photo by webgeek

Recently a friend from my old work sent me an out of the blue email. It was a standard message, friendly banter, disparaging remarks about my sexuality and some sort of quip about how amazing it was that out of 1 billion sperm, I was the fastest.

All joking aside, one point that struck me as interesting was that the company had decided to ban Facebook. Again.

It’s obvious that senior managers perceive Facebook and social networking during work time as unacceptable and a roadblock to productivity, however the back and forth clearly indicates that they’re not sure about the implications of banning sites such as Facebook altogether.

The Power of Expectation

Generation Y workers have an intimate relationship with technology. These stats from Wikipedia state:

• 97% own a computer
• 97% have downloaded music
• 94% own a cell phone
• 76% use instant messaging and social networking sites
• 75% of college students have a Facebook profile and most of them check it daily

Simply put, the younger working generation is used to instant gratification, they expect to be able to access social media and probably have an addiction to doing so. With social networking, affordable web hosting and the ability to easily host blogs, people have come to depend on their connectivism.

What are the implications of taking this away?

Companies such as Google, with their gaming rooms, lounges and relaxed policies realise that the more free an employee feels, the more productive they will be.

Generation Y aside, taking away workers rights will only serve to undermine their motivation. Senior managers and supposed leaders need to realise that people will perceive taking away access to resources they’ve previously had (or believe they have to right to access) as a betrayal of trust.

Two steps forward, one step back?

If you’ve worked for a large corporate, you’re probably been to some sort of ‘Company Values’ training. The purpose being to instil the company values into you, so that you act in the best interests of the company; customers are the lifeblood of our business, increase your circle of influence, compete on value not price – and all that sort of wank.

These training sessions are not cheap, if a company is willing to spend so much money in order to get people invested, why throw it all away by fostering resentment towards the majority of their staff?

An alternative strategy?

That’s all good and well, but there is that niggly little fact that perhaps using Facebook does actually also lower productivity. With all the games, applications and video’s it’s no surprise. However the question needs to be asked: is there a way that staff could get their social networking fix without a massive drop in productivity?
Why not implement an in-house or bespoke social media package, there are many open source options available and if it enabled staff to feel free or empowered while still having some control over what can be accessed it has to at least be worth a shot.

photo by mumblyjoe

Think Big

My goal is to understand my true goal: My life purpose.

I will not permit myself to be concerned with trivialities. I shall not take liberties, nor burden my loved ones with unfair expectation.

I will free myself from concern for material wealth, social status and power - thereby allowing myself to conquer it.

I will seek resistance in all things, embrace novelty and challenge, endeavouring to continually learn and grow.

I will study the past in order to know the future.

I will not permit myself to be dulled by mediocrity. In this I shall not compromise.

photo by papercuts

Have you ever been in a group discussion, disagreed with what someone is saying and felt a burning desire to ’show them the light’? If so - and assuming you acted upon it - how did they respond?

I’m willing to guess not well. People are naturally distrustful of words, they are defensive and stubborn. Beliefs are shaped by experience and can harden into conviction. While your goal might be to influence someone to your school of thought, by arguing you may inadvertently be hardening their resistance.

On the surface, people may appear to agree with you, or at least listen to what you say. The reality is they are probably humouring you or waiting for their turn to speak. Argument is not an effective tool for influence and can have the negative effect of leaving you frustrated.

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Unknown

If arguing doesn’t work, then how do you change someone’s mind?

First of all, be careful not to totally discount argument. Circumstances may arise when arguing can be beneficial, you may even consider intentionally losing an argument as a means of influence.

When you let someone else win an argument, often you both end up winners.
Richard Carlson

People need to come to their own conclusions

The single most effective method for influencing someone’s behavior is to lead them down a path in which they make their own decision. If they believe they came up with the idea themselves, the more successful you have been.

What motivates people in their decision making process?

Always remember: most people spend the majority of their focus internally. They want to know; how will this benefit me? Will it change people’s perception of me? Will I be putting myself at risk? Will I have more status or less? Will my life become easier or harder?

Put yourself in their position and try to truly imagine what you would be thinking should the roles be reversed. Understanding this is more important then argument itself, knowing your audience will empower you to choose a better strategy and engage their emotions.

Are arguments holding you back?

How often do you fall into the trap of arguing? Is it keeping you from starting something new, from a happy and fulfilling relationship? Do you get into meaningless arguments, come home in a bad mood and take it out on those you love?

Rise above the bait

It’s important to realise that you have complete power over your reaction to these moments of conflict. The next time you find yourself in an argument try follow these simple three steps.

First step: acknowledge that you are engaged, or about to engage in an argument

Second step: consider the bigger picture. Will winning or even participating in this argument help your greater cause? Will it hinder your goals or alienate those you are speaking with?

Third step: Figure out what your best course of action is. Maybe participating in an argument will give you satisfaction. Whatever you choose though, the very act of analysing the situation before your emotions are engaged will allow you to retain control and choose how you let the situation affect you

Don’t let your pride fuck with you

Some people may have a problem backing down from an argument because they view it as an attack on them personally. I’m not saying that if someone insults you in front of your peers that you should not respond, what I am saying is be aware of meaningless arguments or conflict that will win you nothing by participating.

You feel that sting, big boy, huh? That’s pride FUCKIN’ with you! You gotta fight through that shit!

This post was inspired by one particular argument I recall allowing myself to be drawn into many months ago. Hindsight and reflection allowed me that while I felt I knew I was right, at the end of the day all that happened was that I went home furious, I was poor company to my friend after work and that I overreacted in the office.

I invite you to share your thoughts and experience regarding the futility of argument. Have you ever been so riled up that you said something you regretted or overreacted? If so, please let us know via the comments.

Regards,
Jack

Photo by Hamed Saber

What is Nofollow?

By default, Wordpress - and most major blogging platforms - have a rel=”nofollow” attribute in the comments section. What this means is that if you post a comment and include your website, that the link will now count towards raising your search engine rankings.

By using a plugin that enables Dofollow, users are able to post a comment, with a link to their site that will count towards increase their search engine rankings.

Why use Nofollow?

The Nofollow tags exist mainly to stop spammers from posting useless comments. Also in terms of basic SEO, outbound links take some of your PageRank juice from the page, so aspiring web-domination rankers won’t want people to have control over their page’s outbound links.

While the majority of blogs still use the Nofollow attribute there has been an increasing trend towards using Dofollow. Communities such as Bumpzee are starting to spring up as bloggers are beginning to see the value in offering Dofollow.

Why Dofollow

Why then, would a blogger want to have the Nofollow attribute removed? Simple, to encourage participation and reward contribution.

Most bloggers are constantly on the looking for ways to raise their profile, increase traffic and rankings. The major source of this is quality inbound links.

Dofollow is a great way of giving something back to the community, but even if your motives are not altruistic Dofollow is a viable strategy for building your brand.

For me personally, I believe success on the internet is about adding as much value as possible for the minimum user cost. My goals for Nubtub are to write quality content that either helps people or challenges their current perspective, to increase traffic and community participation. In order to achieve these results I results I realise I need to offer as much incentive to readers as possible, that is where dofollow comes in.

What are your thoughts, Nofollow or Dofollow?

And if you answered Dofollow, is it because you want to give something back or as a tactic to grow your blog?

UPDATE - Aly from SEOAly and Pet Insurance pointed me to an even better dofollow plugin that allows you to customize and specifiy a lot of options, such as the user must comment x times before the link turns dofollow. The default was 10 but I’ve set mine to 3 :p - Thanks Aly

photo by Shayan

Yes that’s right, I have quit my job.

When I first moved to New Zealand at the age of 22 I was more concerned about having a good time then my career or working. 5 years later, a couple of rungs up the corporate ladder and living and working in the UK I still have that nagging feeling in my gut that something just isn’t right.

During this time I’ve worked for a couple of different Fortune 500 companies and have observed some disturbing trends, as well as having gained some valuable insights into the true nature of big business and the effect it has on people.

In his book, Daniel Goleman talks about an emerging phenomenon of people in the 40’s and 50’s suddenly reassessing their lives, deciding what’s truly important and reordering their priorities.

New studies show, for example, a sharp rise in people’s altruism at midlife, a key sign of new priorities. Psychoanalysts now see this increased caring as the flowering in middle age of emotional development that begins in childhood.

Source.

The key phrase there is: ‘the flowering in middle age of emotional development that begins in childhood’.

My questions is; if this begins in early childhood and only starts to flower in middle age, in terms of emotional and spiritual development (don’t freak out, I’m not a hippy) what happens in our 20’s and 30’s?

Work Happens

If you work in an office I am willing to bet you know at least one ‘serious guy’. The person that:

• Takes their ‘supervisor’ or ‘champion’ role a little too seriously

• The boss that sends emails from her laptop at 9 p.m. and thinks because she put’s in so many hours that her staff should be following her example

• The guy at lunch that is totally incapable of having a discussion about anything other than work

Keep things in perspective

Do you want to be that person? Are you already that person?

When you work fulltime and are heavily involved in your job, it is easy to lose perspective of what is actually important in your life. Family and friends can easily slide down the list of priorities and trivial things can be blown way out of perspective. If you lost your job, would it truly be the end of the world?
I am self obsessed and so are you

Don’t get defensive, it’s true. It doesn’t mean that we can’t be compassionate, loving and interested in people, but the fact remains that we, as people, are primarily interested in ourselves.

The danger here then, is that people can easily fool themselves into believing that getting that report completed by Monday actually is important. That sacrificing time spent with their partner or children is an acceptable trade-off and ‘comes with the territory’.

Understand: your company does not care about you.

I’m sorry, but it’s true. If you have a good work ethic then you probably try hard at your job and want to impress your boss(s). If you’re still with me at this point, I encourage you to answer the following questions:

• How much power does your boss actually have?

• Will they still be here in 10 years?

• If so, will they remember and be grateful for all those extra hours you put in on the weekend?

• Will they remember and be grateful in 6 months?

By working extra time and effort during the ‘hard times’, are you setting a precedent that people will come to expect from you all the time?

Decide what is really important in your life. Now.

My major concern with writing this post is coming across as preaching or being pretentious. OH LOOK AT ME!”$ I HAVE QUIT MY JOB AND YOU SHOULD TOO”$!”£. This is not my intention, for the record I don’t have a great deal of money saved to fall back on, or a business already setup. Yes I am scared of failure and concerned that any ventures I embark on may not succeed. (side note, if you seeing how I get on, I plan on tracking all my progress and documenting the steps I take on this blog)
Not trying is still failing.

The point is, by not backing yourself and giving it a shot you are still failing. The precedents are already set. The signs are there, they just need to be recognised.

Look at all the people that have been obsessed with their jobs, what happened 20 years later when they are made redundant? Do you think you are any different? If you continue as you are, in 20 years will you feel fulfilment or resentment?

On July the 17th .me domain name extensions became available to the public. .Me is the national top level domain for Montenegro. Since then there has been a frenzy for people looking to bag an excellent investment.

Most people however, don’t really care what country the .me represents so much as the fact that it has a great ring to it. Marketers have quickly identified the branding potential and have snapped up cheap purchases knowing there will later be a market for it.

Aaron Wall blogged about it which is how I found out about the .me extensions being available. It’s not even a month but I wish I had known a bit earlier.

If you’re in the market don’t despair though, most names are still available. I was looking through big american sports teams and many were not yet registered. The only downside is that they are more expensive then your standard .com or .org to register.

The two purchases I ended up going for were jobresume.me and freeresume.me for a project I’m going to start. Others that I considered were bodylangage.me and sc2.me. If you’re in the market for a new domain or fancy trying your creative skills to find a gem that hasn’t been taken yet then get cracking! :p

If anyone makes any purchases or finds any good ideas but don’t quite want to take a punt of them please post them in the comments.

If you don’t want to create an account you don’t have too. You can also embed songs to your blog!

Not bad at all.

SEO Brisbane

Photo by Marcodede

Sharm El Shiek is an Egyptian city that exists purely because of tourism.

With the average wage for most Egyptian men (there are almost no Egyptian women in Sharm) being around a measly 60 - 100 USD per month, they inevitably turn to taking advantage of the tourists in order to make a living.

And they do it well.

The first night we arrived, we went for a walk in the market and were quickly accosted. The Egyptian sales method is cunning and very aggressive.

A little observation revealed a distinct pattern:

1. Friendly greeting - The salesman / scammer calls a friendly greeting towards you -”Hello my friend!” By ignoring this you are made to feel guilty and / or rude. The goal is simply to get you to respond, thus leading to….
2. The handshake - Once you’ve responded to a greeting the next step is to shake your hand and engage you in conversation. At this point it is even more difficult to disengage, the scammer knows this and will quickly follow it up with a series of rapid fire questions and comments all designed to gain small commitments.
3. Build rapport - Next the scammer will attempt to find out as much information about you as possible. Where are you from? How long have you been here? Etc. He will also take any opportunity to pay you (or your partner) compliments. The purpose being to ingratiate himself with you and burden you with a feeling of obligation.
4. Ask you to look at his goods - After you’ve gone through the first inevitable steps you are now at the point where you will be asked to look at his store. By this point you will be feeling engaged, obligated and predisposed towards the salesperson. A ripe target for buying overpriced junk.

Sam the Strategic Hustler

During the trip we couldn’t go anywhere without being constantly harassed. This left us feeling constantly on edge and unable to relax.

The hotel porters and cleaners were no different. They would be excessively friendly and helpful, but all with the ulterior motive of receiving a big tip. It felt like everyone was out to scam you.

The only different person was Sam. He was a well-spoken and friendly photographer and photoshop guru sitting near the entrance. His business was taking glamorous photos of guests and then photoshopping any blemishes and printing or putting them on CDs.

He was usually sitting at his PC and I would talk to him every time we walked past. Being a bit of a computer geek and football fan we instantly had things in common. I enjoyed his conversation and often asked him questions about the country and culture. Another thing I really liked about Sam was that while I asked him questions about his business, he ever tried to sell me anything and didn’t talk about his business, unless I first asked about it.

On our last night I decided it would be nice for my girlfriend to have a professional photo done as a keepsake of our trip and adventures. And I figured my good mate Sam would look after us with a sweet deal and I could leave him a generous tip for his kindness.

Sam quickly agreed and told us to get dressed up for the occasion and come down after dinner. I only wanted a photo or two but figured he knew what he was doing. Sam led us to various picturesque locations around the hotel and proceeded to take photos of us (in really stupid poses I may add, and no you’re not seeing the photos!) for about an hour.

After this we sat at his PC and selected the best photos, to which he worked his photoshop magic on. Another hour later he printed one off and burnt the rest to CD for me.

I magnanimously pulled out my wallet expecting to pay a certain amount, thinking I would generously give him double as a tip, reasoning that what I earn in an hour would be close to a week’s wages for him.

I’d asked him about his pricing before but naively did not discuss any sort of price beforehand and when he told me that it would be over 5 times what I expected to pay I was totally shocked.

The money wasn’t an issue. The price he was asking was still much cheaper then I could get the same service for in Australia or England. What sent me reeling was firstly, the feeling of betrayal, and secondly, the realisation that I had just been totally duped.

After some negotiation I ended up paying him about half of what he asked, not a great deal of money but still a very tidy profit for him I’m sure. That night I went to bed with a heavy heart, feeling like I’d been totally suckered.

Interpretation

With time, comes reflection. After the initial emotional reaction I began to think about the situation objectively. Eventually I began to see things in a new light and developed a great respect for Sam.

Whether or not we were truly friends was irrelevant - I was a tourist that would be leaving in 2 weeks, being friends was impractical. For a man in his position, becoming emotionally attached to a guests would be exhausting and counter productive.

The bottom line is that Sam understood psychology. He knew how his fellow Egyptians scammed tourists but he also knew that people quickly developed a resistance to this form of influence and for a lot of people the technique lost effectiveness after the first day.

Need for trust 

At home, most people are not used to being on guard for extended periods of time. Being constantly on edge and taking care not to be scammed, one becomes disproportionately starved for a relationship with trust.

Sam’s business was geared towards people - like me - wanting a keepsake at the end of their trip. He also knew that by this time, most people would be very defensive towards the normal method of influence.

Sam understood this basic human need for trust and companionship, by going out of his way to be helpful and friendly without asking for anything in return he clearly set himself apart from other Egyptians trying to hustle tourists. By biding his time and fulfilling this need for trust he effectively disarmed any sort of resistance and put himself in the perfect position to take advantage, on his terms. Best of all he made me feel like he was doing me a favor.

Understand: it is imperative to observe and understand your victim’s psychology. Any sort of extreme behavior will invariably have a pendulum effect - creating a great need on the other end of the spectrum, waiting for you to exploit it.

A month had passed since my last post and I began working on other projects, letting Nubtub slide lower down the list of priorities.

Until I finally received a positive comment on a post I was particularly proud of.

I suddenly found myself re-energised and inspired to continue writing. This is a pretty simple concept which is applicable to many areas of life and not just work, but it begs the question:

How can I use this knowledge to my advantage?

Actively seek feedback

You need to accept that with any new project you are going to have an initial burst of motivation that will eventually taper off. How you deal with this transition will have a massive impact on your success.

By acknowledging this fact, you can take steps to prepare for this lull and implement a strategy to manage your own level of motivation.

Success breeds success – ride the wave

I played competitive games online for over 6 years, during this time I went through many ups and downs in terms of performance. One observation I had was that when I was hot, I was hot.

When you start to win – at anything - you begin to find it easier to adapt and overcome small setbacks. Barriers to success turn into challenges, a problem for you to solve. A chance for you to shine.

Remember: it is harder to build momentum then it is to maintain it. If you find yourself on a hot-streak, milk it for all it’s worth and continue to challenge yourself.

Motivate your staff by giving them feedback

Conversely, lack of feedback runs hand-in-hand with de-motivation.
If you are in a position of leadership and someone in your team is working particularly hard, by failing to acknowledge this fact you are effectively telling them that you don’t value their hard work.

It is important to ensure that this feedback is genuine; people will know if you are being insincere and this may have opposite to your desired effect.

If you have a team member who is struggling or not doing well, you may need to spend some time thinking about what they do well so that you have some honest feedback to give them.

Give people a vested interest in your success

I recall one manager I had that just didn’t care; he often made excuses for not coming into the office and did his absolute best to escape any semblance of work or responsibility.

At first I thought it was great, I saw it as complete freedom and a rich opportunity to do what I liked, when I liked. I didn’t have a great deal of respect for the man and told myself that I didn’t care what he thought and was not fussed that he had no idea about any successes I had.

Eventually I started to become de-motivated and strangely upset by this lack of support. I was experienced enough to not need any help but what I wasn’t getting was my ego stroked and appreciation for my efforts.

This led to me resenting my boss and the company and I felt like no one cared about how much effort I put in. As a manager he failed catastrophically.

Despite my manager’s shortcomings, the ultimate responsibility for my de-motivation rested with me.

What I should have done was approach my manager and tell him that I needed more feedback. I should have made it clear to him that his success was directly linked to my success and found a reason for him to take an interest in my needs.

Figure out what is important to people

What my boss failed to do was to recognise what it was that motivated me. You cannot assume that everyone will be motivated by having their ego stroked but what you can assume is that everyone has an inherent need for their efforts to be acknowledged and appreciated.

Pay attention to people (and yourself) and study what makes them tick. Once you have discerned exactly what motivates them you can use this knowledge to your and their advantage.

http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/personal/development_and_growth

photo by said&done

When I was 17 I used to work in a supermarket on the checkouts. Occasionally an item wouldn’t scan properly and it would need to be rescanned.

I decided any customers that I liked, that greeted me warmly or were a hot girl, would not get their items rescanned. That I would pretend not to notice, effectively giving the item to them for free.

Warning bells

With so many beeps going off in front and behind you I quickly learned that the way not to get caught was to pretend not to notice miss-scanned items. The store security looking out for dodgy behavior from checkout operators couldn’t distinguish the beeps (or lack of) and would rely on reading the people and looking for nervous behavior.

I recall one girl in particular; she had a warm smile and was pleasantly engaging. I liked her immediately. For some reason an unusually high number of items were not scanning correctly.

And she noticed.

When she noticed, she looked me directly in the eyes; I could read the question on her face but waited to see if she would say anything.

She knew I was doing it on purpose.

I knew that she knew.

Neither of us said a word.

I’m no different from everyone else; there are people everywhere in positions with some responsibility making whimsical decisions simply based on how they feel about you.

Do you take the time to smile and say hello? You may get some free groceries.