12 Steps to Improve Your Career in 2012 -- Part 1

12 Steps to Improve Your Career in 2012 -- Part 1: As we get ready to close out another year and embark on 2012, now is the ideal time to take stock of our professional progress in 2011 and set career goals for the coming year. Even if you plan on staying in the same position throughout the next year, there is plenty you can do to develop professionally and best position yourself for future growth. Remember, in the New Economy, career development is no longer a luxury; it’s an imperative.

2012: Year of Empowered and Assertive Digital Customer

2012: Year of Empowered and Assertive Digital Customer: As 2011 comes to an end and as we look forward to celebrating New Year 2012, one thing that strikes most looking back is the massive increase in ownership and usage of Smartphones and Tablet computers. Just consider following headlines in the last few days: “On Christmas day alone, a total of 6.8 million iOS [...]

Top 5 Investment Opportunities In Africa For 2012

Top 5 Investment Opportunities In Africa For 2012: African economies easily rank among the most resilient in the world. In the middle of the 2009 global economic recession, Africa was the only region apart from Asia that grew positively, at about 2%. The continent’s growth has been on an upward trajectory ever since then- 4.5% in 2010 and 5.0% in 2011.

IHS Top 10 Prediction for 2012: Another U.S. Recession Unlikely

IHS Top 10 Prediction for 2012: Another U.S. Recession Unlikely: Europe not as lucky with negative growth expected in the next year.

Find Your Passion!

Find Your Passion!: Now this is completely different from what I normally write but I wanted to tell you about my grandson. He taught himself how to do this and is now regarded very highly. He is following his passion and he is having a great deal of success. At the age of 12, he decided he would [...]

Money Management Tips

Money Management Tips:

Money Management Tips by Benedict Smythe

Good money management skills are indispensable for a happy life. Such skills don’t only affect the financial aspect of your life. They could also affect your ability to make sound decisions in your relationships and emotional health. Because money management can have such a tremendous impact on your life, you have to hone your skills in it. Here are a few tips for wise money management that, when followed, will help improve the quality of your life through better financial control, increased savings, and better decision-making when it comes to spending.

1. Keep track of where your money is going.

It is very important that you know where exactly your money is going. Paying attention to how you are spending your money is a major step in managing your finances. It would be helpful if you write down all your expenditures for a certain period of time, say weekly or monthly. Once you have done this, you can evaluate your record and try to curtail all of your unnecessary expenses.

2.Spend your money wisely on things of lasting and/or appreciating value.

Most people spend their money on expensive things that have no lasting value, such as clothes, gadgets, and cars. They purchase these things at the expense of those that really matter like property, education, and insurance, among others. In other words, invest your money in things that would be useful to you in the long run.

3. Make a budget suited for you and make sure you stick to it.

Design a budget according to your income and expenditures. Make sure that a certain amount of your income goes to savings and reducing your debt. Analyze your budget and check what expenditures you can cut down on. Once you have a budget, make sure you follow it so that you would be able to avoid overspending, gain greater financial control, and eliminate stress.

4. Make sure to set aside some money.

Using your budget as a reference, determine how much money you can save. We are able to reserve some money for our rent, phone bills, and other obligations so it wouldn’t be that hard to treat savings as another form of obligation to ourselves. By having extra money kept in the bank, you’ll be sure to have something to use when an emergency arises, say, when all of a sudden you find yourself finding it hard to keep up with your credit card payments.

5. Go for debt consolidation if you think it will help you.

You may resort to debt consolidation. This involves merging all of your balances into one loan at a lower interest rate at an extended period. Doing so will help you in the short-run since your monthly expenditure will be reduced to an amount that you can handle given the limit of your income. However, you must consider that debt consolidation will keep you indebted for a longer time, thus stretching your interest payments and will result in a bigger overall amount that you have to pay.

About the Author

Wilson Field are leading insolvency practitioners that can provide free advice for Insolvency and Debt Problems. Benedict Smythe is a freelance article writer for Dolphin Promotions Ltd

Personal Finance & Money Management Tips : Money Market Account Tips & Advice

60 Seconds: Things That Happen Every Sixty Seconds

60 Seconds: Things That Happen Every Sixty Seconds:

60 Seconds – Things That Happen On Internet Every Sixty Seconds



World Wide Web is growing at rapid pace. On average, more than a billion new pages are added to it every day. To give you an idea of how big world wide web is, our Infographic 60 Seconds will cover some really interesting facts about websites that we use on day-to-day basis.

Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

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60 Seconds – Things That Happen Every Sixty Seconds Part 2

If you think that not much can possibly happen within 60 seconds, the following infographic will entirely change the way you think. Our “60 Seconds – Things That Happen Every Sixty Seconds” infographic contains 19 interesting facts that occur every sixty seconds.

Infographic by- GO-Gulf.com Web Design Company

5 Top Tips for Graduates and Students

5 Top Tips for Graduates and Students:

There are a few key things that as a student or recent graduate, you may want to be considering as you enter into the job market. It's a tough market out there if you aren't prepared and aren't sure what to do so think about the following tips:

1. Get Clarity

The 7 Critical Stages of Engagement in the Employment Process

The 7 Critical Stages of Engagement in the Employment Process: According to Kim Shepherd, CEO of Decision Toolbox, "There are seven critical stages of engagement in the employment process. We have closely examined how each is currently broken."

Top Ten Productivity Killers

Top Ten Productivity Killers: Guest Post by Kristy Ramirez – Fundamental Productivity Killers After browsing the plethora of websites found under “top ten productivity killers,” one can find fundamental productivity killers...



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Peace on Earth Begins with You

Peace on Earth Begins with You: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Luke 2:14 That’s the message of the angels to the shepherds. It’s the message of Christmas. Now we’re not trying to convert anybody so please bear with us. But in this simple message lies the power to change the world for...

2011 Social Media Review

2011 Social Media Review:

Reflections on the past year in social media, from John Luginbill, highlighting historical moments, notable achievements, and for some, new terms and alarming statistics…

A Richer 2012: A Monthly Guide to Maximizing Money

A Richer 2012: A Monthly Guide to Maximizing Money:

To ward off another year of missed chances, here is a guide of simple money-saving moves you can make each month in the year ahead. Scan through it now to see whether there are any particular dates or actions you want to flag.

5 Leadership Tips for 2012

5 Leadership Tips for 2012:

With only a few days left until we usher in the New Year, you're going to be bombarded with lists of things to do and not to do. Most of them will contain the same tired rhetoric from years past. These lists du jour will simply rehash and spin items

3 Credit Card Predictions for 2012

3 Credit Card Predictions for 2012:

As 2011 draws to a close, MainStreet breaks down what you should expect to see in the credit space in the new year.

5 Strategies That Will Shape Mobile Marketing Success in 2012

5 Strategies That Will Shape Mobile Marketing Success in 2012: Looking forward to 2012, now that we have a sense of the 2011 mobile marketing Heisman trophy candidates and the 2011 mobile trends to track in 2012, there’s only one thing left to do: identify how to be a successful mobile marketer in 2012. Below are the 5 strategies we think most important. Please share [...]

Top 15 Content Marketing Predictions for 2012

Top 15 Content Marketing Predictions for 2012: I was thrilled with how our 2012 content marketing and social media predictions piece came out this year (full predictions below for viewing and/or download). Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions 2012 View more presentations from Content Marketing Institute With nearly 80 contributors, the predictions were plentiful. But, for whatever reason, here are my favorite [...]

Green Business Trend: “Eco-Packaging” Takes Off

Green Business Trend: “Eco-Packaging” Takes Off:

As you wrap, and unwrap, gifts this holiday season, you may notice they’re a little lighter than usual. It might be because more companies are easing up on the packaging – or at least using eco-friendlier alternatives.

As the green movement grows up, there’s a new movement among businesses to find new, more planet-friendly ways to package their products. Some companies reduced their packaging footprint years ago by eliminating unnecessary plastic and cellophane or replacing non-biodegradable StyrofoamRead More

From Small Business Trends

Green Business Trend: “Eco-Packaging” Takes Off

Top Ten Creatives Of The Week [Industrial, Product, Spatial]

Top Ten Creatives Of The Week [Industrial, Product, Spatial]: The latest designs from the hottest young creatives in the business. PSFK x Arts Thread curate a weekly round up of people to be inspired by.

The World Next Year: 2012

The World Next Year: 2012:

A preview of world events in the coming year from CFR.org.

3 Reasons The U.S. Economy Sucks

3 Reasons The U.S. Economy Sucks: Yes, the economy is in a downward spiral towards the abyss of the unknown, but how did it get this way? How did this economy go from being at least semi-prosperous to outright shabby? You may know some reasons by watching the news and reading your favorite economics blog, but here are three good reasons [...]

3 Key Strategies for Marketing Success in 2012

3 Key Strategies for Marketing Success in 2012: As we prepare to see off 2011, some have better reasons to crack open the bottle of champagne than others. It’s been yet another challenging year for marketing teams the world over, who have had to keep abreast of all the goings-on and novelties of the digital era in a race to increase web traffic, [...]

5 Ways to Up Your Sales Game During the Holiday Season

5 Ways to Up Your Sales Game During the Holiday Season: The holiday season is a good time to capture last-minute opportunities and reflect on strategies for success in 2012. Here are 5 tips we’ve compiled since Thanksgiving: 1. Get noticed during the holiday lull Sales consultant, Mark Hunter, noted on his blog that “[Thanksgiving] is a great week to pick up new business customers who [...]

6 Crazy Tech Predictions for 2012

6 Crazy Tech Predictions for 2012:

We live in a world of absolutes: Here’s what happened. Even when we look to the future, our predictions are couched in the world’s sometimes difficult realities. It can, to be honest, take all the fun out of guess work. So, once a year I allow myself to go beyond the likely, beyond the possible and deep into the world of the implausible. What follows are my most ridiculous and unlikely predictions. Most are just nuts, but one is, to be honest, all too scarily possible. See if you can guess which prediction I’m talking about.

10 Ways I Sabotaged My Success And How To Avoid My Mistakes

10 Ways I Sabotaged My Success And How To Avoid My Mistakes:

There are many reasons why success took its time for me. Nearly all the reasons were my own fault.

Interestingly however, I have recently noticed that many others stumble with some of the very same issues. Thus by learning to overcome these problem elements we all have a much greater chance of success or increasing our current rate of… Read the rest of this entry »

5 Tools Make Big-League Websites On A Budget

5 Tools Make Big-League Websites On A Budget: From Anna Lindow:
An unpleasant moment for entrepreneurs occurs more often than it should. Someone asks for your business card, and you hand it over. They say, “Great, I’ll check out your site.”

“Ignore the 'Shop' section,” you say, “it’s out of date. And, the e-mail newsletter link isn’t working, but I can add you manually to the list if you want. And ... well, the design is a little embarrassing.”

By this point, the person who was excited about your product just moments ago is looking for a polite way to exit the conversation—immediately.

It used to be that developing a robust web presence for your company was expensive so it was often inaccessible to newer companies or those without large budgets for e-commerce or digital marketing. Today, thanks to the ingenuity of fellow entrepreneurs, this is no longer the case.

“You can operate at the same scalability and efficiency of a large company,” says Harley Finkelstein, chief platform officer of Shopify. “You may not know any angel investors—today it doesn’t really matter.”

Here are some tools that help make your company's website look like it has a giant team—and bank account—behind its online presence.

Key Success Factors: Who Needs Them?

Key Success Factors: Who Needs Them?: Key Success Factors: Who Needs Them?
By Demian Entrekin
Most of us have heard the concept of Key Success Factors thrown around as if it were a clear and identifiable list of items, like a shopping list or a Christmas wish list. We believe that we can identify the Key Success Factors and use them to better [...]

12 Experts Share 12 Ways to Makeover Your Small Business in 2012

12 Experts Share 12 Ways to Makeover Your Small Business in 2012: Network Solutions asked a couple of daring folks to bare it all and share their wisdom for doing better in 2012. So Bary Moltz, Jennifer Shaheen, Mario Armstrong and a few others sat down in front of a web cam (no …

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Getting Started with White Paper Marketing

Getting Started with White Paper Marketing:





A powerful way to build trust and rapport is to develop authoritative and informative white papers.

Learn what a white paper is, several techniques for marketing with white papers, and tips for getting a white paper published.

With a little work, you can connect with customers on an entirely new level than a blog or website article, even if this is only due to the perception of white papers being at a higher level of expert status.

What Is a White Paper, Anyway?

7 Tips for Content Marketing Webinar Success

7 Tips for Content Marketing Webinar Success: According to CMI’s newly-released 2012 B2B content marketing study, marketers give webinars the second highest effectiveness rating as a content marketing tactic. Why, then, do only 46 percent of marketers use them? They are, after all, another great way to showcase your quality content and position yourself as a thought leader in your marketplace. Perhaps [...]

6 Ways To Stay Fit in the Office

6 Ways To Stay Fit in the Office:
Office work and fitness may not seem to be natural bedfellows but with a little discipline and creativity, it is possible to work in an office and stay fit throughout the day.

10 Surprising Brand Winners of 2011

10 Surprising Brand Winners of 2011:
Some corporate, personal and conceptual brands captured unexpected headwinds in 2011. Here are 10 of the best-known.
With Facebook and Google vying to be the champion of social networking, you'd think there'd be scant room for a competitive product. But you'd think wrong. By remaining focused purely on business folk, LinkedIn established itself as the go-to site for recruiting, job-hunting, and developing sales contacts. The strategy paid off in 2011 with IPO that rivaled dot-com debuts of yore.

5 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from a Weird “Real World” Business

5 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from a Weird “Real World” Business: One of the most useful skills in business is to be able to look at what someone else is doing in an unrelated topic, and bring it to your own online marketing. You’ll find fresh angles, new approaches, and compelling ways to deliver your message. If you run a yoga studio, you can often learn [...]

The Customer is the Customer. Adapt or Die.

The Customer is the Customer. Adapt or Die.: I’ve had a variety of sales jobs in my career and have dealt with some great people … and some world-class jerks. Not just difficult and demanding people, but unethical, bullying, liars at Fortune 100 companies. One time, a powerful VP demanded that my company buy-back $1.2 million of our material due to a cosmetic issue that did not [...]

5 Tips to Start the New Year Right

5 Tips to Start the New Year Right: Taking the angst out of year-end can be a challenge but what about those new-year items that inevitably clog your radar? We’ve put together some tips to help with those, too.

4 Promising Jobs for Stay at Home Moms

4 Promising Jobs for Stay at Home Moms:

Let’s face it – it’s expensive to live in the United States. That coupled with the fact that jobs are harder and harder to find means getting more creative with finding ways to make money.

As a mother, I’m sure you feel the burden of making sure your kids are loved, healthy, and taken care of, but you may also have the need to be at least a partial bread winner for your household. Whatever your situation is, I’m sure you’ve contemplated at one time or another how you might … Click here to continue »

10 Surprising Examples of Product Placement in Classic Cinema

10 Surprising Examples of Product Placement in Classic Cinema:

Movie audiences today probably tend to think of product placement as a relatively recent phenomenon — perhaps dating back to the 1980s, at the earliest. This may be when the practice came to the fore in the public consciousness — with the... Read more

Has Price Competition Become Your Brand Strategy?

Has Price Competition Become Your Brand Strategy?: Last year at this time we wrote a blog post titled “When Promotions Kill Your Brand Strategy” outlining our concerns that, while brand promotions may drive traffic to a retailer, retailers need to be careful that their promotions aren’t out of sync with their customers’ need and enduring qualities of their brand. This year retailers [Read more...]

Beware Best Practices for Innovation

Beware Best Practices for Innovation: Don't ask people to 'think outside the box.'

5 Keys to Growing Your Export Sales

5 Keys to Growing Your Export Sales: Expanding into international markets can seem daunting to small and midsized manufacturers. Here are five tips for reducing the risk and increasing the opportunities.

College Tips By Google: You’ll Fail Without These 16 Google Products

Just joke:

College Tips By Google: You’ll Fail Without These 16 Google Products:
Without Google, no one ever graduated college. At least that’s the message of “College Tips By Google“. It’s a new site where Google shamelessly suggests its products as the answer to all the problems facing today’s students.
Follow these tips, and you’ll become a healthy, productive cog in Google’s advertising machine.

10 Steps To Great Leadership

10 Steps To Great Leadership:
I never went to CEO school. But here's how I learned to drive my business forward profitably. Hint: Its not just about number crunching.
When I ask fellow CEOs what their job is, all too often I get answers like, “It’s making sure we’re hitting our financial targets and operational goals,” or, “It’s making sure we’re developing products that meet our customer’s needs.” While I can acknowledge that part of operating a business involves tracking metrics and cutting costs or generating sales to boost profits, that’s not leadership. In fact, it’s “bass ackwards,” as they say. I’m willing to go so far as to say that financial metrics are lagging indicators of how a business is doing. Your job as a leader, then, is to consider these following 10 rules as ways to truly drive your business—and its financial metrics—profitably forward.

Future of Talent Acquisition: Why Partnerships Are the New Recruiting Reality

Future of Talent Acquisition: Why Partnerships Are the New Recruiting Reality: The future isn’t coming; it’s here.

As advances in social media and emerging technologies like cloud computing, mobile media and online recruiting reshape the fundamentals of human capital management, organizations whose own headcount was negatively impacted by the recession have to start thinking more nimbly.

Beyond buzzwords lies the new recruiting reality: talent organizations must do more with less.

As the economy rebounds, the good news is that according to a recent SHRM survey, ...

Intel and IBM Reveal the Future of Computer Chips

Intel and IBM Reveal the Future of Computer Chips:

The past 24 hours have seen two of the biggest names in technology reveal the future of computer chips — intentionally or otherwise.

A leaked document from Intel shows the company setting the bar for the next generation of processors, which should start to roll out early next year. Meanwhile, IBM has laid out its long view of processing technology, beginning to chart the undiscovered country of what comes after silicon becomes obsolete. The company has demonstrated some of these emerging techs, which often outperform their silicon equivalents and can be built using similar production techniques.

Sacred Cow of Money – 3 – Rich Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki – Work Hard

Sacred Cow of Money – 3 – Rich Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki – Work Hard:

Learn how two men create wealth through a viral blogging business system using the internet and the technology that is available to them. One of the most important concepts to grasp is the sacred cow of go to school, and why business ownership is one of the new rules of money going into the [...]

Sacred Cow of Money – 2 – Rich Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki – Get A Job

Sacred Cow of Money – 2 – Rich Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki – Get A Job:

Learn how two men create wealth through a viral blogging business system using the internet and the technology that is available to them. One of the most important concepts to grasp is the sacred cow of go to school, and why business ownership is one of the new rules of money going into the [...]

Sacred Cow of Money – 1 – Rich Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki – Go To School

Sacred Cow of Money – 1 – Rich Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki – Go To School:

Learn how two men create wealth through a viral blogging business system using the internet and the technology that is available to them. One of the most important concepts to grasp is the sacred cow of go to school, and why business ownership is one of the new rules of money going into the [...]

5 Tips For Managing Your Online Reputation

5 Tips For Managing Your Online Reputation:

If someone wanted to say something negative about your company online for the world to see, there is really no way you can stop them (short of a lawsuit). What you can do, though, is try to maintain and promote a positive online reputation... Read more

4 Communication Sins That Hurt Your Career [Part 3]

4 Communication Sins That Hurt Your Career [Part 3]: Energizers’ natural strengths are their energy level and ability to speak. What's your Interaction Style. Is your communication hurting your career?

To get this useful advice and many other helpful career resources, visit us now at CAREEREALISM.com.

Ten tips for managing a business in a recession

Ten tips for managing a business in a recession:
The currently popular theme of how to manage a business during the recessio


read more

The art of brand maintenance in the age of the internet

The art of brand maintenance in the age of the internet:

On Forbes.com, Kern Lewis offers advice on

read more

How can you motivate employees without money?

How can you motivate employees without money?:

Motivating people without money is the subject of an article by Matthew Boyle on

read more

Are You Asking These Questions to Build Effective E-Learning?

Are You Asking These Questions to Build Effective E-Learning?:

How we view effective elearning is somewhat subjective. For some it requires that all elearning center on performance. If it’s not, then how can it be effective? However, many elearning courses are less “learning” and more marketing. They’re about sharing information using elearning tools. I see those more as multimedia marketing campaigns than traditional training programs.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Free Sample Marketing

Free Sample Marketing:
I’ve noticed a form of marketing that is growing in popularity recently, and that is the free sample. Many of us have been in food stores where they offer free samples of products to shoppers in the hopes that you will buy those products after you try them.

The free sample is an age old way of getting your product into the hands of the customer at no cost to them. If they like it, they’re more likely to buy it. You are eliminating the risk that they spend their money on something that does not work or they do not like. It’s a simple, and very effective, concept.

Fast forward to today’s world and many companies are experimenting with new ways of applying this old concept. Facebook and Google are two that have tried this type of marketing on me recently.

5 Web Conferencing Software That Will Send You around the World

5 Web Conferencing Software That Will Send You around the World:

Many employees and business owners spend the majority of their time online; they email even when they’re one office away; they chat even if they’re in the next cubicle, and they look things up online even when their friend next door probably knows the answer. Some may say this is anti-social, but the appeal of the Internet is not going anywhere anytime soon. As I pondered all of the different ways companies utilize the internet for communication, I began question long distance communication. Email works well, but what about when… Read More