uVme - Top Network Marketing Company?

uVme - Top Network Marketing Company?
I hear of a brand new contender soon to be entering the
massive global skill gaming arena. Is the market as big as
I am told and is uVme a genuine player? Well apparently so
as I found out!

Did you know that the online gaming market is growing at
the rate of $164 USD every second? Yes, it's true and even
as you read this, one in every ten people are playing skill
games online. And the current trends indicate that this
number is going to increase to six in ten in the next 36
months!

The scope of the internet is definitely on the rise and
more and more people are turning to cyberspace for
entertainment! And this trend is now your potential income
thanks to the unique online business opportunity brought to
you by uVme. The uVme gaming business which has been in
development for over two years has invested a seven figure
amount to produce a complete package that helps tap into
the full potential of the gaming market and it includes an
exciting range of skill based online games, a social
networking messenger and associate network hardware and
software to run the whole platform.

Who is the company behind uVme? I hear you ask. Well, the
uVme games program was devised by Virtual World Direct
(VWD), who is a top network marketing company, based in
Colwyn Bay in North Wales. VWD is by no means a newcomer
to the online gaming arena or indeed the multi-level
marketing industry. In just 5 years VWD has attracted in
excess of 170,000 members, from 133 countries to its core
product, the e-Lottery Syndicate System. So what drives
the popularity of online gaming? Well, it's nothing more
than the staggering potential reach of the internet.
Today, broadband is providing faster web access to people
around the world and is making the internet accessible to
more homes and internet cafés. In the US, about 75%
of Internet users switched to broadband last year, whereas
in India, internet users increased by around 54% over a
period of one year. In addition, statistics show that
online gaming is no longer just a Western pastime, but has
also become popular in the developing world.

So while there is no doubt that the internet is the
fastest-growing market in the world, there exists another
market that has been growing four times faster than even
the internet! Today, the web is not only being used for
information gathering, but more and more people are turning
to it for entertainment as well. These online
entertainment trends are cutting into TV viewing and
advertising figures. It is estimated that every year
online game advertising will grow by 70% and in the next
three years, it will be worth billions of dollars (US). It
comes as no surprise therefore that TV companies are
competing for a piece of the gigantic online games market,
as they put their content online in interactive versions
and launch gaming platforms.

Alex Burmaster, the European Internet Analyst from
Nielsen/NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media says,
"Take the fact that the online games sector is growing at
four times the rate of overall internet growth together
with the increasing numbers online and it is easy to see
why companies such as MTV Networks are looking to get a
piece of the action."

Within the gamut of online games, are the casual games of
skill that rank high up in the popularity stakes and are
the favourite pastime of people across different age groups
around the world. These casual games are the usual fun
pastime games which include board games like draughts and
backgammon, sports games such as pool, golf and basketball
and puzzle games like jigsaws. These games are played in a
tournament format online as each player pays a cash fee to
start playing. A cash or merchandise prize goes to the
winner on completion of the tournament.

What's critical about these skill-based games is that the
competition is based on the players' ability and
performance, without any element of luck. This is to make
sure that the games are legal and do not count as gambling.

In addition, playing these games has its own unique
advantages. Besides challenge and fun, one gets to win
rewards ranging between USD$1 and $1,000. And if that's
not enough, playing these games is known to enhance a
person's productivity at work! According to a survey by
WorldWinner (May 2007), 76% of people playing online games
have achieved improved job performance.

Sure enough, these trends clearly indicate that today,
online games are where the money is. The booming sector
gives you an exciting business opportunity that you can
capitalise on and uVme makes it all the easier for you.
uVme can become your business without you worrying about
overheads or stocks. All you have got to do is challenge a
friend on the uVme games platform and the more fun people
have, the greater your profit will be. The 3 in 1 package
gives you the ideal platform to skyrocket your earnings and
all in easy steps with full support from the uVme team in
their North Wales head office. And all this business,
while you are at play!

It seems that uVme is certainly not a here today gone
tomorrow operation; especially with the backing of the top
network marketing company, Virtual World Direct (VWD). I
would therefore urge you to take a serious look at the uVme
games business today.

----------------------------------------------------
Gavin Evans is a full time internet marketer living in the
market town of Cowbridge in South Wales, UK. Gavin is also
a leading associate for the brand new global skill games
business, uVme. For further information visit:

http://www.uvme-online-games.net

Can Your Products Pass the "Midnight Test"?

Can Your Products Pass the "Midnight Test"?
Gaining an understanding of how your customers might want
(or need) to use your products and services can guide you
in creating offerings that help people succeed in many
situations and circumstances.

Whether you are developing a product or service for mass
consumption, or creating a customized solution for a
client, imagining how your audiences will consume your
material can make all the difference between their success
and failure.

This article discusses ways to predict circumstances of
use, and why it's so important to anticipate the possible
consequences and ripple effects of your customers'
potential inability to succeed.

For example, if people cannot consume your products and
services properly, will they simply be frustrated or
delayed, or could they also be at risk for losing their own
clients, customers, profitability, credibility, respect,
health, safety, or other vital outcomes?

----------------------------------------------------
What Are Examples of "Routine" Circumstances of Use?
----------------------------------------------------

Routine circumstances involve the range of normal or
typical modes in which people would consume your offerings.
These might occur during the day, in perfectly sunny,
non-stressful conditions, with access to plenty of help and
support in case anything goes awry. These situations might
occur:

-- At home or in one's personal life
-- In the office or in one's professional life
-- At school or in a similar learning situation
-- Traveling by foot, in a car, or on a train, subway, bus,
plane, or van
-- Exercising, such as when walking the dog, bicycling, or
jogging

You can support people's routine circumstances by providing
multiple delivery modes -- such as print, Web, audio, and
video -- that cater to different learning styles and
situations in which customers might use your products.

----------------------------------------------------
What Are Examples of "Non-Routine" Circumstances?
----------------------------------------------------

Non-routine circumstances are the abnormal, unusual, or
even extreme conditions under which people might need to
interact with any of your products, information, systems,
or services, including:

-- Risky or incomplete states, such as during power
fluctuations, using incorrect tools, with insufficient
resources or training, or with a substandard infrastructure.

-- Stressful or isolated conditions, such as during bad
weather, off-hours, or in remote locations, when it would
be hard to address customer concerns or provide assistance
if something failed. These include situations in which
customers might be working late into the night. They might
discover at midnight, for example, that they don't
understand a critical step in a process, or need some other
kind of essential help with your product.

So, in suboptimal circumstances such as these, how would
your offerings react? Would they be able to complete the
action flawlessly, or, almost as ideally, halt the action
intelligently and harmlessly and let your customers know
what to do next?

----------------------------------------------------
How Can You Make Your Offerings More Bulletproof?
----------------------------------------------------

-- Comb your "lessons learned" database from your past
projects or research your customer records to determine
whether you need to make improvements in any area.

-- Once you think you have "perfected" your offerings, test
them with real or representative customers and observe just
how well people can interact with them without your
providing assistance. These usability tests will determine
just how self-explanatory your offerings are, and how your
products would respond in a variety of different situations.

If you ensure that your offerings are bug-free and can
function properly under a range of possible circumstances,
you will prevent the aggravating headaches that could send
your audiences running for the door.

This approach can help you design more ideal routine user
experiences, while also avoiding the risks of producing
unhappy customers because you've overlooked the non-routine
situations.

In conclusion, whether you're developing a basic "how-to"
guide or a complex business system, ask yourself: Can it
pass the "midnight test"? Until you can imagine your
audiences successfully using the product, information,
system, or service in the middle of the night, in isolated
conditions, with no help available of any kind, then it's
simply not ready for prime time!

----------------------------------------------------
Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the author of the award-winning
"Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" program.
She helps people "discover and recover" the profits their
businesses may be losing every day through overlooked
performance potential. To sign up for more free tips, visit
her site at http://LearnShareProsper.com

The Lucky 13

The Lucky 13
Here are 13 things you need to check through to make sure
you have implemented them ALL in your business.

1. Create a great USP ' something that stands out and tells
your clients why you are not only the best choice, but the
only choice in their purchasing decision.

2. Keep it simple. Can a grade 8 read and understand what
it is you are saying in your promotions? If not, go back
and simplify it.

3. Educate them ' tell them about you, your business, what
it does and how it does it ' and ' MOST IMPORTANTLY ' why
they should even care!

4. Ask the prospect/client to take action right now. Any
action ' buy, phone, email, signup ' whatever your
marketing message is ' make sure it contains something they
should take action on.

5. Why should they believe you? The prospects you are
targeting WILL distrust you. It is a fact of life. You
need to overcome this distrust with proof that you deliver
(testimonials, case studies, pictures, professional
sources, anything and everything that shows you are the
best at what you do)

6. "What's new?" is something your prospects AND clients
want to ask and know. You must give them compelling
reasons to buy ' buy again ' and spend more each time. And
you can't do that by boring them ' what is NEW in your
business? Your offering? Your client success stories? New
bundles of products or seasonal promotions? Tell them what
is new in your personal life. Make sure they have a good
reason to read what you are writing!

7. Make sure everything you do is designed to get their
contact information. From your business cards to your
letterhead, to your advertising and website ' everything
must present a compelling case as to why they should give
you their contact information. And when they do ' FOLLOW
UP!

8. Find ways to raise your prices and offer an upsell every
time they go to make a purchase. There is ample proof that
you can double your prices and not lose a significant
number of buyers ' as long as you make the reason
compelling enough as to why they should pay the higher
price ' and what you offer in return.

9. Call everyone (or hire professionals to do it on your
behalf) AFTER your direct mail efforts ' it will increase
your response by a huge margin.

10. Find people to joint venture with and cross-promote to
their lists and your own.

11. Make sure your clients and prospects KNOW you
appreciate them. They pay the bills ' so make sure they are
constantly told that you value them.

12. Invest a substantial amount of your time developing
good higher end products for your clients. Either on your
own or through partners, you need to present them options
at higher prices and better bundles of products and
services. A one- time buyer is twice as likely as a
prospect to buy again, and at a higher price. A two time
buyer three times as likely... and so on. Your entire goal
is to get them to buy once then offer them multiple options
to buy again, and again.

13. The greatest way to get referrals is by being the best-
of-the-best. Make it so they would feel guilty for NOT
telling their friends, family and business associates about
you. Be the ONLY one they would through excellence. And
again, you have to ASK them to refer their friends and
family. They may do it on their own ' but chances are they
don't feel comfortable doing it. But if you position so
there is something in it for them and for those who they
refer ' they are much more likely to actually do it.

Here's to you cranking up the heat on your marketing!

----------------------------------------------------
Troy White, The Marketing Results Mentor and Expert
Copywriter helps clients achieve HUGE growth surges in
their business in very short periods of time. If you're an
entrepreneur in need of quick cash flow surges ' here is
the quick-hit solution to put money in your bank.... The
Wild West Wealth Summit! Make sure you visit
http://www.WildWestWealth.com or sign up for the Free Cash
Flow Surge Newsletter at http://www.CashFlowSurges.com

USB Flash Drives Enable Eco-Friendly Brand Recognition

USB Flash Drives Enable Eco-Friendly Brand Recognition
USB Flash drives are memory data storage devices integrated
with a Universal Serial Bus (USB). These devices have
forever changed the way people work with data. USB flash
drive production gives people a fast and convenient way to
custom brand products for gifts, incentives, trade shows,
and marketing or PR content.

USB flash drives enable users to put customized data on
flash drives which are ideal for businesses and marketing
professionals to use as promotional gifts. Businesses can
imprint their company logos on a variety of USB products
for brand recognition, sending custom content to anyone,
anywhere, very quickly.

Flash drives are an eco-friendly replacement to paper
marketing materials, USB flash drives also store more data
in a small space, and they are rewritable, therefore a nice
gift. Lightweight, robust and easy to carry, these small
memory sticks have become indispensable to both individuals
and organizations.

Less than a year or two ago, many marketers spent thousands
of dollars designing and printing press kits and brochures
to take to industry trade shows for the media and trade
show attendees. Today with the concerns for our
environment, printing a lot of paper that may be thrown
away just doesn't seem like the right thing to do. Most
media appreciate receiving light weight items such as CDs
or DVDs anyway. And now they love getting USB flash drives.
And the best part about receiving a USB flash drive with
information about a company is that it can always be reused
after the information about the company they are covering
is downloaded onto a hard drive. It's a win-win situation
for everyone.

USB Flash Drive production enables logo branding so
businesses can imprint their company logos on a variety of
USB products for brand recognition, and customize the data
within. Messaging is key to branding, and products like
USB flash drives will linger around on someone's desk for a
long time, exposing the brand identity of the company where
it originally came from.

As gifts and giveaways, USB flash drives are a great way to
promote brands and business as they are personal, highly
visible, long-lasting and extremely useful.

USB flash drives are even more convenient than cd
manufacturing, and they can be reused tomorrow for another
purpose.

Often times these companies will also load a user's content
and help them auto-run an application. Content mastering
provides an innovative way to go beyond simple file
preloading. A production line utilizes high-speed
specialized machines for data preloading.

----------------------------------------------------
Kristin Gabriel is the marketing communications director
for Acutrack, Inc. (http://www.acutrack.com). The company
enables customers to create, publish and deliver custom
content for DVD and CD distribution worldwide. Acutrack's
proprietary On Demand production gives customers the
ability to produce and ship custom packaged CDs or DVDs one
at a time. Ideal for customers who are selling downloadable
content and are not sure how many units to produce; On
Demand takes care of inventory, packaging and fulfillment.

Working for Yourself - Do You Really Need Employees?

Working for Yourself - Do You Really Need Employees?
Many would-be entrepreneurs, when faced with the reality of
escaping the rat race and going it alone in a solo
enterprise, raise a multitude of questions regarding their
employees. They worry about how many staff they will need,
the best time in the company's life to start looking for
extra hands, how to manage payroll, taxation, benefits and
staff illness. Before you know it the budding small
business owner has wound himself up to the point of inertia
and decides to stay put, trapped in the shackles of office
life.

However, good news is never far away. Here's some for you:
you can start a business and make a success of it without
ever having to take on a single employee. Back in 2006, an
article by Jim Hopkins in USA Today talked about the rise
of the microbusiness, which at the time, numbered 20
million in the US alone. That's 20 million people making it
in business without the headache of employing anyone else.
How do they manage it? Here are a few ideas to get you
thinking like a solopreneur.

Strategic partnerships

Bringing in a partner is a resource often overlooked by the
first-time entrepreneur. Take the example of a Bob the
Baker who makes the most wonderful cakes in the world. Bob
knows his cakes would be a hit all over the country and
needs to work out how to sell effectively on line. So, he
teams up with a Winston the Webmaster who also happens to
know how to use the internet to market very effectively.
This partnership works quite simply because two people, who
each need the skill the other possesses, have come together
to produce an income. Bob cannot sell the cakes without the
skills of Winston and vice versa. Any employees? Not
necessary. It's a straight partnership, the income split is
worked out according to workload (or however else they
choose to work it out). Is it not better to have half a
successful business than own a failure in its entirety?

Outsourcing

The baking business is booming now, Bob is busy making all
those lovely cakes and Winston equally so updating the
website and promoting them. Orders are pouring in from all
over with as many as 20 emails a day. Is it now time to
take on an office administrator to deal with this? What
about someone to help bake the cakes? How about someone who
can upload pictures onto the website and manage simple
order fulfilment? That makes three new employees, right?
Wrong. All of these jobs can be outsourced or, in other
words, contracted out. A VA (virtual assistant) can take on
the job of taking in and responding to the emails, another
baking firm could be contracted to make the fillings for
the cakes, yet another VA could be used to manage parts of
the website.

Franchising/licensing

The business has grown phenomenally in its first year and
the cakes are amazingly popular. There are now no fewer
than 6 contractors involved, all looking after various
aspects of the day to day running of the company and still
nobody is employed. Bob and Winston, however, are feeling
the burn and would like to take a little more of a back
seat. But how do they start doing less without having to
take on staff to manage the business? Sell licences for
people to take on an identikit business of their own,
running it in exactly the same way as they do. By creating
a licence or a franchise for the business the owners not
only create substantially higher revenues from their
original idea but do so by stepping out of the business to
manage the franchise operation, still without employing
anyone!

It sounds so simple, does it not? Business really can be as
simple as this with some thought and planning. Obviously
there is hard work, talent and determination involved in
getting through each of the steps but the end product
really is achievable without the need to wade through the
red tape associated with taking on permanent staff. Any
more excuses to not go for it?

----------------------------------------------------
Want to learn more about escaping the rat race at a normal
pace?
Go to http://www.RatRaceEscapeArtist.com

Top Team Effectiveness - What CEOs should do

Top Team Effectiveness - What CEOs should do
A study undertaken by Ernst and Young Centre for Business
Innovation showed a direct link between top team
effectiveness and company valuation. The survey concluded
that 35% of an investment decision was driven by non
financial data such as "execution of corporate strategy"
and "management credibility". Moulding and shaping the top
team is a key function of the CEO's role but few get it
right. What are the characteristics of an effective top
team and what can a leader do to deliver top team
effectiveness?

How do you define a team?

A real team has a task that demands a high level of
interdependency ' something that can only be accomplished
together as a team. The team also has reasonably stable
boundaries so that membership is not constantly changing
and it is easy to tell who is on the team.

What makes for an effective team?

Richard Hackman of Harvard University, working with the Hay
Group, identified five conditions of top team success:

- Clarity of Direction
- Appropriate Structure and Rules of Working
- Right Mix of People
- CEO Support and Sponsorship
- Individual and Team Development:

It is easy to make the assumption that a top team made up
of successful, strong willed individuals, does not require
help from the CEO. However, the research that Hackman and
others have done comparing highly effective top teams with
average or poor performing teams suggests the CEO can and
should play a key role in ensuring the team's success.

What the CEO can do:

1. Establish a clear and compelling direction.

Leaders of effective teams communicate a vision to the team
rather than assume that the team shares it. If the leader
doesn't communicate this vision a vacuum is created, one
that all members rush to fill with their own individual
priorities and goals. These individual goals do not add to
the collective or interdependent goals.

In short, leaders of effective teams communicate a vision
to the team rather than assume that the team shares it.

2. Create an appropriate structure

Size matters! A CEO who wants to create a successful team
will populate it with 6 to 8 team members and no more.
More individuals may mean competing interests, more
personality clashes and a greater risk that factions will
form. A CEO may let the team grow if he or she is fearful
of offending key players, however, the question the CEO
must always ask is "Given the team's goal, do they have the
expertise to deliver it?".

Set the rules. CEO's will facilitate effective team
working if they overtly define two or three 'norms' or ways
of working for the group. Rules such as 'never play
politics' or 'deliver what you say you will' or even 'no
Blackberries at the table' clarify for the team what is and
is not acceptable behaviour. The CEO has a role to play in
enforcing these rules and other procedures such as
effectiveness of team meetings.

In short, leaders of effective teams don't play politics
but focus on what and who will deliver the goal.

3. Get the right mix of people working together

People on outstanding teams are not necessarily more
driven, nor more committed than members of less
accomplished teams. What people on the best teams
contribute is the ability to work with others.

In particular, CEO's can facilitate outstanding performance
by recruiting people with two critical characteristics:

Empathy ' the ability to understand others. This involves
listening to others and is critical to buy in ' members of
a team will only buy in to the team process if they feel
they are both heard and understood. Resentment builds if
people feel they have not been listened to.
Integrity ' behaving consistently with the organisation's
values ' even when it may be risky to do so. Integrity is
critical as it involves individual team members trusting
one another to deliver what they say they will.

In short, leaders of effective teams must recruit team
members with empathy and integrity and lead by example by
speaking their mind and 'walking the talk'.

4. CEO Support and sponsorship

CEO's can ensure the effective performance of the top team
by providing information, data and resources to deliver the
team goals.

Compensation structures which encourage and reward team
members who buy in to the team goals, send a strong message
about what a company values.

In short, leaders of effective teams support and reward
team based behaviours

5. Provide Individual and Team Development

CEOs of outstanding top teams review team performance
openly discussing how the team is doing, what it is doing
well, what it is doing poorly and what its members have
learned.

These same CEO's also provide individual coaching to team
members.

In short, leaders of effective teams review performance and
coach individuals and teams to get better.

An outstanding top team delivers real benefits: - they
advance the CEO's agenda much more quickly than an average
or poor performing team and they enable a company to
weather the tough times more effectively (because all
members share and buy in to the same vision). Outstanding
top teams don't just happen ' they are created and nurtured
by the clever CEO who understands their power and value.

----------------------------------------------------
Pam Kennett is Founder and Director of Chiswick Consulting
Limited a management consultancy which provides advice and
direction to clients in marketing and human resources. Pam
has more than 20 years experience working with CEOs to
deliver more through better people management practices.
Contact her at pam@chiswickconsulting.com or visit
http://www.chiswickconsulting.com .

Document Scanners - A short guide

Document Scanners - A short guide
If your business has a backlog of paper documents that you
need to archive, or if you are looking to create a modern
digital archive that is easy for yourself and your staff to
access, then document scanning is the answer.

If you have been in business for any number of years, you
are bound to have a significant paper-trail of documents
within your organisation that you need to keep and often
need speedy access to. Document scanning enables you to
transfer your paper files into a digital format, which you
can then store on a server for use by yourself and your
employees.

Searching for documents also becomes much less time
consuming, as digital archives can be quickly worked
through and searches for specific documents, by using
keywords, and can also be run by even the most
digitally-inexperienced of your employees.

Scanning your paper documents to create an online archive
will enable you to back up important files, create multiple
copies of files, distribute documents quickly and easily
among employees, clients and other interested parties and
also offers an environmentally-friendly solution to storing
masses of paper on-site.

If you are getting squeezed out of your office and need to
find new storage solutions, then document scanning can open
up whole sections of your floor space by removing the need
to store all your documents on-site and encouraging good
digital housekeeping skills among your workforce.

Once you have successfully implemented and completed the
project of scanning your paper archive into a digital
format, you then simply have to ensure that all new paper
documents are regularly scanned into the archive to ensure
an efficient and clutter-free working environment for you
and your staff.

So, how do you go about sourcing a good scanner that will
fit your company's needs perfectly? The good news is that
there are a wide variety of document scanners on the market
today. The latest models are highly efficient, very
reliable and extremely fast. There are currently scanners
available for every possible level of your document
scanning needs that are robust, compact and excellent value
for money.

Document scanners for the office come designed to a range
of specifications and ' whether you need a scanner to
digitally convert a few paper documents per day, or whether
you have a paper archive that requires thousands of
documents per day to be digitally scanned ' there will be
an ideal product available on the market for you.

If you are looking for a high-quality, compact, budget
scanner, the Canon DR 2050 C Scanner is an ideal desktop
solution for your needs. The machine has one of the most
reliable feeding systems in its price range and can scan up
to 20 pages per minute at a high optical resolution.

Moving up the document scanning specification range, the
Panasonic KVS2046C Scanner offers an excellent standard of
scanning quality and paper handling. It can handle up to 43
pages per minute and has a 120-page automatic document
feeder, while still being compact enough to be stored on a
desktop and comes in at a great mid-range, value-for-money
price.

Finally, the Canon DR9080 Scanner is a high-volume scanner
with a specification to match. This scanner is capable of
processing thousands of documents in a day and is a major
asset to any company looking to convert a large paper
archive into a digital format. It can scan up to A3-sized
documents at a rate of 90 pages per minute and can accept a
range of paper types. It produces digital documents of
excellent quality and is the ultimate asset to a busy,
thriving business looking to embrace the digital age

----------------------------------------------------
Vincent Woodall is the sales and marketing manager of AB
Technology (London) Ltd (ABT) an award-winning office
equipment supplier and has been employed in the industry
since 1985.A wide range of great quality scanners at highly
competitive prices are available from ABT
http://www.abt-fax-multifunction-desktop-machines.co.uk/scan
ners.htm

Locate the Most Efficient Path to Add 20 Times More Benefits to Nonprofit Beneficiaries

Locate the Most Efficient Path to Add 20 Times More Benefits to Nonprofit Beneficiaries
From space many places on Earth look pretty flat. From the
ground more obstacles become apparent: Granite mountains
loom in places where chasms divide neighboring areas. Both
perspectives tell you something you need to know. The space
view shows you the most direct route as the proverbial crow
flies, while the close-up view shows you obstacles that are
well worth avoiding where that's possible. In this article,
the broadest perspective, like that from space, is
emphasized. That perspective encompasses expanding your
business model (the who, what, when, why, where, how, and
how much of your offerings) in volume-improving ways for
your nonprofit organization.

In considering how to expand your business model's delivery
of offerings and benefits, you should be guided by what
will be easily understandable and desirable by your
stakeholders (those who are affected by what you offer) . .
. and where the adjustments will provide more effectiveness
for nonprofit organizations. Business model innovation is
something that many organizations struggle with. In this
article, I've broken out the elements and added an example
to make innovative business model thinking and analysis
easier to do. This article's material will, however, be
clearest to those who have already read about continuing
business model innovation.

Expand What You Do Now

Unless you are providing a very small percentage of the
needs of each customer or beneficiary, growing by 21-fold
requires adding beneficiaries. Because so many
organizations can expand to provide 21 times the number of
beneficiaries, that's a great place to begin. You should
start by considering who you will serve as these added
beneficiaries and where those benefits will be delivered to
make the expansion more practical.

Who Is Served and Where

Let's begin considering volume-expanding business models by
looking at "who" is served. The lesson is to keep it
simple. Change as little as possible while becoming more
efficient and effective as an organization for your
customers and beneficiaries. The simplest way to do this is
to put more of the same kind of volume through an existing
organizational structure without adding fixed costs or
increasing the ratio of variable costs to benefits
delivered.

In a nonprofit organization there's a savings incentive to
provide more of the same offerings to the same recipients.
Let's consider an organization that carries donated food by
truck to distribution centers serving needy families. Most
such distribution centers provide a small portion of a
family's total weekly needs -- perhaps as little as one
meal a week. The families may be visiting 10 to 30
different distribution centers weekly to fulfill all their
needs. The trucks carrying the goods to a given
distribution center are often owned and operated by that
center, may be in use for only a few hours a week, and
could be operated much more often.

Let's assume that more volunteers can be found to load the
food, and drive and unload the trucks. Both the nonprofit
organization and the needy families will benefit
economically if 21 meals weekly are delivered and
distributed at one time to a distribution center.

See Example 1 for a quantification of this point.

Example 1: Adding Trip Volume for an Underutilized Truck to
Increase Food Available to Needy Families for Each Pick Up

When a truck isn't driven very much, its capital costs
(depreciation of its value from the purchase price) exceed
the operating costs. Put that truck into use more often and
you are able to divide the capital costs over more miles.
As a result, your cost per trip of the same distance will
become much smaller.

Truck Beginning Point -- 1 Truck Trip per Week: Annual
truck capital costs $52,000 for 5,200 miles per year

Capital cost per trip $1,000

20 Times Truck Volume Increase -- 21 Truck Trips per Week:
Annual truck capital costs $109,200 for 109,200 miles per
year

Capital cost per trip $100

Note: Annual capital cost is higher because service life is
reduced by driving more miles a year.

Recipients' automobile operating costs, by comparison, vary
directly with use. Driving 21 times as much results in
spending 21 times as much. If they can reduce their
driving, however, their operating costs per week go down.

Automobile Operating Costs Beginning Point for Recipients
-- 21 Pickups per Week

Weekly gas, oil, and maintenance $21.00

Cost per pickup $1.00

Automobile Operating Cost -- 1 Trip per Week

Weekly gas, oil, and maintenance $1.00

Cost per pickup $1.00

Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

----------------------------------------------------
Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a
strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is
coauthor of six books including The 2,000 Percent Squared
Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, and The 2,000 Percent
Solution Workbook. You can find free tips for accomplishing
20 times more by registering at:
====> http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Slip additive used in plastic film and bags

Slip additive used in plastic film and bags
What is slip and how does it work in manufacturing plastic
film and bags.

Slip is an organic chemical that is added to the blend
during film extrusion process to modify the coefficient of
friction (COF). COF is a measurement of the amount of
friction between two surfaces as they begin to slide and as
they continue to drag against one another. The amount of
energy it takes to put an object in motion is always
greater than the amount of energy that it takes to keep it
moving while it is in motion.

Although there are a number of chemicals that are used to
modify the COF the two main ones used in Polyethylene and
Polypropylene are Erucamide (which is considered a slow
bloom) and Oleamide(which is a fast bloom). The materials
are sometimes called primary amides. Slip is a very
efficient molecule it has been added to a plastic film in
very low concentrations typically 500 to 1500 parts per
million (PPM).The slip additive can be let down at the
levels of 1 to 3% by weight in blending while extruding the
plastic film. Slip molecules are very low in molecular
weight as compared to the polymer in which they are used.
These molecules are somewhat incompatible because of their
nature. This means the material is bi-polar and has one end
that has a positive charge and the other has a neutral
charge. This incompatibility causes the molecule to migrate
referred to as bloom through the polymer to the surface of
the plastic film.

The more slip that migrates on the surface the lower the
COF and the more slippery the plastic film becomes. The COF
relates to packaging because the substrates used to package
objects always come in contact with other surfaces or
themselves. As most packaging operations are very high
speed, COF plays a very large role. The packaging material
must have just the right COF in order to track properly on
the packaging machines. If a material is too slippery the
film will not track properly and may cause issues such as
bad sealing or cause a powder substance that builds up on
the tracking rolls which will cause packaging failures. If
a material becomes to sticky it can have the opposite
effect. It may not allow the film to un-wind properly and
cause web brakes or other tracking problems. Either
scenario can shut a packaging line down.

----------------------------------------------------
David Banig has been in the Flexographic printing industry
for 32 years and has had various patents along with hands
on experience. If you are looking for someone to improve
your packaging P&R Fleible is the inovator of todays
packaging world.
http://www.prflexbag.com

How Decluttering Can Boost Your Business

How Decluttering Can Boost Your Business
The benefits of decluttering are well recognized when it
comes to making space in your home. But have you thought
about how those benefits can be applied to your business
too? Here are two compelling reasons to adopt a declutter
mindset in the workplace...

How important is it to your business that you are decisive
and purposeful? That you keep driving your business
forward? Most business owners accept that forward momentum
and clear purpose are absolutely key to the success of
their business. So let's take a look at how clutter fits
into the picture here...

When you think about it, clutter plays a distinctly
subversive role when it comes to forward momentum. In fact
wherever you encounter it in your business and in your
environment, clutter is a manifestation of procrastination.
All clutter exits either because you've deferred a decision
about something, or because you've made the decision but
not taken the action. Either way it's procrastination at
play.

For example, if you have a pile of papers cluttering your
office floor, you will either be trying to ignore them in
the vain hope that they will magically disappear under
their own steam and you won't have to decide what to do
about them. Or you will already have decided what you want
(or ought) to do with the papers, but be postponing the
action phase of the operation. Either way that pile of
papers sits there on your office floor, cluttering up your
workspace, draining your energy and making you feel bad for
not having done anything about it yet.

I'm sure you're well aware of the effects of
procrastination, not only on your decisiveness as a
business person, but on your general wellbeing and energy
levels. Procrastination is an extraordinary energy drainer,
capable of stopping you and your business in your tracks if
you let it get a grip.

So by dealing with your workspace clutter, you eliminate an
enormous amount of procrastination and free up large
amounts of energy. Makes sense doesn't it?

The second reason for adopting a declutter mindset in your
business is an entirely practical process of creating the
space for new customers.

If your workplace is stuffed with outdated rubbish, if your
diary is heaving with 'ought to but don't want to'
appointments, if your schedule is full of low grade clients
who aren't paying you full price, where's the space for new
business to come in?

Nature abhors a vacuum. This means that if you declutter
and create space in your business, it won't stay empty for
long. The trick is to declutter and create space at the
same time as setting an intention to attract new clients or
customers to fill that space. Know what business you want
to come your way and set about making the most inviting
space for it you can.

I know a number of people who swear by this technique. When
business is quiet, or when they want to crank it up a
notch, they take a look around their workplace and they ask
themselves: What can I declutter today? Sometimes it's a
bigger clear-out process and takes a bit of planning and a
day or two to execute. But at the end of the process,
invariably, they get that call, offering them the chance of
exciting new business.

So these are the two key ways in which decluttering can
boost your business:

1. It cuts your procrastination guilt and clears the path
to forward momentum.
2. It creates the space for new business to materialize.

It's got to be worth a try hasn't it?

----------------------------------------------------
Mary McNeil of Create a Space is an experienced,
ICF-certified life coach who works with her clients on a
variety of decluttering, success and creativity projects.
Her 30-day home learning e-course: 'Declutter Your Way To
Creativity' is available from
http://www.Create-a-Space.co.uk .