There’s a stigma associated with many educational toys. Kids frown and assume they’re not fun. Other parents might think you’re pushing your kids too hard instead of letting them enjoy their childhood. You may feel strongly that toys should be educational and not frivolous, but still relent when faced with the disapproval of others.

If you only take a few minutes to browse through all aboard toys and similar companies, you’ll find that educational and fun are not mutually exclusive when it comes to toys. There are countless games, puzzles, and toys that are education and fun to play with. If you expand your mind a bit, you’ll even find toys that aren’t advertised as educational but actually teach children about spacial relationships, construction, and even engineering. Everyone remember how much fun it was to play with Lincoln Logs, Legos, and Erector sets?

The trick is to look at educational toys for their fun factor first rather than buying only the toys that seem the most cerebral. Games and puzzles that incorporate your child’s favorite cartoon characters, songs, and interests are going to be much more enjoyable for them than some random teaching toy. If you balance fun with education, your child will be much more likely to engage with the toy on a regular basis, which is the only way he or she is ever going to learn anything from it.

Unless you’re extremely wealthy or invulnerable to injury and illness it’s probably a good idea to get visitor medical insurance before you travel overseas. This applies equally to Americans traveling abroad and to foreigners coming to visit, work, or study in the USA.

It’s easy to overlook the need for insurance, especially on shorter trips. There is, however, a real risk associated with foreign travel and, depending on the country or countries being visited, medical care could be more expensive than you think or may not be available at all which would require you to be evacuated back home or to a nearby country where you could get treatment.

While it is true that many people travel without ever getting sick or hurt, the same can be said about daily life. Do you have domestic health insurance protecting you in case something happens? While you can’t take that policy with you overseas, you can buy similar coverage so that your mind can be at ease instead of worrying that every time you go skiing, scuba diving, cycling or rock climbing will end up with you in a hospital. A good policy will cover emergency treatment, help you replace lost prescriptions for medicine, eyeglasses, and the like, and even have provisions for evacuation. For longer visits you can purchase insurance that covers preventive checkups and services as well as treatment for existing conditions.

The proper question to ask isn’t whether you need visitor medical insurance, but how much and what kind.

It is undeniable that companies need to be aware of how they are viewed by the public. Traditionally this meant hiring a PR firm and keeping track of how the company is represented in news media. In the 21st century, it means keeping track of a brand’s online reputation. For many this means hiring an ORM firm to do the work. However, many companies are hesitant to contract for online reputation management services
because they don’t understand how important it is to manage online reputation.

It can be difficult to accept that what one person says in an anonymous review could actually matter. What companies need to realize is that all it takes is one small negative review or blog post showing up at the top of the Google results to drive away potential customers and even potential investors. Imagine what happens when the local news finds two or three negative reports online and decides to follow up on them. Worse yet, what if a popular blogger or netizen gets a hold of one? Soon there are raging twitter conversations and blogs regurgitating the initial report and the search results for a company are quickly overrun.

The trick is to take proactive steps to prevent this from happening. Top ORM companies can anticipate potential problems and nip them in the bud. They also can create positive content in the form of blog posts, video content, and even specialized websites (see elixir interactive videos as an example), making it is much more difficult for negative results to get a foothold.

Ultimately, some companies will continue to believe their reputation is impervious to negativity. Those that invest in some form of reputation management, however, can think of it as a form of insurance against a potential PR storm.