Diversity in company culture makes organizations better, period. Studies and feedback on some of the top work environments support this, and companies with any interests in achieving an optimal company culture are working hard to diversify their employee population. Sometimes, in all of the effort to reach a peak ratio or makeup of people, the actual definition of diversity gets lost. Because really, what is diversity? Diversity is a unique, case-by-case term that has a varied meaning in different organizations. Wrong definition When the term diversity is mentioned, the common immediate reaction is to subconsciously think of some sort of stereotype. We have been programmed to associate diversity with race, ethnicity and gender, all while having lost site of the true value of being diverse. I managed a diversity hiring project for a mid-size healthcare company once where white males were the minority and therefore sought for diversity. Not typically what is top of mind when you hear the word diversity. The white males were different than the typical image of diversity, but the hiring was still focused on an exterior form of diversity, assuming all white males would bring something different to the culture. Credit: Recite.com Stop assuming Viewpoints can’t be seen, so we assume people that appear different physically, must think differently. That’s if we’re looking for fresh perspective. Rather than assume that people who look different will automatically add some different value to company culture, we should be thinking about a set of differing ideas, viewpoints and opinions. This is where organizations should be looking to diversify, especially in the leadership rankings. It’s nice for shareholders to view what appears to be a diverse executive management team, but often that’s where the actual diversity ends. To truly balance and add creativity to the organization, the emphasis on diverse exterior makeup needs to be replaced with diverse thought process and opinions. The real value More often than not, egos get in the way. Companies can reach ethnic diversity and still have a culture of "yes people." This is the biggest disillusion of diverse organizations. They appear to be diverse but have essentially have a group of very similar mindsets and opinions. No challengers. Organizations need people that challenge the status quo, question authority and push new ideas. Great CEOs welcome this behavior and put ego aside to enlarge the creative pool of the organization. Maybe it’s going against the typical assessments of what’s right for the culture? Maybe working parents add an element of responsibility and flexibility? Whatever the source of intangible diversity is, we need to get away from just seeing the exterior. Adam R. Lloyd serves as president and managing partner of Webber Kerr Associates. As an executive talent strategist and consultant, he supports the leadership challenges and objectives of multi-nationals, private equity held and family-owned companies. Lloyd’s experience in CEO and executive appointments spans multiple industry sectors in the Americas and EMEA markets. Prior to founding Webber Kerr, he began his career in financial services and co-founded a midsize human capital services company. He received his a BS, human resources, from Michigan State University. Contact Lloyd on Linkedin, and Webber Kerr on Linkedin and Twitter. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: "Flex": How we (don’t) talk about difference How to reap the financial rewards of diversity Target’s Kim Strong: Promoting women leaders through mentoring, connecting and engaging Workplace morale: Turn it inside out How can leaders can assess the work readiness of new graduates? Why opposing viewpoints should be more important than cultural diversity originally published by SmartBlogs

As part of SmartBrief Education’s coverage of Path to Workforce, we’ve teamed with the Association for Career and Technical Education to share CTE articles written by educators, for educators. In this blog post, our guest blogger examines the true measure of success for CTE students. One of the unique features of CTE is the multitude of people it serves. CTE teachers provide services to students in high school, students seeking transfers, people seeking careers, incumbent workers seeking to differentiate themselves in the market and dislocated workers looking for a new set of skills and a fresh start. We are proud to be a solution to educational needs in a workforce that is increasingly mobile and where people are seldom staying in one location or even in one career path during their working lives. While we are nimble and always trying to keep up with the times, it seems that sometimes how our success is measured hasn’t always kept pace. The three things we record and report to gauge student success are persistence, retention and graduation. All these things are important and worthy of our attention; however, should these three measures be the main way our success is determined? What of the welding student who comes to us seeking job skills? If that student leaves before completing a degree because he received a wonderful job offer, he is counted the same as someone who dropped out. And what about a student who planned to transfer and does so before completing her credential? She also met her desired outcomes—perhaps earlier than planned—but she is also counted as unsuccessful in the current, narrow vision of completion. Some programs, such as supervisory management, offer classes that stand alone as skill building. Oftentimes, an individual will take a class like this to learn something new with no intention of completing a credential. Does that mean he or she failed? According to the way we report results, the students in these three scenarios could be counted as dropouts and, therefore, failures. Does this make sense? Not according to our mission. Hopefully, we will see a day when student-identified outcomes become the true measure of success. Perhaps we can develop a way to measure our success in delivering what truly matters to those we serve. It might not be easy, and it probably won’t be the same for everyone, but if we hope to get a true picture of our impact, we should seek nothing less. This blog post also appears on ACTE’s Educators in Action blog. Leslie Bleskachek is the vice president of Academic Affairs at Southeast Technical in Red Wing, Minn. She also is the 2015 Region III Fellow for ACTE. Bleskachek started her career as academic program manager at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls and then transitioned to dean and campus manager of Wisconsin Technical College. Related Posts: With all of the innovations in CTE, where is the funding? You can’t spell "college and career" without CTE Outlook: The state of Path to Workforce #VISION14: 4 lessons on the power of CTE Modernizing today’s CTE classroom All’s well that ends well? originally published by SmartBlogs

‘The Leadership Challenge" by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner shared the findings of extensive research that surveyed thousands of people asking, "What values, personal traits, or characteristics do you look for and admire in a leader?" After further empirical analysis, they reduced the results to a list of 20 characteristics and surveyed more than 75,000 people around the world. The survey began in the 1980s and was repeated every five years over six continents, concluding in 2007. Would it surprise you to learn that over the entire research period, only four of the characteristics nearly always received over 60% of votes and were consistently ranked at the top across different countries? Those four characteristics were: Honest Forward-looking Inspiring Competent I believe that brilliant piece of research also summarizes perfectly exactly what people want the world over from leaders each time they speak. Having spent over 20 years leading from the front in executive positions, the one thing I am clear about above all else is that that when leaders fail to communicate they fail to lead. In fact, I remember a great mentor of mine 30 years ago saying to me, "Maurice, you know what I don’t like about my job is when people call me a bastard." That of course seemed entirely reasonable at the time as I couldn’t imagine liking that myself very much; however, he then went on to say, "The only thing I hate more than that is when they call me a stupid bastard." He explained his concern that in his view it meant he hadn’t communicated effectively as a boss. If you search the term "leadership" on Amazon, you will find over 130,000 results, but what many of them fail to address is the impact leaders make each time they speak. It’s our belief at Mindful Presenter that effective leaders use every speaking opportunity to influence, inspire and connect with people. Whether you are speaking in the board room, at a conference, a management meeting, in the elevator or at the water cooler, you are presenting, and the four attributes you need have already been uncovered. We believe the question for today’s leaders is, "Just how do you present using these attributes that your teams clearly value?" Credit: Recite.com Honesty It sounds really simple, doesn’t it, but what does that really mean when you’re presenting to your team? Authenticity is the foundation for honesty when it comes to presenting to your team. This means losing the "corporate speak," the "politics" and "hidden agendas" and being straight forward and transparent. As leaders, most of us spend more time at work with our teams than we do with our own families. When we finally get to go home after a hard day’s work, we wouldn’t dream of drowning our loved ones with the corporate cliches over dinner — so drop them at work, too. In other words, you may well be the boss, but you are also someone’s son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother, and whoever you are speaking with is one of those, too. So, be honest with yourself and them by being the real you. Don’t try to be perfect or even impressive; just deliver your message as yourself. Focus on communicating and connecting rather than being someone. Have a conversation rather than give a presentation. Don’t just talk. Listen, too. Prepare to be a little vulnerable and tell them how you feel. Let them see the real you by sharing something of yourself. Remember that the people you are speaking with are intelligent, creative, responsible human beings who are discerning, and the one thing they demand and value more than anything is trust. That is something that can only be achieved with honesty, and if you lose it, then it’s lost for good. Forward looking When I first stepped on to the "corporate ladder" some 30 years ago, a former boss of mine shared a powerful truth with me. He said, "The only people who need to be motivated are the people who can’t see a future." That statement was not only the catalyst to launching my professional life, but also my personal life, too. Leaders need to be forward-looking, they need vision, and it needs to be at the forefront of their communication each time they speak. Vision lets everyone know what’s important and where they are heading. It should shape everything leaders say and do. When it comes to speaking with vision, there are a number of principles every leader needs to follow: It needs to be clear, simple and highly focused. If you have a number of messages to share people need to know which is the most important and should take priority. It must be positive. Leadership is about inspiring confidence, passion and possibility, and each time you present the future, it has to be in the positive. It needs to be credible. If you want them to aim for the moon, then you’ll have to make sure you give them a spaceship and show them how to use it. Whatever you say and however you say it, people have to believe your goals are attainable. Inspiring Poor speakers present information while more compelling speakers inspire thought, belief and action, and that’s the role of leadership. At Mindful Presenter, every day we see leaders present content that focuses exclusively on people getting the message on an intellectual level. That’s all well and good, but for the most part the reality is an audience of sleepy, nodding heads affirming their understanding with nothing really going in because there is no emotional connection. Leaders need to speak to inspire not simply inform. Understand your audience and empathize with them. Put yourself in their shoes before you ask them to step into yours. Tell them stories — relevant but powerful ones that can help them feel something. Show them what’s possible and why. Use examples, case studies, analogies and metaphors. Speak with passion, energy, conviction and belief. Give them hope and help them to see the future. Competent It goes without saying of course that no one wants to work for an incompetent leader. Equally, no one wants to waste their time listening to an incompetent speaker. When it comes to presenting, an audience can sense incompetence within moments. The speaker is disorganized, unfocused and has no clear message as he rambles on and on with complete disregard for his audience’s time or feelings. The competent leader is also a competent speaker: They understand their audience and speak in terms and language they understand and can relate to. They use visual aids effectively. Never present too much text, data or read slides. They have a clear message and get to the point. They use their voice effectively — pitch, pace, tone and volume — and they pause. They speak with their body as well as their voice, and it’s congruent. They choose their words carefully. They are focused, organized and take their audience on a journey. At Mindful Presenter, we believe that one of the greatest challenges leaders face today is speaking and living these four attributes. It’s really not that difficult, though; all you need to remember is that each time you speak, you are leading, and your listeners want only you to be honest, forward-looking, inspiring and competent. Maurice De Castro is director at Mindful Presenter and a former executive at companies such as Interflora and Direct Line Insurance. Related Posts: Moving up the value chain of public speaking: Expert, interpreter or catalyst? 3 superpowers of public speaking Help employees remember your pearls of wisdom 10 facts every CEO should know about verbal communication Why your message isn’t getting through The 4 presentation attributes every leader needs originally published by SmartBlogs

Most school districts want to be seen as "innovative." To some, that means deploying the latest and greatest technology tool or initiative, such as tablets, makerspaces or one-to-one computing programs. To others, it means implementing a new schedule - such as flexible periods, common times, or "20% time" - that supports a different way to provide instruction. And still others will embark down a road of instructional shifts, such as differentiation, project-based learning, inquiry learning, portfolio assessment, or a myriad of other activities designed to improve educational delivery. We refer affectionately to all of these as "shiny objects." All of these are potentially good activities, but districts need to ask themselves two questions before initiating these types of programs: "What are we?" and "What do our students need us to be?" These questions are the guiding pieces to establishing a vision for the future and a subsequent mission. If your school district doesn’t have a clear vision for what it is and what it needs to be, all the above mentioned activities, no matter how "innovative" they seem, will not help to move it forward. Sure, there may be some great discussion and perhaps even some implementation of worthwhile initiatives. But without a vision to clarify and justify the purpose of the initiatives, they all become disparate activities. When creating the mission for the future, we must ask ourselves "By the time our students finish with their time at _______ [insert school, district, county, state], what do we want them to know and be able to do?" The answer to that question will help inform decisions on curriculum, instruction and assessment practices. Mission drives activities. When the vision and the mission are clear, there is a path to success. Without a clear vision, everything just looks shiny. Barry Bachenheimer, Ed.D, is the director of curriculum, instruction, & assessment for the Pascack Valley Regional High School District in Montvale, NJ. With over 22 years in education, Bachenheimer was recognized by the National School Board’s Association as one of the "20 to Watch" Award winners in 2014 and is the author of several books and periodical articles on the subject of educational technology and curriculum. He is also an adjunct professor at Montclair State University.  ***** Tech Tips is a content collaboration between SmartBrief Education and GreyED Solutions. Have a tech tip to share? Contact us at techtips@greyedsolutions.com Miss a Tech Tip? Visit our Tech Tip archive. *****   Related Posts: No Related Posts Tech tip: Avoid blurry vision and ‘shiny objects’ originally published by SmartBlogs

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter. Where does the biggest threat to your organization come from? From within — we’re our own worst enemies: 76.82% From the outside — the market is our biggest threat 23.18% Why is this so hard? It’s surprising and discouraging how many of you feel like the biggest threat to your organization’s success comes from within. 77% is a staggering number. Remember - change can start with you. Spend some time identifying the biggest roadblocks (politics, personalities, decision making approaches, bureaucracy) and resolve to fix some part of that - even a small one - every week. Enlist others to do the same. Change is slow and painful but 77% of you being in your own way hurts even more. Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, author of "Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results" and "One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership." Related Posts: How important is a SWOT analysis in your strategic planning efforts? How well do you recognize when something will "trigger" you in a negative way? How involved are you with "more senior" conversations? How well do you motivate your people? What best describes the mix of work you do? Where does the biggest threat to your organization come from? originally published by SmartBlogs

Much of what’s written about "employee engagement" focuses on how to get your employees more involved at work. As a leader at your company, you’re also an employee; how "engaged" are you? And, are you engaged in the right things? Undoubtedly, you’re busy, but is that the same as engagement? According to research by Development Dimensions International, 89% of leaders with strong interaction skills have more engaged teams. It makes sense that there is a correlation between your interaction as a leader and employee engagement. After all, when leaders consistently connect with their team members in a positive way, they create an environment of open communication. This connectivity has positive business results as well: the DDI survey indicated that "plugged in" leaders had three times less turnover and 83% led their teams to exceed their productivity goals. Yet there’s an irony at play. Consider for a moment two possible meanings of the word "engaged." One is: to be thoroughly involved, as in, "the employees were highly engaged in the customer service rollout." Then there is "busy or otherwise occupied." In order to have the first type of engagement with your team, as a leader it’s necessary to forgo the second. Leadership places many demands on you; are you sending "I’m too busy" signals without knowing it? Here’s how to tell the difference between an Otherwise Occupied Leader and a Plugged-In Leader. Credit: Recite.com Awareness of challenges. Plugged-In Leaders are able to sense when something’s amiss, either with the whole team or an individual, because they’re in touch with their employees regularly. Plugged-In leadership is not micromanaging; rather, it’s paying careful attention to individuals’ unspoken concerns and the friction points that typically occur in a department from time to time. Otherwise Occupied Leaders often fail to see the early clues that there’s trouble ahead because they’ve rushed through a conversation, or they miss the conversation completely because they’re overbooked. Level of distraction. High-wire artist Nik Wallenda has said, "I’ve trained all my life not to be distracted by distractions," and with good reason: attending to a distraction could kill him. Being distracted by phone calls, texts or e-mail while talking to your employees won’t kill you, but it will destroy your credibility. Otherwise Occupied Leaders think that their employees will cut them slack while they do a "lap glance" to surreptitiously send a text while in team meetings, but they’ve misjudged the situation. By falling prey to the many distractions offered by technology and the tyranny of the urgent, Otherwise Occupied Leaders telegraph that those right in front of them are of lesser importance. Better to be a Plugged-In Leader and silence the cell phone and give your undivided attention to the task at hand. Attention to commitments. Plugged-In Leaders place a premium on connecting with their employees, even if it’s just a quick check-in every so often. How many times have you cancelled a meeting with your team in the past three months? Your answer may be a clue to how you’re perceived by the team. Plugged-In Leaders understand how important face-time is to their employees, so they rarely cancel one-to-one meetings, because it’s often the only chance they get time to cover important career-building topics with their team members. Otherwise Occupied Leaders continually have "last minute" changes that take precedence over time with team members. How many times can your team members hear "something came up" before they write you off as uninterested in them or their work? It’s one thing to give your team members space to flourish by developing their self-sufficiency; it’s another thing entirely to be completely unavailable. The best leaders are still connected to those they lead, offering coaching, support and mentorship when needed. The best way to have an engaged team of professionals is for you to engage as well. Jennifer V. Miller is a leadership development consultant whose writing and digital training materials help business professionals lead themselves and others towards greater career success. Follow her on LinkedIn and sign up for her free tip sheet: "Why is it So Hard to Shut Up? 18 Ways to THINK before you Speak." If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better leader and communicator. Related Posts: The 6 saboteurs of positive role models Do you speak "vision"? Managers as interpreters of important company messages Leaders who take no for an answer build trust Lessons from an award-winning leader: 7 ways to improve workplace morale and employee engagement Entrepreneurs’ tips for managing employees with different worldviews Are you the wrong type of "engaged" leader? originally published by SmartBlogs

(Photo: Flickr user Parker Sav) Food companies and retailers that market to traditional concepts of mealtime behaviors are missing out on new opportunities emerging from the dynamic changes taking place in American culture (in general) and our eating culture (specifically). Consumers’ eating isn’t as random as it seems. It is shaped by an emerging system of contexts and beliefs. Shifts in the culture and demographics of the U.S. are impacting the what, when, where, who, and why of consumers’ eating habits. In the process, consumers are redefining the parameters of meals, snacks and the planning process. Consumers are eating closer to the time of purchase, meaning that the emblematic "what’s for dinner?" meal question is often now answered by shopping and consuming within an hour or so of purchase. We are witnessing a blurring of dayparts. Busy lives mean traditional mealtimes are less relevant and social rules about what’s appropriate to eat (and when) are lost. Lunch can be breakfast, breakfast can last all day, or breakfast can be "brinner" (breakfast plus dinner) an example of which is fried chicken and waffles. These dynamic changes represent opportunities for food retailers as shoppers ever on the outlook for solutions turn to prepared and take-away meals. The underlying reasons for this focus are diverse, and stem from an evolution in eating culture which includes inclinations to outsource food preparation to both restaurants and retailers on an increasingly frequent basis, complex household schedules and varied food preferences among household members, more frequent snacking and shopping occasions, and shrinking household sizes (typically to one or two persons). What do shoppers want from retailers’ prepared foods? Freshness. Our "Diners’ Changing Behaviors: Sustainability, Wellness and Where to Eat 2014" report finds that the ultimate symbol of quality on a foodservice menu is "fresh." More than half of the respondents (55%) said freshness was an important menu item followed by pesticide free (37%), real (36%) and hormone free (31%). As characterized by the menus and foodservice programs of brands like Whole Foods and Wegmans and Panera and Chipotle, the rise in importance of fresh and less processed as a halo of not only high quality, but as symbols of both health and sustainability in the minds of consumers has now diffused from the aisles of natural, specialty and grocery stores and in to the dining venues of diverse restaurant formats and foodservice settings. The quest for new, fresh prepared foods is now diffusing from premium fresh foodservice purveyors and into the realm of conventional supermarkets and restaurant operators. Consumers are shopping in a diverse range of food stores seeking new experiences and flavors such as local, organic, natural and fresh distinctions. They look for those same experiences when outsourcing their cooking needs. Although traditional dining habits persist (e.g., eating out remains tied to celebration), consumers have outsourced food preparation and now eat out and purchase take away products as a daily habit. When that new behavior is paired with our ongoing cultural fascination with global flavors, diet and health, we see greater demand for menus with fresh, healthy and sustainable options. Food and beverage occasions are converging to include an interest in sustainable menu options as well as criteria that relate to healthy eating choices and higher food quality. About four in ten (42%) of consumers are receptive to sustainable and healthy possibilities within a wide range of restaurant and foodservice settings. Our research finds that consumers receptive to sustainability are more frequent diners, eating out an average of 18 occasions a month in 6 different channels, compared to others who eat out 14 occasions a month. Compared to other diners, sustainable-receptive diners are more likely to be millennials, with children, more affluent, urban and ethnically diverse. Sustainable-receptive diners are health-focused and motivated to make what they believe are smarter eating choices, and many recognize the health benefits of making sustainable food choices. While "fresh" continues to be a most valued quality distinction marker, descriptors such as ‘real’, ‘locally grown’ and ‘seasonal’ are now almost as salient as calorie and fat information. Menu labels that indicate the absence of harmful ingredients (i.e., pesticide or hormone free) are most personally relevant to consumers as they are perceived as quality cues. A significant portion of shoppers today are receptive to menu concepts that link to health, wellness and sustainability. These consumers are more likely to be interested in a host of food-forward concepts including healthier menus, smaller portions, alternative proteins and local, fresh or responsibly sourced ingredients. As consumers are becoming more aware of the link between diet and health, many are actively managing their diet and dining habits. For more information about the report: Diners’ Changing Behaviors As CEO, Laurie Demeritt provides strategic and operational leadership for The Hartman Group’s research and consulting teams. The Hartman Group is recognized for its ability to blend qualitative, quantitative and trends research to help clients develop marketing strategies. For more information about The Hartman Group, visit http://www.hartman-group.com/or contact Blaine Becker, senior director of marketing at: blaine@hartman-group.com __________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing. Related Posts: Retailers, manufacturers ride the wave of gluten-free How to engage millennials through customization and curation Millennial consumers: How to win them over at retail How millennial, retail trends impact breakfast menus, flavors, products — and decisions Report: What do food industry operators want and how do they buy? Prepared foods report: New consumer behaviors hone in on fresh, healthy and sustainable originally published by SmartBlogs

Did you ever look around in amazement at people around you who have achieved extraordinary things, yet don’t appear to be all that extraordinary? These are people who have greatly succeeded in business, in politics, in the arts, in sports, or in some other space, but in many respects seem pretty much on par with you (or even inferior) in terms of core abilities and talents. How is it, you wonder, that they "made it" in such a robust manner while you continue to middle along in relative obscurity, earning a pedestrian income and feeling somewhat unfulfilled? Without question, there are many factors that maybe at play. Perhaps these individuals in fact possess special qualities and were able to leverage them to achieve success. Maybe they benefited from favorable timing, connections, family wealth or other advantages that helped propel them onto a higher plateau. Those are the easy answers. Others have succeeded more than me because of their superior tools and/or their good fortune. However, this can’t be the full explanation. We are all aware of "rags to riches" stories — accounts of individuals who began their lives and careers with much larger decks stacked against them than we did yet still managed to do great things. Even if you were to argue that these people are rare exceptions, the "one in a million" who defy the cruel odds of life, their successes remind us that us that greater attainment is possible if we learn to approach things correctly. It’s also a cop-out. There will always be people out there who are smarter, more talented, more fortuitous, etc. Especially nowadays, when international talent can be easily identified and accessed, we cannot even rely on our "home field advantage" in order to advance. If you wish to occupy a different plane within your respective occupational or career space, you have to focus more on what you can do to get there. Credit: Pixabay Of course, there is no clear, straightforward path to success, but there are some steps that can help to clear the straightest pathway to your personal success. Believe in yourself. It is extremely difficult to get anywhere if you don’t believe deeply in yourself and your abilities. Sometimes, you can use an injection of positivity and support from others to get you started. But at some point you have to be able to sustain your efforts with a profound sense of capacity, especially when you start to experience inevitable setbacks. Align objectives with abilities. Obviously, we are not all good at everything, and belief alone won’t open most doors. That’s why it’s important to take the time to think about what you are really good at or can become very good at. This includes assessing your existing skills and knowledge as well as your ability to learn new and master new things. It also includes your passion, which is the engine that will ultimately drive your process forward. Seek to align your abilities (current and projected) with your goals so that you can likelier achieve what you want. Learn, learn and learn some more. Do as much research as possible about your goals and how best to achieve them. Speak to others who have gone down that path to learn from their experiences, mistakes and triumphs. Read related articles. Attend courses and seminars. Seek out apprenticeships for low-risk, on-the-job experience. All of these can help you build efficacy, shorten your learning curve, and strengthen your inner resolve and confidence. Set goals. Effort without a clear plan is likely to not produce the desired outcome. Take the time (alone or, better yet, with a coach or colleague) to set clear, actionable goals with clear deadlines and deliverables. This will help you focus your time and energies and motivate you to stay the course. Take measured risks. Every new endeavor carries some degree of risk. This particularly true when you seek to rise from good (or not-so-good) to great. So many people never pursue their dreams because they are unwilling to upset their existing apple carts and stretch beyond their comfort zones. Of course, all risk-taking should be measured and responsible in nature. Work hard. There is no substitute for hard work. It sounds so simple, but this frequently gets overlooked. So often, we observe successful people and focus on the here and now while losing sight of the many years of labor and toil that it took for them to break through. Once you identify your goal, be willing to put in the requisite time and effort to make your dreams a reality. Learn how to get unstuck. A primary obstacle to growth and success is our propensity to get stuck. Something happens that prevents us from moving forward and we fail to figure out how to get past it and come to accept it as fact. Think of ways around the problem so that you can maintain your progress. Take rejection standing up. Just because someone says "no" doesn’t mean that you’re incapable or that your idea is flawed. Sure, there may be some things that you need to tighten up. It would also be a good idea to get as much information as you can as to why your application or proposal was rejected. Still, countless success stories began with multiple rejections and setbacks at the outset. Refine your people skills. This is perhaps the most important quality in the list. Belief, self-efficacy and perseverance are hugely important qualities in a person’s success, but each can be undermined by poor or even average interpersonal skills. Despite our increased use of technology, our ability to interact with and gain the support and trust of others remains critical. Learn how to speak so that others will listen. At the end, all things being equal, people will hire or select those whom they like and relate best to. Consider it the human side of doing business. And that side isn’t going anywhere fast. Naphtali Hoff (@impactfulcoach) became an executive coach and consultant following a 15-year career as an educator and school administrator. Read his e-book "Core Essentials of Leadership" and his blog at impactfulcoaching.com/blog. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: New leaders, build strong relationships Overcoming obstacles to reinventing yourself Is this the job you signed up for? Emotional intelligence: Key to our success What do "Call of Duty" and Gandhi have in common? Blazing your own path to success originally published by SmartBlogs

Welcome to SmartBrief Education’s original content series about the unique stories of teacherpreneurs. These are the innovative individuals confronting challenges, creating solutions and bringing them to market. In this post, Todd Brekhus, president of myON™ shares advice to help educators embrace the entrepreneurial spirit. After working as a teacher’s aide in high school, I fell in love with education and its power to improve young lives. While I’m no longer in front of the classroom or behind an administrator’s desk, I still think of myself as a teacher as I guide a new cadre of educators in my role as entrepreneur and industry advocate. Being an educator today can take many different forms, and there’s more opportunities than ever for ambitious practitioners to continue to follow their passion in education while embracing innovation, whether they’re in the classroom or in the boardroom. What I’ve learned along my journey from English teacher to executive is that not everyone is ready or able to make the transition, but anyone can embrace the entrepreneurial spirit to foster educational change. Determining your best path forward, starts with self-reflection. What do you find inspirational? What are your strengths? Do your peers look to you for help? Do you have a solution an unfulfilled need in schools? These are just some of the questions to ask yourself before making any changes. When starting a new business or a new venture at a school, it’s critical to recognize that there are downsides and find ways to overcome those obstacles. Entrepreneurship can be lonely, hard work in the beginning. You wear many hats, and often for the first time - sometimes you’re the leader, the developer, the project manager, the champion, and the financier. At the outset, you need to know where you can turn for help. Build a tribe of supporters, experts and collaborators who want to invest in you and your idea. You must also understand that you’re now in business to make money, while making a difference. If you want to climb the executive ladder or start your own company, you have to be willing to address the negative aspects of business or have the conviction to walk away. After leaving the classroom, my resolve was tested when I attended my first industry event to unveil Marco Polo. During the press event, the publicist commented to me that the educators participating were "just props" and the most important part was the "show." That was an earth-shattering moment for me, and I called the company president to say that I couldn’t do this job if that was their view. I couldn’t work where I wasn’t making a difference. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, and this sentiment is rare in our industry. I truly believe we have a reputable and caring industry, but you have to be strong enough to stand up for your beliefs and cultivate that culture. Whether or not you are ready to become an entrepreneur, you can develop your entrepreneurial muscles in the classroom now. Some education companies like myON offer full-time educators the opportunity to earn extra money and travel around the world in exchange for sharing best practices. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship in which educators are recognized and appreciated for their expertise, while companies get insight from practitioners to improve their offerings. To successfully transition into business, and nurture your entrepreneurial spirit in the classroom and in the boardroom, these are essential steps to pursue along the way: Network with wide range of people, from CEOs to instructional coaches to parents. You never know where these connections may lead and when you might need them. Identify mentors, and when it comes time, return the favor for another newbie. Make your voice heard and share your experience in as many venues as possible. Submit to speak at conferences or volunteer to lead professional learning sessions in your district. Follow your serendipity. When opportunity arises, explore where it may lead you. Sometimes it’s these experiences that help you find the ways in which you can contribute most to the world. Nurture your relationships. You’ll need help, and lots of it, to develop new skills and pursue new paths. Make sure to give advice as much as you listen. Always do your best, and bring out the best in others. This is a lesson I learned from my father, long before I started in my career. It’s as important in business as it is in the classroom. Todd Brekhus, president of myON, a division of Capstone, spent eight years as a teacher, department chair and technology director. Todd is an education technology entrepreneur. In 2014, Todd was awarded the prestigious LampLighter Visionary award from the Association of American Publishers. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about education. We offer newsletters covering educational leadership, special education and more.     Related Posts: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" The beginning of the new school year starts now Transforming the narrative about teaching Be the change you want to see Starting the conversation on teacherpreneurship From classroom to boardroom: How to combine your passion for education and innovation originally published by SmartBlogs

Marty Williams This post is sponsored by Interactive Data. Martin Williams is recognized as an expert on the creation, collection and distribution of high-quality reference data for use across the financial instrument processing lifecycle. As vice president of Interactive Data’s Pricing and Reference Data Product Development team, Mr. Williams is responsible for the product strategy and for identifying and developing new business opportunities. Here he talks about how managed data services can help solve issues with data quality. Question: What are managed data services and how do they differ from traditional data management? Marty Williams: Managed data services are hosted solutions that provide access to great breadth and depth of data, using standard interfaces. By utilizing managed data services, firms are able to minimize internal IT and data management requirements and receive access to a wealth of data directly to their desktops, enabling a broader range of users to leverage information. Traditionally, firms would manage the data acquisition, technology and infrastructure independently, but this has proven to be a time consuming and expensive practice. By using managed data services, firms are enabling organisations to achieve their business goals, with peace of mind that their critical data is being effectively managed. Q: What challenges can companies address using managed data services? MW: The evolution of investment strategy has transformed the use of data. Investment firms are striving to achieve greater on-demand access to mission-critical content, while simultaneously having to manage cost pressures associated with the design, maintenance and hosting of such architectures. Managed data services help address these challenges by providing access to a comprehensive universe of global multi-asset class data, enabling efficient delivery of data services, and providing scalability via networks and technology infrastructures maintained and managed by the host. Q: Which areas can benefit from managed data services? MW: Managed data services enable portfolio managers and investment firms the ability to implement their investment strategy more seamlessly. They allow organizations of all sizes to leverage the technology infrastructure and access to security master data without the investment in database software. Hosted solutions allow smaller firms to bypass a significant portion of infrastructure development and maintenance costs. These efficiencies enable small and midsize firms to compete more effectively with their larger rivals. Q: How can managed data services help with new compliance rules? MW: Managed data services can also provide a range of pre- and post-trade monitoring tools for meeting compliance, strategic and operational goals. Investment firms can more easily establish parameters for meeting client-specific goals. For example, managed data services make it easier to meet objectives such as monitoring for so-called "sin stock" assets in portfolios. Q: What should companies think about when considering providers for data management? MW: When considering providers for data management, the most essential factor is the ability to offer a comprehensive suite of technology solutions. The data vendor selected should be able to scale their solutions to meet not only your current but also future needs. A fully equipped managed data service provider offers comprehensive support for virtual infrastructures and will have strong global disaster recovery plans in place. Interactive Data’s Apex® Managed Data Service is a hosted solution that gives you access to our complete universe of multi-asset data, using standard interfaces. We minimize the strain on IT and data management resources, delivering data to the desktop efficiently, allowing a broader range of users to leverage information. Our scalable technology reduces barriers to entering new lines of business. Related Posts: No Related Posts Managing the Future of Data originally published by SmartBlogs

The Young Entrepreneur Council is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. Read previous SmartBlogs posts by YEC. If you enjoy this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our newsletters on small business and entrepreneurialism. Q. What is one common mistake leaders make during periods of fast growth that I should avoid? 1. Spending money before it’s there I’ve seen a lot of my colleagues get a little too excited a little too early during periods of fast growth. They want to display to their team and to their peers that the paradigm has shifted for them and that they’re doing better financially, so they purchase items that show that off to the world. I believe this is almost always done in haste, and way before they’re actually able. — Rob Fulton, Exponential Black 2. Halting communication As we’ve scaled Influence & Co. from two to over 70 on payroll we’ve realized that great communication is the No. 1 driver of success during high growth periods. It’s really easy for a founder to keep their head down and focus solely on growth without communicating the vision to those around her, but continuous communication is what will keep the company and the people scaling with your vision.- Kelsey Meyer, Influence & Co. 3. Letting quality slip Maintaining a high-quality product during fast growth periods can be very difficult. To help in this effort, it’s extremely important that you bolt down your processes with checks and balances along the way. Seriously though; what’s the point in growing if you are unable to retain that growth? — Russell Kommer, eSoftware Associates Inc. 4. Saying yes to everything It’s easy to get distracted by all the shiny deals and opportunity that present themselves to a fast-growth startup. Too often founders overcommit to these opportunities with exercising some discernment. Take your time to identify the right partners or opportunities and consider the risk/reward and cost/benefit analysis for each one. This helps keep you focused and on track to sustain growth. — Andrew Thomas, SkyBell Video Doorbell 5. Forgetting the mission As you grow quickly, you end up focusing so much on bringing in new business and scaling effectively. I believe it is mission critical to always go back to the front lines and to communicate with your lowest level employees. Make sure your brand ethos is making its way all the way to the foot soldiers so the foundation remains strong and supports the house as it grows. — Adam Brown, Sircle Media 6. Not managing your costs It’s very easy during a period of fast growth (or even post-funding) to spend aggressively. "Yes, we should move from $1,000 per month to $1,000 per day for that advertising test." You often cannot grow quickly without spending. But you need to spend with rigor. Stay disciplined with your pocketbook and declare your goals for any expense; track results and make sure that you’re spending wisely. — Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches 7. Hiring too fast As your organization brings on more and more new hires, it is critical to ensure that each hire is still carefully screened and vetted. Too often, facing pressures to scale, entrepreneurs make bad hiring choices for the sake of getting bodies in the door to fuel growth. Take the time to bring on the right talent. — Reza Chowdhury, AlleyWatch 8. Overfilling the top of the funnel Most people think that growth is all about finding new customers. In reality, growth is more highly dependent on customer retention versus acquisition. Why? Let’s say you have 1 million potential customers. With zero retention, fast growth simply means that you will run out of customers quicker. That’s a one-way ticket to the deadpool. — Neil Thanedar, LabDoor 9. Pretending you’re not growing Pretending there aren’t growing pains that come from fast growth is a mistake. If you’ve outgrown your office space, acknowledge the reality and keep staff updated on relocation efforts. If you’re struggling to scale a process, ask your staff to offer solutions based on their experiences. Make your employees part of the ascent, not victims of growth. — Faithe Parker, Marbaloo Marketing 10. Thinking short term Try to avoid the short-term thinking that comes along with the excitement and rush of a growing business. When you’re growing quickly it’s important to do what my mom did for me when I was young — buy pants that are too big so you have room to grow into them later. Focus on putting things in place that you’ll need in the future as opposed to only focusing on the here and the now. — Carl Dorvil, Group Excellence Related Posts: What makes a piece of performance feedback useful? How do you stay calm and collected when business isn’t going well? How do you cope with friends and family who don’t support your business? What is one app that has made you a more productive leader? Why? What is the best way to address an underperforming employee? Common mistakes leaders make during periods of fast growth originally published by SmartBlogs

SmartBlog on Education is shining a light on education technology innovations during May, exploring the latest products and tools and the hottest trends in ed-tech. In this blog post, English teacher Mike Saenz discusses the benefits of an online curriculum. Let’s get this straight first; teachers teach, and the curriculum (whether it’s a textbook, or an online package) is a tool the teacher uses to teach. I make this point first because often when discussing the best form of curriculum, the teacher is left out of the equation. The question is essentially, "Does the student learn better out of a textbook or online?" This confuses education with self-education and imagines a student alone in a room with a notepad and a textbook or alone in a room with a laptop. Fortunately, education properly achieved involves teachers. Among other things, the teacher critically examines the given curriculum, cuts some of the material, replaces it with others and finds supplemental materials to re-emphasize the material he finds most important. This is an essential function of the teacher. In order to ensure that the needs of his specific students are met, each teacher needs to be a mini-curriculum director for his students. Notice that this essential teacher function remains the same in a "non-traditional" classroom model. If the teacher has a "flipped" classroom, blended-learning model, or any other imaginable model, the teacher must take great pains to make sure the material used consists of appropriate facts that can be properly integrated into the current context of knowledge for his particular students. Since a role of the teacher is to tailor the curriculum to meet the needs of his particular students, the curriculum modality (textbook or online platform) that gives the teacher the most flexibility often wins. At Falls Career High School, we long ago switched to an online curriculum. We chose it because we have rolling enrollment, and an online curriculum allows our students to accelerate their progress if they are willing and able. It is rare that any two students are on the exact same lesson at the same time. An interactive model can offer instant feedback to the student quickly, solving many challenges. However, there are many other ways an online curriculum can benefit students. Flexibility. In the past, the teacher would supplement, re-emphasize or replace parts of the textbook with outside materials to meet the needs of his students. The result was that the student was presented with a patchwork of potentially disparate materials. Online curriculum, through teacher authoring tools, allows us to integrate outside sources right into the course. The student is presented with a course that is a uniformly formatted whole. This may seem merely a matter of convenience, but in addition to his role as a mini curriculum director, the teacher is also a salesman. Presenting a product that is a well-integrated whole, every part of which the teacher can stand behind, creates a more confident educational environment for student and teacher both. Multiple modalities. Our online curriculum offers informative videos, virtual science labs and other interactives, but not all of our students’ time is spent behind a laptop. At our school, students are reading print books, having peer-editing discussions, and doing presentations in front of classmates. These are all lessons we have seamlessly incorporated into our existing online courses. We’ve eliminated textbooks, not novels, plays and student interactions. Real-time progress monitoring. Every time a student logs into our online system (whether at home or in school), he sees the progress he has achieved in the course, the number of lessons remaining and his grades for the course. This is also visible to his teachers and parents, so everyone is in the loop and working together. Oftentimes, in a textbook-based classroom, students are legitimately unaware of their progress and performance. With everything being graded by the teacher, the feedback loop can become too long. But an online platform can do much of the presenting and grading for educators, allowing us to maximize in-person instruction, focusing on support, feedback and discussion. Transitioning from a textbook-based curriculum to an online curriculum is a significant change, but properly approached it needn’t be painful. Like with any new tool, educators will need to take the time to fully explore their new options that come with this format so they can adapt it to the needs of their students. For us, the time was well spent, and in the end, created a new and more powerful educational experience. Mike Saenz is an English teacher and the English Department Head at Falls Career High School in Marble Falls, Texas. FCHS uses online curriculum from Odysseyware. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about education. We offer newsletters covering educational leadership, special education and more. Related Posts: Using next generation assessments to personalize learning, drive instruction Twitter connects learning inside, outside the classroom Digital distraction in the modern classroom Editor’s Choice Content Award: July The power of digital student portfolios Replacing print where it matters most: Textbooks originally published by SmartBlogs

The annual performance appraisal might be among the most reviled of time-honored workplace traditions. And it makes sense. Managers must invest countless hours in a process that endeavors to boil a year’s worth of a human being’s contribution down to a series of check boxes, numeric ratings, and bulleted highlights. Employees — those human beings whose contributions are being over-simplified — may look forward to a chance to discuss their performance (since those conversations generally happen infrequently) but often leave feeling empty, demoralized, and undervalued. As organizations like Microsoft, Adobe Systems, and The Gap jump ship on the traditional performance appraisal and the press continues to pummel this business practice, one might wonder if the annual performance review will soon go the way of the dinosaurs. Likely not! At least not until the value it’s intended to bring can be re-created through other means. Credit: Recite.com Performance appraisals are designed to serve multiple masters: At the organizational level, they provide critical information for workforce alignment, succession planning, compensation calibration and budgeting. At the manager level, the annual appraisal offers an opportunity to step back and thoughtfully consider the performance of each employee and the kind of support required to sustain and elevate their contributions. And at the employee level, it’s a chance to sit down and hear how they’re doing — what they’re doing well and how they can improve. It’s an opportunity for connection, recognition, learning, and motivation. But let’s face it: In reality, the performance review represents the assurance that managers and employees connect at least one time each year around issues of performance. And whether the current system actually delivers this outcome in a meaningful way really doesn’t matter. It will be difficult for organizations to abandon this time-honored tradition until there are new practices that accomplish (probably better) what the annual performance appraisal is fundamentally in place to do. The high-profile organizations that are eliminating annual reviews promise monthly touch-bases instead. But, given the pressures on managers today, we’ll just have to see how that plays out over time. So, if you’re a leader in an organization today, you have a unique opportunity to be on the "bleeding" edge, to innovate your own approach to management, and to begin experimenting and developing practices that could one day become the alternative to the annual performance review. Here’s a list of ideas to get you started toward perhaps earning the right for performance appraisals to be eliminated in your organization. Send a few Sunday night LOVE letters. Rather than battling the "Sunday night blues," take a few minutes to reflect on the past week in preparation for the coming one. Consider the positive things that occurred and shoot out a few "Little Observations of Value or Excellence" (LOVE) emails. Just a sentence or two of recognition every couple of weeks or months can do more for motivation and engagement than a typical performance review. Forward frequently. Make it your practice to forward along customer comments and compliments from peers and superiors to employees. Let everyone know — immediately and more directly — how their performance contributes to the bigger picture. Turn the tables. Sharing your observations and feedback provides helpful information; but don’t assume the full burden of performance assessment. Engage others in a two-way dialogue about performance. Routinely ask employees questions like: What have you accomplished that you’re most proud of? What’s going well for you? Where do you feel like you’re falling short? What support do you need to perform optimally? Encourage feed-"back-and-forth." Any review of performance is more accurate and reliable when conducted by those closest to the work. Employees are in the best possible position to know the truth about how their peers are doing. So train them. Support them. Encourage them to share feedback generously and constructively with each other. Take proactive steps today to build performance-related conversations into the fabric of your workplace. Make this kind of dialogue a regular and natural feature of your organization’s landscape. And who knows? Perhaps your organization will realize that it no longer needs to impose artificial processes and systems to handle what’s already happening — and you might find yourself and your organization bidding adieu to the performance review. Julie Winkle Giulioni is the author of "Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want," with Bev Kaye. Giulioni has spent the past 25 years improving performance through learning. She consults with organizations to develop and deploy innovative instructional designs and training worldwide. You can learn more about her consulting, speaking and blog at JulieWinkleGiulioni.com. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: Battling the bulge: Handling the expectations of too many employees for too few promotions Management by talking around Symbolic leadership: What do you stand for … or where do you sit? What is one critical piece to include in employee performance reviews and why? Help employees remember your pearls of wisdom If not the annual performance appraisal, then what? originally published by SmartBlogs

Do you know what motivates the food industry operator — the person or people making the business decisions for a restaurant or other establishment? What makes an operator more likely to purchase a new product? Is it a recommendation directly from their sales representative? Is it experiencing and learning about a product at a national food show? Is it feedback from customers? When asked about new products an operator has purchased in the past month, 45% of operators said a free sample spurred them to action. (Photo: Datassential) This is just one of the insights we uncovered in Datassential’s 2015 PULSE report, which surveys 1,500 operators to reveal their motivations, challenges, and behaviors. It has become an essential planning tool for our clients, who use it to be certain they have a comprehensive understanding of food industry operators — their needs, wants, behaviors, demographics, and more — setting the stage for their future business initiatives. PULSE breaks all of this down segment by segment, from restaurant segments like fast casuals and fine dining establishments to on-site operators that sell food, like hospitals and schools, to retail segments, including convenience stores and grocery stores/delis. We pore over the data to uncover the statistically significant differences between each segment, showing you what truly makes a segment stand apart. And there are often notable differences between the behaviors and thought processes of decision-makers from one segment to the next. Decision-makers in K-12 schools, for instance, are even more likely to rely on those free samples — 62% said a free sample caused them to purchase a new product in the last month. Yet only 34% of fast food operators said the same thing. Here’s a sneak peek into this brand new report. Who is making the decisions? Ultimately it’s a person that makes the decision, which is why it’s important to know who those decision makers are — age, years of experience, culinary training, etc. These demographics can vary dramatically from one industry segment to the next. While decision makers in the industry as a whole tend to be male, for instance, a majority of healthcare and K-12 decision makers are women — 82%, in fact for K-12. Do you know the job title that is responsible for making the decisions within a particular segment? Even within seemingly similar segments the answers can be very different — 73% of purchasing decisions in the K-12 segment are made by a foodservice director, while only 31% of college & university purchasing decisions are made by someone with that same title. What do operators want? We asked operators directly — which operational parts of your business are not only a major challenge, but to rank those challenges in importance. Two major themes emerged: operators were concerned about managing costs — food, labor, waste — and building traffic, from both existing customers and new business. These concerns topped issues like growing their operation or dealing with new government regulations. Food and labor costs have already been increasing for operators — 80% of operators reported an increase in foods costs last year, and 15% of those reported that food costs had increased "a lot." And they expect those rising costs to continue in the future — 78% of operators said they anticipated food costs to increase in the next year, and 57% said the same for labor costs. Anyone selling a product or service in the food industry should keep in mind that increased food and labor costs will be a critical factor and concern for operators in the year ahead. How do operators buy? Operators reported placing half of their orders through their primary distributor online, and online ordering was also the most preferred method — 49% said they prefer to order online. But ordering preferences vary widely from segment to segment, based on the availability of both technology and sales representatives in that segment and segment dynamics. On-site segments, like healthcare and education, have very different ordering preferences compared to restaurants, for instance. This is just a small taste of this comprehensive, data-rich report, which answers questions like "Do brands matter to operators?" "Which segments are more likely to offer services like online ordering, open kitchens, buffets, or 24-hour service?" "What factors make an operator more likely to purchase from a specific supplier?" "What is the most important piece of information that operators want from suppliers?" Brian Darr is a managing director and Mike Kostyo is the publications manager at Datassential, a supplier of trends, analysis, and concept testing for the food industry. To purchase the PULSE report mentioned in this article, or to subcribe, contact Darr at 312-655-0594 or brian@datassential.com. __________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing. Related Posts: A sneak peak at consumer dessert behavior, trends Trend report: Americans are eating pizza, and a lot of it The roadside pantry: Changing shopping habits present opportunities for food companies The race is on to become the "Chipotle of pizza" Prepared foods report: New consumer behaviors hone in on fresh, healthy and sustainable Report: What do food industry operators want and how do they buy? originally published by SmartBlogs

A few weeks ago we kicked off our series, "Moving Up the Value Chain of Speaking Approaches" with a look at the Expert presentation approach. If you missed the previous articles in the series, see: "The Value Chain of Public Speaking: Expert, Interpreter or Catalyst?" "Moving Up the Value Chain of Public Speaking: The Expert" "When to take the Expert approach" Business leaders know firsthand the importance of aligning a team and galvanizing members to take action. To achieve this result, you need to convey information and connect with your audience. When your presentation goes beyond sharing information and includes a call to action, the Interpreter speaking approach will help you to rise to the occasion and ensure your success. When to take the Interpreter approach As an Interpreter, you’re in the moving business. Your job is to move people from point A to point B. Many times that goal translates as moving listeners from the "status quo" to a new way of operating. Getting people to change is no easy feat! The super power an Interpreter brings to the table is the ability to interpret information so that it makes sense to the audience, enabling them to both understand and act on it. Review the following characteristics of the Interpreter and see how your presentation opportunity compares: Presentation goal: As the Interpreter, your goal is to influence the audience, convincing people to take action or make a change. Point of view: Interpreters are in the driver’s seat. You understand what is at stake and are invested in the outcome. Even if you don’t have the title of a leader, your ability to gain buy-in and influence a diverse group will directly impact success. Audience and development: As an Interpreter, you want to influence people to take action, change the outcome of the problem or achieve the goal. Audiences might include your staff or other employee populations, board members or other stakeholders, external clients, analysts, or industry members. Examples of typical Interpreter presentations include: Product launch Analyst summit Sales pitch or client meeting Conference presentation or industry keynote event Public policy forum Content and message: As the Interpreter, target and direct your message to offer a specific approach to meeting a goal. Like the Expert, the Interpreter’s message requires logic and credibility. However, what differentiates the Interpreter from the Expert is empathy. Empathy enables the speaker to understand others’ perspectives and use that understanding to shape the message. In addition, rather than taking a neutral approach and simply stating the facts, use comparisons, anecdotes and stories to demonstrate a personal connection so the message is perceived as trustworthy and resonates with the audience. Build these skills to be an effective interpreter Using Professionally Speaking’s CODE process as a guide, build these critical skills to be an effective Interpreter: Clarify your content. You may typically find yourself speaking to a group of people with varying levels of knowledge, different perspectives or mixed expectations. When crafting and delivering your message, your job is to focus on the needs of your audience, and that can be a bit tricky when the needs of each listener are different. How do you begin? By finding the common ground between your listeners. At first glance, this task may seem impossible, but challenge yourself—you can always find common connections if you make the effort to look for them. This work will pay off when your message is clear, and the entire audience feels moved to take action. Get more information on this topic. Organize your information. Understanding what audience members have in common enables you to craft a message that captures the hearts and minds of listeners, making them feel that you understand. The Interpreter influences listeners with a logical schematic that clearly answers three questions: Why should I care? How will it improve my life? What must I do? Develop. While an Expert is typically dependent on slides, an Interpreter develops a story first and uses slides only to aid audience comprehension. When developing your presentation, include metaphors to illustrate your point and facilitate deeper understanding of your message, use stories that everyone can relate to and show more than you tell. Express Yourself. The Interpreter is constantly aware of how the audience is responding (whether verbally or nonverbally) and adjusts the presentation accordingly. In addition to the skills of an Expert, essential skills for an Interpreter to deliver a compelling presentation include the ability to: Share emotion Express empathy to others’ points of view Talk with not at the audience, using a conversational tone Teach so that the audience "gets it" Adjust the delivery based on how the audience is responding Cautions for the Interpreter Invest the time to research your listeners and their point of view rather than assuming you already know everything about your audience and the topic. Focus your message on the common ground between your audience members, especially when you’re addressing a diverse group. Practice out loud to ensure your message is coherent and learn where you could trip up. Refine and simplify content, which is not the same as "dumbing down" the message. Rather than getting mired in details, break down the message into understandable and actionable chunks of information. Are you an effective Interpreter? Before you present, ask yourself the following questions: What is my core message? Where is my audience and where do they need to be? Are they open, skeptical, new to the idea, or split on the issue? What common ground do listeners share? What common ground do I share with listeners? What stories, metaphors and comparisons will help them "get it" and move them to action? Have I prepared enough to be conversational and engaging? The ability to translate a message from a "presentation" to a "call to action" is what sets an Interpreter apart. As an Interpreter, you are a leader who goes beyond simply getting the audience to understand — you recognize the importance of influencing people to take action. Don’t miss the next installment in our series: "Moving up the value chain of public speaking: The Catalyst." The Catalyst sees the need for a vastly different future and wants to transform the audience’s thinking, spark innovation and generate new ideas. Not everyone has the capacity to be a Catalyst, but those who do can become the movers and shakers of tomorrow. Stephanie Scotti is a strategic communication adviser specializing in high-stake presentations. She has 25-plus years experience of coaching experience and eight years teaching presentation skills for Duke University. She has provided presentation coaching to over 3,000 individuals in professional practices, Fortune 500 companies, high-level government officials and international business executives. Learn more at ProfessionallySpeaking.net and ProfessionallySpeakingBlog.com. Sharon McMillen Cannon serves as clinical associate professor of management and corporate communication at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has a passion for teaching public speaking, business writing, intercultural communication, and the effective use of social media (@smccannon on Twitter). If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: Moving up the value chain of public speaking: Expert, interpreter or catalyst? 3 superpowers of public speaking What you don’t know can hurt you: 12 tips for presenting on-camera Breakthrough moments: Connecting with your audience Finding common ground with your audience Moving up the value chain of public speaking: The interpreter originally published by SmartBlogs

Panelists Hallowell, Curry and Vitry at NRA Show 2015 (Photo: Tricia Smith) Restaurants of all sizes and types are trying to tap into the millennial mindset in order to appeal to the influential demographic. Connecting with these tech-savvy, food-loving consumers is key to attracting their business and earning their brand loyalty, chain restaurant chefs said during a panel discussion Sunday at the National Restaurant Association Show. "It’s really about that connectivity and making a connection with our brand and our guests … they want to feel that connection all throughout their choice," said Heidi Curry, senior manager of global R&D for bakery at Dunkin’ Brands. Eateries can foster a connection with millennial consumers in a variety of ways, both in the restaurant and before and after a customer comes in to dine. Being active on social media and having an engaging, dynamic web presence can go a long way toward reaching millennial consumers, who are interested in brands’ backstories and hearing about why brands and products align with their lifestyle. Dunkin’ Brands uses its blog, Behind the Beans, to share stories and recipes that encourage consumers to interact with the brand outside of the store. On its Hut Life blog, Pizza Hut publishes profiles of team members and news about restaurant technology. Dominique Vitry, director of research and development for Pizza Hut parent Yum! Brands said the blog helps the brand maintain a conversation with its millennial consumers. "I would say the great thing about this young consumer is they don’t take anything for granted. They fully believe that if they think it, it can happen, and if they don’t like the way something is done today they are vocal about it and they expect who they are communicating with to listen," she said. This two-way communication is key to reaching millennial consumers and ensuring their repeat business. While starting the conversation may seem daunting, many restaurant brands may already have plenty of stories that would captivate a millennial audience, Christian Hallowell, executive chef for Delta Airlines at Gate Group, said. "There’s a lot of stories [about things] that you probably do every day that you don’t tell. We just figured this out the other day. We’re doing this huge, great sustainable fish purchasing program with Alaska fisheries and it’s this great story to tell and we’re not even talking about it…it’s about looking at something we already do and telling the story that’s going to relate back to those groups," Hallowell said. Connecting with millennial consumers is essential for restaurants for reasons beyond capturing sales. Millennials are changing the restaurant landscape and setting expectations not just for their own generation, but for future generations as well, and brands would be wise to listen to what they have to say, the panelists agreed. "A millennium is the anniversary of a thousand years, and that’s how I like to think we look at the consumer of today … how can we help them be that hope and promise of the future that they see and how can they help us continue to be a great brand into the next thousand years," Vitri said. __________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing. Related Posts: How millennials are making their mark on food packaging Last week’s most clicked An unnatural partnership — big business and environmentalists? NRA Show 2015 to serve up 4 days of food and beverage education Q&A: Championship BBQ in Chicago celebrates 18 years of fighting child hunger Connectivity is key to serving millennial diners, chain chefs say originally published by SmartBlogs

SmartBlog on Education is shining a light on education technology innovations during May, exploring the latest products and tools and the hottest trends in ed-tech.  Ironically, nothing feels worse than a day when the Wi-Fi is down or our dedicated laptop cart hasn’t been charged over night. A decade ago, I worked without technology completely and now I can’t live without it. Technology has become an integral part of learning in our shared spaces and despite early adoption challenges, progress has been exponential like the technology itself. I’m not a "digital native" as many have suggested my students are, but I’ve fearlessly jumped into the pool of possibility and refuse to get out. Here are some ways that tech has forever changed the way learning happens in my spaces: Google Educational Suite: Being a Google school has its perks. Every child has his or her own email address associated with a Google Drive, which provides access to an amazing world of collaboration. This collaboration has changed the chain of command. Students draft, revise and peer conference on the document in real time or at home and seamlessly develop before my eyes through the revision history. Students maintain their portfolios in their Drives and learn how to organize and develop reflective skills through the feedback I can provide using the comments on Google Docs or conferencing data collected through Google Forms. Voxer: In combination with Google Docs or slides or sheets, Voxer, a voice app allows me to talk to students about their learning when written feedback won’t do the trick. It’s a free app, so the students who have decided to download it can hear me providing specific detailed comments on their work in a way that doesn’t invoke the fear or discomfort of reading many comments on a page or seeing them in green ink. Voxer has also been awesome for maintaining class conversation in my absence, I can listen to class discussions and provide questions on Twitter to be involved. Blogging apps and tools: Personally, I use WordPress for my blog and so does the student media, WJPSnews.com. Students have taken their written, collaborative work from Google docs, shared it and scheduled the posts on the calendar and then post it to their website. Our student webmaster has become adept at selecting plugins to develop widgits to make the site more interactive and user friendly. Students also use Blogger to develop their writing and reading voices through literature blogs, no longer writing for an audience of one, but for their community of readers sharing ideas. This has been an amazing way to teach kids about digital citizenship in a real way, providing excellent and constructive feedback on their peer’s literary discussions. Twitter and other social media networks: My students never knew that so much learning could be done on social media until I showed them the academic possibilities. In AP Lit, my students back channel class discussion and ideas using the hashtag #WJPSaplit and in #PFWJPS, we do weekly Twitter chats to discuss informational texts that support learning in the class. The best part of it that the conversation spans three classrooms and my PLN who jump in to support the kids whenever they can. This is also a way to teach students about social branding and developing a presence online that also supports digital citizenship. Periscope has also changed the collaborative efforts in my class. Streaming live classes allows me to share with the world the great things my students are doing. Viewers can watch and ask questions and listen to students share their ideas. Other streaming apps like Meerkat do the same thing. This is a great way to share ideas in real time. Just think of how awesome this could be for when a teacher is absence. She can watch and ask questions in real time if available. Screencasting and iMovie: Students can make beautiful synthesis assignments by taking their learning and create tutorials or movies to show what they know through an original creation. Students develop technology skills and deepen their storytelling ability. Technology is a necessary part of the 21st century. Teachers and students need to experiment until they find the tech that works for them. There’s so much out there and it can even done from handheld devices. What technology do you love using and how has it changed the learning in your space? Starr Sackstein currently works at World Journalism Preparatory School in Flushing, N.Y., as a high-school English and journalism teacher. She is the author of Teaching Mythology Exposed: Helping Teachers Create Visionary Classroom Perspective and Blogging for Educators . She blogs for Education Week Teacher on "Work in Progress" in addition to her personal blog StarrSackstein.com where she discusses all aspects of being a teacher. Sackstein co-moderates #jerdchat and #sunchat and contributes to #NYedChat. In speaking engagements, Sackstein speaks about blogging, journalism education, throwing out grades and BYOD, helping people see technology doesn’t have to be feared. Follow her @MsSackstein on Twitter. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about education. We offer newsletters covering EdTech, Higher Education and more. Related Posts: No Related Posts Learning with technology 4.0 originally published by SmartBlogs

Your team is made up of some of the best — you have seen them in action and you know they’re great players. Every day, you see them minimize risk, manage issues and deliver quality work. They almost always execute flawlessly and you trust them to get the job done, praising and motivating them to perform well. Do you trust them enough to let them make mistakes? There’s value to being able to follow a known path and complete the work, but we all know that projects (and lives) rarely follow a script. There are always unknowns and unexpected issues, no matter how well you plan. Think about these specific questions: Do your employees feel confident that they can tackle the day-to-day challenges with creativity and innovation? Are they free to try something new, welcome to suggest taking a chance that might deliver faster, cheaper or better results? Do they know you’ll be there with them, not there against them, if it doesn’t work out? When you encourage healthy risk-taking, you encourage innovative behavior in your team. Employees who know that they’ll have your help and support when problems arise feel empowered to integrate changes into new projects and daily operations. Those changes could save time, save money or bring in a big win for the organization — just the sort of behavior you want to encourage. But does your team know you’ll make it a learning opportunity and not a mark of shame if something doesn’t work? Of course we’re talking about reasoned risk, with plenty of planning. There are always ways to learn from a thought-out endeavor that failed. Even poorly executed or sloppy work is a teaching opportunity, through one-on-one feedback and coaching. But here’s why you might want to consider rewarding those who try and fail in the name of better results: Team members feel empowered to make decisions, be creative and move ahead with projects. New ideas are generated by those who take risks. Employee knowledge is company knowledge — everyone will benefit from lessons learned. Even ideas that fail, if well planned, often have nuggets of value. When the team builds an approach that tweaks the new idea so it will work, everyone wins and everyone feels inspired. When examining the remains of a failed attempt, don’t blame or shame, but stay factual — there’s no use glossing over the fact that someone tried something that didn’t work. Don’t dwell on the failure itself, or the person — a little humor here can diffuse the anxiety around a mistake — instead focus on the positive and what can be learned. Zone in on these questions to ask the team: What were the positives to the failed approach? What could we do differently to make it work next time? Is the benefit of trying this new tactic worth the risks involved? How can we minimize those risks? Creating a positive environment where people are encouraged to try new things will benefit the company, the team and every individual, even when new attempts are not always successful. By providing the kind of leadership that celebrates mistakes in addition to the successes, you can generate the energy that will foster new ideas and keep employees engaged in delivering great results. Joel Garfinkle is available for speaking and training. His most popular program is "Perception, Visibility and Influence: 3 Best Practices to Help Leaders Be More Successful." He is the author of 300 articles on leadership and seven books, including "Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level." More than 10,000 people subscribe to his Fulfillment@Work newsletter. Subscribe and you’ll receive the free e-book "41 Proven Strategies to Get Promoted Now!" If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: Are you a first-time boss? Avoid these 4 pitfalls Trademarks of a great boss: Provide growth opportunities What’s one people-management mistake you wish you could go back in time and fix? Let your stars shine: Why your team needs a coach, not a manager Failure as a pathway to success Celebrate mistakes: Creating a culture of forgiveness originally published by SmartBlogs

Broadridge President and CEO Rich Daly "Without financial services, nothing else happens." So says Broadridge President and CEO Rich Daly. SmartBrief caught up with Daly on the sidelines of the 2015 Milken Institute Global Conference to discuss how financial services firms can turn technology challenges and operational burdens into competitive advantages. What do you think about the potential of financial utilities? I have heard this idea for a long time. The elephant in the room is that nobody in the history of the world has ever taken a single-entity platform and successfully converted it to a multi-entity platform. I am not saying it is impossible, but no one has ever done it. It is like taking a studio apartment and saying you want to convert it into a sports arena. I guess you could do it, but you are starting with something that is entirely different to begin with. The answer is trying to take the infrastructure we already have and using technology to re-engineer it so it is truly less costly for everyone. Today we have 26 clients on a managed service platform, meaning it is our technology and their individual clearing numbers, but they are sharing one set of back-office resources. Right now, one of the large pain points for the industry is fixed income. Our brokerage platform processes 60% of U.S. fixed income volume and over $5 trillion in North American fixed income and equity trades per day. We serve 16 of the 22 U.S. primary dealers on the platform. So we are already a multi-entity platform serving the diverse needs of 16 entities, so we are going to engage the industry on what a financial utility could mean. It is not just the back-office costs; it is all the undifferentiated common costs. It doesn’t take a lot more scale to have a utility. We at Broadridge will be pragmatic because it means our business model will likely change. At the same time, the industry needs to be pragmatic and recognize that if we are going to get to a more efficient model, then there are a number of things that will have to be balanced in that decision process. What I would encourage people to do is start with something that is real versus something that is theoretical. This industry is far too complex to be coming up with theoretical answers. How can communication channels and methods be improved? Let’s start with the biggest opportunity. It is going to be driven by opportunity tied to a realistic, non-theoretical ability to execute. The opportunity for our industry is two-fold. For example, PwC put out a report that found financial institutions, including broker-dealers, mutual funds and annuities are still spending $20 billion a year on paper and postage. That is the first aspect of the opportunity. The second aspect is that a bulk of the paper communications generating this $20 billion in cost just doesn’t deliver a good customer experience. Technology-driven activities can get people to better decisions by helping them understand more information more easily. The SEC is aligned with the industry. In 2014, they created the Enhanced Broker Internet Platform (EBIP) rule. In that rule they say that with the customer’s agreement, brokers can send customer information digitally because the more information investors get and look at, the better off they are going to be. With regard to the idea of layering documents, we have eliminated 92% of the full prospectuses for mutual funds. Ninety-two percent of them are summary prospectuses. Eight pages is better than 80 pages. You can actually get through 8 pages and pick something out as opposed to 80 pages. God help you if it is a commingled prospectus that covers more than one investment, then you are really dead because then you don’t even know if what you are reading about affects you. Getting to this $20 billion as the economic opportunity, technology is the answer but we have to be simultaneously investing in two things. One is better content. Sending static content online is not a good experience. Trying to read a brokerage statement online feels like you are in a scrolling penalty box. The next part is the war for the consumer. Financial services is important to consumers, but they want to live their lives without having to go to every website they ever do business with. They want to go to sites that interest them. Broadridge is enabling our clients to interface with those channels in a way that it is still their experience with their customers, but customers view it as a journey to a place where they can follow things they like or interact with people they like. We are going to be sending content to channels like Amazon Cloud, Evernote and Dropbox in the fall. We are ahead of the game because we are ISO 27001 compliant and follow the NIST framework. What are the biggest concerns you are hearing from clients with regard to cyber? The industry faces challenges because there is a need to interface in so many ways with the public and there is a need to do transactions with the public. At Broadridge, there are very few transactions that happen directly through us. That being said, every day we are adding more resources and more monitoring to counter cyberthreats. From our clients’ point of view, it is a very consistent dialogue. They want to protect themselves today and understand what they can do going forward to be part of the new economy without adding risk that is unacceptable. C-suites stay awake at night worrying about three issues: There is the very real issue itself. There is the issue of fines. And there is the very real public relations issue. How does Broadridge look to change third-party risk into third-party advantage? I met with the CIO of a very large global bank and he told me he deals with 300-plus vendors, 100 of which are meaningful, but he has to get it down to 30 or less. He told me that any way he looks at it, Broadridge is going to be one of the 30 because we "check the box" in terms of what he needs. Vendors are at a disadvantage if they don’t have the wherewithal and the infrastructure. The cyber landscape is going to enable trusted players out there - and I put Broadridge in that category — to win more market share because as firms struggle internally, they are looking for who can provide more of what they need. And the cyber and data security component is a large part of what they need. Only a small number of entities related to financial services are ISO 27001 certified and Broadridge is one of them. That allows me to tell clients that when their data is with us, it is as secure, or more secure, than when it is with them. That checks a very big box for them in terms of the next step in the dialogue. What are some of the other boxes that clients are looking to check? The industry is very focused on shortened settlement. One can debate, whether you are retail or institutional, what that shortened settlement means, but time does have a relationship to risk. When you talk about the utility model going forward, if people are in the same place on the same platform, then it is going to be pretty easy to acknowledge trades on T. Some people go to great efforts today to do that, but it is costly. I am saying that going forward, that effort can be met with a far lower cost with an industry utility model. Do you think we will go from T+2 to T+1 or T? I was on the early working committee when we went from T+5 to T+3. I think the transition from T+3 to T+2 is going to be easier than T+5 was to T+3. I think the sooner we get to a utility model, the sooner we will get to T+1 or T, just as part of a natural evolution. What kinds of trends are you seeing in the retail space? We just bought three businesses that are all tied to getting information to retail investors. RIAs and bulge-bracket firms are pushing content in front of investors. Our Forefield business provides content that allows advisers to better engage clients in dialogues about investing. Our Emerald Connect business is enabling small and large FCs to build websites with fully compliant content. And we just bought Direxxis, which enables people to go online and identify a local financial adviser that fits their needs. We talked on the panel here at Milken about this whole concept of "robo-advisers". I think that is a misnomer. I call them "bionic advisers." People aren’t going to ask Siri to help them pick stocks. Half the time Siri can’t even dial the correct phone number I want to call. The idea that technology is going to entirely replace the adviser relationship is false. Related Posts: The Love/Hate Relationship Between Technology and Regulatory Reform Milken Institute launches banking data, analysis site Milken Moments - Day 3 Milken panelists discuss cybersecurity concerns, best practices Milken Moments - Day 2 Broadridge’s Daly: The future of Wall Street is technology originally published by SmartBlogs

Getting teachers to buy in to new technology requires a hook. Too often, though, we emphasize the technology’s bells and whistles over its ability to help make meaningful gains in student learning. How can we avoid this mistake and secure the strongest buy-in possible? One place to start is with formative assessment. While these tools are less glitz and glamour than other classroom apps, teachers appreciate knowing that their efforts — and professional development time — are geared toward useful, proven practices that will help them to work at their passion more effectively and efficiently. We found success with Socrative, a formative assessment tool that runs on laptops and mobile devices. Socrative allows teachers to create and distribute assessments to students then immediately collect and synthesize their responses. Our teachers are using it to differentiate instruction and provide meaningful feedback to students. Aim for a solution that is simple to learn and use. Socrative took less than 30 minutes to introduce and set up and requires only a few minutes of daily preparation and class time. Our teachers spend their time teaching—not wrestling with the technology. Time is at a premium. Don’t waste yours on low-impact practices that will require repair at a later date. Make sure to get your technology initiative off to the best start possible by using the best hook available: a focus on accomplishing the greatest gains with the least effort. Brad Wilson is the curriculum leader for customization and instructional technology for the Upper St. Clair School District in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA. Wilson’s work focuses on creative uses of technology to facilitate customized learning experiences, particularly with Upper St. Clair’s 1-to-1 iPad Learning Initiative. Passionate about maximizing potential, Wilson works to instill a growth mindset in all members of the school community through on-going discussions related to his personal tagline, "Choose to be Great." ***** Tech Tips is a content collaboration between SmartBrief Education and GreyED Solutions. Have a tech tip to share? Contact us at techtips@greyedsolutions.com  Miss a Tech Tip? Visit our Tech Tip archive. *****   Related Posts: No Related Posts Tech Tip: How to get teachers on board with tech initiatives originally published by SmartBlogs

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter. How effectively do content marketing efforts (blogs, white papers, etc.) drive action by your customers? Extremely — our content marketing drives great lead generation: 6.06% Generally — our content sometimes sparks new conversations with prospects/clients: 34.55% Not at all — our content generates few, if any, comments, feedback or leads: 36.97% Not the point — we only publish content because everyone else does: 4.24% Not relevant — we have much higher priorities than content marketing: 18.18% Increase Your Return. "That’s Marketing’s job." Sorry but if you think content marketing is only the purview of marketers, you’re missing a big opportunity. Thought leadership is your product and the leaders in your organization have plenty of it. If you’re not tapping into it, you’re missing out. First, you should be driving new ideas. Second, share those ideas with the world. Think about all the knowledge your team has to share with the outside world. Give them a platform to do so, have it link to your product/service (both in terms of the content you share as well as with relevant URLs), and be responsive to the ensuing discussion. You’ll be surprised how many leads come from sharing great ideas. Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, author of "Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results" and "One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership." Related Posts: Where does the biggest threat to your organization come from? How important is a SWOT analysis in your strategic planning efforts? How well do you recognize when something will "trigger" you in a negative way? How involved are you with "more senior" conversations? How well do you motivate your people? How effectively do content marketing efforts (blogs, white papers, etc.) drive action by your customers? originally published by SmartBlogs

Click here to view the embedded video.   Environmental issues are a constant point of contention for activists and big business. While environmentalists want to preserve and protect nature, businesses leaders are often pressured to think more about the bottom line. Mark Tercek, CEO of The Nature Conservancy, implores both sides to look at things differently. TNC’s mission isn’t unlike that of many other environmental nonprofits. The Arlington, Va.-based organization seeks to "conserve the lands and waters on which life depends." Where the difference lies, though, is in its approach. While Tercek acknowledges that the environmental movement has accomplished some impressive things, he says there’s a harsh reality it needs to face. "If you think about all the things we’re trying to protect, they can be measured, and we do measure them, and they’re all in decline," Tercek says. "Think about it: rainforests, healthy fisheries, ample topsoil, healthy forests, biodiversity itself. We measure these things and, notwithstanding all of our great efforts, they’re all in decline." That’s why Tercek and TNC are reaching across the aisle, working alongside companies with less-than-stellar environmental track records. It’s a move that has drawn criticism from other environmental groups, but it’s one that Tercek feels is necessary to move the needle on saving the environment. "So then you say to me, ‘Well, Mark, why would you work with an organization that in the past has been a big polluter?’ And my answer would be, ‘That’s exactly why,'" Tercek says. Tercek’s philosophy, which he outlines in "Nature’s Fortune," is simple enough: business leaders should view preserving natural resources as an investment with measurable, monetary ROI. TNC backs that up with research from its in-house team of 600 scientists. "We’re showing them it makes business sense to be better environmental citizens," Tercek says. That pragmatic, research-based approach seems fitting for Tercek, who left his executive director position at Goldman Sachs to head the organization in 2008. Many of his private-sector insights inform his strategy in the nonprofit world. Credit: Recite.com "[The Nature Conservancy] reminds me of Goldman Sachs in some ways: global, entrepreneurial, deal-oriented, focused on getting things done by bringing people together interested in innovative solutions," Tercek says. That’s why many business world skills — financial efficiency, management, and strategic planning, to name a few — translate so well into nonprofits. In some instances, there’s an even greater need for them there. "Business people want to think very hard in their competitive fields about planning ahead," Tercek says. "I think it’s harder in the nonprofit space. We don’t have the same metrics. It’s a bit murkier — what will work and what won’t work — but that doesn’t make it any less important. I think it makes it more important." Tercek has learned his fair share of lessons from working in nonprofits, too, particularly in management. "I thought I was a good manager when I worked at Goldman Sachs," Tercek says. "In hindsight, it seemed so easy — we had very clear metrics by which to measure people and we had great reward systems." What’s different in nonprofits, he says, is that employees are largely mission-driven, forgoing salary opportunities and other incentives to work for an organization in line with their personal beliefs. "You have to be very thoughtful as a leader or manager about deploying your resources in a way that really allows you to achieve your mission and your workforce finds fulfilling and appealing," Tercek says. It’s something that’s easy for managers to overlook, but an important piece of the productivity puzzle nonetheless. "I sometimes think we leaders get caught up in what we’re doing and the press of business, but we have to remember it’s not so much about us," Tercek says. "It’s, rather, what can we do to unleash that great team we’ve put together to achieve the greatest impact." Alan B. Hart is co-founder and managing partner at Keen Strategy. Keen drives better, faster growth decisions with more confidence for clients. Providing strategic consulting and insights, grounded in break-through methods & software is how we do it. Learn more. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: Q-and-A: The Nature Conservancy’s Michelle Lapinski The strategic CFO Collaboration: It’s not what you think it is Breaking down silos: How we did it in 4 steps 8 benefits to being a socially responsible brand An unnatural partnership — big business and environmentalists? originally published by SmartBlogs

Dessert with a 3D printed sugar cloche (Photo: 3D Systems) Chefs and other foodservice professionals are just beginning to scratch the surface of what they can create with 3D printers, and the possibilities are seemingly endless. The Culinary Institute of America has teamed with 3D Systems to explore how the 3D printing company’s ChefJet Pro, the first 3Dfood printer, can be used in professional kitchens. Representatives from the CIA and 3D Systems sat on a panel at the National Restaurant Association Show Monday to talk about what the future holds for 3D printing in the food world. "We feel strongly that 3D printing has something to offer the culinary world, and we’re motivated to make sure the technology is available to the industry. But we don’t want to be the ones to decide how those capabilities are deployed. We want to make sure culinarians are able to explore those for themselves," said Liz von Hasseln, creative director of food for 3D Systems. The CIA established a mini 3D printing lab on its Hyde Park campus where students and faculty are experimenting with the technology. "The excitement already — within a few weeks — has been amazing … people have gravitated to printing immediately," said Thomas Vaccaro, dean of baking and pastry arts. Kyle and Liz von Hasseln and Vaccaro at the NRA Show (Photo: Tricia Smith) Vaccaro compared 3D printing to sous vide technology, which seemed extravagant to many chefs when it was first introduced but has since gained a huge following among restaurant chefs, even in casual eateries. As 3D printers enter the market, it probably won’t be long before inventive chefs add the technology to their arsenal of equipment. "The digital part is not taking away from anything on the culinary side. It’s not overpowering or superseding anything … it’s an extra asset," said Kyle von Hasseln, Liz von Hasseln’s husband and co-creative director of food for 3D Systems. Here are some of the highlights from Vaccaro and the von Hasselns’ discussion of 3D printing. Complex tech, commonplace ingredients The machinery involved in 3D printing uses advanced technology to build up very thin layers of wet and dry ingredients to form each three-dimensional figure, but the ingredients are things every chef already has in his kitchen. Sugar and maltodextrin are the most commonly used dry ingredients in 3D printing, although some chefs have experimented with dehydrated vegetable powders. Applications beyond sugar Vaccaro said he sees a future for savory products using dehydrated vegetables, and scientists and chefs at the CIA have begun working on "container forms that could be used in savory applications. For instance, as a composed salad, you might have a container that’s printed with beets, and inside of that would have a dressing and the salad surrounding it." 3D printed sugar spiral and ceramic spoon (Photo: 3D Systems) In addition to printing edible items, 3D printing offers chefs the opportunity to design and create custom bake ware and serving ware from metal, ceramic and a variety of plastics. For a dinner honoring Spanish chef Ferran Adria, 3D Systems created an absinthe cocktail setup with a 3D printed ceramic spoon that perfectly cradled a brightly-colored sugar spiral above the cocktail glass. If guests can dream it, chefs can do it 3D printing allows chefs to create shapes that are impossible to form by hand, and ensure consistent results when producing items on a large scale. Liz von Hasseln said the elaborate garnishes and other dish elements made possible by the technology could "enhance the pomp of serving food." Vaccaro said the opportunities for customization offered by 3D printing will enhance the guest experience. "You could pretty much say, ‘tell me your dreams, what is it that you really want to have done, because we could probably get that done for you.'" __________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing. Related Posts: Tea, Mediterranean cuisine, 3D sweets among top trends at NRA Show 2015 CIA President Tim Ryan elected to NRA Board of Directors 3 reasons to care about composting NRA Show 2015 to serve up 4 days of food and beverage education A "Moneyball" approach to restaurant real estate 3D printing offers wide range of culinary possibilities originally published by SmartBlogs

Welcome to SmartBrief Education’s original content series about the unique stories of teacherpreneurs. These are the innovative individuals confronting challenges, creating solutions and bringing them to market. In this blog post, Robert Ahdoot, a high-school math teacher and founder of YayMath.org, offers tips to develop "teacherpreneur flow." In March, I shared my interview with lifelong teacherpreneur, Bruce Powell. He spoke of the sacredness that is essential for success in both education and business. Today, I’m going to dive into a framework for how to effectively bridge the gap between the role of teacher and that of teacherpreneur. These concepts have taken me years to develop, implement, and hone on the fly. Their usage has lead to massively positive results within my contributions as a teacherpreneur. It’s an honor to share them with you, in the hopes that your overall practice and approach are enhanced as well. Rule #1: People only do business with people they like. I’m not talking about the clichéd high-pressure movie scene, in which the young ambitious rookie meets several business execs for drinks at a posh country club to talk shop. I’m talking about reality — about taking incremental, tangible steps to improve your interpersonal stock so that when the chips are down and you need community support, you’ll have it. The perfect example in the world of teaching is found with the office staff. These are the people who handle the constant stream of to-do’s pouring in from every type of person within the school scene. They are on the front lines and they pull massive strings. So ask yourself, do you know every one of your office staff members by name? If not, the time has come to do so. Be open with them about who you are, converse with them when you don’t need something and model what it means to pull your weight in respect to them. Because without fail, at some point you will need their help, and you’ll need it immediately. The business of your teaching will suffer if you forgo that vital alliance. My friends in the office have come through for me time and again when I was in a pinch. Several times, when I was set to film a lesson, after much planning and preparation to set up the right day, my costume, props, etc., it turned out that the air conditioner wasn’t kicking in enough. The students were getting squirrely due to their discomfort, and the increasing heat was getting them closer to the point of no return. So I called the office and told them about it, and in a matter of minutes it was fixed. This happened on multiple occasions. I like to think that they prioritized that effort based on our relationship, besides the obvious fact that they do stellar work. Why is this so important? For anyone who wishes to transcend beyond the traditional duties associated with classroom teaching and towards projects that require wider collaboration, including the inevitable bureaucratic red tape slaloming, your mission will be only possible with the aid of critically situated alliances. These are real alliances, based on human connection, not implicitly contractual alliances, based solely on "you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours." Nothing of deep and lasting value will ever get off the ground if you live on an island, rogue-style. Offer your heart, time and vulnerability, and watch as people leap to help you reach your goals. Rule #2: What if I don’t have an idea? Welcome to Idea Generation 101! In this module, you’ll learn the systems by which to create solid ideas that will seamlessly merge your strengths as a teacher as well as your natural prowess as a budding entrepreneur. To gain some perspective, let’s learn about what some up-and-coming comedians do to generate their ideas. I learned this from a podcast featuring an interview of one of my favorite comedians, Chris D’Elia. In this interview, D’Elia shared that on any given night, after he and his comic friends perform their sets, they all grab a bite at the local diner. For hours into the night and early morning, they’ll gab away about anything they find funny. One conversation spills into another, and thoughts and ideas riff around the table to keep their minds actively flowing on their craft. Quite an appealing way to brainstorm! To my educator colleagues, if you don’t have an idea, ask yourself: How much of your time and life-energy have you invested in fleshing one out? Find like-minded teachers and simply talk about anything that matters to you relating directly or indirectly to school life. Point out the funny, the frustrating, the inspiring, the aggravating, the fun and the boring. Talk about what you’re really good at, and what you are not. Eventually, you’ll stumble onto minor pet-project ideas. Run with them. This may be a small presentation about a system that works well in your classes. Or it could be whipping up an intuitive Google Drive system for your particular department. Mark my words: It is within this space that your golden ticket ideas will be conceived, as opposed to passively going through the motions of your days without any emotional thought or connective commentary behind what you do. Fellow teachers are not the only collaborators in our midst. The students are also the perfect partners to discuss ideas that bear potential for significant positive change. Your students will be the ones who introduce you to an app that already does what you’re suggesting, or recommend an easy-to-use video software tool or confirm or refute whether your idea resonates with members of their demographic. Plus they have a jaw-dropping capability to communicate with exponentially connected social media networks. In a mere day, you could learn from hundreds of Gen-Y members about whether a certain thought you have resonates with them. That type of instantaneous market testing at our fingertips is beyond invaluable. Rule #3: Read, watch, write, immerse, engage, create. Commit to always learning; it will undoubtedly elevate your craft. By reading this piece, if you’ve gained at least one idea that you can directly apply to your goals as a teacher, entrepreneur, or both, then I’ve made my point. As a lifestyle, set aside time to read articles, watch videos, journal/blog and create any form of media that will get your head and heart beyond the walls of your day-to-day teaching life. It will keep you whole, connected, thoughtful, modern and interesting. Of course, I deeply believe in the merits of unplugging from technology at the appropriate times. We need to prioritize our health, set aside time with loved ones, time for sleep, and definitely time for ourselves. But when it’s green-light-on-tech-time, you’ll find me in constant information saturation mode. Yes, I read articles and watch inspiring talks in the bathroom, and I don’t apologize for it. I am only the product of everything I learn, so it would make sense that the more I learn, the better version of me I can create and offer. And when you’re in that type of creation headspace, in which you contribute to conversations, comment on others’ ideas, and subsequently generate ideas of your own, you’ll be primed to take on those pivotal projects and ideas when they reach you. In truth, the concept of "teacherpreneur" is just as much a way-of-life as it is a nifty job title. Every day, we have the chance to make a difference. Just today, I pointed out to a student that her inappropriately-timed laughter was due to what I believed to be her personal discomfort with a very real moment we were having in class. Naturally, I don’t blame her in the least, and I remember being like that myself. But I also remember having no voice for my discomfort. The moment made me think of an article I coincidentally read today as well in the New York Times, about challenging white privilege. The piece features a student project showcasing pictures of students holding up signs confessing what each one of them believes justice looks like. So what if my students could create a similar type of photo collection of themselves, confessing the types of situations that make them uncomfortable? What if we got permission (from administrators who thankfully have my back, see rule #1) to put these pictures up in class, or around school, to raise some community awareness and empathy? The level to which my antennae are raised is the foremost reason I could sniff out an idea like that. This is teacherpreneurism at its finest; it’s entirely about awareness, engagement and creation. Unequivocally, any teacher involved in such a photo project would passionately talk about it with friends and family, or at a job interview, or anywhere else relevant during her career. It might lead to offshoot ideas generated by students or colleagues, which could be picked up by The NY Times just like the article I read today. Then who knows? With all my heart, I recommend living in a state of thoughtful engagement, and you’ll begin to see your process as teacherpreneur flow. Robert Ahdoot is a high-school math teacher and founder of YayMath.org, a free online collection of math video lessons filmed live in his classroom, using costumes and characters. Robert has been teaching high-school math for 10 years, has given two TEDx talks, and travels to schools promoting his message of positive learning through human connection. He is author of the upcoming book One-on-One 101, The Art of Inspired and Effective Individualized Instruction. Related Posts: From classroom to boardroom: How to combine your passion for education and innovation "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" Starting the conversation on teacherpreneurship The beginning of the new school year starts now Transforming the narrative about teaching How to go from "teacher" to "teacherpreneur" originally published by SmartBlogs