NFIB: Small Business Hiring Up But Future Uncertain

NFIB: Small Business Hiring Up But Future Uncertain
Report: One-Click Fraud Apps Identified on Google Play
Brian Solis of “What’s the Future (WTF) of Business:” Creating Customer Experiences
Declining Markets: Tired and Need a Day Off

Posted: 05 Apr 2013 01:30 PM PDT

Small business employment rose at the highest rate in a year, according to a recent report, but that trend may be coming to a halt as owners say they plan to stop hiring in the near future.

According to information released by the National Federation of Independent Business, employment at small businesses nationwide rose by an average of 0.19 people per company in March 2013. This is the third straight month of gain according to data gathered by the NFIB’s Small Business Research Foundation. The figure represents the highest gain since this time last year.

small business hiring

The growth is being heralded as a good sign, at least temporarily, especially against a backdrop of overall economic uncertainty that still predominates and which is expected to continue as the federal government wrangles over spending and weighs tax increases, especially on businesses.

“While actual job creation appears to be rising, plans to create jobs took a dive, falling four points to a net zero percent of small employers who plan to increase total employment,” said NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg in a prepared statement released with the report. “It seems that the stamina for growth is waning, even with decent reports on consumer spending at the macro level.”

small business hiring

NFIB figures show that 47 percent of small business owners have tried to hire in the last three months. Just slightly more than one-third of those said they were not able to add staff because they found few or no qualified people for the jobs they had available.

“Once again, our bifurcated economy may have large firms doing well but the Main Street owners [are] not sharing in the gains and [are] finding little reason to take on new employees. Owners are still pessimistic and see little reason to hire,” Dunkelberg said. “Small businesses need a shot in the arm; but seeing as this is unlikely, the slow crawl to eventual prosperity might be the best we can hope for.”

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Report: One-Click Fraud Apps Identified on Google Play

Posted: 05 Apr 2013 11:00 AM PDT

google play apps

Apps you download for your small business may not be as safe as you believe. Symantec, a security software company, says it has identified so-called “one-click fraud apps” (since removed) on a site trusted by millions of mobile users.

In a post on the Symantec official blog, the company stated they recently identified at least 200 apps at Google Play that were one-click fraud scams. The apps attempted to sign up those who downloaded them, for a service that costs upwards of $1,000. More than 50 developers were identified as being responsible for these apps.

The development, especially on a trusted site for Android Apps, should concern small business owners. Small business owners and employees increasingly depend on mobile apps and the mobile devices on which they operate for many aspects of their business operations. This makes them vulnerable if scam apps or fraudulent apps continue to flood the market.

The affected apps were Japanese-language apps and all dealt with adult or pornographic material. According to Symantec, the apps appeared at the top of Google Play searches when an Android user searched for anything related to adult video content on their devices.

“No English language apps were identified as part of this particular group of discovery; all targeted Japanese language speakers. However, there is no reason to believe that this same scam could not be perpetrated with English language apps,” said Symantec Security Response Manager Satnam Narang.

At least 5,000 people downloaded the apps in the last two months, but Symantec said it is unsure how many people, if any, actually paid the money for the so-called service. The apps were removed from Google Play upon notification of their existence by Symantec, Narang added. The Google Play accounts of the developers have been suspended, too.

While the target of this scam was seemingly limited, the advent of similar one-click scams on Android devices just one year ago means that those perpetrating the fraud are only beginning. Narang warns that more markets will be targeted in the future and that the best protection besides knowledge — because most scam apps are made to look legit — is mobile security software.

“Attackers are constantly improving their tradecraft. So, malicious apps can sometimes be hard to spot. In general, it's a good idea to avoid downloading apps from sources other than trusted app marketplaces. In addition, it's also a good idea to pay close attention to the permissions apps request. Another trick is to look at the reviews from other users who downloaded the apps,” Narang said. “However, in the case of these malicious apps, these tactics aren't as effective.”

(Symantec is a past sponsor of events involving this publication.)

The post Report: One-Click Fraud Apps Identified on Google Play appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Brian Solis of “What’s the Future (WTF) of Business:” Creating Customer Experiences

Posted: 05 Apr 2013 08:00 AM PDT

Brian Solis, Author of “What’s the Future of Business: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences,” joins Brent Leary to discuss the importance of creating fluid, memorable and enjoyable customer experiences in business and across marketing channels.

* * * * *

customer experiences Small Business Trends: You have written a number of books and are a highly sought after speaker. Can you tell us a bit about your background?

Brian Solis: I am a digital analyst over at Altimeter Group, I have studied how technology is affecting society, culture and business and I try to reverse engineer everything to help the two roads between customer behavior and business relevance intersect as often as possible.

Small Business Trends: You were recently at South by Southwest (SXSW) and had an on-stage conversation with the one and only, Shaquille O’Neal. Did you learn anything interesting about Shaq?

Brian Solis: A lot of people don't know that he was an investor in Google Pre IPO. He also has a lot of investments in companies like Five Guys and Vitamin Water. He is a very smart man. He earned his doctorate recently. He is all about knowledge and at the same time, he is pursuing comedy. So it is an interesting balance of a human being that makes for something unique.

Small Business Trends: Let's talk about your new book, "What's the Future of Business (WTF): Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences.” Why did you write this book?

Brian Solis: I thought, ‘Why not use a book as an object to demonstrate the point of shared experiences?” So I took a step back, I looked my previously published book, The End of Business as Usual, and I looked at the things that I hear all the time. The one thing that was consistent across the board is that we are reacting to technology.

What's happening is businesses, schools, everything has just started to get into a reactive mode and that is not a good place to be because technology is only accelerating. The next big thing is always here. If we get into this cycle of just trying to react to everything we are going to lose our footing. When you lose your footing your start to lose your relevance. When you lose your relevance, it comes back to that thing that we were talking about earlier on digital dwarfism – that is when technology and society evolves faster than your ability to adapt.

Small Business Trends: Do you find that businesses understand that concept?

Brian Solis: Businesses don't get it. But they could and they should. It is just taking a step back because then, technology becomes the enabler. All of these channels, all of these tools that exist, they become the thing that people use and that you use to bring that experience to life.

Small Business Trends: You talk about disruptive technology being a catalyst but not a reason for change. But how many companies are still looking at technology as the silver bullet?

Brian Solis: I think over the years we just started putting stuff on top of other things because that is what we are supposed to do. Technology was just part of the equation for efficiency and automation – to use a buzz word in business ‘operationalization.’ But it wasn't necessarily driven by a vision or by a purpose. I think that business could benefit from rethinking what that vision and what that purpose could be or what it should be.

Technology then, like experiences, just becomes a manifestation of what it is you are trying to do or what you are trying to accomplish; instead of saying on the outside, ‘Hey, marketing jumps all over these social networks' because that is where everybody is.

Small Business Trends: I wanted to ask you about the six pillars of social commerce, because we all know that companies are trying to leverage social mobile to the Cloud to sell stuff, find customers and keep them happy longer. Can you tell us what your six pillars are?

Brian Solis: I reference in the book the work of Robert Cialdini and what he called, The 6 Pillars of Social Commerce. Those six were adapted into the world of social media, and the six pillars are essentially:

Social Proof: When in doubt view what everyone else is viewing.
Authority: Earning a position of value in any one of these networks because you continually help people. For example, businesses that put out creative marketing on all of these social networks aren't necessarily earning authority. But people like the Mayo Clinic or Mint.com, that can consistently produce objects that help people, that give insights, that answer questions – that earns the position of authority.
Scarcity: Less is more, so you don't have to be everywhere all of the time, but when you do it should have a reverberation.
Liking: Building relationships, and by relationships I mean, not just moving and reacting or following people. I mean by having meaningful exchanges.
Consistency: So that you are not just in one network or in one place all time, but all of those networks, mobile, social, the Web – in a consistent experience across each one of those channels. Right now all of those experiences are broken because they are designed to be broken. They don't work together. Consistency is just another pillar.
Reciprocity: In the new world of social commerce, if you can reinforce positive behavior, reciprocity is the most powerful of all of these. If you share experiences, reciprocity plays a big role in that.

Small Business Trends: What are a few things you’d like for people to walk away with after reading your book?

Brian Solis: I hope they walk away with a better understanding that there is a need for integrating experience. There is a need to define what integrating experiences should be. There is the ability, or the need, to see that your product is an interesting experience to everything.

Lastly, to recognize that I am bringing Joseph Campbell's, 'Hero Journey' at the beginning and at the end of the book. At the beginning, I am talking about the customer as the hero in the journey. I show the change that they go through and the opportunity that you have to reach.

Then at the end of the book, I say you are the hero in the hero's journey. I talk about the steps that you need to take to bring about change, the challenges you are going to face and how to break through them.

Small Business Trends: I will say this; the book has a style and a vibe to it.

Brian Solis: It is very visual. I worked with the folks at Mechanism, who did the Beyonce Pepsi Commercial at this year's Super Bowl. I call it an analog app, because it even has a slider that gives you the sense that you are literally moving through a journey.

It is gorgeous; it is four colors but it was intentional. It was a statement that said business books do not have to look like business books. They can be exciting because this is an exciting time. So reinvent a book and if you can reinvent the idea of a book and make it an experience, imagine what you can do with any business.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

The post Brian Solis of “What’s the Future (WTF) of Business:” Creating Customer Experiences appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Declining Markets: Tired and Need a Day Off

Posted: 05 Apr 2013 05:00 AM PDT

business cartoon

I fundamentally don’t understand the stock market. Things go up and down for reasons that sometimes make sense to me, and sometimes they seem to move the exact opposite of what I would expect.

Could I in theory understand it? Sure. Do I really want to dig into it? Oh, good lord no.

But to go along with news and data (and this is the stuff that makes me crazy) there’s also a lot of conjecture about how something thinks someone might feel about something: