Category: Miscellaneous

5 Ways to Stay in Touch with Your Extended Network

When it comes to thinking about staying connected with your extended network, especially if you have a large one, it can almost be as daunting as, say, public speaking for a lot of people. But, it can be broken down into manageable steps. The most important thing with networking is that you stay in touch with those you connect with and you make every effort to keep a relationship going – even if you don’t “need” something at the moment.

Here are our five best tips for continued networking success.

1) Pass Along Articles of Interest to Your Contacts

One great way to stay in touch is to pass along anything of interest to your contacts. You want to continually demonstrate that you’re not only passionate about your industry (and follow it regularly), but also that you are genuinely interested in your contact’s best interest. It never hurts to reach out to someone you know and say, “Hi, John, I came across this article and thought of you. Perhaps you’d find the statistic on the growing demographics of 18- to 24-year-olds interesting for your research. I hope you’re well. All my best, Paul.”

2) Keep Your Network Posted of Your Updates

We recommend that you touch base with your contacts at least twice a year. A year can be quite a bit of time, and a lot can happen. If you are hired for a position, pick up a new internship, move to a new city or start a new blog, these are all reasons to update your network on what’s happening in your life. It’s also important that you use these opportunities to thank those that have helped you become who you are or get you to where you are today.

3) Remember Special Occasions

This can be a hard one. In a perfect world, we would all remember everyone’s birthdays and important events, but unfortunately, real life can get in the way of that. If there are certain members of your network who are your friends on Facebook, make it a daily habit to look at the “Birthdays” reminder to see if there’s anyone you should reach out to. And this doesn’t mean you should leave a generic “Happy Birthday” on someone’s wall; rather take the time to type out an e-mail and let the person know you’re thinking of them. It doesn’t take a lot of additional effort, and it’s an easy way to stand out from the “Facebook wall clutter.” In addition, keep an eye on big events announced by your contacts. If you want to get into public relations and you see that your friend launched a new campaign, send them a congratulatory note.

4) Create Google Alerts for Your Contacts and/or Their Businesses

One great way to keep tabs on a contact or his or her company is by creating a Google Alert. It’s free and takes less than a minute, and the service can send you valuable information on a colleague that you might have been too busy to notice. Then, when you see big news about someone or his or her company, take a minute to send an e-mail and follow up. If you’re not sure how to set up a Google Alert, check out our recent post on the CareerSparx blog, “Your Dream Employer? Do More Than Google Them.”

5) Follow Them on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn

Again, the idea is to stay connected with your contacts and what’s going on in their lives. If you see that a birthday is coming up or something important just happened, make note of what you see on your social media accounts and follow up via a personalized e-mail. Another tactic is to hit “like” if they post something produced by their company on a Facebook profile, or retweet a Twitter update for a big project of theirs. They will appreciate the support, and you will achieve your goal of staying connected and on their radar.

By following these five easy tips, you will be able to stay better connected to your network. And as you’ll see, it really isn’t as hard or as overwhelming as it seems. Best of luck.

Guest Expert:

Mario Schulzke is the creator of CareerSparx, an online course that helps recent college graduates begin their careers. For more information, download their free 61-page guide on how to start your career or check out the CareerSparx blog.

View the original article here

Blogging From Bali: The Renegade Workflow Project

So, I’m going to be hitting the road with my family this summer and basing out of Bali for July and maybe August, too.

I’m also starting on book number two (which was just sold, formal announcement to come soon) and is on a totally different topic than Career Renegade. I’m really psyched to dive into this one, it’s going to go a lot deeper into some pretty powerful lifestyle and business phenomena. And, it’ll be kinda interesting to see how Bali effects how and what I write.

Why Bali, btw? How can we pull it off? What will else will I be doing while I’m there?

I’ll answer these questions and a whole lot more once I’m there and I can show you, rather than tell you (but, let it be known, it had nothing to do with Eat, Pray Love. LOL)!

While I’m gone, I’m also going to experiment with some pretty “renegadey” changes to my writing and online work-flow in an effort to create the most compelling content possible, while also dramatically streamlining my processes. That’ll free me up to write the book, take skype calls with my consulting clients and spend a whole lot of time playing with my family and exploring the nooks and crannies of this stunning island.

As part of this work-flow evolution, I’ll be doing a lot more video blogging. For two reasons. One, so I can take you along on my Balinese Renegade Adventure and share my experiences with you guys as vividly as possible. And, two, because it takes me a lot less time to create compelling video, from shoot to publication, than it does to write. Especially the way I’m about to do it.

For those interested, my process for video content creation will be:

Film video segments in HD with either my Flip Ultra HD, Canon Vixia HFS100 or iPhone 4 (if the Gods favor me with one before I leave), Upload them to my Dropbox account at night (when I’ll have wi-fi access and less competition for Balinese bandwidth), Ask my virtual assistant (VA) to drop the footage into iMovie on her computer, add in my standard intro and outro and upload the final segments to YouTube then embed them in a video post, set as draft for me to add a few sentences to provide context and post the next morning.

I’ll also be experimenting with a move to audio as source for both podcasts and text posts.

Here’s my planned work-flow for audio and text:

Hike or ride my bike to some place that inspires me (or, lie in a hammock on the porch),Speak my posts into either an Olympus LS-10 recorder or iPhone voice recorder app and record direct to mp3 format, Dropbox the mp3s to my VA, where she’ll download it, edit in standard audio lead-ins and wrap-ups, publish the finished audio as podcasts to my media-hosting site, which then gets picked up by iTunes, Then She’ll: (1) Transcribe the audio, copy-edit the text and drop it into WordPress as a text post for this blog, (2) Source a relevant Creative Commons image from Flickr for the post, then (3) Crop and insert the image into the post, awaiting approval for final editing and publication.

And, the last big change, I’ll be folding in a new weekly featured guest post, which is something I almost never do on the blog, but the few times I have done it, it’s been really well recieved. So, for at least the time I’m in Bali, I’ll be featuring some amazing bloggers and their mouthwateringly good content.

Contributors will include Danielle LaPorte, Chris Guillebeau, Alexis Martin Neely, Leo Babauta, J.D. Roth, Glen Stansberry and a handful of other amazing thinkers and writers.

It’s going to be a fascinating experiment for me. I’m sure there’ll be bumps along the road. Both technological and human. For example, it’ll be interesting to see how I do with being able to speak posts that are articulate enough to edit into really solid text posts. And, I have no idea how easy it’ll be to upload HD video almost daily on a connection that’s not known for it’s consistency.

But, the cool thing is, once the kinks are worked out (if it all works, lol), the net savings to me in time, effort and mental space will be huge. And, I’ll very likely keep these processes in place upon my return.

So…more to come as the journey unfolds. We’re all going to Bali this summer!

Just wanted to bring you into the Great Summer 2010 Balinese Blogging Adventure and Renegade Work-flow Project that’s about to come to life.

And, as I mentioned, I’ll share a bunch more about why we chose Bali and what I’m really doing there…once I’m settled…and wearing my sarong (so sorry for the mental image)!

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Great News & Valuable Lessons!

When I got home last night from a dating, judging the local county science fair exhibits with my husband I had a very welcome email in my email box……seems the TV “personality” who was challenging my grandson’s right to the domain has withdrawn his domain dispute!

Apparently he (or his attorneys) now believe that Billy is real and has legitimate rights to own the domain.

This has been a very interesting experience, and I certainly learned a lot – a lot more than I really wanted to know about the person who brought the complaint, but also a lot about the process itself.

If you’re interested – or if you find yourself facing the same thing and want to know how I handled it – you can read about it by clicking on this link.

That’s the Great News. The Good News is that it was withdrawn before I had to make all the copies and pay for shipping to Switzerland, so it’s not costing me as much as I thought it would.

However, I’ve already poured a bunch of time and money into gathering the evidence and having pieces of it overnighted to me, so there are still some expenses.

While I was dismayed in the beginning, thinking I had to find an attorney, not knowing what was needed to successfully respond to the challenge, knowing I would have to go learn a BUNCH (I’d have to read the prior cases and figure out which ones applied to us, as well as respond to every one of their allegations, and all within a 5000 word limitation), in the end it was a lot less of a burden than I had been afraid it would be.

In fact, by tackling it myself, I found I was up to the challenge. I did the research, I did the writing, I responded to each of their allegations, I gathered my evidence, I talked with attorneys (including his), I corresponded with WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), and I continued to talk it over with my 15 year old grandson.

Ultimately, with each and every step forward I knew without a doubt we would win the dispute.

So on Friday I only had to dot a couple i’s and cross a couple t’s before sending it in. I had received my final piece of evidence (a certified birth record for the grandson). I planned to re-examine everything over the weekend in a final review and send it off on Monday or Tuesday to the WIPO Center for the Panel to decide.

Late Friday afternoon I received a call from one of the Complainant’s attorneys. At that point I was certain of prevailing in the dispute.

After a short discussion, during which he brought up (for the fourth time) the possibility of their purchasing the domain name, he told me he was 99.9% convinced that my grandson existed (!) and they would withdraw the complaint on Monday.

By end of day on Monday I had not received notice from the attorneys, so decided I would have to move forward. Tuesday evening, upon returning home from judging the local County Science Fair, the withdrawal email was in my inbox. Wednesday morning I received confirmation from WIPO and Wednesday afternoon my Domain Registrar had unlocked my grandson’s domain.

The process can seem tedious, and definitely if you are dealing with attorneys, it can be intimidating. Fortunately, though, the rules are fairly straightforward. If you have legitimate rights to the domain name, are capable of doing some research, and able to write in a fairly clear and understandable manner, you should be able to handle this yourself.

This is a permanent page that discusses how I handled our dispute, and some things to pay attention to.

Oh, and the lesson? Well, actually there were lots…the main ones being:

  • Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself, especially when you know you’re right.
  • Persevere, and hold steady.
  • Be nice, even when they’re not. (Okay, these guys weren’t bad once I actually talked to them – it just looked like it by the arguments they submitted in the dispute. Plus, they never bothered to call before filing the complaint.)
  • You don’t have to be the biggest dog on the block to win.

…plus a bunch more that I’m sure will come to me over the next few weeks!

Special 33% Off Sale For Career Change eBook

Until Midnight on March 19, 2008, you can get my 10 Key Strategies for Career Change eBook for ONE-THIRD OFF.

Here’s where you can grab your copy for 33% off
I’m holding this special sale for 3 reasons:

(1) I wanted to say THANK YOU to all the people who read my newsletters, visit my website and have been followers for a while.

(2) I was in the middle of updating the ebook, making it a multi-media package with several more resources. And, I need feedback from you on what would make it more useful.

(3) (Last but not least) I need to raise some money to defend my 15 year old grandson’s domain name.

Several years ago Gabrielle Parkinson and I wrote an ebook on how to position yourself to successfully change careers. It was based on our experiences helping hundreds of people transition into more fulfilling jobs by focusing on the key strategies needed to make the change.

A few months ago I reviewed the ebook and decided I wanted to update the links and add more resources. I also wanted to include some audio clips from a teleclass I’d held for my own clients on how to use the ebook. Then I started thinking that it would be even more cool to use the teleclass clips to create videos about the process.

But, first things first.

So, here I was in the middle of updating the ebook itself and writing a new resource, when suddenly I receive this notice from WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) of a domain name dispute for my grandson’s domain. I’ve never heard of the person filing the complaint, but he is apparently an up-and-coming radio and TV “personality” who has the same name. He is trying to claim my grandson has no rights to the domain and that it should be turned over to him (the “personality”)!

Well, of course I had to drop everything else I was doing to gather the documentation and respond to the allegations so we could defend the grandson’s rights to his domain! I didn’t want to stop the project, but I have to send in my dispute response by March 19.

I’m trying to stay away from lawyers if I can, but there’s been substantial research required, not to mention the photocopying and courier expense I will incur to send 3 full copies of my response to Switzerland and another full copy to the “personality’s” attorneys.

So, now I need your help…

First, what I’m offering is pretty much the original ebook, with a few minor edits. The basic information is still relevant, but some of the links may no longer work (for instance the company I was writing newsletters for went out of business, so those newsletters no longer exist). I think I took most of the non-working links out, but there may still be a couple lurking in there somewhere.

I need you to read through the ebook and tell me what other resources you think are needed. Then, when I finish the updated version, you will get a copy of that ebook, too.

I really value my customers, so if you have already purchased this ebook, I will be contacting you in a separate email with instructions on how to play along with the rest of us if you’re interested.

Here’s where you can grab your copy and save 33%

———————————————
Try the ebook for 33% Off and get SEVEN Free Bonuses!!
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If the 33% discount isn’t enough to have you heading to my special ‘one-third off’ website,these SEVEN bonuses should sweeten the pot:

  • Bonus 1: One hour of Real Audio clips explaining how the Strategies work!
  • Bonus 2: “ID Your Job Skills” ebook – a 28 page ebook to help you identify the specific job skills, talents and abilities you already enjoy or do well!
  • Bonus 3: Resume Writing Software – software program that lets you create several different résumés in text, html or email file format!
  • Bonus 4: Networking Nuggets – A one hour “Art of Networking” audio (with transcript) and weekly nuggets delivered directly to your emailbox!
  • Bonus 5: Motivation Profile Assessment – To help you better understand how your strengths and life preferences can affect your career success!
  • SPECIAL BONUS 6: “Discover Your Career/Life Purpose” eBook – Figure out what’s important and necessary to you and how you can use your Purpose to enrich your life or your career (or both)! I was in the middle of finishing up this ebook when I got the dispute notice. This will be mailed once I get back to finishing it – probably sometime in April 2008.
  • EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS 7: As my Special “Thank You!” for helping me out, I will not only send you an updated copy of the 10 Key Strategies ebook once it’s completed, I’ll also send you a coupon worth 50% off the price of the new multi-media package once it’s available!

WHEW! That’s a lot of goodies…and you get them all FREE when you try my ebook
for 33% off.

Go here right now and claim your copy before they’re all gone

Grandson Billy and I Thank You for your help!

P.S. This special one-third off sale ends at midnight on March 19, 2008. That’s the deadline for me to send my response to WIPO in Switzerland. Obviously, until that’s done, I can’t spend any time working on the 10 Key Strategies material – but I’ll get back to it as soon as I can afterwards.

Oh, and even though the experience is rather intense, I’m confident we’ll win. I don’t want to divulge any details at this time since the complaint hasn’t yet been heard by the WIPO panel – but I’ll let you know what happens.

P.P.S. You can use this for yourself, or give it to someone you know who is ready to make a job or career change. You can also forward this blog address to anyone you think may be interested.

By the way, here’s a video of my grandson Billy:

Billy out ridin at the Clay Pit