Friday, November 4, 2022

استشراف المستقبل وسيلة لتحقيق صناعة اسمها المستقبل


 

قبل اكثر من مائة عام كانو يقولون ان الثري هو من يمتلك سيارة والفقير من يمتلك حصاناً ، ولكن في ايامنا هذه اكتشفنا ان من يمتلك السيارة هو الفقير وان الغني هو من يمتلك حصاناً . اذن المستقبل ذلك المجهول الذي لم نعرف عنه شيئ فقط في افلام الخيال العلمي ، ولكنا في الواقع لا نعرف الى أين يتجه هذا المستقبل؟ وماذا علينا أن نتوقع منه؟ وماهي المخاطر والفرص التي يحملها؟ والأهم هو كيف يكون لنا دور فيه؟

لقد اصبح التفكير المبكِّر فيما سيأتي مستقبلا ً أكثر أهمية من أي وقت مضى، بسبب التسارع في وتيرة التغيرات التكنولوجية والاجتماعية. ففي الماضي كان معظم البشر يعيشون في مجتمعات متقاربة، واتبعوا ببساطة خيارات الحياة التي سَنَّها لهم آباؤهم وأجدادهم.

لذا نقول ان استشراف المساقبل لا يُعَد ُّ تنبؤاً، والمستقبل ليس قدرا ً غامضاً، مثل بركان أو اعصار، ولكنه قدر نَصنعه أو نُشارك في صناعته، فالتفكير والابتكار هو أساس صنع المستقبل، أو العمل على إنشائه على النحو الذي نطمح إليه ونتمناه، وإذا فَشِلَت التوقعات، فذلك يعني فَشَلَنا في الرؤية والتخطيط، وليس فشل التفكير المستقبلي كمبدأ أو منهج أو فكرة أو عملية أساسية يجب إدخالها في العمليات الإدارية، فضلا ً عن التخطيط الاستراتيجي

مفهوم استشراف المستقبل 

استشراف المستقبل هو اجراء عملي وممارسات تنطوي على استقراء التوجهات العامة في حياة الناس، التي تُؤثِّر بطريقة أو بأخرى في مسارات الأفراد والمجتمعات، ولا يَهْدف الاستشراف إلى التَكَهُّن بتفاصيل أحداث المستقبل لتلك الأفراد أو المجتمعات وإنما يهدف إلى رسم ُ نَهْج ٍ استباقي واعتماد سيناريوهات يُمكن تحويلها إلى واقع ملموس يرتقي بالعمل المؤسسي على أُسُس ٍ ومعايير مبتكرة تعود بنتائج ملموسة وايجابية لتحقيق أعلى معدلات رضا المتعاملين، وتحديد الاتجاهات بعيدة المدى التي تؤدي الى زيادة في عائد الاستثمار واستدامة في ديمومة نجاح تلك المؤسسة

لذا عندما نتكلم عن عملية الاستشراف في المؤسسة، فاننا نقصد مجموعة من الفعاليات والاجراءات التي تعمل على تحديث الخطط الاستراتيجية من اجل تحسين عملية صنع القرار، والغاية من هذا التحديث في تلك الخطط ونماذج الاعمال هو تهيئة المؤسسة لمجموعة من الاحتمالات وصياغة توقعات مشروطة، من خلال خلق حلول والتي يُعتقد انها مناسبة لمواجهة مشكلات وتحديات محتملة والتي قد تؤثر سلبا على عمل المؤسسة، وبالتالي تكون الجهة او المؤسسة وحتى الحكومات في موقف افضل اقتصادياً واجتماعياً في المستقبل. لكن السؤال الحقيقي هو كيف لنا أن نقوم بعملية استشراف المستقبل بشكل علمي ومنهجي سليم. مع الأخذ بعين الاعتبار التدابير الواجب اتخاذها وتصحيح الانحرافات إذا حدثت

في الحقيقة، لا يوجد مستقبل واحد مرتبط بعمل او بتوجهات الشركات او المؤسسات، وانما هنالك مجموعة من الاحتمالات التي قد تحدث في المستقبل. لذا مهمة الاستشراف هو الأستعداد لكل تلك الاحتمالات المطروحة من خلال قراءة صحيحة للبيانات المتوفرة عند تلك المؤسسة او الشركة، ومن ثم البدء بجمع المعلومات المستقبلية وصقل البيانات المتوفرة وتحسين العمليات والتي تساعد على وضع رُؤْى مُتوسطة وطويلة الأجل تهدف إلى اتخاذ قرارات قابلة للتنفيذ في الوقت الحاضر، ولا يسعى الاستشراف فقط إلى تحديد المخاطر، ولكن يعمل أيضاً على إيجاد فرص المستقبل لاقتناصها.

فالاستشراف في حقيقة الامر ليس علم التنجيم او اللعب بالبيضة والحجر لوضع تكهنات وأحتمالات غير مدروسة، بل هو علم اصبح يوازي اليوم العلوم الاخرى واصبح له مادة تُدرس في كثير من الجامعات وله قواعد وأصول. واصبحت الدول تعتمده كاستراتيجية يتم وضعها وبناءها من خلال رسم ُ نَهْج استباقي واعتماد سيناريوهات يُمكن تحويلها إلى واقع ملموس يرتقي بالعمل المؤسسي على أُسُس ومعايير مبتكرة، ترتكز على النتائج المُحَقَّقَة لتحقيق أعلى معدلات رضا المواطن اولا والدولة ثانياً.

اذن ما هو استشراف المستقبل؟

تم تعريف استشراف المستقبل من خلال رؤية الاتحاد الأوروبي على أنه: "عملية منهجية تَشاركية تَقوم على جمع المعلومات المستقبلية ووضع رُؤْى متوسطة وطويلة الأجل تهدف إلى اتخاذ قرارات قابلة للتنفيذ في الوقت الحاضر"

وانا استطيع تلخيص مفهوم استشراف المستقبل بالاتي

هو ممارسات تعمل على النظر في تطورات المستقبل واحتياجاته، والقدرة على إدراك الأبعاد المستقبلية، ومن ثم خلق فرص حقيقية تكون مواجهة لتحديات مستقبلية قد تواجه المؤسسة او الشركات من خلال عملية اسستكشاف للغموض القادم من المستقبل بناء على مؤشرات وبيانات حاضرة، يتم على اثرها تحديد الاتجاهات وبناء الخطط المستقبلية لتك الشركات والمؤسسات وكذلك الحكومات

بمفهوم ابسط : في الحروب يكون هنالك جهد استطلاعي لفرق معينة تقوم بعمل استخباري من خلال جمع المعلومات والقراءات للحالة الانية لموقف الحرب والتحديات التي قد تواجه الطرف الاول وما هي الموارد والامكانيات المتوفرة لهذا الطرف، ومن ثم تبدا الممارسات والخطط لوضع احتمالات مستقبلية تستطيع من خلالها الطرف الاول من مواجهة اي تحركات قد تاتي من الطرف الاخر خلال المستقبل المنظور لمواجهة العدو – مختصر مبسط

وعندما اتكلم عن "المستقبل المنظور" فانا اقصد المستقبل الذي بدأ بالفعل ولكنه لم يصل بعد، مثل القطار الذي تحرك من محطة (ِِ1) ويسير إلى الأمام وسيصل إلى محطة (2). ومثال ذلك عدد السكان المتوقع خلال سنة، المستوى التعليمي للطلبة خلال السنتين القادمة، التوجه الاقتصادي في مجال الطاقة خلال الخمس سنوات القادمة.

اذن نستطيع القول ان استشراف المستقبل هو القدرة على النظر في تغيرات المستقبل وتوقعاته، والقدرة على إدراك تلك التغييرات والأبعاد المستقبلية، والعمل على خلق فرص جديدة وتشكيل نماذج اعمال تتماشى مع التغييرات المستقبلية المتوقعة وتشكيل مستقبل جديد اكثر فاعلية يخدم توجهات الشركات والمؤسسات خارج حدود إطار قدراتها الحالية


علماُ ان هنالك فرق بين استشراف المستقبل والتخطيط الاستراتيجي حيث أن الاستشراف يمتد الى اكثر من 10 سنوات أي انه تخطيط طويل المدى ويعتمد على التخيل والابتكار ويعد مدخل من ضمن مدخلات التخطيط الاستراتيجي ويركز تماما على التوجهات المستقبلية، أما التخطيط الاستراتيجي فهو من خمس الى عشرة سنوات أي انه تخطيط قصير المدى و هو تخطيط تشغيلي و تنفيذي ويعد مخرج من مخرجات الاستشراف، كما انه يركز بشكل بسيط على التوجهات المستقبلية.

ان المستقبل هو ملك لمن يستعد له ويساهم في تصميمه وصناعته، لذا فان استشراف المستقبل كما وضحت انفاً هو ليس تنبؤًاً ولا تنجيماً بل هو منهجية علمية من يمتلكها ويعمل على تطبيقها سيتمكن من النجاح في المستقبل ويصبح لاعباً أساسياً فيه.

"استشراف المستقبل ليس مصمماً لحل مشكلاتك الحالية، بل انه مصمم ليصنع فارقا في عالمك"

ما هي المراحل الزمنية لاستشراف المستقبل

اولا: المستقبل القريب: هي المرحلة الزمنية الاكثر ارتباطا بالتحطيط قصير المدى ( من 1 الى 5 سنوات في المستقبل)

ثانيا: المستقبل المتوسط: هي المرحلة الزمنية الاكثر ارتباطا بالتخطيط المتوسط المجى ( من 6 الى 10 سنوات)

ثالثا: المستقبل البعيد: هي المرحلة الزمنية الاكثر ارتباطا بالتخطيط طويل المدى ( من 10 سنوات فما فوق)

استشراف المستقبل وثقافة التغيير

التغيير كمصطلح هو ظاهرة طبيعية، ولكن إذا كان التغيير بدون إدارة لتوجيهه تَحول إلى عشوائية مما يؤدي الى الفوضى والتخبط في ادارة الامور وعدم الاستقرار في القرارات. إن التغيير وسيلة وليس غاية، وإذا تم التغيير بغية تقليد الغير أو التغيير المجرد من الغاية فإنه يُصبح حركة بدون معنى لا يَتْبَعُها تَقَدُّ م على طريق التطوير، ولا يُمكن التصور أن يتم التغيير دون توفر المعلومات اللازمة وفي الوقت المناسب.

لذا ان التغييرات الحاصلة في العالم قد اثرت في معظم نواحي الحياة، وإن استشراف المستقبل بهذه التغيّرات يُساعد المؤسسات في تَخطي الكثير من العقبات ، حيث أن التغيير المتسارع الذي حدث في الآونة الأخيرة للعالم في مجمل نواحي الحياة أثر مباشرة في الممارسات المختلفة، والتي من بينها الممارسات الإدارية وطبيعة العلاقات التنظيمية، لاسيما في ظل التطورات التقنية المتسارعة والتحول الرقمي وكذلك تحديات ازمة كورورنا وأبعادها اللامحدودة، الأمر الذي أبرز حاجة ملحة إلى التنبؤ بمستقبل المؤسسات كونها جزء من نظام محلي ضمن نظام عالمي أشمل يؤثر في نشاطات وخطط واستراتيجيات تلك المؤسسات، وبما ينعكس على المنظومة الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والسياسية والتعليمية والصحية والبيئية، حيث شملت إستراتيجية استشراف المستقبل مجالات عدة منها: 

مستقبل رأس المال البشري

مستقبل التكنولوجيا والأنظمة الذكية

مستقبل الاستدامة والبيئة وتغير المناخ

مستقبل البنية التحتية والمواصلات

مستقبل الصحة

مستقبل التعليم

مستقبل الطاقة

مستقبل الاقتصاد والامن الاقتصادي والتجاري

مستقبل الموارد المالية

مستقبل الأمن المائي والغذائي

قياس مؤشرات استشراف المستقبل

يتضمن النموذج العام لقياس مؤشرات خطوات استشراف المستقبل وفقا ً لمنظور «فورس» من خلال أربعة مستويات، تتمثل بما يلي:-

المدخلات: ما الذي يَحدث الآن؟

التحليلي: مالذي فعليا سوف يحدث؟

التفسيري: ما يحدث الان حقاً

المحتمل حدوثه: مالذي قد يحدث؟


لذا ان استشراف المستقبل والاستعداد للمتغيرات المحتملة في السنوات القادمة بما فيها من تطورات وتحديات ليس هو عامل تكميلي للحكومات، بل هو جزء اساسي اليوم لعمل جميع الحكومة والمؤسسات؛ لأن الحكومات الغير المستعدة للمستقبل ستهدر بلا شك سنوات وثروات وهي تعاني وبالتالي سوف ينعكس على مستقبل شعوبها واقتصادها .

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Wait! Do You Have A Web Strategy For Your Website?

Developing or creating a new website for your business without a website strategy is like someone who is trying to run a business without a business plan. Having a web site strategy and working to evaluate the results of your strategy will make sure you are meeting or achieving your business objectives/ goals and help insure your web site's success. 
 
A quick search with Google, Yahoo! or any of the search engines will reveal millions of web sites, the majority of which were created with a focus on publishing content about a business or product, with little thought of how practical the web site really is or what the site is supposed to do.
 
Today I would like to concentrate on two elements should be taken into consideration when we build website strategy Wants vs. Needs It's important to distinguish between wants and needs and focus on functionality necessary to reach specific business goals with your web site. 

From my perspective I would say we should have a clear vision when we plan to create a website and identifing customer or client needs.

Developing a marketing strategy is not just limited to your web site goals, but your overall marketing plan and what advertising, marketing and customer service goals are best suited for your web site. 

More often than not, a web site is treated as an afterthought without a specific purpose beyond offering basic company information and an e- mail form. We view a web site as an interactive extension of a company, with few limitations. 
Setting Web Site Goals.

The first step is to list all the specific tasks you want your website to accomplish. Besides offering a potential customer information about your company services, what should your web site "do?" 

Should your website help you to accomplish E-commerce? Serve students for online learning? Distribute information to your customers? Offer customer service? Should your web site be used as a recruitment tool? Or for advertising and promotion?  

Creating a list of priorities  

The most important thing to consider when building a website, is the end user and what he/she wants. To this end, it's important to create user personas, a set of imaginary people that describe the end user or users of the site. Personas allow us to create user-centric designs and ensure that we focus on and empathize with the people we are endeavoring to reach. In practical terms, a user persona is quite similar to a character sheet in a role-playing game.

As you list what you want your site to do, prioritize the list into three categories: 

1) Primary, "must do" goals, how we help persona achieve goals
2) Secondary, "it would be nice if . . ." and what we should do to describe our solution to persona
3) Next phase, "if we have to postpone this, it wouldn't hurt us."  When grouping your web site goals, keep in mind the one overwhelming reason for having a web site in the first place and compare it to each of the goals as you prioritize them.  

After establishing clearly what a client's stated web site goals should be, we compare these goals with a client's expectations regarding their web site, current Internet technology and their marketing and advertising plan.  Separating wants and needs. 

Ordering Web Site Priorities  

Having your priorities outlined and your goals detailed will help you to determine what you really need. Go through your priority list and measure it against your web site goals. If a web site feature you want will help you to accomplish a specific task then include it as long as it utilizes Internet technology or browser technology that is widely supported by today's browsers.  

If you have items on your list that don't match your web site goals well, it's probably a good idea to hold off implementing them. Finally, having a priority list will make it easier to decide what to include or exclude in your web site when working within a limited web site budget.  

10 Tips for a Great Web Site 

1) Making great first impressions is important and your web site may be the first exposure to your company a potential customer experiences. Strike a balance between content and design. 

2) Avoid focusing exclusively on graphic design rather than making the web site useful. Give your web site visitors a reason to visit your site often.  

3) Create simple navigation. Design your site so your users can go from one page to any other page. Avoid navigation schemes that rely on the user having to search for a secondary navigation menu or having to use their browser's "back" button in order to navigate. 

4) Work on creating a web design that will respond to various screen sizes. This means the layout will change based on the visitor's screen size, and on smaller screens 

5) Distribute your web site information on several pages so the user does not have to scroll often. By distributing your photographs and graphics over several pages, your pages will load faster.
 
6) Know who is coming to your site and how your site is being used on a monthly or quarterly basis. This information will be invaluable for updating or refocusing your site to better serve your target market or customers. 

7) Update your site frequently and create a reason for your web site users to keep coming back. Repeat visits give you an opportunity to repeat your marketing message.  

8) Capture information with your web site. Use forms, offers and promotions to get your web site users to tell you who they are and what they are interested in. Not only will this help you to design a more useful web site, collecting e-mail addresses can allow you to notify customers and potential customers about new products or services. 

9) Review your web site goals quarterly. As the Internet evolves and as new technology becomes mainstream, it is good to review the purpose of your site and the usefulness of new tools and implement these new tools when they make sense.  

10) Avoid "do-it-yourself web site design." Yes, there are programs that let you build your own web site. If you don't have experience in graphic design or producing professional web sites, hire a web development company with proven abilities to help you. 

Thank You!

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Legends of Chima & Agile User Stories

Adoption of Agile practices in project management is growing at an astonishing rate- roughly 10% per year. As company or organization you need to prepare for significant challenges in order to switch from waterfall to an agile. But all of us know that waterfall project management has served us well for many years. So why change now? Well, Waterfall project management is effective. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and many companies continue to use it. The key difference between Agile and Waterfall is the type of process control in use.

From my perspective, the number one key difference between Waterfall and Agile is the ability to respond to the evolving business needs immediately. This is the big deal. This is why so many companies are adopting Agile.

Let us first define an Agile in a way that we can understand it properly. Agile is a software development methodology in which the process of development occurs through short increments. The requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams

Therefore, to adopt agile approach at your workplace, your team needs to practice and make a strong commitment to change. Becoming a professional agile team means re-engineering the way they think about work. Agility is a mindset that can be improved and not perfected.

I will give an example; I have an online shopping issue. I have decided to buy the latest computer items everything online which include (ATX tower, Power Supply, CPU, video card). I mean everything, even the monitor. It's fast, easy, inexpensive, and convenient, so what's the problem? Well, the problem is assembly. I'm not very hardware guy inclined. I can muddle my way through, but the bigger problem is that I don't have all the tools. Without the right tools and skills, it's harder to successfully assemble my purchases. In the same way, your agile project needs the right tools and the right skills to succeed.

To fulfill these needs and skills, you'll need the following full-time roles: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developer, Business Analyst, or BA, Quality Assurance Analyst, or QA, a Database Analyst, or DBA, and Subject Matter Experts, or SMEs. These team members can be loosely divided into two units, the Customer Unit and the Development Unit. While they serve separate purposes, they are one team.

The Scrum Master role is much more practical. He will spend most of his time removing obstacles for the team and ensuring they have a great work environment. The product owner should have a direct line of communication with the customer. He works closely with the final users of the product and determine the work for the rest of the team. The product owner works with the development team to create the requirements for the end product through the use of “user stories”

This is phrase looks weird, but frankly speaking it is amazing! User stories are short descriptions of application functionality from the perspective of the user. They are small and are generally written in the same format. I usually say, user stories like Lego Game, developers will create an awesome model and write a convincing project description to build the Legends of Chima!

Well, the first segment of the Story tells the team who will be using it. This is important because if you're not focused on the right User, you won't provide the right product. The second part of the Story is very simply what needs to be built. So all these collection of user requirements will be stored in the product backlog, to be developed as the project continues.

The backlog is a ranked list of all the functions and features that the customer would like to see in the final product.

The user stories follow the general pattern of:
I, role, want to be able to, functionality, so I can, reason.
An example would be, "I, as a student, want to be able to pay tuition online so I can register for classes." Or “As a Database Administrator, I should be able to revert a selected number of database updates so that the desired version of the database is restored. “ In traditional development methodologies, a requirements document is usually developed first and lists all requirements that team will be working on until the project is complete.

In Agile development, there is no large requirements document because the specifications of the project can change easily as the technology changes or new ideas are presented.
They are easy way of taking care of customer requirements without the need to make formal requirement document and without the need to perform tasks which are about administering and maintaining them

There are many benefits to using user stories over a more traditional requirements document, including:

Simplicity

User stories are simple and fast to write, both the customer and the team can describe the exact requirements (Functional and Non-Functional) without using, multiple long descriptions of the task that they want to achieve.
This simplicity will contribute to the process because the customer does not need to know the technical aspects of his requirements, the simplicity in writing user stories will help him to use a basic language to reflect his functional needs.

Written by the customer

User stories based on the customer requirements that knows what he wants to get at the end of each iteration. This allows the scrum team to communicate directly with the customer (or with the product owner that represent him) to get a better understanding of the real needs and what they should deliver.

Easy to Prioritize

Once the user stories added to the product backlog, the product owner with the team has the opportunity to understand which stories are more important to the customer. Following this basic approach, the PO and the team can prioritize the important user stories first; this prioritization will guarantee that the team will deliver the most important user stories first which will lead to happy customers. This will also help drive understanding with clear and concise explanations of the problems a user faces.

Communication

User stories are a great way to increase the communication among the team members, and between the team and the product owner, a good user story will enable the relevant stakeholders to make a real conversation about the requirements and expectations of the customer.

Collaboration

The team will review each story during the sprint "Planning" meeting, this will increase the discussion between the team members (Especially when the need to make the requirements analysis) so they will increase the knowledge prior to implementation.

All in one

Each user story contains all the relevant information that the team members need to start the implementation (Acceptance criteria, Requirement specification and done criteria) without searching different parts of the data between multiple resources.

Commitment

User stories will allow the team to evaluate each story so they can determine the work effort prior to taking any commitment during a sprint.
Your future planning efforts will bring the team to near-term, committed deliverables. User stories is a stage that assure your stakeholders they will get committed plans from the team
 Thank you!


Sunday, February 18, 2018

6 Keys to Building a Successful User Experience

I have talked about user’s experience in one of my articles and I explained what the benefit of adopting UX when start creating the website for your business! In this article I would like to take about two things that can build or break the user’s experience and has negatively or positively impact to your business: copy and design. They are both essential and equally responsible for guiding the user through the steps of how to use your product. Great writing can enhance the user experience, just as subpar instructions can hamper your otherwise wonderful UI.

Here are 6 keys that leads to a great user experience:

1. Present it in simplicity

No matter what the technology that your product has or how sophisticated its features, always think of how your user think and try break things down to the lowest common denominator. Use simple language so that the average person (without technical training) can understand. Don’t use advance technical language to present your product and then trying to explain what it means–the more technical and specific you get, the less likely the reader will stick with you. Communicate the absolute minimum information your reader needs to understand the major components of the product and how to use it.

2. Nab your instructions

If your website offers online services or it is an application, dont go with repetitive instructions as it is come up with counterproductive. Don't repeat information on the tenth step in case they didn't read it in the first. Instructions are like training wheels on a bike: the goal is not to need them after some time. The design of the product should allow it to become self-explanatory after some initial instruction. 

3. Become one with the product

UX writing differs from content writing. Content writing is about creating a voice that readers can relate to. UX writing is about creating the best possible way for someone to understand how to use and enjoy a product or the services in your website. UX writing should reflect the product and its features, not the writer’s vision of the product or their opinion. For example, imagine teaching someone to left-click on the tools tab. You may say, “Easily left-click on the tools tab for an awesome experience.” Or you could simplify and say, “Left-click on the tools tab.” The less convoluted the instructions, the easier the action seems.



4. Start your FAQs as a user

Predict the questions users might ask and address them in your descriptions. Product testing, user comments and experiences will all help you identify any potentially confusing stages in using your services on your website. Integrate these questions into your instructions. For example, if people are used to study in traditional classroom, but your business service is to offer online learning community, point that out as one of its features before you have to respond to 50 messages asking how they can reach you and come by the institution or attend the classes. You want to be sure to give the user a heads up about the way your product may be different from what they’re used to. Anticipate questions and seed within your instructions to avoid future headaches.

5. Make sure that your content is being read

We can spend a lot of time to produce great content, no matter how efficient your workflow is. As the old saying goes, time equals money, and it only makes sense to get as much out of your content as you can. Good and useful content will yield vastly different results from your users. As we know it is hardly to anyone to start at the top of the page and read every single word until get to the bottom. We’re going to scan to find the essential information, so make your page scan-friendly. Provide users a visual that is easy on the eyes, no small print or hard to read fonts. Make sure the color of the text is compatible with the color of the background so that it doesn't strain the eye.

6. Use “You” secret’s word

Finally, using “you” instead of “we” is an easy technique to create intimacy between you and the user. Simply put, saying “you” makes the reader feel you’re talking to them. Using “we” on the other hand, makes them feel like they’re listening to you talk about yourself. Ex: “You’ll be able to organize your notes and ideas more efficiently with Evernote.” vs. “We at Evernote have created a revolutionary way to organize notes and ideas.” The first one tells the user about how they can benefit from your product. The second one tells them how clever you and your team are. Which one will get them to sign up? Exactly.

Saturday, February 6, 2016

4 Milestones Then Get A Job

First Milestone: Create Your resume

Because there's so much you could do to find your next job, it's all the more important to decide what you should do, where you would like to apply and how to sell your image. Today I've created a handy plan-of-action you can use to document your notes and needs so they're all organized and in one place. This is a document I recommend that you fill out and keep with you in case you are looking to improve your job's profile and get calls about a job you would like to apply for. Let's walk through this document and I would assure you it will work for finding the job you would like to nab!

My one-sentence objective for this job search is, "My context before content then my content to get calls from recruiters. Remember, this is the vision statement that you want to refer to as you continue through your job search. The next thing I want you to consider is taking a survey of your current job-hunting materials.

So go ahead and find your resume, find your cover letter templates, locate those letters of recommendation you may have from a few jobs ago, and then in each of these boxes I want you to check, is this something I have, is it something that needs to be redone completely, maybe it's okay but it needs a few updates, maybe just a few minor tweaks. Maybe you have documents that are pretty much ready to send out. So note the state each of these materials are in in these columns. 

So let's say that you know that you don't have any letters of recommendation, therefore I want you to put that as a priority to gather those materials and give yourself a due date so that you have that goal to work toward. Also, jot down the time you want to spend per week on this, just to give yourself a rough framework of how much effort you are willing to expend in this area. This is something that's really up to you, you might choose to spend an hour to two per week if it's a case where you need to create your resume, your cover letter, you need to get those letters of recommendation, or if you're in pretty good shape here, you may not need to spend much time at all. 

Second Milestone: Prepare Your Fishing Hock

Looking for a job from my perspective is a two-way street, it's about growing your network and it's about giving in both directions. Ideally, you're getting a job out of the equation, but you're also giving to your growing network as you do so, so that you're creating value for everyone as you go through your job search.

So ask yourself some hard questions about your current network, how many people are in it? Do you have strategic connections across industries? Do you know people who are at different stages in their careers? For example, if you're just starting out as a student, let's say, it would be great if you had a variety of folks you could turn to in your network who are at different stages in their careers. They might be in a position to give you much different advice, based on their unique experiences. Have you helped refer at least two people in your network to jobs in the past year? This is a really important one to me because I believe that in order to get a job, you also want to be that person who's opening up connections for other people.

For Instance, LinkedIn is the most popular social network for professionals and one of the top social networks overall, building connections starts with people seeing all you have to offer.  Members with complete profiles are 40x more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn.

Now you have the pool and you have bait, so it is time to start hunting! Pool is your LinkedIn; bait is your resume, recommendations and networks.

Third Milestone: Educate Content

You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how content can organically acquire links or build awareness for your profile. If you set out with the primary goal of creating content that educates your prospects or audiences about your services and experience then the links and awareness will naturally follow suit.

When creating content with the specific aim of educating people, you need to remember a couple of really important points.

1.Try to write the one article in a month in LinkedIn or Blog, when the reader from your industry or similar to your field feels like they’re the only one reading the content, you begin to create a strong relationship with that person, group and that will increase the likelihood they’ll become followers of your content and would like to hear more.

2.Never forget that your objective for creating this type of content is to give your audience the answers to THEIR problems.  Example: How You Know it’s Time To Think Different! It was one of my articles in LinkedIn and on my Blog. I was trying to tell my followers “how to improve your business in Canada” by creating a website for your business and start knowing your personas in a form which can impact your business positively.


3.Give some thought to LinkedIn groups and companies pages. Make it a goal to participate in LinkedIn Groups you joined and check back regularly on companies' pages in LinkedIn as well, just seeing what jobs are available, noting what direction the company seems to be moving in and making a note of what is newsworthy, what is this company up to and why?

Final Milestone: Knock the Door

Now that you've generated that awesome new resume, educate content on LinkedIn's Platform, So you can knock other door by using LinkedIn Jobs -- to help you land an awesome new position.

LinkedIn allows you to search for jobs by keyword, title, industry, location, company, function, experience level, and more. It even suggests jobs you might be interested in based on a brief survey that gauges your job preferences relating to location, company size, and industry.

I would say, your profile and educate content are the key elements for getting job and build relationships with recruiters agents, and make the employers chose your profile among tons. I want you to stop and reflect on whether you're seeing effort from each step and whether they're significant enough or maybe it's time to do a little bit of re-balancing.

Cheers!

Friday, November 27, 2015

Eight Actions You Should Invest In Website Security

In today's economic climate the issues of security have come to the forefront as web site hackers and computer system attacks grow globally. In the past month or so I have been writing a series of articles on various aspects of website strategy and how to address your website content to boost your online business. 

Today I asked myself, if the website we are running has weakness in terms of security and performance, then what is the benefit if our website has educated content and in the same time we don’t control site’s access very well? 

There are many ways a website can be hacked or attacked. Here are some actions that website owners can take to protect their sites.

Unusual visitor numbers

In your hosting control panel, you can see logs analyzing website visits. For instance, you can check the one month how many of real visitors to a single page you have on your website. We have to make sure those visits are recorded in Google Analytics and count as page views in AdSense reports as a real visitors not fake. 
As an admin or a person running my own website, I have to make sure those visitors are not generated by spam softwar. As they could be using your address to send out spam, or trying to gain access. In Google you can find IP address lists with locations, and sometimes listing their reputation. In the hosting control panel there is a facility to deny specified IP addresses which can block that IP. But you can also block a range of addresses. That is wise because a bad IP can be just part of a range.

Passwords

Years ago it was common to set passwords as memorable words. But these are easy to guess, like names, birthdays, places and keywords from the website. These should be replaced by more secure passwords. Use at least 8 characters and include upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols (@#$% etc.). These can still be made memorable by taking a word and separating letters with numbers and symbols, or replacing letters with numbers and symbols. E.g. Yasser can be 6A55E$ but it would be even more secure if it was just a jumble of characters.

Latest software version

Always update any website building software (such as WordPress or Drupal) to the latest version. These software updates can be frequent and will close any loopholes that hackers have found.

Files that get hacked

If your website is found to be sending out spam emails it could be that some hacker has got lucky, guessed your password and altered one or more of the website files to automatically send spam. This can cause your host to suspend your website.

To fix that you should change your password and using an FTP program or File Manager find which files have been modified by listing them in date order. Alternatively you can just reload the whole website from the copy on your computer, or from your web designer. Or you can reinstall your CMS such as the WordPress or Drupal and import the exported MySQL database.

Insecure Forms

Protect your site from hackers trying to guess a password by coupling login name and password for validation. Have the response say something like "Either the name or password is invalid" so that the hacker doesn't know which one is incorrect.

Add Captcha to your forms. This is a script that requires the visitor to type characters from an image on the form, something an automated spam program cannot do. It stops hundreds of spam emails from the form.

Forms Allowing File Uploads

Limit the extensions of file uploads to those of images, JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, etc. to avoid any executable files getting uploaded to your website. Have any uploads go to a folder outside the website.

SSL

To keep any visitor's personal details entered on a form secure, get your host to install an SSL certificate. This should cover any form with sensitive information such as credit card details, or date of birth, driver's license and any details allowing identity theft. This will cost a few dollars per year but will make your visitors feel better about filling in such a form.

ModSecurity

Many web hosts have installed this security plugin to their firewall. This blocks any IP address from which a number of invalid login attempts have been made in a short period. This slows down any nefarious hacker from guessing your username and password to login to your control panel or FTP or email account.

Unfortunately the odd website owner who has a lapse of memory can, by using the wrong password too often, lock themselves out of their own website. Fortunately they can ask their host to unblock them.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

How You Know It’s Time To Think Different!

On Sept 27th, 2015 I have attended a conference in Canada hosted by SOHO, and the conference topic was "how to improve your business in Canada". People were talking about hiring skilled candidates, promote your services and  apply a tool such as benchamrking and market research to measure business performance in the market. From my perspective I have another plan and opinion which has a positive impact on business improvement whether in Canada market or other market. 

Nowadays, a website is a necessity for entrepreneurs, small businesses, home-based businesses, and anybody selling products or services. Regardless of your other marketing methods, enabling potential customers to either find you through a Google search or learn more about you after they’ve seen your other marketing material is key to creating and developing new customers.


A well structured website is required to make a business online. As Internet is becomes more important for users. It offers many benefits to make user's life more convenient and easy. For the promotion of business it is needed that you should have a website from where users could browse and purchase products that your business is offering.

Nowadays, people are using apps for different purposes. For every business apps are important to communicate with users on a secure network. They also delegate their tasks with the help of these programs. From exchange of resources to implementation of solutions for an extensive, each procedure needs web programs.

This process was activated due to some customers who were regularly challenging customized sites which can provide their objective. Furthermore, progression in technology has persuaded designers to discover unknown areas of web development. They can utilize the new update in their projects for better performance and adaptability.

A wide range of programs are available to business owners, using which they can make their companies even more effective and thus generate more benefit. The area of web design and development has gone through a technical trend, customized web database integration services have collected the attention of customers and clients.

They can now personalize web programs as per their specifications and requirements.

Web design and development services have become very essential among organizations working in different sectors. Furthermore, customized web programs allow incorporation of several features such as tracking analysis, database, content writing, marketing etc.

It has also been noticed that these programs fulfill business needs, regardless of the products engaged in those, Hence, they help to handle work procedures and information in a manageable way.

Benefits of Web Development Services

A market for personalized web application solutions, has been designed out by a huge number of software companies. Following are some main benefits of employing customized web development services:
  1. Web surfing around can be assisted. 
  2. Transactions, including loads of information can be handled quickly 
  3. The volume of visitors to a website can be improved.

Stages in Web Development Process

Development of a web application includes the following phases:
  1. Determining the characteristics of the venture and its objectives 
  2. Devising a Specific Strategy depending on the goals of the venture 
  3. Developing the Project as per the program 
  4. Testing the venture for protection at every level of development
Creating a website for your business more than just a website isn't about a fancy or flashy design. Rather, a smarter design that makes a site more user-friendly with high-quality content worth returning for is all that is needed to make a business or brand stand out among the rest.


Saturday, June 13, 2015

Do You Have A Smart Move Plan For Disaster Recovery?

Many financial directors think of IT Disaster Recovery as something that never really happens to them and even if it did the business would be able to get back to business as usual inside a day or so. Assets are safeguarded, backups taken (usually), and unless you are forced to, having a plan and some good intentions are equally as good as having DR equipment sitting around doing nothing utilizing the earth's resources at great expense. This philosophy is green too!!!


Planning for a disaster is a smart move. You never know when disaster will strike, so it pays to be prepared for the worst. Your organization or business must put a disaster plan in place before a real disaster happens. Failure to do so will put your business in peril in the aftermath of disasters such as fire, floods, earthquakes, Data gets stolen, hardware fails or power outage for a long time. Moreover, it will be difficult to get your business back on its feet following a disaster.

The key to business continuity even in the face of disaster is to make sure that you design disaster plan that is useful and effective. So the first step in designing your disaster recovery system is to analyze the risks that you will most likely encounter. Make sure that you have conducted a thorough analysis on all your computer systems and jot down all the risks that could possibly injure system up time. You will then have to appraise how imminent these risks might be in particular to your company. 


To create a full-fledged program for disaster recovery, we need to build up a proper road map for resources that should be pulled at the right time, and for the right purpose.


From my perspective, DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) team is considered as key role in creating Disaster Recovery plan, build up the structure and workflow, and ensuring that all essential planning bases are covered for referred purpose


What's the Purpose of a DRP Team?

A "team approach" to disaster recovery planning provides three (3) primary advantages:


+ It takes a team to identify comprehensive disaster recovery requirements, sufficiently diverse and relevant to all key needs and operational perspectives.

+ It takes a team to create an actionable disaster recovery program, considering all operational capabilities and constraints.

+ It takes a team to put all the plans and programs into action and keep current with changing needs.

Building your plan


The 3 major issues in building a disaster recovery plan are recovery point, time to recovery, and budget.


Recovery Point


How much data can you lose? Is some data more important than other data? What data is absolutely critical for the business to survive? Maybe some email can be lost, but the blue prints or accounting information is invaluable. Your recovery point is the definition of what the system needs to look like once everything has been fixed.


Time to recovery


How long can the business be down? Can some parts of the business be down longer than others? When does everything need to be back to normal? Each business will answer this question differently, and this standard will heavily influence the type of solution chosen.


Budget


If money were not object, every business would want their IT up and running immediately and to the fullest extent possible after a disaster. Of course, that probably isn't the case.


Budget falls into two categories. First, there is some cost for preparing for the disaster. Developing a disaster recovery plan, setting up the backup solution, and perhaps even buying redundant hardware all contribute to this expense.


The second cost comes after the disaster has struck. This might include the cost to buy new hardware, set up the network, and restore from backup. Estimates for this cost should also be included in the plan. Having a plan is worthless if the plan is too expensive to implement.


Whatever your disaster recovery plan looks like, remember to print it out. If you only have an electronic copy and your server crashes, you'll be starting from scratch.

IT Systems and Disaster Recovery 

Because I already came from IT background so I would like to focus in this part only as it has become very important for the smooth functioning of the organization so it is very important that organization IT infrastructure should be updated and running all the time. 


As I mentioned above about the types of disasters, so there are many things which can be lose during or after the disaster. This can be anything which hinders the business process. This can be assets, records, employees and suppliers etc. The loss of the information includes customer's details and other internal data etc. There can be loss of access, use of premises, computers etc can be happen at any time.


By considering the following steps a good plan can be made:


() By identifying the core elements of the company and assigning values to the assets.

() By prioritize each area of work to the appropriate person.

() By defining and considering a plan according to the customer's expectations.

() By communicating the strategy in the whole organization and check whether the resources are prepared accordingly or not.


As the plan is ready and it has been tested and reviewed by the committee, then management should approve it. The plan is like an insurance confirming that the business can be run if a disaster happens. The effectiveness and success of the plan depends on the way it is written, implemented and how one can understands it. The plan should be reviewed periodically and updated according to the need of the business process.