My little corner

Motivation

We had a meeting today at work and a few interesting things were discussed. One of the things mentioned (and I will try to get the quote right), was “the business pays us a salary to do our work as best as possible, therefore project incentives or team building incentives are not a requirement“. Quite a few people have differing viewpoints on that specific issue; however let’s try to do a logical analysis why businesses should be moving away from a product focused viewpoint towards a people focused viewpoint. 

I firmly believe that people are the future of any company, and they make the company profitable or not. Sure the CEO works hard for his huge paycheck at the end of the month, but without his most junior staff member being productive, the CEO would be out of a job tomorrow. As an aside to this but still maybe making some sort of point, I used to work for a company which was going from strength to strength. Our profits were higher and higher each year and we were making huge plans to expand overseas through a number of partnerships and buyouts (which were already in negotiation). But then all of a sudden our CEO announced that we had been purchased by a bigger company.
We received this news with shock as there was no need for this to happen. Our small (600 employee) company with its tiny (45 employee) IT department was swallowed up into a large (3000 employee) company with a bloated (600 employee, yes that’s almost a third) IT department. Our highly skilled staff which were used to solving problems in minutes as apposed to hours, moved into a company who took days to solve similar problems. Our staff felt like the CEO had stabbed us all in the back as he announced in only months that he was leaving (with millions in payments and incentives for the deal).
These efficient staff now with air conditioned backs started getting bored, (I myself had no work during the day but was working on average 100 hours in overtime at night a month, still having to be at work again the next day), and started resigning to go to better opportunities but really hoping to find something we had just a year prior.
My point here is that the CEO had no people focus, all he cared about was the good of his pocket and not the good of the staff who had kept his pocket well filled. 

But how does one increase the productivity of the people so that they can make these highly profitable companies? 

Here are five things That Every Great Manager Should Know, and they are not about the profit margin, gains, losses, tax deductions, or assets - but instead are the human factors of management. Most people remain with an employer because of the quality and satisfaction derived from a rewarding and balanced workplace, therefore you cannot put a price or value on the factors that drive an employee’s performance. Great managers recognize and respect this “x factor” of the business world and work to improve it with these simple tips.

1. Motivation - Every employee is unique; therefore the motivation to perform better will be different for each person. Identify the motivator for each employee and provide opportunities that encourage their interest and performance. 2. Setting Goals - Make sure you have a vision for how you want your business to operate now and in the future. Communicate your vision to your employees so that they are directing their energies toward a common goal. They will feel like they are a part of the business and this will enhance performance. Also personal goals for each employee are important here. An example is training, and I am not talking about direct job related training here but general training as well. For example, our company is really driven for people to answer each others phones. I work in the IT department and am an introvert by nature, so I agree that if a client ‘accidentally’ comes through to IT instead of customer services; we need to take responsibility for that call and follow it through all the way until it is solved. However when I pick up the phone and a client says to me “finally I have gotten through to someone who I hope can help me” in an angry tone, my introvert nature kicks in, I start babbling something about him having come through to the IT department and don’t know what to say. Maybe my boss should send me on a confidence building public speaking course or something like that. It has no relation to my job per say, but would make my working environment more comfortable and give me the confidence to go the extra mile for our clients.

3. Praise - Take advantage of big and small opportunities to praise your employees for work well done. Your recognition of their performance means a lot and it is important that you acknowledge their efforts.

4. Feedback - Be lavish with praise but selfish with criticisms -but do offer kind words of constructive feedback that makes your employees feel respected and valued. Something that I find really helpful (if used correctly) is performance appraisals. They are a great way to asses the performance of an employee not in a negative sense but to see whether an employee has managed to reach his or her goals.

5. Management - Be available as a resource to your employees. They should feel comfortable to approach you with questions and concerns and not feel as if they are imposing on your time. They should be able to depend upon you for guidance and as a model of what excellent performance is all about. This is very important and as far as I can see my boss has an open door policy which goes beyond the fact that his door is open and he is available to talk to. But he is open with his discussions with you, and does not talk to you in a way that makes you feel subordinate to him. You feel sort of more like an equal.

A Last Word…

These five simple steps will help an employee grow and I feel that an employee who grows at a company will have more respect for that company and will try his utmost to complete his/her tasks with the pride and efficiency which most companies try to beat out of their staff using autocratic methods. 

I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com

Spam and spyware

Aah Spam, that stuff we all love to hate. I logged into my blog this evening and noticed that my Wordpress anti-spam plugin has identified 14 comments as spam. I love it when a program works well. I noticed my gmail though has started tripping up on a couple of items, but I simply mark them as spam and let Google add that to it’s spam detection so other users will not get that particular spam.

Talking about Google, I haven’t received any responses for Gmail invites. It’s a good sign though, cause that means that eveyone has a Gmail account already or have tried it.

A friend of mine was asking today about her laptop and why it keeps popping up websites whenever it feels like it, and I was just reminiscing about some scary statistics I heard last year. Without Windows XP Service pack 2 installed with the firewall activated, it will take no more than 10 minutes for spyware and / or hackers to penetrate your computer. That’s pretty scary considering that most standard computer users are clueless as to what a firewall is, let alone how to make sure it is activated.
If you have been hit by some spyware it can be quite difficult to erase. So a free program called Spybot Search and Destroy might be able to help you to erase all the junk of your pc.

Well time for bed again

l8r, JMR

More Ice Skating

Last night was half price night at a different ice rink than the one we normally go to so we decided to go out there. Unfortunately the rink officials were not really interested in officiating so none of the rules of the rink were adhered to by the skaters who had an average age of 15 (of course there were four of us that increased the average age slightly ). I must admit though their sound system was really good quality even though the music they played was not great.
But enough about the negatives, you wanna hear about my graceful gliding around the ice right? Well it didn’t happen, my friend told me I was moving faster so maybe my confidence is getting more, but there is definately something which is blocking me. I am really enjoying the learning process though so once I get going I am sure I will enjoy the ice skating.

I just watched a movie called the Beer League. It had some funny parts in it but the language was terrible. If there is nothing else to watch and you can block out really bad language then it will be interesting to watch but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

Sorry for such a short post.

l8r, JMR

Ice Skating

Well it’s Monday morning after Easter and I have slept late and now thinking of getting up (well I have been reading blogs for an hour while laying in bed, laptops are so cool). Because of South Africa’s public holiday law, if the public holiday falls on a Sunday, then the Monday will be a non work day. So that is why I am not at work currently. I really think it is a good rule, cause then you don’t lose out on the holiday, but man is it difficult to implement in code. I had to write a public holiday dll when I was still programming a couple of years ago and there were a lot of rules to build in. When I was finished the thing was bullet proof. It could even calculate Easter based on some moon phases which I can no longer remember. My boss said “Just create a table, we will populate it annually”, but once I was finished I could calculate the entire years public holidays for any specific year in a split second. So my boss wanted to use my dll to populate his table. I think I created a database layer component which simply read from my dll instead of a table, then he was happy :-)

Well I tried the ice skating thing last night again and had absolutly no success. I did manage to get up some speed after a friend and his girlfriend grabbed me by the hands (I protested a huge amount but they insisted), and dragged me into the middle of the rink. It was quite exhilerating but I realised I have a fear of not being able to stop. The evening came to an end when this same friend hit a rut in the ice and went flying into the barrier slicing his elbow open. He is from Germany and his girlfriend is from Spain and they are here in South Africa on holiday so they are really disappointed that he can’t drive properly now. This is where I really enjoy myself though. God has created me as a servant to His people and I really enjoy helping people. So I sat with my friends at the hospital while He was getting stitches (10 internal and 17 external, must be some kind of record ) and then escorted them home because his girlfriend is very nervous driving on the left hand side of the road (at midnight as well). One thing about driving in South Africa, if you can avoid it, do. There are thousands of unroadworthy vehicles and drivers who have no idea about driving on the road. As an example, for 2006 there were 3 568 road fatalities in the first 4 months of the year. Some countries are outraged by 100 fatalities in an entire year.

Then when I got home I started reading some blogs and found out that Microsoft was dead. It’s been a long time coming I suppose. Google really is trying to take over the world, (Master plan at http://earth.google.com ). I just find Google really innovative in their ideas, products they provide their customers are really great, I mean look at gmail. I have about 95 email addresses. Every time I sign up for a newsletter or at a website that requires an email address, I create one on my domain which is an alias to my gmail account. If that company then sends me spam or sells my address, I simply complain to them and notify them that their address will be deleted and they will no longer be able to contact me.
I stopped using outlook and couple of years ago when gmail came out. The gmail application is faster than outlook even though it runs over the web. And the search capabilities are easy to use and fast. I can also access my gmail from where ever I am (except work now they have decided to block gmail access ) and never have to worry about trying to get hold of that important email thats at home in my outlook inbox.
Here is an idea, if you have never tried Gmail and would like to test it out, the first ten people that ask via comments, I will send an invite to. Drop a comment saying you would like a gmail invite, then mail your email address to me at jmr#jmrpub*com (#=@, *=.) I will then invite you to subscribe to gmail. If you are not one of the first 10 then you will still be able to join, simply go to http://www.gmail.com and look for their sms me an invite offer (only available to the US and I think Canada). For the UK I think you can go to www.googlemail.com and sign up there. When you email me also tell me whether you are interested in receiving mail from me regarding some offers I am currently working on at the moment. To give you an idea, my current project is setting up a marketing course which will help you learn to market your website or products mostly online but some offline marketing as well. I will definately post when it is completed and link from my blog to the course but people on my email list will get it first, so just tell me, opt-in to offers or opt-out to offers. No mention of offers in your mail will be consodered an opt-out (ie. you are not interested in marketing your blog/website for more traffic and increased profits).
Even if you are not interested in gmail but want to opt-in, then mail me and tell me, no gmail but opt-in to offers. No opt-ins or outs will be taken from the comments.

Well I guess it’s time to get going for the day, hoping to finish a huge chunk of renovation stuff and then tonight might be an ice skating night again, hopefully I make more progress.

l8r, JMR

Learning to Bowl

So I went for my second time to ten pin bowling last night. It was a lot of fun, we played two games, and I bowled 76 for the first game and 88 for the second game, which amazingly I won by I think 2 or 4 points. I think the improvement although gradual is definitely there and is probably because yesterday I spent a few minutes viewing some intro to bowling videos at the AMF website. I was amazed at how much of a strategy there is to playing bowling, I thought you simply throw the ball at the middle pin and if you hit it right it would domino into the rest of the pins. But I have been learning about the pocket, the boards, key pins and a whole bunch of cool stuff. Now I just need practice

Today is Sunday so I went to church and man was it a good sermon. I also managed to remember to take my usb flash drive to church today so the sermon podcast is updated. If you would like to take a listen to today’s sermon, surf on over to midrandchapel.za.org. (Hmm I just found a bug in the mp3 download, but its fixed now)

Well I can’t think of anything else to say. Thanks to all the guys who are visiting my blog regularly, I get my biggest amount of hits from the Photo Hunt on a Saturday but there are one or two people who visit me everyday. (Even if they are supposed to be studying )

l8r, JMR

Saturday Photo Hunt - The Almost Clean getaway

Theme: Clean

Comment:

I received a lot of questions about my photo last week so I decided to add a bit of an explanation this week. My photography style is one of taking strange things sometimes. This particular shot was taken while on holiday in South Africa’s Eastern cape in a town called Port Alfred. I was trying to track a Dove in flight and didn’t get this right. I usually delete shots like this but the tail seems so perfectly in focus that I thought it might be interesting to keep. So here is my photo of the Dove which almost got Clean away

Next Weeks Theme: Hobby

So I was sitting here thinking….

I was thinking about what I was going to post while waiting for some photo’s to upload to photobucket and I totally fell asleep. It was short lived though as I heard a familiar “Meow, I have something in my mouth which I know you won’t like” coming from the cat. So I have just spent 10 minutes chasing the cat around the house to get the mouse out of it’s mouth. I usually catch the things and walk across the road to the veld (I think the americans would call it empty lots but we call it a veld in South Africa) and release the mouse there but this time the cat jumped through the window with it’s prize and I really don’t feel like chasing it outside.

Well today was a real lazy day, I watched some tv, read a bit but then I went out with some friends and had supper and just walked around chatting. We even caught a Musical fountain display which we had seen from the restaurant but had thought that it was finished for the night. I have uploaded some photos and you can get a slideshow here. These are not great photos but I thought they were surprisingly good for my little camera phone.

I am still struggling with the theme for this weeks photo hunt so I might bow out for this week but who knows, maybe I find something in my photo collection to depict the clean theme.

Well it’s bed time so I will leave you as I go to sleep.

 l8r, JMR

Easter

Well the Easter weekend is upon us. I have just gotten back from a church service, our pastor  decided that it would be good for us to gain some focus. I really enjoyed the service even though I could not get a great view of the overheads due to being behind the drums during the whole thing. We sung some really relevant songs as well which was really cool.

I received a mail today with photos of a poor kitty who had a totally bad run in with the pet groomer. It was pretty funny though and the cat looked totally unimpressed. You can view the photos on http://www.mandm.ws/cat.html.

I might be going ice skating again this weekend. I will be sure to tell you how it went, whether I can glide or still hobble on one foot around the rink.

Well guys, it’s bedtime, so gnight.

l8r, JMR

Graphic Design

I was just thinking about a friend of mine (Afflict) who has taken the confident step of resigning from his job to take up graphic design as a career. It’s a big step but I have seen his stuff and it is really good. In this light I wanted to focus a little on Graphic Design. Now I am no proffesional on Graphic design but there are some things I can talk about specifically..

Whether it’s a company business card, a letterhead, a poster, an ad in the paper, a web site, or any host of business presentation materials, you need superb graphic design to stand out in this highly competitive world. Like the old saying goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Great first impressions are made by outstanding graphic design.
There are people who take years in university or college to study graphic design. The good thing is that if you’re not one of them there’s still hope!

Large corporations contract companies or highly capable individuals who can look after their corporate identity, but the rest of us need to either hire the local printing shop or do the design work ourselves.

Today, being able to create a good company image is not the stumbling block it was years ago. Most computer programs, like word processors, desktop publishers etc., have ‘wizards’ that will help you create an identity for your business by using existing templates. All you need to do is plug-in your own information. These programs can create business cards, logos, brochures, newsletters, posters, and a host of other related presentation materials.

There are even software programs that will create a very professional company logo, whether your business is very conservative or very outlandish. Some of these are less than $20.

Web sites are also a major part of a company’s identity, more so if you are actually developing or own an online company. By searching the Internet, you can buy templates for your web site that will almost be a perfect fit for your business, whether you are selling online or offline.

Even the presentation of information, the actual words that tell about your product or service, or anything related, needs to be considered a graphic design element. Consider some of the posters that promote milk. The advertising companies that promote the drinking of milk could write a multitude of words explaining the chemical make-up of milk and why you should drink it.

Instead, they add a large photo image of an active person drinking it outdoors, with a cow in the background, and place one word in the corner of the poster, “Milk”. Everyone gets the meaning immediately from the photo, which is then reinforced by the word, or a few words.

When doing your own graphic design, the best principle to follow is that ‘less is more’. Allow for lots of space. People find it hard to focus on things that are cluttered. Think of a desk. You don’t really notice the desk when it’s cluttered with papers and junk. Remove the clutter and everyone notices the desk. Keep things clean and simple.

If you do have to present a lot of words, try adding visual interest by adding pull-quotes, which are boxes set in the text that quote some of the highlights of the actual text. The box adds interest.

People usually notice the biggest, boldest item first, and then go left to right if no clear indication is given. In a newspaper article, it’s usually the photo first, then the headline, then bolded captions, then the actual article.

There’s no shame in looking at a design that works for someone else, and emulating it, but not copying it.

By keeping in mind what your ‘desk’, or focus, is, and by using all the tools at your disposal, many of which are free, you will be able to produce graphic designs that are both eye catching and profitable.

l8r, JMR

Google Analytics

So I have been looking at ways to track traffic on my blog. There are some pretty cool ways to do it but the best way I have found at the moment is Google Analytics.
All it needs to make it work is to sign up for free then add some script code to all the pages which you want tracking enabled. Google Analytics then analyses those page pages every time they are accessed and stores information relevant to the site owner. I have had some visitors from all over the world, even a town called Poughkeepsie which I have never even heard of. I haven’t learned all the power the tool has but so far I can see that google has really delivered on this product.

I had a comment regarding the sleep I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Now I am no expert on sleep analysis but what I have learned is that your sleep is made of cycles. Stage 1 is when you are just going to sleep and lasts about 10-15 minutes. Then stage 2 kicks in then 3 then 4 then 5. Stage 4 and 5 are generally your deeper sleep, and after stage 5 it jumps back to stage 2 (stage 1 happens only once). In the beginning of the night stage 2 is the shortest but as the night progresses your brain starts adjusting the sleep pattern time to correct for various things. You usually feel more refreshed if you can get it right to wake up only in stage 2 sleep. The cycles containing these stages of sleep are usually 90 minutes.

Oh well my brain is telling me that it is time to start entering stage 2 now because I am pretty tired.

l8r, JMR