Yext’s first earnings report as a publicly-traded company seems to be a boringly pleasant one — but that’s a good thing for a company that needs to show strong performance out of the gate. These early reports can be critical for setting the stage and expectations for a company going forward. Snap, for example, whiffed on its first earnings and promptly saw its stock tank,… Read More
GPUs have become synonymous with the CPU in modern day computing and the NVIDIA GRID is a key part of the infrastructure stack of many of Citrix XenDesktop environments. NVIDIA virtual GPUs help Citrix HDX3D Pro technology deliver resource intensive …
Kmart is informing customers that their credit card details may have been stolen after learning of a security breach involving its payment processing systems. Sears Holdings, Kmart’s parent company, confirmed the incident on Wednesday, but did not disclose any information regarding the number of stores affected or when the incident occurred. The Illinois-based department store […]… Read More
The post Hackers Breach Kmart’s Store Payment Card Systems appeared first on The State of Security.
In part 1 of this two-part blog series, I shared insights from analysts David Johnson and Andrew Hewitt from Forrester Research who joined me in the webinar, “Powering the Future of Work with Digital Workspaces.” Here, we …
Bringing new talent onto your team can be a delicate balancing act. Providing a valuable experience for the interns and the company while not distracting existing team members from being productive is even more challenging.
Where are their knowledge gaps? How can you best welcome them and integrate them while not taxing your more senior members? How can you quickly get them familiar with your environment? At Treehouse we’ve had the opportunity to build effective internship programs with several of our client partners. Here’s a basic formula that you can easily apply to your company’s situation and needs.
As you bring in your interns, it’s important to understand their current skill level so you know where to focus their onboarding. As they are getting acclimated, we have found a heavy focus on leveraging a tool like Treehouse during their first two weeks works well. Plan on having them spend about 70% of their time in training during this period. Then, they can downshift to about 30% training time and focus on digging into your technical environment.
Ensuring that your interns understand your tech stack is the key to them providing value to your company. Using our Custom Tracks feature in Treehouse for Business, you can map out a learning path tailored to your team’s needs. Our Customer Success team will help you identify which courses will get you the outcome you seek. This is highly effective for onboarding interns and new hires, especially in the first couple of crucial weeks to establish a strong foundation.
To keep your interns on task, you can easily assign a deadline and monitor their progress. You will receive weekly progress updates via email to ensure they are gaining the knowledge they need within the timeframe you need. Insightful reporting that lets you know who’s working ahead and who may be lagging behind helps you easily see who might need a little extra guidance. Also, consider having interns partner up so they can learn from each other while reinforcing their own knowledge.
As basic technical skill needs are met, focus will need to turn to practice within your company and development environment. Consider sending them on a codebase scavenger hunt. Grant them viewing access, then have them search for examples of key concepts they just learned to let them see how it is used in “the wild”. Seeing real-world examples of actual use will deepen their understanding and up their learning retention.
Brainstorm some value-add projects that your interns can tackle with their new skills. Having them take on real-world daily tasks will allow them to contribute and feel they are a part of the team. Consider allowing them to do basic updates to a website, or perhaps have them QA projects.
Training lays the foundation, mentors make the connection. Treehouse has equipped your interns with industry standard programming knowledge, allowing your senior staff to focus their precious time on how to apply those skills within your company processes. By engaging with students in meaningful ways, mentors help to ensure their success.
Consider pairing groups of 3-6 interns with a senior team member as a project lead. Give them a slightly more advanced real-world problem to tackle together, with a mentor to guide them. Have them participate in quick daily standups to address roadblocks and commit to tasks. Set aside time for a weekly cadence meeting for any deep dive questions that the mentor can help address. Providing communication guidelines from the beginning helps protect everyone’s time.
Use this framework as you build your own Internship Program. An early focus on training, reinforced by structured application of skills and an introduction to your unique environment will empower your interns to become productive team members.
Sign up for your free trial on Treehouse and start learning to code today.
5 Tips to Have the Most Productive (and Awesome) Internship Program
The post Creating an Effective & Productive Internship Program appeared first on Treehouse Blog.
“How much should I spend on Facebook ads?”
As a freelance digital marketer consultant and Facebook ads specialist, this is THE most frequently asked question I hear.
It’s a really bad question (I’ll explain why) and also impossible to answer with a specific monetary value.
When it comes to advertising on Facebook, or even social media in general, it seems like many business owners and entrepreneurs have heard too many stories about ‘going viral’ or some other miracle.
In reality, advertising on Facebook is just plain old business. Forget about digital marketing metrics like reach or virality or impressions—money spent on advertising is supposed to create revenue for you. If the ROI on your Facebook advertising campaign is good, you’ll spend as much money as you need to.
But to figure out the ROI of your Facebook ads, you’ll need a few things:
With those three things in hand, you don’t have to ask me how much money to spend on Facebook ads—you can know and spend according.
And I’ll show you how, right now.
One of the great things about Facebook advertising is that you don’t need an ecommerce store, or even a way to accept payments online, to have success. You can generate business results offline, too.
To make it interesting, let’s use lead generation as your business goal—you want an email address or a phone number to follow up personally and close a deal.
Before you launch your first Facebook campaign, come up with a goal for lead generation by asking yourself these questions:
If you currently generate ten leads per month and close one of those into a customer, but you can handle four more paying customers, your goal for Facebook ads is to generate 40 leads per month with Facebook ads.
10 organic leads + 40 leads from Facebook ads = 50 leads
50 leads x 10% conversion rate = 5 customers
Too easy. Now for the tricky part.
Web visitors aren’t exactly begging to become leads, especially if your website isn’t optimized for conversions. Think about your own online behavior—do you fill out a form any time somebody asks? Probably not, or your inbox would never see the light of day.
So if you want somebody to become a lead, you have to nurture them through a marketing funnel.
Start by using Facebook ads to send paid traffic to an awareness-level blog post. By “awareness-level,” I mean a blog post (or other content, like video) that helps them clarify their problem or need.
Once that person has read your blog post, you can retarget them to a more conversion oriented asset, like a landing page or better yet, a Facebook Lead Ad.
Because you’ve already introduced your brand and provided value for free with the awareness-level content, these retargeted visitors are far more likely to convert than if you had sent them straight to your landing page.
Note: In order to use retargeting and conversion tracking, you’ll need to have your Facebook Pixel properly installed and configured.
With either landing pages or Facebook Lead Ads, you can set what information you get from your lead—email, phone number, etc. If you’re taking in a large volume of leads, you can add additional qualifications to help you prioritize.
Digital marketing funnels are not as complex as they seem, and you can start with a simple one like the example above to test the viability of Facebook ads for your business.
Now to create and test your hypothesis…
You should never invest a significant amount of money into ANY advertising channel without testing it first. Here’s how you would test the viability of Facebook advertising; we’ll continue to use the same example from above.
Let’s say the average lifetime value (LTV) of a customer for your business is $1,000.
You create Facebook ads, drive traffic to a landing page, and measure conversions.
Your budget is $500 and your cost-per-click (CPC) is .50¢—this means you drove 1,000 visits to your landing page.
200 people (of the 1,000 visits) filled out your form, so your conversion rate from landing page visitor to lead is 20%. (Which would be incredible!)
Of those 200 people, 5 of them become customers (10%, again, very good).
Using your LTV, you’ve just made $5,000 of a $500 investment in Facebook ads.
That’s a 900% ROI.
By using the process described in this blog post, the question “How much should I spend on Facebook ads” now seems like a really, really dumb question. The answer is obvious:
If you’re seeing a 900% ROI on an advertising channel, you spend every penny you can get your hands on.
Now here’s the fun part—by breaking your digital marketing funnel down into individual pieces and looking at the metrics associated with each piece, you can improve on them one at a time with A/B testing:
Start seeing ROI on your Facebook advertising campaigns by asking the right questions.
The post How Much Should I Spend On Facebook Ads? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.
Conversations about the future of work often highlight the increasing intelligence of technology—innovations like big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, and so on. There’s no questioning the profound impact and transformative business implications of these …
This post AI Startups: Shift to High Level Problems or Die appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
AI Startups AI startups enjoy unprecedented interest from venture capital investors and large corporations eager to acquire advanced technology that gives competitive edge. More than 550 AI startups managed to raise $5 billion in funding in 2016 that is all…
This post AI Startups: Shift to High Level Problems or Die appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
This post IDC: Worldwide Shipments of AR/VR Headsets Gain Momentum in the First Quarter with Strong Growth Forecast appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
FRAMINGHAM, Mass., June 1, 2017 – Worldwide shipments of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) headsets continued to soar with a total of 2.3 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2017 (1Q17), according to the International Data…
This post IDC: Worldwide Shipments of AR/VR Headsets Gain Momentum in the First Quarter with Strong Growth Forecast appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
One of the common questions organizations have when looking at Citrix App Layering is, “How does a cloud based service work with my environment that is completely (or mostly) on-prem today?” The answer lies in understanding a little bit about …
Identity and access management software vendor OneLogin has suffered a security incident that reportedly compromised customer data. On 31 May, the provider of identity-driven security solutions revealed that an unauthorized party had gained access to OneLogin data in the U.S. region. Alvaro Hoyos, chief information security officer at OneLogin, explains the company is in the process […]… Read More
The post Customer Data Reportedly Compromised in OneLogin Security Incident appeared first on The State of Security.
According to the Macmillan dictionary, a smombie is a smartphone zombie: someone who is so busy looking at their phone that they do something stupid like stepping out into traffic.
Unfortunately, walkers distracted by cellphones are leading to increasing rates of pedestrian accidents, injuries and fatalities.
According to the CBS News article Pedestrian deaths on U.S. roads spiking; cellphones eyed:
Pedestrian deaths are climbing faster than motorist fatalities, reaching nearly 6,000 last year - the highest total in more than two decades, according to an analysis of preliminary state data released Thursday ... researchers say they think the biggest factor may be more drivers and walkers distracted by cellphones and other electronic devices ...
Due to the increases in pedestrian accidents, cities are starting to deploy new technologies targeted at smombies.
Cassandra's Crossing Guards covers a number of companies and cities that are introducing lighting solutions designed to keep smombies safe.
Our favorite example comes from the Dutch town of Bodegraven.
They've installed a series of traffic lights in the ground. These turn red or green to alert people staring down at the cellphones when it's safe to cross (or at least their turn to cross).
Australia is also experimenting with in-ground traffic light technology.
This is a great example of unintended consequences, which almost always play interesting and important roles in the diffusion of new technologies.
It's unlikely the inventors of cellphones thought about them leading to increased pedestrian fatalities - much less the need to create new types of traffic lights.
Unintended consequences also can slow or even stop the spread of a new technology.
A good example is the Segway personal transportation device. Initially hailed as a breakthrough technology that would fundamentally change transportation and society, it's been relegated to niche applications due to unintended safety consequences.
We spend a lot of time trying to understand the unintended consequences of new technologies here at Small Business Labs. It's not easy.
Unintended consequences are, well, unintended and generally unforeseen by technology inventors and enthusiasts.
BTW, if you're interested in trends the Cassandra Daily Newsletter is well worth subscribing to.
The tech-driven transition of business enterprises has brought immense benefits for the organizations. It has quantified work and performance, optimized efficiency, and made it convenient for business organizations to expand their areas of operations and invade new markets on the global spectrum. However, while this has escalated the annual profits and perks for business organizations, […]… Read More
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