Yesterday was also my weekly Toastmasters meeting.  If you’re unfamiliar with Toastmasters, it’s simply a club where men and women practice speaking in front a group.  It’s a safe environment where everyone laughs and claps.  But some speakers approach the podium like I do the piano, meek and unsure.  Their voices don’t carry the confidence of experience.  They’re unsure and their message is uncertain.  Certainly, that’s why they’ve come, to transform themselves from timid to bold.   Speaking in front of an audience can make anyone nervous.  Toastmasters gives you the tools and ability to step before a group and take command of the podium.  Through a series of practiced speeches, you can earn the title of Competent Communicator.  You learn about gestures, intonation, sentence variety, and eye contact.  You become comfortable speaking spontaneously on a topic, and you learn how to give a speech from notes, not just reading a script.  These are all skills that many of us can use as we make presentations, accept or present awards, or even MC your child’s talent show.

Just as the piano teacher practiced a lot before he could fill our house with music, if you’re going to speak before an audience, practice that skill.  Stand before a friendly audience who can give you feedback.  Then, as you give your public speech, stand before them with authority.  Give your voice the tone of confidence.  And you’ll never hear the cry from the back, “Speak up!”

The editorial has the problem right, but the solution isn’t mandatory health coverage, or government-run health care.  This problem would remain.  The editorial mocks the Republicans for not suggesting an alternative.  The solution is for employers to get out of the health coverage process.

Through all the shouting about the overhaul of the healthcare system, it seems that the focus has been on universal coverage, making sure everyone has some type of coverage, because those that don’t are making it more expensive for those that do.  But there’s more to look at than just coverage.  There’s the financial problem when medical issues cause workers to lose their jobs, and then their insurance.  Having insurance through an employer means that if you lose your job, you lose your insurance.  In this economy, that’s a big risk.

A better solution is to move away from employer-sponsored health insurance.  Employees find private insurance on their own and are free to choose from any provider, not just the one offered by the employer.  If the employee loses his job, he still has insurance and his rates don’t increase.  He doesn’t have to change to a new provider when he starts his new job and he doesn’t have to be concerned with pre-existing conditions.  Employers can contribute tax-free money to employees to help pay premiums if they wish.  If not reimbursed, employees may be able to deduct health insurance premiums from their tax returns. 

A quick search of online quotes for a family of five found premiums starting at $177.  There were PPO options and High-Deductible/HSA options, too.  Every family situation is different but private insurance can be affordable.

Moving to private insurance lets employers concentrate on the business they know best and gives employees the security of knowing their coverage is secure.

 For many small businesses, their biggest asset is their data and it’s usually stored on a computer.  It may be as simple as a spreadsheet, or perhaps a simple database.  Maybe they’re using a packaged accounting system like Peachtree or QuickBooks with extensive information about the customer and their purchases.  If there’s data, there’s value to be found.

Particularly in an accounting system, that information about who bought what can help a manager begin to see other relationships.  Who is buying our products?  Where are they?  What size business (or income level, for consumers) are they?  Answers to these could help spur the question, What else might they buy?  If these people/companies are buying my product, how can I target my advertising to reach more of them?

These kinds of questions can be answered with Business Intelligence (BI).  BI is simply timely reporting on information in a way that may not have been seen before so that management can act on it in some way.  It could be in the form of reports, graphs and charts, or specialized on-screen graphics.

Tools for BI come from many companies but for now we’re focusing on the Microsoft products.  For those just getting started, Excel includes a feature called Pivot Tables which can take data and break it down into categories, a slice-and-dice approach, to better understand your data.

On the SQL Server platform, BI is more complex.  It includes Integration Services (SSIS), Analysis Services (SSAS), and Reporting Services (SSRS).  With these tools, data can be brought in from a variety of sources – spreadsheets, databases, csv files, etc – to create dashboards, reports, and other reporting options.

But BI is not just for customer data.  It can also be used for financial data (break down sales by department, for example), operations (which machines are underperforming), and other uses.  The key is to determine some numeric metric (sales by zip code, parts per hour).

Having the results lets managers take some action to increase sales or decrease costs.  Perhaps a manager wouldn’t have known that machine #3 needs maintenance or that Salesman B is a slacker.  With these BI tools, companies can identify specific areas of their business and add profits.