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Editor's letter,
Pessach is around the corner, which means that many people are scrubbing and cleaning their homes in preparation for the holiday.
The principles that apply to housekeeping for Pessach can also be applied to your business. It is a good idea to take a good look at how things are being run, and see if clutter has piled up where it shouldn't. For example, is your desk full of papers that you never look at? How's your Inbox - are there emails there that you should have responded to already, and can you delete or file the others?
In this edition we look at ways to optimize your computer so it keeps on running smoothly. We also look at the challenges facing women in the workplace, and some ways that these difficulties may be overcome.
As always, your feedback is important to us. Tell us what you liked, didn't like, and what you would like us to write about. Also, visit our blog and subscribe to the RSS feed or the email updates to learn about business in Israel.
In the meantime, thanks for reading and Happy Pessach!
Miriam Schwab
Housekeeping for your computer
Have you noticed that your computer isn't working quite as well as it was a few months ago? It could be that it is clogged up with unneeded files, spyware, and even viruses. You can easily and at little or no cost make sure that your computer is optimized to perform at its best.
Read "6 tips for cleaning up your computer (for Pessach)" to find out how...
Women in the workplace
Today, women work in all fields, and hold a wide range of positions. However, many women find the challenge of balancing life and work difficult, especially in the face of employers who prefer women without children, or break the law by firing pregnant employees. Recently I wrote a series of articles on these issues, covering the barriers to women, and possible solutions to these problems. Here is a selection:
- It seems that society has not yet really decided whether women should or should not be encouraged to join the workforce, and this issue is not unique to Israel. Yet there are many reasons why women should work. Read more about this in "Women and the Workplace."
- Women face unique challenges when trying to balance their families and their careers, especially in a world where the onus of family responsibilities falls on the woman. A life coach in Florida has designed a unique coaching program for women to help them deal with these pressures. Read more about this in "Coaching tailored for women and work."
- Men are also seeking a greater balance between their personal lives and work. Best Buy has introduced an experimental program called ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) whereby employees are evaluated not on the number of hours they sit at their desk, but on their performance. This type of work environment allows workers to decide when they will be working, and when they will be pursuing other activities. Read more about this program and its successes in "ROWE - the future of the work-life balance?"
Useful links
- Are you interested in learning more about WordPress, the popular and free blogging software? If so, check out my new blog WordPressGarage.com. The goal of WordPressGarage.com is to organize the information that is out there about WordPress, and make it more easily accessible.
- Did you know that Coke manufactures its famous beverage according to a special formula around the Pessach holidays? During the year, Coke is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. However, Ashkenazi Jews do not eat corn and other legumes during Pessach, so Coke switches to sugar to make it kosher for Passover for all. Many coke conoisseurs are snatching up the Pessach Coke and claim that this is the Real Thing! Read more about the real Coke that only comes once a year...
- Google is the epitome of the successful venture, and budding entrepreneurs look to them to learn from their experience. Marissa Mayer, Google's Product Manager, gave a talk about the user experience at Google, and some interesting facts came out in her talk, such as:
- The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
- Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked 'Whats up?' to which they replied "We are waiting for the rest of it". To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.
Learn more about Google and their failures which turned into big successes...
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