How SOPA effects business (simplified)

At a time when the internet is blowing up with protests about the “Stop Online Piracy Act” It is important for me to sit down and think deeply about how it will actually effect business. Almost everyone is protesting SOPA; voicing their concerns online, offline, on the sofa or out in public. The most important part of protesting this act is first understanding how it will effect business in America. Since it is highly unlikely that SOPA  will actually stop piracy, understanding what it will do to business is our most important concern as responsible Americans. Since our ability to conduct business is what drives our economy, it would be smart to figure out how our future will look after SOPA is passed, especially in difficult economic times. This act could make our break economic progress in this country.

What will SOPA try to do? Though the two pieces of SOPA legislation will create a federal blacklist of sites that cant be registered on U.S DNS servers, users will still simply be able to just type in the IP addresses they wish to access to go there directly.  Also, the watching or downloading of music, videos, or content that is copyrighted will be punishable by law and could result in a prison sentence of up to five years. Businesses that are reportedly in violation of these acts will be shut down immediately without court order.

What will SOPA actually do to business? SOPA bypasses our constitution and legal system and will allow independent entities the ability to blacklist websites without court order. This could potentially make it impossible for competitive business to function in our economy. Allowing businesses to bring down competitors websites simply by reporting one or two user uploaded copyrighted videos is potentially a catastrophic entanglement that could easily collapse your business with legal fees, court hearings, and long term repercussions. SOPA will also significantly increase start-up costs of businesses. Without a dedicated legal team to support an online business young companies will simply not be able to afford to use the massive global economic structure that is the internet. It is that simple.

Many DNS service providers of major internet companies will not have control over their content, this will force major companies service providers to move overseas to avoid giving up control of their investment.

With the SOPA act, American online market is not really that good of a place to do business anymore. Not only will more companies move overseas to avoid these regulations, but the ultimate effect is that worldwide consumers could ultimately quit investing in American businesses that can no longer provide B2B products to companies that reside in the U.S.

So, Simply Put, SOPA will:

• allow independent entities the ability to blacklist websites
• increase start-up costs of businesses
• force major companies service providers to move overseas
• force consumers to ultimately quit investing in American businesses that cant provide B2B products (under SOPA) to companies that reside in the U.S.
• make our break economic progress in this country by severely limiting business in America

And that is just the business side…

I encourage you to go to http://www.google.com and sign their petition by clicking their censored logo. Wan’t more information? Check out this quick and simple explanation of SOPA now:

 

Think outside your normal sphere

I thought I would write a little bit about creativity and creative process today and get outside the normal leadership and management posts I usually stick to. I want to talk a little bit about how to think outside your mental box.

It is pretty easy to think outside something physical. If you are in a classroom all day or in an office where you are sitting regularly, it is pretty easy to put yourself in the state of mind that you aren’t there in order to inspire your own creative processes.

What’s more challenging and definitely more rewarding is learning to think outside the hypothetical box inside your head. This is the mental place where you set your expectations, beliefs, and goals. To get outside it, open your mind to new possibilities just as if you were to imagine yourself outside the office or classroom. Try to use places in your mind that you would not normally go to in order to open yourself to inspiration.

Practice this and you will find all the inspiration and creativity you need.

Personal Branding and Classroom Application

So over the course of the last 4 months I have been creating my own personal brand. It has been an enlightening experience and I am so glad I have the opportunity to attend Bret Simmons personal branding course for my final semester at University of Nevada, Reno.

My personal branding class paralleled my other final coursework and I cant help but notice how the information I have learned from all these classes have intertwined into my personal brand, blog, twitter, and all social media platforms. As I engage in each class I have certainly learned and transformed myself like I have never done before. I am becoming a different and better “Me” and it is all documented. I can look back into the archives of data and see exactly how I have progressed and how the things I have learned become applied accomplishments.

As well, developing a personal brand has really given me the opportunity to help others who wish to improve their leadership and management skills. I have the know-how to offer my help to anybody who seeks it and usually for free.

It is a great feeling. As my personal branding course comes to a close, I try to remember that the greatest progress when building a personal brand happens between six months in a year. This means that I need to continue to build my brand and not let the busy tasks of tomorrow take away the important time I need to continue my brand. We will see where I end up! So far so good.

Forgiveness Now, Trust Later

I admit that I am stubborn when it comes to forgiveness. If I don’t trust an individual I need to forgive it is unlikely I will bring myself to actually forgive them. I think it has something to do with the fact that I know a relationship lacks trust, those are the relationships I feel I should spend the least amount of time and effort trying to maintain. Sometimes this can be counterproductive.

Trust is not something that requires us to forget the failures or wrongs done to us. Trust is shaped by taking into account the predictable behaviors and expectations of what that person has done in the past, and comparing it with what they will do in the future. If someone has a history of being untrustworthy, it would be ridiculous to think the person would start being trustworthy out of the blue. At the same time, this expected behavior is not always set in stone so why let it inhibit the relationship?

It is this expectation where we know the person is untrustworthy and judge them firstly by that perception that ruins our future development of a positive relationship. It is only the forgiveness dealt today that will enable us to repair and build trust with those we already expect to be a certain way. Forgive now so you can build trust later. Otherwise, you can’t hope to build trust at all with someone you cannot forgive.

Capability or Capacity

Capability is the quality of being capable. Being capable is to have the capacity or ability to do something or achieve specific goals or objectives. Capacity is simply the potential that each individual has to be more than they are now. Where capability is something that can be learned and improved, Capacity is not something to be learned but can be expanded and developed over time.

Being more and doing more is the concept of Capacity. Have you ever wanted to do more or be more than you are? This is an urge to develop your capacity. To have the desire to achieve more and improve the quality of ones life is to want to develop or improve capacity.

For managers it is important to foster the development of capacity and not just capability. This may sometimes mean that as a manager you might have to do less and be less in terms of your relationship with your subordinates.

Check out this site for 17 Extraordinary Human Capacities:

http://ezinearticles.com/?17-Extraordinary-Human-Capacities&id=11378

Dealing With Stress

It is said that 40% of happiness or unhappiness is due to our own actions. These intentional activities and habits we create in ourselves are so strongly correlated to our own emotional well-being that it is important as leaders and managers that we manage our stress due to these factors.

The habits that effect our happiness the most are expressing gratitude, deliberate optimism  and mostly the fact that we often over-think and compare ourselves with others. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Every man is born an original, but sadly, most men die copies.” It is because we constantly look to others for comparison and over think our own decisions. In order to remain original and manage stress as it comes, it is paramount to practice acts of kindness and openly give social support.

We must learn to cope with our stress and balance the flow of negative things in our lives. This can mean coping with problems themselves, or coping with our own emotions. If one can manage that they are able to control their own responses to the stressors they encounter. Developing problem focused strategies to avoid stress is a way to attack stress before it happens. If you know what sets you off, work to eliminate the stressor at its source or work around it.

When all else fails, expose yourself to the things that provide you the most pleasure. Challenge yourself to find new things if there are few pleasures you can afford, but either way you must deal with stress before it deals with you!

 

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Management and Leadership Timeline (Part II)

This is a continuation of my prior post Management and Leadership Timeline (Part I).

Have you ever wondered where all of these theories and management styles came from? How old are they? Who discovered them? Well, I put together a dated list to help you understand when and where these techniques and theories were discovered. Here is the continuation!

1960-1964 – Management Grid – Robert Blake and Jane Mouton develop a Managerial Model that explains management and its relations. The grid uses two axis: Concern for people and Concern for task. This is the notion that two dimensions can describe a managerial behavior.

1964-1978 – Performance Technology – The behavioral engineering model becomes the bible for performance technology and is the only logical way to define performance requirements.

1978-1989 – Excellence – The Management “guru” is born.

1990-1994 – Learning Organization – The organization is finally described as an organism with the capacity to enhance its capabilities and shape its own future. The use of learning an organization provides systems of alignment mechanisms to achieve goals through the ranks.

1995-2000 – Ethics – Ethos and Leadership are stressed in business in order to improve all aspects of the organization.

2000-Present Day – Business Process Management (BPM) – A slow advance process management that has the roots of Record Management, Workflow, Business Process Re-engineering, and Business Process Management.

 

So now you can get a bigger, better picture of how business management and leadership has evolved over the last 120 years! Pretty cool I though. I wonder what the future will bring with these challenging economic times…

Management and Leadership Timeline (Part I)

This next post is one of two parts. I decided to construct a  timeline of management and leadership over the past 120 years. Have you ever wondered where all of these theories and management styles came from? How old are they? Who discovered them? Well, I put together a dated list to help you understand when and where these techniques and theories were discovered.

• 1929 – 1931 – Taylorism – Scientific management in the industry.

• 1932-1945 – The Hawthorne Studies – Questioning of behavioral assumptions of scientific management concluding that human factors were often more important than physical conditions in motivating employees.

• 1946-1948 – Organization Development – Change theory, action research, and action learning spark the idea of Organizational Development. This is the systematic application of behavioral science knowledge at various levels.

• 1949-1953 – Sociotechnical Systems Theory– Research leads the development of the Sociotechnical Systems theory which considers both the social and the technical aspects when designing jobs. It is a complete opposite from Fredrick Taylor’s scientific management.

• 1954-1958 – Hierarchy of Needs – Leadership Management – Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is published. The Practice of Management introduces the 5 basic roles of managers. What is our organizational business structure and what should it be?

• 19591960 – Hygiene and Motivational Factors -Herzberg’s list of factors were developed and must be present in the job before motivators can be used to stimulate workers.

• 1960’s – Theory X&Y – Action Learning – McGregor’s principles influence design and implementation of personnel policies and practices.

 

Check in tomorrow to see the rest of the timeline up to present day!

Keep your social media presence legit!

Today I just wanted to write a little bit about social media since it has been consuming much of my free time lately. Building a social brand is difficult and keeping your social media etiquette in line is an important duty if you wish to avoid problems and maximize your potential.

Obviously in the professional world, correspondence is everything. Communicating with people is what makes the world go round and your business a success. If you find that people are not returning your calls, emails, or texts, they may not have the professional courtesy that is expected in this world where technology is ever-increasing our ability to connect with each-other. In business, social media is a tool that can be used to meet and build relationships with new people. It is a way to network without even leaving the comfort of your own home and it is growing in popularity. In an instant, you can make new friends, customers, business acquaintances, and important relationships and keep them fresh and personal.

The key to polishing your social media presence and etiquette are honesty, valuable content, accessibility, conversational generation, good listening, good questions, helping people freely, putting other people first, tapping into the community, and surrounding yourself with meaningful people who are smarter than you.

It is important to remember that even though social media is a great way to network, the platforms and content it is not the connection itself. Whether or not the connection is built on quality is up to you. You have to make it real.

Non-Profit vs For Profit: Shedding light on the differences

There are many individuals I interact with at a daily basis who consider starting what they call a “non-profit” business before they even understand what a non-profit is. They emphasize their desire to help the community and not turn a profit from it before they even understand how difficult and demanding NPO’s can be. As if non-profits run themselves , people talk as if it were as simple as rolling a snowball down a hill picking up accomplishments and progress by itself. Unfortunately for them this is not true. Non-profits are for people who have time to work for charity and have their financial futures already secured.

Non profit organizations are companies that use surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends. Non profit organizations are permitted to generate surplus revenues that must be retained by the organization strictly for self-preservation, expansion, or planning. This means working long hours not for your own financial gain, but for the gain of your organizations purpose alone. Designation as a non-profit and an intent to make money are not necessarily related.

Non-profit organizations have diverse structures and purpose. They are formed by filing bylaws and “articles of incorporation” in the specific state in which they intend to operate in. Non-profits may apply for tax exempt status so that the organization can function more as a community resource rather than a taxable participant in the capitalist system.

If you are thinking about starting a Non-profit organization you need to take a good look at whether or not you have the time to work basically for free. If you can afford to spend long hours as a CEO for literally no monetary return then starting a Non-profit may be the right choice for you. Otherwise, you may end up getting in over your head. If you are a young college graduate with grand aspirations for helping the community, it may be better for you to secure your own financial stability first in order to be able to contribute more to your Non-profit. The first step is familiarizing yourself with a NPO that you are interested in. Find out what makes them tick and how they deal with the day-to-day responsibilities. Only then will you understand whether or not starting an NPO is for you. Nothing is worse than a failed attempt at a charity so make sure you do your homework and prepare for a long road of working without turning a profit for yourself!