Helen Brown Group

By Leave a Comment

Managing stress this holiday season

My colleague Kenny Tavares is our featured guest blogger to start off December, and his article is an important reminder that all-work-and-no-taking-care-of-yourself is a great way to mess up any time of year, but especially this one. End of year donations and asks, data entry and reconciliation, relatives visiting, shopping and gift wrapping, last-minute requests, managing expectations…it’s a lot all in a very short space of time. Here’s Kenny’s advice on how to make the season manageable and more merry – and a reminder to keep a caring eye on folks who may be vulnerable at this time of year. ~Helen

Happy Holidays!!!

For many people, this time of the year is joyous. It’s a great time to celebrate with friends and family and to be thankful for what we have. However, for some, this is not the most wonderful time of the year. Schedules compress, to-do lists grow and demands of the season are overwhelming. The mere mention of the holiday usually finds me rushing to a calendar and beginning the countdown.

We all have experience dealing with stress, but stress at the end of the year can be especially difficult and ultimately unhealthy. Chronic stress can lead to a number of physical disorders, including anxiety, depression, heart attacks and strokes, so when things feel out of control, it’s important to be mindful and take care of ourselves. Before things accelerate too quickly, let’s take a moment to review strategies for dealing with stress at work and at home. Hopefully, the following tips will keep you feeling positive and full of happiness this season. [Read more…]

By Leave a Comment

Creating a DIY wealth spreadsheet

“Sculpture at end of SW Coast Path in Minehead” by Nilfanion (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons

My colleague Kenny Tavares frequently gets tasked with creating reference resources for the team to use. He’s the Excel Guru and the Macros Whisperer, and the staff meetings when he demonstrates his latest efficiency tech-bit are always highly anticipated by all of us. This week Kenny shares some of background data he sourced for one of his latest automated worksheets. Enjoy!  ~Helen

Oh Happy Day! You have been asked to assess the wealth of an individual and that person works for and sits on the boards of publicly-traded companies, has several real estate properties listed in their name, and a yacht-load of tangible assets. It couldn’t be easier and you display the calm of someone who has chosen an easy profession…and then you wake up. [Read more…]

By Leave a Comment

Time Management in Practice

This week we welcome HBG Senior Researcher and Efficiency Lead Kenny Tavares. Since he took on the new role of Efficiency Tsar this summer, Kenny has identified some off-the shelf tools and has also created some beauties on his own (yay macros!) to solve some long-simmering inefficiencies in our work. Getting from A to B can become much quicker when you take the time to sit back, identify the inefficiencies, and dream up the ideal solutions. In this week’s blog post, Kenny shares what he’s been learning about managing time. ~Helen

prague-clock

“Be More Productive,” “100 Time Management Tips” and “Increase Your Productivity” are some likely headlines you’ve seen in your LinkedIn or Twitter feeds. It seems there are an unending number of tips and tricks for improving your efficiency at work. However, for many of us, the idea of embracing even a few new ideas – never mind 20, 50 or 100 ideas – can seem like a daunting task. Some of these recommendations have been passed along so many times it’s hard to know where they came from or if they even make sense in the modern workplace. Do the authors of these articles even use these tips themselves? Reading all these lists can seem antithetical to being productive. [Read more…]

By Leave a Comment

How Dodd-Frank Affects Your Top Donors

This week we welcome back HBG Senior Researcher Kenny Tavares to the blog. Earlier this year, Kenny and fellow HBG senior researcher Elizabeth Roma shared their extensive research on family offices in a podcast. In this week’s article, Kenny shares more about the legislation affecting hedge funds and family offices, and how this could impact the philanthropic landscape.

Frankenstein-Poster

With Halloween approaching, the time is right for a scary topic! Pull up a chair and let me tell you about the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, aka Dodd-Frankenstein. Wait, no, sorry. I meant Dodd-Frank. [Read more…]

By Leave a Comment

Billions of Possibilities

This month, I’m delighted that HBG Senior Researcher Elizabeth Roma shares her insights on Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI) and their potential to affect transformational change in the world through philanthropy. Elizabeth and Kenny Tavares have been studying the infrastructure and impact of HNW Family Offices, and she will present a session on the topic in June at the Mid-Atlantic Researchers Conference in Baltimore.  I hope you’ll be able to join her there!

Rockefeller

Do you want to hear something that will blow your mind?

In 2010 there were 388 billionaires whose combined wealth was equal to the combined wealth of the poorest 50% of the world’s population.

Amazing, right? But that’s nothing.

In 2014 there were 80 people whose combined wealth equaled that of the poorest 50%. According to a report from Oxfam, the wealth of those 80 people has doubled since 2009. If these trends continue, Oxfam predicts that the richest 1% will have more wealth than the remaining 99% by 2016 (yes, that’s next year).

Things are changing, and not necessarily for the better (at least not for those of us in the 99%). But does this have to be all bad news? [Read more…]

By 2 Comments

Introverts Advance! How researchers adapt in an extroverted world

We kick off October with a guest post from HBG Senior Researcher Kenneth Tavares. Like EF Hutton, when normally-quiet Kenny offers a comment at one of our staff meetings, the rest of the team listens. Kenny always has something insightful to say. Here he guides office introverts in the ways of getting ahead and getting heard. Enjoy!

Businessman Wearing Cape --- Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis

When I entered the field of prospect research more than 10 years ago, I was admittedly intrigued by the opportunity to not only provide appropriate intelligence, but also to do it with a certain amount of autonomy. [Read more…]

ABOUT HBG

The Helen Brown Group was formed in 2002 with a goal to be different.

Allow me to explain my personal philosophy to you.

Latest Intelligent Edge Articles

Privacy Quick Links