The McDowell Memo

Ever wonder why things today are not like they were when we were kids? There are no more hills to slide our sleds down , somebody owns them and they have signs no sledding allowed. No more ponds that you could just go jump in , we didn't know who owned it , it was wet and that is all we cared about. Why do people today have to always limit kids , I would wander my town all the why getting to meet new folks and having simple fun wherever I could find it. I could ride my bike around and around on the tracks at the school and parks, imagining a great trip somewhere. I learned to entertain myself and learned to dream . I think being able to dream is the essence of being a kid. It is where we start our plans for our life. But today kids are stuck in houses afraid to come out and play, they have to be watched by us "Nervous Nelly" adults . We stop them from doing things for fear they will get hurt , forgetting we did much worse when we were their age. They are kept in school an...

Back in class for the Spring semester and thinking about what we are teaching our young folks. When I was a kid the teaching always was about learning to learn and memorizing the facts as we knew them at that time. Today it is about learning to question all facts and what technology does to help you find the "truth". The problem I have is someone designed the technology and inputted what was the "truth". We don't know if they had an agenda or if they were even drunk when they did it. But if Google says it's so it's so. Today we are teaching that Jefferson was a racist slave owner, but not that he was a true renaissance man or that his purchase of land made the America we know today. We teach all about the frailties of our leaders and do not stress the strong points. Education has turned to the negative view point instead of being a positive attitude about most things. We stress English in all studies and make sure we can write well , but we don't str...

As my consistent readers know I have been not keeping up with my blogs well this past 2-3 months. It has been a very trying and stressful school semester and personally I had started to lose my ability to stay positive. Well I am back and I am going to cover a bunch of things here and hope you can hang on. Remember please comment and comment often. What is up with all this talk of racial differences being the cause of loss of life . I guess I must be old school stupid but I don't get the race part of it. First you have a young punk that strong arms a store and when confronted jumps the officer in the car. What difference is his color ( the suspect or the officer). It's a punk being arrested. If the officer went overboard judge it on the merits not the racial "issue". Then we have Cops in NYC trying to arrest someone for selling a single cigarette. Was the cigarette black? The cops were mixed from what I saw and what difference would it make if the defendant is white...

Where do you begin building a successful company? It is most times with the first and every hiring you do after that. Why is it so important to hire the right person? First , you are trusting your success, life, reputation, and finances to this person. They can not only impact you but every other employee and your family and their families. A bad hire can haunt you in several ways and we will discuss all of those and how to handle that later this month. A good hire can make your life easier , save you time, make you money and just make the world a better place. What goes into hiring a great person? You need a large pool of candidates with the appropriate education and experience You need a legally appropriate interviewing process and application You need a team of interviewers that stick to the process but ask the right questions and get the right answers You need a decision maker for each hire that will look at that person as a reflection of themselves You need a competitive wag...

Today's discussion is on the changes of asking the customer to do most of the work for customer service. http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3750381507001/customer-service-morphing-into-customer-self-service/?intcmp=obnetwork#sp=show-clips\ Willis Report Fox Business The above news clip talks about how we are being forced to use these new self service call lines, etc. I have seen this in retail with self checkouts cropping up everywhere. What do you all think? Please comment below.

Every organization is set up in some style of hierarchy to allow for communication and decision making. In a small organization it is usually a very well defined organization that everyone knows who is in charge of what and who is the decision maker. But , as organizations grow in size this can be blurred and so a different type of management organization maybe needed. We will break them down as best we can below and help you to see the positive and negative sides of each. Vertical Organization with straight line decision making- this is an organization that the bottom level employee reports to one manager , that manager will along with several other manager report to one manager, this continues until the CEO level with each person only have to report to one person above them. This manager makes all decisions in relation to the level below employee. Advantage is that you know who you report to and you know who made the decision you are impacted by. Disadvantages are if your manager...

Today we will finish up our introduction to various types of business ownerships. Corporations - these are the main stay of business as most of us have seen it portrayed in news and other media. A corporation is strictly a business that has filed to be able to sell shares or portions of it's company in order to raise funds, or to get tax advantages, etc. They are incorporated in a specific state, this is because certain states are where the business is located or because the state has advantages for the business(many are filed in Delaware) . A corporation can be closely held or publicly held. If it is closely or privately held all the stock is owned by one person or a family. If it is publicly held the shares are owned by may different citizens. This is usually the case with most corps. listed on the stock markets. Corporations must file quarterly tax and other statements with the state and federal governments and are regulated by numerous restrictions Advantage is that you can ...