http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/545843Software provides on-demand collaborative customer service.
June 27, 2008 -
Integrating case management, knowledge management, and community collaboration, Helpstream Summer 2008 helps companies understand customer attitudes, tap into community knowledge, and build positive relationships. Users can author knowledge base articles in any format, convert Microsoft Word documents into knowledge base articles, and create articles in rich text format. With iframe design layout for customer self service portal, program can be embedded into existing websites.
venerdì, giugno 27, 2008
Software provides on-demand collaborative customer service., Helpstream
martedì, giugno 24, 2008
Bangkok Post | Business news | 'Just in Time' people management
Bangkok Post | Business news | 'Just in Time' people management
Managing talent in a global organisation is getting more complex and demanding than in their domestic counterparts. This is partly due to the fact that multinationals need to share resources and knowledge across a number of business units and countries.
Reed Smith Builds Knowledge Management Solution on Recommind Technology
Reed Smith Builds Knowledge Management Solution on Recommind Technology
MindServer(TM) Legal and Decisiv(TM) Email Solutions Empower Intelligent Navigation of Vast, Global Data Repositories
State College Business | Centre Daily
lunedì, giugno 23, 2008
Plateau Announces Talent Management Outsourcing Services (ebizQ.net)
Plateau Systems introduced its Talent Management Outsourcing suite of services, comprised of two new service offerings: Talent Management Process Outsourcing and Talent Management Support Services. ebizQ received the following: riven ...
Layered Technologies Launches DEFCON Server Management (TopHosts.com)
Plano, TX (June 18, 2008)- Layered Technologies, a leading worldwide provider of “on demand” IT infrastructure, announces today DEFCON Management Services, a dedicated management services offering.
Management In Real Life: Secrets to Employee Performance
Il testo completo dell'articolo.
6.10.08
Kevin Herring, President, Ascent Management Consulting
With all the mystery surrounding the issue of how to manage employee performance we might expect to find a book on the subject adjacent to a Tom Clancy novel in the MYSTERIES section of the bookstore. Today, however, we’ll stay in the NON-FICTION section and discuss some basics of employee performance in plain terms.
To illustrate, we’ll talk about Joe whose recent performance hasn’t been up to snuff. Joe has been on the job just a short while, and although he made it through his probationary period with promise, Joe has never really shown consistently high production numbers. Lately, they’ve actually been slipping. Since Joe is one of several operators working under the same conditions, and he’s the only one struggling, we’ll set aside the work system as a potential culprit in Joe’s lack of productivity and focus our attention on personal performance factors.
If Joe isn’t cranking out enough widgets, it may be because he isn’t aware of how many he is expected to produce each day. He hasn’t been around that long, and perhaps nobody ever communicated expectations. He may, likewise, not know how many widgets he completes. Joe may be kept in the dark as to how many widgets are reasonable to produce, or he may not think that it’s possible to produce more than he does under his present circumstances. Joe may have a cognizance problem.
Fixing Joe’s cognizance problem is usually fairly simple: Just make sure Joe gets an hourly or daily update on his output. Better yet, let him track his own output, and let him see what others are producing. Coach him to achieve specific goals following up at regular intervals.I f Joe’s lackluster results aren’t the result of a cognizance problem, it may be that he lacks essential job knowledge, skills, or abilities. Joe may not really know how to produce widgets very well. Or, maybe he knows how to do it, but isn’t very good at it. He might need to develop his widget making skills or simply get more practice doing it correctly. Of course, it’s possible that the ugly truth for Joe is that he should have followed his mother’s advice and become a doctor because he just isn’t cut out to be a widget maker. In any case, Joe’s problem may be a lack of competence.
If Joe lacks competence, he will need technical help to develop his knowledge, skills, and abilities as a widget maker, and time to practice what he learns. If that isn’t enough to get Joe’s skills to the standard, Joe may need encouragement to study for the Medical College Admissions Test and try to make his mom happy.
Assuming Joe has neither a cognizance nor a competence problem, he falls into the 90% of employees with performance problems that bosses label as “no fire in the belly.” This is a problem of cause. If Joe has a hard time engaging in his work, fails to show passion or drive for getting results, or simply shows little or no commitment, he suffers from a lack of internal motivation or cause for action. This is a much more complicated problem than a lack of cognizance or competence.
In this case, Joe probably doesn’t feel accountable for achieving results beyond what he needs to keep his job. He may tell himself that he can’t do better until something outside his control changes, like getting a new machine or a boss that knows how to run the shop like Joe would. Besides, when things go wrong, it’s the boss that takes the heat, so why should Joe stress out about it?
Joe’s boss has his work cut out for him. Helping Joe isn’t going to be easy. If this is Joe’s problem, Joe’s boss will need to find out what’s behind Joe’s lack of motivation and make changes in his own operating practices hoping they will influence changes in Joe.It may be that Joe has no sense of how his work affects the larger group. In fact, he probably has no idea what happens to the widgets after he finishes with them and they get carted off to who-knows-where. Chances are he, like most of us, doesn’t know what the widgets are used for, how much they’re worth, or much of anything about the widget business whatsoever. In studying Joe’s problem, Joe’s boss may find out that Joe has a negative attitude especially when he gets worked up about how his suggestions are ignored, things don’t get fixed, and tools are always locked up. He may learn that Joe once expressed interest in learning about the widget finishing process, but was told to just focus on his current job and let others worry about everything else.
Since cause for action is influenced by how well a person like Joe understands his work in the context of the greater process and key success indicators, Joe’s boss may need to help Joe become much more knowledgeable about widgets, work processes and the business as a whole. Likewise, providing opportunities for Joe to have more flexibility in his work, try out ideas, and expand his skills taps a fundamental principle for stimulating intrinsic motivation. Joe’s boss should make sure Joe has the tools and equipment he needs to do the job and that things get repaired. And it wouldn’t hurt for Joe to hear directly from the employee in the next workstation, or external customers, when his work creates problems for them. That would do wonders for his perspective.
If, in spite of the efforts of Joe’s boss, Joe doesn’t turn the corner, it’s likely that Joe is one of those rare individuals that choose non-engagement, and Joe’s boss will have to resort to traditional methods of motivation hoping for Joe’s compliance. That’s about as good as it will get for Joe’s performance.
In the end, if Joe’s boss does a good job of addressing cognizance, competence, and cause, there’s a high probability that Joe will have the wherewithal to produce better, have a greater sense of commitment to the customer and organization as a whole, and become energized to turn things around. And to the relief of Joe’s boss, he will learn that dealing with an employee like Joe doesn’t need to read like a mystery after all.
Trying it on for fit: If a performance problem isn’t caused by an ineffective work system, it most likely results from a deficiency within one or more of the three personal performance factors of cognizance, competence, and cause.
Instead of resorting to the default response of holding people accountable for minimal levels of compliance, first try diagnosing employee performance problems according to the performance factors below and apply appropriate solutions:
- Cognizance: Performance awareness.
- Competence: Performance capability.
- Cause: Performance engagement.
Send an email and let me know what you learn from your experiences. I would love to hear from you!
Management In Real Life: Secrets to Employee Performance
Da leggere se i toui dipendenti non lavorano....
EnergyPulse - Insight Analysis and Commentary on the Global Power Industry
EnergyPulse - Insight Analysis and Commentary on the Global Power Industry
domenica, giugno 22, 2008
backstage.bbc.co.uk :: Backstage Blog :: Mashed - Talks now confirmed
Backstage Blog
Mashed - Talks now confirmed
The final list of speakers is now live over on the backnetwork
http://mashed08.backnetwork.com/schedule/
Some amazing people, from the BBC (of course), NASA (yes, the people who put a man on the moon), Yahoo!, Lonely Planet, Microsoft, and The Guardian.
Talking about Robots, Social responsibility on the web, Hacking live TV, building your own iPlayer and nanotechnology.
I've just put the final batch of tickets live - so if you're not already signed up - go and grab a ticket whilst they're still there.
* 18 Jun 2008 11:36 AM
backstage.bbc.co.uk :: Backstage Blog :: Mashed - Talks now confirmed
Network designed to help health care professionals
European researchers have developed a computer system designed to give health care professionals access to a broader range of medical information.
Equipping the University for a knowledge-based Malta (Times of Malta)
In several disciplines, fresh graduates start off earning more than their University lecturers. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli It is an undisputed fact that the University of Malta's role is critical and essential to produce the building blocks for the development of a research-driven and knowledge-based Malta.
martedì, marzo 06, 2007
Brevan Howard May Miss EU1 Billion Target for Hedge Fund IPO
Brevan Howard May Miss EU1 Billion Target for Hedge Fund IPO
By Elisa Martinuzzi and Andrei Postelnicu
March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP may fall
short of the 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of new money it's seeking
in the initial public offering of a hedge fund, said two people with
knowledge of the transaction.
The London-based firm, founded in 2002 by Alan Howard, the former
head of proprietary interest-rate trading at Credit Suisse Group, is
asking clients in its four-year-old Master Fund to move money to the
new listed fund, BH Macro Ltd., said the people, who declined to be
identified before the offering is completed.
Brevan Howard is following New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
and Marshall Wace LLP of London in making hedge funds more accessible
to individual investors by selling shares to the public. Investors
may be deterred by stock market turmoil during the past week and
declines in shares of the Marshall Wace and Goldman funds since their
IPOs last year.
``It's not clear if investors are better off going into a publicly
traded fund,'' said Jacob Schmidt, founder of London- based hedge
fund adviser Schmidt Research Partners. ``As markets fall, investors
become very careful about where they put their money. These are
untested waters.''
Hedge funds, usually aimed at investors with at least $1 million,
seek to make money in falling as well as rising markets. They can use
leverage to increase the size of their bets and sell short, or borrow
securities and immediately sell them with the hope of buying them
back at a lower price.
Fund Fees
The new Brevan Howard fund, whose shares are on offer through March
8, will invest in the Master Fund and carry lower fees. Alastair
Crabbe, a spokesman for Brevan Howard, declined to comment because
the offering isn't completed.
The IPO is intended to boost the Master Fund's assets by more than 10
percent from the $11.3 billion under management on Oct. 31. Brevan
Howard said last month it might increase the sale to as much 1.5
billion euros, depending on demand. Citigroup Inc., Goldman and
JPMorgan Cazenove are managing the offering.
The publicly traded fund will invest in the Master Fund and pay
Brevan Howard 20 percent of the profit from its investments. That
compares with the 25 percent fee that new investors in Brevan
Howard's Master Fund have to pay. All investors are also charged a 2
percent management fee.
The Master Fund is a so-called macro hedge fund, meaning it bets
across markets on broad economic trends. The Master fund had an
annualized return of 10.2 percent from its inception in April 2003
until the end of last year, according to the prospectus for the BH
Macro fund.
Performance Lags
Macro funds returned an average 8.5 percent in 2006, according to
Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc., up from 6.8 percent in 2005
and 4.6 percent in 2004. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index returned
15.6 percent last year, including reinvested dividends.
The euro- and dollar-denominated shares of Marshall Wace's MW Tops
Ltd. fund, sold to investors in December, have fallen since the
offering. The euro shares are trading 2.5 percent below the IPO
price, and are below the fund's net asset value of 10.01 euros a share.
Euro- and dollar-denominated shares of Goldman Sachs Dynamic
Opportunities Ltd., which began trading in July, are also below their
offer price.
``We never advise clients to buy into these funds at the IPO,'' said
Davide Squarzoni, senior investment consultant at Prometeia SpA in
Bologna, Italy.
Investors poured a record $126.5 billion into hedge funds globally
last year, data compiled by Hedge Fund Research show. The private
pools of capital allow managers to participate substantially in the
gains of the money invested.
Hedge funds in Europe have been able to bypass rules restricting the
sale of the investments to less affluent individuals by listing their
funds as companies on the stock market and selling shares.
Hedge funds had their biggest one-day decline in almost four years on
Feb. 27 as global stock markets plunged, according to an index from
Hedge Fund Research. HFR's Global Hedge Fund Index fell 1.4 percent
that day, the largest decline since it began in March 2003.
To contact the reporters on this story: Elisa Martinuzzi in Milan at
emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net ; Andrei Postelnicu in London at
apostelnicu@bloomberg.net
By Elisa Martinuzzi and Andrei Postelnicu
March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP may fall
short of the 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of new money it's seeking
in the initial public offering of a hedge fund, said two people with
knowledge of the transaction.
The London-based firm, founded in 2002 by Alan Howard, the former
head of proprietary interest-rate trading at Credit Suisse Group, is
asking clients in its four-year-old Master Fund to move money to the
new listed fund, BH Macro Ltd., said the people, who declined to be
identified before the offering is completed.
Brevan Howard is following New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
and Marshall Wace LLP of London in making hedge funds more accessible
to individual investors by selling shares to the public. Investors
may be deterred by stock market turmoil during the past week and
declines in shares of the Marshall Wace and Goldman funds since their
IPOs last year.
``It's not clear if investors are better off going into a publicly
traded fund,'' said Jacob Schmidt, founder of London- based hedge
fund adviser Schmidt Research Partners. ``As markets fall, investors
become very careful about where they put their money. These are
untested waters.''
Hedge funds, usually aimed at investors with at least $1 million,
seek to make money in falling as well as rising markets. They can use
leverage to increase the size of their bets and sell short, or borrow
securities and immediately sell them with the hope of buying them
back at a lower price.
Fund Fees
The new Brevan Howard fund, whose shares are on offer through March
8, will invest in the Master Fund and carry lower fees. Alastair
Crabbe, a spokesman for Brevan Howard, declined to comment because
the offering isn't completed.
The IPO is intended to boost the Master Fund's assets by more than 10
percent from the $11.3 billion under management on Oct. 31. Brevan
Howard said last month it might increase the sale to as much 1.5
billion euros, depending on demand. Citigroup Inc., Goldman and
JPMorgan Cazenove are managing the offering.
The publicly traded fund will invest in the Master Fund and pay
Brevan Howard 20 percent of the profit from its investments. That
compares with the 25 percent fee that new investors in Brevan
Howard's Master Fund have to pay. All investors are also charged a 2
percent management fee.
The Master Fund is a so-called macro hedge fund, meaning it bets
across markets on broad economic trends. The Master fund had an
annualized return of 10.2 percent from its inception in April 2003
until the end of last year, according to the prospectus for the BH
Macro fund.
Performance Lags
Macro funds returned an average 8.5 percent in 2006, according to
Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc., up from 6.8 percent in 2005
and 4.6 percent in 2004. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index returned
15.6 percent last year, including reinvested dividends.
The euro- and dollar-denominated shares of Marshall Wace's MW Tops
Ltd. fund, sold to investors in December, have fallen since the
offering. The euro shares are trading 2.5 percent below the IPO
price, and are below the fund's net asset value of 10.01 euros a share.
Euro- and dollar-denominated shares of Goldman Sachs Dynamic
Opportunities Ltd., which began trading in July, are also below their
offer price.
``We never advise clients to buy into these funds at the IPO,'' said
Davide Squarzoni, senior investment consultant at Prometeia SpA in
Bologna, Italy.
Investors poured a record $126.5 billion into hedge funds globally
last year, data compiled by Hedge Fund Research show. The private
pools of capital allow managers to participate substantially in the
gains of the money invested.
Hedge funds in Europe have been able to bypass rules restricting the
sale of the investments to less affluent individuals by listing their
funds as companies on the stock market and selling shares.
Hedge funds had their biggest one-day decline in almost four years on
Feb. 27 as global stock markets plunged, according to an index from
Hedge Fund Research. HFR's Global Hedge Fund Index fell 1.4 percent
that day, the largest decline since it began in March 2003.
To contact the reporters on this story: Elisa Martinuzzi in Milan at
emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net ; Andrei Postelnicu in London at
apostelnicu@bloomberg.net
mercoledì, febbraio 21, 2007
A proposito della pianificazione dei progetti.
Hal Macomber always has interesting things to say about the world
project management. In Misunderstanding Project Planning as
Anticipation he is thinking about the essence of planning (in
response to something he heard in the political sphere).
project management. In Misunderstanding Project Planning as
Anticipation he is thinking about the essence of planning (in
response to something he heard in the political sphere).
Let's look at the essence of planning.
Planning is preparation for future action.
Planning is a conversation.
Planning leads us to promising.
Anticipating the future is the job of forecasters not project
managers. Good project managers know they can't predict the future.
The very best project managers make a habit of continuously re-
planning their projects with the people who are performing the work.
Just in case it isn't clear, "continuously re-planning" doesn't mean
rejiggering the project plan. But it does mean that the project
manager has a means to take the pulse of the project and respond to
the reality of the project as it happens. It's continuing to have
that conversation while the project is executing.
domenica, novembre 19, 2006
Pagare le tasse nel mondo: 175 paesi a confronto.
Dove sono piu' alte, dove ci si mette di meno, quale legge fiscale e'
piu' lunga... tutto in questo report.
piu' lunga... tutto in questo report.
"Complex tax systems cut tax revenues for government and make it very
hard to assess the true tax burden on firms, says a new report
launched here today by the World Bank Group and
PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report presents quantitative indicators
on the tax rates, payment frequency, and time to comply with taxes
compared across 175 economies - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Top
reformers are identified and best practices in how to reform tax
regulations are highlighted. This report gives policymakers the
ability to measure tax regulation performance in comparison to other
countries, learn from global best practices, and prioritize reforms."
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