Sony announced the recall of 8 different models of Digital Cameras from its Cyber-shot lineup last week during the Thanksgiving holiday, actually on Black Friday the day that many US consumers line up at the doors of retailers across the country to get spectacular discounts and promotions on goods for holiday presents.

This is the second major recall of Sony Digital cameras in just over a year and yet another major recall of Sony products in 2006.  Sony’s brand image has suffered greatly after the recall of close to 10 million laptop batteries after an initial Apple laptop recall of Sony batteries quickly spread as an internet video circulated showing a Dell computer burn up at a conference and then later as an IBM laptop caught fire and by some accounts blew up at LAX.

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Ebates is a unique online service that provides consumers with an interesting method of reaping additional rebates.  In the online world many websites receive part of their funding by referring visitors to a shopping site.  The visitor that is referred may purchase something from that site and upon the purchase if the retail site can identify the referring source through cookies, they may pay an affiliate commission to the website.

With this well established business process in mind, Ebates has established a system where they provide coupons to their members.  When those members shop, they login to the Ebates portal and they make their purchases through Ebates’ affiliate links.

Ebates then provides a portion of the commission that they receive on the sale to the consumer in the form of an after the fact payment like a Rebate.  Consumers can obtain sizable discounts in this manner from many well known and recognized retailers across the internet.  Membership in Ebates does require the establishment of an account and the installation of software which works to track you purchase through the Ebate system such that the commission can be verified and paid to you accurately.

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The Wall Street Journal covered an interesting topic today.  It was the concept of interviewees going into situations with prospective employers and providing a great idea or even drafting some sample work or projects, which the company later uses without hiring the interviewee or paying them for their efforts.

In the modern information age, this is a growing problem and one that is readily solved. 

About a half dozen years ago, I sat down in job interview with BankOne(at the time) and outlined a strategy to merge and Acquire Wachovia’s Credit Card Division.  BankOne made me a job offer, but the offer was extremely low and I literally couldn’t afford to remain financially solvent (even with my BankOne debt) if I accepted the job offer.

BankOne later went on to acquire Wachovia’s Credit Card Division and I took a job for a different company.  I of course received nothing for my strategy and did not even receive the opportunity to follow up on the idea and be a part of the team that put the deal together.

I would not have to worry about that same problem today if I properly harness the power of the internet.  In today’s world it is easy enough to provide your information and offer your services or knowledge to the highest bidder online.  Anyone foolish enough to give away their services or knowledge in an interview will be rewarded with the compensation of not receiving the position. 

Many companies act and move from a position of strength during interviews taking information, ideas and concepts and freely applying them long after the interviewee has left the building and often times without a follow up email or phone call.  Interviewees need to wise up and take some simple steps to benefit from what they know.

1. Copyright your plan
2. Don’t give away the crucial elements until you have a contract
3. If examples are required, give historical examples
4. Draft up concepts and publish them online without providing the crucial components and then await contract offers to get the final goods.
5. Sell the information to a companies competitors.  If a company is not bright enough to seize a valuable asset up front, there’s a good chance that their competitor might!

Bottom Line

The job market is highly fluid these days.  Unemployment is still extremely low by historical standards and knowledge can be provided for a premium as long as you don’t short change yourself and give it away for free.  Protect the brand and product that is you and the services you can provide, don’t let a company wheedle down your value by providing a free sample.  You are not a food product to be tasted and passed around in a Sam’s Club!

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Have you been thinking about jazzing up your Icon list in MindManager?

IconGalore provides a number of great XP Style Icons ready made for MindManager and many other applications. Professional XP Style Icons like the ones below, can quickly be added to you MindManager Pro 6 Library of Icons giving you greater categorization and filtering powers right away.

How to Add Icons to MindManager Library?

Simply navigate to the library folder on your system. If you are running XP Pro this will likely be found at an address similar to the following:

C:\Documents and Settings\your_unique_user_name\Local Settings\Application Data\Mindjet\MindManager\6\Library\ENU\Icons

Simply paste the Icons with the .ico extension in this folder, then go to your library in MindManager, select the Map Marker Icons button and right click anywhere in between the existing icons, and select ‘Refresh’ from the drop down menu that appears!

You can get up and running with some great new icons fast!

IconGalore offers a number of free icons for download. They have some great icons for purchase covering a number of useful topics from Accounting Software to network Database Icons and if you would like they will also create custom Icons upon request!

MindManager is offering an icon pack as a promo with new sales, but for all the existing MindManager Users out there this is a nice way to jazz things up and get a fresh feel out of the user experience.

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Identify Improvements in Progress

• Testing the benefits of Message Boards to Help Cancer Patients get Medical advice from Nurses

Why is the owner making the changes

• University of Pittsburgh is studying the benefits of 24/7 access for patients of fighting cancer.

What is the expected impact of the Change

• Patients get 24/7 access for questions
• Patients can ask questions that don’t come up during Chemotherapy sessions when they aren’t physically up to having conversations.
• Wealth of Knowledge can be made available and the community can benefit from the questions asked by other patients

Is the improvement on Target or a mis-direction

• The Improvement is an excellent use of technology and helps connect patients with medical support and a community focused on fighting the same problem, Cancer.

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