How To Improve Your Writing Through Collaboration

Writing and publishing is not easy business and takes considerable amount of energy. Many people write manuscript after manuscript and never seem to publish their work. What defines one literary work as great and another as sub-par can be smaller than the thickness of a piece of hair. Working together can help round out your work and give you a little extra insight to your literary strengths and weaknesses.

Work in a Group: One of the best ways of improve on your writing is to find a group of people who have similar interests and meet with them on a regular basis. Groups help support you in your creative endeavors and create a sense of community made up of like minded people.

Review Each Others Work: Free editing is a great tool that can help you find the holes in your work. We all have a propensity to see many different types of mistakes in others writings that we wouldn't have seen in our own. Editing and reviewing each others work helps in proof reading for perfection.

Share Ideas: Writers are creative people and are likely to understand your sense of perspective. They will often engage in brainstorming activities that may help you find new ways of managing your plot. Sharing your ideas and writing topics with others can help open up discussions that will lead you down whole new paths.


Help Each Other Publish: Publishing is not easy and finding places that will accept your work takes a considerable amount of effort. Lots of great literary works failed to make it to the bookshelf only because the author didn't know where to publish. Group members can collect and keep an eye out for publishing opportunities and share them with their group members.

Look Around for a Group: Finding writing groups is not impossible depending on where you live and work. Look through Craigslist, Yelp, Meet Up, and events sites to find groups that support writing. Many of the groups are free while those that offer instructions may require some type of payment.

Call for Papers: International Conference on Advances in Business and Economics

When   Apr 11, 2015 - Apr 12, 2015

Where Los Angeles, USA

Submission Deadline Jan 5, 2015

Notification Due         Jan 20, 2015

Final Version Due       Feb 10, 2015

Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:.

Publication

All papers for the ICABE2015 will be published in IJTEF (ISSN: 2010-023X ) as one volume, and will be included in the Engineering & Technology Digital Library, and indexed by Engineering & Technology Digital Library, EBSCO, ProQuest, Crossref, Electronic Journals Library, DOAJ and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory

http://www.icabe.org/

Reducing Work and Life Related Stress with Yoga

Stress is #1 killer in America. According to the American Institute of Stress 80% of workers indicate they feel stress at work while 65% say that it has impacted their performance in some way or another. The average person is not always aware of the effects of stress and how it impacts their life. Mismanaged stress eventually makes its way into our psychological and physical well-being becoming a catalyst lurking behind many other ailments. Yoga and breathing is one method of managing stress and lowering health costs while still improving your abilities.

To thwart the ill effects of stress it is important to find a proper balance between work and extra-curricular activities. Each should take their appropriate place in your life with nether being unbalanced. When one becomes all consuming it can impact you in a way that lowers the quality of your life as well as spill its damaging effects into other areas like your family.

This applies across many different aspects of our lives. If you are career oriented and want to move up in your position it makes sense for you to spend additional effort working on your goals. However, focusing so exclusively that you damage your other needs can destroy your chances of achieving your career objectives and the quality of your life.

Reducing stress can help you maintain focus on your goals by reducing the impact of other stressors in your life. Consider that stress is normal but chronic stress can be fatal. Staying focused relies on your ability to reduce other stressors that are not necessary and don't enhance your life in anyway. By focusing on breathing and living in the moment your muscles relax and many of your worries will temporary dissipate.

Consider the example of back pain earned through lifting equipment or sitting improperly for long periods of time. Yoga helps stifle the negative effects of pain, reduce missed work days, and improves psychological well-being (Hartfiel, et. al, 2012). The benefits for the comfort of the employee and the lost productivity time of the employer cannot be underestimated.

Stressed-out employees also cost companies billions in annual healthcare costs, absenteeism and poor performance (Williams, 2005).  Preventative medicine focuses more on encouraging healthy living that avoids future illness while standard medicine is more focused on treating illness after it occurs.Yoga is part of that preventative method that lowers the catalysts to illness.

Over the Christmas vacation I had the opportunity to attend a yoga class in the park. Not many people; a half dozen or so individuals enjoying the sun and stretching in nature. As with most yoga classes there is an instructor that guides everyone through the movements until their natural conclusion. Focus is directed on breathing to create a level of calmness and living in the present.

Yoga was something that was once practiced only by the free spirited people of the counter culture. As the decades passed and research on its benefits became available it was found that such activities do have a benefit on the lives of individuals and the costs of their employer health insurance programs. Yoga has become a mainstream activity practiced in nearly every gym and community center in the country. Finding a local practitioner to teach you can be an enhancement to your life.

The practitioner I met was from http://www.greenthumbbodyworks.com/#about

Williams, D. (2005). Corporations Go Yogi. T&D, 59 (4).

Hartfiel, N. et. al. (2012). Yoga for reducing perceived stress and back pain at work. Oxford University Press.

Online Adjunct Faculty Communication

National Louis University seeks dynamic, highly-qualified professionals for adjunct teaching positions in the new BA of Communication undergraduate program. This individual will work as an adjunct to teach existing online master communications classes including Organizational Communication and Conflict Management, Modern Advertising, Influence of Culture in Communications, PR for the 21st Century, Innovation from the Inside, Legal and Ethical Communications, Speak Up, Art of Persuasion, Contemporary Media Communications, Professional Communications, Social Media Networking, Multigenerational Workplace Communications, Influence of Culture on Communications, and Connected World.

Tasks:

Participation in a short remote, synchronous orientation to Online Pedagogy in this program
Teaching of existing course materials online for 6 week online courses
Writing and creating content including discussion boards, assignments, objectives, etc. when necessary
Authentic assessment of student work
Consistent communication with students and ability to help problem-solve and trouble shoot
Identifying and/or creating multimedia assets, weekly video recordings with tools provided
Teaching one-day in-person workshops
Participation in free D2L and adjunct training

Requirements:

Comprehensive content knowledge in Communications, including familiarity with current theories, practical applications, and industry standards. Ability to complete thorough and accurate work and manage time effectively to meet six-week course delivery model and produce high-quality results; Responsive to feedback and collaboration; Prefer familiarity with educational technology and D2L, modern teaching strategies and online course pedagogy.

Job Posting

How Technology Changed Holiday Shopping

Holiday shopping has been a marker for consumer sentiment and spending for a long time. Black Friday and the week before Christmas is a span of time that many retailers use to gauge their potential profits for the year. As technology advances the patterns of purchasing are changing as the people stretch their purchasing behavior beyond its traditional boundaries turning brick-n-mortar companies into something more like pick-up locations.

Longer Purchasing Times:

Online shopping allows for a longer purchasing time in search of deals and sales. In the past, consumers would rush down to their local malls and stores in search of product deals. With the advent of the Internet consumers can now make make of their purchases online. They do not need to spend the time and energy fighting other customers. Store foot traffic no longer represents sales.

Searching and Then Buying:

The Internet is used by many consumers as a way of searching out products, finding the best deals, determining locations and then going to the store to purchase. In many ways the Internet has allowed consumers to comparison shop quickly and search through store locations to find the best place to purchase. This means that prices will become more competitive with each other and smaller impulse purchases are less likely.

Consumer Reviews:

Big ticket items take a lot of time and energy to purchase. Buying the right product and scouring stores can waste a lot of time. Some businesses sell the same product more than others. Consumers take a risk when purchasing products. Reading consumer reviews lower this risk and help them make better decisions. Educated consumers are more difficult to take advantage of.

Online Adjunct Instructor, Business Strategy (Graduate Level)

Brief Summary:     The School of Management is accepting applications for an online adjunct faculty member in Strategy to begin January 2015.

Duties and Responsibilities:    Teaching and grading Business Strategy at the graduate level in the online MBA program.

Qualifications:     Candidates must have at least a Master’s degree in Management and prior experience teaching Management Strategy (a.k.a., Business Policy, Capstone) online in an MBA program.  Experience in Sakai online learning platform is desired.

http://jobs.marist.edu/view_position.php?postingid=610

Call for Papers: Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Conference

March 25^th to 27^th 2015
Venice, Italy
http://www.absrc.org

ABSRC is an important international gathering of business and business-related sciences scholars and educators. In addition to scientific papers, the focus is on various best practices and solutions, which are important for business activities

Business and business-related issues are covered including the following topic groups:
Business strategy
Change management and organizational development
Conflict management
Critical management
Economic growth
Entrepreneurship
Gender, diversity and social issues
Human resource management and career development
Humanities and arts and business
Industry, area or region specific studies
Industrial organization
International business
Language in organizations
Law and business
Macroeconomics
Management consulting
Management education, training and development
Managerial and organizational cognition and psychology
Marketing and consumer behavior
Microeconomics
Natural sciences and business
Organizational behavior
Organizational information and communication systems
Organizations and financing
Production and operations management
Research methods
Social sciences and business
Technology and innovation management