Yesterday, I got the question “why do you blog?” of course I had around a million answers to respond with. Then I realized that the reason the person asked was not to find out why I blogged but to see if there was any reason to why he should blog.
This got me thinking about what [...]
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Networking Tips: Modern Examples of Conversational Clothing
Posted By Annelie Näs on February 17th, 2010
If you have read about networking you have probably come across the tools that are “conversational clothing.” The idea of conversational clothing is to wear items that catch people’s attention and invite a conversation. A very common example is a pin. A pin that you might have inherited from your aunt, found in an English second hand-store or that have some other interesting story. Thus by wearing this pin and being asked for it, you can network and start conversations easily with an “easy in.”
Now, as you might have guessed I don’t use pins, I never have and I’m pretty sure I don’t even own one. Considering that they are not that fashionable I guess that the same thing goes for you, if you are a girl. If you are a guy, then you probably never used one.
Recently though, I figured out that I do own an item that really catches people’s attention 
and create conversations. It’s a beanie, with the print “bad hair day.” In Sweden this beanie has been very popular during the last winters and if you Google the print on the beanie, you will find a lot of conversation around it. However, as I do not live in Sweden I manage to create a lot of conversations while wearing this, mostly because people wonder if I’m actually having a bad hair day or if I just like the hat. And everyone especially in the morning seems to wonder were to get one.
This made me start to think about the benefit of conversational clothing and how ridiculously effective it can be. In my case I manage to talk with a lot of people who I often just greet briefly, and it is just because of the hat. What other things could be useful?
A friend recently launched her own business, Nuance Journals, which creates and sells hand-made journals. Now, if you take a look at these journals they truly have personality and look very unique, which I think could create a few conversations. I mean in a time where it is difficult to impress with the latest tech-item, this might be the excellent choice.
How about you? What do you use for to start conversations? Have you tried wearing conversational clothing, or do you own any items that create conversation?
Posted in Career development
10 Reasons To Why Students Should Blog
Posted By Annelie Näs on February 1st, 2010
Yesterday, I got the question “why do you blog?” of course I had around a million answers to respond with. Then I realized that the reason the person asked was not to find out why I blogged but to see if there was any reason to why he should blog.
This got me thinking about what blogging has done to me, and why I continue to blog. Thus I wanted to create a list to why I think that students should blog to complement their studies and choice their own professional path. Because I honestly believe that when I want to apply for a job or make decisions for my career this blog will matter.
Blogs give individuals an opportunity to express their opinions and make them count in a world of millions of others. Years ago, you needed to be a journalist or a politician to get your opinion heard; today, blogs offer anyone the opportunity to express oneself.
Now this list is written on the presumptions that writing is a way of studying; When you have put something in your own words you know it a lot better than if you only read it. Also, I talk about blogging about subjects, interest etc. and not a personal blog about what I did today.
1. Gain a deeper knowledge for the subject you are studying – or show people that you know about another subject.
When it comes to University classes I many times feel that even though I’m taking classes in subjects that interests me and the classes are really good, I do not really learn what had expected to learn. By blogging you can assign yourself any subject you want to analyze and write about and then learn about it yourself.
2. Improve your creativity by finding new subject to write about.
Initially blogging might be very easy and the subject may come to you by the second, but sometimes you will lose your flow or you might not find and interesting angle. Then creativity will be essential to keep your blogging up, and of course there will be other ways to improve your creativity like with the blog design etc.
3. Develop your analytical thinking though writing insightful posts.
It is one thing to republish the news or the facts that you read about, but adding value to them and figure out new angles is what will improve your analytical thinking. After all, for most subjects people already have a source for the news, so from you they will be looking for something a bit more insightful.
4. Create pieces for discussion and debate subjects that interest you through comments on your blog.
I bet that you many times wonder about what other people think about a subject. A blog could be the ideal way to find the answers. Many bloggers write about subjects that interest them and ask questions or do other things to make people comment. Then they learn from others by reading and participating in the discussion that can come out from that.
5. Improve your language skills, writing will give you a wider vocabulary and better grammar and if you prefer your could practice your professional writing.
As I write in my second language I broaden my vocabulary by having to find words representing what I am trying to say. But if you blog in your first language this same thing will probably work with synonyms and finding more precise definitions on what you are trying to say. Thus both will give you a wider vocabulary. Along with this you will improve your grammar by writing on a regular basis. Here I also want to point out that a blog, if you want it to, could be great way to learn to write professionally so that you are always ready to present yourself well.
6. Show that you are trustworthy by keeping the promise to your readers – blog on a regular basis.
All bloggers know that the traffic to their site decrease if they do not update regularly. Now what regularly means defers between bloggers, some updates a few times daily, while I update two or three times a week. This is what my readers expect from me and that is what I give you.
7. Improve your skills to express yourself, practice to write in a way that influences people.
It is one thing to use well thought out words and proper grammar, but expressing yourself in a way that influences people takes quite some talent. Some might have I naturally, while others have to work on it, and might never reach the same level. A blog could be a great place to practice.
8. Show that the interest that you have for your future profession is a passion.
Now, when most students who come home from school might be tired of the subject they study and want to do something else. Which is why showing a real interest for the subject you study could give you a great advantage in the future. When it comes to hiring, who will an employer choice – the blogger or the student watching tv?
9. Build a name for yourself, a personal brand, share your ideas and thoughts with the world and let them get to know you.
A blog is a great way to take control of your personal brand, to show people who you are. Now, you might not be an expert in a subject, and be honest about that. But you still can contribute you can still teach people who now less than you about the subject something. Or perhaps you can give a person who knows more a few great ideas. Let people get to know you and what you think, and one day you will probably be an expert.
10. Create a written portfolio showing that you are knowledgeable in the subject that you want to work in and you are very likely to get a head when you want to apply of a job.
What all comes down to, it being prepared for your future profession. Surely a diploma and a degree will do that, but your fellow student will have that to and compete for the same jobs. A blog will give you a differentiator, a lead, something that proves that you know what you are talking about. It is a written portfolio of your thoughts and ideas, or perhaps pictures, which make you, stand out.
Now, already when writing this I can think of more ideas, but I am going to stop here for now. I have given your some of reasons and explanations and left some things unsaid. Do you blog? Why do you blog? Why do you recommend others to blog? It is your turn to contribute to the list..
This week’s challenge: do a spell and grammar check for your LinkedIn profile.
Posted By Annelie Näs on January 27th, 2010
I’m the expert at missing a letter here or there when I type, especially when the missed or wrong letter only give me another word and thus are not caught by the automatic spell checker. However, I believe that in blog posts for example, people tend to forgive misspelled words easier than on a resume.
Lately I have read a lot of CV’s and personal letters as I’m about to completely rewrite my CV and personal introduction as it has been awhile since the last time. Though many people have managed to inspire me in with their CVs and LinkedIn pages, I’m still chocked of how people seem to forget to proofread and complete a grammar check on their LinkedIn page, something they tend to be better at on their other CV’s.
I think this is because people tend to spend less time setting up their LinkedIn profile than writing a CV. Also, I think is more likely that, people review their resumes before sending them out and do not have the habit of doing the same with their LinkedIn profile page. This is unfortunate, because almost all headhunters will Google you, and hopefully find your LinkedIn page. Thus, your LinkedIn page might be a big part of your application even though if you don’t link to it.
Therefore, I challenge all of you to do a spell and grammar check to your LinkedIn profile before the weekend!
Please share if you completed the challenge and if you indeed found any spelling or grammatical errors.
Posted in Career development
Use Google Alerts to Receive an International Daily Update of Your Favorite Subject
Posted By Annelie Näs on December 22nd, 2009
Recently I have started to use Google alerts to track more and more subjects that I have different interest in. From the beginning I mainly used it to track the buzz around the company I have been working for but many more ways to use it. So, in case you only use it for that or any other one reason, I thought I would share how I use it.
The way I use Google Alert makes it become a daily digest with an international summary of my interest, kind of my personal newspaper. Here is a few ways to use it:
Tracking your personal or company brand
Track your name or the name of your company, so that you can read anything that is being said about you. This is good both to see what people are saying, but it also gives you the opportunity to quickly respond to things that are said. As an example this can help your customer service to catch unsatisfied customers and make sure that they will return in the future.
Track the company you want to work for
If you are looking to work at a particular company it can be great to track what is being said about them. That will give you an opportunity to get to know about their staff, customers and client. This knowledge could give you an advantage in an interview and before that it might help you find out if you are what they are looking for, or how your knowledge could help their business.
Research a subject you are interested in
Tracking everything that is being said about the thing you are interested in might be a lot if it is a broad subject. However, you can choice either to specify your interest or to choice to have the alerts “once a day” or even “once a week” so that your inbox doesn’t get flooded with updates. Personally I limited one of my interests by choosing to only follow it in Swedish, as it is a subject is a lot smaller in Swedish, so that is an opportunity to. Either way, by tracking you interest you will be really up-to-date with what is going on, all over the world.
Is one-way communication enough in the 21th century?
Posted By Annelie Näs on November 19th, 2009
Once I heard about a man who was considered an excellent communicator. He always returned letters and phone calls, and remembered to get in touch with people he had not talked to in a while. Quite impressive to accomplish that reputation without the techniques we have today. Most people did not know the keys behind his skills; discipline and continuity. Every Tuesday leaving work and spending a few hours with his family, he went to his study and did all his correspondence in one night. Sure, this might seem a bit strict and impersonal, but no one knew, they just admired him for always getting in touch.
How good are we really at communicating today? What do you do and how well do you do it? Could you become better at emailing old associates, contacting them more often? What opportunities did you lose because you did not follow-up?
We have social media, email, cell phones, instant messages, and the more traditional tools as well, but how much to we really use them. When your wall on Facebook is constantly filled with information about what your friends are up to, and will blogs you get the details as well, in other words one-way communication. So, do you really email them and call them to ask them another time what you already know or do you spare your conversations for the people you meet everyday instead? Does this mean that even though technique is making communication easier, we actually drift further away from our associates?
Time is money, but lost opportunity is also an expense. In the end, how many lost contact can you afford, or will people still consider you a contact just because you are connected on facebook?
How many letters have you send this year? I often read in marketing books that sending a letter to a person is a great way to market because it is much unexpected today. I would love to get a letter from a company instead of an advertisement, but I do not have one yet. This goes for personal situations as well, I would love to get a letter once in a while instead of a mail. Because it feels like someone actually took the time to contact me. When I moved to D.C. a few relatives and I started sending letters and pictures to each other by mail instead of the more usual email, and every time I got one it made my day. That little action that show that someone thought a little bit extra on me means so much. So why are we not doing that more often?
Maybe letters are not the way you communicate. But the issue seem to be the same with email and text messages. People do not take the time to communicate as much nowadays, and the new excuses keep coming.
Will people stop caring about nurturing relationships because they will accept that no one has the time? Or can you become a real winner in the situation by actually making an effort to communicate? And is that even possible if the person you are trying to contact with has chosen the first?
Personally, I will continue to make an effort to communicate, and if it comes to it, I will put correspondence on the agenda.
What do you think?
What is the art of powering through?
Posted By Annelie Näs on October 28th, 2009
Everyone is different and thus work in different ways. I guess this is also the case when it comes to getting things done. Now, I have not read the book “Getting things done,” which I have been meaning to, so my opinion might change. But for now, I would say that everyone has different ways to complete their todo-list. That is if you even keep a todo-list.
As you know, from a previous post I have a todo-list actually I have a to-do book. Keeping a list makes me more structured and help me to not forget about those smaller things that could make a difference, but is not really super important. Anyway, I am usually very good at getting things done and thus crossing them of the list. But once in a while I find myself struggling with one or two of the things I need to get done, for various reasons. I am sure you recognize the situation.
Anyway, in the past I usually dealt with the situation by doing everything else on the list until the only thing I had left was the thing I really dreaded doing. This used to work very well, and I was happy keeping it this way because I spent most of my time doing the things I liked to do. However, this stopped working the day my list grew longer and the things I was postponing became more time consuming. Thus, instead of only postponing them until I had to complete them, I ended up never doing them, because never managed to get everything else done. So to not be known as someone who did not keep her word, and most for my own sake, I needed to find a solution, and I did.
I decided to complete my todos in a hierarchal order no matter how much I was dreading them, the only time I am allowed to bend this rule is for things that come with a time-frame. Said and done, I began following my new rule. Which worked great for a while, and I got a few things I really dreaded to do crossed off.
However, when I again ended up in a situation where there were less things on my list, I realized that I not only neglected the highest priority things, I did nothing else either. I got lazy! So, perhaps I should change back to my previous rule, since that worked better when I had less things going on?
Do you have a todo-list? What are your secrets to getting things done? How do you power through those things that you really do not feel like doing?
Get better by saying NO and succeed
Posted By Annelie Näs on October 5th, 2009
I am one of those people who have a really difficult time saying no. Especially when it comes to things I enjoy, but also when it comes to doing people a favor. My problem is so big that the parents of my friends started telling my mom that I would get burned out when I was only 14. I am still not close to burned out and I will not be as long as I remember how and why to say no.
But I’m not supposed to talk about me; I just want to remind all other people like me why it is sometimes better to say no.
Many students who have shown their capability in the beginning of their study program start getting a few or more offers as they reach graduation day. By this time they also start feeling the pressure of having to find a job and mange to support themselves after school. Thus it is easy to begin accepting every offer, take extra classes etc. To make sure, that you have done your best when it is time to graduate.
Of course this might be the best you can do and it could open a lot of opportunities. But it could also mean that you are taking on too much, and that is the danger of it all. If you start taking on too much you cannot longer perform the best at everything you do, and will have to start compromising to have time to get everything done.
This mean that you can end up on the “okey” pile in a lot of what you do instead of the “excellent” pile in everything you do. And which one of these piles will matter in the end?
Surely this is not only a problem that students face, but that all human who strive to be the best and to succeed. You can be at many stages in your development, sometimes you have to get better at your weaknesses and other times you should focus on what your good at etc. But either or you should never take on too much at the same, time leading to not succeeding in anything.
Because after all people like successful people and head hunters want the best! Show yourself that you can do a few things great and believe in what you do and they will see it as well.
Why everyone should try a Business Simulator
Posted By Annelie Näs on August 16th, 2009
Once again I will talk a little bit about what we got to learn from the Emax event. This time it is more practical, regarding the business simulation competition we had and why I think that every student and business leader should have the opportunity to “play” that game.
For those who does not know about it the Business Simulation I have pulled up the Wikipedia description for you: Business simulation games, or economic simulation games, are games that focus on the management of economic processes, usually in the form of a business. Basically when we play we take over the position as CEO for a company and therefore also all the responsibilities of decision making etc.
Before I go on I just want to highlight, that I don’t know more about this simulation then what I found out when we played. So I when I talk about a function of the simulation, that is how it worked for us and there is a big possibility that the program is a lot more advanced and can work in different ways depending on who is playing etc.
When we played we got to run a company in the technology sector, we did not know more about the products than what we could assume from our own experience. With the help from tutorials, market reviews and our own strategies we had to make decisions that followed that. The goal was to get the higher stock index after four years. There were many variables and situations to take into account when we made decisions which were very difficult but so useful.
Playing the simulation games taught us stuff that we would never have learned from school.
We had to learn:
- How to make decisions and stick with them.
- How to form a strategy and how sticking with that strategy is essential for success.
- And that a company cannot be good at everything.
This forced us make decisions that will make us unique in some way. We knew this in theory from school, but know we had to do it in practice. Whether is trough cheap prices or the best quality, we had to be best at something otherwise it will be impossible to lead a successful company. And the stock index showed us, when we were not doing it right…
Getting the practical training in this was so much more useful than study all the theories in practice. Sure we have to learn that to, but it is as people say “Everything you learn in school is useless when you start working.”
But I don’t think that these simulations are only good for students, I think that the SAS management for example could learn some from this. Because personally I have no idea what they are trying to be best at. They definitely do not have the best customer service, nor do they have the lowest prices. They don’t fly to any hard to reach destinations or anything like that, and they don’t pay their staff as much as foreign airlines do. Still they manage to keep a steady amount of customers, probably because they have a good reputation. But that probably is from before they had any competition.
Therefore I think SAS and other companies need to play games like this, to become better at taking bold decision. They also need to practice taking decisions and sticking with them. In the game you can never change the decision you made and you don’t know what will happen, but you still have to make them. That is good practice!
What do you think? Is taking decisions something that you need to precise at?
Also, if I conviced you to try I recommend the BTS Business Simulation, which is the one we played.
How To: Stay in while your out!
Posted By Annelie Näs on July 11th, 2009
In May this year I left my job, which I first started as an intern, to go back to school and finish up my degree. During my last few months at my job as a marketing specialist I really put a focus on social media and started this blog, got into the twittering and multiple other social media sites. After I left it feels like the whole social media world has speeded up and I am not following the developments as fast as I used to.
Because of this I know that I need a plan to be able to stay in contact with what I want to do while I’m not doing it. I wanted to share some of the things I do to make sure to stay current.
- Make sure to stay update with the developments. I use google reader and follow a few dozen blog writing about marketing, social media and Internet etc. Many of these might publish the same stories, but that hopefully mean that they will cover what I cannot miss.
Google reader: http://www.google.com/reader/
- Set up an activity plan for yourself. It is so easy to postpone things when you are doing it for yourself and not for someone else, which is why it can be good to have a plan to keep track of your progress. Make sure to put a note of what days you might have to skip some activities to make sure it doesn’t become a habit.
This list from Chris Brogan is a good example: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/19-presence-management-chores-you-could-do-every-day/ - Publish your own view on what is going on. Everyone does not need to have a blog but when I will go to my next job interview after I’m finished with school it will be a lot easier to say that I know social media if I can actually prove it. But especially when you are not currently in the field it can be difficult to find things to write about. Therefore try to read what’s going on and give the news your own angle, if you have trouble finding one, talk to your friends about the news and discuss it, I’m sure multiple angles will turn up.
I hope that this give you an idea to what you can do. I see this working in a lot of other fields that what I do, and especially in this economic downturn it is important to not fall behind when you get laid off.
What about personal branding for actors?
Posted By Annelie Näs on June 2nd, 2009
Today there are thousands of TV-shows, some run just a few episodes, others play numerous seasons, some last for decades. The actors in these TV-shows usually grow very famous for the role they are playing, and people start knowing them for the character from the show.
Many times in the past I have read stories that the actors want “out” from the series because they are afraid that they will get stuck in a particular genera, and wont be offered other types of roles.
Even though I always missed the characters when they left and the show usually changes when a main character leave, I usually agreed with the actors when they in the articles said it to be a career move. And a while later I also moved on the another show.
However, lately I have been thinking about this phenomenon and the fact that the actors that leave these series rarely become very famous doing something else. Of course there are exceptions, actors who have done very good after leaving a show, but mostly they disappear.
I cannot say for sure what the reason is to why they never return to their fame again. But it is probably good for them like it is for the rest of us, to stick with the things that you are good at. There are so many actors that only do comedies, science fictions movies or action movies. Most of their roles are very similar, just a new plot and new names. But these actors are the big ones, who we love, whom we want to watch in movie after move.
My point here is, that actors should really think about their personal brand and stick to what they are good at. Sure they should practise other stuff as well, but never disappoint a customer, or in this case a fan.
What do you think about this? Do you agree or disagree? Am I missing something? Please share your views.
Posted in Career development
