Thought and Freedom

Today, I finished a report for one of my classes. The assignment was to provide report on a financial topic. I chose to demonstrate how a potential employee might choose to evaluate a possible employer. For my case study, I chose one of my favorite companies, Lawson Software. Below is the report in its entirety.

The Analysis of financial statements is usually thought of as a task done by investors and financial planners. These are not the only entities that should consider a financial analysis of a company. It is important for a potential employee to know the details of the financial status and history of a prospective employer.

This analysis can provide a person with knowledge about the company that they would not receive from an interview or simple review of the company website. With such a tool, one can analyze the company’s goals, their ability to promote employees, and the overall stability of the company’s employment situation. The following is one such analysis using the St. Paul based Lawson Software as an example.

History

Lawson Software (Nasdaq: LWSN) was founded in 1975 by Richard and Bill Lawson, and colleague John Cerullo, with the mission to “provide the best business applications to customers by taking full advantage of the latest technologies.” …

To read the entire paper, click here.

terrypearsonc-20%26lcode=xm2%26cID=2025%26ccmID=165953%26location=/o/ASIN/0895260786%253FSubscriptionId=0EMV44A9A5YT1RVDGZ82″>I normally do not devote this blog to political information that does not pertain to technology just so I can stay on a particular subject. However, I feel that it is so very important that I share the letter that I wrote to the subscribers at SMSU Politics today:

Attention All College Republicans,

You all probably know why I am sending out this email. Tomorrow (Tuesday, November 2) our community, our state, and our nation have a vitally important election.

We have the opportunity to once again exercise our right to vote. And Vote We Must! The liberals have been out in force this year. They have insulted our troops, they have vowed to raise taxes if elected, and have they committed to unraveling all that our conservative movement has sought to achieve in the past decade.

Under the leadership of Governor Tim Pawlenty, with representatives like Marty Seifert, our state has been the beneficiary of astounding growth. We currently have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation (3.9%).

Under the leadership of President Bush, and our congressmen like Mark Kennedy, our nation is just beginning the work of securing our borders with new bills passed that will place a fence along key areas of the U.s. Mexico border.

The list could go on and on, but you all know the many advances our nation has made in the past decade.

The thing is that if the democrats take over, in both state and national elections, we will see a repeal on much of the benefit we have seen come to our state and our nation in the past ten years. We will see a rise in taxes, a cut and run from the war on terror, and a large amount of bureaucracy put on top of the existing government structure.

A vote for the democrats will surely not benefit anyone!

That being said, this election will be very close. Your vote will matter. Many elections are likely to be decided by just a handful of votes.

Please remember to vote tomorrow. It is important to our future that you stand up for what is right, and that we push back the preemptive liberal status quo so that we can make our state and our nation better for us all.

The Republicans have endorsed the following excellent candidates because of their integrity, their strong belief in a free and conservative government, and their commitment to the people of the state of Minnesota:

Mark Kennedy ………………… U.S. Senate
Michael Barrett ……………… U.S. Congress
Tim Pawlenty ………………… Governor
Jeff Johnson ………………… Attorney General
Mary Kiffmeyer ………………. Secretary of State
Pat Anderson ………………… State Auditor
Dennis Frederickson ………….. State Senator
Marty Seifert ……………….. State Representative

While the choice is yours, I would like to encourage you to print off this email, and sincerely consider voting for the above individuals.

I have met and spoken with each one of them at one time or another and I believe that they are dedicated to Terryg a better Minnesota for us all.

Counting on YOUR vote,
Terry Pearson
SMSU College Republicans Secretary

The most famous internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia, now has a new project on their hands: WikiBooks. They are free opensource online textbooks that will be kept up to date and full of current relevent information.

The textbooks are largely college level, covering everything from languages, to accounting, to physics, and everything in between. I just wish my professors would switch over. Just imagine, up to date textbooks without having to spend 30% of your tuition on books!

I am very happy that I was able to be elected to Student Association Vice President. I remember coming in as a freshman and feeling that the student association senate was this vast far away entity. I had no idea that I could ever be a part of it.

As I made friends at SMSU, I found that several of them were involved in student government. It started to become more of a real organization. Finally, one election, I realized that there were more seats open on the ballot than people running. Out of a desire to make sure that our school had people representing them that wanted to be there, and desired fairness for the student body, I ran a write-in campaign and won.

I spent one whole semester just trying to figure out how this whole legislative body thing worked. It’s not something you just jump into and understand immediately. But after the initial shock of parlimentary procedure and such, I began to enjoy being a part of this group.

After the first semester, I became chair of the communications committee. It has been a lot of fun. I was very excited to be a part of the communications committee since it is the team responsible for maintaining the website. I even was able to upload a new site, that is much better. It even has a place for a profile of each senator. I hope it makes being on senate a little more enjoyable.

This past election, a few people told me to run for president. I finally decided on running for vice president, because it has more administrative functions than president. I really enjoy participating in the decision making process, and feeling that I had a part in the (hopefully positive) outcome of the work. As vice president, I will be able to help with putting together the committees, setting the agenda, and ensuring that the meetings stay on task.

I am excited to better learn the ins and outs of Robert’s Rules. It is definately a great opportunity to get a lot of practice. I will have the responsibility of chairing every meeting. My hope is that I can use these skills long past Student Government. Perhaps someday I will have a board of my own that I will run the meeting for. That would be exciting.

SMSU has given each of us as much opportunity as we let it. Many of the friends I have made will definately move on to bigger and better things. Andy Fox will probably become the CEO of the next Microsoft or something(before becoming governor of MN), John Gronewald will most likely be a politician that someday has his face on Mt. Rushmore, Chris Ostrowski will definately get the ultimate web based travel agency started, and Dave Krupp will probably hit it even bigger on the stock market.

I am really glad to know so many wonderful people that truly show how great of opportunities we have in America. It is always encouraging to see how people grow and change and acheive their dreams over the years!

Google has created another new product. This one could prove to be very useful for companies and organizations that have events throughout the year. It is called Google Calendar. It allows you to upload information from a comma separated value list from outlook, and allows information to be added at any time by it’s owners.

It appears that this will be somehow incorporated into Google Search and Google maps. This may be an excellent time to activate your Google Calendar Account and get started inputing upcoming events for your organization. I began to upload information regarding SMSU yesterday. I uploaded almost the complete academic calendar for Fall of 2006. I am hoping to upload other events as I see them coming up. I think it would be a great tool for putting upcoming student association events on the web.

Be sure to check out the new style of the Academic Offerings Pages at SMSU. The people who worked on these pages did a lot of work, and it looks as though it paid off. If you go to the above link, and click on the links to the various departments, you will see very professional designs that no longer have generic pictures.

The new pages are full of relevent and useful information. Check out your major’s pages. You will be impressed.