Dear Piteous Pitcher,

I think most people will agree that one of the hardest challenges for creative people, or persons interested in advancing in the workplace is to gain support for their ideas from top management.

I know colleagues who believe that their proposals are ignored and not taken seriously, not because they have poor potential, but oftentimes because their bosses simply do not understand the idea or even listened to their presentation. This can cause any employee to feel frustrated and disenchanted, and even lead to innovative persons leaving an organization.

So what’s the solution to this age old problem? Well certainly having your boss onboard long before you pitch your idea is key.

You need to bear in mind that your idea may very well be the solution to a crucial business problem and your boss will hardly ever invest in something unexpected. Therefore, it is important to get your boss involved actively upfront. This will reduce the risk associated with the idea being rejected since your boss will be involved at the first stage of the project.

You should also frame your suggestion to match your boss’ goals.

Once your idea can advance or assist your boss in the workplace, 80% of your job is done. Therefore, pitch your suggestion in terms of how it might help your boss. Remember, what matters to your boss include: improving the bottom line, ensuring the team performs or simply just looking good. You should therefore understand where your boss wants to be (his / her goals) and examine how your idea can help your boss achieve those goals. Frame your idea from your boss’s perspective and not yours.

Remember, decision-makers have more trust and confidence in great performers. The organization’s top performers usually get the praise and attention. This is sometimes referred to as the “hero effect”. Your performance is a key factor and will impact how people view your personal brand. Make sure that your organization’s top executives are aware of your good work and that you have a strong personal brand.

Bear in mind that your boss will more than likely consider ideas from those deemed to be high performers. Your performance and reputation within the organization will be equated to your idea. You therefore need to build a good reputation and strong personal brand, if you don’t already have one.

You should also consider enhancing your presentation and public speaking skills through training. Additionally, there are business books and other resources that can prepare you to answer some tough questions. You can certainly learn how to persuade other people – “Pitch Anything” by Oren Klaff will teach you the nuts and bolts of persuasion, while “Positive Personality Profiles” by Robert A.

Rohm, Ph.D. will provide insights toward understanding the art and science of human behaviour.

Pitching is a skill that should be nurtured and developed like any other. It is the key moment when you want to persuade and influence someone to try new things or buy into a product or service.

Remember, you are putting your idea and yourself in front of other people, mainly the decision makers in your organization. Now, this may sound scary, but it is the only way to present your ideas and make an impression.

AFETT is a not-for-profit organization formed in 2002 with the goal of bringing together professional women and engaging in networking opportunities, professional training and business ideas.

ASK AFETT is a column meant to address issues and concerns of professionals seeking advice to assist in progressing in their careers. Today’s response was written by AFETT member, Cavelle Joseph, Human Resource Practitioner and a Past President of AFETT. Learn more about AFETT at www.afett.com or by contacting the Secretariat at admin.

afett@gmail.com or 354-7130. Search for AFETT Events on Facebook and follow @AFETTEXECS on Twitter.

We will be saying something further on that.” In a subsequent statement, the National Security Ministry said talks with the British High Commission here have confirmed there is “no specific intelligence” to suggest there could be any terrorist attack in TT.

The ministry said this is contrary to media reports which create the impression that such an event is likely.

The ministry said the language in the FCO advisory, including its section on terrorism, has been unchanged since May.

The ministry said it continues to work with local law enforcement and this country’s international partners, “including the British, with respect to counter terrorism and the sharing of intelligence.” The ministry said all of this is aimed at ensuring, “that our citizens and persons in TT are safe.” The FCO has not issued any advisory telling British citizens not to visit this country.

The FCO advised British nationals to be vigilant wherever they travel because there is a heightened threat of global terrorist attacks against British interests and citizens, from groups or individuals motivated by the conflict in Iraq and Syria.

Former national security minister Gary Griffith said the FCO advisory was, “greatly exaggerated and not in sync with the true nature of the threat of terrorism in this country.” He said the perception that because, “70 citizens left our country to become terrorists, makes us a country deemed vulnerable to terrorists attacks is flawed.” Griffith said while foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) are recruited into Syria and at times return to their home country to recruit other people to become terrorists, “not one of those 70 FTFs from our country has returned home.” He said as a signatory to United Nations Resolution 2178, TT must inform its allies of the names of those FTFs.

Griffith said it is important to defend TT’s image and reputation, “especially if misinformation via correspondence is released by our allies and relevant agencies.”

It is critical to note that there are sectors of our society who will find nothing good about anything proposed or done by this PNM administration. That sector will only be happy if the Prime Minister resigns and calls a new election. For them, it does not matter what the Mouttet investigations discover, nothing short of the firing of the board of the Port Authority and the Minister of Works would satisfy the thirst of those seeking to replace PNM administration.

In this land of wonderful people of many races, different faces and a callaloo of cultures we have no choice but to work together if we wish to overcome the global economic, social and political challenges that confront us. We must overcome the management inefficiencies that led to the embarrassing effort to acquire a boat to service our sea bridge. We must find a way to rise above the agenda of those who seeks to divide us into percentages of class, race, wealth, religion, and political affiliation for self-interest. Moreover, we must start working on moving forward.

For too long we have stood by as politicians wasted our national wealth on investments with minimal return. The insatiable appetite of those that thrived on government programmes like GATE, CEPEP, URP, food cards and contract labour can never be filled. While we still have the ability to access international credit and our foreign exchange reserves is still healthy, we need to make a concerted effort to prepare for the future.

We need to stimulate the economy by partnering with our business community. We need to inject investment into a carefully planned approach to agriculture and tourism. WASA must no longer be allowed to be an economic black hole where water wastage and management inefficiencies are common. A new network of roads needs to be accelerated rather than placed on hold. Government must change from being a burden to taxpayers to a source of hope. Efforts must be made to make government services easily assessable and less punitive.

These decisions will entail making choices like that of asking Mr.Mouttet, a member of our business community to investigate our management practices. The Prime Minister must reach out beyond his political base, outside of his traditional pool of political support and embrace all our citizens from Blanchisseuse in the north to Moruga in the south, from Claxton Bay in the west to Mayaro in the east, from Scarborough to Charlottesville in Tobago. All of us must be red, white, black and ready to rebuild our Nation. At this time, only one-man PM Dr. K. C. Rowley, can do that. He need to go where no one has gone before. If he fails to take the initiative, we will do it under new leadership at the next general election. The historical unhealthy divisiveness of our politics must end.

God Bless Our Nation.

Steve Alvarez via email

In an interview with Newsday on Tuesday, Indarsingh said, “It is an additional 114 families that will now be added to the 25,000 workers unemployed since the (Dr Keith) Rowley administration assumed political office.” The Couva South MP said the sending home of the workers came at a particularly critical time when school is going to re-open and parents have to buy books and uniforms for their children. He said government also continues to undermine the principle of good industrial practices, the labour laws of T&T and the Industrial Court. “At a time when the government has called upon labour and citizens to make sacrifices, where are they getting money to hire senior counsels to appeal the Industrial Court rulings?” Indarsingh said “Government has asked labour to return to the table of national tripartite talks, but one wonders how could labour trust a government that is behaving in such a contentious, anti labour manner? Further, they have failed to grow and diversify the economy. No one knows what these two new entities are.

Are these workers going to be reabsorbed?”Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste-Primus also got a scolding from Indarsingh who said she has been silent since the closure of Arcelor Mittal and Centrin. He said a proposed national employment registry by Baptiste-Primus to deal with retrenched workers

Trincity Nationals, who dominated proceedings in the first half, came close on numerous occasions.

The breakthrough came in the 24th minute, as striker Dennelia Prince expertly finishing home from a wonderful assist by midfielder Shanelle Warrick, which split the Club Sando’s defence.

Nationals came close again in the 30th, with Warrick showcasing some silky skills in the midfield, beating two Club Sando’s defenders before seeing her shot hit the uprights.

Three minutes into the second half, Prince confidently dispatched another item after a goalkeeping blunder.

Club Sando had a few chances coming from the wings but they were not enough to halt the determined opposition as they threatened again with arguably the most impressive player on the field in Warrick.

The final goal of the game came in the 90th minute through second half substitute Lee Ann Kirby who used her strength to bulldoze her way through the defence before beating the keeper with the in-step of her right foot.

In other games on Saturday, Real Dimension continued their undefeated journey at Morvant Recration Ground when they nudged a 2-1 victory over Mic-It St Ann’s Rangers to stay afloat on top the standings.

St Augustine FC also continued their winning ways after a slim 1-0 victory over Queen’s Park at the St Mary’s College Ground, St Clair.

On Sunday, in First Division action, St Augustine Juniors defeated Sweaters Women 2-0 at Constantine Park, Macoya while Malvern were victorious over Defence Force.

In the 2017 Mid-Year Budget review, the finance minister said government expenditure was reduced from $63 billion in Fiscal 2015/16, to $53 billion in Fiscal 2017, a cut of $10 billion. Dr. Conrad said that was not enough. “I think some of the cuts that have been referenced and alluded to in the last budget are superficial. The gap still continues to widen. I don’t foresee that we have the luxury of selling off the assets that they had identified as one offs to generate some revenue. I think it is going to come down to going through line by line and determining where they need to make the appropriate reality checks.”

He said he also wanted to see a reduction in allocations to social welfare and “make work” programmes and said the budget presented government with a forum to educate the public, what he referred to as a “teachable moment”. Dr. Conrad said, “I also hope they would take the opportunity to explain to the general public the true fiscal position and take (this) as a moment to educate not just specific groups but everyone.” At the same time, he said it must be made clear to individual or specific interests that wage increases and other concessions cannot be facilitated at this point in time.

“I think that the budget could be used to send this message that there needs to be fiscal re-alignment, reflective of revenues.”

Dr. Conrad told Business Day that this budget will present the government with it’s last opportunity to introduce these re-alignments. He said that as this government’s third budget, any hereafter will be tailored with elections in mind. “It will be a missed opportunity to re-align fiscally, which should have been done last budget,” he said.

On the continuing issue of foreign exchange shortages, Dr. Conrad said: “Our source of foreign exchange has been the energy sector and I think that what most people miss is that the non-energy sector has been running a deficit in the vicinity of 20-25 per cent. That deficit has always been covered by the energy sector. What is happening now is that the non-energy deficit is being reflected in all shapes and forms. There are no short term ways to address the shortage in foreign exchange. Therefore, I think what we may need to see is some return to some sort of managed environment for foreign exchange, which is going to create a lot of problems for individuals, but it is not abnormal to return to that bit of control.”

He noted that the Central Bank has been injecting significant reserves into the system, which is likely to deplete them and spawn problems of its own. “At the current rate of spending, I think our import cover will fall to under nine months,” he said.

Dr. Conrad also said that government appeared to have forgotten that it can make use of monetary policy as well. “I think the only indication of monetary policy I have seen is injection of foreign exchange. Aside from that, the heart of the matter is not being addressed. I know some people have pointed to the possibility of letting the currency be devalued a little more. I think what we stand to lose is greater than what we stand to gain.”

He added that, “Given our industrial relations climate, I really don’t think that at short notice and at low cost, we can really increase production in any meaningful area.” Beyond being a teachable moment for the government, the economist said the budget also needs to be more forward looking. “I think this budget should be part of a road map for the next five years, even if it may not be within their purview. There should be a concrete five year plan that should make this budget part of a longer term strategy which I thought should have happened budgets ago.”

The Government must be fair and understand that all the politics is doing is making matter worse with only excuses upon excuses and no action, just talk.

As simple as it is to improve the tax collection by ways of endorsements, they can start with a visit to our several malls where most of the places, especially the food courts, charge VAT on their sales but are hesitant to give the customers bills, if any at all, saying “we are not VAT registered.” People mostly buy food in these malls, so hence a good tax collection point.

Start construction projects, agricultural projects, etc, which would be labour intensive and reduce ForEx in many ways, plus help in reducing crime. Employers are reducing their staff monthly now that also reduces payments of taxes, NIS, etc, so Government revenue is again affected. I can go on and on and all is needed is common sense by the Government to get organised and put action in place as quickly as possible, but when we have square pegs in very small round holes, and arrogance added with it, our country is at a loss.

Mr PM and your team must open your eyes, or if you cannot see what is happening and do not know what to do, accept your short-comings as men/women and at least be fair to TT and call the general election now.

TONY HART Diego Martin

Algorithmic trading, also known as “algo” trading and “black box” trading, involves the use of fast computer programmes and complex algorithms to create and determine trading strategies for optimal returns.

Powell said that by 2015 he had lost everything and was trying to find a way of getting back into investing when he came into contact with Forbes 2015 Billionaire’s List and contacted Forbes to ask them to work with the Billionaires’ League to build an application which would empower people who had invested and lost money. He said Forbes agreed but more than that offered to provide content on the billionaires.

He said the Billionaires’ League uses five principles to highlight billionaires in the US and the app tracks their portfolios to see what they invest in, which sectors they believe in and how much of their nett worth they invest in each sector and stocks. “So you, as an individual downloading our app can have that first world exposure where you can invest through our app. You’re buying and selling stocks, currencies, bonds on the international market from your mobile with virtual funds.” Those who download the app get US$10,000 in free virtual money to practice their investing skills. “From replicating the billionaires, they could now go to a broker/dealer either locally or internationally and apply it.” He said the application is intended for potential investors who do not have the confidence in their ability to make the right investment choices; people who are uncertain about where the financial markets are going as well as seasoned investors. “We get them started because it’s a journey.

So to get them started we provide them with data where they are comfortable to act and with that data they could go to their broker/dealers and execute those trades. We are targetting the mellenials, investment bankers; broker dealers and users who don’t have the experience to invest.” Powell said the Billionaires’ League was nominated by the World Bank Group; the European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank to represent the Caribbean in a global competition to compete against Singapore and Europe. Based on the novelty of the technology which powered the application, the Billionaires’ League app was chosen Best Portfolio Management Application 2017 by Capital Finance International magazine. “So Trinidad and Tobago should be proud that a product was born here, represented the Caribbean internationally and won. So the award gives us a lot of exposure globally. It gives us credibility and it gives us that edge that we have a disruptive technology that will change the traditional way of how people invest and it also adds credibility by opening up doors for broker dealers and partners to come on board.” He said the application competed against some key stakeholders to win the competition, “so it’s definitely a confidence booster and we have something to show for the Caribbean people that we too could build technology from the Caribbean and compete globally and be disruptive.” The app was launched on July 26, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, with an audience of high rollers at a function at which Powell said the idea was to demonstrate their credibility and get users started on a journey to become successful investors. He said their success in the competition should make Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean proud to know that the region is recognised on a global scale where technology is concerned and that change is coming “and we have something that we could go global with and compete with some of the most prominent technologies in the investment era” because no one in the investment universe has that technology like Billionaires’ League that could reveal the strategies of today’s leading bankers, billionaires and pension funds, all in real time. No one does that. So we as Caribbean people should be proud.” He credited the World Bank Group and its “Pitch IT Caribbean Challenge” a competition funded by the World Bank Group via info/Dev with the aim of finding and developing young talent in app development in the Caribbean. He said the competition is not just looking for a product, “they look at the person in the driver’s seat, the person who they think could take that idea from an idea stage, an implementation stage, and to a product stage, and when you have the product it should be in a position where it can scale globally so you have to be a global changer, you have to be a global thinker. So in order to do that you have to be in a network that could give you that opportunity where you could open doors for yourself. After that, you will need governance and you will need a structure in place because having a product without a structure doesn’t make sense. So you need to be strategic with your approach.

You need to have that agility to know how and when to release the product. He said with the different entrepreneurial programmes which are being launched for the Caribbean there is a need for more unity among entrepreneurs throughout the Caribbean region that they too could come up with a disruptive technology.” He said the Pitch IT Caribbean Challenge brings together IT entrepreneurs from several Caribbean countries to compete to go global.

Powell said the local Caribbean Industrial Relations Institute (CARIRI) was an incubator and encouraged the Billionaires’ League to compete in the competition to represent Trinidad and Tobago. The application won Best Mobile Application last year which gave it automatic entry into the Pitch IT Competition.

The result follows 4-0 and 6-0 defeats to Costa Rica and United States respectively.

Canada took a 1-0 lead in the 15th minute through Jérémie Omega Nkoy, an advantange they took to the half time interval.

Nkoy would add a second item after the break with Cameron De Silva adding another goal.

TT coach Russell Latapy said, “It was a good experience for the players over the three matches.

Definitely a learning experience and for the players who were able to see and experience a lot of different aspects of the game at the international level. Unfortunately at home we are not playing at a high enough level for these players to be really exposed to international football. The boys are seeing the importance of a lot of different aspects in terms of tactical awareness and the right mentality, the winning mentality.. a professional mentality.

“This trip was good for us especially staying here at the IMG Academy where these boys can see the way the professional athletes live and behave. I think in terms of potential and talent we are not far enough from some of these other teams. But again it is imperative we get into the right habits and this tournament was really important for that,” Latapy added.

“Things are going to take time to come through but we will continue to persevere with what we are trying too achieve,” the former national men’s team captain and coach ended.

According to reports, at around 8.45 am yesterday, Ricardo Alleyne parked his vehicle in the vicinity of D and L pharmacy at Morne Coco Road, Petit Valley and was about to proceed to the Western Union facility when he observed that he was being followed by two men.

Alleyne tried to raise an alarm but was confronted by the two men, one armed with a gun, who shot him on the left hand and back.

Passers-by who were alerted to the gunshots ran to Alleyne’s assistance causing the bandits to flee the scene empty handed.

The suspects ran towards the Diego Martin Highway and escaped while a bleeding Alleyne drove himself to the St James Infirmary where he was treated and transferred to the Port of Spain General Hospital.

Alleyne alerted the Four Roads Police along with his employer and the money, which was in an envelope on the front seat of the vehicle, was retrieved by the owner.

Officers led by Inspector Godfrey Vincent visited the scene and carried out a search for camera footage in a bid to identify the suspects in the shooting.

Investigations are continuing.