1. Give them plenty of advice, direction and support.
While they are still in their learning phase, it is important to ensure they are given constructive criticism to help them fulfill tasks in the future to a better quality, but praise is also very important to maintain self-esteem and boost confidence levels. With this, give extra, specific and almost gratuitous details of the task in hand but without sounding patronising.

Have a read up on Herzberg’s two-factor/hygiene theory and put yourself in the mindset of the new employee.

Read all five here.

Five things for employers to consider when hiring students is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Quality – Value – Service – Caring
The above four words all fail for essentially the same reasons. Not only are they overused, they’re based on variables that will be different for everyone. There’s a quality/value/service/caring continuum in each person’s mind for every purchase occasion, and it is a continually moving target.

Integrity
A company either has integrity or it doesn’t. It’s either honest or it isn’t. And most people give companies the benefit of the doubt in believing that they operate with integrity. When a company talks about integrity in its advertising it’s for one of two reasons, neither one of them good: They’re either trying to cover up some lack of integrity (which never works) or they’re implying they live by a higher standard than their competition. That’s impolite, to say the least. Every company needs to have integrity. No company needs to advertise it.

businessweek.com

Five Words to Never Use in an Ad is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Simply create and enter up to 5 messages (up to 120 characters in length each) using the included remote control. Then select from 3 different scroll speeds. The super-bright red LEDs ensure that your message is seen day or night. You can announce to everyone on the road that you’re a fan of your sports team, advertise your business… the possibilities are endless!

What would your message say? Leave a comment.

Simply connect 2 wires (power and ground) to your vehicle’s electrical system and you are ready to go! You can either wire the Flash Frame so it is on whenever the ignition is on, or only comes on when you hit your brakes.

Please check your local ordinances for restrictions. We don’t want you out there breaking the law!

perpetualkid.com

License plate flash frame is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Incuby is an online community designed for inventors who want to get the word out about their inventions. Once you sign up, the site asks you to input information about yourself. After that, it asks for pertinent information about your invention. You can give it a title, describe it, choose a category, and let the community know if your invention is patented yet.

You can then start searching for other inventions. The site’s listings include some good information on the creations, including product photos, videos, and prices. Soon, Incuby will enable users to buy those products on the site. Incuby is designed well, and its community, while small, is quite active. It’s worth joining.

InventBay enables inventors to list their products to target investors who might want to bring those products to store shelves. InventBay itself even does some investing.

When you sign up for InventBay and list your product, the company requires a seven-day period to review your invention before it’s placed on the site. In that time, InventBay decides if it wants to invest in your creation. If it does, you’ll receive notice and work out an investment plan with the company. If not, it’s listed on the site for other investors to check out. It’s a neat idea. And since it’s free to list a product, it’s worth trying out.

InventNow is a really great idea. The site is an outlet for child inventors to show off their inventions. They can list their product, describe how it works, explain the problem it solves, and (hopefully) be seen by an investor. The site’s message board is active and a great place for kids to share their ideas. And some of the inventions I saw on this site were much better than the inventions created by adults on other sites. Definitely check it out, if you have a budding inventor in your home.

InvenTube is a place where inventors and investors can work together to make a product a success. After you sign up for the site, you need to input information about your product, including whether it is patented, what you plan to do with it, and more. You then describe the product you want to sell and place it on the site.

United States Patent and Trademark Office is a handy tool for any inventor. It is filled with how-to articles on inventing a product, checking to make sure that your creation isn’t patented by someone else, and patenting your inventions. The site also has a variety of search tools and software downloads to help inventors and attorneys determine if a product or something similar has already been patented. It’s a helpful resource for any inventor.

cnet.com

Inventive online resources for inventors is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. Blogs are a quick and easy way to tell information about your company online (such as achievements, research, helpful tips, awards, new products and services).
2. You don’t need to know how to use HTML coding to do it. If you can write an email message, you can blog.
3. Blogs are versatile. You can share images, links, audio, and video on your blog.
4. If your competitors are blogging, you should, too. If they’re not blogging, congratulations! You’ve just differentiated your company by deciding to blog.
5. Blogs dramatically increase the search engine optimization of your web site.
6. Reporters love blogs. Blogs help the media learn more about your company.
7. Blogs are one way to obtain useful feedback and suggestions from your customers or members.
8. Blogs can help ameliorate the impact of negative online reviews or criticisms of your company or organization.

by Mary Fletcher Jones of Fletcher Prince

Ten reasons to start a blog for your business is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

• Ultra Light Startups caters to “bootstrapping” entrepreneurs, says founder Graham Lawlor, who started Ultra Light by gathering a group of friends and fellow entrepreneurs in New York last year to brainstorm some business ideas. The informal gatherings morphed into monthly meetings in locations around the country that include pitch sessions and panel discussions on topics of interest to new business owners.
• The Funded is an online networking group for startups seeking venture capital, following the same entrepreneurs-helping-entrepreneurs model as Ultra Light, with a focus on sharing information about investors. Founder Adeo Ressi says the free networking site lets its more than 12,000 members dish about specific investors anonymously. Resso adds that a thorough application process ensures members are actually business owners.
• Venture Architects, a business plan development firm, has helped hundreds of companies obtain more than $500 million in investment capital since 1998. But when entrepreneurs call Venture Architects looking for startup dollars, managing director Melissa Krinzman advises them to get back to basics first. In a world of get-rich-quick schemes Krinzman advocates slowing down and backing up.
• North Venture Partners, “Venture capital is a secretive and unfamiliar realm to most entrepreneurs, and we wanted to give people a clear idea of how investors see their business compared to other businesses seeking the same funding,” managing partner Alex Bernstein says.

Lifelines For Your Start-Up is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. Tweetr – This applications allows you to share files up to 10MB via Twitter. Tweetr will upload your file and covert it to a short URL. One other feature of Tweetr is that you can use your webcam to share images with your followers.
2. Twellow – In short, a yellow pages for Twitter users. This directory service enables you to easily search, find and follow people that interest you most. Registration is free.
3. Twitalyzer – Use this application to evaluate your impact and success of your Twitter activity. This tool measures your clout, generosity, influence, velocity and signal to noise ratios.
4. Twitter Job Search – Looking for work? This app searches and sorts available job positions discussed on Twitter. You can browse the jobs by category or use their helpful map of jobs tweeted within the last 72 hours.
5. Tweetmeme – This site tracks the most popular links found on Twitter. Search the business category for the most recent news and trends for your industry.

smbceo.com

Twitter Apps Your Business Should Explore is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Coach – American offers Wi-Fi on several dozen flights and will have more than 150 planes with Wi-Fi by the end of the year. Southwest is testing Wi-Fi on four planes, through Aircell rival Row 44, and plans to add more service later this year.

Stuck on the Runway – Air Canada and United have no Wi-Fi access but have contracted with Aircell to add it later this year. Continental and U.S. Airways won’t disclose any specific Wi-Fi plans. JetBlue, surprisingly, is also a laggard. It has instant messaging and e-mail on one plane and plans to start adding those services — but not full Internet access — to other aircraft later this year. The service will be free.

Which Airlines Have Wi-Fi? is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

In return, all they need to do is claim and verify their listings at the Google Local Businesss Center. It takes about as much time as setting up a new email account, maybe a little more. Google gets clean data (and, thus, better results), businesses get free analytics and an opportunity to train Google’s search engine. Right now only a few hundred thousand businesses in the U.S. have been claimed out of approximately 20 million.

techcrunch.com

Google Local Lures Small Businesses With Their Own Web Dashboard is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Using a PC, teachers can interact with students via Wi-Fi, beaming questions, visual aids, and other information to a special DS Classroom cartridge in the students’ handheld devices. The teacher can then receive responses from students in real time, and can even chart data and create graphical representations of responses. If a teacher asks a general question of the class, rather than one sharp pupil carrying the rest of the class toward enlightenment, the entire class can answer individually. The teacher instantly knows how many, and which, students answered correctly, making it easier to monitor progress and spot those falling behind. Students can answer free response questions using a stylus that beams a written answer to the teacher’s PC screen. Even testing is more efficient, as the computer can help grade as a test is happening, allowing students to see their performance immediately upon finishing a test.

The service will kick off next year in Japan, with 60 programs covering everything from civics to physics for elementary, junior high and high school students. Of course, bringing this kind of technology into the classroom raises concerns as well. Will the devices facilitate cheating? Can tech savvy students manipulate the programs? Will children ever go outside and play ever again? Japanese educators are willing to give DS Classroom a shot, and why shouldn’t they? Nintendo taught a generation the physics of bowling and golf, why not the physics of the cosmos as well?

fastcompany.com

Nintendo Goes to School: DS Classroom Turns Handheld Console Into Teaching Tool is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

University of Dreams uses its staff’s personal contacts at 500 companies to get students internships with employers they couldn’t otherwise get into, said CEO Eric Lochtefeld. For interns, that’s better than sending in a résumé and hoping, he said.

“Does any college student really, sincerely believe that their résumé will stand out or get better consideration than an actual introduction would provide?” Lochtefeld said.

In four years, the company has placed 1,800 students in companies such as Paramount Pictures or MTV Networks, both divisions of Viacom Inc. It has slots this summer for 850 students, he said.

Students pay from $6,499 to $8,999 to have the company find them an eight-week summer internship, plus housing in dorms at universities, some meals, transportation to work and activities for a summer. Financial assistance, including loans, grants and full scholarships, is available.

An admissions team reviews applications and makes an offer. Students who are accepted pay a deposit of $500 to $1,000. Then they work with a placement agent, who finds a matching company.

They’re guaranteed an internship in the field of their choice or their money back. Most of the internships are unpaid, but University of Dreams arranges for college credit through universities.

rockymountainnews.com

University Of Dreams is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Delivering Success, which is available online at http://www.sba.gov/deliveringsuccess, provides a video library of interviews with successful entrepreneurs sharing their experiences and insight into business plans, financing, business promotion, planning, and research, among other issues.

Other videos cover reality checks for business, start-up tips, and how to take a business to the next level, the agencies said.

Post Office, SBA Offer Entrepreneurship Videos is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

You can type in text to fax or you can attach a PDF file, Microsoft Word (.DOC) file, or Excel Spreadsheet (.XLS).

The free version of FaxZero has a two fax per day limitation. You can also pay $1.99 per fax that doesn’t have any ads on the cover page if you wish.

Especially useful if you still deal with industries that rely on faxes, these online fax services can help you save on fax paper, fax machine upkeep and keep digital copies of all your fax communications.

Life of an Internet Entrepreneur

Free Online Fax is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Not all attendees are the same, and not every buyer on the floor shares these secrets. But most do, whether they’d like to admit it or not. These secrets are strong unifying factors that influence their buying decisions. If you, as a smart and savvy trade show exhibitor, know what these secrets are and tailor your exhibit appropriately, you’ll come away with higher sales numbers every time.

If you could hear your attendee’s deepest, most secret thoughts, they might go something like this:

• We’re impatient
• We’re lazy
• We’re Egotistical
• We hate math
• We liked to be pushed

businessknowhow.com

5 Things Trade Show Attendees Don’t Want You to Know is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

While Madison Avenue advertisers are looking for new ways to break through the noise smaller companies are using their creativity and low-budget production to stake out a national and even global piece of the online marketing pie. Case in point Terrence Kelleman the inventor of a creative jewelry line who used YouTube videos to launch his company Dynomighty Design onto the national marketplace with his mesmerizing video, “magic magnetic”.

Case in point: A simple video with a white backdrop and one amazing bracelet which caught national attention over the week of Christmas that catapulted a small company of 3 into “an ambitious team of believers” recalls Terrence Kelleman from his new office in Brooklyn. Kelleman recounts, “I didn’t really have a marketing budget for the holidays with many costs building up around me, and so I decided to make some videos in my spare time after work to post on YouTube in hopes of getting some attention, it worked.”

Indeed it did work with over 2 million views that keep growing Kelleman’s small company is trying to keep up with demand. “That video has changed everything for our business” Kelleman recollects “until then we had been doing well but we were not meeting our sales goal for the holidays, then all of a sudden our biggest problem was getting orders filled fast enough.”

PowerHomeBiz.com

Small Home Business Company Using YouTube Video Marketing For Big Gains is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

www.fastcompany.com

Your cell phone, the mobile remote control is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

How much money could you make from a technology that replaces electrical wires? A startup called Powercast, along with the more than 100 companies that have inked agreements with it, is about to start finding out. Powercast and its first major partner, electronics giant Philips, are set to launch their first device powered by electricity broadcast through the air.

It may sound futuristic, but Powercast’s platform uses nothing more complex than a radio–and is cheap enough for just about any company to incorporate into a product. A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

Picture your cell phone charging up the second you sit down at your desk, and you start to get a sense of the opportunity. How big can it get? “The sky’s the limit,” says John Shearer, Powercast’s founder and CEO. He estimates shipping “many millions of units” by the end of 2008.

For years, electricity experts said this kind of thing couldn’t be done. “If you had asked me seven months ago if this was possible, I would have said, ‘Are you dreaming? Have you been smoking something?’” says Govi Rao, vice president and general manager of solid-state lighting at Philips (Charts). “But to see it work is just amazing. It could revolutionize what we know about power.”

money.cnn.com

Death of the cell phone charger is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

When a new baby arrives, mom and dad’s brains seem to turn to mush; lack of sleep makes it challenging to remember the simplest things. Greg Sheldon learned this two years ago when he and his wife Kris became parents for the first time. He found that they were asking each other the same questions over and over: “How long has it been since his diaper was changed?”, or “How long ago did you feed him?” Sheldon, an engineer turned stay-at-home-dad, decided there had to be something more effective than scribbling on a notepad at 2:30 in the morning, so he invented the ITZBEEN Baby Care Timerâ„¢.

When Sheldon’s son was three months old, he decided to put his engineering career on hold to be more involved with his new baby. However, it wasn’t long before his inventive nature had him looking for ways to make the job of parenting a little easier. Sheldon created a simple, cell phone size device with four timers that allowed he and his wife to recall how long ago they changed a diaper, fed the baby, put the baby down to sleep, or gave the baby medication. Whenever they performed a task, like changing a diaper, they simply pressed the correct [diaper button; that timer would reset to zero and start counting up again. At anytime, day or night, they could look at the display and always know how long ago something was done. His timer proved to be so useful, that he filed for a patent and turned it into a real product.

Sheldon’s new company, Coast Innovations, introduced the ITZBEENâ„¢ to the juvenile products industry last September at tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV. “We were very happy with the industry response,” says Sheldon. “We were told by more than one retailer that the ITZBEENâ„¢ was the best new product at the show.” The ITZBEENâ„¢ hit the shelves in January, and it is now available in over 65 stores and websites across the US, Canada, Australia, and Panama. Suggested retail price for the ITZBEENâ„¢ is $24.99.

eMediaWire

Dad-Inventor Creates New Baby Care Product is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Owners of pricey SLRs solve the problem by popping a wide-angle lens onto the camera body; Kodak (EK) engineers gave the EasyShare V570 pocket camera the same capability by equipping it with two independent lenses–one zoom and one wide-angle–that switch automatically. To draw attention to Kodak’s breakthrough configuration, industrial design consultant BlueMap highlighted the dual-lens system and shrouded the camera in a retro-cool design.

Read the review.

A wider angle on the market is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Don’t come to Enthem if you’re looking for your average ten-second jingle. The San Francisco company writes and records full-length corporate theme songs, some running longer than three minutes.

Founder Stan Oleynick, 23, a Russian immigrant with a head for business and a penchant for aphorisms, creates the songs with a motley crew: a composer from his church, a teenage virtuoso, and a country singer who lives in New Jersey. He initially intended to go it alone, but the admonitions of friends convinced him otherwise.

“I love music, and music loves me back,” he says. “Except for the singing part.”

Enthem.com has attracted the attention – “and the hearts,” Oleynick intones with a thick accent – of more than 100 small companies.

He hopes to use the business to raise $1 million for a future startup; as of January, he was 5% of the way there.

CNN Money

Jingles for sale: Buy your firm a theme song is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. RESILIENCY & RELIABILITY. VoIP is dependent on your electrical power service. If you lose electricity, you also lose VoIP services. Landline services, on the other hand, can run for days without external power because they are independently and redundantly powered.
2. COMPATIBILITY. Many security alarm monitoring services don´t work with VoIP. VoIP lines may also present problems working with some fax machines that need to use a phone line.
3. QUALITY. VoIP services still lack the same level of consistently high quality as landline service. The Internet is not as stable as landline service. VoIP users sometimes experience echoes and “over-talk” (the inability of one party to hear what the other is saying if both talk simultaneously), and dropped calls, among other problems.
4. SAFETY. Some small business owners are hesitant to go “VoIP only” because of uncertainty about 911 response. Enhanced, E911 service mitigates many of these concerns, but E911 service is not yet available everywhere. Prospective VoIP customers should ask their providers about E911.
5. SECURITY. Because it runs on the Internet, VoIP traffic is subject to the same security risks as Internet traffic.

allbusiness.com

VOIP a Good Idea for Small Business? is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

When Danny Tuff was growing up in Newfoundland, his father often prodded him and his siblings to switch off the lights and turn down the heat. If only there were a way to plainly show how electricity translated into real money, his father used to say, people would waste less. Years later Danny and his brother Maurice launched Blue Line Innovations and chose a home meter reader as one of their first projects.

“We wanted a device that any customer could install without the help of an electrician,” Danny says. But technical hurdles seemed too high. Then one afternoon, after Maurice’s cat had been chasing the dot from his laser pointer, Maurice shot a beam through the bottom of a power meter. Could that be the answer? After modifying the idea to use low-power infrared instead of a laser to track a mark on the meter’s spinning disk, they dropped other projects and raised $4 million in financing.

The brothers presented their Power Cost Monitor to Ontario utility Hydro One, which found during a test that newly alert customers used an average of 6.5 percent less electricity. Hydro One bought 30,000 units, netting Blue Line a cool $4 million. Now at least 50 more utilities, including NSTAR (Charts) in Massachusetts, are eyeing the device, which is cheaper and easier to install than technologies that let people track power use online. In the end, it seems Dad was right – electricity can indeed translate into real money.

FSB Magazine

Turn off that light! Energy usage in real dollars is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

It’s a just the thing for podcasters who want to add interactivity to their work. And BlogTalkRadio is clever in its implementation: all audio input is via the telephone. Podcasters get a private dial-in number to the BlogTalkRadio service, from where they are streamed out to the Net (and also archived for later replay). Callers get their own number, too, and BlogTalkRadio provides a Web-based console that the podcaster uses to control the show.

Like standard broadcast radio, BlogTalkRadio podcasts can be supported by advertising. Audio advertisements are inserted, live, in the audio stream; the host gets a warning on his or her console before the ads play, so he or she is able to gracefully cut to the commercial. BlogTalkRadio will split ad revenues 50/50 with the podcast hosts.

Anything that makes podcasts interactive is a great idea, and other tools out there do this too; see RadioHandi, Skype’s Skypecast feature, and Waxxi.

BlogTalkRadio does not allow hosts to broadcast from a computer.

BlogTalkRadio allows you to create an interactive live podcast that can be broadcast from any location where you can get a cellular signal. That’s a pretty cool thing.

Cnet.com

Start Your Own Radio Talk Show is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

You might have heard, but soon there will no longer be a need to risk your laptop in precarious situations in the kitchen. Modeled after a spatula, coo.boo is a digital cookbook that fits into the kitchen environment better than any laptop or printed cookbook. Recipes stored on the user’s computer are automatically synchronized through a wireless docking station and displayed on the face of the device. Digital function allows the cook to choose the degree of support wanted, from simply displaying recipes to full audiovisual cooking lessons. Not fragile like other high-tech digital devices, coo.boo is washable and can be placed on the counter top or hung up next to other kitchen utensils.

http://www.coolbusinessideas.com

Digital Cookbook is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

For consumers who want gadget personalization that’s more permanent than vinyl decals, Adafruit offers custom laser etching of laptops, iPods, phones, cameras and more. It isn’t the first company to offer laser etching (see Etchamac, Powerbook Laser Engraving and others), but it is the first to freely share its business model with other entrepreneurs interested in setting up a customization shop.

Adafruit Laser Services was launched by Phillip Torrone (senior editor of Make magazine) and Limor Fried (aka Lady Ada). The duo will freely share information on how to use a high powered laser system, etching techniques, business practices and templates. Adafruit currently operates in New York and is planning to set up a location in San Francisco early this year. Customers can have a small gadget etched for USD 30, and a laptop for USD 100. Bulk rates and services are available to businesses.

The laser etching machine used by Adafruit is an Epilog, priced at around USD 20,000 and capable of doing highly detailed etching (1200 dpi). If a group of interested etchers use their crowd clout by organizing a group buy, they should be able to make a head start by getting the machine’s price down. If you’re interested in setting up your own laser etching business / gadget tattoo parlor and would like to receive more info, contact Adafruit at laser@adafruit.com.

Laser etching of laptops, iPods, phones, cameras is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

n past years ice fishing meant pitching a small “fish house” onto the ice, chiseling a hole, and hoping you’d chosen a spot with hungry fish.

That was until Tom Lykken, engineer, avid fisherman and co-owner of SnoBear Industries, based in West Fargo, N.D., developed the world’s first motorized fish house in his garage.

The SnoBear is a fully equipped fish house that can be driven along the ice on tracks and skis. It lowers itself at the flip of a switch, and built-in power drills cut as many as six fishing holes into the lake’s surface.

The vehicles, which cost from $33,000 to $50,000, can be customized with anything from satellite TV to GPS-enabled fish-tracking devices. They also come equipped with escape hatches, just in case.

CNN Money

A $50,000 ice fishing house is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

He and a neighbor, Henry Emanuel of Lonetown Road, have a new company to market and make the device.Mr. Curtis is a second generation exterminator — Avon Pest Control in Stamford was started by his father in the sixties. “I cover all of Fairfield and Weschester counties. I have eight guys out doing general pest control services… Our job is to get it out or keep it out,” he said.

As the warm temperatures dip and frost rises, a lot of mice and other small creatures are headed indoors where everything is warm. “We get the calls, rodents in house, droppings in the drawers, noises in the walls. We get a lot of noises in the wall… That’s kind of how this started,” he said.

Mr. Emanuel asked if there was a way to keep the mice out rather than killing them inside his house. “He said that maybe we could track them and see how they are getting in. Originally, we just looked for holes and plugged them,” Mr. Curtis said.

Mr. Emanuel is in the carpet business and uses fluorescent material for color enhancement. “I have a fluorescent material — maybe we can see how they are coming in,” he told Mr. Curtis. “His question was how we could get it on the mice. I had to build some kind of encapsulating trap so the rodents would actually treat themselves,” he said.

He experimented with different forms of the fluorescent, which comes in various liquids and powder forms, and with different container shapes and types of fibers for the mechanism. “I had to make a lot of changes to make it work,” Mr. Curtis said

The result is patent pending — a tunnel-like box is baited and filled with synthetic fibers bearing the fluorescent material.

“It coats their fur as well as their feet. Once they leave, we can track where they are getting in and out. The trails tell you everything you want to know about how these mice are using the structure…,” he said. The trails are revealed using a hand-held black light.

The Redding Pilot

Inventor’s creation shuts door on mice is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Your Own Photostamps is a post from: Top Business Opportunities