Beauty and The Beads

Atlanta, GA, September 20, 2011 –(PR.com)– MyReviewsNow Online Shopping is pleased to announce an addition to its Fitness and Weight Management Store. The Ab Circle Pro represents a new phase of abdominal workouts with less effort and better results. Abdominal workouts are more effective when combined with cardiovascular exercises to produce more well-rounded results. Ab Circle Pro is designed to provide a solid cardiovascular and abdominal workout to engage the entire core. Fat is burned quickly and easily in a way that is fun and engaging.

According to the American Heart Association, regular cardiovascular exercise helps prevent heart disease later in life. Abdominal workouts, while beneficial, can be time consuming due to the need to work all muscle groups to the point where results are produced. The benefits of abdominal workouts are numerous. Most fitness experts agree that abdominal workouts should include a combination of abs training techniques with the right number of repetitions to create healthy, rock solid abs.

Aside from being aesthetically appealing, a firm stomach boosts a persons self-esteem, which is another benefit of abdominal exercises. A person with self confidence in their appearance tends to be more confident in every aspect of their life from random socializing to job performance. Aside from psychological benefits, strengthening and toning abdominal muscles along with burning fat can have numerous health benefits that impact an individuals overall sense of well being. Strong ab muscles are a key part to a healthy digestive system. Developed ab muscles also function to keep internal digestive organs in their proper place so they do what they are supposed to do.

Firmer abs and an overall stronger stomach improve athletic performance in any sport. Abdominal workouts are a part of most workouts athletes are required to do for any sports from football and baseball to hockey and track. Firmer stomach muscles also reduce chiropractic problems. The most common abdominal exercises are sit-ups and crunches. Abdominal workouts also target the lower body, specifically with exercises such as leg lifts, scissors, and V-crunches. The Ab Circle Pro works out all these key areas to produce results that normally require hours and hours with several different exercises, weights and machines.

Abdominal exercises have benefits that extend to the entire body. Regular exercise of any form may prevent stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis and back pain. Regular exercise can also reduce stress and may lessen the impact of some conditions such as depression. The Ab Circle Pro provides an easier way to attain sufficient abdominal and cardiovascular exercise without the hassle of various exercises to achieve the same goal. Studies show that the more convenient exercise is, the more likely a person is to make it a regular habit. Unlike other abdominal workouts, results with the Ab Circle Pro come in a concentrated amount of time with equal results.

The Ab Circle Pro features three levels of resistance. The Ab Circle Pro is designed for any fitness level from beginner to pro. Ab Circle Pro is manufactured with quality steel designed to last a lifetime. The device folds for easy storage in the closet or under the bed. Ab Circle Pro is ideal for losing love handles and firming up hips, thighs and buttocks. Ab Circle Pro is also helpful with weight loss when combined with regular aerobic exercise and a reduced calorie diet. The makers of the Ab Circle Pro invite users to try it for 30 days for $14.95 plus shipping and handling.

For additional information regarding the Ab Circle Pro, please visit MyReviewsNow Online Shopping and see our Fitness and Weight Management Store for more details.

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Christopher Bailey showcased much anticipated Burberry Prorsum Spring 2012 Collection during London Fashion Week. Prominent things on runway were bold colors and a lot of handcrafts including crochet, carving, weaving, braiding, beading and printing.

Windows shopping? Kelly O’Brien and Stuart Allen approach their shopping in different ways. The average value of online purchases by men is more than women’s. Photo: Wayne Taylor

More than a dozen elected and key appointed people who serve Elk Grove attended the Elk Grove Chamber of Commerce(PAC)s Political Action Committee event on Sept. 15 at the Niello BMW dealership in the Elk Grove Auto Mall.

Four members of the Elk Grove City Council joined a trio of directors from the Cosumnes Community Services District, Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) Board of Education President Priscilla Cox, Kay Albiani of the Los Rios Community College District, and Sacramento County Supervisor Don Nottoli.

The event was organized to give business leaders and community members a chance to talk with the elected officials in a largely informal environment, said Nancy Milton, PAC chair and president-elect of the chamber.

It was a great opportunity for people to talk with them one on one, she said after the event, which also raised funds to be put toward next years elections for the various races involving local candidates.

The PACs primary function is to advocate for, support, and inform the local business community about the issues that affect them, said Angi Perry, executive director of the chamber.

In non-election years, its important for the PAC to provide a forum for the community to reach out to elected officials while supporting the PACs efforts, Perry said.

Nottoli and Elk Grove Mayor Steve Detrick both said that everybody in attendance has a part to play in the citys business success.

I think this gathering, most of you were introduced, but if you werent, youre still important, Nottoli said.

Detrick added, You are all leaders in the community. None of this gets done without everybody pitching in.

Detrick noted the citys efforts to bring a state government agency and 1,500 employees to Elk Grove, the potential Elk Grove Promenade Mall in the southern part of the city, and a sphere of influence process during which it was revealed there is a large imbalance among commercial and office space.

There are a lot of opportunities, Detrick said.

Also in attendance were Elk Grove Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Steven Ladd and Cosumnes River College President Deborah Travis, who is also chair of the board for the Elk Grove Economic Development Corporation.

Representatives for US Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Gold River) and State Assembly Member Alyson Huber (D-El Dorado Hills) also attended the event.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 13, 2011 — /PRNewswire/ — The Society of Insurance Research (SIR) has announced the speaker line-up for the Commercial Lines Track at their upcoming annual conference. The conference will be at the Renaissance Long Beach Hotel on October 16-19.

The content of the Commercial Lines track is designed as a practical support to commercial lines insurance employees, regardless of career focus. Sessions will range across tactical and strategic perspectives on topics as diverse as economics, predictive analytics, war gaming, emerging technology, and social networking. The broad and deep program will empower commercial insurance professionals to hone their existing strengths or expand their breadth of knowledge into multiple areas.

Each year the Society of Insurance Research strives to provide our members and attendees with an educational and networking experience unrivaled in the insurance industry, said Laura Taccini, SIR Conference Chair. This year we are particularly proud of the way the commercial lines content has developed. Our members are looking for game changers in response to the current market conditions, and with this sequence of sessions, we will provide them the tools to find the success path for their firm.

The Commercial track at this years conference features a strong roster of speakers, including: Clint Harris of Conning and Eric Price-Glynn of MarketStance on Forecasting Cycle Drivers and Game Changers; Dax Craig of Valen Technologies on Predictive Analytics; Kevin Kerridge of Hiscox on Reinventing Small Business Insurance; and Bob Lehmann of Fuld Co and Rick Marchetti of the Hartford facilitating a war game exercise on Responding to a New Product Game Changer. Andre Burke of Accenture will look at Recent Product Development Trends; Thomas Holzheu of Swiss Re and Hank Haldeman of The Sullivan Group will provide different perspectives on Emerging Risks; and Kevin McDonald of Confluency Solutions and JoAnna Carey of Foremost Insurance will look at uses of social networks for insurers.

To learn more or to register for the SIR 41st Annual Conference, please visit http://www.sirnet.org and click on the save your spot banner.

About the SIR

The SIR is a leading forum for insurance practitioners from all aspects of the industry, focusing on emerging research approaches and industry issues for the benefit of individual members and their employers. SIR members have accountabilities in research, product development, competitive intelligence, marketing, strategic planning, and many other disciplines within the business.

For more information, see http://www.sirnet.org, email sir.mail@comcast.net, or call SIR Executive Director Ed Budd at 317-398-3684.

This press release was issued through eReleases(R). #xA0;For more information, visit eReleases Press Release Distribution at http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE Society of Insurance Research

EasyAsk eCommerce Edition Increases DollarDays Conversion Rates and Dramatically Reduces No Results Searches

Burlington, MA (PRWEB) September 06, 2011

EasyAsk, the leader in e-commerce search and merchandising software, and DollarDays International, the premiere online wholesaler and closeout company, today announced one of the largest and most diverse uses of e-commerce search in e-retail. DollarDays is using the natural language conversion power of EasyAsk eCommerce Edition to get customers from the home page to the right products in a single click, helping increase purchase rates and revenue.

DollarDays distributes over 140,000 products on its e-commerce site with over 5,000 categories and sub-categories – a product catalog that would rival even the largest e-retailers. In addition, as a small business wholesaler, the catalog is continuously shifting as seasons change, new products become available, and excess product needs to be closed out.

A product catalog of this size, diversity and fluidity created a number of difficult challenges in implementing e-commerce search and merchandising. The product diversity meant that the same search term could have different meaning for different products, and the navigation attributes would be widely varied across the different categories. The constant change created a merchandising nightmare in trying to manage promotions and offers. It was clear that keyword-based e-commerce search offerings could not meet these challenges.

DollarDays chose EasyAsk eCommerce Edition because the natural language technology provided a more powerful, yet easier to use search and merchandising for their e-commerce site. With EasyAsk, DollarDays now has:

• A search box that is more accurate, allowing visitors to type phrases describing exactly what they want and getting those in one click,
• A rich, dynamic set of navigation attributes that adjust based on the categories and products, making navigation faster,
• Superior, easier merchandising including the automatically assignment of products to special categories and rapid addition of promotional banners, ads and links.

The most successful e-commerce sites get the customer to the right products the fastest, speeding the buying process, said Marc Joseph, president and CEO of Dollar Days. EasyAsk natural language search allows our customers to find the exact product in a single click, increasing our customer conversion rates. EasyAsk also makes our merchandising more agile, which is essential in our business where product offerings are continuously changing.

As a result of using EasyAsk, DollarDays has seen significant improvement in the performance of their e-commerce site, including:

• The improvement of successful search rate to 99.8% and the virtual elimination of zero results searches,
• A dramatic increase in the use of the search box and the length of search terms to lead visitors to products faster,
• Greater efficiency in merchandising by replacing a time-consuming multi-step process to create promotions with a combination of automated and single step creation of merchandising programs

DollarDays uses EasyAsk natural language and algorithms fed by operational product data to automatically classify products into unconventional categories such as Closeouts, 49#162; amp; Less, Hot Sellers and New Products (seen across the top of the DollarDays.com website). Using EasyAsk in this way saves many man-days of merchandiser time and completely removes technical staff from the merchandising processes.

DollarDays is a shining example of how EasyAsks natural language search and merchandising can bring an e-commerce site to life and instantly increase customer conversion. Higher conversion equals more sales, leading to higher profits, said Craig Bassin, CEO of EasyAsk. In a marketplace where you need every competitive edge possible, DollarDays found a powerful, yet easy advantage by using EasyAsk that is paying off at the bottom line.

EasyAsk eCommerce Edition

EasyAsk eCommerce Edition is the industry leading e-commerce search and merchandising solution that allows visitors to find products faster, and receive compelling promotions and offers. EasyAsk understands the content and intent of the search question – red long sleeved dresses under $150 – to deliver the right results on the first page. EasyAsk eCommerce Edition customers see the industrys highest conversion rates, deliver a superior customer experience, and see dramatic increases in average order sizes.

About EasyAsk

EasyAsk is radically changing the speed and ease of how people find information through the companys ground-breaking natural language search and query software. EasyAsk software products go far beyond traditional search, allowing users to simply ask questions in plain English and receive highly tuned results on demand. The EasyAsk eCommerce Edition uses this unique technology to deliver an industry leading website search, navigation and merchandising solutions that boosts online revenue through increased conversion rates, better customer experience and agile merchandising. EasyAsk Business Edition revolutionizes enterprise decision-making providing self-service information access and business intelligence with easy, low-cost deployment and a unique natural language interface that extends information throughout the organization.

Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, EasyAsk has long been a leader in natural language information analysis and delivery software. Customers such as Gap, Coldwater Creek, Hewlett Packard, Lands End, Lillian Vernon, Aramark, JJill, Nedbank, BNP Paribas, TruValue, Siemens, Hartford Hospital, Ceridian, JoAnn Fabrics and Harbor Freight Tools rely on the EasyAsk software products to run their business and e-commerce operations daily. For more information, please visit EasyAsk.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2011/9/prweb8772612.htm

Though the official grand opening has been postponed because of
delays in construction, the public can still get a glimpse of the
Carroll County Chamber of Commerces new office at 9 E. Main St. in
Westminster this Friday.

Mike McMullin, president of the chamber of commerce, said
construction delays made it difficult to unpack, decorate and
organize an official grand opening party, but the office will be
open 4 to 6 pm Friday for members and guests, and anyone else can
stop by between from 6 pm to midnight, he said.

We chat to Louise Gray backstage at her very spangley show!

Cotton USA have been too-cool-for-school designer, Louise Grays sponsor for ages now (three seasons ) and they invited us backstage to come and shower the lovely Louise with compliments and ask her a few questions. As you can see she could quite easily be mistaken for one of her own models, being teeny tiny, blonde and always dressed and made up in plenty of unexpected colour combinations and glitter sparkles.

We asked her;

Grazia Daily: Who or what was the muse for the collection? Was it something to do with the film Clueless?

Louise Gray: Yes, that was part of it, but really I put this collection together from all the things I like to wear for spring and summer. Just everything in my wardrobe really, all my favourite things

GD: And what are you favourite things, more specifically? Beading, embellishment . . .

LG: beading, embellishment, embroidery, prints, foil prints, devore prints, everything!

GD: The hair is amazing! What is it? Is it a crimp? Or a twist? What was the brief?

LG: We just wanted it to look really ragga, or almost as though shed slept in it . . . going a bit fuzzy around the edges.

GD: Almost like a Buffalo girl?

LG: Yeah, a bit like that.

GD: Tell us about the shoes they look great. Theyre kind of flat platforms, like Geisha shoes, arent they? Why didnt you want to do heels?

LG: I just feel that flats are nicer for summer because you want to walk around a lot and do things. And dance in them very importantly.

GD: Every season, you always look great at your shows, but we youre never wearing something that looks like the collection. Do you whip yourself up a show outfit for yourself?

LG: Ha ha ha. Nope. This was just something I had lying around. I like the colours.

GD: Where is it from?

LG: Its vintage.

GD: Every season we see Louise Wilson on the front row of your show. [Head of the MA course at Central Saint Martins] you dont see her at many peoples shows but a lot of designers went to CSM. Whats your connection with her?

LG: I dont know! Ive just kept in touch with her and its so nice that she comes! She very supportive.

GD: You had two Gwen Stefani songs in your mix in the show. Is there a Gwen Stefani thing going on?

LG: Giggles a lot. Erm,Yeah. Its not particularly Gwen, because Im not into celebs, but its that whole attitude. How she stomps around the place and how she moves [Does a little dance] Its that attitude.

GD: Its true! She has got the perfect attitude. Thank you so much for speaking to us!

-Naomi Attwood

Research: How long has this deal been in the pipeline?
We decided to go on this journey [to find a buyer] about 18 months ago. We appointed Results International [a strategic adviser to the marcoms industry] to advise us, and it then came down to about four very firm bids. But, really and truly from day one, Market Force and us had such a close alignment and synergy that it was the right deal for us to do.

Are there going to be any changes in the day-to-day running of the company?
The existing leadership team will stay in place in Milton Keynes and I will be given the added responsibility of working with Market Force to expand into Europe and beyond, which is a key part of the plan we both have. There will not be any redundancies as we grew 46% last year and plan to grow aggressively in the future. As far as the Retail Eyes name, we’re looking at ways to leverage the Market Force brand and roll that out in early 2012.

How do you think clients will benefit from the deal?
One huge benefit for them will be working with the Market Force analytics solution that links feedback and improvements to financial reporting, which we can now offer them directly. I think that there’s an appetite for that sort of analytics in the UK. We’ll also be looking at ways to augment the current offer for our clients in the UK, whether that be analytics, IVR or customer satisfaction work.

With the two companies on either side of the Atlantic, will each be given a region to focus on?
There will be no territories as such. We will work together as one team and there will be a lot of sharing of best practice and methodology. I expect that there will be as much going over to the States as there will be coming to Retail Eyes.

You’ve mentioned expanding into Europe – is the company doing anything there now and how do you plan to grow there?
We currently have mystery shopping and customer intelligence projects in 10 countries for people like Dominos, Subway and Game but we’re also seeing an increased appetite from European-based clients.

It’s an embryonic market and one that we’re really keen to pioneer. I liken the mystery shopping market in Europe to how the UK market was 10 years ago when we were in the very early days of technology-based feedback solutions.

In terms of customer feedback management in Europe, it’s currently being managed by local field marketing agencies that offer it as an add-on to their core service. We fill a great niche between those companies and the likes of TNS and Synovate who are at the very far end of the spectrum. We’re ambitious, bordering on being aggressive, and looking for imminent progress – within weeks and months rather than years.

What about the rest of the world? Do you have any plans to expand further afield?
Market Force already has fairly substantial operations in Latin America and from a UK perspective, we’ll be the springboard to start operations in the Middle East. In November this year we will go live with our first customer intelligence programme in Shanghai for one of the world’s largest food services group, so we’re already looking towards Asia. We want to establish a genuine global presence.

BEIJING, China – Chinas Commerce Ministry said Tuesday it is worried that Europes debt crisis could spill over into trade friction and hurt the countrys exports.

The comments from ministry spokesman Shen Danyang come as debt-laden European countries fight Beijing over trade barriers, and as the US prepares a retaliatory trade measure against China.

A statement released by the office of US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said he will announce a major trade enforcement action against the worlds No. 2 economy at a press conference later Tuesday.

The European Union and US have long complained about Chinas restrictions on foreign companies that include obstructing access to its markets in violation of free-trade pledges and pushing foreign companies out of promising fields such as clean energy.

US Ambassador to China Gary Locke said in a speech Tuesday in Beijing that such practices will hinder Chinas development and innovation.

Chinas current business climate is causing growing frustrations among foreign business and government leaders, including my colleagues in Washington, said Locke.

He said Chinas lack of openness in many areas of society and its economy will lead to less innovations from Chinese businesses, fewer opportunities for the Chinese people and slower growth for the economy.

Lockes comments come at an especially sensitive time as foreign governments look to Chinas relatively robust economy to help drive global growth amid fears of a worldwide recession.

Shen, the commerce spokesman, told a regular news conference that he was worried about the debt problems in Europe.

As the crisis within the EU intensifies … bilateral trade friction may be increased, which is detrimental to China-EU economic and trade relations, he said.

Of course, we believe theres opportunity in the crisis. Everyone can work hard together to turn the crisis into an opportunity.

Shen also said China is disappointed that it has not been recognized as a market economy under world trade rules by the EU, despite its rapid economic transformation.

After 30 years of reform and opening up, China has completed the transformation from a planned economy to a market economy, but the EU still does not recognize Chinas full market economy status. China is very disappointed, Shen said.

Beijing is Washingtons biggest foreign creditor and has appealed to US leaders to avoid taking steps in response to its economic woes that might erode the value of the dollar and Chinas Treasury debt and other US assets.

The state-backed Peoples Daily reported Tuesday that China will continue to buy US Treasuries.

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Associated Press researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.

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Follow Chi-Chi Zhang at http://twitter.com/thunderchi