Horace was in advertising when he met Otto Stern, a mail-order plant entrepreneur. The plants ended up in poor condition from transportation, so they found someone to develop a water soluble fertilizer. Horace's wife named it Miracle Gro.

Their first ad in 1951 capitalized on America's post-war infatuation with science and focused on laboratory tests and amazing results. His advertising was sensual, scientific with tests, and personal through testimonials.

So the basic three things Horace did to succeed were: [Read More!]

Inc's April 2005 issue had a great little article with a picture that pretty much told it all...it is about the coming of the microchip in everyday products, and how it will affect life as we know it.

Inc came up with the following new-fangled products and brainstorming ideas for products with chips in them...

• Beer mug that alerts the bartender of an empty glass.
• Credit cards that track spending and prevent fraud.
• Baseballs that track speed.
• Children's books that talk.
• Tire valves that monitor pressure.
• Globes that tell you geographical info.
• Clothes that help keep inventory accurate.
• Coffe Cups that warn of too hot or too cold temperature.
• Video chip on golf bags to record your swing.

So I am going to have a contest for my listeners and readers. Submit your ideas for "chip" products in the comment section for this article or via phone at 214-231-2911 x. 4508. Describe the product's appearance and usage, and I'll list them next week. Then you get to vote on the best "chip off the old block"...I know, that was bad.

But best chip idea will win $25 sent to their paypal account.

I'm looking forward to checking out your ideas...let's see how well YOU brainstorm!

Penny Haynes, Producer and Publisher
http://www.eMediaTouch.com

Today we are talking about a case study found in Inc's April 2005 Issue where an inventor has the opportunity (and crossroads decision) of a lifetime.

Lance Fried has created the world's first waterproof MP3 player - nirvana for surfers, skiiers, swimmers, kayakers and other damp dwellers. He used his own funds and volunteering from his friends to make it happen, and when several "big box" retailers, like Best Buy and Bass Sporting Goods, found out about it, they wanted it on their shelves.

Sounds like a dream come true for Fried, right? Well.....

[Read More!]

This will be an additional running commentary and brainstorm about what we can learn about business and people via real life dramas. This feature is in addition to our regular Brain Storm! podcast and blog. Business is really about people, and the more we know about them, what they want, how they act, what motivates them, what makes them successful, the better communicators and influencers we can be. I have heard that real life and even fictional literature can teach us much about human nature - good and bad. Even if the story creates caricatures out of it's characters, making the good guy really good and bad guys wholly bad when people are normally a mixture of both, it can create an excellent basis for a study. Shackelton himself was such a mixture, as history later reflects.

We will base this on Ernest Shackelton's journey on the Endurance to the South Pole for an expedition hoping to be the 1st to traverse the Antarctic on foot. In 1915, this was a huge feat, and what the captain and crew underwent will teach us volumes about people and how to handle situations that are governed by circumstances outside of our control.

One of the things I noticed first of all was that this entire project came into being because the last great challenge had already been accomplished by someone else - I believe it was to reach the South Pole. The only thing left was to traverse the Antarctic on foot. This crew wanted to do it for Britain because this land had been claimed for Britain, and Swedes and Nords had been the ones to successfully accomplish the other feats

One business lesson to be learned was, when putting the project together, they found the people with a lot of experience in this type of research and adventure. Also, when he started making preparations, he did them quietly, and not until he thought he had secured enough money pledged to conduct the expedition did he make it public. However, after applications had been received and items and boats had been purchased, funds disappeared... [Read More!]

Thought this would interest those of you receiving this via podcast...

News Articles
TVEyes Announces Podscope®
The First Engine to Search Within a Podcast
Proprietary Technology Applicable to Video Blogs and Personal Videos

Fairfield, CT (April 11, 2005) -- TVEyes, the real-time broadcast search provider, today announced Podscope®, the first engine to search within a Podcast. TVEyes’ Podscope, which makes every word searchable within a podcast, enables the audio indexing of podcast content, which is equally applicable to video blogs and personal videos. Podcasts are essentially downloadable radio programs distributed through RSS that can be put onto a digital media music player or iPod. Podscope will be generally available later this month.

TVEyes, which has been indexing television and radio broadcasts since 1999, crawls the web with Podscope looking for podcasts and creates an index against every word, thereby making the contents searchable. The user can search on a term, generate a list of results ranked by a variety of methods to find the most relevant podcast and click to play or click to download.

“With a looming explosion in such user generated rich content as Podcasts and video blogs, there is a growing need to empower consumers to find and subscribe to programs that meet their diverse interests,” commented Allen Weiner, Vice President and Research Director at Gartner. “Searching and indexing these varied audio and video programs will not only benefit content-hungry consumers, it also adds legitimacy and velocity to this burgeoning space.”

About TVEyes

TVEyes, headquartered in Fairfield, CT, has been indexing television and radio broadcasts since 1999. It is the first company to deliver real-time TV and Radio search across multiple languages on an international platform. Services are provided to a wide range of users in both consumer and professional markets including Government and Law Enforcement Agencies. The company uses a range of proprietary technologies to index audio feeds that allow Radio and TV to be searched by keyword – just as you would use a search engine for text. The TVEyes Professional service offers personalization features and can be configured for large deployments in corporate environments. The technology is completely automated and all feeds are captured on a 24x7 basis. More information on TVEyes can be found at http://www.tveyes.com or http://www.podscope.com.

###

For more information or to arrange executive interviews, please contact:
Alison Minaglia (203)972-3170 or aminaglia@technologypr.com

Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD, had another really great piece of advice. "A good leader knows he is doing a good job when he knows with certainty that he can say yes to anything his staff asks, and feel totally confident that they will do the right thing."

So the point is, you find people of integrity, people who have good skills, and people who are so good at what they do that you can allow them to do what they do. They know the vision so well, and they know you so well, that they accomplish what you would accomplish.

Ruiz says that another piece of advice he received at Texas Instruments was that the worst thing that could happen to him if he made a poor decision was that he would be fired. But the way it was presented to him, he realized that getting fired would not be the end of the world, and that he shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes.

BRAIN STORM!

Learning to trust your employees is a huge leap of faith sometimes. Yet, to move from small business owner or solopreneur, whose income is often limited to the number of hours in a day, to big business owner, whose income is unlimited because of the increasing staff he or she commands, there has to be a definite amount of trust invested in the employees or partners.


• Have you searched out staff members who truly fit your company's mold? Do they have the same basic character and quality as you, so they can represent you even when you are not around?



• Have you spent sufficient time with your staff so that they know you well enough to represent you? Could you have a meal together, work on a project together, or simply train them on what is most important to you and how you would do things yourself?



• Consider creating a document, or even an audio presentation, that tells your staff members about who you are, what you believe, and what is important to you, both personally and professionally. Communication is a key here.



• Hiring people who are good at what they do - so good that you don't have to micromanage - can truly relieve a tremendous amount of stress from you. To test their strengths and weaknesses, start them out as a partner with you on a project, checking their progress along the way. You don't have to hand over large projects immediately - let them earn your trust. But once you have trained them and mentored them, let them do what you hired them to do.



• FEAR - fear of making a mistake, of failing, of being fired. It can actually squelch good decision making because of the pressure it puts on you. Too often we have tunnel vision, and think that if something bad happens today, that it will ruin our future. But sometimes, honestly, getting fired is the best thing that can happen to you, especially if you are staying there out of fear of the unknown instead of because you love your job. You get pushed out of the nest, and although it's scary, you may find yourself in a place of great satisfaction, possibly even starting your own business. What are you afraid of that makes you pull back from certain decisions? Where are you timid instead of agressive out of fear of failure? At one company we profiled, the people were actually rewarded for finding and admitting the flaws in their plans and products. You learn by mistakes, and good companies will allow such mistakes so that you can make wiser decisions.

---

Donnie Deutsch, the host of CNBC's The Big Idea, says that if you love something, the money will come. His business was handed to him by his father, and the first time around, Donnie was not ready to take on the responsibility. He was young and partying, and he didn't like what he was doing. Basically, his father said, "Get out of here - you don't love what you do. I DO love what I do."
[Read More!]

Welcome to the Brain Storm! Preview Channel.

OK, admit it. You know you should be paying attention to the newest business news and technology, but you don't have time to read. You may have even eased your conscience by subscribing to Business magazines...but be real - you don't crack those business magazines open. No time.

Well, Brain Storm! takes care of that for you...
Every week, Brain Storm!

summarizes the business news, technology and trends for you,

brainstorms with you about the ways you can practically apply this information to your businesses, and

suggest new business solutions for the challenges facing the world today.

Whether you prefer Audio CDs to go, immediate MP3 downloads, Blog, RSS, Web Page or Podcast, we've got it all for you, so you can keep up to date on all the business news and technology...

And don't forget the FREE 128 MB MP3 Player, Recorder and Storage Key (you can transfer computer files with it too!) you receive as our gift when you subscribe for a year!

This is a preview channel of our unabridged Brain Storm! service. We add one article per week here, so you can try before you subscribe.

When you decide this is the way business news was meant to be delivered, you can subscribe to Brain Storm! and receive every complete issue by clicking here.

Brain Storm! The intelligent way to analyze and revolutionize your business...

This is the 3rd installment in our series on the best advice received (and applied) by top entrepreneurs, from Fortune's May 21st issue.

Today we start with Rick Warren, who shares some rather shockingly honest perceptions, to Peter Drucker with life changing insights, and the CEO of Jet Blue on the importance - no, the mandaratory necessity - of balancing your family with your work.

I found Rick Warren's advice very interesting and very startling, although I think very accurate. He says that you definitely need mentors and models. Models are "the people you want to emulate." However, he says that the models need to be dead, because some people can start their lives off well, but end up rather tragically. This is not only a huge disappointment later on, but can be quite devestating.

He has sat at the feet of Peter Drucker for a long time, and one of the things that has been drilled into him is: "There is a difference between effectiveness and efficiency.
[Read More!]