Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

The Jacksonville Center Newsletter continues with new publishing team

One of the most successful ways of connecting an organization to a community is to publish an easily read newsletter on a weekly basis.

The Jacksonville Center Team has taken over the task of publishing the weekly Jacksonville Center Newsletter and their splendid first issue makes for interesting reading.

This newsletter is absolutely essential if you would like to keep up with the cultural activities at the center.

I am no longer Executive Director at the Center, but I continue as a volunteer and I find the Newsletter to be a vital link to the good work that is being done at the Jacksonville center every week.

If you are not receiving this newsletter, you are missing out on one of the most important cultural and visitor attractions in Floyd, Virginia.

The Jacksonville Center is a must-see destination for visitors to Floyd and is a great place to bring your relatives when they come to visit you. Make sure you pick up the new Spring Course Catalog while you are there. It has a fine list of fascinating courses and they used a lot of my photos to Illustrate the catalog. :)

You can get on the distribution list of this newsletter by sending an email to newsletter@jacksonvillecenter.org

You will not regret it. It will give you an inside view of Floyd artisans and Floyd art that you will not get elsewhere.

Handling nepotism issues intelligently

Nepotism, the favoring of a relative over other employees, can operate at any level in a company. High level nepotism may be so ingrained in the DNA of a company that it cannot be eradicated, but nepotism amongst mid and lower level employees can be avoided with some intelligent HR policies that don't discriminate against productive family members.

A reader asks:

Please help me understand – in your article on nepotism, are you saying that companies SHOULD install a nepotism policy that removes the possibility of a family member of an active employee from being hired at the company?   

She was referring to my article, How important is nepotism?

I wrote:   
If you read my article, I believe you will see that I believe that any activity that gives family members special privileges over other qualified employees is destructive to the company and to general morale. It is a kind of business insanity that should be avoided at all costs.

Having family members work in the same department is unwise because there is a connection that circumvents normal organizational lines. Most companies allow members of the same family to work in the company, but not in the same department.

Nepotism at the lower levels of the company can easily be avoided by intelligent use of policy that says that family members cannot work for each other or in the same department or division.

The real problem with nepotism is that when a family owns and runs the company, family members are often treated differently than other employees and this always leads to trouble in the long run. They are promoted when they are unqualified and they are forgiven for errors that other employees get fired for.

Net result, incompetency is rewarded and the good people leave at the first opportunity.

The reader responds:

I totally agree with you.  What I’m trying to substantiate is removing the existing general nepotism policy at the public utility company where I currently work and to allow our HR hiring process to choose the best candidates.  Simply placing an umbrella statement of no family members working anywhere in the company appears to be a cope out to me; taking the easy road.  We are no doubt turning away qualified and effective workers as a result.

My suggestion:

Just include the provision that family members must not work in the same division and you should be very safe. For example family members in a personnel dept can interact with other family members to share salary info. When they are in separate divisions, there is no management connection between them.

Are any of you running into nepotism problems? What solutions have you found,  other than leaving for a saner work environment?

Please note that not all family enterprises show favoritism to relatives. Some even set the bar higher for family members than for other employees.

Poised between darkness and light...

Michael Yon is a freelance journalist with the last battalion of American soldiers in Mosul, at this critical moment while Mosul is poised precariously between progress and descent into chaos.

The other American forces have been withdrawn from Mosul to support Baghdad and Anbar and Michael gives us an understanding of the difficult choices that are being made at many levels.

Michael has just written Desolate Roads Part 2 of 2 . It is a uniquely personal view of an oft-repeated and therefore timeless moment in history, the delicate balance between recovery of civic sanity or descent into madness and degradation.

Read Michaels compelling account of American and Iraqi forces struggling to give Mosul a future in the face of terrorists who seek to destroy Iraq, that they might rule by fear.

Reading the accounts of journalists who are actually in Iraq with American forces is an eye opening experience. There are no simple answers, but there appear to be brave and honorable men who seek to find a way to help Iraq heal itself.

May it come to pass that they are successful...

More about CCI Camera alias Royal Camera

I am still getting a steady stream of comments from unhappy customers of the Brooklyn camera shop with many names. Whether it is called Royal Camera, City Camera City, Tcscamera.com, or bananaboatcamera.com , it is still the same shabby storefront operation in Brooklyn.

Not everyone writes to complain.  Some customers write to thank me and others are taking action. I received an email today from Dario Diaz, an attorney who is preparing a lawsuit against this store.

If you have any information to offer Dario and his client, please consider helping them out. This is the second lawyer who has shown interest in seeking damages from Royal Camera, CCI, etc.

I am an attorney in Tampa, Florida that is preparing a lawsuit against CCI Camera City, aka Royal Camera, et. al.  I ran across your site and would be interested in finding any complaints against CCI made by Florida residents.  Obviously, my main concern is the client I am currently representing in a bait and switch transaction.  But, I would really like to get additional people who have had similar dealings with CCI to be either witnesses in my current case, or to represent individually or in a class action against CCI.

If you have any information or might be able to help with anyone in Florida who has similar dealings with CCI, I would be glad to speak with them.  Thanks.

Dario D. Diaz, Esquire
ccisuit@dariodiazlaw.com
1101 N. Armenia Avenue
Tampa, Florida 33607-5307
Phone: (813)259-1017
Fax: (813)259-3790

For those Florida residents who have felt the sting of a CCI camera scam, this is your chance for a little payback. Don't sit at home and fume. See what you can do to get restitution and make the Internet safer for camera buyers.

Feel free to share any news of your success. An informed and active marketplace is the best weapon against shoddy business practices.

To make it easier to find all of the information about this company in one place, I will create a website which contains every post I have made and all of the comments I have received about this store. Meanwhile, my last post, Online Camera Ripoffs Continue, is worth rereading while I put the new BadCameraStore website in place.

A modular home can solve a lot of problems

We have just completed out first year in our stick-built-in-a-factory modular home and it has been a hugely successful choice for us. We wanted a custom designed home to be completed in four months so we could move in for Christmas.

We needed a compact, single level home with a deck that would have enough open space to entertain friends and yet be small enough for two people to manage comfortably.

Our experience with Southern Heritage Homes of Rocky Mount Virginia  was interesting and occasionally challenging, but the final result was fantastic.

Their designs were so modular that we created many different combinations with the four modules that would be used for our home. It was like playing with a giant LEGO set where we could shuffle, flip and tweak every module until we had a result that felt right for us.

We ended up with a compact 1650 square foot home with enough open floor space to host our first party with enough room left over for an extemporaneous performance by Bernie Coveney, Chris Luster, and Sally Walker.

The house is so well insulated that we stay comfortable in sub-zero weather with this one wood stove and a few electric heaters in the distant bathrooms.

The workmanship was excellent, the on-site finishing up was extremely professional and we have been very happy with the results.

There are more and more modular home builders on the scene every year, so buyers would seem to be getting a wider choice of suppliers. I suggest visiting the factories, not just the model homes, in order to get a real feeling for the quality of the home.

I have been getting a number of requests to share everything we know about modular homes and have been replying to emails in this way:

I have written many posts about our modular home and the process of clearing the lot, etc. The articles begin here:

http://www.making-ripples.com/2005/09/buildingmoving__2.html

You can move forward in the thread or look in the Moving to Floyd category. There are approximately 30 articles about the modular aspect of the house. Let me know if you need more help.

In order to make the information more accessible, I am going to create a separate website with home site preparation, home building, moving, and heating tips for those who plan to move to a rural location.

You will all be invited to chime in with suggestions and requests once the site is live. Stay tuned...

Barter is alive and well in Floyd County

Until I moved to Southwestern Virginia, barter was a term I barely understood.

The people I knew in Redondo Beach, San Jose and in Charlottesville did little bartering, except in land transactions. I could understand the activity, but had little motivation to engage in it myself because I never seemed to have anything to trade and it always seemed easier to just use money.

I didn't realize how much of life I was missing!

In Floyd County, there is a long history of bartering. In fact, The Independent Republic of Floyd even had a community currency that enabled one to trade hours of work for goods and services. The Floydian Scrip still exists although the issuing organization Floyd Hours, Inc. is currently inactive.

People barter when they are rich in skills and short of money and this has been the situation in Floyd County for many years.

Bartering creates and strengthens relationships in the community also. You find out that someone is bartering firewood for art, or electrical work for the use of an automobile and your mind goes into gear to get something you need and want for stuff or skills that you have in abundance.

I had made it known that I wanted to help local artisans develop marketing material and would show them how to establish an Internet presence. There was plenty of interest but not much progress.

Once I also made it clear that I was open to bartering, I have had my kitchen and dining room painted and I am getting a huge pile of logs reduced to firewood, while I design websites and produce promotional materials.

I get to do something creative that I enjoy and I exchange with someone who has professional skills in a particular area and we all win in the end.

The fact that I can do this and work in my home office overlooking a neighboring pasture makes it all the more ideal. My commuting is limited to driving into town for a coffee or lunch or to the Post Office. Everything else can be done at home.

Now, if I could only work out a way to barter for a small garden tractor, life would be perfect.

Until then, I'll be content that I can do marketing services for people who need what I supply and could not otherwise afford it.

Someone could possibly coin a slogan, "Barter is everybody's business!

In Floyd, at least,  somebody already has...

Reinventing ourselves - part 4 in a series

Reinventing ourselves is an ongoing process. There is no rest point in a career or in life where we can stop performing and just coast.

To paraphrase something I said much, much earlier:

Work is like that rock, paper, scissors game. There is no long-term winning play. We need to stay alert and look for the strategy that will allow us to produce results for our company, customers or clients and get well-rewarded for it.

Situations change over time, so we must be ready for the next shift if we are to continue successfully.

A year ago I wrote several posts on reinventing yourself:

Why reinvent yourself?
What kind of reinvention will make sense for you?
When your "business plan" for life runs out of gas.

They still make sense and I continue to practice what I write. I am still reinventing myself in an effort to be more effective at the things I consider important in life.

My long term goal is to make a significant contribution to sustainable economic development in this area of Virginia. As I see it, I will do that best by enabling  business people and artisans in this region to develop viable business models and thereby support their families and contribute to the economy of Southwestern Virginia.

I had hoped to achieve a part of this goal in the capacity of Executive Director of the Jacksonville Center of Floyd. I committed to manage the operation of the Center and the Board was to do fund raising.

Unfortunately, lack of fund raising efforts have made it necessary to cut back on staff hours and while I was donating 25 hours a week of my time to the Center, I can not donate the full 45 hours that I spend at the Center each week.

I may appear to the untrained eye as someone who is "retired", but the actuality is that I need to contine generating income for the forseeable future. So I will continue to support the center as a volunteer photographer and advisor, but not as a staff member.

For me at this time, reinvention is finding those who need help in promoting their businesses and helping them get the word out effectively and economically. My preference is to service clients who are committed to preserving the quality of life in Floyd County.

My other major interest is to track and make use of the developing role of Internet publishing platforms as a vehicle for disseminating ideas and generating income for writers and artists of all kinds.

These two areas of activity should keep me busy and out of trouble for some time.

279,000 visitors

Fired up the browser this morning and saw that the site meter was reading exactly 279,000. Nice!

Thanks to all who have dropped by. I'll try and keep the articles coming more regularly than in the recent past.

I have been making a few changes recently and will be doing more posting on topics relating to post-corporate life, especially in the area of marketing yourself and your products on the Internet.

Look for more pictures too. Southwestern Virginia is a treasure trove of images for photographers and interesting stories for bloggers. Those who do both have an endless supplies of material to work with.

What makes a dream job situation?

In my opinion, the major factor is being able to make a difference! It is the basis of real job satisfaction.

That phrase, "being able to make a difference" rarely appeared on the job descriptions I have seen and when it did appear, it was used as motivation when pay was less than stellar. Nonetheless, making a difference is what excites people who take responsibility for others and for their own lives.

When you can actually make a difference in people's lives by doing your job, you will often endure lousy pay and indifferent management for years before realizing that you can make a difference and make a living wage somewhere else!

Making a difference in other people lives also implies that the people you help are able to acknowledge your efforts to help them. Somehow, this acknowledgement is far more important than being recognized by the people who employ you.

I think that everyone has the capability to find their dream job as long as they understand what is involved and that exchange is necessary to sustain yourself in any position.

There is lot that I could write about dream jobs and nightmare job situations, but the basic requirements for a dream job are:

1. The job itself must have a worthwhile purpose
2. Other people should benefit from your work
3. You should be recognized, not reviled, for doing what is necessary
4. There should be ample financial rewards to allow you to continue this job indefinitely.

Any one of these being omitted can make for a untenable job situation. For example, the job af an elected official can fall short of perfection in several significant ways. Being President of the United States is as close to a nightmare job as I can imagine, because number 3 is almost always out.

Being micro-managed or second-guessed will turn almost any job into an unwelcome ordeal. When this increases to the point where it interferes with your ability to make a difference, you need to determine what actions lead to the greater good.

The important thing to remember is that you always have a choice. You signed up to help people. Are you still able to do so? If not, what can you do to make better use of your time?

For me, that always meant finding a situation where I could make a difference and support my family in the process. There are countless opportunities to do this. All one needs to do is look.

More about the "free" logsplitter scam

home-garden-rewardpath.com has a scam going where they offer a "free" logsplitter which is actually a premium for signing up for several expensive services and products. Read the many pages of fine print to see how much you have to buy to earn your "free" logsplitter.

I have recently received some emails that confirmed my earlier post about this company. One of the real giveaways of a scammer is that they generate anonymous emails telling us that the company is really wonderful to deal with, there is no catch and we are maligning a wonderful company, etc., etc.

Here is the latest example of one of these false testimonials:

Name:     Austin Wolff

Email:     mr.A@hotmail.com

Hello there. Im not sure why you think this site is a scam. First they send you a check in the amount of the log splitter, you do not need to sign up for a ridiculous number of offers, and lastly I have completed this site and MANY others to recieve a good deal of money.

I sent an email to mr.A@hotmail.com:

Austin,

How fascinating!

Tell me more about your experiences with this company.

David

I got an immediate response that the email address was false. This is the second of these faux recommendations I have received, so until I hear otherwise I am recommending that you avoid this offer as though it was a letter from those friendly Nigerians who want to put money in your bank account.