GetResponse Offers $1000 for Best Email Newsletter Template |  |
- GetResponse Offers $1000 for Best Email Newsletter Template
- Innovation Is Not Exclusive: Lightening Can Strike For Anyone
- Who Is Your Business Competition?
- Boost Your Productivity with Mindmapping Tool from Mindmeister
- Copyright Infringement and Your Business: Making The Tough Calls
| GetResponse Offers $1000 for Best Email Newsletter Template Posted: 14 Jun 2012 08:44 PM PDT Show your creative genius … in the GetResponse email newsletter template contest. You don’t need to be a coder to let your creativity shine through. Just try out the new GetResponse Email Creator. It’s a cool tool that allows you to create attractive, effective email marketing newsletters with nothing more than clicking and dragging. To encourage you to try it out, GetResponse is offering a $1000.00 prize for the best email newsletter template design created with its new Email Creator.
You don’t need to be a designer or a software programmer — anyone can enter because with this new Email Creator, anyone can design email templates. Second place will score an iPad 3 and the third place finisher will be awarded a year's free service with GetResponse. "Ever since the release of Email Creator, we've been seeing amazing designs created by email marketers," said Simon Grabowski, Founder of GetResponse and CEO of its parent company, Implix. "This contest lets them show off their design creativity, receive publicity for their design work, and win some great prizes." GetResponse has assembled well-known thought leaders in the email marketing industry to judge the contest — judges such as Ann Handley of MarketingProfs. Everyone will be able participate in the voting via Facebook for an Audience Choice pick, too. Whether you're a marketer, or an aspiring or established designer, this is your chance to light it up. Here's how it works: 1.) Simply open a GetResponse free trial account (or if you're a regular user – go straight to the Email Creator). Remember, the judges will evaluate all aspects of good email design: creativity, organization, communication, consistency and style. On June 27, 2012, the template finalists will be announced. On July 10, 2012, three lucky winners selected by the panel of experts will be announced, as well as the Audience Choice selected from the finalists via public voting on Facebook. Enter by June 25, 20112. As always, be sure to read the contest page for the official rules and requirements. Now, get in there, enter the GetResponse Email Template Contest and just create something amazing! From Small Business Trends |
| Innovation Is Not Exclusive: Lightening Can Strike For Anyone Posted: 14 Jun 2012 11:00 AM PDT Creativity is a peculiar thing. One seemingly unrelated bit of information leads to another. One unassuming moment turns into an idea and then you have a spark, a focus, a new direction.
Yes, innovation can be like trying to capture lighting in a bottle. But it can also be as simple as connecting the dots, filling in the blanks, listening to your audience and actually meeting a need or desire. It can come from any where:
That spark may come from any direction. But if you want to give it a little push below are a few suggestions. Read and Collect IdeasBeing well read stimulates your mind and creates opportunities to connect the dots between industries that others would never consider. Mix it up with books, magazines and blogs across industries. If you're academic, spend a day with artists. Learn to see life through the eyes of a photographer or painter. It brings a new perspective. Anita Campbell gives a couple of suggestions for helping you generate fresh ideas in “3 Websites That Will Inspire You To Innovate,” “A Feast for the Mind: 3 Innovation Blogs That Will Inspire Ideas” and “3 Innovation Websites Inspire New Moves for 2012.” Whether you have a few minutes or hours to dig in, Anita refers to 9 innovation blogs and websites to help get your creative juices flowing. Talk To The People You’re Trying To HelpTheir problem is your opportunity. Just listen without explaining or making excuses. Take it all in, so that you can really get a feel for what they're saying. Knowing their perspective could be a game changer for your business. And once you know it, go for a walk and let the conversation run through your mind. Bring it up in your team meetings. Turn it over until you have answer. Test Your Ideas In The Real WorldThere's nothing like facing your customers yourself and seeing their responses. Consider being an undercover CEO that just serves the people. You'll be surprised what you find out when people don't know you are in charge. You'll discover your company weaknesses — which could an employee, a poor system and disconnected management. Innovation is not exclusive, nor it it automatic. Make room for creativity and see how it changes your team and your business.
From Small Business Trends |
| Who Is Your Business Competition? Posted: 14 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT You have many challenges as a small business owner. There are customers to woo, bills to pay, upgrades to make and wares to sell. You’re also dealing with byzantine regulations and trying to see how or even if Congress can help you out.
So it’s easy to understand why your competition might take a backseat to those pressing concerns. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my years working for businesses ranging from tiny to global, it’s that underestimating companies in your vertical is a foolish mistake to make. I suppose I should be giving you a friendly, kumbaya message about how small businesses should work together, but that’s simply not realistic all the time. Sometimes, you must crush the competition in order to thrive. In fact, sometimes you need to have a healthy obsession with the businesses both small and large who are cutting into your customer count. As I see it, there are a few ways to get started on sizing up your competition before you (not literally, please) destroy them. Here’s my handy list:
You’re in the trenches out there, though. What tips do you have for fellow small business owners facing stiff competition?
From Small Business Trends |
| Boost Your Productivity with Mindmapping Tool from Mindmeister Posted: 14 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT Just about everyone wants to boost their productivity. There is no shortage of tools that promise to help you do it, too. Many business owners are visual thinkers and mind mapping is one of the methods that can help you get more done. This review of Mindmeister is for you if you like whiteboards or always have to draw things out on a piece of paper.
I’ve been an account holder at Mindmeister since 2010 and watched it evolve and improve. You wouldn’t think that mindmapping, conceptually, would need a web-based app, but it is really, really useful. I like to draw my ideas with little circles or rectangles and organize them on a large piece of paper, but when I make a mistake (frequent) or change my mind (more frequent) I have to start all over on a clean sheet. They have won awards for their user interface and ease of use. What I really like:
What I’d like to see: Offline access is available on a paid plan only. Of course, everyone wants to get more for free, but it would be nice to have some access when I’m not connected. However, to be fair, they offer a lot of features on the free plan. But, the iPad and Android apps (currently free on both platforms, but shows a price point of $7.95 for the iPad in iTunes store) allows offline access and syncs automatically once you reconnect. There’s a simple free plan that includes up to three mindmaps. Paid plans start at $4.99 a month and include more storage, more file export options, and offline access. 30-day free trial on all accounts. If you like to draw out your ideas for your own use or to collaborate with employees and colleagues, Mindmeister is worth a look and test drive. It is a powerful web-based app that lets you create terrific looking documents instead of using a whiteboard. From Small Business Trends |
| Copyright Infringement and Your Business: Making The Tough Calls Posted: 14 Jun 2012 02:30 AM PDT The issue of copyright infringement has become more complicated in recent years, especially in business. The Internet, other technological changes, and even recent court rulings make it difficult to keep up with things. Whether you’re a content creator, a site developer or just a seller of information and technology, here’s a roundup with some of the latest developments. For example: Infringement in the Digital EconomyCopying with impunity. Webcomic creator Matthew Inman complained online about another site that was allowing users to upload his content repeatedly without attribution, asking them to take the material down. Less than a year later he finds himself threatened with a defamation suit by the very same site. In a digital marketplace where original content is the product, content creators have become major stakeholders. Ars Technica Preparing for the worst. Meanwhile, on the other side of the issue, popular social site Pinterest allows owners to “pin” photo content that doesn’t necessarily belong to them and already has some people not too pleased about the posting of their protected images to the site by users. Pinterest has retained former Google lawyer Michael Yang for what many see as an inevitable showdown. WebProNews The next logical step. So what happens if an Internet service provider wants to make content unavailable due to legal restrictions, for example, because it contains material that is copyright infringed, and the ISP doesn’t want to display it to users? XML co-inventor and Android Developer Advocate Tim Bray has created a draft of a new http Status Code for just such an occasion. The development may have implications for businesses who hope to protect their original content. The Verge The Intellectual Property FrontierWhen worlds collide. Sometimes disputes have emerged not over efforts to upload copyrighted content without attribution, but with the mere scanning of content (including material already out of print) for the benefit of all. Consider Google’s dispute with French authors and publishers over attempts to share books that might not otherwise be available in digital form. The implications for the information economy are clearly important. Bloomberg Crazy Town. But the intersection of copyright law, technology, and legal precedents may hold implications even for retail businesses, importers, and resellers of products outside the digital realm. Consider recent court decisions that may erode the so-called first sale doctrine allowing buyers of copyrighted items like books to resell them without seeking permission from the copyright owner. Techdirt When your business model infringes. Though the 25-year-old student who operated Norsub.com reportedly made no money from a site that offered subtitle files for many movies and TV shows, a court has still fined him for operation of the site. Providing services that fill a need may infringe on copyright if they involve proprietary information, so thinking about whether anyone has rights to the content you are providing is critical. TorrentFreak New Copyright ImplicationsJudgement Day. Intellectual property and entertainment law attorney Richard Busch gives the low down on the emerging battle between content creators and publishers over the 1976 Copyright Act. The act allows content creators who transferred ownership of their copyrighted work to publishers, in this example record companies, to reclaim that copyright after 35 years. The decision could have far reaching implications for content creators and publishers today. Forbes A Better World for Content CreatorsCopyright goes global. The good news for businesses who rely on intellectual property as a significant part of their business, is that compliance around the globe is getting better. Stan Abrams, a Beijing-based IP/IT lawyer and law professor, gives some insight into copyright protection in China, long believed to be one of the worst places for copyright infringement and a major thorn in the side for content creators. Business Insider Infringement wars. The fight against the proliferation of copyright infringement on the Internet has become more transparent, thanks to reports filed by Google. The reports detail the requests the search engine receives for removing search results based on infringement. Unfortunately, as the reports show, some claims of infringement have more merit than others, blogs Fred von Lohmann, Senior Copyright Counsel. Google Official Blog From Small Business Trends |
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