Learning entrepreneurial skills at a young age can be incredibly beneficial, both for kids that end up running businesses as adults and for those who go on to pursue more traditional career paths. And one company is working to bring those skills to classrooms around the country.

Teaching Kids About Business

Virtual Enterprises International sets up virtual businesses in classrooms around the country and even in a handful of countries around the world. In these classrooms, students actually run hypothetical businesses using real world concepts. Each of them is assigned a role within the company and they have to learn how to work together, source products, market their offerings and complete all of the other essential tasks that go into running a business. The classrooms even connect with one another to form a sort of virtual economy.

Virtual Enterprises president and national program director Nick Chapman said in a phone interview with Small Business Trends, “It’s about learning business by actually doing business. We give them the opportunity to go hands on, fail, succeed and learn that way, which is so important. It offers much greater potential than simply learning from a textbook. They get to learn leadership, collaboration and communication skills by actually running meetings and completing projects and tasks that you wouldn’t get in a traditional class.”

The program’s goal isn’t necessarily to make more young people into entrepreneurs. The businesses are set up so students can try out different jobs and learn about potential career opportunities as well. But of course, by giving students a taste of what it’s like to run a business, some do go onto run their own — even in high school in some cases.

Jacob Norwood is one example of this. A student entrepreneur from V.R. Eaton High School near Ft. Worth, TX, Norwood serves as the CEO of Connocrate, a Virtual Enterprises business. But he and his classmates have also started an actual business with a similar focus, Canivet, a specialty coffee brand also donating a portion of its earnings to first responders.

Norwood acknowledges he’s always had some entrepreneurial qualities, but he didn’t learn how to apply them in a business setting or even really consider it as a path until he started taking his school’s business classes leading up to the VE business course.

He said in a recent phone interview with Small Business Trends, “The business academy has opened my eyes and showed me that this is something I can grab hold of and really pursue.”

Norwood and some of his classmates intend to keep the business going after they graduate and go off to college next year. However, he echoed Chapman’s point about the exercise in entrepreneurship being valuable even for the students who choose to pursue more traditional career paths.

He adds, “One of the biggest things you get out of the class comes from the the leadership and teamwork skills that are so necessary to make everything run smoothly.”

Virtual Enterprises is hosting a Youth Business Summit this April 18-19 in New York City where students act as participants in a trade show, participate in business plan competitions, and get the opportunity to interact with other student entrepreneurs around the country.

Images: VEI, Jeffrey Holmes; Top Image: Youth Business Summit 2016; Second Image: Nick Chapman (left) with students from Brooklyn

Security, whether it is in the physical or digital world, is a big issue for businesses of all sizes.  With data breaches costing companies millions in the digital world, and inventory shrinkage and theft causing similar headaches for stores, an upcoming Brivo/Small Business Trends webinar seeks to educate on the subject.

The webinar happens May 16, 2018, at 2  p.m. ET with Anita Campbell, founder and CEO of Small Business Trends, Nicki Saffell, Senior Security Consultant at Brivo, and Sara Polon, owner of Soupergirl, a DC area small business.

These thought leaders will discuss data breaches, inventory shrinkage and theft along with ways to combat them.

You can get more details from the featured Events Section and sign up for the webinar while you are at it.

If you happen to have your own webinar or another event, contest, or award listing, you can post it by visiting the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Entrepreneurs Cruise 2018
April 22, 2018, Florida, United States of America

Are you an Entrepreneur and need to get away and take a break? Ready to recharge, rejuvenate in new surroundings and be inspired by other like minds? Then, you can’t miss the 4th annual Entrepreneurs Cruise! Entrepreneurs Cruise 2018 takes place April 22nd to 29th, 2018 onboard the Royal Caribbean ‘Oasis of the Seas’ Cruise Ship departing Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida, sailing to Philipsburg (St. Maarten), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Labadee (Haiti). Register today!

DigiMarCon East 2018 – Digital Marketing Conference
May 10, 2018, New York, New York

DigiMarCon East 2018 Digital Marketing Conference takes place May 10th to 11th, 2018 at the luxurious New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square, New York City.
It’s the one digital marketing event you can’t afford to miss! Whether your goal is to reinforce customer loyalty, improve lead generation, increase sales, or drive stronger consumer engagement, DigiMarCon East 2018’s agenda will help attendees enhance their marketing efforts. Sessions will focus on building traffic, expanding brand awareness, improving customer service and gaining insight into today’s latest digital tools. Register today!

WEBINAR: Small Business Doesn’t Mean Small Security: 3 Major Threats You Need to Combat
May 16, 2018, Online

Data breaches, inventory shrinkage, theft, oh my. On average, data breaches cost $3.62 million per breach and stolen customer data costs $141 per record. And inventory shrinkage in the United States is a $60 billion a year problem. Believe it or not, your business exists within both of those realities. Do you know who is accessing your most valuable assets and sensitive information? Do you know what your employees do when you are not physically onsite? On May 16, 2018, at 2PM ET join Nicki Saffell, Senior Security Consultant at Brivo, Sara Polon, Owner of Soupergirl, a DC area small business, and Anita Campbell, Founder and CEO of Small Business Trends, for a discussion on these challenges and discover modern ways to combat these threats – including electronic access control.

TECHSPO Houston 2018
June 06, 2018, Houston, Texas

TECHSPO Houston 2018 is a 2-day technology expo which takes place JUNE 6 – 7, 2018 at the luxurious Houston Marriott Eaton Centre Hotel in Houston, Ontario. TECHSPO Houston brings together developers, brands, marketers, technology providers, designers, innovators and evangelists looking to set the pace in our advanced world of technology. TECHSPO Houston 2018 promises to be better than ever and we’re excited to see all the amazing tech companies and talent that will join us. Register today!

Growth & Success Con
September 17, 2018, Online

This small business virtual conference is dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs at all stages who are stuck in the daily grind of building their businesses and struggle to get solid advice and guidance. An amazing panel of experts in various disciplines and business coaches will share tips & tricks on topics including Growth, Marketing, Management & Business Building for Success. Register today!

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• Funding a Business Application Deadline
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• Small Business Expo 2018 – WASHINGTON D.C.
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• Sales Cruise 2018
  April 22, 2018, Cape Canaveral, Florida
• DigiMarCon Orlando 2018 – Digital Marketing Conference At Sea
  April 22, 2018, Cape Canaveral, Florida
• Tech Cruise 2018
  April 22, 2018, Orlando, Florida
• DigiMarCon Cruise 2018 – Digital Marketing Conference At Sea
  April 22, 2018, Cape Canaveral, FLORIDA
• AACSB International Conference and Annual Meeting
  April 22, 2018, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Social Media Week NYC
  April 23, 2018, New York, NY
• PATCA Consultants Networking Lunch-South Bay
  April 24, 2018, Sunnyvale, CA
• Create a Powerful Brand and Connect with Customers
  April 24, 2018, Online
• Business Networking for Professional Success
  April 25, 2018, New York, NY
• VR Franchise Seminar – Experience the only VR platform for Franchising 2018
  April 25, 2018, San Francisco, CA
• SearchCon 2018 Digital Marketing & SEO Conference
  April 25, 2018, Breckenridge, CO
• The Sixth International Conference on Digital Information, Networking, and Wireless Communications (DINWC2018)
  April 25, 2018, Beirut, Lebanon
• CHICAGO BLOCKCHAIN CONFERENCE 2018
  April 27, 2018, Online
• Free East Cooper Networking Event powered by Rockstar Connect
  May 01, 2018, Mount Pleasant, SC
• Free Roseville Networking Event powered by Rockstar Connect
  May 01, 2018, Roseville, CA

More Contests

• Public Vote to Crown America’s Most Unique Small Business Underway
  November 08, 2018, http://www.paychex.com/vote?utm_source=contest&utm_medium=press%20release&utm_term=americas-most-unique

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

Photo via Shutterstock

When you send an email for business, knowing the actions your recipient has taken provides valuable information about how you should follow up. The MailTag Chrome extension for Gmail and G Suite gives you unlimited email tracking, scheduling and auto follow-up, for free.

The MailTag Chrome extension lets you take three very important actions regarding the email you are about to send out or have already sent out. The extension does more, but by properly using these three functions you will get more from your email than just blindly sending them out and hoping for the best.

As a free tool, MailTag gives small businesses some of the many benefits of email tracking solutions. If your company needs more services, the Pro version provides more options. The cost is $3.15 per per month when you pay for the year. The free version has MailTag ads and signature watermark.

Features of the MailTag Chrome Extension

When you add the MailTtag Chrome extension to Gmail or G Suite, you will be able to track unlimited emails in real-time. You will know the exact time your recipient opens your emails because you will get alerts. Once they open the email and then click on any link, you will also be notified. And all of these actions can be analyzed.

You can track the performance of your email and figure out what is working with your audience. You can then make the necessary changes to correct what’s not working.

With the Ping feature, you can automate the follow-up process of your email. You can customize the automated follow-ups by sending emails every other day, week or whenever you think is right to improve reply rates and bring your email to the top of the recipient’s inbox.

Speaking of sending emails, you can schedule your emails so they get to their intended destination at the right time. Different time zones, reminders, and well wishing for birthdays, holidays and special occasions can all be scheduled.

Email Stats

An analysis of the hundreds of millions of emails sent by MailChimp’s millions of users has revealed the average unique open rates, average unique click rates, average unique soft bounces, average unique hard bounces and average unique abuse complaint rate by industry.

MailChimp looked at industries from agriculture to vitamin supplements with companies ranging in size from 1 to 50 plus employees. The analysis reveals open rate averages of 15.22 to 28.46 percent, with click rates going as high as 5.13 percent.

The MailChimp stats highlight the importance of knowing if your recipients are opening their email, and what they are doing once they do open.

Even though today’s digital technology provides more ways to reach your potential customers than ever before, email is still a powerful tool. With the right applications, email can be optimized to engage with your audience and gather important data which can be analyzed to gain insights into their behavior.

Image: MailTag

If you are on your computer keyboard all day long for your business, and a couple of more hours when you get home, you should look into using keyboard shortcuts. A new infographic by Parken lists 37 Windows keyboard shortcuts to improve your productivity and save you more time than you might’ve thought of.

Although the computer mouse is a very useful and practical tool, the seconds it tags on to each task can quickly add up. If, on the other hand, you use keyboard shortcuts, you can devote this time to more productive undertakings.

For small businesses with a limited workforce, each new process implemented to make the organization more efficient and productive delivers overall improvements. Using Windows keyboard shortcuts will add to the improvement.

So by now, you are probably asking yourself how much time can I really save?

Brainscape has created a formula to figure out just how much time people lose while working on the computer without shortcuts. And it comes out to a shocking 64 hours or 8 days per year. This works out to 3.3 percent of your total productivity. Even if you learn just a single shortcut, you can save several cumulative hours each year.

Here’s the example Brainscape provides. When you use a mouse to open a new tab in a browser, you move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, move the cursor to the + button on the open tabs, click the button, and switch your hand back to the keyboard. With the keyboard shortcut, you just press the CTRL and t keys on your Windows PC and CMD and t keys for a Mac, and you are done.

Brainscape came up with the total using this equation — 2 wasted seconds / min multiplied by 480 min / workday multiplied by 240 workdays / year equals the 8 lost days. View the video below for a quick explanation:

What are the Windows Keyboard Shortcuts?

Parken has broken down the 37 Windows keyboard shortcuts in the infographic into five keys. The Function, CTRL, ALT, Shift and Windows Logo keys.

If you need help, the F1 key will display help. And if you are searching for a file or folder in File Explorer, you can press F3.

The CTRL key is used along with other letter keys to perform different functions. The CTRL + c will copy a selected item, and you can close the active Window when you add the W key.

The ALT key also works in combination with other keys. Add the Tab key and you can quickly switch between open apps. If you want to cycle through items in the order they were opened, just add the ESC key with ALT.

You can take a look at the rest of the Windows keyboard shortcuts in the infographic below.

Image: Parken

DigiMarCon East 2018 Digital Marketing Conference in New York City is going to bring experts in the field to help attendees navigate today’s digital ecosystem.

Speakers in digital marketing will highlight emerging strategies along with innovative technologies, best practices and valuable insights from proven real-world digital marketing campaigns. Attendees will see how customer loyalty, sales increases, improving lead generation or driving greater consumer engagement can be achieved.

The two day event will be held from May 10 to 11, 2018 at the luxurious New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

The featured Events Section provides more details about DigiMarCon East 2018, along with how you can sign up.

If you have an event, contest, or award listing, you can post it on the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Entrepreneurs Cruise 2018
April 22, 2018, Florida, United States of America

Are you an Entrepreneur and need to get away and take a break? Ready to recharge, rejuvenate in new surroundings and be inspired by other like minds? Then, you can’t miss the 4th annual Entrepreneurs Cruise! Entrepreneurs Cruise 2018 takes place April 22nd to 29th, 2018 onboard the Royal Caribbean ‘Oasis of the Seas’ Cruise Ship departing Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida, sailing to Philipsburg (St. Maarten), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Labadee (Haiti). Register today!

DigiMarCon East 2018 – Digital Marketing Conference
May 10, 2018, New York, New York

DigiMarCon East 2018 Digital Marketing Conference takes place May 10th to 11th, 2018 at the luxurious New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square, New York City.
It’s the one digital marketing event you can’t afford to miss! Whether your goal is to reinforce customer loyalty, improve lead generation, increase sales, or drive stronger consumer engagement, DigiMarCon East 2018’s agenda will help attendees enhance their marketing efforts. Sessions will focus on building traffic, expanding brand awareness, improving customer service and gaining insight into today’s latest digital tools. Register today!

TECHSPO Houston 2018
June 06, 2018, Houston, Texas

TECHSPO Houston 2018 is a 2-day technology expo which takes place JUNE 6 – 7, 2018 at the luxurious Houston Marriott Eaton Centre Hotel in Houston, Ontario. TECHSPO Houston brings together developers, brands, marketers, technology providers, designers, innovators and evangelists looking to set the pace in our advanced world of technology. TECHSPO Houston 2018 promises to be better than ever and we’re excited to see all the amazing tech companies and talent that will join us. Register today!

Growth & Success Con
September 17, 2018, Online

This small business virtual conference is dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs at all stages who are stuck in the daily grind of building their businesses and struggle to get solid advice and guidance. An amazing panel of experts in various disciplines and business coaches will share tips & tricks on topics including Growth, Marketing, Management & Business Building for Success. Register today!

More Events

• Free Bradenton Networking Event powered by Rockstar Connect
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• OceanTech Expo
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• Small Business Expo 2018 – PHILADELPHIA
  April 12, 2018, Philadelphia, United States
• Doral Chamber of Commerce Business Networking Luncheon at Carnival Cruise Line
  April 13, 2018, Miami, Florida
• Time Mastery Workshop: 7 Steps to Mastering Your Time with Mark G. Richardson
  April 13, 2018, McLean, VA
• Leadership and Team Management Skills
  April 17, 2018, Ashford, United Kingdom
• SILICON VALLEY BLOCKCHAIN CONFERENCE 2018
  April 17, 2018, San Francisco, United States
• Time Management and Self-Awareness
  April 18, 2018, Ashford, United Kingdom
• Small Business Expo 2018 – WASHINGTON D.C.
  April 20, 2018, Washington, United States
• Sales Cruise 2018
  April 22, 2018, Cape Canaveral, Florida
• DigiMarCon Orlando 2018 – Digital Marketing Conference At Sea
  April 22, 2018, Cape Canaveral, Florida
• Tech Cruise 2018
  April 22, 2018, Orlando, Florida
• DigiMarCon Cruise 2018 – Digital Marketing Conference At Sea
  April 22, 2018, Cape Canaveral, FLORIDA
• AACSB International Conference and Annual Meeting
  April 22, 2018, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Social Media Week NYC
  April 23, 2018, New York, NY
• Create a Powerful Brand and Connect with Customers
  April 24, 2018, Online
• VR Franchise Seminar – Experience the only VR platform for Franchising 2018
  April 25, 2018, San Francisco, CA
• SearchCon 2018 Digital Marketing & SEO Conference
  April 25, 2018, Breckenridge, CO
• The Sixth International Conference on Digital Information, Networking, and Wireless Communications (DINWC2018)
  April 25, 2018, Beirut, Lebanon

More Contests

• Public Vote to Crown America’s Most Unique Small Business Underway
  November 08, 2018, http://www.paychex.com/vote?utm_source=contest&utm_medium=press%20release&utm_term=americas-most-unique

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

Image: …DigiMarCon

Next week at CRM Evolution, the annual event put on by the editors of CRM magazine that invites many of the leading thought leaders to present on important topics and trends shaping the industry, digital transformation will be a very hot topic.  And as a co-chair for the conference, I was extremely happy when Ginger Conlon, Chief Editor and Marketing Alchemist for MKTG Insight, agreed to present about myths and realities surrounding digital transformation.

Before founding MKTG Insight, Ginger was editor-in-chief at publications like CRM and Direct Marketing News.  And with her wealth of knowledge and experience, I wanted to get a preview of what she’ll be discussing at the conference.  And I asked my co-chair, Paul Greenberg, to help me ask Ginger about one of the myths surrounding digital transformation, and also an example of a company doing digital transformation the right way, from a marketing perspective.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.  To see the full conversation watch the video below, or click on the embedded SoundCloud player.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends:  I love this title [of your CRM Evolution presentation], “Digital Transformation Myths and Realities.” Since this is about the road to evolution and we’re spending time with some of the speakers, you’ve got to tell us, maybe give us the top myth and the top reality when it comes to digital transformation.

Ginger Conlon: I’m going to be talking about six, but the top one is, “I’m so behind everyone else!” The reality is no, you’re not behind. We’re all in it together. There are some fast movers, sure, and you need to keep moving forward, but you are certainly not alone, being in the middle or even the back of the pack.

Paul Greenberg:  What makes people even say that? What are they looking at that makes them think, “Oh, everyone else is so ahead of us in digital transformation. I know that because …” and then completing … Turn it into a myth.

Ginger Conlon: There’s so much hype in the market. There’s so many different opinions on where you should be, what you should be doing. A lot of the vendors, of course, have a vested interest in fast movers and everyone else adopting the different technologies to help them along their digital transformation. It causes all the hype and all the myths about what’s going on.

The success stories get so trumpeted that you feel like, “Oh, gee, I must be so far behind”. Even some of the companies who are doing well in some areas are still behind in other areas because it’s a whole journey. I think that’s what causes all of this to be happening.

Paul Greenberg:  Do any go back to their boardroom and say, “We’ve got to do this because everyone else is and we’re already behind so we really need to speed it up,” and then they speed it up and they kind of fail… What happens, basically? Take us through …

Ginger Conlon:  I think part of that is because digital transformation is going to be unique to your organization. How much is it going to permeate your organization? Are you going to start with one team and work out from there? For example, start with marketing transformation, then work on service and et cetera, et cetera, or is it going to be a whole bunch of teams coming together and trying to do a company wide thing? It’s just like the days of implementing CRM and thinking about it as a technology instead of a strategy. You’ve got to start with the strategy first. What do you want to do by adding more digital elements into your business operations? What are the goals? Then, you go backwards from there to make it happen.

That’s where I think people feel like they’re so far behind, they get in a rush. What they need to do is … It’s like running. You have to run your own pace in your own race. You can’t worry about what the front-runner who runs the five minute mile is doing if you’re a seven minute miler, you just have to worry about running your seven minute mile.

Paul Greenberg:  You started out and said something interesting. You said, “Starting, for example, with marketing transformation.” What would be an example of marketing transformation?  That’s kind of a big deal, especially given the mindset of marketers. How does that get done right and what actually happens?

Ginger Conlon:  How does it get done right? That’s kind of a loaded question.

Paul Greenberg:  Right.

Ginger Conlon: Probably the most important elements are communication and collaboration. Like I said before, you’ve got to start with your strategy. If you don’t have that, you don’t have the roadmap to where you want to go. Then, your team needs to be working together.

I’ve got a great example. I just spoke to one of the execs from Virgin Holidays. They’re transformation started with quick wins. They started using Phrasee to add AI to their email testing. They didn’t have the side staff to be able to do extensive testing so they added this tool which was AI for subject lines. They saw a lift there. Then, that win got them to be able to say, “All right, well, we’ve got the outside done. Let’s do the inside of the e-mail,” and they brought in Moveable Ink and started using that to do personalization. Then, they found, “Okay, well, those two things are going really well but, because of the way we have the data set up, it’s making it take too long,” so they brought in Adobe Campaign. Then, they ran all their data through Adobe Campaign. It simplified the process. It went from a day to like 20 or 30 minutes to creating a campaign. They saw just incredible lift across the board.

That went so well that they said, “Okay, now what else do we need to do to improve our data models so that we can improve the way data flows through the systems throughout the organization? Now let’s bring in customer service, tie the data together through customer service,” and then, “Hey, well, let’s also bring customer service communications through our hub. Now, we’re talking to customers in one voice, whether it’s marketing, sales, or service.” Sales was also part of that shift.

It was one thing at a time. Their goal was to be even more customer-centric than they were, but specifically they had some numericals around that. They had things like they wanted to increase their digital interactions by 50%, and that included self-service and things like that. Then, they also wanted to support the agents in their stores by getting them the information that they need at their fingertips, and that’s also the next phase — making sure the frontline agents have the same data that the internal folks have. It’s step-by-step through the process and …

Saul Lopes, the exec I spoke with, he made it the point where, whenever they would hit any kind of a snag, which, of course, a lot was around bringing the data together, he said there was no finger-pointing; there was him and his team and any partners involved saying, “All right, we hit this snag. What do we need to do to fix it?,” collaborating and moving forward. Those are the kind of things that you need to do to make a transformation successful.

He also thinks of it not as a destination but an ongoing journey. “We have done this thing. What’s the next thing we can do and the next thing and the next thing?”

Paul Greenberg:  Did they get a budget buy-in for that?

Ginger Conlon:  Yes, because, with each success, they were able to sell in the next thing. This worked for us. We didn’t have to do anything major to make this thing happen. Now, let’s do that. Yeah, he got buy-in and budget all along by taking these baby steps forward and showing the successes.

Small Business Trends:  When you talk to these companies that, I guess, maybe are on kind of the leading edge of digital transformation, what are some of the surprises that they run into that could help folks that are kind of in the laggard stage when it comes to digital transformation?

Ginger Conlon:  I think that they’re probably not surprises. They’re probably the things that everyone runs into. It’s just a matter of how you handle them. That would be your data. Your data’s a mess. It’s all over the place. The quality is questionable, so you need to have a data strategy, first and foremost. Then, the people side. You need to engage your people. You need to make sure that you have the environment set up for collaboration. That includes your compensation. You need to make sure that you’re compensating people to work together, not work against each other.

This is part of the One-on-One Interview series with thought leaders. The transcript has been edited for publication. If it’s an audio or video interview, click on the embedded player above, or subscribe via iTunes or via Stitcher.

Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) has announced it is discontinuing Business Catalyst, with deletion scheduled for March 26, 2020. The end of life of this popular Content Management System (CMS) has surprised the thousands of businesses that use the platform.

Business Catalyst is an all-in-one CMS designed to help businesses and digital agencies manage their websites and ecommerce. It integrates sales, services and marketing features.

Michelle Dale of Virtual Miss Friday represents many of the small business owners who will be affected by this decision from Adobe. In a video, she says her partnership with Adobe Business Catalyst started 10 years ago and it is the CMS platform she has relied on.

For Dale and other businesses like hers, it means finding another CMS before the 2020 deadline Adobe has announced. And although two years might seem a long time, there are businesses with many websites and massive amounts of data they have to export to a new platform. Not to mention businesses who have allocated thousands of dollars to become a Lifetime Partner and the learning curve of a new system.

It is extremely important to note Adobe said it will take down all Business Catalyst servers on March 26, 2020. And when this happens, the data of all its customers will be deleted. This is why you should find a new solution as soon as possible. Granted it is easier said than done, but the process has to begin.

This is especially important when it comes to support, because Adobe said it will only continue to repair critical issues such as security, payments or customer data, but it will not be fixing minor items with small impact and available workarounds. The company goes on to say this work will be limited to bugs with high security or high stability risk. So the sooner you find a viable alternative and migrate your data, the better it will be for you, your customers and security.

If you use Business Catalyst, here are some important dates to keep track of.

In other related news, Adobe has also announced the end of life for Muse, a website builder software. Organizations using Business Catalyst have also incorporated Muse into their workflow to manage and simplify the creation of websites. The shutdown process has already started with the final feature release of Muse on March 26, 2018. However, technical support for Creative Cloud customers will continue through May 20, 2019.

The Adobe Forum , Business Catalyst , and Muse sites have additional information.

Photo via Shutterstock

Augmented reality has been around for a few years. But small businesses have only recently started to realize its potential as a marketing tool.

Technology startup company Lampix has created an infographic to summarize all the ways in which augmented reality can be a game-changer for small businesses.

Flexibility of Augmented Reality Creates New Opportunities

Using different components such as sensors, computer and projectors, augmented reality shifts users’ perception of reality.

Here’s how it works. Input devices such as cameras are used to scan, collect data and process a digital model. Afterwards, processors built into devices develop sensory input and produce interactive displays. These images are then imposed onto a screen or flat surface based on the digital model.

Enabling computer-generated images to overlay or interact with real world objects elevates user experience and helps businesses boost customer relations.

Different Forms of Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality works also because of its versatility.

Take its marker-based or image recognition feature, for example. It is being used today for various marketing campaigns, especially the ones involving QR code readers.

Marketers are also using it to access location-based information allowing them to better target their audiences.

For realtors, augmented reality provides an opportunity to heighten user experience. By partially or completely replacing the view of a real world object, augmented reality gives users a futuristic look into things.

Many businesses are also using projection to make their marketing efforts more interactive and engaging.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Even as augmented reality becomes more popular, not many marketers understand how it differs from virtual reality.

Virtual reality creates a technology driven artificial environment experienced through sensory stimulation. Augmented reality, on the other hand, enhances reality through digital information overlay technology.

Unlike virtual reality, which involves high costs, bulky hardware and disorienting user experience, augmented reality presents more marketing opportunities.

How Businesses Can Use Augmented Reality

Want to know more about how augmented reality can boost your business? Check out the infographic below:

Image: Lampix

If you are in the process of hiring someone, which is more important to you, natural talent or hard work? A new infographic from Davitt Corporate Partners looks at the science and justification for hiring one over the other. It also defines what talent is and recommends encouraging both traits.

The infographic is titled, “Natural Talent Vs. Hard Work: Which Wins?” and it asks a question many business owners must ask themselves when vetting a new potential employee. The document starts by stating the bias people seem to have for talent over hard work, but is there any truth in the idea that one is more important than the other?

Small businesses in need of new recruits don’t have the same luxury as a large enterprise when it comes to scrutinizing the many different traits a potential hire may or may not have. And depending on the industry the company is in, hard work will win out almost every time. But cultivating talent is critical too.

Davitt Corporate Partners is a firm in Ireland specializing in business coaching and occupational psychology. They serve clients in North America, UK, Europe, Asia and Australia across different industries with executive business coaching, learning and development, organizational design, and management processes.

Talent or Hard Work: The Data

The first study cited in the infographic reveals 60 percent of hiring managers choose natural talent over hard work, even if hiring the natural will cost more. Another study conducted by the University College of London revealed participants were willing to give up even more to get the natural talent, including four years of leadership experience, 8 percent in management skills, 30 points on IQ, and over $30,000 in accrued capital.

So how do you justify one over the other? The report says natural talent is an inborn gift for a particular activity and is essential to reach the top, but it tends to be wasted. On the other hand, it says hard work can grow talent, allows for more success, and is even a form of natural talent itself.

In defining talent, the infographic says it must be nurtured at critical times throughout a person’s life. Missed opportunities can delay talent from fully developing. But hard work is also an important component.

If you have both types of people in your organization, you should encourage them both with talent focused praise and effort focused praise.

You can take a look at the rest of the information on the infographic below.

Images: Davitt Corporate Partners