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The dictionary defines politics as activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in a government. The definition also includes the opinions that someone has about what should be done by governments.
As anyone who has a job or is a member of an organization knows, politics is not isolated to governmental organizations. Virtually all organizations have people who are trying to gain and keep power and who are trying to influence the actions and policies of their organization. Organizational politics can be constructive or destructive, depending on the motives and techniques used and whether the politics are aligned with the goal of achieving the organizations stated desired outcomes.
The Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey (HOE survey) includes a question about the effectiveness of the organization in eliminating organizational silos and internal politics as barriers to organizational effectiveness. The HOE survey uses a 5-point rating scale where 5 = Effective, 4=Somewhat effective, 3=Neutral, 2=Somewhat Ineffective and 1=Ineffective. The overall average for all of the 265 responses received is a very low rating of 2.74, indicating that most organizations have a very significant opportunity to eliminate organizational silos (fiefdoms) and to reduce unproductive politics.
How would you rate your organization’s effectiveness in eliminating organizational silos and internal politics as barriers to organizational effectiveness?
What needs to be done in your organization to eliminate the silos and politics?
Failure of organizations to identify, assess and quantify potential risks and then take action to mitigate the risks can lead to situations that can result in their significant or catastrophic failure, harm to their reputation and possible injury/death. Sometimes the causes of the problems are faulty processes or equipment, managers/employees that make bad decisions or that take excessive risks, suppliers that do not perform or customers that misuse products. Sometimes risks come from external sources. Often unethical behavior and/or poor judgment are at the center of the risks. Many of the types of risks are common to all industries and to government.
With few exceptions, c-suite executives and Boards are to blame for not identifying and dealing with risks. Often they create the culture and make the decisions that cause the failures. It is very common to be complacent or to ignore risks. CEO’s are busy and typically rely on other senior leaders to identify and deal with risks. Some of these directly-responsible leaders are arrogant and/or ignorant regarding identifying and dealing with important risks.
Prior to Arthur Andersen’s failure, there is no way that their then CEO or anyone else would have thought that the firm’s failure was possible and that the firm would fail soon. Likewise, in 2012 shortly before the JPMorgan Chase London Whale trading losses surfaced, it is inconceivable that CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon or his Board would have thought such a trading loss was possible. After all, they had sophisticates risk software and enterprise risk management processes in place with a large staff and a supposedly competent senior manager in place protecting the Bank against such rogue trades.
In some cases government regulations come into play. Regulations don’t work when regulators are ineffective and people do an end-run around the regulations.
Is your organization assessing and managing risks effectively? How do you know?
Is your organization at risk of a significant risk incident or catastrophic organizational failure? How do you know?
Does your organization conduct a comprehensive annual Enterprise Risk Survey to identify and quantify potential risks across the organization, including a broad assessment of internal and external risks?
Highly effective Boards enhance the effectiveness of their organizations in many ways including selecting a highly effective CEO, providing guidance and advice to the CEO, making sure the organization is acting in the best interests of shareholders/stakeholders, reviewing and approving major plans and initiatives, compensation, audit results, risk, etc.
In the U.S., companies and not-for-profit organizations are incorporated at the state level. The incorporation laws vary greatly by state with some states being significantly more lax in its requirements and compliance. It is this reason that many companies incorporate in Delaware.
Activist investor Carl Icahn and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Senior Associate Dean for Executive Programs & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management at Yale University are two of the more vocal critics of dysfunctional Boards. They talk often about the failures and impact of dysfunctional Boards.
While some Boards are highly effective, many are only marginally effective or not effective at all. There are many reasons why some Boards are dysfunctional.
How effective is your organization’s Board?
How is your Board positively and negatively impacting your organization?
Which of the above reasons for Boards being dysfunctional apply to your organization?
The overall rating for all survey participants and questions is 3.45.
90.9% of survey respondents have overall average ratings below 4.5, indicating significant opportunities exist for increasing HOE in most organizations.
It is clear that most organizations have a very significant opportunity to increase their Holistic Organizational Effectiveness.
What do you think your organization’s overall holistic organizational effectiveness rating is?
What needs to be done to make your leadership team aware of the opportunity to assess and then increase holistic organizational effectiveness?
In many ways public sector (governmental) organizations face the same Holistic Organizational Effectiveness issues that businesses, not-for-profit and other types of organizations face. Their ability to consistently achieve their desired outcomes depends on the effectiveness of their leadership, governance, people, culture, strategies, mission clarity and appropriateness, information technology, processes, organizational structures, suppliers, enterprise risk assessment and mitigation, financial management, sustainability and corporate social responsibility efforts, innovativeness and other key drivers of holistic organizational effectiveness.
Most governmental organizations at the national, state, county and local levels face additional challenges not typically faced by businesses. These include often having elected people or political appointees as top leaders (often lacking subject matter and leadership expertise and experience in the functions/services performed ), various constraints on firing and replacing poor performing employees, and less accountability to customers (constituents). Budgets and changes in the mission of governmental organizations often come more from political considerations and ideology than from real world requirements for change.
In the Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey the overall average rating for governmental organizations is 3.14, a low rating. The following table compares the overall ratings for all industries combined and the results from the Government sector.
Whatever country you live in, how would you rate holistic organizational effectiveness at the national, state/province, county and city/town levels?
What might be done to increase awareness of holistic organizational effectiveness in the public sector and the benefits that can be achieved (e.g. budgetary, better outcomes, greater efficiency, increased customer/constituent satisfaction, etc.) for governmental organizations and the public?
In your country, state/province, county and city/town what needs to be done to increase holistic organizational effectiveness?
U.S healthcare spending is out of control. It currently accounts for approximately 18% of the U.S. GNP (gross national product) and it is growing annually. Per capita healthcare spending in the U.S. is much higher than in any other country while our overall outcomes fall short. It is not clear how the Affordable Healthcare Act of 2012 (Obama Care) will impact total healthcare expenditures. It is designed to reduce overall costs. Some people think it will increase costs. What is clear is that much more needs to be done to address both healthcare costs and the overall quality of healthcare and health outcomes.
U.S. health care spending was $2.7 trillion in 2011, or $8,680 per person. Health spending grew 3.9 percent in 2011, the same rate of growth as in 2009 and 2010. National health spending in 2011 was 17.9% of the U.S. GNP (gross national product).
Other Professional Services: $73.2 billion. Includes establishments that provide services such as physical therapy, optometry, podiatry, and chiropractic medicine.
Other Health, Residential, and Personal Care Services: $133.1 billion. Includes expenditures for medical services that are generally delivered by providers in non-traditional settings such as schools, community centers, the workplace, ambulance providers, and residential mental health and substance abuse facilities.
Prescription Drugs: $263.0 billion in 2011, following a historically low growth rate of 0.4 percent in 2010.
Durable Medical Equipment: $38.9 billion. Includes items such as contact lenses, eyeglasses and hearing aids.
Other Non-durable Medical Products: Retail spending for other non-durable medical products, such as over-the-counter medicines, medical instruments, and surgical dressings, reached $47.0 billion in 2011. Spending in this category increased at the same rate in both 2010 and 2011, at 4.0 percent.
Medicare: Medicare spending, which represented 21 percent of national health spending in 2011, grew 6.2 percent to $554.3 billion, an acceleration from growth of 4.3 percent in 2010. Contributing to the increase in 2011 was faster growth in spending for skilled nursing facilities and physician’ services, as well as an increase in Medicare Advantage spending growth.
Medicaid: Total Medicaid spending grew 2.5 percent in 2011 to $407.7 billion, a deceleration from 5.9-percent growth in 2010. This was partly due to slower growth in Medicaid enrollment of 3.2 percent in 2011 compared to 4.9 percent-growth in 2010. Federal Medicaid expenditures decreased 7.1 percent in 2011, while state Medicaid expenditures grew 22.2 percent—a result of the expiration of enhanced federal aid to states in June 2011.
Private Health Insurance: In 2011, private health insurance premiums and benefits each increased 3.8 percent—accelerating from growth in 2010 of 3.4 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively. The net cost ratio for private health insurance – the difference between premiums and benefits as a share of premiums – remained unchanged from 2010 at 12.3 percent. Private health insurance enrollment increased 0.5 percent in 2011 after declining each year 2008-2010. Even so, on a per enrollee basis, private health insurance benefits grew 3.2 percent in 2011, decelerating from growth of 4.6 percent in 2010, and was partly a result of additional enrollees aged twenty-six and under who gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Out-of-Pocket: Out-of-pocket spending grew 2.8 percent in 2011 to $307.7 billion, an acceleration from growth of 2.1 percent in 2010 that reflects higher cost-sharing and increased enrollment in consumer-directed health plans.
The federal government financed 28 percent of total health spending in 2011, a substantial increase from its share of 23 percent in 2007. Meanwhile, the shares of the total health care bill financed by households (28 percent), businesses (21 percent), state and local governments (17 percent), and other private revenues (7 percent) all declined during the same time period.
America’s healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.
The U.S. spends $1.8 trillion a year in medical costs associated with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and all three are linked to smoking and obesity, the nation’s two largest risk factors, according to the America’s Health Rankings report.
Smoking is the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the U.S, accounting for about 440,000 deaths annually. For every person who dies from a smoking-related disease, 20 more people suffer with at least one serious illness from smoking. In 2000–2004, cigarette smoking cost more than $193 billion (i.e., $97 billion in lost productivity plus $96 billion in health care expenditures). Information published in 2005 documented that secondhand smoke costs more than $10 billion (i.e., health care expenditures, morbidity, and mortality).
Americans have gotten heavier and that is significantly impacting healthcare costs. Average adult Americans were about one inch taller in 2002 than in 1960, but nearly 25 pounds heavier than they were in 1960, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
There are many more people handling medical paperwork in doctors’ offices, hospitals, nursing homes, health insurance companies, etc. than there are medical professionals treating patients (doctors, nurses, etc.).
Americans overall are over-medicated. For example, millions of Americans rely on drugs to lower cholesterol and triglycerides rather than eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly. In addition to preventing cardiovascular problems, eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise also helps to prevent obesity, cancer and diabetes, which is now at epidemic levels.
The potential overall cost of painkiller abuse is more than $70 billion a year. Pill addicts who shop around for doctors to score prescriptions cost insurers $10,000 to $15,000 apiece annually. The annual U.S. cost in lost productivity is $42 billion. The annual criminal justice cost is $8.2 billion.
The U.S. has annual healthcare fraud of between 3%-12% of GNP ($75 – $250 billion). In addition to fraud, the Government Accounting Office reported that in 2011, Medicare and Medicaid paid an annual $65 billion in “improper payments.” It defines “improper” to include payments that are made in error — not fraud, but wrong just the same.
The U.S. has the most-costly and best healthcare system in the world … if you’re rich and can afford the best medical insurance and costs not covered by medical insurance, or if you happen to work for a company that provides good comprehensive medical insurance to its employees. For everyone else it is costly and much less effective. For millions of Americans, healthcare simply is not available, although Obama care is making affordable medical insurance available to a significant portion of the uninsured people.
How would you rate the effectiveness of the U.S. healthcare system?
Do you agree a holistic approach is needed for fixing the U.S. healthcare system?
What should be done to increase emphasis on prevention of health problems? What role can each person play?
Providing health insurance is a significant burden for many companies including the insurance and administrative costs and the need to have healthcare expertise. Should there be an approach that gets employers out of providing medical insurance?
At a total cost of $2.8 trillion/year, there are many large vested groups fighting hard to maintain the healthcare status-quo. Healthcare insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacy companies, medical device companies, doctors, nurses, hospitals, nursing homes, healthcare benefits companies and other groups see risks to their bottom lines if the key healthcare problems are seriously addressed. Try to get people to eat healthier diets and the food industry and certain farmers (e.g. beef and dairy industries) will react to thwart the efforts. How should we deal with this important issue?
Quantisoft’s team-based 360 leadership surveys are having considerable success in identifying leadership strengths and weaknesses of individual leaders and of entire leadership teams. The data is highly effective for strengthening leadership programs. We customize the survey questions to meet the specific needs of organizations and their leadership teams.
1. Conduct 360 leadership surveys for entire leadership teams rather than just one or a small number of leaders who you feel need to strengthen their leadership effectiveness. For example, we just completed the third set of leaders for a financial services company with approximately 300 employees. The first round included the senior leadership team, the second round included all mid-level managers and the final round included all first-line/supervisor level managers.
2. Do not have people providing feedback identify themselves by their level (e.g. peer, reporting to, level above, etc.) – this makes people more comfortable in providing honest, comprehensive feedback.
3. Provide each leader with their own set of comprehensive ratings and comments reports including all responses aggregated and each person’s feedback on an anonymous basis.
4. Provide a full set of the reports for each individual leader to HR and to the top people in the organization (CEO, President, etc.). Also provide them with comprehensive aggregate reports identifying areas of leadership strength and weakness for the entire leadership team. Aggregate reports include a listing of the leadership team’s competencies in descending rating order and a list of the leaders in descending overall rating order.
5. Senior leaders, HR, OD and Training use the team and individual 360 leadership feedback to develop appropriate actions for strengthening the leadership team’s and each individual’s leadership effectiveness. Actions include training, coaching, etc. The survey results are also very useful for identifying ways to strengthen leadership programs and for identifying strong candidates for promotion and succession planning.
Quantisoft recently conducted 360 Leadership Surveys for a financial services organization with approximately 300 employees. The survey questions were customized to meet their environment. The survey was conducted in three separate groups, one at a time. The senior leadership team was done first, mid-level managers were done next and the supervisor level was done last.
The following tables include the results (overall ratings) for the 16 mid-level managers and by department.
There is a very large range of leadership effectiveness among the 16 leaders, ranging from a high of 4.56 to a low of 3.08.
There also is a very large range in leadership effectiveness by department, ranging from a high of 4.48 to a low of 3.08.
Not shown here, there is a very large range of overall ratings by survey question.
Reports identify the questions (leadership characteristics and competencies) and which leaders need to strengthen their effectiveness by taking personal action and by receiving help to become more effective leaders. Reports also identify training, development and coaching/mentoring needs for individual leaders and for groups of leaders.
Follow-up surveys typically done within 3 – 12 months assess progress and for weaker leaders, whether they should continue in their current position.
Employee surveys, customer satisfaction surveys and other types of surveys commonly conducted for businesses and other types of organizations provide a wealth of information about strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. This is especially so when the surveys are well-designed and comprehensive, covering a broad range of pertinent topics.
Quantisoft has been conducting surveys for organizations since 1999. Many of our customers have made significant changes based on survey findings and our recommendations, and they have achieved very positive results as measured by annual follow-on surveys. Some organizations fail to take meaningful action based on survey results and they typically achieve little or no improvement.
Provide senior level support for conducting surveys and for taking action and getting results from the survey findings.
Consider having a survey company conduct your surveys. They will provide important useful suggestions and guidance and outside, objective perspective in terms of what questions to ask, performing analysis of the survey results and making recommendations for taking action and making needed changes.
Read all of the survey comments and review the survey ratings in detail. Make sure you know and understand the ratings and comments/suggestions made by employees.
Share the results with your organization’s leadership team and all of your managers and supervisors. Also share at least some of the pertinent results with all employees.
Create action plans based on the survey results. Some actions/initiatives are likely needed on an organization-wide basis while others are best made at the department level. Make sure you identify the right people to create the action plans and to lead the needed change projects/actions.
Conduct the surveys periodically to assess progress and to identify new problems and opportunities that may have surfaced since the last survey.
Quantisoft conducts comprehensive employee surveys for many organizations across many industries. Our surveys include questions about the effectiveness of performance reviews and about ongoing performance feedback. More often than not employees comment that their performance reviews are not effective, that they include inaccurate information about the employee’s performance and that the performance reviews are not linked to salary increases. Employees often say managers play favoritism in deciding salary increases rather than basing the increases on actual performance. Some organizations do not hold their managers accountable to do the performance reviews on time and some not at all.
In their survey comments many employees say that it is more important to provide honest ongoing feedback to employees throughout the year than it is to perform an annual performance review. The problem is that many organizations want and need a rational approach for determining salary increases and they feel that annual performance reviews are the best approach for evaluating all employees using a standard performance measurement process.
In reality, the performance management process is designed and executed poorly in many organizations and it does not provide the desired results.
Some performance review processes mix the evaluation of employee skills and competencies with the evaluation of actual performance. Unfortunately, many organizations do not use their performance reviews to identify training and development needs and do not provide needed training/development based on the performance reviews. We also find that many organizations do not provide training and useful guidelines for managers to prepare effective performance evaluations and to conduct effective performance review meetings with employees.
The bottom line – performance reviews are a significant source of frustration for many employees and for managers preparing and delivering the reviews.
The good news is that some organizations do a good job with performance reviews. We also find that when our employee surveys identify the need to improve the performance review process including specific areas for improvement, many of our survey customers do make important changes to the performance review process.
Ideally, the top-two listed questions above should have received overall ratings close to 5. Who wouldn’t expect ethical behavior and customer safety to be top priorities that are well executed? Likewise, while some businesses and other types of organizations rate highly in all or most of the customer-related questions included in the HOE survey, it is clear that most organizations need to increase their focus on customers and do a much better job of identifying and meeting customer expectations and executing their customer service, customer support processes, etc.
How would you rate your organization’s customer focus and effectiveness in executing well for your customers, whether you work for a business, not-for-profit organization, governmental entity or any other type of organization?
Would your organization benefit from conducting a customer satisfaction survey and then taking action based on the survey results?
In the early 1990’s two things surfaced that focused organizations on systemic learning and the need to become “learning organizations”. These were Peter Senge’s book, THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE – The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization and the introduction of the balanced scorecard by Robert Kaplan and David Norton.
The ratings indicate that most organizations are not doing a good job of creating the environment needed for organizational learning and executing on that learning. How effective is your organization at learning and executing on that knowledge to increase the organization’s performance and competitiveness? What needs to be done to strengthen your organization’s learning abilities and who needs to lead the way?
Few organizations achieve sustained success year after year and decade after decade. Very few of the businesses that were leaders in their industry 100 years ago are still in existence today. Almost all that are still in business experienced periods of great success and periods of mediocrity along the way, sometimes coming close to failure. Some including GM actually failed and came back from bankruptcy.
There are four key drivers which are being done very well at times when organizations are highly successful. These drivers are mission, leadership, culture and innovation. When any one or more of these organizational effectiveness drivers are not being done very well, organizational effectiveness and performance start to drop, sometimes very significantly. Yes, there also are many other drivers of organizational effectiveness (eg. workforce effectiveness, risk management, technology effectiveness, sales and marketing effectiveness, process effectiveness, supply chain effectiveness, etc.), but their effectiveness all rely on the four key drivers to be effective.
Mission – Whether an organization is a business, not for profit, governmental or any other type of organization, the mission needs to be clearly defined and make sense. There needs to be a strong reason for the organization to exist in terms of meeting the needs of a defined group of people or entities (businesses, etc.). The mission needs to be clearly defined and communicated to both employees of the organization (or the organization’s volunteers) and the organization’s constituents. The mission may need to change as constituent needs or desires change, or in reaction to disruptive products or technologies.
Leadership – The effectiveness of an organization’s top leaders and the people they put in other important leadership positions is critical to achieving and sustaining high levels of organizational effectiveness and success. The top leader has enormous leverage in terms of putting in place the conditions necessary for making and keeping the organization effective and achieving desired outcomes in the short and long term. 360 leadership surveys are a great tool for gathering anonymous feedback for use in boosting the effectiveness of leaders at all levels of the organization.
Culture – Organizational culture is a broad issue. It includes integrity, how people treat each other, the extent to which employees or members share and are passionate about the organization’s mission and meeting its desired outcomes, commitment to organizational and individual learning, and many other aspects. A strong, healthy culture is essential for achieving sustained organizational success.
Innovation – Innovation can mean different things to different organizations. To some, it is staying ahead of the competition with new and better products or services that people or businesses want or will want when they learn about these products and services. To other organizations innovation is identifying and implementing better ways to do the things they do to execute their mission.
Quantisoft recently conducted a comprehensive employee survey for an organization with 125 employees. The survey has over 6o questions which assess the effectiveness of a broad range of issues that impact organizational and employee effectiveness and performance.
The survey ratings and comments identified some areas of strength and a larger number of significant weaknesses. During the webinar meeting in which I presented the survey executive summary report to the organization’s senior leadership team, one of the senior leaders asked if I could identify the three most important things they should do as a result of the employee survey. I answered that there are clearly identified priorities, but that there are considerably more than just three important things that need to be done.
The need to strengthen trust between leaders at all levels of the organization and employees.
The need to increase respect for members of the senior leadership team and for some managers at various levels of the organization.
Employees’ desire for increased compensation based on work contribution and performance.
The need for less costly health insurance, better dental and vision insurance, and other enhanced benefits.
Addressing heavy workloads and related stress. The need for more staff and less overtime, and everyone doing their fair share of the work.
Improving the effectiveness of the less-effective and “difficult” managers.
Strengthening inefficient technology and processes, and providing better access to information.
The need for greater emphasis on customers, customer service and quality.
The need for more effective communications between and within departments, and from senior management with more openness to listening to employees.
Expanding advancement opportunities and hiring from within the organization.
Strengthening the organizational culture and its ability to nurture innovation and significantly increase employee morale and engagement.
Increasing teamwork and collaboration within and between departments with a focus on getting everyone to understand and support the organization’s mission, vision and values, and achieving the organizations objectives.
The need for more and better new-employee and ongoing training and development.
Increasing senior-level decision makers’ knowledge of what is going on at the worker level enabling them to make more informed decisions.
Many of our survey clients have us conduct their comprehensive employee surveys annually. Some achieve great progress year after year while others make little or no progress. The organizations that make great progress don’t just deal with the top three problem issues. They use Quantisoft’s survey results recommendations and create and implement comprehensive action plans. The organizations that achieve little or no progress are the ones that address only a small number of the issues identified by the survey, and their commitment to taking action and achieving results is limited.
The 2013 NJOD Learning Community Annual Sharing Day (ASD) Conference on May 7th was excellent. This was NJOD’s 15th annual ASD and its best yet, with well over 200 people attending.
Congratulations to the NJOD Board for putting together an outstanding program. I found Peter Block’s keynote presentation particularly interesting and on target. Peter shared many interesting experiences and his insight about issues that have been challenging organizations and their leaders for many years.
Like previous years, it was great to see friends and meet people in the OD and HR arena.
Every business leader knows the importance of “hard measurements” including things like financials, number of customers and customer demographics and buying history, inventory data and other things that can be measured accurately and that directly or indirectly represent bottom-line performance.
Less emphasis is usually placed on measuring “soft mesurements” by most leaders. Soft issues or measurements include the measurement of feelings, opinions, experiences, attitudes, behavior and any other things that are somewhat subjective, but that strongly influence the actions of employees, customers and other groups. Soft measures are often as important as hard measurements because soft measurements are key drivers of the hard issues. Customers make purchasing decisions based on reputation, personal experiences, hearsay, recommendations, personal likes and dislikes and other soft issues. Likewise, employees become engaged or disengaged based n soft issues. Soft issues drive employee and customer loyalty and turnover.
Many of the most important business risks are also based on soft issues. The importance and potential impact of most risks are subjective, but they can me measured, assessed and mitigated.
One of the most effective and lowest cost ways to measure and quantify soft issues is to conduct online organizational effectiveness surveys, employee surveys (employee engagement surveys / employee satisfaction surveys), IT customer satisfaction surveys, customer satisfaction surveys and enterprise risk surveys. Ratings provide the quantification needed to identify strengths, opportunities, threats and problems. Verbatim comments provide information and insight for identifying why things are going well or not, and what needs to be done to implement positive change. The payback can be huge and the cost is minimal.
Business process effectiveness is a key driver for achieving holistic organizational effectiveness. Processes used by employees and customers can be highly efficient and effective, or they can be cumbersome and cause frustration, delays, quality and reliability problems, poor timeliness and low productivity. Ineffective processes can require extra inventory to compensate for problems. Ineffectiveness processes also hurt competiveness in terms of lost customers, reduced productivity and other problems.
Achieving high levels of holistic organizational effectiveness requires putting in place highly effective business processes. Michael Hammer’s 1990 article in the Harvard Business Review launched Business Process Reenginering (BPR). Since then many organizations have undertaken BPR initiatives, some of which have long been ended while other have continuously used BPR to ensure that current and new processes are highly effective. Six-sigma quality and other approaches have also been used to implement highly effective business processes.
Quantisoft’s comprehensive employee surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, holistic organizational effectiveness surveys and IT customer satisfaction surveys typically include questions about process effectiveness. Even after years of BPR, Six-sigma quality and other initiatives, our surveys almost always identify significant opportunities to increase business process effectiveness for employees, customers and suppliers. Shortfalls in IT application design and implementation, insufficient training, poor process design and other reasons typically are the causes of ineffective business processes.
The Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey asked people to rate and comment on how effective their organizations are at identifying and dealing with low-performing managers and employees. The overall rating for all survey responses is a very low 2.65 where 5 = Effective and 1 = Ineffective.
Quantisoft includes this question in many of the customized employee surveys we conduct for organizations across the U.S. and internationally. We often see similar low ratings in many of the employee engagement surveys / employee satisfaction surveys. The comments received from survey participants typically explain the low ratings. Failure to effectively identify and deal with low-performing managers and employees is very frustrating to co-workers, who end up having to do extra work to compensate for the weak performers. It shows up in poor quality and customer service, lower overall productivity and lower employee morale.
The solution to this costly problem includes making managers at all levels of the organization aware of the need to proactively identify and deal with poor performers, doing a better job of hiring high-performing employees and managers and dealing with poor performers on a timely basis.
Innovation is vital to the sustained growth and viability of companies in industries including high-tech, biotech/pharmaceutical, energy, etc. New products sometimes create disruptive technologies and new categories (e.g. iPad and iPhone) and new approaches (e.g. hydraulic fracturing to boost oil and natural gas production) are sometimes game changers. For organizations in other industries and sectors, innovation is important more for enabling them to meet customer expectations, to stay ahead of the competition and to remain efficient. This is even true for governmental organizations.
The survey uses a rating scale of 1-5 where 5 = Effective and 1 = Ineffective. These low ratings indicate that most organizations are not doing enough to innovate to stay ahead of their competitors nor are they creating the culture and providing resources needed to support innovation.
Quantisoft’s employee satisfaction surveys/employee engagement surveys assess the culture and conditions needed to encourage and support innovation.
The Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey includes eight questions that directly assess various aspects of the organization’s focus on and support for customers. Many of the other questions indirectly assess issues impacting customers.
These are the eight questions that specifically focus on customers. The rating scale is 1-5 where “5 = Effective” and “1 = Ineffective”. We consider overall ratings (average rating for all survey participants) of 4.50 and higher to be good ratings and ratings of 4.75 and higher are excellent. All eight of the “customer focus” questions are significantly lower than 4.50 with most being very significantly below 4.50.
The highest rated customer focus question assesses the organization’s effectiveness in fostering a culture of ethical behavior with employees, customers, suppliers and the community. While this is the highest rated customer focus question, it clearly is a low rating in the context of the need for organizations to be “highly ethical” from a legal, reputational, organizational sustainability/survivability, customer and employee morale and other key drivers of organizational effectiveness and performance.
An overall rating of 4.20 for “making employee and customer safety a top priority always” is in reality a very low overall rating. Any rating less than 4.75 – 5.0 should be considered unacceptable. While it is not possible to guaranty 100% safety for customers and employees in all situations, any organizational that does not make employee and customer safety a top priority always sooner or later will likely experience significant injury and possibly death of employees and customers.
Failure of local, state and federal governments to properly inspect and fix deficiencies in the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure has resulted in bridge collapses and other tragic incidents and related deaths. The 2007 I-35 Mississippi River Bridge collapse in Minneapolis is just one example. Carnival Cruise Line’s tragic 2011 Costa Concordia disaster, the 2010 Horizon Deepwater Gulf Oil tragedy caused by inadequate focus on safety by BP and Transocean, and Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine disaster in 2010 are some of the more high-profile examples. Unfortunately there have been and will continue to be countless other unnecessary tragedies due to “making employee and customer safety a top priority always”.
The other customer focus questions should also be of major concern for most business, governmental and other types of organizations. The overall averages are ow, indicating that most organizations are not addressing these issues well and that the outcomes are impacting performance. Aligning strategies, people, structures, systems and processes to meet work and customer demands, at 3.29 and implementing employee and customer friendly business processes to enable efficient/effective transactions, at 3.17 are particularly low overall ratings.
Conducting holistic organization effectiveness surveys, employee surveys / employee engagement surveys and customer satisfaction surveys and then acting on the results enables organizations to significantly strengthen their customer focus and outcome effectiveness.
Employee satisfaction drives employee engagement which in turn drives employee and organizational performance. Quantisoft has experienced these interdependencies in the employee satisfaction surveys/employee engagement surveys we have conducted for businesses and other types of organizations since 1999.
Workforce effectiveness is a key component of Holistic Organizational Effectiveness and achieving high levels of employee engagement is essential for building a highly-effective, energized workforce.
The Holistic Organization Effectiveness Survey includes two questions that directly address employee satisfaction, engagement and performance, and many other questions that indirectly measure these issues. Following are the two survey questions and the very low overall ratings they received. The rating scale is 1-5 where “5 = Effective” and “1 = Ineffective”.
While some organizations conduct employee satisfaction and/or engagement surveys, many do not, and their focus on achieving high levels of employee satisfaction and engagement are often limited or non-existent. Further, while some organizations that conduct employee satisfaction surveys/employee engagement surveys do a great job of using the survey results to make changes resulting in large gains in employee satisfaction, engagement and performance, many others have mixed results at best.
Sometimes organizations and their leaders ignore survey results, take limited action and sometimes they even become defensive, instead choosing to challenge the validity of the survey results. Some leaders prefer to shoot the messenger bringing bad news (low survey ratings and negative comments from employees) than it is to take ownership of problems and to then take appropriate action.
Leaders of the best-performing organizations conduct employee surveys, customer surveys and other types of surveys and take aggressive action to achieve positive results. They realize they can learn a lot from employees and customers and failing to do so results in a major missed opportunity.
Shortfalls in information technology and business process effectiveness are significantly impacting the Holistic Organizational Effectiveness (HOE) of most businesses, governmental, not for profit and other types of organizations.
Today, organizations rely heavily on technology and business processes to make their people more effective, to perform many mission critical tasks, to provide services to customers, to store and access information and to perform many other important actions. When information technology and business processes are planned, implemented and supported inadequately or ineffectively, organizational effectiveness is significantly impacted. Employee productivity and the ability of employees to perform their jobs effectively is impacted. Customer service and support are also impacted, as is many other aspects of running the organization effectively.
The Holistic Organization Effectiveness Survey takes a broad look at information technology and process effectiveness. The survey rating scale is 1 – 5 where 5 = Effective and 1 = Ineffective. The overall average rating of 3.32 and the HOE Survey ratings for Technology and Business Process Effectiveness are very low (see below), indicating that information technology and business process effectiveness is seriously impacting organizational effectiveness at most organizations.
These HOE Survey findings are very much in line with the findings of comprehensive IT customer satisfaction surveys Quantisoft conducts for businesses and other types of organizations. We also see evidence of significant shortfalls in information technology and business process effectiveness in many of the employee engagement surveys and customer satisfaction surveys we conduct.
Business processes that are inefficient, impacting productivity, process timeliness, quality, customer service/support, information access and availability, etc.
Insufficient, ineffective or no IT customer training provided for new applications and major changes in applications, and for new employees.
Poor rollout of new applications.
Applications that are cumbersome to use, that lack needed functionality, etc.
Slow networks that are often difficult or impossible to access when working from remote sites.
Old and underpowered desktop and laptop computers that are very slow, that take several minutes to boot up and that crash often.
Ineffective/inadequate processes for replacing desktop/laptop computers, printers, scanners, smartphones, office/desktop software.
Ineffective/inadequate communications from IT and between IT and IT customers.
These clearly are not the HR/OD issues that are often thought of when thinking about organizational effectiveness, yet IT and business process shortfalls have as great an impact on organizational effectiveness at many organizations as the typical HR/OD issues, and possibly even greater impact.
How effective are your organization’s information technology delivery and support, and business processes?
Does your organization’s senior leadership team have an accurate understanding of how effective (or ineffective) your organization’s ITdelivery and support, and business processes are?
How are information technology and business process shortfalls impacting your organization’s HOE, workforce effectiveness, customers, ability to compete effectively and bottom line?
What needs to be done to increase the senior leadership team’s understanding of the costs associated with IT and business process shortfalls?
Is your organization getting enough value for the money being spent?
Is your organization spending too little on information technology and business processes?
Can you get more value for the technology and business process dollars spent by doing it better, or do you need to spend more?
In summary, achieving high levels of information technology and business process effectiveness is critical to achieving holistic organizational effectiveness in any organization.
54% of the Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey (HOE Survey) responses came from people in HR and OD (Organizational Development) roles. The other 46% of responses came from a wide range of functional areas (e.g. general management, IT, sales, marketing, manufacturing/operations, finance, legal, internal consultants, etc.), from external consultants (15.5% of all responses) and from people in academic positions (2% of all responses).
The HOE Survey includes 97 questions that assess a broad range of holistic organizational effectiveness drivers. HR and OD typically are directly or indirectly responsible for many of the HOE issues (e.g. workforce excellence, culture, senior leadership development, organizational structures/systems/processes, HR strategy, performance measures & reward systems, etc.).The overall rating for all 265 survey participants and questions is 3.45 on a scale of 1 – 5 where 5 = Effective and 1 = Ineffective. The overall rating for responses from OD is 3.49 and for HR the overall rating is 3.37.
How would you rate your organization’s overall HOE, and the ratings for each section and question within the HOE Survey?
What are your organization’s HOE gaps (i.e. how much below optimal HOE levels is your organization)?
What would it take to make your organization’s senior leadership team aware of the HOE concept and the potential benefits for them and for your organization?
What can you do to make your leadership team aware of HOE?
Do your organization’s HR/OD functions have the expertise, ability, positioning and credibility needed to lead a long-term HOE improvement process for your entire organization?
The Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey found that most organizations are falling far short in doing the things necessary to create a highly effective workforce. Achieving workforce excellence is a dream more than a reality. The survey includes a section on workforce effectiveness as well as numerous questions in other sections of the survey that also impact workforce effectiveness.
The ratings for the Workforce Excellence Section are presented below. The survey uses a 1 – 5 rating scale where 5 = Effective and 1 = Ineffective.
All of the “workforce excellence” ratings are very low, indicating a large opportunity exists for significantly increasing workforce effectiveness in most organizations. The ratings are similar across many industries, governmental and not for profit organizations across the U.S. and in other countries.
The workforce excellence findings are in line with the findings Quantisoft sees in the employee engagement surveys / employee satisfaction surveys we conduct for companies and other types of organizations. Most organizations are underinvesting in their people and they are not effective in proactively building a strong workforce. Most organizations are especially weak at dealing with issues that are barriers to achieving a highly effective workforce such as identifying and dealing with low-performing managers and employees.
The Holistic Organization Effectiveness Survey Report also includes other issues that impact workforce effectiveness and excellence. The effectiveness of senior leadership, IT support/execution and corporate culture are some of the other drivers of workforce effectiveness included in the report.
How effective is your organization’s workforce? What are your workforce’s strengths and weaknesses?
What measurements does your organization have in place to assess workforce effectiveness and the actions and resources used to strengthen workforce effectiveness?
Does anyone in your organization have an idea of the drag that deficiencies in organizational effectiveness may be having on your organization’s ability to achieve your desired outcomes and to boost your bottom line?
Considering all of the workforce excellence drivers included in the Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey, what should your organization do to significantly increase workforce effectiveness?
The Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey (HOE Survey) assesses how effective an organization is in doing the things and establishing the environment and conditions necessary to achieve the outcomes the organization intends to produce.
The HOE Survey includes 12 sections with 97 questions in all. Each of the questions represents an important driver for achieving HOE. The average overall rating for all questions and all survey participants is 3.45 on a 1 – 5 rating scale where 5 = Effective and 1 = Ineffective. While some survey participants rated their organization’s HOE significantly higher or lower than the average rating for all respondents, the overall average HOE rating of 3.45 is a very low rating. Ideally, any organization’s HOE rating should be between 4.5 and 5.o and as close to 5.0 as possible.
The following profile graph shows the HOE gaps for each of the 12 HOE survey sections and for the aggregate overall survey results. Gaps are the difference between the ratings being on the outer circle (rating = 5.0) and the actual rating. The HOE profile graph shows the areas of relative strength (none of the HOE Survey sections received high overall average ratings) and relative weakness.
The HOE Survey Report (pdf) includes profile graphs for each of the individual survey sections, displaying the HOE gap for each of the survey questions within the respective survey sections.
Why take a Holistic approach to measuring and achieving Organizational Effectiveness?
The HOE Survey takes a holistic approach to assessing Organizational effectiveness because there are many important issues that drive organizational effectiveness, organizational health and an organization’s ability to achieve its “desired outcomes”. Focusing on some or all of the HOE drivers that HR and OD typically focus on is simply not enough. Effectiveness of senior leadership, governance, innovation, technology and business processes, suppliers, enterprise risk management (ERM), environmental sustainability, financial planning/management/measurement and other factors is critical for achieving desired organizational outcomes.
Having relatively low HOE levels in any of the 12 key HOE driver areas (survey sections) can seriously impact an organization’s ability to achieve its desired outcomes and it can ultimately become the cause of the organization’s failure.
What do you think your organization’s HOE gaps are? How do you know?
How much more effective would your organization be if it assessed HOE and then implemented an ongoing HOE improvement process?
What would it take to make your organization’s senior leaders aware of the HOE concept and to buy into and implement a long-term process for achieving HOE excellence?
What additional resources are needed for your organization to implement a HOE improvement process, getting all functions within the organization actively involved?
Which functional area within your organization is best positioned to drive your organization’s HOE improvement process?
What are the next steps in making your organization’s leadership team aware of HOE and then starting up a continuous HOE improvement process for your entire organization?
Is Your Senior Leadership Team Driving or Restricting Your Organization’s Success?
The “Senior Leadership Team’s Effectiveness” is probably the single most important section of the The Holistic Organizational Effectiveness Survey (HOE Survey). To a great extent, the senior leadership team is responsible for all of the issues included in the HOE Survey. A highly effective leadership team, especially the CEO, is essential for achieving holistic organizational effectiveness. More often than not, great (highly effective) leaders achieve great success for their organization, their customers/constituents, their employees and their share/stakeholders. Weak (ineffective) leaders usually achieve mediocre results or failure.
How would you and your colleagues rate the effectiveness of your organization’s CEO and your senior leadership team?
What can be done to make your CEO and senior leadership team aware of their effectiveness as perceived by your organization’s people? Would they be open to learning the results and making changes in how they lead, or would they be defensive, challenging and rejecting the results if they are not very positive?
Thinking about the HOE Survey leadership effectiveness questions, what needs to be done to significantly increase the effectiveness of your organization’s top leader and his/her senior leadership team?
In most organizations there is a very large gap in performance between the top and bottom performers in every job in the organization, from the C-suite down to the lowest levels of the organization. Top sales people, whether they are selling cars, pharmaceutical products, office equipment or anything else typically sell several times more than the least effective sales people. Likewise, the top performing Engineers, Scientists, IT, Marketing, HR, Finance, Operations, Audit, Supply Chain and other people in professional positions out-perform the weakest people by a wide margin. Even in the simplest jobs, the gap in output between the top and bottom performers is often 50 – 100%. We call this gap in performance the “People Performance Gap”.
The “People Performance Gap” impact is greatest at the C-suite level. A highly effective CEO can lead an organization to great success while an ineffective CEO can easily bring an organization to mediocrity or even failure. (“People Performance Gap” article).
Most organizations don’t do enough to understand and address the “People Performance Gap”. In many of the employee engagement surveys, IT customer satisfaction surveys, external customer surveys Quantisoft conducts, we see significant problems due to ineffective and difficult managers and people in various positions. The problems impact employee and customer engagement and loyalty, employee and organizational performance and the bottom line.
What if anything does your organization do to recognize and deal with the “people Performance Gap”?
What is the impact of low-performing people in your organization?
How much better could your organization become in terms of achieving desired outcomes by effectively addressing the “People Performance Gap” and workforce effectiveness issues included in the HOE Survey?
What needs to be done and who needs to do it for your organization to address the “People Performance Gap” opportunity?


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Gypsum is versatile and widespread. It is used as set-regulator for cement, as fertilizer, blackboard chalk, for brewing, baking, tofu manufacture and much more. A massive fine-grained white or lightly tinted grade of gypsum, called alabaster, has been used for sculpture by many cultures, including Ancient Egypt for the construction of the pyramids, Mesopotamia, Ancient Rome and the Byzantine Empire. Nottingham carvers in Medieval England also worked with alabaster. Over the past 3,500 years, it has become one of the most important mineral used in the production of construction materials.
lightweight building elements primarily used as an interior surfacing for building walls and ceilings. Gypsum board walls and ceilings have a number of outstanding advantages: they are fire-resistant, sound-attenuating, durable, economical and versatile.
Besides standard plasterboards, water-resistant (impregnated) and fireproof boards (fiber-reinforced) are available. Furthermore, special boards such as acoustic, thermal and radiation protection panels are also commercially obtainable. More than 12 billion m2 of wallboard are produced in over 400 plants globally every year. This is more than the surface of the European continent!
Gypsum boards consist of a thin core of gypsum between two cardboard sheets. Their manufacturing process was patented more than 120 years ago, in 1894 by Augustine Sackett. Today, it is a highly automated continuous process. The gypsum core is made of gypsum binder, water, various performance additives and prefabricated foam. Lightweight boards can consist 50 % or more of air.
All ingredients are mixed for just a few seconds to form a slurry, which is then poured onto a cardboard sheet, homogenously distributed and covered with a second cardboard layer. On a long setting-line the gypsum binder chemically reacts with water. The formed crystalline structure sets and hardens and gives gypsum boards a certain strength and provides adhesion to the cardboard sheets. After the setting process, boards are cut from the continuous line to the appropriate length and transferred into the dryer. There, excess water is dried out of the boards, resulting in the finished product less than one hour after mixing the raw materials.
Quick setting and hardening is of crucial importance to be able to run the gypsum board production at high speed for maximum capacity utilization. Efficient gypsum board production requires a combination of suitable retarding and accelerating additives to achieve the ideal setting curve. This so-called snap set follows the same principle as pushing gas and brake pedals during a car race.
providing the gypsum industry with the best-performing gypsum retarder available on the market.
Saving energy, reducing CO2 emissions and achieving a sustainable bottom line in terms of production are ever-present topics that are also gaining importance in the gypsum industry. In wallboard production today, approx. 70% of the water added in the mixer is not consumed during gypsum binder reaction but must be evaporated from the boards.
technologies such as Sika® ViscoCrete® helps to cut energy costs. It also reduces the carbon footprint over the entire service life of gypsum boards. The Sika® ViscoCrete® product family includes extremely efficient liquefiers tailored for gypsum applications.
Get more details at the GYPSUM website.

industry_corpus2: Manufacturing


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We are seeking original UNPUBLISHED flash fiction, prose poems, and 2D art from around the world. No more than 2 stories or poems at a time. Novel excerpts are fine, so long as they are unpublished. Please upload as one submission, but separate documents. Up to 15 art pieces, but still in one submission, please. Do not submit more than twice per reading period (in between issues). Simultaneous submissions welcome, but notify us if there is a withdrawal.
In your cover letter, please include a brief, third person bio. Please specify if you would like feedback or critique on your pieces. If you do request feedback, please keep in mind that this will make your waiting time longer. Also, please do not request feedback if you are submitting within the month before an issue debuts.
Before submitting, check out our interview over at Six Questions For… about what we look for in pieces.
Note: We do NOT publish anything that is racist, hateful, or harmful towards other groups. We are LGBT friendly.
Flash Fiction (<1000 Words): Think concise. Think emotive. Think visual. We like stories that take the ordinary, and highlight daily nuances in ways we’ve never seen. Think about the human condition; what leads us to be obsessive? Think about the things that have way more meaning to you than you’d ever expect. Give us a juicy, ripe, slice of life. Surprise us.
Remember that even though it’s short, a story still needs to be a story. Give us authentic characters inside an interesting plot, and surround it with deliberate writing and good editing. Send us your best work, a final draft–not a rough one.
Prose Poems (<1000 Words): Poetry is cool, but we don’t want fancy line breaks and white space: just words and sentences. Give us some music, but put us in the scene. Use all our senses, and confuse them. Surprise us.
2D Art: We want cool illustrations, abstract paintings, awesome comics, and interesting photography. Give us a PNG or JPG that’s high quality, and a good size. Give us something that makes us think about the small things, or makes us feel something new. All submissions will be considered for the cover.
Six-Word Stories: A six word story should be just that: a story. Just like with our regular submissions, we look for strong, concise language that carries a deeper meaning. Instead of writing a sentence of a “thing that happened,” give us more. Submit your three best in a single document.
For example: /They already fought over wedding gifts/ implies more than just two people fighting over a present. It’s referring to a married couple so unhappy, they fought over gifts right after the wedding. This speaks to marriage, love, fighting, etc. But you can do even better; keep this in mind as you’re writing yours!
Note: Since titles take away from the form, they will not be included.
Unfortunately, as we are a small non-profit magazine just starting up, we are unable to offer payment for your submissions at this time. We are accepting donations in the hopes that we may one day be able to, though we are paying out of pocket for everything, including Submittable. However, the magazine will be offered as a free download upon publication, and we may be able to spare free print copies for contributors.
Rights revert back to the author upon publication. If you ever publish elsewhere, though, a mention would be nice!

industry_corpus2: Literature & Emotions


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5GB Free space for backup or storage.
Ability to use private encryption key.
Can backup content from multiple devices including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
Can backup to a local disk.
Overage fees if you go over your storage quota.
No medium sized plan. 1TB to 10TB personal plans.
Interface is somewhat confusing and could use some improvement.
With a plethora of options and features IDrive stands out from many of the other cloud backup and storage services with what you can do with the service. Need a cloud backup option, IDrive does that. Need to share files, you can do that as well. In fact there are a lot of things that IDrive does that will make it very appealing to many people.
Perhaps the features that stand out to me about IDrive is the multiple backup features that are missing from many of the cloud backup services. If you have multiple PCs and Macs you can back them all up onto one account and manage them all. Add in the ability to backup files from Android and iOS and you have a fairly complete backup service for all the devices you use on a daily basis.
Installing IDrive is a straight forward process for any one that routinely installs software on computers. Before installation an account on IDrive is required and that is possibly the most difficult part. Personally I hada small problem creating an account on IDrive and has to actually do the account creation process twice. Once the account was created I was able to download the software and begin the installing process in my windows 10 test machine.
Once the software is installed and you sign in with the account you created you can then define the backup and perform other account functions.
Starting the backup is as easy as clicking the “Start Backup Immediately” button. By default the IDrive application will select some of the most common folders for backup. For many users that could be all they need but if you have files stored in other folders not in your home folder you should check to see what IDrive is selecting to backup to make sure all of the data you want is a part of the backup. Remember IDrive is not unlimited storage so if you have more data than your plan allows you will be charged overage fees of $0.25/GB/month.
As you can see in the video I had no problems uploading the 3GB to IDrive, with it taking roughly an hour to complete.
To start restoring your data you can go to the restore tab in the app on your desktop. You will see a listing of all the folders and files you have backed up with IDrive. You can select what folders and files to restore and click the “Restore Now” button. You will notice if you watch the restore portion of my test video that the files were automatically restored to my documents folder. You can choose to have them restored to the original locations. For the test it did not make since I wanted to compare some of the original files and the restored files. Also in the event that the restored files are corrupted restoring to the original locations might overwrite good files with bad. Always best to be cautious when restoring, having more copies is better than none.
Some screen shots of the many settings pages available in the IDrive application. For the most part the default settings in IDrive will probably be fine for most users. IDrive has a number of features, including many that I did not include in the video, like cloud sync, local backup options, scheduling options and disk image backup. For many people they may not need or use all of those features but they are there if you want to enhance your backup.
I would highly recommend people check out the local backup as well as the cloud backup options in IDrive. Backing up and restoring from a local hard drive will always be faster than a remote backup to the cloud. Plus always better to have more than one backup and IDrive helps people to achieve that goal to help keep your data safe.
If you want to save on your first year of IDrive here is an easy way. Sign up for the free 5GB account, install the software test it a little bit to see if it meets your needs. In a day or two you will most likely get an email similar to the one to the right offering up to 75% off your first year. You can then upgrade your account with a large savings and you would have gotten a head start on your initial backup.
IDrive has many features that make it a very good cloud back up service, particularly for those with multiple devices. They do not charge extra for backing up more than one computer and devices on the same account. You can even backup Android, iOS and Windows phones into the same account if you want. The extra features such as file sync, hybrid/local backup, image backup, social media backup and many other features makes IDrive a very good all around cloud backup and sync service. If you need all of those features IDrive offers them all instead of getting multiple accounts and services to do each individual aspect.
The one downside to IDrive is the limit on storage and the lack of any storage plans between 1TB and 10TB along with the subsequent price jump. If you can keep your storage needs below 1TB then IDrive has it all, if you go over the 1TB there are other cloud backup services that might not have all the same features as IDrive but will not cost as much as the 10TB plan either.
For the record, I am an IDrive partner. If you signup for IDrive through my link and you confirm you were referred by lgr_ce they will compensate me but that in no way has impacted my review.
If I could give less than 1 star, I would. This service sucked! Although I didn’t have a lot of files or applications, I thought it would be a good idea to back up my computer. So, I bought their service. However, it took so long to back up the files and the back up failed so many times that I only got 12% of my computer backed up before it crashed on me. I had to engage a service and pay to extract the files off my hard drive and buy a new computer. Then, I went out and bought a hard drive and backed up my system myself. It was cheaper and faster. I bought the annual service about 2 months ago and am reading in their legal terms that they do not give partial refunds. I am VERY unhappy with the product and their service. I would stay away from using iDrive.

industry_corpus2: Computing & Telecommunications


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Moving? Whether your move is across town or across the country, Pak Mail has the supplies you need. We carry a full array of boxes, tape and packing materials.
Hard to pack items? Let us pack them for you. Let Pak Mail take some of the stress out of your move.
Father’s day will be here before we know it. June 17. Stop by PakMail Avon, we can get dad’s gift packed, shipped, and delivered safely and on time. We have Father’s day greeting cards as well.
Pak Mail specializes in moving furniture and other household goods. If your shipment is 2000 lbs and up we recommend using a mover. If your shipment will be less than 2000 lbs we are uniquely positioned to handle this type of shipment. We often ship estates to one or more locations.
Our services are typically door to door delivered curbside or into a garage. We can also arrange for white glove delivery service in many locations. White glove delivery will bring your items into the new location and remove much of the packing materials such as skids, crates, corrugated, and loose fill.
Call us for more information or request a free quote.
Now that the kids have been sent back to school you will need to send them everything that they left behind. We can help when your son or daughter needs supplies shipped or just a little care package to cheer them up.
This fall we will be providing specials on crating and freight services. When you find a need to send a few of your heirlooms we are uniquely qualified to handle these types of shipments.
We can pack, crate, and ship just about anything.
When your spring cleaning plans include downsizing, Pak Mail of Avon can help. When you decide to send a piece of furniture, art, or some china to a family member we have the solutions. We have all the materials to pack almost anything and send it anywhere. We can even create custom crates for high value or highly fragile items. You can be sure that we will get those items to their destinations in one piece and on time. Pak Mail offers local pick up and delivery services. Shipping services are arranged through UPS, FedEx and common carriers selected to provide the best service for you our valued customers.
It feels like summer just got here, yet the fall will be here before you know it! With the end of summer comes back to school thoughts. If you have a student in your life who is headed off to school in another town, Pak Mail of Avon can ensure that his or her move is a smooth one.
We specialize in the care, handling, and shipping of the most fragile or bulky items. You don’t have to worry about how to get the computer, DVD player, game console, or bicycle to school when you use the professionals at Pak Mail of Avon. We offer all the supplies needed to organize and ship your students belonging’s.
Our packing and shipping solutions are practical throughout the whole school year as well. As students realize they have forgotten essentials, or parents just want to send a goody box.
The professionals at Pak Mail of Avon are here to help you with all your shipping needs as you ship your student off to school or throughout the year.
Pak Mail of Avon has updated our website to better serve our customers. The new site now includes on site tracking for up to date package and shipping information. Feel free to browse the site and don’t hesitate to contact us with questions or comments.

industry_corpus2: Transportation


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Are you fond of elegant style? Allow your adorable dog take joy in wearing such accessories on! Present him this awesome leather dog collar with adornments from FDT Artisan. This accessory is crafted for those who just love elegant style. In this remarkable collar, your doggie will have more strict, but handsome look. Your attractive doggie will get the best treatment when wearing this supply. Genuine leather is totally safe.
Chrome plated traditional buckle will stand out even the strongest Mastiff force. Stunning decorations are chrome plated and have luxury look. Point up your Mastiff's outlook, purchase this Artisan elegant full grain natural leather supply!
Full grain genuine leather was chosen to provide total comfort and safety while wearing. The material is carefully oiled that prevents it from cracking. Among the best features of full grain leather are good adjustability, wear-resistance and solidity. The layer of leather is quite thick that doesn't allow the tool damage. It allows you to walk even big and tough dog safely. Rounded and smooth edges of the tool are non-cutting and don't irritate the four-legged friend's skin. Besides, full grain leather doesn't consists of any toxic elements being absolutely eco-friendly.
What about the embellishments, they are exquisite! Catchy studs are set along the leather strap. These decorations are chrome plated and, therefore shine with attractive glittering. The fancy design of this gear is inimitable and individual. Due to these decorations, this leather dog collar has a spark. That means your dog will have his individual and exquisite style.

industry_corpus2: Others


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It's a logo of HD 1080p reduced to an image with the numbers 1080 on it. The logo is enclosed by a square. It pretty much looks like the 1080p logo on most High definition televisions.
This page shows the different variations of the HD 1080p from an Icons8 icon pack. Feel free to resize and recolor the icon, and then download the icon in PNG format for free.

industry_corpus2: Film & Entertainment


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On October 13, 2017, Mars will move into Virgo. It will remain here till November 30, 2017. Some changes will be seen in the life of every native owing to this planetary change. Read this article by astrologer “ Acharya Raman ” discover your fate.
Mars will transit in Virgo on October 13, 2017. It will reside here till November 30, 2017. Here, Mars will travel in its own constellation and in the constellation of Sun and Moon .
Ascendant lord will transit in sixth house in the constellation of Sun, Moon, and Mars. Mars is itself eighth house lord; hence, don’t involve in useless tiffs. Focus on your work only. Love life might not remain blissful. Your own anger and attitude will harm you. Health of your child might get affected. Drive very carefully. Avoid alcohol and betel. It would be good to maintain distance from oily and heavy food as well.
Personal life will go smooth and live matters will keep you happy. You should not get angry on your children. Health of child might get affected. Betting won’t bring profits; hence, stay away. Make sure not to hurt others with your language. Short journeys are possible, which will bring benefits. You will remain energetic and therefore, you will accomplish your endeavors successfully. Don’t get into any argument or conflict, else matter might get complicated. You are expected to make useless expenses.
You might get angry unnecessarily. Also, you might feel annoyed. This might affect your personal life as well. Though friends will help you willingly, but you will still remain uncontented. Financial gains are foreseen; use your intellect to utilize the opportunity. Short journeys are also possible. You will be appreciated at workfront, but sudden dispute is possible with someone. Kill your ego. Start getting up early and practice meditation or Pranayama .
There will be an improvement in your communication skills. Your self confidence will help you the most and you will move forward in life. Luck will support, but not much. Stay determined on your goals and don’t interfere in others matters. Businessmen will enjoy profits. People who are into jobs will be admired for completing their target either on time or before time. Long journeys are possible, which will give profits.
Living in harmony with family is the first step toward a blissful life. Never force them to obey you. You might meet your old friends. Love life will prosper. Financial gain is possible due to spouse. You will engage yourself in religious activities. You might go on pilgrimage too. Sudden expenses are possible, stay alert.
Control on anger is very important. This will help you in personal as well as social sphere of life. Injury is possible in shoulder, abdominal region or face. Expenses will increase, but will come as well. You will get help from friends, important people and elder siblings. You must take their help. Things will remain normal at workfront.
Satisfaction will lack in personal life. Arguments will continue with spouse. You might feel annoyed. Conflict is possible with relatives. Income will be less, but expenses will remain high. Believe your abilities more than believing your friends. Friends might ditch you. You will dominate enemies. You might get trapped in any legal matter. You might suffer from insomnia.
Love life will not go great, arguments are possible. Any minor issue might turn serious and complicate everything. Arguments are possible in family as well. Take care of your eating habits, as stomach ailments are possible. Avoid alcohol and junk food. If you are willing to change your job, this time is helpful.
Don’t lose your temper and be in harmony with everybody. It is good to respect seniors and boss, it will help you only. It is your responsibility to fulfil wishes of elders of your family. Do everything you can for people you love. Hurdles are foreseen at workfront, but you will handle them. This transit is auspicious for you; hence, no need to worry.
Mars turned exalted in Capricorn. For this ascendant, Mars is eleventh house lord. It will travel in ninth house, which is a benefic house. Minor issues are possible, but you will remain unaffected. Everything will get back to normal in few days. Conflict is possible with spouse. Any work might come up at home. This time is meant to engage in religious or spiritual deeds. Seek almighty’s blessings.
Some sort of loss is assured when tenth house lord will come in eighth house. You need to gain control over your thoughts. If you are used to alcohol, decrease its quantity. If possible, stop taking it. Hurdles are possible in some endeavors. Take care of health. Any disease is possible; hence, be alert regarding health. You might get back your money.
Mars for you is second house lord and is transiting in seventh house. Profits are foreseen for businessmen. Progress is possible for those who are into jobs. Bliss will come in love life. Normal problems are possible in conjugal life. Nothing major is foreseen, you need to put control on your anger. Eat healthy and simple.


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Estimator needed in Kansas City, KS.
Ironworkers needed in Madison, KS.
Now hiring a Senior Estimator in the Kansas City area for direct-hire!
CDL Class A Truck Drivers needed in Kansas City, KS.
Health Insurance Account Representative needed in Kansas City, KS.
Vacuum Truck Operator needed in Coffeyville, KS.
CDL Class A Truck Drivers needed in Lenexa, KS.
CDL Class b Flatbed Driver needed in Lenexa, KS.


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Today I will be sharing my thoughts about new Limericks Network website.
Couple of weeks ago I was searching around the net about the popular and interesting stuff that are happening in Limerick city. By chance I bumped on the website by the name SO Limerick, which I have heard of being mentioned around the place as a new Limerick Social Network – “The Small Facebook“.
So the logic was to join in and see what the website has to offer.
When you register and log in for the first time you are landing on your own Members page. There you can add and change personal details, also follow the latest news and happenings on the website.
Website itself offers lot of other things that you can check, go on to and just read about.
As a promotional service SO Limerick has a lot to offer, but it will need more exposure and marketing if it wants to get noticed and become what it COULD/SHOULD be – Proper Limerick Social Network website.
I found this website as an interesting tool where you can follow and see the news and the happenings about our city daily.
It’s a great starting point for anyone who wants to connect with others, check news and events or just learn more about the city of Limerick.
I would recommend SO Limerick to everyone in the city.
It’s a great idea that came from bundlbee.com digital agency, as one of their projects.
I hope this website will grow continuously, improve with time and and become noticed fully.
Fair play to the lads in BundlBee for coming up with SO Limerick.


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With Thanksgiving just over a week away, that means one thing: it's almost Black Friday! We know that many of our patients will be making a mad rush for electronics, but for those in search of a new pair of shoes (or three), we're here to give you some guidance. Don't worry: you can get some seriously great deals on amazingly cute shoes--and still have your feet feeling good! Let's dive in!
We all know that chilly fall temperatures here will feel balmy compared to the approaching winter lows. Which means that boots are likely on your Black Friday shopping list. Lucky for all of us, many major retailers, like Nordstrom, will have plenty of boots on sale.
Of course, not all boots are created equal when it comes to providing foot support. While most pairs offer dual-sided ankle support, there are other features you should seek out in a pair of boots. The first feature to examine is your boot's heel: your ideal heel height is two inches or lower. If you go any bigger on heel height, your body weight gets pushed to the front of your feet. This can cause you to experience pain in the balls of your feet. Overtime, it may also lead to inflammation in the nerves of your feet or toes (neuromas).
The second feature to examine is the width of a boot's heel. While skinny stiletto heels may look cute, they offer almost no support to the back of your feet...and you know what that means! Right--all your weight must, once again, be supported by your forefoot. While we've already discussed the problems with putting too much pressure on your forefoot, skinny boot heels come with other risk factors They leave you walking on an extremely wobbly base, something that increases your risk of falls and ankle sprains, regardless of how much ankle support the boot itself can offer.
Finally, it's crucial to consider what kind of weather conditions you'll be facing in your new boots. We all know that snow is coming, so if you have plans to wear these boots outdoors this winter, choosing a pair with good grips on the sole is a very smart idea. Certain brands tend to design with the health of your feet in mind (think Naturalizer and Sorel) but using these three criteria, it's entirely possible to find a foot-friendly boot from almost any designer.
Now that you know what to look for in outdoor footwear, let's turn to cozier matters: slippers!
Are you searching for new slippers this holiday season? Here's why we think you should be: not only do slippers make for great stocking stuffers, they also are a good idea for your feet. Here's the thing: no matter how clean you get the floors in your home, there's still bound to be some germs on the surfaces you step on. So, you certainly want a barrier between your feet and the floor. Plus, going barefoot leaves your feet cold--and vulnerable to attack from all those stray Legos your child swore she'd clean up!
But what kind of slipper should you be searching for this black Friday? Thanks to a little help from Oprah Winfrey, we've got some guidance to offer you!
This year, Vionic Slippers have made their way onto Oprah's "2018 Favorite Things" guide: here's why they're on our list as well. Unlike many slippers that are thin and flat, offering no arch support for your feet, Vionics come with a built-in orthotic foot bed. Not only does this offer greater foot support (meaning you'll experience less foot pain), it also helps your slipper stay in place as you walk. In contrast, other slippers tend to, well, slip, making your toes grip tight to keep them from falling off your feet. And in the world of podiatry, toe-gripping is no good: it can change the shape of your toes over time and, like other bad ideas, leave your feet feeling sore.
Not only are Vionic slippers good for your feet, they're also cute and cozy. They come in four different colors and range of sizes. They're also constructed from super-soft faux-fur, so your feet will get all the cozy goodness without the worry of animal cruelty.
That's all the good news, but here's the caveat: at $79.95 a pair, these slippers don't come cheap. But heck, that's why they're on our Black Friday list! With a good sale, Vionics can be the perfect purchase, and the perfect thing to slip on your feet after a long and grueling day searching for all those other post-Thanksgiving sale items!

industry_corpus2: Health & Medicine


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Forensic collection is becoming more prevalent in civil cases, and is a must for any criminal investigation. Choosing a service provider that can defensibly collect digital evidence becomes more important than ever.
Outsource Forensics can offer you comprehensive forensics collection services, maintaining chain of custody and audit trails, while using the industry's leading forensics tools. Our expertise has been tested and featured in trials in Northeast Ohio and across the United States. Our focus is to provide the most objective and fact-driven forensics analysis for your case.
Our experts in forensics and data carving have a great success rate. Contact us to get a customized action plan and price quote.

industry_corpus2: Law & Justice


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Can we get C-Span capture working? I’m finding a big need for this.
C-span is currently on our list of problematic sites that we are looking to fix with a future update. No ETA as of yet - hopefully in the next few months.


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Things can turn haywire when your vehicle suddenly malfunctions on the road. Car failures are common and when they happen, you need to know how you can deal with the situations. Having emergency car recovery service in Garland, TX such as DFW Towing makes life easier for you because you can quickly move the car to a garage for repair, and you also ensure that you don’t expose yourself to the hands of criminals. Highways can be dangerous particularly if your vehicle experiences a breakdown at night or miles away from home. You want to seek help immediately. Here are common causes of car breakdown that you need to know so that you can deal with them before the unfortunate happens to you.
At times, the fuel tends to change from liquid to gaseous form. This is called evaporative emission and can cause the vehicle to stop functioning. When the temperature outside the car increases, it is likely to increase pressure in the gas tank. This pressure may cause leaks of the fuel. While a loose gas cap could be the culprit for the leakage, you should not assume it is the cap. A cracked hose pipe could cause the leak, especially in older vehicles. You want to ensure that it is checked by a mechanic. A towing company will ensure the vehicle is moved to the garage in time.
The engine of your vehicle may surge because of dirty air filters. When the air filters are dirty, they force the engine to work harder. This may cause drivability problems. When the engine is surging, you want to have the car checked. Ensure you seek help of a vehicle towing company to bring it to a repair shop for check up.
A faulty cooling system can cause your vehicle to overheat. A low fluid level may also be another reason your car is overheating. When you see the dashboard warning light and you are pulled to the road side with a steaming hood, act fast. Call emergency car recovery service in Garland, TX to take the vehicle for inspection and repair by a mechanic. You will have your vehicle looked at and repaired to avoid inconveniences.
A common culprit of delays in road trips is having flat tires. This may be caused by wear and tear but other times, it may be due to over-inflation especially in summer months when the temperatures are high. The increased temperature will cause the air pressure in tires to rise thereby resulting in a blowout. If your vehicle experiences a blowout and you have no spare tire, then you may need to have it towed to a garage. Don’t drive a vehicle with a flat tire, you may damage the rim and other parts.
Driving a car that seems to be failing may be a risk you’re taking. Whenever your vehicle begins to experience mechanical problems on the road, just pull aside and seek help. Sometimes, you may be lucky to have a mechanic come and restore it. At other times, the issue may need a proper checkup using state-of-the-art technology. This means that it has to be taken to a garage shop. An emergency car recovery service in Garland, TX becomes handy during these desperate times.

industry_corpus2: Automobiles


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These very detailed and highly accurate statistics for every year of the Club's existence have been extracted directly from the original Season Notebooks and augmented from a wide range of other trusted sources.
There were no matches played during the First World War.
There were no matches played during 1941/42, 42/43, 43/44 or 44/45.

industry_corpus2: Sports


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We are a full-service salon. Claude Thomas’ staff is dedicated to the latest techniques and products available to our industry. Our service and dedication to our clients are unsurpassed. Claude Thomas Salon & Spa does not follow fashion but creates it.
Our site will guide you through our services and treatments, as well as offer information about our prices. We hope you will find all the information you are looking for about our salon right here on the website!
Where imagination leads to innovation.
Where beauty and welling-being fuse.
Where technique and artistry meet.
Where skill and inspiration balance.
Where performance and perfection are one.


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The International Journal of Livestock Production is an Open Access journal. Abstracts and full texts of all articles published in this journal are freely accessible to everyone immediately after publication without any form of restriction.
The International Journal of Livestock Production is a RoMEO green journal. This permits authors to archive any version of their article they find most suitable, including the published version on their institutional repository and any other suitable website.
The International Journal of Livestock Production is committed to the long-term preservation of its content. All articles published by the journal are preserved by Portico. In addition, the journal encourages authors to archive the published version of their articles on their institutional repositories and as well as other appropriate websites.
The manuscript handling fee for IJLP is $550 (USD).

industry_corpus2: Agriculture & Fisheries


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On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Sunday, March 31, 2019.
Most people who live in Maryland have probably seen a television program or a movie in which a character has a heart attack. These scenes typically involve a person clutching their check suddenly as the pain hits them. Certainly, chest pain may be associated with a heart attack but it is far from the only primary symptom. In fact, for women, it may not even be present at all.
How common are diagnostic errors?
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Monday, March 18, 2019.
Receiving a misdiagnosis from a doctor in Maryland can have serious repercussions. It could delay needed treatment for a serious illness or subject you to unnecessary treatment, perhaps even contraindicated treatment for your actual condition. People have died because of misdiagnoses, while others have sustained lifelong injuries.
What are the signs of a bad nursing home?
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Sunday, February 17, 2019.
If you currently have a loved one in a nursing home in Maryland, it’s natural to be concerned about the quality of care the person is receiving. While many facilities strive to put their residents first, others may exhibit signs of nursing home neglect or even abuse. Next Avenue warns families to look for the following red flags so they can act quickly to protect elderly relatives.
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Tuesday, January 1, 2019.
Residents in Maryland might assume that when it comes to the donation and transplantation of human organs, a tightly run and well-supervised system is in place. This would be a logical assumption given the highly critical and life-sensitive nature of the topic. However, it seems that this may not actually be the case. An incident that occurred in early December in the Pacific Northwest sheds some light onto what may be some gaps in the nation's organ donation process.
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Friday, December 28, 2018.
People in Maryland who find out that they must undergo a surgical procedure can understandably be nervous about this. In addition to concerns about the problem for which the surgery is recommended, patients today must also contend with the possibility than an error might happen during or after the operation. In recent years, it has come to light that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. This makes it important that patients advocate for themselves, either directly or via an appointed representative.
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Saturday, December 8, 2018.
When families in Maryland entrust professionals with the medical care and treatment of vulnerable individuals, they anticipate that their loved ones will be cared for with compassion. Often, they spend considerable time researching their options to find a facility that is capable of providing the type of committed care they want their loved one to have.
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Friday, November 30, 2018.
Most in Bowie likely associate medical malpractice with errors committed by a doctor in the course of providing treatment. Suicide cases might be viewed as being completely separate from medical malpractice issues. Yet what about those cases where it is believed the actions of a health care practitioner created the conditions that led to one's suicide? Given a doctor's unique knowledge of clinical science, it might be expected that they would know better than to put an at-risk patient in position of receiving counsel, care or medication whose direct (or indirect effects) could be harmful.
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Monday, October 29, 2018.
A deadly viral outbreak at a nursing facility sounds like the plot of a gothic horror novel, not a contemporary news story that could happen in or near Maryland in the 21st century. Nevertheless, this nightmare scenario for parents is currently playing out at a New Jersey long-term care facility for children with compromised immune systems where 25 children have fallen ill with an adenovirus, nine of whom have died.
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Friday, October 26, 2018.
Maryland residents rely on hospital staff for extremely important matters of health. However, hospital staff are human just like anyone else. They can make mistakes like anyone else, too. Unfortunately, the chances of these mistakes happening can be increased by problems in the industry itself.
On behalf of Reinstein, Glackin & Herriott, LLC posted in medical malpractice on Saturday, September 15, 2018.
When a person in Maryland goes to the doctor, they should always know that it is their choice as to what, if any, treatments they undergo or medications they take. As explained by the American Medical Association, except in extreme emergencies, health care is not to be administered to a person without their approval or the approval of an appropriate representative acting on the patient's behalf. This is called informed consent.