How much time do you spend on email? I know, that’s an odd question from a blog post that you probably clicked on because of an email.

According to one study, we spend 28 percent of our time in the office on email. Sound about right to you? I can certainly believe that I spend almost a third of my day reading, responding, and forwarding emails. They are a constant stream of project collaboration, business matters, personal messages from family and friends, advertisements and proposals, and of course spam.

Read more on Re:Re:Fw:Re: = 13 weeks of email every year…

Some days I get lots of things done. Others, well, not so much. Here are four tips on how you might accomplish more each day:

Don’t read your email in the morning.
Let’s face it, email is a time-suck. All of us spend way too much time reacting to the latest missive from the boss/spouse/co-worker/client/thatagencydude instead of getting anything done. If you avoid reading your email for at least an hour when you first come in, you might actually accomplish something every day. (BTW, this tip works for most social media addictions, so put that phone down.)

Read more on Eat a live frog first thing in the morning…

Fast, Good, or Cheap. Pick any two.
It’s an old saw, perhaps, but it still cuts. And the reason it is old, is that it is true. You simply can’t have all three at once.

Read more on Fast + Good (or Cheap) = ?…

I’m sure all of you have heard about Chick-fil-A being tried in the court of public opinion. You might even be going to their restaurants today to support one side or the other. But I’m not going to get into who is right and wrong because that’s not what this blog is all about.

Read more on How NOT to handle PR: Chick-fil-A lays an egg…

As Lisa mentioned last week, many of the financial and business pundits are calling JC Penney’s recent rebranding and “Fair and Square” pricing strategy an epic failure.

The idea behind “Fair and Square” pricing was that consumers were tired of sales, gimmicks, and the associated drama and uncertainty, so from now on, pricing would remain pretty much steady — you could drop in any time to buy socks and shirts without wondering if your goodies would go on sale next week. Now, of course, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, everyone is calling this an obviously stupid move, the CEO has stepped down, and the sales, coupons, and gimmicks are back.

Read more on Not a complete branding failure…

The 80/20 rule was actually named the Pareto principle after an Italian economist who noticed in 1906 that 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the people.

Since then, others have certainly noticed similar correlations and added their own takes on the idea: 80% of profit comes from 20% of your products, 80% of complaints come from 20% of customers, 80% of sales come from 20% of the sales staff. There are people that quibble over percentages, but no one disagrees that there seems to be an inverse relationship at work. And you certainly don’t have to be an economist to appreciate the idea that there is a smaller number of things you do in your life that account for the majority of positive results.

Read more on Is 80% of your marketing wasted?…

It always makes me feel good when I open my paper and see a nice article about credit unions. We could probably all agree that there are far more articles about banks (especially big evil ones), but when there is a CU article, it’s usually a good one. Yeah!

Read more on Is it time to rethink your lending audience?…

Sometimes people are surprised to learn that I actually started college in the School of Engineering. A year and a half later, I switched to the Professional Writing program and then got all mixed up with credit unions.

Read more on Solve the right problems…

Groupon likely won’t be able to continue doing business as usual in the future. The question is whether they see the waves coming.

For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about, Groupon is a web site that emails a deal-of-the-day to 35 million people. A deal is only good if enough people buy, so businesses know they are getting the numbers. The problem comes in when you look behind those numbers.

Read more on When the tide is against you…

We just moved our office.* It was long (over a year looking for the right location), it was time-consuming (felt like I had a second job during that year), and it was painful (my back is still sore).

Read more on Making the move…

Most people find their bosses to be decent people, but you may have a doozy. To find out how your boss rates, take the Boss Reality Assessment Survey System (BRASS) developed by Bob Sutton PhD, blogger and author of (what else?) Good Boss, Bad Boss.

Read more on Good boss or bad boss? Take the survey….

A former employer recently lost the head of their marketing department and thought it might be a good idea to get an outside opinion of the department before automatically hiring  a replacement. Since I had been their Art Director more years ago than I want to admit, they asked me to take a look and make some recommendations for improvement. So I spent yesterday talking to the people in the department and getting a sense of how things were running.

Read more on Choosing to manage by chaos…

Every year, Forbes magazine rates the 100 largest banks. This year, by chance, the two banks ranked 2nd and 3rd on the list are both in Kansas City, MO. Even freakier, they are run by cousins. Seems that back in the 1800s their great-grandfather owned several banks, among them UMB Financial and Commerce Bank (though they had different names back in the mid 1800s).

Read more on Banks and credit unions: shared values?…

At the 2010 MAC Conference, Bob Hoel, PhD of the Filene Research Institute shared these megatrends that are reshaping the financial services world:

1. Demographic trends

• Geezers Rule! In 2010, 32% of Americans are over 55. By 2015 that number grows to 35% of the population. Those over 55 want: personal service, competence (you need tellers who are good with seniors), good rates, and advice. They are more than willing to pay for book keeping, check writing services and record keeping, and they love CUs that call on senior citizen centers. Lots of seniors are in a position to help grand kids but don’t want unlimited liability. They are willing to put money into a CD or make loan down payments for them, but don’t know how to do it.

Read more on Seven megatrends reshaping the financial world…

Well I finally did it. After years and years of waiting and holding out for just the right reasons… I joined a credit union.

Our insurance has changed (yet again!) and we are now using a Health Savings Account so I had to open one. My first stop: my trusty bank.

Read more on A virgin no longer…