Editorials (22)
Welcome to the Editorials Section of the Wonderful World of Rae Stonehouse. Here you will find a selection of articles of interest written by Rae Stonehouse related to any topic that resonated with Rae at the time he wrote it. Enjoy! Please feel free to comment and keep the discussion going.
I won a lottery the other day. Not the kind that puts money in your pocket, the kind that doesn’t take money out of it.
Or so I thought. You be the judge.
Canadian Consumers … want better customer service … complain more!
Written by Rae Stonehouse
I don’t watch a lot of television but when I do I prefer quality over quantity. I am selective in what shows I watch. I have found the PVR to be a great time-saving device.
One of my weekly favorites has been CBC’s Marketplace. I admire the gutsiness of hosts Erica Johnson & Tom Herrington. They are able to ferret out the facts and the truth behind their topic without becoming obnoxious as some of our investigative journalists to the south of us seem to feel is necessary.
Is it or isn’t it? I don’t know.
I’ve heard rumblings lately that many small businesses are finding that it is a lot easier … and cheaper to promote on-line with a business-focussed Facebook page rather than a conventional business-focussed website.
Even the concept of “conventional website” is a bit thought provoking. How long have websites been the ‘must-have’ way to promote your business 10 … 15 years? The internet seems to have been around forever, but it hasn’t. Recently, with website content management systems such as WordPress evolving into being readily utilized by do-it-your-selfers the cost factor of setting up a business site is mitigated.
The argument seems to be that websites are expensive … Facebook is free.
This week’s Staples’ flyer introduces their new website design & hosting services. You can build your own site for a mere $9.99 per month and have a choice of hundreds of templates to choose from or they will build it for you, starting at $99.00 per month.
So if I do the arithmetic correctly, if they can get my site up and running in a couple weeks, I should only be out about $50.00. That seems like a good deal!
Has website developing become a commodity like many other industries? I’m reminded of the printing industry. At one time you had to go to printers because they were the only with the technology to do your print job. Along came copier businesses that were able to do the same task, presumably at less cost to the consumer. Then along comes home printer/copiers so now you can do all of your printing needs without having to leave home. Except for the fact that the ink supplies are increasing in price so that you have to go back to the copier and the printers to be able to afford a large printing project.
Have you ever noticed that there seems to be a plethora of self-proclaimed social media gurus, wizards and ninjas in the marketplace? They seem to be popping up everywhere. Ten years ago you would be hard-pressed to find a single one. I guess we weren’t very social back then.
Enter Social Media Savants.
Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines savant as:
- a person who knows a lot about a particular subject
- a person who does not have normal intelligence but who has very unusual mental abilities that other people do not have
I’m left wondering that if someone calls you a social media savant, is it a compliment or are they dissing you? When I think of a savant I think of the bald headed kid sitting on the porch in the 70s movie Deliverance, providing a virtuoso performance of Duelling Banjos. He definitely didn’t display any social tendencies. As I recall, as soon as his performance was over, he went back into pause mode. Presumably, until the next lost traveller shows up at his shack’s front door.
Blab, blab, blab … are you blabbing yet? I did … well only once … so far!
Social media platforms seem to come and go. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram seem to have caught on and arguably a few others. Now along comes the latest, perhaps greatest social media platform of them all … Blab.
Blab provides an on-line, live, streaming video and audio platform to host discussions that participants can pop in or pop out as they choose. Blab allows you to have up to four discussion participants and have their video and audio feed appear live in the dashboard. The Host can move participants into or out of the dashboard as they want to. Other participants can view and hear the live broadcast in a passive mode or if they have registered as a blab member they can ask to “go live” and have their feed featured in the dashboard. As a Host you have the option of recording your conversation and posting to YouTube or to your website. Blab also hosts your discussion so that viewers can watch your discussion long after you have recorded it.
Brand Busters: How Public Visibility Can Undermine Branding Measures
Written by Rae Stonehouse
Creating a memorable brand for your business is an essential marketing strategy, if you want to stay in business, as well as grow it. Businesses regularly spend vast sums of their hard-earned money … well to earn more money … by raising their visibility in the marketplace.
April 28th is the National Day of Mourning in Canada. The Day honours the memory of workers who have been killed, injured or suffered an illness as a result of a work-related incident.
A recent Bulletin by the BCNU (B.C. Nurses Union) states …
In BC there were 175 fatalities in 2014, up from the 128 in 2013. That is more than 3 people each week who lost their lives while doing their job.
The Stigma of Depression
A recent posting to Facebook from a colleague has resonated with me and I thought I would share it with everyone. Depression and mental illness affects all of us whether it be at work, home or business.
He wrote “The coverage German Wings tragedy is bothering me. The co-pilot had mental health issues, but he hid them, However all sorts of so-called “experts” are now on various news broadcasts discussing testing and screening and how this all could have possibly been averted. My fear is that for those who are troubled by Anxiety and Depression and have not come forward to acknowledge it and seek treatment and information to deal with their Mental Illness, will instead be driven further into shame and silence.”
My response was as follows:
I have often heard the Okanagan touted as a destination location for golfers. Agritourism and wineries seem to be making a rally as well as one of the leading tourist draws to our beautiful Okanagan. I’m not a golfer, nor am I all that interested to learn where my bottle of wine originated.
Introducing Rutland, Thrift Shop City.
Reuse, recycle, resell. It seems to be a good business model that has multiple benefits. “One man’s junk, is another man’s treasurer” seems to be the order of the day.
More...
Today’s inspiration for editorial comes from a posting to Facebook from a colleague, Darren Jacklin.
These are five good points that beg for expanding upon. [at least in my mind]
Are you? Open for change that is.
For the past two years around the end of December I have released an article entitled “Have you created your New Year’s Revolution yet?”
Interesting article for Okanagan business owners this week courtesy of Stacy Penner at KelownaNow.
She quotes Steve Harvey, of Business Finders Canada, a Kelowna company that helps people buy or sell business and commercial properties as saying that 80 percent of business owners are failing when they go to sell their company.
In trying to write a weekly thought-provoking business-related article of interest to entrepreneurs and small business owners I try to avoid focusing too much on Kelowna. There are truly many other amazing communities to live and do business in throughout the Okanagan. But the City of Kelowna, or its elected representatives, leave themselves open for scrutiny.
Once upon a time our sole source of information was the newspaper, often having taken ages to arrive to the targeted reader. Nowadays, news is instantaneous. We are bombarded with news items every minute of every single day. Breaking news now … and for ever. Television, radio, internet, mobile devices … it is everywhere!
But is it really news? Most of it isn’t. Much of it is marketing and promotion packaged as news.
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