Quantcast
Channel: Co.Labs
Viewing all 43261 articles
Browse latest View live

Here's What It Takes For Your Company's Culture To Survive An Acquisition

$
0
0

Integrating two companies' cultures takes forethought, a solid plan, and time.

Your company's culture is what defines it. Small startup or large corporation, it's the set of values and attitudes that bind your employees together. So what happens to that identity when another company buys you out? Mergers and acquisitions can cause fear and confusion, usually leaving questions about the impact on corporate culture low down on the list of priorities.

Under a deadline to push a deal through, business leaders don't usually sit down to discuss how to head off a culture clash. That's a task that takes time, planning, and effort few seem willing or able to spend time on, but it's a process that can make the integration that follows either much more seamless or difficult to execute as a result.

Building On What's Similar

Negotiating a public acquisition without sacrificing culture is a scenario Coyote Logistics is all too familiar with. The transportation and logistics company began as one of several entrants into the freight brokerage business in 2006, but its technology catapulted Coyote to the top of a competitive market. With 2,200 employees, the privately held company was acquired by UPS in a $1.8 billion deal last year. That raised concerns among analysts who questioned whether UPS's culture as a long-established player would mesh with Coyote's more scrappy, startup spirit.

"It's important to start with leaders who get what's truly important," Jodi Navta, CMO of Coyote Logistics, tells me. "UPSers and Coyotes alike share an honest commitment to getting the job done no matter what. UPS acquired us for our 'no excuses' promise to our customers, carriers, and to each other."

As Navta explains, Coyote saw its own values—chiefly that "no excuses" spirit—reflected in UPS's culture. So one key to the acquisition was for both companies to amplify each other's success stories through their respective team's shared intranet. The goal wasn't just to get everybody clear on the new processes involved in working within UPS, but to let both teams build a culture that could continue to support their clients, partners, and one another.

Strong leadership and communication on both sides, Navta says, helped Coyote navigate that challenge without surrendering its identity. It helped that the groundwork was already in place. For a few years prior to the acquisition, Coyote played a growing role in supporting UPS peak operations, so UPS had already seen the value in Coyote's culture firsthand.

Draw Up A Plan

Corporate culture is often seen as a "soft" attribute—something that can't be strategized or mapped out. But that assumption tends to work against both companies in the midst of an acquisition. One key to merging two distinctive cultures is to create a plan with clear objectives. Otherwise cultural problems can begin to undermine value creation and lead to falloffs in productivity.

Start small. Talk to your employees to identify their top concerns over an acquisition. Brainstorm some ways to keep the best aspects of both cultures intact, always looking for points of commonality. And over-communicate—every employee needs to understand what goes into an acquisition and what they should expect, and as those details change, team members need to know how and why.

Before an acquisition, managers with extensive cultural knowledge about their own organization should assess the culture of the company they'e acquiring. That means conducting interviews with employees. The idea is to gain a better understanding of the company's strengths and weaknesses, and any fears or doubts an employee may harbor toward an acquisition. You need to apply the same rigor to your due diligence on the cultural side that you would on the financial one.

Applied Predictive Technologies was acquired by MasterCard (a public company) in 2015, and according to the Washington Post, the company worked hard to maintain transparency and constant communication so employees understood how the acquisition would impact their day-to-day activities. Because that was part of the plan, it was easier for the company to deliver.

Earning New Employees' Commitment

If the goal is to retain all the employees from an acquired company, the public organization also needs to secure incoming employees' brand loyalty.

That doesn't happen overnight. Declaring to employees of a newly acquired company that they're about to become part of a big corporate entity might not sit well with those who deliberately set out to work with a more entrepreneurial, startup-minded company. Those employees will have their own set of expectations that differ from the company that's going to acquire them. You need to listen to those expectations, address them, then give everyone time to settle in.

A public acquisition can spell great things for your business financially, but your employees—new and old alike—all need to be on the same page first. Culture doesn't just have to be a liability—something to manage. It can also play in your favor, as an effective tool for making the integration go more smoothly. You just have to know how to use it.


The Only 7 Steps You Need To Prepare For Your Next Job Interview

$
0
0

There's a lot of interview-prep advice out there—maybe too much. This is what really matters.

You stressed over every little adjective on your resume ("efficient or productive?"). You wrote draft after draft of your cover letter. And now you've arrived at the moment of truth: the job interview, when you'll be face to face with the person who controls your employment destiny.

Are you really gonna leave this one up to fate?

Even the most charming of candidates needs to practice before stepping in front of a hiring manager. "If you try to wing it, you'll miss your chance to make a strong case as the best candidate, and the interviewers could recognize that you're unprepared," says Lori Bumgarner, owner and coach at PaNash, an executive, career, and life-coaching service in Nashville. "They'll assume if you didn't put in the time and effort to prepare, you're not that interested in the job."

Getting prepped doesn't have to make you sweat. Monster compiled these tips to help get you ready for the big day.

1. Study Up On The Company And Industry

The more knowledge you have, the better prepared you'll be. Start by researching the latest trends and issues in the industry the job is in, Bumgarner says. This can include reading relevant industry blogs, trade publications, and professional associations' social media pages. Commit a few noteworthy statistics to memory so that you can wow the hiring manager with your awareness of the current state of affairs.

Then, focus on learning more about the company itself. Review press mentions for the past few years. Look for both press releases issued by the company, as well as what traditional media reported. If you're interviewing at a public company, you can also view financial statements and reports to shareholders to find out exactly how the company makes its money. All of this information will help you craft thoughtful questions to ask during the interview.

2. Investigate The Interviewers

If you know the names of the people who will be interviewing you, do an online search on them to learn more about their professional backgrounds and what they talk about on social media.

Maybe they have a particular affinity for a certain aspect of the company, like its outreach program. If so, make a mental note to express your enthusiasm for the way the company is dedicated to giving back to the community. (Avoid a brown-nosing tone, of course.)

If you discover that you've got something interesting in common—like a previous employer or a passion for thumb wrestling—you'll definitely want to use that in your meeting.

3. Nail Your Opener

One of the questions interviewers most love to open with is, Don't get caught blabbering your way through this seemingly straightforward answer.

"Have an elevator speech ready in case they want a brief overview of your career," says Marlene Caroselli, author and corporate trainer in Rochester, New York. Practice delivering a 30-second pitch about past experiences and successes, your skills and abilities, where you are in your career and what challenge you're seeking next.

4. Figure Out Your Selling Points

Now you want to think about the meat and potatoes of the interview: the questions that relate to the job requirements and your experience.

Remember, your goal in the job interview is to show how you can make a positive impact on the company. Your interview answers should reiterate your unique selling points, Bumgarner says.

To practice, review some likely interview questions and make notes about the strengths you can highlight.

"For every answer, you should be able to say, 'For example,' and tell a story about a time when you demonstrated the things you are saying you are good at," Bumgarner says. "Never answer in generalities." Specific, real-world examples are what will get you hired.

5. Master The Closer

You also want to close the interview well. Typically, an interview will end with the interviewer asking, "Is there anything you want to ask me?" Regardless of how well-informed you feel, don't get out of your seat until you ask some questions of your own. You should include questions about the company culture as well as the job itself.

Remember: You're interviewing the company just as much as they're interviewing you.

After you ask your questions, you'll want to close with a firm handshake and a positive, enthusiastic statement like "I really enjoyed meeting you, Sue, and finding out more about this position. It seems like a great fit for my experience, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you about next steps."

6. Get Your Hollywood On

There's no better way to practice an interview than actually doing an interview, so get a friend or family member to help you. Provide them with the details you dug up on the company, the job description for your position, your resume, and cover letter. Take the list of tough interview questions from here and provide them to your helper. (Also take a bottle of wine to thank the person—and maybe another if you actually get the job.)

Caroselli recommends you film your mock interview, if possible. (If video isn't a possibility, record the audio.) "Study your body language to see if it reveals confidence, poise, and enthusiasm," she says.

You should also review your performance with your interviewer. Did they think you had good answers? Did you sound or act nervous? Did you seem arrogant? Get their feedback, and adapt as needed.

7. Focus On What You'll Have For Dinner

Once you've done all this prep, don't let last-minute jitters throw you off your game. In the moments just before the interview, try to think about something else entirely.

For example, "When you get to the interview site and are waiting to be called in to the interview room, work on a brainteaser," Caroselli says. "It calms the nerves and takes your mind off the challenge ahead."

Take some deep breaths and remind yourself that you put in all the homework required to make a solid impression. You've got this. And we're pulling for you.


This article originally appeared on Monster and is reprinted with permission.

Announcing The Winners Of The 2016 Innovation By Design Awards

$
0
0

A panel of 26 expert judges pored through more than 1,700 entries and selected the best products, services, and ideas of 2016.

Year by year, the Innovation by Design Awards have grown. This year's entries represented an astonishingly strong survey of innovation around the globe—more than 1,700 designs. In the eyes of our esteemed judges, the projects you'll find below (and in the slide show above) were the best of the best. There were only 15 winners anointed in the entire competition; we also crowned 231 finalists. Each of those projects represents what's best about design today: big ideas, meticulously thought-out details, and a clear viewpoint about how we live now—and how it could be better. We hope that you'll dig in and be inspired.

Apps: Tilt Brush

Digital artists have embraced the screen-as-canvas, but the next medium to master is a touch more esoteric: virtual reality. The immersive experience is becoming more accessible to the masses, and Tilt Brush is Google's tool to give everyone—VR pros and n00bs alike—the chance to create in 3D. Using room-scale tech, which tracks movement throughout a confined area, the app lets users paint in space with materials like fire, snowflakes, and a near-infinite palette of brushes and colors. When a work is complete, users can actually walk through their masterpiece, or welcome others into the brand-new world they created.

Apps: Adobe Experience Design CC

Adobe Experience Design CC (XD) is an all-in-one digital platform that provides the basic tools to both prototype and perfect UX projects. Rather than build this toolset on top of existing Adobe software, the company established an entirely new product development process, and thousands of independent designers were looped in to test early builds and provide feedback on pre-release programs—a uniquely nimble and transparent approach from an industry behemoth. The ever-evolving XD experience currently encompasses wire-framing, visual design, interaction design, prototyping, previewing, and sharing, and with the help of the creative community will become an even more robust destination for realizing websites and apps.

Branded Environments: littleBits Pop-up Shop

Since 2011, budding engineers have been developing their tinkering skills with littleBits kits; these inventions-in-a-box provide all the necessary gear to make tech- and code-based contraptions, but were only ever available via mail order. In 2015, the company debuted its first ever pop-up shop, a hands-on hub in the heart of SoHo that introduced visitors to the magical world of making. For six months, the brick-and-mortar workshop was open for business, welcoming creative kids (and curious adults) to interact with the products on-site, engaging with the full inventory of littleBits component parts while discovering and developing the little hackers that exist within us all.

Experimental: bioLogic

BioLogic: Nattō is an ancient, aggressively pungent Japanese dish made from fermented soybeans. Nearly 1,000 years after its accidental discovery by a traveling samurai, the bacteria required to produce this slimy cuisine is being manipulated by the mad scientists at the MIT Media Lab and turned into something entirely different: A synthetic bio-skin. Rather than manufacturing actuators, which convert energy into motion, and sensors, which are affected by physical stimuli, the team is actually growing them; those animate cells are then harvested and transformed into a responsive material that reacts to body heat and sweat. And this next-level material will have a second life out of the lab—New Balance is experimenting with turning the textile into sportswear.

Graphic Design & Data Visualization: When and How You Will Die

Death is inevitable, but the circumstances of any person's pivotal moment of passing on are largely uncertain. When and How You Will Die is a macabre digital experiment that aggregates different demographic variables like gender, age, and average life expectancy. It combines that data with stats on the most common ways to perish (think cancer or congenital disorders), then generates an interactive visualization that predicts the potential cause and timeline for your own personal adios. It's heavy stuff anchored in data, stats, and simulations that may or may not make you feel better about your impending mortality.

Health: Planned Parenthood Experience

Providing—or receiving—essential health services should not be a political act, but Planned Parenthood's stalwart role as a nonprofit resource for sexual and reproductive education and services has put it on the front lines during a contentious time for women's rights. In order to ensure that the experience inside their clinics is welcoming, calm, and comfortable, Planned Parenthood enlisted Ideo to develop a new look and feel for waiting and recovery rooms. From the inviting, informational greeting zone, to the pre-procedure areas (more social, or solitary and reflective, depending on your mood), to the soothing after experience, everything was designed with empathy for patients in mind.

Products: GO Wheelchair

Wheelchairs are essential mobility devices for millions of Americans. GO hopes to transform the somewhat staid industry with a tech-driven approach to production, allowing users to create and customize their rides using personal biometric data on an easy-to-navigate app. Thoughtful advances like high-grip GO gloves and textured push rims will help reduce muscle strain and energy output, while the streamlined design just looks cool. LayerLAB teamed up with designer Benjamin Hubert and 3D-printed software titans Materialise to cut down turnaround time to three weeks—less than half than the standard two months—thanks to a set of standard components and two made-to-measure, locally 3D printed elements.

Products: Hubb Lifetime Oil Filter

Every few thousand miles when car owners get their oil changed, the corresponding filter—often a paper-pulp contraption that clogs easily—is tossed in the trash, to the tune of about 400 million per year in the states, creating a lot of waste. The ultra-durable Hubb Lifetime Oil Filter is composed of two internal filter sets made from stainless steel mesh; the material is sized to capture debris while letting liquid flow through, while doubling the total surface area greatly increases efficiency and longevity. But perhaps best of all, it's reusable. Rather than junk it during a service, the device can be cleaned on the spot and fit back into the vehicle, over and over again for 50 years.

Products: The Mover Kit

Kids can be crazy bundles of energy, but many younguns still aren't getting enough physical activity in their day-to-day lives. The forward-thinking folks at Technology Will Save Us created The Mover Kit to make exercise feel like play, with the added educational bonus of programming basics. The pack includes a plastic watch-like wearable that snaps into place on wrists, arms, legs, and more; little users can hop online to customize their accessory on TWSU's proprietary Make platform, coding it to track motion and direction, or to light up with rainbow LEDs.

Social Good: Fairphone 2

Planned obsolescence is a major problem in tech. Increasingly complex products are designed to degrade after a certain period of time; consumers keep buying new versions without considering how to fix their current model; and, as a result, the Earth is getting overrun with unnecessary e-waste. Fairphone 2 offers an alternative to that vicious cycle, with a durable, modular smartphone designed for ease of use (and re-use). Thanks to a streamlined hardware design with minimal component parts, users have the power to troubleshoot repairs with household tools, and in the process form a new relationship with their gadget. A broken screen takes less than a minute to replace, no tools required, and the camera, headphone jack, and micro USB connector can be fixed using a screwdriver.

Spaces, Places, Cities: Carmel Place

Prefab systems have long been touted, in some form, as the future of architecture; the promise of cheaper, faster, and more efficient construction methods makes the processes seem ideal, but scaling up from small single-family homes—the most common option on the market—has been slightly slow to catch on. In Manhattan, where real estate is precious and space is at a premium, Carmel Place offers an innovative take on urban development. Former mayor Michael Bloomberg tasked Brooklyn-based firm nArchitects to design a micro-units development, and issued a special mayoral override that allowed them to get around zoning codes dictating an apartment must have a minimum area of 400 square feet. Of the skyscraper's 65 individual modules, 55 units are under 440 square feet; these are diplomatically dubbed residential micro-units, and the structure represents the first micro-unit apartment building in NYC. Each of these individual modules were produced off-site, then transported and stacked in place. Shared amenities like a gym and public roof terrace make smart use of communal space, while luxuriously decorated interiors and 10-foot ceilings prevent these homes from feeling too cramped.

Spaces, Places, Cities: Hunts Point Landing

Set over a former dead-end street on a once contaminated shoreline surrounded by an industrial zone, the community-minded park and pier at Hunts Point Landing proves that urban revitalization is not only possible, but can truly transform what is considered by many to be irredeemable blight. Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects designed the 100-foot wide, 1.5 acre public space as part of the South Bronx Greenway Master Plan, and navigated the city's numerous agencies and labyrinthine approval processes to ensure proper access and utility systems. The result is an outdoor retreat for locals that will only continue to grow into an integral part of the neighborhood.

Students: EM-Sense

The Internet of Things has made communication between inanimate objects a reality. Em-Sense, developed by students at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute, links people even closer into those instant connections through the power of physical touch. Everyday items like toothbrushes and doorknobs naturally produce electromagnetic noise (EM); when you make contact, those electrical signals circulate through your body (yes, you are conductive!). Imagine a maps app showing a shortcut on your smartwatch simply because you straddled a motorcycle. Em-Sense enables touch identification, authentication, and all kinds of custom DIY experiences.

User Experience: IKO Creative Prosthetic System

Navigating the world with a disability can be a physical and emotional challenge for kids. The IKO Creative Prosthetic System turns artificial body parts into Inspector Gadget-style imagination machines that transcend traditional uses with all kinds of attachments. Hand? Sure! Space ship? Why not! Blender? Yeah! This playful approach empowers little creatives to embrace the relationship between their bodies and the tools that help them live comfortably and confidently. By combining robotics, programming, and prototyping with Lego Mindstorms, IKO provides a learning experience for the young user, and allows them to share that knowledge with their peers.

Websites & Platforms: Kinduct

Kinduct is a responsive software system developed to optimize athletes' performances. By aggregating data from external sources like electronic medical records, and combining it with proprietary assessment trackers, the platform's visualizations and analysis can help determine the most effective training and treatment strategies for individual players, rather than a more traditional team-wide approach. The Golden State Warriors were one of the first NBA organizations to adopt the tool, and their consistent performance through the 2015 and 2016 seasons shows Kinduct's vast potential.

See above for this year's winners, and click here for the full list of 2016 Innovation by Design honorees.

Pinterest Is Using Machine Learning To Help You Find What You'll Pin Next

$
0
0

The social-sharing platform uses cutting-edge techniques to tailor recommendations to each user and boost engagement.

With 100 million users active on its platform every month, Pinterest is increasingly relying on machine learning to help guide the company to new online discoveries.

People come to Pinterest to explore, save, and share images and posts from around the internet. Finding content they like naturally keeps them engrossed in the platform: The company says 30% of engagement and 25% of in-Pinterest purchases are driven by the platform's recommendations of related content. To get those recommendations right, the company relies on cutting-edge, data-driven techniques and lots of experimentation.

"A lot of what I"m doing here is trying to shape what direction we go in approaching the discovery problem," says Pinterest's lead discovery science engineer Mohammad Shahangian. "We launch hundreds of experiments that actually make small changes to our algorithms, and every single one of these changes has places where it helps, and places where it hurts."

One advantage is that the platform is explicitly built around recording people's interests, as users save products, posts, and images from around the web to virtual pinboards. That means Pinterest doesn't have to guess what users find interesting from, say, click patterns or time spent on particular pages, as other social networks might. And it means its algorithms can guess which of the 75 billion pinned items in its database are related to each other, since they're more likely to be pinned to the same boards.

"A lot of companies are trying to infer what interests users have off of inputs or signals," Shahangian says. "At Pinterest, users are explicitly giving that signal, saying this is what I'm interested in."

Pinterest visitors are essentially contributing to an ever-growing, three-part social graph, with billions of connections between users, the items they pin and the boards to which they pin them. And all that data lets Pinterest populate users' home feeds, search results, and related pin recommendations with a greater degree of nuance: Simply showing users' recommendations based on who they follow is less than ideal—think of a case where a user is planning a wedding and pinning dresses, while her followers are not—and just suggesting similar items can get repetitive, according to Shahangian.

"If you pinned a kitchen sink, do we want to send you 10,000 more kitchen sinks, or inspiration for how you could design your kitchen overall?" he asks.

To make those kinds of decisions, the company's engineers have experimented with a variety of machine learning algorithms. They've studied how those different formulas perform on test sets of similar and dissimilar pins and, ultimately, how they impact the engagement of real-world users.

"We do have live experiments, but there are cases where we actually know a lot before exposing it to users," Shahangian says.

Of course, there's no way, short of actual testing, to know for a fact whether a given user will prefer a new set of recommendations. "I can't pay somebody money to tell me whether or not Jack or Susie is going to like this pin," Shahangian says. But looking at whether the algorithms accurately recommend content that human testers agree is related to a particular pin has proven to be a decent approximation.

Moving to an algorithmically generated feed, instead of a purely chronological display of followed users' posts, has boosted engagement by a factor of five or 10, with additional boosts as the algorithms have gotten better.

"We've seen a lot of gains throughout its history," Shahangian says. "Personalization has been one of the biggest levers for boosting user engagement."

At the same time, the company has also been working on improving visual searches, helping users find pinned images that are similar to other pictures. Pinterest engineers have worked with researchers from the University of California Berkeley Vision and Learning Center to develop the technology, which as of earlier this year can automatically detect objects in images using deep learning techniques. Then, users can tap those objects to find similar examples across Pinterest's library of saved content.

"It's not quite like a classification task where we try to figure out, is this a cat or a dog," says Dmitry Kislyuk, a lead visual search engineer at Pinterest. "We're actually trying to find some visual similarity between every single image, and we want to do this in real time."

The visual search tool works particularly well for finding home decor and fashion products saved to the site, he says. And in the future, the company hopes to improve its ability to map objects to categories, making it more useful for other types of searches. One example might be helping users find new recipes that are alike in ways beyond having similar photos of food.

"I think our models can become more semantic," says lead visual search engineer Andrew Zhai, referring to the idea of using deep learning to effectively map images to more conceptual categories. "We can eventually get better at those types of pins."

In the meantime, Pinterest's engineers have focused on perfecting object detection and search, with an eye toward potentially developing an app that would let smartphone users take pictures of objects in the real world, then get recommendations of related pins on the platform.

"It's just such an exciting time in the deep learning, computer vision field—everything moves so quickly," Kislyuk says. "The state of the art changes every couple of months."

From Ultra-Marathons To Landing Great Side Gigs: This Week's Top Leadership Stories

$
0
0

This week's top stories may help you land better-paying gig work or even inspire you to start training for an ultra-marathon.

This week we learned how to counter a boss's morally questionable requests, why extreme sports keep the president of Hotwire grounded at work, and where the most lucrative part-time work can be found.

These are the stories you loved in Leadership for the week of September 12:

1. This CEO's Secret To Work-Life Balance? Ultra-Marathons

"I'm a believer in work/leisure balance," Hotwire president Henrik Kjellberg told Fast Company this week. "I think life can contain both." That might sound like a bland remark if you don't know what Kjellberg means by it on a personal level. The exec frequently travels to remote locales and runs grueling ultra-marathons—habits he says keep him focused and grounded at work.

2. You Don't Need To Be In Tech To Find High-Paying Part-Time Jobs

Not all part-time work is created equal, according to new data from FlexJobs. Here's a look at the fields and roles that earn the highest part-time pay—plus a few other key trends in the freelance economy right now.

3. Here's A Guide To Deciphering Your Boss's Vague Instructions

Is your boss being careless? Is she testing you? Sometimes being given open-ended directives—whatever the reason—is an opportunity to prove why you're capable and worth trusting. This week we learned how to seize it.

4. Exactly What To Do To Convince Your Boss To Let You Work From Home On Fridays

According to one recent study, up to 80% of employers offer flexible hours but only 44% tell their employees about them. That means you may have a better shot at working from home at the end of the week than you might think. Here's how to broach the subject with your boss and what to say when you do.

5. 7 Ways To Respond When Your Boss Asks You To Do Something Unethical

First things first, avoid jumping to conclusions. Then assess the situation—the way you respond will depend quite a bit on the context. But according to these experts, you may have more options than you think when it comes to handling morally dubious requests.

These Three Bad Habits Are Killing Your Meetings

$
0
0

It isn't that meetings themselves are necessarily time wasters. It's what we do during them that matters.

Call it a product of busy schedules, increased tech connectivity, or fried attention spans, but for whatever reason, when you gather a group together for a meeting, almost everyone has a hard time ditching distractions and sticking to the task at hand. In fact, 47% of employees cite distracted coworkers as the biggest hurdle to having productive meetings.

If you take your job seriously, you're probably already doing your best to demonstrate engagement: actively listening, chiming in when appropriate, and keeping your phone off the table. But even when good meeting etiquette is at the top of your mind, it's easy to slip into bad habits.

To stay in your coworkers' good graces and get something valuable out of every meeting, though, you need to keep the following in check.

1. Not Making Eye Contact

At this point, the importance of making eye contact during a meeting has almost become a cliché—but for good reason. Maintaining it demonstrates engagement, interest, and respect. It's even been shown to increase your self-awareness. It might seem uncomfortable at first, but there are tons of easy hacks to improve your eye contact without creeping folks out with a deer-in-the-headlights stare.

One of my best tips is to make sure that the setup of your meeting is conducive to eye contact from the get-go: Try arranging your group in a circle or semi-circle so everybody can see each other without straining. Even if somebody's not in the same physical space as you, the importance of eye contact still holds true.

To accommodate attendees dialing in via video call, position your camera in a way that's within your natural line of vision so you appear to be looking one another in the eyes when you're speaking.

2. Using Your Laptop

Using your laptop often starts with the best intentions: taking notes, fetching relevant information online, and so on. But it's way too easy to go from transcribing the meeting to trying to figure out the name of that song you got stuck in your head last night without even realizing it.

That's why I recommend avoiding laptops altogether. Many things usually done on one can easily be done by hand, like taking notes on a pad of paper, or sharing data on a printed-out spreadsheet. But if a computer's an absolute must, you can still minimize its use. When going through a presentation, for example, encourage the speaker to share his screen on a TV so everyone can follow along.

Even if your meeting organizer hasn't strictly put a ban on laptops, leaving it at your desk or keeping it closed while you focus on the agenda helps you keep mindless distractions (not to mention email and chat notifications) at bay. Plus, ditching it unprompted will definitely leave a positive impression on your coworkers and perhaps encourage them to do the same.

3. Attending Irrelevant Meetings

There are three things you can be certain of in life: death, taxes, and unnecessary meeting invites. And while it's so easy to just click "Yes" on an invite and show up just because you were asked, you're actually doing a disservice to your teammates. When you have no stake in a meeting, coming across as disinterested is practically unavoidable. It's much better to stay at your desk and be productive than show up and look bored.

To combat this, make sure you get a heads up on what the meeting is about, why the organizer wants you there, what (if anything) you need to prepare in advance, and what you hope to accomplish by the end. Having this context makes it easier for you to decide whether the meeting would truly benefit from your presence, or if your time would be better spent elsewhere. Often, this information is included in an agenda or in the meeting invite itself, but if not, feel free to briefly check in with the meeting organizer face-to-face beforehand. If you decide your presence isn't necessary, politely explain your choice to the organizer. If you handle it right, he or she will probably appreciate your honesty.

To a certain degree, giving in to distraction is just part of being human. Nobody can stay on track 100% of the time, and that's going to be apparent in meetings every once in a while. But if you ever find yourself unintentionally leaving every meeting with no idea why you were there, it's worth introducing some tweaks to your routine.


This article originally appeared on The Daily Muse and is reprinted with permission.

With Hololens, Microsoft Is Learning From Google Glass's Failure

$
0
0

Where Google Glass failed, Hololens seems poised to succeed as a tool for the working man rather than a consumer headset for gamers.

"The space in our cities is limited," says Andreas Shierenbeck, CEO of ThyssenKrupp Elevator, a company that builds and maintains elevators worldwide. He's speaking to a small audience in a room with panoramic views of lower Manhattan, 63 stories off the street. Naturally, he's talking about the need for more elevators in densely packed cities that want to squeeze more living and office quarters into unoccupied vertical spaces.

New York is home to a glut of devices that move us up and down: 71,000 in total. Half of those are more than 20 years old according to Shierenbeck. To keep them in working order, his company is developing software for the Microsoft Hololens that will both train elevator repairmen on how to work on different elements of an elevator and understand a variety of parts. The holographic training guide will also enable workers to reference tutorials in augmented reality on their headset while they're simultaneously working on a broken elevator. Since the Hololens already connects to Skype, workers could also call various part manufacturers or a supervisor for guidance on implementation.

[Photo: courtesy of ThyssenKrupp]

This example, elevator repair, represents the future of augmented reality—a field that Google tried to capitalize on with its innovative eyewear Google Glass. Where Google Glass failed and where Microsoft's Hololens seems poised to succeed is the device's use as a tool for the working man rather than a consumer headset for gamers.

Many reviewers have already touted the Hololens' superiority to Google's now defunct Glass. And while the user experience may be richer, what really stands out is who is using the device and how. The developer edition of the Hololens began shipping to initial customers in March and then in August, Microsoft opened it up to all buyers in the U.S. and Canada. Since its debut the device has most publicly been used by NASA as a holographic set of instructions for astronauts aboard the International Space Station. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has also taken advantage of the headset, using it to explore holographic images of Mars captured by the Mars Rover.

But now we're seeing plenty of other industries emerging to take advantage of the potential of augmented reality. Trimble, a firm that designs applications for architects is working with the Hololens to create a holographic collaboration interface. This year, Japan Airlines demonstrated how an engine technician would use the Hololens to go from checking email to reviewing engine components.

Meanwhile, for ThyssenKrupp, the Hololens represents major possibilities forward for elevator repairmen who often have to wait days for assistance from component companies located in other time zones. For now, ThyssenKrupp workers will start experimenting with using Skype to enable on-site repair collaboration, while it builds out a bigger suite of training tools. These sorts of perfunctory applications may seem boring at a glance, but for many they represent the future of work.

Born In Between Generations? Here's How It Can Help Your Career

$
0
0

All the hubbub over millennials in the workforce risks ignoring generational "in-betweeners," but they may have some hidden advantages.

Helen Phung, a communications consultant, had what she considered a brilliant Halloween costume. She couldn't wait for her coworkers to give her knowing nods and make clever comments as they passed her in the kitchen. She was dressed as the Chicken Lady from Kids in the Hall, the Canadian sketch comedy show that originally aired from the late '80s to mid-'90s, and later as reruns on Comedy Central during the '00s.

When Phung strolled into her office wearing her pink and white masterpiece, ready to score points and winks, she recalls, "No such thing happened. No one knew who I was, nor did they think it was funny. I ended up having to say emphatically, 'I'm the Chicken Lady from Kids in the Hall! You don't know the Chicken Lady!? Oh, you've never seen Kids in the Hall? Okay. Cool. Well, it was hilarious. You should YouTube it.'"

Then she admits, "This led to a compounded feeling of alienation."

Phung's experience may sound simply like a case of generational differences. And maybe that's true. But for Phung, who was born on the cusp of both the millennial generation (born 1981–2001) and the tail end of generation X (born 1965–1980), her own generational position isn't so clear.

Like her, some generational "in-betweeners" in the workplace today may feel puzzled by Snapchat, yet were too young to listen to Nirvana and wear Doc Martins and flannels the first time around. Or else they're older members of gen X, who feel a little too old to identify with their Reality Bites peers but a little too young to throw in with the baby boomers (born 1946–1964) now in the midst of retirement planning.

This matters because, for better or worse, we're obsessed with dividing up our workplaces along generational lines. There's no shortage of professional hand wringing over what millennials supposedly want and require as their careers continue to advance. Much of that anxiety is driven by heaps of research that may help catalogue a given demographic's preferences and attitudes right now, but isn't so great at determining whether those are distinctly generational characteristics. This leads to at least as much stereotyping as genuine understanding. And ordinary employees, hemmed in by age-based assumptions, either need to use those caricatures to their advantage in the workplace or else suffer from them.

For those who were born squarely within one generational cohort, these aren't great options. But it isn't much better for those who weren't. Sure, dressing like the Chicken Lady and being met with blank stares is embarrassing, but people like Helen Phung don't just have to leave their niche Halloween costumes at home and feel out of place at work. They may actually be able to take the experience of being between generations and use it to their advantage.

[Photo: Flickr user Uwe Potthoff]

Bridging The Gap

One benefit of being between generations is obvious. "Being a generational "in-betweener" helps me connect with a broader cross-section of people than I might otherwise," says Fennemore Craig attorney James Goodnow, who was born in 1981.

He feels he's better able to act as a quasi-translator between generations, much the same advantage that business futurist Alexandra Levit says gen Xers are now poised to take advantage of en masse. Like those born in between generations, gen X is a considerably smaller cohort than the two big generational blocs on either side. As baby boomers phase out of the workforce, Levit believes gen X professionals may be able to bridge the communication divide between those veterans and the swelling ranks of younger workers.

The experience Goodnow describes is similar. "I think being on the cusp of different generations provides a distinct advantage," he says. "It makes it a bit easier to understand the attitudes, opinions, and perspectives of a larger group of people." After all, communication breakdowns don't just emerge between one generation and one that's two spots down the line, but also between one generation and the one directly behind it.

Unexpected Management Chops

Jeremy Hill, who was born smack dab between gen X and gen Y (millennials), in 1980, believes his experiences ultimately made him a better manager. Getting there wasn't an easy process, though.

When Hill graduated with a computer science degree, Y2K was a big concern. To prepare for the possibility of an impending technological disaster, his university required students to learn an "antiquated language" so they could retrofit banking and health care applications. So despite learning the latest and greatest coding languages, Hill's first job was writing an old code: Fortran 77. Here's how he recounts his first job experience:

The next-youngest person in that IT department was over twice my age. These men had grown up coding in Fortran 77 their entire lives, and it was all they knew. Everything was done in this ancient language, partly because they didn't really want to go through the hassle of changing it all up, but also because it meant job security for them.

It was a complete nightmare for me. As much as I tried to drag them into the 21st century, they resisted at every turn. I ended up very much isolated, and as soon as was feasible, I applied for any and every job I could think of.

Now that Hill is further along in his career, he says, "I find myself now playing the role of the old coot." For example, when his team went to see the new Star Wars movie together, Hill told them how the last time he'd been in line for a Star Wars movie was 1999. "And they all just looked at me as if I had said 1899."

But as a senior engineer, Hill's past experience as the onetime youngest guy on an immovable team comes in handy. He's more open to ideas than the older coworkers he used to have, yet history and experience keep him realistic. "The new guys all turn to me for advice and major decisions," he says, "because I have done my time in the trenches and can hopefully spare them any agony."

[Photo: Flickr user Ludo]

Being The First Passengers On The Tech Train

Technology prowess is often a point of contention between generations, and sometimes it's used as a pretext for age discrimination (as I've written previously for Fast Company with regard to the term "digital natives"). But Jessica Reeder, on the younger end of gen X, feels like being in the front car of the technology train helped her one-up her millennial peers.

"I was an early adopter of Myspace, Friendster, Twitter, Facebook, and a beta Gmail user," she explains. "I taught myself HTML, CSS, and Wordpress and built websites for good money. Then I went on to be a community manager at social networks like Meez and MOG. All those inroads kept me well ahead of the curve at crucial points throughout my professional development."

Reeder points out a great benefit to living in the gray area between generations X and Y: "I also had the luxury of trying those new things when the internet was relatively young, so most of my youthful mistakes are not on public display!"

Blessing And Curse

One true advantage to being sandwiched in between generations is simple: a wider perspective. Nick Braun, founder and CEO of PetInsuranceQuotes.com, says it well: "Being able to bridge two generations gives me a 40-year perspective on consumer behavior and market trends, not just 20. And we're empathetic to those both older and younger, which is a huge advantage."

That broad perspective can be frustrating as well, though. Nicole Lazar of the Nth Element, born in 1982, between gen X and gen Y, puts it this way:

I consider myself old-school, where I want to have real conversations with my clients and coworkers, not send a text. In today's professional world, this is becoming more scarce. In reality, my clients respond quicker via text or Facebook messaging, but the personal relationships I built my company on are dying. No longer do they look at my business as a loyal partner they can trust and rely on, but as a simple "service."

However, Lazar says, "Recognizing this, I still feel like that is my competitive edge today." She finds that most people in her industry don't hold meetings anymore or focus on the impact of personal relationships. Lazar's generation of professionals still appreciate that, though, so she makes sure to drop in for face time (not just FaceTime) as often as she can.

In a way, we can look at those born between generations as torch bearers. The more baby boomers that retire, the more the workforce loses not just knowledge capital but also cultural capital. It's the in-betweeners who may be best positioned to preserve the best qualities of the preceding generation in their companies' cultures.

And all the while, they can also help us see past the assumptions we're often too keen to make about what people belonging to one generation or another are supposed to be like. After all, it's never just our ages or birth positions that sometimes leave us feeling alienated at work (if only it were). At some point or another, we all find ourselves feeling like the only one in a hilarious Halloween costume no one else gets. It's what we do with that feeling that counts.


Anne Loehr is a speaker, writer, consultant, and trainer. She helps leaders in large organizations connect their everyday decisions today to the workplace of tomorrow. Follow Anne on Twitter at @anneloehr.


Birchbox Cofounder Hayley Barna On New Ventures, Glamping, And Her Filthy Fridge

$
0
0

After leaving Birchbox last year, Barna is diving into the VC world. She explains why and offers a look at what she's up to.

Last August, Birchbox co-CEO Hayley Barna decided to walk away from the influential beauty-subscription-box startup that she cofounded in 2010 (she remains on the company's board). "What we created with Birchbox was truly unique at the time," she explains. "I loved it, but it turned out the beauty industry is not my lifelong passion. It's [exploring] innovative business models." So, in February, Barna signed on as a partner at First Round Capital, the seed-stage VC firm that has invested in companies such as Uber, Warby Parker, and, not coincidentally, Birchbox. (Meanwhile, Barna's former company has been struggling, enduring two big rounds of layoffs earlier this year and receiving a $15 million injection of funds from current investors in August, reportedly due to cash-flow issues.)

Hayley Barna

One of Barna's initial First Round investments is certainly a departure from the makeup-sample universe. She's working with—and has joined the board of—a travel startup called Collective Hotels & Retreats, which builds pop-up luxury tent resorts in high-end locations such as Colorado's Aspen and Vail. "I laugh whenever I say glamping, but that's what it is," she says. "It's an atypical venture investment. I'm really excited about it."

Barna is also eager to dig into opportunities related to women's health, transportation, and the workplace, among other areas. "For now, I'm fully focused on helping entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground," she says. Still, you never know. "I'm not secretly sitting on my next business idea, but [starting companies] is part of who I am."

Best Recent Tech Development

"Tech has become more a part of pop culture, and being a founder has become a viable career path for people who might have gone into banking or consulting."

Worst Development

"Too much screen time. We're addicted to information. We need to work on our attention span."

Who Would Be On Her MCP list

Hanya Yanagihara, author of the dark 2015 coming-of-age best seller A Little Life. "It's heartbreaking but beautiful."

Recent Accomplishment

"I Marie Kondo–ed my apartment. I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff. When I did my refrigerator, I found things from, like, 2012. I was like, 'What have I been doing?'"

How She Stays Productive

"I used to stay up until 3 a.m. working. I've learned to go to bed early and finish in the morning. I try not to force myself to push through if I'm not feeling it."

Your Complete Guide To Moving Abroad To Work For Yourself

$
0
0

From visas and business taxes to traveling with pets, these are the logistical issues you'll want to tackle before hitting the road.

I was seated on my bedroom floor last week, sorting clothes into two piles in preparation for my upcoming move to Asia. One was stuff to keep. The other was full of ugly sweaters from 2001, destined for Goodwill.

No matter where you're going, moving is physically and emotionally draining. It's hard having to decide which parts of your life to bubble wrap and take with you and which to leave behind. When you're moving abroad, though, that sorting-and-packing struggle is just one piece of the challenge.

The droves of freelancers and entrepreneurs choosing to live and work abroad have more tools at hand than ever before for building businesses and supporting themselves. But before taking off, these "digital nomads" have a handful of planning and legal issues to sort through. That may feel intimidating, but as somebody who's managed to pull it off, I've found there are ways to minimize the paperwork and headaches so you can take off and start earning those paychecks sooner. These are the logistical issues you'll need to consider, and how to tackle them.

Moving And Storage

"Will I need my Magic Bullet in Hong Kong?" I wondered while downsizing my apartment into two suitcases. My first task was to sort through the knickknacks and other items I'd been hoarding for years before taking off again. Before packing your candle collection, ask yourself two questions:

  1. Will this weigh me down?
  2. Would I be upset if I never saw this item ever again?

Sorting through my room, I realized there were only a small number of items I couldn't do without. As for the rest, I'll be packing them up and storing them with some very generous friends or using a monthly storage and pickup solution like MakeSpace.

Setting Up Shop

When you decide to work for yourself, you need to figure out whether to set up a company (this guide can help) and which business licenses you may need. That can be tricky enough in your home country but may get even more difficult abroad. There are many types of business entities, and a lawyer can help you pinpoint which structure offers you the best protection and tax benefits.

Soheila Yalpani, a consultant who moved from California to Berlin, decided to incorporate in Estonia. Yalpani says the country has become a popular choice for international entrepreneurs because of its smart use of technology to streamline the setup process and cut back on red tape. "Not only can you file your taxes online" in Estonia, she says, "but the simple tax framework has 0% corporate tax on undistributed profits, 20% tax on distributed profits, and 20% income tax."

Fahim Farook, CEO of the app developer RookSoft, chose to incorporate in Dubai after learning about its "Free Zones," economic zones set aside for the government for free trade. "The process itself was very simple," Farook says. "We arrived in Dubai on a tourist visa and went to the free zone where we wanted to register our company. We then filled in the paperwork, paid the fees, and went back to our hotel. Two days later, we received the company registration documents via courier."

Taxes

Business taxes can leave you wanting to hide under the covers until April 15 has passed. You may be able to escape the country, but if you're an American, you have to declare your worldwide income if you're making over $10,000 a year (or $400 from self­-employment). Greg Dewald, founder of the expat tax firm Bright!Tax, explains.

Starting off, I made the mistake of trying to do my own taxes and lost countless hours filling out forms. Looking back, it may have saved me money, but the opportunity cost far outweighed the upfront monetary savings I should've spent on business development. Moving forward, I've enlisted the help of an accountant to help make tax time easier.

A CPA who specializes in expat taxes can help you claim items like the Foreign Earned Income Inclusion, with which you may be able to claim housing expenses—including rent, utility bills, insurance, and parking—as tax deductible up to 30%.

How much does an accountant cost? Digital media consultant Alyne Tamir pays her accountant around $500 a year to handle everything, yet she advises entrepreneurs not to choose a CPA based on price alone. "You might save $200 now but lose $20,000 later because your CPA missed something. When it comes to finances, I value experience over price," she says. "When choosing a CPA, ask if they have experience with your lifestyle and finances. If not, ask them to suggest someone who can help."

Mail Forwarding And Billing

On my last trip abroad, I forwarded my mail to my secretary mother who very graciously helped sort through bills and scan important documents for me. (Here's how to set up mail forwarding with the U.S. Postal Service.) On my next trip, though, I'll be using a more scalable option, like Scan Mailboxes or PostScanMail. This will digitize all my important documents and put them in a central, accessible location.

Since starting my marketing agency while traveling abroad, FreshBooks has been a godsend for invoicing. Not only can clients pay with a click of a button, but we can also manage all payment processing within a simple interface. I've used the platform in combination with DropBox and Google Drive to run my business paperlessly from anywhere in the world.

Internet And Phone

I used mobile hotspots to stay connected from Rome or Budapest. At just a few dollars a day, that can be a great backup option when the nearest café or hotel Wi-Fi isn't working out.

For phone plans, an option touted by many digital nomads is Google's Project Fi. "It's been a lifesaver while abroad," says Sharon Tseung, founder of Digital Nomad Quest. "Without needing to get a new SIM card everywhere you go, you can keep the same phone number internationally at a low cost," she explains. "The plans are priced at $20 a month for unlimited international texts and cellular coverage across 135-plus countries. International calls usually cost 20¢ per minute max, and data costs $10 per GB. Any unused data rolls over to the next month, so nothing goes to waste."

Bank Accounts And Credit Cards

When you're moving from place to place, international credit-card fees can add up. While abroad, I keep my U.S. bank account, put everything on my credit card, and then pay off the balance each month. This prevents me from incurring exorbitant withdrawal and international fees when moving from country to country.

Jason Wuerch of Frugal For Less advises nomads to "get a credit card that has no foreign transaction fees and with a cash-back bonus on every purchase." Personally, I use CapitalOne's Venture Miles Reward card for this reason, but there are other options that fit this criteria, too. "If you're looking to withdraw from an ATM," Wuerch says, "there are a couple of debit cards that allow you to withdraw internationally absolutely free, as they reimburse you for fees."

Office Space

Stepping off a plane in a new country can feel overwhelming. Coworking spaces are making it easier for "solopreneurs" to meet one another during the course of their travels, particularly in these emerging global hubs for digital nomads.

When I took off to travel for five months, I turned to the likes of WeWork and Impact Hub to find office space and make new friends. Jongjin Choi, founder of Hive Arena, liked coworking spaces so much that he started his own after seeing an increase of expats working in Seoul. "When you stay or live in a new place for the first time, you often have trouble adjusting to a new environment." says Choi. "But when you visit coworking spaces, you will have a chance to meet locals with similar interests to form a network and create great memories."

Visas

If you hold a U.S. passport, you're fortunate to be able to travel to 174 countries visa-free or with a visa you can pick up on arrival. While the visa process can be time consuming, Ajay Yadav of the housemate-finding platform Roomi developed some travel hacks to speed up the process. First, he advises, "Always have cash on hand. [At] many Southeast Asian borders, you won't be able to find an ATM, and visa officials won't accept credit cards." You can't count on finding ATMs in every airport in the region either, he says, so you should plan to carry cash with you.

"Always research the country's visa and immigration laws ahead of time," Yadav adds. "For example, applying for the Vietnam visa online can save you hours instead of applying in person. If you're unable to get a visa ahead of time, always choose a seat in the front of the plane so you can beat the queue and cut down on visa wait time."

Andrey Ryazanov, product manager at SmartAsset, which helps Americans manage financial decisions abroad, has another tip: "Whether you have a pre­determined route for your travels or are being a true nomad, always make sure to carry extra passport-sized photos [of yourself] on your travels. There are a good number of countries that require them to receive a visa or charge you extra to get them taken on the spot."

Pets

Some digital nomads have even found ways to travel with their four-­legged friends. Pet laws vary from one country to another, but you can usually get the basic rundown on each country's immigration page.

Nima Shei, founder of the health and wellness site Positive Med, has been traveling the world with her furry companion. "Being a digital nomad with pets has its own sets of challenges," Shei admits. "The first issue is the documents you need for taking your dogs to a different countries . . . There are some countries [where] basically you have to eliminate from your list because dogs are not allowed."

"Traveling to Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica was very easy for us," she says. "You only need a health certificate, which—although it's costly—can be done within a day. When we took our dog from the U.S. to the EU, the process was a bit more complicated, as we needed international ISO microchips, which are new in the U.S."

So yes, there are a number of hoops you'll have to jump through before skipping town, but thousands of digital nomads around the world are doing it. And many find the logistical grunt work in the beginning is well worth it once you're out there on the road.


Arianna O'Dell is the founder of Airlink Marketing, a digital agency that helps hotels, restaurants, and travel destinations attract and retain clientele.

Debating The Rules Of Brainstorming

$
0
0

Designers weigh in on the best ways to brainstorm. Spoiler alert: not everyone agrees.

Love it or loathe it, brainstorming is a ubiquitous part of office culture. Whether it is an effective tool for generating ideas and solving problems is up for debate. And since we love a good debate, we invited 50 leaders in the design community—typically some of the most opinionated, creative, and analytical types in business—to share how or if they brainstorm. Here are some of their responses, including a characteristically honest one from the legendary and outspoken creative director George Lois.

"You always hear about keeping negativity out of brainstorms. Like, people are just supposed to say happy things and write them on Post-it Notes. Ideas can come from both positive and negative energy."—Mike Simonian, principal, Mike & Maaike

"Food. Must. Be. Present. When chomping, we think better. No food, no brainstorm."—Bradford Shellhammer, head of curation and merchandising, eBay

"I see brainstorming as a tool to use when you need to take apart a problem. Success is generating many different dots that can be connected in many different ways—not one stubborn solution. If the end result looks like the product of a mob, I have failed."—Desiree Garcia, design lead, IBM Watson

"All 'brainstorming sessions' are group gropes. A great art director [should] work with a copywriter, and then he or she goes for the big idea that sears the virtues of a product into a viewer's mind and heart with no paralyzing, pragmatic, unambitious, half-ass 'strategic thinking' to contend with."—George Lois, creative director, Lois Transmedia

"1. Make it playful: Play makes it safe to think differently. 2. Draw: It helps you visualize ideas. 3. Think like a designer: Ask 'What if?' questions. 4. Define your values: You can't decide things by saying, 'Because I like it.' You need to understand what you believe in. 5. Make people dance after lunch. Then they won't fall asleep."—Ayse Birsel, cofounder, Birsel+Seck

"Always ask why. And when you have your first answer, then ask why again. And again. Until you ladder up to the original cause of the problem to solve."—Mauro Porcini, chief design officer, PepsiCo

"Everyone—from the youngest to the most senior—has to come in with ideas based on research. We then test the ideas, assessing and editing them. Lastly, we build on the ideas that are getting traction, while keeping a few outliers in hand that can magically seem compelling again."—David Rockwell, founder and president, Rockwell Group

"Engage everyone in the room. Sometimes the quietest voices are the most powerful."—Autumn Furr, head of public relations, Rebecca Minkoff

Three Simple Rules For Answering The Toughest Interview Questions

$
0
0

Keep these fundamentals in mind and you'll do fine, even when you're asked something you'd dreaded.

Let's see if this scenario sounds familiar: You're in the interview hot seat, but so far, you're pretty sure you're nailing it—until the hiring manager throws you a curveball. The dreaded "What's your biggest weakness?" comes up. Or better yet, "Why are you leaving your current job?" We know you're thinking of your favorite four-letter word.

"Negative" interview questions—the ones that seemingly want you to discuss a personal weakness—are in fact designed to reveal your interpersonal skills and self-awareness. Employers want to hire someone who can acknowledge shortcomings, work well with team members, and commit to personal and professional development.

"When interviewers ask negative questions," says Alyssa Gelbard, founder of New York City–based career consulting and personal branding firm Resume Strategists, "they want to know the actual answers to the questions, how you handle something challenging, as well as your level of self-awareness and honesty."

She adds that negative interview questions often highlight an insecurity or strong emotion because the interviewer wants to test your confidence as well as whether you take responsibility or blame someone else. We asked job search and career experts to share tips for answering negative interview questions honestly, diplomatically, and professionally.

Be Truthful

Employers are not looking for someone who has never made mistakes; they realize no one is perfect. "Be honest," recommends Eileen Carey, the CEO of Glassbreakers, a San Francisco-based enterprise software solution firm. "You want an employer to hire you as your most authentic self. Admitting to your flaws and failures makes you more human and more relatable."

However, be smart when deciding which weakness to bring up to your interviewer. "Don't share a weakness that is mission critical to the job you're interviewing for," says Jamie Petkanics, founder of the New York City–based job-search consultancy The Prepary. "For example, public speaking is probably a fine area of weakness for an accountant, but not for someone in sales."

Demonstrate Commitment To Improvement

When you acknowledge a weakness, it's important to also explain to the interviewer how you responded to a past mistake and what lessons you learned for the future. For instance, if you missed a crucial deadline and annoyed a client (and your boss), explain that you apologized to the client, fessed up to your boss, and came up with a solution for better time-management and organizational skills.

Avoid Trashing Others

Another popular negative interview question is how you deal with difficult people, including your colleagues, employers, and working environment. Be tactful. Conflicts and challenges are present in most every office environment, so the key is to show that you are able to act professionally, not emotionally.

"Never make negative comments about your current company, boss, or coworkers," says Gelbard. "Focus on your desire for career growth." Explain what you hope to gain from your new role that your current or old role simply couldn't offer you. (Extra points if your explanation highlights some of the characteristics of the place where you're interviewing!)

Heed this advice and you'll demonstrate to your interviewer that you have winning interpersonal skills and are professional and committed to growth. What prospective employer wouldn't want that? (Trick question.)


This article originally appeared on Monster and is reprinted with permission.

How You Justify Sticking With Bad Work Habits (And How To Stop)

$
0
0

The more effort people put into something, the more they'll tend to believe in it—even if that effort is misplaced.

You don't always work as efficiently or productively as you could, and you know it. Chances are you can even identify which ways of doing things you could probably do better if you were to do them differently—but you don't want to. That's just the way you do it.

It's normal to have some habits or practices you prefer and others you don't, and some managers have found that giving employees control over the "how" as long as they accomplish the "what" is a powerful productivity strategy in its own right. But sometimes we fall into routines at work that not only do we know to be less than ideal, but we also find ways to convince ourselves they're worth sticking to anyway. That can be a problem.

How You Come Up With Reasons For Bad Habits

In the 1950s, the psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term "cognitive dissonance" to describe the uneasiness we feel when we hold two conflicting ideas simultaneously. Festinger realized that this discomfort isn't just an inert feeling—it influences our behavior in surprising ways.

Cognitive dissonance is so unpleasant that it motivates us to make changes in order to avoid experiencing it. But since we don't always recognize why we're uncomfortable (the source of our cognitive dissonance), we can often wind up making the wrong changes—or holding onto habits we should probably abandon.

I once worked with an organization that sent out sensitive documents. Because of the nature of the work, when mail was returned, it couldn't just be thrown away and the recipient removed from the mailing list. We had to make every effort to contact the person.

The procedure to do this was created before email and social media were widespread. So those tools—even after they came on the scene—still played little part in our process for contacting recipients. Our staff found themselves using a process they knew was unwieldy and old-fashioned, and that created cognitive dissonance. They valued the efficiency of shooting off a quick email over mailing physical documents, and taking that analog approach anyway (in other words, behaving contrary to a belief) subconsciously caused distress.

For a long time, they weren't able to change the process. So to avoid cognitive dissonance, employees came up with ways to make sense of what they were doing. By the time they were given the freedom to change course, they'd convinced themselves they had a legal obligation (which they didn't) to act in the way that they did. Dislodging this idea became a stumbling block to improvement for the business.

Cognitive dissonance can motivate people to change the way they work. But if they aren't aware of what's going on, it can instead lead to irrational behavior and the invention of justifications for things that should be changed. If it's consciously recognized, though, these inconsistencies can motivate change for the better.

You can never entirely avoid cognitive dissonance—it's part of how we think. But you can reduce it. Here are a few steps to take to do that.

1. Walk The Walk

People are pretty good hypocrisy detectors. Any inconsistency between your company's stated values and its behaviors will create dissonance for employees who are asked to follow procedures that conflict with the values they're told to uphold. So if you're going to say you value creativity, then let people be creative; if you say you value diversity, then be diverse; if you say you value quality over speed, then don't rush people. This isn't rocket science, but the gap between values and action is the first thing to look for.

Same goes for your brand. Examine the relationship between your organization's public image and the reality of your work. Don't pretend to the world that you're a fun-loving company if your ethos is really about serious work, or that you value customer feedback if you're already set on a specific course. Make sure image matches reality, and no one will waste mental energy straining to match the unmatchable.

2. Make An Effort In The Right Area

The more effort people put into something, the more they'll tend to believe in it. So make sure that your employees are focused, as far as possible, on core tasks and values that express the purpose of your business. This way their work and the supposed purpose of it will correspond, and that work will make them comfortably more committed to those values. A great deal of misplaced effort usually leads to a great deal of justifications for sticking with it.

3. Research, Don't Explain It Away

Anytime someone asks why you do something, there's a risk that you'll give a knee-jerk response, looking for the most obvious way to make sense of what you do already—instead of really thinking about why you do it. The worst part is, you won't even realize you may be inventing after-the-fact justifications for a less-than-ideal process.

So don't give the first answer that comes into your head. Press pause, step away, check the facts, and then come back with the real explanation. If that explanation—the truthful one, backed by research—isn't so hot, then maybe it's time to change.

4. Accept A Little Inconsistency

Avoiding cognitive dissonance is all about creating consistency, but that doesn't mean that you should go into denial about what's inconsistent. Circumstances change, and so do businesses. Sometimes inconsistencies will develop, and we can get defensive about them—explaining them away instead of fixing them. So be on the lookout for those inconsistencies, but keep in mind that they're normal and, in many cases, fixable.

It's a good goal to try and work as rationally as possible. But we don't always think that way, and recognizing that is the first step toward scrapping your worse habits and hanging onto your better ones.

CoinOut Wants To Digitize The Pennies In Your Pocket

$
0
0

If you like paying with cash, but don't want to deal with loose coins, this app will send your change to your phone.

Who isn't frustrated at coming home with a pocket full of loose change? Well, just like almost everything else in the universe, there's an app for that.

CoinOut, a startup founded by Jeff Witten, aims to bring the benefits of electronic money to the multitudes of people who pay cash by allowing you to save the change you receive at participating merchants to your phone. From there you can send the balance to your bank account, transfer it to an Amazon.com gift card, or donate it to charity.


Josh Witten

To spread the service, Witten, 28, has inked a deal with First Data to distribute CoinOut as an app for the roughly 115,000 of the payments technology provider's Clover devices deployed in the U.S. at spots like your local coffee shop, sandwich bistro, or shoe repair store. Merchants who download CoinOut to their Clover have at least five ways to accept payment: cash, credit, debit, mobile, or cash with CoinOut.

You can sign up for CoinOut without a bank account, debit or credit card, or smartphone. All you need is a cellphone number, which you enter to enroll and, thereafter, at checkout whenever you choose to send your change to the digital coin jar.

In Witten's view, a service that caters to consumers who pay cash should honor that commitment. "I like using cash and I wanted to make it better, and despite what many people say, it's not going away," he told Fast Company. "For small businesses, we're reducing the cost of processing cash and providing tools to enhance their bottom line and make their lives easier."

At Shu's Flower, a shop in NYC's NoLita neighborhood that is using CoinOut, I recently handed over two $5 bills to pay for tweedia that cost $8.71. At the register, I coined out, which meant that I entered my phone number into the Clover screen, which the clerk had turned to me. The system prompted me to select whether I wanted to stash $1.29 in CoinOut or 29 cents in CoinOut and $1 in cash. I chose the combo, which put the coins in CoinOut (a text message from the company alerted me to my balance) and spared me a pocketful of change.

A basic version of the service costs consumers nothing and sweeps balances of at least $5 to your bank account or at least $10 to a charity of your choice, depending on which option you choose. (Balances below the threshold roll to the following month.) You can transfer any amount to an Amazon gift card whenever you'd like.

Witten is betting on the tenacity of legal tender. Notwithstanding a 44% increase in ways to pay in the past two years, more than two-thirds of consumers in North America say they pay with cash most frequently, while 58% expect to continue doing so four years from now, according to a survey last year by Accenture.

"We're a long way from a cashless society," says Robert Flynn, who runs Accenture's payments business in North America. "You have whole segments of the population that don't do mobile payments on their phone and they probably never will."



Retailers pay CoinOut $9.99 a month for the service. To promote buy-in from businesses, CoinOut features a virtual tip jar and offers cash back that ties to the number of transactions. Versions to come will enable merchants to create loyalty programs for cash-paying customers that have the potential to generate fees for Coinout.

As Witten sees it, besides convenience CoinOut also offers the roughly 34 million households that either lack a bank account or rely on alternative financial providers a tool that can help track spending. "With cash, it's really hard for you to be financially savvy and maintain the health of your finances," he says. "Not only does CoinOut make it easier to pay but also provides you with a little more data on how to manage your money."

Witten hatched the idea for CoinOut following a stint at Apple, where the self-described payments nerd worked in marketing while studying business and law at Columbia. Bill Campbell, the beloved tech executive who died in April and who served as mentor and confidante to Steve Jobs, was CoinOut's first investor.

Though CoinOut heralds the end of pennies, which some have called on the government to abolish, the service may represent a reprieve for the one-cent coin. Whatever you think of a future in which money moves solely as ones and zeroes, "getting rid of cash disregards people who still depend on it," says Witten.

The Big Business Of Red Carpet Bling

$
0
0

Jewelry companies of all sizes compete to get their baubles on the right celebrities at the right time—including tonight's Emmys.

Actress Cate Blanchett is celebrated for her unconventional, avant-garde awards-show fashion. But at the 2015 Oscars, it was her jewelry that stole the red carpet show: She paired a long, simple black Maison Margiela gown with a Tiffany & Co. turquoise and diamond necklace. It dominated fashion headlines and soon thereafter, inspired knock-offs and Etsy reimaginings. Us Weekly promoted a $75 Blanchett-inspired jewelry giveaway.

Cate Blanchett's Tiffany & Co. necklace at the 2015 Academy Awards inspired immediate knockoffs.[Photo: courtesy of Platinum Guild International USA]

"We didn't plan on it," says Blanchett's stylist, Elizabeth Stewart. "But it worked."

When it comes to Hollywood baubles, the motto is generally, "Go big or go home." To compete with couture gowns and Cinderella moments, top jewelers such as Bulgari, Chopard, and Forevermark go all out to secure their celebrity endorsements. It's a lengthy, complicated loaning process, and a chance at worldwide brand recognition.

Sometimes celebrities or stylists are paid to wear the accessories, with compensation potentially hovering in the hundreds of thousands. Sometimes the jeweler will "thank" the star by "gifting" them jewelry. Sometimes the generous one-night loan is the sum total. It varies, and those involved are historically mum on the transaction specifics.

A Pricey Process

It starts with the stylist, the unsung maestro of all Hollywood red carpets. Stewart, whose clients also include Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, and January Jones, starts with the dress, then moves her way to accessories. "Often, the jewelry comes last," she says, but stresses that it is "very important" to create a full look.

The next step is the insurance companies. Jewelers might provide the insurance, but most commonly, stars already have existing relationships with insurance agents and a policy that seamlessly weaves in additional loans.

Scarlett Johansson wore the Dragon Flower Ruby Ring and Ruby Stud Earrings from the Anna Hu Haute Joaillerie collection at the 2011 Academy Awards.[Photo: PRNewsFoto, Anna Hu Haute Joaillerie]

"Individuals of some level of wealth normally have some kind of jewelry coverage in place," explains Janece White, vice president, North American underwriting and jewelry specialist of Chubb Personal Risk Services, which counts high-profile celebrities as clients. Even if it's just for what she calls "the basics"—their engagement rings or earrings—deep-pocketed celebrities often get covered.

If the client is a "good customer" who has had a relationship with the agent for years, Chubb will offer the additional coverage, but they need the specifics of the loaned pieces and how they will be stored, transported, and secured. "It's usually not just one piece of jewelry," White says. "The stylist brings back a number of pieces—sometimes a couple million dollars worth."

White and her associates are available throughout the days leading up to awards shows, waiting on frantic last-minute calls from clients who might need to insure a $5 million diamond choker. It's a frenzy. They also act as consultants, offering recommendations on services such as security firms that can provide armored trucks and guards, which could run well over $20,000.

"Would it be acceptable to throw [the jewelry] in the back of a cab? No," White says. "Would it be acceptable to have [the client] come with someone very secure to take the items back by personal car? Yes." Most clients, says White, take good care of their loans, because "they want to borrow something again the next award season."

With all that prep work, there is still no guarantee the star will wear a specific item. A stylist has multiple looks on hold in the dressing room hours prior to an event, and sometimes last-minute decisions occur.

"I can't tell you how many times the backup dress becomes the dress," said Stewart. "You really don't know until it's all put together." And if the gown changes, so too will the accessories. Stewart cites a number of reasons why one or both might not make the final cut: hair, makeup, and even just one's mood.

The Brand Name Game

For many companies, the goal is to tie themselves to the right star whose name signifies aspirational wealth and glamour.

"There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes in terms of determining who that million-dollar actor is going to be walking down the red carpet," says style expert Anna De Souza. "It's not about selling that particular piece—it's about brand recognition." Celebrities are repeatedly asked, "Who are you wearing?" with designer names appearing in celebrity and fashion magazines for weeks thereafter.

For stars, borrowing baubles is a mark of success. And consumers understand that the bigger the star, the bigger the bauble.

"Beyond the event itself, media will cover different celebrity looks—i.e., who wore what, not to mention a huge social media audience weighing in on each celebrity look, garnering mentions for brands," says Crosby Noricks, a fashion brand strategist and founder of PR Couture. "When a company like Tiffany's or Bulgari does a product-placement deal with a celebrity, if they get the right star, it can certainly add a valuable spotlight to their product, image, and brand." It can also bolster a certain campaign. Cate Blanchett's turquoise homerun served to promote Tiffany & Co.'s Blue Book collection.

Snagging an international star is paramount. This is especially true for smaller jewelry companies trying to secure placement in bigger retailers or to enter a new market, like Dubai. Being able to approach new opportunities with the claim that "Jennifer Lopez wears our jewelry" can be the ticket in.

Labels have their own specific needs and who they want to reach. For publicly traded companies like Tiffany & Co., which boasts over 300 stores and sells high and more modestly priced collections, it makes sense for them to place their products on a wide range of stars, ranging from Oscar winners to TV actresses, at various industry events. Chopard wants to master the red carpet, so you might see their products at movie premieres, in addition to awards shows.

Anna Hu Haute Joaillerie sells colorful jewelry with whimsical, intricate imagery like flowers and butterflies. Price points range from $100,000 to $7 million. The brand was relatively unknown until Madonna wore an Anna Hu Haute Joaillerie diamond cross pendant necklace to the 2009 Met Gala. "That put Anna on the global map," says Carineh Martin, the company's chief marketing officer.

Today, Hu's styles adorn A-listers such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Emily Blunt—but only at the three high-profile events: the Oscars, the Met Gala, and the Cannes Film Festival. The designer takes the rare approach of relying on a select few celebrities to foster an image of exclusivity.

"It has to be the top event, the top actress, with the top jewels, otherwise it's just not interesting for us," Martin says. "If that means only one or two a year, that's all we're interested in."

It makes sense, considering the brand has only one store, and most sales are private custom orders. That's precisely what a certain clientele wants—the sense that they're wearing something rare and special. "How can you be exclusive when you have 600 stores worldwide?" Martin says.

"We are about being private jewelers to a very small echelon of clientele, so everything we do is with that in mind, including our red carpet approach," she says. "We could dress a lot more people and have a lot more awareness, but when you're not readily available all over the world, what's all that awareness going to do for you? We'd rather be known by fewer people, but the type of people who respond to our jewels."

In 1999, Gwyneth Paltrow accepted an Oscar for Best Actress while wearing Harry Winston jewelry valued at $160,000.

As Seen On . . .

There are those who want exactly what the stars are wearing. Fine jewelry designer Irene Neuwirth has been contacted while celebrities were still modeling her designs on the red carpet. She sold two emerald cuffs, each at $150,000, while they were still on Julianne Moore's wrist at the 2013 Met Gala.

Iconic moments can immediately help sell a style. Gwyneth Paltrow went down in fashion history following her 1999 Oscar win, when she clutched her gold statue in a pink Ralph Lauren gown and a 40-carat Harry Winston diamond necklace. The jewelry house immediately sold a few necklaces in the same style, reportedly at over $100,000 each. One buyer was Paltrow's own father, who gave his daughter the jewels as a gift.

As for how this visibility affects companies' bottom lines, that's a complicated equation. According to Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, a consulting firm serving more than 1,000 luxury and premium goods, what consumers consider the most prestigious and what consumers actually buy don't always align. In a recent study, the Luxury Institute found that households earning over $200,000 were most familiar with the following brands, in descending order: Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Bulgari, Gucci, Chanel, Harry Winston, De Beers, Van Cleef & Arpels, Mikimoto, and David Yurman.

And here's where they spent their money: Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Alexis Bittar, David Yurman, Gucci, Bulgari, Chanel, Boucheron, Mikimoto, and Judith Ripka. The two categories diverge, since consumers can't always afford what they're familiar with, but they still want designer.

Consumers with household incomes under $75,000 tend to own items from Tiffany (76%), Bulgari (32%), and David Yurman (21%).

"Millennials are very aspirational," Pedraza says, noting their constant media intake of celebrity fashion and culture. They're attuned to researching a product or a celebrity they want to emulate. "They are now in the know." They might only buy a pendant necklace or bracelet, but they're still buying.

The majority of Americans don't have the means to even consider buying a pricey piece of jewelry that was seen on the red carpet, but there are other opportunities to partake in the luxury sector.

"The average TV viewer isn't going to go out and purchase [the exact item], but they might pick up a pair of sunglasses, perfume, or wallet in order to align themselves with an aspirational brand worn by their favorite celebrity," Noricks says.

Buying the jewelry isn't necessarily the point of these celebrity endorsements. It's to get the brand on your mind—for future purchases. They're in this for the long haul.

As style expert Anna De Souza says, "It goes way beyond the 10-minute walk down the red carpet for these brands."


You Can Hire Great Interns Even If You're A Solopreneur

$
0
0

It isn't easy, though. Here are a few tips for competing with traditional employers' internship programs.

I remember when I was in college studying to become a TV news reporter. I loved interning. I'd visit the local ABC station two to three times a week, as a full-time student with a job. I learned so much more in that internship over the course of 10 weeks than I did attending class for years. In class, you're learning. At an internship, you're doing.

But if you're an independent worker or run a business out of your home—whether permanently or just for right now—hiring interns can be tough going. Despite the proliferation of remote work and the rise of an entire economy unbound by traditional offices, attracting high-quality interns to nontraditional businesses is no easy task. Here's a look at the most common obstacles and what it takes to surmount them.

Location, Location, Location

I run a public relations firm from my home in Florida. When I tried to place an ad for an intern with a local university, I was told I needed an office location connected to the business. This school followed guidelines set by the National Association of College and Employers, and apparently that's one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I love working with people face to face, but that simply isn't the norm any longer. Remote work arrangements have been widespread for years already, and the trend is gaining steam not just for solopreneurs but at the corporate level too. Just this month Amazon announced a pilot program offering some of its tech workers shortened, 30-hour workweeks in exchange for proportional pay cuts, responding to employee demand for more flexibility. And those teams will only need to work fewer than half of their hours together on-site at the same time.

When it comes to hiring the best, it just doesn't make sense any longer for companies to limit themselves to a 30-mile driving radius, especially when so much of the work we all do is digital. If someone lives two hours away but would be a great employee or intern, why not hire them virtually and communicate on the phone, by email, Skype, or Google Hangout?

Like it or not, higher education's attitudes toward interning still dictate your options to a considerable degree. When I asked attorney Alexander Orlofsky why universities may still prefer directing their students to office-based internships, he says, "Historically, I think the prohibition was more to protect the students from a liability perspective. Home-based businesses probably wouldn't have worker's comp or commercial liability insurance."

But that issue isn't necessarily a disqualifier. Orlofsky suggests verifying your homeowner's or renter's insurance to make sure there are no exclusions for in-home workers. And if your setup does give you cause for liability concerns, ditching location-based work and offering an all-remote internship instead is more doable than it's ever been.

The Upsides To Nontraditional Internships

Interning with a home-based business can be even more beneficial to a college student than interning in an office. And when you advertise your internship, you need to sell candidates on why.

Students are busy. Between school, jobs, and a social life, the thought of commuting to and from an internship may be an inconvenience. But if you give students an opportunity to learn—really learn, by actually working and not going on coffee runs—you may have a leg up on more traditional employers, especially if you can offer a flexible schedule. After all, that's something they're likely to look for when it comes time to hunt for full-time work.

Most people with home-based business don't sit in front of a desk all day. I spend (too much) time in Starbucks, Paneras, and other local meeting spots to visit with colleagues and clients. It's more than appropriate to bring an intern along, and can offer them an inside look at your business dealings—how you interact with clients, negotiate deals, and move big projects forward. So make sure you tell prospective candidates they'll get a front-row seat they might not get someplace else.

(As an added bonus on your end, your own options for public meetings increase when you add a college student to your team. Have you seen all the great spots around a college campus? The Wi-Fi possibilities are endless.)

How To Find Great Interns

So what do you need to pin down in order to attract good interns?

First, home-based businesses need to evaluate their needs. Do you need just an intern or could you really use paid, part-time help? If it's an intern, Orlofsky recommends meeting with internship offices at local universities. If your trade is taught at the university, meet with the faculty who teach the subject and offer to speak in class.

Usually interns receive credit for the internship, so and if you establish relationships with professor or the career office, you might have better luck. After all, NACE's guidelines aren't necessarily hard-and-fast rules that every institution follows to the letter, so taking the time to build a network of contacts at local schools can open up opportunities you might not have had otherwise.

But make no mistake: it isn't easy. Whether you're looking for an intern who can work at your home office or remotely, competing with well-oiled internship programs at big companies is as difficult as it is unavoidable.

In one week, I received three emails in response to my ad for interns. One student was nearing graduation and wanted a full-time paying job, so she turned the opportunity down. That's understandable. One just sent his resume as an attachment. There was no message in the body of the email. Sorry, buddy. The third applicant wrote a short message, so I was feeling better about her on that basis alone. But as soon as I asked for a meeting near campus, I was ghosted—no response.

I thought about following up, but then I remembered my 21-year-old self at Ohio State University. I was so excited to intern. I was the one following up with the TV station to get the opportunity I needed. Without that internship, I wouldn't have gotten my job in New York City, which led to my job in Beaumont, Texas, where I met my husband. Then I moved up in the TV news industry to Fort Myers, Florida, and then to Miami. I credit my internship for all of that.

So I ultimately decided not to write back to either of those two students. But since the workplace trends are moving in my direction, I'll keep trying. And so should you.


Christina Nicholson is a former TV reporter and anchor who now owns and operates a full-service public relations firm, Media Maven. She is getting ready to launch "Master your PR," an online course that teaches small business owners and marketers how to handle public relations on their own.

I Made Three Big Career Changes In A Row--Here's What I Learned Each Time

$
0
0

From marketing trash bags to selling desserts, this writer explains why making big career shifts doesn't have to mean starting over.

When you switch careers, it often feels like starting over. Sure, you're still taking what you've learned in another field and finding fresh ways to apply it, but it always takes hitting the "reset" button—now you're a novice again, navigating unfamiliar terrain. It's just not the same as getting promoted or leaving a job for a new, higher-paying one in the same industry.

I should know. I've made three major career changes in my professional life, and they've all taught me something different. Each time, I was surprised to find that it didn't feel like starting over altogether. In fact, some of the most eye-opening moments have come after leaving one job behind to pursue a new career path. In unexpected ways, each new turn depended on the one before it—even though I couldn't have mapped out the route.

1. Job Titles Aren't Everything

My first corporate job was as an associate marketing manager on the Glad trash-bag brand at Clorox. No, I did not grow up dreaming of marketing trash bags. But like many other aspiring, post-MBA marketers, I decided climbing the ladder of a well-known consumer goods company would help me establish my credibility in the field. My goal at the time was to quickly get promoted to the sparkly title of "brand manager," widely regarded in the industry as the badge of an accomplished marketer.

That never happened. I ended up resigning from my role a few weeks before getting promoted so I could move to the U.K. to be with my then girlfriend, now wife, whom I'd met in an airport several years before.

As though finding a job in another country wasn't nerve-wracking enough, I was worried what hiring managers would think about the fact that I didn't land that brand manager title. But it didn't take long to discover that most cared more about my former experience than my former job title. Not earning that promotion didn't stop me from landing my next job within a few weeks at Gü, a luxury desserts startup in London. Once I realized my job title didn't define me, I no longer felt at the mercy of it, which was handy at a startup, where titles truly don't matter.

Leaving a Fortune 500 company in the U.S. for a startup in the U.K. was a major career change for other reasons, too. Handing out in-store dessert samples was something an intern might do, but it taught me firsthand about consumer shopping behavior. And jumping head-first into leading the creation of a national ad campaign—typically senior director–level work—taught me about creative strategy.

Those were two things I couldn't have experienced directly had I stayed on my corporate marketing career path. Not being bound by your job title ultimately allows you to experience more, learn more, and contribute more.

2. Your Work Molds You More Than You Realize

When I decided to work in the corporate world, I honestly never expected it to change me. But when you spend most of your waking hours at work, its environment shapes you—whether or not you like it, realize it, or wish to admit it.

For example, when I was at Clorox, a company that valued rigor, analysis, and structure, I eventually came to value those approaches as the "correct" way to do marketing. Gü was a totally different environment—a startup, challenger brand that saw much of its success by breaking the rules. While there, I caught myself approaching projects pretty dogmatically, getting frustrated with people who weren't as rigorous, analytical, or structured in their approaches as I was. Only by being thrust into this new environment did I realize how narrow-minded my own views had become.

This realization convinced me to resign from Gü after only 18 months, even though I didn't have another job immediately lined up. The fast-paced, frantic startup environment, with an almost impatient thirst for growth, was having an impact on me. I caught myself behaving more intensely outside of work, becoming more impatient with my wife and people in restaurants and shops.

So while that was a sign that I needed to leave, I quit with a new appreciation for how your environment can change you, even when you try to resist it.

3. You Don't Entirely Own Your Reputation

After leaving Gü, I moved on to a global marketing role for Häagen-Dazs (forsaking one umlaut-ed dessert brand for another). This, to be fair, was less of a career change than a career return: I thought moving back to a bigger company—one I believed had a more stable, grounded culture—would help me feel more at peace.

While that was indeed true, spending my days marketing ice cream soon left me feeling empty inside (ironically enough). There had been a time when I loved being associated with a big brand at a widely known company—the kind that conveniently endows you with instant credibility when someone asks, "What do you do?"

But after spending 10 years in brand management, the appeal began to wear off. Perhaps the emotional high of getting married, followed by the emotional low of watching my father pass away three months later, changed my perspective on what really mattered to me. I eventually left Häagen-Dazs to start my own business.

Major life events have a way of quickly convincing you that spending most of your waking hours doing work you don't truly care about just isn't worth it. But around this time—after leaving the corporate world once again—I began to see just how much my reputation depended on the brands I'd worked for.

Setting up my own business was as tough as it was gratifying—and that's still the case. But early on in my shift into entrepreneurship, I learned that without the name recognition of the big corporations I'd worked for, I went from being a sought-after marketer to some random guy people in certain professional circles overlooked. I was shocked by how quickly my identity could transform.

It took me a while to stop constantly questioning the value I could offer others without the backing of a big-name company. But slowly, over time, I began to find my footing, building on the lessons I'd learned by leaving other companies behind. I evolved my job title as I myself evolved. I created a work lifestyle that made the most of who I was. And I managed to start creating my own reputation on the basis of my own work and passions—the things that truly excited me.

But I couldn't have done any of that without experiencing each of those career changes in the unexpected, yet eye-opening, sequence I did.


Joseph Liu is a career change strategist. Hear inspiring stories of career reinvention on his Career Relaunch Podcast and follow him on Twitter at @JosephLiu_

Even As A Child Star, Mara Wilson Knew She Wanted To Be A Writer

$
0
0

The author of Where Am I Now? talks about her emergence as a writer after years of being known as a former child star.

Every single day, somebody tells Mara Wilson she's ugly. As a former child star, it's an unfortunate, inevitable reality. On the positive side, her hard-earned immunity to this kind of abuse has saved some shock in dealing with the internet bristle worms she may attract in her new career as a writer.

Mara Wilson[Photo: Ari Scott]

One problem with being incredibly successful incredibly young is that it comes with a crushing, persistent fear of peaking early. In the case of Mara Wilson, that fear proved founded. In the early-'90s, she melted hearts as Robin Williams's "goddamn kid" in Mrs. Doubtfire, and etched an eternal portrait of pluck and poise as Roald Dahl's Matilda. A few years later, though, she was out of the business, for a varied list of complex reasons. But being incredibly successful incredibly young doesn't mean you're only allowed to succeed at one thing forever. With her first book, Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame, Wilson seems less like a former child star-turned-writer than a writer who once had an acting phase.

Now at age 29, Wilson is an essayist, a comedy writer, a live storyteller with a recurring show in New York, and a sharp, widely beloved Twitterer. Years ago, she'd been alternately writing a young adult novel and working on a screenplay when she took a break to write a piece for Cracked. That piece, "7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy," ultimately racked up over 4 million views online. It also attracted the attention of a number of publishers, who realized not only did Wilson have a story to tell, she had an elegant way of telling it.

With Where Am I Now?, the former actress makes good on that promise. The book details, in a series of essays, what it's like to go through your awkward phase under the glare of the public eye, and what happens when people confuse you with your most famous character for years afterward. There's also the revelation that even as a young girl on the set of Miracle on 34th Street, she was already something of a storyteller. On the eve of her debut memoir's release, Wilson spoke to Co.Create about how she went from that point to realizing a full-on career shift into writing.

Mrs. Doubtfire, 1993[Photo: courtesy of 20th Century Fox]

Awakening As a Writer

"Writing was always my secret desire. It was always something that in the back of my head I wanted to do," Wilson says. "I wrote a lot of stories on the sets of movies. On Matilda, I wrote several. I feel like my internal monologue kind of shifted based on whatever I was reading at the time, so when I was reading a lot of middle-grade stuff my internal monologue was me being like 'I did this today and I really hope I can do this.' Sort of this Beverly Cleary thing that I was reading. But when I was reading scripts all the time, I started thinking in dialogue. I think it wasn't really until college that it sort of crystallized. I knew I wanted to study theater, so I took a playwriting class and also a class that was basically, you have 10 minutes to do whatever you wanted on stage. And that was when I thought, hey, maybe I can actually do this."

Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame

Becoming a "Former" Child Star

"I was probably in late high school when those 'Where Are They Now?' posts started," Wilson says. "It would happen on websites I would read, and I would have a panic attack because like, oh god, what do they know about me? Turns out they didn't really know very much about me at all. It took me a while to realize this but Matilda really did mean something to a generation of girls. They were trying to figure it out and some of them were like, 'Oh, she's so ugly, she can't get a job anymore, she lost confidence, she became depressed because of her mother dying,' all of which I guess are kind of true in a way. I look back now on [an early blog post she wrote addressing whether she still acts] and I think that the frustration I had at that time really comes through. I think that it did come out of wanting to sort of claim my narrative. And I don't think I had totally made peace with having played Matilda at that point."

Matilda, 1996[Photo: courtesy of TriStar Pictures]

Getting Creative Confidence In a New Field

"My parents tried so hard to keep me normal, but I think entitlement finds a way to creep in," Wilson says. "I had the experience lots of kids in the 'gifted' program have: You believe that you're smart and talented because you're told you're smart and talented, but then when you mess up, you're terrified because you feel like it's going to take away your smarts and talent. I sort of had that to an extreme and I think I took it for granted while at the same time never fully believing it. But all that stuff is like air into a balloon, and that air can be let out at any time. Grandiosity doesn't last. So it was very hard for me because I was very afraid for a very long time to make mistakes, and I wish that I had realized that it was okay to make mistakes, that not everybody was watching me all the time, that I could embarrass myself and it would be okay. It was something I definitely learned in high school and in college with writing and with theater—to take risks and embarrass yourself in front of people. You have to fail in order to succeed."

Rejection As An Actor Vs. Rejection As a Writer

"The thing about rejection with writing is that ideas are infinite," Wilson says. "You have this renewable resource, your mind, and even if an idea doesn't work one way, you can always change it another way. I don't like the phrase 'kill your darlings.' I prefer instead something like 'give your darling a haircut.' It's just about getting through to the true heart of what you're writing actually is. But with acting, your body is finite and your looks are finite. There is only so much you can do to change your appearance, and there are so many people out there who are just like you. I always say that Hollywood isn't immoral but it's amoral. It sees people as numbers.
If I were to keep acting right now, there are tons of much cuter, much better at singing, much better acting, petite, curvy, brunette, Jewish actresses. I know them and a lot of them go on to amazing things, like Rachel Bloom. But I remember thinking like, 'Oh yeah, I really am just kind of another face to them.' It's hard to feel personally rejected over and over again. It's not a rejection of what you do, it's a rejection of what you are, or at least that's how it feels."

Using Satire To Branch Out

"Reductress has been a great outlet for me," Wilson says of the popular satirical women-centric website. "It's definitely been a great place to practice comedy writing, to learn to knock things out quickly, to be given these topics and not get too attached to pitches because you have to submit 10 at a time. It's also been a great way to figure out which ideas you have are actually funny. You have so many ideas all the time, but it's been a lesson in listening to which ideas will actually work. And I've gotten to write about fetishes and long-distance relationships and all kinds of things that people would probably be uncomfortable with me writing about or talking about. Writing these kinds of things as like a third person, its definitely been a learning experience."

Becoming a Live Storyteller

"Live audiences are unforgiving sometimes, which is what makes it so exciting, because you're directly connected with them; whereas with film you are not," Wilson says. "It's scary but that's what makes it fun—the risk. Also, as a writer, it's amazing to be able to sort of throw those things out there onstage and see what an audience responds to. I told a lot of these stories at shows along the way. Live storytelling is fast, it's quick, you have to go from the beginning to the end. And you also learn what the difference is between an anecdote and a story. An anecdote is an interesting or funny thing that happened, but a story involves a change. You need a change."

Why Google Changed The Most Recognizable Logo On The Web

$
0
0

Creative director Jonathan Lee explains what Google was thinking when it updated one of the world's most familiar visual signatures.

Perhaps you didn't notice when Google updated its logo last fall. The changes were relatively subtle, with a cleaner, sans-serif typography replacing the original's highly ornamental lettering. But the revamp was actually a big deal, and not just because the logo is viewed trillions of times a year on Google's search page. It reconceives the logo as an interactive visual device that adds functionality, using a clever animation of dots to communicate various responses to user actions. We spoke to Jonathan Lee, a Google creative director who helped spearhead the redesign, about how he approached the changes.

Co.Design: Why change the logo now?

Jonathan Lee: We wanted to future-proof the brand. There are things we know are coming: We're designing for wearables, to have our brand work on a watch face or in Android Auto in cars. That was the core momentum builder.

The logo is designed to react to users. It employs four animated dots to help people grasp what's going on while they're interacting with Google products. Why was that important?

The intention was to allow a new level of expression in our interface and for our brand. We've been investing heavily in using motion. The way the dots move communicates more than just, "Hey, we're dots." How something behaves after you interact with it gives you a better understanding of where you are in an application. Right now, the primary expressions are that it's listening to you speak [in voice search] and is showing that it's actually catching some sound from you. It also can show you that it doesn't understand what you said.

How nervous were you before you introduced it?

It was so nerve-racking the day of, knowing that we had worked for months and months with the collective effort of so many people. I was frankly ecstatic and relieved that people responded so well. It's kind of a complicated thing to ask the world to understand.

Click here for the 2016 Innovation by Design Awards finalists and winners.

Related Video: There's More To Google's New Logo Than You Think

Drybar's Secrets To Blow Out The Competition

$
0
0

Hint: It has everything to do with the fact that they're related.

When Alli Webb started talking about her idea for Drybar seven years ago, everybody thought she was crazy. On the surface, the concept really doesn't make much sense. It's a hair salon, but you don't actually get a cut or color; all you get is a blow dry. And the whole experience costs you $45. Who would go for that?

"Any investor who looked at our business plan would have thought we were out of our minds," says Michael Landau, cofounder of Drybar with his sister Alli and her husband Cameron Webb in 2008. "I know this because I went to a lot of savvy VC and private equity friends, and they laughed in our faces."

They're not laughing any more. Six years since launching during the recession, Drybar now generates close to $100 million in annual revenue, has a staff of 3,000, and will have 70 locations across the country by the end of the year. This translates to millions of blowouts.

The Drybar family: Sarah Landau, Michael Landau, Alli Webb, Cameron Webb

In 2013, it launched a popular product line—including a best-selling $195 hairdryer—available at Sephora, Nordstrom, and Drybar salons. Many of the investors that Landau pitched had to eat their words. Those who saw past the unproven concept have contributed to the tens of millions in funding Drybar has received to continue its trajectory of explosive growth.

Transforming a once-laughable idea into a thriving business came down to family. Alli laid out her plan to her husband, Cameron, and her brother. "We listened to her and believed in her," Michael says. "We really wanted her to have this business."

The trio worked hard to execute Alli's vision. They each brought very different skills to the table, worked long hours, and invested their own money to get Drybar off the ground. Each one believes that much of the company's success has to do with their family dynamic. Indeed, while family-controlled businesses made up 19% of the companies in the , they tend to outperform companies in which those at the helm aren't related. McKinsey found that sales by family-run firms grew by 7% a year since 2008, compared to the 6.2% a year growth of non-family firms in the list.

Though their methods might seem strange and unconventional in many other startups, today, Drybar stands out as a striking model for the modern family business. But its founders think many of their strategies would translate easily to other businesses, whether they are run by family members or not.

Find People With Totally Different Skill Sets, Then Trust Them

Looking back, they think that one of the keys to the company's success is that they each brought very different talents to the mix. While Alli was a trained stylist, Cameron had spent his career as a creative director at a branding agency. He was one of the minds behind the successful Jack in the Box television spots. Michael spent many years working for Yahoo and also had experience as an entrepreneur, when he ran his own real estate business.

At first, none of them quit their day jobs. "We all just moonlighted trying to come up with this brand," Michael says. "It was all hands on deck. We were all there until 2 a.m. every night. It was complete chaos."

After long days at the office, Michael would make spreadsheets to determine how many clients they would need to bring in to make the business sustainable. He worked on fundraising and negotiating deals on new locations. Cameron, for his part, thought about what the Drybar brand should represent and how to create an in-store experience that was about more than just getting your hair styled. And Alli had good instincts about what women would want from a salon experience and could train the stylists they hired. Michael says, "All of our skills are so complementary."

Their collective expertise meant that in the early days, they didn't have to invest in hiring a team of experts to work for them. They would not have been able to afford to bring on a top design agency to do their branding, but because Cameron was an agency creative director at the time, they got all of his expertise for free.

Without micromanaging one another, the business got off the ground quickly and without hindrances. "When there are differences—which does happen—everybody is comfortable acquiescing to the person who knows that area best," Alli says. "There is such safety in trusting one another."

After the first Drybar salon in Brentwood, California, took off, they began to look into expanding into new locations. Before long, Michael and Cameron decided that it would be worth focusing all their attention on the company. "I loved creating the brand and the voice," says Cameron. "It was the first time that I didn't have a client telling me what they liked or didn't like," he explains. "I was really able to do what I thought we should do. That was really exciting for me."

Crazy Ideas, When Well-Executed, Might Be Massive Money-Makers

Which brings us to an important part of Drybar's success: how the idea is executed. They understood early on that the success of the business would depend on creating an elevated experience for the customer. It had to be about more than the blowout—about allowing a woman to feel pampered and cared for.

Cameron spent a long time developing a logo and several design elements, including the iconic Drybar yellow seen throughout the branding. He and Alli designed the stores so they felt like you were going to a fun, relaxing place, much like a bar. They further developed the "bar" concept by creating a "menu" of different hairstyles you could choose from and hair products that were named after different drinks: triple sec, Texas tea, hot toddy, mudslide.

They choose fun, upbeat music to go along with TV screens that show beloved chick flicks like Sixteen Candles and Breakfast at Tiffany's with the captions on, so women could enjoy them while having their hair blown out. And of course, customers can have complimentary wine or champagne as they are getting their hair done. "We wanted to it to have that local bar feeling where you walked in and people knew you," Alli says. "I still tell our staff that this is a bar where people can unwind and have fun."

The founders invested $400,000 to build out the very first store, an astronomical amount by small business standards, paying close attention to detail. They invested in expensive tufted paneled walls that give the space a luxurious feel. Even the bathrooms are carefully designed to be cheery, with cute touches, such as the vintage photographs on the walls. "There are so many little brand touch points that we believe have made Drybar so successful," Alli says. "The way you're treated, the way the shop looks, the way your hair feels, even how the place smells."

Investors may have balked at these design elements because they are not cost-effective and put pressure on the nascent company to generate a high volume of customers to balance its budget. But because they are family, they had the autonomy to go with their gut. In the end, Drybar's mounting revenues prove all of this attention to detail has paid off. This is why the founders believe that Drybar will continue to be successful, even though there have been a slew of other companies that have tried to imitate their model over the last few years. "There are a lot of copycats out there now, but they can't replicate the full Drybar experience," Alli says.

Allow Yourself To Vocally Disagree . . . But Always Make Up

One benefit of the three founders being related is that they are all comfortable—and vocal—when they think things are going in the wrong direction. As family members, they have a lot of personal experience working through disagreements and have applied some of these conflict-management skills to their work. "At the end of the day, you're still related," Alli says. "For Cameron and me, we still have to go home together and sleep in the same bed."

Alli and Michael had previously launched other businesses with friends and have noticed that it is not as easy to be open when problems arise. "You hold back," Alli says. "There's a lot of pent-up anxiety, frustration, and resentment that you can't totally air. I don't hold back anything with Michael and Cameron," she adds.

If there's an issue with operations or a new product that might become a problem down the line, one of the founders will catch it and won't be afraid to confront it head on, even if it might offend one of the others. Since the Drybar team has grown, there are now many other executives who work under the three of them. They've found that even when their subordinates are unwilling to be critical of them, they are willing to be critical of one another, which ensures there are always checks and balances in place.

Alli points out that this kind of dynamic creates a workplace culture that some employees may not be used to. Some investors and leadership hires that they have brought on were initially apprehensive about joining a family business. So they have felt the need to demonstrate that being a family has actually resulted in a warm, supportive workplace culture, and that business operates in a professional way.

But at the same time, there are occasionally sibling squabbles that take place on salon floors. "Michael and I will have an argument as brother and sister that is probably inappropriate to be having in front of the rest of the team," Alli says. "But it's funny, too. I think the people that choose to join our team sort of dig it."

Viewing all 43261 articles
Browse latest View live