Archive for June, 2009

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Don’t waste your hen!

June 30th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

[How freshers/ job-seekers can help themselves]

Having satisfied myself with a plan I stumbled upon this extremely informative and encouraging article. I just wondered if I can set a plan for the freshers looking for a job. I can see every job seeker carrying a Hen (An MBA, MTech, B.E. degree, partially completed Academic projects, out of the world ideas and A lot of enthusiasm). I am sure that a hen can be put to various uses. 
  1. Create a poultry farm, 
  2. Sell eggs, 
  3. Sell omlette 
  4. Barter Hen with something else
  5. Cook and sell it as a chicken dish
  6. Sell Hen
  7. Consume eggs.
  8. Cook and consume the chicken dish
What are you doing with your Hen?

  1. Have you started a blog? See why? and Start today. 
  2. Are you actively building a tribe? Stop worrying, start doing - Start today. 
  3. Do you have a network(social/professional) that can really help? Build your self-brand - start today. 
  4. Are you working towards your business idea, the one that stole your sleeps in college? Make a plan, start today. 
  5. Are you looking for an idea to start your own work? Here is big list of ideas, if you still can’t find one ask me. 

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Using emails!

June 30th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

[How to Win Friends and Influence people through emails?]

As I stressed in an earlier posts that Emails are extremely useful tool and should be used wisely. Here are a few ways with which you can win friends and influence people through emails. 

1. Take emails seriously. Do not write lousy ones. People often are quite conscious about their oral communication but they take emails pretty casually! An email can be as short as only the subject line. But write it effectively. Here are a few examples of subject line emails:

  Casual: ’please come to my desk asap’

  Impressive: ’NNTO: Please come to my desk ASAP’ OR 
                         “Please come to my desk ASAP.[eom]“

If you are attaching an image/ file please make sure to list the attachments in your mail (if it is not a routine one). Format the emails properly (at least use a consistent font), use subject lines, use signatures. 

2. Use emails for gathering information, getting approvals and sending information. Specially for all those things where you think a written record will help. I have seen Emails being used to track communication, years later. Sometimes it can really save your a-s-s. 

3. Use emails for networking. You can send a “Thank you”, “Birth Day”, “Seasonal Greeting” to long lost friends, foes, bosses, colleagues and potential friends, business partners, clients. Apply a little common sense to guess what email should be sent to whom. One size may not fit all. Be different in contents, looks. When someone opens your email, they should find something new (pleasing, if possible). 

4. Value addition: In oral communication it is difficult to provide value addition, they ask - you answer. In emails though, you can add a lot of value. Add an image that bolsters your content. Add URLs for reference and links for further details about the subject. Add files. Present properly, bold, bullet, highlight important points as required. 

These can go a long way in helping you present yourself as an excellent communicator. And you know very well that for any business communication is the key. It’s one of the surest way to establish yourself in the eyes of seniors/clients and of course impress a few colleagues.   

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Anniversary post!

June 28th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 6 Comments »

[My blogging success story!]

Hey!!! It’s UVTimes anniversary today! :-) 

Over 1250 visits, 39 countries, 40 posts.  

One Job. 3 Lucrative offers. Added to my network - a few potential recruiters, business partners, mentors, lot of friends, readers and followers accross companies, accross countries.
   
About an year back I had decided to jump into blogging. With a flash of inspiration from within, I paid to blog.com some $25 so that I can modify UVTimes at my will. I added a lot of widgets, experimented with different themes, added content at my own pace. Initially started blogging about Technology (Ruby on Rails). But soon I realized I had ideas that can help, and I diversified UVTimes to unfold wise ideas and encourage techie chats. 

Also experimented with a lot of marketing strategies. I have shared some of my experiences, ideas and working startegies through my blogs. The blog has been able to help out a few people get into blogging. Helped a few others launch the blogs properly. 

Future plans:

  +  Be able to bring hundreds of people into blogging so that they can pursue the work they “love to do”. 
  +  Be able to help bloggers start in a way they get the visibility that their blogs deserve. 
  +  Be able to bring more smiles to readers through ideas, inspiration and solutions.  

A big THANKS to YOU for reading, commenting and encouraging. 

You can :

  +  Add UVTimes to your igoogle home page.
  +  Subscribe on email, using the gadget on the right. (Absolutely no spamming, your email is never shared)
  +  Just search “UVTimes” on google everytime you wanna read it. If you dont find it rush me an email. :-) 

Updated(July-1-2009) : Visitor locations provided by ClustrMaps was reset on the anniversary so I just copied the archive and inserted the image to this post. 

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What Can I blog about?

June 25th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | No Comments »

Anything! 

I don’t know how to write that word to really bring out the expanse of its meaning.
 
1. Anything related to the work you do - problems, solutions, facts, myths, people. 

2. Anthing related to the work you “Love to do”. 

3. Anything related to your hobbies/ liesure/ pastime/ travels/ activities/ memories. 

4. Anything related to your friends, locality, city, country, region, religion, politics, laws, films, tv, schools. 

5. Anything that is not related to any of the things I listed above. Abstract, Aliens, poems, sketches, photos, fantasies, dreams. You can even blog about blogging, or blog about not-blogging.  

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Why should I have a blog?

June 24th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 3 Comments »

[Five reasons for why you should start blogging]

 1. So that you can google yourself? Or if someone else does, you can be found. 

 2. So that you are an identified / established Guru/ Activist/ problem-solver/ critic/ athority in your field. 

 3. So that you can flaunt it in your resume/ interview and negotiate for better pay package.

 OR 3. So that you can keep doing what you “Love to do” without affecting what you “get-paid-to-do”. (How?)

 4. So that you can build a tribe. A network of people who can help you, guide you, encourage you and bring you alternative income sources. 

 5. So that you can lead, help, share, motivate, encourage and serve.  

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Create living websites!

June 23rd, 2009 | Biz Blogs, Technical Blogs | 4 Comments »

Many businesses have dying websites. Though it is a grave concern, the frequent updation of their websites is either too tedious or too costly. Most of it is because when they set out to create a website, they didn’t have any long term plan in mind. Anyways, here are a few pointers that can help you create websites that breathe, interact and earn for you! Since you might not make your own website, you can still get better results if you are aware of what you can get. 

 1. Plan ahead: Do not go contented for simple HTML websites with state-of-the-art graphics. Always get an admin interface created. Ask your web designer to enable you to add/edit some part of the text and some of the images via an interface. If it costs a little more, it’s an investment. Try tossing terms like content management, wordpress/joomla to sound IT-aware. 

 2. Feeds: Your website should get regular updates from your blogs, tweets, facebook - as you may like. This makes the website quite alive. 

 3. Gadgets: Add a few dynamic widgets like visits counter, quote of the day(if relevant), Quick-polls, Weather, news and many others or you may even build a custom gadget.

 4. Contacts: Always add a section/page to enlist all the contact details. All the ways in which you will like your visitors to connect with you (includes Twitter, Facebook) Address, emails, phone-numbers, fax. You may also provide a facility where visitor can make you VOIP call, or leave a message. You may include live chats, so that visitors can contact you directly when you or someone in your team is online. 

 5. Security: All the places where you may have to display emails, or where you expect the user to fill a form are susceptible to spam attacks. Ensure mail-hiding and captcha. 

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Searching for a job!

June 23rd, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

I am not, as of now. But, have many friends who are. Searching for a job in recession is like carrying a hen, and looking for a restaurant to feed yourself, in a desert. Though it’s costly, restaurant is a convenience. Cooking your own chicken is not easy. You don’t want to get your hands dirty. That’s exactly the difference between looking for a job and setting up a business. Here are a few pointers to myself: If I were to loose the convenience of my restaurant tomorrow.    

1. Float an impressive resume: I will update my resume and make sure it sells itself. Then I will float it in my social and professional networks, and job sites ofcourse. 

2. Dig my network: Dig my network on various online platforms to find out what openings relevant to my skills are available. Also will try to guage what additional skills will help me further. Will connect with and ask for help from people who can. 
 
3. Sharpen my skills: Brush-up my technology skills to prepare for interviews. 

4. Implement long pending business ideas: Spend time on implementing long pending business ideas with available resources. 

5. Join an NGO: Join an NGO and take up work from them, relevant to my skills. Like say they may need to build their websites, or upgrade’em. Also, I might help them use social media, for grwoth. I can offer to provide free services for one day every week.

6. Prepare for higher studies/certifications or do available low cost trainings.
 
7. Provide training to freshers free or low cost: Taking classes is fun. You can get paid for what people want to learn and you can use it to teach what you like to teach.  

I don’t know how effective this list would be, haven’t tried yet. But I am sure it would be a lot of value addition to myself, and best use of the time I’d have. 

UPDATE: found some innovative ways to search jobs @ CareerTiger

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Ideal length of a blog

June 10th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

[What is the Ideal length of a blog?]

A new blogger asked this question on Triiibes, a closed social networking platform for leaders and marketers around the world, hosted by Seth Godin. After answering her there, it appeared to me like an important issue for every blogger. Here is my take :

Brevity is always appreciated. A full roasted turkey looks good on the table but is difficult to consume. It’s always great to cut it into consumable pieces before serving. Each post is either a story (rants/reviews) or an answer to some question. Over the time I have learnt to restrict my blog posts to be short, crisp and easy to absorb pieces of info/rant. If it’s a large report I split it into a series of posts. And link them to each other. 

So here are the few things I keep in mind: 

 1. Short post - just elaborate enough (take this post as an example). Around 250 words are usually enough. 
 2. Single thought - too many things complicate and confuse
 3. Simple language - If it’s not a poetry blog, don’t be poetic.
 4. Clear - Jotting down information as bullets keeps it short and clear. 

This is mostly for non-literary blogs. However, you can derive some pointers and use it for literary blogs (poems, stories, articles) as well. 
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Launching a new blog -Part 5

June 5th, 2009 | Biz Blogs | 4 Comments »

[Introducing the blog]

Emails: I am sure you have friends who have email-ids. Why not write a simple mail to family and friends and introduce it directly. It’s the best and surest way to get going. If you are not sure how to write an effective mail, I can do it for you absolutely free. 

Links: Add links to your blog in all your online profiles - Facebook, Orkut,LinkedIn, Ecademy, Hi-Five, Everywhere you can.

Personal Ads: There are plenty of places you can advertise for free. But for that you essentially need to get addictive.    

Comment: Copyblogger suggests that exquisite and meaningful comments may really help you get relevant traffic. 

Surveys: Surveys can be used to introduce your blog, get feedback and decide the future strategy/contents for your blog. Here is a brief on how you can use survey as a marketing strategy. 

Socializing: You can participate in a lot of communities relevant to your blog and be an active member there. By being an active member, I mean you have to participate in a helpful and non-promotional way. Try appreciating others work, give honest feebacks, help people solve problems, reach solutions. That way you increase your credibility and popularity on www and ofcourse traffic to your blogs. 

SEO: A lot of good content on the internet miss the eyes of search engines because they are not search-engine friendly. Now SEO is a big topic in itself, but I’d like you to understand the basic of it. Basically you should include keywords (and keyphrases) in your content which are likely to be searched by your readers. Lets say you have an automobile related blog. If you put ” yamaha v/s honda”, or “Yamaha is better than honda because”, or “Comparison yamaha and honda” in your article about yamaha and honda motor bikes you are more likely to appear is search results. Think about, what should a reader search for when your content should appear and mould your content accordingly.   

This is most likely the last part of this series on Launching a new blog. I’d love to know if these steps were helpful. And also, if I can help you any further in launching your blogs. You can subscribe on email for the latest updates.   
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Launching a new blog - Part 4

June 3rd, 2009 | Biz Blogs | No Comments »

[Aid your readers]

Your readers might want to come back to your blog later. Can you facilitate that? What if they like to keep themselves upto date with your latest postings. Your blog should always display the gadgets for e-subscription. You can choose gadgets for subscribing on email, subscribing through RSS feeds, add to iGoogle and other feed readers. Most of them would know how to bookmark your blog on the browser, but if you can still provide a small gadget for it, you have better chances of getting frequent visits. You should also find ways to lure your readers to subscribe. See how copyblogger never misses an opportunity to get your subscription. 

Also, among the enthusiastic lot, there is always a deep urge to share things. As soon as they find an interesting thing, they ‘d want share it with their group. If you can add a facility to email, tweet, IM, Digg, Stumbleit you’d be a lot better. 

Having listed all the readership Aids, I’d like to stress on the fact that you should not overdo it. You should carefully select which sharing instruments go best with your needs And more importantly which will be appreciated by your readers. There are plenty of free gadgets available for you to leverage. 
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