Steve Jobs: How to live before you die | Video on TED.com

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die | Video on TED.com

Discussion: Executive Suite | LinkedIn

Discussion: Executive Suite | LinkedIn

Be Found on LinkedIn and Google Page One

Be Found on LinkedIn and Google Page One

Discover Financial retools executive compensation in light of TARP | Crain's Chicago Business

Discover Financial retools executive compensation in light of TARP | Crain's Chicago Business

Conducting a LEAN Job Search

No doubt, you have heard the terms “lean manufacturing” and “5S” used to describe a set of tools and principles that help companies increase productivity and efficiency, reduce waste and streamline operations. Over the years, many of these tools have also been adapted by non-manufacturing companies because of their common sense applicability. In fact, the term “lean office” has grown in popularity as service and distribution companies, and even non-profits look to make dramatic changes to the way they do business. After attending a recent workshop on Lean Transformation, it got me to thinking that many of the same concepts can be adapted by today’s job seeker to help make them more effective and productive, especially in the areas of allocating time and reducing waste.

Now that the holidays are upon us and we are winding down 2009, it is an opportune time to evaluate where you are in your search, what’s working and what isn’t. But most importantly, you need to take a critical look at your process. Borrowing from the 5S framework, you should consider these points:

• Sorting - go through all your marketing materials (résumés, cover letters, etc) and make sure they are the right tools; everything else should be discarded.
• Set In Order – allocate your time on the tasks (networking, direct mail, job boards) that will produce the greatest return.
• Systemic Cleaning – constantly review your progress and solicit feedback to determine what needs to be changed.
• Standardizing – develop a repeatable process and discipline, create a plan and then follow it diligently.
• Sustaining – as you make changes regarding the previous 4S’s, it’s important to maintain focus on the new way you are conducting your search and not fall back on old habits, stay positive.
  

Conducting a job search that will produce the desired result is based on preparation, process and attitude. These same attributes can be found in companies that have successfully implemented lean and are experiencing dramatic results. Given these economic times and the amount of competition fighting for each position, if you want to land the job you desire, you need to go LEAN!

Join us for the Kellogg Executive Lecture Series - Inbox - Yahoo! Mail

Join us for the Kellogg Executive Lecture Series - Inbox - Yahoo! Mail

Media/Advertising/PR | Exectweets

Media/Advertising/PR | Exectweets

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Finding Your Parachute: A Career Changers’ Workshop

November 18th, 2009

CLICK ON LINK FOR PDF: Finding Your Parachute: A Career Changers’ Workshop

CAREER INFORMATION AND PLANNING WORKSHOP
“Finding Your Parachute” career workshop highlights opportunities for local job seekers
The Naperville Council for Business and the Arts is holding a career workshop on December 4th from 11:30 to 1:30pm and will focus on helping people refine their skill sets, get motivated and discover their personal path so that they can gain an edge in today’s career market. This workshop will cover sales, marketing, presentation, delivery, creation of value and communication.
The event will be held in the Main Street Promenade on the 3rd floor in the Naperville Chamber of Commerce Conference room. The workshop will include a panel discussion, breakout sessions for resume reviews and lunch provide by Hipp Temporary Solutions, Pockets and the American Martial Arts Academy.

Panel speakers include:
Bass Phillips- Vice President, Creative Director of Leo Burnett, Chicago
John Zediker- CEO of Moser Enterprises, Naperville
David McArthur- Manager, Financial Services of Prudential Naperville

All in attendance are invited to bring a copy of their current resume and cover letter for the review breakout. Simple tips that clean up the resume can lead to a follow up interview. The Naperville Council for Business and the Arts is a program of the Naperville Cultural Center. The Purpose of the NCBA is to provide education and workshops for professional artists and cultural not for profits so that they may continue to improve their business skills and networking.

Career Social Networking Sites

Career Social Networking Sites

What has Google Alerts done for you lately?

I rely heavily on blogging and Twitter to build my own brand visibility and market my business. I count Google Alerts as one of the most important strategies in my personal brand toolkit.

If you’re not aware of or taking advantage of Google Alerts, set up an account with Alerts for whatever online mentions you want to track. They may include:

• Your name
• Your blog and website names
• Your company name, if you have one
• Names of companies you’re targeting or want to be informed about
• Keywords and phrases relevant to your niche
• Names of relevant products or services
• Names of subject matter experts and major players in your industry
• Names of people whose radar you want to get under.

When these words or names are mentioned in a blog post or online articles or anywhere online, Google Alerts promptly sends you an email with a link to the web page where they appear.


What’s the big deal?
Practically as it happens, Google delivers to you the latest news relevant to your chosen Alerts. Not all the Alerts you receive will yield anything of value, but many will, and some will lead you to information and sites you never would have found otherwise. Google Alerts will keep you apprised of what’s going on in your world and lead you to places where you can position your brand value, and hopefully generate interest in you and evangelism for your brand.

What do you do with all these incoming Alerts?
In general, Alerts help you:
♦  Keep track of what, if anything, people are saying about you and your blog, website or company.
♦  Find out what people of interest or others in your industry are thinking and talking about.
♦  Stay informed of the latest trends within your niche and areas of interest.
♦  Connect with new information to expand your knowledge base.
♦  Penetrate new communities of forward-thinking subject matter experts and extend your network.

For career marketing and job search:
♦  Uncover decision makers at companies of interest to you, with whom you can connect.
♦  Compile company and industry market intelligence when preparing for job interviews.
♦  Assess and conduct due diligence on companies you’re considering working for.


For blogging and Twitter:
♦  If you quickly act on an Alert, you may be the first responder to a new post on a blog. People reading blog comments are much more likely to notice, read the comment, and click on the link provided when a comment lands at the top of the list. And your blog comments build on-brand search results when people Google “yourname”, especially if the blog has good link weight.
♦  When you get an Alert on a blog post you’ve written within an hour or two of publishing it, you’ll know Google considers it highly relevant and will be sending other searchers to the post when they Google matching keywords.
♦  Generate ideas for blog posts and tweets from Alerts you receive.
♦  Find relevant sites where you may be able to publish an article or guest blog, adding more strong search results for your name and blog or website.


What has Google Alerts done for you lately?

The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About

The Best Resources For Beginning To Learn What Twitter Is All About

Developing Your Employment Toolbox

Wednesday, September 30
Benedictine University
Krasa Student Center, second floor

5:00-6:00 p.m. - Registration
6:00-7:00 p.m. - Speed Networking Session
7:00-9:00 p.m. - Panel Discussion

Human Resources professionals and job seekers
will discuss the importance of...
• Networking with professionals
• Marketing yourself effectively
• Pro-active job search strategies
• Researching companies and organizations
• Making connections in your field of interest
• Innovative resume writing and interviewing techniques

$5 registration fee for Benedictine Alumni.
$10 registration fee for community members.

Pre-register by going to
www.ben.edu/EmploymentToolbox.

For more information, contact
Lindsey Fritz,
Office of Career Development
5700 College Road
Lisle, IL 60532
(630) 829-6040

Me 2.0

Dan Schawbel is an accomplished marketing professional and a leading personal branding expert. In his new book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, he defines your Personal Brand as your total perceived value, relative to competitors, as viewed by your audience. The elements of your personal brand include:

• Personal Appearance - Including clothing, hygiene and attractiveness.
• Personality - Your values, goals, identity and behavior.
• Competencies - cognitive, business, communication and technical skills that enable you to perform your job responsibilities.
• The Differentiator - Offering a unique value proposition or benefit to your target audience.

After developing a personal brand that contains these elements, you must construct a message that will resonate with your audience. Personal branding must be a continuous effort. As your experience, competencies, physical and emotional attributes grow, your brand will enhance, much like in a product lifecycle. Creating, maintaining and evolving your brand will help you command your prospective audience and positively communicate your perceived and unique message. The bottom line is to treat yourself as the product and sell it!

Tips To Build Your Personal Brand

• Solicit feedback from business associates about who you are professionally and how you are perceived. If the two aren't in sync, develop a strategy for bringing them into alignment. This might begin with rewriting your resume.
• Use various means to promote your brand. Create a personal Web site and blog that reflects your style, describes what you do, details your background, and effectively communicates your unique value. Include your credentials, experience, skills, and personal attributes that differentiate you from your competitors. Give your readers a compelling reason to seek you out.
• The old adage says that a picture is worth a thousand words. By using visuals that reinforce your verbal message, you can create powerful, positive impressions for your readers
• Reinforce your personal brand in all your interactions with others. Mention your key qualities and special skills every chance you get, whether in voicemail messages, your email signature, or when you speak with current or potential clients in person.
• The development of your personal brand is an ongoing effort. Try different approaches to see what ultimately works best and achieves the results you desire.

Benefits of a Personal Brand

• Increases self-awareness. You develop a deeper self-understanding about what constitutes your unique value, which helps optimize your strengths.

• Clarifies your goals. You become focused on what to achieve and what goals you must set to get there.

• Creates visibility and presence. Once you know what is unique and compelling about you, you can use that information to communicate to your target audience.

• Differentiation. You gain the ability to differentiate yourself from everyone else who has your job title or who says they are in the same business as you.

• More control. Your personal brand puts you in control of your career, the projects you work on, and how you want to deliver services.

• Creates wealth. Strong brands charge a premium for their products and services, and differentiated job seekers who know their value can command higher salaries.

• Staying power. Strong brands are successful despite challenges and downturns in the economy because they stand for something unique and are differentiated.

Five Big Lies About A Job Search

• Always State an Objective on Your Resume
  Telling a prospective employer what you want is a waste of words and not important to them. Rather, use a concise, specific, well crafted (no boilerplate language or clumsy clichés) profile or summary statement to communicate your personal brand and tie together your career experience. An employer will be compelled by your unique value proposition.

• Job Boards are the Best Leads
  It’s fine to check online and search postings, but relying solely on Monster, Career Builder and Hot Jobs is like playing a slot machine and hoping for a big payoff. Consider the odds and spend your time where your efforts have the highest probability for success.

• There is no Hidden Job Market
  Many jobs are never posted. Your network is the best source of leads. Make sure people know about your search. They can’t help you if they don’t know you’re looking. Work diligently to constantly expand your network. Consider who might be able to help you – even if it’s someone you don’t know yet – and figure out how you can go about meeting that person.

• Recruiters will find you a job
  You are ultimately responsible for finding a job. A recruiter is only interested in filling an open position with the best candidate – as specified by their client, the hiring company. If you’re the right match, then the recruiter will try to close the deal and get you placed. Remember, the client company is paying the recruiter’s fee, you’re not.

• Social Networking is a Fad
  Social Networking is here to stay and must be a key part of a job search strategy. By connecting with people and sharing something of value (an article, blog post, or other contacts), you will see doors begin to open. The more quality connections you make, the more opportunities will surface. The most important factor in social networking is trying to help others first. What can you bring to a networking relationship? Find people that you can help and start by giving. The principle of it’s better to give than to receive is especially pertinent in social networking. What you can give to others will come back to you.

Change Up Your Job Search Plan

If you are you struggling to find a job despite all the time and effort you're expending, Sital Ruparelia, founder of 6 Figure Career Management writes that there are 10 ways to change the world and land a job.

His basic advice - stop looking.

Having gained your attention with that shocking statement, he goes on to explain. Rather than spending your whole week job searching, spend part of your week doing something completely different. And he is not suggesting watching TV or 'doing lunch' with friends.

Instead, he suggests doing something of value, something that would make a difference to someone else. By spending more time helping others, and less time on your own search, you'll paradoxically find that you improve your chances of finding work.

Of his 10 suggestions, 4 directly correlate to your job search activities and should be incorporated into your job search plan.

• Start a blog and share your opinions on a topic or subject you care about
• Give a talk at a college or university on a subject where you have some expertise
• Share everything you're learning about job searching with other job seekers who are out of work
• Volunteer your time and skills to a charity or non-profit

These efforts cost nothing, other than some part of your time, yet some important benefits accrue including:

• An increased sense of purpose and achievement
• Increase in self esteem
• Meeting new people and widening your network
• You'll have a unique answer to that interview question: "So what have you been doing with your time since you finished your last job?"
• You'll develop some new skills (e.g. speaking, writing, mentoring, teaching) which can give you another edge in the job market
• Good karma. What goes around, comes around.

Write A Twitter Résumé

In a recent post, John Walker, a job search expert, explained how to write an effective Twitter resume. Elements to be considered include:

Job Title - this is the title of the position you are currently seeking.

Location - use the #tag or Hashtag of the location where you want to work or where you want to relocate.

Link to Resume - you can link to your personal website, online resume or a social networking profile. Use a URL shortening service like Bit.ly or TinyURL to stay within the 140 character limit.

Use Hastags - hastags are a way for Twitter users to classify tweets and group them together. Examples of hastags that you should include in your Twitter resume are #needajob, #laidoff, #jobangels. A great resource for looking up hashtags being used is Hashtags.org.

TweetMyResume - post your resume on Tweetmyresume.com for added exposure.

ReTweets - ask your Twitter following to retweet your Twitter resume making it very viral!

Taking Your Personal Brand To The Market

Personal branding is about differentiating yourself from the competition. It’s about self packaging and presenting your unique value proposition to your target audience. Projecting a consistent and indelible image that fits who you really are is important. Taking your brand to market means that you:

• Establish yourself as a subject matter expert
• Build a solid reputation within your industry
• Increase your perceived value in the marketplace

Building trust and credibility are the keys to success in any marketing effort. As people begin to see your name and become aware of the benefit and knowledge that you offer, you will become known as someone whose expertise is valued. Your brand will make a permanent impression and YOU will be remembered.

Whether you are looking for a new job or striving for career advancement in your present job, your personal brand and how you market it will create the gap between you and your competitors. Remember YOU are the product. Its time to go to market and sell it!

Personal Branding Defined

Allison Tibbs, an eXaminer.com contributor, has created her own definition of Personal Branding and broken it down into its component parts to give a better understanding of the term.

Personal Branding – Achieving personal and professional goals by differentiating yourself by articulating your unique value through a consistent message.

• Achieving personal and professional goals - Everyone has or should have goals that they set, whether they are personal or professional. There is no benefit to setting goals if you do not reach them. It is important that your Personal Brand gives you the extra step needed to reach those goals.

• Differentiating yourself by articulating your unique value – Your Personal Brand can be the deciding factor on whether you are chosen, promoted, hired, or believed. If your Personal Brand is not viewed as valuable and unique, there is no real reason for you to be the chosen one. Therefore, it is important to create a brand that stands out and proves to be valuable and successful.

• Through a consistent message – A successful brand is one that is consistent, because if it is not, you will begin to confuse your target audience. Once confusion sets in your credibility falters and you will not be taken seriously. If you confuse your audience, you lose your audience.

Can I be the only Man in America that truly understands the magnitude of this crisis Our Country is in??

Wake Up People…stop medicating yourself and Become Engaged with the people around you. It’s no secret that millions of Americans are unemployed or significantly underemployed, that 10s of thousands of individuals are terrified of losing their homes and can’t afford their health insurance or even put decent food on their tables. Just because the (corporate controlled) American Media refuses to report the truth, doesn’t mean it is nonexistent. My best guess is that if you take the reported unemployment numbers and then double them, you will grasp the enormity of the situation. The fact is that all of you have friends, family or neighbors that awaken each day is despair…and NO it’s not OKAY to keep telling them “just hang in there, things will get better.”

We as citizens of this great country can no longer remain in a stagnant state of denial…as this continued complacency will soon put most of us in collective Financial Incarceration to those foreign countries that own our enormously growing debt! At the core of our dilemma is plainly Corporate Greed.

Think about it for a moment; how can the same financial institutions that just last year were on the brink of collapse and were the primary beneficiaries of BILLIONS from the TRILLION DOLLAR stimulus package…are now mysteriously showing BILLION DOLLAR profit reports? Simple, these revenues primarily come from reprehensible fees charged for late payments and excessive increased interest rates on revolving consumer credit cards. Even worse is the fact that these despicable costs are levied on the backs of the very same people who can least afford them! And just for a little ‘Icing on the Cake’ the very same group of managing executives who put-in-place these financial instruments are being paid MILLION DOLLAR bonuses again as our National Debt increases by the TRILLIONS.

I personally am a believer in Capitalism. I am an advocate of our constitutional rights to free enterprise. However I cannot sit back any longer and just be a spectator and watch how the GREED of a FEW destroy the fabric of the country I am proud to call home.

by Robert Doner

Marketing Strategy in Today's Environment

Gave a presentation on Wed the 19th of Aug. to MSG on marketing strategy in today's business world. Check out the presentation at http://www.linkedin.com/in/tkripas

Natural Networking Powerpoint

· For Illinois, recession looking milder, recovery weaker

By: Monée Fields-White July 25, 2009

(Crain’s) — Illinois’ economic downturn is easing as home sales stabilize and factory orders start to recover, but lingering unemployment points to a weaker-than-expected recovery next year, according to a new forecast.

Moody’s Economy.com now foresees a 1.4% decline in gross state product for 2009, better than the 2.1% decline the Pennsylvania-based firm predicted earlier in the year. It’s also better than the 2.7% drop Economy.com forecasts for the national economy.

“Things are not going to be getting significantly better, but they are not going to be getting worse,” said Sophia Koropeckyj, an economist at Economy.com.

After coming to a standstill late last year, manufacturers are starting to see new orders trickle in; inventories, which have been drawn down to the bottom, likely will be rebuilt.

Orders at Chicago-based Janler Corp. have been creeping back slowly after disappearing last winter, said Carol Ebel, owner and president of the plastic injection molds and molding company. The loss in business forced Janler to cut pay for its 10 salaried workers by 10% and reduce work time for its 30 hourly employees to 40 hours per week from 50.

“We’re starting to see those orders come back,” said Ms. Ebel, who expects flat revenue this year after experiencing the same in 2008. “We’ve been playing it tight because we feel there’s still some uncertainty out there.”

Bruce Braker, president of the Park Ridge-based Tooling and Manufacturing Assn., said many of his 1,250 members are experiencing the same. “Most are saying that they have found a bottom and that they are seeing orders starting to head back up,” he said.

The state already has seen home sales begin to stabilize, Ms. Koropeckyj said. Statewide sales rose 20.8% in June, the fifth-straight monthly rise, according to the Illinois Assn. of Realtors. Compared with a year earlier, however, June sales were down 9.3%.

But the recovery in the state’s economy will be weaker than previously expected, Ms. Koropeckyj said. Next year, growth will expand about 0.9%—slower than the 1.5% Economy.com predicted in March.

The biggest factor undercutting the rebound is stubbornly high unemployment. In June, the total number of unemployed in Illinois was 683,300. That’s the most in any month since November 1983. The unemployment rate rose to 10.3%, also a 26-year high.

“The labor market will not bottom out for another four quarters,” Ms. Koropeckyj said.

What do you think?

Anthony K. wrote:

Looking milder??? How stupid can you be? Maybe you need to be speaking to the other business papers to find out what's happening. Manufacturing as far as I can see is almost at a stand still. Demand is down for product therefore there is NO need for workers. Illinois has one of the highest unemployment stats in the nation. Why don't you ask the questions ... Where are the Jobs, Why aren't the banks loaning money, Where is the BEEF? When MOMS don't shop for supplies stores don't move inventory .... I say sustainable recovery is not going to be here for a long time and that's if we learn real business from the likes of Warren B.