From Greg's Head

It’s been a little over two weeks since Hurricane Ike decided to pay the Gulf Coast a visit. Things are slowly returning to normal, though there are still individuals and companies who need assistance. I have received several inquiries about how people who are not necessarily in Houston can help.

Mayor Bill White requested the establishment of The Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund to help fill unmet human needs for victims of Hurricane Ike primarily in Galveston, Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend and Harris counties.

As stated on the website, the money will be granted to those nonprofit organizations that provide immediate relief in the area — that is, shelter and temporary housing, food and household supplies, transportation and child care. It will also try to make whole some damaged child care and social service organizations that may not be able to operate without an infusion of cash before insurance claims are paid. Greater Houston Community Foundation will administer this fund at no cost, so 100% of all donations will go where it is needed.

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In July, I posted information regarding the Greater Houston Partnership's World Trade Soiree.  I received an email earlier this week informing me that it has been rescheduled for Saturday, November 15th.  The email with all of the details is below.

Launch Your Holiday Season at the “World Trade Soirée”

To bring you the best experience possible, the “World Trade Soirée,” which is sponsored by the Greater Houston Partnership, and was to have taken place September 20, 2008, has been rescheduled.

We apologize for this inconvenience yet are confident that you will benefit from more star power and more entertainment highlighting the cultures of our regional trade partners. Your presence is now requested on Saturday, November 15th!

To launch your 2008 Holiday Season, we invite you to come fly away with us and celebrate a truly world-class tribute to international business and the world marketplace.

When: Saturday, 15 November 2008 • 7 p.m. to Midnight

Where: Hotel ZaZa • 5701 Main, Houston, TX

Cost: $175 per person • Member package: $550

Member package includes 2 tickets to the Soirée, a room for the night of the Soirée at Hotel ZaZa and $2,000 in casino cash.

Attire: Culturally Chic or Cocktail Attire

Elected officials and Consular Corps receive complimentary admission. However, an RSVP is requested and appreciated. Please contact Kristin Smith for details at 713-844-3694 or ksmith@houston.org.

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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.

When was the last time you performed an audit of the various databases that your organization uses on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?   By audit, I mean when did you last really look at the values in the database to see if they make sense, given the possible answers? 

Examples of the audit include:
• How many duplicate customer names or locations do you have?
• How many customers with negative balances do you have?
• How many customers have no street name or zip code?
• How many customers show that they owe you $50 or less for over 12 months?
• Do you have invalid values like negatives for quantities and accounts numbers?

Recent studies have shown that some estimates put the cost of bad data at over $40 billion in the consumer product industry.  With millions of dollars being spent on reporting tools, and reporting scorecards from all types of information systems, maybe more focus on the source of data and processes used to create and store the initial data entry need s to be looked at.  Remember garbage in, garbage out.

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Our friends at the Galleria Chamber of Commerce sent me an email with some helpful links and phone numbers in relation to recovery from Hurricane Ike. 

• KPRC's Neighbor 2 Neighbor Program: 713-271-1905 (6 a.m.- 6 p.m. through Friday)
• FEMA: 800-621-FEMA (3362), Apply for aid
• Hotels FEMA Will Bill Directly: FEMAEvacHotels.com
• American Red Cross - Greater Houston Area, 800-733-2767 (Shelter Information)
• Animal Disaster Hotline: 713-435-2991
• Farmer's Insurance Help Line: 1-800-HELP-POINT (800-435-7764)
• Galveston Business Owners Information Line: 409-765-3710
• Give Blood
• Harris County Phone Bank: 713-368-2741
• Harris County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management: Hurricane Ike Hotline - 713-368-2741.
• Houston Airport System (IAH and Hobby), 281-230-7000
• NOAA: Hurricane Ike Images
• POD Locations In Harris County: 713-881-3100
• Price Gouging Complaints: Harris County - 713-755-5101, State - Texas A.G. - 800-252-8011
• Report Low Water Pressure: 713-884-3131
• Report Downed Power Line : 713-207-2222 or 800-332-7143
• Social Security Assistance: 800-772-1213
• SPCA (Houston): 713-861-0161
• Texas Attorney General Child Support Hotline: 800-252-8014 (open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday)
• Texas Department of Transportation: 800-452-9292
• Texas Department of Transportation Road Closures: 713-802-5076 or 800-452-9292
• Towed Vehicles: Houston - 713-308-8580; Harris County - 713-755-6042
• Transtar For Road Conditions: 800-452-9292
• Volunteer Within Harris County: 713-853-8802 (Call between 9 a.m.-6 p.m.)

Donations for Hurricane Ike victims can be made online at www.ghcf.org or sent to:

Houston Ike Relief Fund
c/o Greater Houston Community Foundation
4550 Post Oak Place, Suite 100
Suite 100
Houston, TX 77027

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Yesterday the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that Texas taxpayers who were adversely affected by Hurricane Ike qualify for IRS tax relief, including the postponement of most tax filing and payment deadlines until Jan. 5, 2009. 

The IRS release (IR-2008-107) has specific information on what the relief postpones and which 29 Texas counties were declared as presidential disaster areas qualifying for individual assistance. Click this link www.pkftexas.com/taxnews for more information.

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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.

Have you considered seeking out an executive coach to help you continue to develop your leadership style?

A good executive coach will not only be a cheerleader, but most importantly, can help you work on a development plan to achieve specific goals.

The focus should be on how you can make specific behavioral changes that are sustainable, measurable, and observable by yourself, and others.

The coach can facilitate opening the channels of communication between you and your team members.

Coaching develops leaders in real time and does not take away from daily responsibilities.

We all want to work at becoming better leaders and calling an executive coach is one way to sharpen and improve your leadership skills.  Ask fellow executives, or contact the Professional Business Coaches Alliance at www.pbca.biz for recommendations.

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PKF Texas is fine and thank you for checking on us!  We are observing more flex hours this week and allowing our team members to reconnect as they are able due to power outages and damage suffered. 

We sincerely hope that your employees and your business are doing as well as possible and recovering from Ike.

The Consulting Solutions practice is presently able to assist our clients with remote support and onsite support when circumstances allow for this.  If you need assistance please do not hesitate to call me at 713-860-1466 or forward your request to gprice@pkftexas.com. We will work with you quickly to address any technical issues you have.

We extend our own wishes to you, your family and your business team for a speedy return to normalcy. 

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” - Ben Okri

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In light of Hurricane Ike, I wanted to you let you know my blog posting may be interrupted depending on connectivity.  Although, I'll leave the weather coverage the guys on the news, I received a few tips that I think are worth sharing.  These tips came from my friends at Technology Support: 

Laptops
As is always the case with impending inclement weather, you SHOULD take your laptop with you, beginning today. Also remember that, before the storm makes landfall, you should ensure that your computer and cell phone are fully charged. This will allow you to get at least urgent use out of them in the event of power failure.

Office Make-Ready
You also SHOULD make your office space hurricane-ready (work papers off desks and in cabinets, electronic devices in safe places, etc.). All computer PC’s should be shut down properly and unplugged from the wall. Any computer PC’s that are on the floor should be placed on a desk or chair and a if possible covered with a plastic sheet.

Here are some suggestions your may want to consider:

• Keep phone lists of your key employees and customers with you, and provide copies to key staff members.
• If you have a voice mail system at your office, designate one remote number on which you can record messages for employees. Provide the number to all employees.
• Arrange for programmable call forwarding for your main business line(s). Then, if you can't get to the office, you can call in and reprogram the phones to ring elsewhere.
• If you may not be able to get to your office quickly after an emergency, leave keys and alarm code(s) with a trusted employee or friend who is closer.

Here is a Hurricane Evacuation Check List from the American Red Cross.

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I received an email yesterday from the Rice Alliance, announcing that Rice University has again been recognized as one of the top entrepreneurial universities in the country. This is the 2^nd year in a row that Rice has been in the top 25. Congratulations to everyone at Rice!

The press release from the university is below.

Rice Recognized as Top Entrepreneurial University by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School moves up six spots this year to #16 on 2008 Ranking

Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management ranks 16^th in the United States among the 400+ graduate entrepreneurship programs according to a report released yesterday by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine. The program moved up six places from last year, the second year in a row that Rice has been ranked in the top 25 in the nation.
 

Rice University is again the only graduate entrepreneurship program in Texas that made the Top 25 ranking.

The strong entrepreneurship course curriculum and faculty (including both full-time academics and practitioners), figured in the results.  New academic programs including a concentration in entrepreneurship, a capstone project in entrepreneurship required of all Executive MBAs, and life science entrepreneurship courses helped propel the ranking upward.

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship programs also impacted the overall rankings.   The survey mentioned the annual Rice Business Plan Competition, where 36 of the top schools from around the world compete for more than $675,000 in prizes in front of 170+ judges, making it the largest and richest competition in the world.

The survey took into account the strength of the educational and outreach programs, such as the Rice Alliance Technology Venture Forums,  venture capital forums for companies seeking angel funding, venture capital and business alliances in the areas of energy and clean technology, life sciences, information technology and nanotechnology, as well as, educational programs such as well as the Technology Entrepreneurship Workshop dedicated to helping new entrepreneurs navigate new waters and start their ventures.

To see the full rankings, click here:  

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Google turns 10 this week and in those short 10 years this company has grown from a small search engine to a full blown multimedia platform. How many companies can say they’ve become a verb in 10 years? How many times have you “Googled” something in the last week? I can’t remember the last time I “searched” the internet for an answer. Google has been very influential in our collective zeitgeist for the last 10 years.

Last week, they released their browser, Chrome, to mixed fanfare.

I haven’t yet talked to anyone who has downloaded and started using it yet. If you have, do you like it better than Internet Explorer or Firefox? What is the best feature? What is the worst feature?

I find the concept of Chrome intriguing. Will this usher in a new era of browsers? Will the current crop of browsers morph into something completely different, like when Netscape evolved into Mozilla Firefox?

Google does a lot of interesting things and I can’t wait to see where they go in the next 10 years.

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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.

We’ve talked before about using and advisory board as a sounding board and idea source for your business. Another tool in the same vein is a C-Level Networking group.

By joining this type of group you can immediately tap into the knowledge and resources of several high level executives. Most groups give industry exclusivity. You will be the only company in your industry in your group. 

Building your centers of influence through these executives allows you to refer business back and forth as well as bounce ideas off of each other.

You have a third party sales group in the marketplace when you aren’t there. They are advocates and ambassadors for you and your business.

There are many companies across the country that facilitate C-Level networking groups. One such company in Houston is CEO Network Partners. They can be found on the web at ceonp.com. 

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Dan Ramey, PKF Texas’ Director of Internal Audit was recently featured alongside three other Certified Information Technology Professionals (CITP) on the AICPA website as a part of the bi-monthly InfoTech Update. Dan and his fellow CITPs were interviewed and provided case studies addressing the results of the 2008 AICPA Top Technology Initiatives Survey.

Dan’s case study focuses on Business Continuity Management/Disaster Recovery Planning. He says, “There are too many companies that encounter a disaster and are never able to recover and get back to work.”

You may recall that we did a PKF Texas – The Entrepreneur’s Playbook™ back in April about Business Continuity Management. Many business owners don’t think that a disaster will happen to them and when it does, they don’t have a plan in place to get back on their feet.

Another subject Dan touches on is IT Governance. He says, “Finding ways to keep company, client and employee data secure will continue to get harder every year. Every time we think we are catching up, the bad guys are one step ahead of us.”

As a CPA, CFE and CITP, I agree with Dan’s statements. Companies must take the time to evaluate their IT vulnerabilities and then take the steps to reduce their risk. As the old adage goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

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People ask me all the time to share stories of successful entrepreneur’s so they can glean information to help their own business. 

Inc.com had an interesting piece about The Blue Man Group, you know, the blue guys who beat on drums with paint and have starred in several Intel commercials. They are not just artists and performers, they are entrepreneurs.

The three original members, Chris Wink, Phil Stanton and Matt Goldman, had to build their business and brand just like any other business owner. They started small, and like every entrepreneur, had several missteps, but were able to overcome those obstacles to run a successful business.

Once challenge they face is consistency in their “product.” They produce shows in 10 cities across the globe as well as several travelling shows. One of the key points founder, Matt Goldman, makes in the article is that to grow they had to be able to replicate themselves then articulate their vision. The result of this was to write the Blue Manual to direct their now 70 Blue Men.

What have you done in your business to overcome the challenge of product consistency? What other non-traditional businesses have you been able to learn from?

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