90% of the data in the world was created in the last two years. What this means to businesses, is that when you need to reach decisions (for example, how to re-design the Facebook Timeline), you have so much information to sort through, that many people have one of the following reactions: Procrastination Putting things off to a later date is a very easy way to deal with a problem. This can be disguised as ‘collecting more information’, ‘setting up a committee’, or ‘we will talk about this next meeting’, but in essence it boils down to the same thing. … Continue reading →

Yesterday I was trying to schedule a meeting with a client, with very little success. The next few days were fully booked (including Friday) with his meetings, as were Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. We managed to squeeze in a meeting on Wednesday between a business lunch and a job interview. He isn’t the only one. More and more people I talk to have meetings plastered all over their calendar from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, with a few sprinkled in on Saturday, just to make sure that they are taking full advantage of the week. But … Continue reading →

The New York Knicks (who are first in their division with 21 wins and 8 losses) played the Los Angeles Lakers (who have 13 wins and 14 losses) on Christmas Day. The match promised to be a good one, despite the Lakers record, the New York Knicks were the clear favorites to win. The Lakers won. Yes, their two leading players scored 54 points each. Yes, the game was played at the Lakers’ home court. And still, the main reason the Lakers won the game was Steve Nash – the 38 year old point guard who has just returned after … Continue reading →

This is a guest post by Alan Cairns. Alan writes on a number of subjects including virtual receptionist services. Meetings are a bug bear for many business professionals. Many say that meetings take up all their time and they can’t get any “real” work done because of it. Meetings are an essential part of business; to reach agreements, share ideas, set strategies and most importantly to communicate in an open, face-to-face situation. It’s understandable that many professionals tire of meetings, because so many of them are badly organised, unproductive and ultimately pointless. Meetings can go wrong for a variety of reasons, … Continue reading →

Meetings at sports clubs should be managed just like any other meeting, if they are to be effective. Whether it is a monthly meeting of the soccer club, the hockey club annual general meeting, or the baseball board meeting, all sports clubs meetings should be properly run. Meetings are essential to effectively manage matters relating to your club, make decisions about the running of the club and decide on upcoming activities. Meetings are a way to ensure the smooth running of all of the club’s functions and offer an opportunity to get the members involved in important matters. In most … Continue reading →

Many employees and appraisers dread performance review meetings. They create paperwork and administration that has to be carried out on both sides. Also, for the appraiser, such meetings usually require the passing on of constructive feedback to employees, which can be difficult. Good performance review meetings however, can be very motivating and help a person and organization move forward and build a better bond. Here are some tips to make performance review meetings more effective and run more smoothly: Make it a natural conversation, it is not about completing forms. Documentation is necessary to properly prepare and follow-up, but the … Continue reading →

Dedication is often measured in the number of hours people spend at the office, but research has shown over and over again that having a healthy balance between work and other activities leads to much higher productivity. Problem with corporate America is that we are all looking at each other and consider face time to be the measure for commitment and often even success. Especially in larger organizations it is often hard to point out who contributed what. This makes it easy to hide behind the group if things don’t work out, but for a successful project it is also … Continue reading →

Meeting facilitation is the art of making meetings run smoother. Meeting facilitators help meeting participants to stick to an agenda and progress through that agenda without getting stuck on difficult issues. It is the responsibility of the meeting facilitator to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to contribute to the meeting, and meeting facilitation involves being responsible to everyone at the meeting, not just the person that asked for meeting facilitation. One of the reasons for having a meeting facilitator is that sometimes it can be hard to come to a consensus when there are so many different and … Continue reading →

These days the technologies exist to allow most meetings to be held virtually. From conference calls, to web conferencing, and lately even video conferencing, there are many different options to choose from in determining what type of meeting to run. In addition to saving time online meetings are also more environmental friendly  due to the reduction in the carbon footprint resulting from less traveling to and from meetings. However, there are times when in person meetings are vastly preferable to remote meetings and vice versa. Sometimes the two can be used in parallel. MeetingKing, the meeting facilitation and documentation tool, … Continue reading →

Stress is often associated with working hard and long hours, yet some manual laborers work many hours but don?t seem to suffer from stress. So what causes stress? I once read: ?You don?t get stress from the work you do, you get stress from the work you don?t do?. This made me think and it is true; if I leave work after 8 hours while I still have to finish some projects, I am thinking about the work  I did not do. However if I have a long 12 hour day, but I finish everything that needed to be finished, … Continue reading →