Ready? Set. Wait! That’s what most companies that are looking for business financing hear nowadays. Most financial institutions have become very conservative (rightly so) and do a lot of due diligence and thinking before financing any opportunity.As many have found out -  the financing moves like a pendulum. A few years ago it was very easy to get it. Now the pendulum has swung and getting a business loan is hard.

One important and often overlooked key to getting your application approved is making a good first impression. And to do that, you have to prepare. There are two key areas where this matters:

Cross post.

Los Angeles Feb 24th (Freerateupdate.com)

Warning: A little technical.This is the Whole Wheat 8 Grain Variety of our ongoing commentary on the jumbo mortgage market.

As the top chart shows, 30-year fixed rate jumbo mortgage rates are going for a post-crisis low, a rate not seen since 2005. With a few scattered exceptions, the rate you get today is about as low as it has ever been in history. Conforming rates are still very close to all-time lows.

As we get ready for e-Skills Week, Martha Lane Fox tweeted a link to this great video from Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics – an excellent book and blog on social media. It’s from last year, but it summarises really well some of the key facts about social networks – not to mention it has a nice Fatboy Slim track to keep you interested while you watch! Not strictly education, but social media is totally pervasive in Europe nowadays so important for all of us.

Go to Source

Popularity: 1% [?]

For the Nanoyou project, our partners at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Lab have produced this fabulous video, narrated by Stephen Fry. Not only does it explain succintly what nanotech is, but it’s all rounded off with a great soundtrack…

NANOYOU – Narrated by Stephen Fry from NANOYOU on Vimeo.

Go to Source

Popularity: 1% [?]

One of the best ways to generate a referral is with a strong customer advocacy campaign.  Do you honor and reward your best customers?  When customers are celebrated, there’s lots to talk about.  You can share their honor with others in their segment or group.  Additionally, you can repackage the information in the form of news or video, easily distributed throughout the Web.  This creates awareness and interest for your product or service.

For more free marketing advice, visit the marketing experts at http://www.MarketingScoop.com.

Go to Source

   On 28th April, I’ll be speaking at informatology’s 2010 "Good Practice for Great Performance" conference, which is designed to give business and talent leaders inspiration and insight to help their organisations be as successful as they can be.

The conference sounds like a lot of fun, with plenty of 2.0 and even an unconference thrown in!

Key themes include managing change, leadership, customer service, executive coaching, engaging and utilising talent, great places to work, the professional services sector, e-learning, making video, the future of workplace learning, team collaboration 2.0 (my session), sharing knowledge 2.0, enterprise 2.0, and learning & performance 2.0!

   In a month’s time (19th March 2010), I’m going to be moderating one of the sessions at Justmeans’ Social Media and Stakeholder Engagement conference in London.

Building on the success of the inaugural event worldwide on Social Media and Sustainability, this event will bring together the top minds in sustainability, marketing, innovation, and technology.

It will focus on how social media is changing the way companies engage key stakeholders, whether employees, customers, activists, investors, or the media.

Topics covered include:

• Transparency and authenticity as cornerstones of the new business reality

Exercise is going techno. People are playing Wii fit sports games in their homes and gyms are full of ever more interactive exercise machines. But is this trend anything more than gimmickry? Yes, according to a new study by Ryan Rhodes at the Behavioural Medicine Lab at the University of Victoria, and his colleagues.

Rhodes’ team had 29 previously inactive young men embark on an exercise regime, involving three half-hour cycling sessions a week for six weeks. Crucially, half the men trained on GameBikes wired up to a Playstation, such that their peddling speed and steering interacted with in-game events. The remaining participants trained on standard low-tech exercise bikes, although they were allowed to enjoy their own choice of music over an ipod. Exercise intensity was equalised across the two groups.