When you sit at a desk all day, you’re inviting a variety of health issues. Staying in one position for too long puts constant pressure on individual parts of the body. A sense of discomfort kicks in, and muscle tension increases. You can also damage your blood circulation and decrease metabolism and energy levels—especially after one of those 3 p.m. “cake day” celebrations. Sports scientist Jack Groppel, working with Wellness & Prevention, has overseen research involving the incorporation of regular movement into the routines of employees, with participants indicating positive results. More than one-third, for example, reported high energy levels in the middle of the day. Overall, workers say they also increased engagement and focus. With this in mind, Groppel and other experts suggest these 10 ways to get moving during the day. Johnson & Johnson launched Wellness & Prevention to encourage a healthier and more productive workforce.
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05
Nov 12
How to Harness Your Brain’s Secret Efficiency | Entrepreneur.com
Do you answer emails while on a conference call, or make your to-do list while in a business meeting? You may think multi-tasking is the obvious answer to a jam-packed schedule, but Wellesley, Mass.-based business and wellness coach Margaret Moore, co-author of Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life (Harlequin, 2011), says juggling multiple tasks places stress on the brain and negatively effects your job performance.
“Our brains were designed to focus all of its resources on one task at a time, be it a work project or a personal conversation,” says Moore. Rapidly shifting from a conference call to an email to a meeting means these tasks only get a part of the brain’s resources, and can result in sloppy work, making you feel dissatisfied with your accomplishments at the end of the day. “[When we focus on a singular task], our memory works well, we make fewer mistakes and we’re creative — even brilliant from time to time,” says Moore. Using the brain’s organizational software in the way it was designed can help you to feel more focused and productive.
She offers these tips to tap into your brain’s organizational efficiency:
1. Start your day with mind-calming activities. Just as a runner stretches their muscles before a race, your brain needs to warm up as well. Moore suggests engaging in activities that bring your mind to a sense of calm, whether that’s exercise, deep breathing exercises, listening to music, or just letting your mind wander by doing a crossword puzzle or reading the newspaper while you drink your morning coffee.
2. Schedule “do not disturb” time. Schedule focus periods throughout your day at the times when you’re most creative and strategic. Sustain your attention during those times, focusing all of your energy on the task at hand until you’re ready to move on to the next. Avoid checking your email while you’re working on a task and switch your phone to voicemail to avoid disturbances.
via How to Harness Your Brain's Secret Efficiency | Entrepreneur.com
02
Nov 12
Why Private Equity Is Not All Bad | Inc. 5000
Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has turned a negative spotlight on private equity. But PE is a much needed solution to a void in the marketplace.
Imagine starting a business, growing it successfully over 5, 10, 15 years, and then reaching the stage where you need a partner to provide capital and help the company continue to grow. You might want to get some well-earned liquidity yet still retain some equity in the business to stay invested in the future. Debt financing may not be practical for you, as banks often require personal guarantees from entrepreneurs. This common scenario is where private equity can play a vital role.
Private equity brings a huge amount of capital to businesses that otherwise might not have the resources to grow, or to a marketplace that otherwise might not be able to fulfill the objectives of shareholders. Businesses, whether distressed or growing, often reach an inflection point where additional capital can serve a crucial need to either save the business or take it to the next level.
01
Nov 12
Inc. – How a Marathon Business Keeps Its Customers Happy | Inc.com
Want to own your industry? Don’t think vertical integration; think participant continuum.
Participant what? I know, that’s what I thought. But stick with me–this is a cool business strategy.
Here’s another in my series in which I pick a topic and connect with someone a lot smarter than me. (Check out some previous installments at the end of the article.)
This time I talked to Scott Dickey, the CEO of Competitor Group, a privately-held sports marketing and management group that owns and operates running, cycling, and triathlon events (including the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon series) and magazines like Triathlete, VeloNews and Competitor. (Disclosure: I subscribe to VeloNews.)
From the outside looking in, you’ve created “synergy” (dislike the word but in this case it fits) between your various lines of business.
The events and the magazines/websites definitely feed off each other. We look at it as an ecosystem. We’re in the business of participant-based sports, not fan-based, so we see it as a participant continuum.
More of the Inc.com post from Jeff Haden
30
Oct 12
Marketing Technology Blog – Why Isn’t Your Sales Rep on Social?
At a recent conference, we found one of our clients skillfully networking and working the room. They were doing a fantastic job and garnering some good leads despite a luke warm attendee list at the conference. When Marty spoke with them, he noticed that they didn’t have any social information for him to connect with the sales people online. After returning, he wrote the business to let them know and they were honest and said their sales team wasn’t really that social.
You have to be kidding me.
While LinkedIn may seem like a chore, Facebook may seem like it’s for college kids and even the word tweeting may sound ridiculous, these are the biggest online conferences that you can find. There are billions of people online with hundreds looking for your products and services on any given day, asking about your company, and willing to engage online more than they would offline.
Industry groups on LinkedIn, Industry pages on Facebook, Tweetups, live Twitter sessions and hashtags on Twitter offer an incredible opportunity for your sales team to network, build credibility, and find prospects online. Why in the world you would spend thousands of dollars to build a booth and send your sales team to a conference… but ignore social media? That’s just plain nuts nowadays. Nuts.
Why Isn't Your Sales Rep on Social? | Marketing Technology Blog.
10
Oct 12
Afterlife exists says top brain surgeon – Telegraph
Dr Eben Alexander, a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, fell into a coma for seven days in 2008 after contracting meningitis.
During his illness Dr Alexander says that the part of his brain which controls human thought and emotion “shut down” and that he then experienced “something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.” In an essay for American magazine Newsweek, which he wrote to promote his book Proof of Heaven, Dr Alexander says he was met by a beautiful blue-eyed woman in a “place of clouds, big fluffy pink-white ones” and “shimmering beings”.
He continues: “Birds? Angels? These words registered later, when I was writing down my recollections. But neither of these words do justice to the beings themselves, which were quite simply different from anything I have known on this planet. They were more advanced. Higher forms.” The doctor adds that a “huge and booming like a glorious chant, came down from above, and I wondered if the winged beings were producing it. the sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn’t get you wet.”
09
Aug 12
Why a Valuation Is Less Important Than You Think – Inc.com
Take a picture of your iPad. Then, drop your iPad off a 20-story building. Now, take another picture. That “before” picture doesn’t say much about the current value of your iPad.
Essentially, this is the problem with business valuations.
A business valuation is a detailed financial analysis that gives you an estimated range of what your company is worth. There are plenty of business appraisers out there. The reputable ones will be certified by the ASA (American Society of Appraisers), the NACVA (National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts), or a similar organization. They’re not cheap. A professional valuation can set you back anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000.
via Why a Valuation Is Less Important Than You Think – Inc.com
07
Aug 12
Gizmodo – Toilet Paper: A Brief and Sometimes Painful History
Seinfeld excelled at criticism of the everyday. A few months ago, in a fine essay in the NY Times, Sam Anderson suggested that Roland Barthes was the father of pop cultural criticism and that we are all now cultural critics in the Barthian vein, “decoding everything.” Perhaps. But if Barthes gave us serious criticism of popular culture, Seinfeld taught us to be ironic critics of the utterly mundane. Case in point: toilet paper.
via Gizmodo-Toilet Paper: A Brief and Sometimes Painful History
01
Aug 12
Entrepreneur.com – How to Train Your Creative Mind
As Louis Pasteur once famously said, “Chance favors only the prepared mind.” To be an innovative entrepreneur, you want to foster creativity in your daily life so that your mind is ready when opportunity arises.
“Creative ideas often come from unusual combinations,” explains Steven Smith, professor of cognitive psychology at Texas A&M University. “The best solution is not going to be the thing everyone thinks of. It’s going to be something unusual.”
These unusual combinations, called “remote associations,” are related ideas that may seem unrelated at first glance. They are the essence of creative thinking.
To cultivate creativity, you want to increase your chances of stumbling on an unexpected link. Here are four strategies you can use in your everyday life that will train your mind to be more creative in business:
1. Shake up your routine. To expand your creative horizons, surround yourself with a broad range of perspectives and experiences. A diverse workplace is helpful, but it isn’t enough. Outside work, seek variety in what you eat, where you hang out, the types of art you look at, the places you travel, or the books you read.
30
Jul 12
GigaOM – News flash: company boards are starting to ‘get’ IT — Cloud Computing News
Techies know how important IT is to a company’s success — what IT pro would ever say that IT doesn’t matter? But new research indicates that the boards of directors that are supposed to guide corporate strategies, are starting to get that message as well.
A survey of 175 board members by Gartner and Forbes found that improving IT was rated as important as boosting sales in terms of overall priorities.
This is particularly interesting since directors are not a particularly tech-savvy bunch — only 16 percent of directors have any background in IT, according to Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst Jorge Lopez.
The takeaway for IT professionals is that they must paint the IT investments they want to make in business terms that the board understands, for example showing how these improvements can cut costs, streamline the supply chain and/or improve the product mix. (In related news, The Technology Business Management Counsil released a publication Monday that talks up the need for CIOs to run IT as a business.)
GigaOM – News flash: company boards are starting to ‘get’ IT — Cloud Computing News
