Eric D. Colburn, PLS

Here are a few tips to help you succeed in having a more productive next week.

Question: Why Saturday?

Answer: Why not? No seriously now; because the best way to execute success is to plan for success. The day really isn’t important, so let’s call it “End of the Week” Tips for a More Productive Next Week, if you prefer.

Question: It was a tough week this week, so why can’t I just put this off and worry about it next week? Besides, I love the exhilaration of scrambling everyday to make deadlines and putting out client and project fires as they arise!

Answer: Think about it, you probably experienced a tough week at work, scrambling to make deadlines while putting out all those client and project fires, because you didn’t plan for the things you could control.

Question: But I can’t plan because I’ll just have to change everything next week as circumstances change?

Answer: So what? What you said and what I heard are two different things. I heard, besides fear, is “I choose guaranteed failure rather than give myself a great chance at success” or, maybe even, “I’m really comfortable with chronic failure”. It’s not cast in stone; it’s just a plan for goodness sake – so change it as need be.

Those who set goals and plan for success more often reach their goals and enjoy success than those who don’t.

5 Saturday Tips for a More Productive Next Week Read the rest of this entry →

Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News: Pöyry Awarded EUR 2.1 million Surveying Project for Pumped Storage Hydropower Plant in Switzerland

Pöyry, a global consulting and engineering company dedicated to balanced sustainability, has been awarded the owner’s surveying contract for the new Linth-Limmern pumped storage hydropower plant by Axpo, Switzerland. With services comprising all geodetic surveying tasks during the construction period lasting until 2015, the value of Pöyry’s assignment is about EUR 2.1 million.

About Pöyry PLC

Pöyry, in addition to being a global consulting and engineering company dedicated to balanced sustainability, as mentioned above, also offers their clients:

• Integrated management consulting.
• Total solutions for complex projects and efficient.
• Best-in-class design and supervision.

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Professional Land Surveyor News

Trimble Acquires LET Systems to Expand its Utilities
Solutions for Smart Grid Outage and Incident Management

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 5, 2010 — Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) announced today it has acquired privately-held LET Systems based in Cork, Ireland. LET Systems is an internationally recognized leader in incident and outage management system (OMS) solutions for utilities. The acquisition is part of Trimble’s strategic utilities and smart grid initiative to bring productivity solutions to the global utilities industry. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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The Halo Effect: … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This tart takedown of fashionable management theories is a refreshing antidote to the glut of simplistic books about achieving high performance. Rosenzweig, a veteran business manager turned professor, argues that most popular business ideas are no more than soothing platitudes that promise easy success to harried managers. Consultants, journalists and other pundits tap scientifically suspect methods to produce what he calls “business delusions”: deeply flawed and widely held assumptions tainted by the “halo effect,” or the need to attribute sweeping positive qualities to any company that has achieved success. Following these delusions might provide managers with a comforting story that helps them frame their actions, but it also leads them to gross simplification and to ignore the constant demands of changing technologies, markets, customers and situations. Mega-selling books like Good to Great, Rosenzweig argues, are nothing more than comforting, highbrow business fables. Unfortunately, Rosenzweig hedges his own principles for success so much that managers will find little practical use for them. His argument about the complexity of sustained achievement, and his observation that success comes down to “shrewd strategy, superb execution and good luck,” may end up limiting the market for this smart and spicy critique. (Feb. 6)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
“In “The Halo Effect,” Phil Rosenzweig has done us all a great service by speaking the unspeakable. His iconoclastic analysis is a very welcome antidote to the kind of superficial, formulaic, and dumbed-down matter that seems to be the current stock in trade of many popular business books. It’s the right book at the right time.”– John R. Kimberly, Henry Bower Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

In these tough economic times new work is harder and harder to come by. While cost cutting is so very important, you shouldn’t cut back too much on your marketing efforts, if you can afford it. Some of the following strategies to get more work, however, cost very little and can be implemented quickly.

1. Call Your Existing Clients: Call your existing clients to see how they’re doing and ask if Read the rest of this entry →