826 NATIONAL PROMOTES WRITING SKILLS IN STUDENTS BY APPEALING TO THIER FANTASY

What a smart, creative and unique way to fundraise and appeal to kids, to encourage writing and literacy skills - make your storefront into the kind of store kids would really like to visit!  

826 National is a nonprofit tutoring, writing and publishing organization with seven USA city locations currently.  They offer tutoring, student publishing, field trips, in-school programs, workshops and scholarships.

San Francisco’s PIRATE SUPPLY STORE sells hooks, flags, message bottles,rat traps, peg legs, pirate perfume, wax seals, dice and lard.

The GREENWOOD SPACE TRAVEL SUPPLY COMPANY outfits adventurers, commuters, rocket scientists (professional and freelance), tourists, theoretical mathematicians, specialists of all stripes, small crews and large parties.  For sale: Rocket fuel, air, assorted ray guns, intergalactic peace treaties, travel cups and spaceship accessories.

The BROOKLYN SUPERHERO SUPPLY COMPANY sells capes, grappling hooks, anti-matter, muscles, secret identity kits and suction cups. And Gravity, by the gallon.

The BORING STORE sells periscopes, trench coats, night vision goggles, disguises of all kinds, surveillance supplies and carrier pigeon supplies.

The ECHO PARK TIME TRAVEL MART a leader in convenience retailing, sells everything you need before you take a road trip through the fourth dimension. You can grab time-machine fuel, a can of mastodon meat, and a cup of coffee in one quick stop: Dinosaur eggs, princess hats, robot-emotion upgrades, dodo chow, scarlet letters, time-machine parts and of course - coffee. 

The LIBERTY STREET ROBOT SUPPLY AND REPAIR shop sells Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Mega Mech, The RoboPanda, Robot Emotion Upgrades & First Aid Kits, Positronic brains and the requisite  “Is Your Little Sister A Robot?” Test Kit

YOUR HOME OFFICE DECORATING STYLE CAN LEGITIMIZE YOUR BUSINESS & PERSONAL STYLE

by: Roslyn Ashford, Interior decorator, ra reDoes rooms, www.rarooms.com

A well decorated and organized home office helps to keep your ideas fresh, keeps the owner (you) efficient and legitimizes your business. While it is easy to get lost amongst the details (ie clutter) in an office, I want to encourage you to stand back look at the bones of the room – also known as your office.  

First – take a look at your walls.  Do you still like the color?  Does it inspire, or motivate or calm as you work in your office?  If not, consider changing it to a neutral beige or even a soft, calming blue or sage/green. You will need calm as you converse with clients and vendors on the phone,  or upload those new web photos for your website. Be careful not to select a color too intense – like strong reds and oranges – these are intense warm colors (your heart rate and blood increases in red rooms), and you may end up wearing yourself out!  

While you are looking at the walls - what is on them?  Do you have inspiring photos, visuals, vision board or calendar? If not, add them and make this space yours!  Your walls are valuable real estate in an office – don’t just put up boring non-inspiring pictures.  Add a cork or magnetic board for easy addition and removal of pictures, notes, and important articles.  Or add bookcases – great places to store books, pictures, and other necessary and decorative items.  Consider painting your favorite quote on a wall – to keep you motivated and personalize the space. I love the offerings at Words 2 Paint since they provide custom stencils for an sayings and allow custom sayings and words (great for unique business names). If you don’t want to paint, you can also try vinyl letters to adhere to your wall at Wall Words.

Next check out the lighting. Your office should probably have both general lighting and task lighting. General lighting can be in the form of a ceiling light (flood) that illuminates the entire room while task lighting is on desk for specific tasks – like computer surfing, or drawing designs or affixing labels on your latest direct mail campaign. This is one area where I consistently see people lacking – not enough light in the room!  Light it up! (picture of both general and task lighting in office shown)

The next major item is windows. Hopefully you have selected a room with at least one window to provide natural light!  Ever wonder why everyone wants be near the windows in a office building?  Because it connects you with the outside world!  Give yourself the best – window office and all!

Now that you have a window…don’t forget window treatments!

I am a fan of cordless honeycomb shades (shown here) or 2” wood (or faux wood) blinds for an office. I recommend the cordless feature on honeycomb shades because it provides a clean look and honeycomb shades provide great insulation, should you need that functionality in your office. The 2” wood blinds provide a classic, clean look, allow for flexibility during the day and are easy to maintain. If you have common sized windows (between 30-36”W and 48 – 72”H) you can purchase any of these blinds/shades cheaply from Lowes and Home Depot home improvement/hardware stores.  Other sizes will require custom order but don’t fret, companies like Smith and Noble provide a good number of color and style options for both products.

So why does all of this matter? The more intentional your office is, the more intentional your business becomes.  Pull your office together with intention and you will be proud of it.  When you are out with clients or vendors, refer to ‘my office’ rather than ‘my home’.  Notice how often someone responds with ‘Oh – you have a separate office?’ and you can tell it helps to legitimizes your business to others. Only you know the secret – the office is actually in your home!  

Please provide comments and let us know if you would be interesting in learning how to reduce office clutter in the next posting! 

Ra reDoes rooms offers edecorating services to savvy small business owners!  We will offer 10% discount on edecorating (on-line decorating) for every [Your] Director of Marketing reader in the month of November, 2008. Check out our site for more info – www.rarooms.com. Pictures shown are of real clients home office in the DC area.

CITY TV ANNOUNCES BAN IN EFFECT - 1:45PM TUESDAY

I think this will be a little bit like when Toronto’s smoking ban took effect (no public indoors smoking).  It won’t be fun to change your habits, but the reality for this law is that it is intended to reduce the number of accidents caused by people talking/texting behind the wheel.  

Dr. Phil had an episode last week where he was talking with young people who were addicted to driving with both hands on the blackberry or cell phone, texting, steering the car with a knee… Not even looking at the road for long periods of time.  Then I saw a small article the other day in the newspaper about a young local Olympic athlete who is bragging about the same ridiculously dangerous behavior!  

Real people, like Lauren Mulkey have lost their lives when distracted drivers cause accidents.

Does this law include TTC bus drivers?  I sure hope so…  What about TTC subway/Metro drivers?  The recent Los Angeles train crash that was caused by the conductor texting killed 25 people.

Now we know.  We didn’t know how incredibly dangerous it is and now that we know, we can change our behaviour.

If you’re already converted, there’s an upside!  The results still aren’t in on the connection between cancer and cell phone use, so you may be protecting yourself from future harm by making the choice to use your cell phone less.

What do other Ontario residents think about the issue?  The Star online has 144 comments here.  Certainly something to think about.

WANT TO KNOW WHAT REPORTERS AND JOURNALISTS ARE LOOKING FOR?

There’s a new service I just found and signed up to try out - “Help A Reporter Out” connects journalists with thousands of people around the world who MIGHT be able to provide them the exact information they are looking for to include in articles and reports (and potentially generate press coverage for your business).

According to Peter, you’ll get a few emails each day with press queries.  If you know exactly what they’re talking about and would like to “Help A Reporter Out”, respond to the reporter and see what happens.

Follow the clearly outlined rules that include: no harvesting reporter emails and no responding to reporters with non-relevant info (both only waste everyone’s time & might result in you being purposely ignored by the press)

Should be fun!  I’m looking forward to seeing how often the requested subjects are relevant for me and also how quickly I tire of 2-3 emails daily (especially if the subject matter is way out there for me).

iTunes U PROVIDES FREE EDUCATION FROM TOP UNIVERSITIES

All my friends know: I love iTunes!  Especially the iTunes store, where they’re demonstrating a great drive to continuously improve on the features and consumer value, and to their own benefit.  I’ve been loving podCasts since the beginning of 2008.  I’ve been loving iTunes U since this Spring.  

Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you had chosen a different course of study?  I do all the time.  I think its what motivates me to read so much, and continue learning and growing.  I won’t really know what my most passionate passion was for, until I’ve explored them all.

iTunes U (in the iTunes store), allows me to download for free as many famous and not so famous lectures and courses that I choose.  I’ve downloaded courses from Yale University, Stanford, New York Law School, Pennsylvania State University and of course, Caregie Mellon University.  I’ll admit, I probably went a little too far (like with my bookshelf) and have subscribed to courses in:

• learning French
• project management
• creative writing
• business management
• sales
• corporate social & environmental responsibility

It costs nothing to subscribe, you aren’t graded and there aren’t any deadlines.  Learn at your own pace, on your computer, notebook, iPhone or iPod.  

What are you interested in?  Curious about?  What bit of knowledge or education would help you in your business today?

Click here for a brief introduction to iTunes U.

ESCAPE FROM SUBURBIA ON CNN

This was forwarded to me from the film’s producer, Dara Rowland:

“We have just been told that as a larger story on eco films, Escape was given some attention over at CNN (between election banter):

“The theory of “peak oil” was made a star in “A Crude Awakening“, “The End of Suburbia“ and “Escape from Suburbia“, all of which were slow-burning underground hits…

Link TV | Video Player | Special: America - Running on Empty

Source: www.linktv.org

Presented by radio host Aimee Allison this Link TV special explores America’s future as our oil supply dwindles. Joining us are author Richard Heinberg and filmmaker Greg Greene, who presents his film “The End of Suburbia.”

Gregory Greene (director) and Richard Heinberg (featured in Escape from Suburbia) speak out on America’s Link TV website. The perfect primer to Gregory’s third film CONVERGENCE: The End of Oil is Just the Beginning to begin production in 2009. Enjoy!

-Dara”

Here is an interview with the series’ director.

My thoughts comparing the films?  I found A Crude Awakening to be too dark for my tastes, but I guess that is what it takes to convince people.  I had my own crude awakening.

For where I am now, I really enjoyed the Escape From Suburbia film (shown on the Documentary Channel this year), because it seemed to present all the options from a spectrum of recognizable environmentalists and people committed to slightly adjusting their lifestyle, while radically altering their thinking.

OPRAH OFFERS CANADIAN & USA HOME VIEWERS $50 DISCOUNT ON AMAZON KINDLE - 1 WEEK ONLY

When I look back, I think I started buying books about 6 or 7 years ago.  I was transitioning from collecting CDs (now neatly stored on my iTunes), to collecting books.  Now that I’ve purged a lot of the most obvious useless junk from my house, I am looking at that bookshelf and wondering…  

How much did I invest?  How many have I read?  How many will I take with me if I move?

Amazon’s new Kindle was introduced to me in March, by an early fan and family member who raved about his new dedication to the Kindle.  I was thinking, I really like having a BOOK.  Flipping pages, experiencing the font and illustrations, letting everyone see how smart I must be to be reading those books.

On the good side for Kindle is that it automatically gives you more privacy of what you are reading - bad for advertisers who pay premiums for back-cover positions in magazines and newspaper, but good for public-transit readers like myself who occasionally like to keep the subject matter of my reading material private.

Here’s the argument I can make for Kindle so far:

1. COST SAVINGS: Most book downloads are available for only $9.99, even if the paper book is $30 or more.  I’ll probably have paid for the Kindle and started saving money within one year. 
2. ENVIRO SAVINGS: No paper books, newspapers or magazines!  No need for books to be shipped around the world or trucked across the continent to libraries & bookstores.
3. CHICK LOOK, NOT GEEK LOOK: No more giant purses on flights - can you imagine carrying with you up to 4,000 of your favorite books in a 10 ounce package?  Also, most of your daily newspapers & blogs can be downloaded from the Kindle store (on the device), so you can pack smart clothes and travel light on the flight whether you are traveling for business or pleasure.

Amazon will maintain a backup of your purchased/subscribed downloads, in case you lose your Kindle.

This would be fantastic to keep reference books, and textbooks (alas, due to the ‘captive’ nature of students, textbook publishers are resisting a decrease in textbook prices for digital versions).  Even though schoolbooks will probably be the same price, I’m sure I could have saved many $$ on chiropractor visits with a Kindle when I was in college.

I haven’t seen newspapers on Kindle yet, but I have to wonder - do downloaded Kindle newspapers include the ads paid for in the print version?

I don’t know about you, but I’m no expert at running a business.  I’m an expert at one niche of business, where my passion lies, in influence.  Marketing.  I’m learning about what my business requires from me and its not all just about my passion for marketing and helping small businesses grow.  I’m discovering and learning whole new sets of necessary skills for entrepreneurialism.  Maybe I was motivated out of the goodness of my heart, but there is a sound business argument to back up these skills (more than just a tax deduction!)

A few weeks ago I participated in a CPR course”Fun With CPR Day” given by Heart Start Emergency Training. I really feel good knowing that I have some professional training to be able to help people if they need it - I come in contact with a lot of people every day, and in the past wouldn’t have known what to do if I ever saw a choking baby in a restaurant, or a person having a heart attack at the gym.

If you are looking for an AED, to have on hand in case or emergency at your office or business, click here.

Now, I’m looking forward to seeing what Enterprise Toronto can offer.

If you’re in the Toronto area, 4 free courses are being given at varying locations on:

1. October 28th
2. October 29th
3. November 12th
4. November 20th  

Two hours at 7:30am will be all it takes. 

“The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP), with support from Public Safety Canada, has developed a series of free, “Emergency Preparedness for Small Business” awareness seminars aimed at helping SME’s become more resilient in these complicated and threatening times.

Stay Open For Business: This work session will demonstrate how Emergency Planning and Business Continuity can be incorporated into your management system as a logical, low cost, uncomplicated business tool to protect vital operational resources and cash flow. You will be guided through the realistic aspects of Risk Management that your insurance broker never told you about.

Making It Make Business Sense: You will experience a number of “Eureka!” moments as seemingly irrelevant catastrophic disasters are made street-corner-relevant with examples as to how others’ missteps in the supply chain can halt your operations (and cash flow). Using a live example of a business, we will work through the process of identifying critical business inputs, the impact of interruption, creative ways of getting around roadblocks and draw parallels to your own business at each key point. We will develop “Bounce Back Management Strategies” and discuss how to stitch all the thoughts and pieces together to make business sense.

It’s About Stuff That Can Prevent You From Opening Your Doors Tomorrow. This is not about crying “The Sky Is Falling!” due of prophecies of remote global disasters. It’s about stuff that can prevent you from opening your doors tomorrow.

These seminars are being conducted in partnership with Enterprise Toronto andToronto’s Office of Emergency Management.

THE BIG IDEA w/DONNY DEUTSCH REVIEWS ADAPTING SMALL BUSINESSES

Whether you’re considering what type of small business to start or are already up & running, you can prepare for success in our new business reality - a future where people buy less quantity (why pay extra money for excess product/service?) and are being more selective about what they buy.

This is a great argument for sustainability in business.  The ultimate Need in our lives is energy, so energy efficiency products/services and energy savings are the cherry on top of the cake.  If your products/services are a “Need” in life or serve a niche within your market, then people will continue to buy from you what they Need.  

What do people Need?  Affordable basics: food, clothing & shelter.  Healthcare.  Education.  Transportation.  Even in these categories, the businesses that will succeed will be the ones that SAVE PEOPLE MONEY purchasing the products & services they need.

Still, people Need to have fun too.  What kind of fun will they be buying?

Any company that allows consumers to be frugal and enjoy their lives: home entertainment, self-education, sustainability.  The businesses that offer consumers lower costs on needs & wants and make saving money and ‘cocooning’ more enjoyable include:  WINNERS, Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, microwave popcorn, video/game rental stores, video game software, used books online, eBay, barter companies and every socially & environmentally responsible business out there. 

With the potential for low-demand (reduced-cost) ad space to become more available, I hope to see some companies clearly increasing their advertising activities; to build market share and help people change their lifestyles to save money.    

The businesses that help their customers save money and transition from excessive consumption to taking pride in being in control of your money (instead of being out of control and in debt), have a great opportunity to develop a positive long-term relationship with customers now, even in tough economic times.

If, like me, you’re considering the scope of the current economic crisis and what the future might look like, now that we know what we know.  I’m a strong believer in a positive mental attitude, not meaning that everything is parties all the time but that there are valuable lessons to be learned in the process, wherever you are in that process.

The Blog Herald offers their thoughts on how you might be able to use blogging to survive the economy.  I see it as a resource - a great place to learn and think about using blogging to THRIVE in the near future, regardless of economies. 

1. Start a blog - it doesn’t cost much to start up and can be a productive fun way to make a little bit of extra income
2. Online Resume and Visual Presence: “If you are job hunting or want to prove your worth to a company, why not do it with a visual online presence. With a blog and active involvement in social media, you increase your odds of being found if someone searches for you or your specialty.  Create an online reputation for your expertise and skills with your blog. A blog proves job performance, reliability, consistency, and perseverance. It proves you not only can write but communicate your thoughts and ideas. A blog proves you understand that the world is about who you know who knows what you need. It shows you know how to build a community and network. A blog proves you understand how this “online thing” works, which a lot of businesses desperately need.  Consider your blog your online resume. Consider all your online activities, correspondence, and social media microblog posts and communications part of your reputation. Everything online adds to the story of “you” so make sure it represents you well.
3. Start a New Business
4. Social Networking and Support
5. A Blog Depends on You
6. FREE Entertainment