Garden Lighting For A Glowing Garden | Home Improvement Source

Garden lovers know that they can go into their green world whenever they want to relax, and release their tensions of daily life. A garden is a thing of joy and beauty and a symbol of purity day in and day out. For this reason, people love to decorate their garden with embellishments in the day while for night decor they prefer garden lighting.

LED lighting is increasingly becoming popular these days. The standard of output that LED Garden lighting generates is unique. The colors and lights of LED equipments present a very beautiful atmosphere. Garden lights are usually installed at three levels: on the ground, above the ground on some rock or bench, and on a height like a wall or pole. The lighting effects will be created by an expert, as he/she would know best what type of fitting and filters to use for each level. The filters manage to cast mysterious shadows on the foliage, and it all is magnified as abstract lighting art in the night.

It is also necessary that horticulture knowledge is applied when illuminating shrubbery. How the plants will evolve into a certain physical structure will make for an informed decision on how to light it up from the beginning. Whether the plant is herbaceous or deciduous and what type of foliage it displays are things that need to be considered and only experts can apprise you on that.

Garden lighting is safe, affordable, robust, and unique. It?s always a good idea to consult a company that specializes in it to inspect the place if you want to beautify it with standard material. Garden lights should not rust so soon, as it is already exposed to spray from the sprinkler system, the wiring should be perfect with no harm of electrocution, and the light execution should be worth your money as well.

LED garden lighting has proved both good and bad in recent years depending on what brand is purchased. The cheaper ones managed to give marker lights. The once that are being improved have given better results. They usually come in sealed wirings and the drawback is that if they fail to deliver the whole unit will have to be changed. Generally, LED lights don?t become too hot, and are energy friendly. Solar lights are however, better in the sense that they charge, light up and turn them off automatically- according to the amount of light.

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Funny Christmas Stories to Share with Your Loved Ones

Christmas is a time of goodwill, good cheer and good times with family and friends. Christmas songs are sung, Christmas dishes and desserts are shared, and Christmas decorations are put up in advance of Christmas Day. Well, why stop there when you can also share funny Christmas stories with family and friends gathered in the family home?

Think of these Christmas-themed funny short stories as your family?s new tradition for the holidays and, thus, add more fun, more laughter and more levity to the special occasion. While gathered around the dining table on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, a few selected members of the group will tell humorous short stories about Santa Claus and his elves, angels and shepherds, and even about the experiences of family and friends during Christmas.

With these funny Christmas stories, a few rules must be observed so that everybody can enjoy the tall tales.

Keep in mind that Christmas is supposed to be a happy occasion so it is important to respect other people?s sensibilities especially about the beloved Christmas characters. For example, the funny short stories must not touch on sexual subjects since kids are around ? perhaps, these kinds of jokes can be saved for when the kids are asleep.

It is also important to remember that Christmas is also a special religious occasion for many Christians. You will want to avoid making fun of certain religious symbols and icons (i.e., crosses, saints and Christ) unless you are absolutely sure that everybody within earshot of your irreverent funny Christmas stories sees these tales as just that ? jokes that are designed to elicit laughter, not raise hackles. Otherwise, just avoid telling these tales to preserve the peace and goodwill of the season.

What are the benefits of sharing funny Christmas stories, you may ask? After all, there are already songs and dances, food and drinks, and other traditions that make Christmas fun so there seems to be no need to add more to the season. Well, shared laughter strengthens relationships among parents and their children, among friends and acquaintances, and among husbands and wives ? and isn?t Christmas all about strengthening the family and the community? So, share your funny Christmas-themed stories at the dinner table and watch how love, peace and goodwill flow among family and friends.

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The best sales person makes the best sales manager, right ...

Sue Barrett is one of the leading female voices commenting on sales today. An experienced business speaker and adviser, facilitator, sales coach, training provider and entrepreneur and founder of Barrett Consulting, which provides sales assessments, sales consulting, sales coaching and sales training programs. Visit Barrett Consulting's website, Facebook page, or follow @SueBarrett on Twitter.

Myth:?The best sales person makes the best sales manager.

Fact: Selling and managing are two very different positions with different demands and expectations. Most exceptional sales people do?not?make great sales managers. On the contrary, they usually make the worst sales managers for the following reasons:

1. They were not properly educated, trained or coached to be a sales manager and a sales coach, or
2. they are not personally suited to being a sales manager; their personality, motivations and ambitions do not match the qualities of effective sales managers. They tend to be competitive, personally ambitious, and have difficulty understanding why they are good and therefore struggle to transfer and teach how to be effective, instead telling people to be like them ?do like I do?, etc. which is not helpful.

So in the absence of proper sales strategy, sales force blueprints, clear sales processes and no formal sales and sales management education we see too many organisations promote their best sales people to sales management positions with no training, education or formal coaching support. I am not saying great sales people can not become great sales managers, many could but there needs to be a structured approach for them to make this transition, with the right support, coaching and training. Most of the time there isn?t any support process, which is why we still see ineffective sales management in many companies these days. Instead, they focus on throwing the training at their salespeople in trying to improve sales performance.

Experience has shown me that sales managers are the most critical when it comes to creating and driving sustainable sales performance change and improvement. Really proficient sales leadership and sales coaching can do wonders to improve the skills, strategies and competencies of average and elite salespeople alike.

In appointing a sales manager there are a few things we need to keep in mind. The best sales managers are leaders and coaches rather than administrators and organisers. They know they can not lead from behind a desk. Effective sales management consists of the following:

• Planning: Developing and owning the sales operating plan for the business unit in concert with marketing, service, and all other parts of the business,
• People development: Establishing the people resources needed to successfully execute the operating plan by hiring, coaching, developing, measuring and leading the ?right? people, and
• Proactive review: Managing revenue and profit by monitoring, controlling and reviewing sales, business, customer and competitor activity. Proactively reviewing the sales plan and consolidating this plan into the business forecast for the organisation.

Sadly, this is not how most sales managers are spending their time. Many are prevented from performing their optimal role. A recent study found that only 37% of the sales manager?s day is spent in planning, people development and proactive review. The rest of their time was spent with administration, reporting, reacting and handling customer issues.

So if you want to improve your overall sales results start by looking at your sales management. How well trained are they to be sales managers? Do they know what it takes to be an effective sales manager and sales coach? Does your business allow them to be sales managers in the truest sense or are you tying them up in administration and meetings? Are you training your sales people and your sales leaders?

Whatever answers you get make sure that you and your business place a value on sales management and get the right people in place to take charge of your sales teams. The results will speak for themselves.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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How Apple, Foxconn, and others can address labor abuses in overseas factories

Why do we keep hearing about labor abuses in overseas factories like those of Apple-supplier Foxconn? Auditing and inspections are inadequate to solve the problem. Requiring companies to examine and publicly report on risks along their supply chains can help eliminate violations.

The New York Times? recent investigative report of poor working conditions at Apple supplier factories in China hit the airwaves with a bang. Shortly thereafter, The Guardian reported on abuses of workers producing sportswear in Bangladesh for Nike, Adidas and Puma. Though Mike Daisey?s account of Apple factory abuses has been exposed for containing fabricated details, the underlying story of deplorable labor conditions remains true.

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Accounts of labor rights abuses in overseas factories have been emerging since the mid-1990s, when Wal-Mart?s Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line was found to be using child labor, as were some of Nike?s contract factories in Asia, to take just two examples. Those early expos?s led multinational corporations to establish supply chain management systems, which in turn spawned a cottage industry of factory inspections.

So why do we keep seeing these stories, particularly among big brands that have been attempting to get a grip on their supply chains for years? One important reason is that, while auditing and inspections have called attention to the need for companies to address human rights abuses in their supply chains, these processes suffer from significant weaknesses and ? on their own ? do not solve the problem.

First, they do not address structural elements or root causes underlying labor violations. These include consumer demand for ever-better, ever-cheaper merchandise, and brands? drive to meet (and, yes, create) that demand. This demand translates into pressure on suppliers.

Buyer companies? sourcing practices (last-minute changes, cut-rate prices paid for items, unrealistically large orders in short timeframes) have been shown to exacerbate or even cause poor conditions and rights abuses in factories. Managers dare not refuse an order from a customer such as Apple or Nike.

Second, periodic inspections of the sort typically performed at these factories cannot catch or solve persistent and often ?invisible? problems. Issues such as discrimination, sexual harassment, or violations of a worker?s right to form or join a trade union are much harder to detect in planned inspections or drop-ins.

Further, the inspections cottage industry has fostered fraud among some factory managers (who might, for example, coach workers on what to say to auditors). The system has created a tick-box mentality among brands, who want to be able to check off ?inspection done,? when the situation on the shop floor is often too complicated to be captured accurately in spot checks.

Third, weak regulations in producing countries often led, in the first place, to multinational brands? decision to source from those countries. And these lax regulatory environments play a fundamental role in the perpetuation of serious labor rights violations in these factories.

So the blame for ongoing labor rights violations can be shared all around: among consumers, buyer companies, factories, and governments. All of the above has been known for several years, and recent news coverage underscores a number of these elements.

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Engadget Giveaway: win one of five V-Moda Crossfade M-80 on-ear headphones!

Are your grandmother's decade-old earbuds just not cutting it any more? Time to get a pair of your own. V-Moda's got five pairs of its latest on-ear headphones, the Crossfade M-80, to give out to our dear readership. Each of them normally would run you $230, so this opportunity is a pretty sweet alternative to having to shell out a benjamin or three just to get some solid sound pumping into those fragile eardrums of yours. You know the drill: head below, read the rules and leave a comment to win!

Continue reading Engadget Giveaway: win one of five V-Moda Crossfade M-80 on-ear headphones!

Engadget Giveaway: win one of five V-Moda Crossfade M-80 on-ear headphones! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fear not!

Reality isn't as scary as some would like us to believe.

Foreign policy professionals and the reporters who cover them have a natural bias towards seeing the world as a dangerous place. After all, if your assessment of a country or an issue is "mostly harmless" (as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy famously described our planet), you're going to lose your audience and some of your funding. I'm not saying this is a conscious decision (at least not in most cases), but fear is to foreign policy as sex is to advertising and Hollywood: It sells.

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Micah Zenko and Michael Cohen do a good job of revealing this bias -- and how far it is from reality -- in a recent article in Foreign Affairs.

They point to a survey that shows that 69 percent of the members of the Council on Foreign Relations (the definition of the foreign policy establishment) feel the world is as or more dangerous for the US than it was during the Cold War and recent statements from politicians. Near-certain Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney says the world is growing ever more perilous and President Barack Obama's Defense Secretary Leon Panetta appears to agree, saying in a speech last year that "security, geopolitical, economic, and demographic shifts in the international order (are making) the world more unpredictable, more volatile and, yes, more dangerous."

Yet by every objective measure the world at large is remarkably safe by historical standards. Why the love of fear? Zenko and Cohen argue:

"The disparity between foreign threats and domestic threat-mongering results from a confluence of factors. The most obvious and important is electoral politics. Hyping dangers serves the interests of both political parties. For Republicans, who have long benefited from attacking Democrats for their alleged weakness in the face of foreign threats, there is little incentive to tone down the rhetoric; the notion of a dangerous world plays to perhaps their greatest political advantage. For Democrats, who are fearful of being cast as feckless, acting and sounding tough is a shield against GOP attacks and an insurance policy in case a challenge to the United States materializes into a genuine threat. Warnings about a dangerous world also benefit powerful bureaucratic interests. The specter of looming dangers sustains and justifies the massive budgets of the military and the intelligence agencies, along with the national security infrastructure that exists outside government -- defense contractors, lobbying groups, think tanks, and academic departments."

They write that in the past 20 years, war and terrorism have become much less prevalent and that when the world does fight, it does so with much less ferocity. Al Qaeda is scattered and weakened, and fears of a nuclear Iran are highly exaggerated, particularly when the country does not have a single working warhead or delivery system yet, compared to the thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at the US by the Soviet Union (and vice versa) during the Cold War. As for the "war on terrorism"? "Of the 13,186 people killed by terrorist attacks in 2010, only 15, or 0.1 percent, were U.S. citizens. In most places today -- and especially in the United States -- the chances of dying from a terrorist attack or in a military conflict have fallen almost to zero," the authors write.

The next time you turn on the television and get a dose of a "we're all doomed" screaming from a politician or commentator, read the Foreign Affairs piece as an antidote.

Follow Dan Murphy on Twitter.

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