If you would like to give it a shot (the mechanics are very easy), just contact me at webmaster@communityasociations.net

E-mail to you:

Go to www.google.com. In the search box, type in the name of your company. When the results come up, click on "News" at the top of the page. When that page comes up, look in the left column for "News Alert" and then follow the instructions. This will send you an e-mail whenever those words you typed into the search box appear in the news. To keep from receiving e-mails with a bunch of similar stuff, go back to the start and put quotes " " around your words. Then it will only pick up those words when they are together in the same order. You can create news alerts for your own name, variations of your company name and client names. You will then receive an e-mail whenever they appear in a news source around the country. Although Google will catch most of the news items, you can do something similar with Yahoo and MSN, ic you want to cover the spectrum.

RSS News Feed

If you have RSS News Feeds coming to your computer or internet browser, this will provide you with the same information, but won't overload your e-mail in-box. Start with Google, and follow the same instructions up to "News Alert". Instead select "RSS" or "Atom" based on the format your news reader uses. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 (now in Beta 3) have built in capabilities to handle news feeds, allowing you to organize them into groups, to set how many will be stored, and how long before they're deleted.

Don't be the last to know that you have an angry owner at a client association. Its your company and its good name. Keep track of how its being used.

A few years ago, I heard some noises in the attic, and when I popped my head up into it to look around, I found myself facing a rather large, protective mother raccoon, that had decided my attic made a perfect nursery for her new family. It took about two weeks to catch her and move her family to a more rustic setting. But I had not seen where she was getting in and out of my house. It got to the point that I seriously considered changing the locks on the doors, just to make sure. I didn't, of course, and two weeks later a larger and meaner raccoon moved into the now empty nest. This one was much cagier and it took almost a month to lure him into the trap and pay his relocation expenses. But, I had discovered the entrance. They were pushing the vents in my soffits up and climbing in, and then, apparently neatly returning them to their place so as to keep me in the dark. Worse, the roofers I called informed me that the only way I could seal this would be to lift the entire roof section, in order to get to the doorway they were using and close it, and that it would cost me about $1,500. My roof was only a year-old and I figured I could find another way that would be much cheaper. I thought about it, and then in my normal "Tim the Toolman" fashion, jammed some wood up in the area and nailed it in place. Looks terrible, but it did the job. Humans 2 racoons 0.

Peace reigned for the next few years. Oh, the rabbits ate up some of my flowers and the birds crapped all over my deck, but hey, this is suburbia, you expect some annoyances. Things were so quiet I turned my attention to helping out my mother who was battling squirrels over possession rights to certain bird feeders she like to have around her house. 4 years and 18 "squirrel-proof" bird feeders later, I think we're start to actually make the squirrels work for their snack.

Then, "IT" arrived. I call it "Chippendale", not after the dancers, but the Disney characters. A cute little chipmunk began visiting my home two years ago. I would see him sitting out on the lawn chair on my deck, taking a break from whatever it is chipmunks normallly do, or running around the yard. Cute. HAH! He was just reconnoitering.

I started hearing noises in the attic again. But these were very faint, not the scratching around of a raccoon. I once again cautiously popped my head up into the attice and seeing nothing began to look around. Nothing. This continued on throughout the first winter of my discontent. Noise, inspection, nothing. Spring came and it continued. The one summer day I was working outside and had the garage door up. On one of my trips in, I noticed the chipmunk sitting on my porch near the garage door. I was surprised at how close it would let me come. Then I noticed, in a small crack, between the garage wall and the concrete floor, just inside of where the door closed, a nut, jammed into the tiniest of cracks. Eureka. Human intelligence was able to determine that the noises came from the chipmunk and the nut was now blocking his doorway to my (and his) comfortable home. In the few seconds it took me to tell my wife about my Sherlock Holmes moment, the chipmunk got the nut into the hole and disappeared. The battle had begun and my transition into Donald Duck took its first waddling steps.

Traps had worked for the raccoons and traps would work for the chipmunk. Humane traps, of course. I'm an urban creature. I might run over it, but deliberately setting out to kill it, when I had no plans on eating it, was not my style. In any event, all the traps did was provide him with a steady and reliable source of food.

We worked out a routine. In the morning, I would raise the garage door, and back my car out. As the door was closing, he would pop out and head off to whatever day job he held. At night, when I raised the garage door to pull in, he would scurry back in for the night. I was still trying to keep him out, by blocking the hole with various objects, but he managed to get through them all. Then this summer I decided to get serious, I patiently waited until I saw him outside, and then quickly mixed up some fast-setting concrete and filled in the hole. I set paint cans on top to allow it dry before he could start digging. Twenty-four hours later, I removed the paint cans. Twenty-four more hours and a new hole had magically appeared in the concrete. I hadn't even heard the jackhammer he must have used, or maybe he had found an unexploded firecracker that my neighbor's kid had left laying around and blew open the hole. I started muttering to myself.

I waited impatiently to again catch him outside. And eventually I did. Quickly I used an entire bag of concrete, jamming it down the hole until no more would go and then building it up around the entrance, like a small fortress. This time I waited 48 hours before removing the protective cover that allowed the concrete to set. I hit it with a hammer---solid! It looked like hell, and I'd have to remove most of it if I ever hoped to sell this house one day (along with the wood shoved up in the roof), but he wasn't going to get in that hole ever again. And he didn't. Instead, he created a whole new door, right through the drywall in the garage, and 10 inches from his old door. And I lost it. If you remember the old Donald Duck/Chip 'n' Dale cartoons, there always came a point where Donald would completely loose it, jumping up and down and quacking something unitelligible. That was me.

But wait, he just ran past the garage door, he's not in his home. Quickly gathering everything that had accumulated in my garage over the years, I nailed, screwed and glued 2"x4"'s over his new hole. But he's tricky, so a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood was nailed, screwed and glued on the adjacent wall. Not enough. Sheet metal, that'll do it. Cover the wood in case he has a power saw or drill. (Thinking ahead, I moved my power tools to the top shelf of the tool area, you can't be too careful). What else? I tell my wife to guard the garage while I run to the hardware store. She gives me the look she normally reserves for people who drive too slowly in the left lane. I don't care. At the hardware store I buy every kind of animal repellant they sell, each guaranteed to keep some type of animal away from wherever you put it. A roll of steel mesh (let him chew through that), and some silicone spray (might make things too slippery for him to climb over). An hour later and I proudly inspected my work. My garage now smelled like a barnyard (the house did too for the next week), and what I had built now jutted into the garage so far I'm not sure we can still get two cars in it. But the payoff came the next day.

As I came home from work and pulled into the driveway. I could see my little adversary sitting on the sidewalk next to the garage. I stopped the car and got out and faced him. He stood up on his little hind legs and for the next two minutes cursed me up one side and down the other. Yes I know, I don't speak chipmunk, but some things you just intuitively grasp. I know he challenged my background, my parent's marriage state, my physical attributes and I swear, even though no one has believed me, that he extended the middle digit of his paw at me. I took a step toward him (no flips me the bird and gets away with it), but he ran down the sidewalk and stopped, turned around and continued his venting. I grabbed the shovel out of the garage and chased him around the outside of my house turning into Donald Duck again...one lap and I was panting. I parked the car and closed the garage door.

I haven't seen him around for over two weeks, no new holes in the concrete, wood or drywall. The house still smells, but some things you just have to pay the price for. Wonderful peace!

I heard a noise in the attic today.......

Whenever I've seen groups of managers talking, whether CEO's or those on the front line, the exchanges of information usually has to do with problem-solving and doing a better job. Yeah, there are always a few horror stories shared, but they're mostly to let the others know that you've paid your dues and put in your time.

This is still too new an industry to have thngs carved in stone, so part of the meetings always deal with what' new and what's working. The one constant of every meeting is finding good people to be managers. This is a major growth industry, with a majority of all new housing being a part of some type of association. We've talked about this in a prior blog and there still isn't a good way to bring people who will make good managers, into the industry.

Anyhow, it was good to see friends, but it was also good to see so many new faces, working to find better ways to deliver better services to their clients. Comments from the attendees were generally favorable, indicating they would be taking some good ideas home to implement. Monitoring the rant sites show many complaints against boards, but relatively few against management companies. Maybe they are doing something right.

You've developed the annual budget that call for X increase, and the board decides that X won't fly with the owners and so you get caught short or skimp on something to make it fit with the board's expectations rather than reality

You convince the board to spend the money to have a real reserve study done, only to see them ignore or undercut the funding recommendations.

A problem comes up and you recommend bringing in an outside expert to help solve it. The board just sits there looking at you and you know they're thinking "What are we paying you for?"

You see friction occuring between owners and the board and you recommend that they build a web site and get more news out to the owners to help explain what's going on. The board sends out a one-page note that causes more problems than it solves, but it was cheaper and easier.

The bids for a project come in and you recommend contractor A. The board picks B simply because they're cheaper and its your job to make sure they do the project right.

The list could go on and on. And the reasons they ignore you are just as plentiful as the problems. You spend an entire year working to get the board to do what's right, not just expedient or cheap, and then, for all your efforts, you get a new board, and have to start all over again.

Some companies hold classes for their new board members, but they can't force them to attend and so, someone always misses the message. Management contracts rarely hold the board to any standard, so when they screw up, you have to live with the consequences.

I think what is missing is a universal set of standards for boards of directors. Not in vague, general language ("The board shall do what is best for the association"), but setting specific standards that they can be measured against (The board shall select the contractor that meets the following criteria-----"). That means processes, checklists and an agreement defining the quality level expected and the willingness to pay for it.

This industry has spent a lot of time and expense developing standards for managers. Its time to take it to the next level and create similar ones for the decision-makers.

My mother-in-law would tell me that every day she had to deal with a new, unknown version of herself, because she didn't know what part of her body or mind would be working on all cylinders or stalled. I'm learning that this is the norm, not the exception for our elderly. And now, the largest segment of our population is entering into their "golden years". What does that mean for you?

It means that those of you who manage outside of Florida and Sun City (who are already dealing with this) are going to have to figure out how to deal with it on an ongoing basis. My wife has lectured at a few condo conferences about what it means and what can be done, and I'd like to add a few thoughts to what she has talked about.

A long time ago when I was a manager, I was called on to deal with a woman who was showing advancing dementia. In three separate visits I tried to find something with a next-of-kin name or phone number, with no luck. Social Services wasn't nearly as active back then as they are now, and offered no real help. I finally found a prescription bottle with a doctor's name on it and contacted him. Things got better from there. The point is that most managers usually only have name to notify in case of emergency or to unlock a door if the owner is away. Should you be collecting additional information, such as family names & numbers, medical contacts and such. Do you need to know if they have an advanced medical directive? Do you have any responsibility, legal or moral, to provide any additional assistance they may require, simply because they live in an asociation you manage? Can you, or should you treat them as you would any other younger owner? Are your associations physically "senior-friendly", with railings on steps, large easy-to-read signs, paths and sidewalks free of obstructions or cracks, etc. Do your associations have any sort of social group that regularly check on seniors? As a manager, do you have available a list of critical contacts for each of your associations, social services, medical, financial counseling, etc. Should you be doing any of these things?

I guess what I'm saying is that its probably worth a staff meeting, or discussion with the board, about coming up with some ideas on how your company and your clients, want to deal with these issues. They're only going to become more commonplace in the future. Besides, I may be moving into one of your condo's soon, and I know I'm going to need help.

Correcting this is important to both parties. For the manager its a job and income. For the board, it means a transition and new learning curve which upsets the process and creates more work for them. So how do you avoid it?

Why do things fall through the cracks? One reason may be personal and another process. Avoidance and systems. Avoidance occurs when one of the items a manager is supposed to accomplish is either personally distasteful, i.e. dealing with an angry owner, or outside of their skills. In both cases, find some help. You may think that your co-workers or supervisor might think less of you because of your seeking help, but that won't come close to what they will think of you if the problem ends up in someone else's lap or creates more problems. It takes practice and time to learn to deal with all of the various issues a manager will face, but that learning will be a lot faster and easier if you can find others to help you work through it. If you're just avoiding it because you know its going to be unpleasant, then you have two choices: Learn to deal with it or find another line of work, because you're always going to bump into unpleasant situations. This is the time to use the manager's network and get some insight into the best ways to deal with the issue. Don't put it off.

Sometimes the problem is the process, or system you use to keep track of things. There are four basic components to a good system to handle tasks: 1) Confirming the task; 2) Scheduling the task; 3) Keeping tabs on it; and 4) Reporting on the task. There may be computer programs out there that can do this, but chances are you don't have it, so let's just look at a simple method:

At the end of every board meeting, or as a result of a phone call, e-mail or talk, you will have a list of tasks the board wants you to perfom. Confirm it back to them. Send the board an action item list and confirm through e-mail or note any item given to you through some other method. Basically say, "Here is what I believe you want me to do, and here is my schedule for doing it." This is also your CYA memo.

Now, punch this into Outlooks Tasks or Calendar, or put it on you daily "to-do" list, but find something that reminds you constantly of the items you have to do and the schedule you promised. I use Outlook's Calendar and Tasks and set reminders to pop up in my face well in advance of when the project is due. Simple, but effective for me. It doesn't get deleted until its done. Use whatever you have to, but keep these items in your face.

Use the same method to report on the completion or status of an item that you used to confirm it. At the next board meeting have your "Action Item" or "To-do" list as part of your report, along with any of the items that were added in between meetings. Make sure the board understands the reason any item wasn't completed and agrees with a new completion time frame. Keep it on the list until done.

A manager handles so many different items that its easy to lose track of some things if you don't find a way to keep them from falling through the cracks. Find what works for you.

- Keep quiet while grinding your teeth down to the gums
- Pass a note to the President "What the *&^%$# are you thinking of?"
- Say out loud "What the *&^%$# are you thinking of?"
- Distract them with an X-rated story about one of their neighbors and hope they forget to vote on it
- Delete it from the minutes before sending out the next board package (if its not in the minutes, it never happened)
- Go back to your office, bang your head against the wall a few times, and update your resume
- Smile, because you know that you've got a good chance of winning the office pool for "Worst Board Motions"
- Realize you're now going to be over budget because of the legal costs straightening this out, and the board won't remember why six months from now
- "Accidentally" spill something on whoever raised the issue, preferrably hot coffee, so that maybe they'll go home to change
- Clear your throat, mumble "You might want to re-think that" and insert it in the minutes before the next board package goes out (if its in the minutes, it must have happened and you've CYA)
- Pass the buck by recomending the board get an opinion from ______ (insert attorney, engineer, architect, CPA, Magic 8-ball you carry in your briefcase*, etc)

or, do you go head-to-head with them trying to straighten it out before the problems occur?

Now and then, every board will do something that's "just around the bend" and you know it is. The first question to ask yourself is why? They may be tired of looking at the same issue time and again, or the problem is so off-the-wall that they really don't know what to do, or there's a personal agenda working underneath, or, maybe you just can't figure it out. The key is to not let it come to a vote. Keep the discussion going by raising any issue you can, while you try and identify the cause and the votes. Work the "NO's" and undecideds by planting potential problems in their mind. Change the direction from an "Action Item" to a "Study and Report". If all fails, simply tell the Board that you feel there may be some potential liability or risk isues and ask that it be tabled. That will buy you a month to convince the individual board members to re-think the issue. If you can't convince them by then, you may have to bring in some outside help (outside experts always carry more weight, even if they say the exact same things you did).

Even if its not in the contract or job description, a major part of your job is to keep the board from doing something that will have a negative on the community. I used to tell board President's that if they saw me give a negative shake of my head, then the issue needed to be dropped or tabled, and they would usually say something like "I'm not comfortable that we have all the facts" and ask that it be carried over. It helps to have that kind of working relationship and understanding with your President. You're the advisor on management - get in there and save them!

*By the way, if you can't carry around a manager's best friend, the Magic 8 Ball, here's an on-line version----but really, if you don't have one on your desk, how do you get through the day?

I imagine it is as true today as it was back in 1977 when I first heard it. Unless you've determined to stop growing, and stay at a determined size, the cycle never ends. Stretch staff to the limit, hire new staff, find new accounts to pay for new staff, which stretches larger staff to the limits....

I really thought that by now, someone would have come up with a formula that solves this problem, but although people may have figured out a way around it, no one has put it on paper that I know of. Somewhere out there must be a math major turned manager who can make sense of it. All you need to do is figure out the relationship between the cost and timing of adding new staff, add in the necessary increase in company overhead, factor in your increased time supervising and reduced time in managing, determine when and at what rates new accounts will come on and how much time they will take to manage and voila, you have it.

Hmmm...maybe that's why no one has reduced it to a simple formula. If you have, we'd love to hear it, even if its just a hypothesis, we'd be glad to test it, or, come to think of it, maybe just asking that 8-ball on your desk is still the best way.

The Treasurer needs, and should have a complete financial report. But the rest would probably prefer an executive summary giving them the cash situation, a balance sheet, an exception report, maybe a bank reconciliation and a delinquency update. The Treasurer is supposed to fill them in on anything else during his or her report, so why waste a few trees every year for something that is going to filed, either in a cabinet or the circular one?

Have you ever considered asking your boards just what financial information they really want? Or need? Some management firms are cranking out 30 page encyclopedia's that the average board member doesn't have the time or ability to read. So why are you giving them something they won't use?

Just ask your boards what financial information would be both useful and more likely to be read before the board meeting. And change your contracts to offer both an executive summary for board members and a full report for the Treasurer. Let them know what that full report costs them in copy charges and they might actually opt to make your job a little easier.

This case is going to be debated by attorney's all over the country and board's are going to have to take a serious look at rules and regulations that deal with political signage, flyers related to board elections, flags, and petitions by owners. The courts determined that the "business judgment" rule was not the standard to apply.

As a manager, you might want to take a look at certain restrictive rules and regulations of your associations. A new opinion might be order from the association's attorney.

- When teaching board members and managers I like to remind them that "Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate". Angry owners often become angry board members. Resolve to reduce that number this year. Identify who they are and what their issues are and then make an effort to deal with it.

- Resolve to communicate with new owners as often as you can, and in a positive fashion, BEFORE you have to send that first violation notice.

- Take a look at each standard management service you provide and make at least one improvement in each that will impact the association residents in a positive way.

- Find a way to continually educate board members, who don't have the time or inclination to take classes.

- Review contract performance, with board members, before contract renewal. They often won't tell you what they are unhappy about until its too late.

- Sit down with your prime contractors and come up with solid ways to improve services to your associations. Find out where their problems are and work with them to find solutions.

- Find a way to organize the tons of information that is thrown at you (or is available) in a manner that allows it to be disseminated effectively. Information overload is only going to get worse, get a handle on it.

- Understand that community associations are becoming popular with the news media. Sooner or later you're going to have camera pointed in your direction or a reporter on the other end of the line. This is not something you want to learn how to do "after the fact". Resolve to put a media policy in place and learn something about public relations.

- Finally, resolve to not feel guilty if you turn the computer and cell phone off. Uninterrupted time spent with your family is a good thing.

Happy New Year to all of you and may 2006 be your best year ever!

22,000 people visited the Community Associations Network last month. That's a pretty good audience.

If you're interested, drop a note to: webmaster@communityassociations.net

The DCN Web site is www.dcnonline.org. It provides a point of entry to the DCN, a virtual organization of construction-related associations, state and federal emergency management organizations and regulatory agencies. The purpose of DCN is to foster communication and resource matching among government; the construction community; and home and business owners before, during and after natural disasters. The site also offers online courses for contractors. The DCN's Web site is funded by the states involved and staffed by FEMA.

The core of the DCN site is the Virtual Emergency Operations Center. To reach the VEOC, click on the map of the state you need information about. Then click the green VEOC icon near the top of the screen. The following options will be available:

Critical Needs allows homeowners, business owners and contractors to list items and resources that they need to recover from the storm. This section may contain requests for materials, requests for labor, or requests for services. For example, a construction company might be in need of roofers, a homeowner might need drywall work done on his or her home, or a general contractor might need lumber.

Resources let homeowners, business owners and contractors look for contractors specializing in certain services, including architects, engineers, and general contractors. Contractors can be searched based on category, keyword, or geographic location.

Situation Reports contains links to reports filled with vital Wilma-related information, such as weather summaries, current power outages, health advisories, damage reports, and locations of Disaster Recovery Centers.

Homeowner Information contains documents that might be of particular importance to homeowners, including tips for protecting one's home and the steps to take after a disaster has occurred.

Hot Topics links to press releases, fact sheets, and newspaper articles of interest to homeowners and contractors alike.

License Check allows homeowners and contractors to check if a contractor's license is valid and current. This tool is accessed via the state's web sites.

Links allows users to visit other helpful Web sites.

By accessing the DCN Web site, homeowners and contractors will have access to all of the above - and more. Contractors will be able to post their firms as available resources, manage their information, update their records, archive their resource availability during busy times when they are no longer available, and add their firms to future disasters without repeating the registration process. Homeowners and business owners will be able to post their critical needs in rebuilding after each disaster, update their records, and archive their critical needs when they have been filled.

This is the information age, and people have grown to expect that they can access information about an organization that they belong to and pay money into. Telling them they can't see financials or minutes won't work anymore. You're going to have to come up with some type of reasonable policy and mechanism to provide basic information to the members of the association.

Secure web sites are the easiest and cheapest. Letting a logged-in owner browse through documents at their leisure reduces the potential for conflict. Newsletters that publish a well-edited version of the minutes and financials, as well as updates on projects and other activities is also good. In reality, the more information yu provide, the more bored they're likely to get. Its when they get told they can't see something, that suspicions arise and confrontations occur. They have a right to know what's going on and how their association is operating. Find a way to make it work.