Every organization wants to implement social media, but it is difficult to create processes and mange employees to make this happen. Most social media books focus on strategies for communicating with customers, but they fail to address the internal process that takes place within a business before those strategies can be implemented. This book is geared toward helping you manage every step of the process required to use social media for business.

The Social Media Management Handbook provides a complete toolbox for defining and practicing a coherent social media strategy. It is a comprehensive resource for bringing together such disparate areas as IT, customer service, sales, communications, and more to meet social media goals. Wollan and Smith and their Accenture team explain policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities, metrics, strategies, incentives, and legal issues that may arise. You will learn how to:

• Empower employees and teams to utilize social media effectively throughout the organization
• Measure the ROI of social media investments and ensure appropriate business value is achieved over time
• Make smarter decisions, make them more quickly, and make them stick

Get the most out of your social media investment and fully leverage its benefits at your company with The Social Media Management Handbook.

From the Book: Making Sure Social Media Content Complies with Regulatory Guidelines
Technology is rushing to catch up with the needs of employers, advertisers, and individuals challenged to comply with FTC requirements, so here are a few suggestions.

Employees and Consumers Publishing Social Media
We suggest that individual social media publishers (such as bloggers, consumers, and employees) take these seven actions to ensure their compliance:

1. Say nothing about a product or service unless there is evidence to support that the statements are truthful and substantiated. The individual is liable for unsubstantiated claims if the statements fall within the definition of an endorsement according to the FTC.
2. Think twice about working with companies that do not provide disclosure information.
3. Push back if companies are not providing the information or support needed to comply with FTC guidelines.
4. Read agreements carefully.
5. Correct inaccurate or misleading information.
6. A quote from someone or description of what someone said should fairly reflect the substance of what the person said; quotes and descriptions should not deliberately or inadvertently distort the original meaning.
7. Always tell the truth, and tell it with confidence.

Employers
We suggest that employers take these seven actions to ensure their compliance and that of their employees:

1. Update social media policies to reflect the FTC Guide revisions in order to proactively inform employees of their obligations.
2. Educate employees. All of them.
3. Monitor to ensure compliance with disclosure requirements and accuracy of information. Ensure that social media listening and monitoring capabilities filter for relevant employee statements.
4. Correct inaccurate or misleading information.
5. Define and implement a process for handling employee statements that create liability for the company, once they are identified through listening and monitoring capabilities.
6. Consider implementing one of the emerging technology solutions that aspire to provide scalable, auditable, and compliant disclaimers for companies.
7. Document the company’s policies and the communication of those policies to employees. (A company can’t just say it did it. It has to be able to prove it.)

Price: $27.95

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A recent mass layoff at my company has given me a fresh perspective on layoffs. Normally, as an investor, we see layoffs as a courageous way to drive profits forward by shaking off some areas of weakness. I have personally invested in companies shortly after a mass layoff if I believe that such changes will benefit the profitability of the business. From a purely financial perspective viewing a company as a machine is an easy thing to catch one’s self doing. However there are some soft costs involved in layoffs to a company culture that I wasn’t really aware of until the week after I witnessed fellow employees walking out the door for the last time:

The Straw that breaks the Camels back. Employees remaining after a layoff will fear that this is the first of many layoffs- this is only to be expected. This fear will most assuredly drive them to explore other opportunities and possibly accept them. Everyone would rather leave on their terms rather than finding a box on their desk in the morning. The intent of a layoff is to keep your best; unfortunately it can have the opposite effect of driving your best into the arms of a competitor.Showing a company’s financial health. If you work at a private company getting a gauge on the overall health of a business is a difficult task. There is no clearer message about health than to see a layoff in action. If employees are already feeling under appreciated or under paid the message “no pay raises in the foreseeable future” will come through loud and clear during a layoff, again driving your best talent to explore other options outside the company.The belt tightening turns into a corset. No one really likes to work in a company doing belt tightening- belt tightening usually means there is a better way to do things and we are going to choose the cheaper way. Anyone with pride in their work will not thrive under this environment and innovation is often stunted.Dad kicks your sibling out of the house. Creating a family atmosphere is critical in getting people to go above and beyond. If you expect employees to take a panicked call from you at 2AM when your servers crash then family is key. When a company does a layoff it shows how that the family dynamic is vulnerable and the trust that both parties share for one another can be broken.

What makes a company successful in the long term is its service, innovation, management, and products. All of these do not happen without good people. From a short term perspective layoffs make the company more viable but from a long term perspective it can seriously damage the culture and effect the good people who you need to run the business in the future.

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This is a great article overall. I think investors have a habit of looking at “cost reductions” in a rather robotic way instead of considering the human element, and so it is certainly a good idea to take a step back once and a while and consider the mindset of the company and its employees.

Layoffs don’t necessarily mean bad financial health. Johnson and Johnson, for example, recently performed some layoffs to increase profit margins even though they are doing quite fine. Some companies just do it to improve their numbers, not that I agree that they should.

-Matt

Budget

Make sure you have at least as much money coming in as is flowing out each month. If you have a partner, you and your loved one should agree, upfront, on how much to spend and what to spend it on. When partners are off spending money on their own pet luxuries, problems often arise.

Pay Your Bills

When the bills arrive, prioritize them and pay them as soon as possible, so they don’t stack up. If you have a partner, pay your bills together. Blaming your spouse for overspending is easy when you don’t know how much it costs to heat your house or feed your family. You both need to be aware of where the money’s going, so you can hold yourselves, and one another, accountable.

Audit Your Books

Add up all the money you spend each week on nonessentials and try to trim the fat. If you’re teaming up with a partner, determine how much you’re responsible for and how much your partner is responsible for. This shouldn’t be a blame game, but it can open your eyes to any potential spending problems that could leave the checkbook short when it comes time to make the mortgage payment.

Watch for Addictive Behavior

Any addiction can be a problem, including alcohol, drugs, or the Internet. Anything that takes time, energy, and resources away from a paying job and your family (if you’re supporting a family) could cause financial problems. Identify addictions early and nip them in the bud.

If you and your partner can’t have an honest discussion about household finances and troublesome behaviors, then your entire relationship is in jeopardy. Communication is key to avoiding the problem in the first place and recovering from it if avoidance isn’t possible.

The first thing to do is decide how much money you are willing to spend on purchasing a rug. Then take a tape measure and define the width and length of the area where you are planning to put your carpet.

Secondly, shop for the one that matches yours. Style can be defined as the way different motifs, colors and patterns give character to a rug. Styles range from floral to contemporary to traditional. They can also reflect a season or a theme. Roll out your favorite.

The primary materials used in rugs are wool, cotton and silk. Most tribal or nomadic rugs are wool pile and wool foundation. Natural fibers have the durability, beauty and value that synthetic materials can never match. The most durable, easy to clean fiber is wool. Silk rugs are luxurious and beautiful but not meant for very high traffic areas.

The biggest misrepresentations of materials are acrylic sold as wool, rayon or mercerized cotton sold as silk. Any product description can be written to sound like the product is magnificent. Look for specific information and skip the lip service. If the material is omitted, or a synthetic material is glorified like it is gold, it is still synthetic material and does not have the durability and value of natural fibers.

Indeed, before you buy rugs, it is always a good idea to check your local dealer. If you find a piece that you like, it will be more convenient to buy it at a store. Don’t forget to check for damage, stains, or odors. Just remember, the price is might be up to 5 times higher than on the internet which offer so many cheap rugs.

Last but not least, do your homework. Don’t be fooled by huge markdowns or deep discounts. Stay away from fake auctions of seized-rugs advertised in your local newspapers. Beware also of seasonal liquidation sales from your local rug dealers, especially if you see their sign more than a month in your local newspaper or in their store window.

Every year a large number of companies are put to enormous expense due to destroyed or lost information and stolen cash and valuables caused by burglaries and robberies. For example, a single bomb in St Mary’s Axe in London in April 1992 caused damage amounting to approximately £1.5 billion and forced 40 companies to relocate to alternative premises. How would your organization cope with such incident?

A general definition of burglary is when someone unlawfully enters an establishment with the intent to commit a crime. Recent survey found that ninety per cent of burglary prevention is physical security. If your complex is locked up and unauthorized entry is made difficult, chances of a successful burglary are kept to a minimum. The burglar will pass up your business and look for an easier target.

When attempting to improve the security of your property, think like a criminal and go over your entire complex in fine detail, looking for any means of entrance or criminal opportunity. Do this physically, and with your building blueprints, in order to discover any weaknesses.

Burglars like to work in the cover of darkness. Good lighting is one of the most effective deterrents against burglary. Pay special attention to areas that are not in plain view where burglars often try to make entry. Protect exterior lighting fixtures against breakage and replace damaged or burned-out bulbs as soon as possible.

Indeed, an effective alarm system is one of the best ways you can protect your business against burglary. There are a variety of different alarms available ranging from very basic local alarms to highly sophisticated integrated systems.

If you need a professional help, ADT Security Systems offers small business security solutions targeted specifically for small businesses. ADT will monitor and protect your small business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit? Please create six different financial scenarios with notes.

Teaching Math at Columbia

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math at Kellogg

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. His profit is $20. But that’s irrelevant – what would be a cool slogan to put on his truck? Please indicate color scheme as well.

Teaching Math at Sloan (MIT)

A logger exchanges a set “L” of lumber for a set “M” of money. The cardinality of set “M” is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set “M.” The set “C,” the cost of production, contains 20 fewer points than set “M.” Represent the set “C” as a subset of set “M” and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set “P” of profits?

Teaching Math at UNC

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math at Duke

By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question. How did the forest, birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? There are no wrong answers.

Teaching Math at Harvard

By laying off 402 of its loggers, a company improves its stock price from $80 to $100. How much capital gain per share does the CEO make by exercising his stock options at $80? Assume capital gains are no longer taxed, because this encourages investment. No need for financial analysis.

Teaching Math at Chicago

A company outsources all of its loggers. They save on benefits and when demand for their product is down, the logging work force can easily be cut back. The average logger employed by the company earned $50,000, had three weeks’ vacation, received a nice retirement plan and medical insurance. The contracted logger charges $50 an hour. Was outsourcing a good move? Answer is always YES.

Teaching Math at Stanford

A logging company exports its wood-finishing jobs to its Indonesian subsidiary and lays off the corresponding half of its Canadian workers (the higher-paid half). It clear-cuts 95% of the forest, leaving the rest for the spotted owl, and lays off all its remaining Canadian workers. It tells the workers that the spotted owl is responsible for the absence of loggable trees and lobbies Parliament for exemption from the Endangered Species Act. Parliament instead exempts the company from all federal regulation. What is the return on investment of the lobbying costs? Extra Credit: DO in conjunction with someone from Public Policy Background.

We live in the richest country at the richest time in all of human history. We are surrounded by more wealth and affluence than ever before. Your goal should be to participate fully in what many people are starting to refer to as the “Golden Age”of mankind.

Money has energy of its own and it is largely attracted to people who treat it well. Money tends to flow toward those people who can use it in the most productive ways to produce valuable goods and services, and who can invest it to create employment and opportunities that benefit others.

At the same time, money flows away from those who use it poorly, or who spend it in non-productive ways. Your job is to acquire as much money as you honestly can and then to use it enhance the quality of your life and the lives of those you care about.

Here now are the Twenty-one Absolutely Unbreakable Laws 0f Money:

1. The Law of Cause and Effect: Everything happens for a reason; there is a cause for every effect.

2. The Law of Belief: Whatever you truly believe, with feeling, becomes your reality.

3. The Law of Expectations: Whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

4. The Law of Attraction: You are a living magnet; you invariably attract into your life the people, situations and circumstances that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts.

5. The Law of Correspondence: Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world and corresponds with your dominant patterns of thinking.

6. The Law of Abundance: We live in an abundant universe in which there is sufficient money for all who really want it and are willing obey the laws governing its acquisition.

7. The Law of Exchange: Money is the medium through which people exchange their labor in the production of goods and services for the goods and services of others.

8. The Law of Capital: Your most valuable asset, in terms of cash flow, is your physical and mental capital, your earning ability.

9. The Law of Time Perspective: The most successful people in any society are those who take the longest time period into consideration when making their day-to-day decisions.

10. The Law of Saving: Financial freedom comes to the person who saves ten percent or more of his income throughout his lifetime.

11. The Law of Conservation: Its not how much you make, but how much you keep, that determines your financial future.

12. Parkinson’s Law: Expenses rise to meet income.

13. The Law of Three: There are three legs to the stool of financial freedom: savings, insurance and investment.

14. The Law of Investing: Investigate before you invest.

15. The Law of Compound Interest: Investing your money carefully and allowing it to grow at compound interest will eventually make you rich.

16. The Law of Accumulation: Every great financial achievement is an accumulation of hundreds of small efforts and sacrifices that no one ever sees or appreciates.

17. The Law of Magnetism: The more money you save and accumulate, the more money you attract into your life.

18. The Law of Accelerating Acceleration: The faster you move toward financial freedom, the faster it moves toward you.

19. The Law of the Stock Market: The value of a stock is the total anticipated cash flow from the stock discounted to the present day.

20. The Law of Real Estate: The value of a piece of Real Estate is the future earning power of that particular piece of property.

21. The Law of the Internet: The Internet is a tool for rapid communication of information of all kinds.

By Brian Tracy

Mansour Javidan and his colleagues discovered that looks at how cultures vary in relation to a set of factors important to organizational management and leadership.

They found that societies vary greatly in how oriented they actually are to the long term, but in most cultures people’s personal values and aspirations are similar and quite future oriented. What’s more, most people feel their cultures aren’t as forward thinking as they should be.

In their study, Singapore emerged as the most future oriented of cultures, followed by Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Malaysia. The least future oriented were Russia, Argentina, Poland, and Hungary. Squarely in the middle were Germany, Taiwan, Korea, and Ireland.

Even more important, the greater a society’s future orientation, the higher its average GDP per capita and its levels of innovativeness, happiness, confidence, and competitiveness.

What does this mean for an executive attempting to manage or work with teams in cultures that are less future oriented than their own?

First, team members will have different perceptions of the feasibility of forward thinking. Even if the indigenous workers personally value long-term planning, they may see it as futile, given prevailing practices and conditions.

But second, because of those shared values, it is possible to inspire people to become more future oriented. The key is to start modestly by setting team goals and then ensuring they are met.

By gradually increasing time horizons, a manager can endow a team with a sense of control over outcomes that formerly may have seemed hopelessly provisional and remote.

Knowing how future orientation varies from culture to culture can help leaders shift their attitude from judgmental to understanding and focus their collaborative efforts.

A true global leader doesn’t blame local teams for failing to immediately live up to their aspirations but rather helps them achieve long-term goals one step at a time.

Source: Business Strategy Review Autumn 2005

• Look away from your screen every 30 minutes, and focus for five to ten seconds on a distant object. Then concentrate on a closer object for five to ten seconds. Move your focus back and forth between the two objects ten times.
• Blink rapidly for a few seconds. Take frequent breaks. A ten-minute break every hour will help reduce eyestrain.
• Stand up, move around, and exercise arms, legs, back, neck, and shoulders often.