Creating FULLY FUNCTIONAL LINKS (HTML coded).

3 Reasons Networking Events Increase Your Referral Business

Referrals are the lifeblood of small business.
Long-standing agents will find that repeat & referral business amounts to 60-70% of their business.
Events hosted by professional associations, college alumni groups and your local chamber of commerce are the perfect opportunity to expand your network of professional contacts.

Networking leads to a direct increase in the number of referrals you receive for new customers, earning you new business.
Yet, small business owners rarely take the time to attend networking functions.

Here are 3 key reasons why networking for referrals makes great business sense (don't forget to thank/gift your referrer):

1. Referrals come to you pre-sold.

When a network contact sends you a referral, they’ve already done a good part of the selling for you.

• This is a fantastic concept if you don’t enjoy prospecting for new business...but, if need be, force yourself to prospect.

• With every networking event you attend, have a focused goal of meeting new people whose business contacts complement yours.

• With a robust network, you’ve got your own pro-bono sales force enthusiastically working for you seven days a week.
You couldn’t build a better sales team than that!

2. Trust is built a lot faster with a referred client.

A key buying motivation with every consumer is reducing risk/gaining trust...

• No one wants to feel they’ve made a poor buying decision,

• A prospect who has been referred to you sees you as a friend of a friend, so you are instantly viewed as trustworthy,

• A referred customer feels more comfortable during the buying process.

The social aspect of networking events is designed to build trust, rapport, and friendships among business contacts.

• When attending functions look for ways to assist others in their business-growth objectives, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by professionals eager to send business your way as well.

3. Referrals clone more referrals

For long-term revenue growth, nothing beats the multiplying effect of referrals bringing new business directly to you.
Your reputation for quality and integrity grows with each new “generation” of referred business.

• The loyalty factor helps protect you against the fads and gimmicks of your competitors.
Remember that each new referred client has their own circle of influence representing a new door of networking opportunities for you.

• Find out what professional or social groups your new clients are involved in and offer to provide a short seminar, presentation, or article content
for its newsletter.

• Your valuable insight will win you the enviable reputation of “expert in your field” within that group. When they need assistance, you’ll be the one they call.

The time you spend building relationships within your professional network pays off better in long-term revenue growth than any other marketing strategy.

• Thinking of networking events as an opportunity to put more money in your pocket (increase revenue).

• The old adage, “Work smarter, not harder,” certainly applies when it comes to networking.

To find great networking opportunities, keep an eye on the schedules published by your local professional association, chamber of commerce and business newspapers.

• Once you are at an event, talk to as many people as possible about your business; it may surprise you how often they need your services or know someone else who does.
• Dedicate time each week to meet with others in networking activities, and you’ll see your referral business grow in ways you never thought possible.

source: CEOConsultant

Environmental news from California and beyond

Sunday marks a calendrical coincidence sure to catch the eye of numerologists and anyone fond of binary code. But Oct. 10, 2010, or 10-10-10, also has taken on ecological significance as a stage for global events centered around climate change.

Author Bill McKibben's 350.org (named for what scientists say is the safe level, in parts per million, of carbon in the atmosphere) has thrown its weight behind a Global Work Party, while Creative Visions Foundation is urging people worldwide to chronicle a day in the life of Earth for a geo-coded online video and photo montage.

Billed as a day of practical action to cut greenhouse gases that are warming Earth and provoking climate change, Global Work Party encourages local groups to sponsor events:

Since we've already worked hard to call, e-mail, petition and protest to get politicians to move, and they haven't moved fast enough, now it's time to show that we really do have the tools we need to get serious about the climate crisis.

On 10/10/10 we'll show that we the people can do this -- but we need bold energy policies from our political leaders to do it on a scale that truly matters. The goal of the day is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time but to send a pointed political message: If we can get to work, you can get to work too -- on the legislation and the treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run.

Creative Visions has teamed up with The World Wildlife Fund, American Red Cross, Oxfam, the United Nations Development Program and a host of non-governmental groups in creating an online video time capsule of 24 hours on the planet, called One Day on Earth:

With thousands of participants, ranging from teenagers to award-winning filmmakers, One Day on Earth is being represented by every country in the world. The unprecedented scope of video captured on 10.10.10 will be viewable through an online archive system, as well as a feature-length documentary that explores our planet’s identity, slated for 2011.

Following the landmark event, the One Day on Earth archive –- searchable by topic, popularity and location –- will be available for anyone in the general public to navigate and learn about important issues facing our global community. Participants will also have access to download all One Day on Earth footage for non-commercial purposes, offering an additional opportunity to produce their own interpretations of global life.

A video explanation of the project is available on vimeo.

No word yet whether motivator-maven Suzy Welch, author of "10-10-10: A life-transforming idea" has anything to say about the use of her favored numbers, nor whether the promoters ever considered the Roman numeral version: XXX

Did you really just click on XXX?

-- Geoff Mohan

Photo: Los Angeles 350.org activists gather in the foreground of the Hollywood sign. Credit: 350.org

Twitter: @latenvironment
Facebook: latimesenvironment
source: LATIMES

It's John Lennon Birthday...

CLICK on images for great John Lennon tunes....

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles and, with Paul McCartney, formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager, his first band, The Quarrymen, evolving into The Beatles in 1960. As the group began to undergo the disintegration that led to their break-up towards the end of that decade, Lennon launched a solo career that would span the next, punctuated by critically acclaimed albums, including John Lennon/Plastic Ono BandImagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". and

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, on film, and in interviews, and became controversial through his work as a peace activist. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam WarRichard Nixon's administration to deport him, while his songs were adapted as anthems by the anti-war movement. Disengaging himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, Lennon reemerged in 1980 with a comeback album, Double Fantasy, but was murdered resulted in a lengthy attempt by three weeks after its release.

Lennon's solo album sales in the United States alone stand at 14 million units,^[1]Hot 100 chart.^a In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. and as performer, writer, or co-writer he is responsible for 27 number one singles on the US

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How to Get Great Search Engine Rankings!

By Brandon Leibowitz

1. Choose Your Keywords Carefully

Once you've chosen your business and purchased a domain name the next step is to find useful and relevant keywords. Without this step your Web site will get lost among the many Web sites that compete for your business.

To begin keyword research you need to utilize some useful tools. The first Web site you should look at is Google Keywords which is a free tool that displays the amount of searches and competition for specific keywords. It also allows you to find more specific keywords that can better describe your site.

A better tool would be to purchase some type of software or service such as WordTracker which offers detailed information about keywords. Unfortunately it's not free, but there are other services that are.

2. Find a Niche Market

This cannot be stressed enough as it's much harder to receive top search engine rankings for a new site than an established site. A new site will have to compete with Web sites that have established high search engine rankings.

To compete with these Web sites is unwise. You first need to find a niche market, and then build up your Web site to a position as to where it can compete with these generic terms. For example let’s say you have a Web site geared towards weight loss. You would not use the keyword "weight loss" because there's too much competition. You can use one of the keyword tools to find suggestions of related keywords that you will be able to compete against. You may find the keyword “weight loss surgery” or “weight loss techniques.” These phrases are much better keywords than generic terms like “weight loss.”

Use the list of a few keywords, check out the competition that word/ phrase has on Google. Look at the number of competitors. If this exceeds a few million, then you need look for a more specific keyword. The next step is to observe the top listed pages and see how well they are optimized. You can download the Google Toolbar and add Page Rank to your browser for free.

A low Page Rank between 0 – 3 means that you can easily compete with these Web pages. A Web site with a Page Rank of 4 – 6 is a bit tougher to compete with, but is manageable using my guided steps and expertise. You don't want to compete with Web sites that have a Page Rank above 7. Check the domains homepage, not a sub-page to get an accurate Page Rank!

3. View Competitors Source Code

It's important to view potential competitor’s source code to see if they have efficiently performed on page search engine optimization. To do this on your Brower click “view” and then click on the “source” option as displayed.”

This will bring up a page with all the html code on it. You don't need to be an expert with html to understand what we're looking for. We need to see if our competitor’s Web site is properly optimized. We look to see if they are using their keywords in the header tags, the title tags, and the image alt tags. These should all be located near the top of the source code.

If you cannot find these then go to the toolbar and chose “edit” and select “find” and type in h1 or title, etc. to see if there are being used for the keywords. If these don't exist or aren't being used to hold keywords, you have found an easily beaten page. This means that with some proper optimization you will be able to outrank this page. The last thing you want to look at is the body content and to see if the keyword is used a few times in the body content. A site lacking in keywords in the body context is a poorly optimized page. You should always make sure your Web page is keyword rich with relevant content.

4. Keyword Placement

After you've selected a few keywords to use we want to combine the ones that have like terms. For example, if you've selected three keywords such as: weight loss story; weight loss picture; safe weight loss, you see that all three keywords contain the words “weight loss.” We can combine the words to better optimize your page.

For the title tag the fewer the keywords used, the better the search engines will rank your page.

When we create the page it should NEVER have “Welcome to our Web site!” in the Title Tags.

It should NEVER have “weight loss story, weight loss picture, safe weight loss” in the Title Tags either.

The way the title tags should look is: “Weight Loss Story | Safe Weight Loss Picture” (Note: You can add this character | by holding the shift key on your keyboard and pressing the backslash key above the enter key.)

You should always remove prepositions such as “and” as this will only hurt your search engine optimization. The fewer, more relevant the words, the higher your search engine ranking will be.

Header 1 tags should be placed above your body content. This should contain your most relevant keyword in this tag. i.e. “Weight Loss Story” This main keyword placed in the H1 tag will substantially increase your page ranking! The Header 2 tag should contain your second most important keyword. The header 3 tag will have your least important keyword placed in it. These header tags are often overlooked, but make a significant difference in your on page search engine optimization.

The body content of your Web page should be rich with keywords and relevant content. You should have each keyword appear at least once for every 1-2 paragraphs. Do not stuff your body with keywords. You want to give your body a clean natural look, meaning do not over or under use keywords!

Image tags alt tags should also be keyword rich. Search engines often look at the alt tags of images on your Web site. If the alt tags don't make use of your keywords then you will be ranked lower than if you had keywords in your alt tags.

5. Homepage Organization

We want the search engines to notice your keywords and index you accordingly. In order to do this you should start and end your body tags with your keywords. This gives the search engine spider information that your page is highly relevant to your keywords.

When the spider looks through your Web site it reads through your content from top left to bottom right. Below is an example of how the search engine reads your page starting with 1 then 2 then 3.

Rather than creating a table that looks like this:
navigational links
Your body text...

You should create a table that looks like this:
Your body text...
navigational links

Now, search engines will view your body content before it views your navigational menu. The search engine will see the top of your page then see a blank area and skip to your body content then move onto your navigational menu

6. Search Engine Submission

The best way to achieve high search engine rankings for new Web sites may not be what you expected. You should not submit your site directly to the search engines as this process can take weeks or even months to get your site listed. Instead you need to get listed on top ranking pages that are relevant to your Web site's content. These high ranking pages are often optimized on a weekly or even daily basis. Every time the site is indexed your link will appear and the search engines will automatically list your site in its index.

To do this you need to search for Web sites indexed by search engines and get them to link to you. The incentive you need to give them is to write some sort of article relevant to your line of business. At the bottom of the article you include your web page URL to get picked up by the search engines. You submit the article to popular article directories on the Web and you will be indexed by the search engines in a matter of days.

Here's a list of the most popular article directories:

GoArticles.com Ezinearticles.com ArticleCity.com Certificate.net/wwio Amazines.com Articledashboard.com Article-directory.com Submityourarticle.com/articles Magportal.com Isnare.com Pubs.acs.org/hotartcl Article-hangout.com Webarticles.com Articlecube.com Article-buzz.com

The other option is to perform a search of the most generic term that is related to your business. Click through these Web sites looking at the Page Ranks. Contact the Web site and ask them to link to your site and in return for linking back to their site. Always contact sites that are relevant to your line of work and always offer them something their visitors can benefit from once they add your link.

You can purchase a link in top Page Rank sites through link builders. A few of the good Web sites that can do this for you are: textbrokers.com or text-link-ads.com or linkadage.com.

Remember that you only need to purchase a link for one month, since it will take less than one month to get you indexed by the major search engines. Continuing to pay for the link after a month is a waste of your money.

7. Off Page Optimization

Here, you need to study the linking strategies of the top 10 Web sites for your keyword. We want to copy their model, but do things slightly better to achieve the top rankings. First open up a spreadsheet in Excel and list the following columns: Linking Web site, Anchor Text, Page Rank, Link Popularity Page Title, and Number of Outbound Links. Then we search your keyword on Google and fill in the information for the top 10 Web sites.

To discover the linking Web sites go to Google and type in the websites URL “link:www.thewebsite.com.” Then count the number of sites that are listed to get the link popularity.

Anchor text is whatever follows the .com or .org of a website URL.

Page Rank is the rank Google gives to Web sites. You can download it for free at Google’s Web site.

Page Title is the title of the page that appears on the top left of the screen. If the title does not contain the keywords then the site is not well optimized and easy to surpass in rankings.

Number of Outbound Links is the number of links located on the webpage linking to the site you’re checking.

Once all this information has been collected you can see what needs to be done to your site to beat the top ranking sites.

8. Search Engines and Capitalization

Capitalizing different letters in keywords brings up different results in search engines. Search engines are case-sensitive so it is important how you use capitalization. The problem with listing every variation of a word results in the search engines thinking that you are spam and deleting your URL. This gets worse with singular and plural words!

The solution is to stick with lowercase listings rather than trying different variations. Studies have shown that most people search in all lowercase and this has the most relevant listings. Not using every other variation means you lose out on 18% of traffic. This is not worth the risk of being banned from the search engines.

9. Search Engine Spamming

Search engine spamming is attempting to achieve top ranks for extremely popular keywords. Search engines have discovered ways to fight keyword stuffing and other search engine tricks. Search engines can detect your spam and will act accordingly by penalizing or banning you from their listings. The risks aren't worth the temporary rewards. Search engine spam should be considered the same as email spam.

10. Hire A Professional SEO

Hiring a professional search engine optimizer is a great idea if your business relies on Internet sales. Search engine optimization is something that is time consuming and requires lots of research. Most businesses don't have time to optimize their Web sites. At SEO Optimizers we make sure everything is inline at your site and fix any problems that may be holding you back from reaching the top ranks. If you really want to be at the top of any searches you need professionals to help you solve the problem.

About the Author

Brandon Leibowitz has been a professional search engine optimizer for years. He can successfully convert a site into one with top search engine rankings! He is the creator and owner of SEO Optimizers.

source: WebReference

Top 10 Inventions of the 20th Century

There can be no doubt that the twentieth century is one of the most remarkable in human history for its previously unparalleled rate of technological advances and scientific discoveries, a rate that continues to this day. In fact, there were so many new gadgets invented and discoveries made in the last century that it’s difficult to pare the list down to just the ten (which is why there will be a number of glaring omissions from my list). However, I think I have managed to whittle it down to those ten innovations or technologies that have had the greatest influence on humanity—both positively and the negatively. And so, without further ado and in no particular order, here are my nominees for the ten greatest inventions/discoveries of the twentieth century:

10. Nuclear Power

Nuclear power was to the twentieth century what steam power had been to the nineteenth: a game changer. Suddenly humanity had a power source that didn’t pollute, was efficient and practically unlimited, and so had the potential to change the planet overnight. Unfortunately, it was a two-edged sword in that this same energy source could be used to create the most destructive weapons in history, threatening human survival with its very presence. Additionally, while nuclear power plants didn’t spew pollutants into the air, in the hands of the truly incompetent they had the capacity to render whole regions radioactive and, as such, uninhabitable for generations (as was demonstrated at Chernobyl in 1986).

However, it is hard to deny the overall positive impact nuclear power has had. The fear of mutually assured destruction probably prevented the world from experiencing a third world war and, when operated safely, nuclear power plants truly are a superb and cost-efficient energy source that has the capacity to power entire cities. The only question is whether we’re mature enough to handle that power into the next century.

9. The Personal Computer

It’s difficult to imagine our world today without computers. Of course, they have been around since World War Two, but they were clunky, massively expensive things that had all the calculating power of a brick. When Steve Wozniak and Stephen Jobs introduced the Apple in 1976, however, it changed everything and the rest is, as they say, history. Today, of course, they are everywhere and we have become so dependent upon them that many people almost feel naked without one. For some, they even provide the very means of maintaining a livelihood: we use them to keep track of our finances, write books, design logos and sell real estate. Plus, they are rapidly replacing the stereo and television in their ability to entertain us with music, movies, and games. Makes it hard to understand how our ancestors did so well without them, doesn’t it? (Image: the Apple 1, 1976.)

8. The Airplane

Just as the locomotive made the world a smaller place in the nineteenth century, the airplane did the same for us in the twentieth century, shrinking our planet to the point that a person could fly anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. Not only have they made travel quick and safe, but aircraft provide many other services as well: from crop dusting and fighting forest fires to overnight delivery of packages and chasing hurricanes. They have also revolutionized warfare, turning battle into a long-range affair fought at arm’s length by machines of such sophistication that the way wars are fought has completely changed. Of course, they’ve also been responsible for leveling whole cities and bringing war to the civilian population—who had rarely been directly affected by war until the twentieth century—but then no invention is perfect.

7. The Automobile

Though under development in Europe during the nineteenth century, the automobile didn’t really become a practical and reliable source of transportation until the twentieth century. Once it did, it changed everything; overnight the horse and buggy became quaint anachronisms while much of the country was paved over to make room for endless ribbons of asphalt. It also brought about a revolution in the market place, suddenly making it possible to truck in goods that otherwise would be impossible to acquire. Most of all, Henry Ford’s assembly-line production style made the automobile affordable and accessible to the average person (before Ford’s Model T was introduced in 1908, only the fabulously wealthy could afford a car). The automobile gave everyone a degree of mobility and personal freedom our forefathers could only dream of, and turned entire generations of teenagers into raging revheads.

6. Rocketry

While the rocket was first invented and used by the Chinese over three thousand years ago—and used occasionally by the Greeks and Romans since —it wasn’t until the twentieth century that it came into its own and became more than just a dazzling amusement or a largely harmless but still effective “terror weapon” for ancient armies. In the twentieth century, rockets became bigger and more powerful. Most importantly, they became controllable, which suddenly made them useful both as weapons of war and, even more vitally, as our means of accessing outer space. Without the rocket, it is safe to say we would not only have never gone to the moon or visited every planet in our solar system. Rockets also place satellites into orbit around our planet, so without them we also wouldn’t be able to use GPS, predict the weather, make international calls or, for the most part, even use our cell phones much of the time.

5. The Submarine

Though submersible vessels had been used in the past (the CSS Hunley during the Civil War) and the first true submarine was invented in the 1880’s, it wasn’t until the twentieth century that the modern submarine came into its own. What started as an irritating, but still deadly, weapon in World War One grew into a monstrosity in World War Two- sinking more than any other type of weapon used. Today, with the advent of nuclear power—which gave the submarine nearly unlimited range and endurance—it has become the capital warship in every first-class Navy in the world and as such has effectively rendered naval warfare of the past obsolete. How effective is the modern submarine? Ask anyone who has ever served on one. They’ll tell you there’s only two types of ships in the world: submarines and targets. ‘Nuff said.

4. Antibiotics

Until Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, almost any little bug that someone picked up was potentially fatal. Once penicillin—and later a whole range of other antibiotics—came on the scene, however, death due to bacterial infection became rare, resulting in a greatly reduced mortality rate and much longer life-span. It also rendered many scourges of the past—from small pox and typhoid to gonorrhea and syphilis—obsolete or, at least in the case of venereal disease, something easily treatable.

3. Television

Yes, I know it destroys brain cells and renders people emotionally and psychologically damaged, but really, where would we be without the boob tube? It is society’s baby-sitter, news source, teacher, entertainer, and story-teller. When in competent hands, television can even be useful at times. Mostly, though, it fills our days with vapidity and all manner of inane and obnoxious commercials, and is the single greatest reason that families no longer eat in the kitchen or dining room anymore, but instead huddle in the living room around their television eating microwavable food and spilling soft drinks on the sofa. Still, even while we pretend we hate it, we can’t help but seeing what’s on tonight. Worse, most of us would have no idea what to do with our time without it, which is probably the saddest commentary of all.

2. The Internet

The computer rendered the typewriter obsolete and made writing in long-hand a thing of the past, but it took the internet to truly turn the computer into the monster it is today. While the airplane shrank our planet to the point that one could fly from New York to London in six hours, the internet made it possible to be there in a few seconds. It allows truth to make it into and out of repressive countries, it foments revolutions, and spreads lies at the speed of light. It also gives anyone the ability to buy and sell almost anything imaginable, find and torment old school mates, watch the latest you-tube videos, and even find their perfect life partner, all for a few bucks a month. Oh, and you can also get useful information off it if you don’t mind scrolling through 15,000 hits to find out just how long snails really live. Where would we be without it?

1. Radio

Few people today can appreciate the impact the advent of radio had on the twentieth century. Not only did it suddenly make it possible for a person to be heard from hundreds or even thousands of miles away without the use of a wire (quite an accomplishment in the first years of the century) but it was the center of family life through the end of the Second World War and into the doldrums of the fifties, when it was gradually replaced by that new-fangled contraption, the television. Today, it seems to only be useful in the car as a means of keeping the driver from falling asleep behind the wheel or as a tool of talk radio designed to rile the masses. In its day, however, it was every bit as vital to existence as the television, the computer, the microwave, and the cell phone are to us today.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Source: TopTenz

Jeff Danelek is a Denver, Colorado author who writes on many subjects having to do with history, politics, the paranormal, spirituality and religion. To see more of his stuff, visit his website at www.ourcuriousworld.com.

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The 13 Skills of the Public Relations Pro of the Future

Marketing and public relations are coming together. PR is growing as an industry while "traditional" advertising - what ever that is - remains flat. Still, we have taken no new ground in 'measurement' and articulating the tremendous ROI of PR. (What happened to the tremendous affirmation and call to action from AG Lafley?)

As I suit up to take on the graduate students of Johns Hopkins Communications program again this fall, I am mapping out the skills sets needed by the communications expert of tomorrow. I started this in another post and needed to add and consolidate some thinking.

Over the past few years at Ogilvy, we have unleashed one of the most intensive training regimens I know of for our staff. While our focus is on digital and "digital influence," there are a lot of other skills that will help the next generation of communications experts (do we need to retire the "public relations" term?).

The next generation will need to get strong in the following. I have begun the process of drilling down into each to offer some practical "how-to's" for each. Look for more in the future or even create your own and link back here:

13 Skills of the PR Pro of the Future

1. Create integrated marketing and communications strategy
2. Deploy live 'listening posts' online and offline
3. Design and deploy an advanced search engine optimization program
4. Plan and run a new media relations program inclusive of head-of-the-tail and long tail "media"
5. Identify & engage with influencers online and offline
6. Manage communities
7. Integrate new technologies into their own lives
8. Model measurement and performance metrics including new "engagement" metrics
9. Run quick pilot programs and evaluate on-the-fly
10. Train staff and clients continuously
11. Participate in conversations, not just 'messaging'
12. Create and execute content strategy including video programming (hifi and lowfi)
13. Use digital crisis management

Thanks to Nate Pagel, Rohit Bhargava, Virginia Miracle, Kaitlyn Wilkins, Brian Giesen, Chris Brogan, Chi-chi Ekweozor, John D. , Phil M., Harro and Brendan Hodgson for ideas and insights on this list.

If you know #14 - please add it as the list will always be changing.

source: JohnBell

Timeline for Health Care Reform

By Claes Bell • Bankrate.com

After the tumultuous debate over health care reform ended, many Americans were surprised to find that key parts of the law won't take effect until years into the future.

In fact, many of the sweeping changes -- an end to insurance companies withholding coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, government-regulated insurance marketplaces and the individual requirement to buy coverage -- don't take place until 2014.

Some measures, such as closing the infamous Medicare Part D "doughnut hole" in prescription drug coverage, will come even later.

The law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, sets up a carefully choreographed order for how its different parts will take effect to minimize disruptions to the massive health care industry and the bill's impact on the federal deficit.

This road map will help you understand when the law's many parts will roll out. Read more and follow the changes by year:

source: BankRate.com

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Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) Versus DMAIC

Troubled with the acronyms of Six Sigma? We'll help you figure out new product design (DFSS) from existing process improvement (DMAIC). Learn the many methodologies of Design For Six Sigma, and see how they compare to DMAIC.

One of the most confusing issues associated with someone saying "I'm using Six Sigma" has to do with what methodology they are actually using. A majority of the time they are using the DMAIC methodology, because they have existing processes that are wasting resources (hence the big savings you've heard about at GE, Honeywell and others over the past years). The remaining minority of Six Sigma practitioners are using a Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) approach to design a new product for Six Sigma quality.

What Is DMAIC?
When most people refer to Six Sigma, they are in fact referring to the DMAIC methodology. The DMAIC methodology should be used when a product or process is in existence at your company but is not meeting customer specification or is not performing adequately.

The DMAIC methodology is almost universally recognized and defined as comprising of the following five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. In some businesses, only four phases (Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) are used; in this case the Define deliverables are then considered pre-work for the project or are included within the Measure phase. I have even heard of DMAIIC, where the first I stands for Improve and the second I stands for Implement.

The DMAIC methodology breaks down as follows:
Define the project goals and customer (internal and external) requirements.
Measure the process to determine current performance.
Analyze and determine the root cause(s) of the defects.
Improve the process by eliminating defect root causes.
Control future process performance.

What Is DFSS?
DFSS is the acronym for Design For Six Sigma. Unlike the DMAIC methodology, the phases or steps of DFSS are not universally recognized or defined -- almost every company or training organization will define DFSS differently. Many times a company will implement DFSS to suit their business, industry and culture; other times they will implement the version of DFSS used by the consulting company assisting in the deployment. Because of this, DFSS is more of an approach than a defined methodology.

DFSS is used to design or re-design a product or service from the ground up. The expected process Sigma level for a DFSS product or service is at least 4.5 (no more than approximately 1 defect per thousand opportunities), but can be 6 Sigma or higher depending the product. Producing such a low defect level from product or service launch means that customer expectations and needs (CTQs) must be completely understood before a design can be completed and implemented.

One popular Design for Six Sigma methodology is called DMADV, and retains the same number of letters, number of phases, and general feel as the DMAIC acronym. It rolls off the tongue (duh-mad-vee) in the same fashion as DMAIC (duh-may-ick). The five phases of DMADV are defined as: Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify.
Define the project goals and customer (internal and external) requirements.
Measure and determine customer needs and specifications; benchmark competitors and industry.
Analyze the process options to meet the customer needs.
Design (detailed) the process to meet the customer needs.
Verify the design performance and ability to meet customer needs.

A slight modification on the DMADV methodology is DMADOV (see Discussion Forum sidebar): Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Optimize and Verify.

There are a few other "flavors" of DFSS that you might be interested to know about: DCCDI, IDOV and DMEDI.

DCCDI is being popularized by Geoff Tennant and is defined as Define, Customer Concept, Design and Implement. You can see that there are many similarities between these phases and the DMADV phases.
Define the project goals.
Customer analysis is completed.
Concept ideas are developed, reviewed and selected.
Design is performed to meet the customer and business specifications.
Implementation is completed to develop and commercialize the product/service.

IDOV is a well known design methodology, especially in the manufacturing world. The IDOV acronym is defined as Identify, Design, Optimize and Validate.
Identify the customer and specifications (CTQs).
Design translates the customer CTQs into functional requirements and into solution alternatives. A selection process whittles down the list of solutions to the "best" solution.
Optimize uses advanced statistical tools and modeling to predict and optimize the design and performance.
Validate makes sure that the design you've developed will meet the customer CTQs.

DMEDI is being taught by PricewaterhouseCoopers and stands for Define, Measure, Explore, Develop and Implement. I'm sure you won't have much trouble identifying the main objectives in each of these phases based on the title of each phase.

As you can see, the DFSS approach can utilize any of the many possible methodologies. The fact is that all of these DFSS methodologies use the same advanced design tools (Quality Function Deployment, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, benchmarking, Design of Experiments, simulation, statistical optimization, error proofing, Robust Design, etc.). Each methodology primarily differs in the name of each phase and the number of phases (and, of course, the acronym).

How do you decide which DFSS methodology to use? If you're hiring a consulting company to help with your deployment, use their methodology as their training materials will be tailored around it. If you are implementing DFSS on your own, any of the DFSS books available should get you moving in the right direction. In any case, following a detailed DFSS methodology will help you achieve high quality levels for new products and services. If you are interested in improving your existing products or services, DMAIC is a more appropriate methodology to use.

source: isixsigma.com