Johnnie Slater: May 2015

Sunday, May 31, 2015

NOwnership, No Problem: Why Millennials Value Experiences Over Owning Things

I was in Los Angeles this weekend for my birthday. Chatting over sushi with my father-in-law, he mentioned he was listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. Limbaugh was talking about how millennials value experience over ownership of goods. I thought it was compelling to hear that these new realities had spread so far and wide they made it to AM radio. There are many ways this new reality has played out in modern life. The sharing economy is booming. People are renting or borrowing products. They are hiring their neighbors to drive them to work, paint their house or rearrange their closet.

The Revolutionary Nissan GT-LM Nismo Race Car Has Road-Car Roots

Nissan is disrupting motor sports in a big way this summer with its new GT-LM Nismo race car, set to compete in the infamously challenging 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. Here is an edited interview with Ben Bowlby, Nissan LMP1 technical director, discussing the reasons why Nissan chose the unique layout for the GT-LM Nismo and the challenges it creates.

5 Things Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Environmentalists

What entrepreneurs could learn from environmentalists about recruiting the best talent and taking the long view.

The Truth About Grandparent-Owned 529 College Savings Plans And College Aid

529 college savings plans are a great way for grandparents to save for a grandchild's college education costs. Grandparent-owned 529 plans don't get counted as an asset on the grandchild's college aid form, but distributions do get counted as income to the child. This post explores the real impact on aid eligibility and when it really matters.

College Student Loan Rates Drop For 2015-2016 Academic Year

Student loan rates have dropped for the 2015-2016 academic year, making borrowing for college less expensive, but students and parents should still try to avoid college debt if possible.

UN Deploys New Tech to Make Relief Faster in Nepal

Humanitarian aid is criticized for being disorganized, late, and inefficient. A new UN project, in partnership with San Francisco-based Frog, the global design firm, is changing that perception. The recent Nepal earthquakes on April 25th and May 12th are benefitting from this new technology -- HDX, or the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Last June, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) piloted HDX, a data-heavy Wikipedia for the humanitarian community. Its aim was straightforward: simplify and streamline access to important data in disaster relief situations. That is, rather than ploughing through Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and Word Docs, create one source and one format for all the data. Frog’s Creative Director Michael DelGaudo realized that aid workers don’t have a “typical day” but they do need data at every point of their journey -- from understanding the history and context to the latest updates. That’s why HDX catalogues basic info on countries: its population, its poverty index, etc. But in cases of emergency, like the Nepal earthquake, it builds more time-sensitive data.

Food Start Up Does Well In The West While Giving To The East.

What To Do As Soon As You Get Laid Off

Ring, ring ..."Hello. Hi, boss. What? I'm fired? Thank you very much."

Jim Blasingame, small business expert, explains why sometimes getting fired is the best thing that can happen to your career.

Why Dinosaurs Would Have Never Built Spaceships

Anyone’s who’s ever stared into the eyes of a snake can attest to their cold-blooded instinctual ire. But the gray matter needed to create thinkers like Einstein and Edison requires more than steely instinct. That’s one reason most researchers scoff at the notion that dinosaurs --- whether cold-blooded or not --- would have ever evolved into a technological spacefaring civilization.

A Career-Ending Sports Injury Spurred This Entrepreneur To Create Two Seven-Figure Businesses

Looking to start a million-dollar, one-person internet business? Then Lewis Howes has a lot to teach you.

How Do You Want Your Customers To Feel?

I have been conducting some research lately by interviewing a group of 25 CEOs. One of the questions I asked them is, how do they want their customers and clients to feel about their company? They thought the question strange at first, so I gave them a comprehensive list of emotional responses to choose from.

Hawkeye Pierce's 1975 Commencent Speech To Columbia University's Medical Students

In 1975, a reel doctor gave a speech to real doctors when M*A*S*H surgeon Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) gave the commencement address to the medical students graduating from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. 40 years later, Alda's advice is good medicine for us all.

Sujit Nair On South India -UK Relationship

How To Sell Your Startup -- The Right Way

M&A has exploded in the tech sector this year. In fact, the dealmaking – which is already at over $110 billion – is on pace to hit levels not seen since the late 1990s.

What Every Entrepreneur Needs: Eight Traits Of A Champion Negotiatior

How to seal the deal and build long term relationships

27 million watched this video game tournament — matching NCAA final audience

Professional video gaming, known as eSports, is taking over. It is now a multi-billion-dollar industry and gaining steam.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

The Marketing Of A Political Candidate: Insight From A Marco Rubio Campaign Insider

The essence of a political campaign all boils down to marketing – the ability to convert insight about the voters and competitors into a superior strategic position and plan that provides real value for voters and gives your candidate a superior position in the marketplace. When conceived and executed flawlessly, the result is more votes. To better understand what it is like to market a politician, we talked to Tim O’Toole, Co-Founder of POOLHOUSE, a non-traditional ad-agency with extensive experience helping craft Republican political campaigns. They will work on a number of campaigns during the 2016 cycle, with a notable one being Marco Rubio’s bid for president.

Not To Be A Buzzkill, But An Apple Car Will Kill Privacy

For all the advances marketing has made in targeting consumers with campaigns, and even predicting their behavior, they still don’t have the full picture of consumers and how they make decisions about what to buy.

As Enterprise Cloud Computing Adoption Matures, Investments In Application Development Increase

Application development (34%), managed services (27%), ERP implementations (22%) and cloud (20%) are the highest spending priorities for enterprises in 2015 according to the latest Cowen & Company IT spending survey.

Small Businesses Can Compete With Big Brands On Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Big brands have big pay-per-click ad budgets and routinely manage campaigns targeting literally millions of keywords. Brad Shorr explains how small businesses can compete.

Oil Markets and The Kerfuffle About Additional Iraqi Barrels

As OPEC prepares to meet, with little expectation of any movement on the cartel’s customarily flouted oil production quota level of 30 million barrels per day (bpd), Iraq has provided the biggest pre-summit kerfuffle.

Claims Court Holds Director Is A Responsible Person for Trust Fund Penalty

When you get your paycheck, you often notice the list of deductions and withholdings—federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state income taxes, and, depending on where you live, perhaps some local taxes.

Structuring - First Kent Hovind - Now Dennis Hastert

The indictment of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has brought new attention to the crime of structuring. The attention is energizing the supporters of Kent Hovind, who is nearing the end of a long sentence, primarily, when considering the number of counts in the indictment, for structuring.

An Angel Network That Invests Only In Ethiopian Ventures

The Impact Angel Network focuses on small to medium-sized companies in Ethopia and just made its latest investment.

3 Ways Small Businesses Can Avoid Marking Down Their Inventory

The word markdown is one of the most dreaded words in a small business owner's language. After all, if you're marking down something it means it has not sold as you expected and even worse, at the original value in which you intended it to. As a result? Markdowns are a must, and while they may seem scary, frustrating or out-right annoying, they can actually be good for business.

5 things to know from Google’s conference this week

Google announces plans to get deeper into virtual reality, and a new Android operating system at its developer conference.

According to Google, the worst spellers in America live in this state

If Google is any indication, most Americans wouldn’t even make it through the first round of the National Scripps Spelling Bee. And depending on where they live, their spelling problems may be particularly troublesome.

Friday, May 29, 2015

Slide Show: Inside the billion-dollar business of watching other people play video games

It’s known as eSports, and it’s grown significantly in recent years — even filling entire arenas.

Hands On With The NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Device -- It's A Winner

NVIDIA has been talking about its SHIELD Android TV device since the Game Developers Conference back in March, though the product was being called the SHIELD Console back then. Yesterday, however, NVIDIA officially launched the product to coincide with some related announcements out of Google and its media partners at the Google I/O conference.