Here we are again with another post from my insider's perspective on life at IASTED. Recently we celebrated two birthdays, including that of our dear friend Hamed M. He is a relatively recent employee at IASTED who said that he was, "celebrating his 23rd birthday this year"! We wish him a happy birthday! We all had a great time celebrating with cake and ice cream, which was a nice break from work and provided a great opportunity for us at the office to get to know one another better. Once again I am writing about the benefits of working in an organization that has a friendly work environment.
Now that our summer conferences are finished, IASTED has become slightly less busy. There are still many papers to manage, and plenty to prepare for with our upcoming conferences in the US. There have also been many changes going on with the ACTA Press website, including the newly automated plagiarism checks that used to be done manually. There are still bugs to work out, but that is the nature of making a major change to an existing software system.
Today was also exciting for another reason, because we were able to bring out the inner child in us. Our manager's son was scheduled to go to soccer camp, but due to poor weather the camp was closed and he instead came to work with us! Admittedly we were not always on task; however, we made up for it by teaching our youngest member about the inner workings of IASTED office life. I think we all did a good job of fending off the boredom that might have otherwise invaded the office, especially for someone expecting to have fun at soccer camp.
Well that's all for this month.
ciao
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Making up for June
Hello again,
One of my coworkers has been prodding me about not posting for the month of June, so I've decided to make a double post this month. One for June, the second for July.
The month of June was a very busy one for me. The spring class that I was taking at the University was really challenging, which culminated in the final exam that had me studying for hours on end to prepare myself properly. The class was about Auditing, which is very interesting from the perspective of working in a not for profit such as IASTED. The internal controls here at IASTED were good; however, there is always room for improvement and the Director decided that he wanted to see some changes going on internally. I found this very interesting, especially because I have been able to make some suggestions on how to improve the controls. One very important change was the move to the accounting software called, "Simply Accounting". This is a very powerful software for an organization that had not been using any accounting software previously. I felt happy to be able to help by offering my limited expertise with the knowledge gained during my classroom learning, and especially from my projects. Already I am putting into practice the knowledge that I have learned in class, my teachers would be proud!
In terms of IASTED news there was also a lot of preparation that went into the Calgary conference series: http://www.iasted.org/conferences/pastinfo-731.html
The conference was a great success, and we had some great guest speakers attend the conference including Satya Brata Das. Some of our own office staff were able to attend the conference, and take advantage of the opportunity to mingle with experts from around the world and in a variety of fields. The office was especially glad to receive the desserts that were brought back from the generous amounts of food provided during the IASTED conference.
Finally, on a personal note I was able to take advantage of a long weekend to head to Beautiful British Columbia for some camping. It was a great opportunity for me to connect with nature and recharge my energies for work, not to mention a time for enjoying roasting marsh mellows over a campfire.
That's all for now. Look for the next post before the end of July!
ciao
One of my coworkers has been prodding me about not posting for the month of June, so I've decided to make a double post this month. One for June, the second for July.
The month of June was a very busy one for me. The spring class that I was taking at the University was really challenging, which culminated in the final exam that had me studying for hours on end to prepare myself properly. The class was about Auditing, which is very interesting from the perspective of working in a not for profit such as IASTED. The internal controls here at IASTED were good; however, there is always room for improvement and the Director decided that he wanted to see some changes going on internally. I found this very interesting, especially because I have been able to make some suggestions on how to improve the controls. One very important change was the move to the accounting software called, "Simply Accounting". This is a very powerful software for an organization that had not been using any accounting software previously. I felt happy to be able to help by offering my limited expertise with the knowledge gained during my classroom learning, and especially from my projects. Already I am putting into practice the knowledge that I have learned in class, my teachers would be proud!
In terms of IASTED news there was also a lot of preparation that went into the Calgary conference series: http://www.iasted.org/conferences/pastinfo-731.html
The conference was a great success, and we had some great guest speakers attend the conference including Satya Brata Das. Some of our own office staff were able to attend the conference, and take advantage of the opportunity to mingle with experts from around the world and in a variety of fields. The office was especially glad to receive the desserts that were brought back from the generous amounts of food provided during the IASTED conference.
Finally, on a personal note I was able to take advantage of a long weekend to head to Beautiful British Columbia for some camping. It was a great opportunity for me to connect with nature and recharge my energies for work, not to mention a time for enjoying roasting marsh mellows over a campfire.
That's all for now. Look for the next post before the end of July!
ciao
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