Ju Ju Ju

“It’s the same old tissue, honey, it doesn’t make a difference, ok? It’s still going to work the same way”, my exasperated husband hissed into my ear as I grabbed cartons after cartons of some ‘designer’ tissue. DESIGNER TISSUE! Hah, can you even hear me say that? I can’t believe I actually wrote ‘designer tissue’. So, yes, for a graphic designer and writer who knows all about the kind of effort one puts into packaging and branding products, I sure fell for it. All the hoopla. The shenanigans. The ’suck ‘em in with good copy and fab color combo’. Hey, I am still a consumer, remember that. I am entitled to fall for nice packaging, I have a prevailing right to be human.

But they are so pretty…the packaging. I swear!

They have the ‘nature lover’ packaging, the ‘fruity’ packaging, the ‘woman on the go’ packaging, and then they have the ‘kids’ packaging. I grabbed 4 of each design packages and made a run for the counter with them with my screaming kids and exasperated husband running after me in slow motion. It was definitely a ‘die-hard’ moment. You know, when the hero is running away from a bunch of wild bad men with machine guns, and they’re shooting at your feet or something…and there’s an explosion behind you…and everything happens in ssslllloooowwwww mmmmooooottttttiiiioooonnnnn.

Well, in this case, I was running for checkout with boxes of tissue paper with fancy packaging designs on them. If I didn’t like the packaging designs so much, I would find it comical enough. But I am dead serious. In fact, I loved the packaging designs so much, after using up all the tissues in the boxes, I would cut out the designs and place it into my ‘must keep for reference’ clear folder. I don’t keep a lot of stuff in there because I am pretty selective about the designs that I like, but these packaging designs made the cut. They definitely did.

You see, this is the kind of thing that happens when you put some effort into making your packaging design. Yeah, we all have this in the back of our heads…. “Hey, it’s PACKAGING! It’s what’s INSIDE that count. They’re going to THROW the PACKAGING away. So, why spend so much money on the packaging?” Maybe you’re also thinking that the money should go towards developing better quality products…for faster shipment options…or maybe the money should go towards spending potential clients to expensive dinners in Italian restaurants. It’s your call, really.

But this is what I have to tell you, as a graphic designer and consumer. The more effort you put into designing your packaging, more customers will stop and take a look at your packaging or what’s inside the packaging. Now, does it make sense for me to say now that when they stop and take notice of your packaging, your chance of getting them to buy your product increases? Exactly.

You see, the role of packaging is to grab the consumer’s attention. And without an electrifying packaging, consumers are going to walk past the heaps and heaps of other competitor products…and yours…without even knowing you’re there! Your product is sitting there on a shelf, for goodness sake, and the only weapon you have is to have a nice packaging. Once they stop and take a look, you’ve won the first round.

Think about it!

Marsha Maung is a freelance work at home graphic designer and copy writer. She focused on below-the-line advertising and marketing. More information can be found at www.marshamaung.com and www.creativejooz.com

How Kids Learn to Cooperate in Video Games: A Lesson for Parents
and Teachers

By Marc Prensky © 2004 Marc Prensky

“The three words that best describe me are ‘athletic,’ ’smart,’
and ‘GameBoy-addicted.’” - A 10 year old

A great many parents are concerned that the electronic games
their kids play are teaching the kids “negative” messages such
as aggression, violence, and isolation from real people. I want
to illustrate here how computer and video game playing, can have
positive effects on kids. This includes even the “addictive”
game playing associated with many of these games. The learning
from these games is well worth the effort the kids put in
playing them, and kids typically sense this at some level, which
is one reason they fight so hard for their games.

One key lesson many of their games is teaching them is the value
of people working together and helping each other. To illustrate
how this occurs, I will use one particular game, Toontown, as an
example.

Toontown (www.toontown.com) is the Walt Disney Company’s entry
into the Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)
category. For the non-initiated, that means a computer game that
supports thousands of players online simultaneously, all of whom
can see and interact with each other. A key feature of these
worlds is that they are “persistent,” meaning that the worlds
continue to exist and change whether or not you are there, just
any other place in the real world.

[Note: There are two types of multiplayer online games, both of
which have their advantages. One type, the “multiplayer” game,
lets you interact with a limited group of people, such as those
on your team or squad, in a game world that typically exists for
only the time you are playing. The game America’s Army is a good
example of this. The second type, the “massively multiplayer”
game, lets you interact with everyone you meet in the ongoing
world. Massively multiplayer games like EverQuest, Asheron’s
Call, and Dark Age of Camelot have captured the time and
imaginations of hundreds of thousands of US teenage and older
players. The Korean massively multiplayer game Lineage has over
4 million registered users, often with up to half a million
players on-line at once. The players typically meet in
relatively thinly-populated areas of very large and often
interconnected virtual worlds, so even with these huge numbers,
it is not like pushing your way through Times Square on New
Year’s Eve.]

Toontown is the first massively multiplayer game designed
specifically designed for younger kids (pre-teens, I think,
though they don’t specifically say.) In addition, many older
kids and even adults enjoy playing it. In the game you create,
name and dress a character, and then you take it out to play in
the virtual world. Your character is the representation
(”avatar”) of you playing in the world - it is the “you” that
other players know.

Although if you wanted to you could spend your entire time in
Toontown merely running around the virtual world, the “object”
of the game is to defeat “Cogs,” members of the evil gang that
wants to take over the town. The Cogs to fight come in many
varieties and strengths. To defeat a Cog you employ “gags”- such
as squirt bottles or pies in the face - that you purchase with
jelly bean currency that you earn in a number of ways.

In your early days in Toontown, when you have earned relatively
few gags, you typically run around alone, deciding when to
confront a low-level Cog you pass in the street. (You do this by
running into it.) You and the Cog then square off and do battle,
taking turns throwing gags at each other. If you defeat the Cog,
he explodes and you are rewarded with points towards additional
gags. If the Cog defeats you, you “die,” which means you lose
all your gags (although, importantly, you do not lose the
“experience” you attained - i.e. the types and levels of gags
you are allowed to purchase and use.)

There are a lot of other twists, but that’s essentially the
game: Earn and buy gags, use them to fight Cogs.

But here’s where the cooperative part comes in. As you move to
higher experience levels, the tasks you are required to
accomplish become more and more difficult. You often have to
“rescue” buildings that the Cogs have taken over, buildings that
have multiple floors filled with high-level, hard-to-defeat
Cogs.

And you can’t do this alone, no matter how much experience you
have. So you begin to learn to play the game with others. The
game encourages this, with “friends lists” and built in “speed
chat” menus consisting, for kids’ protection, of a limited
number of phrases you can use. For example, you can invite your
friends to help you defeat a building (or, if you prefer, you
can just wait outside for others to show up.)

But it gets subtle. Just because someone is your friend (or
wants to be) or happens to show up, doesn’t mean he or she has
the experience to defeat the higher-level Cogs. You can check
out someone’s gags when they are in range to help you decide
whom to work with, but success depends not only on the level and
number of gags one has, but also on knowing how to use them in
battle. You learn over time what players you want on your team
to achieve success in particular situations. Sometimes, to be
sure all of you survive, you have to reject players who ask to
work with you on a certain task. One of the things you can say
through the speed chat is “I think this is too risky for you.”
Just as in the real world, such advice is not always
well-received, and the game gives you the opportunity to learn
to deal with this.

In the midst of any battle - players typically fight
higher-level Cogs in groups of four - a player can choose,
rather than to throw a gag at the Cogs, to instead give his or
her fellow players additional “laff points” (i.e. health). Doing
this helps prevent them from “dying” and dropping out of the
battle. One skill typically gained from frequent play is knowing
when to help your teammates versus when to attack the Cogs. This
is not trivial. One adult player described her first battle with
ultra-high-level Cogs as “extremely nerve wracking,” and
characterized the strategies she had to employ to work
successfully with the other players as “the most emotional
experience I’ve ever had in a game.” And this is the version for
kids!

And there is yet another way Toontown players learn there is
value in cooperation. Some of the tasks available to
higher-level players allow them to earn jelly beans by helping
out new players. When these experienced players see a Newbie
fighting a Cog on the street, they can join in and assist. When
the Cog is defeated, both the experienced player and the Newbie
get rewarded game at their own level.

Is it Boring?

Still, while the tasks at the start of the game involve
defeating only one Cog at a time and the tasks at higher levels
require players to defeat hundreds of Cogs on their way to
liberate bigger and bigger buildings, the battles are very
similar. “Isn’t that boring?” I asked one “addicted” player.
“After all it’s basically the same thing over and over -
fighting Cogs.”

“I like going up the levels,” she replied. And of course the
only way she can do this is by learning to cooperate well with
real people, in real time - while sitting at her own computer.

I encourage readers of this article to try Toontown, both with
your kids, and even on your own. (You can go to www.toontown.com
to get started.) See how far you can get. If you happen to enjoy
the experience, you can go on to the aforementioned “older
players’” games, where the enemies are fantasy monsters and the
buildings castles to storm, yet where the principles of
cooperation are basically the same. If you actually get addicted
to cooperative play, don’t blame me - these games are designed
to reel you in.

But even if you don’t get hooked yourself - and the more you are
from the “Digital Immigrant” generation the less likely it is
that you will - hopefully you will have learned this important
and generally-overlooked lesson:

What keeps the kids playing these games is not the violence
(that’s all fake and the kids know it), but rather the ability
to work together with others to achieve more and more difficult
goals.

Can you think of any skill more useful for children to spend
their time learning? I can’t.

With the arrival of PPC advertising, a whole new industry providing services for PPC advertisers has come up. A new breed of consultants providing a range of services right from keyword optimization to copywriting have been working to push the PPC model ahead of other Internet advertising models like banners, pay-per-impressions, pop-ups, etc.

PPC services are a billion industry in size, and with 85% of Internet users using search engines to locate products, the significance of this industry can be understood. With the introduction of Adwords by Google, a new marketing definition, SEM, Search Engine Marketing, a legal activity that brings traffic from a search engine to another website has entered the marketing lexicon. Adwords was followed by Yahoo Search Marketing, previously known as Overture and other Tier 2 portals. A club of big businesses like CNN also provides this service.

There are numerous websites offering PPC advertising services in the net. The range of services includes keyword optimization, copywriting of the advertisement, tracking tools to measure the success rate and positioning with the search portals. Among them, some of the important sites are ePilot, eSpotting (now www.miva.com), Kanoodle, etc. They claim maximum returns on investment, higher CTRs, better conversion rates, etc.

These sites operate by registering a customer by a certain minimum registration charge and through the regular process of PPC place the advertisements in the major search portals that they have partnered with. The charges may start from as low as $15 onwards. As is with any other form of advertisement, contents of the advertisement to capture the eyeballs in a few seconds is as important in PPC advertising. Hence these Search Engine Optimizing (SEO) consultants copy write the advertisement with particular attention to the title and content. They also match the advertisement with website content development-like navigation features, descriptions of product/service features, easy buying experience for the buyers, etc.

Other than the above-mentioned services, they also provide specialized services like tracking the customer according to the geographical location and fraud management. Localization advertisements target the area where the advertiser wants the services to be reached i.e. the software tool recognizes the cities, towns, etc. Fraud management services include tracking the unique IP number of the user who clicks through the advertisement and helps preventing the counting of multi-clicking, if the same user clicks through repeatedly.

PPC Advertising provides detailed information about PPC advertising, optimized PPC advertising and more. PPC Advertising is affiliated with Cheap Internet Web Hosting.

For years our family has enjoyed vactioning and traveling across
this great country and one thing that has always drawn our
attention is the beautiful landscaping done by others.

Usually, the one attraction that sets apart the ones we find
more appealing will have rocks, stones, or even boulders
scattered into the display.

Well, in all of our efforts to find a method to create a
residential scale boulder project had found us either with too
much cost involved or not having the available tools required to
create our own boulders.

Not to be outdone, we set out to experiment with the simple
tools we had available to us and if I must say so, we discovered
a can’t fail method with amazingly realistic results.

What we were able to construct has fooled every person that has
witnessed firsthand our creation. So, that home project later
was highly suggested that we share our discovery with others
that have the same desire to add realistic rocks and stones to
their landscaoing ideas.

Needless to say, we had no idea there were so many like-minded
individuals. We shared our findings with folks across this great
country as well as other countries. Much to our amazement the
results of our creation has led to thousands of happy rockers!

To learn more about our discovery of CaveRock visit us on the
web.

What are you passionate about?
What do you believe in?

Is there a product or service that you find yourself just raving about with friends and family!

Share your talents, experiences, and beliefs through a home business.

Choosing a work at home business is rewarding.

Maybe you’ve become so good at your household management skills that you just have too much time on your hands.
With the many challenges of family and household management I congratulate you if the latter is the case! Give yourself a pat on the back!

You know we learn our most valuable lessons from our failures and successes. Hopefully, Right!

I have learned one undeniable truth in my work experience. If you love it and have a passion for it, you WILL be successful.

There is nothing easier than doing what you love to do. This is an undisputable fact of human nature. We all know this instinctively, but somehow fall away from the idea.

If you can incorporate what you love to do, are passionate about and truly believe in, into your work at home business you will find success!

You can choose to live your work or work to live. The decision to live your work can only be successful. It just makes sense!

Until you find your niche in life you are just trudging along doing the necessary steps to survive.

It’s when you find and work your passion in life that you begin to live.
Your work naturally becomes your life.

No, I’m not talking about being all about work 24/7. I’m talking about bringing something you are passionate about in life into your work at home business.

There’s a huge difference.

That being said, you need to really analyze what it is you like to do. Think about something productive or creative that you love to do in your spare time.

WHAT IS YOUR “THING?”

You may instantly know what your “thing” is or it could take you several days to figure it out. You may not have been able to do what you love for so long that you have forgotten what it actually is you love to do.
Unfortunately, this happens to a lot of us.

For example, through all my experiences I found nothing that excites me more than what I am doing right now! Bringing my family back to basics, getting my financial goals back on track and teaching my children to be financially responsible and successful.

When I started looking for an extra income I tried so many things that just seemed to be out of character for me.

I accepted offers only to discover that the program either required me to sell something (which I determined early in life was definitely not my thing), or required me to do something that I had no clue how to do. Like building a website or internet marketing.

I was shot down from the start and couldn’t even get motivated to try.

I learned that you don’t always get what you expect when you accept a work at home offer. You have to be careful to read everything.

Make sure you know what you’re getting!
If you choose an internet business and you’re a “newbie”, make sure you will be provided with all the educational and technical tools you need.

Internet marketing and website building is very technical. If you have no knowledge of …….

Well, you can see it’s another college degree it seems. At the very least it would involve a great deal of reading, studying, and trial by error to create a website much less be successful at it.

You need a step-by-step program to help you through. Some programs can leave you in a sea of confusion! Where do I start? What’s that mean? How do I promote it? Build a website? Advertise with search engines? You will be defeated before you’ve even begun if not careful.

If you’ve bought into any of these informational offers and still feel lost on how to get started on your work at home venture, you know exactly what I mean.

So, if you’re not internet savvy, or a webmaster, be sure the program offers the assistance that you need to be successful!

Perhaps a work at home internet business is just not your cup of tea. There are lots of other wonderful ideas for generating a home based income.

Child Care, crafts, and cleaning services are just to name a few. And, yes, there are people out there that do love to clean! Just remember - Do what you love to do to be successful!

Find something that interests you or adapt an idea to suit your interests. You’ll be meeting your goals in no time! No matter what it is you love to do, you can find a way to use it to make extra money.

The best part is you’ll love doing it if you love the work!

If you choose to include a work at home business to strengthen you family’s foundation, I wish you the best of luck.

Remember, if you pursue what you love and are passionate about, YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL!

Cheryl Johnson is a mother of four helping herself and others become, and remain, debt free. Publisher of Simple Debt Free Living at http://www.simpledebtfreeliving.com - a self-help plan for debt management, personal budgeting, frugal living, and home business ideas. Money saving tips help balance your budget and maximize savings everyday.

Vibes can often be difficult to use into a beautiful marriage Some folks could discover the introduction of vibrating toys In a long term relationship daunting & it will probably bring up questions such as “does he fancy me anymore”? Yet marital aids can often be a fantastic & satisfying experience and sexual aids also help to build closeness between you & your lover. Looking for the real thing then get Realistic Dildos.

Figuring out which sex play toy to choose could be an adventure. A time where you and your wife can sit down and communicate about what you both want out of the affair & choose a vibrator together that meets both of your needs. Please do not just go straight in for the large gigantic sexy toys, just start off slowly.

Once you and your partner have chosen a sex play toy & have had the joy of opening your new vibrator you need to get into the mood. Sensual lighting and romantic music are the perfect platform to just start off any sexual adventure. Make the time seductive, unplug the TV, turn off the DVD player & concentrate fully on your boyfriend. Prolonged sensual stimulation before bringing out the sexual aid is a great idea. Light and loving strokes heightens the sexual sensations and helps towards a very relaxing and enjoyable sex session.

And please don’t forget to get into the moment, have fun & enjoy it.

Some people are naturally pessimistic and are happy being so. They view themselves as pragmatic and as having a better sense of reality. Then there are those of us who feel weighed down by negativity and wish that we could be more optimistic. This is completely possible. It all lies in the way we perceive things…

1. Stress management

When we conceal our anxieties, they only build. Each concern can snowball into a feeling of being overwhelmed. Each person has their own way of letting off steam. This varies from exercise, to listening to music, to reading a good book. More of us are beginning to realize how important proper stress management is to both our physical and mental health.

2. Constant reality checks

It is sometimes necessary to debate the validity of your concerns to determine whether they are rational or not. This is called self-rationalization and one of the most recognized methods is the worst case scenario. This is when you consider the worst possible situation, then go on to consider whether it is likely to happen. For example, a loved one said they would call once they arrived by subway to a certain destination. They should have reached that destination 15 minutes ago. You may dream up scenarios of there being a train accident or some other frightful incident took place. But after a little thought, you find that it’s more probable that they either have yet to reach their stop or they will simply call you when it is convenient for them. You never want to leap to conclusions and cause yourself unnecessary stress.

3. Support of friends and family

Friends and family are usually more than willing to provide you with a much needed reality check. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have close friends and family members to confide in though. It is detrimental to find some type of support when you are feeling extremely confused or overwhelmed. This support may have to come from a trusted co-worker or a member of a support group. Sometimes all it takes is another person’s point of view to put things into perspective.

4. Own your feelings

Accept that you have complete control over your perceptions and internal responses. You may not have control over what happened on your commute to work that upset you. But you are able to decide whether you become relieved when the day is finally over, or frustrated, claiming you are always being dealt a bad hand.

Denni Gill is a Toronto Poet and Freelance Writer. For more, check out http://www.DenniGill.net.

Business coaching is becoming more popular, and the number of folks hanging up their shingles to provide the services associated with this activity has escalated tremendously, in the past few years.

This article explores a few more of the reasons coaches are adding value, especially to smaller enterprises.

In a prior writing, I noted that coaching addresses the loneliness of business owners, who just don’t have anyone they can turn to in order to discuss their challenges.

If we examine the word, “coach” and think of sports, we ask, how do coaches function to enhance the performance of their athletes?

One way is by imparting new skills, tricks of the trade that they learned or figured out for themselves, that aren’t intuitively obvious to their players.

For example, just this week, one of my clients is involved in building a tele-sales unit and is trying to recruit college students for its part-time positions. It’s a good idea, but the plan is to advertise in newspapers within student intensive zip codes.

At best, this is an indirect way of going about recruiting, when for no outlay of cash, you can post help-wanted ads in college placement offices. You KNOW students will see the ads, that way! And, as it turns out, there are major colleges within blocks of their office, and one proprietary school is housed in their building!

I’ve done recruiting of this type for years, as a telemarketing job provider, and on behalf of my coaching and consulting clients.

This example demonstrates just one small way that a coach enhances performance. Sometimes he has a cheaper, more direct, and more effective method of doing something that you simply don’t know.

But presuming you know all of the basics, what else can a coach do for you?

Back to athletics, for a second, coaches get their players to play harder.

They do this through all kinds of means, among them goal setting and encouragement, to name a few. Left to our own resources, we’re be tempted to kick back, especially after achieving only moderate success. This can lead to backsliding and to a downward cycle of achievement.

With a coach, you’ll get the prodding, pushing, and occasional kick in the pants that you need to outdo your prior peak in performance.

In our era of expanding coaching services, no small business owner needs to be an island.

That’s good news, isn’t it?

In future articles, we’ll explore even more of the functions served by coaches.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com

There are robust-looking chandeliers in wrought iron, crystal chandeliers that are simply drop-dead gorgeous, and candle chandeliers that ooze romance. And lampshade chandeliers are dainty, pretty things. The chandelier frame is a pretty massive, with lampshades that are attached to the top. So it is obvious that this type of chandelier is meant for a large room.

The advantage of a lampshade chandelier is that a dazzling array of moods and designs may be created just by changing the shades. There is no need to dismantle the entire chandelier frame and revamp it. Also, a lampshade chandelier can be readily assembled at home.

In case of such chandeliers, the frame is usually a simple one, mostly made of wood or iron, since it is of no use to have an ornate frame that is going to be hidden by the overhanging shades. It is the type of lampshade being used that determines the look of the chandelier. The shade can be in the shape of the regular cone, a bell or circular like the Chinese-styled lampshades; it can be made of virtually anything ranging from handmade paper, silk, beads or a simple printed fabric. The lampshade may be in some sort of color, so that instead of a clear light you can have a light that diffuses a tinted glow. This can be your choice if you want mood lighting rather than incandescence.

The lampshade can be made to match the furnishings of the room so that in addition to a chandelier that is attuned to the mood of the room, you also have one that is color coordinated with the rest of the room. In fact, this is the only type of chandelier where you can coordinate so easily. When it comes to versatility, the lampshade chandelier is much more successful than other types of chandeliers.

Chandeliers provides detailed information about chandeliers, crystal chandeliers, antler chandeliers, candle chandeliers and more. Chandeliers is the sister site of Kitchen Curtains.

Are you looking for website design Sydney? If so, there are some excellent companies available that will help take your basic website (or none at all) and turn it into a fabulous open door to the public who wants to stop by, get to know you or your business and make purchases. Because the first impression is always the most important impression you give to your visitors, hiring a professional to do the work for you is a good route to take.

The good news is that with the help of a professional, all your goals can be met. What first impression are you making with your website? Is it clearly organized and easy to navigate? Are visitors able to move through the pages quickly and without fail? Do they have the ability to move quickly, locate just what they need and then use a secure shopping cart to make a purchase? Making the visitors experience a positive one will allow them to do what they want to and then come back time and time again.

When hiring a professional company to provide you with this type of help, be sure to consider past products they’ve designed for other companies. Ask about references and rates ahead of time. Lay out what you need and with a trusted company, you’ll get much more.