The Benefits of Exploring Nature for Health & Hobby

Nature holds many possibilities for our lives that we only need to explore and understand to truly reap the benefits awarded to us. As a person who enjoys photography as a hobby I can say that nature offers multiple advantages that include fitness, relaxation, and artistic expression. Any working professional should consider the multiple benefits of balancing out their lives by finding helpful recreation and appropriate outlets beyond the office. 

A couple of times a week ranging from 30-90 minutes on each excursion raises your health level and meets the minimum requirements of fitness. In addition, nature has a way of helping us reflect on life, calm our minds, and feel a greater connection to the world around us. Within 15 minutes you will start to feel relaxed. 

Of course you can also take your hobbies to the next level by engaging in artistic expression that helps to further tone your skills. In nature there are many things to take pictures of that include wildlife and natural landscape. The best way to et pictures is to get out there and walk around. The more you do...the more you will enjoy the experience and learn about your topics.

Consumers Dip into Savings to Fuel Economic Increase in Second Quarter

Consumer spending has risen over the past few months and is expected to expand the economy by 3% during the second quarter. Wages haven't risen very fast to cover recent increases in spending making it necessary that consumers dip into their savings. The heightened retail shopping can be seen as a sign of consumer confidence.

Consumer spending accounts for 70% of the U.S. economy. A few percentage points either way can make a big difference in economic output. Of course this money must come from somewhere so it is earned, borrowed, or taken out of their savings account.

Without rising wages there is a long-term dilemma. Eventually credit bubbles emerge and saving dry up making the economy less resilient than when wages are rising and savings are growing. While I am not necessarily a fan of artificially raising wages I am a fan of ensuring that market forces that would naturally raise wages be unencumbered.

 The second quarter looks great because consumers are frequenting stores. They are willing to open their checkbooks and make purchases. As each consumer evaluates the value of the dollar spent they don't feel they will have financial problems in the future. With any luck we will soften the Britex slump by speeding up some economic activities to feed into current momentum.

Understanding the Undercurrents of Your Organization

Every organization has a formal and informal structure of which the later might be more important. The structure culture is codified in the rules, regulations, procedures, and official position of the organization. The informal structure is based on the way information flows and moves throughout the organization regardless of formal position and procedures.

Consider a person with formal power who has some control over resource and decision making outcomes. This position, and the list of duties that go with it, are written into a job description and then part of the formal structure that helps the company complete its daily task. The organizational chart highlights each of these positions and their importance.

The informal structure may be more important than the formal structure. These are the "movers and shakers" of the organization that help ensure that things get done. They may have formal power within the organization but don't rely heavily on that formal power. They are often persuasive, charismatic and driven.

To truly understand any organization it is best to understand the undercurrents that are moving throughout it. Understand where the information flows, how decisions are made, and where people associate. The opinion makers and decision makers are often different than the one's listed on the organizational chart.

The Subtle Details of Training Customer Service Representatives

Customer experience sets a tone that encourages them to either return or choose to frequent another place. Companies are strong at creating the basics of customer service but often fail when designing and implementing the details. Excellent customer service should starts with training representatives to view interactions from the perspective of the customer.

The point of contact is the most common place where customer service fails. These failures revolve around the way staff act and treat customers as they conduct their daily interactions. A few details could change customer impressions to a positive one and foster greater loyalty.

Consider the nature of non-verbal communication and how a single poorly chosen word or careless comment could quickly change the nature of interaction. A single bad day for the customer service representative could lose the company thousands of dollars in life-time sales.

Every customer makes a subjective evaluation of whether or not the company truly appreciates their business. While the main value offerings, facilities, and procedures are important their evaluations often reside on how they feel. How they feel is based on very subtle interactions that reflect negatively on the business.

It is important to train customer service representatives in the art of communication and body language. Helping them understand the vantage point of the customer and how their communication skills impact the perceptions of the customer is important. Developing greater awareness of representatives encourages effective customer interactions.

How Online Education Will Meet the Needs of a Mobile Online Workforce

As the market changes there will be changes in higher education. People once shunned online course as substandard but the market will soon find them to be of particular value. If we consider that college is partly about socialization to the "college experience" we should find that education should mirror the mode of virtual employment positions. As more online jobs become available, colleges should adopt these new modes of learning.

For over  10 years colleges have been implementing online offerings in order to reach out to their diverse student populations. College is part of a process where people learn how to work in virtual groups. In the past this as through face-to-face meetings but the future is likely to see more online groups and virtual work.

Students in online courses must be more self-motivated to succeed than in traditional colleges. They work at home, work, or even their living rooms. There are so many distractions in our natural environment that it is easy to fall away from the necessary work. These situations encourage greater discipline that mirrors virtual employment.

The use of the Internet, writing skills, online chat, video, email and texting make virtual world more unique than a traditional setting. Online education familiarizes students with what they need to be successful working in a virtual environment.

Online education is not a cure all for employment education but does offer some advantages to new virtual work environments. As students learn and complete tasks in the virtual world they become more adapted and skilled in these environments making such schools fertile grounds for recruitment. Independent and self-motivated employees should command market attention and interest.

Are we in a "Rigged" Economy? Most Americans Think So!

Seventy-one percent of Americans think we are in a "rigged" economy according to a recent poll by Marketplace and Edison Research. The vast majority of people believe that the economy is wrapped around and supportive of only a few select groups. The phenomenon is important because it is hitting wide political, ethnic and religious demographics.

The American Dream rests on the ability of people putting forward effort, developing, being innovative and improving their lives. Effort should end in some type of reward. Many Americans lost their savings and have not moved up the economic ladder in a couple of decades. To them, the American Dream may not be shining as brightly as it once was.

We must ask ourselves whether or not this is the American legacy we want to leave behind? People are poorer, more educated but make less money, distrustful, and want change. They feel they cannot get ahead no matter what they do. As riots in Ferguson have taught us, there is deep distrust between some populations and government officials and the discontent is getting wider and more powerful.

It doesn't need to be this way. We know that we are moving into a new world where information and ideas will spread quickly. The American economy, and those within it, will need to adjust to maintain international position by becoming more savvy and innovative. We should rethink how we view our government and leadership styles to ensure it has the most competitive economic and socio-political platforms.

I have seen places in this country where "who you know" is more important than "what you know" for jobs and promotion. People lived in poverty, a hole almost no one can climb out of, and leaders talked about their ideas but had little capacity to think beyond themselves. People who opposed or tried to use their freedom of speech were legally and socially chastised. American freedoms were thrown out the window as easily as throwing away a piece of trash.

If America is to be great again and create trust in society we will need to rethink and rejuvenate ourselves on a national scale to compete in a modern world. Everything from employment to police enforcement should be rethought to ensure interactions and systems are equitable and in the best interest of society. The future starts today by making those changes that will open the flood gates of American ingenuity and productivity.

Living in "Now"

There are three major blocks of time that include the future, the past and now. The future is what might happen, the past is what did happen, but "now" is our world. Focusing on the now has a lot to do with how to reduce stress and find greater enjoyment within your life. Learning this important skill takes time but is beneficial throughout your life.

The past is based on what happened before now and is subjective in nature. It rests on our interpretations and experience. As time passes our past changes, the meaning we make from it changes, and we come to understand the past in ways that were not possible before. Focusing on the past takes away from experiencing the now.

Our future is something we don't know. We can project what might happen based upon the past and present but we can't say what will happen with 100% certainty. Our brains seek to protect us by helping us be abstract in our thinking but this can also raise our stress levels when we cannot easily go back to the present.

The "now" is where we live our lives. It is the things that are happening now, at this moment, and make up "the moment". Living in the present means we are paying attention to what is happening right now and enjoying that moment as much as possible. We have temporarily forgotten about the past and future.

There are some advantages to living in the present when possible. It allows us to feel relaxed and now worry about things that happened before or what will happen in the future. We are enjoying life for life's sake and put down our worries about things we may not have any control over anyway. As soon as we start living in the present we also start taking advantage of each day.