The Evolution of the Online Interior Design Industry

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Theres just one thing online interior designer entrepreneurs like me love more than cupcakes and thats being at the vanguard of the evolution of an entire industry.

Every industry has had its challenges when it comes to evolving to better serve its customers online. Many industries struggle with piracy, others with delivery and logistics. My industry, residential interior design, has struggled to evolve its cost-to-serve model toward something that is attractive to more than just the wealthiest one percent of Americans.

When I launched online interior design website HMDhome.com six years ago the first sightings of my online interior designer competition could be found buried on page eight of a Google search in the form of a website selling “design in a box”. “Design in a box” consisted of the client completing a rudimentary online form (inclusive of room dimensions and style questions) and paying $800 via PayPal to an interior designer hundreds of miles away whom theyd never get to speak to, let alone develop a relationship with. Six to eight weeks later a large hat box was to be delivered full of a very carefully curated selection fabric samples, paint chips, furniture plan drawing and a shopping list of furniture, lighting and decorative accessories.

Admirable in its presentation quality the design in a box as a product was extremely beautifully prepared however as a business model it was doomed to fail for three reasons. It was an impersonal transaction in an industry that requires consultative collaboration. It was technically an improperly curated catalog because it represented what the designer had to offer, not what the client ultimately purchased for their interior design project. Finally, for the typical homeowner it was expensive. At this price point the interior designer wasnt expanding the overall interior design client base to a broader market and I suspect they failed to convert a meaningful number of home owners to online interior design in the process.

Today, home owners planning a home renovation or remodeling project can get tremendous value from online interior design services at a fraction of the cost of the original design in a box. Virtual services include ongoing consultation with a designer, specifications for colors, furniture, fixtures and finishes and access to exclusive designer discounts from popular retailers and trade sources.

Let me bore you for just a moment with some important statistics about the highly fragmented residential interior design industry relevant to its potential future online evolution.

A May 2011 report by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics indicated there are 40,950 interior designers in the US inclusive of all disciplines (residential, hospitality, corporate, restaurant and specialty). A minority of these professionals are expected to be localized residential interior designers serving fewer than 1% of US households with a traditional cost to serve model made up of hourly design fees and/or extra-retail product mark-ups.

The most significant barrier between interior designers and millions of potential new customers is the structure of the current interior design cost-to-serve model which is prohibitive for all but the wealthiest Americans.

According to a 2010 household income report from the US Census Bureau 8.4% of households earn in excess of $150K per year. While 90.2% of these were owner occupied as of two years ago, its estimated that 7.8 million households representing a potential prime demographic for online interior designers have never before consulted with an interior designer.

With a lean six sigma black belt on staff at
Homemade Design Corporation (HMD) you can bet we collect and analyze key client data related to our online interior design firm. For example, 89.6% of approximately 954 current HMD clients report having never hired a designer before working with Homemade Design. Among the primary reasons given for not previously having hired an interior designer is the perception that hiring an interior designer will increase overall project costs.

Yes, wealthy homeowners in the Hamptons may enjoy bragging about how much theyve spent as they sip champagne at the polo match. However, for the online interior design industry to evolve toward delighting a greater number of interior design clients we must enable them to brag about how much they have saved.

Career Review Going into the Philippine Call Center Industry

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The Philippine call center industry has truly grown in the past year. This is because the Philippines offer all that outsourcing offshore businesses need. First and foremost of these is the available competent workforce and relatively lower cost of labor as compared to an onshore operation. The industry has developed well and lead race in the global outsourcing industry. Every since the industry was went full swing in 1999, there was no turning back in development. A significant number of such businesses established in India moved or branched towards the Philippine archipelago when the large potential for the countrys geographic location was realized.

So are you Ready to Work in a Call Center?
Call centers, also called contact centers are great places to work in especially since one does not need any specific degree to get into one. A lot of Filipinos, according to surveys, have college degrees. However, you could have either finished mass media or nursing and it would not matter. All you need are the right skills especially in communicating with people and you could get hired right away. The best part about getting into this kind of career however, is the pay. This industry offers highly competitive salary rates even for the entry level applicants. This is why the call center has so many applicants.

However, it is not all fun and games. There are also a lot of challenges that one must face when getting into a career as a contact center agent. So what exactly are these challenges?

Challenges of Working in a Philippine Call Center
There are many challenges to working the contact center conditions. Filipinos basically love to wake up early in the morning to work (as opposed to say people in Hong Kong where the night is alive and people sleep till almost noon). But this will have to change because the call center industry requires one to work during the night. This is of course because the Philippines is almost at the opposite end of the globe to the U.S. where most of the customer calls will most likely come from. Thus, the time differential is immense. Day time in the United States is Night time in the Philippines. Conversely, night time in the Philippines is day time in the U.S.

There some dangers to working at night that one should first be aware of before considering going into the contact center industry game. Remember that the body has a natural circadian rhythm also commonly called as ones “body clock.” The body biological clocks time was determined by billions of years of evolution. Reversing this can have bad effects to some people with weak constitutions who cannot adjust well enough. Those with bad respiratory problems will exacerbate their problems. But those with heart diseases should not even consider going into such a career.

Other than these, working in a Philippine call center can be fun and comfortable if one can adjust well enough. The pay is good and there are always good medical benefits such as health cards.

Good Physical Fitness In The Call Center Industry

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With the rapidly increasing call center industry, more and more people are engaged in countless hours of grueling training and practicing on how to handle calls, file reports, schedule personnel and inventory checks, and more. With globalization, the different call centers required shifts even during the graveyard timeframe, which means that call center agents would have to endure the normal sleeping hours working just to be accommodate transaction calls from halfway around the world. Good physical fitness in the call center industry is simple and defined into three simple key words: coffee, cigarette, and alcohol.

With the long continuous hours in which the agent endures sitting idly talking to a headset, it would definitely cause the body to slow down and lessen the persons capability to circulate the blood within. This causes a reflex action of yawning, which signifies a greater need of oxygen in the respiratory – cardiovascular area. It would also manifest a sense of sleepiness.

As a result of this common phenomenon, coffee has been one of the mainstays of the call center agents, and personnels alike to combat sleepiness and degradation of competent performance. Even if the direct effect of coffee to the body is to keep us awake, there are detrimental effects of too much coffee such as possible kidney complications and dehydration.

Lessening the amount of coffee per day would also lessen the amount of urged moments for the agent to go to the bathroom. Furthermore, lessening of bone density has been found on chronic coffee drinkers.

Cigarette:

Another avenue for stress release of agents in the call center industry is by lighting up a cigarette or two during break time or lunch hour. Many of these agents claim that the habit of lighting up of a cigarette during free time not only increases their social sphere but also lessen their anxiety and work related stressors.

However, we all know the negative effects of cigarettes to the lungs and body of a smoker. For one, the smoke coming from the cigarettes passes through our respiratory system. This smoke is a combination of impure particles which we allow to reach our lungs and attach to our bronchioles. A gradual and significant blocking of the smoke in the linings of the bronchioles would lessen the amount of oxygen exchanged between, which causes us to have difficulty in breathing.

Alcohol

After work shift hours, one of the usual stress release methods of agents is to go to the local hangout place and have a round or two of alcoholic drinks. This happens especially when salaries have been doled out. However, when alcohol is excessively ingested, could damage the liver. The liver is mans natural fat and alcohol synthesizer. An excessive alcohol load on the liver to synthesize in frequency may cause the liver to malfunction or lead to alcohol induced cirrhosis.

These three things are the main culprits in lessening the health status of call center agents. Good physical fitness in this concept would entail being able to say no or lessen these three culprits. Staying in the call center industry is technically a tedious and health taxing job to undergo, especially due to the high demand of work. Nevertheless, substitutes for these may come on the form of healthy fruit juice, or any other healthy food. It is a matter of initiative and choice for one to good physical fitness when faced with a situation.

The Pros And Cons Of Unionization In The Airline Industry

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For flight professionals and the general public alike, one of the most recognized parts of the airline industry is the strong union presence among its professionals. Major international and national airlines have been unionized for decades in order to protect flight professionals from excessive pay and benefit cuts meant to secure the bottom line. However, unions have been considered a mixed blessing by the media, the public, and airline executives. Striking flight attendants, pilots, and flight technicians sometimes hold up flights, drawing ire from customers. As well, airline executives by and large feel that unions ask too much from airlines when many companies are struggling to stay afloat financially. There are pros and cons to the union process for professionals, though it still benefits them to this day.

It is important to start with the negatives of unionization in the airline industry before speaking of its virtues. The decline of labor unions in the United States and North American countries has made the airline union appear like it is fighting a losing battle with public opinion. As well, the benefits of comradery amongst union members have been weakened by increasing competition for jobs in the airline industry. While the union advocates hard for workers and businesses have obliged in the past, many airline executives would rather concede optional health care plans and other benefits than give up the big paydays that unions often push for. Finally, the aforementioned problem of strikes among airline unions can often make flight professionals look selfish and unsympathetic.

However, the public should realize that unions have helped keep flights in the air for years by averting greater labor strife. Indeed, the airline unions are one of the last places in the American labor landscape where successful negotiations are still a common occurrence. Airline professional unions offer flight crews, pilots, and attendants an opportunity to develop relationships with colleagues in other companies while working toward competitive salaries. As well, companies and the public should look at how the union’s bargaining power not only benefits flight professionals but the overall business.

Unions are able to negotiate group health benefits for their members, which helps the company save on providing more expensive health options. The union-business relationship is not one sided and while unions push for higher wages, the compromise wages that are established in negotiations help keep experienced professionals in the industry. The unionization of airline workers benefits everyone involved but flight professionals need to be aware of these different pros and cons to gain a fuller picture.

Fiberglass Fan For Chemical Industry

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CB Blower fans can be supplied to be gas tight and made of special materials to resist corrosion. Fans and turbo blowers are supplied to provide air for carbon black plants and for sulphuric acid plants.

Chemicals industry provides the widest range of challenges for rotating equipment. CB Blower Co. fans and blowers operate in conditions encompassing extreme pressure and temperature, and handle a wide range of gases containing aggressive and toxic components. Demanding specifications and strict safety requirements must be met and above all is the need for dependable operation over long periods.

CB Blower Co. fans meet the challenge of moving gases continually, reliably, efficiently and safely. They are built to API, or equivalent industry standards and their performance has been proven over many years of operation; and the blowers can meet unusual requirements that include dual drive systems with automatic drive engagement / disengagement and special materials of construction.

CB Blower Co. fans and pressure blowers are found in all major process plants. The range of applications is very wide but includes:

custom engineered centrifugal process fans for combustion air supply. These may be used directly for fired heaters for ethane or naphtha cracking plant and for processes with steam reforming such as methanol, or for boilers serving general utilities. Flue gas extraction and tail gas clean up are among the other applications for which we have supplied custom fans.
auxiliary boiler and other pre-engineered fans.
cooling fans for mechanical draught cooling towers, air-cooled heat exchangers and air-cooled condensers.
turbo blowers for sulphur recovery combustion and reaction air, sulphuric acid and carbon black plant
screw type pressure blower systems for process gas handling, notably for butadiene plants, gas turbine gas fuel compression and process refrigeration.
reciprocating turbo blowers for hydrogen processes – hydrocracking, visbreaking, catalytic reforming

The demands placed on equipment in the chemical industry are particularly high. Toxic, corrosive and unstable gases are frequently a part of chemical production processes. Maintaining the purity of gases being handled is a priority in the pharmaceutical and biological industries. CB Blower Co. supply a range of fan / blower types to the chemical industry, from fans for boiler and incineration plants that supply heat and process steam, to fans that are used on exhaust and emissions control systems to equipment that handles the materials being processed. In such a diverse industry the range of applications is very wide but there is often the need for special materials to prevent corrosion by gases such as wet hydrogen chloride and hydrogen sulphide. The blowers are adapted to meet these special needs.

For additional information please refer to http://www.cbblower.com/coolair.html

Oleg Chechel
Ventilation Equipment Designer
CB Blower Co.

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