July-August 2008 - Issue #64

• Intro
  
• Article: Don't Make a Degree the Key Element by Eva Rosenberg
  
• The Office Corner
  
• Grammar Question of the Month
  
• Tech Tips by Terence Kierans - Outlook: Create a Second Calendar
  
• Writing Corner
  
• Word of the Month - force majuere
  
• Recommendations
  
• Judy's Corner
  
• Judy's Photo Gallery
  

* One site that I'd love my subscribers to visit is Joan Stewart's Publicity Hound. http://www.publicityhound.com Stewart has terrific ideas for how to keep your business in the public eye, and she puts out a dandy weekly ezine. I recently bought her 261-page eBook, "89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases," and it's filled with amazing ideas.

* Eva Rosenberg, one of my favorite people, talks about hiring practices in this issue's article. Take time to read it. She makes some powerful points.

* I just had my blog switched to WordPress, thanks to hiring Jackie McCutcheon. It should be more user friendly, and easier to subscribe to. It's at http://www.ossweb.com. If you need any type of help with your blog, or are thinking of starting one, contact Jackie. Find her website at http://www.jackiemccutcheon.com.

* Announcing the latest website launch: Christmas Hills Tree Farm, the site of a wholesale Christmas tree farm in Mossyrock, Washington. This is the site of my niece and nephew, Cheryl Crook Burton and John Burton. At the end of this ezine I'm sharing some photos Cheryl took while at a zoo. I jazzed them up a bit, because often the surroundings of these beautiful creatures are a bit, um, drab. Cheryl is the daughter of my brother, David Crook, whose photography graces the Christmas Hills Tree Farm website.

By Eva Rosenberg

This morning I was corresponding with a tax professional who's faced some resistance by the folks at Robert Half because he doesn't have a college degree. No doubt Half must adhere to THE highest standards in the land. (They are a pretty good firm, in general.) But when you come across a candidate like this individual - with over a decade of solid tax experience, a great attitude, and a capacity for finding errors that might save a firm from lawsuits or sanctions...headhunters need to have the sense to make an exception.

I spent years as a headhunter in the fields of accounting and computer sciences. Most of the time, I also adhered to the job requirements. But when I met someone exceptional, that's when my job got really interesting. That's when my selling skills and charm came into play. Any headhunter who doesn't have the guts to pitch someone exceptional is nothing more than a robot.

Let me tell you about one job opening for an accounting manager to run the operations at an oil related company in Long Beach, California - where we have a mess of refineries. The hiring manager was adamant about wanting a man - since the job required the manager to go out to the job sites and bully the workers into getting him records and paperwork on a regular basis. And he refused to back down on the degree issue. So, I made a deal with him. Once he got through interviewing the next three candidates who met his qualifications, if he wasn't excited about them, he'd talk to the lady I wanted him to meet. (He'd been running ads and was already disheartened by the candidates he'd seen.)

He called me a couple of days later. OK, all I have to lose is an hour or so. Send your woman in.

She went there the next morning. And I didn't hear from her or him. (Normally, my candidates were instructed to call me after the left the interview.) I still didn't hear from her by the end of the day. So I called the employer. She was still with him. He was so excited about her that he'd spent the day with her and was arranging for the president in Texas (where else) to speak with her in the morning and make the final hiring decision.

This person didn't have a degree. And she was a woman. But she was experienced, solidly rough around the edges and moved well in a greasy men's industry.

Folks, if you're looking to hire, don't make a degree the key element. A good employee can always complete a degree. But not all degreed candidates have the experience, ethics and common sense of someone who's pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. (Some do...but...open your eyes.)

There are some things you cannot train. When you find those qualities in a person, snap that person up and encourage them to train while under your tutelage.

Eva Rosenberg is wonderful, witty, wacky, and wise. Find her at the sites listed below:
www.TaxMama.com - www.homebusinesstaxcuts.com
www.TaxQuips.com - www.IRSExam.com - www.TaxNerd.net

1. 5 MISTAKES THAT WILL COST YOU YOUR CLIENT (and How to Avoid Them)
http://tinyurl.com/6aeuqe

2. CVS Office News: Would you like a newsletter intended to provide you, and / or your office staff, with additional knowledge and skills; thereby increasing productivity and efficiency? Terence Kierans just launched this dandy monthly newsletter.
http://www.virtualservices.com.au/news/8_06.htm

3. CATALOG CHOICE is a free service that allows you to decide what gets in your mailbox. Use it to reduce your mailbox clutter, while helping save natural resources.
http://www.catalogchoice.org/

4. HOW TO DESIGN A SMART, FUNCTIONAL FORM: Chuck Green
http://www.ideabook.com/tutorials/page_layout/forms_that_function.html

5. TYPO BUDDY: a tool to help find commonly misspelled auction listings and items on Ebay, Craigslist and eventually other auction websites.
http://www.typobuddy.com/

Question: Which is right?

        However, 57% of these sales is occurring in August.
        However, 57% of these sales are occurring in August.

The Copyeditor's Handbook, by Einsohn, says:

After the construction "x percent of y," the verb is singular if y is a singular noun or a collective noun, and the verb is plural if y is a plural noun.

So, if sales is used as a plural noun, you'd use "are."
But if sales is used as a singular/collective noun, you'd use "is."

OUTLOOK - Create a Second Calendar
It may be that cramming both your business and personal schedules into one calendar isn't very convenient. This is particularly true if you share a calendar with colleagues or publish your calendar as a Web page for others to see.
1. Go to "File\New\Folder".
2. In "Folder contains" select "Calendar Items".
3. Place this calendar as a sub-folder of almost any other folder. Making it a subfolder of the main calendar is probably the best.

After creating your second calendar, there may be a number of personal appointments in the existing calendar that you don't want to re-create.

There are two simple ways to move items from one folder to the other:
° Drag and drop the items. If there is a large number of items, create a table view of the "old" calendar, and set up a filter that displays only the appointments you want to move. Select those appointments and drag and drop them to the new calendar.
° Go to "View\Folder List", right-click the calendar.
° Select "Copy Calendar", and select the new calendar as the destination folder. This will copy all of the items from the old calendar to the new one. (This could mean that you end up with a lot more items than you actually want.)

NOTE: You won't receive any reminders from the items on the secondary calendar. Outlook reminders fire only from the primary (or default) folders and not from subfolders.

Terence Kierans
Cyberspace Virtual Services
tkierans@virtualservices.com.au
http://www.virtualservices.com.au/
We keep your project on the boil, while you sleep

1. Innovative Ways To Get Post Ideas When you Face Writer's Block
http://www.jeetblog.com/innovative-post-ideas-writers-blocks/

2. HOW TO WRITE A BIO FOR YOUR PRESS KIT by Joan Stewart
http://tinyurl.com/66qb7z

3. TIP FROM JOAN STEWART, THE PUBLICITY HOUND: Here's a video from Steve Harrison and Matthew Bennet that explains more about how to sell 10,000 ...20,000...even 100,000 copies of YOUR book--non-fiction or fiction--to just ONE company (or handful of companies):
http://www.MillionDollarAuthorClub.com/videotruckload/?10011

Main Entry:force ma-jeure
Pronunciation:*f*rs-m*-*zh*r, -m*-
Function:noun
Etymology:French, superior force
Date:1883

1 : superior or irresistible force
2 : an event or effect that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled — compare ACT OF GOD

*By permission. From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary at www.m-w.com by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.

1. THE WHERES AND WHENS OF USERS' EXPECTATIONS, by Jared M. Spool
http://www.uie.com/articles/user_expectations/

2. WHY FREELANCERS NEED MULTIPLE SKILLS
http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/why-freelancers-need-multiple-skills/

3. THE PUBLICITY HOUND'S BLOG: Tips, Tricks & Tools for Free Publicity This is a must-read blog if you publicize anything or anyone.
http://publicityhound.net/

4. PRICING AND INFO FOR NEW, USED, & CLASSIC CARS.
http://www.nadaguides.com/

I've been taking time to investigate Twitter, Triiibes, Ning, and StumbleUpon. Should have some feedback for the next issue. Hope you're having a warm, wonderful summer.

Baboons by Cheryl Crook Burton, edited by Judy Vorfeld

Golden Lion Tamarin by Cheryl Crook Burton, edited by Judy Vorfeld

Gorilla by Cheryl Crook Burton, edited by Judy Vorfeld

Lioness by Cheryl Crook Burton, edited by Judy Vorfeld

Lioness by Cheryl Crook Burton, edited by Judy Vorfeld

Orangutan by Cheryl Crook Burton, edited by Judy Vorfeld

Raccoon by Cheryl Crook Burton, edited by Judy Vorfeld

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