Open Loops

The Importance of Legible Handwriting

In this digital age, one would think that everyone would be typing, texting, and Twittering their memos, letters, notes, and short messages.  My own writing benefitted from the advent of the word processor.  For years, even into my adult years, my writing suffered.  I was ineffectual in communicating my ideas and thoughts because, as hard as I tried, my fingers could not keep up with the flow of thoughts in my mind.  By the time I recorded one point, three more had already came, went, and were lost.  Now my fingers fly across the keyboard at 80+ words a minute and my fingers, finally, can keep up with the flying thoughts and ideas.

However, despite my unbelief, there are those out there who still handwrite! When I meet with attorneys, notes are taken on a legal pad.  Attending meetings with district personnel, I've noticed that no one uses a laptop to take notes.  Again, the ubiquitous legal pad is the tool of choice.  Agreements are hammered out in longhand first and signed, only to be processed into more formal documents later.  I'd even venture to say that if each of you look at all the written communication that you produce, you would find that the majority of it is in handwriting.  It follows, then that if handwriting still plays an important part in how we communicate with others, it's important to make our handwriting as legible and neat as possible.

Want That Job? Develop Your Writing!

My field is education.  I'd been working in it for 19 years when I decided I wanted to be a school-based administrator.  I was job-seeking all over again.  Not a problem, though, I had sought jobs successfully in the past and thought this next interview would be no different.  I knew the drill:

• Chit Chat
• Interview
• Review of my credentials
• Strong handshake to finish

Then, something new was added as I walked out the door.  I was given a fictitious school and a school-wide crisis with which to deal.  I was handed a piece of paper and was told to craft a letter to the parents of my students to inform them of the "crisis" and what I would be doing about it.  As I sat at the table that was placed just outside the interview room, a 15-minute deadline was added.

Communication is paramount in today's workplace.  In fact, the required evaluation form that I use with my employees has me evaluating the communication skills of not just my teachers, but also the secretaries and custodians.  Verbal skills always jump to the front of the mind in these cases, but writing is just as important.  Many organizations now require a writing sample to be submitted with the application.   

Kathrine Brooks shares five tips to improving your writing sample that you provide to prospective employers.  Promoting proactivity and providing an unsolicited sample, checking your grammar and spelling, to tailoring the topic to fit the job for which you are applying, she gives good advice for improving the quality of your writing sample to nail that job.

Psychology Today: The Dreaded Writing Sample

Presentation Mistakes: The View From the Audience

I routinely do presentations and thought many of the things I do and know about presenting to an audience were simply common sense.  However, sitting in workshops over a three-day conference gave me the perspective of a participant.  It appears that many of the common sense things that I do and know are not so common sense.  How many ways can someone screw up a presentation?  From the back row, let me count the ways!

Is the Resume Dead?

As someone who interviews, checks references and makes hiring recommendations, I seriously have begun to ask myself why people bother to send resumes.  Years ago, before the Internet, advanced HR departments and a surplus of workers (You have seen the recent unemployment figures, right?), resumes may have been the best way to determine if an applicant is right for the job, but no more.  Further, any  manager, recruiter, or supervisor who uses a resume for anything more than a pre-screener should have his or her credentials questioned as well, for doing so increases the chance that the wrong applicant will be hired and opens the organization up to lawsuits.

Everyone Lies

The first reason I refuse to depend on resumes is the simple assertion that, to paraphrase Dr. Gregory House on Fox's television series, "House":  everyone lies.

"The percentage of people who lie to potential employers is substantial, says Sunny Bates, CEO of New York-based executive recruitment firm Sunny Bates Associates. She estimates that 40% of all résumés aren't altogether aboveboard.

And this game of employment Russian roulette is getting riskier and riskier. Almost 40% of human resources professionals surveyed last year by the Society for Human Resource Management reported they've increased the amount of time they spend checking references over the past three years"

--Forbes.com: Most Common Resume Lies

Call me cynical, but I'd say the other 60% just didn't get caught.  With the economy going the way that it is, spurring a rise in unemployment, the temptation to lie on a resume increases.

Taking Control of Your Career in this Economy

I'm extremely lucky in this economy.  The field of education is a very recession-resistant profession.  I didn't say recession-proof profession, just resistant.  We get the same impact as everyone else, it's just a little delayed.  My contract was renewed just before everything began deteriorating and I have at least 4 years of employment ahead of me.  The possible cuts due to the economy (when they come) will happen to those with less tenure than I have or whose contracts will expire before mine.  Even those individuals will be gainfully employed until mid-summer before economy related cuts will be felt, so those who suspect a major change in their employment status have time to take action to mitigate the negative effects or transition to a new location or profession.

Despite my relative employment security, I find it prudent to take steps to prepare for the worst-case scenario while I still have time.  Heeding sage advice, I'm going to dig my well before I'm thirsty, and prepare for a job search in case the recession lasts longer than my contract.  Over the next few weeks, I'll be preparing some resources that will assist me in promoting myself to future employers and make myself stand out from the crowd when a hiring decision is reached.

It occurred to me that there are those out there who might not have the time that I have, but need to do something now to increase the odds of securing employment.  They are in the thick of the action when it comes to career changes and need some direction.  Some of the things that I'll be doing may be of benefit to them as well.  So, I decided to be semi-transparent with this and go through my process of career development through this blog.  I'll take you step-by-step through my process of resume crafting, leveraging online resources to support my resume and provide additional information to future employers (e.g., Exploiting FaceBook, Twitter, Google Docs, blogging, etc.), networking, interview prep, and overall job search planning and tracking.  Follow along and you can design a good strategy that will benefit you as well.

Make Your Professional Development Materials More "Doable"

It's amazing what research will reveal to those who seek it out to improve themselves or the things they do.  An article in Scientific American shared a study by researchers at the University of Michigan that showed that simple unadorned fonts influenced subjects to complete assigned tasks and improved the subjects attitude, making them more positive during the process.

What does this mean to you?  If you do presentations, skip the fancy, hard to read fonts.  They're pretty, but slow the brain down to the point that the subject's brain is tired from trying to read the directions that doing the directions seem harder.  In short, the brain interprets the ease of reading the directions as an indicator of how easy the tasks will be to complete.

Solid research yields the same results time after time, so if one duplicates a study's process and factors, one can expect the same results.  Get your participants engaged by adjusting your handouts and other materials.

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Google Gears Takes Gmail Offline!

Google slowly continues to grow in the way it uses Google Gears.  Now, Gmail goes offline!  Using Gears technology, Gmail begins the building the bridge between web app and email client.  After activating the offline mode in Labs, clicking the new offline icon next to one's email address at the top begins the process of bringing all your Gmail -- every gig of it -- to your hard drive, keeping it synchronized with Google's servers.

The offline experience adds an outbox and faster response times, although the initial synchronization can take a while depending on the amount of mail in your account. Thereafter, everything is kept sync'd.  Offline mode kicks in automatically when the connection to Google is lost and everything is updated when the connection is restored.

Warning!  Being a Labs feature, it's technically experimental in nature and you might hit a few snags here and there.  It also may take a few days before you see the offline feature in your Labs offerings.

via The Official Gmail Blog

Google Quietly Rolls Out Templates in Google Docs

Today, Google quietly rolled out a new feature for their Google Docs Applications:  Templates!  It's so new that it isn't even listed on the new features page at this time.  When one opens their Google Docs account and chooses to start a new document, a new "From Template..." command is present.  Clicking on it reveals a quite extensive list of templates available for use:  Calendars, Budgets, Business Cards, Letterheads, Scrapbook Albums, and Credit Card Payoff Calculators abound in this list of 308 templates, which is a much more comprehensive list than Zoho offers.  The quality of these templates appears to be quiet good as well. 

Unfortunately, I can find no way to create and save a document as a template.  It appears to be a use-only feature at this time.

Fogging: One Communication Technique to Deflect Criticism

Those of us who communicate for a living, whether it be presenting in hotel conference rooms, at conferences, communicating to the stakeholders of our organizations or simply talking with those with whom we come into contact during our normal everyday activities have to deal with individuals who feel like they have to put us down.  No matter how eloquent we are, dealing with a heckler in front of an audience, an adversary in the boardroom or a bully on the street causes many of us to go mute.  When that happens, our credibility goes mute with it.  Although people loathe a bully, their victim loses a lot of power as well because people don't respect someone who is beaten down by a bully.  They pity them.  They feel sorry for them.  They are embarrassed for them.  But, they don't respect them.  What they do respect is someone who is able to stand up to a bully.  More exactly, they respect someone who is able to stand up to a verbal bully and do it with class.

Remember the Steve Martin movie, "Roxanne"? Martin plays a local fire chief who has to deal with the occasional comment about his extremely oversized nose.  The most memorable scene is set in a local bar when a bully makes a point to harass Martin's character, C.D. Bales, about his nose.  In a wonderful twist, Bales pokes fun at his own nose while at the same time putting the bully in his place.  In my theater, the crowd wound up applauding the skill with which it was done.

We may not have the innate humor of Steve Martin with which we can fend off verbal barbs, however, there is a simple skill that allows us to face the biggest put-down monster in the crowd and do it with class.  That simple technique is called fogging. 

Browser Review: Flock

For the last week, I've been reviewing a new browser, Flock.  I'm a big photography fan and store numerous photographs online in various sites, such as Flickr and Picasa  In my exploration of other photographic web sites, I stumbled upon Flock.  Advertising itself at "The Social Web Browser", I was intrigued, as it touts itself as being built to enhance the browsing experience of those who are involved in social web sites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) and media sharing sites (e.g., Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket).  Being the eternal skeptic, I nevertheless thought I'd give it a try.  I was quite pleased with what I found.