After presenting our Vendor Selection Process at a few technology conferences, we were overwhelmed with questions and feedback and we thank all of you for your input and encouragement to summarize our process in text and place it online to benefit others. The following is a summary of our presentation:

The Truth About Vendor Selection

When our Clients task us with identifying the most appropriate vendor for their project, discussions are frequently oriented around the same 5 topics – The Outcome, The Audience, The Objectives, The Strategy, and The Technology Decision. This article was written to help outline our thoughts and give readers an indication of the process involved in successfully selecting a vendor for a technology implementation.

Today’s example comes from the world of social media, the latest, greatest must-have for your business. In most business engagements we start with the end in mind by figuring out what we want to accomplish. Social technologies are not mysterious black boxes. They can accomplish business oriented goals as well. Consider that it’s probably time to stop implementing ‘social’ because it’s cool. It’s time to get into it because it is effective if done right.

Our first step is to fully understand our Client’s desired business results (the Outcome) for creating a community online. When we have formulated the outcome into a clearly written, text based paragraph resembling a project statement and as soon as we receive our Client’s approval for this formulation, we proceed to step two.

Our next step is to Identify the Target Audience that will want to be members of this community. Before they become members of our community, these individuals are our prospects – out there somewhere on the internet sitting firmly within the parameters of what we define as our target audience. In this step we focus on access and conversions. How we are able to get in touch with our prospects is what we refer to as ‘access’ and getting a prospect to become a member is what we refer to as conversion. We usually initiate a profiling exercise in this step to reveal the needs of our target audience. This can be done in a variety of ways, our current favorite is by using sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to attract or pull the target audience toward us where we can present them with a relevant reward for answering a combination of multiple choice and open questions in our online surveys.

The next step is to determine the appropriate Objectives that align with and help to achieve our Client’s desired business result (the outcome). This list of objectives is critical to understanding what our Client’s expectations are and what limitations (if any) will be placed on this project. Are you launching a project to listen to your Customers or to enter into a dialog with them? To support them or to energize your best Customers so that they evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with your Customers? Decide on your core objectives long before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

Most of our time at this stage will be spent scoping out the Strategy, which includes budgets, roles, internal processes, stakeholders, policies, empowerment, change management, legal, regulatory and compliance issues. This information needs to be collected, discussed, agreed with the Client and then documented. In addition to the above, the scoping document will need to include a plan for how relationships with Customers will change over time. Be sure that the strategy is in line with the Objectives. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best Customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Always imagine the outcome and you’ll have a good idea where you need to begin.

Once you’ve completed your scoping document and outlined the work breakdown structure, only then are you ready to select a technology and a vendor. Selecting the technology in this example has to do with a community, a blog, a wiki or even thousands of blogs. Once you know your desired outcome, your audience, the objectives, and the strategy then you can decide with confidence what the technology needs to deliver using a simple process called decision analysis which helps you to make the best possible selection when presented with alternatives.

Selecting a vendor is a Decision Making Process that begins with setting must and want objectives and ends with evaluating risks. This decision analysis is what presents the decision logic to anyone requiring your reasoning for making a particular decision and it follows the same process that NASA has used for the past 50+ years.

As a rule of thumb, successful brands focus about 80% of their efforts on the The Outcome, The Audience, The Objectives and The Strategy and about 20% of their effort on the Technology Decision – make sure that you get it right too.

Here are a few tips from an iPhone developer to help make your experience more enjoyable.

… use the voice control app (on newer iPhones) for hands free operation of a few features including dialing (if you have an older iPhone, try Melodis Dialer instead)

… use the headset and double-click the headset clicker to redial

… spend some time finding a few cool Apps that HELP YOU to actually get something done and avoid the time wasters that distract you from your goals

… try turning the iPhone sideways to type an email or text message – the keypad expands to fit the width of the screen and can be a better experience for those of use with larger fingertips.

… buy a case for your iPhone (you won’t regret it)

… don’t spill liquids onto the device and don’t drop it into a liquid unless you wish to buy a new one

… don’t put it into the microwave (same basic warning as the labels attached to cat collars these days)

… remember to sync with your computer at least every week to get the full benefit of updates, backups and synchronization with the rest of your life.

The iPhone is basically a powerful little computer that also handles rudimentary telephony tasks so with 200,000+ Apps in the Apple iTunes App Store, you are sure to find something to make you feel better for about the cost of a cup of coffee (often less).

When you have a powerful brand, sales tilt in your favor. That’s not just a bold statement, it’s a fact.

In business school we learn that are two approaches when it comes to branding:
a) a manufacturer’s identifier
b) a promise of a Customer experience

I’d like to introduce a third which focuses on a single idea that your company owns that tilts sales in your favor.

That single idea can be described as the Sales Moment.

For example, if I were to say:
- “Family fast food” odds are that you would reply “McDonalds”
- “Family Entertainment” you’d be thinking “Disney”

There is just too much information available in the world today. If people can’t quickly understand what you stand for, then you will not break through the clutter. With so much competition, people gravitate to those that make things easier for them. If you want to create a powerful brand that increases your sales, you need to communicate one single idea and you have to keep it simple so that people can see how you fit into their world.

Think about the single idea that you need to own in order to tilt sales in your favor. If you think tactically, you will not succeed at this level because your focus will be on building a website, creating a brochure, buying some ads etc You need to think strategically and start at the beginning with the Sales Moment and your brand strategy.

To discover your Sales Moment you need to either triangulate your Customer’s Desires and your Strategic Advantages with your Competitor’s Exploitable Weaknesses or simply contact us using the form below and we’ll guide you through the process.

A powerful brand makes it easy for your target Customers to understand how the brand is relevant to them and this will increase your sales.

So, if you are prepared to consider rolling up your sleeves and working on your brand strategy, we can help you… If you insist that what you need now are tactics, then sorry but, this article is probably not what you’re looking for… on the other hand, it just might just change the way you think about branding forever.

A brand is a single mental image that tilts sales in your company’s favor and it is made up of 4 major elements:
1 the Name
2 the Logo
3 the Tagline
4 the Ad Campaign

From a potential Customer’s perspective the above are experienced simultaneously.

To create a powerful brand, all 4 elements MUST quickly communicate the Sales Moment.  If they don’t do this, the brand is weak and will confuse the target Customer. The Sales Moment is the one thing that can be said of your company’s products or services that actually makes the sale and converts a prospect into a paying Customer.

Businesses grow rapidly when the mental image from the four brand elements trigger the Sales Moment.

1 THE NAME
When you create a brand, the name MUST help to create a mental image based on verbal cues. There are six different types of names used by the most successful brands of all time. Each of the types helps the brand achieve a particular objective and at the same time communicate the Sales Moment.

Think about the idea that your company is trying to OWN…  and how you might be able to do it more effectively with the right name.

Creating a powerful brand name begins with understanding the different naming types:
- Functional
- Metaphor
- Energy
- Morpheme
- Historic
- Family

Functional:

• Liquid Plumber
• Toys R Us
• ThinkFun

If you select a functional name, be careful with the other brand elements (logo, tagline, ad image etc) so that  the company does not appear cheap or unsophisticated compared to other brands.
Functional names use a key product feature that you want to own.

Metaphor:

• TransparentValue (an asset mgmt company)
• Amazon (name conveys size)

The focus here is on creating strategic value using a word that suggests an important value of your brand.

Energy:

• Big Ass Fans (yes.. that is the company name)
• OshKosh B’Gosh (it’s just fun to say… esp for the target mkt of little girls)

Energy naming uses words that convey emotion, action or tone of the brand to achieve effect.

Morpheme:

• Microsoft
• Verizon
• FedEx

Morphemes use small syllables of a word or words to conveys essential meaning and can be combined to form a new word like FedEx from Federal Express and Microsoft.

Historic:

• Rembrandt toothpaste
• Baby Einstein
• Con Edison

Historic naming uses an historic event, character or location to embody a brand.

Family:

• McDonalds
• Ford
• Samsung

Family naming uses either real or fictional names usually from the founders to convey the sales moment effectively especially when one needs to differentiate from competition.

Once you have a clear brand idea to work with then develop names in all 6 areas… Then you can determine which type of naming works best to convey the sales moment and helps you to own your brand idea.  Then do trademark searches on the best names to see what is available. Choose the name that is the most memorable and best owns your strategic idea.

CAUTION:
Do NOT select a company name that you like best or one that others like best.  You may not like your company name at all… The results are in and after 50+ years of studying successful brands the ones that succeed are the memorable ones that best own their Sales Moment.  If you let your ego get in the way and you decide that you ‘don’t like it’ then you will be missing out on best practices and you will be making a decision based upon a limited perspective of what you, personally are comfortable with.  It is much better to make such a decision based upon your Customer’s perspective answering the question: What name communicates the sales moment to the Customer in a memorable way.

So we can not brand a company based upon what you or I or a bunch of friends think is cool nor can we brand the company for you, me or your friends using some inside meaning that is only relevant to us. Your Customer likely does not share the same perspective as you do… We can’t choose the company colors based upon what we like either. Instead we select each of the brand elements based on what performs. These elements create an ownable mental image. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. What matters is that your brand makes it easy for your target Customer to understand how it is relevant to them. That will increase sales.

A few more tips:
Avoid names that are challenging to spell or difficult to pronounce easily. Do some research and drop names that have negative connotations in languages that are important to your market.

2 THE LOGO
Simplicity is the key to a great logo as long as it is memorable. Customers need to be able to construct the logo easily in their mind so that they have a clear an unique mental image of your brand.
The stronger your mental image, the more likely they are to remember you. The four main attributes of successful logos are that they are simple in a symbolic way, memorable, differentiated from the competition and that they tell a story. The story MUST be closely related to the Sales Moment. Does your logo tell a story that communicates the Sales Moment?

The logo must support the mental image of the brand in such a way that you own the strategic idea stemming from the company name and supported by the tagline. Be sure that your logo is different from those used by your competitors.

3 THE TAGLINE
Great taglines bring a brand to life. They should NOT include a description of your products or services. Great taglines communicate why your brand is relevant to your target Customers by calling up the Sales Moment. There are 3 types of taglines.
- Promises
- Calls to Action
- Memory taglines

Promises are based on a key brand attribute.
Calls to Action are invitations for a Prospect to join us because they share a similar philosophy.
Memory taglines play off the name or logo to help people remember the brand.

Examples:
Timex – it takes a licking and keeps on ticking (promise)
Apple – think different (call to action)
Army – be all you can be (call to action)
Maybelline – Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline? (memory)
Prudential – own a piece of the rock (memory)
Duracell – you can’t top the copper top (promise & memory)
Volvo – For Life

Here’s another angle on creating killer taglines that I think you will enjoy. The following taglines all have a few things in common. They focus on the user’s experience (the UX) in addition to that, each of them offers a comparison and lastly, each is a highly memorable brand that achieved fame in part due to a superb tagline.

ClubMed – The antidote for civilization
GLAD – Don’t get mad, Get GLAD
Memorex – Is it live or is it Memorex?
Outback Steakhouse – No rules Just right
Secret Deodorant – Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman
Target – Expect more. Pay less
United Negro College Fund – The mind is a terrible thing to waste
US Marines – We’re looking for a few good men
MasterCard – There are some things that money can’t buy. For everything else there’s MasterCard.

If you’re in the United States, and over 30, there’s a good chance you recognize them all. What’s more, I’ll bet you can even envision how the advertising looked and sounded once you read the tag line…

Below are a few more. These companies have powerful ad agencies and multi million dollar brand creating budgets yet, how many of the following brands’ taglines do you remember from your UX? Each of the following taglines relates to their product or service… not the UX.

Ernst & Young – Quality in everything we do
Fancy Feast – Good taste is easy to recognize
Ford – Bold Moves
Honda – The power of dreams
Pepsi – For those who think young
Wells Fargo – The next stage
Aflac – Ask about it at work
Bank of America – Higher standards
Cheez-It – Get your own box
CNET – The source for computing and technology

Does your tagline quickly explain why your brand is relevant to your target Customer and, at the same time, differentiate you from your competitors?
tip: wrap your tagline around the desired UX and compare / contrast it with something that your target Customers want / don’t want to experience.

4 THE AD CAMPAIGN
In the history of the world. there have been only 4 types of advertising campaigns that build brands and drive sales. If you’d like to learn about them, enter your contact details below and we will share a few more of our best practice secrets with you shortly.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

PS.

If you are not using one of these four types of advertising campaigns to build your brand and drive sales, your marketing is simply not working.

Our world is just to complex. One only need to recall the number of buttons on the DVD remote control to realize that often we have too many choices when all we want to do is hit the play button.

Then Apple comes along and simplifies the media player interface allowing us to intuitively know what button to press to illicit the action that we desire. Why couldn’t that concept be more broadly adapted? Then we stumbled across a book called the laws of simplicity and noticed the light at the end of the tunnel.

John Maeda wrote The Laws of Simplicity a few years ago and some of the concepts simply made so much sense to our software architects that around here, we have come to know the following as the other ten commandments.

• Law 1: REDUCE
  The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
• Law 2: ORGANIZE
  Organization makes a system of many appear fewer. Learn to categorize and group thing so that you only have two questions to answer “What goes with what other items?” “Where do I put them?”
• Law 3: TIME
  When a company or person saves us time, we are usually thankful given that we have to wait for so many things during a typical day so, when you interact with others… don’t make them wait!
• Law 4: LEARN
  Knowledge and repetition makes everything simpler so invest time to learn how to do something right and avoid the temptation to skip the instructions.
• Law 5: DIFFERENCES
  Simplicity and complexity need each other so that we can appreciate the things that make our lives easier such as an iPod when compared to the plethora of other mp3 players flooding the market. Simplicity stands out and differentiates itself like a bright orange balloon against a big blue sky.
• Law 6: CONTEXT
  What lies in the periphery of simplicity is not necessarily peripheral
• Law 7: EMOTION
  More emotions are better than less
• Law 8: TRUST
  In simplicity we trust – all others pay cash
• Law 9: FAILURE
  Some things can never be made simpler
• Law 10: THE ONE
  Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful

If you’d like to read more, here is where you will find the author.

I am going to dedicate this article to phrases, quotes and sayings that I come across during business discussions, coaching sessions and educational experiences as a living reference for things people say and write that are so incredibly effective… I could not improve on them if I wanted to.

The first one was uttered by an incredibly good salesperson who refused to pitch anything until he knew what the person he was communicating with wanted. This salesman used a brilliant, easy-going method to uncover his Customer’s desires, objectives, wants, needs etc. and then orient the pitch around helping the person (his Customer) achieve his goals. Among others, his trademark follow up was:

“What would you definitely buy from me today if only I were smart enough to offer it to you?”

If you are ever on the receiving end of this question, have your wallet ready because the psychology of the query is more powerful than most people realize. This is a killer line and there really is no escape from it once it has been thrown into the court.

Going in a completely different direction, here is a quote that is simply remarkable.

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists“

Each week we meet with senior executives with professor doctor titles running multinational corporations. Most are convinced that they did everything by the book and can not understand what is going wrong – why is their business not performing as expected?  Their concerns almost always deal with situations that were not described in reference books or textbooks in years past. While education is important, a continuous cycle of learning is even more important.  Today’s business managers need to equip themselves for an age where the only certain thing is uncertainty in a climate of constant change. You need to be a learning machine accepting that what you learned yesterday might not help you tomorrow. The quote above was written in the 1950s!

In order to make sure that your meetings are both effective and efficient, here are a few suggestions that have worked well.

1. Create and distribute an agenda in advance and be sure that the meeting’s objectives are clearly stated.

2. Begin on time, end on time and stay focused to accomplish your goals.

3. Increase retention by eliminating distractions -require that email and other forms of text messaging be turned off during the meeting and do not tolerate distractions caused by mobile phones – simply turn them off and use voicemail.

4. Respect attendees time – If a person is only needed briefly – no need for them to sit through the entire session.

5. Accomplish the primary objective during the meeting’s allotted time.

6. Use technology. You have a phone, you have your agenda… set the phone to vibrate every 10 minutes so that you have a physical reminder that the meeting needs to move forward.

7. Have a person take notes and follow up with distributing the meeting protocol.

That’s it folks… it doesn’t get much easier than that.

If you are lucky enough to receive one, here is how you can easily redeem a promo code for the Apple iTunes Store.

1) Launch iTunes…

2) Click the Redeem link in the Quick Links section on the right side of the screen

3) Enter the Promo code that you have been given

4) Wait for Apple to confirm the code

5) Enjoy the free App

keep in mind that promo codes expire within 30 days of issue by the vendor and that the vendor may have issued your promo code in bulk days or weeks in advance – thus… use it or lose it  ;-)

The Problem

E-mail typically takes too long to respond to which results in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.

Given that our Time and Attention (two of our most valuable assets) are finite, we strive to find a way of responding to email effectively while managing our projects and building success stories for our Clients.

One Interesting Solution

Treat all email responses as we would SMS text messages and use a fixed number of characters per response – instead of counting characters in our emails, we count sentences. In addition, we do not check email more than 4 times each day.

To increase productivity and deliver the results that our Clients expect from us, we now spend less time checking email and have adopted the policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be five sentences or less.

At BoxOnline, we believe that how you spend your time and attention says a lot about who you are.

Hey there,

Why is it that most people in business think that they are going to sell what they have by delivering a list of features along with a few reasons why someone should buy their product?

The truth is that there is a much deeper psychological process behind making a decision to buy something than most business people realize.

When selling to Consumers, the pitch must appeal to a buyer’s emotions or the sale is simply not going to take place. When selling B2B, keep in mind that the buyer is still a human being with needs and a strong desire to succeed – a benefits oriented approach has been proven to be more successful than any other technique we tested during the past 20 years.

If you’re ready to sell something, we are ready to help you create a winning pitch.

The first step is a bit of homework so grab a pencil and some paper and get ready to answer a few questions:

• Write down a list of your competitors and their websites
• Write down what they’re doing, what they’re offering etc.
• List their product’s benefits

Ahh, now we come to the core purpose of this article…

Do you know the difference between features, advantages and benefits?

A feature is what a product has. In essence, the core components of your product or service; sometimes referred to as the bells and whistles or buttons, knobs, levers, switches, format, platform etc.

An advantage is what the product does or how it performs against a competitive product. A vacuum for example, is a product that might have the advantage that it doesn’t need bags. Another advantage would be that it can clean the floor in a room without you being present. In a services business one advantage would be the number of years of experience you bring to the table or your level of certification. Some common advantages include words like fast, easy, simple, cheap and good.

A benefit is what a given feature means to your prospect in terms of emotion and passion. A true benefit goes really deep and says something about how it makes you feel – a really great benefit gets a consumer excited because it means something special to the buyer.

Here’s a good B2C example. One of our Clients sells a facial cream online and she called it something like, microderm abrasion emulsion – essentially it is a cream that helps reduce wrinkles.

On her website she listed several features such as ‘it reduces wrinkles’, ‘it comes in an easy to use home care kit’, ‘it is pH balanced’ etc etc etc.

When she came to me to help increase sales, conversions and traffic… I asked her to:
Take a piece of paper and create three columns.
List as many features as you can in the first column.
In the second column, list what you believe are the top benefits.
She wrote down ‘because it reduces wrinkles, it makes you look younger’ and ‘because it comes in a home care kit, it is easy to use at home’ and the third one was ‘because it is pH balanced, it’s gentle on your skin’.

As politely as possible I let her know that those are really advantages not benefits so we continued the exercise and I asked her to list in the third column what she felt the ultimate end result for her Customer was going to be – in other words, ‘the ultimate benefit’.

Here is what she wrote:
‘If it makes you look younger: then it means you’ll be more attractive, you’ll get that promotion at work, you’ll feel more confident, nobody will know your true age, you’ll fall in love all over again and you’ll be able to attract that person you’ve had your eye on.’

‘Since it’s easy to use at home: you won’t suffer embarrassment by going to a doctor’s office, you don’t have to waste time, it’s like a face lift in a jar in the comfort and privacy of your own home.’

‘Since it’s gentle on your skin: there are no risks, no pain, no healing periods like surgery or those harsh chemical peels people usually buy.’

We had arrived…
These were descriptions of how Customers would feel before, during and after they used the product. They were a few of the true benefits this product offers its Customers.

In a very short time she was able to list several of the true benefits her product offers to her Customers. She took this piece of paper and changed her website to reflect the benefits. She also adapted every piece of marketing material including all advertising (online and offline), all landing pages, sales letters and Customer communications and within two months her sales doubled. One month later sales doubled again. Then she adapted the packaging to reflect the new text and sales doubled again. Sure we did some work on conversions and six months later, she was not able to buy as much traffic as she wanted – not even from Google ,Yahoo and MSN combined… Folks, this stuff really works!  I’ll let you guess if I am referring to the creme or the marketing process here.

Remember, real benefits go deep. They live within the emotional and passionate sweet spot of the person wanting or using your product. In order to increase your sales you will need to tap into that sweet spot and then use the real benefits in everything you produce to help sell the product.

Begin by figuring out what your prospect’s current emotions are regarding the things that your product addresses. Understand which of those emotions are the strongest, most compelling, most “dominant” in his or her life. Then identify the benefits your product offers that will most effectively enhance your prospect’s strongest positive emotions and/or resolve his strongest negative ones.

People buy for emotional reasons far more often than for merely rational ones. If you want people to act on your copy and buy your product, first determine how your prospect is likely feeling right now . Then, use your benefits as bridges to activate the emotions that will compel him/her to buy!

Now, let’s venture into the world of B2B with a comment or two and some real life examples. First my comments; B2B has specific demands that don’t apply to the B2C world. Most of the time these demands orient themselves around the concept of ROI. A few of the thoughts running through the heads of many buyers include: How will my business benefit if we were to buy your product or use your services or implement your widget? If you can orient your sales message around the benefits that your product offers to your target market then you have a much higher probability of closing a deal over your competition – and you will probably be able to reduce your sales cycle at the same time. Here is one of the best B2B examples I have ever read:

“Amazon S3 is based on the idea that quality Internet-based storage should be taken for granted. It helps free developers from worrying about how they will store their data, whether it will be safe and secure, or whether they will have enough storage available. It frees them from the upfront costs of setting up their own storage solution as well as the ongoing costs of maintaining and scaling their storage servers. The functionality of Amazon S3 is simple and robust: Store any amount of data inexpensively and securely, while ensuring that the data will always be available when you need it. Amazon S3 enables developers to focus on innovating with data, rather than figuring out how to store it.”

Notice that they are not listing bells and whistles here… this text is crafted specifically to get the business buyer emotionally involved. They decided to use the concept of freedom to achieve their objective. If you were a developer, wouldn’t it be nice to be ‘free of worry’ regarding at least one mission critical component of your site that has the potential to shut down your online business if your product suddenly becomes an instant hit?

As I encounter more brilliant examples like this, I will add them to this article. If you have a submission that you’d like us to review or even add as an example of how to do it, be sure to let us know by filling out our contact us form.

Friends, this article is serious. Based on a study conducted by Paypal in 2008, Internet users in the UK are much more likely to be victims of identity theft than their peers in both Europe and the USA.

The recent survey by PayPal and Ipsos Research of 6,000 online shoppers in 6 countries revealed that 14% of respondents in the UK admitted that they have had their identities stolen online. This can be compared with only 3% in Germany. More than half of respondents said that they used personal dates and names as passwords, making it relatively easy for hackers to gain access to accounts through manual efforts of trial and error. The French are particularly bold – two-thirds of the respondents claimed to use easily guessed passwords such as birthdays and telephone numbers but the icing on the cake was that over 80% of the French post this sort of personal data on social-networking sites. Unfortunately, the hackers enjoy trolling the very same social media sites too.

The article did not reveal how users could protect themselves so, in an effort to provide some form of public service… here are my recommendations:
1) Do NOT reveal detailed personal information on a public internet site such as myspace, facebook etc
2) If you have already ignored recommendation number one, check all of your passwords and ensure that they are at least 10 digits long and that they contain a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols such as # $ % ( ^ ) etc.
3) a strong password is something like RtY7f*e#2U and a weak password is something like 041277. To check the strength of your passwords, try using the Password Meter – you can even download it to increase your security based on what I am about to reveal to you in the next recommendation.
4) You may have already inadvertently downloaded some sort of spyware that is recording what you type and then transmitting the result to a hacker, a hacking community or an online thief. If you are running Microsoft windows without anti-virus or firewall protection, you might as well raise the white flag and surrender today. Even with both anti-virus software and a leading firewall installed, if you were teased into clicking on some sort of advertisement that downloads a file or more to your computer, chances are reasonable to good that your machine has been infected. One last comment on this topic before we move on – many people have a free version of an anti-virus software installed and they somehow manage to forget to update it regularly thus leaving their machine susceptible to attack. Solution… get a Macintosh and don’t click on links that promise ‘free porn’ or music downloads. For the paranoid among us, add anti-virus software to your Mac and then get back to work
5) Change your password regularly. Do not keep the same password for more than 60 days
6) Create a secure place to store all your passwords and keep them protected with encryption. Put them somewhere safe but easily accessible. My suggestion is to create a secure email account and use their document repository service to give you access from any location. Here is a leading secure email service that offers a free secure email address.
7) Review ALL of your passwords for online banking, email, secure web sites etc and change the password to something stronger today.

enough said, now let’s get back to our regularly scheduled broadcast ;-)