Lately, I have been thinking about the unemployed and underemployed as a pool of talent. I'd argue they are one of the most undertapped economic segments.  Of the global working population, 6.3% is unemployed.  In the US, the long-term unemployed are better educated, older, and more likely to be professional workers than the mean unemployed population.  These workers are particularly held back by age discrimination and high wage expectation.

I am reasonably familiar with this market because a key component of the Circle of Experts' strategy is to tap the knowledge of people in transition.  Working with this community excites me because the unemployed are people facing significant challenges.  While they are wrestling with finding a job, we are glad to pay them a competitive rate. 

Particularly now as layoffs increase, there are significant entrepreneurial opportunities in creatively tapping the time and talents of the unemployed and underemployed.  The expert network business, the fastest growing sector of the investment research industry, is a prime example.  Other successful startups working in this market (broadly defined): Accolo, TheLadders, Notch Partners, and ProfessionaLink. Who else would you add to the list?

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management

I enjoyed presenting a few weeks ago to the Harvard Business School Club of London on "Best Practices in Deal-Sourcing by Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Hedge Funds", generously hosted by McKinsey.  You can download my slides here.  I look forward to learning more about this area at next week's Capital Roundtable Masterclass on "The Art of Building the Right Deal Flow", in New York.  I would welcome your feedback.

Career Acceleration | Events | Private Equity Investing | Social Software

 

A constant complaint we hear around the office is that emails we receive (and sometimes send) are poorly written or unclear.  According to “How to Write a Perfect Email”, when writing an email that warrants a reply, there are four key components to get a quick and valid response:

 

1. Brevity- Keep it short.

2. Context- How do you know me/where did we meet (Give information that would make a person remember you) and put it in the subject line.

3. Something to Act On- Make the request clear and ask closed ended questions.

4. Set a Deadline- Set a date when you need the information, give one follow-up email and then pick up the phone.

 

My colleague Michelle Reicher observed that the guidelines set in this blog are a good standard to follow, but, "I disagree with the blanket advice to ask closed ended questions. Keep the request and question clear and concise, but allow the responder to give as much information as is necessary to move forward. When one sends an email with questions, the goal is to solicit a response, but it is important to have a complete, comprehensive, and useful response not just a yes/no answer. Yes/No responses answer the immediate question, but do not allow farther explanation that may answer future questions or give farther insight into the matter at hand."

 

In The Cranking Widgets Blog: “How to Construct the Perfect Email Subject Line”, the blogger observes that a good subject line is imperative for a successful email:

“There are 3 simple tips that, if implemented properly, will make your email subject (and, subsequently, your email) much easier to read.

1.      Use Keywords [to identify the purpose of your email.] All email messages fall into one or more of 4 possible categories:

o        Questions (or messages that elicit a response from the reader)

o        Responses (messages that are in response to questions or other inquiring messages)

o        Informational (or FYI - messages that are meant to inform but don’t require a response)

o        Spam (jokes, pictures of your nephew’s baseball game, etc. - as well as actual spam)

2.      Briefly describe the subject - This is best done before you start writing your message. Finding the right balance between vague and overly-specific can be tough. Personally, I think it’s like anything else - you get better at it with time.

3.      For Pete’s sake, never leave the subject blank - This is something I’ve mentioned before, and it bears repeating.”

 

The body of the email will never be read if the context of the subject line does not act as an icebreaker or a contextual reminder. If the subject line merely says, “Hi” then it is synonymous to a cold call, but if the subject line identifies the business or how you know this person it becomes analogous to a warm call or a referral, which are generally more fruitful and productive than an unsolicited call.

Career Acceleration | Personal Productivity | Social Software

I’m looking forward to speaking at the monthly New York Software Industry Association meeting on September 10 in New York. The topic is ‘Secrets of Silicon Alley's Serial Entrepreneurs’. Carter Burden, Laurel Touby and I will be sharing our thoughts. (Personally, I think the key secret is fail fast and often.)

Career Acceleration | Events | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

Jason Alba at JibberJobber added a JibberJobber profile to the Virtual Handshake social software company wiki. Barbara Safani writes,

A successful job search campaign requires exceptional organizational and follow-up skills. Jibber Jobber provides an easy to use interface that takes the drudgery out of the job search process while improving efficiencies and accelerating search activity.

What I like about Jibber Jobber is that it addresses a clear need among job-searchers: managing their job search and all of the people and companies with whom they interact during the course of their job search. The great majority of people I meet have very primitive personal CRM systems--often as primitive as a shoebox of business cards. So there's a large opportunity to provide people with more sophisticated tools. Jibber Jobber's challenge is that it is so narrowly focused on the job search, whereas every professional needs a personal CRM tool (e.g., Act, Microsoft Business Contact Manager, etc. They may find that they successfully penetrate the job-seeker market, then at some point rebrand and target the broader professional market.

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity | Social Software

I am prone to agree with Robert Frank's argument in "A Career in Hedge Funds and the Price of Overcrowding". 

"[The market for hedge fund talent] is what economists call a winner-take-all market — essentially a tournament in which a handful of winners are selected from a much larger field of initial contestants. Such markets tend to attract too many contestants for two reasons.

The first is an information bias. An intelligent decision about whether to enter any tournament requires an accurate estimate of the odds of winning. Yet people’s assessments of their relative skill levels are notoriously optimistic. Surveys show, for example, that more than 90 percent of workers consider themselves more productive than their average colleague.

This overconfidence bias is especially likely to distort career choice because, in addition to the motivational forces that support it, the biggest winners in many tournaments are so conspicuous. For example, N.B.A. stars who earn eight-figure salaries appear on television several nights a week, whereas the thousands who failed to make the league attract little notice....

A second reason for persistent overcrowding in winner-take-all markets is a structural problem called “the tragedy of the commons.” This problem helps explain, for instance, why we see too many gold prospectors, an occupation that has much in common with prospecting for corporate deals. In the initial stages of exploiting a newly discovered gold field, adding another prospector may significantly increase the total amount of gold found. Beyond some point, however, additional prospectors contribute little. The gold found by a newcomer to a crowded field is largely gold that would have been found by existing searchers."

more...

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management | Private Equity Investing | Public Markets Investing

In our latest FastCompany column, we summarized best practices in managing virtual employees at Evalueserve:

...Daigle observed that the virtual structure eliminates many political issues: "Not only do we not have much of the water cooler, idle time type of communication, and resulting issues -- we don't have time for it. I think there is some truth that the four of us [of the EVS management team] have got by without serious conflicts over 6 full years because we're somewhat forced (by geographic non-proximity) to stay out of one another's way, trusting each other to execute. Despite being geographically dispersed, all four senior managers are actively involved in both sales and operations, in touch via email, instant messaging, and phone daily. However, because we are distant we are forced to act independently and to focus on execution."

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

Our new parent company, Evalueserve, is highly dependent on email for internal and external communications.  They also hire every year hundreds of recent graduates (particularly in India, China, and Chile) who are usually not familiar with the protocols of business communication via email.  The guidelines below, crafted by my Evalueserve colleague Ramakrishnan M., provide guidelines from which many other companies would likely benefit.  All new employees at Evalueserve/Nitron are asked to hold by these rules. Corporate Email Guidelines     Address  --   Ensure that the “To” and “CC” boxes are left blank, while typing the mail content, so that the message is not sent accidentally. Type the client’s mail id the only after the mail has been written, QCed and accepted. --   It is best to avoid BCCs in business mails   --   Maintain Protocol for “CCs”, i.e., first mention the Client name, and then CE name.     Subject     --   Provide a Subject. The subject should be brief and to the point. --   Ensure that the subject is changed appropriately when replying to old mails   --   Mention the project charge code in the subject of status updates/deliverables/call summaries etc to the client. This is very important from a tracking perspective. Going forward, please follow the nomenclature given below:             o        EVS Deliverable, June 9, 2005 - XYZ-US-B-001 - Brief Project Title             o        EVS Call Summary, June 9, 2005 - XYZ-US-B-001 - Brief Project Title             o        EVS Status, June 9, 2005 - XYZ-US-B-001 - Brief Project Title   Salutation    --   Mails should start with “Hi XYZ,” (including the comma)             o       Choose “Hello”, if the client is based in Europe or if the relationship is more formal             o       You could also write “Hello Mr. Last Name” if you do not know the person too well and wish to be extra formal              o       The best way to decide how to address the client is to follow the way he/she addresses us    Body    --   Provide a suitable reference or background/context (This is with reference to your mail dated …) --   Please categorize all the points into appropriate buckets --   Use “bold” , “italics”, etc. to highlight important points or headings/topics . Avoid using CAPITAL LETTERS. This is considered as angry/rude/arrogant.   --   Ensure that the subject matter is MECE (Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) --   Be crisp, and to the point --   Especially be clear about action points due from the client’s side, as well as from EVS side --   Broadly, all project-related mails should cover .                o        The objective of the project             o        The work done             o        Clarifications needed             o        Plan of action             o        Red Flags (if any)  --   Follow the EVS template for guidance on how to categorize sub-sections in the email --   Use standard EVS bullets --   Avoid full stops at the end of bullet-points if it is not a complete sentence --   Avoid contractions, such as “let’s” , "pls"  –use full forms “let us” , "please" etc.  --   Be extra careful when copy/pasting from multiple mails             o        Select all the text, make the font “Arial, 10” with color “automatic” or “black”             o        Ensure all signatures (from others) have been removed in the final mail   --   Always propose a tentative solution when you need to get the client’s go-ahead; Let him/her get back with an alternative way, if need be             o        This way you show that you are thinking on your feet             o        You are not sitting idle, waiting for the client to hand-hold you             o        This is applicable to time for a conference call as well – always propose a tentative time.  Please be sure to add conference bridge details   --   Avoid any form of ambiguity.  Indicate concrete time (date, time, with time zone) for all deliverables             o        If possible, avoid EoD ("End of Day") India Standard Time; this does not tell the client much (especially if he hopes to work on it). Instead, write 09:00 PM IST             o        Monday (June 06, 2005) – no “early next week” or “Monday” or anything incomplete             o        06:00 PM CET – Be clear about timeframes. For assistance, use http://www.timeanddate.com/             o        Even if the client uses wrong terms (EST instead of EDT, for instance), be sure that you use the appropriate term     --   Use your discretion on whether to reply to old mails or start new mails             o        If client’s chain/previous comments need to be referred, use the old chain               o        If it is a fresh mail/deliverable, start afresh             o        Please be very careful that no internal mail exchanges are sent across unless necessary    Complimentary Closing   --   Mails should end with “Thanks and regards,” or “Best regards,” (including the comma) --   Ensure that your signature (with updated extension number) is included --   Ensure every aspect of the signature is consistent with the EVS standard --   Mention your first name at the end (even though the signature is right below that)    Last, but not the least   --   Ensure that you run a spell-check before delivery  - please activate automatic spell check option in your Outlook configuration. --   Ensure that you read the mail twice before sending. Think critically and revise suitably. Check not only the grammar and spelling aspects, but also the tone. Ensure that you don't sound rude. --   Ensure that you check and confirm that the document attached is the right one . If it is a spreadsheet deliverable, ensure you have brought the cursor to the beginning of each page using 'Control+Home' combination. Also, the document should be saved with the cover page active, so that it opens with that page when the client receives it.

Career Acceleration | Social Software

I hope that some of you will join us for the program below.

CONSULTING OPPORTUNITIES WITH HEDGE FUNDS, PRIVATE EQUITY FUNDS, MUTUAL FUNDS AND OTHERS

Webinar with David Teten, Co-Managing Director, Nitron Circle of Experts

Friday, June 08, 2007, 1:00 - 2:00 PM EST

Sponsored by Execunet, the executive network for the $100K+ executive.

David is Co-Managing Director of the Nitron Circle of Experts ( CircleofExperts.com ), an independent research firm that pays senior industry executives to consult with professional investors, law firms, and a range of corporate clients. Our clients learn from experts like you through one-on-one consultations, customized surveys, and interactive events. Nitron is a subsidiary of Evalueserve, an offshore research & analytics firm.

Joining the Circle of Experts never costs you a dime. Your benefits:

• Interact and learn from the leading institutional investors.
• Work on strategic, thought-provoking projects.
• Monetary compensation. We pay a competitive hourly rate, varying depending on your experience.
• Convenience. Most consultations are over the phone, at times you choose.
• Privacy. Your consultations are entirely confidential. Only discuss topics of your choosing.
• Earn additional compensation to introduce qualified colleagues.

Among our Circle of Experts are alumni of:

Premier companies:

AIG, Cisco, Dow, DuPont, GE, IBM, McKinsey, MetLife, Microsoft, Pfizer, Shell, Sony, Toyota

Leading universities:

California Institute of Technology, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, MIT

Scientific institutions:

National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Harvard Medical School

Update:

Execunet has posted a recording of the presentation, available free at

http://www.execunet.com/execunet_ondemand/FTBREATETE_tetan_coffeebreak/ondemand.html

REGISTRATION

(Requires membership in Execunet )

https://members.execunet.com/e_membership_alertlogin.cfm?
redirfile=e_network_online_register.cfm&
fmtid=7a56&CFID=9087973&
CFTOKEN=4193b43320a9da58-C37A4E8C-EA68-1A78-C8A40DD1F900B762

Career Acceleration | Events | Leadership and Management

The folks at Landslide have figured out a great marketing strategy: If you view a demo of their "sales workstyle management" system, they'll give you a free copy of The Virtual Handshake--Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online.

Alex Salkever of Inc. wrote in Turning Sales Into Science that Landslide "gives sales staffers what they need, when they need it, to close a deal."  In other words, Landslide provides salespeople more infrastructure, so that they can focus more on selling and less on all of the other activities that distract them from their main job.

Link: Watch a Landslide demo, get a copy of The Virtual Handshake

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity | Public Markets Investing | Securities Research | Social Software

Career Hub has just released their third free eBook, “The Insider’s Guide to Interviewing”, featuring articles from 14 top career experts. This book, along with two earlier books, ‘The Insider’s Guide to Resume Writing” and “The Insider’s Guide to Job Search” can be downloaded at http://careerhub.typepad.com/main/2007/04/free_job_search.html. Via Barbara Safani

General | Career Acceleration

The indefatigable and ubiquitous Auren Hoffman, CEO of Rapleaf, posts his slides from a presentation on the value of soft assets ("connections, knowledge, and reputation"). I particularly like his analogy between alternative assets in the hard and soft space.

General | Social Software | Career Acceleration

Dealmaker Magazine has a useful survey of 2006 compensation at top private equity firms and investment banks.

They've done their best to make it hard to replicate this data without sharing your own personal data with them.

The page with this data in the printed magazine is written with hard-to-copy formatting, and the online version is presented in graphical form so readers can't just cut and paste it.

Click here and register for the data: http://www.dealmakerdaily.com/magazine/article/4444.html

UPDATE: For another excellent compensation survey, see TheFundBusiness Survey .

Career Acceleration | General | Private Equity Investing | Public Markets Investing

I enjoyed meeting with Jim Fowler yesterday, CEO of Jigsaw (our wiki profile). Jigsaw is a marketplace for business contact information. It's very useful for salespeople, recruiters, researchers, jobseekers, and so on. Some noteable data points:

+ We know from our (Nitron Advisors') own experience that the problem with most traditional list services is that their data is often out-of-date, whereas Jigsaw has attracted a community who are motivated to cleanse the data on their behalf. 80% of Jigsaw phone numbers are direct dial, in part because of their approach to gathering data.

+ Most Jigsaw revenues come from recruiters and financial advisors. 50% of revenue is from corporate clients, who find the data cleansing service that Jigsaw offers particularly valuable. All of Salesforce's salesforce uses Jigsaw . Only a small percentage of corporate customers upload data, but Jim sees that percentage increasing over time.

+ 1/4 of revenue is from resellers/partners --- you can see a list at http://jigsaw.com/company_information/partners.xhtml .

+ He's identified several competitors: WillyLoman.com, 7 Chinese competitors. Jim claims that he is the only player with significant traction.

+ As with all social networks, Jigsaw has some users who abuse the system. So like all data vendors, Jigsaw has started to insert dummy records to track abuse, resale, and so on of their data.

+ Jim claims that some corporate sales brokers have stopped selling databases with emails, because of their concern that their lists will end up on Jigsaw.

+ Although many people (Michael Arrington, Rafe Nadleman) are critical of Jigsaw on privacy grounds, to date only 200 people have asked to be removed from Jigsaw, and >2500 people have asked to be added to Jigsaw so they can proactively manage their data.

+ The database is used heavily; 70% of all contacts in the system are "bought" at least once a year.

+ Jim claims that the people who are really hurt by Jigsaw are CEOs like him and me, because it makes executive recruiters more efficient---so that they can steal our employees more readily. He says "As soon as we're cash flow positive [this year], I've told all our employees that we're giving free lunches every day. We have to do what Google does, because I know that so many people are working hard to recruit our employees."

General | Social Software | Career Acceleration

Annie Fisher quotes Ben Dattner, who suggests: 1. Focus the discussion on how you've improved over time. 2. Talk about how the job you're applying for will help you stretch and build your skills. 3. Describe a valuable piece of advice someone gave you, and how it has helped your career. more...

General | Career Acceleration

Dion Hinchcliffe reports on "Ten Ways To Take Advantage of Web 2.0".

One of the questions I get asked fairly frequently is how people can leverage Web 2.0 techniques in their applications and infrastructure today. Now that it's getting more well known, more people seem to be actively interested in making immediate, practical use of Web 2.0 ideas.

On a related note, the new meta-search tool Zuula looks very useful. (via Shally)

General | Social Software | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

Via Barbara Safani:

Career Hub, a career advice blog I contribute to, recently launched their second free ebook, Insider’s Guide to Resume Writing. The free download is http://careerhub.typepad.com/main/2007/01/resume_writing_.html

General | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

"For CEOs and CEOs-to-be, sports may be a more effective training ground than any business school, according to both psychologists and entrepreneur athletes themselves." http://trax.inc.com/k/w/mailman/inc_leading/20070117/athletes

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

"On the 9th Day of Xmas, Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters revealed to me: Nine Tools for Researching Leads." Whether you are looking for sales or job-hunting purposes, there are a vast number of services you can subscribe to for free that will bring information on worthwhile new companies straight to you. This is a useful list.

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

I had lunch recently with David Jackson, CEO of SeekingAlpha, and a former neighbor of mine.

I thought that many of our Circle of Experts would benefit from contributing to David's company.

Briefly, www.SeekingAlpha.com is the leading blog source of stock market related commentary by money managers and industry experts and a major provider of financial content to Yahoo! Finance.

Articles published on Seeking Alpha reach over a million readers per month, about 17% of whom are finance professionals.

 Crucially, each article published by Seeking Alpha (including those syndicated on Yahoo Finance) contains a link to the author’s biography or URL of choice, and can therefore be used to publicize your availability for consultations via Circle of Experts.

If you are already writing any sort of analysis, there's no marginal cost or effort to you. Just send SeekingAlpha your work, and they'll do all the editing and production for you.

 You can read about Seeking Alpha at http://seekingalpha.com/about, view a list of sample contributors at http://seekingalpha.com/contributors, and submit an article for publication (Seeking Alpha’s editors will contact you directly after doing so) at http://seekingalpha.com/do/content/submit.php or by emailing Mick(at)SeekingAlpha.com.

(As disclosure, Nitron Advisors does not get any sort of commission or payment from SeekingAlpha if you sign up; we just think that publishing through their channel is valuable to you.)

Career Acceleration | General | Personal Productivity | Public Markets Investing | Securities Research

(from my friends at Accolo) The Great Recruiting Discrimination Debate - Round 2.5 with sound You are invited to participate in our next Webinar Debate with the EEOC and OFCCP on December 5th from 10:30 am to noon Pacific Time.

For more event details and to register, go to http://www.accolo.com/streets/ .

 This is a redo of the debate we held on November 14, 2006 where there were difficulties with the sound.

 Thanks to the willingness of the panelists and vastly better technology, we are holding another live Webinar debate.

 The great news is that you can now participate in a bigger and better event! The audio will be delivered through the speakers on your computer.

Title: The Great Recruiting Discrimination Debate - Round 2.5 with sound

Date: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 Time: 10:30 am to Noon Pacific Standard

Time Cost: Free Capacity: Limited to the first 1,500 participants

 Link: http://www.accolo.com/streets/ As a bonus, we will be combining all the questions and answers into a web page for easy reference after the December event.

 We will send you an e-mail with the web page link when this is ready. If you have any burning questions for the EEOC/OFCCP, you can ask it when you register.

 Even if there is not enough time to have your question answered during the debate, we will make sure it is added to the Q&A section on the web page following the event.

 Round 1 was held in May 2006, and 94% of all participants wanted to hear more! Round 2.5 with sound will be bigger and contain tougher questions.

 The panel not only includes additional senior members of the EEOC and OFCCP, but also a litigator representing companies fighting these agencies.

 This content rich Webinar is free thanks to the generous donations from PeopleClick and Accolo, and the tireless volunteer efforts from Daniel Parrillo of Strategi LLC, Karen Mattonen of Advanced Career Solutions Inc. Pre-registration is required.

 We know how valuable your time is and hope you will join us for The Great Recruiting Discrimination Debate – Round 2.5 – with sound.

Career Acceleration | General

An interview with Michael Gerber, Author of The E-Myth Revisited:

"If they don’t fail outright, most businesses fail to fully achieve their potential. That’s because the person who owns the business doesn't truly know how to build a company that works without him or her.. which is the key." - Michael Gerber

Michael Gerber is the founder and CEO of E-Myth Worldwide, and best selling author of The E-Myth Revisited, and E-Myth Mastery. He defines E-Myth as:

1: The entrepreneurial myth: the myth that most people who start a small business are entrepreneurs,

2: the fatal assumption that an individual who understands the technical work of a business can successfully run a business that does technical work.

Since its publication in 1995, this business classic has sold over one million copies, and is published in 16 languages. Michael observes that most small businesses are started by "technicians", that is, people who are skilled at something and who enjoy doing that thing.

When these technicians strike out on their own, they tend to continue doing the work they are skilled at, and ignore the overarching aspects of business.

 Without clear goals and quantification benchmarks, they soon find themselves overworked, understaffed, and eventually broke. They come to hate the work they do. Rather than owning a business, Gerber writes, "they own a job." Click here for the interview.

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

Our COO, Scott Lichtman, is speaking at this event:

New York County Lawyers’ Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee

presents

Web 2.0: Upgrade Your Web Marketing

The Internet is upgrading to version 2.0 and so should your law firm's marketing. More and more lawyers are taking their practices to the next level and this forum should help you do the same. Take an evening to familiarize yourself with how blogging, online referral networks, research-sharing wikis and more can expand your firm’s profile and attract prospective clients.

SPEAKERS

Scott Lichtman

COO, Nitron Advisors

Scott Lichtman is COO of Nitron Advisors (www.nitronadvisors.com), a provider of senior industry executives with specialized backgrounds to law firms for testimony and to investment funds for market advice. Nitron Advisors extensively applies Web 2.0 technologies – including blogs, peer referral networks, online expertise acquisition services, specialized professional search engines and live interactions – to acquire clients and experts as well as build awareness for the firm’s capabilities.

Martin Schwimmer, Esq.

Partner, Schwimmer Mitchell Law Firm

Martin Schwimmer is co-founder and Partner at Schwimmer Mitchell. He represents owners of some of the most famous and soon-to-be-famous trademarks in the world. He focuses on international and domestic trademark and domain name counseling, prosecution and litigation. Martin was General Counsel to an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar and continues to represent domain name companies. Martin was a partner at Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu. Managing Intellectual Property Magazine selected Martin as one of the best trademark lawyers in the United States. Martin writes and speaks frequently on trademark and domain name issues and is editor of The Trademark Blog, www.schwimmerlegal.com, one of the most popular blogs on the Internet in this field of law (and generally ranked #1 by Google in this niche).

Bruce MacEwan

Creator and Host of AdamSmithEsq.com

Bruce MacEwan is a lawyer as well as a consultant to law firms on strategic and economic issues. He publishes the site “Adam Smith, Esq.” providing insights into the business of law firms, which generates 250,000 page views per month. You can read it at www.AdamSmithEsq.com. In his consulting practice, Bruce provides guidance on how to expand one’s business in the legal world. A recent engagement, for example, was a return-on-investment analysis of a knowledge management initiative at an AmLaw 20 practice. He’s also produced empirical studies of the structure of the profession, working with leading law professors. Most relevant to tonight, he has witnessed fascinating situations in which Web 2.0 technologies are being used to the fullest in law and related professional services. Bruce has written for or been the subject of articles in: The National Law Journal, Law Firm, Inc., Law Technology News as well as the Wall Street Journal and Web 2.0 magazine. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association’s committee on Law Practice Management.

Natalie Sulimani, Event Co-Chair, NYCLA Cyberspace Law Executive Committee;

Ron Katter and Henry Diaz, Event Co-Chairs, Co-Chairs NYCLA Solo and Small Firm Practice Committee

Thursday, November 16, 2006, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

NYCLA Home of Law - 14 Vesey Street

(between Broadway and Church Street)

RSVP: DLAMB(AT)nycla.org, Subject: "November 16 Forum". Entrance and facilities for those with disabilities are available. For wheelchair access, a ramp is provided. Please call 212 267-6646 at least one day in advance to make arrangements.

General | Social Software | Career Acceleration

From the "brazen careerist", 10 Job-hunt tactics you might not know:

2. Use proactive recommendations. Instead of waiting for a hiring manager to ask for references, have your reference call immediately. This works well if you have a heavy-weight reference, like a well-known CEO or someone who knows the hiring manager. But it also works well if you have little professional experience.

more

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

Via Wharton's newsletter:

It's always been assumed that when employees leave their companies to join other ones that all their knowledge and experience leave with them.

 But new research suggests that, at least in the high-tech field, firms can wind up gaining access to the knowledge being generated at their former colleague's new place.

The results of this research are presented in a paper titled, "Learning from Those Who Left: The Reverse Transfer of Knowledge through Mobility Ties," by Wharton management professor Lori Rosenkopf and Wharton doctoral student Rafael A. Corredoira. ... "Contrary to the view that companies lose something when a worker leaves, the study found that they stood to gain.

Specifically, firms that lost an employee to another firm were 8% more likely to cite that firm than other equivalent firms, Rosenkopf says. The reverse flow of knowledge was particularly pronounced when the employee moved to another region. Then the old firm was 22% more likely to cite the new firm."

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1565.cfm

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

Via Barbara Safani, a no-cost job search ebook from Career Hub:

I'm excited to announce our very first eBook! The book, which features in-depth job search advice from 17 career marketing experts is available for download now.

 We put this book together because we know that so many job seekers feel lost when they start out on their search.

Having put all their time and energy into making their employers successful, they've had neither the time nor the need to keep up with the latest in job search strategies.

The Career Hub contributors are career coaches, recruiters, consultants, business executives and resume writers and all have valuable knowledge to share.

So I asked each of them to contribute to this free eBook in order to share what they know with those of you who are working your way through the job search process now (or plan to do so in the future).

Please feel free to share the book. And tell us what you think, either by email or in the comments. We plan to issue more free eBooks and your feedback will help us make them as useful as possible. Download here.

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management

The courageous actions of passengers on the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11 flew in the face of a long-standing contention in social science circles that people won't put themselves in danger to right a wrong, e.g., the famous Kitty Genovese case.

This fact prompted Monica Worline, a professor of organizational behavior at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, and a colleague to find out what was different about this incident.

The result of their lengthy research is a new paper entitled "Capabilities for Organizing Courage: The Story of United Airlines Flight 93."

It is the first academic study to examine the group behavior dynamics aboard the plane on that fateful morning. The chief finding?

 "People do things in conversations with others that create psychological resources that allow them to act in difficult situations."

http://knowledge.emory.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&ID=996

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

The event below is targeted at CFOs of mid-size and larger companies (over $50M in revenues). I hope that you can join us.

 CFO Leadership Team First Alumni Gathering September 21, Stamford, CT Guest Speaker: David Teten The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online Join fellow CFOs of mid-size and larger companies, and learn how to accelerate your sales, recruit star employees, enhance your marketing, or just find your next job by using online networks.

David Teten will discuss blogs, social network sites, virtual communities, relationship capital management software, biography analysis software, and other new tools.

 When: September 21, 6:30 to 8:30 PM Cost: $30 including hors'deurves, cash bar

Where: Stamford, CT (location disclosed to confirmed attendees) RSVP: by September 14 to Kevin McEnery, KJMcEnery(at)aol.com, 1-203-348-4435

Who: This event is open only to members of the CFO Leadership Group. Members must have experience as CFO or Divisional CFO in an organization with at least $50M in revenues.

 A few select recruiters specializing in CFO searches will also attend. Our members have experience with companies that include Acclaim Entertainment, Altria, Arc, Associated Press, Atari, Barnes & Noble, Calvin Klein, Dover, Gartner, Georgia Pacific, Gerber Scientific, Groupe Danone, Kodak, Labatt, McCann Relationship Marketing, Nestle, Newsweek, Pepsi, Revlon, Rogers, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, The Reader’s Digest Association, Time Warner Cable, and World Wrestling Entertainment. Nominations welcome for members.

 Why: To see old and new friends

MORE ON OUR SPEAKER When you finish David Teten’s program, you’ll know how to:

 * create a powerful professional presence online

 * attract business in online networks

 * meet more relevant clients and potential clients

 * start and promote your own blog

 * master the email deluge

 * analyze and value your community of business partners

 * manage your contact database

 * ensure privacy and safety online

 "We hosted one of David Teten’s presentations at the Euromoney 2004 Annual Hedge Fund Start-Up & Business Development  Forum. Out of 40 speakers, David tied for first place for the highest speaker rating." - Diane Higgins, Financial Markets, EuroMoney PLC

BIOGRAPHY David Teten is CEO of Nitron Advisors ( www.NitronAdvisors.com), which provides independent industry experts with consulting opportunities to hedge funds and other institutional investors.

 To participate in paid interviews with Nitron Advisors’ institutional investor clients, at no cost to you, join the Nitron Advisors Circle of Experts ( www.CircleofExperts.com ).

 David is the co-author of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online ( www.TheVirtualHandshake.com ).

David was formerly CEO of an investment bank specializing in Internet domain names. He has worked with the Bear Stearns Technology investment banking group and Mars & Co strategy consulting.

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity | Social Software

From Harvard Business School Working Knowledge:

The researchers identified four successful tactics for obtaining stretchwork that were common to both groups:

* Differentiate competence. Anyone hoping to advance must distinguish his or her performance on the job. This is particularly true, however, for contract workers—because they are paid for each short-term job, their employers are likely to subject their work to close, frequent evaluation.

* Acquire referrals. Because high-tech contractors tend to work with a number of clients, brokers, and fellow contractors, they enjoy a broader social network from which to draw referrals than most permanent employees. In the film industry—where most hiring is done based on a production manager's previous experience with an individual—referrals are a vital aspect of getting any job, particularly if it stretches a worker in a new direction.

* Framing and bluffing. "This is one of the most creative attributes for obtaining stretchwork," O'Mahony notes. "People who are good at presenting their prior experience in a way that allows for an easy translation to the desired job can narrow the gap between their past experience and future capabilities." Adopting a hybrid job title to identify oneself—"director-screenwriter," for example—can also help establish authority in more than one area.

* Discounting. Accepting pay below the market rate is a temporary disadvantage some contract workers are willing to accept, if it means gaining the experience and exposure that will lead to a new position. One technical writer put it this way: "I turned down solid offers from three companies, all paying over $100K a year…I would take a job at $55K if they're using a totally new technology so I learn something…It's like playing pool…You hit the green ball with the white ball, and the point is to place the white ball to get the next shot. So I take that job in order to learn skills for my next project."

More...

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

There's a product liability lawsuit waiting to happen here:

Studying with diligent friends is fine, says Heidi Lessing, a University of Delaware sophomore. But after a couple of hours, it's time for a break, a little gossip: "I want to talk about somebody walking by in the library." One of those friends, however, is working too hard for dish -- way too hard. Instead of joining in the gossip, "She says, 'Be quiet,' " Lessing says, astonishment still registering in her voice. Her friend's attention is laserlike, totally focused on her texts, even after an evening of study. "We were so bored," Lessing says. But the friend was still "really into it. It's annoying." The reason for the difference: Her pal is fueled with "smart pills" that increase her concentration, focus, wakefulness and short-term memory.

more at A Dose of Genius

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

Thanks to the American Mathematical Society, Dartmouth is giving away the much-praised textbook, Introduction to Probability by Charles M. Grinstead and J. Laurie Snell, as free etext. The website also includes computer programs to go along with the book. Link Via http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/03/introduction_to_prob.html

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration | Private Equity Investing | Public Markets Investing | Securities Research

Dennis Kimbro's Prescription for Gaining Greatness in Work and Life

What makes the great, great? It's a question author Dennis Kimbro took 20 years to research, interviewing leaders from diverse backgrounds from Earl Graves of Black Enterprise magazine to Bishop T. D. Jakes. His findings were eventually culled into a book of the same name and recently shared with aspiring corporate and entrepreneurial leaders of the future at the inaugural Black MBA Diverse Leadership conference at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. Among the offerings, Kimbro advised students to be "driven by your vision. Get a big dream and believe in yourself when no one else will."

http://knowledge.emory.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&ID=979

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

ABOUT a year before Adam Richman was to graduate from the Harvard Business School in 1996, he took on an extracurricular project. It was long before the Internet bubble inflated and burst, and well before one of the school's graduates landed in the White House. Mr. Richman wondered: What was the real-world value of a master's in business administration, especially one from the iviest of Ivies? Was it, as widely perceived, an ace in the hole, a get-out-of-jail-free card, a ticket to the good life? more from the NY Times...

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

Senior Media Entrepreneurs/ Executives Manhattan Lunch

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

If you are investigating new businesses to grow; have sold your business and are looking for your next move; or perhaps have just exited a senior level executive position; please join us at our lunch for Media Entrepreneurs and Senior Executives Seeking New Business Growth. Participants typically had C-level responsibility for at least a $50M budget in the media industry (broadly defined).

Due to the overwhelming interest in our topic and limited space, we can only accommodate individuals whom the event is addressing directly. We welcome referrals.

Location:
1345 Avenue of the Americas, 49th Floor

(Between 54th and 55th Streets)

Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2006, Noon sharp until 2pm

Cost: complimentary

Your Hosts:
+ David Teten, CEO, Nitron Advisors

+ John Adelman, CIMA and Paul Lewis, CFM, Wittenstein Adelman Group

+ Allan Grafman, President, All Media Ventures; Operating Partner, Mercury Capital (formerly President, Archie Comics Entertainment; CFO, Hallmark Entertainment; Tribune; Cap Cities/ABC)

+ Claire Delong, Accolo

Please RSVP with your one-page text biography to Avi Mally, AMally(at)Nitronadvisors.com , 1-212-682-5874 . Pre-registration is required; we will distribute your one-page biography to all the attendees. Please make sure to include your contact information on your biography, and ideally, your photo. Also, please indicate any dietary preferences (vegetarian, kosher, halal, etc.)

(Our thanks to Jeff Meshel of Mercury Capital for inspiring this event.)

Career Acceleration | Events | General | Personal Productivity

John Doerr's Startup Manual is still timely (even though it dates from 1997). Via Marc Cenedella's blog

General | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration | Private Equity Investing

Younger siblings, better entrepreneurs?

Which slot in the birth-order sequence makes for the most successful entrepreneurs? Ben Dattner: It's not that cut and dried. There are positives and negatives -- and examples of successful business people -- from all the places in the birth-order spectrum. For instance, first-born entrepreneurs tend to be more extroverted and confident than their younger siblings. In a business where somebody needs to maintain a high PR profile, you could imagine that it might be easier if you're naturally extroverted and confident. Especially if you'll be called on to talk to the media as the public face of your company. First-borns also tend to be more assertive and authoritarian, dominant and inflexible. They're good at executing a plan, following it, and driving others to follow it in a disciplined way. Conformist, task-oriented, disciplined, and concerned with getting things done right -- all these traits are naturally found in first-borns.

more..

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

From ForeignMBA.com: http://foreignmba.com/area.php?area=1

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

Greg Narain has some sound Advice to Fledgling Consultants.

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

AIRS has a master directory of job boards by geography and industry: http://www.airsdirectory.com/mc/directory_jobboards.guid?oemID=AIRS&siteLive=true

General | Career Acceleration

Tricks to Improve Your Memory 7 ways to recall your PIN number, the location of your wallet, or other key information. More Via Lifehacker.

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

The MBAs of the Kellogg-Recanati Executive MBA program have posted summaries of all of their classes at: http://www.kr04.net/ This is a handy reference site---a summary of what you learn in an executive MBA, all on one website.

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration | Private Equity Investing | Public Markets Investing

Via Marc, I was led to a blog post by David Manaster on recruiter efficiency. He reports that "It would seem that (on average) the optimal workload for a recruiter is between 11 and 20 open positions. " I'd argue that the main reason for this phenomenon is that most recruiters are using only the traditional toolkit: Excel, Word, email, phone, to keep track of their applicants. Nitron couldn't function effectively if we were this inefficient. John Younger, CEO of recruiting process outsourcer Accolo, observed:

I actually find this research to be right in line with our surveys for the typical recruiter today.

 We have found the optimal workload to be between 4 and 18 unique full-time jobs simultaneously.

 At 18 or more, the applicant screening, follow-up and tracking take a severe dive.

The astounding part is that this is the same recruiter workload of 1963! Think about it.

What else in our lives has not budged a bit in productivity in over 40 years! This is the time before e-mail, job boards, the internet and Starbucks.

The core reason is that the recruiter today operates in exactly the same model as the early 1960’s. All we have done is pave the cowpath.

 It gets worse… the hiring manager service and applicant experience have actually diminished with all the technology noise in the middle.

There are new models emerging, but there is an army of people invested in keeping things the same.

According to a staffing.org survey of 2,294 companies, during 2005, the national average Recruiting Efficiency Index was 12.3%. REI is calculated by dividing total recruiting costs, including recruiter salaries & overhead, applicant tracking, advertising fees, etc. and dividing it by total compensation recruited. Accolo reports an REI of under 7% for clients using Accolo's system. Among the drivers for that efficiency: - much higher per-recruiter workload - use of online networks for recruiting (more on that topic)

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

Steve Pavlina's list of 10 Stupid Mistakes Made by the Newly Self-Employed is worth reviewing even for the non-self-employed. Via Marc Cenedella's blog

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

Valuable write-up on how some of the most successful people manage their time and their days. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/03/20/8371781/index.htm Via Arash Farin

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

A jobless marketing manager recently touted his accomplishments to New York search firm Canny, Bowen. He simultaneously sent the same cover letter and resume to more than 150 other executive recruiters -- and identified every recipient on his e-mail's distribution list. The shotgun approach helped chill the chances of Canny, Bowen proposing him for any vacancy. "We get a half-dozen mass mailings like this every week," reports Gregory Gabel, a managing director. "Two years ago, I never used to get these."

more...

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

'Early Matters': Creating Value through Operations at Portfolio Companies According to speakers at the 2006 Wharton Private Equity Conference, the most important element of operational performance is getting the right management team, which requires private equity owners to make a swift decision about whether to keep or let go of existing senior executives. After that, they say, private equity firms need to drive returns through management incentives, tight monitoring and forward-focused strategies. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1457.cfm

General | Career Acceleration | Private Equity Investing

For Job-Hunters: How to Find a Contact Name Inside a Target Company

Job-hunters have a number of hurdles to surmount, but one of the greatest is this: how do you get a name inside a target company? When you want to send a letter of inquiry to a company (about a job), you really want to find the right person's name, in order to contact him or her. If you can't find the right person, you want to find someone who can put you in touch with the person you seek. Here are ten ways to find a name inside a company you are targeting.

More...

General | Social Software | Career Acceleration

Maureen Crawford Hentz writes on Phone Interview Etiquette Can Propel You to the Next Step in the Hiring Process.

Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

I hope that some of our readers will join me at TiECON East, June 15-17, in Boston, MA. With over 1,200 expected attendees, TiECON East plans to become the largest Global Innovation conference on the East Coast.

 The sponsoring organization is TiE, whose members receive roughly 5% of the venture capital investment in the United States.

Speakers include: -

 Howard Anderson, Founder Battery Ventures and The Yankee Group - Nikesh Arora, VP & GM Europe, Google - Clayton M. Christensen, Professor, Harvard Business School, Author, The Innovator's Dilemma - Rajat Gupta, Senior Partner Worldwide, McKinsey & Co. - Ray Kurzweil, Author & Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence - Venkat Ramaswamy, Ross School of Business at University of Michigan - Paul Sagan, CEO, Akamai - Mohanbir Sawhney, Professor, Kellogg School of Management - Howard H. Stevenson, Professor, Harvard Business School - Hatim Tyabji, Executive Chairman, Bytemobile Inc.

 I'll be participating in two panels, one on innovation in social software and online networks, and one on innovation in investment research.

The keynote speaker is Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations (although I somehow doubt he will be talking about innovation, given that's not the UN's strength.) With prices starting at $269 for TiE Members and $100 for student members, the conference isn't expensive. For more information or to register, contact the TiE-Boston office at (781) 272-3875 or visit www.tieconeast.com .

Career Acceleration | Events | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity | Private Equity Investing | Public Markets Investing | Securities Research | Social Software

Courtesy of Mike Lorelli, President and CEO of Latex Foam International, the only U.S.-based Talalay latex foam producer, and largest supplier of latex mattress components and pillows in North America. (Full disclosure: I edited the first two bullets.)

13 Little Things About Resumes and Emails

1. Cover Letter File Names: recruiters prefer: Lastname-Firstname-2006-cover-letter.doc
2. Your resume file name: recruiters prefer: Lastname-Firstname-2006-resume.doc
3. NEVER send your resume as ‘resume.doc’ If a recruiter downloads ten emails, and half the people use ‘Resume.doc’. . . you’re dead (and should be!)
4. Your ‘Subject Line’ must signal that this is not a spam message.

   Use ‘CEO-NJ Fragrance Co- Mike Lorelli’ to concisely signal your purpose.

5. Don’t use "PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE," unless you plan to list prostitution or other “NON-PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE."
6. Don’t complicate things with the name of the parent corporation, or division name, or whether or not the firm is incorporated. List the parent only if it’s a recognized Fortune company and thereby enhances the Division name.
7. Don’t waste space explaining that PepsiCo is “A leading food and beverage conglomerate with operations in 97 countries." If the company is recognized, save the space.
8. Omit the STATE, if 99% of the readers will know in what state cities like Boston or Atlanta, Indianapolis, Chicago, etc. are. Ditto for Foreign Cities. Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Montreal.
9. Avoid grid-type fill-in-the-box styles. When viewed electronically, you look like a college senior.
10. Resumes are two pages in length. Anything longer signals that you have poor summarization skills. Alexander Haig’s resume is one page, and he accomplished more than I have.
11. Over 50? Don’t make the mistake of leaving off your year of college graduation. You look pretty silly when (100%) of the people figure it out. In fact, do the opposite! On my cover letters I add a ps that says:

    ps: I am 52, have an MBA from NYU, 1973, and am an active outside director and trustee

    It’s my way of signaling “52 and proud of it!"

12. Have a ‘PERSONAL’ section at the end of your resume. Show some personality and some color. People prefer to work with humans, not machines. Below is my section.

    PERSONAL

    Married. Two precious daughters. Author of childrens’ best-seller, "Traveling Again, Dad" with profits donated to childrens’ charities. Have traveled to 44 countries. Avid runner. Active private pilot. Excel at no sport. Member Business Executives for National Security. WPO.

    I get a lot of comments on the “Two precious daughters" and “Excel at no sport" lines.

General | Career Acceleration

Are you being pushy if you contact an employer after submitting a resume? The opposite may be true, suggests a new survey from Robert Half International. Eighty-two percent of executives polled said job seekers should contact hiring managers within two weeks of submitting application materials. Only five percent said professionals should refrain from communicating once a resume has been sent.

More

General | Career Acceleration

Research Finds That Success Might Be Related Not Just to Whom You Know but to How You Communicate with Them

Nathaniel Bulkley, a doctoral student working with assistant professor Marshall Van Alstyne at the University of Michigan School of Information, won the first annual Visible Path Graduate Student Award for new research on social networks and professional performance, the International Network for Social Network Analysis announced (INSNA) today.

Bulkley analyzed how white collar workers use social networks to improve professional performance. The hypothesis that success is related not just to whom you know but how you communicate with them was supported by key findings including:

-- Professionals' use of social networks evolves over the course of their career from accumulating relationship capital to exercising it

-- Frequent, short communication outperforms lengthy, infrequent communication in efficiently moving information through a social network

 -- A central position in an organizational social network is consistent with higher individual performance For his research, Bulkley conducted surveys and studied six months of email data and accounting records from an executive recruiting firm representative of professional services firms organized around client practices.

An unexpected finding was a lack of relationship between a recruiter's private rolodex and network size or job performance.

 ... More information on this year's winning paper, "An Empirical Analysis of Strategies and Efficiencies in Social Networks," is available at http://www.centralityjournal.com/.

Career Acceleration | General | Social Software

(From "Remember Every Name Every Time" by Benjamin Levy.)

In the book, Levy describes two methods for remembering names.

First, the verbally-oriented, "basic" technique:   FACE. FOCUS on the name. ASK again. COMMENT to them and yourself about the name. EMPLOY the name in conversation.

 Second, the visual, "advanced" NAME system. It's "advanced" because it doesn't depend on you working the person's name into conversation, and it does take a lot of practice.

But Levy remembers hundreds and hundreds of names using the four steps below. NAME stands for... NOMINATE - Survey the face, then choose a feature, any feature! [Ex. Bob's nose.] ARTICULATE - Describe the feature to yourself so you know it.

 [Ex. Bob's nose...it's large in proportion to his face, and the nostrils are very prominent.]

MORPH - Names don't mean much, so transform them into nouns! [Ex. "Bob" becomes..."bobsled!" Visualize the famous Jamaican bobsled team.] ENTWINE - so that... NOMINATED feature + MORPH = a lasting memory [Ex. Dozens of bobsleds shooting out of his nose!] Via Keith Ferrazzi's newsletter

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

I recently was fortunate to participate in a panel discussion on “The Great Sales and Marketing Debate: The Cagey Sales Veterans Debate the Young Up-and-Comers”, sponsored by the New York Software Industry Association, March 13, 2006, held at JP Morgan Chase.

 Allen Reynolds and Jesse Mandell all took some notes, which we have merged in the summary below. Master of Ceremonies, Bruce Bernstein, welcomed and introduced the two questioners and four debaters.

 Questioners: Sherri Sklar and Ruth P. Stevens Sherri Sklar, President, Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC Sherri Sklar has built a star track record in helping organizations obtain exceptional results.

 Over the last 20 years, she has enabled organizations to make dramatic turnarounds, helping under-performing divisions achieve significant growth in the most difficult of marketplace conditions.

 Ms. Sklar has helped organizations in marketing strategy and execution, sales strategy, sales execution and performance, business development strategy, channel management, and communication skills training.

 A frequent presenter at seminars and conferences, Ms. Sklar practices and teaches 'peak performance delivery', a proprietary technique Ms. Sklar employs to help clients achieve optimal results.

Ms. Sklar is President of her own consulting company, Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC., (SSS). SSS is a sales, marketing and business development consulting firm that delivers measurable results from assessment, proven strategies, and excellence in execution.

 Ms. Sklar received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA from Newcomb College at Tulane University.

Ruth P. Stevens Ruth P. Stevens' expertise in customer acquisition and retention derives from a decade and a half of hands-on marketing for both large enterprises and start-up companies.

Just prior to beginning her consulting practice, she served as chief marketing officer at an Internet company in New York City.

Before that, she had broad responsibilities for direct marketing at three corporate giants-- IBM, Ziff-Davis and Time Warner. At IBM, she served as director of direct marketing, North America, for the IBM hardware, software and services brands, leading a team of 140 direct marketing professionals.

 She then moved to the IBM Software Group, where she directed global direct marketing. At Ziff-Davis, she served as vice president of marketing for the electronic publishing division, and later helped launch Ziff's Consumer Media Group as its vice president of marketing.

At Time Warner, she worked in marketing, new business development and general management for the Book-of-the-Month Club and Time-Life Books.

 Ruth has been a regular columnist for DMNews and is a frequent contributor to a variety of marketing publications.

She teaches marketing to graduate students at Columbia Business School and NYU's Stern School of Business. Ruth serves on the boards of the Direct Marketing Idea Exchange in New York City and the Direct Marketing Club of New York.

She is past chair of the Business-to-Business Council of the Direct Marketing Association and holds a BA from Hamilton College and an MBA from Columbia University.

Debaters: Alan Kaufman, Ed Martino, Larry Cohen, and David Teten

Team Old School: Alan Kaufman and Ed Martino Alan Kaufman

Alan Kaufman is a 38 year veteran of the Computer/Software/IT Industry. He was a founding member of the management team of Cheyenne Software, Inc., where as executive vice president of sales, he grew the business from $1 million in fiscal 1990 to over $200 million in 1997 to propel Cheyenne into the 13th largest software company in the industry.

 He has served as an officer in the Navy and holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University.

 He serves on the Board of Directors of NetIQ, a leader in server and security management, and is a Trustee of Outward Bound USA.

Alan also serves on the Board of Directors of NYSIA and is its founding president.

Ed Martino, Director of Industry Business Solutions, Sprint Nextel Ed Martino is currently the Director of Industry Business Solutions for the new Sprint Nextel Company.

 He has worldwide responsibility for the market penetration, solution development and overall growth in industry sectors for Financial, Insurance, Media and Professional Services, a $2b business area.

Prior to this role, Ed was the Director, Northeast Corporate Sales for Nextel Communications.

Other roles have included the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales reporting to the President for two companies both in the global systems integration business.

Ed also served in various global management positions for the IBM Company for eighteen years.

Ed is a member of several boards including the NY Software Industry Association where he is the Vice Chairman.

 Team New School: Larry Cohen and David Teten Larry Cohen, EVP, Heartbeat Software

 Larry Cohen is one of the most creative and inventive minds in the software business. He has that rare ability to listen to a business problem, quickly isolate the key issue, and translate that insight into a practical software solution.

 From his early days in the industry, Mr. Cohen has demonstrated a remarkable instinct for identifying a new technology solution and putting it to work quickly.

Shortly after graduating from UC Berkeley, he pioneered the use of Webcasting in the healthcare industry. Soon after, he received an NIH grant to conceive the first online adherence programs ever developed.

 Larry was a driving force behind the first enterprise-class, web-based software products for Marketing Content Management (MCM) in the financial services industry.

 He devised a highly innovative technology and methodology for performing online competitive intelligence. And lately, he's been fashioning a new form of CRM that integrates data-mining and web services.

 Throughout his career, Larry has closely advised some of the world's most prestigious organizations, including Amgen, Novartis, GSK, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Intel.

David Teten, CEO, Nitron Advisors

David Teten is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Nitron Advisors, an independent research firm which provides hedge funds, venture capitalists, and other institutional investors with access to a network of frontline industry experts.

 He is also coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, the first business guide to how to use blogs, social network sites, and other online networks to accelerate your sales.

He blogs on the Circle of Experts Brain Food Blog and at TheVirtualHandshake blog.

 David formerly worked with Bear Stearns' Investment Banking division as a member of their technology/defense mergers and acquisitions team, and was a strategy consultant with Mars & Co.

 He holds a Harvard MBA and a Yale BA. NOTES ON THE EVENT: Larry Cohen, EVP, Heartbeat Software David and I see 5 main differences between the 'old school' and the 'new school' of sales and marketing:

 1. The new school sells highly focused products.

The new school goes after underserved, highly niche markets (and submarkets) that do not have much competition or many me-too products.

 For example, Heartbeat Software does not sell CRM to pharmaceutical sales organizations. We sell a highly specialized CRM product to Medical Affairs Departments and their Medical Science Liaisons.

 Due to our specificity, we are able to work with the majority of pharmaceutical companies and offer them incredibly specific learning from their competitors.

We aim to penetrate the majority of these markets (and have done so in pharmaceuticals). Similarly, Nitron Advisors focuses specifically on introducing their clients, hedge funds, VC funds, and law firms, to industry experts---and more specifically experts in transition.

The new school understands that we need to do a few things very well and that companies buy software because their competitors have bought software - period. One client told me that if no one has bought the software they would never buy it.

 If everyone has it -- what's the point? But if a few key competitors have purchased, they will quickly jump on board. Non-vertical specific back-up software, data storage, or cell phones are not specific enough to attract the new school.

 2. The new school does not waste valuable marketing dollars on soft, non-focused, and unproven channels.

The new school uses on-line and off-line tools that have a proven, measurable ROI by creating a direct, track able, one-to-one relationship with our customers.

Among the major mechanisms for this: + highly targeted old school cold calling with a new school spin; selling a proven piece of software to a sub-market that is not being called on; + e-mail marketing to very specific titles and organizations where we have market share, with tracking provided by software provider; + Pay per Click search engine advertising (Google, etc.) + Pay per Call search engine advertising (Ingenio, etc.) (Teten's editorial note: Eloqua offers some useful marketing ROI tools.)

3. The new school focuses on smarts & network, not necessarily experience.

 Sales methodologies are interesting.They are also boring and notoriously difficult to get to stick or to actually change behavior.

The new school understands that growing a stellar sales team is about hiring smart, energetic people who are great at sales.

 What makes a good salesperson?

The new school knows that it is one thing: A person that keenly understands the part of themselves that other people relate to and who can leverage that part to get people to buy. We hire those people. No matter what experience, sales training, or existing client relationships they have. Google famously put a billboard up on the road from San Francisco to San Jose that had a complex mathematical problem on it. If you solved it, you gained access to a recruiting website. The new school knows that smarts goes a tremendously long way.

4. The new schools taps online networks, not only face-to-face networks.

 Consider that 84% of U.S. Internet users have used the Internet to contact or get information from an online group—more than have used the Internet to read news, search for health information, or even to buy something.

More and more of us are using online networks, such as blogs, social network sites, virtual communities, and other "social software" as a daily part of our business life.

 All the major Internet players, including Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, eBay, and Google, are already offering social software tools and planning more in the near future.

 Bill Gates, John Kerry, and other celebrities are among the over 2 million people currently registered on LinkedIn, a popular business networking site. Nitron Advisors uses these technologies both to target customers and to recruit new industry experts on our clients' behalf.

 5. The new school sells based on product quality, not just on who plays better golf.

Many salespeople spend a tremendous amount of time and energy playing golf and drinking beers with customers. They believe that a personal “I like him" relationship is key to closing the sale.

 In the new world, that relationship is helpful, maybe even a prerequisite, but it doesn't close the sale.

Neil Rackham, founder of sales consultancy Huthwaite, conducted a study of whether salespeople who built good relationships would really make more sales:

"We found that sellers who dealt successfully with small retail outlets in rural areas seemed to rely heavily on personal factors in their selling. . . . For example, the seller might ask, “How’s Ann enjoying her riding lessons?" . . . In rural areas, where the size of the sale was small, successful sellers used more of these personal references than did sellers who were less successful." "But it was a different story in the large urban stores, where the average sale was more than 5 times the size. We found no relationship between success and reference to personal issues[emphasis added]." … "I’ve heard many other professional buyers complain about salespeople who try to open calls by cultivating areas of personal interest. The last thing a busy buyer wants is to tell the tenth seller of the day all about his last game of golf. . . . Many buyers become suspicious of people who begin by raising areas of personal interest."

Source: Neil Rackham, Spin Selling (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1988), 140.)

Alan Kaufman After Cheyenne sold, I retired.

 Soon after, I was approached by the VP of sales for NetIQ Corporation and asked where I found my stellar employees. The answer was that I trained them.

Training is incredibly important. Every new situation I went into was different. I never took a cookie cutter approach to anything.

 A good sales/marketer carries a quiver full of arrows and can use each one for any new situation that arises.

Sherri Sklar, President, Sherri Sklar Strategies, LLC As my first question, can you sell a complex software solution without meeting the client face to face?

 Ed Martino, Director of Industry Business Solutions, Sprint Nextel Yes, you can, but I wouldn’t advise it. If it’s complex, it needs lots of service.

The biggest cost is in the service side and your goal is to build a bridge to the customer and use them as a referral to build business.

 David Teten Yes you can. Salesforce.com does it all the time.

That said, the more complex the product and particularly the after-sales support, the more helpful meeting in person can be.

To sell virtually, you first need credibility (your potential clients and competitors look you up online and evaluate the validity of your service) and second, effective relationship management.

Ed Martino I disagree with David. Most of Salesforce's sales are to corporate customers and their success depends on the time that they spend with their customers.

 David Teten But it is impossible for a company to meet with all their smaller customers.

 Alan Kaufman You must identify how complex a sale is and whether you need to go out there to meet face to face.

 Ruth P. Stevens To be competitive in getting the product to market, how should the marketing be structured? What is the best marketing approach?

Larry Cohen At Heartbeat, customers pay for product development. Marketing should focus on specific departments in like companies.

When we call someone who works in hedge fund marketing, and say we have a product designed just for him, we get a good response rate. It's not spam if the person is interested in buying what you sell.

 Alan Kaufman Good marketing programs include people who are interested in talking to analysts to see how the customers are buying. I don’t believe in print advertising, especially if you are working with a small budget.

 Bruce Bernstein How should you go after your target market? How do you enable the sales to happen? How do you structure the sales team?

Ed Martino It all depends on the size of companies. It always takes lots of research and phone calls, and knowledge of the competition.

Draw 3 circles:

1. What business am I in?

2. What are the customers' needs?

3. What does the company have to offer?

The little space where the circles overlap is what you develop and present to the CIO.

Larry Cohen Small software companies are unable to pay to talk to analysts, so they must talk to businesses in the area for the problem they are going to solve.

Refer to previous success that you’ve had at one or two other companies.

 Ed Martino I agree that if you don’t have a large enough budget, don’t talk to analysts.

Talk to smaller CIOs from a niche group and then work your way up to the top.

Larry Cohen I agree with Ed. We use that business model at Heartbeat Software. Ruth P. Stevens The marketing department must provide good leads for sales force. How would you suggest that you develop these leads?

 Alan Kaufman Having an inside telesales group that goes through incoming leads and cold calling is good. You also need to develop a good computerized process that is repeatable. Leads from the Internet need to be shown to the inside sales group as well.

 David Teten We get to the big dogs through networks. Each member of our sales team (and of our whole company) has a personal network that we can tap. In addition, no surprise, we use online networks. We post intelligent comments on someone’s blog to make an entrée, and get into a target's network in that manner. Microsoft has approximately 1,200 bloggers out of 55,000 employees.

 There is no excuse to cold call Microsoft; just contact a blogger in your target area, and use their blog as a conversation starter.

Ruth P. Stevens What incentives do you use for the sales team to follow up?

David Teten Pay people a good commission. Develop a sense of ownership. Give options.

 Larry Cohen We have company wide minimums. If it’s a top 25 pharmaceutical company we go in person and talk to them David Teten In order to get leads, people should be thinking about how to talk to their particular network. This method is much easier than getting leads from a database company.

Bruce Bernstein The old school is emphasizing structure and the new school is going with leads. We hate the people who contact people for business by my boarding school alumni directory.

 What do you think about David’s method?

Ed Martino If you have a niche, then you don’t need to worry about making the phone call. If you’ve got value and you’ve done the research, then the other person may actually appreciate the call.

 Bruce Bernstein It might also be a generational thing. The youngsters don’t mind getting the networking call.

David Teten The issue is how to get the most targeted individual. Email used to be an effective means, but today, email is broken. You can’t reach people easily via email due to spam filters and overuse of the email medium. If you can find the name of person in your sweet spot, call them. Even the shallowest referral is better than an cold call.

Sherri Sklar What are the most important things that someone in marketing can do to create a buzz for their firm and their product?

 David Teten Get to opinion leaders. Get to bloggers. They are very powerful way to spread word of mouth. That's a large reason why companies like Foldera have attracted over 1 million downloads---great coverage in influencer blogs like Techcrunch and Om Malik.

 Lead events. Be a speaker and put yourself in a leadership position. You will reach far more people speaking at a conference, than you will handing out business cards before one. Reach 100 people, not 5.

 Ed Martino Blogs sound good. We want to look into them. Press releases are also good. Sometimes a trade show is a good idea, if you can find ways to bring customers too it. You will create a buzz just from saying that you are going to be at the show. Target is the key word.

 Marketing to promote your product in a targeted way is very important.

Larry Cohen For selling to institutional investors, I lean more toward conferences on asset management trends, rather than trade shows, since marketing and business people will be speaking at them.

Pay for your sales people to attend, and shake hands and create relationships. It's cheaper to send 5 salespeople than to get one corporate sponsorship.

Alan Kaufman The trade shows that you choose to attend must have your customers there. I like to allow our customer a chance to demo our products. If possible, get a small booth so people can at least see your company logo.

 Ed Martino It’s all about ROI. It can make the difference between a million in sales and 60-70 billion in sales. ROI is key. You must be selective and you must leverage the money that you put out to get a return.

Sherri Sklar How do you grow a stellar sales team? Do you simple hire energetic, smart people, or is there much more?

Ed Martino I am big on balance. People with fire in the belly are important, but what you really need is diversity because it enables different groups and people to bring in their abilities to the sales force.

You want young people who are energetic and idealistic to bring in pep, and older people who can bring in learned skills to pass on. You also need people from the industry for which you are selling.

The younger people will give you a lot of overtime. Motivation, however, is key.

 People need to feel empowerment and ownership.

 Larry Cohen We are a $10m company.

Each person needs to meet their quota. We do, however, go after a wide range of people. The key is to find people who know what about themselves makes them successful. We interview a ton of people, but after they are hired, 99 percent of them stay.

 Ruth P. Stevens As sales managers, how do you optimize profits to your firm when the sales team is always trying to give away a deal?

Alan Kaufman I think it is sloppy to sell on price. You can always cut a deal if you have to. If they cut a deal too much, the loss should come out of the salespersons percentage.

 Larry Cohen We need to train people to stay by their product.

David Teten Another idea is to pay your sales team a commission on margin instead of based on revenue.

This margin info should be shared with your team, but it often isn’t. We show all our new employees our full business plan on their first day of work, because we want them to understand the big picture.

 Ed Martino In smaller companies, I would drop price to get marketing traction. If the customer will eventually become a testimonial, then it’s good. You need to take risk. Larger businesses need to have focus. They need to pick customers. At the end of the day, you want sustainability.

 In smaller companies, salespeople don’t see the sales price, and that’s why they try to give it away for lower.

 Sherri Sklar If someone says that he is interested in your software if you can prove to them that it is buy worthy, do you fly someone out? How do you approach the relationship?

 Larry Cohen Because products are focused, we phone and then fly to meet with them. I’ve learned that we are more likely to make the sale if we stick to the price, because if we slide, then they may question the value of the product more and more.

 Alan Kaufman In today’s world, regions are a lot larger so you have to be careful about support. How would you support your product in South Africa?

 This scenario requires discipline in the sales force. They should know not to go after crazy leads. If it’s a one-time, you might want to walk away, but if it's American Airlines in Texas, you have a lot of chances to make other sales.

Sherri Sklar What technologies can you use if you don’t know what the return will be, you don’t want to lose it the sale, but you also don’t want to send expensive resources out?

David Teten Use all the media: IM, email, webconferencing, phone, in-person meetings. This allows for a steady progression of relationship closeness.

 Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite has done some very interesting research in this area showing that the more media channels you use, the higher the trust levels that develop between two parties.

QUESTIONS FROM AUDIENCE: Scott Lichtman How do you feel about PowerPoint and its role in sales pitches?

David Teten People buy from people, not from paper. The more talking I do, the less selling I do. Communicate value and use a slide show for support. You want the attention focused on the company and the project, not the PC.

 Ed Martino I am seeing that the PowerPoint is here to stay. Today, it is more animated and you are trying to stay way from stale slides. There is more animation and stuff over the net. Webinars etc. are a great way to get your story in front of a lot of people.

David Teten Humans are wired to be interactive. PowerPoints are passive, and your potential customers will learn less and buy less when they are passive. You need to keep them active if you want to keep them interested.

Bruce Bernstein What method was used before PowerPoint?

Alan Kaufman We used flip charts and then foils. I love listening to good speakers. A major problem today is that people don’t speak to the audience. Also, never read from your charts.

If you read to your audience, you will lose them. Using a wipe-board works for developing an idea in front of a crowd. Using a PowerPoint can be a disservice.

Audience Member In your experience, what best motivates a sales force?

Ed Martino Incentives work if they are fun. Recognition of achievement is also important. Build a plan at the beginning of each year. Each person should know what the accelerator and multiplier is.

If they blow the doors off, they will know what the cap is.

 Alan Kaufman Salesmen have fragile egos, and when they are in a losing streak, it gets to them. Give recognition to the people who perform the best. This has the incredible effect of reinforcing their positive performance.

 Audience member The three most important things for generating leads are current clients, (stealing from) competition, and referrals.

Larry Cohen I find that if they have a rolodex, it may be all that they have to offer. That’s why we don’t go with them. At some point the rolodex runs out.

Alan Kaufman There is nothing wrong with a portfolio, especially when you are trying to capture a vertical.

Larry Cohen We put out our own PR, and when we come out with a new product, we send out targeted emails.

 Bruce Bernstein Earlier in evening, David Teten mentioned that email was broken. Ed Martino said that there is no place for instant messaging in corporate America. Please expand.

Ed Martino Instant messaging is internal. Email should only be used because everything needs to be logged. Instant messaging isn’t on the radar screen, and it can’t be logged or archived.

David Teten As the young grow up, instant messaging will become an increasingly important medium. There are plenty of companies which sell archiveable IM and email solutions. IM is being used regularly across corporate boundaries—we use it with our clients.

 Bruce Bernstein Are there fundamental differences in advertising that that came out during this discussion?

David Teten

 1) There is a movement in spending from advertising in mass media to PR. We are so deluged with advertising that it has lost efficacy. However, people do read the actual content in the magazine around which the advertising is wrapped. A good PR firm can get you in there as content. We get sales leads every few weeks from a Businessweek article about us from last year.

2) Secondarily, there also exists a movement to advertising where you can calculate an ROI. We're moving from pay per click, to pay per action or pay per call. Compare that with throwing a million dollars at the Superbowl and seeing what happens.

Ed Martino I have to disagree because my company (Sprint) sponsored the Superbowl! It depends on the industry. If you are in a big industry you have to make a statement, so you have to go with pro golf, the Super bowl etc. If you do not advertise with it, people ask why you aren’t in it. Such mass advertising is important.

Alan Kaufman No one can afford TV. PR means hiring an agency. It’s best if you can get someone to develop relationships with the editors of blogs.

You have to stay on top of people who can influence the influencers

CLOSING STATEMENTS: Ed Martino There is more in common between the old school and the new school, because it is an evolution from one to the other.

Sales and marketing is fun and the interrelationship and interdependence between that and finance is important. Ethics is also very important. Ethics is everything.

You need to have respect for your customers and your competition. We need to be ethical about how we do our business.

David Teten We're in the advice/education business. Ironically, there is a lot of advice out there in the world, but most people don’t absorb it and don’t follow it.

They listen but don't learn. I encourage people to internalize the ideas that we've discussed here. I hope that people learned something that they can take home and incorporate into their sales and marketing strategies.

And as last words: A.B.C.---Always Be Closing.

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

(reprinted by permission)

Converting Gatekeepers into Greeters

By Debra Feldman, the JobWhiz

Correct technique and good manners turn interactions with corporate gatekeepers from frustrating to fruitful. Gatekeepers are not meanies; they are their boss’s designated agents charged with limiting unnecessary, potentially wasteful interruptions and unexpected interference that may negatively impact the boss’s workflow or productivity. Any unsolicited, meaning uninvited inquiry requires screening.

If you don’t know the boss, then you have to show the gatekeeper it is okay to give you an appointment, schedule a meeting, provide an email address, switch you to voice mail, etc.

 The gatekeeper uses criteria developed to evaluate requests. If you pass the test, you are referred to the boss. If not, you are turned away.

 The value proposition you initially present to the gatekeeper has to satisfy predetermined needs or be intriguing enough to captivate her attention allowing you the opportunity to elaborate on your interest and justify your request as an exception.

 Here are 6 ways you can increase your personal odds that gatekeepers will grant you access. Start with the premise that the gatekeeper is not an enemy but, like yourself, is a professional trying her best to fulfill her assignment, keep the boss happy and get her reward for a job well done.

1. Offer a low risk, high reward situation. Do your homework. Plan your presentation so it is clear, compelling and engaging. Pique the gatekeeper’s curiosity. Be ready to address the gatekeeper by name, to inquire if she has a few moments for your call and how her day has been. Listen. Do not charge forward just because you didn’t get voice mail. If she hesitates, sounds busy or is juggling other lines, offer to call back, even before you leave your name. Do ask if there is a more convenient time to call back.

2. Convince the gatekeeper that there is no reason not to offer you an appointment. The gatekeeper is balancing two competing choices: granting too much access to the wrong applicants and being too stringent thereby excluding individuals that the boss would want to meet. Her job depends on how well she interprets the screening criteria. If the gatekeeper believes it would be more detrimental to keep you out than to let you in, you have won!

3. The more interaction you have, the more invested the gatekeeper becomes in a relationship that contributes to a desire to help you and be a part of your success. Speak respectfully, be polite. Make small talk. Ingratiate yourself and it is more likely that your proposal will sound attractive. Be likable and you’ll get more atttention and be able to more clearly communicate your value, engage in a dialogue and have the chance to explain more about your business.

4. Follow the gatekeeper’s instructions, cooperate and be pleasant. Not only do you have to have a high quality concept, but your personality has to be a fit. If she asks you to email a request, do it and send it out within 24 hours or less before you are forgotten. Don’t be argumentative. Smile as you speak—it will come through in your voice. Your demeanor tells her that you are not going to cause trouble. If your are not cooperative ( ie. difficult to manage,) she may conclude that you are not worthy of the boss’s time and sabotage your request. Be patient and helpful. This gatekeeper may be your new boss’s administrator or even your own right hand someday!

5. Gatekeepers can become your personal liaison warming up the boss on your behalf and facilitating the impossible.If you can win the gatekeeper’s support, she can become your ally advocating for you, squeezing an appointment for you into a booked calendar, talking you up to the boss, giving you hints to help your meeting be more positive. If your encounter with the gatekeeper is negative, reconsider your goal. If the boss condones unprofessional behavior, do you really want to move forward with this?

6. Timing is critical. If you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Make your own luck. Don’t be discouraged if your first approach isn’t wholeheartedly embraced. Re-group and after an appropriate interval, attempt another connection revising your presentation, enhancing your value proposition and using better timing. Persistence and creativity pays off. Follow up is key to making progress.

©Debra Feldman, 2006, DebraFeldman(at)JobWhiz.com

Debra Feldman is the JobWhiz™, a nationally-recognized expert who designs and personally implements swift, strategic, and customized senior level executive job search campaigns, banishing barriers that prevent immediate success. Learn more about her groundbreaking techniques that compress job searches from months into weeks . Contact Debra now at www.JobWhiz.com to expedite your executive ascent!

Career Acceleration | General | Personal Productivity

The Office Chart That Really Counts Mapping informal relationships at a company is revealing -- and useful:

Two years ago, Ken Loughridge, an information technology manager living in Cheshire, England, uprooted his family and moved to the other side of the world.

His company, engineering and environmental consulting firm MWH Global, was reorganizing its various information technology offices into a single global division, establishing its main service center on New Zealand's more cost-effective shores and promoting Loughridge to manage the company's worldwide network, system, and desktop needs.

 "By and large, the staff I'd adopted were strangers," he says. To help adjust to his new surroundings, Loughridge took a map with him.

A map of his organization, that is. A few months before, MWH had surveyed its IT employees, asking them which colleagues they consulted most frequently, who they turned to for expertise, and who either boosted or drained their energy levels.

Their answers were analyzed in a software program and then plotted as a web of interconnecting nodes and lines representing people and relationships.

Looking a little like an airline's hub-and-spoke route maps, the web offered Loughridge a map -- a corporate X-ray, in a sense -- to how work really got done among his charges.

It helped him visualize the invisible, informal connections between people that are missing on a traditional organizational chart.

more

Career Acceleration | General | Personal Productivity | Social Software

I recently had a chance to have a conversation with Pamela Walker Laird, a History professor with the University of Colorado at Denver, and author of the new book Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin, a history of strategic relationship-bulding and mentoring in American business, published by Harvard University Press, 2006.

She was kind enough to agree to participate in an email interview about her new book.

David Teten: Why this book? What led to it? How did it evolve?

Pamela Walker Laird: As a business historian, I repeatedly come across biographies of so-called self-made men whose careers had in fact depended on mentors and access to powerful networks.

I began this project to determine for what portion of well-known businessmen this was true. Pretty quickly it became clear that the statistic was easy to calculate: 100%.

That is, not one case of a successful businessman or woman exists for which mentors and/or networks were not essential. Why is this?

 It is possible to get rich by gambling, either at a roulette table or by day trading, without participating in networks.

But real business is a social process. Learning the trade, getting leads, making connections, closing deals, getting promotions: they all require social interactions.

 It is not enough to “know" your trade. Moreover, how can you learn a trade and perform it in isolation?

Certainly you can’t make deals if you are unknown or you can’t be accepted as a person worth talking to. Your chances of closing a deal vastly improve if you can share a golf game, a beer, or even a taxi with decision makers.

 What began as a study of 19th-century entrepreneurial businessmen, then grew into the 20th century.

 I began to think about the modern notions of corporations as meritocracies.

 Within these, thanks to personnel departments and “objective" standards for hiring and promotion, people are supposed to succeed based on their work performance only. People think of “office politics" as an aberration, something that happens when the system breaks down.

 However, once I started looking into the realities of what was supposed to be a meritocracy, I realized that connections and even connectability mattered in corporations, as much as they do in small firms and as they always had in the past, in every environment.

Even so, I do not want to minimize the importance of individual initiative and abilities. After all, connections help those who help themselves.

 Connections can create a opportunities for some, and they can deny opportunities to others, but they cannot make people into successes without their own effort and talent.

David Teten: What are your goals for Pull? What sort of impact would you like it to have?

Pamela Walker Laird: In talking about this project over the last few years, many of my audiences have found it gratifying to have their own experiences validated by my scholarship.

 This is especially the response I have received from women and disadvantaged minorities, as well as from anyone who has been passed up on the corporate ladder by people with fewer task-specific skills than they had.

 In addition to these individual responses, I hope that Pull will provide insights to decision makers within corporations as well as those within less-privileged advocacy groups.

 Sometimes there is nothing like a good story—or in this case, three hundred years of stories—to show how something works. I also hope to have an effect on how we think about people’s success and failure.

 Social capital is the term sociologists have developed for what I have been calling "connections and connectability".

Anyone who reads Pull will ask, "What is the social capital story behind every success or failure?"

 That is, we will start to look for the advantages from having mentors and access to influential networks, or, conversely, the disadvantages of not having connections or not being connectable.

David Teten:—What could a CEO who was trying to build a diverse management team gain from Pull?

Pamela Walker Laird: Most executives today understand how differences between groups of people can complicate and possibly undermine their firms' interpersonal dynamics.

 So their commitments to employing and promoting diverse populations are practical as well as idealistic. Yet the best of intentions are usually not enough to see the bottlenecks and the pitfalls.

 Pull shows how managers struggled for decades with these problems and how some of them learned how to overcome them. More often than not, the strategies that worked applied universally what were understood by the 1960s as good, basic personnel management procedures.

 The trick was applying such recruiting, hiring, and promotion practices to everyone, and not just to those who seemed to have “potential."

 Pull shows the problems that can result from presumptions about who has potential. However, no amount of “objectivity" in personnel practices can overcome the social factors in gatekeeping and networking.

Therefore, rather than try to suppress the social factors, which simply drives them underground and generates all the tensions related to office politics, top managers can develop strategies for synthesizing social capital for everyone.

 Instead of ordering gatekeepers to exercise objective judgment, leaders can guide them to take their blinders off and to grow connections with people they might otherwise look past.

 This strategy is not the same as following all the latest cheery methods for “networking," which tend to ignore persistent social processes and expectations.

 It means recognizing the power of social dynamics and distributing their advantages broadly.

It may mean bringing social scientists on board to help everyone see ongoing stereotypes that persist despite the best of intentions.

 Predispositions and blind spots can hinder the operations of even the best laid plans for diversifying management and for creating teams out of the resulting mix.

The trick to breaking through the glass ceiling and increasing diversity at the top of management is to recognize that people can’t break through from below, whatever their ambitions and talents.

People can only pass through the glass ceiling by getting pulled from above. This almost always means that the people with whom top managers feel most comfortable are the ones they mentor and pull up.

 Therefore, mixing groups of people together is the key—creating ways for a sense of familiarity to develop between top managers and talented people with whom they would not ordinarily socialize.

 David Teten: What are some of Pull’s lessons for ambitious individuals?

 Pamela Walker Laird: — Because business is a social process, interactions are at its core.

 With whom do you interact? With whom do you have close, frequent interactions, and with whom do you have distant, occasional interactions?

Optimally, you should interact with the people who make decisions about promotions or contracts as frequently as possible, both formally and informally.

Sociologists have shown that we benefit by both “weak ties" and “strong ties."

Strong ties with people who don’t know anymore than we do, or who don’t have any more connections than we have, may not help us as much as multiple weak ties that are sources of lots of kinds of information and leads.

 Our “luck" can actually seem to improve as our contacts with other people grow.

 After all, sometimes luck is just a matter of hearing about a chance opportunity from a casual acquaintance.

The interactions that can benefit us don’t even need to be face-to-face, as you discuss in your recent book (The Virtual Handshake).

 Learning from online exchanges and making connections online are becoming increasingly useful tools.

By adding up the benefits of many weak ties, online connections can provide a lot of information and advice.

 They can even lead to the close social interactions—the strong ties—that moving to the top of a corporate ladder or forming a partnership entail.

 Sometimes even holding on to your job in this age of relentless downsizing requires deliberate care and feeding of your social capital.

For example, if you telecommute, you must somehow make yourself “real" to the decision makers who put people’s names on the “keep" list.

 It is essential that you be something more than just a number or a name to them.

Therefore, go to corporate headquarters on a regular basis.

 Find reasons to share “face time" with those list makers. Make sure that they think of you as a human being whom they like, as well as one who gets “the job done."

Keeping a job involves a lot more than “doing" it. It is also possible to grow your social capital—if you can get past the first level of gatekeeping in your targeted profession.

 For instance, I know of a man who is now a screen writer. Initially he had no connections and couldn’t get any one to read his work, but he managed to get a job as a gofer in Hollywood.

 For a couple of years he ran errands and got coffee for screen writers and producers.

Eventually, as writers got to know him, he could ask them to read something now and then. This long-term strategy for building social capital worked and got him “discovered."

Networking does not just mean that you should pass out your business cards everywhere. Nor does making a pest of yourself help. A contact is not a connection.

Nor is it always possible to be connectable. The people who are the gatekeepers or the decision makers in your field can be too insulated by their staffs, their schedules, the places where they socialize, or their prejudices to be accessible to you.

 If that is the case, then you have to figure out either how to break through that insulation, or rethink your ambitions. Sometimes the best strategy is that of the Hollywood gofer, who combined work and patience.

 He did his day-to-day job well and wrote his screen plays on his own time, preparing—not just waiting—for his opportunities.

David Teten: What myths does Pull challenge and how?

Pamela Walker Laird: — The most important myth that Pull overturns is that it is possible to be a self-made business success. For openers, Pull examines two of the most famous cases of allegedly self-made success, Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Carnegie, to demonstrate that even their successes involved astute and deliberate development and exploitation of networks.

 These two illustrious successes went against the statistical grain by truly achieving rags-to-riches success, for almost all American successes began in comfortable or very affluent circumstances.

 But they did not go against the social capital grain: like everyone else, their successes required access to networks and assistance from mentors and important gatekeepers.

The reason that social capital is necessary is that business is inherently, profoundly, a social process. It requires interactions, whether those be competitive or cooperative.

Therefore, being a self-made success is impossible. That doesn’t mean that ambitious people can’t grow their social capital. It means that they must maximize the productive ways in which they interact with others who can assist them.

This also matters because we tend to praise people who become successful and think about them as having been self-made, as being rugged individualists.

 However, no one, not even Lee Iacocca or Jack Welch in our own times, has ever “made it" without help from mentors and networks.

 David Teten: Do the insights of Pull apply beyond business?

 Pamela Walker Laird: — The distributions of opportunity in all fields, in all professions, hinge on social dynamics.

Having access to networks matters as much in medicine and academics as it does in business, possibly more. Likewise, in sports, coaches are the primary gatekeepers; in politics, lines of mentoring go back for generations; and in the courts, judges are almost always former clerks of older judges. Thus, up until the 1980s, most newspaper references to mentors were about people in sports, politics, and law, not business.

 David Teten: How does Pull relate to your own background, training, experiences?

Pamela Walker Laird: — In the course of my life, I have had mentors in some situations, but lacked them in others.

Being on both sides of this experience has given me insights about how these advantages work.

In academia, mentors are at least as important as they are in business, and for all the same reasons: teaching the tools of the trade; giving advice; providing introductions to influential people; helping to form connections to gatekeepers.

 Watching all of this over the years and talking about it with a few trusted friends made me aware of the dynamics when I saw them happening in business.

 One of Pull’s chapters begins with my experience working for a bank while I was in college.

The vice president of my division asked me to stay, but when I jokingly said that I would stay if I could be a vice president in ten years, he was shocked! He said I could only become the secretary to a vice president.

 He was ready to be my mentor, but his ambitions for me would not have helped me climb his—or any other male-dominated—ladder.

I had a contact, but it was not a connection.

David Teten: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me!

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management

We finally did it: we have made our new book, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, available for free download.

Of course, we encourage you to buy the bound book at your local bookstore. It's much easier to read that way (and actually cheaper than printing out the whole thing on your printer).

Just as online dating has revolutionized the way singles connect, similar technologies are revolutionizing the way that businesspeople close deals.

 We wrote The Virtual Handshake to show you how to sign new customers, meet new business partners, recruit star employees, or even find a new job, all by using online networks.

 More technically, it's the first mass-market guide to "social software": blogs, social network sites, virtual communities, relationship capital management software, contact management software, and so on.

This was not an easy decision; we had a lot of discussions between ourselves and with our publisher, the American Management Association, about this. We were very hesitant to give away 2.5 years of hard work at no cost.

The top five reasons we're doing this are:

 1) We've gotten rave reviews for the book, but it's very hard to get people to notice a new book.

The Virtual Handshake has received extremely strong reviews in BusinessWeek, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, countless bloggers, and many other leading publications. It has also been excerpted in CNN.com and FastCompany.com. I just received a great review from Ron Lichty, in the Software Development Forum News:

"It’s not often that you read a book in an area where you have interest and passion and discover authors who both deepen and broaden your thinking. It’s equally rare to find a book that, despite being published, as books are, months after they’re written and more months after they were researched, that nonetheless introduces technologies and applications and services that seem as fresh as if they were posted to a web site yesterday. The Virtual Handshake was that for me."

We invested far more effort than we probably should have in writing a rigorous book that met our standards, with dozens of case studies, 300 sources, and extensive peer review.

Our explicit role models were academics who write for the popular audience (e.g., Bob Cialdini, Deborah Tannen, Robert Putnam, Howard Gardner). Readers appreciate that; the problem is getting readers to be aware of the book, in a world that publishes 600,000 new books every year. Providing a complimentary ebook is a way to increase trial of the book.

2) Frankly, we make very little money on each book.

We earn in the range of 5%-20% of the publisher's sale price (depending on various factors in the nature of each book sale), and 15% of that goes to the agent, and then Scott takes a chunk of course! In many cases, you as the affiliate marketer earn more on the sale of a book than we will, since you can earn up to 10% of the retail price as an affiliate, with no other parties involved. This is evidence that in the book value chain, the marketer adds more value than the content creator.

If the book becomes a bestseller, we'll make real money on it. But in the unlikely instance that it does not become a bestseller (grin), then the real value of writing a book is the marketing of my company, Nitron Advisors and our Circle of Experts; of Scott's consulting/speaking services; my speaking appearances; and anything else we choose to market. There are also a lot of other ancillary benefits to writing a book, which I won't discuss here. But to achieve any of these marketing benefits, we just need to get the book in peoples' hands.

3) Distributing an ebook is particularly appropriate given the subject of our book.

Long term, we think that every professional businessperson would benefit by learning from our system. In the short term, the obvious sweet spot of our market are highly computer-literate people who are heavy Internet users. Those are exactly the sort of people who are likely to be highly receptive to a free ebook marketing campaign.

 4) Providing free downloads has worked very well for Cluetrain Manifesto, Naked Conversations, Seth Godin, and Cory Doctorow, all of which were significant influences on our book, and all of whom we'd be happy to emulate.

 5) Insatiable curiosity.

It's an experiment. If it works, we can recommend it to others. To our knowledge, most of the authors who have tried free ebooks were self-published. AMACOM Books (the American Management Association) is experimenting just as we are. So, download it now, tell a friend, post a link to http://thevirtualhandshake.com/free-book-download.htm on your blog, etc. Once you've read it, we'd greatly appreciate a review on your blog, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, company newsletter, or any other appropriate venue. And of course, we always value your feedback. Enjoy!

Career Acceleration | General | Personal Productivity | Social Software

I am happy to report that we are relaunching the Nitron Advisors Circle of Experts Brain Food blog from a new home on the Web, http://www.CircleOfExperts.com/blog . Please tell your friends! From that link, you can subscribe with your favorite blog reader (Bloglines, Newsgator, etc.) or get every posting via email.

If you would like to change your subscription, unsubscribe, or make other changes, just visit http://lists.circleofexperts.com/mailman/listinfo/brain-food .

We will continue to write on Brain Food about career acceleration, business acceleration, consulting opportunities for industry experts, investment research, and online networks. We always welcome suggestions from people with good content.
We have several sister blogs and mailing lists we recommend:
http://www.nitronadvisors.com/mailing-list.html – two mailing lists for businesspeople interested in independent consulting assignments and new full-time jobs

http://www.circleofexperts.com/nyc : worthwhile business conferences, panels, and other events in the New York area

http://www.TheVirtualHandshake.com : how to sign new clients, raise capital, or even find your dream job with blogs, social network sites, and other online networks. You can also download there a complimentary copy of my new book, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online.
To make sure that this email gets through to you, please add brain-food-blog-do-not-reply@circleofexperts.com to your address book or trusted sender list.Thanks for reading, and if you like this blog, please tell your friends!

General | Social Software | Events | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration | Private Equity Investing | Public Markets Investing | Securities Research

(This was originally written in 2002-03, but still relevant today.)

Getting a VC job: fighting upstream By Mark Cicirelli Mcicirelli(at)mba2002.hbs.edu I have compiled what I hope are helpful observations from my job search since finishing my MBA this June.

 Be warned that my advice is most relevant to those at the same stage of career and training.

 I’m very much a generalist. I received my undergrad degree in economics and government from Dartmouth, spent three years at an investment bank, one year founding and fundraising for two startups, and then received my MBA from Harvard.

While I am very familiar with the private equity process, I am not an engineer, a biochemist, or a war-weary, metal-bending “operations guy."

Those who have that sort of background will face different obstacles and opportunities in seeking a VC job.

The environment; no rush, very particular: Pundits predict a 30% to 75% reduction in VC personnel.

Venture funds are shrinking, and with them the fee income available to support salaries.

Aggressive boom-years hiring, and reluctance to layoff, has resulted in excess junior staff.

Above all else, this means VC are in no rush to hire. Layoffs in banking, consulting, and VC have also resulted in an ever growing supply of highly qualified candidates.

 Additionally, since post-MBAs usually fill partner-track positions with an eventual claim on fund profits, VC have little incentive to hire.

This environment has given them the luxury of being extraordinarily particular. Why hire someone that requires training when there is an abundance of candidates who already possess buy-side experience, a scientific degree, an MBA, were strategy consultants and started several successful ventures? 

What to do?:

But even as the industry contracts, particular circumstances do create openings, and some people are being hired. Given the bad environment, what can improve your odds?

Proprietary “deal flow" As in the VC business itself, creating proprietary deal flow is key. With so much competition, you need to uncover openings before they are widely known.

 Usually positions will never be advertised. In an environment of few openings and long odds, it’s a numbers game. Certain sources of leads may be more productive, but you cannot afford to neglect any.

One approach is to follow industry news and anticipate hiring. Monitor electronic newsletters like VentureWire.com and TheDeal.com, and the site Privateequitycentral.org, and look for announcements of new fund closings, or organizational shakeups, or shifts in strategy that might result in a firm staffing up around a new initiative.

 Better yet, if you know fund-of-fund investors or private equity lawyers, ask them who is in the market raising not-yet-announced funds.

 Work the network Once you’ve identified a likely target, both as a way to improve your chances, and as a source of new leads, you must shamelessly work your network.

You cannot hesitate to lead with your “in" and then ask for what you want. Ideally you know someone well who can personally introduce you to the firm.

 Personal references are easily the single best way to approach a firm. Lacking that, look for some point of commonality in background between you and the fund’s management.

 Often this will be a university or a common prior employer. Bluntly highlight this common connection, in the subject line of the email, and make sure the first paragraph unambiguously communicates what you want of them (a meeting or a phone call).

 Where you think a firm is hiring, but you don’t have a contact, or where you have a contact, but their firm isn’t hiring – still try. Circumstances might eventually change, and your contact can point you in productive directions and make introductions.

Speaking of contacts, don’t make the mistake of only networking towards the most senior people.

While they may have the most sway in their organization, they are hardest to reach, most burned-out on networking, and probably know the least about junior hiring at other firms.

Counter-intuitively, some of my best networking has been when I’ve networked down in the organization.

Junior people are more generous with their time, are often more open, can give you valuable scoop about their firm, and have friends at other firms who know about the junior staffing situation.

 Getting them to talk It also takes practice to get useful information from contacts. Only after fifteen minutes of conversation, once they have had time to dwell on your situation, and once they have decided you are a quality candidate, will they begin to offer you leads and introductions.

 Best of all is to push for an in-person meeting, where you are most likely to have a lengthy conversation. Ask to grab a coffee or meet them at their offices.

 Less effective but the vast majority of your conversations will be by phone. Email is only useful to send your resume, introduce yourself, and set up a time to talk or meet.

 Once you’re talking you need to persuade them to take ownership of your situation, and you need to differentiate yourself.

 Asking for “help" and “advice" on your job search strategy psychologically allies them with you, and prevents them from declining to talk because they don’t have an opening at their firm.

 This “help/advice" phase of the conversation also gives them time to warm up to you so they are comfortable using their Rolodex for you.

 Be different, have a solution To differentiate yourself be prepared to have a well conceived point of view on where you’d be investing right now, or interesting ideas on sourcing deals, or generally some way to demonstrate that not having a VC job hasn’t prevented you from acting like a VC.

Make it clear that hiring you will provide a solution to whatever may be their problem. Along these lines, going to conferences will give you ideas, put you in contact with new leads, and prove your sincere interest in the business.

(It’s often possible to get into conferences for free or at discounts if you offer to help the organizers with event setup/breakdown.) Working around VC if not in it If none of this is working, there are more creative but time-consuming ways to get noticed.

 VCs have mentioned that they would consider short-term consulting relationships to help them deal with troubled portfolio companies. Others have said they would welcome introductions to quality companies seeking venture investment.

They are often prepared to pay for these services. Actually taking a full-time position at a portfolio company is another possibility. Targeting the segment du jour And if you are interested in buy-side private equity generally, there are areas that are actually thriving in this environment.

 Loath to lose management fees, many partnerships are shifting their investment focus rather than returning capital commitments.

Mezzanine debt, biotech, distressed assets, and defense companies have all seen investment increases. If you are flexible on geography, approaching venture firms in smaller cities or suburban areas will allow you to sidestep the throngs of candidates on either coast.

 Do you really want in?: With so much turmoil, it’s not always clear that any job in the industry is a good job.

 Numerous VC to whom I’ve spoken have warned that the job isn’t nearly as fun as it once was, and job security no longer exists.

Evaluating a job offer is complicated by the questionable viability a numerous partnerships, portfolio write-downs endangering incentive compensation, and the likely death struggles for advancement in overstaffed firms.

 The good news is that for those firms that survive the shakeout, those standing will be richly rewarded during the rebound.

Even if the job search is unsuccessful, the effort itself extends your network – the seeds you sow today may yield fruits in better times.

Mark Cicirelli graduated from Harvard Business School in 2002, and joined Thomas H. Lee Putnam Ventures. Mark is now an investment analyst at Elliott Associates, an activist hedge fund.

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management

Two people—one a nattily dressed young white man, the other a middle-aged black woman who is slightly overweight—apply for a job with your organization. They seem equally qualified, but the hiring manager has an inexplicable and slightly negative reaction to the woman. “I just can’t put my finger on it," he tells you, “but I don’t think she’ll be a good fit." You agree, admitting you just have a feeling the male applicant would be a better performer.

more: SHRM: How to Detect Hidden Bias

Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

New federal rules will make job hunting online trickier Federal regulations kick in today that will make Internet job hunting more complicated. Here's what candidates need to know – and change -- now. link... Via Jim Conley

Social Software | Career Acceleration

For a certain type of person, this is definitely a dream job:

The World Economic Forum is selecting 30 exceptionally talented individuals to join its organization on a three-year Master's Programme in Global Leadership.

The 2006 class will start next September. As a Global Leadership Fellow, you are fully integrated in the World Economic Forum and benefit from an intensive work and learning experience intended to develop and train future leaders of global enterprises and international organizations.

The Global Leadership Programme is designed by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with its worldwide network of distinguished experts and leaders.

Upon successful completion of the programme, you will receive a Master's in Global Leadership and will be provided assistance in identifying career opportunities at, but not limited to, the World Economic Forum and its Member companies.

We expect you to exhibit demonstrated leadership capabilities, excellence in a particular field or discipline, and proven interest in global affairs.

 You possess a broad intellectual background with a Master's degree (or equivalent) in science/engineering/economics/business/public policy/public administration.

You have minimum 3 years of professional experience, 2 of which are in business.

Additional public sector or NGO experience is appreciated.

You are fluent in English and at least in one other language. You are committed to the mission of the World Economic Forum.

 Please apply through www.weforum.org/careers and provide us with a cover letter, your curriculum vitae, three references and an 800-word personal essay on what you would like to achieve in your life.

Please note that the application deadline is 15 February 2006.

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management | Social Software

This is the draft operating Manual for "Junto 2.0", a MasterMind group based in the New York tri-state area.

To learn what a Mastermind group is and how it works, continue reading… Junto 2.0 DRAFT MasterMind Group Operating Manual by David Teten and Kaushal B. Majmudar Outline of Manual

 I. Introduction

 II. Objectives

 III. Benefits

 IV. How Does It Work?

 V. Requirements for Entry

 VI. Process for Joining

 VII. Meeting Rules

 VIII. Suggested Meeting Structure (Subject to Modification)

 IX. Sample Meeting Topics

 X. How to Exit

 XI. Appendix 1: Ben Franklin's Junto Society

 XII. Appendix 2: Thoughts on cooperation from George Lucas

 XIII. About the Authors I. Introduction This is the draft operating Manual for "Junto 2.0", a MasterMind group based in the New York tri-state area.

David Teten and Kaushal B. Majmudar have been working together to create this new group.

Jo Condrill's definition of a Mastermind group: "A master-mind group consists of [a small team of] people who work together in absolute harmony to achieve diverse goals.

 While these people work in harmony, they may be very different from each other.

 The common element is that each draws something from the others, and each contributes freely to the group.

 It is the focusing of each mind on a common issue that triggers thoughts not readily available to one mind.

 Those in the group draw upon their unique experiences and specialized knowledge to help each other.

 When many minds concentrate on a single point, the activity generates a power over and above the sum total of each of the individual minds.

It is as though an invisible force joins the group and provides additional insight.

Personally, I have used the master-mind concept with amazing results -- first to advance my career and later to lead a group of volunteers to achieve remarkable results, ranking number one in a worldwide organization, Toastmasters International.

" (source) Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, is widely credited with popularizing the concept.

For more background, see also this summary from the "NYC Junto": http://www.nycjunto.com/whatisjunto.htm .

Our motivations in creating this group: primarily, to accelerate our success and personal efficacy in achieving our goals.

Anthony Robbins once remarked that only about 5% of his audiences actually acts to implement and benefit from any of his teachings on how to achieve personal and professional success.

 Many books on success emphasize the value of creating a mastermind group (perhaps using some variant of the term). We decided to actually implement the idea that so many experts recommend.

 We were also motivated by some bloggers who also are active in Mastermind groups, including the prolific Steve Rubel.

We are posting this manual on the Web in an attempt to gather constructive feedback and share the results of our brainstorming and collaboration with other likeminded individuals elsewhere in the world.

Everything herein is a work in process, and is thereby subject to discussion and modification as we receive feedback and as other members of the group provide input or suggestions.

 II. Objectives

 A. "Create access to advice, counsel, and personal cooperation of a group of people who are willing to lend each other wholehearted aid in a spirit of perfect harmony" (source: Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill)

B. Share best practices and resources

C. Work on self-awareness and self-improvement

D. Create synergies and new possibilities: “No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third invisible intangible force which may be likened to a third mind" (source)

III. Benefits

 A. Accelerate your personal and professional progress

 B. An instant and valuable support community of peers and friends

 C. Give back to your peers and to society

IV. How Does It Work?

 A. Monthly meeting to be held for 2 to 2.5 hours, typically over lunch or dinner

 B. Absolute maximum of 10 members

 C. Rotate facilitation -- each month has a new leader/note-taker for accountability

 D. Occasional special training and learning sessions (possibly with invited speakers)

 E. Group will meet in a mutually convenient place (can alternate geographically if to makes sense to do so)

 F. Diversity of group is important. Strongly prefer representatives from diversity of occupations: entrepreneur, investment banker/asset manager, policy, legal, media, operating executive at large company, physician, politician, academic. We also strongly prefer diversity across race, religion, etc.

 G. Use confidential Yahoo! Group for online communication

 H. Democratic Process: everything about the group is subject to scrutiny, discussion and modification by vote of majority of members in the group.

V. Requirements for Entry

 A. Nominated by existing member.

 B. Within driving or commuting distance of group meeting locations (in our case in the New York Tri-state area).

 C. Has a compatible current level of career and professional achievements and aspirations.

 Some evidence of being a significant  achiever in chosen field. Potential to be at the top of their chosen profession or business.

 D. Thoughtful and analytical.

 E. Has the desire and inspiration to make this year, decade, and life extraordinary. Has an "internal locus of control": knows  he/she  is ultimately responsible for his/her own success. Ready to let their desire to be passionate about their life and work overcome their fear of change.

 F. Is an active listener. Responds well to, and acts on, feedback. Open-minded.

 G. Wants to win based on values; has a greater purpose.

 Cares about and wants to give back to their community and society

 H. Realizes that cooperation is far more powerful than competition, i.e., people who are committed to helping others succeed.

 Has an abundance mentality.

Understands and cares about what drives his/her partners' businesses.

 I. Ideally, not working in the same industry as any current member, and with a significantly different personal background than every other current member.

J. Enthusiastic about participating with intent to actively participate in the group and attend meetings in person (commits to provide advanced notice to other members in case absence is unavoidable in a given instance)

VI. Process for Joining

A. Nominated by existing member of the group

B. Submit resume and statement of personal goals (1, 5, and 20 years)

C. Interview and approval by all existing group members

VII. Meeting Rules

A. Better to give than to receive (but the law of reciprocity works – give that which you would like to get)

B. Try to emphasize solutions, encouragement and pointing out possibilities vs. focusing on problems, criticism, and pointing out hurdles

C. Share time, ideas, and best practices, but don’t dominate

D. Listen actively and intently with a desire to understand. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

(Source: Steven  Covey)

E. Maintain confidentiality.

 No one outside the group (not even life partners/spouses) should have access to any information about what is discussed by other members of the group, particularly the personal information of individual members.

 It is OK to share best practices and ideas that you have learned with others.

F. No putting down, arguing with, or directly contradicting other speakers. All discussions should be conducted "without fondness for dispute or desire of victory."

 "All expressions of positiveness of opinion or direct contradiction are prohibited."(Source: Ben Franklin).

G. Mutual respect and supportive environment to be maintained at all times

VIII. Suggested Meeting Structure (Subject to Modification)

A. Brief (one to three minutes) check-in by each member.

Start with the best/most positive thing to happen since last meeting.

B. Book report by one member - distribute 1-2 page summary of book and lead discussion (15 to 20 minutes)

C. Person I admire report by one member – distribute 1-2 page summary of person’s life and what can be learned from him/her (15 to 20 minutes)

D. Update and ask.

 Each person must state a goal they will have accomplished by the next month's meeting and review how they did on last month’s goal.

Members can also share issues/problems they are currently grappling with and ask for help/suggestions from the group to unlock strategies, resources, etc. that might be helpful in overcoming these obstacles.

 (5 minutes each) E. Free discussion time – discuss one question or topic of the day (e.g. see questions below) (30 to 40 minutes)

F. Distribute notes/highlights from the meeting to those (rare members) not in attendance, but who are committed members of this group

IX. Sample Meeting Topics

A. What is the function by which we should measure our life's actions? Proposed formula: Maximize: (Power * Money * Health * Spiritual Growth * Community Impact * Family Strength * Friend Strength) / Age, subject to constraints of: ethics, law, and resources

B. Accountability Sessions (potentially a recurring topic): Each person to ask and answer the following questions: What are my most cherished goals for this coming decade, year, and month? What concrete steps have I taken to realize these goals? What are the steps that I should take, but have not yet done so to advance in the direction of my goals? Why have I not taken these steps and when do I commit to start? - group participants to ask and HONESTLY answer these questions once in a while in front of the entire group to encourage each of them to realize and take corrective action, but in a more self empowering and positive way than if it were to come in the form of critique from others.

 C. Play the Game, a success technology developed by Sarano Kelley. D. Learning about Thinking Sessions/Thinking Partners (See book: Time to Think by Nancy Klein).

X. How to Exit

A. Member no longer wants to be a part of the group (voluntary exit).

B. Member fails to attend 2 meetings in a row without advance notice AND good cause.

C. Consistent failure to participate in or contribute to the group, as noted by one or more current members.

D. If there is a consensus among more than 66% of the members that you should not remain in the group for any reason.

XI. Appendix 1: Ben Franklin's Junto Society Source: Ben Franklin's biography, by Walter Isaacson “Ben Franklin was the consummate networker.

He liked to mix his civic life with his social one, and he merrily leveraged both to further his business life.

This approach was displayed when he formed a club of young workingmen in the fall of 1727, shortly after his return to Philadelphia that was commonly called the Leather Apron Club and officially dubbed The Junto.

Franklin’s small club was composed of enterprising tradesmen and artisans, rather than the social elite who had their own fancier gentlemen’s clubs.

 At first the members went to a local tavern for their Friday evening meetings, but soon they were able to rent a house of their own.

There they discussed issues of the day, debated philosophical topics, devised schemes for self-improvement, and formed a network for the furtherance of their own careers.

Franklin’s Junto initially had 12 young members.

Besides being amiable club mates, the Junto members often proved helpful to one another personally and professionally.

The tone Franklin set for Junto meetings was earnest.

 Initiates were required to stand, lay their hand on their breast and answer properly four questions:

1.) Do you have disrespect for any current member?

2.) Do you love mankind in general regardless of religion or profession? (Editor: add race, for the modern context)

3.) Do you feel people should ever be punished because of their opinions?

4.) Do you love and pursue truth for its own sake? The pursuit of topics through soft Socratic inquiry became the preferred style of Junto meetings. Discussions were to be conducted ‘without fondness for dispute or desire of victory.’

All expressions of positiveness of opinion or direct contradiction were prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.

 Though the youngest member, Franklin was by dint of his intellectual charisma and conversational charm not only its founder but  driving force.

The topics discussed ranged from the scientific to the metaphysical.

 E.g. Did importing indentured servants make America more prosperous? What is wisdom? In addition to such topics of debate, In Franklin's original Junto, the members used as a guide a series of 24 questions, such as:

1. Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable or suitable to be communicated to the Junto, particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?

2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?

3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?

4. Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving well, and by what means?

5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?

6. Do you know of any fellow citizen who has lately done a worthy action deserving praise and imitation?

7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other folly or vice? What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of moderation, or of any other virtue?

8. Do you think of anything at present in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind?

9. Have you any weighty affairs in hand in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service? In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist of in any of your honorable designs?

10. What is the most interesting or unusual thing you have read, seen, or heard about in the last month? What is the most potentially dangerous or harmful? The most beneficial? The most significant for the people here today?

11. What can we learn from world events today? Has there been any notable failure or success, financial, political, or otherwise, from which we can gain insight and understanding?

12. Can a man or woman arrive at perfection in this life? What is the proper balance between idealism and pragmatism in our existence? (Franklin's own question)

13. How can we judge the goodness of art, music, drama or literature?

14. Is science compatible with religion? What is the appropriate role of religion in our lives, if any?

15. What is the most important political issue facing this country in the next five years?

16. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country of which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment?

17. Has anybody attacked your reputation lately and what can the Junto do toward securing it?

18. Is there any man whose friendship you want and which the Junto or any of them can procure for you?

19. Whom do you respect most? Why?

20. In what manner can the Junto or any of them assist you in any of your honorable designs?" Franklin was in turn influenced by Daniel Dafoe’s essay “Friendly Societies" and John Locke’s “Rules of a Society which Met Once A Week for the Improvement of Useful Knowledge"

 XII. Appendix 2: Thoughts on cooperation from George Lucas

 Source: interview at Academy of Achievement at www.achievement.org, in response to the following question: "You mentioned the words "communal" and "connecting."

Your generation of the top film makers all seem to be friends.

 How did you band together in a field that is so competitive?" George Lucas: “I think that's the advantage that my generation has. When we were in film school and we were starting in the film business, the door was absolutely locked.

 There was a very, very high wall, and nobody got in. All of us beggars and scroungers down at the front gate decided that if we didn't band together, we wouldn't survive.

 If one could make it, that one would help all the others make it.

 And we would continue to help each other.

 So we banded together.

 That's how the cavemen figured it out.

 Any society starts that way.

 Any society begins by realizing that together, by helping each other, you can survive better than if you fight each other and  compete with each other.

 Farming cultures started this way, and the first hunting cultures started this way.

 Everything started in city-states.

 We have a tendency to lose it when we forget that, as a group, we are stronger than we are as individuals.

 We start to think we want everything for ourselves and we don't want to help anybody else.

 We want to succeed, but we don't want anybody else to succeed, because we want to be the winner.

 Once you get that mentality -- which is unfortunately the way a lot of the society operates -- you lose.

You can't possibly win that way.

 Part of the reason my friends and I became successful is that we were always helping each other.

 If I got a job, I would help somebody else get a job.

 If somebody got more successful than me, it was partly my success.

 My success wasn't based on how I could push down everyone around me.

 My success was based on how much I could push everybody up.

 And eventually their success was the same way.

 And in the process they pushed me up, and I pushed them up, and we kept doing that, and we still do that.

 Even though we all have, in essence, competing companies, if my friends succeed, then everybody succeeds.

 So that's the key to it, to have everybody succeed, not to gloat over somebody else's failure.

 We continue to do that, and we do it with younger filmmakers.

 There's no way of getting through any kind of endeavor without help from friends. And trying to be the number one person,  ultimately, is a losing proposition.

 You need peers, you need people who are at the same level you are.

 You never know in life when you're going to need help, and you never know who you're going to need it from.

 One of the basic motifs in fairy tales is that you find the poor and unfortunate along the side of the road, and when they beg for help, if you give it to them, you end up succeeding.

 If you don't give it to them, you end up being turned into a frog or something.

 It's a concept that's been around for thousands of years.

 It is even more necessary today, when people are more into their own aggrandizement than they are in helping other people.

 I don't think there's anyone who's become successful who doesn't understand how important it is to be part of a larger community, to help other people in larger communities, to give back to the community."

XIII. About the Authors David Teten is CEO of Nitron Advisors, an independent research firm that provides institutional investors with access to frontline industry experts.

 He is coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, the first mass market book on online networks and social software.

 He runs TheVirtualHandshake.com resource site, co-writes a column for FastCompany.com, and writes a personal blog, Brain Food. David holds a Harvard MBA and a Yale BA. Kaushal Majmudar, JD, CFA – Kaushal is President and Portfolio Manager of The Ridgewood Group, a value oriented money management firm based in Short Hills, NJ, that runs managed accounts and hedge fund investments for individuals and institutions.

Kaushal was previously an investment banker at Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers.

He is co-author of “Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies from the World’s Greatest Mentors" and is working on his second book.

Kaushal holds a JD with honors from Harvard Law School and a BS from Columbia University.

Career Acceleration | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity

JD Roth wrote a good summary of about a dozen books on personal finance: The Richest Man in Babylon, Your Money or Your Life, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Think and Grow Rich, Wealth Without Risk, Creating Wealth, etc. "These books have embarrassingly bad titles, seemingly designed to appeal to the get-rich-quick crowd": foldedspace.org: Get Rich Slowly!. Via Marshall Brain

Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

Malcolm Gladwell writes a great piece on The social logic of Ivy League admissions.

Halfway through the book, however, Shulman and Bowen present what they call a “surprising" finding. Male athletes, despite their lower S.A.T. scores and grades, and despite the fact that many of them are members of minorities and come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than other students, turn out to earn a lot more than their peers. Apparently, athletes are far more likely to go into the high-paying financial-services sector, where they succeed because of their personality and psychological makeup. In what can only be described as a textbook example of burying the lead, Bowen and Shulman write: "One of these characteristics can be thought of as drive—a strong desire to succeed and unswerving determination to reach a goal, whether it be winning the next game or closing a sale. Similarly, athletes tend to be more energetic than the average person, which translates into an ability to work hard over long periods of time—to meet, for example, the workload demands placed on young people by an investment bank in the throes of analyzing a transaction. In addition, athletes are more likely than others to be highly competitive, gregarious and confident of their ability to work well in groups (on teams)."

Some of what he says also applies to how we think about recruiting new team members at Nitron.

Career Acceleration

FastCompany.com just published our latest column: Blogging for a job.

Heather Hamilton, a senior recruiter for marketing talent at Microsoft, recently performed an unusual recruiting experiment. As creator of the Marketing and Finance at Microsoft Blog, Heather asked her readers to link to a post on her blog from their blog resumes, and committed that she would check out her reader's resumes by reviewing her blog's referral logs. The implication of this? For one, if you don't understand how to do what she's asking you to do, you're probably not qualified to work in the marketing department at Microsoft.

more....

Social Software | Career Acceleration

Joe Hodowanes highlights “The 10 qualities interviewers look for when interviewing".

Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

How to Conquer Office Politics: Watch Your Back: Nine common political scenarios and how to deal with them.

Career Acceleration

Top 20 Things Recruiters Hate About Resumes.

Career Acceleration

Peter Clayton, Senior Producer of Landed.fm, just posted a 27-minute podcast interview with me on the show, focused on how to use online networks for career acceleration, and particularly the job search. You can download the interview here. Landed.fm is the first internet radio career show. To quote from their 'about' page:

"While just 3.4 million Americans subscribe to satellite radio, about 19 million listen to Internet radio each week, according to research firms Arbitron Inc. and Edison Media Research." Source: Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2004 "Internet radio is quietly emerging as a mass-market phenomenon that attracts tens of millions of consumers on a weekly basis. Mainstream radio advertisers and trackers of terrestrial radio airplay are starting to take note.." Source: Billboard, June 26, 2004

In other words, regardless of your profession, internet radio is an increasingly important medium.

Social Software | Career Acceleration

Jim Stroud, a recruiter at Microsoft, author, and blogger, has podcasted two interviews with me. The first podcast is about how to use online networks for the job search, and the second podcast is about consulting opportunities with the Nitron Advisors Circle of Experts.

Social Software | Career Acceleration

I saw a very insightful post from Konstantin Guericke, CoFounder of LinkedIn on MyLinkedInPowerForum. He writes (reposted by permission): ________________________________________________________________________

Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:09:35 -0700 From: "Konstantin"

Subject: The power is in the network you already have Virtually all professionals nod enthusiastically that "relationships matter," but only a small group heeds the advice below.

They start networking when they have a need. But that's a really bad time to do it.

One of the core networking principles has been that you need to network proactively, meaning meeting lots of new people and build relationships, so you have people you can fall back on you need a job, an expert, an investor or a business partner.

 And you have to network with lots of people because you just don't know what kind of relationship you may need. And many networking sites try to encourage this old way by being a sort of virtual networking event where you can get to know lots of people.

LinkedIn turns this on its head by focusing on relationship management and giving members access to the people you need through the people you know.

The people in your personal networks are contacts on demand. As long as you have strong relationships with, say, 100 people, you have on-demand access to hundreds of thousands of people-far more than you could ever meet through networking.

So, what this means is that LinkedIn obviates the need to network in the traditional sense.

Unless you are a young professional just getting started on your career, you already have a network just from working-this is a network based on co-workers, bosses, clients, business partners, investors, etc. And this network is strong because these people know the good work you have done and are capable of doing.

 In the past, this network was often insufficient because it was just 30 or 100 or 300 people, depending on the type of profession and length of your career.

The person you needed would often not be among this group. But through LinkedIn, you have access to an on-demand network, so once you have brought the group of people who know you and your work onto LinkedIn (and these days, many are already on, so it's much easier than two years ago), you can just relax and know that you can reach the people you need when you need them-without having to get to know them all "just in case."

This is a fairly radical notion that transcends most existing networking philosophy. And it allows you to focus on working, rather than networking.

 One the network of people who know your work is built, when you need someone, search and you will find.

 Ask for an introduction, and you will get in touch along as your connection provides a strong introduction and you have a win-win proposition.

 As you help your connections reach the people they want to meet, you strengthen your bonds with both parties you are introducing.

 The best way to expand your list of connections is simply to continue to do work and do it well.

Your connections list will grow, and each connection will be an avenue to thousands of new contacts that are accessible on-demand, when you need them. -Konstantin Konstantin Guericke VP Marketing and Co-Founder, LinkedIn Professional Profile

This is very consistent with some of the themes in our book. I think that spending endless hours chatting at cocktail parties or chatting in online communities is a waste of time from a professional point of view. It's defensible as recreation, but not for business development. Whatever your job is, do your job well, and success will flow from that. What counts is not the number of people who know you, but the number of people who know you, trust you, and will pay you to do what you do.

Career Acceleration | General | Personal Productivity | Social Software

How to write keyword-rich electronic resumes www.easyjob.net/resume/scannable-resumes.html Learn how to write electronic resumes that scan well and are easy to post to resume banks http://www.easyjob.net/resume/resumes-internet.html There are many more resume articles at www.easyjob.net/resume via Fernando Rodriguez

General | Career Acceleration

Wharton student David Moradi has written up a summary of Keith Ferrazzi's book, Never Eat Alone: and other secrets to success, one relationship at a time. You can download his notes here: Reader's notes from NeverEatAlone.

Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

We are seeking interns this summer/fall who would like to work on the marketing campaign for our new book, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, and for our resource website, TheVirtualHandshake.com.

This is ideal for a college or MBA student interested in a full-time or part-time internship this summer/fall, working from wherever you like.

Ideally, you are based in either New York or Houston. Here's the elevator pitch:

In Summer 2005, the American Management Association will release The Virtual Handshake. This is the first mass market book on building business relationships online, and specifically social software.

Extensive information on the book, including a blog and detailed site guide, is at www.TheVirtualHandshake.com . In particular, the book discusses such companies as LinkedIn, Ecademy, Ryze, Skype, Tribe.net, Craigslist, Friendster, Myspace, TheFaceBook, and so on.

Our publisher, the American Management Association, is a global not-for-profit, membership-based association that provides a full range of management development and educational services to individuals, companies and government agencies worldwide, including 486 of the Fortune 500 companies.

BENEFITS TO YOU

 + Learn about blogs, social networking sites, and social software in general.

 + Learn about viral marketing, public relations, and the publishing industry.

 + Work with many thought leaders/industry leaders in social software.

+ Build a powerful personal network. + Significant creative input and flexibility .

+ Very positive references (if merited).

+ Opportunity to work with mentoring-oriented authors.

+ Contribute and grow up to and beyond the level of your abilities.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

+ Learn about blogs, social software, and online social networks and how businesspeople are using these new technologies + Contribute to the marketing plan for the book.

+ Contact bloggers and recruit them to review the book and participate in our affiliate program.

+ Contact newspapers/ magazines and recruit them to review the book.

+ Network with opinion leaders.

QUALIFICATIONS

+ Experience with blogs, the publishing industry, internet marketing, and online social networks highly desirable. + Excitement about being part of the team producing an innovative book.

+ Highly motivated self-starter who has sales/client relationship experience, and a track record of continuous self-improvement, high achievement, and aggressiveness.

+ Strong interpersonal communication skills, adept writing, editing, and presentation skills.

+ Poised, professional demeanor.

INCLUDE WITH DETAILED RESUME

+ Dates/hours of availability during the summer./fall + Evidence of writing/communication/editing skills, including writing samples (e.g., articles you have written for a mass market, non-academic audience)

+ Location. You can do all of the work on this project remotely. However, if you are in the New York or Houston area, that is very preferable.

COMPENSATION

+ Through the Amazon affiliate program. Please see http://thevirtualhandshake.com/affiliate-amazon.htm . HOW TO APPLY Contact via e-mail only; do not call.

 Save your resume in Microsoft Word format with the name “Last Name_First Name_Year.doc", e.g., “Smith_John_2004.doc".

Please make sure that you include all of the information that we request above, or we will not be able to consider your application. Please send resume and cover letter to TMaster(at)Teten.com with “Book Marketing" and your name in the subject line. For example, write “Book Marketing–Smith John".

Career Acceleration | Social Software

The NY Times profiles legendary entertainment lawyer Bert Fields: Telling Hollywood It's Out of Order. Fields has never lost a case. My favorite part:

Even with the 35-minute commute from Malibu to his office in Century City, Mr. Fields says he still bills more hours than any of the 100 lawyers at his firm, Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman Machtinger & Kinsella, and he still returns home daily to Malibu to make lunch. A key to his efficiency is that he doesn't "do lunch," he said, nor dinner, drinks or breakfasts with clients. "I made a deal with myself many years ago that I would never socialize to get business," he said. "And I never have. Lawyers should get business because people think they're good lawyers."

Mr. Fields is truly a salesman after my own heart. Keith Ferrazzi/Tahl Raz in their book, "Never Eat Alone", emphasize the importance of getting business in large part because people like you and you are charming. Charm helps, charm counts, but Character and Competence trump mere charm every time.

General | Personal Productivity | Leadership and Management | Career Acceleration

I've been quiet on this blog for the last month, because we've been completing a major redesign.

I'd welcome feedback on the completely redesigned site, Teten.com, courtesy of Jason Coward at OpenGeek.

In separate news:

 Are you interested in reading a preview copy of my forthcoming book, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online?

If you write for a major newspaper, magazine, or other media vehicle...or if you run a blog with a significant readership...or even if you would just like to write a note about the book in your in-house corporate newsletter...then I would be happy to send you a copy.

 Or perhaps you know someone in the media who would be interested in the book? I'd be very grateful for an introduction! This will be the first mass market book about how people can become dramatically more successful by leveraging online networks: find a new job, new clients, or new business partners.

 More technically, this is the first mass market book about “social software": blogs, social networking sites, relationship capital management software, and so on.

 The CEOs of many of the leading companies in this industry have already raved about the book, including the CEOs of Military.com, Best Software, Ecademy, Cvent, Contact Network, and Ryze...not to mention Craig Newmark (founder of craigslist), Bob Cialdini (bestselling author of Influence), and Ivan Misner (Business Network International), among many others. My coauthor Scott Allen and I have submitted the 99.9%-final version of the book to our publisher, the American Management Association, and are now seeking reviewers.

 If you’re interested, please mail your name, affiliation, title, and mailing address as soon as possible to TMaster(at)Teten.com . Please note that we have only limited supplies of the bound gallies.

Extensive information about the book, including a blog and resource center, are at TheVirtualHandshake.com. If appropriate, you may also be interested in joining our Amazon affiliate program. Thank you!

Career Acceleration | General | Leadership and Management | Personal Productivity | Private Equity Investing | Public Markets Investing | Securities Research | Social Software

WetFeet.com > Creating a Culturally Correct CV also see this short Resume Checklist

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

[from the Inc. newsletter]

======================================================

 1. MANAGING MEETINGS

======================================================

Escape from Meeting Hell It's time for another soul-sapping, oxygen- depriving, time-wasting, mind-numbing company meeting. Or is it? We offer 15 clever solutions to the problems with most meetings.

 http://trax.inc.com/k/w/mailman/inc_connection/20040511/patricksauer Meeting Extras A couple of extra tips from Inc. writer Patrick Sauer on managing meetings.

http://trax.inc.com/k/w/mailman/inc_connection/20040511/extras Meetings 101 Five simple factors that help ensure every meeting is a good meeting.

http://trax.inc.com/k/w/mailman/inc_connection/20040511/basics Well-Timed Meetings An alarming idea for keeping meetings on track. http://trax.inc.com/k/w/mailman/inc_connection/20040511/clockit

Career Acceleration | General | Personal Productivity

Just found an old but useful article by Auren Hoffman on selling via email. http://www.summation.net/emailselling.html .

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration

Why Your E-mail Requests Are Ignored http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=3947&t=technology&nl=y Sending e-mail requests for help or information to multiple people will get you an answer more quickly, right? Wrong. Greg Barron on the importance of personalized e-mail.

General | Personal Productivity | Career Acceleration