Blog Author Mellissah Smith - Page 99

When you have some down time, it is always good to use it well. Afterall, it's not often we have time up our sleeve, but at this time of year, many entrepreneurs and marketers take time off. I'm an avid skier, so I always head off to Colorado. Aspen and Vail are my two favourite spots, mostly due to the mountains and the great atmosphere both resorts tend to foster.

After sitting in the kitchen of a friend's home in Vail, I find myself spending literally hours trawling through websites on marketing from around the world. I am interested in what people have to say, their opinions and their advice. Sometimes the advice is game-changing and other times it is a little waste of effort. 

With entrepreneurs surrounding me, I constantly ask them what they read online, what apps they download and what is the best marketing campaigns that they have seen. Its an interesting conversation and everyone seems to have a number of websites they love that is consistent with the others and a few have a some 'pearlers' that are untapped by the average entrepreneur that is a must-have resource.

Every year, millions of people around the globe make New Years' Resolutions.

It's that time of year again and I have to say it has come around far too quickly for my liking.

It's seems that as we get older, the faster the year goes. I remember very well when Christmas used to come around very slowly and the last weeks lead-up to Santa arriving was the slowest week of all.

Are you the Xmas Scrooge or do you bring joy to everyone around you?
Does going to work mean that you change hats and become a negative, overly opinionated, in-your-face style manager who nags your employees into being so afraid to communicate?
Do you conjure up ways to make others miserable without even knowing it?
Are you too pedantic about detail that you lose sight of the big picture?

December 7 and counting. While most of us have a jam-packed agenda for December with Christmas shopping to be done, parties, last minute things to finish at work, deals to close and family to catchup with, it seems that many small business owners get so caught up in what is going on, that they forget about what the future may hold.

2012 isn't going to be easy. It is predicted that we will see more floods, earthquakes, droughts, heat waves and cold spells as the world's weather patterns show increasing destabilisation but fortunately the world will not end as previously predicted on December 21, 2012.

Today, marketing happens in real time. Anywhere. Anytime.

While one-way communication is almost dead and buried, there seems to be an influx of 'worried' retailers out there who are scurrying to put the latest 'offer' or 'promotion' in everyone's letterboxes.

President Barack Obama's job approval rating is now below former President Jimmy Carter at the equivalent point at the White House. The European Economic Crisis is unfolding as the 'lingua franca' of financial obscurity with their problems a lot like that of the US, but only worse. The Wall Street Journal reports that Mark Zuckerberg and crew could see an IPO value of around $100 billion and us mere mortals are quite frankly, just trying to get on with finishing the year off on a half decent note.

If you are not sure how the above relates to 2012 social media trends, then perhaps you should spend a few minutes searching google and type some of these topics in to see what sort of result you get. Maybe, log into your twitter account and see what people are saying (& trending) about President Barack Obama, the European Economic Crisis or Facebook's IPO.

On Friday, I woke up in Vail, Colorado, to find an email notifying me that hours earlier a good friend of mine had passed away.

His name was Dr Michael Hirshorn. He was one of the founders of Cochlear, an original team member of Resmed and on the Board of Directors for Dynamic Hearing and a whole heap of other companies.

Constantly learning in life is a must. If we don't, we all know what happens.

We fall behind, become less interesting and life doesn't come as easy as it should.