Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Your Reputation: Golden or Gone in an Instant.
One of a person’s most valuable assets is their reputation. Sam Richter’s comments and ideas below are a must read.
What You Say Online IS Your Reputation
You’ve spent your entire working career carefully crafting and protecting your reputation. You’re honest with suppliers and work exceptionally hard to exceed your clients’ expectations. You operate with integrity, are transparent in your activities, and treat everyone with respect. If anyone were to check your references, people would rave about what a great person you are.
And then you opened a Facebook account.
From any mobile device, anywhere, at any time you can share what’s on your mind. Out with your buddies and heard a great joke? Share it with your friends! Receiving poor service at a new restaurant? Gripe about it and let the world know! Agree with the latest rant by Rush Limbaugh? Share it with your online colleagues!
And guess what? Now that image you’ve spent your entire career building and that reputation you’ve worked so hard to create have vanished. Instantly. Because that great joke about the rabbi, the priest, and the Irish guy wasn’t too well received by your Irish co-worker, your Jewish client, and your Catholic board member. Although your friends appreciated knowing about the restaurant’s poor service, the restaurant itself wasn’t too fond of the negative review and thus they pulled their sponsorship of the nonprofit where you serve on the board. And sure, your political views are certainly your own business. Except for the fact that your best customer doesn’t agree and he has now decided to give his business to your competitor.
Web 2.0 has literally taken the world by storm. Web 1.0 is defined as one way communication whereby your company creates a website to share your information, and search technologies make it easy for people from around the globe to find you. Web 2.0 is defined as two-way communication, whereby parties can interact, often in real time, over the Internet.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, micro-blogs, Skype, texting, digital photography, YouTube and other technologies allow us to communicate in ways previously unimaginable. With mobile devices, we can broadcast when it occurs. The great benefit of Web 2.0 is that anyone can be a publisher of information and the world is the stage. The great danger of Web 2.0 is that anyone can be a publisher of information and the world is the stage.
What makes Web 2.0 so dangerous is that not only can you share information and distribute it on a global scale without the benefit of an editor, but worse, what you say online can be archived and searchable by anyone … forever. Meaning that one online mistake can come back to haunt you theoretically for the rest of your life.
Crazy? Not at all. Tiger Woods, Brett Favre, Michael Phelps and other celebrities have all had their reputations tarnished because of what they said or did via technology or what was captured and disseminated about them online. Think it can’t happen to you? Think again. There are countless examples of everyday people who have posted seemingly innocent messages online only to have those messages come back and cause real damage to the individual’s career and reputation. For example:
Did you hear the joke about President Obama? A business executive did and posted the joke to his Twitter account. Pretty funny until the Secret Service showed up at his office because the joke—taken out of the context of being told in person with your buddies at the bar—was viewed as a legitimate threat on the President’s life.
Did you see the photo of the young girl on her Segway pushing her baby carriage across the street? Hundreds of people did and posted vulgar and rude messages about how lazy she was, including posts that “she should die.” The last comment on the blog where the photo was posted was from the young woman’s cousin. He explained that the young lady on the Segway had her legs amputated in an accident, and using the Segway was the only way she could take her new baby out for a stroll. Oops.
How about the woman who answered a Facebook survey asking if she believed in God? The woman answered no. Seemingly innocent. Except that she was a teacher at a religious school and when her supervisor saw her response, she was fired from her job the next morning.
The concept of branding has historically been important only inside the walls of advertising agencies and corporate marketing departments. Companies spend billions of dollars each year to protect and promote their brands. They buy media on the airwaves, in print, and online, all with the goal of disseminating their key messages—their brand promises—to potential and current customers.
What is a brand? Quite simply, it’s the unstated promise a person believes he will experience if he associates with a specific company and/or product. Coca-Cola’s brand promise is “fun and refreshing.” Nike’s brand promise is “kick-butt on the competition.” Volvo’s brand promise is “safety.” When you think of those companies, those are the images that they want you to have in your mind and again, they’ve spent billions of dollars to help develop that unstated promise within each one of us.
In today’s information-rich and publisher-easy world, if you post anything online then you are disseminating your message to the world and, by default, are promoting your brand—your personal brand. Unlike big companies, promoting your personal brand costs virtually nothing. But unlike big companies where countless hours are spent thoughtfully planning the brand, your personal brand can be broadcast to the world with the simple click of a mouse.
What is your personal brand? If I only know you by your Tweets, blog comments, or Facebook posts, what is the unstated promise I believe you represent? What is the unstated promise I believe I will receive if I associate with you?
Does your personal brand complement or conflict with the image you’ve worked so hard to craft in your personal life? Is your personal brand consistent both offline and online? Do you act one way or say things one way in a person-to-person setting, and then say something completely different with your online persona, veiled behind the perceived virtual wall of Web anonymity?
What most people truly don’t understand is that the Web, by its very essence, is not anonymous. The Web, by definition, spreads and grows, connecting computers and people around the globe. Even one-to-one text messages or even emails can be archived and shared with the masses (what’s stopping me from posting that email that you sent me). There is no such thing as “your online friends group” or “private message boards.” Because once it is in a digital format, nothing is limited and nothing is private.
The good news is there are steps you can take to ensure you manage your reputation, and they aren’t limited to living in a cave with no Internet access (because even then, you still can probably be found online). There are techniques you can use, steps you can take, and online resources you can leverage to create, maintain, and even further your personal brand.
When people type your name into Google or other search engines, what do they find? Following are some simple tips you can immediately implement to manage your online reputation. Many are important to Google and other search engines, meaning, if managed correctly, you can be sure to have the information you want to be seen showing up in the top of search results when someone searches your name. Best of all, for the most part, you control the message.
Own your name online. If your name is “Joe Smith,” do you own www.joesmith.com, www.joe-smith.com, and even www.joe-smith-sucks.com (and all of the .org and other variations of the above names)? If you don’t “own” your own name, then you’re leaving your online reputation in the hands of someone who does.
Manage Your LinkedIn Account. LinkedIn has become one of the key places for business executives to be found. Setting up a LinkedIn account at www.linkedin.com is easy. Make sure you complete all of the fields and craft a well-written professional profile. Be honest, as it’s fairly easy to verify or refute any information you enter. Follow the LinkedIn guides to learn how to best take advantage of this powerful resource.
Leverage Your LinkedIn Account. Set up other accounts in places similar to LinkedIn such as www.naymz.com, www.zoominfo.com, www.plaxo.com, and www.businesscard2.com. Copy and then paste your LinkedIn profile into these accounts, and then modify it to fit the specific site’s format.
Create a Google Profile. Let Google know that you exist and who you are by setting up your own Google Profile at www.google.com/profiles. Set up your free account, link your website and social networks, and more. Again, leverage your LinkedIn profile that you’ve already written when creating your Google Profile biography.
Create a Twitter Account (and Use It). Create a Twitter account at www.twitter.com and Tweet on a regular schedule. Refrain from Tweeting about what you had for breakfast. Rather, Tweet educational articles related to your business or industry. Share information that others will find valuable. On Twitter, follow others whose reputation you respect.
Manage Your Facebook Account. Remove any photos that don’t show you in a professional manner. Certainly share information about your personal life because that’s what people want to see on Facebook, but don’t post anything that you wouldn’t want your mom or grandmother to see. Remember, it’s not just you, but it’s also your online “friends” who help form your online reputation. “Unfriend” anyone who posts inappropriate content on his or her Facebook page. If someone posts a photo of that party you attended in college that embarrasses you, kindly ask that they remove it and if they won’t, certainly un-tag your name (yes, if you’re tagged in someone else’s photo on their Facebook page, it’s possible that that the photo can be found by searching your name).
Set Your Facebook Privacy. Want to keep your personal life personal? Make sure you set your Facebook Privacy settings. Login to your Facebook account find “Account Settings” on the main navigation, and then choose “Privacy Settings.” Customize your settings to the level of privacy you wish. Make sure to click on the multiple links under “Privacy” including “Application Settings.” You need to manually opt-out of Facebook’s default settings because Facebook itself is an opt-in program, meaning you opted-in to Facebook’s default privacy settings upon opening your account. Facebook’s default setting are basically “share everything with the world,” so if you don’t want that, then you need to change your settings individually.
Get Involved. Participate in LinkedIn Groups and answer questions in LinkedIn’s Questions and Answers section. Use your real name when identifying yourself. Write articles for your industry blog and website and make sure to link to your website and, again, use your real name. Serve on nonprofit boards and make sure the biography you want is posted on the organization’s website. The more credible places where you can get your name posted and seen, the more credible sites that will appear when someone searches your name in Google and other search engines.
Keep Your Cool. If someone writes something negative about you or your company, don’t respond with an angry rebuttal. Instead, recognize that when people criticize, they usually just want to be heard. Call the person, email him or her, and/or respond online with a genuine apology. Even if it’s not really your fault, apologize anyhow at the very least, for the negative experience the other person experienced. Let him or her know how you’re going to fix the problem, and then apologize again. How you respond to negative comments probably says more about you than the positive messages that you control or that even others post about you.
Think Before You Post (or Send). Remember, 80% – 90% of communication is non-verbal. What you think is funny others might think is highly inappropriate. Where you might be just slightly angry at someone, in an email, your comments can be taken out of context and you could be portrayed as spiteful and mean. Don’t send an email, don’t text a friend, don’t post a Tweet, don’t comment to an online post until you’re sure that what you say won’t be taken out of context, and how you say it is done in a calm, professional, manner.
IMPORTANT TIP: Did someone else’s message cause you to feel angry or emotional? Before posting a response online, Tweeting, texting, or emailing the other person, write down exactly how you wish to respond at that very moment in your emotional state, but write it in an email that you send to yourself. Then wait a few hours or even until the next morning and read the email. Once you’ve had some time to reflect, you’ll most likely refrain from sending the message altogether or you’ll edit out the emotional parts before you send.
Remember, once you hit “Send” or “Post,” it’s archived and theoretically searchable forever. Do you really want your permanent online legacy to be one written in a time of anger? Ask yourself this question every time before you hit “Send” or “Post:” “How would I feel if this post made the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper … would I be embarrassed if my professional network read this?” If the answer is yes, then don’t “Send” or “Post.”
In today’s information-rich world, it’s nearly impossible for you to not be found online. Whether it’s information that you post or information that others post about you, virtually everyone today has some form of online presence. The key question you need to answer is, who is going to control the message? You, others, or fate?
Extreme customer care does not cost, it pays!
Extreme customer care does not cost, it pays. Most of us have heard the saying, “please a customer and they will tell a friend. Treat a customer badly and they will tell ten friends.” The story below from Dr. Philip Humbert tells us times have changed. Even if your business is not participating in social media, you are being talked about. Ignore the comments at your risk, leverage the comments for higher profits.
Bill Roh
Strictly Business: Where Do You Buy Cigars?
In an age when “customer service” is rare, I recently had an
example of outstanding customer care that went far beyond
my expectations. I want to tell you about it, with an emphasis on the potential profits involved.
Not many of you value cigars, but stay with me for a second.
This is important to your bottom line. I recently ordered a
box of excellent Carlos Torano cigars as a gift for a
colleague who had done me a favor. Unfortunately, when they
arrived, they were terrible!
I was disappointed and embarrassed, and expressed my
feelings by posting a negative review on the website of the
company I bought them from. Then, a remarkable thing
happened.
Arthur Zaretsky, the President of famous-smoke.com saw my
note and sent me an email. He expressed his personal concern
and said he had forwarded my note to the President of Torano
cigars. As a customer, I was impressed that he had taken my
complaint seriously. This is good customer service!
But it gets better. Within an hour(one hour!) I got an
email from Charles Torano (Carlos’ son) expressing dismay
and offering to send me a replacement box and a bonus gift.
They sent it by express delivery and it arrived two days
later.
Even if you hate cigars, there’s a vital business truth
here.
I want to emphasize that there is absolutely no evidence the
problem was caused by either famous-smoke.com or the fine
people at Torano! The cigars could have been damaged in
shipment, or even frozen in the UPS truck right in front of
my office. These gentlemen had no obligation to take care of
my problem! But they did. They went “above and beyond” and
they have a customer for life.
Now, I don’t smoke many cigars, but I’ve just told this
story to 42,000 people and there is no question where I’ll
go when I do buy a cigar.
Think of it this way. What is your cost of attracting a new
customer? What does it cost in advertising, account-set-up,
time and trouble to get that cautious first-time buyer? Now,
compare that to the cost of working with an existing
customer to create a “raving fan” who will sing your praises
to (potentially) 42,000 people. Get the point?
Figure it out! Answer your phone. Make it right. Go the
extra mile. This is not rocket science. Extreme customer
care does not cost, it pays.
Contact him at:
www.philiphumbert.com or email Coach@philiphumbert.com
You can’t do great things if you’re just a little better than everybody else!
I read several articles over the holidays that got me thinking about the new year, careers and business leadership. The article below aims to help employees with career and work/life balance. Indirectly Mr. Taylor is advising business owners on managing employees, their business and themselves.
Eventually the “I’m just thankful for a job” business climate will improve. Creating an environment where employees give that “discretionary effort” for success today will also keep them when opportunities open up. It will also help your bottom line, now and down the road.
Call or email me if you want proven help with this critical situation!
Happy New Year!
Bill Roh
Is It Time to Leave Your Job?
by William C. Taylor
It’s the holiday season, when we start making lists of the gifts we want — and of the pros and cons of the jobs we have. The end of one year and the start of a New Year is the time when just about everyone takes stock of where they are with their work, and whether they are where they expected to be.
So as you get ready to transition from your Christmas list to a wish list for your career, ask yourself these five questions about your company, your colleagues, and your personal game plan for what comes next.
1. Does my company stand for something — anything — special?
It’s hard to be thrilled with your job if the company you work for is struggling to succeed, or feels stuck and irrelevant. I’m not talking about obvious problems — red ink and layoffs. I mean the nagging sense that the company will never be anything more than OK, just another ho-hum player in its field. In this hyper-competitive age, you can’t do great things as a company if you’re just a little better than everybody else. Does the company you work for really stand out from the crowd? If not, why on earth are you working there?
2. Am I excited to see my colleagues when I show up for work on Monday morning?
Lots of people sign on with a company because it’s got a cool reputation, or it’s prestigious, or it’s got a great stock price. But quickly you realize that “working for” a company is an abstraction. The reality is that you work with the people closest to you — those in your department, in your unit, in your region. Most experts say that over the long term, employees aren’t loyal to a company as a company. They are loyal to the people they work beside day after day. Can you imagine not spending 40 or 50 hours a week with the people you work beside every day? If so, maybe it’s time to make a move and fine a group of colleagues who stimulate you and motivate you.
3. Do I have a voice at work — does anyone who matters listen to what I say?
There’s nothing more depressing and demotivating than feeling that you don’t matter as a person — even if you’re part of a group that’s working well in a company that’s doing fine. In this age of participation and communication, people are hungry for a say, a voice, a sense that their opinion counts. If you feel like your opinion doesn’t count, maybe it’s time to find a company where it does.
4. Am I learning as fast as the world is changing?
I first heard this question from strategy guru Gary Hamel, and I ask it of myself all the time. In a world that moves so fast, the most dangerous thing in anyone’s career is the sense that you’re standing still — that you’re not learning, that you’re not being challenged, that you’re stuck. If that’s how you feel, that’s a strong sign that it’s time to make a change.
5. Am I making enough money?
Strange as it sounds, this is the worst reason to leave a job. Virtually every study I’ve seen shows that there’s almost no connection between how much money you make and how satisfied you are with your job. There really are things that money can’t buy — and happiness at work is one of them.
Here’s hoping you get what you asked for-both in terms of what’s under the tree and what’s ahead in your career.
http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/111648/is-it-time-to-leave-your-job?mod=career-worklife_balance
Register, Protect and Defend
Register, Protect and Defend
By Barbara Findlay Schenck
Published December 08, 2010
| Business on Main
Paul Allen’s recent patent infringement suit against Facebook, Google and other tech giants has fueled discussions from boardrooms to coffee shops. What needs to be protected, how can you put protections in place, and how do you defend intellectual property once registrations, patents, trademarks and copyrights are filed? Here’s a primer on what every business owner should know.
Registering a business name
Depending on whether a business goes by the legal name of its owner (John Smith Plumbing) or an assumed name (A-Team Plumbing), and depending on its location and business structure (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or corporation), the path into local and state government databases of registered business names varies. The Business.gov website provides forms and instructions for this necessary step toward protecting your business name.
Registering with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
Just because you’re safe to use a name, idea or process doesn’t mean others can’t use it, too. Most intellectual property rights are limited to the territory in which they’re registered. To protect rights across broad market areas, register with the USPTO in one of three categories:
- Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds or colors that distinguish the goods and services of a business. Start by searching the USPTO database to determine that the mark you want appears to be available. If so, hire an attorney who specializes in trademarks to conduct a more extensive search before proceeding to claim the trademark in one of two ways:
- Officially register the mark following the USPTO instructions. The process usually requires the expertise of an intellectual property lawyer but, once registered, the trademark (indicated by the symbol ®) provides government protection from liability or infringement issues and is renewable so long as it’s used in commerce.
- Establish common-law trademark rights by using the mark, accompanied by a “TM” in superscript (“SM” for service marks), consistently and continuously in business dealings. Be aware that common-law trademarks are limited to geographic areas in which the marks have been used and, if challenged, lack the protection of registered trademarks.
- Patents are property rights granted for finite periods to inventors “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States.” The USPTO site links to applications, instructions and registered patent attorneys.
- Copyrights give producers of writings, music and works of art exclusive rights to control reproduction of their work. Copyrights take effect once the work is produced in tangible form. To strengthen protection, include a line on the work that states, “Copyright,” or “ã,” followed by the date of first publication, and the name of the copyright holder. For further protection, file a copyright registration through the U.S. Copyright Office.
In addition, the World Intellectual Property Organization provides information on obtaining international protection.
Defending registered rights
Establishing rights is the first — but certainly not the last — step in protecting intellectual property. Even after registrations are in place, responsibility falls to property owners to:
Protect registrations by carefully following government and legal instructions. Misuse jeopardizes registrations and, as a result, exclusive rights. As a famous example, Otis Elevator Company, owner of the Escalator trademark, allowed the word to be misused as a noun, rather than as an adjective followed by a generic descriptor — e.g., Escalator brand moving stairs. As a result, in 1950, courts deemed that “escalator” had become “genericized” and therefore part of the public domain, and trademark protection was revoked.
Move quickly against intellectual property violations. Waiting can erode rights. Though the Paul Allen patent infringement suit is far from decided, The Wall Street Journal includes this quote from University of Missouri law professor Dennis Crouch: “If the patent holder just sat on their rights for a long time … the patent might become unenforceable.”
Register it, use it and defend it — in that order
To protect intellectual property, first work with attorneys and government offices to establish your legal claim. Then use your property — correctly and to the letter of the law. And, finally, should your rights be infringed upon, move quickly and decisively to keep your property proprietary, out of general use, and of high value to your business.
Barbara Findlay Schenck is a small-business strategist, the author of “Small Business Marketing for Dummies,” and the co-author of “Branding for Dummies,” “Selling Your Business for Dummies” and “Business Plans Kit for Dummies.”
http://www.foxsmallbusinesscenter.com/sbc/2010/12/08/register-protect-defend/
The Five Deadly Facebook Sins
Great advice for those of us who mix business and friendship on Facebook!
The Five Deadly Facebook Sins
By Elizabeth Southall, Published December 05, 2010, WomenEntrepreneur.com
It’s official: U.S. web surfers now spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other website.
Online tracking firm comScore just revealed that the average U.S. web surfer now spends about 10 percent of his or her total time online on Facebook, with Google coming in second place.
With Facebook the most popular destination on the internet, many savvy entrepreneurs are now looking for the best ways to market their businesses to Facebook’s 500 million users.
But Facebook marketing isn’t as easy as you may think.
If you know what you’re doing, you can quickly generate a large, loyal fan base to which you can market your products and services. But if you violate the unspoken rules of Facebook etiquette, you not only could find yourself without fans — you could also end up generating negative buzz for your business on the world’s largest social network.
Here are five cardinal “sins” to avoid when marketing your business on Facebook:
Mistake No. 1: Sending Business Traffic to Your Personal Profile
As a general rule of thumb, profile pages are for people, and fan pages are for businesses.
The main benefit of using a fan page for your business is that fan pages are indexed by the search engines, while most profile pages are not (depending on your settings). This means your fan page content can show up in Google, Yahoo! and Bing search results, exposing your business to tons of potential new customers who are not on Facebook.
Plus, if you add your website URL to your fan page bio, you’ll have an inbound link from Facebook (a high-ranking site) to your website. This can boost your website even further in the search engine results.
Another disadvantage of using a profile page for your business is that you can have a maximum of 5,000 friends. With a fan page, you can have unlimited fans, which is essential if your goal is to attract as many fans as possible.
Mistake No. 2: Giving Your Fans the Silent Treatment
Many business owners put a lot of time and effort into attracting fans on Facebook, then never engage them in conversation. This is a big mistake.
Think of your fan page as a never-ending networking party you are hosting for like-minded people. Would you invite people to your party and not speak to them after they walk through the door? Of course not.
The whole purpose of having a Facebook fan page is to engage and interact with your fans. It’s a social network, after all — so go socialize.
In this case, the party is your fan page, you are the host and the mingling is happening on your fan page wall. When people post comments on your wall, a good host will reply, ask questions and engage. Aim to create a conversation.
Do this, and when it comes time to promote your products or services down the road, you’ll find your fans will be much more open and receptive to what you have to offer.
Mistake No. 3: Posting at All Hours of the Day or Night
The whole purpose of your fan page is to get your message in front of as many fans as possible and to get them commenting on it, hitting that little “like” thumbs up, or sharing it on their wall feed so their Facebook friends will see it, too.
If you post an update for your fans in the wee hours of the morning or super late at night, it doesn’t matter how good your content is — chances are, the majority of your fans aren’t going to see it.
Atlanta-based Vitrue, a company that manages social media marketing for hundreds of high-end brands in a range of niches, recently released some excellent data on the best time of day to publish a wall post on your fan page.
After comparing stats from 265 million fans from the hundreds of Facebook fan pages it manages, Vitrue noticed that wall posts made before noon get an average of 65 percent more engagement than wall posts made in the afternoon or evening. (Again, Facebook engagement means shares, likes and comments from your fans on your fan page wall.)
It seems most people check Facebook in the morning, most likely over a cup of coffee at the office before the day gets busy.
With this in mind, save the early-morning or late-night posts for your personal profile page. Put posts on your business fan page wall before noon.
Mistake No. 4: Posting Text-Only Wall Posts
Posting text-only wall posts day after day is kind of like serving the same thing for dinner over and over. Even if what you’re serving up is delicious, repetition is boring.
To keep your fans interested and engaged, mix it up by posting a combination of text, pictures and video.
More data released by Vitrue reveals that wall posts containing pictures usually get 54 percent more fan engagement than straight text posts. Video posts come in second, getting 27 percent more engagement than text posts. Text posts come in last out of the three.
So to get your fans commenting on, liking and sharing your content, include pictures, graphics and other eye candy in your posts — and include them often.
Mistake No. 5: Promoting, Promoting, Promoting
One of the reasons Facebook is a fantastic place to attract new customers is because the social network is such an open, friendly place. Most Facebook users are on the site to connect with friends and, as a result, you can market here without encountering a lot of buyer skepticism you’ll find elsewhere.
Less-than-savvy business owners who relentlessly post promotion after promotion will quickly find their fan numbers dwindling. Annoyed fans can choose to hide your updates or simply “unlike” your fan page altogether.
To avoid this, observe the 80/20 rule.
Eighty percent of your wall posts should offer no-strings-attached value to your fans in the form of tips, advice or friendly banter. Once you’ve built up a relationship with your fans, you can talk about your products or services the other 20 percent of the time.
When it comes to marketing your business on Facebook, keep in mind that you’re entering a social network, and new rules apply. Social networks are all about networking, interacting and connecting.
Start with a professional fan page, post a combination of text, video and images during the first part of each day, and focus on building relationships instead of selling. That way, you’ll be positioned to grow a large, loyal fan base of potential customers.
Elizabeth Southall is the founder of Dot Com Diva. A former direct response marketing coach to Fortune 500s and seven-figure website owners, today she shows women entrepreneurs simple, ethical and fast ways to reach more customers online.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2010/12/05/deadly-facebook-sins/?cmpid=prn_baynote-js_The_Five_Deadly_Facebook_Sins
The Lost Lesson of Thanksgiving
The Lost Lesson of Thanksgiving
By John Stossel, published November 24, 2010, www.foxnews.com
Had today’s political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow’s holiday would have been called “Starvation Day” instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn’t be alive to celebrate it.
Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn’t happen.
Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.
That’s why they nearly all starved.
When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.
“So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented,” wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, “began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, [I] [with the advice of the chiefest among them] gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land.”
In other words, the people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic.
“This had very good success,” Bradford wrote, “for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many.”
Because of the change, the first Thanksgiving could be held in November 1623.
What Plymouth suffered under communalism was what economists today call the tragedy of the commons. The problem has been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle noted, “That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.”
If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free-rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else. Soon, the pot is empty.
What private property does — as the Pilgrims discovered — is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more. Then, if there’s a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.
Here’s the biggest irony of all: The U.S. government has yet to apply the lesson to its first conquest, Native Americans.
The U.S. government has held most Indian land in trust since the 19th century. This discourages initiative and risk-taking because, among other reasons, it can’t be used as collateral for loans.
On Indian reservations, “private land is 40 to 90 percent more productive than land owned through the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” says economist Terry Anderson, executive director of PERC. “If you drive through western reservations, you will see on one side cultivated fields, irrigation, and on the other side, overgrazed pasture, run-down pastures and homes. One is a simple commons; the other side is private property. You have Indians on both sides. The important thing is someone owns one side.”
Secure property rights are the key. When producers know their future products are safe from confiscation, they take risks and invest. But when they fear they will be deprived of the fruits of their labor, they will do as little as possible.
That’s the lost lesson of Thanksgiving.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/24/john-stossel-lost-lesson-thanksgiving/?test=faces
Principal Financial Group halts health insurance sales
The Democratic Congress’ mis-guided attempt to “fix” the country’s healthcare system has another fatality: The Principal Group’s health insurance business. This is what happens when they monkey with the payment side of the problem instead of fixing the reasons for the high costs.
Principal Financial Group halts health insurance sales
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Wall Street Journal, staff reports
Financial services provider Principal Financial Group Inc. is eliminating 23 jobs in Dallas-Fort Worth as it exits the health insurance business.
Principal announced Sept. 30 that it planned to stop selling health insurance and that UnitedHealth Group Inc., the country’s largest health insurer by revenue, will renew the policies of Principal’s roughly 840,000 members as contracts expire.
The health care industry is facing changes because of a sweeping overhaul signed into law by President Barack Obama this year.
The overhaul has prompted worries among regulators and industry groups that smaller insurers might have difficulty competing under rules that require insurers pay out between 80 percent and 85 percent of premiums on medical care.
Iowa-based Principal took in about $1.6 billion worth of health insurance premiums last year but says it wants to focus on its asset management, retirement and life insurance businesses. It will immediately stop selling health insurance, and Principal said it will cut about 150 related positions.
The Texas Workforce Commission said Tuesday that 18 jobs are being eliminated in Addison and five are being cut in Tarrant County. Elsewhere in Texas, 24 jobs are being eliminated.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-pfg_20bus.ART.State.Edition1.248cfc1.html
High-performing companies take a radically different approach to human resources
Business leaders – does your human capital strategy for 2011 need an upgrade. Do what high-performing companies do, reboot the function!
High-performing companies take a radically different approach to human resources, study says
By: CCH Staff | Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Workforce issues are critical as companies struggle to emerge from the global recession. Yet many companies are failing to make human resources a priority or to adopt workforce best practices being used by a few leaders. And there are significant gaps between senior leadership and human resources executives when it comes to addressing workforce challenges. Managing talent, leadership development, employee engagement, and strategic workforce planning are the areas that executives feel are most important—and for which they believe they have limited current capability.
Those are the key findings of a new global report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the World Federation of People Management Associations (WFPMA). The report, Creating People Advantage 2010: How Companies Can Adapt Their HR Practices for Volatile Times, is based on a global online survey that captures the views of 5,561 human resources and business-unit executives from 109 countries in multiple industries. The survey, a follow-up to BCG’s “2008 Creating People Advantage” report, was conducted between December 2009 and March 2010; it was supplemented by detailed, face-to-face interviews with more than 150 senior executives, mostly from multinational companies.
“The report shows that high-performing companies don’t just put more resources into HR—they reboot the function,” said J. Puckett, a Dallas-based senior partner and head of BCG’s Organization practice in the Americas. “Leaders go deeper on human resources issues than their competitors. They focus on flexibility, not on cutbacks, and are more willing and able to use human resources as a strategic partner.”
The survey also indicates that there are significant talent gaps in key industries, functions and geographies, as companies fail to groom new talent to replace current leaders. The gaps will become more acute over time, with many reaching critical levels in the decade between 2020 and 2030.
Among the key findings:
High-performing companies take a radically different approach to HR. They put much more effort than low performers into measuring workforce performance, transforming HR into a strategic partner of senior management, and branding themselves as good employers. These three priorities of top performers ranked dramatically lower at low-performing companies.
High performers actually focus efforts on fewer, carefully chosen HR projects, but they keep refining and experimenting in these areas to make them stronger.
Excellent financial performance correlates with a corporate focus on employee performance and rewards. (The report defines high performers as companies that have demonstrated top-quintile revenue and profitability growth within their industry over the past three years.)
Companies feel unprepared to meet their most critical HR needs. Respondents identified four areas as most critical: managing talent, leadership development, employee engagement and strategic workforce planning. But they also said that these were among the areas in which they had the least capability at present.
Companies are too short-term-oriented, not paying enough attention to a coming leadership skills shortage at senior levels that will peak between 2020 and 2030. Critical talent gaps threaten multiple companies, industries and regions that will be hard pressed to identify and train future leaders. Fully 56 percent of survey respondents cited a critical talent gap for senior management’s successors.
Here again, high-performing companies outpace their competitors. High performers manage to recruit 50 percent of their top executives from internal talent pools. Low-performing companies source only 13 percent of their senior leaders internally. In addition, when developing future leaders, high-performing companies rank people development and effective decision-making higher than do low performers.
Companies are failing to draw on the broadest possible array of talent. In 44 percent of companies surveyed, women constitute 10 percent or less of the talent pool.
The biggest talent gap is expected in the IT function. Geographically, the largest gap will occur in Japan and in the region of the former Soviet Union. A separate 2010 study by BCG and the World Economic Forum showed that by 2030, the U.S. will face critical talent shortages in IT and business services, construction, healthcare, hospitality, financial services, trade, transport, communications, and public administration.
Strategic workforce planning is a critical but underused tool. The time horizon for workforce planning should be at least as long as the one for strategic planning—five years or more. Yet only 15 percent of respondents said their companies deploy simple workforce supply models, and only 9 percent said they use a sophisticated workforce supply-and-demand model. When it comes to performance measurement, only 27 percent said they use advanced metrics such as value added per person.
Flexibility works and cutbacks don’t—but low-performing companies continue to cut. Flexibility measures, such as streamlined processes and flattened hierarchies, are more effective in period of prolonged economic difficulty than cutbacks are. The German short-time work model, which leverages reduced pay for reduced work, was rated 10 percent more effective than the average measure. Yet low-performing companies continue to use traditional cutback measures such as layoffs, eliminating overtime or reducing training. High-performing companies, by contrast, focused on flexibility.
HR/business unit partnerships show promise—but both sides must improve their skills. 73 percent of respondents said their companies have introduced partnership programs between human resources and their business units, and they consider this the most effective means of connecting HR and line businesses. But skills gaps must be closed. Respondents said that HR executives need to build their skills in business planning and analytics, and that business managers must improve their ability to deal with low-performing employers and to develop HR strategy.
Work-life balance is no longer a priority as employers shift focus to performance. Work-life balance was a top-ranked concern when the survey was fielded in 2008, but rated much lower in 2010. In the 2010 survey, top emerging concerns were enhancing employee engagement and improving workforce performance and rewards.
In the U.S., the top priority was leadership development, followed in order by managing talent, workforce planning and employee engagement.
Managing work-life balance fell from 4th in the 2008 global rankings to 16th in 2010. Managing change and cultural transformation fell from 5th in 2008 to 12th in 2010. Managing demographics fell from 12th in 2008 to 19th in 2010.
“Managing demographics has been greatly undervalued,” said Puckett. “It remains highly relevant to multinational companies, especially as the workforce ages, exacerbating the talent crisis.”
Middle managers are critical for success. They are the key to employee engagement, communicating company values, and the smooth running of the business on a day-to-day basis. But they need to be empowered by being given larger responsibilities, trained for their expanded roles, and more involved in strategic decisions.
“Managing talent, leadership development, strategic workforce planning and employee engagement are the most critical topics around the world, ” said Grant Freeland, a Boston-based senior partner in the Organization practice. “The good news is that they are on the table. But there is much more that organizations need to do to meet HR needs that, if unaddressed, could reach crisis proportions.”
Added Ernesto Espinosa, president of the WFPMA and a coauthor of the report: “The challenge for HR is to bring talent management practices of executives to the next level in order to support business growth.”
Source: The Boston Consulting Group; www.bcg.com.
http://www.hrtools.com/leadership_and_management/articles/high_performing_companies_take_a_radically_different_approach_to_human_resources_study_says.aspx
Kids 0, Insurance 0; The first fruits of ObamaCare.
The Wall Street Journal nailed it. Government mandated health insurance benefits and guaranteed coverage of children, regardless of pre-existing conditions drive premiums up and insurance companies out of the market. Here is the heading and the link:
“This week Democrats threw a six-month birthday party for ObamaCare—and the timing was only appropriate since it occurred at the same moment their reform annihilated a corner of the U.S. insurance market.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703384204575510011133742130.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
Health Insurers Plan Hikes
If you are a small business struggling with providing the best to your employees you need Administaff – it is the best solution to help you stay focused on driving revenue! As for the Washington DC help – help them join unemployment!
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Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720004575478200948908976.html