Office Plants Make the Office a Better Place to Work In

There is a traditional view that a few plants adds much needed color to a room. It was pretty much the same view that people had of plants in the office, bringing a little taste of home to a place of work. However, office plants offer much more than just a homely feel or a little color, with research showing that there are distinct advantages to any business that chooses to invest in them.
Amongst the recognized benefits of indoor plants are the improvements that they make to the environment in health terms, as well as the resulting positive psychological effects they have on occupants and the consequential drop in absenteeism. A third advantage of indoor office plants is the positive impression that they can have on clients, helping to build a company image that is will lead to increased business and revenue. Just how these are accomplished is not very difficult to explain.
Improve Office Environment Even in high school biology class, we are taught that plants provide the oxygen we all need. Often, in offices with no or minimal amount of foliage, there can be a stale or sterile quality noted in the office atmosphere, something that clearly relates to a poor quality of air. Also known as dead air, it drains energy levels of office personnel, resulting in production levels falling and instances of human error increasing.

The Day I Changed My Appearance

In the early years as a dentist, my normal attire was a long white lab coat over my slacks, shirt, and bow tie....yes, I admit I used to wear a bow tie. I was a geek, not proud of it, but it worked at the time. The lab coat was how I was trained to appear in front of the patients, and I guess I got used to it and as time went by, it became part of me. Then one day I realized something. I looked in the mirror and it looked like I was trying to appear superior to those around me - especially the patients. Not to mention, when I had my mask, gloves, and surgical loops on, I am sure the younger patients must have been scared silly.
So one day, I got rid of the lab coat and joined the human race, which is different from the doctor race, of that I am convinced! I looked like a normal kind of guy - professional and much more appealing to all ages. Without that long white coat, I had disarmed myself immensely. Even the staff said I looked less frightening than my usual scary self! So here I am wearing business style khaki pants, and a shirt and tie from Nordstrom's. When patients first saw me with my new look, they seemed more relaxed and I felt more relaxed with them too.

QR Codes: What's the Marketing Buzz About?

In the hot space between the tech and marketing worlds there has been some considerable buzz of late about the efficacy of QR codes. QR -- short for Quick Response -- codes are black patterns in a square shape on a white background. These are the codes used by many airlines to check-in for flights using your smart phone.
The information encoded can be a text, a URL or almost any other form of data. When these bar codes are posted in public or private spaces they can be scanned by smart phones so users can get fast, direct access to websites or other online data resources to promote businesses, offer deals, deliver information or just plain advertise. The advantage is the speed and efficiency that smart phone scanning can offers users who may not have time to remember or write down a website address or surf the web to get to the site that features the information that is being promoted. Huge in Japan (where they were conceived in the 90s to as a manufacturing tracking device) and quickly catching on in Europe, QR codes are just making their way to America. It's hard to tell whether this will be Beatlemania Stateside or if this is just another techie trend that won't play in the Peorias between cities like New York and San Francisco.
Not surprisingly, some of the "hippest" industries in the country -- fashion and rock music -- have been some of the first to take the QR code buzz to maximum levels of exposure.

Lemonade Stand - Marketing Strategy

Place, product, promotion, budget and price are the important deciding factors for a successful business. Before starting the business, decide the location as it is a key for a successful business. Choose good quality product, proper advertisement and a reasonable price to attract the customers.
How much money you are going to collect by your kids lemonade stand? Is there competition in your area as other kids are already running their lemonade stand? By visiting their lemonade stand, you can understand what are the new products they are selling and how much the customers like them.
Your ambition should not only collect money but also keep the environment clean. Decide the suppliers who give disposable cups, glasses, water, ice, lemonade ingredients and the containers to store lemonade at a competitive price. Always find out the weather condition and decide your business timings.

Why Buy American Products?

Here is the reason I believe very strongly in American made products, and think every American when making a purchase should spend just a minute to compare an American made product to imported products.
Since the 1960's, America has been in a trade deficit. We import more goods than we export. In the 1980's, the scale tipped even further, and in 2010, the trade deficit was roughly $500 Billion! That means we imported $500 Billion more worth of goods than we exported.
Here is a very simple example... You continuously sell $1.00 items to your neighbor, and he sells you $2.00 items. It will not take long, and your neighbor will have all the money and you will have none, especially because of the "throw-away" goods, which started in the 1980's. (Throwaway meaning you can use it once or twice, and it is gone. Examples include Glad Ware and Ziploc containers, versus glass bowls and canning jars).
This same concept is much more complex when looking at nations, but holds very true. It is also different, what is imported and exported, when it comes to the economy and jobs. Raw materials are better to import than finished goods, because you can add value to them, and turn a profit. This is especially true, if we export the finished product.

Give Your Employees Something They Will Remember

Sometimes a holiday party can be a great experience for everyone involved- coworkers come together to have a good time and leave with a stronger sense of camaraderie- one that extends into the work place and can go a long way towards greasing the gears that make the business run. A high sense of morale can go a long way towards making a company exceed its goals, and a company party can be a great way to make sure that your workers are getting that morale boost that they really need to make everything happen just right.
The problem is that sometimes these company parties can turn sour. If the workers are there with no kind of quality entertainment to keep them busy, they might start leaving early or, even worse, turn on themselves and bicker. A party that should have produced a sense of companionship can instead degenerate and create a schism between workers- this can destroy the very fabric on which a company is built. So it's up to you to make sure that the company party is fun and an atmosphere where your workers can come together and have a good time.