Last chance to tell Google to forget you. February 22, 2012, 12:48 PM — Even if you're one of those luddites who uses Google only for Search – not the increasingly random assemblage of first-generation SaaS apps that make up its unintentionally eclectic portfolio – you're sure to already be sick of the sticky pop-ups Google has been using to warn customers it is unifying all the services under one comprehensive lack-of-privacy policy.
Google announced in January it would unify most of its services under a single privacy policy and a single set of data-gathering tools that will arrange all Google's useful data on each of its customers in an efficient database, from which it is much simpler to sell that customer as a commodity to advertisers looking for specific patterns of behavior. The change actually goes into effect March 1. Thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for pointing out that having decent security and using it are not the same thing. You can delete much of the data Google has on you, though. Stop Being Perfect: Unleash Your Creativity Goodlife Zen. A Guest Post by Diggy of Upgrade Reality We are all indoctrinated to attain perfection.
It starts in school where they teach us to get perfect grades or 100% for tests. Beauty magazines tell us to have blemish-free skin. The media tells us to have a spotlessly clean floor or house. In today’s society, perfection is the norm and anything less than that is just average. Since perfection is pretty impossible to attain, “surprisingly” many of us never reach it.
After all, which person is really perfect and who can do a job absolutely perfectly every single time? Perfection Extinguishes Creativity Creativity is unique and original. There are no set requirements or guidelines for how it should occur or take form. The following is an extract from the book ‘Linchpin’ by Seth Godin: A guy is riding in the first-class cabin of a train in Spain and to his delight, he notices that he is sitting next to Pablo Picasso. Picasso hesitates for a moment and asks, “So what do you think reality looks like?” Marketing. You asked for it Arnold and 84 others (so far). So I'm gonna talk about marketing. I believe that marketing is what you do when your product or service sucks or when you make so much profit on every marginal customer that it would be crazy to not spend a bit of that profit acquiring more of them (coke, zynga, bud, viagra).
A very experienced and successful entrepreneur came into our office a week ago to pitch his latest company. At the end of his pitch he showed us some numbers. Normally for a raw startup we see almost all product and engineering expenses (headcount). So a few days later, I called him. Zynga has spent millions on customer acquisition and continues to do so. In my talk at Harvard Business School, I said "Early in a startup, product decisions should be hunch driven.
Early in a startup you need to acquire your customers for free. So if you need to acquire customers for free early in a startup, how do you do that? 2) Social hoooks – Your product/service must be social. The 48 Laws of Power. Background[edit] Greene initially formulated some of the ideas in The 48 Laws of Power while working as a writer in Hollywood and concluding that today's power elite shared similar traits with powerful figures throughout history.[5] In 1995, Greene worked as a writer at Fabrica, an art and media school, and met a book packager named Joost Elffers.[4][8] Greene pitched a book about power to Elffers and six months later, Elffers requested that Greene write a treatment.[4] Although Greene was unhappy in his current job, he was comfortable and saw the time needed to write a proper book proposal as too risky.[10] However, at the time Greene was rereading his favorite biography about Julius Caesar and took inspiration from Caesar's decision to cross the Rubicon River and fight Pompey, thus inciting the Great Roman Civil War.[10] Greene would follow Caesar's example and write the treatment, which later became The 48 Laws of Power.[10] He would note this as the turning point of his life.[10]
Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - Heidi Grant Halvorson. Learn more about the science of success with Heidi Grant Halvorson’s HBR Single, based on this blog post. Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do. 1. To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. 3. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. 7. 8. 9.
15 Must-Know Facts on How People View Websites. Do you know what is the first thing that your eye is drawn to on a website? And in what pattern do people scan your website? There have been many eyetracking tests on this subject and I’ll give you 15 most useful facts you should know. The picture below shows 3 different websites and where people look on them. Red indicates the area, where people looked the most, yellow areas got a bit less eye-action, blue areas got the least views and the gray areas, well, people didn’t focus on them at all. As you can see, the more people scroll down, the more they lose focus and start mainly scanning your website. So always try to place the most important information in the top part of your website. Here are the 15 facts you should know on how people view websites. Text attracts more attention than pictures.
There you go. Sources: BBC News | directcreative | GoogleBlog. Steve Jobs: 10 Presentation Tactics for Ad Agency New Business. The Manager's Cheat Sheet: 101 Common-Sense Rules for Leaders. 5 Reasons Top Talent Leave Their Jobs.
5 Reasons Why Top Talent Leave Their Jobs 1 Their Boss is a Jerk Employees leave their job because of their bosses, more than any other reason. No one wants to work with a nasty, miserable, or agressive boss. Let's face it, there are a lot of them out there and no one wants to work for one. 31% of Respondents reported that their supervisor gave them the "silent treatment" in the past year. 2 Lack of Empowerment People don't want to punch a time card and put their heads down and their butts up each day. In their perfect job, 31% of respondents would want more responsibility at work. 3 Internal Politics In the war for talent, people don't want to navigate the complex office politics unless they see value or a path to the top.
Only 35% of respondents reported that their companies were good or effective at managing advancement. 4 Recognition Everyone believes they work too damn hard and don't get paid enough. 5 The Company Is Going Under Nobody wants to be the last on off a sinking ship! Center for. Online whiteboard for drawing & team collaboration - Interactive whiteboard software.
What an 8-Year-Old Taught Boeing About Social Media (by @baekdal) #media. A couple of weeks ago, 8-year-old Harry Winsor (son of John Winsor, CEO of the ad agency Victors & Spoils), decided to send Boeing one of his concept designs for a new plane, done in crayon. The result was a crash course in social media for the plane manufacturer. Most big companies, who do not yet understand the social world, come from a mindset of not being in touch with the customer. Their marketing tactics is to create an advertisement, put it into a magazine, and then forget about it. When these companies suddenly realizes that they are need to get on the social web, they kind of miss the whole point. And it only took an 8-year-old to teach Boeing that lesson. Boeing, being a really big enterprise, have just recently started using Twitter, so when they received the above design, they responded in the way that most big companies do - by returning a standard form letter saying: “Like many large companies ... we do not accept unsolicited ideas.
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Calvin_hobbes_writing.jpg (JPEG Image, 778x253 pixels)