Archive for the 'Trends' Category

How does your metro area – or the area you plan to target for your marketing measure up in terms of adversity? Knowing that could make the difference between success or failure of a venture because the sense of perceived adversity will influence buying habits and, accordingly, your projections.  Here’s a tool to consider in [...]

During a downturn in the economy like this, people are thinking about their options. Many are being encouraged to train for a vocational career as opposed to starting a business per se. Is that wise? Well, that depends on what you were doing when you were laid off. If you had a high degree of [...]

The people who sell the Blackberry are finally setting up their own applications store – it’s about time!
When I wrote about The New Mailbox Money I talked about how iphone applications and Kindle could put money in your pockets.
Now Blackberry will be selling applications and there will even be a Kindle like (if not a [...]

The WSJ recently published an article on home-grown economic-stimulus programs that cities, counties, and states are providing to help small businesses stay afloat and spur local spending during the recession.
Usually local plans – aka “economic gardening” – work better than shotgun big government plans.
Here are some plans the Wall Street Journal discussed…
Are you joining with [...]

Even PBS can come up with something interesting once in a while.
Is your business plan focused on the past or the future? It’s ok to focus on something hot in the past if it’s still a keeper now. And you can mess yourself up jumping too quickly into the new and untested. Finding the right [...]

Check out The Rise of the Underground Economy. Bottom line? This is what they really would say if they were honest –
1. Economists looked down on the unregulated, unlicensed markets of the world because they worked at state funded institutions and regulated markets, essentially, paid their salaries. Unregulated markets know economists and weather forecasters [...]

Moody’s is a bond rating outfit. Their ratings determine the relative ability of companies to repay debt. In common parlance, whether the company’s bonds are “junk” and, if junk, “how bad”?
This is their bottom tier of companies. These are the ones looking shaky in other words.
If they’re headed by entrepreneurs, they could make a complete [...]

This is an amazing Video of girls singing music that’s created solely on applications they’ve downloaded to their iPhones! They sing pretty well but it has made me turn on my phone to see what kind of musical applications I could be downloading to my iphone! Great video! Without further adieu…

The only drawback… they [...]

Saving money is in vogue today. So these videos are getting lots of play on You Tube.
It’s a 90+ year old Granny who reveals her “Great Depression Cooking Secrets”. One of them is “peas and pasta”. It’s funny. You make that with some bacon and chicken and they call it “Chicken Carbonara” at a [...]

I noticed the New York Times is even asking out loud: Why are IPhone Users Willing To Pay For Content?

As an iphone user myself, I don’t know the answer. But I have paid up to $9.99 for a “to do list” application and consider it a great investment. I doubt I’d spend that much for [...]