network's marketing

European style

2010-07-08T00:17:00.001-04:00

Wasn't wrong with U.S. auto industry ! Was manager's strange behavior.

in reference to: Death of PT Cruiser seen as a symbol of industry's problems - USATODAY.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Conservatives put stamp on Texas textbooks - Education- msnbc.com

2010-03-13T07:19:00.000-05:00

Conservatives put stamp on Texas textbooks - Education- msnbc.com
Adds references to "laws of nature and nature's God" to a section in U.S. history that requires students to explain major political ideas.
Replaces "democratic" in references to the form of U.S. government with "constitutional republic."
In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, the board specifies a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class.
Requires economics students to "analyze the decline of the U.S. dollar including abandonment of the gold standard."
Ensures that students learn about "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association."
In teaching about the civil rights movement, students must learn about the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent approach.
Specifies that Germans and Italians were interned in the United States as well as the Japanese during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.
Requires that the history of McCarthyism include "how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government." The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.
In sociology, requires the teaching of "the importance of personal responsibility for life choices" in a section on teen suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.
In economics, the curriculum revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, to the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. The board also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout the texts with the “free-enterprise system.”
Board members argued about the classification of historic periods (still B.C. and A.D., rather than B.C.E. and C.E.); whether students should be required to explain the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics (they will); and whether former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir should be required learning (she will).

Technology Review: Solar-Power Breakthrough

2010-03-08T22:16:00.001-05:00

Image via CrunchBase

Technology Review: Solar-Power Breakthrough: "In his experimental system, Nocera immerses an indium tin oxide electrode in water mixed with cobalt and potassium phosphate. He applies a voltage to the electrode, and cobalt, potassium, and phosphate accumulate on the electrode, forming the catalyst. The catalyst oxidizes the water to form oxygen gas and free hydrogen ions. At another electrode, this one coated with a platinum catalyst, hydrogen ions form hydrogen gas. As it works, the cobalt-based catalyst breaks down, but cobalt and potassium phosphate in the solution soon re-form on the electrode, repairing the catalyst."

The second remaining step in artificial photosynthesis is developing a material that absorbs sunlight, generating the electrons needed to power the water-splitting catalysts. That will allow Nocera's catalyst to run directly on sunlight; right now, it runs on electricity taken from an outlet.

The system can use electricity from any source. But there are a couple of reasons to focus on solar. First, the ultimate goal of the research is artificial photosynthesis, because solar power is the biggest source of energy we've got.

The second is a more practical issue. Note that, near the end, the article talks about the need to improve the rate of oxygen production. Right now, the rate is very close to what would be needed in artificial photosynthesis, but not fast enough to be practical in conjunction with wind power or other sources of electricity, according to NREL's John Turner.
With his start-up company, Sun Catalytix, Nocera hopes to make the system affordable enough to allow individual homes to generate their own fuel and electricity on-site. By distributing hydrogen production in this way, the new method could potentially solve the problem of hydrogen transportation

Op-Ed Contributors - How American trade policy relies on faulty measures of productivity. - NYTimes.com

2010-03-06T07:03:00.000-05:00

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Op-Ed Contributors - How American trade policy relies on faulty measures of productivity. - NYTimes.com:

"With the economy still in need of government life support and the future of American manufacturing in doubt, relying on faulty productivity data is a formula for disaster."

FOR a quarter-century, American economic policy has assumed that the keys to durable national prosperity are deregulation, free trade and a swift transition to a post-industrial, services-dominated future.
In reality, though, wage gains for the average worker have lagged behind productivity since the early 1980s, a situation that free-traders usually attribute to workers failing to retrain themselves after seeing their jobs outsourced.In 2009, the data show, Americans needed 40 percent fewer hours to produce the same unit of output as in 1980.
But there’s a problem: labor productivity figures, which are calculated by the Labor Department, count only worker hours in America, even though American-owned factories and labs have been steadily transplanted overseas, and foreign workers have contributed significantly to the final products counted in productivity measures.
The result is an apparent drop in the number of worker hours required to produce goods — and thus increased productivity. But actually, the total number of worker hours does not necessarily change.
This continuing mismeasurement leads economists and all those who rely on them to assume that recorded productivity gains always signify greater efficiency, rather than simple offshoring-generated cost cuts — leaving the rest of us scratching our heads over stagnating wages.

Because productivity gains in part reflect job offshoring, not just the benefits of technology or better business practices, then the American economy has been much less innovative than widely assumed.
Digging through the recession reasons, this seems to me one indicator that do not work. Another is so called "value added tax", useless here, useless in Grecian economy.

Iron Curtain (European history) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

2010-03-05T07:29:00.000-05:00

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Iron Curtain (European history) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia: "'Iron Curtain.' Encyclop�dia Britannica. 2010. Encyclop�dia Britannica Online. 05 Mar. 2010 ."

1953:		Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin died in Moscow and was succeeded by Georgy Malenkov.
1946:		British Prime Minister Winston Churchill popularized the term “Iron Curtain”—describing the separation between Soviet and Western nations—in a speech at Fulton, Missouri. Time line by Google search !

1946

Jul 7, 1946 - Maj. Gen. A. Kolissonitko of the soviet army greeted eight Americancorrespondents at Weimar by saying he was glad to prove how false and foolish is the fable of the iron curtain around the Russian occupation zone of Germany. IRON CURTAIN'. LIFTS, BUT-ONLY FOR QUICK PEEK ...
From 'IRON CURTAIN' LIFTS, BUT ONLY FOR QUICK PEEK - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access ...

1948

May 25, 1948 - The Iron Curtain, controversial film version of the Canadian spy trials, comes to the screen of Loew's, starting Friday. The 20th CenturyFox picture has attracted much at tention for its outspoken attack on . Communism, and been picketed in several centres. The amazing disclosures of a ...
From Controversial film iron Curtain' Due into Loew's Theatre Friday . - Related web pages
news.google.com/newspapers?id=ROwiAAAAIBAJ ...

1950

Feb 14, 1950 - What does the switch in Russian policy in East Ger many portend for Europe? It seems that for the present there is to be no more talk of Ger man unity, or of "getting' back to the Potsdam Agreement." Moscow has become bent on thoroughly Communising the part of Germany it controls, ...
From Clamping Down The Iron Curtain . - Related web pages
news.google.com/newspapers?id=PbgQAAAAIBAJ ...

1951

Jun 12, 1951 - United States air force headquarters tonight called off as hopeless a search along the iron curtain border for two United States jet fighters that vanished Friday--possibly in communist Europe. FEAR US JETS. LOST BACK OF. IRON CURTAIN Hunt in West Europe Fails to Yield Clew ...
From FEAR US JETS LOST BACK OF IRON CURTAIN - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access ...

1952

May 5, 1952 - The latest State Department regulator regarding visits by American citizens to the Soviet Union or the countries it controls sets up a uniform procedure for all, extending provisions formerly applicable only to some. With regard to all these nations citizens of this country must now ...
From IRON CURTAIN PASSPORTS - Related web pages
select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res ...

1953

Sep 17, 1953 - Missing Mrs. Donald MacLean, whose British diplomat husband is believed behind the Iron Curtain, was reported today to have left her automobile here last Friday night and said she would come back for it in. Missing Family Feared Behind Iron Curtain . LAUSANNE. Sept. ...
From Missing Family Feared Behind Iron Curtain - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/452252362 ...

1955

Nov 16, 1955 - some positive achievement 'at the Geneva conference has evaporated as a result of an ex tension of the prevailing dead lock to the last item on the agenda — namely, the lifting of the Iron Curtain. At the Western Foreign Ministers have pointed out, the problem of the Iron Curtain lies ...
From The Iron Curtain Stays . - Related web pages
news.google.com/newspapers?id=sYAtAAAAIBAJ ...

1956

Jun 30, 1956 - President Eisenhower today approved a United States policy on relations withRussia which is designed to tear down the Soviet Iron Curtain. Decision Ends 6-Month Debate Within Administration on Policy Toward Russia. WASHINGTON, June 29 (Al President Eisenhower today approved a United ...
From Eisenhower OKs Plan to Banish Iron Curtain - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/445842712 ...

1963

Nov 29, 1963 - West European newspapers Tuesday praised President Johnson for what they called courage and sincerity in pledging himself to continue the fight for the late President Kennedy's policies. West and Iron -Curtain Papers Praise Johnson. ' Pursuit of Kennedy Policies Hailed as 5 Evidence of ...
From West and Iron Curtain Papers Praise Johnson - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/464785752 ...

1989

Jul 13, 1989 - BUDAPEST (AP) - US President George Bush, proclaiming "the Iron Curtainhas begun to part," yesterday saluted Hungary's strides toward economic and political freedom. "For the first time, the Iron Curtain has begun to part. And Hungary, your great country, is leading the way," Bush ...
From Marx U students cheer Bush Proclamation that 'Iron Curtain has begun to …- Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/access/470717191 ...

Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate - NYTimes.com

2010-03-03T06:18:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

“Scientists must continually earn the public’s trust or we risk descending into a new Dark Age where ideology trumps reason,” Dr. Pachauri said in an e-mail message.

But some scientists said that responding to climate change skeptics was a fool’s errand.

“Climate scientists are paid to do climate science,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, a senior climatologist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. “Their job is not persuading the public.”

He said that the recent flurry of hostility to climate science had been driven as much by the cold winter as by any real or perceived scientific sins.

“There have always been people accusing us of being fraudulent criminals, of the I.P.C.C. being corrupt,” Dr. Schmidt said. “What is new is this paranoia combined with a spell of cold weather in the United States and the ‘climategate’ release. It’s a perfect storm that has allowed the nutters to control the agenda.”

The answer is simple, he said.

“Good science,” he said, “is the best revenge.”

Good science means a $ 30 to $ 60 / CO2 metric ton tax increase. Nope better breakfast. Forget a new car. $ 7 / gal at gas pump. That is the price for a science melting Himalaya glaciers.

Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate - NYTimes.com

Is GDP An Obsolete Measure of Progress?

2010-02-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

Image by networks via Flickr

Is GDP An Obsolete Measure of Progress?

The GDP, generally expressed as a per-capita figure and often adjusted to reflect purchasing power, represents the market value of good and services produced within a nation's boundaries. Sounds reasonable. Until we consider what it doesn't measure: the general progress in health and education, the condition of public infrastructure, fuel efficiency, community and leisure.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1957746,00.html?xid=rss-biztech-yahoo#ixzz0eLvbOiLL

One new calculation that's been attracting attention is the Happy Planet Index (HPI), which combines economic metrics with indicators of well-being, including subjective measures of life satisfaction, which have become quite sophisticated (HPI uses data from Gallup, World Values Survey, and Ecological Footprint). The HPI assesses social and economic well-being in the context of resources used, looking at the degree of human happiness generated per quantity of environment consumed. The HPI metric was driven in part by the recognition that the environmental costs of economic growth must be figured into standard-of-living reports.
(See the worst business deals of 2009.)

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1957746,00.html?xid=rss-biztech-yahoo#ixzz0eLwoJvfp

The matter of how a nation measures performance is far from trivial, says Gus Speth, particularly at a time when environment sustainability is on many people's minds. He observes: "You tend to get what you measure, so we'd better measure what we want." In other words, to a certain extent we are what we count.
(See pictures of the stock market crash of 1929.)
For Nic Marks, the key shift introduced by the HPI is its "move away from measuring production and toward measuring consumption. The HPI serves as a signpost pointing more toward a society we want to live in — the delivery of good lives rather than the delivery of more goods."
So how does the U.S. fare in HPI terms? Not so good. It sits pretty far down the list at 114. The U.K. is 74, behind Germany, Italy and France. Topping the chart is Costa Rica, which has long life expectancy, high life satisfaction, and a per capita ecological footprint one-fourth the size of the U.S.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1957746,00.html?xid=rss-biztech-yahoo#ixzz0eLxGLNxK

When Economics Meets Politics

2010-02-03T06:58:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

...without any major wars or world-shaking political or geopolitical disruptions.
...that three major struggles — the banks vs. President Obama, China vs. Google & friends, and the world vs. Iran — can be defused with win-win compromises rather than win-lose confrontations.
Moreover, our financial crisis was the result of a broad national breakdown in ethics
The economics of recovery were always hard, but in 2010 politics and geopolitics could make them even harder. Pray that cooler heads prevail.

Two strategies:

win -win strategy, means negotiations
win - lose strategy means sanctions.

or means war.
Pay.

A science book worth your time - USATODAY.com

2010-02-01T08:37:00.004-05:00

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A science book worth your time - USATODAY.com

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In the book, Carroll recounts the history of scientists thinking about the "arrow of time," the clock's curiously one-dimensional march ever onward (we have up and down, right and left, backwards and forwards, but time just zips along ever forward). In particular, he revisits some of the 19th century thinkers, such as statistical physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, overshadowed today by 20th century icons like Einstein.

Boltzmann and colleagues put entropy, energy's tendency toward disorder, on a statistical basis, offering a physics interpretation of time. Time results from entropy sending events, everything from the egg scrambled for your breakfast to stars running out of steam over billions of years, heading relentlessly one-way, never to unscramble themselves or restart their fires again.

One of the mysteries of the universe is its beginning in a highly-ordered low-entropy state, a hot, dense ball of energy some 13.7 billion years ago called the Big Bang. (Which was low-entropy in the sense that its energy was so useful for making stars, galaxies, planets, people and everything else, energy once spent that it couldn't be re-ordered like that breakfast egg that could be scrambled, poached or served sunny side up, but never put back together again.) "Why highly-ordered but not perfectly ordered,"

German opinion, Good is perfect, close to perfect order means close to God

Volvo, behind the whell

2010-01-30T14:51:00.000-05:00

Image by networks via Flickr

Trucks, like any industrial tools in shrink to fit times, a looking for optimum point. As working element in logistics they daily are in the cutting point of technological and negotiating scissors. Customers always want an minimum price. Expenses are strong correlated with the diesel price. In good old times, this means less computing and more common sense, the price of 1 loaded mile = price of 1 diesel gal. Well, for optimum I will take this as reference point. On the another hand, without profit truck is out from the road in no time. This is an criteria. Negotiating is not my strongest point, always I'm using negotiators in my job, my point of view is technological. Leave the diesel price, from my observations high diesel price means increase of profit, maintenance expenses are the core of the business profitability.

Two centuries ago Leibniz invented a calculating machine which embodied most of the essential features of recent keyboard devices, but it could not then come into use. The economics of the situation were against it: the labor involved in constructing it, before the days of mass production, exceeded the labor to be saved by its use, since all it could accomplish could be duplicated by sufficient use of pencil and paper. Moreover, it would have been subject to frequent breakdown, so that it could not have been depended upon; for at that time and long after, complexity and unreliability were synonymous.

Babbage, even with remarkably generous support for his time, could not produce his great arithmetical machine. His idea was sound enough, but construction and maintenance costs were then too heavy. Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.

Volvo trucks position on the interstate system. And any driver depend upon.

As long as truck is on warranty, services authorized to fix any breakdown may be are on the limit of factory profitability. Next, what next, disaster. Easy to feel European optimum: after warranty one or two years on the road and expenses exceed the cost of a new car. Or, to mention here the words of an Canadian colleague, after 3000 miles you have to spend one week for maintenance. At current legal speed and hours of duty: one week over the road, one on the shop. I've driving few Volvo's over the road in last time looking at excellent MPG stories from truck stops involving Volvo truck's. Classic American trucks have 6 to 6.3 mpg., Volvo 7+. Is huge and is real using "13 speed" gearbox. For full automatic 6.2 to 6.8 mpg. Any car performance in this area have huge maintenance costs. Otto invented diesel engine long time ago, it is a German invention that it suppose do not work. After is started, over 500 rpm may be it work, at 800 rpm is working, the best performances are at 1250 rpm. Where is the fuel economy ? In the driver hand, always. From the factory, they have to select between economy point and power point at the design start. For me it seems economy point, I do not have power at low rpm, is OK after 70 mph. A truck have after him another vehicle that have 53' , so if you have a slow vehicle in front of you, in California or Arizona, maintenance shop is waiting for you at next location. If, and only if, you a lucky enough to get there. There means "authorized shop". Those are rare. Detroit diesel always are asking for the proof of damaged part, protecting truckers, Volvo will found another damaged part(s) so, you will take the truck out from the shop without any warranty remembering that Gestapo logo: "in Wald da sind die Räuber" (in forest are there the robbers).

Personal experience: Diagnose in Elko, Nevada: Harness failure probably injectors. Volvo send three times wrong harness to the shop, using only one service for this wasting 10 of my days, after that truck was on tow for 400 miles to Salt lake City, Utah. Here the harness was OK, but two injectors damaged, $ 1000 each. And the truck have damaged another mechanical part and will brake the vent belt. All of us know this story as "Volvo by purpose failure". Any mechanic will fix that problem in two or three hrs. Not a dealer, they have to sell $ 4000 parts.

In the Continental USA, a single driver is working maximum 550 miles/day at 1 to 1.5 $/mile to the truck. Five days for the truck expenses and my by one day for his expenses. If you feel like a Pharaoh.

Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of effort. they perform reliably. The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

I do not discuss here about jewelry, it is about safety over the road.

Almost 90% of all accidents are due to the human factor. When looking at single accidents, 10-20% is due to tired drivers. Halo... a driver is not operating an computer so move the safety point to the driver.

Volvo behind the whell.

2010-01-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

Image by networks via Flickr

Trucks, like any industrial tools in shrink to fit times, a looking for optimum point. As working element in logistics they daily are in the cutting point of technological and negotiating scissors. Customers always want a minimum price. Expenses are strong correlated with the diesel price. In good old times, this mean less computing and more common sense, the price of 1 loaded mile = price of 1 diesel gal. Well, for optimum I will take this as reference point. On the another hand, without profit truck is out from the road in no time. This is an criteria. Negotiating is not my strongest point, always I'm using negotiators in my job, my point of view is technological. Leave the diesel price, from my observations high diesel price mean increase of profit, maintenance expenses are the core of the business profitability.

Two centuries ago Leibniz invented a calculating machine which embodied most of the essential features of recent keyboard devices, but it could not then come into use. The economics of the situation were against it: the labor involved in constructing it, before the days of mass production, exceeded the labor to be saved by its use, since all it could accomplish could be duplicated by sufficient use of pencil and paper. Moreover, it would have been subject to frequent breakdown, so that it could not have been depended upon; for at that time and long after, complexity and unreliability were synonymous.

Babbage, even with remarkably generous support for his time, it could not produce his great arithmetical machine. His idea was sound enough, but construction and maintenance costs were then too heavy. Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.

Volvo trucks position on the interstate system. And any driver depend upon.

As long as truck is on warranty, services authorized to fix any breakdown may be on the limit of factory profitability. Next, what next, it is a disaster. Easy to feel European optimum: after warranty one or two years on the road and expenses exceed the cost of a new car. Or, to mention here the words of an Canadian colleague, after 3000 miles you have to spend one week for maintenance. At currently legal speed and hours of duty: one week over the road, one on the shop. I've been driving few Volvo's over the road in last time looking at excellent MPG stories from truck stops involving Volvo trucks. Classic American trucks have 6 to 6.3 mpg., Volvo 7+. Is huge and is real using "13 speed" gearbox. For full automatic 6.2 to 6.8 mpg. Any car performance in this area have huge maintenance costs. Otto invented diesel engine long time ago, it is a German invention that it suppose do not work. After is started, over 500 rpm may be it work, at 800 rpm is working, the best performances are at 1250 rpm. Where is the fuel economy ? In the driver hand, always. From the factory, they have to select between economy point and power point at the design start. For me, it seems economy point, I do not have power at low rpm, is OK after 70 mph. A truck have after him another vehicle that have 53' , so if you have a slow vehicle in front of you, in California or Arizona, maintenance shop is waiting for you at next location. If, and only if, you a lucky enough to get there. There means "authorized shop". Those are rare. Detroit diesel always are asking for the proof of damaged part, protecting truckers, Volvo will found another damaged part(s) so, you will take the truck out from the shop without any warranty remembering that Gestapo logo: "in Wald da sind die Räuber" (in the forest, there are robbers).

Personal experience: Diagnose in Elko, Nevada: Harness failure probably injectors. Volvo send three times wrong harness to the shop, using only one service for this wasting 10 of my days, after that truck was on tow for 400 miles to Salt lake City, Utah. Here the harness was OK, but two injectors damaged, $ 1000 each. And the truck have damaged another mechanical part and it had broken the vent belt. All of us know this story as "Volvo by purpose failure". Any mechanic will fix that problem in two or three hrs. Not a dealer, they have to sell $ 4000 parts.

In the Continental USA, a single driver is working maximum 550 miles/day at 1 to 1.5 $/mile to the truck. Five days for the truck expenses and my by one day for his expenses. If you feel like a Pharaoh.

Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy effort. They perform reliably. The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

I do not discuss here about jewelry, it is about safety over the road.

Almost 90% of all accidents are due to the human factor. When looking at single accidents, 10-20% is due to tired drivers. Halo... a driver is not operating a computer, so move the safety point to the driver.

Strategy, Tactics and Google define

2007-05-25T00:16:00.000-04:00

Some time ago I have introduced in this blog "Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy", a new approach, a new contribution. Marketing prof. late have the same question with strange answers :

a same question was posted some time ago...i gave this answer that was
accepted by the one posed the question! hope that it will help u too!IMC
presents the concept of integrated philosophy/way of thinking which governs all
the business tactics of communication (advertising, sales promotion, public
relations). In other words, all the approaches in order to communicate a message
whether this is via advertising, or sales promotion or public relations, must
rely on the same axis of communication. Starting from the needs of the customer,
all the different actions of creating and implementing the communication
strategy are harmonised under the same concept (with a unified voice, unified
message), in this way the final consumer will have a unified perception for the
product or service and will be motivated to take action (trial or re-buy of the
product)in simple words, IMC means exploiting all the means to promote a product
from formal advertising to arranging interviews and press conferences in order
to activate positive publicity! IMC may even include handing out leaflets or
exploiting word of mouth!
SOFIA

For dummies, I suppose, strategy is tactics! Again two opposite words in the same definition.
Luckily, the Google define function is working so, my opinions is, in the cases like this think "machines know better".

Internet & the plethora of vernacular

2007-05-01T02:09:00.000-04:00

Twenty-five years ago the Internet as we now know it was in the process of being birthed by the National Science Foundation. Since then it's been an information explosion. From e-mail to eBay, communication and shopping have forever changed.
By Barrett Lyon, Opte.org

1 World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee created user-friendly "Web pages" that could travel over the Internet, a network built to shuttle research between universities. The world logged on: 747 million adults in January.
2 E-mailTech’s answer to the Pony Express . Programs such as 1988’s Eudora made it easy to use. In-boxes have been filling up ever since. Nearly 97 billion e-mails are sent each day.
3 Graphical user interface (GUI) Most computer displays were blinking lines of text until Apple featured clickable icons and other graphic tools in its 1984 Mac. Microsoft's Windows took GUI ( pronounced 'gooey' ) to the masses.
By Mark Lennihan, AP

4 AOL AOL turned people on to Web portals, chat rooms and instant messaging. Early subscribers paid by the hour. AOL once boasted 35 million subscribers. It bought Time Warner for $106 billion in 2001.
5 Broadband The answer to the drip-drip-drip of dial-up, high-speed Internet service fuels online entertainment. About 78% of home Internet users in the U.S. have broadband, up from less than 1% in 1998.
6 Google So popular it’s a verb. The search powerhouse, with a market capitalization of nearly $149 billion, perfected how we find info on the Web. Google sites had nearly 500 million visitors in December.
7 Mosaic/Netscape Created by Marc Andreessen and others, Mosaic was the first widely-used multimedia Web browser. Spin-off Netscape Navigator ruled the ‘90s until Microsoft’s Internet Explorer took off around ‘98.
8 eBay Thanks to eBay, we can all now buy and sell almost anything (skip the body parts). eBay has 230 million customers worldwide who engage in 100 million auctions at any given time.
Screenshot

9 Amazon.comJeff Bezos’ baby began as an always-in-stock book seller. It survived the tech bubble and now is the definitive big box online store. It was the second most-visited online retailer in December, after eBay.
10 Wi-fi Have coffee shop, will compute: Wireless fidelity lets us lug our laptops out of the office and connect to the Net on the fly. More than 200 million Wi-Fi equipped products sold last year.
11 Instant Messaging LOL! Web surfers began to “laugh out loud” and BRB (“be right back”) in the mid-‘90s, with the launch of ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. Millions use it to swap messages and photos, even telephone pals.
By John Makely, AP

12 Yahoo! Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo created this popular Web portal in 1994. It remains a favorite for email, photo sharing (it owns Flickr) and other services.
Screenshot

13 Compuserve/Prodigy In the 1980s, they became the first mainstream companies to offer consumer Internet access. CompuServe was more for the geek set; Prodigy was more for the masses.
14 The Well The precursor for social networking, the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, founded in 1985, was the original (now longest-running) virtual community. It gained popularity for its forums.
15 Vices Regulators scrapped plans for a .xxx domain, but vice remains one of the Net’s biggest businesses. Online gambling, illegal in the U.S., topped $12 billion last year; online porn was $2.84 billion. Searches for "Paris Hilton video" return about a million hits.
By David Rae Morris, USA TODAY

16 Spam/Spyware Unsolicited e-mail, and software that watches your Web habits, mushroomed from annoyance to menace. Junk e-mail now accounts for more than 9 of every 10 messages sent over the Internet.
17 Flash Adobe’s Flash player is on 98% of all computers. Seen a video on YouTube or MySpace? Then you’ve probably used Flash. It animated the Web, spawning zillions of online cartoons and videos.
18 Online mapping tools MapQuest started saving marriages in 1996 by offering turn-by-turn directions. Followers such as Yahoo and Google beam directions to cellphones and offer satellite images of neighborhoods.
19 Napster Created in Shawn Fanning’s dorm room, Napster let more than 26 million people tap into a free database of music. Record companies shut it down. In its wake emerged legitimate download sites, such as Apple’s iTunes.
Handout

20 YouTube The video-sharing site, bought by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion, ignited a user-generated revolution online and introduced millions to the delights of Stephen Colbert, Chad Vader and Lonelygirl15.
21 The Drudge Report Matt Drudge’s news site helped break the Monica Lewinsky story in 1998, paving the way for politically-minded bloggers everywhere. He claims to have about 500 million visitors a month.
22 Bloggers The more than 75 million Web logs have changed how the world gets its news. Bloggers have challenged the traditional media, lobbied for and against wars, started debates, and posted far too many pictures of their pets.
23 Craigslist Craig Newmark’s gathering place for (mostly) free classified ads changed the way we find apartments, cars and dates. The site relies on users who supply friendly neighborhood information - about 14 million ads a month.
24 MySpace This online hangout has replaced the mall as a home away from home for teenagers. The site has more than 173 million personalized pages. News Corp paid $580 million for it in 2005.
Handout

25 Gaming and virtual worlds More than 19 million globally pay to explore three-dimensional Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games such as World of Warcraft and virtual communities such as Second Life, which let players do business or just hang out. Both use the easy connections fostered by the Web to build communities.
The Vocabulary of Professionals
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC=careers%5Cfeatures%5Carticles_vocab.html

Today as I was riding into work on the train, I read a newspaper advertisement aimed at people trying to find a job. Some of the words were hard to make out, because the woman holding the paper kept shifting in her seat. She’s not really into sharing. But the headline that caught my eye was, "Learn the 40 Words that Professionals Use". Amazed that they only use forty, I wanted to know more.
Generally, I don’t read from the woman in front of me, because frankly, her tastes don’t match my own. Lately, she has vacillated between exploitive entertainment-industry rags and paperbacks filled with romantic woes. I never found out how the previous one ended, but in the last passage I read Camilla and Thor were racing away from the castle of her torment on a thunderous steed with rain pounding down upon their ravaged bodies clad only in! Well, you get the picture.
Words can say a lot about you:
-the ones you use in conversation, -the ones you choose to read, -and the ones you write. Limiting your vocabulary to say, forty words, can stunt your development, socially and professionally. Restricting syntax to that of your profession provides transitional barriers as well. To be successful in an upwardly mobile lifestyle, you will need the use of words and phrases that relate your experiences, feelings and intentions to others. It should also be noted that those "others" who lead us and set policies may not be chemists. For many, our futures lie in the hands of MBA’s or, shall I say it, marketing specialists.
These creatures of the outside world seldom care about thermodynamic equations, even though they may someday face entropic death. They speak of real cats, not those trapped in theoretical boxes, and the only retro-synthesis they have experienced is the post-modern fashion flashback to the 70’s.
The most common relational denominators typically deal with societal trends and fads. Places to look for help include sports, movies, or if you’re really desperate, "American Idol." Even if you don’t watch the TV show, knowing that Sanjaya’s hairstyle weekly evolves into gravity defying configurations can give you an entrée into a conversation.
Knowing the language of other professions is also helpful. In addition to speaking English, Spanglish and broken German, I have training in finance, project management and IT. Coming from a background in the "central science', learning how to speak like others seems old hat. Goodness knows I’ve already had to learn the lingo of biology, physics and medicine just to ensure that my research projects went smoothly.
Ultimately, the best tool for the expansion of your vocabulary is reading, and although it may sound like a foreign phrase, "reading for pleasure' will yield the best results. Certainly, you should be reading technical articles and books for your professional development, but they are unlikely to incorporate the plethora of vernacular used in common language.
In closing, I challenge you to flex your linguistic tongue, by learning the 40 words used by professionals. If the lady in front of me would move her thumb, I would read them to you. As it stands, I guess you’ll have to search them out yourselves.

This article was written by David Harwell, Ph.D., Assistant Director of the ACS Department of Career Management and Development.
Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.
Published April 30, 2007

Flukey, Cats & Critcon

2007-04-28T02:03:00.001-04:00

American playwright Ben Hecht once said, “He was in love with life as an ant on a summer blade of grass”. If only Ben knew about the nanoscale war within. I’m talking about one (actually two) of the most fascinating phenomenon ever discovered.

It all starts with the lancet fluke—which instead of calling it by its scientific name (dicrocoelium dedriticum), we’ll call it “Flukey the Parasite”. It lives inside a cows’ liver, mates with others and then sends its eggs out with the cow’s waste. Now here’s where evolution (or co-evolution) and biological networks get fascinating. First—gross as it is (especially for Frenchmen), snails come along and eat the cow waste (with Flukey’s eggs in it). The eggs hatch, infect the snail and drill into the snail’s digestive tract—like a Trojan horse. Next, the snail fights back. It internally douses the mini-Flukeys in slime, and excretes them, leaving them in its slimy trails.

Along comes an ant—to whom the slime is like a fresh swimming pool on a scorching summer day. It dives in, gets a mouthful of slime and a gut full of lancet flukes. The mini-Flukes then move around and—get this—eventually take over its nerve cells. These little buggers are actually controlling the ants’ behavior now. Night falls, the air is cooler and the ant climbs a blade of grass, digs its teeth in and hangs there all night. Hot temperatures toast the parasites, so they steer the ant to cooler areas. It keeps doing this every night, until eventually a cow comes and eats the grass it clings to. And tada! Flukey the Parasite has reproduced and ended up back inside a new host. Wash, rinse, repeat. Except for one thing: the cows don’t want the parasites—so they avoid patches of land with the greenest colored grass. Green grass signals it’s been fertilized by other cows. The risk isn’t eating another’s waste—the real risk is eating these kamikaze suicide bomber ants. The greener pastures grow while the other grass gets eaten up. The cow population grows, until it’s eventually forced to go to the greener grass. Boom: they get infected, eat less, reproduce less and die. Rinse wash, repeat. So these little buggers actually regulate the grasslands!

Remind you of anything in modern life? I’ll spell it out in a moment. But first there’s a Persian proverb that says, “when the cat and the mouse agree—the grocer is ruined.”

Turns out—an even more recent version of this parasite taking over the minds of a host has been found: in mice. The bug infects the mouse’s brain and instead of feeling fear when it encounters (or smells) a cat—it is attracted to it. It nearly runs right into its mouth. The parasite called “toxoplasma” needs to end up in the cat’s stomach to reproduce. It hijacks the mouse’s brain to do its bidding by making the mice less fearful.

Some scientists have suggested—to much controversy and political in-correctness—that certain religious ideas (“memes” instead of “genes”) might be viruses of the mind. Think: suicide bombers. The so-called “meme” gets passed on; the host gets sacrificed.

Speaking of unpopular and controversial ideas, I must share a few provocative excerpts from author Michael Crichton. He’s made a fortune selling alarmist fiction. Now he is out publicly fighting what he sees as alarmist non-fiction—advocating rationality and science.

The topic on which he speaks will see a big announcement next week—especially from the all-star team at Lux Research. Stay tuned. Here’s straight from Crichton:

“I want to pause here and talk about the notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agree on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”

[JW: remember there was once a book published called, “100 Scientists Against Einstein”, refuting relativity. Einstein’s retort? “If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”]

“I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won’t get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and “skeptics” in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done. When did “skeptic” become a dirty word in science?”

“To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.

“Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?

Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse [waste]? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS…None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you are talking about.”

Contrarian thinking that creates a richer discussion. Thanks to Michael Critchton for that.

Thanks Basesecu that create stupid discussion.

Flukey, Cats & Critcon

2007-04-28T02:03:00.000-04:00

Thanks Basesecu that create stupid discussion.

Concepts

2007-02-17T22:39:00.000-05:00

concept
in the Analytic school of philosophy, the subject matter of philosophy, which philosophers of the Analytic school hold to be concerned with the salient features of the language in which people speak ...
concept formation
process by which a person learns to sort specific experiences into general rules or classes. With regard to action, a person picks up a particular stone or drives a specific car. With regard to ...
Concept formation
from the learning theory article

An organism is said to have learned a concept when it responds uniquely to all objects or events in a given logical class as distinct from other classes. Even geese can master such concepts as ...

Concept attainment
from the thought article
A more complex form of realistic thinking is inferred when an individual is asked to identify or use a class of items, as in selecting several different kinds of triangle from an array of other ...
Islamic concepts
from the religion, philosophy of article
At the heart of Islam is an experience of awe before the one, all-powerful, mysterious creator Allah. Thus, its dominant theme has been surrender, though it must not be forgotten that it has nurtured ...
Hindu concepts
from the religion, philosophy of article
This mixture of a mystical contemplation, which sees the divine everywhere, and a personal devotion to a particularized divinity recur in Hinduism. The most characteristic feature of Hinduism, ...
Religious concepts
from the Great Basin Indian article
Religious concepts derived from a mythical cosmogony, beliefs in power beings, and a belief in a dualistic soul. Mythology provided a cosmogony and cosmography of the world. Mythical animals, notably ...

Main Entry: 1con·cept
Pronunciation: primarystresskän-secondarystresssept
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin conceptum, neuter of conceptus, past participle of concipere to conceive -- more at CONCEIVE
Date: 1556
1 : something conceived in the mind : THOUGHT, NOTION
2 : an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances
synonym see IDEA
Entry Word: concept
Function: noun
Text: Synonyms IDEA, apprehension, conceit, conception, image, impression, intellection, notion, perception, thought
Contrasted Words percept, sensation, sense-datum, sensum

The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology
Essay by the American philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859-1952) that is considered to mark the beginnings of functional psychology.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Dewey/reflex.htm
Glossary of Helpful Terms, Concepts, and Advice
Collection of video and editing terms and their definitions.

Introductory Statistics - Concepts, Models, and Applications
The Concept of the Habit-Family Hierarchy and Maze Learning
First part of this essay by the American psychologist Clark L. Hull who is known for his experimental studies on learning.

Second part of this essay by the American psychologist Clark L. Hull who is known for his experimental studies on learning.

Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

2007-02-03T03:12:00.000-05:00

Terms

Marketing

the sum of activities involved in directing the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers.

Marketing's principal function is to promote and facilitate exchange. Through marketing, individuals and groups obtain what they need and want by exchanging products and services with other parties. Such a process can occur only when there are at least two parties, each of whom has something to offer. In addition, exchange cannot occur unless the parties are able to communicate about and to deliver what they offer. Marketing is not a coercive process: all parties must be free to accept or reject what others are offering. So defined, marketing is distinguished from other modes of obtaining desired goods, such as through self-production, begging, theft, or force.

Marketing is not confined to any particular type of economy, because goods must be exchanged and therefore marketed in all economies and societies except perhaps in the most primitive. Furthermore, marketing is not a function that is limited to profit-oriented business; even such institutions as hospitals, schools, and museums engage in some forms of marketing. Within the broad scope of marketing, merchandising is concerned more specifically with promoting the sale of goods and services to consumers (i.e., retailing) and hence is more characteristic of free-market economies.

Based on these criteria, marketing can take a variety of forms: it can be a set of functions, a department within an organization, a managerial process, a managerial philosophy, and a social process.

Strategic Analysis
Market segments

The aim of marketing in profit-oriented organizations is to meet needs profitably. Companies must therefore first define which needs "and whose needs" they can satisfy. For example, the personal transportation market consists of people who put different values on an automobile's cost, speed, safety, status, and styling. No single automobile can satisfy all these needs in a superior fashion; compromises have to be made. Furthermore, some individuals may wish to meet their personal transportation needs with something other than an automobile, such as a motorcycle, a bicycle, or a bus or other form of public transportation. Because of such variables, an automobile company must identify the different preference groups, or segments, of customers and decide which group(s) they can target profitably.

Market niches

Segments can be divided into even smaller groups, called subsegments or niches. A niche is defined as a small target group that has special requirements. For example, a bank may specialize in serving the investment needs of not only senior citizens but also senior citizens with high incomes and perhaps even those with particular investment preferences. It is more likely that larger organizations will serve the larger market segments (mass marketing) and ignore niches. As a result, smaller companies typically emerge that are intimately familiar with a particular niche and specialize in serving its needs.

Strategic marketing analysis > Marketing to individuals

A growing number of companies are now trying to serve "segments of one." They attempt to adapt their offer and communication to each individual customer. This is understandable, for instance, with large industrial companies that have only a few major customers. For example, The Boeing Company (United States) designs its 747 planes differently for each major customer, such as United Airlines, Inc., or American Airlines, Inc. Serving individual customers is increasingly possible with the advent of database marketing, through which individual customer characteristics and purchase histories are retained in company information systems. Even mass-marketing companies, particularly large retailers and catalog houses, compile comprehensive data on individual customers and are able to customize their offerings and communications.

Today subject is the myrror image!

Positioning

A key step in marketing strategy, known as positioning, involves creating and communicating a message that clearly establishes the company or brand in relation to competitors. Thus, Volvo Aktiebolaget (Sweden) has positioned its automobile as the "safest," and Daimler-Benz AG (Germany), manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz vehicles, has positioned its car as the best "engineered." Some products may be positioned as "outstanding" in two or more ways. However, claiming superiority along several dimensions may hurt a company's credibility because consumers will not believe that any one offering can excel in all dimensions. Furthermore, although the company may communicate a particular position, customers may perceive a different image of the company as a result of their actual experiences with the company's product or through word of mouth.

Marketing-mix planning (Tactics)

Having developed a strategy, a company must then decide which tactics will be most effective in achieving strategy goals. Tactical marketing involves creating a marketing mix of four components"product, price, place, promotion" that fulfills the strategy for the targeted set of customer needs.

Marketing implementation (Coordination as usual)

Companies have typically hired different agencies to help in the development of advertising, sales promotion, and publicity ideas. However, this often results in a lack of coordination between elements of the promotion mix. When components of the mix are not all in harmony, a confusing message may be sent to consumers. For example, a print advertisement for an automobile may emphasize the car's exclusivity and luxury, while a television advertisement may stress rebates and sales, clashing with this image of exclusivity. Alternatively, by integrating the marketing elements, a company can more efficiently utilize its resources. Instead of individually managing four or five different promotion processes, the company manages only one. In addition, promotion expenditures are likely to be better allocated, because differences among promotion tools become more explicit. This reasoning has led to integrated marketing communications, in which all promotional tools are considered to be part of the same effort, and each tool receives full consideration in terms of its cost and effectiveness.

Marketing evaluation and control (now problem!)

No marketing process, even the most carefully developed, is guaranteed to result in maximum benefit for a company. In addition, because every market is changing constantly, a strategy that is effective today may not be effective in the future. It is important to evaluate a marketing program periodically to be sure that it is achieving its objectives.

Services marketing

A service is an act of labour or a performance that does not produce a tangible commodity and does not result in the customer's ownership of anything. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product. Thus, there are pure services that involve no tangible product (as with psychotherapy), tangible goods with accompanying services (such as a computer software package with free software support), and hybrid product-services that consist of parts of each (for instance, restaurants are usually patronized for both their food and their service).

Services can be distinguished from products because they are intangible, inseparable from the production process, variable, and perishable. Services are intangible because they can often not be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before they are purchased. A person purchasing plastic surgery cannot see the results before the purchase, and a lawyer's client cannot anticipate the outcome of a case before the lawyer's work is presented in court. To reduce the uncertainty that results from this intangibility, marketers may strive to make their service tangible by emphasizing the place, people, equipment, communications, symbols, or price of the service. For example, consider the insurance slogans "You're in good hands with Allstate" or Prudential's "Get a piece of the Rock."

Services are inseparable from their production because they are typically produced and consumed simultaneously. This is not true of physical products, which are often consumed long after the product has been manufactured, inventoried, distributed, and placed in a retail store. Inseparability is especially evident in entertainment services or professional services. In many cases, inseparability limits the production of services because they are so directly tied to the individuals who perform them. This problem can be alleviated if a service provider learns to work faster or if the service expertise can be standardized and performed by a number of individuals (as H&R Block, Inc., has done with its network of trained tax consultants throughout the United States).

The variability of services comes from their significant human component. Not only do humans differ from one another, but their performance at any given time may differ from their performance at another time. The mechanics at a particular auto service garage, for example, may differ in terms of their knowledge and expertise, and each mechanic will have "good" days and "bad" days. Variability can be reduced by quality-control measures. These measures can include good selection and training of personnel and allowing customers to communicate dissatisfaction (e.g., through customer suggestion and complaint systems) so that poor service can be detected and corrected.

Finally, services are perishable because they cannot be stored. Because of this, it is difficult for service providers to manage anything other than steady demand. When demand increases dramatically, service organizations face the problem of producing enough output to meet customer needs. When a large tour bus unexpectedly arrives at a restaurant, its staff must rush to meet the demand, because the food services (taking orders, making food, taking money, etc.) cannot be "warehoused" for such an occasion. To manage such instances, companies may hire part-time employees, develop efficiency routines for peak demand occasions, or ask consumers to participate in the service-delivery process. On the other hand, when demand drops off precipitously, service organizations are often burdened with a staff of service providers who are not performing. Organizations can maintain steady demand by offering differential pricing during off-peak times, anticipating off-peak hours by requiring reservations, and giving employees more flexible work shifts.

Kent A. Grayson

Jonathan D. Hibbard

Philip Kotler
marketing
Strategy

... far back as 400 BC Sun-tzu, a Chinese general, set forth 13 principles. The axioms range from American Civil War General Nathan Bedford Forrest's simple admonition about getting there first with the most men to Napoleon's 115 maxims.
Though there is no complete agreement on the number of principles, most lists include the following: the objective, the offensive, cooperation (unity of command), mass (concentration), economy of force, maneuver, surprise, security, and simplicity. The British have added one called "administration"; the Soviets, another, translated as "annihilation." Despite debate over their precise number and meaning, the principles of war are widely taught, and most military students accept them as basic concepts.

In the theory of warfare, strategy and tactics have generally been put into separate categories. The two fields have traditionally been defined in terms of different dimensions: strategy dealing with wide spaces, long periods of time, and large movements of forces, tactics dealing with the opposite. Strategy is usually understood to be the prelude to the battlefield, and tactics the action on the battlefield itself.
Strategy gives tactics its mission and wherewithal and seeks to reap the results. But tactics has also become an important conditioning factor of strategy, and as it changes, so does strategy.

strategy

Integrated Marketing Communications Defined
integrated marketing communications

Coordination of a variety of promotional vehicles, an integrated marketing communications strategy is implemented at specific times during a marketing campaign to ensure the message is consistently received by its target audience.

A sound integrated marketing communications plan requires a blend of strategic planning, design, and communications ingenuity enabling the marketer to reach through multiple channels in architecting growth for business, brands, and products. Facing the ever-increasing growth of competition in the marketplace for dominance of communication channels, businesses need to concentrate on perfecting their integrated marketing communications plan in an effort to stay on top.

Businesses cannot afford to underestimate the importance of marketing to specific target audiences. In order to drives sales, a complete integrated marketing communications strategy should be explored and implemented to include public relations, advertising, internet, etc.

Strategically integrate all elements of marketing and marketing communications to present and market organizations, products, and services in both B2C and B2B settings.
Objective
Focusing on the long-term value of a customer or consumer so that up-selling, cross-selling, and loyalty can be maximized,
Goal
strategically integrate marketing communications to more precisely defined segments of customers and consumers so that resources can be focused effectively and waste eliminated.
Technology
Integrated Marketing Communication is more than the coordination of a company's outgoing message between different media and the consistency of the message throughout. It is an aggressive marketing plan that captures and uses an extensive amount of customer information in setting and tracking marketing strategy. Steps in an Integrated Marketing system are:

1. Customer Database
An essential element to implementing Integrated Marketing that helps to segment and analyze customer buying habits.
2. Strategies
Insight from analysis of customer data is used to shape marketing, sales, and communications strategies.
3. Tactics
Once the basic strategy is determined the appropriate marketing tactics can be specified which best targets the specific markets.
4. Evaluate Results
Customer responses and new information about buying habits are collected and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the strategy and tactics.
5. Complete the loop; start again at #1.
Measurement
Gain a better understanding about how to target communications more effectively
Learn to think comprehensively about your brand from the consumer’s or customer’s point of view so that you can develop more communications strategies that deliver results over the short and long terms
View communications more broadly than media-delivered messages by planning what your brand will communicate at each contact point or touch point, and consider how to measure the results.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS

ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

Associate Director

External Relations

Associate Director

External Relations &

Director of Communications

Director

Special Events

Director/Editor

Periodicals

Administrative Coordinator

Assistant Director

Communications

Database Administrator

Assistant Director

Periodicals

POSITIONING ELEMENTS

KEY MESSAGES

Weight of Elements Dependent on Program

# Curriculum (a)

# Linux - Java Aplications (b)

# Community (c)

# Quality Toolkit (d)

# Maintenance Services (d)

# Products (e)

AUDIENCES # PROSPECTIVE AND CURRENT

CURRENT MARKETING CHANNELS

Print Publications Other Media

View books MBA % CD Rohm

Brochures Knight Center % Video

Postcards

Other direct mail Advertising

Print

Periodicals Newspapers

Print Magazines

On-line Other Media

Radio

Web Site Cable TV

Airport Billboards

PUBLICATION

PROCESSES

# Internal

# Partnering with Programs

# Creative Direction and Project Management

# Annual Planning

PUBLICATION PROCESSES

INTERNAL

* Style Guide

* Key messages + unique audience/client value proposition

* Production schedules

* Review and approval process.

(future goal, now done by persuasion)

PUBLICATIONS PROCESSES

PARTNERING WITH PROGRAMS

* Initial conversation with Participants

* ER identifies appropriate resources (see creative direction process), develops production schedule and reviews with department/client

* Information gathering/ theme development/content outline (varies in accordance to scope of project and time constraints)

PUBLICATIONS PROCESSES

CREATIVE DIRECTION & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

# Select appropriate resources based on project scope and importance

# Gather content, develop theme and structure (outline/pagination); varies in scope from postcard to view book. (See Information Gathering in Partnering with Programs)

# Project management - everyone doing his/her job according to schedule (liaison with designers and writers as part of creative process)

PUBLICATIONS PROCESSES

ANNUAL PLANNING

* Initiate budget cycle meetings with program managers (programs own the budget)
* ER drafts project list and projected budget if sufficient information exists
* Follow-up with Program Director to review project list and budget
* Revised draft where needed (multiple iterations where necessary)
* End of year wrap-up and review with Budget & Operations

INTEGRATED MARKETING

CURRENT PROJECTS

* Customer Relationship Management
o On-line call reporting capability

* Web Site Management
o External Relations and Information Systems Partnership
o Departmental Web Coordinators
o Working with programs to create consistency of content and design

Putting the Marketing in

Integrated Marketing Communications

Product Price Place Promotion

The Four "Ps"

The Four "Cs"

Customer Cost Convenience Communications

Advise

Coordinate

Influence

Direct

Catalyst

Communications & External Affairs Resources

4 Full time staff

How We Function
Design & Creative Support Firm

Freelance Personnel

Strategic Plan

Audiences

Key Messages

Strategies

Goals/Objectives

Tactics

Measurement

* Image is Everything
* No Single Audience
* Competition
* Investment
* R & M
* Integrated Communications to Integrated

Marketing Communications

Context

Scope:

Undergraduate and Graduate Programs

* Responsibilities
o Brand
o Market positioning
o Publications
o Web design and content
o Events
o Advertising
o Media relations
o Internal communications

* Team
o Director
o Associate Director
o Administrative Assistant
* Resources
o Creative Services
o Freelancers, design firms

Be Inclusive

Employ processes that include input from relevant stakeholders

* If they are part of the process, they have a stake in the outcome
* Agreed review milestones

Lots of meetings, lots of listening, lots of debate!

* Associate
* Advisory Board
* Faculty
* Administration
* Emplyee
* Recruiters

Position

Define the character of the organization

* All messaging stems from positioning
* Anchors all strategy and tactics
* Don’t get bogged down with "tag lines" or "wordsmithing"
* Stuck on a tag line
* Agree on "character"

Analyze

Identify key audiences, channels and effectiveness

* To whom are we communicating now?
* What are we communicating?
* What channels are we using?
* What is working or not working?

* Only using print
* No media relations
* Events not promoted
* No intentional messaging
* "Cost" vs. "Asset"

Prioritize

* You can’t change or do everything all at once
* Prioritize by audience, channel, project
* Go for high visibility, high impact projects first
* Channels
o Web site
* Stakeholders
o Alumni
o Prospective employee
o Current employee
o Recruiters

Internal Evangelists

Develop internal evangelists

* Provide tools to faculty, staff and students
* Tell them a bazillion times
* Easy access to:
o Logos and guidelines
o Positioning
o Key messages
o Stories that manifest positioning
* Provide downloadable logos, templates and positioning messages

Integrated Marketing Communications

Personal Visits

Demand Creation (& Conversion)

Brand Image

1-1 (Personalized)

Direct Marketing

TV/Radio Advertising

Print Advertising

Web Advertising

Speakers’ Bureau

Trade Shows

Conferences

Sponsorships

& Other Events

Press Releases

Targeted

Direct Mail

White Papers

Research Papers

Mass Direct Mail

Feature Articles

(Reprints & Web)

Media & Analyst

Briefings

Community

Relations

Staff

Communications

Brochures

Web Site

Business Review

* Complete transformation
o Content revamp
o Look, feel, size
o Interactive component
o Circulation expanded from 12,000 to 42,000

Business Review

* Two-way communications
* Post comments to stories
* Read other people’s comments
* Send to a friend
* Vote on issues
* Extra content

Web Site Redesign
Summary

* Approaches will vary depending upon resources and environment
* Be inclusive
* Position first
* Identify key audiences
* Analyze
* Explore new channels
* Prioritize

Integrated Marketing Communications describes the nuts and bolts of what makes an integrated marketing communications firm work: strategy, execution and ...
IMC recognizes the synergistic effect across communication approaches and considers the perspectives of all relevant partners in such a way that brand value is maximized.

LINKING MARKETING AND FINANCIAL DECISIONS
The fundamental challenge of market strategy is to satisfy the priority needs of target customers while simultaneously recognizing how the business makes money. A "good" marketing decision that yields poor financial results is in reality a poor marketing decision. Conversely, financially sound decisions that result in actions that severly compromise customer needs rarely provide attractive returns over the long run. Promote a series of actions that partnership can take to harmonize marketing and financial decisions more closely. This is an min - MAX type problem

MARKETING STRATEGY AND COMMUNICATION
One of the primary drivers of ineffective marketing communications is that there is no overarching strategy to guide their creation. You have a strategic framework for specific marketing decisions that publisher must address prior to developing communications. Use Simlex Method

COMMUNICATION AS A STRATEGIC CORPORATE RESOURCE
Assume the concept of leveraging marketing and communications in your organization to a strategic level. What are basic corporate goals in terms of managing cash flows and generating profit. These goals must then analyzed as to how they relate to the use of marketing and communication and the changing, interactive, customer-driven marketplace. Dinamic optimize

DEVELOPING AN INTEGRATED BRAND COMMUNICATION PROCESS
Focus on the increasing value of the brand to the organization and looks at the close relationships between developing brand values, building customer relationships, and satisfying partnership goals. The process starts with customer identification, moves to customer valuation, and then to the development of communication programs (i.e., brand messages or brand incentives). Goes on to address the financial issues of brand communication: the identification of brand investments, the measurement of short-term and long-term returns, and the necessary approaches for relating communication programs to partnership objectives. Profit Limit is the global criteria

CREATING BRAND ADVOCATES
How to make your customers "raving fans" of your products or services. The bottom line benefits of building strong customer brand advocacy are stressed as well as the fundamental concepts for achieving it: strategic value targeting, customer insight, and whole brand positioning and implementation. Special emphasis is placed on integrating the whole range of "brand communications" as defined by the customer. Concepts are illustrated using examples in both consumer and business-to-business product categories. Feedback factor

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPERATIVES FOR IMC
The concept of building compelling brands by integrating their "total communication." Discussion centers on how a brand communicates from the customer's perspective and how to audit all of the elements of that communications mix. Tools are introduced to help prioritize the importance of each element from the customer's viewpoint and reveal areas of poor integration or alignment. Discussion then covers the implications for the allocation of resources, organizational structures, and processes and metrics that help to bring a brand's communications into alignment.

Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING

The Communications Mix

* Advertising
o any paid form of nonpersonal presentation by a sponsor
* Personal Selling
o personal presentations by a firm’s sales force
* Sales Promotion
o short term incentives to encourage sales
* Public Relations
o building good relations with various publics
* Direct Marketing
o short term incentives to encourage sales

Developing Effective Communication

* Identifying Target Audience

* Determining Communications Objectives
o Buyer Readiness Stages
* Designing Message
o Message Content
o Message Structure
o Message Format
* Media Selection
o personal and nonpersonal communications channels
* Message Source
* Feedback Collection

Promotion Budget

* Affordable

* Percentage of Sales

* Competitive Parity

* Objective and Task

Promotion Mix

* Advertising
o reaches many buyers, expressive
o impersonal
* Personal Selling
o personal interaction, relationship building
o costly
* Sales Promotion
o generates immediate response
o short-lived
* Public Relations
o more believable, economical, underused by firms
* Direct Marketing
o customized, interactive

Promotion Mix

* Push Strategy
o directing communications to channel members
* Pull Strategy
o directing communications to end users
* Factors
o type of product/market
o buyer readiness stage
o product life-cycle stage

Emerging Communications Environment

* Shift from mass marketing to segmented marketing

* Shift from mass media to focused media

Integrated Marketing Communications

* Coordinate and integrate communications channels
o advertising
o personal selling
o sales promotion
o direct marketing
o public relations
o packaging

Glycerine, Europe and Senses

2007-01-31T10:25:00.000-05:00

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age;

Dylan Thomas’s powerful portrayal of the universal life force is an apt symbol for the activity of glycerine. For what normally preserves dead tissue will usually harm life (e.g. formaldehyde, alcohol) and what generally promotes life will typically contribute to decay in the inanimate (e.g. moisture, oxygen).

Not so with glycerine. In interesting research published in the December 2003 issue of The Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Dr. Wendy Boilag and Dr. Xiangjian Zheng, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia, found that glycerine makes skin look, feel and function better by attracting moisture and by helping skin cells mature properly.

The researchers discovered glycerine’s role in skin cell maturation while studying phospholipase D, an enzyme that converts fats or lipids in the external, protective membrane. All cells have this layer, but skin cells secrete extra lipids to form a protective barrier. Says Dr. Boilag, “Think about it. If there was not some sort of barrier, when you took a bath, all the water would go into you and you would blow up like a balloon.”

This research is not news to natural soap makers who for years have been extolling the virtues of real soap over mass-produced chunks of chemicals that are cheap, but not skin-friendly. For while natural soap makers return the glycerine that is a normal by-product of the soap making process back into the soap, and often add even more, usually from vegetable oils such as coconut or other nut oils, commercial soap manufacturers remove the glycerine to add to more profitable products such as hand creams and other cosmetics.

It wasn’t until 1889 that a viable way to separate out the glycerine from soap making was discovered. In those days the primary use of glycerine was to make nitro-glycerine, which was used to make dynamite. Suddenly, commercial soap making became a lot more profitable, which gave birth to the mass manufacture of cheap soap, to the detriment of the small local soap maker.

But what exactly is glycerine? It is a sweet-tasting, colourless, viscous liquid, which can be dissolved in water or alcohol, but not oils. It is a trihydric alcohol with the chemical formula C3H5(OH)3. Glycerine (sometimes spelled “glycerin”) makes a good solvent and is highly “hygroscopic,” which means that it absorbs water readily.

Glycerine was first discovered in 1779 in the saponification (the conversion of fats into soap via the addition of an alkali such as lye) process of olive oil. Today, glycerine is found in and sourced from animal fats, vegetable oils and synthetically from petrochemicals.

The uses of glycerine are many. In addition to soap and cosmetics it is used in medicinal ointments, sometimes thickened with finely powdered starch. It is lubricating, emollient, soothing and healing to the skin. When mixed with floral waters (e.g. rose or lavender water) and borax it makes an effective wash for chapped skin. In this form glycerine is toning and astringent. When added to pills, suppositories and lozenges, glycerine will prevent them from becoming hard and mouldy. Glycerine suppositories are an excellent remedy for consistent constipation and haemorrhoids. Glycerine is antibacterial and is a valuable food preservative, being used extensively in the food processing industry. Although not quite as effective as alcohol for extracting the active ingredients in herbal tinctures, glycerine based tinctures are recommended for children or anyone wishing to avoid alcohol. Finally, to bring us back full circle to the Dylan Thomas quote, glycerine is fabulous for preserving flowers, enabling them to maintain pliability and avoiding the brittleness of air-dried flowers. Dye can be added to the glycerine solution to retain or change the original plant colour. It can take up to a week for the plants to absorb the solution, but they will then last for years. Check with your local craft supply store, bookstore or library for information on how to do this effectively. Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station has some excellent online instructions on how to preserve flowers using glycerine. The information can be downloaded from http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/hort2/mf2446.pdf. One word of caution: If you’re adding dye to the solution, don’t place the flowers in a bathroom, kitchen or any other area susceptible to moisture. The glycerine will attract this moisture. The plants will weep and you’ll have an indelible mess on your hands.

Bruce Burnett is a chartered herbalist who has also won four Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold awards for travel journalism. Read more of Bruce Burnett's writing on his websites:
1. http://www.globalramble.com
2. http://www.bruceburnett.ca
3. http://www.herbalcuisine.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bruce_Burnett

"Europe for the Senses: A Photographic Journal" by author, traveler, and photographer Vicki Lanes is a breathtaking collection of full-color photographs from around Europe. Images range from wildflowers to the Leaning Tower of Pisa juxtaposed against an aerial view of flying to Pisa, to Luxembourg's American Military Cemetery, and much more. Most photographs have a brief commentary in the form of text, printed in a handwriting-style font and reminiscing fond memories as well as recounting historical facts about the images that portray classic locations.
ISBN 1419629441

World traveler, Vicki Landes, portrays Europe in the most delightful way one can imagine.
I imagined the smell of the water blooms, and almost heard the pipe organ in the Fraumunster Church.
"Pisa a collection of clay-colored roofs being interrupted by a pallid square of marble structures. Contain a smirk when you ponder Pisa’s only claim to fame is an engineering failure; imagine the perplexing mixture of pride and embarrassment for its creator, knowing the world remembers you for this crooked tower too unstable to ring its own bells."
To me, Austria is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever been to. The photos of garden urns and fountains are magical.
Secondly, I love the Netherlands, and of course Landes added a wonderful section. She explains "Rows of colorful tulips as far as the eye can see"it’s tulip time in the Netherlands. As each flower greedily reaches for the sun, countless visitors at the Keukenhof Gardens snap pictures and purchase bulbs and seedlings." It is obvious that Landes was one of those snapping pictures. The rainbow of colors that are portrayed in the photos of "Europe for the Senses" is spectacular and the hyacinths are so true to form that I feel like putting my nose into the picture. In fact, I’m sure I can even smell the flowers!

http://www.readerviews.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Irene_Watson

"Europe for the Senses: A Photographic Journal" by author, traveler, and photographer Vicki Lanes is a breathtaking collection of full-color photographs from around Europe. Images range from wildflowers to the Leaning Tower of Pisa juxtaposed against an aerial view of flying to Pisa, to Luxembourg's American Military Cemetery, and much more. Most photographs have a brief commentary in the form of text, printed in a handwriting-style font and reminiscing fond memories as well as recounting historical facts about the images that portray classic locations.

Official Google Reader Blog: Some of our engineers don't work at Google

2007-01-28T23:30:00.000-05:00

Official Google Reader Blog: Some of our engineers don't work at Google
Thanks God! Some of engineers don't work at all in Romania!
Blogs are public notes about one subject and particular for me, my computer face! I'm using for each computer, that have a specific job, one blog and entries mirror the operator position.
Google Reader is the tool for news until my read4me is ready. I want to post direct on the blog that article!
Great job Google team this year (please include and this)
Let's search!

SEO Plan

2007-01-27T05:47:00.000-05:00

Basic SEO Plan includes the following:

Project Initiation Report; this includes opening the communication channels, identifying the communicators mode/ etc. Team introduction, Introduce Search Engine Marketing in detail

Site Analysis Report: This includes analyzing the client site for: Site Overview, Home page stats, to check the Links and indexes at time of project initiation, is the Page Design/s marketable, is the content on pages good enough for conversions, do site follows what Search Engine usually likes.

Competitor analysis, how they are performing so to understand the basic required thrust for Optimizing the site

Understanding client business, Services and products

To do keywords Analysis, touching the extra mile effort to bring up most relevant keyword list

Adding keywords on pages, optimizing Meta Tags Titles, descriptions and keywords

To identify pages for Text optimization

Implementing proper Site map and navigation scheme

Spotting problematic areas which Search Engine generally avoids and dealing with frames, flash and script languages

Doing Directory submissions, starting with main and open directory, category wise submissions

Reciprocal link generation with sharing value based links, following the links stats and maintaining it

Plan 2
Intermediate SEO Plan includes a proper step-wise procedure for better efficiency. It involves:

Step 1-Project Initiation Report
This includes:

A welcome Note
Introduction to Project Manager (experience, qualification (if) – for trust building)
Mention the scope of project
Introduce SEM
Communication details, like, email id’s, Chat messengers, phone numbers,
concern relation manager/personnel, call time etc.
Process flow

Step 2-Initial Site Analysis Report
This includes:

Site Overview
Nature of business
Home page
Site Dimensions, number of pages
Product/Services categories
Phrase-Specific Pages
Keyword Density
Google PageRank
Yahoo
Link Popularity
Positioning with respect to SE’s
Identifying Page Characteristics: Frames, J Scripts, Dynamic pages etc
Site Map/ Navigation Tracking
Analyzing internal links, broken links etc
Content Review (Only with reference to Optimization Procedure)
Page Design – Is the page Marketable
Checking Relevancy
Projections: give idea to client when he can expect results/activity wise
Conclusion/Summary

Step 3-Recommendations
Analysis Report is immediately followed by the Recommendations Report and is
supported by the Detailed Analysis Report.

Step 4-Project Plan for SEO Implementation
According to the Detailed Site Analysis, Recommendations, SEO team outlines the
project plan. It includes:

Project Component Time Esitmation

1) Keywords Analysis As per Site Dimensions
2) Competitor Analysis One Day
3) Initial Traffic Analysis One Day
4) Directory Submission to Major ones One Day
5) Dealing with Recommendations As per Plan/Site dimensions
6) On Page Optimization Implementation As per plan/recommended/dim
7) Link Building Campaign Ongoing Process
8) Optimize Text As per site dimensions/plan
9) PPC Bid Management (as per scope of project) As per project scope
10) Newsletter Campaigns Management
(as per scope of project) As per project scope
11) Blogging (As per scope of project) As per project scope
12) Usability and conversion As per Site Dimensions/plan
13) Analyzing Logs Ongoing
14) Monthly Progress Reports Month Ends

Step 5-Implementation of Planned Project Details

Keyword Analysis
KWA as per first approach -- As per site pages, services/products
As per client business recommendations
As per SEO point of view -- traffic, intitle, competition, etc
Page wise Keyword Analysis
KWA using SEO tactics -- spellings, small/caps, stemming, keyword combination,
removing ambiguity, KEI analysis, singular/plural, etc.
Preparing final keyword list.

Competitor Analysis
Site wise analysis
On business basis
On demographic
SEO point of view, Links, Indexed Page, Positioning on Different SEs.

Initial Traffic Analysis
Request for log files or any software
Traffic Initial Status with respect to Search Engines
Reporting (ongoing--monthly in MPRs).

Directory Submission to Major Ones
DMOZ, Yahoo, Google and MSN
Paid Submissions (if applicable)

Onpage Optimization Implementation
Meta & Description Tags
Navigation, Sitemap
Text Optimization
Page Maintenance (Ongoing)
Links
Placement of different objects/options etc.
Page updations as on requirements

Link Building Campaign
Reciprocal Links
Process of explanation
Monthly links update--reports through MPRs
Directory Submission
Category wise, as per business importance
Suggestions for paid submissions (subject to client recommendation/interest).

PPC Bid Management (as per scope of project)

Newsletter Campaigns Management (as per scope of project)

Blogging (as per scope of project)

Affiliate Program (as per scope of project)

Analyzing Logs

Usability and Conversion (it includes a meticulous eye on all details)

Dealing with Search Engine advance nature/changes
Dealing with New Search Engines, updates versions, beta versions
Implementing SEO Advance Strategies
Localized SEO (as per applicability of project scope)
Multilingual SEO

Step 6-Monthly Proegress Reports
Monthly Progress Report
Traffic Analysis
Report on Link Building status
Reports for Newsletters, Blogging, PPC, etc (as per scope of project)
Recommendations for next month

Step 7-In House Project Review
Project Manager prepares Review for in-house usage and, Client Relation Manager.
Project Audit
In-house Planning and Implementation for project handling as per Audit.

Plan three

Site Analysis
Competitor Analysis
Site Overview
Nature of business
Home page
Site Dimensions, number of pages
Product/Services categories
Phrase-Specific Pages
Keyword Density
Google Page Rank
Yahoo
Link Popularity
Positioning with respect to SE’s
Identifying Page Characteristics: Frames, J Scripts, Dynamic pages etc
Site Map/Navigation Tracking
Analyzing internal links, broken links etc
Content Review (Only with reference to Optimization Procedure)
Page Design Is the page Marketable: Checks
Checking Relevancy
Projections: give idea to client when he can expect results/activity wise
Recommendations Analysis Report immediately to be followed by Recommendations
Report, supported by detailed analysis Report.
Project plan for SEO Implementations According to Detailed Site Analysis,
Recommendations, SEO team shall outline the project plan.
Some Keyword Checking Tools: TheDowser--Overture Keyword Tool, Google Keyword Sandbox, Keyword Harvester, Google AdWords report analyzer, Google AdWords Optimization Tool, log file analyzer, conversion tracking and optimization tool.
Click , for some really useful SEO tools.

Keyword Suggestion Tools: A handy little tool will show you the results of your query from both Wordtracker and Overture for determining which phrases are searched most often. Enter a search phrase below to see how often it's searched for, as well as get suggestions for alternate (but similar) keywords.

Keyword Ranking Tool: This utility can be used to check search engines for keyword ranking and track search engine ranking for your various keywords over time, which, as you probably know, is critical when doing search engine optimization.

Topword Tool - Topword Tool is a free online tool that analyzes a complete web page and counts keyword occurrences, as well as keyword phrases (number in brackets), equal to or above that set in the Minimum Occurrences setting. It supplies a list of keywords and keyword phrases which are most likely to achieve the highest rankings on a major search engine. The tool will also analyze your meta description/keyword and title tags and then, through color coding, inform you of words/phrases which should be included. The main use for this tool is checking your optimization and tweaking existing web sites to rank well.

Tracking and analyzing logs of sites, to give you clear view of visitor movements

Sending you Daily Status Report of your project work done details

Sending Monthly Progress Reports which includes Month Progress Report about what has been done, Traffic Analysis, Report on Link Building Status and Recommendations for next month.

comments open 21 days

Explore Your Possibilities: Chemical Nano Engineering

2007-01-22T22:24:00.000-05:00

Explore Your Possibilities: Chemical Nano Engineering
First the obvious (that is, if you're not brainwashed by economic orthodoxy): the economy doesn't reach equilibrium. It isn't static—it's dynamic, constantly changing. And changes can happen suddenly and non-linearly. In other words, unlike a ball that you might push on a flat surface, the economy is more like pushing a ball into a series of curved surfaces and connected bowls of different heights. The track is always changing and different balls might be at different heights at different times. More on this in a bit.

Second: While most economic theories presume people will optimize and take all available information into account—we, err, I mean they—don't. We use rules of thumb: heuristics. There are volumes covering the various kinds of cognitive biases from which we suffer. And while most economists assume we are rational agents—it just ain't so. People are irrational. Whether its information cascades, fads or cults (dot-com bust, pet rocks, Jonestown massacre) for every rational person you show me, I'll dig out five irrational ones from the graveyard of folly and foible. Of course as has been said, it ain't the things we don't know that get us into trouble—it's the things we know that just ain't so.

Next: networks. All the people and all the companies interact in networks and those networks are in themselves hard to predict. Have you ever met someone you judged to be of average intellect and ability but turned out to be connected to another of great power and influence? People always wonder, "how did HE meet HIM, and how are they still friends?" Small worlds indeed and when networks morph, merge into larger ones and break-off into sub-networks, it's even harder to predict.

Once you have these networks, interesting and unpredictable things can happen. In a sand pile there is a network of potential energy, "fingers of instability" where a small input can trigger an avalanche. And that network—like a market—can change quickly and suddenly. You can also get the emergence of a phenomenon known as "emergence". Emergence is a fancy way of saying that the whole is greater than the some of the parts. Ant colonies, brains, cities, behavior in markets all exhibit this phenomenon of emergence where the constituent components give rise to higher order.

The last key principle is this: evolution. Organisms, technologies, business models, social structures all evolve. And this is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. There are a few key aspects in the process of evolutions—whether in life, inventions or ventures.

First is "variation". In life: it's via random mutation. In technology: it's via accidental discovery, intentional invention, trial and error and combination of already existing technologies.

The second aspect: once there are a variety of things, it's clear that some are better than others.

The third feature is that there's some process or algorithm of "selection". And of course the fore mentioned "better" depends on what environment or landscape the thing is performing or competing in. The fancy name for this is "fitness landscape". Think of climbing a mountain: you try to scale a local peak. When you get to the top, you might see a new peak which could even require you to descend, move to the new base and then climb again. Tiger Woods did this years ago to perfect his swing—so did IBM. And so it is with technology adoption, startup companies and even incumbent companies that can adapt and reinvent themselves.

The last key feature is amplification. Good biological designs—or good technologies or businesses benefit from positive feedback effects and get dialed up. They get amplified, attract capital, get more adopted and spread through the proverbial (or literal) gene pool. Conversely, bad ones get dialed down. They get negative feedback, lose prominence, suffer from decreased population size or even extinction.

You can use all the above to see patterns that might be emerging, note when the wisdom of the crowds breaks down and leads to information cascades with people parroting other people. You can also see how a collection of new technologies can come together to create applications that weren’t predicted.

There's one key part of this framework that I've found frustrating. Feynman famously said that for a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. But I've realized to the unfortunate happenstance of investors: that people can be fooled—namely by other people.

Most short investors are right to predict the eventual demise of a company run by a manipulator rather than an operator. But in the short-term, under the captive spell or so-called "reality distortion fields" of such promoters, frustrating as it may be, I must admit that the promoter has economic value. He can lower the company’s cost of capital. How do you quantify that? What' that guy worth? The same thing goes with countless private ventures. Imagine a market mechanism for shorting private companies…

OPINION: NANOTECH BLOG

Keep up with me by reading my personal opinions posted to this website covering issues about the money, markets, science and undiscovered trends behind

nanotech: just click on the link below:

http://www.forbeswolfe.com

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Comments and/or information for analysis: nanotech@forbes.com Subscription and customer service issues: nanotech@forbes.com Media services and trade show requests: nanotech@forbes.com

JAN.19.2006 by Josh Wolfe (email: nanotech@forbes.com)

Pareto Principle of Optimality presume that equilibrium is at that point where don't appear more losers Real life is permanent battle on limited resources. When I'm using theories the results appear for public something like "... the probability is..."

Social Media Optimization vs. Social Media Marketing

2007-01-09T01:49:00.000-05:00

Social Media Optimization vs. Social Media Marketing
"
In Social Media
Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) are two new phrases that popped up last year to define marketing through social media and social networking sites. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what each of them mean and what exactly they define, which is bound to happen with any new phrase.
Even when potential clients contact us there seems to be a lot of confusion between the two. I see them as two different emerging marketing techniques. When the phrase Social Media Optimization was first invented by Rohit Bhargava, some people didn't agree with the phrase and instead suggested that we rename it to SMM.
I'm not trying to point fingers at anyone though, even I am guilty of making the same mistakes; when I jumped on the original SMO meme-wagon and added some rules of my own I added one about creating viral content. I would no longer classify that rule as SMO and instead would now classify it as SMM. In my opinion creating something new is more about marketing than it is optimization. In light of this confusion, I am going to make an attempt at clarifying the two phrases.
SMO refers to the process of refining a website (optimizing it) so that it's awareness and content are easily spread through social mediums and online communities by users and visitors of the website. This can include anything done "on-page" such as improving the design and usability of the website so that it becomes more compelling to users, in an effort to help them spread it through social media sites. The simplest example of SMO is represented by all the "digg this" and "add to delicious" icons and links that are all over the web today.
SMM on the other hand plays more of an active role in relation to social media by referring to the creation and distribution of content and other messages through the social web by some form of viral marketing. This can be anything from creating compelling content that gets bookmarked and even hits digg's homepage to spreading a viral video by putting it on YouTube and other social media websites. It's about the things that are done off-site, for example, participating in online communities where your customers hang out would be an active role that falls under SMM.
In some ways the two remind me of the differences between push vs. pull marketing. But only a little bit, and I have to be careful what I say here. In a way with SMM you are actually pushing your message out there, but that's usually where the pushing stops. Once you push that message out there it should not require any more pushing. A true viral marketing campaign is so good that it spreads on it's own and people actually want to spread it, so the push usually ends with the creation and initial "planting" of the campaign. SMO is all about pulling people in with an "optimized" site and encouraging visitors to spread your content without any effort on your part. I think the clear difference between the two is that SMO refers to on-page modifications (on your website) while SMM refers to activities that take place outside of your website (on other websites). As I see it, SMO can be one of the ways to encourage SMM activities by users and visitors of your website.
I would love to hear what other people think about these ideas about social media optimization and social media marketing, does my explanation make sense to you, or do we need to go back to the drawing board?

Back in Business

2007-01-04T02:46:00.000-05:00

For successful B2B marketing in 2007, there are three âingredientsâ to keep in mind:
Paradigm shifts in the planning of marketing strategies and budgets (search engine marketing anyone?)
Establishing proper metrics to track
Studying analytics as part of the lead generation process
Paradigm Shifts in the Planning of Marketing Strategies and Budgets
Iâve already touched on this, but as B2B marketers we need to take advantage of online opportunities. A well rounded search marketing strategy involves a sponsored and organic component. Part of your marketing budget should be directed at search marketing (whether you will be outsourcing or performing it in-house). Organically speaking a site that is well optimized and ranking in the search engines can prove very effective as organic results are longer lasting. With the B2B arena involving a much more complex web of interactions between prospects and vendors, having your organization represented in the prime real estate of a search engine results page will help ensure that you are on the list of potential vendors during the selection process. The point is planning of a dedicated search marketing budget is becoming more important that ever. Still not sold on a dedicated search marketing budget? Well you can bet that your competition is doing is as search continues to gain popularity and enter the mainstream.

Establishing Proper Metrics to Track

Another key in B2B marketing in 2007 is establishing the proper metrics to track. With B2B marketing, the actual transaction represents only a small part of the entire purchase process. As a result, establishing proper metrics to track along the way is key to determining your success. These metrics can be established from:
a) Your Organizationâs KPIs â the key performance indicators for your company as a whole can help determine the proper metrics that you should be tracking. Lead generation sites may have different KPIs than would an information type site.
b) Online Goals â may or may not be the same as your organizationâs goals. You may have an online goal to increase traffic to your site by 20% every quarter for two years. In order to measure your siteâs success, you may want to use online goals such as these to determine if your SEM strategies are returning the results that you expected.
c) Competition â Know your competition and visit their websites. They may disclose some information as to how they are measuring their success. From here you may be able to establish key metrics that you should be tracking as well.
If you are unsure whether you are tracking the proper metrics for your online success you may want to revisit the metrics and evaluate your analytics to determine if improvements are necessary.

Studying Analytics as part of the Lead Generation Process

With B2B companies, lead generation is a vital cog in the wheel that turns. Itâs no secret that B2B transactions have a longer selling cycle and usually involve a higher end purchase. The amount of time a potential client researches a solution for their need can take weeks, months and even years. Therefore studying analytics as part of the lead generation process may help uncover areas of improvement for your lead generation process. Analytics can offer a wealth of knowledge providing you take time to ensure that your analytics is set up correctly and is tracking proper metrics. With proper analytics you can review items such as:
Number of repeat visitors to conversion pages
Sponsored search cost - broken down by products/services, keyword, source and campaign
Length of time spent on site
Where search visitors go on your site after leaving the âlandingâ page or your site entirely
Search visitor form requests drop-out behavior and rates
Path analysis as an indication where potential leads are leaving the site
Geo region where the majority of site visitors are coming from (this can help you define new markets to enter or existing markets to focus on)
There is so much more that you can track though your analytics providing that you have an analytics package that is robust enough to measure what you need to measure. That in itself is the trick, âmeasure what you need to measure.â This recipe may not guarantee success but it will sure contribute to it. I see B2B marketing in 2007 incorporating the use of search marketing as not only a tool for promotion, but as a necessary means to improve ROI.
Discuss this article in the Small Business Ideas forum

Best Pogue's Posts

2006-12-31T15:23:00.000-05:00

Marketers determine what the masses want, product managers guide the design, engineers bring the thing to life - itâs a lot of cooks. No wonder so many people across the country are, at this very moment, staring at newly unwrapped electronic holiday gifts in utter bewilderment.
Even so, brilliant ideas sometimes make it off the drawing board, past the layers of lawyers and onto store shelves. Sometimes, a delicious idea is part of a triumphant overall product. Other times, the flash of greatness is wasted on a turkey.
Here, then, is my second annual Top 10 List - not of the greatest tech products of the year, but of the greatest ideas, individual features, that surfaced. Itâs a little tip oâ the egg nog to the great thinkers whose ideas made it out of committee.
THE FLASH-DRIVE FUEL GAUGE You gotta love those U.S.B. flash drives. Theyâre cheap, shiny and tiny, and they offer a practically perfect way to transport computer files.
On the other hand, you gotta hate it when you plug in a flash drive to receive a file you need - and discover that the darned thing doesnât have enough free space.
Thatâs the beauty of Lexar âs Mercury flash drive, whose case has a âfuel gaugeâ - a bar graph that tells you, without even plugging the thing in, how full it is. Thanks to a technology called E-Ink, this graph is always on and stays visible indefinitely, without requiring any power whatsoever.
THE MAGNETIC POWER CORD Somewhere thereâs surely a support group for people who have dragged their $2,000 laptops to the floor by tripping on the power cord.
That doesnât happen with Apple âs 2006 laptops, whose power cords connect with a powerful magnet rather than a pin or a plug. If someone trips or yanks on the cord, the magnet detaches and drops harmlessly to the floor. The laptop switches seamlessly to battery power, saving your data, your money and months of therapy.
Better yet, this magnet has no âright side upâ; it works no matter which way you slap it on. Oh, and it lights up to confirm that youâre plugged into a working outlet.
THE TWO-STAGE FLASH It may seem counterintuitive that the more expensive the digital camera, the less likely it is to have a built-in flash. The manufacturers assume that if youâre that much of a professional, you certainly own an external flash unit.
Among other virtues, an external flash can be aimed upward so the light bounces off the ceiling, rather than blasting into your subjectâs face. The result is more even and flattering light.
Panasonicâs Lumix DMC-L1 and LC1 cameras, though, offer the best of both worlds. If you push the open button for the built-in flash firmly, it pops up and faces forward.
But if you push lightly, it pops up to a different position, angled 45 degrees upward - yes, in bounce-off-the-ceiling position. Great idea, cleverly done.
A RECORD RADIO BUTTON Samsung Helix is a regular music player, like an iPod (though smaller). But itâs also an XM satellite radio receiver.
Thatâs already a good idea, but hereâs the clincher: When you hear a song that you like on one of XMâs 70 themed, ad-free music channels, one button-press records that song from the beginning - even if you were a little late hitting record. In all, this gadget can hold about 25 hoursâ worth of recorded radio.
Long-suffering music fans could probably have predicted that XM would be sued over this glorious idea, and, well, sure enough. Maybe whatâs so great about this idea isnât so much its ingenuity as its bravery.
MUSIC BEAMING The Zune, Microsoft âs new music player, does something amazingly well that its rival, the iPod, doesnât do at all: It lets you beam songs or photos wirelessly to another Zune. Itâs easy and fast, and it could be a great way to discover new music recommended by your friends.
In practice, thereâs more to the story. To avoid lynch mobs from the record companies, Microsoft designed the Zune so that beamed songs self-destruct after three plays or three days, whichever comes first - even, idiotically, your own recordings like college lectures and garage-band demos.
The Zune, therefore, is that classic case: a killer idea diluted by a ham-handed execution.
THE VIDEO-GAME WORKOUT Nintendoâs Wii game console, on the other hand, is a stellar product that succeeds precisely because its central idea is unencumbered by corporate baggage - and is tons of fun.

Diamonds are not forever

2006-12-18T00:58:00.000-05:00

Entrapping of Icosahedral Metallofullerenes in Carbon Nanotubes: (CsC60)n@SWNT Nano-Pea pods

Bao-Yun Sun, Yuta Sato, Kazutomo Suenaga, Toshiya Okazaki, Naoki Kishi, Toshiki Sugai, Shunji Bandow, Sumio Iijima, and Hisanori Shinohara*

Abstract:

Icosahedral C60-based metallofullerenes, CsC60, have been synthesized and successfully encapsulated into single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in high yield by reducing C60 molecules into anions. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images and in situ electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) indicate that Cs atoms and C60 molecules align within SWNTs as CsC60 icosahedral metallofullerenes, and that the formal charge state of encaged CsC60 is expressed as Cs+1C60-1. The present pea pods with the icosahedral metallofullerenes provide a new insight and the possibility to fine-tune the electronic and transport properties of carbon nanotubes.

J. Am. Chem. Soc., 127 (51), 17972 -17973, 2005.

Well, we know to produce those fullerene from more than 1700 Years, for swords as you have seeing in previous post. For the people the use of Seeds of Time is more difficult.

EPA will now consider nanosilver used in washing machines as
pesticides
Susan Morrissey
Silver nanoparticles from Samsung's SilverCare washing machine will soon have to be registered with EPA as a pesticide.
Silver-claimed to be nanoparticles-employed to kill bacteria in washing machines will now be regulated as a pesticide, EPA announced late last month. Currently, washers that generate silver ions are classified as devices and are not required to be registered with EPA.
The products at issue are Samsung washing machines that are advertised as using silver ions to kill 99.9% of odor-causing bacteria. This technology,
called SilverCare, generates ions by applying current to two silver plates housed next to the machine's tub. The ions are then directed into the tub during the wash cycle.
"EPA has determined that the Samsung silver ion-generating washing machine is subject to registration requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide & Rodenticide Act," according to an EPA statement.
The agency decided to change the classification of the washer because it releases silver ions into the laundry "for the purpose of killing microbial pests," the statement explains.
For its part, Samsung has pledged to comply with the change of policy. "Samsung has and will continue to work with EPA and state regulators regarding regulation of the silver washing machine," the company says.
Several groups concerned about the environmental impact of nanoparticles of silver had asked EPA to reevaluate the way products containing such materials are regulated. For example, environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted in a letter to EPA that there are currently more than 40 products on the market in addition to Samsung's washing machine that have made or implied claims of using nanoparticles of silver to kill bacteria. NRDC praised EPA for taking what it called a "step in the right direction" by reclassifying nanosilver generated in a washer as a pesticide. The group also said this revised policy should lead to EPA reassessing other products that use
nanoparticles of silver for their biocidal qualities.
Chemical &
Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347

Well, the Indian maharajah's know from more than two thousand years this!

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