Bob Cline, National Geographic Society’s director of general services was aware of the environmental and health impacts of the conventional cleaning practices within the facility. “Basically, it was a matter of goal congruency,” Cline says. “Conservation is part of the National Geographic Society mission, and we felt that it would be good if our facilities matched our vision.”

As part of this drive, the following statistics were disclosed by the environmental consultant, Stephen Ashkin …
● Institutional cleaning uses some 6 billion pounds of formulated chemicals a year
● Commercial buildings also use 4.5 billion pounds of hand towels and toilet tissue, much
of it chlorine-bleached and from virgin pulp
● 35 billion plastic trash bags were used and disposed every year.

The green cleaning revolution has taken off in a big way and as a response, industrial production of green cleaning products has been adopted by some of the biggest players in the business – 3M, Johnson Wax. In a complementary move to this customer need and market demand, the four largest U.S. janitorial companies – ABM, Aramark, OneSource, and Unicco have endorsed and joined USGBC ( U.S. Green Building Council ) in the last few years. Its worth mentioning here that the drive to go green has influenced the corporate strategy of some of the largest corporations in the world – Hewlett Packard, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Intel and IBM, Nike, Starbucks, Cisco…

Un-Green Statistics…

Any scientific and technological revolution is shaped around figures and statistics and green revolution is no exception. Here are some facts and figures which can change the way you perceive and preserve your environment..

● Out of the 17000 petrochemical available for home use, only 30% have been tested for human health and environment friendliness
● An average American home contains 63 synthetic chemical products – that is equal to 10 gallons of harmful chemicals
● The combined institutional cleaning usage is 5 billion pounds each year
● In a year, a janitor uses around 90 litres of of chemical – out of which 25% are hazardous
● According to a study published in New Scientist in 1999, in homes where aerosol sprays and air fresheners were used frequently, mothers experienced 25 percent more headaches and were 19 percent more likely to suffer from depression, and infants under
six months of age had 30 percent more ear infections and 22 percent higher incidence of diarrhea.

The Digital retail sector is governed by rules which are totally alien to the traditional (offline) retail industry. In a traditional retail transaction, seller always occupies the upper hand with respect to the buyer. But, in the digital economy, the scales have turned – Consumers not only enjoy an equal footing in the transaction but they also influence the pre-sales and Post-sales processes. Consumers not only determine the advertising and marketing strategy but they also influence the product features.

One cannot overlook the DNA of a typical Digital transaction while we are looking into the Digital marketplace ….

• Your retail business is Location agnostic as long as you have competitive products and a good market reputation

• Customers are never left in the lurch unlike a traditional retail set up – They have access to a 24 * 7 customer service

• The end-to-end transaction details are transparent to both the consumer and the seller

Just In Time (JIT) inventory shot into limelight after Walmart embraced it. Walmart had to adopt it following a series of losses because of the exorbitant delays in transportation and and due to a complete disconnect between the Consumer demands and Walmart Supply Chain system. In a digital retail system, inventory is managed in a ondemand basis. This ensures a minimal loss to seller as well as a fresh product to the Buyer.

Thus, JIT being the standard inventory management system for the Digital economy – It ensures an optimum use of time, maintenance & transportation costs and resources – Just what is needed in this economy.

The question is whether retail giants like Big Bazaar, Trumart, and pantaloons can extract any lessons from it. Lets take a look at some of the market movements in some of the big players…

• Big bazaar brought shutters down on two of its outlets in Ahemedabad

• Shubhiksha (Mobile store & fresh food store) has shut down its shutters

• Truemart no longer exists on the Retail map of India..

1. Some common questions that could be raised are
   

• Was there a sound all-weather strategy behind these ventures?

• Could they have embraced a nontraditional or hybrid model to get over this economic slump?

“Consumers are asking more questions about how and where apparel is made and about the impact of the food that they eat, and like any smart business, companies are gearing up to address those concerns,” said Matt Hirschland, a spokesman for San Francisco-based Business for Social Responsibility, an industry trade group that consults with businesses on social and ethical issues. Consumers are no longer the silent recipient of product or service at one end of the market channel, but in sharp contrast to the earlier decade, they are participating with more vigor in the Eco-conservation process.

“Today, the focus on sustainable operations is stronger than ever, but tomorrow it will be standard business practice,” says Michael Robertson, president for Virginia-based Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA). “For many customers, sustainability audits will become a key component in the bidding process,” says Robertson. “In the not-too-distant future, we’ll see imagers winning bids because of sustainability audit results — not because of lower prices or better quality.”

Firms with the ‘clean’ tag have been proving magnetic for the investors also, with a remarkable surge for this eco-smart species in the venture capital market. Investors poured $26.2 billion into U.S. companies in 2006 according to VentureOne — interest in clean tech in growing, according to Cleantech Venture Network. “Beyond the touchy-feely benefits and PR value, there is now a real business case for going green,” says David Weigel, vice president of marketing for Ecos Consulting.
“While going green helps distinguish a business and set it apart in the community as a responsible organization, it is actually becoming more evident that early adopters and companies with real sustainability in mind are now edging out the competition.”
Consumers are increasingly realizing their role as partners in the manufacturing process, and are sending very unambiguous signals regarding their preference for green products and services. In fact, studies have shown that about 10 percent of consumers today are willing to pay a little more for a “green” product while 25 percent of them couldn’t care less. The rest 65% of the market – the
undecided lot – have every reason to ‘go green’, once they understand the holistic impact of these eco-smart practices on their lives and their potential to shape the future of their next generation.
“(The clean tech) field may very well be one of the largest economic opportunities that Silicon Valley has seen since the advent of the semiconductor,” says Conrad Burke, chief executive for Santa Clara-based Innovalight Inc. Market surveys and Wall street statistics are proving that the green business revolution is taking wings, with the marketplace topping more than $228 billion in the United States and with such companies as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. getting into organic food and GE plowing into renewable energy. Levi’s is introducing organic cotton jeans. Vanity Fair recently published a green issue. “I think the business has taken off like a rocket,” said Kevin Danaher, co-founder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco organization that promotes social, economic and environmental justice around the world. “I think it’s left the launching pad.”

In order to find out if a blog could be good for your business, answer the following question:
• Do the vendors, targeted customers spend good amount of time on internet?
• Do people research about product or any information related to your business online?
• Do you have some instances in your experience or specific business related information which you can share with customers?
• Can the information you share add value or educate people regarding your business?
If you have answered affirmative to most of the above question, you can be sure that your business and your website can be benefited by integrating a blog.

The “why” of corporate blog
The concept of corporate blogging has been around since early 2000’s, and now we can certainly come of age today. The importance of business blogging was not highlighted initially, but today, a blog is considered as a tool for public relations, marketing, brand promotion as well as communication with customers and other business. From an internet and web presence perspective a business blog has obvious SEO advantages.

SEO Advantages of the blogs
When a blog is a part of your main website, it increases the chances to get quicker attention of search engines. Blogs basically work by pinging mechanism. A correctly set up blog quickly ping the search engines indicating that there is new content to index.

• When posts of your blogs are linked to some pages of website with appropriate anchor text, those pages also gets indexed quickly.
• Frequently written good quality blogs attract many eyeballs. You are also credited for sharing the industry specific knowledge with people.
• You can target more number of industry related key words with your blogs.
• Having a blog written by a person adds a feel aspect to the business. This also increases the trust factor among the customers.

Preparing to blog
Before you begin to blog, spend some time in the realm of the blogosphere to get an idea about what is going on and what are the hottest topics being discussed about your niche area. You would obviously benefit by reading the blogs form the leading personalities in your field. The general frequency you can maintain is about one post a week. This shows that your website is updated with relevant content at a decent frequency. Ideally a post between 300 to 600 words is good enough.

Tips for blog content
The key points that indicate a good business blog are
• Relevant topics: Ensure that the content on your blog is relevant to the industry. Be sure that the subjects you write are recent and add value to the subject matter.
• Accuracy of the content: Being accurate about whatever you write adds to your brand value and gives the impression that you as an individual and as a company are reliable.
• Being concise: People come to your page to read blog not a book, so be concise. If a particular post is longer you could consider making two posts out of it.
• Respond to the comments: It is imperative that you respond graciously and appropriately to people who comment on your blog. This is one of the best ways to connect with people on a personal level. This also engages the customer s and creates positive image about your business.

As your blog goes popular, it will attract more eyeballs and would mean better publicity for your business.

If the content on your website needs to be altered frequently, then you would perhaps need access and control of your site rather than request updates through your web developer. This is when a CMS comes into the picture.

So when you have decided that you need a CMS, the following suggestions can help you choose the most appropriate one for your projects.

Budget: The first step is to determine the amount you can spend on a CMS. While determining your budget, don’t forget about the implementation and support costs.

Review the volume of content and consider scalability: Determine the volume of content you have today, and will have tomorrow. Your system should be able to support your maximum projected users at least for the next five years. Once you have evaluated your needs, match the volume with real life case studies to know what your intended Content Management System can handle.

Format Flexibility: Evaluate the format flexibility of your CMS. If you will be publishing in several formats (social, web, mobile, video, audio, XML, etc.) then ensure that the content can be re-formatted easily.

Printing Flexibility: Websites and web technology flourish on change. So make sure that your web content or site design is twisted or totally changed at least every 12 months. Go for a CMS that does not limit your ability to make changes.

Some of the recommended content management systems are:

Wordpress: This CMS system is best for websites that have four or five static pages, like “About us”, “Contact us”, etc. and pages that change frequently, like the blogs.

ExpressionEngine: This CMS system allows for more dynamic content, and also allows easy multiple changes at once.

Drupal: When a website grows, it becomes difficult to manage information. Drupal CMS is specifically designed for large sites that feature several pages of individualized content.

Make an informed decision about the right content management system and see your business soar to new heights.

• A corporate communications director making sure that the widest possible coverage of her latest press release through an RSS feed and ensuring dissemination via a news aggregator.
• The internal communications manager sending out daily reports, both internal data and externally sourced information, to all his company employees all around the world in the chosen RSS option. He is assured that no one is inadvertently left off the circulation list.
• A consultant needing to keep his customer regularly updated on a particular project. He creates a weblog and makes this available to his customer through a RSS feed; Rest assured.
• A competitive information professional using the RSS reader to gather regular information from direct competitors web sites, industry blogs, independent analysts, and the news media.
• A company who just released a new service and is expecting direct and regular feedback from chartered customers who agree to keep weblogs of their experiences with these services; and the company regularly receiving updates using RSS.
• A sales executive wanting to send regular messages to a valued customer concerning special promotions; they agree that the RSS feed is the surest, and the best answer.
• A Vice-President of marketing is organizing his company’s annual conference which includes customers, suppliers and staff. As the agenda and logistics keep changing, he uses the RSS to keep everyone updated. The updated document can be posted on the corporate intranet, and the changes can be highlighted using RSS.
• Corporate bloggers like the CEO wanting to communicate directly with staff or customers – need an audience. RSS is that quick trick for reaching out and getting a response.
• Project teams could be working on different continents, where RSS is an effective and secure way of sharing data and highlighting issues.
• When Company Documentation, including procedure manuals, employee handbooks, health and safety regulations, or price-lists need to be kept up-to-date, since they regularly change and the concerned staff needs to be notified; the updated documents could be posted on the intranet, and RSS used for highlighting changes.

Why should corporations promote the adoption of RSS technology?

There are a myriad of other uses where RSS can be put for use within a corporate environment. Broadly, RSS is best at delivering ‘FYI’ information, while e-mail is good for active – two way communication.

However, few companies have taken a policy decision to comprehensively deploy RSS within their organizations. RSS readers currently in use in companies are on account of personal initiatives alone.

Drivers for further uptake

The debate so far has only focused on the benefits of RSS versus E-mail. Increasing junk mail has given rise to even more draconian anti-spam measures. This is making it hard for the corporate managers to decide – a flood of unwanted e-mails each day, or risking with anti-spam software capable of blocking a vital message.

RSS is looking like an increasingly attractive and secure option for sending or receiving a regular report, message or an electronic newsletter within the corporate firewall, where the end user can control the flow in terms of what is received, the frequency and whether it alerts the users to the arrival of a message.

The “pull” aspect of RSS technology is appealing, and fundamentally differentiates from the “push” aspect of e-mail.

What does it mean?

A podcast is a transmission of digital media files in audio, video or any other format, over the web. It is a series of many small parts that follow web syndication and can be downloaded. Like, on radio it is broadcast, on television, it is telecast; the same way on internet it is podcast.

Where did the term ‘podcast’ originate?

This term is a mix of two terms – the first part, pod, relates to the iPod, a popular portable media layer device by Apple Computers; and the second part, cast, is derived from broadcast. A British journalist, broadcaster and photographer, Ben Hammersley first mentioned this term in 2004 in one of his articles. He also suggested a few other names, but incidentally, ‘podcast’ caught on. Some others refer to it as Netcast as well.

What supports podcast?

Despite the name that has derived from iPod, the usage of podcasts is not restricted to this particular gadget. It can be played on any media player whether it is portable or system based like computers. Its format is easily accessible across playing platforms.

What are podcast types?

Though podcasts are mostly in user friendly MP3 file format; there are various types of podcast based on the format as well as what it contains.

An audio podcast is in simple audio format without any kind of video or graphics supporting it.

Similarly another popular type of podcast is video podcast. Sometimes it is also referred to as vodcast. It is mostly a video clip delivered online. Television serials that can be viewed through cable, a set top box or a computer, are all video podcast.

A podcast that contains an audio with simultaneous display of images is called as enhanced podcast. Images may be in the form of an artwork, animation or a recorded video. While playing podcast, all these are activated simultaneously within the window of the device on which it is being played. It is fast catching the fancy of one and all, as it enables audio and video to amalgamate and produce the required information. Educational institutes, business houses, entertainment producers are all vying for enhanced podcasts to achieve their purposes.

What is its utility?

Great! You have the sky – you display your flight skills now. What Podcast has been able to do is, given you an opportunity to be creative in a particular media.  What you are able to make out of this – is your take.

Audio and video podcasts can give a whole new meaning for ways to delivering web content. This will also be able to generate better audiences since is based on multimedia. Providing viable and meaningful content using podcast would be a challenging task.

How we are able to make use of this space would be very interesting. Unlike the verbal scripted text there is less room for blah – blah – blah. Multimedia may be difficult creating, but it sure makes a better impact.

Audio and Video Podcasts can give a fresh and new meaning to the working of the World Wide Web.

Your curiosity is killing you. You turn around and reach the provided address, to find a big shoe store. Their banner reads, ‘Improper and cheap jogging shoes can hurt your legs. Get the best quality shoes here.’

So in order to advertise their store, the jogger in the park teased you. He played a ‘teaser’. Got it?

Teasers in media

Similarly, in the world of advertising, any small caption, image, audio, video, animation, etc that grabs your attention for comparatively small span of time but leaves you curious is called a teaser! These days television channels are running plenty of teasers that go something like, ‘World is coming to an end! Watch special bulletin at 10 tonight.’ Does it not arouse curiosity?  Actually, it may be just another program. But amidst cutthroat competition, such teasers help to attract viewership. They do not reveal the real picture and leave you wanting for more.

Recently, some newspapers published teasers that read ‘Gold prices dropped. Turn to Page 3’. It leaves readers curious enough to turn to page 3 without reading headlines. Here, it talks about a new offer on its products that may fetch you gold.

These days every magazine on newsstand is trying to grab buyers’ attention by sporting teasers. It may be a catchy line or an image that compels us to pick up an issue and look inside.

Teasers on the web

Most commonly we come across teasers while surfing the net. They are in the form of pop ups, moving images and animations. They catch our attention, raise curiosity and vanish. They leave a link to be clicked to find out more.

How about articles and blogs on the net? Do they have teasers? Yes! They are mostly in the form of a catchy title, byline or an image.

Their characteristics

Though sounds simple, the teasers have three main characteristics. These are:

• They don’t reveal anything: They don’t tell you the story or hint at what’s on the offer.
  • They arouse curiosity: That’s for sure and that’s their primary task. They shall invoke the       response and hang up in mid air.
  • They are short lived: Their life ends after taking you to the main story. They lose effect or are of no use once the story is revealed.