Written by: Boca Raton Police Chief Dan Alexander
Boca Raton Police Services Department’s new VIPER VANTAGE is an aggressive citywide interactive multi-generational initiative of the department’s VIPER program that features new programs, services, partnerships, and communications channels to promote a collective communitywide participatory “crime prevention” mindset and everyday approach to safety.
Promoting consistent messaging of “Together Let’s VIPER-IZE Crime”, components engage and enlist neighborhoods, corporations, small businesses, schools, universities, retailers, entertainment venues, restaurants, hotels, etc. in the strategic VIPER mission. The integrated VIPER VANTAGE communications/branding program, emphasizes, educates, and promotes that crime prevention does not rely on one single VIPER component (Visibilty, Intelligence, Partnerships, Education, Resources), but rather a cumulative results-driven interactive and participatory program of all components to keep Boca safe.
Initiative components include, but are not limited to:
· VIPER Shield Signage-posted at city entrances to remind those coming in that Boca Raton is a VIPER Shield Community…warning that crime will not be tolerated within the city.
· VIPER Branded Crime Prevention Signage-posted at parks, public spaces, surveillance sites.
· VIPER Branded Police Cars-logo posted fleetwide.
· VIPER Alerts-daily e-alert service that updates subscribers on the latest crime news within a radius (up to a mile) of any selected location.
· FDLE Offender and Predator Email Alerts-frequent e-alert service that updates subscribers when sexual offenders and child predators move into their neighborhoods.
· New Interactive Website-featuring frequent crime news updates; crime surveillance videos; increased interaction opportunities; social network connection to FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter; a virtual crime view program; a VIPER Kids page; event calendar; and video messages from the Police Chief.
· New VIPER Kids Program-to engage Boca Raton’s youngest generation in safety awareness, with http://www.bocaviperkids.com/, a youth-oriented website with separate domain from main site; a VIPER Ambassador Mascot; and VIPER Visits from police officers and mascot for safety awareness programming that includes posters, bookmarks, coloring sheets, etc.
· WATCH YOUR BAG BOCA!™ -awareness campaign designed to encourage those who live, work, play, and visit the City of Boca Raton to take a more active role in personal and community safety. Highly visible reminders — via window clings; posters; street signage; and transit, print, and movie screen ads — focus on protection of personal property, from shopping bags, handbags, and briefcases to backpacks, and gym, baby, and grocery bags.
· Community Partners-comprised of businesses, residential communities/HOAs, schools, nonprofits, and individuals committed to championing VIPER as message promoters, safety communicators, advocates, and ambassadors. They post Community Partner decals, posters, and window clings; distribute brochures; provide display space; host crime prevention sessions/talks for employees, tenants, customers, and members; become a VIPER Video surveillance site; participate in Watch Your Bag Boca!; link website to http://www.bocaviper.com/, provide in-kind services, etc. Partners receive an official certificate, Community Partner Pin, logo on VIPER website, invitations to VIPER-related events, etc.
To learn more or register for VIPER services/programs, visit http://www.bocaviper.com/.
Boca Raton Police Chief Dan Alexander, a 19-year law enforcement veteran, is supported by a sworn force of 198 officers, 96 civilian employees, and a volunteer corp serving a population of more than 86,000. VIPER is a crime prevention program of the Boca Raton Police Services Department.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Give Your Business a Makeover
Written by: SCORE Counselors to America's Small Business
Is your small business stuck in a rut? Perhaps your customers no longer seem excited and your staff has stopped offering fresh new ideas. Or maybe the competition has been giving you fits.
Now could be a good time to give your business a makeover. It could be a major makeover or a minor makeover. What’s most important is that you find a way to breathe new life into your profits and get the business back on the fast track. Small, agile businesses have a big advantage in this area over the big and slow ones. You can move quickly to spot changing conditions and put changes into operation.
Stand back and take a top-to-bottom look at your business. In order to identify where changes are most needed, you’ll have to dig for details about your products or services, your marketing and sales efforts, customer service, competition and more. Has your customer base changed since you first started? If so, this could be one area where you need to make changes. Is it broader or narrower? Older or younger? More upscale or less? You may need a new image, revved-up branding or perhaps just a rewrite of your marketing materials to address the needs of this changing customer base.
Take a hard look at whether your products or services are performing to customer expectations. Remember that your goal should be to exceed expectations, not simply meet them. If customers are luke warm on your business, find out why. Perhaps competitors are doing a better job, or maybe they’ve created add-on products and services that you haven’t. Your own customers can help with your makeover if you ask them for feedback.
If your marketing message has never changed, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate and devise a new one. Try revisiting your original business plan. You might be able to recapture some of the insight and enthusiasm you originally had from that document. Think back to your most successful promotions, presentations or sales efforts. Rather than reinventing the wheel, you might be able to update and expand an approach that has already worked for your business.
Some old-fashioned brainstorming sessions can help rekindle your managerial flame. Meet with your most trusted advisors, partners, employees, friends and outside consultants. Ask for their view on what your business can do to improve it.
Is your small business stuck in a rut? Perhaps your customers no longer seem excited and your staff has stopped offering fresh new ideas. Or maybe the competition has been giving you fits.
Now could be a good time to give your business a makeover. It could be a major makeover or a minor makeover. What’s most important is that you find a way to breathe new life into your profits and get the business back on the fast track. Small, agile businesses have a big advantage in this area over the big and slow ones. You can move quickly to spot changing conditions and put changes into operation.
Stand back and take a top-to-bottom look at your business. In order to identify where changes are most needed, you’ll have to dig for details about your products or services, your marketing and sales efforts, customer service, competition and more. Has your customer base changed since you first started? If so, this could be one area where you need to make changes. Is it broader or narrower? Older or younger? More upscale or less? You may need a new image, revved-up branding or perhaps just a rewrite of your marketing materials to address the needs of this changing customer base.
Take a hard look at whether your products or services are performing to customer expectations. Remember that your goal should be to exceed expectations, not simply meet them. If customers are luke warm on your business, find out why. Perhaps competitors are doing a better job, or maybe they’ve created add-on products and services that you haven’t. Your own customers can help with your makeover if you ask them for feedback.
If your marketing message has never changed, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate and devise a new one. Try revisiting your original business plan. You might be able to recapture some of the insight and enthusiasm you originally had from that document. Think back to your most successful promotions, presentations or sales efforts. Rather than reinventing the wheel, you might be able to update and expand an approach that has already worked for your business.
Some old-fashioned brainstorming sessions can help rekindle your managerial flame. Meet with your most trusted advisors, partners, employees, friends and outside consultants. Ask for their view on what your business can do to improve it.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Sellutions - The Experience Economy
Written by Greta Schulz, ProActive Training & Consulting
I really admire Starbucks. They get it, they really do. I go there, I meet business associates there, on my suggestion or other peoples. That being said, I do not like their coffee. That’s right. It is way too strong for me, and for lots of other people for that matter, but I still go there and would encourage others to as well.
Howard Schultz, no relation to me, unfortunately, has figured it out. He has created an experience like no other. Except for the copy-cats and maybe “Central Perk” of “friends” fame, it is completely unique.
So let’s get back to why I go there and others too, if we don’t like the coffee. The coffee is only one part of the “experience”. There are the comfy couches, how many people would rather sit on a hard stool as opposed to a comfy, cozy, ‘I should be in my pajamas’ couch? How about the soft unique music that plays ever so slightly in the background and the wi-fi. Do others offer this now? Sure but I believe they were the first. The walls are dark and have nice artwork. I am experiencing my living room and not a coffee shop.
So how do we accomplish this in our own businesses?
First of all, it isn’t about having the best product if that is all that you have. Best is merely subjective anyway. Have you ever told someone that your company was ranked #1 in the industry? Woopie! If that was so important everyone would switch to you and there would be no #2. I could be wrong but I am going to take a shot in the dark here and assume you probably have at least one form or another of competition.
So what is the experience you are leaving them with? What feeling are they getting when working with you? Is it unique and different? Can they not achieve it anywhere else? Are they getting a good feeling from working with you or are they feeling like you do a good job? A good job is intellectual, “I got what I paid for”. Feeling good is an emotion. Emotion is the extra something, the WOW factor, the beyond the expectation. It’s the comfy, cozy, I feel like I am in my pajamas, couch.
What are some things that you do to create the WOW factor? That something extra, the special, unique experience in working with you that makes you different from your competitors. If you want to create more of the experience, you should brainstorm. Meet with a few people that you admire and shoot around some ideas. Hey maybe you can do that at your local Starbucks. Try the Carmel Apple Cider.
I would like to hear from you. Please email me and tell me about the WOW that you give. I would like to share these with all of our readers so more of you can create “the experience”. I would like to hear from you. Please email me and tell me about the experience that you give. I would like to share these with all of our readers in an upcoming issue so that more of you can learn from each other and create this experience for your customers.
I really admire Starbucks. They get it, they really do. I go there, I meet business associates there, on my suggestion or other peoples. That being said, I do not like their coffee. That’s right. It is way too strong for me, and for lots of other people for that matter, but I still go there and would encourage others to as well.
Howard Schultz, no relation to me, unfortunately, has figured it out. He has created an experience like no other. Except for the copy-cats and maybe “Central Perk” of “friends” fame, it is completely unique.
So let’s get back to why I go there and others too, if we don’t like the coffee. The coffee is only one part of the “experience”. There are the comfy couches, how many people would rather sit on a hard stool as opposed to a comfy, cozy, ‘I should be in my pajamas’ couch? How about the soft unique music that plays ever so slightly in the background and the wi-fi. Do others offer this now? Sure but I believe they were the first. The walls are dark and have nice artwork. I am experiencing my living room and not a coffee shop.
So how do we accomplish this in our own businesses?
First of all, it isn’t about having the best product if that is all that you have. Best is merely subjective anyway. Have you ever told someone that your company was ranked #1 in the industry? Woopie! If that was so important everyone would switch to you and there would be no #2. I could be wrong but I am going to take a shot in the dark here and assume you probably have at least one form or another of competition.
So what is the experience you are leaving them with? What feeling are they getting when working with you? Is it unique and different? Can they not achieve it anywhere else? Are they getting a good feeling from working with you or are they feeling like you do a good job? A good job is intellectual, “I got what I paid for”. Feeling good is an emotion. Emotion is the extra something, the WOW factor, the beyond the expectation. It’s the comfy, cozy, I feel like I am in my pajamas, couch.
What are some things that you do to create the WOW factor? That something extra, the special, unique experience in working with you that makes you different from your competitors. If you want to create more of the experience, you should brainstorm. Meet with a few people that you admire and shoot around some ideas. Hey maybe you can do that at your local Starbucks. Try the Carmel Apple Cider.
I would like to hear from you. Please email me and tell me about the WOW that you give. I would like to share these with all of our readers so more of you can create “the experience”. I would like to hear from you. Please email me and tell me about the experience that you give. I would like to share these with all of our readers in an upcoming issue so that more of you can learn from each other and create this experience for your customers.
Business Management - Take It Back From the Accountants
Written by: Jackie Reeves, Bell Rock Capital, LLC
I firmly believe it is time for the business leaders, the entrepreneurs, the visionaries to take back the reigns of their companies’ from the accountants! For as long as I can remember, business leaders have pursued long term goals, laid out 3-5 year business plans for their respective Board’s of Directors and at times, cursed the scrutiny of “going public” primarily because it forced them to think and more importantly, act on a short term, that is, quarterly basis. I’ll save the woes of being a public company for another time. Many CEO’s are likely looking back to those time as “the good ‘ole days.”
This week I was struck by the awareness of the CNBC commentators as they realized through an interview with a sells-side analyst that the financial institutions’ management teams had accounting limitations placed upon them as to what and when they could or could not write-down assets! Now, perhaps because I have been wrapped in the world of financial institutions for so long, I thought this point was well vetted by now, but I am beginning to think not!
Now is as good a time as any to make a stance, especially since there is consideration that GAAP, Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, may be replaced by IFRS, International Financial Reporting Standards, or perhaps a blend of the two disciplines. I am in favor of a back-to-basics approach.
From my perspective, the move to full balance sheet mark-to-market accounting was quite intriguing when the march towards that goal began at least ten years ago. It sparked many an intellectual conversation as well as more sophisticated mathematical skills to be applied to analyze books of business both on and off the balance sheet. However, is it a prudent and reasonable practice in the real world?
I have come to believe that it is not a prudent real world practice. Not all assets have a market in which to mark the assets each and every day, but in this accounting world, it is being forced to occur. So, when an asset does not have a buyer, is the true value zero? Is it 25% below where it had previously traded or 50% lower? Maybe 75% lower? Also, even though these financial institutions report quarterly, the daily movements of credit spreads have created tremendous volatility across this sector because of the interpretation of the accounting impact these movements may have on earnings. Then, add to this mix the rating agencies playing catch-up with reality and companies are required, under accounting guidelines, to write-down these downgraded instruments.
In essence, I believe what the accountants are saying with these rules is do not underwrite or facilitate transactions of assets that may not have a daily price because these companies will be called upon to validate it at least every quarter, if not more frequently. So, I believe it is a few accounting rules that are stymieing the credit process.
To be sure, I am all for increased granularity, transparency, and I simply love more and more data. And I can say that I was very curious about how all of these new accounting rules world play out as they were unfolding, because I love math and I too was thinking well, more is good! In application, however, these rules are forcing senior managements to do things simply because the accounting rules exist, rather than focusing on running and growing their businesses for the long term. I have recently taken a few steps back and looked at the big picture, and these accounting rules seem completely out of synch with running a global business for the long term.
Now, unfortunately many of the current bulge-bracket CEOs have only recently occupied the corner office and these accounting rules may not necessarily be addressed during their first 90 days. But, I believe as they peel back the onion and reflect back on their prior experiences, they too will realize that they need to take the business of business back from the accountants.
I firmly believe it is time for the business leaders, the entrepreneurs, the visionaries to take back the reigns of their companies’ from the accountants! For as long as I can remember, business leaders have pursued long term goals, laid out 3-5 year business plans for their respective Board’s of Directors and at times, cursed the scrutiny of “going public” primarily because it forced them to think and more importantly, act on a short term, that is, quarterly basis. I’ll save the woes of being a public company for another time. Many CEO’s are likely looking back to those time as “the good ‘ole days.”
This week I was struck by the awareness of the CNBC commentators as they realized through an interview with a sells-side analyst that the financial institutions’ management teams had accounting limitations placed upon them as to what and when they could or could not write-down assets! Now, perhaps because I have been wrapped in the world of financial institutions for so long, I thought this point was well vetted by now, but I am beginning to think not!
Now is as good a time as any to make a stance, especially since there is consideration that GAAP, Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, may be replaced by IFRS, International Financial Reporting Standards, or perhaps a blend of the two disciplines. I am in favor of a back-to-basics approach.
From my perspective, the move to full balance sheet mark-to-market accounting was quite intriguing when the march towards that goal began at least ten years ago. It sparked many an intellectual conversation as well as more sophisticated mathematical skills to be applied to analyze books of business both on and off the balance sheet. However, is it a prudent and reasonable practice in the real world?
I have come to believe that it is not a prudent real world practice. Not all assets have a market in which to mark the assets each and every day, but in this accounting world, it is being forced to occur. So, when an asset does not have a buyer, is the true value zero? Is it 25% below where it had previously traded or 50% lower? Maybe 75% lower? Also, even though these financial institutions report quarterly, the daily movements of credit spreads have created tremendous volatility across this sector because of the interpretation of the accounting impact these movements may have on earnings. Then, add to this mix the rating agencies playing catch-up with reality and companies are required, under accounting guidelines, to write-down these downgraded instruments.
In essence, I believe what the accountants are saying with these rules is do not underwrite or facilitate transactions of assets that may not have a daily price because these companies will be called upon to validate it at least every quarter, if not more frequently. So, I believe it is a few accounting rules that are stymieing the credit process.
To be sure, I am all for increased granularity, transparency, and I simply love more and more data. And I can say that I was very curious about how all of these new accounting rules world play out as they were unfolding, because I love math and I too was thinking well, more is good! In application, however, these rules are forcing senior managements to do things simply because the accounting rules exist, rather than focusing on running and growing their businesses for the long term. I have recently taken a few steps back and looked at the big picture, and these accounting rules seem completely out of synch with running a global business for the long term.
Now, unfortunately many of the current bulge-bracket CEOs have only recently occupied the corner office and these accounting rules may not necessarily be addressed during their first 90 days. But, I believe as they peel back the onion and reflect back on their prior experiences, they too will realize that they need to take the business of business back from the accountants.
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