Business

March 04, 2008

Pareto Principle

If your a familiar with the Pareto Principle or commonly known as the 80/20 rule, anything a few (20 percent) are vital and many (80 percent) are trivial, you may have heard of Joseph M. Juran. He was the one who educated business about implementing the Pareto Principle. You'll be sad to learn that Joseph M. Juran died on February 28th at 102.

Some Examples of Pareto Principle:

• 20% of your daily activity accounts for 80% of your productivity.
• 20% of your employees account for 80% of your revenue
• 80% of the economy is controled by 20% of the population

Your can find information here:

• Wikipedia
• LA Times

January 25, 2008

Troubles of your Job

I found the following text while cleaning my office earlier this week, not sure where the orginal source is from:

Be thankful for the troubles of your job.

They provide you with about half of your income.

If it were not for the things that go wrong, the difficult people you have to deal with, the problems and unpleasantness of your working day, someone could be found to handle your job for half of what you are being paid.

It takes intelligence, resourcefulness, patience, tact, and courage to meet the troubles of any job.

This is why you hold your present job.

It may be the reason why you aren't holding down an even bigger one.

If all of us would start to look for more troubles and learn to handle them cheerfully, and with good judgment, as opportunities rather than irritations, we would find ourselves getting ahead at a surprising rate.

For it is a fact that there are plenty of jobs waiting for men and women who aren't afraid of the troubles connected with them.

January 24, 2008

Companies swing jobs axe in 2001

More than 400,000 job cuts have been announced by late August, 2001 as companies around the world wrestle with slowing growth and plunging demand.

Here's a list of companies in the Technology and Telecom sector that announced layoffs in 2001. Note this list was created before September 11, 2001

Technology:

Toshiba Corp	August	18,800
Fujitsu Ltd	August	16,400
JDS Uniphase Corp	Over 2001	16,000
Philips	Over 2001	10,000
Cisco Systems	April	8,500
Compaq	July	8,000
Hewlett-Packard	July	6,000
Corning Inc	Over 2001	7,800
Infineon	July	5,000
Gateway Inc	August	4,600
NEC Corp	July	4,000
Equant NV	August	3,000
Cap Gemini	June	2,700
IBM	July	1,500
Iomega Corp	August	1,250
Tellabs	August	1,000

Telecom:

Motorola	Over 2001	30,000
Nortel Networks Corp	Over 2001	30,000
Ericsson	July	Up to 22,000
Lucent	July	15,000-20,000
Alcatel	July	14,000
Siemens	May-July	10,000
ADC Telecommunications	Over 2001	9,500
Marconi	July-Sept	6,000
British Telecom	Over 2001	6,000
Avaya	June-July	5,000
NTL	July	4,300
WinStar Communications	Apr&July	2,950
Global Crossing	July	2,000
Ascom Holding AG	June	1,100
Nokia	March-June	1,000
Sonera	Aug	1,000

January 23, 2008

Recession Letter

Is the United States getting ready for a recession? It all depends on who you talk to. Most experts agree that we are in a slow period, but time will only tell if we are in mist of a recession.

A letter sent to employees at a Silicon Valley company in October 2001:

Due to the current economic conditions we have seen our business decline from $132 million annually to a current run rate of approximately $40 million annually. The $40 million run rate is the consistent amount that we have been achieving over the last six months. The management team has spent a significant amount of time analyzing and evaluating our expense structure and employee base. We have over the last few months made a number of changes to reduce expenses to regain profitability to the organization. While this has not been easy, we have made a lot of progress.

We believe that we now have enough information to further right size the organization to the current market demand which appears to have stabilized. In right sizing the organization, we have had to further reduce our staff by five employees. In order to have the current expenses not exceed current profit, as well as to retain employees, the management team has to implement a companywide 10% salary reduction. While this is not easy, this is necessary to make sure that we have a healthy company that will be here through these tough times. At the same time, we will continue to look for other ways to control and reduce expenses.

It is fully our intention to reverse this reduction once we return to a reasonable profitability level which is maintained for three consecutive months. The management team will define this level of profitability during the next quarter. This reduction will be effective November 1st and will be reflected in your November 15th payroll check.

If you have any questions about this, please see your manager or stop by my office. I believe that we have a great staff and I also believe that we have all the tools we need to grow this company. Thank you for your understanding.

September 20, 2007

Anyway Poem

Found the following in a book I was reading in the Concord Public Library in 2002:

Anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway!
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives
Do good anyways!
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyways!
The good you do today, will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway!
Honestly and frankness makes you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway!
The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds;
Think big anyways!
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for the underdogs anyway!
What you spend years building up might be destroyed overnight.
Build anyways!
People really need help, but will attack you if you help them.
Help them anyway!
Give the world the best you have and it may kick you in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway!

- Author Unknown