How to think like Steve Jobs

By Erik Calonius



FORTUNE -- What separates the Steve Jobses and Walt Disneys of the world from the rest of us? And can you become one? Erik Calonius poses these questions in his forthcoming book, Ten Steps Ahead. In the following excerpt, Calonius describes how visionary ideas come to life.


The visionary is a pattern hunter. And as the patterns begin to take shape, the visionary paces the hall anxiously, staring out the window. The cognitive dissonance builds between what is and what will be. The visionary's sense of discomfort grows.


At some point when the thinker, exhausted, has stopped concentrating on the problem at hand, the brain slips into that single-mind immersion that Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi famously termed the state of "flow." Whereas we spend most of our lives thinking about the past and the future, the flow puts us into that narrow shaft of time called the present. It's a place the brain doesn't take us to very often.

MRIs show that, in the state of flow, the brain is quieting down. The flickering of activity recedes into weak flashes of color. The thinker, at this point, is probably aware of nothing at all. Whether it is intuition, or visualization, or the dawning of an awakening that draws the visionary near, at last the time of inspiration arrives. This is the famous Eureka! moment.

Steve Jobs "stood back": "You can't really predict what will happen," he said. "But you can feel the direction you're going. And that's about as close as you can get. Then you just stand back and get out of the way, and these things take on a life of their own."

John Lennon just took a nap: "I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good. I was just sitting, trying to think, and I thought of myself sitting there doing nothing and going nowhere. Once I'd thought of that, it was easy; it all came out. No, I remember now, I'd actually stopped trying to think of something. Nothing would come. I was cheesed off and went for a lie down, having given up. Then I thought of myself as nowhere man, sitting in this nowhere land. 'Nowhere Man' came, words and music, the whole damn thing. The same with 'In My Life.' I'd struggled for days and hours, trying to write clever lyrics. Then I gave up, and 'In My Life' came to me. Letting it go is the whole game."
Einstein closed his eyes and let his fingers wander over the piano keys. Then he jumped up. "There, now I've got it!" his sister Maja remembers him exclaiming as he hurried off into his study.

That moment when the new pattern snaps into place has been described many ways: like scales falling from the eyes, like a flash of lightning, like molecules of water bouncing randomly around and, upon reaching a freezing temperature, snapping instantly into rigid lines. Something new comes across your consciousness. It "dawns" on you. Says physicist Carlo Rubbia, "It's an irrational and an instinctive moment in which something clicks in your mind and you say, 'Why don't we do this -- I mean, why not?'"

The snapping of fingers perfectly describes the moment of inspiration (and makes you wonder if the opposable thumb was actually made for this purpose). For it is two opposing forces -- what is and what should be -- that are being resolved.

It is surprising how something as portentous as an epiphany resembles the punch line of a joke: "Does your dog bite?" Inspector Clouseau of The Pink Panther fame asks the hotel clerk as he sees a dog at his feet. "No," the clerk responds. Clouseau bends over to pet the dog and has his sleeve ripped off. "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite!" he remarks angrily. Replies the clerk, "That's not my dog."
We laugh at such jokes because the pattern change is unexpected. It comes out of the blue. "The punch line," according to Horace Judson, former professor of the history of science at Johns Hopkins University, "tells us that a set of things that we thought belonged to one pattern was really, all along, making another pattern."

Incredible as it seems, the brain's search for a resolution to dissonance is exactly what you might hear in a comedy club: When the U.S. Postal Service can't deliver the mail overnight, we get... (laughter growing) FedEx (FDX, Fortune 500)! When the Internet has billions of pages of text that are impossible to search, we get (chortles and applause) Google (GOOG, Fortune 500)! When we can't get a good cup of brewed coffee, we get (drum roll and rim shot) Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500)!

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Blogging Is Good Business – 8 Tips To Get It Right

Michael Brenner

You accepted a while back that social media needs to be an important part of the marketing mix. But resources are limited and maybe you find yourself asking “which social media tactics should I focus on?”
My own social journey (and years of procrastination) pushed me into starting my personal blog nearly a year ago. And with 93 posts, almost 500 comments, nearly 30,000 visitors and just over 47,000 page views later and I am convinced that blogging is one of the simplest and most effective forms of marketing.

Earlier this week I addressed the need to shift more of our marketing mix from interruption-based outbound tactics to customer-focused inbound marketing tactics. There were 3 data points on blogging that I thought were worthy of an entire post:

• 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their blog
• Company websites with a blog get 55% more visitors
• Inbound marketing leads cost 62% less than outbound

So we can safely say that businesses who blog will see results from their efforts. But what about the time and expense involved?

MarketingSherpa just released their Social Marketing Benchmark survey and I absolutely love this chart they provided in the summary. (You can register for the report on the MarketingSherpa’s website.)
The chart shows that Blogging is considered to be the third most effective social tactic after blogger relations and SEO for social sites. But you can also see that it is right in the middle of the pack in terms of difficulty.

So you can hit the Tweet button or add social sharing options to our websites with relative ease but as much effectiveness compared to other tactics. And while blogger relations and SEO are effective, they can be more challenging to execute.

Blogging falls right in the sweet spot of being effective and relatively easy to execute.

The B2B Marketing Insider Blogging Tips
After just a year, I am in no way an expert, but people have asked me what tips I can offer when starting a blog. Trust me, I have had some bomb articles and the inevitable writer’s block is something you need to really prepare for, but here is the advice I would offer the newbie blogger, for whatever it’s worth:

1. Define your objectives. Whether they are business objectives, personal goals, for therapy (it is for me) or just for fun. It is important to understand and even define your goals for blogging. See mine here.
2. Audience first. While I do find writing to be therapeutic, I write to share information, add some value, and present my point of view with my audience.
3. Titles are more important than you think. I know this from testing email subject lines. I know this from writing great and terrible blog titles. Using keywords helps. Top N tips… are good. How to…can work. And sometimes you need to take a firm stand on a controversial issue to generate some discussion. See: Is This The End Of Social Media?
4. Break it up. Lists make for easy reading. Whether they are numbered lists or bullet points. And photos or charts help to make an article easy to read and maybe more importantly, easy to scan.

Tips 5 - 8 and Complete Article

10 Rules for Beginning Your New Job on the Right Foot

Securing a new job is akin to a successful product launch. All that time spent running a well-organized marketing campaign and now the product is in the market. Well...you’ve landed your new job! As in the product launch, you want to continually work on product positioning and posturing for long-term success, right? Likewise, you want to do so for your long-term career success.

1. Get to Know the Company’s Key Players
Producing long-term results is more important than an immediate impact. Depending on the company and the reason for your hire, you will have a settling-in period anywhere from 30-90 days. Use that time wisely and get to know people and their roles; network; build alliances, etc.

2. Remember Names and Try to Use them from Time to Time
And always with a smile. It is important to always project a positive attitude. Most people when introduced to others immediately forget names. If this happens to you, look them straight in the eye and say, “I’m sorry, could you tell me your name again,” and then practice using it once or twice a week – it’s also flattering.

3. Do Not Over-do Conversation
Your weekend, evening, lunch is always, “Very good” quickly followed by, “and how was yours?” People ask, but they aren’t necessarily interested in more than that. If they get more than that before they really know you they will steer away the next time.

4. Observe How the Company Gets Things Done
This includes the company’s management style, your boss’ management style; leadership; company culture. Become a student of your managers and their leaders. I once heard said, “The best classroom is at the feet of an elder.” The bell has rung; so now take a seat and really pay attention.

5. Be a Class Act
Don’t get drawn into the chitter-chatter of gossipers. Smile, nod in agreement if you must, but do not gossip. If you do, people will not put their trust in you. Practice being a good listener and consider everything you hear, even if it plainly is gossip, as if it were most private. Bite your tongue and you won’t go wrong.

Tips - 10 and more: http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/26383/20110505/10-rules-for-beginning-your-new-job.htm#ixzz1La33E1Kv

5 steps to escape digital slavery

By Daniel Sieberg


Can't put the smartphone down at dinner? Prefer to email coworkers who sit right next to you? A few tips on breaking bad tech habits.

The hyper-business of keeping up with technology is overwhelming. Many of us can't tell when our personal time ends and the workday begins (or vice versa). We blast off emails like our hair is on fire; we quickly skim the surface of information online just to ingest something, anything; and we even obsess over colleagues on social networks (not to mention battle feelings of professional jealousy). It's no wonder, then, that the tag line for Microsoft's (MSFT) new Windows 7 mobile devices is, "a phone to save us from our phones."


I know how it feels to be slogging through digital quicksand, because I've been there. Some days I am there. But over the past year, I've tried to streamline my high-tech intake and develop a plan that works for others.

While much of the motivation was driven by problems with technology related to my personal life, I also came to realize it was negatively affecting my work life, too. But I love technology and I want to embrace it for the right reasons and the right occasions. Indeed, I have to -- it's also part of my job as a science and technology reporter.

I hope these tips prove helpful in managing your own situation:

1. Go with face-to-face contact
Limit the number of emails or instant messages you send to the people in your immediate vicinity at the office. Demonstrate your personality, your charm, and your ability to communicate by speaking face-to-face. It doesn't have to take much time, just make it valuable.

The person who sends 100 well-crafted emails will still probably be less likely to get that promotion than the person who takes a little time to chat with the boss, have coffee with them, or shake their hand on a regular basis. That's just the way it is. In nerd parlance, don't be the office warrior who always uses ranged weapons; endure some hand-to-hand combat on occasion.

2. Use tech to break your bad tech habits
Seek out time-management programs. Sometimes, we simply need to outsource our self-control to be productive. The good news is that there are many programs to help. One of the best is called RescueTime, which gives you a visual breakdown of where all your computers minutes go. It'll also limit your online time and even help with time-based billing for certain projects.

3. Put the smartphone down
During social outings with co-workers, don't leave tech turds. By that, I mean don't just dump your smartphone on the table and wait for a flashing light or vibration. That says the co-worker or business contact you're with is potentially less interesting than anything at all that you receive on your device. If you absolutely must have your smartphone handy then tell people why, and explain that unless that particular message or call comes through, they have your complete attention. Or just leave it in your pocket or purse.

Tips 4 - 5 and Complete Fortune Article

LinkedIn: 4 Biggest Mistakes You're Probably Making

Are you LinkedIn? I admit, I put in a lot more facetime with Facebook. And my experts tell me I'm missing out on opportunities. "Recruiters are using LinkedIn heavily now. You need to be professional — and findable!" says career coach Kimberly Schneiderman, founder of Career City Services.


Indeed, LinkedIn has more than 100 million members, including executives from every Fortune 500 company. LinkedIn's research team recently mined that information to determine the most common names for CEOs. Verdict? Peter, for a man, and Deborah, for a women.


But no matter what your name, LinkedIn can take your networking to the next level with just a little effort. Here are the most common ways people aren't making the most of their presence on the site — and how experts say you can fix that.


Having A Vague Headline
Say your current title is marketing manager. Many people naturally leave that as their headline, a huge error because it says nothing about what you actually do, says Schneiderman. Instead: "Use a headline statement that really describes your expertise and talent, like 'Executive-level Product Strategist' or 'Hospitality Executive — Expertise in Franchise, Operations, & Change Management,'" suggests Schneiderman. Then further develop it: "Create a summary about your career that fully describes your passion for your work, your impact in your company or companies, and your professional focus. People in an open job search can map out the kinds of opportunities they are pursuing next. Make it about 3 paragraphs and write in 1st-person using 'I' statements," says Schneiderman.


Maintaining A Passive Profile
Filling out an attractive profile is just the beginning. "Most people create a LinkedIn profile, but then don't take advantage of potential connections that might be available through their existing network," says career consultant Shawn Graham, author of Courting Your Career. His suggestions: regularly identify and reach out to potential contacts, use status updates to congratulate those contacts on their successes, and consistently review the "People You May Know" section to identify additional connections.


Mistakes 4 -5 and Complete Article

LinkedIn helping to drive proactive approach to recruitment

Currently hiring 100 new employees itself, LinkedIn recently launched a new service called ‘Skills’.

This is a new functionality that job seekers should embrace quickly to add their specific skills to their profile, demonstrating to recruiters what skills the applicant themselves say they have expertise in and for how long, according to Declan Fitzgerald, LinkedIn’s international recruitment manager and, author of recruitment blog The Irish Cyber Sleuth.
“This information is important data for any profile as it gets indexed in LinkedIn’s ecosystem and may register on one of their ‘skills pages’ which could be an easier way for jobseekers to be noticed by proactive recruiters,” he said.

Creating an online employment brand

Fitzgerald maintains that when applying for a job there is now a new way to give yourself every possible chance of having your CV reviewed. He calls it “rebooting” your CV, or using social media to transform your application beyond the classical CV to create an online identity, or personal online employment brand that allows a prospective employer in a lot more detail get a flavour of who is applying for their job.
To do this, your first port of call should be LinkedIn, he said. “Growing by a user every second and having recently broken the 100m user mark, millions of professionals all over the world are ‘rebooting’ their CV and branding themselves online by placing their CV on the world’s biggest professional network.
“They are then breathing life into their profile by showing how many professional connections they have, adding Google presentation apps to their profile showing previous work they have done, placing in their Twitter feed, also their blog if they have one, and then adding recommendations to their profile.”

Companies proactively sourcing candidates online

It’s important to understand that some of the most successful companies in the world are now proactively sourcing candidates using internet technologies, he advised.
“They no longer rely solely on reactive tactics, hoping that candidates will come their way. They are proactively setting up internal sourcing teams with very well trained recruiters who understand how to mine information on LinkedIn to find candidates.
“This is an important shift in how recruitment teams recruit. They now spend huge amounts of time searching for online identities. These teams are continually becoming more skilled in how to interact with candidates in LinkedIn groups and Twitter feeds, as well interacting with candidates using blogs.”


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How Social Media Can Help or Harm Your Career

By Alison Green


Employers are increasingly paying attention to what their employees and prospective employees are doing on social media sites. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you’re doing online.

Using social media sites wisely can help your career in a number of ways:


Building your knowledge base. No matter what field you’re in, there almost surely are dozens of blogs and websites where people with an interest in your field gather to share information and ideas. If you’re a regular reader of these sites, you’ll be constantly learning, and you’ll probably be as aware of coming trends as well-known experts in your industry.

Building your credibility. By blogging about your field, leaving comments on other people’s blogs, and participating in industry conversations on Twitter, LinkedIn, and other sites, you’ll begin to build credibility as someone who, at a minimum, has an intense interest in and passion for the field. Put yourself in the shoes of an employer—who would you rather hire, a candidate with a demonstrated track record of interest and ideas in your subject matter, or someone for whom it might be just a job?

Establishing yourself as an expert. If you participate enough in the activities above, and you do it well, you can even start to build a reputation as an expert in your field.

Dramatically expanding your network. This kind of online participation means that you’ll start to build dozens of professional contacts, people you can call on when you’re job searching or seeking professional advice.

But as much of a boon to your career as social media can be, it can also do harm if you don’t use it thoughtfully. More and more employers are Googling job candidates and current employees, and sometimes what they’re finding is damaging.

More information on how social media can harm your career and how to avoid those mistakes