Links this week!
The Guru Effect: Why being a “how-to” expert will destroy your potential. Amazing blog by Peter Shallard on how entrepreneurs who achieve 1 big success may suddenly become the gurus of that format, and how a second big success might mean you’re living up to your potential.
Letters of Note: No doubt some of you might have seen this, but it’s super-cool! It’s a site that collects correspondence by famous people. So very cool!
Down for Everyone or Just Me?: “OMG! Is Twitter down? Or is it me? Hey, guys! Can you get on Twitter? No? How about you guys? Oh okay, so it’s down for everyone. Hmmm…damn. I really needed something. Shoot.” Well now, you can check this site and it’ll tell you whether a website is down for everyone or just you!
45 Places to Go in 2012 by NY Times Travel: My passport is crying to go.
101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and Generate Client Leads: As most of you know, I freelance. Finding clients is probably the largest struggle – the writing part comes easily. So here are some ideas if you’re a freelancer, striking out on your own or simply looking for some new ideas.
To-Do Lists Don’t Work on HBR – I’m a big to-do lister. I find it works for me, because I generally do the harder things first, and I really like checking things off. How do you work? Have you tried automated to-do lists like TeuxDeux?
Crowdsourcing, Open Innovation and the Future of Sustainable Cities on Greenbiz.com: Really interesting article about how design firm IDEO and another, Steelcase are using the innovative spirit of the masses to overcome some of the urban landscape’s most pressing problems. Revitalization, and sustainable cities are part and parcel of creating vibrant communities and by reaching out to a global audience for ideas, these firms effectively increased the pool of innovation from which to draw their ideas.
To Get the Job of Your Dreams, Stop Dreaming on HBR: John Lees makes some excellent points about career development being incremental and not an overnight change. I particularly liked the framing of having an unattainable fantasy job as a means towards zero change. Nicely put!
Law of Attraction: Get Seduced, Says Shelly Lazarus on Forbes: Lazarus is the Chairman of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide. From the looks of this article, a dynamic woman. There is some great career advice in this, and to me the most important thing was the accidental nature of her career. I loved that.
The End of the Job in Macleans Magazine – This is pretty much why I freelance to stay afloat. When I’m not being awesome at another company, I offer communications services to others. The contractor, while an excellent for opportunity and mobility, really messes with long-term planning potential. It’s sort of an ugly cycle as you’ll see.
6 Ways to Cut Copy for more powerful prose on Ragan.com – This is a great little summary of how to condense your writing. A former colleague of mine used to tell me, “write everything, then go and cut forty percent of it”. I especially agree with the first tip – the first paragraph often has the least amount of useful information.
