Plugin.com

Being a freelancer is as much about organization and scheduling as talent says Erin Van Rheenen, author of Living Abroad in Costa Rica. Her 269-page book, laden with information, helps dreamers set up home in the Central American tropics.

Unlike tourists and expats, Van Rheenen worries about being connected. She recently crossed Costa Rica from coast to coast on marathon work schedule.

She visits Costa Rica every year but this year she needed to update her book. With visions of being productive in paradise, she arrived with a detailed itinerary and a set of sophisticated tools: an internet-ready netbook, a digital camera, a flash drive, a Kindle, an mp3 recorder and a rented cell phone.

She covered a lot of ground in two months. This was her ninth trip, so she knew what to pay attention to. “I had to do the research for the third edition and put up posts on my website,” she says. Knowing the country well helped. She stayed on the move, spending one or two nights in each place, covering hundreds of miles. She was living the life of the easy, breezy globe-trotter.

Then myth clashed with reality. How well did her tech tools work?

The Netbook

For netbooks, the hype holds true. After a day in the rainforest, she typed up her notes on her Asus 10.1-inch netbook, which she bought for $379.  “I’ve worked on an Apple all my life. This is a PC but I was very happy with it,” she says. She didn’t regret the learning curve. “The last time I took my 7-pound iBook. The Asus weighs 3.5 pounds and it made a huge difference,” she says. She also liked the ten-hour battery life.

The Internet

Van Rheenen relied on an internet connection to back up her notes to email, post blogs on her website, and confirm travel details. “They claim wireless is everywhere. Even good hotels advertise wireless throughout. What that means is there’s one spot in the restaurant or the stairwell where you get wireless access,” she says. Costa Rica’s internet access is intermittent and unreliable, often interrupted by storms. “A lot of things can go wrong,” she says.

The camera

Her partner brought a Sigma digital SLR camera to shoot pictures for the new edition. He dropped it the first week and couldn’t use it. For the remaining seven weeks, he took pictures with a back-up camera. “It’s a perfectly fine Canon Powershot SD 750 point-and-shoot, but it doesn’t cut it if you are expecting to be able to shoot raw and tweak to your heart’s content,” she says.

The flash drive

In Costa Rica the author didn’t worry about the elements because she invested in a Corsair Survivor 32GB flash drive. She used it to backup notes and photos. Gushing about its durable, shock- and water-resistant qualities, she says, “It takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin.”

The Kindle

She bought a used Kindle 2 for $125 from a co-worker and says, “Thumbs way down: I put it through hell and it didn’t hold up.” Kindle is good for pleasure reading but can’t withstand the traumas of the road. The screen became unreadable halfway through the trip—more than a minor annoyance. Before she left, she had loaded it with Lonely Planet travel guides. “I love the idea of an eReader for traveling light, but I wouldn’t get another Kindle unless I could download library eBooks and free ePub documents,” she says.

The MP3 recorder

When she is interviewing people, Van Rheenen whips out an iRiver mp3 recorder, which she bought on eBay for $100. “Its better than anything I’ve ever had,” she says. She listens to the digital files and transcribes what she wants.

The rented cell phone

The author doesn’t recommend renting a cell phone. “Even when I was under a cell phone tower, it didn’t work,” referring to a cell phone she rented from a car rental agency. Costa Rica has by far has the worst system in Central America because of the government monopoly on telecommunications. “I bought a calling card and used public phones. I also borrowed cell phones from strangers,” she says.

Life Unexpected

For bloggers, experience is the greatest teacher. “Posting as it happens didn’t work. I barely had time to take notes much less write. Even when I had the time, I had to wait a week for internet access,” she says, estimating that her output was about 40 percent of what she had wanted it to be.

“My goal to post everyday reflects what a lot of writers do,” she says. “They overestimate how connected they will be on the road and underestimate how long it will take to write,” she says. Getting good material and writing well is nose-to-the-grindstone work.

She scaled back her expectations about blogging from the road and decided to be more selective about her topics. Her most successful posts include intimate observations. “I wrote about expat life in this beach town with older North American men with underaged girls. I observe, I describe, I add sensory detail,” she says.

In towns, villages, rivers and rainforests, Van Rheenan entrusted her observations to her notebook. In the end, what tools proved the most useful? Paper and pen.

photo credit: David W. Smith

If you think that your lack of a top-tier university degree might hamper your entrepreneurial success, think again. A recent study of tech company founders indicates that where you get your degree may not matter in the least. What’s important is simply the possession of a higher degree.

And if you’ve been haunted by thoughts that you should have fulfilled your dream of starting a company years and years ago—back in your twenties, say—don’t despair. The same study indicates that twice as many startups are founded by people in their fifties as opposed to youngsters.

The study, “Education and Tech Entrepreneurship,” was conducted by three scholars imbued with Ivy League credentials: Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University and Harvard Law School; Richard Freeman of Harvard University, Harvard Law School, and the National Bureau of Economic Research; and Ben Rissing of Harvard Law School and Duke University. The study was published as a Small Research Projects Paper by the Ewing Kauffman Marion Foundation, the world’s largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship.

The researchers looked at the educational background of 652 U.S.-born tech founders from 287 unique universities. The top ten institutions in this group (listed below under the first bullet) accounted for only 19 percent of the entire sample. In other words, 81% of the tech company founders came from non-elite schools. Ivy League schools represented a mere 8% of the sample (which is a bit more impressive when you consider that those schools account for only 1.6% of American graduates each year).

But it’s the difference between those with—and without—a college degree that is really striking. The average sales revenue of all startups was around $5.7 million, with those companies employing an average of 42 workers. Startups established by tech founders with Ivy League degrees had average sales and employment of $6.7 million and 55 workers, respectively. The success of these two groups markedly contrasted with startups founded by those with only a high school degree,  which had averages of $2.2 million in revenue and 18 employees.

Also surprising is another finding of the study: twice as many U. S.-born tech entrepreneurs start ventures in their fifties as do those in their early twenties—and the average age of tech company founders was 39. Only 1% of founders were teenagers. On average, tech founders have sixteen years of work experience at startup time. All of this flies in the face of a common though apparently mistaken belief about tech companies being founded by young entrepreneurs. As the study states: “The twenty-year-old wunderkind is the exception, not the rule.”

These findings definitely make exceptions out of Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, as well as Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, don’t they? Jobs and Gates only possess a high school diploma, although Gates famously dropped out of ultra-elite Harvard to found Microsoft. Jobs attended Oregon’s Reed College for one semester, and for a while after that audited classes. Wozniak dropped out of U. C. Berkeley in 1975 to work on the first Apple computer, but returned in the 1980s and ultimately received a BS in EECS. And, as everyone knows, all three were quite young when they founded their companies: both Jobs and Gates were 19; The Woz was (and is) 5 years older.

Here are some other key findings:

• The top ten universities from which U.S.-born tech founders received their highest degrees in the sample are Harvard, MIT, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford, University of California- Berkeley, University of Missouri, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Texas, and University of Virginia.

• The vast majority (92%) of U. S.-born tech founders  held bachelor’s degrees. Additionally, 31% held master’s degrees, and 10% had completed PhDs. Nearly half of all these degrees were in science-, technology-, engineering-, and mathematics-related disciplines. One-third were in business, accounting and finance.

• U.S.-born tech founders with Ivy-League degrees tend to establish startups that produce higher revenue and employ more workers than the average. Startups founded by those with only  high school education significantly underperform  all others.

• Nearly half (45%) of startups were established in the same state where U.S.-born tech founders received their education. Of the U.S.-born tech founders in our sample receiving degrees from California, 69 percent later created a startup in the state; Michigan, 58 percent; Texas, 53 percent; and Ohio, 52 percent. In contrast, Maryland retained only 15 percent; Indiana, 18 percent; and New York, 21 percent.

Download the free 16-page study, which contains a good deal of helpful and insightful data.

I don’t mean marijuana. I’m talking about your business. Most creative professionals like to keep things simple when it comes to legal and tax matters. The simplest way to be in business for yourself these days is as a sole proprietor. It involves little cost and no bureaucratic red tape.

LLC or Inc.?

Jump ahead a year. Your business is making a profit.  Should you incorporate or form a limited liability company (LLC)? Both have their legal and tax advantages. The answer depends on the type of business you run and on your financial situation.

Consider your type of business

What are the potential risks and liabilities of your business? You want to shield your personal assets from business debts and claims. “In tough times, all businesses can become laden with debts and bills they can’t pay,” says Anthony Mancuso, an attorney and author for legal publisher Nolo Press. “If you have personal assets you want to protect from being taken to pay your business’s debts, you’ll want to form a corporation or LLC.”

If it’s limited liability that you want, an LLC provides the same protection as a corporation, and the simplicity and flexibility of LLCs is a clear advantage over corporations. For that reason, most entrepreneurs starting a small business prefer limited liability companies.

Consider your income-tax situation

Owners of LLCs pay taxes on business profits in the same way as sole proprietors. The profits and losses pass through the business to the owners who report their share of the profits and losses on their personal income tax returns.

Owners pay income taxes on all net profits of the business, regardless of how much they take out of the business. Even profits left in the business checking account to meet upcoming business expenses must be reported as income on their tax returns.

“In contrast,” says Mancuso, “the owners of a corporation pay taxes only on profits they actually receive in the form of salaries, bonuses and dividends. Owners don’t pay personal income taxes on profits they haven’t received. The corporation pays taxes on any profits left in the company from year to year. Corporations are taxed at a lower tax rate than most individuals for the first $50,000 to $75,000 of corporate income.

Consider your investment needs

Unlike other business entities, an incorporated business can sell ownership shares in the company through its stock offerings. This makes it easier to attract investment capital and to hire and retain key employees by issuing employee stock options. “Businesses that don’t need to issue stock options and will never “go public” (most, by far), forming a corporation probably isn’t worth the added expense,” says Mancuso.

The Downside

LLCs and corporations can be costly and difficult to maintain. To form an LLC or corporation, you must file a document with the state and pay between $40 to $800, depending on the state. “In addition, owners of corporations and LLCs elect officers to run the company and record important business decisions,” says Mancuso. Incorporated businesses have the extra complexity of filing and paying taxes.

Also be aware that people are falling for quick LLC marketing schemes. Attorney Felicia Vallera notes “a proliferation of corporation services overselling LLC and S corporations. Most of the people who fall prey to slick marketing end with a cool name and false sense of security,” says Vallera. The San-Francisco-based attorney sets up LLCs and corporations for small-business owners. She cautions people not jump into these entities too quickly. “It’s expensive and time-consuming to do it right. There’s a series of filings and set of criteria to have a validly formed LLC. You can’t buy an LLC off the shelf,” says Vallera.

People often end up with no protection for their homes. “Quite frequently, businesses sued by a disgruntled employee or an unhappy customer try to get through the corporate veil to the personal assets,” she says, adding that 60 to 70 percent are defectively formed and will not protect people’s assets.

The Upside

A corporation and its owners often have a lower combined tax bill than the owners of an unincorporated business that earns the same amount of profit.

Case Study

I was impressed when my friend Cori Brett, who started a new business as a professional golf writer, set herself up as president of Cori Brett, LLC.  “I was in real estate for many years and became aware of the litigious nature of California,” she says. “ I wouldn’t think of owning a business without protecting myself.

She considers LLC a good choice. “I like conducting my business through a professional entity that is separate from my personal affairs,” she says. “It’s like a brand.” For the $500 she paid an attorney, she says she sleeps better at night knowing her assets are protected.

Brett also bought an insurance policy for her home office. The $200 annual premium covers loss of income for 12 months, medical payments to contract workers or volunteers who come to her home office. “It gives me some peace of mind,” she says. “If someone doesn’t pay you, you can enter into negotiations under your company name. She hopes she never has to use it.

The learning curve

My advice is to read Nolo Press’s current offerings on the topic. If you are starting a business (by yourself or with others) and trying to figure out whether an LLC or corporation best meet your needs, read LLC or Corporation. This book also covers S corporations, which have some characteristics of the more well known C corporation (including limited liability) but are taxed like a partnership. Then talk to your friends and business associates. Dennis Whiteman, president of Oklahoma-based FastPipe Media, Inc., says, “I have an S corporation and there’s not a huge difference in terms of taxes,” adding that when he incorporated his media production company in 1995, LLCs didn’t exist.

Last week, over a business lunch, I listened with amazement as a website owner confided to me that—at certain times of the year—he clears about $15,000 per month from advertisements on his site. During “bad” months his ad income shrinks to an average $5,000. His website’s focus is tied to the up-and-down nature of business and leisure travel, accounting for the rise and fall of ad income. The site’s purpose is to provide a fee-based service, but the income from that service is separate from the ad figures I’ve noted here.

I’ve promised the owner to keep his name and site confidential. I can tell you this, though: in its niche this site is ranked No. 2 in popularity. Most months it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world. The site owner—let’s call him John—attracts visitors by offering thousands of pages of interesting, fun-to-read, fact-based content and related photographs. Pay attention to that fact: content is important to this site. “Good content matters,” John said more than once during our lunch. “The main reason my site attracts visitors is because it offers superb content.”

John’s site was no overnight success; it’s present prominence has been more a case of slow-and-steady wins the race. He began the site about 10 years ago. At the time he was scraping by financially. Propelled by what he thought was a great idea, he poured his time and hopes into his website. He’s not a writer, and knew he was doing only a so-so job with content; but at first—since he had no money—he did all the writing himself, decorating articles with his own content-related photography. When he began to turn a profit, he started contracting writing to professionals that he found through Craig’s List.

Possessed of a technical bent, John was optimizing for searches early on, deepening his knowledge of SEO as he went along. Ditto with advertising: he put ads on the site right at the beginning. As online ads have grown more sophisticated, so has his understanding of the ways in which he can utilize them to make money.

The bottom line here is that, at some point, John’s site began to earn real money.

And his site isn’t the only one doing so. Many other websites out there are earning big money from advertising and/or selling something. Through a close friend I know of one other site owner—a guy who first made a fortune in Silicon Valley and retired before he was 30—who brings in a minimum $6,000 per month from each of three sites he runs. If you look at the following chart, which includes all forms of online advertising from 2001 projected through 2011, you’ll see that more than $37 billion will be spent on Internet ads this year in the US alone! If you’ve a website you’re proud of, and that you’ve worked on, why not garner a share of that expenditure?

Learn more about this chart at eMarketer.

Interested? Me too! Here are some tips I’ve uncovered for making money from ads on your blog or website:

• A primary thing to keep in mind is that ads on your site should be relevant—otherwise they’ll irritate your visitors.

• Don’t stick with a single advertising service (see example services below). Find a few good ones that suit you and stick with them. If one doesn’t perform well, no problem! There are plenty of fish in that sea, so go catch yourself another ad service.

• Utilize text ads, which are probably the least irritating/most reader-friendly ads you can place on your site. Why? Because they are subtle, small, and consist only of text. They don’t blink and flash or try to attract attention with snazzy graphics. Here are a few of many services available that provide text ads for your site . In alphabetical order:
  • AdBriteInc: One of AdBrite’s benefits is that it allows you to approve and reject any ads that will appear on your site.
  • Adify: Offers editorial control, including setting your own prices.
  • BidVertiser.com: Customizable ads provided with an opportunity to block ads you don’t want to host.
  • eXelate Targeted Links: Pick and choose the advertisers you want on your site with this program.
  • Google AdSense: An obvious choice, and why not? Google ads are popular and often profitable and can be content-relevant.

• If you want bigger and bolder ads on your site, these services are a starting point. In alphabetical order:
  • Kontera ContentLink: Turn your relevant content keywords into a hyperlink ad.
  • LinkAdage Auctions: Offering a diffrerent approach, this service lets you sell text links on your site through online auctions.
  • LinkWorth LinkAds: Completely text-based ads with a great deal of user control. Claim to have the highest payouts.
  • PaidTextLinks.com: Lots of flexibility with PTL, and you maintain editorial control.
  • Text Link Ads: Simple, context-relevant text links here; claims a higher ratio of page real estate to revenue earned versus other ad services.
  • Tribal Fusion: Tribal Fusion says it allows publishers (that’s you) to “maximize the value of their highly-targeted content.”
  • ValueClick Inc.: Old hands at the ad biz, this company uses all standard display advertising and rich media formats.
  • Yahoo! Publisher Network: Display contextual ads related to your site’s content.

• If you’re providing readers with RSS feeds, then consider sending along RSS ads in the process. Probably best with feeds to keep the ads subtle and highly relevant. These services provide RSS ads:
  • CrispAds: Focussed on blogs, CrispAds lets you place ads directly into entries so they’ll appear both on your site and in feeds.
  • Feedvertising: A division of Text Link Ads (above), this service embeds ads in your RSS feed. This service is free!
  • Pheedo Inc.: Provides video options.

• And, of course, if your site is popular enough you can sell your own advertising for a price the market will tolerate. And when you sell your own ads, you get to control the look and feel. A few tips to turn you into a pro ad sales person:
  • Create Your Own Media Kit: This makes it oh-so-easy for an advertiser to buy space on your site. Make your kit attractive and downloadable. Your kit should include ad rates, ad policies, demographics, traffic, testimonials and contact information.
  • Give Away Ad Space: At first, anyway, to get the ad ball rolling. Ask companies in your field to place an ad on your site for a specific amount of time—for free. Other companies will get interested when they see those ads. And when the free ad time expires, try to make a sale to the formerly-free advertiser!
  • Choose Advertisers Selectively: Remember that the advertisers you choose reflect back on your site. Select advertisers that your readers will really want to know about. Solicit ads from solid companies or services.
  • Sell Actively: Let advertisers know you’re looking for them! Make sure you’ve got links on your site that let potential advertisers contact you directly.

See Part 2 of this series, 14 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog.

At the crossroads of a new year and a new decade, are you certain of your direction? Once again you may be wondering where to put your energy. For a moment, picture yourself twelve months from now exclaiming to your best friend, “2010 was the most phenomenal year.”  What details will you launch into with an ear-to-ear smile? What happened to make the year an upward spiral of joy, happiness and abundance?

Having this kind of mental agility to get to the heart of what you want is what Mike Dooley calls, “playing the matrix.” Dooley writes Notes from the Universe each day for 310,000 people around the world. His notes caught the eye of The Secret team which led to his appearance in the blockbuster book and DVD. In 2010 and 2011, Dooley is bringing his one-day matrix workshop to six continents, 12 countries, and 60 cities. He recently came to San Francisco.

Your life is your highest priority

Dooley is a dynamic, open-hearted spokesperson for the Universe. He continues to refine his thoughts and advice on how you can get what you want. In the past, he says, people focused on what they didn’t like about life. “It’s the end of blame, excuses, and being a victim. We live in a new era of thinking,” he says.

“It’s an exciting time. People are waking up to their power. Spiritually speaking, we’ve just crawled out of the cave ” says Dooley.  “We understand nothing is predetermined or set in stone. Everything around us is malleable. We have a hand in how things unfold. We are responsible for our happiness.”

The Matrix workshop is six hours of insights and ingenious tools. He explains how people program the circumstances of their lives. He leads attendees through a series of exercises so they can program their lives for the end results they want.

He demonstrates how to define end results without getting attached to the details. Dooley uses the analogy of a car’s GPS device to explain the pivotal end result. You have to punch in on the device where you want to end up.  It’s not until you arrive at your destination that you realize the directions were perfect. The miracles of progress are usually invisible, he says.

Then, without worrying about how it’s going to happen, he advocates action, lots of action. Dooley says to have as full a schedule as you can possibly manage. “We must move,” says Dooley. “Miracles abound as long as we are taking action.”

What to put in your toolkit this year

Once a day for five to ten minutes, visualize the glorious details to get yourself excited and motivated. Imagine every conceivable detail. Feel the emotion.  Put yourself in the picture. Get physical. Stand up and shout “Yes, life is so awesome and I am so happy.” Live with the end result, acting as if your dream, let’s say, of wealth and abundance has already happened. List actions you can now take that either prepare the way or that presupposes it has already come to pass. Plan a celebration party to launch your best-selling book. “Thought forces circumstances, predisposing you to life’s so-called accidents, coincidences, and serendipities,” says Dooley.

A five-minute exercise to try yourself

First write down the main thing you want to change or bring into your life. Define what you want in terms of the end result. People desire changes in their livelihood, abundance, health, relationships and appearance. Let your highest life priorities help you choose where to begin. What would you like to experience more of?

Look at the end result you wrote down. Your end result could be understanding, confidence, acceptance, fulfillment, patience, self love, creativity, peace. Whatever it is, it will bring you happiness. Don’t depend on others for your happiness. The highest and best end result depends solely upon you. It should be self-serving. It should appeal to you logically and emotionally. It should not be how other dreams come true.

It should not depend on specific people or timelines. You don’t want to limit your options. Stating wealth and abundance as your end result, for example, places people in your life who will add to your wealth and abundance. However you cannot state who those people will be in advance. The more general your choice, the freer the universe is to move on your behalf.

Describe the consequences. Write down everything that your fantastic wealth makes possible.

• What you can afford
• Where you travel for fun and business
• How you use your free time
• The type of investments you have
• Where you live
• The friends you have
• The type of cars and toys you own
• The hobbies you are enjoying

List the anticipated consequences without getting attached to the designer clothing, sailboat, acquired skills and talents. Don’t mistake the details for the larger dream. “People don’t wonder if it’s in their best interest when they dream of friendship, happiness, abundance, health, romance,” Dooley says. “But when someone dreams of a specific house, employer, love interest, deadline, dollar amount or diet fad, they often end up contradicting themselves.” If you are disappointed with the results you are getting, it may be that you have contradicting thoughts.  Or that you are locked into specific details.

Someone with the end result of wealth and abundance may anticipate the following:

Visit NYC

• Broadway Shows
• Stay at the Ritz

Help out my family

• Prepay daughter’s college

Buy a new car

• BMW 530i

Begin investing

• Open online account

Then take action, consistently moving in the general direction of your end result without insisting on specific results, methods or people. List baby steps you can take this week that capitalize on your preferences and strengths. “You don’t take baby steps for the distance they cover, but to put yourself within reach of life’s magic,” he says. It’s like hoisting a sail so the wind can power your vessel.

Taking action summons resources.  “Never stop asking for help, trying new directions, responding to conditions, innovating, evolving,” he says.

Advice for a fresh start in 2010

Work with the Universe instead of against it.

Don’t look at someone else’s life. You can make a living any way you want.

Do what you can with what’s before you today.

Take your mind off the by-products of a life well lived (love, money, good health) and more on living life well.

Keeping the end in mind forces the circumstances and details necessary to bring it about.

Don’t make other people responsible for your dreams.

Have fun now. Don’t put your life on hold. What could you do now that you’d like to do but aren’t doing? Live your dreams today to the degree you can.

Playfully pretend you are already rolling in wealth and abundance. Visualize five minutes a day.

Mike Dooley is presenting the Matrix workshop in Salt Lake City on February 20 and in Las Vegas on February 21.

The other day, updating an article I’d written about Hawaii’s Big Island, I discovered that the National Park Service had installed a free automated cell phone tour for drivers exploring the fiery roads of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Since this World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Preserve is home to active volcanoes and a plethora of mind-boggling volcanic phenomena, an explanatory cell phone tour sounded like a great idea.

To ensure that I’d be passing on accurate info to readers, I dialed the tour number (808-217-9285). Soon enough I was listening to a free and informative NPS talk about the awesome sights along the Park’s Crater Rim Drive and Chain of Craters Road (download a PDF with maps and info about these roads).

Apparently I’ve been on another planet when it comes to these mobile phone tours. I knew they existed, but I had no idea how prevalent they’d become–there are thousands of tours out there, and more coming every day. Unlike traditional audio tours, the mobile version is not confined to buildings; a cell phone tour can cover a wide expanse of territory outdoors, as with the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park tour.

And they’re not confined to audio, either. With the increasing sophistication and use of smart phones, more and more multimedia tours—with far greater complexity than audio tours—are being delivered.

And it’s so easy! To access audio tours, visitors simply call a phone number via their own cell phone. Tour exhibits or landmarks are numbered, so when the visitor encounters something they want to hear about, they simply enter the item number into the phone. They can remain connected throughout the tour, or hang up and call back each time they want to learn about an item. They can linger at a stop as long as they like, or move on quickly. Nothing needs to be done in a prescribed order. Many tours also provide the ability for the user to leave feedback.

Old-style audio tours required the venue to provide a visitor with expensive equipment to hear the tour content (remember carrying around those bulky devices in museums?). But now the visitor provides the equipment (a cell phone). All the venue needs to provide is the pre-recorded digital tour. For that reason, many tourism destinations have embraced these tours, offering them for free:

• The National Park Service, for example, has instituted free cell phone tours at many of its properties (e.g., Grand Canyon National Park, Minute Man National Historical Park).
• New York’s Central Park Conservancy has put together a great free tour of the Park, with each of the 41 stops narrated by a different celebrity (Regis Philbin, Alec Baldwin, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Glen Close, Jerry Seinfeld, etc.). Call 646-862-0997 to hear a few famous voices rave about Central Park landmarks.
• The State Historical Society of North Dakota created the cleverly-named “History on Call” cell phone audio tour, whereby people can listen to recorded messages about many historic sites throughout the state by calling one phone number (701-557-9190).
• Visit museumpods to find a long list of art, history, sports and other museums (at least 200) that offer free mobile tours (e.g.,  the Bishop Museum Planetarium Skycast, Hirshhorn  Museum & Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian American  Art Museum). Museumpods also allows uploading of museum tours for social media dissemination.

Businesses, too, are increasingly using mobile tours because they offer multiple benefits ranging from expanaded visibility to customer feedback. They’re proving beneficial to retailers, real estate brokers, and manufacturers. They’re extremely useful at trade shows and consumer product shows. Visitors can easily leave feedback messages via the phone tour, increasing its value to business: imagine getting quick, real-time feedback about a product in your store!

If you’d like to explore making a phone-based tour for your customers or visitors,  a few companies have become well established in this business. Among them are these two (but use them as only a starting point in your research):

• OnCellsystems, which has created hundreds of tours for cultural institutions, the retail and manufacturing industries, and real estate firms. Call in and listen to a sample from one of their clients here.
• Guide by Cell creates audio tours and smartphone apps.

Packages at both start at around $50 per month.

Last month the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released a 10-year projection for job growth and job loss in specific industries (2008-2018). Total employment is expected to increase by 15.3 million (10.1%) during this period, with growth concentrated in the service-providing sector.

This growth in the service sector marks the continuation of a long-term trend, with the U. S. economy shifting away from the production of goods. As has as always been true of goods-producing industries, growth in the service sector varies depending on the service (goods) provided. Healthcare and social assistance will soar; utilities won’t do well (see the chart below):

Here’s how the change in occupational groups is expected to look:

Of the 20 fastest-growing occupations in the economy, an extraordinary half are related to healthcare. This is primarily due–no surprise!—to the aging of the Baby Boom generation, requiring a rise in doctors,nurses, home health care workers, physical therapists, etc.  Here’s a chart that lays it out clearly, along with educational requirements:

Finally, here’s the Bureau’s projection for industries that will gain or lose the most jobs during 2008-2018:

Top 10 Industries with largest wage/salary employment growth (2008-2018):

1. Management, scientific, and technical consulting services: Up 835,000 jobs (+82.8%). This sector will experience a stunning increase of nearly 83%! According to the BLS, this growth will be spurred by the continuing need of business for advice on planning, logistics, new technologies, workplace safety compliance, and environmental/employment and other regulations.

2. Offices of physicians: Up 772,000 jobs (+34.1%)

3. Computer systems design and related services: Up 656,000 jobs (+45.3%). Plenty of programming jobs have migrated offshore, but there is still plenty of onshore work in this category. Computer programming is a solid job choice for the years immediately ahead.

4. Other general merchandise stores: Up 607,000 jobs (+40.7%)

5. Employment services: Up 600,000 jobs (+19.1%). Head-hunters, or, more properly, employment placement specialists, will be hot. Good jobs for those with people skills.

6. Local government, excluding education and hospitals: Up 487,000 jobs (+8.4%)

7. Home health care services: Up 441,000 jobs (+46.1%). No surprise here, with Baby Boomers hitting retirement age and heading into senior citizen-hood. According to the BLS, the 55-and-older group will increase by 29.7% during the 2008-2018 period. This fact also greatly influences No. 8 and No. 9, below.

8. Services for the elderly and persons with disabilities: Up 431,000 jobs (+73.8%)

9. Nursing care facilities: Up 394,000 jobs (+24.4%)

10. Full-service restaurants: Up 343,000 jobs (+7.5%)

And here’s the 10 U. S. industries that will encounter the greatest number of job losses in the coming decade:

1. Department Stores: Down 159,000 jobs (-10.2%). Department stores have been losing customers through the past decade due to online shopping and the proliferation of Big Box stores.

2. Semiconductor and other electronic component makers: Down 146,000 jobs (-33.7%). The drift to offshore manufacturing will continue.

3. Auto parts manufacturers: Down 101,000 jobs (-18.6%). This can come as no surprise to anyone.

4. U.S. Postal Service: Down 98,000 jobs (-13%). Again, no surprises here—the once-mighty USPS has been in a battle for years against FedEx and UPS, not to mention that few people write letters or mail checks these days.

5. Printing businesses: Down 95,000 jobs (-16%)

6. Cut and sew apparel makers: Down 95,000 jobs (-57%). This industry has been decimated over the last couple of decades, and will continue to send jobs offshore.

7. Newspaper publishers: Down 81,000 jobs (-24.8%). Apparently the worst is not yet over!

8. Support businesses for mining: Down 76,000 jobs (-23.2%)

9. Gas stations: Down 75,000 jobs (-8.9%)

10. Wired telecom businesses: Down 73,000 jobs (-11%). In the last couple of years, an increasing number of people have done away with their landlines to rely solely on cell phones.

====================================

My Tip of the Week:

Want to remove all the clutter on the average web page, concentrating instead on content?

Use the simple and free bookmark tool called Readability. Developed by arc90 laboratories, it works like a charm!

At this time of year, both individual and professional investors look over their portfolios. After a turbulent 2008, and up-and-down 2009, investors are looking for a fresh start in 2010.

If you want to be productive with your investments, you are probably following the discussion of the January Effect in the financial news.

This market anomaly is well documented. To cite evidence supporting the January Effect, from 1979 to 2006 the small stock index rose an average of 2.5 percent during the month of January, but rose 4.7 percent from mid-December to mid-January.

In a Money Morning article, Larry Spears writes that the January Effect is one of the most recognized, and reliable, stock market phenomenon. It could offer quick gains for small-cap investors.  “Stocks do better in January than in any other month— and small stocks do better than large stocks, with the bulk of the gain realized from the final trading day of December through the middle of the following month,” says Spears.

In terms of the stock market’s general performance, “the small-stock portion gains in the first trading days of January have accounted for the sector’s total advance for the entire year,” he says.

Another market anomaly that occurs at this time of year, the so-called Santa Claus rally, is a psychological phenomenon: the market’s reaction to holiday cheer. To cite evidence, a large company index was tracked for fifty-five years beginning in 1950 and revealed from December 27 to January 2 an average gain of 1.5 percent.

If the company’s stock rises as the new trading year begins, it will rise steadily though the year. In other words, as the first few days go, so goes the year.

Market adviser George Putnam notes the trends but sticks to the fundamentals. In a recent Forbes article, he says, “The sharp swings in the market over the last 15 months or so may create some particularly interesting year-end opportunities this year.”  He identifies ten stocks likely to bounce in January, stating “We focus on fundamental business factors that affect the values of particular stocks.”

He also ignores artificial selling pressures. “Tax loss selling comes about when investors sell their losers to generate taxable losses to offset other gains,” he  says. Many investors have losers in their portfolios, left over from last year’s market debacle, he says, but “with the sharp rebound in the stock market since March, many investors probably have gains to offset as well.”

How should the average investor react to the January Effect and the so-called Santa Claus Rally?

Despite the hoopla in the financial press, the January effect does not occur every year and when it does, its effects are not powerful enough to make a big difference in a person’s portfolio.

Many portfolio managers tell clients not to consider it when deciding whether to buy or sell their investments. John Buckingham, chief investment officer for Al Frank Asset Management says of the January Effect, “It’s a valid situation, but in recent years we haven’t seen a big impact. I wouldn’t be buying stocks based on these anomalies.” A 22-year veteran of the stock market, Buckingham scrutinizes more than 1,000 stocks for his firm’s clients.

Buckingham tells investors looking forward to a fresh start  in 2010 “to pay attention to the valuations of the company you’re investing in.” In 2010, large-cap stocks are far more attractive to Buckingham. “We are gravitating toward those,” he says. “I don’t see a lot of value in small-cap stocks.”

The firm now offers Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) products since acquiring Innealta Portfolio Advisors. The Al Frank creed is “Don’t play the short-term trends if you have long-term money invested in stocks.”

Having a stock broker for a dad, I heard the advice he repeatedly gave his customers: Buy good companies and focus on the long term. As bells ring in the New Year, ponder this sage advice.

Corporate and personal brands are easily destroyed by the lightning-fast way that information zips through the Clouds. Just look at what’s been happening to Tiger Woods recently: there was nothing even remotely gradual about the descent of this previously unassailable icon. Or consider the great Domino’s Pizza fiasco from this past spring, when some minimum-wage employees videotaped themselves doing a few rather unappetizing things in the kitchen. When the video went viral,  creating a firestorm of media coverage, these low-level employees had caused damage to Domino’s reputation estimated to be well into the millions.

Smaller Internet firestorms can be brand-destructive, too. Take the east coast advertising exec who traveled to a client’s Midwestern city and tweeted his disdain to colleagues: “I’d rather die than live here.” The client saw the Tweet (yes, they do know about tweeting in Ohio and Iowa) and nearly cancelled the contract.

It’s for reasons like this that findings in a recent study by Russell Herder/Ethos Business Law should come as no surprise. While eight out of 10 senior executives surveyed believe that social media can enhance customer relationships and build brand reputation, 51% nonetheless feared the potential negative impact of social media on employee productivity, and 49% worried that it could damage the company’s reputation. Executives from companies who use no social media stated two main reasons to explain why (after the No. 1 reason, ignorance about social media): security issues (40%) and concerns about the damage to employee productivity (37%).

(An aside: of those executives who believe that social media can be valuable, Facebook is the most-used vehicle, followed by Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and others.)

Despite the potential risks, companies are losing a tremendous competitive advantage by ignoring social media.  So what to do? Many companies–40% of those surveyed, in fact– technically block employees from accessing social media while at work. However, such a method has a tendency to create resentment among employees…and where there’s resentment, mischief, or worse, easily rears its head. What’s needed, Russell Herder believes, is for companies to draw up a carefully-considered, strategic plan for the wise use of social media:. However, only one in three businesses surveyed had a policy in place to govern social media use. Says Russell Herder:

“Instead of ignoring the need for responsible guidelines, organizations of all sizes should begin to define their strategy regarding social media, and most importantly, the rules for employee engagement…The rules for creating and implementing a social media policy are not universal. They must take the form, substance, philosophy, and culture of the organization to which they apply.”

Russell Herder cites 10 important elements to include in a good social media policy, spelling out:

1. An effective overall philosophy.
2. A requirement that employees be open, honest, respectful and transparent in their usage of social media.
3. Rules for reinforcing the company’s confidentiality and proprietary information policies, making them applicable to the social media environment.
4. The rules for differentiating between an employee’s personal and business online identities.
5. Job performance vs. company time.
6. How to avoid conflicts of interest.
7. Use of Disclaimers regarding employee views.
8. What policies the company uses to monitor employee social media usage
9. How the policy is applied across employee groups
10. Any other company policies that might impact, or be impacted by, social media usage.

Social Media is here to stay, or so it seems. If your company is missing out on a potentially good thing by ignoring this transformational form of communication, maybe it’s time to put an intelligent social media policy in place and move into the future.

For more details on all ten points, Download a PDF with highlights of the Russell Herder study

The Russell Herder/Ethos survey discussed here involved 438 randomly-selected management, marketing, and human resources execs within companies across the U. S. It has a statistical reliability of +/-4.8%, with a 95% confidence level.

The days of missing important phone calls and being out of touch with the office or your data files when you’re on the road are long gone–and good riddance! Thanks to cell phones and a wide range of Web-based productivity tools, you can take your office with you anywhere you go.

Don’t believe it? Check out this list of tools and apps that will make your on-the-go life easier in 2010 and beyond:

Office Application: Google Docs is a popular—and free!—suite of online office applications. Among them are a word processor, a spreadsheet program, and slideshow presentation software. Files are stored online, where they can be easily accessed or shared with other Google Docs users. There are way too many features to list here, but here’s a sampling: templates for docs, spreadsheets and presentations; engineering functions; offline access in 40 languages; create your own drawings and diagrams; themes for forms; export images into .xls files; shared folders; bulk upload. To learn more, watch the video Google Docs in Plain English.

By the way, many people prefer Microsoft Office Online (free) or Zoho (free for individual use). It’s worth checking them all out, even trying them all out. While the offerings are the same or similar, the execution and smaller details differ…one of them will be perfect for you.

Virtual Phone Services: LiNE2 adds a second line with voicemail to your cell phone, allowing separate handling for business and personal callers. Right now the company is offering a free 30-day trial. If you need advanced features, LiNE2 integrates with toktumi’s powerful hosted PBX system, which offers advanced features such as call screening, auto attendant, do not disturb, conferencing, and after-hours call handling. Another company that gives you a second cell phone number is SecondVoice (watch their explanatory video).

Online File Storage: The Internet abounds with storage plans, and many sites offer free storage, ranging from 1GB on up. For an overview of storage sites with good reputations, refer to my Plugin post from this past October, In the Clouds: 11 Sites Offering Free Data Storage.

Managing Tasks: Taskwise provides a complete solution for easy and comprehensive task-management, with products suitable for all users, from a one-person business to a large company. A full-featured ToDo list, a powerful task manager, notepad and documents, online access and file sharing, syncing of multiple clients, and much more. The software runs on Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista, and is available for computers and mobile phones. Check out the Taskwise Quickstart Video Guide to get an idea of the feature set.

Keeping Track of Billable (and other) Time: Paymo is a handy time-tracking and invoice application. It’s free for 1-3 users (3 invoices per month), and $3.99/month for additional employees. Time Tracking features include use via Web browser, Windows tray app or Mac widget; all time entries saved; works offline with Google Gears; customized reporting; and more. The online-only Time Tracker 2.0 keeps track of the time you spend on designated tasks and/or billable clients. The software is simple in concept—as the Home page says, it’s “a to-do list with a clock.” You can export collected data into a CSV or XML file and email it. You can run multiple tasks at the same time

Calendar Sharing: Google Calendar gives you and those you designate instant access to a shared calendar. See a demo of the calendar.

Scheduling Meetings: Timebridge Scheduling Assistant is an innovative web service that works across time zones and different calendar systems. It networks calendars to see everybody’s availability, proposes the best time to meet, issues invitations, and collates responses (no calendar details are shown; merely blocks of free and busy time). You can also conference online, and Timebridge has recently formed a partnership with Box.net that allows meeting attendees to upload, share, and collaborate on meeting documents. Timebridge is free, although its Web meeting feature is not. See an explanatory video about Timebridge.

Meeting Online: Billed as “the world’s easiest web conference,” Open-source Dimdim offers a free plan where up to 20 people around the world can meet online. The free plan offers a rich feature set and doesn’t expire. After 20 people, consider the paid plans such as Dimdim Pro, where up to 50 people can meet online for $19/month. See Dimdim’s overview video.