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by Taunee Besson, CareerCast.com senior columnist about David Bell who successfully used networking to land a new job. His 6 tips: Ask people for info, not a job; start with people you know, then who they know, and finally strangers after you have practice; know what you want to say ahead of time, but don't have a canned speech; recognize you will have good and bad days; prepare a specific topic for each discussion; if your contact refers you to other people, let them know how it turned out.

blog post by Jennifer Gilhool, 6.4.2013 "You are connected to work 24/7. You don't need your lap top to be connected. You are connected via BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad to name just a few. These devices no longer provide flexibility. Instead, they tether you to the office. They enable you to work all the time and anywhere. And, now, many companies believe that is the definition of flexibility: "'What flexibility means today is not part time,' the head of work-life at one large organization told me recently. 'What people want is the ability to work anytime, anywhere.' That's true if your target labor pool is twenty-somethings and men married to homemakers. The head of HR at another large organization asked, when I described the hours problem, 'What do you mean, how can we get women to work more hours?'" - Why Men Work So Many Hours, Joan C. Williams, May 29, 2013 Harvard Business Review Why Your Manager Doesn't Want You To Innovate Ron Ashkenas Ron Ashkenas Contributor LinkedIn: Busting 8 Damaging Myths About What It Can Do For Your Career 85 Broads 85 Broads Contributor Someone has taken the "human" out of "Human Resources" departments across America. And, this behavior is not limited to operations in America. I work for a multi-national corporation that cannot seem to wean itself from the 24 hour work day. Colleagues in China often begin their day with a 6:00 a.m. meeting and end it with a meeting that begins at 10:00 p.m. or, worse, 11:00 p.m. To combat this problem, the company leadership agreed to a global meeting policy. The policy provides that global meetings should occur only between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. and that no meetings should occur on Friday nights in Asia Pacific. Further, the policy provides a 10 hour fatigue rule. In other words, there should be 10 hours between your last meeting of the day and your first meeting on the next day. First, if you need a global meeting policy, you are in

Blog by Susan Freeman, StepUpLeader, June 2014 Talks about leaders and learning and honesty. "Upon deeper reflection, there is something they absolutely must possess in order for us to work well together; That is being a LEARNER. By this I mean the willingness to admit that they don't know what they don't know. They will approach the learning process with an attitude of curiosity, appreciating each new discovery with gusto. They don't resist it; they EMBRACE it. I call it leadership resilience. Leadership resilience is crucial for leaders. When a leader can't be honest about what he doesn't know, it shuts down the ability for others to learn and innovate within the organization. In order to move from where we are now to a future desired result, we must let go of our need to know. When a leader can embrace curiosity, wonder and being comfortable with uncertainty, it makes it acceptable for others to do so."

Blog, June 19, 2013, Scoop.it, on how Most Popular leads into reading more in a webiste can be quite distorted to direct reads. Advocates for human curation. "The solution: Human curation. We need to provide readers with lists and collections of content that are popular within a certain field because they are genuinely popular to those who know about or are interested in that field. Most Popular lists on websites are generated by algorithms, making them extremely easy to game (by clicking the same content repeatedly, for instance) which in turn leads readers to believe they've found good content when they oftentimes haven't. It's the job of the curator, as a human, to let other humans know what they (the curator) are finding to be the best pieces of content on a topic - as someone who knows about a specific subject or interest."

from Entrepreneur.com. Another article on how to network when you are an introvert. First suggestion is network and make connections online to develop relationships on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. This is especially helpful if you are going to a conference or event as you will "know" people before you get there, and they will know you. Arrange to meet up with them ahead of time. Talk about your accomplishments to better connect with others so they know what you have done and what connections you have with them. Discuss your goals and ideas to join or jumpstart the conversation, and ask for others' goals and ideas. Don't overthink it and go over and over your interactions. Concentrate on the positives you get out of the interaction. Maintain strong relationships when they develop and keep in touch regularly. Take Notes - remember faces, names, and what they said. Send an email to them to continue the conversation and remind them of who you are.

From State of Digital, quotes by Eric Schmidt, October 27, 2010. "1. "We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about." To the Atlantic " 7. "Just remember when you post something, the computers remember forever" In The Colbert Report

article by Annie Murphy Paul, July 19, 2013 about using the internet's facts and information in tandem with our own acquired knowledge--the facts--to then innovate, collaborate, & evaluate. Innovate requires us to know what became before. To collaborate, we just contribute knowledge to the join venture. To evaluate, we have to compare new information with knowledge we have already mastered.

This article on Resource Link, September 21, 2011, captures the learning environments we wish to bring to businesses, nonprofits, and membership associations. "Social Media - what do you need to know? In the 21st century, learning networks are richer than ever before. Social media, including tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn allow connections with professionals to be developed in offline and online worlds in new and exciting ways. No longer are we limited geographically. Social media allows us to connect not only to those we know, but also to those who we don't know, but who share our passions, our interests and our profession. Despite never having met in the physical sense, it is now possible to share links, comment on educational research, debate, collaborate and create new knowledge with individuals no matter where they are working." Another excerpt: So….Social Media and Professional Learning Communities? What is the connection? A school which is a professional learning community focuses upon removing the walls between classrooms (metaphorically, in all cases, physically in some!), encouraging collaboration, dialogue, ready access to colleagues and an openness to challenge understandings and current 'accepted' knowledge. Excerpt: Roberts and Pruitt, in their book Schools as Professional Learning Communities (p3, 2009) quote research that suggests that the major obstacle for schools who wish to develop as learning communities is the provision of resources such as time to collaborate, leadership support, information and ready access to colleagues. Social Media is not the total answer; but in schools where money and time are in short demand (and which school isn't in this situation?), they can go part of the way in meeting these needs. 1. social media providing to time to collaborate 2. social media providing leadership support 3. social media providing information 4. social media providing access to colleagues

blog post by Charles Jennings cited by Jane Hart, published August 13, 2014. "And for Organisational Learning? The Web has allowed us to totally redefine our traditional learning models. It has allowed us to reach beyond content-rich learning approaches and focus on experience-rich learning. It has allowed an evolution from 'Know What' learning to 'Know Who' and 'Know How' learning; and it has allowed the emergence from learning in the silos of our own organisations to learning with and through others across the world - easily and transparently. The Collaboration Age On a wider plane the Web has been the harbinger of the Collaboration Age. It has blown away many of the barriers to access and has reinforced the power and influence of collaboration and co-operation1 over silo mentalities. In the Collaboration Age it is those who share and work together who are the winners. Those who hide behind organisational garden walls end up deep in weeds. "

from Networkweaver.com Communicating in networks are not the same as communicating in organizations: in a network people are not in a single organization and are used to communicating on different platforms in different ways; they don't know how to initiate online conversations; network activities are usually only a small part of an individual's work; they don't know the people in the network; groups can be silo'd; they need to know how the network is doing and if it is indeed acting in a "networked" way

Great blog on website design--when to know it's done and requires only tweaking/updates by Pamela Wilson, March 2014. Emphasizes basics of home page, about page (which ours doesn't totally conform to), products/services (don't know anymore about how strong it is), and blog (credible job for us, I think).

Review by Rob Jenkins on the Chronicle, 3.18.13, on why MOOCs are a massively bad idea for wait-listed community college students in California as proposed in new legislation there. Excerpt: "We know that succeeding in online classes requires an extraordinary degree of organization, self-discipline, motivation, and time-management skill. A simple Google search of "how to succeed in online classes" yields a plethora of Web sites-including many college and university sites-offering students such gems as "be organized," "manage your time wisely," and (my favorite) "stay motivated."" Excerpt: So to recap, California's plan (or to be fair, one senator's plan) is basically to dump hundreds of thousands of the state's least-prepared and least-motivated students into a learning environment that requires the greatest amount of preparation and motivation, where they will take courses that may or may not be effective in that format. Here's a prediction: Those students will fail and drop out at astronomical rates. Then the hand-wringing will begin anew, the system will pour millions more dollars into "retention" efforts, and the state will be in an even deeper fix than it is now. (Virtual cheating will probably run rampant, too, followed by expensive anticheating measures, but that's another blog post.) Look, I'm not a politician or an economist. I don't know the answer to California higher education's budget woes. But I'm pretty sure herding community-college students into MOOCs is not it.

blog post by Chris Collison, 1.31.13, on how we have problems asking for help because it betrays our ignorance or incompetence. Excerpt: Of course, it's not exclusively a male problem, but it does seem to be the case that men suffer from this syndrome more than women. It's hard to ask for help. We have all had times when we have that nagging sense that "there might be a better way to do this", or "perhaps someone else has already figured this one out". What stops us from asking around for solutions and ideas for improvement? Sometimes it's a sense that we're supposed to know the answers. Why would I want to show everyone else that I'm incompetent? That doesn't seem like a route to promotion. However, once I've solved my problem, I'll be happy to share my solution. The truth is, the biggest challenge to organisations who want to get more from what they know, isn't that they have a knowledge sharing problem. It's that they have an asking problem.

Blog by Annie Murphy Paul, June 20, 2013, PBS Next Avenue on 8 things that can make you smarter. "4. Attention You've probably heard about the "marshmallow test," a famous experiment conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s. He found that children who could resist eating a marshmallow in return for the promise of two marshmallows later on did better in school and in their careers. Well, there's a new marshmallow test that we face every day: the ability to resist the urge to check email, respond to a text or see what's happening on Facebook or Twitter. We've all heard that because "digital natives" grew up multitasking they excel at it, but in fact, we now know there are information-processing bottlenecks in everybody's brain that prevent us from paying attention to two things at the same time. Focused attention is an important internal situation that we must cultivate in order to fully express our intelligence." Another excerpt: "A common example: The ready availability of technology has convinced many people that they don't need to learn facts anymore, because they can always "just Google it." In fact, research from cognitive science shows that the so-called "21st-century skills" that we're always hearing about - critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, creativity - can't emerge in a vacuum. They must develop in the context of a rich base of knowledge that is stored on the original hard drive, one's own brain. For tech to make us smarter, we need to know when to put it away.

From the Open: The SmallBusiness Network on how networking is actually about getting to know people whom you can help and can help you. Tips for networking: Give and get information; Evaluate the value of the contact; form a strategic alliance - know what the people in your network do; Maintenance - continue to re-evaluate the people in your info loop.

Blog by Harold Jarche, April 30, 2012. This excerpt IMO justifies why women (and everyone else!) needs to know how to work in social networks to learn and to help others learn and apply their "capacity for action" in their workplaces and elsewhere. They can transform their workplaces through enriched learning practices. They may not have the HR title but they can still role model organizational learning on a small scale at least. Excerpt: "Individual learning in organizations is irrelevant, as work is almost never done by one person alone. Knowledge, Senge said, is the capacity for effective action (know how) and it is the only aspect of knowledge that really matters in business and life. Value is created by teams and mostly by networks of people. While learning may be generated in teams, this type of knowledge comes and goes. Learning really spreads through social networks." Excerpt: It shows that the company never gave any thought to organizational learning. ■Are employees narrating their work in a transparent environment? ■Does the daily routine support social learning? ■Is time made available for reflection and sharing stories? "Narrating their work in a transparent environment," "support social learning," and "reflection" are all linked to other resources.

Blog post by Howard Rheingold on September 1, 2009. "Knowing what to pay attention to is a cognitive skill that steers and focuses the technical knowledge of how to find information worth your attention. More and more, knowing where to direct your attention involves a third element, together with your own attentional discipline and use of online power tools - other people. Increasingly, most of the recommendations that make it possible to find fresh and useful signals amid the overwhelming noise of the Internet are social media - online networks that make possible social exchange and relationship. Tuning and feeding our personal learning networks is where the internal and the technological meet the social. "

Great short post by Oprah on getting unstuck. The quote by Turecki is so true: "Nothing happens until you decide." Excerpt: When our expert, Dr. Stanley Turecki, finished watching, he said something that made the hairs on my arm stand up: "Nothing happens until you decide." The reason her 3-year-old didn't sleep in his own bed was that the mother had not decided it would happen. When she did, the child would go to his bed. He might cry and scream and rant until he fell asleep, but he would eventually realize that his mother had made up her mind. Well, I knew he was speaking about a 3-year-old, but I also knew for sure that this brilliant piece of advice applied to many other aspects of life: Relationships. Career moves. Weight issues. Everything depends on your decisions. For years I was stuck in a weight trap, yo-yoing up and down the scale. I made a decision two years ago to stop wishing, praying, and wanting, wanting, wanting to be better. Instead I figured out what it would really take to improve my life. Then I decided to do it. When you don't know what to do, my best advice is to do nothing until clarity comes. Getting still, being able to hear your own voice and not the voices of the world, quickens clarity. Once you decide what you want, you make a commitment to that decision. One of my favorite quotes is from mountaineer W.H. Murray: "Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep res

"Content Marketing has been all the rage these past few years. We've heard from many experts and influencers that content marketing is the new advertising and that "brands must become media to earn relevance". But how do we measure ROI and know our content isn't just fueling some vanity metric but is actually helping our business? If content marketing is the new advertising, then we should try to assess this question with the same criteria. Which means first, we should acknowledge that while advertising is a practice that has been undisputed for decades, measuring its ROI can greatly vary. After all, a lot of marketers would still agree with John Wanamaker who said more than a century ago: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.""

Pretty amazing list of skills you need to be successful in life by Robin Good, June 3, 2014. This is the last five of 35 skills that he will make sure his kids know how to do. Also includes excellent resources to improve one's skills in each area. These five are: 31. How to Search 32. How To Navigate 33. How To Calculate with Numbers 34. How To Rest 35. How To Cure Oneself Excerpt (rationale) Made exception for some basic math (though learned and understood with a completely different approach) and for dwelling deeper into truly understanding how to "read" something or knowing more about one's own body and physiology, the thirty-five skills that I have explored in this guide share very little similarities, if any, with those that you can gain in the 13 years of basic traditional school education. My key selection criteria in considering, evaluating and finally choosing anyone of the skills that I have here listed, has been a rather simple question: does the mastering of this skill significantly affect my probability to live a meaningful, constructive and rewarding life experience independently of the time, part of the world, social class, and group that one could be living in? And when my answer has been positive I have included that skill. Link: http://www.masternewmedia.org/what-to-learn-to-be-successful-p5/#ixzz37SVB5qTR