Words from Web Worker

Many of us have come to realize how useful RSS is when it comes to tracking news headlines or your favorite blogs. It’s a great way to keep up without having to visit many websites. What most people don’t know is that RSS is an incredibly flexible technology that can do all sorts of other things. The following list is a collection of 25 alternative uses for RSS. We hope you’ll find some of them useful. Track Specific News Headlines : You can keep track of news on particular topics by subscribing to specific news search results. Here’s a constantly updated news search on the Seattle Seahawks via Google . Here’s another by Yahoo! that tracks the headlines coming in on the U.S. Supreme Court. To subscribe, just do your search and find the RSS feed link. New Homes: realtors can provide updated feeds of new home listings on the market. Find Shopping Deals: Another cool use of RSS is the ability to get entries when a shopping deal or coupon comes along. Slickdeals ( feed ), Ben’s Bargains...

As If, analyzing & observing Steve Jobs was not enough with my previous post drilling down his skills at presenting products to Apple fans, here comes another from Carmine Gallo , a business communications coach. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off this year's Macworld Conference & Expo, he once again raised the bar on presentation skills. While most presenters simply convey information, Jobs also inspires. He sells the steak and the sizzle at the same time, as they say. Analyzing his latest presentation reflects these 10 elements that you can combine to dazzle your own audience. Bear in mind that Jobs has been refining his skills for years. Still, how he actually arrives at what appear to be effortless presentations bears expanding on and explaining again. 1. Set the theme. "There is something in the air today." With those words, Jobs opened Macworld. By doing so, he set the theme for his presentation and hinted at the key product announcement—the ultrathin Ma...

I’m a pretty productive guy(at least I believe so) and I’m often asked from my friends what do I do to get things done. Keeping it simple is kind of key to my whole philosophy. To be productive, you must be able to focus all of your energies on the tasks you have. In my opinion, one of the biggest deterrents to getting things done is having a system that has to be managed. If you’re spending more time looking for new ways to help you get things done you’re missing the point. Remember KISS(Keep it simple stupid) I’ve got a few “rules” and methods that I stick to pretty religiously that make up about 90% of what keeps me productive and here they are: Capture everything important. The first rule: capture everything important. I hardly ever “try” to remember anything. I simply record anything I need or want to remember or I know is important for me to recall or refer. I do this in several ways. I’ve habit of taking notes on my Cell phone, when I am away from my computer for brainstorming...

Think cars: You never hear an advertiser say, “Buy my car, it’s good for everything!” Volvos are safe. BMWs are fun. Saturns are easy to buy. Just as successfully branded products offer specific benefits, successfully branded careerists offer specific talents. You get to the top by being the best, and you can’t be the best at everything. One of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, professor agrees — and has the research to prove it. In his study of typecasting in Hollywood entitled “Robust Identities or Nonentities,” he found that specialization leads to longer, more productive careers. Contrary to conventional Hollywood wisdom, big bucks come most often to people who become known for a certain type of role. He finds that typecasting, as this practice is called, is also a moneymaker in the business world, where the hiring system is set up to reward those who differentiate themselves. “Headhunters are specialized,” he says, “and they look for something they can package and sell.” General...

What's the future of You? It's over. No more vertical. No more ladder. That's not the way careers work anymore. Linearity is out. A career is now a checkerboard. Or even a maze. It's full of moves that go sideways, forward, slide on the diagonal, even go backward when that makes sense. (It often does.) A career is a portfolio of projects that teach you new skills, gain you new expertise, develop new capabilities, grow your colleague set, and constantly reinvent you as a brand. As you scope out the path your "career" will take, remember: the last thing you want to do is become a manager. Like "résumé," "manager" is an obsolete term. It's practically synonymous with "dead end job." What you want is a steady diet of more interesting, more challenging, more provocative projects. When you look at the progression of a career constructed out of projects, directionality is not only hard to track - Which way is up? - but it's also ...

What's loyalty to You? Everyone is saying that loyalty is gone; loyalty is dead; loyalty is over. But, I do not agree with that. I think loyalty is much more important than it ever was in the past. A 40-year career with the same company once may have been called loyalty; from here it looks a lot like a work life with very few options, very few opportunities, and very little individual power. That's what we used to call indentured servitude. Today loyalty is the only thing that matters. But it isn't blind loyalty to the company. It's loyalty to your colleagues, loyalty to your team, loyalty to your project, loyalty to your customers, and loyalty to yourself. I see it as a much deeper sense of loyalty than mindless loyalty to the Company Z logo. I know this may sound like selfishness. But being CEO of Me Inc. requires you to act selfishly -- to grow yourself, to promote yourself, to get the market to reward yourself. Of course, the other side of the selfish coin is ...

What's the real power of You? If you want to grow your brand, you've got to come to terms with power -- your own. The key lesson: power is not a dirty word!  In fact, power for the most part is a badly misunderstood term and a badly misused capability. I'm talking about a different kind of power than we usually refer to. It's not ladder power, as in who's best at climbing over the adjacent bods. It's not who's-got-the-biggest-office-by-six-square-inches power or who's-got-the-fanciest-title power.  It's influence power. It's being known for making the most significant contribution in your particular area. It's reputational power. If you were a scholar, you'd measure it by the number of times your publications get cited by other people. If you were a consultant, you'd measure it by the number of CEOs who've got your business card in their Rolodexes. (And better yet, the number who know your beeper number by heart.)  Getting and us...