4 Tips For Finding Funding For Your Startup
Forbes released an article discussing possible ways to fund startups. Having a great idea and product is only half the battle when launching a startup. You are going to need cash and a lot of it. Fortunately, in today’s day and age there are new alternatives to achieve funding. The article provided a few ways that may help you find the best route to go when starting your business.
1. Consider your niche – What makes your app special or stand out? Find this attribute and use it to locate investors that may be more inclined to investing in your product.
2. Find a grant – This may be difficult, but this will be a great way to get things rolling. There are grants for tons of different things, almost similar to the way scholarships are rewarded. There are grants for minorities, women, mothers, etc. This may be a difficult option, but it is definitely one that will provide great benefit.
3. Enter a contest – There are many contests now held to provide money for startup funding. If you chose to attempt this method you should focus on making your idea really stand out and being very clear when explaining your product/service.
4. Crowdfund your idea – These platforms are gaining attention from both businesses and investors. This has become increasingly popular in the past couple of years. Some of the popular sites include Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
4 Tips For Finding For Your Startup
Which tip do you think is the most helpful? Also, I am curious to everyone’s thought on crowdfunding. What is your stance on it?
Disruptive innovators and missteps
As a company trying to take on the big boy incumbents it is paramount to avoid the types of mistakes that will greatly effect your adoption rate. Sling was making some major headway in the market and enjoying a good buzz around its product. All until the march madness mishap that is talked about here. Is this ultimately going to end up fatal for sling? The biggest draw of the product was the fact that you wouldn’t have to miss the big events playing on your TV again, well if that is no longer a guarantee what will become of Sling?
Here is the article let me know what you think.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/5/8348885/sling-tv-ncaa-finals-problems-watching
Why CIOs Can’t Sell Enterprise Collaboration Tools
Enterprise collaboration is a concept that almost everyone supports, but is rarely implemented correctly and fully accepted. This is because businesses do not know what they are aiming to achieve, and end up failing the project. In order to improve the success of these projects, CIOs need to not only support the functionality, but also be a champion for it. This means using the software instead of telling others to.
Experts say that enterprises struggle with cross-functional communication from department to department or office to office. Collaboration tools can assist with this but requires identifying specific needs to choose what software to use. There is also a disconnect between the needs of employees and the C suite. Older executives are struggling to embrace technologies that seem simple to younger employees, which create a hazy picture for implementing a new technology. The biggest challenge, however, is the employees’ mindset about collaboration technology. If the demand for employees is not there, they will just work around the technology and ruin the return on the project.
What experiences have you had with collaboration tools at Temple or at an internship? What was more successful?
Tech Trends that will Shape the Banking and Securities Industry in 2015
Banking customers have become much more digital savvy in the recent years, and technology has brought in new competition from non-banks to quickly fit the needs of these people. The banking industry is more reliant than ever on technology for many aspects of their business. Technology is used more and more not to simply sell products, but also to manage internal operations, and control risks. Many of the advances in technology— mobile, analytics, and cloud have a direct role to play in these areas. They enable services from incumbents and new entrants, and improve financial inclusion for the ones not served well by the traditional banking products.
“In the past year, the world’s largest listed company, Apple, has entered payments, and the world’s largest retailer, Walmart has announced that it will offer checking accounts. Non-banks are a growing phenomenon in many parts of the world. While the portion of revenue that non-banks get at the expense of banks is minuscule today, they are growing and creating new services in the unserved areas.” Gartner has projected that the banking and securities industry worldwide will spend $502 bn on IT products and services in 2015, an increase of 2.7% over 2014. IT services, the largest segment at $193 bn, will grow by 3.3%. Software will be the fastest growing segment at 6.5%, and the projected spend is $70 bn.
Among priorities for technologies, analytics retains the top position for the third year in a row, while infrastructure/ datacenter, mobile, and cloud are the others that make up the top four technology priorities for the banking and securities industry. The increased reliance on technology for business goals has increased the participation of business leaders in technology decisions. Considering that I will be working at a banking company in the information technology department next year, this kind of information is pivotal for me to understand and grasp. Banks are continuing to invest in their channels, whether branches, ATMs, online, and mobile. Another huge plus to banking technology is that it also enables newer services to reach a large population, who have not been able to make use of them before. While banks are positioned well to seize the opportunities opened by technology, the future will have many innovative and useful financial services, offered both by banks and non-banks.
ATMs Get a Cloud Update
NCR, the leader in ATM technology, introduced new 
software that will allow ATMs to use the cloud in order to improve security and lower costs. About 75% of ATMs run Windows XP, which Microsoft suspended support for in April 2014. The new cloud software will allow machines to be updated remotely instead of the manual uploads required with Windows XP. NCR claims that this will allow banks to service machines twice as fast as before.
Do you think that NCR was late to implement this technology since Windows XP was no longer supported?
What other disruptive technologies do you think could be implemented into ATMs?
10 Tips for Group Presentations
Our presentation date is approaching quickly. I wanted to share an article that provides tips to presenting a successful group project. Hopefully you can use some of these tips to help you with your group presentation.
1. Show some energy – Monotony will kill your speech
2. Tell a story – This can help engage your audience
3. Learn how to structure your presentation – Focus on getting the main points across
4. Know your audience – Example: How many people are in the audience? What level of knowledge do they have on the materials being presented.
5. Be unique and memorable – Do something to make your group stand out
6. Keep it simple – Do not over complicate your presentation. You want your message to be clear. Do NOT confuse your audience.
7. Summarize – This helps get the main points across
8. Make it visual – Use visuals to enhance your message (People do not want to read a lot of text during a presentation)
9. Practice – This will help your group transitions better and maintain a steady flow during your presentation
10. Stick yo your allotted time – We have 9 minutes including Q&A(end between 7 and 9 minutes)
10 Tips to Nail a Group Presentation
Are there any other tips that you feel are important that were left out of this article? If so, please share!
Does Your Whole Home Need Antivirus Now??
Does Your Whole Home Need Antivirus Now_ – WSJ
I was happy to see this article, because my parents just recently put a security system in their home that they can access via mobile devices to unlock doors, etc. I told them I was pretty sure that makes them more vulnerable, but I was not positive. After discussing my concern with one of my IT security managers at work I found out they are without a doubt more vulnerable. When accessing your home security system via mobile device you are using wireless connection and wireless transmissions are not always encrypted. Information such as e-mails sent by a mobile device is usually not encrypted while in transit. In addition, many applications do not encrypt the data they transmit and receive over the network, making it easy for the data to be intercepted. For example, if an application is transmitting data over an unencrypted WiFi network using http (rather than secure http), the data can be easily intercepted. When a wireless transmission is not encrypted, data can be easily intercepted. Data such as a mobile security application that unlocks your home doors, and turn off your security system.
Even though this device isn’t functioning 100% correct as yet it still is an innovative idea, which will create a new market.
What is everyones thought on this home security issue?
Does anyone have a security system they can access via mobile device?
IBM Joins With Apple, J&J to Analyze Health Data in the Cloud
It was recently announced that IBM is joining with Apple Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic Plc are joining together to create a technology that will make it easier for health-care companies to analyze patient data. I find it truly remarkable and renowned that three prestigious companies are joining forces and International Business Machines Corp. announced a cloud-computing platform, called Watson Health Cloud, which can store and analyze anonymous patient data. An entirely new business unit will be created around the offering with at least 2,000 specialists, IBM said in a statement. According to an IBM representative: “IBM has been seeking growth in newer areas like data analytics and cloud computing as tumbling demand for legacy hardware and services has dragged down revenue. The company has increasingly relied on industry-specific partnerships to help boost sales, like these latest tie-ups in health care.” The information technology will not only increase revenue for all three companies, but will also make humongous strides for healthcare management.
“It’s a huge bet for IBM,” John Kelly, senior vice president for solutions portfolio and research, said in an interview. “We looked around for areas that were high growth where if we entered we could make a substantial difference and capture substantial share. None of us are satisfied with the outcomes in the health-care industry.”
Technology has made it much easier for patients and physicians to gather large quantities of health data, which in turn improves overall health of not only customers, but the population in general. It will be interesting to see where these innovations take the future of the world’s health.
5 Technology Products That Won’t Let You Break the Law
5 Technology Products That Won’t Let You Break the Law
Since we talked about the safety measures of 3-D printers in class during our disruptive innovation class, I thought this article was informative of how safety measures are being taken into account.
The article states that algorithms are used to prevent people from creating gun parts as well as print counterfeit money. Even Photoshop forbids you from scanning and printing money.
Do you think these technologies are actually smart enough to prevent people from breaking the law? What would be some ways people could get around these preventions?
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/5-technology-products-that-wont-let-you-break-the-116183169724.html
Disruptive Change: Are You Ready?
Disruptive technological change is changing constantly and changing the way we live and do business. According to Forbes, “we’ve seen more technical innovation in the past three to four years than we saw in the previous 50.” In a few years almost anything you can think of is going to be accessed through the internet. Eventually there will be an ingestibles where you can swallow to track your biometrics and send the data directly to your smartphone and maybe even your physician. Forbes stated, “n the not-so-distant future, your doctor will be able to tell you, ‘I think you may have a heart attack coming. Let’s get on top of this now.’ That may creep some of you out, which is another challenge. People are going to have to decide if they’re comfortable with some of the things technology will be able to do. Younger generations are likely to accept these technologies faster than those of us who are older.” The article uses autonomous vehicles as an example for future disruptive technology. They also talk about technology changing our careers and possibly depending on the career path it can be gone.
Do you think technology will change our lifestyle 10 years from now? How do you think technology will affect our careers?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/northwesternmutual/2015/04/01/disruptive-change-are-you-ready/
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