Samantha's Blog

How many times have you or your team taken time to just sit and dream?  It might just have a good return. 

When pondering what to write this week, my eyes caught an article entitled Return on Ideas in FastThinking magazine (www.fastthinking.com.au).

In it, Ralf Langwost of Ideas Management is quoted as saying, “When gathering material for your ideas, take them from life experience, from your five senses and your rational and emotional experiences.” The article goes on to say that often the best ideas, whether they are advertising messages or product solutions, arise from insights gained through the inventor’s own way of perceiving the world.  Thus, to enable creativity to flourish, one must be in tune with oneself. 

I am a dreamer and creator of ideas and love all excuses to take time to ponder to process new and past experiences and knowledge.  And it has proven beneficial for me.

So take some time to dream, as a means to help you to create.   

“So,” you wonder, “just who is CFOEd?”

Well, he is the “New Face of Financial Education” and is actually a combination of many very talented finance professionals, including PhD’s in finance and up-and-coming faces in the field.

One CFOEd contributor twice won the award for best teacher during his tenure as a university professor.  Still teaching as an adjunct professor, he co-founded a highly successful financial education and software company more than 15 years ago.  His company has trained the top Fortune companies such as IBM, Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and many more and he now brings his extensive first-hand knowledge to you—the small business owner (who hopes to one day be running a Fortune company) and those of you who want to run a Fortune company division.

Also contributing is a wonderful team of financial data and modeling experts who have decades of industry experience, including work at Standard & Poor’s.

Rounding out the CFOEd team are our newest faces in finance – he and she (yes, she!) are so smart, having just graduated with degrees in Finance, and bring fresh new approaches to our offerings.

So, when you read Bizdoms and Bulbs or Brains and Business Tools co-authored with CFOEd, remember there is a highly credentialed cast of characters, education, ideas, programming and writing behind them. 

Wow!  With that team like this in your corner office, you can certainly get your idea sprouting!

As CEO, my views strongly influence how my company runs.  Do we try to offer oodles of perks, or do we offer freedom of lifestyle?  For me, flexibility is key – that way each person, including me, can decide how to set up our ultimate work day and still personally play.

That was the attraction for many of my associates and interns, for whom working for SmartSamantha is a part-time endeavor.  Their own ventures of education, family and entrepreneurism fill up the other part.

At SmartSamantha, we all arrive with our drive-through coffee and our brought-from-home lunches, which we usually eat around the multi-purpose conference table while sharing our favorite life stories.  (We have recently “moved up” to a bowl of goodies on the microwave, and a big cooler of bottled water.)  After lunch, it’s back to work.

We make the most of our office hours – with most of us logging maybe 5 hours a day in the office.  Of course, most of my current associates work nights and weekends too – whatever best fits their schedule in any given week.

It does take some extra effort to get the work done on different schedules and, often, from different locations.  But, it’s worth it to be there for soccer practice and school plays, or have the thrill of flying to the other coast every month to pursue a master’s degree or pursue a business start-up.

So be aware how your associates might want to set up their day.  It might pay off with loyal associates and more productive days.