Transitioning to Digital

on November 30, 2011

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We’d like to welcome to the blog Lisa Schneider, who works in the digital part of her organization but who brings to it knowledge honed from a past working in print. She’ll be writing about just that sort of move, whether it’s about how to transfer current skills to a digital area, manage digital employees, or get a purely digital career off the ground in organizations that might not be completely up to speed themselves. She’s here to help you keep up, so that you and your career stay relevant. And in such a rapidly changing field, we suspect that you’re likely to have your own questions. Please feel to either put them in the comments below or to ask them via Twitter.

Having successfully made the transition from print to digital over a decade ago, I’m sometimes approached for advice on how to make that leap today. People who’ve been happy to leave it to the tech department until now are realizing that they ignore digital platforms at their own peril, since even non-techs must show an understanding of and facility in this area just to keep up: editors are creating or optimizing content for multiple platforms, marketers must master getting their message out via number of channels to show a reasonable return on investment, salespeople are asked to sell multimedia packages, and the list goes on.    Read More →

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There’s Still Time to Get that Raise for Next Year — If You Hurry

on November 29, 2011

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You’ve finally finished off the last of the leftovers from Thanksgiving, and now December is staring you in the face, another year gone by. Your wallet is also feeling the effects of those “doorbuster” specials from Black Friday. With the rest of the holiday activities looming, it sure would be nice to have some extra cash.

However, many people are nervous about approaching their boss to talk about their performance. They have questions. Is now a good time to ask? How should I approach the topic? Will I seem greedy? To make things easier, it helps to have a plan. Let’s call it

The Past, Present, and Future Plan

   Read More →

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An All-in-One Public Speaking Tip: Pump Up the Volume

on November 28, 2011

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This Wednesday, November 30, the top public speaking coach and presentation expert Joel Schwartzberg will teach a Hired Guns Academy class on how to add strength to your professional talks, appearances, and job interviews. Below, he gives a quick tip to ensure that your messages come through loud and clear.

Many public speakers present too softly, but I’ve rarely met one who’s too loud. Even when I implore students to speak “too loudly,” almost all of them end up speaking with perfect or near-perfect volume.

Now that we know there’s little risk of being too loud, consider what increased volume will do for you as a speaker: it prevents you from speaking too quickly, from mumbling, and from meandering off point. It gives you time to think and create thoughts. It grabs audience attention and holds it. And it increases the likelihood you’ll end your sentences with periods instead of question marks — a strong indication of a confident speaker. If you’re on a microphone, make sure it’s adjusted to your “loud” public speaking level, not your “soft” talking level.

All this, from one little tip of turning up the volume — why not give it a try? A lot of voice goes a long way.

More presentation advice from Joel:

 

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Bullet Points: Talking Tech Turkey

on November 23, 2011

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Bullet Points: White Lies, Stress Interviews, and Other Job-Hunt Dangers

on November 22, 2011

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De Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats”: A Powerful Visual Thinking Method That Will Forever Change the Way You Think

on November 21, 2011

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Six Thinking HatsOf all the different management, leadership, communication, innovation, and thinking tools, tips and techniques that I’ve learned over the years, nothing has affected me more, or has had more practical applications, than Edward de Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” model.

De Bono, the guru of “thinking about thinking,” originated this framework that I now use, either consciously or unconsciously, literally every single day. It’s one of the best examples of how we can use visual and metaphorical thinking and communicating to solve real-world challenges.    Read More →

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Stop Worrying: Why “Holiday Weight Gain” Is (Mostly) a Myth

on November 17, 2011

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Every year around this time, my clients start stressing about the holidays and the weight gain that supposedly always happens. People always quote the statistic that the average American inevitably gains at least five pounds during the holiday season, but I have some good news here folks, it hasn’t been proven.

There have only been a few studies that even examine holiday weight gain in Americans. The most well-known one, which was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that most people only gained a single pound during the holiday season. One pound, not so bad, right? The problem with this single pound is that the study also found that this weight gain wasn’t corrected for afterwards, leading to adults gaining at least one pound each year. After 10 years, that weight is more than just a little issue.    Read More →

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Bullet Points: When Twitter’s More Trouble Than It’s Worth

on November 16, 2011

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  • “[My] habit started to feel less like a rush and more like a burden. Instead of tweeting to reflect on my life, tweeting had become my life. I began to think seriously about giving it up.”
  • Could a company force a departing employee to hand over the personal Twitter account he used on the job? Probably not, but it’s a grey area….
  • A survey of 72,000 people, conducted by TNS Digital Life, found that consumers’ feelings about interacting with company brands on social networks varied widely by country. Those in developed markets, including North America and Europe, had the most “resistance to both buying and engaging with brands” on Twitter, Facebook, and the like. You can find out more tidbits from the survey in The Next Web and in the teaser video below.

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How a Bunch of Links Might Change the Direction of Online Advertising

on November 15, 2011

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Online display ads are most likely here to stay, but that doesn’t mean they are the only way to get the word out. In a recent talk at the Appnexus Summit, Reuters reporter Felix Salmon floated one idea for a different kind of ad — basically it would be an aggregated set of links to targeted content from all over. The selection would provide what’s often missing in current advertising: “a reason to want to look at your ad.” It may not end up being the future of online advertising, as Salmon claims, but it’s intriguing idea, given the many sites that have succeeded through various kinds of aggregation. Readers continue to want and need help finding the good stuff.

It’s no coincidence that the Counterparties blog, which Salmon runs, is modeled along the same link-heavy lines. Reuters’s home page runs a distinct Counterparties box at the bottom of its home page, and it’s easy to imagine this becoming its own sponsored ad unit in the future.

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Why Great References Are the Gift That Keeps on Giving

on November 14, 2011

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References are gold. You can expect to hold ten or more jobs between college graduation and retirement, and that means that you’re likely to be asking references to vouch for you a lot over the duration of your career. Keeping track of your references and staying in a relationship with them for the long haul isn’t just good networking, it’s just about a necessity for getting hired in the future.    Read More →

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