Posted by J.B. Waggoner on Wed, Nov 23, 2011 @ 09:01 AM
Many of us use the holiday season to reflect upon the activities of the past year. Personally, I enjoy doing this while contemplating what the future may hold for me, my family, my friends, and my company. The Thanksgiving holiday, in particular, is a great reminder to take into account all of life's blessings as part of that process.
This year has been an interesting one for Inovatia. There have been some great achievements and some set-backs - some great situations and some less than ideal - and, some rewarding challenges and some that served as lessons only. However, during these ups and downs and shifts and sways, we have remained focused on our mission to provide high quality, cost-effective analytical services to our customers. Further, we continued our focus on our goals for the company and those we hold for our employees, clients, and vendors. The activities of this year have moved us into a position to make great progress toward furthering those goals in 2012. With all of this in mind, it makes it easy to look at what has gone well and express our thanks to those who have helped us along the way. I will not be able to list everyone, but here are a few that are top-of-mind:
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Thank you to our families for providing unrelenting support and advice over the long-haul.
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Thank you to our employees for choosing to spend a significant part of their lives being dedicated to our mission and doing what we do.
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Thank you to our clients for entrusting us with your work and teaching us how to best serve you.
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Thank you to our vendors who provide great products, great service, and outstanding technical support - all while being being mindful of cost.
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Finally, thank you to our trusted advisors (friends, mentors, consultants, bankers, lawers, and accountants) who provide expert advice, guidance, and support in both lean and rich times. It is an honor to be associated with all of you.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday, everyone.
Posted by J.B. Waggoner on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 @ 01:00 PM
As the holiday season approaches, many of us begin to think about giving - giving gifts for religious holidays, giving time to help others during the holiday season, making charitable contributions, and perhaps planning future gifts as part of a corporate or personal budgeting process. At Inovatia we spend the entire year focusing on customer projects breaking down products, materials, and processes to make them "er" - that is, we make them better, faster, stronger, higher, louder, etc., - "er". Similar resources exist to break down the activities of the charities you you may be interested in supporting this year. Organizations such as Charity Navigator, The American Institute of Philanthropy, and the Better Business Bureau can help you evaluate the organizations you intend to support with your dollar by providing information such as administrative overhead expense, executive compensation, and marketing / advertising expense (at Inovatia this GL item is known as Schwag/Chotchkie Expense). Even the United States Postal Service's inspection group can help. It will provide information on known, fraudulent solicitations being made through the mail.
A great mission is only the start to making a great charity - how that mission is put into action is what makes it worthy of support. Following are links to resources that will help you "Reverse Engineer" the organizations you may be interested in supporting.
Charity Navigator http://www.charitynavigator.org/
American Institute of Philanthropy (a.k.a Charity Watch) http://www.charitywatch.org/
Better Business Bureau (give.org) http://www.bbb.org/us/charity/
National Association of State Charity Officials http://www.nasconet.org/agencies
Additional resources may be found on GiveSpot http://www.givespot.com/