Vicki Leinbach - KI

In order to be successful, you need people.  People who are happy and feel appreciated will work harder than people that just come to work each day and do their job.  I feel very strongly that if I give people the opportunity to talk about issues, and if I really listen to their concerns, they will work with me to help change the way things work.  When employees know you are interested in making things better, feedback becomes more constructive and valuable.

 Since taking on a management role at KI, I have always tried to go beyond what was expected of me when managing my team.  The average tenure of my IT team is 13.5 years.  I believe this has to do with the Personal Touch and the environment I provide.  When first starting with the team in 1994, I very quickly implemented a comprehensive Performance Review process.  This was put into place for the whole IT department, even though at that point, I only had less than a quarter of the team under my direct responsibility.  When I took over the VP position in 1999, I started Skip-a-Level meetings to make sure I didn’t lose touch with the people that really do the work.  I’ve tried several initiatives throughout my 18 years here and continue to review and revise what’s working and what’s not.

Ashley Vandiver - DELL

Being approached to write a chapter for a public relations-focused eBook made me stop a moment and think. What have I learned all these years that really matters? What makes public relations relevant, an art form of sorts, in the context of human communication? 

When I started my career in public relations, computers were rare, fax machines were all the rage in new technology and cell phones were the size of bricks…literally. I remember one of my first employers felt strongly that the internet was just a fad, so we all shared one computer with AOL access. It was definitely interesting having 20 or so communicators all trying to communicate from one computer! PR back then was also a business commitment for smart organizations looking to have a clear voice in the marketplace and leveraged as a thought leader in their industry. However, rarely was PR a business cost embraced by senior leadership due to the unknown of it all, the non-tangibles. In those days, the measure of success in PR was highly rated by the size of the article your client was in, calculated by ad space – the tangible. But this measurement, in my opinion, was a distraction and fluff. It failed to get to the real meaning of PR, which is much more than a mention in an article. PR is definitely not one dimensional. 

So, what is it that makes public relations valuable? What is the one constant in PR that is the cause and effect of its potential power? People…plain and simple. So after all these years in the business the one vital thing that I have learned that really matters most are people. PR is all about the solid and effective relationships you build and the trust that comes with the human connection. 

Michael Van Zandt - Hanson Bridgett, LLP  

The tension between property rights and environmental values at the federal agency level has consumed the last 42 years, ever since the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969  42 U.S.C. 4321, et seq. (1969).  However when the rights at issue have been confirmed by the United States as rights recognized under state or territorial law, the ultimate irony of clashing policies over time challenge our concepts of federalism, fairness, and finality. These federal environmental initiatives challenge principles of federalism because they directly intrude into state property rights the federal government had previously acknowledged.  They challenge principles of fairness because they force the successors of pioneers and settlers to defend their property rights in administrative and judicial forums, when these citizens have little resources to challenge the federal largesse.  And they challenge the concept of finality because even if the property rights have been confirmed by judicial decree, federal agencies are using environmental laws in attempts to override decreed rights that otherwise have been declared final and inviolable.  See Nevada v. U.S., 463 U.S. 110 (1983). This chapter will explore these concepts with some specific case studies and with suggested solutions to these conflicts.

 There are hundreds of thousands of people and companies who have activities on federal lands or who derive their water rights from federal projects.  Most of the discussion in this chapter will center on farmers and ranchers who derive their water rights by appropriative rights under state law.   There are over 25,000 livestock ranchers who have grazing permits issued either by the United States Forest Service (USFS) or the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  The vast majority of these ranchers own water rights under state law for stock watering.  These water rights more often than not originated in the late 1800s, after miners and cattlemen began moving westward to lands opened up for settlement and development under the Homestead Act of 1862 (P.L. 37-64, May 29, 1862) and the Mining Act of 1866 (43 U.S.C.661) Both these laws were repealed by the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1701).   

 With the passage of the Forest Service Organic Act of 1897 (16 U.S.C. 473 et seq.), and the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934 (43 U.S.C. 315 et seq.), the federal government began to regulate use of the federal lands by livestock owners.  Part of the effort was focused on the restoration of the rangelands that the federal government considered overgrazed and overstocked.  But by the time these laws were passed, most if not all of the water rights on the federal lands were already claimed by livestock owners and miners.  As federal laws and agencies moved in the direction of protection of the environment, the goals of range restoration and environmental preservation overlapped and conflicted.  The Congress responded with the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act (16 U.S.C. 528 et seq.) and the Public Range Improvement Act (PRIA)(43 U.S.C. 1901 et seq.).  In an aggressive move, the federal agencies, especially the USFS used these new laws to claim additional water rights under the Winters Doctrine. 

 The Winters Doctrine was created by the United States Supreme Court to retroactively create water rights for federal lands that were reserved or withdrawn from public entry under the theory that the Congress would not have reserved or withdrawn these lands for the specific purposes designated by Congress unless it was intended to reserve sufficient water rights to fulfill the specific federal purposes. Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908).

 In the first case to test the USFS theory on federal reserved water rights, the United States Supreme Court decided that the Forest Service could not claim a federal reserved water right in the Mimbres River Water Rights Adjudication because the amount of water the Forest Service needed to sustain the National Forest was fixed at the time the National Forest lands were reserved in 1907.  U.S. v. New Mexico, 438 U.S. 696 (1978). 

 Attempts to expand the reserve water rights using laws passed more recently did not justify any such expansion because any reserved rights that could exist, existed at the time of the creation of the National Forest.  Id.  Following this devastating loss, the Forest Service and other federal agencies began a two pronged attack on existing water rights in the west.  The agencies began filing for water rights in their own right under state law, and they began a systematic application of a environmental laws to curtail the use of water by farmers and livestock owners, namely the federal Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.) and the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.).   A battle of epic proportions has ensued, where the term “Water is for fighting” has been given new meaning. 

Avery Cloud - NHRMC

The challenge for our health system with its 769 beds, two hospitals, and multi-site clinics was to replace its revenue cycle and clinical applications with a highly integrated suite of applications from a popular vendor, and do so all at once—a Big Bang. 

 In this article I will provide some of our actual statistics as well as describe some of the techniques we employed to drive success.  The statistics can serve as a basis for you forecasting what your organization may experience, and the techniques we used as grist for your creative mill designing your go-live plan. There are always debates as to whether a Big Bang is better than an incremental install; for example installing Revenue Cycle systems first and then later installing Clinical Systems; or installing all applications at once but incrementally in a single hospital or part of the hospital at a time.

 We decided we did not want to deal with the cost, complexity, and emotional drain of multiple go-lives as well as raising dozens of temporary interfaces and workarounds, only to tear them down in a few months. We decided to just rip the Band-Aid off instead of slowly pealing it away. There is no right or wrong choice between Big Bang and incremental-ism; it is really a matter of the culture and capabilities of the organization making the choice. We decided we were definitely a Big Bang culture for reasons I won’t go into, so we put our minds to work learning how to enjoy the benefits of a Big Bang without suffering its inherent negative aspects.

 Although a typical measure of success for such an endeavor might normally be expressed in project management terms—on time, on budget, and stable application performance—we posited that true success lay in the tranquility of the implementation as measured by the level of complaints, frustration, and ability of clinicians and staff to quickly achieve proficiency. Of particular interest to us was achieving a low noise level (complaints) and a high adoption level among physicians. Too often, IT organizations complete their project checklists and hit all milestones and schedules without regard for how the go-live impacts the day-to-day work-lives of the people who have to use the new systems. Are physicians losing time and money; scheduling and registration staff causing delays to patients; the quality and safety of care being compromised; excessive wait times frustrating patients, families, and physicians; electronic alerts and warnings overburdening staff?

 In short, is the customer’s experience better or worse as a result of the go-live? If the answer is “worse” then how can an IT organization legitimately proclaim the go-live successful, even if there was not one technical problem and every milestone was hit? We shouldn’t.

 In order to meet our goal of tranquility, we determined we needed to excel in the following areas:

1. Executive Engagement
2. Training
3. Communications
4. Service and Support
5. Transition to Normal Support

The question we had to answer was how to develop our plan in these well-known areas in ways different from the past, a past that recorded spotty performance in the tranquility space.  Here is what we did.

Melissa Fisher - Entertainment Promotions

There is no marketing function more vital than understanding one’s audience.  The most inventive creative will fall flat if it is not truly relevant to the market.  The most extensive media buy will be wasted if it is not meaningful to the intended audience.  The most effective diffusion marketing promotion concept will be stuck in the starting gate if the motivations of the market are not properly understood.

Marketing is a discipline of observation and understanding.  But it is not meaningful if it is based solely on traditional research.  Research provides only one face of market understanding - perceptions of product use based upon what the user believes to be motivating reasons.  And the marketer’s interpretation of such data is limited by their own prejudices and assumptions, usually not based on the same view of the market as shared by the target audience.

The marketplace - and its relationship to your product - is organic, forever evolving and morphing, oftentimes in ways that neither the marketer nor the end user anticipated, intended or even recognizes.  The only way to assess that relationship accurately is to walk in the target’s shoes, get on the ground level with them and understand the challenges they face, the rewards they seek and experience what it really is that drives them to purchase and to embrace your product.

This is never a process of making that relationship what you want it to be, but rather understanding what it is and having the insight to enhance the natural development of interaction between user and product to enhance it and minimize the interferences that minimize and obstruct its growth.

Andrea Greco - Unisys

Advanced supply chain practices have propelled the Procurement function from the back-office to the Executive Suite.  From the C-Level to the leaders of Business Units in a variety of industries and geographies, leading companies recognize that an integrated approach to procurement and supply chain management yields significant rewards not only in terms of savings, but also through better demand and spend management, supplier collaboration, risk management and, in the most advanced cases, contribution to a company’s top line growth.

 The following sections will focus on effective strategies to complete a transformation journey that generates great opportunities for the company’s financial health, for the status of the Procurement organization, and for each individual that chooses procurement and supply management as their passion and career.

 Far from being a prescriptive recipe, this chapter is intended to share my experience across a wide range of industries and companies, first in a consulting role and then as the leader of high performing Procurement organizations.  It aspires to be thought provoking, inspiring to the younger generations of procurement professionals and, hopefully, useful to those organizations that have started or are planning to transform procurement in a similar way.

Chip Perkins - Perkins Fund Marketing

The world of third party marketing has changed prior to the financial crisis of 2008 to now, halfway through 2012.  We have outlined below the obstacles of the existing market place (with an outline of how we got where we are today) and our firm’s process in helping alternative managers to market their funds.

Some of the actions that still have impact today on the fall-out from 2008 include:

• Movement of Investors/Fund Managers
• Reorganizations/Spinoffs/Downsizings
• Massive Redemptions by Investors – Including Funds who performed well in 2008
• Massive Losses in Other Asset Classes – i.e. Private Equity – which created a lack of liquidity in the market
• Increased Variety of Terms and Fees for both Managers and Investors to protect themselves and their interests
• Funds not over their high watermarks
• Gates and hold backs

The State of Capital Raising - Resulting Developments in 2009 include the movement of Investors/Fund Managers

• Investors “flight to safety” into larger funds – to quantity not necessarily quality
• Reducedamounts of available investable capital by investors
• Average Hedge Fund Manager with less than $1 bn lost 60% of assets due to withdrawals and performance (source: Barclays)
• Ticket size was smaller – 50% of investments now less than $10 mm – only 14% greater than $40mm
• Compliance and Administrative Challenges for Managers which continue to expand

Trends in 2010 and forward.  After rapid “recovery” in 2009 – Investors are making careful and thoughtful allocations/investments – the industry is starting to accumulate assets and is returning toward $2 trillion in total capital managed (source: Prequin).  It is still a difficult road in 2012 – and capital raising is incredibly hard. Overall market trends/obstacles include:

• In order to gain investor’s interest, outperformance and a track record of at least three years (including performance from 2008 is a key factor).  Pedigree of a manager and firm infrastructure are other key attractors.

• If you have less than $100 million under management - Internal leads from friend and family, capital introduction will generate some leads, you will need third party marketing for prospecting to see if you have a viable product that can grow to the next level, however, it is very difficult

• Expect increased operational due diligence from your prospective investors – it is a longer sale cycle, there are more meetings, more data requests, more time spent with investor prospects, a real need to have strong personal relationships including more in-depth due diligence

• Significantly less numbers of total funds and start ups than there were pre-2008
  
  
• There are a lot of FoHFs that have consolidated or gone out of business in the US and Europe.  According to data from eVestment Alliance which specified that the percent of assets in hedge funds from FoHFs reached a historical low in 2012, with FoHFs accounting for only 36% of industry assets at the end of the first quarter, down from 38% one year prior and down from 49% three years prior.
  
  
• The European market is going through difficult times with company consolidations and less capital to invest as well as its own recession/financial crises.

Carol Gillam The Gillam Law Firm

Thirty years ago, the field of employment law² scarcely existed. Today employment litigation is a booming field with no signs of settling into complacent middle age. Over the past three decades, the law has evolved in many ways, recognizing more rights of employees while also acknowledging the particular needs of some employers.

 While there is some concern among progressive thinkers that a tidal wave of conservative judges and legislators may turn back gains in employment law, the reality is that courts and legislatures of all stripes are more aware of how employment practices disparately harm certain socioeconomic groups thanks in part to an effort to become more informed about the results of social science and medical research. New laws get passed, and older laws get interpreted in new ways[1] to safeguard people against biased decision-making. Over the next five years, these areas of employment law are likely to evolve or emerge.

 1)              Implicit Bias

2)              Family Responsibilities Discrimination

3)              Use of “Me Too” Evidence to Prove Discrimination

4)              Disability Rights

5)              Bullying in the Workplace

6)              Appearance Discrimination

7)              Convictions for Misdemeanors and Felonies

8)              Use and Misuse of Credit Reports

9)              Name Discrimination

10)            Religious Discrimination and Accommodation

11)            Privacy Rights of Employees

12)            Whistleblowers and Dodd Frank

13)            USERRA and Rights of Returning Veterans

This chapter will discuss the first three in some detail and touch on the others.

Herbert F. Kozlov, Esq.  Reed Smith, LLP

Lawrence J. Reina, Esq.  Reed Smith, LLP

The bedrock principle of corporate governance is that the members of a corporation’s Board of Directors owe fiduciary duties to the company’s stockholders and to the corporation upon whose Board they serve.  It is thus crucial that directors have an understanding of these duties and what is expected of them in their capacity as directors.  Regardless of where a corporation is headquartered, as a general rule, a director’s fiduciary duties will be governed by the laws of the state of incorporation.  The “internal affairs” doctrine provides that the scope of a directors’ duties, obligations, responsibilities, and liabilities, as well as protections that can be afforded for directorial decision-making, are determined by referencing the statutory and/or decisional law of the state in which the company is incorporated.

Because Delaware remains the state law of incorporation favored by so many new and well-established corporations, this overview of director fiduciary duties and the “business judgment rule” will focus primarily on Delaware standards.   In addition, because members of Boards of Directors may properly discharge their fiduciary duties by delegating decision-making  in certain circumstances to Special Committees of the Board, a Board-appointed Special Committee must be organized properly and function in accordance with established judicial guidance to help ensure that the Board will enjoy the protection of the business judgment rule.

Justin Harris StreetLinks Lender Solutions

In my experience as an Account Executive there are five main principles that I live by.  They are: conducting business honestly; persisting even in the face of adversity; staying goal oriented by reviewing my goals daily at what I want to accomplish and how to make it happen; time management – this is essential for reaching my goals and how I strategize the tasks at hand so that I am able to excel above my industry peers and knowing my product. 

Confidence is essential in the world of sales.  Without it, one is left behind in mediocrity.  This chapter focuses on motivation and the process of getting motivated, and staying motivated. This is a staple for successful salespeople.  There is always something driving them to their next big goal or success and there is always a next big goal or success to be had.  They have what can most clearly be labeled as a “winning streak”.  Every salesman experiences this, where for a specified period of time; a day, week or even several months they experience a “high”. There is no deal that can’t be closed, and no objection that can’t be overcome.  Clients and orders are being slung left and right. They are it! They’ve got the right stuff. On top of their game!

Then it happens, it’s inevitable, and when it does for most it’s like slamming on the breaks of your sales career. The event can be precipitated by any number of events: an unfortunate negative conversation, losing an account, or losing their spot in their sales ranking for their company.  Disappointment is inevitable.  The more important concept to take from this is how the successful salesperson deals with defeat. Dealing with success is easy, anyone can do it, to truly separate yourself from others, and have a successful career you must learn the art of overcoming defeat. In my experience, the best way to overcome a setback and keep a winning streak going is to stay motivated!

This can be done by setting goals and then working backwards on the steps that are necessary to reach these milestones. Staying motivated is certainly an easy concept to understand, yet difficult to employ.  

Everyone has experienced the doldrums or the act of being in a slump, whether we would like to admit to it or not. My purpose in writing this is to teach you techniques and activities you can do on a daily basis to ignite your motivation, sustain it and increase your productivity. People strive to be motivated, but many fall short of this because they cannot keep a routine that is conducive to high productivity.  The key to this is setting high goals and working forward to achieve them.  Motivation… sure, it’s easier said than done, right!? Remember you motivate you. You are the driving force, it is up to you to succeed and I’m going to show you how to do it!

Alan See MindLeaders

Practical experience is great, but sometimes formal training and development is still necessary.

In the long run, the only sustainable competitive advantage an organization has is its ability to learn faster than its competition.  Effective marketers realize that they cannot leave school as “A Marketer-in-a-Box” and never look back.  They need to be lifelong learners ready to engage a lifetime of marketing challenges, and practical experience often is the best way to learn.  In fact, if you’ve been around the block a time or two, the old adage “experience is the best teacher” is probably anchored in your mindset.  When I reflect on my marketing training and development through practical experience I always find Will Rogers’ perspective insightful, but also at times, troublesome: “The trouble with using experience as your guide is that sometimes the final exam comes first, then the lesson.”

Why do I find it troublesome? In many organizations, people have a tendency to downplay, or even discontinue, continuing education. Formal training and development is often necessary.  When you hire employees, it would be convenient if they would be adept at every skill the job requires or will require in the future.  But that’s not realistic.  Demands change, so businesses have to adapt quickly, which means managers need to take on a growth mindset.  Managers with growth mindsets believe that they and their teams can learn, change, and develop new skills as needed.  They focus on building talent-ready marketing organizations.

Carl Tsukahara ClairMail

Marketing matters. As much as product development, sales, operations, or any other part of the business, marketing plays a crucial role in building a business-to-business company’s success. So why is it so often treated like a cost center, having to plead for the kind of budget and resources that are readily given to these other groups? We have no one to blame but ourselves.

 The reality is that, for most business leaders outside the department—CEOs, heads of sales, board members, engineering executives, CFOs—marketing remains mysterious, even bizarre. While other parts of the company are based on more straightforward math—each dollar you invest can be expected to bring a fairly predictable return—marketing is less linear, trading the forecasts and spreadsheets of sales and operations for fuzzy notions like influence, mindshare, brand affinity, and intent. Recent trends make it all the more so: what does social media mean to a business services provider? Why would a semiconductor manufacturer build a content marketing campaign around online video? How will the earned media efforts of the current quarter translate into actual sales in the foreseeable future?

 Marketing may excel at promoting the value of a product or service to the marketplace, but marketing professionals have often proven to be less skilled at directly articulating the business value of their own work to the rest of the organization. The first step is to think more clearly about the role of marketing in driving specific business objectives, generating revenue, and increasing shareholder value. Armed with that understanding, marketing must develop specific, concrete metrics that demonstrate how effectively it is playing this role. This kind of accountability is crucial for building credibility, respect, and influence for marketing within the business.

 It’s not simply a matter of justifying your budget and existence to management. The rigor imposed by operational metrics will help clarify priorities, guide resource allocation, and sharpen strategic thinking within marketing as well. After all, if you don’t know how well you’re doing, how can you know whether you’re doing it right?

 This chapter draws on the lessons I’ve learned in 25 years of experience as a marketing executive and sales manager for both public and private companies, as well as a former principal of my own strategic marketing consultancy. While most of my experience has been in the technology sector, these thoughts apply equally well in most other B2Bcategories. Business-to-consumer is another animal, though—while there are some similarities, B2C involves an element of immediate buyer response and an even greater focus on brand influence, packaging, and distribution that make its value more evident, and in many cases, depending on the layers in the distribution channel, more easily measurable to other executives. The more indirect impact and longer buying cycles of B2B often pose unique challenges for marketers, and those are the focus of this discussion. 

Richard Hope Jersey Mike's Franchise Systems, Inc.

At Jersey Mike’s, a sub sandwich franchise with more than 750 stores open and under development, we believe in the power of the sub sandwich – and have since 1956. We have one mission: to make the best sub sandwich in the industry and make a difference in our communities.

Giving back to the community has always been a guiding principle at Jersey Mike’s.  It’s a philosophy that Jersey Mike’s Founder and CEO Peter Cancro emphasizes with each and every Jersey Mike’s store owner: support the community that supports you.  In 2011 alone, locations throughout the country raised more than $2 million for worthy local charities and distributed more than 200,000 free sub sandwiches to help numerous causes.

As a young entrepreneur (he founded Jersey Mike’s when he was only 17, not even old enough to legally use the slicer), Peter learned the importance of giving to local causes by following the lead of other, more established business people in his community. These mentors helped Peter shape his philosophy that giving was important on a personal level, but also important to business success. Most important to Peter was giving because it was the right thing to do.

“When I was a teen, I saw local business people like Bob Hoffman of Hoffman’s Ice Cream, Jack Baker of Jack Baker’s Lobster Shanty and others doing so much for their community. Because of them, making a difference was part of our mission from day number one,” says Peter. “You don’t have to go far to do good deeds. Look at your own community and you’ll find there is so much to do. The opportunities are all around us.”

At Jersey Mike’s, Peter’s passion for giving has grown throughout the system. It has become contagious among franchisees and, as the law of attraction dictates, it has gotten the attention of many like-minded folks who care about people and want to be part of a greater purpose. The passion has grown to such great heights that this fervor for helping others has become a “must have” personality trait for prospective franchisees.

Peter has always said that discounting is not the best marketing – supporting your community is.  You’ll never create customer loyalty through discounting your prices, but you will by supporting local causes and showing that you are a partner in the community where you do business.

 Our partnerships with local charities are win-win for everyone.   These connections have undoubtedly helped Jersey Mike’s build a bond within our local communities, winning a passionate following (we win best sub awards in virtually every market we enter!). And our business success has a direct benefit for the causes we support:  More restaurants mean we can raise even more money for hard working organizations.

Today, Peter frequently cites the names of the older, more established business people in town that he looked up to when he was an upstart 17 year-old entrepreneur.  They are constant reminders that Jersey Mike’s culture of giving is authentic and steeped in real history.

Dan Marks First Tennessee Bank

By some accounts, more people in the United States have mobile phones than bank accounts.  Many of us have heard tech rumors for years indicating that mobile payments will be a major force in commerce, but recent events have accelerated progress. 

As mobile technology becomes ever more pervasive, banking and finance is likely to experience a tremendous transformation of the entire payment infrastructure, including the introduction of entirely new methods that are not available yet.  Imagine having customers who are able to pay your firm from anywhere with instant settlement from their own devices.  Imagine dining in a restaurant where you look at the menu, place your order, make the payment, and receive your receipt all from your own device.  These scenarios are possible today although they would require multiple apps. In the future, paying in this manner may well become second-nature to all but the most committed luddite.

This article will explore thirteen ideas or concepts that have proven to be invaluable, in terms of success I have been able to achieve, in the marketing arena. I’m confident that these lessons can be applied to a variety of fields and should prove “lucky” for the aspiring marketer if followed. Be Analytical, Be Creative, Don’t be Second, Be Passionate, Be Patient, Work for Great Companies, Work for Great Bosses, Surround Yourself with Brilliant People, Love Your Team, Be a Great Boss, Be In-Person During Crisis, Work Hard but Have a Life, and Never Say Never. Seems easier said than done. At the end of the day, it is pretty simple. Use common sense, and treat people well, and all of the rest will come naturally. Good Luck!

Fashion law is the integration of various areas of the law. One of the most important considerations for fashion companies is the protection of its intellectual property. There are various mechanisms available for protecting the goods of a fashion company and each such product should be carefully evaluated to determine what can or cannot be protected. An understanding of the basic intellectual property rights that can be protected is a good basis for formulating a strategy to implement at the early stages to avoid infringement or enforcement issues that may arise later.