Author: anwaryusef

Anwar Y. Dunbar is a Regulatory Scientist. Being a naturally curious person, he is also a student of all things. He earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Michigan and his Bachelor’s Degree in General Biology from Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU). Prior to starting the Big Words Blog Site, Anwar published and contributed to numerous research articles in competitive scientific journals reporting on his research from graduate school and postdoctoral years. After falling in love with writing, he contributed to the now defunct Examiner.com, and the Edvocate where he regularly wrote about: Education-related stories/topics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Financial Literacy; as well as conducted interviews with notable individuals such as actor and author Hill Harper. Having many influences, one of his most notable heroes is author, intellectual and speaker, Malcolm Gladwell, author of books including Outliers and David and Goliath. Anwar has his hands in many, many activities. In addition to writing, Anwar actively mentors youth, works to spread awareness of STEM careers, serves on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the David M. Brown Arlington Planetarium, serves as Treasurer for the JCSU Washington, DC Alumni Chapter, and is active in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Ministry at the Alfred Street Baptist Church. He also tutors in the subjects of biology, chemistry and physics. Along with his multi-talented older brother Amahl Dunbar (designer of the Big Words logos, inventor and a plethora of other things), Anwar is a “Fanboy” and really enjoys Science-Fiction and Superhero movies including but not restricted to Captain America Civil War, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Prometheus. He is a proud native of Buffalo, NY.

Ohio State 62, Michigan 39: My short take

Okay I’m going to try to keep this short. As one of the many Michigan football fans still hungover from yesterday’s 62-39 loss in Columbus, the idea to write a short take on yesterday’s annual game literally came to me during the conclusion of a church service here in my hometown of Buffalo, NY. I’m not trying to be funny, but it’s true. In any case here goes.

First, I want to sincerely congratulate Head Coach Urban Meyer and his staff, the Ohio State Football Team, and their fan base. They did a great job preparing for the game and they executed their game plan damn near perfectly. Despite the rankings and all the chatter leading up to the game, I had a feeling they were going to play at a high level and they did. I also want to note that the game seemed to be officiated fairly and there was little controversy surrounding this contest as was the case in 2016.

I watched the game with my usual crew at Buffalo Wild Wings on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Tonawanda, NY – our annual spot for watching the two school’s annual meeting. What stood out to me as the game unfolded, was that our team didn’t seem to be prepared for the contest in terms of intensity or scheme. Offensively, the game started off positively with a nice run by Karan Higdon. The second play was a pass play in which Shae Patterson got sacked which was a bit of a head scratcher for me, as I would’ve gone back to the running game.

In general, the offense did what it had done all year long which was to try to pound the ball with occasional shots down field. Throughout the year despite its talent level, our offense was never a consistent force, but instead methodically picked and chose its spots with varying amounts of success – sometimes due to a lack of execution, and at other times due to questionable play calling. This worked well as long as the defense stood its ground and repeatedly got the ball back which brings me to my next point.

Early on it was clear that Ohio State’s approach to our physical and blitzing defense was to get the ball out of Dwayne Haskins, Jr.’s hands quickly using crossing and wheel routes out of the backfield. In instances where Ohio State spread its receivers out and were able to neutralize Coach Don Brown’s pass rush, Haskins which is not known for his mobility was able to run the ball up the middle and slide when our coverage held. In other instances, Ohio State was able to draw pass interference calls on our defensive backs which were left on ‘islands’ by themselves in ‘Man’ coverage – No. 28 Brandon Watson particularly got targeted and torched by Haskins. Their running game by itself didn’t hurt us so much.

Approaching halftime, our Wolverines were down 21-6, and with the Buckeyes getting the ball back after the half, it seemed as though it was going to be a maize and blue ‘blood bath’. A special teams fumble by the Buckeyes helped put us in position for Chris Evan’s touchdown late in the second quarter. If not for that gaffe, we would’ve been in serious trouble. That said there was a potential touchdown that we missed out on because Zach Gentry couldn’t secure the ball after a Buckeye defender slapped it out of his hands.

On both sides of the ball as the game progressed it seemed that Jim Harbaugh and his coaching staff were being outcoached by Urban Meyer and his. Our offense started slow, interestingly didn’t seem to be taking advantage of our three talented receivers: Donavan Peoples-Jones, Nico Collins and Tariq Black. I also wondered why our 6’8” tight end Zach Gentry wasn’t getting targeted more. In a game of this magnitude, we needed to challenge the Buckeye defense more downfield especially when they were ripping our defense to shreds and scoring at will. This brings me to my next point.

My comments on many of the postgame YouTube press conference footage mostly involved my surprise that Don Brown seemingly didn’t look at what Indiana and Northwestern had done his defense and planned for Ohio State to do the same thing or more. During the game, I wondered if he would adjust his blitzing style, and go with more defensive backs, like how Bill Belicheck and Bill Parcells did to my Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV where they slowed down the Buffalo Bills’ powerful offense. Instead he seemed to stick with the same game plan which he used all year which brings me to my last point.

It’s very easy for us as fans and commentators to criticize what’s happening on the field and I acknowledge that. I’ve also never coached a sport though it’s something I’d like to try one day. That said, I know enough to know that in athletics, particularly in big games it’s important to be able to adjust your plan of attack if necessary – or to anticipate having to do so. I discussed this in my interview with legendary Niagara Falls high school basketball Coach Pat Monti, who thoroughly scouted his opponents and figured out what he needed to do to give his teams the best chances to win even if meant making games ugly and unwatchable.

As we’re closing in on the end of Jim Harbaugh’s fourth year, this is something I’m wondering about, and something I wondered about during yesterday’s game. As much fanfare as there was when he got hired, how well can he and his staff really coach when going head to head with opponents like Urban Meyer and his staff on the opposite sideline? I asked myself this for the first time as yesterday’s game unfolded. One of my buddies I watched yesterday’s game with came down hard on defensive end Rashan Gary who was the top high school player five years ago and with good reason. That said it’s the coach’s job to motivate the players and put them in position to succeed. While we support him, right now, me and others in the fan base are questioning the ability of our coaching staff to do this on the biggest stages.

What’s going to happen from this point on? I honestly don’t know. I’m going to close by saying that I feel bad for our players, some of whom may have been looking ahead to Indianapolis and beyond – some of whom who have never beaten Ohio State which is something they’ll always have to live with. As we got closer to the Ohio State game, I became weary of talk of the “Revenge Tour” and Karan Higdon’s guarantee of victory as the team, the program and the fan base might suffer a black eye like we have now. Anytime ever I’ve competed, I’ve never been a trash talker and am a firm believer in just letting your play do the talking.

Like Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls teams who couldn’t get over the hump, for the remaining players and staff, perhaps this humiliating loss may be a part of their growth process that will eventually push them over the hump. We’ll have to wait and see. This year the Wolverines will once again be in Ann Arbor during the College Football Playoff. Hopefully Coach Harbaugh and his staff will ready first for their bowl game, and then when the Buckeyes come back to Ann Arbor in 2019. There’s a whole year to think yesterday’s game over.

Thank you for taking the time to right this blog post. If you enjoyed this one, you might also enjoy:

• Michigan loses to Ohio State 31-20: Reflections on the 2017 game and the season
• John U. Bacon presents his new book Endzone to Michigan’s D.C. Alumni Club: A look back
• Michigan defeats Maryland 35-10: Two weeks until the 2017 Ohio State game
• Michigan beats Florida 33-17: A recap of the maize and blue’s season opener
• The 2016 Michigan-Ohio State game, the Big Ten Officials, and the College Football Playoff

If you’ve found value here and think it would benefit others, please share it and/or leave a comment. To receive all of the most up to date content from the Big Words Blog Site, subscribe using the subscription box in the right-hand column in this post and throughout the site, or add my RSS feed to your feedreader. You can follow me on the Big Words Blog Site Facebook page, and Twitter at @BWArePowerful. Lastly, you can follow me on Instagram at @anwaryusef76. While my main areas of focus are Education, STEM and Financial Literacy, there are other blogs/sites I endorse which can be found on that particular page of my site.

Teaching The Youth How To React To Authority

Two of the focuses of my blog are General Education and Mentoring. In recent years, there are have been several publicized fatal encounters with Law Enforcement. In these instances, there are a lot of dynamics happening at once and the wrong actions or words can impact the outcome. As civilians coming into contact with Law Enforcement, are there actions that can be taken to avoid escalation? The following contributed post is entitled, Teaching The Youth How To React To Authority.

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For many young men, a figure out authority is seen as a figure of oppression. It’s an easy way to think because that person is telling you what to do. However, without the authority figures in their lives, children grow up to behave in a manner that is reckless. Mentoring the youth is something every adult should be trying to do and help in achieving. You can’t expect the government to be the parent of children that are lost and come from a rundown home. That is a big problem in many cities and towns where there are young boys and girls that have never had a father. Even if they did, sometimes fathers can be aloof and not very interested in what they do so children seem to not care what they are told to do. If you can mentor a young child how to behave, you will give them the mental tools to be successful in like. They can take that attitude and put it into business, be their own boss and respect authority. Law and order, the courts, common courtesy are all things that need to be respected as they are effectively neutral. So how do you instil respect within the youth for authority?

It works for them too

Here’s a very simple mental exercise you can do with the youth that you meet, whether it’s in school, your own children, or with the local youth groups where you live. Sit them down and ask them what would they do if there weren’t any police or laws? Most of the time they will say that they will have to take care of each other as there is no singular rulebook that is followed by everyone. This is going back to the tribe way of living which is the early beginning of civilization. Next ask them how would they take care of each other in the circumstance that one of the tribe hurts another? They will eventually say that there needs to be a trial and evidence before they mete out justice. This is when you interject and show them that, this is what law and order is about. It works in their favor too, it’s not about targeting someone, but making sure everyone plays by the same rules.

Don’t panic

Sometimes you also have to teach the parents along with the youth what they should do to help each other. It’s common for youth to be arrested and taken into custody for doing minor violations such as causing a disturbance due to loud music. However, all too often members of the youth can lash out at the police and this causes their charge list to grow into something major. Inform the parents to consider bail bonds if their child has been picked up and held in jail. Bail bonds are there to be used by people who don’t have enough money at the present time to pay for their son or daughter to be released from a holding cell.

The youth and parents need to talk about authority and what law and order is. More people need to mentor the young and show them that they need to think about society’s early beginning.

The Essential Guide To Honing Your Company Finances

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A to running any business/enterprise is efficiently and properly managing its finances. The following contributed post is thus entitled; The Essential Guide To Honing Your Company Finances.

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Ask any entrepreneur what their biggest concern is when they are launching a startup, and the chances are that they will say their finances. The financial health of any business is crucial to its success. If you are just starting out along the road of self employment, it’s imperative that you get your monetary situation sorted out. There’s no point leaving your nine to five with excellent promotion prospects, a steady wage, and superb colleagues if you don’t have the financial readies to make your ideas practically viable.

Before you hand in your notice, you need to have constructed a business plan for your proposed venture. This needs to detail your sources of funding, your potential future investments, your cash flow projections, and your profit calculations. Going blindly into the world of entrepreneurship without financial certainty means your business will be doomed to failure.

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Funding Sources

If you are setting up a business that sees you working from home and with minimal overheads, the chances are you will not need to raise much capital. However, if you need to seek premises, you have to build up stock, or you are looking to import and supply products to consumers, you will need to source funding.

The number one port of call is usually the bank. Specialist business managers will assess your plan and listen to any presentation that you wish to give to convince them that your business is a worthwhile investment. Just because they are large corporations and you have been a loyal customer for a decade or more doesn’t mean that this is a sure fire source of investment. You need to dress smartly, know your figures like the back of your hand and enthuse them with your pitch.

The bank isn’t the sole source of funding in the twenty first century. With the advent of crowdfunding, sole traders from across the globe have one online platform in which to convince professional and amateur investors alike to claim a stake in their business. This is a novel and exciting way to raise capital. Hundreds if not thousands of people from across the planet could be investing in your business. This also allows your brand to claim a global reach that your bank manager simply doesn’t possess.

If you’re after expert advice and contacts as well as financial acumen, you might like to consider a business angel. These (not quite) celestial beings are experts in their fields and have made a small fortune using their business knowledge. They will have a ridiculous amount of guidance and advice to impart, and they are worth tapping into. If a business angel is willing to back your idea, this validates your business venture. To maximize your chances of gaining investment from a business angel, you must be passionate about your ideal and be ready to answer a variety of questions. The pitch will be more demanding than if you were presenting to a bank manager. Remember, a business angel is investing their own hard-earned cash, so they need to be certain of a return.

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Cash Flow

When your business is up and running, it’s important that you don’t attempt to run before you can walk. It’s vital that you build slowly and grow at a manageable rate. In principle, it sounds fantastic if a product was to garner a huge following and the appetite for it is almost insatiable. The orders will flood in. However, if you don’t have the cash flow to import the goods and distribute them, your supply chain can stall, you will have dozens of unhappy customers, your reputation will slide, and your business can fail.

To avoid this situation, you need to employ the best ecommerce for b2b by setting up a software package that can control the way your products are marketed to customers. From one platform, you can hide or show certain products or services to your customer base, giving you more control over your ecommerce website. From here, you can also set up the credit terms and analyze your accounts information. This interface is ideal for more complex business and financial needs.

When you set up your business, you are hungry for success, and rightly so. But you mustn’t allow your startup to become a victim of its own success. You must ensure that your business is always in a position to fulfill its obligations, by ensuring that your capital remains buoyant, your cash flow is healthy, and you have the finger on the pulse of your company finances at all times.

Business Unusual

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Whenever starting any business/enterprise, it’s important to be proactive about anything that can go wrong and proactively come up with contingency plans. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Business Unusual.

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Business, as usual, might sound boring, but there are times when you might long for it. When things go right, you never really consider what might go wrong. But as the saying goes, you should fix your roof when the sun is out. Here are some business calamities you might not want to think about, but you should, before they happen.

Employees being swept by a sickness bug. It’s not something you want to think of, but what if an epidemic erupts that wipes out whole teams? Sure, you can deal with one or two, but what if the fall back of the fall back falls ill? They key here is prevention. Make sure your employees have facilities to wash hands when needed and promote hygiene where relevant. People get sick when they are weaker, also more so during colder months. Ensure that employees who are coming back from illness are indeed fit for work. If you have the capacity, perhaps a final day working from home will ensure they don’t bring back any disease to the office.

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Someone on your premises getting hurt. This falls under the category of the unthinkable. But what if this happens despite diligently making sure signs are put up when the floor has been mopped, and the appropriate signs are put up? The key here is to get legal representation, for example, Simon Law Group can be a lifesaver navigating the tricky waters of injury law. And it’s not the case you can wait till things actually happen, time can be of the essence. So make you are prepared and know exactly who to call when as soon as things happen.

Cash flow is not sufficient to pay ongoing bills. The worst nightmare of any financial controller or accountant. What if your invoices aren’t getting paid fast enough, which affects your ability to pay your own bills? The key here is to audit often and early. You should continuously monitor the debtors lists, flag and take action when needed. Review your terms of payment when required and in extreme cases negotiate payment plans when invoices can’t be paid in full. It might just be that debtors struggle with the entire sum, but a payment agreement is just precisely what they need. The same goes for suppliers required payment, negotiate. Having a full payment, in the long run, outweighs a business going bust and not getting paid at all.

Imagine your key employees who have a fundamental knowledge of operations leave. The significant brain drain could be one of the most negatively impactful things to happen to a business, especially operating in a service driven industry. You might not only lose essential operational knowledge, but people might move over to a competitor! The core thing here is to ensure you have NDAs and non-compete’s set up from the get-go. Ensure you know what the value and processes are these key employees bring and ensure that this knowledge is codified in some form. Sure, no one likes creating handover notes or complete process sheets, but investing this time will safeguard your business long term. There is also a secondary benefit, really understanding and valuing the input of critical employees might bring you closer to them, and you might uncover any doubts their end that made them consider jumping ship in the first place. You might not be able to stop people from leaving, but at least you can part on good terms.

A major incident at your office forces you to shut down for the day. You might hear of these incidents from time to time. Someone smelled gas, or there is no water. Health and Safety usually dictate you need to shut the office until this is resolved. Do you actually know what to do in these type is situations? Get an emergency plan in place. Know what to do with emails, phones, ongoing work and suppliers that will assume business as usual. Do you have a core team that can relocate to a temporary office space nearby and can you reroute and supplies or clients coming in? Do you have a phone tree ready to inform employees? As you would practice fire drills, so should these type of incidents be trained for. Ensure that a core set of employees knows what to do in which situation.

Most of these calamities require some scenario planning and establishing rules and procedures. It’s a time and resource investment you will have to make upfront and keep up-to-date with regular reviews. Just do it, you’ll be thankful just in case business as usual turns into business unusual.

Your Say Matters On Election Day, And Don’t Let Conspiracies Convince You Otherwise

One of the focuses of my blog is Current Events. Over the last 30 years politics in the United States have regularly been linked to some speculation of corruption. In the past, big corporate money and the wealthy have been suspected of controlling our elected officials. In the most recent elections, foreign countries have been suspected of tampering with our elections. Should either case affect whether one votes? The following contributed post is entitled; Your Say Matters On Election Day, And Don’t Let Conspiracies Convince You Otherwise.

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It’s been nearly two weeks since the midterm elections here in the U.S. As with any election, there’s been name calling, close calls, and unhappy members on either side of the political line. The results have seen democrats gaining control of the house by hitting the 218 seat mark. Other monumental events include a record 99 women serving in the house of representatives. Oh, and an astounding 114 million voters turned up on the day. That’s 31 million more than the same vote garnered during 2014. All around, then, this midterm election has been a huge achievement for people finally having their say when it comes to the biggest problems facing the country.

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Of course, not everything ran smooth. This election, like any other, was shrouded in conspiracy theories. They ranged from the expected to the ludicrous, and they all had one thing in common: every single conspiracy suggests that we’re powerless in the game of government. And, that’s what we’re taking exception to, because it’s about time someone stood up and noticed the damage conspiracies like these can cause.

As we’ve already mentioned, the turnout for this election was astounding. The results prove how things change when people turn up and make their mark. This is a crucial message to spread. If Trump’s presidency has proven anything, it’s what happens when people don’t make the effort to vote.

But, then we have conspiracies, which do nothing more than fuel the fire of the people who think ‘there’s no point voting’ anyway. One minute, we’re told that Russia is rigging our elections, so our votes aren’t even our own. The next, we’re facing yet another of the endless Soros conspiracy theories which tell us our votes won’t even count unless we make them by paper ballot. Then, we’re told that representatives like Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are manipulating us to ensure we vote in a certain way. While each of these is entirely unfounded, they can do a great deal of damage.

It should come as no surprise that many of those who didn’t vote chose not to in part because of conspiracies like these. We spend so long convincing ourselves that higher powers control our votes, that many of us truly believe we don’t have a say. And, if you don’t have a voice either way, what’s the point of going out of your way on election day? Let’s not forget, either, that conspiracies also give the other side a springboard on which to discard the relevance of opposing views. If some higher-power rigged the vote, then that opinion is null and void. Right?

No. We’re here to say that it’s time to put conspiracy theories to bed. While they’ll always be there in some form or another, we need to realize the power our ballot papers hold. Russia isn’t pulling the strings of our elections; we are. And, the sooner we take responsibility for that, the sooner we can work towards a country which suits our needs.

A Look at Careers: The Federal Government’s General Schedule Pay Scale and Salaries Revisited

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“When I first moved here, a couple of men told me they had achieved their ‘14s’ when we first met and I didn’t know what that meant.”

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The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and some of its focuses are: Career Discussions, Education, and Financial Literacy/Money. I originally published this piece in 2015 on the Examiner as I started to understand some of the nuances of being a federal employee. While the employment in the government is relatively stable in comparison to the private sector, there are some other unique differences which I thought were worth discussing. If you or someone you know is considering a federal career, this is a good and insightful read.

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My last article gave an overview of my experience as a federal employee in a general sense. This article will talk about one of the more intriguing parts of being a federal employee; the General Schedule (GS). The GS is particularly relevant when one is looking to get hired into the federal government and it takes on more significance when seeking promotion within one the federal government’s many agencies.

The General Schedule is a payroll scale which dictates the salary of each federal civilian employee. The scale spans from levels 1-15, with 15 being the highest paid and most senior. The only levels higher than the GS are the Senior Executive Service (SES) and then becoming an elected official.

Within the GS some promotions to the next grade are automatic without competition. Within grades, there are ‘steps’ where one automatically gets a raise periodically. There are 10 steps to each grade, and the first four step increases are automatic annually. Afterwards they are every two years. This seems like a really good deal right?

Reaching the GS-14 and 15 levels from the 13 level involves competition. That’s assuming that there’s money in the federal budget or ‘continuing resolutions’ for those promotions to become available in the first place. Another caveat is that one cannot jump to a higher grade without proving that they adequately performed the functions of the grade below it – going from a 13 to a 15 for example. A 13 must first become a 14 before reaching a 15.

While the GS is standard across the board for all federal employees, the cost of living for geographic location varies. For example, a GS-14 in my hometown of Buffalo, NY would make slightly less than a GS-14 in the Washington, DC metro area due to the vast difference in the cost of living.

What does all of this matter? As with everything, it isn’t a perfect system depending on your point of view, and there are pros and cons to working in the public vs. the private sector vs. academia. As described in my Earning a Ph.D. series, ascension within the federal government isn’t entirely dependent on one’s degree level. Having a Ph.D. for example doesn’t guarantee a promotion or even favor within an agency, and there are scenarios where Ph.D.’s can end up being supervised by master’s and in some cases bachelor’s level staff, something that would almost never occur in the private sector or in academia.

“We have Ph.D.’s.!!! We shouldn’t be making the same amount of salary as those filing records or who are doing administrative things,” a former colleague who has since gone to the private sector often lamented. That’s another caveat, tenure is an important component to federal employment. Specifically, there are instances where someone with a lower level of education who has been in the system longer, can make equal or more salary than someone with greater academic credentials who has been the system for less time. Ponder that.

“I wanted to move to Washington DC, so that I could get my 11,” a friend with a background in Human Resources who was a GS-9 said upon moving to the Washington, DC. Because the federal government is centralized in Washington, DC, the opportunities to get promoted are more plentiful there. Likewise, once promotions are achieved, that level is typically maintained wherever one goes afterwards throughout their career.

“When I first moved here, a couple of men told me they had achieved their ‘14s’ when we first met and I didn’t know what that meant,” a female acquaintance shared with me about her early dating experiences in the area. A funny but true and in some ways disturbing aspect to all of this is that in the DC Metro area, your GS-level can have huge social implications. In the minds of some, it represents: power, prestige and status in addition a considerable salary, the latter probably being the most important though they are generally lower than comparable private sector positions.

In closing, none of this information is confidential so I won’t get in trouble for sharing any of this. The salaries of federal employees are readily available to the general public online. Thus, when you know someone’s GS-level, you have an idea of what they earn, unlike in the private sector – an unsettling thought in terms of privacy to some degree. Nevertheless, it’s one of the cons that come along with being a public servant. The bonuses tend to also be more robust in the private sector.

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There are other aspects to being a federal employee such as the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) which is the retirement plan/system for civilian employees. I will probably discuss it in a subsequent post about retirement as it’s something I didn’t quite understand when I started my federal career.

I’m going to close by going back to stability, but in a different way. In some instances, federal employees may perform at low levels for their given duty for any number of reasons. This likewise can earn consecutive poor ratings at their annual performance appraisals. This is difficult for supervisors because it’s classically hard to fire federal employees as there’s a long and involved process for letting go of them once they’ve passed their probationary period – again something very similar to academia.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. If you enjoyed this one you might also enjoy:

• Perspectives of federal workers caught in the middle of the 2013 government shutdown revisited
• The myth of the stability of being a government employee revisited
• Father’s Day 2018: Dad’s doctor and his lawyer, and a discussion on careers
• Applying School To The “Real World”: Turning Subject Knowledge Into a Career
• Staying Relevant In The Workplace: The Tips To Help
• Common Mistakes When Choosing A Career
• Making The Most Of Your Education

The Big Words LLC Newsletter

For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Best Regards.

The Basics Of Branding And Marketing For Business

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“A well-branded product instills the visions, values, thoughts, and feelings you wish to express to attract the desired customer.”

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Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Potentially the most important component of any business/enterprise is its branding and marketing. What are the basics of these two aspects? The following contributed is entitled, The Basics Of Branding And Marketing For Business.

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Branding and marketing are both instrumental in helping your product or service to be visible to customers either online or in person, a distinguished brand which makes an impact big enough on your customers to trigger their curiosity enough to buy your product and then recommend it to their friends. Discussed below are the basics of branding and marketing and how you can apply this to your own business to effectively sell your products.

Branding

A well-branded product instills the visions, values, thoughts, and feelings you wish to express to attract the desired customer. However, once your brand is launched to the world, it also encapsulates the ideas and interpretations of what new and existing customers think about your business too. The quote below highlights the importance of shared values between the brand and the customer:

“If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.”

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks

A well-branded business will help you to stand apart from your competitors, you will become distinguished and recognizable in the market to the people who matter most to your brand.

For instance, when you think of Dolce & Gabbana, this may conjure thoughts of, luxury, exclusivity, whereas when you think about Walmart, you may think family-friendly, affordable and accessible. These thoughts are shaped by the brand and how it presents itself.

The best place to start when thinking about how to piece together your brand is to treat it as though it was a person trying to attract other people. Start by answering questions such as what impression you want to convey? And what’s your reputation? With this, you can begin to create a name, a logo design, a slogan and gradually an identity. According to Steve Forbes Editor in Chief of Forbes Magazine; “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business”

Which is why it’s paramount to invest a lot of your time and creativity not just in the initial creation phase, but also throughout the duration of the brand’s existence to save your business from sinking later on.

Marketing

There are various divisions incorporated in marketing. One of which is the process of distributing your brand to a broader audience to increase popularity, to target intended audiences, and to convey the message set during your branding process. However, the branding process is an integral part of creating your business prior to distributing your marketing collateral. The reason being is because, without the brand, your marketing plan will lack direction. If you need help with marketing, be sure to hire an expert who knows what they’re doing, like Cullen Fischel.

For instance, you may decide your brand of clothing will represent the importance of veganism. This will help you to devise a marketing plan with direction to reach those who are interested in veganism. In turn, you can tailor your marketing strategy on targeting this niche to convey your message across social media sites, to take an active part in either attending or initiating vegan events by supplying merchandise from customlanyardscanada.com, or you might choose to write a blog on your business website related explicitly to veganism to improve your search engine optimization with unique content and improve your business’s chances of being discovered on Google. By presenting a well-crafted brand to a specific niche, you can better own, you can convey a consistent message to customers, which will also support your brand’s professionalism and reputation.

Investing time in branding and marketing your product or service will help you to reach your intended audience with an image that’s relevant and professional in both appearance and ideologies in order to attract and persuade your customers to buy from you now and in the future.

Learning To Solve Computer Problems Before They Happen

Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. Whichever business or enterprise you’re in, management of your Information Technology (IT) systems is critical, and it’s also critical to figure out how to solve computer-related problems before they happen. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Learning To Solve Computer Problems Before They Happen.

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It’s practically impossible for a modern business to get away with not using computers, nowadays. These machines have truly taken over this field, and this means that people simply have to learn to get used to them, even if they don’t find them very easy to use. Of course, though, their popularity doesn’t make it any easier to deal with problems with them. Instead, when you have an issue with a machine you need, you have to pay someone to fix it for you. To get around this and help you out, this post will be exploring some of the work which is going into solving problems like this before they even happen.

Machine Learning

One of the keys to achieving a goal like this is being able to spot the common factors between various computer faults. If a CPU is generally killed very quickly by excessive heat, for example, knowing which temperatures they can safely operate at is very important. This has lead to a lot of companies dedicating their time to this sort of learning, running near constant tests to figure out the connections between various hardware and software flaws, drastically improving the chances of spotting them before they cause problems.

Remote Monitoring

As a more direct approach to the work above, remote monitoring is often used to help with viruses and other attempts to damage the integrity of a system. Device and system monitoring can be a great way to solve this, with services available which can stop malicious software in its tracks without your users ever noticing a thing. This gives you the power to keep an eye on all of your machines without having to lift a finger.

Automated Protection

People can make mistakes, though, and this makes it worth having a second line of defense when it comes to protecting your computers. In the case of a hot computer, having the right settings in place to power off the machine before the CPU gets damaged is a good idea. While this may seem simply, a lot of people fail to take advantage of protection methods like this, making it far harder to keep their machines safe.

Simple Methods

Most of the work above will require the help of another company to get set up. There are jobs which you can do for yourself which will make this even better, though, like refreshing your hardware once in awhile to make sure that it is up to the right standards. A lot of people struggle with this, finding it hard to know what they need to do to keep their computers alive, even though they are like any other machines, and simply need to be treated correctly to keep running for a long time.

Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time which goes into your company’s computer problems. A lot of people find this sort of work very challenging, but it will be worth putting some time towards it, even if is hard.

Managing Your Small Business’ IT Effectively

Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship, and Technology. Effectively managing your small business’ Information Technology (IT) operations is a key aspect of its overall health and success. What are some keys to doing this? This contributed post is entitled; Managing Your Small Business’ IT Effectively.

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Nowadays, people will check their smartphone every twelve minutes, and the average person will spend more than one entire day of their whole week online. There are various reasons for this. A lot of checking will be for personal pleasure – people will be checking their social media feeds, looking up information that is useful for them, or reading up on the news. However, an increasing number of people are seeing their time spent on tech devices clock up, as they are needing to engage with them on a professional basis. Seeing as the public are turning to the web more, it’s not all too surprising that businesses are as well! Many companies are creating social media accounts and using the web to carry out correspondence to clients, partners, and customers over email or instant messaging chat. So, you need to keep your IT up and running in order to run your business effectively. Here’s a little more on the subject!

The Importance of Keeping IT Running

You don’t really realise how central IT is to your business’ functioning until it happens to go down. Without functioning IT, many of your staff will be unable to do their jobs and you will find yourself paying out days worth of wages to individuals who aren’t actually doing anything for your company’s progression. IT flaws can also breach security, which could pose major problems down the line. Dealing with IT effectively will ensure that all of your systems remain problem free.

Outsourcing

Perhaps the easiest and most convenient way to take care of Technology Support for business is to outsource the work to a reliable company. This means that you don’t have to take on the responsibility of becoming a full time employer of an IT specialist, but you do gain the same benefits in the long run. You will always have someone or a team overseeing your company’s IT needs, preventing problems that may arise, and tackling problems that do manage to arise quickly and effectively.

Building an In-House Team

Your alternative is to build an in-house team of IT specialists. Generally speaking, this is something to consider when your business begins to expand and you have the time to draw up contracts and fit an in-house IT team into your commercial property. One of the benefits on having an in-house team, should you need one, is that everyone working for you will eventually become extremely familiar with your unique system, being able to detect and resolve problems a little more quickly than people who may not have encountered your system before.

As you can see, maintaining fully functioning IT is absolutely essential for any small business owner who wants to keep their company up and running. Hopefully, the above advice will help you to achieve this!

Business Information: Backup Data Solutions

Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. In today’s digital and information-based world a critical component of any organization is a data backup strategy, and there are tremendous potential dangers from not having one. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Business Information: Backup Data Solutions.

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Picture by Christina Morillo

Data backup in America appears to be rare in the US, as according to Nationwide Insurance 68% of small to medium businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place, even though Small Business Trends highlights that 140,000 hard drives fail each week. This is a surprising fact to behold, in a world where information is power, a business without its customer credentials, tax and account details, sales and so forth, is a business that would cease to exist should it’s data become eradicated or lost in a disaster.

For businesses that rarely survive the mess caused by losing data, by the time they’ve clawed back any customers and credibility they once had, they have most likely lost unnecessary time and money in the process. This post identifies the importance of backing up your data to prevent issues within your organization. Because whether you’re a startup business, medium business or large company, data matters to you and your company for continued growth.

Potential Disasters
Business information could fall victim to a number of threats such as:

Fire or flood
Thiefs
Lost Files
IT Breakdown
Hackers

In response to the above scenarios what do you have in place currently to protect your data from a devastating fire, a hard drive failing or hackers accessing your online resources? Beyond protecting your information, by use of burglar alarms for thieves, fireproof cabinets for paper documents, and cybersecurity software, if these plans failed to keep your data intact, how would you regain vital information?

What Should You Back Up?
If you’re unsure about what information you should be attempting to back-up, it should include everything that is vital to the business’s survival. Such as customer details, business accounts and taxes, sales information and any data stored on behalf of customers. For example, for a law firm, this would include client case files, both ongoing and archived files. Archived files must be retained on behalf of the customer in case the information needs to be reviewed in the future.

If keeping a copy of physical files appears impossible to store due to a lack of space. an alternative option to this would be to transfer your paper files to digital form.

Backup Location
There are two routes to consider utilizing for backing up your files. Business owners should aim to keep a local on-site backup, easily accessible day today and an off-site backup, in the event the business premises is invaded by a disaster rendering all information useless. The backup source you use depends on the type and size of your business.

For instance, a freelance website designer could keep an external hard drive in the office with a backup of all of their tax files, website projects, and customer details, while also maintaining an external hard drive replica at home or even a disc.

In contrast, a private hospital would have a more significant amount of data, which is exceptionally confidential requiring sturdier backup than an external hard drive. In this scenario, a manager may instruct for all paper files to be copied and scanned, and transferred to companies offsite data server.

Large data servers can store masses of data which is housed explicitly in a secure environment to keep data safe. Preview info about iConnect Montana for a comprehensive, detailed explanation on what offsite data servers inhabit to help gain knowledge on how to best backup your business information.