The world around us

In my last post I wrote about Congoo…so here’s an update and a link to my page B2 and is on blogging and writing. Barely an hour into it, I am hooked already and want to set up a couple of other news circles that I would like to keep track of. Set up takes less than 2 minutes, there’s no email verification, and you’re good to go immediately. The privacy level is set to public, so anyone can view it and read my personal selection of topics.

Have you heard about Congoo News Circles? They are a mix of a blog and a news channel and let the user create circles focused on their own topics of news, interests, geographical setting etc and gather only the relevant stories. News items are collected from 480 categories or you can create your own channel with your own keywords. I’ts a fantastic way to get information and I know I’m going to be using my News Blog more and more each day. Congoo News Circles can be shared with anyone you’d like to, either on a private setting or in the public arena. The service is completely free and is partnered with some of the most notable names in the news business such as The Wall Street Journal.

The power of retail advertising was the topic of discussion at Goafest last week, specifically the impact of advertising at the point of purchase (POP) is more beneficial compared to other forms of advertising.  Maureen Johnson, CEO of WPP’s global retail practice, spoke at the event and said that “For a few categories, 99% of the buying decisions are made while the purchaser is on the shop floor.” Some of the world’s largest retailers are getting involved with creating in-store advertising, including Wal-Mart which launched WalMartTV recently,  and will have it’s own programs and advertisements shown in it’s stores.

We are starting a series of events in our organization that will serve as communication meets for our research and marketing departments. The series has been planned especially for those of us who work at home doing flexi-hours or on monthly projects. When it came to deciding how the events were to be organized and managed, the research team was handed the task of finding a good company and software to tackle all the details.

We found RegOnline, which handles all sorts of special event planning, whether they are simple one day events or more elaborate events. RegOnline’s software is equipped to handle tasks such as planning an event, promoting it, conducting surveys, handling registration and even travel and hotel requirements. I simply love that they have thought of all the details that make an event complete but take ages if you have to handle them one at a time, such as name badges, customized forms with a company logo, surveys, registration emails, reminder emails, video greeter, I could go on and on as they have an amazing number of features that take care of each and every detail of an event, so all you have to worry about it the attendees.

The company has now tied up with SalesForce.com, which will enable clients to achieve even greater success in marketing and conducting follow-ups after the event. With this integration with SalesForce, users will be able to share leads and customers between services, which will make the marketing efforts more effective.

Many of RegOnline’s clients are already taking advantage of the new integration and with the addition of RegOnline to the AppExchange network, it is expected that SalesForce clients with event management needs will begin looking at online registration software as a complementary system to their lead-generation efforts. "This will be a very useful add-on for us," reports a RegOnline user on the software company’s forums, "and [the add-on will] help drive use of RegOnline across our company’s marketing operations."

I find that testing out a software or product is a good way to see if it really is of use to you or not and if you can manage all the commands etc. I often see software that seems quite complicated initially but once I test it out, it becomes quite simple and straightforward. QuickBase from Intuit is offering a 30-day free trial for its online database and I’m thinking that it will be absolutely perfect for our organization, since we have people working in a number of locations and usually face diffuculties in organizing and coordinating our database. I read about this great offer on this Free Online Database on Maven Mapper’s Information, a blog that covers business software products, managing information and all things to improve and organize a business. For everyone that signs up, QuickBase will send additional tutorials and will provide assistance from its sales representatives for set up, training etc.

As the heat is getting worse here, we are spending more time dreaming of a vacation, something that will revive us from this intense heat and humidity. That’s exactly what vacations are good for; making you forget about everything related to your daily lives, so you can live a different life for a while. The idea of an all inclusive vacation is quite intriguing to me as then you don’t have to worry or spend time planning and deciding at all.

Vacations.net which is a great place to find an all-inclusive vacation, has just redesigned its website and added some great features like the interactive search engine that offers special deals and promotion based on the information that you enter. There are lots of photographs of the resorts, so one gets a good idea what it’s really like and one can even select the type of room configuration one wants at the time of booking.

I think it’s a great way to set up a vacation, by doing as much planning and work beforehand, so when one reaches the destination, the only agenda is to relax and have fun. I am particularly interested in taking a Great Beach Vacation, and with destinations such as Jamaica, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, a Vacations.net all inclusive vacation is the best way to deal with the hot summer.

Google has been named as the most valuable brand in the world according to a survey by UK market research firm Millward Brown Optimor. According to them, the Google brand is now worth $66.4 billion, which has been estimated uisng financial reports and consumer surveys. Others in the top five were General Electric at $61.2 billion and Microsoft at $55 billion. Google’s closest competitor, Yahoo was way down at the 42nd rank.

Among retailers worldwide, Wal-Mart topped the brand rankings, followed by Home Depot, UK retailer Tesco and eBay. Internet companies also showed well in the survey’s assessment of brand momentum, which tries to quantify growth in the value of a brand. Among the top 10 companies in brand momentum were Google, Apple, eBay and Amazon. Amazon is No. 1 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

Bennett Coleman & Company will be buying 3.7% stake in Archies, the country’s largest gift and card retail chain. Archies expects to raise Rs 20 crore for its expansion plans through this venture, which will also be used towards higher advertising costs that Archies will be investing in. Currently, Archies has 83 stores which they run themselves, and plan to have 230 stores by March 2010.

Which girl doesn’t love to wear jewelry, right? Even though not everyone likes the flamboyant type, it is nice to have a few great pieces that are wearable on a daily basis and some wow pieces for major occasions. Precious metals like gold and silver are a good investment for the long term, whether they are in jewelry or ingot or coin or bullion form. As kids we were given silver coins on your birthdays as a blessing, although I wonder what I really did with them, since I don’t have them now. While it is possible to buy gold or silver from a jeweler it is better to buy it from a place where you can verify the quality of the metal for impurities and weight. Modex Deposit Company (MDC) is one such place that specializes in selling precious metals and storing them at an independent storage facility or bank. The company has been in business for over 30 years, providing this service and has built up its reputation for quality. The trend to invest in silver will continue as the deposits of silver are declining.

On a slight break from work for a couple of days, so catching up with blogging, reading, researching tuff other than for work. Lately, it seems that there isn’t enough time to keep up with everything, work has increasing fantastically, which is really good but leaves me with very little time for anything else. It’s been just over a month since we took our last vacation, but I’m more than ready for the next one. Not sure when and where it will be though.