I use Google endlessly, all day, every day. I use Google to make money with my Internet home business in so many ways, and this article is not about Adsense or Adwords. Both of which are very lucrative and have many e-books,blogs,articles, e-courses and successful Internet businesses built around them. But no, this is about Google's customizable Home Page, it's Tool Bar and yes, it's Search Engine.

I am an Internet businessman, so a large part of my life is focused on my computer. I love my computer. It stores my music, pictures, addresses, e-books, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, home budget, articles, bookmarks, ezines and feeds while I run my business, websites, blogs, myspace and a dozen other social networking sites, five e-mail accounts, articles, opt-in list, ezine, and newsletter. And I am finding help in organizing my computer into a more efficient money making tool with Google.

I start my work day by turning on my computer, and my Home page opens. This is the front line of my Internet marketing world. The Google customized home page displays my bookmarks and in the order I need to open them. All my RSS feeds are there, my blog feeds and the feeds that I read and respect to have lucrative information. And in and around the news, weather and special interest feeds, I have my PGATOUR and WineAdviser. My world and interests, in my eclectic and happy life presented for my manipulation. But as I begin to work, to make money online it's the Google Tool bar that efficiently lends a hand.

In the beginning of my Internet marketing career, and most likely yours and every other persons, it was a big undertaking to wade into the world of Internet home businesses. Some of you have a brick-n-mortar business that you want to market online, I was looking to be an affiliate marketer, and make commission on other peoples products, but both models and others take signing up to several different services. There are information sites, newsletters, traffic exchanges, chat rooms and forums, social networking, autoresponders, blogs and so much more. Well all that to say the Google tool bar has Autofill, it fills in forms and will save you a lot of time and effort. Than there is Spellcheck, it keeps you looking professional as you express your self in the written word in e-mail, blog posts and comments, chat room and forum entries and articles etc. Also on this bar is an amazing marketing tool, the Pagerank.

The importance of a good Google Pagerank can not be underrated. Keeping an eye on your sites as well as your colleges and competitors the way Google sees us, allows us to plan and tweak our search engine optimization strategies. Getting ranked #1 in your keyword on Google is tricky but so much fun to do. This feature of the tool bar also will find your ( and your competitors) back links, witch is important for pagerank.

Many business owners think the epitome of a smooth operating office is a paperless one. They want to throw away their file cabinets and storage facilities in favor of keeping everything on computer disks. While this sounds like a wonderful way to run a business, you have to decide if going paperless is right for your company?

Going paperless is a big step for any company and requires a lot of planning before you start. One of the most important things to remember is when you go paperless you must backup your files regularly. Daily backups should be done, without fail, to insure your records are safe. Not only should you have a backup on-site, but you should also keep a copy off-site. You do not want a fire or other disaster that destroys your building to ruin your records as well.

Before you make the decision to go paperless, you will need to consider some things first.

A paperless office will not happen overnight. Unlike changing the type of copier you use; changing your office dynamics to a paperless one is not as easy. You have to plan carefully. You will need to purchase the proper equipment, such as scanners and backup systems, to facilitate your change. You will need to train your employees in using this equipment. In the beginning you will have more work until your new system is running smooth.

Decide how much past information you want in your computer backups. Depending on the type of business you have, you might be able to go back to the beginning and scan in all your old invoices, payment records, etc into the computer. Small businesses are better able to do this since their records are not as abundant as a larger corporation. It is really up to you how far back you go, but make the decision prior to starting the transition, so the change easier to manage. Also, take state and federal record keeping rules into consideration when you make this decision.

All of your employees must be willing to make the change. It will only make your decision to go paperless more difficult if only a percentage of your employees are willing to make the changes required. Everyone must do their part to make this change happen. You probably will have some employees who are change-resistant. Those are the employees you will have to work the hardest to convert. You must be firm that this is the company's new policy and you expect all employees to follow it.

Your office will not be totally paperless. You are going to have customers and vendors who will not deal with electronic transactions. Do not throw out your old forms. You can use them for those few hard-copies you will have to print out. Also, some government offices, both state and federal, require keeping a paper hard-copy of certain records. Double check your local, state and federal requirements for proof of your business records. But even if you have to keep some hard copies of your records, the amount of paper stored will be minimal in comparison to what you were keeping.

Rearrange your office. Once you have the system in place, you will find you need less storage space. As you scan documents into your computer, you can start disposing of the paper versions, thus freeing up not only file cabinet space but floor space. Getting rid of those space stealers will make your office appear less messy and more professional to your customers and employees.

In the end, going paperless does more than help the environment. It can help your business environment by having your paperwork at the push of a button instead of the opening of a file cabinet. It will give you this access anywhere you have internet access. You will spend less time shuffling paper, less time trying to find something important and more time building your business

Many consumer good (CG) firms are currently playing on a very rocky rugby field. With multiple business lines, diverse product families, a dizzying number of brands and highly decentralized operations, the planning and financial reporting process can easily become fragmented. It’s not surprising then that each business unit, whether it be marketing, manufacturing, finance or purchasing, simply tries to keep a handle on its respective area. But, short-term vision and developing a comprehensive game strategy are very different goals.

Unifying Applications for Greater Insight

To avoid departmental myopia, a sophisticated, yet simple-to-use application is needed to link bottom-up and top-down planning processes. The right business performance management (BPM) software solution can help consumer goods and retail companies to gain a much broader and more accurate view of their overall business performance as well as target specific areas where greater profitability can be achieved.

In addition to classic budget and financial planning issues in other industries, such as long cycle times, limited workflow and version control, there are also industry-specific challenges in consumer goods companies which can be addressed by investing in a leading-edge business performance management system.

Modeling on the Fly

With a business performance management software application that provides one version of the truth, with data which is continuously updated, users can gain insight into projected and actual performance in multiple dimensions – by product, cost center, customer, country etc. By linking actuals, forecasts and other non-financial metrics, management can easily identify which products, brands or business units are the most profitable. They can then model on the fly to assess projected performance when assumptions for drivers such as promotional spending, product pricing or orders in the pipeline are altered with various scenarios.

Mastering Price Optimization and Trade Spending

In consumer goods companies, price optimization is an integral aspect of profitability. In fact, even the smallest changes in a company’s pricing policy can have an enormous impact on margins and bottom line performance. BPM software can help understand which segments of the market are most sensitive to changes in prices, whether pricing tactics are in line with a company’s goals and how specific product categories are performing at the retail or distribution outlet level.

Allocating funds for trade promotional spending is another key area where consumer goods companies must make essential decisions with important consequences. Using a BPM software solution allows companies to explore different “what-if” scenarios with ease to predict profitability based on different mixes of trade spending. This information in turn can be shared with sales and marketing to follow changes in consumer trends and competitors’ strategies to make the best choices.

Improving Supply Chain Efficiency

At most consumer goods companies, inventory levels are still too high. Unless a company uses rolling forecasts, it is likely that their forecasts will be inaccurate, resulting in inventory levels which are unnecessarily high, or worse still, too low. BPM software integrates plans with rolling forecasts in a single application to bridge the gap between sales and operations, thereby enabling more accurate sales forecasts, which lead to more precise purchasing and inventory decisions.

All Adds Up

Beyond these consumer goods industry-specific needs, a BPM solution addresses more generalized planning and budgeting issues found in other industries as well. It should include a central data repository, version control, approval routing, workflow capabilities, real-time linkage to strategic plans, non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs), actuals and forecasts. By attaching supporting narratives to budgets and plans, users can draw direct comparisons between strategic plans and budgets or between budgets and KPIs, which gives a much clearer picture of specific areas that need improvement or adjustment.

The stakes are high. Companies that do not implement a business performance management software solution are giving their competitors a significant edge by default. It’s time to level the playing field with the right analytical tools or risk being left behind.

Discover the Cartesis Finance and Performance Management Suite

* Provides best-of-breed performance management functionality built around a single Integrated Data Model
* Unifies strategic, financial, operational, tax and legal information in one separate and protected database
* Makes planning, modeling and analytic reporting an easy and flexible process that fits well with decentralized and multi-product types of organizations

Find out more about the suite’s key components:

* Cartesis Finance, a powerful financial consolidation and management reporting application
* Cartesis Intercompany, optimizing peer-to-peer intercompany reconciliation over the Web
* Cartesis Planning, unifying modeling, what-if scenario analysis, bottom-up budgeting, rolling planning and forecasting
* Cartesis Analytics, specifically designed as a performance management reporting and analysis application with on-demand access to actuals, plans, forecasts, KPIs and other metrics

Meet with a Cartesis specialist to discuss how your company can benefit from the many advantages of our BPM software solutions.

The Rational Unified Process, Enterprise Unified Process, Agile Development Methodologies, Unified Modeling Languages. They come in many names, complexities and sizes but following one will help ensure success on your next project.

This article is not a detailed overview of a formal process. Instead it provides an overview of the most critical components common to each, as well as some tips on successfully deploying them. Although many process descriptions do an excellent job of breaking down the various components of the process they rarely cover areas like how this affects your team, how much process to use or offer practical advice on issues encountered in the real world when trying to deploy one.

It can be very helpful as a beginner’s introduction to process and can help you more easily grasp some of the concepts you will be introduced to. For the more experienced process guru it should have some helpful tips on smoothing over some of the rough edges we all deal with from time to time.

The information here is based on experiences and lessons learned in over 15 years of developing and managing over 100 complex project releases.

Following these fundamentals will improve your chances of success in any process you adopt and provide a solid foundation for maturing it.

What’s a Process and why do I need one?
Regardless of what business we are in, software, web site design or retail clothing, we all have a process we follow to complete a given project. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not, often with costly results. When we talk about adopting a process we are talking about a more formal process. A process is essentially an integrated set of roles, methods and techniques to in part, help achieve the following:

* Minimize risk.
* More accurately estimate your project schedule and budget.
* Detect problems early (upstream) instead of later (downstream) when they are much more expensive to fix, if they can be fixed at all.
* Better communication among team members regarding project scope, requirements and status.
* More accurately track the progress of the project and detect slippage early.
* Accomplish the project’s goals as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

Formal processes are often created and refined over years of trial and error to attempt to create an ideal “recipe” for having an optimal chance at successfully completing any project. While they were developed for and commonly used in Software Development, Aerospace and engineering, most of the core concepts are not specific to these or any industry and anyone can benefit from using them.

How much Process is enough? It is critical to the success of any process to understand how much you initially need to bite off. The risk of trying to do too much too soon with a process can be as risky as not doing anything at all, especially if you are a more agile company trying to make the transition to being more process oriented. Overloading your team with a new set of responsibilities and methods they are not accustomed to or ready for can easily derail you. However if you don’t start changing you will continue to have the same problems. Here are some tips of finding the right balance.

* Risk Factor. What is the project’s risk factor? Obviously making software for an artificial heart is much more risky than deploying the third generation of a web site and the process, initially anyway, should match the risk. The former would need extensive, redundant and exhaustive QA checks and balances where the latter can be easily adjusted on the fly after deployment with no loss of life. Be realistic about what your risks are, how expensive they will be to address downstream, and use this as a basis for deciding how much is required. No one knows your environment, project and team better than you, so use some common sense in deciding what feels right.

* How much can your team handle and what does it need most? The impact on the team is often overlooked. Any process is only as good as what your team can manage and regardless of the ultimate benefits, initially it will cause additional effort in training and new tasks your team is not accustomed to managing. To be successful you must achieve buy in and commitment to the process from everyone. If you don’t your team will simply go through the motions and roll their collective eyes in project meetings. To overcome this find their pain points in how they work now and start with the areas of the process that directly address these.

* Start Small. Start with a few areas that you feel are critical, again including pain points so your team sees immediate benefits. It will be easier to add more process layers later when they see it as a benefit and not simply extra layers of bureaucracy. Gaining buy in is critical and if you start small your team will have a chance to get their collective heads around this as well as see the benefits, making more maturation downstream easier.

Team and Environment
One of the most commonly overlooked elements of employing or maturing a process is the team itself. Each team has a different dynamic and will respond very differently to various aspects of what you are trying to do. Too often, out of frustration with problems new process is forced on a team. This does not mean your team should dictate your process, but as mentioned above your team’s buy in to what you are doing is essential for your success. I have never seen a process successfully steamrolled over a team. So tread carefully, get your team involved in discussions about what you are doing and why, it will pay dividends.

* Roles and Responsibilities. Any process will have roles defined for each individual and it is critical that each person clearly understands the role they will be playing and feel they are comfortable in that role. Spend some time here and ask people if they are comfortable in their role, ask questions and listen! Once your team is set, make sure they are empowered to do what they need to do and make sure everyone on the team is aware of who has a gun and a badge. If your developers refuse to tell your project manager the information they need you will have a problem. If the project manager reacts by dropping soft milestones into your project plan you have a problem you won’t even know about until it is too late. So make sure roles are clearly defined for everyone and that everyone knows who has power on the team.

* Full Disclosure. Enough cannot be said about this. The purpose of any process is to address problems as early (cheaply) as possible and this can only be done with visibility at every stage to accurately assess the status of the project. Developer egos, team infighting, and defensive posturing all create an environment where no process can be effective. It is critical that team members are willing to admit mistakes, call out problems and do so in a way that does not create a hostile environment. To do this you must bring the parties together and openly discuss this issue. Address the fact that issues are brought up for the overall good of the project and organization. Reward those who find fault in themselves and point out mistakes. Often the tension can be cleared by starting with admitting your own mistakes first, others will follow, so lead by example and you will see that you can create an open environment were people feel free to view mistakes and even criticism constructively.

* Visibility. Similar to the above, visibility is all about people feeling comfortable disclosing information to the group. Developers will want to sit on code until the last minute because they know it is not ready, designers hate people seeing unfinished work. So understand why your developer or designer may be twitching as their early work is paraded in front of a group and tread lightly at first with criticism until they become more comfortable with this. Phrases like; “This is really great but how about…” are invaluable, use them! The fundamental goal of any good process is catching issues as early in the process as possible. So you must discuss this with your team and make sure everyone understands that this can only be done with full visibility on all aspects of the project.

The Proper Tools
You can’t control what you can’t measure. So make sure you have the proper tools in place for both managing the process and being able to track and communicate about your project.

* Managing the Process. There are many excellent tools available for managing requirements, QA, and Development. As with the process itself make a call on how much you need before you dive in and start buying. Shore up critical parts of the process. Requirements management often gets the most attention but requirements can be easily managed in a word document while QA is often overlooked. A solid database that allows QA to track features from implementation to completion and any bugs that result will be invaluable for QA and development and the project as a whole.

* Tracking the Project. It is essential that your project manager is armed with a tool that can be used to show the progress of the project and its various comments. Look for tools that allow the right level of detail (high level for management) and more detailed for individual departments and the project manager themselves. For example Microsoft Project for example is an excellent tool for managing very strict rules driven projects. However many projects are exception driven, making strict project management tools difficult to use in a fluid changing environment. A great alternative is scheduling calendar software like The Calendar Planner which provides the ability to manage various levels of detail in an easy to use calendar format. Allowing project status to be easily communicated among the team.

Scope
Next to the Team environment this is probably the most critical aspect of any project. You absolutely must focus on clearly defining scope at the earliest stages of development. The biggest mistake is usually trying to do too much on too short a schedule or budget or defining the scope and then not adhering to it. This frustrates developers and ultimately throws the project into chaos.

* Be realistic. Everyone wants everything right now, especially Sales and Marketing. Ask tough questions early of these departments about what features your customers MUST have versus what they WANT to have. Sometimes you will find marketers have made promises to a single client and are trying to save face when in the grand scheme the feature is not as important to the company’s goals. Focus on what you truly must do, let them know they can’t have everything and force them to choose. Make sure the company’s goals are represented at all times in requirements. This is where the Vision document below comes in.

* Vision document. These may have various names for different methodologies but a vision document is essentially a high level overview of your project. Think of it as a mission statement for the project itself. This is where the company can clearly define what the goals are for the project. Who the stakeholders are and what the high level requirements are. This will be your primary document for setting the scope of the project. Keep it HIGH level, details can come elsewhere. Make sure the requirements map to the goals and that as you move forward the work being done remains true to these goals and requirements. That can change but only when the stakeholders agree and sign off on the changes.

* Don’t increase scope without adjusting your schedule and budget! Seems simple enough but probably the single most common mistake. People always try to add “small” things that involve “minimal effort”. These add up and the impact is often not addressed, which ultimately leads to a failure in schedule and budget. The change board is your main defense against this, see change board below.

Requirements
Requirements in any project are tricky and many excellent books are dedicated to this subject alone. It is true that of the projects that fail most issues can be traced back to requirements. Strange how this continues to be the case when requirements are the easiest and cheapest way to find and fix problems.

* A problem will never be cheaper than it is right now. When you review your requirements, you need to really review them, don’t just scan them. Think about and try to visualize what they are saying. You will often find problems are apparent at the surface. Take the time to do thoughtful reviews and continue to refine the requirements until everyone feels they are correct. Compare the expense of re-writing a sentence in a word processor to re-writing hundreds of lines of code, re-testing and re-deploying and you’ll see these are the last chances you have at a cheap fix.

* Get your customers involved, early! Make sure customers are involved in the earliest stages of requirements and keep them involved. Often a customer requests something and then developers disappear to figure it out. Big mistake! Come back to your clients with explanations of how you envision the feature and use mockups whenever possible so they can visualize it. You will find that making even a simple drawing of something will not only allow the customer to grasp it more easily but you will quickly spot problems you haven’t considered.

* QA starts at requirements. QA should be involved at the beginning not just the end of the project as is so often the case. Let them freely review Vision documents and requirements. They will often view potential issues that other departments may miss.

Change Boards
When done properly Change Boards can almost single-handedly manage even the most challenging projects. However if you don’t have the correct team environment in place as mentioned above, they will be ineffective at best and at worst will create more animosity.

* What it is. Very simply the change board is a meeting where each of the key departments and sometimes clients are represented and have a chance to discuss the project from every angle. The idea is to make sure everyone is aware of the status and is able to speak to the impact any change in requirements or schedule will have on their respective department.

* Who is there? Generally the list consists of the following: Marketing, Sales, QA, Operations, Development, IT, Project management, Clients. Essentially everyone who has a stake in or is affected by the project. Depending on the nature of the project Marketing or Sales will often represent the client. The most important rule here is, if someone is identified as a stakeholder in the project, do not have a meeting without them. If they can’t be there, reschedule.

* Where to start? A great way to start is usually to have everyone provide a brief update on what they are doing regarding the project. This helps remove the dark corners, often points out areas of disconnect and helps ease the tension of these sometimes contentious meetings by giving everyone an easy topic to cover and maybe brag a bit to start.

* Where to focus? The key issue in early change board meetings is scope. What is in and what is out? This will be a push and pull between what Sales and Marketing want and what those responsible for delivering can handle. After the scope settles down it is about status. Are the Requirements still correct? Have priorities adjusted? Are we on target? Most importantly each group is represented so if Marketing says: “I must have this”, Development is there to speak to the impact of this on the schedule, in real time. Again it promotes visibility and keeps things from being changed without everyone being able to speak to the ramifications. It simultaneously controls and informs.

* How often? They are very useful so have them as often as you need. This will depend on the nature of the project but every 1-2 weeks is best. Longer and you start to have too little communication and too many potential areas for slippage, any more frequent and you eat into too much work time.

* What not to do. Do not allow the meeting to descend into arguments and finger pointing. The change board is a tool that serves all departments. It is essential it remains a place where people can talk openly about issues. It is a place for reality, not spin. This will be harder than it sounds at times but resist the temptation to avoid them. There is no meeting more important to the success of a project than these.

Post Mortem
The Post Mortem is a meeting to get together after the project has completed. This is not a post release party although depending on the success it may have that atmosphere. It is a chance for some straight talk on what went wrong and more importantly how to address that in the future. Everyone lines up for Post Mortems when things went well but you can learn more from you failures than your successes. So if you had a lot of problems don’t miss this opportunity to address them when they are still fresh in everyone’s mind! Also, Teams need a sense of closure and this helps them do that as well as vent so you can clear the air before you next project starts.

* Leave your ego at the door. No where are straight talk and the ability to provide and accept constructive criticism more critical. This meeting cannot be about egos, or CYA, it has to a frank discussion about the mistakes made by everyone (we all make them) or areas in the process that need to be improved. Again to set the tone try leading off the meeting by the most senior person in the room discussing mistakes they made or things they learned. It really helps set the right tone and ease the tension.

* Take Notes, Then Action. This is the time to learn and too often people discuss the issues then go off and do nothing. This is the chance to take corrective action to save you time and money on the next project. So take copious notes and put them into action while the iron is hot.

Follow these steps in any process you adopt or any project you manage and you should find it really will improve your chances at success.

Have you got your wastebasket hidden away under the dark depths of your desk? Are you ashamed to display it prominently in your office room? Why? Is it because it is ugly, dirty, and not very artistic? Or, all of these factors?

You have probably relegated the purchase of the wastebasket to your lower functionaries and have not paid too much attention to its importance in the general schema of furnishing in your office. What you now have is a cheap looking plastic contraption that does not gel well with the décor and looks out of place in luxurious ambiance you are striving to create! You were so caught up with the macro details that you forgot that the micro-elements could destroy the macro effects by their very presence! However, it is never too late. We can set it all to rights by now focusing our attention on the micro details and acquiring wastebaskets and office accessories that match up with the décor and add to the beauty and grace of the environment in which you work.

Well, let us start by putting the wastebasket center stage and re-engineering our attitude towards it as a concept.

Is a wastebasket something one must be ashamed of? After all, everyone needs a wastebasket! Wastebaskets are a testimony to the fact that you are a person who believes in cleanliness. You are a person who likes to weed out the inessential papers and waste from your office so that you can organize your work better. You should be proud to display this trait of yours. The wastebasket therefore, should not be hidden under the depths of your desk but can be displayed at a convenient corner of the room aesthetically.

Having said that, it may not be entirely acceptable if we have only plastic multi-colored wastebaskets that clash with the decoration and ambiance of your office. You could consider purchasing Oak, Mahogany and Walnut wastebaskets These wastebaskets are exquisite hand rubbed and finished pieces that come in suitable sizes and shapes.

The round wastebasket style will hold 24 quarts and is finished with a steel liner in black enamel. The rectangular wastebaskets are available in 13 quart, 28 quart and 41 quart sizes. These wastebaskets are fitted with linear low-density polyethylene liners. Many standard paper shredders also snugly fit on to these baskets and provide quieter operation and stability. The slatted tambour wastebasket design is inspired by the 'roll-top' desk design and comes in Natural Oak, Mahogany stained Walnut, Genuine Walnut, Natural Cherry and Dark Cherry. The wood is taken from the slow growth forests of Upper Midwest and is known for the distinctive colors and exquisite patterns with wearable grain densities.

The hardwood wastebaskets will accent your office surroundings and provide the functionality required without appearing out of place. You will be proud to display these perfect wastebaskets in a prominent place in your office room!

Richard Koch, in his book. The 80/20 Principle, he describes the Principle as comprising of radar and autopilot. The radar for insight and the autopilot for control. In other words to easily think 80/20 and act 80/20 in all that we do.

Vital Few

Even if we accept the idea, it is hard to take the next step and take action. Continually think about the vital few and spend more time and effort with them and avoid the majority.

A few people add most of the value

The best people who are matched to the right job are the most productive and generate enormous surpluses, far more than what they make personally. These are usually only a very few with the majority generating little more than they make personally. This problem is greater in larger and more diversified companies.

There are many reasons for this:

hard to measure performance

political skill

tendencies to favor

remaining equal

The entrepreneur with four employees knows who is making the organization money and how much without a P&L department. Where a large company depends on misleading accounting data and filter provided by the head of human resources.

Misallocation of resources

We continue to give resources to activities with low margins and few resources to activities with high margins. We should redirect the majority of resources to the activities with the highest profit margins.

Success is undervalued

Success is too often thought of as a lucky break. There is always something behind that lucky break even if we fail to recognize it. Look for small causes, small products, small firms, small markets, small systems, as all of these are often the start of something big. Our attention is usually on what already exists not on the trend shown in small things.

Stop thinking 50/50

Think skewness.

Expect 20 percent to equal 80 percent.

Expect the unexpected.

Expect your 20 percent to lead to 80 percent.

Expect everything. Time, your company, your market, everything to a powerful 20 percent waiting to do more.

Expect tomorrow's 20 percent to be different.

Block from your view the existing 80 percent and free up your vision for the elusive 20 percent. This is where the fortunes are made.

The best way to start thinking 80/20 is to start acting 80/20 and the best way to start acting 80/20 is to start thinking 80/20.

Jesus spoke in parables to the masses and showed them miracles, but he spent time with the few and taught them the meaning of the parables and the power to work miracles. Jesus knew the value of the 80/20 principle and the results it would produce.

Managing energy is not just about food. It's about managing working conditions that affect how your body releases energy. This includes managing stress, oxygen levels, exercise levels and food breaks. Work demands can zap energy very quickly so you need to have a few tricks up your sleeve to boost your energy supply to help you both physically and mentally.

The Brain Protein Continuum

The neurons in your brain are largely made of fat. The brain cells communicate with each other using neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are made up from amino acids; protein building blocks. Another important amino acid is tyrosine.

Eating protein increase levels of tyrosine in the brain, helping the brain generate nor-epinephrine and dopamine. These chemicals promote alertness. The absorption of protein is assisted by carbohydrates. So eating a balanced supply of carbs and protein throughout the day will keep that brain network humming and avoid that 3pm black hole.

Top 10 Work Day Energy Guidelines

1. Start the day well rested - Treat your bed as an important energy re-supply station and ensure you book in long enough for the process to be completed. That means 7 to 9 hours a night.
2. Try a workout first thing - even 20 minutes will boost your bodies oxygen supply and keep your head thinking straight longer during the day. It's often much harder to feel inspired at the end of the day. If morning isn't your thing - the evening can still work. Try tricking yourself. Change into workout gear as soon as you get home. Switch on the television or put on a DVD, and instead of heading for the couch, sit on a workout bike or yoga mat with some weights. A few seconds later the brain starts connecting the visual messages and before you know it an hour has gone by.
3. Keep the body supplied with fuel - Eat a small, healthy snack every few hour of lean protein and whole grain carbs. The carbs provide a rapid energy release, while the protein provides longer-lasting energy.
4. Keep the body well hydrated - air conditioning is extremely drying on your system, and that includes the brain.
5. Take an oxygen break - if you don't have time for a full lunch break, take at least a 10 minute walk around the block or anywhere where there is more oxygen than car fumes. I use walking catch-ups. If a staff member wants to chat about something briefly I get us both out for a walk.
6. Try boosting energy during the day - some deep breathing [preferably not whilst on the phone to the CEO]; taking the stairs instead of the elevator or just standing up doing some leg raises all help to move oxygen around the body and boost the cells energy producing processes. I keep a small hand weight on my desk and it's amazing what you can do during a phone call!
7. Keep good energy nutrition snacks at work - protein balls are my favourite. I make them on Sunday and they last the whole week in the refrigerator. [that is if I don't eat them all by Thursday]. I use them for my 3pm low zone snack and as a mental pick-me-up before entering a long meeting.
8. Reduce the alcohol during the week - try getting it down to one glass a night - you will be amazed how much easier it is to get out of bed in the morning and you will be more likely to feel like doing that early morning workout. And your skin will look fantastic!
9. Go easy on the coffee - caffeine is not a good long term solution for energy throughout the day. It's addictive and better left to one cup first thing in the morning. You will sleep better also.
10. Reduce the size of your evening meal and avoid carbs after 6pm - you will find you will sleep better and that translates into more energy during the day.

And if you want to contribute to the worlds renewable energy supply - take a leaf from enterprising gym enthusiasts like Doug Woodwring who are harnessing energy created from everyday workouts and converting it into usable power.

This career catwalk is different than the traditional catwalk. You will not find an overview of the latest fashion but rather a series of careers and -- this is very important -- what it is that makes these career so special.

We all have to chose a career or we catch-up with one without having really determined one in advance. For example the business manager hardly starts as a career. First you are either an engineer, a lawyer an information technology professional, an architect a entrepreneur, teacher or coach or perhaps a surgeon who will run a hospital after having been in active duty for many years and looking for a change.

As a business manager you execute different roles in different moment. Sometimes you operate as a coach supporting a team, and than you are like an architect designing a new organization, or a lawyer in the role of the devils’ advocate and the next moment you are in front of a group of pupils...

But at the end of the day you want to know whether you have been productive. Therefore it is important to understand the different elements that contribute to personal productivity. To evaluate the productivity of a professor or teacher you need quite some different indicator than the programmer, the architect or the surgeon.

An important step in measuring productivity is to understand the (four) main productivity roles that you need in business.

All the professionals on the career catwalk share only four main productivity roles. But each with a different profile and balance (and of course on a complete different subject). Understanding your preferred productivity role will help you manage and increase your personal productivity.

Today, marketing messages have to hit the mark quickly, attention spans are short,budgets are tight, and deadlines are constantly looming. Who can help met these deadlines while infusing new energy into a marketing project? If you find yourself in the above situation a freelance copywriter may be the person to call.

Of course, by definition a freelancer is not on staff. The company isn't paying them salary and benefits. Instead, the freelancer is an outsider coming in to do task specific work. As such, they are only paid for the work they complete. Do the math. Think how much that could save the bottom line if your company only had to pay for task specific work. By utilizing the services of a freelance copywriter you can do just that. And as an outsider the freelancer brings in a fresh and new perspective to the project.

A freelance copywriter will usually offer to meet with you for a no obligation, no charge question and answer period. There you can nail down your needs and expectations as well as what fees the copywriter will charge. A good copywriter will most likely throw in two rounds of revisions. If both parties are satisfied then a contact is signed.

For most freelancers their work is their life. So underneath the details you will mostly likely be purchasing a measure of passion for the project as well. Not bad, in fact that can be a lot of bang for the buck. Once the ball is rolling the copywriter digs in and begins the research phase. They may ask you to fill out a questionnaire about the product or service that is being marketed. They will seek to inquire information such as: Who's the target audience? What worked last time? They may ask to speak with your sales people and they will also want samples of past marketing efforts. If feasible, a good copywriter will even use the product or service themselves. All these factors go into the freelancer's melting pot where ideas are churned into your finalized project. At the end of the day a successful experience with a freelance copywriter should easily save your business both time and money. And since they say time is money that means you'll be saving both money and money!

Management has long been aware of loss in productivity due to absenteeism. When workers are absent from work, performance of their tasks is either delayed or temporarily transferred to someone else who, in turn, delays or transfers their regularly scheduled tasks to pick up the slack.

As if absenteeism wasn't enough of a productivity issue, along come the folks from the American Productivity Audit who provide us with some eye opening research in introducing the concept of Presenteeism.

Presenteeism refers to the loss in productivity for those workers who are present. As shown in the graphic, the study divided workers into four categories and determined the percentage of workers that fit into each.

Is this why so many companies are seeking to limit the Internet browsing activities of their workers? 73% are not motivated to do the work that they were hired to do! As if personal phone calls weren't enough of an issue, now these 73% can look productive while slacking off. At least when they're absent, we know what's not getting done. We can police Internet activity and personal phone calls. But are we just treating the symptoms: while ignoring the disease? And, how often do we attempt to solve an intrinsic problem (attitudes, motivation, commitment) with a systemic solution (rules and procedures)? With what success?

To validate the previous study, we have research from The Gallup Organization showing the typical level of engagement in today's workplace.

The Gallup Study creates a category called Situationally Engaged. They define these people as putting in the time and doing minimally enough to get by.

While your programs for combating absenteeism may be working successfully, is there a larger, less visible issue that remains un-addressed in most organizations? According to the Gallup Employee Engagement Study, 81% of workers are either actively disengaged or only engaged when the spirit moves them.

What is your productivity loss from presenteeism? If only 26% of your workforce is actively engaged and 19% is competent and motivated, are there some opportunities for significant improvement? How much better or worse than the national average is your workforce? According to the business book, Play To Your Strengths, human capital is the biggest investment about which management knows the least. The data on lack of motivation and engagement are further evidence.

If you have been attempting to systemically treat the symptoms with limited results, might it be time to address an intrinsic disease with intrinsic solutions? The undiscovered issue with absenteeism is the absence of workplace motivation and engagement. Now we have a name for it: Presenteeism. Health care professionals will tell you that mindset and determination for recovery can be as critical as medication and treatment for overcoming a critical illness. What is your management mindset for getting healthy again?