Weekend Digest: F-Commerce & The Business Of An Olympic Athlete
by July 27, 2012 7:25 pm 84 views
For our weekend business readers:
THE BUSINESS OF AN OLYMPIC ATHLETE
One American Olympic runner is campaigning to see that Olympians get a piece of the billions of dollars that “exchange hands” during the much-covered games.
Nick Symmonds is the top U.S Olympic qualifier in the 800 meters. In an interview with Marketplace, Symmonds says it's time the athletes shared in the Olympic financial pie.
If you have $6 billion exchanging hands, it just kind of blows my mind that you've got 10,000 athletes who have devoted at least four years of their life to becoming part of the show, and everybody is making money, but then they look at the athletes and say: “Oh, you guys should do your job for free.” I kind of don't understand that.
Symmonds has incorporated his running skills as a business, and sports a temporary tattoo on his shoulder from one of his sponsors. But he can't show it during the Olympics, where the IOC sponsors' logos are everywhere.
I would like to see a guaranteed salary for everyone who makes the Olympic team. If you were to take some of the TV rights — I think it was $1.7 billion in TV rights — and divide that up amongst the athletes, you know what I'm saying? I mean, we've got Olympians, Olympic medalists even, that live below the poverty line, and that's not right.
To read the entire Symmonds interview go to this link.
HIGH-END SOCIAL MEDIA GOOD FOR BUSINESSES
If social media continues to improve in certain business sectors, it “could add $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value to the economy.” That's according to CNBC based on a research study by McKinsey Global Institute.
The value is mostly through added productivity. Improved consumer focus as well as better-functioning teams are two other benefits.
The study points out that social technologies are “particularly effective among so-called interactions workers.”
“The industries with the highest percentage of interactions workers have the highest spread of profits per employee,” said Michael Chui, one of the authors of the report. “It’s low in mining, but can vary by nine times in banking. If you can make these people more effective, you can make the biggest difference.”
Although it may take years, go to the full story to find out more about how using technology tools through social media can challenge organizations for higher profits and productivity.
WANT TO BOOST YOUR ONLINE COMMERCE? OPEN A STOREFRONT ON FACEBOOK
The New York Times says it's called “F-commerce.” A term uses to describe “The growing number of businesses that sell through a Facebook page.”
The rise of F-commerce has
been largely haphazard, something Facebook did not instigate or promote. A spokesman declined to discuss the phenomenon, except to acknowledge, “Retailers are experimenting in a number of ways.”
The Times article points out that F-commerce is probably more a small business venture “that generally have less than $100,000 in revenue.”
The story centers on how one small cake baking business took off after opening a Facebook storefront, and gives tips on starting your own page along with using custom apps to jazz up your look and product.
Several other F-commerce businesses are profiled, and each explains how users have propelled their online sales.
LUXURY HOTELS CATER TO “LITTLEST GUESTS”
Hyatt, Ritz-Carlton and many other luxury hotels have found a new glory hole. Spoiling children with luxurious treatment that in the past was strictly for their parents.
Luxury hotels are boosting efforts to cater to their littlest guests. Hotels say they are responding to increasing demand for kid-friendly services from travelers, who are bringing their wee ones to high-price hotels in never-before seen numbers.
The Wall Street Journal says, “The rise of later-in-life childbearing -— when more couples have the money to travel -— is playing a role. So are baby boomers who organize, and often pay for, trips with children and grandchildren.”
About 57% of travelers said that having a kids' club or family activities was “extremely or very desirable” in a travel destination, according to a 2011 survey of 2,539 leisure travelers by marketing and research firms MMGY Global and Harrison Group.
WATCH THOSE CURSE WORDS AT WORK
If you curse at work, it will harm your career says Bloomberg Businessweek.
In a new CareerBuilder survey, 64 percent of employers think less of an employee who repeatedly uses curse words, and 57 percent are less likely to promote someone who swears in the office. Employers cite questions about the worker’s professionalism, lack of control, lack of maturity, and seeming lack of intelligence.
The article goes on to point out that even though office attire and hours have become more casual, “People want [language] to be professional.”
The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive among a wide range of hiring managers and human resource professionals across the U.S.
Read the full story to find out which city's office workers cuss the most, whether women curse more than men, and which age group needs their mouths washed out the most.