Where in the World is Sarah Miller?

Hi all- I was just reflecting on the fact that my life is beginning to feel somewhat like that fabulous old world adventure show that used to be on PBS called Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?  The basic premise was that you (the viewer) were on a detective team that was trying to find Carmen  by solving clues.  On that given day, you learned about the countries that you were chasing her between.  It was quite interactive for the viewer (come on, admit that you watched it too!).  In my case, where we’re going is not determined by Carmen, but the US Government!

As many of you know, Nick accepted a position in the foreign service starting on January 5th.  We’ve been in the midst of pack-outs and wedding planning non-stop since the trip ended.  Everyone keeps asking me “Where in the World” we’ll be stationed and the fun part is that we’ll have no idea until February 15th.  For today’s post I thought we’d take a little trip down memory lane for those who watched the show and tomorrow we’ll do a fun poll to see where people think we’ll end up.    Today’s bonus: a video of Rockapella singing the theme song.

Virtual Assistance: Part 1 of 2

I had never heard of virtual assistants until this past year.  Now I feel like everywhere I turn, people are sending things off to their virtual assistants overseas.  Being one who is fascinated by new trends, I decided we’d explore this in a 2-part blog series.  Today’s focus is on the application Virtual Assistant’s (VA) can have on business.  I’ve been amazed at how many fellow coaches I know have VA’s!  This is not some small trend.  According to this article in Fast Company, even Pfizer is finding ways to utilize VA’s effectively and save itself a bundle of money!  Here’s a summary of the article:

Have you ever wished for a magic button on your screen that would allow you to click and send your irritating project away to be done by someone else?  Well, that’s exactly what Pfizer did.  They’ve installed a button on each employee’s desktop called OOF which stands for “Office of the Future”.  Each employee is able to press this button to send basic support work like document creation, spreadsheet analysis, meeting scheduling and powerpoint creation overseas to a virtual assistant in India.  The beauty of the arrangement, is that given the time difference, a project sent off at 5 PM will be sitting in your inbox complete by 9 AM the next morning.

This decision came from a realization that the Harvard MBAs that Pfizer was hiring were spending 20-40% of their day on mundane tasks such as the ones listed above.  Not a good use of $200 an hour!  Now Pfizer only pays $15-35 an hour with a virtual assistant in India and has happier employees to boot!  Check out the article for more in-depth information on the challenges Pfizer went through to get this up and running.  Isn’t progress amazing!

Just another bizarre day in the life of Sarah Miller…

So, I’ve noticed that I have the tendency to become a spokesperson for many of the organizations that I affliliate with.  Take today for instance, I’m just minding my business when the Hourcar manager calls up and asks if I’d be willing to talk to a reporter about my experience with car sharing.  Sure, I think, why not?  Sounds fun.  I love to talk, so what’s the harm.  I have no idea how I got selected for this coveted honor.  Next comes the call from the reporter, Stephanie Hemphill of MPR, to be exact.  But this isn’t just your typical print interview- no, she’d like me to take her for a ride in the car and do the radio interview then (in addition to the print piece).  And so I arrive at 11 AM to pick her up at MPR.  She comes wearing all sorts of gear- recording equipment, microphones and a camera.  I started to panic a teeny bit at this point- WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO?  I’m having visions of crashing the car with the reporter in it because I’m trying to sound intelligent and drive all at the same time.  Wouldn’t that be a story for her to report!  Well, I’m happy to report no crashes… she interviewed me for over a half hour, while we were stopped thankfully!  Then she had me drive her around a bit and show her how to return the car and lock it using the key fob.  So stay tuned…. my MPR debut will be on Wednesday morning on the radio and the print piece comes out that day as well.  Now you can say you knew me before I was famous.  If you miss it, don’t worry- this makes for FABULOUS blog material!

What’s in store for the future of retail?

It’s hard to get retail out of your blood after spending 5 years immersed in it, so I tend to stay in the know about how the retail sector is doing.  After last week’s tough times on Wall Street, I guess it was inevitable that the panic about the holiday shopping season would follow.  Same store sales numbers came out Friday for most stores and the results were pretty dismal.  Yes, it may be a tough holiday season, but we’ll weather this like we have other tough years.

Instead of jumping on the speculation bandwagon, I find it more productive to read cool reports about the future of retail.  Retail Forward, a market research firm for retailers, just released a cool report about what consumers expect the future of retailing to look like in 2015.  It’s available on the website under Free White Papers and Research Studies: New Future in Store.  Some of the advances consumers are expecting include:  

• holographic sales assistants
• 3D body scans that help customers get the best fit
• Smart shopping carts that help consumers locate merchandise, access coupons and scan purchases
• Biometric payment by fingerprint

Innovative New Gear for Olympic Athletes- Coming soon to a store near you!

 

 

 

So, the Olympics are just around the corner.  Several new products are debuting there that will be available to the public shortly after.  Check out this great article in Fast Company that talks about the new arrivals.  I’ve showcased a couple of my favorites.  The first is Nike’s PRECOOL vest, which atheletes wear for one hour prior to game time.  Research from their lab determined that performance falls off drastically when core body temps hit 103 degrees.  This vest helps slow the rising of that core temperature, improving their play.  It’s a relatively simple design that’s filled with water and then frozen.  Wish you would of thought of it, don’t you??

Next up are Nike’s new Flywire shoes, which creates the shoe casing with a layering of high-tech filaments of roughly 7 feet to create a thin fabric.  That’s right- this shoe is 20% lighter than the lightest shoe ever created, weighing in at 92 grams.  It’s kind of a like a suspension bridge designed to hold the foot, all made possible by technology.  All those “cables” lock the foot in place and give it a snug fit feeling a bit like a second skin.    The best part is that production costs are dramatically cheaper, making this shoe lighter, cheaper, and simpler!  Gotta love technological advances, huh?

And finally we have Speedo’s LZR suit, which I might say is a bit controversial.  Let’s just say they found a loophole.  The sport’s rules ban any suits that create buoyancy, including anything with bubbles, fins or spoilers.  So instead of lifting Speedo squeezed, making the swimmer sleeker and smaller – and able to glide through the water faster.  They did this by creating a sheath that compresses the body with 70 times more force, molding them to the ideal hydrodynamic shape by compressing areas of the body that cause drag.  The fact I find most interesting is that as of May when it was released, 37 of 41 records were set with people wearing it.

Hip Replacement in Bangalore anyone?

Fast Company recently featured this story titled: Why Americans are Going Abroad for Health Care. Over half a million Americans flew overseas last year to save up to 90% off of US rates on major surgeries. And yes, they paid out-of-network rates and still saved that much! This isn’t that farfetched though, as many major insurers are looking into adding these international sites as in-network providers. Who’d have thought- globalization of medical care! I see this as a beautiful opportunity for markets to work their magic and begin to slow down the out-of-control medical costs. Another fun fact from the article- McKinsey roughly estimates that 10-20% of America’s 39 million hospital patients last year would have been good candidates for overseas treatment. How long do you think it will be before we’re seeing advertisements for Bangkok hospitals encouraging us to “check in” for a relaxing week of healing?