Trade at the Tip Market

The TipMarket_™ is an interactive “trading post” that uses print and electronic media to make possible the exchange of helpful ideas, information, and insights among business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs. Its premise is: “Experience is the best teacher; shared experienced is the best education.” It allows proven veterans who’ve “been there; done that” to make their know-how available to other venturers –as well as to students and teachers– in the world of business.

Exchange is facilitated through the use of lists, a time-honored tool that’s been used to convey advice and counsel since the time Moses received his list of ten “shall nots.” Lists ensure succinct, to-the-point transfers of fact and expert opinion. Plus, they’re entertaining and cost-free! You can find out all about the power and payoffs that can be conveyed by lists at www.BrainFoodToGo.com/Tips

Become a Tipster_™

The simplest way to benefit from the TipMarket involves a round-robin tip list that is emailed every month to volunteer “tipsters.” The email consists of a partially completed list of tips that's focused on a topic of critical interest to business leaders. Recipients simply tap into their personal experience to add one or more items to the list, and bounce it back to the BrainFood TipMarket. There, all submissions are combined, edited, and embellished, and rolled into one BigMagillah TipList_™ that’s re-mailed to each contributor. Completed lists are also distributed world-wide as printouts and podcasts via the BrainFoodToGo.com web portal. Once a list is added to the on-line BrainFood menus, it can be expanded even further by others with new tips to offer.

In addition, summary publications and CDs are compiled from aggregated feedback and distributed as compilations of BrassTacksTips to libraries, business schools, venture incubators, and professional associations like SCORE, and small business development centers.

Join the action as a Source or a Scribe.

You can also contribute individual tips and comprehensive tip lists directly to the TipMarket at www.BrainFoodToGo.com/Tips.

A Source is personally experienced in a particular field of business endeavor. Sources include veteran business leaders as well as teachers, authors, consultants, professionals, bloggers, and SCORE volunteers who are willing to share what they've learned. Sources get great satisfaction from knowing that their hard-earned knowledge is becoming part of a valuable, timeless archive which will be put to productive use by other ambitious business leaders.

Scribes solicit insights from other recognized authorities. These list compilers include students, journalists, bloggers, publishers, and researchers. They obtain their input from personal interviews, books, speeches, blogs, web sites, and other, often-overlooked caches of knowledge. These “hunter-gatherers” not only learn a lot in the process but also make valuable personal contacts, get prominent exposure in the business world, gain professional recognition, and become eligible for High Five Awards.

Pick a format that works for you

Your know-howcan be contributed in any format, from a simple one-item entry on a monthly e-mailed BrassTacks TipList_™to a long list of written or recorded tips. Written contributions can range from 10 to 1000 words. Recorded audio and video tips are also encouraged. One of the most popular formats among TipMarket“shoppers” is the HighFiveList_™, which consists of only five of the most relevant tips relating to a specific topic. Suggestions for creating lists of all kinds can be found at www.BrainFoodToGo.com/Tips. Sample lists can be viewed there, too. Remember, the most helpful lists offer compilations of peoples’ experiences, advice, admonitions, and guidelines. They’re bare-bones, to-the-point itemizations that are both important, useful, and easy-to-grasp.

In addition to hosting Brass Tacks TipLists,^™ the BrainFoodToGo.com web portal provides many helpful suggestions for deriving benefit from a variety of other helpful list formats including To Do Lists, HighFive Lists, Junto Lists, and BossBasher Lists. Lists can be extremely helpful in gaining self-understanding and in establishing productive communication with team members.

The TipMarket can benefit many

Small business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs

Gems of peer-to-peer operating advice are available via e-mail, RSS syndication, and at www.BrainFoodToGo.com. It’s actionable know-how that's flavored by the experiences, challenges, successes, and failures encountered by seasoned movers and shakers. The BrainFoodToGo.com portal features menus of hot, current topics as well as extensive archives. If a particular, narrow topic isn’t already covered, a new list-making initiative can be quickly launched to collect the input sought. The easily-accessed BrainFood menus consist of lore, lists, legends, legacies, and life-learning that’s condensed and formatted into books, printable lists, and downloadable audio and video podcasts.

Employees

Ambitious workers can initiate bottom-up requests for assistance in list-making from other team members in their companies. Such a list-motivated project can provide aspiring employees with opportunities to meet more seasoned leaders in higher echelons of the company. It’s a great way to connect with a mentor! In turn, company leaders get opportunities to meet with and evaluate talent within a business.

Students

Learners enjoy easy, convenient access to a huge assortment of learning resources compiled by experienced professionals in the (real) world of business. In fact, list projects provide a reason to arrange one-on-one interviews with “mighty moguls” to get their feedback on list topics. In the process, students can learn real-world lessons and make important contacts in the job market. Students can even insert links in their resumes to their list creations that are posted on the web. Lists can also be a big help in writing a term paper or completing a research assignment. While students can plaster their faces in “FaceBook,” lists can help them show off their brains where it really counts!

Student organizations

Members of campus professional organizations and fraternities can compile books and podcasts of BrassTacksTipLists and related BrainFood that include their work product as well as contributions of alumni and other business leaders whose inputs they recruit. These books can be branded and marketed to alumni and the general business community. It is a great way of generating “town and gown” interaction.

Faculty members

Teachers can use the TipMarketand related BrainFood as instructional components for classroom presentations and distance learning courses. In addition, list-making can generate valuable content for made-to-order – inexpensive – textbooks or student reference materials. List projects employing multiple media can also provide a great alternative to the dreaded term paper. Further, list-making assignments can provide a platform for all-important collaborative learning that allows students to search, select, and synthesize facts, and convert disparate information into worthwhile knowledge. Faculty members can the use BrainFoodToGo.com portal to conveniently and quickly publish their articles and research papers, too.

Educational institutions

Lists provide an exciting way to continually engage alumni and establish all-important connections between them and members of the student body and faculty. For alumni, a stream of continually updated BrassTacksTipLists provides a unique form of continuing education that will serve as a “lifetime warranty” on their sheepskins. In addition, schools can supplement their libraries’ resources with contemporary archives of BrainFood – at no cost!

Authors, journalists and publishers

Writers use High Five Lists as a platform to showcase books of relevance to owners and entrepreneurs. Helpful snippets extracted from a book provide immediate insight and encouragement to learn more by reading the entire tome. Each High Five List of abstracts from a book is accompanied with a web-link that facilitates purchase of the book. Journalists can employ list content in their articles or use them as "hooks" for interviews.

Bloggers

Bloggers can cut and paste lists into their blogs and pass them along to others.

Media

Newspapers and magazines can feature lists on their business pages, thus giving their readers a chance to interact with proven business leaders.

Affinity groups

Professional groups, including alumni associations, chambers of commerce, newspapers and trade associations, are eligible for a free branded “click-to” BrainFoodToGo.com home page on the internet to facilitate list exchanges among their constituents. Such a "gateway" web portal features all types of Tip Lists as well as information about activities of the hosting "community." In addition, this locally-branded, interactive web portal can also provide advertising display opportunities that will generate revenue for the host community. Click here to see what such a portal looks like. In addition, the lists gathered in each affinity community can be used to compile, publish, and distribute a “recipe” book of lists it generates, e.g. High Five Lists for Business Owners in Buffalo, New York. Hosts and sponsoring organizations are entitled to the profit on each book they sell directly or via the Internet.

Everybody else!

If you can’t find exactly what you want at BrainFoodToGo.com, you can rustle-up helpful tips on specific topics vital to you, by submitting a request online. Your inquiry will get a new list underway, and the TipMarket will provide you with the valuable feedback your TipQuest_™ triggers.