A friend of mine let me know about this opportunity. Since I am happily employed, it would be a shame not to pass it on to you, crafty Internet people. Whoever is interested, please drop a line to Mike Comstock.

Do you love finding out what the coolest things to do around town are? Love travel, food & adrenaline activities? So do we! Lime&Tonic is an exciting new online City Guide for locals covering the coolest things to do in & around town. We are now in 5 destinations with ambitious plans to roll out globally. As such, we’re looking for a number of (bi-lingual) enthusiastic people to join our growing start-up team based in Prague.

In the role of a Blogger, you will be responsible for the launch and on-going management of a new destination blog in a selected city. Your role has the potential to evolve in to launching & managing multiple city blogs and to potentially move in to a Project Manager position. As a start-up company, you should be aware that your responsibilities will most definitely change so only apply if you’re a flexible character!

The role responsibilities will initially include:

• Translating & setting up the city blog for your given destination.
• Researching & creating blog content/articles and a weekly newsletter (tied to the blog).
• Development and execution of a (creative) subscriber acquisition plan, to include a strong social media strategy such as Facebook competitions.
• Sourcing & building affiliate relationships.
• Active management of the Facebook, Twitter & any other social media channels related to the blog.
• Dealing with all advertising, promotion or related activities of the blog.
• Handling any subscriber communications & experience recommendations or leads.
• Required to hit subscriber & read rate targets.

Requirements for the position are

• Past teaching / blogging or copywriting experience is ideal.
• Must be a self-starter who takes ownership of tasks and responsibilities.
• Experience in WordPress, online marketing, SEO, etc. is a big plus!
• Fun & easy-going personality. Must like wearing flip-flops to work.
• Must be fluent in English & a native speaker in the following languages (and ideally have spent time in the city in brackets)

• Czech (Prague)
• French (Paris)
• English- American (New York / San Francisco)
• English- British (London)
• English (Mumbai / New Delhi)
• Turkish (Istanbul)
• Vietnamese (Ho Chi Minh / Hanoi)
• Indonesian (Jakarta)
• Chinese (Hong Kong / Beijing / Shanghai)

We offer both part-time or full-time work with flexible hours, and the chance for ambitious individuals to join a fun global start-up in its early days. We also have some cool bonuses, like our monthly Beer Fridays & staff draws for free Lime&Tonic vouchers, as well as a very easy-going central office environment (actually, we’re currently searching for a bigger space so let us know if you hear of anything!).

If this sounds like you, please get in touch with us. Alternatively, if you know someone who might fit the profile- recommend them to us & we’ll give you a free Lime&Tonic voucher if we end up hiring them.

As I have mentioned a couple of months ago, 2011 is a year of the first Start-up Seminar being launched at UNYP. The organisational team has selected three highly motivated individuals to work with. Who are they and why have they joined this seminar? Let’s look at them one by one.

Petar Buha

In summation: As a person never satisfied with the “normal” and the “usual”, Petar has always wanted to be the best. Having culturally diverse upbringing and drive, he makes ideas come to fruition.

Achievements thus far: Participated in an NGO focused on suppressing aggressive conflict and protection of human rights. Petar had several internships while studying.

Aspirations and aims: Petar wants to make the most of his talents and learn crucial things one can never learn in school. His particular focus is on learning how to monetize ideas and turn them into successful business ventures.

Jana Klucká

In summation: Jana is a fresh young mind possessing international experience, having lived in five different countries, and being fluent in four languages. She enjoys creative and challenging work to stretch her mind, body, and soul.

Achievements thus far: Organized and coordinated one day during a student conference of 40 participants devoted to EU-Russian cooperation in Brussels for the European Students’ Forum (AEGEE).

Aspirations and aims: To create a meaningful business by helping others to better their lives, while making a positive contribution to the society.

Martin Šlauf

In summation: A third year student of BBA with previous study and work experience from abroad who is interested in the fields of investment, finance and M&A.

Achievements thus far: Developed his leadership and team work skills by professional hockey playing and holds an MSc. in Bio-mechanical Engineering.

Aspirations and aims: Since in the Czech Republic, there is not a huge amount of junior investment positions as in the U.K. or the U.S.A., Martin would like to pursue his entrepreneurial interests in the field of investment banking or corporate finance.

I have to hand it to small businesses and start-ups. They know how to work with talent and potential. Coincidentally, that are the only things they have, so it would be a shame if they didn’t know how to utilise it.

Big corporations, on the other hand, have a plenty of human and monetary resources at their disposal. Yet, they waste employee potential, the most precious commodity they have, on pointless issues like office politics.

There is no universal advice to give regarding better utilisation of human potential, because every company has to be evaluated on an individual basis. However, here are some communication strategies that helped me to bring this issue to light and survive the ensuing dialogue regarding office politics with my superior.

• Talk in a direct manner and don’t be ashamed to name fingers and point names.
• Steer the conversation in the direction of opportunity costs and wasted potentially productive time.
• Name the game.
• Voice your personal discontent with the situation.

What works for you when you get sucked in to office politics and want to solve it with your superior?

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A couple of crazy young professionals have decided that it will be a good idea to start a semester-long seminar about creating and running a start-up business. Wanting to bridge the gap between business theory and practice, they will select a couple of motivated university students and share with them best practices of creating, running and marketing start-up companies.

The seminar will take place at UNYP and will start from 30 September 2011 until 2 December 2011 and will be followed by coaching sessions. The mentors will encourage students to start their own businesses and oversee the whole process. The point is to get the students to try out the life of an entrepreneur in a wild and uncontrolled environment (also known as the real world).

No academia, only professionals

Six interactive workshops are waiting for the students during the upcoming semester. An expert in the field will lead every session to ensure that the participants get the best return on their time investment. The lineup of the speakers will consist of Alexander Raiman, the founder of the first student consulting company in the Czech Republic or Cristina Muntean a journalist turned entrepreneur.

The missing link

I am interested in this particular seminar because of two reasons. First of all, I must disclose that it is my friends who are responsible for running this series of lectures, so I am naturally interested how they will fare. The second reason to be interested is that the seminar is offering exactly what many have been missing in their school’s curricula – hard unrefined practice. The real world where failures hurt and cost money, reputation and nerves.

The way of the future

Sure, very few colleges can offer that. Besides, the students will have to apply what they will have learnt on their own, but they are going to have strong coaches who won’t spare them constructive criticism and will help them grow. It is the coaching element that is missing in so many curricula. Nurturing talent and enthusiasm instead of educating them out of the students will ensure that Europe won’t lose its edge in the coming years when the future of the countries will lie within innovation and adaptation to new trends. But I digress.

Entries are still open…

We the marketers, be it the in-house rats or the agency hounds, live for praise. It’s our crack, ganja and crystal meth combined. Whenever my boss praises me for well-written texts or a well-executed project, my pulse jumps up to 150 and I feel like I could climb Mount Everest and still make it back to the office before the end of lunch break. Mind you, that doesn’t happen very often. Not because I am not awesome, but because she is so strict. Before I go off on a tangent, let me stress the main point of this article:

If you want to get 120% out of your subordinates or co-workers, make sure you praise them!

In our society, where resources aren’t life-threateningly scarce (we have food, shelter and relative comfort of our families), other needs kick in. You still remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, don’t you? If not, auntie Wiki will help you out. We are thinking in terms of self-actualization, so the condensed version of the theory goes like this. If the managers give you enough acclaim, you will perform better.

Walkng the thin line

However, not even praising is a universal tool necessarily leading to higher performance. It doesn’t work like a black box, into which managers put nice words and get out results. Instead of borrowing from theory, I will give you a crash course of rules and limitations for praising. Let me disclose that what works for me and a couple of hundred other people might not work for you.

If you want to increase productivity via incentivization, here is how you do it.

• Praise people for well-executed projects, in which they have applied their autonomy, mastery and purpose. Dan Pink has a great lecture about these three elements.
• The compliments must come from someone your colleagues respect, admire or aspire to. Yeah, there is a difference between winning acclaim from a janitor and a Nobel Prize winner. Who would have thought, right?
• Adhere to the rule of criticizing privately and praising publicly.
• Don’t ever be insincere when acknowledging someone’s good work. If you are, your personal as well as professional credibility will die a horrible death. It’s better not to praise than to sound insincere.

Your take on motivation?

By the way, you know this type of people who have everything you could ever wish for? They come from a good family, have a satisfying job you would kill for, enjoy financial independence and are in the middle of a stellar career. What if you get one as a co-worker or a subordinate? Tell me, do you know how to motivate them? I would try my luck with praising them. You?

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This is a guest post by John Durfee, where he tells the story of how a soldier can make a successful transition to a corporate world. John also draws a key lessons from army and applies them to the career development.

As far back as anybody in my family talks about, the men have been involved in the armed forces. Personally, I always loved the military. I was the kind of kid that would show up to class in an army helmet. I idolized the members of the armed forces, but of course, none more than my dad. My father was a career Marine, as was his father and his father before him. Proudly following in their footsteps, not a week out of high school I marched with my pop down to the recruitment office and signed up – keeping the family legacy alive and becoming one of those American heroes I dreamt of becoming as a child.

You’re in the army now

After I joined, I was extremely successful in the military. I ought to have been after having grown up with a D.I. – I’d been training since I could crawl! After two terms of service, I had reached the rank of Gunnery Sergeant at the prime age of 26 and I had a beautiful wife and daughter. Upon returning home from my third deployment in the middle east, my second term was coming to an end and I had decided not to reenlist. It was time for me to take my skills to the white-collar battlefield.

Back to basics?

When I first began hunting for a job, I was quickly discouraged. I took a look at my experiences and as a career rifleman, I didn’t feel like I had a whole lot under my belt to offer anybody as a civilian. On top of that, I had worked hard to get the rank of Gunny in 8 years. “Do I really have to start at the bottom of the food chain again?”

Army and the corporate world – not so different

The answer is no. While my survival and combat skills obviously don’t directly translate to the corporate world, values like clear communication, overall awareness, and leadership that were instilled in me by the military sure do carry over. It’s easy to get discouraged, especially in today’s job market, but I just remembered my training and strength that Uncle Sam gave me helped me through civilian life the same as it helped me through the military. Three qualities in specific that every troop learns in boot were especially helpful in the search for a civilian career:

1. The camaraderie that every member of the armed forces feels with one another and the respect paid by the general public was a huge benefit in my search for a job. I was in several job interviews where the interviewer mentioned “Oh, wow gunnery sergeant. My brother was in the army.” It’s an instant leg up on other applicants and gives me a great feeling to keep on trying.
2. The discipline that gets beaten into every one of us to stay on task and get it done in an efficient and timely matter. There were plenty of distractions, but I just kept on keeping on. Gotta get that job. Just like combat or even PT, you just keep going till it’s done. Additionally, I have the the discipline of years of military drilling to follow my chain of command and lead an efficient work place.
3. Lastly, an overall awareness to know myself and my team, know their skills and know our limitations. I was able to properly apply myself and my resources in an effective manner to avoid wasting my time and energy on dead ends or lost causes. Once I landed the job I wanted, I utilized this skill as a manager to push my team to their potential without burning them out.

Operation Freedom War veteran John Durfee is employed at Airsplat, the USA’s largest retailer of Airsoft Guns and Airsoft Pistols.

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It’s good to have goals. It’s good to have objectives. But it’s absolutely essential to have dreams. When you dream, dream BIG dreams. That’s what I’m doing – I’m dreaming big time. Yes, this is going to be an article falling into the category of “bucket list” posts. Without further ado, here we go.

TOP 3 things to do before I turn 25

1. Enroll into and successfully finish MA studies
2. Do PR and marketing on the side of the client
3. Create a memorable marketing campaign

Long-term planning

• Find a marcomms-related job outside of the Czech Republic
• Profile myself in financial services industry, should I stay in CZ
• Leave CZ for a while to gain experience in PR and marketing communications somewhere else

Do you ever wonder why people fill the Internet with this crap? All right, since you made it through the post all the way here, you deserve an explanation.

It’s all about public commitment – stating your goals publicly will help you to achieve them. Given that more people know about them and might hold you accountable for achieving them, you will work harder and focus more attentively. The trick works even if the people you tell this to are hidden behind computer screens and thousands of miles away from you. Ruining your public image by seeming inconsistent is a good enough incentive to work very hard and achieve the set of goals you have had created.

Thus, the reason why people post these things is to motivate themselves. The very thought that someone could in the future hold you accountable does the trick.

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This post was also published in a blog of UNYP Communication Think Tank alumni at iHNed.cz. For its Czech version, head there as well.

Everyone who has had a chance to work for a communications agency or an in-house PR department knows that the reality is very different from what the academicians teach us in the hallowed halls of knowledge. Even though the communications practitioners see the academicians as disjointed from reality of the industry, not everything the teachers try to hammer into the students’ young minds is useless. I will try to illustrate the strong and the weak points of vocational education as we know it today.

You can’t replace experience

“Experienced PR people rely on experience when doing their job.” That sounds like a monstrous cliché, right? Unfortunately, it is one of the deepest truths in communications the industry. When it comes to solving communication-related problems, planning campaigns and defending lost causes, no formal education will help you to succeed. What will make a difference, though, is practice. As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out, in order to master a particular task or discipline, you have to practice it properly for about ten thousand hours. Only then you will become an expert.

Soft skills and contemplation – the benefits of education

The aforementioned argument feeds into a question: “Why bother with education when the true mastery lies in practice?” The professional life teaches you to plan and execute campaigns and do your best to make them successful. On the other hand, the academic experience gives you a chance to stop, think about what you are doing and see it from a different perspective. It allows you to ask “Why are we doing business this way?” and gives you time, resources and motivation to contemplate it properly.

You begin developing much-needed soft skills during academic life. It also equips you with a useful rule regarding social systems – every one of them is different but similarities exist across the board. A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought that persuading your advisor to change your schedule follows a similar pattern to soliciting your agency’s remuneration with a client? Even though these situations are similar, they differ in details and no education can prepare you for them. Transition from academic to professional environment feels like being dropped in a minefield and provided with a survival manual but not knowing the exact location of the landmines.

Applied ethics is the painful spot

Educational system has a crucial role in providing the students with ethical essentials, yet many universities fail in this aspect. All we are left with after receiving our diplomas is knowledge that conflict of interests is bad and we should try to avoid it. In fairness, no model of ethics can anticipate what is awaiting you out there. However, schools dedicate so little time to applied scenarios and uncovering the world behind the scenes.

It is bound to happen that a fresh graduate will be asked to do something unethical one day or another. Instead of determining that such task is unethical and making an informed decision according to his or her moral compass, the fresh practitioner deems it to be a standard procedure. What’s worse, the tempted cannot justify his reasoning for refusal, while the devil’s advocate usually cites a multitude of reasons to succumb and usually does so in a canny way. We could really use some help from the academic sector on this one.

Judging from experience I’ve gathered so far, there are disconnects and gaps between communications theory and practice. I contend that some of them cannot be solved by education, while others can. Case in point: applied ethics. Universities offering vocational degrees in communication should focus more on helping the students to apply ethical principles to real life. That is the path to 21^st century enlightenment – strong principles grounded in theory and enforced in practice.

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You got laid off. Or you quit the job you really hated. That’s a fact and nothing else matters. The question is “What are you going to do now?” You know the job ads and recruitment campaigns telling you that joining a Fortune 500 company is easier than breathing. These campaigns have a very simple message. “If you at least roughly fit the desired profile, soon enough, you will be enjoying your shiny new cubicle and a salary three times higher than your previous one.” Given this representation of reality, how hard can job hunting be?

It’s the insecurity, stupid!

Starting from a scratch and finding a new job  is never easy and the road to the new employment is filled with perils. The leading negative factor that contributes to professional failure is insecurity often followed by despair. Even though it doesn’t seem so, people get desperate in the process of searching for new employment. In order to find out why, let’s look at the process of job hunting from two perspectives.

Employers’ perspective

Companies create job ads because they need to solve a problem and do it fast. If they don’t, their human capital would shrink and the profits would suffer. In order to make a good decision, they write the ads in general and sometimes even vague language. That gives them a large pool of people who think “I can do this job!” to choose from. The more of the applicants, the higher the chances for picking the right match. General language of the job description is a tool to lure in more people who might possess the right potential.

Job hunters’ perspective

The job hunters often ignore that the employer already has an exact idea of what kind of skills, abilities and mindset are needed for the job and what track record the employee should have. Furthermore, a majority of the applicants get lured in by the relative vagueness of the job ad, don’t do their research and don’t network right. Therefore, the companies reject them because they aren’t a good enough match. In the end result, unemployment unnecessarily prolongs, which leads to feelings of insecurity.

This also has a negative impact on your financial situation. The income stream is drying up, you get nervous about the rejection rate and start overanalysing things, often isolated from everybody else. What if I’m not good enough? What if I screwed up at the interview? What if the HR person doesn’t like me? This doubt results into full-fledged insecurity followed by despair. Failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Quitting the rat race

Now that you can see both perspectives, it is apparent that you know what to do and what not to do.

• Do your research about the position and network properly.
• Call the HR person and ask him further about the position in question.
• Take any job you can get your hands on (data entry, freelance writing, call centre) in order to maintain some stream of income.
• Attend networking events and get out. Don’t isolate yourself!
• Don’t take failure personally.

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“Meetings are toxic!” claims the book called Rework! (key lessons here). It is a necessary evil to everyone who works in a corporation or a moderate-sized company. Here is a set of guidelines that you can use to turn a disastrous meeting to a highlight of all participants’ days.

Prepare refreshments

Volunteer to put the coffee to the coffee machine two weeks before the crucial meeting and make sure only decaffeinated material is loaded into the machine. After two weeks, when the meeting is about to start, prepare very strong espresso for every attendee as an incentive. That ensures everybody’s full attention during all presentations.

Avoid confusion

Send agenda of the meeting to everybody in advance. Preferably, as an Excel spreadsheet, where all the information is written on the 55th sheet, in a cell with coordinates IS 1297. Use a similar strategy for the agenda and notes distribution. White font on a white background is a must.

Get down to business early

Start the meeting with introducing all members present. This is particularly effective if you are running short on time. Include your colleagues’ nicknames, and if you have a PowerPoint presentation ready, display the most embarrassing photos from their childhood.

Motivate the attendees

When it comes to making a crucial decision about an important project, put it as the last point of the agenda right after 2 hours long presentation on “Deterministic implications of International Monetary Fund’s policies on our company – Prognosis for the year of 2057.” Then lock the door and order a lot of pizza to be delivered in front of the board room. Make sure that everyone smells the food and claim that you are not striving for a consensus on the important decision, not a compromise.

Let the adrenaline flow

Obtain a pistol similar to ones that are used to start cross country races. This gadget is extremely handy for moments of total despair or boredom. In case nobody wants to listen to you, threaten to commit a suicide. If it doesn’t work, point the gun directly at the skeptic.

Do you know of any other ways of having a fabulous meeting? Share them in your comments!

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