June 30, 2008

Congratulations to the Houston Best Places to Work Winners

Last week I attended the Houston Business Journal’s Best Places to Work luncheon. What a fun event! It’s one of my favorites every year.

Congratulations to all of the winners and a special congratulations to the Burnett Staffing/PKF Texas Summit award winners! To achieve Summit recognition a company must be on the Best Places to Work list five or more consecutive years. To achieve Premier Summit recognition, a company must have been on the list every year since the start of the Best Places to Work Program. 

This year’s Summit winners are:

  • CB Richard Ellis
  • Memorial Herrmann Hospital System
  • SpawGlass Construction
  • Wells Fargo Bank

This year’s Premier Summit winners are:

  • SpawMaxwell Co.
  • Walter P. Moore

PKF Texas is proud to sponsor the Best Places to Work and the Summit awards because these types of programs celebrate workplace excellence in Houston. To view the full list of winners click here.

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June 27, 2008

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook™:Giving Feedback

Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.

One of the most important things you can do as a leader in your firm is to provide adequate and timely feedback to your team.

Timely feedback gives you and your team members the chance to begin a dialogue about areas of success and areas that need improvement. Relationships are built one conversation at a time.

If feedback is negative, phrase your conversation in such a way that it is constructive encouragement rather than blame or judgment. 

Begin on a positive note, find something that was successful. Sandwich the negative feedback between positive points.

For example:

“John, I’m really glad you got that report to me on time. I’ve noticed that you have missed several important conference calls recently. How can we work out a schedule so you will be able to finish your work and still be able to join in on the calls? I was glad to see you help Tina yesterday. Thanks.”

When giving feedback, remember to be an active listener. By doing this, you will be able to judge how well your comments are being received and understood. A great resource for this kind of communication is the book, Fierce Conversations, by Susan Scott.

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June 25, 2008

Internet on the Plane

The days of being totally disconnected when you’re on the plane are quickly coming to an end. American Airlines and Virgin America will be offering internet via a Wi-Fi connection on select flights later this year.

There will of course be a fee involved. $12.95 for flights three hours or longer and $9.95 for trips that are shorter.

Walter S. Mossberg, a journalist from the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote about it in his column Personal Technology. He tried a variety of devices, downloads and watched streaming video. Overall he appeared satisfied with the results.

I have mixed emotions about this service. There’s something nice about getting on a three hour flight and knowing no one can reach you. On the other hand, being able to get actual work done and send it off while you’re on the plane would be nice. 

What do you think? Would you pay to use the internet on the airplane? Are we close to opening Pandora’s box and being able to use our cell phones in the air?

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June 23, 2008

Bloggers Alert to Fake Press Conference

I don’t know how I missed the story last October about FEMA’s “fake” press conference, but I did. Last week when I was at the PRSA Excalibur awards, they did a funny presentation of the Top 10 PR Mistakes of 2007. The number one mistake? FEMA’s fake press conference, using their staff as reporters.

I know the adage is there’s no such thing as bad PR, but in this case, that definitely does not apply. The blogosphere immediately erupted with buzz about it, another example of the power of blogging.

Here are a few links with reactions:

MSNBC
The Washington Post
CBS News

If you want to see the actual fake press conference, here’s a YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=071nO9V22jA

What can we learn from FEMA’s mistake? The active blogosphere makes it hard to cover these types of mistakes up. We’re living in a world with a constant news stream and with everyone so connected, word spreads quickly. In our small corner of the blogosphere, rarely do we have to deal with controversy (which I’m glad of!), but we still must keep our eyes and ears open to the world around us. 

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June 20, 2008

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Do You Need a Better Strategy?

Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Does your business strategy deliver on its promised financial value? A recent HBR study suggests that over 1/3 of respondents indicated that they failed to hit the mark.   Do you vacillate between a better strategy, when you need better execution? Or, do you press for better execution when you need a better strategy?

How do you avoid these pitfalls? By viewing strategy and execution as being joined together at the hip, you can control the process and have a better chance for success. The study suggested seven rules for successful strategy execution:

  1. Keep it simple
  2. Challenge Assumptions
  3. Speak the same language
  4. Discuss resource deployments
  5. Identify priorities
  6. Continuously monitor performance
  7. Develop execution ability

Within my own team at PKF, we have utilized these same seven rules using guidelines from Patrick Lencioni’s material and we have very pleased with the results.

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June 18, 2008

Our Blog is a Great Blog

I received the below email yesterday. (Edited for space)

Dear Greg Price,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.0 score out of (10) in the Business category of Blogged.com. This is quite an achievement!

http://www.blogged.com/directory/business

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style. After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.0 score.

Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!

Sincerely,
Amy Liu
Marketing Department
www.blogged.com

That’s great news to hear! If you’d like to see the blog on blogged.com, click here. I’ve said this before, but if it weren’t for you all, my readers, the blog wouldn’t be as successful as it is. So a big thank you to you!

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June 16, 2008

Yahoo! Partners with Google

Back in May, I blogged about the Microsoft/Yahoo! merger falling apart. Now, according to reports, Yahoo! is seeking a partnership with Google. Well…at least to handle some of its advertising sales.

Announced last Thursday, the deal is a 10 year, non-exclusive partnership that gives Yahoo! the ability to use Google’s search and contextual advertising technology.

The deal still has to face the Department of Justice to determine if it breaches anti-trust regulations. 

I’ve got to admit, I’m skeptical about this latest move and I’m curious to see the reaction from Yahoo!’s shareholders. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some sort of corporate coup in the future. There’ve been rumblings about it for a month or two now, since the Microsoft deal fell through.

Though folding into Microsoft might not have been ideal, I’m not sure how partnering with Google will be beneficial in the long term. In the short term I see the influx of cash as a positive, but can’t see much beyond that.

Tameka Kee, from Online Media Daily, wrote a great piece about it including Yahoo! president Sue Decker’s official statement.

Would you partner with one of your direct competitors? What do you think about this latest move from Yahoo!? 

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June 13, 2008

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook™: Waste Elimination to Increase Profitability

Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.

Waste elimination is one of the most effective ways to increase profitability in businesses. To eliminate waste it is important to fully understand exactly what waste is and where it can be found.

There are six common causes of waste in an organization. They are:

  • Overproduction – You’ve heard of 'Just in Time', well overproduction the result of 'Just in Case.'
  • Waiting is a cause of waste when the material flow is poor, production runs too long or the distances between work centers are too great.
  • When transporting goods, there is an opportunity for damage/loss to occur and quality to deteriorate.
  • Inappropriate Processing - Are you using the right tool/process for the job?
  • Unnecessary inventory will occur as a direct result of overproduction and waiting.
  • Defects – They cost money either now or later and their costs come directly from the bottom line.

Audit each of the issues and estimate the cost to your company of each waste. Then use a Force Field Analysis to make a plan to address each area. The Force Field Analysis process was detailed in an earlier EP from June 2007. 

If would like a full white paper detailing the Force Field Analysis, send me an email to gregshead@pkftexas.com

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June 11, 2008

Gadgets for Your Phone

I had a conversation the other day with some PKF Texas colleagues the other day and wanted to pose a question to my readers:

What are the gadgets/devices that you use with your cell phone to improve its usability?

For example, I’ve been hearing about the Jawbone a lot recently. Supposedly it’s one of the best Bluetooth headsets on the market. Do any of you use it? Is it worth the price?

I recently ran across www.tiltdepot.com, it has all sorts of accessories designed specifically for my phone, the AT&T Tilt. I wish I’d found it before I dropped my phone last weekend and scratched it up! 

Have you found that devices designed specifically for your phone work better than those designed to be used for “all” types of phones?

What one gadget for your phone can you not live without?

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June 9, 2008

FORTUNE Small Business Features Rice Business Plan Competitors

FORTUNE Small Business online has posted an extensive recap of the Rice Business Plan Competition. 

There is a synopsis page for each team in the competition. You can watch videos of top elevator pitches, participate in a forum dedicated to the competition, and take a quiz to see if your company has what it takes to enter these types of competitions.

Like I said back in April, the plans are getting better and better each year. The difference between numbers one and seven in the final flight is getting smaller and the difference between numbers one, two and three in each flight is very small as well.

Take a look at the website and let me know what you think was the best concept. Did you like qcue, the winner, the best? Whose pitch did you like best?

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June 6, 2008

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Budgeting Should be Linked to Strategy

Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

How good is your strategic plan? Do your link your strategy to your budget? Most organizations don’t and then they wonder why they don’t accomplish their objectives. As I visit with business executives one interesting thing keeps coming up.   They indicate that they succeed in spite of themselves. My response to them is, “Are you really succeeding?”   Or, are you just lucky. Lucky that your customers need you or the products you represent.

Recently some best practices in strategic planning were released by The Hackett Group in their book The Strategy Gap. This book highlighted eight planning best practices of high performance organizations.

  • Good plans answer key directional questions.
  • Good plans typically address three activities.
  • Good plans-and organizations-are focused.
  • Good plans include all aspects of the business.
  • Good plans link strategies to activities.
  • Good plans are measureable.
  • Good plans include assignments to accountability.
  • Good plans include the recording and monitoring of assumptions.

The key of course is to get Senior Management, Operational Management and Line Management all working on the same things in concert with each other.

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June 4, 2008

Most Innovative Small Company in America?

I was flipping through the June issue of Inc. Magazine over Memorial Day weekend, the cover story caught my eye. It’s about the most innovative small company in America, Threadless, an online t-shirt company.

I’ll have to admit I’m a bit perplexed and surprised this is the most innovative small company in America. I’m not saying they haven’t been successful or don’t deserve all the accolades, they’ve received. They do, Threadless sold roughly $30 million in t-shirts last year, sales in 2006 hit $18 million with profits of nearly $6 million. For a company that started in 2000, those are great numbers.

I can’t help but wonder though, what am I missing? The article makes the point that Threadless has almost wholly and effectively used social media and Web 2.0 vision to their advantage, soliciting t-shirt designs from the visitors of the website, who then vote on their favorites to be produced and sold.

Can the Next Gen readers educate me? What makes this company so innovative? What differentiates it from others like cafepress.com?

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June 2, 2008

Houston: A Great Place for Young Pros

I’ve been talking a lot in recent weeks about how Houston is a great place to live and work. The confirmations just keep rolling in.

Last Friday’s Houston Business Journal featured an article ranking Houston as one of the top ten cities for young adults (18-34).

The study cited looked at the annual rate of employment growth, total population growth, jobless rate, education level and average income of young city dwellers.

David Small, associate vice president for student services at the University of Houston was quoted as saying, "Houston is a well-kept secret." I’d have to agree with him.

There is a lot of interesting data in the article. For instance, young Houstonians make up 24.8 percent of the city's total population -- 17.1 percent of them hold a bachelor's degree and 6.5 percent make more than $75,000 per year. 

If you’re a young pro in Houston, I want to hear from you. How do you like living and working in Houston? Are you able to find a good work/life balance? How does your cost of living compare to friends in other cities?

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