The People's Champ

ZebraPlan is a new agile project management software, designed primarily for software development companies. In my opinion, ZebraPlan is much more flexible and easier to use, compared to other agile project management softwares such as Jira, Rally, and PlanBox. 

What really separates ZebraPlan from its competitors are its features. ZebraPlan is the only agile project management software that has the built-in capabilities to review code, track the progress of outsourcing teams, and analyze team performance. This is a huge benefit for software development teams!

ZebraPlan’s simple to use interface and innovative features allow companies to keep their development projects on time and on budget.

Why you should choose ZebraPlan?

Powerful, yet easy-to-use

State-of-the-art features

Inexpensive

Real cloud solution

Open RESTful API

Tablet and mobile friendly 

SSL security

24/7 support

Earlier today, Jay Z had a press conference announcing a new music-streaming service called TIDAL. TIDAL is the first ever artist owned streaming service. 

I think this is interesting because many artists have recently voiced their displeasure towards streaming services such as Spotify. Many artists feel that they are not being compensated fairly for the amount of times that their albums and songs are streamed. Taylor Swift actually pulled all of her music off Spotify back in November due to compensation disagreements. 

As we all know, we are in an age where album sales have steadily declined and pirating/streaming are at an all time high. With the exception of artists like Taylor Swift, most artists struggle to sell records these days and have to focus on touring and merchandising to make their money. TIDAL could potentially put an end to that.

As for the service itself, TIDAL is a subscription-based music service offering high quality music and sound. This differs from other streaming music providers, such as Spotify, that offer both premium and free, ad-based options.

"This is a platform that's owned by artists," Jay Z said in an interview to the New York Times. "We are treating these people that really care about the music with the utmost respect."

How do you all feel about TIDAL? Do you think it will be successful? 

SXSW can be fun, exciting, overwhelming, and frustrating all at the same time. I’ve been participating in SXSW for the past 6 years, and it has grown considerably each year. Gone are the days where you can just walk into a venue without waiting in line, to see your favorite band. I’m here to give you a few simple tips that have allowed me to enjoy SXSW without buying an expensive badge.

Purchase the SXSW music wristband. These cost about $160 and they give you access to most of the music showcases that badges have access to. After badges, wristbands usually get next priority, so these will help you avoid waiting in long lines.

RSVP, RSVP, RSVP. RSVP to as many events as you can. Many events don’t require badges or wristbands, and they usually have free drinks! It can be overwhelming trying to keep up with all the RSVP’s but it is definitely necessary. Another option is RSVPster, which will RSVP you to every free event for a fee of $40. This route is much cheaper than getting a badge or wristband. It will also save you time from RSVP’ing to so many events.

Don’t roll with an entourage. From my experience, trying to coordinate with big groups of people takes away from the SXSW experience. Everyone has certain artists and bands that they want to see, so it is usually best to roll in small groups or even solo. You can always make new friends when you go to shows solo!

Follow Free Noms on Twitter. Free Noms is not affiliated with SXSW, but they will tweet out all the locations that are providing free food and drinks. This can come in handy when you have been out and about for several hours and need a quick bite to eat. You can follow Free Noms at @SouthByFreeNOMS.

With SXSW coming up, hundreds of Austin residents are looking to cash in by renting out their house or apartment to out-of-town visitors. Many Austin residents will list their house or apartment on Airbnb, HomeAway, and Craigslist, charging hundreds or thousands of dollars a night. I have personally never rented out my place during SXSW or any other big events, but I have several friends who have. I've been toying with the idea of listing my place on Airbnb but came across an article that made me reconsider that notion. 

The City of Austin is now requiring Austin home owners to apply for a short-term rental license (which costs $285), or be subject to a pay up to $2,000 in fines per day. According to the article I read, the Austin City Council passed a city ordinance in 2012 that makes this requirement mandatory. I personally do not agree with this ordinance. I think that homeowners should have the right to rent out their place whenever they want, to whomever they want, and for however much they desire. I just look at this as another way for the city of Austin to make more money. 

Below is an interview that was conducted on KVUE News, that talks about short-term rental license and how the city is cracking down on owners who are not in compliance:

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/blog/techflash/2015/02/st-edwards-capital-factory-partner-to-accelerate.html

Earlier today, I came across the above article, which announced the new partnership between St. Edward’s and the Capital Factory. This partnership will give students at the Bill Munday School of Business space to develop their ventures. I think that this is a huge move for St. Edward’s and most importantly our business school. For those of you not familiar with Capital Factory, they specialize in growing start-up companies. They essentially want to help people become entrepreneurs. The Capital Factory has a very competitive admission process but they have helped over 80 Austin start-ups. I have several friends who have been accepted into the Capital Factory and they have told me nothing but good things.

The Capital Factory will offer MBA students at St. Edward’s the opportunity to take up as many as five “co-work lite” memberships being offered through the partnership. Those in the program will also have access to a private desk, the use of classroom space, and open invitations to attend Capital Factory events. I am very interested in being a part of this and seeing how it develops over time. This could also be a huge selling point in recruiting potential MBA candidates.

"Our approach to business education is to connect our students directly to the rich Austin business environment characterized by entrepreneurship, social enterprise, innovation, global collaboration and business analytics," said Nancy Schreiber, dean of The Bill Munday School of Business, in a statement. “Our partnership with Capital Factory delivers all of this plus direct access to the innovators who are shaping the future of technology and entrepreneurship.”

I know that there are many MBA students who are concerned about the direction of our program, but I think that this partnership proves that we are headed in the right direction. Additionally, it is great to see our new dean supportive and excited about this new partnership with the Capital Factory.

When it comes to running an online business, it is important that you have visibility into the performance of your site, particularly how your customers interact with your site. Luckily, there is a free tool out there called Google Analytics that will help you do this. Below is the purpose of Google Analytics, as well as some of the key features and capabilities.

Purpose of Google Analytics:

Understand Your Audience

Sell and Convert

Make Business Decisions

Understanding Your Audience:

Know Your Audience

Audience Data and Reporting - This feature allows you to dissect your audience: the kinds of people they are, where they come from, how they find your content, and how loyal and engaged they are.

Advanced Segments - This feature allows you to isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic, like organic traffic or visits that led to transactions.

Filters - This feature allows you to limit and modify the traffic data that appears in any given report view (Ex: You can exclude traffic from certain domains). 

Trace the Customer Path

Traffic Sources - This feature allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your referring sites, direct traffic, social media platforms, organic (unpaid) search keywords, and custom campaigns.

Map Overlay - This feature allows you to see your visitor stats broken down by continent, country and city, which will help you understand the real origins of your traffic and find the best places to invest for new opportunities.

See What Your Audience Is Doing

Behavior Reporting - This feature allows you to see new vs. returning visitors, how frequent visitors come to your site, how long visitors are staying on your site, etc.

Flow Visualization - This feature lets you see and analyze the path a visitor takes on your site. See where they came from, the pages they moved through, and where they exited your site.

In-Page Analytics - This feature allows to see how users really interact with your pages (Ex: see where are users clicking the most on your homepage).

Sell and Convert

Reach Your Performance Goals

Ecommerce Reporting - This feature allows you too see the performance of your products. Trace transactions right down to specific keywords, understand shopper behaviors, and adjust your shopping cart to build loyalty and improve sales.

Goals - This feature allows you to measure your sales, downloads, email signups, conversions, or define your own business goals.

Reach Peak Capacity

Real-Time Reporting - This feature allows you to see how many people are on your site right now, where they came from, and what they're viewing.

Alerts and Intelligence Reports - This feature will call attention to any abnormal behavior happening on your site (Ex: A huge spike in traffic coming from a particular city or traffic source).

Site Search - When visitors can’t find what they want on your site, they search. This feature allows you to see what your visitors are really looking for, spot missed opportunities, and speed up time to conversion.

Site-Speed Analysis - This feature shows you load times across your site, so you can fix slow pages and make your visitors happier.

Make Business Decisions

Based on the information in Google Analytics, you will be able to make educated decisions regarding the following:

Product success and determination

How to better target and sell to your customers

Marketing and advertising strategies