Mother’s Day is coming up fast – it’s almost here.  Every once in awhile, life gets crazy and it gets a little bit difficult to come up with something creative on the fly.  If you barely have time to breathe, let alone plan or create a memorable gift, or are just drawing a blank, we’ve created a quick list to help you out.  Even if you don’t use one of these ideas, they’re great starting points for a quick brainstorming session.  Sometimes you just need a new take on the old standard.  Not to mention some of them can be executed in little to no time at all – the only time you need to set aside is the time you’re actually spending with your mom.  Check them out!

Our list of 10 Mother’s Day Gift Ideas:

• Poems
  • If you have a talent for written word, you can write your own.  If not, you can always use the search engines, “mother’s day poems” gets a decent amount of search volume.  To add an original flair, you can always add a funky presentation – a cool frame, something hand-painted, whatever works for you and your mom.
• Cards
  • They’re easy to buy, but more heartfelt if they’re made or bought and then decorated by hand.  It may seem a little childish to some, but most moms will find it endearing.
• Flowers
  • Standard, easy, beautiful – as long as your mom doesn’t have allergies.  Here’s a new take on an old standard – create a bouquet using origami, wooden, feather, or metal flowers.  They’re gorgeous, usually allergy-free, and last far longer than live flowers.  If you’re desperate for a scent, well, they have sprays to handle that with the added bonus of acting like an air/room freshener.
• Scrapbook
  • This could be created around a moment, a timeline, her favorite hobbies or places, anything.  The opportunities for themes are endless.  This is something your mom can hang onto and show off as an awesome keepsake.
• Photo Album
  • Not everyone is skilled with scrapbooking, so a photo album suffices.  As with the scrapbook, this could be centered around a fun moment you had together, a certain theme, her favorite animal, or maybe even her bucket list.
• Spa Day
  • Some moms enjoy a good pampering every once in awhile.  So why not spend a day at the spa together?  There are some great combination packages available for manicures, pedicures, massages, aromatherapy, and more.  You can easily find something that works for you and your mom.
• Dinner
  • Quick and easy.  Treat her to dinner at her favorite restaurant.  No cooking or dishes necessary!
• Coupon Book
  • Is your mom stuck cleaning up a lot?  Doing other random stuff?  Give her a personalized coupon book that she can redeem for help cleaning, you taking care of her laundry, a few days of washing the dishes, cooking for her, perhaps a free dinner out.  Whatever fits her personality and gives back to her.
• A day in their Favorite City/Place
  • Everyone has a place they have always wanted to go or love going to.  Gift your mom with a special day in that place for her.  Maybe for her it’s lunch and a play in New York or a walk down the boardwalk in the coastal city of her choice.
• Tickets
  • Plays, movies, concerts, amusement parks.  Whatever event brings a bit of joy to your momma, give her tickets to it – even better, go with her to it.

This list is by no means comprehensive.  Gift ideas and opportunities abound.  It’s just a matter of choosing a theme and personalizing it for your mom and your relationship.

With that said, good luck and happy Mother’s Day!

Professionalism. Business Etiquette. Manners. Common Sense.

All of these terms, at one time, were measurements of character, standards of behavior, and guidelines for appropriate conduct in certain situations. Whether an employer, employee, colleague, or consumer, we come into contact with “business” every day, even if it’s just on that last minute run to the grocery store or gas station. Every once in awhile, it blows our minds.

Strolling into meetings 20 minutes late or blowing them off completely, being rude to customers and colleagues, using the office as a playground for juvenile games and a personal call center. Call us old-fashioned and outdated, but we’ll call it what it is – unprofessional. That’s the reality, folks, they’re not good business practices and they certainly aren’t endearing neither to clients or colleagues.

So, in the spirit of professionalism, good business, and common sense for all, we’ve come up with a list of 8 tips for good business practices that seem to be common sense, but are seemingly uncommon. Check it out!

• Show up on Time – Being early is not a bad thing.
• Come Prepared – One person’s lack of planning should never be another’s emergency.
• Dress for Success – it’s better to dress for the job you want than the job you have.
• Do Your Job to the Best of Your Abilities – Your boss might not be hovering, but always knows what’s going on.
• Clients Come First – without them, there is no revenue to pay salaries.
• Be Articulate in Communicating – Every word you speak or write to a client or colleague reflects on the company, so, please, make us sound smart.
• Karma is Real – Help a colleague when they need it and they’ll be there to help you when you need it.
• The Golden Rule Still Applies (even in business) – Treat others how you would like to be treated.

If you follow these simple rules, you will already be ahead of the pack in differentiating yourself as an invaluable asset to any team.

See you at the finish line!

If you have not seen one of the newest Nike commercials that is often running on ESPN… please make a point to watch it (see below).

The background song “Ali in The Jungle” by The Hours is the most crucial part. The primary lyrics to the song is that “Everybody gets knocked down….how quick are you gonna get up?” And of course being Nike it has highlights of some knocked down athletes such as LaDainian Tomlinson and Maria Sharapova.

As I am watching the commercial and then putting the song on my Iphone I am quickly reminded of how practical this song applies to businesses… especially now. Often I am talking to businesses who state “We are waiting for the Economy to turn around” or “times are really bad, right now” and just about every time my response is…

What the hell are you waiting for?

Your competition to keep outranking you? The Government to give you a personal “bail out”? Stop waiting and start doing!

Bottom line is if you are planning to stay in business and increase your cash flow now is the time to put a plan together and immediately act upon that plan. Seriously, every business got Knocked Down in the last couple years… the question truly is, how quick are you gonna get up?

Cool news from out of the ProspectMX camp…

One of our company’s co-founders, Steve Young, has been named to Central Penn Business Journal’s (CPBJ) annual “Forty Under 40″ list for 2009.

Young is the second ProspectMX co-founder to earn this recognition from CPBJ. In 2006, Rory Wilfong was also honored with the same distinction.

While Young plays an important role within ProspectMX, he also manages the day-to-day operations of an Inc. 500  company; the first company Steve, Rory, and Dave established in 2003 that was a finalist for CPBJ’s Emerging Business of the Year Award in 2006.

Young was selected for this year’s Forty Under 40 for “his commitment to business growth, professional excellence and the community.”

Nominations for the Forty Under 40 program ended in late April, and a panel of four judges who have all won the award in the past selected the top 40. This is the 15th time CPBJ has honored the region’s top young business leaders.

Young and the other 39 recipients will be honored at an awards reception on October 23. The winners will also be featured in a special supplement to the October 30th edition of the Central Penn Business Journal.

Central Penn Business Journal is an award-winning business newspaper for Central Pennsylvania that provides more information, analysis and advice for business than any other local publication. The Journal has served the Central PA community for 23 years.

Congrats Steve!

The topic of this blog is putting a pricetag on frustration…and speaking of frustration, I’m preparing a sure to be hilarious recap of web usability problems with TNT.com. (Note to TNT- fire all of your web people.)

In the meantime, I found something online that I felt was very interesting.  Tonight I was searching for a ‘Microsoft Wireless Mouse’ on Amazon and came across something I had never heard of before.  Look at these 2 Amazon links and tell me if you can spot the difference.

Link1

Link 2

Could you spot the difference? Congratulations!  It’s not like it was right in the product headline or anything.  For those that missed it, Amazon is selling the EXACT SAME mouse for about 4 dollars more because it is in, what they call, “Amazon Frustration-Free™ Packaging”.

I hate dealing with those plastic death traps they put around gadgets as much as anyone else, but is it worth a $4 bump in price? What would I be willing to pay in any given situation to get the same thing with less frustration? $10 more for shoes you don’t have to tie (oh wait, that’s why I wear velcro). $100 more for a computer that never crashes? I’d pay it (and as I type this on my iMac I realize I did exactly that…except, more than a hundred dollars extra…).

My overspending aside, the point is, your lack of frustration is worth something. It’s just hard to figure out exactly how much it’s worth. In any given situation when you buy something, I wonder how much extra you would pay for better service, a better experience, an easier delivery method, etc.  How much money are companies losing because they aren’t willing to add that little touch to make their extra service worthwhile and “frustration-free”?

But this is starting to get deep.  In this case, for $4 extra dollars, I’d rather buy a sweet pair of scissors and just go to town on that plastic packaging.

Because in the end, I’d then have a wireless mouse and a cool pair of scissors to do with as I pleased. Win-win.