Business Development Strategies

You are busy at both work and at home. Some days it may seem impossible to find time for YOU. You may wonder how other busy Mom Entrepreneurs make time for themselves, but you don’t have time to stop and ask. Here are four quick tips:

If it’s too late and you are already stressed…

1. Take a break.
Have you ever been overwhelmed and feel you can’t stop for fear you will fall further behind? When you’re in a high-stress situation, your thinking is often cluttered making you less productive. Michele Dortch, The Integrated Mother, suggests that you take a break when you become stressed. Whether you choose a 15-minute nature walk or a full day doing activities you love, stopping can actually provide amazing clarity and help you complete your tasks on time. This may seem counterproductive, but it really works!

To prevent going on overload, try the following tips on a regular basis…

2. Take time out to socialize each week.
Alice Seba of Mom Masterminds advises taking time out is invaluable to the Mom Entrepreneur. Alice makes a point to have a few opportunities to socialize each week—with girlfriends, her partner, or to just have some time alone. It revives her and makes her more focused when she comes back to being a mom or a businessperson. Alice says, “All work and no play not only makes you a dull mama, but it makes you a stressed out and ineffective one, too!”

3. Take a few “Mommy Minutes” as often as possible.
Ponn Sabra, author of Empowering Women to Power Network, puts herself on “time out” and takes “Mommy Minutes” as often as possible. Ponn sits in a self-made sauna in the bathroom with the hot shower running or enjoys a favorite goodie (she sometimes hides special ice cream sandwiches in back corner of her freezer where no one, even her husband, can find them.)

Ponn also insists that “adults need naps, too!” Whether for ten minutes or forty-five, it is important just to take a nap. The revitalization you receive from a catnap is very powerful. If you are unable to nap in the middle of a chaotic day, it is important to take yourself out of the situation to regain focus. You will have more energy if you meditate and clear your head.

4. Go “off duty” regularly.
In Linda Goodman Pillsbury’s Survival Tips for Working Moms, she recommends choosing a regular time when you are “off duty.” For example, you might say that after 8:30 every night, the kids cannot bother you with “Where are my blue jeans?” “I need cookies for a school party tomorrow,” etc. (Of course, you are there for emergencies.) Children will soon learn to ask for what they need before you go off duty or wait until the morning. This works on very young children up to teenagers–but you should make exceptions for talking to the kids when they come in from a date!

The Information Management Journal/September / October 2007- Today’s explosion of electronic data, coupled with the December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) concerning electronically stored information (ESI), requires information and legal professionals to expand their knowledge about handling electronic discovery. The recent changes to the FRCP include:

* Definitions and safe harbor provisions for the routine alterations of electronic files during routine operations such as back ups [Amended Rule 37(f)]

* Information about how to deal with data that is not reasonably accessible [Amended Rule 26(b)(2)(B)]

* How to deal with inadvertently produced privileged material [Amended Rule 26(b)(5)]

* ESI preservation responsibilities and the pre-trial conference. [Amended Rule 26(f)]

* Electronic file production requests [Amended Rules 33(d), 34, 26(f)(3), 34(b)(iii)]

There are many opinions about how ESI should be planned for, managed, organized, stored, and retrieved. Some of the available options are extremely costly in terms of their required financial and time commitments. Constantly changing technologies only add to the confusion. One area of confusion is the distinction between computer forensics and electronic discovery; there is a significant difference. These are described in the sidebar Computer Forensics vs. Electronic Discovery.

Making the Right Choices

Successfully responding to e-discovery within the constraints of the amended FRCP requires organizations to make many critical decisions that will affect the collection and processing of ESI.

Collection Decisions

The following questions need immediate answers:

1. Are e-mail files part of this project? If so, do any key people maintain an Internet e-mail account, in addition to their corporate accounts?

The sheer volume of transactions for large e-mail providers prohibits the storage of massive amounts of mail files. Many Internet e-mail account providers, such as AOL, BellSouth, and Comcast, retain their e-mail logs no longer than 30 days. If a case could potentially require the exploration of e-mail from Internet accounts, the discovery team must expeditiously request the records, or they may be gone forever. This usually requires a subpoena. In rare cases, fragments of Internet e-mail may be recovered forensically from an individual’s hard drive.

2. Is there any chance illegal activity may be discovered?

Many cases involving electronic data uncover wrongdoings. These situations may involve a member of the technology department or a highly technical employee. In these cases, an organization’s first inclination may be to terminate the employee(s) involved and determine the extent of any damage prior to notifying law enforcement agencies.

This may be exactly the WRONG thing to do. If the wrongdoing is by a technical person, there is a chance that he or she is the only person who knows how to access the files, find the problem, or fix it. This is often the person who knows the passwords for mission-critical applications. The technical employee usually has the ability to work and access company files remotely. Unless such access is eliminated prior to the employee’s termination, it is possible that a terminated or disgruntled employee may access the network and do great damage.

A better solution is to restrict the employee’s complete access privileges, both local and remote. The employee is then notified of management’s knowledge of the situation and given an opportunity to cooperate to minimize the damage. If the situation involves criminal matters, especially if financial or medical records have been compromised, a good decision is to involve law enforcement as early as possible. Electronic criminals frequently disappear and destroy all evidence of their activities.

3. Is it possible that deleted or hidden files may play an important role in this case?

There are three ways to collect electronic files for discovery:

* Forensically ? as described in the sidebar

* Semi-forensically ? using non-validated methods and applications to capture files

* Non-forensically using simple cut and- paste copy methods to move copies of files from one location to another. These methods do not include hashing files to ensure the files have not changed, which involves using a hash algorithm to create a mathematical fingerprint of one or more files that will change if any change is made to the collection.

For some matters, the content of electronic documents is all that matters. The context of the files ? who created them, how they are kept, how they have been accessed, if they have been changed or deleted ? is not as important.

For other cases, contextual information, including finding deleted files, is vital and requires a forensic collection. This includes

* Ensuring legal search authority of the data

* Documenting chain of custody

* Creating a forensic copy using validated forensic tools that create hash records

* Using repeatable processes to examine and analyze the data

* Creating a scientific report of any findings

Determining the value of electronic forensic file collection must be done prior to any data being captured. Once semi- or non-forensic methods have been used, it is impossible to return records to their original states.

4. Are backup tapes part of an active collection?

Some cases involve historical issues, making the method of handling computer backups important to address immediately.

Most businesses use a schedule of rotating their backup media. For example, in a four-week rotation, daily backups are done for a week and then those tapes (or drives) are taken offsite for storage. A new set of media is used for the second, third, and fourth weeks, and then those three tapes are stored offsite. On the fifth week, the tapes/drives from the first week are reused. This process is done for financial reasons, as it is extremely cost-efficient.

Backup tapes may become part of the active information required to be kept under a litigation hold. This requires cessation of any rotation schedule, and the 2006 amendments to the FRCP make it critical for the legal team to convey that information to the technology employees responsible for business continuity processes.

No computer consulting business can afford to be sitting at a client site, running up a big bill, staring at a blue-screen-of-death, facing an angry mob of irate users and sitting on hold for two hours with tech support.

This scenario is your absolute worst nightmare in running a computer consulting business and can be the kiss of death to your client relationship.

The Need for Good Vendor Technical Support

Good vendor technical support will preserve your credibility as a computer consulting business during times of crisis. No matter how experienced you are at PC hardware troubleshooting, calling on a specialist is a necessity.

Understand What Is Offered

Rather than get an unpleasant surprise when you need help the most, get the lowdown on vendor technical support before you make the purchase recommendation. Although many top PC vendors have similar capabilities and services, ask about included technical support services, and preferably get a description of them in writing.

Ask Questions

As a computer consulting business, you will want to ask questions to determine the reliability of PC vendor technical support. Find out if they are available by phone, if the technical support phone number is toll-free and if the support is free or not.

Also, find out if there are different technical support phone numbers for different products.

In operating your computer consulting business, you will also want to know if vendor technical support has 24/7 support in case you have a need for emergency support. Ask if online tech support resources are available as well.

Deal With a Specialist

As a computer consulting business, you want direct, rapid access to a specialist who deals with nothing but that particular product all day. So test the technical support group’s responsiveness at a time when your heart isn’t racing in the heat of a client server-down emergency.

Also, PC Magazine (http://www.pcmag.com/) regularly evaluates PC vendors’ technical support quality, so this is a good resource to look into.

Leadership can be a very challenging task. As leaders we don’t always get to choose who is on our team. In fact very often a leader inherits a team, of which most of the members have been there far longer than the leader, and may even know more about the work than the leader. Whatever the situation, one of the responsibilities of a leader is to motivate the team to all work together towards the common goal. This can be a daunting challenge. So often the team is comprised of very diverse members, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and work styles. The team dynamics are also often complicated by internal disagreements and personal conflicts. The leader, not only has work with this group of people, but also needs to achieve the results expected by their superiors.

Leaders can greatly benefit by being able to identify the types of personality characteristics of team members. By understanding the basic personality types, the leader can use individual strengths of members for the good of the team, as well as assign tasks that individual team member’s naturally excel in. A leader can also learn to communicate in a way that is motivating, by taking into account the needs, values and working preferences of different team members.

A good leader will see the greatest results by working and utilizing the strengths and working style characteristics of the personalities on the team. By correctly positioning the individual member strengths and compensating for weaknesses, the leader can bring the team into a productive balance and harmony.

A brief overview of the different values and working styles of the four main personality types demonstrates the importance of this knowledge being part of the successful leadership toolbox. The four types of personality will be described using the colours Gold, Blue, Green and Orange.

The strong Gold employee takes work and responsibility very seriously. Gold personalities want to contribute, be part of the team, and to be successful and productive. They respond well to recognition, rewards and incentives. However Gold team members need well defined responsibilities and structure, firm expectations and timelines as well as being reassured from authority that they are on the right track.

The strong Blue personality needs an open, social atmosphere to be able work well. Relationships are very important for them, and they need the freedom to be able to nurture relationships with coworkers, customers and employers.. Conflict and intense competition are painful for a strong Blue, but they will thrive in a positive, creative, service orientated atmosphere.

A strong Green personality is more noted for expertise rather than people skills. They are excellent working with facts, data, research and analytical projects. Greens shine in their ability for designing, understanding complex systems and strategy. Facts are of utmost importance for the Green, but they have a weakness for routine follow through and are somewhat insensitive in social interactions.

Orange team members are noticeable by their energy, skill and creativity. A key factor for an Orange is the freedom to be able to use their skills and abilities. If there is too much structure, or their boss is very authoritarian, the orange personality feels blocked and does not function well. Orange personalities like people and work well in a spirit of teamwork, competition and camaraderie. They are action orientated, though and become impatient with prolonged talking and detailed administrative tasks.

A leader, by knowing the colours of his team, can use this knowledge to blend the team members into a unified, well coordinated picture poised for success. By facilitating each team member to function in their areas of natural strength and motivating them by communicating in a way that inspires harmony and team work, the leader is well on the way to achieving extraordinary results.