Tom Peters on Is Your Job Safe

Here is an article I found through FT.com blog in Tom Peter's blog. The blog post is by author Raj Shetty. I do not agree with this approach of questioning yourself, more on that later. But now here is the link to the article and some of the questions

1.   Is your job core to what the company stands for?
2.  What will the company/department lose by eliminating your job?
3.  What is the assessment of your "value" in the eyes of the stakeholders?
4.  Is your job "offshorable?" 
5.  Can you handle office politics well?
   

Membership Information for Colorado Based Groups In LinkedIn

The total addressable market size if 350,000 people who are within 50 mile radius of Boulder. Here is the information on membership of top 5 groups and of course the Boulder Net group. You can see that this group has just over 1/10 of 1% of addressable market. But compared to other groups it is 12% of top ranked group. That said, the Boulder Net group is not open enrollment and I still take the time to verify that there is some Colorado connection before accepting members.

Networking Before The Hard Times Hit

As the official unemployment rate hitting a sixteen year high of 7.2% there is concern in the minds of everyone, even those who have a relatively secure job. The Government numbers on job less count are an understatement of the real unemployment count which the Barrons editorial this week says is around 750,000 as opposed to 560,000.  Many businesses have announced layoffs but have not carried them out yet, as the layoffs roll in, typically the week before or after Super Bowl, the numbers will increase.

Naturally  people are joining networking sites and groups at a higher rate. But joining these sites and having 300+ connections is not an assured way to get jobs in a short period. Networking should be more about establishing a genuine conversation with the peers in your professional circle or in your locale. You may have to invest more in your network, tending it, helping others before you can make a withdrawal. That means the time to network is not when the layoff rumors float in your office corridors but long time before that. Building your network cannot be done in an on-demand basis but rather as a continuous process.

The members of Boulder Net LinkedIn group are connected by the locale. The group brings together diverse professionals. If you have not considered connecting with people in Boulder Net group for a professional conversation it is time now.

The Next Milestone 400 Members

The Boulder Net LinkedIn group has now reached 400 members milestone. Join the group to collaborate with professionals who are local to you. If you are thinking of relocating to Boulder, network now with local professionals to ease your move.

Google Trends For Searches on Colorado

If you should do a Google search for either "Boulder Network" or "Boulder Networking", the links related to the Boulder Professionals Network group will show up in the first two pages of the search results. But does that really matter? How often do people search for these terms?
To do a comparitive analysis I used Google Trends to see the relative search volume of "Boulder Network" and compare it to other relevant searches.  To get some perspective I use "Denver Broncos" as the reference (as I expect this search to be more prevalent and more popular).  Here is the Google trend:

As you can see from the results, "Colorado Jobs" is the highest ranked search term after the most popular "Denver Broncos", with "Boulder Jobs" ranked distant third with one sixteenth of the search volume of "Denver Broncos".  Search volume for "Colorado Network" registered same volume as "Boulder Jobs".

I can safely state that search for Jobs is ranked higher than just "networking" or "social networking" specific to Colorado or Boulder. So coming up first in the Google search results mean very little if the search volume is negligible.  If I want to have a bigger impact with the pages, they should come up top for search phrase, "Colorado Jobs".

Interestingly, the search volume for "colorado relocating" is negligible, however, "Colorado Real estate" comes up comparable to "Colorado Jobs" and "Denver Broncos". If I were to use "Paris Hilton" as reference, the previously popular "Denver Broncos" is now just 1/13th of  Paris. 

Second Best Place to Retire?

U.S. News writers profile 10 healthy retirement spots around the country, and Boulder is ranked number 2.
Retire? Is that going to be good?

The list of top 10 are

1. Bella Vista, Arkansas
2. Boulder, Colorado
3. Eden Prairie, Minnesota
4. Green Valley, Arizona
5. Issaquah, Washington
6. Longmeadow, Massachusetts
7. Portland, Maine
8. Punta Gorda, Florida
9. Reston, Virginia
10. Walnut Creek, California

60% growth in the last 1 month

What a difference one month makes!
The Boulder Net Linked In Group  took six months to reach a milestone of 100 members.
But in the month of July it grew 60%, adding 60 members in 30 days.

What changed?  LinkedIn  finally added search functionality to the Groups. So when you search for Boulder, the Boulder Net shows up in the first page.

The other is the viral effect that is proportional to the number of members. As their LinkedIn status updates show that they joined the group, more people in their network see it and click on the group to join.

It will be interesting to see if this growth is just the initial bump or a sustainable one.

Google Closing Denver Offices

Blogscoped reports on Google closing its Denver (and Dallas) offices after an operational review. Google may have high cash flow and revenues, it may spend close to $54 million on food expenses to feed its employees, but it is practical in determining the business case for each office. If a location does not have a positive NPV or fit in its long term strategy, it does not to continue with it.

(quote from blogscoped)

Following an operational review, we are consolidating our offices in Dallas and Denver, as we currently have at least two offices in each of these markets. This reorganization is designed to ensure we are serving the needs of our customers, stakeholders and Googlers [Google employees] efficiently. These are the only two cities affected by this review, and all affected Dallas and Denver Googlers will be offered opportunities within the company.

Boulder Net Reaches Its First Milestone - 100 members

The group on LinkedIn was started in January and it took six months to grow to 100 members. Compared to most groups on LinkedIn this is a small group. The group could have been bigger if I had approved the requests from those "LION"s who join any and every group just to get access to LinkedIn members. I turn away those requests unless they show some Colorado in their past.

The Blog on the other hand gets no readers. It serves only one purpose now, to get Google search presence.

May be things will change in the second of this year.

Hi, I am Normal

In one of the Sponge Bob episodes, he gives up his quirks to become normal. As his behavior changes so does his contours and becomes perfectly smooth and rounded. Normal without his laugh. Normal, as in having nothing to talk about but "wonderful weather we are having". Normal, without any imperfections and sharp edges. Normal, as in boring.

In his new book How States Got Their Shapes, Mark Stein describes Colorado's borders as "boring" (compared t Maryland that has the shape of a squirt gun).

Why does Colorado have such boring borders? Disappointingly, many of the Western states fell victim to carto-conformity when Congress clipped and hacked aborning states to a rough equality of size. So Colorado was designed to have 7 degrees of longitude in width and 4 degrees of latitude in width. Stein says, "The northern and southern borders of Colorado are artifacts of something remarkable. Or perhaps they are artifacts of something we think is remarkable, but which goes on more than we realize. They are artifacts of foresight and planning by our elected representatives."