Have you ever heard how great communication is the pathway to success? Well, one advantage of the online world is that there are a number of tools that can help companies and consultants manage their interactions with each other, with clients and with other third parties. One such platform is Mavenlink, an online cooperative workspace provided as a hosted service which can be accessed just anywhere. Mavenlink is designed to help you through the complete lifecycle of your projects, from lead generation, all the way to providing invoicing capabilities and showing off you completed projects to potential clients.

The website is free to try for 30 days, so you don’t even need a credit card to check it out. After that there are 3 different tiers of service you can opt for. There’s a free service that lets you create 1 project. You can invite unlimited participants, but not have another project. The top tier costs $39 per month lets you have unlimited projects and 5 users on the system. Which package you go for depends on what volume of work you intend to use it for.

If all this sounds like it might interest you, go ahead and check out Mavenlink. It might change the way you work and deal with your clients.

I’ve just been reading about the 2010 Homebuyer Tax Credits system in the US, which is very different from what I’m used to this side of the pond. It’s quite interesting to see how different taxation systems work and how different incentives are designed by the powers that be. Here’s a video what can help explain what the Tax Credit is all about:

So, here are some highlights of the Tax Credit system:

• If you’re buying your first house, or haven’t owned one in the last three years, you can receive up to an $8,000 tax credit.
• If you have lived in the same home for 5 of the past 8 years can receive up to a $6,500 tax credit if you decide to buy a new house.
• For this extension, income limits are now $125,000 for singles, $225,000 for married couples with a $20,000 phase-out of the credit for both.

It’s interesting to see how the incentive is designed, the main reason being to stimulate the housing market and try and recovered from the current downturn. The thing about downturn is that it’s very much based on people’s perception, so something like this can have a positive effect by making the market start to regenerate. It’s all cyclical and one the ball gets rolling, things will start improving.

We had some travel disruption recently and I came up first hand against the EU Directive regulating passenger rights. It’s interesting to note that the Directive not only protects passengers, but it also helps even the playing field between different airlines. Budget airlines reduce their cost by removing the service element from their offering, but the EU Directive provides a baseline of service that helps even out the playing field between the companies. I doesn’t matter if we’re talking airlines or rv towing companies, competition is usually a good thing, but not at the expensive of discriminating or ill-treating customers. And that’s what the EU Regulation 261/2004 provide for.

Interesting area which I never really looked into much. I’ll blog more when I learn more about it.

Well, it’s our second day at Disneyland Paris and it’s been a bit of an eye opener for me. I’ve never been to any of their resorts before, but the people I know who have been come back raving about what a great time they had. And I can see why. Our hotel stay so far has been impeccable, the entertainment spot-on, with a pass to get into the park from 8:00am all the way to a fabulous parade complete with fireworks at 11:00pm, there’s no time in the day that you’re left feeling you’d rather be somewhere else. All the shows, parades and everything we’ve experienced has been choreographed and rehearsed and was executed flawlessly. If someone was marketing a weight loss supplement with the same amount of passion, zeal and expertise; well, they’d have cornered the market by now. Granted, they do have the economies of scale to make it worth it, but it does make all other shows we’ve seen elsewhere feel amateurishly thrown together.

The great thing is that as a parent, I’m gauging the success of this trip upon how much fun my three year old is having, and well, it’s like all his dreams have come true at the moment. There can be no higher praise than that I guess. I might spend some time reading about Disney’s forays into theme parks and how it’s been going for them. Anyone have any pointers?

Now, here’s one big difference from traditional companies. Companies have always needed to evolve to cater for changing demands and to remain current with the times. Take IBM for example, they started out as a company that produced punched card readers, evolved into one of the biggest computer manufacturers in the world, and today are a force in the consultancy market. They would benowhere today if they stuck to selling punched card readers. Example of this abound, from the company that produced weight loss products who is now in the nutrition market; from the company that used to sell surplus goods in a market stall who is now one of the biggest retail forces in the UK; you can see this evolution happen over and again.

But traditionally that evolution was driven from within; the directors of the company were influenced by their employees about a change in direction and they backed it up. Twitter’s evolution is different. The evolution is being driven by people all around the globe, with developers building add-on services, users requesting features and industry peers correcting perceived flaws. I personally think that change driven by your users is the best way forward; community-driven improvements I guess you could call them.

I blame the demise on a 2 factor theory. The biggest problem in my eyes was the attempt to cram everything under one roof. Consumers nowadays are much more picky and prefer going to a specialist to ensure quality in their purchase. This has let to Woolworth’s market share being eroded by a multitude of specialist stores which have a more defined identity and segmentation strategy. The other factor, obviously, was the economic climate; credit is harder to achieve and the pre-Xmas pressure was just too much.

It’s the end of an era for the UK High Street, but how many will mourn Woolworth’s demise?

Take Stratavia for example, a company that provides a data center automation offering. Their website offers a cohesive message around what the company does and reinforces that by promoting different ideas to improve credibility; a list of awards they have achieved, different news and quotes from their customer. All this helps sustain the image they are trying to project and strengthens their online presence.

It always pays to check your facts; because of a slight difference in spelling I almost ended up talking about chocolates instead of mortgages!

Anyway, Fannie May had a great history, being in the business of making chocolates since the 1920s. They were one of the few companies who managed to survive through World War II making their chocolates to the same recipes they always had, even though their raw ingredients weren’t so freely available. That’s a pretty great story and a great heritage for the company. Today they are owned by 1-800-flowers, so I expect they do quite a bit of business by mail order.

Interesting profile I thought. Has anyone out there tried their chocolates? If so, leave us a comment and tell us what they’re like.