miercuri, 19 februarie 2014

What $10.10 would mean for you

The White House Wednesday, February 19, 2014
 

What $10.10 would mean for you

President Obama is calling on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. And the President has taken the first step by signing an Executive Order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors.

Raising the federal minimum wage will give millions of Americans a raise, and it's long overdue -- because no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.

Last week, we asked what raising the minimum wage meant to you.

The stories you shared are a strong argument for exactly how important it is that we get this done. Raising the minimum wage helps Americans young and old. It helps provide relief for those who are just scraping by, and it helps those saving for a rainy day. It's the right thing to do, but don't take our word for it.

Read these stories from folks like you -- then forward them on, and submit your own.

Raising the minimum wage will allow me and my family to live comfortably, not worry about living from paycheck to paycheck.
Vennatte E., Huntsville, TX

It would give me a chance to save something for the future of my kids and grandchildren.
Malissa M., Bloxom, VA

This would help out single parents like me to help finish raising their kids alone on one income.
Idrissa S., Oglethorpe, GA

It will help me save money to go to the college of my dreams and help me lift the burden off my mother.
Shelby S., Long Beach, CA

The stories you share make a difference. Share your story and help spread the message: We need to raise the minimum wage.

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Making America’s Trucks More Efficient

 
 
 
 
 
 
  Featured

Making America’s Trucks More Efficient

Yesterday, the President directed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to set the next round of fuel efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks by March 2016. This next round of standards will build on the historic work done to date, support American manufacturing innovation, and spur the development of new technologies.

Learn how we're going to make our trucks more efficient.

The President greets Safeway workers after announcing new fuel efficiency standards for large trucks.

President Barack Obama greets audience members after delivering remarks on improving the fuel efficiency of American trucks, at the Safeway Distribution Center in Upper Marlboro, Md., Feb. 18, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

 

 

  Top Stories

We the People Response: Reaffirming the White House's Commitment to Net Neutrality

Since his days as a United States Senator, President Obama has embraced the principle of net neutrality. Rights of free speech, and the free flow of information, are central to our society and economy -- and the principle of net neutrality gives every American an equal and meaningful opportunity to participate in both. Indeed, an open Internet is an engine for freedom around the world.

READ MORE

Congressional Budget Office Report Finds Minimum Wage Lifts Wages for 16.5 Million Workers

The new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report finds that 16.5 million workers would get a raise from increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and this would help millions of hard-working families, reduce poverty, and increase the overall wages going to lower-income households.

READ MORE

The Fifth Anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Five years ago, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In the four years following the Recovery Act, the President built on this initial step, signing into law over a dozen fiscal measures that extended key features of the Act and provided new sources of support.

READ MORE


 
 
  Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Time (ET)

8:15 AM: The President departs the White House

8:30 AM: The President departs Joint Base Andrews

1:00 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks highlighting the need for continued investment in infrastructure to create jobs and grow our economy

1:10 PM: The President arrives in Toluca, Mexico

1:35 PM: The President greets President Nieto

1:55 PM: The President holds a restricted bilateral meeting with President Nieto

2:10 PM: The President holds an expanded bilateral meeting with President Nieto

3:40 PM: The President accompanies North American leaders for a family photo

3:45 PM: The President attends a working lunch

5:20 PM: The President participates in a walk and talk with Prime Minister Harper of Canada

5:50 PM: The President delivers remarks with President Nieto and Prime Minister Harper WATCH LIVE

6:30 PM: The President participates in the Trilateral North American Leaders Summit Meeting 

7:00 PM: The Vice President attends an event for the Democratic National Committee

8:15 PM: The President, President Nieto and Prime Minister Harper hold a press conference WATCH LIVE

9:50 PM: The President departs Mexico en route Washington, DC

1:50 AM: The President arrives Joint Base Andrews

2:05 AM: The President arrives the White House

 

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Trucking Toward Energy Efficiency

The White House Wednesday, February 19, 2014
 

Trucking Toward Energy Efficiency

In 2011, the President announced new fuel-efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. These standards, which apply to vehicles in model years 2014 through 2018, are projected to save vehicle owners and operators $50 billion in fuel costs over the lifetimes of the vehicles covered.

But we're not putting the brakes on yet.

Yesterday, President Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to develop the next phase of fuel-efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks, steering us toward even greater efficiency.

Heavy-duty trucks only make up 4 percent of all vehicles on America’s highways, but they’re responsible for about 20 percent of our pollution and fuel consumption on the road. And because they carry about 70 percent of all domestic freight -- everything from flat-screen TVs to diapers to produce -- every mile gained in fuel efficiency is worth thousands of dollars of savings per truck each year.

Learn more about how we're driving new fuel-efficiency standards that will save Americans money, cut carbon pollution, and boost our energy security.

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Why Every Business Should Spend at Least $1 per Day on Facebook Ads

Why Every Business Should Spend at Least $1 per Day on Facebook Ads


Why Every Business Should Spend at Least $1 per Day on Facebook Ads

Posted: 18 Feb 2014 03:14 PM PST

Posted by briancarter

For the last three years I've constantly recommended Facebook ads. I recommend them to both B2C or B2B businesses. I recommend them to local theaters and comedians here in Charleston, SC. I recommend them to everyone who wants to grow awareness about anything they're doing.

How advertising has changed since the 20th century

Before the Internet, it was unlikely that the average person would advertise. Many businesses used the Yellow Pages or radio, but not all. Even in the first decade of the 21st century, only a percentage of companies used search advertising. Many found that pay-per-click was too expensive or too complicated for them.

Why Facebook Ads are the biggest marketing opportunity ever

With Facebook ads, we have a totally unique opportunity. There are several things about them never before seen together:

  • They can reach as many people or more people as radio or TV, and in whatever country.
  • They have sophisticated targeting like AdWords, albeit on different criteria.
  • The minimum spend is just $1 per day.
  • They are the lowest cost per 1,000 impressions ad in history. They average around $0.25 per 1,000, which is only 1% of the cost of TV. Are you kidding me? Nope, it's for real.

In other words, Facebook ads are mega-awareness raising, have good targeting, require very little commitment, and are unbelievably affordable.

Here's the one thing I tell people about Facebook ads that usually gets through:

If you just spend $1 per day on Facebook ads, you will get in front of 4,000 people that wouldn't have seen you otherwise. If you are doing that and your competitors aren't, you win the awareness game in your niche.

You can't sell to someone who doesn't know you exist, and you can't sell a product or service the consumer has never heard of.

If you can't spare $30 a month, you shouldn't be in business.

Facebook Ads for awareness and ROI

In my opinion, because of AdWords, many companies now underestimate the importance and value of awareness and mindshare. I drank the instant-ROI kool aid too; I was Mr. AdWords from 2004 until 2010. We still do it, but we also know its limits. It can harvest the low-hanging fruit and look good in terms of attribution, but it can't raise awareness affordably.

There are people in SEO and PR who look down on ads. I understand that aesthetic, but it's not as important as this opportunity. We know that organic Facebook without advertising is a tough road that's becoming more and more impassable. Pages with millions of fans find themselves only reaching 10s of thousands with their posts. Adding advertising to promote your posts ensures you get 10-100x the exposure of page posting alone. We have one big national brand client that's receiving $0.01 engagement clicks on several of their most engaging posts.

There are enough case studies of companies getting positive ROI from Facebook advertising to know that it's feasible. But there are a lot of companies doing Facebook poorly or without sufficient analytics. One stat said that 41% of B2B companies didn't have the tracking in place to know what Facebook was doing for them either way. In fact, as of a 2013 HubSpot survey, 34% of businesses either cannot or do not calculate their inbound ROI at all.

There's Facebook conversion tracking code you can use, and you can create ads that automatically optimize for conversions. Here's how to use it:

  1. Go to the Facebook Ad Manager.

  2. Look on the left for Conversion Tracking, and click on it.

  3. Click on the green box "Create Conversion Pixel."

  4. Give it a name you'll recognize, and choose what kind of conversion it is (e.g. a check, lead, or add to cart).

  5. Copy the JavaScript code and give it to your website person, or place it yourself. They actually recommend placing it in the <head> section.

Facebook Advertising targeting options

If you're not super-familiar, here are some of your targeting options (use one, a combination, or all):

  1. Geography
  2. Language
  3. Age
  4. Gender
  5. Workplace
  6. College
  7. Interests (including job titles)
  8. Categories
  9. Your own email lists
  10. Relationship status
  11. Education level
  12. College major
  13. School
I have worked on and seen other great case studies (a few examples are Marketo, InfiniGraph, Hubspot) of B2B Facebook advertising for lead gen. I've targeted media, bloggers, and journalists, and secured interviews I wouldn't have received otherwise.

Facebook also has retargeting options like AdWords does if you want to diversify your owned media beyond email and fans.

They're also great for promoting events. You can not only get people to join your event for sometimes as low as $0.15 each, you can also reach the friends of the people who've already said they're going.

Do at least $1 per day!

Altogether, Facebook advertising is a powerful platform with a lot of options, and given its power, your company should have someone testing our Facebook ads for it, even if it's just at $1 per day!

---

You may also want to participate in The Carter Group's 2014 Digital Advertising Survey, Sponsored by Moz. Here it is!


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Seth's Blog : Is it time for a competitor to the Olympics?

 

Is it time for a competitor to the Olympics?

I'll confess that I don't watch the Olympics, but you'd have to be living under a rock to be unaware of the corruption and the expense. An amorphous organization with no transparency, unclear lines of responsibility, huge amounts of politics and a great deal of unearned power. 

I wonder what it would take to create an alternative?

Ford, Nike and Netflix each put up a hundred million dollars or so. The games would be held two years before each corresponding Olympics, benefitting both athletes (who can't always wait four more years) as well as curling-starved fans (not to mention advertisers). (Ted Turner tried this a long time ago, but I think it's time to try again in a post-broadcast economy).

To reflect a world that actually has electronic communications at its disposal, the games would be held in ten cities at the same time, not one, reusing existing facilities from previous games. With multiple time zones, the games could be held round the clock, and the logistical challenges of rebuilding a different city every time go away.

And to reflect a world engaged in social media, the games would be focused on abundance, on sharing, on permission, as opposed to straining to build a legal wall around what goes on.

(And in a Rollerball-like, post-sovereign twist, perhaps the teams are sponsored not by countries, but by companies, fraternal organizations and organized fans).

We'd need a new song, sure, and a name that over time would somehow gain ridiculous trademark rights, but hey, you need to start somewhere. 

       

 

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Seth's Blog : Genes and memes

 

Genes and memes

I have the K1a1b1a mutation in my genes, a mutation that happened a few thousand years ago. If you have it too, then you're probably one of the millions of people who are distant cousins of mine. Most of us are related, in fact, as we're all descended from just four different women.

Genes spread. The ones that spread, win.

People are not necessarily selfish, but genes are. They're selfish in the sense that the only genes that are around are those that were part of organisms that had grandchildren. We can't assign a personality to a simple bit of data like a gene, but if we could anthropomorphize, we'd say that the gene is looking for opportunities in the environment to exploit, seeking out advantages that help it get reproduced.

Seen this way, the millions and millions of years of slow evolution of species makes perfect sense. A mutation occurs, and if it confers an advantage on the organism that it is part of, that organism has more kids, the gene is spread. If it doesn't, it disappears. This is one reason you need a new flu shot every year--because the flu mutates over time.

Richard Dawkins took this idea and riffed (in a single chapter of The Selfish Gene) on how ideas follow similar patterns. Robert Kearns, for example, created the mutation we know of as the intermittent windshield wiper. Before his invention, all windshield wipers on all cars worked at just one or two speeds. After his invention started showing up on cars, though, other carmakers saw the idea and it reproduced, moving from a few cars to more cars, until, like an advantage spreading through generations of a population, it was on virtually every car.

Or, consider the growth of guacamole as an idea. In less than a generation, it went from an unknown delicacy (the first recipe I saw included mayo) to something commonplace. Tattoos have a similar if more permanent trajectory.

Ideas that spread win. Ideas don't have to be selfish to win, in fact, it turns out that the more generous the interactions an idea produces, the more likely it is to spread. (Back to guac: it spread partly because it's a party food, so people discovered it when others shared it...)

Seeing your business or your project as a multi-generational organism, one that you can mutate at will, is a useful way to help it grow. I've written about it here and here.

       

 

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