HOW TO ACCOMPLISH MORE BY DOING LESS

The law of diminishing returns (also law of diminishing marginal returns or law of increasing relative cost) states that in all productive processes, adding more of one factor of production, while holding all others constant, will at some point yield lower per-unit returns.* The law of diminishing returns does not imply that adding more of a factor will decrease the total production, a condition known as negative returns, though in fact this is common.

So it's not just the number of hours we sit at a desk that determines the value we generate. It's the energy we bring to the hours we work.

Stress is not the enemy in the workplace. Indeed, stress is the only means by which we can expand capacity. 

How to Accomplish More by Doing Less - Tony Schwartz - Harvard Business Review

*Samuelson & Nordhaus. Microeconomics. 17th ed. page 110. McGraw Hill 2001

2011 TOP 10 MOST POPULAR EBOOKS

Nearly 1 million subscribers have chosen the most popular eBooks of 2011! Free-eBooks.net has just released this year's Top 10 Lists, classified by genre: No.1 - Quatrain, fiction by John Medler

2011 Top 10 Most Popular eBooks

HOW SOCIAL ARE YOUR PRESS RELEASES?

by Sarah Skerik, PR Newswire’s vice president of social media

Press releases are widely shared on Facebook and Twitter, but some social media channels deliver better PR results.

We’ve been thinking a lot about press release effectiveness, and digging into our data vaults, crunching numbers and teasing out the success drivers. On the heels of the deep dive into press release metrics we did with Hubspot, we recently completed an analysis with Crowd Factory, the company we use to provide some of the social sharing buttons you see embedded in press releases on PR Newswire.com. Key findings include:

1. Each press release share generates 2 new views; expands total audience by 70%.

Creating shareable content and enabling sharing capabilities through the relevant channels can dramatically increase the number of views for releases. PR Newswire and Crowd Factory found that each share generates an average of nearly 2 click-backs to the original press release. Additionally, sharing of press releases across social networks increases the total audience, or social reach, for this content by nearly 70 percent.

2. Press releases are shared more on Facebook, but Twitter sharing drives more traffic.

Among the three largest US social networks, Facebook is tops when it comes to sharing of press releases: 48 percent of press release sharing happens on Facebook, 37 percent of sharing happens on Twitter and 15 percent happens on LinkedIn.

But not all shares are created equal: in spite of Facebook’s greater popularity for sharing, each share on Twitter actually drives about 30 percent more press release views than a share on Facebook.

3. Multimedia press releases generate 3.5 times more engagement than text-only releases.

Not surprisingly, multimedia press releases that include photos, videos or audio generate more views, shares and clicks than text-only press releases. Adding a photo to a press release increases engagement by 14 percent; adding a video and a photo actually doubles the engagement rate. Press releases that contain photos, video and audio generate the most engagement, with 3.5 times more engagement than text-only releases.

FACEBOOK ROLLS OUT TIMELINE OF OLD POSTINGS

Facebook profiles are getting a new look and feel with the "Timeline" feature that puts all of a single user's updates in one package, making it difficult for users to hide from posts and comments they'd rather forget. For advertisers, the Timeline feature potentially offers a new way to target users.

Facebook rolls out Timeline of old postings - Related Stories - IAB SmartBrief