Construction Nightmare, Varsity Gymnasium
For more than 40 years, the 8,000 seat venue at Appalachian State University in Boone North Carolina has stood up to heavy snows and tough winters. When it opened in 1968, the facility was North Carolina's largest indoor athletic facility west of Charlotte and Winston-Salem.Crowds have visited Varsity Gym to witness various circuses, they've also seen The Harlem Globetrotters and Herrmann's Royal Lipizzan Stallions of Austria. The list of entertainers and concerts to step on the stage in Varsity Gym is a diverse group, covering several musical genres. Bruce Springstein, Chicago, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Steppenwolf, The Allman Brothers Band, The Fifth Dimension, Andre

Top Five Reasons To Become A Junior Copywriter
Go ahead and study for the bar exam if you really, really want to.Become a podiatrist, a taxidermist or a typist if you feel so inclined. Get into the smoked meats industry if that's your legacy. But if you want to lead a charmed career: become a junior copywriter.When you become a junior copywriter, every part of life noticeably changes. Coffee tastes richer. Traffic seems less snarled. Roommates don't seem so 'roommate-like.' After you arrive, the good life takes form.So here, in no particular order, are the top 5 reasons to become a junior copywriter:1) Play XBox. Get Check.It is NOT a misconception that junior copywriters have free time to burn. They do. It's called 'concepting' in the advertisin

Resume Fraud - The Case for Background Checks
If you employ staff to work for you, particularly for sensitive positions such as child minding or bookkeeping, you should conduct background checks. It is amazing the extent that some applicants go to with lies about their qualifications, skills and employment history, or even having a criminal record. The practice of ‘massaging’ your credentials on your resume may seem to be harmless and an accepted practice but the simple truth is that exaggeration, omission or fabrication of important details on a resume is fraud. Some untruths can be small and appear somewhat minor, but others can cripple you.Statistics show that as many as 1 in 3 resumes are fraudulent and that 82% of all business fraud crimes committed are by the employe

Uncovering the Secrets to Effective Performance Management
In many ways there are no secrets to implementing effective performance management. Performance Management is a process and a process which if implemented effectively should ensure that both employees and managers remain both productive and motivated.The actual process itself should hold no secrets. There are simply a number of steps to be considered within the Performance Management process these being as follows:1. Agree roles and responsibilities and the objectives and targets that go with the role. Ensure that both the manager and the employee know what success looks like in relation to each objective. Sales targets are easy to quantify but project objectives may not be so easy to define success.2. Ensure the

The Drawback of Hacking Off a Blogger Through Weak Process Gaps and Pathetic Customer Service
With all of the recent data theft in the financial sector, it is important to make sure that we don't go crazy trying to protect ourselves from risk. Risk management does have a value but this value lies mostly on the front end. Reactionary risk management almost always produces a point at where the value of protecting oneself or one's customers overshadows the product or service that you are offering. The majority of companies always go beyond this point, some thinking they can even sell it to the customer as a security measure and build their brand with it.This is a lazy and terribly detrimental course of action for any corporation to undertake.I recently called Citistreet, the company that manages the 401K plans for

The Advertising Business
Have you ever wondered how advertising works and how an advertising agency makes money? Behind the glitz and glamour, advertising is still really a business and a lucrative one at that.In general terms, advertising refers to the promotion of goods and services (as well as companies and ideas) through media, especially television, radio and print (newspapers and magazines), but also through outdoor and non-traditional means. It is usually undertaken by an advertising agency on behalf of a corporation, which is its client. These clients bank on advertising to make their brands and products stand out in an otherwise cluttered marketplace. To do that, they depend heavily on the creativity and technical know-how of agency people. best hours of our days, and the best years of our lives to our employers. Why? Some of us are fortunate enough to be in jobs we really like. We'd work for free. But even then, it would be nice to have th