One of the prices you pay for being an early adopter of a new operating system and/or major server application is that the vendor doesn't always have it polished. After failing to install Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 I discovered that you must have Exchange 2007 with the pre-bundled Service Pack 1 (SP1). By the way, from the MVLS site the Exchange 2007 SP1 package is over 5 GB. Upon inspecting the package it seems that nearly 4 GB of that is additional language support but I'm not aware of a way to download without the additional languages if you don't need them so be ready for a long download.
So, after doing all the command line pre-requisite component installations the Exchange installation went without a hitch. Next I'll be setting up my external DNS and running some mail through the beast. It has a lot of new features that I'm excited to explore.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Ask TUAW: Syncing from a portable to a desktop Mac, battery comparisons, Apple TV to NAS, iPhone SDK and more
Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW
In this episode of Ask TUAW we'll be looking at questions about syncing between a Mac portable and a Mac desktop (backing up and iTunes playlists), battery comparisons between manufacturers, sharing files from a NAS to an Apple TV, subtitles on an iPhone and much more.As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!Read'|'Permalink'|'Email this'|'Comments
(Via Clippings.)
Download any band's song off MySpace using Safari
Download any band's song off MySpace using Safari: "So I have seen people using all types of ways to download songs off MySpace band pages, but I just found a very easy way using Safari and TextEdit or any type of text editor. First, open TextEdit (or any other program you can make a web file with) and make sure the new document setting (in Preferences) is set to plain text, then open a new file. Put in the following HTML code:
<a href='http://feeds.macosxhints.com/~r/macosxhints/recent/~3/274744013/article.php'>asdad</a>Then choose File » Save As, and change the default .txt extension in the filename to .html and hit Save. A window will appear; click Use .html to confirm the extension. Test the file by control-clicking and selecting Safari from the Open With menu. Safari should open the file and display a link. Leave the file open in TextEdit for later use.
Next, find the band page you would like to download the song from. In the menu bar in Safari, select View » View Source. In the menu bar, select Edit » Find » Find (or just press Command-F), ...
(Via Clippings.)
Free templates give your Office files a fresh look
Free templates give your Office files a fresh look: "
At a report-planning meeting last week I volunteered to add a timeline to a Word document that would ultimately become a PDF file. I could've used Word or Excel to create a horizontal timeline with about a dozen events, each denoted by a text box big enough to accommodate ...
"(Via Clippings.)
Delay the messages you send from Microsoft Outlook
Delay the messages you send from Microsoft Outlook: "Set the program to hold back outgoing messages for a certain number of minutes, or specify a delivery date and time for a particular message."
(Via Clippings.)
UNIX Terminal Command Line Tips for Mac OS X Geeks
UNIX Terminal Command Line Tips for Mac OS X Geeks: "Terminal, the Bash shell,and command line applications still have an important place in the Mac's GUI environment. Here are 10 Unix command line tips that even the most Mac GUI loving user will find useful for the Mac toolbox."
(Via Clippings.)
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Microsoft System Center gets cross-platform support
Microsoft System Center gets cross-platform support: "
Microsoft has released beta technologies that allow its network-management software to manage non-Windows envir...
(Via Clippings.)
Monday, April 28, 2008
The 10 most important technologies you never think about
The 10 most important technologies you never think about: "
The late sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke famously said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
We certainly live in a magical world. Were surrounded by technology, yet we seldom stop to consider the amazing advances that weve come to rely on every day. Whether were surfing the Web, making a call on our mobile phones, or watching a DVD movie on our big-screen TV, we take our modern conveniences for granted.
Here, then, is a peek inside the magicians hat at10 technologies that are keys to our digital age. Without realizing it, youve probably used at least one of them already today -- if not all. But whether youre aware of them or not, without these technologies our world would be a very different place.
Unicode
We use computers for every kind of communication, from IM to e-mail to writing the Great American Novel. The trouble is, computers dont speak our language. Theyre all digital; before they can store or process text, every letter, symbol, and punctuation mark must first be translated into numbers.
So which numbers do we use? Early PCs relied on a code called ASCII , which took care of most of the characters used in Western European languages. But thats not enough in the age of the World Wide Web. What about Cyrillic, Hindi, or Thai?
Enter Unicode, the Rosetta Stone of computing. The Unicode standard defines a unique number for every letter, symbol, or glyph in more than 30 written languages, and its still growing. At nearly 1500 pages and counting, its incredibly complex, but its been gaining traction ever since Microsoft adopted it as the internal encoding for the Windows NT family of operating systems.
Most of us will never need to know which characters map to which Unicode numbers, but modern computing could scarcely do without Unicode. In fact, its whats letting you read this article in your Web browser, right now.
Digital Signal Processing
Digital music, digital photos, digital videos: Its easy to forget that we live in a fundamentally analog world. Computers can cope with all that we see and hear only through the application of highly complex mathematics, a field known as digital signal processing (DSP).
Wherever you find digital media, DSP is at work, facilitated by a whole subcategory of specialized chips and circuits. DSP algorithms correct for errors while your optical drive reads the music off a CD. Theyre at work again as you compress the audio into an MP3 file, and again when you play it back through your surround-sound speakers.
DSP is to digital media as gears and springs are to a pocket watch. It works its magic below the surface: invisible, yet totally essential. Its safe to say that without it, virtually none of the digital technologies that we take for granted today -- from DVDs to mobile phones, ink jet printers to DSL broadband -- would be possible.
Managed code
Programming is a lot more complicated than it used to be. Modern operating systems are like onions, with layers upon layers of subsystems to interconnect and manage. Worse, bugs and unnoticed security flaws, even ones that may have once seemed trivial, can be serious threats in the Net-connected era.
For a growing number of developers, the solution is to use platforms designed to relieve some of the burden. Programs written for such managed-code environments as Java and Microsofts .NET dont run on the bare hardware the way traditional programs do. Instead, a virtual machine acts as an intermediary between the software and the system. Its like a robot nanny for computer programs, silently taking care of memory management and other housekeeping drudgery while keeping an eye out for potential security violations before they happen.
To an end user, a managed-code program may seem no different than a traditional one, but software that runs in a virtual machine makes for a more reliable, stable, and secure computing experience. And with .Net rapidly becoming the preferred platform for Windows development, managed code may soon be the norm, rather than the exception.
Transistors
Later this year, Intel plans to unveil the worlds first integrated circuit to contain 2 billion transistors. Moores Law says that the number of transistors we can put into integrated circuits will double approximately every two years. Thats a lot of transistors -- but what do they all do?
Simply put, the transistor may well be the greatest invention of the 20th century. Its really nothing more than a voltage-controlled switch, but that humble description hides incredible power. Linked together in various ways, transistors can form circuits that are the basis of every type of digital logic, right up to the CPUs that power our modern PCs and servers.
What makes todays chips so powerful is the industrys ability to cram components ever closer together. The transistors on the processor inside your PC might be only about 100 atoms across, and improvements in manufacturing technology will keep them shrinking--at least, for the time being.
Someday, optical chips or even quantum processors may replace current chip designs and outperform them many times over. For now, well have to content ourselves with continuing to improve upon an oft-ignored technology that has served us for 50 years and counting.
XML
Youve probably heard of XML, but what is it? Where is it? Though you may never have encountered it directly, XML is everywhere. Now in its 10th year, it has become virtually the lingua franca of data exchange.
XML stands for 'extensible markup language' -- extensible becausedevelopers can add to it to suit the needs of particular applications. But what makes it really valuable is the fact that its a language, much like HTML. Unlike some data formats, XML files arent just streams of incomprehensible numbers. XML is designed to be read by humans as well as machines. A developer who 'speaks XML' can look at a document written in an unfamiliar XML dialect and still understand what its trying to say.
This powerful combination of features makes XML incredibly useful for all kinds of applications. But perhaps its biggest coup was Microsofts decision to switch to XML-based file formats for Office 2007. As it turns out, you actually may have XML documents sitting on your desktop right now,without realizing it.
Nonvolatile RAM
Isnt it strange? Your pockets stay the same size, yet you can carry more and more in them every year.
In 1956, IBMs first hard drives used disks that were2 feet wide. Its hard to believe that todays microscale drives use essentially the same technology. Incremental advances, such as the discovery of giant magnetoresistance and the invention of perpendicular recording heads have produced staggering results. Between 1990 and 2005, magnetic hard drives increased their storage capacity a thousandfold, putting even Moores Law to shame.
But even with those astounding improvements, hard drives hit a wallwhen it came toportable devices. They were still too big and too fragile for many gadgets. Enter solid-state drives based on non-volatile RAM. The technology has been used for storage since the 1970s, but it remained phenomenally expensive until manufacturing processes caught up with the demand. Now it is everywhere: in MP3 players like the newest Creative Zen, and in digital cameras, cell phones, and even some laptops.
Manufacturers arent sitting still; cutting-edge technologies such as 'racetrack memory' could lead to solid-state storage that is smaller, faster, and more reliable than ever.
Lithium ion batteries
When we were kids, our toys came 'batteries not included.' With our grown-up, high-tech toys, on the other hand, the battery is often one of the most important features. As essential as mobility has become to how we use technology, it simply wouldnt be possible if our choices were still limited to D, C, and AA.
The invention of lithium ion batteries was the key. The earliest rechargeables were made with lead -- hardly a prescription for portability. But because lithium is the lightest metal, lithium-based batteries can store more energy at a given weight than any other variety. Lighter batteries mean smaller, lighter devices; beginning in the 1990s, you could actually put a phone in your pocket.
Running time remains an ongoing challenge, but researchers have no shortage of solutions. In addition to improved lithium ion batteries that use nanotechnology, a number of battery alternatives are slowly coming to market, including ultracapacitors and fuel cells. In fact, pardon me for saying that battery technology is poised forits next big explosion -- and personal technology is sure to advance because of it.
Voice over IP (VoIP)
Youve made a few Skype calls and youve looked into digital phone service from your broadband provider, but thats as close as youve gotten to VoIP (voice over IP) technology. Or so you think. In truth, VoIP is revolutionizing the telecom industry, blurring the lines between voice calls and digital networks.
Those prepaid calling cards that offer rock-bottom international rates? VoIP makes them possible. Similarly, a growing number of businesses use VoIP behind the scenes to eliminate long-distance charges between branch offices.
Routing calls over the Internet circumvents traditional telephone company charges, and fewer fees and taxes mean lower prices.Digital calls are easier to direct and manage, which makes them attractive even to traditional telephone companies. Dont be surprised if soon the landline youve lived with forever is replaced by an all-digital alternative--though youll likely be none the wiser.
Graphics acceleration
Thought your fancy video card was only good for gaming? Think again. Its graphics processing unit (GPU) is really like a second, highly specialized CPU. When it comes to certain kinds of complex math, its performance puts your desktop CPU to shame.
Until recently, all that power went to waste when you werent chalking up frags. But computer scientists are finding novel ways to use GPU acceleration to speed up applications off-screen, as well. For example, a Stanford University project -- which uses many PCs around the world acting together as a supercomputer to assist protein folding-related disease research--can offload calculations to the GPU to multiply its performance many times.
Because the kind of calculations used to draw 3D graphics are also applicable to many other problems, GPU acceleration is potentially useful for a wide variety of applications, from math-intensive science and engineering to complex database queries. Newer, even more complex chips -- such as nVidias Aegia physics engine -- can do even more. No wonder nVidia has begun working on chips for the workstation market.
Increasingly, your PCs performance wont depend on the speed of any single chip. As AMD and Intel get into the game, expect future desktop CPUs to incorporate CPU and GPU capabilities into a single, multicore package, bringing the best of both worlds to gamers and nongamers alike.
High-speed net access
Where would we be without fast Internet access? Its easy to forget that just 10 years ago, most of us were still using ordinary modems. The broadband revolution ushered in streaming video, MP3 downloads, Internet phone calls, and multiplayer online gaming. And we owe it all to TV.
In the 1980s, cable companies were promising 500 channels of round-the-clock programming. Cable was poised to become the most important wire into the house; but the telephone companies had an ace up their sleeve. A new technology could push high-frequency signals over ordinary phone lines, which previously had been good only for low-bandwidth voice calls. The telephone companies sawthis as an opportunity to offer video on demand and to compete with the cable companies at their own game.
Or so they thought. The plans of the telcos for video on demand dried up by the mid-1990s, but the technology remained. Now called DSL, it had morphed into a high-speed household on-ramp to the Internet. The cable companies followed suit with a comparable technology, and the broadband speed race--for both DSL and cable -- began in earnest.
Both cable and DSL still use traditional frequency signaling over copper wires, but new breakthroughs are poised to go mainstream. Fiber to the premises (FTTP) promises lightning-fast network speeds, and WiMax will push broadband into territories that wires cant reach today. As for what applications this next broadband revolution will bring -- well, we have only begun to imagine.
PC Worldis an InfoWorld affiliate.
(Via Clippings.)
Friday, April 25, 2008
Coming Soon to All 50 States: VW's 60 mpg Jetta Diesel
As many of my friends know, I am not quite as enamored with the hybrid cars as all the Prius drivers out there. I've been a fan of diesel cars since the mid-90s when I was first traveling to Europe and drove their economy diesels and their large diesel sedans. They generally get between 20 and 30% better fuel economy, take far less energy to refine the fuel (though with this I don't understand why the fuel generally costs more at the US pumps), and the engines seem to last forever with normal maintenance. VW has been producing passenger diesel engines for a while now and they're pretty good but many of the German manufacturers are stepping things up with cleaner diesels.
One thing that is often over looked in the US is that until about a year or so ago, most of the US petroleum diesel fuel was a very low grade of fuel with an exceptionally high sulphur content. New federal regulations went into effect and we now have far cleaner diesel which alone will contribute significantly to reduced emissions. This old almost kerosene diesel fuel was also one of the main reasons so few diesel options were available in the US. I applaud VW for supplying cars to the US during the 90s and into the 2000s although it was a pretty anemic diesel, largely because they knew it could safely run with the lower grade diesel that we had until the clean diesel came out.
Now, living in Sonoma-Marin area, there are a handful of bio-diesel fuel stations. There is a ~10% premium for the bio-diesel but it's available at the pump and allegedly no modifications to the engine or fuel system are necessary. The drawback is that the bio-diesel congeals at higher temperatures than petroleum-based diesel so you might want to do a mix of fuel or go exclusively petrol-based for the ski trips but it's great to have options.
I believe that most American drivers will appreciate and enjoy the performance characteristics of diesel engines as they tend to be higher torque (low-RPM power) albeit lower revving (but V-8's have similar characteristics anyhow so it's a pretty natural fit).
Now if only these diesels would qualify for the HOV lane the same way that the hybrid cars do, then these would sell like gangbusters in the Bay Area.....
"
One thing that is often over looked in the US is that until about a year or so ago, most of the US petroleum diesel fuel was a very low grade of fuel with an exceptionally high sulphur content. New federal regulations went into effect and we now have far cleaner diesel which alone will contribute significantly to reduced emissions. This old almost kerosene diesel fuel was also one of the main reasons so few diesel options were available in the US. I applaud VW for supplying cars to the US during the 90s and into the 2000s although it was a pretty anemic diesel, largely because they knew it could safely run with the lower grade diesel that we had until the clean diesel came out.
Now, living in Sonoma-Marin area, there are a handful of bio-diesel fuel stations. There is a ~10% premium for the bio-diesel but it's available at the pump and allegedly no modifications to the engine or fuel system are necessary. The drawback is that the bio-diesel congeals at higher temperatures than petroleum-based diesel so you might want to do a mix of fuel or go exclusively petrol-based for the ski trips but it's great to have options.
I believe that most American drivers will appreciate and enjoy the performance characteristics of diesel engines as they tend to be higher torque (low-RPM power) albeit lower revving (but V-8's have similar characteristics anyhow so it's a pretty natural fit).
Now if only these diesels would qualify for the HOV lane the same way that the hybrid cars do, then these would sell like gangbusters in the Bay Area.....
Coming Soon to All 50 States: VW's 60 mpg Jetta Diesel: "Sick of paying an arm and a leg for gas? Volkswagen's got you covered with its latest diesel, which gets 60 miles to the gallon and is so clean even Californians can drive it. Look for it in showrooms later this year.
(Via Wired: Top Stories.)
Sennheiser PX100
I have a pair of these Sennheiser headphones and find them to be the right balance between fidelity and light weight. For me the ear plug type headphones often filter out too much ambient noise (if you have a family at home that you need to keep an ear out for you'll understand) and I find that I'm constantly fiddling with the plugs to make sure they have a good seal because the fidelity is so poor without a good seal. These are also comfortable for hours.
"
Sennheiser PX100: "The PX100 is an affordable middle ground between pesky earbuds and chunky headphones.
5 easy ways to commit career suicide
5 easy ways to commit career suicide: "Mistakes such as putting down co-workers or burning bridges when you resign are surefire ways to darken your career prospects. Here's how to avoid them.
(Via Clippings.)
PC World: New Web 2.0 Services to Try Out Now
PC World: New Web 2.0 Services to Try Out Now: "
'An instant portable note-taker, superslick (and easy) Flash Web site creation, and a versatile drop box for all things digital' writes Yardena Arar. 'Check out these and other nifty Web-based apps that we saw at the Web 2.0 conference.'
"
(Via Clippings.)
One Way Your e-mail Address Gets Harvested by Spammers
One of the more common ways your e-mail address can land on a series of spam lists is by having it listed on a web page. Now for a personal address, just be careful to not list it if possible. For a business, there is always that fine balance between being easy to reach and somewhat secure from being harvested by a spammer. This article, while a bit old now, has some good and valid suggestions: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/03/hide-your-email-address-on-websites.html
Reach local iTunes library over the net
Reach local iTunes library over the net: "If you want to reach your iTunes library from a remote Mac (a MacBook while traveling, for instance), you can enter these two lines in your Terminal app :
$ dns-sd -P 'any name' _daap._tcp. local 3690 localhost 127.0.0.1 & $ ssh -N user@server.example.com -L 3690:localhost:3689You can put this in a shell script (thanks to andersB):
#!/bin/bash dns-sd -P 'name of server' _daap._tcp local 3690 localhost 127.0.0.1 & PID=$! ssh -N user@server.example.com -L 3690:localhost:3689kill $PID(Via Clippings.)
Convert Gmail into your network drive
Convert Gmail into your network drive: "
I started e-mailing files to myself as a form of ad-hoc backup soon after I signed up for a Gmail account. I'm not affected by Gmail's 20MB limit on the size of individual attachments, and I'm nowhere near my storage cap of 6.6GB.
I decided to ...
(Via Clippings.)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
iPhone on the Road: a substitute for paper boarding passes
iPhone on the Road: a substitute for paper boarding passes: "
Filed under: iPod Family, Cult of Mac, iPhone
Some things sound really cool -- until you actually have to step up and do them in real time. TUAW reader Gerald Buckley's story about traveling with his iPhone strikes me as belonging to this class.
When he approached the American Airlines counter to use his iPhone as a boarding pass, the coolness quotient for his entire trip got bumped up several notches. It seems that he navigated over to AA.com using Mobile Safari, signed in and displayed a PDF of his boarding pass on-screen. The American Airlines counter agent in San Antonio 'humored' him and scanned the barcode as displayed on his iPhone. The scan worked, and Buckley proceeded with his travels (much to the envy and amazement of his fellow passengers, no doubt).
Here's the thing though. If it were me, this would have totally gone another way. First, while waiting on line, I would have had bad WiFi. It would have taken me about 20 minutes to type in my information and the people behind me on line would have been coughing *significantly* to get me to keep moving along with the line as I tried to type, move all my luggage and possibly keep three extremely rambunctious children in order. Finally, I would get to the gate agent and I would have gotten the snarky impatient version -- somehow I always do. Assuming that I could even get all the typing and navigation done, I know in my heart that the response would have been 'you need a printed boarding pass, ma'am.'
Of course, this is entirely academic because I have not been granted a boarding pass for the last 5 or 6 years due entirely, I'm sure, to my last name. It's always 'You must check in at the counter' -- which is way easier than even a boarding pass because I just swipe my credit card.
All that having been said, TUAW congratulates Mr. Buckley's ingenuity and offers the example of his experience to speed you your travels in a uniquely geek fashion.
If you've got the travel bug (with or without your iPhone), be sure to visit our sister site Gadling for all things flight-related.
(Via Clippings.)
10 killer texting tricks
10 killer texting tricks: "It's not just for kids. You can track flights, get driving directions, transfer files to your phone and much more.
(Via Clippings.)
BusinessWeek.com- SugarSync: Many Machines, No Problem
Sharpcast's data-synchronization service lets you access your most current data, no matter where you've stored it.Excerpt from article:"If you regularly use more than one computer, or even just a PC and a smartphone, and you never know what files you'll need, SugarSync may be just as sweet as you like it."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Five ways of defining cloud computing
Five ways of defining cloud computing: "
As with nearly every IT trend, including service-oriented architectures and Web services, just because were all talking about cloud computing doesnt mean were talking about the same thing.
I recently joined a LinkedIn/Google group on cloud computing, a member of which posted what should have been an innocent question: Is there a difference between cloud computing and what we know as grid computing? I was ready with my own answer, but overnight about a dozen responses had already flooded in, creating an e-mail chain that offered some interesting nuances on the terminology.
[ Learn more about the cloud computing trend in What cloud computing really meansand The lock-in game moves to the cloud.]
I hope this doesnt get me kicked out of this group, but I thought it might be interesting to reproduce some of these as food for thought. In the interests of privacy Im not publishing anyones names, and Ive edited some of the definitions for the sake of clarity and length. Here are the top five:
1. 'Vendors, as always, blur the real definitions of new terms. In my opinion (and the opinion of others, cloud computing isnt the same as utility computing, which isnt the same as grid computing:
'Grid computing generally refers to resource pooled environments for running compute jobs (like image processing) rather than long running processes (such as a Web site or e-mail server).
'Utility computing generally refers to resource-pooled environments for hosting long running processes, and tends to be focused on meeting service levels with the optimal amount of resources necessary to do so.
'Cloud computing refers (for many) to a variety of services available over the Internet that deliver compute functionality on the service providers infrastructure (e.g. Google Apps or Amazon EC2 or Salesforce.com). A cloud computing environment may actually be hosted on either a grid or utility computing environment, but that doesnt matter to a service user.'
2. 'Cloud computing = Grid computing. The workload is sent to the IT infrastructure that consists of dispatching masters and working slave nodes. The masters control resource distributions to the workload (how many slaves run the parallelized workload). This is transparent to the client, who only sees that workload has been dispatched to the cloud/grid and results are returned to it. The slaves may or may not be virtual hosts.
'Cloud computing = Software-as-Service. This is the Google apps model, where apps are located in the cloud, i.e. somewhere in the Web.
'Cloud computing = Platform-as-Service. This is the Amazon EC2 et al model where an external entity maintains the IT infrastructure (masters/slaves) and the client buys time/resources on this infrastructure. This is in the cloud in so much that it is across the Web, outside of the organization that is leasing time off it.'
3. 'The cloud simply refers to the move from local to service on the Web. From storing files locally to storing them in secure scalable environments. From doing apps that are limited to GB spaces to now apps that have no upper boundary, from using Microsoft Office to using a Web-based office. Somewhere in 2005-2008 storage online got cheaper and more secure than storing locally or on your own server. This is the cloud. It encompasses grid computing, larger databases like Bigtable, caching, always accessible, failover, redundant, scalable, and all sorts of things. Think of it as a further move into the Internet. It also has large implications for such battles as static vs. dynamic, RDBMS vs. BigTable and flat data views. The whole structure of business that relies on IT infrastructure will change, programmers will drive the cloud and there will be lots of rich programmers at the end. It is like the move from mainframe to personal computers. Now you have a personal space in the clouds.
'It is a gimmick yes, just like Web 2.0, but there are real changes these are based on. The marketing has been made around the technological advances.'
4. 'Grid and Cloud are not exclusive of each other... Our customers view it this way:
'Cloud is pay for usage (i.e. you dont necessarily own the resources).
'Grid is how to schedule the work - regardless where you run it.
'You can use a cloud without a grid, a grid without a cloud. Or you can use a grid on a cloud.'
5. 'I typically break up the idea of cloud computing into three camps:
'Enablers - These are companies that enable the underlying infrastructures or the basic building blocks. These companies are typically focused on data center automation and or server virtualization (VMware/EMC,Citrix,BladeLogic, RedHat, Intel, Sun, IBM, Enomalism, etc.).
'Providers - (Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Google, Microsoft). The ones with the budgets and know-how to build out global computing environments costing millions or even billions of dollars. Cloud providers typically offer their infrastructure or platform. Frequently these As a Service offerings are billed & consumed on a utility basis.'
'Consumers - On the other side of the spectrum I see the consumers companies that build or improve their Web applications on top of existing clouds of computing capacity without the need to invest in data centers or any physical infrastructure. Often these two groups can be one in the same such as Amazon (SQS,SDB,etc), Google (Apps) and Salesforce (Force). But they can also be new startups that provide tools & services that sit on top of the cloud (Cloud management).
'Cloud consumers can be a fairly broad group including just about any application that is provided via a Web-based service like a Webmail, blogs, social network, etc. Cloud computing from the consumer point of view is becoming the only way you build, host, and deploy a scalable Web application.'
At least weve gotten that cleared up.
Computerworld Canadais an InfoWorld affiliate.
(Via InfoWorld RSS Feed.)
Monday, April 21, 2008
BlackBerry how-to: Free up device memory
BlackBerry how-to: Free up device memory: "Power users of BlackBerry smartphones need all the device memory they can get. These seven tips can help free up memory and keep your handheld running as smoothly as possible.
(Via Computerworld Breaking News.)
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wishlists....
Well, my birthday and Christmas have passed but since family and friends have told me repeatedly that I'm hard to shop for I have put together my Amazon wish list. It may sound presumptuous but I really do buy most of the things I want but there are other things that sometimes I just don't get around to it but they would be meaningful and practical gifts. So, here it is.... http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1MBF5339C89K3
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Server 2008 and Exchange 2007, Part 1
My big current project at work right now is creating a new infrastructure for the holding company for my employer as I'll be heading up the umbrella organization's technology as well.
So far I've built 6 Windows 2008 Enterprise servers and have configured the domain architecture in Active Directory. The hardware is complete, including a tapeless-backup architecture.
This afternoon I've started constructing Exchange Server 2007 and it's quite interesting how many bits of it call for command line installation of the server components. I'm working off this document courtesy of Microsoft: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354(EXCHG.80).aspx
In that document the following bits are necessary to install via the command line (I'm sure you could tool around and do it through the GUI but I find it particularly interesting that MS recommends command line)...
ServerManagerCmd -i PowerShell
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Server
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-ISAPI-Ext
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Metabase
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Basic-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Digest-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Windows-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Dyn-Compression
ServerManagerCmd -i RPC-over-HTTP-proxy
By the way, don't follow my pasted commands explicitly unless you've already read the referenced MS document, it varies upon which roles your Exchange Server will be playing to determine which components get installed.
Any way you slice it, you need to do these items before you get to delve into the GUI. I'm wrapping up for tonight but resuming tomorrow afternoon on the GUI side so I'll report back with any interesting findings...
So far I've built 6 Windows 2008 Enterprise servers and have configured the domain architecture in Active Directory. The hardware is complete, including a tapeless-backup architecture.
This afternoon I've started constructing Exchange Server 2007 and it's quite interesting how many bits of it call for command line installation of the server components. I'm working off this document courtesy of Microsoft: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354(EXCHG.80).aspx
In that document the following bits are necessary to install via the command line (I'm sure you could tool around and do it through the GUI but I find it particularly interesting that MS recommends command line)...
ServerManagerCmd -i PowerShell
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Server
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-ISAPI-Ext
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Metabase
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Basic-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Digest-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Windows-Auth
ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Dyn-Compression
ServerManagerCmd -i RPC-over-HTTP-proxy
By the way, don't follow my pasted commands explicitly unless you've already read the referenced MS document, it varies upon which roles your Exchange Server will be playing to determine which components get installed.
Any way you slice it, you need to do these items before you get to delve into the GUI. I'm wrapping up for tonight but resuming tomorrow afternoon on the GUI side so I'll report back with any interesting findings...
Management Lessons Learned As a Parent
Management Lessons Learned As a Parent: "
My daughter, Lara Halamka, is 15 years old. Being a parent has taught me more about leadership and management than any of the Spencer Johnson or Peter Drucker books. I've learned patience, communication and the ability to trust.
Here are my top 10 management lessons learned from being a parent:
1. Yelling never has a positive outcome - In my life as a parent, I've raised my voice twice over the past decade and a half. My daughter can remember both times, even though they occurred in the distant past. My outbursts diminished me and had no positive impact on her behavior. In business, if I ever feel that raising my voice would win the battle, I reflect on my life as a parent and hold back, since I know that confrontation ultimately makes the situation worse. As I've said before, 'save as draft'.
2. Formal authority rarely works - As a CIO, I would never stand in front of group of stakeholders and say 'you must do this, because I'm the CIO.' Standing in front of a teenager and saying 'you must do this, because I'm your father' is just as problematic. Leadership comes from thoughtful discussion, weighing pro's and con's, then ultimately arriving at a consensus. Shared decision making between parents and children based on a fair, consistent, and predictable process preserves domestic tranquility. IT governance preserves organizational tranquility in the same way.
3. Give permission to make mistakes - Wellesley and the surrounding western suburbs of Boston have had a number of teen suicides over the past few years. Parents apply such pressure to perform that many teens have irrational expectations of perfection for themselves i.e. 'you can be valedictorian, captain of the squash team, and a Pulitzer Prize winner by the time you're 18'. Making mistakes and learning along the way is the way we learn as children and the way we learn as leaders. In management, I find that setting limits, then offering staff the flexibility to excel on their own is far more effective than micro-management and a constant threat of management retribution.
4. Communication is key - During a teenager's development, Mom and Dad may not be perceived as cool, smart, or fun to be with, but this can change by the day. Keeping the channels of communication open as moods change is key. There will be disagreements, but it's less important to win the argument than to ensure you're still speaking when the discussion is over. The same thing is true with customers and employees - I'd rather hear from them about bad news and fix the problem than not hear anything at all.
5. Get the basics right - Why was religion invented? There are encyclopedias written about that topic, but in my opinion, religion was invented to provide a moral/behavioral framework that puts boundaries on human instincts to compete, reproduce, and survive. We do not have a religious household, but we have a moral household. As a parent, I've tried to be a living example that the nice guy can finish first, that theft and aggressive behavior are wrong, and that kindness and consensus win the day. If my examples lead my daughter to make the right choices when faced with tough decisions, then the basic moral framework we've built will be a foundation for her success. In business, setting a tone of expected behavior by being a living example of ethical, fair, and collaborative behavior spreads to staff and customers.
6. You can criticize ideas but do not criticize people - As the brain matures, sensory input is integrated with experience to produce more robust decision making. During that process there will be many experiments, trial/error, and fine tuning. If my daughter makes a decision that I do not agree with, we can debate her ideas but not her abilities. The same is true with employees and customers. I treat everyone with respect even if I do not agree with their ideas.
7. Build a joy of success rather than fear a failure - When I was teen and took the SATs, I had no real knowledge of their importance, I arrived a bit late, and did not stress over the outcome. The result was a scholarship, not because I was smarter than my peers, but because I did not have a fear of failure during the exam. I watch many parents link performance on every test to an admission or rejection from Harvard. Admission to an Ivy League school is equated to happiness. With Lara, we've tried to celebrate success and build a joy of achievement rather than a fear of failure. Thus far, the motivation from within to do well seems much more sustainable than fear of failure for imposed by authority figures. Emphasizing growth and achievement among employees creates a higher performance organization than management by intimidation.
8. Delegate responsibility but emphasize accountability - My daughter tends to have the same sleep cycle that I do, often sleeping 4 or 5 hours a night. Her schedule is left up to her to decide, but when the 6:30am alarm sounds, she is accountable for her decision to go to bed late. Rather than enforce a bedtime and wake time, delegating her sleeping hours to her, but holding her accountable for getting to school on time, awake and alert, has enhanced her decision making. Leadership is the work of worry and it's important to learn accountability early. The more responsibility I'm given, the greater the accountability.
9. Respect innovation - As vegans, my wife, daughter and I grow beets, carrots, turnips each year. Last year, when we picked a bucket of carrots, I recommended to my daughter that we use a sieve to wash off the dirt. She had a different idea of laying them out in the driveway and washing them off with a sprayer. I suggested that sieves have always been used and it's the 'right way'. Her method, although non-standard, was fast, effective, and efficient. Just because business as usual has always worked, there may be better ways. As I tell my staff - If I become the obstacle to innovation, it's time for me to move on.
10. Accept that the best lessons learned come from independence - For my daughter to develop self esteem, assertiveness, and a willingness to take acceptable risks, she needs to make decisions on her own, even if they are imperfect. If I make decisions for her, she'll be less prepared for life in college and beyond when I may not be present. I give her the best guidance that I can, hope that she develops a strong internal compass, and then let her change from within as she experiences the world. Developing the next generation of leaders in an organization requires the same approach.
I highly recommend parenting over an MBA. Parenthood teaches humility, selflessness, and self-control. No matter what I do in IT, my daughter will be my greatest legacy."
(Via Clippings.)
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Banks May Be Screwing You, But Their Websites Rock
Banks May Be Screwing You, But Their Websites Rock: "Tougher mortgage standards and the lowering of interest rates on savings may upset customers, but they've got no kick with online banking.
(Via Wired: Top Stories.)
Monday, April 14, 2008
Marc Cenedella, TheLadders CEO
Folks, I’m writing this from my hometown of Fredonia, New York on a drizzly Sunday morning. Actually, as I’ve been writing this newsletter, the drizzle has turned to a spring snow (which brings to mind the old joke about how many seasons we have in Buffalo – “Two. Winter and the Fourth of July.”)
But, nonetheless, spring is upon us in most of the country, and it seems like a good time for me to share with you, once again, the basics of the $100k+ job hunt and what we’ve learned about it here at TheLadders.com.
We’re fortunate enough to have helped several million people through their job hunt over these past five years. And in that time, we’ve learned quite a bit about what makes a successful $100k+ job hunt and what areas still stump people like you. That is to say, smart, professional, successful people like you who are experts in their field, but who, quite understandably, have never had the inclination (or the misfortune) to develop an expertise in job hunting.
With that in mind, I’m going to go into some length this Monday morning on what I’ve learned about making your job hunt successful. So if it turns out that this newsletter is too long to read in one sitting, please keep it in your inbox, and when you’re looking to take a break from your tax forms this week, just pull it back out and distract yourself from Uncle Sam for a few minutes here.
Here’s an overview of what you should know about the $100k+ job hunt:
What are you looking for?
Why a logical progression is important.
More money?
Interviewing.
Do something!
What are you looking for? Well, let’s start at the beginning…
What are you really looking for in your next job? What’s important to you? I’m consistently amazed at how many of us start (and end) the whole job hunt process without a good idea of what we’re looking for and what is really going to make us better off.
Now, a lot of that is because, historically, it seemed like putting the cart before the horse. Since it was so difficult to find out what was available out there, there didn’t seem to be much sense in getting your hopes up or getting your heart set on any particular job ahead of time. For a long time, the standard operating procedure was to float your resume out there, or inquire discreetly in the industry, and then make your best choice from the available options.
Thankfully, that’s changed. For two reasons, really.
First, a greater and greater proportion of the workforce, and the overwhelming number of jobs created, are no longer in the biggest companies. It is the small, dynamic, growing companies of the economy that represent almost all, on a percentage basis, of the new positions created.
So while in the past, the options were limited to the two or three big companies in your industry, today there are dozens, and sometimes even hundreds or thousands of choices out there. And while that can seem daunting, fortunately along came…
Number two, the internet. As a means for collecting information from every nook and cranny of the country and then spreading that information far and wide, the internet as a medium far surpasses “old media.” What Monster and Careerbuilder have done in the middle-market jobs, what Jobing and SnagAJob have done in the hourly market, and what we here at TheLadders have done in the high-end, is to collect all of that widely dispersed information in one place, readily accessible to you, and provide the most comprehensive view for a job seeker of the options out there.
And what this means is that the power is now in your hands. But, remember, with that power comes responsibility. And in this case, that responsibility is to yourself.
You owe it to yourself to sit down and take stock before embarking on your job hunt and really think through what it is you are looking for. Is it career advancement? Is it more money? Is it a more collegial environment, a chance to work with ground-breaking technologies, the ability to spend more time with the kids while they’re still in high school, or a chance to give something back to the community?
The more time you spend upfront, thinking through these issues, the better you’ll be able to target your efforts while you’re actually job searching. It’s often overlooked, but one of the least understood facets of the job hunt is the level of fatigue it can produce -- when we meet with subscribers in focus groups they tell us over and over that the job hunt is, itself, a full-time job.
And the key to making effective use of your time in this additional, full-time job is to target your efforts and resources toward those jobs and companies that make the most sense for your goals.
With all the options now available to you in companies of every size across the country, and with the internet as a tool to understand all the information available in advance, it just makes sense to really and truly ask yourself, in your heart of hearts: “What am I looking for?”
Why a logical progression is important.
We periodically dig into the statistics on our site to try and answer the questions: “Who finds their next job on TheLadders.com and who doesn’t? Why? What can we learn, and what can we share with our subscribers about successful job hunts as a result?”
When we look at those people who have successfully found their next $100k+ job on TheLadders and compare them to those who haven’t, we invariably find that seeking a logical progression in job responsibilities is key.
Those people who a) have a clear background in their area, b) create a consistent set of search criteria that match that background, and c) persistently apply to jobs and reach out to recruiters over a period of several months, have the most success at TheLadders.com:
A sales manager finds her next job as a sales director; a director of marketing becomes a VP, Brand; a VP, Finance moves up to CFO; a VP, Development moves into the CTO role. They’ve applied to jobs that make sense given their past experience and have made contact with the recruiters (both company and outside recruiters) that use our site through our “Find Recruiters” tab. And they stick to it with perseverance, making consistent progress over the course of several months. Those are the traits we’ve found in people successfully placed through TheLadders.com.
And I suppose that’s no surprise: the recruiters and hiring managers that use TheLadders are looking for proven candidates that can fill their jobs today. Stick-to-it-ness always yields rewards. Rather than frittering away your scarce time on listings that just don’t make sense for you, you can spend more time, in a more focused way, on the opportunities that are right for you.
So for those of you who are looking to make a real, clear logical step in your career, congratulations, you’ve made it easy on yourselves (and us!) to help get you into your next job.
But how about those folks who are changing gears? Those of you who are looking to change industries and functions? These kinds of career moves don’t fit into the typical mold and so require special care.
The first thing you must understand is the mentality of the hiring manager or recruiter. While you know and understand all of your capabilities and prior obstacles overcome in the face of great adversity and why that speaks to your great intestinal fortitude, they are simply looking to fill their job with the most obvious candidate possible, and that means somebody who has done it before.
In a way, they are like the buyers of any product. They want something with proven past performance that will fit their current needs. They don’t want to take a risk that a new product will fail to meet their requirements.
In that way, it’s just like any brand extension. The company’s new product (or your new role) has to make sense in the context of its past.
Thus, Pepsi has been very successful in introducing Diet Pepsi, Diet Pepsi Cherry, and Diet Pepsi Decaffeinated. And they bombed when they stretched too far and tried to launch a lemon-lime flavored product called Crystal Pepsi – people weren’t ready for something called “Pepsi” to taste like that. (Though I’m told the product formulation has found a great new niche since it was launched as Sierra Mist.)
Similarly, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, with its reputation for efficacy in cleanliness, has successfully broadened out into toothpaste and deodorant (it happens to be my brand and it is fantastic!)
And Apple has very, very successfully and logically extended from computers into computerized music players and mobile phones. But if they tried to launch, say, a toaster oven or washing machine, buyers wouldn’t quite understand how that fit in with their brand promise and what they’ve done in the past.
So, my advice for people who are changing gears is to make your next move look as much like a logical progression as possible; take baby steps, and try not to make a wholesale change that won’t make sense to the “buyers” of your product.
If you are looking to switch industries and professions, the best path for you to take is to take one step at a time.
For example, if you’re a technical director in financial services, it is a “bridge too far” to apply to marketing jobs in consumer packaged goods. It is far better to take one step – say, to marketing jobs in financial services, or technical jobs in CPG – than to try to make the double-jump all in one career move.
Whatever your field and industry, it is much better (and easier) to persuade a hiring manager that you can change your field within your industry, or your industry while staying in the same field, than trying to make them accept the likelihood of your success in leaping directly to a new industry and a new field at the same time.
The important thing is to remember that the buyer of your product, the hiring manager who is going to purchase “you” – your services and employment for the next several years – needs to be able to understand how your past performance makes you a sensible fit for this current job. And the one-step career change is a much easier case to make.
More money?
When we survey our subscribers, we consistently find that only 25% are primarily looking for more money in their next position. Factors such as work-life balance, meaningful work, or a better environment all rate higher.
But, inevitably, your job conversations are going to turn to compensation, and I’d like to see you get as much as you deserve, maybe even a bit more!
Because you are selling the most valuable thing you’ll likely ever own – your own human capital: the effort that you are going to put in at your career over the next several years – you really need to view this as a negotiation and a sale.
And, historically, when we are accepting new employment, we have been content to consider one offer at a time, and negotiate each one independently. But that’s not how you are going to get the best deal for this valuable asset.
When you’re selling a car, what’s the best way to get the best price? Is it to meet with potential buyers one at a time, over a period of several months? Well… not really. It’s to put an ad in the paper (or online) and have all the buyers show up at about the same time. That gets competitive juices flowing, and induces your prospects to fear that they might lose out on the opportunity by waiting. At least that’s the way my Uncle Jim used to do it, and it turned out to be a great way to get top dollar for your car.
And when you’re selling a house, what’s the best way to get the best price? Well, the open house is a popular tactic not only because it reduces the hassle of multiple showings but it sends the message that “see, there are a lot of other people interested in this place, so you’d better get out the checkbook and do something before somebody else snaps this one up.”
This list could go on – sports contract negotiations, the rising cost of newly minted Stanford computer science majors in Silicon Valley, etc.
So why, when it comes to your most valuable asset – you – should you be content to take a one-at-a-time approach to speaking with your “buyers?”
Rather, wouldn’t it be smart to get all of your potential prospects competing against each other for your services?
We’ve heard from subscribers who have used the information on TheLadders.com to get just this dynamic going. In fact, our database of jobs is at the size today that I’d even recommend that somebody who happened to have a great job offer that they found someplace other than TheLadders.com, should still sign up for the service to get accurate information about what “market price” is for your specialty and experience, and, even better, get competing offers so as to vastly improve your negotiating leverage.
Because when you have multiple companies competing for your services in a short period of time, that is the best way for you to get the best offer possible – the additional salary, the role negotiated in your favor, the broader set of responsibilities you are seeking. The fear of loss and the competitive dynamic that multiple, simultaneous offers creates can only work to your advantage.
It works for cars, houses, professional baseball players, and Silicon Valley computer scientists… why shouldn’t you put this powerful negotiating stratagem in your corner when it comes time to change your job?
Interviewing.
The interview can be one of those sweaty-hand inducing, stressful situations that make us feel like we’re back in high school. The power dynamics of the situation, the feeling that somebody is going to be judging us based on our performance in a one-hour interview with their questions on their turf, creates a lot of apprehension.
And when we talk to hiring managers, or we reflect on the people who interview for jobs here at TheLadders, it seems that that apprehension can get in the way of a great interview performance.
There are really three important considerations for you to keep in mind:
First, this is not an opportunity for therapy,
Second, this is not a Biography TV special on the “Life of Aron”, and
Third, you should walk into the interview with three key points you want to make, and regardless of the questions, you should ensure that you make them.
Look, the job hunt can be a lonely, frustrating, boring, alienating process. You can’t share your experiences with the people at work, you don’t want to burden your loved ones with the gritty details of your saga, and it can feel like you have this entire weight solely on your own shoulders.
The biggest mistake that I see people make is taking the opportunity of the interview to unload all of these fears, apprehensions, and frustrations on the interviewer. I know, believe me I know, how maddening a process this whole job hunt can be, but it is critically important that you not use the valuable time you have in an interview to relieve yourself of all your complicated feelings about this job hunt. You have only a half-hour or an hour to make your case, and time spent bemoaning your fate is only going to make it more likely that your job hunt is going to last even longer.
Your interviewer is not your therapist, job counselor, career advisor, or even a friendly ear to bend. They are the gatekeeper between you and your next job, and you need to use your time to persuade them about your fit, not abuse them with your fears.
You do need to get a support system – your college buddies, your family, your friends are all there to help you. And even though it can feel like you are burdening them, friends and family want to see you succeed. Get your frustrations out of your system before you step into the interview room.
Secondly, don’t recount your biography. The temptation can be to retell your life story – after all, you’ve lived it, and it is certainly quite a dramatic adventure to you! But an undifferentiated re-telling of your personal history doesn’t make the most effective use of your time. If you spend most of the interview in a chronological discussion of how you got to be the wonderful person that you are today, you’re eating up the time that can be better used making a much more important point – why I am the right person for the job that you are hiring for, Mr. or Ms. Hiring Manager. Which leads us to…
Third, walk into the interview room with three points you want to make. Based on the understandably limited knowledge you have about exactly what the company is looking for, make your best educated guess as to what they’re looking for, find the three most relevant points from your own background, and make those points.
Over the years, I’ve had geniuses and brilliant creative people and deadly effective sales mavens sit on the couch in my office. And while they’ve made compelling, wonderful stories out of their own experience, they haven’t always connected the dots from what they’ve done to what they can do for me or for their future employers. Make it simple for the interviewer to walk out of that room with the three bullet points they can share with their colleagues about why you have to be the candidate they hire.
If you’re applying for a sales manager position for an outside sales force in agricultural equipment, focus on sales management, outside sales strategies, and your ability to move agricultural equipment, not on your civic awards, excellence in restructuring during the last downturn, or your most recent contributions to improving call center management. While all are wonderful achievements, only the relevant ones help the interviewer understand how you can make their life easier by filling the position that they are hiring for today.
Even better, ask them at the beginning of the interview: “what are the three key things you are looking to do with this hire?” If they say, we’re looking for a marketing superstar who can build a direct marketing team, improve our gross margins, and revamp our franchisee co-op marketing program, then focus on the parts of your resume that highlight your abilities to do just that. Don’t go into a detailed discussion of your college test scores, your many awards for creative brilliance, or your long track record in turning around PR organizations.
It sounds awfully simple, and it is: focus your interview conversations on the three areas most likely to indicate that you are a match for this job. And don’t leave the room until you’ve made those three points loud and clear.
Do something!
Being in my hometown this weekend, I asked my Mom if she had any advice for all of you, our loyal subscribers, on your job hunts. And she said “Spring is here, the crocuses are blooming. Hitch up your britches and get going!”
OK, well, I don’t know what crocuses are, either, but we never go too wrong when we follow Mom’s advice, do we?
And sure enough, when we look at the people who have been successful using TheLadders.com, they hitched up their britches and got going. They re-wrote their resume, reached out to recruiters, and applied for jobs on the site.
I suppose not so surprisingly, when we studied those folks who hadn’t yet found their job on TheLadders.com, we discovered that many just weren’t using the system to full effect:
Their resumes were really just a list of past positions and responsibilities, rather than an effective marketing document showcasing their strengths.
They weren’t reaching out to recruiters posting in their industry or field.
And this was surprising to us – many weren’t applying for jobs! Or even clicking on all that many!
Folks, we’ve built an effective system for finding you your next $100k+ job, but it is a system that requires your commitment and dedication. You have to take some responsibility for reaching out to recruiters and putting your credentials in for the jobs that are right for you. Unfortunately, nobody has yet built the system that lets you just sit back and watch the job offers roll in.
So, let’s take Mom’s advice, hitch up those britches, and get going! Search through jobs, set up a search agent, get your resume re-written professionally or read through advice on how to do it yourself, and reach out to recruiters in your field.
It’s spring, and it’s time for the crocuses, and you, to bloom!
Thanks for taking the time to read through this rather lengthy missive, Readers. It really does sum up the best job hunt advice I have to give, and I hope you find it as useful to put into practice as I found it enjoyable to share with you.
Happy hunting!
Warmest Regards,
Marc Cenedella
Founder & CEO
TheLadders.com, Inc.
But, nonetheless, spring is upon us in most of the country, and it seems like a good time for me to share with you, once again, the basics of the $100k+ job hunt and what we’ve learned about it here at TheLadders.com.
We’re fortunate enough to have helped several million people through their job hunt over these past five years. And in that time, we’ve learned quite a bit about what makes a successful $100k+ job hunt and what areas still stump people like you. That is to say, smart, professional, successful people like you who are experts in their field, but who, quite understandably, have never had the inclination (or the misfortune) to develop an expertise in job hunting.
With that in mind, I’m going to go into some length this Monday morning on what I’ve learned about making your job hunt successful. So if it turns out that this newsletter is too long to read in one sitting, please keep it in your inbox, and when you’re looking to take a break from your tax forms this week, just pull it back out and distract yourself from Uncle Sam for a few minutes here.
Here’s an overview of what you should know about the $100k+ job hunt:
What are you looking for?
Why a logical progression is important.
More money?
Interviewing.
Do something!
What are you looking for? Well, let’s start at the beginning…
What are you really looking for in your next job? What’s important to you? I’m consistently amazed at how many of us start (and end) the whole job hunt process without a good idea of what we’re looking for and what is really going to make us better off.
Now, a lot of that is because, historically, it seemed like putting the cart before the horse. Since it was so difficult to find out what was available out there, there didn’t seem to be much sense in getting your hopes up or getting your heart set on any particular job ahead of time. For a long time, the standard operating procedure was to float your resume out there, or inquire discreetly in the industry, and then make your best choice from the available options.
Thankfully, that’s changed. For two reasons, really.
First, a greater and greater proportion of the workforce, and the overwhelming number of jobs created, are no longer in the biggest companies. It is the small, dynamic, growing companies of the economy that represent almost all, on a percentage basis, of the new positions created.
So while in the past, the options were limited to the two or three big companies in your industry, today there are dozens, and sometimes even hundreds or thousands of choices out there. And while that can seem daunting, fortunately along came…
Number two, the internet. As a means for collecting information from every nook and cranny of the country and then spreading that information far and wide, the internet as a medium far surpasses “old media.” What Monster and Careerbuilder have done in the middle-market jobs, what Jobing and SnagAJob have done in the hourly market, and what we here at TheLadders have done in the high-end, is to collect all of that widely dispersed information in one place, readily accessible to you, and provide the most comprehensive view for a job seeker of the options out there.
And what this means is that the power is now in your hands. But, remember, with that power comes responsibility. And in this case, that responsibility is to yourself.
You owe it to yourself to sit down and take stock before embarking on your job hunt and really think through what it is you are looking for. Is it career advancement? Is it more money? Is it a more collegial environment, a chance to work with ground-breaking technologies, the ability to spend more time with the kids while they’re still in high school, or a chance to give something back to the community?
The more time you spend upfront, thinking through these issues, the better you’ll be able to target your efforts while you’re actually job searching. It’s often overlooked, but one of the least understood facets of the job hunt is the level of fatigue it can produce -- when we meet with subscribers in focus groups they tell us over and over that the job hunt is, itself, a full-time job.
And the key to making effective use of your time in this additional, full-time job is to target your efforts and resources toward those jobs and companies that make the most sense for your goals.
With all the options now available to you in companies of every size across the country, and with the internet as a tool to understand all the information available in advance, it just makes sense to really and truly ask yourself, in your heart of hearts: “What am I looking for?”
Why a logical progression is important.
We periodically dig into the statistics on our site to try and answer the questions: “Who finds their next job on TheLadders.com and who doesn’t? Why? What can we learn, and what can we share with our subscribers about successful job hunts as a result?”
When we look at those people who have successfully found their next $100k+ job on TheLadders and compare them to those who haven’t, we invariably find that seeking a logical progression in job responsibilities is key.
Those people who a) have a clear background in their area, b) create a consistent set of search criteria that match that background, and c) persistently apply to jobs and reach out to recruiters over a period of several months, have the most success at TheLadders.com:
A sales manager finds her next job as a sales director; a director of marketing becomes a VP, Brand; a VP, Finance moves up to CFO; a VP, Development moves into the CTO role. They’ve applied to jobs that make sense given their past experience and have made contact with the recruiters (both company and outside recruiters) that use our site through our “Find Recruiters” tab. And they stick to it with perseverance, making consistent progress over the course of several months. Those are the traits we’ve found in people successfully placed through TheLadders.com.
And I suppose that’s no surprise: the recruiters and hiring managers that use TheLadders are looking for proven candidates that can fill their jobs today. Stick-to-it-ness always yields rewards. Rather than frittering away your scarce time on listings that just don’t make sense for you, you can spend more time, in a more focused way, on the opportunities that are right for you.
So for those of you who are looking to make a real, clear logical step in your career, congratulations, you’ve made it easy on yourselves (and us!) to help get you into your next job.
But how about those folks who are changing gears? Those of you who are looking to change industries and functions? These kinds of career moves don’t fit into the typical mold and so require special care.
The first thing you must understand is the mentality of the hiring manager or recruiter. While you know and understand all of your capabilities and prior obstacles overcome in the face of great adversity and why that speaks to your great intestinal fortitude, they are simply looking to fill their job with the most obvious candidate possible, and that means somebody who has done it before.
In a way, they are like the buyers of any product. They want something with proven past performance that will fit their current needs. They don’t want to take a risk that a new product will fail to meet their requirements.
In that way, it’s just like any brand extension. The company’s new product (or your new role) has to make sense in the context of its past.
Thus, Pepsi has been very successful in introducing Diet Pepsi, Diet Pepsi Cherry, and Diet Pepsi Decaffeinated. And they bombed when they stretched too far and tried to launch a lemon-lime flavored product called Crystal Pepsi – people weren’t ready for something called “Pepsi” to taste like that. (Though I’m told the product formulation has found a great new niche since it was launched as Sierra Mist.)
Similarly, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, with its reputation for efficacy in cleanliness, has successfully broadened out into toothpaste and deodorant (it happens to be my brand and it is fantastic!)
And Apple has very, very successfully and logically extended from computers into computerized music players and mobile phones. But if they tried to launch, say, a toaster oven or washing machine, buyers wouldn’t quite understand how that fit in with their brand promise and what they’ve done in the past.
So, my advice for people who are changing gears is to make your next move look as much like a logical progression as possible; take baby steps, and try not to make a wholesale change that won’t make sense to the “buyers” of your product.
If you are looking to switch industries and professions, the best path for you to take is to take one step at a time.
For example, if you’re a technical director in financial services, it is a “bridge too far” to apply to marketing jobs in consumer packaged goods. It is far better to take one step – say, to marketing jobs in financial services, or technical jobs in CPG – than to try to make the double-jump all in one career move.
Whatever your field and industry, it is much better (and easier) to persuade a hiring manager that you can change your field within your industry, or your industry while staying in the same field, than trying to make them accept the likelihood of your success in leaping directly to a new industry and a new field at the same time.
The important thing is to remember that the buyer of your product, the hiring manager who is going to purchase “you” – your services and employment for the next several years – needs to be able to understand how your past performance makes you a sensible fit for this current job. And the one-step career change is a much easier case to make.
More money?
When we survey our subscribers, we consistently find that only 25% are primarily looking for more money in their next position. Factors such as work-life balance, meaningful work, or a better environment all rate higher.
But, inevitably, your job conversations are going to turn to compensation, and I’d like to see you get as much as you deserve, maybe even a bit more!
Because you are selling the most valuable thing you’ll likely ever own – your own human capital: the effort that you are going to put in at your career over the next several years – you really need to view this as a negotiation and a sale.
And, historically, when we are accepting new employment, we have been content to consider one offer at a time, and negotiate each one independently. But that’s not how you are going to get the best deal for this valuable asset.
When you’re selling a car, what’s the best way to get the best price? Is it to meet with potential buyers one at a time, over a period of several months? Well… not really. It’s to put an ad in the paper (or online) and have all the buyers show up at about the same time. That gets competitive juices flowing, and induces your prospects to fear that they might lose out on the opportunity by waiting. At least that’s the way my Uncle Jim used to do it, and it turned out to be a great way to get top dollar for your car.
And when you’re selling a house, what’s the best way to get the best price? Well, the open house is a popular tactic not only because it reduces the hassle of multiple showings but it sends the message that “see, there are a lot of other people interested in this place, so you’d better get out the checkbook and do something before somebody else snaps this one up.”
This list could go on – sports contract negotiations, the rising cost of newly minted Stanford computer science majors in Silicon Valley, etc.
So why, when it comes to your most valuable asset – you – should you be content to take a one-at-a-time approach to speaking with your “buyers?”
Rather, wouldn’t it be smart to get all of your potential prospects competing against each other for your services?
We’ve heard from subscribers who have used the information on TheLadders.com to get just this dynamic going. In fact, our database of jobs is at the size today that I’d even recommend that somebody who happened to have a great job offer that they found someplace other than TheLadders.com, should still sign up for the service to get accurate information about what “market price” is for your specialty and experience, and, even better, get competing offers so as to vastly improve your negotiating leverage.
Because when you have multiple companies competing for your services in a short period of time, that is the best way for you to get the best offer possible – the additional salary, the role negotiated in your favor, the broader set of responsibilities you are seeking. The fear of loss and the competitive dynamic that multiple, simultaneous offers creates can only work to your advantage.
It works for cars, houses, professional baseball players, and Silicon Valley computer scientists… why shouldn’t you put this powerful negotiating stratagem in your corner when it comes time to change your job?
Interviewing.
The interview can be one of those sweaty-hand inducing, stressful situations that make us feel like we’re back in high school. The power dynamics of the situation, the feeling that somebody is going to be judging us based on our performance in a one-hour interview with their questions on their turf, creates a lot of apprehension.
And when we talk to hiring managers, or we reflect on the people who interview for jobs here at TheLadders, it seems that that apprehension can get in the way of a great interview performance.
There are really three important considerations for you to keep in mind:
First, this is not an opportunity for therapy,
Second, this is not a Biography TV special on the “Life of Aron”, and
Third, you should walk into the interview with three key points you want to make, and regardless of the questions, you should ensure that you make them.
Look, the job hunt can be a lonely, frustrating, boring, alienating process. You can’t share your experiences with the people at work, you don’t want to burden your loved ones with the gritty details of your saga, and it can feel like you have this entire weight solely on your own shoulders.
The biggest mistake that I see people make is taking the opportunity of the interview to unload all of these fears, apprehensions, and frustrations on the interviewer. I know, believe me I know, how maddening a process this whole job hunt can be, but it is critically important that you not use the valuable time you have in an interview to relieve yourself of all your complicated feelings about this job hunt. You have only a half-hour or an hour to make your case, and time spent bemoaning your fate is only going to make it more likely that your job hunt is going to last even longer.
Your interviewer is not your therapist, job counselor, career advisor, or even a friendly ear to bend. They are the gatekeeper between you and your next job, and you need to use your time to persuade them about your fit, not abuse them with your fears.
You do need to get a support system – your college buddies, your family, your friends are all there to help you. And even though it can feel like you are burdening them, friends and family want to see you succeed. Get your frustrations out of your system before you step into the interview room.
Secondly, don’t recount your biography. The temptation can be to retell your life story – after all, you’ve lived it, and it is certainly quite a dramatic adventure to you! But an undifferentiated re-telling of your personal history doesn’t make the most effective use of your time. If you spend most of the interview in a chronological discussion of how you got to be the wonderful person that you are today, you’re eating up the time that can be better used making a much more important point – why I am the right person for the job that you are hiring for, Mr. or Ms. Hiring Manager. Which leads us to…
Third, walk into the interview room with three points you want to make. Based on the understandably limited knowledge you have about exactly what the company is looking for, make your best educated guess as to what they’re looking for, find the three most relevant points from your own background, and make those points.
Over the years, I’ve had geniuses and brilliant creative people and deadly effective sales mavens sit on the couch in my office. And while they’ve made compelling, wonderful stories out of their own experience, they haven’t always connected the dots from what they’ve done to what they can do for me or for their future employers. Make it simple for the interviewer to walk out of that room with the three bullet points they can share with their colleagues about why you have to be the candidate they hire.
If you’re applying for a sales manager position for an outside sales force in agricultural equipment, focus on sales management, outside sales strategies, and your ability to move agricultural equipment, not on your civic awards, excellence in restructuring during the last downturn, or your most recent contributions to improving call center management. While all are wonderful achievements, only the relevant ones help the interviewer understand how you can make their life easier by filling the position that they are hiring for today.
Even better, ask them at the beginning of the interview: “what are the three key things you are looking to do with this hire?” If they say, we’re looking for a marketing superstar who can build a direct marketing team, improve our gross margins, and revamp our franchisee co-op marketing program, then focus on the parts of your resume that highlight your abilities to do just that. Don’t go into a detailed discussion of your college test scores, your many awards for creative brilliance, or your long track record in turning around PR organizations.
It sounds awfully simple, and it is: focus your interview conversations on the three areas most likely to indicate that you are a match for this job. And don’t leave the room until you’ve made those three points loud and clear.
Do something!
Being in my hometown this weekend, I asked my Mom if she had any advice for all of you, our loyal subscribers, on your job hunts. And she said “Spring is here, the crocuses are blooming. Hitch up your britches and get going!”
OK, well, I don’t know what crocuses are, either, but we never go too wrong when we follow Mom’s advice, do we?
And sure enough, when we look at the people who have been successful using TheLadders.com, they hitched up their britches and got going. They re-wrote their resume, reached out to recruiters, and applied for jobs on the site.
I suppose not so surprisingly, when we studied those folks who hadn’t yet found their job on TheLadders.com, we discovered that many just weren’t using the system to full effect:
Their resumes were really just a list of past positions and responsibilities, rather than an effective marketing document showcasing their strengths.
They weren’t reaching out to recruiters posting in their industry or field.
And this was surprising to us – many weren’t applying for jobs! Or even clicking on all that many!
Folks, we’ve built an effective system for finding you your next $100k+ job, but it is a system that requires your commitment and dedication. You have to take some responsibility for reaching out to recruiters and putting your credentials in for the jobs that are right for you. Unfortunately, nobody has yet built the system that lets you just sit back and watch the job offers roll in.
So, let’s take Mom’s advice, hitch up those britches, and get going! Search through jobs, set up a search agent, get your resume re-written professionally or read through advice on how to do it yourself, and reach out to recruiters in your field.
It’s spring, and it’s time for the crocuses, and you, to bloom!
Thanks for taking the time to read through this rather lengthy missive, Readers. It really does sum up the best job hunt advice I have to give, and I hope you find it as useful to put into practice as I found it enjoyable to share with you.
Happy hunting!
Warmest Regards,
Marc Cenedella
Founder & CEO
TheLadders.com, Inc.
Stop employees from leaking your corporate data
Stop employees from leaking your corporate data: "
You might know how to secure your network devices and datacenters to keep your corporate intelligence safe. But do you know how to teach your employees how to guard against attacks -- not generically, but based on the work they do?
Experts suggest that a well-constructed security plan involves customized training by job function. You need to tell your HR people to manage personnel files that might reside in multiple locations, your facilities crew to watch out for people entering the building with fake IDs and your salespeople to guard access to the companys CRM system.
Trusting an employee with access to mission-critical or sensitive systems is a risky but unavoidable gamble. Lets face it: People are wild cards. In fact, lets take the gambling analogy a step further. Just as casinos thwart cheaters at every table or station on their floors, so, too, can IT officials thwart breaches by customizing security plans for individual employees in every zone of their companies.
[ Learn more about combatting data leaks in: 'The debate over the right data loss prevention strategy.' ]
In fact, casino practices can be translated to the corporate IT world to create at a common-sense list of dos and donts for redoubling security based on who does what job. The lessons we learn from craps pits and blackjack tables reveal that its never wise to entrust your businesss most valuable or vulnerable assets to a single employee. Instead, compartmentalize access whenever possible, and never hesitate to look over employees shoulders.
Above all, follow the golden rule of a casino: Gauge your level of risk and develop airtight audit trails, urges Bruce Schneier, a security expert in Mountain View, Calif., who has written several books on computer and network security, including Applied Cryptography (Wiley, 1996). Schneier often uses the casino metaphor to drive home important points surrounding individualized security. 'If you look at a casino floor, you will notice immediately that people are watching people,' he says. 'Thats because a lot of cash is moving, and its moving very quickly.'
Just as edgy casino managers constantly size up everyone on the floor as potential security threats, so must corporate IT security leaders size up every employee. 'People are the weakest link in security. They always have been, and you will never change that,' Schneier says. 'But the reality is that youve got to deal with people, and people are going to make mistakes.'
Security isnt the responsibility of a single security manager or even a security department. Just as quality was understood in the 1980s to be the responsibility of everyone in an organization, so, too, is security everyones responsibility.
Each person in the organization creates, works with, transports and stores valuable information and physical assets. And each employee has a responsibility to safeguard those assets. Unfortunately, too often employees arent educated by the organization as to what their duties are and how they can effectively manage risk while still getting their jobs done.
And the idea that an organization must guard against nefarious insider activity isnt new, either. 'Most effective security programs address the people element, and any job function with access to an organizations valuable resources or assets is a risk,' explains Kent Anderson, managing director of Network Risk Management LLC in Portland, Ore. Anderson cites a wide range of personnel who pose mighty risks -- everyone from security guards to IT workers to higher-level executives with the authority to override security controls.
The people problem continues to grow, since it is now harder to differentiate between internal and external threats. 'The difference between an insider and an outsider is no longer clear,' says Anderson, who cautions corporations to be aware of the ways that contractors, outsourcers, vendors, partner companies and suppliers could gain access to sensitive corporate data -- either by accident or by design.
While spotting risks can be tricky enough, addressing weaknesses is even tougher, says Anderson. For example, security training programs often prove ineffective, and many employees will continually disregard advice and fail to pay heed to the cautionary tales delivered at droning security seminars.
'The average employee view is one-dimensional. These individuals are not looking at security from the standpoint of accountability for the organization. They are looking at the issue only as it affects their level of responsibility,' observes Norris Roberts, director of technology for the Jennings, Mo., school district.
A quarterly employee-awareness seminar might provide a check for a compliance-driven security program, but if the employees are left to try to figure out how to apply security controls to their day-to-day job functions, that will probably never happen, says Anderson.
Roberts rattles off a list of security measures employees are likely to ignore. 'Strong password practices are not being applied. The sharing of passwords continues. Good e-mail practices are ignored. And overall, inappropriate user rights and privileges remain a huge problem,' he says.
'The most common mistake when educating end users about security awareness is that the training is frequently presented in a Draconian fashion, which does nothing to encourage employees to cooperate with the policies being implemented,' notes Eddie Zeitler, executive director of International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium Inc., or (ISC)2, in Palm Harbor, Fla.
'Security awareness doesnt have to be boring,' he says, quickly adding that companies must do far more than just jazz up security training efforts. To make employees more invested, IT shops must convince workers that security measures are imposed for the benefit of both employer and employee.
'If employees realize they could lose their jobs over something that could have been prevented by practicing common-sense security measures, they are given extra incentive to play by the rules,' Zeitler says.
Playing by the rules is non-negotiable at casinos, where the stakes are high. Corporations that have just as much to lose must constantly communicate the same message. Only then will granting the privilege of access no longer be such a gamble.
Computerworldis an InfoWorld affiliate.
(Via InfoWorld RSS Feed.)
Guerrilla IT: How to stop worrying and learn to love your superusers
Guerrilla IT: How to stop worrying and learn to love your superusers: "
Here's a sobering statistic: Eighty percent of enterprise IT functions are being duplicated by folks outside of the IT department, says Hank Marquis, director of ITSM (IT systems management) consulting at Enterprise Management Associates. In other words, for every 10 people doing IT work as part of their jobs, you've got another eight 'shadow IT' staffers doing it on their own.
You probably know them. They're the ones who installed their own Wi-Fi network in the break room and distribute homemade number-crunching apps to their coworkers on e-mail. They're hacking their iPhones right now to work with your company's mail servers. In short, they're walking, talking IT governance nightmares.
But they could be your biggest assets, if you use them wisely.
[ Somefirms are already allowing users to manage their own PCs -- anathema to many discussing the practice ]
The reason superusers go rogue is usually frustration, says Marquis. 'It's a symptom of the IT organization being unable to meet or even understand the needs of its customers,' he says. 'Otherwise, it wouldn't be happening.'
The solution? Put them to work.
'Most IT managers have too many requirements and not enough time or budget to get everything done and keep everyone happy,' says Jeffrey Hammond, senior analyst at Forrester Research. 'If your infrastructure is flexible enough, you can let superusers solve their own problems, take the heat off your developers, and provide some of your business needs.'
Here are five tips for getting the most out of your superusers.
[ TipNo. 1: Leverage the knowledge -- without the noise ]
(Via Clippings.)
How to Inspire People Like Obama
How to Inspire People Like Obama
By Carmine Gallo
Public speaking skills are critical to the success of every leader. Over the past several years, I have been interviewing, observing, and writing about business, academic, and political leaders who have the ability to influence their audience – leaders who fire up the rest of us. Whatever your political leanings, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is one of them. For a look at what makes Obama’s public speaking skills so effective, I outline four techniques this Presidential hopeful has mastered and explain ways to use them in your own repertoire.
1. Hold Out Hope
Like Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama speaks in the uplifting rhetoric of hope. After his defeat in New Hampshire, Obama’s political oratory was so hopeful he sounded more like a winner than a runner–up. Obama knew a hopeful message would embolden his supporters. In a speech on Jan. 8, 2008, Obama said, “We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change… We have been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”
You are the leader people want to believe in. Your customers and employees are bombarded by bad news – the credit crunch, a housing slump, an economic slowdown – but they are eager to hear something positive. That doesn’t mean leaders stick their heads in the sand – far from it. Inspiring leaders acknowledge the situation but also remind people of reasons to be optimistic.
2. Use Rhetorical Devices
Many observers say Obama sounds like King. This is because he uses some of the same techniques that made King an electrifying speaker.
Parallel structure. We can thank the ancient Greeks for this rhetorical tool – they called it “anaphora.” It simply means repeating the same word or expression at the beginning of successive sentences or phrases. One of the most famous examples is King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed…. I have a dream that… I have a dream…” Obama uses the same device frequently. In his Iowa victory speech on Jan. 3, Obama said, “You have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do. You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year.”
Anaphora’s sister technique is called “epistrophe.” It is the repetition of a word or expression at the end of successive sentences or phrases. For example, in Obama’s New Hampshire speech, the expression “Yes, we can” rallied thousands of supporters when used like this, “It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out for distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.”
Alliteration. Both Kennedy and King were fond of this device that strings together words starting with similar sounds. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech that brought Obama to prominence, he said, “Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?” In 2005, during a commencement speech at Knox College, Obama described America as “a place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped…” When speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in August, 2006, Obama proclaimed, “The history of America is one of tragedy turned into triumph.” In January’s New Hampshire speech, Obama used alliteration again: “We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics.”
Rich Imagery. Persuasive speakers have long understood the power of imagery to stir emotions – the creation of mental pictures through the words. In his 2004 speech, Obama described what he meant by the audacity of hope: “It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs, the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores, the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta, the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds, the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.”
3. Exude Confidence
In debates Obama appears unflappable, answering tough questions while maintaining strong eye contact. He doesn’t fidget or shake his head when listening to sharp attacks from his opponents. While seated, he leans slightly forward. People will make an impression of you after only a few seconds. Pay attention to what your body is saying. Communicate confidence, competence, and control.
4. Use Dynamic Vocal Delivery
A monotonous speaking style lulls the listener to sleep, regardless of the power of the content. Obama knows how to enhance his delivery. Consider these three aspects of his delivery.
Pacing. Obama varies the speed at which he speaks. Very few sentences are delivered at exactly the same pace.
Volume. In his victory speech after the Iowa caucuses, Obama raised the volume of his speech with each sentence in the following paragraph: “We are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come.”
Pauses. Nothing is as dramatic as a well–placed pause, and Obama knows it. He pauses at key moments to make a memorable impact.
Obama connects with millions of people thanks to his public speaking skills. Consider learning from him to influence your own audience.
Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for the world's most admired brands. His book, "Fire Them Up!", contains insights from top business leaders who inspire through the language of motivation.
By Carmine Gallo
Public speaking skills are critical to the success of every leader. Over the past several years, I have been interviewing, observing, and writing about business, academic, and political leaders who have the ability to influence their audience – leaders who fire up the rest of us. Whatever your political leanings, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is one of them. For a look at what makes Obama’s public speaking skills so effective, I outline four techniques this Presidential hopeful has mastered and explain ways to use them in your own repertoire.
1. Hold Out Hope
Like Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama speaks in the uplifting rhetoric of hope. After his defeat in New Hampshire, Obama’s political oratory was so hopeful he sounded more like a winner than a runner–up. Obama knew a hopeful message would embolden his supporters. In a speech on Jan. 8, 2008, Obama said, “We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change… We have been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”
You are the leader people want to believe in. Your customers and employees are bombarded by bad news – the credit crunch, a housing slump, an economic slowdown – but they are eager to hear something positive. That doesn’t mean leaders stick their heads in the sand – far from it. Inspiring leaders acknowledge the situation but also remind people of reasons to be optimistic.
2. Use Rhetorical Devices
Many observers say Obama sounds like King. This is because he uses some of the same techniques that made King an electrifying speaker.
Parallel structure. We can thank the ancient Greeks for this rhetorical tool – they called it “anaphora.” It simply means repeating the same word or expression at the beginning of successive sentences or phrases. One of the most famous examples is King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed…. I have a dream that… I have a dream…” Obama uses the same device frequently. In his Iowa victory speech on Jan. 3, Obama said, “You have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do. You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year.”
Anaphora’s sister technique is called “epistrophe.” It is the repetition of a word or expression at the end of successive sentences or phrases. For example, in Obama’s New Hampshire speech, the expression “Yes, we can” rallied thousands of supporters when used like this, “It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out for distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.”
Alliteration. Both Kennedy and King were fond of this device that strings together words starting with similar sounds. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech that brought Obama to prominence, he said, “Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?” In 2005, during a commencement speech at Knox College, Obama described America as “a place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped…” When speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in August, 2006, Obama proclaimed, “The history of America is one of tragedy turned into triumph.” In January’s New Hampshire speech, Obama used alliteration again: “We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics.”
Rich Imagery. Persuasive speakers have long understood the power of imagery to stir emotions – the creation of mental pictures through the words. In his 2004 speech, Obama described what he meant by the audacity of hope: “It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs, the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores, the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta, the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds, the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.”
3. Exude Confidence
In debates Obama appears unflappable, answering tough questions while maintaining strong eye contact. He doesn’t fidget or shake his head when listening to sharp attacks from his opponents. While seated, he leans slightly forward. People will make an impression of you after only a few seconds. Pay attention to what your body is saying. Communicate confidence, competence, and control.
4. Use Dynamic Vocal Delivery
A monotonous speaking style lulls the listener to sleep, regardless of the power of the content. Obama knows how to enhance his delivery. Consider these three aspects of his delivery.
Pacing. Obama varies the speed at which he speaks. Very few sentences are delivered at exactly the same pace.
Volume. In his victory speech after the Iowa caucuses, Obama raised the volume of his speech with each sentence in the following paragraph: “We are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come.”
Pauses. Nothing is as dramatic as a well–placed pause, and Obama knows it. He pauses at key moments to make a memorable impact.
Obama connects with millions of people thanks to his public speaking skills. Consider learning from him to influence your own audience.
Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for the world's most admired brands. His book, "Fire Them Up!", contains insights from top business leaders who inspire through the language of motivation.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Akeena touts the ready-to-install solar panel
Akeena touts the ready-to-install solar panel: "Installer's crack. It's one of the major problems of the solar industry."
(Via Clippings.)
Cool Technology of the Week
Cool Technology of the Week: "
I travel about 400,000 miles a year.
I can tolerate the late departures and arrivals, the surly airline staff, and the sardine-like seating arrangements, but the unpredictability of the security screening process is a nightmare. Sometimes I arrive at an airport and jog through the security line in minutes. Many times I arrive to find a security line longer than a football field with an hour long wait, causing me to miss my flight.
Given that I'm a trustworthy traveler who only carries a toothbrush and an extra pair of socks, should I wait in the same line as the once a year traveler with a bag full of liquids/gels, a giant carry on suitcase, and a stroller?
The notion of a 'Registered traveler', who is trustworthy and carries non-repudiatable identity credentials makes a great deal of sense.
Clear has implemented a fast pass for airport security with a process and a smart card. It's the Cool Technology of the Week. Clear members are pre-screened via a government approval process and carry an identity card which allows them to access designated airport security 'fast lanes' nationwide. In my experience at Orlando, Dulles, Reagan, and San Francisco, Clear members pass through airport security faster, with more predictability.
The smart card contains basic demographic data - name and address, but also contains biometric data including a photograph, height, fingerprints and iris scans.
Enrollment is a two step process - an online application and in person identity verification.
The identity verification is completed at a Clear enrollment station (airports supporting the technology), where a Clear staffer verifies two government issued IDs, takes your picture, captures your iris and fingerprint scan, then submits everything to the government for clearance.
Clear's identity theft policy is well thought out and minimizes the risk to the Clear members if their database or card technology is compromised.
The price is $100 per year plus the TSA vetting fee of $28.
I plan on completing my Clear enrollment on my next flight to Washington DC in May. Once I have the card, I can bypass security lines and go directly to baggage screening.
The number of airports supported Clear is growing, but just the support for the Washington DC and San Francisco airports make it worthwhile for me, since I pass through these dozens of times per year. Making the airport experience a little more predictable is about the best way I can improve my mental health in 2008, so Clear is a definitely cool technology."
(Via Clippings.)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Photography Webinar: Five Ways to Impact Your Photos for the Better
Photography Webinar: Five Ways to Impact Your Photos for the Better: "O'Reilly Evangelist Derrick Story brings his popular teaching style to a webcast, where you'll learn five great ways to make your photos stand out."
Another E-mail Etiquette Lesson
I've seen dozens of articles about e-mail etiquette but I'm rapidly becoming convinced that only people who practice good etiquette read them....
Anyhow, here's another one that's quite worthwhile: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/the-email-habits-that-make-people-hate-you/
Anyhow, here's another one that's quite worthwhile: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/the-email-habits-that-make-people-hate-you/
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Opinion: A new kind of Web -- Don't miss these 11 sites
Opinion: A new kind of Web -- Don't miss these 11 sites: "Check out these examples of how the Web is evolving to present information in new ways to help you get organized, boost productivity or just have some fun.
(Via Computerworld Breaking News.)
Roar! New York Public Library joins iTunes U
Roar! New York Public Library joins iTunes U: "
iTunes U, Apple's program to host multimedia files and podcasts for various institutes of learning in the iTunes Store, has a brand new member -- a big one. The New York Public Library has just launched its iTunes U page. Included are lots of audio programs broken up into several sections, as well as some archival material. The best part, of course, is that all of this content is free.
[via NYPL Labs]Read'|'Permalink'|'Email this'|'Comments
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Macworld | Preview’s hidden powers
Find out about getting the most out of PDF documents with built-in OS X software.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, April 4, 2008
Leopard's Unix tricks
Mac OS X 10.5 includes a number of changes to its Unix core, perhaps more than in any prior OS X release. Many of the changes are routine -- updated versions of key Unix programs like the bash shell (from 2.0.5b to 3.2), the vi text editor (from version 6.2 to 7.0), and even the man manual page reader (from 1.5o1 to 1.6c). Most of these alterations, however, will be invisible to the casual Terminal user -- though the new versions may contain some additional features, the programs will still work as they did before.
More interesting are the totally new (or substantially revised) Unix commands in 10.5. Here are my picks for the five most interesting and useful ones.
Those pesky dot-underscore
If youve ever used a USB memory stick to move files to a Windows or Linux machine, or written files to a server that doesnt use the Macs HFS file system, youre probably familiar with the 'dot-underscore files' that are created when you do so; depending on what you did to the files and/or folders on the Mac, you will see any number of file names that begin with dot-underscore (._), followed by the names of the other folders on the disk. The Mac uses these files on its HFS disk, but they are useless on other systems.
Prior to 10.5, you had to manually delete them on the other system or use Terminal trickery to remove them on the Mac prior to copying. As of 10.5, though, you can just use the dot_clean command on the directory in question. Type dot_clean /path/folder to join the dot-underscore files with their parent files. Read OS X 10.5s manual pages (man dot_clean ) for more information.
Learn about kernel extensions
Kernel extensions (also known as kexts) are low-level pieces of code that talk directly to the heart of the Mac operating system. They are powerful and potentially dangerous: If theres a bug in a kernel extension, it can crash your Mac. (At worst, a buggy program can crash only itself.) In 10.5, you can use the kextfind command to find out which kernel extensions are on your machine.
Most of the kernel extensions on your Mac are bundled with OS X; you can see exactly whats installed by using the command kextfind -case-insensitive -bundle-id -substring com.apple. -print | more .
While that command may look intimidating, its actually pretty straightforward. The -case-insensitive argument tells the system to find all matches, regardless of capitalization. Next, -bundle-id and -substring tell kextfind to look for the text string com.apple. in the extensions bundle identifier. The -print switch tells kextfind to output the results to the screen, while | more tells Terminal to pause after each page of output. You can see a list of third-party kernel extensions by inserting -not and a space before -bundle-id in the command above.
Just because an extension is listed, however, doesnt mean its active. To see which of your third-party extensions are active, type kextfind -loaded -not -bundle-id -substring com.apple. | more . This is similar to the other command, with the addition of the -loaded flag, which tells it to list only those extensions that are currently active.
If youre experiencing kernel panics, this list is a good place to start looking for suspects; if you see a likely candidate, try removing the device or program associated with the extension and then rebooting. If your kernel panics vanish, youve found the source of the problem. The man kextfind manual pages have a lot of good examples of other uses for this command.
Dig into installer packages
Apples installer keeps track of things it installs -- you can see everything its done by looking at the /Library/Receipts folder. From there, you can dig into packages and see whats been installed. However, rooting around in that folder by hand isnt much fun -- it requires lots of cd and lsbom commands. OS X 10.5s new pkgutil command simplifies things.
To see a list of installed packages, just type pkgutil --pkgs and press return. Each entry in the list represents a package ID; you can use that string to get more information on any particular package. For instance, if youd like to know every file that was installed with the recent security update, just type the following (but without the line breaks), and then press return:
pkgutil --files com.apple.pkg
.update.security.2007
.009 | more
Set System and Network Preferences
OS X 10.5 has two utilities, systemsetup and networksetup, that allow you to view and configure various network and machinewide System Preferences settings. These programs arent new in 10.5 -- they were available in 10.4, too. But in 10.4, they were buried deep in the System folder. As of 10.5, Apple has placed them in a standard Unix folder, making them easily accessible to everyone.
So what can you do with them, and why would you want to do those things?
One way these programs are useful is in managing remote connections. Say youve used ssh to connect to a remote Mac. You might then need its Ethernet cards MAC address to set up a router. To get that information, type sudo networksetup -getmacaddress en0 . (You need to type sudo to claim the administrative privileges required for these commands.) Want to see what network services are available on the remote Mac? Type networksetup -listallnetworkservices . You can then use the names of those services in other commands, such as the following, which displays the list of DNS servers on the remote Mac: sudo networksetup -getdnsservers 'ethernet 1' . If you wanted to change those DNS servers, youd use the -setdnsservers option.
The systemsetup command is similarly useful. For instance, you can see the settings for your computer and display system sleep times with systemsetup -getcomputersleep and systemsetup -getdisplaysleep . To change the display sleep setting to four minutes, youd type systemsetup -displaysleep 4 .
You can see which of the disks start up a Mac by typing systemsetup -liststartupdisks ; also, you can change a startup disk with the -setstartupdisk option; you follow this option with the path to that disks CoreServices folder, as displayed in the -liststartupdisks option.
Both of these commands have lots of additional features -- check out man systemsetup and man networksetup for a thorough explanation of all of their capabilities.
Rob Griffiths is a senior editor at Macworld.
(Via Clippings.)
Cool Technology of the Week
Cool Technology of the Week: "
One of the challenges of being a CIO is the 'application is slow, can you fix it' phone call. Generally, the network is blamed first, but there are so many layers that all need to be examined - desktop, network, server, storage, database, active directory, internet service provider etc.
We recently worked with our electronic health record infrastructure partner, Concordant, to do an end to end application performance analysis.
The tools they employed were:
WhatsUp Gold for Network and Server Monitoring
Windows Performance Monitor for Server and Client Monitoring
OPNET Ace for End to End Network traffic analysis
Computer Associates eHealth for Network Monitoring
The general approach they used covered three domains. They began by identifying and defining the problems from a user perspective. This helped to identify issues related to system performance versus non-technical issues that amplified the technical issues and affected user perception of performance, e.g. training, improper usage of the application. They used multiple subject matter experts to focus on the different domains to ensure they had the in-depth knowledge to evaluate each of them.
The three investigation domains and key focus areas within each domain were:
Client
End User Observation & Interviews
Client device performance analysis
Device configuration & Log review
Device specification analysis per application vendor recommendations
Network
WAN link utilization
Device performance analysis
Device configuration & Log review
Packet Loss & Latency analysis
Traffic Analysis
Infrastructure
Server and Storage performance analysis
Device configuration & Log review
Service and Process performance analysis
Device specification analysis per application vendor recommendations
The findings from the assessment did not identify a 'magic bullet' issue that caused performance issues, but instead identified multiple smaller issues that combined to impact system performance.
In my experience of troubleshooting complex IT systems, I've found that the comprehensive approach outlined above works very well.
If I had to choose one simple approach to determine the cause of application performance issues, I would:
1. Check to see that the desktop, the server, and the database all have their network cards set to Auto, since performance problems are often network card duplex mismatches
2. Install OPNET agents on the client and server. More often than not, OPNET rapidly identifies root causes of application performance issues.
Based on my positive experience with OPNET, including in this particular project, I'm naming OPNET as the cool technology of the week. Now I can respond to the 'application is slow' question with an OPNET answer."
(Via Clippings.)
Recovering Data from Windows Systems by Using Linux
Recovering Data from Windows Systems by Using Linux: "In a recent blog item here titled Linux ext2 recovery, NTFS, and Ghost my Inside Port 25 blogging colleague Dustin Puryear mentioned Chris Traver's great technical analysis note... Recovering Data from Windows Systems by Using Linux I thought it might be useful..."
(Via Clippings.)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Opinion: The top 25 overlooked and underrated features in Leopard
Opinion: The top 25 overlooked and underrated features in Leopard: "With more than 300 new features in Mac OS X 10.5, it's easy to miss a few. We point out 25 that are too useful to ignore.
(Via Computerworld Breaking News.)
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Four free Registry utilities make Windows faster, safer
Four free Registry utilities make Windows faster, safer: "
The last time Windows' System Restore failed on me, I didn't blink an eye. I gave up trusting Microsoft's own Registry safety net a long time ago. And considering the quality Registry freeware available, there's no reason you should rely on Windows to repair and recover from ...
"(Via Clippings.)
Step by Step: Using Samba to join a Windows Domain
Step by Step: Using Samba to join a Windows Domain: "
Samba has made getting Linux and Windows systems talking to each other much easier than it once was. But there are still some tasks that are more than a little finicky. One of them is definitely joining a Samba client to a domain-based Windows network. Luckily, now you'll have a step by step guide to doing just that."
(Via Clippings.)
Destroy Your Most Hated Gadget, Take Pictures
Destroy Your Most Hated Gadget, Take Pictures: "Wired.com's photo department asks readers to submit photographs of gadgetry in the process of being beaten down and destroyed.
(Via Clippings.)
10 Best: April Fools' Gags (the Web Is Closing for Spring Cleaning!)
10 Best: April Fools' Gags (the Web Is Closing for Spring Cleaning!): "Check out Wired's choices for the 10 best practical tricks honoring those fools of April.
(Via Clippings.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
