Career Plan - Its the Right time

There are mainly 3 kinds of people
One who just watch the world ,be in their own comfort zone and just take the things as it comes to them .
Secondly, there are people are who commit themselves to their work and give their best and be happy . These are the people who do contribute a bit in making things happen.

Thirdly, there are only few people are always restless and find more ways to keep themselves busy , wants to overachive their targets and results and really make things happen.

The third kind of person are the apsiring entrepreneur or already an entrepreneur because they can never find enough work and be motivated enough to work for others .

The process of entrepreneurship is not a days game , it defintely involves firstly hard work , secondly self commitment and finally the career planning.

The first 2 things I presume comes within but you have to work for the third one and make that happen by your first 2 qualities.

We have to do a lot in setting our career goals and breaking them into series of small steps and may be give yourself a reward for achieving those goals .The hardest thing is to be self motivated but if you can be, the fruits of happiness and success will definately come your way sooner or later.

Id you can be motivated enough , you can do a lot of hard work, may be your are at the top of everybody whom you are working with or within your surrounding ( family friends etc) .

But it all depends upon what your final goals are, if you need to reach stars but your efforts and the directions in which you are going would lead you to the clouds only the you really need to revaluate and plan your journey backward, so that you can reach the goals in the time you give to yourself. So dont let people in surrounding you affect your goals and get your efforts deviated , rather focus and work hard in the right direction. No body can stop you to achieve your goals , you might find few pitholes and mountains on your way but as rightly said " Tough times never lasts but tough people do "

Dont just write your goals in words , do put it in numbers as it helps in effectively evaluating your efforts and correct devatiaitons if any.Putting the things in numbers really helps us to evaluate ourselves how far we are from our goal rather just trying to convince ourselves with the words that we have done well this time and will do better .

Never try to convince yourself because that would put you in the comfort zone and you would deviate from your targets and beleive me a series of divations would leave you a pile of underachived results .Hence it will increase the distance to your goal and will stretch instead of shrinking and going closer.

Planning, evaluaution , Re- Evalution

along with

Hard work, Motivation and determination

will lead to

Success, Happiness and Prosperity

Rewarding Employees

Every company has a rewarding programe for thier employees but mostly its for sales people and even its for other departments they are at the year end as a bonus. Its not enough to reach the goal for which company do all this rewarding intiatives i.e. to motivate the employees and create a learning and competitive organisation.

But these year end remuneatation are too far away to visualise . As we said we should always break our goals in small targets which are more realisitic and once which we can forsee.

Its true even when it comes to rewarding employees and thats why it is imporatant to create such a system in all departments too( apart from the sales dept.), as sales is full process in which other departments are also involved and if they are not motivated to do their job better then it would affect the whole sales process and hence will affect the revenue of the company.

If I were the CEO of a company, I would just go and check the knowldege of the people personally by asking the questions relevant to their profile and if they answer I would increase their wages straight away. This might look stupid but it can only motivate people to be on their toes and strive to learn more to get rewarded too. The last thing I want to see in any company in todays competitive world is promoting people up the ladder because of the experience(or seniority) and not the calibre or potential that a person have. The experience a person have does help as he already have gone through these things but what most people lack even if they have the relevant experience is to implement things properly. Just to relate a example a man with experience is like chunk of information stored in hard disk. And if the processor ( brain ) if the person doesnt know how to use the information effeiciently and in different situation differently then the whole computer ( the person) is good for nothing. So its better to buy a Intel Core Duo( the Talented and Person with calibre and right attitude to do do things effeicinetly) rather then sticking on the old PII and keep it because he has been faithful and been with the company for long.......

Most of the Large Corpoartes have implemented the Performance Management Systems to do the same but still hasnt directly linked it to the rewarding system nor they keep track how effeciently they have implemented the system itself.

Evaluating Yourself

When you work in a company, you get evaluated on a regular basis ( if your company is any good) to make sure you are performance is competitive and you are doing the work you are employed for. Believe me I have see many big corporates who doesn't evaluate people's performances on a regular basis, by doing this they are not only decreasing the efficiency of the company but also of the individual because people tend to put themselves in the comfort zone and put a barrier to their own growth . The evaluation process in companies should be applicable for every employee from top to bottom of the organizational structure. And the time will come when companies will be forced to make a automated system of giving a termination letter to the employees who perform below a certain standard.

To give you an example : Everybody in this technology world knows how this company has grown exponentially in 9 years , yeah your guess is right its google. I was reading a very good article on the Silicon Valley insider about what's Google's Long-Term Strategy would be if theye have to Keep the Fire Alive( The google buzz in the Internet marketplace) the first thing they wrote is that they have to start firing its weakest 5% of employees every year, even if these employees are doing a satisfactory job. And believe me every company has to adopt this methodology for their own and I believe employees good too.

Anyways when its the case being self employed, its quite easy to get carried away and not perform what you are capable of and not strive hard to reach your goal as there is no body to watch you except yourself



Its even easier to get in comfort zone when nobody is watching you and get deviated from your goals and of course your targets wont be met. So I believe its very important to evaluate ourself and that too very short and regular intervals so we don't have to look back and regret in future. I found a very interesting thing while reading Dr. Lorraine Cohen's blog - Get Entrepreneurial that
"Each month, on the first Friday of the month she meets with her mastermind group. It’s a small group and they have been together for about 5 years. They begin each month writing down our list of promises - what we intend to take action on in the next 30 days"

Really its great to have a intimacy with like minded people not only to evaluate each other but also to share ideas and opportunities . Its good to self correct ourselves but most of the time its not what you think it is ,but its what others think of you. It is quite easy to convince ourselves give excuse why you didn't get it right... Even if you don't have close like minded group of people whom you can meet in person but you can find so many such professionals online and interact with them with the help of all the wonderful technology - Audio, Web and Video Conferencing which is there . Believe me the time and money which you invest doing this would never be more than the money and time which you would be going to loose or have lost because of keep on doing the wrong things or underachieving and deviating from our goals.

So what are you waiting for ..... Go and find the people with whom you can form a group and start achieving your goals more efficiently .

Great Posts from Logic + Emotion

People who are new in the blogging world and also people who are here from quite a while , sometime just cant see if they are really taking into consideration what really takes in to create a successful blog. I have found a very good post by David Armano (Read Full Biography ) and i really felt putting it on my blog. Its about the 4 C's of Blogging . If you want to go more in depth about the same please look for slide show of this whole concept.

If anybody really wants to know what is it in the web design apart from designing and how emerging media impact the customer experience .Do watch this slideshow.

Its just a day since I subscribed to David's blog and I found some great stuff from his previous post .Also a fantastic video which is a must watch for everyone by Sir Ken Robinson. Its about how our education system is really putting a full stop to our creativity . And how we sometime just live in our heads. You would really feel worth of the 20 minutes you spare seeing it .

Beyond Borders

As I am always in serach for a new idea ,I came across a new article which states that even
American Small and Medium Enterprises Rely on US Markets . So I see a huge Gap/ oppurtunities which exist of a Consultancy to SME for Expanding their Operations globally.

And the statistics were really interesting that America’s small and mid-sized businesses have failed to explore the significant growth opportunities offered by an increasingly global economy. Specifically, 67 percent of the nation’s small-to-mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still relying solely on the U.S. economy ( A new survey released by UPS ). This figure is surprisingly low given the increasing ease of importing and exporting in today’s economy.

Its also important to see what kind of data constituted these findings :

1. A total of 600 telephone interviews with small business establishments in the U.S. were conducted between May and June 2007.
2. Respondents had to be extremely or very knowledgeable about their company's overall economic position.
3. All businesses have an average annual revenue between $250K and $50M
4. 418 have average annual revenues of $250K to $5M
5. 126 have average annual revenues of $5M to $20M
6. 56 have average annual revenues of $20M to $50M
7. Annual revenue based on last full operating year's results that respondent was aware of.
8. More than two-thirds of exporters have fewer than 20 employees.

There would be companies and organisation which exist to promote trade and help this SME 's grow beyond the borders but still I cant see a company aggressively approaching these SME's so there can be a proper sales organisation promoting and selling the same concept then opportunities seems to be endless . And if these data is so low in US you can take example of other countries of how much potential they have. I am sure every SME would like to expand their operation but they might be just too busy in their day to day activities or may be a bit reluctant to step up and cross the borders. And I think this would be perfect example of Win Win situation for company doing the same and also the company whom they are helping in going global.

While looking for the image for this post I came across a conference which I think takes place every year for Making Global Marketing a Reality.
So we can see people are doing the efforts in the direction but still there is far to go to take the advantage of the cross border opportunities which exists.

Great Bloggers - My List

I have been reading blogs from couple of months now and thought of compiling a list of bloggers who really inspires me and write great articles. There is no such rankings to these blogs because every single one is at the top in some or the other manner .I find great new blogs everyday and now really its getting tough for me to catch up with all the feeds in my Google Reader.

My

Here is the List.

• How to Change the World - Guy Kawasaki
• Chrisbrogan.com- A Conversation with a community about Digital Relationship
• Nate Whitehill dot Com - Business, Blog and Web Development
• OnStartups.com - A community for Entrepreneurs
• WorkHappy.net: killer resources for entrepreneurs
• YoungEntrepreneur 's Blog
• Creating Passionate Users
• Springwise - Your Daily Fix of Entreprenuial Ideas
• Vitamin - Nourishment to Help the Web Grow
• Scobleizer

My list would be getting updated :-)

Top Blog for Entrepreneurs

I have stepped into the blogosphere recently as a blog writer. But there are so many people who already have great blogs and while browsing I came across a great list of top Entrepreneurs blog which was published by About.com . Keep watching the space I would be there in time to come

• Small Business Trends - Anita Campbell looks at the latest trends affecting small businesses and entrepreneurs. A must-read for entrepreneurs.
• Just for Small Business - Full of thought-provoking tips for small business owners from Denise O'Berry, I like this blog because the topics are often unexpected - not your usual small business fare.
• WorkHappy.net - Carson McComas lives up to this blog's subtitle of "killer resources for entrepreneurs" by providing links and reviews of "killer" applications and other resources to help entrepreneurs work smarter, not harder.
• Duct Tape Marketing - John Jantsch delivers 2-3 small business marketing tips weekly in easily digestible, actionable bite-size chunks.
• The Entrepreneurial Mind - Jeff Cornwall, Director of the Belmont University Center for Entrepreneurship, looks at trends in small business and entrepreneurship and their impact on individual business owners.
• BizzBangBuzz - Pittsburgh attorney Anthony Cerminaro delivers excellent commentary and some original posts on the challenges facing emerging growth companies, with particular emphasis on legal issues.
• Business Opportunities Weblog - Dane Carlson mixes links and commentary on legitimate business opportunities with his thoughts and personal experiences regarding entrepreneurship.
• Go BIG Blog - 9-time serial entrepreneur Wil Schroter, founder of the Go BIG Network, a networking site that helps growth-oriented entrepreneurs connect with investors, suppliers, co-founders and employees, uses his "no-BS" approach to tell entrepreneurs the way it really is that you won't read in the books.
• Young Entrepreneur Journey - Michael Simmons, bestelling author of The Student Success Manifesto explores what he calls "Extreme Entrepreneurship". It's a new blog, but the content is already outstanding.
• Startup Spark - Ben Yoskovitz provides a steady supply of business tips, plus some in-depth discussion of things like entrepreneurial passion, social entrepreneurship and dealing with business failure. Startup Spark also hosts the new Carnival of Entrepreneurs.

Source : About.com

Female Fever in Business

Business people giving a unique identity to female in Business world. As everybody knows and researches proves how much influence does female have in a buying decision of the family . But now Female sole buying power is also identified in this modern world and of course everybody is trying to target these womens and

1) Giving them a unique ( feminine) ambiance to shop in

Canada's autoONE company, which recently opened a newly renovated showroom on Vancouver’s west side. With its Italian-tiled floor, Paul Kane sofa, modern lighting, and La Marzocco espresso machine, Clutch has more the look and feel of a high end fashion boutique than a car dealership.

But it’s not just the sleek, comfortable surroundings of Clutch’s fabulous modern showroom that make the dealership so appealing to women looking for their next vehicle. The real difference is in the service. Contrary to how other car dealerships treat female customers, they offer personalized, no-pressure, client-focused service that has been the foundation of auto/ONE’s success.

2)Customising even a generic product for a women


There's now a roadside safety kit for women, plus 24/7 road assistance.




Even a motorcycle for women taking care of all the common problems addressed by women drivers launched by Street Diamond Motorcycles




Of course insurance companies are not far behind , these is advert by a UK based insurance company Sheilas' Wheels targetting female customers and giving exclusive benefits.

3)Even making products exclusively for womens.

Last and probably least the South Korean pizza maker MrPizza sells a low-fat Pizza for Women.

Watch out for Women power ......Man....:-)

For Car Lovers

You must see these new launches by Japanese Car Manufacturers which are to be unveiled at the upcoming 2007 Tokyo Motor Show . They are awesome. Nothing much to write about these things but just look at the fantastic Designs of these so called Concept cars. If you want to see more concept cars click here

A tool for Online Geeks

Evereyday day while reading my google reader I come across something new and useful and today I found a great tool for me as well as all other online Geeks .
Almost Everything in the same webpage you dont really need to type in other webpage and also you can customize it too. Here it comes...... Yourminis ...... As quite often used word here in England for things being great .. Its wicked..





iGoogle also lets you customise the page with different widgets you want but I find yourminis quite good.

As there is quite a bit of hype of Google launching its OS next week ( a Linux based OS) and also google phone sometime in future this igoogle kind of look like a online google desktop

Employee Suggestion Box

This is area which many organisation still lack and they dont know how much they are loosing by not promoting this culture/concept in the organisation.


Organisation used to spend lots of budget in their R & D and try to improve their product by doing lots of new developments/innovation in their own product but thats what they see from their point of view. Organisation can improve a lot in this area if they start taking feedback/suggestions from their own employees/customers on a regular basis on how they can improve on their product. I am more stressing about a point on employees ideas , as most of the companies do take feedback from customers by surveys and feedback forms but not many organisation really care how useful a contribution can be from the employee who is at the lowest position in the organisation. Not only they have to make a small letter box look alike place to take employees suggestion or in this digital age ,putting something on the intranet /website that there is such a thing. But they really need to push this concept for people to take that intiative and even reward people for the same.

I have recenetly seen a concept launched by Dell on Getting new ideas from employees and common people. I think its a great concept to get suggestion which could be quite handy in product development .

(Periodic) Table of Brand Evoloution Term

I came across a table which kind of look like a periodic table of the elements but actually was a table containing different Brand Terminologies. Don't know if it really solve any purpose apart from looking like a very creative art of Brand Terms. But the person who made it Brandon Fritz has a very informative website on Brand and Marketing Strategy and do have many freebies...:-)



Built by Kolbrener, a corporate branding experts

Dont let anybody come in the path of your dream

Becoming an Entrepreneur and going against all odds is definately not a easy task. Everybody who has gone through or is on the way towards it ,knows what I am talking about.
In our life if we are down , dipressed and something goes wrong we have our friends and family members whom we can share how we feel.
But on the Entreprenuial Journey no body is your freind , you are the only friend of yourself. The reason being, the people who would not like you to be successful would of course always give you a wrong advice and also try to distract from your path towards becoming and entrepreneur. But on the other hand even your loved ones would not motivate you to do such things because there is a risk involved ( of course) and they would not like you to see defeated or being shattered because of the your unsuccessful venture.

So you are the One Man Army in an unknown battlefield. So you have to go through all odds and be a true warrior...

You nor your love ones would ever regret why you went alone in the war after seeing the fruits of success.
Please also go through a a true life story posted by Evan of Lillian Vernon who kept pushing until she hit her stride and made her company a success.

GMAIL VS Yahoo Mail

Everybody is aware about how powerul google is how much more its is becoming bye acquiring more and more companies and inventing newer applications to make life more easier for user.

When it comes to the widely used and the most basic feature of web i.e. Email Google might be late starter but not the least. The day I Started Gmail I was just on it and I dont remmeber sending emails and managing contact other than Gmail . ( I still i have few other accounts with yahoo and rediff as quite a few people are still connected with me through this email addresses)

Yahoo is trying to do some changes of course taking most of it from gmail .Read a detailed story on LifeHacker

But my reason for writing this post was sharing the Gmail shortcuts which i found out today

Happy Gmailing :-)

New Business Ideas - Dont reinvent the wheel

In todays world wherein there are so many new inventions /application being made day in day out which are very successful but its not necessary that you have to reinvent the wheel and invent a new thing(product or service )to be successful .
There are enormous example in today Web 2.0 world itself wherein the companies which have grown exponentially and have millions of registered users have been a target of people who are looking for ideas how to leverage that brand to start a new business.

Support Service out of a Service
For eg After enormous success of Twitter people are just finding ways to target those user groups who are on it.

Support Product out of a Service
Everybody knows how big gaming inustry and how much time Kids/ adult spend gaming nowadays so companies have manufacture a new type of table just for gaming.



If you want one for your kid its available in Hamleys

Niche Search Market

Nobody is unaware of how google had captured the search market.But now I see a new trend taking place in this search Marketplace is Companies coming with a Niche market/industry search website. Microsoft is not behind this time and they have come with a new Wesbite called Health Vault
" The new way to search for healthcare articles and health information on the Web"

Keep watching and may be you can come up with similar sort of websites....

Future of Media and Technology

As usual I was reading the feeds in my google reader and I came across some mind blowing video which depicts the future of media and technology.I just wonder how powerful a man's foresightedness can be... Whether this video would hold true in reality or not.. But I can very much see the wave going in that direction.. A must watch for all the Geeks in this Tech World.

Its just the Matter of time

So many times you would hear people saying "its just the matter of time" or "its not the right time "
- I would become an entrepreneuar
- I would become rich
- I would grow my business globally
- I would do some new course upgrade myself.

We always gives ourselves a exuse that its not the right time, the time will come. but the right time is when you want to do it. The time will take its own pace and keep on ticking ... wont stop for you. you have to take a decision that you want to catch this boat or not .. there is a boat every single second.

So what we need to succees in our life take action and catch the boat asap before the high tide comes and smashed it all over places.

Information Information Information

I just wonder how people really digest so much information out of this blogging world. Its been really hard for me to keep track of all my feeds in google reader .Not only we have to read our existing feeds but we do come across so many great posts and new blogs that you feel like adding it and you have more information overload.

After reading all that you have to find a time to post on your own blog. Hats off to all those people who are able to read and grasp all the information and also able to post regularly on their blog. Of course if they are full time involved in this, than its different...

But anyways after couple of months I also thought of posting something.

I found the post about top Influential blogger posted by Leo Babauta.
You would find some great bloggers there...

Great Business Blogs of '06

How to Change the World   Never Eat Alone Again 

Biz Plan Hacks   Be Excellent 

Duct Tape Marketing     CCUCEO

Seeds of Growth   Workhappy.net

Steinblog.com    Seth Godin's Blog

Church of the Customer   Because Kudos Works

The Word is Out!  The Viral Garden

Entrepreneurs Viewpoint   Springwise

BizInformer   Creating Passionate Users

Somewhat Frank    Freshwater Venture

The Intuitive Life Business Blog   PigWisdom.com

Small Business CEO   Aggressive Small Business Marketing

BootStrapMe   Business Opportunities Weblog

Paul Allen (The Lessor)   Escape From Cubicle Nation

Small Business Connection   Small Business Survival

OnStartups.com    The Entrepreneurial Mind

BeyondVC   Marketing Interactions

Strategy Central   Small Business Trends

Instigator Blog    Jeffery Cufaude, Idea Architects

Metacool    Bob Sutton

Trythisonforsize   Conversation Marketing

Great Free Articles

1) How to Become UNFORGETTABLE™

2) Combating Communication Barriers

3) How to MAXIMIZE Your Personal Approachability

4) How to Become a Networking Superhero™

5) Awesome Hospitality Into Authentic Relationships

6) Writing, Creativity and The Like

7) How to MAXIMIZE Your Professional Approachability

8) Make a Name for Yourself

By Scott ( Author , Speaker That Guy with the Nametag)

Read the Articles

World Map of the Web 2.0 Start up

As you might be thinking that most of them would be in Silicon Valley , thats true..
But its also good to know wherelse these other major Web 2.0 Start up's have originated from..


Click here for the MAP made by Fourio and Networthiq

Known Issues for the New Blogger

If you are new blogger and facing a problem while blogging go through this article , I am sure you would find it useful.
The latest on what's still a problem, what's getting fixed, and what's been taken care of, direct from the Blogger team.

Read More

2007 Digital Outlook Report

Avenue A Razorfish recently published the 2007 Digital Outlook Report (6230.6K). The report examines trends in the way consumers, publishers, and advertisers employ digital media to have a conversation with each other. t covers the following areas:

1. Digital Buzz

2. Digital Media (R)evolution

3. Search

4. Consumer Dialogues: The Digital Class

5. Measurement

And Much More

Read More