Wednesday, December 3, 2008

WHY do some people reach their creative potential in business while other equally talented peers don’t?

WHY do some people reach their creative potential in business while other equally talented peers don’t?

After three decades of painstaking research, the Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck believes that the answer to the puzzle lies in how people think about intelligence and talent. Those who believe they were born with all the smarts and gifts they’re ever going to have approach life with what she calls a “fixed mind-set.” Those who believe that their own abilities can expand over time, however, live with a “growth mind-set.”

Guess which ones prove to be most innovative over time.

“Society is obsessed with the idea of talent and genius and people who are ‘naturals’ with innate ability,” says Ms. Dweck, who is known for research that crosses the boundaries of personal, social and developmental psychology.

“People who believe in the power of talent tend not to fulfill their potential because they’re so concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes. But people who believe that talent can be developed are the ones who really push, stretch, confront their own mistakes and learn from them.”

In this case, nurture wins out over nature just about every time.

While some managers apply these principles every day, too many others instead believe that hiring the best and the brightest from top-flight schools guarantees corporate success.

The problem is that, having been identified as geniuses, the anointed become fearful of falling from grace. “It’s hard to move forward creatively and especially to foster teamwork if each person is trying to look like the biggest star in the constellation,” Ms. Dweck says.

In her 2006 book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,” she shows how adopting either a fixed or growth attitude toward talent can profoundly affect all aspects of a person’s life, from parenting and romantic relationships to success at school and on the job.

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StuVu gives you the chance to hear from the real campus experts

What Company Is Offering:
StuVu (as in Student View) is a free service that creates a community for college students to share videos, photos and reviews of their college experiences with prospective students to give them a true student's view of what it's like to attend their colleges and universities.

With information on over 6500 of America's vocational, two-year and four-year colleges and universities, StuVu gives you the chance to hear from the real campus experts.

More at:http://www.stuvu.com/

ShoppingNotes.com--Get Shopping Alerts When Prices Change

What Company Is Offering:
ShoppingNotes.com is shopping bookmark powered with price watch engine. It is one central place to save all your favorite products you find anywhere on the Internet, and their powerful price watch engine can alert you whenever your favorite products change prices.
ShoppingNotes.com is for people who do any kinds of on-line shopping. It is like browser's "Favorites" for shopping.

Unique Features:

No need to install anything to start using the price watch feature. Just enter the product page URLs and your email address, and we will start watching their prices for you. You’ll be the first to know when your favorite products go on sale.
Two clicks and you can jot down any products from any merchants on the Internet.
Your Shopping Notes automatically come with images and prices, and in one click, it takes you right to the product pages.
You can access your Shopping Notes from home, office, or just anywhere you can access the Internet.
You can sort or classify your Shopping Notes any way you like. It's free.

More at:http://www.shoppingnotes.com/

Winkbill is an online invoicing service designed to provide effort-less and hassle-free billing

What Company Is Offering:
Winkbill is an online invoicing service designed to provide effort-less and hassle-free billing. The application can be used for any products and services sold. You can easily create, send, and track all your invoices with the help of Winkbill. It does not require you to download any software. The application is accessible via web browser.


How It Works:

Winkbill is a simple online invoicing service, working as your complete web based invoicing and billing manager. You can easily create, send, and track all your invoices online with the help of Winkbill. With this well-tailored and professionally designed online invoicing software, you can easily manage your billing, contacts and payments online. Winkbill can be used for any products and services sold. Additionally, it allows you to send invoices as PDF.
The most widely used payment gateway “Paypal” is already supported by Winkbill. Paypal is well integrated with Winkbill and you can effectively receive payments via Paypal for your Winkbill invoices. They intend to integrate other payment gateways also in near future.


More at:http://www.winkbill.com/

StrikeIron provides an on-demand Web-based infrastructure for delivering business data to any Internet-connected system

What Company Is Offering:
StrikeIron provides an on-demand Web-based infrastructure for delivering business data to any Internet-connected system, including Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, Web sites, mashups, spreadsheets or core enterprise systems. StrikeIron is the first mover as a Web services on-demand provider, with a projected market potential of $4.6 billion dollars in 2013, according to Forrester Research. Poised to help redefine the Web, StrikeIron is the leading innovator in the data-as-a-service (DaaS) space, and is positioned to become the primary data provider to next generation Web-oriented applications, including applications built using platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings.

Unique Features:

1.The Marketplace is sophisticated Software as a Service data distribution engine that greatly reduces the complexity for developers and business users who want to integrate live data from any number of sources. The Marketplace is built on top of a technology platform that provides a consistent interface across many XML-based Web services from multiple, diverse sources. This allows customers and partners to customize and integrate external data sources and additional external functionality into enterprise, Web, and composite applications.

StrikeIron launched its IronCloud platform as a commercial offering in 2008. It is the only comprehensive Web services Delivery Platform that opens up new channels for data distribution and consumption through Web services. Enterprises of all sizes can now reduce the cost, complexity and challenges of managing data distribution, including metering, monitoring, and authentication, and concentrate their focus on making information easier to access and use.

2.IronCloud expands the application of this infrastructure beyond subscription-based Web service usage. Companies that want to leverage the same Web service delivery platform to externalize their own data or services to the general public for use in applications, mashups, mobile devices, and Web sites can take advantage of our "industrial strength Web service onboarding" capabilities. They can have services live and available on the Web for use in a very short period of time. This allows waves of innovators to build on top of the service provider's offering and deliver valuable real-time analytics back to the service provider about that usage so the offerings can be optimized.

More at:http://www.strikeiron.com/

Ecorio enables you to track your mobile carbon footprint from your phone

What Company Is Offering:

Ecorio enables you to track your mobile carbon footprint from your phone. Once you have installed Ecorio, it will run in the background of your phone and keep tack of the car and bus journeys you undertake. A summary will be eventually produced, and then you can set down to buying offsets in relation to your carbon footprint figures. That is, once you have figured out what is your personal contribution to global warming from activities like driving, you can fund activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions to balance out the situation.

More at:http://www.ecorio.org/