Siam Thai

No matter what kind of investing you do – bonds, stock options, mutual funds, gold, commodities, real estate – in order to be successful you need to have a thorough understanding of your personal investment style. Some investors are risk takers, some investors are conservative, some investors are a combination of the two, depending on their cash position and the form of the investment. Understanding your personal risk tolerance and investment style will aid you in making smart investment choices.

While there are many different types of investments, there are only three specific investment styles – and those three styles directly relate to your risk tolerance. The three investment styles are: conservative, moderate, and aggressive. These styles are dependent upon your tolerance of risk and how much time you’re willing to invest in … your investing.

For example, some investment strategies may have you watching prices go up and down continually throughout the day. Are you equipped to handle these changes, especially if they don’t go your way? Other ventures may place your entire investment at risk. You could lose all your money. Is that something that would weigh heavily on your mind, possibly affecting the way you handle the investment? Do you panic easily? Are you able to stick to the numbers and the plan they represent, with clear cut entry and exit points? Or are you the type to watch an investment dive and toss out the original plan in the hope that the investment will eventually come back?

Also important to consider: how involved do you want to be in your investments? Do you want to trade daily and make a career out of it? Do you want to overlook and control every aspect of your investments? Or would you prefer a more passive role, spending only an hour a week or a month in making sure everything appears on track? Do you prefer to do your own research or rely on the research of others?

The holidays are officially upon us! If you’re planning on shipping gifts or anything else, we have a few pointers for you to keep in mind when you go to the post office to ship your packages.

Do your holiday shipping early!

Do you want your package delivered by December 25th? The post office recommends that first class mail be sent no later than December 20th. If you’re sending postcards or holiday cards, that’s your absolute drop-dead mailing date. The parcel post mailing deadline is December 15th, so if you’re mailing packages that don’t fit into the flat rate Priority boxes, that’s your deadline date. Get your shopping done, get your boxes packed and get to the post office!

One of the best shipping deals around right now is the U.S. Postal Service’s flat-rate priority shipping. Whatever you can fit into the box (provided at no extra charge by the USPS) will ship in the U.S., no matter how much it weighs. Your postman will even deliver the boxes to your door AND the USPS will pick up the package. The largest box measures 12″x12″x5-1/2″ and ships anywhere in the U.S. for $14.50, or to APO/FPO addresses for only $12.50. The medium-size box is 11″ x 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ and only costs $10.70 to ship anywhere in the United States. The small flat rate box is 8-5/8″ x 5-3/8″ x 1-5/8″ and ships for a mere $4.95!

I recently filled a large Priority box with books; it would’ve cost me a lot more to ship by weight, even with the media mail rate, so keep these flat-rate shipping boxes in mind when you’re shipping packages for the holiday.

Importance of Project Management is an important topic because all organisations, be they small or large, at one time or other, are involved in implementing new undertakings. These undertakings may be diverse, such as, the development of a new product or service; the establishment of a new production line in a manufacturing enterprise; a public relations promotion campaign; or a major building programme. Whilst the 1980′s were about quality and the 1990′s were all about globalisation, the 2000′s are about velocity. That is, to keep ahead of their competitors, organisations are continually faced with the development of complex products, services and processes with very short time-to-market windows combined with the need for cross-functional expertise. In this scenario, project management becomes a very important and powerful tool in the hands of organisations that understand its use and have the competencies to apply it.

The development of project management capabilities in organisations, simultaneously with the application of information management systems, allow enterprise teams to work in partnership in defining plans and managing take-to-market projects by synchronising team-oriented tasks, schedules, and resource allocations. This allows cross-functional teams to create and share project information. However, this is not sufficient, information management systems have the potential to allow project management practices to take place in a real-time environment. As a consequence of this potential project management proficiency, locally, nationally or globally dispersed users are able to concurrently view and interact with the same updated project information immediately, including project schedules, threaded discussions, and other relevant documentation. In this scenario the term dispersed user takes on a wider meaning. It not only includes the cross-functional management teams but also experts drawn from the organisation’s supply chain, and business partners.