This is a guest post by Oscar Del Ben. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here. I've just finished writing a list of 100 articles I'd like to publish on my blog at some time. It took me around three hours to get this done but now I have a lot of fresh ideas on paper about what to write. I think everyone who's serious about blogging should do this every once in a while, at least to see what direction his blog is taking regarding content.

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Original Post: Challenge: Write 100 Post Ideas for Your Blog (Today!)

Five reasons to take some time to learn the benefits of social media.

President Obama's speech at the United Nations summit on climate change spent considerable time on the concept of responsibility. Namely, that all countries -- rich and poor, developed and emerging -- are responsible and must share the burden of climate change. It's an interesting shift by a president, who has more recently kept his remarks on climate change focused on the economic benefits of moving to a green economy. Job creation, independence from foreign oil, safeguarding American consumers and promoting U.S. competitiveness are common talking points from the administration. There's good reason the conversation about climate change -- here in the U.S. -- has remained fixed on jobs. It's what Americans care and worry about. And if the Senate hopes to...

This is a post by guest blogger Jonathan I. Ezor.

140: The Twitter Conference is taking place September 22 and 23rd at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles. Presented by The Parnassus Group, this conference differs from another major Twitter conference, Jeff Pulver's 140 Characters Conference (which began in New York and is expanding to London and Tel Aviv as well as Los Angeles over the next few months) in its focus on Twitter as a business medium, instead of the Pulver focus on the significant cultural impact of Twitter. For those who may not have used Twitter, or who may only have heard of it in connection with celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, the idea of Twitter for business, let alone a 2-day conference drawing speakers such as Tony Robbins, Levar Burton, and Dr. Drew Pinsky, might seem unlikely. In fact, Twitter has become a tremendously valuable resource for businesses, and is growing more so by the day.

Twitter's power is in its simplicity: it is essentially a text-only service, where users' posts are limited to 140 characters at a time. Each user generally sees messages (called "tweets") only from those other people whom the user specifically "follows" and vice versa (although all users' tweets also show up on the firehose-like Public Timeline unless they have expressly chosen for them not to). Posting something to Twitter is as simple as typing and clicking, and can be done from a computer, a cellphone (via a text message to 40404 from the user's designated cell number), or a smartphone (there are multiple Twitter programs for all major smartphones, including the Palm Pre, iPhone and BlackBerry). While many users access the service via the Twitter.com Web site, Twitter has enabled 3rd party software to connect directly to the service, which has been the key to business use of Twitter.

Aldi is indeed getting set to settle in Queens, with a plan to deliver its first New York store in 2010. Now, the company only has to settle on a site. Spokesperson Heather Tarczan told Bnet that property selection is ongoing, and that Aldi had not reached a final decision on where it would initiate operations, although it has deals in hand. The major problem is that the company doesn’t want to compromise on real estate. “For the most part, we prefer to own the land versus leasing it or renting it,” she said. But Queens is pretty densely settled. In fact, the borough’s population of over two million tops that of all but a handful of cities in the...

Novartis implanted computer chips into the shoulders of 20 patients taking the blood pressure drug Diovan; the chips sent text messages to their cellphones when it was time to take the next pill. The experiment was designed to improve "compliance." (Lousy compliance is the phenomenon of patients receiving prescriptions but not filling or taking them -- thus costing Big Pharma sales.)

In this article, conversion expert Tim Ash discusses how emotional triggers can improve sales on your landing page. He explores anxiety vs. trust, confusion vs. clarity, and alienation vs. affinity.

Sen. Max Baucus modifies his healthcare reform bill to build support, but who will pay for the liberalized provisions?

Looking at preliminary predictions about the holiday season, the only real conclusion available is that many pundits and prognosticators don’t really want to take the risk of actually making a prediction. It’s a little like when a weather forecaster calls for sun, with a mix of clouds and the possibility of a shower. The forecaster can’t really be wrong, but if you’re the person with the beach gear in hand taking a last weather check before heading to the shore, the experience can be a little infuriating. Retailers looking at the early holiday forecasts might feel some annoyance themselves. After all, they have a last chance to trim their inventories or enhance them as fall flutters in, but they’re not...

In the ever changing landscape of business sales the competition is tougher than ever. Companies who want market share typically look outside their own walls to an acquisition or a joint venture where they can take or merge business into their own. The thing is, customers are more sophisticated than that, and demand more. Just buying the business through acquisition does not guarantee that your customers will stay with you. To meet customer needs businesses need to have an organized and systematic approach to winning the deals and keeping the customer happy. Having a systematic approach that includes a structured sales methodology, quality products and services, attention-grabbing advertising, and reliable customer service helps businesses successfully grab new customers, generate more revenue, and increase market share. As a senior sales manager or C-level executive, the one area that can be impacted immediately is process. Having a structured accountability process in place is not a luxury, but a must have. Design a plan with marketing to target potential new customers and hold your salespeople to pitching according to the plan. Use the information you already have in your customer relationship management (CRM) system to develop your campaign and focus your sales process. The Sales Manager has many competing priorities in their day to day work. However, one of the most important is the need to manage the sales functions and be sure that salespeople are focused on what is expected. The goal of having a system in place is to improve the quality of the targeting, goal setting, and action planning efforts of your salespeople. This enhancement will lead to an increase in the profitability and market share for each individual territory. Though the exact methodology and structure of the sales process may vary depending on the type of company, it should always serve the purpose of growing your market share. An effective sales process and accountability system is the heart of the sales organization. A nonexistent or unstructured sales process will most likely slow down growth. It is possible to do more than just sustain; you can grow and gain market share with the right approach and systems in place.