General

Some fun for a Friday Afternoon (absolutely seriously not business related!!)

I’m sitting in my office late on a Friday afternoon (post-closing time) waiting for one of my clients to call and say ‘the coast is clear’, so that I can do some off-hours work. While waiting, I decided that I could sift through some of the paper that seems to accumulate on my desk when I’m not looking. While doing this, I came across an Post-It with the single word “Halloween” written on it!

Hmmm…I don’t have anything particular planned for Halloween. I don’t have kids to worry about getting costumes ready for the big night. It’s a Sunday and the World Series will have Game 4 that night, so I didn’t plan anything else. Hmmm…

Then it dawns on me…I wanted to send people that I know a note about a MARVELOUS, INEXPENSIVE ($5.00) and EXTREMELY creative book on Halloween Costumes written by a wonderful woman by the name of Bonnie Neubauer. Bonnie loves games…any sort of games. That includes word games. Over the years, she’s accumulated an assortment of puns (she loves puns that make you groan), so she got industrious and published a downloadable book full of these low/no cost costumes which will make you the life of any party requiring a costume. Maybe you can even wear one to work on the 29th to get into the spirit.

If you want a laugh (or a groan) [even if you don’t need a costume] visit http://www.punnycostumes.com and check out the 252 creative costumes that Bonnie’s thought up for you. Next time I need a costume, I’m digging out my copy of “Punny Costumes” and picking out my favorite pun.

(Somehow, it seemed appropriate to post this on Halloween night while I’m moving previous articles from the LinkedIn discussion to the blog!)

Is a Paperless Office Possible?

I came across an article about “The Paperless Office” the other day (http://tinyurl.com/yersuh2). It’s title is “Is the ‘paperless’ office here at last?”

Hmmm…seems to me that back in the dark ages – when I was just getting into business, and computers were new on the scene – that that was one of the main reasons given for getting a computer! “Get a computer, it will cut down on paper”. “Get a computer, you’ll be able to ditch your filing cabinets”. The list went on and on.

Yet, in the ‘early days’, I think that computers created MORE paper. We saved EVERYTHING a computer printed (and it could print a lot more than anyone could ever put out on a typewriter). We saved the original, and the ‘proof’ that we had entered it into the computer. We printed and kept reports that no one ever looked at (heck, there were probably many reports that no one actually understood).

Fast forward to today…many, many documents are transmitted solely via electronic means. An individual may choose to print out select reports to review the ‘hard-copy’, but more and more, they are reviewed, marked-up, returned – all via electronic mechanisms. No longer do we have to keep every bank statement – we can always recreate it if we need to down the line. Many vendors allow us to sign in to accounts to view invoices precluding the need to keep all of those (stapled to the stub of the check).

In fact, checks themselves are moving towards the obsolete as more and more transactions are completed moving money around electronically. And we no longer get copies of the checks back with our monthly statements.

When I first went into business 12 years ago, I had several filing cabinets – one for personal ‘stuff’, one for the business back-office (invoices, bills, check stubs, etc), and one for client files.

Now, I can’t remember the last time a client gave me a file in printed format. If they try to, I respectfully ask them to e-mail me the file. If they can’t do that (and I have some for whom that is still a challenge), I’ll take it back to the office, scan it, and shred the original.

Today, I have one drawer (rather than 3-4 entire filing cabinets) of a filing cabinet that is used for traditional filing. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ll have to figure out why I have that one. The other drawers seem to be storage space for unused file folders (Pendaflex, anyone?), CD backups of computer data from as long ago as 10 years (those probably don’t even work any more), magazines and newspapers that I want to save (the Philles World Series victory in 2008 seems to be very well represented!), and assorted envelopes (it seems that I can mail almost anything in an appropriately sized envelope).

Perhaps we really ARE at the cusp of the paperless office! It’s taken 30 years, but it does seem possible…ah, yes…now that I think about it, I have one client who has NOT ONE original document in the office. They don’t own a filing cabinet – every document – every single one – is scanned and filed – ELECTRONICALLY! Maybe we’re already there if we put our minds to it.

I think that I’ll go clean out that last file drawer of mine!

OK…I’ve heard of ‘road rage’, but ‘e-mail rage’?

Its the end of a long, difficult day. You’re driving home from the office or a client when this numskull cuts you off or almost sideswipes you. Your blood pressure elevates about 50 points, you try to think of suitable ‘retribution’, you come up with a perfect tongue-lashing (remember, you’re in your car), but by the time you have formulated a rejoinder, the offending car is far enough away that you can’t effectively ‘attack’. We’ve all been there. Substitute a careless pedestrian, ignorant shopper, you get the idea.

What ‘saved us from ourselves’? What kept our tongues in our mouth, or our cars in the proper lane? Oftentimes, it is not self-restraint, but lack of opportunity. By the time we knew HOW we wanted to respond, the opportunity was gone…just because the object of our ire kept moving.

Hmmmm…what does this have to do with e-mail? EVERYTHING!!!! I love this CNN article because it is so appropriate. There are times (and we’ve all had them) where we felt attacked via an e-mail. We’re blind-sided by a comment (direct or indirect) in an electronic missive. As the author says, “When was the last time you were driving down the digital highway and felt like you were shot by words?”.

I can think of an instance just last week where this happened to me. E-mail affords us the apparently ‘perfect’ opportunity to respond – often quickly and without thinking things through. The best idea offered? “Back away from the computer”.

Stop. Think. Compose the e-mail response but do NOT hit ‘send’. Sleep on it.

E-mail allows us to ‘knee-jerk’ react. That reaction can just escalate an issue which may (or may not) go away on its own. Imagine if all the people who cut us off on the road (or otherwise maligned us – either intentionally or unintentionally) were as ‘accessible’ as those who ‘attack’ us via e-mail? The world could get ugly – quickly.

Its good food for thought. Just because we have the ability to respond quickly to an e-mail doesn’t necessarily mean that we SHOULD respond quickly. Take your time. Get some perspective. Allow your blood pressure to return to normal. Then, and only then, respond in a manner that allows you to maintain your professionalism and your relationships.

http://tinyurl.com/2vjctq9

Improve your presentation skills by learning from a master…

We’ve all been in the position of having to present information to a group of people – large or small. For some of us, that is a terrifying moment. Others thrive on it. I have a personal goal to become more comfortable speaking to larger groups, and have fun while doing it. I don’t rank public speaking above death on the ‘most scary’ chart, but I am definitely not in the ‘piece of cake’ end of the spectrum, either.

I have learned that speaking from your heart, using grammar and speech patterns that you would normally use, about things you truly understand, makes a huge difference to the success of the presentation. If I don’t know about something I spend time studying ‘the something’ before I worry about the talk. The talk will work better – hands down – if I’m comfortable with the topic.

This week I was lucky enough to see four great speakers at NAWBO’s Leadership Conference. While I was engaged by the talks, I also watched the way the presenters built their discussions. I watched their styles. Each woman had a very different approach. Some were more effective than others. Most were confident. Some spoke to me, personally, better than others. Why? Because I could relate to them.

There is no ‘right way’ or ‘wrong way’ to speak before a group, or give a presentation. There definitely are some don’ts, but we’ve heard them (or experienced them) before. Believing in focusing on the positive, I want to try to figure out some general ‘rules of thumb’ for the successful presenters…and find things that I can incorporate into my own style. Lo and behold, I ran across the following article/video about the Master Corporate Presenter, Steve Jobs. While one may be an Apple aficionado, or not, few can fault his ability to give a presentation. Check out the link below to get some good ideas on which to build your successful presentations.

http://tinyurl.com/yccteeu

Welcome to the SLC Consulting blog!!

Welcome to the SLC Consulting blog!!!  Here we hope to share helpful tips and tricks that we’ve picked up along the way.  I heard a wonderful description the other day of the way different (ahem!) ages among us deal with technology.

During the 20th century (yes, way back there), many people crossed the oceans to move to the United States.  For many of these immigrants, English was not their native language.  They spoke the language with an immigrant ‘flair’.  Fast forward to the 21st century.  Many of us are not native to the Technology language.  Kids today are native to it.  They are brought up with a joystick or a cell phone (or both) in their hands.

Now is the time to take a deep breath and relax.  Like many of you, I am not a technology native…far from it.  Technology is not intuitive to me.  That said, I have realized that fighting it tooth and nail isn’t going to get me anywhere, and that there is alot that technology can do for me.  So, I work to use it where it makes sense, ignore it where I feel that there is no benefit and I have no interest (beyond an occasional game of Solitaire on my computer, I do NOT play computer games – never have, don’t want to, don’t need to!).  There ARE times where I have no particular interest in the technology, but there IS a benefit, so I just suck it up, and make peace with it.

I guess that’s the bottom line:  Make peace with your technology…it CAN do so much for you.  It CAN make your life alot easier [when its not making it alot harder :-)].  It can open up the world to you.

I hope that we’ll be able to help you along the way…come and make peace with your technology…take a deep breath…you’re probably a technology immigrant – just like me.  I’ve just been lucky enough to get a pretty good hold on the language along the way.