Josh Maher's Blog » Entries tagged with "career"
Letters to my kids – leadership
Tweet Third in the series letters to my kids… Hey guys, I came across this list of lessons that definitely come from life experiences. I personally have learned these lessons and thinking back on some of my career decisions when I was younger, if I knew and believed these lessons were true I could have rapidly accelerated better decision making and been able to do a lot more with my career. While I have gotten better with most of these such as focusing on the people and relationships, looking at my business endeavors as long term marathons, and handling screw ups and moving forward after screw ups. I still struggle with some of these such as finding mentors, focusing on a smaller number of projects, and asking for help. I hope that you boys … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
10 Brief Thoughts On Success
Tweet Be Wise This is hard to do, it is easy to be intelligent about things, it is moderately hard to make decisions, combining those two things seems to be one of the most difficult things to do in life. When you combine a level of intelligence about a subject with the ability to make good decisions on that subject you begin to exhibit wisdom. It comes with experience, education, and a willingness to take risks. Needs Are Important Understanding the needs of the people you are working with is critical. This takes emotional intelligence, this takes experience, and this takes a willingness to listen. Regardless of the people you are working with – 3 billion customers, 3 – $1b customers, or 3 peer groups in your organization – understanding their needs in … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship
Take This Travel And
Tweet I am sick of traveling! There I said it, at least two weeks a month I am on the road with customers staying in some hotel room in some city other than my own. I honestly wouldn’t mind a few days here and there a month. Even one day a week wouldn’t really be all that bad, but when you are planning to be gone for more than half of your family’s life because of your work – I think there is definitely an issue. After all if you are not planning to be with your spouse and kids, what was the reason that you brought them into your life? Even with all that hatred for travel, I get wrapped up in. I enjoy going out to eat at new places, … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Innovation, Technology
Advancing in Careers and Life
Tweet I came across this slide show from Bob Pritchett the other day in conjunction with the review cycle at Microsoft. Keep in mind that living in Seattle the review cycle over at Microsoft is what helps to raise potential real estate and angel investors and turn away potential entrepreneurs or other startup employees. That made this deck ring true even more as the principles here are important for corporate employees as much as they are for startup employees, students, and people trying to lead a great life in general. What are you doing that will advance your career, make you more money, or make you happy in life? Some of the points infer that things like a great degree doesn’t matter – e.g. there are 323k living Harvard Alumni – to put … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship, Microsoft, RealEstate
Teams and Individuals
Tweet As most of you know I have a degree in sociology which I am very proud of – I find it fascinating how people work in society and how individuals operate in those environments. A few of my posts here have been a product of that interest and continued passion. I recently came across this article on Culturnicity about team vs. individual ethnographic studies and it got me thinking about the similarities to innovation in general. Before you go too much further, please go read the article so the rest of my analogy makes sense… Seriously – go have a read, it is short and worthwhile. The general idea in the article is comparing the pros and cons of using a team to accomplish the same goal of a longer individual … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship, Innovation
The Signals of Education and Reality
Tweet I find it interesting that there is so much focus on our society on higher education as a signal that a person is educated and therefore more employable. If you look at what education and higher education actually teach, there is a major gap in teaching people how to think through problems in a way that they can actually implement elsewhere and they lack an ability to teach people to prepare and organize their capabilities in a way that they can be extremely effective. These are both things that some individuals learn after getting their education and some… never learn at all. So why is the signal of an education from a university so desired in business? Thinking about the content that I learned in high school and at university, there … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Innovation
Making Noises
Tweet I remember when I was young and I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling and compete with my brother for who could make a continuous noise come out of our mouths. We would do this for hours and hours… and it wasn’t just once, we did this over and over, year after year. We thought it was so much fun to compete with each other on this important quality of making noises that we would see how quiet the noises could be (we tried loud once but got in trouble). It was a lot of fun though and one of the memories of my childhood that I cherish. Now as a father, the only time I think of meaningless play it relates to my kids. We make up songs … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups
Twitter Updates – 09/01/2012
Tweet I am out floating around the sound on a boat for the long weekend… blog posts still coming – here were some interesting things I posted on twitter this week.. Good thoughts on $MSFT #Surface by @AnilDash - http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/column_microsoft What kind of review did you get at $MSFT this year? http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/08/27/got-a-4-you-were-just-fired-from-microsoft/ Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do. – Bruce Lee The Dunkin response - http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/16/dunkin-donuts-mobile-pay/ Skype and $MSFT - http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-08-19/skype-bates-q-and-a/57142138/1 … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging
