Kims Madhouse

Tracing your History

admin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:54:00 +0000

There's lots of tools and information out there to help you trace your family background and your ancestry. I personally have signed up for Ancestry.com, and use it pretty extensively to track my ancestry. I've currently touched on 3,000 /- people and records and it's fascinating to me to work through putting the "puzzle" of finding your family through the past few months.

Using Ancestry.com can get tricky, and takes a little more work than what the commercials indicate. Yes, you do get the little "leaf" next to the names of those in your tree that have "hints", but unless those hints are official cited documentation, you are relying on the words and trees of other people who are also members of Ancestry.com. I've had mothers listed as sisters, one woman having children at age 80, etc. What you need to do is take it logically, and please rely on the census or military information that comes from cited sources. Take the other members' trees with a grain of salt, as they are sometimes not paying attention to dates, ages, etc.

Another good source of information is Genealogybank.com. This is a collection of archived, registered documentation as well as newspaper articles written throughout time. I have pulled articles from as early as 1785, and if nothing else, it provides some interesting (often comical) reading. The good news is, society hasn't truly changed a lot over time – it's just report more widely today. People are still doing the same crazy things today that they did in the 1800's!

There are lots of databases out there that you can search for information if you have the time and notion… If not, let me do the research for you. I'm very good at digging for accurate history, and can find the basic information so you can build your family tree.

Contact me for more information.

Mattspeed

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:41:00 +0000

Stop and Smell the Roses

I've been working some long hours on a lot of different projects. The stress is unbelievable, and its starting to take it's toll on my brain. The more I do, the more I feel like I have to do. You get caught on that ride, and forget to stop and smell the roses.

I refer to that time as moving in Mattspeed. My son is very deliberate in his actions, and goes where he wants, when he wants or when he's ready, and doesn't understand it when folks get upset that he's not running with them. I'm not sure if he takes the time to smell the roses, but at least he gives himself the opportunity.

There's nothing wrong with Mattspeed every once in a while — I don't think my personality would let it run full time. But, when I look around and remember, life is short, there's a lot to do, and we are just small cogs in a very big world – well, things come into perspective. So, my challenge and reminder to myself for the next few weeks at a minimum, is to carefully examine what I'm doing. Make sure it's important, and most important – move at Mattspeed.

I am not going to count the minutes and think that I have to "beat the clock". This may involve better planning, but I am not going to rush to the zero hour.
Five minutes is not going to make or break my day.
I will continue and slowly enjoy my morning treks from the car to my desk (I'm taking the longest route to get the exercise).
I am going to enjoy my afternoon coffee.
I am going to take the time to think through my work, rather than race through it because everyone else is moving that fast (or expects that).
I'm going to watch more of what's going on around me.
I'm going to be more deliberate in my decision making process, and make those decisions without influence.
I'm going to continue to look for laughter, and stop and smell the roses a little more often.

Writing this article is just a statement and a reminder to myself that I need to take a deep breath and work at Mattspeed for a while to bring back the balance.

10 Common Business Challenges – Have you Experienced These?

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:44:00 +0000

1. Being the Leader in Your Business

Being the expert in your field is critical to running a successful business. This requires knowing not only what you do, but also knowing your competitors, suppliers, and distributors. By researching your competition, and finding the best suppliers and distributors, you can stay informed and competitive.

We know that you have the experience and background to be successful. You may wish to find researchers that can help you get through the initial fact-finding so that you can make the best decisions regarding managing your competition.

2. Managing your Business

When you started your business, no one explained all the business management that went along with making sure the business runs smoothly. If you are a paperhanger, you want to hang paper, not do paperwork. If you are a doctor, you want to spend time with your patients, not time filling out forms and reports. Unfortunately, business management is required to ensure you get paid. Business management includes accounting, production scheduling, personnel management, financial management, marketing, communications, etc. Some of the skills you are required to have are the typical executive skills of goal setting and decision making.

There are several areas that we can help when it comes to managing your business. The first is ensuring that you have a "system" – whatever that might be, and that it is effective for you. Saving time and eliminating waste are key factors in assessing your system.

3. Sales Management

One of the business management skills you are expected to have is good sales skills. Many business owners find this out the hard way. Realizing that you need to reach out in many ways to reach and establish a good customer base can be time-consuming and challenging.

4. Planning

Planning your business takes more than just the day to day objectives. A strong business plan is key to measuring your growth and success based upon your original expectations. A good business plan can help you with funding if necessary – a lender will want to know your plans for growth and development.

Marketing plans are critical to work towards trends in the marketplace. What was a "hot seller" last year, may or may not be, the same today. Targeting your markets can keep your success rate higher than stabbing in the dark.

There are a lot of templates to help you get start on these plans — consider building from them, and reviewing them with your professional advisers to make sure you're on target.

5. Managing Employees

There are many ways that we can help in managing your employees. Through customized training programs to incentive programs, to basic communications, that you can establish to retain your team.

6. Managing Inventory

A key to success is managing good inventory. By trending products and planning future inventory, as well as managing what you have and what you need, you can maintain a clean, saleable inventory. There are many tools and resources available to you, and by selecting the right ones, you can manage your inventory rather than having it manage you.

7. Managing Paperwork

The dreaded "P" word. Every day there is another piece of paper to deal with. While some paperwork can be good, too much of a good thing takes time away from your already full day. Even in our electronic world, we still have to deal with paperwork and required documents. With good filing systems to document scanning, you have lots of options to keep it under control.

8. Managing Time Efficiently

There are only 24 hours in the day, and 20 of them seem to be taken by work that needs to be done. Eliminating waste comes in big here — you need to focus on work and processes that can be eliminated, streamlined or organized to save time.

9. Customer Service

Managing customers can be a challenge on a good day. Nurturing your client base takes practice, time and patience. Find a strong system to help you manage your customers better. Taking strides to create personalized service delivery methods so that your customers know they are Number One.

10. Following the Rules

There are various governmental agencies that you may need to report to at any given time to operate your business. We all deal with the IRS. If you are a building contractor in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you have certain regulations you are required to adhere to. You may find you wish to become ISO- Certified. There are many tools available to keep you compliant – check them out.

If you get stuck in any of these areas, or would like more info, we'd love to help. If you've got ideas how to tackle these challenges, we'd love to hear from you!

Crazy Idea: Simple Solutions.

Unnecessary Paperwork

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:27:00 +0000

Don't you wonder why you are making 5 copies to be distributed to people, who will in turn, throw them into the recycle bin? We've gotten so carried away in our paperwork, we sometimes forget to stop and think what paperwork is necessary, who needs to really see it, and how we manage destroying more trees, or using more bandwidth to "share" information.

Take a moment to consider why you are making the copies you are making. Is there a better way to distribute the information to people that might need the information, but not necessarily in the form of a copy or printout? Can the information be summarized? Can you reduce your paperwork?

Something to think about, and we can work with you to work through some of those decisions. Either way, take a moment to consider: (1) who I am giving copies to (2) do they really need individual copies of the information, or would a weekly or monthly summary of the information be just as useful and (3) do we have the systems available to summarize the information to share it more efficiently?