Panic in Indian Stock Markets!

  

Brilliant Definition of a Evernote User

Someone who has a poor understanding of life-work balance. They’re always thinking about everything. Someone who’s answering email at 11 p.m. on a Saturday, but also someone who’s reading restaurant reviews and recommendations at the office. The modern knowledge worker.

Read on @ http://www.wired.com/business/2013/07/evernote-10-questions/

Planning Your Idea Management Initiative (Govt Example)

• Identify the Purpose of the Site: Idea management tools can serve a variety of purposes for your agency. Identifying the purpose of your idea management initiative early on will allow you to choose the best tool that fits the needs of your agency and your audience. For instance, if you are creating an idea management site that is for internal use only, identifying the purpose from the beginning will ensure that you select a tool that will work on your agency’s network and include features relevant to your initiative. Furthermore, by identifying the purpose of the tool, you can include any relevant stakeholders throughout the life cycle of your idea management initiative.

• Develop a Written Plan: The written plan is the foundation for your idea management initiative. The written plan should outline the key roles and responsibilities for creating and managing your idea management page.  The written plan should include a clearly defined purpose and audience (e.g., generate ideas to improve agency operations, find ways to save money, etc.). Lastly, the plan should identify the site administrator and any workflows or policies for approving and removing content.

• Get the Requisite Approvals: Seek approval from the appropriate decision-makers throughout your agency to create awareness, establish proper protocols, and gain buy-in from key stakeholders and participants.

• Develop a Terms of Use Policy: A Terms of Use statement is a set of rules that users must follow in order to participate on the site.  The statement should be featured prominently on the site, clearly state how the site is moderated, identify the rules for posting an idea or comment and any consequences for violating the rules.  Make certain to add a disclaimer that notifies users that your agency has the right to reject any idea or comment that is submitted.

• Develop a Comment Moderating Policy: In addition to voting, some idea management sites allow users to comment on the posted ideas. When planning your idea management initiative, ascertain whether you will allow commenting on the ideas contained on your idea management site. If you allow commenting, determine if visitors will be required to register for the site and if their comments will need to be approved before being made visible to the public.

http://www.empire-20.ny.gov/ideamanagement2-kit

Secret Sauce of the Business Cloud–SaaS

 

The next wave of the Cloud is well on its way. For a good time, SaaS models focused on inevitable Cloud disruptive factors – Subscription, Billing, Hosting, Zero Legacy etc. Disintermediation proved a big success mantra for upcoming SaaS companies. But the middleman took note and turned the tide against itself, defeating the objective of having the Cloud in the first place. Transactions started happening directly. Its now the turn of the new SaaS model – SaaS becoming the System of Record as opposed just a low cost line item. Businesses take note, it may well be the tip of the iceberg!!

I came across an excellent article along the same lines:

By serving as the access portal to the marketplace, the system of record and most importantly, the paywall that drives predictable revenue, SaaS can revolutionize the marketplace model to offer modern advantages the failed B2B marketplaces of the early 2000s never had. These include revenue predictability, favorable unit economics and a barrier to disintermediation.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/14/why-saas-is-the-secret-to-success-in-the-business-marketplace/#VYgSbOwdc32dTuM3.99

Get your free online personal research assistant…

 

If you are like me, you spend lotsa time researching on your customers before you meet them – (not to mention senior folks from your company). You have back to back meetings, and less than five minutes to run from one to the other.  It will take you much longer than 5 minutes to lookup everyone in the meeting and try to find their LinkedIn accounts, Twitter accounts, Blogs, Company blogs, and news related to their companies.Till date, I used to research by hand on the Net- LinkedIn, the works… Now we have a cool startup, Prepwork(https://prepwork.com) which promises to automate all of that. PrepWork searches for you and sends information that will help you make a positive impression. I have synced my calendar, so should you!

Prepwork, a digital assistant application that aggregates background data from all over the web that applies to each person that you are meeting with during a given day (e.g. alma mater, company news, recent blog posts and tweets, etc.). Then it emails this “intel” to you during the morning prior to your meeting, just like your own personal research assistant.

It gives you insights into someone’s sports interests.  So, in the sample image, this user follows the key players on the Miami Heat.  Because the user follows the Miami Heat, they show you the score from their last game and a link to the ESPN recap. Cool isn’t it …

Mobility at the Crossroads…

Career Planning

A good alternative career planning advice that I came across. It tends to simplify career thinking. Worth some thought!!

“Some of us tend to see our goals (at work and in life) as opportunities for advancement, achievement and rewards. We think about what we might gain if we are successful in reaching them. If you are someone who sees your goals this way, you have what's called a promotion focus.

The rest of us see our goals as being about security — about not losing everything we've worked so hard for. When you are prevention-focused, you want to avoid danger, fulfill your responsibilities, and be someone people can count on. You want to keep things running smoothly.”

Read on:

If you are promotion-focused, look for jobs that offer advancement and growth. Consider fast-paced industries where products and services are rapidly changing, and where the ability to identify opportunities will be essential, like the tech sector or social media. To use a sports metaphor, look for a career where you get to play offense — where boldness, speed, and outside-the-box thinking pay off.

If you are prevention-focused, look for jobs that offer you a sense of stability and security. You are good at keeping things running, at handling complexity and always having a Plan B (and C and D) ready at a moment's notice. Consider careers where your thoroughness and attention to detail are valued — for instance, as a contract lawyer or data guru. You work best when you are playing defense — you can spot a threat a mile away, and protect your company or client from harm.

More  @ http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/04/the_key_to_choosing_the_right.html#comment-859167121

Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges

"Web 2.0" is the portion of the Internet that's interactively produced by many people; it includes Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and prediction markets. In just a few years, Web 2.0 communities have demonstrated astonishing levels of innovation, knowledge accumulation, collaboration, and collective intelligence. Now, leading organizations are bringing the Web's novel tools and philosophies inside, creating Enterprise 2.0. In this book, Andrew McAfee shows how they're doing this, and why it's benefiting them. Enterprise 2.0 makes clear that the new technologies are good for much more than just socializing. When properly applied, they help businesses solve pressing problems, capture dispersed and fast-changing knowledge, highlight and leverage expertise, generate and refine ideas, and harness the wisdom of crowds. Most organizations, however, don't find it easy or natural to use these new tools initially. And executives see many possible pitfalls associated with them. Enterprise 2.0 explores these concerns and shows how business leaders can overcome them. McAfee brings together case studies and examples with key concepts from economics, sociology, computer science, consumer psychology, and management studies and presents them all in a clear, accessible, and entertaining style. Enterprise 2.0 is a must-have resource for all C-suite executives seeking to make technology decisions that are simultaneously powerful, popular, and pragmatic.

http://hbr.org/product/enterprise-2-0-new-collaborative-tools-for-your-or/an/2587-HBK-ENG?cm_mmc=press-_-listserv-_-December2009-_-BusBkshelf