hittingthesweetspot

Posts Tagged ‘business’

, , , , , , , , , ,

What Have You Done For Yourself Lately?

In Uncategorized on June 18, 2013 at 12:03 am
A stitched panorama of downtown Portland, OR a...

A stitched panorama of downtown Portland, OR at night (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I begin the second week of my hiatus from school between semesters, I find myself wondering how it is so many people were in restaurants during the time I was in Portland. Perhaps they did not have jobs. Then again, maybe they did not need to have them in the first place.

I could have been just imagining the great numbers of people I saw who were not just hanging out there, but seemingly eating and drinking their way to happiness; but probably not. I think they were somehow all doing ok financially, too, or were at least enjoying their individual “moments” and not too overly concerned with their eventual retirements from the working world.

Eat, sleep, drink and enjoy!

That used to be a personal motto. That is until I started working more days than not. Since I do not know when it is exactly that I will retire, I am thinking more and more about doing the things I can now, physically-speaking, that I may not be able to do later when I am “retired.”

Why is retirement still looked upon as funny or at least funny in the sense that most will be “dreaming on” regarding retiring?

We chase a buck at the expense of our health, planning to see things and enjoy places with someone special, that may never come to pass.

Everyone has heard of stories of people all set to retire, then something happens that causes them to be wiped out financially and they have to work full-time again if they ever hope to retire (again). Retirement is like a job in that the thought of getting there sounds like a lot of work a la Retirement: You have to work at it.

Those who rely on the fate of stock markets are in the majority when it comes to retirement plans. We have to set aside enough money in either our company sponsored 401ks or individual IRAs, and trust markets continue their ascent in order to not work a single day longer than we want to.

We resign ourselves to a fate of helplessness regarding our financial prosperity—the helplessness that comes from relinquishing control over the outcome. I hear the naysayers to this point loud and clear: “but Bob, we can redistribute our 401ks any way we want to!” This is true, but all who have either 401ks or IRAs are at the mercy of the markets. We have no alternative but to play the stock market in order to achieve retirement goals (unless we consider stuffing money into and under our mattresses a retirement plan).

Ultimately you are kidding yourself should you not understand the many similarities between mutual fund and casino managers; both sharing in common that they are not in existence to lose money. In fact, they make money even while you are losing yours during a bad run at the craps table or a crash such as the one that thrust us into the Great Recession.

Always remembering to pay you first, however, goes furthest towards a life happily well lead no matter how little control we may have over our financial futures.

English: Panorama of Portland, Oregon, United ...

English: Panorama of Portland, Oregon, United States in 1890. Mount Hood in the background. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fun-loving people on vacation

It is vacation season and some of the people we ran across in Portland were undoubtedly on holiday. Why else would they appear so happy, so in the moment, smiling, having fun and an overall grand time?

I am in love, so one could argue I am seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Be that as it may, I was unnerved at the frequent instances of graffiti seemingly everywhere we went. This was counterintuitive to my feeling everyone in Portland is chill, fun-loving and respectful. It just goes to show you even perceived paradises could have seedy underbellies.

The use of the word “fun-loving” is something I do not take lightly. In fact, some would say I have gone out on a limb by using it. I probably should have refrained, at least according to Urban Dictionary:

“The most ridiculous, pointless, and redundant adjective that has ever existed. More specifically, it’s what a lot of uncreative and ignorant incorrigibles use in their personals ad when they can’t think of something to say that actually has meaning to it. The definition of fun, is something that is a source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure. Therefore, the fact that something fun is enjoyable or pleasurable is built-in to the very meaning of the word. Hence, it is completely redundant and illogical to say “fun-loving”. How else is someone going to feel about fun? Fun-hating? The very notion is contradictory at best, and ludicrous at worst.

Oh my god! I’m such a fun-loving person! What an amazing revelation.”

Oregon Beachfront

Oregon Beachfront
Photo by Bob Skelley

I still think Portlanders are fun-loving.

Portland is a very young, hip town. And I think having fun is consistent with youth. That is why each of us has to have fun. Yes, “fun-loving” may be redundant, but it behooves not just the young, but also all of us to be fun-loving.

Find your moment, enjoy it for as long as it lasts and at the end of each day lay your burdens down to rest for the night. Stop worrying so much about what tomorrow may bring. Tomorrow is going to come, be just what it will be and is not concerned with whether you will have enough money for retirement. And like your retirement, tomorrow has not happened yet.

Unlike a job where you feel the constant pressure of a culture entrenched in a “what have you done for me lately” mindset, the real question you should ask is, “What can I do for myself that gives me happiness at this moment?”

 

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

SBP Easily Best, Most Powerful Product Messaging Strategy

In Uncategorized on June 14, 2013 at 2:58 am
The eight-striper wordmark of IBM, the letters...

The eight-striper wordmark of IBM, the letters “IBM” in City Medium typeface. Introduced in 1967. Trademarked by International Business Machines Corporation. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The layoffs at IBM are causing people working for other companies to be concerned for their job security—so much so they dream of figuring out how best to take the self-employment plunge themselves.

Executive team members at big companies are reexamining their marketing departments’ efforts and wondering whether they are realizing adequate promotional and advertising value for their core businesses.

The one thing both of these groups have in common is the necessity for cost-effective, high-yielding-in-return messaging strategies.

What is a messaging strategy?

Quite simply put, a messaging strategy is the way you promote yourself, your business, your company and your company’s products and service offerings. It is sometimes erroneously referred to as advertising, marketing or branding. While these buzz words can at times touch upon messaging strategies, they are not in and of themselves messaging strategies; they are merely what I call “Mad men-esque” flavor words of the month—the most recent of the bunch being “branding.”

When I think of branding, I still have visions of the Bar-S brand going across the side rear quarters of a pig. Or better yet, maybe the singed initials (U-eat ‘em soon?) of some meat company on a bull. Branding most certainly does not get the word out, nor am I good with people as brands, either. I don’t buy into the whole “you need a brand in order to be successful” bit.

If your business, product or service offering is good, provides value and there is a demand for it, you simply need to get the word out most effectively.

And another way to define messaging strategy is how you get the word out. What is your message? What are you trying to convey? If you are still interested in yourself as a “brand” you need to go to your local grocer and get some bacon so as to identify with my characterization of “brand” above. Brands are also good words for things like iced tea, as in, “What brand of iced tea do you drink?” It has nothing to do with getting the word out.

Message in a bottle.

Message in a bottle. (Photo credit: elvis_payne)

In the old days, business owners would pay for display advertising in their local papers. This was very costly, sometimes involved utilizing coupons with the display advertising and further reducing the yield effectiveness of that particular promotional strategy. After all, as a business owner, you were already paying a hefty sum for the advertising space and your profit margins were further reduced by having to accept coupons that were clipped out to be used towards the purchase of an item or service at a discounted price.

These days newspaper advertising is a no-no. Your yields are terrible and the prices are still outrageous for the lousy results you get. In a reflection of their desperation, newspapers have taken to running testimonials from business owners who have used their advertising spaces. I suppose if you have never tried to promote your business, newspapers might be of some help, but they are easily not your best value.

For large companies that throw big dollars at internal marketing departments to promote core businesses, these misguided efforts are largely a waste of precious funding, time and resources (read paying people hefty salaries who are not directly involved in the production of company goods, services or products).

But my company has a blog!

Well, you are getting warm, but you are still missing the boat. This goes for both the newly RIF’d (Reduction In Force) employee starting his or her own business as well as the Fortune 500 company CFO who is contemplating how best to render image and message.

Advertising advertising

Advertising advertising (Photo credit: Toban B.)

What places you directly in the driver’s seat to most handily deliver your company’s messaging strategy is to utilize the relatively new to the scene, but inevitable wave of the future for getting the word out: Sponsored Blog Posts (SBPs). Quite simply put, SBPs like those offered here at hittingthesweetspot by Bob Skelley, offer the chance to showcase your company, business, product and service offerings at a popular web destination seen by industry insiders and business prospects alike. Your message is being delivered to both domestic and international audiences, too—the whole world is reading on any given day.

  • Advertising in your local paper (or magazines) cannot come close to matching that (see above).
  • Releasing internal newsletters and company blogs cannot come close to matching that (these would be fine if they were only for employees and not planned as promotional tools for new business).
  • Your favorite TV and radio show advertising cannot come close to matching that (unless you can afford to buy a Super Bowl spot).
Advertising

Advertising (Photo credit: Wrote)

The jury remains out on Twitter and Facebook, as while better than company internal blogs, newspapers, television and radio advertising, they cannot tell the story nor deliver the message SBPs can.

If you are truly serious about improving the visibility, transparency, viability and yes, overall bottom line of your company and/or business and product service offerings (and seriously, who isn’t?), consider the unquestionable value that bettering your messaging strategy via sponsored blog posts is. Email bob.skelley@bobskelley.com to find out how to get started today.

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cloud, Offshoring Filing Security Concerns Neutralized

In Uncategorized on June 7, 2013 at 12:20 pm
Added Assets, Income/Expenses, for a Full Fina...

Added Assets, Income/Expenses, for a Full Financial Statement (Photo credit: i am real estate photographer)

With the Federal Reserve still pumping money into capital markets to the tune of $80 billion a month, the traditional summer slowdown period may never materialize for financial reporting workers in need of a breather prior to Form 10-Q filing deadlines in August.

The continued upward trend markets are projecting is good news for companies that outsource the processing of their compliance documents as well as those who do their own reporting under their own roofs via self-provisioning software.

cloud computing

cloud computing (Photo credit: kei51)

One thing that is still being debated tooth and nail, however, is the benefit or disadvantage of both self-filer and outsourced approaches to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings when it comes to security concerns.

Depending on which company representatives you speak with, you will get varying answers as to which approach is best: should you make the move to doing your own filings inhouse or continue to pay companies to process your EDGAR and XBRL for you?

It really boils down to what companies are comfortable with doing as there are security pitfalls to be found in either approach.

Some public companies have not made the move to the self-filer platform due to security concerns with the Cloud. For better or worse, the Cloud is not retreating as a way of doing business; to the contrary, it will continue to grow over time. This makes sense as to one degree or another we have been migrating to entrusting the Cloud with our personal data for many years. Similarly, our businesses will continue to automate their accounting functions which will invariably look at streamlining things like SEC filings.

What about online breaches or downtime?

With redundancy systems in effect and investments in security and IT infrastructure, the breaches and downtime that were once common are not found as frequently today. But, it is unlikely the technology will ever be 100% secure as hackers will be hackers. So, no matter what you may be told by a company wanting to assist you with doing your own compliance filings yourself with self-provisioning software, there is always the outside chance a security concern can bite you when you least expect it to.

Image of Offshoring Inc. staff enlisting appli...

Image of Offshoring Inc. staff enlisting applicants in a job fair. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I prefer someone else do my work

So, you are not ready to make the move to doing your own filings just yet. You prefer the relative safety of partnering with a company to do your filings for you the traditional way. While this is typically a more expensive approach, you will not have the security concerns that doing business in the Cloud poses. Or will you just have different (but no less in potential impact) security concerns?

Surveys done by traditional financial reporting providers reflect clients not caring where their work is processed or their documents worked on; they only care whether or not their documents are being processed quickly and with no errors. This may be an accurate survey finding. However, companies allowing providers to do their filings for them should be aware of other potential security concerns.

The overwhelming majority of work processed by companies who perform financial reporting services for publicly-owned companies is done by workers overseas. This kind of offshoring presents different security challenges that companies should be aware of.

While assurances of all kinds may be given that sensitive documents are handled with the utmost confidentiality and privacy, when your documents are being processed in another corner of the world where the very security of the facility the employees work in cannot be guaranteed, you should at least be aware of the potential for some kind of physical breach, especially in countries where laws governing the handling of such documents are not always clear. Another concern is the high rate of employee turnover in these countries whose workers routinely seek better opportunities elsewhere; you give up a portion of your document process control when you entrust its security to third parties.

It is not yet feasible or realistic for all public companies to do their own filings. The choice of companies to perform SEC filings themselves or not comes down to several considerations they must undertake. The security concerns of doing business in either the Cloud or overseas, however, are pretty much a wash at this point—mistakes can always happen on both platforms but safeguards are in place to minimize the damage.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Print Margins Ripe for Taking at RRD, Merrill

In Uncategorized on April 29, 2013 at 12:33 am
Seal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commi...

Seal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The Big Three”–RR Donnelley & Sons Company (RRD), Merrill Corporation and Bowne, Inc. before them, were the undisputed kings of the financial printing countryside before WebFilings came along.

The last two years has seen the shift of power from the former Holy Triumvirate (Bowne is no more having merged under the RRD umbrella) of financial printers to the relative upstart and current, undisputed EDGAR and XBRL leader from Ames, IA.

WebFilings’ rise to the top of the XBRL service provider mountain was only eclipsed by the Big Three’s rapid fall from grace as power brokers in an industry long dominated by a handful of companies before EDGAR, and more recently the XBRL mandate, came into existence.  While panic set in at Merrill and RRD during WebFilings’ massively impressive pilfering of their client rosters, executive team members at both remaining traditional financial printers secretly hoped WebFilings would try their hand at the print side of the industry.

This form of thinking was a consensus of desperation. Both RRD and Merrill had no way of competing with the WebFilings’ self-provisioning filer juggernaut. Both set out to partner and/or develop their own facsimiles of WebFilings’ successful business model of “do-it-yourself” XBRL tagging. The problem with the copycat business that is Financial Printing is by the time someone realizes their lunch is being eaten by a competitor, it is often too late to react, too late to come up with a rival to a superior, new product—especially if it does not relate to the way the industry has always operated.

English: WebFilings company logo

English: WebFilings company logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Financial printers for decades relied upon the public companies who were their clients to just fall in line and roll over. That is, as the only game in town, printers dictated what the cost of doing business would be. Companies paid financial printers to help get them public and keep them there, but all too often felt as if they entered a money pit of which there was no escape: the joy of becoming a publicly traded company soured once they received mysteriously expensive initial invoices from their respective financial printers.

Time and time again invoices were paid as the cost of doing business. That is, until WebFilings brought the economical and sensible model of self-filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into vogue. By eliminating unnecessary middle people—the customer service and even sales people who were involved more than customers preferred, WebFilings enabled the first cost-effective method for companies to take control of their electronic filings.

WebFilings’ way of doing business revolutionized an industry that had a static way of both conducting itself and its customers. Suddenly, customers had choice in how they wanted to operate when it came to their compliance disclosure for shareholders.

Both RRD and Merrill have managed to remain in business, but it’s mostly a testimony to the fact several companies are not yet comfortable enough to do their own filings. Merrill continues to hold on to the traditional mindset that experience is the way to effective XBRL tagging—even as WebFilings’ software has all but rendered their arguments for doing business their way irrelevant, not to mention ineffective.

XBRL International

XBRL International (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

RRD suffered the unfortunate hardship that was Google’s premature earnings release last October and is still reeling from that costly error. It has bled untold numbers of clients to WebFilings and even some to Merrill. Merrill was able to pick up the aforementioned clients that are still not ready to assume the full control that is doing one’s own compliance filings. Even though Merrill made this relative coup, industry pundits agree it is only a temporary gain.

Merrill has held steady in regards to its client base, but is by no means out of the woods in terms of future problems. Merrill remains in a perilous capitalization state, carrying extreme levels of debt that make its future operations uncertain and the possibility of defaults more probable than it would like. Its long range operations are contingent on their negotiations with lenders to restructure its debt.

Some industry analysts paint a bleak picture for RRD’s long term viability as well. Unless they can reverse the trend of losing clients to WebFilings and Merrill, it will be difficult for this printing behemoth to avoid imploding or taking serious restructuring charges.

Where both RRD and Merrill still think they have an edge is on the print side of their business. This decimated but still lucrative part of financial printing is not in danger of WebFilings’ competition. WebFilings has not given any indication they are interested in these profit margins. RRD has their own print capacity while Merrill contracts out much of this work to printing partners. Both companies do not offer much choice, if any, when it comes to printed books. Expensive shipping costs are often tacked on and included in printing costs.

The next area of change for financial printers potentially lies in the actual print side of the business. RRD and Merrill saw WebFilings swoop down upon them with a self-service filing offering. They have not considered (to this point) the possibility that someone could offer self-provisioning print capacity. Why would they? They are still the only game in town, right? Or are they?

If you have read this far, the truth in all this self-provisioning printer services talk is that although in their infancy, they are coming into play and RRD and Merrill should be at least a little anxious once more. They will have a new challenge. Customers want to save money even if they are wealthy. Many and most, will do their own compliance filings with the SEC. Although getting necessary printed books isn’t something most will ever consider doing themselves, the fact there will soon be choices out there for this kind of print capacity should make traditional financial printers nervous.

These companies will act as print brokers and will be able to deliver total printing management solutions and service levels the two remaining traditional financial printers will not at first want to compete with. If they learned anything from their quickly lost battle with WebFilings for compliance filing supremacy, it should be that no remaining area of their business is secure going forward.

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Business as usual: Insurance companies still dictate health care

In Uncategorized on March 24, 2013 at 10:48 am

Friday was a particularly frustrating day for Jim as he sought to conduct some long overdue business with the eye doctor and orthodontist.

Jim has been carrying COBRA these last several months as he continues shopping around for less costly alternatives.

Those of you with good (and I use that term lightly as the long-term recent trend with employer-provided insurance is for employees to pick up increasing shares of health care tabs while receiving less coverage) employer-provided health insurance will probably not be interested in the rest of this story, but you should.

You never know what kind of curve balls life may throw you—this includes unexpected health care emergencies that may run in the tens of thousands of dollars or more. And unless you are a member of Congress, you will have to pick up some of the tab.

COBRA is an expensive insurance safety net typically available for 18 months once an individual is separated from an employer.

I once used it but as the cost was so prohibitive (you basically are paying the full premium that your employer previously absorbed the bulk of), I ditched it as soon as I found another job with medical insurance benefits.

A friend of mine has never carried health insurance. He has paid for medical, dental and vision services, as he’s needed them. Fortunately for him, he has been a healthy guy throughout his life. This is not the route I would recommend the average person take, however, as you are gambling you will not need an expensive medical procedure that can break you financially.

Are you feeling lucky? Then roll the dice and don’t carry medical insurance. But, feeling lucky or not, it really is a must to have.

…

Jim arrived at the eye doctor for his appointment, filled out some paperwork, returned it to the front desk person and a few minutes later was rejected for coverage for failure to pay his premium.

Problem was, Jim was fully up to date with his premiums, but his COBRA insurer administrator had neglected to pay the separate premium component to his vision insurance provider.

There was nothing the eye doctor office people could do…did Jim want to be seen? Of course he did, but not if he was going to be held financially responsible for the entire visit.

Jim took matters into his own hands, as that was his only choice. He called his COBRA provider and was told it would take a few days to get him in the system for his vision insurance provider to recognize him as benefits-eligible. Understandably, Jim thought this unacceptable. He proceeded to call his vision insurance provider who told him they could not pay for his visit as he is shown as not having coverage (in their system).

Jim asked if the vision insurance person could call the COBRA provider and try to work it out so he could be seen.

The eye doctor was going to try to work him back into the schedule once they received a confirmation number from the vision insurance folks that his visit would be covered.

The vision insurance person asked for the COBRA provider’s customer service number. Jim gave them the number. They put him on hold and began the back and forth, over-the-phone process of straightening out the error in record keeping that was preventing him from seeing the eye doctor.

Jim got off the phone 75 minutes later, his ears red, blood pressure elevated, and was seen by the eye doctor. He spent a total of four hours at the eye doctor’s office that day. The actual doctor visit and exam took 15 minutes.

He barely made it in time to his dental appointment afterwards where, adding insult to injury, he underwent an unexpected root canal.

The good news was that the dentist’s office verified in advance that he was covered insurance-wise.

The bad news was next morning at breakfast–Jim’s crown that was drilled down into for the root canal, came completely off.

His portion for the root canal came in at just under $200, even with dental insurance.

Now he needs a new crown, too, and the dental insurance won’t be paying much if any of the bill, as his annual $1,200 benefit is mostly used up.

Jim’s monthly COBRA premiums are running what he’d pay for a one-bedroom apartment in the town he lives in.

He is having problems finding other insurance, as many insurers still will not provide coverage until a person pays premiums for an extended period, before coverage for pre-existing conditions kicks in.

HealthInsuranceCard

HealthInsuranceCard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Before he acted as facilitator between his COBRA and vision insurance providers in order to be seen, Jim met an elderly, retired doctor who was living out the final days of his life with a terminal illness.

He asked the old medical doctor what he did before insurance companies took over the healthcare system.

“I used to make lots of house calls as part of my practice. I treated all kinds of people, delivered babies, you name it—some folks with lots of money, some with no money at all,” said the doctor.

“If they couldn’t pay, I didn’t charge them. My practice was about the relationships I had with my patients. It wasn’t about business.”

Has the process of getting medical care worn you down like Jim and many others? Will pending government involvement help or hinder the levels of bureaucracy and overall quality of treatment received? Is the system irretrievably broken?

And is it too late to take big business out of the equation and get back to compassionate, relationship-based medical care like the dying physician practiced?

Hope not.

 

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bluecloud’s ‘PressTime’ takes the pain out of print management

In Uncategorized on March 21, 2013 at 12:00 pm
PressTime

PressTime by Bluecloud Communications, Inc.
Published in accordance and with permission from
Bluecloud Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved.

With Annual Report (10-K) season in full swing, hittingthesweetspot can appreciate the sweating over possible costly, bad decisions that get made by vendors and clients alike in the still lucrative financial reporting print business.

The sweating is done by print mangers and company counsel the world over regarding potential breakdowns that can occur when bad information is passed from one human being to another by phone, or simply when communications delivered to a general customer service inbox are lost (read email accidentally deleted).

With compliance and transactional work being fought over more fiercely than ever before, there is software out there that can help reduce, if not completely eliminate major mistakes arising from human error.

PressTime by Bluecloud Communications, Inc. is one of the most promising solutions available today—addressing the full range of communication breakdown that even Led Zeppelin would be proud of.

“The number one controllable cost is the cost of errors,” says Bluecloud Founder Don Koscheka.

PressTime is aimed at products including, but not limited to, Private Equity Fund-related documents, Term Sheets for Private Equity Financing and Annual Reports (10-K’s).

“PressTime puts you in control of when and how you publish a document and get it to your stakeholders. It allows you to manage the entire distribution process—the number of copies, versions, everything critical for successful electronic and print media distribution,” he says.

With the pace of technology as fast as it is, Bluecloud’s PressTime will not be left behind in terms of growing with the needs of its customers. With an industry standard Microsoft SharePoint document repository base, the software does indeed possess the ability for customization and scalability.

“Because PressTime is based on Microsoft’s SharePoint platform, we know it’s scalable to millions of documents and any number of users,” Koscheka says.

There is still a need for improvement in electronic and print project management and delivery. Most systems in place by financial reporting service providers utilize proprietary software that is overtaxed by trying to do too much—more than it is originally designed for. When these internal systems fail their customers’ stress tests, it negatively impacts overall quality and service.

These types of solutions by virtue of their complexity also necessitate the use of scores of human customer service agents acting as middle people in order to bring projects to fruition; they suffer from the increased risk of error that excessive human involvement brings.

PressTime reduces print errors by providing a clear, consistent communication path with audit tools to ensure that print instructions are documented. By virtue of its automation and easy to use interface, companies can ensure on-time delivery, enjoy improved project estimating as well as reduced project management costs.

The unmoving, unchanging, inertia-laden forces that are financial reporting project management would appear to be PressTime’s biggest competition in the marketplace. Systems with limited functionality already in place at traditional financial printing companies and XBRL reporting service providers, while getting the job done most times, do not offer the accountability and fluidity that PressTime does:

  • PressTime’s Customer Project Dashboard feature allows you to view all publishing projects—electronic and print—at a glance. You also have the ability to view messages for all active projects at any given time.
  • PressTime’s Project Page permits multiple elements to be added to a project and the ability to view the status of all of them.
  • The Print Specifications feature displays all aspects of a print job, links documents with specific print elements (e.g. covers), pre-defined print specifications and the ability to review and print specs. More importantly, you can track ALL changes that are made to a print job up to the last minute–you always know what changes were made and by whom.
  • Seamlessly manage distribution lists for documents, customize delivery instructions and create custom delivery packages.
  • Create and track Messages and Tasks on a project-by-project basis. You no longer have to sift through hundreds of emails to find messages that are relevant to a particular project–saving you time and reducing the potential for communications breakdowns.
Bluecloud Communications, Inc.

Bluecloud Communications, Inc.
Published in accordance and with permission from Bluecloud Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved.

PressTime is available On-Premise or Cloud-Based. It is also Mobile-friendly in that all functionality can be displayed via a mobile application.

For further information contact Bluecloud Communications, Inc. at bluecloud.com.

This blog post was sponsored by Bluecloud Communications, Inc.

, , , , , , , , ,

Aging ranks swell with lickers and runners

In Uncategorized on January 29, 2013 at 11:41 pm
Ageing

Ageing (Photo credit: pierre pouliquin)

I needed to bring a treat with me outdoors tonight to get Chelsea to do her final business of the day in the backyard, before retiring for the evening. It was a very warm day here today and so it was still very pleasant while we had our last outdoors time together this evening.

We had enjoyed a walk earlier in the day, which was equally as pleasant. What’s not to love about 60 degree days in January?

They used to say the best kept secret in Colorado was January. But January in Kentucky is pretty nice, too.

With old dogs, like some people, it’s pretty simple: give them a reason to do even the most basic of bodily functions, such as a treat, and they are all about the urination now so dad won’t have to let you out at 1 a.m., because he let you sleep straight through.

With all the Lance Armstrong hoopla recently and while I live and play with an elderly poochie, I wonder if given the choice to improve how you feel, instead of how well you perform in competitive, professional sports, would you take a little something extra in order to do so?

Being in a running club also makes me think about performance enhancing drugs. My mind, much like Chelsea’s, continually makes deals with the body that the body really wants no part of.

“You can DO this seven mile run, brother! Yes you can!”

Well, yes, I can. But for the next few days afterwards my creaky hip serves up reminders that I’m among the oldest runners in the group.

That is the thing with aging. For me, the most annoying part of it is my vision, or should I say, the deteriorating lack of it. In Chelsea’s case, it is her hearing (although sometimes it appears selective, but seriously, it is going out on her).

Are the aches and pains, the deterioration and erosion of the body’s fluidity of motion, the longer recovery times necessary after periods of excess indulgence or exertion, the wandering around aimlessly trying to remember what body part needs licking the next time I lay down (oh sorry, Chels), all an absolute part of the aging process?

Chelsea, like a lot of dogs is an obsessive licker. She’ll lick until she’s snorting exhalations like an older man running further than he should.

Since my sweetie has been gone on business, Chels and I have been doing some renewed bonding. Her back legs have weakened over time and they occasionally go out on her. Depending on how tired she is, she will wait until either Rhonda or I give her a boost back up and she’s trotting off merrily on her way.

Chelsea fans at a match against Tottenham Hots...

Chelsea fans at a match against Tottenham Hotspur, on 11 March 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Depending on how tired I am, I pace myself and map out the amount of work that needs doing in any given chunk of time. Sometimes, unhealthily enough, I will engage in what an old friend once referred to as “fatigue eating.” Fatigue eating is my version of licking.

In fact, Chelsea will engage in some of her most fast and furious licking just prior to settling in to a full-bore snore.

I’ve done all of my homework and have to throw the upstairs bedding (Chels and I are hanging in the downstairs bedroom—she has her bed in here and will wake me up in the a.m. for wee wee and feeding like a good doggie alarm clock) in the dryer before crashing.

But not before doing my business one last time, sans treat of course.

Goodnight all you fellow gracefully aging people.

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Polish LinkedIn profile before resume for best professional results

In Uncategorized on November 26, 2012 at 10:33 pm

If you are given an opportunity do you take advantage of it? Are you committed to succeeding when someone stakes their reputation by giving you a chance you might not have otherwise been given? How about going above and beyond in all you do on a daily basis?

If you can answer yes to all three questions you are taking responsibility and living your professional life with integrity in mind at all times. By not making excuses, by admitting mistakes and more importantly learning from them so as not to make the same ones twice, you are upholding the faith of those who have believed in you.

LinkedIn has quickly become THE professional networking site. It is quite simply the best place to be seen, to see and to network for business opportunities. Your profile, skills and experience summary, combined with recommendations of your work abilities can lead you to the company and people behind the scenes that just may be willing to give you the break you have been looking for.

Much like a resume used to be, LinkedIn draws the eye and attention of those in positions to hire and offer opportunities. Well-composed resumes that are bereft of typos can still articulate part of your case in terms of finding new work. But, it is just not as big a part as it used to be. Your LinkedIn presence and profile content is now more clearly a difference maker when it comes to landing that wonderful new job or business prospect.

If you are only going to go half-heartedly on LinkedIn, you would be best served to forego it entirely. A weak or poorly crafted presence will at the least compromise your ability to compete and at its worst, sabotage your professional aspirations entirely. In addition, if you are a business owner, your credibility, not to mention, your image, is at stake. It is imperative to get your LinkedIn profile right in every way possible.

Once you get the right kind of attention on LinkedIn (I have received notice from both potential business networking folks as well as potential employers), it is critical that you keep networking beyond initial contact messages on LinkedIn. Oftentimes people who send out communication blasts on LinkedIn do not hear back from many of their blast recipients. If the communications are on behalf of event or service promotions, this is normal.

But if you draw the attention of the right people in companies you are looking to get a foot in the door to, your follow-up contact will either kill or help seal the deal for you. Do not respond to companies and/or persons you are not serious about forming some kind of professional relationship with. Even if you are not looking for a job, it is important to cultivate new professional networking contacts.

So you have a great new polished profile presence on LinkedIn and you have been making new professional contacts, adding to your network. The fact you are able to do so, that you are able to bring constructive, positive, attention-grabbing change to your profile, is professional self-advertisement at its finest.

It will put you in a position to succeed once you are approached for an interview. Just like the resume of days of old, the effective LinkedIn profile will get you these precious interviews. What you do once you hit it out of the park at the interview and are offered the job or business, is up to you.

Now go back and read the first two paragraphs of this post. You should take pride in your work and a job well done. You should also remember you owe it to not only yourself, but to those who helped you secure it, to do the best job you possibly can.

 

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Market pressures to bear further financial printer consolidation

In Uncategorized on November 24, 2012 at 2:06 am

When it comes to financial printers and XBRL reporting service providers, the more things stay the same, the more they do not.

I had taken a break from blogging on the entire financial reporting universe, but seeing how there is a dearth of information on these happenings and the fact so many of hittingthesweetspot by Bob Skelley’s readership thirsts for further financial reporting service news, I am obliged to reveal part of my year end and into 2013 forecasts.

There will be no talk of Mercury retrograde or Uranus in this post; only cold, hard speculation!

But know that this is speculation from someone who has been largely on the sidelines and in a position to view all that has gone on in the industry during the past 15 years.

Financial printing is perhaps seeing the greatest year of adjustment ever.

There are not one, but two revolutions underway.

First of all, there is the continuing decline, if not entire collapse of the inhouse model of doing business. Most of the old, hard line financial printers can count on both hands, the numbers of inhouses they have seen the past year in their various, individual financial markets across the country. This has been from no lack of trying; financial printers can boast of how satisfied the numbers of clients who actually come inhouse, are. The problem remains, however, that the numbers of inhouse clients continues to decline severely.

This is not entirely a death spiral as financial printers have been relatively quick to respond to the challenges of upstart XBRL financial reporting service companies. But, in order to survive, and to be fair, they simply had no choice but to respond in kind.

Financial printing has historically been a copycat business. Those individual companies, whether they were a now-defunct Bowne, or RR Donnelley (RRD) or Merrill Corporation, were competing with parallel service offerings. This was a natural extension of the marketplace as the former “big three” were the only games in town.

With the XBRL mandate, the killing off of the inhouse model and the change from printed books to portable document files (.pdf’s) on the web, the Big Three no longer had the only choice for companies to pick from. This was an opportunity for software-based companies like WebFilings, Cirrus and the like to make inroads into formerly un-traversed territory.

Old school financial printers may have been initially upset and angry, but as they saw some of their client bases erode, quickly went about the process of coming up with XBRL and web-based offerings that would soon match or exceed the competition being provided by the upstarts.

Competition is good for the marketplace–always has been, always will be.

But with competition comes mergers and acquisitions. That is the way of the marketplace and also the second industry revolution that is underway.

Much like all public companies, so will it be the way of the former and current financial reporting providers.

There will come a time, and not too long in the distant future, when companies who are too leveraged financially, who possess too much operating debt and liabilities, will become likely candidates to be absorbed by those competitors who are in a position to do so.

What used to take cycles of time over several financial reporting quarters now happens in the course of a fiscal year or less. The old guard has come to understand the threat of the young upstart financial reporting stallions.

We saw the merger of RRD and Bowne, and the industry shakeout is not done—not by a long shot.

XBRL will dictate how the lay of the land looks going forward. Those companies who possess the most liquidity, can be stable and who have contemporary products that serve the needs of their customers today and into the future, will still be on the map years from now.

The main difference for these financial reporting companies who wish to survive though, is, how innovative they can be: will they serve future customers or simply wish to strain to hold on to those they think they can still have?

Good old-fashioned, product promotion aggressiveness served the old guard well, but now means contemporary. Now means product offering, and…right now!

You say you are a financial reporting services company? Tell us why your product hits the sweet spot.

The new, law school guard attorney is waiting, accelerating through the ranks and their patience for empty product and service offering promises, their ability to tolerate baloney, altogether diminishes with each setting sun on Wall Street.

Will they call you or your competition?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Businesses personalizing social media presence enjoy greater benefit

In Uncategorized on August 24, 2012 at 1:46 am

On its most prescient level, social media can personalize the relationships businesses have with their clients.

Unfortunately, too many companies are slow to comprehend this smoking hot tenet of social media decorum and experience lackluster brand campaign results due to poor implementation.

We cannot fault them entirely because social media is still so new.

I will concede that the freshness of it all can make determining the proper approach more difficult.

There is no one size fits all method anymore –the old rules applying to marketing, public relations and advertising do not apply and should be given the heave-ho.

Still, companies rush to get a Facebook page or Twitter presence as soon as possible and without giving it adequate thought, for fear of being left behind.

In their haste to be just like everyone else and join the party, they all too often fail at reaching the very customers they had hoped to, by not carefully considering what it is they are trying to convey.

Before getting that Facebook page constructed or your company blog or Twitter presence accounted for, take enough time to figure a way to put something fun in your message.

Businesses can otherwise be boring.

But they do not have to be.

Your business can be a lot of fun or at least sound like fun to customers considering doing business with you, if your communications team is clever and gets the importance of delivering this concept.

You can get across to potential customers how professional, experienced and competent you are, simultaneously, also.

You need to first take a look at the social media tools you are using.

Is the concept of fun even evident in the slightest in any of them?

It is if you are sharing.

That is what social media is all about.

People display a way of life on their Facebook pages that projects warmth and generates smiles for their friends and family members. The more interesting ones share something personal about themselves that appears fun, too, as in, “Man that looks like they are having such a great time!”

In addition to showing your company and employees understand the importance of a sense of humor in their day-to-day activities, does your social media presence demonstrate the culture is also one of kindness, integrity and the feeling everyone on your teams is engaged and truly has each other’s backs?

I can hear the doubters doubting and the haters hating right now.

To not read further is to miss the “meat” of this meat and potatoes, business social media primer.

As I am always consulting with folks, my suggestions on how to achieve this important personalization of your company’s brand and message, always come back to telling a story.

Soulless, technical and impersonal dissertations have no place in your social media campaign.

What will always catch someone’s eye, heart and whet their appetite for further involvement with you, is a well-told story.

At their best, Facebook status updates, Tweets and blogs are telling a story that people enjoy reading and seeing.

Hopefully in the case of your business, these stories are compelling ones.

It is easy to show how professional and capable your company, product or service is.

When you make your message personal, though, it actually sticks.

Let the gains begin.

To learn more about personalizing your business social media efforts, click the “Contact us” link at the top left of the page and drop us a line.

 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 204 other followers

%d bloggers like this: