Additive manufacturing, sometimes called 3D printing, is a high-growth, emerging market that’s creating lots of buzz among industry, creative, and do-it-yourself enthusiasts. Analysts estimate that the worldwide market will grow from $1 billion in today’s sales to $5 billion over the next five years.

How is this for lightweight, flexible clothing made from 3D printing?

It’s a market crowded with different approaches to problem solving, a wide range of printer models and prices, and growing investment by venture capitalists, education, and government. Social media has enabled its backers to have a unique online presence, with blogs, communities, and marketplaces where users can share ideas and sell products.

Last month, I visited the “Inside 3D Printing Conference” at the Javits Center in New York, and saw 3D printing in action. Think of sculpture as an image for traditional manufacturing, which uses “subtractive” methods like drilling or cutting away to create or release an object from a block of raw material.

In contrast, additive manufacturing is just that—it builds an object, in three dimensions, by laying down micro-thin sheets of material, usually a liquid resin or plastic material, just as ink does in your desktop printer. Design software tells the printhead how and where to deliver the material—which I had trouble seeing in the individual layer because it is so thin. The object is built up slowly as the layers combine.

Eventually, you have created an object: unique, painstaking, and often possessing high design and great beauty. True desktop or portable units, at price points as low as $1,299, can create objects in a 5-inch cubic space. Commercial models can generate larger-scale design prototypes for aerospace and automotive applications, cutting time and cost for successful product development.

Where is 3D printing used today? The key drivers are customer needs for fast-response, highly customized, one-off production.

For industry, 3D printing can enhance design prototypes and modeling for automotive, aerospace, architecture, and other commercial applications from packaging to shoe design. Consider the power of crafting prosthetics, hip implants, or dental crowns based on an individual patient’s body scans.

Try google-ing “wall street journal” and “3d printing,” and you will see results indicating its use in surgery and its application to fashion design.

The acceptance of 3D printing among consumers has supported the growth of passionate online communities. One company in Brooklyn has launched a marketplace where 10,000 individual “shops” present design concepts. When you see an item you like, you can customize and order it. The company has the 3D printing production facility to create and ship the item, sharing the revenue with the shop owner. You can buy jewelry, smart phone cases, fantasy figures, gaming accessories, espresso cups, and flower vases.

So, are we ready for a world where a replicator can replace all our kitchen appliances and spit out our Tuesday morning work outfit? Not yet, but this fascinating technology is moving us in that direction. Keep your eyes open—you may see an example of 3D printing walking down the catwalk, in ruffled white mesh.

Terry Anstine, today’s guest contributor, is one of those leaders who see high-growth segments of the market and chase after them. She advises, “Attend trade shows and educational events, engage people in conversation — it’s a lot more fun than you might think!”

Photo originally published in de zeen magazine.

The left-hand board -- firms looking to hire -- is full. So beam me up, Scotty!

Little did I know that said fellow with facial hair and unruly belly was the instructor for the course in London, one of three instructors in the room and not another prospective student. (The instructors had been asked to attend the info session so that prospects could get their questions answered directly.)

Oops, I realized I was indeed the oldest prospect in the room. No matter. “It is not important when you get into the saddle, just that you do,” I told myself silently.

How I came to want to learn code, and give up my fantasy that you can get ahead without it

There were two inputs that propelled my thinking, and both reinforced the other.

First, I was reading Start-Up Nation, and it made me understand in a concrete way that the key to the future was going to be possessing certain technical skills that I didn’t yet know. Faking was no longer acceptable. The job growth of tomorrow is in the secret compartment of web developers today.

Go to http://www.code.org, move down the elevator, and take in the words of A-listers who urge us to create opportunities for our kids to learn code. If it’s good for our youth, isn’t it also good medicine for us?

Second, I realized that every time I had to reach out to a tech geek to sign off on the coding that I thought a client’s website needed, I was being choked. And that is not good. I would rather grab hold of the choke point, than be choked.

Not to mention that the techies were charging out at 2 to 3 times my rate, so the financial gain was sacrificed to someone who was more valuable.

I needed to squarely face something I had been avoiding like the plague …. I needed to learn code.

Enter the pivotal push: Reading about intensive workshops where you can learn to code

One lazy Sunday morning I picked up the newspaper and was startled to learn that there are hacker bootcamps that solve the jobless problem. That is, educational programs setting you on the path to a starting salary of $90K, if you could commit to a marathon of web immersion programming.

Nine weeks, 12 weeks, sometimes longer and sometimes less, but at the end of that, employers are waiting for you with baited breath.

Here are two such programs, if you are fired up to learn more: GeneralAssemb.ly and Devbootcamp.com.

How does it grab you to know that Android developers have a negative 17% unemployment rate?

This is not made up. An HR exec told me once that if they need to fill a spot for a backend developer, they must poach from somewhere else. There are simply not enough skilled folks to catch.

Do you need to learn code regardless of your function or your role?

I’ll get away from wishy-washy advice and stir up controversy.

Ask yourself: If your firm needs to be innovative to compete in the future, how are you going to win if you shirk from learning what you need to know? You are like the dog that lies down, ready to take a beating.

The best entrepreneurial individuals will be those who know code.

I am spending a few hours a week online, learning coding for free at codeacademy.com. I urge you to do likewise.

Encouragement via an autoresponder, since I learned code for 7 days

I also spent 3 solid days doing a course of Programming for Non-Programmers, and it was awesome. (Link goes to the first day of the program.) I should have been on it years ago.

Even if you don’t mean to be the developer of a mobile app, even if it is not your thing to move into IT, simply knowing what is going on in the programming world and being able to communicate better with coders, or being able to envision where an app could enhance your offering, will make you (and your company) more innovative.

The person who can envision using technology to better serve customers is going to be the more valuable hire, or the most valuable (and promotable) employee.

Piloting your business’s future depends on your knowing the trends of today.

I’ll give you an example I garnered from the WSJ. Keith Brown is an arborist and owner of Austin Tree Experts, in Austin, Texas.

Normally, one might not think that tree experts need to know code. But Mr. Brown was smarter and more innovative. He imagined that with an app, his customers would be able to record tree ailments more precisely than they were currently able to, and his employees would then be empowered to better solve those issues when they got better data.

Drawing on resources ranging from an online app development tool to the Q&A site Stackoverflow [http://stackoverflow.com] and online tutorials at W3Schools.org and HTML5rocks.com, he brought his idea to fruition. I imagine that he probably had more hours of headaches than he would like to recall, but the point is that he had to IMAGINE how an app would take an uploaded photo of a problematic tree, mix it with geographic data pulled in from GPS along with other relevant notes and details, and point to specific remedies.

Diagnosing and solving the source of tree rot or bug infestation with greater accuracy or speed offers better customer service and, ultimately, competitive advantage over other arborist firms.

Think about it. What could you be doing that you are not now doing, to differentiate your company from others? What enhancements to your products or services rely on a technical understanding of the possibilities?

Do you see what I mean when I buttonhole you and tell you to learn code?

Now go do it. No more excuses.

Mojo Moves

• Follow the “extreme sport” of learning to code, by doing a bootcamp (GeneralAssemb.ly or Devbootcamp.com)
• Take the moderate approach, and use Codeacademy.com
• Sign up for continuous e-learning on-demand, with Lynda.com or Udemy.com
• If you are simply not ready and still recalcitrant, at least, take 5 minutes to see what is going on at Stackoverflow.com

Photo of the job boards taken at GeneralAssemb.ly, New York.

Share in the comments how you feel about learning code, and what I might do to help you overcome your reluctance.

First tip: Use Twitter to get everyone onto the same page, instantaneously.

This tip works wonders when you have a group of people and need everyone to be viewing the same page in real time. Instead of emailing everyone with an attachment to open, you thought you had it covered by creating a Google doc and sharing it to all. But what if your “group” is 10 strong, or more? What if you are teaching a class of 30? I have the solution: Go onto Twitter and tweet the link to your Google doc, which is pre-set to be seen by those with the link (share -> anyone who has the link). See how Chris Castiglione did it, below:

Then everyone can jump to the link, and be on the same page lickety-split. Takes 15 seconds if you need to sign in to your Twitter account, and half that time if you are already logged in.

Second tip: Get personal with the heavy honchos at Facebook.

Do you know how Mark Zuckerberg brags that Facebook is connecting the world? How about calling him on this and getting up close and personal with him.

On the back end of the Facebook platform is a regular old database where everyone’s record has one unique identifier. This numerical identifier is automatically assigned when you sign up for an account.

Think about the Stone Age, when Facebook was being developed. The first people who had their hands on the system started from 1, but if you type into the search bar www.facebook.com/1, you get nothing. They were “testers” and were erased at some point.

If you keep increasing the numbers, you hit upon High Highness himself, Mark Zuckerberg. Here is his Facebook page at number four. (Note that it automatically changes facebook.com/4 to facebook.com/zuck. That is because he has claimed his own vanity URL.)

Does it make you want to friend him? I thought of that myself, but he has disabled that button. Still, you can follow him (by hitting the follow button, which turns to “Following” when you do).

Now you don’t need to pop a Xanax to allay anxiety, you can read up on Zuck’s posts and brag that you are up close and personal.

Mojo Moves

• Test out tweeting a Google doc link on Twitter
• Take a second to reveal Mark Zuckerberg’s personal page
• Check out each employee that came on board Facebook by upping the counter, and seeing whom you get. You have now learned something about how a database works.

I appreciate that you struggle every day to sculpt relevant and interesting copy, but the fact is, on a regular basis, your writing is boring. You commit the mother of all sins: allowing readers who come to your page, to turn tail. And not buy your stuff.

The #1 fail-proof remedy for boring online writing that brings reader shutdown

Set your sights on becoming the Taylor Swift of online writers. She has a REAL firecracker voice and a memorable “edge.”

Which is why we call her an icon of pop culture. She is popular. Not complicated, is it?

Inasmuch as blogging is part of social media, its got to be social. If it sounds like it were written by academics or data scientists, that’s an egregious mistake.

Your boring online writing is putting this man to sleep

But I’ve seen this mistake time and again. In fact, I once told my therapist that the blog of an SEO client of mine — I was NOT doing his writing – was pulled entirely from syndicated content tailored to his industry, and was boring. Even the therapist — who would normally hold herself back from chiming in — commented, “Yeah, I get an email from my accountant from time-to-time, and it is indeed boring. I skip through most of it.”

Yes, the accounting blog has a use; it gives valuable tax tips. But no, people don’t normally sit down for a big chunk of time to read tax tips.

So ask yourself, do you need to be boring when you write for the web? Is it getting you leads, is it bringing engagement?

If your answer is “not sure,” “no,” and “no,” then you are in an endless loop. Break out of it. The answer to the first question is “no” if the answer to the next two is “no.” You are doing yourself a disservice to stay in your risk-averse, old school ways.

People want tips and other free ideas, but even more they want to be part of a dialogue and to be given a chance to chime in. Can you have an interesting dialogue when you do all the talking yourself?

Can you have a genuine conversation when you are in straight-jacket-speak?

Loosen up. Get more descriptive. Take a chance. One online publisher found me when I was sharing my content to Google+. The thing that caught his eye was the fact that my writing wasn’t boring.

That’s why I am a big proponent: Either write your own blog, or hire a writer who knows how to talk in the language we speak online.

A spirited writer needs more than coffee and a laptop. It takes self discipline, creativity and boatloads of practice.

Web writing is not the same as sales collateral. In most cases (there are exceptions), a corporate blog can be fresher and more lively than the brochure the same firm produces.

Trifolds are not the same as text messages, are they?

So get away from stultifying, boring stuff.

If you want to polish your skills for web writing, the very best course out there (no surprise) is offered remotely, and given by the expert in web writing himself, Jon Morrow. You can sign up here.

I took the course myself and it helped improve my writing like working with a personal trainer made me drop 15 lbs. pronto. I went from being rather mediocre to stirring up a shitstorm of reader engagement.

The good news is that you can do it, too. You can make writing one of your core strengths, if you learn from the pro himself.

And now for those of you in corporate, whether large companies, middle market firms, or small start-ups: Think in terms of being lively and make yourself the strongest writer out there. Get away from the yawns, and pick up the tempo.

Become the Iron Man of online writers. If you don’t know how, Jon Morrow will show you.

Photos courtesy of Creative Commons 2.0, the measure of mike and KatieKrueger.

How do you get creative and bring out ‘your inner soul sistah’ when you write? Tell us in the comments.

When my wife and I got engaged, we had barely clinked champagne glasses when a friend asked when we would be visiting Crate and Barrel to register for wedding gifts. The idea sounded appealing enough, but we couldn’t think of anything we actually needed. So we created a wish list of things we thought we needed, like designer flatware, gold-rimmed china, and a blender that makes bread dough.

How is a blender that makes great mango smoothies like a best-fit candidate? Read on

As it turned out, the best gifts we received on our wedding day were the thoughtful, unique gifts from people who knew us well and understood our day-to-day needs. We also loved the gifts we simply never expected.

I often compare our gift registry experience to the way many companies write job specs. What should serve as a helpful set of guidelines to find the right candidate typically devolves into an inflated “wish list” of qualities and talents that sound good at the time, but aren’t practical or even possible to find in one person. 

If I looked back at every job I’ve filled during my 15 years of recruiting and compared the company’s job spec to the person they actually hired, I suspect I would see a significant gap between their wish list and “the gift” they got.

I see two reasons for this discrepancy:

1. Static Specs.  Many hiring managers write a job spec that is heavy on wishes and low on real needs. They continue to use the same or similar spec throughout their search without re-evaluating it. With each candidate interviewed, the hiring manager learns something new about what they are looking for and what the real job requirements might be, but the job spec is rarely updated to reflect what they’ve learned.
2. Like Pornography? Companies aren’t always clear on what they’re looking for until the right candidate walks through the door—which brings to mind Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” phenomenon. For many companies, the “best athlete” will get the job regardless of how closely they match the spec.

It is frustrating when I learn that a client has hired a great candidate that I already knew, but decided not to send over because, judging from the job spec, they weren’t a great match. Needless to say, I’ve learned my lesson and now take the following five approaches to solve this job spec ambiguity problem:

1. Archteypes. I ask clients to show me a bio or LinkedIn profile for a candidate whom they’ve made an offer to recently, or on someone they consider ideal for this position. Very often, seeing a real person’s bio is much more informative than seeing a job spec. Reviewing the details of a real person can help me better understand what the hiring manager is looking for, and I get a true feel for the person that would get the job, not the resume that would get the interview.
2. Short and Sweet. I recommend that my clients boil down their job spec “must-haves” to only one or two items. I have a client who spends a lot of time creating very detailed specs for all of their engineering openings, and in doing so I find their real needs get lost. For example, “Candidate must have deep CS knowledge and know their data structures and algorithms inside and out” is a clear message and points me in the right direction. Based on those two imperatives, I can quickly find the best person out there with these skills and, because “I know it when I see it”, the client likes the candidate and gives them the job.
3. Be Open-Minded. I also ask hiring managers to be open-minded about their must-haves. A candidate’s experience may not match perfectly to what the hiring manager is initially asking for, but sometimes a candidate will have skills from a previous position that prove to be extremely valuable in a new position. For example, I was doing a search for a VP of Engineering for a company that was building a stock-trading platform. “Experience in financial services or a trading platform a must!” The VP of Engineering I placed there, however, had spent his entire career leading real-time software development at successful data communications startups. His real-time experience, and the time he spent at successful start-ups, proved to be his most valuable assets.
4. Culture. I think of a company as a cultural community with social needs, not a machine that needs a specific part plugged in. Finding a candidate who is not only great at what they do but who also fits well into that company’s culture is going to have a better shot at getting the job and succeeding at the company long-term. For example, does the candidate rock climb or brew beer in her spare time? These qualities may not make her a better CTO or VP of Product, but they may make her “click” with a like-minded hiring manager and be more successful in a given company community.
5. Hire Winners – If a candidate is coming from a winning environment, he or she is more likely to know how to win.  They will bring this culture with them when they join your company.   I look for candidates that have worked for companies that have built highly regarded products and have worked with people who have had previous, profitable outcomes.  The caveat there, however, is that there are often many people looking to take credit for a winner’s work. Like the old proverb says, “Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.”

So how much do job specs really matter? They are an objective element to a mostly subjective process. They are also, however, an important starting point. And the more realistic, concise and flexible the job specs are, the more successful the hiring process will be. Just beware of the job spec “wish list.” After all, do you really want a blender that can make bread dough, or do you actually want a blender that makes really good frozen margaritas and milk shakes?

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons 2.0, Foodmayhem.

You can learn a ton from Life of Pi, which is exquisitely shot, lives in the realm of fantasy, and takes off from the saga of a shipwrecked Indian boy.

Uncommon courage and insight in a story of man vs. beast amid the salty seas

See it, and see what you can pick up from Pi to achieve greater self-awareness, because it is scientifically proven that greater self-awareness is positively correlated with success.

Here are my 6 takeaways from Life of Pi:

1. What makes a huge impression on a youngster, sticks for life. In the movie, the lesson was not to feed a tiger; it is a wild animal. The character Pi never forgets this lesson, which ultimately helps save his life.

2. Be open to your reality; you have more courage than you know.

3. Every day is a blessing, every new challenge will demand your creativity. Without creativity, you will wither in the struggle. That’s for sure.

4. Foreign cultures, sights, and sounds aren’t frou frou. They are part of the core of a cosmopolitan person. I spent 16 months in my twenties tramping around Asia; that experience not only resonates “back then,” it lives in my psyche now, too, and whets my appetite for new cultural experiences, midlife.

Like me, be a person who is interested in other cultures and the wider world. Not solely for your personal growth. This will help you in the good ol’ US of A, where 38 million people were born abroad.

5. Look for the parallels in what you are experiencing. It is not about your deadbeat Dad, your difficult boss, or your dysfunctional family. It is about you. As my coach says, a business that doesn’t work is about you who doesn’t work. Fix yourself on the psychological, spiritual, and physical levels. Then your professional work will level up.

6. You are beautiful at every age. How many actors played the main character, Piscine Molitor, over the years? The credits showed a whole bunch. And each persona was lovely at that very age.

Mojo Moves

• Grab a friend and see Life of Pi at a theater. Some things simply cannot be appreciated on Hulu or Netflix. The gorgeous cinematography requires it.
• Think about what lesson from your childhood comes back to you on a regular basis, possibly even every day. Be aware of your “regurgitated” thinking. Self-awareness will inform why you reflexively respond as you do, and help you recalibrate to respond as you wish, instead of by rote.
• Get out and investigate one neighborhood that is rich in ethnic diversity. You will grow as a person and a colleague, when you do this.

Movie poster ™ and © Twentieth Century Fox.

What did you think of the movie? Please tell us in the comments.

Which underscores how you never know whom you might pull in, when creating an online community.

Online communities are a phenomenon you cannot ignore

Have you heard of a website called Backyardchickens.com?

The stars of the show ... in one online community.

Probably not, but thanks to Richard Millington, I joined that online community to see what was happening, and OMG, hundreds of thousands of folks cover all angles of raising chickens in a backyard NOT just for goofs! There are more than 100,000 chicken enthusiasts who together have posted more than 7 million questions and comments about this topic.

If you didn’t know me, you might think this is a joke from Jay Leno. It’s not.

Why should you care? Because online communities are a growing phenomenon, and regardless of whether your work involves:

• cultivating new business opportunities
• validating ideas for extensions to an existing product line
• turning up Influencers to pump up their network, or
• improving collaboration in a company of remote employees

doing it online makes eminent sense.

About a year ago, Catherine Morgan and I used Google+ Hangouts to host a regular hangout for folks in mid-career transition. Beyond the fact that the experience was a hoot-and-a-half, we discovered this is a superb platform for creating an online community and making closer connections than is possible simply using conference calls or webinars.

When you can see each other in real-time, your connection feels more personal and dare I say — more trusting.

I urge you to explore Google+ Hangouts because there are so many ways it fits the bill. It has been used by politicians to hold town hall meetings with constituents or donors, it is well-suited for conversations between virtual teams of your vendors or customers, and it can help you connect to other professionals to share best practices.

For example, there is a regular Google+ Hangout for Community Managers that you can calendar and join every Friday at 2pm. Run by Tim McDonald (@MYCMGR), a Community Manager at the Huffington Post, this side gig makes Tim a Host of Community Managers. If you join this week, I’ll see you there!

Features of Google+ Hangout that help you succeed like a pro

Google+ Hangout lets you host a videoconference with up to 9 participants, where everyone can see and hear each other in real time. For free. Further, the videoconference is automatically recorded so you can save it and embed it into your website, upload to the cloud, or share it in any way you choose.

Moreover, you can livestream the Google+ Hangout to YouTube so that anyone who is not on Google+ can see it anyway.

It is super easy to host a Google+ Hangout, but if you are too sheepish to jump into the hot seat of being a “Host” at the moment, consider joining a Google+ Hangout as a participant first, so you get the feel of it.

How to know where and when Google+ Hangouts take place

I recommend a tool called Hangout Canopy because it gives a broad overview of what public hangouts are happening at the moment. Similar to what the ancient TV Guide used to do, for those old enough to remember it!

One caveat: you need to be using Chrome as your browser in order to use the Hangout Canopy extension.

1. While you are in Chrome (also free to download), go to http://www.hangoutcanopy.com, press the Google Chrome button, and the following pop-up appears. Make the ‘Add’ selection (as shown below).

Laying it out for you, select these two buttons

2. Automatically, the tool will add this icon to your browser bar. The little number below the icon tells you how many hangouts are happening at that very moment.

3. At any time you wish to find people to chat with, tap that icon and view the burst showing real-time hangouts, illustrated below.

Join any of these live videochats that are public, on google plus

4. To join the hangout, click on the face of the host.

5. The pane switches, informing how many are on the hangout. Click the blue box that says “Hang out.”

6. Your webcam turns on (goes green). Click the blue box that says “Join.”

7. You’re in!

Be part of the online communities taking part at that moment. Get your mojo on. And get cozy comfy with your constituents, your virtual teammates, or your prospects.

To smooth that path, I have a video treat for you. My guest Joanne Cleaver, has an uber-impressive background as a writer for The Chicago Tribune, Working Woman, Entrepreneur, and other publications. She has just come out with a book,

Don't wait for your HR department to plan your next move.

The Career Lattice: Combat Brain Drain, Improve Company Culture, and Attract Top Talent. If you are expecting your career to sweep you off your feet in the coming year, then press “play” to hear our conversation.

FYI, underneath the video is a synopsis of our conversation, so don’t ditch me in the middle of watching if you prefer text. Following the transcript, I offer links to the digital candy that will enable you to implement the technology just as I have, to create split-screen videos and use web-based tools to self-publish.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mojo40: What exactly do you mean by a career lattice? What is that concept?

Joanne Cleaver: We traditionally think of advancing your career as a straight upward trajectory like a ladder. However, in an era of slow growth and flattened organizations, you need to think about going over as well as going up. Strategic lateral moves will help you gain skills, broaden your experience, and expand your networks so you are positioned for several types of future jobs.

By getting several types of experiences while you are in your current position, you open up opportunities for different jobs in the next 6 to 18 months.

Mojo40: I loved your example of Ursula Burns, who became the first African-American woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She used this concept of a career lattice to transfer into different functions at Xerox, and eventually she had enough corporate mentors on her side to rise to CEO.

Mojo40: How can a person make a first move on the lattice, especially if the boss is clueless about one’s aspirations?

Joanne: Be very self-aware as you are making these steps, and track your progress so you can explain it to your current or future boss. Look at the trends and growth drivers for your industry over the next 6 to 12 months. Review what your top brass are telling the street and translate that back to your position. Look for an opportunity to join a team or a project – perhaps take the place of someone on short-term leave – and say you would like to run point for a while.

Remember, it is not just about you, it’s about you in the context of your company’s needs.

Keep a diary of your steps so you can explain how you got on a team, which will form your own case study for an interview or cover letter.

Mojo40: If you want to make a lateral move, how would you detect what’s a good move?

Joanne: Look at what you are naturally good at and the emerging trends that will frame up the demand for talent.

Have you heard the one about the top brains exiting? Just up and left, they did...

An example from my own life: I’ve been a business journalist who is transitioning to a communications consulting and coaching role. From my earlier work, I knew how hard it is to get a source to give you a concise quote. I saw an opportunity training clients to condense large research reports into concise talking points. I took additional training and gained technical skills for constructing and organizing webinars. Now I have a format for putting my IP (intellectual property) across in a way that I can sell to those who need this training.

Simple graphical user interface that will build your mojo! Skype with your colleague and post it up!

A further example from the book: An accountant at a public accounting firm made a transition to marketing in the media and entertainment field. She condensed an array of options into a manageable number by answering the question, “Should I stay with my technical skills or pursue another industry as a generalist?”

Going for the latter option, she left the CPA firm and joined a media outfit on the basis of her accounting credential and technical skills. She was still an accountant, so it was a lateral move. But she got involved with an association, volunteering for marketing responsibilities.

She showed results with these projects, i.e., she could not only keep track of money but also make money.

She demonstrated business development skills, networking, and expanding the group’s sphere of influence.

Back at her day job, she joined a couple of projects, got to know folks in other departments, and two years after she started this process, the right job came up. Because she showed results and had taken small deliberate steps, she was able to move into that position.

Mojo40: I know someone who moved in the opposite direction, from marketing to being an entrepreneur insurance agent, but whichever path you are on, The Career Lattice should open your mind to the wisdom of planning your next career move with intention.

Mojo Moves

• Look at the intersection between where your company wants to be and what you offer, and identify a few potential “lattice” moves.
• Regardless of what trends you identify, just dipping your hand into technology is one of your very best moves to ensure you are ready for the hottest jobs of the future: In all cases, they will require someone who is willing and able to learn and adapt.
• Explore the web-based tools that I have used to make this post. 1-I used Ecamm‘s Call Recorder for Skype with the user interface set like the illustration below; 2-I used Vimeo, as it allows faster uploads of higher-quality videos than what is possible on YouTube; 3-I used the Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin for WordPress.
• If you find it painful to try something new, learn to explore the various help forums tucked into these sites to troubleshoot. It is amazing what you can do, once you get started.

Panel for correctly setting up the technical aspects of the call recorder.

Drawing of the exiting brains via Creative Commons 2.0, theps.net.

What has worked for you in terms of expanding your network and gaining the visibility you need to move up in your career? Share in the comments.