Educational TV Can Be Entertaining

Television doesn’t have to be only about thirty minute sitcoms or sixty minute dramas or hard-to-stomach reality shows… or even news and sports. There is an entire segment of the national TV audience that enjoys programming that instructs and teaches.

I fit into that segment and, when I think about Educational TV, it is definitely not about classroom instruction. I completed my schooling and don’t want – or need – to return to a classroom. But, I still like Educational TV. It teaches while it entertains.

Want proof? Consider a network like Create TV. Its programming is 100% instructional… and 200% entertaining. I don’t watch all the shows (there are programs on knitting), but I do tune in to the ones I enjoy. There are several shows that feature truly talented chefs and shows that revolve around the skills of a landscape artist. He always completes a painting in less than thirty minutes.

Other shows “take me on trips” to places I’ve never visited in person. And when I arrive with my TV host, I get to learn a lot about the destinations – their culture… the people… the area’s history… their food and much, much more. That’s educational, but if you watch the programs they are also extremely entertaining.

Talk shows that cover political or financial topics are educational and entertaining, as well. It’s not necessary to agree with any guest on these shows (you can have your own political point of view), but when you take time you listen, you will learn – about how our government really works… about legislation… the Constitution and much, much more.

Of course, if you have youngsters at home, there are many shows available for them that are fun to watch and instructional, too. Remember Big Bird and Kermit the Frog? There is, of course, documentary programming that covers specific topics and areas of interest, often about historical events, sometimes about things that matter in today’s world.

And finally, there are quiz shows. If you have ever watched Jeopardy and tried to answer the questions (or, more correctly, tried to come up with questions for the answers) this program is the closest you will ever come to actually returning to school. It is, in fact, like taking a quiz every day… and it is also informative. Watch, listen and learn.

So… if you think TV is only about sitcoms and dramas… think again. There are many networks that are devoted to improving your mind. All you have to do is find them.

Author: Frank Bilotta

Job Costing and New Business

When planning implementations of project management software for creative companies one of the issues that comes up all the time is how to treat new business pitches. There tend to be two main types of those new business pitches: Pitches to existing clients for new jobs and pitches to potential clients for new business. The first type is relatively straight forward as the clients will be on the system, there will be old jobs for them which can be used as templates for pitches and there is a general understanding of the probability of the job to happen. Hence these jobs can just be setup like any other jobs, but maybe with a status or a job type of pitch. Estimates, time and probably costs can be recorded against them.

A totally different case are pitches of the second type. Traditionally the time and costs spent on those pitches have in many agencies been swallowed as overheads and been written off either if they were won or lost. In the latter case as the potential clients have not become actual clients, they have not been setup on any systems. This was in particular the case where an accounting system was used for the project management, as there is no point to setup a debtor if there won’t be a sales invoice.

When discussing the setup of the new job costing software with integrated accounting, managers and the finance department often plan to continue with the same procedure in their new software: Set one big new business job up for an internal new business client, record time at a zero billing value and write off any costs incurred in the pitching process. This approach seems to be both logic and easy to implement. After all you want user acceptance of the new system and don’t want to over challenge them with additional administrative tasks.

There is on the other hand a strong argument against this solution: You have just invested into a new project management software that is going to make your business more effective and hopefully increase your profit. If you now lump all the costs for new pitches into one holding job, you will not get the details out of the system about which clients it is profitable pitching for and which ones it isn’t. You may repeatedly pitch to some potential clients, where you never get the business. Creating a new job for each pitch on the other hand will later make it very easy for the agency to see where it is feasible to pitch or where it isn’t. Clients can be setup being earmarked as warm lead, or hot lead allowing to exclude any clients with no jobs from the standard accounting reports. All pitch jobs are set up with a billable rate card rather than recording time at a zero value. In case the job gets won in the future, the clients earmarking can be changed in the job administration screen.

At the end of the day, you have a project management system that sits on top of a data base. The only purpose of a data base is holding data, therefore anxiety of filling up the data base thus losing crucial management information would completely defeat the object.

Easy Local Business Online Marketing Tips

The most important principle every person should follow when building a business is the shortest: location. You build your business where the money is. Today, this means building your business online. But what if you are already an established local business? How do you integrate the power of the internet with your brick and mortar business? Answer: local business online marketing.

Why is local business online marketing important? “83% of US households use the internet as a shopping source to shop locally.” “97% of consumers use the internet to research products and services in their locality.” These two statistics are enough reasons to persuade you to employ online marketing. The next question is how can you improve your business online? Below are local business online marketing tips you can do:

Local Business Search Listings

Google Places, Yahoo! Local and Bing Local are your business’s online directories. Following simple verification steps will help people find the location of your business and how they can contact you. This should be the very first thing you should do. Also, upload photos of yourself and your business because local business search listings want users to see actual pictures of your location. People who search for your business online also want to see the pictures of your establishment too. It doesn’t have to be professional photos, but good quality ones are a good representation of your business and your attention to detail.

Reviews Are Good

Reviews are good for your business as future customers will be able to know what to expect from you. Encourage your customers to write reviews on local listing sites. Do not worry about bad reviews though. No business is perfect and having excellent, 5-star reviews all the time may send a wrong signal that you are manipulating the reviews. Of course, you don’t want to attract bad reviews as well.

Make Your Phone and Address Known Online

It is good to have a website, but make sure that you include your phone number and physical address so that future customers will be able to contact or visit you right away. Avoid online forms. Spread your number and address on all your website pages to stress that your business does in fact exist.

Always Think Like a Searcher

It is not hard to know what people want; just think of what you want. For example, you are looking for a Mexican restaurant in Houston, Texas. You will certainly search for “Mexican restaurant in Houston.” That’s what your customers will do as well. Focus on specific keywords when optimizing your site so that you drive relevant traffic and targeted customers to your business.

Go Barefoot and Live a Healthy Lifestyle

Go Barefoot and Live a Healthy Lifestyle

Picture this! One evening in early March, you go about the last few minutes before bed planning what you are going to do the next day. You have just pulled off your socks, and barefoot for the first time since the morning, you lay out next to your bed the attire you plan to wear the next day. Some hours later, that alarm on your nightstand goes off and craving those few minutes of extra sleep, you hit the snooze one or two times. Finally after battling with your subconscious, you roll out of bed. You pad over to your sink in your bare feet, and wash up, brush your teeth and proceed to get dressed for the day, putting on that jacket and tie, blouse or dress. The time seems to flash by and you realize that you’d better hit the road.

Forgot Your Shoes?

You rush out the door and while waiting for the bus or train, or waiting to receive a package at the UPS office, you casually glance around. Your eyes are drawn to the shmorgasborg of footwear that is surrounding you. A pair of running sneakers paired with ankle socks. Next to that a pair of worn out scuffed up work boots flanked by a pair of jeans. A lady wearing a pair of elegant high heel boots with stockings making her legs appear as they were dipped in a bottle of indian ink. As you shift your stance, you feel your toes bend and as soon as your heel lands softly but unimpeded on the cool pavement, you realize that something is quite not right, but at the same time, it is so right.

You finally force yourself to look down and much to your shock, that your toes are in plain view and between your bare soles and the ground exists nothing in between. Before you tell yourself to snap out of it – it is only your imagination, something brings you back to reality when the lady beside you asks matter-of-factly, “forgot your shoes?”

You look down again and tell yourself that it can’t be. But there are your toes staring back up at you. You feel the pavement underneath get colder as your foot feels the reality underneath. You lift up one foot and turn it in to notice your bare sole, now blackened from having not worn any footwear since the night before. You put your bare foot back down and look around again to realize that all those looks of those around you – some chuckles, some in shock or slight smiles – are fixed on your bare feet – quite a rare sight!Not even a pair of socks or the most minimalist footwear like flip flops – your feet in the raw! You feel like you’re having one of those nightmares where you are naked in the company of everyone around you that is clothed.

Chances are you may react by clutching the side of your head in disbelief as you utter – “OMG! I can’t believe I forgot to put on my shoes and socks! How was I barefoot this whole time?!”

You are ready to panic and dash home if you are close enough to scramble into your shoes and socks. If you are far from home already, you resign yourself to the fact you’re somewhat naked – stuck in your bare feet while you toggle through your mind looking for first excuse you can find to tell them that you’re going be late for your job or interview – any way to avoid of being seen “GASP” barefoot!

Now rest assured, chances are that since putting on footwear before leaving your home is so routine, it is highly unlikely that this will ever happen to you.

Let’s say it did, however. Another feeling comes over you. You shrug and smile at those around you as if to say, “hey, look at that. I’m barefoot on a cool winter day!” It could actually be fun and you may relish in the fact that while others are bundled up, their feet separated from the outside world in their shoes and socks, here you are experiencing full freedom by feeling the cool ground underneath your bare feet.

I know I do. Many times I’m asked if I forgot my shoes. The question tends to be irrelevant since most of the time I don’t wear shoes or socks at all.

Sometimes the answer is yes – since I’m so used to having absolutely nothing on my feet, those seldom occasions where I feel that footwear might make a favorable first impression, I’ll end up anyway forgetting to bring along my footwear and end up coming to my appointments or meetings barefoot.

But rather than panicking, I end up being thrilled as I look forward to another day of living a healthy lifestyle in my naturally reliable bare feet and go forward with what I was planning to do for the day.

Barefoot as a Healthy Lifestyle

Guys, how many of you enjoy that feeling of getting home after a long day of work, and kicking off your shoes and peeling off those socks? And ladies in those uncomfortable heels, how great a relief is it to relieve your feet of that constraining feeling as well as peeling off those hose! As soon as your feet are breathing and your bare soles hit the floor or carpet, you feel like a new person, right?

Now how about those days when you go to the park or at the beach, you rush to be the first one to ditch your footwear and feel the cool grass under your soles or ocean waves brushing between your toes! Invigorating, right?

Now, just imagine experiencing that relief for an entire day. Your heels, arches, and toes are able happily stretch and breath without the constraints of anything on them. No waiting til you get home to bring your feet back to their natural state – bare – after almost ten nonstop hours in the office, or running around. Just imagine that feeling for an entire day. If you can imagine that, imagine being in that blissful state for multiple days at a time?

If you haven’t imagined it, no need to worry, I don’t imagine it either since, to begin with I almost never wear any kind of footwear. So rather than using my imagination, I get to live the experience of allowing my bare soles be in contact with every surface uninteruppted 24/7 and live the barefoot healthy lifestyle!

Living A Barefoot Healthy Lifestyle

Many people are realizing the health benefits of going barefoot. There are many articles written, and several health and wellness specialists are highly recommending it.

However, although there is a wealth of resources pertaining to the health benefits of bare feet, it seems that most of Western society looks at it as a something unsanitary, uncivilized and unprofessional while the most fashionable shoes, however uncomfortable and constraining they may be for your feet are seen as sophisticated and fashionable.

For the person who is educated about the benefits of going barefoot and conscious having healthy feet, unless he lives in a barefoot society, this can actually cost him his livelihood and social life. and it is for this reason that I created this site and named it the Barefoot Healthy Lifestyle.

The Barefoot Healthy Lifestyle is more than just about the joys of going barefoot. In this site I provide ideas and examples about how to implement your lifestyle choice. Your lifestyle choice consists of three components:

Health – as this site will show you through the careful research of articles and cases, the health benefits of going barefoot far outweigh the benefits of shoes. You will have the knowledge to present to anyone that challenges your lifestyle.

Wealth – This is a key determining factor about making your lifestyle choice. We all need to put food on the table, pay our bills and support ourselves and our families. But the question is do we need to sacrifice the things we are most passionate about? This will not bring happiness or even wealth. Wealth is not necessarily about having a ton of money and material possessions. Rather it is about having the freedom of choice how you want to live.

Does your work mainly get you by on your daily expenses or are you able to decide on the choice of the lifestyle you want to live.

Since I made the choice to be barefoot every minute of the day, I ruled out the option of a corporate 9-5 job carefully researching my other options and finding many that earn way more income than the 9-5 life.

In other sections in this site I will delve further about how you can earn a substantial income without having to compromise your lifestyle. If fact after you’ve gone through this site you will have the ability to earn more than the nine to five employee forced to comply with the office dress code

Freedom – Freedom is having the ability to live a lifestyle you want, deal with who you want, where you want and when you want. In living a life based on wages rather then profit, this is next to impossible.

Since freeing my feet and living a healthier lifestyle my goal is to help like-minded people achieve the same goals while accumulating wealth so you will never have to comply with someone else’s rules and thus attain the freedom to maintain the lifestyle of your choice!

The Barefoot Healthy Lifestyle promotes the pleasure of being barefoot any time and any place you choose. You will learn and teach others how they can live a not only a healthier more prosperous lifestyle – and of their choice!

So kick off your shoes, take off your socks, flex those bare feet, wiggle your toes, and experience the joys of the Barefoot Healthy Lifestyle!

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