Protective Put Secrets » Strategy

The Options Trading Strategy of a Lifetime [Hardcover]

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:55:15 +0000

No description for this product could be found, but have a look over at Amazon for reviews and other information.

Coming to Terms with Asset Protection Strategies

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:58:54 +0000

Asset protection deals with protecting your assets from others who may make a claim on them through a court action. Developing an approach to what asset protection strategy you need requires you to understand which assets of yours are vulnerable to be claimed, when, and from whom. This article outlines these points and the boundaries and limitations that affect your choice of asset protection device.

So how do you scope out an asset protection strategy for you? Here’s what you need to know.

First: Recognize who can make a claim on you and for how much:

Creditors can. You entered into an agreement with them for their product or services. Now you find you can’t pay them. You know how much a creditor can claim since you made the agreement.

People who can sue you for injury they’ve incurred and attributed to you – perhaps your negligence. A normal amount of liability insurance can take care of much of this.

But there are people who target you for a lawsuit because you have a lot of money. They generally expect you to buy them off with a settlement considerably less than their outrageous claim for a trumped-up injury.

Lastly, are those that sue you in divorce or through paternity suits. They’re your spouse or lover – however temporary or fleeting either relationship was. Your child(ren) play a critical part in the nature and damage these suits can produce. These are the divorce/paternity claimants.

The amount they can claim and be awarded is enormous and can continue until your child grows up – and through college in some states. Such suits have been known to be very unfair, untenable, have led to many suicides of fathers, and ultimately derive from unfair court processes that ignore fundamental rights of fathers.

It’s important that you recognize that government offers you no protection against divorce/paternity claimants. It does offer limited asset protection against creditor and other claimants as I’ll mention below.

Second: Recognize what assets you own that are vulnerable to claims:

To divorce/paternity claimants, all your assets are vulnerable. So in addition to what you presently own as assets, what you may potentially own in the future is vulnerable too. An example of this would be an expected inheritance.

Third: Know the government-protected assets against creditor claims – for your state:

Government- under either federal or state law – affords some limited protection of assets according to how the asset is held by you – and under what legal suit type.

The government-protected asset categories are:

* Government-regulated retirement savings plan accounts (such as pensions, 401(k), IRAs)

* Insurance products

* Homestead

Federal law protects your retirement plan accounts (to some dollar level) against creditors, but only under your bankruptcy case – a federal court process. For suits other then a bankruptcy, state law governs the amount of protection. State law is state dependent; it generally offers less protection.

Insurance products protection is state regulated and state dependant. Life insurance’s death benefit and annuity’s payouts carry protection against most creditor claims.

You homestead – i.e. your principal residence for living – generally carries some dollar limit protection. Some states have much higher homestead values protected than others. Some minor holdings values for car or clothing is also protected.

Check your state for its extent of protection.

Fourth: Understand a court’s ability to claim assets from you for a claimant:

The fundamental criteria to have assets you own claimed under a court order are that those assets are:

* owned or controlled by you and

* known to exist and

* within the jurisdiction of the court to seize

Based on these criteria your chosen protection strategy must be one or a combination of these actions:

1. Transferring ownership of your assets that are known to exist or easily discovered and are within a U.S jurisdiction – so there’s no ownership or control

2. Maintaining ownership of the asset but locate it off shore so the court can’t seize it – so they’re not within court’s jurisdiction

3. Repositioning an asset, no matter how you hold it, so it’s not known to exist and can’t be discovered easily – either within the U.S. or offshore – so court can’t claim what’s not known

Two conditions affect the viability of actions1, and 2 are:

* Assets transferred in light of a pending or active lawsuit are considered fraudulently transferred. They can be considered own by you for claims purposes.

* The court can seize (i.e. jail) you under a contempt of a court to force you to return any asset – or its equal value – that it’s aware of and considers owned by you but is unavailable or outside of the court’s jurisdiction to seize.

Action three is the most secure protection and often the cheapest to achieve.

Roundtable: Getting Your Strategy Right From the Start

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:39:43 +0000

Jamie Liddell, SSON’s online editor, sat down with a few practitioners at the recent Planning & Implementing Successful New Shared Services event in London to identify winning strategies from the get-go. Site selection, according to the consensus, is not key; rather, getting the process right from the start.Participating were:Peter PanSenior ExecutiveMSC MalaysiaWalter JessShared Services Strategic Planning ManagerCaterpillarMichael RadfordProcess Improvement ManagerSercoJenny CoombsShared Services DirectorBarnet CouncilGary CritchleyHead of Finance Shared ServicesMarks & SpencerHindrik Jan (René) ZigtermanBusiness Development Shared ServicesSAP BelgiumSSON: To start, tell us how you decided what to include in your shared services operations when you set up.Jenny Coombs: We looked at the corporate services we were already delivering, the standard things: information services, finance, human resources, procurement, facilities management… all these things had been delivered disparately in the past. We also looked at the nature of these services and added specific services around collecting council tax and delivering housing benefits because they are transaction-based processes. The challenge was to discover how the processes would fit together.Walter Jess: I think it is really about identifying what is not core to the business; what protects your brand name and your sales points in the market — quality, design, etc; Also: look at what does not support day-to-day decision making; so general accounting issues such as calculating, recording, etc. … as opposed to the activities that business unit managers use on a daily basis to decide on their business. It is also important to gain sufficient volume to manage the costs of the initial stage.Michael Radford: I think you decide on the basis of “repeatable business” – in other words, what you could give someone else to do. In terms of scope, you can have a larger scope of services in the first instance, but give it to a smaller group of divisions and scale up later, depending on how well things work. A “chunk at a time,” is a good way to start, until the business absorbs the new process.Gary Critchley: A standard approach is, “where is the volume of labor arbitrage?” In other words: Where do we have the most people that we can move to a lower cost environment? That is the core of any business case. But beyond that, you can look at “where can we leverage our commercial value by specializing in a process?” Purchase-to-pay (P2P) is a great example. You can become an expert, and then create additional value from higher volume transactional processes via things like dynamic discounting. So, you can drive margin off the back of high value balance sheet items to help keep the business profitable. A more strategic move, therefore, is to become a revenue driver rather than focusing just on cost.Michael Radford: Yes, we took that approach. We migrated the processes to our offshore shared services center, depending on the risk profile of the process. For purchase-to-pay, we moved it lock, stock and barrel as it is a common process. On the order-to-cash side, however, the businesses pushed back. They wanted to retain some ownership of the cash collection process themselves. Now, as they begin to believe in shared services, we can start to extend our scope in this regard. But it takes time.Gary Critchley: This is interesting to me, Mike, because of the fact that you were offshoring, right? – which gave you a different risk profile. We kept our shared services captive and onshore; so although we were moving riskier transactions like merchandise payments, the process remained onshore and was therefore perceived as less “risky.”Walter Jess: This conversation reminds us of one key thing: Change management is continuously underestimated within this area. You absolutely need to implement a program to manage this change, make it transparent, and allow time to build confidence.Gary Critchley: An important step is to map your stakeholders. Some customers will not be as easy or are higher maintenance. Pick off these and invest time in the relationships. Once converted, they can be your best standard bearers …Peter Pan: We work with a lot of organizations setting up shared services in Malaysia. A lot of these arrived looking for cost arbitrage. Now that they are maturing, though, they are looking for more strategic partnerships. Location is becoming less cost-competitive, so the question is: How do you move up the value chain? HSBC, for example, moved its global resourcing from India to Malaysia – and now the Malaysian center runs analytics for the HSBC Group. This way, they can determine what process to move to shared services next, and which of their 13 centers should carry out the service.Walter Jess: The challenge is to move away from thinking of shared services as a cost activity, i.e., move to low cost and dump the work that does not matter. Shared services should be about bringing centers of excellence to the business. The more you focus on process optimization, the less important I think wage arbitrage becomes. Shared services is not a second-class activity, but delivers efficiency.René Zigterman: So, looking at lower-level transaction processing, are you assuming automation? What I mean is, are you basing your thinking on an automated “fixed cost” environment as opposed to labor costs – which are always rising?Walter Jess: The whole point is to get away from looking to reduce cost alone and to focus on improving processes. The shared services environment provides a great opportunity to drive process optimization, as all activity is brought together. It’s also a great opportunity to consider which parts you are bringing into the center. Take AP – a great place to start. But considering the whole P2P process, standardizing and automating AP will still limit the value of the P2P process unless you bring the front end – purchasing into the process as well. In other words, even if you run AP from a shared services center, the results will only be as good as the entire P2P process. Another thing to consider is risk. AP is vital – if you don’t pay your providers, taking Marks & Spencer’s example, the shops will be empty, production lines might stop. So you really need to work end-to-end to gain business value.Gary Critchley: We automated certain areas and are now driving further automation through SAP. That will drive more people into the center to manage automated processes, producing masses of additional data … which requires management … which we can then leverage … In other words: the commercial front-end benefits far exceed having more people employed at the back end.SSON: How would this focus on end-to-end drive the decision as to where to locate?Walter Jess: This approach certainly supports the “center of excellence” argument, rather than “low-cost locations.” I think the tendency would be to keep the activity closer to the business, perhaps therefore in a higher-cost environment. But the gain in process improvement should offset the higher location cost.Gary Critchley: You make a very interesting point! Everyone wants to move up the value chain, into decision support, to increase value-add. But another way of looking at this is to move horizontally, across end-to-end processes. In your example, getting procurement to reconciliation working in one center would be a real achievement.Walter Jess: Yes, but end-to-end does not mean moving all processes into shared services. I am aware of one organization that brought AP into its shared services first. Then, when looking at the P2P process, the first action it took was to cut down the supplier base massively. Fewer suppliers made the process more efficient. So they started with the supplier base, but AP was the only part of the process initially transitioned into shared services.René Zigterman: How important is the automation of these processes to you? Automation ensures a higher quality data and provides data streams to be discussed with the shared service center customers, the internal business units being served by the SSC processes, as well the external SSC customers (suppliers/vendors and customers)… how is this handled by your SSC?Gary Critchley: Automation is important, but it is really all about compliance and behaviors. We want to avoid process breakdowns and liberate the front-end buyer, say, but many issues – take blocked invoices – are contingent on a behavioral piece, like clicking on “goods receipt.” Shared services are on an equal footing. It is about “service,” not being “servile.”René Zigterman: So the handover point between the end customer (internal and external) and the shared services itself is crucial. You need to integrate this in one business process and one piece of technology.Walter Jess: Yes. We have found that something like 47% of our invoices represent 0.9% of our spend. So we have lots of people wasting their time on originating multiple purchases. If we can reduce the number of suppliers, offer online catalogues and electronic systems, and thereby free up the time currently taken … then we take away all non value-added activity.SSON: So how do we get the IT element right first time?Walter Jess: You’ve got to really understand the nature of the end-to-end process; understand where it starts and where it ends. It is not, as we have said, about bringing the whole process into shared services but about process optimization. In our case, it is about making sure that the front end of the process, the part not in shared services, is fit to support the shared services environment.Michael Radford: Sure, the front-end customer needs to understand the process and his part of it. And not just from a systematic perspective. He needs to learn all about the process – otherwise, after six months you’ll likely find yourself re-educating him while also trying to clear a backlog of work.Walter Jess: There is probably a direct correlation between a process not automated and the introduction of tribal knowledge, or institutional knowledge. So long as a process is not automated, everyone will have their own “take” on it and do it slightly differently. Capturing that institutional knowledge is critical. You need to bring the business unit operating staff into the shared services so that you really understand the process. Problems don’t usually show up in the first week, or even first month. But you can be sure that they will three months down the line at which stage most operating staff have moved on, and their institutional knowledge is lost. So there are two key elements: first, help the businesses recognize that their processes will not work in a shared services environment – so change some behaviors; and second, capture all that local or institutional knowledge and bring it with you in the early stage; you’ll get rid of it later, when it is redundant.Peter Pan: Would you say it is important to clean up your processes first, before moving to shared services?Walter Jess: I would recommend “lift and shift.” If you wait until you have fixed the process, you might never get there. You’ll not get to the quality you think is transferable. So, go ahead and move it, capture the local knowledge, and then fix it later.Gary Critchley: I’d agree with that: Shift and fix. Get the patient to the hospital – that is where the expertise is. So it is best to get the process into the culture where you can make it work.René Zigterman: One thing I’d add here, in terms of preparing the end user, is that it is important to get into the “comfort zone” of the end user. So, if he is comfortable with email, but not with a new application, like a portal, then deliver the application from within email. Or, design internet-based invoices to look like paper-based ones. You need to ensure people can work with the system and understand the data to be processed intuitively.Michael Radford: I am all for automation, especially in terms of control etc. But in order for this to work, you need a whole set of rules. Otherwise, you’re just automating a way to get lots of things wrong. Also, the rules driving automation are not static. If the process to support automation is not robust, then you’ll only create an automated mess.Gary Critchley: Well, there are some risks with individuals being involved in a transaction – and different risks connected to automation. With an individual, the concern is misappropriation or error; with automation, the concern is that you may not be able to react quickly to a given change; you might be too exposed to one supplier, for example. There is some comfort to having the right people in-house, providing real value. Lights-out technology is not my aspiration.Walter Jess: I think we all run the risk of relying more on technology than it can deliver.Peter Pan: We tried migrating to one platform, but given our complex processes it required more work by the end users. And we ended up abandoning it. So you need to be sure what processes you can automate to maximize efficiency; sometimes you really just need the people.

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More Articles: Want to receive more articles like this? Have a tip, learning or case study you want to share? Join our growing community of shared services and outsourcing professionals.

Sign up to our eNewsletters and ensure you receive the latest news, articles and features from our growing global community… Find out more at www.ssonetwork.com or email enquire@ssonetwork.com

How to Create Effective Offshore Strategy?

admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:44:55 +0000

For successful implementation, like any other business process, offshore outsourcing needs a well-developed strategy. In this article we tried to write the key aspects to be taken into account while developing an offshore outsourcing aspect.

To create an effective offshore outsourcing strategy management should perform the following 7 steps:

1. Strategy analysis: Objectives and Scope.

During this step you should decide whether offshore outsourcing is the right way for your company, what problems you expect to eliminate by going offshore and define the scope of the project (pick the process to offshore, define the process scope and expected ROI).

2. Create the offshore delivery model

At this stage you will have to think over following aspects:

1) The relationship decision: Build vs Buy vs Lease:

You will have to decide what relationship will connect you and your vendor: whether to build your own operation offshore, or buy into an existing one or create a sourcing relationship. Here is the list of existing offshore outsourcing business models (more detailed description of these models you will find in our upcoming articles):

- Global Delivery Model

- Hybrid Outsourcing

- ODC

- Captive Shared Services

- Build-Operate-Transfer

- Offshore Multisourcing

2) The location decision:

Offshore operation location is a critical aspect. Every location has a certain risk. When choosing a location for your offshore business, evaluate the country basing on following criteria:

- Distance

- Time zone difference

- Cultural differences

- Language barriers

- Quality of suppliers

- Legal framework

- Geopolitical stability

3) Governance decision

Your way or the vendor’s way? You’ll have to decide who will take the major part of management of the project: you or the service provider.

4) The vendor decision:

Create request for proposal and evaluate proposals from potential service providers.

3. Negotiate the offshore contract.

All services and costs must be clearly defined and the contract must be carefully worked out.

1) General Contract and Financial Framework

- Flexibility

- Price

- Price stability (in long-term agreements discuss annual percentage change before signing the contract)

- Hidden costs (discuss hidden costs before contract signing)

Reserve 5%-15% of your total budget for the internal management team (extra expenses such as time and travel)

- Quality

- Deadlines

- Payment terms

- Conflict resolution

- Term expiration and renewal

- Statement of work

- Performance measurement

- Service Level Agreement

2) Legal framework

Legal aspects of the contract are not less important than the financial. Pay attention of the following items:

- trade secrets and intellectual property protection

- Ensuring the security and privacy of your data

- Be aware of local regulations, such as labour and taxation laws

- Responding to a vendor that fails to perform its duties

- Termination of relationship

4. Design Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Elements of SLA:

- Start and end dates of the service

- Schedule for reviewing performance

- Documentation to be used in measuring the service level

- Types of service levels expected by customers and end users

- Measurements of the service levels?

- Measuring period

- Minimum quality of work

- Provisions and penalties for over- and underperformance

5. Manage the transition

This stage is probably the most difficult. There are many issues to consider. Here are the key aspects of this step.

1) Knowledge transfer between organizations. This is the task of bringing vendor’s employees up to speed on your process and procedures. Before you start transferring knowledge, you have to decide what knowledge should remain in-house and what should be transferred.

2) Communication management. There are two types of communication management: strategic and operational.

- Strategic communications apprise all employees within your company of your offshore outsourcing intentions and the reasons behind them.

- Operational communications are the day-to-day communications between you and the vendor. You will need to develop a plan that addresses such issues as the time, language and cultural differences, whether videoconferencing possibility exists, and when to schedule status meetings.

3) Employee management: redeploy, transfer or let go.

4) Quality management during transition

The contract should fulfill objectives for which the business was undertaken.

To guarantee quality many companies are emphasizing certifications (e.g. ISO 9001).

6. Manage the relationship for maximum value

Governance is an aspect of offshoring that can make or break the project.

Three levels of governance:

- Strategic level – aligning of the processes, projects and goals with business requirements.

- Program office – best practices benchmarking, vendor evaluation, project priorities and milestones.

- The operational level – day-to-day management of offshore projects.

7. Measure performance improvement.

- Continuous performance reports

Auditing. Here are some questions to answer:

1) How is performance monitored and reported?

2) Who is responsible for reporting?

3) What are the time frame, content and format of standard reporting?

4) Are SLA deadlines being met and adhered to?

5) Is reporting timely and accurate?

6) Is the quality of work consistent with the defined SLAs?

7) Invoice checks – is the number of people on the project accurate?

Does the vendor have valid software licenses in place?

- Continuous learning and recalibration

Many companies prefer to wait until outsourcing processes are settled down before entering of phase of re-engineering using management methods such as Six Sigma. During this phase you should analyze and give answers to following questions.

1) How much did my organization gain from offshoring?

2) Which offshore operations, data or activities are not performing according to plan?

3) How is our current business model – captive centre, sole sourcing, or multi sourcing – performing?

Keep in mind that successful offshore outsourcing relationships must be win-win situations for both clients and vendors.

The source for the article: Offshore Outsourcing. Business Models, ROI and Best Practices by Marcia Robinson, Ravi Kalakota.

http://www.ainstainer.com/

Forex Options Trading – What is Forex? (part 2 of 2)

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:17:32 +0000

Companies, exporters and importers are also very much involved in the forex market as buying and selling of products takes place all over the world thus buying and selling of currencies to facilitate and complete all these transactions are needed. An exporter in the USA might have sold his products to a company in Europe in US dollars so the importer has to buy US dollars while selling his Euro dollars to pay for the products from the USA. Or a company may need certain parts for their equipment which is not available locally so they have to order from overseas.

This process requires the company to purchase the supplier’s currency so as to pay for the parts.

Lastly, we have the retail traders who have chosen the forex market above others like equities, commodities, etc. to do our trading or investments so as to make some profit. This is a growing segment due to the prevalence and accessibility of the internet which allows brokers to provide trading platforms and continuous price data feed to the small players globally. The low and affordable cost of the internet also helped many to participate in this growing phenomena.

Brokers are going online with their own platforms that allow easy and simple to use trading and also to provide education to these small retail traders. The mushrooming numbers of brokers in recent years also act to lower cost (wonder of competition) for the small retails traders.

Most brokers do not charge commission and the spreads for major trading currencies have also narrowed tremendously. There is no better time than now to start your foray into forex trading.

Understand The Always-Win, No-Lose Strategy

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:02:16 +0000

Let’s use the weather, once again, as the basis for some examples to help bring the concept example of ideal best practice into better focus. For industries such as natural gas utilities, propane and oil dealers, and heating oil refiners (that produce the raw materials or provide the services used to heat homes, offices, and other buildings), good weather is “bad weather.”
When nasty outside conditions make for uncomfortable internal conditions for everyone, these companies make the most money, but then only if the conditions last for a long time. And even under those circumstances, high profits are only possible if they have enough low-cost energy resources to supply most of the demand.
If weather conditions deteriorate enough, then they can interfere with the supply and deliveries needed to meet the increased demand. Weather that is too bad creates lost potential for the suppliers, before considering the terrible human consequences when heat fails during frigid weather.
How can these companies go about determining their ideal best practices for adapting to the weather?
Although we are talking about people in the business of supplying heat, the same thinking approach will be useful for your enterprise when considering your irresistible forces.
The heating companies can start by looking outside their industry to see if anyone else has to similarly consider weather conditions to find an optimal strategic approach, and check out what can be learned from those who get great results.
How about considering football fans who want to prepare for cold January games in outdoor stadiums, like the conditions often found at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin?
A January game means that their team is in the playoffs, so weather conditions aren’t going to keep fans from attending this game. Despite conditions that might discourage an Eskimo from going hunting, the local football fans go to the game and have a wonderful time (especially when their team wins). While the weather may be a big factor for the visiting players, it’s not much of an issue for the fans.
Why? The reason relates to the extreme effectiveness that the best-prepared groups of fans use to locate, anticipate, and adapt to the weather conditions at the game. Without going into all of the possible details, here are some examples.
Experienced fans know that weather forecasts can be wrong and that conditions can change after they’ve left home for the stadium. The ideal best practice cold-weather football fan comes prepared for all weather conditions, even conditions that are more extreme than have ever occurred before.
Such preparation means being ready for dry conditions, wet seats, sleet, snow, rain, or freezing rain in addition to wind, glare, fog and whiteout conditions. Electric socks, chemical foot and hand warmers, ski masks, many layers of clothes, and special types of weather-resistant clothing form a base line of protection.
Fans cover the seats with specially insulated materials. Wraparound sunglasses help protect the eyes against the glare, wind, and dirt exposures of such a game.
Those not inclined to sit out in the weather will have arranged to view from luxury boxes in fully heated five-star comfort. But even they need clothing and gear to travel safely and comfortably to and from their means of transportation should the stadium power fail. You get the idea.
One way the heating-related industries mitigate the effects of weather vagaries on their profits occurs states where the utility commissions have allowed pricing that ensures a regulated rate of return on investment, regardless of how much natural gas the customers use.
The utility’s customers benefit in that they, too, don’t have to worry about as much variability in the amount they spend for natural gas heating. So both sides find a benefit that allows them to locate, anticipate, and adapt to irresistible force weather changes in effective ways.
This structure is certainly a breakthrough solution arrived at through the pursuit of the ideal best practice. Fixed-price, multi-year contracts tied to futures prices for oil or gas can provide the same sort of insulation.

A Unique Strategy for Limited Partnerships

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:58:17 +0000

The general partner is responsible for running the business efforts. When people deal with the limited partnership, they are essentially dealing with the general partner and its employees. The limited partners, however, are in a unique position.

A limited partnership provides protection from liability to the limited partners much as you would find with a corporation or LLC. If the partnership is sued for something, the limited partners cannot be named as defendants in the lawsuit. Ah, but there is a tradeoff for this protection. To maintain the liability protection, the limited partners cannot participate in the day to day running of the business. In practical terms, this means the limited partners are essentially the deep pockets for the business. They contribute the funds to get the business up and running, but don’t do much else. You will often see this form of business used for restaurants and other high risk business ventures.

What if you are considering investing in a limited partnership, but also want to participate in the running of the business? Depending on the law of your state, there may be a way to do this. It works like this. The general partner in the limited partnership is converted into a corporation. The limited partners then invest in the corporation in exchange for shares of corporate stock. One or more limited partners may then be hired by the corporation as employees to help run the business.

This is a unique strategy that is viable in some states, but not in others. Make sure to get competent legal advice from a business attorney in your area before implementing it. If it is viable in your state, it can be a great way to approach high risk business ventures.

Be A King – A Strategy In Medieval Setting!

admin — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:34:39 +0000

Have you even dreamt of being a king? But have you ever thought what that really means? Be A King, the new strategy game introduced by game developers, will give you a great chance to try this by yourself. Thanks to the addictive Build-a-lot-like game play, exciting new twists and the eye-catching graphics the game is one of the best titles released lately.

Sometime around 950 AD somewhere in Western Europe lived a Prince. He knew that sometime he would become a King. But he also knew that real power was based not only on brute force, but also on the vassals’ well being. He knew all about the hard life of his citizens and he could no longer stand this. So he decided to develop his kingdom, to build beautiful cities and to provide all its inhabitants with food and protection. And here you come into the story – because only your strategical skills can help him in his noble mission!

The game play, as I already mentioned, strongly reminds that of Build-a-lot series. Each level represents a settlement for you to develop to the certain degree which is set up by your goals. Those are connected with constructing a certain number of certain buildings, reaching certain population or income, etc.

You’ll have four types of buildings – dwelling, food-producing, military & guard and service. In order for your settlement to thrive you’ll have to balance those in order to have enough food and soldiers to protect all your citizens. Of course, each building will require certain resources, including materials like wood or stone, workers and money. All that can be obtained for your money. If you overlook something, one of your advisors will let you know what you lack. You can also control your stats in the Info tab at the bottom of the screen. Where you’ll find information on your population, town capacity, food, protection and income.

Your income comes mainly from your citizens, and the better your town is, the more gold you’ll get. But there are other ways to earn more money and resources. From time to time you’ll see scrolls in the bottom of your screen. Those are game events. You can either accept or ignore them. Some will require just some resources and a bit of luck – and you’ll get a bonus. For others you’ll need a hero – those can also be hired. Heroes will also help you fight monsters together with your military buildings.

Face-to-face Works, Make it your Foundation Strategy

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:23:26 +0000

With the rapid pace of change and the frantic growth of new technologies, it is time, once again, to realize the importance of slowing down to think about what works. To think strategically.

It is time for organizations to get back to basics. It is time for developing simple strategies and sticking to them. It is time to remember what is known about human behavior and how to change it. It is time to stop doing what everyone else does and do what gets results.

Nearly 18 years ago I opened my own business to specialize in face-to-face communication. I decided to stop doing many of the commonly used print forms of communication. Why? My work in public relations with three global corporations and a state government agency had convinced me that it was my relationship building techniques and face-to-face communication activities that were getting the desired results – and quickly.

There is ample evidence of the frequent failure of print communication:

- Research shows that only seven percent of people get information about what is going on at school by reading school newsletters.

- A TARP study (Technical Assistance Research Programs) found fewer than 15 percent of employees read employee magazines and newsletters.

- An internal communication study by a large West Coast employer discovered only four percent of top managers in the company read a three-page corporate memo.

Print communication fails because it is not communication. It is sending messages. It is one way. It does have a role in public relations and that role is to support what works: face-to-face communication and word-of-mouth using opinion leaders.

There is abundant evidence demonstrating the significance of word-of- mouth and the success of face-to-face communication:

- Dialogue is typically credited as a key element in successful corporate turnarounds. Navistar CEO John Horne said openness and face-to-face meetings played key roles in the company’s success.

- My own research and that of many others show that employees want information one-on-one from their supervisors or in small group meetings. Large organizations often find two-way meetings broadcast by satellite get results, too.

- Research says 70 percent of people get information about their schools word-of mouth. (Unfortunately, the number one information source is students.)

- At Hewlett-Packard, managers are expected to walk around and find out what is going on by talking to people. The open door policy is not just symbolic, there are no doors on offices. At monthly all-hands meetings, general managers tell their staffs details about business results.

- When Dow Corning announced it was considering Chapter 11 protection during the breast implant crisis, it used face-to-face meetings with employees to build trust. Key executives and middle managers were trained to provide information in small groups and answer questions. One result: turnover was below industry averages.

Here’s another example. I recently helped a natural gas pipeline company in Michigan build trust with a fearful public and quickly resolve a problem of vocal opposition to startup of a new pipeline. Natural gas produced from wells in the area includes hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous gas. Some residents feared a pipeline leak would endanger them.

The public was unaware that pipeline safety design features far exceeded legal requirements for protection. Nor were they aware of extensive emergency response plans in case of a leak. Neither the company nor the public were listening to each other.

A face-to-face program was begun to build trust with leaders of the most vocal opposition group. Within two weeks of talking and listening to each other, the group reversed its opposition tactics and talked about the company with respect, demonstrating the power of personalized PR.

Randy Nickerson, general manager of the parent company MarkWest Michigan, said, “This program showed me we must do more than build pipelines. We also have to build relationships.”Use behavioral science research for guidance

Few people are aware of the thousands of diffusion studies that describe how people behave in adopting new ideas. The majority of people change not because of something they read, but because someone they know and trust says it’s a good idea. Mass media is impersonal and creates only awareness and knowledge. It takes personal interaction and dialogue to cause people to go beyond awareness and actually change their ideas and behaviors.

Regrettably, while these studies have been around for more than six decades, they are known to relatively few public relations professionals. Those who are knowledgeable use what has been learned from behavioral research studies to develop public relations strategies that get results.

What we know from diffusion studies around the world is compelling. Whether we seek to get farmers to use hybrid agricultural products, or school superintendents to use educational innovations, or doctors to use new wonder drugs or third world villagers to use birth control devices, publicity doesn’t get the job done. What works is word-of-mouth.

More specifically, it is word-of-mouth that begins with influentials in the group. A little more than 10 percent of any group are opinion leaders who influence two-thirds of the rest of the group to believe and act as they do. When you identify and build relationships with opinion leaders, your messages get delivered by leaders who are trusted and believed.

A school superintendent in Oklahoma talks to two opinion leaders on his staff when he wants information and opinions from employees. He says what he is thinking to a specific custodian and a teacher. The word gets out quickly. Soon his phone begins to ring with staff people telling him what they think about what they heard.

Using opinion leaders can cause remarkable change in an organization. One company wanted to reduce its healthcare costs, the fastest increasing cost of doing business. Employees paid nothing for their healthcare benefits. The company was turned down flat when it asked its union to agree to have employees pay a small percent of the cost.

A strategy using opinion leaders was created. About 25 union and non-union employees were invited to participate in meetings to talk about corporate issues. A year later, the union volunteered to have its members pay a portion of healthcare costs. That’s an example of the power opinion leaders have to create change within a group.

Behavioral scientists and consultants also have a rich history, not widely known, of successful interventions to change organizations relatively quickly. The process involves face-to-face communication working with large groups. In today’s high-speed world, leaders in organizations need results now, not six months from now.

Meaningful change comes from getting people throughout the organization involved in identifying problems, then creating action plans that will get the desired results. Involvement creates commitment. Organizations who have used this approach include Ford, Boeing, Corning, Chrysler, Marriott, EDS, plus schools and government. But that’s a story for another day.Tactics for the face-to-face strategy

There are a number of tactics you can begin to use to develop more successful public relations results using face-to-face communication.

1. Use more two-way communication tactics

When creating tactics for public relations programs, ask about each one: “Is this two-way?” If it is not, you may want to rethink the program idea. Or plan so that one-way information tactics support and reinforce a two-way tactic. For instance, get the word out to employees or specific external audiences face-to-face in small groups or one-on-one, then support the messages and answers to questions with print media.

2. Teach leaders to listen

Leaders need help to learn the most important interpersonal communication skill – active listening. Even passive listening would be a good start. Listening is a very effective problem-solving skill. When I talk to people in organizations, they typically have excellent ideas to solve problems. When I recommend they tell their bosses their ideas, they often reply: “They never listen.” Or: “Nothing ever happens when I make suggestions.” No wonder people keep their good ideas to themselves!

3. No more speeches

Encourage executives to stop reading boring speeches and simply talk to people with brief key messages and stories that bring their ideas to life in a meaningful and memorable way.

4. Help supervisors to take a more active role in spreading the word

Supervisors cannot be the message bearers when they don’t know the message. Make sure they are kept up-to-date on the important stuff employees want to know, as well as the information they should know. You also need to work with supervisors to help them learn specifically how to deliver key corporate messages effectively when talking with their employees.

5. Identify opinion leaders and build relationships with them

Who are the top three audiences your organization needs to be supportive? Identify them and then find out who the most influential members are. Those are the people you need to get to know, feed information to and listen to.

6. Create a speakers bureau

I have taught thousands of people how to stand up and talk to others in an interesting and credible way. While at the Michigan Department of Transportation, we had employee volunteers delivering about 500 speeches annually to groups throughout the state. It is a fine way to reach many influential opinion leaders at once.

In our high-speed world, it is essential that we become more effective. For most of us, that means doing something different. Once you start using face-to-face techniques and seeing the results you get, it will encourage more use of two-way communication tactics. Face-to-face works. Make it your foundation strategy. Use dialogue and relationship building first, print communication later.

Forex Options Trading – How to Read Forex Price Quotes (part 1 of 3)

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:29:02 +0000

When you start trading in the Foreign Exchange market, you will notice that the prices for either buying or selling a currency pair always come in a pair of price quotes. One is called the ‘Bid’ (or Sell) and the other is called the ‘Ask’ (or Buy). You will notice the same in any other investment/trading products (e.g. equities, commodities, etc.). The price that you buy a currency pair is reflected in the Ask price while the price that you sell a currency pair is reflected in the Bid price.

The Ask price or selling price of a currency pair is always the higher one in a price quote. While the Bid price or buying price is the price at which you buy the currency pair. What this means is that you will always buy at the higher price and sell at the lower price of a price quote.

You will notice that between the Bid and Ask price there is a difference and this difference is what we call the “Spread”. The spread is the cost of the trade or transaction. Usually this is the only cost for the trader as most forex brokers nowadays (due to competition on the internet) do not levy any additional commissions unlike when you are trading on other investment markets like equities, etc.

At the beginning it may seem confusing for a beginner as when we purchase something only 1 price is given to us. However, beginners just have to remember that you will always have to buy at the higher price of the 2 prices while selling a currency pair you would have to remember that it is the lower of the 2 prices. It doesn’t make sense for the broker to sell you at a lower price and then buy back from you at a higher price.

To be continue… on Forex Options Trading – How To Read FOREX Price Quotes (Part 2 of 3)