Joel J. Greenwald, Esq., Founder and Managing Partner of Greenwald Doherty, LLP, a labor and employment law firm in New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut, is a friend of mine who I met at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).

He was recently recognized by the New York Enterprise Report (NYER), a publication serving the New York tri-state area small and midsize business market, as both the Attorney of the Year and Best Employment Law Attorney. This honor was received at the NYER Best Accountants and Attorneys for Growing Businesses; the special awards event that recognizes the New York area’s top business advisors.

I was at the event.  Actually, my HJMT staff worked with Rob Levin, publisher of magazine, to coordinate and organize the event, which was held at the Trump Soho in New York City.

When Joel received the awards, I was so happy for him.  He does so much for the entrepreneurial community.  I learned so much from him.  As a matter of fact, I attended two of his EO huddles.  Things that I never thought about were brought to life and for that, I’m in deep appreciation for him.

The judging for the NYER Best Accountants and Attorneys for Growing Businesses were done on a number of different criteria such as the positive impact on the business community and how each nominee went “above and beyond” in helping their clients succeed. Each entry was rated and scored with the highest total score chosen as this year’s recipient.

Although my staff worked on the event, we had no idea who was getting the awards that evening and when Joel received those two, I just smiled.

Joel can be reached at Greenwald Doherty, LLP, call (212) 644-1310, email firm@greenwaldllp.com or visit www.greenwaldllp.com

I’ve been going on a lot of new business meetings the past couple of months and meeting with lots of different people.

It’s interesting how people are different in how they want information presented to them, how they make their decisions, and how they communicate.

One of my prospects took three months to finally make the decision that they were going to hire our firm. They wanted several rounds of the proposal presentation, lots of background information on HJMT, and wanted to talk to our clients.

However, another prospect decided to join the firm before our proposal presentation even ended. Both prospects are great people and both have turned into great clients, they just have different personality types.

Several months ago I learned about the DISC personality assessment and how someone can be classified as a dominate, influencer, steady, or complaint. Learning how to identify someone’s personality type and then learning how they prefer to be communicated with has really helped me in those different situations.

A new challenge I just experienced was being in a meeting with several people from the prospect company that each have a different personality type, and each wanted something different. So I’ve been trying to figure out how I can have multiple personalities all at one time…

P.S. We’ll be spending some time on DISC personalities at our upcoming staff summit next week. Each of our staff members took an assessment and it will be interesting to talk about all of our personalities.

Stay tuned…

I was sleeping and heard the sounds of a keyboard. I woke up.  It was my husband writing something.  He was typing so fast that it reminded me of when I was in typing class in High School and had to learn how to type without looking at the keys.  That was such a challenge!

I remember going home that evening in High School and asking my mother, a secretary at the time, how to type so I would pass the class.  She gave me a jumpstart.

“Put your fingers on the middle row and remember – ASDFGF (space) ; LKJHJ (space),” she said.

She repeated that over and over again to me so that it would stick.  “And just keep typing that.  Once you learn that row, the other rows will follow,” she said.

And she was right. In addition to learning that row,  in my typing class, I did drill after drill but the one thing that really stuck in my head was “ASDFGF (space), Semi LKJHJ (space).”

Tonight, listening to my husband type and remembering this story, I started to think about how kids are no longer learning “ASDFGF (space) Semi LKJHJ (space).” They don’t have to!

Today, you see people “keyboarding” with two fingers.  And that’s okay and acceptable! Just think about those who text.  (I’m one of them.) I text with one finger.  It’s funny. The kids laugh at that because the standard is to text with both thumbs!

What do you think? Is the art of typing gone?

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that everyone is now text messaging.  I know for me, I am hardly on the phone anymore.  The phone was the one business tool that was glued to my ear for so many years and now, it’s texting on the iPhone… tweeting on the iPad… and emailing on the laptop…

Today, I went out to dinner with my daughter.  We were sitting outside a lovely cafe eating Italian food when a family came over and sat at an adjacent table.  The mother went to her purse and pulled out her Blackberry.  The sons both did the same. As my daughter and I were enjoying our food having a nice conversation, the table across from us didn’t talk.  They just texted.

“Look at that,” my daughter texted to me on my iPhone.  “Could you believe that no one is talking?”

This scene wasn’t unusual for me because I see it all the time, especially in business.

Do you remember when cell phones became popular and you were eating lunch with a client, vendor or associate and his phone rang?  He usually said excuse me and picked himself up and took the call.  Sometimes he would even take the call while you were sitting next to him.  That was really uncomfortable, right?

Today, I find that when I’m at a business lunch, the client, associate or vendor’s cell phone goes off and he picks it up to view the text message.  Then, he responds.  I don’t know which scenario is ruder?

In any event, now it’s not only at the business level, it’s at the family level too… What are you thoughts?