How to Be Successful in Business

iPhone Development Process Flow

Costco Scores One

My wife cut out all of the needed coupons from this month's Costco's mailer and we ventured to the store. At checkout, she handed the cashier a handful of the coupons for the items we bought and she was surprised he only scanned one of the coupons before throwing all of the others into his trash. She was obviously concerned she wasn't going to get all of her discounts, but he assured her that once he scans one of the monthly coupons, all of the relevent discounts for our purchases would be rewarded on the receipt. And yes it was. Error free with little chance of missing one.

IPhone Scanner

JotNot turns your IPhone into a Document Scanner.

Blellow Promotes Via Kudos

Social networking in the enterprise:

Then you send messages - and ask questions - just like you would in Twitter or Yelp. The questions are actually the coolest part of the system. When you ask a question, everyone can see it and respond. You then thank folks who help you with Kudos and those users ride to the top of the heap in the system, thereby allowing potential employers to find the local experts in particular topics.

Think Message Flow Not Platform

From Michael Daconta:

The lesson here is that message flows are the linchpin to distributed, real-time information sharing systems. Focusing on the flows is how you succeed. Focusing on the ability to rapidly create the flows lowers the entry barrier for participants who want to join the federation. When you think about the success of Web 2.0 applications, it is the triumph of the message over the medium. Think of the ability to receive the same Web content at your desktop, at the server or on your mobile phone. In a Web 2.0 world, the platform is irrelevant as long as the messages can flow. To reinvent information technology for this new era of transparency, focus on the flows.

Restoring Their Voices

HP rescues a burglerized austic classroom:

Three months ago, Jordan could not speak. Today, he took time to thank Hewlett-Packard Co., in perfect english... Jordan played back a recording of his own voice this time, not the computer’s. The message: Thank you, Hewlett Packard.

Learning as a Strategic Priority

Corporations need to mentor their employees more than ever in the 'war on talent'. IBM set about doing it better:

• Developing a single Web site as a “trusted source” for all corporate mentoring information
• Creating a series of streamlined and easy-to-access mentoring resources, such as mentoring podcasts, success stories, mentoring guides, and mentoring best practices that focus on the mentor and mentee relationship, and how to make it work
• Leveraging search capabilities of the corporate “telephone” directory to find a mentor for any level of expertise, career advisement, or social networking
• Establishing international and cross-geography mentoring programs whereby employees from other countries and cultures could learn from one another
• Forming group speed mentoring cafes, whereby an experienced mentor meets with numerous mentees in a group setting for topical mentor moments
• Changing the Individual Development Planning tool so that mentoring relationships can be recorded and included as part of the annual employee development plan
• Providing managers guidance on ways to include mentoring as a form of recognition in the performance evaluation process
• Building a “Dear Mentor” chat capability, where employees can electronically ask questions of a team of mentoring experts
• Designing an extensive Mentoring Promotional Campaign across the enterprise
  Securing executive backing through creating executive champions who act as advocates for the mentoring program

A good start. They've focused on key words like 'relationships', 'communication', even 'social networking', but I believe they've missed an opportunity for a unified environment to bring it all together.

Facebook Innovation Saves Jobs

Social networks saves jobs in the Tennessee Valley:

When Knoxville-based sign maker Image Point in Knoxville abruptly went out of business in January, 270 laid off workers took matters into their own hands.

First, they created a Facebook account to share tips on navigating through the unemployment benefits system, fighting depression, and, of course, finding another job. Eventually the site morphed into a human resources tool viewed by potential employers.

Working together -- and communicating actively -- paid dividends in other practical ways.

For instance, several managers began sharing lists of contacts throughout the industry with local economic developers involved in the regional Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley economic and workforce development initiative.

What emerged surprised regional economic developers.

"We realized that the Innovation Valley had become the sign industry capital of the country," said Bryan Daniels of the Blount Partnership, which participates in the five-county Innovation Valley effort. "Jobs in, literally, dozens of supply companies in the area would be affected if we did nothing."

With the industry contacts in hand, Daniels and his colleague Kyle Touchstone of Knoxville Chamber started working the phone lines to get other sign companies to take tours, find office space, and recruit the talent they need.

So far, five companies have come to the Innovation Valley, another five have committed, and about half of the former Image Point employees have found jobs locally. Some companies came on their own and responded only days after the Image Point announcement by establishing a new presence here. The others have been recruited.

"I give the former employees all the credit for sticking together as a community and for coming to us with valuable contacts," said Daniels.

Alerts

Because YOU HAVE TO KNOW, get alerts on most anything from Trackle. Alerts can be texted, emailed, login to the site to read, etc. and can be sent immediately or in a daily/weekly digest.

Social awareness by also checking out what others are Trackling.

Collaborative Wordpad

http://etherpad.com/

A tool for simple free online collaboration. I believe Google Docs can do this? But EtherPad does not require logins. Send anyone (up to 8 people) the link and they'll have immediate access to the work area.

Keep It Simple

Reading a review of the Flip cam-corder I found this bit:

Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, decided to develop the Graffiti handwriting-recognition alphabet for the original touch-screen Pilot. Since no technology can recognize everyone's handwriting, he reasoned, he'd design a special block-letter alphabet that gives you 100 percent accuracy -- if you form your letters his way.

His employees thought it was a terrible idea. Make customers relearn the alphabet?

But Hawkins, a brain scientist, knew something about people: if you're successful at something the first time you try, you fall instantly in love with it. And sure enough: people fell in love the first time they wrote on a Pilot with the special alphabet and saw their letters turn into perfectly typed text.

That's how it is with devices like the Flip. They're so simple, mastery is immediate, and so is your sense of pride and happiness.

Flip captured 13% of the market after its release in March 2008 and has been #1 on Amazon ever since.

Advanced Google Searches

Google has many advanced search features that are often under-appreciated because their interface is not very intuitive. Soople does a nice job of fixing that:

http://www.soople.com/

Make sure you check out the advanced features of the calculator and unit conversions. Should be very useful.

Mesh Goes Public Beta

Microsoft's Mesh, a virtual cloud for remote device access (think GoToMyPC) and network storage, is now open to the public. Still in beta though.

I've connected my home laptop and work computer to the cloud (by downloading the local client) and it seems to integrate well with Microsoft technologies. Doesn't work with Firefox, but overall, IE7 makes me happy enough anyway.

You get 5Gb online storage buffer in the 'Live Desktop' as it syncs with your other connected devices. You can use the service as a simple 5Gb remote storage, though uploading files without the client is a burden (one at a time.)

You can also remotely control your remote devices once they have the client installed, though I haven't tested this functionality yet.

Mind Mapping Online

Adobe Flash online free version.