Spring Cleaning for Your Volunteer Program

Are there ideas, objects, or even people weighing down your volunteer program? "Spring Cleaning" is a great excuse for dealing with some of these issues. Take a good look around you. You probably see at least one thing that needs work but you've been putting it off for months. Throw open a window, let in some fresh spring air and sunshine and let's get to work! Volunteerism expert Susan J. Ellis offers these tips to get you started. More

Why Doing Things Half Right Gives the Best Results

There are times in life when we expect something to be perfect. When we open the box of a new Macbook Air, for example. Or when we take money out of the ATM. In most cases though, we expect imperfect. And in organizations, the author suggests, that's a good thing -- but not in the if-I-expect-imperfect-I-won't-be-disappointed sense. He’s not suggesting you settle for imperfect. He’s telling you to shoot for it. More

Choosing Icebreakers With a Purpose

Icebreakers can be a positive addition to a training session by energizing the group, initiating creative thinking, and encouraging involvement. This practice provides guidelines for using icebreakers. Excerpted from the Mosaica guide Starting Strong: A Self-Help Guide to Effective AmeriCorps Pre-Service Training, and the newsletter, Training Briefs. More

Diagnosing Problems to Avoid “Ready, Fire, Aim” Syndrome

Whether in a board meeting or at a community problem solving session, it's sometimes hard to get the ball rolling on an issue because no one agrees on what the problem is. Hours can be wasted spinning on issues without coming to resolution. This article provides a step-by-step process for defining a problem in such a way that people can do something about it. More

How to Win Frugal Consumers and Influence Them to Buy

American shoppers are complex: They're excitable, but often creatures of habit; sensitive to influence, but harder to manipulate than marketers like to acknowledge. And now, as Americans consume more sparingly, an already complicated retail pas de deux has become even more so. More

New POS: Fresh, Functional and Frugal

The world’s largest semi-conductor company has teamed with an industrial design firm to create a POS system that promises to enhance the customer experience while reducing energy consumption by up to 70 percent. Intel is focusing on the in-store experience, seeking to engage customers in a collaborative, non-pushy way through a POS system made of “green” materials. It unveiled a proof of concept design for this next-generation POS last month at NRF’s 98th Annual Convention & EXPO. More

Managing People: Difficult Employees

An employee who is difficult to manage can make your life absolutely miserable. They can be every bit as disruptive to the forward progress of your company as an employee who lacks the skills or initiative to do the job well. But often the underlying causes of employees’ negative behavior patterns are quite simple. More

10 Rules for Great Customer Service

Negative buying experiences are almost always linked to shoddy customer service. Even though most businesses claim that they put people first, it's rare to find good customer support. But customer service isn’t extinct. In fact, after consumer groups and the media took potshots last year at e-commerce sites for leaving customers in the lurch, many businesses began to focus more attention on their service. More