The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Resources’ Category

The ability to write and problem solve effectively are  excellent skills to have. Below are three websites that allow you to cultivate those skills.

Daily Writing Tips

This website is a free subscription-based one. I like this website because it presents words that people often use incorrectly and provides examples for correct usage. Many people will find this website very useful and it will prevent you from making embarrassing mistakes.

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/

The English Club

Though the English Club website is for people who want to learn or teach English, it has a lot of good information. If you spend some time browsing the website you’ll discover a very good grammar guide among other things.

http://www.englishclub.com/

Ask Nature

Ask Nature is a project of the Biomimicy Institute. If you have challenges to resolve and problems to solve and are looking for some creative solutions, the Ask Nature  portal is the perfect place to start. Biomimicry is a new field, only about 20 years old, is innovation inspired by nature. To start the problem solving process, at the Ask Nature website, type in your question in the search box. You will receive responses that will take you down a path that you would likely have not taken, isn’t that what innovation is about?

http://asknature.org

Please refer to How to Problem Solve, Reverse Problem Solving and  How to Read to Problem Solve. Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Every so often I present websites that I think you should know about. A few days ago I presented a hybrid creativity model based on Graham Wallas‘ and James Webb Young’s creativity model. In the model you have general information, which are things you discover and file away for future use. The websites today are geared toward rounding out your general knowledge. The more varied your knowledge, the more creative you are. The creative you are, the more creative ideas you unearth for problem solving.

One website I added to the mix because many people travel so I thought it would be handy for discounted airfares.

Space Adventures

Provides private spaceflight opportunities.  It’s the first company to have taken clients into space.      

Virgin Galactic

Are you interested in space travel? Virgin Galactic is a space tourism operator which will be providing sub-orbital flights. It is an offshoot of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson‘s enterprise.

Ask Nature

It’s the design portal for the Biomimicry Institute. Biomimicry is a fairly new field where nature is used to inspire problem solving. The Ask Nature website is filled with lots of information that will round out your general knowledge.

Travel Alerts

You will find discounted vacation and last minute travel. Get the alerts sent to your email box each week http://www.travelalerts.com.

If money were no object, would you invest in space travel? Please keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Ted talk: Biomimicry in action: Janine Benyus

Biomimicry in action: Janine Benyus

Space Tourism Markets What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Space Tourism Markets What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Photo Credit: Zemanta
Video Credit: YouTube via Apture

I realized that I have not had any tips and tricks or resources blog posts in a long time so I decided that it was important to start off the new year right.

Whenever you have to conduct country research, a good place to start is at the CIA Factbook website. At this website you’ll find information on the history, geography, people and so on of the specific country,  and if you’re going on vacation, or even on business, you’d like to learn about political stability. CIA Factbook gives you these types of information. Another place to gather country information is Country Reports.  For next steps refer to the blog post How to Analyze Information.

And while you are surfing, two cool websites are National Geographic and Planet Earth on Discovery Channel. Are these websites helpful? What are three of your favorite websites?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please comment. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo credit: Via Apture

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I decided to review The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper because it was one of  21 books that Ted Nicholas  read that changed his life. Ted Nicholas, a very successful entrepreneur and copywriter, has always stressed the importance of continuous learning. I like to read some of the books that accomplished people read to better understand them.

The Little Engine That Could is a children’s book, but its timeless  lesson teaches us what we can accomplish when we believe in our ability. It brought home the belief “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Because it’s a children’s book, it’s a very easy read and takes about 10 minutes to read.

The book is about a happy train that is loaded with toys of all kinds for children as well as some food stuff. On the way it breaks down, and it becomes very concerned about all the children who will not be able to play with the toys and eat all the goodies. Soon a train comes by and some of the toys cry out for help, but this “shiny new engine” is very self important, and a snob and remarks, “I pull you?  I am a Passenger Train. I have just carried a fine big train over the mountain, with more cars than you ever dreamed of….”

Another train came along and once again, the toys shouted for help, but the train shouted back that it was a freight engine. “I have just pulled a big train loaded with big machines over the mountain. These machines print books and newspapers for grown-ups to read….” Once again the toys felt let down. Another train chugged along, this time “an old and tired” looking one. The toys cried out for help, “But the Rusty Old Engine sighed: “I am so tired. I must rest my weary wheels.”"

The toys were very saddened and cried. Next a little blue train came along and once again the toys begged for help and explained their situation. The train explained that it was used only for switching trains in the yard. “The very little engine looked up and saw the tears in the dolls’ eye. And she thought of the good little boys and girls on the other side of the mountain who would not have any toys or good food unless she helped.”

Despite its small size, the little blue engine repeated the mantra “I think I can” over and over again and pulled the train over the mountain. When they arrived at the destination, The Little Blue Engine repeated “I thought I could. I thought I could….”

Five Great Ideas

1. We are our brother’s keeper
2. No one succeeds alone
3. Persistence pays
4. What would happen if we decided to succeed?
5. What would happen if we let others know that we believed in them?

This book reminded me of Dorothy Brande’s book Wake Up and Live, where she reveals that the formula for success is to act as if it were impossible to fail. Could we move mountains if we acted as if it were impossible to fail? This is a great book that teaches the simple lessons that “if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again” and believe in yourself.

Please keep the information flowing and leave a comment. If you reached this blog by search engine, please consider subscribing.

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Please note that the link to the books are affiliate links.

This is an interview with Don Martelli, VP, MS&L. He makes a fine invisible mentor (unique leader who you can learn things from) and you’ll agree when you read Part One of his interview. It’s very gratifying to see senior level professionals who understand that life is more than them. In the interview Don shares with you how he succeeded in his field and what someone starting out should do. He talks about the three events that shaped his life and you may be surprised by his answers. In his interview, you’ll also learn about his biggest challenge and how he resolved it, how mentors have helped him and a whole lot more.  I will post the second part of the interview on Friday, where you’ll discover the books that influenced him and the ones he would like to have on a deserted island.

Tell me a little bit about yourself

I am a 14 year-veteran of the communications business. I started out as a reporter for the Boston Globe and worked for six years in the education space in PR and marketing roles. I’ve worked for three top PR agencies, working on technology, corporate, healthcare and consumer accounts. Currently, I’m a VP and Director of Digital Communications with MS&L Boston (www.mslworldwide.com). You can find out more about me at www.donmartelli.com.

What’s a typical day like for you?

A typical day for me is one where I’m writing blog posts for our agency and some of our clients. I’m living in Twitter and other social media services all day. I’ll happen to design a piece or two for our new business process. I’ll also have a couple of client calls, media stories to pitch, bloggers to interact with and account management issues to deal with as well. To put it simply, I never have a typical day. The only thing that’s typical about my day is that whatever it is I’m doing, it’s typically done online and via some social/web 2.0 channel.

Describe a major business (or other) challenge you had and how you resolved it.

One great program we’ve developed and are still working on is one with Best Doctors (www.bestdoctors.com). They are an expert medical consultation service for large US employers. They work with employees to ensure that they are getting the right diagnosis and the right treatment. Basically, they help employees make better healthcare decisions. We wanted to inject the company’s point of view on healthcare reform into the online conversation, which is a very crowded one. Our first step was to launch a blog — www.seefirstblog.com. We then worked with the president and COO on messaging and tone as it related to the company’s POV on reform. Once we started to generate content, we connected the main author — Evan Falchuk, president and COO — to other online influencers in the healthcare space. We knew that making the right connections via services like Twitter, would get the blog’s content read and discussed in the space. Since April, we’ve had major news outlets like Wired, Atlantic Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, pick up See First Blog content online. Additionally, we’ve been linked to from Instapundit and have hosted the very popular healthcare blog carnival Grand Rounds. All of this work has resulted in over 2,000 unique visitors a month. We’ve topped off at nearly 4,000 due to trackbacks from Instapundit, Wall Street Journal, etc.

What lessons did you learn in the process?

The biggest lesson was that social media is not about volume. It’s about connecting with the right people that can help you move the needle.

How did mentors influence your life?

Guidance, education and common sense.

What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Be smart. Think things through. Be yourself.

Which resources (books, movies, training etc.) did your mentors recommend to you?

Too many to mention. However, that’s the great thing about learning. There’s so much content in this world to digest. The key is discovering what your passions are and running with it.

As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Read, read, read and read some more. You can never read enough.

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

My big break was when I was hired as a writer for the Boston Globe. I got the job through my cooperative education program at Northeastern University. Without the Globe experience, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

I honestly don’t consider anything in my life to be a failure. I am where I want to be because this is the path I have chosen.

What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its re-occurrence?

Again, no big disappointments for me. Everything happens for a reason. You need to learn from everything in life and determine how you can benefit from that experience in the future — negative or positive.

What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

I had a good job with a local college preparatory school and decided to leave it to come to MS&L. It was tough because I loved the mission of the school and I loved where it was headed. However, the opportunity to be part of a top, global PR agency with the reputation that MS&L had was one I couldn’t ignore.

What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Getting married, having kids and going to Northeastern University. Marriage and kids keep me grounded. That’s what is important in life. Knowing that I have a family to provide for is all the motivation I need. As for the NU experience, as I said, without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today professionally.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Raising two beautiful and healthy daughters.

What did you learn from this interview and how might you use some of the information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab your personal copy by clicking here.

What did you decide?

Decision making is a step in the problem solving process and the quality of your solutions and decisions is only as good as the information they are based on.

Decision Making 101

1. Define the decision to be made
2. Collect information
3. Analyze the information
4. Develop possible solutions
5. Evaluate the quality of each solution
6. Choose a solution
7. Implement the decision
8. Test the decision (Did it do what it was supposed to do?)

From my extensive experience in research, the eight simple steps would translate into the following process, which will help you to become a better decision maker and a more valuable employee.

Anatomy of a Decision Making Process

Stage 1: Define the Decision

• State the decision to be made in your organization in clear and simple language and answer the following questions

1. How important is the decision?
2. How do decisions get made in your organization?
3. Why does the decision have to be made?
4. What is the impact of not deciding?
5. Who will be impacted by the decision, and how?
6. Who are your allies in the organization?
7. Is the decision permanent or reversible?
8. What are the desired outcomes of making the decision?
9. Is acceptance and support for the decision critical for its implementation?
10. How much time is available for making the decision?

Stage II: Gather Information

• Every decision is a response to a situation, what are the root causes of the situation?

1. Collect files, records and other relevant documents
2. Talk to stakeholders
3. Brainstorm with colleagues
4. Conduct focus group interviews
5. Look at best practices
6. How accurate is the information
7. Does it represent a diversity of points of view
8. Are there any biases

• Read all the information gathered and evaluate the quality of them

• Distil the facts pertinent to the decision to be made
• Restructure the definition of the decision if you have to
• Draw conclusions from the information gathered and identify possible solutions (Do not limit yourself to what has been done before but open yourself to new and better alternative solutions)
• Develop a set of decision criteria to judge the quality of each solution and assess its suitability

Stage III: Consider Solutions

• Use the set of decision criteria developed in Stage II to judge the quality of each solution and assess its suitability

1. State the advantages and disadvantages of each solution
2. State the costs, benefits and implication of implementing each option
3. Do not focus only on short-term costs but also look at long term benefits
4. State obstacles to each option and how they could be handled

Stage IV: Make a Decision

• Which option best serves the desired outcome stated in Stage I?
• Is the option consistent with the mission, goals and objectives of the organization
• Select the best option
• Explain your decision to those involved and impacted

Stage V: Implement the Decision

• Put the decision into action
• Does the decision feel right to you? Learn to trust your instincts

Stage VI: Test the Decision

• Did the decision resolve the situation?
• Are you comfortable with the decision?
• If no to the above, how can you rework the decision? Can you combine elements of the alternative solutions to form a hybrid solution?
• Go through the process again if you have to

Like with everything in life the more practice you get the more adept you become. By applying the process to your unique situation, in no time you will become a better decision maker. And the best part is that the process also works for your personal life.

I created the presentation below for a Slideshare competition, but while I was creating it I had my blog readers in mind because I thought it would be beneficial to you. Please let others know about it if you find it useful. In the presentation there are influential book lists that can help you decide what to read.

There are clickable links within the presentation to make it easy to download the reading lists as well as visit the websites mentioned.

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During the past 10 years, many online learning tools and resources have cropped up to assist the self-learner at an affordable price: University Open Courseware, Wikipedia, You Tube Edu, iTunes U, eduFire, and Learn.com are a few of the educational resources that you can use to build your body of knowledge.

Wikipedia: Is a free encyclopedia created by users and is the world’s largest encyclopedia. Wikipedia is one of the first places to start research when trying to build a body of knowledge in any area.

You Tube Edu: You Tube worked with universities and colleges to create video and audio lectures by the best professors in the United States and made them available for free.

iTunes U: A mobile way of learning, iTunes U provides over 200,000 lectures, presentations, videos, readings, and podcasts from all over the world, for download. Some of the content has been created by the best professors in the United States. Many universities have a separate website for iTunes courseware download.

eduFire SuperPass: Is a response to the rapid rise in the cost of education. A paid subscription-based virtual classroom, eduFire offers live audio and video learning.

Learn.com: Offers courses to develop individual skills. It is also an on demand workplace development and productivity resource.

And, if you are someone who like a good speech, here are a few websites to delight you:

http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/presidential-speeches/index.htm

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/previous.htm

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html

http://www.history.com/video.do?name=speeches

Using just a percentage of the online resources mentioned above will set you apart from your peers. Your self-learning journey will not be easy, but with focus, determination and passion to do what it takes to succeed, you will get that edge that is needed for a recession proof career.

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Photo Credits: Avil Beckford Orchid in Jamaica

Review of Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most comes out of the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen define a difficult conversation as anything you find hard to talk about. The authors explore “what it is that makes conversations difficult, why we avoid them, and why we often handle them badly.” We all face difficult conversations, at home and at work, and each of us has to struggle with how to address them. Do we avoid or confront them? The authors provide a framework for understanding and conducting difficult conversations. One of the authors’ stated goal of Difficult Conversations is to ” help you turn difficult conversations into learning conversations by helping you handle each of the Three Conversations more productively and improving your ability to handle all three at once.”

Stone, Patton and Heen explain that each difficult conversation is really three different conversations – The “What Happened” Conversation, The Feelings Conversation and The Identity Conversation. The “what happened” conversation gets to the facts without placing blame or guessing the others’ intentions. Rarely do understanding the facts alone resolve the situation. Feelings are often at the core of a difficult situation. The feelings conversation helps to unravel the complexities of our emotions, while diffusing the negative effects. The identity conversation looks at how the event interacts with our identity. It helps us to see how our perceptions of ourselves may affect the position that we take.

Difficult Conversations is a lot longer than it needs to be, and bloated in some areas. Despite that, I learned and gained a lot from reading this book, and, as I read, I found myself getting a deeper understanding of the subject matter. All participants in a difficult conversation contribute to the outcome.

5 Great Ideas

1. When you are participating in a conversation, you need to understand not only what is said, but also what is not said. You also need to understand what the people involved are thinking and feeling but not saying to each other
2. The gap between what you’re really thinking and what you’re saying is part of what makes a conversation difficult
3. It’s always possible to define a problem without reference to feelings
4. Most difficult conversations involve the “blame game,” that is, who’s to blame for the mess we’re in
5. When you have to deliver bad news, whether it is to fire someone or tell the children that you are getting a divorce, go in with the purpose of giving them the news, of taking responsibility for your part in the outcome, of showing that you care about how they feel, and of trying to be helpful going forward

This is not a book you read for entertainment or mere information, but one you read to get a deeper understanding of the intricacies and complexities of difficult conversations. It’s packed with a lot of information, so there is no way that you can remember all the information in just one read. The checklist and roadmap at the end of the book is a great review. I recommend this book.

This review first appeared in April/May 2007 Ambeck Edge, and Difficult Conversations  is book that will always be relevant. It was great to re-read this review and be reminded of its content. As I read the review again, I was reminded of two of the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz: don’t take things personally and don’t make assumptions. These two agreements can help to diffuse heated conversations, or prevent conversations from escalating. This is a great lesson for us.

For those interested, the other two agreements are: Be impeccable with your word and always do your best.

Book List

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book, Don Miguel Ruiz

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Excerpt April/May 2007 Ambeck Edge

If you love to read books, challenging economics times should not be a reason for you not to enjoy your pastime. Listed below are websites where you can download free ebooks, from the classics to more contemporary works. Take some time to explore these websites because I am sure that you will find many books to please your literary palate.

Project Gutenberg

Scribd

Read Print

Wowio

Questia

YouPublish

Anova

Great Books and Classics

Get Free Ebooks

Ebook Mall

As a bonus, in the related posts and articles by Zemanta sections are additional places for you to find free ebooks. Feed your mind and let me know what you think. If you know of other places to find free books or other resources to expand your mind please let me know.

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Photo Credits: Avil Beckford