Neil Wadhwa | FreshGigs.ca - Part 3

Author Archives: Neil Wadhwa

The Key to Unlocking Your Creativity: Pen and Paper

FreshGigs - Pen and Paper

Although I spend most of my time working and writing online, I still stick to a fairly simple method to organize my thoughts and ideas: pen and paper. It’s probably no surprise that I haven’t made the switch to eBooks from paperback.

After trying tools in conjunction with the pen and paper method, such as mobile apps or online project management tools, I’ve found that pen and paper is the best option for my creativity and productivity. That’s not to say everyone’s the same way, or that technology is restrictive, but if you’ve been looking for a way to improve your creativity—or even to simplify your life—going back to the trusty pen and paper is a start.

The act of turning to pen and paper is a small break from workplace hyperactivity. It’s a way to slow down, gather your thoughts, and just write—even if it’s a simple checklist.

Here are a few reasons why pen and paper is the best tool for creativity, organization, and productivity:

Paper Gives You More Room to Be Creative

Think of your pen as a paintbrush and the paper as a canvas. When you start writing things down on paper, you’ll be more inclined to keep your thoughts flowing: breaking down ideas, writing down comments that pop in your mind, not worrying about restrictions or potential barriers. You’ll be tempted to fill up as much blank space as possible.

Paper isn’t as intimidating as a blank word document, and it feels much more personal. You’ll be crossing things out, circling, underlining, and more, and when you’re done, you’ll be able to look back and flip through the pages that have documented your process.

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The 9 to 5: Dmytro Marushkevych, Director of Analytics & Optimization at Rosetta

The 9 to 5: Dmytro Marushkevych of Rosetta

Welcome to The 9 To 5, our ongoing series where we highlight and interview creative professionals doing great things. Today’s profile is on Dmytro Marushkevych, Director of Analytics & Optimization at Rosetta.

1. How did you end up focusing specifically on the data aspect of marketing as a career path?

I have graduated college with an MSc in Theoretical Physics. Have not worked a single day as a physicist as I have quickly realized that there is really no middle ground in Physics: you either are a brilliant scientist (think Steven Hawking) or teach kids. I did not have the brilliance of Stephen Hawking, or even Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory”, and dreaded teaching. I have ended up going into product marketing in Telecom, where knowledge of Math coupled with the way Physics teaches one to think proved to be very useful.

Data does not lie. Interpretations do. The most common mistake is looking at the data without understanding the context, and the business need.

Working in the product marketing, I have always wanted to find out how successful are my campaigns in driving conversions, how I can make my communications more relevant and how I can improve the campaign performance. Well, there was no one who could help me answer these questions, so I got access to the data warehouse, remembered statistics and learned SQL. This is how my career in analytics begun, and I never looked back.

 

2. How in-depth can your data and analytics at Rosetta go in helping you understand who customers are and what customers do?

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The Art of Marketing Conference – Vancouver

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Canada’s top marketing event returns to Vancouver – April 15th, 2015.


Neil here! We’ve teamed up with The Art of Marketing, Canada’s #1 Marketing and Innovation Conference, to offer the FreshGigs community an exclusive offer on ticket pricing. Check the details below and register here to take advantage of our special offer!

April 15th, 2015
8:30AM – 5:00PM

Vancouver Convention Centre
East Building – Ballroom ABC
999 Canada Place
Vancouver, BC V6C 3C1
Register Now

The Art of Marketing Conference, presented by Microsoft, brings world-renowned marketing leaders and bestselling authors for a full day of cutting edge thinking and real world experience on today’s most critical marketing strategies.

Connect with over 1,500 of Vancouver’s most notable professionals and gain insights from:

  • Chip Heath – New York Times Bestselling Author of Made to Stick, Switch & Decisive & Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
  • Martin Lindstrom – New York Times Bestselling Author of Buyology, Brandsense, Brandwashed & Recipient of TIME Magazine’s “World’s 100 Most Influential People”.
  • Robert Cialdini – New York Times Bestselling Author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
  • Jackie Huba – Customer Loyalty Expert & Bestselling Author of Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics.
  • Nir Eyal – Bestselling Author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products & Inc. Magazine’s “Top 10 Marketing Books of 2014”.

Take advantage of our preferred member rate, use promo-code “FG32” and save up to $100 when registering! Click here to view Event Brochure.

> Click here to register <

The 9 to 5: Navin Vaswani, Editor at theScore

Navin Vaswani, Editor at theScore

Welcome to The 9 To 5, our ongoing series where we highlight and interview creative professionals doing great things. Today’s profile is on Navin Vaswani, Editor at theScore.

1. When did you first know you wanted to become an editor?

I don’t think I ever planned on being an editor. It’s the path my career has taken me on, after journalism school, television production, online production, and work as a news editor. My goal in the past couple of years has been to be on the right side of a drowning industry. News has gone mobile, and theScore understands that and has created a personalized and customized product that caters exclusively to mobile. That I happen to be an editor at the company is mostly how things have shaken out, and I’m happy with the results. I’m not good at a lot of things, but I can edit, and I have a chance to influence young writers, many fresh out of school, so it’s been a fun transition. 

Nothing makes a person a better writer and editor than reading, and not enough writers and editors do it.

2. What’s on your typical “to-do” list for a day at the office?

My typical day at work involves supervising the entire news desk, making sure news is being covered by our editors in a timely manner, and making sure all of our push alerts – we send probably a hundred or more each day – are spelled and formatted correctly. So across all sports, essentially all content on the app. I work in 10-hour shifts so the days are long, and there’s far too much sitting (my dream is to have a standing desk) but the news cycle is 24/7, so there’s often little time to breathe. Other mobile apps offer similar services as theScore, but we are always ahead of the competition with respect to speed. Our mobile newsroom runs incredibly efficiently, and that’s a testament to our news editors and the systems we’ve implemented. It’s been amazing to watch the team develop over the past two years. I’m proud of what we do every single day – the amount of mobile content we create and the timeliness with which we push it out to the world. 

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The Weekly Recap: Hand-Picked Articles for the Week of March 8–14

The Weekly Recap: Hand-Picked Articles for the Week of March 8–14

Welcome to The FreshGigs Weekly Recap. We know how busy you are, so every week we’ll help you get caught up on some of the best career related stories from around the web. Weekend reading from last week that you can apply for the week ahead.

Combatting the Holy Grail Syndrome: What I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Business (HubSpot)

Peter Sena describes the Holy Grail Syndrome as, “a condition that causes a business owner to set out on futile quests to mine a single solution to his or her troubles.” In simple terms, it’s when an entrepreneur assumes that there’s a holy grail to solve any and all business programs—an assumption that Peter himself made as a small business owner. In his latest post for HubSpot, Peter examines the Holy Grail Syndrome in-depth, and discusses five things he wished he knew sooner about being an entrepreneur. Read the article here.

Calling some choices “strategy” and some “execution” is a fruitless distinction.

Article Snippet: If you can avoid the pitfalls of the dreaded Holy Grail Syndrome, them maybe — just maybe — you won’t be on the wrong side of the startup statistics. Know your goals, break them down, and focus on why you started your business in the first place. It’s important for each of us to remember that — try as we might! — we simply cannot do it all. Accept that, and you just might find your potential for success as a founder double overnight.

3 Steps For Bridging “The Confidence Gap” (99u)

Having confidence vs. being less sure of your talents and abilities is the “make or break” difference maker for the majority of career-related endeavors: confidence before heading to an interview, confidence when giving a presentation, confidence when speaking to your manager, and more. But… the simple act of building confidence is hard. Meg Duffy explores a few ways to get around this with 3 simple steps for building and sustaining high levels of confidence in her latest article for 99u.

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Always Multitasking? Here’s Why You Need to Stop.

Always Multitasking? Here’s Why You Need to Stop - FreshGigs

There’s a phenomenon happening with the rise of software and technology: tools designed to make us more efficient have ended up distracting us. We have become never-ending multitaskers. [Tweet This]

Multitasking is more than simply doing multiple projects at once. A “task” could be checking email or Twitter on your smartphone, and multitasking doesn’t necessary mean that each new task has to reach the completion stage.

With the sheer volume of new technology constantly released, designed for even the smallest of niches, what took 5 hours to complete in the past now may only take 30 minutes or less. This has resulted in people always feeling the need to ship things, with no room for even 5 minutes of downtime. The multitasking vortex is born.

Think about how many times you’ve been in the “zone” only to have your phone buzz and take you out of it. A task—even if it’s simply replying to a text message—is distracting.

Multitasking is often thought of as a good thing—employers love it, and multitasking is seen as an effective time management tool. Here’s why that’s wrong, and why you need to slow down your level of multitasking:

Multitasking Results in Poor Quality of Work

Being busy is not the same thing as being productive. The more you multitask, the more you spread yourself thin across each task. [Tweet This]

Focus on one task at a time instead of multiple tasks. Sort your tasks by priority: what’s most important to get done first? Put that on top of your list and work your way down. By putting all your focus and attention onto one task, not only will it result in the best work possible, but also you’ll end up finishing it faster, as you won’t be constantly stopping-and-starting.

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The 9 to 5: Joelle MacPhee, Director of Marketing at Ooka Island

OokaIsland

Welcome to The 9 To 5, our new series where we highlight and interview creative professionals doing great things. Our first profile is of Joelle MacPhee, Director of Marketing at Ooka Island, and graduate of York University’s Schulich School of Business.

1. How do children learn to read using Ooka Island’s platform?

Children learn to read and become confident readers by visiting Ooka Island 30 minutes, 3 times a week for a year. As they progress through 80 hours of purposeful play and adventure, an adaptive learning program continually analyzes their performance and plots a personalized path towards mastery of the five foundational reading skills.

2. Are there any challenges in working in a small, start-up-like environment?

Growing the team is a challenge, but an incredibly rewarding one when you find the perfect fit. Each new person has a direct impact on the dynamic of the team, so you seek out people who will enhance, not hurt the culture, no matter how strong their skill-set or experience. On the flip side, making sure your work environment and culture is the right fit for them is also worth the time and effort to verify. (ps. we’re hiring!)

I try to divide my day working towards 1 big goal, 3 medium goals, and 5 small goals.

3. When did you first know you wanted a career in marketing?

In the beginning days of Ooka Island, I managed school sales, which is what made me realize that marketing’s long-term benefits are a more sustainable strategy for us. I would always be hearing stories from parents whose children were becoming confident readers by using Ooka at school. It was inspiring that they were reaching out to us, but because I was selling to schools, I rarely got to communicate with the parents that valued the program the most. So I started shifting our focus from school sales to partnering with parents. Since then, we’ve pivoted to B2C as we now know that supporting and empowering parents is where Ooka can make the biggest impact to ending illiteracy.

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How Reverse Mentoring can Close the Technology Knowledge Gap

How Reverse Mentoring can Close the Technology Knowledge Gap - FreshGigs

How does a 24 year-old mentoring a 50 year-old sound? If you work in a large company and notice a disparity in how technology is being used among people of different age groups, it might be time to start a reverse-mentoring program.

The twenty-something lives and breathes technology, and understands that day-old technology is officially outdated. The fifty-something has a basic understanding of technology (depending on the department he or she works in), but knows a basic understanding isn’t good enough for 2015 and beyond. This isn’t to say everyone is like this—young people can have no understanding of technology, while some older people run IT teams and can code with the best of them—but it’s certainly an emerging trend.

Reverse mentoring builds upon the concept of mentoring, but flips the traditional concept of who plays the role of the mentor and who plays the role of the mentee in the relationship.

Reverse mentoring builds upon the concept of mentoring, but flips the traditional concept of who plays the role of the mentor and who plays the role of the mentee in the relationship [Tweet This]. Reverse mentoring allows people from a younger generation (mentors) with an aptitude for technology to inject new life into mentees who need help bridging their knowledge gap.

The framework of reverse-mentoring is the same as “traditional” mentoring: there needs to be constant communication between the mentor and mentee, clear expectations, patience from the mentor, a desire to learn by the mentee, and trust between both mentor and mentee. But the benefits between the mentor and mentee are different—and possibly better—with reverse mentoring:

1. Reverse Mentoring is a Two-Way Mentoring Experience

Reverse mentoring lets older employers (mentees) develop and hone their skills with various software and technology, whether it be social media best practices or learning about marketing automation software. This is knowledge that can only be gained from working closely with someone (mentor) who has years of experience and can properly, and patiently, teach the mentee—as opposed to the mentee trying to learn on his or her own.

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The Weekly Recap: Hand-Picked Articles for the Week of March 1–7

The Weekly Recap: Hand-Picked Articles for the Week of March 1–7

Welcome to The FreshGigs Weekly Recap. We know how busy you are, so every week we’ll help you get caught up on some of the best career related stories from around the web. Weekend reading from last week that you can apply for the week ahead.

The 6 Best Industries You’ve Never Heard of (Inc.)

Looking for a fresh start by beginning a new career? Why not look for something in the booming Meat Jerky Production industry? Revenue for the Meat Jerky Production industry is expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2019 – the time is now to grab a set on the jerky train before it leaves the station without you. If you don’t want to work with meat jerky all day long, why not enter the Prison and Jail Construction industry? In his latest article for Inc., Graham Winfrey takes a look at the 6 best industries you’ve never heard of. Read the article here.

Keep in mind that good articles provide valuable information, spark a little thought and sometimes a little debate… and most importantly draw an audience.

Article Snippet: “Sometimes the key to identifying a market opportunity requires looking where everyone else isn’t. As a part of Inc.’s annual look at the best industries for starting a business, we decided to shine a light on some of the promising but lesser-known niche sectors that aren’t getting the attention they deserve.”

25 Predictions For What Marketing Will Look Like In 2020 (Fast Company Create)

Fast Company (Create) asked innovators from different advertising/marketing companies about their predictions on how the brand landscape will evolve over the next five years. Among the predictions is that content will still be king (predicted by Matt Jarvis, chief strategy officer, 72andSunny) and that banner advertising will actually work (Spencer Baim, chief strategic officer, Vice Media). Read the article to see the full list.

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