The Effects of Gas Prices on Consumer Attitudes

Throughout the past few months Americans have been hearing a great deal of negative news regarding gas and consumer prices. Recent studies have shown that the current increase in gas prices has “reversed” Americans’ more positive opinions of the economy in the last few months. Thus, a general trend is that consumers tend to express a more negative perception of the economy as gas prices rise.

Additionally, the rise of gas prices has increased Americans’ attention to current news headlines, specifically stories/events that directly effect gas prices. According to Pew Research, consumers have been following the news in Libya more closely than any current headline. The latest interest in Libya arises because of the direct effect the events have had on America’s gas prices. Consequently, the rise of gas prices inspires the public to pay more attention to news stories pertaining to gas prices.

Furthermore, studies indicate that the rise in gas prices may cause a shift in consumer attitudes toward the importance of fuel-efficiency vehicles. The more the gas prices rise, the more likely consumers will begin to take interest in purchasing fuel-efficient vehicles. AutoTrader.com president and chief executive officer Chip Perry explains, “when gas prices rise, interest on our site in smaller/more fuel efficient vehicles increase, when prices go back down shoppers return to their normal shopping habits.”  Ultimately, per gallon prices will affect car buyer’s enthusiasm for bigger vehicles next year.

The fact remains that price is central in consumers’ minds. Across all demographics, consumers said that they would change their behavior to save at the pump.

Design in 2011

For the world of design, 2011 is the year where function outweighs beauty. The new and upcoming trends are focused around responsive design, constant connection and virtual reality. For consumers and designers this year and the decade to come, design’s main goal is to captivate users in an entertaining, original manner. To do this successfully, here are the top 11 trends that designers should follow so they can succeed on computers as well as smart phones, netbooks, tablets and more in 2011.

1. More CSS3 and HTML5

2011 is the year where designers are starting to get away from Flash and focus more on web design with text shadow, border radius and image transparency.

2. Simplistic Color Schemes

2011 is all about simplicity. Green, yellow and red are the new black, white and grey. It is important to limit your design to only two or three colors and to work within the shades of the colors you are using.

3. Mobile Ready

It is important for web design to be responsive to multiple viewpoints with the growing amount of mobile products. Though it is good to have a dedicated mobile site, but make sure it is optimized to the original site as well. It has been forecasted that smart phones will outsell personal computers in 2011.

4. Parallax Scrolling

2011 design is all about creating a sense of depth. This can be done by using layers to present an illusion of 3-D dimensional space. It can also be very beneficial as a 2^nd element on any design element.

5. Designing for Touch Screens

Due to the overwhelming usage of smart phones and iPads, online destinations are at consumer’s fingertips. With fingertip navigation, it is important to incorporate horizontal scrolling since hovering (like with a mouse) isn’t necessary anymore.

6. Depth Perception in Web Design

Website depth perception is all about creating dimension. With a crisp and simple design, replicating depth deems necessary in 2011.

7. Large Photographic Backgrounds

Large scale backdrops have surged in 2011. To grab the attention of the audience, web design is focused around high resolution, soft and slightly transparent imagery as well as being appropriate to the content.

8. Creative Domain Names and Integration

Web domains are getting away from the usual .com and being replaced by more “whimsical” names like .us or .me. .Me is good for personal portfolios, blogs or even creating a separate identity their a corporate brand.

9. Quick Response Codes

1n 2001, barcodes are popping on business cards, magazines and much more. Camera phones can take a picture of the barcode that will then take them to the website associated with it. This allows for a short cut to a mobile site and the ability to track visitors on special referral codes.

10.  Thumbnail Design

Thumbnail browsing enables consumers to clock on a magnifying glass and hover over the site before actually going to it. In 2011, the average Internet user has become “surfing-savvy” so this trend makes it easier to browse through the web more easily.

11.  Constant Connection/Life Stream

2011 is the year where consumers are focusing on a constant connection. Web design can help this by sharing our lives in an open forum and enabling personal blogs/portfolios to be live Twitter feeds. Sites, like foursquare, help dedicate this lifestream for all of consumer’s online activity.

Social Media to Offer Increased ROIs

Brafton has reported that marketers will need to monitor social ROIs this year, and the results of a new survey indicate that CMOs are hopeful about returns on investment in social media.

The majority of respondents (81 percent) expect their annual revenues to be linked to social media in 2011. This is up significantly from expectations last year, when just 44 percent of CMOs anticipated linking revenues to social media.

The report indicates that marketers will, indeed, need to develop new methods for monitoring their returns on leading social platforms

Of CMOs, 64 percent say they will increase their social budgets within the year. Moreover, 72 percent of respondents say they will hold social strategies accountable for sales. The majority of respondents believe social investments will account for up to 10 percent of revenues this year.

 

The Life and Times of Facebook

Facebook has been the engine, steering wheel, gas tank, and tire treads of the vehicle driving the social media trend into mainstream and utilized media. Unfortunately enough, there are three explicit and supported reasons why the glamorous life of the Facebook machine may soon come to an end. It’s just a matter of time before Facebook’s honeymoon is over. Although, it seems that social network juggernaut is indestructible, I don’t think the fairytale will last for too much longer. Here is why I think they fail:

1. Too much clutter — what turned me on Facebook from the beginning was the simple, clean user interface which Myspace drastically lacked. This has all changed since mid 2007 when they launched the Facebook platform allowing 3rd party apps on the site. Great idea at the time, but now the site has become a cluster of useless widgets that, for the most part, don’t provide much value and are quickly forgotten. This will come back to haunt them.

On the part of Facebook, I think this was a strategic mistake. Instead of throwing up all of these apps in a 3rd party free-for-all (there are currently 22,408 apps), they should have considered a more regulated, phased approach. For example, wait until the lifecycle of one app is coming to an end, before you introduce another one. This way users are not inundated with all the garbage and that squeaky clean UI can be maintained.

Moreover, I can see things only getting worse as the need for advertising dollars prevail and Facebook slowly becomes a virtual billboard with more ads — this why most people jumped the MySpace ship.

2. The ‘cool’ factor is long gone — when your uncle has a profile and is facebooking, you know the cool kids are not going to stay for long. This is a natural occurrence and we’ve seen it many times. Case in point = friendster. Friendster started off as social network for a lot people in the ‘in’ crowd and soon became overcrowded by the mainstream masses. When this happened the cool kids left the party and the rest soon followed. This is how fads are started, and this is how they die. Cool kids find something that quickly becomes popular, the masses follow, the cool kids leave, the masses follow.

3. Too many social networks, not enough time — more and more niche social networks are popping up and users will eventually spend more time on sites that focus more directly around their interests than large, general social networks. I think the MySpaces and Facebooks serve as great learning tools for the masses to understand how to use social networks. But eventually FB and MS will lose their appeal and only serve as gateways letting users find niche social networks that are more in line with their specific interests with more meaningful interactions.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website a web page in search engines via the “natural” or unpaid search results.

The higher on the page and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search and video search. When a web user visits a search engine, the order of appearance of those being searched is based on space bought by those companies, and also key words associated with each search. Companies and brands want to be a part of SEO and the online communication between keyword searches and the results they yield. The web has not traditionally been a forum for which organizations and advertisers can seek out their customers, but through the use of SEO they can do just that. Associating themselves with important key words and aligning themselves higher on the page than their competitors is both a visual representation of those which consumers should choose to reach their searching goals.

Marketing vs. Spam

When we begin speaking in terms of marketing on Twitter, invariably the question comes up, “how do I market my company without people viewing my efforts as spam?”

Spam is about taking the choice away from someone and delivering them information about products and services without their permission. Spam comes in the way of unsolicited emails, junk mail and telemarketing. Spam makes many of us switch off, and for good reason. We have not asked to be inundated with the information that we find floods our inboxes and letterboxes these days.

On Twitter we each have an option as to who we will follow. And one might suggest it is that choice that gives others the right to ‘spam’. Wrong. Spam is irresponsible and annoying. More will tune out than tune in, and those spammers will find themselves being un-followed.

Social Media is about connecting, sharing and helping people.

I respond to people who ‘mention’ my name on Twitter (ie who have ‘sent’ me a message), except if they have blatantly used the functionality to promote something to me. You know those tweets, the ones that say something like “find out how I made a million using Twitter; click this link @jododds”. I immediately unfollow anyone who sends me a tweet like this. As far as I’m concerned it is not an attempt to connect with me, it’s an attempt to blatantly sell to me.

Would that ever be acceptable? Well, if I tweeted, “how can I make a million using Twitter”, it might be ok, but clearly that’s not something that I am very likely to tweet!

So, take time to consider your message and how it will connect with your followers, remembering the ‘connecting, sharing and helping’ rule.

* Are you sharing a valuable service, product or resource?

* Do you take the time to share on a personal level as well as sharing on a business level?

* Have you established a relationship with your followers?

* Is the information you are providing timely and appropriate?

If you can answer these questions with a yes answer then you are likely to be marketing, not spamming. Your followers will welcome your post rather than turn away from it. Share your tweet with others and in turn respond in kind to their own messages and tweets. After all, marketing is all about the relationship and interplay between you and your potential customers and spam is about nothing more than spreading what you want people to know whether they want to hear it or not.

Future of Facebook

As we spent our first year at college, all of my classmates became Facebook guinea pigs; we were the first generation that would go through college (and the rest of our lives) with the site in our bookmarks. Social networking was as new to us as a frat party, a discussion section or a telephone call home. But we learned quickly. By the end of freshman year, I had stopped visiting each of the networks I had signed up for the year before because they were courting a demographic different than my own: Friendster was for old people (which, at the time, meant thirtysomethings); hi5 was for people in Europe, or Canada, or somewhere foreign; MySpace was for… well, we all know where Tila Tequila comes from.

It took just five years for the social network to reach this point, moving its way quickly from a college dorm site, to incorporating in Delaware as a company (five years ago this month), then moving to California and securing venture capital funding, adding access to every college in America, then every high school, then every person who wanted to join. Now, as the site is going international, 70 percent of current users are coming from abroad—many who first downloaded Facebook’s translation application, which users have used to morph the English site into 50 languages, all so that their friends who don’t speak English can join. “Our favorite story to tell is that 4,000 users translated the site into French in less than 24 hours,” says Naomi Gleit, Facebook’s project manager for growth. “It’s pretty insane, right?”

As a private company, Facebook does not release earnings, but a recent stock buy-out option valued the site around $6.5 billion. That said, many attempts for the company to make money (mostly through user-targeted advertising) have been rebuked by the users themselves. “If you try to count the products Facebook is testing, it’s almost mind-boggling,” says Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst in Forrester Research’s social media department. “Facebook hasn’t yet figured out the formula that’s going to work for the needs of the users or the brands.” Even so, Marc Andreessen, who sits on the board of Facebook (along with Don Graham, the CEO of the Washington Post Company, NEWSWEEK’s parent) told Reuters that Facebook would do over $500 million this calendar year, with billions in revenue by 2012.

But revenue projections are, well, just projections. Here is the current reality: Even as Facebook marks the anniversary of its incorporation this month, nearly every other social network has shrunk. MySpace recently cut almost 500 employees, close to 30 percent of its work force, after the site’s visits dropped by five percent in May from the year before. Friendster has all but disappeared. And while it’s clear that Facebook isn’t going anywhere for some time, the company certainly can’t rely on hundreds of millions of people contentedly poking and gifting each other into perpetuity.

Why Ask the Customer?

Have you noticed that some businesses need reminding that marketing is the art and science of getting and KEEPING profitable customers?

They always seem to forget the “keeping” part…

We are always reminded that getting new business from existing clients is less expensive than finding new customers.

In a blog post from the other day, I suggested a tactic one could do right away to kick off your 2009 marketing – mailing a survey to your existing customers. I want to expand on that idea here.

The survey piece could come in many forms, whether it is a comprehensive survey form that is completed and mailed back, a simple letter inviting responses via email, questions that are answered via the phone, or an online survey. Whatever the format, demonstrating that you care about your customer’s inputs is important – whether they take you up on it or not. But you know as well as I that a dialog generated by the mailer can ultimately lead to new business.

Here are some questions to include in your survey:
1. Ask how their business is going. Show that you care.

2. Find out what their biggest problem is. Identify what is holding them back most.

3. Since they are an existing customer, they have purchased from you. Sincerely ask if your product or service is benefiting them.

4. If your product or service isn’t living up to their expectations, find out how it is falling short (and do something about it).

5. Ask for new ways to improve your customer service. Things like response time, tech support, billing, front desk etiquette, etc.

6. Ask if there are other products or services on the market that intrigue them.

7. Does our product or service fit comfortably into next year’s plans? How can we modify it to continue serving you well?

8. Share ideas on ways to improve on our products or services. Use these answers to identify new ways to cross-sell and develop new offerings.

9. Suggest ways we can improve our communication flow. Blog? E-zines? Monthly reports via mail or email? Other social media tools?

Finally, ask for time to discuss these issues with your customer. Use this time to serve and provide solutions.

At the end of the day, this exercise of reaching out to your customers is just great customer service – service being the key word here. If you take great pains to SERVE your client, they will always be appreciative. And you will find that even if they are not pleased with a particular application of your product or service, the act of understanding how you can IMPROVE that customer experience will go a long way towards them remaining as your customer.

Customer satisfaction isn’t enough anymore. Customer DELIGHT is. And this tactic can help you begin to achieve that. Let me know of other ways you have achieved the same, or other questions to ask of your customer!

A Strategic Approach to the Recession

Focus, focus, focus! If you’re a business owner in the midst of this recession, then this word needs to be on your mind at all times. You need to focus on long-term benefits for your company rather than the short-term benefits. Focusing on aspects of the business that are only going to bring in short-term profits is not of essence right now.

Open innovation is not only a tactic that is going to help your business succeed in the recession, but it will also give you a great advantage over your competition. “By breaking down traditional boundaries, open innovation allows intellectual properties, ideas, and people to flow freely both into and out of an organization.” Inside-out open innovation refers to saving your business time and money by allocating projects or assets outside the walls of your business. This tactic could also help you formulate new supplier and partner relationships. It could also help you promote “innovative ecosystems” and generate “high-margin licensing incomes.”

If your business lacks in a certain area, such as telecommunications technologies for example, it would be easier to hire another company to do that work for you rather than getting your own people to do it. That way, the end-product will wind up costing less and looking better than it would have if your own employees had worked on it. You also get to share the success despite having a small part in the production process. It should also reduce your business’s costs and risks.

Recessions are dull times and lots of businesses end up halting promising projects due to the fear of what the recession might do to the business. However, this is not the case when it comes to inside-out innovation. Inside-out open innovation allows for greater flexibility during rough times. Most companies never pursue a project as if they themselves were the customers or suppliers and that’s where they go wrong. By doing this, they could allocate projects they don’t know how to execute to companies that are more experienced and get to share all the returns in the end.

In conclusion, if you find that your business is struggling right now then try to outsource your projects to other businesses that specialize in areas your business is lacking in. This should relieve some of the pressure and allow you to make profits as a result of collaborative efforts.

(Harvard Business Review Publishing. Web Exclusive: Use Open Innovation to cope in a Downturn by Henry W. Chesbrough and Andrew R. Garman. June 2009.)

Research on the Streets of Seattle

When the city of Seattle wanted to find out how, why and where residents walked, they distributed an online 11 question survey. The survey included thought-provoking questions such as:

Where do you walk?

Why do you walk?

What places do you avoid?

What is your favorite place to walk?

The city used the survey results to develop project lists and begin prioritizing improvements. The survey reached a broad sampling population, as it was available in nine different languages and distributed through neighborhood councils and ethnic outreach groups.

Online surveys can be very powerful, as the Seattle example proves.

A Bright Outlook for the Lodging Industry

During a recession, many companies suffer and even go out of business.  The good news is that recessions don’t last forever and some companies pull out of it faster than others.  The lodging industry has been hit hard, causing consumers to think smarter about how they spend their money.

The lodging industry typically gains momentum when coming out of a recession.  During 2001, 2002, and 2003, deals were falling through and lodging was decreasing.  Since then, sellers, buyers and lenders are all working together to bring the industry back to normal sales.

For example, in 2004 there were eleven major deals that occurred in the recession.  The industry foresees this as a continual trend.  One thing lodging facilities have been doing to cut costs is trading assets instead of building new ones.  Even though new buildings are constructed, there are not quite as many and it is not a major focus of the industry at this time.

Also, since many hotels are being turned into apartments, there is less competition among companies.  In the last couple years, occupancy for rooms has reached an all time high.  Places that are expected to have the largest turnaround when coming out of a recession include: San Francisco, Boston, Hawaii, Miami, Chicago, Washington, New York, and Los Angeles.

What’s the Purpose?

In an issue of the Alberta Views magazine, University of Calgary professor Harry Vandervlist looks at the autonomy of the province’s universities. The feature article asks, “What do we want from our universities, and where are they heading?”

Alberta Views conducted an informal online survey about the purpose of Alberta’s universities, asking, “What should be the main purpose(s) of Alberta’s universities?” The respondents were asked to choose up to three answers form this list:

1. to be the critic and conscience of society
2. to train workers
3. to preserve knowledge
4. to promote social class mobility
5. to encourage the pursuit of truth
6. to invent useful products/technologies
7. to prepare citizens for democratic participation
8. to be a place to which citizens can withdraw to gain perspective on life
9. to perform research on behalf of the corporate sector
10. to be place for people to develop fully as human beings (i.e. their hearts, minds and souls)

Many also responded with additional thoughts about how best to articulate the purpose of the university, as well as suggestions on how to improve the survey. The information gathered provided qualitative data which gave professor Vandervlist a good idea about what others thought about the universities in Alberta.

The Alberta Views magazine publishes thoughtful commentary, in-depth analysis and award-winning journalism that explores the unique political, social and cultural life of Alberta from a progressive perspective.

The Ignored People

America is a collective nation of immigrants from around the world.  It hasn’t been until just recently that many Americans stopped being closed-minded to the rapidly increasing Hispanic industry.

Businesses are missing the opportunity to cater to this ignored industry because they have negative feelings towards other races. Businesses do not realize the amount of money that they could be capitalizing on from them. If they took the time to tweak their programs and have an open mind it would make a world of a difference.

Examples of how some companies have recognized the opportunities are: banks and credit unions making low cost transfers, cell phone companies allowing affordable calls across the nation and to native countries, and websites connecting immigrant groups around the world with Spanish language programs and movies.

Wisdom in a Downturn Part 4

Get Inspired from Everyone

During an economy, leaders in a business should ask great questions to challenge the company and set competitive goals.  Another economic tip for companies is to build trust across the organization.  To build this trust, hold weekly meeting with managers or employees to let them know what is new and things to improve. This will also build close relationships and a chance for employees to exchange ideas.

Encourage brainstorming and training and experimentation among the company. A recession is time to inspire people to be innovative.

Work-Life Balance

How do you have a successful career without missing out on life?  To begin balancing work life and home life you need to find out what you want your priorities to consist of, not what you think they should be.  Having this balance is very important because of reasons related to health and stress levels.  It is unhealthy to bring work home with you after the workday is over.  Separating the two from each other will allow you to enjoy home life a little more.  It is good to make time for other activities with family and friends.  You never want to be one of those people that seem “married to their work.”  Your career should definitely be important, but doesn’t need to consume your every thought, especially after the workday is complete.

 

1. To balance work and home life you need to set limits at work.  For example, you can set time restrictions for yourself on how long you will allow work to take up personal or family time.
2. Make sure and take home life as serious as you do your professional life.
3. Leave work at work so that you can fully enjoy the time spent at home, and don’t allow yourself to bring personal drama to work.

“Old School” Research Methods and Their Uses Today

1) phone

2) mail

3) intercept

Traditional methods of research that are still in play today include phone solicitations, direct mail surveys, and intercept surveys primarily at retail centers. These three templates for research have gained a reputation for being outdated in the face of new “instant gratification” ways of researching online, using smart phones, etc. However, those older methods are not dead and gone. For instance, the U.S. Census still uses direct mail response surveys as a way to gauge the population. As it is seemingly the best way to reach and maintain a favorable response rate, this traditional method will most likely always be the outlet for which the Census is distributed. Intercept surveys have fallen by the way side for retail and other markets with the introduction of social media profiles and pages that allow the brand’s following to “like” and interact from home with promotions, deals, and the progression of the brand. Phone research seems to be the most rapidly declining form of traditional research. Culturally, people use their home phones less in the wake of the cell phone/ smart phone wave in which almost all of America has a mobile phone they predominantly use. Many households have even severed their landline completely and function solely off of cellular phones. While the shift in calling is now heading towards reaching audience members on their mobile phones, those being sought out are less prone to partake in a phone survey/questionnaire on their cell phone because it usually means they are at the office, out in the field, in the car, on the run, or otherwise busy. These research methods will probably always be present in one form or another in the consumer culture, and the evolution of each kind will continue to ebb and flow with the presence of new technologies and other advancements in the future.

Why a good internship reference can help you land a career start

In today’s tough economic times recent college graduates are finding it extremely difficult to find employment after graduation. Due to this current situation many current and soon to be graduates are looking for internships to help propel them into the job market. With the use of an internship it offers students to gain experience and valuable job training for the possible career of their choice.  Achieving a good internship will not only help jumpstart your career but also help you understand the job world and how it works. With a good internship come numerous opportunities that would not be available to you just by trying to tackle the job-hunting process alone. With an internship you make numerous contacts and are placed in an environment where you can learn the tricks of the trade of which you are interested and know how to apply them in a real world setting. Getting a good reference from an internship will automatically put you a step in front of other job hunters.

 

Trends in Online Research

Trends in online research include the introduction of social media as a research vehicle. The traditional online surveys are still prominent, as well as research based on a user’s searches, hits, clicks, etc. on particular categories of websites. These tools are fairly effortless for the user, and many of the research seeks out the taker where they are on the web. Email based surveys are being viewed more and more as “spam” and as unwanted contact from companies/organizations. The prominence of email based surveys is sensible because there are many sites that allow for easy setup, distribution, and analysis of a survey. Surveymonkey.com, Keysurvey.com, and many others are setup to facilitate ease of email based surveys. Ease and availability does not a successful survey make, and so the progression is leaning toward a more accessible, less intrusive questionnaire that takers feel like they are seeking out and finding, rather than the other way around.

Company Culture

Company culture is a major factor when searching for a new job and is something that job seekers should take seriously. Most job seekers are strictly focused on getting a job as quickly as possible and overlooking the actual job quality. Company culture provides information such as: working conditions, hours of work, dress attire, and competitiveness within the workplace. These factors are important to uncover early on by asking questions during the interview.

While interviewing for new jobs it is often hard to figure out company culture from just walking through the office and talking with one person, so it is important to be a keen observer and take mental notes of the office and its environment. Look at what people are wearing, how they are communicating with each other, and try to get an overall sense of the atmosphere within the office. During the interview try to always ask questions to gather a better understanding of a particular company and their culture.  These questions should include:

1.)   What three words would you use to describe your company’s culture?

2.)   If you were to offer public tours of your company what/where would the tour guide stop at?

3.)   If the local paper were going to run a four-page article about your company’s culture, what would be impossible not to include?

4.) What’s the best part about working in this environment that I won’t be able to see from just a walk around the office?

5.) What are the most common complaint employees make about your company culture?

6.) May I speak with a few of your veteran employees or new hires?

7.)   What do you love best about the culture here?

Click here for more information (http://www.theladders.com/career-advice/7-interview-questions-uncover-corporate-culture)

With the use of questions like these and being observant during your interview one can find clues to uncover the culture of a particular company. By discovering the company culture a person can make a more informed and educated decision on whether one would be a good fit within a specific company.

Ginsberg, S. “7 Interview Questions to Uncover Company Culture.” thelatters.com.  np,

nd, 16 Nov. 2009. Web. 9 November 2010.

What Job Seekers Should do in a Tough Unemployment Economy

Due to the recent record-breaking recession, job seekers are finding it nearly impossible to attain employment. While the frustration from new college graduates and current professionals who have lost their jobs rises, job opportunities seem to be dwindling. According to sources there is hope for the job hunter. Stay positive and to be sure to be patient are the two main objectives when starting the job hunt. It isn’t that there aren’t any jobs to be had, it is just that more and more people are now in the market for a new job. Job researches are stating that a job seeker must implement new tactics and alter their way of thinking in their approach towards finding a new job. These tactics include:

1.)  Treat job-hunts like a job. Keep notes of where you have applied and whom you have talked to. Organization will help you find a job in today’s economy.

2.)  Call your past employers, co-workers and friends and ask for job tips and leads. Do not be afraid to ask them if they would share your resume with people they know or give you names of people you can contact. Sign up for linkdin and see if any of your contacts are on there.

3.)  Contact your alumni association if you attended college for resources.

4.)  Set goals. Each week apply for X amount of jobs. Call X amount of people. Contact business etc. With patience and persistence you can get a job in today’s economy.
Read more: How to Find a Job in Todays Economy | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4526418_job-todays-economy.html#ixzz14ocEJy6x

Creative Methods to Land a Career in a Phase of High Unemployment

Finding work in a struggling economy is the main problem many recently unemployed professionals along with current college graduates are facing. With the odds against them, it is safe to say that in this tough economic time employers are looking for more experience than anything else.

 

A huge obstacle is one can’t get experience without work and one can’t get work without experience. It seems that people are looking to more creative ways to land employment. By implementing some new ideas into the normal job finding processes one may be surprised that with a little creativity there may be jobs to have. Here are some basic key principles to consider while on the job hunt:

1.)  Stay in contact with the employers who liked you but opted for the more experienced candidate

2.)  Practice interviewing

3.)  Consider the interview only the first step and be sure to always follow up with either a phone call, thank you card, or email

4.)  Send a David Letterman-style top 10 list of why you should be picked for an interview

5.)  Show them your potential

6.)  Come to an interview prepared with “tangible” ideas (i.e. researching clients, previous awards, and possible places for improvement that you can improve

For more information click here

http://www.examiner.com/entry-level-careers-in-national/creative-ways-to-land-entry-level-jobs

These six steps can help greatly improve your interview experience, not only for you but for the interviewer as well. Just remember that this list is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to interviewing. Step outside of the box and implement different tactics that will cause you to be not only remembered but a necessity for the company.

Huhman, H.  “Creative Ways to Land Entry-Level Jobs.” examiner.com. 25 Sept. 2008.

Web. 9 November 2010.

Researching Sandwiches

 

TRENDS

SANDWICHES ARE A STAPLE AMERICAN CUISINE THAT HAVE TAKEN ON MANY LIFEFORMS AND HAVE VARIETIES REPRESENTATIVE OF ALMOST ANY CULTURE ONE COULD IMAGINE. THE SEVEN MAIN PROFILES THAT ENCOMPASS MOST CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE SANDWICH GENUS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

THE “FINE, FAST” SANDWICH SHOP

THE ASIAN SANDWICH INVASION

THE REINVENTED JEWISH DELI

GLAMOROUS GRILLED CHEESE

THE GREAT SANDWICH SHOP TAKEOVER

PULLED PORK SANDWICH

BETTER BURGERS

THESE SANDWICHES ILLUSTRATE THE DEFINITION AND CREATIVITY THAT A SANDWICH MUST POSSESS TO DISTINGUISH ITSELF FROM THE COMPETITION AND BE MORE THAN JUST ANOTHER TOWER OF BREAD. INNOVATION FOR ALL THE INGREDIENTS- THE BREAD, THE FILLING, AND THE CONDIMENTS, ARE THE TOOLS WITH WHICH THE CULINARY SANDWICH WILL CONTINUE ITS VAST AND DELICIOUS REIN ON U.S. CULINARY TRENDS.

Rewards Card Research

Facts and figures

The average consumer makes 76.7 payments in a given month. Credit cards makeup 52.9% of consumers’ monthly payments. More than half (65.6%) of U.S. consumer payments are made in the retail field. Through the growth of credit cards and rewards based incentives from those cards, a population of 76.2% of credit card holders have evolved to also possess one or more cards with some sort of reward, benefit, or incentive. Offerings from cards to their holders include travel rewards, cash back, point based rewards, etc. The competition to bring card holders to a given company’s card/reward program has created a multitude of different kinds of rewards offered to establish these companies as unique and best suited to the customer.

 

Trends

The trend for consumers to purchase with credit is decreasing as card holders are spending less using their plastic. The move towards cash based financing in this time of recession has illustrated cash back rewards as top of the food chain for consumers. Along with cash rewards, travel rewards are still alive and relevant in the consumer payback field. The base concept of travel rewards entices consumers. As we live in a mobile world, the introduction of co-branding among card companies and airlines has better bridged the gap to get card holders to actually utilize their travel rewards with the specific partner companies. Co-branding has worked for a variety of different companies that come together to offer consumers of common interests dual benefits on their purchases and card usages. Individual consumers are not the only ones benefiting from the incentives that come from card companies. Small businesses are now being included in the reward and benefit era of being card holders. The inclusion of diverse consumer categories has helped stabilize card companies’ stakes in consumers’ minds. The industry is searching for the 21+ years of age, employed, post college “yuppies” who are transitioning from their bank run debit card, to holding monthly payment credit cards.

Implications

Implications for the credit card industry and their card holding consumers are becoming rooted in co-branding. The joint ventures of companies is a form of natural selection among companies, and is helping (or maybe hurting!) by pushing out the weaker companies from such beneficial, big name partnerships. The focus of these rewards and of companies becoming involved with co-branding with a credit card company is gaining a retail market focus. The entity of rewards based credit cards is strong and growing, and is supposed to reach figures around 80% of all credit cards being reward based by 2013.

Social Profile

A social profile can help a research entity obtain a gauge on how an audience sees them. The most readily available example would be a Facebook profile or business page. Since Facebook is set up with protective guidelines for businesses that wish to have profiles, navigating this site to become effective is a little trickier. A social profile would be more of an idea than a tangible thing on Facebook. Only individuals can have profiles, and businesses or corporate entities must create a Page that somewhat limits the interactions with individuals on the site. However, if a business page can successfully gather a following (either through Twitter tweets or people who “like” its page), then the company can reach out and touch its consumers with updates, deals and coupons, events, and other promotional endeavors.

Blogs

Using blogs for research is easy to do, and in this new social media world it is a highly effective sampling of a given audience. Conducting research using a blog is a quick and efficient way to export questions and receive answers. This form of primary research is perfect for opinion surveys and gauging an audience’s attitude on a particular subject easily and efficiently. One must carefully select which blog site he or she uses to conduct research. With such a wide variety of blogospheres, some blogs have previously segmented audiences that could hinder research on a specific topic. Be sure to use a blog geared toward the topic of research one is conducting, or situate the research in a general, broad blog- such as WordPress, that won’t down size an audience before they receive the research message.