Staying afloat - develop buoyancy

Straighten up and Fly right!

With the economy said to be all at sea, what can an IT professional do, to stay afloat?

1) The first step is the easiest one of all. Keep your technology skills fresh and take advantage of every training opportunity, e.g. there are plenty of free online courses and certifications. "Free" is important, this is no time to ask your employer for money but also you may want to consider investing a little of your own cash on yourself, and your future.

In fact, you will find that when you are employing your own cash to buy training, you will become more discerning about the content, as well as the real relevance and necessity of attending a particular skills training course. Now suddenly you see it from your boss's position. Where is the payback? Do you have th ecourage to put your money where your mouth is? Are you willing to pay for the training and have the company reep the benefit. It would make you more secure and your boss would see you in a different and better light.

Something that is strangely inexpensive. You can always gain knowledge and get a head start on a new techie subject by 'reading a book' or three on the subject. I know, I know, its not very techie or 'out there' to be 'reading' and it will make some of your nerdy friends point at you and laugh, 'Oh, look guys! We've got a reader!' but tough times call for tough measures.

2) You could always leverage your technology expertise to help the company perform better. Wow! Is that possible you say? Yes! You might want to develop an application that helps the company's sales professionals (the suits), unlikely but possible. It's important not to be afraid to take the initiative. Develop your ideas or speak to the suits and see how their needs could be better met, especially if there is a techies slant to it.

Look seriously at mutually beneficial options, for both you and the company. Structure a rough 'business' plan showing how, by the use of new technologies (tools/ applications/ whatever), that you are willing to develop and learn the company can readily,

• save /make money or
  
• reduce overheads /wastage or
  
• get into new markets / challenge their competitors, or
  
• out manouvre them entirely by implementing more innovative approaches.
  

Some study in advance and a bit of prior knowledge here would be helpful in re-enforcing your pitch. Also brush up on your presentation techniques and I don't mean the Powerpoint style tools. I mean the, well dressed, standing at the front of an auditorium and speaking clearly and assertively, presentation skills.

These skills are some of the most important ones that you will need for the future and its vital that you get help with them. Your public performance can be easily made more structured, effective and carry more impact if you seek the advice of a professional tutor or toast master. Unfortunately by the sheer nature of this skill, it cannot be done online. You will have to go into the real world to speak to people about it. They will be wearing suits and maybe by that time, so will you.

Remember, you are the one best placed to know what new tools and technologies are out there and how best to apply them to the benefit of your company. So, why don't you tell them and put yourself forward as the co-ordinator and developer for the project. Cometh the hour, cometh the geek.

3) Be sure to stay up and alert. Be positive (B+) and become high profile and very visible. Throw off your cardigan and come out of the server room, turn your back on the Zen-like hum of the air-con, look your manager in one of his crazed bloodshot eyes and tell him how you are going to help him and lead him out of this mess. Then step back quickly, because he will become very emotional and may reach out and try to hug you. Not that this is a bad thing but it doesn't help your street cred with the guys.

4) Ensure that you stay busy by volunteering for new initiatives and by not turning down high profile assignments. Qudos and assignment selection is a story for another day, but be careful of being handed a dying star, a runaway horse or a poisoned elf.

Keeping fully occupied is good advice at any time, good or not so good but it is easy to get complacent in the good times and then find yourself out favour and out of position when times are difficult. Ask yourself, 'Am i doing enough to help me keep my job.'

Simple rhetorical phrases like "stay positive" are all very well but it can be tough to put into practice, especially in an oppresive or negative environment. Avoid the negative people in the office they will be the first ones targetted and then fired. Remember that negativity and cynicism are contagious. Therefore, turn off the news during the day. It is a drain on your spirit. Plug it or it will only drag you down and distract you from your chosen task.

If you do all that and you still face losing your job, what next?Who is moving my cheese?

Dust off your old resumé and make sure it is up-to-date, accurate, attractive, concise, well written and contains all of your updated contact information. Then, make sure it is optimized for keywords by describing your skills precisely. Post your résumé on all the job boards, such as Dice, LinkedIn and Monster, as well as the niche job boards, for jobs in financial services, media, etc. Check that the language used in your resumé is in synch with today's recruiters and job market.

If it is not 'reader friendly' it won't get read!

Take advantage of recruiting firms. Remember, when you meet with a recruiting firm, treat everyone with copious respect, because these are the 'gatekeepers'. The people who could help you land an interview and a job. Good recruiting firms and consultants will also work with you to optimize your résumé for the job boards and so also will good friends i.e. the suits not the geeks.

Finally, in this highly competitive dog-eat-cat job world, if you do manage to land an interview opportunity, let the prospective employer know you are available immediately. Don't say that you will be on vacation or only do interviews on Mondays. Make sure you are easily available and show a strong interest in the job; otherwise, you will lose the interview opportunity.

Remember the new mindset that you developed and all those new exercises that you carried out, just to make sure you didn't get fired, well these are the very ones that you can use to sell yourself to your potential employer, at the interview.

When the going gets tough, the tough will be the survivors. Build a plan and Make your own luck!

Develop yourselve into;

• a stronger, leaner and fitter condition to
• maintain, strengthen and consolidate your current position,
  
• study, re-train and supplement your skills,
  
• search out new opportunities inside and outside your present environment
• GROW!
  

H5N1 (Bird Flu) virus - Risky move

IT'S emerged that virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realised. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.

Last December, the Austrian branch of US vaccine company Baxter sent a batch of ordinary human H3N2 flu, altered so it couldn't replicate, to Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, also in Austria. In February, a lab in the Czech Republic working for Avir alerted Baxter that, unexpectedly, ferrets inoculated with the sample had died. It turned out the sample contained live H5N1, which Baxter uses to make vaccine. The two batches seem to have been mixed in error.

Markus Reinhard of Baxter says no one was infected because the H3N2 was handled at a high level of containment. But Ab Osterhaus of Erasmus University in the Netherlands says: "We need to go to great lengths to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen."

Building Staff loyalty

You are a manager, therefore you depend on your staff to do their work well. Their success is critically linked to your own success. Team loyalty is not a 'given'. You have to earn and develop loyalty among your staff. If you can build up a bank of “good will capital“, you can then exchange it at a later date, e.g. when those impossible deadlines loom and you have to ask for more flexibility and extra effort.

Here are a few pointers to help you build that loyalty.

1: Be initially neutral regarding concerns about a subordinate

Don’t throw an employee under the bus when someone outside the department complains to you. Do not be judgemental. Do not start by agreeing with that person, before you find out all the facts. Similarly, don’t assume the person is totally wrong, rebuking him or her, and blindly defending your employee. Listen to their concerns, thank the person for alerting you, and say you will check with the subordinate in question. Go and check as promised and provide feedback. In this way, you get both sides of the story

2: Aim for collaboration

The more you can develop a collaborative relationship with your staff, the better the relationship will be. You and your staff do depend on each other, so try to impress that point on them. Remind them that each of you can (and should) help the other to be successful. Remember the saying “One hand washes the other.”

3: Listen to staff concerns

Your staff will have concerns about working conditions, working hours, deadlines, and other matters. You may not be able to resolve them all. However, listen to what they are telling you, because if you don’t, you will lower morale. If there’s little chance that you can resolve the concern, let them know immediately so that they have a proper expectation. Similarly, if you do succeed in resolving a concern, let them know about it. They may not thank you verbally, but chances are they still will appreciate you for what you did.

When listening to your staff, do not interrupting them to explain or defend a position. Let them finish. Similarly, try to remain even-tempered and think before you speak. Your attitude sets the tone for the whole department. Remember the old saying: “A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent person overlooks an insult.”

4: Be committed to staff development

Your employees needs training to maintain their skills. That training includes hard skills, such as programming and network design. It also includes soft skills, such as how to deliver effective presentations and how to communicate effectively. In fact, those soft skills often are more important than hard skills in determining career success. Make sure your staff receives such training and when they’re participating in a training session, respect that time. Don’t call and pull them out of class “just for a second,” because they never will return. You will have reduced the ffectiveness of the training and wasted time and money.

5: Fulfill commitments

If you make commitments to your staff, keep them. Otherwise, you lose credibility and will face lowered morale. When you keep your commitments to your staff, it increases the chances that they will reciprocate and keep their commitments to you regarding work delivery.

6: Exhort, don’t belittle

You always want your staff to do more, produce more, finish the project earlier — and for less cost. So there’s often a gap between where they are now and where you’d like them to be. It’s better, generally, to exhort them to reach that point. If you criticize them because they’re not where you want right now, you may create resentment. Of course, there might be one person who does get motivated by being belittled, someone who says, “I’ll show that X$X# manager” and goes on to perform exceptionally well. The percentages are against you, however, because many others will simply “turn off.” It’s far better to say, “Here’s where I’d like us to be, and I know you can do it” rather than, “How come you’re not there right now, you slacker?”

7: When singling out staff in public, do so positively

I’m not saying that you always should praise people publicly. Some people become embarrassed or self-conscious when they’re the subject of public attention. But I am saying that if you do choose to single someone out in public, do so in a positive, rather than a negative way. The latter will embarrass everyone involved.

When you issue public praise, be brief and specific. Talk about what the person did and why it helped the department, organization, or company. Finally, thank the person. Ironically, the less you smile when praising, the more sincere it sounds. (Of course, you should be sincere to begin with, and you should smile just a little bit.)

8: When giving correction, do so privately

Conversely, if someone messes up, talk to them about it in confidence, behind closed doors. When doing so, focus on the issue, not the person. Try to avoid words like “you” and “yours.” Instead of, “Your program caused the system to crash,” consider, “Program xyz [which your subordinate developed and supposedly tested] caused the system to crash.” Focus on the actions that caused the problem and help the subordinate learn from the situation so that the same issue doesn’t occur again.

9: Serve as a buffer for your staff

Unfortunately, you may run into upper-level managers who insist on micromanaging. They will visit your staff and issue directives that might clash with yours. As a result, your employees will find themselves in an awkward situation, unsure of how to react. When that happens, you must step in and make clear to upper management that the chain of command works in both directions. You wouldn’t want your staff going around you to complain to your bosses. Neither, therefore, should the opposite occur.

Yes, stepping up could be hazardous to your career, so be diplomatic and tactful when you talk to your bosses. Focus on the benefits to them on observing the chain of command, rather than criticizing them for disregarding it. After you’ve had the talk, make sure your staff knows about it. Even though the grapevine probably will have alerted people, it’s still good to remind your staff that you have their back.

10: Don’t micromanage

Just as your bosses shouldn’t be micromanaging, neither should you. If you’ve staffed your team with competent people (and if you’re a first-line technical manager, you have strong technical leads), you should be confident that they know what they’re doing. You don’t have time to do the job of each member of your team anyway.

At the same time, be alert to clues that you might have to step in. Are others talking to you about a co-worker’s performance? Are you getting evasive or unclear answers in meetings or conversations? Do you have an uncomfortable gut feeling about a project? In those cases, you might have to take a more active interest in your subordinates’ work. However, pick your battles carefully.

Both sides of the coin

It’s common to talk about the importance of being a good subordinate. But it’s equally important to be a good boss. If you follow these tips, you can build a loyal following, which only can help you in your own career.

Lock-up your dockers

A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds, and 97 percent are never recovered!

Worse, one out of every 10 laptops will be stolen within the first 12 months of purchase!

Will you be next?

All of your family photos, tax return files, bank statements, etc. at risk. Not to mention all those usernames and passwords that you auto-saved somewhere. You say something must be done.

If you manage a business or work in a corporate environment, the cost will be even steeper than just replacing hardware: think of the public relations nightmare from the theft and legal requirement to alert employees and clients about the information breach.

According to some expert sources, the cost to a company can total €197 per missing record when factoring in the loss of customers, legal fees and the PR crisis management quelling efforts.

Clearly, a few thousand records can quickly add up.

“The loss of a laptop computer may well be quite expensive if it contains unencrypted confidential data,” according to the 2008 CSI Computer Crime and Security Survey. In 2008, 42 percent of all corporate security incidents were because of a stolen laptop, second only to viruses and insider abuse.

Babies can't do an adult's job

Walking by the netbook display at PC World, Media Markt and others, you're likely to hear cooing and exclamations of how cute the little baby laptops are.

Beware, if you take one home, your new baby is not yet fully grown and it is barely on solids. It has not built up enough of the resources to do the work that a standard Momma and Poppa notebook or Laptop can do. Its got some growing to do.

Cheeky new Netbooks are just about the only thing these days that are generating any kind of excitement in the hardware market space. The visual appearance and form factor is appealing to many. The idea of having a good workhorse laptop that can carry your workload at half the size and weight is a dream, but I am sorry it has yet to come true.

With a 10-inch screen, these babies are much smaller than the standard-sized notebook, and yes, much lighter. They are also quite a bit cheaper too. Some are as inexpensive as €200, while others can get as expensive as the €1,000 range. Take note, there is a good reason why they are cheaper.

It's hard to walk by a netbook display at a consumer electronics store without hearing someone coo-ing at them and talk about how cute they are, as if they really were little baby notebooks.

Their magnetic appeal to consumers, means that netbooks have been doing their part to boost sales and make PC manufacturers happy. If you look at the earnings report of any PC maker who makes netbooks, you'll notice that netbook unit sales are just about the only thing growing at a healthy pace. This year other hardware sales look positively bleak, with Gartner now forecasting a decline of almost 12 percent in 2009, the worst in IT history.

Although netbook sales seem to be increasing, some in the industry say that netbooks are suffering a greater return rate than other PCs. If that is the case we can predict an increase in th enumber of netbook orphanages opening up. Netbook for sale. 1 disappointed owner!

• On the consumer side, it's said that once users get the machines home and play with them for a little while, they soon realize the smaller machines can't do all the things that their more Momma and Papa (standard-sized and standard-priced) notebooks can do. The very inexpensive netbooks generally come with Linux, an well respected operating system in the techie world but still a little unfamiliar to the Microsoft masses.
  
• On the enterprise side distributors say netbooks have yet to take hold.

So what's the real story? Can that little baby PC do the big jobs you need it to do? Is there a place anywhere for the netbook in 2009? Is it a serious business contender? Consider this;

Screen size. The size really negates th eus eof Windows style operating systems because you only have space for 1 window. Do your users want to run multiple applications and have more than 1 window open at one time? Do they use spreadsheets? Well, while the netbook's small form factor makes it convenient to tote around, but you will not be able to see everything you need to see. Certainly not at the same time and that can get very frustrating.

Storage. To save space, most netbooks are shipped with a small amount of solid state memory rather than a rotating hard drive. This makes sense in a world where memory prices are always falling and solid state, is faster and more reliable. However, many users have become accustomed to more than 100GB of memory and even in netbooks with hard drives, those users may be disappointed.

Processor performance. You would be foolish to buy a PC that isn't dual core, at least. That is, unless your looking at a netbook. Most standard notebooks come with a dual core processor, either from Intel or AMD, but most netbooks use Intel's Atom single core processor. Intel has said that Atom processors have about half the performance of Intel Celeron processors. Party on!

The other features you and your customers have gotten used to have also been downsized or bypassed. You can get the Microsoft Vista Premium OS on some of these notebooks, and you can buy an external DVD player and an additional external hard drive but by the time you have financed that, you could have configured a standard Momma and Poppa low-end laptop that comes with a higher-performance processor.

Some companies are coming out with some interesting new innovative netbooks, including ones with an ARM processor and a detachable keyboard, making it appear more like a tablet notebook.

In Summary. Unless you want what the netbook really is (a lightweight client that functions well in a cloud computing environment for tasks such as e-mail and Web browsing, but is not as capable of heavy lifting) you are probably better off with a standard Momma and Poppa notebook for a few euros more.

If you want something cute and cuddly around the office that can be easily picked up and taken anywhere, there are other more appropriate and interesting things.

Expanding your career in a shrinking market

It is the aim and nature of all professional people to develop themselves to the maximum. The mantra states; we must maximize our potential and grow our careers.

To do that you have to achieve better results than those around you and without 'over' achieving. Although, this last point is more a problem for older more mature employees.

Remember there is a tiger at the door; So you are in direct competition with everyone else in your company

Consider some simple techniques to help you get more recognition and better results for your efforts.

1) When the bell rings, come out fighting.

• Be the first to arrive and the last to leave.
  
• Be sure to be caught working all the time you are at work.
  
• Start the day with the most important, onerous or the most difficult tasks.
  
• Do not surf the Internet, make personal calls, read the newspaper or make small talk with the 'losers'.
  
• Check your list of activities for the day,
  
• Focus on establishing priorities and get on with it.
  
• Start knocking down those skittles!
  

2) Fill your day with achievements.

• Always be the one that contributes positively at meetings and in face-to-face interaction.
• Ask your boss and yourself, what you can do to provide the greatest contribution to the organisation.
  
• Let everyone know that you are willing to go the extra mile or kilometre.
  
• Do more than the basic minimum, more than you are paid to do.
  
• Be seen to be the one that puts in more effort than the others.
  
• Look for solutions, methods or tools that will allow you and therefore the organisation, to be more effective.
  

3) Set a scorching pace.

• Your career is not a quick sprint or dash across the hurdles.
• It is more enduring like a marathon:
  
• Some runners sprint off at the beginning and get out way ahead of the pack.
  
• Most will be happier running with the pack, safe in the middle, un-noticed, unseen
  
• There are many who are less fit and not really motivated. They are content to be in the race at all but they are clearly seen to be struggling and lagging behind the pack.
  
• Your place is up amongst the leaders, being in the right place at the right time. Excel in hitting targets, achieving goals and milestones.

Take control of your life, your day and yourself. Start each working day with a list of planned activities carried over from the previous day. These will be organised by their priority, so you can address each task as the priorities dictate.

This is a life discipline not just an office routine and will make you more efficient, targetted and better directed as a person. This, in itself will make you stand out from the ambling, gasping crowd and when all around are losing their's, your career will soar.

If you are looking for promotion, assume the position

Candidate references

Who should I choose as my referees?

Almost 60% of employers claim that they have had to withdraw an offer of employment after receiving poor references about successful applicants.

So, you have managed to wow your future employer at interview stage. Cometh the hour, cometh the man and you have convinced them that you are that man i.e. the best person for the job. The last hurdle to hop over is supplying some references. This does not mean that you can get away with being sloppy and provide poorly prepared references.

References are significant and act as a third party endorsement. They are used by hiring managers as reassurance that you are who you say you are and will do for them what you claim you have done for your previous employers.

Therefore, given the high number of rejections at the reference phase, it is important to prepare your references properly. Here are some useful pointers.

Don't include any details
Don't give the names and contact details of your referees on your CV. You should simply state that ‘References are available on request'. Employers will ask you for details if and when they are ready to offer you a position. After all, you wouldn't want your current employer being asked if they would re-hire you when you haven't even told them you're leaving!

Protect your referees
Amazingly, I have had 'unprofessional' recruitment companies approaching my references without permission, to request information on not only myself but also using the approach as a prospective sales call. They started asking if the executive could provide information about other employees in the organisation who may be interested in using the services of a recruitment agency. Not to be content with this, they went on to ask if the organisation would be interested in engaging the recruitment company for its own recruitment, as an aide de HR?

Needless to say they did not get a very positive response and I was extremely embarassed when I heard what had happened. My referee was very magnanimous about the whole incident but as a very busy senior executive in an international organisation, he should have been treated with more respect. Not to mention violating my trust!

What kind of information will my referees be asked to provide?

Nowadays, hiring managers can only request;

• Length of employment
• Previous job title
• Brief details of responsibility
• Overall performance
• Time-keeping and attendance
• Reason for leaving

Employers can also ask your previous company if they would re-hire you, should you apply for a position there in the future.

Choose your referees carefully
85% of employers will check at least one of your references when offering you a position. Typically this will be your most recent employer. So it is important that you choose the most appropriate and responsive people to support your application.

Its all relatively simple

Personal references are not advisable because they are more likely to be complimentary and positive, so it is best to avoid them. Having Grandma Doris saying what ‘a lovely lad' you are isn't going to hold much weight, unless she has a connection to royalty or is married to the CEO.

Remember that it is not written in stone that you have to use a former employer as a reference. Business acquaintances, customers and organisation leaders can all make good references, too. If you don't have much in terms of work experience, you're advised to use one of your tutors.

What are they saying about you?
Under the Data Protection Act, you have the right to see what comments your old employer has made about you as part of their reference in much the same way that you can access your medical records.

If there are comments included that you don't agree with it may be too late with this particular job offer, but you may wish to find out, diplomatically why these comments were made. Simply to make sure that this particular reference doesn't harm your next application.

Believe me, it is a mistake to suggest that your Parole Officer will provide a good reference for you. No matter how true and well intended this may be.