Index of BestThinking.com

Many small business owners often look wistfully at big companies who are in direct competition and they think that these conglomerates have an advantage in the marketplace. The sheer size of the sales force, support team and marketing budget can cause sleepless nights for the small business owner who is struggling to compete against these beasts. However, the size of these organizations can...  Read More

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” (Lao Tzu ) Politicians use the term revisionist to label both challenger and foe as a liar or as inconstant as a horse midstream. Of course this claim is absurd given that most intractable wars, intolerable religious practices and counterproductive laws are the result of sticking to a tired idea or outmoded philosophy....  Read More

One of the reasons ad dollars are falling for newspapers, as well as traditional media, is that they don’t fully understand the new realities of marketing. Two key shifts are taking place that media companies can no longer ignore. First, media and marketing have always been about storytelling. Advertisers have a story to tell, and the media is there to help tell it. Today, however, media and...  Read More

CRIMINOLOGY 101, CRIMINAL JUSTICE 101 AND CRIME SCIENCE 101 Introduction to causality and explanations for crime: for Crime Opportunity Theory, Routine Activities Theory and Situational Crime Prevention The Crime Opportunity Theory (Routine Activities Theory, Situational Crime Prevention and Crime Science) notion of opportunity as a cause of crime is 100 per cent wrong because good...  Read More

At the start of this video interview with Katie Couric , the first female major TV network evening news anchor, Katie politely but pointedly calls out interviewer Katie Corrado for introducing her initially as "the lovely Katie Couric." Much like her interviewee, Corrado is perky and cute. She appears to be a generation younger than Couric. That Corrado needed to be called out is cause for...  Read More

Company Successfully Shedding Long Term Debt and Maintaining Top Line Revenues The Technology Stock Advisor , a weekly online newsletter for technology stock investors, published by Thomas Vass, a portfolio manager based in Raleigh, N. C., initiated coverage on NACCO Industries today. The Technology Stock Advisor stock selections are based upon a 2007 stock selection and portfolio management...  Read More

As part of a $106 million upgrade, Richard Branson’s Virgin Airlines will offer in-flight mobile data access on its new Airbus A330. The first flight to receive the service will travel between London and New York. Virgin Airlines to Offer In-Flight Mobile Data on UK Flights  Read More

What would you say if someone told you that they were responding to 600 proposals a year versus 150 in prior years? Who among us wouldn’t like to see that kind of demand for our offerings? Oh, did I forget to mention that their margins are down double digits? That shines a new light on the subject, doesn’t it? It was at that point that I realized that the business was running this company’s...  Read More

A few months ago, I was asked if I made anything like a protein bar or a bar that could be used for a meal replacement. After going through the grocery store aisles and reading the labels, I was pretty shocked to learn what they actually put in the so-called "healthy" bars. I decided to work on bar that's not only healthy but tastes pretty darn good, too. I've crafted this recipe to be extremely...  Read More

I recently came across a great example of the “Just Do It” principle of content creation. Sonya Terburg is a teacher at Riverstone International School in Boise Idaho. She is passionate about education and was deeply touched by Seth Godin’s manifesto Stop Stealing Dreams (what is school for?) In his manifesto, Godin invites readers to share, discuss, criticize and rewrite their thoughts to...  Read More

Yesterday, the price of oil fell to $94.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest since Dec. 19. But the price of gasoline at the pump in California has risen more than 15 cents in the past week. Whiskey-tango-foxtrot? Demand for oil is down, world prices are down — what’s a greedy oil company to do? If you answered “pinch off supply,” you’re thinking like an oil company. With...  Read More

I was watching the morning news this morning and across the bottom of the screen was a running display of the latest news. One such headline stated that the TSA had patted down an 89-year-old man in the airport the other day. When you see the rest of the story at the end of this post you will understand the rest of the post more clearly. When I was in high school nearly 50 years ago, we were...  Read More

If the fastest way to self esteem is to stand up for what you believe, President Obama is standing tall this week--even though it has taken a long "evolution" to stand up for marriage equality. What do you think? Will it help or hurt his reelection prospects? Politico Arena asks: The newest issue of Newsweek Magazine has declared President Obama “The First Gay President.” The cover...  Read More

Capitulate: to surrender unconditionally or on stipulated terms; to give up resistance. When it comes to surrender, just the thought of it is chilling to a political leader on the campaign trail. Campaigns are the closest thing to war most operatives and candidates will ever experience, and for the majority they approach it with the same gusto as if their lives were on-the-line—which is...  Read More

Hello, Today I'm very proud to announce my brand new website. If you have a moment, I invite you to visit it at www.Burrus.com . We've strived to build this website on the most current and innovative of technologies. You will be happy to find that this website is adaptive, meaning it can automatically adjust to any screen size. It's a new and powerful design for websites given the explosive...  Read More

In the days before social media and the Internet, it wasn't as easy to listen in on your customers’ conversations about your company. Nor could you easily encourage people to spread the good word about your business through word-of-mouth. When you connect with your customers online, you stop speaking to them and start talking with them. And wonderful things begin to happen. Those golden...  Read More

What do cultural integration, change application and execution of skill acquisition all have in common? The critical step before results : Integration is perhaps the most important stage of any change effort. A post merger integration study by Merrill Corporation in 2009 reveals that 66% of leaders start addressing post-merger integration issues early on in the M&A process. Why is integration...  Read More

“About 40% of executives who change jobs or get promoted fail in the first 18 months.”As Anne Fisher points out in a recent Fortune article, this has been true for about 15 years. A big reason for the ongoing failure rate is the inability of executives to determine the right time to pivot from converging (becoming part of the team) to evolving (initiating change) when they are onboarding,...  Read More

In the 1980s and 1990s it became common medical practice to prescribe post-menopausal hormones for the prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD). The FDA had not approved these drugs for this indication but some studies showed an apparent reduced risk of CHD in women prescribed post-menopausal estrogen. However, the evidence in favour of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was not clear-cut. ...  Read More

Anomie created by hyper capitalism. Apocalyptic alphabets unleashed by paranoic taxi drivers. Just another day down on the dole queue. On-your- bike- sonny boy 3rd generation sun sets on empire Tories spouting headteacher platitudes as the cities aflame. Sow what you reap sandwich board end-is-nigh prognostications rally in a mind clouded with Big Pharma 3-a-day calmers. Another Pimms, dear boy?...  Read More