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Who doesn’t like infographics? Search Engine Land just converted a report from Pew Research into a very nice infographic.

Leadership: Becoming the Ultimate Servant
November 17, 2pm EST / 11am PST

Mining both the lead e-newsletter article and the white paper, this webinar will be led by Jim Schleckser, CEO and managing partner of the CEO Project, a firm that coaches CEO members to higher levels of performance using a structured methodology and regular peer-group meetings. Along with business leader panelists, the moderator will lead participants through:

An expanded discussion of the most valuable roles a CEO can play in bolstering leadership capabilities and growing a company (e.g., architect, process engineer, coach, player, and learner); sharing challenges and solutions via Q&A. Typically, webinars feature a “challenge/solution” style Q&A designed to allow participants to share questions, views, and solutions regarding a wide variety of topics, such as motivating and managing human capital; finding financing on the current market; raw materials pricing, and what to expect in the coming months; the overall success of entrepreneurs emerging from the recession; and spurring innovation and entrepreneurship.

http://video.webcasts.com/events/pmny001/viewer/index.jsp?eventid=39716

NEWSPAPER WEB SITES CONTINUE TO BE THE MOST VALUED LOCAL NEWS AND INFORMATION SITES ONLINE
Newspaper Advertising Cited as Most Trustworthy; Newspaper Web Sites Ranked First Among All Sources of Local Information in Usage, Credibility, Being Most Informative

Local Newspaper Web Sites are Most Informative: Newspaper Web sites ranked first in all five content types, edging out local television websites for local news (34 percent vs. 32 percent), with wider margins for local information (32 percent vs. 23 percent), local sports (30 percent vs. 24 percent) local entertainment (29 percent vs. 18 percent) and local classifieds (43 percent vs. 12 percent).

Local Newspaper Web Sites are Most Credible: Newspaper Web sites ranked first for being the most credible source, beating second-ranked local television Web sites for all content types, from local news (35 percent vs. 32 percent), local information (34 percent vs. 23 percent), local sports (30 percent vs.24 percent), local entertainment (30 percent vs. 19 percent) and local classifieds (43 percent vs. 13 percent).

Advertising on Local Newspaper Web Sites More Trustworthy: Nearly eight-in-ten respondents (78 percent) across all demographic groups rated “more likely to be current” as the top reason advertising on local newspaper Websites are most trustworthy. Credibility and local relevance were also important factors with close to 50 percent of respondents citing these attributes for reasons behind local newspapers advertising trustworthiness.

Read full report by Newspaper Association of America

This blog post will have little to do with digital marketing, and other similar topics that I tend to blog on. However, over the past weekend, I was trying to buy a new car, and found the process to be extremely painful and, at the end, completely dissatisfying. This blog is a summary of my experiences.

I started my search at the Honda dealership. Since I was not quite sure about what I wanted, I thought that test driving a new Honda Accord would be a good start. Additionally, Honda had great leasing deals. Arriving at the dealership, I was greeted by very professional staff, and within minutes, a sales person was struggling to answer my simple questions. Apparently, he had no idea that there was a special going on, and he had to go to the Honda.com website to learn about terms and conditions.

The first car I looked at what Honda Civic. It was a fun car, but I was not able to figure out all the different trims. When I started to ask my sales consultant why one trim was more expensive than the other one, the answer was – it has a spoiler. Apparently, the only thing that  differentiates Civic DX-VP and Civic LX is a sporty spoiler, which costs over a $1,000. After I got home and checked the website, I found my sales associate was mistaken. Here is a link to their website, if you want to see for yourself.

After, I test drove my Honda Civic, we went to look for Honda Accord, and I mean look for. Apparently, the dealership did not have Accords on the premises, and we had to drive to another location to find my Accord. We had to travel to a remote location twice, and each time, my sales professional could not find a car. Finally he said, and I quote:  ”What the F…,” and we went back to the dealership. There, he finally found an Accord he wanted me to drive. The car had a manual transmission. Good thing I drive manual, and so we took it for a test-drive. As we were pulling out, we realized that this car was occupying the handicap parking spot. So if you need a handicap parking spot, you might not find one at this Honda dealership; they are using these parking spaces to showcase new cars.

At this point, I was getting pretty tired of the whole experience, and my sales associate who was struggling to explain why I should lease instead of buy, or vise-versa. At the end, I took the business card of this sales professional with absolutely no intention of ever calling him. Call me old fashioned, but I feel more comfortable buying a car from the person who treats his job as a job and not as a hobby. As a business owner, I am curious how come this person still has this job/hobby.

My next stop was Nissan. My guess is that Nissan cars are the best cars in the world. Do you know why I say this? I was inside the dealership for 10 minutes, and not a single sales associate offered to help me. Then, I approached a receptionist, and asked her about their leasing specials. She had no idea what they were, and told me that I have to wait for a sales associate. If nobody cared to help me, I did not want to trouble anyone and waste their time trying to sell me a car, and so I left.

My last stop for the day was Mazda. I wanted to test drive their new RX-8. Mazda dealership was closed on Monday, August 31st. I guess nobody buys cars on the Memorial Day, and so the dealership is closed. The best part was that 6 cars that were outside were actually open. I saw several people getting it and out of the new cars, while the dealership was closed. Why lock the cars, really?

At that point, I decided to buy the car another day. Ultimately, I have to wonder why with so many advances in technology, the process of selling cars continues to be so inefficient. My be it is because it depends on people.

This post was not done to trash any of the companies that were mentioned here, but rather to share my frustration and raise the question for an open discussion. These companies obviosly can’t control what is taking place at each dealership, but their reputation is taking a hit because of the poor customer service to which a lot of people are exposed. Ultimately, I still might buy one of the cars I was planning to buy on Monday, May 31, but I am likely to buy a car from another dealership.

PS:  I am not going to disclose the locations of the dealerships I visited, and the names of people who ‘tried’ to help me. The reasons for this are quite obvious.

It is a common mentality that if the employer can get by without the employee for 2 weeks, than they do not need them. What kind of crap is that? I’ve had countless colleagues tell me that they have never taken more than a week of vacation at a time. Even in a flat world, sometimes it takes 1-2 days just to get somewhere and another 2 days to come back. Do you think your life would feel a bit more exciting if you could regularly rent a condo in New Zealand for a month and take your family there? It is not about the money, in 9o% of the world you can live for a fraction of the cost of United States. It’s about time.

Recently in every store I started to see those “Live, Laugh, Love” pillows that you are supposed to buy, bring to your house, put on a coach and snooze on while watching evening news, before you get up and go to work the next day. It’s like a subtle reminder that between daily commute, a full work day, all responsibilities and ideally some time with your family and even some exercise, you have to remember to live, laugh and love. Well, guess what, living, laughing and loving works a lot better when you take your family away to for a month long vacation. These are the special moment that you’ll remember forever. We are proud to offer a 4 week vacation to employees who have been with the company for over a year.