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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books. My Little Bag of Writing Tricks - Do Your Job Better. By Rachel Toor In the progressive campus lab school I attended until sixth grade, my friends and I wrote poetry, celebrated the passage of Title IX, and did "new" math. The boys sewed and cooked in home economics, and the girls sawed and drilled their way through shop class. When I got to junior high, I realized that the kids who had gone to Catholic school knew things I didn't. They could drink without getting caught, and were able to name the parts of speech. Eventually I learned to sneak gulps from dusty bottles in my parents' liquor cabinet.

And so grammarians intimidate me. I'm not convinced that studying grammatical labels would help my prose, though it might make me a more intimidating teacher. I didn't know what comma splices were until the copy editor of my second book pointed out how often I used them. I love style books and have learned plenty from grammarians, even if they might not be my first choice for dinner dates or camping companions. We need to notice. Scientists Fail to Identify Their Tools, Study Finds, and May Hurt Replication - Research. Understanding University & College Financial Statements - Understanding University College Financial Statements updated.pdf.

Jobs and Career Advice in Higher Education. 5 Best Places To Find A Mentor. You've heard the reasons why you need a mentor, and you're ready, but how do you find one that works for you? Start by looking in these 5 places. August 28, 2013 Mentors are indispensable when you're launching your career or learning the ropes in a new industry. They'll help you understand the field, guide you through what you need to do personally and professionally in order to succeed, and often just lend an ear when you need to talk about problems, issues and successes.

Sounds great, right? But how do you go about finding a mentor? And how can you make sure that you find a mentor who's a good fit for you? 1. Yes, there are organizations that devote themselves to helping connect you with potential mentors. 2. Finding a mentor is an exercise in effective networking. You'll meet many new people—some of whom might be good mentors now, some later. 3. 4. This might seem a strange place to look for a mentor, but think about it for a minute. 5. Read more articles on leadership. Quotations: What's the most powerful/inspirational quote you've ever heard. Quotations: What's the most powerful/inspirational quote you've ever heard. This Is Water - Full version-David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech. Cut Your Meeting Time by 90% Loneliness Illustrated So Beautifully You Will Need To Tell Someone. 10 Things Extraordinary Bosses Give Employees. Good bosses have strong organizational skills. Good bosses have solid decision-making skills.

Good bosses get important things done. Exceptional bosses do all of the above--and more. Sure, they care about their company and customers, their vendors and suppliers. That's why extraordinary bosses give every employee: 1. Great organizations are built on optimizing processes and procedures. Engagement and satisfaction are largely based on autonomy and independence.

Plus, freedom breeds innovation: Even heavily process-oriented positions have room for different approaches. Whenever possible, give your employees the autonomy and independence to work the way they work best. 2. While every job should include some degree of independence, every job does also need basic expectations for how specific situations should be handled. Criticize an employee for offering a discount to an irate customer today even though yesterday that was standard practice and you make that employee's job impossible. 3. 4. The 3 Questions People Always Forget to Ask in an Interview. How to Know If You're Working (and Living) With Purpose. "If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life. " --Abraham Maslow Living with purpose is one of the most self-actualized activities we can participate in.

Unfortunately, it eludes many of us. I get asked many questions about happiness and the meaningful life--but by far the most frequent one is, "How do I know my purpose? " To better understand if you're living a life with purpose, begin by asking these four questions: Is the work I'm doing exciting and/or satisfying? Not all of us are hard-wired to be enthusiastic and ebullient when we're happy. Regardless of your neurological wiring, when you're living with purpose you should be feeling one of these two ways--excitement or satisfaction--most of the time. When you're living with purpose, you feel it, too--either excitement, contentment or both. What keeps showing up in my life? Life has a way of showing us our purpose--if we'll only listen. 5 Quick Tips For Being A More Confident Networker. Networking with strangers can be a terrifying experience for many people, especially when it’s in-person.

What do you say? What if you’re awkward? What if you don’t make a good first impression? Related: 9 Tips For Becoming A Successful Networker Don’t worry – prepare! Check out these quick tips for more confident networking from Adam LoDolce, founder of SexyConfidence.com and GoTalkToHer.com: 1. Struggling for ice breakers? “A simple ‘Hello, my name is ___’ is more than sufficient if said with a smile,” said LoDolce. 2. Don’t start batting without a few practice swings! “The moment you walk into the room, just start chatting it up with someone to warm up a bit,” LoDolce suggested. 3.

Did you know that 93% of communication is non-verbal? Don’t cross your armsKeep a strong smile all night longHold strong eye contact Feel weird keeping eye contact? 4. “If you are uncomfortable doing the talking, then ask interesting and thought provoking questions,” LoDolce suggested. 5. Related Posts. 4 Unique Working Styles: What's Yours? 18 Easy Conversation Starters For Networking Events. I think one of the hardest things about networking events is just getting a conversation going with someone – without being awkward about it. Related: 10 Tips For People Who Hate Networking Approaching someone new can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be.

So, what are some natural and easy ways to break the ice? Here are some tips and tricks: Go Fishing At The Food Table While waiting in line for the food, start chatting up the person next to you. So, instead of just standing there in silence, start a conversation. “Oh man, everything looks so good… I’m not sure what to get! Who knows, you might leave the buffet with a better plate of food AND a new contact!

Find A Loner If you see someone standing alone in the corner, clutching his or her drink, and looking miserable, don’t be afraid to walk up and introduce yourself. Here are some ice breakers: “Man, these networking events can be so crazy. If someone is standing alone, he or she is probably feeling uncomfortable or unconfident. Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition: Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler: 9780071771320: Amazon.com. Life Advice: What can I start doing now that will help me a lot in about five years.

6 Ways To Talk Like a Leader. Effective leadership requires verbal discipline. Leaders need to care about and practice the quality, specificity, and power of their language. Not enough of them do. Communication is particularly crucial to entrepreneurs. A founder’s individual vision and presence is vital to his or her organization’s sense of itself and its direction. There are several ways a leader can immediately improve his or her language and communication.

Understand that leadership language is different Leadership language serves a specific purpose that is different from the language used in a non-leadership role. Before your next leadership event, think carefully about the words you choose. Know what you want Too many leaders don’t know what to say because they don’t know what they want. If the answer is grounded in the organization’s shared purpose and not your personal desires, you have a better opportunity to speak to these broader needs and goals. Go easy with the superlatives Stop the “uptalk” Don’t pull back. My Spouse, My Rival, My Fellow Winner - People. By Ann Schnoebelen When married couples in academe collaborate, and even compete, sometimes they both win. Rita Chi-Ying Chung and Fred Bemak each had a distinguished career when they met at a small, invitation-only conference in the early 1990s. Now married for 17 years, they are tenured professors at George Mason University and world travelers who have developed and used their original counseling method in post-disaster areas across the globe.

They're also the first spouses to each receive two of the American Counseling Association's top awards. At the association's conference this year, Ms. Chung received the Gilbert and Kathleen Wrenn Award for a Humanitarian and Caring Person, an honor given to Mr. Bemak in 2011. The "culturally responsive" approach to counseling that the couple developed considers a person as part of a larger family and community, they say. "The challenges came early on in terms of figuring out each other's work style," Mr. Ms. Mr. This year Ms. Mr. Teaching Students Better Online Research Skills. HigherEdJobs - Jobs in Higher Education. Job Listing. 4 Ways To Make Your Workspace More Productive. What's happening around you can be just as important as what's going on in your head.

Open floor plans might promote collaboration, but they are clearly hotbeds of distraction. So there's a trade-off: More collaboration, less productivity. Other research has yielded more surprising results. It turns out, for example, that bad weather is good for productivity. It all comes down to distractions, according to a Harvard Business School study. Décor also matters. That last finding suggests that viewing cute images doesn't just heighten our evolutionary instinct to be physically careful around babies. Simply turning up the thermostat can increase productivity throughout your workplace. 10 Things Really Amazing Bosses Do | Inc. 5000. 5 Soft Skills To Showcase In Interviews. If you are extremely qualified, have terrific application materials, a targeted resume and you're interviewing for jobs, but always coming up with a silver medal, it's possible that you're bumping up against an elusive category: likability.

Also known in the industry as "cultural fit," likability is a reason many candidates don't make the final cut—the interviewers either didn't like them or didn't believe they would mesh well with current employees. One of the reasons that most employers don't provide specific feedback to a second-place candidate is because it's difficult to explain why someone doesn't fit in. An employer can get in legal hot water for explaining that someone didn't get hired because the team just didn't like the candidate and couldn't imagine spending a lot of time together.

Emotional intelligence, otherwise known as soft skills, is the category of skills most likely involved when evaluating likability or fit. 1. Work ethic. 2. 3. 4. 5. You're Distracted. This Professor Can Help. - Technology. By Marc Parry Seattle Matthew Ryan Williams for The Chronicle Before each class session, David Levy leads his students in a few minutes of meditation. To complete her homework assignment, Meran Hill needed total concentration. Then she plunged into the task: Spend 15 minutes doing e-mail. Soon enough, though, a familiar craving bubbled up. As Ms. But the assignment had her trapped.

The e-mail drill was one of numerous mind-training exercises in a unique class designed to raise students' awareness about how they use their digital tools. Their professor, David M. At its extreme, that debate plays out in the writing of authors whom the critic Adam Gopnik has dubbed the Never-Betters and the Better-Nevers. On college campuses, meanwhile, educators struggle to manage what the Stanford University multitasking researcher Clifford Nass describes as a radical shift in the nature of attention. Amid this scampering attention, some fear for the future of long-form reading. When I ask Mr. But Mr. Mr. Tool Boosts Success of Online Collaborations By Redistributing the Burdens of Leadership-Carnegie Mellon News. February 20, 2013 Contact: Byron Spice / 412-268-9068 / bspice@cs.cmu.edu PITTSBURGH-The Web makes it possible for lots of people to collaborate on projects, but it doesn't make it easy to lead them.

A Carnegie Mellon University researcher has developed a new tool that helps leaders see complex, collaborative projects through to completion by redistributing leadership responsibilities. The tool, called Pipeline, makes it easier to assign, critique and track the progress of individual tasks within a project and makes it easy for leaders to delegate responsibility to others. As evidenced by a case study in which Pipeline was used to manage the production of a digital Advent calendar by 28 artists in 12 countries, the tool also makes it possible for many people to work collaboratively on a public, online project while preserving the surprise of the finished product.

Others have used Pipeline to organize game design competitions, film and video projects and an international scavenger hunt. The Employment Mismatch - Special Reports. Internships Make the Difference For some employers, on-the-job experience may matter more than a student's major or grade-point average. What Companies Want Employers say that recent graduates often don't know how to communicate effectively, and struggle with adapting, problem-solving, and making decisions.

Note: Mean rating is determined on a 1-to-5 scale where 1 equals “a lot less” and 5 equals “a lot more.” Photo illustration by Jonathan Barkat for The Chronicle By Karin Fischer Employers value a four-year college degree, many of them more than ever. Yet half of those surveyed recently by The Chronicle and American Public Media's Marketplace said they had trouble finding recent graduates qualified to fill positions at their company or organization.

"Woefully unprepared" is how David E. What gives? The tension may lie partly in changes in the world of work: technological transformation and evolving expectations that employees be ready to handle everything straightaway. Mr. But Mr. David R. 14 Things Successful People Do On Weekends. 6 Things You Need to Know About Leading a Meeting. There's nothing worse than a bad meeting. You sit there grinding your teeth wondering why in the world you have to waste your time sitting through something that never should have happened in the first place. The fact that we've all been there, sometimes weekly or even daily, doesn't make it any less annoying. It doesn't even begin to take the edge off that nagging thought that you could be making so much better use of your time.

But here's the thing. Not only are meetings the most efficient ways to get certain things done, they're the most effective tools for managing teams--if they're done right, that is. I once calculated that I sat in more than 30,000 meetings during my 30-year career. And you know what? Learn this equation. Do you even know what you're doing? Have them in the afternoon. Beware the hive mentality. Lose the hallway meetings. Challenge the status quo. Seven Ways To Be Indispensable At Work In 2013.

Educational Websites | Online Books | Online Classes | Open Access. 6 Ways to Spice Up Your Relationship With Your Job. Home. 4 Myths of Finding the Perfect Mentor. We have an amazing roster of mentors. In fact, we couldn't have started Altruette without their help and their immense wisdom. Some of these people are folks we've known for years but more and more we find ourselves turning to folks we've never even met. We've essentially cold called (or "cold" emailed) these people for advice and have asked them to continue helping us. We thought this was something most start-ups did, but the more we talk with other entrepreneurs, the more we realize how rare this is.

It got us thinking about the formality that surrounds the role of a mentor or advisor. While it's becoming easier to find mentoring programs at large companies, there's no perfect place for entrepreneurs to turn to find someone to take them under their wings. 1. 2. 3. 4. While having a traditional relationship with a mentor is still ideal, we're convinced that a modern mentoring relationship can prove to be just as helpful and a lot more convenient for everyone.

The 11 Leadership Secrets You've Never Heard About. The Secret Power Of The Generalist -- And How They'll Rule The Future. 2nd Annual Philadelphia Business Journal Women's Conference - Philadelphia Business Journal. Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia - Two Forces. One Vision. Research Grant Programs & Fundraising | Foundation Center.

Delaware Valley Grantmakers. Welcome to SRA International: A Professional Society, Educating and Supporting Research Administrators Around the World.