30 Haziran 2008 Pazartesi

Some Bizare Jobs... (lets apply one :p )



Are these jobs crazy, or are the people writing the ads crazy? You decide:

1.I Need a Tiger Strong Office Manager
No whimps need apply. If you really want to work, take charge and care about your job and the company that you work, I need to talk with you.

Well established printing & sign company is seeking highly motivated office manager. This position is for long term employment.
Duties:
Customer service
Invoicing
Accts Payable/Receivable
Light payroll
Ordering, receiving and inventory of supplies
Day to day operation of busy office
We offer great working conditions, pay and benefits

To apply for this position you must submit:
1. Current resume
2. Non family references
3. Current photo
4. Education background
5. Provide proof of competency with Quickbooks Pro
Candidates must wear a sleeveless flannel shirt while wrestling Quickbooks. Business owner will break a custom-printed sign over your head to ensure your pansy ass is tough enough for the job. If you don’t like the job, stop your whining. We have your photograph.

2.Immediate Position @ Family Dollar!!
Assistant Manager 35-40hrs wk
Job Requirements:
Stong mathematics
Loves to organize the unorganized
Great time management(Habit of timing self)

Sounds Like You?? GREAT!! I also have other positions available but I’m only allowed to post one at a time. Since this is coming out of my own pocket please try your luck!!! I look forward to hearing from Mr./Mrs right… Right now!!!
You’ll work directly under ME!! LUCKY you!! I will make sure you time yourself and receive receipts. When something is unmopped, you will mop!!! You will do mathematics!!! Perhaps we will do it together!!

3.Career Testing for Government Jobs and Homeland Security
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has found that by the year 2010 there will be more than a 33% increase in the demand for Security Agents. Please, come by and see us this week - Athens Limited only by your self communication & certain qualifications.
Daily problems escalate causing security needs to rise: : ENVIRONMENT-US: Global Warming Is Biggest Security Threat: Global climate change, if left unaddressed, is likely to pose. (ipsnews)
Communicate well with yourself, and we may hire you to fend off belligerent heat waves and shoot into tornadoes.

4.Hotel Visitor
Seeking detail oriented individuals in the montana area to visit hotels and report onsuch areas as customer service, check in/out, valet, room service, pools/spa, etc…Potential to earn $500.
You mean I could get paid to poach hot tubs? Sign me up!

5.High Commission-Based Sales in Alternative Industry!
Global Mycologicals and Mondo Mycologicals
Mycological research and development, mainstream and alternative product (smart) industries, and subsequent marketing of product lines.
MycoMate® brand mushroom cultivation supplies and SporeMate® brand spores
Mushrooms and truffles
Enthnobotanicals
Other products
Job Description: Expanding company is seeking highly motivated candidates for outside sales. This position is commission based and potentially quite lucrative. Candidates will be responsible for establishing wholesale business accounts and reporting directly to the president.

Please note that our office happy hours last about eight hours and usually take place in an IMAX theater.

6.Researcher Needed for True Crime Book
I am looking for current and historical newspaper articles and psychology/criminal justice articles that involve identifical twins, one which have either attempted to murder, or murdered, his or her identical sibling. I am really trying to understand how the emotional connection between identical twins gets twisted and results in disaster. Research candidate must have experience with internet and library databases and be able to translate research findings.

Benefits include paranoid nightmares involving twins and shattering disillusionment with humanity.

7.Sign Wavers Wanted!
Saturdays and Sundays. 5 hours per day, 11am to 4pm. Reliable and Courteous individuals wanted to hold/wave an arrow to direct traffic to new home subdivisions.
Listen to music while you work.
No experience necessary, only a great attitude and lots of energy. Good pay for good people.
What does sign waving have to do with being a good and courteous person? You could be a felon and still listen to music and wave a sign.

8.Stealth Startup Needs First Engineer
Are you willing to take the plunge, leave your current job and become our first engineer? Are you stuck in the wrong environment, waiting for an opportunity to ‘do’ a startup? Are you ready to start immediately (i.e. give your two-week notice on Friday 27th)

We are an innovative US-based startup in the educational space (middle-school math). We are geographically spread with team members in Boston, Singapore and Silicon Valley. We are still in stealth mode so we can’t say much more for now, but we can tell you that:
• We have already completed our first round of funding (VC money, not friends/family/credit cards)
• We are funded through the end of 2008
• We think our idea could change the way the world learns

At a minimum you’ll need:
• BS in Computer Science, Math, Physics, Engineering or similar
• 2-4 years experience in software development
• Ability to live on sugar and caffeine for extended periods of time.
• A really good understanding of what it will mean to your life (i.e. your wife, your kids, your social life) to do a startup

We have six months to make this work. If we fail, we’re all going home…….As such, you might want to consider that this is really a contract role for six months, with an option to extend, if we raise a second round of capital.

So you want to do this startup? This startup will clearly “do” you in return…

Happy work week for everyone!

29 Haziran 2008 Pazar

Business Plan

Seth Starts With A Classified

I am always on the lookout for gems of information and here is one I found today on Seth Godins blog:


Seth Starts With A Classified
He basically says that when you go to write a blog post, an article, or an Ad that you start by writing a classified Ad. That way you make sure that you get your message across as you intend. Simple really :-)

So no there is no excuse for writing your blog posts and articles as they will be short - well maybe one or two :-)

The Key Elements Of A Good Niche Adsense Website

Adsense is big business and there are now probably more Adsense websites than their are ants on planet earth! So how do you ensure that your niche websites stand out in this crowded market? And is it really possible to make decent money with Adsense?

In order to explore and answer these questions this article looks at the four elements of a great money earning Google Adsense website:

The First Element - A Unique Website Design
The first element of a great adsense website is a unique design. There are so many mass market templates in use today that most adsense sites tend to look the same. So an easy way to stand out is to have a simple and unique design that gives focus to the content and ads on the site. This way your site won’t look like it has been designed just to display ads. And the good news is that having a unique design is not at all hard to achieve - see niche websites for details.

The Second Element - Unique Content
Google is getting better and better at spotting duplicate and spam content but many people still fall into the duplicate and spam content trap and they use content spinners to generate their sites. This is another fantastic opportunity for your site
to stand out by providing good quality unique content that is not available anywhere else. Visitors can easily see if a site is a spam one or a genuine site that is ocussed on providing good quality content.

The Third Element - Correct Ad Placement
Ad placement is important in order to attract clicks. Many websites place ads in as any places as possible in the false belief that quantity wins over quality. The reality is that a few strategically placed ads will produce a greater return than a page plastered with wall to wall ads.

The Fouth Element - Adding Value
This is really a binding together of your unique website design, unique content and elevant ad placement to produce a website that adds value to the personal or business lives of its visitors. The key is to focus your website on one theme and ensure that he content is relevant and informative. It may take a little longer to produce an dsense website using the four pillar approach but your patience will be rewarded with a great website and happy visitors who will click your relevant ads and earn you the money you deserve.

28 Haziran 2008 Cumartesi

Top 100's Ad-Spend Growth Grinds to Halt

LNA Report: Budgets Eke Out 1.7% Rise; P&G Breaks the $5B Barrier
By Bradley Johnson

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- The Top 100 U.S. advertisers last year increased ad spending by just 1.7%, while measured media spending rose a negligible 0.3% for major marketers -- the most sluggish growth since the 2001 recession.

And while estimated spending in unmeasured disciplines -- largely marketing services such as promotion and direct marketing -- did better, it still increased only 3.6%, well below the typical growth seen in recent years.


The 100 Leading National Advertisers report details overall ad spending as well as spending by medium and brand. Ad Age's new Marketer Trees 2008 database offers profiles of the top 100, listing agency assignments, executives, spending and brands.

Notwithstanding Procter & Gamble Co., which hit a milestone by becoming the first advertiser to break the $5 billion mark on U.S. spending, the point to take away from Ad Age's 100 Leading National Advertisers report is clear: Big marketers, facing a weakening economy and pressure to control costs, clamped down on spending. In fact, ad spending for these top-tier marketers collectively failed to keep pace in 2007 with real gross domestic product (up 2.2%) or with inflation (up 2.8%).

The trend also shows a continued shift away from media measured by ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence -- such as print and TV -- which accounted for 58.1% of top marketers' U.S. ad spending, down from 58.9% in 2006, according to the report, which is Ad Age's 53rd annual.

The rest of spending came from unmeasured disciplines, primarily marketing services such as direct marketing, promotion and digital communications (including unmeasured forms of internet media such as paid search).

Unmeasured also vulnerable
But while marketers continued to migrate toward unmeasured disciplines, last year's slow growth shows that unmeasured fields aren't immune from advertisers' efforts to tighten spending.

Internet proved a bright spot. Measured spending on internet display advertising last year surged 33% for the 100 LNA, according to Ad Age DataCenter's analysis of data from TNS Media Intelligence. Web display ads -- banner ads and the like -- accounted for 6.8% of LNA measured spending in 2007, up from 5.1% in 2006 (and more than double 2003's 3%).

Internet gains, however, couldn't make up for some big losses in old media. The biggest loser: newspapers, where the LNA slashed measured spending 8.5%. The top 100 also trimmed TV spending 1.2%, according to Ad Age's analysis of TNS data.

Put another way, these top-tier marketers increased measured internet spending by $1 billion; slashed newspaper spending by $674 million; and cut TV budgets by $406 million.

The top 100 advertisers last year accounted for 41% of U.S. measured-media advertising. Their share varies by medium: The companies placed 71% of broadcast-network TV advertising and half of cable-network ads but only 37% of internet display advertising.

Mostly increases
In all, 58 of the 100 LNA companies boosted combined measured and unmeasured U.S. ad spending in 2007.


Source: Ad Age DataCenter analysis of TNS Media Intelligence data
The top advertiser: P&G, which increased U.S. spending by 7.1% to a record-breaking $5.2 billion, according to Ad Age estimates. That makes P&G the first marketer to spend more than $5 billion a year on U.S. advertising. P&G has ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in 51 of the 53 years Ad Age has published the LNA report.



General Motor Corp.'s estimated U.S. ad spending plunged 8.7% to $3 billion, moving GM down a step to No. 4 in the LNA ranking. GM was the largest spender as recently as 2004.

GM had a lot of company in cutting ads: Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai all reduced U.S. advertising, according to Ad Age's analysis.

Overall automotive spending slumped 6.4% to $18.5 billion (as car and light-truck sales fell 2.5%). That moved the auto category down a notch: Automotive is now the second-largest ad category, behind retail ($18.7 billion).

Telecom questions
The telecom category is a distant No. 3 ($10.9 billion) -- but home to the nation's three most-advertised consumer brands: AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

Every year since 2001, either AT&T or Verizon has been the biggest-spending brand.

The U.S. telecom market is maturing, and the main wave of industry consolidation and rebranding campaigns is complete. That raises questions about whether the cacophony of wireless and other telecom advertising will continue at its current level.

But AT&T and Verizon are the only $2 billion U.S. ad brands, with measured spending nearly double that of the third-most-advertised brand. Even if they turn down the volume, those two megaphones are likely to remain the two biggest megabrands.

10 Tips from Kare Anderson

1. Know your best and worst sides.
You'll be able to demonstrate your best talents and temperament more often when you recognize them - and the flip side, your weaknesses, which are often your blind spots where you self-sabotage. Only with this knowledge can you recognize the people and situations that bring out the best and worst in you. Only then will yoube able to seek out the situations and people where your best sides shine and avoid the opposite.

2. Bring out their best side.

In each situation, whether with a stranger, someone you know intimately or someone in between, first bring out that person's better side (temperament) or encourage her to demonstrate or discuss her best talent. Then she naturally sees and supports your
best side. You are off to a good footing to reinforce each other's best talents and temperament to become happier, higher-performing together.

3. Be their trusted, most remembered expert.
Speak English like it tastes good. Give verbal snapshots that penetrate the mind and the gut in an instant then linger, leaving a bright after image. When seeking to persuade or be frequently-quoted be the most specific, vivid and authentic describer of the options in a situation. Provide what-if scenarios, with possible near-term consequences to your listener(s) where your approach either avoids a negative consequence and/or leads to a positive outcome.

4. Praise what you want to flourish.
Reinforce the behavior you admire and support others' self-confidence around you by praising the specific behavior you value and that benefits that person. Multiply the power of your positive words by sharing your praise with the people who matter to that person. Extra benefit? As you praise those qualities, listeners attribute to you, the very qualities you praise in others.

5. Look to their positive intent, especially when they appear to have one.
When you throw mud you get dirty. When you most want to react with a cutting remark, act kindly. In a less-certain, fast-acting world your biggest gift is kindness in the face of rancor. Even and especially when someone else is acting negatively towards you, praise the part of his current or past behavior that you genuinely respect. It's your best chance of reducing the rancor. Regardless of what he chooses to do, others will observe the sharp contrast between your choice of words and actions and his.

6. Problems seldom exist at the level at which they are expressed.

If you are engaged in an argument that lasts more than ten minutes then you are probably not discussing the deeper, underlying conflict. You are simply hardening your opposing sides. Either ask for a break, suggesting when you would like to re-meet or say you think there is something deeper going on and, in good will, you wish to resolve it.

7. To establish trust, look for the underlying motivation or fear in that person.
We are far more revealing by the questions we ask than the answers we give. To get closer to understanding her strongest motivations, let her take the lead in asking questions. Answer genially, directly but briefly so that she becomes interested in learning more. When she asks a follow-up question, again answer briefly and notice the direction of the questions. By the third, follow-up question, in quick succession you'll have an insight into her underlying concern or wishes - even if she may not be conscious of it herself. Then you have a better chance of alleviating that concern by what you say or do, often without directly addressing it. Notice, as well, where your questions lead, in learning about your own fears and desires.

8. Go slow to go fast.
Whenever you push against someone's opposition or press for an answer or ask for something too quickly, others tend to resist rather than agree, even when it is in their best interests. In an often blunt, multi-tasking world, give people time to ask questions their way. The more actions one takes on behalf of exploring an option the more likely one is to take it, talk about it and even defend it.

9. Gain an invaluable, unlikely and treasured ally.
More than once in your life, you've been the most neglected person in a social or work situation. You know how awkward it feels. When entering a room where a group is gathered, seek out the most ignored person. Give him your full attention. Ask an open-ended question such as, "What's been one of your favorite moments recently?" Listen to learn and support him. Genuinely reinforce his comments, letting him take the lead. If another person approaches to speak with you, ask that person to join you, not moving away. I've provided communication coaching to several pro basketball players who get "swarmed" when entering a room. This has become one of their favorite "plays" because they've made unexpectedly rich friendships, seen new sides in themselves - and made their world larger.

10. Keep a talisman of goodness near you.
A glass prism rests on the window shelf in my study, sending rainbows across the room throughout the day, reminding me there's always a way to nourish, to serve, not sabotage a situation, a relationship. It is my choice to ignore or to look for it.

Next to it is this poem:
Remember the many compartments of the heart, the seed of what is possible. So much of who we are is defined by the places we hold for each other. For it is not our ingenuity that sets us apart, but our capacity for love, the possibility our way will be lit by grace. Our hearts prisms, chiseling out the colors of pure light.

The power of remarkable


When I first wrote about Little Miss Matched about five years ago, they were an obscure little sock company, selling funky socks to fashionable girls.

The idea was beyond clever. 3 to a box, 133 styles, none of them match. Instead of a strategy built around a consultant's vision of 'utility' or a strategy built around cheap or a strategy built around excessive retail distribution and heavy advertising, they built their strategy around one girl saying to another girl, "wanna see my socks?"

I couldn't have invented a better Purple Cow story if I had tried.

The company let me know today that they just did a huge deal with Macys and closed a $17 million funding with the folks who financed Build a Bear's retail rollout. Money isn't the only point, of course, but if that's the way you keep score, that's a long way for a little company to come in five years.

[full disclosure: My feet are sponsored by LMM and I wear their socks every day. I am compensated by the company--they give me 33 free socks a year (not pairs of socks, just 33 socks), worth about $110.]

*Quatation from Seth Godin