Archive for 2010

Disaster? Social Media can help save the day!

Taken by Shashi Bellamkonda(yes there is a relation)

Everyone in the DC area remembers yesterday right….of course you do! Who could forget hearing, seeing or being in the flood that covered Rock Creek! (For those of you who have been living under rocks to get away from climate change or in the Denver area, you can read about it here) My father(most of you know who he is) and I were on our way to the Emergency Social Data Summit(hands up if you were there or following along on some social media website….*sees tons of hands*….good, good!) hosted by the American Red Cross when we heard that Canal Road was closed near Arizona Avenue(see map). Immediately(and he was driving by the way….the rest of you don’t text and drive!…thank you) he sent out a tweet(it wasn’t spelled properly, but it was understandable) saying that Canal Road was blocked, then later he got a reply thanking him for the help.

The conference focused on how to use social media(Twitter, Facebook, Google, Skype…etc) in times of crises and  to try and come up with a way to filter the information, get it back out into the social media network, and get it to the professionals .  There are about 6 million people using Twitter, more than 5 million use Facebook and almost everyone uses Google. That’s more information than there is water on Earth! And like water, the sheer volume is overwhelming, especially if a disaster happens. That makes it harder for the professionals(firefighters, police, medical personnel…anyone who is trained for disaster situations) to determine what information is the most relevant, needs immediate attention, can be acted on a little later…ect.

The case study most often referenced was the earthquake in Haiti. After the quake, there were texts, and tweets coming in from all over Haiti about people who needed help and where they were. Those texts and tweets got picked up by other social networks and spread all over the internet. However, many of those pieces of information were not verified and rescue crews who were following the information often went to the same place twice because there was no follow up saying that “yes, this problem has been taken care of”.

After hearing many speakers(the event was streamed live; sorry I have no idea what the weird diagram is on the right),  every table participated in a ’round table’ discussion. This was where many of the ideas about how to connect the  social media network to the already existing ‘disaster response network’ . The discussion was guided by a set of  questions; each table had a different set of questions(see the blog Emergency Social Data Summit for questions).  Our table came up with a very interesting idea for the question of what to do with the “emergency social data”(the red cross’ words , not mine) after it has been aggregated. Anyone remember the Ad Council? The group that’s responsible for public service announcements on TV and radio? Yes? No? Well, if you don’t that’s ok; I’d heard of them, but I didn’t know what they did until yesterday. Our group’s idea was to create a Social Media Ad Council, responsible for giving victims, professionals and everyone else accurate,  verified and up to date information about the disaster. There were many more speakers after that, but seeing as the ‘fun’ part of the conference was over, my father and I decided to leave.  You can participate in the ongoing conversation about the use of social media in emergencies on twitter, the red cross’ website,  the Emergency Social Data Summit blog and various other social media websites(see the red cross for more details).

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Archive for 2010

Small Business Lessons from Alli Donofrio of Pre-Loved Consignment Boutique

Today KikScore sits down with Alli Donofrio, the owner of the very cool boutique called Pre-Loved Consignment.  Her store is a very unique type of boutique that offers a variety of quality merchandise ranging from casual to formal wear, to accessories, handbags and much more.  Alli’s store is in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, but she also sells online.  In this interview, she gives the small business community (and all of the shoppers out there) some great tips on small business life.

1. Tell us about Pre-Loved Consignment and who you focus on serving?

Pre Loved Consignment is a unique boutique……. far from your average thrift shop! I focus on serving everyone. I think with today’s economy… budgeting your money and saving is most important! My store is focused on value & style.. what more could you ask for !

2. How did you get started selling online?

I just recently opened up my store online- I did my homework first before doing so- searching for the best website designers I could find (Palmtree Creative LLC). We get a good amount of customers in the store- but I think to widen the audience and viewers of our selection of awesome stuff – opening an online store was the greatest idea!

3. What inspires you to grow the Pre-Loved Consignment business?

Other successful stores and consignment boutiques – like my own.

4. If you had 2 lessons learned from your business that you could pass on to others about selling online, what are those?

Customer service is very important- Make sure you are there to help them at all times! Also make sure you use a secure website (such as PayPal)- people want to know they are using a secure site – which means they will come back to shop again.

5. Where will Pre-Loved Consignment focus most of its energy this year?

It will focus on what my customers want and will focus on finding new ideas on how to grow!

6. What do you see as new trends in for small business and in your business?

Consignment boutiques are flourishing every where. They are the hottest businesses to open up today. Id say Consignment alone is a new hot trend! And this article on NorthJersey.com actually discusses the tend!

7. If your business/store could be any movie or movie character, what movie/movie character would it be and why?

I think it would be Betty Boop – Shes Hip, chic , flirty and fun – which best describes my store!

8. If Pre-Loved Consignment could have a dream spokesperson for your company who would it be and why?

I think any young or old woman into fashion- and not afraid to wear pre-owned clothing , handbags and shoes. It does not necessarily mean you are poor or do not have enough to buy new. It just means you know how to shop smart and you know how to get more for your money!

9. What is the biggest challenge that Pre-Loved Consignment faces as a small business and how do you work to overcome that challenge?

The biggest challenge is trying to get our name out there more! Advertising can be pricey but its the most important thing to get involved with when opening up a Small business!

10. Do you have any parting thoughts for our readers and the small business community?

“Don’t Underestimate consignment you’ll be surprised by the treasures you can find !” “Buy More Pay Less!”

Let us know if you have any thoughts for Alli and Pre-Loved Consignment.

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Archive for 2010

The Importance of Security in Online Payments

As more and more fraud occurs in e-commerce, it is ever more important to provide secure payments for your customers. There are some things you can add to your website that will provide extra layers of security for your customers. You can use “https protocol” and “3-D secure protocol”. Also the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) has implemented strict standards (PCI Data Security Standard) for merchants that accept credit cards online. In the next sections, all of these types of security options will be explained.

HTTPS Protocol

Normally the website operates under a normal hypertext transfer protocol (http), but with https (hypertext transfer protocol secure), sensitive data that passes through the seemingly insecure network (http) will be protected by an added security socket layer (SSL). HTTPS has been approved by many certificate authorities, so it is a widely accepted security layer for online payments.

3-D Secure Protocol

3-D secure protocol is a form of virtual payer identification. The basic concept behind it is verifying 3 domains. Thus, the name 3-D. The first domain name to be verified is the acquirer domain. The acquirer domain consists of the merchant and bank to which money is being given to. The second is the issuer domain. This is the bank that issued the card being used. The third and final domain to be verified is the interoperability domain. This is the infrastructure provided by the credit card scheme to support the 3-D secure protocol. This is possibly one of the safest ways to accept payments on your website.  

PCI Data Security Standard

Merchants of all sizes have to abide by the PCI DSS’s rules in order to be able to accept credit cards. The PCI Data Security Standard was implemented in 2004 and has been updated several times since then to keep up with technological advances. Companies like North American Bancard specifically say that they offer internet merchant accounts that provide PCI compliant payment experiences. So it is not all on the merchant, since merchant account providers are there to consult and assist merchants with abiding by these rules. The main objectives for the standard is are to create a universal environment where payments are safe and to be able to identify cyber criminals more easily because of these standards.

As more and more people buy online, cyber crime will increase unless merchants become educated about securing data on their websites.

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Archive for 2010

Is Google Good or Evil?

I was reading this article today on Gizmodo about how a “Vision document” recently released to the public was created by Google 2 years ago and makes reference to the fact that Google was considering selling Internet surfing and search data from visitors to their site.

This would be a big deal for a few reasons if it is true because Google has claimed for years that they would never user their customer’s personal data for “evil” reasons like making billions of dollars.  This would also be big news because there are other companies like BlueKai and Exelate that currently offer similar “tracking services” for help companies determine what the best keywords are to use in their ads to get the most clicks.  Needless to say, if Google decided tomorrow that they were going to be in this business, these companies would instantly be put out of business and Google would be the leader in this area.

I think that this would also be big news for consumers and merchants because it just might change the way people think about and/or use Google.  If you knew that you were going to get a bunch of emails or targeted ads based on the words you searched on in Google I think you might actually think a little a more before you made that search or before you automatically typed “Google” into your web browser.  This may very well end up being the reason that Google also never does become “evil” and start selling this data because unless their competitors start to do the same, consumers may start moving to Bing or Yahoo if they feel like Google is “selling them out” or carelessly sharing their previous search data.

Would you consider stopping to use Google if they started sharing your searches with other companies for money?

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Archive for 2010

Identity thieves are after your kids social security numbers? Help!

It’s August now and summer’s almost over. Fall arrives in a month and with it comes new TV shows, new seasons, football, school and college applications. (Which I don’t have to do anymore, yay!) But, there was one thing that all my college applications asked me (besides my name, address, grades…etc[I’ll give you a hint, most people can’t remember theirs]) .* drumroll* Yes! It is the social security number! *applause* Speaking of social security numbers…..have you read the news lately? You probably know your social security numbers have been targeted by identity thieves for years, but did you ever wonder about your kids?

Recently the Chicago Tribune posted an article about identity thieves are after children’s social security numbers. According to the article, since children’s security numbers are dormant for a long while, they are susceptible to identity theft. After shady internet companies get your kid’s security numbers, they sell them online. When people buy these security numbers, they build their credit rating by using your kid’s credit profile.

By now you’re probably asking yourself “How do I protect my kid’s social security number?” The Chicago Tribune(see previous link) offers some great tips on what to do. One of the most important tips being Never give out your’s kids (or your’s for that matter) social security number needlessly. Don’t give it out on school forms(they’ll never ask anyway), to your kid’s dance teacher, sports coach, for any type of program registration….you get the point. Also, if some online form asks you for your kid’s social security number, make sure it is an actual form, used by a reputable and safe company(like college apps, government forms…etc).

“But what if my kids are already in college,” you may wonder, ” how do I protect their number then?” Well, you can give them this article from the Creston News. It’ll tell your college kids why they’re being targeted and what they can do to prevent it from happening.  You’re probably wondering, “Why college kids?” Well, most college kids don’t have a firmly established credit history. There may be a few purchases here and there(mostly textbooks, school supplies, college fees), but they may not have been spending very often, and that makes it easier for identity thieves to use their numbers. Also, college kids use social networking sites a lot and those sites may not be very secure.

Take Facebook for example, recently they changed their privacy controls making it harder to figure out who sees what on the site.  According to PC World , the number of people searching for directions on how to delete their Facebook account spiked after Facebook announced a shift to a public system from the friends only system it had before. Luckily(for Facebook users anyway) ReclaimPrivacy.org offers a bookmark that’ll scan your Facebook privacy settings and will tell you if you’re sharing more than you intend to(Unfortunately at the time I wrote this post, the bookmark scanner wasn’t fully compatible with the latest Facebook privacy settings…..if you find that it has become fully compatible, let me know.) So, tell your college kids to check their privacy settings for whatever social networking site they’re on, so that they’ll be safe from identity thieves and other people who want to exploit them.

Anyone else have any suggestions on how to protect your kid’s social security numbers? If you do, let me know!

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Archive for 2010

HP's Former CEO: Trust Problems and Bad Judgment

As I’m sure a lot of you have read, HP’s CEO, Mark Hurd, resigned last week.  It wasn’t due to poor earnings or prospects for growth.  In fact, a lot of people credit Mr. Hurd for turning things around for HP over the last several years.

Nope.  Mr. Hurd resigned because he was caught lying on his expense reports.  There was an ongoing investigation over complaints of sexual harassment.  To avoid disclosing the relationship with one of his assistance, which he apparently spent company money on, he mischaracterized why he incurred certain expenses.

So, Hurd resigns and is getting $20M-$50M in severeance payments.

Few questions that come to mind on this:

1.  Hurd made millions of dollars every year.  Could he not cover the expense of some dinners and drinks on his own and not expense it?  Is it worth saving $2,000/year at the expense of your job and stock options? 

2.  Why is he getting his severance paid?  Usually most severance packages are conditioned on the executive not resigning due to fraud.  I’m no lawyer (ok, maybe I am), but submitting false expense reports seems to be fraudulent. 

3.  Did he have to have an affair with his assistant?  I mean, it is so cliche.  Couldn’t he have at least run away with his massage therapist.  This whole having an affair with an assistant is the main reason why my wife won’t allow us to hire an assistant at KikScore.  I’m having to open the mail, return phone calls, shred incriminating documents all by myself.  It’s overwhelming.

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Archive for 2010

Greetings from the Summer Planet!

Zdravo, I’m Mitali,current dweller on the summer planet and  KikScore’s latest intern! You’re probably wondering what the summer planet is…well I think it looks like this (well mine anyway). Here’s a bit about me.  I’m going to be a freshman at Maryland in the fall.Right now I’m planning on majoring in Biochemistry. My hobbies are reading, drawing and finding various words in different languages. If you know any good books, let me know. (The drawing of the planet is mine by the way)  What I hope to give you is college student’s perspective on online security and whatever else comes to mind. I’ll be posting on either Tuesday or Thursday, so stop by. (By the way, if anyone can guess what language I used at the beginning of this post, then you get a cookie[drawn by yours truly]! I’ll give you a hint. I used script converter by Google[note that it is a beta, so that should narrow down your choices]) See you next time!



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Archive for 2010

Build Trust By Listening and Sharing

A couple weeks ago, I focused on the need for valuable and easy to use feedback tools for your customers.  While continuing to research this topic and build best practices for KikScore, a colleague shared this great article with me on How to Make the Most of Customer Feedback.  As a small company, I realized we tend to get caught up in task items of the release schedule we’ve set forth and lose sight of the customer connection – until an issue arises and you are placed in emergency mode.

This article touches well on the subject of empowering customer-facing employees.    As you continue to expand your solution offerings and grow your customer base, this becomes a critical area of focus.  And it’s not just sales personnel, this includes customer support and even marketing resources who are interfacing with customers on a regular basis.  By giving your employees the right tools to not only listen to customer input but also to respond and raise awareness throughout the rest of the organization.  This also goes to the level of communicating in a transparent manner to your customers on what is coming next from your company.  This helps to promote trust between company and customer and shows how your company listens and reacts.

The aspect of close the loop with those giving feedback empowers your customers to then not only see how you take their opinions to heart but also how your company strives to prioritize and stay one step ahead.  Simple steps to promote customer loyalty and make your business a success.

What feedback processes do you have in place and how does your business track and prioritize them?

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Archive for 2010

7 Tips for Startups & Small Businesses from Our First 200 Posts!

On Friday, we passed the 200 blog post mark on the KikScore blog.  For us folks that are working on the blog on nights and weekends, I think that is a pretty special achievement seeing that we hit that 200 posts mark in well under a year’s time since this blog was launched late in 2009!  So to my fellow writers, I say thanks and great job.  But much more importantly to our readers and the community we say thanks.  We hope that the next 200 posts will be even better.

So to mark this occasion I thought it would be nice to give some our our tips and lessons learned for small businesses and startups through our prior posts.  So here they go.

1) Stay Positive & Remember Why You Are In Business – The road for small businesses or startups is paved with many roadblocks.  The key is to keep your chin up and do not let those obstacles get you down.  To that point, we talk about the continual need for small businesses and startups to be optimistic in a post that makes its point from a spilled margarita.  Also in addition to staying positive, it is important that you remind yourself why you are on this entrepreneurs journey.  We actually discuss that need to keep in mind the influences of the entrepreneurial spirit in your day to day business.

2) Launch Early – Every startup engages in that internal discussion of when should we launch our product and when is it really ready?  For every startup it is a little different, but I think we would likely come out on the side of launching as early as you can.  We actually discuss this debate about when is the time to launch your new product and whether you should wait until it is just right.

3) Get & Act on Customer Feedback – As a small business or a startup, it is critical that you have the tools to gather customer feedback.  But perhaps just as importantly, you business needs to analyze and then act on that feedback. This is a post that describes some of the tools that are available for getting customer feedback.  Also we laid it bare to give you an idea about how we were looking at customer feedback when it came to our own KikScore product features.

4) Stay Focused & Have a Plan – With so many distractions for your startup or your small business, it is often a challenge staying focused.  We covered steps to address this issue with two posts that highlighted ways to stay focused with an analogy to the great SNL skit “More Cowbell” and tangible actions that your company can take to keep your team focused.

5) Have the Right Team – This point is so important because without the right team, a company will fail.  The right players, in the right position with the right game plan help increase the chances for startup and small business success.  These points were highlighted in our posts about the US World Cup Team, building the right team, lessons from team building from the NFL Draft, and learnings from the recent Lebron James fiasco.

6) Be a Leader and Roll Up Your Sleeves –  Following on the right team, each of the team players in a startup or small business need to be leaders and be proactive, relentless and constantly trying to push the business forward in big ways!  Wall flowers are generally not the best for startup and small business teams, instead you have to be able to wear multiple hats, improvise when necessary, be creative and always be aggressive.  Our two part series on small business and startup leadership discussed this important topic in more detail here and here.

7) ABP – Always Be Pitching – Our tips to startup and small business is get out there and talk about your business, your product, and get feedback.  Do not be one of those people that is always talking about themselves, but at the appropriate times at networking events, with contacts, with key players and potential mentors talk about your business so you can get different ideas and also potentially get introductions to people and companies that can help you build and grow your company.  We had posts on this topic about elevator pitches and again an internal lesson at KikScore we learned from talking to people titled, Why Didn’t We Think of That?.

We have many more posts and hope to have many more in the future. Please let us know if you have any thoughts or tips for small businesses and startups!

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Archive for 2010

Style V. Substance: Which Matters More?

Remember back in high school, when the guys with the coolest cars got the dates (at least that’s how I justify my lack of dates back then)?  Then you flash forward 15 years later, and those “cool car” guys haven’t moved out of their parents’ basements (and still drive the same cars that they did in high school).  While the guys who had nothing better to do than study (as they weren’t going out on dates) now have good jobs.  It plays out with regularity with every generation — style wins the battle, but substance wins the war.

While substance is the valued trait at work and in our personal lives (or at least it should be), it seems with buying decisions we lose all grip on reality and defer to the “better looking” product or service.  Why am I going with this and why does it matter?  This shallowness really impacts small business and could be a security threat for online shoppers.

For small businesses that want to have an online presence, but can’t afford a top-line web designer, the choice is often to go with a standard design template.  So if you’re selling the same product, but your site doesn’t have the same pizazz as a competitor’s, and all other things are equal (like pricing and product), we as buyers will go with the “cooler” site. 

Why?  Because it conveys legitimacy.  If someone spends a lot on a site, they must have a lot of money because the site is successful, and therefore safe. 

And here is where the security threat comes in.  Just because a site looks better, doesn’t mean it’s safe.  In fact, those same “cool guys” from high school (that are living in their parents’ basements) have plenty of time to dedicate creating fraudulent/less trustworthy sites than a successful offline business person.  So once again, we go with what looks better, and don’t take the time on the businesses with substance. 

What’s the solution?  Well, this is KikScore.com’s blog, so you probably have a guess what I think is the answer.  But I’m open to other suggestions.

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