What is Knowledge Management Anyway?

When you think of all the things companies have, you do not always consider the knowledge they have. For instance, a company is only as good as its employees, its resources, and its knowledge. But, where and what is that knowledge? How is that knowledge managed within the company?

A basic definition of knowledge management is this. Knowledge management is a process that companies use to generate value from their assets. Knowledge management can be much more, but this is the basics of it. Now, there are two types of knowledge management to speak of at this point. One is explicit knowledge.

The Top 10 Reasons Your Staff Wants to Quit

From an employee's perspective, management often conducts itself in ways that make no sense. When the economy is slow, jobs are few and far in between or people are fearful, staff will tolerate management behaviors and policies that are nonsensical (in their eyes) or they judge are harmful.

But when staff gets together for lunch and they start critiquing management, these are the Top 10 Reasons Why Staff Quit.

10. "My boss is arrogant and believes his own press clippings." As a result, staff feels taken advantage of..

9. "My manager micromanages rather than trusting staff to perform." Staff hates the boss and looks for ways to resist being over controlled.

8. "My manager is crushing my drive and desire." Hired because they were smart and energetic, the manager is afraid that she will not be seen as the shining light (the reason for success) and crushes the very qualities that made the new employee attractive to hire (and desirous of joining).

7. "My boss guesses what is needed without resorting to data or facts." Maybe he has the facts, but they sure aren't being communicated leaving the impression of "It's my way or the highway." There are a lot of new roads being built in this country and staff will leave rather than be abused.

Ten Tips for Effective Meetings

Here are ten things that you can do to hold more effective meetings.

1) Avoid meetings. Test the importance of a meeting by asking, "What happens without it?" If your answer is, "Nothing," then don't call the meeting.

2) Prepare goals. These are the results you want to obtain by the end of the meeting. Write out your goals before the meetings. They should be so clear, complete, and specific that someone else could use them to lead your meeting. Also, make sure they can be achieved with available people, resources, and time. Specific goals help everyone make efficient toward relevant results.

3) Challenge each goal. Ask, "Is there another way to achieve this?" For example, if you want to distribute information, you may find it more efficient to phone, FAX, mail, e-mail, or visit. Realize that a meeting is a team activity. Save tasks that require a team effort for your meetings.

4) Prepare an agenda. Everyone knows an agenda leads to an effective meeting. Yet, many people "save time" by neglecting to prepare an agenda. A meeting without an agenda is like a journey without a map. It is guaranteed to take longer and produce fewer results. Note, without an agenda, you risk becoming someone else's helper (see tip #6 below).

5) Inform others. Send the agenda before the meeting. That helps others prepare to work with you in the meeting. Unprepared participants waste your time by preparing for the meeting during the meeting.

3 Ways Journaling Can Boost Your Creativity and Your Business

I have a friend who has struggled with her creativity for a long time. She's extremely uncomfortable thinking of herself as "creative." We've been working together on it, and making progress. One of the tools that's really helped her has been journaling.

From Julia Cameron's The Artist Way to Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones to Linda Trichter Metcalf, Ph.D. and Tobin Simon, Ph.D.'s Writing the Mind Alive to numerous other publications, journaling has enjoyed a long history of creative-nurturing along with a host of other benefits.

For my purposes, I'm defining journaling as any sort of loose, longhand writing. Whatever thoughts come into your head you put them down on paper. There's no structure, no form, nor concern about spelling or grammar or even legibility.

Even if writing isn't your dream, incorporating a regular program of journaling into your life is a wonderful way to jump-start your creativity and cultivate a constant flow of new ideas. Here are three reasons why.

1. Helps you get rid of the junk in your head. We all have it. Junk thoughts. Everything from self-defeating comments ("Oh, I'll never be good at that." or "Who told you that you could be a writer?") to the "worry of the moment" to neurosis of every type to the ever-growing, constant to-do lists.

Executives Are "Ego-Surfing" For Business Information

Wondering what's new about you?Type your name into Google or Yahoo and see what comes up. Termed "ego surfing," it has gone mainstream as CEO's, corporate communication departments and executives are using the Internet to follow what is being said about them, their companies and their competitors.Termed CEegO surfing when the CEO does the search, businesses are discovering important information on the web that may or may not be accurate.

A recent search of the Fortune 100 CEOs for USA Today uncovered fascinating material on top executives.While much of the information is harmless, some can be damaging to careers and business.A search for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, leads you to a 72-second video of him attempting to motivate the work force by wild gyrations and screaming on stage.Coined, "The Monkey Dance," on the Net, there are multiple websites directing you to the "Original Monkey Boy Gyrations," and a listing appears in the second line on Google.

There can also be a case of mistaken identity.Cynthia McKay, CEO of Le Gourmet Gift Basket, was surprised to learn that there is a British actress of the same name who has an established reputation in the porn industry.Kathy Peel, the CEO of Family Manager, found another namesake who won the Miss Plus American pageant for large sized women.Some CEO's use their middle initial or full name to avoid confusion with others of the same name in a different industry.

Brainstorming! The Key To Wealth

Advertising executive Alex F. Osborne first coined the word "brainstorming" in the early 1940's. Since then literally millions of ideas, products, services and solutions have been created and improved on.

Every institution from Fortune 500 companies to Universities and Government agencies have used the principle of brainstorming. They've use it to create everything from new ad slogans, and medical breakthroughs, to how to get your child to eat more peas.

Fact: For every product in your home or office, chances are a person or group of people brainstormed about it. They brainstormed on how best to create, market, sell, manufacture, advertise, or distribute it. This is how powerful brainstorming is.

One of the best things about brainstorming is that it can be used by anyone. You don't have to be a C.E.O or army general. You can gain from brainstorming if you're a housewife, janitor, student or unemployed.

Yes, you can use the principles of brainstorming for the largest project or the smallest project. You can use it to plan a million dollar ad campaign, or use it to plan what you'll have for dinner tonight.

If you simply follow and practice the following steps you will soon be amazed at the ideas and solutions your fabulous brain will give you.

Top Ten Ways to Develop New Success Habits

1. Make a clear, specific commitment to what you want. Put your commitment in writing and post it where you can see it often.

2. Determine what has to happen and what changes are required to get new results.

Consider the attitudinal and behavioral modifications you must make. Create a plan to follow through.

3. Decide what you are willing to do to make this happen. Be extremely honest with yourself. The degree of action you will take is directly related to how motivated and committed you are.

4. Understand your motivation. Write down compelling reasons to promote change.

Use the pleasure/pain principle. People only initiate change when two conditions are present. When we believe behavior modification will provide massive amounts of pleasure, we are motivated to go through the process. Conversely, we can become motivated by the thought of the destructive pain we will have if we don't change our thoughts, actions or deeds.

5. Believe you can achieve your objective and get excited about taking action. You have to believe it to see it.

Don't Be Afraid To Give Problem Customers The Boot

Q: In a recent column you made the point that the customer is always right, which I agree with. However, in the same column you also said that it is sometimes necessary give problem customers the boot. If the customer is always right, at what point do you think they become so problematic that you should stop doing business with them? -- Gary M.

A: That column brought a number of emails similar to yours, Gary, requesting that I clarify the line between "the customer is always right" and "sometimes you have to give a customer the boot." Here's the bottom line: if you, as a business owner or service provider, are willing to take a customer's money in exchange for providing him with goods or services, then the customer has what I call "the right of expectation." This means that the customer has the right to expect you to deliver everything promised in the transaction between you. For example, if you own a restaurant the customer has the right to expect that their meal will be prepared and served to their satisfaction. If you are a dry cleaner the customer has the right to expect that you will launder their clothes without returning them in shreds. If are hired to perform a service the customer has the right to expect that the service will be provided to their satisfaction within the terms of the defined task.

As the business owner, it is your responsibility to meet the customer's expectations and provide good customer service. Even if your business does not involve a formal contract that spells out to the letter what should be expected, there is generally a clear understanding of what the customer expects and what you are willing to deliver. If you back peddle on your end of the bargain, let's say by serving a bad meal or losing a customer's laundry and refusing to make things right, then you are guilty of not meeting the expectations of your customer and thereby are guilty of providing bad customer service.

7 Ways To Profit From Other Peoples Products

If you don't possess the time, money or inclination to create your own hot selling product there is plenty of scope for profit by using other people's.

In this quick article I'll detail the best ways to take a third-party product and use it to fill your own bank account.

1. Resell Rights

Resell Rights let you sell a product and keep all of the money. It's an ideal way to start. Usually you'll need your own payment system to accept the money and your own webspace to sell it - but that's very cheap to do these days.

Resell Rights can be free, or cost anywhere up to $1000 and beyond. The free Resell Rights are usually not worth bothering with. You want to sell items that have LIMITED distribution - quite simply because you'll have less competition!

2. Master Resell Rights

Unfortunately these are bad news. With the Master Rights you can pass on Resell Rights yourself. This means one thing - thousands of competitors in a very short time.

3. Reprint Rights

These are sometimes confused with Resell Rights but they are usually used to describe hard-copy material. For example, printed books, tape sets, CD's or Videos.

Present for Success

Tomorrow's the day and you're dreading it. You're scheduled to give a presentation to the senior management team about the new program you're proposing. You're excited and enthusiastic about the program but nervous and anxious about the presentation.You don't know how you'll manage to sleep tonight. These thoughts keep running through your mind; What if I stumble? What if I talk too fast? What if they get bored? What if they ask questions and my mind goes blank?

Do any of these sound familiar? If you answered yes, don't worry! Try some of these simple strategies for your next presentation to help you build confidence and credibility with your audiences.

Developing your presentation

Change the paradigm: Think from your listeners' perspective If you can change your focus from "What do I want to communicate?"To "What does the audience need to hear and understand", you can be a more relevant and engaging presenter. By focusing on your listeners' needs, rather than on yourself, you can relax and let that focus guide you through the development and delivery of your presentation.

Here are the essential questions that will help you stay on track. Who is your audience? What is most important to them? What is their current level of knowledge on your topic? What do they want or need to know about this topic?

If you can't answer the above questions, it's important that you do some research to find the answers. If your presentation is an educational or training session you might want to send out a pre-class questionnaire or survey to learn the current knowledge level of your audience. This can be a simple 5 to 10 question one-page document that you email or fax.If your presentation is more informational or persuasive, you might want to make some phone calls to learn what you can about your audience.

A Guide to Getting Started in Corporate Philanthropy

Business guru Charles Handy, writing in Harvard Business Review, summarized the value of philanthropic businesses by saying, "A good business is a community with a purpose." Here are six steps to setting up a corporate philanthropy program:

Step One: Values audit. Start from your values base. Most corporations begin with an audit or evaluation of their values, bringing together leadership and representation from the staff to identify and articulate the company's ethos and how it relates to the company's mission and values.

What does your company care about: kids, shelter, domestic violence? For example, Polaroid created a foundation, managed by a committee of employees, to increase self-sufficiency among the disadvantaged by building their business skills with computers, literacy and business comportment.

Step Two: Engage directly. Increasingly, employees look for ways to have an intense, short-term project. For example, Volunteers of America has found over the past five years that corporations often prefer an all-day or weekend-long group project, such as painting a women's shelter to the longer-term individual commitments such as being a big sister.

Difficult customers - there's no such thing

A couple of years ago I had a call from a Customer Service Manager working in the paper industry. He wanted me to run a seminar for his team, on "How to Deal with Difficult Customers".

I had several telephone conversations with this manager organising dates, times and getting to understand his business. If I was to describe his style on the telephone I would use words like, businesslike, cold, curt and somewhat impatient. I started to realise that if I was one of his customers then I might have been a bit "difficult". He certainly knew his business and I don't think he was a bad person but warm and friendly - forget it.

There are actually very few genuinely difficult customers in the world. And I hear you say - "we've got all of them". However the majority of customers in the world are reasonable people. They may not think the way, look the way, sound the way that you do. However they are your customers and if you want their business then you've got to deal with them. They may get "difficult" from time to time if they feel they've been let down. It's how you handle them that'll determine if they continue to be a problem or if you can turn them around.

Difficult customers and situations usually occur because some part of our core service has failed or the customer perceives it to have failed. We've not delivered on time, the customer has the wrong product, it doesn't work or it's not what the customer expected. What happens then is, the customer comes to the interaction with us in a negative frame of mind. It's what happens then that'll decide whether they deal with us again or bad mouth us to other people.

Could You and Your Business Benefit from a Business Coach or a Consultant?

The surprising answer is "probably". Most individuals don't realize that a certified business coach or business consultant can add enormously to their home based or more traditional type business. Many individuals think a business coach or consultant will come into their business and tell them things that they don't want to hear.

Nothing can be further from the truth. A business coach or consultant will try to use the resources/personnel already present in a business, and will implement strategies that will enhance the interaction and productivity of all concerned.

A business coach or consultant will "steer" the business into a clearer focus, better productivity, better management, and more powerful interactions. Business coaches and consultants can assist any and all types of businesses. Business owners who want faster results for their businesses, are committed to excellence in business, who want to develop their reputations, or who are experiencing problems within their current businesses are all prime candidates for business coaching and consultation.

Here is a small checklist of benefits that may occur with the use of a business coach or consultant:

1. Increase in Clarity: Your business will draw clearer distinctions regarding present conditions and situations and have a clearer picture of the future.