Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: July 2009

On August 25, 2009

Two More Killer Tips for Effective E-mail

E-mail is the bane of my existence; since I spend at least 60 percent of my day sending e-mail, that leaves only about a quarter of my day -- factoring out lunch and other distractions -- to actually accomplish something related to my job description of "writer." That's why I'm always on the lookout for e-mail efficiency tips, and today I have a few more to pass along. Specifically, PC World has a trio of e-mail tips for you: Turn off your computer's new message notification. That's a great tip, and one I've done for years. Specifically, I mute my computer's audio entirely. Not only am I not constantly reacting to the mail ding like Pavlov's cybernetic pooch, but it...
On August 25, 2009

What Should RadioShack Do With All its “Shacks?”

Why write about RadioShack, a throwback to the age of ham radios? Well, after nearly 90 years in business, for the past decade the company has been "stuck." And aside from rebranding the company as "The Shack," I'm not sure CEO Julian C. Day - the man who saved Kmart - knows how to get it unstuck.
On August 25, 2009

Energy Companies Continue to Boost Lobbying In 2009

Renewable energy and emissions may have faded somewhat from the national stage to make room for healthcare, but that isn't stopping energy companies from keeping up intense pressure on congress and Senate. Quarterly disclosure reports coming out now show a wave of spending in the oil industry. Chevron, as we just mentioned in our latest roundup, doubled year-over-year to $6 million, and ConocoPhillips also roughly doubled to $3.3 million dollars. Much of the oil industry spend is showing up in the efforts of the American Petroleum Institute to change the Waxman-Markey bill, including a study it just released yesterday which claims that American refining activities could fall 25 percent by 2030, hurting the economy. The electricity generation industry is also...
On August 25, 2009

How to Spot Problems in Your Company — Before It’s Too Late

Last week, I interviewed Bryant University professor Michael Roberto about some of the reasons why managers can be blind to burgeoning problems in their organizations. This week, I'll share some of his tips for finding such problems while they're still small enough to fix. These are but a few of the problem-finding methods Roberto discusses in his book Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen. 1. Become an anthropologist: Sometimes it's not enough to ask customers for product feedback; you have to observe them using your products in their natural settings. One company that has effectively used this strategy to find problems is Kimberly-Clark, makers of Huggies. Roberto says they observed "parents on the go changing...
On August 25, 2009

Phishing Sites Threaten Online Commerce

Many of us older citizens remember when ATMs were first introduced. We were glad to take money out of the machine but reluctant to make a deposit to anything other than flesh and blood. Similarly, pioneers of online commerce had to overcome fears by many consumers about sending credit card or bank info over the Internet. In both cases, we came to learn through experience and trust that this stuff actually works with minimal risk. Today that trust is again under attack by the growing number of sophisticated phishing schemes, warns Tyler Moore, a postdoctoral fellow doing research on Internet crime at Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society. “I think if we don’t have trust and are second-guessing...
On August 25, 2009

QUIZ: Can This Sales Call Be Saved?

What can you do when a sales call goes bad?  O'm not talking about the typical blip in the sales cycle. I'm talking about a disaster that makes you cringe when you think about it, even years later. Here are five classic real-life sales call disasters. Read the short description and then vote on whether it's possible to save the sales call and move the sale forward.  Then click to find out the correct answer. Click here to view the first disaster » DISASTER: “I started chatting with the prospect about television comedies.  I said, ‘it’s amazing Drew Carey can be so popular given that he’s so ugly.’  Then I noticed that the customer looked exactly like Drew Carey.” [poll...
On August 25, 2009

Top Tips to Avoid Vacation Re-Entry Shock

Vacations are surely great, but when you have a busy job to come back to, they can also be stressful. So this week on the Huffington Post author Nicole Williams is offering her top tips for making sure your summer get-away, and your return, are stress free.
On August 25, 2009

SpinVox: From Spinning to Death Spiraling?

The bad press continues for SpinVox. It's gone from allegations that the company's services were more hand-crafted than automated to questions about alleged widening financial losses and its burn rate of capital.
On August 25, 2009

Three Ways to Find Free Wi-Fi

Sometimes it seems like you can never find any Internets when you need them. If you're out of the office, though, and you need to get connected, here are a few handy suggestions for how to find some free Wi-Fi. 1. The Usual Suspects. You stand a good chance of finding free Wi-Fi at local libraries, coffee shops, and bookstores, and hotel lobbies. Even if the hotel charges for connectivity in-room, you can often get a free wireless signal in the common areas. 2. Use a Wi-Fi scanner. Sometimes called war-driving, you can find open Wi-Fi networks by moving around with an appropriate Wi-Fi scanner. If you have an iPhone, Palm Pre, or some other phone with Wi-Fi, you can...
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