The updated Adobe Scan app now transcribes business cards and conveniently saves them into contacts on your phone. Touted as an AI enhancement, the transcription appears to be OCR technology with excellent accuracy.
Adobe Scan Competition for Evernote?
There are dozens of business cards scanners on the market. Evernote offers a business card feature only available with the $69.00 / year premium option. For users who only need a business card scanner, the free Adobe Scan is an attractive solution.
Let us know what you think of the free Adobe Scan app.
The front page of the June 16th Financial Times carried a story about a book project to compile the complete works of Marx and Engels. The article describes the project as one of the most monumental book projects of modern times, and one of the most extraordinary book projects of modern times. The project was started almost a hundred years ago. Why has it taken so long?
Political reasons, and various difficulties in the transcription process including poor handwriting and doodling are sited for the delay in the project. However the article does not examine other possible factors that have been previously discussed round the secrecy of these unpublished volumes. According to Richard Wurmbrand, author of Marx & Satan, many of the unpublished manuscripts are deliberately being kept secret because they would expose Marx for being a satanist.
Another 15 years will be needed to complete the project, pushing this effort over a hundred years long since it was first undertaken in the 1920s. It’s undoubtedly important project, since communism is responsible for over 100 million unnatural deaths. These unrevealed pages may contain more evidence on the evil nature of communism. Fortunately, waiting another 15 years for this book project to be completed is not necessary to make a conclusion on this failed ideology. There is plenty of evidence suggesting communism is an evil cult that seeks to destroy humanity.
Controlling and influencing society through media has been a major effort of the communist strategy in the West. Many major news organizations have been contributing to expanding leftist policies. This is a topic we’ll continue to cover in this blog.
Today, 90% of American media companies are owned by just 6 corporations. That’s an alarming trend when compared to the over 50 corporate owners 35 years ago.
You can guard against this consolidated power by having a credible independent source like The Epoch Times delivered to your home every day. You’ll receive reports that analyze and hold these media to account.
You’ll also be circumventing any form of censorship from big tech by having a direct connection to an independent voice.
The Dale Carnegie Course and Toastmasters emerged over a hundred years ago. Designed to help people overcome their fears and express themselves in public, they remain ever relevant today.
The ability to speak well in public is one of the most valuable life skills. Unfortunately, this skill is not given enough attention in the modern education system.
So what are the differences between the Dale Carnegie Course and Toastmasters and which one is best for you?
Dale Carnegie vs. Toastmasters: A brief history
Dale Carnegie became famous for writing one of the best-selling books of all time: How to Win Friends and Influence People. Before this success, Carnegie had a humble beginning by offering public speaking courses at a YMCA in upper Manhattan in 1912.
Today, the timeless legacy of Dale Carnegie continues with the world-class public speaking courses.
Around the same time on the other side of America, Ralph C. Smedley, a Director of Education at a local YMCA, started a club to help members improve their speech. Toastmasters International was formed as a non-profit in 1924 and is currently headquartered in California.
Dale Carnegie Course vs Toastmasters Infographic
The Dale Carnegie Course vs Toastmasters:
The Dale Carnegie course makes you a more confident speaker with an 8-week intensive program. You’ll gain experience in all the fundamental building blocks of effective communication.
The advantage the Dale Carnegie course has over Toastmasters is the speed. In 8 weeks, you’ll experience the many techniques of effective speaking. The Dale Carnegie course is more intensive and led by professional instructors.
So what kind of communication skills will you discover in an 8 week Dale Carnegie course?
Learn how to say your name in a confident and memorable way.
Learn to tell an inspiring story.
Tap into your emotions to better express yourself.
Experience the power of enthusiasm.
Use body gestures to release nervous energy and grab attention.
How to manage people with different opinions.
Create visual images to captivate your audience.
and much more…
The Dale Carnegie public speaking course provides you with a structured platform to test and experience a variety of skills in front of an audience. Through a variety of exercises, you practice the timeless principles taught by Dale Carnegie. You’ll get stronger and have more confidence in facing your fears of speaking in public.
The Dale Carnegie course values putting the principles into practice. After a quick explanation from the course instructor students stand up and practice the technique.
In addition to the famous Dale Carnegie public speaking course, Dale Carnegie Training offers a full suite of other training programs, including Leadership Training for Managers, High Impact Presentations, Sales training, as well as a vast array of online programs.
See how the Dale Carnegie course helped Warren Buffett.
Toastmasters Course
Toastmasters is different from the Dale Carnegie course. First of all, Toastmasters is not really a course with a beginning and end. Toastmasters is public speaking club where members learn and practice public speaking and leadership over the long term.
Another difference is that Toastmasters is self-paced. You don’t have an instructor guiding the class, you have members who play different roles to run the club meeting with plenty of opportunities to practice public speaking.
In recent years especially since the pandemic, Toastmasters has offered online modules or tracks to fit the self-paced learning system.
Toastmaster meetings are well-structured and give members a variety of opportunities to take part.
The meeting structure is consistent, but the content of each meeting is unique. Some roles are easier than others which provides a range of participation for new and experienced members.
The advantage Toastmasters has over Dale Carnegie is in providing a long-term practice and learning environment for people to develop and keep their skills reinforced through regular practice.
Roles in a Toastmasters meeting include:
Chairperson: opens the meeting by reviewing the roles, introduces the Toastmaster and ends with some closing remarks.
Toastmaster: delivers a short speech on a topic and facilitates part of the meeting.
Word of the Day: choose a unique word, explains its meaning and how it’s pronounced and count how many times the word is used.
Table Topics: guides the group through a series of questions or scenarios designed to stimulate spontaneous on the spot thinking and improvisation.
Grammarian: counts how many times speakers use filler words and make grammatical errors in the speech.
Timer: keeps track of time on speeches and roles throughout the meeting and provides a time report at the end of the meeting that breaks down the time of each section of the meeting.
General Evaluator: evaluates the overall meeting and provides constructive feedback.
Speaker: delivers a prepared speech usually from a track or manual.
Evaluator: gives feedback to the speaker.
Plenty of opportunities exist for impromptu speaking at Toastmasters, but to progress through the levels you’ll need to prepare speeches from a manual or track. Prepared speeches are given constructive feedback by an evaluator.
Toastmasters offer a nearly infinite amount of material to cover and opportunity to advance up the ranks. Toastmasters is a great platform to practice and learn continuously, which makes it different from the 8-week Dale Carnegie course.
The benefit of preparation:
A key difference in practicing your public speaking with Toastmasters is the amount of preparation you can put into your prepared speeches. How much effort you put in is up to you. Preparation is a key skill in the real world. When it’s important your going to prepare for it, right? Toastmasters gives you a platform to prepare and practice. The more you prepare and practice giving speeches they better you will get.
Check out the 2018 Toastmasters World Champion winning speech by Ramona J. Smith to see what training with Toastmasters can achieve.
Cost:
The 8 week Dale Carnegie course costs around $2,000
A Toastmaster’s membership costs around $100 per year with meetings held as frequently as every week.
Which course should I choose?
Both of these programs have been around for over a hundred years. Whatever reasons you have for improving your public speaking, you can be sure that Toastmasters and Dale Carnegie have a lot to offer. So give them a try and see for yourself. Taking action is key on your path to public speaking success.
Toastmasters is more like a continuous lifelong improvement platform. In contrast, the 8-week Dale Carnegie course it’s a high-impact transformation that can help you break through your fear of speaking in public. If you’re serious about becoming an experienced speaker, you’re going to need to practice regularly. With any skill, if you don’t use it regularly, you may forget how to use it.
Expressing yourself clearly and articulately may be one of the most important life skills. Aside from the tangible career-oriented benefits, like a job promotion, perhaps there’s a deeper yearning inside yourself looking to experience life as a more effective and persuasive communicator.
SuperDeluxe composed this very funny tune using a compilation of Trump’s tweets for the song lyrics. It’s about the constant battle between Trump about the failing The New York Times. Smile and enjoy it!
Song Lyrics
Frumpy and very dumb Gail Collins, an editorial writer at The New York Times, is so lucky to even have a job.
The failing New York Times wrote yet another hit piece on me. All are impressed with how nicely I’ve treated women, they found nothing. A joke!
Failing New York Times will always take a good story about me and make it bad. Every article is unfair and biased. Very sad!
The Failing New York Times should be focused on good reporting and the paper’s financial survival and not with constant hits on Donald Trump!
My lawyers want to sue the failing New York Times so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now) but they are watching. Really disgusting!
Dummy Bill Maher did an advertisement for the failing New York Times where the picture of him is very sad – he looks pathetic, bloated, and gone!
Despite the false New York Times story about Jeb Bush being happy with the Trump surge, he fell more than anybody and is miserable.
The failing New York Times is truly one of the worst newspapers. They knowingly write lies and never even call to fact check. Really bad people!
The failing New York Times has become a newspaper of fiction. Their stories about me always quote non-existent unnamed sources. Very dishonest!
On January 2, 2018, President Trump announced his advice, in a two part tweet, to incoming leader of the New York Times, 37 year old Arthur Greg Sulzberger, son of outgoing publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr..
Shortly after this two part tweet, Trump announced his plans for the Fake News awards.
I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!
Some common questions on Facebook and Instagram marketing strategy.
What Facebook targeting yields the best results for a brand like ours that is not doing e-commerce? What criteria should we always include and which should we not?
The more specific the target the most it’s going to cost. Without conversion metrics from e-commerce, it’s not possible to track the ROI so it’s hard to justify targeting a specific segment.
In going for a broader audience, the Facebook algorithm would deliver good content to people who are most likely to enjoy it…
Test various interests to compare.
Our goal is to get more consumers into brick and mortar stores. How would you suggest targeting to consumers to get them into stores? Remember we do not engage in e-commerce.
For Instagram create a list of #tags of your retailers. Paste the list of around 30 tags on each of your posts.
Follow and engage actively with your network of Jewelry retailers. More likes and comments will be seen by their customers.
Coordinate promotions with retailers. Call to action copy in post text.
Location Based ads for special events. (ex: new store opening, promotion, etc.)
Do you think it would be more beneficial for us if we focused more on online shopping objectives? If so, how do you suggest we take this initiative with our clients?
Set-up and monitor online shopping metrics in Google Analytics to get a clear picture of conversion. May require dedicated analytics/e-commerce, expert.
What activities can we perform to keep users inside the Facebook platform? Does this affect the success of a post? We hear that Facebook doesn’t like when you link out of their platform. Can you elaborate on this
There are three post categories: photos, videos, and links.
Links to external sites tend to be the lower performing of the three types.
Instant articles and videos could make user stay longer. The success of a post is engagement/attention, which includes likes, shares, comments and overall time spent.
The user experience with slow loading links will also cause a user to give up.
Are logos on every photo a best practice, or is that too much? Please have a look at our Facebook pages to see what we mean.
Each post already includes your profile image. Users are already scanning the post title so it’s generally not necessary to add logos to images.
Your logo in the profile image is a bit hard to read. Consider optimizing the design for the profile image;
There’s a quote: “Social is about people, not logos”
What types of links or posts make Facebook respond better? Does Facebook offer an incentive for creating certain posts over others?
Facebook rewards highly engaging content. Stuff that makes the audience stay longer. i.e: viral video that grips people to keep watching is the best.
Good photos would be second after video. Posting links to websites are generally the lowest of the three types.
All post types seem to benefit from good copy in the post text. Thoughtful effort and relevant keywords seem to make a significant difference in engaging audiences, including the creative use of emoji’sJ
Here are tips for gaining engagement:
Ask questions/tag friends.
User-Generated Content
Photos with a celebrity wearing your products.
Experiment posts to optimize the best timing /topics.
Put lots of heart and emotion into your post.
Unique lifestyle photo’s (close-ups seem to work better for Jewelry/Fashion/Beauty)
What is the best approach for Instagram vs. Facebook? How should we post differently on INSTAGRAM? Why?
Facebook reaches a wider and older audience. Video is more favorable on Facebook.
On Instagram, good images with creative and artistic quality gain more engagement. Use a combination of “Story”, live, and photo/ short video posts to be discovered by new audiences. Behind the scene, design concept, life of designer etc. Try creative tools like boomerang. Keep videos short/less than 1min.
Because we cannot control our customer’s websites or any activities they perform, how can we take an independent approach to get Facebook users to our customer’s stores or to get really interested in our brand and pull the trigger?
Develop a HashTag strategy. Include a list of retailers tagged in relevant product posts.
Create an offer, discount or deal. This Facebook options might have an application in this scenario.
Should the Instagram account be more personal or more business? Please look at the current page to see what we mean.
“Personal is Business” on Instagram. Intimate creative close-up images/videos are what works well.
Short video. Try posting some.
User-Generated Content. Photos taken on iPhone of people wearing your products. Natural is more believable/trusted.
Instagram Analytics now available with new Business Profile. Instagram Business Pages could be treated differently, such as making you spend more on advertising to gain reach.
Which social media platforms should we focus on more? What is the approach for each platform?
Facebook and Instagram are the top platforms now.
Instagram is growing fast, and working well for fashion/beauty businesses where beautify images are central to the brand.
Based on our customer demographics, should we be using Snapchat? Should we be utilizing Facebook live more?
Snapchat demo is younger. Another factor in entering a new channel is your staffing/manpower ability. It may not be a priority at this time.
Some analyst predicts that Instagram will dominate over Snapchat because of the large user base and capital provided by Facebook. If this is true Instagram would be the better platform to invest time and energy on.
Facebook live can be annoying, if not planned well. Live steam tends to be long and uses a lot of data on mobile.
The “story” function in Facebook/Instagram may be a good opportunity. You have more control to create quick and engaging content. May require some learning and experimentation to be effective with these tools.
Is there a way to see who is following and looking for content every day? How can we check active followers? Who is actively seeking out our content? And what do we do with this information? How can we see who is receiving our posts more than others?
Basic Facebook audience data is available under the Insights ->People tabs. You can also install a Facebook pixel to gain more analytics of what’s happening on-site.
Optional for Instagram: New Business profile provides basic analytics.
Monitoring tools like Fanpage Karma or Hootsuite – to monitor all comments, mentions, etc.
Based on our Facebook Page demographics, what and how should we be targeting? What are the best practices that we should be doing as far as targeting? What should we not be doing as far as targeting and objectives?
There are many powerful targeting tools. Like recent purchasing behavior, life events like; New Girlfriend, Newly Engaged, Anniversary etc.
However, without the ability to track conversion you’d be spending more to target specific audiences without knowing what is actually working.
What type of Facebook budget would yield the best results? Where should we spend most of our budget? Facebook gives budget suggestions per ad, is this something we should seriously consider or is this more about Facebook wanting to make more money?
Organic reach has dropped over the last year. Some people have found focusing more on quality and less on the quantity has produced better results. Basically, without paying you have very limited reach on most things. Given that quality over quantity factor, it seems like investing on creating unique, original, relevant, value-rich content has become what Facebook’s algorithm is pushing for because they don’t want the platform full of ads and spam. We would recommend a balanced approach where you invest both time, energy and money into producing outstanding posts and then selecting the best performing post to boost.
How can we improve our Facebook engagement? What activities can we do? Which posts are more appealing? Which images are more likable? Colors, backgrounds, model shots, product shots, candid shots, videos, animated gifs? Why?
Close-up, detailed, intimate and colorful images work best.
Enhance your community responses. Providing quick response counts. which will also promote more people to engage so it’s really important to put the effort into being very active.
User-Generated Content is more favorable because it’s more real and not too commercial.
POV Shots help user image themselves wearing the product. Bring products into the world with an interesting background.
Turbulent times as major daily newspapers make cuts
2017 promised to be a turbulent year for newspapers. Last week’s announcements by the The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal signal tough times on the road to digital transformation despite the success of their digital subscription businesses.
