Thinking Like A CEO And A Founder Can Help You Be Better At Your Job

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I’m in the fortunate position of being both a founder involved in the day-to-day operations at Trulia, and the CEO. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing, and I realize that my work provides me with a relatively unique perspective. Some situations require me to think more like a CEO, while other situations call for the passion of a company founder. But I think appreciating both perspectives can help you in your career.

As Trulia grew rapidly over the years, and we began to seriously think about a public offering to address the large opportunity, I began to seek out the advice of various mentors, including people on our board and other trusted, experienced executives. I wanted to know if I should look at my job differently, as we approached such an important juncture.

One piece of advice that stuck with me was that once Trulia went public I would have to be able to think more like the CEO of an established company in addition to the approach I learned as company founder. As founder, I had been keenly interested in the culture of Trulia and its products since the beginning, and I remain so today, but the transition of the company involved new demands in my role. Growing to meet the new challenges of the job is something that almost every founder will meet. And because of it, as startups grow it’s not uncommon for companies to hire a CEO from outside the company who has a proven track record leading public companies or is especially adept at specific things the company needs, such as securing funding.

My mentors and others have helped me immensely in learning how a CEO manages a company versus how a founder might typically lead a startup. Ultimately there are pros and cons to each approach.

As I’ve gone through this process, it has made me think about the two skill sets, which aren’t mutually exclusive, but are certainly distinct. Each approach contains important perspective that any employee can incorporate into how they look at their job and career, especially in the larger context.

I generally associate the following attributes to successful company founders, but I realize that there is variation based on the individual.

• An overriding obsession for the product: This is something that can drive many product managers and engineers wild, but founders are often heavily invested in the product. Steve Jobs probably best exemplifies this.
• Deep understanding on and influence of company culture: Founders have been in the trenches since the beginning, so they have unique insight on the culture as well as the company’s challenges, its employees, and its relationships with partners and customers. The founder can apply deep contextual understanding and cultural knowledge to situations and decisions.
• Emotional commitment: This attribute can frankly cut both ways. Sometimes it’s best for an executive to let go, and sometimes extra determination is needed to get things done. You can count on getting this from founders.

I generally associate the following attributes to successful CEOs.

• Willingness to make hard decisions: Successful CEOs need to be able to quickly make hard decisions. These can make or break a company.
• More logical than emotional: CEOs need to have a heart, but they have to stay focused on the facts, and make decisions accordingly.
• Ability to prioritize and focus: As a company grows, opportunities and challenges expand exponentially. Successful CEOs understand where to focus their attention and how to leverage their teams to move the business forward.

Unfortunately, there’s usually not one answer for the lens you should be using to address a work challenge. I’ve found that it’s useful to think from both perspectives during the same day or even the same meeting. But the exercise of thinking in this manner in itself should help you as you take on the daily challenges of your job.

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The Importance of Strong Partnerships BY: Meg Whitman

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Relationships with customers and employees are at the core of any successful business. But in today’s evolving landscape, strategic alliances, joint ventures and creative collaborations can be just as critical to success. At HP, we’re especially focused on the relationship with our channel partners – the distributors and resellers who bring our products and services to the marketplace every day.

In many cases, these partners are the face of HP, the team on the front lines helping us serve our customers. Many have been with us for decades, and today they contribute up to 70 percent of HP’s revenue. For those reasons, maintaining and developing strong partner relationships is one of HP’s top priorities.

Global Partner Conference

This week, we are bringing together more than 2,000 of HP’s partners from around the world for our annual Global Partner Conference (GPC) in Las Vegas. The event provides our partners with the opportunity to share their goals for the year ahead, preview new products and solutions, and align on our respective strategies.

Keeping these relationships strong and mutually beneficial is absolutely critical to our ecosystem and success. Look around your organization’s ecosystem. Beyond your customers and employees, who are your essential partners? Whether it’s your sales channel or collaborations with other organizations, the following principles are key to maintaining healthy business partnerships.

1. Start with Stability

Stability forms the foundation of any successful partnership. At HP, years of uncertainty – from inconsistent strategy to a revolving door of leadership – were beginning to wear down our partners. As a result, we made restoring stability the first step toward rebuilding our relationships. This included articulating a clear strategy and taking immediate actions to stabilize the business. We repaired our balance sheet, reduced operating company net debt to zero, and put in place a solid leadership team that understood the value of our partners.

2. Play Away Games

When it comes to building strong relationships, there’s no substitute for meeting people on their home turf. Over the past year, I’ve met with more than 1,000 customers and partners and the bulk of these meetings have been outside the walls of HP. Traveling can be time-consuming and expensive, but it can also be a strong signal of your commitment to a relationship.

3. Listen and Translate Words into Action

Establishing two-way communications is just one part of strengthening relationships. Words are great, but action is what matters. When I meet with partners, I always try to make our conversations about what we can be doing better for them, not the other way around, and then act quickly to address their needs.

4. Make It Profitable

When I first joined HP, I kept hearing from partners that our organization was too complex. Outdated tools, hard-to-navigate processes, and too many programs were making it challenging to work with HP.

To fix these problems, we rolled out new tools and removed bureaucracy to make it easier and faster to close deals. We cut in half the number of technical certifications and created role-based certifications that require significantly less time out of office. We removed gates and caps, enabling partners to begin earning rebates from their first sale and giving them access to unlimited earning potential. Meaningful incentives and a streamlined compensation structure are not only driving our business forward, they are making doing business with HP more rewarding.

Building strong relationships with our partners based on mutual respect and profitability doesn’t just benefit HP and our partners. It also puts us in a better position to help our customers win.

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Key Truths For Being An Outstanding Manager

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While there are numerous books, courses, and online trainings for improving your managerial skills, seldom do they address the psychological underbelly of wise and wonderful management. That’s understandable since they aren’t created by people with a psychological background. 

But over the past many years we’ve seen how understanding and incorporating the following psychological truths have enabled good managers to become great: 

1 - Everyone Knows How To Follow 
Everyone was once a small child whose very existence depended on following their parents or other caretakers. So the act of following is built into each and every one of us. And while some chronological adults rebel against managerial leadership in an unconscious carryover from their youth, the vast majority of people welcome clear, supportive leadership they can readily follow. 

2 - Your Followers Want You To Exhibit Strong Leadership 
When a manager can be counted on to provide clear directions, clear expectations, clear rewards and clear critique in response to outcomes, s/he can provide a confident-making platform for everyone on the team. Being nice, wishy washy, or distracted by the company’s internal politics raises grave concerns for the future of the team’s project as well as anxiety about management’s missing guidance about current expectations.

3 - Your Team Wants You To Lead Not Rely On Their Opinion
While team input and collaboration are extremely important and invaluable, all too often managers abdicate their leadership role in favor of “consulting” with people on the team to try to handle dicey hiring problems, team restructuring, or other insecurities that are not the business of that manager’s team members. 

4 - Forget About Being A Buddy 
Some managers, uncomfortable with their senior status and leadership role, believe that becoming friends and buddies with their team members will empower those who report to them. Actually, nothing is further from the truth. Role confusion makes for team members’ job confusion which creates organizational confusion. 

5 - Trying Too Hard To Save An Employee Endangers Your Whole Team 
Well meaning managers can often get caught up in trying to rescue a team member whose behavior and/or output is insufficient, incorrect, or injurious to the well being of the team. They may have recruited and/or hired this individual. They may have had great hopes for this person’s career and it’s now a blow to their sense of competence to have to concede that the person needs to be let go. But letting go must become a must-do in order to protect the well being of the other team members and the team’s output. 

6 - Big Visions Do Not Make For Wise Guidance 
Your team needs wise and caring guidance for execution of your project vision, whatever it is. Merely providing a big vision leaves everyone scrambling to guess at what is expected, demoralizing and rendering insecure what might otherwise be an excellent team. Remember, everyone knows how to follow. Give them clear, empowering guidelines and most people will knock themselves out to produce what you want from them. 

While there are certainly many other psychological truths about excellent management, these six will get you started thinking about what’s most wanted and expected of you from your followers—who by and large want to please and impress you.

What other psychologically-oriented qualities do you think are essential?

(Photo: Business meetings eventspaceportland/Flickr)

Judith Sherven, PhD and her husband Jim Sniechowski, PhD http://JudithandJim.com have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabuloustm. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing—they are always succeeding. The question is, at what? To learn about how this played out in the life of Whitney Houston for example, and how it may be playing out in your own life, check out their 6th book: http://WhatReally KilledWhitneyHouston.com 

Currently consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. You can learn about their core program “Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous” by going to http://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com 

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I Am Leaving Social Media BY: JOEL COMM""

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What I’m about to say is not going to go down easy. It won’t be easy to digest. And I’ll probably lose a few fans by speaking my mind.

That’s okay. I’m not afraid of controversy. And frankly, someone needs to say it. I’ll be the one to say it, and I accept the consequences of whatever happens as a result.

When I survey the social media landscape, there are some alarming trends that have become increasingly disturbing.

I’ll explain my reasoning, but the end result is that I am leaving social media.

I know, it seems bizarre for a “social media expert” to make such a seemingly abrupt tactical move. It may appear that way, but let’s take a look at what is happening in the social space.

1) The social media space is controlled by a few major players who are after one thing… your data. Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Pinterest are all about numbers. How many people can they get to provide as much personal information as possible so they can sell you more stuff by releasing personal information to third party advertisers? We are all commodities to be marketed to. Facebook can put privacy controls on their site, but who are they kidding? They know way more about you than they would ever want to admit publicly.

2) While some conversation takes place on the social sites, there is more noise than ever before. Twitter is littered with fake accounts and bots. LinkedIn users who you never met plead for endorsements of their products or services which you never heard about previously. Facebook is an endless parade of feel-good sayings and photos of cats. Millions of posts, shares and tweets go out each hour, but the ratio of posting to listening continues to broaden. In the words of Pink Floyd, “Is there anybody out there?”

3) Social media has made it incredibly easy to be rude to other people. Insults, put-downs, and outright meanness has become a staple of the social culture. Whether the discussion centers around politics, religion, sports, entertainment, lifestyle or any other subject, people have been desensitized to basic human kindness just because they can’t see or hear the people at their keyboards on the other end of the fiber cable.

4) Other people have endangered their future careers or relationships by playing out their personal drama on social sites. Are we so far gone that there is no thought of the kind of information we share publicly without concern for how that information may come back to haunt us in the future? It seems to me that discernment is a quality severely lacking in the social space.

5) From a business perspective, everyone, their grandmother and their dog is now a “social media expert.” There is NO value in the label any longer. It is now synonymous with “I haz a twitter account.” I use the phrase on some of my pages just because I know that people will search for the term. But I choose to refer to myself as a “New Media Marketing Strategist.”

6) Spam spam spam spam spam. So many are using social sites as little more than billboards to sell their products or services. This has become so prevalent that the majority of us have become blind to all streams of data, assuming that we are going to be bombarded with advertisements.

Am I culpable in this charade? Yes. After all, I wrote the world’s most popular book on using Twitter for Business. But that was several years ago.

That’s why I must leave social media.

Now don’t get me wrong. Social sites have some great benefits.

I enjoy connecting with family and friends.

I enjoy making new friends and sharing content with them.

I enjoy posting photos of my own life, especially when I encounter a tasty meal or catch my cat doing something cute.

I confess that I enjoy feel-good quotes and infographics.

I know I am giving up a great deal of privacy, yet I continue to post, like, tweet and share.

It’s a daily obsession. I’m connected at my computer and on my mobile devices. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t updating my status or commenting on someone else’s.

That’s why I’m thinking of leaving social media.

Of course, social sites have become a primary source of news for me. After all, I don’t believe any of the mainstream media are the least bit trustworthy. Their whole purpose is to sell toothpaste.

So while accuracy on social sites can be a stumbling block, at least I can be relatively certain that while what I am reading may not be factual, it’s at least not being propagated by Proctor & Gamble.

Citizen journalists are slowly transforming the way we receive and interpret current events. But who directs the conversation? Millions of people all striving to have their voice heard? Is this what freedom of speech has come to? Let’s face it. It’s a beautiful mess.

That’s why I wonder if I can get away from social media.

But up pops a “like” from something I just posted. It’s followed by an encouraging comment. Then comes the holy grail of social approval, the “share.”

Do I live for the approval of others? Is my ego so fragile that I crave the pavlovian response of warm fuzzy feelings that result from a like, comment, share, favorite or retweet?

Do you?

What if Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus ceased to exist? Would the human race survive without the habitual behavior we have become accustomed and addicted to in just a few short years?

It’s for this reason that I must leave social media…. even if for just a few hours.

But I just saw a new “Walk off the Earth” video on YouTube. It’s very entertaining and I want to share it with you.

And I just happened to catch my cat in the cutest pose. I’ll want to post that. Perhaps I’ll instagram it at the same time that I pin the picture of the bacon purse I saw on that humor site. I’m sure you’ll all want to see it.

And someone posted an article that I have a very strong opinion about, so I guess I’ll engage and leave a comment.

To make matters worse, the people that I know, like and care about won’t stop posting. It wouldn’t be right for me to ignore them, would it?

In the time that I’ve written this post, I’ve left social media. But now that this article is over, I think I’m ready to jump back in. I’m over it.

Nobody really escapes social media.

The online world has become a meaningful, yet flawed, method for interacting, dialoguing, engaging, debating, sharing and experiencing our world and our relationships with others in real time.

It’s not perfect, but it’s the world we live in. I believe it is possible to disconnect, and the day may come where the negatives of social media truly do outweigh the benefits.

But for now, I feel no different than the five-year old who threatens to “run away from home” and doesn’t get any further than three houses down the street. I’m back. And I’m not going anywhere.

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A $32,000 Startup That Was Sold for Millions

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I meet entrepreneurs all over the world who think that venture capital is a prerequisite for starting a company. They write business plans and ask for introductions to venture capitalists. I tell them that they should instead bootstrap their startups. That what would have cost millions of dollars a few years ago now costs thousands.

Think about it. Today’s laptops have the same processing power as the minicomputers which cost millions of dollars in the 1980s. For storage, you once needed server farms and racks of hard disks. Today you have cloud computing and cloud storage—and these are cheap.

You can also bootstrap hardware companies like Nest (which Google acquired for $3.2 billion). Sensors such as those in our smartphones would have cost tens-of-thousands of dollars a few years ago. They now cost practically nothing. Entrepreneurs on shoestring budgets can build smartphone apps that act like medical assistants and detect disease, body sensors that monitor heart, brain and body activity, technologies to detect soil humidity and improve agriculture.

Entrepreneurs can also participate in the genomics revolution (here is an article that explains this). It cost more than $100 million to sequence a full human genome about a decade ago. It now costs $1,000. Genome data will soon be available for millions, then billions of people. Anyone anywhere can write computer code that compares one person’s DNA with another; learns what diseases people with similar genes have had; and analyzes the correlation between genomes and the effectiveness with which different medications or other interventions have treated a given disease.

There are similar advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and many other fields.

In 2011, I mentored a startup called Beat The GMAT that figured out how to rebuild and bootstrap itself on just $32,000. The company was acquired last year for millions of dollars by Hobsons. Its founders Eric Bahn and David Park say they are really enjoying their financial freedom and are glad that they took the risk. It wasn’t easy, but was the most incredible experience they have ever had. Below is a version of an article I wrote for Bloomberg BusinessWeek about how they did this. There
 are valuable lessons that you can learn.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1999, David Park founded discussion forum service Coolboard.com. It took more than a dozen software developers, product managers, and quality assurance staff 18 months to build the company's core technology. To fund it, Park raised $10 million in venture capital, of which $4 million was spent before the company was launched. It went down in flames in 2003, a casualty of the dot-com bust.

In 2005, Park partnered up with his friend Eric Bahn to launch his next business, MBA admissions social network Beat The GMAT in San Mateo, Calif. Rather than take venture capital, they limited startup costs, spending just $119,000. The site steadily gained traction, but they were nervous that technologies like Facebook and Twitter would make it obsolete. So they chose to make it obsolete themselves.

In 2011, the team decided to rebuild the site and the company. Their goal was to create a social network for business-school applicants that had features such as aggregated GMAT-prep and MBA-admissions news; a way for members to connect with one another; and social gaming elements to keep members motivated. It makes money advertising test prep services. Amazingly, the new site took only four months and cost just $32,000 in total.

I was skeptical when Park and Bahn approached me last year to ask for advice on business strategy for the site. They were convinced they could build a bunch of sophisticated technologies in months—on a shoestring budget. They were determined not to raise venture capital. I had doubts. My two software companies had taken years and cost millions. Yes, technology is much easier to build today than it was during my tech days. But I meet Silicon Valley startup founders every week who tell me about their ideas and their plans; and no one says they can build their products for less than the cost of a BMW 328.

But Park and Bahn did. How? To start with, they crowdsourced the design. Instead of hiring a bunch of marketing people, as tech companies usually do, they asked their user community for volunteers to help conceive a new site. Then they selected a handful of the most eager users and trained them on the basics of Silicon Valley–style product management. Next, Park and Bahn needed to find a designer. They used 99designs.com, which hosts design competitions, for a two-week contest that attracted hundreds of designers, yielding a design they used as the theme for the new site. The contest, prize, and designer's time cost $9,200.

They broke up Web development into two tasks: front-end engineering (turning design artwork into code) and back-end engineering (making the code actually function). They built their technology on top of WordPress, phpBB, and Drupal—free, open-source platforms. Front-end engineering usually requires sophisticated coding done by contractors who earn as much as $100 an hour. Instead, the Beat The GMAT team turned to a service called PSD2HTML.com, which converts Photoshop design files into HTML and CSS code. The cost of this service, at $160 to $220 per Web page, totalled $4,500. For back-end engineering, they hired four developers from Hungary and Ukraine on the outsourcing website oDesk. They paid $15 to $20 per hour. The back-end engineering cost $18,000 in total.

In software development, things don't usually go as planned. Park and Bahn had their share of missed deadlines, buggy code, and product problems. Outsourcing always makes things more difficult, because developers are in different time zones, speak different languages, and don't always understand what is expected of them. It took many sleepless nights and lots of caffeine to surmount these obstacles.

In the result, a company that later sold for millions cost its founder just $32,000 because the relevant technology now is so inexpensive. The ability of entrepreneurs to build sophisticated technologies so cheaply in the Web world is even foreshadowing the marginalization of venture capitalists. Software startups often spend the first few months of their existence polishing business plans and pitching to investors. They can instead be working with smart people all over the world, focusing their energy on perfecting their technologies, as Beat The GMAT did. When a law-school grad (Park) and a sociology graduate student (Bahn) can build successful technology companies, the notion that website founders need computer-programming backgrounds too is outdated.

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ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CS5 TUTORIAL""" By: Derek Banas

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In these two video’s I show you how to use Adobe Illustrator CS5. I created this tutorial because of a request from DeathByKazillion.

Adobe Illustrator Tutorial & Review Part 1

Here I cover every new feature available with Illustrator CS5 and provide a review.

I cover specifically:

1. Bristle Brush
2. Perspective Tool
3. Creating Custom Brushes
4. Live Paint
5. Live Trace

If you like videos like this tell Google To make me extra happy, feel free to share it

Adobe Illustrator Tutorial & Review Part 2

Here I show you how to convert a jpeg or any image into vector art / EPS with Illustrator CS5. I also cover:

1. Rasterizing Images
2. Live Trace
3. Live Paint
4. Live Paint
5. Convert Muli-color Image into Vector Art
6. Working with Text Tool’s
7. Using Gradients
8. Using Strokes
9. Using the Knife Tool
10. Cleaning up Vector Art
11. And a bunch more in just 9 minutes

Adobe Illustrator Tutorial & Review Part 3
Here I show you how to use every other tool available with Illustrator CS5. I also cover:

1. Line tools
2. Shape tools
3. Layers
4. Colors
5. Text
6. Art boards
7. A bunch of random tip’s and trick’s

That’s All Folk’s

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Why Snapchat is Valuable: It's All About Attention"""

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Most people who encounter a link to this post will never read beyond this paragraph. Heck, most people who encountered a link to this post didn't click on the link to begin with. They simply saw the headline, took note that someone over 30 thinks that maybe Snapchat is important, and moved onto the next item in their Facebook/Twitter/RSS/you-name-it stream of media. And even if they did read it, I'll never know it because they won't comment or retweet or favorite this in any way.

We've all gotten used to wading in streams of social media content. Open up Instagram or Secret on your phone and you'll flick on through the posts in your stream, looking for a piece of content that'll catch your eye. Maybe you don't even bother looking at the raw stream on Twitter. You don't have to because countless curatorial services like digg are available to tell you what was most important in your network. Facebook doesn't even bother letting you see your raw stream; their algorithms determine what you get access to in the first place (unless, of course, someone pays to make sure their friends see their content).

Snapchat offers a different proposition. Everyone gets hung up on how the disappearance of images may (or may not) afford a new kind of privacy. Adults fret about how teens might be using this affordance to share inappropriate (read: sexy) pictures, projecting their own bad habits onto youth. But this is isn't what makes Snapchat utterly intriguing. What makes Snapchat matter has to do with how it treats attention.

When someone sends you an image/video via Snapchat, they choose how long you get to view the image/video. The underlying message is simple: You've got 7 seconds. PAY ATTENTION. And when people do choose to open a Snap, they actually stop what they're doing and look.

In a digital world where everyone's flicking through headshots, images, and text without processing any of it, Snapchat asks you to stand still and pay attention to the gift that someone in your network just gave you. As a result, I watch teens choose not to open a Snap the moment they get it because they want to wait for the moment when they can appreciate whatever is behind that closed door. And when they do, I watch them tune out everything else and just concentrate on what's in front of them. Rather than serving as yet-another distraction, Snapchat invites focus.

Furthermore, in an ecosystem where people "favorite" or "like" content that is inherently unlikeable just to acknowledge that they've consumed it, Snapchat simply notifies the creator when the receiver opens it up. This is such a subtle but beautiful way of embedding recognition into the system. Sometimes, a direct response is necessary. Sometimes, we need nothing more than a simple nod, a way of signaling acknowledgement. And that's precisely why the small little "opened" note will bring a smile to someone's face even if the recipient never said a word.

Snapchat is a reminder that constraints have a social purpose, that there is beauty in simplicity, and that the ephemeral is valuable. There aren't many services out there that fundamentally question the default logic of social media and, for that, I think that we all need to pay attention to and acknowledge Snapchat's moves in this ecosystem.

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3 Technology Trends Your Company Can’t Ignore"""

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Technology is evolving…fast. For that reason, it’s imperative that your company be focusing not just on the changes that are happening today, but also on the technological trends that are emerging and shaping the future of your organization and your industry. Why? Because the more anticipatory you can be in regard to technology, the more creatively you can use it to gain competitive advantage.

As someone who has been accurately predicting the future of technology for over 30 years, I urge all leaders to focus on the following three trends that are emerging and reshaping the business landscape, as we know it.

1. Just-in-Time Training
Thanks to cloud-based technology, we’re on the brink of a revolution in just-in-time training. This will enable people to use their laptops, cell phones, and tablet computers as a tool to receive training precisely when they need it. In the current training model used by many organizations, people receive training for a variety of things before they actually need the expertise, thus taking the people away from their jobs and costing the company a lot of money. With just-in-time training, companies can keep people in the field or in the office without the specific training. Then, when the person needs a certain skill set to complete a job or do a task, he or she can receive the training for it in real time via cloud-based technology.

For example, suppose your IT staff has to install some new hardware at all your company’s office locations. The hardware is brand new, complex, and requires special installation procedures. Rather than taking your IT staff out of work and putting them in a training course, you keep them on site without the specific training. Then, when they have to install the hardware or troubleshoot it, they can receive the training on how to do so in real time via their mobile device as they are installing or servicing the hardware.

Now, let’s take this trend a step further. Suppose the IT professional is using the just-in-time training module via his tablet computer. But he’s still confused about a certain aspect of the installation. All he has to do is touch the “help” icon on his screen and it immediately connects him to a master trainer live on the screen. But instead of just telling the master trainer what the problem is, the IT person can put on a headband that has a camera on the front, much like the headbands with a light on the front that people use for camping or car repair. By wearing this digital, high-resolution camera that interfaces with the mobile device, the IT professional can show the master trainer exactly what the issue is. Now that master trainer can see what the IT person sees and can tell him exactly what to do. The master trainer can lead the IT professional through the installation as if he were standing right there. Talk about a dramatic savings and increase in efficiency!

Realize that using cloud-based technology for just-in-time services goes way beyond installation and repair. It could be used to train people on new software, train salespeople on product upgrades, instruct employees on new policies and procedures, etc. And it’s different and better than a standard tutorial, because the training can be accessed via any device, anywhere, and at anytime…and it offers an option for live help. In reality, the applications for cloud-based, just-in-time services are virtually limitless.

2. Processing Power on Demand

The increased bandwidth that our mobile devices now receive enables us to connect to the cloud-based technologies easier and faster than ever before. And one thing we know about bandwidth is that it will continue to increase. Because of this, we’ll soon be able to take advantage of another trend that I call processing power on demand—or virtualized processing power.

We have already virtualized so many things. We have virtualized storage where we can store our data on a cloud-based network. Many companies choose this option for data safety and ease of backup, as well as for the ability to access the data via any device. We have virtualized our desktops so that we can see our desktop on anyone else’s machine, just the way it’s supposed to look.

It only makes sense, then, that processing power will be virtualized too. In other words, a mobile device only has a certain amount of processing power. But if you can tap into additional processing power via cloud-based technology, you can turn your mobile device into a super computer where you can do advanced simulations and crunch different data streams together to get real time analytics. Now your handheld device is as powerful and advanced as your desktop. Imagine the increase in productivity if each of your company’s employees had the capability to do complex work that required advanced processing power while they were on the road, armed with nothing more than their mobile device. What would that shift do to your company’s bottom line?

3. Creative Application of Technology
For both of these trends and others to fully emerge, business leaders have to consider what their people would do with the technology. It’s no longer enough to just deploy technology; you also have to consider how your people can creatively apply the technology in order to gain competitive advantage.

Therefore, you need to go to your internal customers (all the people using the technology in the enterprise) and ask what they want technologically. Give them what they ask for, but realize that they will under-ask because they don’t know what’s technically possible. So while you want to listen to what people in the organization are asking for and give it to them, realize that what they’re not asking for is the bigger and better capabilities—the things they don’t even know are possible.


This is about putting existing technologies together and using them in a creative way. For example, there are literally thousands of features in Microsoft Word that you can select. Most people are using only seven to ten features. And your competitors are using the same features, which means you’re not getting any true competitive advantage. So you need to ask, “What features would be great for our sales group [or HR, or accounting department, or logistics people, etc.] to use—features that are so buried in the software that no one knows they exist?” Most IT departments won’t ask those questions because they’re too busy making sure everything is connected, working well, and safe. And if they’re not asking, who is? Who in your organization is looking at the tools you already have and asking if they are being underused? Chances are the answer is “no one.” As such, it’s safe to say that all your tools are underutilized.

Therefore, you need to implement a communication vehicle that engages the different groups you serve in the enterprise—such as sales, logistics, purchasing, accounting, HR, etc.—and you need to engage them in helping them understand the power of the tools they have access to. One suggestion is to automatically show them a “feature of the day” and how it can make their life easier. This is about giving them information in short, fun, engaging ways rather than a hundred-page document detailing all the features (which no one will read anyway). Some software programs have such features where you get a tip per day. Perhaps you can customize that idea and apply it internally so that the different groups get information tailored specifically to them and their needs.

Create Your Company’s Future
Many business leaders will say they are too busy to address any of these trends. But if you don’t address them, who will? Ultimately, whoever drives these trends within an organization will be perceived as a significant contributor to the enterprise—someone worth keeping…and someone with high value in the marketplace. When that someone is you, you can drive results to the bottom line and be a key contributor to the organization’s success

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How to Live the Difference Between Money & Wealth""

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When you consider how many people seem to have money, they aren't the same as the people who are wealthy. The distinction is worth considering. Money is a symbol, often an empty one. Weapons, pornography, and gambling will always make money, because greed, fear, and sex are permanent. Wealth, on the other hand, is based on values. If you can fulfill a value as it arises from society, the opportunity for wealth is made possible.

Wealth circulates, keeping a society vital and alive. After Spain plundered the New World, it captured an enormous horde of gold and silver, but within a century its economy collapsed. Greed and inflation were a deadly combination, but at heart the habit of hoarding seems to have been the real culprit. A monied economy never turned into a wealthy one. In the Great Depression and the recent Great Recession, vast sums of money sat on the sidelines, doing nothing to invest, renew the economy, or aid the unemployed. As a result, even though the world was awash in money, people felt insecure and hopeless - they lived by the psychology of poverty, not wealth.

I'm not preaching the evils of money - symbols can be interpreted any way one chooses. They are essentially empty on their own. But a psychology of wealth needs to be present for success to truly matter. You are in a wealth mode when any of the following are present:

• You fulfill a worthy need.
• You are the steward of money, not its slave or master.
• You deliver the greatest good to the greatest number.
• You benefit the planet rather than despoil it.
• You add to the meaning and purpose of life, both your life and the life of others.

Wealth gives us a reason to forgive the wrongs inflicted by callous, greedy money. I realize that this is a tall order. The wounds suffered by ordinary people at the hands of monied people are grievous. The widening gap between the haves and have nots isn't value neutral, although various factions would like to portray it that way. To be on the right side of a value system is a mark of wealth, which is one reason benefactors are honored long after the greedy are forgotten

ONE WORLD: Paul Scialla & Deepak Chopra
Paul Scialla, former Partner at Goldman Sachs for the past 10 years interest in both altruistic capitalism and in sustainability led him to found Delos, the pioneer of Wellness Real Estate.
At this moment the graduates of prestigious colleges are flocking to Wall Street, one reads, in great numbers if they can get there. The shared aim of these young people is to make a few million by the time they are twenty-four or twenty-five, after which they intend to abandon filthy lucre to live better lives. This phenomenon is what it is. But I hope that someone teaches young people that there is such a thing as capitalism with a conscience, inspiring them to work with wealth as their personal goal, not simply money. The values of a globalized economy and the challenge of revamping the system that has so deeply harmed the planet depends on each generation redefining its values and in so doing finding new avenues for wealth.

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Spring Cleaning for Social Good!

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Four Ways Your Spring Cleaning Can Be Used For Social Good

Housebound by bad weather? Why not do a little pre-emptive spring cleaning. Start small; maybe you have a linen closet or a bookshelf that could use some pruning. Don’t think of it as chore, but as a way to pass along items you no longer need to someone in need. Here are four things you can do: donate books, linens, clothing, or if you're selling on eBay, donate a portion of the proceeds. You'll be surprised how good you'll feel and how much you can help.

Donate Books

                                                                                                                                                                    

According to the American Library Association, most public libraries in the US accept gift books, with the understanding that the library is free to add donated books to its collection, sell these books to raise funds for the library, or discard them. Contact your local library for details.

The ALA’s fact sheet on book donations provides the names and details about organizations that need your old books. Here are some suggestions from the fact sheet:

1. Gently used (or new) children’s books:
2. Bernie's Book Bank for Chicago, IL and surrounding suburbs
3. BookEnds of West Hills, CA
4. Migrant Media Book Flood Project for Watsonville, CA
5. Reader to Reader of Amherst, MA - You can find additional information here, on GreatNonprofits.org. One reviewer said: “Reader to Reader is a great organization. They have made a real difference to many schools and libraries. Plus it’s a great way to give new life to old books.”
6. African Library Project of Portola Valley, CA

Books for All Ages

1. Darien Book Aid Plan Inc. of Darien, CT
2. International Book Project, Inc. of Lexington, KY

Donate Clothing

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A Beginners Guide To Using Psychographics To Improved Your Marketing Efforts

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In marketing practice, buzzwords are as ubiquitous as copy. Some come, and some go, but the ones that stay are of far-reaching, intrinsic value that better your efforts and customer satisfaction in some way. With this in mind, it’s a fair bet that psychographics are about to demonstrate some impressive longevity. Through a more comprehensive understanding of what drives customer actions, using research and analytics to fuel the endeavor, your materials and distribution can see greater permeation than ever before.

What They ARE
Despite the curious title, psychographics are not as bewildering as their name might imply, and understanding their nature, use, and acquisition can breed a great deal of success in marketing efforts. At their core, psychographics are profiles of individuals that focus on lifestyle, habits, and tendencies, reaching beyond traditional demographic information and seeking more valuable data from user behavior.

For a better understanding of exactly what comprises one of these profiles, let’s look at a hypothetical user and see what we can learn from them. We’ll begin with John, a 32-year old office worker from Los Angeles, California. For the sake of thoroughness, let’s assume that he’s married with two children, has an income of approximately $60K per year, and owns his own home.

While all of this information has some kind of use, it doesn’t tell us much about him outside of raw data. What we want is information about interests and habits in order to better understand his motivations. A look at John’s Facebook page shows likes on pages related to fantasy football and an application that tracks player injury status. His Twitter page shows pictures of his family in a snowy location, holding ski poles and wearing goggles. Each of these social channels has some kind of activity, but a look at his Google+ page shows that most of his time is spent there.

What we have now is a wealth of information regarding John. He lives in Los Angeles and probably commutes. He enjoys fantasy football and skiing. He has a wife and two kids, all of whom are also active and athletic. He spends most of his time on Google+, and is young enough that he probably uses multiple devices to access information on the Internet through various media channels.

HOW THEY WORK
The power of this profile is manifold. As marketers and business owners, you want to understand where to put what information and when, so that the right people see the right things and think better of your brand or purchase product. To this end, John’s psychographic is a boon to our work.

First of all, as a working commuter with multiple channels of access, we have a better understanding of John’s browsing habits. He likely checks social networks and news channels in the morning and at night, before and after work, possibly stopping during the day to check his mobile phone during breaks. He uses Facebook and Twitter but is mostly found on Google+. Therefore, assuming John is the type of customer we want to recruit, our marketing is best published across multiple social networking channels, preferably Google+, during the morning (before 8 AM), afternoon (around lunch time), and evening (after 5 PM).

But logistics aren’t the only use of psychographics. A better understanding of user behavior gives us the added benefit of what kind of content should be published. As we noted, John likes to travel, ski, and play fantasy football. In terms of sales deals, airlines could offer discount tickets around wintertime, restaurants can offer deals for customers with a valid lift ticket, and sports magazines can offer price cuts on subscriptions around fantasy draft season. In terms of content, a travel magazine could create a review of the best ski slopes in Colorado, a sports website could offer insider information on sleeper picks, and an eCards website could offer templates for email postcards incorporating winter sports.

The incredible thing is, all of this came from a better understanding of customer behavior. Multiple industries, multiple businesses, and multiple aspects of marketing all arose from discerning the interests and habits of a target customer. With this kind of information available from only a judicious application of research, the last question that remains is how to obtain it.

HOW TO GET THEM
Start by leveraging the information you already have. Website analytics, past purchases, and social networking activity provide a sort of “back end” approach to customer research. Pay attention to what articles or offers performed well, what channel has seen the most success, and what kind of engagement your current topics are seeing. By looking at past successes and drawing some ideas from them, you can save money and build a decent bank of knowledge.

But customer behavior isn’t limited to online engagement. A thorough understanding of user interests and habits requires a great deal more insight; insight straight from the source.

Customer surveys are a good place to start since they offer a large sample size. The key is to ask the right questions, looking specifically for behavior and interests, offering the chance for open-ended answers where applicable. In your approach, be honest about your intent. Personal information is more guarded than ever in an increasingly privacy-aware society, but explaining your intent is an excellent way of disarming respondents through trust. Furthermore, most customers are more than happy to share this kind of information if it improves the relevance of information and product offerings.

Reinforce this broad-base data collection with customer interviews and focus groups. By inviting customers to meet or offering to converse with them over the phone, you’re providing an opportunity to ask responsive questions and delve further into fruitful areas, instead of relying on rote questionnaires. In addition, putting a human face on your efforts (and including refreshments if the meetings happen in person) is an excellent way to show customers that you care, increase engagement, and build relationships in the process.

Between these methods of research and an intelligent understanding of the worth of the data obtained, your business stands to expand its reach and its relevancy through psychographics. Focus on the characteristic behaviors, habits, and methods of communication that drive customers’ day-to-day lives and use that information to better craft content and logistics of publication. With an open ear and an aim toward seeing people instead of numbers, your content, relationships, and bottom-line, will all benefit.

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The Ultimate Guide To Building And Using Personas@@

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The local bakery down the street has a unique opportunity. By interacting with customers on a daily basis, the owners gain a deeper understanding of what their most valued patrons want. However, when you move from Main Street to the World Wide Web, the picture becomes blurrier as that one-on-one time becomes scarce. Fortunately, one tool is offering the opportunity to turn broad customer insight into a tailored approach that improves conversion, service, and satisfaction for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Researching Your Audience
Buyer personas are a sophisticated approach to introducing the individual perspective back into broad-based demographic analysis. However, this approach requires that you start with a broad-based perspective in order to obtain an accurate understanding of buyer behavior.
For this reason, personas begin with audience research. This research can come in a number of forms, including:

• Analytics
• Surveys
• Focus groups
• Direct-mail responses
• Interviews
• Comments

Each of these formats provides its own insight. For example, analytics and high-volume surveys provide overarching trends for your audience that can be used to help narrow your focus. Focus groups and interviews, on the other hand, provide a more conversational opportunity to discover specific buyer behaviors and mentalities. Blog and social media comments are more informal, but contribute a fair degree of information that connects demographics with attitudes and values.

This initial step should focus on drawing the “boundaries” of your audience; essentially the broad characteristics of your regular customers. This way, you’ll understand who falls outside the boundaries of your audience and better comprehend the specific behaviors of your unique following.

Breaking IT Down
With this broad cross-sectional data in hand, the next step is to break it down. As mentioned, the benefit of overarching data is that it frames the kind of personalities that fall within your target audience. Breaking this information down into individual personalities is what turns audience research into high-conversion personas.

Begin by looking at the characteristics that fall into the majority of responses. If most of your site hits occur around lunch and just after working hours, it’s likely that your audience is of employment age. If the majority of your audience falls into a below-average income bracket, then it is possible that your deals are what attract an audience.

Look at each trend in your data as a piece of a puzzle. If your comment-to-follower ratio is higher on Facebook than on Twitter, then this points to a demographic that is likely just out of college or older, since younger generations are trending toward Twitter. This one element becomes noteworthy due to its connection to audience behavior. For now, simply focus on collecting the pieces of your buyer profiles through data and interviews and leave the actual assembly for later.

Understanding Personas
At this juncture, it is important to understand precisely what a buyer persona is. Knowing this will render assembly of your data-driven “pieces” easier, and provide insight into how they can be used.

If your marketing team uses broad audience research to design advertising materials, certain results occur. For example, if your business finds that your customer base is overwhelmingly female, ads and content may be created to appeal to females. If you’re looking to expand into your reach, additional materials may be crafted to appeal to males. In either instance, business decisions are made on the basis of characteristics.

What this approach fails to understand is that behavior and characteristics are not so easily correlated. Buyer personas attempt to introduce the concept of buyer behavior to the equation, informing marketing efforts and product development with the user in mind. A buyer persona focuses on the daily life, habits, values, beliefs, and goals of customers instead of their raw demographic information, constructing a picture of their average day that can be utilized to great effect.

Buiding Personas
It is with this mentality that you should then approach assembling your data. Two mechanisms should influence your construction process: social trends and observation. Pinterest, for example is largely slanted toward females, indicating that activity on that account is likely linked to the female portion of your audience. This kind of analysis should then be balanced by observational data, i.e. focus group discussions that specifically indicate buyer behavior and predilections.


In this step, it is much easier to understand the concept through example. Here are some insights that may contribute to a buyer persona:

• John Q checks Facebook in the morning and browses news sites at night
• Tina H values safety for her family
• David M watches product reviews on YouTube and CNET before making a purchase on our online shop

The names are, of course, fictitious, but the behaviors are not. Your data should outline behaviors such as these, providing insight into the day-to-day life of customers and identifying patterns in purchasing processes and consistent habits.

Putting Them To Used

With this understanding of buyer behavior, it is now possible to put it to use. From advertising to product pages, everything about your operations can be influenced and improved using this powerful tool.
Marketing efforts stand to gain a great deal of insight from these profiles. Ads can be targeted toward relevant social media sites using keywords and schedules designed around customer habits. The content of ads and blog posts can be tailored to reflect the hobbies or interests of your customers. Finally, innovative engagement opportunities can be developed around specific knowledge of your customer base, helping lead to higher participation and conversion rates.
Next, product development can be influenced by this understanding of customer characteristics. If your eReader is mostly used at night after a long day at work, it should possess a backlight that makes text readable without straining the eyes. If you find that your software is used by an older generation, buttons and text can be made bigger to allow for easier interface and navigation.
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