Posts related to technology category

Abstract Education: The Khan Academy

Vinay Patankar · 30 Oct, 2010 · People · Technology

This site is truly amazing and could turn out to be one of the most important websites in the world. Abstract living at its finest. I urge everyone to share it with everyone they know. Its a site with videos teaching educational concepts. It starts with simple concepts like 1+1 and goes all the way into college level and calculus. The Khan Academy is helping people all around the world, giving them access to a free, first grade education. ### www.khanacademy.org If this People topic resonated, continue with Blog Moving to Abstract-Living.com.

Gangster & Innovator – Mark Burnett @ Blogworld

Vinay Patankar · 28 Oct, 2010 · Technology

One of the more interesting events that happened during the day at Blogworld was a keynote by Mark Burnett and his following publicity stunt. If you don't know, who Mark Burnett is, here is a Wikipedia excerpt: > Mark Burnett (born 17 July 1960) is a British television producer, known for creating and/or producing competition-based reality television shows such as the American edition of Survivor, The Apprentice and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? > Mark Burnett's international productions include: Amne$ia Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?, which has been produced in over 55 foreign countries, The Contender-Asia (a Thai kick-boxing version of the American Boxing-Competition show), and The Apprentice which has been produced in over 21 foreign countries. > Mark Burnett is pacting with casino and resorts giant Genting Intl. to launch a $20 million joint production venture. Mark Burnett Prods. Asia will produce original content for Asian broadcasters and license those formats in markets around the world, including the U.S. The TV venture, the first for Genting, marks the latest overseas expansion for Burnett. For a guy who use to be in the military and worked as a nanny, his talk sounded awfully familiar to a Tony Robins presentation. Which is not a bad thing in any way as Tony Robins is a gangster (the cool kind) and I'm a self help junkie. The interesting portion of the talk was at the end when he launched his new TV show: Sarah Palin's Alaska. While I am no fan of Sarah Palin, I am a fan of Mark Burnett. For his TV shows, his marketing skillz and most recently his gangster Tony Robins like jargon. During his keynote at Blogworld, he announced this TV show for the first time by having *stevegarfield* whom I don't who, but seems to have a decent sized Youtube channel, upload the first copy of the TV Trailer to his Youtube channel, tweet it out then asked everyone in the room to also tweet it out. This is the video that was uploaded to Youtube. The official first tweet At the time of writing this video is currently on ~82,000 views. Not bad for 10 days. Who knows if this tactic will work or not but I like his innovation and guts for giving it a shot. Plus its Sarah Palin so no one really gives a sh!t if it works anyway... For another Technology angle, read Blogworld 2010 #bwe - My Review.

Blogworld 2010 #bwe - My Review

Vinay Patankar · 23 Oct, 2010 · People · Technology

I was a lucky SOB and managed to win myself a full access pass to Blogoworld last week. It was an awesome experience. I have been to many trade shows in the past but nothing like this. And none since I set out on my own last year. I used to go representing my company which is a little different. I had also never been to a multi-day event, which had parties too. One thing I have learned about myself over the last year, is that I suck at networking online. I just don't have the patience for it. I know this may be a bit of a negative being in the online space as there is no better place to meet people who work online than online... But I just don't like doing it. I don't like hanging out on Facebook, I don't like tweeting stuff, I think its weird meeting and connecting with people online. But hey, that's just my opinion and personally, I think its a pretty stupid one. I should do more of it. I just feel that the computer is a place of work and learning. When I am on my computer, I am almost always doing one of those things. If I am not doing one of those things, I quickly start to feel uncomfortable and need to get outside, meet some people, do some exercise, do something! I also know this challenge I have is the opposite of many other bloggers / internet markets who find it awkward to meet and connect with people in person but have no troubles online. I guess its the salesman in me. So when Blogworld came about, I was like a kid in a candy store. Admittedly, I only went to the full first day, then the clubs afterwards. Even though I didn't make it to too many events the next couple of days (partly due to the seductive beckoning of the pool, partly due to my hangover), I made it to every party - and after party. I know this was almost the reverse schedule of lots of the attendees who made it to Blogworld. Whichever way you prefer to use your time, you need to make sure you use your time. I didn't feel there were too many advanced content courses being taught during the days, but lots of great stuff if you are just getting into new and social media. The nights were where it was at. I met so many interesting people. Had so much fun. Spammed business cards, collected business cards, pumped my LinkedIn account oh and did I mention the fun? Whatever the type of person you are, if you work in the internet space I think Blogworld is worth checking out. I will definitely be back there next year if I am on this side of the planet. So what did I get out of Blogworld (besides the ability to party for a few nights in Vegas?) - contacts. I met people. Lots of interesting people. And its all about who you know right? Here are some photos including some great content slides from Blogworld: \[gallery\] If this People topic resonated, continue with Networking Awesomely Review.

My $1195 Blog Comment

Vinay Patankar · 15 Sep, 2010 · Technology

Last week Mashable had a competition to promote their up coming event Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. The competition was to leave a comment in response to the question "What is the future of blogging?" and they picked 5 winners from their favourite responses. So I entered my comment, as you do, and what do you know - I was selected as a winner. Yay! Below is my winning comment: > The future of blogging will be a continual movement away from the one sided, board of director selected, opinion led information flow. A continual pressure against traditional media outlets as bloggers become the main sources of influence across all mediums including written, audio and video. Media moguls will no longer influence elections and wars, bloggers will. Bloggers will replace newspapers, radio and TV stations as truly enlightened individuals have two way conversations with their readers and deliver exactly the kind of content that they want. > Blogging will continue to remove the barriers to entry in becoming a global influential force, allowing people from all around the world - including third world countries - to step up and be heard by everyone. Something that was almost impossible in the world of media control. > I believe blogging will help create an equal distribution of information, where the people who are heard are the people who deserve to be heard because they have the strongest message. This in turn will help to enlighten the global population and eventually increase the equality of living across the world. Now I've just got to get to Vegas... If this Technology topic resonated, continue with Blog Moving to Abstract-Living.com.

How to Move (migrate) your Wordpress Blog to a New Doman and Host

Vinay Patankar · 13 Jun, 2010 · Technology

A blog is becoming a pretty standard tool for those looking to do…. anything really. There are so many stories of product launches, networking, new jobs, new businesses any many other opportunities spawning off the success of bogs. A perfect tool in the building of an abstract lifestyle. And even if its not a massive success, a blog is still useful for personal branding so there really is no loss. This isn’t really a tech blog but I recently moved my Wordpress account to a new host and domain and thought I would share the process. I had to look through a few different posts to figure it out so I thought I would combine them into one. And because blogs may be of interest to many lifestyle designs I thought I would chuck in this post. ### Moving to a New Host ##### Backing Up your Blog First thing you should do is backup your blog. The easiest way to do this is FTP into your blog and copy the whole folder down onto your computer. Hopefully you wont need to touch this but its just in case. I use FileZilla, a free FTP program. Once you have FileZilla, connect useing your ip address, username and password. Settings may differ depending on your host so check out their website if you are having troubles. ##### Install Wordpress on your New Host with your New Domain Depending on your host, will depend on how you do this. Godaddy is very simple, you just select a wordpress hosting plan and it will walk you through the setup of your new account. I use godaddy.com hosting to manage my blog. I was using a dedicated server but it ended up being more expensive and more work with no really reward so I switched. I was changing domains anyways so I thought it was a good time. Using a hosing service like godaddy, Blue Host or Host Gator will give you easy one click Wordpress install. Perfect for the non-technical. Remember to use the new domain you are choosing for the setup. At this point you should have a new basic install of Wordpress attached to your new domain. I am assuming you have done this before if you are migrating a blog. ##### Export and Import your Posts, Pages and Comments The export / import process is VERY simple thanks to Wordpress integrating this into the platform. Simply select export from the tools menu as below. To import, just select the import option from the tools menu and select the file you downloaded. And that’s it, all posts, pages and comments will have moved over. ##### Install and run Search and Replace Install the Search and Replace plugin. This plugin will allow you to search for all content in your blog and replace it with new content. To do this you should search for your old blog, so for me it was “wordplaywithvinay” and replace it with “abstract-living”. This will fix all the links to other posts within your blog and tie up any other loose ends. ##### Copy your Theme and Plugins To copy your theme and plugins, you will need to copy the wp-content folder from your old host to your new one. You can find this one directly in from the folder you have your blog installed in. You can replace the files that exist in the new directory because you only have a base install so far. Unfortunately this method will not copy over the configuration of your old theme or plugins and you will need to manually go through each of them and reconfigure them. ##### Copy Widgets The easiest way to copy over your widgets will be to open the wordpress dashboard of both of your blogs, go to the widgets tab and copy over the contents of each widget individually. You will need to change any URLs or RSS links. ##### Change your Permalinks Make sure you change your permalinks to the same structure to what they were before. To do this, check the settings in your old blog under Settings –> Permalinks and copy the same settings over. ### Migrate your Feedburner Feed To migrate your Feedburner feed, the easiest solution is to change the name and address of your existing feed to the new one without changing the extension so your existing subscribers don’t see a change. You can create a second feed for new subscribers or just continue using the old feed, its up to you. ### Redirecting your Old Blog After you’ve tested everything twice (three or four times) its time to move over your domain, the final step. To do this you will create a 301 redirect from your old blog to your new one. This step is important for two reasons. 1. It will redirect any old links that exist to your blog from external sites, including individual post links. 2. It will move all the link value from your old blog to your new one. Very important to keep your ranking in Google. To do this you will have to modify your .htaccess file. You will find this file in the root directory where wordpress is installed. You want to edit the .htaccess file in your OLD blog. To do this, you will need to download it, make a backup, then open it in notepad. Replace everything inside with the following lines (changing out the respective domains): RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP\_HOST} ^(www\\.)?wordplaywithvinay\\.com RewriteRule (.\*) /$1 \[R=301,L\] Upload the new .htaccess to your old host and your set to go. This scrip will redirect your homepage, plus individual posts and pages. I hope you have a smooth transition, let me know if you have any questions. Related read in Technology: Looking for a Co-Founder for New Startup - UI/UX.

Emailing Awesomely – The Definitive Guide to Email Structure

Vinay Patankar · 25 Apr, 2010 · Technology

Email is, and has been for some time an important form of communication. There are lots of tips out there on how to write emails for achieving specific outcomes. There was a great post recently on how to contact market leaders and there are many blogs on how to use email as an effective sales tool. But what about for those circumstances that are too ad-hoc, that you may not see direct value from or just don't seem important? How do you construct your emails then? Do you have a set format you follow? Do you even need to worry about how you construct them? I think yes. I feel every single piece of communication I have with anyone is important. Unless they are friends of more than a few years you really should be following a ‘standard’ email format for EVERY email. This is not just with business either, but with every contact you make. Whether you are talking to your accountant, looking to rent an apartment or buying a fish you should follow your standard format. Your standard email format will vary depending on who you are, what you do and what kind of first impression you’re trying to give off, in other words, your identity. There are a few reasons I recommend having a structure to how you write your emails. - It gives you a fall back format if you’re unsure how to handle that particular kind of email - It makes your email writing quicker as once you get the hang of it, you wont have to think about how to structure your email before you start - And most importantly: It gives the reader an idea of what kind of person you are Letting people know your identity, what you do and how you can help is super important. You NEVER know when someone you speak with could open up a new opportunity for you. The guy selling the fish could be your next client or boss. You are definitely going to write many more emails (or waves) in your life, so its fair to say that writing a good email is a necessary skill and one you should take care of – if you haven't already. > You may also be interested in this: Top Chrome Extensions for Email Optimization ### What is a Good Email? In my day I’ve had many an email discussion with people from all walks of life. Working as a recruiter, and now as an Entrepreneur means I’ve made first contact with people from the strange to the successful. I’ve had conversations with students, scholars and salesmen with clerks, caterers and CEOs and with bankers, builders and beauticians. Out of all the types of people I’ve had email conversations with, there are few that project a professional, educated and articulate image in their writing. It’s not because they’re uneducated or can’t articulate their thoughts, it’s because they don’t put in the effort or don’t think it’s important. As a high level rule, bankers and salesmen are the best email writers. And they should be, they get trained on how to write an email. CEOs are fairly hit or miss, as are most senior managers in large non-white collar industries. Everyone else, well, they usually suck. This is good news for you tho because it makes it easy to stand out from the pack. A good email has many variables including your identity, who you’re contacting and why you’re contacting them. But there is a constant that flows with all well written emails and that is structure. How you structure an email says lots about your personality and thus should be taken into consideration with EVERY email you write. Not just first contact. ### How to structure a good email? Below is the general structure for a well written email. I will explain in detail below. - Greeting - Pleasantry - How you got their details, call back and reason for email - Body Topic 1 - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action - Body Topic 2 - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action - Body Topic n - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action - Closing line - Signature ### Greeting The greeting is simple. If you know their name “Hi NAME,” or “Dear NAME,” will suffice. If you don’t know their name (in the instance of contacting some businesses or a seller on craigslist open with a simple “Hello,” ### Pleasantry You should ALWAYS follow with a pleasantry after your greeting. EVERYTIME without fail. Ingrain this into your fingers so that you naturally spit it out with each email you write. There is no reason ever why your email shouldn't have a pleasantry. Even if you are criticising someone (which you shouldn't do over email anyways) you should still have a pleasantry to give them the sandwich effect. You will never have anything to lose by adding in a pleasantry, you will make people more inclined to read the rest of your email, you will soften criticism, and will hit the positive emotions of a few. Most will simply ignore it, but for two seconds if your time, its definitely worth it. Pleasantries can include the following: - I hope you’re well - I hope all is well - I hope the day/week is treating you well - I hope all is well since we last spoke Once a conversation has started: - Thanks for that - Thanks for getting back to me - Thanks for your response - Thanks for your quick response This is also the line where you can start to display some of your personality and identity. You can add in your super-awesome-fun-exclamation-mark-loving personality or your polished articulate self. - I’m super excited you got back to me, thanks!!! or - Thank you kindly for your prompt response, it is most appreciated. ### How You Got their Contact Details, Call Back and Reason for the Email This portion of the email will vary depending on the purpose of the email and how you know the person. Use your common sense to determine what to put here but here are a few points that should cover most circumstances. How you got their contact details This is only necessary at the start of a conversation. But adding in a line such as “I found your details on xyz website or social media platform” gives the reader a sense of where you are coming from – this is important for first contact. Call Back Content If you got their contact details at a networking event, party or some other scenario where you had an interaction of some sort, built some rapport and made plans to stay in contact – this is a great place to add in what I call call back content. If you spoke about a sporting event, a ski trip, kids, whatever – add a few lines in this portion of the email. This will firstly help them to remember who you are and further built rapport. It will also give them some content to bounce off making it easier and more enjoyable for them to respond. Reason for Email A reason for the email should be included in every new conversation, even if you’ve spoken to the person before. - I wanted your opinion on xyz - I have a proposition/opportunity I think you may be interested in - I have a few things I think we should catch up about - I have an update on xyz project or report - I have some news I think you should hear This should be brief as you will explain it further, but should give the reader an idea about what they’re in for. This is important when contacting busy people. Also, if the email has multiple topics (discussed below) outline them here. “I wanted to give you an updated on xyz project and see if you were available to catch up with George on Tuesday”. > You may also be interested in this: Process Street the Ultimate Business Productivity Tool ### Body The body should be broken into three parts. - Situation - Benefits - Call to Action You need to repeat these three parts for every topic in your email. Situation This is what is happening, the reason for the email in more detail and what needs to be done (basically what most people write in a normal email). “I’ve just received the report back from John and we need you to look over it. It shouldn’t take too long, just need you to check the final figures and make sure the portions that relate to your team are worded correctly. We need it back by lunch tomorrow” Benefits The father of self help Dale Carnegie in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People states the only way to make someone do something is to make them want to do it. Unless we are communicating with friends, chances are we want something out of every email we send. The way you make people want to do something, is by explaining the benefits. You can always find a benefit for why someone should do something. In the above example “I’m sorry for the short timeframe, but BOSS MAN is coming down hard on me to get this finished and your section is the last one we need.” – The benefit here is that he will either avoid getting in trouble by BOSS MAN if he does this on time, or he will get emotional gratification for getting you out of trouble with the boss. Most interactions will have some kind of mutual benefit. If you’re trying to get a job, buy, sell or share something, chances are you have some type of value to offer. If you’re really stuck for a benefit you can always “owe them one” or “buy them a beer”. Don’t forget to highlight the benefit. Call to Action Once you’ve told them what needs to be done, and what they’re getting out of it, you need to put in a specific call to action or next step. In the above example: “Please confirm via email that you will be able to complete this for me by lunch tomorrow. If I haven’t heard from you by 4pm today, I will give you a call.” Here are some other examples: - Please contact John on this number at this time - Please send this report here on this date - I will call you at 4pm on Monday to come see the fish - Please start this as soon as possible, I will call you on Tuesday at Lunch to see how things are progressing This step assigns accountability, adds a timeframe and a specific follow up action to get things moving straight away without additional emails back and forth. Remember: rinse and repeat these three steps for each topic in your email. ### Closing Line This is a simple line, almost a second pleasantry. Something like: - Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or issues - I will follow up shortly to check your thoughts - Thanks so much for helping me out with this - I look forward to your response ### Signature Finish off with your signature. This will include some kind of a: - Regards - Kind Regards - Thanks - Cheers Plus your name and additional contact information such as phone number, website, social media profile etc. Check out Wisestamp – an awesome free Firefox Plug-in that adds HTML signatures to any web email client such as Gmail. It includes integration and cool little icons for blogs and social media profiles. Adding this information is important because if you’ve made a good impression in your email and sparked some curiosity it allows people to go off and find out more about you. ### Conclusion This may seem like lots to integrate into every email you write, but as I mentioned, having a structure for your emails will actually increase the speed you write them once the structure is internalised. Having this kind of structure will also give people a strong first impression. Not only that you are kind, formal, structured, put in effort and courteous – but the body will be a relief for people who deal with large volumes of emails as it is telling them exactly what needs to be done. There is nothing more annoying than receiving an email that you need to respond to asking for more information before you can action it. I hope this helps you build an email structure - personalised to your own identity - that will lead to rewards in the future. Remember, some people will not remember when you write an email well, but they will certainly remember when you write on badly. So make it a habit to write awesome emails! If this Technology topic resonated, continue with The Definitive Guide to LinkedIn Recommendations.

Blog Moving to Abstract-Living.com

Vinay Patankar · 13 Apr, 2010 · Technology

As you can probably tell from the title, I have decided to move my blog (wordplaywithvinay.com) to Abstract-Living.com. If you've noticed anything weird going on here over the last day or so, this is why. I decided on this move for two key reasons: ### Personal Branding I created this blog to document my changing lifestyle and to build my personal brand. I've been reading lots about personal branding over the last couple of years (great simple resource to get you started is Colin Wright's free eBook - ExileLifestyle.com). One thing I've found about this blog is that the domain isn't very receptive to any keyword... there are some famous Indian dudes named Vinay and there is no way I am competing with them. Plus the domain doesn't really give any feel to the type of blog I am trying to represent. I have changed my personal branding page to a Posterous page with a domain of my full name vinaypatankar.com. This is already ranking second under my LinkedIn account and above my FaceBook page. I did this as more of an experiment but it seems to have paid off. I now control about half the front page of Google for the keyword "Vinay Patankar" - this blog ranks 43. Its true that I do have a unique name which makes it easier and I was lucky that my domain wasn't taken but its still nice to know that the front page is basically controlled by me. We are all going to have more and more of our lives posted on the internet. It is already becoming normal for potential employers to Google you. When I applied for the TEDxBKK event (which I was accepted for but couldn't make it to) they asked me for a public online profile. Its happening so you better get used to it. At some point, some person / organisation / institution is going to post something about you on the net, be assured of it. If that happens to be a negative comment having control over the front page of Google may save you lots of stress. ### Building the Blog This hasn't really been a serious blog. I've been traveling extensively and had other projects to work on. As mentioned above it was more of a personal branding thing. I have however decided to make a move to build this blog into something a little greater. It took me a while to decided exactly how to brand what I was interested in writing about. A sort of combination of travel, lifestyle design, technology, life hacking, social hacking, personal development and loads of other things. But I decided that I'm interested in these things because I am on a quest to build myself an abstract lifestyle. A life that is different form the standard template of life. A life of travel and exploration. Of failures, leanings and successes. A minimalism empire builder. A life where I can drink with the rich, eat with the poor and dance with the nasty. A life of EXPERIENCE. Abstract-Living will be about the things I learn on my journey of experience. Glad to see you here! M7TETTS8W5UV For another Technology angle, read Abstract Education: The Khan Academy.

Tools to Build you a New Life

Vinay Patankar · 06 Apr, 2010 · Technology

I came across a post about a week or so ago by Rob at Its an excellent collection of all the resources he's found since starting his Lifestyle Design journey. The list includes books, blogs, and tools both functional and research based. There are heaps tools way to many in my opinion to hit at once so I wanted to highlight a few that I like most and add in a few I use that he didn't mention. ### My Favourites: Evernote: This tool is amazing. It allows you to manually enter notes from your PC, iPhone, Blackbery or Web Browser in voice, photo or text. It then syncs all your devices together and stores them on the web. You can search, tag, group and do a whole bunch of stuff. There is a plugin for Firefox so you can dump straight from web pages, great of off-line reading. It also has image scanning capabilities to scan text from photos of business cards or receipts. You get a free 40mb upload per month, which is loads if you mostly use text but can fill up quickly if uploading high-res images or voice. The Google Suite: I'm not going to go through all the Google tools, but if your not using them, use a fool! Gmail, Docs, Analytics, Adwords, Calendar, Apps, Webmaster Tools, Reader, Picassa etc... I'm sure there are plenty of resources on how to make the most of these tools. They will save you loads of time and stress. Check em out. : This book simply kicks ass. Elance/oDesk: Outsourcing sites. Ebay's for services. I haven't tried oDesk, but I hear good things. ### My Additions: Dropbox: Dropbox is an application that creates a folder on your computer where you can save any kind of file. It then automatically syncs everything in that folder to the web, giving you a real-time backup of your files. You can access these from any web browser or from your iPhone. This app really gives me peace of mind and the great thing about it is once its installed, you don't have to do anything! Its just like using your documents folder. plus you get 2 GB of storage for free! Shopify: I currently run my online store using Shopify. Its a great site, really (relatively) simple to use and removes the most difficult and technical aspects (besides finding customers!) of running an online store. It has great support, loads of marking help, integration with many apps and tools such as Google Website Optimiser and Google Product Search. LinkedIn: I talk about LinkedIn here and here. Its a great tool for personal branding, networking and marketing. : This thing is awesome. Its an eBook reader. It allows you to store 1500 books and download new books from Amazon in over 100 countries. Bookmark, highlight and take notes, its a library in 6". And its really easy to read. I don't like reading books on a computer, but this is like a normal book. You can also read pdf's and word docs on it. There is lots of hype around the iPad becoming a Kindle killer, but the iPad has 10 hours batter life and the Kindle has 7 days. Hard to compete if you want to use it to read books and not watch YouTube videos. What are your favourite tools? A strong follow-up in Technology is Looking for a Co-Founder for New Startup - UI/UX.

The Coolest Bachelor Pad Toy Ever!

Vinay Patankar · 25 Mar, 2010 · Technology

Recently I was in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It was great, the city had an excellent buzz and lots of records were smashed. Canada won the most gold medals for a Winter Olympics ever, not just for the host country. They won their first gold in Canada. And of course beat the US in men’s Hockey to take home the gold. Possibly the biggest sporting game in North American history. But aside the actual games, there was lots of other cool stuff happening. I mentioned in my earlier post about the houses showing off loads of cool virtual stuff. This was in conjunction with sponsors Sony, Acer, Panasonic and Samsung. Some of the biggest names in electronics and gadgets. This brings me to the coolest bachelor pad toy ever. In the Russian house, which was a converted Science World, they had one of the coolest gadgets I have seen to date: Behold the floor projected indoor football field. (I don’t know who makes it or what it was called, but I assume it has a cooler name) I’m disappointed with the turnout of my photos of this thing. It was quite difficult to catch as it naturally projects shadows, but it was seriously cool. It’s a projector, mounted to the ceiling that displays a football field, with goals at each end and a ball in the middle. A camera (presumably infrared?) is mounted next to the projector to track interactive movements with the display. Basically, if you kick the projection of the ball on the ground, it will move. No controllers, no battery packs, no broken vases. It’s so simple, but I can easily imagine having hours of fun with that thing. It’s like twister on steroids. Straight to the top of my Amazon (if I ever settle down again and live a normal life) wish list. If this Technology topic resonated, continue with Blog Moving to Abstract-Living.com.

The Definitive Guide to LinkedIn Recommendations

Vinay Patankar · 04 Mar, 2010 · People · Technology

LinkedIn is the biggest business social network in the world. It allows you to post up a snapshot of your career and connect with relevant professionals plus a whole bunch of other cool stuff. If you don’t have an account, you should get one today. There are many different ways LinkedIn can be used to further your business or career. This post focuses on recommendations. ### What are LinkedIn Recommendations? LinkedIn has a recommendation system that allows someone to send you a recommendation and have it displayed on your profile to the public world. This system is great and can be used in the same manner as either a reference check or a testimonial only better. The reason this system is better than traditional testimonials plastered over your website or a letter from a former boss is the reference is connected to that person’s profile. So whoever is interested in your recommendations can track them back instantly and see who recommended you and how respectable they are. Another great thing about LinkedIn recommendations (as with other benefits of LinkedIn) is that they will last your whole life. A little work now will go a long way later. ### What about Fake Recommendations? When I talk to people about LinkedIn recommendations, a constant response I get is “don’t people just make them up or get their buddies to recommend them? How valuable are they really?”. To this I answer, “yes, they probably do”. Here’s the catch. The recommendation system of LinkedIn reconciles itself. If I recommend you, it is displayed on my profile that I recommended you. If I’m trying to build my personal brand and you’re a total douche bag, I’m not going to recommend you. Yes, some people may get recommendations that are illegitimate, but you can usually sus them out. Here are some situations that may raise suspicion: \- 5 people in similar positions, all recommended by the other 4. \- Recommendations from people with inactive or incomplete profiles. \- All recommendations on the same or close dates If you have recommendations from over 20 people, most who work in respectable jobs and who have something to loose from a negative personal brand, chances are they are going to be legitimate recommendations. Even if all those 20 people are your friends, you still must be a decent person to have 20 respectable people like you enough as friends to recommend you. And in that alone I believe there is merit. Now if you can get recommendations from super valuable people, even better. How do you think traceable recommendations from Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Donald Trump would look? P.S. If anybody knows them, tell them to hit me up! ### How do I Get People to Recommend Me? There are two key ways I have gotten recommendations. The first, is basically working with the buddy system I talked about above. These are people I had a good working relationship with at some point and asked them if we could swap recommendations. I knew I was good at my job, I also knew they were good at theirs so it was mutually beneficial to swap recommendations. A cheeky message of “write me a recommendation and ill write you one back” is easy to do and is win-win. But remember, you’re putting your personal brand on the line, so don’t ask people who you genuinely don’t think are good at whatever they do. The second way, and the more effective way is to ask someone for a recommendation as soon as you deliver some sort of value to them. For example, if you are a designer or freelancer and you deliver a good project to a client and they are happy with it, ask them for a recommendation. Make sure you do this straight after you deliver the work as it will still be fresh in their mind. For me, I was a head-hunter, so every time I placed someone in a job or found a client their perfect candidate, I would ask for a recommendation. You won’t get them every time you ask, but if you have done a good job, and they are happy, it’s not a big favour to ask. ### Here is the structure I use to build my connections and ask for recommendations. When I first interacted with someone new for work, whether on the phone, in person or via email I would send them an invitation to connect on LinkedIn. (Quick tip: you can send a message to someone with a free account by sending them an invitation with a short note attached. This saves you from having to pay to upgrade your account to send ‘inmails’ to people who you are not connected with) “Hi xxx It was great meeting you / speaking with you today. I would like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. Look forward to working with you in the future. Regards, Vinay” Keep it simple, and non-specific. But making sure you have everyone you’re working with on your network, the ones you do add value to are already there so asking for the recommendation down the line easier. Once you have delivered value of some sort, bring up a recommendation in a meeting. Here is an example of a conversation I’ve had after delivering value: XYZ: Vinay, I just want to say thanks for finding me this job. It’s working out really well. Me: No problems, XYZ, glad to hear you’re happy there. I want you to make sure you call me if there are any problems or if there is anything I can do to help. XYZ: Ok no problems, I will talk to you soon. Me: Oh, XYZ, there is one thing I thought of just before you go XYZ: Oh what’s that? Me: Well... I’ve done a pretty good job helping you out right? XYZ: Yes of course! Me: Well I was wondering if you could do me a small favour. It will only take a few minutes. XYZ: Sure Me: I was wondering if you could write me a recommendation on LinkedIn. We are already connected and it would really mean a lot. XYZ: Sure Vinay, no problems. Give me a few days and I will send one out. Give them 1-2 days to write the recommendation. If they haven’t done it after 2 days, go into your LinkedIn account, into recommendations and send them a “request for recommendation” message. A default template will come up, just use that. If they still don’t do it after a few days, you will need to use your judgement to decide how much you will chase them. If they are a super busy important high value person, probably best to give them a significant amount of time. Like I said, use your judgement. The “request for recommendation” message will stay highlighted in their account until they action it. I have had recommendations come through months after I sent the message, so it really is a case by case basis. ### So I have recommendations, now what? Recommendations are the most powerful tool LinkedIn has to offer if you chose to use your profile for sales pitches or as your central web profile. One you have obtained recommendations from respectable people, your profile becomes a powerful tool to give people a positive first impression of you. This is useful for job interviews, sales pitches basically any-time you meet a stranger you want to get something out of. As an example, I recently applied and was accepted to attend TEDxBKK. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend due to a last minute schedule change, but in the application process they asked for an online profile that would teach them something more about me. This was before I had my blog up and running so I used my LinkedIn profile. I’m almost certain this is what got me the invite to the oversubscribed event. So what are you waiting for? Recommend me for my recommendation to get recommendations! For another People angle, read Why LinkedIn is Awesome and you Need an Account Today!.

Why LinkedIn is Awesome and you Need an Account Today!

Vinay Patankar · 24 Jan, 2010 · Technology

It only takes one person to change your life. Plenty of people dont see the value of LinkedIn. They Say its crap and they never use it because they cant post photos of last weekends dress up party where they attended as a "tranny in custody". LinkedIn has many benefits, and yes, it’s true it may be more useful for certain professions such as sales, recruitment and entrepreneurs. But there is one undeniable benefit that should make it mandatory for everyone with even a smidgen of ambition: Networking. I know that sounds dumb. After all it’s a networking tool. But many - especially 20 something’s - don’t see the potential. Think of LinkedIn like a retirement fund. The earlier you start the more valuable it becomes. Take a hypothetical case study: You’re 21 and in your first job. In your department, there are 15 people you interact with on a regular basis. You open your account and connect with those 15 people. Legend: - Blue men = Connections - Red man = You During your time at this company (average 2-5 years) the people you work with start to move on to different companies – presumably in a similar industry. After a few years, your network will look like this: Now you have contacts in 8 different companies (including yours) that you can use as referees, for market information or to help you get a job in their new company (more on how to use your connections in the future). Pre-LinkedIn you may have stayed in touch with a few colleagues, but inevitably some would drop off your radar and become unreachable. After 4-5 years you decide to move on. You take a job at Company I and start working with 15 shiny new colleagues who join your network. As the years move on these people leave and join new companies. While that is happening, colleagues from Company A are still moving about. Suddenly, you have contacts in 17 companies. Remember, these are people you have worked with and know on a personal level. Even if you don’t speak with them for a couple of years, it’s easy to reinitiate contact. You will have their email and the company they work for. You can easily call reception and get transferred. Trying to track all these people without LinkedIn is starting to become difficult, even for the most socially proficient individuals. Then, as time moves on, you take your third job. Another 15 shiny new connections join your network. During this time, your previous colleagues continue to move in their careers, taking promotions and joining companies you may have never heard of. Here’s where it becomes messy. Are you really going to bother to track movements of all of your past colleagues? I know I wouldn’t, even with the knowledge I have. LinkedIn does it all for you. The best part? Using it in a simplistic capacity like this is about 5 hours per year of work. Adding new colleagues to your network and updating your profile with promotions and job changes. That’s all. 5 hours per year for a lifetime network. You’d be a fool not to... Now consider adding your friends, peers from university, 50 colleagues per company and you change companies every 3 years for 30 years. The numbers start to inflate. People change countries and industries. You build yourself a global network. Happy days. Remember, just because you are not ‘using’ it doesn’t mean it’s not valuable and the longer you wait, the more likely those early connections will slip through the cracks. So what are you waiting for? Join today! And while you’re at it, add me as a connection. Related read in Technology: 99 Abstract Life Hacks - Make your Life Easier Today!.