My seven-year old son hosted a lemonade stand this weekend. It was hot! Texas in August always is. But he made a lot of money for a seven-year old. Both my son and his parents learned a number of lessons. Something like a good location is even important for a lemonade stand. Our neighborhood is awesome. Runners never carry money, but if they really wanted a drink they’d come back with it in a few minutes. read more »

When you are planning your visit to a conference please think about some of the following tips. These are provided by Marc Ramos, networker extraordinaire, who presents a “How to Network at OHUG” (Oracle HR User Group) to a standing room only crowd each year.

• Do your planning: Who do you want to meet?
• Don’t “Work a Room”…”work” can be tedious, laborious, and sometimes painfully awkward – just socialize instead.
• Leverage a “Wing-Man/Wing-Woman”…think Maverick/Goose (Top-Gun). Network with a partner so that you can feel more comfortable when you walk up to a group.
• Diversity: talk to others who are VERY different than yourself. Age, Race, Gender, Role…you’ll be pleasantly surprised with your findings.
• Be humble/generous: the greatest networkers in the world are Shoe-Shine professionals at the airport. They have a ton of information to share and make you feel like the most important person in their world during your time with them.
• SMILE…this incredibly simple act invites conversation. read more »

Stop! Don’t go in there! There are many studies done about the impact of distractions in our work life and how they reduce our productivity. While not making light of a true affliction, a term has been used by many to describe the challenges we face with the lack of quiet focus time: Corporate ADD (attention deficit disorder). When you are distracted from your work by many interruptions it’s difficult to get back on track, or even back to the same task, for an average of 20 minutes. I’m not going to rehash the stats or the distractions, I am going to offer a tip to help a little bit with the distractions. read more »

Does your payroll match your org chart? I hope it does. There are many reasons why you need these two sources of information to match. There are requirements for accurate org charts within ISO, SOX audits, gaming commissions, energy legislation, and more. Those are all regulatory type requirements. However, even simple process inefficiencies can be very costly to an organization. One of the most expensive gaps in data accuracy I have seen actually occurred when a company continued to pay employees after they were terminated. read more »