The Difference between Strategists and Strategic Planners | In the ...

I?ve met both over my long career as an executive, a consultant, and a board member. Strategists and Strategic Planners may read the same periodicals and have similar destinations in mind, but there is a difference between the two. Strategic Planners, at the outset, are disadvantaged by the definition of their role. They are staffers, not line managers. Strategic Planning positions exist inside companies, and in external consulting businesses. Consultants earn a living by the clock. The ramification of this incentive is easy to deduce. They spend weeks, sometimes months assessing, discussing, assembling teams, leading SWAT analyses, and on, and on, and on. Internal Strategic Planning managers do the same thing . . . in some cases, less. Less? Yep, they bring in consultants to do their job.

Rather than break new ground, the finished plan is usually a?convoluted?extension of the current strategy. Crown Corporations and government agencies are the worst offenders. British Columbia Lottery Corporation, ICBC, and BC Hydro?s most recent strategic plans all exceed 30 pages. Take a peak; their well-crafted documents are posted as ?Service Plans? on-line, and they differ little from prior versions. Strategic Planners are the architects of these documents. They are not brilliant strategists; they are brilliant bureaucrats.?

An organization?s best strategists are in the C-Suite, and the CEO is usually the catalyst. C-Suite strategists can draft an effective Strategic Plan within a day because they have an intimate knowledge of the business and are constantly thinking strategically. The best ones bring clarity and purpose to a document that can be written on just one piece of paper.

Here are the key differences between the species:

1. Strategists are obsessed with bolstering their company?s competitive advantage. Strategic Planners are obsessed with preparing a document.
2. Strategists trash complexity so that plans are clear and transparent. Strategic Planners build plans to pre-defined formats. In the case of BC Crown Agencies, the government format demands verbosity.
3. Strategists motivate employees to invest time and energy in the stated strategic direction. Strategic Planners collaborate with management to uncover strategic direction.
4. Strategists take an enterprise to the next level. Strategic Planners never transform an enterprise.

In the final analysis, companies with a C-Suite that drives strategy are action-oriented, less bureaucratic, and better-performing. I?ll leave you with one question. Why don?t giant innovators like Apple, Google or Facebook have Strategic Planning Departments?

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Foursquare teases a giant mobile app remake, mayors quiver in anticipation

Foursquare has been steadily adding to its mobile app since its check-in service took off. A major remake hasn't been in the cards, however, until now. The company is teasing a major update this week that will reflect Foursquare's shift from simply broadcasting your coffee shop invasions to recommending where to go next. From what little the company is willing to let slip in advance, the emphasis will be on spotting popular destinations on the map as well as more alluring location pages. There's still several questions left open, including an exact release date as well as whether or not the update is coming to more than one platform on day one; we've only seen iOS shots so far. Still, it's looking as though fans of Oink and Yelp will find something to like in Foursquare very shortly.

Foursquare teases a giant mobile app remake, mayors quiver in anticipation originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CBR SUNDAY CONVERSATION: Andrew Chambliss - Comic Book ...

Welcome to the CBR SUNDAY CONVERSATION, a new weekly feature where we speak in-depth with some of the most interesting members of the comic book community. These conversations will range from analyses of their current projects to a look at the lives they lead outside of comics.

Andrew Chambliss' first job as a writer was on the 2007 television series "Bionic Woman," though the series died before his work aired. Chambliss would go onto write for "Dollhouse," "Spartacus: Blood and Sand," and "The Vampire Diaries" on TV, and in comic books he wrote stories for the "Heroes" comics and co-wrote the recent "Dollhouse: Epitaphs" miniseries for Dark Horse Comics.

Chambliss' current day job is co-producer and writer on ABC's "Once Upon a Time," and when he's not doing that he writes the monthly adventures of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for Dark Horse. Chambliss recently took time out of his busy schedule to speak to us here at the Sunday Conversation.

CBR News: Andrew, I know that you live and work in Los Angeles but your phone has a New York area code. Is that where you're from?

Andrew Chambliss: I've been in LA for eight and a half years. I went to school in New York and got my first cellphone there. When I moved out here it was like, "Oh, I shouldn't change my number." Then I got to the point where I wanted to change it, but then it probably actually would be too late, so I'm just stuck with it. I feel like people are becoming much less attached to the geography of their cell phones.

I think that's true. Part of that is just because you have to dial the area code just to make a local call now.

Yeah, especially in LA. I don't even know how many area codes there are.

So you went to school in New York. Did you grow up there?

No, I grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania just outside of Scranton, which no one ever knew where I was from until "The Office." [Laughs] That of course led to questions like, "Is that really what it's like?" and all that kind of fun stuff. At least people now have heard of Scranton when I say it.

There's a context for it.

Yeah. Maybe not the best context, [Laughs] but context nonetheless.

I went to NYU and studied screenwriting and TV writing there. I loved New York but when I graduated I wanted to get into TV, so I knew I had to come out here. Literally, two days after graduation I packed up everything worth packing up, took it to UPS and then got on a plane and came out here. I got my first job here as a page at NBC, which was fun. [Laughs] NBC sitcoms seem to be a good reference point for me, because everybody is like, "What's a page?" I'm like, "You know Kenneth from '30 Rock?' Same thing but in LA."

Coming out here and being a page was kind of a perfect first job. I didn't know anyone out here and it was a bunch of 22-23 year olds so it was like instant friends because everyone was in the same boat. It was a good way to be introduced to LA because LA can be tough if you don't know people. I mean, I do love LA. Not to knock it.

It's a city that grows on you.

Oh yeah. It does. If I wasn't doing what I'm doing, I would consider living here nonetheless. Especially when I think about going to Pennsylvania and dealing with real winters or at least more than rain every couple weeks. Every time I go home for the holidays I step off the plane and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I don't have a winter coat." There's something nice about not having one, but there's a two week window when I hate myself for it. [Laughs] I'm a definitely a fan of LA.

Just based on what you've spent your career writing, I'm guessing that you're a big genre fan.

Oh yeah. It's something that I grew up with. I think most genre writers would say this but I grew up with "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" and I grew up always being the geek and now it's nice that I can make a living continuing to be a geek. It really was always about the idea of building worlds and doing something a little bit greater than the real world. It's hard to imagine, on the television side, going into work and talking about a medical show or a lawyer show or a cop show. When do we have the magic come in? When do the aliens land? [Laughs] It seems like it could get pretty boring if you couldn't pull out all the bag of tricks we have in the genre world.

What was your first geek obsession?

I'd have to say, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." I remember my mom made friends with the manager at KB Toys and he would give us a heads up when a shipment of figures would come in so we could be there on the day they were unpacking the boxes. [Laughs] I mean, I don't know what cartoons are like for kids these days but being someone who grew up in the '80s I think I was very lucky being able to watch "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "G.I. Joe" back-to-back every morning before I went to school. [Laughs] Hopefully that hour I got up early before going to school is paying off now. I also have to thank my mom for letting me watch an hour of TV before I even started my day.

Most of us had to wait until after school, finishing our homework or doing chores.

It was always the excuse of, "But I'm eating breakfast and something's got to be on in the background." [Laughs] Hopefully when I'm a parent, my kids won't ever see this interview and use it to blackmail me. [Laughs]

[Laughs] So when you're not at work, what's your current obsession?

In the past year or so I've become obsessed with architecture in LA. I find LA to be such a fascinating city because we're kind of famous for tearing everything down and rebuilding, but I think in a way you can see the different imprints of very specific time periods. I find it fascinating that you can have this Spanish Colonial next to a really cool mid-century house and they just go together in LA. I think in a lot of other places they'd look out of place. I'm going on walks around my neighborhood on the weekends and literally using it as an excuse to nose around people's houses and be able to say there's a really cool house two or three streets over this way tucked away. Luckily for me it's coincided with the Pacific Standard Time exhibitions all over town in the past six months. It's celebrating all the development of modernism in Los Angeles and it's definitely given me more of an appreciation for it and seeing how something that's so local was also global at the same time. All these people from all over the world coming here to work in design and that goes hand in hand with technology and industry.

Ever since Julius Shulman died a few years ago, there seems to have been a resurgence of interest in LA modernism and mid-century architecture.

I definitely agree with you. I think there has been a bit of a resurgence and appreciation for it. Have you see that Julius Schulman documentary,"Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman?" It's on Netflix now. They shot it a couple years before he died and even though he's in his nineties, he's this tour de force. He's going back and photographing houses like going back to Stahl House, his most famous image, and redoing it. It's really cool to see him reminiscing about everything and he remembers everything about the day that he took that iconic photo.

My girlfriend's English and we had some time off so we went to England to visit her family and went down to Paris for a little bit. We went to this massive flea market that they have out on the periphery of the city. It's funny to see their take on modernism and how it's like ten degrees off what was done in California, but then it's also funny to see at the flea market all this modern furniture and then the next stall is stuff from the 17th Century and stuff we're so used to seeing as part of history.

It's interesting because you were talking about genre offers something more than the ordinary and now we're talking about architecture and the juxtaposition of history and different elements.

Yeah, the thing about genre writing is you can do that. You can start with a lawyer show and put in some sort of genre element. I think sometimes it's easier to see when you have the contrast of something that's not in a real world in contrast to that things that are real stand out. I think that's why people love Joss [Whedon's] work so much. When I sit down to think about "Buffy," I'll talk about it to my girlfriend. She's like, "That sounds crazy," but you pitch the emotional core of why you're telling that story and using that genre element and having that out of this world thing in a way makes the relatable thing in the story stand out all that much clearer. I think there is a parallel in bringing out contrast between things that are so different that you don't see when they're by themselves.

I think architecture in LA is like that. There's so much hidden in plain sight.

Yeah. I actually experienced something similar when I was in England with my girlfriend. She grew up there and to her it's normal to be walking by buildings that are five hundred years old. She's taking me to all these old towns and showing them to me and through my eyes is able to see all of that history that she had never thought of before. We went to Whitby which is this little seaside town that happens to be the town where Bram Stoker set Dracula's landing in England. Before we went there, because I have to be a geek about everything, I got out the whole passage about the landing and talking about the abbey. I'm even laughing at myself, of course. I find some fictional fake tourist reason to go somewhere instead of the actual reason that this abbey existed. To me, the fact that Bram Stoker had been there one hundred years ago or whatever and had thought about it being such a cool place to set this fictional world and here I am one hundred years later having read it. I'm seeing this real place and I feel like I'm inside of his head and his imagination in a way that I hadn't felt before.

I'm curious about your take on London, because like Los Angeles it's a place where different time periods and styles of architecture are side by side.

Especially now because they're building so much stuff for the Olympics. It seems like they have a ton of work left to do. In a way I feel like that just because we're not used to having stuff so old. LA is not a good example, but on the East Coast something two hundred years old is historical. You would never build a super-modern building within ten feet of it but maybe because they're so used to it over there. They also don't have much of a choice because they don't have that much space, but they're okay with that juxtaposition. One of the things I was thinking about while I was over there was that there's a building that was built in the 1600s and there's a Victorian building. When that Victorian building was going up I wonder if they were thinking the same way about building right next to something that was three hundred years older that we are today building whatever steel and glass structure they'd be putting up in London. It's that weird thing of one day we are going to be history and everything we've built will blend right in just like everything else. That was kind of my favorite part of going over there. It made everything I've read about it come alive in a way that it hadn't before.

And that really comes out when in a place where the streets have laid out the same way for centuries in front of the same buildings and you're walking down those streets where so many other people have walked.

Whereas here, I don't know if you've seen the aerial footage that people took of LA eighty or one hundred years ago, you see the intersection of Fairfax and Olympic and it's literally just fields. It's kind of insane that in such a short period of time after WWII, it just exploded into what we have today. And also how quickly all that stuff changes. I don't know if anyone ever anticipated that LA would be such a huge sprawling place right after WWII.

It doesn't seem like anyone thought about it. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Definitely. I think about that every time I try to make a turn on Sunset Junction and I'm wondering, this can't be part of some grand design.

What do you do in your free time, besides sleep?

[Laughs] Honestly the past year, during the week is pretty much work full time and that sometimes spills into the weekends too, grabbing whatever night here and there and whatever time on the weekend to work on "Buffy." I live by Griffith Park. I'm a fan of hiking. That's one of the reasons I like LA because there is that kind of stuff you can do. It's a ten minute walk for me to end up in the park to go hiking. I can get in my car and be at the beach in -- I was going to say half an hour but let's be honest, an hour hour and a half if I'm in traffic. Like I said I've also been doing the flea markets a lot on the weekends. It's a good way to clear my head. Sunday morning going and being outside and looking at all these physical objects that aren't just existing in my head, it's a good way before I come home and try to write in the afternoon.

You're writing "Buffy" each month. What is plan for the rest of Season 9?

Jane Espenson and Drew Greenberg are doing a really cool two-issue arc for #14-15. I'm working on issue #17 today and we've got the rest of the season all outlined. The plan is for me to do the last eight more to go and I'm talking about Joss about the arcs that will end the season and depending on his schedule what would be great is for us to write stuff together. I'm sure the fans would love that too, but he's a very busy man and given everything I'm hearing about "The Avengers," he's probably about to get a lot busier when that comes out.

I have to ask what working with Jane Espenson has been like on both "Buffy" and on "Once Upon a Time."

Jane is absolutely fantastic to work with. I'm always impressed at how good her writing is and she's such a fast writer too, but on top of that, she's just the loveliest woman. I worked with her a bit on the first season of "Dollhouse." She came in for half the season so I knew her from back then and just knew her socially. It was about the time we both got staffed on "Once," right before the season started up, that we were doing the summit at Joss' house for "Buffy." It's also great being able to go into the office and see her every day, since she is such a big part of Buffy, she's someone I can go to and bounce something off.

I've enjoyed Season 9 so far, because in the same way the early seasons captured high school and college, this season captures that twenty-something sense of feeling adrift.

I'm glad you feel that way. That was our intention. When Joss and I first started talking about it, he wanted to go back to smaller stories where Buffy could experience things that aren't overshadowed by the end of the world. Not that there aren't stakes in this season, but she can have those moments of asking those questions that we do in our twenties. I turned thirty last year and feel like I have come out of that journey of saying, what am I doing? What do I really want? Am I happy? So it's fun, since I am so close to that journey, to be able to take Buffy through it.

Do you have a dream house or dream style for your ideal LA home?

I think my dream house would be a [Richard] Neutra in Silver Lake, but we'll see about that. [Laughs] It would be awesome. I would love to get a house like that that needed to be restored and to be able to do the whole thing of going through archives finding old photos and the plans for the house and trying to get it as close to what he intended as possible. Right now I'm looking at open houses whenever a Neutra goes on sale, but that would be my dream architect style of house. Hopefully one day. The good news is there are a lot of them in Silver Lake. He was kind of an East Side guy.

Stay tuned to CBR News for more on Andrew Chambliss' run on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9" as well as his upcoming TV projects.

Discuss this story in CBR's Artist & Writer Showcase forum. ?|?

Tags: ?sunday conversation, andrew chambliss, buffy the vampire slayer, buffy, dollhouse, once upon a time, the vampire diaries, spartacus blood and sand, heroes

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Tips on how to choose the best domain name for your Business or ...

Article by Victorino Q. Abrugar

Tips on how to choose the best domain name for your Business or Company ? Website Promotion ? Online Promotion

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So you have decided to put your business online? Making your business available in the World Wide Web awaits big opportunities. World-wide exposure, low cost marketing, and real-time information transfer are among the advantages of placing your business online. But before you go online and make a website for your business, the first thing to do is to choose the best domain name for your business. Domain name is what internet users type in the URL address bar of an internet explorer to access a certain website. Example, if you need to go to Google to search some information, you need to type Google?s domain name which is http://www.google.com in the URL bar of an internet explorer.

A domain name (dot.com,.net and.org) cost about 10$ for a one year registration. You can take a look at NameCheap and GoDaddy, two of my most favorite domain registrars. It?s pretty much affordable to purchase a domain name for the benefits that you can get out of that name. Choosing your domain name at its best is very important since it will become your business? identity in the web. This name will be the one which will be remembered and used by your potential visitors and customers in the cyber world. So let us choose the best and if possible the perfect name for our business. The following are tips on how to choose the best domain name for your business.

1. It must be short. Internet users love to type short word in the URL address bar. Short domain name are also easy to memorize. A one-word to two-word domain name is acceptable. But since one word domain names are not already available for registration, you need to brainstorm a short two-word domain name ? unless you can invest enough money to buy a one-word domain name from a certain owner.

2. It must be easy to remember. A short domain name doesn?t absolutely mean it is easy to memorize. You need to choose a name which will mark people?s mind. You can choose names that are brain catching and names that will stick in the minds of people wherever they will go.

3. It must be clean. Beware of domain names that were used in the past as p*** sites or blacklisted sites. You do a research on the history of the domain you intend to use. You can go to Archive.org and search for the history of any domain name.

4. It must be a dot com. Dot com domain extension is the most valuable and precious domain among the top level extension available for a domain name. Of course, you must use what is the best domain name.

5. It must not be trademarked. Never register a domain which is already trademarked by other companies ? although they are still available. This is to avoid any legal liability in the future.

6. It must be align to you business. This is the most important consideration you should take. Your domain name must describe what is your business is. It should be the name of your registered company or a name which is very near to it. You can also choose a name which your industry belong. Example, if you are a restaurant entrepreneur, you can choose a domain name which contain a word? restaurant?, ?food? or ?dining?.

The above should be met to attain a great domain for your business or company. But if possible you can also consider the inherent value of a domain name for marketing purposes. You can consider a domain name which is rich in search engine results. This domain names have great potentials of driving traffic to your website and therefore increasing prospective customers.

Summary: Choosing the best domain name for your business is the first and one of the most important things to do before you put that business online. The following are tips on how to choose the best domain name for your business.

About the Author

Victorino Q. Abrugar is an information entrepreneur. For more business and information entrepreneurship tips, you can visit him at http://www.BusinessAccent.com. You can also submit your business links for free at http://www.BusinessPull.com

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Victorino Q. Abrugar is an information entrepreneur. For more business and information entrepreneurship tips, you can visit him at http://www.BusinessAccent.com. You can also submit your business links for free at http://www.BusinessPull.com

Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines
whereby the original author?s information and copyright must be included.

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I'm No Cougar : National Association of Baby Boomer Women ...

By Leigh Anne Jasheway
NABBW?s Boomer Humor Expert

I was innocently watching something on TV the other night when an ad for a dating site popped up. It was called OlderWomenWithoutBoundaries.com or something like that. Naturally, I had to run to the computer to check it out ? not because I am one (a cougar), mind you, but because I needed good laugh.

I found there are actually several dating sites for cougars (none for pumas, panthers or housecats, however). I logged onto CougarLife.com because it said it was #1 in cougar dating; it was rated four claws.

Across the top of the home page was a picture of a blond woman reclining on the floor, wearing a robe and panties. I knew I had found the right site, not because of her outfit, but because as a woman over a certain age (mumbledly-something), I know that reclining is the best position to be photographed in.

It relieves the pull of gravity on breasts, derriere, and jowls. It?s the poor woman?s plastic surgery. Those who can afford surgery never lie down. They can?t. Everything is too tight. Just ask Joan Rivers.

According to CougarLife.com, a cougar is a woman in her PRIME (Prefers Raunchy and Immature Men Exclusively). She must also be independent, sexy and wildly successful. Apparently, I couldn?t be a cougar even if I wanted. I?ve got the independent part down and with a day at the spa, the right lighting, and a myopic partner, can fake the sexy, but no one would ever mistake me for wildly successful. I don?t even own a BlackBerry. Or a briefcase. The IRS scoffs at my income tax returns every April.

But, back when I was 32, I met a guy while out dancing who was right out of college. I wasn?t ?on the prowl,? as cougars are known to be. I just enjoy dancing and the only men who could keep up with me at the time were in their 20s. I was both a marathon runner and an aerobics teacher and had the stamina of a hummingbird. Today I have the stamina of a well-fed penguin.

Had there been such a term at the time, I guess I qualified as a cougar. I was even much more wildly successful, if by successful you mean ?earning enough money to go out dancing twice a week.? However, I made the ultimate cougar mistake. After only a few months of dating, I married the ?cub? as they?re known in cougarese. If this happened today, I would have been kicked out of the den because everyone knows that if you?re closer in age to his mother than him, things are going to get weird quickly. Which is why I?m single again? but still not a cougar.

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SEC teams' penalties for drugs not created equally

In this Sunday, May 27, 2012, photo, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive appears during an NCAA college baseball game at the SEC tournament championship in Hoover, Ala. Football coaches from the powerhouse and recently expanded league were in unison, Tuesday, May 29, that they want a proposed four-team playoff to include the best teams in the country ? and not be tied to conference champions. Their solidarity comes as no surprise considering the league has won six consecutive Bowl Championship Series national titles, with the latest one coming when Alabama knocked off LSU after not winning its division or even reaching the league championship game. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

In this Sunday, May 27, 2012, photo, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive appears during an NCAA college baseball game at the SEC tournament championship in Hoover, Ala. Football coaches from the powerhouse and recently expanded league were in unison, Tuesday, May 29, that they want a proposed four-team playoff to include the best teams in the country ? and not be tied to conference champions. Their solidarity comes as no surprise considering the league has won six consecutive Bowl Championship Series national titles, with the latest one coming when Alabama knocked off LSU after not winning its division or even reaching the league championship game. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) ? Players testing positive for marijuana in the mighty Southeastern Conference do not face the one-year suspension that comes from getting busted by the NCAA.

In the most successful league of the BCS-era, players routinely get third, fourth and even fifth chances before they're booted from the team; failed drug tests administered by the NCAA result in the automatic suspension.

The finding comes from an Associated Press examination of the drug policies at 11 current members of the SEC. Vanderbilt, a private institution, declined to make its rules available.

All the SEC schools the AP looked at had far more lenient drug policies than the NCAA, though the penalties varied widely.

The NCAA conducts its own drug checks and leaves testing policies to the schools, but the governing body released a report in January saying that more than a quarter of college football players admitted in 2009 that they smoked marijuana in the previous year.

Just how many suspensions for recreational drug use are handed down in the SEC or any NCAA-affiliated conference is unknown because privacy rules prohibit schools from disclosing positive tests. They're not even required to tell the NCAA.

However, several SEC standouts have been in the news recently.

Former Auburn running back Mike Dyer testified in an April court case involving a teammate that he consistently smoked synthetic marijuana during his Tigers career, LSU star Tyrann Mathieu was suspended one game for violating the team's drug policy last year and Georgia All-America safety Bacarri Rambo could miss a game or two next season for failing a drug test.

Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork, who was hired in March, is hoping to strengthen his school's policy by the middle of the summer. Currently, a second positive test at Mississippi might simply mean the loss of free tickets for family and/or community service.

A third positive requires suspension for three games or events. Subsequent violations call for three games tacked onto that, though the athletic director and head coach can dismiss the athlete or opt not to renew the scholarship.

"We need to tighten it up quite a bit and come up with a good policy for everyone involved," Bjork said.

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said a conference-wide standard has been discussed at least twice during his 10-year tenure but that league members have opted against one to this point.

Drug testing was briefly discussed at the SEC meetings this week in Destin, Fla. Presidents and athletic directors agree action needs to be taken and say it will be a priority at their meetings in October once they have gathered more conference-wide data.

In the meantime, schools are left to handle situations.

"The issue is to make sure that our institutional drug testing programs are adequate," Slive said before the meetings. "This is something that comes up on a regular basis."

Athletes at Georgia and Auburn who test positive for marijuana a second time face the prospect of losing half their season to suspension.

Arkansas and Florida, by comparison, suspend athletes for 10 percent of a season for a second positive.

The NCAA said 90 percent of Division I schools have their own drug-testing programs, while the governing body tests some 13,500 athletes a year. Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's associate director of health and safety, said the NCAA's testing is focused more on performance-enhancing drugs.

"The NCAA is not in the position to provide intervention throughout the year, but schools are," Wilfert said. She said schools rely on their own needs and philosophies to set their drug testing policies, which are "complementary" to those of the NCAA.

Wilfert said Football Bowl Subdivision teams are tested at least once, sometimes twice a year by the NCAA.

The SEC schools' policies focus more on recreational drugs, with five of the 11 having stronger penalties for anything beyond marijuana.

Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi State are the only ones with suspensions for athletes' first positive test for marijuana, 10 percent of the season for each. Kentucky includes possible dismissal for each of the first two positives, with a(half-season suspension for No. 2).

The policy variations continue beyond the first positive test.

Six of the schools have a three-strike-and-you're-out method. At Florida, you might get a fifth strike. At Arkansas, four. And Ole Miss doesn't have a defined number.

The use of recreational drugs is a growing concern around all of college football.

The NCAA report released in January found 26.7 percent of football players said they smoked marijuana in 2009 ? the latest year available ? 5 percentage points higher than in 2005.

Most SEC schools have had to deal with the problem.

Even the comparatively stiff penalties at Georgia haven't been completely effective as deterrents. The Bulldogs might open next football season without two defensive backs.

Bulldogs cornerback Branden Smith was charged with marijuana possession in March. Rambo failed a drug test after, his high school coach said, inadvertently eating marijuana-laced brownies on a spring break trip to Florida.

"If you look at other people's policies, ours is much tougher than just about anybody's policy I've seen," Georgia coach Mark Richt said in late March. "Because some people end up with a game suspension or whatever it may be, a kid at another school may do the same thing and their policy maybe doesn't say it has to be that way.

"I don't care what they do, all I'm saying is I think it's important how we handle it and our goal when our guys make mistakes is to find out the truth about it and then discipline it properly."

Dyer, a former Auburn back who has transferred to Arkansas State, took the stand in the trial of the first of four fellow members of the 2010 national championship team charged with armed robbery, allegedly committed after a night of using the drug.

All four were immediately dismissed from the team. Auburn has since updated its drug testing policy to specifically include synthetic marijuana, which was legally sold in Alabama stores until last October.

Florida athletes are suspended for 20 percent of a season for a third positive and 50 percent for a fourth. A fifth means dismissal.

In January, Florida defensive tackle Leon Orr became the sixth Gators player arrested on marijuana charges since head coach Will Muschamp's hiring after the 2010 season. All six cases ended with deferred prosecution.

The program created by Florida's University Athletic Association focuses on education, testing, treatment and deterrence, Gators spokesman Steve McClain said. Each Florida athlete faces one random test each semester while they're in school, anywhere from two to four times a year, McClain said.

The schools' coaches or administrators can often impose stricter penalties.

Alabama allows the athletic director, head coach and its Sports Medicine Committee to determine what, if any, penalty is warranted after a first positive test. The second means the athlete will be sidelined for 15 percent of the season and/or a suspension of up to 30 days, and the third a one-year ban from games.

One observer without ties to the SEC believes it's essential to have an outside organization to police the drug issue and establish uniform methods and policies.

Bob Copeland, athletic director for Canada's Waterloo University, compares the current system to having each country control its own testing for its Olympic athletes.

"There's a lot of value to having third-party experts," said Copeland, who ordered his entire football team tested after a player was arrested for possession and trafficking of anabolic steroids. "They can look at what's called intelligent testing and generally apply that across the nation."

Georgia held a mandatory meeting with every student-athlete before spring break addressing drugs. Athletic director Greg McGarity said a question was raised at a staff meeting this spring: "What else is there?"

"We've got 600 young men and women in our programs," McGarity said. "When someone steps outside the lines, then we have to self-evaluate. Is there more we could have done? But I think at the end of the day it comes down to more accountability for the student-athletes."

___

AP Sports Writers Charles Odum, David Brandt, Pete Iacobelli, Teresa Walker, Kurt Voigt, Mark Long and Brett Martel contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Games Problem ? Answers Archive ? homes for sale in georgia

Property is a term found in legal circles to make reference to any lot.

It also describes all the developments done around the land. This includes every one of the building and the fencing across the land. If there are every other developments on the land for example boreholes or water wells they?re also included within the property.

However, if there tend to be any developments about the land that are usually movable, they won?t be considered within the real estate. This is simply because, when the immovable areas of the land are considered included in it. If you sell or choose the land, you will acquire these parts.

However, the movable fixtures can be viewed as property with the current owner. They can become sold or taken from the land at any moment.

Real estate will be governed by some laws. They govern aspects for instance jurisdiction, purchasing and advancement of land.

Real estate is especially categorized into a couple of main divisions. There is business and residential. Commercial basically identifies the financial element or business part of real estate. It entails the exchanging for a number of purposes.

Under this split, there are several professionals. For instance, to establish the worth from the land, there is the particular appraiser. There is also a brokerage who assists inside the price negotiation between your buyer and owner.

In some circumstances, there is the particular agent who aids in the exchanging. This agent assists both parties for the reason that, he helps the customer to find property available.

On the additional hand, he helps the sellers to locate buyers. These agents are typically licensed and generally are paid about commission basis. In place of your agent, a marketer could be put in cost.

In this division land could be constantly developed so at to improve its value adelaide realestate agent within the markets. For this objective, there are terrain developers.
There are furthermore property managers that are normally responsible for managing property with respect to an owner. They have to make sure that the property will be well kept constantly.

Residential normally describes property that?s been set aside with regard to occupancy. There are various kinds of such properties that are categorized as this division. These include condo properties, apartments, family homes and also town houses.

Real estate expense ? This mainly is due to the commercial property. It involves the actual leasing, renting, buying and selling from the property. Apart from the particular acquisition, it also requires the ownership with the property.

The main aim of this sort of investment is to produce profits. For this purpose, investors will produce and manage their home really well in order to ensure that they will get good prices with this.

Investing is not cheap in the slightest. The capital to begin with is normally considerable. However, there are numerous options that buyers can use for them to invest. One of these options may be the mortgage loan.

Like any form of investment, there are numerous risks involved within the investing in property. If one isn?t careful, they could effortlessly lose their investment completely.

If an buyer lacks adequate cashflow, they may have no choice but into selling their home at a value much lesser compared to actual value with the property. For this purpose, to invest in property, you have to possess adequate cash flow all the time.

Another risk associated with this investment is actually fraud and damaged practices. If you usually are not careful, you can easily lose your hard earned money by getting deceived. There are many individuals posing as real estate agents selling ?ghost houses? or perhaps damaged property.

The profits that are included with the right investments are extremely high. This is exactly why business moguls for instance Donald Trump have plenty of such investments.
There are numerous ways to get some real-estate. For instance, you can search for market listings to find the properties for sale. You can furthermore find available house by contacting the particular agent.

Property is furthermore sold through open public auctions and personal sales. However, whichever method you decide on, you have to ensure you search and make sure that the acquisition procedure is legal.

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