Don’t buy an iPad if you have children

by Ron Hekier

I am a late Apple convert. I once equated Steve Jobs to Darth Vader and steadfastly refused to purchase any Apple products. The conversion is now complete.
It began with an iPhone for my wife. (I was holding out for a Blackberry for myself.) After playing with her iPhone for a few days, I decided to get one instead of a BlackBerry. Then I got an iPod Touch at a conference. Then the biggest leap of faith was the MacBook Pro. I fell in love with the MAC OS X and never looked back. The household tally is now 2 iPhones, 2 iPod touches, 1 iPod Nano, 2 MacBook Pros, and 1 iMac.

So while I didn’t know what I would do with an iPad, I was a good candidate to get one. My thought was to get one and let it function as a notebook replacement for my two young daughters, and then I would “borrow” it as necessary.

My kids primarily use the internet to play on various Disney themed websites, which unfortunately are Flash-based. I say unfortunately, because like the iPhone, the Ipad does not support Flash.

To see which of their sites might be affected I disabled Flash on my Firefox browser.
Go to Tools -> Add-ons -> Plugins, and then disable Shockwave Flash.

Let’s check out the site my oldest daughter likes the best: www.pixiehollow.com
Whoops! Won’t work without Flash and tells you that you must download Flash, which you won’t be able to do with an Ipad.

Here’s what it looks like with Flash enabled.

How about a site my youngest daughter likes, www.lpso.com.
Same thing. Doesn’t work without Flash.

Here’s what it looks like with Flash enabled.

I also checked out the Nickelodeon website: www.nick.com , and the first game I tried, a Spongebob Squarepants game wouldn’t work.

So for now, no iPad for us. At least not Adobe and Apple come to some workaround or if HTML 5 will allow for a way to get around Flash based sites.

One more note: In my research for this article, I learned there are websites on the Internet that feature videos meant for “adults only.” Some of these websites have these videos shown in a Flashplayer, so you can’t view the content on an iPad. So you can’t use an Ipad for Disney Princesses, or other princesses.

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Do you have the insight to scale your business?

by Ron Hekier

I consider myself truly fortunate to have been able to attend the Elite Retreat Conference sponsored by Jeremy Schoemaker of Shoemoney.com fame. Of all the lessons learned, perhaps the most important is that of “scalability.” When a business proposition was thrown around, the savvy members in the group would always ask “Is it scalable?”

Questions to ask about your business:

Can revenue grow exponentially without an equal growth in expenses?
Can revenue grow exponentially without an equal growth in human resources?
Can revenue grow exponentially without an equal growth in key personnel? (Do you need multiple super-smarties?)

Look at the parking lot photo below, a few blocks away from our hotel for Elite Retreat. The parking lot owner had a choice. Do nothing to expand and hope to maximize their profit with the space available. Buy more real estate to park more cars. Or buy the vertical rack to allow 3 times as many cars to park. The last choice created an opportunity for 300% more revenue at the lowest cost.

scalable-business

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What harm can a rumor do?

by Ron Hekier

As you develop a marketing plan, remember to focus on your positive traits.  Do not attempt to elevate your stature by demeaning your competitor or their products.  If your product or service cannot succeed on its own merits, then work to develop your service and improve it.  Successful products and services typically do not need [...]

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Google – Service economy with no service

by Ron Hekier

Jumbo shrimp.  Plastic glasses.  Diet ice cream.  Daily special.  Google customer service.
The economic base in the United States has long ago shifted to a service economy. Rather than manufacture goods our economic power and stability is predicated upon providing service to individuals and other industries. Yet it seems increasingly commonplace that [...]

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by Ron Hekier

We agree with Guy Kawasaki, you should be a mensh and that should be one of your driving principles.
Here at Tova Group, we were offered a business deal by a potential client who was in a desperate business situation. They pushed hard for a deal to the point they wanted to pay earnest money even [...]

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Firing an employee with cancer right before Thanksgiving.

by Ron Hekier

Over the course of the past few months it became clear that one of our employees was not meeting the demands of their job. This employee is always cheerful and very helpful when given specific tasks, but their particular skill level is not well-suited for completing the type of tasks that had evolved into their [...]

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Las Vegas Club learns the power of Tweets during PubCon 2008

by Ron Hekier

At Pubcon 2008, the internet search marketing conference held in Las Vegas from November 11 – 14, social media was one of the hottest topics.  Among the many social networks discussed, Twitter seemed to take over the conference.  PubCon attendees were tweeting like mad, and at one point in the conference Pubcon was the #1 [...]

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