Here's an article KM systems. There are a lot of sources in this article to retreive information setting up KM systems. I thought some people may benefit from it.

http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?articleID=7317&TopicID=10

MSOE Strategic Management
hear is an article that shows alot of strategic focus by milliken, their meeting a huge need with this product.
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2006/id20060210_209422.htm

Interesting article on time management re: meetings

From the February 10, 2006 print edition Business Journal Milwaukee The People Pro Runaway meetings are the top time-waster at work Barbara Bartlein

A new nationwide survey finds that "runaway" meetings are the biggest time waster in the workplace. More than 27 percent of workers polled said meetings are the largest culprit for inefficiency and lack of productivity.

With today's lean staffing levels, there is increasing pressure for employees to manage their time effectively. Yet, many employers actually sabotage time management with runaway meetings and interruptions. Industry Week calls meetings "the Great White Collar Crime," estimating they waste $37 billion a year.

Some "red flags" that can indicate a mismanaged meeting:

No one in charge -- If the leadership of the meeting isn't clear, there is a tendency for attendees to waste time, pontificate their points and not draw any conclusions.
Not starting on time -- This practice "trains" employees to come late and expect additional time for socializing.

Lack of objectives or agenda -- With no clear purpose or agenda to follow, it is easy for the meeting to get off track. Participants may not be clear as to what needs to be discussed or for how long.

Lengthy guest list -- As a general rule, the more people at a meeting, the less work accomplished. When the list of attendees is extensive, it is often because there is a focus on not excluding anyone, not because each member's participation is necessary.

Just part of the routine -- Regularly scheduled meetings can lose value as circumstances and staff change. All routine meetings should be periodically evaluated to determine whether they should be held at all.

Effective meetings
To learn how to make meetings more productive, I contacted Chris Clarke-Epstein, who wrote the book, "I Can't Take Your Call Right Now, I'm In a Meeting." The former president of the National Speakers Association, she works with clients to help employees learn faster and work better. She offers concrete ideas to make your meetings more effective.

Not every meeting should take place. The right times to schedule a meeting are when conflicts need to be resolved, groups of people need to start working together or information needs to be shared at the same time. Meetings are a group activity so they can be effective when a group needs to reach consensus or rally around an idea or plan.

The person who calls the meeting has more to do than reserve the room. They need to also consider other logistical issues, including time, equipment needed, and food/beverage. They need to take ownership of the content, including preparation of an agenda and distribution of review materials. It is important to have a system to follow up on assignments and monitor the results of the meeting.

Meetings are no better than the people attending them. According to the Wharton Center for Applied Research, the primary cause of unproductive meetings is not having the right people in attendance. The most effective participants at any meeting are people who have the information you need, people who can make decisions, and people who will implement the decisions.

What gets recorded at a meeting has a chance of getting done. All meetings need some form of collective, agreed-upon memory. Without documentation, consensus can quickly evaporate. Meeting notes need to summarize the decisions made, itemize the actions agreed upon, fix accountability and document the deadlines for all actions.

Meetings that end without assignments are doomed to be repeated. Groups are often very good at decision-making and unbelievably poor at implementation. There needs to be an identified person to implement each decision within a specific time frame. Watch to make certain that everyone is getting some of the responsibilities.

Teams that evaluate their meetings have better meetings. Take two or three minutes at the end of each meeting to evaluate the process. Use index cards and answer the following questions: Were the meeting's objectives met? Was the meeting's format effective? Was the meeting of value?
The true value of any meeting is what actually happens after the meeting takes place.

Make sure individuals are held accountable for meeting results. And remember, if you don't measure it, it won't happen.

Barbara Bartlein is president of Great Lakes Consulting Group, Milwaukee. She can be reached at 888-747-9953, barb@ThePeoplePro.com or www.ThePeoplePro.com.

A snippette regarding podcasting.

By Jay Conrad Levinson
Author, "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books
Over 14 million sold; now in 41 languages
The best-selling marketing series in history

The Guerrilla Marketing Association gives you live access
to Jay Conrad Levinson and comes with a free one-month trial.
Click Here

The 7 Deadly Sins of Commercial Podcasting

By Errol Smith

The podcasting phenomenon is just over a year old, but there are some lessons that have already surfaced from the experiences of early Internet radio entrepreneurs, the first wave of commercial podcasters, mass media scholars and experienced media professionals. These insights can help those with commercial podcasting ambitions avoid becoming another corpse in the podcasting graveyard. We've defined them as "The 7 Deadly Sins of Commercial Podcasting" and they have just been published in Media Savvy 2.0, the journal of the International Nanocasting Alliance.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Commercial Podcasting

1. Podcasting Without a Plan - Variations of this sin include podcasting because you can, podcasting because everybody else is doing it, and podcasting because it's a cool new way to get your message out. But podcasting without being clear about why you're creating the "show", what the business plan is for the program, and what value you can reasonably expect to get from the venture is cardinal sin number one.

2. Podcasting Without Providing Unique Value - The media landscape is exploding with new content bringing consumers a mind-numbing number of media options. To reach consumers overwhelmed by choices, the most important question you'll need to be able to answer is, "Give me one really good reason why I should tune into your program." Your chances of significant commercial success without a creating a program that offers unique value is slim to slimmer.

3. Podcasting Like a Broadcaster - Broadcasting is what old school "mass media" networks do. It's communicating to the largest possible audience while hoping to reach a subset of people who are interested in the content and offerings. Nanocasting is the polar opposite of broadcasting. It's hyper-targeted media content, aimed at an audience that is narrower, tremendously smaller, but collectively very interested in the programming and the offerings. From Mommycast, to Autoblog, some of the most promising commercial applications of podcasting we're seeing on the landscape are using the "Nanocasting" model. The first commandment of Nanocasting is to clearly define your audience. Commandment number two is to "hyper-target" them.

4. Underestimating the Commitment - You can already record and distribute a podcast without even buying any equipment, and new offerings are promising to make podcasting even easier. But commercial podcasters are finding that the venture neither begins nor ends with capturing audio and creating an RSS feed. On the front end there is considerable planning and preparation. On the back end there is promotion, testing and business development followed by more planning, more promotion, more testing and business development. Webpronews reported recently that "nearly half of the blogosphere is dead--that is, inactive." If the millions of abandoned blogs are any harbinger of the podcasting road ahead, it is likely that the leading cause of commercial podcast failures will be expecting commercial podcasting to be easy. Creating a podcast is one thing. Creating and sustaining a commercial media venture is another. The latter requires a commitment to consistently develop new content that subscribers find valuable.

5. Believing That Talent and Expertise Don't Matter - The resounding message driving the podcasting revolution is that anybody can do it. If by "do it" you mean speak into a microphone from your basement, and then record and post an audio feed online, this is true. But once "vanity podcasting" is distinguished from commercial podcasting by the necessity to attract and keep an audience, talent and expertise become factors. It just takes one stroll down iTunes boulevard to confirm that not every, staff writer, professional speaker, CEO, maven, author, entrepreneur, blogger, homemaker, hobbyist, enthusiast, or average man on the street has the talent to move from the silent Internet to the "talkies." The technology gives everyone a soapbox, but getting people to listen and keep listening requires talent and expertise.

6. Being Seduced by the Age of Amateurism - Though "citizen journalism" has risen to prominence, consumer generated media is the rage and many people have come to trust the amateur and distrust professionals; bet on professionalism to win out in commercial podcasting. Podcasting by the seat of your pants, picking up a microphone with no knowledge of the media business, or the art and science of creating compelling programming may be fine for vanity radio, but for commercial podcasters it can be a deadly sin. As a commercial podcaster, you'll be investing a lot of time and at least some money in your media venture. Bottom line: You're either building a portfolio of valuable programming that lots of people will want to hear, or you're building the web-based equivalent of a library of home movies.

7. Believing That the Playing Field Is Level - The egalitarian veneer of iTunes is potentially misleading and deceptive. Seeing programming by ABC, FOX and The New York Times displayed in equal pixels next to programs like Ask a Ninja, Diggnation and French Maids TV gives the impression that the new media playing field is fairly level. But the most savvy commercial podcasters are playing to dominate their field of competitors, and they are moving early to stack the odds in their favor. Understanding that commercial podcasting is a team sport, savvy media entrepreneurs are accessing the best players they can afford to bring a critical combination of media expertise, marketing expertise, e-commerce expertise, and technical expertise to the game. As commercial podcasting matures (which could be tomorrow) expect to see the gap and the commercial value between the "A list" programs and "B" movies widen dramatically.

Plus: The Three Unpardonable Sins

8. Relying Primarily on RSS to Build an Audience - Real Simple Syndication (RSS) may be an easy way to build an audience for vanity podcasters, but commercial podcasters are already discovering that RSS is no substitute for proactive audience building and what Nanocasters call Really Targeted Syndication(RTS). The high response and conversion rates required to achieve and sustain commercial viability demands a mix of approaches, including behavioral targeting, co-marketing and brand building. So paraphrasing another axiom, commercial podcasters can not live by RSS alone.

9. Believing That Format Doesn't Matter - Many early podcasters argued that free expression was the cornerstone of the podcasting revolution. They believed that podcasting should be free from anything that might standardize, homogenize or in any way cause podcasting to resemble the predictability of terrestrial radio. But a page from radio's history suggests that commercial podcasters may want to reconsider. International Nanocasting Alliance founding member, Dr. Joseph Dominick, professor of mass communication, writes that radio "formats" emerged in the 1950's in response to the growing number of competitors on the radio dial (3343 stations). The format became a tool to define a station's image and attract advertisers. As a result of formats, radio revenues went from 227 Million in 1955 to over one billion in 1965.

10. Overestimating Podcasting / Underestimating Podcasting - If Roy Amara's first rule of technology holds true, most commercial podcasters will overestimate the value of podcasting in the short term and underestimate the value of a well-developed podcasting program in the long term. It is likely that many early commercial podcasters will lose their first mover advantage by abandoning a podcast program, because it failed to generate a return on investment overnight…big mistake, and one of the deadliest sins. At the end of the day it's likely that success in commercial podcasting will be more like a marathon than a sprint.

Jay Conrad Levinson The Father of Guerrilla Marketing

MSOE Strategic Management
I found an interesting article that happened to focus on strategic leadership. It touches on som eof the key ideas such as having vision, remaining dynamic in your management procedures, and working to create and find more strategic leaders in your organization. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2006/id20060130_353096.htm

For those of you interested in innovation, there is an excellent article in this months copy of the Harvard Business Review. The article is titled "The why, what, and how of management Innovation," by Gary Hamel.

This article describes the reasons why managers need to be innovative, list a few small cases studies of management innovation, defines management innovation, discusses how to become an innovative manger, describes the elements of management innovation, and lists 12 innovations that shaped modern management.

It's a great article and from my paper research, Management Innovation (MI) is a new buzz word for all of us to know.

Andy Donovan

There is a new airline carrier attempting to start up. It's called VirginAmerica. An article titled "A British Invasion" from CNNMoney.com, talks about the investment team. Currently the company is waiting for approval from the US Dept. of Transportation. They are headquartered in San Francisco. Their strategy appears to be similar to Southwest and Jetblue. Flying long-haul routes, cutting edge technology on reservations, simple fares, flying one type of airplane (Airbus 320) and they plan to outsource assets like hangars, instead of owning them. Also in the works is a tv in each seat. Their website, virginamerica.com says the company is busy building a new kind or airline.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/20/8369117/index.htm
http://www.VirginAmerica.com

Interesting idea: The President is listening to CEO's regarding the development of a competitive advantage for the US. Article from CEO magazine online. February 2006.

Issue Date: March 2006, Posted On: 2/6/2006 Is Washington Listening? President Bush’s New Policy on Competitiveness by William J. Holstein

It was pretty stunning to hear President George W. Bush come out so forcefully on the subject of U.S. competitiveness in his State of the Union address. That was the theme of our CEO Leadership Summit described at some length in our January-February issue, and also the theme of my most recent Editor’s Note. I’m not under any illusion that the leader of the free world is reacting to Chief Executive magazine. Rather, I think we have captured the zeitgest of U.S. corporate leaders, and that’s what the president was responding to. So what’s my reaction? It would be easy to be cynical about this pronounced shift in Bush’s focus some six years into his presidency, as he faces important mid-term elections. The fact that Exxon reported $36 billion in profits in 2005 may have forced the Bush camp to put down a marker on the U.S. “addiction” to imported oil, lest they be accused of being in Big Oil’s hip pocket. And he may have soft-pedaled on his push for democracy in the Mideast because, guess what, we had democracy in the Palestinian territories and they elected Hamas. Democracy in the Mideast, even if it’s ever possible, also isn’t going to address the concerns that Americans have about their own lives. But let’s look at the glass being half full for a moment. As best I can tell, this is the first time that the Bush Administration has really listened to CEOs about shaping the national agenda. Virtually all of his town hall sessions with CEOs had been devoted to him telling CEOs what his vision was and why they should support it. This feels different. It was in response to executives such as Craig Barrett of Intel, John Chambers of Cisco and Norman Augustine, formerly of Lockheed Martin, that Bush said he would accelerate spending on basic scientific research. Augustine helped lead a blue ribbon group that produced the report entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.” (If you haven’t read this report, you should. It’s available at www.nap.edu.) Very interesting new report. So, granted, Washington is corrupt and debased, and it’s entirely possible that political leaders will be distracted by some new scandal or foreign misadventure. But there appears to be an opening. Legislation has even been introduced called the Protect America’s Competitive Edge Act. It may be possible that we’re seeing a shift in the national political consensus, one that will be reflected not only in midterm elections but also in the presidential election in 2008. CEOs should maintain the pressure on leaders of both the Republicans and Democrats to keep moving in the right direction. That’s doesn’t mean just lobbying. It requires genuine intellectual leadership.

The Journal Sentinal had this article about President Bush's plan to reduce our dependence on foreign crude oil by developing biofuel technology. According to the President "America is addicted to oil". The president's plan is to have competing technologies in six years. As the article states this requires companies to make engines and fuel systems that can handle higher Ethanol content. Since I work for a company that makes its own engines and fuel systems, I know that we would need to start working towards this now if we expect to be ready for new fuels in 6 years. Another interesting point made in the article is that the rise in oil prices has made ethanol based fuels competitive even without their $0.51 per gallon subsidy.

Here's another move by the Walt Disney Company. Although this move doesn't seem as monumental as the Pixar purchase, it is notable. Today Disney announced that it will be merging ABC Radio with Citadel Broadcasting and plans to spin it off by the end of 2006. CEO Robert Iger explains this was done in order to "maximize the value of our assets for our share holders, while focusing our capital and management resources toward our core businesses." Sounds as though Iger is reading directly out of textbook's description of downscoping (p. 220-221).

Another blog on governance and fiscal responsibility. Taken from The NonProfit Times, February 6, 2006.

Finance

Budget questions you need to be asking

Any organization’s annual operating budget should include estimates of revenue and expenses for an upcoming year, and it is of course an essential part of nonprofit operations.

In their essay “Understanding Financial Statements” in the book “The Art of Governance,” Patricia Egan and Nancy Sasser offered a list of questions that trustees might ask as part of their review of the budget than an organization’s staff presents to them.

The questions include but are not limited to:

* Is the operating budget balanced? If not, why not?

* Does it provide a small contingency to handle unforeseen events?

* Does the budget include only current-year revenue that is unrestricted and available to be spent on operations?

* What are the riskiest parts of the budget?

* Is there a fallback position to prevent the organization from these risks?

* How do the major budget categories compare to this years budget and year-end projections?

* What new initiatives are included in the budget?

* Are any existing programs terminated?

* If the budget includes significant increases in earned or contributed revenue, does the staff have a realistic plan for activities to generate the growth, and is the development or marketing budget increased to reflect the new activities?

* Does the budget include depreciation as an operating expense?

The Home Depot is starting to think ahead of their competition and involving self-check out services and Kiosks. Home Depot is trying to limit human services and still provide great customer service.

http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?articleID=7292&TopicID=3

This article is about GM outsourcing their BPO to HP. This decision to outsource to HP is way for GM to reinvent itself and aquire new strategies.

http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?articleID=7300&TopicID=2

Since the topic tonight is Starbucks, I found an interesting article on cnn.money.com. The title is "The Starbucks of Cell Phone." A new retail store called IMO is offering an upscale alternative way to shop for dell phones. The store will carry various cell phone brands by offering choices on features and price. The offerings are on a digital display and a "live" IMO person will be available to offer advise. IMO references Starbucks in the store environment by offering "the solutions boutique" and intends to compete on service, not price. They want to offer the whole package (phones, service, accessories) to the consumer.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/30/technology/launchpad0130/index.htm