It has been a while since I have blogged, as I’ve been so busy with work and family and I had a really bad cold. During my time off I had some time to think about what it is? that we talk about. Who do I mean when referring to “we”? Well everybody … communication whether written, spoken, texted, – is an interesting process. Some people will talk all the time about a lot of things that they do not know. Others will use the internet. The amount of mis-information on the internet is remarkable. How does one distinguish between what is accurate and correct and what is baloney. Generally speaking, it is a combination of factors that focus our mind on whether someone is worth doing business with. How someone looks is pretty important. If they look like they have not taken much time over their appearance, then you have to ask yourself: “Would they take much time on any work I would give them? The only way to find that out, is to talk to them . There are lots of people of course who have the gift of the gab. If they are really strong in this area, they are more than likely they will be less strong in other areas. It is a balancing game. Specific areas a person excels in, will mean they will have other areas where they perform less well in. So it is important to assess what you are looking for in the beginning…. When you have noted this you will be in a stronger position to be able to get it…
Category Archives: work
How Many Times do you Need to Blog
I was just reading some history about Darren Rowse and how he got into blogging. He recommended that if you want to climb the ranks of blogs you would need to be blogging quite a few times a day. While I can see the effect in this: it would keep the search engines busy and your readers too. Most of us being frank probably only have one really good idea every couple days so blogging more than that could became a bit stale. Of course if my readers wanted to hear my opinions about the American elections and the price of oil and gold I could be persuaded, I would still probably want to blog within a team. Just for the editorial checks… What are your thoughts? would you like to write severely posts a day?
Gossip and Chatter Not Just in The Office
We cannot help but speculate what the next mobile phone does, or if Britney will ever make music again. Every day thousands of thoughts will cross our mind from seeing an attractive girl to wondering what will happen in the book we are currently reading. Lots of us share these thoughts with other people. When we are out and about, in a restaurant or just down the pub. For a large percentage of us we are able to leave it at that….Just speculation. What happens though when people start speculating on line , in forums, on blogs, and wikis?
Well a couple of things can happen depending who does what, where and when. If the speculation is in a enclosed network such as Face book, or a closed biz forum, unless you are a member of that particular group, it is very unlikely that you will see it on the internet. The other option is that someone blogs, or posts something in a forum. Here there are a number of things you can do. If you disagree with a post or information that has been written about you on the internet you can contact the administrator of the website and ask him/her to remove the post and in most cases you will find that they will oblige. That should be the end of the matter….. but If Google or any other search engine picks up on the url post/topic, then you will have a secondary problem. Although you will not be able to access the page, it will appear on search engine results for a possible period of up to 6 to 12 months. To solve this you have will have to contact the search engine and ask for the page to be removed. Usually if you are successful the offending page will be removed within 24 – 48 hours after this request.
A preventive measure to protect your online reputation is to create your own profile. This can be done simply by joining a online community. If your are purely concerned about your professional reputation then I recommend these site for professional profiles Work Connexions , Linkedin . Effectively, by creating your profile you are then in control of what is written about you. For example some minor comments that somebody might make in a blog or a forum would be unlikely to appear higher then your long standing profile with a high ranking community transparent page. Try it, search for your self on the internet now.
Regarding Encyclopedia Salesmen Hate Wikipedia
Seth Godin, has posted an interesting blog post on his site: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/encyclopedia-sa.html
And CNET hates Google
And newspapers hate Craigslist
And music labels hate Napster
And used bookstores hate Amazon
And so do independent bookstores.
Dating services hate Plenty of Fish
And the local shoe store hates Zappos
And courier services hate fax machines
And monks hate Gutenberg
Apparently, technology doesn’t care who you hate.
I have noticed this too, and would also add recruitment companies for Linkedin and possible Facebook too. Still change is coming.
Another interesting follow up to this post can be found here:
http://www.businessopportunitiesandideas.co.uk/539/who-hates-you
“Would Linux be so popular if Microsoft didn’t hate it?
Would Eminem be so popular with kids if their parents didn’t hate it?
Would the Sex Pistols have been so popular if they weren’t hated by the establishment?
Would the Vigin Atlantic have done so well if British Airways didn’t hate them?
Would the cheap airlines have done so well if the flagship carriers didn’t hate them?”
My comment… I thought the blog was going to go the other way and he was going to say. “Do not start a business if everyone hates you” but he did not.
Web 2.0 Saving Time
Implementing projects correctly
Last night on the radio I heard a comedian joking about how women want to know what men are thinking, I can imagine that a lot of men would claim to have no idea what women are thinking. In fact his question what people are thinking can go much further. Often when we do not understand one of the first questions that we ask is what are they thinking? Communication is more than a billion dollar industry. From phones to newspapers to meetings. In short each and every one of us spend more time communicating or trying to communicate than anything else. Why is it then that so many of us get it wrong?
I am not going to pretend to have the answer to that question. A friend of my recently commented that the process of writing clarifies the brain as to exactly what the situation/problem is. There is many a time that I have wondered what is going on in the company I work for. So imagine this. A company decides that it wants to improve a process. For example it wants to reduce software support to employees and educate them at the same time. A possible approach to this problem would be to organise meetings with different departments. Send out an email asking for ideas and feedback from employees. To organise and carry out this improvement it would require a small medium seized company at least one person to project manage, someone to sort out the information, someone to analyse the information, then more meetings to discuss the findings. Eventually you would have a recommendation that can be debated all over again. If by the end of this process there is still the will to implement it, you have truly done well. Of course there is no guarantee that your solution will work at all. How can web 2.0 deal with this?
Well imagine that you set out your vision on paper, and then allow people to comment. It is incredibly simple. Each user can see what issues have been raised and add comments if necessary. The project manager can modify and direct the discussion as the project evolves. This is clear accountable communication . Returning to the question about building a help desk, it allows every problem to be logged so that there is no repeat use of time to express the same points. One can even track the time involved producing accountability for budgeting future projects. Brilliant… if only everything was that simple I would not mind what anybody else is thinking.
Do You Promote People (because they are good at their jobs)
Do you promote people because they are good at their jobs? This is why good technical people end up as struggling managers. You need to reward people for what they’re good at. Change their role for what they want to do next. A promotion is not a reward.
Having the right people in the right role is important for growth.
Number Crunching for the Business Plan
For example the recruitment market in the Isle of Man breaks down like this:
80,000 People living in the Isle of Man
41,000 Actively working
13 Recruitment companies
70 People employed in recruitment
– 10,000 Employed in local government – no recruitment allowed for Goverment.
310 People per each consultant working in recruitment
1820 + Jobs advertised locally in the press per year
26 Jobs per each consultant
Estimated success rate of placing candidates 10 %
What do these figures mean? Number crunching is always handy in order to calculate a market.