<ul><li>Almost 80% of consumers surveyed expect bad times in the year ahead for business conditions.</li><li>A survey by the Conference Board of CEOs reports that their confidence is at the lowest level since the pandemic began in 2020.</li><li>About 20% of the CEOs surveyed expected economic conditions to improve over the next six months, and</li><li>60% thought they would get worse.</li></ul> But this recession talk could lead to a recession becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Pessimistic talk

<ul><li>The economic headwinds are very real. Oil prices are up 60% this year, while gas prices are up over 50%. </li><li>Yet, what happens in the economy arises from subjective evaluation of how things will go in the future. Those evaluations are informed by data, not determined by them.</li><li>Fear can lead to economic difficulty. When we are consumed by recession talk, it can become more likely.</li><li>Businesses have become much more concerned about the outlook due to the rising cost of living, drop in demand, and increasingly aggressive interest rates.</li></ul>

Talk of a recession can make one happen

Americans’ feelings about the economy are off the charts. <ul><li>The airline industry is facing the problem of not having enough staff instead of not having enough customers.</li><li>Nike had higher earnings than analysts expected.</li><li>For households, this makes some sense. Many Americans are in a decent personal financial situation: They have seen increased home equity and are sitting on savings accumulated during the worst of the pandemic.</li></ul>

American consumers aren’t spending like a recession is around the corner

Almost 80 percent of consumers surveyed 'expected bad times in the year ahead for business conditions.'

Discover the world of business and economics.

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Economics

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Money & Investments

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Business

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Society, Arts & Culture

Are we thinking ourselves into a recession? How predictions and doomsaying can affect real economic behavior

First things first: if you feel an earthquake, resist the urge to run outside. Modern buildings are usually designed to withstand large earthquakes, especially in areas where earthquakes happen frequently, but windows can shatter onto the street below, and exterior masonry may fall off as well. This means there’s a greater chance you’ll be hurt if you’re near a building during an earthquake than if you’re in it. Stay put.

When You Are Inside A Building

Get away from trees and power lines (both of which may topple), as well as buildings (which likely won’t fall but may drop debris on you). If you can shelter in place, do so.

When You Are Outside A Building

<ul><li>Pull over to the side of the road, stop, and set the parking brake.</li><li>Avoid overpasses, bridges, power lines, signs, and other hazards.</li><li>Stay inside the vehicle until the shaking stops, then proceed carefully by avoiding fallen debris, cracked or shifted payment, and emergency vehicles.</li><li>If a power line falls on the car, stay inside until a trained person removes the wire.</li></ul>

If You Are In A Car Or Driving

<ul><li>DROP: Wherever you are, drop onto your hands and knees. This position helps keep you from being knocked down and allows you to crawl to shelter.</li><li>COVER: With one arm and hand, cover your head and neck. If there is a nearby desk or table, crawl under it for shelter. If there’s no shelter, crawl next to an interior wall away from windows.</li><li>HOLD ON: If you’re under shelter, hold onto it with one hand. If there’s no shelter, hold on to your head and neck with both arms and hands.</li></ul>

Drop, Cover And Hold On

<ul><li>Do not run outside. Do: Shelter in place using Drop, Cover, and Hold On. </li><li>Do not get in a doorway. Do: Shelter in place under a table. In modern houses and buildings, doorways are no safer, and they do not protect you from flying or falling objects.</li><li>Do not make phone calls. Do: Text. A text will have a better chance of getting through than a phone call, which is more likely to experience network congestion. Too many calls can overload the communications grid, making it harder for first responders to get their calls. Likewise, don’t call 911 unless you’re experiencing a true emergency. </li></ul>

What NOT To Do In An Earthquake

Here's what you need to know to survive in these extreme situations

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Personal Development

Survival Tips

What to do in an Earthquake? Important Survival & Safety Tips

Forget about assigning blame until later, since that will only complicate matters and make it an emotional battle. What is needed first is your strong leadership, or even a leadership team, to build a plan, assign the right people, and monitor the steps to resolution. Provide tools and resources as required.Especially when distractions and emotions are high, it will help your focus to break down large challenges and crises into smaller elements to get things started and give you a sense of progress along the way. Map out some dedicated time for every serious issue

Keep your focus on how to fix the problem

Your people need to know who to follow, what to do, and how to do it. However, very quickly after everyone has their assignment and is actively working, you need to let them do their jobs without questioning every step. Micromanagement at a later stage only increases stress and slows progress.Micromanagement can be especially productive if you are working with a first-time or unique situation, or working with a new team with little experience. The challenge for many bosses is to recognize when their team should be coaching them.

Don't hesitate to micromanage initially in a crisis

Don't try to solve the problem or build a plan alone, especially if you have no relevant experience. Look for a mentor, or expert in this area, and ask for their advice. You need to understand potential misconceptions and ferret out any rumors which complicate the situation and lead to the wrong conclusion.

Get advice before jumping to conclusions

When you sense a crisis, you need to communicate and listen carefully with urgency, transparency, and empathy. A tone of urgency encourages people to mitigate impact, and transparency builds trust in you as a leader. Showing empathy fosters resilience in facing the challenges directly and acting.A key challenge with communication in a crisis is to get ahead of the issue. Don't wait until a media inquiry or a government agency puts you on the defensive, and makes all of your efforts look like too little, too late. Daily updates on a crisis are often appropriate.

Overcommunicate and really listen to feedback

Whether the impending crisis was caused by your mistake, your team, or was a fluke accident, you win trust by accepting responsibility for how it has affected customers and apologize. Conversely, the quickest and surest way to lose all trust is by blaming others entirely for the situation.

Always be prepared to accept responsibility

Every business leader expects to encounter one or more crises eventually. The challenge for each of you is to get it handled quickly and effectively, without losing the trust of constituents, as well as customers.

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Problem Solving

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Leadership & Management

5 Steps For Turning Your Next Business Crisis Into a Leadership Moment

Thanks to digital technology, business leaders have much more to learn and master to succeed in a modern organisation. To be successful in the digital age requires more than only acquiring digital technology skills. It requires you to think differently. Leaders need to:<ul><li>Understand the foundational principles of new technology such as coding, programming languages, scripts, algorithms, compiling, and machine language.</li><li>Be aware of the biases of artificial intelligence (AI).</li><li>Challenge how data was produced, who had access to it, and how well it represents behaviour.</li></ul>

Thriving in the digital age

Leaders can't be afraid of technology and data work. They need to understand how machines learn to lead their organisation. We need to see through the lens of technology, data, organisational design and change. Leaders need a new approach to data. For example:<ul><li>How do you collaborate successfully with machines?</li><li>An AI agent cannot accurately infer your intentions. It cannot communicate using colloquialisms and conventions from informal conversations.</li></ul>

Developing a digital mindset

The rise of remote work is raising new questions, such as ensuring colleagues feel the presence of work-at-home employees when they're not in the same room. Workers must develop a digital presence.<ul><li>They need to understand the use of asynchronous communication.</li><li>When you mainly engage through digital tools, it's vital to introduce structured and unstructured time, so people engage in the non-work elements of their world, making people feel more connected.</li><li>Remote workers should be aware of the "Mutual Knowledge Problem", which is a lack of shared understanding of place, context, and emotion.</li></ul>

Creating a digital presence

Data is, in many ways, the DNA of organisational decision-making. But data does not always provide truth. It needs to be analysed and challenged. When someone lacks a digital mindset, they can accept data as gospel. Data is biased since biased humans gather and interpret data and build models that don't take potential risks from incomplete or misunderstood data into account. Remedies include:<ul><li>Embedding ethical or bias reviews into data.</li><li>Understanding how to present data. Too much or too little data cause people to draw the wrong conclusions.</li></ul>

Data is not truth

You don't have to be a machine learning expert to manage a successful digital transformation. In fact, you only need 30 percent fluency in a handful of technical topics, say Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi in their book, The Digital Mindset.

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Remote Work

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Technology & The Future

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Cybersecurity

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Human Resources

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Artificial Intelligence

Why Digital Is a State of Mind, Not Just a Skill Set

The psychological toll of the pandemic has challenged workers and managers in a variety of ways.
As we head into the third year of the pandemic, a new issue has sprung up: “splitting,” a mental defence mechanism that allows us to tolerate difficult and even unbearable emotions by seeing someone or something as either heroes or villains, good or bad, “with us” or “against us.” This can result in tension and conflict.
Leaders need to focus on three areas: identifying splitting triggers in themselves, spotting splitting behaviour on their teams, and focusing on reuniting and reintegrating relationships.

Crisis Turns Into Conflict: Key Takeaways

Splitting is a <a href="https://tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/about-us/news/stories/early-response-covid-19-psychoanalytic-and-trauma-perspective/">mental defence mechanism</a> that allows us to tolerate difficult and even unbearable emotions by resorting to black-or-white thinking. We identify others as either heroes or villains, good or bad, “with us” or “against us.” This frees us from the burden of having to face our own shortcomings and missteps while allowing us to cast our opponents as purely and fully bad, instead of looking for nuance and common ground.

The Split

The Big Split is a multi-layered mental conflict. Behind it lies a complex psychological cocktail: delayed gratification, feelings of injustice, and a race to fill the emotional vacuum created by years of living with restrictions.For leaders, the point is to recognize that this phase is not a collective sigh of relief and a joyous reunion, but rather one filled with conflict and confrontation

Understanding the Big Split

<ul><li>In March 2020, when the pandemic emergency became clear, many of us felt an energy rush.</li><li>Leaders became the best version of themselves.</li><li>Then, a regression phase hit: people got tired, lost their sense of purpose, started fighting about the small stuff, and started to neglect their relationships.</li><li>Next came the recovery phase, where we started to move out of the lull.</li><li>This phase was filled with lots of new ideas, and we saw friends, family, and colleagues embracing the new future.</li><li>However, the slow recovery tested our resilience.</li></ul>

When The Pandemic Hit

Realizing when you are falling prey to splitting, whether a little or a lot and taking note of what triggers you to react in out-of-character ways is a good first step.A few instances of "bad behaviour" is not the same as deeming someone a "bad agent." The key is to reject absolutes and categorical thinking.

Understand and Monitor Your Own Triggers

Call out splitting behaviour as soon as you notice it playing out.In order to resolve differences of opinion, instead of letting them fester, leaders can scale up the frequency of team meetings but shorten their duration drastically.

Spot Splitting Behavior in Your Teams and Intervene

<ul><li>Leaders must emphasize that it isn’t shameful to experience splitting and that it’s okay to direct time and resources to resolve the fundamental conflicts.</li><li>To offer perspective, leaders should fully understand colleagues, employees, and peers by letting them talk about the turmoil they’re going through, and then search for long-term and constructive ways to move forward</li><li>Building mutual support, remember that a strong emotional connection between teammates, teams, and stakeholders last a long time.</li></ul>

Aim to Reunite and Reintegrate Your Relationships

We’re in a new psychological phase of the pandemic, which is manifesting in increased confrontation on many teams.

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Communication

When Crisis Management Becomes Conflict Management

Remember the old saying, “no man is an island?” If you’ve worked in remote sales, you know that’s not true. Selling is by nature a lonely endeavor.By all means, lean into and take all of the support your organization is capable of giving, but also be self-sufficient. That means mapping and mastering your own sales process, attaining a black belt in digital kung fu so you can find and maintain your own online tools, track your own sales funnel and — unless you’re the lucky beneficiary of a robust lead-gen operation — find your own targets

Island Time

You need a dedicated space where you go to work. It can be an isolated nook in an apartment. Maybe you have a giant walk-in closet that can be repurposed If you’re lucky enough to have a spare bedroom, set it up with comfortable work tools: An ergonomic chair, an efficient desk, some shelves for filing and holding notebooks.

Office Space

<ul><li>Write down distractions that divert your attention.</li><li>Office Rules: Make a schedule and stick to it</li><li>Line Up: Only respond to incoming calls/texts/emails sent to a specific number</li></ul>

Narrowed Focus

If you’re accustomed to having others provide the structure and process for your sales, take control. When you have concentrated, uninterrupted time — probably on a weekend — shut off all of your devices. Go outside on the patio. Grab a notebook and pen and think through how you sell, from start to finish: Prospecting, qualifying, contact, follow-up, pitching, closing, post-close handoff. Allow time in your schedule to “clean up” your tools every day. The most effective time is at the end of the day. That will also prep your mind to be thinking about tomorrow’s tasks.

Process Makes Perfect

You need things to do your job: Sell sheets, presentations, price lists, videos. If your company doesn’t have a central repository for these things — a <a href="https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/drive/">GoogleDrive</a> folder, a shared <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/">DropBox</a> — make one of your own. That will save countless hours searching random folders for that updated product specification sheet.

Stock the Shelves

<ul><li>Set aside time in your day to do each of the things in your process.</li><li>Don't be tempted to "multitask" while prospecting and talking simultaneously</li><li>The idea that humans can do more than one thing at a time is pure, unadulterated horse hockey</li></ul>

Multitasking Is A Myth: Learn to Single task

<ul><li>Make time Friday afternoons to write a brief summary of things you did since Monday along with a forecast for the following week</li><li>The lack of face-to-face communication in sales is a major seismic shift. Leverage the fudge out of that.</li><li>You can make many more virtual appearances than physical ones in a day.</li></ul>

Emphasis on communication

Want to meet goals and achieve quota from the comfort of your own home? Here are 14 tips from the experts on how to succeed as a remote salesperson.

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Career

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Marketing & Sales

How to Succeed as a Remote Salesperson in 2022

Forming an idea for a new piece of software is energizing. Brainstorming possibilities and envisioning potential inspires team members to create something new that solves a problem. Ideation is exciting, but without putting your idea through its paces, you may not end up with the product you expect.Is the idea practical? Is it feasible? Will the users actually want to use it? What resources will be required to build it? These and other questions can all be answered with a proof of concept.

The Proof Of Concept

Proof of concept (PoC) is creating evidence and documentation about the feasibility of an idea. It outlines how the idealized product or service would become market-ready, how it would function, if it’s needed, and who is the target demographic. When it comes to software development, it applies to a specific process. For software-specific ideas, a PoC is an act of determining if the software can be built in the real world, what technologies should be used in development, and whether the software is likely to be adopted by its intended users.

Defining A POC

In creating a proof of concept, you are essentially laying out on paper why your idea would be successful in the market. Think of it as a business plan for a software idea. Though the inclination to skip making a POC can be tempting, it’s important to fully flush out your idea for a few reasons.

Importance Of POC

<ul>
<li>Validity- Before you skip to development, it’s crucial to know if your idea is feasible. </li>
<li>Focus Group Testing- Taking a proof of concept and testing it with your potential user base will help you get early feedback on what people actually want.</li>
<li>Money generation- Creating an early roadmap that predicts market value, possible sticky points, and how to monetize your software idea will make a strong statement in creating investor confidence in your product.</li>
</ul>

POC: The Reasons For Implementing The Step

Although nearly everyone who comes up with an idea is convinced it will work, creating a proof of concept to test your idea will ensure you arrive at the best version of it and will save you time and money in the process. Laying out every detail about your idea will help highlight gaps in your product plan that you might not realize exist. Whether you’re adding new features onto an existing software or whether you’re building something new completely from scratch, a proof of concept will ensure that you take the fastest, most direct route to success.

The Need Of POC

Proof of concept always comes first. Think of this like a word document, where you have written down a fully formulated idea.﻿A prototype is the first, very basic iteration of your software idea. It takes the words from the proof of concept and brings them to life in a tangible product.

Difference Between Proof of Concept and Prototype

Creating a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) is the next step that comes after you have a prototype. This is the simplest, most stripped-back version of your software idea, yet it still retains enough features to be released to the general public for actual use. 
Minimal Viable Products are a common topic in software development with a lot of content surrounding them, so you may want to learn more about the pros and cons of creating an MVP.

Minimal Viable Product (MVP)

There is not a cut-and-dry method for writing a proof of concept. The rules aren’t strict like they are for other written documents, like research papers, which must all follow the same outline of intro, methods, and conclusion. Instead, it’s important to make sure specific key topics are covered, however that may be. A proof of concept is a living document that can be updated as you have new thoughts and get fresh feedback from people who read it

How to Write a Proof of Concept 

It only makes sense to put time and money into building a product if people need it. Maybe those people are the company’s employees, who need to improve their productivity. Maybe they’re a new market the company isn’t currently serving but could easily reach. Whoever they are, you need to know that your software will meet their needs.

Step 1: Prove the Need

This step involves brainstorming ways to solve each of the pain points you identified in the first step. There will likely be several ways to solve each issue. After your brainstorm, you’ll evaluate each possible solution to determine how it stacks up in reference to cost, competition, timeline, technology challenges, etc. When this process is completed, you should have a clearer idea of which solutions to include in the final product.

Step 2: Map Pain Points to Solutions and Get Feedback

Your next step is to create a prototype that wraps your solutions into a rudimentary product that you can use to test with those you interviewed previously. This prototype should have the expected feature set and UI/UX.Once the prototype is built, test it with your interviewees for additional feedback. Record their use of the product to track how intuitive the interface is, and find out if you overlooked any important functionality.

Step 3: Prototype Your Solution and Test

An MVP is different from a prototype in that it’s a fully-functional solution that you can put out into the world for use. While it will include only the most-important features that are essential for solving the primary pain points you identified, it should function on the user’s side just like the final product.

Step 4: Create a Minimum Viable Product

From all of the information you’ve gathered in each of the previous steps, create a roadmap that describes what you’ve learned and outlines a recommended step-by-step process for building the product. Think of this roadmap as a set of blueprints for constructing a building. With this roadmap as a guide, everyone will be kept on the same page through product development and will have a clear picture of what the end goal is.

Step 5: Design a Roadmap

The more information you know about what your users actually want, the sooner you can focus on those features, cut unnecessary ones, and save yourself iteration time and expenses along the way. You can continue to fundraise at each point, using these supporting documents to show investors the product’s progress. Many startups fail because they skip over a proof of concept, convinced their idea is a unicorn, and rush to go straight to market. Taking some thoughtful time on a PoC is a great first step to getting you on the way to a rewarding market launch.

Key Takeaways

Creating a proof of concept is the first step in testing your software idea and ensuring successful software development.

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Computer Science

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Software Engineering

5 Steps to a Proof of Concept for Successful Software Development - Designli Blog

The data on the survival rate of businesses showed that 22% of small businesses fail within the first year, 32% for the first two years, and 40% for the first three years of business.But why?The lack of funding or capital is usually the main reason why small businesses fail because the operating expenses are costly from payroll to supplies to rent and more.Moreover, many don't understand how to price products to create profit, and more often than not is that they don't pay attention to their cash flows.

The First Reason Why Small Businesses Fail

Another mistake that many entrepreneurs make is that they don't have good business plans. A business plan must include the following: business summary, competitor and market analysis, business model and operations plan, marketing and financial plan, and product and service offerings.A business plan will give you an understanding of the industry and competition. It solidifies your <a href="https://www.shopify.com/blog/business-model">business model</a> before offering any products to customers and shows possible revenue streams so you can plan ahead

The Second Reason Why Small Businesses Fail

Weak management.Many enter into the business world because they're passionate about something but rarely do they get into business with a passion for human resource management and operations.A survey showed that 52% of small businesses have labor quality problems. Coincidence? I think not.Without letting go of the wheel and handing it over to someone with experience and strength, you won't be able to make up for your shortcomings.

The Third Reason Why Small Businesses Fail

Small businesses lack the ability to understand their customers because they are often not prepared to meet the marketing demands of their company.Poor marketing can result in difficulty in determining costs and the inability to reach a target audience and conversion goals.Marketing is crucial for any early-stage business. If you do not understand the basic marketing strategies and how to apply them, how will you be able to create and implement successful campaigns?

The Fourth Reason Why Small Businesses Fail

<ol><li>Develop a growth mindset</li><li>Set doable goals</li><li>Learn why customers are leaving your business and establish a feedback system</li><li>Identify your target audience</li><li>Perform a SWOT analysis to get back on track</li><li>Track your finances weekly instead of monthly </li><li>Get funding if you need it </li><li>Do a close analysis of what's working for you and what's not; be prepared to make drastic changes</li><li>Invest in marketing </li><li>Be proactive</li></ol>

How To Fix A Struggling Business

This article allows us to understand why businesses dry up so easily and how we'll be able to get back on the path to success. It is important to keep optimistic so think about it this way: A business down turning is not the end, instead, it is a learning opportunity to start new and rebuild.

Want to bring your business back to life? Learn why businesses fail and the steps you need to take to save them in this article.

How to Turn Around a Struggling Business: Tips and Real-Life Examples

Self-reflection is even more critical during a crisis. Even in easy times, we have a tendency to want to move quickly, lest all of our decisions and responsibilities start to pile up. 
In a crisis, this tendency gets much worse. But this confuses activity with productivity. It is far better to do less, but to be intentional and strategic about how those things are done—especially when time is tight and the stakes are high.

Utilize Your Self-Reflection

No matter where you sit in an organization, the key to leading others is influence. And the key to influence is showing people that you understand them: their perspective, their experiences, and at a bare minimum, even just their names.
If you can truly relate to others and see where they are coming from, you can have an enormous impact.

Enhance Your Communication

Any communication should be honest and empathetic.
If the employees are insecure about their jobs, don’t promise people that there will never, ever be layoffs, or that their job is theirs for life. These promises are nearly impossible for most organizations to keep. Instead, be transparent about what would happen if layoffs did occur, and ensure your team that you will do everything in your power to treat them as you would like to be treated. (And then follow through on it.)

Relate And Communicate

It’s not about changing your style—you’ll just need to kick things up a notch.

Leading Is Tough Right Now. But You’ve Got This.

"Learn new things because learning is your skill set."

... and beyond:<ul><li>Be agile. Pivoting has gotten a lot of businesses through the pandemic. Continuing to adapt to it is what helps you keep going.</li><li>Communicate honestly and authentically. When facing a crisis, be transparent with everyone affected while working to deal with the problem. People will respect you the most if you're authentic and honest with them about what's going on.</li><li>Love your product. If you have that love and think what you're selling will improve the lives of others, you can easily find the necessary motivation--and provide a positive model for other employees and salespeople in your company. </li><li>Keep up with the future. And while you don't have to become a bitcoin expert, for example, you need to have a handle on how it could affect your business. </li></ul>

Tips for entrepreneurs to succeed during the pandemic 

The billionaire 'Shark Tank' star identified a handful of vital tactics at the Small Business Administration's National Small Business Week virtual event.