Safety Consulting Corner

A new blog for you to check out

This recommendation is a little different than most. If you would like to read an excellent blog related to health and safety, visit a blog created by Dr. Sanjeev Saraf at http://risk-safety.com.There is a lot of very good information there and I know Dr. Saraf would love to have more subscribers. 

If you are looking for a free, unobtrusive stat counter for any website or blog, I highly recommend StatCounter. You can very easily add a visible counter, such as the one shown in this post, or add the script so that the counter is invisible. Once that part is finished, all you need to do is visit the StatCounter website to see how many hits your website has received. You can check out StatCounter at www.StatCounter.com.

What's the Best Way to Eat an Elephant?

What's the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

You have probably heard this popular expression which refers to how you should approach taking on a very large task. If you know you need to read through that pile of business books on your desk but just can't find the time, then a website called DailyLit can help. If you visit DailyLit you can sign up to receive books sent to you in smaller sections via email so instead of sitting and staring at a whole book that you want to get through, you can receive the emails (on the days and times that you want) and then only worry about getting through a small section of a book at a time. There are all types of books on this site - not just business - and many are free. I am going to try this out by getting "The Art of Getting Money" by P.T. Barnum sent to me in 26 installments. I'll let you know how it works out.

Share This

If you often find things on the web that you either want or need to share with others, you should give ShareThis a try. Once you sign up and download the toolbar plug-in, you cannot only easily send links to information you want to share with other through other websites such as Facebook, Digg, or Del.icio.us but you also get a really nice little library of everything you have shared. In this little library as I like to call it (called My Sharebox when you are at the sharethis web page) you will see everything you have every shared with anyone with a link to get back to it. You have the option of adding tags to these shared/saved items so you can easily come back to it in the future, search a key word, and find that site that you shared a long time ago.  Watch the short video on the ShareThis site and see how it all works.

Note: one way for consultants to stay in close contact with clients and potential clients is to send them valuable and interesting information. Of course you don't want to overdue it but this can be a great help in your efforts to stay in touch and keep track of what you sent to who and when.

Mr. Fixit

When you work for yourself, you are often the chief accountant, salesperson, engineer, housekeeeper and repair person. If you find yourself spending way to much time trying to figure out how to get the things in your office how to work right, the FixYa site can help. Fixya provides support, manuals and troubleshooting for consumers. If you have a problem, you can most like find the manual at FixYa and better yet, a helpful answer from someone else.

Cleaning House

In anticipation of a major move I will most likely be making in the beginning of the year, I have been spending a lot of time cleaning house. I am donating boxes and boxes of books to my local library and scanning (or having scanned) hundreds of documents.  The purpose of this post is not to tell you about my move but to 1) offer someone a copy of a 2-CD set titled "Growing and Managing a Business"  and 2) to tell you about a service called Pixily. 

First things first - if you want the CDs, let me know asap (first come first served). 

Pixily, mentioned above, is a new service I am trying out to help me run a less paper intensive business. You can try Pixily free for 30 days. After that, the options range from $5 - $60/month. To me, Pixily really serves two functions. One, as a virtual storage area for important documents and two, as a company that will scan your documents, return the originals, and provide the digital (and highly searchable) pdfs online. Since there are many virtual storage sites (many free, such as Google docs), I am mainly interested in the scanning service. I could buy a scanner and scan things myself but this would take more time than I have right now. The part of Pixily I like best is the option to submit documents and send them to Pixily in postage paid envelopes. I have been slowly filling up envelopes and I am getting ready for my first "send." In about a week, I should be able to tell you more about how I like it (and if it's worth the money!) For now, much more sorting, packing and donating to do. 

Learning Late at Night

I just received an email in my inbox about a series of free teleseminars that will be offered right about my bedtime. Each seminar is 60 minutes and is lead by an industry expert. If you are interested in listening in, you can select from a list of seminars that are offered on everything from networking to marketing to business development. To see the complete list and sign up, click here. 

Easy Slides Online

Do you have a need to create and present PowerPoint type presentations online? Here's another easy and free website that will let you do just that - 280Slides. 280Slides lets you crate and share presentations online. You can access them from anywhere. You can put your slides on the web using Slideshare if you want to share your presentation with the world. What I find very cool about 280Slides is the ability to search for and add photos and videos from sites like Flickr and YouTube right from the 280Slides site. Give it a try and get creating!

Habla Espanol?

Most safety professionals are aware of the changing demographics of the American workforce and what that means for safety and health. If you have a need to know a little (or even a lot) of another language, try LiveMocha. LiveMocha is a free site that will provide lessons in your chosen language (there are dozens available) as well as a chance to network with other learners. It's easy and before you know it, you will be able to at least say a few words in another language. Give it a try! Hasta manana!

Wahoo Wufoo

If you have any need to use forms or short surveys, Wufoo may be for you. For limited use, Wufoo is free but for more forms and users, you will need to upgrade. The beauty of Wufoo is that it is so easy to use. You simply drag and drop the fields you want into a blank area and ta-da - your form is finished. Check out the one I did below (in about 1 minute).

http://safetyfundamentals.wufoo.com/forms/untitled-form/