Category: Management

Parallel Structure, or Why the Bullet is Your Friend

So you’re pursuing a job in finance.  Question: How much writing will you need to do?  Answer: More than you might think. It is a given that you know something about finance, or you would never have been hired in the first place.  However, as you progess in your career you will find more of

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The Long and the Short of It

Or, Don’t Use Your Credit Card to Buy Groceries (and Don’t use Bonds to Buy Technology) I was walking by Fort Point in San Francisco (you’ll know the spot from Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”).  I fell into conversation with a guy who, by coincidence, was a new customer at the bank where I worked.  He went on to

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What Does it Take to Get Fired?

Sometimes, Not Much The article Fatal IT Distractions lists mistakes that will lead to immediate dismissal in the IT world: things like forgetting to back up data nightly or not testing your disaster recovery plan prior to a disaster. This made me ponder.  What will get you fired in the world of school finance? I am not talking about obvious offenses

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Schrödinger’s Excel

Or, how to be deadly and awesome at the same time Is Excel good or bad?  It is both.  Are you good at Excel or bad at it?  Probably both. Excel is extraordinary.  In the wrong hands it also can be a disaster,  Excel is just a tool, like a chisel.  It is inspiring in the hands of a skilled carpenter and murderous in

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Zombie PowerPoint

or, Why PowerPoint Cannot Die The YouTube video Death by PowerPoint is really, well, to the point.  Yet, despite obvious abuses, PowerPoint is here to stay. Powerpoint is the perfect vehicle for bulleted and numbered lists. We are addicted to lists.  What do you think most people will click on: Study shows correlation between polyphenols and health, or

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Make Them Cry “Uncle!”

My boss and mentor used to chastise me.  “Pile work on your staff until they cry ‘uncle’ ” she would say. Is that really a valid management technique?  Sounds a bit draconian. “Not at all,” she would counter.  “You don’t really know if they are working at full capacity until you give them too much

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Give Up Already!

I was still in bed when I heard such frightful swearing from the kitchen.  Upon investigation I discovered that Spouse had impaled his index finger on a nail and was trying to open up a “bandaid”.  Not a brand name Band-Aid, mind you, but a cheap generic version thereof.  He handed it to me.  Here

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“Dog Person” Gets Cat: Surprised by Level of Dissastifaction

I am working on a proposal to present at a professional conference next April.  The topic I have chosen is career development. Thus, my blogging volume is both: 1)      Temporarily reduced, and 2)      HR related Why the topic of career development?  Well, frankly, it is on the list of proposals they are seeking.  And also,

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Classroom Dollars and Bad Teachers

Start with a graphic representation of a dollar bill. Divide it up to show how many cents are spent in which categories.  Not a bad way to represent expenditures. Except when it is done this way: Why? Because this cartoon is not just wrong, it is dishonest.  The categories of expense are a bit hard

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