Girl Power! Women of Rochester Making History

You are making history as you read this, and your children are making history by doing whatever they do today because what we do today becomes history tomorrow. Women's History Month is a great opportunity to cultivate your children's interest in history and help them recognize history in the making all around them.

Posted on: 1 March 2011 | 4:09 pm

While You're Waiting: Preparing for Adoption Day

All parents wait. For first steps, for the school bus, for driving test results… we wait. We wait eagerly for our children to come into the world, and although it is a joyous anticipation, many prospective adoptive parents find this particular wait almost unbearable.

Posted on: 1 November 2010 | 9:19 am

Music to My Ears: Introducing Your Kids to Music

Children are naturally musical. It's almost as if they have a sixth sense for music. Even babies as young as six months enjoy repetitive pitch and rhythm like clapping, slapping, humming, and hooting. And listening, singing, playing instruments, and dancing are great ways to have fun and be creative as a family. However, the benefits of music extend far beyond the sheer joy of making sounds. Researchers consistently link the study of music with cognitive development, school achievement, positive socialization, and personal success. The discipline of music requires children to develop attention to detail, cognitive organization, communication, pattern recognition, and cooperation–skills that foster success in all areas of their lives.

Posted on: 1 May 2010 | 8:51 am

Foster Care Families: Safety, Support, and Care for Children in Need

Foster parenting comes naturally for Karin and Randy Dula of Rochester. Karin's parents adopted her younger brother after a ten-month foster placement in their home, and Randy was adopted from foster care when he was seven years old.

Posted on: 1 May 2009 | 5:17 pm

Required Participation: Getting the Most Out of Your Company Training

New pharmaceutical sales representative usually look forward to training with a mix of anticipation and anxiety. It's exciting to begin a new journey. It's fun to meet new people. And it probably means that you're done with home study manuals and online tests. At the same time, it's natural to worry about being away from your family or not performing well at training.

Posted on: 1 April 2008 | 7:08 pm

Gift Card Glory: How Consumer Demand Has Shifted the Gift Card Market From Novelty to Commodity

How many gift cards did you receive last year? According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), probably at least one. In their fourth annual Gift Card Survey, the NRF found that 95% of adult survey respondents either received or purchased a gift card in 2006 - a 24% increase over 2005 survey results.

Posted on: 1 October 2007 | 5:22 pm

Underwriters: The Importance of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants

How many prescriptions did you lose today? If you didn't call on the nurse practitioners and physician assistants in your territory, you may have lost as many as 21. And your smartest competitors know exactly where to find them.

Posted on: 1 August 2007 | 7:18 pm

Powerful Presentations: How You Can CREATE More Memorable Sales Messages

Physicians and other healthcare providers have less time and more prescribing options than ever before. Studies show that as few as eight out of every 100 sales calls end with the physician meeting the rep and remembering what was said. How can you be one of those eight memorable reps?

Posted on: 1 January 2007 | 6:31 pm

Tipping Point Ahead: Prepared for a New Primary Care?

Primary care "is at grave risk of collapse," proclaims a report from the American College of Physicians, as printed in the July 7th issue of Medical Economics.1 A confluence of changing demographics within the medical profession and increasing consumer demand for health care services has brought our nation's primary care system to a tipping point.

Posted on: 1 September 2006 | 7:41 pm

International Women's Day 2006: Extraordinary Women Doing Ordinary Things

For 95 years, International Women's Day has been a celebration of ordinary women doing extraordinary things. I'd like to change that a little bit.

Posted on: 1 March 2006 | 8:39 pm

Prescription for Success: The Role of the Pharmacy Call in Driving Sales

Who is on your sales team? Your territory partners, your sales trainer, hopefully your manager and other company personnel. Certainly your physicians. Their patients. Maybe even local managed care organizations. What about pharmacists?

Posted on: 1 October 2005 | 7:55 am

RFID in Rochester: How Local Companies Are Integrating RFID

As you read in my article Informed Consent: Ethical Considerations of RFID , radio frequency identification is a network of transponders (tags), readers and software that enables automatic identification and tracking of items from remote locations. Each RFID tag contains an integrated circuit (IC), which is encrypted with a unique electronic product code (EPC) - essentially, an electronic fingerprint. When a tag passes within range of a reader, the EPC is transmitted to the reader through an antenna. The transaction is recorded and retained in the central database, providing real-time track-and-trace of the tagged item.

Posted on: 1 July 2005 | 8:08 am

Informed Consent: Ethical Considerations of RFID

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has incubated in relative obscurity for over 60 years, quietly changing our lives with scant attention outside the technology community. First used to identify Allied aircraft in World War II, RFID is now well integrated in building security, transportation, fast food, health care and livestock management.

Posted on: 15 June 2005 | 8:18 am

My Pompei: Reflections on Being a New Adoptive Parent

I know exactly what I was doing when you were born, because it's still unfinished, just as I left it. My private Pompei.

Posted on: 1 June 2005 | 8:48 pm

Touchdown! What the Packers Can Teach Us About Closing

It’s early January 2004. It’s a good day to be sitting in front of the fire. It’s a good day for hot soup and warm bread. It’s a good day to be a Green Bay Packers fan. The Packers are on the brink of their fourth NFC Championship playoff game in the last nine years. They have a three-point lead over the Philadelphia Eagles, who face an impossible fourth down and 26 yards on their own 28-yard line. Green Bay is just 72 seconds away from the NFC Championship game. All they have to do is hold Philadelphia to less than 26 yards. One play. That’s all.

Posted on: 1 October 2004 | 8:43 am

Sisters

I was the youngest for exactly twelve months and fourteen days. I was still showing off my first wobbly steps when Holly came squalling into the family on Christmas Eve and turned me into a middle child. Maybe I should have minded, but I didn't. After all, now I had a baby sister. And she was irresistible.

Posted on: 1 April 2004 | 8:49 am

Rounding Third and Heading for Home: Training a Winning Sales Team

Although I never met the man, I imagine Lou Boudreau would have made one heck of a field sales trainer. In 1942 the 24-year old Cleveland Indians shortstop was promoted to player/manager of his team, and for the next eight years Boudreau did what we, as trainers, are called upon to do every day: demonstrate success, inspire success and cultivate success. Think of it as the triple play of sales training.

Posted on: 1 August 2003 | 9:35 am

Get Your Edge Back! The Interrelationship of Motivation and Performance

Performance and motivation are like chocolate and peanut butter; the combination is better than either one alone. You can be motivated without acting on it, and you can act without feeling motivated, but motivation feeds successful performance, which in turn generates increased motivation, which encourages performance, and so goes the cycle of our days. Until one day...

Posted on: 1 July 2003 | 8:54 am

The Whys of Pharmaceutical Training

I recently took my six-year-old neighbor Kristen with me to the garden store, and somewhere between a mouthful of birdseed and a pocketful of mulch, I was reminded of why I love being a regional trainer. I had mentally organized the trip much like I plan my sales calls, deciding in advance where to go and what to do in order to most efficiently accomplish the tasks on my list.

Posted on: 1 July 2002 | 9:43 am