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With electronic devices changing so quickly some may be wondering what is the best way to discard the old.   Do my old electronics have any value, should I resell, should I donate to someone who could use them, where can I drop off products to be recycled?  All great questions and all depend on what the old electronic item is that you have to dispose of. Best Buy and Staples offer a cash-back program. Recyclebank allows you to earn points for recycling. Gazelle.com has paid out over $25M for used consumer electronics. Close the Gap refurbs your old computers and sends them to underprivileged individuals in Africa.

The implications of this Forbes article are far ranging but from the standpoint of Employee Engagement the message is clear.  Companies that ignore the need to interact with their employees on a higher level than was normal in decades past risk finding themselves the victim of destructive undercurrents at the hands of their own staff.

In the article “The Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail to Keep Their Best Talent,” I believe that the writer omits one very significant reason.  Rewards and recognition clearly play a critical role in keeping top talent at both small and large companies -- but were left out of the article.  Companies that choose to ignore this fact will notice that it is a contributing factor to their best and brightest walking out the door.

Recently in the news we learned that many anonymous donors are paying the layaway balances of families less fortunate enabling them to fulfill their holiday hopes.
(Anonymous Donors Pay Off Kmart Layaway Accounts)

Are you looking for the opportunity to strengthen your product offerings and selection with a luxury brand?

At the end of September Sharp introduced their 80-inch Aquos LED TV.   This giant LED-lit flat screen television featuring Aquos technology will be the largest consumer available television, at the time of it's release.   The 80” LED also feature Sharp's signature Quattron quad-pixel technology. This means that a fourth color, yellow, is added to the traditional red-blue-green display.  The 1080p X-Gen LCD display also consumes less energy than standard CCFL LCD televisions.    Sharp also offers  60” & 70” LCDs.

These multimedia devices are designed for on the go, with small dimensions and lightweight designs.

Well, cold and flu season is upon us once again and with it the heightened concerns regarding contracting “what’s going around”, or “the plague”( as we dreadingly refer to it at All Star) from lingering germs.  Though there have been many studies which prove that good old-fashioned hand washing is the best preventative measure to keep from picking up or spreading these heinous microbes, hand sanitizing agents do help as well.    Claims of 99.9% effectiveness may be a bit over exaggerated – these are probably statistics collected in a controlled, ultra clean lab testing environment.    However, even if this percentage drops to 40 – 60% in “the real world”, anything clearly is better than 0%.  Alcohol-base antibacterial products have been proven to be the most effective.

In an article I recently wrote for Occupational Health & Safety I detail the importance of employee engagement as a tactic towards improving safety. The entire article can be seen by clicking on This Link.

Most of us like trees.  Here in New England, we particularly enjoy them during the changing-of-colors Fall foliage season.  Might the price of that appreciation, particularly in our business and residential sections however, simply be too high?  After doing our best to deal with a full two business day power outage here at the Central/Western Massachusetts gateway due to an extremely unusual Halloween weekend Nor’easter, that question arises.