Real golden spider silk!

 A British art historian has created the world's largest and rarest piece of cloth made entirely from golden spider silk.


The 11ft hand-woven silk shawl took Simon Peers five years to make and cost him and his American business partner Nicholas Godley more than £300,000


The silk has been extracted from more than one million golden orb spiders, which can be found in Madagascar. Only the females produce the silk which is known for its rich golden colour and strength
It is probably the only thing in the world like this! 


One spider is capable of spinning up to 400 yards of gold-coloured thread.

The spiders are believed not to be poisonous, however they bite a lot!

That is an absolutely brilliant idea..! Here is the full article.

Top Low Budget Movies

Even though most of the famous movies that we have all heard of  normally have huge budgets to support their special effects or simply to pay for the wages of the celebrities, (e.g. Lord of the Rings has an overall budget of over $281 million, Titanic -  $200 million, Love Actually - £30 mln, FInding Nemo - $94 mln) there are actually some films who became famous AND "cash cows" despite the low investment in them!

Here are some examples:

The Blair Witch Project (1999) 
A really good horror movie in my opinion (although about a year after I watched it I still feared entering any forests during autumn that reminded me of the one in the movie), very realistic, it makes you really wonder if what they show us was actually real. The budget was $35,000 and guess how much they got out of it...Worldwide Gross: $248,300,000. Strangely, I am reading that many people hated it, but I think that that's because it was really, really scary!

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
They didn't invest that little, but they got a lot out of it! $5 million in for $365 million out - not bad! I suppose the reason is that the fans love the idea of how different it is and that the filmmakers introduced the Greek culture in a very charming way.

Super Size Me (2004)
Oh, I love this one! Finally someone to prove publicly how bad McDonald's food is! The poor guy who voluntarily changed his eating habits from super healthy to super fast-foody for a month demonstrated how damaging the effects of eating the wrong food over and over are on his blood pressure, heart rate etc. This person even vomited the first time he tried McDonald's! Well done, not only did he show the truth, but the worldwide gross was $29 million compared to the petty cash of $65,000.

Rocky (1976)
No need to tell the story. You all most definitely know it. The film which was Sylvester Stallone's idea, who nobody had heard of before, made a gross 225 times the invested amount! And yeas, these figures are in million dollars! 

So it seems that movies can be very, very profitable.. Good business, I like it, I feel that I will be stalking it for a while :)

P.S. There are more low-budget phenomena on unrealitymag.com

See What Happened to the Man with the Golden Voice

Do you remember the person who used to be homeless and miserable? He used to live in a box that he made by himself until one day he was noticed by someone who spotted his amazing voice! The "Goleden Voice" as they called him was then offered a job at a radio when he would read the sports news.

It is so interesting for me to see how somebody's story is developing and how his career is blooming!

Interview preparation again

Still thinking about interviews, here are some tips from a trully motivational video, which proved to me for the n-time that anyone can become good at interviews!

Thanks to my great friend, who got a job at IBM, I could watch this great material!

How to prepare for an interview for less than 24 hours?

This could happen to you: You don’t hear back from an employer for weeks. Then, out of the blue, you get the call. You’ve gotten the interview...

Here are some good bits of advise offered by the team behind mashable.com

The question now becomes this: How do you prepare for a virtual job interview when you have limited time — say, only 24 hours? Check out this timetable as a guide.

9 - 11 a.m. Research: No matter what sort of interview you have, it’s important to research the organization. Check out their recent news, organizational practices and what other people are saying. In addition, do a little Googling of yourself to ensure there’s nothing questionable about you online.

11 a.m - 12 p.m. Get your equipment ready: Online interviewing may require certain equipment. Make sure you have a working webcam, mic, or the latest software ready. If you aren't positive about your system requirements, check with the interviewer. Test your equipment with a friend or colleague to ensure everything is up to date and working correctly.

12 - 1 p.m. Break

1 - 2 p.m. Dry run: In addition to equipment, it’s vital to do a virtual interview dry run. Practicing your interview story with the same friend or colleague can help you to be confident when the actual interview takes place. Your physical appearance is also important. For example, certain clothes, colors, or backdrops may translate differently in a virtual interview. Try using different lighting and attire to guarantee you not only sound professional, but also look the part as well.

3 - 4 p.m. Verify: Online interviews may not be as black-and-white as the in-person experience. Verify the date, time, whom you’ll be speaking with and what you may need to have on hand during the interview. For example, some virtual interviews may require multiple conversations with different interviewers. Some could just be a Skype call that requires no video. Others might make you take a proficiency test on the spot. Confirm all details so you aren’t surprised during the actual interview.

4 - 5 p.m. Name-check: Since the interview is virtual, chances are good your interviewer is proficient on social networking sites. Send them a tweet, Facebook message, or reach out on LinkedIn saying you’re looking forward to speaking with them tomorrow. Keep it formal, but make sure your enthusiasm for the position is translated.

5 - 7 p.m. Break

7 - 10 p.m. Last minute checks and balances: By now, you have verification on what equipment you need, whom you’ll be speaking with, and what you’ll need to have on hand. Use your last few hours of the day to do some checks and balances, such as testing your audio and camera one more time or recording a mock interview. These last-minute checks and balances may be a repetition of what you did earlier in the day, but double-checking your technology is better than facing a software disaster during the interview.

10 p.m - 7 a.m. Rest up

7 - 9 a.m. Get yourself in the zone: The hours before your virtual interview are not the time to go overboard, memorize your resume, or do another run-through. It’s the time to get your mind in the zone. Interviewers can tell when you’re overly nervous or trying too hard. Eat some breakfast, grab yourself a cup of coffee and relax. Up until this point, you’ve done all you can to prepare in the short time you were alloted. Anything else may be seen as overkill and can cloud the progress you’ve made. Instead, mentally focus on succeeding in the interview. You’ll find this will help you to prepare instead of cramming.

Since online interviews are becoming more prevalent, understanding how to prepare for them in a short time period is vital. With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to to impress the interviewer and land the job.

Penguins Inspiration! Stunning

It is a beautiful 1:30 min long video showing some penguins recorded by BBC.

                 
And that made me curious about businesses that deal with penguins. It turns out that people actually sell penguins?! I am not really sure to what extend that is legal, but one unit costs $25. The most curious bit is that the demand is so high that they actually ran out of penguins! I am really interested if this is actually real :) Here is a link, you can have a look: http://www.penguins4sale.com/.

Surely, it is some sort of scam. But here are some great pieces of penguin art:

Source: http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/penguin/all

Business Cards

Business card are usually created to make some strangers remember you after a networking night with n-number of faces that you meet. Some people say that the cards should be simple, preferably light and to contain your name and contact details. 

However, i strongly disagree. How are people supposed to remember you amongst all 89759482948294 white cards typed in Times New Roman??

Here are some examples of people that have made the effort to be remembered. Well done to them!

I recently purchased my first business cards and am pretty excited about them. I will be finally able to hand them in to important people that I meet. Maybe it's early to call them 'business contacts', but in a year or two things will be different..

Stalking direstors?

 I recently came across a website with an interesting feature - to stalk companies directors. Well, okay, not literally, but to gain some information about their whole names, their addresses, surely the companies they work for and the websites.

It's quite useful I'd say and it works really quickly!

This is it:

http://company-director-check.co.uk/

And even more surprisingly, the same can be done with companies. http://companycheck.co.uk/

I just wander how they can find such confidential information such as a company's liabilities  or assets.

For instance, if I type in'Virgin Galactic', this is what I get:

Cash at Bank : £622,645 Cash at bank and 'in hand' is the bank balance for VIRGIN GALACTIC LIMITED at the end date of the period the accounts were for. I'm impressed! And this is what I'm doing while revising for Legal Relationships exam! Unfortunatelly, most of the information is not free and you need to pay about 5 pounds for a report which I suppose you can get from the company's websites for no charge

Net Worth : £2,044,359 A company’s Net Worth is calculated as Shareholders Funds minus Intangible Assets. £2,044,359 is from the accounts filed in 2011

Top 8 for Expensive Pillows

There is something very cozy about those two pictures. I can't remember how I found them. Oh yes, they were in the folder of my old blog - Lullaby.

So how can I connect them with a business concept?
The first association is... pillows!

Here are the 8 most expensive pillows 
(that I managed to find)

8) £65.00 Organic wool pillow (www.greenfibres.com). Looks comfy, but as organic as it is, it's too expensive for me!

7) £81.73 Versace Silk Cushion Pillow (www.ebay.co.uk) - Ok, we all know that a brand always adds value.. to the price.

6) £110 Supreme Canadian White Down Pillow (www.duvetandpillowwarehouse.co.uk) - Well, this one is waaay to much. How special can it be to cost 110??

5) £223.48 Vintage Cotton & Silk Suzani Pillow (www.ecrater.co.uk) - Mmm... to be fair, this isn't the most beautiful pillow I've seen...

It's getting worse! Look at that:

4) £292 1950's Elsa Schiaparelli Silk Scarf Pillow (www.newyorkshoppingdiary.com)

 (Sorry, creators, if you read this, but I just don't see the logic beyond the price of this granny pillow)

3) £875.20  Rose Princess Pillow (www.etsy.com). Based on?

2) £1,069.69 Decorative Designer Pillow (it's a cover) (www.etsy.com) - And this is just the cover. Imagine if the had included the pillow (or VAT :D)

1) And the winner is... 

£ 1,887 - Twilight pillow from Edward& Bella  love scene (www.ebay.com)!

I temporarily lost my ability to talk!

The Hedgehog Model

I came across a cute picture of two baby hedgehogs while I was studying for Marketing. The authors of the book have decided to give an example of a business with hedgehog breeding.
So because my blog is dedicated to business, I decided to google hedgehogs and see what I can find about them.

To my surprise, there exists a socio-/psychological concept called The Hedgehog concept.

Interesting. What does it mean?

It resebles the famous fable about the tortoise and the hare The hare is known to be faster, more energetic and willing to win, while the tortoise moves slowly and heavily. Surprisingly, when they compete against each other, the tortoise wins because it moves slow, but steady and reaches the final destination in a smart way, whereas the hare blinded by its skills fails.

In a similar way, the author Jim Collins distinguishes two opposite leadership models - the Fox and the Hedgehog. The Fox always comes up with new ideas and solutions, like foxes try to kill hedgehogs in different ways. So it jumps from one project to another with fast pace. The Hedgehog however knows its strength and focuses single-mindedly at what it does best and which goal appeals to it the most. Exactly like hedgehogs uses their super gun - their needles.

So if you are a Fox, new ventures are likely to appeal to you and your passion would drive you towards the next one and the next one. And if you are a Hedgehog, you'll plan strategically in advance and will most probably hit your big aims powerfully. 

Examples of what you can be good at and therefore what you should concentrate on (if you are a Hedgehog) include:

Telling your story - relating to people and selling your experience

Inspire authenticity- free talent, voice, opinion, consciousness

Your economic engine is driven by the internet - you are in internet (marketing) guru aware of all the trends online

The Foxes need to be aware that although they energy levels are highly appreciated, jumping from one Big thing to another Big thing can make them easily distracted and losing focus of the main picture.

I like those kind of comparisons that writers make. Well done, Mr Collins! And the findings are actually quite true.

Read more: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-hedgehog-concept.htm

http://www.joyceoladipo.com/business-strategy/the-hedgehog-model

http://www.d.parrish.dial.pipex.com/hedgehog.html

Terong - the Sleeping Town

This beautiful picture was taken in Terong which is in Perak, Malaysia. The photographer C'LAVIE (Flickr) describes the place as  'a small sleeping town 17km off Taiping. Hectic life is merely non-existent, as time passes indefinitely slow in this town which mainly produces charcoal. Other attractions are mangrove swamp fishing activities and friendly people.'

Perak is a state based in Malaysia and the name means 'silver' in the Malay language. The state is the home of the country's oldest museum and oldest zoo. Also, they have a factory which specialises in the production of cottages. And according to the source which I'm using they have a beautiful nature and offer some trips with a tent. Other industries in the state include emphasising on Oils Palm and fruit produce and growth, mining is in decline. 

It seems that the time has stopped there and they have some old buildings and rail system unchanged during the years. 

I managed to find some pictures of their cottages and a website of the company producing it. A cabin costs about 700$ and there are many ways you can pay including leasing as an option. The website is http://www.parkcabins.com/

More info: http://go2travelmalaysia.com/tour_malaysia/perak.htm

Windows '95 & Sexy Greta

I came across an old tutorial for Windows '95 led by a sexy blond wearing bikini. Windows '95 is known to have significantly helped helped the development of computing. Some claim that it was Greta that pupularised computing, not the operating system itself. I just wonder if she actually helped people learn how the system worked. Or were they too distracted?

Lego Targets Girls

It seams that Lego has had some problems with the sales and profits.

So they needed a change and decided to develop something new. After some research amongst daughters and mums, they finally released they fist product aimed exclusively at girls. For the fist time! (They've been operating since 1934.) It is called 'Lego Friends' and is rich in pink and purple.

The sales are said to have jumped dramatically. In 2011, their figures soared by 17% to nearly £2.2bn while operating profit jumped from £573m to £660m.

More info:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/01/lego-profits-rise-pink

How Does the Stock Market Work?

 I have to admit that although I am a Business student, I never knew how the stock market actually works.

Until I found this fantastic animated video which explains it all!

It may be a little bit old, but it is very clear and things haven't changed much during the years when we talk about stock market.

Susan Ma

If you watch The Apprentice, you've probably heard of Susan Ma - the Chinese lady who had achieved a significant success at her age.

I decided to have a look at her biography and found out that she was a child moved into the UK with her mother. In her website, she says that she has always regarded education as pivotal. Therefore she has successfully achieved only A-s at A-Levels and was then accepted at University College London.

Meanwhile, when she was 16, she came up with the idea of the organic skin company Tropic Skin Care Ltd. Her business helped her pay for her mum's mortgage and to buy her first property at the age of 21.

What I liked about her when she appeared at the Apprentice was that she was very energetic and enthusiastic. However, from time to time she acted as a little bit naive saying to people 'That is so unfair', but nonetheless, she was quite close to winning the show, so congrats to her! I'm sure that she'll even further expand her company.

Here is a video which shows the enthusiasm that I'm talking about!

By the way, although many of the candidates claimed that they didn't go to the show to make friends, I noticed (on her Twitter) that she and Melody Hossaini are friends now.

Steve Jobs' speech in Stanford Uni

This speech inspired me. Steve Jobs is speaking in front of graduating students from the university where he studied. Studied, but not graduated because of lack of finance and of the freshly emerged idea of Apple.

It proves again what is common between entrepreneurs:

1. They set themselves a high goal.

2. Quit school or uni if needed :D

3. Put the max effort

4. Believe in the value in their idea

5. Continue despite some obstacles

6. Achieve!

Waitrose

As a big fan of healthiness, good food and lifestyle and of course, business, I asked my self: 'Are the money spent on Waitrose's products really worth it?' Because in the UK, the supermarket chain is famous for its much higher prices, but is also claimed that the food is healthier. So I decided to check this.

According to an article called Waitrose's Green Light for Healthy Food Labels in Regional Business News, 2006, Waitrose has adopted 'the Government's controversial traffic light labelling scheme' which indicate how healthy a certain food is. I'm not familiar with today's situation, but in 2006 many firms refused to use that kind of labelling because that would 'demonise' certain foods.

Also, Waitrose's manager Mr Price says in many interviews that this is what they do - have more expensive food, but are keen on high quality. And he blames the Government of stimulating people buying from the cheap giants - ASDA and Tesco, which in his words, have cheaper and lower-quality food. He also puts that buying cheap food is one of the main reasons for people having health problems.

And there was another article informing that the chains will stop buying fish from 'unsustainable markets'.

I am not an expert, but I am likely to believe that the supermarket chain IS healthy in deed. I didn't manage to find any criticism in the net or in my uni's library reports and journals. So I'll just keep experimenting their foods and will look carefully at the labels. Hopefully, I'll gain some knowledge about the bad chemicals and will be happy recognising the lack of them.

Until that point, I've tried Waitrose's chick peas, lentils and wholemeal cous-cous and was quite satisfied. Ironically, these products are cheaper that ASDA's version.

Euro RSCG

I just came across their website which caught my eye. It loads a little bit slowly, but when it opens, it is very impressive. It turned out that this was voted the world largest agency according 2010 Advertising Age Global Marketers Report.

I had a look and it has some really good stuff. 

And they work for brands such as Chivas, Kraft Foods, Durex, Air France, Danon.

http://www.eurorscg.com/flash/index.html#/Home?id=0

Here is a creation of theirs. Like the bear

Evian's strategy

Is Evian really healthier? The brand has been continuously showing baby adverts. But is it really that different? It tastes differently, I personally don't like it very much (probably because in Bulgaria we have numerous water springs most of which are sweet, soft and delicious). But the fact is that Evian's price is much higher than the average.

Having watched this advert, I find it creepy:

 I read an interview with the person behind the campaign - Rémi Babinet and the way he puts it is that they are trying to add value to the expensive brand in the eyes of the consumers.

" Evian is a premium brand, for which the strategy historically has been to create a value to justify the price of the product. This value has been created through claiming a health effect, something that must be universal and interest everyone, everyday, from the beginning to the end of life, since evian is an everyday product, consumed daily and by people of all ages."

So I'll be careful next time when I try to add something healthy into my lifestyle. The extra money spend will hardly be on water :D As long as it doesn't have any tastes added, I believe that every clean, fresh water is healthy...

At least this one is cool and entertaining.

Oh, and one more thing that is perhaps meant to add to the 'premium' image - the sexy French accent at the end of each advertising.

Barbie & Ken - broke up/came back together?

When Greenpeace was trying over and over and over to make the Mattel to stop destroying forests for the packaging of their toys, nothing seemed to be helping.
Then they came up with this idea of making Ken break up with Barbie!







However, the plastic couple decided that they can't be separated anymore and they made their producers give up on destroying forests.


And love was saved.