Dave Berkus on: Improving Efficiency, Planning for the End Game, & Eliminating Bottlenecks |
In
Is your company or department as efficient as it should be?, Dave declares that no matter what your company produces, there is surely a more efficient way to approach the process. Start by carefully restating the goal for the process and create metrics to measure the present output and quality with this goal. Form a team from within your organization to define the steps currently taken to reach the goal, and then make improvements in increments that can be put into effect and tested quickly. But if internal resources cannot handle the solution, Dave outlines some steps for utilizing an outside resource. And, in
Are you thinking of the end game when managing your business?, Dave suggests that all businesses and their management should be aware and perhaps planning for the end game - i.e., selling your company or otherwise cashing in on your hard-earned work. Consider what creates value in your business: a secret sauce that allows you to compete more effectively; niche domination; valuable intellectual property? These are questions to ask during strategic planning sessions each year to fine-tune the value proposition for an eventual buyer. Further, investments into the company, whether from new money or reinvesting profits, should be directed first into areas that will increase the value of the enterprise at the end game. Also, in
Are you the bottleneck in your organization?, Dave strongly recommends a book, The Goal - The Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu Goldratt, which describes in simple terms the use of statistical analysis to remove bottlenecks in a manufacturing environment. Dave has used the book's lessons to teach process improvement to many types of businesses, including software development, supply chain management, and retail fulfillment. (Dave Berkus, Downtown & West Los Angeles)
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Get Visible on: "Claiming" Your Knowledge Panel on Google.com |
Jason Ciment of Get Visible notes that when you search for a name of a person, business, or organization on Google, you might see a box on the right side of the search results page with key information and links to resources. Google has recently made it possible for individuals and organizations with these Knowledge Panels to
claim it and be able to update and provide authoritative feedback on the information and images presented in the panel. Jason provides the following steps to do so: 1. See if you qualify. Do a search on Google for your name or business name. 2. Make sure you have a Google account with Google.com, Gmail, YouTube or Google+. 3. Make sure you have at least 2 of 5 social media accounts showing up in Google search results for your name. 4. If you see the knowledge panel, click this link: "Do you manage the online presence for [name]?" 5. On the next screen, click Get Verified. If you get an error, it simply means login to your Google account again. 6. Follow the simple steps to get verified. Get your social media URLs. I did Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. 7. Take a photo of your face with a license or passport and upload it when asked. 8. Fill out the rest of the form and hit submit. You could get validated in minutes if successful. (Jason Ciment, West Los Angeles)
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Intellect Educates on Compliance Regulations & Risk Management |
On July 26, at 11 a.m. Pacific, Intellect will present a webinar -
Non-Conformance, Ensure Compliance with FDA Regulations and ISO Quality
Standards – which will discuss a configurable nonconformance app as part of a comprehensive and proven eQMS suite. Meanwhile, Romeo Elias has written recent blogs:
Mobile and FDA Compliance: New Regulations in 2018, which examines groups of apps regulated by the FDA; and
Best Risk Management in Laboratories, which delves into risk identification, assessment, management plans, and quality management systems. (Romeo Elias, West Los Angeles)
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myKaarma on: Teamwork & Competing with Amazon & Larger Co's |
In several recent blog posts, myKaarma's Ujj Nath discusses issues of importance to auto service departments, but they can also be extended to other industries and companies. In
Incentivization & Teamwork: The Keys to Increased Profits, Ujj talks about creating pay plans that incentivize both sales and service, thereby sharing the wealth. In
Will Amazon Steal Your Tire Sales?, Ujj concludes that the best way to compete with Amazon is by providing a superior customer experience. And, in
How Small Dealers Can Win the War Over Size, Ujj suggests that smaller entities can offer a more personal, agile approach, providing more individual attention to their customers. (Ujj Nath, West Los Angeles)
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PeopleG2 on: Recognition vs Reward |
The Irish Tech News recently published an article by PeopleG2's Chris Dyer -
Recognition vs Reward: Which Drives the Best Results?, in which Chris says that incentives should have more than monetary value. Bonuses and prizes are fine, but acknowledging good work in ways that fulfill other important human needs are actually more effective than money. It's this intangible compensation that keeps workers happy in their corporate homes. (Chris Dyer, Downtown Los Angeles)
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Taylor Digital on: Drip & Nurture Email Campaigns |
In
Email Marketing 101: Drip Campaigns, Taylor Digital explains that this type of automated email campaign sends out email messages intentionally on specific days and times to specific lists. They are written in advance to include a specific call to action, and usually designed to meet the needs of the company, not of the user. And, in
Email Marketing 101: Nurture Campaigns, Taylor Digital says that these are about growing relationships with buyers at every step of each buyer's journey, by delivering specific content related to their particular buying behaviors. After you have analyzed your data and your lists are segmented, you will create another set of emails based on the interests of that specific list. (Randy Taylor, Orange County)
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Amazon Website Crashed as Soon as Prime Day Began |
Amazon's Prime Day deals were expected to kick off at 12 p.m. PT on Monday - for 36 hours. But just a few minutes later, Amazon's website crashed, and many Prime members were unable to shop the deals. When the site was online, the links on the main page advertising Prime Day deals went nowhere. Pages within Amazon's mobile app were also affected, showing an error page with a photo of a dog. Individual product pages appeared not to be affected by the problems and were still functional, though customers reported issues with adding items to their carts for purchase. These technical glitches are likely to cost Amazon millions of dollars in sales. One Click Retail estimates that Amazon sells about $1 million per minute during peak time on Prime Day, based on last year's data. (Read Article: aol.com, 7/16/18) [Publisher's note: by 6 pm Amazon and their Prime Deals were working just fine!]
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New California Privacy Law Could Have Nationwide Implications |
Late last month, California passed a sweeping
consumer privacy law that might force significant changes on companies that deal in personal data - and especially those operating in the digital space. The California Consumer Privacy Act, A.B. 375 has been described as a landmark policy constituting the most stringent data protection regime in the U.S. It affords California residents an array of new rights, starting with the right to be informed about what kinds of personal data companies have collected and why it was collected. Among other novel protections, the law stipulates that consumers have the right to request the deletion of personal information, opt out of the sale of personal information, and access the personal information in a "readily useable format" that enables its transfer to third parties without hindrance. (Read Article:
Harvard Business Review, 7/11/18)
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SoCal Edison Plans $760M Investment in EV Infrastructure |
Southern California Edison (SCE), SoCal's biggest electric utility, said it's launching a new, $760 million effort to expand the region's electric vehicle infrastructure, in hopes of boosting the number of electric cars on the state's highways, and supporting the installation of 48,000 more electric charging ports across its service area. SCE said this effort is part of its goal to get 7 million electric cars on California highways by 2030, in order to help the state reduce air pollution and harmful greenhouse gas emissions. (Read Article:
socaltech.com, 6/27/18)
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Irvine Water District Installs Tesla Battery Storage System |
The nation's largest energy storage system being used for on-site power has been installed in Irvine, according to the Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD), which said that it has installed a 2.5MW/15MWh energy storage system at its water recycling plant in Orange County. The project allows the district to buy and store electricity, and later use that power during peak hours when the cost of electricity from the grid is high. The water district is using battery storage from Tesla in the installation. IRWD did not say how much it spent on those systems and installation and design, but says it will save approximately $500,000 in energy costs each year. It said its project is the biggest "behind the meter" project installed nationwide. (Read Article:
socaltech.com, 6/27/18)
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Broadcom to Buy CA Technologies for $18.9 Billion |
Broadcom Inc. has agreed to buy software company CA Technologies for $18.9 billion, a move that took some industry watchers by surprise, given that it represents expansion into a whole new area for Broadcom, which has become a semiconductor powerhouse largely through acquisitions. CA Technologies produces software used in corporate IT infrastructure such as mainframe computers. (Read Article:
Wall Street Journal, 7/11/18)
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Facebook Teaches Bots to Navigate NYC Using Natural Language |
Facebook's artificial intelligence scientists have built Talk the Walk, a research project that aims to teach AI systems to communicate using natural language in much the same way a baby does - by naming what it sees. Talk the Walk tasks two AI agents - a tourist and a guide - with navigating to a location in Manhattan by conversing, with the tourist bot explaining what it "sees" and the guide bot responding with navigational instructions. But the system is also able to parse what the tourist is saying, even if it mixes in colloquial language a human might use. The idea is that this could be a more efficient way to teach AI systems like this to communicate effectively, rather than by training them on pure-text data sets. And in its experiments, Facebook's AI research team found that its bot guide was more accurate than humans performing the same navigation task. (Read Article: Fast Company, 7/11/18)
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Wireless Industry Looks to 5G, as Cell Phone Market Saturates |
In the U.S. mobile market, the total number of connected devices rose just 1% last year to 400.2 million, the slowest rate of increase on record, while wireless service revenue slipped 5% to $179 billion, the second year in a row of decline, reports CTIA. With 326 million people living in the U.S., that is an average of more than 1.2 devices for every man, woman, and child in the country. Still, the industry is looking ahead to the next wave of even faster wireless transmission technology, known as 5G. Even while the number of new devices has leveled off, data usage has continued to surge and wireless carriers are building out 5G networks that will increasingly come into play over the next three to five years, possibly bringing in additional revenue from new services like always-connected smart devices. The industry is pressing to have federal rulemakers free up more airwaves and ease the way for the addition of thousands of smaller cell sites needed for 5G by preempting local and state regulations. (Read Article:
Fortune, 7/10/18)
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You May Soon Store Entire Media Collection on One SD Card |
The SD Association, the group that sets memory card standards, recently announced a new specification called SD Express, which adds PCI Express and NVMe interfaces to the cards, thus ramping up data transfer speeds to as much as 985MB per second - almost doubling that of last year's SSDs. Announced along with this is the SD Ultra Capacity (SDUC) format, which pushes the maximum capacity of SD cards from 2TB (SDXC) to a whopping 128TB. Just one of these SD cards could essentially replace all of your hard drives, though even with the new SD Express speeds, it might take a while to load up terabytes worth of data. In real terms, you could squeeze more than 29,000 Full HD movies onto one 128TB SD card. And assuming a typical photo size is 5MB, the same card could house over 26 million photos. It could hold over 16 million songs if they are about 8MB each; three cards will be enough to store Spotify's entire library of 35 million tunes. (Read Article:
Engadget, 6/27/18)
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Entry-Level Marketing Professional Available |
An ABL Member recommends Rachel Harris, a recent university graduate with proficiency in all segments of Google Analytics, Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Moz Local Listing; also social media savvy: See Resume
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