Katie: Welcome dear friends to Episode 31 of the BusinessMakers Overtime Show, heard hear and online at the BusinessMakers.com. We're your hosts Katie Laird -

Esther: And Esther Steinfeld.

Katie: And today we are at the awesome and most delicious Block 7 Wine Company recording our show. We've got a great guest, Sarah Gish, founder of Gish Creative and popular newsletter GISH PICKS in Segment 2, the BusinessMakers Breakdown. And we've got wine, did we mention that?

Esther: Uh-oh.

Katie: (Laughter) Yeah, apparently we like to incorporate alcohol into our broadcast from time to time, go figure.

Esther: We do. Now because our guest is such a phenomenal Jill-of-all-trades kind a gal, we're talking multitasking in Segment 3. You might be surprised to hear that even though you think you're awesome at multitasking, studies show that you are not.

Katie: Uh-oh. (Laughter)

Esther: Yeah, that's in Segment 3 of the special feature section. We'll kick off the show with the Business Week in Review, giving you commentary on the hottest stories of the week, so let's do it.

Katie: Let's do it! Alright, so first up, this isn't something that comes a surprise to me at all, but an article in Inc. magazine tells us about a recent Inmar marketing study saying that for the first time in 17 years, there's been a major spike in United States use of coupons.

Esther: Oh! We've talked about coupons on the show before too.

Katie: We have! I mean there's so many great places to get them. But what's so weird to me is that why just in the last year, like we've been fumbling through an economic recession. Like, have you not watched your mom on Sunday morning? Come on people! (Laughter)

Esther: Maybe it was denial. Maybe people finally realize, "Oh God, I really don't have a lot of money.

Katie: Exactly. So last year, businesses issued 367 billion coupons!

Esther: Man!

Katie: And buyers redeemed 3.3 billion of those 367 billion coupons. So we're kinda leaving a lot of the table here.

Esther: But not that many.

Katie: Nope. (Laughter)

Esther: I mean, apparently online coupon access increased 92 percent and Google searches for printable coupons and online printable coupons more than doubled.

Katie: That is not surprising at all.

Esther: Gosh!

Katie: At all. Now what I really like, have you ever used Cellfire.com?

Esther: No.

Katie: So, you know I'm kind of a tree-hugger, like to save the paper, save the world, let's hug. Cellfire is a great paperless way to get coupons. You can actually log in, put 'em on your cell phone and just show it to your cashier.

Esther: Awesome.

Katie: Or even just automatically put 'em on to your frequent shoppers cards.

Esther: And you know what, a lot of mobile technology eventually is gonna allow us to scan coupons -

Katie: Yes!

Esther: Just right from our cell phones. I mean you can already do that with boarding passes. And actually Target is the very first retailer, this just happened I think a week or two ago, was the first retailer to have scannable gift certificates -

Katie: Really!

Esther: - on phones. So you can send someone a gift certificate that has a barcode and they can take their phone in to Target and use that as their gift certificate instead of sending this piece of paper in the mail.

Katie: Exactly, but that's a double-bummer though because my favorite thing about Target gift cards besides getting to spend money at Target, is that they're the prettiest. (Laughter)

Esther: They are pretty.

Katie: They have holograms and dancing puppies. (Laughter)

Esther: I know they are. They are, but that's one less little piece of plastic that is made to destroy the world.

Katie: Small price to pay. (Laughter)

Esther: So by now you've already heard about Kevin Smith and his Diet Tribe against Southwest Airlines -

Katie: Oh boy.

Esther: - and his crazy rambling podcast describing the situation. Yes we know you have a lot of money, we know you can afford several seats. The rest of us plebes cannot, fine.

Katie: Right, and we know you're pissed off 'cause they kicked you off the plane.

Esther: We know you're mad, right, we get that. However, I think it really does raise an interesting point. What do you think about the fact that Americans are increasing in size? Do you think that airplanes should adjust their seats to accommodate for this type of physical growth? (Laughter)

Katie: I mean, if a company's really focused on meeting the demands and the needs of the consumer, then yes. But at the same time -

Esther: What a weird penundrum.

Katie: It's such a weird thing to have to completely remodel your plane outlines for people whose girth is just a little too big. (Laughter)

Esther: Ah, yeah.

Katie: But I mean I definitely experienced numerous flights where I have been sitting next to somebody that was literally in my seat.

Esther: Yeah, overflowing into your seat. It's very uncomfortable.

Katie: It was absolutely miserable. And I mean there was one flight where I actually had to request and it was very awkward. But I'm like, "There's no room for me here, you know, no room in the inn, I've gotta move."

Esther: (Laughter) That's really funny. I can actually not see that because you're so nice that to actually -

Katie: It was that bad. And the guy was eating a lot and he kept doing the elbow thing into me. It was not pleasant.

Esther: So I mean think about it, the whole point of an airline is to make money.

Katie: Right.

Esther: I mean and they do that by getting people from one place to the other. So passenger size isn't necessarily a factor to them. In this Business Week article, Greg Powell, a Vice President at BE Aerospace, the Florida company that makes the seats for Southwest 737 fleet, said that there's a very unlikely chance that any airline is going to adjust their seats for passenger size because they already have nowhere to go. They would basically have to take out a whole row of seats, so it would kind of be two seats instead of three in a row.

Katie: And that's not profitable.

Esther: That's a whole lot of revenue loss.

Katie: Yeah. That is not profitable at all.

Esther: They already are struggling so I don't see that really happening.

Katie: Yeah, yeah. What if you're not overweight. Like there are just some people that are just big. I mean they're tall and they're just - I mean think of football player, linebacker type dudes like -

Esther: And several people mentioned that. They say, "I'm not fat person. I'm seven feet tall so I weigh 300 pounds."

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

Esther: Not because I'm fat, but that's just how much weight.

Katie: And they're not a human pretzel so what are you gonna do with yourself. (Laughter)

Esther: So, I don't have the answers, but -

Katie: I don't either.

Esther: - Southwest - all airlines will have this problem to face.

Katie: They really will, yeah. So unless they start offering loads and loads of coupons for buy one, get one free or half off, maybe people will be like, "Holy cow! Like, I have business travel and my company will not buck up for an extra seat. Let's go to Weight Watchers." (Laughter)

Esther: Yeah, exactly.

Katie: So another pretty interesting story out there in the world right now is all about definitely Google Buzz which is you know, recently been released. But Microsoft Outlook is now upping its social network hub ante. (Laughter)

Esther: Nice.

Katie: Exactly, so another article in information weekly talks about Microsoft Outlook puffing its social networking chest by offering this new little plug in called Outlook Social Connector, AKA OSC, because geeks apparently have to have a weird name or an acronym for everything. (Laughter)

Esther: Mm-hmm.

Katie: So of course in November of 2009, Microsoft and LinkedIn announced a partnership for an Outlook app that basically lets people see exactly what they're connections are doing on LinkedIn just by being pinged with an email. So, Esther you and I are connected on LinkedIn. If you emailed me to my work account in my Outlook, without even leaving my inbox I can see exactly what you been up to on LinkedIn since last I've been checking you out on the Internet.

Esther: Oh good.

Katie: And now, it's moved on from beyond just LinkedIn, but now they're looking at MySpace, they're looking at Facebook, so it's kind of completely ripping apart what we think of as email. I mean it's no longer just a place where you get messages in your inbox. I mean, it's insane.

Esther: And it's a really good time actually for them to be pushing this tool simply because Google Buzz is being panned by every media outlet there is I mean, for its privacy problems and just for being pretty much useless.

Katie: Pretty much useless. And actually the electronic privacy information center is filing an official complaint with the FTC specifically for compromising user privacy.

Esther: Oh God!

Katie: So you know that those Microsoft engineers are like, "What, uh-huh, uh-huh." (Laughter)

Esther: Google did something wrong! Oh my gosh, alert the presses! Google did something wrong, I can't believe it.

Katie: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Esther: It's about time.

Katie: Yeah, actually it kind of is. They're not infallible you know. Like they need to watch themselves you know. And as much of a fan as we are of many Google products, this has really not made us happy.

Esther: No.

Katie: I mean I have completely - not uninstalled, but deactivated Google Buzz because I just don't trust it you know. Like there are things precious to me that are not worth putting out there to anyone.

Esther: Completely agree.

Katie: Absolutely. So we've had a guest on the show before, on the BusinessMakers Show, Mark Schmulen of NutshellMail and whenever we're talking about Google Buzz or Microsoft's OSC, I really keep going back to NutshellMail which is basically a consolidated email that comes in your inbox that lets you know what's going on with your different friends and different updates on the network. And to me that's just a whole lot more seamless than actually seeing every single thing somebody else is doing just because they've emailed me.

Esther: Absolutely.

Katie: Yeah, yeah. And we're gonna talk a lot more about multitasking and I think that plays pretty well into Segment 3. (Laughter)

Esther: Yeah.

Katie: Oh, how many things can one do? (Laughter)

Esther: How many things can you do well at one time is the question.

Katie: Exactly, exactly. So, while I do care about you Esther, I really don't give a darn what you been doing in LinkedIn today so, you know.

Esther: (Laughter) I actually haven't been doing anything in LinkedIn for quite some time -

Katie: Okay, there we go. (Laughter)

Esther: - so you don't have to worry about that.

Katie: Exactly. (Laughter)

Esther: Well I guess that wraps up Segment 1 of Business Week in Review. On to Segment 2.

Katie: On to Segment 2.

Esther: We've got our wonderful guest, Sara Gish coming up. She is the Founder and CEO of Gish Creative and she is just full of great ideas. You're gonna learn a lot from her, so stay tuned.

Katie: Yes, can't wait.

Esther: You're listening to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. I'm Esther Steinfeld -

Katie: And I'm Katie Laird.

Esther: And we'll be back with Segment 2, the BusinessMakers Breakdown. (Laughter) So we better start figuring out how to make more and save what I already have.

Katie: Exactly. So last year, businesses issued 367 billion coupons!

Esther: Man!

Katie: And buyers redeemed 3.3 billion of those 367 billion coupons. So we're kinda leaving a lot of the table here.

Esther: But not that many.

Katie: Nope. (Laughter)

Esther: I mean, apparently online coupon access increased 92 percent and Google searches for printable coupons and online printable coupons more than doubled.

Katie: That is not surprising at all.

Esther: Gosh!

Katie: At all. Now what I really like, have you ever used Cellfire.com?

Esther: No.

Katie: So, you know I'm kind of a tree-hugger, like to save the paper, save the world, let's hug. Cellfire is a great paperless way to get coupons. You can actually log in, put 'em on your cell phone and just show it to your cashier.

Esther: Awesome.

Katie: Or even just automatically put 'em on to your frequent shoppers cards.

Esther: And you know what, a lot of mobile technology eventually is gonna allow us to scan coupons -

Katie: Yes!

Esther: Just right from our cell phones. I mean you can already do that with boarding passes. And actually Target is the very first retailer, this just happened I think a week or two ago, was the first retailer to have scannable gift certificates -

Katie: Really!

Esther: - on phones. So you can send someone a gift certificate that has a barcode and they can take their phone in to Target and use that as their gift certificate instead of sending this piece of paper in the mail.

Katie: Exactly, but that's a double-bummer though because my favorite thing about Target gift cards besides getting to spend money at Target, is that they're the prettiest. (Laughter)

Esther: They are pretty.

Katie: They have holograms and dancing puppies. (Laughter)

Esther: I know they are. They are, but that's one less little piece of plastic that is made to destroy the world.

Katie: Small price to pay. (Laughter)

Esther: So by now you've already heard about Kevin Smith and his Diet Tribe against Southwest Airlines -

Katie: Oh boy.

Esther: - and his crazy rambling podcast describing the situation. Yes we know you have a lot of money, we know you can afford several seats. The rest of us plebes cannot, fine.

Katie: Right, and we know you're pissed off 'cause they kicked you off the plane.

Esther: We know you're mad, right, we get that. However, I think it really does raise an interesting point. What do you think about the fact that Americans are increasing in size? Do you think that airplanes should adjust their seats to accommodate for this type of physical growth? (Laughter)

Katie: I mean, if a company's really focused on meeting the demands and the needs of the consumer, then yes. But at the same time -

Esther: What a weird penundrum.

Katie: It's such a weird thing to have to completely remodel your plane outlines for people whose girth is just a little too big. (Laughter)

Esther: Ah, yeah.

Katie: But I mean I definitely experienced numerous flights where I have been sitting next to somebody that was literally in my seat.

Esther: Yeah, overflowing into your seat. It's very uncomfortable.

Katie: It was absolutely miserable. And I mean there was one flight where I actually had to request and it was very awkward. But I'm like, "There's no room for me here, you know, no room in the inn, I've gotta move."

Esther: (Laughter) That's really funny. I can actually not see that because you're so nice that to actually -

Katie: It was that bad. And the guy was eating a lot and he kept doing the elbow thing into me. It was not pleasant.

Esther: So I mean think about it, the whole point of an airline is to make money.

Katie: Right.

Esther: I mean and they do that by getting people from one place to the other. So passenger size isn't necessarily a factor to them. In this Business Week article, Greg Powell, a Vice President at BE Aerospace, the Florida company that makes the seats for Southwest 737 fleet, said that there's a very unlikely chance that any airline is going to adjust their seats for passenger size because they already have nowhere to go. They would basically have to take out a whole row of seats, so it would kind of be two seats instead of three in a row.

Katie: And that's not profitable.

Esther: That's a whole lot of revenue loss.

Katie: Yeah. That is not profitable at all.

Esther: They already are struggling so I don't see that really happening.

Katie: Yeah, yeah. What if you're not overweight. Like there are just some people that are just big. I mean they're tall and they're just - I mean think of football player, linebacker type dudes like -

Esther: And several people mentioned that. They say, "I'm not fat person. I'm seven feet tall so I weigh 300 pounds."

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

Esther: Not because I'm fat, but that's just how much weight.

Katie: And they're not a human pretzel so what are you gonna do with yourself. (Laughter)

Esther: So, I don't have the answers, but -

Katie: I don't either.

Esther: - Southwest - all airlines will have this problem to face.

Katie: They really will, yeah. So unless they start offering loads and loads of coupons for buy one, get one free or half off, maybe people will be like, "Holy cow! Like, I have business travel and my company will not buck up for an extra seat. Let's go to Weight Watchers." (Laughter)

Esther: Yeah, exactly.

Katie: So another pretty interesting story out there in the world right now is all about definitely Google Buzz which is you know, recently been released. But Microsoft Outlook is now upping its social network hub ante. (Laughter)

Esther: Nice.

Katie: Exactly, so another article in information weekly talks about Microsoft Outlook puffing its social networking chest by offering this new little plug in called Outlook Social Connector, AKA OSC, because geeks apparently have to have a weird name or an acronym for everything. (Laughter)

Esther: Mm-hmm.

Katie: So of course in November of 2009, Microsoft and LinkedIn announced a partnership for an Outlook app that basically lets people see exactly what they're connections are doing on LinkedIn just by being pinged with an email. So, Esther you and I are connected on LinkedIn. If you emailed me to my work account in my Outlook, without even leaving my inbox I can see exactly what you been up to on LinkedIn since last I've been checking you out on the Internet.

Esther: Oh good.

Katie: And now, it's moved on from beyond just LinkedIn, but now they're looking at MySpace, they're looking at Facebook, so it's kind of completely ripping apart what we think of as email. I mean it's no longer just a place where you get messages in your inbox. I mean, it's insane.

Esther: And it's a really good time actually for them to be pushing this tool simply because Google Buzz is being panned by every media outlet there is I mean, for its privacy problems and just for being pretty much useless.

Katie: Pretty much useless. And actually the electronic privacy information center is filing an official complaint with the FTC specifically for compromising user privacy.

Esther: Oh God!

Katie: So you know that those Microsoft engineers are like, "What, uh-huh, uh-huh." (Laughter)

Esther: Google did something wrong! Oh my gosh, alert the presses! Google did something wrong, I can't believe it.

Katie: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Esther: It's about time.

Katie: Yeah, actually it kind of is. They're not infallible you know. Like they need to watch themselves you know. And as much of a fan as we are of many Google products, this has really not made us happy.

Esther: No.

Katie: I mean I have completely - not uninstalled, but deactivated Google Buzz because I just don't trust it you know. Like there are things precious to me that are not worth putting out there to anyone.

Esther: Completely agree.

Katie: Absolutely. So we've had a guest on the show before, on the BusinessMakers Show, Mark Schmulen of NutshellMail and whenever we're talking about Google Buzz or Microsoft's OSC, I really keep going back to NutshellMail which is basically a consolidated email that comes in your inbox that lets you know what's going on with your different friends and different updates on the network. And to me that's just a whole lot more seamless than actually seeing every single thing somebody else is doing just because they've emailed me.

Esther: Absolutely.

Katie: Yeah, yeah. And we're gonna talk a lot more about multitasking and I think that plays pretty well into Segment 3. (Laughter)

Esther: Yeah.

Katie: Oh, how many things can one do? (Laughter)

Esther: How many things can you do well at one time is the question.

Katie: Exactly, exactly. So, while I do care about you Esther, I really don't give a darn what you been doing in LinkedIn today so, you know.

Esther: (Laughter) I actually haven't been doing anything in LinkedIn for quite some time -

Katie: Okay, there we go. (Laughter)

Esther: - so you don't have to worry about that.

Katie: Exactly. (Laughter)

Esther: Well I guess that wraps up Segment 1 of Business Week in Review. On to Segment 2.

Katie: On to Segment 2.

Esther: We've got our wonderful guest, Sara Gish coming up. She is the Founder and CEO of Gish Creative and she is just full of great ideas. You're gonna learn a lot from her, so stay tuned.

Katie: Yes, can't wait.

Esther: You're listening to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. I'm Esther Steinfeld -

Katie: And I'm Katie Laird.

Esther: And we'll be back with Segment 2, the BusinessMakers Breakdown.