#TechFail - 4 Ways Under Armour Can Repair Its Brand. Olympic Tech Brings Small Business Lessons.

Sometimes technology helps us and sometimes we suspect it messes things up. In this case there’s suspicion that Under Armour’s speed skating uniforms are messing things up.

Most of you know by now that Under Armour is under a spotlight , because its special speed skating suites might have cause the US Olympic speed skating team to not win any medals and skate sub-par during the Olympics. The suite allegedly slowed them down.

However, the Olympic team is now using the old suites and still not doing any better.

If you were Under Armour what would you do?

Here’s four things I would do.

1) Establish a very credible and independent investigator to see what impact the new suites did, or did not have on the skaters. Part of this investigation should be to test the new suites out in the same conditions, but using other skaters, as the Olympic skater are in and measure what difference, if any, the suites might cause for a skater.

2) Crowdsource - Get the public involved to offer scientific ideas to what could be a problem with the Under Armour suites

3) Create a public test so that the public can test out and try for themselves the Under Armour suites and see how good they probably are for regular folks.

4) Create an advertising campaign, similar to what BP did after the oil spil and convey your encouragement of the US Speed Skating team and etc…evoke positive thoughts focused on the USA, athletes, etc

These are just four ideas, what do you think?

Keep in mind, since the skaters are not doing any better we do not yet know IF it’s the Under Armour suites causing the problem.

What we do know is that the Under Armour brand is tarnished - deservedly or not.

Has this every happened to you? You upgrade technology in your office, only to find that things seem to be working worse than before the new technology was  installed?

Here’s some ways to mitigate tech failures.

1. Test technology before rolling it out in production

2. Be prepared to roll back the upgrade

3. Ensure your tech specialist understands your business

4. Carefully consider if you need the tech upgrade

5. Measure and test very carefully.

Shocker: People Do Not Read What They Share on Social Media

It all started with a live Twitter debate between movers and shakers in the online content field. Participants included people like Joseph Weisenthal, Executive Editor of Business Insider; Matt Yglesias, who covers economics for Slate and Felix Salmon, finance blogger at Reuters.

The topic was Upworthy, the sites content has become wildly popular and viral on Facebook. Then, in the middle of the debate, Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat tweeted this:

As a result, Haile’s remark went a little viral in its own right.

Haile’s company measures real-time traffic on sites like Upworthy, so his announcement did carry considerable weight.

If you run a blog or other site featuring regularly updated content, you probably assume social sharing is one of the best ways to get more people to read that content.

So it’s a bit shocking to find that might not be the case. But that’s not where the story ends.

Sites like Upworthy and Buzzfeed have found that, yes, some people share without fully reading the article. But if someone actually does read to the end of a piece, they’re more likely to share on social media, The Verge reports.

So that effectively means there are two kinds of social sharers. There are those who share without finishing the article. And there are those who share because they really read and consumed the entire article.

Here at Small Business Trends, we find yet another wrinkle. We find there is often not a correlation between sharing and reading the article. That’s simply because those who consume an article may not be that active on social media.

That is especially true with “serious” business topics. Some of the most popular articles here on Small Business Trends have surprisingly few social shares. Yet, some of the most highly shared articles haven’t been read nearly as much.

Lesson: You can’t always tell from the number of shares.

Shocked Photo via Shutterstock

3 Tips for Enterprising Young Entrepreneurs

If you’re a young entrepreneur interested in getting a head start on your business ventures, there are some special considerations to keep in mind.

Given that you may not have much of a credit history, it may be challenging to secure financing. With a lack of business experience, you may have to work harder to be taken seriously. But success is still possible. Below are a few tips to help you on that path.

1. Build a Solid Financial Foundation

Starting up and staying in business requires a good financial foundation and plan. And low credit scores appear to remain one of the biggest obstacles young folks face when it comes to funding their businesses:

“Most young people also have limited or no credit history, which means that the credit cards they could conceivably get…will have low credit limits.”

The article referenced there also provides insight about developing your finance strategy.

There are a few other financing options you can consider such as crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending and borrowing from friends or family. Each option has pros and cons, but it’s worth checking into the potential of various approaches to determine what might be a good fit for your business.

2.  Find a Mentor

You may feel a little lost or overwhelmed as you try to navigate the business world, especially starting out. A mentor can be an invaluable asset to help you along your way.

Whether it’s a former boss, someone in your business network or knowledgeable family friend, find a mentor who has experience in your field and has walked in your shoes before.

You’ll benefit from expert advice, network expansion and more - and you’ll have nothing to lose!

3.  Be Passionate and Stay Committed

For your business to succeed, you’ve got to stay committed - fight the good fight for what you’re passionate about, and be prepared for a tough road. But your dedication can go a long way not only for you personally, but also make a positive impression on others who may eventually support your business.

Face the reality that you’ll be putting in more than the typical 9-5 hours. Treat adversity as a learning experience. The more you grow in your knowledge of your business and industry, the better off you’ll be in the long run. Take advantage of free or low-cost workshops available locally or through online webinars.

Starting a business as a young entrepreneur presents a unique set of challenges, but with the resources available through sites like this and others, you’re also presented with excellent guidance to help you achieve success.

Entrepreneur Photo via Shutterstock

FileThis Helps You Retrieve, Store and Find Important Paper Documents

I have a drawer in my desk that stores all my paper documents. Every time I get a document that I need to keep I put it in a folder in this drawer. I also have some files in a book shelf. I also have some files in a bin in my basement. My paper record organization is a mess.

Recently I was looking at FileThis which looks like it could be a solution to my (and your) dilemma.

Like any respectable online storage service, FileThis stores your paper documents, online. It can tag and categorize them for your for easy retrieval.

But what’s really neat about FileThis is that once setup it can automatically retrieve your important documents from the financial and other institutions that are important to you - your bank, investment account and etc.

In a disaster or any other emergency wouldn’t it be nice to get your hands on that one (or many) documents you need?

FileThis can help.

10 Budget Conscious Marketing Tips from Our #BrotherBackToBiz Chat Party

Last week we hosted the #BrotherBackToBiz Chat Party with the theme of branding and creating great marketing materials on a budget.

It was a great opportunity for networking and the sharing of tips we’re hoping every small business will find useful. In fact, we had so many great suggestions from our small business community, we thought we’d share some of the best ones with readers who couldn’t attend.

Below are 10 tips from our Twitter chat party that should help with your branding and marketing needs without breaking the bank.

Branding

1. Put your logo on all your products. And don’t stop there. Include any other information that makes it easy for perspective customers to learn more about you and how to do business with you.

2. Try branding your mobile hotspot. This can be an easy and inexpensive way to identify your brand with everything you do online.

3. Build credibility into your brand. The more credibility your brand has with your intended customers and community, the less difficult your marketing job will be.

4. Let satisfied customers tell your story. Others are more likely to take note of stories from those who have tried and can vouch for your products or services.

5. Focus on the right people. Worry less about convincing those who don’t yet know about your business and more on those who already love what you do.

Marketing

6. Keep things simple. When marketing on a budget, it’s important to focus on only what’s important. Include the bare minimum on your business cards, for example, to make sure you communicate clearly.

7. Never forget about DIY options. DIY may get a bum rap as being less than professional. So be sure you understand what this approach is really all about.

8. Team up with others like you. Other small businesses may be able to help you and you may be able to help them in ways you don’t suspect.

9. Use your limited marketing resources effectively. This includes getting every bit of mileage you can out of all the marketing materials you create.

10. Stay organized to stay productive. This doesn’t just mean making lists of what you plan to accomplish. It also means keeping record of what you get done to keep yourself accountable.

Our #BrotherBackToBiz chat party recognizes the Brother CreativeCenter Back to Business contest currently going on at our sister site BizSugar.com. There’s still time to enter for your chance to win. The contest runs through March 19 and is sponsored by Brother.

For more information on how to participate, visit the Brother CreativeCenter “Back to Business” Contest page.

Chat Photo via Shutterstock

Mopria Alliance Is Here To Helps Boost Your Mobile Printing Ease and Options

Mopria is an alliance of technology companies who have joined to make mobile printing easier.

Often times we don’t know the technical details behind the technology we use, nor should we need to know it. However, from time to time, some technology is so important - like WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth - that we should know a little bit about the background story.

Hence my short introduction of Mopria.

Printing from a computer is pretty easy. You install the right driver, add the printer, search for it on the network or connect to the printer directly and that’s about it.

Printing from a mobile device is much different. There are different types of mobile devices, using different standards for communication. Mopria, as I understand it, will bring the printing uniformity of the computer and printing industries to mobile devices.

Mopria branded devices will be mobile print ready.

When you buy a phone that’s Mopria compatible and a printer that’s Mopria compatible you’ll be sure that the phone can more easily and hopefully right out of the box print to the printer.

NHS database vulnerable to hackers, insider threat

February 17, 2014

The National Health Service has admitted that patient confidentiality could potentially be undermined under its new centralised patient database system.

That was the conclusion from the NHS' own risk analysis into the new care.data database, which is set to be rolled out in March after almost two years of security and privacy concerns.

The Telegraph newspaper claims to have seen the risk analysis document, and this supposedly details that the database - which will be controlled by the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) - could be vulnerable to hacks and leaks from those working within the NHS.

The risk assessment was carried out by NHS England and it warns that, despite HSCIC's claims that data is “anonymised ” or pseudonymised, patients could be “re-identified” if database data, which is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 and Information Security management NHS Code of Practise, is combined with other information. 

“While there is a privacy risk that the analysts granted access to these pseudonymised flows could potentially re-identify patients maliciously by combining the pseudonymised data with other available datasets (a technique known as a jigsaw attack) such an attack would be illegal and would be subject to sanction by the Information Commissioner's Office,” reads the report.

It continues that patients worried about confidentiality could eventually decide to withhold data on past and present illnesses, resulting in a reduction in the quality of care and the quality of data held by the database.

“This risk is two-fold; firstly, patients will not receive optimal healthcare if they withhold information from the clinicians that are treating them; and secondly, that this loss of trust degrades the quality of data.”

The idea of a national patient ‘portal' was first proposed in 2012 under the initial premise that all NHS patients would have secure online access to their personal health records by 2015. The aim, as well as improving patient accessibility, was also to enhance healthcare and medical research.

Leaflets, informing patients about the database, went out in January and the database is due to start collecting patient records from hospitals and GPs from March.

Despite the project being two years in the making, security, privacy and even logistical concerns have dogged its progress in recent times. Information security experts believe that the database will be hard to roll-out, implement and also be vulnerable to attack, while there have been concerns about the possibility of data being sold to third-parties.

The possibility of a data breach is particularly apt, not least considering recent figures suggest that more than two million serious data  breaches - from within the NHS - have been logged since the start of 2011. Chris McIntosh, CEO of ViaSat UK, believes that the NHS needs to put security safeguards in place if they're to avoid big fines from the ICO.

“Moving patient data to a centralised database naturally has its risks and while information needs to be useable it also needs to be secure since health records will inevitably be seen as a lucrative target for hackers,” McIntosh told SCMagazineUK.com. 

“Sensitive information like this can be used by malicious parties for blackmail and extortion both now and even years down the line. As such, the NHS needs to be doing all it can to ensure it has all the safeguards in place, both for the sake of public trust, and to avoid the risk of fines from bodies like the ICO. 

“In order to avoid fines worth hundreds of thousands of pounds in the future, the NHS needs to ensure that all the information in its new database is encrypted, and patient confidentiality is preserved as we move into the age of digital health services.”

Front Desk App Brings New Pricing Model and Ease Of Use For Local Service Providers

When you’re a gym owner, salon proprietor or other small business that works on appointments, schedules and billings there’s only a few things that are important to you.

Some of those things are having a great product, ensuring you get customers in the door and collecting payment.

Carmen Sognonvi of Brooklyn based Urban Dojo discussed the importance of having a good product with me here.

Front Desk has created what looks to be a simple to use app (online software) that helps local services providers with some of the key functions that are important to them.

What’s particularly interesting about Front Desk is its pricing model - you pay for it based on how much revenue you bring in. Revenue of $5,000 a month? Expect to pay around $50 a month for Front Desk. If you’re a local service provider and appointments and billing is important to your business Front Desk is a solution you should definitely check out.

Front Desk is a startup which recently closed on $4 million of it’s first round of venture funding. The barrier to entry for low cost small business services is very low and you can expect to see more and more online services being made available for small businesses. Large companies such as Sage (Sage One), Intuit (QuickBooks Online), Google, Microsoft, GoDaddy and American Express are offering a full suite of low cost and simple to use services for small businesses. These big companies are competing with startup companies such as Front Desk, Bench, Insightly and others who are offering similar services to the small business market.

Small businesses have all the tools, low cost tools, at their disposal to run a business. Big businesses and small businesses are on pretty equal footing when it comes to the chances of success. The separates a business that succeeds from one that does not is often the strategic decisions the owner makes. Infusionsoft’s Clate Mask is passionate about business strategy and speaks about it here.

Would You Be More Productive Using Glip App’s Conversation Stream or Email?

Email is a miserable way to live. Each email message is like an invading rat or ant that you just can’t seem to kill.

Sure we NEED email as it’s how we communicate - notices about our airline tickets, late payments, a new client and so on. However, email is a pain.

Some of us try to put salve on it by using a tool like Asana (which I love and use) and of course there are others who use a project management tools from 37 Signals or AT Task.

There’s a new tool on the market from Glip that encourages its customers to LIVE in Glip and communicate in real time - sharing files, managing tasks and keeping everyone on the same page - with NO EMAIL.

But I wonder is there any huge difference in receiving emails in your in box and watching a stream of conversations flow on a computer screen? One is in real time (Glip) and one is static and a line by line of messages - that’s email.

Check out a video about Glip here. Let me know which way of communication is best for you - Glip or Email.

Cantwell Replacing Landrieu as Chair of Senate Small Business Committee

It’s a transition time for small business representation on Capitol Hill.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) spent her last official day last week as chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship holding a confirmation hearing for newly appointed SBA administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet. She was expected to officially hand over the gavel for the committee to U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) by week’s end.

Landrieu was named chair of the committee in December 2008, at the height of the Great Recession.

As Landrieu exits, she can reflect on some major highlights during her time as chair. According to her website, Landrieu was instrumental in clearing up to $16 billion in loans for small businesses through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

She says this created or saved thousands of jobs among small businesses by opening up lines of credit. The provisions included in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act were designed to reduce fees on Small Business Administration loans and to increase the SBA loan guarantee on 7(a) loans to 90 percent. Additionally, the SBA 504 Debt Refinance Program allowed small businesses to refinance while locking in long-term mortgages at lower rates. The program was not renewed in 2012.

Landrieu also says the secondary market for loans to small businesses has opened up during the last four years. And small businesses are now more competitive in gaining federal contracts. In a 2010 editorial for the Washington Post, she explained the importance of having more small businesses bid for government contracts:

“This makes government contracting one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways the government can immediately help increase sales for America’s entrepreneurs. We must remove the red tape and close loopholes that too often put government work into the hands of multinational corporations instead of Main Street businesses.”

Under Landrieu’s leadership, the Senate Small Business Committee also worked to open up trade opportunities for small businesses.

That’s where Cantwell, who will assume leadership of the committee now, says she would like to start her efforts.

Cantwell hopes to renew the SBA 504 refinancing program and also continue the State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) program. She said this program has helped small businesses in her home state of Washington compete in a global economy.

The Washington Senator said during the nomination hearing:

“We have huge opportunities to the Asian market in the Pacific Northwest and we certainly want to see us use these promotions to help meet the agenda that the administration has on doubling the number of exports out of the United States - certainly small businesses can play a very big role in that.”

Cantwell was an executive at a tech startup for five years between stints in Washington. According to a Seattle Post profile, Cantwell returned to her native Washington after leaving Congress in 1994 and accepted a job with RealNetworks. The company has become famous for developing streaming digital video and audio solutions, most notably RealPlayer.

Images: United States Senate Committee Channel

Hackers steal customer records from Kickstarter

February 17, 2014

Online crowd-funding website Kickstarter was hacked last week, with hackers getting access to customer data.

Law enforcement agencies alerted the company to the breach last Wednesday, and the company subsequently informed its users by email on Sunday. The company's chief executive Yancey Strickler went onto apologise in full in a detailed blog post, where he stressed that while hackers had obtained customer passwords, phone numbers and addresses, “no credit card data of any kind was accessed”.

Only two Kickstarter user accounts are believed to have seen unauthorised activity, although the firm has urged all of its users to create new passwords for Kickstarter and other services which use the same password. The firm is now working closely with law enforcement agencies to find out who was behind the attack.

"We're incredibly sorry that this happened," wrote Strickler. "We set a very high bar for how we serve our community, and this incident is frustrating and upsetting. We have since improved our security procedures and systems in numerous ways.”

Kickstarter account holders will be relieved to learn that the website did at least store passwords in encrypted format (older passwords are uniquely salted and digested with SHA-1 “multiple times”, with newer passwords hashed with bcrypt), although veteran security researcher Graham Cluley says that this may not be enough to stop hackers.

“That means the passwords were not simply encrypted but actually cryptographically hashed,” he said, when writing for We Live Security. “That makes it harder (but not necessarily impossible) for a hacker to crack your password and exploit it."

Cluley added that the details alone would be enough for hackers to carry out a sophisticated social engineering attack, perhaps on companies seeking funding on Kickstarter, while Check Point UK managing director Keith Bird told journalists that the attack was the latest sign of users being vulnerable to phishing and spear phishing attacks.

Jason Hart, VP of cloud services at SafeNet, hopes that this latest breach sees firms switch their attention from perimeter-based defence.

“CIOs have long considered the best defence to be a good offense when it comes to handling security threats, so the vast majority of time and money is spent building the perimeter security measures that keep the outsiders from getting into the network,” Hart told SCMagazineUK.com.

“But in the new reality of security, the best offense is now the best defence and encryption is the key to that.”

Fujitsu UK and Ireland chief security officer David Robinson added that the hack is a sign that organisations are facing an “unprecedented challenge” in an age where consumer data trust is at an all-time low, "with an organised, criminal industry of experienced hackers working tirelessly to access their customer data,” said Robinson when speaking to SCMagazineUK.com.

“And that's only one side of the coin. Consumer tolerance for data loss is at an all-time low, with less than one in ten consumers thinking that organisations are doing enough to ensure their data is protected. 

He added: “With consumers battling to understand the impact on their personal information if a company is hacked, there is no room for error anymore. To remain ahead of their competitors - and trusted in the eyes of the consumer - organisations need to ensure they are robust in their security.”

Kickstarter was founded in 2009 and has raised almost £600 million for more than 56,000 projects to date, according to its website. It also says that it has collected pledges for more than 5.6 million people. 

Has the Recovery in Small Business Lending Stalled?

From May 2009 to October 2013 the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index rose 78 percent. But, in November 2013, the index dropped 5.4 percent. Does the recent decline indicate an end to the recovery in small business credit?

The data suggest not. The recent drop probably reflects the index’s volatility. As the figure above shows, smoothing out the measure’s volatility with a one-quarter moving average (shown by the thin black line) suggests only a slight moderating of the upward trend that began in late 2009.

Other sources also fail to suggest a fundamental change in small business credit conditions. The most recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey of its members revealed no change in small business owners’ expectations about the difficulty of accessing future credit.

Similarly, the Gallup/Wells Fargo Small Business Survey revealed no change between the third and fourth quarters in the fraction of business owners who expected credit to become more difficult to obtain over the the next 12 months, and an increase of two percentage points in the fraction who expected it to get easier.

The number of small business owners reporting difficulty getting credit has not increased substantially in recent months. While the fraction of NFIB survey respondents who said that loans were more difficult to get was one percentage point higher in December than in November, the most recent number was also two percentage points lower than in December of 2012.

Moreover, thirty-two percent of small business owners reported that all of their credit needs were satisfied, a number unchanged from the previous month, and up three percentage points from a year earlier. Only four percent of small business owners revealed that their credit needs were not met, the same as the previous month and down two percentage points from a year earlier.

Finally, only two percent of small business owners told the NFIB that borrowing was their top problem.

Responses to the Gallup/Wells Fargo Small Business Survey tell the same story. In the fourth quarter of 2013, the fraction of owners that reported difficulty getting credit over the previous 12 months was 6 percentage points lower than a year earlier, while the fraction reported ease increased by 4 percentage points.

While the trend toward improvement in small business credit markets doesn’t appear to have stopped, conditions remain very different than they were before the Great Recession. Fewer small businesses are borrowing than once did. The 30 percent of small business owners reporting in December that they borrow regularly was only two percentage points higher than the record low, and a far cry from the 37 percent that borrowed regularly in April 2007.

Banks are a far less common source of small business credit than they were before the economy turned south. According to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the value of outstanding commercial and industrial bank loans of less than $1 million was an inflation-adjusted 21.4 percent lower in June 2013 than in June 2007. And the number of loans was down 2 percent.

Small business loans also are more likely to be secured by collateral now than before. Federal Reserve Survey of Terms of Business Lending shows that 84 percent of the value of loans under $100,000 was secured in 2007. In 2013, that fraction had risen to 90 percent.

While the recent recovery in small business lending does not appear to have ended, small business credit conditions remain very different than before the financial crisis and Great Recession. Neither of those patterns is likely to change soon.

Image Source: Created from data from the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index

Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk: From Personal Brand to VC Investor

Gary Vaynerchuk, the entrepreneur who launched his career from his family’s liquor store, has started a $25 million seed investment fund along with RSE Ventures.

ReCode reports that the fund “will focus on operating and incubating startups in what he is calling the Vayner/RSE joint fund. He said that as part of the transaction, RSE will become a minority shareholder of VaynerMedia, his digital media company that focuses on helping large corporations with their Internet strategy.”  The fund also is backed by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross.

The new fund reflects a partnership between Vaynerchuk and RSE Ventures co-founder Matt Higgins.  Their investment focus seems to be wide ranging.  He told VentureBeat, “We’re looking at SaaS, brand stuff, and the cross-section of sports and business.”   The new fund is called Vayner RSE.

Vaynerchuk (known online as “GaryVee”) founded Wine Library and VaynerMedia, his social media agency.  He is also the author of three books, including Crush It and The Thank You Economy.

He is already an angel investor and advisor to a number of startups, such as Tumblr, RebelMouse and Adapt.ly.  (For more of Vaynerchuk’s investments, and see his website.)  However, in his interview at VentureBeat he said there is “no more angel investing in my life.”

Vaynerchuk used video and other social media to build a personal brand.  But where many entrepreneurs who build personal brands are delighted to be authors and speakers at the apex of their careers, Vaynerchuk has used his visibility to catapult into new roles.  These days, call him Gary Vaynerchuk, investor.

Image of Gary Vaynerchuk: Wikipedia