7 Steps For Making a New Year’s Resolution and Keeping It

The beginning of a new year is always great. We get to put the old year in the past and start a new one with a clean slate. Then, by the end of January when we’ve broken all of our new year’s resolutions, we get to look forward to the start of the next year…in 11 months.

Do you have trouble keeping your resolutions? Join the crowd. If you’d like to correct the problem, here’s a good article on lifehack.org entitled, “7 steps for making a new years resolution and keeping it”.

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Customer service is good business, but difficult to track

The other day, my wife complained to me about a certain company who didn’t care about their customers. She couldn’t believe their poor customer service and their unwillingness to help her, a longtime customer.

My response: Many businesses don’t believe customer service will generate revenue, so they don’t invest much money in it. Until they see that bad customer service hurts business or good customer service helps business, they won’t change.

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Attitude and productivity

What effect does a bad attitude have on productivity?  Answer: More than you can imagine.  According to this somewhat dated, but still very applicable article, negativity costs the US economy between $250 to $300 billion a year.

While I can't begin to imagine how they came up with that number, it provides a little insight into the effect a bad attitude has on the bottom line.  Even if the real amount is closer to half of $300 billion, it's still a huge number.

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The future of business

The future of business is real-time.  Customers don’t want to wait for answers.  Executives don’t want to wait for data.  No one wants 24-hour turnaround anymore.  Everyone wants everything instantly, right now. 


Who can blame them?  The business world has been trending towards real-time for a few years now.  Technology that makes every aspect of your business operate in real-time has existed for some time now.  Those that have fallen behind the real-time technology curve will stand out like a sore thumb in the coming years. 

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Happy holidays from your friends at mrc

This holiday season, I have a special treat for you. I’ve managed to wrestle a previously unshared cookie recipe out of the hands of one of our employees here at mrc. While often requested, this recipe has never before been given to anyone…until now.

Word of warning: While I can attest to the deliciousness of these cookies, I can’t speak for the nutritional information. In fact, if you’re at all concerned with nutritional information, you probably shouldn’t make these cookies. But, what’s the point of the holidays if not for breaking a diet or two? So, if you want a great cookie recipe this holiday season, you can find it in our forums.

I would like to personally thank each and every one of you for reading my blog this past year. From all of us here at mrc, we wish you happy holidays and safe travels!

The government's modernization mistake

I’ve written many times about the importance of modernizing your outdated systems.  Those that rely on old technology find themselves at a disadvantage, unable to keep up with the rapidly changing world of technology.  Even worse, they appear behind-the-times to their customers and may even leave their data or company at risk.

The U.S. Government just learned that the hard way.  As it turns out, Iraqi insurgents have been stealing video feeds from their surveillance drones using $26 software readily available online.  Even worse, now that the government knows what’s happening, they’re having trouble fixing the problem because the network is more than a decade old and runs on proprietary software.

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10 ways to reenergize your staff

I’m sure the business world isn't very sad to put 2009 behind them. It wasn’t a good year for many companies. Many employees lost their jobs. Many who who still have jobs are stressed out and worried about the 2010 economy.

Chances are, morale is lower going into 2010 than it was a year ago, and nothing drains productivity like low morale.  So, how can you re-energize and motivate your employees? How can you provide a great, low-stress work environment in a bad economy? Jon Gordon, a workplace motivation expert provides some great tips that can be applied in just about any company. You can check them out at CIOInsight.com.

Order Entry as it should be

I speak to lots of companies about application modernization and what it can, and has done for their business. Often, they are afraid to try and modernize their order entry application. The reasons vary.

Many consider screen scraping and bringing their character based order entry application to the browser sufficient. I'm not sure that I agree.

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Why I won’t ever buy a GPS unit again

I’m never buying a standalone GPS unit ever again, for the same reason I’ll never buy a pager, Peek, or PDA. Why? Because I recently upgraded to the Droid, which performs all of the tasks I mentioned above…eliminating the need for devices built for a specific purpose.

It’s a simple concept: I don’t want to purchase or carry around four different devices, so I bought one that does everything. This is a concept that should be carried over into enterprise software purchases, but seldom is.

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The key to a successful business plan

We’re nearing the end of another year, which can only mean one thing: It’s time to plan for 2010. It’s time to take a look back at the last year, analyze the data, and make a plan for next year based on that data.

But what if you’re doing it wrong? What if you’re missing a vital step in the process? According to this article on Forbes.com, successful companies focus their planning efforts more on the future and less on the past.

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Save money, listen to your customers

AT&T and Verizon have been doing a bit of bickering lately, which has attracted plenty of media attention. Verizon has run ads disparaging AT&T’s network, and AT&T filed a lawsuit against Verizon (which was later dropped) and run counter-attack ads.

What AT&T needs to understand is this: Verizon didn’t say anything that people didn’t know already. Ask any iPhone user what their biggest complaint is, and 9 times out of 10 you will hear, “The network.” In fact, consumer reports just verified the general consensus in their latest “Cell-phone service” survey, in which AT&T came in dead last. Verizon simply listened to AT&T’s customers and broadcasted the message.

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The overwork cult is alive and well

Suppose you have two companies that are the same in all aspects except one.  In the first company, everyone works 12 hours every day.  In the second company, everyone puts in a regular 8-hour day.  Which company is more likely to succeed?

While I’m sure most would choose the first company, this article provides an alternate point of view that flies in the face of common thought.  While many connect working overtime with success, it may actually have the exact opposite effect.

If your company encourages employees to work overtime, check it out…it’s a very interesting read.

7 productivity tips for people who hate Getting Things Done

Considering the sheer amount of productivity advice in existence today, it’s a wonder that anybody is unproductive.  There are articles, books, and entire methodologies devoted to the subject (Getting Things Done).

Despite all the advice, the two most important productivity tips were things that I had to figure out myself.  First, I’ve learned that I'm infinitely more productive with a good night's sleep.  That is the single most important productivity factor for me.  Second, I concentrate better in the morning.  Therefore, I work on tasks that require greater concentration in the morning.

Want some more productivity tips?  Check out this article on zenhabits.net entitled, "7 productivity tips for people who hate GTD”.