With the rise of social media, there have been dire predictions of the demise of business blogs. Not true. Today, business blogs can bring more benefits to you and your business than ever before. Here are just a few:

Organic Search Rankings

Business blogs first gained popularity because of their ability to improve website search engine results. This hasn’t changed. You can still use a blog to optimize for search terms you couldn’t capture on your static web pages. They’re also an easy way to get fresh content on your website: another factor Google considers when ranking your website in search results.

Demonstrate Expertise and Educate

A business blog is a fantastic way to showcase your experience and expertise. For example, we use the Webcopyplus blog to build credibility with clients and prospects by demonstrating our expertise and interest in communications, marketing and business in general. When contacted by prospects, we can sometimes tell which individuals have read our blog and which haven’t. Those who have read our blog come with a better understanding of what we do and with the beginnings of a company-client relationship already in place.

You can also use a blog to educate prospects and move them along the buying cycle. The buying cycle includes gathering information and assessing alternative solutions. If your blog discusses problems and solutions, you’ll provide prospects with valuable information while, quite possibly, getting yourself included on their list of possible solutions.

A Way to Hone Your Skills

For some of us, getting something down in writing is a powerful way to crystalize our understanding of a topic. If you’re having difficulties describing a new service offering or dissecting a particularly complex problem, then writing a post on the topic may help you comprehend it better and help you communicate it to others. It helps overcome what our copywriters call expert paralysis.

An Informal Research Tool

Most business blogs allow for reader comments. These comments are a great way to get customer or prospect feedback. While they won’t be a truly representative sample, blog post comments can provide you with helpful, anecdotal input.

Content for Other Media

Rather than social media replacing business blogs, business blogs help support social media. Blog posts can be used as fodder for tweets, Facebook posts, newsletters and even sales presentations. Rather than being in competition with one another, these media can work together effectively, with your business blog as the starting point for a host of communications.

By the way, if you’re thinking of hiring a copywriter to write your blog posts, you might want to check out 6 Reasons Not to Hire a Copywriter.

No one liked the kid that bossed them around in school, but chances are, that bossy kid got what they wanted more often than the quiet ones.

You don’t have to be the unlikeable kind of boss to get what you want on the Web. In fact, simply asking people to complete a task can go a long way. Here are five reasons to be bossier on the Web, and how it can help get your web content, and your business, in front of more eyes.

1. There’s No Harm in Asking

“Ask and ye shall receive” is a saying that’s stood the test of time, and that’s because it’s true — all you have to do is ask for what you want to improve your chances of getting it.

When it comes to your web content, such as your company blog, you want people to read it, engage with it, share it, and be inspired to act upon it. If not, why are you creating it? Simply asking them to do what you want them to can get you great results, and it doesn’t discount the value of your content (unless you’re begging incessantly). A great man once said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” so start taking them!

2. Without a Call-to-Action, You Have No Goal

Having great content on your website is a great start, but producing content that doesn’t support an end goal (such as increasing your income) is more accurately defined as a hobby. You can give your content direction by making sure it includes a call-to-action (CTA).

A CTA represents the ultimate goal of your website, which is to get your visitors to do something, whether that something is call you for a quote, complete a form, book a tour, or get a free download.

A CTA is often found at the end of a web page, prominently featured on a landing page, or at the end of a blog post. You don’t have to include one in every blog post, but at the very least, you should have a strong CTA on all main pages of your website.

When writing your CTA, be sure it contains active verbs and persuasive language.

Examples:

Learn how to create an effective success strategy for your business. Download my free e-book now!

Our fitness studio is ranked #1 in the city. See for yourself by booking your free tour today!

Note: using the word ‘free’ has a remarkable ability to get people to do stuff, even if they’re not sure they want to.

3. Social Calls-to-Action Get More Action

When doing your asking, don’t forget about your distribution channels, such as your Facebook page. A recent report from Hubspot says social CTAs result in more comments, likes and shares. Simply including the words ‘like’, ‘share’, and ‘comment’ resulted in… you guessed it: more likes, shares and comments across the board. These results are particularly valuable because Facebook rewards active engagement with greater visibility (remember that recent unpleasant discovery that Facebook was shrinking our page readership? Well, this is how we fight back!)

Regarding Twitter, there are mixed opinions as to whether or not asking for retweets is effective. The fact is, it’s been proven that including ‘please retweet’ in a tweet results in four times more retweets than updates without the request. It should also be noted that the word ‘retweet’ performs better than the abbreviated ‘RT’.

4. A Stimulating Conversation Stimulates Your Bottom Line

Just like your other social media channels, you want to encourage engagement on your blog, which can do wonders for your content marketing efforts. Using your blog as a content marketing avenue lets you demonstrate your expertise, drive more traffic to your website, and keeps you top of mind with prospects. The more you can demonstrate your credibility, the more popular your content will get, and the more eyes will see your website and consider hiring you. Having a lot of comments and interactions with your content provides hard evidence that you have popular content.

You can boost engagement with your readers by posting compelling content that provokes response, and also by asking questions. Ask your readers what they think of a controversial development in your industry, or describe a common problem and ask your readers to weigh in with their experiences. Don’t forget to thank them for their participation, and interact with their comments whenever possible.

5. It’s Okay to Remind People to Endorse You

Look at the popularity of sites like Yelp where people search for reviews of restaurants before they decide where they want to eat. People go through the same process when deciding whether or not to hire you or buy something from you – they want to know who uses your services and what they think.

Having testimonials on your site from real clients helps you build trust with prospects, and it doesn’t hurt to ask in a way that extracts the type of information you want to highlight, such as specific details about why they like your products, or how you helped their business grow. Entrepreneur.com has some great tips on how to get the testimonials you want and how to best utilize them.

It’s easier than ever to ask your colleagues and clients for testimonials, and you should highlight them on your website whenever you can. It can be as simple as sending an email to past clients, or using LinkedIn’s tools for requesting recommendations. If you’re good at what you do and are a pleasure to work with, chances are people will have no problem endorsing you. They just need to be reminded that you’d be eternally grateful if they did.

Go Forth Like a Boss

Now that you’re up to speed on why and how you should be a likeable boss on the Web, go forth and get your content, and your business, the attention it deserves. And feel free to share this post!

Product web pages are the “money” pages of your website. They’re where you convert lookers to buyers. If you want to maximize conversions, it’s not enough to merely cut and paste manufacturer product descriptions onto your product pages. You need to structure and write product information specifically for the web. Here are a few tips.

Benefits, Benefits, Benefits

When you drill down to your product pages, you might be tempted to list lengthy and detailed feature descriptions, especially if it’s a fairly technical product. While it’s important to provide detailed feature information, it’s even more important to stress benefits.

Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) does a good job providing both features and benefits of their products on their product pages. Take this example of a youth down jacket. In their description bullet points, they list not only the features (e.g. “310-thread count nylon taffeta”) but also the benefits of those features (e.g. “won’t allow down to escape”). Detailed features (or product specifications) are included in an easy-to-read table under a separate tab.

In addition to listing product benefits, be sure to list company benefits on product pages too. Benefits like free shipping and no-hassle returns should be included. Remember, your product page might be the first page of your website that people see, especially if they arrive via organic search. Don’t assume people have gleaned company benefit information from other pages on your site.

MEC also does this well. They list benefits such as their “rocksolid guarantee,” “price protection,” “shipping info” and “product development” on their product pages, just below the product description.

Make Product Pages Search Engine Friendly

Product pages are a great opportunity to make the most of long-tail Google searches. When you name your products or describe product categories, be sure to use good search keywords and keyword phrases.

For example, Mark’s uses the title “Denver Hayes Leather Riding Boot” under the category of “Women’s Casual Boots” to describe this particular shoe. This is much more effective and descriptive than simply “shoe.” By including the brand name (Denver Hayes), the type of shoe (boot), the type of material (leather), and the target market (women), this page is much more likely to be picked up by organic search.

Resist the temptation to give your products or product categories innovative or cool names that people won’t intuitively think of when searching for your product.

Provide Social Proof

Although a big part of product pages is selling the product, another big part is making sure people feel comfortable buying from you. Testimonials, reviews, star ratings and online or in-store availability are all ways to reassure people you are a legitimate business and a safe place to shop.

Links to refund policies, guarantees, and delivery time estimates also provide reassurance. Also, make it easy for shoppers to ask questions by providing contact information or links on every page.

Use a Clear, Uncluttered Call to Action

Make sure your call to action is visible and clear. “Add to cart” and “buy now” buttons help eliminate ambiguity. Try to limit each product page to one call to action. Having multiple calls to action (e.g. “sign up for our newsletter” or “read our latest blog post”) may distract visitors from the purchase process.

Don’t Forget the Price

Make your pricing, and what it includes, as clear as possible. People are unlikely to click on the “buy now” button if they’re not clear on the cost or what it covers. Mail Chimp clearly outlines its different pricing plans with a description of what each plan includes. To help people decide, they also provide some guidance, e.g. “for frequent senders” or “for infrequent senders.”

If your product is at a higher price point, don’t be tempted to hide or downplay the price. Instead, use detailed product benefits to justify it.

Use Just the Right Amount of Copy

As with all types of copy, there are debates about how long product page copy should be. Longer copy can include more keywords, so you might get more long tail search hits. However, long product page copy can overwhelm visitors too. Shorter copy is easier for visitors to digest, but you might miss out on some search terms. A compromise is to use longer copy, but present it using bullet points, numbered lists or chunked text to make it less visually overwhelming.

Often, the right balance between long and short copy can only be ascertained by A/B testing, where two versions of the same page (one with short copy, one with long) are used to see which page results in better conversions.

Adopt a Straightforward Tone

While it might be appropriate to use a distinctive voice or tone for higher-level web pages, such as your home page or major category pages, you don’t want voice to get in the way of conversions on your product page. Most product page copy should be written in a straightforward tone, even if your brand is particularly quirky or cool.

Even luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton, tend to keep voice to a minimum on their product pages. The Louis Vuitton site is all about feeling and storytelling, but they keep their product pages simple and to the point.

Follow these tips, and you’ll have a killer web product page. If you have thousands of product pages in need of improvement, don’t panic. This isn’t something you have to do all at once. Start by revising your top money-generating product pages and then work from there.

Any experienced copywriter knows when you take time to explore your prospects, you’ll produce more effective content, a stronger marketing campaign and boost conversions. So, to truly connect with and engage your desired audience, be sure to consider their emotions, attitudes and aspirations.

Emotions

What are your audience’s beliefs? What are their attitudes toward your industry, business, products and services? Do they think your industry is suspect? If so, feature credible data and ‘social proof’, including client testimonials. Do they fear you might fall short with customer service? Highlight your warranties, contact info and any service-related awards.

Attitudes

What are their feelings? Are they negative? Impatient? Uneasy? Consider what they feel about the major issues and events in their lives and business. If they, for instance, find technology intimidating, keep your language especially simple and concise — don’t show off with technical jargon.

Aspirations

What are their wants? What are their goals and objectives? What changes do they want in their lives that your business can help accomplish? These could range from feeling appreciated to  attaining a secure plan for retirement.

What Motivates People?

Here are some motivators to consider when writing content. People might invest in your product, service or business to:

• Be appreciated
• Be comfortable
• Be different
• Be happy
• Be healthier
• Be liked
• Be more attractive
• Be right
• Be secure
• Deal with guilt
• Feed greed
• Feel important
• Gain convenience
• Increase knowledge
• Make money
• Overcome fear
• Save time

Go Beyond Demographics

Consider the last time you shopped for clothes. You may have selected a certain style or colour to complement your skin tone, body type or features. But what’s the underlying reason you want to look a certain way? Perhaps to differentiate yourself, feel important, or attract a mate.

Shaped by millions of years of conditioning, people focus on their own needs. So, before writing content for the Web or print, always ask yourself: what makes my prospects buy things?

Good writing caters to its audience. And when you cater to your audience’s needs and wants, they’ll return the favour and reward your business.

Why are writers crazy, so depressed and weird? Jeez, that’s quite a reputation to uphold! Are recurring deadlines, writer’s block or lack of sleep to blame? Or is it just that crazy, depressed and weird people tend to become writers?

What do you think? Tell us your theory in the comments below…

Are you a loner? Think of yourself as a one-man wolf pack? Whether you’re in Las Vegas looking for trouble or an entrepreneur seeking sweet success, growing your wolf pack provides an opportunity to creatively collaborate with different people who can complement your knowledge, skill, influence and access.

It doesn’t matter if you favour the latest social media site or the old school art of face-to-face conversation, start a dialogue to leverage diverse views, skillsets and relationships to mutually gain:

• Advertisements
• Advice
• Assets
• Associates
• Buying power
• Connections
• Credibility
• Data
• Goodwill
• Ideas
• Influence
• Investments
• Knowledge
• Markets
• Promotions
• R&D
• Sales force
• Suppliers
• Systems
• Talent
• Testimonials
• And much more

As copywriters, we often connect with creative types, like web designers, to tap into emerging technologies and help forecast online trends. Why not go to your existing network and ask: “Are there any interesting people I should be talking to?” Adding one new member to your pack can lead to infinite possibilities.

If you’re into improving your web content, join our wolf pack on Twitter.

Demonstrating the superior value your business can deliver can set it apart from competitors, and persuade people to purchase your products or services. Are you missing opportunities? Fortunately, there are three key areas where you can demonstrate the value you offer outweighs the cost to the consumer: financial, strategic and personal.

Focusing on the unique value you offer helps avoid competing as a commodity, where brands are bland and profit margins are low. Capturing, conveying and proving the true value you offer entices people to choose your brand — both emotionally and rationally. Heck, do a good enough job and you can essentially ‘disqualify’ the competition.

Neuromarketing, which scientifically taps into brain ‘buy buttons’, brilliantly outlines the three categories where companies can demonstrate gains, and show value outweighs the costs:

1.    Financial Gain
Financial gain or ROI is proven when prospects see the evidence of measurable positive return on their purchase, including saving money, or increasing revenue or profits.

2.    Strategic Gain
Strategic gain includes benefits that are less measurable yet provide strategic enhancements to a business, including increased quality, faster product diversification, shorter market cycles, or easier access to new markets.

3.    Personal Gain
Personal gain relates to greater peace of mind, more fun, higher pride of ownership, improved chances for a promotion, greater sense of accomplishment, or more self-satisfaction.

Selling With Soft Benefits

While softer attributes, like peace of mind, can be difficult to quantify, they are influential motivators. For instance, an Accenture poll revealed nearly nine out of 10 consumers from Europe, Asia, and North America, were willing to pay more for green products.

Webcopyplus clients like 1-800-GOT-JUNK promote soft benefits through their web content with ‘green messages’ like: It’s not just junk to us! We do our best to donate and recycle as much as we can. Since 1989, we’ve saved over 2.1 billion pounds of junk from the landfill, and counting.

One of our new clients recently commented on 1-800-GOT-JUNK, stating his wife didn’t let him haul junk to the local dump due to the environmental impact. “She called them specifically because she wanted to ensure the material got properly sorted and recycled.” Yes, 1-800-GOT-JUNK is fast and convenient, but it was the soft benefit — peace of mind — that drove this sale.

A Starting Point for Defining Value

To help capture and communicate what benefits and value your business can deliver, swap the typical self-centric “What can the market do for us?” question with “What can we do for the market?”

This mind shift can help you determine what people want to buy, and what they really want out of your product or service.

As an entrepreneur, you’re brimming with ideas, but who has the time to act on them? Being unable to find the time to work on what you want to work on is a common problem. So how do we make room in our lives for this stuff? Designer extraordinaire and guest writer Arley McBlain serves up some suggestions.

Personal projects aren’t for everyone, but most of us have a passion for something. You can give it an unflattering small name like “hobby,” or something grandiose like “the reason I was put on earth,” but some of us have an insatiable drive to work on that one thing in our mythical free time.

Say What?

None of this ‘personal project’ stuff ringing a bell so far? If you don’t have the bizarre urge to work outside of work, that may be a good thing! To me, this ‘work’ (in quotations since play would be a more accurate label) is better equated to experimentation and a fun creative outlet. For others, creating a personal project might be the launch pad to one day starting a new career or business. For others, the word project might be too strong; perhaps there is a craft or skill-set they want to devote time to develop.

Whether you’re writing blog posts, learning to play guitar, or building a cabinet, I have found this to be a common truth: we are all ‘too busy’. There is never enough time in the day to do all we would like to do.

My Story

Two years ago, I found myself in this exact predicament: an ever growing To Do list, with zero time to put toward it. My passion is in making websites. Yes, I do this for a living, but there is a vast difference between the work clients want, and the types of “sandbox” projects I want to experiment with. These kinds of personal projects are hugely important for professional development, creating new techniques, and flexing some creative muscle on components that are too far from convention for clients.

The introduction of a child in my family has been incredible, one of the best things to happen to me — and no small investment of time. More than just a few wish list projects got moved to the back burner. On rare occasions plans would change, some responsibility would be lifted from my shoulders and a wonderful (albeit small) quantity of time would land on my lap. More often than not, I would fail to capitalize on these, and be left feeling guilty about it. Ridiculous.

I needed to make a plan, so I did. It’s not easy, and it’s not always pretty, but it works. I have since tackled my personal site redesign (the most daunting item on my to do list), and completed a few other rewarding items on my now shrinking lists. I did all of this by making just a few simple changes in my life.

1. Entertainment Time

We all need downtime, and I don’t want to minimize the importance of ‘turning off’. That said, I think in our culture there’s plenty of wiggle room in our entertainment routines to do something a little more productive. Statistics suggest most North Americans are spending nearly 30 hours per week watching television alone. When I consider that this is an extra day every week that I could make something with, I get pretty pumped! If you can completely cut out a major chunk of TV, gaming or fruitless web-surfing time, you’re well on your way to making up some valuable project time.

I’m not saying you should completely replace all downtime with personal projects, but rearranging your relaxation habits should be your first change toward making time for something rewarding. That show you love watching isn’t going anywhere (and even if it does, you can catch up later).

Being too hardcore here will only lead to burnout. I like to keep at least one day of the week for completely guilt-free relaxation. The other six days I make sure that I’ve earned that.

2. Sleep Time

If you live a long and healthy life, right up to an average lifespan you will have spent 25 years asleep! Think about that. YEARS. Are you sleeping 8 hours a night? If you are, do you need to? Right after college I was fortunate enough to have a social life that let me test how much sleep I need! I need more than four, but can get by on six hours, as long as it’s not for more than a week without one good catch-up night. How about you? If you can trim the fat on your pillow, you might find yourself with a really good slice of time to pursue your projects.

The two most obvious ways to tackle this are staying up later, or getting up earlier than you otherwise would. I’ve tried both and find the quality of work and my motivation are most fired up first thing — no, before the first thing in the morning. I can still get my minimum needed sleep and get up at 5 a.m. Just an extra hour per day has made a big difference in what I can accomplish in a week.

I have found one major catch in waking up early: it requires planning ahead, and knowing what you’ll be doing in the morning. If there isn’t something specifically planned for 5:30 a.m., I am going to lose a battle with my will. Set your alarm, and set some very specific goals for this time you’re setting aside.

3. Family Time

When you’re rearranging your life to reach a goal it might be tempting to cut into personal time with the people closest to you. Don’t! Family comes first. Always, and no matter what. If people and relationships in your life are getting attention before your projects, that’s a very good thing. Keep it that way. At the end of your life, the people you love and care about will be way more important than any project or other part of your life. Keep this perspective in mind.

4. Exercise Time

This is a bit counter intuitive, and is something I trip up on often. In order to make time for your project you’re going to want to devote some time to a couple of unrelated, but valuable tasks: reading and working out.

I find making time for reading just before bed or first thing in the morning helps to sharpen my mind — even when it’s completely unrelated to what I am working on. Research suggests that the act of reading a book puts our minds into a different mode; a sort of mental discipline that helps us better focus on all other areas of our life.

Similarly, working out has been shown to help with energy and focus. “Fitness” was billionaire Richard Branson’s answer to how he is consistently such a productive person. More than a few exciting ideas I’ve had have come to me while jogging. Even with my success with this, it’s the hardest thing on this list for me.

5. Today’s Time

You don’t need to radically turn your life upside down to get the ball rolling. You can make one tiny change today to start making progress on your goal.

Sometimes we can over complicate things and create obstacles by placing too much importance on the end result. If you can only spend five minutes on this doing some tiny administrative task, it might be the most worthwhile time you spend all day. Jot down your ideas, start a list, and make a plan.

Nothing worthwhile will be done in a day, so enjoy the journey and these first tiny steps toward your monumental goal.

Here’s to You!

Hopefully some small sacrifices to how you’re currently spending your time will start to add up into some meaningful personal growth and project progress. The results and gains you will experience by making this time for yourself may quickly start being their own reward, and act as a self-fuelling motivation for you. Lists, coffee and a love of organization will become faithful friends, and you’ll quickly begin to build a legacy to look back on.

Whatever the cause, need, or desire, you’re going to need a plan to make the time. It’s not always easy, but the challenge makes it all the more rewarding.

Also, this post was written while you were asleep.

Arley McBlain is an Ontario-based web designer who works at Thrillworks. Follow him on Twitter @ArleyM.

When you think of myths, you might think of ancient Greece and sacred beliefs about Titans, Olympians and lesser gods. Copywriting, although less ancient or sacred, has its own set of myths about copy length and word choice. In the interests of better copy for everyone, let’s dispel some of the most pervasive copywriting myths.

Myth #1: Short Copy is Better Than Long Copy (or Vice Versa)

Copywriters who write short copy like to disparage long copy and (surprise!) copywriters who write long copy like to disparage short. Truth is, it’s not how much you have but what you do with it that counts.

As a general rule, people don’t read on the Web, they scan. So shorter and concise is often better. It’s also true most people don’t like to scroll, so it’s best to keep your copy short so it will display “above the fold” or on tiny mobile screens.

Having said that, there are some exceptions. There are times, even on the Web, when longer copy is still needed:

• When the product is new or complex and consumers need more detailed information about features and benefits
• When the consumer is in the information gathering stage of the purchasing process
• When the sales process doesn’t involve sales people who can answer questions
• When the purpose of the copy is to generate a sale (as opposed to a lead)
• When the product retails at a high price and consumers want more information before spending a bundle
• When the product is an unsought good (where consumers don’t know they need the product until they learn more about it).

When any of these conditions apply, you might need longer copy. As with most things in copywriting, answers to questions about long or short is: it depends.

Myth #2: The Goal of all Copy is to Sell

Not true. The objective of copy varies with marketing strategies, purchasing processes and types of products or services. Indeed, different pages on a business website often have different objectives. For example, the objective of a newsletter subscription page is probably to increase newsletter subscriptions. The objective of a blog post might be to increase customer engagement. The objective of an online customer survey might be to discover unmet needs, new product uses, or untapped markets.

Although copywriting is often associated with selling, copy can have many other objectives.

Myth #3: There Are Magic Words Guaranteed to Get Results

Unfortunately, there’s no fairy dust in copywriting. Google power copywriting words and you’ll see lists upon lists of magic words, often with little duplication between lists!

Of course, it’s okay to use these words in your copy, but in and of themselves they’re not going to do much. It’s much more important to understand your target audience, your objective and the media you’re writing for. No power word or phrase will get you there on its own.

Myth #4: Write For Search Engines First, Then People

In the competition between web spiders and web users, web users win every time. Sure, you can pay your nephew’s friend to do keyword research and stuff the results into your copy. People may discover your website that way (if it doesn’t get you blacklisted first), but if the copy doesn’t compel people to take action, then what’s the point?

At Webcopyplus, we write for people first, then spiders. Our goal is to optimize copy for spiders without jeopardizing a company’s brand, user experience or Google’s benevolence.

Myth #5: Once the Copy is Done, it’s Done

Many businesses think once their website is launched, the job is done. While quality content helps provide a sound foundation for your online marketing hub, today’s users expect websites to have dynamic content.

Naturally, you don’t want to rewrite your content every few months, but you should tweak existing content as needed and add new content to keep your website fresh and current.

Also, as you monitor and analyze your website statistics (such as number of hits, bounce rates, and click-through rates), you can play with your copy to see what’s working and what isn’t. This helps you improve the performance of your copy and website, and get the most out of your investment.

Copywriting ‘Truth’ or ‘Myth’?

The myths of copywriting are hardly as entertaining as those of ancient Greece, but some copywriting myths are as pervasive as the stories of Zeus, Athena and Poseidon. The next time your colleague tells you a copywriting truth, consider whether it is, in fact, a copywriting myth. Then smite him with your trident.

Tired of pointless, regurgitated viral debris? A convenient, painless way to expand your entrepreneurial mind in 2012 is to get a daily dose of TEDTalks, comprising more than 900 thought-provoking presentations on technology, entertainment, design, sciences, humanities, arts, NGOs, business and more. You’ll gain life-altering insight and inspiration from the globe’s leading thinkers and doers to better your life, your business and your world.

Here’s just a fragment of the wisdom you can gain from TED:

Schools Kill Creativity

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

The Thrilling Potential of SixthSense Technology

Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data, including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop.”

Why Are We Happy?

Author Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership, all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His cases include Apple, Martin Luther King and the Wright brothers.

Try Something New for 30 Days

Is there something you’ve always meant to do, wanted to do, but just haven’t? Matt Cutts suggests: Try it for 30 days. This short, lighthearted talk offers a clever way to think about setting and achieving goals.

Ideas Definitely Worth Sharing

Why not trade in the dancing pets and exercise your brain? While you’re at it, you can spread the good word to help make the world a better place.