Business: Thank Your Business Competition!

In "Four Reasons to Thank the Competition" Business Week writer Michelle Nichols points out how companies can succeed in spite of, rather than despite, their competition. Her first reason? That competition can help define why your business is unique.

Jane Atherton will explore this further in our upcoming seminar "Finding and Marketing Your Unique Selling Proposition." Every business must find its uniqueness in order to be appealing to consumers. You can often find your uniqueness by looking at how you are different from you competition. How is Coke different from Pepsi? How is Starbucks different from Dunkin Donuts? How is Wal-Mart different than Costco? While these examples are from big businesses, the same principles can be applied to small businesses and sole proprietors. Learn how to market your uniqueness and watch your client list soar!

Arts: New Heritage Driving Tour for Interstate 90

Thought this was an interesting product for those people into the arts and who make the I-90 drive to Spokane. the Folk Arts Program and The Washington State Arts Comission have put together an audio tour guide for the I-90 corridor that includes photos, maps, music and more. Its designed to play in your car and is timed to your drive across the pass. Its number 7 in the series and the others 6 audio tour guides cover other regional driving areas in the state. Read the whole article at http://access.wa.gov/news/2007/Feb/n2007121_5553.aspx

Home and Garden: February Garden Tips

It’s that time of year when occasional mild and sunny days offer a real temptation to get outside and start digging in the yard. It’s good to get moving for spring, as long as you follow the guidelines for late winter gardening. The Better Homes and Gardens website offers the following suggestions for February gardeners:

Yard Cleanup Continue to rake and dispose of leaves, pull early weeds, and get garden tools in working order. Remove mulch from perennials and sprouting bulbs.

Early Planting Plant container-grown trees, shrubs, perennial herbs, ground covers, and perennial flowers. Do not plant warm-season annual flowers and vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, basil, marigolds, petunias, and the like) until after our region’s last frost date.

Pruning Prune trees and shrubs but be careful not to trim off developing buds on flowering trees and shrubs.

For full details, visit the Better Homes and Gardens website.

Computer: HP Redesigns Ink and Toner packages to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

HP recently announced a redesign on the packaging used in inks and toner cartridges. this redesign will create a reduction of 37 million pounds of greenhouse gasses in 2007... the equivalent of removing 3,600 cars off the road for one year.

The new packaging reduces the use of plastics, reduces the reliance on new cardboard and increases the amount of recycled materials used. The packaging is being made smaller so that more product can fit onto pallets and trucks reducing the number of semi-truck miles by 1.5 million this year alone!

A little effort by big companies can go a long way to helping the environment. Click here for the complete story from eSchool News.

Business: Do women cave under pressure more than men?

According to this article in Slate, women are "chokers"--they cave more under pressure than men. A scientist studied tennis players at the French Open and engineering students going through mazes and posited this theory for not only athletes and engineers, but also women in business.

What do you think?

http://www.slate.com/id/2159145?nav=ais



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Business: Whatcom County is a good place for a Startup Business

In Dave Gallagher's weekly column in The Bellingham Herald, he reviews a study done by the Corporation for Enterprise Development that grades each state based on the success of startup businesses. Unfortunately, Washington had the highest percentage of business closures in the country. The good news is that Whatcom County fares better than the state as a whole, and 67% of businesses that have opened have stayed open.
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/118/story/46948.html

One of the co-authors of the study points out that this number could be increase if there was more business training.

Computer: Take Windows Vista for a Test Drive!

Windows Vista is now available for purchase. In previous posts, we have discussed waiting to purchase this new operating system until you get a new computer. Community Education isn't planning new classes for it until fall or even winter quarter.

That doesn't mean your not curious about what's new or how it works. Luckily, Microsoft has a website that allows you to test out features of Vista without actually installing the software. Windows Vista Testdrive allows you to use the software via your high speed Internet connection and your browser. This isn't the fastest way to try software, but, it sure beats installing new software.... or paying a couple hundred bucks just to play with it!

www.windowsvistatestdrive.com

Community: Spring Schedule Available Soon

Our Spring Schedule is available soon! We are on track to have our spring workshop schedule on the website on February 23 by the end of the day. This will give all of our web readers plenty of time to get into our most popular classes. The printed schedule will be delivered in homes March 2nd.

Community: Daylight Savings Madness

Most of us know that daylight savings time causes issues. Lack of sleep, missed meetings and a general day of weirdness. It seems this year it is even worse. Normally, daylight savings time is the same here as it is in Europe. For the first time, the US is changing on a different day than in Europe! This is leading to some problems for computer systems.

Makes the hour of sleep I lose look a whole lot less important.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/06/gartner_daylight_savings/

Business: Want to sleep at work? Move to France!

It's a known fact that Americans work much longer hours than their European counterparts. As we slave away at our desks 40 hours a week (minimum) and watch our unused vacation time pile up, Europeans check out in August and sun on the beaches. Now, the French minister of health is encouraging naps on the job. Vive le France!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_he_me/france_naps_at_work