How To Get Started With A Career In Social Care

The field of social care for adults is booming. As of right now, more than 1.5 million people work in the industry. Skills for Care estimates that an additional 500,000 jobs may be available in this field by the year 2030 due to the increasing demand for these services throughout England.

If you are ready to start a promising career working in the field of social care, try using these suggestions:

Explore The Various Career Paths That Are Available

There are a lot of different directions that you can take with a career in social care. Jobs in this field range from entry-level positions all the way up to administrative roles. Depending on where your interests lie, you could spend your time building customized assistive devices to help someone live a better life. Alternatively, you could create activities designed to keep people active and involved. If you prefer, you could also spend your time diagnosing problems and helping to determine effective treatment plans. With so many different types of roles available, there is sure to be one that is a good fit for your interests and your expertise.

Spend Time Volunteering In The Field

Before jumping into a career in social care, you may want to spend some time working as a volunteer. For instance, Ben Rosamond worked as a volunteer helping disabled young people before launching his career as a person-centered planning facilitator. His volunteer opportunities gave him the background that he needed to get hired by the Sunderland City Council.

After you identify the direction that you want to take with your career, try to find volunteer opportunities that are similar in nature. Most facilities that provide social care are open to the idea of working with volunteers – particularly if those volunteers are passionate about helping out. When you volunteer for these organizations, you can help with everything from working directly with patients to planning activities and events.

Identify areas where you have a lot of skill or expertise. Think about the things that you feel the most passionate about, as well. Then, spend some time thinking about how the skills that you already have could be used to help you get the career that you want.

Explore job postings online, looking for careers that are a good fit for your talents and your personality. When you find an opening that seems promising, check the job requirements so you can get a better idea of what is expected if you want to go into that particular career.

You may find that some of your everyday activities have already given you a solid background that you can draw on when working in these roles. For instance, if you are an athlete, working on a team may have helped you build your conflict-resolution skills. Try to figure out if any skills that you currently have could be put to use in a particular job or career.

You can use tools like Tradewind Social Care to help you identify which roles are a good fit for your skills, experience, and qualifications.

Working in the social care field requires you to be passionate about your job. Ultimately, you should really want to help the people that you work with if you enter this field. When applying for jobs, make sure to let potential employers know how dedicated you are to improving the lives of the people that you work with.

In many cases, employers look at the overall personality and dedication of potential employees when deciding whether or not to hire them. By highlighting your values on your resume, you can let employers know how dedicated you are to helping others live better, more fulfilling lives.

It is also important to demonstrate that you understand the important role that caring plays when working in this field. Find a way to show potential employers how passionate you are about caring for others and how committed you are to treating people with respect.

Stay Up-To-Date With What Is Happening In The Field Of Social Care

Follow along with new developments in the field of social care. Being able to show employers that you take an active interest in what is happening right now is a great way to set yourself apart from other job applicants.

For instance, consider familiarizing yourself with any legislation that affects the field of adult social care such as the Mental Capacity Act. Being able to show potential employers that you have an understanding of the legal aspects of social care and of current events that are happening in the industry is another way to showcase how passionate you are about the topic.

7 Tips That Can Help You Learn Programming Faster

When you are looking at a career as a programmer you will notice that it can be difficult to find the right way to learn the programming language quickly. This is when you will want to take the 7 tips that we have listed here and apply them. Once you start to use these tips for programming you will find that they are going to help you out in learning the way to program faster than what you thought, but also have a chance to retain the information at a higher level so you can finally get the help in learning the information you need in time to get the certification you need to have or even in landing the job because you know what you are doing.

  1. Learn By Trial And Error

This is one thing that you may feel like it is going to be a little bit odd to say, but you will find with coding the best way to learn is by trial and error. This is going to allow you to learn more about the coding that you are going to be using, but also know what is going to work and what is not going to work. Then you can finally have a great time in getting the work done because you will know if you are doing something that it will not work because you have tried it in the past or if you are given a coding test by a potential employer, you can find the coding error right away because you tried the same thing before.

  1. Understand The Basic Fundamentals

When you are working on any project from woodworking to wiring a home the first thing that you need to do is make sure you have the basics of the job under your belt. This will hold true here as you will need to know more about the fundamentals that are going on and know what the backbone of the coding is going to be. Then you will be able to get the right work done for your company and programming that you are doing. What else is nice is once you understand the basics you can easily build into future elements from the basics to expand your programming language knowledge.

  1. Use A Pen And Paper

This is something that seems to have been forgotten by the new generation, but you need to realize when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were working on developing Windows and Apple they did not start off with a computer monitor to look at. Instead, they often used pen and paper and were making notes all over the paper. This way they could look at the paper and see what kind of changes they needed to make. as they were inputting the information. However, after a couple of hours of doing this on pen and paper it was easy for them to not have any problems with their eyesight by staring at a screen for a long period of time.

  1. Swallow Your Pride And Ask For Help

This may be one of the hardest things for a programmer to do and that is to swallow their pride to ask for help. You may think that you know everything that you can possibly know with the program or coding in general, but you need to realize this is not always the case. So you will want to make sure you are ready to swallow your pride at times and ask for help if you are stuck. This allows you to get a new set of eyes to look at the coding or programming you have done and they may be able to find the problem that you have right away.

  1. Look Online For Resources

With the Internet you will find that you have a lot of resources at your fingertips. Some of these will start you off with the basics of learning coding, but others will take you to the hardest levels of coding. So, you will have a chance to learn how to code quickly and easily, but also will start to have the information explained to you as to why something has to happen with the coding that you are going to do. What else is great about the Internet is you can learn from multiple resources at the same time and know it will help you out in getting the skill set that is going to be varied on the jobs you are doing.

  1. Play Around And Have Fun

You may think that coding is all serious all the time. However, what you need to realize is this is not the case. You will want to have some fun while you are coding and that may mean something as simple as changing what should be a smiling face to a frown or something that you will find funny. Think of the guy in Jurassic Park he had fun with his programming when he locked out the computer system when he was trying to escape the island.

  1. Take Breaks

Coding is a great way to earn a living, but if you are taking the time to look at figures all the time that are looking the same or having dots, dashes, letters in a jumbled-up mess it can be daunting to do for hours on end. What you will want to do is make sure that about every hour or two that you take a fifteen to thirty-minute break to give you time to collect your thoughts and allow your brain to clear from the work that you are doing.

When you are looking at coding you will find that it can be difficult for you to find the right way to learn at times and retain the information. This is when you will want to use these tips here to help you out in getting the information in your mind and retained, but also how you can complete the jobs you are doing.

6 Helpful Tips When Registering Your Domain

Getting a domain is one of the most exciting parts of building a business website. Business owners just like you spend a considerable amount of time contemplating which domain names look good for your brand. And if you’ve managed to find that perfect domain, then good for you. The next step in the right direction after this is domain registration.

But before you click that Buy button, here are a few helpful tips when registering your domain.

Protect Your Brand with Other TLDs

At the end of each domain name is an extension or top-level domain (TLD). The most familiar and popular TLD would be the .com. If you managed to secure your .com, be sure to get other related extensions. While you would need to extend your domain shopping list, getting those .net, .biz, and other TLDs is a worthwhile move. Securing all the relevant extensions would serve as an insurance against brand imitation or identity theft in the future.

Bank On Numbers and Misspellings

In the spirit of protecting your brand online, make sure you purchase other domains your customers might use to find you. Do this, especially if your chosen domain is potentially confusing to those who aren’t very familiar with your brand.

For example, if your domain name includes the number “3”, it might be wise to get the domain with a spelled out “three” as well. If it contains a word that is often misspelled, you might want to get those misspelled domains, too. You can use all these later on to redirect people to the correct website.

Purchase Long-Term Registrations

Unless you’re getting a domain specifically for a project that you plan to shut down permanently after some time, you’re better off with long-term domain registration. It’s best to always think five or ten years. It might be costlier upfront but that also means you have one less thing to worry in the years to come. You can also save some money eventually because sellers typically provide discounts for long-term registrations. But whether you decide to go short- or long-term, be sure to follow the next tip.

Enable Registration Auto-Renew, Reminders

Who would forget to renew their single most important digital branding property, right? It doesn’t happen in real life, right? Well, just ask Google and Microsoft. In 2003, Microsoft temporarily lost its Hotmail.co.uk domain. Someone bought the domain that same day. Luckily, the kind soul returned it immediately.

More than 10 years after that incident, it was the turn of Google to go through the nightmare. Its Google.com domain registration expired and one of the world’s most precious domains was suddenly up for grabs. It was snapped up by a former employee for $12! The new owner could have asked for millions, but he decided to hand over the domain to his former employer. In return, the company gave him $6,006.13 – or the numerical spelling of Google. Again, a giant was saved by a kind soul.

Don’t let this happen to you. Set up all possible reminders to make sure you renew your registration on time or earlier. Also, enable automatic registration renewal for that extra peace of mind. Just make sure the credit card linked to that account is still valid by the time of the renewal.

Register Domains with Your Credentials

While people may be inherently kind, depending on how you choose to see things, there have been horror stories of business owners losing a domain to those who registered it for them. Sometimes it can be business partners who had a falling out; sometimes it’s the web designer you barely knew but trusted so much. So, if possible, do this step on your own or at least instruct the person to register using your name and email.

When in Doubt, Go Ahead and Buy It!

If there’s a shopping decision that you probably won’t regret, it’s getting your own domain as soon as possible. Every single day, thousands upon thousands of domains are sold. What are the chances that someone else from across the world would end up buying your perfect domain name? The answer is high and that’s an understatement.

So, if you’re thinking about starting a new business or brand, do the right thing and register your target domain ASAP. Hopefully these tips will help you do that successfully.

Why Social Sharing Is Important For Business

Creating shareable content is imperative to maintaining digital visibility. As a marketer, creating such content isn’t everything; it can end up being useless if your target audience can find it. There is a need to give your content the much needed exposure and that’s where social sharing comes in. Every business competing on the digital landscape needs to prioritize social sharing. The use of social share buttons makes it easy as long as you know how to make them work for you.

Globally, businesses are no longer hesitating when it comes to making social sharing work for them. For instance, Facebook shares are ideal when you want to know where your brand is heading. Keeping track of Facebook share link metrics will tell you whether your shares on the platforms lead to positive conversations and exposure for your brand. Sharing content makes it easy for you to break out to new markets and captivate new followers.

Positive Growth Impact for Your Businesses

Today, it doesn’t take second thought for companies to increase their social media marketing spend. The search engine algorithms keep changing and the SEO landscape evolves daily. Amid all this, user engagement ranks high. As such, social sharing becomes a major cog in driving the engagement cause. Sharing content leads to more site visits link sharing and better engagement. There is the domino effect that comes from your networks sharing your content with their diverse networks. In the ensuing flurry of shares between networks, your website benefits from more traffic, clicks, quality links and brand impression. All this translates into positive growth impact for your businesses.

Plays the Ice Breaking Role

In the competitive digital space, social sharing can bring about unprecedented growth. Regardless of the social platform you have decided to use, your prospects are bound to find you one way or the other. If you want to fast-track your brand’s discovery, social share buttons are the best bet. If you know their needs and pain points, you can easily steer them to your brand and build rapport and loyalty gradually. When your prospects see your posts, they not only feel inclined to share, but they will perceive you as the go-to authority. This becomes easier to garner more followers since your brand will be recommended every other time. Sharing plays the ice breaking role and leads up to a comfortable sale.

Make It a Habit

For social sharing to end up fruitful, there are some rules to abide by. You need to be specific instead of trying to share allover social media. You need to evaluate the best platforms and focus on the ones that really connect with your venture. You can choose Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for starters.

Social media isn’t a one off affair. You need to make it a consistent habit from a sharing point of view. You will realize that you don’t have to spend the whole day on Facebook, you can schedule your posts and mark the calendar. Your followers will be looking forward to your content at a designated time; don’t let them down.

Top 5 Professional Employer Organizations

Many businesses are experts when it comes to their products and services, however many business owners are lost when it comes to managing employees and handling payroll and taxes. For those business owners seeking assistance, their fears can be put to rest when they hire a Professional Employer Organization or “PEO” for short.

 

According to Entrepreneur, a Professional Employer Organization is, “a company that technically ‘employs’ the workers of several other companies and oversees all HR-related functions. In addition to less paperwork for the owner, better rates on health care and worker’s compensation insurance are often offered.

 

In a PEO model, the business owner retains primary control over the management of the business and work performance of the employees. The owner pays the PEO for the costs of payroll, taxes, benefits, and administrative fees, and the PEO handles all the paperwork and the details.

 

To simplify the process of finding a PEO that’s right a right fit, we have identified the top five best PEO’s for consideration. For busy business owners, hiring one of these PEO’s will help take the stress out of HR and allow more time to invest in making their business the best it can be.

 

Startups

For businesses just getting their feet on the ground, Oasis Outsourcing is the way to go. Although the initial contract period is one year, businesses may cancel their contract within the first 90 days and receive a full refund if they aren’t satisfied. No employee minimum and the ability to mix and match services makes this option a safe bet for businesses who want a risk-free trial of a PEO.

 

Extremely Small Business

For extremely small businesses, TriNet is a great place to start. Offering short-term contracts and services that grow with your business, this is a great option that has the potential to grow with a company. There is no employee minimum, and the pricing structure is based on a per-employee basis.

 

Small Business

For small businesses, Insperity is an affordable option. Offering the ability to pick and choose individual services is a great feature, allowing business owners to design their own system. No long-term contracts are required, and a team of experts is provided for collaboration and consultation.

 

Mid-Size Business

For mid-size businesses, Paychex is a smart choice. Services are priced on a per-employee basis, regardless of how many employees the business obtains. This flat, pre-employee fee provides access to all of their professional services.

 

Best Overall Options

To save even more time, take advantage of Net PEO. Not just a single PEO, this company connects business owners with one of a number of PEOs that operate within their network. After an initial assessment, the company will be matched with the best PEO suited to their needs.

 

Best Customer Service

For great customer service, ADP TotalSource comes highly recommended. With their flexible pricing, no long-term contracts, and web-based payroll software, this company has a lot to offer in a PEO.

How Using Customer Data Can Help Improve Your Business

With good reason, a number of business owners now ask, “what will a data-driven approach mean for our customer relations?” The fact is, data and customer relations are more closely linked than you could imagine. This proves especially true in a time where customers are immersed in a wide number of trends, and interact with businesses much differently than they did before—now with the option of shopping online, participating in rewards programs in-store, and buying specialty products that are less generic and off-the-shelf, to name a few.

Any difficulties cropping up with regard to customers? Any opportunities that you are afraid to miss? How do real-time data analytics and integration link to the area of customer relations management (CRM)? How will using real-time customer analytics improve your business, and why is an intelligent platform like this worth investing in? Read on to learn the particularities of managing high volumes of customer data and utilizing these for the good, and growth, of your business.

Real-Time Analytics: Where Data Comes into Play

To begin, a working definition of real-time analytics technology is to be supplied: real-time analytics pertains to the use of data and related resources the very moment that it is captured by the machine system. Real-time analytics also goes by the terms of dynamic analysis, real-time data integration, and real-time intelligence. “Real-time” denotes the immediate responsiveness of a computer system to its user; given that, it is easy to conjure up scenarios for where this kind of technology is crucial, such as in banking and finance, law enforcement, or even weather monitoring in times of disaster. For example, in the food/restaurant industry collecting all of this real-time data can be difficult. With great POS software, data and the tracking of it can be stored right on the spot.

This technology has also branched out to businesses in the iteration of CRM. Real-time customer analysis data records, in an up-to-date manner, what customers’ responses are to business components such as products and pricing, and can measure patterns such as the time that a customer has spent interacting with a product in a commercial zone. That enables your enterprise to make informed responses to customers even within the day, as even a day’s worth of data can prove complex and full of important details.

In other words, in the area of CRM, real-time analytics technology will help manage large data sets about myriad customer behaviors, and can be easily integrated into crucial business decisions.

A Better Business: Innovative, Dynamic, and Responsive

An upgrade to an intelligent platform for your customer relations, then, yields several concrete benefits.

The first is that your business will have a solid and up-to-date basis for innovative decisions. This means, data will reveal what new products and services can be launched to the public, and the right timing to do so; what loyalty programs you can roll out based on your customers’ numbers; what special offers and promotions you can make public; and what unique advertising strategy your business can take—what messages and through which channels—in order to market smarter.

The real-time data that pertains to past purchases and customer behavior within establishments is crucial not only to profit generation, but also to the business’s internal operations. The platform could make your team more dynamic and responsive. Accurate customer data is the best kind of feedback for your staff’s performance. A bird’s-eye view of even the subtlest of factors can spell greater success for your team: a firm basis to improve their own service, and a more nuanced way to connect with the business’s customers.

Ultimately, analytics and customer data can marry to take your business to new heights. Your business’s customer base is a prime asset, and one that will always need your constant attention. The many influences that play on customers—from their purchasing habits, to their propensity to return to the store, to their interactions with your staff—are all obtainable through empirical data; it is up to you to use the technology available to keep your business healthy and ready to cater to everyone.

Cryptocurrency trading is becoming a profession

More and more people are joining the cryptocurrency industry with an aim of making quick money. As with every trading, cryptocurrency trading requires a thorough analysis of the market trends, proper research of what crypto to trade and when, patience to hold when the situation calls for it, and a high intuition instinct which can be in-born or acquired through appropriate continuous analysis of past and present events to form the basis of a predictable future trend.

Cryptocurrency trading comes with its fair share of risks with potential for great gains or huge losses. However, this can be minimized by treating this trade as one would any other profession.

Understanding the business

Today’s current lot of traders occupying this space are either the early adopters, the miners, the developers cum programmers or some very alert businessmen who had their ear to the ground on matters trade. It is this space that the professional hopes to occupy and make a heavy presence in.

Cryptocurrency came with its own language and vernacular which can be quite intimidating to any crypto newbie irrespective of how market savvy they might be. This is the first step – learn the language with its jargon. Trading involves buying and selling so an understanding of your wares is mandatory, in this case the crypto and trading platforms.

Crypto trading involves two processes. These are:-

  1. Acquisition of base crypto currency which in this case is bitcoin by converting your fiat currency and if need be, converting bitcoin to alternative coins commonly referred to as altcoins.
  2. Undertaking fundamental analysis and technical analysis. Fundamental analysis involves having timely information and its impact on the market so as to accurately predict the coin’s trend and make an apt decision. Technical analysis is finding certain patterns by studying charts which will provide crucial predictive information on the direction the coin is likely to take.

Consumer demand

Trading is made viable by the forces of supply and demand. While miners endeavor to do their bit to ensure there is continuous supply of crypto coins, the demand is created by consumers who have to put value in a product by way of trust and confidence in the product. Fortunately, the processes of creating bitcoins through the solving of complex mathematical puzzles and the hard-to-track-and-alter transactions have done just that – create a demand that supersedes supply.

The professional’s role in as far as consumer demands is concerned is to have a marked grasp about what triggers the pumps and dumps and how to take advantage of the situation.

Economics

Cryptocurrency is very prone to competition with innovative ideas popping up too frequently. A professional should be keen to follow these new developments which may cause consumers trends to shift.

  • To the professional, a monitoring of gains or losses made is crucial. This is done by valuing your crypto against the dollar. Secondly, to make a decision on increasing the coinage held, alternative coins should be valued against bitcoins and not dollars. A direct effect of crypto fluctuations is due to lack of enough market capitalization which is just a 0.00052 fraction of the world’s capitalization. This is quite negligible and causes prices to remain volatile.
  • Buying a dumped coin is feasible and cashing out as soon it is rises is prudent but the professional should determine when to do that. This is the concept of “buy low, sell high”.

Learn from others’ mistakes

It would be naïve to learn on your own time when we have so many examples of successful businessmen who have made it after fluking. Speculating should, however, be treated as a learning process to avoid falling into any pitfalls and unwarranted losses in the future. As Warren Buffet advises, learn from other people’s mistakes and you will minimize your losses. The saying that experience is the best teacher should not necessarily be your guiding phrase when dealing with cryptocurrency trading. Save time and money by avoiding what others did wrong.

Trading simulation

Because this is possible, it is advisable to start off trading using a trading simulator in all its aspects instead of doing so with actual money and standing the risk of losing it. This way you can detect all the loopholes that you would be likely to encounter in a real transaction and effectually learn how to avoid them during the actual trading. All the mistakes you make during simulation would translate into dollars in the actual trading thus the necessity to pass through this route.

Keeping a journal

It is not possible to be a master on all aspects of cryptocurrency. Keeping a journal on your trading activities for some time will give you an indicator of where your strengths lie and you can capitalize on these aspects to launch your trading career.

Trading psychology

One thing you will have to contend with when you launch out into a crypto trading career is the insinuation that if you can’t hold it, then you don’t own it. The fact is that crypto is a concept that is just gaining acceptance and not physical cash as we are used to having. A complete change of mindset has to take place to fully accept the currency as money like we do fiat currency.

It is also important to shut down emotions especially those of being a bit greedy. It is possible that we get into this trading out of a desire to get-rich-quick. It is however prudent to hoard expectations of losing not once but repeatedly even if not in succession. Losing is part of trading.

Fear is another psychological factor that can influence the way trading is conducted. This is especially true when there is a wave of some hyped up euphoria of a price pump. This fear is referred to as FOMO or Fear of Missing Out. Conversely, when the price plummets, fear may cause one to dispose before incurring more loses but that might just be ill advised as holding would be the sane way to operate.

In summary, it is no secret that many people are making cryptocurrency trading a profession just like many have on stock trading through stock exchange platforms. The basics to having an edge over the rest involves investing in education of this trading, developing the right mental attitude and being willing to take risks.

What Do You need to Know About RapidBot, an Instagram Bot?

Many people are using Instagram nowadays as a way to post their selfies or just any photos to share with everyone. They want to many followers, get many likes and get good feedbacks or comments. But the main point of these people is to get a large number of followers. They will ask friends or just go straight to Google to ask for tips and tricks so they can get many followers that will lead to the good options and the bad options like spamming. What you may not know is that there is automation of Instagram, according to ingramer.

The Instagram Bots

Many people are using a bot, an automation tool, so that they can boost the numbers of their followers. But how this Instagram bot really works? This tool bot helps a user in performing actions liking, following and commenting on other accounts automatically. Performing these actions are done on a daily basis and these really take a big amount of time. Through the Instagram Bot, you just have to specify your hashtag and the target users and the bot will do the work for you.

The RapidBot

Rapidbot is a popular computer application that works similar to a normal person. It performs a task like sending other users thousands of like, comment, follows and even unfollows, that leads to attracting many users to your page. The actions are performed based on the parameters like hashtags that you have set. Many programmers are working on creating the bots because of the large demands. Anyone can create a bot which they can personalize which fits their needs, although you need to have advanced programming skills.

Understanding Bots More

Two decades ago, one of the first bots created that is still working this day is Google. Search engines really help us in finding and giving us the websites that contain the content that fits our interest. There are also the so-called chatbots. Chatbots is a program that is used to allow a conversation between a user which is a human and a specific software and device or the assistant of the website. Alexa of Amazon and Siri of Apple are the two examples of the Chatbots.

Conclusion

Instagram is really a well-known social media nowadays. It makes one happy that there are people who like their photos and follows them. New Instagram user means having a zero to one follower and many wants to have more. Everyone wants to be into the moment that they will seize everything, like ask someone to follow them, like their posts, or leave good comments on their page. Sounds like desperation to me but that’s how it really works. Many complain because of the time needed to consume just to post the caption and the hashtag. That is why an Instagram bot is created for your convenience. Remember that it will depend on you if you want to have these so-called bots or do all the work yourself.

Many Lyft and Rideshare Drivers Underinsured

Source: ride.guru

Source: ride.guru

According to a recent survey by nerdwallet.com, many drivers do not have enough auto insurance coverage to fully protect themselves, and they don’t fully understand the risks involved in what they are doing.

The area of rideshare insurance has been in a state of constant evolution over the past few years, as companies such as Lyft and Uber have become more and more popular.  What most drivers need is a combination of personal and business insurance in order to fully cover all of the aspects of the job.

Depending on the insurance carrier, many don’t cover vehicles being used to transport passengers for a fee, and getting in an accident while transporting said passengers can result in cancelation of the insurance altogether.

What Rideshare Companies Provide

Rideshare companies provide limited coverage for drivers who are logged into the app waiting for a call. These limits are typically $50,000 per person for injuries, capped at $100,000 per accident, and $25,000 in property damage per accident. No coverage is provided for rideshare vehicles.

Uber and Lyft have at least $1 million per accident in liability, uninsured, and underinsured motorist coverage when the driver is responding to a call or transporting passengers. Limited collision and comprehensive coverage is provided to drivers who already have personal coverage on their vehicle. Rideshare insurance will only pay what the driver’s primary insurance will not.

Both Uber and Lyft have $1 million in coverage for passengers who are injured in an accident while riding in a rideshare car. If the damages exceed $1 million, the passenger must resort to taking either the rideshare driver or the rideshare company to court.

Additional Insurance

For rideshare drivers, there are typically three options that can be added to their policies:

  • Rideshare-friendly policies, which do not add additional coverage but the insurer won’t cancel coverage for being a rideshare driver.
  • Period 1 policies, which cover drivers when they aren’t on a call but are logged into the app waiting for one.
  • Commercial rideshare policies, which provide coverage at all times and provide extra coverage in case an accident exceeds the limits of the rideshare company’s policy limits.

Fluid Coverage and Laws

According to Jason Hennessey, marketing director for Atlanta Car Accident Lawyer, “costs and coverage can vary greatly by driver, policy selected, carrier, and location of services. It is important for rideshare drivers to know what their policy covers and to stay current with the laws that apply within their city and state.”

Passenger Risks

As a consumer, it’s important to know what a particular rideshare company will and will not cover. For example, Uber has an arbitration agreement, requiring that all claims be handled on an individual basis. This prevents individuals from bringing any legal action against them. They also deny liability if a passenger is injured. Other rideshare companies are sure to have similar policies in place, so it’s important to be aware of these and to know your options should an accident arise.

Why Silicon Valley is Committed to the Cannabis Industry

By David Jackson, MBA

America may not be able to figure out its relationship to cannabis, but Silicon Valley can – and their weed industry is aiming sky-high.

While cannabis is still prohibited on a federal level, in practice, states are in charge of their own legislation on the issue. This means there is no unified cannabis policy from state to state, and an American citizen can find herself becoming a criminal, just by crossing a state line.

Federal Law & Cannabis

Cannabis is legal for recreational purposes in 8 states, meaning that the buying, selling and smoking of marijuana can happen publicly. In 13 others, its decriminalized, which allows an individual to possess a small amount without the threat of prosecution, but selling and trafficking will get you arrested.

29 states have legalized medical marijuana, but the specifics of the policy differ from state to state. In California, you can buy medical weed from a dispensary, whereas in Alaska, you can only grow your own weed for medical purposes at home. You may want to try out vaping without any marijuana, perhaps just some vape with a coffee or mint taste. Visit Smoking Things for more.

Because of this disparate legislation, if you’re selling a vaporizer for weed, you can’t call it a weed vape. In federal law, marijuana is still a schedule 1 drug, which means any paraphernalia that aids the drugs consumption can be federally prohibited.

You can make a gadget for pot and sell it, but you can’t include its real function in any of your marketing. If you do, you risk being banned from selling in some states, making running a national operation nigh on impossible. You are also prohibited from importing any drug paraphernalia from abroad, so if you have a factory in Vietnam, your product won’t be allowed in. That’s why you’ll always read about the best dry herb vaporizer, never the best weed vaporizer.

Despite the shady legality, in the tech hub of the U.S. people are more exciting about the developing weed industry than ever before.

Silicon Valley & Weed: A Love Affair

Lots of people working in Silicon Valley cut their teeth in tech during the dot com boom. It’s hard to believe now, with the dominance of giants such as Facebook and Google, but the early days of the internet were times of great financial risk, which fueled the excitement surrounding it.

Some Silicon Valley investors are chasing the wild-west days of the early internet. They’re looking for a developing industry which still has a sense of danger about it, which offers great returns – and the new legal marijuana industry is just that. The new administration has made the future of federal legalization uncertain, but the astonishing demand for weed signals strong profits.

California is one of the biggest states to offer full legalization, and it’s no coincidence that Silicon Valley, one of California’s biggest money-makers, is getting in on the action. There’s millions of dollars to be made in providing software and ancillary services to the growing marijuana industry, and even more money to be made in developing vape-technology.

The weed industry appeals to another habit of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, which is using science and tech to disrupt areas that were formally the province of hippies and gang-lords. Some of the brightest minds in tech are seizing the opportunity to get involved with this very young and very hip industry.

Young engineers and industry experts – from companies as big as Apple and Google – are leaving their desk jobs to apply their expertise to making a breakout product in this growing industry. Just like cryptocurrency before it, Silicon Valley types are eager to quickly make leeway in this new arena. The willingness of these entrepreneurs, to risk great losses when tempted by great profits, is the heritage of a reckless streak in Californian business that can be traced back to the Gold Rush.

Silicon Valley STEM types are at an advantage when it comes to the burgeoning weed industry, because some of the developments which offer huge profits cannot be created without a background in science and tech. As with every other industry, if you can develop an app that consumers find useful, you can make a fortune.

Nowadays, there is an abundance of marijuana apps operating out of Silicon Valley. There’s WeedMaps, where you can look for weed shops in your area and see their customer ratings. There’s also Leafy, where consumer’s review and discuss different strains of pot. There’s a glut of Instagram-esque apps where people post and like different pictures of pot.

Not only can you find apps, but you’ll also find vape engineers. Some of the biggest developments in tobacco and ‘dry herb’ vaping come out of Silicon Valley. The tech-hub has become a place where people believe in pushing toward the future, so there’s less fear of new industry risks. This fearlessness, combined with tech-savvy, is about to create a lot of Silicon Valley engineers, investors and entrepreneurs, with very high bank balances.