Quote of the Day
“The word career is a divisive word. It’s a word that divides the normal life from business or professional life.”
~ Grace Paley
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Get a Design Job!
(www.aiga.org) RitaSue Siegel’s Get a Design Job, now in its third edition, is available to the AIGA community at no charge. Originally written for Innovation, the quarterly publication of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), Siegel offers advice to emerging designers looking to break into the world of design, designers eager to improve their positions, as well as recently downsized managers and executives.
From performing a self-evaluation on the core design competencies that can add value to a wide range of businesses, to navigating different types of interviews and networking situations, Get a Design Job offers practical advice for the changing roles of today’s designers.
Read the full article here!
Awesome Collection Of Creative Websites For Your Inspiration
“Some of most impressive websites out there. They are all individually designed, but have one thing in common: They are stunning.” (via whatanicepost.com)
Quote of the Day
“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
~ Steve Jobs
Top 10 Etiquette Blunders
Recently, a colleague was lamenting the lack of etiquette he deals with on a daily basis.
“You would not believe how some of these people speak and act,” he said of salespeople at businesses he frequents. “They don’t know how to answer the phone, they text while talking to you, and when you walk in, they don’t greet you appropriately. They don’t even seem to know how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
Do I need to mention that he is in his 50s and he was mostly referring to younger workers? No, I don’t think I do. But it is valid nonetheless. And I must say, I share some of his concern.
And so, after speaking with some etiquette experts, I came up with the Top 10 Business Etiquette Blunders to avoid:
Read more at openforum.com
18 Common Work E-mail Mistakes
Most of us rely on e-mail as one of our primary communication tools. And given the number of messages we send and receive, we do it with remarkable success.
But as with anything, the more e-mails we send, the more likely we are to screw one up. And simple e-mail mistakes can be disastrous. They can cost us a raise, promotion–even a job.
With a new year upon us, this is the perfect time to go through some of the worst e-mail mistakes employees make and how to avoid them.
Read the full article on yahoo.com!
Quote of the Day
“Quit counting fans, followers and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you’re hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you’re doing.”
~Amber Naslund, Social Media Today
Top 5 Online Communities for Starting Your Career
It’s helpful to have someone with more experience show you the ropes when you’re beginning a new journey — this is especially true when it comes to entering the job market.
Having a community that shares job openings, tips, resources and words of wisdom is of real value, especially when you can ask the tough questions, such as “Do I really need to write a cover letter?” or “What are the job prospects in my industry?”
There are several career communities that focus on those initial years of your career and offer resources for you to start off strong — here are five.
Read the full article by Sharlyn Lauby on mashable.com!
11 Traits of a Great Employer
Darcy Breeman works for Edward Jones, a company that recently came in at No. 2 in Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Places to Work. So what makes that investment company unique and why is it on the list? Well, just consider Bremen’s story:
“I’m in the process of adopting a newborn and will be a single mom. Jones will send someone to my office to cover me while I’m gone and serve my clients… I can [then] come back and take a couple of appointments a day and then come home. If I want to bring my daughter into the office, that’s fine. They [even] have an adoption reimbursement plan.”
Read the full article on openforum.com!
Quote of the Day
“Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers.”
~ via www.wired.com
Become Expert with 40 WordPress Tutorials
Hey bloggers and content managers, how well do you know WordPress? You may have the basics down, but are you an expert? Well you can be, with this excellent list of tutorials we found!
100 Best Companies to Work For
Fortune’s annual list of the 100 best companies to work for has been released, it’s a must read!
See if your company made the list here!
Quote of the day
“Advertising is the ‘wonder’ in Wonder Bread.”
~ Jef I. Richards
How Can Designers Make the Most of Their Workdays
Workdays matter a lot in your professional life when you take and overview of all of them. It is important that a professional makes the most out of his workdays in order to succeed in his career. Same goes for the designers. Either you are a salaried designer working for a design house or a freelance design business owner working from home, spending your workdays effectively is the actual key to success. There are some key-points to be remembered by both these individuals. This article focuses on freelance designers only however, I am going to discuss salaried individuals in my next posts.
Read the full article tutoriallounge.com!
Current web design trends – an overview
Web design trends keep on changing with every passing year or within a period of few months. There had been significant changes last year whose impact can be seen more clearly in this year.
Popularity in the mobile device space has immensely increased in the sense that Smartphones and tablets like the iPad have made the interaction between users better and have facilitated easier accessibility to contents. Moreover, now people can take more and more advantage of the latest and the optimized features.
And this is possible because of web standards like HTML5, web fonts and CSS3, but What about the small businesses? It actually becomes difficult for them to stick to the latest designing trends because of factors like cost of the redesigns and the need for reaching a wide range of users.
Read the rest on skyje.com
Quote of the Day
“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”
~Franklin D. Roosevelt
13 Essential Tips for Landing a Job on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the best places online to find a job, period. It’s also a great place to connect with top decision makers, generate targeted leads for your business, drive traffic to your website, and more.
I hear countless stories every week from people who land amazing full time positions at great companies thanks to engagement on LinkedIn. Although there are a number of approaches you can take when hunting for the right job, start with these 13 important tips for using LinkedIn effectively.
Read the full article on mashable.com
Quote of the Day
“Starting out to make money is the greatest mistake in life. Do what you feel you have a flair for doing, and if you are good enough at it, the money will come.”
~ Greer Garson
The Ins and Outs of Working In-house
I started my career at the in-house design department of a Fort Lauderdale-based construction company. It was a terrible experience that lasted all of seven days. After that I swore to never work in-house anywhere, ever again. For four jobs (and about as many years) I kept that promise. Then I moved to New York City.
In other cities, I never had any trouble finding work. I would decide I hated my job one week, only to have another one lined up the next. I got unsolicited job offers and was the subject of a few hostile take-over attempts. I ignorantly assumed that New York would be the same. As one of the capitals of design, it must have thousands of jobs to offer, no? As you can all imagine, I quickly discovered it was quite the opposite.
Read the full article by Johanna Björk on aiga.com
Why and How I Switched to a Standing Desk
I spend about 45 to 50 hours a week working on my computer. Up until a week ago, I did that work sitting on my ever-expanding behind.
Last Monday I adjusted my desk to standing height (pictured right). I spent the week working on my feet, and I’m never going back to a sitdown desk again. Here are some questions and answers about the change.
Read the full article on lifehacker.com