Book Review - Outliers: The Story of Success
by Dr. Farid A. Muna
Outliers: The Story of Success
By Malcolm Gladwell Little, Brown and Company, November 2008.
Malcolm Gladwell is the detonation point and the flash of best-selling author. His latest book, solitude, has the New York Times best-selling books for 8 months, were included in the list, because it is published in November 2008. Gladwell's appeal and news writing style and simplify complex issues, his talent, I believe, he is the secret of success. And these are the reason his book is controversial and popular. His latest book is no exception.
Outlier trying to explain the secret of successful people, it recommended that intelligence (IQ) alone is not success in life assurance. However, this view is an already well-known fact has been established in the early 1990s a host of academic research found that success is indeed the need for additional capacity, emotional intelligence (EI) of the well-known. Unfortunately, Gladwell did not elaborate, or even refer to, in accordance with love growing body of literature.
Instead, Gladwell focuses on several other significant and equally important ingredients of success. In fact, his book naturally complements the EI studies and explains the “secrets” of success from a different perspective: by taking into account the personal, environmental, and cultural contexts of success.
In this book review, I will highlight the main secrets of success covered by Outliers starting with the advantage (or luck) of being born at the right time of the year. One example Gladwell highlights is that of Canadian hockey players and Czech soccer and hockey players who are born during the first six months of a year and have a distinct advantage of age and maturity over their teammates. This is due to the eligibility cutoff age of January 1 in those countries. As Gladwell explains, “A boy who turns ten on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn’t turn ten until the end of the year – and at that age, in preadolescence, a twelve-month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical maturity”.
What is the birth of the year? Also explains the impact of being there at the right time, at the right age. Gladwell cites the Silicon Valley tycoons, which were 1953 to 1956 and thus the ideal age born in 1975 to take the advantage of the personal computer revolution. Here are the names and year of birth of some of these successful men: Paul Allen (1953), Bill Joy (1954), Scott McNealy (1954), Steve Jobs (1955), Eric Schmidt (1955), Bill Gates (1955) and Steve Ballmer (1956). Gladwell introduces later that lawyers in New York, was born in the early 1930s, also had a huge advantage when the boom in the number and size of mergers, hostile takeovers and litigation took place in the 1970s, mainly due to the relaxation of state provisions.
Gladwell suggestion is that "10,000 hours of effort and practice rules which may explain why many people have achieved their success." He has provided Bill Joy's contribution to the UNIX, Java and the Internet example, the composition of Mozart's masterpiece, he was in 2001, although he began to write in the 6-year-old music, the Beatles and their Hamburg 8 hours of music to experience one day, 7 days a week from 1960 to 1962, and Bill Gates, who put a computer in the age of 13, thousands of hours of programming. Is not only smart, these people have achieved from 1.0 million hours of practice, first, become what they have done remarkable achievement.
Two other “secrets” are discussed at length in Outliers: culture and education. Gladwell compares the safety record of airliners in the 1990s, and notes that the Colombian captains (Avianca) and Korean captains (Korean Air) in certain cases could have averted plane crashes if their cultures permitted subordinates (copilots and flight engineers) to speak out and warn the captains of impending disasters. These two cultures place a high value on power distance, meaning that subordinates defer to their superiors even when these superiors may in fact be in the wrong. In brief, subordinates were reluctant to speak out because of fear and/or respect; a very dangerous cultural “dimension” when one is flying a passenger plane! In effect, Gladwell argues that it does matter where you were born and what culture you were raised in.
Citing culture again, Gladwell attributes the high scores on mathematics tests in countries such as China, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan to the strong work ethics and the demanding nature in those countries of the all important wet-rice agriculture. Here again, Gladwell fails to mention that rice is also grown in other countries, such as Philippines and Indonesia, whose populations are not necessarily known for high scores on math tests. Gladwell also does not mention the Protestant ethics of hard work which may have contributed to the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution, or the fact that growing tobacco used to be as demanding as working in the rice paddies.
Finally, Gladwell links the quality of education to success. He cites the longer days and hours of high schools in Japan and South Korea, “the school year in the United States is, on average, 180 days long. The South Korean school year is 220 days long. The Japanese school year is 243 days long”. Finally, Gladwell mentions the vast advantages and opportunities provided by KIPP Academy middle schools which were started in the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. Students at KIPP excel at mathematics and reading, and a large percentage of them go on to university and “in many cases being the first in their family to do so”. KIPP school days start at seven twenty-five and goes on until five p.m. All students take classes in thinking skills, English, science, mathematics, social science, music and orchestra. KIPP gives its students a chance to work very hard and to excel.
Although it is written with a journalistic, rather than academic approach, Outliers has undoubtedly contributed to the ongoing thinking about success in the corporate world. It highlights the importance of hard work, determination, opportunity and luck, family upbringing, personal circumstances, and culture.
Despite its shortcomings, mainly its lack of academic rigor, Outliers is a highly recommended book for those who want to explore the “secrets” of success, beyond IQ and EI.
Avoid Being A Dot-bomb
There is very little difference between a dot com success and a dot-bomb is a mixture of several elements taught in grade 9 business courses.Most of the reasons e-commerce businesses fail are amazingly obvious, and commonly overlooked. Of course, hindsight is 20/20.
The first step, and the defining factor for many businesses is, how do we define "e-commerce success"?
There are some common answers:
- The website needs to make a profit
- The business needs to meet the owner's income - passive income - goals
- Who will pay for the product or service?
- Why didn't the visitor buy the product or service from another website?
The last two factors are vital to any e-commerce business success.Not everyone who visits a website want to buy the product.However, thousands of people who never find the website want to buy the product.The key is to find out how those people search the web, what forums they participate in, what newsletters they belong to, where they have their 'private space', and how can you meet their needs.
Customer Service
The #1 reason why e-commerce businesses fail is because the business owner believes that customer service is not important in an ecommerce business. Nothing is farther from the truth.
Online customers have a choice. They can buy a product from the guy in their forum or who visits their myspace site, or they can buy from a perfect stranger who cannot be contacted.
Customer service in the www world is built on communication.Free chats, answering questions in forums, holding workshops, free information in blogs, newsletters, and even teleconferences are just some of the ways that people come in contact with the web owner.
There is an unwritten rule that 'there are no returns on the net.' That is why communication is so important.Most e-commerce businesses are not about the product, the information, the or the service.It is about the relationship between the business owner and the customer.
That is why sites like www.myspace.com, www.youtube.com ,www.communati.com and other large communities are so successful.
Image
Image is part of the customer service.The image shouldn't be condescending or 'I have it all and you need to buy it.'Instead, it should be 'I figured this out and I'll share my information with you.'
The site must be designed to look and function with the professional edge. That is why many e-commerce sites are building their own Web site mambo.com or Joomla.com platform, using professional templates. There are other content management systems to help owners manage their web content, forums, blog and chat rooms, but these are two of the most popular and most suitable for beginners.
Target Audience
Most Dot Com utilised the latest technology,built the best websites, and forgot to tell their target audience how to use the site.All sites should have several navigation paths that let users find their way around.
They should also include a FAQ with basic and advanced questions.A full time business could also employ a live chat, or a video tutorial that will help users learn how to use the site.Always include a site map that has direct links to important pages in the site.
The next element should be 'instant' samples. This doesn't need to be a part of the product, but it can be power point presentations.In fact, one strong sale's tool is a MS movie maker slide show of the content in an article, or a power point presentation. This gives extra 'value.'Also, the audio features make it possible to add streaming audio/podcasts to the website adding extra value for the visitor.
However, do not use the function, some people disagree. An obvious example, the network functions, limiting the user is a JavaScript and Macromedia Flash. Equally important is to ensure that in IE and Firefox web site works. Of the world most people do not use IE browser, but the use of Firefox.
Payment Gateway
The next factor that needs to be addressed is the payment gateway. Most people are entering their credit card information, fear in a site. Therefore www.paypal.com and eBay store are so popular. The webmaster can assure their customers that their information secure and protect their money.
This is another way that an ecommerce business can put their customer's needs first, and improve customer service, while improving their chances of success.
Customer Power
Ignore the customer's number-one way loose future sales. Customers are the most powerful marketing tools. Good customer label's website Technorati and Digg. They talk about them on their blog. They suggested that the most popular sites and services, while chatting with their friends. A satisfied customer will be by word of mouth 10 times faster, and farther than the 10 000-per-click advertising dollars pay.
Learn how to master the skills of web-based customer service. Learn how to make your customers think that only your reason for running a business is to solve their problems. Finally, learn to become part of community websites, and protect your business from becoming another dot-bomb.
8 Top Strategies For Affiliate Marketing Success
When it comes to ensuring success in your affiliate marketing campaign a good set of strategies always comes to rescue you. Here are some fool proof strategies to adopt.
1. Use Pop-under Adverts on Your Sales Page Instead of Popups
One of the mistakes affiliate marketers who sell products online do is that they use popups for capturing visitor's personal information or to advertise another program, offer, etc. Popups are annoying since they distract the visitor's attention. This can mostly annoy customers and they could easily close the browser's window before it even loads. Moreover, pop-ups are blocked by many browsers today, so they are not seen by your visitors... Hence, the best method is to use pop-under ads that continue to load up across the background. This method is not so intrusive and much more effective than pop-ups. The results show that pop-unders or pop-ins receive much higher response rate than old fashioned pop-ups. By utilizing the pop-unders correctly, you can easily build a mailing list, collect customer's information and get much more contacts of potential customers and this way earn much more commissions in the overall process.
2. Cloak Your Affiliate Link
Customers have become smart enough these days to know the difference between a regular link and an affiliate link. All they need to do is to hover the mouse over the link and the target link is displayed on the status bar. This way they can easily replace your affiliate id with their own and get the commission for buying the product themselves. If you want to direct customers to your promoted product's sales page successfully without them knowing it is an affiliate link make sure to cloak the URL. You can use a variety of cloaking methods and direct users to a new window that has your merchant site. This way, customers will not move away from your affiliate site and you get more commissions. There are some free cloaking services online, however, make sure to check them out if your affiliate link works properly when you cloak and that your (affiliate's) name is shown on the product's order checkout form since some link cloakers distracts an affiliate link and you might not receive a commission. When you find a good link cloaking method, always cloak your affiliate links to protect affiliate commissions.
3. Consider Using Hover Ads
Instead of the age old pop up adverts which tend to flood a user's screen it is a good idea to look at using hover ads. These occupy the existing page in a corner and leverage JavaScript and HTML resulting in what is called DHTML. You can use these for your opt-in subscriptions, testimonials, specific company news or information, announcement of new services and products etc. Most of the time, hover ads have a larger success ratio than conventional pop up ads.
4. Use Simple Banners Instead of Flash
Many people think that affiliate marketing only attracts more customers with eye-catching banners and commissions. However, that the exact opposite of what really happened. If you have a flash based banner it will take much longer than a normal banner to load. This means that the customer's browser is up to the rest of the page will be loaded and only the banner should be taken. This is bad news if you want your banner you market your products for you! Moreover, if you run your own affiliate program and offer banners for partners to choose and use to promote your product, make sure they are well designed, but at the same time is not much space on your hard drive. Offer many different sized banners, so that your partner could choose what they want.
5. Use Informational, Textual Ad Links
Instead of highly promotional advert links use the more sober textual based ones. These are more informational and value-driven and also tell your customer why your product and website is so great for them. Customers will be more likely to click on such links and thus you stand to gain more commissions.
6. Reviews Can Work Wonders
If you have affiliate marketing business at some point, of course you know that in the review of great value. Through written examination, which is neutral, but the publicity of your product type, your advantage is to make education interested in buying your product customers. Customers will be affected, are more likely to make you buy more commission. In order to increase your product sales even more, just to your blog or website niche products, some paid reviews. Comments not only make your product more exposure, website visitors and customers, but also increase your product and brand awareness throughout the Internet. This is a clear way to increase sales.
7. Use Article Marketing and Link to Your Product's Review to Get Customers
If you are using the article marketing techniques you can set up a web site review of the product being promoted through articles. In this way, the user can read more information about the product, and further interest in buying the product. Review of the product to your part of the tourist-driven you are interested in, when they read your review of the product even more to have the opportunity to be much higher, they would consider buying.
8. Protect Your Affiliate Commissions
There are many stealware software now that I look for supplies and steal from unsuspecting affiliate marketers. You can use software designed specifically to prevent such activity and combine it with link cloaking methods to prevent such fraud.
Software Engineering—a Great Way to Engineer Success
If you want to be involved in the process of improving the reliability and maintainability of software systems, a career in computer software engineering may be right for you. Software engineering includes knowledge of tools and methods for software design, construction, testing and maintenance. Becoming a software engineer is a great career choice because of the constant flow of available career paths, job openings and outlook for the future.
You may be a very suitable for software engineering career, if one or more of the following describe you or your background:
- A keen interest in the related areas of computer science, computer engineering, technical project management, mathematics, software ergonomics and systems engineering.
- Managed code and interpreted platforms such as Java, .NET, Ruby and PHP are applications you have experience and/or interest in.
- Desire to enter into a relatively young, progressive discipline that is still developing, especially in aspects, agile software development, experimental software engineering, model-driven software development, and software product lines.
If you decide you want to become a computer software engineer and you are seeking an idea of what you focus within computer software engineering, you can start your training towards a software engineer.
The latest technology to select the Institute can be combined with a focus on real-world challenges and applications in the classroom training. Since when in a state of constant and progressive software engineering, ITT Technical Institute, the educational leader, you may want to look at the definition of the boundaries and content of software engineering.
ITT Tech offers training classes to become an engineer computer software and online courses in engineering of computer software that help you to balance your education and personal life.
Whether you are in the lab and will receive the same credit, the online software engineering course in the real world of technology is provided in the ITT, the answer is
Whether you get your entire offer training for software engineers by attending a class at ITT Tech or supplemented by online courses of the Institute, shall elect, you will be heard on your way to a successful career in a growing area that, again and again as one of the best areas in America.
Website Design: Critical Factor for a Web Business Success
Has started focusing on big companies to design another website. But can anyone have an effective website. Website design, the future of your business is very new query and assets can be brought to light to generate sales of your business
A website can be a promotional advertisement or it can be a source of knowledge. In order to have an effective website, you will have to create an effective layout design immaterial what topic your website is about. Website designing can be done on various platforms such as java script, .net etc. For more information logon to www.instant-squeeze-page-mastery.com .Various other languages used in web design are HTML, XML, CSS, and DHTML. With new plug-ins and latest technologies you can also add graphics, images and videos, some of the web design are such that the web pages don't require additional plug-ins.
There is a very effective layout, content, images and easy navigation of the site design will ensure that your site visitors can easily read your site's content, but the information obtained would be useful to them, and they will return to your site .
1. Layout - You website should have a layout that is attractive and understandable for website visitors.
2. Content - after only content is not enough. The content on your site should be informative and useful to website visitors.
Three. Graphic - should be taken about using graphics in your site appropriate care. Distance to connect to the website to keep visitors on the Internet too slow for most graphics to your website.
4. Easy and quick navigation - Give your website visitors quick and easy access to your website pages.
Website Designing Company
A web design company offers various services and facilities for building your own site. It offers your company a full circle approach in website development. The website design includes intelligent design your website match your business strategies, innovative application development and comprehensive support, care and time to time, redesigning your website. For more information log on to www.master-web-graphics.com. A web design company makes your website by understanding your business, business objectives and other peripherals. He considers, first, for what purpose you need a website. It is the first step in the planning process. Setting goals will help your site in pursuing the path of progress and decide your site is success.
Provide information about your work on your business and your Web site content or text. This section is the importance of a strong website, this is, Web Design, which together with you hand in hand with the complex people. So, the good and useful Web design company, you may benefit from the commercial venture creation and management services to high-quality content.
With the growing awareness of the content is the key, more and more companies begin to pay more attention to web content. Web site owners and operators started to take on its Web site's content more in-depth study. Content is completely gone for the search engine rankings for days. What is important now is that the content of the site not only for search engines and site visitors compelling optimization, need an effective support for the content of the site design of the preparation of a more complex approach.
8 Home Business Success Tips - Set Up your Business for Success
Do you want to have a successful start to the Home Based Business? I am not sure, and I'm assuming you want to do the equivalent for you. Now, setting up your office the right way, makes a big difference in your business success result. It may or may not agree, but it has an impact in my experience, and many others I have spoken with.
For example, talking with a prospect and will be your partner to talk with them, but you have 3-way calling system to install your phone. Guess what, now you are going to lose a few invaluable training because you will not hear that business partner treats your prospects questions.
8 Tips for Setting up Your Home Based Business for Success
1. A great phone plan is essential to your success, so make sure you have the following:
* UNLIMITED Long Distance
* 3-Way Calling
* Caller ID
* Call Waiting
* Voice Mail
* Call Forwarding
* Anonymous Call Rejection
* Call Return
* Repeat Dialing
2. You must have a calendar
Your calendar is the backbone of your office. Without it, nothing moves forward. You can select an online calendar like Google or Yahoo or Outlook, or you can book an appointment from your local shop to buy office supplies.
3. Your computer software tools:
* High Speed Internet Access
* Adobe Acrobat 8: Free download - http://www.adobe.com/
* Flash Player plug-in: Free download - http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
* Internet Explorer: Free download - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp (Internet Explorer 6 is sufficient)
* JavaScript: Free download - http://www.java.com/
* Email Software - You may want to use Outlook or Outlook Express for your business email. Most other people use one of these, so it will keep uniformity in your business organization.
4. A good filing system
I do this, stay organized and efficiently support the work is very important. So very organized, I personally recommend that you personalize the name of your folders in a way makes sense to you.
Here are some examples of folders you will need:
* Your "Main Business" Folder
* Sample Business Emails
* Training Material
* Advertising
* Announcements and Promotions
* Faxes
* Leads
* Tax records and payment receipts
5. Email signatures
Your signature is a closed, your name, contact details are (website, e-mail address is and phone number) and a quote or favorite expression is optional. (always aware if you with an offer to hold the message for an appropriate business environment)
Your signature can be a powerful advertising method, use it wisely.
6. Staying connected: Instant Messenger Service
Instant Messenger services allow you to communicate with your online contacts, get your questions answered and leverage your time because your phone line will be open for incoming calls from prospects.
Be sure to get the instant messenger ID of your mentors and business partners so you can always be in touch!
Yahoo Instant Messenger: http://www.messenger.yahoo.com
MSN Instant Messenger: http://www.msn.com
AOL Instant messenger: http://www.aim.com
Skype: http://www.skype.com/
7. Shopping for office supplies
You will need:
* Large 3-Ring Binder with Tab Dividers
* Plastic Sheet Protectors
* Calendar
* Pens and Pencils
* Paper (printer paper and writing pads for taking notes)
* Correction Fluid
* Manila folders
* Plastic organizer to hold pens, paper clips, sticky notes, etc.
* Post it Notes
* Paper Clips
* Stapler
* 3-Hole Punch
* Filing Cabinet
8. Creating the mood - your office environment:
Your office should buzz with positive energy. Get motivated by the publication of your goals and the reasons
Decorate your office, then to reflect your taste and individuality. Tempo climate creates an incentive to do the best you can. Since you work for your environment, and photos, for you, what will be created with this scenario, you need to promote peace and exciting atmosphere yet.
One of the biggest perks of working at home is having the freedom to personalize your workspace, so be creative in setting up the ideal work environment.
Which we have already introduced to help you in your business successful start eight simple tips. Follow these tips, you will be able to expand your business and maintain your business flow. You will be more focus on building your business is your goal, is not it? I hope you the best in your business plan.
Why Hire a Website Designing Company?
A website can be a promotional advertisement or it can be a source of knowledge. The way your business image is portrayed spells success for any business. Rather than looking amateurish, though, a website design and hosting company will create professional graphics and components for your website. To start a website, you can either do it yourself or you can utilize the services of a website design and hosting company. For whatever purposes you want to use your new website for, a website design and hosting company can fulfill all your needs. A custom website design will display and define your business image in a professional sophisticated manner. Website design should be innovative on par with the latest design techniques. The success of any business's online and offline branding, communications and marketing strategy will be achieved by having a unique customized website design you can visit www.web-audios-plus.com
A custom website is the perfect solution for business organizations that have a unique design in mind. To make your site stand out from the crowd, you should ensure that your website design is different in style
Various other languages used in web design are HTML, XML, CSS, and DHTML. Below are some useful tips to create effective and use-friendly web design: Planning - First plan about the whole process. Decide what you want, what type of website you want, how to do, it, what tools are to be used etc. Website design software - Use some of the web design software to make the best website design. Simple Layout - Simple layout will help you in many ways. It will help you to maintain the website, do nay correction, Quality Content - Good quality content is crucial. The main attraction for your website will be the quality content in the web site. User interaction - Provide some user interaction to make it the best website design. User interaction in the form of buttons, forms, text boxes, drop down boxes are necessary in best website designing. Other Considerations - The company logo design should boost your credibility and image in the internet market. Synchronization of website design on par with company profile.
iPhone Application Development – Growing Bigger and Popular with Every Passing Day
If Apple does something, he does it with style. Whether the trend-setting iPhone iPod or revolutionary, we have finally again some niche products in this gadget, Calif.-based manufacturer. Not to mention about the MacBook that all success has swept through its advanced features.
Coming to the iPhone, it’s one of the most feature-rich communication-cum-entertainment devices the world has ever seen. It works as both a mobile phone and a multimedia machine. The USP of the device is its superior connectivity features through advanced 3G technology. Rest of the features are also highly engaging and sophisticated. The iPhone is a third party software enabled device. So, one can easily load applications of his/her choice without any hassles. A number of iPhone mobile application development firms have also shown their rise due to the massive success of this wonder Apple gadget. Professing expertise in iPhone open application development and excellent software development credentials, these experts come in horde and have unquestionably jazzed up the domain of iPhone application development .
Software development companies as the focus is now one of the areas open iPhone application development. With the growing popularity of the iPhone every day, Apple brining to enter the market with the new version, developers actively carry out the representative role. They bring from all versions support different applications. In addition, they developed a specific version of the application. IPhone the most popular application of mobile phone use around the world these days, including business applications, entertainment applications, converter applications, meteorological applications and games applications
By installing applications, you can always let your iPhone do more for you. As the software development world has seen massive growth in terms of technology, developers are now using SDK (software development kit) for easy application development procedures and results have been just fascinating. Innovative add-ons and plug-ins, iPhone content development, software upgrades and enhancements, DHTML, AJAX and CSS technologies, integration of inbuilt features with OS architecture – in every aspect, developers are playing significant roles.So, if you have an iPhone and you are exploring only those features that come loaded with the device, insist on applications developed by iPhone mobile application development companies. Surely, you would be able to perform more, that too, in style, with panache!