Tech watch
I keep hearing lately how a recession is a good time for people to start businesses.
Call me cynical, but this sounds like something a crazy person would say, or someone just being counterintuitive to get attention. There’s a lot of that has been going around lately.
“It’s completely counterintuitive,” agrees Thomas Koulopoulos, author of "The Innovation Zone: How Great Companies Re-Innovate for Amazing Success.”
But he still thinks there’s some benefit to unleashing your entrepreneurial dreams during a crummy economy.
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Many of you who read my Twitter post a couple of months ago took me up on the offer to get on the social networking site and started tweeting to help promote your business.
Unfortunately, many of you just don't seem to get Twitter yet (don't worry -- I'm not going to name names).
You can't just tweet over and over again about your products or services. Well, actually you can do whatever you want on Twitter, but just listing products in hopes someone will head over to your Web site and buy your wares is going to get you ostracized, aka un-followed, and fast.
For the majority of people out there that don't know, first I'll start by explaining what the heck Twitter is.
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It's April 1 and the world has not come to an end.
Many of you might seem surprised because the latest cyber worm threat, Conficker, was billed as a ticking time bomb. Even 60 Minutes got into the act this past weekend with a scary piece on the cyber threat.
I don't know about you, but these endless stories about cyber sabotage are starting to sound like parent threatening a child with the bogeyman.
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This economy has got me scratching my head a lot lately.
There are just so many things I don't get, especially when it comes to financing. We're told constantly that banks, venture capital firms and other lending institutions are reluctant to hand out loans, and tons of small business owners I talk to tell me they're being squeezed because of the tight reins on financing right now.
So how the heck did a company that hasn't made a red cent get $35 million in venture capital money?
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My local newspaper has been shrinking and that's making me very sad. But you know what's been making me very mad? The number of coupons in the damn thing seems to be multiplying.
I may not be able to read in-depth stories about my community, but I can get 50 cents off diapers and poisoned peanut butter products. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
What will happen to all those glossy coupons when the foretold death of newspapers finally occurs in this country?
One entrepreneur is already benefiting from print media's downfall, and the economic downturn.
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So it finally happened. I read a "tweet" this week about someone having a bowel movement.
It was just like any other day. I was perusing social networking site Twitter when I came across this clear example of too much information.
A lot of people think Twitter is all about inane stuff like this, but in reality bowel-movement notifications are a rarity among the great comments you find on this Web site. Basically, Twitter is a place where people share a sentence or two about something great they read, or an interesting blog post they wrote.
It's also an ideal place to get the word out about your service or product -- for free.
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Why does everyone insist on making my life more difficult?
I can't just pop a DVD into the player and have it start playing a movie without watching the previews. People don't respond to my e-mails with a message history anymore. And lately, Twitter keeps saying it's "over capacity" and won't let me tweet.
Now the Better Business Bureau (BBB) is getting in on the make-my-life-more-difficult act.
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Recently we decided to take the kids to the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan and we encountered parking hell.
I was circling the neighborhoods near the museum looking for someone who was pulling out of a primo spot, and my husband kept insisting I just pull into a parking lot. He had to go to the bathroom but I just couldn’t bring myself to drop $40 plus for a lot.
Turns out, a young entrepreneur’s recession-busting idea could have saved us all some grief.
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I received an e-mail recently from a telecommunications company touting how they are cutting prices to help small businesses struggling in the current economy.
Now, I've covered business long enough to know that few, if any, business owners change their operating strategies just to help others. So I e-mailed back to ask why.
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I recently interviewed a small business owner in a lavish conference room where he showed me his new idea for large screen video ads, but I kept walking into walls and the conference room's table.
No, I wasn't drunk folks. I was doing a bad job navigating my avatar.
An avatar is a computer simulation of you. I created one in the virtual world known as Second Life. I made the mistake of having my eight-year-old daughter help me design the avatar, which looks like a six-foot Lara Croft bunny rabbit.
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