What are they thinking with the free Wi-Fi at the mall?

Simon Property Group, Inc. (NYSE:SPG) is an S&P 100 company and the largest real estate company in the world. The Company currently owns or has an interest in 332 retail real estate properties in North America and Asia comprising 241 million square feet as well as a 29% interest in Klépierre, a publicly-traded French REIT with a portfolio of more than 260 shopping centers in 13 countries in Europe. They are headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana and employ approximately 5,500 people in the U.S.

  If you visit www.simon.com you will most likely find a Simon Property Mall near you. I went shopping on “Black Friday” with my two sons, mostly for the entertainment factor. Of course it was at a Simon Mall.

Here is what I found to be amazing. The entire mall had free Wi-Fi, even in the parking lot. Every shopper in the mall had smartphones in their hands. Not just cell phones - but smartphones.  I would say that most had iPhones, but I could not find a “regular” cell phone in the building.

For the first time I witnessed people using their smartphones while they were actively shopping. Simply scanning the bar codes of the item told you if the price on the item you were look at was good, great or terrible. It showed you what you could get the same item for online, also saving you sales tax and shipping. It showed product reviews. It was like having a professional shopper in your hand. All it took was one person doing it, and everyone would learn from the leader. People would say to strangers "would you scan this for me" if they did not know how to do it. 

And let the haggling begin!

I saw people holding up their smartphones, showing the clerks behind the counter why their sale price was no good. Or why they could get it cheaper online. Or why the store 200 feet away had a better price, or had a better instant coupon. All of these poor kids with holiday jobs at the mall, they did not know what to do but shrug their shoulders and smile. Happy Holidays!

Here is the question: why did the largest real estate company in the world give FREE Wi-Fi to everyone in the mall - so that the smartphone shoppers could beat up their rent paying tenants in said mall? Many people did not need the free Wi-Fi to use their smartphones, but now Simon Properties made it way too easy. By giving free Wi-Fi to every single shopper, they basically gave all the power to the consumer. Anyone with an item “on sale” at 50% off was caught red-handed, as we all can see that they just raised the prices just days before to then offer the 50% off discount. How embarrassing for the store owner.

Shopping with a smartphone. The smartphone genie is officially out of the bottle. The shopping malls of the future will continue to morph. Retail stores will need to compete against the smartphone shopper, battling against free shipping, no sales tax and hassle free returns without having to leave your home or office.  

I did my best to shop locally on Small Business Saturday, but it was very hard to not check pricing with my smartphone. I knew I was paying more, but I was supporting my local community. I don’t know how long this will last, but I am thinking that the era of the smartphone shopper is here to stay. 

And not just during the holidays.

Fade to Black

Black Friday is the name given to the day following Thanksgiving Day, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, often at 4 am, or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season. 

Black Friday is not an official US holiday, but many non-retail employers also observe this day as a holiday along with Thanksgiving, giving their employees the day off, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year.

The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit for the year, or are finally "in the black".

For many years, it was common for retailers to open at 6:00 am, but recently many had crept to 5:00 or even 4:00. This was taken to a new extreme last year when several retailers (including Target, Kohls, Macy's, and Best Buy) opened at midnight for the first time. This year, Walmart led several other retailers in announcing it would open its stores at 8:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, prompting calls for a walkout among some workers.

Black Friday is now the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Black Sunday??? You can go online today buying anything that you want at "Black Friday" pricing. You can make your purchase via your iPad, and pick up at the store at your convenience. What's next? Are we going to just jump to Black November? Why not just make the entire month of November "black" and be done with it?

Now I have an idea.  

Every year when I pay my taxes, I am asked if I would like to donate $1 to the Presidential Campaign fund. I always say yes, out of fear that someone at the IRS is flagging all returns that say no. 

This year, why not have all online stores do the same?  Ask: "Would you like to donate $1 to Hurricane Sandy Relief"?  You are already shopping online. You are saving gas, tolls, parking. You are saving shipping fees and sales tax by shopping online. Think about it. 

$1 vs. the billions of dollars that will be spent online between now and Christmas. One single dollar would not be missed. One hundred pennies. What would this money do for the families that have been devastated by the storm? The money generated for those who need it the most would be truly amazing. If we used last years numbers, $1 times 226m equals just short of a quarter of a billion dollars raised for Hurricane Sandy relief in one single day. In one day!

The National Retail Federation releases figures on the sales for each Thanksgiving weekend.

Year	Date	Survey Published	Shoppers, millions	Average Spend	Total Spend	Consumers Polled	Margin for Error
2011	Nov 24	Nov 27	226m	$398.62	$52.5 billion	3,826	1.6%
2010	Nov 25	Nov 28	212m	$365.34	$45.0 billion	4,306	1.5%
2009	Nov 26	Nov 29	195m	$343.31	$41.2 billion	4,985	1.4%
2008	Nov 27	Nov 30	172m	$372.57	$41.0 billion	3,370	1.7%
2007	Nov 22	Nov 25	147m	$347.55	n/a	2,395	1.5%
2006	Nov 23	Nov 26	140m	$360.15	n/a	3,090	1.5%
2005	Nov 24	Nov 27	n/a	$302.81	n/a	n/a	n/a

Now, I would love to see Amazon, Best Buy and everyone else make this an option at online shopping cart check out. I would like to see this option at every cash register in the retails stores as well. In 2011, we spent $52.5 billion on Black Friday. The average person spent $398.62 on Black Friday last year. This year, it will be even more. 

It might be too late for this $1 donation idea to take off. This year, the Capone household will keep track of what we spend on Black Friday. We will then send a nice donation to the Red Cross and to Catholic Charities USA. The Capone clan will be saving a ton of money on Black Friday, and we can't send some of that savings to those who have lost everything? Ahem. 

Take a picture

Geek Alert Begins here: Digitizing or digitization is the representation of an object, image, sound, document or a signal (usually an analog signal) by a discrete set of its points or samples. The result is called digital representation or, more specifically, a digital image, for the object, and digital form, for the signal. Strictly speaking, digitizing means simply capturing an analog signal in digital form. For a document the term means to trace the document image or capture the "corners" where the lines end or change direction. A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs by recording images on an electronic image sensor. Most cameras sold today are digital, and digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile phones(called camera phones) to vehicles. <End of Geek Alert>

Google eBook - Image Scanned from Paper Book Original

Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast. As of this blog post, there are still areas of New York without power. Lives were lost. The damage from Sandy might exceed $50 Billion. Is climate change real? Is this a trend?

When people are interviewed standing among the rubble of Hurricane Sandy’s damage, there is one theme that is common. What was lost that can never be replaced? What is the one loss that is the most avoidable?

We lost our pictures. We lost our documents. We lost our memories.

Buildings can be rebuilt. Cars can be replaced. Even the most serious physical damage can be addressed. But the one thing that cannot be replaced, the thing that no amount of money can repair, the thing that even the most comprehensive insurance policy cannot possibly cover is ironically the most avoidable.

Every photo, every document, every slide, every video can be digitized. Baby Pictures. College Diplomas. Birthday Party Photos. Wedding Photos. Little League Game Trophies. Class Pictures. All of the things that were hung on the refrigerator in the kitchen could be (and should be) digitized.

 Who has a calendar hanging somewhere in their kitchen? Each month, use a cell phone and take a picture. Capture those 30 days of memories. What did that take, four seconds? That one photo will trigger a flood of memories.

We live in a digital world. Paper books are constantly being replaced by eBooks. “Physical” assets are constantly being replaced by digital copies.

When we talk about “backing up your files” we think of hard drives that crash, and laptops that get dropped, lost or stolen. In today’s world, there is no excuse to ever lose a digital asset, not with all of the internet cloud tools at our disposal.

Maybe we can change this thinking.  Maybe we can start thinking of it as “backing up your life”.

Take your cell phone and stand in the corner of the room. Take a picture. Move to the other corner, take a picture, and repeat this process until you have a full image of the contents of the room. You now have a digital archive of that room.  If you did this just a few minutes several times a year, you now have:

• A time capsule for your family memories
• An invaluable tool for insurance claims
• A way to reconstruct and recover after a disaster

Go into your children’s bedroom. Do this before or after cleaning up, up to you. Take a picture of the contents of the room. Take a picture of the handmade art. Take a picture of the school awards hanging from the bedpost. The stuffed animals on the bed, the posters on the wall, the contents on the nightstand. What books were you children reading at the time? Now you will remember - ten, twenty, thirty years from now. You have it all in an archive, safe and secure off-site in the cloud.

Ladies: how long would it take for you to make a photographic digital archive of the contents of your closet? If you lost all of your shoes due to Hurricane Sandy, and you wanted to claim them on your insurance policy, what would such a digital archive mean to you? I understand that one single pair of “Jimmy Choo” shoes can be more than $100 to replace. Can this possibly be true? Do people really pay a lot of money for shoes?

There are many things that obviously should be digitized, backed up and archived in the internet cloud. But it is the non-obvious things that people easily miss. The family pictures. Grandma’s hand-written recipes on index cards. Grade school handmade art saved in shoe boxes from their proud days on display on the kitchen refrigerator. Some things are easier to digitize than others, but once you start down this road, it is amazing what you discover. Make it a hobby, make it as important as changing the batteries in the smoke detectors. Just do it.

• Take a picture / scan it / copy it / digitize it
• Backup it all up in the internet cloud

Think of this as your family archive, your family time capsule. Yes, the internet has changed everything, but you need to help it along, to be a hero after the disaster. With or without the reminders from Mother Nature, you should digitize your life. It is the right thing to do.

"For Excellence in Digital Archiving"

Listen to your mother

Hurricane Sandy was a tropical cyclone that devastated portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States in late October 2012. In diameter, it was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, with winds spanning 1,100 miles.

Sandy is estimated in early calculations to have caused damage of at least $20 billion. Preliminary estimates of losses that include business interruption surpass $50 billion (2012 USD), which, if confirmed, would make it the second-costliest Atlantic hurricane in history behind only Hurricane Katrina.

It had a notable influence on the presidential election by raising the issue of global warming. In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected at least 24 states, from Florida to Maine, with tropical storm force winds causing impact in states as far west as Michigan and Wisconsin. The cyclone brought a destructive storm surge to New York City on the evening of October 29, flooding numerous streets, tunnels and subway lines in Lower Manhattan, Staten Island, Coney Island, the Rockaways and other areas of the city and cutting off electricity to parts of the city and its suburbs, especially Zone A areas near waterways which were issued evacuation orders. Severe damage occurred in New Jersey, especially in the communities along the Jersey Shore.

I live in New Jersey. The damage from Hurricane Sandy is beyond words. As of this blog post, the temperature is dropping, and there will be many without power tonight. And, they are predicting a Nor’easter for this week. My wife and I were spared from the storm, as we checked in to a local hotel early Tuesday morning. I was able to work comfortably without interruption. My wife, our dog Bella and I survived with very little damage to our home.

It is times like this that I think of my mother. My mother always knew best. Mom always said that “Mother Nature” was never a force to be ignored. No one ever takes on Mother Nature and wins. My mother would always worry if we had enough warm clothes, a blanket in the car, and a flashlight with fresh batteries. I was born in New Jersey, but when I was twelve years old we moved to Boca Raton, Florida. I remember living in “Hurricane Alley” for years, and we were the best prepared family for any tropical storm.

My mother was my muse when I formed www.MyTotalProtection.com  We cannot hope to win a battle with Mother Nature. But we can do our part to be prepared, to do our best to survive and recover. And then, to help others. FEMA says that “the first 72 are on you” which means that for 72 hours after a disaster, you need to expect to receive little or no help from the government. You need to be prepared to take care of yourself, for at least 72 hours.

Everyone reading this Sunday blog post has survived Hurricane Sandy, but will we ever learn? Will we take the necessary steps to prepare and to be ready for the next storm? Will we finally listen to our mothers? 

Be safe.

*****

Everything that you see below can be found via www.MTP-USA.com.  Many of these products and services are 100% free to MTP valued clients. Please do your best to be prepared. And remember, the first 72 are on you.

Solar and Hand-Crank Powered Emergency LED Flashlight with Radio and Mobile Phone Charger. Free to all MyTotalProtection clients.

Product Features Super Bright LED Flashlight-LED bulb provides over 100,000 hours of emergency light. AM/FM Radio-Excellent reception for tuning into emergency broadcasts. Solar Power-Solar panel allows you to charge the internal battery by placing in direct light for unlimited usage. Hand Crank Power-Built in generator allows you to charge the internal battery by cranking with your hand so that you never run out of battery power. Mobile Phone Charger-Can help save lives, by providing enough power for  voice or text conversations. Comes with universal adapter that connects to your iPad, Tablet PC or cell phone's car charger.

Flo n' Go pump gives you gas station functionality with away-from-the-pump convenience. Patented design prevents overflows with auto shut-off, restart and siphon control, so fuel transfer is fast and safe. Attaches to all plastic Jerry cans; adapter included to fit Jerry cans. EPA approved.  Free to all MyTotalProtection clients courtesy of MTP.

NeatDesk is a high-speed, duplex desktop scanner and Digital Filing System. Scan receipts, business cards and documents in one batch while the software identifies, extracts and organizes key information. Scan every important document and photo, have have digital files save and secure in the cloud. How many people lost family photos or other irreplaceable paper documents during the storm?


  Data backup is essential to a business’ survival.  If a sound backup plan is not in place a business is vulnerable to valuable data loss and it can result in business closure.  They just can’t recover from the loss of data.  Data is the heart of a business.  Without files, documents, and operating systems a business simply can not function.  Backing up data using removable storage such as external hard drives, flash drives, cd’s, tapes, etc are at best unreliable.  Fires, theft, hurricane, tornado's, power surges, unintentional deletion and more are real dangers for any business no matter the size.  These types of dangers can affect anyone and are the main reasons why removable storage is not the most effective way to back up data.  They are susceptible to the same dangers as the computer itself and if both are lost what would a business do?  Try it for free: www.MyTotalProtection.com



In an emergency, how will you stay in touch with your family and co-workers? With Studio from MTP, you create a presentation with audio and desktop content and share it with employees, prospects, clients, family members, and peers to access when they want or upload to the web for the world to see - All for FREE!  Comes with unlimited free global audio and web conferencing.

I want to MEET meet you

I am going to meet someone really cool this week.

It is someone famous. It is someone that I admire, someone that I wish to emulate. It is someone that I first met via Facebook. And now, I will get to meet them - live and in person.

And then it hit me today. For the rest of my life (or at least until Facebook collapses) I will have only two kinds of friends. The kind that I first meet in real life (and then “friend-ed them” online) or the kind that I first meet online, and then met them in person.  

That’s it.

Virtual friends that become real, or real friends that become virtual.

There will always be Skype, and VoIP and even HD Video Conferencing. There will always be emails, and tweets and online posts. But I don’t think anything will replace the power of true face to face interaction.

I sell technology for a living. I am convinced that distance learning is future of education as well as business, and that technology based learning systems will continue to change the way the world learns, works and plays.

But nothing will make me feel the way that I am feeling as I write this blog post. I don’t think I will ever feel this excited to get a tweet, or read a post, or do a Skype video call with anyone. This is going to be real. I am meeting someone that I really admire - live. Nothing beats this feeling of anticipation and excitement.  

Distance learning is the future of education. The college experience will never be the same for all future generations. But no amount of 3D high definition “anything” will replace that visceral feeling when you meet that special person live. It will not matter if it is your teacher or your client. Communication while within your personal space (handshake distance) will become the gold standard for personal interaction. In the future people will turn in expense reports to cover such “handshake” meetings. “But boss, an HD video conference was just not enough, I needed to MEET meet this person!”

Now on your own Facebook account: are they your virtual friend that you actually met, or are they your real friend that you chat with online?

“Yeah, they are your friend alright, but did you ever MEET meet them?  

Huh, did you???”

Listen to me!

 I'm a fan (and a long-time student) of Body Language. In a world where technology has made global communication easy and immediate, there remains numerous situations where good old-fashioned, face-to-face communication is paramount to creating the most beneficial outcomes. Regardless of which mode of communication is most appropriate for the situation, there are several barriers that can derail even the best intended communication.

Perceptual Barriers
How you approach a conversation can easily determine the difference between engaging and persuading the other person or subconsciously sabotaging your efforts from the start. Example: A salesman had heard that the new buyer was already sold on a competitor and would listen politely to other vendors, but - had already made up his mind. Armed with this rumor, the salesman chose not to spend much time making his proposal and just happened to "make a comment" that garnered an unexpected response from the buyer—a response that quickly indicated that he actually was open to seriously entertaining the salesman’s proposal. By approaching the situation with a preconceived idea, this salesman nearly sabotaged his own sales efforts.

Physical Barriers
Closed doors, walls that separate and distance people, even staying seated behind a large desk can place a barrier between two communicators. The more open the environment, the more the potential for strong communications.

Language Barriers
Language issues can arise from two areas—cultural language differences and industry jargon. It’s all too common for people to use industry jargon, forgetting that clients, while familiar with your industry, may not fully comprehend the jargon shortcuts. To avoid potential conflict, use words and terms that anyone could understand and leave the jargon for industry colleagues.

Cultural Barriers
While language from differing cultures can be a natural barrier to overcome, don’t ignore other cultural practices that may be mistaken for rudeness or lack of professionalism. Take time to understand potential differences and find a common ground from which to communicate.

Emotional Barriers
This can be one of the most difficult barriers to overcome. When the emotional issue is yours, it is critical to set your emotions aside in order to have productive communication. When you sense another’s emotion is the issue, be sensitive and respond accordingly. Most importantly, never let your emotions alter the ability to build, rather than detract, rapport.

Stress Barriers
People respond differently when they are under stress. Learn to identify stressful situations and modify your tone and approach so as not to be misunderstood.

Gender Barriers
Although this barrier has decreased through the years, the reality is that it still exists to some extent. Research has shown that men and women tend to form their thoughts differently. Take this into consideration and use clarifying statements to ensure that clear understanding is achieved.

Certainly the use of technology (such as HD Videoconferencing) can be a great asset when it is used appropriately. Yet it is extremely important to remember that nothing nurtures relationships like face-to-face. When face-to-face, individuals develop more confidence. When customers know that you take the time to show that you have their best interest in mind, that’s a winning customer relationship.

I will match your energy

The Maine Solar House website: www.SolarHouse.com Harvest the sun's energy for power and heat. Located along the Maine coast, it keeps the owners warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

“We have been 'harvesting' the sun since 1995 and we feel fortunate to have made the decision then to lead a solar life. The benefits have been personal, spiritual and financial. Our investment has been paid back and our lives are more than comfortable in the ever-changing weather of coastal Maine. Debbi was a music major at the University of Maryland and then received her masters degree from Boston University. I was a communications major at Boston University and went on to receive my masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Each morning we wake up looking for the sun. We are 'solar groundhogs' but in our case we are pleased to see our shadows because it means free energy to power and heat our home.”  ~The Maine Solar House

*****

I own www.MTP-USA.com  I have been in the “Energy Business” since the 90’s. The deregulation of the Energy industry is very similar to what I lived with the deregulation of the Telecommunication industry.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first significant overhaul of the United States telecommunications law in more than sixty years. The Act, signed by President Bill Clinton, represented a major change in American telecommunication law, since it was the first time that the Internet was included in broadcasting and spectrum allotment. According to the FCC, the goal of the law was to "let anyone enter any communications business -- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other."

Cool! Anyone (even the little guy) can be in the telecom business. Today, anyone (even the little guy) can be in the energy business.

Is there anyone reading this who does not use the telephone, or use a cell phone or use the Internet? Is there anyone reading this who does not use energy every single day?

Ask yourself this question: if you were IN the business, who would be your first customer for said business?  (hint: look in the mirror).

I bought my first cellular phone in 1983 because I wanted to be cool. Having a car phone was my James Bond 007 moment. I did not have a job (still in school) but had a phone in my car! Since I could not afford the $1 per minute calls, I figured out a way to BE IN the business.  My motivation?  Free cellular phone service. Ah yes, driving with the top down, talking on the phone. I have not paid (out of pocket) for cellular phones or service since 1983. Thousands of clients later, I owe it all to my love of James Bond movies.

www.Nest.com  Check this out.  Watch the video. Tell me why you would not buy this immediately? Tell me why you would not stop what you are doing and do this - buy this - right now?  Guess what: MTP gives this amazing tool to our energy clients for free - as a thank you for being a client. Guess what else: we can tell if they activate and install it - and not everyone does!  FREE money - FREE energy. Ah, no thanks, I like paying more.

I guess sometimes people don’t have enough “energy” to do what it takes - to save energy.  

Anyone who is still paying full price for telephone, cellular or Internet service has no one to blame but themselves. Anyone paying full price for gas or electricity, has no one to blame but themselves. Anyone with a www.Nest.com still in the box, not even installed (takes around 15 minutes) has no one to blame but themselves.

I am an extreme case (some would say nut case) so your own results may vary. You do not have to build a www.SolarHouse.com but you could easily do so. You don’t have to sell “yourself” your telephone service, your Internet service, and even your electricity, but you could easily do so. The government made it easy for you to save money (and make money) by using and promoting the exact same services that you use (and pay for) every single day.

But before you do anything, ask yourself this question:  If you were given (for free) a www.Nest.com would you have enough “energy” to install it? Remember, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make 'em turn down the thermostat.  

Want to learn more?  Email me at CEO@mtp-usa.com  I can’t do it all for you, but I will match your energy.