Throw Back Thursday: A Reader's Challenge— My So Called "Paperless" Life

"For several years I have been meaning to write a blog posting about how great it was to go from a messy stack of papers on my desk to a having paperless office. But, this is the year I began leading a paperless life. All my business and personal documents exist only in the cloud. I feel a huge sense of freedom, I feel more modern, and I feel more organized."

Good Morning Folks,

Today's throw back Thursday is truly interactive as I challenge all employees, customers and fans to do for yourselves what we at FSO do for our clients— make paper digital, retrievable, useful and enjoyable again.

Our friend Eric Borgos has been kind enough to share his own step-by-step recipe for throwing back through old boxes of childhood memories, old schoolwork, albums and cds,  old businesses and past lives you've been apart of and making them digital and sharable for your current an future generations to enjoy.

In the process you'll rid yourself of clutter and paper, have better documentation for insurance and ensure your precious memories survive inn the unlikely event of floods, fires and other natural disasters (especially because you will back up the files you create on the cloud.)

Eric over to you:

==> My Paperless Life by Eric Borgos, President of Impulse Communications, Inc.

For several years I have been meaning to write a blog posting about how great it was to go from a messy stack of papers on my desk to a having paperless office. But, I have now moved on to even loftier goals. This is the year I began leading a paperless life. All my business and personal documents exist only in the cloud. I feel a huge sense of freedom, I feel more modern, and I feel more organized. I would liken it to the nirvana of the elusive inbox zero (getting down to 0 unanswered emails in your inbox), or for the less tech overloaded, the feeling of having a clean room/house.

Here’s the top 10 ways I accomplished my paperless life:

1. Office Clutter – 
I started several years ago by converting to a paperless office using a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner (you can buy one for around $500 on Amazon.com). It converts everything you scan to keyword searchable PDF files. Each pile of papers I had is now a file on my computer. For example, credit card statements from 2013 are 2013CreditCards.pdf. Some files are more general, like 2008-2013BusinessPapers.pdf. The Fujitsu scanner scans both sides of each document, and it is not a problem if the paper sizes vary (like a small receipt). Every few months I scan in whatever documents I have accumulated, and then at the end of the year I combine them into 1 big file (like 2013CreditCards1.pdf and 2013CreditCards2.pdf and 2013CreditCards3.pdf all merge into 2013CreditCards.pdf).

2. Magazines – 
I used to subscribe to a bunch of magazines such as Wired, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur, Business Week, and Fast Company, and they would pile up waiting to be read. Now instead I can read those and 150 other magazines (Rolling Stone, People, US, Time, etc.) using a new service named NextIssue.com, which costs $10-$15/month. For that fixed monthly price, you can read as many of those 150 magazines each month as you want on your mobile phone, tablet, or PC. I read them on my iPhone.

3. Old Boxes – 
I scanned my boxes of childhood memories. Old schoolwork, old businesses I had started (I began my entrepreneurial career when I was 10), old poems I had written. I even scanned my shoebox full of notes from girls that I had kept all these years. Also, I found some tapes of songs I wrote and recorded as kid, and used a special cord I bought on Amazon.com to transfer the cassettes to MP3 files on my computer.

4. Music – 
No more CDs. I used to have a collection of over 200 CDs (rock/pop/country), which I manually copied to MP3 files a few years ago. I eventually threw out the CDs and was happy with just the MP3 files. A few years ago I signed up for rdio.com (unlimited online music for $4.99/month) and have not bought a CD since. They have 99% of all the CDs I had, and 99% of all the new ones I would buy. This week I took it a step further, and deleted all my MP3 files (they were taking up space) since with services like Rdio.com, Spotify.com, Rhapsody, all the music I like is forever available in the cloud.

5. Books – 
No more books, just e-books. In fact, I have had people give me an book I thought looked great, but bought the e-book instead of reading the real book I already had, just because it is much more convenient for me to read things on my iPhone.

6. Photos – 
I had boxes of old photos, home videos (the old VHS kind), and photo albums from when I was a kid. I shipped them all off to ScanDigital.com, at 70% off via a Groupon offer, where they were converted to digital files. Now I can much more easily share these photos with my family, and they will be better preserved for future generations.

7. Taxes – 
I e-file my income tax returns using TurboTax.com, and all my old tax records are scanned into a folder named /taxes .

8. Contracts – 
No more printed contracts. As described in my previous post about Electronic Signatures, I sign contracts online using an e-signature.

9. Checks – 
No more check writing. I make every available effort to use services that offer automated monthly billing or Paypal.

10. Cloud Storage – 
I store all my computer files on a cloud service like Box.com (most people can use their free plan). That way I can access my files from anywhere on any device. I used to use Gotomypc.com to connect to my office PC, and that worked, but was slow and not very efficient.

There are also other advantages to being as virtual and paperless as possible. Several times my basement flooded and things got ruined. Luckily not anything important, but I could have easily lost all of it in a fire or a more severe flood. I have also moved a bunch of times, and for every move I had to deal with all my old boxes. And, with everything packed away, I did not have easy access to it. I never knew exactly where certain items were, and a lot of things I just forgot about. Now I have full access to all my stuff, anywhere, anytime, so I highly recommend going paperless to everyone reading this.

As you know, FSO has worked with organizations as varied as insurance companies and law firms to implement outsourced document and records management strategies" and to offer significant reductions in paper

At FSO Client Weitz & Luxenberg, our Bobby Dillon got his MBA in Records Management during a massive 3 ½ year project, the largest and most successful document conversion in the New York market and surrounding areas - migrating over 35 million pages of paper to an electronic format at the famed barristers.

Bobby and his team achieved this by following rigorous checks and balances, quality control and document processing perfection. This is the type of success and model of perfection that Bobby leads across all of FSO’s client locations.

Because Weitz & Luxenberg deals with Asbestos cases, the law still requires paper records retained for 30 years, so 25-30K bankers boxes were sent offsite to low cost storage, freeing up an entire floor of premium Manhattan office space for lease to others or more profitable venture.

Now thanks to Eric Borgos, all of us at FSO can walk the walk, rather than just talk the talk. To go through the experience of a digital conversion and be able to compare life before and after, you will be more effective whether you are serving a client working for FSO or the clients themselves.

If know of someone who would enjoy working for or with FSO please do not keep us a secret.


Have a fabulous, sunny, productive day filled with love and inspiration.  

Hugs all around.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

About the author:

Eric Borgos is the President of Impulse Communications, Inc., an Internet company that owns over 250 websites such as CheapFlowers.com, Dumb.com, and Adoptme.com. He is also an active investor with a portfolio of that includes Weights.com, Pastries.com, and Physical.com.

Mr. Borgos graduated with a finance degree from Babson College in 1991 and ran several different businesses until he found his calling on the Internet in 1995. Since that time Eric has been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine, Readers Digest, USA Today, Popular Science, and Inc. Magazine; and his websites have been talked about on radio stations such as National Public Radio (NPR) and TV shows such as Extra and TechTV.


Some of the more interesting facts about Mr. Borgos include:

• At one point had over 15 people working for him but never met any of them (only used email)
• Invented a toy and got it sold at Toys “R” Us.
• Bought 2 retail flower stores thousands of miles away without visiting them first or knowing anything about flowers or retail stores.
• Tried to go public in 2000 through a reverse merger.
• For years had an office 3000 miles away but never once went there.
• In 2008 sold his Bored.com network of websites for $4.5 million
• In 2011 sold a portfolio of 4000 of his sites for $1.3 million.

Eric is also an amateur musician, having written and recorded over 100 songs (see MCEricB.com to listen to them for free) including such viral music video hits as “Pimp My Sleigh”, “Hip-Hop Hanukkah”, and “The TurboTax Rap”.

Shout Out Wednesday: National Operations Summit Sets Expectations, Objectives and Future Plans

"I can confidently say that after spending two solid and productive days specific to Operational perfection and greatness that the National Operations Team will work in sync, collaborate and drive remarkable results."

Good Morning Folks,

Recently our Regional Directors and Experience Directors came together for a two-day National Operations Summit. One of the main goals of our Summit was to facilitate a closer bond across our team and remind everyone that we are ONE team with talented people who are great at what they do. We also have some pretty clear expectations, objectives, deliverables and plans for Ops to execute and get results.

Everyone’s presentations brought an insight in to how we operate today and others showed exactly where we need to be going. Hospitality is our future and getting out of our box (thinking differently and creatively) will be key critical to our success.

I can confidently say that after spending two solid and productive days specific to Operational perfection and greatness that the National Operations Team will work in sync, collaborate and drive remarkable results. The goal is to continue to be a 12 out of 10 and keep our clients and our PEOPLE happy by exceeding the expectations across every Operations deliverable.

As one of our managers put it, "Some people wonder what did I do different to be successful and so many times recognized. Yes, it’s thinking “outside of the box” and bringing new ideas to the table, but it’s not only that. It’s the passion and drive that continues and gives me a new inspiration every day. The reason why I can’t stop, and I never will, is because I see this company as my home. This is my family and I TRULLY care. Doing things that I would do in my own company. Save money. Make your employees happy. Make your clients even happier. It’s all about leading by an example and treating others the way you want to be treated."

Now is the time to raise the bar and drive our vision and legacy across all of our accounts and across all of the US. Today is about getting results and executing across the board. We have a great company and great people. Keep the referrals coming and never stop thinking ahead about our growth. After all, Growth = Opportunity.

Remain motivated and inspired. I hope you are all fired up because I know I am.

Be great and (re)IMAGINE!

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

ABOUT FSO:

• The fastest growing and most successful national onsite outsourcing in the U.S. focused on 1) improving services, 2) reducing costs, and 3) giving employees  an opportunity to grow.
• We outsource functions like: Mail, Copy, Reception, Switchboard, Office Services, Records, Messenger, IT, Concierge, Front & Back Office and much more.
• 1600+ employees, operating in 60+ cities, 225+ operational sites, 98% employee retention & 100% client retention.
• We (re)imagine the ways businesses are run.

ABOUT FSO CEO & FOUNDER – MITCH WEINER:

• Pioneer of the onsite outsourcing business model.
• 20+ years of industry experience.
•  Previous owner of Archer, which he sold to Canon.

VIDEO:
Brief "corporate portrait" video shows who we are and what we can do for you HERE

Happy or Grumpy: Your Mood Impacts Your Organization’s Performance

“When my customers have pain, it pains me.”

Good Morning Folks,

How are my readers this beautiful Monday morning?  Are you all awesome?  Inspired? Pumped? Excited and charged up? I hope so as I am. 

Your attitude can have a tremendous impact. At FSO we choose Happiness. Everybody. Every day. 

So you look forward to coming to work every day and a peaceful sleep when you don't have to take worries home with you at night.

Consistent through all my pursuits has been a “Happiness-Centric” perspective on business in the service sector. The model delivers on three key differentiators. First, customers receive service they’ve never before come to expect. In a world of behemoth organizations that seeks to instill into employees their dogmatic, formulaic and unyielding protocols for customer engagement, we instead hire for attitude. 

I call it hiring for “the twinkle in their eye, a skip in their step, the fire in their belly.” Any manager can train off the company manual, but you cannot train for the right attitude, one where an employee means it when she says, “How are you doing today?”

Second, we are returning a personal touch to business that has been lost in the customer service experience. Consumers – whether business or personal – have come to accept, even expect, a lackadaisical – even lousy - interaction with customer service representatives. So when an organization delivers outstanding, over-the-top customer engagement, it’s like some golden nugget delivered each day to those customers by a partner – not a vendor – who connects culturally, strategically and who truly cares about their success. “When my customers have pain,it pains me.”

Hospitality is our future and getting out of our box (thinking differently and creatively) will be key to our success. The love for our staff and clients has never been higher and am so happy and pleased to see we are making strides in this area every day. CARE is who we are. 

HAPPY IS OUR ENTIRE COMPANY.

Finally, if hiring FSO doesn’t save you money, then I've failed to serve you. 


Here's an excerpt on Workplace Happiness you might enjoy from: Leadership Styles: Pinpoint Leadership Skill Development Training Series (Majorium Business Press, Stevens Point, WI 2011) $ 18.95 USD


Numerous studies have shown that when leaders are in a happy mood, the individuals around them tend to view everything in a much more positive light. The resulting atmosphere provides for an optimistic workplace, which in turn facilitates higher overall productivity, more creative reasoning and more efficient decision-making. The converse is often true when a leader’s negative moods prevail: they have detrimental effects for the leader, his or her employees and the organization’s performance.

In 2000, Caroline Bartel of New York University and Richard Saavedra of the University of Michigan studied 70 workgroups across diverse industries. Their research found that people who gather within normal meeting settings end up sharing their good or bad moods within two hours. Other research has corroborated the fact that people who work together share their moods.

It is significant for leaders to understand that within most organizations, moods that originate at the top have a tendency to spread quickly throughout the workplace. The reason for this diffusion is that nearly everyone in the company observes these moods and is thus directly influenced by them. Leader’s that are not cognizant of this process fail to understand the personal impact they, and their moods, have on organizational performance.

A large body of research indicates that a majority of leaders are unaware that their emotional intelligence levels, their moods and their behaviors have a definite impact on employees and the organization. Leaders can remain clueless as to how these factors have the power to resonate throughout an organization.

In many instances the repercussions of unwatched and uncontrolled negative behaviors are immediate. Employees can be reluctant to communicate accurate and realistic data and information for fear of the leader’s emotional reaction and potential rage.

The consequences of negative emotional reactions are damaging to the point that the leader becomes emotionally disconnected from the organization; as a result, he or she will not have a realistic sense of what is occurring in the workplace. These circumstances are especially troubling when employees actively work to hide failures, mistakes and potentially troubling trends.

While an emotionally disconnected leader can often sense something is amiss in the workplace, the exact cause remains elusive and their personal effectiveness is thus undermined. The perceived uncertainty of the situation also forces leaders to second-guess their employees. Other serious organizational problems can be caused by the following reasons:

==> Lack of Awareness
When leaders demonstrate a lack of personal awareness, they cannot objectively gauge their own personal moods let alone the impact those moods have on the organization. In some instances, a lack of awareness is the result of the leader’s ignorance, but more often it is a reflection of older leadership styles being used.

Many leaders who fall victim to a lack of awareness feel their personal moods are nobody’s business. Because these leaders do not see the need to force themselves to accommodate their employees, it becomes their employees’ responsibility to deal with the moods. Whatever the cause and reason, a lack of personal awareness undermines not only the leader’s effectiveness, but also the bottom-line performance of their organization.

==> Lack of Self-Management
When leaders possess a lack of self-management skills, it can be toxic to an organization. Mood swings, highly emotional responses, rages and outbursts have a dramatic and negative impact on all employees. In all these instances, leaders allow their emotions to control them. These uncontrolled emotions serve to undermine employee motivation and morale, which produces immediate and negative consequences on organizational productivity.

When leaders allow themselves to be emotionally unstable, their organization will experience higher rates of absenteeism and employee turnover due to increased stress levels. This tangible impact on an organization can be directly analyzed, quantified and demonstrated.

==> Lack of Social Awareness
Leaders clearly lack social awareness when they fail to empathize with employees and other individuals. Those who lack social awareness are either unaware a problem in this area exists or they don’t care about the impact their words and actions have on employees and the organization. Leaders who only focus on results while neglecting personal contributions, actively demonstrate this social deficiency.

Such leaders are unconcerned about motivation, morale or personal issues. Consequently, they will often find themselves surrounded by incompetent or fearful employees. The competent individuals or those with better employment options will quickly leave. The subsequent impact on the company’s productivity and profitability will be serious and obvious.

==> Poor Relationship Management
Leaders who possess poor relationship management skills are unable to communicate effectively, which results in misunderstandings, confusion and conflict. Employees in this situation can feel leaderless and uncommitted, as their work is often criticized and second-guessed by the leader. The leader’s poor relationships with employees subsequently lower morale and motivation. Employees don’t know where they stand with these leaders. And this feeling often results in high employee turnover and lower productivity.

While possible, it is uncommon for leaders to exhibit symptoms in only one of the above areas: usually they are deficient in multiple emotional intelligence categories. When these factors are combined, their impacts are intensified; a toxic organizational atmosphere is thus created that is saturated with problems and conflicts.

Often these leaders cause extreme chaos and havoc within the entire organization. Not only does this diminish their standing and effectiveness as a leader, but also it can completely undermine and destroy an organization’s effectiveness. Turmoil and damage will remain until a more hopeful and realistic leader replaces the dissonant one. And this change generally becomes the only viable alternative to relieve chaos and repair the organization.

Needless to say I am so pumped up for all of you and the great company we are building. Our future is bright and we have only just begun. 

Have a wonderful day. 

Mitch :-)

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Hat tip: International Facilities Management Association on LinkedIn
Photo: http://blog.majoriumbusinesspress.com/

ThrowBack Thursday: "Switching It Up" For Four Generations Working Alongside One Another

“In the legal profession, we are always trying to find ways to be more efficient and as competitive as possible in the market,” said LaFramboise. “Keeping up with developing technology and infusing it in your firm is absolutely essential to accomplishing that.”

Good Morning Folks,,

Telecommunications was always and still is the backbone of any service business.

Smartphones, iPads, BlackBerries, Facebook, LinkedIn—they’re revolutionizing the practice of law. But not everyone has cottoned to this technology. There is a technology generation gap, and bridging it requires recognizing and respecting how attorneys young and old use technology to do their jobs.

Ted Schwartz just got an iPhone, he tells Matthew Malamud for the American Association for Justice.

“It’s terrific!” the 66-year-old attorney from Philadelphia exclaimed, ticking off all the ways he uses it: “as a phone, obviously, but also to send and receive e-mails, and for driving directions.” His voice conveys the astonishment of someone who remembers when making a mobile phone call meant stepping into a booth to use a pay phone."

Communications technology has changed since the days when Schwartz clerked in a law office during law school in 1966. Back then, law offices still had rooms with telephone switchboards where operators manually connected calls by switching out and plugging in numerous wires.

According to WikiPedia, "A telephone switchboard is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network or in enterprises to interconnect circuits of telephones to establish telephone calls between the subscribers or users, or between other exchanges. The switchboard was an essential component of a manual telephone exchange, and was operated by one or more persons, called operators who either used electrical cords or switches to establish the connections.

The electromechanical automatic telephone exchange, invented by Almon Strowger in 1888, gradually replaced manual switchboards in central telephone exchanges starting in 1919 when the Bell System adopted automatic switching, but many manual branch exchanges remained operational during the last half of the 20th century in offices, hotels, or other enterprises. Later electronic devices and computer technology gave the operator access to an abundance of features. In modern businesses, a private branch exchange (PBX) often has an attendant console for the operator, or an auto-attendant, which bypasses the operator entirely.

The first telephones in the 1870s were rented in pairs which were limited to conversation between those two instruments. The use of a central exchange was soon found to be even more advantageous than in telegraphy. In January 1878 the Boston Telephone Dispatch company had started hiring boys as telephone operators. Boys had been very successful as telegraphy operators, but their attitude (lack of patience) and behaviour (pranks and cursing) was unacceptable for live phone contact,[1] so the company began hiring women operators instead. Thus, on September 1, 1878, Boston Telephone Dispatch hired Emma Nutt as the first woman operator. Small towns typically had the switchboard installed in the operator's home so that he or she could answer calls on a 24 hour basis. In 1894, New England Telephone and Telegraph Company installed the first battery-operated switchboard on January 9 in Lexington, Massachusetts."

“I remember clerking one day,” Schwartz said, “and there was no one to operate the switchboard so they asked me to be the telephone operator. I, of course, had all of three minutes of training on this thing. The lawyers were on the phone—some were talking with clients in Hong Kong and California. You can imagine what happened. I pulled the plugs and I had the client in Hong Kong talking to the client in California while the lawyers in one office were talking to the lawyers down the hall. They came out of their offices screaming.”

Today’s attorneys don’t have to rely on a switchboard, and they aren’t tethered to an office. They have cell phones, smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptops, and tablet computers. They e-mail, instant message, text message, blog, tweet, and update their Facebook pages.

In law firms’ attempts to go paperless, they’re relying more on devices like the iPad, which can be used in the office and the courtroom. They’re also moving into cloud computing, which requires less information technology infrastructure and frees up office space by moving data storage to Internet-based servers. These technologies also enable lawyers to work from anywhere, not just the office, because they can access files via the Internet.

But not everyone feels the same way about the technology at his or her disposal. A generational conflict is at play, and technology is at the center of the fray.

Rather than making things easier, technology sometimes frustrates communication between legal professionals young and old. Instead of being a communication conduit, tools like e-mail and text messages can be an impediment, which is why the different generations need to constantly work to resolve their differences.

For the first time, four generations are working alongside one another. The WWII Generation (or Silent Generation), born before 1945, comprises five percent of today’s workforce. Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, make up the largest share of the workforce at 38 percent. Generation Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, are 32 percent, and Generation Yers (or Millennials), born between 1980 and 2000, are 25 percent.

Members of each generation tend to share common perspectives on workplace issues, including communication,1 and each generation has divergent attitudes toward technology in the workplace. A member of the WWII Generation, for example, may prefer to correspond by memo, letter, or personal note, while a Baby Boomer is more apt to reach out by telephone or personal interaction. Generation Xers and Yers are most likely to send coworkers voicemails, e-mails, instant messages, or text messages.2 These two groups rely heavily on social networking tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, though mostly in their personal lives.

Take Schwartz, for example. His iPhone is the first mobile device he’s owned that is capable of sending and receiving work e-mail. His colleagues, including his Generation X colleague Pamela Lee, had been prodding him to get one for some time. “I can’t live without my iPhone!” Lee said, perplexed by how she ever managed without a smartphone. “Technology has made things easier.”

Schwartz, on the other hand, is a little less enthusiastic. “It is a convenience, I will tell you that, and it keeps me in touch. But it is a curse because it keeps me in touch. Being connected 24/7 has its drawbacks.”

He is a typical Baby Boomer. They weren’t born into a digital world and aren’t as comfortable with today’s gadgetry.3 Boomers tend not to consider ubiquitous technology-related products and services like Facebook.

However, Generation Y member Drew LaFramboise, who is only as old as the Apple Macintosh computer, thinks of today’s technology as an extension of himself. “I just don’t function as well without it,” said the new attorney from Columbus, Ohio.

Natasha Patel, a career adviser with Columbia University Law School, sees a gap between older partners and younger associates when it comes to knowing when to use electronic communication.

“You’ve got a generation that communicates everything online and a generation that doesn’t rely on electronic communication as its sole method to communicate,” said Patel. If associates want to advance, they’ll need to “meet the partners at their level,” she advises young lawyers. This means forging relationships the old-fashioned way, by regularly meeting with partners and speaking to them in person when issues arise, not just shooting off an e-mail, according to Patel.

Patel also sees a problem with young associates feeling isolated in the work environment, which may be attributable in part to electronic communication. This isolation in turn affects retention. “They are behind a computer in their offices most of the day. And though e-mail is the easiest mode of communication, they should feel comfortable enough to go knock on the partner’s door and strike up a conversation,” she said.

Generation X member Sonia Chaisson of Los Angeles said she is more likely to pick up the phone to speak with an older colleague than to send an e-mail or a text. She also said she sometimes forgets that older people aren’t as hip to the various language shortcuts that younger people use in e-mail and text messages, such as TTYL (talk to you later) or BTW (by the way). “I have to remind myself to write everything out in full sentences when I’m communicating to older adults,” she said.

Betty Barrett, an associate professor of sociotechnical systems with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, agrees with Patel. “I advise my students to be aware of the fact that they are working in a world where the authority figures have different expectations and different sets of behavior patterns,” she said.

But that is not to say Baby Boomers are off the hook. Barrett thinks that each generation needs to recognize and respect that there are differences among them. Baby Boomers need to understand that younger generations think of mobile communications technology as an extension of who they are and what they do; multitasking is second nature to them, Barrett contended.

“I’m of an older generation that was brought up to pay attention to whoever was speaking to you and that a sign of respect was putting your work down when being spoken to,” she said. “Young people increasingly don’t have those values, and that is where we’re seeing conflict.”

Barrett spoke of a manager who hired several young workers. “They were on their cell phones all the time, this manager told me,” she recounted. “He wanted to know how bad it would be to take away the use of their cell phones during the workday.” She warned against it. “It’s something they’ve grown up with. They’re going to panic—they’re going to have a physical reaction to not having that cell phone. Students are coming out of college today with their phones in their hands all the time—it’s part of them.”

Baby Boomers also should recognize that younger generations expect feedback instantaneously. “I will get frustrated if I e-mail someone and they don’t get back to me right away,” Lee admitted.

Just because older generations are less likely to depend on technology the way younger generations do doesn’t mean they eschew technology altogether. Let’s dispense with a stereotype: Most veteran legal professionals today know how to use a computer. Yes, they may still remember the days of typewriters and mimeographs, but they’ve kept up with the changing technology. Still, there is a clear generation gap when it comes to adopting and using new technology and applications.4

For example, although just two-fifths of all legal professionals say they use mobile devices in the courtroom, almost three-quarters of Generation Yers do.5 About half of Generation Xers and just 23 percent of Baby Boomers use mobile devices in the courtroom.

The generations also diverge in their attitudes toward using technology. Compare Schwartz and LaFramboise: Schwartz sees technology as helpful, while LaFramboise sees it as something that’s necessary.

“In the legal profession, we are always trying to find ways to be more efficient and as competitive as possible in the market,” said LaFramboise. “Keeping up with developing technology and infusing it in your firm is absolutely essential to accomplishing that.”

While two-thirds of Baby Boomers think it’s impolite or distracting to use a laptop or PDA during a meeting, just 57 percent of Generation Yers think it’s impolite and even fewer (49 percent) think it’s distracting.

Not surprisingly, the percentage of adults who use electronic tools, such as laptop computers and iPads, trails off with age. For example, 70 percent of Generation Yers own a laptop, while just 46 percent of Baby Boomers do.

Whereas present-day law firms are confronting technology and social media, the law firms of the future will have to confront this new dynamic.

“Young people in many ways, especially the very young,” Barrett said, “are developing earlier and earlier this capability to multitask and interact in an electronic environment, and that’s changing how they are. But that evolutionary change is going to be much slower than the change in technology, so that imbalance is going to always cause some serious dynamics in how the generations perceive each other and their interaction with technology.”

As telephone exchanges converted to automatic (dial) service, switchboards continued to serve specialized purposes. Before the advent of direct-dialed long distance calls, a subscriber would need to contact the long-distance operator in order to place a toll call. In large cities, there was often a special number, such as 112, which would ring the long-distance operator directly. Elsewhere, the subscriber would ask the local operator to ring the long-distance operator.

The long distance operator would record the name and city of the person to be called, and the operator would advise the calling party to hang up and wait for the call to be completed. Each toll center had only a limited number of trunks to distant cities, and if those circuits were busy, the operator would try alternate routings through intermediate cities. The operator would plug into a trunk for the destination city, and the inward operator would answer. The inward operator would obtain the number from the local information operator, and ring the call. Once the called party answered, the originating operator would advise him or her to stand by for the calling party, whom she'd then ring back, and record the starting time, once the conversation began.

While many have written-off the old-fashioned service and personal attention you'd once expect from the phone company and other service providers in favor of voice -automation and voice mail loops ,at FSO we opt for the way it use to be. That's why we answer your calls personallywith active involvement of the most tenured outsourcing leadership team in the business: Myself (Founder, Chief Happiness Officer, & Owner) and Jim Caton (President, Chief Chaos, & Owner) are “hands on” leaders who are intimate with every operation and who remain so for the life of the contract.

Thanks to WikiPedia, The American Association for Justice for helping us prepare this story, and to you for supporting FSO. Matthew Malamud is an associate editor of Trial. He can be reached at matthew.malamud@justice.org.

If know of someone who would enjoy working for or with FSO please do not keep us a secret.

Have a GREAT day

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Notes:
AARP, Leading a Multigenerational Workforce (2007), assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org_/cs/misc/leading_a_multigenerational_workforce.pdf.
Id.
Sara J. Czaja et al., Factors Predicting the Use of Technology: Findings from the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement, 21 Psychol. and Aging, 333 (2006).
LexisNexis, LexisNexis Technology Gap Survey (2008), www.lexisnexis.com/media/pdfs/LexisNexis-Technology-Gap-Survey-4-09.pdf.
Id.
Pew Research Center, Generations and Their Gadgets (Feb. 3, 2011), www.pewinternet.org/reports/2011/generations-and-gadgets.aspx. The authors separated younger Baby Boomers, age 47–56, from older Baby Boomers, age 57–65; the 46 percent of Baby Boomers who own a laptop is an average of the two segments’ proportions.
Pew Research Center, 65% of Online Adults Use Social Networking Sites (Aug. 26, 2011), http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/2011/generations-and-gadgets.aspx.
Id.

Ted Tuesday: Larry Page Makes the Case for Electronic Medical Records

"When I look at electronic medical records, and say 'Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone's EMR would be available anonymously to research doctors, and when someone accesses your medical records you could see which doctor accessed it and why? You can maybe learn about what condition you have. I think if we just do that, we could save a hundred-thousand lives this year. "

Good Morning Folks,

Larry Page is the CEO and cofounder of Google, making him one of the ruling minds of the web.

Onstage at TED2014, Charlie Rose interviews Google CEO Larry Page about his far-off vision for the company.  Says Larry, "Like I state in my keynotes nowadays, 2015 will be the year of Google and Apple entering aggressively into the Health-arena."

See the whole interview with Larry (who lost his voice a while ago and is slowly getting it back). As of 13:30 he's talking about electronic medical records.

Google some years ago had a project called Google Health started in 2008, a Personal Health Record (PHR) which they discontinued June 2011. A decision i think was too early, because patient empowerment was very small back then, but everyone sensed it would grow over the next years. As a matter of fact, we at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen are enrolling Hereismydata™ in exactly the way that Larry describes in this interview. 

Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in grad school at Stanford in the mid-'90s, and in 1996 started working on a search technology based on a new idea: that relevant results come from context. Their technology analyzed the number of times a given website was linked to by other sites — assuming that the more links, the more relevant the site — and ranked sites accordingly. In 1998, they opened Google in a garage-office in Menlo Park. In 1999 their software left beta and started its steady rise to web domination.

Beyond the company's ubiquitous search, including AdSense/AdWords, Google Maps, Google Earth and the mighty Gmail. In 2011, Page stepped back into his original role of chief executive officer. He now leads Google with high aims and big thinking, and finds time to devote to his projects like Google X, the idea lab for the out-there experiments that keep Google pushing the limits.

FSO has worked with organizations as varied as insurance companies and medical litigation-focused law firms to implement outsourced document and records management strategies" and to offer significant reductions in paper

Our Bobby Dillon should know. As Best Practices Experience Director, he brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise across all of FSO’s services from mail, logistics, copy, print and scan to document production – just to name a few.

At FSO Client Weitz & Luxenberg, Bobby got his MBA in Records Management during a massive 3 ½ year project, the largest and most successful document conversion in the New York market and surrounding areas - migrating over 35 million pages of paper to an electronic format at the famed barristers.

Bobby and his team achieved this by following rigorous checks and balances, quality control and document processing perfection. This is the type of success and model of perfection that Bobby leads across all of FSO’s client locations.

Because Weitz & Luxenberg deals with Asbestos cases, the law still requires paper records retained for 30 years, so 25-30K bankers boxes were sent offsite to low cost storage, freeing up an entire floor of premium Manhattan office space for lease to others or more profitable venture.

FSO can provide the full outsourcing of business processes, for example managing invoice processing, HR, finance and accounts and also IT outsourcing. 

Using a single provider offers the potential to deliver further cost savings, increase productivity and also enable tighter process and financial controls through better regulatory compliance.

If you’d like to explore how FSO can bring your records management into the digital age, contact me personally at 212-204-1193.

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE. 

(re) IMAGINE Mondays: Change Is Good If It's Going In The Right Direction

"How many retail clerks are you on a first name basis with? How many retail clerks know what style and color shirts you prefer when you shop? Salemanship is an art and most companies don't have any real salesmen working for them that truly enjoy what they do, go the extra mile for their customers, nor build any genuine relationship with their customers."

Good Morning and Welcome to Monday FSO USA, Clients, Readers and Fans!!

Monday is a day to cause mayhem and havoc for our competitors! Rumors are flying around the country about FSO and our company! AWESOME! Our competitors are getting nervous and they are feeling the pressure.

Here's why:

Change is one of the most guaranteed things in life, but few people want to accept that fact, and fewer can deal with it.

Just look at history and you don't have to go far back to see how fast things can change. Take 250 years ago. That's not very far when you think about it. The United States of America didn't even exist. Look how much this one little band of rebels against the British monarchy accomplished in that time. We took on the most powerful nation in the world at the time and kicked ass and started our own country from scratch.

Go back 500 years ago. What did the United States look like then? There was nothing here but Indian tribes. No buildings. No roads. No corporations. No electricity. No water systems. No airports. No cars. No financial system. No banks. It was better than when the dinosaurs ruled our continent but not by much.

What was life like 5,000 years ago on this planet? Civilization was just starting to take root.

Let's move up in time. When I grew up we had 3 major TV networks and 3 UHF stations. TV was in black and white. There were no cell phones. No personal computers. No video games. No Internet. None of the great stuff like we have today. I remember going to the World's Fair and seeing the World of Tomorrow pavilion and being totally fascinated by what visionaries expected the world to be like in the 21st century and what has come to be was even beyond that vision.

But the bottom line is time changes everything and does it continuously. It is a destroyer and creator both. Change is remarkably efficient at taking out what is not right, what is not healthy, what is not good and productive, and what is no longer needed in a system. In that respect change is positive and it is vital. Change kills things and at the same time change gives birth to brand new things and brand new opportunities.

So to succeed when everything is falling apart you merely have to accept the reality and destructiveness of change and join its side and adapt as things are changed. Don't fight it, because you can never win trying to keep and maintain what needs to be changed. This is when those who know how to do well when life becomes overwhelming and each day brings another unforeseen punch in the face from change, thrive and succeed most.

The key is to make change your partner and look for the brand new opportunities that are being created from the transition of the economy. The new gardens that change is now planting and seeding.

You have to be an optimist and creative, pessimism and doing things the same way will take you down the toilet with everything else going downhill now. 

From a practical perspective, there's a great amount of inefficiency and unproductiveness in many aspects of business these days. You can go to any mall in the US and it all looks the same. You can instantly spot the stores that are well managed, with great staff, great products, great marketing, good value, good prices, etc. and those that are not. The stores going out of business deserve to and need to. They are not being run well or what they are selling is no longer marketable. And that's the bottom line. You can only get away with running a business badly for so long and then change will take you out.

I find it amazing how clueless and bureaucratically most businesses are run. It's a wonder they survive for as long as they do. In today's dynamic world things move and change at a lightning pace. You have to be fast and nimble to adapt and keep up with it each day. The dinosaurs in business are getting killed because they are just that running their businesses like dinosaurs and not able to keep up anymore. Someone is doing a better job. Someone has better trained salesmen. Someone has more innovative products or services. etc. etc. People like FSO!

I recently hired someone who started the interview sharing what he learned from his first job in in Philadelphia: working in a local department store in the men's clothing department. He told me, "I think I was the only one who actually WORKED in my department. Most of the other salesmen would stand around either chatting or pretending to be doing something. When I didn't have a customer to wait on, I would go around and straighten up my area and make sure it looked pristine. When that was done I would pickup the phone and call my customers and tell them about upcoming new styles coming in and sales for the next week. I was the only salesman in the entire store that would ask customers for their first name and phone number to keep in touch with them and build a relationship with them."

He continues, "My manager, Jason Bonner, said he'd never seen anyone do the things I did in all his decades of retailing. He'd never seen anyone look so happy to be working. I would even organize all the inventory in the back stock rooms perfectly which wasn't even in my area of responsibility. My sales per hour for the store were 4 times and higher to the norm and higher than anyone else. Customers would come in the men's department and specifically ask for me to shop with them and help select their clothes and suggest what'd look best on them. They obviously loved the fact that someone actually enjoyed and was enthusiastic about waiting on them, and showed a genuine interest in them."

Right in the first moments of the first interview I knew he had the skip, fire, passion and love of hospitality that made him a shoe-in for the job. It's easy to spot, because so few people that we meet with that "X factor"-- that extra smile, the inner happiness, the hunger to serve, all in the name of becoming all they can be.

How many retail clerks are you on a first name basis with? How many retail clerks know what style and color shirts you prefer when you shop? Salemanship is an art and most companies don't have any real salesmen working for them that truly enjoy what they do, go the extra mile for their customers, nor build any genuine relationship with their customers. This is one of the biggest problems and deficiencies in business today. And this permeates into other aspects of businesses as well. Management at most companies is atrocious and incompetent. They don't know what they're doing and most times they are just "coasting" instead of doing what they're supposed to do which is managing and building business.

I could go on and on. The mess, mismanagement, and incompetence out there permeates so much of our lives today. In business, big and small. In government, federal, state, and local. Especially with the incumbents we beat replace every day in the outsourcing world. So many people just don't know how to do things the right way anymore, have no enthusiasm, and aren't productive.

We all have talent and lots of skills. More than most. People in here will do fine because we are used to "dancing" with business challenges every day.

To build your own career - knowledge building is essential. Whether it's in hospitality, mail, copy, records, messenger, security or facilities there are trends, innovations, technology and essential best practices that surround these services.

Do you know what these are? Is your site "keeping up with the times?" Are you and our staff having discussions about things you have seen, read or heard in the market that are cutting edge?

What have you done this year to introduce something NEW, INNOVATIVE or exciting to our clients? Like onsite Concierge Services? Or an iPad Check-in App for guests? These are just a snippet of things that are being introduced by FSO but we are always looking for more ideas, more creative services and solutions we can bring to our prospects and clients.

Now get to work, ignore the negative energy, stay positive, smile, be happy, and energize your mind to its maximum potential to think of new ideas that create, innovate and build a future that makes possible what was never possible before.

Have a great day…make it happen…SMILE…and, thanks for being a part of this amazing journey.

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

ABOUT FSO:

• The fastest growing and most successful national onsite outsourcing in the U.S. focused on 1) improving services, 2) reducing costs, and 3) giving employees  an opportunity to grow.
• We outsource functions like: Mail, Copy, Reception, Switchboard, Office Services, Records, Messenger, IT, Concierge, Front & Back Office and much more.
• 1600+ employees, operating in 60+ cities, 225+ operational sites, 98% employee retention & 100% client retention.
• We (re)imagine the ways businesses are run.

ABOUT FSO CEO & FOUNDER – MITCH WEINER:

• Pioneer of the onsite outsourcing business model.
• 20+ years of industry experience.
•  Previous owner of Archer, which he sold to Canon.

VIDEO:
Brief "corporate portrait" video shows who we are and what we can do for you HERE

InspireME Friday: TO REALIZE (.value)

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. –Oprah Winfrey

Good Morning Folks,

All of our managers from across the country this week to headquarters to share our plans, progress and programs. Juan Sanchez, our Western Regional Manager, reflected, " We are thinking way outside the box, which is something our competition is not doing. We are truly taking Hospitality services to new heights. Everyone plays a part in the success of FSO and we need you to get involved and bring the passion back to providing exceptional service."

Juan wondered, "We all have internal and external customers, so ask yourself when was the last time you truly did all you could to take care of them. We have amazing employees, customers and leaders, so why not show them how much we appreciate them."

To help you learn how to appreciate what you have, what you give, what you contribute, and what you reap, I came across this old wive's tale on social media.

It puts it all in perspective.....

TO REALIZE (.value)

 To realize

The value of a sister

 Ask someone

Who doesn't have one

  > >

To realize

The value of ten years:

Ask a newly

Divorced couple.

  > >

 To realize

The value of four years:

Ask a graduate.

  > >

To realize

The value of one year:

 Ask a student who

Has failed a final exam.

  > >

To realize

 The value of nine months:

 Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

  > >

To realize

The value of one month:

Ask a mother

who has given birth to

A premature baby.

  > >

To realize

The value of one week:

Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

  > >

To realize

 The value of one minute:

Ask a person

Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

  > >

To realize

The value of one-second:

Ask a person

Who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have. No one is ever guaranteed tomorrow. You will treasure time even more when you can share it with someone special., To realize the value of a friend or family member: LOSE ONE.

The people that we interact with on a daily basis allow us the opportunity to fulfill dreams through growth. Take it Personal and get Passionate with what we do to stay Productive in providing perfect service. Please remember you have internal customers as well that are helping you grow the business, know who they are and take care of them as you would external clients.

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people can’t do”.  No one ever sets out to be average at FSO, we need to be the best at everything we do.

We have amazing employees, customers and leaders, so why not show them how much we appreciate them. Sooner rather than later.

Make the weekend special! 

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Learn more about what DIFFERENTIATES FSO here

Tour our beautiful offices

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