Electronics and Cold Weather

As we continue through this very cold and snowy winter, I thought it would be a good time to remind people that Electronics and Cold Weather don’t exactly go well together.

Have you tried using your phone outside recently, does the display update slowly?  Are you 5 steps ahead of the phone?    That is a combination of two issues affecting phones and any electronics with LCD displays and batteries.  Also, have you tried to use your touchscreen smart phone with gloves on?  It doesn’t work.

First as batteries get colder, the produce less electricity.  That’s why in the very cold weather you may go to start your car and the inside lights come on, and engine might turn over slowly once or twice but you can’t get it started.  The batteries provide less electricity so devices are slow or don’t work at all.

The other issue is the LCD display,  the L in LCD is Liquid.  Like any liquid, at cold enough temperatures it can freeze.  What happens before it freezes is the Liquid gets thicker and its slower to change which creates that very slow almost like being in molasses effect on your phone screen.

Even just leaving LCD equipment outside in the cold can cause problems.  Get it cold enough and the LCD begin to freeze and burst the little cells (like a frozen bottle of water will burst sometimes), it will permanently damage your display on your laptop, phone or even that new large screen TV you just bought.  Most TV manufactures warranty coverage are voided if the unit is exposed to temperatures below certain levels.  Sharp & LG both limit warranty coverage on damage if units are exposed to -4 deg F or colder.

Here are a couple of tips on how to deal with your electronics in the cold:

• Keep your phone in an inside warm pocket and out of the cold.  If you can’t keep your entire device warm (like a digital camera, or netbook), then keep the batteries warm and put them in when you need the device.  This is especially important if you are doing outdoor activities like hiking, walking or cross country skiing and might need a phone in case of emergency.
  
• If you are trying to use your phone outside in the cold, there are some speciality made gloves for the purpose that have special finger tips that are removable or have special coating that works on most phones.  Here is a link to some of them:    http://www.topiphoneresource.info/best-iphone-gloves/
  
• If you do leave your LCD equipped electronic device outside in your car accidentally,  do not immediately turn it on.  Bring it into a warm place and slowly warm to room temperature.  This might take several hours.  Better to allow it go to slowly than to rush and have the device damaged!
  
• Don't put your electronic equipment in an oven, microwave or even sit on it (yes, I have seen first hand) to warm it more quickly.   It will assure your equipment will be damaged if not from the cold, from the "warming process!"

For some additional information you can read this article from the Boston.com website.  

Marketing Plans

Marketing Plans just like Disaster Recovery Plans, are an often easily overlooked item that is very important to a business no matter its size.

What is a Marketing Plan?

A Marketing Plan is a detailed strategy and plan on how to market a product, services or entire company/brand.  Marketing Plans typically include SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) analsysis, competitor analysis, consumer/user research, sales stats and other background research. 

The plan is then built including a pricing strategy, what media is going to be used, what tradeshows or events to attend and can include a complete detailed schedule or calendar for each marketing step.

Entrepreneur.com has a good article about the basics of a Marketing Plan:

Today we are all very busy so while it might be a daunting task to create a full Marketing Plan for 2011, one place to start would be a more basic Marketing Calendar.  

What is a Marketing Calendar?

A Marketing Calendar is a listing of important dates and marketing events over the upcoming year.  It can include newsletters schedules, tradeshows and events, seasonal products sales/advertising schedules.  A Marketing Calendar can be as simple as a wall calendar with events written on them to a more sophisticated spreadsheet listing a variety of marketing tasks and activities.

Here is a link to an example of a more detailed Marketing Calendar.

Its never too late to start your Marketing Calendar or Marketing Plan.

What Are We Thinking?

Recently in our Seminar: Building Your “Personal” Brand we discussed the things you do everyday that feed
your mind and make you who you are. The goal was to:

1. Make you aware that you feed your mind everyday . . . all day
2. Demonstrate how much you control this input
3. Get you to direct it in a positive and nurturing direction

A great place to begin is in how you talk to yourself everyday. We talk to ourselves more in one day than anyone else. Positive self-talk can change your attitude and, therefore, change the environment around you. It can be the difference in how people react to you . . . the difference of drawing people to you or driving them away.

Here is a simple, yet very effective exercise to get started that you can do while you drive to work:

1. What do you think about as you drive?
2. What do you listen to?
3. What feeds your mind as you drive?

Become aware, be present and in control of how you start your day. After you have evaluated it, how can you improve it to create a more positive and nurturing environment to start your day?

Do it and let me know if you decide to change anything. Your input is always welcomed.

Social Networking & The Workplace

As promised in the previous blog post, today we will discuss the answers to the questions:

1. Why are 54% banning Social Media in the workplace?
2. Why are ONLY 54% banning Social Media in the workplace?

The list of reasons that follow have been assembled from various sources, direct conversations, and our own experiences here at TSI. Let’s Connect an e-book by Jan Vermeiren and Web Marketing by Stephanie Diamond are two sources that are very informative. So let’s get started.

1. Why are 54% banning Social Media at work?
    (Here are some of the reasons various sources provided.)
     A. Effect productivity, increase mistakes, and jeopardize security.
     B. Clogs the bandwidth other employees are using to conduct legitimate business.
     C. Feeds and leads to Social Media addiction (approximately 14% of users are addicted).
     D. Hackers are 10 times more successful on social networking sites.
     E. 5 million workdays lost per year (WOW!).

The list goes on, but you get the idea. So after reading this, the second question remains . . .

2. Why are only 54% banning Social Media at work?

     A. The #1 answer is moral. People view it as an attack to their freedom, and right or wrong, are           offended or personally insulted.
     B. Leverage . . . the social network value of the employees and their relationships.
     C. Discover what is being said about their business . . . good or bad.
     D. Create communities, welcome participation, and appear more human than an impersonal business.

The choice is difficult. The rewards or failures nebulous. Everyone feels they have rights, but with these rights, remember, comes responsibilities and consequences. Personal responsibility on the one hand is great, but risky. Control and constricting policies on the other hand improve security but at what cost to moral, culture, and discovery of what is being said about your company on the internet.

The question is not should Social Media be happening during business hours,

but rather, who should have access, for what reasons

and what results are expected?

Social Media is a potential business tool for:
     Networking
     Research
     Public Relations
     Brand Defense
     Recruiting
     Instructions
     Selling
     Communications

Learning to live with it could prove to be a profitable and productive choice. All comments and opinions are welcomed and appreciated.

What is Social Media?

So, what is Social Media? If you take a minute to think about it, Social Media encompasses many cyberspace activities we all engage in at various times. Social Media can be a cell phone call or clicking on your favorite YouTube video, exploring websites and podcasts, creating blogs, using instant messaging or text messaging, getting involved on Second Life or participating in the Social Networks of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, etc. etc. Social Media’s reach is global, its influence immeasurable, and its influence as a marketing tool powerful and being disected everyday.

Social Networking (SN) is just one activity that is part of Social Media. Its power and influence as a useful business tool is measured and questioned daily. Recent statistics show:
     54% ban SN at work
     19% allow SN for business only
     16% allow limited personal use
     10% allow full access to SN at work

Two questions come to mind:
     1. Why are 54% banning it?
     2. Why are ONLY 54% banning it?

From various sources, direct conversations and our own experience here at TSI, I will be putting together a list for both questions that will be our topic for the next blog session.

Please feel free to contribute your thoughts and improve the list for either question.

Marketing & Creative Communication

Marketing is a never ending quest of creative communications to get people’s attention and influence them for the benefit of both parties . . .the greater the benefit, the better the response.

We have access to more marketing tools today than we ever had in the past thanks to the internet. That we can communicate is not our issue. How and using what venue as the best method to distribute our particular message, is our question. The best part is we don’t have to pick just one method as the vehicle to distribute our message. Using both Traditional and Social Media we can create a combination of promotions to make our offers and interest people in our products and services in many creative ways.

Over the next few blogs we will explore the use of both Traditional and Social Media tools with ideas and statistics to help you decide what to use. While I worry about the internet abuse or talk of taxing the internet, it is a great tool for information distribution and entertainment and one I hope we don’t allow society to destroy.

I’ll leave you with a thought from the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales . . .

“All societies through the global community are best served by vigorously employing openness and a free exchange of ideas unhampered by fear of negative repercussions or censorship. Only by creating safe environments for the expression of ideas, even occasionally controversial ones, can we hope that the most valuable ideas will rise to the top. A free marketplace of ideas, supported by the internet and social networking tools, is what we are ultimately striving for. And this is achievable, as participants, in this new hyper connected world, act responsibly with personal accountability.”

Your comments, questions, or suggestions for future blog topics are always welcomed.

DID YOU KNOW:   Facebook is expected to announce this week that it has reached 500 million users in its 6 year history. It has become the internet’s biggest information network.

                                                                               - Reading Eagle (Money Section 7-21-10)

A book that inspires you to grow!

Today, June 7, 2010, is the official lauch date of the book "Delivering Happiness" by Tony Hsieh.  Tony writes about his life as first co-founder of LinkExchange that he sold to Microsoft for $265 millon in 1998 and then as the CEO of Zappos that he help grow for 10 years before selling it to Amazon for over $1 billon in 2009. Tony did all this while in his 20's right out of college and with a group of people equally passionate about making the most of their lives creating a happy culture and being successful to everyone's benifit,  not just making money.
I had the opportunity to preview and read a copy of this book early. It was a real treat. I am grateful for the lessons learned and the chance to observe the thought process behind the scenes that took place in Tony's mind as he pieced together 2 successful companies and helped many people reach their potential along the way. It is an inspiring story and the lessons are endless.
I particularly liked a quote by Shunryu Suzuki that to me summed up Tony's unique way of doing things....Be humble: " In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few."
I think we all  can learn something from reading and putting into practice some of Tony's thoughts and lessons. Enjoy!