Take control of your personal brand

Have you googled yourself lately? What would google say about you? That you are a great professional?, that your rock climb?, that you are a drunken frat boy/girl with antisocial behavior?  Most people pay very little attention to what is published about them on the web and most will recklessly document their good, the bad and the infamous part of their lives in Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest… but being so non-chalant about the information out there will not help us in our career or our personal lives. It can even affect your credit score. Dispel your illusion than your personal and professional lives are separate.

As more and more companies use some sort of social media background check, it has become increasingly important to own what your presence is on the web – you need to take control of your personal brand. These are the first five steps to take:

1)    Define your personal brand – what do you want to represent?

2)    Google yourself and figure out how far from your personal brand you are – document what you find, and your ranking in the page. Identify possible issues – somebody with the same name a rapist? A convict? A novel laurate?

3)    Visit your Facebook page as a friend – what does it show? What are your security options? Are there photos of you drinking? Doing something stupid?

4)    Take control of your name:

a.    Buy your domain name (if available) and establish a web presence for your brand.

b.    If you haven’t. Create appropriate profiles in all relevant social networks: Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Plaxo, etc.

c.    Register in all appropriate professional associations.

5)    Update or establish your online presence

a.    Update all social networks with relevant information (remove everything that doesn’t fit your brand)

b.    Start a professional blog  - keep it updated

c.    Visit professional forums and blogs and leave opinions and tips, be sure to add value to the conversation – use your real name for all professional forums (nobody knows who dirk117 is)

After a few weeks of this, google yourself again and check if you ranking or your presence have improved… keep at it. It takes time to build the online presence that you want.

BTW, let me know what you find about yourselves.

Avoid the Startup Trap

Working in startups can be fun and engaging (when they are succeeding) or can be overwhelming and depressing (when they are failing).  As team members, we invest our lives in the companies we work for (and sometimes they even deserve it) – nowhere this is more true than in startups. Sometimes, in large companies we can coast on the inertia of the company and hide in the employee herd, as long as we don’t stand out we will be fine. But in a startup, every character flaw in our business makeup is exposed to the team, every bad decision is apparent to everyone and any cracks in your armor are plainly visible (think small town hell).  Avoid dreams of working in a startup if:

1. You hate motivating yourself – in a startup you have to drive as much as being driven. There won’t be long strategy sessions or project management meetings or detailed job descriptions. This is do or die.
2. You dislike confrontation – if you dislike having to defend your ideas or expose them to criticism (often without warning), a startup is not a place for you.
3. You hate arriving early and leaving late – very often, startups are a collection of teams of one. When there is only you to rely on, expecting to keep a 9 to 5 is unrealistic.
4. You hate having savings – startups can be easy on, easy off. That is, teammates may change faster than you can say Constantinople. In startups, company pockets may not be big enough to let you go with a nice parting bonus.
5. You hate open spaces and sharing your browsing history – a lot of startups are open floor, open desk and visible screens all the time (it is cheaper that way). So if you like to read CNN for 45 minutes after you arrive, it will get uncomfortable fast.
6. You expect a large payout – two issues here
• The days when every employee got nice stock options are gone. You may get some, but never enough (unless you are close to the founders)
• Most startups fail… enough said.

By now, you should have a very good idea of whether you can work in a startup. If it is not your cup of tea, by all means remain in corporate America (not a bad option by the way).

The mobile financial services space is exploding

A good indicator for an industry is the number of job it requires to fill. In recent years the mobile financial services space has seen tremendous growth as you can see from the increase in the number of job postings with the words mobile financial services. From indeed.com we can see an amazingly good upward trend.

mobile financial services Job Trends

Mobile Financial Services jobs

This is good news for the financially underserved as they will certainly benefit from some well thought out services. MFS companies have their work cut out for them as they are creating a new space and as usual a lot of them will choose the wrong business model. Some of the biggest concerns for these type of services are:

• Legislation - In LATAM countries like Peru are issuing a whole new set of regulations regarding emoney and the type of companies that can provide services. In others, like Argentina, this is a grey area and in others there is no regulation.
• Adoption - making services that people use is difficult. Earning the trust of the consumer, being user friendly- and fast- enough to be practical. Having the right product mix, etc. etc.
• Competitors - everybody and their uncle is getting in on the action. Although, the primary entrants are the incumbent financial industry and the MNOs legislation may open the door to new entrants (like in Peru where MNOs are by law required to open their USSD channels).
• Competing technologies - USSD, SMS, apps, email. There are plenty of technologies to choose from and not a single one is a clear winner.
• Price - this one seems like an easy one, but remember that you are competing with cash so the price of the primary competitor is zero. Pricing a P2P under these conditions is hard. At the end of the day somebody has to pay for the service (infrastructure, commissions, etc.)

In any case, this is an interesting time to be in this space and the company that gather momentum and volume (like MPesa in Kenia) can reap the benefits or dominating this market.

Improve your productivity with co-working

It has been five months since I started using a coworking space at Buro Miami: Urban Workspaces so I wanted to give you an update. It definitely has been an very positive experience. I will give you my appreciation of the good, the (not-so) bad and my final thoughts.

The good

• The place is always clean and the environment nice and friendly.
• Lots of energy and people taking care of business - it motivates you.
• Environment/decor is great for bringing clients to your office - plan ahead if you need to reserve a meeting room.
• The people around you are, for the most part, quiet and respectful of your space and will generally walk away to an empty space to have phone conversations - I do the same thing. 
• The dress code depends on you and your aim for the day so it ranges from fully relaxed (short and a t-shirt) to business formal. 
• Full service office: copier, fax, mail room, receptionist, etc. 
• Many additional services/benefits: discount card to local businesses, sandwich service to the office, Spanish lessons...
• For me, it is a tax-deductible expense (check your tax laws).

The (not-so) bad

• Parking is not in the building so you have to walk (a block tops). It is only a problem if it rains.

Final Thoughts

For me, the thing that sealed the deal is that my productivity skyrockets when I am there (as compared to my home-office) because I get into full work mode. As you can tell, I like everything about the place. I would recommend anyone working from home to give co-working a try.

You should know your economic environment style

I am always thinking about ways to make a business more efficient and cost effective. When functions, processes and companies are not well organized I can almost see the destruction of economic wealth. Because of this, there are two economic environments that suit me rather well:

1. The downturn. Companies are looking for ways to be more efficient and reduce costs. This plays beautifully into my natural way of thinking.
2. The boom. Increasing capacity by increasing efficiency is the name of the game. Companies recognize that it takes time to put new resources into place - so the more well thought out the processes, the better they can cope with accelerated growth.

What about you? Describe the variables that make your work more interesting (for you). Think about your strengths and apply them to the current environment. This should give you some insight into why your work feels so rewarding sometimes and why in others it just feels blah.

Now, turn the thinking around. Think about your company and what different environments increase your worth to them. Make sure they know your value proposition based on the current economic environment.

Survival: Understand your position in the job market

To get a job in this job market you have to understand your position: generalist vs. specialist. If you don't, you will be climbing the stairs using your nose. If you are a specialist and your specialty is in demand, then you will not have a problem. If you are a generalist, my friend, you have to do things different because you are in trouble.

There is a common complaint from job seekers lately: that the market has such deterministic needs that if you do not comply 100% with whatever checklist the recruiter has you are out. There is such abundance of general types (or at least people willing to do anything) that the barriers to entry for any position have risen. In the past, recruiters and HR departments were willing to talk to people that didn't quite fit or didn't meet all the criteria but were bringing something extra or worthwhile to the table. They don't do that anymore, mainly because of two things: one, a lot of screening is done by software so they won't even see your resume. two, they have hundreds of applicants to any position, so why do you think they will bother with people that have to be sold (because they don't match part of the criteria), they will just pick a candidate that has 100% of the requirements.

If you are a generalist, my advice to you is: stop wasting time applying for positions where the match is not 100%. Either get the 100% qualifications (invest in certifications when it makes sense ) or skip to the next position.

Your real option is networking. But not the networking of old when you went to a dinner and met X and they referred you. You have to do new networking: blogs, talks, Twitter, Facebook, et al + old networking. Call your dad and/or mom's friends; hell, now is the time to be calling on favors. If you are smart, you will pay them back latter with interest - once you have that network (and a job) then is the time to launch your career into the stratosphere.