April, 2009

Personal Branding — 5 Comments
26
Apr 09

What Makes You an Expert?

Photo Credits: phauly
Tim Ferriss  or Malcolm Gladwell? Four weeks working on your credibility indicators, or 10,000 hours of intense practice? What really makes you an expert? On the subject of expertise I tend to agree more with Malcolm’s definition than with Tim’s. Becoming an expert takes practice and experience.

Here are, in my opinion, the five main characteristics of an expert:

  1. Knowledgeable: You can’t be called an expert if you don’t know your subject matter. Being intimately familiar with the technical aspects of your job is absolutely necessary, and it is the first step on the road to expertise.
  2. Experienced: Experts need to apply the theory and face many different scenarios. A physician may easily recognize the symptoms of an illness, but the right treatment will depend on each individual patient. You may have read about how to manage people, but until you’re actually in charge of a team and deal with real personalities and real conflicts you can’t really call yourself an expert manager of people.
  3. Well Rounded: An expert who only cares about his/her subject matter is not really an expert. For example, a good SEO must also have an understanding of subjects like marketing and PR. If you want to become an expert at something, seek to also learn near-neighbor disciplines.
  4. Up-to-Date: Knowledge changes fast. That’s why experts are always thirsty for new information. It’s not uncommon to see top experts attending seminars given by other experts, trying to learn something new. Experts reinvest part of their revenues in education. Experts experiment constantly.
  5. Humble: Should you call yourself and expert?  Just as PR is more credible than advertising (because it is what other people are saying about you), it is more effective to let others call you an expert instead of blowing your own horn. Work hard at becoming good at what you do, get good mentors, gather honest testimonials, attract links from quality sites, and land mentions in important media, and you won’t need to hard-sell others on your expert status.

Book Reviews — 2 Comments
19
Apr 09

Book Review: Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki

Start up entrepreneurs are the Navy seals of the business world. They must work insane hours to solve hard problems, for little or no pay, under the constant threat of running out of cash. In their world, failure is not an option and there is no plan B.

It is in this environment that Guy Kawasaki earned his chops as an entrepreneur. The former Apple evangelist, venture capitalist and founder of Internet ventures Truemors  and Alltop, has distilled decades of experience in his latest book, Reality Check, and does it in a way that is both informative and entertaining.

The book is thick but you won’t find filler or superfluous content. The chapters are short and focused on very specific business topics, from how to send effective email, to how to deliver a presentation, to how to prepare an effective business plan, to how to make a pitch.

They are often written in a list-of-top-tips format that makes identifying the main takeaways easy. Also, since each chapter deals with a specific topic, you can read them in the order you want at any time.

Guy also enlisted the help of top experts to write some of the chapters, like Penelope Trunk on career advice or Garr Reynolds on presentation design, so you’ll be learning from the best.

If you’ve already read Guy’s other books or his blog, you may find some of the material repeated. However, the value of Reality Check is in the way the content has been organized and summarized, and enhanced with new material to form a cohesive volume that covers virtually every aspect of running a business.

If you want to be successful in the business world, either as an entrepreneur or as an employee, this book will definitely give you an edge. Highly recommended.

Blogging — 10 Comments
13
Apr 09

Create a Mobile-Friendly Version of your Blog

Mobile phone use is growing by leaps and bounds around the world, and every day more people access the web from their phones. I recently spent about an hour to create a mobile-friendly version of my blog. I am going to show you how I did it in the next few paragraphs.

What users want and don’t want in a mobile site

When accessing the web from their phone, users want easy navigation with only a few options, pages that render fast, and quick access to the content. They usually don’t want sidebars, menus with a hundred different options, icons and banners, and excessive formatting.

Where to start

I used a service called Mofuse, which makes creating a mobile site a snap. Go to mofuse.com and sign up for an account. You will be prompted to choose a sub-domain. You can choose yoursite to get a URL such as yoursite.mofuse.mobi

Next, you’ll be prompted to add your RSS feed. Mofuse will take your feed and make it the default home page of your new mobile site; it will show as a collection of links, starting with your most recent post, more or less like this:

Customizing your mobile site

I didn’t want my mobile site to default to my RSS feed. Instead, I decided to create a menu with three different options: Blog, About and Contact.

To do this, take a look at the Your Mobile Content section of your control panel’s right sidebar, click on the link to your RSS feed, and change the title to “Blog”.

Next, go to the Add Content section in the sidebar and click on the Add a New Page link to create your About page (you can put a picture of yourself with a brief paragraph about you or your elevator pitch). Do the same to create your Contact page.

After you do this, Mofuse will automatically create the menu and it will show in your mobile site’s homepage.

Finally, go back to the Your Mobile Content section and organize the three links in the order you want. This is how they look on my mobile blog:

Adding a logo

Go to the Make It Unique section of the sidebar, click on Your Logo, and upload it. If you want a tagline to go with it, go the the Add Content section and click on the Edit Homepage link. Then, just type your tagline. This is how it looks on my mobile site:

Using your own domain

Mofuse gives you the option of using your own domain or sub-domain. The universally accepted convention is to create a subdomain of your main site using just the letter “m”. For me, it is: m.shoestringbranding.com. To create it:

  • Go to your domain registrar or hosting account control panel and edit the DNS records to create an alias called m.yoursite.com and point it to yoursite.mofuse.mobi. (if this sounds too technical to do by yourself, email tech support with your request).
  • Go back to the Make It Unique section on your Mofuse control panel and click on the Custom Domain link, to set it up as m.yoursite.com.

Remove advertising

By default, Mofuse will show small Google Adsense ads at the top and/or bottom of your mobile pages. You can remove them by clicking on the Monetize link in the Other section of the sidebar and unchecking the box next to “Yes, I want to make money with my mobile site”.

You also have the option to remove the “Powered by Mofuse” icon from the bottom of your pages, but I decided to leave it, since I’m extremely happy with the service and wouldn’t mind more people knowing about it.

Publicizing your mobile site

Click on the Mobi Badge link in the Promote/Integrate section of your control panel’s right side bar and choose one of the “mobile-friendly” icons. Get the HTML and paste in on your blog’s sidebar, to let people know that you have a mobile friendly site.

If you want to get really technical, generate a QR code for your mobile blog and put it in your stationary or other printed material. QR codes are two-dimensional bar codes that can be read by mobile phones. Go to this page and type in your mobile site URL to generate your QR code.

Mine looks like this:

Shoestring Branding QR Code

To enable your mobile phone to read QR codes, you need to download a QR-Code reader. Once you do that, the reader will turn your camera phone into a scanner: just take a picture of your QR code and you will automatically be transported to your mobile site.

That’s all there is to it. I hope this brief tutorial is clear enough and that it encourages you to build your mobile-friendly blog. Let me know how it goes.

Personal Branding — 1 Comment
10
Apr 09

What Job Fair Visitors can Learn From Soccer

Photo Credits: gingerldk
Job fairs are getting ridiculous these days. It’s not uncommon to see tens of thousands of applicants scramble to take a shot at just a handful of jobs.

In almost every professional meet-up I’ve attended in the past six months the question has inevitably come up: “is it really worth it to go to a job fair?”

The answer, of course, depends of what you expect.

Watching soccer back in South America, I could never understand why whenever a referee called a penalty kick against one of the teams, the players would immediately surround him and argue, sometimes yelling and making threatening gestures with their hands.

If you’ve watched soccer before, you know that a referee never takes back a penalty call. Why, then, do players even bother to argue over it? Simple: they do it to give the referee a guilt trip. They want to condition him into believing that the call was unfair so that his calls become more favorable later in the game.

While this strategy may seem questionable and childish, those players are just trying to shape the future to their advantage by influencing the decision maker. They understand that the current situation will most likely not change, but they want to ensure a better outcome in the future.

Going to a job fair expecting to get a job can be as frustrating as expecting a referee to take back a penalty call. Instead, go to the job fair to meet recruiters and peers, promote your personal brand, and expand your contact base to increase your chances of finding a job in the future.

You don’t go to a job fair to get a job. You go there to network.

Online Branding / Personal Branding / Presentations — 4 Comments
5
Apr 09

Networking Tips for Introverts

networking1.JPG
Photo Credits: seite-3

I am not a gregarious person, but at the same time I’m a strong believer in the power of networking. That’s why I’ve developed a few habits and tactics to make my networking efforts easier. I’ll share them with you here:

1. Make full use of the Internet and social networks:

The Internet offers you many opportunities to network without necessarily having to meet people face to face. If you enjoy writing, you can start a blog. Blogging is a great way to meet interesting people (some of whom can become friends) and expand your contact base.

Social networks like LinkedIn or Twitter are also great for networking. I’ve used the “people search” feature of LinkedIn to find people that I hadn’t heard of in years.

Twitter is also very helpful. You can do a Twitter search for a topic you’re interested in, and start following people who’s tweets you find interesting. You can then visit their blogs, leave comments and start conversations. If you get to know them well, you can then ask them to join your LinkedIn network.

2. Arrive early to meet ups

Whenever I go to a meeting, I make it a habit to arrive very early, usually when only a couple of people are there. It is much easier to meet people this way than to come in late and try to break into a large group where conversations have already started.

3. Volunteer to help organize events

This is a great way to meet people. One of the best tasks you can volunteer for is to work at the entrance booth of a meeting. This way you will greet everyone who comes in, and strike conversations early and easily.

4. Do something unusual

You don’t need to dye your hair purple or introduce yourself with a song to strike a conversation. Something I’ve tried successfully several times is to write my Twitter handle instead of my name on my name tag.

Those who don’t Twitter usually ask what does @mariobox mean. On the other hand, those who know Twitter say: “Oh, great, you’re on Twitter. I’m on Twitter too… let me write that down so I can follow you”.

In either case, it always works. You can also try having a cool or unusual business card.

5. Volunteer to do a presentation:

This may sound counter intuitive, since most people fear public speaking. However, introverts may feel more comfortable speaking about something that they can prepare in advance, and having an audience that is ready to listen, rather than by talking to random people from scratch.

If you do a presentation people will also come to afterward to ask you questions or give you their business card. Being a presenter also makes it easier for them to remember you when you contact them in the future.