Go Paperless! Using Evernote as a Document Management System in the Transport and Logistics Industry

Express Direct Services (EDS) operates a fleet of 300 trucks providing transport and logistics across Australia. Based in Western Sydney, the company is family-owned and has been in business since the 1940s. The founder’s grandson, Matthew Wilmot joined the business after a 15-year career in IT. With operations staff based mainly on the Eastern seaboard, EDS has 50 full-time employees supporting a large fleet of vehicles.

Matthew noticed that staff spent a lot of wasted time looking for files, and they used a significant amount of bandwidth in emailing files to one another. The main transport management office in Western Sydney is accessed remotely from all other sites. All devices in the network run Windows, and all mobile staff have a company iPhone.  An audit of common business practices revealed that large volumes of information were locked away under paperwork, with staff members moving from desk-to-desk looking for it.

Matthew set out to make better file sharing a priority, and sought ways to allow the company to manage workflow more productively. Recognising an opportunity to improve the flow of information and save paper, Matthew introduced a new system for note-taking, file-sharing and scanning by deploying Evernote Business. By using Evernote Business as a document management software, EDS was able to increase productivity and streamline workflows. We spoke to Matthew about how moving file-sharing away from a Windows server model into Evernote has led to “huge cost-savings” in vital parts of the business.

Name: Matthew Wilmot
Profession: Business Systems Manager
Company: Express Direct Services (EDS)
Location: Australia
Website: http://www.expressdirect.com.au/

Getting the workspace right

I joined the family business after fifteen years in various IT roles, and immediately recognised that there was scope to improve the flow of information in the company, as well as reduce the paper trail quite significantly. There were two ways we could have gone; improve our use of the current Windows document management system, which is something I would have had to police quite rigorously, or introduce Evernote Business, which would give us the power to create our workflows the way we wanted to.

I LOOK AT EVERNOTE AS A BLANK SLATE, ON WHICH I CAN BREAK DOWN OUR DAILY USE INTO KEY COMPONENTS, AND PUT IT TOGETHER EXACTLY THE WAY I WANT SO WE CAN ALWAYS FIND WHAT WE NEED.

On-boarding the most important company assets

As a family owned and operated company, we have a very high staff retention rate, and as such we have business practices that have been in place for a long time. It can be hard to get people to change sometimes, but we decided to sell the Evernote idea by proving that it would cut down on some of the repetitive tasks that staff were doing, like scanning and printing. We set up Evernote to work with our Sharp scanners, and information to travel automatically through one of the many third-party apps that Evernote interacts with. We managed to get the document scanning routine down to a two-touch process, and staff were sold on it. We save paper by scanning rather than printing, and staff have more time to focus on important tasks, rather than printing and filing.

EDS scanners are configured to save scanned documents directly into notebooks in Evernote

Visibility, availability and reliability

The roll-out of Evernote Business began with the Sales team at Express Direct Services, and has expanded from there to HR and legal. The information in each quote that Sales provides to a customer is vital to the rest of the business, but the information wasn’t flowing through to the people who needed to see it. Now we start a new workflow in Evernote, create the customer profile, and that information is immediately available for each internal stakeholder to see. We don’t have to have a network connection to get the data – the system would still function if the Internet is down.

EDS uses Evernote as a CRM system

We CAN see the wood for the trees

Since all our document storage is now with Evernote Business, we know that our files are saved just where we want them. Customer service relies on it a lot. Before, staff would spend wasted time searching for the file they needed, which was often buried beneath the paper trail somewhere. There was a lot of walking from desk-to-desk looking for files. Now we have processes in place that allow people to find the file they need almost instantly, and everyone that is invested in that task can access the files in real time. What Evernote has taught me is it doesn’t matter if you put a quote in a notebook or tag it, Evernote will find it.

“EDS HAS REDUCED THE PAPER LOAD IN THE OFFICE BY AS MUCH AS 75 PER CENT.”

Setting the record straight

Once Evernote Business was up and running smoothly, we delved into the company’s archives and digitised lots of older material, building a series of data stores for larger customer accounts. Some of these may have as many as 4,000 documents on record, so information that takes up a lot of physical space as well as time. The digitising of our archives to Evernote has been an absolute godsend for keeping track of things like legalities.

Files being digitized and archived within Evernote

Work Chat the way it was meant to be

We have also recently started using Work Chat, which has already cut down on our keystrokes and sending files around the office. We don’t email each other anymore, we message each other instead – the email inbox is now just for customer communications. The team can interact on a project in real time, see who is accessing it and what page they are on. We also use Evernote Business for meetings, allowing staff to collaborate on notebooks as a project is discussed, then share them throughout the company when the meeting is concluded. Other parties are able to add notes and files to the discussion at a later stage.

The bottom line…

Express Direct Services has also reduced cost significantly by using Evernote Business. We have revolutionised our pallet receiving system, and ended up saving a lot of time and money. What used to cost the equivalent of a year’s salary in outsourced labour can now be done in-house, and only takes a few hours a week.

“WE LOOKED AT GETTING A CRM FOR THE SALES TEAM RECENTLY, BUT REALISED THAT SINCE WE ARE USING EVERNOTE BUSINESS, IT IS NOT NECESSARY.”

Now we use a few key notes to on-board customers, and our sales team is always able to surface the information they need straight out of whatever function they happen to be using.

“EVERNOTE REALLY IS AN OPERATING SYSTEM. THERE IS MORE AND MORE I CAN DO WITHIN EVERNOTE THAT I USED TO DO OUTSIDE OF IT. ALL OF MY INFORMATION IS WITHIN EVERNOTE. IN MY MIND, IT IS THE BEST HUB WE CAN HAVE FOR ALL OUR BUSINESS INFORMATION”.

Article extracted from Evernote 2015.07.08

Landgate Strata Title act guidelines

This book is produced as a community service by the Western Australian Land Information Authority (Landgate) to give people a basic understanding of strata titling principles. It is a summary only of the law as at 20 July 1997 and should not be taken
as a precise guide to the law on strata titles. You should refer to the Strata Titles Act 1985 (STA) as amended and the Strata Titles General Regulations 1996 (STGR) as amended in 2006 for details

Residential strata schemes provide for grouped housing with a community atmosphere. This combined with smaller areas, such as gardens to maintain, and the use of common facilities, such as bores and swimming pools, can make strata schemes attractive for many people. Strata schemes are also practical for industrial and commercial developments.

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15 GIFs That Assure You They Meant To Do That

These GIFs have nothing to explain except that everything they did was completely on purpose.

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Article extracted from Stumbleupon 205.03.23

20 amazing photographers who are ready to do anything for the perfect shot

When anything interesting, terrifying or beautiful happens somewhere around the world, you can bet that a photographer will be on their way to take a shot of it. Most of them won’t stop at anything to get that one incredible shot. Here are 20 photographers whose readiness to achieve their goal will quite simply blow your mind.

He held out until the very last moment

Pretending to be a snowdrift

He waited for half a day like this

Photographers always have to be ready to run like crazy

As well as deal with all kinds of seriously dangerous situations

And occasionally deal with their fear of heights

And at the same time stay positive — whatever happens

They’ll bear anything if it means they get the right angle

And risk everything in order to keep track of something important

They can always snap an ordinary object better than most of the rest of us can

They just know how to position themselves to get the right perspective

They know what it means to get right up close and personal

They always have everything they might need at the ready

...No matter how heavy it is

They take great care of their equipment

And they’re always ready to face the elements

They get inspiration when others feel none

The right perspective is the key to success

You have to hold your breath

And control every muscle perfectly if you want to succeed

And the most important thing: hand over something impressive to your boss

Article extracted from Bright Side 2015.08.31

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Marilyn Monroe knows about Insurance

Synopsis

Early Life
Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortensen (later baptized as Norma Jeane Baker) on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. During her all-too-brief life, Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become one of the world's biggest and most enduring sex symbols. She never knew her father, and once thought Clark Gable to be her father—a story repeated often enough for a version of it to gain some currency. However, there's no evidence that Gable ever met or knew Monroe's mother, Gladys, who developed psychiatric problems and was eventually placed in a mental institution. As an adult, Monroe would maintain that one of her earliest memories was of her mother trying to smother her in her crib with a pillow. Monroe had a half-sister, to whom she was not close; they met only a half-dozen times.

Growing up, Monroe spent much of her time in foster care and in an orphanage. In 1937, a family friend and her husband, Grace and Doc Goddard, took care of Monroe for a few years. The Goddards were paid $25 weekly by Monroe's mother to raise her. The couple was deeply religious and followed fundamentalist doctrines; among other prohibited activities, Monroe was not allowed to go to the movies. But when Doc's job was transferred in 1942 to the East Coast, the couple could not afford to bring Monroe with them.

At 7 years old, Monroe returned to a life in foster homes, where she was on several occasions sexually assaulted; she later said that she had been raped when she was 11 years old. But she had one way out—get married. She wed her boyfriend Jimmy Dougherty on June 19, 1942, at the age of 16. By that time, Monroe had dropped out of high school (age 15). A merchant marine, Dougherty was later sent to the South Pacific. Monroe went to work in a munitions factory in Burbank, California, where she was discovered by a photographer. By the time Dougherty returned in 1946, Monroe had a successful career as a model, and had changed her name to Marilyn Monroe in preparation for an acting career. She dreamt of becoming an actress like Jean Harlow and Lana Turner.

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Famed Career

Monroe's marriage to Dougherty fizzled out as she focused more on her career. The couple divorced in 1946—the same year that Monroe signed her first movie contract. With the movie contract came a new name and image; she began calling herself "Marilyn Monroe" and dyed her hair blonde. But her acting career didn't really take off until the 1950s. Her small part in John Huston's crime drama The Asphalt Jungle (1950) garnered her a lot of attention. That same year, she impressed audiences and critics alike with her performance as Claudia Caswell in All About Eve, starring Bette Davis. She would soon become one of Hollywood's most , about Monroe's relationship with Sir Laurence Olivier in 1957's The Prince and the Showgirl.

She would soon become one of Hollywood's most famous actresses; though she wasn't initially considered to be star acting material, she later proved her skill by winning various honors and attracting large audiences to her films.

In 1953, Monroe made a star-making turn in Niagara, starring as a young married woman out to kill her husband with help from her lover. The emerging sex symbol was paired with another bombshell, Jane Russell, for the musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). The film was a hit and Monroe continued to find success in a string of light comedic fare, such as How to Marry a Millionaire with Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall, There's No Business like Show Business (1954) with Ethel Merman and Donald O'Connor, andThe Seven Year Itch (1955).

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"Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered."

With her breathy voice and hourglass figure, Monroe became a much-admired international star, despite her chronic insecurities regarding her acting abilities. Monroe suffered from pre-performance anxiety that sometimes made her physically ill and was often the root cause of her legendary tardiness on films sets, which was so extreme that it often infuriated her co-stars and crew. "She would be the greatest if she ran like a watch," director Billy Wilder once said of her. "I have an aunt Minnie who's very punctual, but who would pay to see Aunt Minnie?" Throughout her career, Monroe was signed and released from several contracts with film studios.

Tired of bubbly, dumb blonde roles, Monroe moved to New York City to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors' Studio. She returned to the screen in the dramatic comedy Bus Stop (1956), playing a saloon singer kidnapped by a rancher who has fallen in love with her. She received mostly praise for her performance.

In 1959, Monroe returned to familiar territory with the wildly popular comedySome Like It Hot, with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. She played Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, a singer who hopes to marry a millionaire in this humorous film, in which Lemmon and Curtis pretend to be women. They are on the run from the mob after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and hide out with an all-girl orchestra featuring Monroe. Her work on the film earned her the honor of "Best Actress in a Comedy" in 1959, at Golden Globe Awards.

Reunited with John Huston, Monroe starred opposite Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift in The Misfits (1961). Set in Nevada, this adventure drama features Monroe, who falls for Gable's cowboy but battles him over the fate of some wild mustangs. This was her last completed film.

In 1962, Monroe was dismissed from Something's Got to Give—also starring Dean Martin—for missing so many days of filming. According to an article in The New York Times, the actress claimed that the absences were due to illness. Martin declined to make the film without her, so the studio shelved the picture.

At the time, Monroe's professional and personal life seemed to be in turmoil. Her last two films, Let's Make Love (1960) and The Misfits (1961) were box office disappointments.

"A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night."

In her personal life, she had a string of unsuccessful marriages and relationships. Her 1954 marriage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio only lasted nine months (she wed playwright Arthur Miller from 1956 to 1961).

On May 19, 1962, Monroe made her now-famous performance at John F. Kennedy's birthday celebration, singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President."

Death and Legacy

On August 5, 1962, at only 36 years old, Marilyn Monroe died at her Los Angeles home. An empty bottle of sleeping pills was found by her bed. There has been some speculation over the years that she may have been murdered, but the cause of her death was officially ruled as a drug overdose. There have been rumors that Monroe was involved with President John F. Kennedy and/or his brother Robert around the time of her death.

Monroe was buried in her favorite Emilio Pucci dress, in what was known as a "Cadillac casket"—the most high-end casket available, made of heavy-gauge solid bronze and lined with champagne-colored silk. Lee Strasberg delivered a eulogy before a small group of friends and family. Hugh Hefner bought the crypt directly next to Monroe's, and Monroe's ex-husband, Joe DiMaggio, famously had red roses delivered to her crypt for the next 20 years.

“She was the victim of ballyhoo and sensation — exploited beyond anyone’s means.” — Sir Laurence Olivier

Monroe did not own a house until the last year of her life, and had surprisingly few possessions. One that she prized was an autographed photo of Albert Einstein, which included an inscription: "To Marilyn, with respect and love and thanks."

During her career, Marilyn Monroe's films grossed more than $200 million. Today, she is still considered the world's most popular icon of sex appeal and beauty, and is remembered for her idiosyncratic sense of humor and sly wit; once asked by a reporter what she wore to bed, she replied, "Chanel Number 5." On another occasion, she was asked what she thought of Hollywood. "If I close my eyes and think of Hollywood, all I see is one big varicose vein," she replied. Monroe is also remembered for her romantic relationships with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Yves Montand and director Elia Kazan, in addition to her three marriages.

Monroe has been imitated over the years by a number of celebrities, including Madonna, Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani. Actress Michelle Williams portrayed Monroe ina 2011 film, My Week with Marilyn, about Monroe's relationship with Sir Laurence Olivier in 1957's The Prince and the Showgirl.

In 2011, several rarely seen photos of Marilyn Monroe were published in a book of photographs by famed photographer Sam Shaw. August 5, 2012 marked the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. Now more than a half century later, the world is still fascinated by her beauty and talent.