This new kid on the block is a Galaxy and iPhone slayer.
Eight years in the making, Google has bypassed its Android partners with the new Pixel phone. While it won’t win any visual design awards, Pixel sports a rich feature set that raises the bar for smartphone performance. Foremost is its blistering speed. Google spent a lot of time “tuning the hell out of the platform,” as one Google spokesperson said. Plus, its Snapdragon 821 chipset keeps its cool – literally – and avoids throttling better than the Snapdragon 820 featured in the Galaxy S7 and other premium smartphones. And Pixel’s camera, call quality and battery life are all “top of class.” Priced from $649 to $869, it’s a premium phone – with premium pricing.
–Forbes
Are you getting full value from your lunch break?
Here are three ways to make that precious time slot pay off for you: 1) Break bread with clients. Learn about their business and build rapport. They’re less likely to leave when you know what really bugs them and what their goals are. 2) Go work out. A carb-laden lunch bogs you down for the next few hours. Breaking into a sweat, on the other hand, gives you energy and makes you more productive. Besides being good for you, a good workout clears your head and lets you think through challenges. 3) Take a siesta. What?! Yep. Siesta. A midday “power nap” improves mental acuity. And well-rested people perform at the top of their game.
–Entrepreneur
Here’s why Mark Zuckerberg thinks chatbots are a big deal.
Chatbots respond automatically to chat messages you receive. They’ve been around since AOL’s Instant Messenger (AIM). But with artificial intelligence and a huge surge in messaging-app popularity, their potential for things like customer service is exploding. In fact, more people now use messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and WeChat than social networks. Chatbots can help you cut costs and scale up. It can talk with thousands of people at once, while a customer service rep can speak with only one at a time. Yet hurdles remain. For example, you don’t want this kind of response: “Siri, I’m bleeding really badly. Call me an ambulance.” “From now on I’ll call you ‘An Ambulance.’ OK?”
–Inc.com
Double your sales team’s productivity.
Give fitness trackers as rewards for hitting sales goals. They’re one of the most popular gifts right now with both health and non-health conscious workers. And once an employee earns it, they’ll likely start using it. With health care costs at less than a third of national averages for companies with wellness programs, you get a double win – more productivity, less cost. One way to get the most out of fitness trackers for your team is to set sleeping goals. The journal Sleep reports that people who get seven to eight hours of sleep per night stay home sick four to nine days less than those who get less than five or more than 10 hours per night.
–Business2Community.com
Finally, you can block snoops with this new Facebook Messenger feature.
Secret Conversations allows you to encrypt messages so nobody but you and your conversation partner can read them. It also lets you send messages with an expiration time ranging from five seconds to one day. Your Messenger app may not have notified you, but when you update it, you’ll find the Secret Conversations option on the top right of each new message screen. You’ll need to enable it manually for every conversation. The only way to use Secret Conversations, however, is to update your Messenger app – so if you haven’t done it yet, DO IT, and use it. Otherwise you may be letting snooping competitors or hackers in on your conversations.
–Wired
Our company implemented chatbots for a 30-day trial period and the feedback has been amazing! We saw a 23% increase in sales while also helping us to get better insights on our customers. Now we’re experimenting with different platforms until we find the one that allows the level of customization and key metrics analytics we want.
So giving fitness trackers is a thing now… I can barely function if I get less than 7 hours of sleep but it took me years to figure this out. I always blamed stress, workload and even my diet only to discover that I wasn’t one of those people who could survive with just 5 hours of sleep.
I don’t even recall how many times I’ve used the facebook secret conversation feature. Now if they could disable the option to screenshot the screen it would be perfect.