I have read enough lately about the health benefits of standing at my desk. But, my motivation really has been because of unrelenting pain due to an accident that fractured my knee and pulled tendons and ligaments and sub-luxated my hip. Sitting for long periods of time now is simply too painful. Aside from having a hip replacement to solve the problem...they hope, I have pursued alternative solutions to aid my health in general. That got me to Rick Williams here in Santa Cruz who had been a great help. Through him I bought a Salli backless desk chair. It is really more like a saddle, giddy up! It has made a world of difference. Now I am researching a hydraulic desk that is sit/stand accommodating. I will keep you posted. Watching a client make this transition at Apple has been thought provoking. I am truly impressed how a company that values their talent is willing to do whatever it takes to accommodate an employee ergonomically. They are spending bunches more money on an adjustable desk than I am willing to do. But the investment is in improved health, productivity, lower medical expenses and time off, and high morale. I will keep you posted on the desk. Studies and articles listed on Jesse Noller's blog I found very helpful, thanks!
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The take-away of the article when building your career or making a career move is to get a reputation and visibility ahead of curve. The easiest way to do that quickly by leveraging the expertise, fame and reputation of other professionals. It's simple really, set-up a blog and interview people working in your current field or new field. Pick the ones with the biggest networks. This creates overnight brand reputation for you as every one you interview will promote the interview blog posting to their network. If you are really ambitious, do a book. The article mentioned, " Remember, people judge how smart you are more on the basis of the questions you ask than on the answers you give". By asking very astute, thoughtful, and insightful questions,you look like an instant expert. Sure you are a thought leader in a month but continuing the interviewing as you expand your network is a long-term investment that maintains your brand in your field and keeps you on everybody's radar. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How to Become a Thought Leader in a Month or Less BY MICHAEL SCHEIN Thought leaders make more money, but getting there can be a real slog. Try this simple trick to become known as an expert in a fraction of the time. Here’s how the Oxford English Dictionary defines thought leader:“One whose views on a subject are taken to be authoritative and influential.” It’s no wonder so many business owners and executives invest millions of dollars trying to attain this status. Today, anyone can find countless alternatives to every product or service with a few mouse clicks. In this sort of environment, only those perceived as experts can truly thrive. Unfortunately, becoming a notable expert usually takes a long time, even in the digital age. Many people assume that if they throw up a blog and publish great content, members of their target market will find it. They won’t. There are literally millions of blogs and websites already in existence. The most successful thought leaders built their audiences by fostering relationships with other influencers they knew could effectively spread their message. Engaging in this kind of intense ongoing interaction can be grueling. Fortunately, there’s a way to shortcut the process. Target Your Own Circle FirstIf you’re a driven entrepreneur or executive, I’m willing to bet you have an extensive network of people with substantial knowledge and expertise. Like so much else in the business world, your personal network is the ideal place to begin when establishing yourself as a thought leader. Read full article here This is compelling data that shows a clear direction for people to take to pursue viable global employment. What the slide deck fails to address is that projected lack of employment opportunities regardless of how trained and prepared you are. At the World Economics Forum in Davos, 2012, the then CEO of Citi Bank declared that by 2020 the world would be 400,000,000 jobs short (read here).
The bigger issue address is not required skills and training but who will have access to opportunity and where? I have been preaching from this hymnal for so long now. All my clients have not just robust social profiles but websites, iPad profiles, and blogs. Every profile and site is well curated and managed for image and reputation. Soon everyone will wake up to this and forget to angst over their resumes which nobody really sees in comparison. Why would you worry about your employer seeing you? They are online touting themselves too. Linkedin is even encouraging high school students to join them now. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Your Web Presence Will Soon Be More Valuable Than Your Credit Rating by Philip Brewer on 5 February 2014 reprinted with links from www.wisebread.com When employers first started looking up their potential new hires on social media sites, recent grads started deleting whole Facebook accounts. That was better than having a fully documented history of bad behavior, but in the near future people are going to have to do a lot better. A blank social media history is going to be a bad social media history. (See also: 9 LinkedIn Changes You Should Make) The whole situation is directly analogous to credit ratings. Time was, a lot of people didn't even have a credit history — back when credit cards were a way to borrow money, rather than a mechanism for making payments. Plenty of people were proud that they'd never had to borrow money — figured it showed that they were responsible money managers. And often those same folks were terribly surprised when it turned out that having no credit history made it tough when they did want to borrow, such as to get a mortgage. The reason was simple: lenders wanted to see a demonstrated capability to make monthly payments on time, and people who had never borrowed money didn't have a history that showed that. (See also: How to Build Credit From Scratch) Very soon, having no online presence is going to be worrisome in just the same way. It's going to either mean that you're a complete nobody — or more likely, that your past behavior was so bad you couldn't clean things up by just deleting a few unwise posts. Building a Good Web FootprintThere used to be a lot of articles on how to build a good credit history. (The advice usually boiled down to: borrow a little money, make the payments on time, make the last payment a little early.) Now it's time for some similar articles on how to build a good web presence. We don't yet know what's going to be most important, but here are some ideas on how to get started. Be GradualYour web footprint should be built gradually, with posts spread out over time. Don't imagine that you can fake up a whole web history in a day, or even a few weeks. (For one thing, too many of the posts have hard-to-fake timestamps. But even aside from that, it's just hard to make up anything that has the richness of a real person's life, except by documenting it day-by-day.) Be NormalYour web footprint should make you look like an ordinary person, with various interests and a reasonable number of friends. A nice mix of posts — some quotidian updates liberally laced with quirky vacation stories, some links to interesting articles, photos with friends and with family, likes of local businesses — is going to look much better than two hundred posts all on the same topic (even if the topic is relevant to the job you're trying to get). Be ConnectedYour web footprint should make you look engaged. In addition to your own content, you should like and share other people's content — and you should have content that other people like and share. Don't look like you think you're above everyone else; don't look like nobody likes you. (See also: Why You Should Cultivate Relationships) Be HonorableYour web footprint should make you look unique and quirky — but like a good person. Don't have posts that make you look cruel or abusive. It's fine to have some stories about misadventures, but don't make yourself out to be stupid or incompetent. (Especially, don't make yourself out to be a criminal or a drunk.) Be DistributedYour web footprint shouldn't all be one place. Right now, probably the most important web presence to have is on Facebook, followed by Twitter, and then Google+. But there are dozens of other places where it's worth being engaged: Reddit, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, Delicious, StumbleUpon, your own blog, etc. There's no telling what the next big thing will be. Fortunately, there's no need to be on the next big thing. Just make sure your whole web presence isn't all on one site — a lot of sites are going to disappear (or worse, become a joke for the people who have moved on to the next big thing). A Web Presence Is Cheaper Than an InterviewThe first time I was interviewed for a job, I was surprised at how little time was spent talking about my qualifications, and how much time was spent just talking. Only years later — after I started doing interviews myself — did I come to understand. By the time you get to the interview stage, the employer has already decided that you have the skills to do the work. In the interview, they're trying to figure out if you'll fit in. They want to make sure that you're not a jerk or a flake. But interviews are expensive — and however limited the picture of someone that you'll get from their web presence, it's often enough to spot the jerks and the flakes. (See also: 13 Ways to Make a Good Impression at Your Job Interview) If your web footprint makes you look like a jerk or a flake, interviews are going to be few and far between. But if your web footprint is so sparse that someone taking a good look at it comes away without any strong sense of the sort of person you are, there's every reason to fear that you won't get the benefit of the doubt. They'll just look at the next guy, and the guy after that. Soon enough they'll find someone with enough of a web presence that they feel like they've got a sense of the guy. That's the applicant they'll call in for an interview. Make sure your web footprint doesn't make you look like a jerk or a flake — and make sure it's dense enough that it looks real, and not like the creation of a few days of trying to fake something up (or a lifetime of bad behavior with all the bad posts hidden). Beyond the Job SearchYour web presence already matters in your job search, but soon it's going to matter for everything. Lots of interactions are already heavily reliant on social media reputation — dating (especially online dating, but also real-life dating), doing freelance work, selling second-hand goods, and so on. Credit scoring won't be far behind, and probably getting insurance as well. Time to get ready for it. Are you actively maintaining your online reputation? Has your online persona helped or hurt you? full article here Canada's Start-Up Visa for foreign tech entrepreneurs, which opened for applications on April 1, is an important part of the Government of Canada’s plan to build a fast and flexible economic immigration system.... Initially, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will collaborate with two umbrella groups: Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) and the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO). The immigrant entrepreneurs must secure a minimum investment of $200,000 if the investment comes from a designated Canadian venture capital fund or $75,000 if the investment comes from a designated Canadian angel investor group... For details, please check out http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/index.asp Please feel free to pass it to a tech entrepreneur who may who can benefit from it. |
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