I am amazed how many people, in general, are not aware of Google applications— "cloud computing"— and how integrated they are. I cannot work any longer without their apps at this point. Google right now has over one million businesses running Google apps.  Below is an overview showcasing some of Google’s applications.

Let me start with  Thier email service is integrated with Google docs, calendar, and contacts. One of my favorite tools in Gmail is the Add event—  "watch out Microsoft" — it works just like Outlook. When composing an email for a meeting, you can hit the  Add event invitation and this will go with the email and at the same time, put it into your Google calendar. When your party see’s the email, they will have the option to hit yes or no after you send it and will go right into your calendar as accepted or not. One of the coolest things you can do with Gmail is to go under Mail Settings and there you will find Google labs, this is where you can tweak your Gmail with many different tools that can enhance your productivity. Gmail, by far, is the fastest email system out there with Google technology for searching your email history.
 

This is my favorite application and foe to Microsoft! — but that is a another post. Google docs is my repository for everything, docs, pdfs, powerpoint, excel, webpages - you can create your own forms also. The simplest way to explain Google docs: " Microsoft Office but for free." You can create and save in all Microsoft format’s along with pdf format. If you don’t want to upload the document, you can simply cut and paste it in. "Lol," evertime I try to copy and paste something into a word document, it will be unformatted - with Google docs not only will it format correctly, but it will also come with all the images and web-links.

It is great for grabbing a webpage, it looks virtually just like what you see on the web. Just hit "select all" on the webpage, then copy and paste into Google docs. You can also share your documents with others, and this is a real life saver when you are working with several people on the same document. When you share the document, you email the other parties that will be working on it with you. When everyone accepts, then all parties will be looking at the same document. This way you will see who edited what, instead of re-emailing the document every time there is a revision. When you compose an email, Google docs has an option to attach a document from your email— again integrated. 

Note: you can set permissions for edit or read only when adding others.

Google docs in plain english

Calendar is the only way I get things done every day!  Between Calendar and Google contacts, it is becoming more like my contact manager. I find myself using less and less my Act Contact Manager software. Google Calendar has multiple view’s: month, week, day, and agenda. It is also integrated with Gmail. On the left of the pane you have my calendars, for example: you can have a work, book club, or family calendar and this way you can look at other calendars, or even have their calendar integrate with yours if you set up permission to do so. On the right of the pane you have your tasks list.  When you print out your calendar you have many options on how to format.

A real plus for blackberry users: you can sync your calendar and contacts with your Blackberry automatically. Google Sync works with many other phones also.

Google Bookmarks is similar to other online bookmark sites, but the major difference is it’s integrated with your other Google tools. The first thing you do before you start using it is to download Google toolbar or grab the Google bookmark button and drag it to your browser tray; you can bookmark right from the toolbar. It also allows you to get to other Google tools in a snap. When you bookmark, a window will pop up and you can create labels and categorize the sites—of course all bookmarks are indexed for search.

  Web History is what I call the brain, ha. It basically records every click you make on-line. I love it! For example: I forgot to bookmark something from yesterday that I want to look up again, no need to worry anymore. I simply go to web-history and to the right is a calendar, click on the day you want to go back to and there you will be able to browse by time of day. To the left of the page you will have a list of choice’s to search by: Web, images, news, products, video, maps…this is a nice feature when you want to segment your web history. The trends button below is pretty cool too, it will show you your top queries, sites, and clicks.

I do want to acknowledge that some people have a problem with allowing Google to track your evey move online. What I say to candidates and students is, "If you are not doing anything illegal you have nothing to worry about."  

Note: Firefox and Explorer both have privacy mode options if you don’t want to be tracked. You can also remove any history you don’t want on there. My value proposition is, "there is more gain in allowing them to do it than not."

 Picasa is better, in my opinion, than Apple Iphoto as it is integrated into other Google tools, online and off. You can go to Picasa from from anywhere on Google. It will be in the left corner under photos. Next download Picasa application — pc or mac— to your computer. This is where you really see the power of Picasa! At the bottom of the Image you have all the options to edit the image, email, print, blog it, create a movie, or print. When you first download Picasa you will have the option to what Picasa indexes on your hard-drive. I choose everything, it was amazing! All my faxes, scanned images, movies, and camera images were all indexed by date and folder.

What I just showed you is a small sample of what Google has to offer. I mean, come on folks, creating a Google operating system online vs. having everything on your hard-drive? I think the right choice is clear! On top of it all your content on Google, for the most part,  you can backup!   List of Google products.

"This is where everything is going "with or without ya!"

I want everyone to take an interest in "Cloud Computing" to understand what it means, because essentially that is what Google is doing. All of the tools I discussed is sitting in the clouds, "Love the pun".

On a personal note, I am trying to rally my family into to using all the google tools. I have 4 children 18,15,13 and 5, yes I said 5 years old. My wife and I are integrating our google calendars to minimize any confusion. Having such a big family , this will make all of our lives allot easier if we all our connected online.  lol , my teenagers will not have an excuse anymore forgetting there chores or commitments. Gonna love that!

Besides headhunting -I train,lecture on this very subject I have discussed. I have seen companies excel after I have trained them to harness the power of these tools - you can to!

Important Note: I hope I never hear again a candidate tell me "I left my resume on my home computer, I will email to you  later….

Many people have avoided being proactive in the development and branding concerning their careers. As I pointed out in my last post, we all have many excuses as to why we never get around to pulling together our brand! There is no wiggle room anymore folks to searching out the answers somewhere down the road. This economy has pushed us all to stretch, and if you are not stretching, you are feeling the effects of it. If it makes you feel better to call a friend about your frustration in finding a job, then go for it, but this will not pay your bills! Anyone that is on a pity trip concerning their careers, whether you are out of job or waiting for the hatchet to fall, is practicing a form of insanity! If you are living with fear and stress, this is a litmus that you are not being proactive to your solutions. 

When you are proactive and searching out the answers to your problems, you always feel better. Right? Don’t get me wrong - I think everyone needs to let out their feelings and frustrations, including myself, but there comes a point when your spouse or friends start to tire about your career problems and situation. If you have a circle of unemployed friends, and all you discuss is how frustrated you are - run, don’t walk away from this circle. You only want to communicate with people that are proactive, so you can help each other out in a positive way. 

I have said in prior posts that no one wants to hear about your horrible situation. The reality is, people will distance themselves from you if this is what you bring to the table every time you talk to them. Just a fact folks.

So the way to remove the stress and fear is to start feeling like there is a light at the end of the tunnel by looking for the answers to how to move forward. Below, I have a couple of scenarios that I think can give you insight to what I am talking about.

Example: When a candidate calls me and starts complaining about their job, telling me how frustrated they are, I tell them:  The way you are going to feel better about going into work tomorrow is knowing you have an action plan for leaving and finding a better job. Instead of going to your miserable job every day, focusing on how you are going deal with another painful day, start putting together a career action plan of how you are going to leave. You develop an end game to the negative situation you are in.

Another example: You are unemployed, have not worked for 4 months, and get up every day doing the same thing as yesterday with no real results. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."  If you are not getting traction in finding a consulting gig, or finding another place to work, you are doing something wrong! 

Important:You need to identify where trends are going in your industry! This is critical.

I know I am irritating some of you in this post. That’s OK, because part of my role is to rattle you! I am saying this because I care. We all have something to offer; we all have value and unique gifts that only we posses. The trick is to put together a system that allows you to find out how to move forward in your career, so you can start to prosper! It is also imperative to package yourself to where things are going in the job market, versus pushing a resume of skill sets that no one wants.

As painful as it is folks, we all have to face the fact that we all need to think like an entrepreneur!  I had such an overwhelmingly positive response to my last post. I feel I hit a cord that everyone needed to hear. The feedback reinforced to me was, people know this is a new reality/mindset of how future opportunity will work concerning our careers. In some way, I felt like the "thinking like an entrepreneur" concept I presented was a reality everyone knew, but did not want to face. 

LOL. People that know me were not shocked with my direct tone, and this post is no different. I would rather get a rise out of my readers, and motivate them to get out of their comfort zone so that they reach their highest potential, than to write politically correct posts that are safe. That is not me. I hope the information I impart to you is more factual than emotional. If I cannot back up my advice with fact, then you will blow holes right through it.

There are all kinds of opportunity out there. If you have an interest in knowing more about how to put your career strategy together, please contact me.

Start being proactive, not reactive.

Note: Quote in title by Albert Einstein

I am amazed how twitter has grown, but not surprised when you think about what it’s potential could be based upon their simple idea! Twitter could be a game changer as far as I am concerned. They describe twitter as a realtime search engine - this to me was an ‘A HA’ moment when I first read it referenced this way. I realized how this could impact Google; Google is looking a little behind the times - did I just say that? Ha.

I do believe twitter could be a paradigm shift in the search engine/advertising arena. Below I have listed links to companies that have been created because of twitter along with a video from the founder, a great post about twitter, and the best twitter app out so far.

1. This is a job-related link where you can post jobs: http://www.twithire.com 

2. I find this twitter for conferences interesting: Rate My Talk is a service that allows conference attendees to provide immediate feedback on a conference via Twitter or through our website. http://ratemytalk.com/

3. This post is from Chris Brogan’s blog site: 50 ideas on using twitter for business

4. TwitPic lets you share photos on twitter: http://twitpic.com/

5. Twitter in plain english from commoncraft.com: http://www.commoncraft.com/store-item/twitter

6. TwitterGadget is a clean, robust, web 2.0 style client for twitter.com, designed to eliminate the need to install third-party applications to monitor and submit status updates to Twitter via your Google homepage: http://www.twittergadget.com/

7. Twitter marketing case studies (they have quite a few here to read ): ttp://twittermarketingcasestudies.blogspot.com/2008/10/add-your-twitter-case-studies-on-this.html

8. Hashtags provide analytic reports and indexing features to allow users to track what’s happening now: http://hashtags.org

9 http://www.twilert.com/  I love this program. It is similar to Google alerts, where you put in a word or phrase and it will let you know when someone is tweating about it. Also great for reputation management online.  

10.http://cursebird.com is a realtime feed of people cursing on twitter, lol.

11.http://sxoop.com/twitter/mosaic.pl  lets you create a twitter mosaic of your followers or friends. You can than cut and paste the code on your blog or site.

12.http://tweetstats.com  Graph your twitter stats.

13. http://tweepsearch.com  twitter search engine

 14.http://www.twibs.com  browse 6,591 twitter businesses on twibs.com

15. http://twitturly.com/ they track and rank what URLs people are talking about on Twitter.

16. http://www.twply.com  Have your @replies forwarded to Inbox

17. http://tweetburner.com/ Tracking the links you share 

 Twitter Founder Evan Williams at TED 09

 

Excerpt from a great article written by Erick Schonfeld, co-editor of techcrunch.com on February 15, 2009:

Mining The Thought Stream click here to read entire article

 

In fact, the crude beginnings of this “now” search engine already exists. It is called Twitter, and it is a big reason why new investors poured another $35 million into the two-year-old startup on Friday. Twitter is not the only company trying to solve this problem. Facebook, FriendFeed, and even Google are trying to crack it, but Twitter has a decided advantage in that it is capturing the vast majority of the real-time thought stream on the Web (because more people enter their thoughts directly into Twitter’s database than any other, and are doing so at an increasing rate).

 

imagine you are in line waiting for coffee and you hear people chattering about a plane landing on the Hudson. You go back to your desk and search Google for plane on the Hudson — today — weeks after the event, Google is replete with results — but the DAY of the incident there was nothing on the topic to be found on Google. Yet at http://search.twitter.com the conversations are right there in front of you. The same holds for any topical issues — lipstick on pig? — for real time questions, real time branding analysis, tracking a new product launch — on pretty much any subject if you want to know whats happening now, search.twitter.com will come up with a superior result set.

. . . How is real time search different? History isn’t that relevant — relevancy is driven mostly by time. . . . This reformulation of search as navigation is, I think, a step into a very new and different future. Google.com has suddenly become the source for pages — not conversations, not the real time web. What comes next? I think context is the next hurdle. Social context and page based context. . . . Twitter search today is crude — but so was Google.com once upon a not so long time ago.

 

The best for last - this is the best twitter app out there as far as I am concerned. I love it!

http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta

Integrated TweetDeck pre-release version

What is the upside to forecasting what could happen when it has not played out yet? Did you know 99 percent of what we worry about never comes true, yet we spend all this time anticipating it, letting our mind experience it as if it already happened.

Below is a list of questions to ask yourself:

Do you know your value when interviewing for a job?

Do you have a quantitative, qualitative, results-driven portfolio of work?

If you know you need to work on getting your online portfolio up, why are you waiting?

If you know your going to be laid off, why aren’t you calling others or me for help?

If you are laid off and you know where you live is a dead end, are you looking for somewhere else in the country to work?

If plan A does not work, do you have a plan B?

Do you have your profile on LinkedIn updated, along with the other social networks?

Do you read RSS Feeds everyday to keep up with what is going on?

Do you reach out to people you know to help you with possible job opportunites?

Have you talked to your partner/spouse about moving out-of-state to find work?

If you own a house, have you looked at how you can unload it if you need to?

Have you looked at your fundamental skills sets to see how they are transferable to other areas of work?

Do you know where the trends are going in your field of work?

Are you aware of companies that are doing well and growing?

Are you in a field of work that is growing or dying?

Are you helping others in need right now? (What goes around comes around!)

Do you really know how people view you?

What is your brand?

If plan A and B fall through, do you have a plan C?

The reason why I am asking you these questions is to keep you on your toes. I am really happy for you if you feel your job is safe, but if that is not the case, when is the time going to be right to start planning ahead?

My signature in my email used to say, "Discomfort is a good thing," meaning the things that make you the most uncomfortable are usually what you should be running towards! The one upside to this present economy is it is forcing all of us to face the things we may have not been dealing with. We do not have the choice anymore to put off the things we have avoided to optimize our career.  We should look at this economy as a motivator to stretch and grow.

If there was ever a time to get you out of your comfort zone, I would say it is now! 

Do I have the right tools in my toolbox to keep me optimal in the marketplace?

Can I pull out the right tool for the right situation? When you get down to it, do you know what you even have or need in your career toolbox? I can tell you this: if you were a mechanic and you were putting in a transmission and did not use the right tools, you would suffer swift consequences, wasting your time and money, along with losing customers. Many professionals tend to procrastinate making the time to discover and acquire the updated career tools they need to move forward. What many people do not realize is, not acquiring the right tools will become costly and shrink your employment opportunities.

Do you need other tools to be optimal? Do you even know if a better tool exists? People try and get by with the tools they have, but the question you need to ask yourself is, are the current tools your using working for you? To be desirable and optimal with your skills, you need to know what you bring to the table and how you can leverage them in any field of work you are in. 

My clients are still hiring, but most of my job orders are what I call the A-Team example: Director of Project Management to Senior Strategist, CEO, and VP of Business Development. In this challenging economy companies are looking for the smartest people out there to help them get to the next level. This is why it’s key for everyone to be as optimal as possible with a quantitative, qualitative work history.

I have listed below various resources to help you follow where trends are going:

• Google Trends
• Twitter search is a whole new way of looking at real-time data.
• http://creativity-online.com gives you a chance to look at award-winning creatives.
• Google blog search  is a great place to find the best-ranked bloggers out there in your area of work/interest.
• Reputation management tools
• Facebook profile search is a great tool to connect with people you want to know.
• Myspace.com is becoming a place to find jobs as well as connect with friends.
• Wikipedia is an easy and informative way to understand new terms.
• Ad-tech.com is a great networking conference to go to.
• slideshare.com PowerPoint heaven.
• Career trends for 2009
• Thirteen hot jobs in hard times
• Google alerts anytime Google finds your keywords it is sent right to your mailbox.
• Tweet deck the best Twitter time-management tool out there.
• Department of Labor (www.dol.gov) 
• Employment and Training Administration (www.doleta.gov) provide comprehensive resources on work-related topics and labor-market data to support business, job seekers, and the workforce system.

Note: Stop panicking about what is going to happen next; there is money to be made in many sectors right now that feed a struggling economy. One of them is the Debt Industry - I cannot turn on the radio, TV, or digital without hearing an advertisement!

I would suggest you check out my Indeed.com post, a great read on job trends that you can use to move forward in your career.

I welcome your comments to what you think should be in your career toolbox.

DigitalNomads.com is an informative site where users share experiences working away from the office; a growing workforce in the 21st century.  For a company to succeed with this option, being able to measure an employee’s performance is essential.

Many people in the workforce would love to have the option to telecommute or work with co-workers off site. Working as a headhunter, I have had candidates express the desire for flexible work hours for years. Let me ask you a question, if two companies offered you the same job and title, but only one offered flexible work options, which one would you choose?  Hmmmm, lets think about that…

We cannot ignore the fact that people will always have the need to congregate and work together. At digitalnomads.com, you can read about co-workers traveling together to different spots where they have wifi, turning any coffee house into an office.  For example, Panera cafe near my house has a conference table that easily sits ten people, offering a great place to work on a project. If I was a betting man, I would say telecommuting is going to grow exponentially in the coming years.   

 Article from Pittsburgh Business Times

Is business rethinking telecommuting?

Although AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and some other big companies have recently reined in employees who work outside the office, telecommuting shows no sign of abating in the Pittsburgh region.

Moreover, advocates say the practice will expand in response to the need for increased worker flexibility and convenience.

"It’s not in any way a shift to say this isn’t working," said Debra Dinnocenzo, president of Wexford-based VirtualWorks!, a company that helps businesses with telecommuting issues.

Telecommuting has become synonymous with the laptop computer, which was perfected for use by executives in the early 1980s. Amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990 required cities with smog problems to reduce pollution levels, focusing on telecommuting as part of the solution.

AT&T was among the first corporations to embrace telecommuting on a big scale. By 1995, 38 percent of AT&T managers were either telecommuting or had "virtual offices," which allowed them to work anywhere, according to the company.

Technological improvements in laptops since then, combined with the emergence of the global economy and, more lately, employee concerns about work-life balance issues, means the idea will be around for awhile.

Although telecommuting has not caught on as big in the Pittsburgh area as elsewhere, Dinnocenzo said, many companies embrace the practice. There are no plans to reduce telecommuting at the Downtown office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, where around 65 percent of the office’s 84 employees work from remote locations up to three days a week, according to Director Cheryle Campbell.

"We’ve been doing this for a number of years," she said. "It’s a national HUD policy."

At PNC Financial Services Group Inc., telecommuting is spreading, according to Kathy D’Appolonia, senior vice president of work life and diversity. Employees have embraced the idea, she said, which is being offered to an increasing number of employees where applicable.

Roughly one-third of PNC’s 28,000 employees telecommute, and a pilot is underway for people who service general accounts to work from home, D’Appolonia said. About 15 people are participating in the pilot, which is expected to increase to 125 by year’s end and eventually comprise 200 people.

Fueling the telecommuting movement was the advent of high-speed Internet access in the home, according to Brenda Vester, vice president of Green Tree-based business consultant Lee Hecht Harrison. Younger employees are especially attracted to the option, she said.

"If I can get the work done, why do I have to come in here?" she said. "It’s just a different way of working.

"It’s most definitely going to increase."

But telecommuting only works well when management has an effective way of measuring performance, Dinnocenzo said, and working from home will never be possible for some jobs — think the UPS driver. In addition, some employees will find the adjustment to working out of the office difficult because of the lack of social contact.

"We’re innately social beings," Dinnocenzo said. "We actually like being together."

Still, studies have supported the value of telecommuting, including a Penn State University analysis last year that found that telecommuters reported increased job satisfaction, more motivation to stay with an employer, less stress and improved work-family balance.

A common error managers make is in equating office presence with productivity. The reality is the office is full of distractions that actually give telecommuting a 30 percent edge in productivity, according to Dinnocenzo.

"If they have their eyes open and a blood pressure, we think they’re working," she said.

And at AT&T, which has a call center in the Strip District, the number of employees who are allowed to work remotely is increasing, according to spokesman Walt Sharp. Of the communication giant’s work force of 309,000 people, half have the option of working out of the office.

"The trend is toward more teleworking," Sharp said. The recent pullback at the company only affected employees who work at home, versus the number of people who work at remote locations, a "tiny, tiny fraction" of the number who work away from the office, he said.

 

From digitalNomads.com