Chilly

I agree. There is no way they could've convinced nassib to come to buffalo without marrone

Randomly discovered phrases that my dog goes crazy (good or bad) for: "Are you in good hands?" (Allstate) "You buy the crackers when you buy the soup" "Costco Coupons" He also hates the jaws theme.

Guess someone missed the memo that every team gets a prime time game now.

Depends on company culture.Where I am, doesn't matter how high you are, you do both strategic and tactical work.

I'm assuming this is an entry-level manager position (i.e. not a manager of managers). Is this the case? The advice I'm writing is geared towards that (although #1 and #2 still apply, it'd be to a different audience, not the front-line sales employees). Don't come in and change stuff right away. Observe, get to know how your people work, give it time. Understand how they work, why they work that way, who they are, etc. Spend a lot of time learning and observing at the start. Do something to gain your employee's trust during this time. Find something that is a problem for them currently, and go fix it. Don't go for something major or hard to change (again, there's a trust-building/learning period), but do something for all of them to build their trust. Prove that you listen, take their criticism to heart, and go make change for better. This is an important first step. After you've had some time to establish yourself as trustworthy, it's a really good exercise to sit down with your teams, lay out what you expect of your teams, what you commit to your teams, and your rules of engagement. Make it a two-way discussion. Putting the moose on the table, it takes the guesswork out of your employees knowing where they stand, and making it collaborative means you get buy-in. I use a set of like 9 team values to have this conversation. They are generally pretty obvious things like "Take Action, Even If You Fail", "You are empowered, you don't need to wait for me to act", "No Surprises", "Be Direct and Honest", etc. However, it lets your employees know up front what you expect of them. Make sure they also always know where they stand. If they go into a performance review wondering how they're going to do, you've failed as a manager. Performance reviews should be a formality, never a surprise.

Don't discount the Motorola X Phone this summer. First Motorola phone really made after the Google purchase. Will be sold at a loss, so it will be $199-299 off contract. Can customize the hardware when ordering.

Being a "professional" doesn't stop them from being human. There's been lots of studies done on influence, and the more types of influence there is, the more successful humans become. We'll see if it's the right message, but it's certainly a good thing to do.

Was I #1?

Texas is back!

I didn't realize they did Google I/O overseas.

I didn't realize Google was headquartered overseas.

Oops, released it slightly early.

Well, I thought Florida had a chance to win it all.... Doh.

I'd rather have Flacco.

Oh goodie. They went all out to sign Kolb. That makes me feel great.

Benny Hill Theme Song

Just got back from an EPIC March Madness trip. For legal reasons, there will be no stories told here. Our view from our table at PURE Nightclub at Caesars:

FREE HAT!!! I've got L'Ville, Gonzaga, Florida, Indiana.

Happy birthday Dennis!

Nice, I've never been for a big sporting event. We are thinking about doing The PUB @ Monte Carlo on Thursday and Friday. $60 open bar, all you can eat wings/sliders, and they have a betting window setup in the restaurant. Saturday we're going to the Cosmopolitan. For $125 they have an all day open bar, betting window, and seating in their ball room. Not sure on what we're doing Sunday yet. May go check out the Harrah's sportsbook!

I'm going to Vegas for March Madness this year. I do pretty good in brackets each year but I've never bet on college basketball. Any tips? BTW, I hear you on Kansas not making it out. I kinda like VCU there.

If you know stats, then you'll know we'll never be good until we get a QB.

I'm an INTP. It's slight though, the one I'm far in is Thinking over Feeling. I honestly switch back and forth between INTJ and INTP. I'm pretty close on both.

Yeah I have. I remember back when this team didn't have Manny Lawson

Holy Crap this show is good. Started watching tonight; maybe not realistic, but amazing television.