01 Mar 11 Why You Should Not Read Blogs, if You Want to Succeed?
I am certain you didn’t wake up today thinking of confronting such titles on a day when things are falling just in place for you, first time in many years. I know this introductory line sucks, and this is precisely why I wanted to write this blog post.
Why you shouldn’t read blogs?
The correct headline should be: why you should not read too many blogs. And the answer is because reading too many blogs takes time which else could have been devoted to taking action. Reading too many blogs would paralyze you. There are so many blogs out there, each one of them presenting different point of view, calls to different part of your mind. How can you respond to all?
How many should you read?
As many as you can in maximum two hours of time. I know I have been very liberal in allotting time to blog reading and I should have only asked for one hour. But we need to go slow when persuading people to change habit, or else our effort will not bear desirable result.
In the beginning, you should read and understand fully as many blogs as you can in 1-2 hours every day. Not a single minute extra should be wasted on this activity. But over time, you should reduce this time spent on blogging to 45-30 minutes.
What should you do in spare time then?
You should read books, industry journal, watch documentary, do research, or talk to people. In short, you should engage yourself in activities that give you more benefit. It is more about ROI on time invested. Some good blogs, like this one, do give you higher ROI on your time, but surfing through low-quality blogs take away from the overall benefit you get from reading a blog post.
Reading blog can be advantageous, and it often is, but indulging too much into it will reduce your productivity. So be judicious in your time allocation.
So what is the bottom line?
The bottom line is this: you must read various blogs, but your reading should not be limited to blog reading only. You should read from other sources as well. The varied your sources will be, the richer your experience will be.
Tags: 30 Minutes, Benefit, blog, blogging, Bottom Line, Different Point Of View, Documentary, Extra, Habit, Introductory Line, Limited, Low Quality, Maximum, Persuading People, Point Of View, Productivity, Roi, Spare Time, Talk To People, Time Allocation
16 May 10 How to find a good Digital Printing Service
In the past few years the quality of spectrum digital printing has gone up several notches. Not just the quality of printing has improved, but so has the process of printing, hence it is imperative for you to decide before hand about the kind of printing services you want to avail, and how much are you willing to pay for it.
Once the above parameter is set, you need to do some quality check so that the sweetness of memory you have captured in the pictures does not get soured by the low quality of print’s output. You need to determine certain things before you give any company the responsibility to print your memories on pieces of papers.
For home users
Before finalizing a spectrum digital printing service provider, always keep in mind that it is not just the photos that you are sending for print, it is a piece of memory that you want the digital printing company to cut up on the finest piece of paper. If you approach a printing company with this mindset then you definitely will succeed in finding a good Digital Printing service provider.
For business users
You should adopt the same approach that has been suggested above for home users when searching for offset printing services providing companies. This helps you keep your needs and requirement in the center while deciding on a printing company. It also saves you from getting lured by the freebies and frills offered by the printing company, which in fact, will not do you any good if your business suffers because of the bad quality of printed marketing materials (flyers, business cards, brochures, and catalog, etc.).
Printing Services Checklist
Personal or business, whatever kind of printing requirements you have, you should first filter the available options using the questions written below before you choose a company for your printing job.
- For how long the printing company is in business?
- What kinds of printing services do the company offers?
- Are the technicians employed by the printing company qualified enough?
- What kind of paper will the company use?
- Does it have experience in printing the kind of work you have?
- Can the service provider show you the work it has done in the recent past?
- Is the company charging too much?
- Can the high price be justified by the quality of printing it provides?
- Which image format (TIF, TIFF, JPG, EPS, AI, PSD, or PDF) does it accept?
- What color modes does the company accept?
- And what image resolution does the company accept? Does it matches with the image you have?
- How many days will the company take to complete the assignment?
- What kind of clients does the printing company has? (This question becomes more important, if you are looking for an offset printer to get your marketing materials printed.)
- Can the company give reference to any known business unit in your locality that has used its services? (This is also important for business users).
- Does the company offer image enhancement and photo optimization services?
- How Far is the printing company from your location? If the unit is far away, will it offer pick-up and drop?
- Can you send large images files in e-mail attachments?
The Digital Printing service provider that passes the test with maximum “yeses” should be given the preference. This test is very important; therefore, I will suggest searching the Internet for reviewers who reviews Printing Services, if you cannot find time to run the company through the checklist yourself.
Tags: Bad Quality, Business Cards, Business Users, Digital Printing Company, Digital Printing Service, Flyers, Freebies, Home Users, Low Quality, Marketing Materials, Mindset, Notches, Piece Of Paper, Printed Marketing, Printing Job, Printing Requirements, Printing Services, Quality Check, Spectrum Digital, Sweetness
12 Apr 10 Best-Kept Secret Twitter Tips for Job Search (Part 5)
So far in the series, I have talked about the branding aspect of twitter job search, which is the base on which your job search efforts will rest. In this and subsequent blog posts, I will talk about the networking aspect, which will bring people to your profile. This subsequently will mean job for you.
Use twitter search to find the right people
This is as important as conducing a Google search. Twitter search will not only help you find people to network with, but it will also help you search for jobs. Just type in the keyword or hash tag to find the right person to network with. Do not add just anyone because you can. You will not want to get 1000s of useless tweets every single day.
Do not follow everyone back
This is a classic mistake. Most of the newbie do exactly that and end up becoming frustrated of twitter because of the low quality tweets in the timeline. You should follow people back, but only those whose tweets you want to receive. Do not follow everyone. You start doing that and you will start getting more invites. Spammers love this, so do not be the love interest of a spammer.
Follow your friends’ connections
Check out whom your friends are sending DM (direct message) to. These people could be the potential target of your networking effort. Keep a close watch on whom your friends are talking to, and follow those whom you deem suitable.
Promote Yourself
Promoting yourself is an important part of networking. Tell people who you are, and what you stand for. They will not know this if you do not tell them. Tweet links to your work, and add call to action in the tweet. This way you will be seeding your expertise in the community, which definitely will fetch desired result.
Networking takes time and effort, but the return is always good, so do not hesitate in putting time into it. I want you to start working on above suggestions now. You will see the difference.
Tags: 1000s, Close Watch, Google, Google Search, Hash, Job Search, Love Interest, Low Quality, Mistake, Networking Effort, Newbie, Search Efforts, Search For Jobs, Search Jobs, Single Day, Spammer, Target, Timeline, Tweet, Twitter
