Blizzard's next big title is just around the corner, so I wanted to crack open their business model and share with you the secret of why Blizzard has become so successful. With a portfolio of three multi-million dollar intellectual properties (StarCraft, Diablo, WarCraft) and with over 10 million monthly WoW subscribers: nobody in business can turn a blind eye to what this company has amassed.

The industry is PC games - yet their marketing strategy; ‘the model' - can be applied to other industries as well. If you code software, write books, or develop a product - you can adopt a StarCraft II strategy for your own business: and apply it to your niche' to totally dominate the competition. Here's a closer look at how Blizzard does it.

Goalscape is a promising young app that runs on the Adobe AIR platform. AIR has a plethora of interesting apps, yet Goalscape stands out among the crowd for business nerds because of its goal achieving focus.

In my recent review of Goalscape, I illustrated how the program is a a fascinating example of how beautifully designed software can help a person shift paradigm, change mindset, and become better at achieving their desired outcome. I think that, as simple as the software may be (it's still early in development), the way they have visualized a 'radial paradigm' of project management is a true innovation.

So who are the visionaries behind this innovative software?
I had the opportunity to get down to business with Goalscape Founder, Marcus Baur. In the interview session below, Marcus reveals some great insights about their software development experience so far.

How has your experience been in developing on the Adobe AIR platform?

Its been great. That's what OOP is all about. Not building everything from scratch, but instead building on a solid foundation. We have always aimed to provide a trusted management system that works seamlessly on all three major platforms - PC - Mac and web browsers. Adobe Flash/Flex/AIR was our only chance. It means that we depend to some degree on Adobe, but they seem to be a good bunch to depend on.

Here is s a little known method on making your Blog posts look great. The technique involves using a graphics editor to design the layout, add images, and tweak the overall presentation of the article. This way we can achieve the perfect "flow" of text and images to ensure the article looks perfect before it's even published.

Interesting enough, by using this method the whole process of writing becomes easier too. Fireworks is a layered, vector & bitmap graphics editor that makes it easy to drag around paragraphs and images. So it's a great way to structure 'rough draft' ideas as you bring the whole article together. Let's get started.

For this tutorial, I'll be using a case study example - to help capture the essence of my entire article making methodology: from the initial initial idea to designing the article and finally publishing it to my Blog. The software used is: myBase (any note taking method will do), Adobe Fireworks CS4, and a Blog platform such as Wordpress or Drupal. Feel free to follow along.

How can you give your goals more meaning? How can you improve the odds of achieving goals? And how can you track progress along the way?

I use Goalscape. Here’s why...

Goalscape is an innovative new ‘goal management’ application. The software is designed specifically to help people set, inspire, and reach goals: more easily & elegantly than ever before. And it’s surprisingly useful - because it visualizes your goals in an utterly simple, yet profound way...

Huh, you can sell a product while it's still in beta? Of course. In fact, you can sell a product that is still in prototype. And I'm not talking about selling it to an investor, but selling it to your target customer. Heck, with a few enticing screenshots you could probably sell it in the conceptual stage. It all has to do with these three principals: how strong is your vision for the product (how much you believe in it), how well you can articulate the advantages (how detailed is your vision), and how easy you can make it for your prospective customer to make a buying decision (how good you are at selling).

These core principals combined will together form your…sales pitch. Yes: this is all about selling. And I know many of the software programmers & designers out there will cringe at the thought of having to sell an incomplete product. But once you understand that people aren't buying your product - it becomes easy. People are buying YOU. They are excited about YOUR vision and how it can help them. They trust you because of your unshakeable belief in that the product will do what you says it does (or eventually will do).

You might assume that pitching to a VC is the only way to raise a huge amount of fast action capital for your innovative new startup. Yet there is an alternative strategy. And it involves pitching to foreigners.

A new company based in Alabama caught my attention yesterday as I read about their efforts to raise $1 billion of startup capital. It wasn't this lofty target that caught my attention, but rather, it was their strategy to make it happen.

The strategy involves taking advantage of the EB-5 Visa immigration program.

First there was a keyboard.
Then came the mouse.
And now... the pen !

Today ADAPX released their newest product, Capturx for Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 v2.0, a digital pen solution that records what you write on physical paper.

With the benefit of an early sneak peek - I've had the opportunity to try out the device, integrate it into my workflow, and publish this in-depth review. As an avid OneNote user myself, the premise of being able to import anything & everything you write with a traditional pen & paper into OneNote got me really excited.

It works like this. Use the digital pen to take notes or sketch as you normally would. The data is automatically digitized and stored in the pen as you write. And when you're ready to upload the data to OneNote you simply insert the pen into its USB dock (the pen can also do it wirelessly if you have Bluetooth).

From there, the software takes over to facilitate the transfer of data from the pen to OneNote. Enabling you to see your hand written notes within only a few short moments.

For keeping track of what you plan to accomplish on a day to day basis, nothing beats a good old notebook. Specifically: a Microsoft OneNote notebook :)

There are several good agenda related programs available. Including Outlook, Sunbird, or even Google Calendar. These are especially good at reminding you of important dates for such things as upcoming meetings, events, or deadlines. Where they are lacking however, is in the context of your daily schedule.

Above: screenshot of my daily notes from OneNote

Nikola Tesla said that, "If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe."

I am about to share with you a simple time management strategy. One that has had a tremendous impact on my efficiency since the day I first innovated & implemented it. This is not the key to the universe and not every day goes perfect, but more often than not - at the end of every day - you will feel satisfied with the work accomplished. That every client, project, and task is getting just the right amount of time. And be excited to begin the next day.