The Data Digger

What you recommend really matters (and how I learned this the hard way)

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 04:24:00 +0000

Tina Forsyth making the effort to market what matters.

Amplify’d from www.onlinebusinessmanager.com

What you recommend really matters (and how I learned this the hard way)

And because of this I sent something to my list that:

Was not something I actually believed in or agreed with.

Cost someone else – a biz colleague and friend whom I know and respect – a subscriber. That’s the part that hurt the most… I’m OK with me paying for my mistake but someone else also had to pay for it. Ouch

So from now on I’m committed to recommending ONLY stuff from people or companies that:

I know and like/respect what they have to offer.

I have had a positive experience with (either knowing them personally, as part of a program or having used their software, etc.).

I know would be useful to the folks on my list.

feel *right in my gut* – this has to be the final check cause it’s never wrong.
Read more at www.onlinebusinessmanager.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1atl6

8 Ways to Discover Content Ideas From Your Readers

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 02:30:00 +0000

URL: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-ways-to-discover-c...

Great tips for Facebook engagement.

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1at74

Computer Vision Syndrome: Do Your Eyes Have It? Here's Help [INFOGRAPHIC]

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Computer Vision Syndrome: Do Your Eyes Have It? Here's Help [INFOGRAPHIC]

I like the 20-20-20 rule!

Glamour Magazine Using Social SnapTags to Connect Readers to Brands on Facebook & Twitter - SocialTimes.com

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:46:00 +0000

Glamour Magazine Using Social SnapTags to Connect Readers to Brands on Facebook & Twitter - SocialTimes.com

Publishers are holding on to a dinosaur that is about to go extinct. As a reader, I want an interactive publication on my electronic device, tablet or smartphone. I want to be able to tap on a page element, for example the shoe a model is wearing, and see who the designer is, where I can purchase and the option to order.

Did you know? Recent social media statistics indicate that once a person "likes" a Facebook page, they rarely return to that page. Check out these resources: http://socialmediab2b.com/2010/11/b2b-social-media-white-papers/

Are you a Life Coach? Intro to Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 15:04:00 +0000

Nice intro to blogging

clipped from dynamicsupportsolutions.com

What’s This Blogging Thing All About?

Why Blog?
As a coach it’s vital to your business that your clients and potential clients trust you. A blog lets you demonstrate your expertise in a manner that builds trust with your audience. If you offer quality content that reflects your abilities as a coach you will build a reputation.

Are businesses being financially conservative?

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Should they be?

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com

Companies pile up cash but remain hesitant to add jobs

Corporate America is hoarding a massive pile of cash. It just doesn't want to spend it hiring anyone.

Nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash, roughly one-quarter more than at the beginning of the recession. And as several major firms report impressive earnings this week, the money continues to flow into firms' coffers.

Yet all the good news from big business hasn't translated into much promise for jobless Americans, leading many to wonder: If corporations are sitting on so much money, why aren't they hiring more workers?

When asked why companies are holding back so much, many economists cite broader uncertainty that goes well beyond anything happening in Washington. Firms aren't sure whether the economy can sustain a strong recovery. And as long as consumer spending remains low, there's not much incentive for companies to ramp up.

Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:43:00 +0000

clipped from techcrunch.com

Is Entrepreneurship Just About the Exit?

But must this be so? Technology entrepreneur and strategy consultant Sramana Mitra asks a great question: “What if the idea of exit was removed from the equation… what if the investor and entrepreneur agreed to a different model—the model of sharing dividends”? She says the mathematics is simple: if a $500,000 investment helped in building a $10 million-a-year company with 20% profit year after year—which is entirely possible—angel investors would collect several million dollars in dividends. And entrepreneurs would build companies that they can nurture over a longer period, and “enjoy”.

But most will be happy to build a lifestyle business that pays the bills and lets them learn, grow, and “enjoy” the entrepreneurial journey. They would rather build wealth slowly and steadily than live in fear of investors’ forcing them to bring in another CEO, or to take the company down the wrong path.

[Reading] 4 Ways Not to Be a Dormat

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Mon, 24 May 2010 05:50:00 +0000

Some inspiration to stay strong when you are feeling weak.

clipped from webworkerdaily.com

4 Ways Not to Be a Doormat

You can be willing to help other people (if they’re willing to help themselves, of course), but you have to always remember to be conscious about how you spend your time. Every minute that you give to something or someone is a minute you can’t get back and is a minute that isn’t going to something or someone else, so always think, “Is this a wise investment?” If you’re giving away your time to someone who constantly takes advantage of you, is always looking for ways to nickel and dime you, or isn’t your ideal client, then you no longer have that time to give away to someone who values it, pays you what you’re worth, and is better-suited for you.

[Reading] 4 Ways Not to Be a Dormat

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Mon, 24 May 2010 05:50:00 +0000

Some inspiration to stay strong when you are feeling weak.

clipped from webworkerdaily.com

4 Ways Not to Be a Doormat

You can be willing to help other people (if they’re willing to help themselves, of course), but you have to always remember to be conscious about how you spend your time. Every minute that you give to something or someone is a minute you can’t get back and is a minute that isn’t going to something or someone else, so always think, “Is this a wise investment?” If you’re giving away your time to someone who constantly takes advantage of you, is always looking for ways to nickel and dime you, or isn’t your ideal client, then you no longer have that time to give away to someone who values it, pays you what you’re worth, and is better-suited for you.

Do Americans know how their tax $ are spent?

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:12:00 +0000

This table provides an interesting visual for tax dollar spending.

clipped from www.fcnl.org

How Were Your 2009 Incomes Taxes Spent?

Total Pentagon spending for current & past wars:

$1,039,531

33%

Health Care

Includes Medicaid, public health, Indian Health, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and related programs

$532,094

17%

Effective Online Marketing lessons from Depeche Mode

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:02:00 +0000

Clever!

clipped from www.copyblogger.com

5 Things Depeche Mode Can Teach You About Effective Online Marketing

Personal Jesus

Depeche Mode songwriter Martin Gore wrote Personal Jesus after reading Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley. Gore said “It’s a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care.” In a hyper-niched, tribalized world, people are looking for leaders, not marketers. Who do you care about, and how can you help them?

Yelp Class Action Lawsuit

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:49:00 +0000

Yelp gives advertisers preferential treatment

clipped from bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Yelp Makes Changes in Response to Small-Business Owners

The changes come after several small businesses, including a California veterinary clinic and an Illinois bakery, filed a class action lawsuit accusing the site of extortion. The suit claims that Yelp will remove negative reviews and reinstate positive reviews for paying advertisers and says that “business listings on Yelp.com are in fact biased in favor of businesses that buy Yelp advertising.”

Maximize Facebook Fan Page

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:11:00 +0000

Good tips for taking full advantage of your business Facebook Fan Page.

clipped from mashable.com

5 Essential Apps for Your Business’ Facebook Fan Page

Many Facebook apps are built for casual use, like the social games and quizzes you may see your friends using in their personal feeds. But there are quite a few apps that are ideal for a business Fan Page. These are useful for customizing your page with greater detail, showcasing your content from other social sites and getting more information from your customers. Here are five essential Facebook apps that your business may want to take for a spin.

You can configure this app to automatically pull in updates from any RSS or ATOM feed and display them as posts on your Fan Page, either on a dedicated tab, a wall tab (on the left side) or as part of your core news feed. It’s a useful way to automate your content and eliminate the need to republish things manually to your Facebook Page.

A poll can be a casual way to get a read from your fans about a new product, a new page design, or your business in general.

Maximize Facebook Fan Page

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:10:00 +0000

Good tips for taking full advantage of your business Facebook Fan Page.

clipped from mashable.com

5 Essential Apps for Your Business’ Facebook Fan Page

Many Facebook apps are built for casual use, like the social games and quizzes you may see your friends using in their personal feeds. But there are quite a few apps that are ideal for a business Fan Page. These are useful for customizing your page with greater detail, showcasing your content from other social sites and getting more information from your customers. Here are five essential Facebook apps that your business may want to take for a spin.

You can configure this app to automatically pull in updates from any RSS or ATOM feed and display them as posts on your Fan Page, either on a dedicated tab, a wall tab (on the left side) or as part of your core news feed. It’s a useful way to automate your content and eliminate the need to republish things manually to your Facebook Page.

A poll can be a casual way to get a read from your fans about a new product, a new page design, or your business in general.

Reduce risk of breast cancer-dont participate in hormone replacement therapy

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:57:00 +0000

This article recommends women should eat right and exercise to reduce the chance of breast cancer. Although I know a healthy lifestyle is the key to reducing a magnitude of ailments, the most significant statement in this article refers to hormone replacement therapy.

clipped from www.delmarvanow.com

HEALTH: Experts say one-third of breast cancer is avoidable

"What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more," Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, told The Associated Press. "It's time to move onto other things."

After studies several years ago linked hormone replacement therapy to cancer, millions of women abandoned the treatment, leading to a sharp drop in breast cancer rates. Experts said a similar reduction might be seen if women ate better — consuming less fat and more vegetables — and exercised more.

Using Google Buzz

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:32:00 +0000

Trying to figure it out

clipped from buzzite.com

3 Ways Small Businesses Can Benefit from Using Google Buzz

Google Buzz allows you to send messages to all of your followers or just a specific group. When you post a public message, it will be distributed to your followers and posted to your Google profile where it can be searched, indexed and viewed by the general public. To send private messages, you need to set up Groups in Gmail. Once the groups are set up it will be similar to email marketing in that your company could use this feature to send targeted messages to specific followers. The only drawback is the ability to track who is seeing the buzz and the “Click through Rate” (CTR). However, it will still allow those targeted customers to comment on the message and leave feedback.

Google Buzz can integrate other social networking sites into your Buzz feed. All you have to do is associate your blog with your Google profile and each time you add a new blog post, it will get filtered to Buzz as a new message.

Yet another reason advertising is yucky

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:01:00 +0000

Really sad there are people in this world that participate in malicious behavior.

clipped from www.technologyreview.com

Mapping the Malicious Web

"When you graph multiple sites, you can see their communities of content," Chenette says. While some of the content hubs that connect different communities could be legitimate--such as the servers that provide ads to many different sites--other sources of content could indicate that an attacker is serving up malicious code, he says. According to a study published by Websense, online attackers' use of legitimate sites to spread malicious software has increased 225 percent over the past year.

Attacking a network of this kind can be far more lucrative than attacking any single site. "Let's suppose that the site's security is top-notch. How can a malicious attacker get to the user?" Chenette says. "An ad network would be a fine choice."

Hey! I provide this service!

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:29:00 +0000

I monitor Internet content for clients.

clipped from www.dailyblogtips.com

Business Idea: Copyright Protection For Web Publishers

As a web publisher, I know how annoying it is to have scrapers copying my content and publishing it all over the web. In fact this practice is not only annoying, but it can be costly too. If people can find your content on other websites they might not visit yours, and excessive amounts of duplicate content might also hurt your search engine rankings, thus reducing the amount of organic traffic you’ll receive.

Unfortunately monitoring who is stealing your content and taking action to solve it would consume far too much time for the average web publisher, and here is where this business would come. It would be a company offering “copyright protection services for web publishers.”

Content Theft Monitoring: Once the web publisher becomes a client, the company would start monitoring the web to see what websites are stealing the content of the client’s website.

Will Games help MySpace?

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:25:00 +0000

Is this a MySpace attempt at current user retention? Does MySpace think games will increase usage?

clipped from mashable.com

MySpace Courts Gamers and Developers with New Platform

As we learned in our interview yesterday, about one-third of MySpace users currently play games daily, and the goal is to drive that number up to 50%. The new MySpace Games Gallery experience gives users a better interface for discovering, sharing and rating new titles by providing personalized recommendations, popular game charts and notifications from friends’ Streams.

Social Media for Social Causes

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Can we make a difference?

clipped from uspoverty.change.org

We Can End Hunger With Social Innovation

In the age of instantaneous communication and organizing, it's fairly easy to capture the attention (at least briefly) of a large group of people, especially when talking about hot-button issues like hunger and food security.

With this problem in mind, Scott Henderson and the crew at Causeshift launched a new online campaign called WeCanEndThis yesterday that seeks to move people away from "one-click activism" and instead encourage Americans to rethink and reshape the problem of food scarcity.

What makes this so unique is that it gives each and every one of us the opportunity be part of the solution and enter into the discussion about alleviating hunger. This is not only an opportunity to be heard, but to have your idea matter. Dig in.

Yes! You can sell your crafts

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Brick & mortar shop not necessary. Warehouse full of stock not necessary

clipped from sellingcraftsonline.com

Craft Business Booster – Share What You Know, Draw In Customers!

There are two sides to your craft business. The first is making your crafts, which is the bit we all know and love to do. The second is selling them and it’s probably the area where most crafters are less comfortable and know least about.

Fortunately selling crafts online gives you the ability to reach far greater markets and can provide your craft business with a huge boost.

Setting up an online craft store is now within the range of any of us, there are even some – like Artfire.com – that are free to start.

Should you sell your crafts?

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:37:00 +0000

This checklist is written for entrepreneurs. It offers a good guideline for crafters too.

clipped from blogs.hbr.org

The 2-Minute Opportunity Checklist for Entrepreneurs

Does your business idea soothe someone's pain, discomfort, frustration, or dissatisfaction?

Are there lots of those people out there?

Do these people (or companies, or governments) have money to pay for it?

Will they be able to decide quickly to buy your product or service?

Does your idea exploit something about you that is outstanding or unique?

Are there important assets you have that no one else has? (money, access to customers, technology, leadership skills, execution, location, salesmanship, etc.)

Is there something about the idea or its implementation, that compels you to really devote yourself to it?

Can you start up without huge gobs of money?

Can you keep your fixed costs low during launch?

Does your idea lend itself to small incremental steps that can inexpensively generate valuable information as well as at least a little cash?

Isn't that the point of eating out?

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:20:00 +0000

My home cooking is nutritionally healthy. When I eat at a restaurant the high fat, high salt, etc is what makes the food delicious.

clipped from articles.latimes.com

Americans may be running up the calorie count when dining out

Americans are eating out more and more: According to the National Restaurant Assn., 49% of every food dollar in the U.S. is now spent in restaurants, up from 25% in 1955.

If you figure that the average person needs 2,000 calories a day, it's sobering to learn that more than half that amount can easily be consumed in a restaurant breakfast alone. And don't forget sodium. The recommended daily limit is 2,400 milligrams a day (1,500 milligrams for those who are middle-aged, are in certain ethnic groups or have conditions such as high blood pressure). Many restaurant dishes contain more than you should have in a whole day.

clipped from articles.latimes.com

They may also decide to provide meals lower in salt and saturated fat, he says, and trim calories wherever they can from items already on their menus.

Climate Change Talks-Is it really all about money?

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:16:00 +0000

Too bad the climate change talks aren't about making a serious improvement on the environment. Instead it is all about money. Problem with wealthy nations contributing money to poor nations is that money is too easily embezzled or redirected into other "programs" i.e. defense.

clipped from www.nytimes.com

The Major Players in the Copenhagen Talks and Their Positions

Targets -- how much countries are willing to scale back the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere -- may appear to be the main issue at hand. But there are others that delegates will be absorbed with. Poor countries want billions of dollars to stave off global warming disasters and help reduce costs of lowering their own rising emissions. Wealthy nations are tiptoeing cautiously around the money question, and are demanding their own new set of checks and balances on whatever new agreement emerges that replaces or builds upon the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

What it wants: for developed countries to collectively slash up to 40 percent of CO2 below 1990 levels by 2020. It also has called for wealthy nations to contribute 0.5 to 1 percent of their gross domestic product to help poor ones address the threats of climate change.

Taking a closer look at Diversity Training

noreply@blogger.com (Lara Nieberding, The Data Digger) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:26:00 +0000

In the end, the good ole boy network is prevailing?

clipped from www.fistfuloftalent.com

We Don't Need No Stinking Diversity Training

It needs to be said: diversity training is futile.

Training like this provides instant gratification for companies
who can declare, Well, alrightee! We’ve
done diversity. That wasn’t so bad. What
it doesn’t deliver is results. Despite the good intentions and assumed good
business sense, diversity training often achieves just the opposite of its intended effect: a
study led by a sociologist at the University of Arizona found that after mandatory
diversity training, representation in upper management dropped for women (7.5 percent), black men (12 percent), and black
women (10%). The Latinos and Asians suffered a similar drop.

Bottom line: stop talking about not tolerating intolerance and just stop
tolerating it.