Happy new year everyone. We tend to predict what it would be by 2020, here are some items that will no longer be around by the end of this decade.

1. Wrist Watches
2. Paperback books
3. Traditional Homework
4. Newspapers
5. Car keys
6. College Backpacks
7. DVD’s
8. Instruction Manuals
9. Corked Wine
10.Offline Voting
11.Cash
12.Desktop Computers
13.Paper Shredders
14.Post Offices
15.2D
16.Boring Airplanes
17.Paper Resume
18.Blind Dates
19.Broadcast TV
20.Education Inequality

You can check out more at Socialnomics.

A report from Forbes said there are five must-haves for successful public relations. Three of them are below. Does your small negosyo have what it needs?

Write Well. All the tools in the world won’t help if nobody reads your tweets, posts, pitches or press releases. Josh Ochs, a social media guru in Los Angeles, says, “Great messaging is the key to everything on Facebook and twitter. The more time you spend perfecting your messaging in social media, the more you will make friends and make money.” He suggests creating all messaging in a tone that is “light, bright and polite.”

Network. Press the Flesh. Meet customers. Meet media. Meet friends. Check out your competition. No one exemplifies this better than Bob Gold, a public relations pro from Torrance, Calif. He speaks at or attends more than six major shows in his specialty, technology and cable TV, with appearances at the Consumer Electronics Show, Cable and Television Association for Marketing, the National Association of Broadcasters and more. At the Digital Hollywood event in May in Los Angeles, Gold created a super-panel of speakers including someone from Google, and lined up a prestigious moderator’s gig, increasing his profile in front of important business contacts.

Make Friends with Media. Always return calls, always help with reporters on deadline, even if you can’t be quoted, consider helping with background or “off-the-record” assistance. My clients who are quick and helpful in this manner always seem to get chosen for “Top 100 Attorneys” or “Best Business Schools” or earn feature stories in the future. Those that don’t help the media usually get left behind.

Entrepreneurs or negosyantes here in the Philippines as they are called has their own idea of what it takes to become successful. GulfNews, a UAE newspaper has pulled together a short list of traits they believe entrepreneurs need to succeed. Just do it as it says…

1.Timing is nothing
Dubizzle founders, J.C. Butler and Sim Whatley, wish they had had the wisdom to launch more and test less. “Regardless of whether it’s features or categories or expansion, it’s better to get something out the door and test the response to it, rather than to spend all your time trying to perfect something and change it later anyway. Especially when it came to our recent regional expansion, we would have loved to have been in all these 14 countries years ago.”

2. It’s not about the first genius idea
Rest assured the lightbulb moment that made you turn entrepreneur will not make you your first million dirhams. It’s far more likely to turn into something else entirely. Dubizzle’s original business plan was to charge employers for job listings. “To this day we have yet to make a single penny on job listings,” says Whatley.

3. No more ‘You twitface!’ wisecracks
Social media marketing gets you noticed. And if it can be done for next to nothing, what’s not to like? Almost every successful start-up today has harnessed the power of social media – be it Groupon, Dubizzle or Wild Peeta. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and blogs are a cost-effective way to engage with your customers, attract new business, and build your brand.

Happy New Year Everyone! Have you made any business resolutions for the New Year? While many people set personal goals based around the idea of dieting, many business owners are looking for ways to help fatten up their earnings. Reuters has posted a list of resolutions that might help inspire you.

Social Media

Do whatever it takes to get out of your comfort zone and into your “power place” to grow your business. Embrace change and new technologies, including social sites. Choose what works best for reaching your target market, and run with it. Most important: Have fun. — Starr Hall, Social Media

Sales

In 2011, show up to the meetings that you would have passed on previously. Never underestimate the power of face-to-face meetings for building stronger relationships and connections with your prospects and customers. Activity creates opportunity. — Barry Farber, Make the Sale

Starting Young

Forget the mantra of “work hard, get good grades and go to school to get a job.” For too long, young people have been force-fed this nonsense from their parents and mentors. It’s stifling their income generating potential. Gen Y needs to become the most entrepreneurial generation in history. — Scott Gerber, Never Get a “Real” Job

Cloth diapers is back again. In the U.S. Rachel Hall and her husband estimate that they’ve saved over $1000 by using cloth diapers on their 16 month old daughter. This savings allowed Rachel to stay home with her daughter and pursue her writing career on a freelance schedule a report from The Charleston Gazette.

The environmentally friendly aspects of cloth diapers appeal to Hall, especially after she and Charlie lived briefly in Hawaii, where recycling and trash reduction are a necessary way of life. There isn’t much room for landfills on islands.

“We became more environmentally conscious while we lived there. We were surrounded by this amazing natural beauty that we didn’t want to impact in a negative way,” she said. “When we moved back here, I realized West Virginia has the same beauty, but I hadn’t noticed it before. I didn’t want to have a negative impact on it, either.”

In May, Hall launched a business, Diaper Parties by Rachel, in which she hopes to both educate parents about the advantages of cloth diapers and to sell diapers and related products.

Hall brings a kit containing a wide array of modern cloth diapers and associated products to groups of parents, or anyone interested in child care.

“They can touch and feel the diapers,” she said. “Even people who are pretty adamantly opposed to them, if they just hear about them, especially the financial considerations, they might be interested.”

Photo by Baby Zara Diaper

Filipino inventor’s out there. An online handbook created for independent inventors and entrepreneurs to address questions concerning the protection of intellectual property, raising capital, applying for patents, and other steps to protect and commercialize ideas is available for free from MIT.

The handbook was created by the Lemelson-MIT Program to address the independent inventor’s and aspiring entrepreneur’s most frequently asked questions regarding United States patents. Though it is base in the U.S. you can find some nuggets of information from this book since our system here in the Philippines is patterned from the State.

Donwload now it’s FREE!

Photo by Lemelson-MIT.

Have you notice Pizza Parlor and delivery are prolifirating in the Philippines right now? We may wonder, Why is the pizza the only food you can get delivered? What’s the history of pizza delivery?

According to PizzaDelivery.com, in 1889, King Umberto and Queen Margherita had the privilege of getting the first known pizza delivered by Raffaele Esposito, the most famous Pizzaaiolo (pizza chef) in Naples, Italy. In honor of the Queen, Raffaele made the pizza into the colors of the Italian flag: red tomatoes, green basil, and white mozzarella cheese. This later would become the basis for our American Neapolitan pizza.

Pizza delivery really took off after World War II when many soldiers returning from Italy brought back an appetite for the tasty dish. Because pizzas are easily transported in paper boxes, they were the perfect food to be delivered.

Dominos Pizza has been delivering pizza since their founding in 1960. Companies like the Dine-in Delivery business opportunity have expanded the concept and offer delivery from many different local restaurants.

When a child is too sick to go to day care or school, working parents often have little choice but to stay home and miss work themselves. A new business in Kennewick, Washington in the U.S.A., however, where a company offers bed rest and supervised nursing care for kids with low-level but contagious illnesses, a story from Springwise.

Chicken Soup + Nursing is a 20-bed facility aimed at kids up to 12 years old with fever, conjunctivitis, rashes or other problems that prevent their going to school. In a setting much like a hospital ward, children are evaluated by a doctor or nurse practitioner, and typically placed on varying degrees of bed rest (with a safe distance between beds).

Their vitals are taken at routine intervals by certified staff. If they are found to require medication, those drugs are ordered from a pharmacy, picked up and administered as directed. Kids can bring toys, books, handheld games and movies along with a packed lunch or baby food, if appropriate.

Chicken Soup + Nursing provides snacks and fluids, along with updates to parents throughout the day. Chicken Soup + Nursing is planning to become a 24/7 operation and to enable remote viewing of patients for parents at work.

This is great negosyo idea to those who have interest in opening a business for kids in the Philippines. Be the first to offer daytime care for mildly sick kids in your neighborhood.

Photo by Chicken Soup + Nursing.