Tuesday, November 24, 2009

More SEO stuff....

Technorati, every hear of them. I sure hadn't until I starting delving into the world of SEO. So who are they and why are they important. Well, Technorati is the Mac Daddy of blog indexes and getting your blog listed with them is a very good thing. So here goes:

SEWHGEQFH6M2

CVU4WVAY5QQF

Whoa, what was that? That my friends is what is called a Claim Token. It let's them know this is really my blog. Cool huh? Well, I guess if you're geek it might be.

Oh, this stuff can be mind numbing....

Later,

Steve

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

SEO, Google, Yahoo, and the rest...

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the one thing that makes creating and maintaining a website a chore as well as interesting. I recently bought a book on SEO by Rebecca Lieb. This book has changed my life, no really, it has. I had just about forgotten I'd had a website. I'm being facetious but, I was tired of "chasing my tail" with every new SEO trick I'd find on the web. After talking with a new client, he enlightened me on the fact that SEO is constant and neverending work and if I truely wanted results, mainly organic results ;), I should keep at it. Now back to Rebecca's book, which is titled: The Truth About Search Engine Optimization, in a word, AWESOME! If I ever actually meet Rebecca, I'm giving her a big fat kiss. Its not a very big book but, it cuts to the chase and she tells you what needs to be done. Regardless if its Google, Yahoo, Bing, whatever, there is no magic formula, just hard work.

Cheers,

Steve

Elting Mechanical Enterprises, Inc.

Manufacturing Nightmares....

Lately my wife and I have been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Even if you are not a foody or into reality TV, it's still a good watch. Well, one episode Ramsay goes into this one restaurant that is dying a slow death. The menu is overly complicated, the kitchen is filthy, the order process is completely screwed up, and to top it all off, there's to much middle management and the top brass hasn't the balls (or bollox like Gordon says) to keep them in line. So, does any of this sound familiar? Ramsay has his head in his hands and is saying, "where do I begin?".

At this point my wife turns to me and says, "My god Steve, isn't that what you do?". In all honesty, it's exactly what I do. So, now my morbid curiosity has me glued to this TV show picking up "pointers" on how he handles leaders who aren't leading, managers who run around like chickens sans their heads, and workers who are complacent, unmotivated, or completely incompetent.

Tip #1 - Cleanliness

Gordan rails about this topic on almost every episode. Any one who works for a company that has embraced Lean Six Sigma practices, knows what 5S is all about. If things aren't clean and tidy, how on earth our you going to get things done efficiently. The five S's are:
Sort: Going through all the tools, etc., in a work area and keeping only essential items.

Set In Order (or Simplify): Keep the needed things in the correct place. (I can still hear my Dad saying, PUT IT BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT! Ah, I miss him....)

Shine: Clean it until it shines....

Standardize: This is the hard one for most companies. Procedures need to be put in place so the first three get done.

Sustain: Make it a habit to get it done.

Well, that's all for my ranting. I'm sure there will be more.

Cheers,

Steve

Welcome to Elting Mechanical Enterprises blog

We created this blog to help our clients as well as others to see what's happening at EME and facilitate communications. So, asks questions about issues your company is facing and see if we can come up with a cleaver solution.

A good deal of the content you will see is going to be MCAD (mechanical CAD) centric and predominately about machine design.

Thanks,

Steve

Elting Mechanical Enterprises, Inc.