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Belkin Keyboard Folio for iPad 2

2011-09-28T20:39:00.003-04:00

This is a great product. Here are my pros and cons:

Pros

Great keyboard. It's is the same width as the iPad compared to theTargus which is slightly wider. The keys are spaced well and have a great 'clicky' feel.
Keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard is designed for iPad and has keys for select, copy, cut, paste, home screen, search, iPad controls, speaker control, and arrow keys.
Easy setup. Pairing with the iPad was simple. Turn on bluetooth, turn on keyboard, and enter code.
Dual use. The case is designed well to be used on lap without keyboard and on desk with or without keyboard.
Adjustable angles. The iPad simply sits on the folio and the material 'sticks' so you can adjust to various angles easily.
Good case. It appears to be a very durable, but attractive case.
Pair to two. You can pair the keyboard to two devices. It has a function key to toggle easily between the two.
Sturdy. The case design provides a very sturdy stand positions. There is no risk of pushing the iPad over when tapping the screen.
Screen protection. The keyboard does not rest directly against the screen as some other designs do. This protects the screen.

Cons

Bulky. It definitely adds weight and size to the iPad. When it was in the box it felt about twice as heavy as the iPad itself. It is about twice as thick too.
Closure. It doesn't stay closed. Not a big deal, but not the best design. It also doesn't use the magnetic on/off like the smart cover.

Other considerations

Price. If you consider the price of an iPad case and the cost of a separate keyboard, the price is competitive.
Awkard to carry. Some reviews complain that the keyboard is shorter that the iPad and the case conforms to this. While this is true, just set your iPad on top of your other books. I don't find it awkward.
Velcro. I like the velcro that holds the keyboard to the case when not in use. It is small velcro and not terribly noisy to open.

Image credit: Belkin.com

I first saw the product at Target and purchased it from Amazon.com.

My Favorite Tech Tools

2011-07-23T14:38:00.000-04:00

Recently, I started accumulating some of my favorite tech tools in Evernote. So let's start with that:

Evernote (free) - online note taking software. I use the basic features, which is simply taking notes. Very quick to jot notes when working on PC. Evernote has the best iPhone and iPad apps, too. All three sync seamless to the cloud. It keeps me organized with folders, tags, and search. Microsoft OneNote comes in at a close 2nd.

Dia (free) - Dia.exe is an awesome Visio clone. Visio is far superior, but Dia gets the job done well for free. I use Dia for flowcharting and brainstorming.

SQL Server Management Studio Express (free) - Thanks to Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes book, I write most of my own SQL scripts. It is the most efficient way to extract data for data analysis. Then, after connecting Excel to the database, I copy the script in data import and use Excel as a reporting tool. Every CFO should talk to their IT department to get access to the DB. Don't take no for an answer.

SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) (free) - We use Deltek Vision for our and it uses SQL Server Reporting Services. I can create custom reports and deploy them inside the Vision application.

Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express (free) - Build your own dynamic web-based reports quickly and easily. With drag and drop features, the non-IT person can build VB, ASP reports and deploy them to the web or intranet.

Notepad++ (free) - Sometimes you just need to see the code to fix it. This is the best code viewer, especially for part-time hack like me. Notepad++ color codes the most common languages including html, xml, vb, sql, etc. For an iPad source code editor, try Textastic.

FileZilla (free) - The free FTP solution. Now that 'the cloud' has become mainstream, I don't use this often, but it's the best when I need it.

Dropbox (free) - What can I say about Dropbox. It is the best thing since sliced bread. Use you PC and windows file folders as you do everyday, but have them backed up to the cloud. Then access them from anywhere with any computer.

Join.me (free) - Bare bones, simple web meetings. Join.me just works. The best thing is that there is NO download for the end user. You download a very, very small app to share you screen. Since it uses flash, there is no download needed to see your screen.

Screencast-o-matic (free) - I can't tell you how many video turtorials I have created. Instead of writing out a page of step-by-step procedures, just throw together a 2-minute video. Web-based, so there is no download.

Vimeo (free) - I use YouTube to share personal videos with the world, but I use Vimeo for work. Vimeo has the easiest security feature. Simply password-protect the video and restrict it from search.

MovieMaker (free) - I've never used a Mac, so I can't compare, but MovieMaker gets the job done. My most-used feature it the split edit tool. I use the Windows built-in sound recorded to add voice. It's also easy to add background music, which I highly recommend.

Keepass (free) - I take password security very seriously. My pet peeve is that 90% of passwords are written in text within 3 feet of the computer. I just can't take that risk with the financial and personal data that I keep. So, I use Keepass. Not only does it encrypt my passwords, it form-fills my web sites with two clicks.

FoxIt Reader (free) - I love the annotation features of FoxIt Reader. I make all my tick marks and comments using this pdf tool. I recommend a dual-monitor system, though.

Paint.net (free) - This is a step about MS Paint. The two features I use that MS Paint does not have is the magic wand and layers. The magic wand highlights all empty areas. Then hit delete to get rid of the white space and create transparency. You have to save it as .png, though. This is great for embedding signature in letters and pdf's.

RunningAHEAD (free) - This is the absolute best running log on the web. I love the dashboard, custom reports, and Garmin upload.

FileMakerGo ($20 iPhone $40 iPad) - This is the most inexpensive way to develop your company's first iPhone app. Typically, companies just need to publish reports and information to it's employees. Build you database in FileMaker or sync it with SQL and build you layouts. You need the desktop app FileMaker ($299).

FreeMind (free) - Organize your thoughts with this free, easy-to-use mind mapping software.

ZixMail (free) - My bank forced me to start using this 3 years ago and I love it. I bought the annual subscription because I liked it so much. Never send an unsecure email again. More and more of my banks and financial institutions are using this tool. I should invest in the company, because it is most likely to become the standard.

These are my favorite tech tools that I use daily. What are your favorite tools?

[Image credit: umpqua via Flickr] My first computer (:

Where In The World Is Mike Campbell

2011-07-01T22:01:00.001-04:00

It's been three and a half months since my last blog post. Why the hiatus? Recently, I accept the position of Chief Information Officer in addition to my role as Chief Financial Officer. It was a natural fit because I was already performing all of the IT functions in the Firm. However, we decided we need to formalize the role and put an emphasis on developing custom applications.

My career in IT began probably as far back as high school when I signed up for a basic computing class. Coding came easy to me and I enjoyed it. Even though my college degree is in accounting, I still used those basic programming skills to streamline accounting processes by writing VBA macros in Excel. This lead to a role of selling, installing, and supporting MAS90 (an enterprise accounting software) while in public accounting. With the help of an esteemed colleague and mentor, I developed skills of working with Windows Server and developing custom applications and reports for clients.

When I started with the Firm, we had no full-time IT staff, and I assumed all of the responsibility. To this day, I am the first and only full-time IT staff (with the help of outside vendors). I have built a network infrastructure utilizing the public and private cloud, which has kept IT costs down, while providing the tools we need to provide the best customer service in the industry.

In order to free my time to step up this new role, I have been busy training my staff to take over much of the accounting responsibilities. I have also been reading a lot of technical books and white papers looking for the best solutions to solve business problems.

So that's where I've been. Last year, I was reading a lot of leadership books, which gave me a lot of ideas for blogging. Whereas this year, I have been reading a lot of technical materials, which makes for boring blog posts. I also don't want to give away any trade secrets or competitive advantages.

Choosing a Great Wellness Program

2011-03-17T22:51:00.001-04:00

I am a big fan of corporate wellness programs. Our HR Director and I were sold on a program three years ago. We pitched it to the other executive team members and implemented it soon after.

We have watched the biometric screenings improve year after year. We have heard numerous testimonials of employees coming off of blood pressure medication, avoiding knee surgery, and general improvement energy, motivation, and mood. It has been well worth the money.

I am sure there are those in the company who don't appreciate it and can relate to the above video. But the point of the video is that corporate wellness is important and it is effective. This company claims they can make your wellness program not cheesy. Maybe they can maybe the can't. But it's worth a try.

So check them out at RecessWellness.com. Also check out HealthyWorksite.com, TriWellness, Principal Wellness, and Wellness Council of America.

Leadership Books Are Bunk

2011-02-21T21:20:00.000-05:00

Last year, I blogged a lot about leadership. I read a lot of leadership books. Then I just got completely burnt out on leadership theories. The more I read, the more I realized it's all just one writer's opinion. Very little of it is based on fact. So much of it is contradictory.

I came to the conclusion that all this leadership literature is at the same time bunk and beneficial. There are as many successful leadership styles as there are leaders. There are as many company cultures as there are companies. Theses styles and cultures are fluid and dynamic. They must change to react to both internal and external changes. Today's style might not be effective in tomorrow's world.

However, in order to find your individual style, it is beneficial to read lots of books, blogs, and magazines. Your leadership style may be improved through leadership books, biographies, business books, faith-based books, and so on. But most importantly, you leadership style will be formed by your day-to-day decisions and your ability to accomplish goals. Finally, if you want to be a great leader, hire a great team.

Small Fish In Big Pond Or Big Fish In A Small Pond

2011-02-05T09:37:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

I had the fastest recorded 800-meter and placed third at the state meet in the 800-meter race in high school. As I discussed my college options with my track coach, she said it comes down to this: Do you want to be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond?

Although running a half-mile in under two minutes is a big accomplishment and did well in Kentucky that year, it was mediocre at best. At the college level, everyone one can run a 800 meters in under two minutes. My track coach's point was you can win a lot of races running for a small college or you can be in the middle of the pack at a Division I school.

The business takeaway is that, when it comes to business success, it matters most what race you choose. You can pick a race with a bunch of mediocre runners and win or pick a race that's full of tons of great runners and finish in the middle of the pack. Pick a race that nobody is in and win.

For example, Tony Hsieh founded Zappos.com on that very idea. There was nobody in the online shoe retail business. "Footwear was a $40 billion industry...and 5% of that was being done by paper mail-order catalogs", but nobody was selling shoes online. His company became one of the fastest growing companies in America and quickly grew to $1 billion. He won a race that nobody was in.

However, that was sill only 50% of the potential of the $2 billion of mail-in catalog sales. Some want to credit Zappo's return policy, excellent customer service, culture, or fast delivery. But look at who he was competing against: snail-mail paper catalogs. Seriously, who buys via catalog anymore!? Online footwear retail was the the mediocre race with the fewest runners.

Tony Hsieh used the analogy of a poker table rather than a running race in his book, "Delivering Happiness":

I learned that the most important decision I could make was which table to sit at. This included knowing when to change tables. I learned from a book that an experienced player can make ten times as much money sitting at a table with nine mediocre players who are tired and have a lot of chips compared with sitting at a table with nine really good players who are focused and don't have that many chips in front of them.
In business, one of the most important decisions for an entrepreneur or a CEO to make is what business to be in. It doesn't matter how flawlessly a business is executed if it's the wrong business or if it's in too small a market. (HuffingtonPost.com)

How To Use UNION to Add a Total Line to a SQL Query

2011-01-31T12:29:00.000-05:00

I searched and searched for a way to add a total line to a report using SQL. I needed a way to provide a single total line to a report that sums total projects per employee.

The easiest way was to add 'with rollup' to the group clause:

select Office, Employee, count(*)
from Projects
group by Office, Employee with rollup

Unfortunately, this adds to a sub-total to each office, which is not desired.

Then I discovered UNION while searching for another solution. UNION combines two tables with like data.

select Office, Employee, count(*)
from Projects
group by Office, Employee
UNION
select 'Total', '', count(*)
from Projects

Office	Employee	Projects
Louisville	Mike Campbell	7
Anywhere	John Doe	3
Total		10

Use Gmail As Journal, Notebook, Diary, and more

2011-01-16T16:02:00.001-05:00

I used to write a daily journal. It helped to clear my head and gain clarity to my thoughts. There is just something about putting pen to paper or expressing one's ideas.

I moved from journaling to blogging, but there are times when I want to express my thoughts in private. I searched 'journal' and 'diary' on the web and app store for a suitable solution. I came full circle back to a product I use everyday -- Gmail.

I found this idea somewhere on the web. Forgive me for not giving credit, but it's simply using common Gmail functionality of aliases.

Gmail alias gives you virtually unlimited email names in one account. Simply add +alias between your username and @gmail (e.g. yourname+journal@gmail.com).

Now to set up your journal. Open Gmail and create a new label (ie folder) called Journal.

Next, create a new contact for Journal with the email address above.

Finally, set up a filter to move all emails to yourname+journal@gmail.com to the Journal folder.

There are tons of uses for Gmail aliases:
yourname+spam@gmail.com - use this to sign up for stuff online.

yourname+twitterid@gmail.com - use one email for multiple twitter accounts.

yourname+clippings@gmail.com - for web clippings or interesting articles you've read.

yourname+bookmarks@gmail.com - for collecting bookmarks

Okay, you get the idea. Combine this with Backupify to you can ensure that you have a backup of your journal.

A Touchdown To Remember

2010-11-20T09:51:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I thought I'd share a feel-good story for Thanksgiving week. A friend and co-worker is from Jasper Indiana and shared an inspiring story after spending a weekend at her hometown. She went to a Jasper High School football game and got to see Zach Beckman play a few downs.

Zach Beckman is a high school student. "He is very involved in school activities and sports, and just happens to have Down Syndrome." Everyone in town knew his story and when he entered the field, the crowd cheered. Zach was such a dedicated team manager his freshman, sophomore, and junior years that the coaching staff "let him dress out in uniforms" and gave him player status.

With the agreement of opposing coaches, Zach was allowed to run a few plays. Zach's teammate volunteered to be Zach's buddy on the field. Zach was too vulnerable to take the ball so he stood near the sidelines with the wide receiver while the team ran a running play in the middle.

On the last regular season game, an away game at Mount Vernon, Zach lived out a dream and scored a touchdown! His sister put together this YouTube video as a thank you to the coaching staff and players that made his dream come true.

Being Friendly verses Being Friends At Work

2010-11-14T09:09:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Okay, I admit it. I watch Dancing With The Stars. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this in such a public forum, until I realized that it a means of building relationships.

For example, I called my mom tonight. We didn't have much to talk about. Fortunately, life is has been pretty stable and slightly on the uptick for the past few months. So, we talked about Dancing. Who we liked. Who we didn't like. And so on. On the surface, it may seem trivial to gossip about the stars. However, by listening to likes and dislikes, we learn a little more about each other.

Furthermore, I don't want to take it for granted that my mom has the cognitive ability to shoot the breeze. My wife's mom does not because she is suffering from Alzheimer's. It is a terrible disease. At first it was the little things like forgetting how to fix coffee or use the remote control and kitchen appliances. Then it progressed to inability to remember current events. At this point simple conversations ceased. It has been a wake up call to not take those water cooler talks for granted.

Now to bring it back around to work for a little takeaway. Show at least a little interest in your staff and co-workers. There is a fine line between being friendly and being friends. I think Zappo's take it too far in wanting co-workers to be friends, support systems, and weekend buddies. But it's a mistake to be all business all the time. There is tremendous value in the water cooler talks.

Water cooler talk help build relationships. It may seems trivial, but those friendly conversations build trust and commadery. That goes a long way to establishing a foundation to getting people to say yes to your ideas and initiatives. 'Friendship is the first and most powerful trigger to yes', according to author of the book 7 Triggers to Yes. It's cliche, but nobody cares how much you know until you show how much you care.

Corporate Culture v Recession

2010-11-06T21:05:00.000-04:00

Image by ShashiBellamkonda via Flickr

It's been over a month since my last blog post because I got burnt out. I did not get burnt out on blogging, but on leadership theories because they are all bunk.

It started with the book Drive by Daniel Pink, then Delivering Happiness by Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, and finally the book Rework by 37 Signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.

I blogged my criticism of Drive. Although the book does a good job of popularizing motivation theories, it falls well short of an accurate and useful analysis or application of these modern psychological theories. Steven Reiss' book The Normal Personality is much better, but not near as readable nor marketable.

I really enjoyed Hsieh's book, Delivering Happiness. It was interesting to learn how he risked it all to bring Zappo's back from the brink of bankruptcy. The book was also very autobiographical and vulnerable. He wrote the book himself and I like his writing style.

Rework also grabbed and held my attention. Again, the founders wrote the book themselves and I like the writing style. They get right to the point and don't waste a bunch of words.

Rework and Delivering Happiness were in direct opposition with one very important topic: company culture. Tony Hsieh's whole book revolved around developing a culture of happiness because it leads to profits. On the other hand, Rework states, "You can't create culture. It happens. Don't force it. You can't install culture." Whereas Hsieh spends tons of money manufacturing culture, 37 Signals allows culture to emerge from daily operations.

At the end of the day, none of it matters. Cultures are nothing without profits. The quickest way to erode culture (and happiness) is to erode profits. Nobody is happy when your company is losing money and laying off people.

Furthermore, there are as many leadership theories as there are leaders. 37 Signals could never implement Zappo's culture and vice versa. My criticism of Zappo's culture is that I doubt the corporate culture in Vegas filters outside the city limits and down through all departments. Each individual's culture experience is based on his/her relationship with their boss. Each supervisor determines the culture of his/her department. There is no such thing as a company culture. Company cultures evolve and change over time, anyway.

There are 16 common motivators, but each individual has a unique set of motivators. Whether your primary motivator is family, money, prestige, exercise, curiosity, food, order, or power, there is one common denominator -- money. All basic desires require money to meet these desires. The bottom line is the bottom line. Money might not buy happiness, but it's one hell of a down payment.

Be Open And Honest With Your Blog

2010-09-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

This blog post was inspired by Keith Urban's song Tonight I Wanna Cry. The lyrics are very revealing. Similar to songwriting, blogging opens the writer to vulnerability. Bloggers write about what they think and feel. It opens one up to criticism and disagreement. However, most people are thinking about themselves and not the writer when reading.

When people listen to music, they aren't thinking about the singer or the songwriter, they are thinking about themselves. People are applying the lyrics, rhythm, and emotion to their own lives. This is what makes hits songs -- people can relate to it. The same is true in blogging. Write posts that people can relate to. What is that? It's whatever you can relate too. Here are a few tips to better blogging.

Narrow your audience. Narrow your focus. Narrow your topics. Target a smaller audience for larger traffic. It seems counterintuitive, but think of it this way: Do you listen to a radio station that plays country, hip hop, classical, jazz, children's, and political talk shows? In the same way, people aren't going to read your blog if you're blogging about everything under the sun.

Be vulnerable. Be open and honest. Let people see who you really are. Just like the musician who pours his heart out in his/her song, be willing to voice your opinion and take a stand. I can't agree or disagree (i.e. relate or not relalte) to something that isn't opinionated. Write something the challenges my thinking. Make an argument and support it.

Think of one person and write to that person. Write your blog as if you are writing to a single person. Not a fictitious person, but a person you know. Write to a person in your target audience. If you're blogging for business, write to your best customer.

And remember, the reader doesn't care about you. They not reading to learn more about you, they're reading to learn more about themselves. The more you grow through writing, the more the reader will grow through reading. In the same way that music fosters introspection, write thought-provoking blogs.

Culture of happiness: Profitable or Psychobabble?

2010-09-12T16:19:00.000-04:00

Image via Wiki Commons

I just finished reading Delivering Happiness by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh who has studied the science of happiness and applied it to Zappos. He writes, "Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships), and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself)."

Psychology has just recently started examining happiness and it's really interesting to watch the progression of the new 'positive psychology' among academia. Finally abandoning Freud's bent toward abnormality, they are studying normality and even embracing faith. They are focusing on health and wellness instead of psychosis and illness. And I like it.

One psychologist, Reiss, writes that what used to be perceived as abnormal should be perceived as normal. For example, sadness is not a mild form of depression, it is a normal reaction to loss, or life-change. He has scientifically reduced human motivation down to sixteen basic values that make us happy.

At the essence of Dan Pink's popular book, Drive, is what makes people happy. Although he examines internal verses external motivation, it builds on the positive psychology movement, specifically motivation theories, and more specifically Deci's Self Determination Theory. Happiness comes from autonomy, mastery, relatedness, and purpose.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention Abraham Maslow, who's hierarchy of needs is the frontrunner of this movement. There is not a class on leadership that does not include his groundbreaking work. Happiness comes from achieving the peak of his pyramid -- self-actualization.

Unlike another closely related movement, servant-leadership, positive psychology and the science of happiness has not made it's way into the business world. It is written about in popular media like Harvard Business Review and Time magazine, but is not widely practiced in business. As Dan Pink states, there is a huge mismatch between what science knows and what business does. Why? Why have businesses not embraced a culture of happiness?

Can a company create a culture of happiness? Can a culture really filter down to the 'feet in the street'? Or is culture determined by the one level above you?

Does a culture of happiness actually lead to better profits? Are happy employees more productive, creative, and efficient? Does a culture of happiness reduce costly turnover? Can happiness be measured?

Is it even companies' responsibility to create culture of happiness? Is happiness derived from internal, personal values, faith, and environment? Should businesses focus on performance, behavior, and results?

Don't Let Systems Make You Stupid (Milkshake Moment)

2010-09-03T21:49:00.000-04:00

For about a year, we were making additional principal payments on a loan. Then we received, at the same time, a late fee and a refund of our payment. The bank had changed systems and it rejected our payment because it didn't match. It didn't match because it included additional principal. We called the bank and tried again the next month. Again, our payment was refunded. So we started making the payment according to the invoice for several months.

During these months, we continued to work with the bank to make additional principal payments. The banker agreed to look into it and assured us we could make additional principal payments. We made two requests, (1) can we make payments on the first of the month to avoid late fees and (2) can we make additional principal? Here is the final answer from the bank,

[W]e need to be sure that our system has generated a billing statement each month before a payment is received. Otherwise, our system will not know how to process the payment. In your case, with payments due on the 23rd of each month, a billing statement will be generated and mailed to you on the 13th of each month. If you prefer not to wait until the statement arrives to you by mail, I recommend that we set you up on Business Online Banking. You could then go online on the 14th of each month, determine the amount of interest due, and then drop a check in the mail for the interest and any additional principal you want to pay. This should allow plenty of time for the payment to be received prior to the assessment of any late fee, which occurs 10 days after the payment due date each month.

Do what!? We have to wait till the invoice is cut on the 10th to know what to pay. It arrives in the mail between the 13th and 16th, depending on weekends and holidays. And payment must be received, not postmarked, by the 23rd. So we can't pay before the 10th or after the 23rd. And we have to change our system to adapt to your system.

The right answer is, "No problem, Mike. Please send us a check in the amount you would like to pay. We will take of the rest. We will take out the interest portion and apply the rest to principal. We appreciate your business. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you."

This is what Steven S. Little, author of The 7 Irrefutable Rules of Small Business Growth, refers to as a Milkshake Moment. He loves vanilla milkshakes and it's the one thing that gets him through those difficult travel days. He experiments with customer service systems by ordering vanilla milkshakes when not on the hotel menu. He make great point in a humorous, memorable way in the above video.

Don't let systems make you stupid.

Buy Your Team An iPad

2010-08-23T09:49:00.001-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Every company should purchase an iPad for every c-level executive. No meeting should ever have paper again. Here's why:

It's a perk. When it comes to rewarding employees, it can be a challenge thinking of new ways to motivate a team. The iPad makes it easy. It's a no brainer. The perceived value far outweights the actual cost.
~~Go green~~ Cut Costs. Get rid of paper. After considering the costs of paper, ink, and labor costs, it is much cheaper and efficient to distribute management reports on an iPad instead of paper.
Better reading experience. The iPad screen is so crystal clear, it makes reading a joy. It's better than a laptop screen. It's better than paper.
Better security. After the meeting is over, are you sure that those confidential financial & HR reports are shredded. Are you sure a couple pages haven't been left on the floor or table somewhere?
No heat. Laptops generate a ton of heat, especially in a board room in which everyone has one. Plus the fans are noisy. iPads generate no heat and need no fan.
No clickity keyboard. There may be nothing more distracting in a meeting than a noisy keyboard. Hmm, why is Joe taking notes on that comment. Or is he emailing?
Access. Have you ever been in a meeting and thought, Damn I wish I had that report? Or I could look that up quickly, if only I had my laptop. With the iPad you can especially with Dropbox and/or LogMeIn PC.
More productivity. Your leadership team is already taking work home with them, but they are tired of booting up their laptop and lugging it around. The instant-on iPad makes the iPad as quick and easy as opening a book. The commitment is so much less compared to a laptop, it is likely your team will find themselves working more.

For the iPad to be a useful management device you need a few apps. Here's how:

Dropbox.com. Share documents via Dropbox.com. Set up a shared folder and share it with your senior leadership team. You have complete control of the documents and everybody is on the same page. It's free.
Docs2Go. View, create, and edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint docs. You won't want to use this as your primary source of creation, but Docs2Go is perfect for viewing docs including PDF's. Plus it syncs with Dropbox.com. This will be the most used app in the board room. It's a steal at $10. Click here
LogMeIn Ignition. You always have access to your PC. This product is so fast and user-friendly it makes your iPad a dumb terminal for your PC. It's pricey at $30, but totally worth it.
Feedler RSS. I hope everyone on your team is an avid reader. You just can't keep up with the market, your competitors, and your own skills without reading, reading, reading. The best tool for reading blogs is Feedler RSS which syncs with Google Reader. It's free.
Email. The iPad is absolutely the best email device. It's better than Outlook because it is fast and stable. It comes pre-installed.

The iPad is not a laptop replacement, but it is a paper replacement. It is perfect for distriubting and reading PDF documents. It's perfect for the board room.

Invest In Wellness

2010-08-14T15:37:00.002-04:00

Image via Flickr

One of the best investments you can make in your company is a wellness program. It is a challenge to measure ROI because the return is from costs saved by avoiding future major medical claims. But it can be done.

Although there are more than two ways to measure ROI, here are two. First, you can compare your company to national averages. For example, the average for health insurance increase is 20%. Companies can expect an increase from 11% to 16%. Where does your company fall? Although market conditions play a role, the primary reason for premium increases is claims paid out compared to premiumpaid in (i.e. loss ratio). The more a company can do to reduce loss ratio, the better the premium. That's where a wellness program comes into play.

It is much, much more expensive to cure disease than it is to prevent disease. The good news is that chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are largely lifestyle-related and preventable. "The cost of health is less than the cost of disease." (Dee W. Eddington, Zero Trends book).

Another way to track ROI is through a comprehensive health risk assessment. A good health risk assessment includes a lifestyle questionnaire, fitness exam, and preventive health screenings. The survey assesses nutrition, stress management, substance abuse, alcohol, smoking, sleep, safety, and happiness. The fitness exam measures percent body fat, flexibility, core strength, and aerobic capacity (i.e. VO2 max). The biometric screening measure blood pressure, blood cholesterol (both HDL and LDL), blood sugar (i.e. glucose), triglycerides, and body mass index (BMI).

Each component enables your company to track group progress year over year. Furthermore, the clinical tests enable your company to compare itself to national averages and trace progress year over year. I could not find a single source for healthy biometric levels, or normal levels, so I summarized them here:

Blood Glucose (mg/dl)
Less than 100	Normal
100 to 125	Pre-diabetes
Over 126 (2 or more days)	Diabetes

Blood Pressure
Under 120 / 80	Normal
120 / 80 to 139 / 89	Pre-hypertensive
Over 140 / 90	Hypertensive

Body Mass Index
Under 18.5	Underweight
18.5 to 24.9	Normal
25 to 30	Overweight
Over 30	Obese

Cholesterol (mg/dl)
Under 200	Optimal
200 to 239	Borderline high
Over 240	High

LDL (mg/dl)
Under 100	Optimal
100 to 129	Near optimal
130 to 159	Borderline high
160 to 189	High
Over 190	Very high
HDL (mg/dl)
Over 60	Good
Under 40 (men)	At risk
Under 50 (women)	At risk

The above information was accumulated from sites such as CDC, National Institutes of Health, WebMD, American Heart Association, and American Diabetes Association. Here is the best single-source page I found that explains each preventive health screening:

Here is where my blog must end. I would love to brag about how a corporate wellness program has benefited my small business, but I can't because of confidentiality. We have both anecdotal stories and metrics justifying our investment in workplace wellness. It was a hard sell when our Chief HR Officer and I presented preventive health screenings to the leadership team, but it was well worth. We have since added a fitness program. Our original intent was a healthier, happier, more productive workforce; but it is also an effective recruiting tool.

You Get Out Of It What You Put Into It

2010-08-08T10:28:00.001-04:00

JFK Inaugural Address Image via Library of Congress

I joined the Kentucky Society of CPAs Members In Industry Committee. Half of the the KyCPA’s members are in public accounting and half work for private or publicly-held companies (i.e. CPAs In Industry). CPAs in Industry include CEOs, COOs, CFOs, controllers, accountants, financial analysts, and so on.

My committee is charged with developing benefits and programs specifically designed for members in industry. This is quite a challenge because of the diversity of this group. The first major diversity is small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) verses large companies. One large company such as YUM Brands, Churchhill Downs, Papa John’s, Brown Forman, and Humana have multiple CPAs on staff of varying degrees of experience and needs. Whereas a SMB may have only one CPA on staff

Typically, CPA societies provide three primary benefits to members:

Continuing education CPAs in Industry are required to earn 60 hours of CPE each year. It is fairly easy to target CPAs in public because of ever-changing tax and audit requirements. But for CPAs in industry, we have diverse needs specific to our industry. For example, I took an eight-hour roofing seminar and I was the only CPA in the room.
Networking CPAs in public practice are always seeking ways to drum up business. CPA societies provide excellent opportunities to get involved in the community and speaking engagements to establish expertise in the community. CPAs in industry are going to fulfill this by attending trade conferences and associations that network within the industry. For example, the forensic engineering and fire investigation industry targets claims adjusters, so the best networking opportunities is claims associations and property loss conferences.
Lobbying There are always tax laws in the works a that greatly affect CPAs in public and there clients. Almost every law has some impact on at least one client. Whereas, the laws that affect small businesses are few and far between. State societies do a superb job of representing certified public accountants with state legislators and protecting the CPA brand. Whereas CPAs in industry are more interested in laws that affect the industry. For example, when I audited hospitals, I was very concerned about about Medicaid changes, but now
I don’t care nearly as much.

One member astutely pointed out that older CPAs think of membership as a requirement. It is just a given that if you are a CPA, you are a member of the state society. When asked if he was a member, a CPA in his seventies said I didn’t know it was an option. Younger CPAs, on the other hand, are fully aware that it is a choice and only pay dues if they get something out of it.

That reminded me of JFK’s famous quote from his inaugural speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I think it is your responsibility as a professional to join your state society and get involved. The old cliche applies, you get out of it what you put into it. The definition of a profession is that it is self-policing. We define our ethics and live by a code of conduct. We exist to protect the welfare of society through medicine, engineering, and, yes, accounting. It is accounting standards and the adherence to them by CPAs that provide the confidence that when you compare Coke and Pepsi financial statements, you are comparing apples to apples. Being a member of your state society is simply a part of taking on the higher standard of being a professional.

With that being said, it is now my responsibility to find ways to develop and communicate new ways to attract CPAs to the Kentucky Society of CPAs. I look forward to the challenge and have a few ideas. If you are a CPA, let me know in the comments what your state society is doing or what you would like to see it do.

My Personal Branding Dilemma And New URLs

2010-07-29T23:22:00.016-04:00

When I first started social networking, I used the nickname LouisvilleSoup. I never had a problem getting that username when registering for web sites. My given name, Mike Campbell, on the other hand, was always taken. Michael has been the number one or two most popular boys' name since the fifties. Campbell is in the top 25 last names. A Google search of Mike Campbell results in over 7 million hits.

With the explosion of social media, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, I decided to start using my given name for personal branding. My name is my brand. Since it is already taken on just about every web site, I had to come up with a suffix or some way to differienate my name form all the other Mike Campbells of the world.

I started using MikeCampbellCPA because that is what is on my business card, Mike Campbell, CPA. It didn't take long to realize that CPA is a brand in and of itself. The AICPA and state CPA societies have done a phenomenal job of promoting and protecting the CPA brand. Although it is a well-respected and trusted brand, it is too often associated with public accounting. That's not a bad thing, but it is not my brand.

Then I started using the next title on my business card, CFO. Chief Financial Officer, or CFO, also carries a certain brand. This brand is a little more elusive based on individual experiences with CFOs. It coiled be bad from reading about Enro or conjure up images of Scrooge or Potter. Although they weren't CFOs, they were 'finance guys' and influence what a lot of people think about finance guys. Not only can I not control how people view the CFO brand, I don't want to be a CFO forever. I may want to become a COO, CEO, or even start my own business. Even if I stay in the finance role, my title may change to VP of Finance or other.

CFO arbitrarily narrows my brand. Being the CFO of a small business, I have taken on many roles in the Firm. I am the IT director and chief compliance officer. I founded and developed the human resources department. I grew it to the point of being self-sufficient and answering directly to the CEO. At one time I even did some marketing during a few week hiatus between marketing directors. Furthermore, my online brand is also includes being a husband, father, runner, blogger, and avid reader.

Now I have the dilemma of having four brands out here in cyberspace: remnants of LouisvilleSoup, MikeCampbellCPA, MikeCampbellCFO, and (rarely) MikeCampbell. I own and have been using the URL
MikeCampbellCFO.com, but recently purchased MikeCampbell.biz. Then I played around with forwarding and realized that it doesn't matter what username I'm able to obtain for these web sites because I can just create a forward and use MikeCampbell.biz for my brand. For example, there are a few forwards I setup:

http://blog.mikecampbell.biz
http://twitter.mikecampbell.biz
http://linkedin.mikecampbell.biz
http://books.mikecampbell.biz
http://youtube.mikecampbell.biz
http://dailymile.mikecampbell.biz

This looks so much cleaner on a business card or on email signature than the full URL; and it promotes my brand. Plus it enables me to broaden my brand beyond CPA or CFO. My online goals are still primarily business related, so I am okay with dot biz. Plus, my blog's mission is to share thoughts and ideas about small business growth and leadership. I think I have finally settled on an online brand name I can use for a while.

Posted via email from MikeCampbell's Posterous

Your Clients Are Huge Investments

2010-07-18T09:41:00.001-04:00

Image by Tracy O via Flickr

Your clients are huge investments; treat them as such. You’ve invested a lot of money in purchasing your client base. You’ve produced marketing materials and sales activities. You know it is not easy nor cheap to find leads and convert them to sales. You’ve spent a lot of money on your own education and professional development to provide a service to your clients. You’ve spent a lot of money on computer equipment, software, furniture, rent, etc. to serve you’re clients. Now you want to keep your clients, or do you?

Just like any other investment, you want to achieve a return on your investment. If the investment ceases to provide a return, sell it. If the return increases, buy more. And if it’s stable, hold. Your clients are no different. If a client ceases to produce a return on the investment you’ve put into it, let it go. Spend your time and money on the clients that are giving you the best ROI. If you’re too skittish to let go of a client, raise the price.

Why not? Why can’t you charge one client more for your service than another? It happens all the time in other busineses. Some customers are charged more simply because they failed to negotiate a lower price. Some are charged more because they purchase very little volume. Professional services firms must get away from the billable hour trap because it creates price based on cost. As Ed Kless puts it, Price is not based on cost. Price should be base on value.

I’m confident your client base follows the 80/20 rule where 20% of you clients produce 80% of the revenue. It’s probably more like 90/10, but that’s still meets the 80/20 rule. Focus on your top 20% and develop new offerings from their needs. Focus on the middle 75% and try to move them to the top 20%. Get rid of the bottom 10%. They’re probably not in your niche; whether too small, too big, or just not a good fit. Partner with another firm with a different niche and share leads. After you finally let them go you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

Whatever you do, do NOT treat your bottom 10% any differently than your top 10. Do NOT provide them any less customer service and care. Your reputation and brand are at stake. Your customers have a voice and will use it.

Posted via email from MikeCampbell's Posterous

How To Use Posterous As A KnowledgeBase

2010-07-10T22:13:00.001-04:00

As a professional services firm of over 170 employees, we have a huge knowledge base. This knowledge base is spread over two dozen cities in eight states. Accumulating this knowledge in a centralized location can be a challenge. And this knowlwdgebase is built over time as our professionals seek knowledge from other professionals.

Employees are so familiar with email and it is so efficient that it is very, very difficult to change that habit. If someone has a question, they email it to an email group and get several responses within the hour. It just works.

The problem is that this knowledge base that is created is trapped in users' email. It is not accessible to the whole company, new hires do not have the benefit of it., and there is no searchable database for all this knowledge.

The biggest challenge to change that I have experienced is habit. It takes 30 consecutive days to develop a habit. Change that requires a user to perform daily is fairly easy. Change that does not require daily use is much more difficult. A knowledge base is something that is accessed and referenced once or twice a month. So to change the habit from email to a new web site such as discussion board, wiki, or LinkedIn group is daunting. Training a very busy group of professionals on a new web site makes it even more daunting. Furthermore, if it’s harder to use and slower, it’s not a worthwhile change.

We needed a service that provided posting and commenting via email, security, and a searchable database. Posterous is built on posting via email and provides the solution we needed. Here’s how:

Signup for Posterous by simply sending an email to post@Posterous.com.
Create new Posterous such as mygroup.Posterous.com.
Enable the group feature. This enables you to use company logo and group description instead of your mug and profile.
Add contributors. Contributors can post by sending an email to post@mygroup.posterous.com.
Enable password protection.
Instruct users how to subscribe via email. They will receive daily updates.
Add post@mygroup.posterous.com to the email user group.

When you send an email to Posterous email, it is immediately posted to the web. Subscribers receive an email with the posts and can click a link in the email to comment. For example, a investigator sees something in the field that he is unfamiliar with. He emails a photo of the finding to Posterous with his question. Users receive an email notification and comment on the post.

We don’t have to form a new habit. We can use the engrained, tried, and true habit of email.

Posted via email from MikeCampbell's Posterous

Just Three Motivators? (Drive Book Review)

2010-06-24T17:57:00.007-04:00

Dan Pink was an attorney turned speechwriter for vice-president Al Gore. He is now an author and speaker. His latest book, Drive, is a New York Times Bestseller and his YouTube speech has over a 1.5 million views. He claims "there is a huge gap between what science knows and what business does" and uses bold statements such as the "truth" about what motivates us. Unfortunately, his book falls short of both science and truth.

In the first half of the book, he does a great job of presenting his case that extrinsic motivation (i.e. rewards and punishment, carrots and sticks, money) is no longer an effective means of motivating behavior in the modern economy. He provides several classic psychological experiments such as The Candle Problem to build his case. The experiments make for great stories and anecdotal evidence, but does not prove his theory.

There are several theories of motivation and chooses just one. Mr. Pink does a very good job of introducing the reader to the self-determination theory. The theory states that people people are intrinsically motivated by autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Then Mr. Pink rejects the science and creates his own method.

In his book Drive, Mr. Pink introduces his method writing, "I'd like to introduce my own alphabetic way to think about human motivation." Mr. Pink manufactures to new personality types Type X (extrinsic) and Type I (intrinsic). Type I is good; type X is bad. Furthermore, he redefines self-determination theory with three motivators of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. These three new motivators are the thesis of his book, but he provides no science for these new definitions.

As I wrote in my first review of his book, it is well-written, challenges your thinking, but takes a few experiments a little too far. So when you hear Mr. Pink state over and over there is a huge gap between what science knows and what business does, be careful. His “own alphabetic way” is not science.

16 Fundamental Human Desires and Values

2010-06-08T20:02:00.005-04:00

Image via Flickr

Is your motto "A place for everything, everything in its place?" Are you anal-retentive? Do you border on being OCD? Or are you just a normal organized person? You are probably normal, according to psychologist and PhD, Steven Reiss in his book Normal Personality.

The term anal-retentive has become so common that it is now just a cliche. Most of us never knew or have forgotten where it comes from. Freud asserted that people are motivated by a strong drive to reduce anxiety. We can trace our adult tendencies back to significant childhood moments such as potty training. During potty training, children exibit one of two behaviors; anal-retentive or anal-explosive. Today we only talk about being anal and have forgotten that there are two 'anals'. Nobody goes around telling disorganized people that they are anal-explosive.

Modern psychology has for the most part dismissed Freud who saw everything as a disorder. Science has moved from negative to positive, especially in management. "I think personality is about individuality, not abnormality." (Reiss)

In the seventies, psychology started to turn toward motivation theories. It wasn't until the eighties that these theories were accepted and institutionalized. Among these theories is these is the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) popularized by Dan Pink in his book Drive and Dr. Reiss' Reiss Motivational Profile (RMP). Today we are still catching up to the science in real-life management practice.

Dr. Reiss started with over 300 value statements, surveyed over 2500 people, and mathematically reduced their answers into 16 motivators (OSU.edu). RMP has been tested in over 25,000 people on every continent. His survey is cross cultural and universal. "People all over the world regardless of culture seem to be motivated by the same sixteen basic desires, although they may prioritize and satisfy them differently." (Reiss)

The key is to know your employees. "It's all a matter of individual differences. Different people are motivated in different ways." (OSU.edu)

16 Fundamental Human Desires and Values
Curiosity - desire to learn
Food - desire to eat
Honor (morality) - desire to behave in accordance with code of conduct
Rejection - fear of social rejection
Sex - desire for sexual behavior and fantasies
Physical exercise - desire for physical activity
Order - desired amount of organization in daily life
Independence - desire to make own decisions
Vengeance - desire to retaliate when offended (competitiveness)
Social Contact - desire to be in the company of others
Family - desire to spend time with own family
Social Prestige - desire for prestige and positive attention
Aversive Sensations - aversion to pain and anxiety
Citizenship - desire for public service and social justice
Power - desire to influence people
Savings - desire to accumulate wealth

Source: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/goals.htm#anchor22924

Drive and Motivation: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

2010-05-21T20:57:00.020-04:00

I love this new video of Daniel Pink's speech about the surprising science of motivation. He presented a similar speech at Ted Talks. RSA added animation to the video and make the ten-minute video fly by. We will see a lot more of these videos. I just finished his book, Drive, and it was a fascinating read.

His premise is that in this post-industrial age economy, the carrot and stick approach is no longer effective at motivating people. He uses recent science to argue that money does not motivate and can actually decrease performance. He makes it clear that money works for routine, repetitive tasks, but as the tasks gets more complicated, money does not motivate.

People are driven by internal, intrinsic motivation. Right from the womb, we are motivated to walk and talk without any expectation of reward. We are born curious. He argues that we are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

He states over and over there is a huge gap between what science knows and what business does. Few businesses are using what he calls Motivation 3.0 such as Results Only Work Environments (ROWE) or giving employees the freedom to choose their own projects 20% of the time. But, for the most part, business ignores the science of motivation.

My only criticism is that he may take his argument a bit too far. No matter how creative or entrepreneurial the job, there is a certain amount of routine, repetitive tasks to every job. Money is certainly a motivator even for the knowledge worker. He also ignores research in management science that argues progress is the most important motivator. Companies that can provide personal and professional growth have the most engaged employees.

There is definitely a place for Mr. Pink's concepts in small business. What he proposes is nothing new. He builds on research such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs with new science and a fresh look at the new economy. Drive is a page-turner and really challenged my thinking. That makes it a book I would strongly recommend.

What is your optimal performance zone?

2010-05-18T07:10:00.004-04:00

This morning I ran a personal best at Johnny's 5k Memorial Run. Sometimes I forget that not everyone on Twitter understands running lingo. I tweeted,

Wohoo! PR 21:05. Off to coach soccer now.less than a minute ago via txtMike Campbell
MikeCampbellCFO

And I received this reply:

@MikeCampbellCFO I don't know if it's what you meant, but Proverbs 21:5 is a great reminder. http://twurl.nl/xe225g Have fun with socccer!less than a minute ago via TweetDeckJay Ehret
themarketingguy

Ironically, I was thinking about effort and performance after the race. I have been training for this race for several weeks by running three days a week. I run one tempo run, one speedwork and one. By definition, training runs are not at race pace; they are about 80-85% race pace. A good training plan also incorporates proper rest. On race day, 100% capacity should result in peak performance.

Does the same principle apply to business? Do workers achieve peak performance by operating at 80% capacity? Does working at 100% day-in and day-out lead to burnout? If you are working at 100% capacity 100% of the time, is there no room for growth? If you are working at 100%, should you try to get back to 80% through better time management, better prioritizing, better use of technology, and/or better delegation?

Treat every day as training ground for the big moments. It's the big moments that define your value and your career -- big decisions, big projects, big closings, financial crises, seasonal peaks, etc. Eighty percent capacity does not mean mediocrity or 80% effort. It means performing at the leading edge of your comfort zone or slightly beyond. And by performing at the leading edge, your comfort zone continues to grow and expand. For example, when I first started running, my comfort zone was 10-minute miles; now it is 8-minute miles. There is no such thing as 110% effort, but 100% this year should be more than 100% last year. And when that big moment comes, you will be ready to shine.

Author Geoff Colvin in his book Talent is Overrated states, "only by choosing activities in the learning zone can you make progress. That's the location of skills and abilities that are just out of your reach." Activities inside your comfort zone are too easy to produce growth while activities in the panic zone are out of reach. He further states that excellent performance is the result of deliberate practice, not hard work and innate talent. Deliberate practice is "activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition." (What It Takes to Be Great)

Alasdair White defines comfort zone as the state in which one operates without anxiety and with little risk. And he defines the optimal performance zone as the state in which the level of anxiety boosts performance. Studies have shown that a certain amount of anxiety boosts performance. However, too much anxiety pushes one into the danger zone and performance decreases significantly.

So, the irony is that Jay provided a proverb that succinctly describes my post-race thoughts, "The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty."

How to hold an effective meeting.

2010-05-08T16:15:00.003-04:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nifmus/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Ever been to a meeting that was like watching the grass grow? Meetings for the sake of meeting is pointless. It wastes times, drives costs, and destroys morale. If I write any more of an intro, I'm not practicing what I'm preaching. So here goes:

Begin with the end in mind. Thank you Steve Covey for this classic. What do you want to accomplish by meeting? Can it be accomplished without meeting? If you need to meet because you haven't met in awhile, then take your team to lunch. Don't put together a bogus agenda just to meet.

Start on time. End on time. End a little early, but never late.

Send a written agenda no less than one week before the meeting. If you want valuable input, then you need preparation. If you don't prepare and bring something valuable, you won't get invited back. Speculation and off-the-cuff is not going to cut it.

Meet to decide, not discuss. Bring the issues to the table. Have a healthy debate (with well-prepared data and analysis). And make a decision. Minutes should only include decisions and actions.

That's it. If I'm missing anything, then Google it. There is tons written about this. But reading a thousand word essay on how to run a meeting is like sitting through a really bad meeting.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Bye Bye HP Slate. Bye Bye Microsoft

2010-05-04T22:37:00.002-04:00

I was disappointed that HP canned it's Windows 7 Slate PC. While a million people bought the iPad in the past month, I was holding out for the HP Slate. Then rumors stated that HP was pulling the plug on the slate because they could not get the performance out of Win 7 they wanted.

My company is a Microsoft shop, like many other small business. Our accounting, project management, and CRM software run on Microsoft SQL Server, Internet Explorer, .NET, and, of course, Office. I wanted a tablet that was half the size of a laptop (i.e. a screen without a keyboard) that I could use in the evenings and on the road to access these apps.

I also wanted a lightweight reader. I get forwarded a lot of info that I like to read in the evenings. The screen is just too small and PDFs are just too hard to read on my iPhone. I subscribe to dozens of blogs, emails list, and YouTubers. I get tired of a hot, heavy laptop and lap desk on my lap.

The rumor came on the heels of HP's announcement to purchase Palm. It is speculated that HP wants Palm's WebOS. Reading between the lines, and purely my opinion, HP dropped Win 7 because of price, not performance. I've using Win 7 for several months and it is speedy. It's boots in seconds from sleep mode.

I thought Microsoft was brilliant by making an OS with touch functionality. The HP Slate was going to be the first product to showcase this. But HP just can't keep the price point at $550 AND pay Microsoft what they want for Win 7. I looked forward to a touch tablet with USB and SD ports so I could upload my Garmin and camera pics.

Regardless of my opinion, that puts iPad back in consideration for me. The only other options are Android devices such as Dell Streak or wePad, which aren't due to ship till late 2010 or early 2011. As with many early adopters, we'll just figure out a workaround to get everything we want. I'm thinking LogMeIn for iPad might just do the trick.

Finally, this puts Microsoft way behind in the slate market. So far behind that I just don't think they will be able to catch up. Dell, HP, Google, and Apple have drawn a clear line in the sand. Consumers want a device that is between the smartphone and laptop. They want it to function closer to a smartphone primarily for content consumption, not creation. And they do not want a laptop replacement like the IBM convertible tablet PC.

For more read, The Real Reason Why Steve Jobs Hates Flash. "The PC revolution is almost coming to an end, and everyone's trying to work out a strategy for surviving the aftermath."

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Local Small Business Using YouTube Effectively (Homeowner Finds Cave in Yard)

2010-04-30T23:18:00.003-04:00

Who remembers the home inspector when you bought your house? I do. William Troutman with Certainty Home Inspections.

I am reminded of him every time I am in my basement because he tagged the water heater shut-off valve, the main water shut-off valve, and other important components of the basement. Each tag is also a business card. I left all of them on.

I am reminded monthly with an email. Usually I set up a rule to delete marketing emails, but his Home Tips of the Month are very informative. And I don't mind that each email prominently displays his logo, web site, email, and 800 number.

Most recently, I was reminded when YouTube pulled his name from my contacts list and alerted me that he has a YouTube page.

However, I would not be writing this if he had not provided excellent service. He was on time, thorough, and patient with my questions. And I still have three-ring binder he provided with the material pictures, inspection checklist, and action items.

This is a perfect example of a one-man shop utilizing multiple tools (business cards, web site, email, YouTube, blogging, Twitter, Facebook) to keep his brand in front of his customers.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Thinking about starting a blog? Go for it!

2010-04-23T21:29:00.006-04:00

A friend of mine stumbled upon my blog recently. He told me he had been thinking about starting a blog and asked me a few questions about my experience. If you are thinking about starting a blog, go for it!

1. Read read read. If you want to be a good writer, you need to be a prolific reader. Nicholas Sparks, author of the Notebook, states it best on his web site's writer's corner, "you must read, and read a lot. Did I say A LOT?" Read blogs, magazines, and books. It will fuel ideas for content and best practice.

2. Be yourself. I could describe my first days of blogging as vulnerable. When you write, you are literally putting yourself out there. Pen and paper are more than just words; they are flesh and blood. You cannot write without revealing who you are. Some people will not like you, but a lot will. And don't spend too much time criticizing your own writing. It will get better the more you write.

3. Set goals. I know some who blog a couple times a year. And when they do, it's good. Others write daily. What are you currently doing? Do you read blogs once a week, once a month? There you go. How often you have time to read others blogs is how often others will read yours.

4. Track stats. At first, you won't have any readers. Then you will be surprised how many people are actually visiting your blog. After a while, you will want to know that people are reading to keep you motivated. I use Google analytics. It's fun to see where the traffic comes from, which blog posts are most popular, and how Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook affect your stats. But don't worry about that, yet. Blogging site, Posterous, makes it super easy to track stats. No set up needed. You see number of views right there on your blog post.

5. Comment. Connect. Promote. Comment on other bloggers blogs. Connect with people on social networks. Shamelessly promote your blog.

6. Be short. Use the 3 to 5 rule. Write 3 to 5 paragraphs with 3 to 5 sentences per paragraph. Keep each paragraph to a single thought. Each sentence should stand on it's own. Don't worry about finishing a thought. Your're readers are smart. Let them draw their own conclusions.

7. Start now. The easiest way to start is with Posterous.com. Simply write your first blog post and email it to posterous@posterous.com. You'll get an immediately reply with your new blog.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Undercover Boss or Extreme Makeover Corporate Edition

2010-04-13T21:34:00.002-04:00

I was starting to get frustrated with the CBS show Undercover Boss. The storyline was starting to become all too predictable. CEO goes undercover and follows hard-working employees who are down on their luck. They've either lost a loved one, suffered property damage from a natural disaster, or struggled with caring for a disabled family member. That's not the frustrating part. I admire each of these hard-working individuals and can relate because we all are suffering, or have suffered. It's a part of being human. What was starting to frustrate me was the CEO's response: "Here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm gonna give you $5,000 to fix your house, pay for childcare, etc."

The TV show was starting to feel like Extreme Makeover Corporate Edition. It appeared that the producers purposely picked employees with these major sob stories. Then the CEOs would dish out money as a quick fix. I wondered, what do the other employees think about this? I am sure that there are hundreds of other employees that could really use the money. Why would just this one employee benefit? Why not do something for the whole company if the purpose of the show to better the company.

Last night, in the season finale, the show redeemed itself when it featured 1-800-Flowers. At the end of the show, the President and COO, Chris McCann, sat down with four or five employees and did not give away one cash handout. He initiated an incentive plan that would benefit all employees, gave a plant manager the on-going opportunity to participate setting production goals, offered to personally mentor a young store manager, and offered another store manager the opportunity to help design the Mother's Day arrangements.

The most touching moment for me was when he offered to name an arrangement after a store manager named Dee. Dee is the manager of the store that grosses the most revenue for the company. Dee had an amazing relationship with customers. They greeted Dee with a hug, shopped regularly, and their children brought Dee gifts. When the CEO revealed his true identity face-to-face, he verbally recognized her achievements. Then he promised to name a floral arrangement Dee's Paradise in her honor. She was moved to tears, had trouble controlling her emotions, and uttered something to the effect that this was the greatest thing anyone has ever done for her.

Here is the takeaway: People are NOT motivated by money! As Daniel Pink states over and over is his new book, Drive, there is a huge gap between what science knows and what business does. People are intrinsically, internally motivated by purpose. People want to be listened to, appreciated, and recognized. Most importantly, employees want the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. Once people are paid a fair wage and their needs for food and shelter are met, they seek higher needs as classically illustrated by Maslow.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

How to make better decisions.

2010-03-18T10:31:00.002-04:00

I'll admit it. I've relied too much on the numbers when making decisions. When you are a CPA and spent the first ten years of your career in public accounting, it comes naturally. While these analyses are vital for business success, they don't tell the whole story. Step back, open your mind, and look around.

Recently, I came to a conclusion after reviewing a management report. After talking with a field manager, I came to a different conclusion. My new conclusion did not contradict my analysis, but the conversation enriched it. In the end, we arrived at a far better conclusion. Upon reflecting on this anecdote, I developed the following checklist for making decisions:

Analyze. Management reports are vital to company growth and success. Unfortunately most companies suffer from report creep. Someone wants this and that analyzed, or someone wants to evaluate a new metric. And, voilà, a new report is created. Even though a good accounting department can create a dynamic report that upates automatically, it may not add value, it may never be looked at again, or may cause the undisciplined to lose focus. In general, we don't need more reports, we need to better use the ones we have. Focus on the few metrics that measure success. What gets measured gets done.

Ask. There is no such thing as a stupid question. But there are stupid people asking questions. Do you homework before you ask. Nothing destroys credibility and authority faster than incompetence. When developing questions to ask, start with broad, open-ended questions and continuing narrowing the questions. Allow the conversation to take a few tangents, but not too many. The conversation needs to stay on target, concise, and productive. However, there is tremendous value in informal, impromptu dialog. What gets asked gets accomplished.

Listen. Listening is a leader's most powerful and underutilized skill. Yes, listening is a skill that can be practiced and developed. We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak. Instead of formulating your response as the other speaks, digest not only what you hear but what you don't hear. Listen intently for any underlying meaning or hidden agenda. Repeat what your heard in your own words to ensure you are on the same page.

Discern. Is this consistent with both my personal vision and company vision? Is it the right thing to do? Does your conversation support or contradict your analysis? If it contradicts, you may need to revisit the numbers and/or ask others. Here is where CFOs can improve their leadership by becoming quicker at reaching a decision. We have a tendency to continue drilling down until we reach absolute certainty, but we must make decision before absolute certainty. Is that point 95% certainty? 90%? 85%?. On the other hand, companies need our level-headed depth to make better decisions. We cannot go to the other extreme of knee-jerk reactions

Decide. Be decisive. Don't waiver. Follow through. Execute. Be consistent.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Lessons From Undercover Boss

2010-02-28T19:56:00.003-05:00

In the first episode of Undercover Boss, Waste Management's President & COO discovered that he had a lot of great employees with a lot of bad corporate policy. In the second episode, the President & CEO of Hooters discovered he had some really bad employees. In the third episode, Joe DePinto, President & CEO of 7-Eleven discovered he had a lot of great employees and great corporate leadership. What is 7-Eleven doing right?

At Waste Management, CBS featured five employees who were hard workers but complained about corporate frequently. One lady had to run to the time clock because she got docked two minutes of pay for every minute she was late. Another lady had to pee in a can because she could not take her garbage truck off route. And another was doing the work of three to four people but getting paid for one. It was impressive to see how hard each of them worked despite bad corporate policy.

At Hooters, a manager had the waitresses compete for time off by having them eat beans off a plate like a pig. It was humilating and degrading. Furthermore, the manager got the opportunity to smart off to the CEO and a slap on the wrist.

At 7-Eleven, each employee profiled were hard workers with great attitudes. Not once did any of them complained about corporate. At one store everyone knew and loved Delores and that store had the highest coffee sales for 7-Eleven. At another store, Igor was living the American dream driving a delivery truck during third shift. And James was a talented artist with a work ethic that wouldn't quit. The only negative that arose was a few lights were out at one of the stores. Since maintenance considered this low priority, it was going to take up to thirty days to fix.

Here's my takeway. Corporate does not have to be bad. In my experience of auditing and consulting for dozens of companies, corporate tends to be the bad guy. It doesn't have to be that way. Here's how:

The carrot and stick approach is ineffective. Through extensive research, science knows that rewards and punishment are the least effective means of motivating employees. People are internally motivated by intrinsic drive. The accomplishment of the task is the reward. Personal growth and progress are the reward. Once a person's basic needs of food and shelter are met by fair/competitive compensation package, motivation is driven by the higher needs of respect, confidence, achievement, creativity, and problem solving. (For further reading: Drive by Daniel Pink)

Corporate exists to serve, not police. The primary contrast between Waste Management and 7-Eleven is that WM polices its employees by spying on them and monitoring time clocks; whereas 7-Eleven empowers its employees and delegates responsibility. 7-Eleven employees appear to be self-motivating and self-policing. This may be made easier because of the franchise model in which corporate serves independent owners, but this can be achieved in any organizational structure. In 2006, "Company culture shifted to “I C.A.R.E. About People and Teamwork and Servant Leadership." (7-Eleven.com)

Focus on the little things. This is easier said than done. It takes a lot of hard work to get to the point where you can focus on the little things. The biggest problem that Joe DePinto of 7-Eleven ran into during his undercover work was that a few light bulbs were burnt out at one of the stores. When he got back to the board room he told his team that 7-Eleven needs to do a better job of serving the franchises. However, he could not have said that if he had managers who demoralizing employees like at Hooters, or a distribution network that failed to deliver product, or poorly trained employees who did not know the core values of the company. As companies get better, the focus becomes smaller.

World class training. I was so impressed with how each employee profiled at 7-Eleven repeated basic nuggets of the company culture. Delores had Joe "smile and greet customers". Another told him to make the best pastries. Igor took care of the stores. This doesn't just happen. It is the result of world class training. World class training consists of a few clear, concise expectations that are clearly communicated and easily understood.

Be best in class and worst in class. 7-Eleven is best-in-class Operational Excellence and worst-in-class Customer Intimacy. (Let me be clear, 7-Eleven has superior customer service, not customer intimacy. Think of customer intimacy as a boutique in which the product can be tailored for each customer. They server fountain drinks and shrink-wrapped sandwiches. Hold the mayo is not an option. Harvard Business further explains the difference.) The main point, however, is that successful companies focus on one of three value disciplines (operational excellence, customer intimacy, or product leadership). You cannot successfully be all things to all people. To use the cliche, jack of all trades master of none. This starts by defining what is most important to your customers and concentrating on it. This takes focus and discipline.

If you or your company is looking for strong leadership to drive your company growth, contact me. As member of a CFO roundtable, CEO roundtable, Financial Executive International, and other, I have a network of CFOs that serve companies from the small startup to the multi-million dollar small business.

The true foundation of leadership is not power, but authority.

2010-02-21T12:44:00.002-05:00

Alec Baldwin won an Oscar for his portrayal of Blake in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. "Early in the movie Blake is sent by Mitch and Murray (the faceless owners of the real estate office in which the main characters work), to motivate them by announcing, in a torrent of verbal abuse, that only the top two sellers will be allowed the more promising "Glengarry" leads, and everyone else will be fired." (Wikipedia) This style of leadership results in poor performance, poor productions, and even unethical behavior. A better approach is to set clear expectations, measure those expectations, and reward those expectations. Fear is debilitating, not motivating.

In his book, The Servant, James Hunter outlines the timeless principles of servant leadership. The book is the tale of a struggling John Daily, a husband, father, and plant manager. He comes "to a realization that is simple yet profound: The true foundation of leadership is not power, but authority, which is built upon relationships, love, service, and sacrifice." (Amazon)

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

New Rules for Small Businesses Using Twitter

2010-01-23T13:50:00.002-05:00

AccountsWorld.com sends me a daily email with top news headlines. I usually find at least one article interesting. Earlier this week I

clicked through to read Client Portals: A Secure Alternative to E-Mail.

As a professional services firm*, our product is a report, similar to CPA firms. We deliver our report electronic through a client portal. We developed this portal in house and spent big dollars for it a couple years ago. It was well worth it, but now I read about companies like LeapFILE.com that offer similar portals.

Although we are currently satisfied with our client portal, we may outgrow it or decide to go another direction. We may find that it is more cost-beneficial to outsource the client portal instead of paying a programmer everytime we want an update plus a monthly hosting fee. We are not ready to switch, but I wanted to keep LeapFILE on the back burner.

I noticed on LeapFILE home page that they are on Twitter. What a great way to keep them in my mind but on the back burner. So I followed@LeapFILE. Shortly thereafter, I received the following @reply:

@MikeCampbellCFO Thanks for the follow Mike. We work closely with CPAs & would love to know how we can help your firm if there're questions!

This tweet communicate several things: First, they used my name. Who doesn't like hearing their name? Names are very important. When someone takes the time to learn and use your name, they are communicating they care. Second, they must have read my Twitter profile because they acknowldged that I am a CPA. Third, they reminded me of their product without being pushy. Finally, they offered help and had a call to action. This was a great first tweet. It's amazing how much you can squeeze in 140 characters.

We then exchanged the next two tweets:

@LeapFILE Thanks. I learned about LeapFILE from an accounting periodical. JofA or Accountant's World (can't remember which one).

@MikeCampbellCFO Great! Feel free to sign up for a trial http://bit.ly/5ZL3UJ or let us know if you have any questions =) We're here to help.

I thought the next call to action was brilliant and effective. Sign up for our free trial. In fact, I took them up on the offer and started the free trial.

Here are the takeaways:

Send personalized @replies, not auto DMs. I hate auto DMs and it's a great way to get unfollowed. Personalized @replies, on the other hand, initiate engagement. @Replies are also put your name in the Twitter public timeline which is crawled by Bing and Google. It also appears in the Twitter stream of mutual followers.

Twitter is just one tool in your company's marketing plan. Notice in my little anecdote that I found LeapFILE through an email blast, a trade publication, and social media. Social Media fills in a missing gap and is NOT an end-all, be-all. Companies should use social media in concert with blogging, web sites, trade shows, target-industry conferences, sales professionals, and so on.

* The opinions expressed in this blog are my personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view. We offer forensic engineering and fire investigation services. If you have any questions regarding those services, please

contact me.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Price is not based on cost! Professionals are knowlede workers, not machines.

2010-01-16T17:30:00.002-05:00

I read this article from Runner's World about the cancer risk of plastic water bottles. It states that the safest water bottle is stainless steel. Prior to reading this article, I purchased plastic water bottles and consume about one per day. They are kind of a hassle. As case of 24 is heavy and take up a lot of room in the refrigerator. They fill the recycle bin. And it just feels wasteful to throw away so many. The stainless steel water solves each of these pains at less cost. The only trade off is that I have to wash them.

This week, I bought four H2Go stainless steel water bottles from Target. They were located in two different departments: sports and automotive. The bottles in the sports department range from $15-25, whereas the bottles in the automotive department ranged from $10-15. Furthermore, the four bottles I bought were on clearance for $5 each.

Here's the takeaway: Price is not based on cost! Does it really cost more to make a stainless steel sports bottle as opposed to a stainless steel travel bottle. Maybe, but I'm sure it's not 30% more. Ronald Baker, founder of VeraSage Institute, is on the leading edge of value-pricing for professional services firms. His mission is "to, once and for all, bury the billable hour and timesheet in the professions." Two important points he makes are that professionals sell knowledge and expertise, not hours; and that value is subjective, value drives price, and price drives costs.

For further reading, Ronald Baker is the author of The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

My Running Philosophy (and leadership philosophy).

2010-01-11T21:51:00.002-05:00

When I started running about this time last year, I anticipated that I would be healthier, have more energy, and feel better overall. And that has happened. What I did not anticipate is how my running philosophy would provide a framework for my leadership philosophy.

I never listen to music when I run. So I do a lot of thinking when I run. Like most people, I "flit around four major thought bubbles: organizing, problem-solving, wandering, and pondering. ... Running gives you the freedom to access those inner processes that the busy outer world often robs you of." (Runner's World) During my pondering, I identified seven core concepts that frame both my running philosophy and my leadership philosopy:

You can do it.
Define your vision and goals.
Find your passion.
Do the right thing.
Never give up.
Pace yourself.
Reward yourself.

A fellow runner posted his 2010 goals on Facebook. It inspired me to write down my goals and got me thinking about goal-setting and vision. I've posted these on DailyMile.com and thought I'd share them here, too:

Run over 400 miles in 2010.
Race 4 PRs:
< 6:45 1-mile
< 22:00 5k (7:00 pace)
< 50:00 10k (8:00 pace)
< 1:30:00 10-miler (9:00 pace)

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Snuggie: A cheap knock off that undermines the integrity of the Slanket.

2010-01-04T12:44:00.002-05:00

I do not own a snuggie and I've been, for the most part, oblivious to the cultural phenomenon until the Weezer Snuggie. I'm a big fan of the band. Someone posted a link to a YouTube infomercial that the band sells their own branded Snuggie with a "free" CD. At first I thought it was a spoof until about a minute into the video the band members starting appearing decked in their Snuggie. Hilarious.

Shortly after Christmas, someone else posted on Twitter that they were enjoying a movie in their new Slanket. Curiosity got the best of me and I Googled Slanket. As it turns out, the Spanket claims to be the original 'sleeved blanket'.

Now I'm curious from a small business standpoint how the Snuggie has been able kick the ass of the Slanket. Why have I been hearing about the Snuggie for two years and just now learned of the Slanket?

I then read the Wikipedia article on the sleeved blanket and learned that there is yet another, the Freedom Blanket, which predated both the Snuggie and the Slanket.

Okay, I should really let this go, but I went further and read a New York Times article that was footnoted on Wikipedia.

I had to chuckle when the founder of the slanket called the Snuggie "a cheap knock off that undermines the integrity of his Slanket".

After reading all of this, I was fascinated by the marketing of the Snuggie and came away with a couple of important takeaways for small businesses.

The Snuggie might be considerably thinner and smaller than the Slanket, but that enables the Snuggie to enter the market at a much more attractive price point. The Snuggie competes with $10 fleece blankets. The sleeves are a novelty that people are willing to pay an extra five bucks for.

The Snuggie markets to a broader cross section of America. Most Americans do not live in the extreme cold of the north and don't need the thicker, more expensive Slanket.

Viral marketing doesn't just happen, but when it does hold on. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in the meetings that mapped out the marketing plan.

There's nothing wrong with being a first follower. Many first followers far exceeded the original.

One of my favorite companies that I audited was a retail hair salon. It always fascinated me how a guy could make a lot of money from $10 haircuts. I learned a lot from the owner. He bought a salon, then another, then the franchise rights, and so on. He simply figured out how to do it better than the next guy. His systematic opening of new salons was second to none. It reminded me of the book, The Millionaire Next Door.

Don't be seduced by the next big thing. Maybe you are already sitting on it. Maybe the next big thing isn't a new, grand, creative idea. Maybe it's the mundane product or service that's been neglected.

The Problem With Personality Profile Tests

2009-12-28T23:29:00.002-05:00

Throughout my career, I have taken a half dozen different personality profiles: Meyers Briggs, Four Temperaments, PI Index, DISC, Hire Success, and most recently Trimetrix. These tests help employers and employees understand one another and communicate better. However, it is the process of self-reflection, delving deeper into personality traits, and listening to others' self-assessments that provides more value than the tests themselves. The tests have several problems and can be misused if not understood.

Problem No. 1 -- They are not personality tests. They are temperament tests. Temperament is just a small component of a person's personality. Personality consists of one natural tendencies (i.e. temperament) and social factors.

Problem No. 2 -- There is some question as to the scientific basis for personality. "In the 60s and 70s some psychologists dismissed the whole idea of personality, considering much behaviour to be content specific. This idea was supported by the fact that personality often does not predict behaviour in specific contexts. However, more extensive research has showed than when behaviour is aggregated across contexts, that personality can be a modest to good predictor of behaviour. Almost all psychologists now acknowledge that both social and individual difference factors (i.e., personality) influence behaviour. The debate is currently more around the relative importance of each of these factors and how these factors interact." (Wikipedia)

Problem No. 3 -- Most personality tests ignore values, faith, and virtue. There is a universal ethic of right and wrong that transcends different faith traditions. Regardless of personality, everyone can, and should, develop these universal virtues. For example, Steven Covey's 7 Habits, Christianity's seven virtues, and aspects of Servant Leadership apply to all personalities.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Decision-making is a skill that great leaders practice and perfect

2009-11-14T08:43:00.004-05:00

There is a proverb that states, run the race as if to win. My coach taught us that you will race the way you train. If you are lazy in training, you will run a lazy race. If you train with bad form, you will run a race with bad form. Furthermore, training is harder than racing.

For example, in college, to train for a 1500-meter race, we would train 40-50 miles per week. Two days we would race 20 laps around a 400-meter track; alternating one lap in 60-62 seconds and one lap jog. On the off-days, we would run 5-8 miles with a long run on the weekends. The goal is to peak on race day and acheive maximum performance. All that training would peak on race day when one has just over four minutes to shine, to run a personal best, and win the race.

How does that apply to business? We make decisons everyday and each decision has an underlying process. Understanding and applying that process daily prepares us for the big decisions. Good leaders practice and perfect decision-making and are prepared when on race day to make really difficult and far-reaching judgment calls. Good leaders consistently apply the same principles with all decisions. If one is inconsistent in the minor decisions, one will be inconsistent on the big decisions. If one makes poor decisions on the little matters, one will make poor decisions on the big matters.

The book Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls states it much better than I and goes into greater detail about how great leaders make great decisions:

"In short, people who make good judgment calls are hailed as good leaders. People who excercise poor judgment are considered poor leaders. It's that simple.

Throughout our lives, each of us makes thousands of judgment calls. Some are trivial... others are monumental... The measure of our success in life is the sum of all these judgment calls...

But what really matters is not just how many good judgment calls a leader made. Rather, it is how many of the important one he or she gets right. Good leaders not only make better calls, but they are able to discern the really important ones and get a higher percentage of them right. They are better at a whole process [of decision making].

Evangilizing the Lean Startup by Eric Reis

2009-10-10T08:42:00.004-04:00

Below is a one-minute excerpt from the Q&A after Eric Reis' speech on Stanford's Entrpreneurial Thought Leadership series. Eric Reis is an author and blogger at http://StarupLessonsLearned.com. "Evangelizing the Lean Startup" is excellent and was well worth my time. The entire speech and slide deck is available here on Eric's blog.

Eric was asked, What makes a great startup. He said that there is no one formula and it really comes down to what makes a great team and it really comes down to chemistry. There needs to be the right balance between tension and compatibility where everyone on the team "does not drink the exact same Kool-Aid." Leaders need a shared passion for the vision and create an enviornment that encourages diverse opinions focused on acheiving the same goal.

"Great entrepreneurs don't have better ideas, they build a better processes." They have enough humility to realize that the startup will have iterations and pivot.

Download now or listen on posterous

Podcast.m4a (3962 KB)

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Seven Social Networking Naysayers

2009-10-06T20:51:00.005-04:00

Lately, I've seen a lot of articles and heard a lot of negative comments about social networking. There are new 'studies' that say it is pointless babble and narcissistic. There are people telling me it's a waste of time and voyeurism. Here are my top seven comments I've heard and my take on each.

Twitter conversations are pointless babble.
I argue that many face-to-face conversations are also babble, but not pointless. It's called small-talk and has an important function. I often think of Twitter as the company water cooler where people talk about weather, sports, pop culture, family, food, TV, music and so on. These conversations build friendship and trust. Friendship is the most important trigger to yes and has the greatest impact on people. Trust is "the key leadership competency of the new global economy"

Most Twitter conversations are narcissistic.
Most Twitter and Facebook activity is not even recorded. Most social networking activity is listening. People read 10s and 100s times more tweets, blog posts, and status updates than they post. Narcissistic posts are very valuable to online conversations. Narcissistic posts get the conversation started. Posts about me are more about the listener and trying to make a connection.

Social networking can get you in trouble.
This is so true. Please, before you start using Facebook or other social sites for your personal brand or business, get rid of all your objectionable material. Google your name and clean it up. However, the fact that some people post inappropriate stuff, does not mean you should abandon it altogether! Set goals, make a statement, get connected. Nobody is perfect. Don't let fear prevent you from making real connections online. Don't be afraid to experiment, test new technologies and approaches, and even make a few mistakes.

Social networking is voyeurism.
This is one of my favorite comments that I heard first-hand from a C-level executive. No, voyeurism is showing to the world that which should remain private. Social networking is showing the world the best side of you. Social networking is like going to traditional networking events. One puts on one's best clothes, loads up on business cards, and strikes up conversations with people about weather, sports, family, TV, and hopefully a little business. It's know different from business advertising. Businesses don't publish minutes from the Board meeting, but publish ads that communicate what they want the world to know about them.

Social networking is a huge waste of time.
It can be if you are not disciplined. It is no different, however, from going out on the weekend, attending traditional networking events & seminars, and other face-to-face conversations. One must choose the number of these events one attends based on the ROI one wants to achieve. We've all gone to events and meetings that we return from thinking, "Those were two hours of my life that I'll never get back." What one wants to get out of it determines how much time one should invest.

Face-to-face networking still trumps social networking
Social verses traditional networking is not and either-or proposition! A good sales person does not neglect to follow up a traditional networking event with emails, phone calls, and direct mailings! Social networking does not supplant in-person networking; it supplements it. It is a communications tool that gives you more 'touches' between face-to-face meetings. And I argue that SM touches are more effective than email because they are opt-in strategies.

Companies will not hire you.
I read this naysayer in a 'business intelligence' brief that I receive in my inbox. Prospective employers are looking for reasons to rule out candidates and your online presence provides them the needed material. That is exactly why you should take control of your online presence. You need to be in control of the online conversation about you. You need to provide prospective employers with ample reason to hire you. Use the web to your advantage and develop a portfolio of work. Use it to connect with people you may not have met otherwise. Who knows, you may even find you next job via social networks.

Twitter In One Word: Helpful

2009-09-24T22:46:00.002-04:00

Last month, we had our annual wellness physical at the Louisville office. I was anxious to see my results because I started running since the last wellness physical. As any good CPA would do, as soon as I got the results, I compared this year to last year. I was expecting to see significant improvement, but was surprised to see the my cholesterol was acutally higher (still average, but higher). After the initial disappointment I started tracking my diet using DailyBurn.com. I discovered that I was not eating too many calories, just too many carbs and not enough protein.

I started searching for foods high in protein, but low in fat. That proved to be a challenge. I also noticed that I was eating protein at lunch and dinner, but none for breakfast. So, I turned to my Twitter followers for help with this tweet. Within a matter of minutes, I had ten responses of high-protein tasty foods to try. Better than that, I received recommendations from people that I trust. See the responses below. I hope you find them helpful, too.

At the same time, I was helping a University of Louisville accounting student with inteviewing and CPA exam questions. As I logged off that evening I thought to myself, "If I were to describe Twitter in one word tonight, it would be helpful." That is the key to successful social networking: being helpful and adding value to your followers. Thanks to all who helped me.

inspiremetoday @MikeCampbellCPA If you're really looking for health benefits, it's the best thing possible. I use Metagenics or YoungLiving. Both great.
11:19 PM Sep 10th from Seesmic in reply to MikeCampbellCPA

inspiremetoday @MikeCampbellCPA
How about a lot fat, high protein shake? Healthy and yummy.
11:10 PM Sep 10th from Seesmic in reply to MikeCampbellCPA

momkw @LouisvilleSoup Kashi Golean Crunch cereal with low fat milk and a banana.
11:01 PM Sep 10th from web in reply to MikeCampbellCPA

@MikeCampbellCPA @jasonfalls by far the easiest thing is a protein shake. Otherwise, egg whites with spinach and black beans = good :)
10:56 PM Sep 10th from TweetDeck

geekgiant @JasonFalls @MikeCampbellCPA egg white omelet, ground turkey and a crap load of veggies.
10:56 PM Sep 10th from Echofon

ginakay @MikeCampbellCPA: @cspenn has a great tortilla/egg/cheese thing he makes...
10:54 PM Sep 10th from web

JasonFalls RT @louisvillesoup: I think I need to eat a higher protein breakfast. Got any ideas for something low-fat, quick and easy? #twit2fit
10:52 PM Sep 10th from TweetDeck

atWilliam @MikeCampbellCPA oh and I'm not afraid of a 2 or 3 egg omelet either, takes about 10 mins to crack and cook.
10:52 PM Sep 10th from Brizzly in reply to MikeCampbellCPA

atWilliam @MikeCampbellCPA yogurt and granola with fruit for breakfast. Stoneyfield French Vanilla organic low fat. @odwalla protein shakes are good 2
10:50 PM Sep 10th from Brizzly in reply to MikeCampbellCPA

cheapwebmonkey @MikeCampbellCPA Quinoa- is a grain that is packed full o protien and you can make it about as quick as cream o wheat and it's tastier
10:29 PM Sep 10th from Twitterrific in reply to MikeCampbellCPA

cheapwebmonkey @MikeCampbellCPA MOrningStar Farms fake sausage links-yumm-o and Quinoa
10:19 PM Sep 10th from Twitterrific in reply to MikeCampbellCPA

I think I need to eat a higher protein breakfast. Got any ideas for something low-fat, quick and easy? #twit2fit
10:17 PM Sep 10th from web

Update: 9/24/2009

mudd4goals@MikeCampbellCPA I missed your first go-around, but let me add: Dry roasted edamame. Super high in protein, good fats and fiber. Great snack

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Louisville CPA says firm member size doesn't matter

2009-09-21T22:36:00.002-04:00

The managing partner of Louisville's largest CPA firm said, "We don't think size matters that much after you get to a certain threshold," Business First reports. This was in response to an announcement that two other CPA firms in Louisville are merging. This merger would create a "regional powerhouse" and knock the number one firm off it's top position. Business First Book of Lists ranks CPA firm by the total number of members who have the CPA designation.

The article went on to state the the Louisville CPA landscape is changing. The Big Four have lost influence and regional firms are becoming bigger players. As the Big Four have given up smaller, local clients to focus on public companies with all-consuming Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, regional firms are picking up this work. However, Louisvile CPA firms are now competing with out-of-town regional firms. The partners of this most recent merger feel it is necessary for Louisville CPA firms to merge to compete with these regional firms.

Read the article here. I have worked for both a Big Four (Big Six at the time) and a regional CPA firm. I am very interested in how this will play out.

I changed my Twitter handle from LouisvilleSoup to MikeCampbellCPA. Here's why:

2009-09-16T22:56:00.000-04:00

I have toyed with this idea before. Two things happened today that convinced me it's time to change my Twitter handle. First, I joined the Greater Louisville Inc. (GLI) small business committee and attended the inaugural meeting this morning. Both Twitter and LinkedIn were mentioned during the meeting. I returned to the office and began emailing the persons I had met. In my email, I wanted to include my Twitter and LinkedIn URLs. I realized that LouisvilleSoup has no meaning. I felt I needed to explain my brand which I should not have to.

Second, as I was checking email, I received an email from Audio-Tech Business Summaries that was promoting an interview with David Meerman Scott. The email stated, "He uses the middle name since there are quite a few famous David Scott's in the world and he was tired of being confused with some of them, as one is an astronaut that walked on the moon as commander of Apollo 15, another is a six-time Ironman Triathlete and one is even a US Congressman." I, too, have a very common name and compete with Tom Petty's lead guitarist, PGA golfer, and Geico CFO. I've always wanted to use my name, but every combination of Mike Campbell has been taken, except for MikeCampbellCPA.

My only reluctance to using CPA as differentiation from other Mike Campbell's was the CPA brand, itself. The AICPA and state societies have done an incredible job branding CPA. It is one of the most recognized brands. Unfortunately for me, the brand is typically associated with public accountants instead of those of us in private industry. Furthermore, I think people tend to think tax accountant, too. However, it is better explaining that I am a small business CFO in Louisville rather than explaining that Soup is a nickname based on my last name Campbell. When it comes to online personal branding, your name is your brand.

As I was typing this blog post, I decided to check where my name stands on Google's search engine. When I started blogging earlier this year, I was nowhere to be found with my name. Recently, I made it to the top of Google page 2. Tonight, I am on Google page 1! This accomplishes one of my primary goals for this blog. Our marketing director and I talk a lot about our company's online presence. As he states, "Content is King". I wanted to prove that even an individual who is neither a marketer nor a technology professional can utilize the free tools available to develop a solid online presence. It is sometimes a challenge convincing others of the benefit consistent content and I hope my little experiment proves a point.

That leads me to my next reason for changing my Twitter handle -- better search engine results. Karen Rubin wrote on her personal blog, "I knew I didn't stand a chance of getting the coveted #1 position as long as I didn't have a domain that was at least close to the search term." This concept, of having a URL that contains your key search terms is critical for search engine results, really stuck with me. She had the same issue I do in that MikeCampbell.com is already taken, and GoDaddy is holding MikeCampbellCPA.com hostage. I, too, was hesitant until she gave me the idea to claim http://mike-campbell-cpa.com.

Finally, this brings all my social networks together with a common userid. I had already claimed MikeCampbellCPA on LinkedIn and Facebook. I think it is much more professional than LouisvilleSoup. Now, how do I migrate my web site from LouisvilleSoup.com tohttp://mike-campbell-cpa.com without losing my page ranking?

7 Steps To Becoming A Runner

2009-09-05T20:11:00.002-04:00

Runners World magazine had a great article recently that stated anyone can become a runner. If you can walk from your couch to your refrigerator, you can be a runner. I wish they had this article online so I could link to it. Here are my seven steps to becoming a runner.

Step 1: Set goals. When I first started running, my goals were simple -- run 20 minutes 3-4 times each week. I discussed it with my wife and determined my best time to run was at night after the kids were in bed. I'd like to run in the morning, but I'm just not a morning person. I enjoy running much more at night. Figure out how much time you can commit and commit.

Step 2: Have fun. Running is a fun sport for an endless number of reasons. It clears your head. It gives you more energy. It improves your cardio. It's challenging. It builds bone and muscle. It strengthens your heart. It encourages better eating. It burns calories. It plugs you into a kind, friendly, and supportive sub- culture. It's a beautiful marriage of individualism and team work.

Step 3: Pace yourself. When you first start running, run very very slowly. Let the run come to you. Don't over do it and get burnt out. Run at a 'conversational pace'. In other words, run at a pace in which your breathing is steady enough to be able to talk to someone while you run. RW writes that 70% of elite runners' training consist of easy runs or 'junk miles'. You should feel more energized from running, not more tired.

Step 4: Just do it. I know it's a cliche, but seriously, get up, walk to your mailbox, jog down the street. If you get out of breath, walk. After you've gone 5-10 minutes, turn around and go home.

Step 5: Just do it. At some point early on in your running, you will not feel like running. Don't try to talk yourself into it. Don't try to find your motivation. This takes too much energy when you're already tired. Don't think. Just lace up your shoes, walk out the door, and start jogging. Start slower than usual. After a few minutes when your heart gets going and you start sweating, you'll feel better.

Step 6: Track your progress. Join Dailymile.com. Entering a workout is quick and easy. Just enter the number of miles, the time it took, and how you felt. It'll do the rest. You'll look back at it and say, 'Wow I never thought three months ago I'd be doing this' as you see your improvement week after week, month after month.

Step 7: Join a team. It is so much easier to run with a team because of the support and accountability. Stop by your local running store and talk to them for a weekday or Saturday morning group for an IRL team. Join Dailymile.com for a virtual team. Follow me at http://www.dailymile.com/people/LouisvilleSoup . Find other in your area or with similar pace and follow them. Post comments and motivation. Join the community and the fun.

Like I said, anybody can be a runner. I have seen runners of all shapes, sizes, color, ability, and, yes, even disability. I hope this post inspires you to run. I hope you become addicted and passionate about running as I have.

Thanks for reading.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

The 7 Triggers To Yes -- How it applies to Social Media

2009-08-29T15:18:00.001-04:00

In his book, The 7 Triggers to Yes: The New Science Behind Influencing People, author Russell Granger examines the latest research in neuroscience to draw conclusions as to how people make decisions and discovered these seven triggers:

Friendship Trigger — Activates trust and agreement through bonding.
Authority Trigger — Creates a perception of expertise that activates acceptance.
Consistency Trigger – Appeals to motives consistent with past actions.
Reciprocity Trigger – Taps into the rationale that when you give, you get something back.
Contrast Trigger – Makes your request more appealing when compared to other options.
Reason-Why Trigger — Gives reasons that activate an automatic “yes.”
Hope Trigger — Instills positive expectations that deliver agreement.

The first three triggers really hit home with me and I cannot get them out of my mind. I recognize their actions on a daily basis as I work with colleagues and co-workers and interact with family and friends. The author states that the friendship trigger is the most important trigger and has the greatest affect on people. As I have reflected upon this, I agree.

As a leader, it is much easier to get people to follow if you establish friendship. Friendship is built on trust, common interests, listening, patience, understanding, and, yes, love. Here are my thoughts as to how social media is an excellent tool for achieving at least the first three triggers of yes.

Friendship trigger - I can honestly say that I have developed friendships online. Friendships take a long time to develop and social media provides a medium of communication that fosters friendships. I believe it is more efficient than traditional networking, but not necessary more effective. The most effective approach is a combination of the two. Social media bridges the gap between face-to-face meetings, but does NOT replace them.
Authority trigger - The biggest key to effectively using blogs or microblogs is posting valued content. Content that your readers find valuable establishes your authority. This takes a lot of reading of others' blogs, books, and magazines (i.e. listening). Find content that is relevant and share it with your followers. Again, web tools provide the most efficient means of sharing your content to a wide audience, but not necessarily the most effective. I love Mark Guinness' post Get More Followers by Spending Less Time on Twitter. He writes, "So if you really want to get more followers, you should do two things: (1) Get to know people outside of Twitter. (2) Do something interesting outside of Twitter... The most popular people on Twitter tend to be those who are doing remarkable things elsewhere."
Consistency trigger - What better tool for consistency is there than a microblog, blog, and social media? I tweet about seven posts per day: 64% conversations, 15% links, 8% retweets, 11% content, and 2% hashtags (Twanalyst.com/louisvillesoup).

Have you built friendships and established authority by using current web tools? Have they added value to your life via knowledge, caring support, or sales? Let me know by sharing your comments below.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

CEOs and microbloging. (Too busy NOT to Twitter)

2009-08-24T08:04:00.001-04:00

I've worked with enough small business CEOs to know that they are fast-paced, driven people that love to be in control and want it done yesterday. That's exactly why they should microblog and why the argument that it's a waste of time doesn't hold water.

Fast-paced - Microblogging is limited to 140 characters. You don't get much faster than that. Could you imagine if your inbox was limited to 140 characters per email? If conversations were quick exchanges 2-3 sentences? How much more could you accomplish in a day?

Be everywhere - Microblogging services enable one to be in all places at all times. The audience is global and includes employees, customers, and vendors. You can reach a huge audience with lightening speed.

Control your message - Microblogging and blogging put you in control. You don't have to wait for ad agencies, press releases, employees, etc. Have something to say? Say it. It's unfiltered communication directly to your audience.

Stay on top of your competitors, employees, and customers. Microblogging has ushered in real-time search and given you immediate feedback.

Here's how to start in less than 5 minutes:

Go to http://twitter.com and sign up for an account. It only takes a couple minutes. Here's a couple things to do:

Use your real name as your ID. Add a number to the end if it's already taken. Be quick, you can change it later.
Include a description in the profile. Be brief, you're only allowed 140 characters.
Upload a picture of yourself.
Set goals. Your microblogging goals should be aligned with your company's marketing goals. (read more)

Start following people.

Forget the Twitter search tools, they're always broken.
Forget the tons of Twitter apps; who has time.
Follow me (http://twitter.com/LouisvilleSoup). Don't be afraid of occasional, shameless self-promotion.
Follow a few social media experts like Jason Falls, Chris Brogan, and Mark Schaefer.
Email three employees you know who use Twitter. Follow them.
Follow who they follow. Chances are they are following other employees and clients.
Go to http://exectweets.com and start following other CEOs.

Start listening.

Check Twitter a couple times a day for a couple minutes at a time.
Don't read every tweet, just scan and listen. It's the best way to learn.
Install a Twitter client on your mobile device so that you can listen from anywhere.
Use Twitter search for real-time mentions of your brand and your competitors.

Start posting content.

Don't answer the question What are you doing. You're right, nobody cares. Answer these questions instead.
What books are you reading and why?
What articles are you reading that I should read?
What motivates you?
What message about your brand do you want to communicate?

Keep listening but start joining the conversation.

Use the @mention feature to connect with people.
Be careful, you might get addicted.
Stay focused and remember your goals.

Social Media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Twitter is dying and what to do about it.

2009-08-15T13:15:00.001-04:00

Twitter is dying. There were two significant news stories and a few anecdotal stories that convince me Twitter is dying. First, Twitter suffered a denial of service attack that shut it down for several hours. It just has not seemed to recover. To this day I still see complaints of sluggishness, lost tweets, or accounts that crashed. Second, Facebook purchased FriendFeed. Personally, I haven't dived deeply into the story to fully digest the ramifications, but at first blush I think it's Facebook's competitive answer to Twitter. I have also noticed recently more subscribers to my FriendFeed account, even though I hardly ever use it (that may change). Here are my reasons why Twitter is failing:

Twitter is not scalabe - the recent denial of service attack convinced me that Twitter is not scalable. There are now numerous calls on the web for a distributed network. "Twitter is run by a single company in a single office building in San Francisco... But for Twitter, centralization is also a curse... [It is] too popular for one company to handle." (Slate.com)

Twitter is a first mover innovator - Historically, fast followers often beat the first mover innovators. For example, Google was preceded by AltaVista and iTunes by Napster. Google was not the first search engine, it was just a better search engine. Twitter is the first microblog, but I believe there will emerge a better microblog.

Twitter is inundated with spam - I get so many spam followers that I've pretty much stopped checking my new followers. I don't follow everyone who follows me and it's a shame that I may be missing out on some cool new tweeps because I just don't have the time to filter out the crap. I also get tired of auto-DMs and "How can I help your business" DMs. And the number of "1000 FREE follower TODAY", "whiten your teeth", blah, blah, blah is incredibly annoying.

Twitter has an identity crisis - Recently I read co-founder Evan Williams stated that Twitter is a messaging service. Then I read that co-founder Biz Stone "said instead of thinking of the service as a social tool to connect with friends, he wants Twitter to be seen as a communications and information network for discovering and sharing what is happening right now." Without a vision, Twitter will perish. It will continue roll out tools that people don't want like retweeting, and neglect useful features like groups, filtering, and better web interface.

The value is in the apps - Like thousands of others, I have paid for Twitter. I've bought three iPhone apps (Tweetie, Twittelator, and Twitterfon), but Twitter has failed to profit from these sales. The best thing Twitter has done was open up it's API. This allowed developers to write tons of apps and foster growth. The value of Twitter is in clients like PeopleBrowser, HootSuite, TweetDeck, and Seesmic.

I agree with Slate.com that microblogging is here to stay and is too important for one company. So what should can we, as consumers, do?

Keep a watch out for the next big thing. Better yet, be the next big thing. Early in my Twitter experience a lot of my followers went to Plurk. Most of them came back. Then there was Identic.ca. It proved to me that people are loyal to mircroblogging, but not a specific brand. Twitter is just a brand. Unfortunately it's brand is tarnished from fail whale, lack of revenue, and being in kahoots with the CNN / Ashton Kutcher PR stunt. Furthermore, too many people have too much trouble answer the question, What is Twitter.

Backup up your network. My goal for Twitter was, and is, simple: build a business network. I have spent a lot of time building a network of CFOs, CEOs, small business leaders, tech, marketing, and social media gurus. This network has been hugely beneficial to me both professional and personally. Twitter has lost followers/following and tweets before and I have to anticipate that happening again. I've used Tweetake and Twistory, but really like the concept of Lifestreambackup.com. It's automatic and includes all your social networks (Flickr, Zoho & Google docs, Gmail, and more).

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

How I found my latest hire on Twitter.

2009-07-30T19:41:00.001-04:00

I joined Twitter in April 2008 after hearing a speech by Brian Wallace (@nowsourcing). I joined primarily for small business networking. One of my earliest follows was Holly Kolman (@mobienthusiast). One weekend this year, she recommended in a tweet to follow Sarah Stanley (@sarahstanley) because Sarah was tweeting while running a 50-mile ultra.

Being a runner and twitterer, I started following Sarah. A couple weeks later Louisville hosted it's annual marathon and half marathon that precedes the Kentucky Derby. I woke up the Saturday of the race and turned on the TV to watch race coverage and opened Twitter. I was curious if anyone in Louisville was tweeting during the race like Sarah. I found only two, one of which was Clay Noe (@noefool) and I started following him.

Soon after that, we decided to advertise for a new position at work. We posted it on Career Builder and I posted the link in a tweet. Clay suggested to his sister Carrie (@carrienoedavis) that she follow me. She sent me a DM, we exchanged emails, and she sent me her resume.

We received over 400 resumes for the job. We narrowed them down to a half-dozen to interview based on qualifications. I ended up interviewing two candidates from Career Builder, two from traditional netwoking, and two from social networking. I did not intend to separate interviewees equally among the there networking means, it just happened that way.

Again, based on qualifications and the interviews, we made an offer to Carrie and she accepted. She was (and is) a combination of the best qualified and the best fit for our firm.

It's amazing how a few seemingly insigificant tweets could result in a job offer.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

Is it enough to learn SQL or should I get certified?

2009-07-25T12:22:00.001-04:00

This question was posed to me by a college student. I was first impressed by the question. Most college graduates that I have worked have had no SQL skills and oftentimes minimal Excel skills. This was quite disappointing as a CFO. I was hoping that they would be able to show me new technologies and new ways of doing things. If I saw SQL skills on a resume, I would be most likely to move it to the 'A' pile.

Now to the question at, is it enough to learn SQL out of a book or should one get certified. Let me address this from a hiring standpoint. I look to see if candidates lists Excel, Word, and at least one accounting package. I would be impressed if I saw SQL also listed. And I would certainly expand on it in an interview. So, no, the certification is not necessary for me.

Next let me address it from a necessary skill standpoint. Is SQL a necessary skill in accounting? From my experience in small business, absolutely. A SQL script is very basic: SELECT fields FROM tables WHERE criteria. Reporting, data extraction, and financial analysis are critical skills for auditors and accountants. The SQL script enables one to extract data quickly and efficiently. It also enables one to extract any info in the database. Many reporting packages limit the info that can be pulled for a variety of reasons.

With that being said, I do not think that one needs certification to effectively use SQL in practice. Excel, Access, and SQL Management Studio have tools that assist one in creating SQL scripts. This is especially useful when create complex WHERE clauses with INNER JOINS to combine multiple tables. Once the script is created, it can be used in pivot table tools such as Excel or Tableau.

Once one has a basic knowledge of SQL and can create scripts for extracting data, one can gain further knowledge from search engines and discussion boards. I have created triggers, stored procedures, parametrized queries, and pivot reports using SQL. The skills to learn is creating web reports and SQL Server Reporting Services. These skills have enabled me to mine and report data without hiring additional staff or outsourcing. The biggest benefit is that once these reports are created, they are dynamically linked to live data and eliminates manual report creation.

Finally, if you have SQL scripting skills, you need to display it prominently on your resume in both the skills section and experience sections. Explain how you used it in practice to solve a problem or create efficiency. Another reason certification may not add value is because many small business owners and even financial executives of small businesses do not see the value of it. Many do not even know what type of database their data resides in. And this gives you the opportunity to set yourself apart from the competition.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

I just set up Google analytics on posterous.

2009-07-03T23:02:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned a few days ago, I have been seeing more and more people using Posterous. I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could post to my blogger account from Posterous. So I logged on, clicked autopost from anywhere and, voilà, blogger was a choice. Within two minutes I had my blogger account setup to post from Posterous. I am curious to see if the formatting comes across well. Blogger has a post from email feature, but the line breaks are always messed.

One thing was holding me back from fully embracing Posterous -- Google analytics. As a numbers guy, I really enjoy analyzing my blog stats. However, when I was setting up my blogger account, I saw the option to add Google analytics. Again, within a couple minutes I had it set up.

I think I will continue to maintain my blog separate from posterous, but I may post everything to blogger from posterous. My posterous account will, therefore, contain all my blogger posts, but not vice versa.

Posted via email from Mike Campbell's posterous

The Fred Factor (and why I won't spread Fred)

2009-06-07T21:08:00.008-04:00

I just finished readin the book The Fred Factor by Mark Sanborn and I give it 2 out of 5 star review. The entire book is based on Mr. Sanborn's experience with a postal worker. The postal worker went out of his way to engage Mr. Sanborn in conversation and offer to personally take care of his mail while he was on business trips. This postal worker even went so far as to hide a UPS package in the shrubs so that passer-bys would not know he was out of town.

As I read this account, I was more creeped out than impressed. Maybe it is my introverted peronality, but I have no desire to engage my postal worker in dialogue. Don't get me wrong, I am not rude to them and if I'm out in the yard, I will take walk to the Jeep to personally receive my mail with a smile and a thank you. But the USPS has a system in place to handle my mail while I'm out of town, I would prefer to use that service. If my mail carrier went out of their way to talk with me and inquire about my daily habits, I would feel more intruded upon rather than feeling I was receiving extraordinary service.

After my first thought of how I would react personally, my second thought was how I would react professionally. I put myself in the shoes of Fred's boss and Fred's organization. Is this world-class service? Does it increase or decrease price? Is it scalable?

I'll use Amazon.com to convey my thoughts on world-class service. I used to think Amazon.com had world-class service until I started reading about Zappos. It occurred to me that I have never had to deal with Amazon's customer service. I search for an item online, place my order, and wait for it to arrive. It has always arrives in the promised time-frame and the few returns I have made have not required a customer service rep. I can't rate it's customer service because I've never had to use it. So it is with the USPS. My mail shows up everyday (except Sunday) and I never have to call customer service. I don't want extraordinary customer service. I want my mail, I want it on-time, and I want it cheap.

Now what if my mail carrier stopped by every house on her route to chat with her 'customers'. Is that scalable? By no means. She would never be able to finish her route. In fact, I would prefer her not stop because than she could cover more houses and, in theory, keep the price of my stamp down.

The bottom line is that the underlying analogy for the entire book had some serious flaws in my mind and tainted the rest of the book. Mr. Sanburn went on to site dozens of examples of what he considered extraordinary service. For example, one hospital encourages it's staff to walk visitors to their destination whenever they are asked where something is. My first thought was, if the hospital has that much trouble with people finding where they should go, maybe they should invest in better signage. Or better yet, color-code the hallways. I would think that a few cans of paints and a few signs would be a lot cheaper than paying medical staff to escort people around the hospital.

The other serious drawback to the book is the number of cheesy lines in the book. At times it felt like a string of cliches. This really disrupted the flow of the book and made it unenjoyable. Furthermore, his use of 'Fred' got really old really fast.

Freds are everywhere. Freds are everywhere you go. Funny Fred. Accountable Fred. Generous Fred. Other Freds Who Know. Freds Understand Their Clients. Famous Fred. Freds, indeed, are everywhere. (Chapter 2 titles)

How to be a Fred - Question: How can we get more Freds in the world? Answer: Be A Fred! How many Freds are in your organization...Do you regret that some of your teammates [are] "the anti-Freds?" It all starts with you. If you want more Freds, be a Fred...It isn't hard. Actually, it's harder not to be a Fred. (page 28)

The purpose of this book is to become Fred-like and learn to look at the world thru "Fred-colored glasses". (page 35)

Three Final Ideas to Spread Fred: (1) Recognize the Freds in your life. (2) Acknowledge them for their contribution. (3) Pay them back by becoming a Fred, too. (page 78)

Protect Yourself From Identity Theft

2009-05-28T16:05:00.013-04:00

Protect yourself from identity theft and don't trust anyone else to do it for you. Recently, Wired.com reported that Judge Rules LifeLock’s Fraud Alert Service Illegal. Fraud alerts are a free service that "indicates to anyone requesting your credit file that you suspect you are a victim of fraud." LifeLock charges over $100 per year, per adult to provide services that are either free or a fraction of the cost. Here is what you can do to protect your identity:

Protect your social security number. Make sure you do not have any identification cards in your wallet that contain your SSN. Most insurance cards have stopped using your SSN as the identification number, but double-check just to make sure.

Make sure your SSN is not included on your pay stubs. The only two places your employer should have copies of your SSN is the W-4 in your personnel file and in the payroll system.

Do not give your SSN to any business, including most health care providers. If you need to borrow money, you more than likely will have to provide them with it.
You generally are not legally required to provide your Social Security number to most businesses - including most health care providers... However, some companies might refuse to do business with you... There is no law that prevents businesses from requesting your SSN, and there are few restrictions on what businesses can do with it. (http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs10-ssn.htm#11)
Get insurance. Add a rider to your homeowners' insurance policy. This will cover the expense associated with cleaning up your identity. The cost is minimal and takes about five minutes.
Review your credit report annually. You can obtain your credit report for free from AnnualCreditReport.com. It take just a few minutes to download your credit report, but set aside 20 minutes to review it. The report provides enough information to close any account that is open that you are not using. Also, look for any accounts that you did not open.
AnnualCreditReport.com is the ONLY authorized source to get your free annual credit report under federal law. The Fair Credit Reporting Act guarantees you access to a free credit report from each of the three nationwide reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — every twelve months. The Federal Trade Commission has received complaints from consumers who thought they were ordering their free annual credit report, but instead paid hidden fees or agreed to unwanted services. Don’t be fooled by TV ads, email offers, or online search results. Go to the authorized source when you request your free report. (http://www.ftc.gov/freereports)
Opt-out. Tired of getting junk mail? Worried that it may include personal information that you don't want falling into the wrong hands? Call (888) 5 OPT-OUT -- (888) 567-8688 to opt-out of receiving these mail solicitations. One pitfall is that the phone requires you to give them your SSN. Alternatively, you can opt-out at https://www.optoutprescreen.com.
Put a freeze on your credit. You will need to contact all three credit bureaus to set this up (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion). This is better protection than the 90-day fraud alert.
A security freeze gives consumers the choice to “freeze” or lock access to their credit file against anyone trying to open up a new account or to get new credit in their name.
When a security freeze is in place at all three major credit bureaus, an identity thief cannot open a new account because the potential creditor or seller of services will not be able to check the credit file. When the consumer is applying for credit, he or she can lift the freeze temporarily using a PIN so legitimate applications for credit or services can be processed.
(http://www.consumersunion.org/)

You may also want to consider Identity Theft Alerts. I, personally, subscribed to this service for about 18 months. I liked it because anytime there was activity to my account, I was immediately notified. I did not like it because it is negative assurance and after-the-fact. I was only alerted if there was activity. I would prefer to be notified monthly that there was no activity, also. I decided to save the money and use my free annual credit report. Equifax's product costs $12.95 per month and monitors all three credit bureaus.

Companies like LifeLock offer to do some of the above -- for a monthly fee. However, they want your social security number and other personal information. Plus, you can do everything they offer for a fraction of the cost. Don't trust a contoversial company to do it for you.

For more information:

http://www.identitytheft.gov/

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/idtheft.htm

Why I Love Running (And Those Who Run)

2009-05-22T22:25:00.006-04:00

I enjoy running more now than I did when I ran competitively in high school and college. Back then, I ran for the race and did not appreciate all the aspects of running. Now I love the sport of running for the comradery, fitness, wellness, inspiration, technology, and discipline.

Comradery - My company started a fitness program in which employees could volunteer to sign an agreement to reach a stretch goal they set for themselves. If you meet your goal, you get to keep an iPod Nano and NikePlus chip used to track your progress. It has been a real team-building experience that gives us a common bond that did not previously exist. Outside the Firm, I have connected with other runners. There is a bond created from talking about personal bests, distance, pace, time, races, etc. It beats talking about the weather.

Fitness - After college, I basically stopped running all together. For a few years, until the birst of my firstborn, I played volleyball. Since then, I have had no fitness plan. As of January 1st, I committed to running 25 miles per month. That's equates to about 20 minutes of running three days a week (or one hour a week). Running has given me more energy and gotten me back in shape.

Wellness - Since running, I have lost weight, lowered my blood pressure, lowered my resting heart rate, and improved my flexibility. Lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

Inspiration - Sarah Stanley runs 50 miles to inspire someone to run or walk 1 mile. Thomas Powell is a marathon runner who went from 230 to 168 pounds. Clay Noe literally had his leg ripped off 22 years ago and ran a mini-marathon this year in under three hours. (noefool.com) Most of the runners I know started running in their mid- to late-twenties. I know of one who started in her early fifties. I believe anyone can become a runner. These stories inspire me to set goals, overcome obstacles, and focus on the positive.

Technology - I absolutely love the new technology that was not available when I ran competitively close to 20 years ago. We used to have to drive around in our cars to map a run. Now it can be done online with Google maps or MapMyRun.com. I wear a GPS unit on my wrist that tracks pace, distance, time, heart rate, and more. Even the running clothes have made huge advancements and made running more fun. However, one only needs a good pair of running shoes to get started running.

Discipline - What is the definition of success? Success is simply the accomplishment of a set goal. If one sets a goal to run 200 miles in eight months, the goal can be broken down into monthly goals, weekly goals, and daily goals. With each run, one can set goals, or challenges. One of the most rewarding aspects of running is setting new personal bests.

I took this blog post in a slightly different direction than the goals I have set for this blog, but I think the lessons from running are tranferrable to business leadership.

The Fraud Pyamid

2009-05-03T18:00:00.000-04:00

One of the more popular posts on my blog is my discussion of the Fraud Triangle. Fraud hit the news again this week with an article in CFO.com, Fraud takes many forms. Count on all of them to increase this year. I became aware of the article from following Cindy Kraft (aka @cfocoach) on Twitter. She posted the following tweets from the article:

To minimize fraud, CFOs need to set the tone for ethics & integrity and consider culture fit for all hires.

One psychological trait that is a useful indicator of a predisposition to fraud: perfectionism. Richard Davis, RHR Int'l

On average, it takes 2 years from the time fraud starts until is is detected; 46% are exposed by whistle blowers.

In tough times, fraud increases. 34% of frauds are perpetrated by ppl living beyond their means.

This reminded me of what I have coined the Fraud Pyramid. It is based on the Safety Pyramid that I learned when auditing manufacturing companies. Safety is primary concern for manufacturing companies and there is a widely-held theory that if a company can reduce minor injuries and near-accidents, a company will reduce catastrophic accident. According to Wikipedia, the safety triangle was introduced in a 1931 book by H.W. Heinrich's that states:

Herbert William Heinrich analyzed 550.000 occupational accidents and noticed that there is a constant ratio between fatal, light and near-accident of 1:29:300. In conclusion it is useful to analyze the frequent near-accidents to detect organization problems and intervene before a fatal accidents happens.

Although I have not read any empirical evidence to support my theory, I believe this concept also applies to fraud. If a company can reduce minor theft, then it can also reduce major fraud schemes. For example, does your company have a policy regarding personal usage of company credit cards? Does it specifically state that personal use of credit cards will result in disciplinary action including and up to termination? If not, what is that communicating to employees? That which you tolerate, you promote.

I am not suggesting companies dead-bolt the supply closet, but I am suggesting that clear communication of what is right and wrong will go a long way to preventing major theft. In fact, I would encourage generosity with the supply closet. Tell employees that they are free to occasionally take home certain office supplies for specified reasons. All you have to do is ask. This clearly communicates that taking stuff without obtaining proper approval is theft, even down to the pens in the supply closet.

Monitoring sensitive activities and enforcing well-communicated antifraud policies play an important role in preventing lapses from becoming crimes. The goal should be to arrest bad judgment before it becomes fraud, says fraud-prevention expert David Dixon of Norkom, and to use coaching as a way to keep certain employees on the right track. CFO Magazine (emphasis added)

Finally, it is your role as the leader in your organization to set the tone; to be the standard-bearer. What are you communicating when you use the corporate card for personal usage? What are you communicating when you allow questionable invoices to flow through accounts payable?

For all the new research into fraud prevention, experts are unanimous about one thing: "tone at the top" counts for a lot. That was a vital finding of the National Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting, aka the Treadway Commission, in 1987. "The tone set by top management," the commission concluded, "is the most important factor contributing to the integrity of the financial-reporting process." CFO Magazine (emphasis added)

Stay Inside Your Comfort Zone

2009-04-23T07:00:00.001-04:00

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times, "Step outside your comfort zone." This may be one of the most overused business cliches. What does it mean, anyway? There's a lot written about it, but very little research. One of the more authoritative sources, Alasdair White writes, "The origin of the phrase ‘comfort zone’ is very hard to track down and everyone has a personal definition and understanding of the term." Here is my definition and understanding developed primarily from running track and cross country in high school and college.

Comfort zone is a range of performance that is the most productive over the longest period of time. As one moves from one level to the next, the comfort zone both increases and expands. Levels can be either time or expertise. Activities that were challenging at level one become boring at level three.

My comfort zone ranges from contentment to challenge. I am most comfortable when I am continually challenged both personally and professionally. That's why I love working for a fast-growth small business. It's why I blog. Challenge consists of life-long learning, problem solving, creativity, and personal growth. Contentment are those times when I sit back and enjoy my successes. It's important to reward oneself after new levels of achievement. Contentment also consists of planned relaxation such as weekend activities, vacation, and daily renewal.

I termed the area outside the upper-end of one's comfort zone burnout. Performing at the leading edge of the comfort zone will lead one outside one's comfort zone. This results in positive growth. However, if one performs outside of one's comfort zone too long, one risks burnout. One must either move back into the comfort zone or move the comfort upward. Conversely, if one performs at the lower range of one's comfort zone, one risks boredom and stagnation.

Let me expand a little on burnout because I anticipate some disagreement. "No pain; no gain" some might argue. A running analogy is best to explain myself here. I love speed workouts and pushing my muscles to go faster and faster. These workouts are challenging. After running as fast as you can for 200 or 300 meters, muscles start to burn. Although this burn 'hurts', it has not moved to the point of pain. Pain is the point at which one is injured. Picture the sprinter who pulls up in the middle of a race after pulling a hamstring. That is how I define pain.

A personal example of the frivolity of going outside one's comfort zone is singing. Singing in front of a large group of people is certainly outside my comfort zone. Furthermore, it is outside the comfort zone for the people hearing me sing. It's painful. It bears no fruit. These two examples represent the two methods of going outside one's comfort zone: pushing oneself too far too fast or engaging in activities that do not support personal and professionally.

On the other hand, building an HR department from scratch was at the leading edge of my comfort zone. Although HR may be outside my comfort zone, finding the most qualified HR director, organizing a department, and optimizing work flow are fun and challenging. I grew tremendously from the experience.

In conclusion, each person has an individual definition and understanding of comfort zone. "As we move closer to the edges of that zone we begin to feel a bit shaky and unsure of ourselves. But those edges are where we grow. And by stretching those boundaries we increase our ability to receive." (51 Ways To Expand Your Comfort Zone) What is your comfort zone?

What I Expect When You Interview

2009-04-17T08:54:00.001-04:00

We posted a job opening on Easter weekend. Conventional wisdom says this was not best practice because readership is down on holiday weekends and we would get fewer responses. Well, we have received over 400 resumes!

I am a big believer is setting expectations. How can I criticize you for doing something wrong if I never told you up front what you should do? I don't like surprises. So here is what I expect when you interview with me:

Dress professionally - Our dress code is business casual, but I expect you to over dress. I will not be wearing a tie, but I won't be wearing a golf polo shirt either. And please take it easy on the cologne or perfume.
Smile - when we shake hands, I expect a big smile, a firm hand shake, and a 'very nice to meet you'.
Be yourself and relax - generally, I can assess skill based on work experience, references, and aptitude tests. I am looking to see if you will fit in with our team day-in and day-out.
Research the company - please spend a little time on our web site. Know the landing page and About us page narratives. Check out our Locations page. Be ready to interject your new knowledge at the appropriate point in the interview.
Research me - it is no longer enough to just research the company. In this conversation age of personal branding, Google me. Read my blog. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Follow me on Twitter. Get to know me before you meet me.

Now, here is what you can expect from me:

No stupid questions - I won't ask you stupid questions like, "If you were a fruit in the refrigerator, what would you be?" Yes, I was actually asked that in an interview.
No canned questions - I don't have a script that I follow. Your resume is my script because it outlines your story. I want to hear your story. I am looking for how your past experience prepared you for this position.
Conversation - I like a conversational interview. I like an interview that has a nice ebb and flow between speaking and listening.

The bottom line is that I want you to succeed. Unfortunately, we only have one position open. That means I am going to have to say no to more people than I say yes to. I hate that. It always seems to come down to two or three really great candidates and making that final decision is always difficult.

My Blog's Elevator Pitch

2009-04-09T22:58:00.005-04:00

I signed up for ProBlogger's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. The challenge for Day 1 was a difficult task because I had never set out to define a purpose for this blog. The challenge was to write an elevator pitch for my blog.

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).” - Wikipedia

One of my goals for this year was to write one blog post a week. In my first blog post this year, I wrote my goals for this blog. This was a good start towards an elevator pitch, but it really did not narrow the focus so that readers who stumble upon this site would know what they are getting into and whether to subscribe.

So here is my first attempt at an elevator pitch:

CFOs are more than just the finance and accounting professionals in their organizations. They are trusted advisers to management, mentors to peers, and coaches to team members. In other words, CFOs are integral leaders. Leadership is a skill that can be learned, practiced, and improved.

The CFO role varies widely among companies and may include oversight of finance, accounting, HR, IT, operations, compliance, and risk management. I invite CEOs, CFOs, COOs, controllers, HR directors, marketing directors, and other small business leaders to join me in exploring and discussing leadership principles and issues affecting your company's growth.

The Importance of Employee Satisfaction

2009-04-06T21:46:00.002-04:00

I'm currently reading The SPEED of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey. He wrote that there was a direct correlation between employee satisfaction surveys and profits at his company. As employee morale improved, so did profits. Just as prosperity can cover a multitude of mistakes, recession can hide poor employee morale. As Amy Johnson pointed out, there’s a pervasive bunker mentality sweeping America. If we are not careful, we may see a mass exodus when the economy turns upward. Here are three benefits of high employee satisfaction.

Increased productivity - I base this purely on anecdotal evidence. I am sure there is plenty of research to support this. When we are excited to get out of bed in the morning and tackle the challenges that lie ahead, we are be more productive.

Better customer service - When you are happy with your team (boss, subordinates, and peers) and with your company's mission, culture, and vision you will be more likely to speak positively about your company. A sales culture naturally springs from a positive attitude as employee look forward to speaking with clients and prospects about how great the company and product or service is.

Increased competence - There is a circular connection between enjoyment and success. We enjoy that which we are good at; and we are good at that which we enjoy. The more we enjoy something, the more we do it; the more we do it, the better we get; the better we get, the more we enjoy it; the more we enjoy it...you get the picture.

Takeaway - Don't neglect your employees for the sake of profits or survival. Each member of you team provides a vital role in the success and profits of your company. Treat everyone with respect. Listen before you speak. Then listen some more. Build trust. Celebrate the joys and share in the sorrows. Don't be afraid to love your team.

LouisvilleSoup: Keep It or Ditch It?

2009-04-03T23:40:00.001-04:00

Someone recently commented, "Interesting name for your CPA business". How did you come up with LouisvilleSoup? Basically, Louisville is my hometown and Soup is my nickname. In high school I had about a dozen friends named Mike. Several of us, therefore, had a nickname. Mine was Soup because of my last name. There are a few who still call me Soup.

As the Internet grew and I started registering for more and more sites, it became increasingly difficult to find a consistent userid. I would try every combination of Mike Campbell (mikecampbell, mcampbell, m_campbell, etc.) and began to forget which one I used for which site.

HowManyOfMe.com states there are over 6,000 people in the U.S. named Michael Campbell. According to BabyNameWizard.com, Michael has been the #1 or #2 most popular first name since the 1950s. Campbell ranks in the top 50.

At some point I started using LouisvilleSoup. I found that is was unique and it just stuck. Now that I have become more conscience and focused on personal branding, I am at a crossroads. Should I brand Louisvillesoup and stick with it? Or should I brand my name? Here are some brands I have considered:

LouisvilleSoup - Unique, but does nothing to describe who I am. Louisville is quite obvious, but narrows me to a single location. Soup is abstract and many don't get it, even after I remind them of my last name. I own the domain names Louisvillesoup.com and Louisvillesoup.mobi.

Mike Campbell - I am competing with thousands of people of the same name, some of whom are famous (like the pro golfer and Tom Petty's bassist), and some of whom are in retail and spend a lot of money to promote their web presence. However, I am on Google search page two. Not too shabby for an SEO novice.

Michael Campbell - Very few people call me by my given name. It's really not an option.

Mike Campbell CPA - This really narrows down the name competition. It is not as unique as LouisvilleSoup, and I have only found a handful of other namesake CPAs. The CPA brand is a double-edged sword. I give credit to the AICPA and state societies for making it one of the most recognized brands and for protecting the CPA image as one of trust and competence. However, it may brand me as being in public practice, which I am not. Another major drawback is that GoDaddy has the url mikecampbellcpa.com held hostage.

Louisville CPA - I currently appear on Google page three for this search term. When I rejuvenated this blog earlier this year, I was nowhere to be found. I'm still amazed that I rank higher than most of the top ten CPA firms in Louisville. But, again, I not in public accounting and not looking to brand myself along with accounting firms. Plus, the domain name LouisvilleCPA is taken.

Louisville CFO - I have other plans for this brand. I own the domain name LouisvilleCFO.com. Look for future updates.

Best CFO in the World - That just sounds arrogant. I got the idea from reading Seth Godin's book The Dip. He writes that anyone can be the best in the world if they want to be. I've blogged about this previously. But I do own the domain name.

I threw out this question on Twitter and a few responses really stuck:

ForensicCPA@louisvillesoup I like it, though your current username has a certain geographical charm. How about "louisvillecpa"?10:59 PM Oct 24th, 2008 from twitterrific in reply to louisvillesoup

ismitley@louisvillesoup Doesn't matter too much, really, since you list your name and occupation in your profile info.10:59 PM Oct 24th, 2008 from web in reply to louisvillesoup

JasonBlumer@louisvillesoup I like the reference to Louisville11:06 PM Oct 24th, 2008 from TwitterFon in reply to louisvillesoup

stringsn88keys@louisvillesoup You might ask yourself, is your intent to build an image or build a network? CPA = image, but may limit network, too.10:03 AM Mar 17th from TweetDeck in reply to louisvillesoup

So long story short. I'm going to keep LouisvilleSoup as my Twitter handle and online user ID while using my real name in the profiles. After reading Derek McClain's blog post Google Search Your Name - Do You Really Own It?, I Googled my name plus high school, then college, then companies I've worked for, then CPA. I was on Google page one for each. So, no matter you've met me, more than likely you can find me.

Don't Forget to Ask for the Business

2009-03-29T22:00:00.000-04:00

During a financial audit, I was chatting with the owner about a recent conference he attended. Someone gave an excellent presentation on a new product. He was very interested in the product and, afterward, engaged the presenter in conversation. After hearing more about the product, he was all the more interested. However, the presenter never asked for his business. The conversation ended and no deal was closed.

This small business owner confided in me that he would have purchased the product if he was asked. It's simple, but so easily overlooked. Don't forget to ask for the business. Sometimes we don't need to learn something new, but just be reminded of that which we already know.

Thanks for reading. Would you please take a moment to subscribe to the RSS feed and share this blog with your friends and colleagues?

Brain Rule #1 Exercise Boosts Brain Power

2009-03-17T07:00:00.001-04:00

I listened to the Audio-tech Business summary of Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Rule number one states excercise boosts brain power. Quite simply, exercise improves blood flow and improved blood flow improves brain function. The brain requires a lot of oxygen. The brain, which accounts for 2 percent of our body weight, sucks down roughly 20 percent of our daily calories. It only takes an hour of aerobic exercise per week (30 minutes 2-3 times per week). According to the book, studies show that exercise reduces your risk of Alzheimer's by 60 percent!

Brain Rule #1 - Exercise from Mark Pearson on Vimeo.

Today's takeaway: Get out and exercise! Sharpen the Axe, as Stephen Covey puts it. Set aside 20 minutes per day three days a week. That's just an hour per week.

Make It Easy For Your Customers To Do Business With You

2009-03-12T19:10:00.004-04:00

I closed today on my mortgage refinancing. I learned a great lesson of making it easy for customers to do business with you. This is a story of two contrasting banks and how one earned my business.

As many people are doing right now, I decided it was time to take advantage of low interest rates and generate a little more cash flow. I was talking with our business banker at work and told him I was interested in refinancing my home mortgage. He said, sure I will have so and so from our mortgage lending department call you.

When this gentleman called a couple days later he told me that there would be some challenges to refinancing and I might not be able. He sent me some paperwork that I received about a week later and was a half-inch thick. I threw it to the side not having time to go through the document. He never followed up.

A couple weeks later, I was connected with a business banker, Joe Beiting, at Republic Bank through MoneyPath. After talking about commercial loans, he asked if there was anything else. I'm glad he did because I had put refinancing on the back burner. I said, yes, I'd like to refinance my home mortgage. No problem, I'll have Scott Godthaab call your from our mortgage lending department.

Scott called and we went over my current mortgages, rates, and terms. He told me it would be no problem refinancing. We scheduled a meeting at the bank to discuss further. We talked details and went back and forth with various scenarios. Scott was very knowledgeable, patient, and helpful. He and I crunched some numbers to calculate the break-even point on closing costs. It became a no-brainer. I'm sold. Where do we do from here?

Scott printed a few pages of loan documents and walked me through each page. This will lock you into to the interest rate, we will order the appraisal, and then you'll close in a couple weeks. I signed paperwork, met with the appraiser a couple days later, and closed today. It was that easy.

Not only did Republic Bank earn my mortage, it also earned my deposits because of the discount on closing costs for moving my primary checking.

Here's the takeaway: Make it easy for your customers to do business with you. Always say yes. Streamline the process. Train your employees on world-class service. Ask the next logical question. Ask for their business. And thank them when you earn it.

I'm A Political Agnostic, Yet A Business Realist

2009-02-28T10:41:00.005-05:00

I had the pleasure of seeing Steven S. Little speak at a Greater Louisville Inc. event. Mr. Little is a small business growth expert and the author of The 7 Irrefutable Rules of Small Business Growth. In his speech he said, "I'm a political agnostic, yet a business realistic". Of all the quotes I have heard over the past couple years, this one has really intrigued me. I just don't know if agree with it. My opinion is open and would love to read your comments.

It has been a while since I heard Steven S. Little's speech so I Googled the quote to make sure I get his content right. "Green is Gold$. I'm a political agnostic, but a business realist," he explained. "Successful companies won't be debating the need for green technology, they'll be figuring out how to legislate it, enforce it, and exploit its business opportunity."

When I first heard Steven Little say this, it really resonated with me. I have never been active in politics and don't enjoy political conversations. Recently, I haven't been particularly enamored with either party. I am first and foremost a small business leader. Learning the principles of leadership, becoming an expert in my trade as a CPA, and relating with people to accomplish a common goal are what I prefer to focus on.

Furthermore, many small businesses have very little political clout. They just don't have the resources for lobbying nor the time to be heavily involved personally. Plus the ROI is so minimal that it hard to justify the effort.

Does it really matter, ultimately, who is in the White House? I followed this past election closer than any one in the past. The key issues were clear and divergent. The government was heading into the greatest economic slump; and that directly affects all business. Although Mr. Little's quote at first resonated with me, there still seemed to be something missing. Foreign policy, tax policy, and economic policy are hugely important to small businesses and small business leaders must be active and involved if they want to fully succeed.

But let's face it; you can't win them all. What happens when policy does not go your way? That's where this quote really makes since. No matter what cards you have been dealt, you must persevere. You must think creatively to make those cards work for you. When it comes to national policy, the good news is that everyone is playing with the same deck. You just have to do it better than the next guy.

On the other hand, local chambers of commerce and local governments are very interested in keeping your company happy and thriving. You are their revenue through payroll and income taxes. They offer tax incentives and small business loans to help your business. They are also excellent networking partners and can help with staffing, partnerships, and consultation. Local politics seem to me less party-driven.

I can't fully call myself a political agnostic, but I am a business realist. What about you? I am still intrigued by the quote.

My Review Of The Leadership Book Tribes

2009-02-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

Call me a heretic, but I am not a big fan of Seth Godin's new book on leadership, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. I can't be too harsh because I listened to it on audiobook while commuting and may have a different opinion if I had read it. He certainly provides some thought-provoking anecdotes, makes some great points, and writes very well. However, when did change and heresy become essential virtues for leadership?

'Heretic' is probably the most-used word in his book. The word heretic is well-defined with a long historic of generally negative connotations. Why redefine this word as a positive leadership trait? It seems out of place. Why not champion a positive word like 'catalyst' or 'innovator'? Or even crusader, reformer, or maverick. As a leader, I want team players who have bought into our vision. I do not want dissenters, dissidents, or separatists. I do, however, want people who will push the leading edge, think outside the box, and think of creative ways for continuous improvement.

The second most used word is probably change. He writes about bucking the status quo and challenging the norms. In my career I have certainly spearheaded a lot of change and questioned established policies, but change is not an inherent virtue. Change is neutral. Change can be either good or bad. Change for change sake is not always positive. Thinking that we need more change just because we are in the midst of historic change is not a virtue. There are certainly times in which staying inside the lines is the best course of action. Principle comes before change.

The clearest glimpse into Seth Godin's paradigm is given to us as he writes about religion. I was surprised at how much he used religion as a backdrop for discussing leadership. As a somewhat regular reader of his blog, this was unexpected. I'll reserve my religious opinion for another blog. If you want to learn Mr. Godin's please pick up a copy of his book. Even though I disagreed with a couple major theses, it got me thinking and writing about it. That, by his own admission, is a compliment.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Is Your Last Marketing Touch An Boilerplate Invoice?

2009-02-19T19:18:00.011-05:00

The guys at Maryland CPA Society hit another one out of the park at CPASuccess.com with the blog post It's time to kill the billable hour. Bill Sheridan makes the point that the billable hour implies that it is a CPA or professional's time that is valuable, but in reality it is our knowledge, expertise, and experience that is valuable. It is these qualities that our clients need, want, and pay for. As the Controller/CFO of a Louisville based professional services firm, his argument makes a lot of sense. Bill credits Ron Baker of VeraSage Institute for promotion of this concept and provides links for further information.

As I read the blog post, which is a must read, it got me thinking about customer service. What is typically the last 'touch' companies have with their customers? The invoice? How many companies consider the invoice as a marketing piece and not an accounting piece? Is the invoice easy to read? Does it clearly communicate the service provided, the price, and how to pay? Is the appearance consistent with other marketing pieces and present a consistent brand?

Furthermore, how many customer complaints are a result of the invoice. Whether they felt the price was too high, included an unexpected line item, or, worst, had an error on it? The billable hour can be blamed for many expectation gaps between the professional and the client. The billable hour is extremely subjective and frequently must be altered during the course of project due to unexpected circumstances and increased service requirements. If these changes are not clearly communicated, they result in surprise and disappointment when the client opens the invoice. Who wants the last marketing touch to be a negative experience?

Here are my takeaways: First, seriously consider flat fees or fees for services instead of fees for billable hours. Second, never let the invoice be the last marketing touch. Always follow up with the client after sending the invoice and listen to what they experienced.

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Reprioritozing After An X-factor Event

2009-02-15T20:19:00.001-05:00

This week, I was hit by the X-factor. On Monday, I flew to Memphis on a small airplane in very turbulent winds. The plane jossled back and forth for two hours and my head was spinning. The next day, I was still suffering the vertigo effects of the trip so I drove back to Louisville. What would have been an hour and half plane ride turned into a six-hour drive and a complete day of lost productivity. In the office, we call this the X-factor.

The X-factor are circumstances that arise that were not planned for. Some X-factor events cannot be avoided such as illness, funerals, and true crises. During these times you must re-priortize all of your tasks and accept the fact that some things just won't get accomplished. You also have to put more trust in your team and delegate where necessary.

According to Wikipedia, vertigo can result from airsickness and last a few days. As important as I believe exercise and personal branding are, they don't pay the bills and had to take the back-burner to financial statements, analysis, and day-to-day operations.

Today's takeaway: Never fly backward-facing on a Piper Navajo in strong winds. In the airport even the most experienced fliers shared stories of succumbing to motion sickness in similar circumstances.

In Memory: An Irreplacable Employee

2009-02-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

I remember the first time I met Harold Smith. I had only been with the firm for a few weeks and he had a mundane accounting question. I went to his office where he sat behind his desk. He was a thin, elderly gentleman with a sparkle in his blue eyes and a contagious smile that made you feel at home. I answered his question and then we chatted for a few minutes.

He shared with me that he was a cancer survivor and never missed a day of work because of it. He scheduled his chemo therapy at four o'clock so that he only have to leave early.

I later learned from co-workers that he was 87 years old. He passed away in March 2008 at the age of 91. He is deeply missed by anyone who ever met him, but not forgotten. This was felt at the company Christmas party last year. In November 2007, his health had taken a turn for the worse and we did not even know if he would make it to the Christmas party. In his typical resilient way, he was there with both his daughters, having lost his wife many years earlier.

It was tradition that he always gave the blessing before dinner at the Christmas party. Last year we knew that it would more than likely be his last party. The cancer had returned and his body was just to aged to handle any more treatments. It was bitter sweet.

After some stays in the hospital, he was unable to return to work. Earlier in 2007, he had to cut back from full-time to part-time. We always chuckled at that because it wasn't until he was 90 years old that he decided it was time to cut back. Even though he was unable to come into work, he asked that we take work to him, which we did. He literally worked until the day he died.

He was not a workaholic, though. He was quite simply the best metallurgical engineer in the state. He is the only employee I know of who was irreplaceable. To this day, we have not filled his position. One of our Louisville managers has a picture of Harold hanging on his wall and our HR director has an antique thermometer of Harold's on his desk.

At the age of 90, Harold was sharp as a tack and still the best metallurgical engineer in state. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from Lindsay Wilson College. From that point forward, we affectionately referred to him as Doctor Smith.

He came to the firm at the age of 81. He had owned and operated his own engineering firm and decided to retire. He sold his business to the firm on one condition: that he would be allowed to work for the firm as an employee. And that he did.

At his funeral service I learned much about Harold that I did not know and wish I had learned more while he was alive. He was on the board for the Wayside Christian Mission and was responsible for bringing on board its current director. The Mission was under financial difficulty and Harold knew that Reverend Tim Mosely was the answer. It took some time for the mission to gain a financial holding but Harold never wavered in his faith.

My favorite story came from a gentleman who sang in a quartet and knew Harold from church. Anyone who knew Harold, knew his answer to the innocuous salutation "How are you doing?". In a typical engineer fashion, he would always reply, "Everything is proceeding according to plan".

Personally, I never thought to ask the next question, but this gentleman did one day. "Well, Harold, what's the plan for today?" With that sparkle in his eye and contagious smile he responded, "I don't know. It's not my plan."

Inbound Recruiting: How To Find the Best

2009-01-27T07:00:00.001-05:00

I read a great interview with Mike Volpe of Hubspot.tv that got me thinking about inbound recruiting. Mike and Hubspot are really on to something with his efforts with inbound marketing.

Outbound marketing – cold calls, TV ads, email list rentals - is becoming less and less effective because people are becoming better at blocking out those channels with tools like caller ID, TiVo, and spam blockers.

Why should it be any different with recruiting. Think about it. Here's how traditional recruiting works. Company is in need of a CFO due to turnover or growth. They contact a few of their CEO colleagues, but none of them are going to refer their CFOs. So, they contact a recruiter. Why? They just don't have time to wait on newspaper ads, responses, and resumes; plus screening, scheduling interviews and so on. Furthermore, recruiters have already sourced candidates, screened them, and know who would make a good fit.

The company tells the recruiter we need a CPA with 10+ years of experience, preferably with public accounting experience, and here's the price range we are looking for. But really what the CEO is looking for is the best CFO in the world. Wouldn't it be nice if the CEO could just Google "best CFO in Louisville" or "best CFO in small business" and, voila, a Google first page of the best candidates? Why not?

Better yet, what if CFOs, HR directors, marketing directors, or anyone for that matter, could get CEOs and small business owners to subscribe to their blog, add it to their RSS feed, and check it regularly? What if they actually found value in what you have to offer and read regularly? What if they started following you on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook? What if they actually sought you out and said I want you on my team? They may not be looking for a CFO right now. That's fine, because I'm not looking to leave right now. Recruiting is all about fit and timing.

I love my job and I love the company I work for. However, as the CFO Coach, Cindy Kraft writes,

No job is secure forever. Not even the CFO role. If you are employed, now is the time to create your career protection plan to help ensure a smooth transition to the position you want, when you want to make the move. ... Your marketability is highest when you are gainfully employed with a clear marketable value prop.

Integrating Social Networking With Traditional Networking

2009-01-21T21:22:00.013-05:00

One of the aspects of social networking that appeals to me is that it starts with listening. Whether you are on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, it starts with following a couple people. One sort of dips their toe in the water, with a couple of posts, but primarily watches what others are doing to get a grasp of what it's all about. I am most active on Twitter where I follow over 150 people, so I am reading (i.e. listening) much more than I am writing. I am amazed how much one can learn through a series of 140-character tweets.

Last October, I took my social networking offline and went to Let's Tweetup, a quarterly get-together for Twitterers in the Louisville, Kentucky area. I had no idea what to expect and had never met any of my following/followers in person. I really enjoyed meeting people I'd been following such as @JasonFalls, @DavidFinch, @MelissaKing, @bdthomas and of course @earwood who organized the event. I also met a couple of people who I had not been following such as @ismitley.

Going into the evening, I already knew a little bit about those I had been following through Twitter and that made conversations much easier to start and maintain. Throughout my career as a Louisville CPA, I have attended numerous networking events. Most of the time, I tend to connect with those with whom I already have a connection. I have made new connections, but they tend to be short-lived, because I fail to follow up. That's where social networking fills in a missing piece of the networking puzzle.

The second key to integrating social networking with traditional networking is, to use the marketing term, touches. Traditional networking serves as a meaningful touch with those who one has not seen in a while, but how many events can one attend monthly? Unless one is diligent with following up, then the touches become few and far between and the connection withers. Social networking provides a vehicle for connecting much more frequently and effectively than using events, email, or telephone. Social networking is much less intrusive because it is opt-in. Reading this blog, for example, is an opt-in strategy. You chose to click the link. I am not junking up your inbox or interrupting you with a phone call.

In order to maintain meaningful connections with one's social network, it becomes imperative to take it offline periodically. The value that can be added via text becomes limited at a certain point. There needs to be the face-to-face interaction where one can experience facial expressions, tone of voice, personality, and emotion. Since the Let's Tweetup, I have met in-person with several Twitterers and came away from the meetups even more impressed with the the business-savvy, intelligence, and entrepreneurship of my social network. There is a networking circle of listen -- touch -- connect.

My next opportunity to take it offline is the Louisville Geek Dinner this Monday, January 26, 2009. I scanned through the list of attendees and was pleasantly surprised to see people who I know outside of my social network. Maybe I can get them into my social network and the circle continues. I hope you join me and over 100 other people this Monday.

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One Easy Way to Protect Against Employee Theft

2009-01-20T11:00:00.001-05:00

Last week, I presented a very brief overview of the Fraud Triangle. One easy-to-do way to minimize opportunity and deter employee theft is to have your company's bank statements mailed to your home. Call your bank and change your mailing address to your home. With some banks, you may even be able to do it online. It only takes a couple minutes. Just do it.

I remember a fraud case that nearly put one of my tax clients out of business. His trusted bookkeeper of over twenty years embezzled thousands of dollars by simply writing checks to herself. After processing payroll, she would write a check to herself instead of to Uncle Sam. Needless to say, the owner was shocked when he received a very ominous notice of back taxes, penalties, and interest from the IRS. Fortunately, I had an incredible payroll tax accountant who worked with the IRS to schedule payment and reduce interest. And my client had very loyal vendors who gave him enough breathing room to raise the needed cash.

Many small business do not have the resources to segregate duties among employees. Oftentimes, the bookkeeper processes payroll, accounts receivable, and accounts payable. This individual writes checks, signs checks, issues credits, and balances the bank statement. This creates ample opportunity for theft. If you care about your employee, you will reduce this opportunity for theft to protect them in the event of some perceived need they may encounter.

Receiving bank statements at your house is one of the most effective means to reduce opportunity. At a minimum, open the statements and take them out of the envelope before giving to your bookkeeper, controller, or CFO. This at least gives the appearance of looking through them and takes less than a minute.

The next level of scrutiny only takes a few minutes depending on the number of transactions. Glance over the checks to make sure there are consistent signatures and the check is not written to the person who signed it. This person should under no circumstance sign a check written to them, to the company, or to cash.

Take it to the next level and read each check. To whom was it payable? For how much was it written? Is it about the same as last month? Are there any vendors you don't recognize? After a couple months, you will get very familiar with the statements and you will get more and more efficient at reviewing them. Generally, the amount and vendors do not fluctuate significantly from month to month. For example, your rent, phone, utilities, and insurance are paid each month to the same companies for about the same amount. You will be will quickly scan these and any thing unusual will stick out like a sore thumb.

Finally, when you hand the statements to the bookkeeper, ask questions. Pick two or three highlights. I noticed gas went up quite a bit. Did they increase rates or is it due to the temperature dropping so much? I noticed a big check to Staples. What office supplies did we buy last month? Have we used so-in-so plumber before? You'd be surprised what you learn by simply asking the question.

The Fraud Triangle

2009-01-13T21:45:00.002-05:00

The 80/10/10 adage states that 10% of the population is as honest as the day is long. They will not lie, cheat, or steal no matter what the circumstance. Another 10% are crooks and should be behind bars. The other 80% of us, given the right opportunity and the right circumstance will behave unethically. It could be fudging a timesheet, stealing office supplies, or embezzling money.

I need this box of pens for the church auction. They won't miss them. It's for a good cause. I need some more cash for this unexpected medical expense. I'll pay it right back; I'm just borrowing the money. I'll use the company credit card for dinner tonight with my wife. I've work my butt off this month. It's the least they can do. I deserve it.

These statements illustrate the three tenets of the fraud triangle: perceived need, rationalization, and opportunity.

Perceived need - Perceived need is often created by expensive addictions such as substance abuse, sex addiction, gambling addiction, and spending addiction. Companies are limited in how much they can prevent this. However, companies should be aware of changes in behavior and spending that may raise red flags. Not to trivialize it but remember the four 'Bs' of perceived need: Beer, Boobs, Betting, and Borrowing.
Rationalization - Never underestimate the ability of the human mind to rationalize anything. The criminal mind can actually rationalize a crime as being a benefit to society. Infamous fraudster Frank Abignale bragged in his book, Catch Me If You Can, that he only bilked large corporations and not individuals. He was doing them a favor by exposing their weaknesses.
Opportunity - This is one area that companies have the ability to control. Opportunity is the means to steal whether it be leaving the supply closet unlocked or an inadequate system of internal control and segregation of duties.

A recent survey found that executives are concerned about the rise of employee theft during this economic downturn. Small businesses reported fewer incidences of employee theft. The data suggest that employees who are part of a cozy group tend to think twice before stealing. What is your company doing to deter employee theft?

How to Conduct Annual Employee Reviews

2009-01-07T08:00:00.001-05:00

This is a summary of the above titled article from Inc. Magazine December 2008 print issue, Inc. Guidebook Vol. 1 No. 9.

1. Set benchmarks early

It starts with the job description that includes responsibilities and competencies.
Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound).
Make it personal. Set goals that also further an employee's personal goals.

2. Develop the process

"Virtually all HR experts say a performance review must not be an isolated event but should cap a year of regular meetings."
"Managers must continually communicate with their employees," says Courtney Berg of Corteide Consulting in Broomfield, Colorado. "There should be no surprises when you sit down with employees at review time." (I've said this before.)
Have periodic reviews at least quarterly. These are not as formal, but include taking notes and a performance log.
The annual review should include an evaluation form that is tailored to your company with three- or five-star rating system and space for comments.
Start with a self-appraisal so the manager will know beforehand if there is an area of disagreement.

3. Hold an effective meeting

The review should last 40 minutes to an hour, without distraction or interruption, and be in a comfortable environment without a desk between you and the employee.
Start with the goods news, if there is bad news to deliver.
Strive for objective judgments instead of subjective. Focus on specific behavior and recommend alternatives.
"The meeting should close with setting goals and expectations for the next year."
"When employees walk out of the performance management review," says SHRM's Miranda, "they should feel energized that the boss appreciates their strengths, values their contribution, and sees their potential."

My Goals For This Blog

2009-01-06T11:30:00.001-05:00

My goal for this blog is simply to be this best CFO on the world. That's an audacious goal, but as Seth Godin points out is his book The Dip, both best and world are subjective. Is your world your community, your company, your industry, your city, your state, etc? Even CFO can be subjective. The role of a CFO for a small business is vastly different from a large business and the CFO for a professional service company vastly different from a manufacturing company. Mr. Godin goes on to write that "you are the best in the world, if you want to be."

How does writing a blog help me become the best CFO in the world?

Improved communication - Writing is a communication skill and communication is essential to leadership. My writing tends to be step-by-step how-to's or emails. Blogging requires forethought and organization. There is a skill in taking an concept, breaking it down, and communicating it to an audience.
Life-long learning - Can you teach others what you just learned? There is an adage that the best way to learn something is to turn around and teach it. This blog is a means of reinforcing and applying what I have learned.
Personal growth - Are you a better person today than you were yesterday? Blogging provides an excellent medium for personal reflection. There something about putting a thought to writing that really clarifies the thought.
Better Time Management - Do I really have time for another hobby? When responding to someone's gasp after announcing she was pregnant again, Kimberly Hahn quipped, My children take up all of my time so another can't take up anymore. Anytime we decide take on another responsibility or goal, be it exercising, blogging, or children something's got to change. That forces one to either give up bad habits, become more efficient, prioritize better, or learn to delegate. Do I really need to watch that TV show, or finish that poorly-written book, or click just one more link?
Stress Relief - Blogging is fun. I enjoy reading, learning, reflecting, and writing. And it is much better mental activity than sitting in front of the boob tube.
Personal Branding - Does the web know who you are? If you are reading this, then you are on the web. If you are on the web, then you have a brand. The question is, do you have control of your brand? If not, you should.
Networking - One of the comments below reminded me of this crucial benefit to blogging. Cindy Craft said it well, Network even when you don’t “need” to be networking. Your network is never more valuable then when you are in a position to help others ... because that earns you the right to ask for help when you need it. (updated 2009/01/07)

This is my short list of why blogging is beneficial. Why do you blog?

Related articles:
Top 6 Tips to Recession-Proof Your Career
27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community

My Training

2009-01-01T01:37:00.007-05:00

Contact

2009-01-01T00:03:00.000-05:00

Connect

2009-01-01T00:02:00.003-05:00

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MikeCampbellCFO

Facebook: http://facebook.com/MikeCampbellCPA

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/MikeCampbellCPA

Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/MikeCampbellCPA

DailyMile: http://www.dailymile.com/people/MikeCampbellCPA

About

2009-01-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

Mike Campbell, CPA is a CFO in Louisville, Kentucky. Mike is a principle-centered leader with a proven ability to execute. As the CFO of a fast-growing small business, Mike understands the importance of cross-functional communication and works effectively to acheive the company's vision and goals. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, Mike provides the CEO and the leadership team the tools, resources, and analyses to make better decisions.

Mike optimizes processes and infrastructure to strengthen companies while keeping costs down. Mike achieves this through technology integration and strong leadership.

Prior to his current position, Mike has ten years of public accounting experience performing financial audit and preparing tax returns for a wide-range of companies in multiple industries, including insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, and school boards.

New Year's Resolution - 52 Blog Posts in 2009

2008-12-29T21:35:00.000-05:00

My New Year's resolution to blog regularly. Once a week is good for me and my goal is to write 52 blog posts in 2009. The topics will include leadership, small business growth, and tech. I will stick with these topics and will not venture into writing about religion and politics.

Jay Ehert wrote this great blogging tip, Clearly define your who your reader is. Don't write for a group. Picture an individual in your mind & write for that person. As I write, I will have in mind those whom I work closely with: the CEO, HR Director, Marketnig Director, or business colleagues.

As I write this post, I have about five other posts in draft on my blog. I tend to write in spurts due to a combination of time and inspiration. I may write five blogs in a couple days and the not write again for a week or so. The key is to write when inspired and have the time, but publish on a regular basis. It is a common mistake to start a blog and then publish sporadically.

I also write a lot of blogs that are never posted. Either I just can't get the words to make sense or I read it and I just don't like it. That's OK because it is better to write a lot rather than not at all. Here are a couple of tips I picked up on becoming a better writer:

If one wants to be a good blogger, one must read a lot of blogs. Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook and Message In The Bottle, provides sound advice advice on his web site about learning the craft of writing. To become a good writer you must read and read a lot. Did I say A LOT?

One must practice writing to become a better writer. Write, delete, re-write, edit, and write some more. Anne Frank wrote what may be the most memorable diary. She did not just write in one sitting, though. Her goal was to have her journal published so She began editing her writing, removing sections and rewriting others, with the view to publication. That is a great lesson for blogging. Jot your thoughts down. Don't worry about finishing a blog or even a sentences. Get the thoughts down and tweak them later.

Finally, set objectives for your blog and stick with them. Don't blindside followers with a topic or rant that is completely inconsistent with all of your previous blogs. For example, if you are writing a business blog, do not succumb to the hype during a presidential election to all of a sudden blurt out your political opinion. Save that for another blog.

My Twitter Network Pie Chart

2008-12-21T23:53:00.000-05:00

My criteria for who I follow on Twitter is basically spelled out in my profile, "Husband, father, CPA, CFO interested in small business growth and tech" and location Louisville, Kentucky. When I find a new twitter profile and glance at their tweets, I look for commonalities using these broad strokes.

Recently, someone charted his followers in a pie graph. I was curious what my pie chart would look like. Using LessFriends.com, I copy/pasted my friends list into Google Docs spreadsheet. I then tagged each person I follow based on my primary reason for following them. My top two criteria are twitters in Louisville and twitters who are CPAs and/or CFOs.

Louisville - I generally only follow people, not companies or memes. I especially follow those who I would like to meet in-person. And meeting them in person improves my tweeting experience.
CPA/CFO - I originally started Twitter with the goal of enhancing my career by sharing best practice ideas with other financial executives.
Twitter - I follow Twitter tools such as @rtm, @trackthis, @grader, @twitterfon, @gcal, and @twitpic.
Local - Recently, I started following people who live in a city in which my firm has an office location such as Milwaukee and Nashville.
No reason - These are persons I started following and I have no idea when or why. They don't fit neatly in one of these categories, but I enjoy following them.
SMB - These are persons somehow related to small business growth.
Tech - Programmers, web developers, etc. Wow, there are some brilliant people on Twitter.
Marketing - I love following marketing people because I envy their communication skills and they are typically on the cutting edge of new media.
News - This category may very well disappear. I use RSS for my news, not twitter.
Co-workers and family - Man, it's tough to get them on board.

Louisville CPA and Google First Page

2008-12-19T19:41:00.001-05:00

Earlier this year, I attended a marketing luncheon and had the pleasure of hearing Brian Wallace (@nowsourcing) of NowSourcing.com speak. He introduced me to Twitter and I have been hooked ever since.

He also introduced me to the importance of being on the Google first page. The majority of web surfers never make it past the first page after Googling a search term.

This concept was reinforced by Seth Godin's book, The Dip. In the world of the Google search engine, only the best of the best companies rise to the top.

Being a CPA in Louisville for close to fifteen years and in public accounting for ten of those, I was curious who is on the Google first page. So I Googled 'Louisville CPA' and I was surprised to find only DMLO and Strothman. The remaining search results were a couple smaller firms, job listings, and yellow page listings.

I run into leaders of firms like Chilton & Medley, Crowe, McCauley Nicholas, and my former employer, Mather & Company, at networking events and CPE training. I see their names in trade publications and corporate sponsorship. So why don't I see them on Google's first page?

Excel Macro - Alternating Rows

2008-12-17T22:34:00.000-05:00

Sub AddLines()

UserForm2.Hide

Cells.Select

Selection.Borders(xlDiagonalDown).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlDiagonalUp).LineStyle = xlNone

With Selection.Borders(xlEdgeLeft)

.LineStyle = xlContinuous

.Weight = xlThin

.ColorIndex = 48

End With

With Selection.Borders(xlEdgeTop)

.LineStyle = xlContinuous

.Weight = xlThin

.ColorIndex = 48

End With

With Selection.Borders(xlEdgeBottom)

.LineStyle = xlContinuous

.Weight = xlThin

.ColorIndex = 48

End With

With Selection.Borders(xlEdgeRight)

.LineStyle = xlContinuous

.Weight = xlThin

.ColorIndex = 48

End With

With Selection.Borders(xlInsideVertical)

.LineStyle = xlContinuous

.Weight = xlThin

.ColorIndex = 48

End With

With Selection.Borders(xlInsideHorizontal)

.LineStyle = xlContinuous

.Weight = xlThin

.ColorIndex = 48

End With

Selection.FormatConditions.Delete

Selection.FormatConditions.Add Type:=xlExpression, Formula1:= _

"=MOD(ROW(),2)=1"

Selection.FormatConditions(1).Interior.ColorIndex = 35

Range("a1").Select

End

End Sub

Sub RemoveLines()

UserForm2.Hide

Cells.Select

Selection.Borders(xlDiagonalDown).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlDiagonalUp).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlEdgeLeft).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlEdgeTop).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlEdgeBottom).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlEdgeRight).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlInsideVertical).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.Borders(xlInsideHorizontal).LineStyle = xlNone

Selection.FormatConditions.Delete

Range("A1").Select

End

End Sub

SQL Script - Auto-fill Calendar Dates

2008-12-09T08:39:00.000-05:00

This is one of my first and favorite SQL scripts I have written. The Firm sends invoices daily and our accounting system is not designed to handle that. The workaround is to manually create 360 'periods' that are each one day long. This SQL script eliminates manual entry and reduces the process from about an hour to less than five minutes.

Begin Transaction
declare @caldate datetime
select @caldate=max(enddate) from tkcontrol
set @caldate = @caldate
while @caldate < '2009-12-31'
begin
select @caldate=max(enddate) from tkcontrol
select @caldate=@caldate+1
insert into tkcontrol (company, enddate, startdate, closed)
values (' ',@caldate,@caldate,'N')
end
select max(enddate) as max_enddate from tkcontrol

rollback transaction
commit transaction

My Top Ten Of 2008

2008-12-01T21:07:00.001-05:00

I was inspired by Cali Lewis from GeekBrief.tv to create my own top ten list for 2008. My methodology for arriving at this list was simple. I asked it self what tools did I install or purchase this year that I use almost everyday or had a huge impact. The first ten that came to mind made the list.

10. iGoogle - I started using RSS feeds for all my news this year and I like Google homepage the best for managing my those feeds. One of my favorite features is the tabs. I have tabs for news, tech, finance, business, faith, and a sandbox. I have 5-6 feeds in each category. (iGoogle.com)

9. Zoho wiki - I have been following Zoho.com much of the year and have been very impressed with their suite of web products. Zoho is on the leading edge of cloud computing and has the most to offer small businesses. I moved the Firm's intranet to Zoho wiki last month. The security is simple and based on email domain. The interface is user-friendly and intuitive. The search feature is a must and something our previous intranet did not have. I now have other, non-techies that can help me maintain the site. (wiki.zoho.com)

8. Freemind - Your brain does not think linearly, so why force it into a linear outline when brainstorming? This freebie from Sourceforge is the perfect tool for 'putting your thoughts on paper'. It is also the best tool I have found for org charts. (freemind.sourceforge.net)

7. Targus Backpack - OK so my co-workers kid me about carrying a backpack and ask if I'm late for class, but I love my computer backpack. I originally got it for airline travel because it provides tons of room, keeps my hands free, and is better on my back and shoulders. Then I found myself carrying it all the time. (Amazon.com)

6. Zeno - I'm thirty-something and I still get the occasional acne. This electronic gadget literally zaps zits with high heat applied directly to the emerging pimple. It has saved me from numerous
embarrassing meetings by stopping them before they fully appear. (MyZeno.com)

5. CamStudio - With an organization of 120 people spread out over 17 cities in the US, it can be a challenging disseminating new technology, new information, and training. CamStudio records your screen movements and audio as a video. Instead of just teling my team, I can now show them too. (YouTube)

4. Vimeo - So, I discovered this new tool to record a software demo, CamStudio, but did not have a good way to distribute the videos. I tried embedding in HTML, but ran into driver issues. I tried YouTube, but there is no good way to secure the video. Then I saw that Cali Lewis was using Vimeo for GeekBrief.tv. I browsed Vimeo's site and learned that I could password-protect videos. Perfect. I embedded the videos in our Intranet site and put the password right there on the web page. Users have to have a valid email and password to get into the intranet, so posting the password does not disarm the security. (Vimeo.com)

3. iPhone - The Firm purchased three iPhone's when Apple came out with 3G and included support for Exvhange server. I got one for beta testing. At first I felt it was a colossal time-waster , but now I have found some tools I can't live without: Twitterriffic, Remember
the Milk, and GPS maps. (iPhone.com)

2. Remember the Milk - Quite simply the best to do list management tool on the web. I liked it so much, I even paid for the upgrade for the iPhone app. I can create tasks via email, Twitter, SMS, and even voice using Jott.com premium. I can schedule tasks for specific days and times, get reminders via email, Twitter, and SMS, include time estimates, tags, and priorty. I can then access it from my iPhone or PC. (Rmilk.com)

1. Twitter - By far the most fun, informative, and challenging networking tool of the year. I was first interested in how it could benefit the Firm, then learned how it is a great tool for personal
branding and networking. I got hooked because I am a lifelong-learner and I was almost obsessed with learning all the apps, uses, and social rules of Twitter. Now I have a great network of CPAs, CFOs, local folk, tech geniuses, and marketing gurus. (Twitter.com)

SQL Optimization Question

2008-11-30T20:31:00.000-05:00

I need some help with optimizing the following SQL script.

My goal is to produce the following table:

EmployeeName	Status1	Status2	Status3
Employee A	CountA1	CountA2	CountA3
Employee B	CountB1	CountB2	CountB3
Employee C	CountC1	CountC2	CountC3
Total	Total1	Total2	Total3

My issues are:

The script takes a couple minutes to run.
It seems clunky the way I have approached by creating a temporary table

Here's my script:

Drop Table NewProjectTable
select
EM.Org,Organization.Name as Office,coalesce(em.LastName,'')+', '+coalesce(em.PreferredName,'') as Employee,
(select count(*) from ProjectTable where ProjNbr in (select ProjNbr from ProjectTable where ProjMgr=em.employee) and Status='Status1') as Status1,
(select count(*) from ProjectTable where ProjNbr in (select ProjNbr from ProjectTable where ProjMgr=em.employee) and Status='Status2') as Status2,
(select count(*) from ProjectTable where ProjNbr in (select ProjNbr from ProjectTable where ProjMgr=em.employee) and Status='Status3') as Status3,
into NewProjectTable
from
em,organization
where em.org = organization.org
and em.status = 'A'

declare @Status1Total int
declare @Status2Total int
declare @Status3Total int
select @Status1Total = count(*) from ProjectTable where Status='Status1'
select @Status2Total = count(*) from ProjectTable where Status='Status2'
select @Status3Total = count(*) from ProjectTable where Status='Status3'
insert into NewProjectTable
(Org,Office,Employee,Status1,Status2,Status3)
values (99,'Total',space(5),@Status1Total,@Status2Total,@Status3Total)

Weekend at West Baden

2008-11-23T23:08:00.002-05:00

My wife and I decided it was time to get away for a weekend. So the weekend before our anniversary, we went to West Baden Springs near French Lick Indiana. My boss recommended it after the hotel went through a multi-million dollar renovation recently.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were immediately taken care of with valet parking and bell services. Check-in was so quick I almost forgot the we checked in.

After checking in we proceed to the atrium. Words cannot express the dome interior and size. The dome rose six stories above the floor. It was truly amazing. Upon entering our room, we were immediately taken back by the size and luxury. The bellman showed us the balcony over-looking the atrium. Again, the beauty was amazing.

We then adjourned to the Sinclair restaurant located in the hotel. The fine dining experience was just what the doctor ordered after a long couple of weeks. The ambiance was peaceful and upscale. Throughout the meal, we felt spoiled and pampered.

The next morning we ordered room service and took our time getting ready. We then headed to the spa for our couples massage. It was my first ever massage. Not knowing what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.

We then headed to the French Lick resort for lunch and my wife's hair salon appointment. The atmosphere was completely different. Tons of people milling about, lots of noise, and more kids than I cared to see on our relaxing weekend getaway.

We headed back to West Baden to get ready for dinner. Walking into the atrium again with the gorgeous architecture confirmed that we made the proper choice of where to stay. The atmosphere in and of it itself was relaxing and immediately diffused the hustle and bustle of French Lick.

We got dressed up and headed back over to French Lick's 1875 Steak House. My wife and I both love a good filet mignon. French Lick is just one mile from West Bade and under common ownership with. Shuttle that goes back and forth every 15 minutes.

There was certainly more activity and noise compared to the Sinclair, but was upscale none the less. The service was excellent and the steak was very good. It was not as good as Del Frisco's or Pat's Steakhouse, but overall was just as good.

We then headed back to the incredible West Baden to retire for the evening with the weekend almost over.

West Baden attracts people from all over the country including many celebrities and politicians. However, most guest arrive from Louisville, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Chicago, and every in between. If you are looking for a relaxing romantic getaway, I highly recommend West Baden. If you are looking for a little more fun and excitement, then you can hop on a shuttle to the casino at French Lick. Regardless of you purpose, I would certainly stay at West Baden.

Twit2Fit

2008-09-27T16:27:00.001-04:00

I'm a member of twit2fit.

View my page on Twit2Fit

Standby Generators

2008-09-17T12:05:00.001-04:00

Working for an engineering firm can have it's perks. When it comes to home maintenance I have structural and electrical engineers just down the hall to ask questions. I asked our electrical engineer about installing a backup generator. Here is what he said.

Be careful using a gas generator for electronics. Gas generators may run unregulated electricity that may harm electronics.
Consider installing a standby generator that runs on natural gas and has an automatic transfer switch. It senses when electricity has stopped and automatically switches power to the generator. This is great for sump pumps.

Click here for an article from the Journal of Light Construction covering some of the basics

Click here for some products.

How to create a culture of entitlement

2008-07-19T14:57:00.000-04:00

1. Take responsibility and blame for everything.
2. Let staff publicly review every decision you make.
3. Satisfy every employee desire.
4. Revise policies to accommodate every employee’s needs.
5. Don’t have deadlines, and don’t pressure staff.
6. Accept all employee behaviors.
7. Don’t ever require change.
8. Undercut supervisors.
9. Require positive and supportive evaluations.
10. Treat stars the same as poor employees.

Business First of Louisville - by Ben Leichtling

Thomas Edison had a unique way of hiring engineers

2008-06-24T20:41:00.000-04:00

Thomas Edison had a unique way of hiring engineers. He'd give the applicant a light bulb and ask, "How much water will it hold?"

There were two ways to find the answer. The first choice was to use gauges to measure all the angles of the bulb. Then with the measurements in hand, the engineer would calculate the surface area. This approach could take as long as twenty minutes.

The second choice was to fill the bulb with water and then pour the contents into a measuring cup. Total elapsed time: about a minute.

Engineers who took the first route, and performed their measurements by book, were thanked politely for their time and sent on their way. If you took the second route, you heard Edison say, "You're hired."

(From Managing By Storying Around, by David Armstrong)

Sources:
The Manager's Intelligence Report
TheHumorList.com

Management Culture Statement

2008-05-15T07:44:00.001-04:00

A business colleague shared with me a Management Culture Statement written by another company. I don't know the original source, but appreciate the words of wisdom:

You are doing your job well when:

You can take a vacation and not worry that your work won't get done.
You must be disciplined and organized in order to accomplish the above.
The employees that report to you are pleased and satisfied with their contribution.
You are contributing positively to the overall morale of the company.
You are successfully performing the duties outlined in your job description.

A positive attitude towards all customers and all employees is important to the success of this company.

A can-do approach to issues and challenges is important to the success of this company.

Change is certain - with regard to procedures, vehicles, responsibilities, etc. - be prepared to accept changes and use them as an opportunity for growth.

You don't grow a business by reducing costs - you grow by increasing customer satisfaction and revenue.

Seniority doesn't matter, quality of work does.

When two people are having a conversation, the person talking the loudest has lost control of the conversation.

Employees will rise to the occasion if you let them.

Every person brings value to the organization -- learn to capitalize on their individual strengths and work with them to overcome weaknesses.

When you compliment your employees, it is an indication that you are successful in their management. Conversely, if you complain about their lack of abilities, it reflects poorly on your management skills.

Each and every employee, regardless of title, level, or position will be treated with respect, and their opinions will be considered.

Offer constructive criticism carefully, compliment liberally.

If one of your employees has an innovative idea and it is implemented, you will get credit for it because that employee is your responsibility. Their successes are your own.

If you have something positive to say, don't hold back.

If you work here, it is because you are talented and valuable to the company.

No employee will be fired, demoted, or otherwise chagned without written warning. We are committed to the professional development of all of our employees.

Google Street View

2008-05-14T08:14:00.001-04:00

I looked up an address in Google and clicked on "Street View". Voila, there was a 360 degree picture of the entire street. It looks like Google sent a car down every street in various cities with a camera on top of the car and took a panoramic picture. It's unbelievable. Check it out at maps.google.com.

The One Thing About iGoogle

2008-05-03T17:12:00.000-04:00

The one thing I did not like about iGoogle was that I could not move tabs around. I recently discovered PageFlakes which allows this with drag-n-drop functionality. Visually, PageFlakes has a lot more to offer, but it tends to get cluttered with so many visual features. Maybe it's that I just got so used to reading iGoogle. So, I determined that there must be a way to rearrange tabs in iGoogle and there is.

It's not straight-forward, but it is pretty easy. While logged into iGoogle, click on "My Account". Find "iGoogle" and click "Settings". From this point, click "Eport" and save the xml file on your computer. Open the xml file (with notepad or xml notepad). With notepad, you can cut/paste the tags. With xml notepad, you can simply drag and drop the tabs to rearrange them. Finally, upload you new xml file to iGoogle.

Now iGoogle has everything I want compared to PageFlakes.

Update 7/17/2008: Google recently upgraded iGoogle and has a really simple interface for adding/removing and rearranging iGoogle mobile application. From your computer, go to iGoogle, click "My Account", and finally iGoogle "Settings". At the bottom of this page are the mobile settings.

iGoogle - A Must For The Avid Reader

2008-04-30T20:15:00.000-04:00

I have been using iGoogle for over a year now, but just recently started subscribing to multiple blogs. My increased interest in blogs was the result of a business acquaintenance recommending Seth Godin's blog. I read it daily and amazed at the volume of insighful, succinct, and well-written ideas he has. I highly recommend reading his blog and purchasing his books.

I then began subscribing (and over-subscribing) to numerous blogs. I use basically three methods to find blogs:

Let Google pick for you. When I set up a new tab called "News", I clicked on "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name.
Look for the 'rss' symbol on currently favorite web sites. For example, I regularly visit as my local newspaper, The Courier-Journal, CNET.com, and sports pages.
Browse web sites such as Blogged.com that rank blogs.
Use iGoogle's "Add Stuff" to search for gadgets to add.

I now have tabs for News, Sports, Tech, Louisville, Blogs, Faith, and Sandbox. I have all the news feeds and articles easily accessible on one web site.

Blog from Email

2008-04-24T14:30:00.001-04:00

Blogger offers a great feature where you can post a blog directly from your email. Just send an email to the address you assign in your settings and you can blog from anywhere. I have used this several times in the past, but it seems to have stopped working. I sent a blog last night and still have not seen it posted yet. Let's see if this one ever makes it to the blog. These free services are great, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Telephone Etiquete

2008-04-24T10:35:00.000-04:00

When leaving a voicemail, please remember the following suggestions. First, leave a header and a footer. At the beginning of the VM, leave your name, company, and phone number. Slow down when saying your phone number (and I mean really slow down). At the end of the VM, leave your name, company, and phone number again. Repeat your phone number twice. Say it so slow that it feels a little awkward. There is nothing worse than having to replay the entire message just to get the number at the end. In fact, you can just call back later if I can’t get it the first time.

Finally, please don’t just say call me. If it is important enough for me to call you back, then it is important enough to give me a least a brief description. I would like to know what we will be discussing so that I can come to the conversation prepared. The more preparation before the call, the more efficient and effective the phone call will be.

Jott

2008-04-23T23:00:00.000-04:00

Check out Jott.com. Jott is you personal dictation web service. Just call an 800 number and leave a message. Jott will convert your voice to text and send you an email. You can set up friend and co-workers and send them emails, too. It's great for sending yourself reminders or using it as a personal reccording device.

How to deal with angry customers

2008-04-16T09:39:00.000-04:00

I attended a workshop on how to deal with angry customers. The workshop attempted to provide numerous techniques, each with a long acronym to help us remember. Give me a break. Am I really suppose to take a step back, recall all this alphabet soup of techniques and apply them when an angry customer calls? The key is to develop a paradigm of excellent customer service that can be applied to angry customers, happy customers, new customers, and anyone else for that matter.

It's really quite simple -- proactive communication. Call them. Email them. Let them know you are working on the project. Let them know you are waiting on some info. Let them know you have not forgotten about them. Their are usually angry because we haven't called. We usually don't call because we know we've dropped the ball somewhere. Proactive communication is a lot easier when you are really taking care of the customer's needs.

Thunder Advice

2008-04-12T23:55:00.001-04:00

My wife and I just got home from Thunder Over Louisville. We thought we could just go from River Road to Zorn Avenue to I-71 South, but I-71 was purposely closed. So was I-65 North. We had to go all the way around the Watterson to Sherman Minton Bridge which is only one lane. Watching the traffic coming out of Southern Indiana, though, made me grateful we were not in their grid lock. Although it took an hour to get home, the traffic diversions actually make sense. Force everybody to go one direction -- away from Louisville. Divert the crowd, thin it out, and clear the congestion. It actually works. My only advice would be to stay in your own state, if at all possible. Since the goal is to go away from Louisville and you cannot get from Kentucky to Indiana or vice-versa without going through Louisville, it much more efficient and logistically sound to stay in your state.

Do the Test

2008-03-21T15:46:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Seth's blog for pointing this out (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/).

12/20/2008 Update - I use this in our new hire orientation training as a segway to using the search tool in our project management software.

Nuclear fusion is coming, says noted VC

2008-02-07T16:50:00.001-05:00

February 7, 2008 7:14 AM PST
Nuclear fusion is coming, says noted VC
Posted by Michael Kanellos
INDIAN WELLS, Calif.--Nuclear fusion will move from the lab to reality in a few years, a noted venture capitalist says.

"Within five years, large companies will start to think about building fusion reactors," Wal van Lierop, CEO of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, said in an interview at the Clean Tech Investor Summit taking place here this week. In three to four years, scientists will demonstrate results that show that fusion has a 60 percent chance of success, he said.

Full Story:

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9866626-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5