This is a great article on Zombie Businesses: How to Learn from Their Mistakes.

While reading it, I was reminded of Robert McNamara's comments in the Harvard Business School alumni magazine about the groupthink that helped get the U.S. into its Vietnam predicament.

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from Scott Allen:

Heather Hamilton, a senior recruiter for marketing talent at Microsoft, just did one of the most unusual recruiting ideas we've ever seen. Heather has asked her readers to link to this post from their blog resumes, and she'll check out the resumes by reviewing her referrals.

The implication of this? If you don't understand how to do what she's asking you to do, you're probably not (as) qualified to work in the marketing department at Microsoft.

We spoke with Heather for our chapter on job search in The Virtual Handshake for her take on how blogs are changing how people find jobs:



"Blogging is a great opportunity in the staffing industry, both for the recruiter and the job seeker (or future job seeker). Blogs represent conversations and provide more info to a recruiter than a resume can.

Through a blog, a recruiter can understand not just the experience of the candidate, but how they work, their passion, the quality of their relationships with co-workers, their opinions. This creates a more dimensional snapshot of a candidate than a résumé.

 It is not unusual for a recruiter to do a web search of a known candidate to identify their online presence. By creating a professional blog, the job seeker can brand themselves beyond what is represented in a typical résumé format.

Blogs have the potential to dramatically change the way companies recruit, because of the relationship building opportunity.

Where job boards provide a very transactional environment (active candidates search jobs and submit resumes, recruiters search resumes and contact candidates) for active job seekers, blogs allow for more of a long term approach for managing one's career and for recruiting talent.

 As a professional, the best time to build a relationship with a recruiter is before you start looking for your next position.

 In an environment where large corporations can receive thousands of résumés a day, establishing a relationship through blogging (through your blog or the recruiter's blog) can greatly benefit the seeker because blogs establish a dialog, which can create an advantage over the thousands of other applicants vying for the recruiter's attention.

For the recruiter, who likely specializes in recruiting a specific type of talent (marketing talent, in my case), the opportunity to identify like candidates via blogging is huge.

 By engaging with a community of marketing professionals (through my blog or the blogs of marketing pros), I am able to interact directly with talent in my area of focus.

 I'm able to let the active seekers know whether I have something for them and I am able to market our hot new jobs to active and non-active leads and candidates. Blogging truly creates a win/win opportunity for the professional and the recruiter.

In short, if you're looking for work, and you don't have a blog, you're missing out on one of your best vehicles for exposure and credibility.

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For my new Fast Company column, my coauthor Scott Allen and I had a chance to have a conversation with Greg Head, ACT!'s former General Manager, about the need for increased privacy, interoperability, and personal responsibility as contact management and social networking software converge:

 Contact management software will always be centered around a database of contact information that tracks basic name, addresses, and other data -- combined with powerful methods of managing countless commitments and a history of all relationships. That said, we will be doing more contact management activities using an Internet browser or PDA phone, as opposed to just Windows applications. These new methods will allow more integration to the phone and to Web services that can integrate into contact managers -- to scrub addresses, to integrate with accounting applications, or to share your relationship data with others.

Head also had some thoughts about Microsoft's role in the social networking space, as well as centralized directory services like Plaxo:

 I may be a little biased in this regard, but I think that Microsoft will have to make some fundamental changes to develop the level of trust that is required for people to track, share, and leverage social network information in a Microsoft-hosted world.

In fact, even centralized public directory services such as Plaxo might not be able to meet every users' needs because of concerns with privacy and inconvenience.

 These services might be useful for the user -- but are not so useful for the recipient of the "update your contact information" request. As the centralized nature of some of these become known, people will be even more reluctant to send their contact data off across the Internet.

 Ultimately, though, Head says it's more about personal responsibility and process as the tools themselves:

The majority of salespeople and businesspeople are still fighting the first phase of this battle:

just tracking all of their follow-up and project commitments in a reliable system.

Contact managers provide the tools, but the habit of tracking all commitments and managing them effectively can be different for each person.

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I strongly recommend reading this Very useful article on Mastering E-mail Overload.

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Stowe Boyd writes about GoToMeeting: The Story Inside The Story:

"I had a web conference with Brian Donahoo of Citrix Online yesterday, and he outlined the reasons that GoToMeeting has become the fastest growing product that the company has offered, eclipsing the monumentally sucessful GoToMyPC, and the lesser known but very widely adopted GoToAssist. The story within the story is not the technology itself, per se -- although what has been developed is impressive, and I will discuss certain functionality later on. .....The answer: Citrix went out and surveyed existing, former, and potential users of online conferencing solutions and discover several very critical and unmet needs:

+ The solutions availble were generally not easy to use by attendees.

+ The solutions were considered by many to be expensive, relative to actual use; and worse, the expense is highly variable, with all sorts of additional charges that occur based on exceedingly difficult-to-track limits.

+ While many large companies have adopted web conferencing, mid size and small companies have not.

+ The solutions available were not oriented toward ad hoc use, but more so toward programmed and scheduled conferences."

This product looks extremely useful.

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Useful tool:

Copyscape - Internet Infringement Detection: "Copyscape finds copies of your content on the Web. You can use Copyscape to identify sites that have copied your content without permission. Copyscape will also show you who is quoting your site. Simply type in the URL of your original content, and Copyscape does the rest. "

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My coauthor Scott Allen and I just debuted our first monthly column for Fast Company, entitled Crossing the Social Networking Chasm, about how this technology is moving into the mainstream. In it, we look at some of the objections people are raising about social networking sites and re-assess "realistic" expectations of them:

Business networking sites are not living up to the expectations of many people. They don't effectively represent electronically the complexities of interpersonal relationships. They create awkward social situations that don't exist face to face -- such as how to deal with an explicit request to be someone's friend, something most of us haven't had to deal with since third grade. And they don't prevent spam.But the fact that they're not yet living up to their potential shouldn't blind us from the real immediate benefits to be gained.

We then look at five key benefits of online social networks that you can realize immediately:

Searchable directory High visibility at low cost Receptive audience Easy group-forming Get visibility into the networks of your connections

Read the full article at Fast Company, and we look forward to your comments.

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Time magazine reports on an online network focused on the rich and famous: Clubs for People Who Point and Clique -- Oct. 25, 2004. This is consistent with the emergence of other selective online networks we have profiled for our forthcoming book, such as TheSquare; Value Investors Club; and the International Executives Resource Group. I suggest that these online communities are typically much more valuable than the ungated communities.

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More on The Bias of Wall Street Analysts

Key Line: "The difference is that while brokerages with investment banking operations are optimistically biased consistent with the lure of investment banking and other ancillary fees, brokerages without investment banking activities are optimistically biased due to the lure of trading commissions. "

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"CARNEGIE, DALE (1888-1955), was a pioneer in public speaking and personality development. He became famous by showing others how to become successful. His book How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) has sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into many languages. His books became popular because of his illustrative stories and simple, well-phrased rules. Two of his most famous maxims are, "Believe that you will succeed, and you will," and "Learn to love, respect and enjoy other people." His other books include How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948). Toward the beginning of his career, Carnegie wrote Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business (1931), which became a standard text."

For summaries of his two most prominent books, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, visit The Dale Carnegie Page.

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This past Tuesday, I spoke at a University of Chicago Business School Seminar on "Managing Your Career for Success", in Manhattan.

You can download my own talk ("How to Use Social Software to Find Your Next Job") from the page where I keep the slides from my past presentations.

Following are my notes on the other speakers. My thanks to Jim Penny of Heidrick & Struggles and the rest of the U. Chicago GSB club for putting this event together!


Jim Penny, Heidrick & Struggles:
Commonalities of successful execs.
- Love their job
- have a great mentor
- have a great network, especially recruiters

Roy Cohen specializes in the delivery of career services primarily to senior and mid level executives. For over 10 years, he has also served as the sole 'in-house' career and outplacement counselor to Goldman Sachs. Roy maintains an active private practice for both individuals and corporations in the areas of career management, executive coaching and leadership development. He is a former adjunct faculty member at New York University and the New School University. Academically, he holds an MBA from Columbia, a master's degree in counseling from Colgate and an undergraduate degree from Cornell.

Career mgmt is:
Thinking about it.
Focus.

Choose a goal thru assessment and research.
followthru and consistency.
market your personal brand.
Package yourself.
New season: make resolutions.
Ask people you respect for feedback.
prune your network.
Try something new.
Create a board of directors for yourself.
Network. Letter campaigns. Recruiters.
sound fresh when responding to ?s.
remember your storylines.
Reconsider your targets in light of market.
if you don't like networking, write great letters.
Do you get it? Can you ID problems, and solutions?
network with busy people.
Don't send thank you note, send an influencing note.
Reassess where you are.
Career search is a marathon.


Doug Hanslip is a Managing Director at Korn/Ferry International and a member of the firm's Global Financial Markets Group specializing in the recruitment of senior investment management and capital markets professionals. Mr. Hanslip's focus includes operating executives, fund managers, and marketing/operations professionals for the mutual fund, hedge fund, and general institutional marketplace. Mr. Hanslip is also responsible for the firm's North American Equities-related search assignments. Prior to joining Korn/Ferry, Mr. Hanslip was a Managing Director for Banc America Securities. Mr. Hanslip graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Science degree. He also holds an MBA degree from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, with concentrations in Finance and Management Policy.

Don't expect a recruiter to remember you when you call. Send a resume first, and re-introduce yourself when you call.
Be upfront about your baggage (e.g., getting fired).
Put your cell on the resume.
Put personal email on the cv.
Don't have gaps on cv.
Cover letter should be the body of the email.
Be current.
Have conviction in what you say.
Neutralize your clothing.
Speak slowly. Be calm.
Attend conferences.

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HBS Working Knowledge: Leadership: What Lovers Tell Us About Persuasion

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This is definitely consistent with a theme of yesterday's conference:

FT.com: Hedge funds kill old strategies

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(following are my notes on a hedge fund seminar I attended this morning)

The Long and Short of Hedge Funds Breakfast Seminar,
presented by The Deal

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

VENUE
The Yale Club of New York
50 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York, NY 10017


Thedeal recently closed partnership with hedgeworld because of increasing importance of this area.

First panel:
ron orol, thedeal, moderator.
ben bornstein, prospero capital. $25m under management.
elizabeth fries, goodwin procter.
sandra manzke, tremont capital
patrick mccarty, commodities futures trading commission
stephanie pries, managed fund association.


elizabeth fries, goodwin procter.

Oct. 5 is deadline for RIAs to have written compliance in place.
Compliance is not enough: You have to write everything down. Identify conflicts of interest.
SEC rules are built for traditional long-only funds.
Registration takes more time and money than people thought.
example: difficult to formally register shares in emerging markets, particularly if you trade a lot.

ben bornstein, prospero capital.
They are a registered $25m fund. it costs $50-$70k extra to register. They use a midwest law firm, which is 75% less expensive than the fancy NYC law firms.
Ongoing costs are $25-50k per year.
They submit all holdings 2x/year, with a 60 day lag.
Investors feel more protected.
Some types of accounting fraud are harder with SEC registration.
Right now, it's too easy to start a hedge fund. Most hedge fund investors are not used to running a business.

stephanie pries, managed fund association.
MFA is trade association for alt. investments. MFA is vehemently against registration.
problems with registration: investors will not pursue certain strategies because of fear of disclosure, etc.
Also, registration opens door to future restrictions.


sandra manzke, tremont capital
cost of compliance are low relative to profits in this business.
USA is only country where you can manage $ for people without registering.
registration legitimizes the business.
Original logic of exemption was that you could only have 99 investors.


patrick mccarty, commodities futures trading commission
disclaimer: don't rely on anything I say.
I've seen the future and it’s in compliance.
8000 funds and $850b managed in hedge funds.
75 to 80% of top 100 hedge funds are registered with either CFTC or SEC.
Registration could create a moral hazard; people will think fund is safe.
$25m is the cutoff above which you have to register.
Registration does not address systemic risk. The Fed (theoretically) does that.
Friends and family fraud is usually with funds under $30m.


second panel:
kirstin fox, hedgeworld
alissa grad, TAG associates
Geoffrey stern, muirfield capital
hunt taylor, stern asset management
keith weiner, UBS alternative investment solutions


hunt taylor, stern asset management
1. 'prudent man' vs. 'sophisticated investor' shift.
prudent man has someone overseing him: he has career risk and is always backwards looking.
2. Why do hedge funds make $? Because they provide liquidity to global markets.
Hedge funds are dangerously overfunded. The managers are making more money than the people with the money.
There's overt and covert beta in hedge funds.
Outlook: not sanguine. there will be a market shock very soon. Creative destruction is coming.


alissa grad, TAG associates
Works with 80 families.
for clients, hedge fund investing is a bond surrogate.
Factors: interest rates are going up, which is bad for absolute return strategies.
Credit market is overbought.
They mainly invest via onshore vehicles.
If you're managing levered funds, you're vulnerable to the other managers whose positions could blow up.


Geoffrey stern, muirfield capital
F of f. $500m under mgmt.
Talent is in the hedge fund space. He is pro-regulation.
Problem today is 'death by boredom'. His fund is up about 5%.
Huge amounts of capital coming in.
Overcrowding in perceived safe areas.
Expect low returns going forward.
A very large fund is going to lose half its assets soon.
Risk is priced out of the market.


keith weiner, UBS alternative investment solutions
$9b managed.
Pension funds have taken 5-6 yrs to get into this space.
HNW investors focus on returns; Institutional investors focus on asset allocation.

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HBS Working Knowledge: Negotiation: Yahoo CEO Describes Art of the Deal

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Eilene Zimmerman of the NY Times has a new article on blogs and the job search.

In general, the categories of blog that I suggest a job-seeker might investigate:

- employer blogs, to learn about an employer and its industry
(Microsoft : http://scoble.weblogs.com/ )

- writer/entrepreneur/recruiter blogs, who can provide advice on career & job search ( http://www.teten.com/brain-food , http://blogs.msdn.com/heatherleigh/ )

- blogs of thought leaders/people active in your industry who will
know potential employers (http://www.zeldman.com/ )---blog writers tend to be very well-networked and approachable

- blogs of thought leaders/people who can teach you about your industry (http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan , http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/ )

- blogs about online social networks , to learn about the technology ( http://www.TheVirtualHandshake.com/blog/ )

- and most important, your personal blog

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