Business, finances, forex

How would you like to have your own administrative assistant to help you research information and compile simple lists?  All done hands-free by saying commands aloud?

And when you’re not assigning or asking things, how would you like an audio speaker that sounds good, so you can listen to music in the background as you work?

Interested? Then you’ll want to check out the new Amazon Echo.

We tapped into the expertise of Brent Leary, industry analyst, who got an early look at the Amazon Echo. He shared his thoughts for this review.

Key Amazon Echo Features

Amazon Echo is an exciting new device that in the future could change the way we interact with the environment around us.

Think of the Amazon Echo as a speaker that lets you listen to music — but one you can also talk to.  It answers questions and performs simple tasks such as creating shopping lists and to-do lists.

The Echo consists of two parts:

• a combined speaker / microphone device, and
• a software app.

The device is a cylinder-shaped speaker that stands upright. It’s 9.25 inches tall and just 3.27 inches across. The speaker is omnidirectional (it broadcasts out to all sides).

Around the top of it are seven microphones to pick up your voice from all directions.

Let’s say you want to know the weather. You simply address it by its name (“Alexa”) so it knows you are talking to it.

Say the word “Alexa.” Then ask something like, “What’s the weather in Atlanta?”

If the Echo is asleep, it will wake up. If it is playing music, it will stop and answer your question.

It can hear you across the room. Amazon calls this “far field voice recognition.”

Via your WiFi connection, it streams your request to the cloud where the Echo “brain” resides.

Within seconds, Alexa (equipped with a female voice) speaks the answers back to you — hands free.  The spoken answers also appear typed out in the app on your tablet or browser.

The Echo device works together with its cloud-based app connected to the Internet.  The app is what enables it to create a shopping list, for instance.  And it’s not just music you can add to your shopping list. You can add food, clothing or other items.  You can also create a to-do list.

The accompanying app can be used on the Kindle Fire, Android devices, and browsers.  You can use the app even when you’re away from the speaker device.

Pros

The Amazon Echo is innovative and has a lot of positives going for it:

• Echo is simple to set up.
• Its voice recognition is good. You can speak naturally and it still picks up your commands.
• Alexa’s speech sounds natural — not like a robot.
• The speaker delivers nice sound output. With Bluetooth you can connect tablets and phones and listen to music services such as Pandora and Spotify through the speaker.
• It comes with Amazon Prime and TuneIn integrated already.
• It is relatively inexpensive.  It runs $199, but Amazon Prime subscribers get it for just $99 currently.

Cons

The biggest downside with the Amazon Echo is its limited usefulness — so far. Today, it’s really more of a consumer entertainment gadget that’s not all that useful for productivity:

• For small businesspeople looking for personal productivity tools, it is likely to disappoint. Today, it’s limited mainly to looking up facts you can find online and creating simple lists.
• It handles easy questions well, such as math calculations or queries about straight-forward facts. However, as the video below demonstrates, it can get stumped. Sometimes one word in the question makes a difference.
• It would be nice if it were tied into recommendation engines like Yelp to get answers to questions about things like “best pizza places,” for example.
• It would be nice to integrate music services like Spotify. While you can play tunes from Spotify over the speaker via Bluetooth, you can’t give Echo voice commands to play songs from your Spotify account.
• Used as a speaker, it certainly has decent quality. But it’s not the best speaker on the market. High-end audiophiles will demand more.

Who Amazon Echo Is Best For

The Echo is for early adopters who love to be the first in their circles to try new devices. If you like experimenting with innovative gadgets, you’ll love the Echo.

And if you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber, you’ll especially like it because of the great introductory price. The following video by Brent Leary shows the Echo in action.

Amazon Echo shows exciting promise as a personal entertainment device / personal assistant.

But right now it is limited. Mainly you can use it as a speaker for cloud-based music and video sound. You use it to answer simple questions and create lists.

Echo doesn’t do much more than that — yet.

Amazon says more services and functions are coming. That may be quite soon, given that the device is tied to a cloud app that Amazon can easily update. Right now, though, it is not full-featured enough to be a productivity tool for your business (or for you personally).

Our star rating gives Amazon the benefit of the doubt that it actually will follow through with more services and smarts via the cloud.

Echo is one of those devices that, if we look back a few years from now, we may wonder how we lived without it. Echo is ahead of its time.

The post Amazon Echo: Fun, But Not Very Useful – Yet appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Bulgaria has become a popular destination for middle-class Russians to buy a second home, the Financial Times wrote on Sunday.

With long-term residence permits easy to obtain, an estimated 400,000 Russians currently own properties in Bulgaria and a growing number are becoming year-round residents, FT’s Kerin Hope quoted Mihail Chobanov, head of a Bulgarian real estate agency, as saying.

Another benefits of Bulgarian residency for Russian nationals include easier travel elsewhere in the European Union as well as obtaining a degree at a Bulgarian university as a first step to qualifying for a job in western Europe or the US, the article said.

Deutsche Welle reported in June that Russian citizens own 300,000 properties in Bulgaria, having invested around EUR 18 B.

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MPs warned that climate policies may render reserves ‘unburnable’

Do you get caught up in, or rely too heavily on digital networking? Do you get into a rut and forget about how important networking in person is?  Big mistake. Without the right blend of online and in-person connectivity, we miss out on many benefits we offer each other as professionals.

I see people fall into this rut all the time, thinking if they send a text, email or social media post then that’s enough. Remember transactions are not relationships. Better to own your time with people more personally, no matter how long or short it may be.

It’s so important to establish and develop connections and relationships in person because that is where magic happens. Any opportunity you have to go out and meet people in person is a coveted opportunity. Take advantage of it and make things happen that just can’t happen the same way online.

Below are the benefits of in-person networking that can help develop real relationships that matter.

Personalize Your Time With People

Whatever time you have with people, focus on them and make the absolute most of it. Ask questions that show your sincere interest in them. Come away with one significant commitment, agreement, appointment, or goal that you both can work on.

Establish Chemistry and Synergy

Nothing establishes chemistry more than being in someone’s presence. There is something inexplicable that happens when you can interact with people through eye contact, sense of humor and shared energy.

Learn About Peoples’ Back Stories

Everyone has a story that can reveal so much about where they come from, how they have gotten to their current place and what common ground you can find with them.  We all share human experiences in business. These experiences have taught us all the importance of hope, hard work and faith to help us through.

Have Diverse and Interesting Conversations

The ability to focus on a specific conversation point with someone makes us memorable and establishes commonality. Ask people about what they do, interesting trends they see in their industry and the values and fundamentals you believe you have in common.

Set Specific Goals About What’s Next

Have you ever seen someone at a networking event you know or want to meet and thought it might be the perfect time to initiate an intro or conversation? Take the initiative to do this more often. Compliment them on something they are doing that you admire.

Introduce People to Each Other in Person

Not everyone is comfortable chit chatting and small talking with others at networking events. Take the opportunity to introduce people to each other when you believe they might be a good fit. This includes businesses that may be complimentary, personalities that match up or just cool people that you feel should know each other.

Learn About Inside Initiatives and Projects

Have you ever been in a conversation in which information that has not yet become common knowledge in your industry is revealed? People tend to reveal this kind of information in intimate face to face conversations. This can happen in part because of the sense of trust that is established in the moment. When it comes to job and career opportunities, amazing info is shared in person that is NOT shared elsewhere. So stay alert.

Take Relationships to Another Level

When we consistently show up, engage, contribute and participate in professional gatherings and events, we will naturally take relationships to another level and get to know key people in our industry better. That is happening to me now after being in a new area and town.

Brainstorm and Spark New Ideas and Goals

Joining professional groups is important, but getting involved with them is more important. Join a committee, work on an initiative, project or task that puts you side by side with others working toward a common goal or outcome. The bond created by accomplishing something with others is priceless.

Make a Memorable Impression

A firm handshake, a warm smile, a hug, a shared laugh, an unexpected conversation, a personal connection established with an initial meeting — these are all things that can only happen in person.

Have Fun and Let Your Hair Down

There are other things only possible when socializing in person. You just can’t get into dancing, singing, telling a great joke or having an enjoyable group conversation online. Period. They can only happen in person.

Don’t underestimate the power and benefit of developing your sociability face to face. At dinners, business events, in elevators, waiting in line, at airports or at the grocery store: in all these settings you can find new connections and new business opportunities.

People are fun and fascinating. Become more of a people person and watch what great things can happen.

Networking Photo via Shutterstock

The post Where the Magic Happens: Benefits of In-Person Networking appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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The article is from New Statesman.

With eighteen months still to go before a decision is due to be taken, the race to succeed Ban Ki-moon as the next UN Secretary General is well under way with potential candidates and the selection process itself already the subject of intense debate. The appointment comes as the resurfacing of tensions between East and West over Syria and Ukraine has left the world body facing its most difficult challenge in a generation. The spectre of a UN gridlocked by Cold War-style divisions within the Security Council looms unless someone with real diplomatic skill takes the helm. That’s assuming the permanent members can reach consensus on who that might be in the current atmosphere of mutual suspicion and animosity. The risk of the process descending into a cycle of tit-for-tat vetoing is very real.

Matters are further complicated by the UN’s rotation policy, formalised in 1997 to ensure that every region of the world gets the chance to have one of their own appointed to the top job. As the only designated region still waiting its turn, it is supposed to be Eastern Europe this time. The problem, of course, is that the region straddles the new geopolitical fault line leaving very few countries deemed even-handed enough to bridge the divide. Candidates from Poland and the Baltic states need not apply as far as Russia is concerned. The same goes for most of the other EU member states with Putin still fuming over sanctions imposed by Brussels. The antagonism cuts both ways. The Serb candidate, former foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, would be vetoed by Washington over his country’s strategic partnership with Russia and its rejectionist stance on Kosovo.
 
Geography isn’t the only consideration. A new and powerful factor in the debate is the growing sense that with the organisation’s seventieth anniversary falling next year it’s high time a woman held the top UN post. As if in Dr Who, the Secretary General keeps regenerating as a man. This is impossible to justify, especially at a time when the status of women has become such a central part of the global agenda through issues like sexual violence, human development and the modern slave trade. As the recent surge of activism in India has shown, the women’s movement across the developed and developing worlds alike is more mobilised and vocal than ever before. Pressure on the UN to reflect this in its choice of Secretary General will only grow.
 
The ideal solution would be for the Security Council to unite behind a woman from Eastern Europe. Perhaps the only country capable of producing such a candidate is Bulgaria, a Nato and EU member state that has nevertheless maintained good relations with Russia. The two names in the frame are Irina Bokova, the serving executive director of Unesco, and Kristalina Georgieva, a former World Bank economist and current European Commissioner. Both are strong contenders, but Georgieva only took up her new post as Commission Vice-President earlier this month and word in Brussels and Paris is that she would not be given leave to stand for the UN job. Educated in both Russia and the United States, and with real executive experience at the UN behind her, Bokova looks much better placed.
 
In the event that the countries of Eastern Europe fail to propose a suitable woman candidate, there will be enormous pressure to cast the net wider and consider women from other parts of the world. After all, the General Assembly resolution that formalised the principle of regional rotation gave equal weight to the need for gender equality. Waiting to see how things develop is a cast of capable women with strong foreign policy credentials. This includes Helen Clark, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet, and Columbian Foreign Minister, Mar?a ?ngela Holgu?n Cu?llar.
 
As a permanent member of the Security Council with the ability to support or veto any candidate, the UK’s position will be influential. The decision on how to use that influence will fall to whoever ends up Prime Minister next May, yet could be the same whichever party is in power. Labour would prefer to back a woman from Eastern Europe because it believes in European solidarity and gender equality. The Tories would be inclined to do the same because it needs European allies for its proposed renegotiation and has an image problem with women voters. What Ed Miliband would do out of principle, David Cameron would do out of expediency.
 
The most interesting question is what would happen if a woman candidate from Eastern Europe was not forthcoming? The view in London is that the Buggin’s turn principle is the least important consideration. Whether the next Secretary General comes from Eastern Europe will depend entirely on the qualities of the candidates that come forward. The clamour for a woman, however, will be much harder to resist, and rightly so.

David Clark is the founder and editor of Shifting Grounds, and served as special adviser to Robin Cook at the Foreign Office from 1997 to 2001

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No matter what level you are at in the pecking order or what function you work in, every successful person has one thing in common — an energizing and self-affirming start to their work day. This great start is especially critical for marketing professionals.

Marketers are the face of the company to the outside world. When we are refreshed and energized, we channel that positivity into our brand. This positivity radiates outwards and draws in consumers — the end goal that we all work towards every single day.

So without further ado, here are the seven things successful marketers do to begin their workday:

1. Write Down Priorities for the Day

As an obsessive list maker myself, I must say I am a tad partial to list making as a ritual. But my personal idiosyncrasies aside, making a list of every task you hope to complete each day gives you a sense of purpose and direction.

It is not enough however to simply make a laundry list of activities for the day. Force yourself to prioritize tasks based on how important or urgent they are. Taking a page from President Eisenhower’s playbook, use the concept of urgent as opposed to important tasks and proceed to prioritize your day accordingly.

It does not matter whether you use sticky notes or a real notepad or an app on your phone. What matters is that you list your priorities for the day.

2. Run Your Numbers

Every marketer has certain numbers that determine the success or failure of their tasks. Some of these tasks contribute to the success or failure of the entire marketing campaign.

Once you’re done making your to-do list for the day, check the vital stats for all your campaigns. This could be running the numbers on site traffic for the previous day or total sales for the previous day or even number of email newsletters opened and clicked on in the previous day. Whatever your key result metrics, run them to get an idea of where you stand with respect to your goals.

After crunching your own campaign numbers, do a little bit of snooping on your top competitors. You could subscribe to their email lists, set up Google Alerts for their brand names, listen in to the conversations about them on social media and more.

3. Quick Catchup With the Team to Review Work

Unlike a programmer or a financial analyst, a marketer is a social animal by nature. Our work requires us to interact with others and get the best out of them to be able to do our own jobs well.

A daily five minute catch-up with the marketing team, where each member talks about the status of their respective KRAs helps the entire team get on to the same page. Update your team about specific challenges you may be facing, inform them about key projects that will be rolling out and seek their inputs wherever needed.

4. Readjust Plan for the Day

No plan is ever set in stone.

Your campaign positions, your competitors’ actions and feedback from your team will help you determine whether you need to rejig that to-do list. Don’t feel guilty about going back to your list and quickly realigning your priorities if need be. The ability to be flexible is a key ingredient in making you a more creative and effective marketer.

5. Check Email, Reply to Pressing Ones

A lot of people rush headlong into checking and replying to their emails as they begin their day.

Avoid this like the plague.

It’s very easy to get sucked into cleaning up other people’s messes and doing things that are important to others (not you) by immersing yourself in your email inbox at the beginning of the day. Instead, check your email only after you’ve decided what to do with your day. Respond to pressing matters and shelve the rest of the emails to tackle later based on your priority list.

6. Swallow the Frog First

It was Mark Twain who said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

This goes against the grain of everything we normally do when faced with a complicated task. We tend to postpone it for as long as we can till it can be pushed off no longer and then run around like headless chickens in a bid to complete the task well and on time.

A good way to put that procrastination gene to sleep is by sucking it up and tackling your most difficult project first. Productivity guru Tony Schwartz affirms this practice:

“I always do the most important task of the day first thing in the morning, when I’m most rested and least distracted.”

Whether it is creating that boring, long presentation for your boss, developing a best practices template for your social media team or axing budgets for an upcoming campaign; dive right into your most challenging task for the day first thing in the morning. With the worst thing on the list out of the way, the rest of your day can only get better.

7. Create Your ‘Tomorrow List’ Before You Leave Work in the Evening

Most of us just tend to heave a huge sigh of relief at the close of the day and scramble for the door. Resist the temptation to head for the hills at the end of the workday and spend five minutes reflecting on what you achieved during the day.

This period of reflection will help you pin point mistakes that you made, feel good about your successes and plan for the next day. Decide on the three most important things that you want to do the following day and call it your ‘Tomorrow List’. This list will instantly give you a heads-up about your priorities for the following day. It will also give you a sense of satisfaction reflecting on a day well spent.

In Closing

Being disciplined is often seen as boring. Placing yourself and your priorities above those of others is seen as selfish.

However, the truth is that some of the most creative and successful minds in recent times have adhered to work routines that not only celebrated daily rituals but also placed their own goals firmly at the heart of everything they did.

If it worked for them, trying out a disciplined workday is probably worth a try.

Morning Photo via Shutterstock

The post 7 Things Successful Marketers Do Every Morning appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Swiss voters appear to have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to sharply cut immigration growth.

According to partial results from most of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, about 74% have voted “No” in the referendum forced by the country’s Ecopop movement which seeks to link environment protection with control over population growth.

The voters were asked whether they supported Ecopop’s initiative to cap the number of immigrants at 0.2% of the resident population, which, if approved, could have threatened Switzerland’s relationship with the EU.

The Swiss also voted on Sunday in two other referendums: one on forcing the central bank to increase its gold reserves and one on scrapping a law allowing Swiss residents who work outside the country to pay tax on their spending rather than their income.

Partial results suggest those two proposals have also failed to draw enough support to be written into law.

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Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov on Sunday backtracked on plans to freeze the minimum wage at its 2014 level in the next year’s budget.

Instead, he said he will propose to increase the minimum wage by BGN 40 from its current level of BGN 340 in two steps next year  – to BGN 360 from January 1 and, “in the absence of a major cataclysm,” to BGN 380 from the middle of 2015. 

Speaking on BNR radio station, Goranov said that talks with labour unions and most employers’ organizations have dispelled his main fear that a sharp one-off increase in minimum wage will pressure the labour market.

“Therefore, I am ready to give up insisting on keeping the minimum wage unchanged and I will propose to increase it, albeit not as steeply” as unions had suggested earlier, said Goranov.

“This evolution in the Finance Ministry’s position has become possible thanks to the process of consultations” with unions and employers, he added.

The ministry’s initial proposal, part of its 2015 budget blueprint, called for keeping the minimum wage unchanged at BGN 340 next year before raising it by BGN 20 in each of the following two years.

The Social Policy Minister Ivaylo Kalfin said earlier this week week he wouldn’t give up pressing for increasing the minimum wage to give a boost to the economy.

Goranov said earlier on Sunday the government will do its best to boost investment and consumption while maintaining fiscal stability.

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I’m entirely too vain to contemplate killing myself. No Matter how crappy I feel, no matter how much of a loser – the idea of ending it all just seems entirely too messy and dramatic to me.

But have I ever done anything so risky, put myself and my family and everything else out there, on the line? Umm, don’t think so. Not like Dan Waldschmidt (@DanWaldo) does in his book Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Outrageous Success.

Nothing Like Staring at the Barrel of a Gun to Put Things Into Perspective

So Waldschmidt got my attention. Not so much with the his barrel of a gun dramatic start to the book, but with his writing style. Artistic and yes, edgy. There’s something so magnetic about Edgy Conversations that you just have to keep reading.

Yes – it’s Another Success Book, and No it’s Not

He says it’s “not another success book”, but I’m not so sure about that. Success books are mostly the same. They scream, “Hey look at all of these amazing people who failed spectacularly, are you going to sit there and wallow because you think you’re a loser?”

I think what sets it apart from others isn’t the message, so much as the out and out honest and open style with which it’s written.

It’s got all the pre-requisite stories about people who were in the depths of their own crap and then came out of it by BEING rather than DOING. (If you haven’t been paying attention – this whole BEING trend is very hot right now – trust me, I’m doing it too). Waldschmidt takes it to another level, however.

He takes every single one of the 178 GORGEOUS pages of Edgy Conversations to shake you out of your mundane way of thinking and throws some ice cold water on your pity party. (And don’t say you don’t feel sorry for yourself, because if you’re really running a business – you know that you rise and fall hundreds of times during any given day.)

Stop Whining About Wanting It and DO What It Takes to Get It

Chapter after chapter (which have no numbers, by the way) Waldschmitdt brings home the same point; saying you want to be successful, whining about it, dreaming about it, and complaining about it isn’t what gets you there.

Being successful is a function of deciding that you’re going to become more than you ever thought you could and then doing everything it takes to get there. There are more than 1,000 examples of “ordinary people doing extraordinary things” to move you along and keep you motivated. Along the way he gives tips, pointers, advice and to-dos to help you get there.

All in all, I would say that he tells it like it is – even though most of us don’t want to hear it.

Here’s a snippet from the chapter entitled “The Discipline of Denying:”

“The addiction to immediate gratification is killing your dream. Addiction is not a good model for inspired living. In fact, it’s unbelievably damaging.

Discussions about addiction usually focus on personal faces like gambling or alcohol, drugs or pornography. Addictions that are socially unacceptable. Addictions that have obvious, dramatic and negative effects.

But no one discusses the subtle, seemingly and not U with addictions that rob us of our true potential. We are not good at admitting the ugly side of under-performance:

We are addicted to fear. We are addicted to making excuses. We’re addicted to passive aggression. We’re addicted to selfishness. We’re addicted to listening to the crowd. We are addicted to vegging in front of the TV. We’re addicted to the safety of a paycheck. We’re addicted to comfort. We’re addicted to taking the easy way out. These are socially acceptable addictions.”

There’s More to This Book Than the Pages it’s Written On

I received a review “package” not just a book.  Edgy Conversations showed up in a box that contained a brochure, a miniature workbook and a note pad to help me get and stay EDGY.

From the moment I cracked the book open, I knew it would be different. The page normally reserved for quotes from famous people simply said:

“This is where you would normally find opinions and quotes from a bunch of people who say they read the book and liked it.  But really, the only opinion that matters is yours.  So read the book and see what you think.”

Who is This Edgy Guy Anyway?

At this stage of the review, you’re probably wondering who Dan Waldschmidt is and how he got into this barrel of a gun moment, how he got out of it and how he’s able to inspire so many. I’m going to tell you.

He claims he’s not that special or unique, and yet he’s done all the things that successful entrepreneurs do. He started a lawn mowing business at 12, he ran track and pushed himself to break the school’s mile record, he got an entry level job out of college, changed the sales process, added millions in sales and became CEO at 25.

These days he’s a world leading business turn-around strategist, a popular speaker and has what the Wall Street Journal calls one of the top business blogs anywhere on the Internet. There’s more, but you get the picture.

Dan practices what he preaches in Edgy Conversations. He’s unabashedly honest about what’s so and while he says anyone can be successful, I would have to disagree. Not everyone has the guts, tenacity, and discipline that he writes about in Edgy Conversations. But if you’re willing to take on having Edgy Conversations you just might become everything you dare to dream.

The post Read Edgy Conversations to Shake Loose From Loser Thinking appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Bulgarian police has beefed up security measures relating to the upcoming repayment of state-guaranteed deposits with the collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank.

Interior Minister Veselin Vuchkov told reporters on Sunday that uniformed as well as plainclothes police officers will guard the servicing banks’ branches across the country to ensure public order is maintained and crime prevented when repayment starts next week.

Vuchkov also called on depositors in Corporate Commercial Bank, or KTB as the bank is known by its Bulgarian acronym, to avoid rushing to withdraw their insured deposits of up to BGN 196,000 (EUR 100,000) in the first days or even weeks after servicing banks start the repayment.     

The Deposit Insurance Fund last week announced the names of the banks that will service the repayment of state-guaranteed deposits with KTB, starting from December 4.

They are: Allianz Bank Bulgaria, DSK Bank, United Bulgarian Bank, First Investment Bank, Raiffeisen Bank (Bulgaria), CIBANK, UniCredit Bulbank, Central Cooperative Bank and Eurobank Bulgaria (Postbank).

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