How to Innovate Without Money

By James A Gardner

How do you deal with the situation where you're supposed to innovate but have no budget?

It is a situation many find themselves in. Managers, especially those who think that it is possible to create an innovation culture, believe that all it takes to make innovation happen is throw people at the problem. In some organisations, in fact, it is far easier to assign people than budget anyway. It seems, therefore, that creating a team is an easy way to get innovation started.

The issue with this is that making innovation happen is not just about ideas and people. It also requires execution, which is the difference between an idea which sits around gathering dust, and one which can actually be converted into something that creates revenue. Execution, usually, requires money.

Innovators with no financial resources at all almost always fail and the reason is this:

Before anyone can make an investment decision in something new, there are three key questions which need to be answered. The first, which is "can we do this", is really technical: are the technologies, production capabilities, management systems, and other artefacts needed to create the innovation available? If not, can they be created at a reasonable price? The second question is "Should we do this", which is actually about the financials of the innovation. And the third question is "When?", which has to do with market entry timing.

In order to get the answers to these questions, the innovators will probably have to pay for research, prototypes and the time of analysts. It is rare that an innovation group will have all these capabilities in house.

Consequently, an innovator with no money at all has almost no alternative but to try to answer all the key questions him or herself. This mostly results in exceptionally poor business cases, due to the lack of any substantive detail. The result is innovators wind up tossing poorly formed propositions at stakeholders and hoping for the best. Usually, they don't get taken seriously. - 31960

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The Right Timing For Bluffing

By Vonsheca Herlts

The most talked card game in today's society is poker. More and more people are hooked up with poker and they have spent hours playing live games and even online poker games through different online poker sites.

The most popular card game is more on chance and probability. You do not need to have a college diploma to win this game. No educational attainment is needed in order to win the game. Simple tricks should be learned for players to lead the edge. This is a game of configuration of five cards drawn by the player or from the community cards. Poker strategies are important in winning consistently poker games.

Players of poker are able to make bets according to the combination of their cards. Each combination does not have the same value. Combination of cards from the lowest to the highest are as follows: one pair, followed by two pairs, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush and royal flush. This is the ascending arrangement of cards.

In order to win competitions and tournaments in every poker games, the player must learn poker strategy. One of the most common strategies is bluffing. In bluffing, you can fool your opponents to the correct value of your cards. You can make them believe you have the best cards despite of holding a poor one. Players are given two cards each before laying down the three community cards then followed by two final cards.

You can always have the strong hands with bluffing by seeing the flop or turn for a chance to have a good card and fold pre-flop on poor cards. Bluffing requires skills of the players in order to perform it well and so that your opponents will believe you.

When you are new to poker, mastering the bluffing is important. With you acting skills you can make your opponent believe you have a poor card even though you have a good card and make them believe you have good cards despite the bad cards you are holding. Bluffing is like manipulating your opponents.

Bluffing can be mastered easily but this requires skills and preparations. You need to learn the basic tricks one step at a time. Everything has timing and for poker, bluffing should be used at the right time. Be consistent and create a predictable play to your opponents. Play poker first as the rule implies and stated in the poker book. Always continue the game when you have good cards and learn to fold your cards when you have a poor card. Once you have created an impression of being a tight player that is the time for you to start using bluffing as your strategy to win competitions. - 31960

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Webinar How To - Running Your Own Profitable Webinars

By Stephen Beck

How to run your own webinars...that is the question.

First, you have to put together a compelling presentation that causes your prospective customers to take action. You see, it's not enough to educate your audience. You can be the most beloved "teacher" on the Internet and still not grow your online or offline business through webinars.

After you have concluded your webinar, be sure to ask your viewers to ACT NOW!! They can visit your website, call on the phone, or visit your storefront.

After you create a killer presentation, you have to find a webinar hosting company so you can present your information to hundreds of people at one time. There are several good ones out there including GoToWebinar, WebEx, Adobe Connect and few others. Or you can hire individuals to run your webinar for you.

Also there are webinar "how to" courses that show you every step and give you the reasoning behind each one. Make sure you choose a course that has lots of step by step video so you don't get lost. Then turn the course over to your techie person, employee, secretary or teenage kid and have them learn how to setup your webinar!

Now you will want to think about recording your webinar so that you can show the replay. There may be some potential customers who are not able to attend the live webinar. In this case, if you offer a replay, you will likely net more sales.

Now here's a million dollar tip. Always have a reason to "buy now" in your webinar. Either the sale price is expiring in 48 hours ...or you only have a limited amount of appointments left ...or an extra special bonus will expire at the end of the week ...anything to get them to take action immediately after the webinar.

This is why it's ideal for you to have as many viewers watching your webinar "live." It gives you greater control over the event and the rewards for taking action. However, even in the replay, you can make it clear that there are incentives for acting immediately.

And finally, you want to follow up with your webinar attendees. If you ask for full contact information, you can send those that didn't buy a postcard, direct mail piece or even pick up the phone and call them.

Think about how qualified a webinar attendee is ...they just spent 60 minutes listening to you on a webinar.Do you think they are pretty interested in your product or service? All it takes is a nudge to get them to buy.

So, these are a few webinar how to's. Webinars are really not that complicated, and the rewards can be VERY profitable! - 31960

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Vital Information In An Online Poker Tournament

By Checkisy Spess

Poker has been the popular card game in the society today. There are different land based venues that people often visit due to its millions of prize pool during tournaments. However, another trend has been introduced and that is playing poker through different online poker rooms. Numerous number of online poker rooms are basically having their own online tournaments for all their loyal poker players.

In every poker game, poker players start the game holding the same amount of poker chips in their hands. The winner of the game is the player who gets all the chips of all players. On the other hand, each player should know the vital information in an online tournament:

Bigger Pot Money. There is no turning back in an online tournament especially when you have started the flip side regardless how poor or strong your cards are. There are also bigger benefits and larger pot money in the online tournaments.

2.Online moderator. There will always be an online tournament moderator who is responsible for the rules and regulations in an online tournament. It is the person that sets all the rules and guidelines to all the participants and discussed it through the chat room before the tournament begins.

Point system. There are different online poker room sites that use point as the prize earned during poker tournaments. Unlike other land based venues, poker players usually take home millions of money when they win the championship. It could be a good start for beginners for them not to lose their hard earned money. These tournaments can help poker players enhance their poker strategy in joining these games for them to be prepared during big games outside.

"One winner takes all." There is usually one winner in every poker game who holds all the poker chips of each poker player as he defeats everyone. It consists of poker elimination rounds that select the top most players to compete in competitions.

Type of tournaments. Poker player should keep in mind that in an online poker room, there are different types of poker tournaments. It can be played alone by a single player or in teams or may join in multi-tables.

Poker is considered a game of chance so poker players should play according to their own strategy and should keep a maximum level of patience. Keep in mind all the five vital information when playing in an online tournament. - 31960

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Review On Poker's Beginning

By Fitnoosy Bellends

Poker has been one of the most popular card games in the history. Each individual has been hooked up with this latest trend. But do you actually know the history of poker? Until today, history of poker still remains debatable for some.

Most Historians believed that poker came from the German game named Pochspiel way back the 15th century. It is somewhat similar to As Nas, a Persian game. This Persian game was taught by Persian sailors to the French settlers in New Orleans way back the 1829. In contrast to this belief, there is also a belief that it was first played by the Chinese way back 900 AD and Egyptians also claims that they have played an early form of poker way back the 12th and 13th centuries.

The Persian form of game is called "Ganfija" and was introduced in the 16th century. On the other hand, the French form of this game was named "Poque" in the 18th Century. The German version is called "Pouchen" and "Primero" that was first played in the year 1526 by the Spanish. Another story came out that poker was derived from the combination of two games, "Primero" and "Brelan" which is a French game. These are all the versions of poker in the history.

The mother of all poker is considered to be the Spanish version named "Primero" which has a great similarity to the modern poker today. Brag as the other term of the poker strategy Bluffing is an act of fooling your opponent that you have a winning card despite of having a bad card. This poker strategy was related to the Spanish way of playing their game. Jonathan Green was the first person to make a poker documentary with all the strategies and was considered to be a cheating game for poker players.

As the game of poker evolved during the American Civil War, English men came up with a 52-card deck and gave birth to new poker hands named "flush". It was spread through the Mississippi riverboats where they us gambling as their hobby to kill time. In line with these riverboats, the spread of poker started from the West.

Poker came up with different game variation such as Draw, Jack Pots and Stud in the year 1875. It was improved as the years goes by and come up with 5 Card Draw, 7 Card Stud and the Texas Hold'em as the three most popular poker games now.

Today, poker tournaments are very popular but not everybody knew that the World Series of Poker begun in Las Vegas way back 1970. Up to this date, this event was still practiced and has come up with more major poker tournaments especially from online poker rooms. We can never be sure about the history of poker, but at least we had reviewed short notes about poker. - 31960

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Making Innovation Pay

By James A Gardner

When an innovation team is created by an organisation, everything is exciting and rosy at the start. Filled with hope for the future, sponsors attach themselves to their new silver bullet which will solve all their problems and wait for exciting results to arrive. In the first few months after they are created, the team can get away with practically anything.

Quite quickly, however, the innovation team will get called to account for their results or (more likely) the lack of them. All those excited stakeholders will begin to wonder if they might have gotten better returns on their money by investing in something different, such as, for example, a Lean initiative.

Most of the time, this happens inside 18 months, and the team's budget gets scrutinised very carefully. While everyone will probably agree the team has done "valuable work", the only justification they really care about is financial returns that the innovation team may have generated.

In the end, if there are alternative investments that have proved financially successful, and the innovation team has not proved itself similarly, it is obvious where a rational business manager will seek to direct funding in the future. This is especially true during a downturn, or whenever else an organisation is under stress.

So innovators need to pay their own way, if their programmes are to exist in the long term.

Now, it is always the case that some innovations don't actually have financial returns. For example, productivity improvements driven by information technology are often key candidates for an innovation team. These will often add significant new capabilities which make employees work better or more quickly, but may not result in a direct financial benefit. Clearly, there's value in doing such things, and a sophisticated innovation team will certainly pursue them, regardless of the chance they'll pay.

With that in mind, then, how does an innovation team reconcile a non-financial innovation with its core driver to produce decent financial results?

The answer is it must adopt a portfolio strategy for innovation, where some projects pay and some don't. As a rule, there will typically be many more of the former, and the obvious implication is the team would as a matter of course de-prioritise those innovations without decent returns until it has successfully met its financial objectives. - 31960

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Know The Basic Moves In Poker

By Kensurre Benliu

When playing poker, it is always best to know the right procedures used in the game. Betting in poker is very important and as poker players, you need to know the right time to raise a bet for it is where the game is centered. Poker variants may have different formats in placing a bet and would also depend based on the rules of the State. Rules and regulations posted by different facilitators for land based venues and administrators from online gaming sites should always be followed.

Betting structure of the game is announced before players purchase their poker chips. The player at the left side of the dealer usually starts to placement of bet as the small blind in the game. Each player can make his own decision, whether to check, raise or fold its cards as the flop is shown in the middle. The first decision of the player is always final and should is consider irrevocable, unless it is his turn again to raise a bet. Betting structure may differ depending on the mechanics of the game.

The first round of the game is the opening round. It is where players place a bet in the pot money. The big blind of the round determines the minimum amount of bet in each round. However, players can only place a higher stake if the game does not have a limited betting structure.

It is the responsibility of the dealer to distribute the cards to each player and to place the three cards in the middle. As the player places the flop in the middle, another betting round is made. The small blind of the game will first decide whether they will check, raise another bet or fold their cards. When all the players made their decision, the dealer will now open the flop and another betting is made until the five cards are all shown. All the additional bets in every round are placed in the pot money. When all players agreed to check on the cards, no additional amount of money is added in the pot money. Check is the same as pass in every card game.

Each player has the right to fold their cards and when that happens, they forfeit the money they have placed in the pot money. In such a situation where two players are left and one player raises a high amount of bet, for the other player to stay in the game and compete for the pot money, he must call the raise of the other player. Once the betting is over, the dealer will ask the two players to show their cards starting from the player closest to the small blind.

The player who holds the highest hand ranking wins the game and takes home all the pot money. Showdown of cards is started from the person closest to the small blind or the small blind itself. Poker is played in many rounds and should be equipped with the right strategies to win the game. - 31960

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