By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
It is often difficult for business owners to get truly valuable input from employees. Often times, employees are reticent to express their opinion for fear of reprisal. In this economy, people are more vigilant than ever to protect their job status.
Alfred P. Sloan Jr. longtime president and chairman of General Motors, is supposed to have said at a GM executive meeting, “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in agreement on the decision here.” Everyone around the table nodded. Mr. Sloan said, “Then, I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”
In other words, having a bunch of yes men (and women) provides nothing to a company.
Now comes InputLadder.com. Launched in July of this year, this Fort Lauderdale, Florida based startup, is an anonymous employee feedback platform that allows companies of various sizes to truly open the doors of communication. Their innovative and unique web-platform allows individuals to communicate with management or human resources, without a name or a face. The dialog can be nameless, so there is no fear for being reprimanded.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
So-called wrapped vehicles have been around for about 15 years. A company called SuperGraphics , now a division of GM Nameplate, no relation to General Motors, contends to have designed the world’s first computer generated bus wrap for the now discontinued Crystal Pepsi. Such advertising has spread to other forms of public transportation-taxis, trains etc.
The problem is this type of advertising is very expensive, plus bus and train supply is limited and often requires sorting through governmental or bureaucratic red tape. By wrapping cars, advertisers are able to use this extremely effective form of advertising in a more cost effective manner.
We have been contacted by few of these new sites, but they are based outside the United States and would not really be of interest to our readers until the catch on here. For instance, a recently launched startup CashURWheels.com (profiled on KillerStartups.com) is based in Australia and has only listings in Australia. It does however, feature auctions and free registration so if it can catch on here in the United States it should be of interest. This type of marketing so intrigued me that I decided to survey some of the companies doing wrapped advertising over the Internet. It seems most of these companies charge for access to their sites, unlike CashURWheels.
DirectFreeCars.com offers access to its database of 20 companies for $24.95. They claim that you can either get a new car absolutely free or get paid for driving your car and receive checks from $120-$3400 every month.
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