Business News

AGBeat’s top 50 industry influencers

(Business News) In an effort to expand horizons, we have listed 50 influencers that we are inspired by and learn from on a regular basis.

Published

6 years ago

January 2, 2014

The American Genius Staff

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Marsha Collier

marsha collier [dropcap style=”style1″]M[/dropcap]arsha Collier specializes in writing, social media marketing, eBay business, e-commerce, user experience, community relations and online customer service.

What is most fascinating about Collier is that she has already written over 45 books, several of which are a part of the “for Dummies” series. She sold over one million books by 2007 and now spreads her passion for social media to universities and conferences around the world and hosts #techradio.

Few people in the industry have worked as hard as Collier, and her determination and devotion are clear in her accomplishments.

Matt Hixson

matt hixson tellagence big data expert [dropcap style=”style1″]C[/dropcap]o-Founder and CEO of social media prediction company, Tellagence, Matt Hixson is passionate about changing how businesses approach social media by identifying trusted relationships in social networks and predicting behaviors within specific topics of interest. Prior to Tellagence, Hixson spent over a decade delivering corporate initiatives from bringing an enterprise startup from concept to market in nine months, to pioneering social strategies, to driving strategy development at an $80 million organization. Hixson never puffs his chest, never condescends, yet is one of the smartest people in his industry and his company Tellagence, is poised to explode in 2014.

Meghan McCain

meghan mccain millennial expert [dropcap style=”style1″]E[/dropcap]xamining important topics for Millennials on her television show, Raising McCain, Meghan McCain has offered a unique insight into a budding generation.

On her Twitter account, she is authentic, brash, cusses, and is real, just as she is in her show. She is influencing not only her own industry, but viewers and listeners who desperately seek to understand Generation Y.

With her determination and refusal to accept the status quo, watch for McCain to be a voice for her generation for years to come.

Michael McClure

michael mcclure real estate professional, influencer [dropcap style=”style1″]C[/dropcap]EO of Verified Professionals, offering a CPA- like certification for the real estate industry, Michael McClure is also the founder of Professional One Real Estate and the co-author of the Swanepoel Technology Report.

McClure is also a CPA and worked at Price Waterhouse for a decade before entering real estate where he went on to co-found RaiseTheBar Radio and the Raise the Bar Facebook Group.

One of the perpetual good guys, McClure has devoted an unfathomable amount of unpaid hours to helping the real estate industry to suck less.

Miriam Slozberg

[dropcap style=”style1″]A[/dropcap]s a SEO and Social Media Consultant, owner of Gemini Rising, and co-owner of Social Influence University, Miriam Slozberg is highly invested and influential in social media.

Slozberg has captured our attention through her evangelism for and expertise regarding Klout, social media scoring site.

She is one of the few excellent source of information about Klout and what it means for businesses, and freely on her Twitter account, @msmir.

Keep clicking for other influencers you must meet:

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The American Genius Staff

The American Genius is news, insights, tools, and inspiration for business owners and professionals. AG condenses information on technology, business, social media, startups, economics and more, so you don’t have to.

34 Comments

Linda Bernstein

January 2, 2014 at 2:22 pm

So many terrific people here! I love this list.

Reply
Christopher S. Penn

January 2, 2014 at 2:40 pm

Thanks for including me! Much appreciated.

Reply
Ted Rubin

January 2, 2014 at 3:50 pm

Honored to be included 🙂

Reply
Miriam Slozberg

January 2, 2014 at 4:05 pm

Very honored to be included! Thank you.

Reply
Amber Osborne

January 2, 2014 at 4:27 pm

Honored to be included among those who inspired me to get into this industry. Thank you!

Reply
annhandley

January 2, 2014 at 4:45 pm

This list is stuffed full of people I’m lucky enough to call friends, as well as many who have influenced *me*. Thanks for adding my name to the roundup.

Reply
Charles E Gaudet II

January 2, 2014 at 5:51 pm

Thank you for the honor! I’m both humbled and grateful to be included among this least of extraordinary people.

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
AmyVernon

January 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Thanks so much for the honor folks. I’m fortunate to have met many of these folks, and now have a whole list of others I want to make sure I catch up with!

Reply
Liz Strauss

January 2, 2014 at 7:31 pm

Thank you, AGBeat, for the thought and work that went into writing about all of us. You captured the people who have influence not just their resumes, making this fun to read. I’m honored that you included me.

Reply
Michelle Poccia

January 2, 2014 at 8:34 pm

This list is chock full of GENIUS! Congrats to all who are on it! And thanks AGBeat for my 2014 Stalker List!

Reply
Danny Brown

January 2, 2014 at 8:56 pm

Nice to see such a diverse group, and appreciate the fact you took the time to share reasons why people might want to connect, versus a generic “OMG, these guys are just awesome, y’all!!”

Cheers for the kind inclusion, and Happy New Year!

Reply
J Philip Faranda

January 2, 2014 at 9:33 pm

I hope to meet Michael McClure in person someday! He is remarkable.

Reply
Belinda Summers

January 2, 2014 at 11:00 pm

Gee! A bunch of people I look up to. 🙂 How I wish to be one of them someday.

Reply
Matt Hixson

January 2, 2014 at 11:38 pm

This was a great way to start the year. Thanks for including me.

Reply
Belinda Summers

January 3, 2014 at 1:00 am

Gee! A bunch of people I look up to. 🙂 How I wish to be one of them someday.

Reply
Lucretia M Pruitt

January 3, 2014 at 3:02 am

Some of my favorite people on here… Glad to see AGBeat and I agree on so many awesome people as influences!! Congrats for a solid list and kudos to some awesome folks.

Reply
Lucretia M Pruitt

January 3, 2014 at 3:02 am

Some of my favorite people on here… Glad to see AGBeat and I agree on so many awesome people as influences!! Congrats for a solid list and kudos to some awesome folks.

Reply
Michael Q Todd

January 3, 2014 at 6:37 am

Great list and especially great endorsements well done for taking the time and effort have subscribed to you

Reply
S. Anthony Iannarino

January 3, 2014 at 10:39 am

Thanks so much for including me on this all-star list! I am honored!

Reply
Heather MacLean

January 3, 2014 at 11:34 am

Great list. Nice to see some really familiar faces as well as some new ones.

Reply
agbenn

January 3, 2014 at 1:36 pm

As the Founder and Publisher of The American Genius, I certainly do not want to sound callous, and text can be so impersonal. We hear your feedback, and have noted it for future reference. When we see people, we see human beings, whatever their race or gender.

In saying that, our pick if we were considering race or gender ie. a particular Hispanic Influencer, it would have undoubtedly been His Holiness, Pope Francis. However, because we’ve covered His Holiness, several times in the past month, it gave way to another open spot out of hundreds of thousands of potential people we considered one by one. To be quite honest, I actually had to go back and look and read every entry to see if anyone was or wasn’t Hispanic.

For the record, I am Hispanic, and I am honored to have our team present this list as it is, and with innocent hearts. We do know several of the persons you’ve mentioned and do hold them in very high regard.

So thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback and encouragement, and we look forward to meeting and getting to know a few on your list. 🙂

Reply
Brian Hansford

January 3, 2014 at 1:47 pm

So nice to see some new faces in a list. It gets old seeing lists with the same names over and over just to get SEO juice.

Reply
agbenn

January 3, 2014 at 2:01 pm

Maya, bless your heart for sharing your kind thoughts and ideas with us. We agree with your sentiments profoundly, and thank you for recoginizing the complexity of what we’re presenting through our lists. We’ll take your idea and have the team bounce it around and see if we can’t do something as meaningful more often. As you know, things become passe when over done, even when done well. For the record, you influence me in thought provoking ways, and that’s not easy to do with a guy like me.

Happy New Year, and kick 2014’s ass!

Reply
tracysestili

January 3, 2014 at 5:19 pm

I love listening to Brian Carter speak. He’s not only funny, but real. Plus he presents data in a way that you didn’t think of. Glad to see he made the list and a few of my other faves. 🙂

Reply
Eve Mayer

January 4, 2014 at 5:47 pm

Whoa, I’m so lucky to be on this list! Thank you very much for thinking I’m somewhat as cool as all those respected peeps!

Reply
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Business News

Why the world is looking at HEB as the model for preparedness

(BUSINESS NEWS) HEB didn’t react quickly, they had been planning and putting processes in place for years. Businesses that want to live through hard times need hard plans.

Published

2 days ago

April 6, 2020

Erin Wike, Staff Writer

In the midst of COVID-19, there seems to be a grocer retailer that should be recognized for how they quickly adapted their processes and supply chain as it relates to providing one of the most essential items we all need: groceries.

HEB is a regional grocer with over 400 stores in Texas and Mexico. In January 2020, they were recognized by Business Insider as being one of the best grocery stores in America. Now if you live in Texas for example, you probably have your own reasons why you love HEB (based in San Antonio, TX) but here are some reasons to truly appreciate their leadership, management and partners even more.

They actually have been working on their pandemic and influenza plan since 2005. When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and surrounding areas extremely hard in 2017, HEB was instrumental in helping the communities to rebuild. They have done an incredible number of things like:

Implementing a Director of Emergency Preparedness
Offering raises to their store managers and employees (called partners) as a great incentive to keep up their great efforts and work
Allowed the partners flexibility in sick leave
Worked with supply chains early on identify areas that needed additional attention and how to still manage daily shipments of food and other grocery items
Put in signage in stores and setting up lines to help manage the amount of people in stores and the guides for social distancing
Adjusted store hours so that there would be ample time to re-stock overnight to meet consumer demands
Set limits on some items early on so that more customers would have access to those that they need
Continue to monitor the situation and adjust as needed
Received praise even from the popular Bren Brown about their Daring Leadership

While we continue to navigate what our day to day looks like, it seems like a great idea to take learnings from who is doing it well and give praise to those that are aiding however they can in this current climate and we are forever grateful for access to groceries, toilet paper and other things – thank you, HEB.

Business News

34 places to find open remote jobs available now

(BUSINESS NEWS) With everything seeming in flux and uncertainty, there are still companies with open positions who are looking to hire people right now, so jump to it!

Published

2 days ago

April 6, 2020

Taylor Leddin, Staff Writer

It goes without saying that these are difficult and unusual times. The number of Americans that have filed for unemployment has hit over 6.6 million and many more will be adding to that number in the coming weeks. In March alone, 701,000 jobs were cut by employers in the United States.

A Job Quality Index, developed by Cornell Law School and others, finds that 37 million jobs may be at risk. A

ccording to the study, “The list assumes that the COVID-19 crisis does not ultimately result in widespread, long-term, layoffs of goods-producing workers (i.e. that the crisis will be of modest duration). It focuses on those workers in sectors that are effectively being forced to shut down as a result of social-distancing recommendations or shelter-in-place requirements.”

While everything is changing around us every single day, something that remains a constant is a fact that people need money. Online businesses, delivery services, grocery stores, and the like are busy like they’ve never been before. As a result, a number of companies within these industries are looking to hire people immediately.

We even have our own Facebook Group dedicated to remote work, Remote Digital Jobs.

Check out the list below to see 34 companies or search sites that offer remote jobs currently open:

• Aetna
• Amazon
• AngelList
• A Place for Mom
• Apple
• BMarko Structures
• Bellhops Online Service
• Collage.com
• CVS
• Dollar General
• Domino’s
• DoorDash
• GrubHub
• Humana
• Instacart
• Intuit
• Kelly Services
• Kroger
• Lionbridge
• LiveOps
• Nielsen
• Outschool
• PagerDuty
• Papa John’s
• Pizza Hut
• PepsiCo
• Publix
• Redox
• Rosetta Stone
• UnitedHealth Group
• Walgreens
• Walmart
• Williams-Sonoma
• Worldpay
• Xerox
• Zoom

Additionally, Get Hired via LinkedIn is continuously updating who is currently hiring. According to the description from curator Andrew Seaman, “Companies from industries spanning from technology to retail are hiring to meet increased demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Below is a regularly updated list of companies hiring right now.”

As noted, the list above are all companies and sites offering remote/work-from-home positions. The Get Hired list may include positions that require on-site work.

Business News

Debunking ridiculous remote work myths (and some serious survival tips)

(BUSINESS) People new to remote work (or sending their teams home) are still nervous and have no concept of what really happens when people work from home. We’ll debunk that.

Published

1 week ago

March 30, 2020

The American Genius Staff

With an entire nation (or planet) moving to a remote workforce in the midst of a global pandemic, we’re hearing some pretty wild misunderstandings of what remote work is, and how it functions effectively. Bosses are scrambling to buy up spying tech for some good ol’ hamfisted enforcement.

For those of us who have been remote for ages, it’s fascinating to watch the transition. And also offensive. People tweeting about getting to take naps and not wear pants. That’s not remote work, that’s just you being unsupervised like a child for five minutes, KEVIN.

I was chatting with my buddy Michael Pascuzzi about remote work (full disclosure, he’s a Moderator in our Remote Digital Jobs group) and despite cracking many jokes, we realized there is a lot of noise to cut through.

In the spirit of offering meat for you in these hungry times, Michael offered to put his thoughts on paper. And why should you listen to him? It’s because he has worked for several tech companies, both startups and enterprises including TrackingPoint, 3DR, and H.P. He currently works remotely for Crayon, a Norwegian Digital Transformation, and Cloud Services company. He holds an M.B.A. in Digital Media Management from St. Edward’s University and a B.A. in Art History from the University of Connecticut. He’s also wonderfully weird. And a remote worker.

In his own words below:

So you’re working remotely now. Cool.

At first, it feels.. strange. But, as you get into it, you’ll get comfortable with your routine.

I’m sure you have a preconceived notion of remote workers. You probably thought this type of work was just for Unabombers and nomads. Maybe you don’t think you have a real job any longer because you’re doing it in your Underoos.

While, yes, working from home does allow you the option to work in your underwear, you still probably shouldn’t. There’s a lot to working from home and getting work done. You’re going to get a crash course in the coming weeks. I’m going to give you a leg up on your peers by telling you what you really need to know and what nobody else is telling you about remote work.

The following is a cheat sheet to getting ahead of your peers – and maybe make a case for you to continue in this lifestyle after the pandemic has subsided.

1. Working remotely doesn’t mean playtime

Right now, you’re roughly one week into your new working arrangement. You’ve got your table, your computer, and your whole set up. You’re also taking advantage of:
– The creature comforts of home
– Nobody looking over your shoulder

Irish coffees for breakfast, no pants-wearing, and naps during lunch are all available to you now that you work from home. And let’s not forget about #WhiteClawWednesdays!

These are all terrible ideas.

Here’s why:

If you come to a phone/video meeting drunk, we’ll know. If you’re on a video call with bedhead and a wrinkled shirt, we’ll assume you’re unprofessional. White Claw Wednesdays are probably okay in moderation, but taking a shot every time Karen says something annoying on a conference call is a bad idea!

Working from home should be an enjoyable and comfortable experience, but it shouldn’t be fun. It’s still work; and work sucks.

2. Working remotely should give you a better work/life balance:

Initially, you’ll find it hard for you and for your employer to separate your work hours from your life hours. Staying working only during your work hours is VITAL to keeping your sanity. Microsoft Office 365 has a tool that measures your wellbeing in “My Analytics.” Below is a picture of my wellbeing for this month. It’s not good.

digital accounting of wellbeing

The leadership team and managers at my company stress wellbeing. We take that chart seriously, and failing to have quiet days doesn’t make you look like a hard worker. Hard workers get shit done 8-5.

3. Working remotely also doesn’t mean firing the nanny

Working remotely doesn’t equal additional family time. Your work hours are your work hours. The pandemic quarantine doesn’t leave a whole lot of options for families to coexist without overlapping.

And it’s okay to occasionally have a “coworker.” But, you need to create your own private workspace within the hustle and bustle of homeschooling going on around you.

Here are a few more best practices you won’t read anywhere else:

You’ll need to learn to distance yourself from “work” when no longer at your “office.” This means powering down at the end of the day. Having a work/life balance when you work from home tends to swing in the opposite direction than you probably assumed; work can take over your life.

You’re going to have to turn off mobile notifications 100% of the time. It’s a pandemic, you’re not traveling; you don’t need them on – ever.

Turn off your computer at the end of the day. It’s good for your computer, and it’s fantastic for your mental health.

If your manager needs to reach you or you need to contact a direct report, just follow the wise words of Kim Possible: Call me, beep me if you wanna reach me.

You must wear pants. (FYI guys, dark leggings look like real pants and are super comfortable) Get ready for your day as if it were a regular office. Take a shower, shave, comb your hair, eat breakfast in the kitchen, wear jewelry. Look like you give a damn.

You must turn on your camera for video calls (and please don’t take your laptop into the bathroom. no field trips). Nonverbal communication accounts for 93% of all communication. We need to see your face, your posture, your eyerolls.

All of your calls should be video calls. You’ll find you’ll miss humans if you do not see them daily.

Clean the room (or at least directly behind you). We shouldn’t see laundry and quarantine snacks in the background. We absolutely should never HEAR you opening a bag of chips.

Close your door. Kitchen, office, bedroom… whatever you’re using needs to be YOUR space. It’s your office. Your clubhouse. Only one Homer allowed.

And for the love of all that isn’t COVID, please wear pants.

More resources:

I’m on a team at Crayon that freely consults on working remotely and cloud technology. This isn’t a sales pitch. If you have questions or need productivity tips, you can always email my team directly at contact.us@crayon.com.

Meanwhile, here are some additional resources to dig into: