I think project management books should be on every web worker’s reading list because — like it or not — even if your job title isn’t “project manager,” you still have to manage your own portion of the projects you participate in. Even some informal grounding in project management can be helpful for those “rare” times you are pulled into help bring a failing project back to life.
“97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know,” edited by Barbee Davis, pulls together useful project management tips and insights from working project managers without the dry academic style found in many project management books, making it a great instructional read for web workers seeking to hone their PM skills. Read the rest of this entry »
Social media is becoming a must-use tool for marketing businesses of all types and sizes. Next month, well-known social media marketing consultants Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo will be publishing their comprehensive guide to social media marketing, “Friends with Benefits.” The title, while sounding gimmicky, is actually a very apt one that summarizes neatly the world that awaits in social media for companies who use the medium properly.
The guidance offered in “Friends with Benefits” is clearly tailored towards large businesses. There are repeated references to structures such as your company’s legal department, “marketing VP”, company intranet, IT department, and communications department. Bootstrapping small business owners (who are most likely to need a “self-help” book like this) may feel a little left out of the practical aspects of the advice offered here, although most of the general concepts apply to all companies, no matter what the business size. Read the rest of this entry »
I first heard the buzz on Ann Gentle’s book “Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation” last summer during the lead up to its publication, and followed it online until I was able to order it. While the target audience of the book is technical writers, the book has value to web workers of all stripes. The book is practical, up to date and isn’t just a “me too” social media tome.
Too many technical writing books and periodicals take an academic approach to the subject matter, which isn’t useful for readers who need real world advice to get their job done. Gentle’s practical approach opens the book up to anyone seeking to engage with their potential and existing customers online. Read the rest of this entry »
All but the youngest of web workers grew up learning not about email but about paper correspondence, as dictated by the likes of Emily Post. I personally learned to type on an electric typewriter in high school, and can write a perfectly polite thank you notecard thanks to the schooling of my mother.
Email didn’t become a regular part of my life until well into adulthood, and I rapidly learned there were no hard-and-fast rules governing the rapidly evolving email frontier. I had to learn with the rest of the world as the rules evolved that “all caps” was the equivalent of shouting, and that it was rude to forward everything you thought was funny to your entire address book.
As email became a more integral part of my business life, the questions about what was the correct way to use it became more complex. And yet I had no Emily Post to turn to for guidance on the correct etiquette in this new form of correspondence. Or at least I didn’t, until I found “SEND: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home” by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. Read the rest of this entry »
Chris Brogan and Julien Smith walk the walk when it comes to connecting with people online and building trust. Long before I even heard of their new book, “Trust Agents,” I was well aware of them: they both go out of their way not just to network with people online but to help those people they come across. Brogan and Smith are genuinely interested in just about everything: they’re willing to get into discussions on Twitter, their own blogs and anywhere else you find them online. Read the rest of this entry »
Community has been a big focus for me for a long time. I’ve helped companies build and manage online communities, and I even co-founded a non-profit in Portland that organizes free events for the technology community here. I also try to help people with their businesses or ideas whenever I can, and I do a fair amount of match-making to help people find the resources they need for their projects. Some of this makes me money, and some of it I do for free because I believe it’s the right thing to do. Read the rest of this entry »
I think project management books should be on every web worker’s reading list because — like it or not — even if your job title isn’t “project manager,” you still have to manage your own portion of the projects you participate in. Even some informal grounding in project management can be helpful for those “rare” times you are pulled into help bring a failing project back to life.
Using social media to promote yourself seems to be becoming more and more important for web worker, but figuring out the best was to do can be difficult. Chris Guillebeau and Gwen Bell have brought together a guide that demystifies the process: “
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
