John Paulson was a maverick, an outcast, a non-believer. Yet, he got away with it by making a fortune. The latest book on Wall Street’s ways by Gregory Zuckerman goes by the title “The Greatest Trade Ever: How John Paulson Bet Against the Markets and Made $20 Billion”. It is a true story about the manager of a small-time hedge fund who refused to believe in the so-called thriving world of US housing. All over the nation, when investors were frantically wild about the ‘booming’ housing market, Paulson was skeptical about it and even waged a bet against it. The result – as the nation plunged into recession that had universal consequences, Paulson managed to amass $20 billion. His fund did not go by mortgages. Rather he relied on “Credit Default Swaps”, which in layman terms means that Insurance policies rather than homeowners themselves should pay money in case of a default. This way, Paulson’s small fund made a swopping $15 billion in one year of which he took $4 billion home. The book also tells the story of other mavericks such as Jeffrey Greene, a west coast property developer who like Paulson refused to rely on the surging housing market. The book describes how they stood their ground when the entire world was going crazy. Difficult for a financial investor, who has to keep pace with trade but still they did it. Their foresight made them billionaires. The book does not make for a very gripping tale as the material presented might be a little boring for the Wall-Street illiterate as it is infused with a lot of financial details. It has a few interesting anecdotes about the traders themselves, though. One example is the fact that Paulson still travels by train although he is a billionaire. Another is Paulson’s wedding to his assistant Jenny. Paulson was a playboy till his 40’s after which he decided it was time to settle down. He made a list of qualities and expectations of a would-be wife. “Cheerful” topped the list and he didn’t have to go in search of the right woman. She was right there in his office. Similar anecdotes are interesting but it is a Wall Street book through and through, written by a Wall Street Journalist. The book tries to tell a story but ends up throwing light on yet another aspect of the recession.

Gone are the days when businessmen and entrepreneurs handed out paper business cards. Gone are the days when stacks of cards were exchanged and lost and misplaced. Say hello to e-business cards. Professional networking sites like LinkedIn are the new ways to establish contacts and develop business circles. Business cards are so passe. If information is exchanged on the net, people can get the latest updated information regarding their professional contacts. This is not possible in paper cards. If people change their moblie numbers or addresses, its easier to update them online than go in search of new paper cards. Digital business cards are easier to make changes, and can also be stored in your mobile phones. Business card applications like DubMeNow are linked to a lot of mobile phones such as Blackberry and Iphone. Manoj Ramnani, founder of the 14-month old DUB, hopes to make it big in the mobile phone market as his application has a lot of scope in business and ecommerce. A lot of wireless carriers are also coming forward to encourage business card and address book applications. Such digital business cards resemble the actual cards but are a lot more interactive as they allow the user to add links and profiles and mail changes. They also provide links to a lot of social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and Twitter. They are also made compatible with Operating Systems like Windows Mobile, Google’s OS Android and Nokia’s Symbian OS. Entrepreneurs who develop and market these applications have struck gold. Mobile phone companies are also encouraging Universities to help students come up with newer applications like desktop widgets and office tools. LinkedIn currently has an application software that is compatible with iphone and palm. Some techno-wizards are also exchanging contacts in the form of 2D barcodes- a new type of barcode that encodes images and text in pictoral form. For those who do not have smartphones, scanning and camera technologies are available to scan actual business cards and store them in digital form. Switzerland’s Poken markets devices that exchange data with the help of infrared beam and wireless media. Stay connected the E-way!

The lastest update on business on the consumer front is a primer on password protection. The consumer in today’s world has the greatest of opportunities to have things easy. He can make transactions online, purchase online, bank online and have innumerable tasks made online thanks to the Internet and the growth of e-commerce. A factor that is crucial to online transactions and banking is security. Every site asks the customer or client to sign up for accounts and thus, he or she has to create passwords in order to be able to access the account. What more? They have to protect the password for posterity because the threat of hacking has grown multifold in the recent past. Studies made recently have revealed that most consumers are lethargic about password theft and are not aware of its repercussions. Many still use 123456 or abc123, words with six characters or less, and common slangs. They also don’t mix and match uppercase letters with small letters and symbols. This makes it all the more easier for hackers. Recent shocking business updates say that a hacker can crack a password in 17 minutes. Even security questions are not very helpful because answers to common questions like “Where did you do study?”  or “Your mother’s maiden name?” can be found online in a lot of social networking sites of which too, a consumer is a major part of. So information that was previously considered secure and private is available easily on the internet. Says Linda Criddle of Lookbothways Online Safety Consulting, “Lie when asked security questions. Your answers do not even have to be truthful or relevant to the security questions. Just coin a phrase or an answer that you can remember for ages. In this way, hackers will not be able to break into your accounts.”  It is better to coin mixed up words or letters from phrases, replace letters to make illogical non-words. Also, it makes sense to avoid common sequences like 123456, abcdef, proper names, birthdays, addresses etc. Have different passwords for different types of sites or atleast make subtle changes to some of them. Changes that only you can remember. Those involved in trade or business make it a good practice to change their password every 60 days. The most sacred of them all being the email password as anyone who breaks an email account has access to scores of other accounts held by the same consumer. Protect your password today!

Marketing plan is pivotal to all business ventures and corporate trade. It is the latest update on business and an important aspect of business communication that deals with promotion, advertisement, buying and selling. It requires intelligence and skills and is crucial for business endeavors as some policy makers would put it. Here are a few tips on how to draft a successful marketing plan. The first and foremost comes time management. Marketing plans are either short-term or long-term. Accurate decision making and marketing comes with time management. The next thing is the ability to grab your opportunities. Yes! Think of marketing as Real Estate. Good communication, trust and excellent output are the key points that help you grab deals from third-party buyers. Always be on the lookout. Thirdly, chart out marketing activities and map them to the responsible spheres. The sooner this is done, the more lucrative is your business. The next thing would be considering deadlines devoutly. Any task that has a deadline will inspire work and save time for the marketer. A strong delegation that backs up your business venture will prove fruitful in the long run. Personnel working under you must be punctual, precise, discreet, and hardworking. Only a compounded effort will yield good results. If the product or the output is good, then you begin to gain a strong foothold in the business world. Once you gain the trust of your buyers and the corporate world, then marketing should be carried out on a regular basis. There must be no laxity, especially in financial matters. High-level marketing requires much foresight and long-term profit anticipation. Low level business deals require day-to-day completion of successful transactions and marginal profits.  Then comes conscious and unconscious marketing plans. This is based on the marketer’s cognitive behavior. Instincts, gut feeling, and intuition do play a major role in deciding your marketing steps and may sometimes supersede your well planned-out conventional marketing ideas. Finally, aesthetic sense is essential. Promotions need the right kind of people who wear the right attitude. Celebrities and beauty may also come in handy but are not a must. The upshot of it all is that a marketer must have a good marketing plan that is not only made with a good deal of integrity, foresight, goal-oriented mindset, punctuality and hard work, but is also flexible to change with intuition and market ups and downs.