May18

Three Steps Towards Running a Better Meeting

by admin on May 18th, 2012 at 9:38 am
Posted In: Business Meeting, Guest Posts

On average, corporate America hosts approximately 20 million meetings a day. These can take the form of status updates, workflow procedurals, group think synergy redistributions with an eye towards maximizing efficiency, and other such nonsensical wastes of time that many workers are compelled to attend without being given any justification as to why.

Admittedly, not every meeting qualifies as a waste of time. Unfortunately, both large and small businesses have fallen into a rut when it comes to over scheduling meeting just for the sake of having a meeting. Even if your business decides to reduce the number of redundant meetings it holds, unless the person running the meeting knows how to quickly and efficiently run the event, employees are still having their valuable time wasted.

Considering how many meetings most people have attended over the years, it’s surprising to see so many people struggle to correctly lead one. The key to running a successful meeting can be broken down into three easy to follow steps.

One: Preparation Makes Perfect (or at least shorter)  

Most meetings are frustrating. Meetings where the organizer seems surprised that everyone actually showed, and therefore is unprepared to run things efficiently, are down right excruciating. To prepare for a meeting, first decide what you want the purpose, scope, and outcome of the meeting to be well in advance of asking for your coworker’s time. Have you called this meeting to make a decision, to gather information, train, or to provide the team with a status update? By clearly stating a purpose for your meeting, you can decide whether you really even need to gather everyone together. If you only need the input of a few of your coworkers, and not everyone on the staff, get together with those people individually instead of taking time away from everybody’s day.

Once you have created your guest list, outline an agenda that touches on the points the meeting will cover. Not only will this allow you to stay focused and keep you from forgetting any pertinent details, but it will also give your coworkers an opportunity to prepare their own input once the meeting begins. Calling a meeting to brainstorm a solution to a difficult problem is more practical if you give your coworkers a chance to formulate some ideas in advance, rather than expecting them to deliver a solution without any notice of the problem.

Two: Time to Conduct 

Running a meeting smoothly means taking control, and keeping everyone on topic throughout. While gathering input from coworkers is important, it might not always be pertinent depending on the type of meeting you’re conducting. Start the meeting by clearly stating its purpose, and the subject matters you want to discuss during the course of the meeting. This will help focus everyone’s attention on the matter at hand, and will hopefully discourage anybody from bringing up topics that don’t apply to the reason for the meeting.

If you find that someone is starting to stray off topic, gently encourage them to limit their talking points to the topics found on the agenda you handed out at the start of the meeting. While you don’t want to come across as dismissive when a coworker brings up a topic they want to explore, a strong meeting manager stays in charge of what topics are discussed, and keeps people from wasting others’ time. The more extraneous topics you can eliminate from the discussion, the shorter your meeting, and the happier everyone will become.

Three: Post Meeting Bliss 

Too many meetings end with people wondering what exactly it was they were suppose to take away from the meeting and what, if any, action they now need to take. As part of wrapping up your meeting, document and agree on what steps everyone needs to take next. If specific tasks need to be completed, assign those tasks to someone who was at the meeting, and outline what everyone’s role on this subject is going forward. When you get back to your desk, send out an email that recaps what you just covered in the meeting, and who was assigned what task or project as a result. This will demonstrate the importance of the meeting to your coworkers, while also placing everyone on the same page about what comes next.

Timothy Lemke is a freelance blogger who covers topics in business for AVT, the Bay Area’s premiere conference room presentation systems installer.

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May15

Telecommuting Pros and Cons

by admin on May 15th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Posted In: Guest Posts, Telecommuting

For many people, the idea of working their normal job at home is something they would jump at. However, telecommuting is not for everyone.

Workplaces and companies of all types, from load cell manufacturers to attorneys’ offices, are starting to take advantage of the way today’s technology allows for telecommuting.

If your workplace offers the option of telecommuting, take a look at these pros and cons before you make your decision. 

Pro: Save Money 

To work outside of the house comes with expenses. You’ll have to pay for clothes to wear to work, daycare for your children, and if you drive to work, gas, insurance and a car payment. If you make roughly $15 an hour at your job before taxes, that means you are really making at most $13 an hour after taxes. If you work 8 hours a day, that means you make $104 a day.

Daycare for one child is typically $25 a day, gas to travel only 20 miles can cost almost $8 a day, and insurance typically rounds out to $2 per day. That means that the average person is only bringing home $69 a day after taxes, childcare, insurance and gas payments.

This does not take into account all of the other bills you have to pay. While you will still need some childcare if you are to get your work done while at home, cutting down on your commute lets you reduce the amount of childcare that you need.

Pro: Reduce Your Commute 

In addition to the gas savings that telecommuting brings you, it also lets you reap the benefits of more time. When you consider traffic, it is not unusual for many working people to have a daily commute of over two hours. Getting rid of this gives you more time and reduces your stress levels.

Con: Less Interaction with your Coworkers 

When you work at home via telecommuting you may well have Skype meetings, IM, email conversations and even the occasional in-office meetings with your colleagues. However, this is not the same as spending the working day in the office.

You may find that telecommuting can be quite lonely. It can also make your work more difficult when you can no longer walk over to a colleague’s desk for a clarification or question. 

Con: Making your Home your Workplace

When you are telecommuting, it can be easy for the lines between home and work to blur. You cannot simply leave the office and begin your personal day, as your office is in your home. Often when you’re not working you feel guilty. Moreover, an office in the home can be distracting. With laundry to be folded, TV to be watched and cleaning to be done, unless you have a strong personal work ethic, it can be challenging.

Shane, a guest blogger, regularly writes about many things, from working from home to the latest load cell technology.

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May03

Using Social Media For Your Blog

by admin on May 3rd, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Posted In: Guest Posts, Social Media

Social media is a hot trend right now, and it’s important that bloggers use social media to help generate traffic to their site and gain some new fans and followers.

Using social media can significantly help your blog succeed, but you need to utilize it in the right way in order for it to be successful. The following tips will help you use social media for blogging.

1. Have social media accounts.

If you have a blog, you need to create a Facebook page or a Twitter account, if not both. These are the two hottest social networking sites, and if you have a blog, having a Twitter account or a Facebook page will help you reach out to your audience.
People are more inclined to check Twitter or Facebook than they are to check your blog everyday. If you post about a new topic you just wrote about, it may be seen by one of your followers on Twitter or Facebook, and it may get them to travel to your site and read your post.

2. Use social media icons.

Most blogging platforms will allow you to implement social media icons. Make sure to put these on your blog. This way, if someone comes across your blog, they know they can find you on Facebook or Twitter (or wherever) by clicking on those icons.

3. Don’t forget about Pinterest.

While Facebook and Twitter are the top kids on the block, Pinterest is quickly making a name for itself. Since it is such a trendy site right now, it will be beneficial for you to get an account and post to this site. Pinterest lets you post images and a small description, but you can link directly back to your blog. This will help you generate traffic to your site.

4. Use link shorteners.

By using link shorteners from sites like bit.ly, you will be able to see analytics on your link. You will be able to see how many times the link was clicked and at what specific times of the day. This can help you decide when your posts are viewed most often, and you can schedule them when they’re more likely to be read.

5. Promote the work of other bloggers.

If you come across an interesting link, share it on your blog and/or your social media sites. Sharing other bloggers posts will give you better blogging karma. Plus, if you link out to their posts, they may return the favor and link back to your site as well. This is a great way to make connections with other bloggers.

If you have a blog, social media is the best way to get readers to your site. You can use social media to engage your readers and give them insights and teasers about upcoming posts. If you don’t have a social media account for your blog, now is the time to get one. While it may be one more thing to manage, the reward will be worth it.

Charlie Adams is a tech guru and internet expert who loves to see the world and travel whenever possible. He has booked a wonderful trip this summer with Cape Town Accomodations and cannot wait to begin his African adventure. This will be his first experience with Cape Town resorts and he cannot wait to cross another fascinating country off of his check list.

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Apr26

Mastering the Meeting Room In Three Steps

by admin on April 26th, 2012 at 8:31 am
Posted In: Business Meeting, Guest Posts

The art of running a meeting room efficiently is a valued skill few possess, but the good news is it’s easy enough to learn and perfect with practice. There are a few key steps you can take to ensure that your meetings aren’t a waste of time and that you get the most out of your time and the time of others. The steps include getting the conference meeting room organised, making the most of the time you have and putting the discussion into the fast lane of practical action.

Organise the Meeting Room

Getting organised may include picking the correct facilities for your meeting room depending on the circumstances, but the true goal of organising the meeting includes asking the hard questions about it. Meetings tend to take up a lot of time for participants and if the topic of the meeting is an issue that can be resolved without a meeting, then consider you’ll be wasting a lot of time. Speaking of wasting time, make sure that only people who are necessary to the meeting are present because you may pick up a few people just looking for an easy logging task; they may also detract from the goals of the meeting with their own agendas. Make sure you don’t wait until the minute the gathering starts to hand out agendas to the various meeting room tables; it’s important to hand them out beforehand so participants can prepare themselves for the meeting.

Making Hours from Minutes

Making the most of the time you have available can be done in various ways, some you may have already done thanks to your keen organisational skills. Having gotten the agendas out before hand, make sure you don’t hold the entire meeting room board up for the tardy since those on time are the ones that suffer for it. Prioritise your topics and get the most important out the way first; this doesn’t mean getting the quick issues done first. This goes without saying, but insist cellphones and laptops be put away; it’s unprofessional and distracting. Finally for longer meetings, you can make the most of breaks, offering venues for meeting room intermissions that rejuvenate instead of exhaust your participants.’

Follow Up With Action

The last step is to allow space for the meeting room to take what was discussed and put it into measurable action before everyone leaves the room; this is how you can make that happen. Set aside some time at the end of the meeting to summarise what was discussed and what decisions were made. Distribute minutes of the meeting with an additional section for further actions; think of it as homework for a meeting. If there is to be another use of the meeting room soon, ensure everyone is responsible for an action and agree on how much should be done before the next meeting. With these steps in mind, you’ll master the meeting room in no time.

Eugene Calvini is a writer and office consultant; his area of business space includes serviced offices Singapore and worldwide which has offered him a lot of insight into the work environment.

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Apr26

How to Create a Business Page on Facebook

by admin on April 26th, 2012 at 2:45 am
Posted In: Guest Posts, Social Media

Do you love social networking sites? Do you love being connected on high speed internet so you can surf Facebook to your heart’s content?

If you manage your own business, you might want to put your love for social networking sites to good use. Facebook isn’t for just personal accounts—your business can be on this popular website, too.

Here are some simple, step-by-step instructions on how to create a Business Page on Facebook:

  1. Log onto your Facebook personal account. It doesn’t matter whether you are connected to high speed internet on your personal laptop or on mobile broadband using your smartphone. Of course, it might be a tad easier for you if you use your computer!
  1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. You will see six classifications. Select the appropriate classification that your business falls under. You will likely choose one of the first three options:

Local Business or Place

Company, Organization or Institution

Brand or Product

Put some thought into this decision, as you will not be able to change your classification later on.

  1. Fill in the details being requested for. If you choose Local Business or Place, you will need to put in your business name, address and phone number.

Selecting Company, Organization or Institution will require you to choose the category or industry you are part of, as well as ask for your company name.

Brand or Product, similar to the previous option, asks you to choose the industry you belong to, and also asks for the name of your brand or product.

After you have typed in the necessary details and made the necessary selections, click on the “Get Started” button.

  1. The next step is to upload a profile picture for your Business Page. You may opt to put your company logo, or a photo of your product or products. If you have no photo ready at the moment, you may skip this step for the meantime.
  1. It’s time to create your “About” section. Here, you will provide whatever information you like about your company, business or product. You may also include a link to your official website.
  1. Create your own Facebook URL. Similar to your personal Facebook link, you can customize your own Facebook URL to help make it easier to find later on.
  1. You will then be led to your main Business Page on Facebook. Once here, click the “Like” button to show people that at least one person has visited the site. Doing this will also display your page for public viewing.
  1. Invite your colleagues, family members and friends to be part of your Business page. Ask them to click the “Like” button! Get as many people as you can to like your page!
  1. The next thing to do is post away! Share news and promotions to the members of your page. Post a photo or video, or add an event to your calendar. You can also just choose to say a simple hello.
  1.  Continue to update your page. Although you may have gotten all the basics figured out, remember to keep your Business Page active. Update it regularly to show your members that you mean business!

People on wireless broadband, high speed internet and even dialup will be able to visit your site and learn more about your business. Follow these 10 steps and you’re on your way to making your Business Page on Facebook a whopping success.

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Kristine M. is a writer who mostly focuses on providing tips in dealing with the various conveniences in modern technology, particularly the internet. In her spare time, Kristine helps in the blogging and administration activities of Broadband Expert Group, a high speed internet provider company. To learn more interesting internet tips, watch out for her next post.

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