It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, sooner or later someone is going to ask you to “clean up some slides” in preparation for a meeting. This is because “someone” had time to doodle in PowerPoint but lacked the time or skill to create a proper business visual. Cleaning up slides is rarely an opportunity for fun, so let’s try to make it quick. And while we’re at it, let’s make that slide look sharp.

Here’s your basic mess:

Step 1: Simplify

Chances are, you’ve got some extra baggage hiding on this slide. Hit “Ctrl A” to select all the items on the screen, and look closely at the little circle-handles around your boxes. Do you see something like the left example or the right one?

If your boxes look like the left example, great! Go to the next Step.

If your boxes look like the right example, it’s because your text and your boxes are two separate objects, which will be a headache later unless we fix it now. Copy the text out of the “text box” and paste it into the regular box. (Double-click on the box, or right-click on the box and select “Edit Text.”) This way, we’re sure not to accidentally separate the text from the box later when we start moving things around.

Step 2: Connect the Dots

Those crooked arrows drive me crazy. Sometimes they don’t even point to anything!

One by one, delete each arrow and replace it with a “Connector” (look in your AutoShapes menu at the bottom of the screen).

If you have Office 2007, all arrows are connectors! When you draw the connector, little anchor points appear on your boxes. Place the ends of the connectors on those anchor points. Now, when you move your boxes, the connectors will move with them. (You can also switch the connectors between curvy and elbow line styles.)

Better, sort of. Onward!

Step 3: Standardize

Notice how the boxes on these slides are always totally different sizes and shapes? Why do they do that?! Let’s fix it.

Hold down “Ctrl” and click on each of your boxes to select them all. Right-click, select “Format AutoShape,” and select the “Size” tab (or if you have Office 2007, select “Size and Position”). Set the box height to 0.25 inches and the width to 1.5 inches.

If you have a box with a lot of text, go ahead and make that one wider. As long as one dimension of your boxes is the same (height or width), then they will look like they belong in the same diagram.

While we’re at it, let’s fix the text itself. With the boxes still selected, select a nice font, like Calibri, at a reasonable size, like 14pt, and get rid of any italics or bold text.

Step 4: Organize

This one’s easy. Just line up those boxes. Focus on whether the arrows are flowing down or to the right, and then arrange your boxes in neat rows or columns.

You can nudge them into place one at a time with the arrow keys, or select a group to Align along the middle (horizontal) or the center (vertical) using the Draw menu at the bottom of your screen.

If nothing else, at least try to get the arrows to point straight across or straight down. If you have angled arrows, it is likely they will all be slightly askew from each other, which will look sloppy.

Step 5: Make it Pretty

Artistic sensibility varies from person to person, and from company to company. Choosing colors and styles can devolve into ridiculous meetings with executives arguing over how “strong” a particular shade of blue looks. No, I’m not kidding. I had to sit through that meeting. Twice. (Print and Web!)

Here’s what I recommend. Select your boxes again, and do the following:

• Outlines: Get rid of them. They’re just a bunch extra lines that tend to clash with the color of the box. Set the Line to None or white.
• Main Boxes: Make them bold. Set the Fill to dark blues, greens, and oranges. And use colors to mean things! Inputs, outputs, whatever. Make it easy for your audience to differentiate what they are seeing. After all, this is a visual medium.
• Background Boxes: Make them subtle. Set the Fill to the same color as the Main Boxes but set the Transparency to 50%. When in doubt, always use variations of the same color to avoid unattractive color combinations.
• Text: You need contrast. Set the Text to white. Only use bold if absolutely necessary.
• Arrows: Make them highly visible. The entire purpose of a diagram like this is to illustrate flow or interactions. Set the line weights to 2pt, set the line color to black, and use the solid triangular arrowheads.

Step 6. Lose the Weight

Warning! This step may confuse and annoy your superiors! Only attempt this if your coworkers are able to literally think outside the box.

You know those boxes? They aren’t really doing anything, are they? The only things on this slide that are actually important are the words (concepts) and the arrows (relationships).

So let’s lose the boxes. Make the boxes white and apply those colors to the text instead. (Bold text may be a good idea now.)

Summary

How long did that take you? Well, if you were reading along with this tutorial, and then paused to play with colors and fonts, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took up to 20 minutes. But once you have these basics down, it should take you less than 5 minutes to clean up any slide for your boss, on demand.

And if you can make the boss look good in less than 5 minutes, then you’re definitely doing something right.

Source: Joseph Lewis

http://workawesome.com/software/how-to-clean-up-your-slides-in-5-minutes/

Considering how badly most meetings are run these days, it’s no surprise to learn that the age-old practice of getting a group of people together for a common goal has become such a contemptible and dreaded activity.

But long before the likes of before email, IM, video conferencing, Google Wave and SharePoint, meetings were pretty much all we had when it came to collaborating in an open environment. Whether it was the shared intention of agreeing on a solution, imparting some knowledge or just catching up with the progress of a project – you needed a meeting. Now that we have all settled comfortably into our inter-connected worlds, more and more people view meetings as atavistic hindrances; superfluous and futile time-pits in which we waste our days and sanity when there’s work to be done, darn it!

Long before the likes of email, IM, video conferencing and SharePoint, meetings were pretty much all we had when it came to collaborating in an open environment

The fact is: meetings are still as relevant and conducive to a successful and productive working environment today as they were back when they were in vogue (and the only option). If done right of course. Conducted incorrectly, however, meetings are not only acutely annoying, they’re downright wasteful and counter-productive; the antithesis of working in an awesome fashion.

Done wrong, meetings are not only acutely annoying, they’re downright wasteful and counter-productive.

The next time you call a meeting — be it a face-to-face chinwag in the office boardroom or a group call with geographically dispersed team members — consider the following:

Audience

Meetings should consist of either people who are contributing to the meeting or those who need to receive the information first-hand.

One of the most important aspects of running a successful meeting is ensuring that the correct people attend. There is a natural tendency these days to invite everyone and their dog to meetings; a clear sign of the “Well, the more we invite, the more chance we have of solving the problem” attitude. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Meetings should consist of either people who will contribute to the meeting or those who need to receive the information first-hand. When considering who you want to join your meetings, keep the following in mind:

1. Can someone else already invited to this meeting cover this person’s input? “Doubling up” meeting attendance is one of the biggest causes of meeting wastage.
2. Why am I inviting this person to the meeting? Is it because I need their input regarding the agenda, or is it just because I want them to know what was said? If it’s the latter, consider simply forwarding on the meeting minutes to this person.
3. Can someone join the start of this meeting and then leave early? Don’t be afraid of inviting someone to a meeting and informing the audience that this person will not be attending its entire duration. “We’re going to talk about the finance report first with Matt. He is then going to drop off while we continue on with the sales figures.” Matt doesn’t need to hear about the sales figures and he’ll thank you for dismissing him politely from the meeting after he has finished with his contribution. Meetings should be dynamic. Those who start the meeting need not necessarily be those who finish it.

Resist the urge to start meetings before all the people who are required to attend are actually present.

Punctuality

To have a worthwhile and productive meeting, starting and finishing on time is essential. Every company has that one person who always turns up late or arrives on time only to duck back out again for a coffee.

Meetings start at the time scheduled without fail. Someone else’s tardiness is frustrating and disrespectful to those that have put aside the time to make the meeting on time. Make it clear that it’s not acceptable for people to be late. Mention it in the meeting invite. Mention it again (privately) to people who turn up late when the meeting has ended. A culture of turning up late will soon dissipate when people consistently find that meetings are in full flow when they arrive late. If a key stakeholder has not shown at the start of the meeting it is less disruptive to quickly abandon the meeting and reschedule rather than wait. There is no hard and fast rule as to at what time a meeting should be canceled. Use your best judgment. Sitting in a room waiting ten minutes for someone to turn up is probably the maximum in most people’s books.

Meetings start at the time scheduled without fail.

At the other end of the spectrum, it is equally essential that a meeting finishes when you said it was going to end. There is a temptation to keep a meeting going if the core aspects of the agenda have not been covered. This is probably due to poor agenda management or lackadaisical time-keeping. Regardless, respect the fact that people attending your meeting may have other meetings to attend, and maybe right after your meeting was scheduled to end. If you haven’t covered what was required in the time allotted, schedule a follow-up meeting. Holding people in a room (or on a call) past when you said they’d be there is unlikely to result in the attendees contributing in a productive and open manner.

Minutes

All meetings – no matter how small – should have minutes. Minutes should be kept by the meeting organizer and should clearly outline:

1. Who attended
2. A brief summary of the agenda
3. Time, date and location of the meeting
4. Actions and — most importantly — agreed times or dates for these actions to be completed.

Minutes should be sent as soon as possible after the meeting has ended

Meetings without minutes are merely informal chats likely to be questioned later. It’s common for misinterpretations to happen in business meetings but good minutes can dispel such ambiguities. Minutes allow people to speak up and later say: “That’s not how I remember what was discussed in the meeting.” Minutes remove certain degrees of uncertainty while also having the handy trait of ratifying the meeting in question. You don’t agree that a certain point was what was said in the last meeting? Well, it’s in the minutes …

It’s everyone’s responsibility to read minutes of a meeting they attended to see if any action items have been assigned to the person in question or if any other details are incorrect.

Finally, minutes should be sent as soon as possible after the meeting has ended. Sending out minutes the next day diminishes the impact of the meeting while also reducing the time people have for completing any actions assigned.

Agenda & the Types of Meetings

A meeting agenda clearly outlines the meeting’s objective(s) and topics of discussion. It’s handy to have agenda points in chronological order as it promotes a natural flow to the meeting.

Most meetings fall in the Past, Present and Future categories.

Meetings come in all shapes and sizes. There is the weekly team meeting which is more a social get together and usually doesn’t adhere to the majority of the normal meeting tenets. Apart from this isolated case, however, most meetings fall in the Past, Present and Future categories.

Past: Meetings that fall in this category include yearly reviews, project close off meetings, sales figures analysis, post mortems, etc. The key here is that you are meeting to review and possibly close off some business. The agenda for meetings of this kind usually involves the analysis of statistics, the closing off of issues or open items and/or filing some aspect of the business away. Archiving code or submitting financial reports are common action items for meetings of this type.

Present type meetings, despite occurring regularly for ongoing business ventures, are rarely the same from week to week.

Present: Meetings that fall into the present category include catch-up meetings for an ongoing project/venture. The agenda here should focus on gauging where the venture is against projections previously agreed upon. Ongoing issues should be raised with actions assigned to the relevant people. Open bug reports (if you work in a software company), ongoing market analysis (if you work in a financial institution) or any such activities that change on a weekly (or even daily) basis feature prominently in such meetings. The agenda for these meetings usually reflect short-term analysis and associative short-term decision making. These meetings are usually quite fluid and flexible. Present type meetings, despite occurring regularly for ongoing business ventures, are rarely the same from week to week.

A meeting without an agenda is like a traveler without a map. You might get there in the end, just expect to get lost somewhere along the way.

Future: Designing a new application. Discussing possible new business. Decisions on resourcing and company direction. Such meetings make up the Future category. The key attribute here is forward-thinking and openness. Accordingly, meetings of this nature are usually looser by nature in terms of the agenda than the other types. That said, these meetings still require an agenda. Agreeing to meet in a room with the curt agenda of “Discussing a new project” will likely involve a large amount of rambling and a short amount of progress. Consider an agenda such as:

1. Introduce possible new project.
2. Discuss possible difficulties and challenges of said project.
3. Outline revenue projections if project was launched/completed in X time.
4. Possible teams, impact on other projects, timelines, milestones.

You at least have a formulated plan. A meeting without an agenda is like a traveler without a map. You might get there in the end, just expect to get lost somewhere along the way.

Meetings should be interactive and lively with all members participating.

Treat Meetings Like Battle-Plans

It might sound a tad silly, but successful meetings are a lot like planning a war. Consider a General going into battle with his field officers. The General invites the right people to the meeting (audience), everyone turns up on time (punctuality), the General lays out the objectives of the battle (agenda), while a clerk documents what was agreed (minutes).

Meetings should be interactive and lively with all members participating. Remember to keep meetings free from external distractions (so close the door), and though some meetings might possibly be catered, there’s no harm in stocking the room with some glasses and a jug of water anyway. It says: “I want you to talk. I want you to contribute. And I want you to feel free to have a glass of water so you don’t duck out and get one during the meeting.”

Meetings have a bad reputation of being boring and monumental wastes of time. They needn’t be. Involve your audience by sending around the agenda in advance and inform each person where their input is expected. After all, it’s only fair that they have had as much time to come prepared as you have. Most importantly, clearly inform everyone what the outcome of this particular meeting looks like. Tell them in clear language, such as: “When this meeting is over I would like us to have agreed the milestones for phase 2.”

Meetings are necessary, and make no mistake about it, they are never going away. Make the most out of your meetings. Invariably, the more you put into them, the more you will get out. Never treat a meeting as the perfect excuse to pad your timesheet. Meetings are important and running them well is paramount if you want to have an awesome work-day. Make your meetings matter again.

Source: Lee Cash

http://workawesome.com/productivity/how-to-make-meetings-matter/

Just like Pepsi and Starbucks, we each have a brand. It represents how people perceive us—who we are, what we stand for, what we do and how and why we do it. On the web, it can be distributed across a range of platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and maybe our own website or blog. This puts the burden on you to make sure your online personal branding is up-to-date, accurate and presented to your satisfaction.

Here are a few ways you can manage and monitor your personal brand on the web:

Personal Digital Strategy

Before diving in and setting up a bunch of accounts, think through what you want to achieve on the web. Who do you want to communicate to or engage with? Are you looking to learn about a topic of interest? Do you want to gain customers or make business connections?

Then, consider how each platform could help you achieve your goals. Not every platform will necessarily apply, so don’t be dazzled by the array at your disposal. Only commit to developing as much of a presence as you can commit to maintaining. Sitting down and mapping out your strategy for managing your brand online may not take very long, but it will provide a helpful road map going forward.

Google Yourself

One of the most basic and most essential things you can do is to regularly Google your name (including variations, such as nicknames or potential misspellings) to see where you are being mentioned on the web and in what context. You can also set up Google Alerts for any variation of your name so you can see where it’s popping up. There areseveral tools available to cast a wider monitoring net.

Mhairi Petrovic of Out-Smarts made the good point in this Slideshare presentation that it is important to see yourself as others see you. To that end, log out of your services and view your profiles as others see them. Do they look how you expect them to look, both visually and in terms of messaging?

Privacy

As you conceive your personal digital strategy, the next step is to think through your personal privacy policy. What information do you want to protect? Some things to consider:

• Stay on top of changes in Facebook privacy settings, keeping in mind that anything you list as an interest on Facebook is publicly visible by default, even to non-friends.
• On Twitter, if you choose to protect your tweets, you may be missing out on a lot of conversation and opportunity; create a separate, protected account if you want to engage on Twitter in a more personal and less brand-minded manner.
• On LinkedIn, how much of your activity (e.g. recommendations, tweaks to your profile) do you want made public, if you are concerned about how other people might read into that?

Cross-Posting

As you manage your digital outposts, it is important to be aware of how these services interact. Many of these services allow you to send updates to the others, but by doing so, you may unintentionally create a lot of noise and redundancy. Check your settings and adjust appropriately. Some examples of this are:

• Piping your Twitter updates into LinkedIn
• Sharing your YouTube activity on Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz/Reader
• Cross-posting Facebook updates to Twitter, or vice versa

Maintain a Hub

You may do an excellent job managing your presence on Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, but two facts remain:

• These are still distinct, unconnected sites — linking from one to the others only goes so far
• Despite your best efforts, you will never be able to absolutely control how these sites use and present your information

For these reasons, it is important to own your own digital brand with a website. Your website is your online hub, where all of your digital outposts should point to and come home to roost. It is the one space on the web that you can completely control. If you decide to get a website, consider your domain name very carefully. It is also advisable to reserve – even if you don’t have a plan to use them – your desired names across a range of social networks via a tool like namechk.com.

Online and Offline Alignment

The challenge of having our brand distributed across a range of services and platforms is that there is no way to update all of them at once. Since in all likelihood you will set up one platform to link to all or most of your others, it is important to have your information and presentation be up-to-date and consistent across the board. This includes details about your current employer, contact information and goals. This can also extend to yourprofessional portrait, and even your color scheme.

In addition, any non-digital material you have – memorable business cards, a portfolio, even a downloadable PDF on your website – should also remain up to date and aligned with your digital collateral. Make a checklist of online and offline materials to review whenever you have a change in your professional life.

Search Engine Optimization

A successful brand is one that is useful and relevant. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of tailoring your website content to rank highly in search engines. One way of elevating your personal brand is to elevate your content, whether it’s your blog posts or static pages on your website. If people find your information useful, your personal brand gets a boost. For a good introduction to SEO, visit SEOMoz.

Be a Professional

This is both the simplest bit of advice and perhaps the most critical. Sure, it’s the web and it’s fun, but if you are using it toward professional ends, be mindful of what you say and who you associate with – just as you would in the real working world.

What have you done to manage your personal brand online?

Source: Georgiana Cohen

http://workawesome.com/career/personal-brand/

But it is amazing the effect that the internet has had on our lives.  Believe it or not, there are still many people who don’t even own a PC – but that number is dwindling each year.  It brings to mind all of the technological benefits of the internet age.  My life has certainly changed within the past thirty years due to the internet and it’s a fine time to reflect on the impact it has had over its lifespan so far.

1. Modes of Communication

I remember when there were basically three different modes of communication: face-to-face communication, telephone conversation, and snail mail.  Today, email is the preferred method of communication.  It is an indirect method that most people prefer.  Your recipient can either choose to respond or not – and you have conveyed your message without needing to have direct communication.  In the internet age we also haveVoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol – popularized primarily with the emergence of Skype and Google Voice), instant messaging and texting.  Texting has usurped email as the main type of communication with young people.  Instant messaging is still being used in the business world, while Skype and Google Voice are used for personal and business communication.

2. Online Banking

The only time I write a check now is for a gift at a christening or a wedding.  If you haven’t started online banking, you should definitely consider it.  I’ve been online banking for at least the past ten years and I absolutely love it.  The reasons for doing so are numerous, such as:

• You don’t have to be constantly writing out checks to pay your bills, licking envelopes, and buying postage.
• You can easily pay your regular bills like mortgage and car loan with a couple of clicks and the payments will be made electronically on the proper day to avoid late charges.
• You can also receive your bills electronically and an email will notify you when the bill arrives.  Then, after logging into your bank website, you can schedule your bills to arrive on a given date.

Another great thing about online banking is that you can set up anyone as a recipient of funds.  So, if you want to send a check to a relative you can do so online either by having a paper check mailed to them or directly depositing the money into their account.

3. Online Degrees

I could be considered an authority on online education as I just completed another college degree taking online classes exclusively.  I just received my diploma in the mail last week and I never once visited the college.  I am a huge proponent of online education.  The benefits far outweigh any drawbacks – especially for anyone who works full-time – since the logistics of driving to and from class would simply be too time-consuming.  There wasn’t even the hassle of having to go to the bookstore as I could order those online as well.  Sure, there are some drawbacks – such as not having face-to-face interaction with classmates – but even that is possible if you want to Skype with them. If you have the inclination to go back to school for your degree, you should really consider taking an online degree.  Take one class as a test drive; you will not regret it.

4. Online Training and Seminars

I remember a time that the only way you could get training on the job was either by going to a training class or having a trainer come into your workplace.  Well, the landscape has certainly changed here.  Webinars have become extremely popular in the internet age, bringing together a virtual class online.  Gone are the travel costs for both the trainer and the trainee, which lowers the cost for the class itself.  Anyone can basically put together a training class from the comfort of their own home with tools such as GoToMeeting.  I regularly schedule GoToMeeting training classes with foreign counterparts and customers.

5. Searching

There were days when you wanted to learn more about a particular subject you would open a book, an encyclopedia or a dictionary.  At my house, we always had a full collection of World Book Encyclopedias. When the end of each year came, we would receive the edition that chronicled that particular year.  To this day I use a dictionary and thesaurus on a daily basis – but now they live online and not on my bookshelf.  Today, we have lightning fast search engines that can give us thousands of links based onspecific keywords.  Just yesterday I used the internet to scope out farmer’s markets in my neck of the woods. Not only did I find a local one, but I got directions on how to get there.

6. Researching

My brother, a professor at a prestigious liberal arts college on the West Coast of the US , has written text books in the area of Government and Political Science.  He has told me that with the advent of the internet age, the manner in which he does his research for his books has changed dramatically.  In the past, he would have to go to a library to do his research.  Today all of this research is done online, in the comfort of his own office.  His main concern is to be conscious of sites with faulty information.  Fortunately for him, his research is typically done on legitimate government and political science websites – so that is a minor concern.

7. Buying Online

If you can’t find it in a local store, you can always find it online.  A case in point is that I recently could not find canned pumpkin anywhere in local stores.  My wife uses pumpkin to make pumpkin breads, pumpkin ravioli and for other baking needs.  It appears that there is a pumpkin shortage in the United States due to excessive rain.  So, I mentioned to my wife that we should try to find it online – and we did. We were able to order a case of canned pumpkin for a fairly reasonable price.  If you can’t find it at a local store, chances are you can find it online.

8. Telecommuting

The internet age has completely redefined how we work.  The ability to sit in your home office while connecting to all of the same resources as if you were in your work office is a reality in today’s workplace.  This has allowed people like me to avoid a two and a half hour commute on the days that I am allowed to telecommute.  The time savings, gas savings and the wear and tear on my car (and on me) is a huge gain.  There is nothing I can do at work that I cannot do at home – other than walk over to somebody’s office.  As mentioned previously, I use GoToMeeting if I need to meet with someone and share my computer.

9. Freelance Writing

With the popularity of the internet, there has been an explosion in online content.  As a result of this, there has been a huge boon in freelance writing.  Opportunities exist as never before in this area.  If you love to write and are good at it, chances are you can find an online presence that will pay for your services.  I have had the good fortune ofdoing just that for this very popular blog, which happens to be based halfway across the world.  Being able to develop a portfolio of your work, and get paid for it, is a tremendous opportunity in the online world.

10. Worldwide media accessibility

The internet has opened up all users to worldwide media.  Internet radio is accessible to anyone in the world connected to the internet.  An example of this is that the other morning my wife (of Greek descent) was going to put on some Greek CDs on the stereo as she cooked for a large group that was visiting later in the day.  I suggested to her that we should search the internet for a Greek radio site.  We quickly found a Greek radio website that had links of roughly fifty different radio stations, most of which were music stations.  We found a radio station based in Thessaloniki, Greece, which is where her mother was born.  I hooked up some cheap $5 speakers to my laptop and we were able to enjoy hours of Greek music, at no cost.  My wife was flabbergasted with the quality of the sound and the variety of the music.

These are just some of what I call “life-changing” advancements of the internet age.  The productivity and personal gains that the internet has given to the world are tremendous.  This list is not meant to be comprehensive but these are some of my favorites.  I am fortunate in that I am able to remember what life was without these conveniences.

I sometimes wonder if the young people of today can truly appreciate the gifts that the internet has bestowed upon us.

Source: Bob Bessette

http://workawesome.com/communication/10-life-changing-benefits-of-the-internet-age/

That means five different Web browsers with different sets of bookmarks. So if I save a site to my bookmarks at work, how do I remember it when I’m at home or working from my favorite coffee shop?

Thankfully. there are plenty of ways to sync bookmarks. Basically they store your URLs on their servers and sync them with your computer – or allow access via the Web. I prefer the tools that integrate smoothly with my Firefox browsers and keep bookmarks private.

• Xmarks: This is my preferred choice for the Firefox browser. It’s seamless, fast and easy. It also will save passwords if you like.
• Google Chrome Sync: This is  built into Chrome so you don’t have to download or install anything.
• Sync2It: This offers a toolbar and mobile access with your device/phone browser.
• Evernote: A lot of people love Evernote’s features for taking notes and clipping web pages. It can serve as a bookmark storage if you use someone else’s computer or one with community access. Note this isn’t as easy as using the previous tools.
• Gmail: Lifehacker explains how to create a bookmarklet that saves links to your Gmail account. It’s a hack and takes some work. But it may serve your needs.

If you don’t have anything to hide when you’re surfing and saving URLs, maybe a social bookmarking service is for you. There several that let you easily share and categorize the pages you think are worth saving. Plus these sites have privacy features that let you keep URLs hidden.

The beauty of social bookmarking sites is that they are great places to look for other sites you may be interested in seeing.

• Delicious.com: One of the earliest services that’s easy to use.
• Stumble Upon: Again, easy to use. Many bloggers and Internet marketers credit the service with increasing traffic.
• Google Reader: If you use this RSS reader, you also can create a bookmarklet that saves URLs and clips text to a central page. Privacy and keyword categorization are available.
• Bit.ly: Yes this primarly a URL shortener. But it does keep track of the URLs you shorten, which could end up being a handy bookmark storage system.

These services and tools also serve as backup for my bookmarks. If something goes wrong, I don’t lose the important addresses I need.

What bookmarking tools work well for you?

Source: Carl Natale

http://workawesome.com/software/sync-bookmarks/

I’ve asked this of many people and some swear there’s no such thing as cultural differences when it comes to being on time. Others argued that everyone knows that everyone else will be 15 minutes late so, in fact, everyone is on time.  In today’s increasingly diverse workplaces these differences can create some tension – and make some team members feel they’re being taken advantage of.

Do you deal with this cultural difference in your workplace? What approach do you take?

Source: Ana da Silva

http://workawesome.com/office-life/being-on-time/

In this economy, many of us will be faced with leaving our first or even second careers to move on to the next.

To successfully convey your old skill set to the hiring manager or recruiter in a new industry, it’s important to follow these key steps:

1. Look for online job postings in your field at the various job boards (HotJobs, Dice, Monster, CareerBuilder) and highlight the requirements you meet.
2. Dovetail all of your past experience to those requirements for the new position. For example, if you’ve moved from retail management to accounting, then some of your transferable skills may be budgeting, spreadsheets, projections, etc.
3. Begin your resume with a strong Qualifications Summary that shows the hiring manager how your past experience can be transitioned to this new career or field. Don’t make them look for it. Don’t make them guess. Most won’t. They’ll simply move on to the next candidate.
4. Showcase any past achievements that may be relevant to the new industry. If you were awarded for leadership in retail management that skill is also important in an accounting office.
5. Prioritize your data according to what will most impress a hiring manager or recruiter. For example, if you’ve just been awarded a degree in accounting, your education should come first with your professional history in retail management next. The key is to match your background as closely as you can to the requirements of the job.
6. Every line of your resume must speak to the new job and how well you can fill it. Therefore, leave any extraneous data that can’t be dovetailed off your resume.

Today marks the relaunch of our sister site, The Netsetter. Along with this site andFreelanceSwitch, the new Netsetter creates a “triple threat” in terms of getting better at what moves you.  All three sites offer practical tips that cover topics that can help those who want to get better at what they love doing.

The Netsetter was a blog started by Envato’s CEO, Collis Ta’eed in 2009 as a place to discuss start ups. The second iteration of the site doesn’t stray too far from the initial concept, but has been retooled by the Netsetter team to appeal to a wider audience.

If you’re a true netsetter then you’re already on your way to doing something that you truly love doing.  With The Netsetter, FreelanceSwitch and WorkAwesome, you have an arsenal of resources available to you that can enable you to do what you love at a whole new level.

Are you a netsetter? Then head on over to the newly-revamped Netsetter today!

Source: Mike Vardy

http://workawesome.com/general/introducing-the-netsetter-2-0/

There seem to be two schools of thought on this topic:

• Do an excellent job on exactly what the client is looking for;
• Do a good job on the project, and provide additional value as a bonus.

I got to thinking about this after reading about optimizing your freelance career, especially the reference to “undepromise and overdeliver.”

Do people try and compensate for a perceived shortcoming – maybe they are concerned about their grammar or the originality of their concepts – by adding in additional value?  Does a client look at the job and think, “Well, the concept is ok, but we’ve got three pages of web copy that we weren’t expecting – hooray!” or “Wow – brilliant concept, I know we didn’t ask for more, but it would have been nice to get a few more pages of copy”?

Have you found that it is better to deliver “excellence” to your customers and nothing else, or provide” acceptable” with bonus material?

Source: Jason Finnerty

http://workawesome.com/career/your-customers/

Just think about the times when you spent hours trying to find that one super-important note in the huge pile of documents, notes, files and what not. Had that note been stored somewhere on your computer, it would have taken seconds to locate it, isn’t it.

This article explores various aspects of going paperless; why you need to do it, what tools could help you do that and the process to follow. People working at big corporations might not be able to go paperless completely, because companies have their own rules on use of resources. But, I suggest them to read it nevertheless.

So…Why Go Paperless?

Digital is omnipresent.
Digital technology has come a long way. You can store an entire movie in that small cellphone of yours. And the good thing is there are tools and apps that can sync your information across various devices. Your data is safe.

It reduces clutter.
A clean and clutter-free workspace not only looks good, but, also has a positive impact on the mind of the person who’ll work there. With no clutter around, you tend to be more focused towards your work and get more done.

Better data protection and security.
It’s hard to recover information from a piece of paper once it’s destroyed (unless you know people who work in forensic labs). But data can be recovered if your computer goes haywire. You could also store everything on the cloud and not worry about data loss ever.

It saves money.
You’d realize how much you are saving when you stop buying those files and A4 sheets.

It helps you go green.
Saving the environment isn’t bad either. When there’s so much talk about going green, why not try to contribute as much as you can towards preserving natural resources.

Okay, so now that you are convinced going paperless is the way ahead, lets talk about the main tools you’d need to begin with the process.

Tools That Will Help

Your computer.
Your computer is where it begins. You gotta transfer the data and organize it there. You should also decide what are the applications you’d need that’d replace your need for using paper.

Your mobile phone.
You’d use your cellphone to store important notes, contacts and other small bits of information, which you usually write in stickies.

Your iPad or iPod Touch.
Didn’t we tell you that you could also use your iPad to lower your carbon footprint. Make use of it in the process of going paperless.

An external drive for data backup.
Although there are online storage options available, it is important that you back it up on an external hard disk too.

A scanner.
A scanner would help you quickly transfer data from paper to PC, especially if you’ve got a huge number of files and documents.

A paper shredder.
Finally, you would need a shredder to dispose of the paper. Well, you could also do that manually, but in case you have access to a shredder, using that would be a better option.

How to Go Paperless

Set aside time.
Going paperless is easier said than done. You should set aside time, in fact, a day if possible to get this work done.

Choose and organize.
Now begins the cumbersome (and boring) part. You need to carefully divide the documents into useful and not necessary. You’d be surprised to find how much trash you’ve got once you start organizing the stuff.  You would also need to create different folders on your computer, and other devices so that the clutter isn’t transferred from your desk to your hard drive.

Start the upload and backup.
Done organizing? Great, now start the process of transferring data and making it go digital. Also, back it up on the external drive as you save it on your computer. No point delaying the backup.

Do a final check.
Go through the papers as well as the data on the computer/cellphone/iPad to see if they match and you haven’t missed anything. Also, check the non-essential list of items again to confirm that all of it is useless.

Shred what’s not needed.
Pat yourself on the back, you have successfully accomplished the herculean task of going paperless and de-cluttering your workspace. Now, just get rid of all the useless documents to give a sparkling clean look to your workspace! Make it look beautiful!

Feel free to share your tips, suggestions and how going paperless has helped you below.

Source: Abhijeet Mukherjee

http://workawesome.com/general/going-paperless/