SBDC HAVING A BUSY FALL We have had alot of activity as of late, with the Fall turning out to be a very busy time for small businesses! We have another NxLevel Entrepreneurial class going in Whiteriver on Wednesday nights (we still have an opening or two if you are interested call me right away!) and our computer classes are starting to fill up. Our next Friday-Saturday class is Aug. 28 & 29 in Show Low, or Aug. 26 & 27 in Whiteriver. Be sure to sign up early to be assured of a spot. Also, our newest Counselor, Jessica Stago (who covers Winslow, Holbrook and the reservation areas to the north) has scheduled a series of four seminars in Winslow, being held at NPC's Little Colorado campus from 9:00 a.m. until Noon each day. The dates are Sept. 6th (Startup Issues), Oct. 4th (Business Plan), Nov. 1st (Financing), and December 6th (Marketing). For more information give Jessica a call at our Holbrook office at 524-7372.

Surviving Your Worst Meeting Nightmares When you lead a meeting, you're responsible for your coworkers' teamwork, their decisions - and their behavior. That means you should also be ready for potential hazards such as differences of opinion, personality conflicts, or even brash and outlandish remarks. Here's what to do when your meeting devolves into a worst-case scenario. Shake It Up: Alternative Meeting Strategies Is your meeting style a good match for the needs of your team? What kind of rapport or atmosphere do you want to create? If your meetings aren't getting the results you want, take a tip from experienced companies that have developed clever ways to bring people together. How to Run an Effective Meeting Have you ever sat though a pointless meeting and calculated just how much money was being wasted as a dozen well-paid professionals zoned out around a deathly boring conference table? Horror stories of bad meetings are legion, but the qualities that characterize a good meeting are harder to define. Ten Tips to Tune Up Your Teleconferences Getting through an in-person meeting is challenging enough, but it's even more difficult to bring together colleagues who are dialing in or participating via videoconference. The basic keys to a good remote meeting are the same as those for any meeting: have a goal, only invite the necessary people, encourage participation from everyone. Organizing Networked Conferencing Networked conferencing brings people inside and outside an organization together quickly and easily, wherever they are located. Although not as effective as live meetings, networked conferencing brings huge benefits in terms of convenience and time savings, as well as substantial savings on the costs of meeting arrangements and travel. Managing Business Meetings The most effective meetings are short and to the point, allowing people to get on with the rest of their day. This checklist offers advice for anyone who has to plan or chair a business meeting. ________________________________________ Video Make Your Meetings Matter In a perfect world, when you call a meeting, everyone shows up on time, comes prepared, is not distracted by their PDA or laptop, and stays alert and engaged. But it's not a perfect world. BNET talks to Bert Decker a communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur, to find out how to make meetings more effective. ________________________________________ Insight Organize Meetings Easily Can't decide on what time to meet? Try Doodle -- a simple concept that allows you (the organizer) to bring all of the relevant folks to a website so that they can vote on a time and date that works best for them. Rescue Yourself From Boring Meetings with FakeCall "If only my phone would ring, I could get out of here!" How many times have you fidgeted your way through an endless meeting, cocktail party, or product demo thinking exactly that? If you're a Palm Treo user, FakeCall will do the trick. Collaborate Online with Vyew Online collaboration can be a lifesaver when you need to work with folks in different offices, different cities, or even different countries. It's a way to chat, share a whiteboard, and even work in real-time on various documents.

The Small Business Development Center held an Advisory Committee meeting recently in Winslow at the La Posada Hotel, with 20 representatives of the small business community from Navajo and Apache Counties in attendance, along with Tribal economic development partners representing White Mountain Apache, Hopi and Navajo Nation. The group listened to President Jeanne Swarthout who provided an update on Northland Pioneer College, and asked her pointed questions regarding workforce development and the needs of small business for the region. The group broke up into four groups to provide input on various issues affecting the SBDC and entrepreneurial development for the region. The SBDC plans to use this input to help direct their 2008 Strategic Plan and provide greater service to local small businesses.

In today's highly competitive global business environment, adaptability and consistent execution are key to survival. As entrepreneurial manufacturing businesses scale in size and geography, they often experience plateaus in growth and productivity, particularly when their organizations reach about twenty people, again at fifty people, and once more at one hundred people. Symptoms during plateaus include lack of accountability, disengagement, loss of focus, decrease in quality, lack of alignment, and frustration. Entrepreneurs quickly learn they cannot manage their larger-scale organizations the same way they managed their smaller ones. To address the problems that accompany growth, some entrepreneurs incorporate elements from large business improvement programs such as Total Quality Management, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and Balanced Scorecards. In doing so, they also take on the challenges of these programs, such as managing time spent in extended classroom training and finding the right people to lead quality improvement initiatives. By cobbling together the various management systems into their culture, they also take on the expensive role of integration and support. During the past three years, a business-excellence program called Six Disciplines has become available to simplify the quality management approach, foster practical planning, and deliver effective, sustainable execution management. It is the first enduring business-excellence program designed specifically to help small and mid-sized businesses ensure they are doing the right things at the right times. And it can be of tremendous assistance to entrepreneurs and top teams in the manufacturing sector. The Six Disciplines Defined Six Disciplines founder and CEO, Gary Harpst, explains the Six Disciplines in his book, Six Disciplines for Excellence. Twenty-plus years ago, Harpst started a software company called Solomon. After building the business, he sold it to Microsoft, and instead of retiring he began researching businesses that were implementing best practices in small markets. From that research, the following Six Disciplines emerged: · Decide what's important. Focus on the vision and values of the organization "what they are, thought through and defined" and then revisit them regularly. · Set goals that lead. For employees to keep focused, goals need to be defined for each aspect of the organization. An organization that has only set financial goals, for instance, will quickly find itself out of balance. · Align systems. People, processes, policies, and technology are all systems that must be aligned toward common goals, with energies focused correspondingly to priorities. · Work the plan. Once an organization determines what's important, it must ensure it stays committed and tracks progress toward its goals. · Innovate purposefully. Leadership must be able to harness energies to ensure that staff are working on the right things and looking for creative solutions to everyday problems. · Step back. Every entrepreneur needs to be sure he or she is working in the business and not just on the business. Understanding the organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is key to growth and sustainability. A Simple and Sustainable Holistic Approach Six Disciplines uses a holistic approach, which makes it an excellent choice for entrepreneurs in the manufacturing sector. It is based on more than twenty years of business improvement innovations, technology developments, and proven business best practices. The first key reason Six Disciplines works is simplicity. The program engages the entire organization and points its in the right direction with a methodology that integrates strategic planning, tactical annual and quarterly planning, process alignment, performance management, quality assurance, and innovation. Through goal setting, team members make commitments to themselves and their team members. Next, they assess weekly how to spend their time in order to focus forward on working more effectively while zeroing in on the right things. Employees review their plans and accomplishments quarterly and annually with the full team to ensure movement. The second reason Six Disciplines works is that it is sustainable. The biggest problem with business improvement programs is that companies are not able to stick with them. Change initiatives rarely last. The problem is even more pronounced in small and mid-sized manufacturing companies, which face the additional barriers of limited economics and expertise. Four Common Characteristics Based on intensive field research that included 300 small to mid-sized companies, Harpst found that enduring business-excellence programs must have the following four elements: · A repeatable methodology to drive organization learning. This is where the templates, surveys, and checklists included in Six Disciplines come into play to assist with employee learning and performance. · External coaching for accountability. Such coaches offer an outside perspective and honest assessments in an effort to hold individuals accountable. · A system to align the activities of every team member, every day. This involves ensuring that people, processes, and technology are all in sync and working effectively. · A community of like-minded people to accelerate learning. Once the team can agree on common definitions and values, tasks become simpler and conversations become more productive as employees learn from each other. Manufacturing entrepreneurs who need to compete in the global business environment while managing a steep growth curve should consider Six Disciplines.

If you were to poll 20 experts in PowerPoint usage, it is likely that exactly none of them would list the topic of custom shows as among the most vital. And that is the beauty of writing a book that is designed to be uneven: I can indulge in the arcane and burrow into the obscure. While doing all of that burrowing, I have unearthed a topic that is one of PowerPoint's unsung heroes. You might go weeks at a time without using it. You might only use it in specific situations. But the fluent practitioners of their craft recognize the creation of the custom show as one of the jewels that combines flexibility with economy of effort. For the full article go to http://editor.ne16.com/htmleditor/viewOnline.asp? FileID=84119