Speak a foreign language and live in the U.S.?

According to a recent article in USA Today, demand is surging for translators at medical facilities as over 20% of U.S. residents now speak a language other than English at home.

For more information, visit the article by clicking here.

Article on Monster - Marketing is Hot & Getting Hotter

According to an article in last week's Monster Marketing Career News, marketing professionals are among the most employable business professionals in the 2006 labor market. Specific data points included:

• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in marketing consulting services firms has virtually doubled over the past decade, from 58,900 in 1996 to 116,700 in 2005.
• In the area of on-line marketing, there are shortages of online designers, information architects, online producers, and on the media side, buyers, planners and strategists.
• People who can increase conversions and do Web analytics are in hot demand, including link strategists and pay-per-click campaign managers.
• Hardware and software makers are looking for product managers and competitive analysis people with solid marketing skill sets, as opposed to just engineering skill sets.
• Web marketing managers are in hot demand
• Traditional businesses in old-line industries continue to be source of strong demand for marketers.
• Market research within all companies is "huge"; demand has increased for brand managers and interactive marketers.
• Monster job postings for marketing analysts were up 60 percent in April 2006 compared to a year earlier.

For more details, read the article on Monster.com.

Interested in Working for Adobe?

Or in simply checking out what they're up to these days (and in the future)?

Check out this article on Knowledge at Wharton.

Doing Good Work in Columbia

My Toastmasters friend, Dave McMurtry, is back down in Columbia cotinuing to build houses for 250 people in the town of Sincelejo. He has succeeded in raising $120,000 out of a goal of $150,000 by publicizing his project (under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity) to friends, colleagues, business contacts, total strangers on the street, people stuck on Muni with him and basically anybody else who will listen.

He is truly an inspiration in the "getting things done department."

Check out his blog by clicking here.

The Effect of Mood on Work Performance

In an article today on Knowledge at Wharton, I read about a study conducted by researchers from the Wharton School to look into the impact of mood on productivity.

The researcher studied a group of employees at a call center and came to the following conclusions:

• Daily mood at work can influence important work outcomes
• The mood that people bring with them at the very start of the workday influences employee mood more powerfully and consistently than any other variable
• People in the study who started the day in a good mood tended to stay that way
• Non-work and work domains are "permeable," and research suggests that mood often spills over from one to another.
• The workers who came to work in a good mood were less liable to be brought down by negative perceived customer moods.
  

In short, the researchers found that the positive mood that you bring to work is very strong and that people actually do a pretty good job of walling off the negatives.

Sounds like paying attention to our "morning moods" might be a very effective mechanism to indirectly boost our own performance and increase the odds of having a "good day" overall.

What to do when you have "seller's regret"

Saw a interesting question on a job discussion board today as follows:

"Just found out that this guy who was hired few months before me makes 4k more than me. We are at a same level and came in with about the same experience. However, he did make more than me at his prior job. Now the question is should I be upset at myself for not being able to negotiate my salary to its fullest, or should I just accept that he got the higher offer because he was making more at his prior job?"

One person answered: "just negotiate again when you are up for a review/raise."

To which I added:

And when that time comes, do your homework on

1. What the market will bear for the job in question (try salary.com, talking to people in similar jobs, or other on-line resources for information - see http://www.gccoach.com/articles/SalaryResearch.htm).
2. If your company uses a salary grid, what the salary range is for your job grade.
3. What is it about your performance, potential, or responsibilities for the coming year that might justify an above-average increase.

Hotgigs

Received an e-mail notice today from a company called Hotgigs that they just closed a new round of venture funding for $5.3 million. So why is this interesting, you ask?

I've often been asked by independent contractors how to guage the market for their services - particularly what companies will be willing to pay. Hotgigs has created what they describe as "open marketplace" for the staffing industry that facilitates an exchange for the supply and demand of contract talent." Not only does the site facilitate matches between qualified freelancers and potential clients, it also aggregates self-reported data on rates for various services in a variety of high tech areas, as well as for Auditing, Enterprise Change Management, Product Management and Project Management.

Check it out at www.hotgigs.com.

Thinking of Going Solo?

Check out this article on hotgigs: Hate Your Job? Considerations Before Going Solo - The advice is geared to IT professionals and is a bit self-promoting for the web site; however, it is very sound and coherent overall.

A Small Business Idea - Sell Power Back to the Grid

Interested in starting a small business and doing something for the environment? It may be possible in a state near you (or the one you're in for that matter).

Check out an article on the subject at Businessweek.com.

Zubio

Went to an interesting alumni event a few weeks ago where I discovered a new company that is doing branded chair massage in downtown San Francisco. The company's mission is to make the benefits of chair massage available to everyone - starting with targeting employees of local corporations.

Their idea is to become the "Starbucks" of the 10 or 20-minute chair massage by having each of their massage therapists train intensively in exactly the same methodology of massage. Whenever you go to a Zubio kiosk, you will receive exactly the same kind and quality of massage.

I took advantage of their offer of a free 10-minute chair massage - it was heaven!

Just goes to show that a fascination with business can coexist quite profitably with a fascination for all sorts of topics and activities.

Check them out at www.zubio.com.

Meet-Up

I recently discovered a great web site for locating local groups that meet around a shared interest (social, intellectual, financial, health, education, languages, etc.) around the U.S.

It's called Meet-Up and you can check it out at www.meetup.com.

Such groups can not only be a lot of fun, they also afford an opportunity to meet new people and broaden both your social and professional network!