Monday, September 29, 2008

Blueprint Technology

A blueprint is a well thought-out and organized plan for designing, implementing, and maintaining a communications network within a certain budget.
Microsoft, Google, eBay, Staples, Genentech, Starbucks, Nike, and Harley-Davidson . . . these are just a few examples of an elite group of companies that have managed to turn billion-dollar ideas into billion-dollar businesses. What did these and other high-growth companies do to achieve such a goal? What blueprint do they follow to produce such results? Based on three years of in-depth research, David Thomson's Blueprint to a Billion approach provides the first quantitative assessment of the success pattern common across a distinct group of 387 "blueprint companies"--the 5% that have IPO'd since 1980 and grown to $1 billion in revenue. They represent America's highest growth companies; they uniquely achieved exponential revenue growth and returns.
This book is not about one unique company, its innovation, and the financial returns it achieved; it's about the quantifiable, success-based pattern--independent of economic cycles or industries--shared across this group of 387 elite companies. It's about how you can use seven common essentials to better your business, organization, team, or yourself and produce exponential growth. It's about executing the essentials and linking them. It's about taking the actions that matter while avoiding pitfalls. The 7 essentials explored are:
Essential #1: Create and Sustain a Breakthrough Value Proposition
Essential#2: Exploit a High-Growth Market Segment
Essential #3: Marquee Customers Shape the Revenue Powerhouse
Essential #4: Leverage Big Brother Alliances for Breaking into New Markets
Essential #5: Become the Masters of Exponential Returns
Essential #6: The Management Team: Inside-Outside Leadership
Essential #7: The Board: Comprised of Essentials Experts
Divided into three comprehensive sections, Blueprint to a Billion will show you how to formulate a breakthrough value proposition, create exponential revenue growth--the most valuable and unique kind of growth--and seize the opportunity to garner exponential returns. More importantly, it provides practical guidelines that you, as a business leader at any level, can use to improve company performance from one year to the next. While the book is based on quantitative evidence, it provides insightful analysis and very personal stories from many blueprint company leaders.
Both fact-based and actionable, Blueprint to a Billion contains fresh research that provides valuable insights into success-based business building. Adopting and executing one or more essentials will maximize your growth--both personally and corporately. Executing all 7 essentials will enable your company to achieve unprecedented exponential growth.


External links
http://www.technologyblueprint.com/
http://www.blueprintechnology.com/
http://
www.blueprint-training.co.uk/
http://infotechconsulting.se/

Personal Finance

A key component of personal finance is financial planning, a dynamic process that requires regular monitoring and reevaluation. In general, it has five steps:
Assessment: One's personal financial situation can be assessed by compiling simplified versions of financial balance sheets and income statements. A personal balance sheet lists the values of personal assets (e.g., car, house, clothes, stocks, bank account), along with personal liabilities (e.g., credit card debt, bank loan, mortgage). A personal income statement lists personal income and expenses.
Setting goals: Two examples are "retire at age 65 with a personal net worth of $200,000" and "buy a house in 3 years paying a monthly mortgage servicing cost that is no more than 25% of my gross income". It is not uncommon to have several goals, some short term and some long term. Setting financial goals helps direct financial planning.
Creating a plan: The financial plan details how to accomplish your goals. It could include, for example, reducing unnecessary expenses, increasing one's employment income, or investing in the stock market.
Execution: Execution of one's personal financial plan often requires discipline and perseverance. Many people obtain assistance from professionals such as accountants, financial planners, investment advisers, and lawyers.
Monitoring and reassessment: As time passes, one's personal financial plan must be monitored for possible adjustments or reassessments.
Typical goals most adults have are paying off credit card and or student loan debt, retirement, college costs for children, medical expenses, and estate planning.

Financial Markets

Financial markets have evolved significantly over several hundred years and are undergoing constant innovation to improve liquidity.
Both general markets (where many commodities are traded) and specialized markets (where only one commodity is traded) exist. Markets work by placing many interested buyers and sellers in one "place", thus making it easier for them to find each other. An economy which relies primarily on interactions between buyers and sellers to allocate resources is known as a market economy in contrast either to a command economy or to a non-market economy such as a gift economy.
In finance, financial markets facilitate –
The raising of capital (in the capital markets);
The transfer of risk (in the derivatives markets);
International trade (in the currency markets)
– and are used to match those who want capital to those who have it.
Typically a borrower issues a receipt to the lender promising to pay back the capital. These receipts are securities which may be freely bought or sold. In return for lending money to the borrower, the lender will expect some compensation in the form of interest or dividends.

Top 5 Reasons Most Internet Businesses Fail

If you've been online for any amount of time, then I'm sure you've heard many of the success stories about internet entrepreneurs, and how they're making millions every year, and you've probably heard how easy it is for you to do it, too.And the truth is, it actually is kind of easy, but not as easy as most salesmen would have you believe. There is a little bit of work involved, and anyone who's really been successful has put in the time and effort to get there. And they've managed to avoid the pitfalls on this list.If you're trying to start your online business and things haven't gone as well as you've hoped so far, then hopefully, these suggestions will help.Here are the five most common reasons that most internet businesses fail that I've seen, in no particular order:1. Information overloadYou've probably already been inundated with emails explaining how some new money making scheme is the hottest thing on the planet and you need to get in now so that you're on the cutting edge of internet marketing.The problem is that you haven't finished working on the previous hot new thing yet, and as soon as you start this one, yet another hot idea will hit, and so on, and so on.In every legitimate email you get, there should be an "unsubscribe" link at the bottom. Start clicking on it, and just stick with a few of the people who you know are giving you good information about building your business from start to finish in the right order without any distractions.And make sure that you see every task through to completion before moving onto the next one. It's the only real way to get anything done.2. The curse of perfectionSpeaking of seeing tasks through to completion, also consider that not everything on your website and in your sales process has to be absolutely perfect before you can unleash it on the public.So many home business owners who are just starting out have a habit of obsessing over every little detail forever before they'll allow themselves to launch their site.Stop it. It doesn't have to be perfect. That doesn't mean that you don't need to make sure your website is working properly first. It means that you can work on adjusting small details, such as the color scheme, the sales copy, the images, later on. In fact, if you're planning to do any proper testing (and you should be), then you should be constantly working on those items anyway.So get your website out there, get some traffic, make sure the big things are working right, and then worry about adjusting the small details.3. Waiting for the "magic bullet"Let me just start by saying that there is no magic bullet when it come to running your own business, or doing any kind of work online.I know that a lot of salesmen make it sound that way when you're reading their sales letters, but it simply isn't true. They're lying to you. And even if they're not lying to you, and let's say their system does work, it's only going to work for a short period of time, and it's only going to make you a little bit of money. Not the millions they're promising.That's why I constantly warn people away from the "business-in-a-box" opportunities. The result is never very good. Maybe you'll make a small bit of side money, if you're lucky. Besides, why would you want to sell the same thing everyone else is selling anyway?The only way to have lasting success online is to have your own website that is unlike anyone else's, that you've built up into a success, with a loyal customer base, one step at a time.4. Being a shopaholicThis goes along with #3 above. Stop paying for every new scheme that comes along because they're promising you instant riches. All that's going to do is drain you of your money.And then, if you're like so many others, there's a good chance you'll get frustrated and give up on the whole thing, because you don't know who you can trust anymore, and you don't want to take a chance. So your dream of working from home is over before it began.Or, maybe they're not selling you a scam, but in fact have legitimate programs that many people use successfully in their businesses. That's great, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's right for you right now. It might be something that will be a good investment for your business later on, but you should really concentrate on getting your website up and running first. Otherwise you end up with information overload as described in #1 above.5. Fear of technologyJust because you've never tried something before doesn't mean that you can't learn to do it. Think about pretty much everything you've ever done, especially the things you're good at. Did you always know how to do that, or did you learn it over time?I'm guessing that you learned it, and you can learn to do a lot of the work on your website, too. I constantly have to tell the people I meet that it's in their best interest to learn at least a little bit of the technical stuff that comes with having a website.I'm not saying you have to be a programming expert. In fact, if you need heavy duty programming done, then you should definitely get someone to do it for you. It'll save you a lot of time, for one. But there's no reason why you can't learn some of the basics of HTML so that whenever you need to make a small change to your website (such as the testing we talked about earlier) you won't have to pay someone to do it for you. And you won't have to wait for them to have the time.It's not as hard as you think. It just takes a little time to learn it.ConclusionThe most important point I'm trying to convey is that, in order to be successful online, you need to remain focused on one task at a time. Finish that task and move onto the next one. Finish that task and move on. And keep going until you're done.Stop investing in every fancy new program that comes along. There are no "magic bullets" anyway. Stick to the plan from the beginning, and see it through to the end.Starting a new website does require a bit of work at the beginning. There's no way around that if you want to succeed. But the great thing about working online is that once you have everything set up, you can put almost all of it on autopilot and bring in money 24 hours a day with a minimum of work.So get started now, don't be afraid that you can't do it, don't get frustrated, and don't let anything distract you. You could be making very good money in very little time if you do it right.

Technical Writing

Good technical writing clarifies technical jargon; that is, it presents useful information that is clear and easy to understand for the intended audience. Poor technical writing, on the other hand, often creates unnecessary technical jargon, and sows seeds of confusion and misunderstanding in the readers' minds.
Technical writers often labour under titles that include phrases like Information Development, Technical Documentation, or Technical Publications. For example, in some organizations, Technical Writers may be called Information Developers, Documentation Specialists, Documentation Engineers, or Technical Content Developers. Technical writers explain complex ideas to technical and nontechnical audiences. This could mean telling a programmer how to use a software library, or telling a consumer how to operate a television remote control.
Technical writers gather information from existing documentation, and from subject matter experts. A subject matter expert (SME) is any expert on the topic the writer is working on. Technical writers usually are not SMEs themselves—unless they're writing about creating good technical documentation.
Workers at many levels, and in many different fields, have a role in producing and distributing technical communications. A good technical writer needs strong language skills, and must understand the highly evolved conventions of modern technical communications. For technical documents to be useful, readers must understand and act on them without having to decode wordy and ambiguous prose.
External links
Technical Communication
Technical Communicator's Glossary
Articles on trends in technical writing
EServer Technical Communication (and Technical Writing) Library
Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators, The professional body for UK Technical Authors
KeyContent.org
TECHWR-L, The Internet Forum for Technical Communication
TWIN - Technical Writers of India
The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing
MITWA · Mentors, Indexers, Tech Writers & Associates
Technical writing
Free Wikiversity Technical Writing Courses
Docsymmetry
Free online guide to breaking into Technical Writing as a career
EServer Technical Communication (and Technical Writing) Library
FCH Communications: What is Technical Writing?
Technical Communicator's Association of New Zealand
The Death of the Technical Author?
Writing User Manuals from the Middle Out
Usability Professional's Association of New Zealand
Money Magazine ranks Technical Writing as 13th best job in America
Keycontent.org: Online community devoted to discussion of content development, technical communication, and related disciplines
DITA Users - a member organization helping people get started with topic-based structured writing.
Different section where technical writing is needed
TechTact.org Technical and Tactful writing
What does the Technical Writer have to offer?

e-buisness

Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers.
In practice, e-business is more than just e-commerce. While e-business refers to more strategic focus with an emphasis on the functions that occur using electronic capabilities, e-commerce is a subset of an overall e-business strategy. E-commerce seeks to add revenue streams using the World Wide Web or the Internet to build and enhance relationships with clients and partners and to improve efficiency using the Empty Vessel strategy. Often, e-commerce involves the application of knowledge management systems.
E-business involves business processes spanning the entire value chain: electronic purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically, handling customer service, and cooperating with business partners. Special technical standards for e-business facilitate the exchange of data between companies. E-business software solutions allow the integration of intra and inter firm business processes. E-business can be conducted using the Web, the Internet, intranets, extranets, or some combination of these.

Storm Water Model

Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) is a dynamic rainfall-runoff-subsurface runoff simulation model used for single-event to long-term (continuous) simulation of the surface runoff/subsurface runoff quantity and quality from primarily urban/suburban areas. The runoff or hydrology component of SWMM operates on a collection of subcatchment areas that receive precipitation and generate runoff and pollutant loads after simulation evaporation and infiltration losses from the subcatchments. The routing or hydraulics portion of SWMM transports this runoff and possible associated water quality constituents through a system of closed pipes, open channels, storage/treatment devices, pumps, orifices, weirs and regulators. SWMM tracks the quantity and quality of runoff generated within each subcatchment, and the flow rate, flow depth, and quality of water in each pipe and channel during a simulation period comprised of multiple fixed or variable time steps. The water quality constituents can be simulated from the subcatchments through hydraulic network with optional first order decay, BMP and LID removal and treatment at selected storage nodes. SWMM is one of the hydrology transport models which the EPA and other agencies have applied widely.