The Year in Review

The Rhode Island Small Business Journal (RISBJ) just celebrated a little over a year of publishing.  Congratulations to the team!  I’ve enjoyed writing for each issue and would like to thank Dr. Margarita Posada Cossuto for improving my articles.

To commemorate our first year, I’ll summarize my articles.  If you missed or want to review my articles, you can find them at: http://www.slideshare.net/DrRonShapiro/rhode-island-small-business-journal-risbj-articles-by-ronald-g-shapiro-ph-d, or you may refer to http://risbj.wpengine.com/risbj-issue-archive for entire journals.

My articles covered five primary topics:

Managing Your Business

Selecting New Employees For Your Small Business: Do Your Applicant’s Resumes ROAR? (Issue 1.1).  Will you be hiring at least one new employee this year, or will a friend or family member be looking for a new position?  If so, please check out this article.

Become an A+ Employer, Differentiate Yourself From The Rest (Issue 1.2).  Great employers provide flexibility, optimize work assignments and help their employees to develop and find work interesting.  Do you have a meaningful development plan in place for each of your employees including yourself?

Building Business Relationships

Have You Tried After Hours Business Networking Recently? (Issue 2.1). We have frequent business networking events in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts.  Have you been attending these lately or have you been missing out?

Show the World What Your Customers Think of You: Build a Word Cloud (Issue 2.2).  Ask your customers to write a one-word summary of your business, and then combine the input to produce a nice picture.

Involving Your Family in Your Profession

Do Your Children Know What You Do At Work? Probably Not (Issue 1.3).  Family support is critical for running a successful business.  Test how well your family members understand your work.

It is Time for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day ® (Issue 2.3).  Check out how well you and your family members agree on descriptions of each other.

Improving Job Performance by Understanding How People Process Information

How Much Did Your Assumptions Cost You Today? (Issue 1.4).  Incorrect assumptions result in lost business.  Reexamine your assumptions.

What Did You Hear? Not What I Said! (Issue 1.5).  Missing a critical detail can result in less than optimal performance.   Optimize your business results by attending to the details.

Multitasking – Trendy but Risky! (Issue 1.9).  Multitasking is not necessarily the optimal strategy for accomplishing a task.  Multitasking at the wrong time (such as using cell phones while driving – handheld or not) is not safe.  Check out this article to find out more!

Are You Missing Your Own Reflection? (Issue 2.5). Are we sensitive to small changes in the environment that require us to change plans?  Are our customer’s less than ideal responses reflecting our own attitude?

Personal Management Techniques for You and Your Employees

Use The Tuesday Technique To Help Get It Done (Issue 1.6).  Do you have any necessary tasks which are not getting done?  Try the Tuesday technique to help complete them.

Resolve Issues By Asking Great Questions (Issue 1.7).  Asking questions is an excellent way to help people work together better.   Check out this article to see how.

Should You Do It? a Prioritization and Decision Making Tool for You (Issue 1.8). Too much to do?  Not enough time to do it?  Try this prioritization tool.

Why Did You Ask That Question? (Issue 2.4).  Don’t ask a question if you aren’t prepared to react appropriately to the answer.  See an example of failed communication.

I’ll conclude by thanking you, my readers, for helping to make my column and the journal a success.   Keep in touch.  Let us know how we can be of help.

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