Guest Post by Karen Voloshin, DesignArounds Whether you call it "developing a talent pipeline", "employee growth", or "career development", the aim is the same: helping everyone develop and bring their best strengths and talents to the organizational table in a way that inspires extra effort and commitment.  Outpacing the competition, breakthrough innovations, more loyal customers - the potential results of development efforts are intoxicating and yet, let’s face it, a little overwhelming. What to do? Learn about 6 career development truths and how to best respond to each. Let’s face it… We bring the work person home and the home person to work.  So…Look at the whole person. Development is part of our lives for a lifetime - at work and outside of it. Development that focuses just on the "work" part of a human being misses the mark. Instead leaders today must take a step back and explore what success means for and the passions and interests of the whole person. When you do this, meaningful clues emerge about tapping into the full potential a person has to offer. Let’s face it…One size doesn’t fit all.  So…Personalize, personalize. This is and will continue to be the most diverse workforce ever experienced. It follows that development that delivers what people want and need is tailored to the preferences of the unique individuals we all are. What’s the right type of challenge and at what level? What are the conditions - the when, where, how and with whom - that make the challenge the most enjoyable? Let’s face it…The conversation is what counts, not the checkboxes.  So…Ignore the form for now. Pressure to comply with a process can quickly reduce development to an administrative task on a leader’s to-do list. Completing the form by the due date overshadows the needs and interests of the person. Development that goes somewhere is driven through open conversation. The form, or the written plan, is simply the physical reminder of rich dialogue. Let’s face it…It’s time for the truth on both sides.  So…Cultivate candor. Unparalleled access to information creates the conditions for mismatched expectations between what employees may want for their careers and what leaders can realistically deliver. When that happens, leaders need to be willing to sort misperceptions out in a direct and respectful way. Asking for and receiving feedback affords the chance for course corrections, saving both time and emotional energy. Let’s face it…There are 24 hours in a day. Period.  So…Make it a habit. If leaders think of development as an add-on to an already overflowing plate, it will continue to get less attention than it deserves. Those who make it a part of their day-to-day agenda will be the ones who win. Let’s face it…The work still needs to get done.  So…Embed it. Development must find a home in the context of meeting ongoing goals and objectives.   Every day brings coaching moments and development opportunities galore, right there on the job. It’s just a matter of tuning in and taking advantage of them. What’s Next? Think about it. 30, 60, 90 days from now when you pick up your own mirror, what do you want to see? A leader who just talks about developing others or one who really does it? Pick two to three of the "let’s face it" strategies and put them into deliberate practice for the next month. You’ll like what you see. What about you? What additional realities do you face? How are you making development happen? Image: www.dreamstime.com The post Holding the Mirror Up: 6 Practical Truths about Career Development Today appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Having had been on both sides of this equation, I know how hard it is when friends drift. In his advice column in the New York Times, Philip Galanes suggests that, just because a friend drifts, doesn’t mean that friend stops caring. It’s just that their lives and yours are moving in different directions. Check out the complete story at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/fashion/when-friends-drift-social-qs.html?ref=fashion.

Luis Salazar's blog post was featuredReinventing Mobile Recruitment Beyond the Small ScreenHow many times in a given day do you access the web on your phone? You do it so often that you don’t even think about it. Americans spend an average of three hours a day on the phone, 55 percent of that time accessing the Internet from a mobile device: paying bills, house hunting, getting a ride, shopping and streaming music. And at some point, you and 70 percent of the U.S. population will conduct a mobile job search to pay all those bills! Our phones are with us 24/7, becoming an extension that connects us to the world. Yet, mobile recruitment is still in the dark ages.How dark? Research done by Jibe found that 60 percent of respondents believe that, even if mobile friendly, job applications are more difficult to fill out than mortgage, student loan or health insurance applications. The complexity is not necessarily related to the difficult questions that are asked, but the actual functionality of the job application. In their 2014 summary job report of large enterprises, which processed close to one million mobile job applications, Jobaline data shows that 80 percent of applicants abandon job applications that are non-mobile. This is because they find themselves trying to type in tiny spaces designed for PC interface, having to take unnecessary steps in the application or going through too many changes of context, including advertisements in the middle of a job application.The result: Job seekers waste too much time and employers have a large negative financial impact on their operations. This is especially true in the hourly jobs sector, where attrition rates are up to 200 percent per year, and part time jobs or seasonal jobs result in a continuous hiring cycle. Mobile job applications done wrong cost large employers over 80 percent of their job advertising budget.Simply Shrinking the Job Application Interface for Mobile Delivers the Same 80 Percent Dropout Rate of the larger screen.Just like the e-commerce or entertainment industries, which went through significant changes to embrace the mobile web, mobile recruitment must go beyond just making the job application fit into a smaller screen. An inefficient process in a big screen is just as inefficient in the smaller screen. Online recruitment requires reinventing the experience, while taking advantage of the many other dimensions that mobile brings to enrich the job recruitment process. Otherwise, employers are wasting time and money creating online application experiences that, even if mobile, still results in a wasteful 80 percent of their advertising dollars and recruiters’ time.If you just apply a responsive design to the old "taxi" web pages, we get "taxi" mobile - it’s the same old and dated process, with the same business results, just in the small screen. By reinventing the experience, you get Uber or Lyft, instant match of people that need a ride with people that want to make a living out of offering rides to others. In this context, advanced mobile matching technologies will be the dominant factor in the Human Capital Management sector over the next decade.Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of mobile devices that are attached to us almost 24/7, we can capture voice, images, location, time, activities and assess skills in real time. We can combine the power of observed information, which is often more meaningful for matching purposes than the declared information captured through standard online or paper-based applications. Observed or inferred information can often paint a more complete picture of a job applicant, resulting in better matches that hopefully result in long lasting employment relations.In a side-by-side comparison of people completing interviews from mobile devices, the completion rate is five times higher and the quality of candidates is up to eight times better when the proper mobile experience is enabled. Taking things one step ahead, the use of advanced technologies for algorithmic analysis of the voice of job applicants can take the quality of the match to a whole new dimension. On the other hand, just doing a mobile redesign or a mobile app of an existing Applicant Tracking System process results in only marginal improvement in applicant volume, quality or satisfaction.If the web is mobile, why aren’t employers embracing it faster? CareerBuilder found a variety of reasons employers don’t use mobile application processes: 38 percent of employers haven’t invested in the required technology; and more than 35 percent don’t have the resources or can't find a mobile solution that does more than take their Applicant Tracking System and make it mobile. Interestingly, more than one-fifth of employers aren’t sure why they don’t offer a mobile application process.The web is mobile and recruitment is mobile, especially in the hourly-jobs segment. Beyond the obvious difference in the screen size, if technology is leveraged properly, mobile recruitment allows for a richer experience that can remove friction from the job application process. With close to half-a-billion job applications processed every year to hire over 55 million people, this is a multibillion-dollar cost savings opportunity for the U.S. economy.Luis Salazar is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Jobaline.See More

I recently saw a headline in the Montreal Gazette asking, "What can YOU do about the road mess?"For those not familiar with the road situation in Montreal, it’s pretty frightening.  We live on an island, so our bridges and tunnels are essential to travel here.  But we can’t always trust them.  A bridge in one of the suburbs fell 5 years ago, killing people who were driving under and over it.  At the beginning of the summer, another bridge was abruptly closed after the public had been assured it was safe, and a report was leaked that the most traveled bridge is like a "patient" with "terminal cancer" and wouldn’t withstand an earthquake.  Those are rare here, but more frequent than those in Washington, DC.  And if that weren’t enough, the overhang on a tunnel fell.  Fortunately, it did so on a lazy Sunday morning and no one was hurt.  Although concerned about the politics of the situation, the provincial government responsible for the roadways has been short of forthcoming on information.  While these emergency repairs go on, most of the major roadways are in various stages of reconstruction, with little or no seeming regard for the disruption the combined construction efforts are taking on Montreal. So when Annabel Soutar asked,  "What can YOU do about the road mess," my instinctive response was, Nothing.  Soutar got interested in the situation when the bridge fell 5 years ago.  She noticed that a culture existed in which no one had to take responsibility for the problem.  Each actor could absolve him or herself of blame—and no  one realized that the collective innocence led to real deaths of real people that really could have been avoided.So she wrote a play to call attention and raise anger.And she advises people to, at the least, be informed and, at the most, actively hold elected officials and civil servants for our safety.  This is truly one of those situations in which only collective efforts will bring openness and accountability to this system.  Although that has hardly been accomplished, recent actions by transportation officials suggest that the concerns are on their radar, even if they’re far from solved.  Read Soutar’s eloquent call to action at http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/What+about+road+mess/5208440/story.html. 

In your quest for career success, suppose you had to choose just one of the following: perfectly-honed skills, ideal opportunities, or someone who really believes in you.  Which would you pick? This is the question a friend recently posed, thinking it would spark an interesting debate. She was disappointed that this wasn’t a more intriguing or meaty topic for me. Or perhaps she was surprised that someone who’s dedicated her professional life to training and learning wouldn’t have automatically picked door #1. Without even thinking, I responded with what I know in my soul… that having someone who honestly and truly believes in you trumps everything. I was fortunate enough to find such a person early in my career. Beverly Marsh was the master teacher who hired me at age 19 to instruct high school vocational education classes. She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.  Her belief gave me the confidence to build the skills, create the opportunities, take the risks, and ultimately realize tremendous success.  She opened the door with her belief and then walked me through it with her modeling, mentoring, coaching, and support. Rather than detailing her role and contributions, I’ll share a letter I sent to her a few years ago as part of a gratitude project. Dear Beverly, It’s hard to believe that it’s been thirty years since you hired me to teach an ROP class.  What’s even harder to believe is the impact that decision would have - for decades to come. I can’t adequately express the depth of my gratitude to you for the very special role you played in my life.  Your willingness to hire me at my age and with my limited experience provided external validation at a time when I was particularly impressionable.  Your support ignited a level of self-esteem that has served me well throughout my life and continues to do so today.  Your confidence in me was a springboard for my confidence in myself. Additionally, through your example, you taught me the value of positivity, appreciation, and recognition.  Your consistently upbeat, positive approach to life - and its various challenges - was and continues to be an inspiration to me.  You had a gift for magnifying the positive and I am grateful that I was able to watch and learn this from you at such a young age.  An extension of your positivity was your talent for appreciating and recognizing those around you.  When in your presence, people always felt strong, capable, and valued.  I believe that your ability to bring out the best in others was rooted in this skill.  Thank you for applying it with me - and, more importantly - for modeling it so effectively over the period of time we worked together.  It has had a lasting effect on my life, influencing my personality and how I interact with others.  I attribute a tremendous amount of my success - in business, marriage, parenting, friendships, community, and life - to you and what I learned from you.  Thirty years ago, I remember thinking that you might be my fairy godmother.  Today, I’m convinced that you were. With love and admiration, Julie Goethe wrote that "Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is." But sometimes, that belief is inspired, sparked, instigated, coaxed, or conjured by the belief that someone else places there first. What about you? Which would you choose: skills, opportunity, or someone who believed in you? Who has believed in you and what impact did it have? Image: www.dreamstime.com The post Belief Opens Doors appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Troy McAlpin's blog post was featuredHow Cloud Is Changing the Role of ITBefore he became host of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon played Nick Burns the Computer Guy on Saturday Night Live. Someone would call him, and he’d patronize and insult his way through fixing minor (to him) computer issues. He was always annoyed because he was reacting to someone else’s problem. And that’s what IT used to be - reactive maintenance and administrative.Why was IT so reactive? In a mainframe environment, the guys in IT were doing all the development, security, monitoring, testing, issue resolution, and logging themselves - there was no time to get ahead.We CEOs think it’s high time for CIOs to have a strategic seat at the table, time to shed the "cost center" image, but we need to shed the business of maintenance and watch-dogging. Tickets in and fixes out. Resolving serious issues or patching code could sometimes take days, and no one knew why because IT lived behind the black curtain in the back of the store.How the Cloud Changed EverythingNo one talks about a "back office" anymore. The back office stuff should just run. The days of IT acting as support and execution for the direction set by executive leadership are over. The systems, services, information and processes that IT maintains don’t drive the business - they are the business.Was the "cloud" good for IT? Yes of course, competition is always good. The cloud hosting and applications pulled back the curtain and exposed the condition of legacy IT. While the rest of the world wondered what this cloud thing was, business and line managers jumped on early cloud offerings. Finally a way to avoid IT projects! Savvy CIOs also realized they could outsource non-value-added activities and leverage these third-party systems for everything from Salesforce automation and storage to enterprise systems and more.As people voiced concerns about security, some CIOs started building their own private clouds. Today many cloud companies are using hybrid clouds with private and public cloud offerings. Most cloud companies invest heavily in security because it is core to their business. As a result, their security is often better than at commercial enterprises.CIOs and other IT leaders realize they need to become service brokerages instead of break-fix shops. They could integrate their private clouds with their partners’ private clouds for services. Using these other services instead of doing all the work in-house freed them up to do more.The New Face of ITToday, a reactive CIO is a dead man walking. Successful CIOs are thought leaders, visionaries and strategists. Where success before was the lack of failure, CIOs today must move the company forward. They are responsible for generating revenue and helping set direction for their companies, but must maintain focus on traditional core responsibilities to keep systems robust and safe.A Q4 2014 survey by Skyhigh Networks says:The average employee uses 27 apps at workThe average company uses 897 cloud services (10 percent more than IT expects!)92 percent of companies have users with compromised identitiesAs a result, CIOs have a variety of new roles that were simply not available in a pre-cloud world:As a strategist, the CIO sees what technologies will be best to use in a month, a year, in five years, and works with the CEO to set direction for the company. IT used to be support for the business, but in today’s digital world, IT is helping to set the strategy for the business.As a service broker, the CIO manages integrations with strategic partners and in-house development. With the addition of APIs, CIOs can often choose from a menu of potential partnerships to accomplish services that used to exhaust internal resources.As an orchestrator, the CIO chooses the cloud platform the IT department will use. Often large enterprises use a mix of public, private and hybrid clouds, depending on integrations and appetite for risk. Employees, partners, customers, and the public have different needs, and CIOs have meet their demands.As a facilitator, the CIO understands the needs of each department like never before. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work anymore because business is just too complex, too big and too fast. Marketing has different needs than engineering than finance. Setting up each department for success is becoming a benchmark for IT departments. With APIs are making applications behave more like platforms, and CIOs have to be flexible in using them to best advantage.As a politician, the CIO has to balance the advantages of BYOD, shadow IT and remote work with the potential dangers that these activities invite.The modern leaders of IT departments are strategists and thought leaders, and cloud technology has given CIOs, CTOs and IT managers a tool set that once seemed unthinkable.But as someone in a latex mask was once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." As a result, technical leaders are implementing their own ideas and following their own decisions, and they are held to account for results. I encourage everyone in these technical leadership roles to take advantage of the tools available and lead your teams and companies because I guarantee your competitors are doing the same.Troy McAlpin is founder of xMatters.See More

In his New York Times article, Paying for News? It’s Nothing New, Jeremy W. Peters shattered my belief that major news outlets don’t pay for interviews.In the most technical sense, major news outlets don’t. But they provide various types of expense reimbursements in exchange for an interview. As Peters notes:The payment is always for something else, tangible or intangible, like one’s time or the rights to memorabilia.So what’s the difference between paying for a picture or paying for the interview? The money ends up in the interviewees hands. Peters also notes that this practice has existed in one form or another for over a century—citing an example of his own paper paying a survivor of the Titanic.Maybe the real issue is not paying for interviews but the guideline of not paying for interviews isn’t realistic. Major news outlets can’t seem to follow the intent of their own guidelines, even if they have met the guideline in its most technical sense. Read Peters’ analysis athttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/sunday-review/paying-for-news-its-nothing-new.html?pagewanted=all

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Supervisors are the lynchpins in any organization. They are the link between management and the employees who build the products, deliver the services, and take care of the customers day-in and day-out. They are on the frontline, the leading (and sometimes bleeding) edge, closest to the action and the realities of business. Supervisors are also one of the top reasons employees give for leaving their jobs. Classic Gallup research (based upon more than one million employees) found that the number one reason for quitting a job comes down to the boss. Researchers summarized it with the much-quoted phrase: "People leave managers not companies." And Leigh Branham further confirms this finding in The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, based upon Saratoga Institute’s review of 19,000 exit interviews. But what about the other side of this coin? What about the supervisors who retain employees? The supervisors for whom employees are consistently willing to go the extra mile? These supervisors send messages of trust, authenticity, candor, and support… and they speak phrases that many other leaders don’t. Wondering what they are? Check out the rest of my article at LeadChangeGroup. Image: www.dreamstime.com The post 5 Phrases Every Supervisor Should Adopt appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

One of the ongoing challenges of academic education is preparing students for the real world.In "What Students Don’t Learn About Work in Work in College" (http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2011/11/21/what-students-dont-learn-about-work-in-college.), US News & World Report blogger Alison Green identifies 10 lessons that are often lost on students. Several of these relate to one of the skills that I think is so important--especially for students hoping to become instructional designers and technical communicators (the two fields for which I prepare students).  But most are skills that students actually should develop in school. Green advises students: "You need to address both sides of an issue," noting that students typically learn to argue 1 side of an issue when preparing assignments for school.  But this is a skill that can be learned in school.  The best way to argue for one side is to explore the other side of the argument, then explain why that is the less effective approach to the situation.  This balance is also called critical thinking and the extent of that critical thinking is what  distinguishes A papers from the rest.  One need not wait for the workplace to develop this skill; it's something to start while in school. But admittedly, some faculty members assume that students know that arguing both sides of the issue makes for a stronger paper and, as a result, do not explicitly explain this strategy to students.  Green advises students that:You need to be concise when writing in the workplace. Good writing isn’t stiff and formal.  Like the last skill, this one can be developed in school.  The truth is, most faculty find stiff, verbose writing painful to read.  Most grimace when reading such assignments.  Unfortunately, some faculty members do not factor in the quality of the writing when grading papers, they reward such papers with passing or excellent grades.  Worse, because some faculty often assume that students know how to do things without verifying it, they do not comment on these issues when grading papers nor do they address the problems of verboseness and stiff writing with their classes. The last tip for writing that Green offers isProcrastinating is a really bad idea. That, too, is a skill that students can learn in school if their professors emphasize it.  So often, students can easily get extensions.  (I know well--when I was an undergraduate, I developed expertise in requesting them and, by the time I was a doctoral student, I was the designated "Can you give us an extension" requester in many of my classes.)But having had learned the same lesson in the workplace--sometimes painfully--(to be honest, I still struggle with deadlines), I have developed a zero-tolerance policy on late assignments. In fact, it's a totally zero approach--late assignments receive a 0.  Recognizing that students sometimes really do need an extension because they're juggling too many due dates for their classes, I do offer a "get out of jail free" card each term.  For one assignment, each term, students can ask to submit it a week late.  This does not work with some time-dependent assignments, such as in-class presentations and exams--but is well received by students.  Students merely need to tell me that they want to take advantage of this before the assignment is due; they do not need to provide me with an excuse and I advise them to take the full week of the extension.  Such an approach also teaches students how to negotiate schedules and actively confronting their schedules in advance--rather than at the last minute.  Those are important project management skills, and they're ones that can be developed in school.   

Stephen Coty's blog post was featuredWhere Will the Data Breaches Hit Next? A Look Into 20152014 seemed to open the flood gate for the slew of data breaches in 2015. From Target and Home Depot to the White House, it’s pretty clear that these data breaches and cyberattacks will not stop anytime soon. With 2015 already under way, we are sure to see an uptick in the number of attacks but a few key industries will see a notable increased risk.E-Commerce and RetailThe e-commerce and retail industry has been no stranger to the onslaught of data breaches, most of which were orchestrated via the point-of-sale (POS) system. The Target data breach was the first of many major retail POS system breaches in 2014. Target’s registers were infected with a malware strain that stole payment card information. This use of malware is not surprising, given that we have seen more POS malware written in the past year than we have since 2007, with the different variants including BlackPOS, Kaptoxa, Backoff, Chewbacca and updated versions of Dexter, Alina and VSkimmer. Attacks on other retailers like Jimmy John’s, P.F. Chang’s, Kmart and The Home Depot followed suit.As 2015 continues, retailers will continue to be a major target and, as they start implementing tighter security strategies, the attack vector will change. We will see more data exfiltration from online e-commerce sites that rely on open source or low cost POS systems that may not be as secure as an onsite POS network that is segregated from the rest of a corporate network. As the retail industry begins to invest in its security posture, victims of POS attacks through brick and mortar retail stores may decline.HealthcareIn 2013, the healthcare industry lost more personal identifiable information (PII) than any other industry. PII has historically been a very profitable commodity, demanding prices on the underground 10 times the price of credit card information. Healthcare PII data is valuable because it can be used to create fake identities for criminals and mask true personal data or even help terrorist organizations present valid identities to enter the United States. However, the attack vector really changed in 2014 - the new targets became businesses that support the healthcare industry through medical devices and technologies.The US Federal Drug Administration released a bulletin that identified over 300 medical devices that contained vulnerabilities that could potentially be exploited. Security researcher Barnaby Jack has even demonstrated the wireless hacking of insulin pumps and pacemakers. Before his death in 2013, he was able to showcase the manipulation of insulin pump settings from over 300 feet away and the security shortcomings in medical transplants. His work illustrates how vulnerable medical devices are to outside exploitation. This trend will continue into 2015, with more medical technology manufacturers becoming a primary target of some state-sponsored industrial espionage and organized criminal hacking groups. Is the first online murder through a vulnerability that exists in a medical device in the offing? Will it be through an insulin pump or the wireless capability of a pacemaker? It seems like the stuff of Hollywood movies or is it?EducationHigher education institutions are also an attractive target for identity and information theft because of the sensitive PII data available from students, faculty and alumni. Universities, in particular, are at risk due to the inexperience of users who utilize the networks for both academic and personal reasons. This inexperience creates paths for multiple infections and rampant use of software and tools that haven’t been vetted. Unfortunately, the cost of an in-depth security strategy using the latest technology, processes and experts is often out of the budget range of most universities. According to the FBI, some foreign nations are also interested in stealing classified information and intellectual property from universities, possibly to bypass expensive research and development or spread false information for political or other reasons. It is not unusual for campuses to be the targets of phishing emails with attached malware or computer intrusions, with the intent to access confidential research or exploit social media networking sites. To mitigate risk in 2015, educational institutions should consider the private cloud for storing sensitive data. After all, the primary purpose of a private cloud service provider is to provide availability and security for the data stored in their datacenters.Oil, Gas and EnergyIn 2014, the oil, gas and energy industries saw a few new malicious groups form and produce some advanced malware that targets supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Cyberspying organization Energetic Bear is a group whose ties with the Russian government make them an formidable adversary. Attacks against infrastructure monitoring systems can be detected and defenses built to deny the attacker his desired target. Proper network segmentation, security tool implementation and constant patching are a few of several ways to protect your environment. Using threat intelligence to understand the adversaries of the oil Gas and Energy Industry will reveal their motives and assist in detecting and mitigating vulnerabilities before they are exploited by these malicious actors.2015 and BeyondThis year will produce more new and emerging malware that will affect multiple industries. We will see the emergence of new malicious actors and a revived list of old ones. We will see more groups starting to partner on operations to compromise their common targets, which really highlights the need for a proper, in-depth security strategy that is supported by both people and process.Stephen Coty is the director of threat research and author of the Cloud Security Report at Alert Logic.See More

The New York Times and its sister paper, the International Herald Tribune, recently identified the 10 hippest cities in the world.  The staffs specifically"examine[d] some cities that aim to be both smart and well managed, yet have an undeniably hip vibe. Our pick of cities that are, in a phrase, both great and good."Presented in alphabetical order (so no one knows exactly how each city actually ranked), the cities include:Auckland, New ZealandBerlin, GermanyBarcelona, SpainCape Town, South AfricaCopenhagen, DenmarkCuritiba, BrazilMontreal, CanadaSantiago, ChileShanghai, ChinaVilnius, LithuaniaNot only is my city the hippest in North American but apparently, my neighborhood is also among the hippest on the continent.  Both the Utne Reader and the Project for Public Spaces ranked the Plateau Mont-Royal as one of the hippest neighborhoods in North America.  But the Utne Reader gave that rating in 1997 and there’s no date in the Project for Public Spaces discussion, so I have no idea if the neighborhood is still hip. Or worse, whether I’m personally dragging down the hip factor.  (To see the original article and find out why the editors ranked these cities so highly, visithttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/business/global/hip-cities-that-think-about-how-they-work.html?pagewanted=all.)

Carey Kolaja's blog post was featuredInternational Women’s Day 2015: E-commerce Tips for Growing Your Small BusinessOn March 8, 2015, the world celebrates the 105th International Women’s Day—a day created by Clara Zetkin in 1910 to fight against the oppression and inequality of women. Over the last century, the support of women’s success and equal treatment has grown tremendously. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s (GEM) most recent Women’s Report, there are an estimated 126 million women starting or running businesses all around the world. That’s a 17-percent increase since the prior GEM Women’s Report in 2010. As the number of women in business and leadership roles continues to climb, it’s important to continue to inspire new leaders and celebrate their achievements.The e-commerce industry may soon be completely dominated by women business leaders. While only 14 percent of venture capital-backed companies in 2014 were founded by women, that number nearly triples to a whopping 40 percent when it comes to e-commerce. In honor of this year’s International Women’s Day theme, "Make it Happen," here are a few e-commerce tips - and inspiring examples - to help women entrepreneurs and business owners run a successful small business: Be Where the Customers AreGain new customers and expand the reach of your business by creating an online storefront, mobile-friendly site or even an app. Today’s consumers are not only using their smartphones to shop online, but they are using their mobile devices to make payments, so it’s also important to consider adding mobile payment options as well. A great example of a business that leveraged mobile technologies to reach new customers is daily boutique deal marketplace, Jane.com. The company’s CEO recognized the need to create an app that also accepts mobile payments such as PayPal and today, 72 percent of Jane's sales come from mobile. Need more incentive to hop on the mobile train? Check out these six advantages to developing a mobile app for your business from LeadersInHeels.com.Think Beyond BordersDon’t let your sales stop at the front door - it’s important to think outside your own borders to access new customers and profitable opportunities. Just ask Fashionphile Owner Sarah Davis, who seized an opportunity to ship her $1,200 handbags overseas after seeing a significant spike in website traffic from Brazilian online shoppers. International orders now account for $10 million - or 20 percent - of the online luxury fashion retailer’s total sales. Cross-border trade is something every small business owner should explore, but you need to make sure you’re talking everyone’s language - literally. Resources like SBA guidelines are available to help you understand global holidays and sell internationally. Don’t Let Finances Hold You BackNeed a loan to start a business, increase inventory or finance a new product line, but don’t have the time to apply for a traditional bank loan? Good news - fast and secure alternative lending options exist, and taking advantage of them can have a significant impact on your business. Single mother Denise Cline and owner of online custom blanket and fabric store, The Minky Boutique recently secured a $20,000 loan with non-bank lender PayPal Working Capital just minutes after applying. With the extra capital, she was able to restock inventory for the 2014 holiday season and ultimately saw a 10-percent spike in sales over Q4 2013. Pro tip: When looking for a lender, make sure they offer an affordable, fixed fee that is agreed upon at sign-up for smarter financial planning. Pick a Payment Partner, Not ProviderWhen handling small business finances, pick a resource that will be a true payment partner, not just a provider. Managing a small business can be hard enough, so chose a service that will take some of the complexity out of payments. It’s best to choose an established payment partner with experience in regulatory and security compliance standards, like PCI (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). This will help your business run smoothly while providing peace of mind for both customers and investors. Additionally, one-stop-shops that can process all payment forms are ideal, but look for a partner that supports an "open infrastructure," where you can bring in your existing payments partners if you want to. While the success of these 126 million female entrepreneurs can only be contributed to their hard work and determination, the tools and resources to further support them in their business efforts are out there. It’s for that reason and many more, that we should encourage the support and celebration of women and their professional successes around the globe, not just on March 8, but each and every day.Carey Kolaja is Vice President of Global Product Solutions at PayPal. See More

As I mentioned in my blog post yesterday, good, clear writing is a skill that's needed on the job.But many people (including a PR firm I once sub-contracted for) mistakenly feel that buzzwords are a tool of clear writing . The PR firm felt that those buzzwords helped build credibility among prospective customers.But if the Evil HR Lady and the salacious anti-meeting tweeter MeetingBoy are to be believed, all buzzwords do is make people run out for the PeptoBismol. Find out which buzzwords are generating groans:Evil HR lady: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57337895/add-value-by-killing-corporate-jargon/Meeting Boy: http://meetingboy.com/post/5017367342/the-most-hated-buzzword

Fast Company reporter and Do-It-Yourself college education advocate Anya Kamenetz reports on Coursekit, a free online application that is positioning itself as a more student- and teacher-friendly alternative to market leader Blackboard.  Kamenetz focuses her December 5 article in Fast Company on the business model used by Coursekit.  Coursekit is available free and ad-free for the next year (its first year in operation).  After that, it will continue to be free (that’s its value proposition) but could feature ads as a means of generating revenue.  To provide background, Kamenetz notes that Coursekit was developed by some dropouts from the undergraduate program at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania to provide an easier-to-use experience than Blackboard.  (I had actually read this before; whomever is launching this company has hired a great PR firm.)That intrigued me, because when Blackboard first hit the scene a bit over a decade ago, its ease of use was the key to its success.  Instructors could easily create course websites without knowing anything about HTML or Dreamweaver.  All they had to do was upload Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents, and fill in a few templates.But after a semester or two of work, Blackboard looked clunky and I returned to writing my own course websites in HTML.  After it established itself in the market, other educational technologists, too, tired of Blackboard.  Blackboard and its then competitor WebCT dramatically raised their prices, added a host of features that only a few teachers needed, and drove many schools to the open-source competitor, Moodle.  Moodle operates similarly to Blackboard and offers similar functions, but the software is open source so organizations avoid licensing fees.  I use Moodle but mostly for its privacy capabilities or when I'm told to; my feelings about the application and its usability are neutral. So Kamenetz's article--the second I had seen in a week about Coursekit--piqued my curiosity.  I wanted to see whether Coursekit was easier to use.So I checked it out myself and created a simple course website.  Its interface is cleaner, using a social media feed rather than the announcement boards typical of its predecessors.  The gradebook and submissions processes look much simpler than Blackboard and Moodle.What I liked the best was the calendar function, which lets instructors present all of the materials needed for a single session together.  I also appreciated the privacy settings, that let instructors keep some parts public and others private.  In terms of usability, the product seems to live up to its promise (won’t know until I use it under the real pressures of a term).But, as Kamenetz notes, how Coursekit handles advertising could make or break the product.  Read her article at http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=961161750&ids=0TdzoOcPoOdzAIc3kTcjoNcjoVb3gUcPoRdPAReiMVcjkMdPwNdjAIcjsQc38Qc3oV&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod2-b-ttl-3&ut=3KxPl_oj62yR01.

Guest Post by Karen Voloshin, DesignArounds In their book Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want two of my favorite colleagues Julie Winkle Giulioni and Beverly Kaye stress that  compelling conversation is at the heart of  career development that moves and inspires others. They go on to introduce us to three kinds of conversations aimed at growth and development. The first are hindsight-conversations that help others look backward and inward to determine who they are, where they’ve been, what they love, and where they excel. The second are foresight-conversations that keep employees looking forward and outward toward changes, trends, and the ever-evolving big picture.  The third, and one that intrigues me the most, are insight-conversations, where hindsight and foresight collide into moments of, often sudden, understanding about one’s unique definition of career success and how to move toward it. Those moments where it all clicks, connects, and makes perfect sense. We’ve all experienced moments of insight…maybe you’ve called them "eureka" or "aha" moments, or the moment when "the light bulb went on." Fascinating work in neuroscience by people like Mark Beeman, Jonathan Schooler and David Rock reveals how the brain generates insights and what that means for leaders: We tend to notice insights when our overall brain activity is relatively low. This happens when we are exerting less mental effort, focusing on something repetitive, or are more relaxed (like when we first wake up I the morning…assuming you are not a raging insomniac like me). Our attention constantly flips between being externally and internally focused.  When people have insights they are focused inward, letting their mind wander like a daydream, not focused externally on what they are trying to figure out. It turns out that the non-conscious processing resources in our brains are greater than our conscious ones. So given those factors what can we do to instigate moments of insight for ourselves and others?  Here are five ways  to increase the chances that insights will occur. Stop trying to force insights or think they are going to strike when it’s convenient or when you want them to, e. g. during a pre-scheduled career conversation. No insight will happen before its time. Do whatever you can to reduce feelings of pressure or stress during career discussions. Insights occur more frequently in a relaxed mental state.  So listen, demonstrate patience, don’t judge or project your own expectations. Let the employee drive and enjoy being in the passenger seat. Pose provocative questions without the expectation of an immediate answer.  Encourage soak time, daydreaming, and keeping notes or a journal to capture insights when they occur. Think about the venue. How about a conversation while you walk, or while doing something repetitive and mundane like stuffing envelopes or shredding? Seriously.  Insights are more likely and you’ll help out at the same time. Let the insight initiate the conversation versus the other way around. Neuroscience also tells us that moments of insight bring a heightened state of motivation with them because of amped up chemicals in the brain. This more intense energetic state is relatively short lived. So encourage employees to come find you when they have an "aha" moment. In day-to-day interactions pay attention and begin to notice an insight brewing and seize the moment to tease it out and discuss it. What are you doing to instigate insights? Let the question incubate and let us know about your flashes of brilliance. We’d love to hear. The post Instigate Insight: A Constructive Conspiracy appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Alan Cohen's blog post was featuredHow to Survive the Era of the Hack: 5 Things Every Enterprise Should KnowCommentators called 2014 the "year of the hack." Many companies (and individuals) were sorely pressed to counter a seemingly non-stop vector of cyberthreats, as the bad guys became smarter and more lethal in the damage they could inflict.With the rotation to all things cyber, there is less focus on core security capabilities that could have reduced much of the attack surface as well as the spread of breaches and malware.One key question worth positing is whether companies fundamentally changed their security posture vis-à-vis their infrastructure and applications during this period. If enterprises want to counter cyberthreats, they need to both invest in APT and anti-malware technologies and improve their overall security posture. Following are five approaches enterprises should consider.1. Ubiquitous Understanding of Computing in the Data Center and CloudIf you ask an IT team whether they know all of the computing images running inside their data center and public cloud, they are likely to say "probably." If you ask whether they know what ports each workload has open, the answer will change to "probably not." This is the equivalent of not knowing whether all the doors within an apartment building are locked when a cat burglar is lurking in the building. Because of the threat of lateral communications exposure, enterprises need comprehensive and continuous visibility to all of their computing assets.2. Shrink the Attack Surface, Reduce the SpreadThe rough segmentation and isolation presented by the data center perimeter—hard crunchy exterior, soft chewy interior—means, for the most part, once you are behind the firewall, things are pretty much in the clear. Building on ubiquitous understanding, it important to create finer-grain segmentation of applications beyond traditional networking approaches like VLANs, zones, and subnets to make it more difficult to get to specific computing assets. The secondary benefit of micro-segmentation is reducing the ability of malware to spread between workloads in the data center.3. Built In, Not Bolted OnToday’s standard operational model of building applications usually calls for security to be "added" to an application after it has been built. The very act of having a developer hand off her work to someone else to secure it dramatically increases the risk profile of protecting the application since they have to "discover" exposures. IT must move to a model where security is embedded into the development process and not just bolted on afterwards.4. Reducing Complexity Can Make You More SecureEverything in the computing world has become more dynamic, distributed, heterogeneous, and hybrid over the past 10 years. Yet the network-oriented security chokepoint is built on a hierarchical model that requires everything to be brought back to it. Enterprises have thousands to millions of firewall rules, ACLs, and zones, many of which serve no purpose, but IT managers are too afraid to take them down (not knowing the impact of doing so). The easiest way to reduce this complexity—and remove the primal fear of living in this regime—is to create a security architecture that adapts to the changing computing environment without the "policy debt" of IP addressing.5. Embrace Diversity: Data Center and Cloud, Bare Metal and SoftwareToday’s computing environment is a little like Rome: The current empire is built on top of the previous ones. The only way to thrive is to embrace the past and not simply add an additional layer of security. Said simply, security approaches must embrace both the data center and the cloud, and not bifurcate along infrastructure lines. Today, it is common to see an enterprise’s computing stack running on Linux, Windows, virtual machines, and increasingly containers, on premises or in an Infrastructure-as-a-Service environment such as Amazon Web Services.Charles Dickens noted that we "forge the chains [we] wear in life." No one should simply throw away the practices of the past, nor should they be bonded to them in a changing landscape.Alan Cohen is the chief commercial officer of Illumio.See More

Technology and the schools has made the popular news on both sides of border in the past week or so.On the one hand, the Globe and Mail has run a special section on education, with a discussion of the need to re-design primary, secondary, and tertiary education to take advantage of the technologies now available for teaching. On the other hand, the New York Times has published a couple of articles raising the red flags about all-online schools.  The first appeared in Gail Collins' column, in which she raises a red flag about too much technology in primary and secondary education, specifically raising concerns about the tendency for many states to outsource online school programs to the for-profit company, K12 Inc.--and the lack of research evidence on the effectiveness for children of learning full-time in an online environment.She’s right to raise that flag. Although the research is clear that online learning is at least as effective as classroom learning, none of the studies were conducted in full-time, long-term environments.  Studies of long-term, full-time effects would, by necessity, need to look at side effects of learning, such as the effects on social development of spending most class time on the computer rather than with other children.She also raised a red flag about the sales pitch used to generate enrollments in these online programs, positioning "online learning as an alternative to a violent in-school experience."  See her column at  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/opinion/virtually-educated.html?src=recg.) The Times  followed with an in-depth of the for-profit charter school industry this Monday.  Profits and Questions at Charter Schools by Stephanie Saul provides an-depth exploration of online charter schools, suggesting that they perform better on Wall Street than Main Street.  Among the measures on which the schools are underperforming include student-teacher ratios, churn rate (numbers of students enrolling then transferring out), and all-important standardized tests. The article concludes that K12, one of the leading for-profit companies running these schools "a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards." View the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html?src=recg&pagewanted=all.The common themes underlying all of these articles are that technology in the schools is still viewed as something separate and something to be viewed with suspicion, and that some of the implementations of technology--intended to promote its virtues--only deepen those initial concerns.  

Bernat Guitart's blog post was featuredMobile World Congress: IoT Cars Sans Mirrors, Wearables and Firefox OS DisappointsThe Mobile World Congress is back in Barcelona to present the edgiest technology in the sector. The crew from AppFutura went to discover what’s new from all the major companies in the mobile world. With the event expecting to break all attendance records, it’s satisfying to see the organization has put a lot of effort to making things run smoothly this year.Our trip was focused on the main products being presented over the 4 days of the event. Many announcements were already known and some firms even presented their products before the official event on Sunday afternoon local time. I’ll begin by saying that smartphones are not going anywhere and wearables are here to stay. Moreover, the Internet of Things is more real than ever with connected cars coming on strong, as we could see at the 2015 CES.Smartphones? We all agreed all devices are headed to a more sophisticated look. The announcements we were most excited about were the new Samsung Galaxy S6 (and S6 Edge) and the new HTC One M9. Samsung seems determined to compete with the iPhone and the new Samsung devices are definitely a step forward, saying goodbye to plastic shells and going into the metal and crystal league. These new materials and sophisticated one-piece look have come with another consequence: no more removable batteries. HTC One M9 (photo by Bernat Guitart) On the other hand, the new HTC One M9 looks quite similar to its predecessor. It seems HTC decided to keep what they knew was working and put a lot of effort in the areas where the M8 failed. In this direction, they improved the camera substantially with an outstanding 20-megapixel shooter and made some interesting UI changes.We gave Microsoft's new Windows 10 a test. It seems they have learned from their mistakes, and after all the heat on Windows 8's Metro, they have gone back to a more traditional Start button to access all main functions. Metro is not gone, but it is now optional. We wanted a first look at the very much anticipated Spartan browser, which is to replace the traditional (and infamous) Internet Explorer, but we’ll have to wait a bit longer - Microsoft has not presented it yet.The Nokia stand caught our attention. What are they up to after Microsoft purchased their Lumia line? We were actually very surprised to discover their new product, a fantastic 8-inch Android tablet with great design and feel, the Nokia N1. They decided to focus on the development of this new device, make something great and then move on from that. This only-Wi-Fi connection tablet is only available in China for now, for $230 and it is expected to be released in America and Europe later this year. Look out, iPad, there's a much cheaper and worthy competitor here.Talking about wearables, the Huawei Watch has become the first Android Wear device with a sapphire crystal display. The result is a beautiful piece that their creators are comparing to Swiss made watches. The look is amazing but the price remains unknown, which could definitely weigh into our final opinion on this device.Huawei presentation (photo by Bernat Guitart)Let’s move on to the Internet of Things. Just like at CES in Las Vegas, connected cars are becoming a regular at these events and they are certainly present at the MWC. We were surprised to not see more presence of Android Auto, but instead, customized solutions for every car. We spent a while looking at a Maserati the Qualcomm team was displaying. A fantastic piece of machinery with great features that make you think the future is here. Besides all the outstanding navigation features, be ready to say goodbye to all the mirrors on your cars - only cameras will prevail.Following with the IoT we noticed a booth dedicated to the up and coming 5G connections. While everything is at a purely theoretical stage, it was exciting to see what we should be expecting for future years. First prototypes of 5G technology applications are aimed to connect different machines and devices, making them have new and novel capabilities. That said, there are still no concepts of applications for more mainstream use.Finally, if we have to mention something that we were slightly disappointed about, that would be the HTML5-based Firefox OS. While the interface looked great and we were able to see the good intentions behind it, we think Firefox OS has a long way to go to be able to compete with the big OS in the mobile market.Good show. The MWC 2015 has lived up to its name. It’s where to go for the newest products in the market all in one place.Bernat Guitart is CEO of AppFutura.com.See More

Paddle boarding is my favorite summer pastime. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a cross between kayaking and surfing that involves standing on a long board and using an oar to maneuver around a body of water. Easy, right? Not always. On a recent outing during which weather conditions were a little challenging, I was determined not to fall into the ocean. So I focused squarely on the three most critical factors: the waves, the wind, and the wake of other vessels.  As long as I sustained that focus on those 3-Ws, I was stable and able to move in my desired direction. But then a fourth W crept in: What if…? As soon as I let my mind wander in that direction, I started to worry and wobble. As in paddle boarding, so it is in business. Stability, progress, and success demand a clear and sustained focus on the 3-Ws: Waves: This is the natural rhythm of the business, the consistent ebb and flow of activity, demand, and revenue. There may be little that you can do to change these waves, but there’s plenty you can do to anticipate, plan, and ultimately ride them toward your intended destination. Wind: These are the constantly shifting external conditions that sweep over and can easily take you off your plotted course if unchecked. Changing demographics. New government regulations.  Economic trends.  Technology break-throughs. Knowing that the wind is always out there, moving and swirling with change, allows savvy leaders to be ready to plot a new course, paddle differently, and actually use its energy to help move forward. Wake: FreeDictionary.com defines wake as the "visible track of turbulence left by something moving through water." This turbulence is more episodic and less expected than the effects of waves and the wind. It’s the new competitor entering the marketplace with a game-changing product. It’s the natural disaster that cuts off the supply chain. It’s the political unrest that closes a major market. These wake episodes may not be anticipated, and their effects can be completely unstabilizing. Just knowing they are inevitable and watching for signs can help. Developing a flexible, resilient workforce that’s ready to quickly pivot, shift strategies, and change direction can transform these dangers that might put others under water into challenges that can be overcome. In business - as on the water - it’s easy to become distracted by that fourth W: What if…? But, developing the discipline that allows for a clear and consistent focus on the 3-Ws is the key to staying balanced, stable, and upright. It’s also the key to enjoying the ride. What about you? How are the waves, wind, and wake treating you? How do you maintain a focus on these 3-Ws? Image: www.dreamstime.com The post Staying Afloat appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

The holiday season has Black Friday to kick-start in-store sales and Cyber Monday to pump online sales. Today must be Happy Holidays Thursday--a new event, 10 days before Christmas--when every organization to whom I have given money, conducted business, or just merely written for more information sends me a Happy Holiday card. But I'm not sure if they really care about my holiday or just want to make sure that the season doesn't end without my buying or donating.

Peter Miller's blog post was featuredEvolving Past the Innovation Status QuoA decade ago, the accepted approach to innovation in the healthcare/ pharmaceutical sector was a (relatively) straightforward one: invest heavily in R&D, discover new molecules, shepherd them through years of testing and regulatory approvals, and cross your fingers that in the end all goes well and you have a product that can generate a positive ROI. Consider that a recent Tufts Center study pegged the average cost of bringing a drug to market at just under $2.6 billion and the average success rate for a new molecule eventually receiving approval is approximately 0.01% -- significantly worse odds than succeeding as a restaurant entrepreneur, where just about everyone fails.Now to be fair, this model has delivered thousands of life-saving and life-improving drugs that have done wonders for patients (and made many of the pharma companies of the "blockbuster" era a lot of money). And there will surely be other drug successes that follow the traditional route. But innovation isn’t static or one-size-fits all - and this is what we are seeing in the world of healthcare today.Consider that Actavis, the tenth largest pharma company, with a market capitalization of more than $70 billion, recently said they will no longer discover drugs. Instead, they will focus on buying them via acquisitions and deals with smaller organizations. Capital expenditures will prioritize distribution, operations and marketing, far above research and development This type of approach would have been unthinkable in the past, and represents a true paradigm shift that is one example of redefining what innovation means in the space.A different route to redefining medical innovation is being followed by our team at OptiNose. Our team is made up of executives with decades of experience driving innovation the traditional way at some of the largest pharma and healthcare companies in the world. But what attracted all of us to leave the big players behind and embrace the challenge and excitement of a small young company was the recognition that we could make an incredible difference by leveraging a unique device technology to innovate in a new and elegantly simple way: by making good drugs better.Our unique nasal medicine delivery technology uses the natural power of a patient’s breath in a special way that dramatically improves the efficacy and efficiency of delivering medicines into the nasal passages. We realized that by starting with carefully selected molecules that were already approved, we could develop new products based on our technology that could significantly improve the current standard of care for patients - and of course, by using existing molecules in new ways we would also be able to do it exponentially cheaper than by "starting from scratch" - reducing the risk and speeding up the time on each product and increasing the ROI for our partners and OptiNose. The idea is in many ways a throwback to the approach of focusing on medications that deliver tangible value to large populations of unmet need. To date, we have out-licensed a product for migraine treatment, are in the last stage of trials for a product to revolutionize the treatment of chronic sinusitis, and have therapies for autism and other neurology applications in development.Healthcare has always had a unique relationship with innovation. After all, while the newest tech product or social media platform can of course be "life-changing," healthcare products can be truly "life-saving" - or at least greatly improve the quality of life for patients. With the stakes so high, it’s not surprising that many people’s first reaction is to be wary of deviating from the traditional path of drug innovation. But we believe that the direction the sector is going - and what we are showing at OptiNose - is that there is room for creative solutions that can benefit investors, companies and patients alike. And this is a time in the history of healthcare where the power of change should be embraced wholeheartedly.Peter Miller is CEO of OptiNose.See More

 Which of the following do you feel best defines the ‘gap’ in the US workforce skills gap? Lack of soft skills Lack of technical skills Lack of strong leadership skills Lack of computer-based technology skills NA - I don’t think there is a gap in the US workforce This is the question recently asked by Adecco Staffing in a telephone survey of 500 top executives. Disturbingly, 44% of those surveyed reported that the gap they most experience is in soft skills. Employees simply aren’t able to demonstrate sufficient communication, critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration to be optimally effective in their day-to-day work. Another 14% shared their concern that the greatest gap exists in leadership (which I count among the soft skills.)  That means that nearly half of the executives who participated in this study aren’t concerned about getting the technical dimensions of the job right; they’re worried about how employees and leaders interact with each other. We can engage in a debate about why this is, which institutions have failed, and who’s to blame… or we can roll up our sleeves and explore what can be done. Are your hiring models skewed toward technical experience and expertise or some of the softer competencies that are harder to teach but vitally important to the job? Where are your training dollars spent? If you’re like most organizations, the money trail follows technical and job-specific needs, leaving woefully little for cultivating soft skills. How are your leaders selected and promoted? Shining the light on those who exemplify communication, collaboration, and leadership skills sends a strong message to others about what the organization values. Does your performance review process give as much attention to leadership and other soft skills as to the technical dimensions of the work? What gets rewarded - the results or how the results were achieved? Continuing to recognize bottom line results without an eye to the behaviors (and possible wake) behind them actively undermines a focus on soft skills and leadership. For organizations looking to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive environment, it’s time to take a hard look at soft skills. Image: www.dreamstime.com The post Hard Data about the Soft Skills Gap appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

The experience of contacting companies through their websites about problems provides some interesting insights into their real attitudes towards customers. Who cares?La Quinta Inns. Cheesecake Factory.  Starbucks I reported issues to each of these companies over the summer and heard back from each within 4 business days—each offering an apology.  Starbuck’s sort of freaked me out (in a good way) because I sent the note at 6:30 pm and heard back at midnight.  I realized, at some point, that they must have an off-shore customer service team.  (Just a guess.)  Both the managers of the La Quinta Inn and Cheesecake Factory I wrote about personally contacted me, one by phone.  But other companies are another story:   Delta.Air France.LoblawsDelta responded within 48 hours, but offered an empty apology and made no effort to correct the situation (which was not a weather-related delay, which is beyond their control).  Air France outsourced the response to a concern about a letter with a refund check that contained no refund check to Delta.  Writing on behalf of Air France 6 weeks after I sent my note, Delta told me that they couldn’t do anything (why the person didn’t refer the issue to the appropriate person at Air France is beyond me.)At least these airlines had the decency to acknowledge the concern.Loblaws? Happy to take my money; could care less about responding to my concern.