The Distance from Earth to Mars (in Pixels)

Photo by mohammad alizade on Unsplash & Photo by Luca Rüegg on Unsplash

There are high hopes that mankind will set camp on Mars (and beyond) in the not-too-distant future. So high that we’ve even jumped the gun to make a movie about it. But the stories that circulate involving our efforts to set foot on the Red Planet sometimes fail to clarify one teeny tiny detail.

Since Mars is the fourth rock from the Sun, and Earth is the third, you’d think that the trip there will be relatively swift and uneventful? But that’s not even remotely true

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The Sleeping Habits of the Rich & Famous [Infographic]

You know how they say you should get a good 8 hours of sleep every night to function properly? Well, that may apply to the laymen, but not the people who change the world.

British furniture company Big Brand Beds offers up this well groomed infographic of 12 famous people (some of whom are still among us) and their peculiar sleeping habits. Each personality’s sleep patterns are measured in hours from 1 to 8 along with a ruler that shows the actual time of the day when they hit the sack. You won’t believe Thomas Edison’s schedule!

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Quote of the Day by Ken Hakuta

Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash

Have you ever felt like all the great ideas for business have been snagged by others? Making it big is difficult enough, but it’s even harder when you have competition lurking around every corner.

Every successful business seems to be sitting on a single great idea that has been either patented or cannot be replicated without tons of cash and manpower. So, you’re left wondering: are all the great ideas taken? Surely not

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Does Mobility Make Us Narcissistic?

Photo by Rebecca Harris on Unsplash

What was the last tweet you sent out and what device did you compose it on? A recent study by Goldsmiths University of London has uncovered some interesting facts about our tweeting habits, including the fact that we are considerably more self-centered when tweeting from our phones.

The research paper, published in the Journal of Communication, reveals that tweets fired off from a phone are 25% more negative than the ones sent out from a computer. The explanation is as simple as you’d expect

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Hexa Research: Unified Communications Will Be a $75B Market by 2020

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

The Unified Communications industry is usually seen as forever waiting on the launchpad, but if recent studies are any indication, UC vendors and service providers alike stand to rake in billions in the coming years.

Hexa Research offers custom research and consulting services to an array of industries, including the communications sector. The company has conducted a study to re-assess the state of Unified Communications and found that things are looking good for players in this market. In fact, “good” is an understatement.

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Neuromarketing – Pushing the Right Buttons in the Customer’s Reptilian Brain

How is that Domino’s sells more pizzas than anyone? Why is Starbucks the place to be? How come Apple is seen as la crème de la crème of personal technology? Easy. They know which buttons to press.

The human brain is fascinating and mysterious. But it’s also governed by instinct on a certain level, and instincts are predictable. Patrick Renvoise, co-founder of SalesBrain, a neuromarketing agency, has learned to exploit this aspect with great success in creating marketing campaigns that catch our reptilian brains – the brainstem and the cerebellum.

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Communications Market Report Names the U.K. a ‘Smartphone Society’

Photo by Charl van Rooy on Unsplash

All the big research firms are focused on the United States most of the time, and for good reason too: it’s where all the technological action is. But Europe and the United Kingdom in particular are not to be overlooked. Especially when it comes to the communications industry.

Ofcom, a communications watchdog in the UK, recently published a report showing a considerable uptick in mobility. Nothing you wouldn’t expect, but the growth has been so massive in the UK that Ofcom calls the nation a “smartphone society.”

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Why Stereotypes Are Worse Than We Think

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

“How Entrepreneurs Do It;” “5 Ways to Achieve This and That,” “10 Books Every Innovator Must Read…” This is in my newsfeed every single day. The headlines differ ever so slightly, the content is virtually the same.

To their credit, the publications and their contributors churn out fairly good orations. You have a lot to learn from this kind of clickbait. But read them every day and you start to notice a pattern – it all boils down to common sense. Perhaps the articles target those who lack it.

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The Cloud Becomes the Go-To Platform for Growth

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

The ‘cloud-first’ strategy doesn’t work everywhere and for everyone, but where it does, it works wonders. Recent studies have found that cloud-centric strategies (SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS) are paying off big time for those with vision. So much so that organizations are now using the cloud as a strategic platform for expanding sales channels and growing customer demand.

Ten years ago you could count the available cloud applications on the fingers of one hand. Today, they are everywhere. CIOs and CTOs in 2015 are as much geeks as they are businessmen – because cloud investing has become a lucrative business in and of itself.

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Made a Mistake? Which Of These 16 Reactions Characterizes You?

In communication, it’s equally important to convey as it is to acknowledge. That’s how dialog works, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. People make mistakes, but not everyone apologizes or even realizes that they made a blunder.

It all boils down to empathy. Humans have it in different levels, which is why there are bullies on the one hand, and drama queens on the other. Empathy is the ability to understand and even feel what another person is experiencing from within the “victim’s” frame of reference. In short, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

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