bizsolutionsplus Featuring Solutions to Grow Your Business

Learn Word of Mouth Marketing

Yesterday, a respected colleague, Andy Sernovitz, asked me to share that he is hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar. Usually he only does private training for companies at a large price, so this is a rare chance for 50 people to get the best available introduction to word of mouth.

I've arranged for a $250 discount for our clients and the readers of this blog. Use code "welovebizsolutionsplus" when you register.

This is a very practical, hands-on course. In one day, you will:

• Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
• Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
• Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received, for a fraction of what they paid
• Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into ROI
• Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)

Learn from Andy Sernovitz, the guy who wrote the book on word of mouth marketing. Andy promises you will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute, is affordable and provides measurable results within 60 days.

More information: http://events.gaspedal.com

Chicago: July 30 and September 4

Pass it on: http://events.gaspedal.com/banners

Jobs Aren't the Problem, Education Is

In my state, Connecticut, businesses complain that they can't find people to fill jobs. The same was true when I lived in Seattle: Microsoft, for example, always listed job openings that went begging. And now this from Johns Hopkins, which conducted an analysis of Education Department data for the Associated Press:

More than one in 10 high schools across America can claim no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen making it to their senior year. About 1,700 regular or vocational high schools nationwide fit that description. That's 12 percent of all such schools, about the same level as a decade ago.

If you run a business or if you care about quality of life or if crime concerns you or if you want to live in peace or if you wonder what are among the causes of the decline of a civilization (e.g., the U.S.) or the unending poverty of a modern culture, look no further. Education leads to success and wealth when it works; it leads to destruction and poverty when it doesn't.

So where is the outcry? Why isn't education more of a rallying cry for new ideas, better teachers, better pay for good teachers and involved parents? What can be done to change the coarse of what appears to be a cultural crisis? What can we do to make a difference in education?