BP12_2010023 One Minute Message #2

Pictures courtesy of Microsoft

BP9_2010023_Web2.0

“Our goal is to make classified advertising as easy and effective as possible for individuals and businesses selling online.” Retrieved from http://www.vflyer.com/main/Guest.jsp

Continuing with the analysis of the marvelous tools that are possible to find in web 2.0, I have found one very useful tool for business owners, especially those who are operating small business options and among these, the huge quantity of businesses that are being operated from home, generally known as home based businesses. It is not hard to imagine that the mentioned entrepreneurial options lack in most of the cases from a big budget and even couldn’t have included on it any amount for advertising. And by the way, this is one of the biggest problems that this kind of business must face; when any form of business is not promoted, the possibility that the business growth is simply minimal; it is a logical consequence: no advertising, no clients, no money and then no resources to continue in the natural cycle of productivity.
It is important to say that most of the small business options advertise on the web, among others because of its lower cost when compared with the traditional publicity, besides the many options to modify on minimal cost and in a short period of time. There are several specialized sites known as “Classified Websites” where the advertiser can publish their ads, but obviously the business owner who has no experience designing ads, needs to get an expert that can assist them in designing professional templates, real eye-catching creations and at very competitive prices. Vflyer is for those companies requiring service of highest standard of quality yet are expecting good prices.
With this online service, the business owner and even the independent professional have the option not just to create standardized ads options but the possibility to post them to the leading classified websites. Vflyer operates both with advanced software and in an environment of creativity that enables the entrepreneur to expose their ad not just to a large audience but the right target.
Opening an account is a very easy process; it can’t take to the interested more than three minutes. An option is available with no cost that offers to the user, absolutely free two listings at a time, two social media widgets and one Craiglist layout, of course this is just a basic option that can be upgraded at anytime, but if the necessity is for a wider option, they offer four more options from $ 12.95 to $ 79.95. In the top of the line alternative they offer 125 listings at a time, 30 sub accounts, 125 social media widgets, 10 Ccraiglist layouts and business features.
But let’s examine some of the most important features of the Vflyer besides of the already referenced:
1. With Vflyer it is possible to post the flyer that has been created to Craiglist and eBay;
2. Vflyer enables the user the option to email the created flyers to the potential customers;
3. Vflyer generates printable PDF version of the flyers that have been created;
4. Vflyer allow the user to create embeddable widgets for their website or blog.
5. The ability to email the fliers to up to 100, on the premium option, recipients at the same time;
6. The option to upload up to 25 pictures per flyer in the premium option.
Many auto dealers regularly use vFlyer as it helps them to stand out from the crowd on sites like Twiter, Facebook and Craiglist, through an easy 1, 2, 3 process, entering vehicle details, uploading photos and the single listing website with Craiglist, Twiter or Facebook is ready and not just everything already mentioned, the option to print the single flyer is automatically uploaded; the same procedure is applicable to the case of different service providers, property managers, real estate offices and many more.
There is an important final precision and it is in regard to the categories of products vFlyer supports and the truth is that the alternatives are numerously; let’s see: Real Estate (Apartments and houses for Rent, Land for sale, Vacation Rentals, etc.); Vehicles; Merchandise: personal Services and so on.
To conclude, I recommend this option for the small business owner and even for the independent professionals; the prices are really affordable and the features exceed in much the needs that normally someone who operates a business could have. Of course this option wouldn’t be discarded for medium and large business options. companies like Alliance, Remax, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Yahoo autos, my ride and front door among others are users of vFlyer.

BP8_2010022_One Minute Message

VIDLER'S Link-One minute Message

http://www.viddler.com/explore/mlt/videos/40/


Pictures courtesy of Microsoft (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/FX101321031033.aspx?pid=CL100570201033)

BP5_2010022_Web2.0_Clickmeter.com

Among the many options available on the Web 2.0 tool I took the business option that offers one hundred fifty six really useful tools. I consider http://www.clickmeter.com to be an important option for entrepreneurs, especially those who their businesses are based on the web. Promoting a business is an essential part of the operation of any business and perhaps along with innovation the ones that allow it can steadily increase its market share. http://www.clickmeter.com was conceived to allow businesses to have more effective online marketing campaigns through a tracking process, actually, a tracking link, that the company interested can publish and post on the Internet in those place that are defined as the vital interest to be measured, like social networks, newsletters, blogs and so on.

This type of tool is a real support for the companies, but there is an important factor that seems to me the fundamental part at the moment when someone needs to take the decision whether use or not the system, and it is the clear option to verify the “real clicks” as it is usual in advertising campaigns. Many companies charge to their advertisers amounts resulting from fraudulent measurement of the hits or the clicks, as they are known.

The operation of the system is really simple to understand: each time someone clicks on the tracking link, the person will be redirected to the destination page that has been defined, although it is important to say that the process is an intern operation and the user will never know it; the remaining part of the process, the most important, of course, will be the compilation of the information that is essential for the user of the system: the place where the person who is sending the message is, the internet address where the information is being sent and much other information that the traditional systems like Google Analytics, AWstats and others normally don’t offer.

One of the most important features of this tool is the availability to measure diverse options of Web Marketing campaigns; it is possible to mention among the most common, E-mail advertising, Banner Ads, Blog Posts, Surveys, Auto-responder and Offline marketing like newspapers, magazines and fliers, but the available options exceed twenty. The results can also be shared with other people, when the user opts to create guest accounts that, of course, can be monitored if the main user considers it.

But besides all the marvelous features of this tool, the price is really accessible to all budgets, especially when the small businesses’ budget it is concerned. It is certainly a very functional tool that facilitates the control process to the entrepreneurs in regard their marketing costs.

Lesson Plan Using Flickr

The searching process about Flickr allowed me to know several interesting resources, but there was one that deemed my attention; the name of the article is “NYC Helpline: How to: Incorporate Technology in the Classroom – Using flickr.com in the Classroom-”. Pamela AuCoin, its author, emphasizes the importance of this photo-sharing database and makes a special mention about its most outstanding features and among the other highlights, that it is not just a great place to find images but that invites student collaboration and participation. “Students can embed comments on the image itself. This is where the students do some real analysis—they can add text in the image, using either the notes or description features.” (Retrieved on February 13, 2010 from http://www.teachersnetwork.org/NTNY/nychelp/technology/flickr.htm)

Ms. AuCoin suggest to follow five sequential steps to build incorporate Flickr in the classroom:

1. “Get a flickr account and create your own class page.
2. Instruct students to get their own flickr accounts. Get your students’ flickr email addresses, and send their invitations to join your site.
3. Begin by uploading pictures on your group page. Once you model this skill to the students, they usually catch on very quickly. Show them how to embed comments. Once they click to enlarge an image, they can click on the “add note” tab. Then write your sample comment. Model how to embed comments.
4. Project sharing.
5. Connecting to the content.”

I definitely would add some marvelous things that are possible to implement with flickr, for example:

To teach the students the possibility to make slideshows; to build a Photographic calendar, but also there are three very interesting applications that definitely would represent a plus in the learning process: FlickGraph, that is an application that explores the social relationships; Color Fields Color Picker, that displays photos based on the color the person selects and Flickr World Map (http://www.trippermap.com), using this application it is possible to position the photos in the place of the world they were taken, allowing the creation of map of photos.

The last described applications would represent the possibility to build a better-structured program, besides the additional motivation for the students, especially if the program is developed in both multi ethnic and multicultural ambience.


Reference

Aucoin, P. NYC Helpline: How to: Incorporate Technology in the Classroom – Using flickr.com in the Classroom Retrieved on February 13, 2010 from http://teachersnetwork.org/NTNY/nychelp/technology/flickr.htm

Images

Screenshot of http://teachersnetwork.org/NTNY/nychelp/technology/flickr.htm

BP4_2010021_Web2.0

It is really hard to define the preferred or the most useful resource when the possibility of selection is so big, but particularly in my case and in the one related with my Action Research, that I have defined for the proposal of the investigation to work with primary sources of information and using two kinds of questionnaires, in one of the options I definitely will use www.startups.com. The kind of solution I’m looking at with this tool is to have the possibility to compile open questions about diverse topics on entrepreneurial activity and this option definitely will allow me to fill all the requirements I hope to meet.

The type of question I’m using, detailed and specific and written in simple terms meets exactly one of the main requirements of the system, but also it is important to have answers coming from varied sources of opinion, like formal entrepreneurs, students, people looking for opportunities and so on.

Since my Action Research is not limited to making a diagnostic about the factors of the many entrepreneurship failures between small businesses rather a process that lets everyone interested in creating a new form of business to follow a sequential process that allows them to minimize the factors of risk, it is also essential that I can manage a series of structured questions to focus on getting opinions from formal and active entrepreneurs about different matters like their particular vision in regard to risk and success factors and Startups.com doesn’t have the flexibility to manage this kind of question, it is necessary to have a different tool and the one I have been using is http://www.classmarker.com. This option is not easy but very flexible; it is possible to be used for individual and bulk testing and for classed-based testing. In the first case it is possible to link directly to the hosted online tests from both email or website and, in the second alternative, the users that are registered under the master account, in both business and educational environments, can log and take their tests. Actually I already use the first alternative on our team Ning project during Dr. Deason’s class and the experience was really satisfactory. I could not finish this reference without mentioning http://www.mineful.com, for me one of the most powerful tools I have known related with the business process, especially on the Marketing Research Analysis. I’ll go deep on its analysis and application and for sure it meets the requirements for both my Action Research Project and for the improvement of my Multimedia Business Books Project in Spanish.

As its presentations sets, it is an analytical engine designed to help business make better decisions. For me the options of collaboration that allow the interested, to collect, integrate and analyze marketing information for business and academic purposes and also to create online marketing surveys are incredible.


The illustrations are screenshots taken from the sites mentioned above: http://www.startups.com and, http://www.mineful.com

BP3_2010021_GoogleReader

BP3_2010021_GoogleReader

This is certainly my first experience with Google Reader, I had heard about it but never before was I interested in it. Now I consider it is a powerful tool that among other things will allow me a most appropriate process of research in my Action Research Project; the facility to stay informed retrieving the latest content from the sites people regularly visit is a real advantage.
I considered the sites I’ve chosen could offer me useful information around the theme of my research. I’m pretending to verify if the factors to become a successful entrepreneur are associated with special skills, good luck, taking advantage of an opportunity or perhaps all those together and after having the results, to build a sequential educational process where the interested in any entrepreneurial option can secure that their projects are feasible through its different stages: Marketing, Administrative, Finance and finally, it looks profitable.

These are the sites I have considered:

Programs and Services to help people to start a business and can operate it successfully - the site includes permanent and updated information about how to start a business, tutorials about the business plan, etc. The information is presented in English and Spanish.

http://www.sba.gov

Guide about how to start a business – the site is operated by My Own Business, Inc, that is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to help people to be successful in business. Being the information presented by successful business owners is real guarantee that the interested will have not just actualized information but the vision of expert business people.

http://www.myownbusiness.org

In the same segment about how to start a business, I’ve selected a site operated by Inc. Magazine. It offers a huge amount of information about different topics of interest on this matter.
http://www.inc.com/guides/start_biz
The entrepreneur magazine, perhaps the most well known publication on business matters operates this site, that have the distinctive characteristic to offer not just permanent information about how to start a business, but useful techniques for those who operate one and need a permanent updating of their strategies in many different areas of the entrepreneurial focus.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizstartups/index.html
My last selection was for the site businessknowhow.com; although it seems to be in the same line of information of the other four, it offers some additional ingredients that make it very attractive, i.e., the productivity and news, where they include templates, software, etc.

http://www.businessknowhow.com

Clip art image courtesy of: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/download.aspx

BP2_2010021_EducationalUsesforBlogs

BP2_2010021_EducationalUsesforBlogs

I have been researching about business education for many years, especially about the factors that cause the high percentage of the failures between small businesses and, obviously trying to find the process that lets everyone interested in it to create a new form of business to follow sequential steps that lets them not just verify right up front if those minimal conditions could guarantee a better possibility of success for the option under consideration, but the capacity to calculate the risk that is involved in that particular option of investment.
During my most of 10 years as a professor, one of the areas I was teaching was Formulation and Evaluation Projects, a whole process from the idea for a business that is generated to the stage called “Starting up”. The successively integrated stages would theoretically lead the investors towards a relatively secure zone. But it seems something is missing; there is a part of the gear that is breaking the process. My hypothesis is that there are other ingredients required to secure an entrepreneurial successful goal with more probabilities.
The dynamic of the process led me to take the decision to focus my Action Research project on the same thematic; right now I’m working with primary and secondary research. This kind of work will allow me to know, among others, the main reasons of the entrepreneurial failures and the different programs these entities have built as contribution to promote a healthy growing process. It may be feasible to identify the success factors and validate their actual influence in the success of real companies.
After knowing professor Beth Strudgeon, “I am thrilled to hear that you are approaching this research from a different angle, but with it not being education based, I want to encourage you to do a few things to make sure it reflects what this program covers. The first is that I would suggest that you expand the technological aspect to cover more than just creating a web site. For example, how can social networking (such as Facebook or Ning) and virtual environments (such as Second Life) contribute to your business succeeding as well. This will help this topic become more compliant with this degree” I have considered accepting her suggestion and then I will start with a Ning Site. There will be a Blog dedicated to educate in a process purely formative to the people interested to initiate new entrepreneurial adventures, but taking special care not just in creating the ideal scenery towards the reflection process but that the candidate to operate a business can understand that in this particular area the oldest paradigm that the important thing is the enthusiasm and not the combination of knowledge, enthusiasm and some special circumstances of exploitation of opportunities is merely a thing of many years ago.
But there will be a specialized Blog; its name is “Feeding with Business Ideas”. I honestly believe there will be many posts since one of the most difficult things in creating a business is to get both an innovative and profitable option of business.
Quibble’s (2005) article, Blogs and written Business Communication Courses: A Perfect Union, generated several uneasinesses on me, but specifically in the part that refers to the Blogs in the Business World are being used in many different ways that can include Communication and Collaboration for a distributed team; as a powerful tool for reaching and communicating with both clients and future customers and communicating to them useful information about different matters and, in the case of new projects or proof of products as a real tool for a permanent feedback.
I never considered the extent of their applications to the proper intern operation of the business and the facilities that are needed constantly from and to the employees, but during my last researches I’ve found several references to this like, ”to manage and improve the flow of information among employees”, O’Shea, 2003.
It seems a Social Site like Ning and its blogs’ mechanism would be also appropriated for the other part of my business’s project based on training about 499 alternatives of business from home since it would allow me to complete all the learning stages I’ve conceived for this learning process, “Instructor uses the blog as an online course management tool where she/he posts assignments, announcements, information and summaries of lessons; a weekly topic is posted and each student posts their thoughts on the topic; post articles relevant to the course; students post their thoughts regarding articles; class discussions on course readings and lectures; students post their writing assignments and homework exercises; students exchange information related to the course's subject; students post comments, questions and advice about the course to Instructor and fellow students; students post their thoughts on what they are learning; students use the blog as a writing portfolio; students read each other's rough drafts of writing assignments and give feedback.” (Retrieved on February 06, 2010 from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/blogonlineclass/index.htm)
I’m absolutely astonished that every day I can find new horizons of knowledge; someone could say that the knowledge has always been dynamic but certainly in this time the advances seem to be vertiginous. The basic guidelines I have had conceived for my project one year ago, right now are absolutely obsolete. Now I think Blogs in Education whatever orientation they have, purely academic, business, etc, is an ideal mechanism to be in permanent contact with reality and besides it makes possibly to react opportunity to the new tendencies and maker the adjustments as soon as they are needed.

References

Quible, Z. (2005) Blogs and Written Business Communication Courses: A Perfect Union. Journal of Education for Business, 327-332

Trimarco, R. (2004) Use of blogs in online college classes. Retrieved from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/blogonlineclass/index.htm

Clip art image courtesy of: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/download.aspx

BP1_2010021_GoogleScreenShots

I have enjoyed this assignment. Sincerely, I had no idea how many things it is possible to find in Google and the many options to set up the pages.

It is fantastic how we can get every month into new frontiers of knowledge and to know the human brain has endless possibilities to create worlds than what for now are just dreams.

I have included the gadget that has seemed to me both attractive and useful, but I honestly believe this is a dynamic process where every day we can make innovations on how the pages look and of course progressively find the ones that can better fit in our profile.