Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Is Open Allocation in Your Future

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Is Open Allocation in Your Future Github. Gore Associates. Treehouse. Valve. What do these companies have in common? Well, besides the fact that they are forward-thinking, pioneering firms, they all practice aleadershipstyle calledopen allocation. In open allocation, employees select how to spend their time and the projects on which they’ll work. There is no such thing as hierarchy. In an open allocation culture, employees are accountable to the business and to their peers. As long as they can show that they’re contributing value, they can switch assignments whenever they want â€" there are nomanagersor rules about headcount to hold them back. Self-Directed, Self-Managed In an open allocation scenario, teams essentially manage themselves and are only temporary. The concept reminds me ofGartner’s swarming idea, in which a project group forms based on expertise and interest and then disbands when its goal is accomplished. Rather than an executive calling for a new team, the informal leader is the employee who came up with the idea for the project â€" tenure or “rank” aside. A newstrategic initiativewill only get off the ground if the “leader” can convince others to invest their time, talent, and resources. No Blame, More Gain The benefits of open allocation are many. Decisions are smarter and better informed because the people making them are closer to the work, and employees can provide input free of strict, inflexible communication channels. Team members are automatically more motivated because they wouldn’t have chosen to work on a project if they didn’t believe in it and weren’t excited about it upfront. And if they are unhappy, they have to recognize that it’s because of their own choices rather than a managerial mandate. Instead of leaving the company, they just move on to another project. For the rest of the post, head over to SilkRoads blog.

4 Tips to Succeed in Your First Year as an Entrepreneur - Classy Career Girl

4 Tips to Succeed in Your First Year as an Entrepreneur Statistics show that there are 9.4 million companies are founded by women. Given these impressive figures, we can conclude female entrepreneurs are probably the fastest-growing segment of today’s entrepreneurial community. However, when starting a business, you need to know that the first year of your entrepreneurship will definitely be the most difficult one. No matter how experienced and daring you are, you’re the boss for the first time. From now on, you’re the one managing the entire team of people and making a bunch of life-changing decisions every day. Not to mention a plethora of problems you will face, from securing funds for your startup to balancing your private and professional life. But, don’t let these facts convince you that launching a business is a bad idea. Surviving in this wild world of startups is possible and here are a few tips that will prove that to you. 4 Tips to Succeed in Your First Year as an Entrepreneur 1. Hire the Right People “Great things in business are never done by one person. Theyre done by a team of people,” Steve Jobs once said. In the first year of your startup, each employee you hire may make or break your business. That’s why you need to set your recruitment criteria wisely and stick to them no matter what. One of the most important factors that will help you narrow down your choices is the candidates’ personality traits. Always look for the employees who will positively challenge your company’s culture. They need to be easily adaptable, reliable, well-organized, collaborative, results-oriented, and self-taught. Most importantly, you shouldn’t look for the employees with the same skills and attitudes like you. The true art of recruiting lies in diversifying your team and surrounding yourself with the people that will bring fresh insights and ideas to the table. 2. Have a Marketing Plan that Works To stand out from your competitors, you need to have a solid digital marketing strategy. Now, digital marketing is all about building a website and making it fast, simple to navigate, mobile-friendly, and highly intuitive. However, your site is completely useless if it doesn’t show up in the SERPs. This is why you need to optimize it for search engines. In layman’s terms, this simply means understanding your niche and customers, keeping track of the latest industry trends, targeting the most popular keyword phrases, creating awesome content around them, and promoting this content via multiple channels. Another immensely important way to attract more customers and drive more traffic to your site is to invest in social media marketing. By having a solid social media campaign, you will not only make your content visible to a wider audience, but also create an online community of potential brand ambassadors, collect instant feedback, and offer real-time customer services. You can even use social media to promote your traditional marketing efforts. For example, you could organize a Facebook contest and give out promotional items with your logo, make use of street art and post the photos on Facebook or Instagram or even throw a flash mob and share the video to the public on YouTube. [RELATED: The Top 10 Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make] 3. Boost your Liquidity Studies show that financing issues cause 82% of young companies to fail. To prevent this from happening, you need to choose the right funding option that won’t compromise the growth of your startup in the years to come. Instead of bank loans that are difficult to get, you should consider some simpler and less risky ways to boost your liquidity, such as angel investors, crowdfunding, government grants, or small personal loans. You could even apply for a startup contest, such as TechCrunch Disrupt, Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge, and Web Summit. This way, you will not only get the money you need but also get a chance to promote your brand. 4. Keep Calm and Manage your Obligations Wisely You may be a mother, a daughter, a friend, or a wife. But, you’re also a boss and you need to act like one. Keep in mind that you can never expect your employees to behave professionally if you yourself don’t do so. This is why you need to draw a line between what’s professional behavior and what’s not. Get to know your employees, recognize their efforts, and personalize your approach to them, but don’t get too personal. Never discuss your family problems, relationship status or financial issues with them. The only way to inspire your employees to do their best is to leave your private life at your office door and never let your personal problems affect your productivity. As you can see, surviving the first year of your entrepreneurship unscathed is impossible. However, with a solid business plan, dedication, confidence, and a little luck, you will manage to overcome all the challenges you face and emerge victorious.

Professional Clean A Basic but Stylish Resume Layout

Professional Clean â€" A Basic but Stylish Resume Layout Professional Clean â€" A Basic but Stylish Resume Layout In such a rivaling hiring environment, it can be difficult to compete with other job seekers. If you haven’t already, it may be time to revisit your resume and polish it up a bit. With a clean, updated, stylish look, your resume can get past the “gatekeepers” and open up new job opportunities for you. Professional Clean resume template is the perfect place to start. While the other applicants may rely on over the top designs, this one powerfully yet subtly lets you shine, making it a solid choice for those after positions in the traditional corporate companies.This template features a clean layout with subheadings that make it exceptionally easy for hiring managers to find the information they need. It adds just the right amount of interest to an old, boring resume.If this is the template for you, feel free to download it right away. Edit it as you please through MS Word or other compatible software. Then, when you are perfectly satisfied with the results, please leave a rev iew. We are always interested in your feedback! File size: 21 KB Format: .doc Downloaded 14,665 times License: Free, personal use only. Please read the license terms for resources. Download previous article A Light and Dark Free CV Template The Modish Applicant next article Tell Me About Yourself: The Right Response to this Interview Question you might also likeFresty â€" A Clean Simple Resume Template

13 Branding Experts to Follow on Twitter - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

13 Branding Experts to Follow on Twitter - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Which personal/company brand experts should entrepreneurs follow on Twitter? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the worlds most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment. 1. Shenee Howard Shenee is hilarious and irreverent but most of all, she knows her branding! From her site at Hey Shenee! to her Twitter account at @shanee, shes always looking for new ways to share some brand magic with her audience. Amanda Aitken, The Girls Guide to Web Design 2. Martin Lindstrom Lindstrom is one of the most influential people in the branding space and provides tons of great articles and insights through his Twitter account @martinlindstrom. Josh Weiss, Bluegala 3. Tim Ferriss @TFerriss is an entrepreneur and personal branding expert that all founders can follow for fascinating personal and company branding advice. After having written several best-selling books and founding successful companies, Ferriss is full of insight, and Twitter is a great way to keep up with his tweetable quotes and blog posts. Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc. 4. Marcus Sheridan Marcus Sheridans speciality is content marketing â€" and he knows it inside and out. Considering that content is one of the biggest portions of branding these days, Marcus is a critical person to follow on Twitter @TheSalesLion. Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting 5. TechCrunch Updated on a compulsive basis, TechCrunch keeps tabs on almost everything in the entrepreneurial space. Look to it for significant press releases, blurbs on your competition, advice from your peers, and news on anything making waves in the start-up world. @TechCrunch on Twitter should be just as indispensable to entrepreneurs as a stock ticker is to traders. Michael Tolkin, Merchant Exchange 6. ESPN A company like ESPN is a great example of how to educate and involve your client base with an event or special programming. Keep your client/customer focused on you. @ESPN makes sure their Twitter followers stay engaged. Jordan Guernsey, Molding Box 7. William Arruda Personal and company branding is what my company specializes in, and I respect @williamarrudas expertise in the area. He’s helped clients as diverse as American Express, Disney and IBM, which shows he knows his stuff. John Hall, Digital Talent Agents 8. Liz Dennery Sanders @SheBrandLiz is all about building your brand, and she features SheBrand Superstars every week, which is a great way to meet more women entrepreneurs who are up to big things. Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media 9. John Michael Morgan Hands down, John is the best person to follow on Twitter for branding advice and guidance. @johnmorgan has a fantastic personality so while youll learn a lot about branding, youll also gain a friend in the process. John is quoted as being the Chuck Norris of branding and is the best-selling author of Brand Against the Machine. Hes fab! Erin Blaskie, BSETC 10. Tony Hsieh For the past few years Ive been really inspired by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. I believe Tony really changed the culture not only for Zappos, but really for many new generation companies on the importance of customer service as a successful strategy for a business. Tony shares great quotes all the time @Zappos. Pablo Palatnik, ShadesDaddy.com 11. Marie Forleo @MarieForleo is a guiding light for women entreprenuers trying to find their groove, start a business and live the life they want. She doesnt just talk the talk; she gives actionable tips along with killer free content. She is a living, breathing example of a great personal brand. I wholeheartedly recommend guys and gals watch what she is up to. Nick Reese, Microbrand Media 12. Amy Jo Martin @AmyJoMartin is flat out genius when it comes to her company Digital Royalty. She keeps you engaged with a behind the scenes look at the business while also sharing motivational shorts from her daily life. Amy truly has a lot of advice to share that can apply both to business and life, which is what every entrepreneur needs on a daily basis. Ashley Bodi, Business Beware 13. Guy Kawasaki @GuyKawasaki is an incredible author, entrepreneur and VC with Garage Ventures. On Twitter, he shares insights into marketing, creativity, customer service, fundraising and more. He makes the complex parts of entrepreneurship seem not only doable, but fun. Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

11 Personal Branding Tips for Aspiring Freelancers - CareerMetis.com

11 Personal Branding Tips for Aspiring Freelancers If you are a freelancer and looking for some personal branding tips, then luckily you have landed on the right post.Most of the aspiring freelancers always wish to have a personal brand. Sadly, only 20% succeed to do so. Talking about branding, it is all about creating a memorable and strong image that represents you and your business.evalIf as a freelancer, you think you can’t do it, you are mistaken. If you know the right strategy, have the vision, take initiative, have a high emotional intelligence level and confidence in making decisions, you can also become a PERSONAL BRAND in no time.Getting back to the main topic, in this post, we are going to shed some light on the top 11 personal branding tips for aspiring freelancers.Let’s get started1. Define Your Brand!evalDo you know how to define your brand?If yes, you are going good, and if not, then look for the ways to learn it. Having a right method to define your brand is very important if you want to stand apart.Remember, if y ou don’t know how to define your brand, no one will be keen on you and your products and services. In order to define your brand, you should know your worth and ability to define yourself.This allows you to tell people about your story in a right manner so they can relate with you! Make sure to choose the right words that make people keener on your story!2. Have a Specialty/NicheevalAs a freelancer, you also have to take care of the niche. If you specialize in a particular niche in your field then you will stand apart in the crowd. But if you poke your nose in every niche, people will get confused and so will your brand set-up.However, if you have a specialty niche, it allows you to differentiate how your brand is from others in the market. Possibly, you can make the site responsive or integrate them with right APIs andPlugins for on any specific topic.You can only take care of all aspects if you know about your niche.3. Write down Your BioBio is one of the most important things t hat can help a freelancer to build a personal brand. A proficient bio helps them in speaking on the panels, in LinkedIn profile, writing gigs as well as in the networking events.evalThe bio they should write should include important credentials like work experience, press hits, education, etc.4. Start BloggingIn today’s online world, no one can underestimate the power of blogging. This is the right and effective way to show your skills and creativity. If potential clients read what you have written they will know about your potential and other aspects related to your personal brand.You can add your contact information at the end of the blogs and can earn many freelance projects based on it.5. Use LinkedInevalWe all know the power of LinkedIn. This is one of the greatest platforms that have helped numerous freelancers to get the projects. It presents your resume publicly in the front of global recruiters and employers.You can add your accomplishments and even ask your clients to re commend you.6. Become involved on Social MediaLet’s face it- everything is free and flawless in social media,right? You can share articles, blog entries, and customer related accomplishments. You can choose the best way to present yourself and your brand on the social networking sites.You should take after individuals in your industry and bounce into applicable discussions by using inclininghashtags or those that are most well known in your industry.7. Start NetworkingNetworking is one of the most importantthings you need to consider when planning forfreelance branding. You may make new companions, meet new customers, or even have somebody to work with when you have to escape your home office or café!Keep in mind, the general purpose of personal branding is to have some say over your reputation. Furthermore, your companions and colleagues are the general populations you need to inspire with that reputation.8. Learn to Say NOevalPersonal brand means a name, a reputation. If you ar e willing do anything coming on your way, then you are doing a BIG MISTAKE. If you don’t know how to say NO, you are blocking your way to become a personal brand.So, at times, when things seem difficult or irrelevant, don’t force yourself. Say NO.9. Do Your WorkRemember, none of your big claims will be going to work. At last, you have to show your work. So, as a freelancer, ensure that you are doing a great work. If you’ll concentrate on providing high-quality work, no-one can stop you to climb the ladder of success.Your work and activities say a lot about your own imageâ€"and you, as a person. If you consistently do your work with commitment, people will start recognizing you and you will soon become a big brand.10. Understanding of Personal BrandingWhat is personal branding? Do you have a quick answer to this? If yes, then you must know your goals and have the power to achieve them, but if not, then you need to do some homework first.evalPersonal branding is all about defini ng yourself in front of the world. It is all about knowing how people see your brand or describe you in front of others etc. It sets a standard on how people take you and how you set the characteristics and values of your brand.Personal branding gives responsibility on how you present your brand to the masses. If you want to become expert in a niche, you have to know everything about it so that you can take your branding to the next level.11.Building Strong Communicational SkillsTo establish as a personal brand, you need to work on your communication skills. If you lack in that, you need to work on it. For that, you can join some writing courses, speaking courses or talk with someone in that particular dialect.Building your own brand is not a piece of cake, but if you are wise, it is not a hard nut to crack either. Although, there are many freelancers who want to establish their personal brand, but only a few are lucky.So, if you are also a newbie, who is looking for a sure short wa y to establish yourself as a PERSONAL BRAND, then think again- Are you following the above tips?

German IT outfit bans whining - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

German IT outfit bans whining - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog This may not be the best way to go about it: German IT outfit Nutzwerk Ltd has come up with the perfect solution to whining in the workplace its made cheerfulness a contractual obligation. Whats more, Manager Thomas Kuwatsch has declared that those who dont measure up to the prescribed level of jollity in the morning should stay at home until they cheer up. Full story in The Register. Funny. I think theres actually something to this: Give people the right to stay home, if they dont feel happy, though outlawing grumpiness is probably a bad idea. Itll only drive it underground where its harder to deal with. It may even amplify the complaining. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Resume Writing Services In Afghanistan

Resume Writing Services In AfghanistanSince so many people are thinking about outsourcing their resumes to Afghanistan, you may be wondering what kind of services they offer and how they determine the quality of the resumes. Since so many people are sending resumes to Afghanistan now, there are a lot of agencies available for you to choose from.The two most popular resume writing services in Afghanistan are Qiaowa and Harakat-e Islami. Both of these are very popular among international companies because they are able to produce good-looking resumes. Some say that it is the professionalism of the writing services in Afghanistan that makes it appealing to international companies to use them as their resumes writers.But, why would you need an excellent resume? For companies, it can be a powerful marketing tool. Their goal is to get their resumes reviewed by as many applicants as possible so that they will get the attention of potential employees.With so many applicants, the company's re putation is sure to get damaged if it fails to present the resumes in a professional manner. A resume can serve as a great advertisement for the company since it will make a lasting impression on the future employees.When you want to hire a professional writer for your resume, there is an important thing you have to remember. You can't just hire someone at random. You have to go with an agency that is highly rated and experienced with this kind of work.You also have to make sure that they understand the type of resume you are looking for. Also, you must ask if they would be able to produce a template that is similar to the one you have in mind. Once they write the template, you should go through it carefully to ensure that the wording is correct.The best thing about hiring resume writing services in Afghanistan is that they can deliver fast. It takes them less than one hour to complete the entire process. Since so many applicants are sending resumes to Afghanistan now, there are a l ot of agencies that can deliver your resumes quickly.As you are preparing your resume, you should be able to convince the writer to give you more information about your job. They will also provide you with important pieces of information to help you define your job role. You should be able to get all the essential details you need during the initial meeting to help speed up the process of producing a great resume.