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Lao Tzu was the founder of taoism, the mystical ‘way’ or ‘path’ that many have followed since. From way back between the 4th and 6th century BC, his amazing words echo down the centuries.

As well as many more wise sayings for which he is so well renowned.

One of the best known is the one quoted above, “Give a man a fish; feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; feed him for a lifetime”, which has a wonderful analogy with the modern world of management today.

The metaphor of feeding someone and that sufficing to get them through one day, and one day alone shows that people can only be helped so far. If we help them and do things for them all the time, then they rely on us, which is not only unhealthy for their development of skills, but also potentially dangerous, if we are not there to help them one day, their very future is at risk.

The principle whereby we rely totally on the support, guidance and even nurturing of someone else, for too long a period, is typical of many modern management environments. The old-style ‘command and control’ management processes lead to employees only being required or even able to do what they were told, which puts great pressure on those doing the telling.

Not only that, but where employees are not provided with stimulating work and aren’t asked to challenge themselves mentally, this often leads to demotivation and then higher absence rates, as well as employee turnover that such boredom precipitates.

Lack of stimulation=boredom=frustration=leave to find something else.

Let’s look at the flip side, where we ‘teach a man to fish’. Not only does the man become self-sufficient and be able to survive without being provided for, but he has a sense of achievement and fulfillment. How good does an angler feel as he pulls a fish from the water?

Much better than when one is placed generously in front of him, merely to eat. Sure it may be good, for a while, to be provided for, but human psyche is bigger than that in a healthy human being. People need to be valued for who they are.

So – we ‘teach them to fish’. In the workplace, by teaching out people new skills, we validate them for who they are and the contribution they are able to make. They know they are useful and valued and with this confidence they do more. They learn that to stretch themselves is good. That they have within themselves untapped resources which show off the potential they have always had, now released.

Indeed ‘teaching them to fish’ realizes not just the material potential they have, but catalyses even bigger capabilities in them. Their development muscle has been stretched and exercised, so it becomes bigger and more capable.

The business upside for ‘teaching our people to fish’? Well, managers are able to offload some of their tactical workload to others who relish the opportunity. This frees managers to do more with more of their people.

A workplace environment that becomes the breeding ground for capable, committed and excited employees, straining at the leash to do more. Managers enable their business to become a developmental mixing bowl of ideas and capability like nothing before.

In a business world where the embodiment of excellent management is an operation that works at least as well (and sometimes better!), when the manager is absent is to be acknowledged as the purest quality.

And with that level of capability developed, all because the manager taught his people ‘how to fish’, business thrives.

In the hurried excitement of the crazy business world of today, how Lao Tzu would be impressed at the relevance of his ancient words.

(c) 2007 Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach, trainer and writer. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com.

If you are in the market for good software to handle your events you need to know how to choose an event management software solution that’s perfect for your needs.

Just as there is a variety of software solutions there are also a variety of needs so what you need to do is match up what you need with what the software offers until you find the best match for you. That’s the best way to choose an event management software solution.

1. Flexibility – leaves you with options to change things within the software for a variety of users that each need to be able to do different tasks.

2. Affordability – make sure you do price comparisons. You’ll be impressed at the pricing on some very impressive software solutions. There is no reason you can’t get both affordability and quality.

3. 24 hour registration – will save you a great deal of time and let you manage payments as it processes registrations 24/7 without intervention.

4. Customizable – it’s always nice if the modules have at least some ability to customize to meet your specific needs. Being able to customize means you can fine tune to your company’s exact needs.

5. Unlimited reporting options – you may not realize the importance of this until you are actually using the software to its fullest abilities. You’ll want to be able to create as many custom reports as you need and you’ll also want an excellent selection of canned reports to use.

6. Automated confirmation is a must have to keep staffing costs down.

7. Reminder emails are a really handy service to reduce the amount of repetitive work by staff.

8. Real time credit card processing is a must have because it allows credit cards to be processed without any human interaction required. This is not only convenient it’s a real money saver over time.

9. Accounts Receivable tracking to help you keep track of your accounts.

10. Name badge generator saves your company money and allows you to offer name badges to your clients for a very reasonable price.

11. Automated wait lists will help you serve your clients much better.

12. Mailing label generator will help save time and money.

These 12 points are a good place to start. Of course some of these may not be important to you and there may be other points not mentioned that are very important to you. This is a great way to start and you can fine tune as you need.

Event management software has certainly changed the way companies do business. It has reduced the amount of manual labor required substantially and it has also reduced the error rate significantly. In early days it was very common to find two venues booked for the same dates. Thankfully those days are gone thanks to automation.

Event management software has also allowed for payments to be made 24/7 without any human intervention which is very convenient for your clients.

Now that you know how to choose an event management software solution you’re ready to make some choices.

Terry Fitzroy is a professional writer and reviewer. For more information on event management software solutions go to http://www.wingateweb.com

For many of us playing lotto, scratching money tickets and hoping for some kind of miracle is part of a daily ritual. If you get shown a business opportunity you may try it for a few months and if it does not work, even if others are making a very well living at it, we say it just does not work- it is a scam! You ask Ricky Martin and he may still agree is just La Vida Loca without singing it.

Business is truly rough when starting if you are a newcomer, especially if you want to become a power seller on eBay. But do you really need to sell thousands of items to become financially secure and package all those dollars and cents of commissions at the end of each month when finishing accounting? Are there other smarter ways?

There are two hugely successfully ways to achieve fast and simple money through eBay without having to sell or buy anything. Anyone that dares to try the following secrets should stay addicted to them every single month.

It should be a real secret, a secret because I am 99% sure you never had a clue on how to invest totally nothing and turn into $1,500 or a higher profit ranging in the five figures for 12-18 minutes of work once mastered.

Have you been dumped from work for extreme negligence? Are you late for a mortgage payment and have the bank on your back every week? How do you pay your credit card debt in a possible and potential 12-18 minutes of work on average?

The in a nutshell formula to be deleted soon- is that you need to go to eBay. You should find a section on eBay that goes by the name of What Is Hot. Once arriving as my last minute check, I got the February report. Once you see the February report, as a PDF- you will search for high price ticket items in order for this secret to work.

As a special favorite, you should search for high priced collectibles. Cards, Stamps, Coins and many but many others that are of joyful need for a special collector. Can you imagine what President Ulysses letters and stamps go for? Say one for $100,000 right now on eBay. Do you think a fan of John F. Kennedy will buy a printed original stamp? A $5,000 stamp of him is being shown on eBay as of the moment I write.

Now, should I stick with stamps, coins and the ones shown as example here? No, look for other high priced ticket items of collection. Key here it must be rare, it must be very limited in quantity and it surely needs to be out of the retail market being sold anywhere offline in the local shop in order for this process to really work.

What do you do now? In a very in a nutshell explanation for the sake of this article- you play the middleman role. Send an email to the seller and tell him that you can buy his entire collecting high priced inventory. All of it for a special price, but that you need 48-72hrs to come up with the funds for it.

You then go to an online database of paid newsletter subscribers that want to receive information on specialty collectable items. You pay a fee for sending 2,000-3,000 emails on leads that are subscribed to their system and assure yourself they are not SPAM addresses. They are actually a few database online that are reputable and that are worth it.

What do you finally do? You work yourself a higher price with the paid newsletter subscribers from that worldwide special database and increase or easily double the price per unit so the gap is big enough so you pay your car issues or your mortgage payment for few month or a whole year depending on the item selected. Once they agree to pay you your fee, you contact the eBay seller by phone or email and finish the deal.

Deals like this take place on a monthly basis. You use the power of a joint venture without having to carry a product or sell anything yourself to make a hefty commission from few minutes of work. At first it could be a pain, but later on it should work if you are patient enough.

The majorities just quit at the first try and shout -waste of time- in their minds without full effort- that is why such secrets these days can be revealed. Many people unfortunately will scan eBay and later deduct and conclude that it does not work, that is why I am an extremely to show this- the majority will not put to practice their own formula with such process. So, if you are worth $0.00 per hour now or are in negative $0.00 right now, does it take money to make money?

Joaquin Reveron is a coach, mentor, speaker and online wholesale veteran. His focus online are on eBay and helping people create wealth through wholesale niches. He is also a wholesale powerseller and author of http://www.videogamesmystery.com

When a real estate transaction is made, it has to be noted, and the notation of the transaction stored somewhere. This makes the dealings legal and binding and the stored files are used for a variety of business purposes such as bookkeeping, preparing tax statements, and submission to the local recorders office where the transaction has taken place.

Making notations of transactions and storing them in organized files is known as transaction coordination. This has always been a part of conducting business, but the majority of this type of work is now done online because of advances in computer technology. Maryland real estate transaction coordinators can offer agents a wide array of transaction management services using the latest technology.

A transaction manager can also create detailed graphs highlighting areas in which the agent has experienced the highest revenues, information which the agent can use to manufacture similar revenue results in the future. Still other reports that the Maryland real estate virtual assistant OTC specialist is able to produce through online transaction coordination can showcase areas that have yet to be exploited for their revenue potential by the agent.

Transaction coordinators also referred to as closing coordinators or managers is highly regarded by real estate agents for their skill in conducting and managing online transaction coordination work. The service provided by virtual assistant OTC specialists raises the bar in the services that agents can in turn offer their clients. The bar is raised as well for the Maryland virtual assistant OTC specialist in the level of incomes they are earning by choosing to become specialists in the area of online transaction coordination.

Real estate clients are also beneficiaries of what OTC can do today. OTC reports produced by the virtual assistant OTC specialist can be used to show clients the prices that similar properties are fetching on the market, so that they can be assured that they are getting the best deal in buying or the best price in selling.

There are other areas of real estate virtual assisting from which the Maryland virtual assistant can choose to work in and offer to the scores of agents in need of them. But OTC specialists have found their specialty in online transaction coordination produces a constant flow of real estate agents needing to outsource this work to them. A constant flow of work and income that the virtual assistant OTC specialist can count on to meet their financial needs today, and for planning and saving for future financial needs.

Our Certified Maryland Real Estate Virtual Assistants (VA) support real estate professionals nationwide with all of their marketing, technical, and, administrative needs. http://virtualcas.com/services/online-transaction-coordination-otc

Once you’ve determined that doing a better job of managing contracts is a priority and that the best solution is off-the-shelf software, the next step is to establish selection criteria.

ASP OR CLIENT/SERVER?
You’ll need to consider whether client/server architecture, in which users access the system directly, or ASP, in which they access it via a web browser, better suits your needs. There are plusses and minuses to each.

Advantages of web-based programs include portability and, sometimes, price (particularly for organizations with large numbers of read only users).

Disadvantages include security, speed and screen display.

If you purchase a turnkey solution that you host yourself, you have to be capable of working with hosted web-based software.

If the vendor hosts your data, security is a prime consideration. And should you ever want to get your data back, be sure that the supplier will return not only your source documents but also the meta-data derived from those documents.

Access speed can be an issue because of the vagaries of the Internet. The speed of screen refreshes can be problematic for data entry, sorting, searching, and reporting functions.

Web-based programs offer limited control over how information is displayed. And users may find the inability to easily access pop-up and multiple windows simultaneously and move windows out of the way awkward.

Advantages of client/server programs include security, speed and screen display.

Client/server software is not as universally accessible. But commonly used remote desktop technologies like Citrix, Virtual Server, and Terminal Services make distance computing practical. Access speed is more consistent and dependent only upon factors that are under your control (the traffic on your network, for example). This is important if most of your users will be manipulating data.

Your initial investment in client/server software may or may not be higher, depending upon the proportion of your users who are read/write. If you’re comparing client/server models to hosted ASP solutions that charge monthly fees, remember that those fees are ongoing and are often based upon the number of records in your database. As your database grows, so do your costs.

With client/server systems, security is not an issue. Your data is never out of your hands. You’re storing it and controlling who sees and works with it.

Client/server systems also offer much better control over how and where information appears on the screen. This can favorably affect ease of use.

PROPRIETARY DATA STORAGE FORMAT – A RED FLAG
Danger, Will Robinson! Whether you choose ASP or client/server architecture, be sure that the system will store your data in a standard, non-proprietary format. Any proprietary format should raise a red flag.

For one thing, you may want to work with your data from the backend, either for reporting purposes or to tie into other databases.

Infinitely more important, however, is the ability to move your data out if necessary. You may never need to get your information out of the system, but you must be sure that if you need to, you can!

FEATURES & FLEXIBILITY
When you think about features, keep it as simple as possible. Ask whether a program meets your basic needs.

When you evaluate a product, be sure that it will store the specific information you need and that you’re comfortable with the way in which it allows you to view and retrieve the data. Consider whether there layers of complexity that you don’t want.

Flexibility is particularly important with packaged software. Is the program too narrowly defined, or not targeted enough? If the software is intended for general business use, is it agile enough to accommodate your specific requirements?

EASE OF USE
How friendly is the user interface? How complete and accessible is the documentation? Is training needed for all users? Or optional for those wanting a jumpstart?

BUDGET
What costs are involved in implementing the software? Does the vendor charge for help with installation? Is user training required, and, if so, what are the costs?

UPGRADE PATH
Is the system scalable? Can you start small and upgrade to a larger version later? An upgrade path allows you to leverage your investment in time, money, and knowledge of the software.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Look for responsive technical support. Make sure the supplier will provide personal responses to technical questions. Check references. Has the software been relatively trouble-free? How effectively does the vendor work with customers to solve any problems that do arise?

ROI
Evaluate the payback period. Packaged software priced at less than $10,000 that does not require consulting services offers a favorable price/value relationship even for many small companies. Although you may not be able to project ROI with great accuracy, it’s intuitively clear that your new system will begin to pay for itself as soon as an automatic reminder prevents payment of a penalty or enables a timely notification — even the first time you retrieve a contract record from your database instead of sending your law firm to research its files.

CORE REQUIREMENTS: A SAMPLE LIST
Summarize your core requirements in a brief list. Here’s a sample of criteria you might use. Just add sub-points to the list where necessary.

1. Easy to use
2. Priced within budget
3. All charges (software, installation, implementation, training) knowable up front
4. Stores the data you need to store in a way that makes sense for your organization
5. Provides visibility into key contract provisions
6. Supports automatic alerts (visual and/or via email)
7. Includes a way to store or link actual contracts, notes, and related documents
8. Simple to administer in your environment
9. Offers robust security that doesn’t interfere with ease of use
10. Responsive, responsible technical support

AN EXCELLENT BEGINNING
Outlining the criteria for your contract management system is, of course, just the beginning (although it’s a good one). Implementation is still ahead of you, and designing and building your database is not a trivial project. But knowing what you’re looking for in contract management software will go a long way toward making sure you choose the product that’s right for you.

Judy Tucker works with emerging companies in planning, project management, and communications and helps them get the most out of contract management systems. Find out more about how contract management software can save time and money at http://www.blueridgesoftware.bz 877-509-7500.