If you haven’t fully embraced the wonders of podcasts, or aren’t even sure where to start, then let us point the way when it comes to professional development. Here are some of our team’s favorite podcasts:

WorkLife with Adam Grant: A TED original podcast
Recommended by: Lauren Bell
What it’s about: WorkLife is about looking at ways to make the time you spend at work more enjoyable. It takes you inside the minds of some very interesting people and their unusual workplaces, and adds some social science to the experience.
Why I like it: “I was looking for a podcast that would keep me engaged and better my own work life and after just a few episodes I am hooked! I love how it ties into the #futureofwork and how even the sponsors they promote are selected for their unique culture.” — Lauren.
Recommended starter episode: A World Without Bosses
Who might like it: People who enjoyed reading Originals by Adam Grant, enjoy Malcolm Gladwell (there is even a bonus debate with him), have an interest in the #futureofwork, or just want to have better work lives.

AKIMBO
Recommended by: Sophie Solomon
What it’s about: Akimbo is about seeing what’s happening with our culture, and about how we can make a difference.
Why I like it: “I just started listening to Akimbo and what I love most about it is that Seth Godin offers opportunity for action regarding the change we want to be.” — Sophie.
Recommended starter episode: Freelancers
Who might like it: People who like Seth Godin and similar writers/business icons, but also those who are tired of just learning and want to do something.

BATTLE TACTICS FOR YOUR SEXIST WORKPLACE
Recommend by: Ashley Marquez and Anika Lehde
What it’s about: Brand-new podcast from Seattle’s local public radio station, KUOW, hosted by two incredible women, Jeannie Yandel and Eula Scott Bynoe; the hosts break down how sexism works in the modern workplace and offer real tactics for fighting back.
Why we like it: “I LOVE Battle Tactics for Your Sexist Workplace. It is just the right mix of serious and humorous, while integrating perspectives of industry leaders, data, scientific research, and of course ‘random guys from the internet,’ audio clips. This is a great podcast that engages with social justice topics that span beyond gender equity and provides concrete action items to improve the workplace.” – Ashley
Recommended starter episode, especially if you are not a woman: Men: You have more power than you realize. Here’s how to use it
Who might like it: Folks who would like to see a more equitable workplace. Not just for women!

CEO COACH
Recommend by: Anika Lehde
What it’s about: A weekly broadcast on topics and business issues that affect all entrepreneurs, and particularly startups. Funding. Finance. Staffing. Software. Branding. Business development. Valuation.
Why I like it: “I love the two hosts of CEO Coach, Ann and Gillian. I feel like I’m learning from my badass aunties who will teach you all the things your parents wouldn’t.” — Anika.
Recommended starter episode: Age Bias is a Thing, Especially for Older Women
Who might like it: Anyone who wants to run a business, either as an entrepreneur or an executive.

FUTURE OF WORK PODCAST
Recommend by: Anika Lehde
What it’s about: A podcast for individuals and companies who want to future-proof (is that possible?) their career or organization by adapting to how the workplace is changing.
Why I like it: “This podcast is the only one I know of that is really thinking about the new (old) relationship between employees and employers, why we work, and what it means.” — Anika  Recommended starter episode: An interview with Former Girl Scouts CEO Frances Hesselbein, on the State of Work, Why the Future Is Bright, and the Reason Age Doesn’t Matter.
Who might like it: People who want to be part of shaping the future.

HIDDEN BRAIN
Recommend by: Njeri Thande, Ashley Marquez, and Sophie Solomon
What it’s about: Using science and storytelling, Hidden Brain reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, the biases that shape our choices, and the triggers that direct the course of our relationships.
Why we like it: “This podcast helps me stay inspired to understand why we (humans) do what we do and forces me to think outside of the box when it comes to how different behavioral phenomena and evolution apply to marketing.” — Ashley.
Recommended starter episode: BS Jobs: How Meaningless Work Wears Us Down
Who might like it: Anyone who is curious. Really, everyone.

LOOSE THREADS
Recommended by: Alicia White
What it’s about: Loose Threads takes a look a variety of entrepreneurs as they work in the fast-changing consumer economy.
Why I like it: “I love this podcast because it features entrepreneurs and how they’ve learned to navigate today’s fast-changing economy across all industries. I learn something new every time I listen to an episode and I feel inspired to think creatively.” — Alicia.
Recommended starter episode: All-Inclusive with Fran Dunaway of TomboyX
Who might like it: Folks who want to hear from innovative start-up founders

SUCCESS BULLY
Recommended by: Anika Lehde
What it’s about: A podcast, hosted by Keita Williams, which is part of an overall accountability practice dedicated to supporting visionaries in attaining their goals professionally and personally.
Why I like it: “I love everything about Keita, she is bold and sharp, and interviews the most incredible people in business. Both informational and inspirational.”  — Anika
Recommended starter episode: It’s 60 Second Increments
Who it’s for: Those looking for a little inspiration and cheerleading while heading into a big challenge or making a change.

Have we missed a great one? Tell us about it on Twitter at @anikamarketer and @projectline.

The post Lifelong Learner? Try These Podcast Picks From the Projectline Crew appeared first on Projectline Services.

This picture was taken just moments after receiving my degree. For the past two years, I was enrolled in the Executive MBA program at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, on top of my responsibilities as General Manager of Projectline Services, husband, and father of two. What you see is the smirk of someone who was ready to be done—to trim down the list of worries to a full-time job and a family. The irony of this photo is that there is no degree in there. You get the case and a placeholder; your real degree arrives in the mail several months later. I just received mine, and now I can mark this long journey as complete.

They say it takes a village. I say sometimes it takes a few villages. I think of my family as the village where I live, and I could not have completed my degree without the amazing support of my wife and children (ages 11 and 7). It’s not like they hit pause for two years on growing, school work, soccer practices, or the latest Star Wars movies. (In fairness, their father shared in this last need.)

The same is true for my work village. Clients still have questions, strategic decisions still need to be made, teams still need to be hired and inspired, and plans still need to be enacted. It was exhausting, and it was thrilling. In the process, I think I finally learned the lesson of the importance of delegation. Maybe you can learn from my experience (without spending two years on a master’s degree to do it).

As a leader, letting my team down ranks among my greatest fears. Any leader fears making a bad decision that costs the business, but a much less conspicuous concern prevented me from properly delegating responsibilities: giving my direct reports the impression that I was just throwing something over the fence at them. We’ve all had bad managers, the kind that hand you difficult, thankless tasks and tell you to “just figure it out.” That’s not inspiring, and it is not delegation.

Ever striving to fall into the “good boss” category, I want my teams to feel they have the tools and experience to take on the consequences and ownership of whatever I hand them. They should have a lifeline to check in, but also the freedom to work without interference (no one wants to work for a micromanager). But over the past two years, time suddenly became my single biggest bottleneck. Anything that fell outside of working, eating, family activities, or studying came at the expense of precious little sleep.

In this kind of survival mode, the short-term math permeated my thinking. If it would take me an hour to hand off a monthly task that I could do in 30 minutes, I did it myself. This, of course, doomed me to losing those 30 minutes every month on something I could have delegated indefinitely. As a manager, I could recognize the failure in the moment. It is similar to parenting, when I find myself saying “because I said so” even as my inner monologue shakes its head and sighs at me. But what can we do? Even if we know we should be taking the longer view, survival decisions come from our reptilian brain stem, not our frontal cortex.

Somewhere in the jump between the first and second year of the program, the sheer volume of work pushed me to focus on the long-term math. There was simply too much to do. In no small part is this because my management team shifted their mindsets too. They no longer asked if they could help, they just took things on and dared me to tell them otherwise.

A 25th hour in the day didn’t magically appear, and I don’t remember getting many full nights of sleep—but things definitely became easier. At work, we grew roughly 50% over those two years. We added new client logos, developed a new service offering, and kicked off new internal initiatives to enhance our company culture (such as mindfulness and inclusivity best practices). Our company has never been happier, or bigger, than it is today. If I didn’t delegate during this process, I would have been the bottleneck. By definition, the business outcomes would have been worse by comparison.

I only delegated, really delegated, because the reality of having only 24 hours in a day forced my hand. So, my advice? Force your own hand. Strangely enough, giving up control can give you a wider field of vision. You will be surprised by how different brains come up with better ideas than your own. Outcomes will improve with diversity of input. Work becomes more fun for everyone. Eventually, you’ll have moments when someone on your management team approaches you and says something to the effect of: “hey, you know that thing you don’t know about yet because I’m just now telling you for the first time? Well, this is what happened, here’s what I did, and it turned out great.”

When you build teams you can trust, they will be hungry to deal with things that don’t have clear answers. I know that my own periods of rapid career growth occurred when I was stepping into challenges I didn’t feel completely prepared to own. Don’t worry about making sure your teams are comfortable with responsibility before giving it to them. Give them the opportunity to become comfortable being uncomfortable. Why? Because they are probably already ready for whatever you are not sure they are ready for. And, like you were, they are thirsty for a challenge, and for the opportunity to show their boss what they can do.

If you are interested in learning more about Projectline, delegation, or would simply like to stay in touch with Damian, you can connect via LinkedIn.

The post I’ll bet you didn’t know that MBA programs teach a course in delegation, and it is not an elective appeared first on Projectline Services.

However, sometimes it isn’t clear where or how to start or what it means to be in control of your own career path and professional development. Enter: Career Janet. I met Janet Matta after she spoke at the Hacking HR event last June in Seattle. In her talk, “Careers in the Future of Work,” she started by talking about the social changes and technological changes that are influencing how the workplace is changing. I immediately knew she understood that we all have to develop different skills – or expand specific skills that will be in demand in the future. Most importantly, she emphasized how we have a greater responsibility than ever for our own growth and career development.  

At Projectline, we wanted to bring this sense of urgency and inspiration to our consultants, so we invited Janet to speak with our community and lead one of our monthly training sessions. She accepted, and our teams are definitely are better for it. Feedback after the session showed us that more than 70% of people were going to take some specific concrete action because of her training. That is the most we can ask for in a partnership. I hope we can follow up with a session II to learn exactly the impact of those actions for each of those employees.  

So what concrete actionable step are you going to take to ensure you are in control of your own growth and career path? Here are the five things that I recommended a while back. But if these don’t resonate with you, I really suggest you try Janet. She isn’t a career coach for people looking for work, she is a career coach for those looking to really shape and control their future.  

Get ready! The future is here.  

If you want to chat more about the future of work and the skills that you think will be needed, hit me up on Twitter @AnikaMarketer. 

The post In the face of the Future of Work, get in the driver’s seat of your career appeared first on Projectline Services.

What can you, as a freelancer, do to keep motivated during stressful times? If you don’t already, I recommend keeping a physical “kudos” folder. This folder contains a record of the times people have complimented you, giving you a virtual pat on the back for a job well done. You can put emails, printouts of voicemails, reviews, and cards in the folder, or anything that reminds you that you met a challenge head on and succeeded.

Don’t limit yourself to just work-related kudos, either. My kudos folder has emails from people with whom I volunteer and associate with outside of work. The more the better!

kudos

noun   ku·dos   \  ˈkü-ˌdäs ,  ˈkyü- ,  -ˌdōs \

Definition of kudos

1: praise given for achievement

2: fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement: prestige*

How can a kudos file help you thrive? A kudos file can:

• Get you through challenging times. Usually kudos come from people who realize that you’ve done amazing work on a not-so-easy job. If you’re dealing with a frustrating project and facing difficult deadlines, reviewing your kudos file can remind you that yes, you have made it through tough projects in the past—and people noticed.
• Increase your LinkedIn recommendations. Those who have written kudos about you are the perfect people to ask. You’ve already impressed them, so go ahead and ask them to write a LinkedIn recommendation for you. Don’t forget to consider writing one for them as well.
• Expand your connections. Sometimes, kudos come from stakeholders or co-workers that you don’t know that well, but they’ve been involved with your project. Connecting with them on LinkedIn is an easy way enlarge your professional network.
• Create a more complete resume. As a freelancer, you can work on numerous projects that may fade from memory over the years. Your kudos file can refresh your memory of that challenging project that you accomplished, providing data that can add depth to your work history.

In today’s world of rapid information exchange, it’s easy to overlook the feedback you get from others—moving it to the Deleted file in email or to a folder where you may not find it again. Consider printing out these compliments and storing them in your own kudos file folder to help you do more than just “survive” as a freelancer.

One of my favorite ways to network and learn is LinkedIn Groups where you can find others who have the same interests and employment experiences. It’s a great way to make business contacts and contribute to your industry. Check out https://blog.hootsuite.com/linkedin-groups/ to get started.

Want to connect or learn more about my experience as a freelancer, reach out to me on LinkedIn!

*Merriam Webster dictionary

The post Freelance “Surthrival” appeared first on Projectline Services.

And chances are also good that if you work in the tech industry—or in any field that relies heavily  on technology for communication, collaboration, or production (though it’s hard to think of many fields which aren’t so pervasively impacted by technology anymore)—you might feel that the forces align against any hope of your becoming more balanced and mindful. With workload demands, calendar reminders, text dings, and IMs pinging for “QQ”s, many of us feel so scattered, stressed, and compelled to multi-task (which neuroscience is proving is an unachievable myth; in fact, studies suggest it’s even bad for your career) that the concept of stopping to consider your moment-to-moment existence during your workday feels frivolous and self-serving at best, or at worst, a fast-track to being replaced at work.

However, an increasing amount of research and discourse is now validating the benefits of a mind that is more focused and calm. We are seeing proof now that our physical and emotional well-being suffer as a result of what this fabulous article calls The Cognition Crisis. What tools do we have already available to us to combat this crisis? From the article: “Some of the most ancient and formalized practices that we humans engage in are at their very core, cognition enhancing exercises: mindfulness practices and contemplative traditions. Promising research supports the beneficial effects of meditation on mood, attention, compassion, and stress management.”

So—how does this factor into your work life? Well, the lines between our personal/home life and our work life are ever more blurred, to the point where we can question the existence of a clear division at all. An upside to that reality is that cultivating good personal habits around watching your mind can traverse these lines and positively impact both our personal and professional worlds.

Mindfully future-ready

Projectline President Anika Lehde shared in a recent blog piece that there are 6 essential skills of future workers. I’d like to explore how mindfulness can inform and support each of these skills, helping position us to be this kind of future-ready (and ever-employable) worker.

• Self-awareness. It’s hard to be self-aware if you don’t take the time to pay attention to what’s going on within and around you. A good place to start is to stop for a moment and just sit with your thoughts. One of the best ways to help you with this is by meditating—which is really just the act of investigating your mind. (For many of us, this is hard to do. In a series of studies in 2014, scientists at the University of Virginia put individuals in a room with only a chair and asked them to be alone with their thoughts for 6-15 minutes. Most subjects found this to be difficult and over half reported being unhappy. In fact, 67% of the men and 25% of the women self-administered an electric shock before completing the task, preferring a shock to the boredom of being alone with nothing to do.) But once you’ve gotten to know your mind and its patterns, you can move on to the following important skills. It is important to note that until have mastered skill #1, you are unlikely to experience much success developing skills #2-6.
• Intrinsic motivation. A wonderful thing happens when you slow down and pause to consider what’s happening in the moment: you pay more attention to your inner workings, and you start to realize what’s important to you and the extent to which your actions are fostering or thwarting your goals. Again, this is less possible and less likely when you’re so busy running on the hamster wheel of work and striving towards your goals that you don’t think about why you’re doing all this in the first place—whether it suits you or if there’s a better way of doing it.
• Self-discipline. Paying attention in the moment creates a very important pause between action and reaction—you know, the place where we often find trouble. Too often we fail to take this pause and instead jump right into the unwise reaction. But when we attend to experiences mindfully, simply by being a nonreactive observer we put some space between ourselves and the event. This allows us to digest a situation without grasping onto it, identifying with it, or being controlled by it. This detachment pays back huge dividends toward your sanity and effectiveness in the workplace. When you practice restraint, you can plan your responses to ensure they are constructive and thoughtful.
• Dynamic communication. Communication trips us up in so many ways. Unfortunately, while technology helps us by increasing the speed and amplification of our communication, it does not always help us with the tone, content, or reception of our intended message. Again, mindfulness comes in so handy here because when we slow down and consider if what we are about to say and how we are saying it are likely to come across as intended, then we can better pair our intentions to outcomes. And to state the obvious, in stressful situations it’s always better to mindfully sit on it for a while rather than to hastily lob a flaming or defensive “reply all.” If you want to go a step further, here’s a useful test you can use to analyze your “speech” before putting it out there:
  •  Is it true?
  • Is it kind?
  • Is it necessary?
  • Is it the right time?
• If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” then continue using your skills of self-discipline until all of your answers are yes.
• Systems thinking. Focusing on one thing at a time is at the heart of mindfulness as far as getting a handle on your moment-to-moment state of mind. But mindfulness also involves thinking wisely about people, places, things, and events—realizing that in our world as we know it, everything is interconnected. Things don’t just spontaneously arise out of nowhere, and all actions/events/outcomes do affect other things/people/situations. So when we think about the best way to approach a challenge, solve a problem, communicate a message, anticipate an issue and account for it, etc., it behooves us to think bigger picture: use our personal experience, sensory data, intelligence, curiosity, rational thinking, and powers of imagination to approach everything holistically. If we don’t, we will miss something important. And it’s critical that we not drown in the sea of data available to us. We need to discern that which is useful and relevant from that which just clutters our mental space so that we can make more intelligent decisions. This point is very well articulated in The Cognition Crisis:
  • “Success in solving such global challenges depends upon us having the mental capacity to actually solve them: high-level attention, reasoning, creativity, decision making, compassion, and wisdom are required. If we can’t focus our attention and make creative, wise, and more future-oriented decisions, we will never effectively deal with complex, time-delayed crises like the one affecting our climate, no matter how much information we acquire.”
•  Synthetic and creative mind.
  When I think about this skill, I realize how hard it is for me to really get out of the analytical, perfection-driven side of my brain at times—a place I easily inhabit when I’m too far invested in the outcome. Where mindfulness comes into play here is, for example, when we do things that really get us “in the flow,” where we are so absorbed in an activity that requires focus and, more importantly, takes the “I” out of it. Doing something for its own sake, not for what learnings or growth can be achieved, or how well it provides an ego boost, can be particularly enjoyable activities precisely because they allow for the sensation of “letting go.” This is often the space in which creative types of people really thrive and produce their best work, and where innovative ideas are born.

What can you start doing today?

If the value of mindfulness in support of your career and the future of work rings true to you, below are some practical tips for how you can immediately begin adopting more mindful practices both in your personal and professional life.

At work

Be more mindfully connected during the workday. We can’t disconnect from technology at work, obviously, but there are ways we can use it to be less controlled and distracted by it. The new Focus Assist feature in Windows 10 allows you to block or filter notices and notifications to help you stay more focused and be more productive (according to the Washington Post, “Microsoft looked at research that said switching tasks, even just to see a notification, can keep someone from regaining their focus for 23 minutes.”). You can block everything for a specific window of time each day, or allow only messages from your boss or communication related to a critical project. This tutorial shows how to set it up.

Another fun trick: turn your computer’s display to grayscale. Why? Our monitors and the pretty pictures on the web all can cause us to veer off-task and disengage from the natural world in favor of the virtual one. Turning your entire system black-and-white makes it less fun, but also keeps things as purely business and inspires you to take healthy mindful breaks by looking up and out a window, or at least at the cute picture of your loved ones or pets on your desk. (To do this: from your main Windows menu, go to Settings, then Ease of Access, then Color filters, turn on Use color filters and select Grayscale. Want to take it a step further? You can also do this to your iPhone with a cool little magic trick. This video shows you how.)

Resist the urge to “multitask” and focus on one thing at a time. Remember, your brain can’t really multi-task anyway; it merely switches quickly from one task to another, ensuring that neither gets done as well as it could. Try not to email, IM, or browse the web during meetings/calls. Minimize the number of apps you have open and are working on to the extent that you can. Practice active, mindful listening in meetings.

Don’t always respond to emails or IMs immediately (unless you really, really have to). Take the time you need to gather your thoughts, do necessary research, compose a thoughtful response. If an immediate response is needed but you don’t feel ready to give your best response, say that you will get back to them in a few minutes. Feeling pressured to respond immediately or to be always available can create stress, interfere with more important projects, and can result in hasty (regrettable) responses.

Away from work

Disconnect from technology. On your phone, log out of your apps for Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/whatever-you-check-when-you-have-idle-time. Resist the urge to distract yourself whenever you have spare moments (Apple has new features to limit distractions and manage screen time in its latest iPhone release), look up, and take in more at the physical world around you.

Indulge in a hobby or activity that demands your focused attention. Activities like rollerblading, gardening, playing with a child, playing an instrument—all these are activities you do for their own sake. You’re not looking for a payoff, you’re not thinking about yourself or forming opinions/judgments. You’re just in the flow, relaxing, and it’s beneficial for your mind to take this kind of a breather and practice focusing.

Use everyday experiences and tasks as a chance to cultivate focus and practice mindfulness. Brushing your teeth, folding laundry, waiting for the bus, sitting at a red light, waiting in line at the grocery store—don’t use these moments to look at your phone, think about what to eat for lunch, or rehash last night’s argument. Instead, pay close attention to sensory experiences—what you are seeing, smelling, hearing, touching? Try to be a present but casual observer without judging what you are experiencing and instead just notice it.

Meditate. Saving the most obvious one for last here, but the whole purpose of meditating is to help you live your life mindfully. In meditation, you get to know how your mind works by watching it, catching it when it wanders, and eventually knowing how to achieve and restore balance even when you’re not sitting comfortably in silence. There are great apps that can help you get started with this, like Headspace (which Projectline provides for its employees to use) and 10% Happier.

I feel incredibly fortunate to work for company like Projectline that understands the connection between these inner qualities and the more external effects on work, and invests time and resources to empower its employees to adopt more mindful ways. Ultimately it’s up to each individual person to have the intention to be more mindful, the curiosity to learn how to do it, and the discipline to practice it.

For more on mindfulness and to stay in touch, connect with me on LinkedIn or check out my website, www.christievukoswalker.com

The post Getting mindful, not mind full appeared first on Projectline Services.

Logistics

• This may seem pedantic, but, make sure you know the exact dates of the main conference. Often, there are pre and post events that are not part of the main conference, but, the conference is broadcast as one set of days and often times there is not a clear differentiation between these activities. It’s also important to consider, these pre and/or post events are often not part of the conference fee.
• Know your out of pocket costs. If you are not part of the society or organization you are speaking for, most likely, you will need to become a member before you can speak at the conference. Note that this membership fee may or may not be included in the fee for the conference. As a speaker, at least at the conference I spoke at, there was no break and we were beholden to the full conference fee. A good tip here is to ask for either company sponsorship or if there are any grants or honorariums from your organization or university. Note that universities may have these to help students, but, they may not be available until many months after you have spoken.
• If you are traveling to your conference destination, be on the look out for group hotel rates, restaurant discounts, or group travel discounts. One way to defer the hotel costs is to share a room with a fellow speaker.
• If you are not traveling, but instead driving, look to see if there is parking validation or early bird rates to tap into.
• Ask about the food situation. Will meals and/or snacks be provided, or will you be responsible for your own food? Will there be receptions, happy hours, breakfasts, lunches?
• Know upfront what sort of audio visual equipment will or will not be provided. For instance, do you have a newer laptop that is not compatible with older audio/visual plug ins? If so, you will need to bring your own converter or dongle. Do not rely on the event staff. A good tip here is to scope out your room or speaking area in advance of your speaking slot.
• Bring your own thumb drive with your presentation loaded on to it as a backup.
• Bring your own slide deck clicker – these are generally not provided.
• Ask for an average number of attendees that are projected to attend presentations. If you are presenting later in the day, especially on the last day of the conference, expect that number to be lower than the average.
• Carry extra pens if you plan to have an activity that the audience needs to engage in.
• Be prepared for changes in the conference speaker line-up and have alternate sessions to attend should one be cancelled or moved.
• Travel light – this cannot be stressed enough. There is a lot of walking at conferences and big back packs or bags will weigh you down. Same can be said for wearing comfortable shoes.

Know your audience

• If you are not a previous member of the organization you will be speaking to, make a point to research who you will be speaking to. Look at the demographics of the attendees – what is the average education level, average length of time in the workforce, etc. This is key as when you are creating your presentation, even if in your proposal, you signed up for a novice slot, if there are no novices that attend the event, you will be prepared for who you are targeting.
• If your audience is looking to learn something rather than giving an inspirational or report out presentation, make sure you know this as it will influence how your deck is created. People looking to learn something want takeaways – they want to be able to pass your deck on to other people or to refer back to it. If you create a deck that has pure graphics and you speak to all of your information (such as some presentation methods guide you to do), this does not play to your audience. You also want to create a deck that you can post to your LinkedIn profile and if all your content is in the speaker notes, you can’t post a deck that will be revisited.
• Know the presentation expectations your audience will have. For instance, are they expecting to be a passive attendee or are they expecting interaction and a planned learning activity? If it is the latter, make sure your activity is tailored to your audience’s demographics mentioned above. Engaging in a novice activity with an experienced crowd does not go over well.

Audience takeaways

• Ask what the expectation is on things you leave behind for your audience. For instance, will you give them a job aid, sheet of references, or a printed case study? Once this is determined, ask who will be responsible for printing and who will be responsible for the printing fees.
• Print your leave behinds in color.
• If printing an activity for the audience to participate in, do not print on both sides of the paper as this will split attention.
• Print more than you think you will need in case of overflow.

Practice

• Practice with a timer so you know whether or not you are going over or under the timing. Under is generally ok as it gives people a break from packed conference schedules, but, over time is generally not accepted.
• Practice standing up, in a business style outfit.
• Practice in front of other people.
• Work towards being able to deliver your presentation without notes or note cards. The most engaging speakers are well versed in their material and only need the bullet points on their decks.
• If time allows, join a Toast Masters group to hone your speaking skills.

Participate

• Get ahold of the conference agenda early and see what is going on that you can attend and make the most of your time. Feeling shy? Show up and poke your head in, you will not regret it.
• Attend early morning socials, receptions, dinners, networking events. People are all here for the same reasons and networking is one of those reasons.
• Have an elevator pitch about what you do and what your skills are and if there’s anything you’re looking for i.e. mentor, information about the field, job prospects, someone to sit with at dinner.
• Be on the lookout for networking opportunities big and small – see someone you kind of know, invite them to lunch, chat up the person next to you during the opening or closing ceremonies, participate and engage during presentation activities.

Bring business cards

• If you don’t have business cards, make and bring them. This is essential for networking and staying connected. FedEx Kinkos, Vista Print, Costco, and Moo are all great resources for this.
• For folks without cards given to them from work, include your LinkedIn account, email address, phone number and include a skill or role you are looking to have.

With the above tips and tricks in mind, you will be well on your way to a successful conference presentation. Good luck!

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Sabrina Johnson has been with Projectline for seven years. She is currently pursuing her masters degree in Organizational Performance and Workplace learning and works to optimize both human and organizational performance.  In her current role, she manages an escalation process for Microsoft and Sabrina is also a part of Projectline Service’s onboarding team where she helps new consultants hit the ground running.

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After doing some research into the stats around paid sick leave, I was shocked. Only about 68% of all workers get paid sick leave, and those numbers drop significantly when you work in the service and construction industries or in a part-time role. The US is one of the few countries with no federal paid sick leave or legal requirement for companies to offer paid sick leave. The Family Medical Leave Act does provide some support under certain criteria, but the leave is unpaid. For those who do get paid sick leave, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average leave offered is about a week but varies based upon the length of employment and size of the company. I’m extremely fortunate to work in an industry that almost always grants paid sick/personal leave and to work for a company with a culture that supports using that leave. This is key and not as common. Sickness illuminates the inequalities among company cultures and between different industries. It shouldn’t be this way.

From an employer’s perspective, offering employees paid sick leave—or the opportunity to telecommute, if feasible—is really a win/win. Some employers hesitate to offer sick leave because they worry that employees will fake an illness and take advantage of the system. This myth recently got busted after Connecticut passed a paid sick leave law and employers reported that the law has had “modest impact or no impact on business operations” and that “employment levels rose in key sectors covered by the law.” Companies in every industry open themselves up to risks when they do not provide paid sick leave or telecommuting options. When employees come to work sick, they spread their germs to coworkers and, in some cases, customers. For those with small teams and crews this can be detrimental. Instead of having one employee out, you now have multiple employees sick. Employees who can’t stay home also take longer to recover, which decreases performance.

We all need to do our part to help our colleagues and ourselves stay healthy. If you are an employee and you don’t feel well, stay home! Take your sick days or work from home. To do your best work, you need to be at your best. Taking care of yourself is the first step. If you are an employer, offer paid sick leave. In addition to slowing the spread of disease, paid sick leave delivers multiple benefits that ultimately save employers money. For example, company health-care costs stay lower when employees can proactively seek out care rather than postponing it until a larger issue exists. Paid sick leave also can save money by reducing job-related injuries. A study showed that workers with access to paid sick leave were 28% less likely to be injured than workers without access. Employers also see savings in recruitment and onboarding costs due to reduced turnover and increased productivity. If you already offer paid sick leave, make sure that your company culture supports using that leave and has processes in place—like cross training and documentation—so that your business can run smoothly if an employee needs time to recover. It is up to us as employees and employers to take the proper precautions to keep our workforce healthy and happy!

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For example: I’ve been doing marketing support for a major technology company. This generally means I do whatever needs to be done to help marketing meet its goals. But one of my unique selling points is that I’m also a perceptive customer advocate. In fact, I find it difficult NOT to see the customer perspective in everything I do. It’s just how I’ve become wired after years of working in this space: interacting with communities, absorbing composite customer personas, watching focus groups and usability tests and, more recently, monitoring reactions to what I do on social media.

Much of what I’m working on right now requires Terms and Conditions: You know, that legalese that people label “the fine print” – usually because it’s so very small. But there’s also a stigma attached to it. Ask most people what the fine print is, and they’ll respond: “That’s where they get you.”

In a recent marketing campaign that I managed, I noticed customers on Twitter complaining that they didn’t know how they would get their bonus items. The answer was right  there in the Terms & Conditions but it was so tiny that many folks couldn’t read it. So I asked our designers to start making the fine print larger.

It’s an idea that I believe really should catch on. The days of hiding “gotchas” in teeny tiny type are mostly over, or so I’d like to think. If there’s something shady going on, the Internet usually sniffs it out and spreads the word quickly and aggressively.

Instead, I think that Terms & Conditions should be easily read and consumed as part of any offer perusal. In fact, knowing all of the limits and fulfillment details may actually help sell customers, and could even earn their trust. For one thing, it shows the seller has nothing to hide. And second, it should answer any key concerns the customer might have.

Ideally, all of these details should be part of any carefully considered marketing pitch. In the glory days of advertising – which I studied intensely to improve my skills as a headline copywriter – ads were text laden and often filled two or more pages. And advertising studies show that more text can actually be more convincing than less. So let’s put it all out there for everyone to see.

Now if we could just do something with all of those impenetrable End User License Agreements – which arguably are TOO LONG and could use a good summary and be easily reviewed, browsed and, dare I say, skipped. But that’s a fight for another day.

The post Why does it have to be ‘fine print’? Make it big! appeared first on Projectline Services.

Many of the benefits that agencies provide aren’t derived from specific knowledge or skills, but from how they work. As a marketer, I’ve lived it all—or at least a lot of it: from agencies and in-house teams to consulting and freelancing. While working in all these capacities, I uncovered the secret to the secret sauce: agencies achieve the best outcomes because they’re flexible, open, and resourceful in the way they work.

Below are four key lessons that marketing managers can learn from agencies:

Identify the real challenge

The first thing an agency does before tackling a project is clearly identify the challenge at hand. While most companies deliver a comprehensive RFP chock full of business objectives, industry stats, and other critical information to consider, it usually falls short on the human component of the business equation. Whether you’re in B2B or B2C, the core communication challenge is ultimately H2H: human to human. Considerable work is done by agency strategists to contextualize the business goals and challenges contained in the RFP against the cultural tensions and social trends happening in the real world.

Surely increasing brand awareness or generating a 10 percent sales lift are valid goals, but this metric-focused approach often drives marketers to ask tactical questions when they need to be looking at issues more holistically. What makes this product or service offering relevant to people’s lives? How will real people evaluate this offer when looking for solutions that are right for them?

When I worked as an agency strategist, asking big picture questions and collaborating with creatives to find answers was my main responsibility. Ultimately, the way we deconstructed business goals into more readily understood human emotions and needs is what differentiated our pitches from competing agencies. Taking a step back from the listed benefits of your product feature sets and the cold calculus of your marketing KPIs will help internal teams understand the messaging required to break through the noise, so you can connect with customers in a meaningful way.

Know what you don’t know

I’ll let you in on a little secret: although agencies tend to represent themselves as all-knowing experts with the silver bullet for whatever challenges a brand faces, they rely on a network of freelance talent and outside agencies to get the job done. Even small agencies tend to serve clients across a diverse cross-section of industries, from CPG to software to automotive. They achieve success not by staffing large numbers of industry experts, but by reaching out to these experts with an open mind and inherent trust in their abilities and knowledge.

Sometimes this relationship is informal, where agency heads, creatives, and strategists leverage their network for friendly advice. Other times, it’s a more traditional arrangement where the agency contracts freelance talent (either directly or through a staffing agency) to fill a knowledge or skill gap. Still more, agencies work with other, more specialized agencies such as “production houses” and interactive agencies to outsource work. While there are certainly mega-agencies that can truly offer a full-suite of services to clients without turning to others for help, most agencies build a core competency and delegate the tasks they are less accomplished in to others—they still own the big ideas and the creative direction of the project, but they are realistic about what they can and cannot do, and resource the project accordingly.

Forge strong partnerships

Part of the reason agencies can seem omnipotent is because the line between agency FTE, freelancer, and outside agency is almost nonexistent. They look at the outside help as their partners, not line items or a means to an end. While NDAs and non-competes are de rigueur, overcomplicated bureaucracies don’t stand in the way of the work. Partners are given wide access to agency resources and work directly alongside the agency instead of being assigned tasks in a more transactional manner.

Even if the project is short or narrow in scope, an agency’s relationship with freelancers, staffing agencies and outside agencies is often long-lasting. Agency managers keep in touch, they grab drinks, they talk shop, and they forge relationships. That way, the next time a project comes up, they know the perfect person for the job, and that person knows the agency is going treat them well.

The agency hallmarks of using outside help are quick hiring, fair compensation, clear communication, and, critically, trust in their abilities. Agencies build strong relationships with freelance talent, partner agencies, and staffing companies to make sure they have the right resource for the right project at the right time. Marketing departments in big organizations would do well to model their resourcing practices after agencies, as it leads to a more streamlined and seamless onboarding process that contributes directly to the overall quality of the work that is produced.

Flexibility as a rule

No doubt you’ve heard horror stories about the so-called “work-life balance” that agency staff enjoy. In crunch times, staff can routinely expect to work 14-hour days or 60-hour weeks. Frequently I have people ask me why anyone would subject themselves to such a grueling work environment.

The key is flexibility. Generally, agencies aren’t concerned with the hours an employee works, where they work, or how they get their work done, so long as they produce stellar work. Contrary to popular belief, the 14-hour marathon work session isn’t driven by agency task masters, but by the staff themselves who are committed to doing the best possible work for their clients. In fact, one of the main (and thankless) tasks of an agency project manager is to minimize the number of hours contributed to a project.

Why do so many agency employees and freelancers bust their humps to churn out top-tier work long past closing time? Because they are empowered to make their own choices about how and when they work. The work might require a 60-hour work week this week, but next week, when the workload has subsided, staff can opt to take time off. Don’t feel like coming into the office today? No problem; work from home—we trust you. Wanna take this meeting over drinks at the restaurant next door? Let’s have an impromptu off-site together. Need to get away for a little bit? Make sure your work is covered by your team and you got it.

Nobody trusts in their teams, gives them schedule flexibility, and empowers them to choose how they work like an agency. Marketing departments in enterprise-level companies may not be able to emulate this aspect of the agency model exactly, but for marketing managers eager to retain top talent, consider integrating more flexible work arrangements where possible, particularly with freelance or contingent workers.

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Let’s be real: no one model is perfect, and I am certainly not of the mindset that all marketing departments should function like agencies. Still, with in-house agencies on the rise, it’s clear enterprise marketing managers can take cues from agency best practices to enjoy the same efficiencies and benefits. Being more open, flexible, and trusting of and reliant on outside partners are goals that all marketing departments should aspire to. A commitment to moving your marketing department in this direction will help you take on more projects in-house, and ultimately, empower your team to produce better results.

The post Four Things Marketing Managers Can Learn From Agencies appeared first on Projectline Services.

But after three weeks of podcasting, they were nearly gone. The key here is to edit the podcast yourself. Every speaking stutter during recording is one more edit you’ll have to make later. You’ll also get a really good sense of what your voice sounds like to others and how fast or slow you tend to talk, in case you need to make adjustments there too.

If you want to get started podcasting, here are the basic tools you’ll need:

• Audio recorder. I recommend the Zoom H2n. It records high quality stereo audio, it’s easy to learn and saves your recording to an SD card, which you can pop into your computer when it’s time to edit. It’s also very portable, should you ever need to record something out in the world.
• Audio editing software. Audacity is free and lets you drag audio segments between tracks, which greatly eases editing.
• Leveling software. The Levelator is free; just drag and drop your final exported WAV file and it will even out the sound levels for you. This is particularly important if you mix in more dynamic audio, such as music.
• Music (optional). You don’t need music, but it does enhance your overall production value. You can find free music at sites like Free-Loops.com.
• Podcast feed. To publish your podcast, you’ll need to create an XML feed. Since Apple iTunes has become the de facto standard, I recommend using their podcast feed specs to get started. You can also look at our feed as a guide (DON’T view it in your Web browser; instead right click the link to download and then open it in a text editor, such as Notepad). It’s basically just a text file that describes your overall podcast and each episode you release. Some blog packages such as WordPress have plug-ins you can use to automate feed creation.
• MP3 tag editing software. Your final podcast audio file should be exported to MP3 format (Audacity requires a free optional plug-in for this, so after you level your audio, open the resulting file back in Audacity and export it again). Once this is done, you may want to tweak the file’s tags and add an image that shows up in MP3 players. MP3tag is free and a quick way to prep your final file for release, or you can do this in iTunes by importing the file and selecting Get Info if you prefer.

That’ll get you started. Record something every week and see if your public speaking improves. I bet it does!

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