I saw an interesting message today where a person who was employed for a fairly large company started to criticize another in a pretty brutal way. Of course, he was saying how the opinions are his own and so he should be able to freely say what he wants. The public opinion of that though didn’t seem to agree with that notion as they simply labelled his comments as the company’s comments with reasons such as if they are willing to employ him then overall the company itself must have a similar mentality.

It seems like a no win in this scenario huh? Basically, you don’t really have much of a choice other than to keep your opinions to yourself if you know that it can in some way create animosity or burnt bridges between two businesses. I’m almost inclined to say the only time you can really say it’s your own opinion and not the company is if it deals with something of a fun nature such as your preference when it comes to the weather.

Nowadays a lot of people not only see employees as some kind of extra body to do work but at the same time as like some kind of ambassador for your business as well I think. With that in mind, you often to be on your best behavior even outside of your work/business time and remember that people will often see you as the company whether you like it or not.

Today I was reading various reports on how the average grocery bill here has gotten really high where on a average people pay about $415. This then brought up on how many people use price comparison sites to try and find the best deals. However, it was expressed that most people simply don’t have the time or patients to use these tools when it comes to their everyday needs.

I was kind of surprised by this as I personally find that I save so much time using price comparison tools. Even when it comes to groceries I would usually look at the price and ponder if I could find the item cheaper. Instead, I usually find that if you plan everything ahead of time and do your research with various sites as an example you can make it a lot cheaper and as well can pretty much go in and out of the store where you know exactly what to buy. Ultimately, that is time saved from having to visit multiple stores or say having to walk around the whole place to try and find the best deals.

People do it all the time for high ticketed items like a new TV, so why are things like your grocery needs any different? In some ways I think it goes back to the topic of many times where if it is a necessity we think that the price we pay is in a sense non negotiable. I find an easier way too is that if you think it is too much work to research it yourself there are usually a lot of different communities even online that you can visit where bargain hunters are fully willing to share the deals they find as well.

For example, I know one good practice that people use to save money is that they first look at the flyers that the stores put out. Afterwards, they specifically try and find coupons for those items in an effort to get the best deal as usually if the item is on sale then adding the coupon as well can often mean you are getting it for the cheapest as possible. Sometimes the coupon can even end up making it where you get the item for free too.

I think you will be presently surprised at how much you can save if you tried too even when it comes to your necessities like these.

I was reading this piece of news today that got me very interested from a business point of view. Essentially, I’m sure most people are aware that there are a ton of people who use sites such as Youtube to share funny videos or even to the point where some people have made a career out of it. As well, Youtube has a system and policy where companies and studios can request that its copyrighted material be taken off if it is being used without permission. A simple example would be someone uploading a full movie as is which is technically not legal. So like that rightfully the studio can request that the content be removed.

As you may be aware, many times when you visit Youtube there are ads that you see. Usually this is a result of the person who uploaded the video partnering up with Youtube to serve ads which of course means they generate revenue from it. As you can imagine, many people like say a music artist would say no way you are making money off of our work and so often videos get taken down as a result.

However, some companies have opted to do it another way. Instead of saying they are going to take down your uploaded content that has its copyrighted material in it, they will instead just stop you from being able to profit from it. So in this case, whereas normally the revenue of the ads on the video would go to the person that uploaded the video they will now go to the company who is claiming copyright to it.

In many ways it makes sense. However, what’s interesting in this scenario I thought is that when it comes to video games a lot of these video creators try to do things such as commentary over the game that they play in an effort to make it unique. As mentioned, some people make a very good living this way. For those wondering why anyone would even watch such a thing, in many ways I guess think of it like people who find it interesting to watch other people play poker.

Just for curiosity sake I decided to upload a video to find out exactly what it is like. I basically just recorded a gameplay clip from the game and then uploaded it. Sure enough, you are then told as seen here that the content in your video matches that of the owner:

As mentioned above, some companies opt to simply remove the video completely. Instead, as seen here the company wishes the video to remain but as a result you will have advertisements in your video which they will profit from:

So the debate here that I thought that was interesting is how many people expressed actions like these discourage your users to make more videos about your product which is in a sense free advertising through social media. It’s kind of a tricky subject in this case I thought. For example, like for myself I can see why you would want to be extremely harsh if it was a movie as in those cases once people say watch the movie then they have no real need to actually buy it which means a loss in revenue. In a scenario like this though I would think regardless of how many times you watch someone else playing a game, you still need to actually buy it to get the intended experience. So if anything it is like free advertisement to encourage people to buy your product.

The other issue I was thinking of is that enforcing restrictions like these creates a perception that people are doing their job for you in terms of marketing and advertising in a forceful way. It’s like saying instead of thanking one for being a user/fan while helping to spread the word of the product they decide that you must pay them for the right to do it.

While you can probably go on for hours debating about things like “fair use” and how you could get around stuff like this, it kind of brings up the question where if you run a business and was in this scenario would you just allow your fans to do things like commentary videos without restriction as you feel the word of mouth advertising is great? Or do you feel that it’s better that you somehow directly profit from it as in the end you feel you will make more money that way?

Yesterday there was a provincial election here where the scenario was was portrayed by the media and various pollsters that the party in power is going to get the boot with the second strongest party becoming the new leaders. For months everyone predicted that it was going to swing this way. However, as it turned out in the actual votes yesterday the party that was expected to lose actually won in a big way. This created a lot of questions as to what the heck happened and how so many people got it wrong.

One of the main points was how the party that won used negative ads whereas the other party tried to stay with the positive route. Based on the results people were then saying if you really want to get ahead then showing the negative side of your competition is a lot more effective than trying to be the good guy.

I was really thinking about that as this is one of those things you would say that is a horrible thing to do and will make you look worst in the long-run. However, so many times like in these cases it’s the negative stuff that sticks into people’s head. It’s almost like saying if you don’t take some kind of jab at the other person in that fashion that you are more likely to lose.

Probably the biggest topic about of this was how everyone relied on companies that polled the public in regards to who they would vote for as if their results were definite. This resulted in one party scrambling as the underdog and the other side feeling comfortable about its position. In fact, it seemed like one party was so confident that they won they went all out in getting like a victory video all edited in preparation for the victory.

Kind of embarrassing and risky to simply rely on what other people assume is going to happen based on selective polling huh? Thinking of all the times where even businesses rely and make decisions based on these kinds of information. I suppose at the end of the day you can listen to all the experts in the world. But in the end anything can happen and opinions are just that for the most part and you need to be prepared for anything.

For one reason or another today I saw this quick video that talked about what you must do in life to save money. While watching it there were the usual points such as tracking your budget and finding discounts. However, the list just kept going on to the point where it felt like if the question was how do you walk you are then bombarded by all these instructions on how first you need to wear socks, shoes, calculate the gravity and wind turbulence, etc.

To be fair, maybe they were trying to aim more for a “Ways to save money” approach. I then started to read some articles on the same topic and sure enough it seemed to follow the same theme. I was thinking too, is one of the reasons that we over complicate it so much is because the simple answer sounds too simple? For example, I would think the the biggest answer on how to save money is to simply not spend it. I’m sure that answer would usually generate a “but” response.

I still think the most important thing about saving money is your mindset first and foremost. For example, I’m pretty sure people would say things like “You have to spend money, otherwise you can’t eat.” Like in that case though, you could still say the main way to save money is to find ways to not spend it. Example, find a way to say grow your own food. The key point out of that is so that you develop the mentality that you are essentially spending money for the convenience in having someone else do it for you as opposed to it being something you have no choice over.

Another more straight forward tip that a lot of people use which makes perfect sense is that if you want to save money then stop buying stuff that you don’t really need. Similar in that case, is the concept of simply not spending too simple to accept? That would make more sense to me if you are truly in a position of wanting to save money. For example, instead of only trying to find ways to reduce the cost of that $200 pair of sunglasses that you can’t really afford maybe it’s wiser to not buy it all. It all starts with how you perceive money I think. If you can’t get past the notion of saying there is no way you can do anything with no money then that is a good first step to work on.