Companies Successfully Started by Kids

 While most kids stick to their home works, video games and sugar sticks, there are some young kids who have turned themselves into successful entrepreneurs at a very early age. After all they say, ‘It’s never too early to have good idea’ but only a few implement them in reality. Today the businesses of these young entrepreneurs are wildly successful with turnovers of million of dollars and branches across the globe.

1. Anshul Samar

Founder and CEO of Alchemist Empire Inc

Anshul Samar is another name for the connection between ‘high school’ and ‘chemical warfare’. This 13 years young lad came up with the idea to create a role playing card game based on chemistry, which is funny as well as educational. With this he made his unique mark in the gaming world with a trading game card called, ‘Elementeo’. In the game, you and your opponent are given a set of chemicals to destroy each other at their respective atomic levels. Elementeo is basically a brain storming game to make chemistry ‘fun’ for kids.

Though this young entrepreneur started this company recently, but started dreaming about this long back in his fourth grade. He wanted to build a chemistry based card game, but it took him years to develop all the quirks. This tenth grade CEO has impressively named his company as Alchemist Empire, Inc. His company is said to have hit $1 million in revenue in its first year of operation.

2. Sean Belnick

Founder and CEO of BizChair.com

At a tender age of 14, Sean Belnick spent $500 to build an online marketplace for office chairs. This site is known as BizChair.com, which is an internet retailer of office chairs, office furniture, restaurant furniture, church furniture, school furniture, home furniture, and medical furniture. The company is reported to have only 75 employees but provides more than 2,50,000 products. Belnick, at the age of 22, is said have a net worth of $42 million.

The e-tail site was ranked as no. 438 on the Inc. 500 list of Fastest Growing, Privately Held Companies in 2006 and ranked no. 272 in the Internet Retailer Magazine's top 500 in 2007. In 2008, it was ranked no. 37 in the Inc Magazine list of top 100 retail companies. You yourself can imagine the growth of this company.

3. Adam Horowitz

Adam Horowitz along with fellow classmates launched a terrifyingly popular nasty gossip blog when he was 15. Needless to say, his parents shut it down right quick. The experience taught him about the potential in internet marketing. So he started his own site known as Urban Stomp, which hosted music and also listed the party locations in his local area. He lived in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles. He sold clothing through affiliate sites to pull cash.

Horowitz was not ready about how successful it would be. His first listing, which was an accidental posting to the home of an 80-year old neighbor, drew over 700 rowdy teens. One can imagine the pain. But what started out as an awkward venture into the world of digital business has since been turned around.

Horowitz now teaches 15+ year olds, on how to make money online. He runs mobile marketing sites like ‘Mobile Monopoly,’ and ‘Cell Phone Treasure’. These both earns him over $100,000. Additionally, he has another one in planning, that is up and coming, ‘Dude, I Hate My Job!’

4. Leanna Archer

Founder and CEO of Leanna’s Hair

Leanna Archer started a line of hair and body products at the age of 9. She used these for her own, which is actually a mix of secret ingredient of her grand mother. When she got multiple compliments about her, she gave her friends a few samples of the pomade. Its only after this, the orders started pouring in.

Later Leanna convinced her parents to start it as business. She started researching on how to start a business online. She started her business in her basement but after sometime, her parents left their full time jobs to support her. In an interview to CNN, she said, “The most important thing a parent can do is stick by their kid and supports their dreams 100 percent... Dreams are wild, but they're wild enough to come true”.

5. Angelo Sotira

Founder and CEO of deviantArt

Angelo Sotira is an American Entrepreneur who co-founded an online community called deviantArt, along with Matthew Stephens and Scott Jarkoff, in 2000, when he was only 18. deviantArt is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork.

dA is a site where users can set up an account to show off and popularize their work. They can also sell prints of their work and buy sponsored merchandise. Within three years, it earned 100 submissions that is an average of 1,40,000 per day. It has more than 15 millions users.

For art lovers, flowery words, stroke of brushes, the strike of a chord, a camera click, anything and everything is an artwork. But with deviantArt, art came more near to them through few mouse clicks.

6. Abbey Fleck

One Saturday morning in 1991, 8 year old Abigail (Abbey) M. Fleck was making bacon with her dad. They ran out of paper towels, so her dad put it on the classified section of the newspaper. Mom was unhappy to see this and prompted dad, “I could just stand here and let it drip dry.”

In this small process of fun experimenting, Abbey invented Makin’ bacon. After all who doesn’t love crispy, tasty bacon? Today, Abbey’s Makin’ Bacon is the star attraction of Walmart, which costs less than $10. Abbey is now 27 and works with special children. She lives in Los Angeles and is married to a man who sells the 'Deflecktor', fuel-saving wheel covers for truck which is actually invented by her dad.

7. Cameron Johnson

Now 23, Cameron Johnson started his first business at the age of 9 that is even before he graduated from high school. In less than a year, he saved $50,000, which he preserves for his next project, My EZ Mail, which is an email forwarding company. It generated up to $3000 a month in advertising.

He then joined with two other teens, namely Aaron Greenspan and Tom Kho, to create an online advertising company, Surfingprizes.com. During his freshman year of high school that is at the age of 15 he used to receive checks between $300,000 and $400,000 a month. Before graduating from high school, his combined assets were worth over $1 million.

8. Fraser Doherty

Fraser Doherty, at 14, began making jam from fruit and juices, based on his grandma’s recipe, in of his parents’ kitchen. He used to sell these to friends and fellow churchgoers, but demand grew fast, which actually was outstripping his ability to produce.

Doherty’s jam has spread rapidly and virtually reached every grocery chain in the U.K. and Ireland, including Sainsbury, which is the biggest UK retailer. His product, SuperJam, comes in a wide range of unique flavors, including blueberry, blackcurrant, rhubarb and ginger.

He started this business with a loan of $9,000 from a bank. Now this product has multiplied and reached to 300 stores across U.K. by 2008, he had made assets worth $1-$2 million.

9. Seth Priebatsch

This idiosyncratic CEO didn’t start out rich, but his can-do spirit and obsession with success, has made him one of the hottest merchandise in the IT market.

SCVNGR’s ‘chief ninja’ (“because you never negotiate with ninjas”) became a unique hit with the eponymous smart phone app. SCVNGR’s ‘chief ninja’ is a software platform where, like a scavenger hunt, you complete tasks in certain real-life places. This might seem have more gut feeling than proof to succeed, but in a world where deskbound games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Warcraft or Rift and Minecraft fill the market, there’s something to be said for a game where it forces you to go out and do something.

This geo-gaming technology platform SCVNGR had only 20 employees when Seth took the initiative to pursue it.

10. Juliette Brindak

Founder and CEO of MissOandFriends.com

At the age of 10, Juliette Brindak conceived her own website called ‘MissOandFriends.com’, a website entirely to gratify young females who aims to build up self esteem and positivity. This “Girls only’ website is among the top 10 websites worldwide, as per Amazon Alexa data. She is 23 now, but she became millionaire at 17 and within 2010, her company revenue grew up to $15 million.

Her site hosts a club called Miss o Moms, which offers informative and engaging information about children and families. This site is a safe place for young ladies to explore what it means to be a young woman. It’s a hang out for girls and has a virtual environment with friends and schoolmates and develops meaningful and fun relationships. Juliette Brindak was named among the “Top 50 Women Who Inspire Us,” by Self-Made Magazine in November, 2010.

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Toughest Job Interview Questions in selected Companies

We have already highlighted in our previous articles that Google is one of the companies that give toughest job interview questions. But have you ever wondered that, which are the other companies, apart from Google that places tough interview questions for the applicants? Yes, to make your queries easy Glassdoor.com, a Sausalito, California based workplace culture website, in its new study ranked the toughest companies to interview at, after analyzing user comments about the interview practices of definite organizations.

According to Fins Finance, the toughest companies set their job applicants through several rounds of interviews riddled with brainteasers, technical questions and case study analyses. "You need to go in armed with information and with your eyes as wide open as you can." Says Samantha Zupan, a Glassdoor spokesperson.

Listed below are the toughest companies to have a job interview.

1. McKinsey & Co: McKinsey & Co takes the top spot of the toughest companies for job interviews. The global management consulting firm was founded in 1926 by James O. McKinsey and Marvin Bower. Solving issues of concern to senior management, the company serves as an advisor to many businesses, governments, and institutions. Since 1996 this most prestigious consulting firm in the world has been a top employer for new MBA graduates. McKinsey & Co is also renowned for producing more CEO’s than any other company.

2. Jane Street Capital: Founded in the year 2000 by three traders and a technologist, Jane Street Ca pital takes the second position in the list of toughest companies for job interviews. The quantitative proprietary trading organization operates around the clock and around the globe by understanding the world’s highly competitive financial markets. Jane Street Capital boasts of hiring applicants through the tough interview procedures and training them by giving them the tools they need to innovate. The company has its offices in New York, London, and Hong Kong.

3. Cree:  The multinational manufacturer of semiconductor materials and devices, Cree, was foun ded in the year 1987, by researchers from the North Carolina State University. The company has its headquarters in Durham, North Carolina, U.S. If you wish to work in the company, that enhance the value of LED, solid-state lighting, power, and communications products by significantly increasing their energy performance, you need to really prepare well as the company sets tough twisted long questions for the applicants who aspire to work here. Sean Brody, recruiting manager at Raleigh, N.C.-based Cree said that this is where he sees applicants trip up the most. "Most of our candidates aren't local to Raleigh," he said, which hints that applicants travel from far of places for a day- long session. According to him one needs a great stamina to face the interviews here.

4. Bain & Co: Headquartered in Boston Massachusetts, Bain & Co was founded in 1973 by a grou p of seven former partners and managers from the Boston Consulting Group headed by Bill Bain. The company is a global management consulting firm that has 47 offices in 30 countries. If you aspire to be a part of Bain & Co, that has been named the Best Firm to Work For by Consulting Magazine for nine consecutive years, you need to prepare very well as you are sure to come across tough head breaking questions here. 

5.Boston Consulting: Recognized as one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in the wo rld, Boston Consulting takes the fifth position in the list of the toughest companies for job interviews. According to an applicant who appeared for the interview at Boston Consulting said that preparation is quite necessary in order to bag a job at Boston Consulting. Founded in 1963 the company was formed by Bruce D. Henderson, a Vanderbilt University and Harvard Business School alumnus. The company has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

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Resignation Letters of All time

 Are you planning to quit your job? If yes, then you should definitely know how to resign in a professional and a graceful manner. According to Alison Doyal, a Guide at about.com, your resignation letter should be positive as there is no point in criticizing a company that you have decided to quit. However, there are some resignation letters that are considered to be the greatest of all time listed by the Business Insider on their website. Here is the list below.

1. Greg Smith:  Goldman Sach’s executive, Greg Smith, who served as head of the firm's U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, quits the job on 14^th March this year, after 12 years with the Wall Street icon. Greg noticed the investment bank's culture is little more than a deadly heat of greed that bears little resemblance to its once illustrious past. According to the “New York Times” Greg mentions in his infamous op-ed piece that his departure is being motivated by the shift in the leadership style that no longer places clients' interests ahead of the firm’s. In his resignation letter Greg told the world that the bank is toxic and destructive.

2. W. Neil Berrett: W. Neil Berrett who was an employee of the San Francisco based company, Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, resigned with a big resignation cake in 2009. W. Neil Berret posted his picture with the cake later on his flikr Page.  With yummy blue frosting on it he writes on the cake that his tenure in the organization was quite exciting and joyful. But he has decided to leave the organization because he has decided to spend more time with his family in order to attend to the health issues that have arisen.

3. Jake DeSantis: The executive Vice President at AIG named Jake DeSantis resigned on March 2009. In his resignation letter Jake told the world that the reason for his quitting the job was that he got screwed when he only got $742,000 for his post-crisis work. His  resignation letter to chairman Edward Liddy was also published for all to read in a NYT piece titled "Dear A.I.G., I Quit":

4. Andrew Lahde: Andrew Lahde manager of a small California hedge fund, Lahde Capital was in the spo tlight for his resignation letter which said that he was only in the firm for money. Andrew resigned in Oct. 17, 2008.

5. Steven Slater: The infamous Jet Blue flight attendant named Steven Slater flipped out when a pass enger refused to stay seated on a 2010 flight to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Steven who was really having bad days that time resigned from his job by exchanging a four-letter word with his disobedient passenger before grabbing a beer and popping the lever for the plane's inflatable emergency chute. On his way out, he reportedly declared "That's it. I'm done."

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Mistakes Managers Do!!

You might have thought till now that people who have occupied the high level posts such as managers and other higher level executives won’t make any mistakes as they are smart and well trained. But according to a recent study conducted by CareerBuilder, around 58 percent of the managers didn’t received any training before starting as a manager which led to unavoidable wrong steps.

In a company, the managers are always considered as the front line representation in their company’s Business. But some managers fail in this process as they lack smartness in spite of sometimes being well trained. As a manger here are some of the major as well as the dumbest mistakes which you must try to avoid in your professional life to stand up for improving your company’s business.

1. Assuming that your team is listening to you:

This is the first major mistake most of the managers do assuming that their team members are listening to what they are guiding them about the future plans. Just because your team is silent in the meeting, it doesn’t mean that they are listening and learning what you are instructing. In that case, it is your responsibility to make sure your team is paying attention to what you are telling. The best way to know whether they understand your words or not, is by checking out how much they have understood. Ask them to build their opinions to your plans and try to brainstorm new approaches.

2. Failing to get to know your employees as the people:

This is one such silly mistake the managers usually commit. Many of them fail to know their employees as person, as they think it is not much important to get into their personal issues. This is a mistake to be avoided because it helps you to build a strong as well as healthy relationship with your employees so that you get to understand them even better, that does not mean you need to be your employee’s counselor or a therapist to build a god like relationship with them.

3. Don’t giving good directions to them:

It is a key responsibility of a manger to give clear directions to his team. But many of them are failing to direct the juniors. It is good for a manager who clearly explains his employees on what actually they are expecting from his employees, so that they can work according to it. Ask your employees to consider every task as a priority and act according to that. 

4. Fail in trusting your employees:

Trusting is a very vital aspect to considerespecially if you are a manager. If you fail in it, you can’t expect anything good from your employees if you don’t have any faith in them. It will be helpful for you if you get to know which employee is trust worthy for your challenging projects which are coming up in the future. But you must also not forget to treat your employees as if they are untrustworthy, so that they work even better and harder to gain your trust which will be helpful for your company.

5. Take decisions and then ask for employees input:

This is really considered as the silliest mistakes which a manager can perform. It is not worth if you make decisions and later take opinions of our team. If you make it as a routine act, your employees may not take you seriously anymore and they lose confidence on you. Enable your employees to make decisions about their work as it is considered to be the heart of employee empowerment and engagement.  But make sure, you won’t put much workload on one single employee and suffocate them.

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Indian Freshers Career Options Choices

 If you are a fresher and is wondering that, which are the career options you must opt, to achieve success, then you should definitely know that the job market in India is growing with time as in today every sector creates a new field of opportunities for Indian professionals. One should definitely know that in order to earn a good salary for a comfortable and a great living there are various career options available in India for Fresher’s which they should opt according to their own interest and preferences in order to fulfill their ambition.  We list down some of the upcoming hottest career options for freshers in India apart from Medical, engineering and management.

1. Fashion: Are you a creative person who loves designing? If yes, then you should definitely opt for a career in fashion as the recent job market demands for professionals in this field for the various industries. You can also choose to specialize in the number of options that the field of fashion designing offers like accessories, footwear or clothing, apparels for men, kids or women, interior designing, merchandising and many more. It is reported that the demand of skilled and talented professionals in this world will highly be in demand in the forthcoming years because there will be more fashion designer jobs in the market.

2. Media and Entertainment: The Media and entertainment industry in India is one of the fastest growing industries, where the jobs are flourishing. Therefore there is a great demand of professionals like radio jockey, news reporter, anchor, cameraman, editor, musician, video technologist, media planner, soundman, public relation officer etc. One can opt for any career options in the media and entertainment industry according to his/her taste and preferences. You can also earn big bucks in this industry as some of the careers in this sector are high profile which is also sure to give you lots of public attention. 

3. Hospitality: Remember that the travel, tourism and hotel sectors in India are in constant need of trained professionals. Hence you can select a number of career options that this field offers which includes management trainee, customer relation executive, marketing/sales executive, catering officer, chefs, flight kitchen, housekeeping management, kitchen management, fast food chains and related industries. You can also chase for a career in the national and international airlines.

4. Law: Throughout the world the legal profession is considered to be the most adventurous as well as exciting career. If you wish to opt for a career in this sector, then you should definitely know that it is one of the most growing and a rewarding profession. You can select to specialize in the various options that the field provides like law, civil law, international law, labor law, patent law, tax law, and criminal law.

5. Government Services:  If you prefer to work in the field that guarantees maximum job security then you should definitely opt for a career in the government sector, which is the most secured career. One can earn good pay packages and enjoy life with the number of facilities the government job provides like medical facility, government accommodation etc. The government sector offers career options for every kind of qualifications be it in the field’s science commerce or arts. One needs to clear the tests that are a part of the recruitment process in order to bag a job in this sector. Government offices and organizations, ministries, parliament, rural development sector and public sector have various job openings which you can opt for.

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Do Techies really Need an M.B.A?

We generally think that an MBA degree is a must to climb the corporate ladder in order to reach the zenith of success. Although it’s quite a debate oriented topic, that whether techies actually need an MBA or not to be successful in their career, few critics according to Investopedia, says that the Masters of Business Administration Course can be held responsible of many of the sins that it has committed which includes teaching the incorrect financial models, not addressing business risk, sidestepping business principles, hiding from the real world and caging students in the university. This can be very well proved with the example of Jeff Skilling who was an MBA and was responsible for the firm named Enron's financial collapse. On the other hand top former CEO’s like Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs who were college dropouts were quite successful in their respective careers. 

Few techies enroll for MBA courses in order to earn great salary packages but this should not be the driving factor for a techie to enroll for management courses, as he or she should have the talent for business and should have the passion to break out of the technical, R&D, Development world. Techies should be aware of the changing global trends, based on that should take a decision on whether to opt for a MBA course or not.

While many IT professionals pursue an MBA in order to get promoted in a better position in the future that includes the post of Vice President, CFO , or a CEO . However, one must definitely understand that it’s not a compulsion to acquire an MBA degree in order to excel in career as many top CEOs say that MBA degree is not necessarily a ticket to success. One should also keep in mind that only one percent of the total IT jobs for engineers require MBA and interestingly the majority of the CEO’s of top IT companies do not have an MBA degree. According to Mansi Tiwari of “The Economic Times” the CEO is not only responsible to ensure profits for all shareholders, but should have the ability to fix problems, tap new markets, bring cutting edge ideas to the table, and lead cross-cultural teams. At the same time a CEO should be passionate, empathetic, sharp and inspirational. "MBA's are losing some relevance as they become more and more 'easy' to obtain. With the proliferation of opportunities to get this credential we are seeing it as more of a nice to have but not a stand out requirement” says Mickey Matthews, VP, North America, Stanton Chase International, the global headhunter. Adding on the argument, Avneesh Raghuvanshi, one of the Partner of DKR Daulet-Singh, the CEO search firm says ,   "An MBA degree is useful but not necessarily adecisive factor, the most stressed upon areas are prior experience and leadership abilities". 

For selecting a person for the post of a CEO the selection committee in the organization might give more preference to a person with an additional MBA degree from a top B school. As the MBA degree may demonstrate that the person is highly skilled and experienced. However a study conducted by INSEAD, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) and Business Today magazine reveals that if a person has an MBA degree, only 40 percent chances are there that he or she will become a CEO. As in India only 40 percent of top CEOs have an MBA degree. The rest 60 percent CEO’s in the country do not have an MBA degree. Amongst the top 10 performing CEO’s in the country only two had an MBA degree namely Naveen Jindal, CEO of Jindal Steel & Power Limited (JSPL), who holds an MBA degree from the university of Texas at Dallas was ranked first and Bhaskar Bhat the CEO of Titan Industries, who got the fourth position in the list acquired his MBA degree from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. The most renowned CEO in the country Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries who was ranked 7^th was dropped out from the prestigious Stanford University after completion of the first year.  The other successful CEO’s of the country who made to the top 10 list was AM Naik of Larsen and Toubro, YC Deveshwar of  ITC, Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Airtel, R Sridhar Shriram of Transport Finance, and Vijay Jindal of Zee Entertainment Enterprises.

Although many evidences prove that an MBA degree is not necessary to become a CEO, according to Bala Vissa who was the main lead of the INSEAD study one of the most interesting findings of the study was that CEOs who started their job at a younger age and had a MBA degree were more probable to attain a better ranking success, reports the Pagalguy .com website.

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Unemployment of The Unwanted Tech Kids

Majority of the Indian Fresh Grads are passing out every year and large number of youths are in the race of finding the job in this hard core economy to reach their desired destinations. As everyone believe that it is the youths in our country considered as the future representatives of the nation at the global level, don’t you think they must be given good opportunities to showcase their talents and utilize their skills at their best level to help the country’s economic growth?

Despite of the fact that Indian economy has grown robustly in the recent years,, many unemployed youths as well as aged graduates have engaged themselves in farming [especially at the rural India] as they failed to get a better paying job. Even though some of them are employed, they are just working for low wage service sector with a poor working condition. Though the higher education enrollment has grown in the recent years, the problem of graduate unemployment has deteriorated.

Around 300,000 engineers who graduate from more than 1058 colleges in our country receive poor training, lack useful job skills. Because of this reason large section of the engineering grads are left company- less.

As it was said by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India [Assocham], rapid economic growth in the country is projected to generate about 15 million jobs; at the mean time around 75 percent of the candidates require vocational training because if it fails it can lead to a slowdown in the country’s economic growth. The report by Assocham has also added that, even though India has the largest youth force in the world, millions of Indian fresh grads have remained jobless because of the reason they lack proper vocational training.

Asscom report had quoted that, “Indian youths are not only unemployed but they are also unemployable” as 90 percent of the jobs in sectors like IT, Biotech and other service sectors are all those jobs which requires skill based training. But at present just around 6 percent of the total workforce have the opportunity to receive such training.  

In spite of jobs created in sectors like real estate, infrastructure, financial services, retail and other sectors, the youths who have graduated in streams like engineering, medical, arts have less chances of getting into such sectors as these sectors require a different sort of skilled manpower.

The main problem at present in the country is that, Indian system is suffering in two totally different ways when it comes to unemployment like the country’s small professional sector caters to less than five percent of students suffer from poor demand due to low prestige and quality, when it comes to higher education, it fails to supply graduates with the skills and competencies that are required by the labor market, reports Pawan Agarwal on Harvard International Review Website.

The combination of professional training with the higher education sector can cure this major problem of the Indian system and can help both sectors to flourish and grow.

When it comes to Engineering field, the absence of good enough placement officers, lack of good enough contacts within the industry and shortage of database of graduates result are the engineering colleges’ sad plight. Many a times the companies are not aware of the existence of many of the engineering college, let alone visit their campus for recruitment.

“Students who don’t get placed are pretty much left to their misery,” comes the honest remark from Dr R Dattakumar, Placement Officer at National Institute of Engineering (N.I.E), one of the top engineering colleges’ in Mysore [Karnataka]. “When students find themselves without a job offer, they are forced to rethink their career options.”

Inability to find jobs owing to lack of campus placement facilities, and peer pressure has forced many engineers turn to the BPO industry for employment. Meanwhile, Companies often complain that they don’t find the right candidates. A recent report stated that only eight to ten percent of the engineers churned out by the academia are fit to be employed by the industry.

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Work from Home Best Jobs

Who does not want to sit at home and earn big bucks? If you are interested to work from home, then you should definitely know that today the job market has developed and advanced like anything as technology is opening doors for new opportunities for professionals who prefer to work from home. By on boarding these jobs you are sure to have a work life balance and can earn enough to maintain a healthy living. Listed below are the jobs that can give you a work from home option.

Here is the list of some high paying works from home jobs.

1. Web Software Engineer:  You are sure to earn big bucks sitting at home, if you opt to become a Web Software Engineer as some companies are offering work from home options for these professionals. These professionals evaluate user needs, and design computer applications software and systems. Although the level of skill required for this job is quite high, there is huge growth opportunity.  For becoming a Web Software Engineer you will need a B tech or a BE degree apart from that you should have outstanding talent to communicate and articulate engineering approaches related to scalability, performance, security, usability, of development platforms.  

2. Public Relations Professional:Second in our list of work from home jobs is Public Relations Profession. Here you are asked to work in order to promote a positive image of the group of companies or people by writing and releasing it through various media. Public Relations Professionals should definitely posses a strong written and oral communication skill. The job of Public relations can be found in both public and private sectors. The main tasks of PR include planning, developing and implementing strategies for the organization.   To become a PR one needs to have a bachelor’s degree in communications or a related field.      

3. Medical Transcriptionist: Recently the opportunity of Medical transcriptionists to work from home options has increased in India. As companies like Nuance and Cbay are giving this facility to these professionals. They deal in the process of transcription which involves converting voice-recorded reports as dictated by doctors or other healthcare professionals, into text format. To become a medical transcriptionist one needs to have a Masters Degree in Science for understanding the medical terms and the language of medicine.

4. Translator or Interpreter: The job description of interpreters or translators can be very well understood from the name itself as these are the professionals who convert one language into another.  These professionals are the ones who work on specific assignments and projects that are related to their talent and fields of knowledge to facilitate understanding. Translators or Interpreters can opt to work from home as well. Because many organizations are offering this facility to translators to take the assignment home and convert one language into another.  If you opt to become a Translator or an interpreter you need to specialize in at least two languages and also a bachelor degree is a must to bag a job in this field.

5. Graphic Designer: Graphic designers are professionals who use a mix of creative skills and business medium in order to create visual solutions to the communication and needs of customers or clients. They can opt to work from home to cater the needs of their clients. The level of skill set required in this profession is quite high. In order to become a graphic designer one needs to have a Masters degree in Instructional design, or any other appropriate educational qualification from a reputed institution is a must.

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Companies Who Destroyed Their Competitors

There are many companies which were at the top once, but couldn’t hold the position for too long and were toppled by much smaller and nimbler companies which had better products and innovations to change the business sector. 24/7 Wall St. has listed out some of those companies who recently toppled from their position.

Google vs. Yahoo

Google is the synonym for internet, searching products, or downloading software. Google rules as the biggest search engine. But it’s hard to believe that this was not the scene earlier. In the early days, Lycos, Excite, AskJeeves were the rulers of the search world. By 20^th century end, Yahoo became the leader by dragging the smaller companies under it at any cost. In 2000, Yahoo had 56 percent of the search engine referrals, which was six times its closest competitor.

Google had only 1 percent of the market in June 2000. Soon Yahoo started using Google’s search algorithm. Yahoo began to lose steam quickly as Google began competing for market share. Within 2002, Google’s efficient search engine became much popular. It referred 31.8 percent of all searches, compared to Yahoo, which is only 36.3 percent. Google’s popularity increased exponentially in the next eight years and reached at the top most position. According to Comscore, in July 2011, Google had more than 65 percent of the market share while Yahoo had just 16.1 percent.

Hewlett-Packard vs. Dell

Dell was once the market King for global PC sales, with 13 percent of the market share. Compaq was second with 11.2 percent share. Over the past decade, the graph of personal computer market has changed drastically. In May 2002, Hewlett-Packard acquired the fraught Compaq for $25 billion.

Dell was the leader with a 17.2 percent of market share till 2005, but HP quickly closed the gap with 14.7 percent share. Within third quarter of 2008 that is within less than three years, HP surpassed Dell, and leads the market till now. In Q2 of 2011, HP’s market share was 17.5 percent, Dell’s was 12.5 percent, and Lenovo’s was 12 percent which is just behind Dell.

Apple vs. Nokia

In Q4 of 2007, Nokia had more than 50 percent of the worldwide smartphone market share, whereas Research In Motion’s Blackberry had 10.9 percent and Apple at just 5.2 percent. Though Apple had less smartphone market share it was leading the digital music device market consistently.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, Apple iPhone still had a relatively small portion of the market with a 16.1 percent share which is a little over half of that of Nokia’s 28 percent. With a huge sale number and Steve Jobs driving the company, Apple shared 19.1 percent market share within second quarter of 2011, with an annual growth of 141 percent. Nokia came down to the third position after Samsung which had a 15.7 percent of the market share.

 

Facebook vs. Myspace

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation purchased upcoming Myspace for $580 million in July 2005, when Facebook membership was still limited to college students. According to Comscore, in May 2007, Facebook’s unique monthly viewers were restricted to just 30 million, whereas Myspace’s were at around 70 million.

In May 2009, Facebook toppled Myspace’s unique viewers, which had still 70 million viewers. Later Facebook had nearly 160 million users. Meanwhile Myspace’s users dropped below 40 million and that number kept on falling. In June 2009, Murdoch sold the dying company Myspace for $35 million which is 93 percent less than the original purchase price.

GM vs. Toyota

General Motors aka GM has actually experienced two major hurdles in the race to become the top automaker in the world. GM had been the dominant leader in U.S., since 1930s, and was dominant in the global market as well, for almost of the latter half of the 20th century. But it started to lose its grip from the top most position, because of the global recession. Toyota officially became the world’s topmost automaker by the end of 2008, beating out GM. GM’s global market share continued to decline globally as well as in U.S.

Due to limited sales and financial troubles from the recession, the manufacturer (GM) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009. Within two years it regained its top position. GM made profit very quickly as its new IPO was successful. With Japan earthquake hitting its rival Toyota hard, GM again became the world’s largest automaker in August 2009. In the first half of 2011, GM sold 4.5 million units whereas Its Japanese rival, Toyota sold only 3.7 million.

Amazon vs. Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble was the largest bookseller for years. However, online retailer Amazon.com has blown the company away by taking book selling online. Amazon.com became less burdened due to no expensive business running stores. The convenience and ease of operations became an additional benefit for Amazon.

Its e-book reader Kindle surpassed the e-reader race with B&N’s Nook and others. Barnes & Noble’s net income dropped from $147 million in 2006 to a loss of $74 million in 2010. Amazon, meanwhile saw a net profit from $190 million to $1.2 billion.

Blockbuster vs. Netflix

Blockbuster is a VHS rental company founded in 1985. Blockbuster, with more than 6,500 stores around the country, went public in 1999, the same year when Netflix launched. By 2006, Netflix came into the picture by making just $1 billion profit that year, which was not so close to the figure of Blockbuster’s revenue, which was roughly $5.5 billion.

But the small company introduced streaming video in 2007, which allowed the viewers to watch films on home computers. This unique feature, along with the growing popularity of the company’s DVD delivery service became an additional benefit to Netflix and it led to a steady downfall of Blockbuster’s profitability. By 2010, the massive company Blockbusters lost it millions of customers each quarter. Finally it declared bankruptcy by the middle of the year. By then, Netflix had more than 25 million subscribers.

 

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Indians Worry About...

Corruption and financial or political scandals are the biggest worries for 71 percent Indians, revealed a global poll by Ipsos. The Ipsos poll was conducted among 18,687 global citizens in 24 Countries to assess the most worrying issues, direction and satisfaction in their country.

Terrorism is the second biggest worry (38 percent), followed by Crime and Violence (34 percent), Poverty and Social Inequality (31 percent), Unemployment and jobs (28 percent), high tax rate (15 percent) and healthcare and education both (14 percent).

Biswarup Banerjee, Head Marketing Communications, Ipsos India said “India has been rocked lately by a series of corruption scandals that have embarrassed the government, rattled markets and delayed reform bills as the opposition stalled parliament and government was busy tackling agitation for strong anti-corruption Citizens Ombudsmen ‘Jan Lokpal’ bill lead by Anna Hazare.”

Banerjee added that “The country, 87th in Transparency International's rankings based on perceived levels of corruption, is no stranger to scandals, thus it is not a surprise to see Indians are most worried about corruption and financial or political scandals.”

The poll revealed that only 45 percent Indians believe that things in India are heading in the right direction currently, which is a big drop of 27 points from a year back when the Indian economy was registering healthy growth in spite of global slowdown. Even satisfaction level with how things are going in the country has declined to 44 percent from 71 percent a year back, a significant drop of 27 points.

“Multiple high profile corruption cases in the recent past and regular harassment faced by ordinary citizen to get a simple job done from various government departments has dented confidence of Indians in the system and given rise to deep sense of dissatisfaction,” said  Banerjee.  

Unemployment and jobs is the biggest area of concern for 49 percent global citizen, followed by Poverty and Social Inequality (39 percent), Corruption and Financial or Political Scandals (34 percent) and Crime and Violence (30 percent). Health care followed next at 23 percent, taxes at 20 percent and education at 19 percent.

The poll found that 77 percent citizens of Saudi Arabia think that things in their country are heading in the right direction, leading by a wide margin. Following behind are China (57 percent), Canada and Indonesia both (53 percent), Brazil (52 percent), Argentina and Turkey both (47 percent) and India (45 percent).

On the satisfaction category, almost seven in ten (67 percent) citizens of Saudi Arabia say they are satisfied with the way things are going in their country followed by Canada (59 percent), Sweden (56 percent), China and Germany both (49 percent), Australia (48 percent) and India at 44 percent.

The survey was conducted in 24 countries including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.

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Ways Technology Could Jail You

Technology has aimed to make life easier, but there are ways in which it could actually ruin life and peace of mind. Even if you forget that potential recruiters could hire or fire you based on your Facebook profile, and that people judge you by your profile picture-- your deleted photos are still available, and you are privy to information like who un-friended you, internet firms can read your personal texts, SOPA and PIPA’s cousin-bills are still in the writing, and governments could access your mail or comments and prosecute you for them.

Now although most of these deal with the issue of privacy, recent events have shown that anything you do in the digital world can be used against you, (especially when more connectivity means more accessible you are) and you could even end up facing a sentence in jail, or even worse, reported PC Mag.

Read on to know about eight incidents that show how technology could ruin your life:

1. The right to “tweetdom”
Hamza Kashgari, a Saudi journalist and poet is facing trial and could be sentenced to death for expressing his views on Twitter. The 23 year old dared to envision a conversation between him and the Prophet Mohammed. He tweeted about his experience on the day of Mawlid, (i.e. Prophet Mohammed’s birthday) saying “On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.” His tweets also went on to say “On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you've always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.” The three tweets showed him as a controversial figure, even after he had deleted his account and issued a letter of apology for the same. As a result, he tried to seek political asylum in New Zealand, but was deported from Malaysia back to Saudi Arabia.

2. What’s in a name?
In the United States, domain name seizures of websites by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security are fairly common. Although most would expect their seizures to be against file-sharing or copyright-infringement sites, their seizures don’t need a conviction to go forward, and according to a report on PC Mag, there’s no transparency as far as who condemned the site. Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org (Spanish sites that had been seized late last year) were seized apparently because they contained links to live sport video streams. Another site that made news in this case includes hip-hop blog DaJaz1.com which was seized because it allowed to listen to music, and featured what it says is copyrighted material. Ultimately, the domain name of the site was restored.

3. Jail-breaking could be made illegal
Not referring to breaking out of prison, this action allows you to hack into your own device so you’re allowed to customize it according to your taste. PC Mag’s article said that sometimes what happens to an object interests the device’s manufacturers, and so this action could be made illegal.

 

4. Terms of agreement or terms of abuse?
Every time you sign up for a service online, you tend to click the “I Agree” on the document that has most of the terms and conditions stated. However, Richard Downing, the American Justice Department's deputy chief of computer crime has suggested to the government to expand the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act so violations of the terms of use violations of terms of use subjects offenders to the Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This means those who hack into critical national infrastructure would have increased penalties, but those who create a fake Facebook account, are not honest on a dating site, or upload a prohibited video to YouTube will also have the same type of punishment.

5. Sharing isn’t caring
A natural resources coordinator by occupation,  Jammie Thomas-Rasset shared about 24 songs on a file sharing site and has been battling with the court over the same for the past four years. 2010 saw her third trial. After one jury found her liable for copyright infringement in 2007, she was ordered to pay $222,000 as a fine to the music label companies. The judge later ruled that he erred in instructing the jury and called for a retrial. The second trial (which took place in 2009) she was found liable for $1.92 million. The next case saw the jury deciding that the price of file-sharing had gone back up and the mother of four was asked to pay $1.5 million, but the court itself reduced it to $54,000. Thomas-Rasset has appealed the decision.

6. The right to inform?
Shi Tao, a journalist from China, is serving a ten-year sentence after which he will be denied political rights for two year, because he sent an email to the Asia Democracy Foundation in the United States.His email, which contained a document from the Communist party that ordered the suppression of media coverage on the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, of dissidents returning to China. Yahoo supplied the Chinese government with Shi’s email, saying it was following the nation’s law, following which the government deemed the email as evidence of “illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities.” Shi is still imprisoned.

7. Being Responsible Adults
SOPA and PIPA received a lot of attention last year, with even Wikipedia blacking out against it, but the bills’ cousin, called “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011” didn’t. This is because the bill does a lot to protect children, but at the same time, PC Mag’s report stated that if the bill is passed, ISPs will be required to retain every IP address they assign, and all activity (i.e. social networking, instant messaging, email, Web browsing, and downloads) associated with them (this also includes internet services used on mobile phones, phone numbers and tracking IDs, and banking information). They will also be able to obtain a subpoena for anyone within 500 miles of an investigative sex offender or anyone who’s had any online contact with one (even if they only got a spam email from the targets).   

8. Overprotecting against the right to privacy
American teens in the state of Arizona will soon need to text in codes and because a senator in the state has proposed a wireless carrier mechanism by which parents will be able to read the texts their children send, and not just see the recipient and the time of sending. This bill would require parents to pay a fee for the service, and will need the child to permit the service to be carried out.

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