Sat.Jun 23, 2012 - Fri.Jun 29, 2012

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6 Ways to Become a More Independent Thinker at Work

On The Job

One of the reasons I went into journalism was because I didn't want to rely on someone else to tell me the facts of a situation. I wanted to find them out for myself. Yet things have changed since I entered the media industry. It seems that some "facts" are churned out faster than can be verified, with errors being tweeted or rushed onto television as "breaking news" without all the information.

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If You Want Your Business To Fail ….

The Small Business Blog

Don’t focus on your business goals Do your own, at best, mediocre website Don’t find other business owners who could help you Don’t look after your cash-flow Be late with your tax returns Ignore your customers Ignore your team Follow every distraction and every rabbit hole Don’t business bootstrap your business Don’t sell online

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Is Going Public Obsolete?

Small Business Labs

An interesting academic paper (yes, that's possible) - Where Have All the IPOs Gone -  suggests that the main reason for the decline in initial public offerings (IPOs) is small, high growth companies are finding it harder to compete with big firms.   This is cutting their profitability, reducing their ability to go public.   As the graph below shows, the number of U.S. public companies has steadily decreased over the last decade.       The reason for

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An Assistant's Top 5 Tips for Managing Tasks and Priorities

Office Dynamics

I have several tips I can offer on this subject, but here are the top 5. If you make any one of these a habit, you will see an increase in your productivity. FOCUS! This is the most important of all 5. In a world where people think multi-tasking is a valued skill, it isn’t. Research proves being focused will move you faster than any other habit. Next is to focus on your “A” priority items.

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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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Week 1 #Cinchpiration

Eco-Office Gals

I told you I was part of the #Cinchpiration Team of 50 woman across the blogosphere about 2 weeks ago. I received my starter pack just shy of a week ago and I have been trying out everything for 5 days now. So far everything tastes pretty good. The shakes are super filling, I’ve been using Silk instead of milk, and frozen unsweetened fruit and ice and they’re pretty tasty.

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Moxie Tip 195: Self-care and Reserves

Virtual Moxie

The more self-care you engage in, the better prepared you are for lifes tiffs, or whoop-dee-doos. Also, having reserves of things like time, money, love, community, space, and opportunity makes you infinitely more present to yourself, which in turn makes you more responsive (rather than reactive) to others. So even if something goes awry, you’re more likely to handle it with ease, rather than freak out about it.

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5 Things to Do When You Loathe Your New Job

On The Job

Go on. It’s time to admit it. You hate your new job. Hate. It. Your loathing for the new job you tried so hard to get and sweat bullets for in an interview is now the thing that makes you want to never get out of bed. You dread going to work every day, and feel a slight sense of panic when you step through the office door. Still, you accepted the job.

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Virtual Assistant or Personal Assistant? What do you think?

Stephanie LH Calahan

The other day I received a question in my group: I'd like to consider virtual assistants or maybe a personal assistant. Who has had luck with these.are some better than others? Thanks, Carol from Nebraska. Knowing how to build your team is a critical choice. The other day, I shared some thoughts on different types of people that you could bring into your powerhouse, kick-butt team.

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Rocking the Old Boys’ Clubs

The Small Business Blog

Waspies mean business Keep up won’t you? News that there are now 395,000 independent, own biz, direct sellers in the UK, up 20,000 since 2009 with an increase of 120% in party plan revenue, got me thinking.

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Elevating the Virtual Interviewing Experience

Sharing your authentic self in a virtual interview can be an unwanted challenge. How do you break through the digital barrier when conducting a virtual interview and share your exceptional self? Think in unconventional ways to elevate the virtual interviewing experience.

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Moxie Tip 196: "Affording" Your Fee

Virtual Moxie

I could be cavalier and say, “If you want clients who will pay what you ask, only talk with people who can afford your fee.” And I’d be spot on with that. But that’s not very helpful to most people. And I genuinely want to help. "Afford" is most often used to mean that someone has the money to pay for something easily. But in reality, that's only part of the story when it comes to whether clients can "afford" your fee.

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Why are There More Non-Employer Small Businesses?

Small Business Labs

Scott Shane's post Should We Count Non-Employer Businesses? raises a number of interesting questions related to the fact that a growing share of U.S. small businesses don't have employees.   He wonders whether or not these businesses should count as small businesses. He also closes his article by saying: Patterns like these suggest that we need to understand why fewer and fewer American entrepreneurs are starting businesses with employees.

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Tools that Make Telecommuting Easier

Eco-Office Gals

Telecommunications is an important part of any marketing company. Even for those working from home, it’s the backbone of most marketing plans mainly because the conversion rate of telecommunications are much higher than all other types of person to person advertising. This sounds great, so why isn’t everyone doing it? The problem is that this process can become quite complicated and expensive.

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Business Cloud Computing. Yes, but…

The Small Business Blog

Is it affordable, or are you getting ripped off by the business cloud computing vendor? Do you pay more than $15/£10 per user for all the business apps you need? Is it an integrated solution, can you get all apps from one cloud computing vendor? Or is the cloud vendor a one trick pony?

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Mandatory COVID Vaccination Policy Template

New vaccine mandates and testing policies will affect employers with more than 100 workers. Get Paycor’s free, customizable vaccination policy template to communicate critical details and new requirements to your employees. Get Paycor’s Template today!

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How Do You Build A Solid Powerhouse Kick-Butt Team? What do you think?

Stephanie LH Calahan

I'm fortunate to work with amazing people that are doing rock star work with their clients.  As a result, their businesses are growing beyond what they can accomplish themselves. When I first talk with them, I hear that they are thrilled that their business is going great, but they are woried that they are losing the very balance that they wanted to have - the reason they started their business in the first place.

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The Rise of Artisan Distillers

Small Business Labs

The broader food movement, and in particular the local food movement (referred to as the locavore movement), has led to celebrity chefs, a rapid increase in farmers markets , the rise of urban farming and the growth of craft brewers. So it comes as no surprise that artisan distillers (craft makers of spirits) are becoming more numerous.  I attended a Commonwealth Club meeting tonight that focused on Bay Area craft distillers.  The description of the event was: Bay Area craft distille

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The Five Phases of Project Planning

Ian's Messy Desk

David Allen says, regardless of task size, the human brain goes through a Natural Planning Model. This is the process we use daily to organize regular tasks: e.g., getting dressed or driving to work. We go ahead and complete them without much thought. We use the part of our brain that is conditioned for this natural type of planning. Allen goes on to say, this is an ideal model for planning projects.

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Here Are Three Pieces of Software Small businesses should consider!

The Small Business Blog

Starting a new business can be a very exciting time, and also a very busy one. The business has to be launched, new customers found, and many suppliers dealt with, and such a large amount of work in the business’s early days can often be overwhelming.

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Is Training the Right Solution?

Speaker: Tim Buteyn

Let's set the scene: you’ve identified a critical performance gap in your organization and need to close that gap. A colleague suggests training, but you suspect there’s something going on that training can’t address. How can you determine if training is the right solution before you commit your budget and resources to a new training program? In this webinar, you will learn how to determine if training is the right solution using the Behavior Engineering Model.

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Moxie Extra -- Finding Purpose

Virtual Moxie

If you're anything like me, everywhere you look, you see people who want to help you find your purpose in life. "Live your purpose!" has almost become a battle cry. But what if you can't find it? How do you live what you can't find? . That was certainly my own dilemma, and today I was fortunate enough to get to share about that as a guest blogger for The Whirling Blog.

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Political Scientists Versus Dart Throwing Chimps

Small Business Labs

The New York Times has a good article on political scientists being bad forecasters.  Key quote: It’s an open secret in my discipline: in terms of accurate political predictions (the field’s benchmark for what counts as science), my colleagues have failed spectacularly and wasted colossal amounts of time and money. The article points out that dart throwing chimps have a better record of forecasting than political experts.  Alert readers will remember our article Dart Throwing Chimps

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Sure Ingredients To Achieving Goals

Productivity Bits

Each year many of us make a list of things we want to achieve that year. For some that list is their “New Year’s Resolution” For some that list is the things they want to have or to be – a house, car, get married, etc. We can call that many names. They are simply goals. We know there is a sense, or a feeling, that comes with achieving those goals one by one.

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Late payment excuses…Dealing with them

The Small Business Blog

Sema Fongod of Invoicediscounting.uk.com pinpoints 6 excuses used by business to delay payment and how to handle them. The Euro 2012 football tournament has kicked off and the London 2012 Olympic Games are not far away.

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Revitalizing Dry Content: A Lesson in Engagement

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

We’ve all been there. You’ve been given a pile of dry content and asked to create a compelling eLearning course. You’re determined to create something more engaging than the same old course that learners quickly click through, but how do you take this “boring” content and create something relevant and engaging? Many instructional designers will say, “Boring in means boring out.

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10 E-mail Etiquette Pet Peeves and How to Handle Them

Office Dynamics

From guest blogger, Pamela Baird, Intel. Additional Rules to Remember as You Write or Respond to Online Messages. So how many times have you read or written an email today? According to a 2011 study by IBM Research, more than 2.8 million emails are sent or read each day. People also spend more than three hours per day reading or writing those messages.

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Tips to Automate Your Marketing

Office Organization Success

The Bicentennial Gala was great fun last weekend. I think the last time Mat and I got that dressed up was when we got married! You can see us in all our finery on Facebook. My family went back home on Wednesday. It was so lovely to have them here with us; the house is so quiet now. One thing I’ve been learning and hearing about a lot lately is the Marketing Hourglass.

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Give Your Clients Options

Step It Up VA Coaching

by Donna Toothaker. The abundance of available methods of delivering information and services these days means savvy customers and clients will demand options. Technology has evolved to serve people’s many preferences; and if you want to be effective (and successful), you must offer a variety of choices – in your marketing, in your products and services, and in your payment methods – to cater to those needs and be competitive.

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Is Software Asset Management dead, or has it taken a back seat to License Management?

The Small Business Blog

Software industry specialists worked together back in 2006 to determine an international standard for Software Asset Management which would enable companies to prove that they were in full compliance with the rigorous demands set out in line with ISO/IEC 19700-1.

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Brain Fog HQ: Memory Enhancement Techniques for Professional Development

Speaker: Chester Santos – Author, International Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach, Corporate Trainer, Memory Expert, U.S. Memory Champion

In October, scientists discovered that 75% of patients who experienced brain fog had a lower quality of life at work than those who did not. At best, brain fog makes you slower and less efficient. At worst, your performance and cognitive functions are impaired, resulting in memory, management, and task completion problems. In this entertaining and interactive presentation, Chester Santos, "The International Man of Memory," will assist you in developing life-changing skills that will greatly enha