Twitter Basics: How to get started with Twitter. Here are list of several excellent Twitter primers website.

Twitter is utter simplicity. This is what makes it so appealing for web-savvy companies, which can start promoting themselves and meeting their clientele with little effort. There is virtually no learning curve!
At the same time, Twitter's popularity during the past two years has spawned an intricate ecosystem of related sites, services and software that has vastly amplified its power and flexibility. There is a bit of a learning curve here because picking and mastering the right tools for your business takes time, but you'll get the hang of it.

A Few Twitter Basics
Here's how to get started with Twitter:
Create an account at twitter.com. This only takes a few minutes, but you'll want to give careful thought to the username. Depending on how you'll use Twitter, it can be your company's name, the name of your product or service, or the name of the person who will be using it the most. Regardless, you'll want to make clear that this account is associated with your firm so that it won't be confused with a personal Twitter account.
Upload a picture. Twitter's generic icon won't cut it. Find a roughly square-shaped picture that is colorful and catchy, yet clearly conveys your company identity. Keep it simple, since the image will be displayed in a small size and fine details will be lost.
Fill in your info. You want to clearly convey who you are, so spend a bit of time with your "one-line bio" and pick the best possible web address (it's good to keep it short). You will also find text fields for an email address, your location and other particulars.
Start tweeting! The only way to get the hang of Twitter is to plunge in. You are limited to 140 characters per tweet, so there's no cause for writer's block. Just tweet something! This can be seen by anyone on Twitter, and particularly by anyone who "follows" you.
Attract a following. You will soon attract Twitter followers (those who add you to their lists of favorite Twitter accounts), so make certain you don't miss new arrivals. You can configure Twitter to send you an automated email when someone starts following you.
You can follow, too. If someone follows you, you can follow right back. You'll have the ability to exchange private (or "direct") messages with those followers. Set up Twitter to email you whenever a DM comes in, and click the "direct messages" tab to see these.
Engage in conversations. Direct messages are fine, but the best exchanges take place in public view. Want to address people directly in a tweet, or respond to something they've tweeted? Type the persons' usernames preceded by "@" symbol at the beginning of your tweets, and they will soon see them in the "Replies" sections of their Twitter pages. They can respond by typing your username preceded by "@" at the beginning of their tweets.
Need more basics? Here are several excellent Twitter primers or launching pads:
Twitter in Plain English. This terrific video by Common Craft is required viewing for all new Twitter users. You can watch a small web-based version for free, or purchase a higher-quality version for sharing within your organization.
Tweeternet.This site is essential browsing for Twitter novices as well as experienced users, who will find Twitter introductions, how-to guides and much more.
Zappos on Twitter. Zappos, profiled in Chapter Two, is so bullish about Twitter that it wants everyone to learn about it. To that end, it has created a "Beginner's Quick Start Guide and Tutorial to Using Twitter."
Search Engine Guide. This blog has a detailed series of posts by Jennifer Laycock on how to get started with Twitter, and tap its power.
The Big Juicy Twitter Guide.How can you resist a site with that name? This multi-part primer by Caroline Middlebrook is pretty good, too.
Twitter 101. Online-community strategist Connie Bensen provides a roundup of Twitter-related resources.

Twitter Basics: How to get started with Twitter. Here are list of several excellent Twitter primers website.

Who Mines Largest Gold? Gold Production by Country. Leading Worldwide Gold Extractors

South Africa is synonymous with gold, and it is generally assumed that it is the world’s largest producer. Except that it no longer is. The nation that is responsible for roughly one-third of all gold ever mined, and which was producing 1,000 or so metric tonnes per annum of the metal in 1970, is now only mining around 270 tonnes a year.
In the second half of 2007, South Africa was overtaken by China for the first time, and China is now the world’s biggest producer. Indeed South African production has declined at some 5.6 percent per annum for the last decade. Similarly, Australia, which had been on an upward trajectory for much of the 1990s, has found its output slipping recently.
However, gold remains vital to the South African economy, still providing employment to some 160,000 people, according to South Africa’s Chamber of Mines. As to how many people further depend on gold mining—that is a rather more difficult question. It is thought that there are some 5 million dependents of 458,600 employees in all types of mining—a ratio of nearly 11 to 1. Generally the figure is muddled by multiple marriages, which means that the overall number is anywhere between 5 and 12 dependents for each miner. Realistically then, there are around 1,500,000 people who survive because of wages from the South African gold mining industry.
Unsurprisingly, similar to production figures, employment has been falling at roughly 8 percent per annum on average for the last five years. To put this into perspective, the peak was reached in 1987 when Gold in South Africa reported that 530,622 were employed. Gold is the country’s second largest export earner after platinum group metals

So exactly what was produced by which country?

COUNTRY     2007 PRODUCTION (IN TONNES)
China         280.5
South Africa     269.9
Australia     246.3
United States     239.5
Peru         169.6
Russia         169.2
Indonesia     146.7
Canada         101.2
Uzbekistan     75.3
Ghana         75.1


The leading companies that have been extracting the metal on a worldwide basis are

MINING COMPANIES     2007 PRODUCTION (TONNES)
Barrick Gold         250.7
AngloGold Ashanti     170.4
Newmont Mining         165.6
Gold Fields         122.9
Freeport McMoRan     71.6


The romantic notion of gold mining is that the metal is found in glittering lumps. However, the truth is considerably less exciting, with companies forced to move enormous quantities of material to extract the mineral.
The two main types of mining are open pit and underground, with the former being more prevalent in North America and Australia and the latter predominant in South Africa. However, some mines start off as open pit when the ore is relatively easy to access before switching to underground as the mine matures.
Gold deposits have been worked for many thousands of years— with some evidence to suggest that the Egyptians were mining underground as long ago as 2000 B.C., with rivers being “plundered” for gold nuggets even earlier. In essence little has changed over the last few thousand years with underground and open pit being the major forms of mining, it is simply the scale and technology used, which are beyond all recognition.

Who Mines Largest Gold? Gold Production by Country. Leading Worldwide Gold Extractors

4 Effective Ways to Provide Positive Feedback and Encouragement for Performance Improvement from your Training Program.

The most critical way for you to be more engaged is by providing coaching—feedback, encouragement, and advice—in the post-training period.
When two people attend the same training program, the performance of the person whose manager actively provides coaching improves more and faster than the performance of the person whose manager is not actively engaged (You make a difference. Superior performers in every field agree that coaches and coaching were vital for them to reach their full potential. Business executives invariably credit mentors for helping them achieve success. Providing feedback and guidance for performance improvement are two of the most important jobs a manager has. To be effective, the training or coaching needs to be:
□ Frequent
□ Balanced
□ Specific
□ A dialogue

Frequent
Most employees want more feedback on their performance than they currently receive. Managers consistently receive low marks on providing adequate feedback. The lack of feedback is understandable. At the pace of business today, it is easy to get so busy that you don’t take the time to provide coaching and encouragement. But it is not forgivable; lack of feedback undermines employee commitment and is detrimental to performance.
If you find that you are too busy to remember to provide the feedback your employees need and want, then schedule “provide feedback” as a task on your calendar. It is at least as important as any other item on your agenda. Coaching is vital if you really want to get your money’s worth from training and development. A few minutes invested in providing feedback and encouragement on a regular basis will pay continuing returns in the form of increased commitment and performance.
Balanced
According to Ken Blanchard, author of The One-Minute Manager, the only way that most employees know they have done a good job is when no one has yelled at them lately (Blanchard & Homan, 2004, p. x).
Make it a point to “catch people doing something right” and remark on it. In particular, recognize people who make the effort to try something new—“I really liked the way you made an effort to . . .”—even if the performance itself is not yet stellar. Employees want more feedback in general, but what they really crave is positive feedback—management’s recognition of their efforts and accomplishments. Positive feedback is especially important if you want people to try new behaviors and approaches as part of a change initiative or following a training program.
To provide balanced coaching, you have to learn to give both positive as well as developmental or corrective feedback. It does not mean always giving them together in a “bad news sandwich.” Stop sticking your “but” in everybody’s feel-good moments: “I liked the way you . . . BUT. . . .”
If you don’t do so already, practice giving positive feedback, period. Recognize a great effort, an improvement, etc., and then STOP. Give negative or corrective feedback privately and on a separate occasion.

Specific
While giving someone an “Attaboy” or “Attagirl” is better than providing no feedback at all, feedback and coaching need to be specific, as well as timely, to be optimally effective. Employees are quite adept at detecting and immune to the effects of insincere, sweeping platitudes: “Fine job, whoever you are, whatever it was.”
The Center for Creative Leadership recommends providing feedback in a Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) format (Ting & Scisco, 2006):
    Situation: Describe a specific situation—a particular meeting, a specific report, client encounter, etc.
    Specify the behavior—say what you actually observed: “The way you handled the customer’s objection,” “How you organized your presentation,” etc.
    Identify the impact on you and others: “Showed me that you really took the training seriously,” “Made her feel valued and respected,” “Convince me that you are ready for greater responsibility.”
A Dialogue
Coaching at its best helps people solve their own problems, come to their own insights, and formulate their own plans. To achieve those ends, make your coaching a dialogue, rather than a lecture. Stimulate your direct reports’ thinking, encourage them to draw on their own experiences, and prompt them to explore options. Spend more time asking than telling. Pay attention to who is doing the talking and who is coming up with observations and options; both you and your direct report should be contributing to the exploration of ideas and opportunities.
Effective coaching is a dialogue, not a lecture.
Coaching and encouragement from you are so central to getting your money’s worth from training and development that they deserved to be tracked like any other critical business activity. An important practice of “total quality management” is to prominently post performance charts; consider posting the worksheet in your office to help keep this vital activity top of mind.
If the program your direct report attends uses an electronic follow-through system, you will receive requests for feedback and coaching by email. Respond to these requests promptly to sustain your direct report’s commitment and maximize the positive impact (see “Who Says So?”). Providing feedback through online systems will require only a few minutes of your time every couple of weeks, but it will create long-lived value for your direct reports, your department, and ultimately, you personally.

4 Effective Ways to Provide Positive Feedback and Encouragement for Performance Improvement from your Training Program.

Business Marketing Principles. 5 Market Positioning Process. 5 Bases For Market Segmentation.

Positioning is the process of reaching market segments. It distinguishes a branded product or service from its competitors so that it becomes the preferred brand in defined segments of the market. Positioning can focus on new brands but may also involve repositioning existing brands.
Positioning is a means of achieving marketing objectives by ensuring that the right product is developed at the right price in the right segment of the market.

The Positioning Process

The five sequential steps in the process of positioning are:
    Carry out market research to gain understanding of consumer wants and needs and to identify gaps (gap analysis)  which existing, modified or new company products or services could fill.
    Develop segmentation and targeting strategies.
    Establish the relevant attributes that are used by customers in the segment evaluating and choosing between brands in this market.
    Analyse these attributes by 'brand mapping' to assess the current perceived position of existing brands in the market.
    Determine the positioning strategy.

A market segment is a group of customers sharing particular wants or needs. Market segmentation divides the total market available to the company into segments that can be targeted with specially developed and marketed products and that can form the basis for positioning the product in the market.
Segmentation concentrates the minds of those responsible for marketing policies and plans to look for specific marketing opportunities and to develop an appropriate marketing mix that fits in with the requirements of identified market segments and the resources and skills of the company.

Bases For Segmentation

The main bases for segmentation are as follows:
    Consumer preferences – for specific product attributes.
    Benefits sought by customers – for example, quality, prestige, durability and economy.
    Demographic variables – the market can be segmented according to demographic variables such as age, sex or social class. The following socio-economic group classification system is often used:
o    A Upper middle class – higher managerial, administrative or professional people.
o    B Middle class – intermediate managerial, administrative or professional people.
o    C1 Lower middle class – supervising, clerical and lower managerial administrative or professional people.
o    C2 Skilled working class – skilled manual workers.
o    D Working class – service and unskilled manual workers.
o    E Pensioners, widows and casual or lowest-grade workers.
    Buying behaviour – where people buy, their readiness to buy (degree of awareness of the product), the amount they buy (light, medium and heavy users) and their loyalty to the brand (hard core, shifting, switchers).
    Lifestyle – a person's lifestyle is his or her pattern of living in the world. Lifestyles are assessed by psychographics, which list variables under three dimensions: activities, interests and opinions. These are analysed to reveal lifestyle groups.

Business Marketing Principles. 5 Market Positioning Process. 5 Bases For Market Segmentation.

Great online flash games

If you like to play free online flash games, try YouSayToo Games. As game lovers, you can create your own gaming collections to get the "Leet Gamer" status which is rewarded by prizes. There are thousands of games to choose from: Action Game, Simulations Game, Driving Game, Adventure Game, Sports Game, RPG Game, Fighting Game, Shooters Game, Puzzles Game, Board&Card Game, Special Game, and Mind games Game. My favourite games include boxhead 2, 3d sudoku, Dragon Fist 2, age of war, and many more. This sites doesn't just benefit the game players, but also game owners. You can upload your favourite flash games and get rewards through revenue sharing mechanism. After uploading your games, you can share them with friends and have easy one-click access to it.

After exploring this sites deeper, I was really excited with its adsense revenue sharing program. Many people are curious on how to make money with blogging. Blogging for money may not sound easy for many beginners. Well, the simplest way to generate revenue from your blog is through joining PayPerClick Program like Adsense. YouSayToo is a great revenue sharing website, as you can maximize revenue by adding your existing blog into their social network. All you have to is sign up for YouSayToo (with fast approval), create your profile, adjust your Adsense Revenue Settings and then create content by importing your blog's RSS feed. It's like blogging in two places at the same time. I recommend you to set your blog's RSS feed to Full Feed so that the entire blog article can be read; and create a separate AdSense URL Channel pointing to YouSayToo so that you can track how much of your AdSense earnings are coming from them. The more content/articles you feed into the system, the more readers, traffic and revenue you will get. Other things you can do on this site are uploading pictures and games and make social friends. If you don't have a blog yet, you can create a new blog with YouSayToo.

Great online flash games

5 Advanced Dialogic Skills to engage you in deeper and more Productive Interpersonal Conversations

Dialogic Skills

Practicing Dialogic Skills, helps learners acquire
and then practice a set of advanced dialogic skills to help them engage in
deeper and more productive interpersonal conversations.

The five advanced skills of reflective practice — being, speaking, disclosing, testing, and probing.

Although the skills may be difficult to master, the
interpersonally competent individual can learn each of these skills, observe
them in an interpersonal situation, and deploy them when called for. It is
not necessary for all the parties to a dialogue to practice these skills at the
same time; rather, it is merely important that the skills be available in one’s
toolkit to help overcome obstacles or to enrich the dialogue.

Skill Descriptions
Being
Definition: Creates a climate for reflection. It asks that we
experience or describe situations, even our own
involvement in them, without imputing meaning
Behavior: View with empathy and with open-hearted acceptance,
as if you are a close friend or family member
View as strange—to display deep interest and curiosity
Invite questions and comments
Acknowledge one’s own and others’ vulnerability
Consider positions as hypotheses to be tested
Pause—Reflect—Contemplate
Self-Inquiry: What can I learn here?
How am I acting to constrain what is possible?
Example: “It looks like we have pretty much endorsed the direct
marketing approach for this advertising campaign.
As you know, I have pushed for it as well, but we all
remember what happened on the Do-op project. I have
to admit that direct marketing feels right to me, but to be
honest with you, I still have some reservations. Do you
think we should take one more look at this? I’m afraid I
might have overlooked something.”

Speaking
Definition: Calls for speaking with a collective voice to find
collective meaning; attempts to characterize the state of
a group of colleagues at a given time
Behavior: Suggest group norms
Articulate meaning, such as by summoning an image
Be willing to bring out uncertainties and unfounded
assumptions
Self-Inquiry: What can I say to help us understand ourselves?
What social practices are we engaging in right now?
What is emerging in our collective consciousness that I
can articulate?
Example: “Jamie, your concern left me with an image that seems
to characterize our effort right now. It is like we’re a
cargo plane having to make our destination to Istanbul
but with one engine knocked out.”

Disclosing
Definition: Asks that members find and speak with their own voice
in order to disclose their doubts and assumptions as well
as voice their impatience and passion
Behavior: Disclose one’s feelings at a given moment, based on what
has transpired
Present one’s story to reveal the depth of one’s
experience
Self-Inquiry: What am I holding back that needs to be aired?
What might I say to help others know me better?
Example: “I wasn’t planning on telling you about this. I know I
have seemed distracted lately and the way I just dealt
with Linda is a case in point. Well, frankly, I am having
some marital problems. I’ve moved into an apartment
and can’t get my mind off my kids.”

Testing
Definition: Makes an open-ended query to others to attempt to
uncover new ways of thinking and behaving; asks
members of a group to consider their own process,
including their norms, roles, and past actions
Behavior: Make a “meta-inquiry” to focus on where the group is
right now
Ask whether the group would be willing to test some
taken-for-granted assumptions
Self-Inquiry: Are we helping each other right now?
What can I ask to help us all focus on our process right
now?
Example: “I guess we’re at an impasse. In fact, it looks like we’re
split right down the middle on this one. Can we come up
with some way to resolve this to everyone’s reasonable
satisfaction? What do you all think?”

Probing
Definition: Inquires directly with others to understand the
facts, reasons, assumptions, inferences, and possible
consequences of a given suggestion or action; commits to
a nonjudgmental consideration of another’s views
Behavior: Ask about another’s impressions and perceptions
Inquire about one’s attributions of another’s behavior
Explore the consequences of an alternative
Self-Inquiry: What is the basis for another person’s point of view and
feelings?
Can I explore with others even though their position
may be different from my own?
Example: “Frank, you’ve said several times that you believe that
the workers in your unit should take the ball and run
with it. Yet you say they are dependent and continue to
check with you on every new initiative. Is there anything
you might be doing or saying that might be blocking
their sense of independence? Might you be unwittingly
giving them the sense that you’ll be critical if they screw
up, for example?”

5 Advanced Dialogic Skills to engage you in deeper and more Productive Interpersonal Conversations

The Drucker Lectures - Managing the Increasing Complexity of Large Organizations

Managing the Increasing Complexity of Large Organizations

If you look at the history of political theory—and basically
when we talk organizational structure we are talking governance
and political theory—there are two strands in the Western
tradition. One is the constitutionalist, which basically says,
“What are the right laws so that even mediocre people can function
and so that the evildoers are at least confined?” The other
one, which went by the name of the “education of the Christian
prince” and also goes back to the Greeks and even earlier, says,
“How do we form the rulers so that even if there are turbulent
times and the rules aren’t clear, we get the best there is, and we
get virtue and leadership into the system?”

In the last 30 years, we have emphasized the constitutional
approach. Let me say that this is normal in this country, where
business basically started out taking its structural concepts from
the American Constitution. If you look at our organizational
theory, it is tremendously influenced by the Constitution, for better
or worse. I’d say largely for better because at least it preaches
the need to think through the limitations of power. At the same
time, we have had some approaches that are opposite—that start
out with, “How do we form people?”

Oh, some of you may be old enough to remember that I once
was considered a pioneer of human relations, which was an attempt
to offset somewhat the constitutionalist approach with an
approach on the formation of people. And there is organization
development. But let’s face it. Those two things haven’t worked.
They have been minor corrections. And now we will have to
look at the formation of people very seriously, simply because for
some of the problems we have to solve there is no other way.

Let me give you an example. If you look at multinationals
today, they are mostly nineteenth century in their structure,
with a parent company and with subsidiaries that manufacture
the same products for their own home market. But increasingly,
you get incestuous relationships in which the specs come out
of Detroit, the design comes out of Germany, the body comes
out of Brazil, and the transmission out of Mexico—like the
Ford Fiesta. Or if you look at IBM office products, resources
are organized not in terms of products but in terms of stages of
production with labor-intensive work done in one place, with
design done in another, with a lot of the technology done where
the technologists are.

And let me say that technologists are proving remarkably resistant
to migration. Those French specialists prefer to work in
a research lab near the Louvre to working in Hoboken. I can’t
figure it out, but they do. And you can’t get them to move or
even to go down to Connecticut, and so you have to do the research
where the researchers are. It’s no longer true as it was in
the ’50s that researchers are so badly paid in Germany or Austria
or Japan that they’ll only too gladly take that job in Peoria. They
don’t anymore. And so you will have to think through how you
organize and integrate not components but stages. The product
is then sold where the customers are, which is likely to be in developed
countries. And so that subsidiary you have in France is
not a traditional one.

But even more difficult is the subsidiary in Colombia, where,
if you are a pharmaceutical company, Colombia is a developed
market. In fact, the only industry for which developing countries
are fully developed markets is the pharmaceutical for the simple
reason that pharmacy is the only part of modern health care a
very poor country can really afford. It’s the cheapest part, and it
does 60 percent of the job. And so Colombia spends proportionally
more per capita on prescription drugs than most developed
countries, and yet it’s a small market because of the small urban
population—roughly similar to one good sales district in a developed
country, let’s say Manchester or Kansas City.

And yet that head of your subsidiary there has to be a distinguished
man because he will matter a great deal. So he probably
is the most distinguished medical administrator, former dean
of the medical school, and a minister of affairs. How does he
relate to the top? He has to be an equal because he’ll negotiate
with the government there now, with the Catholic nun who
buys drugs for Mercy Hospital. You’ll need his input. He’s a very
distinguished man; very few of that caliber could you get into
your own organization. How do you structure him? And so you
have all kinds of new complexities, which make the simple, traditional
structure very hard. Then one has to say, “First, we need
new structural principles.” The answer to it is, “We ain’t got
none. We have patchwork.”

We had in the history of organization two very simple principles.
One is from [French mining engineer and early twentiethcentury
management theorist] Henri Fayol, and the other one
was what [General Motors Chairman] Alfred Sloan and then
I codified as “federal decentralization.” And they worked where
they worked like a charm, but they have strict requirements and
severe limitations.

You know, when I first heard of the Bell telephone system,
it was beautifully organized and very simple, a good operating
company, and 98 percent of their business was within their territory
because in those days 98 percent of all calls and 98 percent
of all revenue were local calls. Nobody had heard of computer
transmission or what have you. And so, when you look at it today—
and you all know the Bell telephone system is desperately
trying to reorganize itself into regulated and unregulated and
quasi-regulated businesses—you no longer have a local system
that’s interconnected, a long-distance system with local peripherals.
The old organization cannot work and doesn’t. And so
how do you organize? We don’t know the answers; we know
patchwork. And we will all have to live with things that quite
clearly are full of friction and present problems.

We’ve tried to build our organizations as close to mechanical
models as possible because it is simple. [Scientific management
pioneers] Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol both assumed that
you know what you are doing. You know, a coal mine mines coal.
It’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, you are now in a period in which the
real challenge is to decide what you are doing in the context of
technological change or market change.

The one axis of organization that you’ll say you need is a skeleton.
And all of you know a land animal that is more than six
inches tall needs a skeleton; it can’t be held together by heart and
skin anymore. The organization chart, with its lines of authority
and its reporting, is a skeleton. Now, we always have some
problems with that. If you have a divisional structure, the relationship
between your corporate comptroller and your divisional
comptroller is not a simple one and can’t be decided one way or
another. You all know that when you get to technology, it doesn’t
work if you have coordinating groups, and it doesn’t work any
other way.

Yet how do we organize the new within the old? In fact, can
we organize it? If you look at the last 30 years, the obstacles to
entrepreneurship were exceedingly high in terms of the tax laws,
in terms of our credit structure. Now, we are not as bad as the
Japanese where the better you do in school, the bigger your employer
has to be. We don’t believe that bigger is better and very
big is best, but we’ve gotten pretty close to it. We are told that the
bright ones want to go into small business. That’s what they say.
But when you look at where they are three years later, they are all
with Citibank, and for good reasons. Citibank can afford people
who don’t earn their keep yet. Citibank can afford that overhead,
and that little entrepreneur with $2 million in sales can’t. But he
also has no time to train anybody. He has to throw them in, and
also they learn the wrong things. One has to learn system.

Before you can say what we violate in the system, you have to
master it. You can’t write free verse until after you have learned
to write a sonnet. I once studied composition with one of the
most advanced of modern composers [the Austrian] Anton Webern.
(I almost became a musician.) And I thought he would
let me write the kind of stuff he wrote. And he said, “My dear,
Peter, you are taking liberty with the variation form. [Joseph]
Haydn gets it after 30 years. First of all, you will never be a
Haydn, and you have been at it 30 days.” And I had to learn to
write the orthodox variation. And then, after I had done that for
a year badly, he said, “Now, maybe you can take one liberty, but
be careful.” And, I brought it in, and he said, “I was wrong. You
aren’t ready yet.” And he was right.

And, that’s why students go to the GEs and the IBMs: not
only because they pay better, but also because they have a training
program. We have been amazingly effective at having small
entrepreneurs, and yet, when you look at the things that need to
be done, an enormous amount must come out of existing, large
organizations simply because the capital needs, the people needs,
and the planning needs are so great.

So, how do you organize your entrepreneurial within the
managerial? Again, the answer is largely not structure but people and compensation systems and managing individuals and placing them.

The human relations people made one dreadful mistake,
which we now realize. They talked of human nature. That was
the reason why we in the human relations movement were totally
ineffectual. We talked of a collective called the human being
in society. We preached individuals, but we did not really look
at them. We didn’t manage them. We managed workers, supervisors.
One has to do that, but still it explains why we were
ineffectual and why the very human beings whom we thought
we befriended rejected us. The organization development people
believe that structure is an obstacle and an impediment and has
to be, if not eliminated, at least bent to the human being. They
are equally ineffectual.

The skeleton has to be rigid. One cannot adapt the skeleton
to the individual, to people, but one has to fit people as individuals
so that they can learn what the individual can learn. We will
have to challenge people: “It’s your job to think through who has
to know and understand what you are trying to do and to make
yourself understood. Don’t wait for the information specialist;
that’s futile. It’s your job to say who needs to know what you are
going to concentrate on and also who depends on you for what.
And then to go to that person and say, ‘This is what I think you
look to me for,’ which is the only way to develop relationships.”

Every client of mine tells me of the terrible personality problems
that we have. Nonsense. Personality problems are very rare
in organizations. Organizations have to be very tolerant. Misunderstandings
are common. Personality problems are almost
unheard of. But what is common is that you don’t know what the
next fellow is doing because he hasn’t told you, and you haven’t
asked him. And so you assume he must do what to you is obvious,
and when he does something else you think he is either
stupid or malicious. No, he only marches by his own drummer
and hasn’t told you what it is and you don’t hear it. So, we will
have to demand a great deal of responsibility from individuals
for making themselves effective in a system.

The Drucker Lectures - Managing the Increasing Complexity of Large Organizations

Affordable Online Tutoring for K-12 and College Students

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Online tutoring from the comfort of your own home, is available 24X7, gives you the flexibility to learn on your own schedule. Private Online tutoring is the best way to get connected with your tutor in any academic subject ( Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, etc) by the help of virtual classroom. A virtual class room environment consisting of a white board makes the learning experience interactive and interesting. This one-to-one online tutoring lessons are easily accessible, instantly customized for your unique needs, convenient, and affordable. This high quality learning experience is designed to help you improve test performance, build confidence, and develop learning interest. You can get help on every math subject, including Algebra, Calculus, Elementary Math, Statistics, Geometry, and Trigonometry.

Affordable Online Tutoring for K-12 and College Students

Financing for machinery, vehicles and equipment with Export or International Leasing. The Operating Lease and The Financial Lease.

International leasing
Leasing in its simplest form is a means of delivering finance, broadly defined as ‘a contract between two parties where one party (the lessor) provides an asset, mostly equipment, for usage to another party (the lessee) for a specified period of time, in return for specified payments’.
Leasing is a medium-term form of finance for machinery, vehicles and equipment, with the legal right to use the goods for a defined period of time but without owning or having title to them.

The lease is normally divided into two separate categories:
 The operating lease – where the lessee is using the equipment but where the risk of ownership with all its corresponding rights and responsibilities is borne by the lessor, who also buys insurance and undertakes responsibility for maintenance. Furthermore, the duration of an operating lease is usually much shorter than the useful life of the equipment and the present value of all lease payments therefore significantly less than the full equipment value. In most respects, the operating lease is equivalent to rental and, under most jurisdictions, the equipment consequently remains on the books of the lessor.
 The financial lease – where all practical risks of ownership are borne by the lessee, who uses the equipment for most of its economic life with or without the ultimate goal of acquiring it at the expiry of the lease at an agreed and often nominal cost. From the outset, the lessor therefore expects to recover from the lessee the capital cost of the investment along with interest and profit during the period of the lease (therefore often called a full payout lease), and where in most cases under the tax laws of most countries, the equipment has to stay on the books of the lessee.

The distinction between these types of lease is not always very clear in reality and many leases are frequently structured in one way while being defined in another, usually owing to potential cost or tax advantages. However, in most countries where leasing is particularly frequently used, such as the United States, tax authorities or the domestic Accounting Standards Board has laid down specified conditions for a lease to be classified as an operational lease.
When the sales contract between the supplier and the lessor, and the leasing contract between the lessor and the lessee have been signed, the equipment is usually delivered directly from the supplier to the lessee, who is the end-user of the equipment. Following approval of the delivery by the lessee, the lessor remits the payment to the supplier. The equipment, together with the leasing contract, constitutes security for the lessor, sometimes together with a limited or full supplementary repurchase agreement with the supplier. But most of the risks, rights and obligations in connection with the use of the equipment rest with the lessee.

The lessee leases the equipment for a period that corresponds to either the economic lifetime of the equipment or a shorter period thereof, with monthly or quarterly lease payments, based on annuities, which could be adapted to the lessee’s own fluctuating liquidity situation during the year. At the end of the lease period, either the equipment is returned to the lessor or the lease is extended for a new agreed period; however, the lease contract could also include an option for the lessee to buy the equipment at the prevailing market value at that time or at a fixed percentage of the original lease value.

This is a general description of a lease. The principles are basically the same irrespective of whether it is a domestic transaction or an export or international lease, the main difference being that in the latter case the parties are located in different countries. However, that difference could have a major impact on the transaction and how it is executed.
The most common form of lease in connection with day-to-day export is when a leasing company in the ‘buyer’s’ country is buying the equipment from a foreign supplier and leasing it to a lessee (the buyer) in their country. Such a lease should be regarded more as a domestic lease, mostly arranged in local currency and with other parts of the contract also adapted to local conditions. It may be arranged or initiated by the seller as part of the offer and normally leads to cash payment for the seller upon acceptance of the delivery by the buyer (the lessee), but with continued responsibility for any contractual repurchase, partial guarantee or other undertaking the seller may have to enter into with the foreign lease company.

Financing for machinery, vehicles and equipment with Export or International Leasing. The Operating Lease and The Financial Lease.

September 2010 - Top 10 Entrecard Droppers

I like to thank to all droppers for their continued support.
My special appreciation for the following Top 10 Droppers for September 2010:

Photography by KML

Another Fine Meal

Urban Art Blog

my kids are my world

JoeTaxpayer

Winesworld's blog

Communication Exchange

T-Shirt Reviews

Art Shout!

Electricians notes

September 2010 - Top 10 Entrecard Droppers

Key Success Factors for Product Development and Management. The 6 Stages of A Product Life Cycle.

A product is an item or service that is offered to the consumer to satisfy
his or her needs and to realize organizational goals.

Product Life Cycle
Just like human beings, products have a life cycle, too. They are conceived
(i.e., via research and development), born (i.e., launched), grow,
mature, decline, and eventually, die. There are particular characteristics
of each stage and corresponding marketing implications. Astute marketers
manage the product life cycle to greatest advantage, elongating
the product’s life cycle and/or its generation of cash.

The 6 stages of a product life cycle: introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, decline, and abandonment.

Product Development and Management

What are the key determinants of success or failure?

1. Does the product offer a technological innovation that satisfies a need?
3M’s Thinsulate fabric was a breakthrough in apparel, given its
warmth yet ultra light weight.
2. Is it a better version of a preexisting product?
Coca-Cola’s introduction of New Coke was not perceived by the vast majority of
Coke drinkers as an improvement over the original version.
In fact, it is interesting that Coca-Cola actually gained market
share despite the poor showing of New Coke. Because of all of
the massive advertising that worked at the time by Coke and
Pepsi in the spirit of their arch rivalry, many of the smaller beverage
brands (e.g., Hire’s, Crush, Dr. Pepper) who could not
keep pace in ad spending, were eclipsed in the process. Therefore,
consumer attention was focused on Coke and Pepsi (both of
whom gained in market share that was forfeited by the other
brands).
3. Is it perceived as a good value?
Toyota is not nearly the precision
luxury automobile that the Rolls Royce is. But isn’t it a “better
deal,” pound for pound, dollar for dollar, in utility?
4. Does the product leverage the company’s strength(s)?
It made sense for Dunkin’ Donuts to introduce bagels to its product line, in light
of the company’s demonstrated strengths in baked goods and a
breakfast-oriented and snack-oriented customer base. Conversely,
Boston Market saw its profits shrink as a result of introducing
a line of less expensive sandwiches, which “cannibalized”
the sales of its chicken dinners.
5. Has demand vis-à-vis supply been accurately estimated?
What can be worse than not having your product in stock when customers
want to buy it? Perhaps having too much of your product in
stock with virtually no buyers in sight. Personally, in my own
experience as a consultant, this is a common scenario.
6. Is your organization sufficiently financed to support a product launch
and subsequent maintenance?
More capital and resources may be needed than originally calculated. It is wise to build a wellpadded “cushion” into your budget and to have at the ready contingency
plans in the event of unanticipated events or changes in the marketplace.

Key Success Factors for Product Development and Management. The 6 Stages of A Product Life Cycle.

Convenient and Affordable Private Online Tutoring

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Private tutoring from the comfort of your own home gives you the flexibility to learn on your own schedule. Private Online tutoring is the best way to get connected with your tutor in any academic subject by the help of virtual classroom. A virtual class room environment consisting of a white board makes the learning experience interactive and interesting. This one-to-one online tutoring lessons are easily accessible, convenient, affordable, and instantly customized for your unique needs. This high quality learning experience are designed to help you build confidence, develop learning interest and improve test performance. You can get help on every math subject, including Elementary Math, Statistics, Algebra, Calculus, Geometry, and Trigonometry. Algebra Help may cover many the topic areas: from  linear algebra, elementary algebra, algebra 1, algebra 2, matrix algebra, college algebra, Boolean algebra, intermediate algebra, abstract algebra, to advanced algebra.

Convenient and Affordable Private Online Tutoring

Stylish, Highly Protective, Comfortabe Motorcycle Accessories for serious Motorcycle Rider

If you love to watch MotoGP World Championship Racing, the name of Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner would be familiar for you. If you like to ride Harley Davidson motorcycles, you can experience the unrivaled riding pleasure from this high performance, reliable, high quality motorcycle. In the motorcycle World, every rider need a high quality protective motorcycle gears and accessories: from motorcycle helmets, motorcycle jackets, motorcycle boots, motorcycle gloves, motorcycle pants, motorcycle luggage, and more.

When it comes to motor sports, regardless of a rider's age or level of experience, safety should always be the foremost consideration. A well-constructed, full coverage helmet made of a strong fiberglass shell is important to protect you from accident. Motorcycle Jackets, equipped with dual density extra protective body armor and spine pads, provides extra safety during fall or accident. There are different types of jackets suitable for different type of whether condition: rain, extreme cold, warm, strong wind. 100% waterproof jackets are perfect for you if you deal with rain a lot. Most jackets are offered with zip sleeves and velcro collars so that you can close up any openings where the chilly airstream will get in and make you uncomfortable. Some of the jackets are designed to keep you quite warm in the cold weather as well. While Leather Jacket provides unbeatable protection for you in the event of an accident, Textile jacket provides greater comfort, ventilation, waterproofing and pocket space.

Finding reliable, affordable equipment and accessories for bike riding can be a challenge, especially for people who are new to the sport and are not entirely confident in their product buying skills. There are few quality brands to choose from: Joe Rocket, Fieldsheer, Xelement, Cortech, Tourmaster, Nelson Rigg, Zan Headgear, TCX Boots, etc. My personal choice is Joe Rocket. For years, Joe Rocket gear has been famous in the motorcycle world. Their fashionable, reasonably priced, high quality protective motorcycle gears are an excellent choice for any serious rider.

Stylish, Highly Protective, Comfortabe Motorcycle Accessories for serious Motorcycle Rider

Real Estate Investment Competitive Analysis. Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Investing.

Competitive Analysis
You should include this only if there are other companies who will be in competition with yours. You want the reader to understand that other companies have generated profits in your marketplace because that shows that your activities will generate income, too. You also want to demonstrate that you will do even better than those competing firms. You have more expertise, better holdings, more vision, or something that will enable you to earn more money than the companies that are in competition with you. Here are questions to answer:
    Which companies are your major competition?
    What do they do, and what are their holdings?
    Do they appeal to the same consumers as you are trying to attract?
    How long have they been in business?
    What have their profits been?
    Are they becoming more profitable or less, and why?
    How do they differ from you in properties owned, sales or rental volume, number of employees, additional benefits (they improve larger properties than you do, for example, or are in the luxury segment), and other key factors.
    How will you compete with them? (Perhaps you will offer more luxurious properties, for example, or a more convenient commuting location for your tenants to enjoy. Perhaps you will charge lower rents than the competition.)
    Have you learned critical lessons by watching your competition that will allow you to avoid costly mistakes or generate profits more predictably?

Marketing Strategy
Include this section if the success of your enterprise depends largely on advertising or marketing to your target consumers. Answer these questions:
    Who are your target consumers?
    How will you reach them— through the Internet, radio ads, newspaper classified ads, or otherwise?
    How cost-effective is the cost of that advertising? You can reach one million consumers with a radio ad that will cost you $1,000, for example.
    What are your marketing priorities? To whom will you advertise first, for example?
    Are there applicable market studies that support your belief that you can generate profits by marketing to the group(s) you are targeting?
    What geographic areas will you cover as you advertise or market your properties?
    Do you have salespeople or rental agents? If not, do you intend to hire them?
    Will you retain real estate agencies or other parties as part of your efforts to sell or rent your properties? If so, what will those activities cost?
    What will you charge for your properties in rents or sales prices, and how do those figures compare to what the competition is asking?
    Will inflation allow you to generate more profits from rentals or sales in the years ahead? When can you begin to generate those increased profits?

Real Estate Investment Competitive Analysis. Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Investing.

August 2010 - Top 10 Entrecard Droppers

I like to thank to all droppers for their continued support.
My special appreciation for the following Top 10 Droppers for August 2010:

Winesworld's blog

T-Shirt Reviews

Fledgling Blogger

Communication Exchange

Art Shout!

my kids are my world

The Everyday Adventurer

Electricians notes

Urban Art Blog

Photography by KML

August 2010 - Top 10 Entrecard Droppers

HR Orientation and Onboarding Strategies. Sample Employee Orientation Program.

Do you remember your first day on the job? How did your co-workers and boss treat you? The old saying, "You don't get a second chance to make a good first impression" is true in this case. Organizations experience the highest level of turnover during the first 90 days on the job. The purpose of onboarding is to swiftly assimilate the new person into the organization.
Keep in mind employees today have options. Those people right out of college have as many as two to four offers from other employers. During the onboarding process new employees decide what kind of organization they are working for and what type of people they are working with. This is a stressful time for your new people, so make the first critical days stand out as a positive experience. This is a great opportunity to make new hires feel proud to have chosen your organization.
Sample Employee Orientation Program
New Employee Orientation Programs
Here is a sample program you can use or modify for your organization.

BEFORE AN EMPLOYEE'S FIRST DAY OF WORK:
    Appoint a person or have a concierge call before the new hire starts work.
    Have the new hire fill out forms on the company intranet if available.
    Send a greeting such as a card, welcome basket, or other ges ture.
    Have a HR rep call and answer questions about benefits, moving procedures, policies, etc.
    If applicable, have business cards ready.
    Have a company T-shirt or other logo item ready.
    Inform them of the parking policy.

DURING AN EMPLOYEE'S FIRST WEEK AT WORK:
    Give them a map of organization's locations and directions.
    Provide the new employee a reserved parking spot for the first week on the job.
    Have a group of key employees sit down with the new person to discuss what it is like to work there.
    Take a digital photo of the new person and create a flyer to hang on the wall detailing his or her hobbies, experience, and background information.
    Introduce the new hire to the CEO/president.
    Provide a copy of the organizational values, mission, and vision statement.
    Make sure the employee has a phone and Email directory of everyone in the organization.
    Assign an employee who enjoys working with people as a buddy to the new hire.
    Ensure the new hire's work area is properly equipped and stocked, ready for the first week of work.
    Take the new person out to lunch to meet the team.
    Hang a welcome sign.
    Take a team photograph.

PROVIDE THE NEW HIRE WITH:
    Samples of products
    Employee publications
    Schedule of group orientation sessions
    Organization chart
    Photographs of key leaders
    Computer and passwords
    Business cards
    Contact directory, including locations, and Email addresses
ABOUT THE JOB:
    Give them their job description.
    Design a development/training plan.
    Provide them a list of training opportunities.
    Give them the meeting schedule.
    Provide them or outline the mentoring program.

HR Orientation and Onboarding Strategies. Sample Employee Orientation Program.

16 Observations on Learning Powerful Money Making Strategies for Beating the Financial Futures Market.

1.    The average trader cannot succeed unless he or she is 100 percent mechanical. Most of us can't "hear what the markets are telling us" because for all practical purposes, the markets ain't saying sqaut.
2.    Human psychology tends to be drastically out of synch with what is needed to trade successfully.
3.    Market activity consists overwhelmingly of noise with a very small trend component. The latter is what makes mechanical trading possible, but it can't be perceived over one trial. It takes many trades — a numbers game universe — for an edge to manifest itself.
4.    Spontaneous traders therefore have nothing to tune into other than noise. That is why it is so hard for such a trader to move forward or get better over time. There is no tangible reinforcement.
5.    There is the occasional trader who proves the exception to the rule. He or she is born with the talent, and tends to discover it almost immediately after embarking on a trading career. If you've been losing money for several months, you are almost certainly not one of those people.
6.    When one combines mechanical with discretionary trading, one tends to get the worst of both worlds.
7.    Simple is best.
8.    Basic elements can be combined to create greater wholes.
9.    Day trading can work, but there are inherent problems compared to other types of trading. The main obstacle lies in the relatively small trading arcs compared to trading costs.
10.    Ideas generally have to test well over a fairly wide array of markets and trading environments in order to be considered trustworthy.
11.    If you're getting a buzz from your trading, you're not doing it right. Good trading should be boring.
12.    Never act on anything you don't thoroughly understand. Understand every step and every aspect of your research.
13.    Nobody has a magic informational pipeline. The most successful traders of all time are still going to be wrong roughly half the time. Never coat-tail anybody. Never trade on touts.
14.    If you're praying, you're wrong. In fact, God loves to punish system violators.
15.    If you're emotionally engaged at all, you're wrong.
16.    If you think there's any wisdom in "yes I know what the system says, but this time, it has to be wrong," you're wrong. Wrong wrong wrong?(should I stress it one more time?)?wrong.

And finally, you might want to frame this one :
If you are not following your systems 100 percent exactly as mandated, then by definition you are not trading mechanically.

16 Observations on Learning Powerful Money Making Strategies for Beating the Financial Futures Market.

The Problem and Solution for Promoting an Employee into a First-Time Supervisory Role

How to Promote an Employee into a First-Time Supervisory Role

What’s so tough about promoting someone into a first-time supervisory role? Shouldn’t that be a topic of joy and jubilation rather than potential confrontation? Well, it depends how you look at it. Of course, it’s always wonderful to promote people into roles of leadership, but the truth is that most newly minted managers require ‘‘the talk’’ before you go ahead and officially bless their promotion.

Why? Because if they assume that they’re simply getting promoted and earning more money to do more of the same, they’re mistaken. Promotions into supervisory roles require a whole new set of skills and strategies, and if your company is willing to invest in them and promote them, then you have every right to establish your expectations on a go-forward basis. As a result, this can be a challenging discussion for you to give and for your employee to receive, but more often than not, you’ll find that establishing this new mind-set will go a long way in helping newly promoted supervisors to excel and thrive in their new roles.

However, don’t be too surprised if you get some initial resistance and even a challenge or two. After all, goes the logic of the newly promoted supervisor, why would you consider promoting me if I wasn’t doing an outstanding job, and why are you killing all the fun and taking away from the moment by telling me about all my weaknesses?

The Solution
This talk needs to be an honest and balanced assessment of the individual’s performance up to now, along with the heightened expectations you have for that individual in the new role. It may sting a bit during the time of delivery, but it’s meant to get that individual thinking about where he’s been, what he’s accomplished, and where he wants to go from here. As a result, you might want to structure your conversation like this:

Heidi, I wanted to meet with you to discuss your pending promotion. I’m sure you’re excited to see it happen, but before all the paperwork goes through and this becomes formalized, I want to talk with you candidly and openly about my expectations of you in your new role. Does that sound fair? [Yes.]

Up to now, you’ve been an A student. You’ve worked very hard, applied yourself in every way, and did everything that I assigned to you with a smile and can-do attitude. You’ve kept me in the loop regarding your progress and always let me know if you wouldn’t be able to meet a deadline or ran into any unforeseen delays, and I’ve always appreciated that. Truth be told, that’s why I’ve been so supportive of your promotion into a first-line supervisor role.

That being said, I want you to know how things look from my perspective, and I’m not holding any punches. The good news is that this will be an open and honest conversation that I want you to take in and learn from; the not-so-good news is that some of this may be difficult for you to hear, so I want you to approach this with an open mind. Fair enough? [Yes.]

Good. Let’s start with my expectations: If you receive and accept this promotion, you’ll be supervising people who are now your peers. That means that there may be some resentment or jealousy from those whom you feel closest to. It also means that you’re going to have to distance yourself from them a bit so that there’s a clear line or distinction between you and them.

That means, first of all, that you’ll need to dress more professionally. Up to now, you’ve worn clothes and apparel that are befitting of a staff member. But I wouldn’t say they were befitting of a member of the management team. Some people on your staff dress exceptionally well, and you know who they are. I don’t feel that they should dress more professionally than you; however, if you’re not careful, the people you supervise may ‘‘show you up,’’ so to speak. Your image therefore becomes very important, and I want you to give some thought to the image you want to portray both toward your subordinates as well as senior members of management. Is that fair? [Yes.]

Okay. Next, you need to choose your friends a bit more carefully. Up to now, you’ve been very tight with a small group of girls outside of our department—Cindy, Joanne, and Stephanie—and that’s fine. I can’t tell you who to befriend. What I can tell you, though, is that from my view, with all due respect to them, they’re kind of seen as the class clowns on this floor. People don’t take them very seriously because they don’t take their careers very seriously and are constantly joking and giggling and playing pranks on one another.

Again, they’re your friends, and I’m not dictating who you should be friends with. But I can tell you that if I see you and them as one and the same, others will too, and that’s not necessarily going to help your career. My recommendation would be to expand your circle of friends to include other supervisors and department heads. Let people see you networking with higher-level associates, and they’ll tend to categorize you upward into that group, which will help them take you more seriously. Do you see my logic here? [Yes.]

Finally, and most important, I need you to step up in terms of how you see yourself and how you’ll take ownership of the projects you work on and the people you supervise. In short, up to now you’ve been an A student. But I don’t need a student anymore—I need a teacher. And my expectations for teachers are totally different than for students.

For starters, I’ll need you to lead, not follow. I’ll expect you to take well-calculated risks, but always with advanced approval. (As you know, I don’t like mavericks and hate being blindsided.) I’ll need you to speak with authority and command a room, and I know you haven’t really been expected to do that before. This promotion, though, will change all that. They say that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, and I’d like to think that you’re heading into that phase right now.

Are you ready to teach by setting lesson plans, delivering new information, making solid recommendations, and confronting problem situations head-on? Will you be strong enough to discipline or even lay off or terminate subordinates whom you now consider close personal friends? Will I be able to count on you to reinvent yourself in light of these challenges? [Yes.]

These are my expectations, and you need to be sure that you’re ready to step up your own performance to meet them. I promote successful people into successful roles. However, there’s a risk of failure here, like with any change in life, and you need to be sure that you’re ready for the challenge.

You don’t need to answer me right now. I’d rather you sleep on this, think about it carefully, and get back to me tomorrow. Know that you’re not alone in this and that I’ll always be here to help. But before you say yes to this promotion, make sure you’re clear on my expectations and in your ability to meet them. Don’t take this opportunity for granted, and get ready to enter a new stage in your career. When you meet with me tomorrow, I’ll want to be convinced that you’re ready to go and excited. Now let’s talk about what questions you have. . . .

Wow! That’s a lot of information. And of course it doesn’t have to do with only these particular issues; chattiness, avoidance of confrontation, or a messy office are just as valid criteria. What’s important is that you’re honest in your assessment of the individual’s performance up to now as well as your future expectations. Your honesty may be difficult to hear at first, but it can serve as an advantage for the newly minted supervisor’s career development. That’s what enlightened and selfless leadership is all about.

The Problem and Solution for Promoting an Employee into a First-Time Supervisory Role