Is Bing Better Than Google?

We pay attention to stuff. In fact, that’s pretty much our job (appearances aside). Lately we’ve been paying attention to the search market. You know, companies like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

What we’ve noticed -- in our utterly random and unscientific analysis -- is that Google isn’t what it used to be.

We’re not the only ones who think this. A recent report from Compete.com, a company that measures Internet traffic, shows Google is slipping. “Google continues to slowly lose traction monthly, while Bing continues to gain momentum,” the report said.

And that’s not all. We know this guy in the online advertising game -- he places ads for companies at all the major search engines -- and he tells us that Bing attracts higher-quality users. They’re more engaged and more likely to take action -- in other words, to click through and/or buy something.

This guy prefers to remain anonymous, because it’s not a good idea to get on Google’s bad side (which we’re probably doing now). But his observations could be helpful to your business if you’re thinking about an online campaign, and you’re looking for some serious ROI.

Are you ruining your workers’ lives? Are your employees down in the dumps? Their unhappiness could be your fault. That’s one conclusion you could draw from this recent survey by Gallup, which shows that people’s overall sense of well-being is very closely tied to their level of engagement on the job. A lack of engagement at work equals employees who say they’re not happy in life.

Interesting. But maybe obvious. The real reason we call your attention to this poll is the cool interactive map that goes with it at the Gallup website. Hover over a country and it shows just how out of it employees in most countries are. The best-engaged employees are in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand regions. 

But in China a measly 2 percent of workers say they’re engaged at work -- and a massive 98 percent say they’re either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” (31 percent).

Amazing. All that economic growth powered by people who couldn’t care less about their jobs. And it might be worse than the numbers imply. Because think about what it means to be "actively disengaged." You go out of your way to be bored at work? You see your supervisor coming and you dash to hide in the bathroom?

That doesn’t remind us of anyone around here. But if it rings a bell with you, as a boss there are measures you can take, Gallup says. And they’re easy. Just go out of your way to have small interactions with your workers -- meetings, check-ins, chats in the hall. They all pay off, says Douglas Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup and author of TouchPoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments.

Need a loan? Follow these four steps. Everybody says so: The place to go for credit these days is to a community bank. And what do you do when you get there? Have a look at this four-step plan suggested by real live community banker David Feldpausch, who’s senior vice president of small-business lending at Capitol National Bank in Michigan.

Follow Tim and Tom on Twitter @timntom.