In business, to ensure efficiency, you should have a process for everything. You should know what needs to be done to accomplish everything you do as effectively as possible.

You may not realize it, but even if you are a one man show, you have processes that dictate the things you do. If you are a small operation, then it is likely very easy to tell me what you do on a regular basis. As you get larger, that becomes more complicated.

Ask five people in your organization how you do something. I bet you get five different answers. Five different ways of doing the same thing. Five different reasons for doing those things. Five different timelines for getting those things done.

The important distinction is between a process and a procedure. The more you can dictate a process the greater efficiency you can incorporate. However, often times, if you get too specific on a procedure, you can negate much of your efficiency. The reason is that as people become more proficient at what they do, they will invariably find short cuts to the procedures you teach them… so, what are the differences?

A process is a high-level view of tasks. It is the main steps at which something gets accomplished. For example, to the right is a section of the process that I go through to build a new web site for a client. You can click to enlarge and see the section better.

Notice that the steps indicated are very generic. They aren’t specific to how it is to be accomplished… only that it needs to be accomplished. That is a process.

A procedure is a step by step guide on how to accomplish a task. To the left is a sampling of a procedure for one of the tasks in my process above. It is a step by step instruction sheet for accomplishing that task. You can click to enlarge.

Often times, it is important to follow certain steps in order to complete a task to be as efficient as possible. Some times, it doesn’t matter at all. For example, if you have a task of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, taking out the bread is a critical first step, but it really doesn’t matter whether you put the peanut butter on or the jelly on first. Putting the top on the sandwich has to come last unless you are getting creative with a traditional sandwich building exercise.

So, the question some will have… do you have to have a process for everything? My opinion is yes… you should. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but you should know what you do and how you do it. If you don’t, how can you sell it? How can you tell other people what you do and why you are better?

In my opinion, the more important question is, should you have a procedure for everything? I think that entirely depends on what you are trying to get accomplished and why type of employees you want to have. If want to hire $7 per hour employees, you better have a procedure for your tasks because it streamlines training and gives you an objective measurement for what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to hire a $50 per hour or $100 per hour employee or contractor, then a procedure will just get in the way.

Sometimes you want to have the expectation that someone will take a process and fill in the procedural gaps, but more often than not, you don’t have the luxury of being able to afford the person that can do that.

It is interesting… after my post on an MBA, I was doing some general web browsing and found an interesting site called InstantDegrees.com where you can get an "accredited college degree in just five days!"

"Wow," I thought. "I can’t believe I spent so many hours writing so many papers and sleeping so little when I could have just paid $155 for my MBA."

Here’s how it works. There are, evidentially, legal loopholes in the law that allow certain institutions to simply print your degree and additional credentials for a fee. Here is something I found interesting:

It is probable (although not guaranteed) that your degree will come from a country other than the country of your residence. If you feel that the degree you seek must come from a location near you or that you cannot explain your degree thru distance programs (which by definition mean that physical attendance at the institution is not required) then you should not apply.

So, basically, if I can’t successfully lie to my employer or potential employer effectively, then I shouldn’t apply.

Here is my favorite line from their FAQ page:

You must not forget that your degree is obtained by exploiting legal loopholes.

We are often asked what this means and the best definition, that neatly encapsulates the concept, is that an institution is legally formed and operating in such a way that it makes the granting of a degree legal, whereas this would otherwise be illegal.

So, to be clear. This should be illegal, but we have found a way to circumvent the law. Not only that, but the likelihood is that the school is not, never has been nor ever will be a school teaching any subject whatsoever. It is an organization created for the sole purpose of creating fraudulent documents.

Okay… I really don’t care that they are circumventing the law. What I care about is the idiot that thinks this is a valid way to get a degree. I am not sure that I would want to work for anyone that would be stupid enough to consider me as a valid employee if I could get through an interview with no education to speak of.

Here’s the deal. If I ever were to interview someone who had a degree from somewhere over the ocean or from a university that I had never heard of, I would ask a few questions about their college experience. If it was pertinent to the position, I would want to talk about the classes they took. I would want to know exactly what their experience was like.

If it wasn’t pertinent to the position, then there would be no purpose for me to see the degree in the first place.

Bottom line: There may be some legal gray area that allows this, but if an employer found out, he would be a fool not to fire the person. If I knew of anyone that used a service like this, I would make it a point to ensure that person’s employer knew.

Even with the legal gray area… there is no ethical gray area. It is ethically just wrong.
Corey Smith
Co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free

I have run this blog for more than a year now. I must say, it has been a fun thing for me. I would guess that I have learned a lot more than anybody who has read this blog. It certainly makes me think a little more about business and technology. When ever I go anywhere, I always think about the blog that I can write. I am sure that I have come up with some bad posts, but I thought I would share a few of my favorites from the last year.

	Tell me why this clearance post is needed? Leading up to this ATM, there is no covering, no ceiling, nothing over your car. After you leave the ATM, you end up in the parking lot where you can get out on the street. Again, nothing over your car. The only thing you drive under going to and from this ATM is the clearance warning. This was just stupid, see the full size image and the rest of my thoughts at Warning Sign Not Needed.
	Why does change fail to generate an ROI in business? Assuming that change is the right thing to do for your organization, you may find that it will fail. Anytime you work to make change and it fails, you not only lose the cost of implementation, but you also have lost opportunity. My humble opinion - a great post on change and ROI at Does Change Always Equal an ROI?
	“There are absolutely ‘no refunds’ for lessons or private parties. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” Yeah, sure. They really care. Read my suggestion at Do You Really Care?
	How about this? Rather than just moving the branch, the paint truck just drove around it… as a result, a sub-standard job. How often do we ignore the simple things that will allow our service to stand out in the crowd because it is simply not our job? How can we ever expect to be great if we keep passing the buck? Read the full post at Not My Job.

Of course, there are some posts that I like that don’t have any “fancy” pictures associated. The page I get the most hits via search is “Dear Valued Customer”

I had an entire series (13 posts, I think) on the Customer Experience. You can take a look at the trackbacks in that post to see all of the links, but some of the ones that I really like are:

• Do you really care about your customer?
• Can’t vs. Won’t
• Customer Loyalty Programs are Meaningless
• Your Document Management Policies Degrade the Customer Experience
• Of BBQ and Burgers

One of the key things my blog as taught me is the benefit of internet marketing. Ten years ago, I told my wife that the internet wouldn’t amount to much from a money making opportunity for the masses. At that point, search was in it’s infancy. Since then, Google has changed the face of how the internet is perceived. So, when I started this blog, I really wanted to understand. So, I wrote a little whitepaper about new media. I hope you like it. It is titled, New Media: How Technology Can Bring Success.

If you have any posts that you have read of my nearly 400 posts, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. The Good, the bad or the indifferent. Let me know what you think.
Corey Smith
Co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free

Read my new article on training pitfalls.

I have been a Microsoft Excel power user for a number of years and, prior to the new version of Office, could tell you at the drop of a hat where most of the key functions are. In an effort to be innovative, Microsoft thought that it would be a brilliant idea to change the interface so significantly that nothing is where it was before (with no option to make it look like it use to be). They did the same with Word and PowerPoint.

It is pretty frustrating.

One of the smartest things that Adobe did when they first launched InDesign was to provide Quark XPress users the option to quickly change the shortcuts to Quark commands so that the migration was seamless.

For Microsoft, Office 2007 is a simple example of how trying to be innovative can cause a significant number of problems.

There are countless MS Office users that are asking, “Where in the world did my Office 2003 commands go?”

Well, at least Microsoft provides a little app that can show you where everything when. Although it cost them more time and money to develop this little app and it will take you more time to use it to find out where all the commands that you are used to finding, at least it helps a little.

The Excel command reference guide is found here.
The Word command reference guide is found here.
The PowerPoint command reference guide is found here.

For the past 12 hours and then again for tomorrows 12 hours of daylight I am watching a booth for my company. Today we have had nearly 25k people come by the booth. Many of them are children. We wanted to do something different but had a tight budget with which to work. My recruiting partner and I spent some money at the dollar store on plastic golf clubs, and candy. We have allowed children to earn the candy by putting. All throughout this event we did some other creative thinking.

We decided that since we are an engineering firm that builds dams, bridges, and power plants we should build something. I went to Wal*Mart and bought popsicle sticks and glue. We then spent the morning building a bridge out of popsicle sticks. Wow. . .the response was marvelous. I couldn’t believe how many kids were working on similar projects at school. We had them stopping by in droves. They wanted building tips and advice. I was just lucky I had studied up at a great website for building popsicle stick bridges.

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There is the cliché that says, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

I think that is a little wrong. While I think planning is important, it is also important to fail. In fact, I think that it is critical that you fail so that you can see success.

I think that the statement should be revised and extended to be:

If you don’t plan to fail, you will fail to plan appropriately.

Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.

Could you imagine a right way to fail?

I wrote a post last month titled, sometimes, failure is the best option. I was thinking a little more about this today. I realized there are quite often two reasons that people fail. Oh sure, you can probably find a lot more reasons, but I believe that you can probably put every reason into these two categories.

Reason 1: As I mentioned in my other post (linked above) there are people that try to do something and fail at it. They often will learn from that mistake. Jared points out the following: “Didn’t Thomas Edison say the same thing, in other words, to the effect that when trying to develop the light bulb he didn’t fail some a thousand-odd times, he learned a thousand ways that didn’t work?”

Reason 2: People fail for lack of trying. I am amazed at how many times people throw their arms up and simply say, “it can’t be done!” Without even trying, these types of people fail before they even start. Of course they are doomed to fail. If you don’t think it will work, then of course it won’t work… you won’t put the effort into making it work.

So, why do you fail? Don’t tell me you are a success without some failure in your life? I became proficient at graphic design because I was laid off from a job. I build nice furniture for my house (my hobby is carpentry) because I have built some significantly awful furniture. I understand technology because I have failed so many times at understanding it.

One point to consider, if you fail because you try, but then never try again, does that mean you begin to fail because you throw your arms up saying, “it can’t be done?”

Don’t throw your arms up saying, “it can’t be done,” until you have actually taken the time to understand what is being asked of you. You are only limited by your imagination.

Remember, the answer is always no if you don’t ask… something will never be done if you don’t try.

Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.

I recently found a website indicating that you could use their tools to put together a ten minute resume. This may work for you if you are looking for a job mowing small lawns or flipping burgers, but will not be a real value to you if you are seeking a middle class living. The amount of time you spend fine tuning your resume and networking show a coorelation to the type of job you are able to discover. Ten minute resume may just equal a ten dollar an hour gig or less.

You may remember from a recent post that I indicated that using templates was a dangerous deal. In fact using this type of template is crazy. Your resume should be a ten hour deal. At least a ten hour project. It is critical that you sell yourself by crafting a document that will wow someone. Even the burger flipper can craft an incredible resume. All one needs to do is spend time reflecting on what they have done.

I throw the link to their site for one reason only, and that is for you to go and see what kind of job seeker crap there is out on the web. Users of this site want something for nothing. A ten minute resume is kind of like a ten percent discount from a jewelry store. Nothing much at all.
http://www.10minuteresume.com

I was recently looking at resumes for several positions and found the most disturbing evidence about the type of people we were looking at. I was impressed with the resume enough to contact the person for an interview. Then I looked at their email. . hotsexymama@….. I couldn’t believe it. Why would a professional organization want this type of a “handleâ€? in the office. I then began to really take a close look at emails and realized that this is a “tell.â€?

Check out these winners:
beatyourface@
iluvyourwife@
swimnaked@

this list could go on for a long time. Do yourself a favor. If you are searching for a job make sure you go and get a “clean� email account for your search. Try something like the gogetter@, or bestemployee@. . be creative and show you aren’t a sex crazed, exhibitionist, that hurts people.