The poster above may be a relic of World War II, but the notion of keeping secrets to preserve the advantage dates from much further back. The ancient "Art of War" by Sun Tzu includes the advice "[c]onceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory." More recently, the passage of the Patriot Act has shown the importance that global leaders place on protecting their own...
Every major company and personality has a blog these days. And why wouldn’t we? It’s modern broadcasting, putting out your message and thoughts to wide audience at the click of a button. But there are more reasons than just communicating to have a blog. For one, credibility. A blog is seen as an integral part of a fully functioning website; if your site lacks a blog, some may question just...
Websites have become such an integral part of the business landscape that it can be easy to take them for granted. Everyone’s got one and every business needs one – and that makes them a valuable resource. The flip side of that necessity is that domain names are being registered at a prodigious rate. Technically, there’s no running out of domain names – the permutations of letters and numbers is...
For all I like to talk about social media and how it's a huge part of online marketing, there is some older technology out there that can also play a huge part in how you market your business. I speak of course of the good old fashioned email mailing list. I'm sure you're all familiar with them. You only really need to take a look at your email inbox, and...
Black Friday has become something of a holiday season legend, known as the day when retail companies are back "in the black" - in other words, making a profit for the year. It's also the official kick-off of the holiday shopping season. But you know all that. What you may not know is that after the weekend, as people return to work, they don't stop shopping - instead, they log...
Every second of every day, the world around us is changing at what can only be described as an alarming rate. In the world of technology, for example, the common household items of today were the stuff of science fiction only a decade or two ago. Don't believe me? Look at the prevalence of touchscreen interfaces, tablet computers, and smartphones. Now go watch a few episodes of Star Trek: The...
Social media is the fastest growing form of marketing in the world today, and for good reason. Over the past two decades the Internet has spread like wildfire, from the old 14.4k dial-up modem days to today, where high speed Internet access is available to most of the planet via the touch of a button on a cellular phone. And with the spread of the Internet has come more and...
You would think that the demise of one competitor in an industry would leave the remaining companies in a better position – that, for example, Borders’ bankrupty would be good news for Barnes and Noble, or the collapse of Circuit City would strengthen Best Buy. But that’s not what’s happened in these cases – Barnes and Noble continues to struggle to transfer its once-mighty earnings potential to the Nook digital...
It's a fact of life - business is risky. It is virtually impossible to guarantee success with perfect certainty. There are simply too many variables to be able to plan for every eventuality. This is especially true for new business owners who lack the experience to predict what sort of challenges they'll face - that's why most small businesses fail in the first two years. Knowing the biggest risks to...