Brian's Mind

The class pace was appropriate, however the workload was extreme. I have taken many summer classes as well as full semester classes. The amount of work required in this class was at least 5 times that required in any other 4 credit business class taken at Carroll. I feel that the key reason for this is that the instructor could assign required tasks that he did not have to grade. Since increasing the amount of work for the students did not increase his workload, he assigned everything he could.

A Standard day of class involved the following;
Read a Chapter
Complete an assignment based on that chapter
Complete a quiz on that chapter
With your team-mates, write a summary of the chapter.
Participate in on-line discussions

The above list contains the required elements. In addition to this, you are supposed to work through the online study guide. During a summer term, I am accustomed to a class meeting two nights a week. Frequently, we were required to perform a task four nights out of the week. One of the benefits on on-line classes is the potential of a more flexible schedule. Please do not misunderstand my point. I do not think the class went to fast, the pace was as it should be. What I object to is the amount of busy work assigned. I am well past being in high-school, where you need to create a trail of bread-crumbs to get me to study. I am an adult, and therefore am responsible for my own study. It should be up to me to choose to do the homework. If I do not do the homework, and then perform poorly because of it, that would be my fault. In this case, the constant amount of busy-work required actually interfered with my ability to absorb the information.

I also wish to point out that the teacher, while a good reference if you had a question (although I had a number of emails I did not receive a response to), provided little added benefit to this class. In other online classes I have taken, the instructor was far more engaged. Essentially, this class seems to be a Pearson Education class, not a Carroll University class. All of our work was done at the Pearson site, Pearson graded most of our work, Pearson provided ALL of the tutorials and most of the education material. What material Pearson did not provide, it was up to the students to locate and post to the discussion area. Every once in a while, the instructor would post something to ‘guide’ the discussion. however, had a students posts been of the same quality at the instructor posts, I feel they would have been scored very low.

In a way I feel cheated out of an education in this class. I came to Carroll for a Carroll Education. I did not come here for a Pearson education, any more than I did for a random other college (OCICU) education.

I came away from this class with the feeling that the instructor is attempting to sabotage the idea on online classes. I have worked with teachers in the past who did not like the idea of online classes, and did not think they should be offered. Considering how much work this instructor expected us to put into the class, and how little work he seemed to want to put in, I have to feel either he wants the idea of online to fail, or he just thought that online classes meant he did not have to do much. One such item that makes me feel this way, is the way he expressed his grading method for the discussion boards.

At the introductory session, he let us know that the first few people to post would get the most credit. Is this so that he does not have to read past the first few? This does not seem like a fair grading method. A student who is home during the day, or has time every day to work on the class has an advantage over someone who has to work on the class in chunks through the week.

In the end, I gave up. There was far more work to do than someone in my position could handle. I still have a day job that must take precedence. With that in mind, I looked at the grading scale and formulated a path to a passing grade. In other words, I had to forgo much of the material, and the grade that went with it. All of the additional work forced me to choose what parts I would actually learn. Less assigned work would have allowed me to actually study the material in more depth.

Just before I took this class, I took LEA302 (Leadership) as an online class. Leadership was well run, and had the same requirements as on-campus classes I have taken, and leveraged the features of being online. LEA302 is an example of a well run online class. It had the Carroll flavor, and did not depend on an external (Pearson) web-site to get the job done. LEA302 is a model of how online classes should be run, and BUS304 is an example of what NOT to do.

One last thing that bothers me about this course. At the introductory meeting, the instructor effectively gave a sales pitch for the book store. He did his best to make the case that because of the online component, buying a book anywhere but at the bookstore was a bad idea. When I pointed out that you can buy the online component at the web site for a very reasonable price, he said that he is not ALLOWED to discuss alternative places to purchase materials.

The first thing that troubled me about this was the heavy handed way he was promoting the bookstore, both in class, and in the official course documents. He used inaccurate numbers to demonstrate that the bookstore was the only logical place to buy the book. Here was my Corporate Finance instructor falsifying numbers to sell the class on the bookstore. For the moment, let’s accept the idea that he is not allowed to discuss alternatives. I have been an instructor in the past, and I know that the contracts between schools and the bookstores can be restrictive. What I cannot accept is the outright sales pitch he was applying, especially since he is quoting (inaccurate) costs from sources he then says he cannot discuss.

On a different note, I would be amiss if I did not point out that I do not think it is right for a school to enter into a contract with anyone that places a gag order on the instructors on any topic. I understand it is common practice, but it is still wrong.

I have not really been paying attention to the progression of processor and motherboard technology lately, and it is time for me to correct that. Therefore, I am attempting to sort out what sockets are currently in use, and what processors go with them.

AMD

In the AMD family, it appears the naming scheme for processors has gone to either AM2, AM2+, or AM3. There are others, but they are older, and not important right now.

Matter of fact, it would seem that the only two worth looking at are AM2+ and AM3.

According to Wikipedia, The key difference between these two technologies is that AM3 processors have enhanced memory management on the chip. AM2+ processors support DDR2 memory, while AM3 adds support for DDR3.

AM2 Motherboards will support AM3 chips, but AM3 boards do not support AM2 chips.

Intel

Trying to sort out the Intel sockets seems more confusing. From what I can tell, the current socket is the LGA 1156, also known as Socket H. Even more confusing is figuring out what processor goes with which socket. They use the same family name over multiple socket types, so knowing that you have a Core i5 processor is not enough to know what socket it requires.

Part of the difference between these processors may be whether they contain Video support for example. So, you might have a chip that supports video, and a board that does not. In this case, the video on the chip is not used. In another case, you might have a chip that does NOT support video, on a board that does. In this case, the on-board video will simply not work.

In the end, it looks like LGA 1156 is the only viable socket available from TigerDirect. With that in mind, I will not worry about other sockets at this time. I might come back to this after I se what other companies are offering.

Low Power

It is also possible to go with an Atom processor if a super low-cost option is desired.

In the current labor market, it was difficult to find three individuals that have had the same job for the last three years. I have a very small social circle, and most in that circle has suffered the loss of a job within the last two years. However, with a little creativity, I did manage to locate three, by looking at some of the professionals I go to for advice.

The results were not very surprising, as these individuals are much like myself, with the exception of one who has the privilege (or curse) of running his own business. I only mention that factor, because without it, some of the results seem very odd.

I start with general satisfaction, commitment to organization, and then come back to pay and promotion as potential ways of affecting the satisfaction.

General Job Satisfaction

All of the people I interviewed liked their job two years ago, while two of them are less satisfied right now. The two that are less happy site changes that are being brought by new management in the last few years. This is not necessarily seen as a reaction to the economy, rather a constant push forward by companies, as younger people who do not have the same connection or loyalty to the company, take over from retiring executives. The mantra of ‘do more with less’ has been around longer than our current economic situation, although it might be amplified a little more now.

Most of the people I talked to really enjoy the human interaction portion of their work. As the companies try to be more efficient, that interaction is being minimized. Here is a summary of what one person said.

‘Until now, my job has been to assist people who come to my office. We sit down for an hour, and I help them sort things out, and help them find a path to a goal. We work together, and find what they need, and then they go off and accomplish that goal. It makes me feel good to see someone leave with a purpose, knowing that I was able to help that person. The new methods are trying to minimize personal visits. They want to direct people to a web site that is designed to help them find what they need, and have me focus on phone and email. ‘

According to one of the people I spoke with, they feel that the change in management has brought in more micro-management than the prior management team. This has stripped much of the feeling of autonomy that the workers feel. The net result is a reduction in job satisfaction.

One individual, who is a joint owner in his firm, of course has no problem with management. He enjoys his job as much as he did two years ago. He is well aware that he controls his environment. If he is not happy, then he will change the environment to make him happy. When asked how the economy has affected his work, he said that the economy is not in his control, so he will not worry about that so much. Instead, he is content controlling the things he can control.

Stress

Two of the people I spoke with feel more stressed today than two years ago. This is mainly due to the changes mentioned in the last section. The job is still rewarding, but the management seems to be doing what they can to take those rewards away. When asked how they deal with these stressors, one said that they just do. There is nothing that can be done to change it, so you accept it, and keep moving. Another attempts to deal with the stress by being active with the management. The hope is to get them to see that these changes might save money, but that the customer will be poorly served by them.

This is not from the interview, but from observation of the individual who is actively trying to get management to see that the changes might not be such a great thing, I have to believe there is a certain amount of active resistance to the changes as well. I get the impression that in spite of the push to remote communication instead of personal meetings, this person is concentrating on holding personal meetings, and trying to avoid electronic communication, at least to a point.

The third person feels that stress levels are unchanged from year to year. The stressors in this case are different though. This person carries the weight of success and failure on their shoulders. If the company fails, this person has no one else to blame. When asked how they deal with this stress, this person tells me that it is a good stress, that it keeps them on their toes. They cannot imagine life without some stress. There is one stress factor that is a little new, but that they see as being a short-term situation. Right now they are having an unusual number of people leave the company (mainly for family development, or educational reasons). They are training a large number of new people at once. This can be mentally taxing, as well as financially expensive. As with everything else, This person takes the challenge in stride, and knows it is short-term, and feels there is nothing to get worked up over.

Two of the people I spoke with are intrinsically motivated. They love what they do, and that is what drives them. They find the work rewarding, and at least one of them feels they are making a real difference in the lives of other people. This person has the pleasure of seeing a project all the way through, from the time a person first comes to see them, to the time that person finishes the job they came for help with. The other person has a job that really never ends, but they have small projects (like employee development) that they see all the way through, and therefore can take a victory from.

The third person seem to be extrinsically motivated. They do the job because it provides pay and benefits. Status seems to be very important to this person. The employer in this case could make this person happy by giving them a prominent office.

Loyalty

I was a little surprised by this part for a moment, and then I realized I did not know why. I have been sighting the probable decrease in employee loyalty for a while now, but to actually hear it from people I would think were happy in their jobs took me aback for a moment. Obviously, the shop owner is completely loyal to his shop, but the others painted a different story.

As management styles change, and the jobs become more ’sterile’, happiness with those jobs is decreasing. There is also a feeling that there may have been some shared loyalty with the original management, but there is no such connection with the new management. For one individual, there is not much attachment to the benefits of the job. The reward is in the work itself. If the company continues to change the job, and another opportunity to do this job opens elsewhere, then this person is likely to change positions.

Another of the people has no real attachment to the job. They stay because of the rewards offered by the job. If another position was offered, that offered similar pay, health care, and was unionized, this person would likely jump. If the position were closer to home, that would really sweeten the deal.

Personal observation: If another employer offered a similar position, but with more visible ’status’, this person would probably go to the new position, even at the expense of some of some of the above ‘demands’.

Motivation to Stay

So, what could these employers do to keep the employees happy, and get them to stay? In the cases where management is making changes that make the job less desirable, management would need to be open to input from the employees more. The question is, who has a better view of what the customers really need? If management insists on making the planned changes, then there is nothing management can do to change how the employees feel about the job. Money and benefits are not the key drivers of these people.

In the case of the status conscious person, a new office, or a prominent title may make a difference, but the fact is this person is not happy with the job in general, and is not happy with the location. Perhaps if there were a way for this person to work from home, it would make a big difference.

No one cited (direct) conflict with coworkers, or with supervisors as a reason they would wish to leave. It does seem that in most cases, the reason to stay is love of the work, rather than any commitment to the company, or the fear of loosing benefits of the job.

Summary

The people I spoke with like the work they do. This is the key motivator for them. Pay, benefits, and company identity are not very important. If you modify the work too much, they may loose the part of the job they really enjoy, and that will be what triggers them to leave. For these companies, if these people are considered to be of value, then management must be aware of how these changes will affect them, and decide if there really is ’savings’ in making the changes. No amount of extrinsic motivation will make these people stay if the job becomes unpleasant. However, in a competitive market, it might be necessary to apply the planned changes, and the cost of doing so may very well be the loss of these individuals.

This is a summary of the common HTML tags, by what the general purpose if each one is.

Basic Formatting

blockquote

This tag is used to identify information that should be treated as a embedded quotation.

br

Insert a line break, without creating a new paragraph.

div

Create a new division (section) within a document

div align

Allows the alignment of material withing a div section (div align=center|right|left).

h1 .. h6

Heading level. Used to define a first, second .. sixth level heading withing a document. Think of this a being chapters, and sections withing the chapter.

hr

Horizontal Rule. This is used to create a line across the page. Can be used as a separator.

p

Paragraph. This is used to indicate the individual paragraphs in your page.

pre

Pre-formatted text. Using the pre tag will cause the browser to treat the contents exactly as they are presented. A fixed-width font will be used, and spacing will be preserved.

strong

Provide strong emphasis. This is generally interpreted as Bold by most browsers. Note, the ‘B’ tag used to mean Bold. It can still be used, but is being phased out.

em

Emphasis text. This will generally be interpreted as italics by most browsers. This replaces the old ‘I’ tag.

I am writing another paper for school, that reviews my personal mission statement. I was thinking about the trouble I had in school when I was young. Mainly, the fact that before the move to public school, it had not crossed my mind to skip out.

A new question came to mind. Is it that I never thought of it, or could it be that the classes at St Catherine’s were just more interesting to attend? I always had trouble with homework, but I do not think I had trouble in my actual classes.

When working on a clients computer, I like to make a full system backup. However, if I have to reload the computer, I have decided I would like to create a backup of the main document files, and the folder structure that holds them.

xcopy /s does a good job of this, but I need to decide what file types need to include in the backup. Some obvious ones include Microsoft Office, and PDF’s. To help prevent backing up files that may have been included by default with the OS or software, looking for files that have the archive bit set may be wise.

• Microsoft Office (eft, eftx, thm, thmx)
  • Word (doc, docx, dot, dotx)
  • Excel ((xls, xlsx, csv, xlm, xlsm)
    • Chart (crt, crtx)
  • Powerpoint (ppt, pptx, potm, potx, pps, ppsm, ppsx)
  • Access (accdb, mdb)
  • Outlook (
• Microsoft Works (wps)
• wks
• db, ds?
• ics

Lately, I have found myself using the term Genuine to describe a few different individuals. The first time I used it, it was just because it felt right. After I used it a couple of times, I began to wonder what it really meant to me. The word seemed important to me, it had a real meaning. Therefore, I did not want to water it down with overuse. It was hard to know if it has getting overused without knowing what it actually meant.

While working on my Leadership paper, I think I have found a meaning. Genuine means to have the following characteristics.

• Honesty / Integrity
• Strong personal beliefs (whether they may be correct or not)

There may be more, but right now, that seems to be the very core of it. I may update this later, if I think of something that is REALLY key to this.

I am wrapping up the class I am taking on Leadership, and I am supposed to define my own Leadership philosophy, based on what we learned in the class. As I have been doing lately, I am going to lay out some of the framework for that here.

Description of the assignment:
Students in this course will not only identify their beliefs, but will also be required to identify the source and justify the credibility of their beliefs. They will also be challenged to examine the principles/beliefs they hold to be true and look for consistencies and inconsistencies within each category, and between categories.

Write a personal leadership philosophy (minimum of 5 pages) that describes:

• Your beliefs about the purpose and goals of leadership;
• Your beliefs about the roles and responsibilities of effective leadership;
• Your beliefs about the qualities, characteristics, and traits of an effective leader;
• Your beliefs about the techniques, methods, and strategies for effective leadership; and,
• Your beliefs about the nature of people you’ll be leading.

______________________________
Let’s start with the purpose of Leadership. Leadership would not be needed if we were able to accomplish everything we wanted to do without the help of others. In the advanced world we live in, this is not possible. We need other to achieve the complex tasks we often set for ourselves. Therefore, Leadership is about assembling a team, and helping the members of the team help you.

The Goal of Leadership is to get your team to operate like a fine tuned machine, without loosing site of the fact that it is made up of people, each one with it’s own, unique, collection of positives and negatives. The ultimate goal of leadership is to lead your team to the goals you have set for the project at the beginning. Getting there, with your team beaten and bruised, and some members fallen along the way is NOT a sign of good leadership.

Roles and Responsibilities

Some of the roles a leader will be asked to fill are listed below.

• Coach
• Mentor
• Counselor
• Teacher
• Interpreter

Some of the Responsibilities are as follows;

• Total Responsibility

Qualities, Characteristics, and Traits;

• Charismatic
• Honest / Trustworthy
• Firm Grasp of Reality
• Strong personal beliefs
• Good Communicator
• Good Listener
• Negotiator
• Visionary
• Knowledgeable in Subject at hand
• knows own strengths and weaknesses.
• Knows when to coach a team member, and when to let the team member work on their own.

Methods and Techniques

• Indirect Guidance – The ability to change a persons attitudes or behavior simply by changing how you respond to them.
• Lead with a carrot, rather than a stick.
• Allows other s to discover mistakes, rather than always pointing them out.
• Let team members take charge (ownership) of parts of the project.
• Make your team feel valued, do not take them for granted.
• Fix the Problem, not the Blame.

Corporate Responsibility (Environmentalism, etc..)

Policies regarding employee ethics (Chapter 5)

• Honesty must rate high in this

Company Objectives (Chapter 6)

Slogan

Strategic Market Plan (rolling 5 years)

• Review Annually and adjust
• Monitor competition
• Keep abreast of new opportunities
• Look for new areas to develop (equipment sales?)
• Targets and objectives should look 5 years out from each review.

The employment environment should be a family / strong team environment.

Employee Motivation

• Profit Sharing
• “Split the Savings” Plan
  • If you find a way to improve efficiency that results in financial savings, the company will split the difference with you for the first year

We believe in strong, ongoing, training for our employees. We will offer Tuition Reimbursement for continuing education. We will sponsor our people to attend career training events. We will allow our staff to participate in any training we hold at our offices.

Although a person can be hired directly into any position, depending on the individuals skills and background, there is a path by which most individuals, regardless of background, can be trained for any position. That path is as follows.

1. Receptionist
   • This allows a new person to become more familiar with the types of customers we deal with, and how customers should be handled.
   • This also provides an opportunity for the person to become specifically familiar with our customers, and for our customers to become familiar with the person.
   • Communication skills will be demonstrated and improved in this role.
2. Technician (Shop)
   • In this position, they will develop their troubleshooting skills, and their technical knowledge. They will have plenty of reference materials at their fingertips, and other knowledgeable technicians to ask for assistance, if they get stuck on an issue.
3. Technician (Help Desk)
   • Here they will draw on the experience they had in the shop to solve problems ‘blindly’. In other words, they cannot see what is happening on the other end, and must be able to use their imagination (based on experience) to see what the customer describes.
   • They will further develop communication skills, as they must be able to interpret what the customer is telling them, since the customer may not be technically inclined.
   • They then must be able to give very clear instructions, anticipating mistakes the customer might make, on how to fix the problem.
   • Here they still have a large collection of reference material, and other technicians to call on, if needed.
4. Field Technician
   • By this point, they should be familiar with most of the customers, having worked with them over the phone. The existing relationship makes it easier to work at the customer site.
   • Here, all of the experience, both hands on and ‘blind’, has helped the technician learn these systems inside and out. This makes it easier to work without the safety net of a large reference library, and others to ask for assistance. In a real pinch, the field technician can still call for help, but that will (hopefully) be a rare occurrence.
5. Trainer (Our Site)
   • A person might jump here after working the help desk, if training is more of a target than being a technician.
   • The knowledge of our customers (and the relationships) gained from being a receptionist, and from working the help desk will make it easier for this person to relate to the students.
   • This person may call on others to help set up for, and tear down after a class.
   • This position allows the trainer to get comfortable with the material, and the students in a more familiar environment.
6. Trainer (Customer Site)
7. Either Vice President position
8. President

A new employee will first be tested via methods published within our company to determine the persons current knowledge base. A training plan will then be customized to fit that individual. An example of such a training plan follows.

Trainer Orientation Plan

A new trainer will first be introduced to the rest of the training staff. One member of that staff will be assigned to assist the new trainer during the orientation period. The first week will be used to become familiar with our training materials and systems. During this week, the new instructor will be expected to attend one or more of the ‘assisting’ instructors classes, to see how we run our classes. During those classes, the new instructor will be introduced to the customers that attend the same classes.

In week two, the new instructor will teach classes at our facility, with the assisting instructor present. At hte end of the week, the assisting instructor will determine if the new instructor is ready to move to the next stage.

If the goal is to be a instructor at our facility, then with the approval of the assisting instructor, the new instructor is placed into rotation. If the goal is to become a customer site instructor, then the next week is spent following an existing customer site instructor. The new instructor will help with set-up and tear-down. Otherwise, this is similar to week one of training.

In the next week, the new instructor will be responsible for all aspects of a few customer site classes. They will still be monitored by a veteran instructor. At the end of the week, the veteran instructor will determine if the new instructor is ready to handle classes alone.

The plan for a Technician is a little more basic. The first week, they will be assigned a veteran technician of the same type they wish to be. This technician will introduce all systems used in our facility. If this is a customer site technician, then the new tech will shadow the veteran for a week, and then the veteran will shadow the new tech for a week. The new tech will need the approval of the veteran technician to be placed into regular service.

—

Every few months, there will be a meeting of each division (training, and service) where common issues, and new and improved methods can be discussed. This is also one venue for problems to be reported to the supervisors.