“Attitude is Contagious: Is yours worth catching?”

The economic challenges that we are all facing right now have an undeniable effect on our attitude.  Some handle the stress of layoffs and cost cutting in different ways, from cynicism to criticism and sometimes even downright anger.  Our attitude, however, is not just a coping mechanism, it is one of the many factors our peers and supervisors use to judge our ability to do our jobs and motivate others.  Along with job performance, it can make or break hiring and firing decisions.

Is your attitude worth catching?

What does this have to do with Generation Y’ers who sit in their cube making far less than Michael Phelps made on his deal with Visa, and Omega watches?  Alot.  Phelps found out quickly how a Brand can be tarnished by  association when he mistakenly was captured “celebrating” with a bong in November 2008.  He lost his sponsorship with Kellogg’s cereal, and found that his personal Brand was effected  simultaneously.

Our personal brand is valuable and needs to be protected.  In the world of twitter, Facebook, and cellphone video, we are held more accountable then ever for our actions and words due to technology.  

How can you improve your Brand?
Make sure your google results with your name possess only clear and positive perspectives on your professional abilities and activities. Create and own your domain name. Many HR offices are using social media to do research on you before interviewing and hiring.
  
How do you protect it?
Watch what you say/post on twitter, Facebook, and how you act on a videophone cameras. We have seen way too many celebrities caught by photographers in some pretty comprimising positons. 

More importantly how can your Brand get you the job you are searching for?
You know your Brand best. If what you do at work does not capture your Brand completely, start Branding yourself on your own website, through Linkdin, Facebook, and other social media sites.

For more ideas on how to successfully Upgrade Your Brand check out personalbrandingblog.com Dan Schawbel is called a “personal branding force of nature” by Fast Company and released his book ME 2.0 today.

Seth Travis is a young communications professional residing in Pennsylvania. For more information on Seth’s Brand and expertise visit: http://newlycorporate.com/seth-travis/

That’s how it all starts, whether you are pulled into it, or you volunteer for it out of sheer passion, many Generation Y young professional are asked to analyze options and tools for doing business on the web. As I thoroughly enjoy this task, and have had the opportunity to do it a number of times for portions of the company I work for and my own small business ventures, I figured I would share 5 tips I keep in mind when I go about choosing the best web or software solutions.

1.  Focus on the task or goal.  All too often I find myself looking at flashy solutions that are pretty but don’t really address the ultimate goal. Write the goal or task down and keep it in front of you as you analyze options.

2.  Integrate it. Find out where the solution fits and then find a tool that can integrate into other systems in the business process or flow.

3.  Keep it fresh!  Look at the history of the tool, plugin or site.  Is it constantly being updated?  Does it have an active and open development team/company?  A tool that is actively being updated in a robust way will keep your company users happy with the latest features and fixes.

4.  Leave it in the cloud.  My experience tells me that when a company brings a tool in house on their servers, it is like driving a car off of a lot, it immediately begins to become obsolete until the company pays a ton to upgrade it.  Just use it, let someone else update it.

5.  Stay social.  I know social media is all the rage right now but, there is some truth the the benefits of social tools.  Look for social features and road maps as they will aid adoption and allow users to help and interact with each other more freely.

Have you been asked to research tools and web solutions for your team or company?  How do you address it?  Share your tips in the comments!

So where are people turning for knowledge about their co-workers?  LinkedIn!  If you’re not on LinkedIn, what are you waiting for?  It’s Facebook for professionals without the annoying updates from that weird girl you sat near during high school English class who throws virtual snowballs at you and tries to get you to save the earth with a lil’ green patch. (I’m all for saving the earth but keep your snowballs and patches to yourself!) LinkedIn is a great way to stay on top of who’s coming, who’s going and miscellaneous organizational changes.

In March 2009, Fortune reported that LinkedIn’s traffic has more than doubled in a year. ”Unlike the job seekers (and those fearing unemployment) that troll its jobs boards, LinkedIn is thriving in the recession: Overall, traffic has more than doubled to 6.9 million users in February from 3.3 million a year earlier.”  Statistics indicate that activity from Lehman Brothers current and former employees spiked 315% from August to September 2008.  LinkedIn’s fastest growing region is Detroit, MI.

Visit LinkedIn and get answers about what’s going on with your co-workers and former co-workers. 

Read more about LinkedIn

LinkedIntellience

Forbes

Should be you “friends” with your Boss? via Brazen Careerist

LinkedIn Privacy Settings- What you need to know

Love or hate Linkedin?  Tell us why! Leave a comment!

A presentation is relative and are often prepared for audiences that can be subjective at the very least. How can you make your mark with the team and your boss without sugar-coating the content of the message? Try these simple steps for a successful presentation that you can be proud of and your team will applaud.

1. Story board your message - introduce your purpose for the meeting, notate your data/information with simple and relevant language, and tie your findings to a summary and action plan.

2. Confirm your findings with the right audience – Walk through your numbers/discovery with the expert before displaying it in new york times font on a white screen.

3. Follow the powerpoint laws provided to you by your speech 101 professor in college – I call it the 4X6 rule, no more than 4 to 6 words per line and 4-6 lines per slide. Unless important to the presentation, paragraphs should not be included on a slide.

4. Add your personal style for a successful presentation – they are meant to inform not entertain, but you can include relevant color schemes, or use a comic as a team ice breaker, but the focus of your work should reflect adding value to your team and your organization.

5. Practice – whether your meeting is at 8am or 10pm, remember all of the excruciating pitches you have sat through and don’t make your team suffer like you have. Smile, breathe, and remember pausing to collect your thoughts will allow your audience time for the information to sink in.

*Helpful Hint – if you don’t live for presentations, and fear public speaking more than death like most americans, find one of your favorite speakers, and zero in on what makes them so dynamic and grab a few tricks from there bag!

I propose these seven rules for better email in the office.

1. Walk, Meet or Call Before Emailing.

Remember, communication did exist prior to the advent of email. Those old standbys like walking to someone’s desk, setting up a meeting, or calling them on the phone are still viable options. I think it works best when you have a real conversation with someone and then, if a record is needed, summarize the conversation in an email. Some of the worst email train-wrecks occur when trying to troubleshoot, negotiate or problem-solve via email. These conversations are not suited for a medium with a built-in time delay.

2. CC With Care

There are no standards for email etiquette, but I can’t ignore the common practice of people filtering emails in which they are not in the TO: line. I live by this rule: if you expect someone to reply or take action, put them in the TO: line. If you put someone in the CC: line that means you need them to be aware of what is going on but don’t need them to do anything. To put it differently, don’t expect someone to take action if they are in the CC line.

CC’ing with care also includes use of Reply All. Very bad things can happen when you use Reply All. I’ve seen it result in insulting comments about customers being sent to customers. This is pretty much the worst thing that can happen if you are in sales. For example: Sales guy sends support request to support guy and CCs the customer to let the customer know support is now handling the issue, support guy then Replys All with a comments like “oh no, not this idiot customer again”. Customer sees the reply and all hell breaks loose.

Finally, be proactive in trimming the CC list. If an email eventually finds its way to you and you can actually fix it, send an email to the group letting them know that you are taking ownership of the issue and are reducing the CC list. If anyone really wants to stay in the loop, they’ll request it. Most will be happy to be relieved of the clutter in their inbox (especially executives).

3. Be Brief, Be Professional

An email at work is not a blog post. It is not a Facebook message. And it is certainly not your pulpit. Your job is to pack the most message into as few words as possible. People get hundreds of messages a day, and they don’t want to read some rambling approximation of the issue at hand. They want facts and they want clear, articulate responses. Lists and bullets are better than giant bricks of text. Here are some suggested formats:

Project status
- where we’ve been
- where we’re we are today
- where we’re going

Problem
- symptom
- possible cause(s)
- fixes tried so far
- next steps

4. Ask Yourself,  “Am I Forgetting Anyone?”

Messages have senders and receivers. Your message will fail if you don’t include all the appropriate recipients. Failing to do this can result in people being blindsided or sometimes having their feelings hurt; people can get that left-out feeling. Also, you may be stepping on someone’s toes. You may be doing their job and they might not like that.

5. Let Someone Else Handle It

Don’t be over-eager. If you know someone else in the email chain can handle the problem and is likely to be pro-active, don’t beat them to the punch. Let them reply. Whatever you do, don’t add to the problem by sending a message saying “I think Bob will reply, so let’s wait for his answer”. We need to fight the collective ADD that is sweeping the nation. Just wait a few moments and let the other players make their contribution.

6. Avoid Attachments

One of the biggest annoyances of corporate email is the size limitation on your inbox. I swear, they all seem to be less than Gmail. You don’t want to be the person who put someone else over their size limit, so take measures to avoid or at least minimize attachments. You can post documents to servers and then send links to them, or you can zip files before you attach them. You could also just announce the presence of a document and instruct recipients to email you if they want a copy.

7. Keep Your Signature Short

If your signature is longer than most of your messages, you have a problem. Here’s the basic format I recommend:

Name
Company, Title
Phone
Legal Disclaimer (only if absolutely required)

Here’s how it works on Office XP
1) Open “My Computer”
2) Click on the Tools Menu
3) Click the tab that says “File Types”
4) Scroll down to “XLS” extensions
5) Click the button that says “Advanced”
6) Uncheck the box that says Browse in the same window
7) Click Ok. Close your browser and test the new setting.

Do you have a great excel tweak to share?

These are all questions any young professional considers as they go about planning meetings, social events and most interactions.  However, do you actually plan your interactions at a higher level? I am sure most people don’t consciously think out what their social strategy is for their life but, it can add serious value for anyone with little effort.

Consider Your Social Circles

By considering how your groups of friends, co-workers and other social circles interact, you can plan the areas that can add the most value through increase relationship strength, group member knowledge and the number of new people you interact with.

I find my best experiences come from introducing different groups together.  Now, for some groups this could be awkward but, by using your basic knowledge of your friends you can make the connections between circles that strengthen your existing relationships and finding new ones.

Draw Your Interactions

The diagram on the right illustrates this concept by representing each sample group of friends.  Now this could be even better in 3D with multiple groups intersecting in multiple demensions but, I decided to keep it 2D so anyone could draw it.  The arrows illustrate where the person drawing the diagram would like to expand intersections, introduce friends and build more relationships.  It definitely helped me visualize how I am interacting and where I could do better.

How do you plan social interactions?  Are there strategies you use? Diagramming or visualization techniques?  Please share them in the comments.

Overall Most Popular Posts of 2008

1. Business Casual – Men’s Clothing as a Young Professional Part 2 – Shirts
2. 10 Crucial Questions on How to Interview (and the Answers)
3. How to Create an Impressive Career Portfolio
4. Business Casual – Men’s Clothing as a Young Professional
5. What does casual Friday attire say about your image?
6. Gen Y Help: How To Dress at the Office for Women
7. Live Rich on Any Paycheck
8. Daily Business Zen: Is there such thing as too much social media?
9. Boss problems? Don’t Leave, Train Your Manager!
10. Real Life 101: Ten Things You Must Do After College

Most Linked to Posts of 2008

In addition to the overall most popular posts, this list includes the articles other bloggers found most valuable by linking to them.

1. Business Casual – Men’s Clothing as a Young Professional Part 2 – Shirts
2. Maximizing Your Two Weeks: Travel Tips for the Frugal Traveler
3. 19 Great Gift Ideas for Young Professionals
4. 2 Days in 1 : Get More Done
5. Helicopter Parents: Taking Care of Business
6. A Millenial’s 6 Step Guide to Getting Things Done
7. 4 Things I Learned About Image from American Idol
8. 5 Ways to Establish Yourself As An Expert
9. Coffee Break: Job Aid for Your Daily Grind
10. Beat fear: Get your ideas out there!

In the coming week, the bloggers here on Newly Corporate will highlight their favorites for you to review and leverage if you haven’t read them yet.

What are your favorites?  Share them in the comments!

I spoke with a Branding expert the other day, and the conversation was all over the place.  We talked about so many ideas, I thought after I hung up, I needed a nap or a beer.  What stuck with me the most was this statement;  “you should focus on one thing, and be the expert at it” if it is something you don’t know much about yet, then learn it, and become the most informed person on the topic.

I agreed with him to a point.  My experience in the workforce is we are expected to be good, or strong in so many areas that being the best or the expert in a singular area.  That really freaked me out.  I used to think I was the best at a few things; Captain of my high school swim team; First Speaker on debate team in college, and even the cooler uncle to my nieces and nephews.  Now I have to figure out a way to be great at everything my boss needs me to be great at and then when I return home each day, I should focus on my ‘Brand Identity’.  This social networking thing is like a full-time job. (sigh)

My problem is that I am interested in so much!  I told this to the branding expert, “I am a guy who really digs GQ Magazine and Men’s Health.  They talk about so much stuff in there.  I like blogging about fashion, parties, networking, diversity, and workplace  dynamics.  Since I am a typical generation Y’er I have not made that decision on my niche yet.  I am almost there I have a list about 5 items long.  When I get that ah-ha moment; newlycorporate readers will be the first to know!

This is where you get to speak your mind, leave a comment: If you are a blogger, or a “dot-commer” what is your  your brand identity?  Why are you involved in social networking, and how does it impact your professional development?