50 percent of the aggregate revenue of the nonprofit sector already comes from fees for services, while government support accounts for only 40 percent of the revenues and private philanthropy for only 11 percent. I expect that by the middle of this century, if not sooner, a majority of the employed around the world will be in the nonprofit sector, busily engaged in advancing the social economy and purchasing at least some of their goods and services in a highly automated capitalist marketplace.

John Maynard Keynes's futurist essay, "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," which was written more than 80 years ago for his grandchildren, envisioned a world where machines have freed up human beings from toil in the marketplace to engage in deep cultural play in the social economy in the pursuit of more lofty and transcendent goals. It might prove to be his most accurate economic forecast.

The business at hand will be to provide both retraining for the existing workforce and the appropriate skill development for students coming into the labor market to ease the transition into the new job categories and business opportunities that come with a massive build-out of an Internet of Things infrastructure around the world. At the same time, students will need to be educated for the new professional skills that come with the job opportunities opening up in the social economy. Although a herculean effort will be required, the human race has shown itself capable of similar efforts in the past -- particularly in the rapid shift from an agricultural to an industrial way of life between 1890 and 1940.

Wind turbines and, in the background, cooling towers at the Jaenschwalde coal-fired power plant on in Germany. The plant is one of the biggest single producers of CO2 gas in Europe. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

In summary, the scale up of a smart digitalized Internet of Things infrastructure across the European Union, its partnership regions and the world will generate new business opportunities in both the market economy and the Sharing Economy, dramatically increase productivity, employ millions of people and create an ecologically oriented post-carbon society. The employment of millions of workers will also stimulate purchasing power and generate new business opportunities and additional employment to serve increased consumer demand. Infrastructure investment always creates a multiplier effect that reverberates across the economy as a whole.

The alternative -- staying entrenched in the sunset of the Second Industrial Revolution, with fewer economic opportunities, slowing GDP, diminishing productivity, rising unemployment and an ever-more polluted environment -- is unthinkable, and would set the world on a long-term course of economic contraction and decline in the quality of people's lives.

A smart green Eurasian silk road economic belt

Lest skeptics think that the ushering-in of a smart green Third Industrial Revolution is problematic and unrealizable, take a look at China, which is already spearheading a similar economic paradigm shift in Asia. Premier Li Keqiang and the new leadership of China have embraced the Internet of Things platform (which many Chinese refer to as "Internet Plus") and the Third Industrial Revolution economic vision. China's Internet companies now rank among the global market leaders in the emerging smart digital era. Tencent, China's social media giant, rivals Facebook while Alibaba, China's massive e-commerce company, rivals Amazon, marking China's commanding presence in the Third Industrial Revolution.

In Sept. 2013, Xinhua reported that Premier Li had read my book "The Third Industrial Revolution" with great interest and had instructed the National Development and Reform Commission and the Development Research Center of the State Council to read the book and follow up with a thorough study of the ideas and themes it puts forth. Subsequently, I traveled to China for an official visit for two weeks in Sept. 2013, where I met with Vice Premier Wang Yang and other key government officials to discuss the Chinese transition into a Third Industrial Revolution economy. Following my visit, the government of China announced an $82 billion four-year initial commitment to lay out a digital Energy Internet across China so that millions of Chinese people and thousands of Chinese businesses can produce their own green electricity and share surpluses with each other. Plans are also afoot to establish a pan-Asia Internet of Things platform that will stretch across the continent, allowing billions of people to produce and share information goods, renewable energy and transportation and logistics in a digitalized single market.

The ruins of an ancient Silk Road city in northwest China. (Xinhua/Song Zhenping via Getty Images)

The European Union's plan to establish an Internet of Things platform for a digital economy opens up the prospect of joint collaboration with China in the creation of a digitalized integrated economic space across the Eurasian landmass to foster the transition into a Third Industrial Revolution and a post-carbon green civilization. In recent months, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li of China have called for a new high-tech Eurasian Silk Road Economic Belt to connect the Eurasian land mass in a seamless integrated market from Shanghai to the Irish Sea. The build-out of a digitalized Internet of Things infrastructure across Eurasia could lead to a new age of deep collaboration, bringing much of the human family together for the first time in history.

We are on the cusp of a promising new economic era, with far-reaching benefits for humankind. What's required now is a global commitment to phase-in the Internet of Things platform and facilitate the transition to a digitalized zero marginal cost society, if we are to avert catastrophic climate change and create a more prosperous, humane and ecologically sustainable society.

Jeremy Rifkin is the author of "The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism." Rifkin is an advisor to the European Union and to heads of state around the world, and is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit The Zero Marginal Cost Society.

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The 10 Best Stock Market Books You Should Be Reading

November 9, 2015, 2:26 pm

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When it comes to learning about the stock market and about trading practices and general, there is no end to the different sources of information that can help any person become a better trader. However, in addition to online resources and training guides, it is important that students of the stock market also read books. While books may not be as easy to skim through as blogs or guides like this on stock trading tips, they are important resources of information for anyone who wants to learn more about trading. Here are ten of the best stock market books that you should be reading.

1. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay

This is a classic book that anyone who is in the world of trading should consider reading. This book begs the popular question "why do otherwise intelligent individuals for seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action?" This book was first published in 1841, but its lessons are still timeless today. In fact it is often quoted by stock market enthusiasts as the tell-all treatise of irrational behavior in the financial market. Reading it may just help you understand the "group madness" theory often found in the market.

2. The Great Crash by Selwyn Parker

You cannot truly understand something until you know its history and where it came from. Selwyn Parker's story of the stock market crash of 1929 paints a very detailed picture of the history of the market and how it affected so many millions of people across American, Britain and Europe. This can give you great insight into how the market works and how much impact it has on people around the world.

3. Pit Bull: Lessons From Wall Street's Champion Trader by Martin "Buzzy" Schwartz

This autobiography tells the true story of how Martin Schwartz became the best of the best in the world of trading. It also details the places he went and the people he met along his journey. Most importantly, for students of the stock market, it tells the tips, trick and techniques that he used to make millions by trading.

4. The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist by Brett N. Steenbarger

The goal of this book is simple: it wants to help you become your own trading coach. This book is filled with important lessons on the different challenges and uncertainties that most people face while trading and how to pursue rewards in the market while in the face of risks.

5. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator Illustrated by William J. O'Neil

This book is actually a fictional biography of one of the greatest speculators ever, Jesse Livermore. This book may not be the newest publication but it is filled with timeless insights that generations of investors can take advantage of. This is one of the most iconic books on the list, and one of my personal favorites.

6. How I Made $2 Million in the Stock Market: The Darvas System for Stock Market Profits by Nicholas Darvas

This book tells the true and quite unusual success story of Nicholas Darvas. His story is often seen as one of the most extraordinary as Darvas was not a stock market professional, yet he created his own system of trading and made millions and he details his entire system and his rise to the top, in his book.

7. Trend Following: Learn to Make Millions in Up or Down Markets by Michael W. Covel

This book is from trend-following expert Michael Covel, who introduces his readers to the fund managers and traders who have been using his trend following strategy for decades. He also details his strategy and specifically how to make millions in an up or down market.

8. The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham

This is a classic investment book that promises no-fail strategies for those who want to earn their riches. The refreshing thing about this book is that it does not have any guarantees and isn't filled with gimmicks, but instead only has the wisdom from the author that details good portfolio management.

9. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins

John Perkins took over 20 years to write his book because he kept starting and stopping the process. According to the author, he was threatened and bribed several times to stop writing, but eventually decided to publish his account of working as an economic hit man to cheat countries from around the globe in order to get money from the World Bank.

10. Chart Your Way to Profits: The Online Trader's Guide to Technical Analysis by Tim Knight

This book is a must-have for any modern online trader and anyone who wants to learn about technical analysis. This book shows you how to harness technology to your advantage in order to analyze markets and make informed trading decisions.

In addition to the above books, I can't leave out one of my favorite resources: the Investimonials book section. This web page has reviews on nearly 1,000 finance and stock market books. Between the listed books and the Investimonials page, you should have no problem studying up and being on your way to becoming a stock trading expert.

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On the Importance of Being Simple

November 9, 2015, 2:32 pm

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What's the key to building a better brand experience? Simplicity.

Brands from the airline industry to eCommerce are realizing this and focusing on simplifying the interactions offered to consumers, and all the while consumer expectations for a streamlined experience are rising, quickly.



In our new 2015 Global Brand Simplicity Index, Siegel+Gale has endeavored to help everyone understand just how important simplicity can be for a brand. What do we mean by simple?

• Easy to understand



• Transparent and honest



• Making customers feel valued



• Innovative and fresh



• Useful

The Simplicity Index is an annual survey of more 12,000 consumers worldwide on the brands that they know and love (or sometimes don't). Watch the video.

In numbers, the benefits of simplicity are crystal clear:

• 214% - percentage that a portfolio of the world's simplest brands has beaten the average global stock index since 2009



• 69% - percentage of consumers who are more likely to recommend a brand because it provides simpler experiences and communications



• 63% - percentage of consumers willing to pay more for simpler experiences

The Winners
The Top Ten performers reflect a group of brands that excel in delivering simplicity in customer experience and communications, and all are able to fulfill consumer's desires quickly in an increasingly "on-demand" era. See the full rankings here.

Topping our Global List are perennial achievers Aldi, Google and Lidl. In the US, Google leads, followed by Netflix and grocery chain Publix. Fast- and fast-casual brands performed well in the US, with commitment to consistency and simplicity from messaging to the in-store experience.

Simplifiers
Of course, delivering truly simple brand experiences isn't easy. It requires leadership that knows how to stay focused on the customer, and how to be selective about the initiatives will make the deepest impact on them. In parallel with this year's Simplicity Index, we interviewed the leadership of six brands that consistently performed well in the Simplicity Index to learn more about how they build cultures of simplicity within their organizations. The study features interviews with these "Simplifiers" including Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, Lorraine Twohill, CMO of Google, and C-level executives from CVS Health, Dunkin' Donuts, Gannett and Southwest Airlines.

Read the interviews here.

Today, consumers live in a world of limitless choices. Brand experience is the road to their loyalty. Simplicity will get you there faster.

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Changing the Color of Black Friday

November 9, 2015, 2:38 pm

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"Costume your instrument" was a clever exercise that my granddaughter, Kaylee, enjoyed as a part of her 6th grade orchestra class. It was the week of Halloween and her ingenious teacher created quite a buzz with the fun extra. Kaylee dressed her viola in the costume of a doctor in scrubs and won the class competition for best costume!

Black Friday is an annual event designed to ramp up the instruments of commerce whether they are products or services. During that day, restaurants serve more meals, ATM machines get more action, and parking garages fill up with shoppers pouring into stores for bargains stores priced to entice attention and elevate sales. Holiday buying represents 20-40% of a retailer's annual sales, according to the National Retail Federation.

The dark -- or shall we say "black" -- side of this annual event is the wear and tear on the frontline, often part timers brought in to accommodate the mob. Their stress does not end at the closing hour, often extended late to maximize sales. They are after hours of re-shelving, restocking, and cleanup caused by unruly customers too impatient to tidy up after themselves. The shopping experience can be equally chaotic, taxing and unfair for customers. Many witness the worst side of consumers who seem to check their manners at the mall entrance. How can we change the color of Black Friday?

Make Shopping Inclusive

When customers are treated as valued partners, they typically respond in kind; the same is true for employees. Begin early communicating the concept of "your store." A friend in NYC frequents a restaurant for breakfast. She refers to it with pride as "my restaurant" and reports sometimes tiding up their bathroom. The viola Kaylee uses at her school is one she uses but does not own. But, she thinks of it as "her viola" to care for. Her teacher's instructions were not "costume the instrument assigned to you," but rather "your instrument."

Seek your customers' input and feedback. The owner of my favorite adult beverage store frequently asks me for suggestions on everything from store arrangement to new wine offerings to what he should highlight in his monthly blog. When I suggested to the service manager at my auto dealership that he include K-cups of my favorite flavor for their Kuerig coffee machine in the wait area, he had my request added to my profile with a note to the service scheduler to follow-up on K-cup supply when I came in for service maintenance. And, remember: just as customers enjoy providing input, employees do as well.

The payoff is a cadre of customers willing to partner with you when their help is needed. They become customers who serve as guardians of your shopping experience willing to influence others around them. When my adult beverage storeowner needed volunteers to taste test a new customized brew for his store offerings, I was eager to help. My enthusiasm influenced two others in his store to join in. When my auto dealership's service scheduler requested I allow her to slot a physician ahead of me (creating a bit longer wait for me), I was more than willing to oblige. Customers will care when they share.

Make It Captivating

Store experiences that are largely functional and efficient create a production line shopping mentality. What customer goes to the typical fast food restaurant to be entertained? You go for a burger and fries with quick and efficient service. So, what makes people swoon about the Starbucks' experience? How do customers' characterizations of Chick-fil-A or In-N-Out Burger stores differ from those of McDonald's or Burger King stores? Enriching the experience can diminish the "feeding frenzy" nature that can accompany Black Friday shopping.

A captivating experience is more than glitzy decorations or holiday carols playing in the background. And, it goes beyond the smell of potpourri or the perfume counter. Those are seasonal store accouterments that have become as imperceptible as the wallpaper. We don't comment on the ornamentation of the setting but rather on the personalization of the experience. It means being the living antidote to monotony and routine, even in the face of long lines and impolite shoppers.

Kaylee's viola costume might have been inaccurately interpreted as just light green pajamas, except there was a photo of an x-ray of a rib cage attached. It captured attention in an unmistakable way and drew you into her creativity like a "can't wait to serve you" attitude. Look for ways to ramp up the decibel level on the passion meter for customers and employees. As Maya Angelou wrote, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Make your shopping experience sincerely engaging not just swiftly efficient.

Customers often complain about the commercialization of holiday shopping. At one level it seems like a pointless assessment--it is suppose to be commercial. But, what customers are really fretting about is the dissonance between the holiday spirit and their shopping experience. Customers hear background carols with "peace and goodwill" themes accompanying interpersonal communications often limited to "credit or debit?" We get so immersed in the mechanics of shopping that we forget that the very impetus for our being there is the purchasing of a present.

We can change the color of "Black Friday" by bringing back the spirit of giving, the sentiment of thanksgiving, and the joy of generosity. Make your holiday shopping experiences invitational and captivating. Who knows, some day we may be talking about Purple Friday or "A day of shopping with sprinkles!"

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From Now On, I Won't Sit on Panels Without Women

November 9, 2015, 2:45 pm

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This past summer, two major business events took place in Paris, just a week apart. What they had in common -- and what went largely unnoticed -- was that they featured almost exclusively male participants. In early June, MEDEF, France's largest union of employers, held its first "Digital University" by organizing five all-male roundtables. No one in the audience publicly expressed their shock. A week later, the same scenario was repeated at a conference on telecommunications in Paris: 87 percent of the participants were men.

Recently, on October 27, François Hollande welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Elysée Palace for the Franco-German Digital Conference. Several ministers -- more French than German -- also attended, including French Minister of Economy Emmanuel Macron, French Secretary of State for Digital Affairs Axelle Lemaire, and German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Sigmar Gabriel.

The summit, which aimed to promote digital development and innovation in French and German industry, featured two roundtables during which there was also a glaring absence of women -- which didn't surprise me. A total of 14 people were invited to speak; there was one woman at the second roundtable, and the first was exclusively male!

Enough is enough. Given my consistent efforts to increase gender equality in business, especially through the "Digital Women" commission at Syntec Numérique -- which is tasked with promoting equality between men and women in our industry -- I couldn't stand idle in the face of such a substantial and grave injustice.

So, on the day of the Franco-German summit, I responded immediately; I sent out a tweet to my 6,833 Twitter followers, in which I made a formal commitment not to participate in any more all-male panels, and to actively campaign against them.

A partir de maintenant je vérifierai les participants aux tables rondes et refuserai toute participation s'il n'y a pas de femmes

— Guy MAMOU-MANI (@Guy_mm) October 27, 2015

This tweet, to my surprise, went off like a bomb. It was immediately retweeted by Nicolas Bouzou, an economics professor at Sciences Po, and director of consulting firm Asteres, and Henri Verdier, chief data officer of the French government and newly appointed as head of its inter-ministerial digital directorate.

My decision -- or I should say "our" decision -- should not surprise anyone. By now, women should have their rightful place in society, especially in the digital world. But they're still being excluded, as Axelle Lemaire made clear when she tweeted back to me saying, "I don't know what to do" about the fact that "in the fastest growing economic sector, one that's rapidly creating jobs and value, women are virtually absent." This is a damning statement, coming from a minister who has worked tirelessly to correct this situation. Lemaire has pushed the government's new digital school initiative to enroll at least 30 percent female students, personally awards Excellencia trophies, the "first trophy awarded specifically to women in the French high-tech industry," as Véronique di Benedetto, president of the organization in charge of giving out the award, likes to point out.

Women aren't just "forbidden" -- inadvertently? -- from speaking at conferences. They're also under-represented at French engineering schools (where they make up only 13 percent of the student body) and digital professions (where they only make up 27.4 percent of the workforce, compared with 48 percent elsewhere).

We urgently need a collective answer to this situation. The authorities have recognized this, and they've launched several projects under the leadership of the digital secretary. On the threshold of my second three-year term at the head of Syntec Numérique, I announced that I will multiply the number of initiatives geared towards younger people, particularly young women, and I've said that we need to get more creative about how to get more women into the digital industry.

Despite these efforts, habits have not changed, and we are left with panels without women representation. Sometimes it's of their own doing; I must admit that many women decline invitations to speak at conferences or to participate in roundtable discussions. It is necessary that women must also be more proactive on these issues.

Thus, despite my many efforts, we still have only five women on the 30-member Syntec board of directors. At our last general meeting, 100 percent of the women who applied for seats were elected. Unfortunately, there was only one candidate.

This post first appeared on HuffPost France. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity.

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What I Didn't Know About Becoming a CEO

November 9, 2015, 3:04 pm

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The company I co-founded is now ten years old. While we're an investment firm, many of the things I've learned as CEO transcend any particular industry. In looking back over the years, there are some things that I expected to be tough, and they have been. But there have also been surprises.

First, I was surprised by how much selling I would personally have to do as CEO - and I was equally surprised by how much I enjoy the process.

I had very little experience as a corporate pitchwoman. That doesn't mean I was a novice in promoting an idea; as a young analyst at Fidelity Investments, I needed to convince the managers of the large mutual funds to buy my stock ideas. That entailed delivering a successful sales pitch accompanied by a written report including some type of quantification supporting my claims. Later as a portfolio manager, I traveled to conferences and delivered speeches about my fund, but I was rarely involved in the "selling" process. That was the job assignment for many other very skilled people.

And yet from the minute we received our SEC approval to manage clients' assets, I became our chief salesperson. And it turns out I like selling much more than I thought I would. Of course, I believe in our product, which is the ability of our firm to deliver strong investment performance and competent service. But what I find really fascinating is how sales is like solving a puzzle using listening, questioning, describing, and responding to the potential client to somehow capture her interest and commitment.

I still find these presentations exhausting in a way that I never find studying an income statement, interviewing a company's management, or building an earnings' forecast tiring. But it's also exhilarating.

My second surprise has been how much my own mood is affected by our firm's performance - especially underperformance. Of course, I love whenever we outperform our benchmark or peer group, but the pain of underperforming is much more painful than the pleasure of winning the same amount, a phenomenon studied at length by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

And though I originally believed that if I shared portfolio decision making with a few partners, I would minimize the pain of bad days, weeks, or quarters, I could not have been more wrong. During the crash of 2008, the four of us responsible for picking stocks all suffered our own individual and collective anguish as the S&P plummeted.

And I was startled to learn how much my attitude still sets a tone around the office. There was an occasion years ago when one of my partners commented that I seemed to be in a bad mood, and that it was not an effective management strategy. That made a huge impact on me. People like to see the boss project a positive outlook even if the market is tough that day, or the firm just lost out on a major new account.

Finally, I'm also frankly amazed that ten years into our business and many decades into my life as a professional investor, I remain as concerned about the particular stocks we buy and investments we make as when I first began recommending equities as a young analyst many years ago.

I had thought I might be less of a market addict as our firm aged, or that I would care less strongly about our competitive positioning. But every Sunday evening, all year, every year, around 6 p.m., I mentally travel around the globe, thinking about the direction of the stock market the following day and what that will mean for our holdings. I often only think about it for short time, perhaps 30 seconds, but sometimes it stays with me, in the forefront or background of my mind for hours, and I wake up with the same thought on my mind.

I suspect that for many CEOs, thoughts of their organization are often swirling close at hand. I do not mind that proximity; it has become comforting to me, not disconcerting or intrusive. Ten years in, I'm happy that I feel that same drive. Though the specifics surely vary widely, I'm sure most CEOs also find themselves surprised by their current responsibilities, their attitude toward certain functions, and perhaps most of all, the impact we all have as leaders of an organization.

This post originally appeared on the Harvard Business Review on Nov. 9, 2015.

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What Are the Best Practices to Keeping Company Culture Tight-Knit as Business Scales?

November 9, 2015, 3:19 pm

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There was a pit in my stomach last autumn, as we made our hiring plans for 2015. At the time, we were a one-room team of eight. By the end of the year, we would be a 20-person operation across 5,000 square feet of office space. That scale intimidated me. I worried we might lose the thing that made our culture special as we brought more and more outsiders into the business and put more distance between conversations and departments.

Today, we are planning again. 2016 calls for another doubling of the staff. This is a fortunate position, to be sure. It means we are hitting the goals we set for ourselves. It means we are quickly moving toward our goal of one million monthly learners on Lesson.ly. All of these things are great, I just never want the pursuit of growth to spoil what made this place special in the first place: the team.

I am not as scared this year as I was last year. I know now that we can hire effectively for both performance and culture. I know now that, as this team grows, the culture will change, but not necessarily in a negative way. The business we're building today looks nothing like it did last year, but I'm sure we are all better for that. Nearly all these faces are new, but they are all so wonderful:




I am writing this not to offer some valuable insight into culture building. Instead, I want to hear your stories. Were you ever in a business that scaled rapidly? If so, what did the leadership team do well to maintain the culture that facilitated the company's initial growth, and what could they have done better? No need to name names. In fact, please don't. But please do let me know the pitfalls you would avoid and the positions you appreciated as your team scaled and scaled.

Thanks for your help.

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The TPP's Children's Table: Labor Rights and Currency

November 9, 2015, 5:24 pm

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The concept of the children's table has moved from Thanksgiving dinner to presidential politics with the networks having a separate debate for the low-polling candidates for the Republican nomination. But the concept of the children's table is also useful for understanding trade policy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The TPP has two classes of issues. On the one hand, there are the issues that really matter to the drafters of the deal. These are issues like protection of patents and copyrights and other forms of investment. Disputes that arise over investment can be taken directly by foreign investors to the investor-state dispute settlement tribunals set up by the TPP.

The investor bringing the complaint gets to appoint one of the three judges hearing the complaint. A second judge is appointed by the country against whom a complaint is being brought. The third judge is jointly appointed by the investor and the government. This panel is then empowered to impose fines of whatever size it considers appropriate. This is entirely an extra-judicial process. The verdict is not appealable to any domestic court.

That is the story of the adult table. The children's table is for issues that are of concern to labor rights, human rights, and environmental rights activists. There is no mechanism through which any of these issues can be brought directly to an independent panel by labor unions or civil society groups that believe they are being violated.

Rather, action must depend on a complaining government asserting that a country had not met the terms of the agreement. For example, the requirement that Vietnam respect the rights of its workers to organize will have to be enforced in the same way that the United States has in the past enforced provisions requiring that countries like Colombia respect the rights of workers to organize. Of course, union organizers in Colombia have continued to be murdered as the Obama administration highlights the reduced pace as progress.

As a practical matter it is almost inconceivable that any administration will make a determination that Vietnam has failed to respect workers' rights and take away its privileges under the TPP. In other words, this is one for the children's table.

The same applies to the rules on currency management. The agreement calls for consultation which will allow the United States to allege that one or more of the countries has managed its currency. This is sort of like the power that the United States has now to call out of a country for managing its currency and then proceed with retaliatory trade measures.

Those keeping score know that the United States has never used this power. That's another one for the children's table.

It is worth noting that the concern over currency management should be front and center on the agenda of anyone that actually wants free trade between the countries in the TPP. If a country takes steps to depress its currency by 20 percent against the currencies of its trading partners, it has the same impact as if it imposes a 20 percent tariff on all imports and gives a 20 percent subsidy to all exports.

While this sort of currency management is a story in which millions of manufacturing workers in the United States may see their jobs threatened, it is also a situation that has all the economic distortions assorted with this sort of protectionist policies. However in this case since the beneficiaries are likely to be major importers, like Walmart, or outsourcing manufacturers, like GE, the issue gets placed at the children's table.

There is one other point worth highlighting on the TPP. The obsession in the TPP with making patent protection stronger and longer is striking for those who like to blame technology for the rise in inequality in recent decades. Technology doesn't create patents, governments do. The argument here is that we need more government protection in order to give enough "incentive" to those responsible for innovation.

In plain English, the TPP proponents want the government to make the rest of us pay more for goods and services so that people involved in the process of developing new technology can get paid more money. This means that they want the government to redistribute income from ordinary workers to those who will profit from this technology. It's not technology causing this inequality, it is government policy and the TPP is a big part of this policy.

The proponents of the TPP are hoping that the rest of us will be happy that we got seats at the children's table. We will be hearing much about this table as they push to have the deal approved. But it's long past time that the rest of us be treated like adults. Trade and investment policy does not have to be designed to make the rich richer.

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