Neuroscience has made unprecedented discoveries in the last 10 years with scientific studies pointing the way to how  we really make decisions. It turns out that decision making is not intellectual. It’s emotional. For someone who’s involved in business transactions and other types of negotiation, this is a critical piece of information that can give you an enormous advantage.

     The neurologist Antonio Damasio demonstrated in scientific studies that patients with damage to the part of the prefrontal cortex that processes emotions struggle with the making of even the most simple decisions. A patient named Elliot was among the first to raise this weird possibility in Damasio’s mind. Elliot had been an exemplary husband, father, and businessman. But he began to suffer severe headaches and lose track of work responsibilities. Soon his doctors discovered an orange-sized brain tumor that was pushing into his frontal lobes, and they carefully removed it, along with some damaged brain tissue. During his recovery, family and friends discovered that, though his language and intelligence were fully intact, at work he became distractible and couldn’t manage his schedule. Faced with an organizational task, he’d deliberate for an entire afternoon about how to approach the problem. He could no longer reach a decision. In spite of repeatedly being shown the flaw and how to fix it, he could not. His emotions were gone and so was his ability to make decisions.

     This is important in the context of negotiations because a negotiation is, after all, about making one decision after another until an agreement is reached, including an agreement to disagree and go our separate ways. How many times have you watched someone who had a no-brainer decision do exactly the wrong thing—and you just couldn’t believe they did that? Decisions are 100% emotional until they are made, and then they are approved or rejected by our intellect based on knowledge, practice, training, or lack thereof.

     In your next negotiation, try this. Before you go into the negotiation, try to wipe your mind clean of all emotions. I call this “blank slating.” Get rid of all neediness, fear, hope, excitement, anger, or worry. If you can maintain this emotionally neutral place, you will automatically have the advantage. That’s because your respected opponent is angling, fretting, manipulating, and acting from his emotions. You, on the other hand, are keeping your emotions in check and training your brain to relax and not be needy in any way.

     If you can learn to blank slate, you will be better able to focus on your actions, words, thoughts, and behavior during the negotiation. It will enable you to ask the right questions, and answer in a smarter way. And you’ll avoid revealing too much or inflaming your opponent’s emotions. Negotiating from an emotionally neutral place plays a key role in how well you’ll be able to show your opponent that accepting what you propose is to his benefit.

Here are some windows shortcut tips that can help you work faster.  Press the buttons indicated to get the result you need.  For example, to open the start menu on your computer, you can press the Control button (CTRL) and the Escape (ESC) button simultaneously and the Start menu will pop open.

• Have you ever wanted an easy way to find something? Try this: press CTRL + F in almost any windows application and the find window will pop-up; no more having to look for the find command on the menu.
• Are you tired of having to pick up the mouse to copy and paste? Try this: to copy something, simply highlight it and press CTRL + C to copy it.  You can then press CTRL + V to paste it.  One other note on this, you can press CTRL + A to select everything all at once.
• Have you ever deleted some text in a document that you wish you could get back easily? Here is a tip: press the CTRL + Z key and you can undo your changes; press it again and it will keep undoing your changes until you get back to what you want. 
• Have you ever been in a form and tabbed too far while going from field-to-field? Did you have to pick up the mouse to click on the field you just passed? Here is another tip: the TAB button will move you forward from field to field and SHIFT + TAB will go backwards – this will allow you to do more without having to pick up the mouse.
• Are you one of “those” people that have a lot of windows open all at once?  Isn’t it a pain to have to minimize them one-by-one to get back to the desktop or a window that is buried somewhere?  Here is a shortcut: press Windows + M to minimize all of the windows at once.  Then you can just reopen the one you were looking for.
• Are you in and out of applications all day long? Isn’t it a pain to have to click on the X or go file / exit each time? Here is a tip: you can use the ALT + F4 key combination to close down any application in windows.
• Do you send a lot of email? Isn’t it a pain to pick up the mouse and press the send button when you are done?  Try this next time: when you are ready to send your email, instead of pressing the send button, just press ALT + S instead.

Here is a Quick reference that you can keep handy for all of the shortcuts that we have covered above:

On March 1st, Google implemented a new, unified privacy policy that affects the browsing history and information Google has on you, both past and present.  Prior to this change, your Google history of the searches you made and sites you visited was not shared with Google’s other services, particularly advertisers. Naturally, Google is one of the biggest media and marketing companies in the world, and your preferences and search information is pure gold from a marketing standpoint.  Marketers armed with that information would know exactly what products and services to display to you as you use the search engine.

     However, your search history can reveal a lot about you including details on your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your web history with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your web history and stop your web history from being recorded in the future. To do this, sign into your Google Account and go to the “History” section, then select “Remove All History.”

     Of course, clearing the web history in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing your preferences, searches and information and using it for internal purposes. It also does not change the fact that any information gathered and stored by Google could be obtained and used against you by law enforcement.

     With web history enabled, Google will keep these records indefinitely; with it disabled, they will be partially anonymized after 18 months, and certain kinds of uses, including sending you customized search results, will be prevented. This brings up a whole other topic of what kind of information should you post about yourself (or store) online. Facebook is another site that gathers tons of personal information about you, including your location, date of birth, friends and family, age, preferences and much, much more. In the future, I believe

Every once in a while, you meet an amazing person that truly inspires you.  That is exactly what happened at our quarterly Nashville marketing conference last month.  The incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, shared some of his life lessons with our team. 

   Lou had a rocky start in life.  At the age of 4, he had a terrible ear infection that resulted in him losing 80% of his hearing.  Like all children, he was ill-equipped to handle the ensuing ridicule and rejection that comes with being deaf and unable to speak well.  His fear of the constant ridicule led to fear, anger, hate and suffering.  As a young man, he was told, repeatedly, you are deaf and you can’t do this or that because of it.

   He refused to accept the negativity the world dished out.  He saw a Mr. Universe magazine and it inspired him to want to build and grow his body into a muscle machine.  After training and winning Mr. Universe in 1973, he found at the winning interviews that nobody could understand him.  This setback encouraged him to strengthen his speaking skills.  He then went on to win Mr. Universe again in 1974 but this time – the world could understand him, which launched into his now famous acting career.  He spent many years performing as the Incredible Hulk.  His origin story was inspiring and encouraging.  Next, he shared 4 key life lessons that he learned, applied and embraced to become the legendary Lou Ferrigno.

Get your pens and paper ready……

1. Embrace Your Fear. To get the most out of life, replace your fear hormones with confidence hormones.  Do this by strengthening your body so that your body and mind can work in sync.  Confront your fear.  Write it down.  Take action so that you release the power it has over you.

2.   Believe.  You must have passion and believe in yourself.  Forget competing with the world.  Believe in yourself and better your best.  This process will build your belief in yourself and fuel your passion.  Once you truly believe nothing is impossible, success will be yours.  By believing in yourself and building your confidence, you will see positive fingerprints in all of your relationships and that process will attract more positive energy to you.

3. Delete the negative.  If you have people around that are negative, get rid of them.  Don’t let the world tell you what you cannot do.  Instead – tell the world what you will do.

4. Maximize your personal power.  The mind and body are connected, designed to work together in harmony.  When the world told him he could not, Lou built his body and that process fed his mind, confidence and belief in himself.  He competed against himself, bettered his best, built himself into the amazing body builder and actor he became.  According to Lou, “If you don’t feel good, it affects your mind and decisions about all areas of your life. It’s critical to eat well, rest and take good care of your body so that your mind and body work in harmony and you maximize your personal power.”  This will fuel your confidence and that along with belief in yourself and truly believing nothing is impossible will help you reach success at whatever you commit to do.

   Lou’s story was amazing, inspiring and encouraging.  Are you struggling with success in one or more areas of your life?  If so, I encourage you to take his advice.  Surround yourself with positive people, coaches or mentors.  That’s one reason we go to Nashville every quarter.  We have a family of amazing people that constantly encourage, inspire and challenge us to do our best.  To learn more on this process or Lou, check out his website at http://www.louferrigno.com. I’d also encourage you to read “Think & Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.  If you believe, you can achieve.  If I can help you in any way, give me a call at 678-730-2703. 

Dedicated to your success, Jennifer

Route All Your Calls From Various Phones To One Device: Whether it’s a standard desk phone, mobile device or Skype, fumbling between phones can be a thing of the past with the Plantronics Calisto 835.

At about $200, this desktop speakerphone device uses Bluetooth to connect to your cellphone, USB to hook up with your computer, and the wall socket to link to your phone line. When a call comes in from any of your devices, it’s instantly routed to this easy-to-use speakerphone that sits on your desk.

The backlit screen is bright and responsive, giving the Calisto a flashy, futuristic feel. It comes with a clip-on microphone that allows you to take calls while freeing your hands to type or to walk around your office.

Seems like just yesterday, phones were simple devices for making and receiving phone calls. These days, smartphones are as functional as full-fledged desktop PCs and hold valuable applications, e-mail messages, photos, videos, documents and, of course, phone numbers and contact information. If losing the data on your phone would be a true disaster, then you’ll want to back up your phone as regularly and carefully as you do your other devices.

     Major smartphone platforms can back up their data to a computer or to a cloud backup via the Internet. Here are a couple of resources you can use with popular smartphones to ensure that all of your data is properly backed up.

iPhone
     iCloud is Apple’s new service for backing up your iPhone and other media you purchase through iTunes. When you sign up, iCloud will automatically backup the mail, calendar and contacts on your iPhone, as well as any music, books, apps, videos or media on your iPad, Mac or even your PC. iCloud uses the power of cloud computing to sync your devices automatically, so you don’t have to dock your device to keep things in sync.

Android
     Start with the settings on your phone; go to “Settings > Privacy” on your phone and make sure the “Back up my settings” and “Automatic restore” options are checked. Next, go to “Settings > Accounts” and sync, open your Gmail account, and check off all options. With these settings in place, your contacts, system settings, apps, calendar, and e-mail will be restored whenever you set up a new Android phone with that same Gmail account. However, this is only a basic backup; it won’t save the photos and text messages on your phone.

     For a more complete backup, you might try MyBackup Pro ($5 plus 50 MB online storage for free and $1 to $2 per month for more online storage). The program runs automated scheduled backups, supports a wide range of Android phones and will back up app install files that do not have copyright protections programmed into them.  If your phone is rooted, you might consider Titanium Backup ($5.99 for Pro), which backs up all apps, all data associated with them and the Android Market links that show you’ve paid for them. It also saves most phone Pro versions and will integrate with Dropbox.

     Hopefully by now, you realize you need to keep a close watch over the security of your PC and other devices (or you’re smart enough to hire us to do it for you). Either way, cybercrime is BIG business, and small business owners are seen as the low hanging fruit by attackers who are looking for easy-to-steal financial data, passwords and the like. Some do it for profit, others do it for fun.

     But there’s a much bigger threat to small business data security that can not only portend to leak your information out to the masses, but can also corrupt or erase data, screw up operations and bring everything to a screeching halt. What is it? Surprisingly, it’s your employees.

     “Human error” is the #1 leading cause of data loss, system failure and virus attacks. In some cases, it’s an innocent “Ooops! I deleted it.” Other times it’s a malicious act of revenge from a disgruntled employee who didn’t get the raise they wanted or simply feels taken advantage of. Recently, a disgruntled employee working for oDesk, a third party content management firm, leaked Facebook’s highly detailed rulebook for flagging inappropriate posts. This document contained shocking guidelines regarding sexual content, death and disfigurement as well as racially charged content. Apparently, sexual acts should be blocked, but crushed heads are okay.

    The above incident, while a problem, is a mild case. Often employees seeking revenge will steal and post client data, financials or other competitive information online. In some cases, they sell it. Other times, employees delete critical files to either cause harm to the organization or to cover their tracks. And when it’s your client’s data that gets stolen or compromised, you have a major PR nightmare to deal with aside from the costs and problems of recovering the data.

     At a minimum, first make sure you back up all critical data remotely. Second, monitor employee’s usage of data. Simple content filtering software can detect not only when employees are visiting inappropriate sites, but also detect if they delete or alter large amounts of data–all signs that something could be amiss. And finally, it’s worth a little bit of money to find a good employment attorney to help you craft various policies on using and accessing confidential information.

My dog Luna is the love of my life.  She is an 8 year old rescue dog mixed with all kinds of wonderful but unrecognizable breeds.  She adores everyone she meets and has a way of making everyone feel they are special.  Luna has to be touching someone.  If we are at the table eating, she is under it with her head on someone’s foot.  If we are in a chair reading, she is either snuggled up next to us or lying at our feet.  If we are sleeping, well she pretty much takes over the bed and we rearrange ourselves around her (she has us trained!).  When my children have friends over for the night, she always sleeps with them – I guess she wants them to feel welcome.

We tend to hold regular theme parties so of course Luna has a variety of outfits to fit the occasion.  The attached photo is from Mardis Gras.  She’s not too keen on dressing up but she appeases me and she does become the center of attention.

Luna also loves to play Tether Ball.  She will chase the ball until her tongue is dragging and we make her stop!  I cannot imagine a day without waking up next to her warm brown eyes or coming home without her dancing around me as if I’ve been gone for days.  She’s a great gift and I’m lucky she belongs to me.

Thanks Nancy for sharing Luna with our readers of Tech Times. As this month’s Grand Prize Winner, Luna won a $40.00 Treat Basket from Pooch N Paws Pet Boutique and Barkery in Suwanee and she will be featured on our MIS Blog.

If you want free stuff for your fabulous pet, enter one of these 3 ways:

1.   Call Jennifer at 678-730-2703

2. Email at Jennifer@mis-solutions.com

3.  Go online to budurl.com and submit your pet’s picture and story.

Despite all the spam, e-mail is still the workhorse of online marketing. As a business owner, the lure of fast, cheap and easy communication to hundreds if not thousands of customers is too hard to resist. But e-mail is certainly not a “perfect” media. Response percentages can be low to non-existent and you can quickly make a lot of people angry if you don’t use it properly.

First and foremost, get your customers to give you their permission to e-mail them. Sounds obvious, but many salespeople are using LinkedIn or other sneaky ways to garner e-mails online for prospects they’ve never met or talked to. If you don’t mind making a handful of people REALLY angry with you, this might be an okay strategy. However, if you want to build a good relationship with the people you are trying to sell your services to, then work hard to EARN their attention, not steal it.
So how do you do that? By offering some type of valuable information or entertaining content to them in exchange for their e-mail address. This could be a “how to” webinar, white paper, eBook or buyers guide. For example, a realtor could offer a monthly newsletter on home sales and home values for their neighborhood. A vet could offer a free report on “How To Solve The Top 3 Misbehaviors In Dogs,” or “How To Choose The Perfect Cat.” A restaurant could offer coupons and specials exclusively for their newsletter subscribers along with recipes and invitations to VIP client events. This type of information should be offered on what’s called an “opt-in” page. You can see one of ours by going to: www.mis-solutions.com.

Once you have their e-mail address, don’t abuse it by sending boring, off-target spam. That means you’ll have to work hard to consistently come up with good, valuable and interesting content or subscribers will ignore, delete and opt out of your list fast.  And finally, make sure you have clear opt-out instructions on every e-mail you send along with your full contact information; the law requires this and it’s just good online etiquette.

It’s official: end users are the weakest link in the IT security chain. You can set up a firewall, encryption, anti-virus software, and password protection up to your ears, but it won’t save you from the employee who posts his access information to a public web site.

Most security breaches, viruses, spyware, and other network problems are a result of human error—an end user unknowingly downloading an infected file, e-mailing confidential information, or disabling their anti-virus, to name a few.

So what is a company to do? While there is no surefire way to keep end users from making mistakes, you can dramatically reduce the number of problems by creating an acceptable use policy (AUP) and training your employees on what is and what is NOT acceptable behavior.  But if you want your employees to actually adhere to your security policies, here are a few tips:

· Keep it simple. A long, confusing policy that looks like a legal document is about as easy to read as the instruction manual for your digital camera. Make the policies clear and easy to read. Give examples and include screen shots where necessary.

· Provide group training. Many companies make the mistake of distributing their AUP by e-mail and telling employees they must read it on their own. This gives the employees the option of NOT reading and simply signing and submitting. You don’t need hours of classroom training but a simple 15 or 20-minute session will force even the most reluctant users to learn a thing or two.

· Keep employees updated. To add to the above tip, make sure you update employees on a regular basis to keep the policies fresh in their minds and to educate them about new threats.

· Explain the consequences of not following the policy. This is both explaining the negative effects to the business as well as disciplinary actions that will be taken if they refuse to follow policy. Occasional violators should be warned, and habitual violators should be disciplined.

· Monitor their behavior. The best policy in the world won’t work if it’s not enforced. There are many tools on the market that can do this for you automatically. Edict without accountability doesn’t work. People perform to what is measured and reported on.

Need Help In Creating An Acceptable Use Policy and Training Your Staff?

Not only can we help you create a customized acceptable use policy for your staff, but we can also provide training on the topic and even install network monitoring software to make sure it is enforced. If you have questions or would like a FREE Acceptable Use Policy or want to learn how to easily and automatically enforce it, contact Jennifer at Jennifer@mis-solutions.com or call 678-730-2703.