liveoak’s blog

Doing More with Less

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:43:39 -0700

I found this site while researching for calendar options to manage events. As a certified LEAN practicioner in the manufacturing industry, it is not uncommon for me (and all LEAN freaks) to always be looking for waste in a situation, activity or manufacturing process. While currently learning the shipbuilding industry and project management methodologies, I am seeing areas where there is excessive waste. (Have you ever heard of the 7 deadly wastes?) One observation is that a project manager over a very large ship construction project cannot be in 27 different locations at the same time, while giving direction to supervisors on 2 shifts. There is a better way.

www.zoho.com is a services based WEB 2.0 website that has more than 20 applications. I am intrigued with the Project Management section. We are using a commercial professional program to manage the 4 projects that make up the one large scheule for this ship we ar building, but day to day details are managed by fire drill. Using a program like ZOHO would give our leaders the ability to communicate and manage the entire team, uuing the same methods we use to manage construction. Tasks, Milestones, Document Sharing, Forums, Milestones, Calendar (my favorite), Time Tracking, and gantt charts are included in this package.

I can see this as a valuable tool to eliminate the fire drills I am seeing every day-lost information, missed deadlines, people left out of the loop, people not notified of upcoming material needs, waiting, waiting, waiting, etc.

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Polling with Poll Authority

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:16:13 -0700

Many web sites use polls for internal marketing purposes, trends, demographic information, etc.. Some polls are entertainment, some polls are used for future direction for driving blog posts. A new service has recently been introduced, www.pollauthority.com. I am looking for a polling service to plug into a website hosted by the local chapter of a professional association. I think I have found what we are looking for. This system is designed for users to easily set up a poll in just a few minutes. You past a single line of JavaScript into your website and Poll Authority handles the rest. Below is a sample from their website home page.

TRY IT OUT!


	Where will you be using your Poll Authority polls?

Websites
Blogs
Social Networking sites
All of the above

View Results

Poll Authority

Give it a try! The poll to the left is being displayed in real-time and is embedded with only a single-line of JavaScript.

No programming, no database, no complicated set-up required
Create a unique and custom poll in seconds
Your polls are exclusive to your account
Customize polls any way you like
Embed YouTube videos into any poll and increase voter accuracy
Set advanced options, such as the blocking method by IP or cookie

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Shopping With Yahoo

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:08:40 -0700

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, powerful players in retail are emerging to challenge the traditional brick and mortar stores. www.shopping.yahoo.com is an excellent place to shop from the comfort of home. The home page is easy to navigate and offers coupons, a CapitolOne purchase "Savings Zone" option, a "Woot! deal of the day", and a listing of featured merchants. I browsed through the various sites, stopping to view all of the furniture options. The pages are very organized and offers detailed information on each item. Consumers can shop by brand, by store, by catagory, and by Consumer Reports rankings.

The "Shopping Community" will give consumers immediate access to a wealth of product fixes, tips, and updates written by users.

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Personal Financial Options with Buxfer

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:42:50 -0700

Savvy consumers today are closely managing their finances. Rising food and energy costs are causing many to reevaluate their lifestyles. In order to keep and eye on income versus expenses, an excellent program can be found at www.buxfer.com. Buxfer is a synonym for "bucks" and "transfer". This site offers you the ability to see all of your credit card balances in one place, and see your cash available. It allows you to set up a budget, it has analysis ability so you can see where your cash has been going.

This program also offers a method to track transactions betweens friends and groups.For instance, room-mates can accurately track rent and utilities, groups can use this site to manage funds for an overseas vacation, I.O.U's betweeen friends can be tracked and recorded.

One of the reviewers on www.webware.com recommemded this service.

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A Marketplace for Home-Based Products

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:31:10 -0700

I have a sister-in-law who is very skilled and talented when it comes to home based crafts. I am looking over the website called www.etsy.com. Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods. My sister-in-law is very talented in sewing, monograming, creating great ideas. I will be showing this site to her. The Webware 100 description states "...Users can create their own virtual shop fronts to sell almost anything they'd want. Etsy has an integrated search tool that lets anyone search the site for goods and services out of a centralized directory. Users can also get into the nitty-gritty and design the specific look and feel of their own shops. "

When you first click on the home page, you can click on many catagories of products listed on the left hand side of the page. Selections are by region, by product family, by hiloday occasion, etc.

Going through the Etsy website, I see they have a place to post requests for custom handmade items. Then sellers can post bids on the opportunity to win the business and make the requested crafts. This section is called the Alchemy section. If you want to see what has just been listed for sale, click on the Time Machine and Time Machine2 pages.

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It is time for a "Woot" Visit

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:28:32 -0700

Today's topic is www.woot.com. Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. They are credited with starting the "one deal a day" type of on-line tretailing. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it's taken on a life of its own. Their website states they anticipate profitability by 2043 –" by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we're still the lovable scamps we've always been. But don't take our word for it: see what the online community has to say at this Wikipedia article. "

Woot offers a new item every single day. The details: a new product is released every morning at 12am central time, seven days a week. (If you're not a morning person, this can be described as every night at midnight. Better?) If a product sells out during its run, a new item will not appear until the next release time. You will know if a product is sold out, because the main page says "SOLD OUT" instead of "I want one".

Woot.com communicates with members and users by podcasts, It's an audio broadcast in mp3 form - basically an RSS feed that talks. The deal is, you use podcast software to subscribe to the podcasts you want to hear (more on that in a moment). Every time that podcast releases a new mp3 "episode", your software automatically downloads it for your listening pleasure.

According to wikipedia, "The site will occasionally deviate from the one-product-per-day model for a "Woot-Off", where a succession of products are available for a period of unannounced length, usually 24–72 hours. This mode is indicated by rotating lights and a bar displaying the percentage of product's stock remaining. During April Fool's Day 2008, Woot staged a Woot-Off offering the same product repeatedly, except for a few brief periods when Woot sold Random Crap instead. During an average two-day Woot-Off, Woot's sales typically exceed one million dollars."

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Alternative Shopping and Sharing

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:31:20 -0700

I want to tell you about some sites I found that offer alternatives for shopping and also looking for items. The recent surge in crude oil and subsequent gasoline prices have ignited much discussion on conservation, re-cycling, green processes, and the list goes on. If you are interested in recycling and don't know where to turn in your community, try researching the information on www.freesharing.org. This site encourages its members to switch to renewable and reusable consumer goods to keep from filling land fills. In addition, they encourage that you look for alternatives when it is time to get rid of an old TV, computer, furniture, or items that have stacked up in your garage. The site is a directory for conservation groups in all 50 states. You can click on a state and find recycling centers in your area, and these centers can in turn helpyou locate items that have been donated, and find organizations to donate to.

In this site, I found a way to donate a car, truck. motorcycle, SUV, boat, and RV's to charity. www.cars4causes.net The Charity That Gives To Charities"®, is a non-profit, IRS Code 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity. They help people turn used vehicles into tax-deductions. Cars 4 Causes® has been a trusted avenue since 1997 for its donors. To date, they have contributed $20 million from vehicle donations to charities. They also give cars to families in need. They've given almost $1,000,000 - yes, a million dollars! - worth of cars over the last 5 years to people suffering through temporary setbacks, unfortunate circumstances, illnesses, and hard times. The Cars 4 Causes® Give-Away Program is just one avenue to make sure your donation reaches a place where it can help a struggling family.

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Testing the E-market with Squidoo

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:01:24 -0700

As part of our homework/class assignment, I'm exploring and utilizing www.squidoo.com. I have set up my lens, and set up a Pay-pal account. www.paypal.com. I plan to use this site to share my thoughts on a hobby of mine; Christian Fiction and Non-Fiction Books. I will set up links to various retailers so that each book recommended can be purchased.

This seems to be a very user friendly site. There are many links posted by members to help newcomers and novices develope very nice and attractive pages. New users can join groups that share the same passions,

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Scouting A New Destination

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:32:07 -0700

I recently visited a website called www.Craiglist.org. I was totally unfamiliar with their services, but this is a unique concept that really sparked my interest. I am a volunteer officer in a local chapter of a professional society. Lately it is getting more and more difficult to handle business for our chapter, because all of the officers are so busy in their "real jobs". In Craiglist.org I found some things that might make our tasks a little easier. The idea for organizing the website by cities, states, etc was a home run as far as I'm concerned.

For example, we routinely hear from other professionals from out of town seeking employment opportunities in our area. Craiglist.org has a current jobs listing for each city. We routinely advertise our chapter and dinner meetings, plant tours, educational classes, certification review courses in the local newspaper and local chamber of commerce e-newsletter. We can post all of our activities in the various sections, and we can pull in other chapters from around the US to do the same. I will have to do some digging, but this looks promising for us. I will show this to our other officers and we will add this to our marketing tools.

On another topic, it appears that this is a good alternative to ebay when it comes to selling. I rarely buy and sell on the internet, but this is easy to use.The overall classified look of the site is unique and easy to read.

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Real Estate Action

nobody@vox.com(liveoak) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:18:19 -0700

Today I just checked out www.Zillow.com, an on-line real estate services company. This site provides to consumers the same information that real estate brokers and sales agents have acces to through their normal channels. The founders wanted to give people information about their most important investment, their home.

Interesting features include "Zestimate" home valuation service, the "Make Me Move" feature in which a home seller can set a price that will provoke the seller to accept the offer. The features and services are free because revenue is generated through various ads placed on the pages. However, the ads are not flashy and do not distract from the purpose of the page being viewed. Really well done.

The website lists current 2,776,600 homes for sale, and shows recently sold at 2,535,080. For someone who is interested in real estate as part of their financial portfolio, I recommend this as one of the tools to use.

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