Founded in 2005, MIKKO USA is a home electronics company specializing in the development of media control solutions that make it possible for parents to manage the amount of time their children spend watching television, playing video games and on the Internet.

According to MIKKO founders, Michael Putnam and Joe Paonessa, their own need for a simple, effective time-management solution for their families’ home entertainment systems defines the company’s mission.

For Michael, his 11-year-old daughter was literally glued to the television — to the point where conversation wasn’t even possible without the precursory “turn off the television” dispute. And Joe once found his 12-year-old son pulling an all-nighter trying to beat a video game with a box of Hershey Bars, his Play Station 2 and the travel television smuggled from the family’s SUV.

Almost every parent has a similar story — and almost every parent has searched for an effective, non-confrontational solution.

Hence, the MIKKO Que — an easy-to-use timing system that enables parents to manage and monitor the amount of time a child may spend on a particular entertainment system connected to a lock box that interrupts video and audio signals.

With his smart, holistic approach, Walter Akana supports mid-career professionals in making conscious plans that enable them to achieve more self direction in their careers and lives. Embodying his philosophy, “It’s your life, own it,” Walter has built his life around his core strengths and values.

Walter first realized that he needed to ‘march to the beat of his own drum’ when he designed an independent course of study in an emerging field in psychology, during his senior year in college. As he earned his masters in social work, he broke ranks with the more psychoanalytic bent of his school to look at behavioral approaches to change. He later translated his social work career into a corporate career in training and development, first in retail merchandising and ultimately as a professional development manager in corporate and investment banking.

After a satisfying corporate career, Walter made the decision to focus on helping others better deal with the career and life transitions they face. As an accomplished career professional, and certified Personal Branding Strategist, he is well positioned to help his clients more actively and effectively manage their careers. With certification as a retirement coach, he is able to help clients attend to lifestyle choices that will provide better day-to-day balance while laying a foundation to enjoy the next phase of life.

Walter is perfectly positioned, as a life strategist, to help his clients with mid-life transitions, because he empathizes with their desire for more control of their own destinies and their desire for more satisfaction in all parts of their lives. He devised his structured life-planning process to minimize the feeling of being overwhelmed and to ensure that all aspects of life are taken into consideration.

When not coaching clients on developing new strategies for living a fuller more satisfying life — the passion that pays the bills — Walter enjoys working out and sharing other high energy experiences with friends, taking and sharing digital photos, discovering new music, and enjoying moments of quiet contemplation.

At Knight & Bishop (SDVOSB), our goal is simple: To help you solve any organizational or performance-related challenges you might have by identifying and focusing on the Informal Networks that drive how work really gets done at your company.

Here’s what we mean: The OrgChart (prescribed, formal, hierarchical structure) only describes approximately 30% of how work gets done and information/knowledge flows. This means that 70% of what is happening is largely invisible, driven through informal networks. Once we are aware of what is truly happening, we are then able to intelligently intervene in targeted ways to drive performance and collaboration.

Our approach is to take a “Network-Inward” approach (as opposed to the status quo “Individual-Outward” approach), where we focus on the overall network itself (i.e. at the 40k ft level) and then work inward to the Division (4k ft level), SBU, Team, Leader (400 ft level), and Individual level (4 ft level). This differentiates our approach from most firms that focus on the individual first, hoping that node-centric interventions will somehow drive better network performance.

We make these informal networks visible through Social Network Analysis (SNA), also known as Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), which is the mapping and measuring of flows (information, knowledge, etc.) between people and roles within your organization.

Depending on your unique situation, examples of networks that we can make visible include:

– Information-Flow Network (i.e. the “Work Network”)
– Social Network
– Innovation Network
– Expert-Knowledge Network
– Career-Guidance or Strategic Network
– Customer-Focus Network
– Decision-Making Network
– Revenue-Collaboration Network, etc.