864Coach.com » Sara5

Net-zero energy homes are the new norm

Sara5 — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:00:25 +0000

In some areas of the United States, net-zero energy homes are becoming the norm of new construction. California, for example, has set a goal that by 2020 all new construction properties will be of the net-zero kind (The Wall Street Journal, “Houses That Make Their Own Energy”).

http://online.wsj.com/video/houses-that-make-their-own-energy/7C802338-F8DB-45F9-B693-7528288804FC.html

According to Market Watch’s Amy Hoak, these homes may cost more upfront, but they will save in energy bills over time. Peter Pfeiffer, an Austin architect, warns consumers to do their research before purchasing net-zero energy products. Avoid the “eco-bling,” he says, as some products may work better in certain regions than in others. Pfeiffer suggests hiring a consultant who can analzye green products that save energy and minimize burden on the environment for your particular area.

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The World Cup teaches finance

Sara5 — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:00:12 +0000

Soccer silk flag

Soccer fans everywhere have their eyes and ears on The World Cup stage in South Africa. Surprising events have occurred, according to Brett Arends’s ”7 Lessons the World Cup Offers on the Stock Market” (The Wall Street Journal), and these happenings parallel the world of business. If we’re looking to better manage our financial resources, Arends’s list of World Cup tips are worthy of a reading. Here’s the quick list.

1. Don’t be shocked by “shocks.” 2. You need a strong defense. 3. You have to think globally. 4. Don’t get blinded by hope. 5. Patience wins. 6. Watch your margin of safety. 7. Don’t pin all of your hopes on the referees.

In soccer and life, timing is everything.

“Too many teams try for the quick kill–kicking the ball up field and hoping for the best. Great soccer teams–especially the Brazilians–take a very different approach. They are famous for passing the ball around dozens of times, waiting for just the right moment to strike. It works.”

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Can there be too much internet?

Sara5 — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:00:10 +0000

pie chart

In the age of information abundance, individuals and businesses must be choosy about which type of internet is best suited for their needs. Alexandra Samuel, Director of The Social and Interactive Media Center at Emily Carr University, suggests that social media can be a vehicle for reasserting balance (Harvard Business Review).

Samuel shares an example that if our social lives are humming along, we may want to reevaluate the health of our professional lives. Are we connecting meaningfully with other business associates and increasing our base of community and knowledge? When we invest our energy into one activity, there’s typically a shortfall in another area. What we want is balance, even in our internet connections. After all, the internet’s real purpose is to connect us to the information and people we care about.

Rather than jump on the band wagon of every new internet trend, we choose the tool(s) that offers satisfactory Return On Investment for the time required to Twitter, Facebook, blog, or the like.

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The info highway is not just on your computer

Sara5 — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:00:47 +0000

Mobile

Technolology is making it possible for many of us to rewire our connections. In a recent NPR article, Joshua Brockman reports that one quarter of American homes use the mobile phone as the only primary line (”Cutting The Cord: Staying Connected Without Wires”).

And there’s a growing number of Millenials (people in their 20’s) who have neither land line nor cable tv. Instead, they depend on high-speed internet service for video feed.

Brockman refers to the indvidual who is well connected and mobile as a “digital gypsy.” She is that person who is working from any mobile hotspot, like the local Starbucks. With information localized to our gadgets, knowledge seems ubiquitous. It may be that Generation Z will have to grapple with navigating the information excess. For now, we’re all pretty happy just to have the access.

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Reduce – Reuse – Recycle

Sara5 — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:00:19 +0000

we love clean atmosphere

In 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson founded the first Earth Day for the express purpose of inspiring the government to get serious about protecting the environment. Today, Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 in most countries around the globe.

Nelson’s original vision prompted an enthusiastic rally from Americans. “Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.”

Fourty years later, Americans think more about our footprint on the environment as we go about our daily business, consume, and live life. The mantra – reduce, reuse, and recyle - is still a relevant goal. Many of us are decent recyclers because waste management services provide blue bins we happily fill and receive a small credit for on our statements. But we need to keep working at minimizing consumption and reusing what we already have, which has proven to be much more challenging.

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Northwest University Class

Sara5 — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 01:05:20 +0000

16 years since graduating college, I’m back as a guest lecturer talking about business principles and making presentations! I feel kinda old right now!

Posted via email from howardchung’s posterous

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Good friends for life. . .

Sara5 — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:42:44 +0000

Max and William

Posted via email from howardchung’s posterous

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Bamboo combo

Sara5 — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:37:16 +0000

I’m happy right now. . .

Posted via email from howardchung’s posterous

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Clichés according to Seth Godin

Sara5 — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:00:25 +0000

type

Clichés are plentiful, but how can we use them effectively in our communication? Seth Godin helps writers and speakers become more adept. Here is his post, “How to use clichés.”

I love this definition from Wikipedia: In printing, a cliché was a printing plate cast from movable type. This is also called a stereotype.When letters were set one at a time, it made sense to cast a phrase used repeatedly as a single slug of metal. “Cliché” came to mean such a ready-made phrase. The French word “cliché” comes from the sound made when the matrix is dropped into molten metal to make a printing plate.

To save time and money, then, printers took common phrases and re-used the type.

Along the way, they trained us to understand the image, the analogy, the story. Hear it often enough and you remember it. That training has a useful purpose. Now, you can say ‘Festivus’ or ‘There is no I in team…” or “that took real courage” when describing a golf shot, and we immediately get it. Monty Python took a cliché about the Spanish Inquisition and made it funny by making it real. The comfy chair!

The effective way to use a cliché is to point to it and then do precisely the opposite. Juxtapose the cliché with the unexpected truth of what you have to offer. Apple does this all the time. They point out the cliché of a laptop or a desktop or an MP3 player and then they turn it upside down. Richard Branson takes the expected boredom of a CEO and turns it upside down by doing things you don’t expect.

I often use the Encyclopedia of Clichés to find clichés that then inspire opposites. It’s a secret weapon and it’s all yours now. Have fun.

Quality above all else

Sara5 — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:00:30 +0000

warning triangle

Football star Joe Montana once said, “Confidence is a very fragile thing.” The Toyota Corporation is knee-deep in crisis. After over 75 years since its founding, Toyota struggles to maintain the “Toyota Way 2001,” the management credo that stakes company values on two principles — Respect for People and Continuous Improvement.

Six million drivers in the U.S. alone have had their automobiles recalled for safety issues. Mr. Toyoda, President of Toyota, made steps to repair the broken relationship between the corporation and its customers by starting with an apology.

“At his news conference…Mr. Toyoda lamented that an overzealous pursuit of growth had led Toyota to lose sight of its commitment to quality. ‘We so aggressively pursued numbers that we were unable to keep up with training staff to oversee quality. We were also somewhat slow in collecting, analyzing and acting on complaints we received from our drivers.’” (New York Times, “Toyota Takes New Steps to Restore Confidence,” February 17, 2010)

The difficulties of the world’s biggest automaker reminds us that profit is always one goal of business but never the single driver.