This one’s been authored by Ilise Benun and can be found on the Go-To-Market strategies resource center. Here’s the link to the article.
The main points being:
- Find low-key learning environments
- Start conversations
- Make contact, not contacts
- Be a good listener
- Arrive early
- Never sit with someone you know
- Look for wallflowers
- Use the food to begin conversations
- Keep going back to the buffet
- Be random about where you sit
- Make notes about the people you meet
- Wear a jacket with pockets
- Wear an unusual accessory
March 27th, 2006
I’ve been blogging on my design studio blog and we have a need for a Creative Head at our Bangalore office. For the uninitiated, I am now working as the Creative Head at the Mumbai office of Comart.
Now we’re looking to hire someone to work as the head of the Design Studio in Bangalore. Much like me, the person will have a large and blank canvas to work with – there is nothing setup in the Bangalore in terms of a design studio, so it will be the Creative Head’s responsibility to create something out of nothing.
Hire people, meet with some of India’s top clientele and inform them that Comart now has a design studio, have an eye for good aesthetics and should have their hand on the pulse of the international design world. [ Much like what I’m doing now ] Its fun!
There is a lot of work involved because it’s like setting up a new business – a new design studio. The advantage is that you will have the full support of the management in terms of infrastructure and contact with clients. The company is more like a family-owned, traditionally run organization – so it’s not easy trying to get “full†co-operation from other “employees†– but every organization has its challenges.
Personally, I know that once I’m outta here, I can start my own company without the usual teething troubles – to a large extent.
Some other facts to know:
There is a two-year agreement that you will be required to sign [ I’ve signed it too ].
Money – in terms of your fixed salary is peanuts – but there are other incentives [ call me up to know more ].
Its a VERY professionally satisfying job – while you don’t need to have an MBA – you do need to be a good designer as well as a good manager.
I hate to say this but you do need to know how to speak in English – more languages would be an added bonus
This time around, I am going to leave the comments open – but please send me an e-mail if you or someone you know might be interested.
March 27th, 2006
LinkedIn seems to be waking up to the needs of online networkers [ finally ].
In the past 4-6 months, they have made changes in the way their portal functions and have made it more user-friendly. They have not solved all the user-issues but they sure are taking lots of correct steps in the right direction. The latest in the line of changes is a classified list of links at the bottom of every page on the LinkedIn website. This is what it looks like.
It’s been done similar to a sitemap listing and while very similar to that links-list available to Flickr users, this change at LinkedIn is obviously geared to cater to the needs of more internet-savvy users. This is what Flickr’s links list looks like:
The same also helps LinkedIn newbies to figure the platform quicker and more easily. Earlier, the links we not evident and only if you had been using the LinkedIn portal for a while and had been actually “looking” for the links, only then would you have known where to go.
On the various YahooGroups that cater to LinkedIn users, often there were requests from LinkedIn newbies, asking about where to find a partifular link/feature. Since many of the LinkedIn usability and marketing team members are also part of those YahooGroups, they sure seem to have put the implicit suggestions to use to ease the toothing networker’s pain.
March 18th, 2006
