Agent Beta

19 Jan 2018

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Hiring, News Permalink

4 Innovative Moves Entrepreneurs Can Make To Hire More Qualified Tech Experts

Sticky Post By andrew On January 19, 2018

As the economy grows, so does the number of companies at the leading edge of innovation. Every entrepreneur, executive and hiring manager knows that today’s biggest challenge to building a high-performing team is finding tech experts who can deliver results consistently, without costly errors or setbacks.

An economic trends report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) revealed last March that 45 percent of hiring managers surveyed reported finding a shortage of qualified candidates in their talent searches. The cause, of course, is the steady economic growth in the tech sector: It’s driven higher demand for new IT functions and resulted in a talent gap that can be closed only as more people pursue a technical education.

Nathan Doctor, CEO of Qualified, addressed this issue during a recent call for my podcast. The executive, whose company is a coding assessment provider, pointed out that, “Engineering candidates are extremely in demand, presenting hiring managers with a list of challenges, from finding quality candidates to convincing top performers to join.

“It’s important,” Doctor continued, “that hiring managers can effectively identify top performers quickly so they can focus their energy on making the hire. This includes moving [candidates] through the hiring process and winning competitive scenarios with other employers.”

Turning to cloud-hiring solutions

Gartner’s Market Guide for Human Capital reported that companies are trading outdated legacy hiring systems for externally provided cloud solutions. Gartner predicted that these cloud solutions would account for 50 percent or more of spending in this category by the end of 2017.

This should come as no surprise to any executive familiar with the costs associated with developing in-house systems. Not to mention that significant time can be saved by bringing on innovative cloud providers for the recruiting process.

Solving for sourcing

Most entrepreneurs and human resources professionals are all too familiar with recruiters’ tendencies to recommend candidates who match on paper but aren’t a practical fit for the organization. Fortunately, there are quite a few cloud providers that can supplement and improve your recruiting efforts at a fraction of the cost.

Platforms like Hired and Sourcing.io are helping companies identify potential candidates digitally, reducing the amount of time it takes to achieve an applicant flow, and accomplishing a preliminary screening based on key job duties. By performing these tasks, these platforms empower in-house recruiters and tech teams to work together to streamline the sourcing process without resorting to recruiting firms.

I’ve personally used Indeed.com a handful of times, and was happy with my candidate options every time I posted a job offer.

Solving for hiring

Doctor further noted another reason why the hiring process for IT professionals is so complex: tesing. “There is a range of approaches to testing technical skills,” he pointed out. “You have your heuristics: resumes, past experience, former employers, college. Then you have skills assessments: coding assessments, quizzes, technical tests and take-home assignments.

“And there are interviews: verbal phone screens, pair-programming, on-sites and white-boarding.”

“Because you have to deal with so many different aspects in the selection process, you can easily get bogged down in the wrong kind of information,” Doctor continued, noting that the most effective measures are those that test candidates on their real-world abilities — how they will actually perform on the job.

In this context, companies often turn to coding assessments to eliminate having their engineers waste time assessing unsuitable candidates via phone screens and on-site interviews. Such assessments are increasingly relevant: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, reported that 20 percent of current IT jobs it looked at were in software development.

In the testing context, I’ve found CoderPad to be an amazing resource. I also personally developed an app that helps with this process, called CipherHacks.

Keeping up with demand

In an article in InformationWeek, IT hiring expert Bob Miano shared, that, “Organizations are still in catch-up mode as the amount of data captured and positioned for analysis grows exponentially.” Miano added: “The demand for actionable data is huge right now. Technology innovation is creating more data, which now needs to be analyzed and transformed and made actionable.”

One of the things that data reveals is exactly what executives are looking for: In fact, a NetworkWorld report detailed that over 40 of executives surveyed were looking for skills in database management, cybersecurity, blockchain development, desktop support and network administration. That’s why applicants are wise to consider how their skills translate into these arenas, tailor their resumes’ SEO potential to improve their chances of landing the position they want and continually update their LinkedIn profiles to add new and relevant skills.

Knowing what other industry leaders are doing to attract top talent is vital to success in an increasingly competitive employment market. Given today’s glut of open positions and a shortage of qualified candidates, executives need to have the best solutions and methods to help them secure the ideal candidate in a fraction of the usual time. And, yes, tech leaders should use tech.

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16 Jan 2018

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Compliance, News Permalink

What Leaders Need to Know About Compliance in 2018

Sticky Post By andrew On January 16, 2018

It’s been a whirlwind couple of months in terms of compliance and the regulatory landscape. Whether you zero in on compliance in the United States or zoom out to the global regulatory environment, a lot of conversation happened in the last few months of 2017, which hopefully will spearhead a lot of change.

In most cases, however, regulatory change can present real challenges and risks for entrepreneurs and growing businesses. As you expand into new territory, or offer new products and services, the number of rules that apply to you increase, and sometimes contradict, one another.

In 2018, companies will need to keep these challenges at the forefront of their annual planning. Following are the top ways companies should be engaging with the need for compliance in the coming year:

1. A unified compliance strategy

Gone are the days when compliance was the responsibility of siloed departments. In today’s intense regulatory climate, it’s critical to have your whole team committed to compliance strategy. Look at Volksvagen: Having skirted compliance with various U.S. agencies as part of its emissions scandal, acknowledged in 2015, the car company did a turnabout and brought on a new chief compliance officer, Kurt Michels.

Michels captured the new spirit of compliance culture at Volksvagen when he said, on the Volkswagen Group’s website’s “New Code of Conduct” page: “We all share responsibility for compliance with the existing rules.” He then went on to say that the role of compliance teams and policies is “to provide help, guidance and reassurance, especially in difficult situations.”

In order to help carry out such a vision at your company, your compliance team needs to be fully integrated with other workgroups, to ensure the best support possible for preventing costly errors. By doing so, companies can avoid the kinds of mistakes that even giants like Volkswagen have made due to a poor compliance culture.

2. Compliance platforms to the rescue

Anyone who has managed compliance knows that the accompanying technology is frequently inflexible, and that legacy software may not meet the unique needs of the business. That’s why more and more companies are turning to platforms that can house all of their compliance data and management efforts in one place.

I talked to Thomas Sehested, founder and CEO of GAN Integrity, a compliance tech platform, and he explained to me that, “In most cases, compliance professionals work with five to 10 technology vendors to achieve basic programmatic goals for compliance management. It’s clear,” Sehested continued, “that in such an important area for global business, compliance groups need more efficient, and smarter, tech platforms.”

Platforms like GAN Integrity are built on the premise that compliance efforts should be more visible to the entire team, in order to keep key players in the know, even as they digitize time-consuming document management. As companies gain access to better compliance technology, they may be able to detect and solve problems sooner.

3. Forward-thinking to head off potential risks

We’ve become accustomed to reading about scandals in today’s news headlines. Those scandals frequently end up costing companies millions in lawsuits and government penalties, while damaging their reputation with customers, business partners and the general public. The sad thing is, most of the problems involved are completely avoidable.

In order to avoid such blunders, companies need to think about the problems that might arise long before they become reality. One of the best ways to do this is is by asking what regions your business might grow into in the coming year. Also, question whether or not you anticipate any employee relations challenges. Think about the regulatory regulations that are in the works, as well. Just because something hasn’t yet been signed into law doesn’t mean that it won’t be soon.

4. Making your values known

The recent Me Too movement, lawsuits against companies like Uber and Hollywood’s Time’s Up initiative demonstrate that compliance needs to be at the center of every company’s culture. While a harassment-free culture is a salient example, goals are the same for everything from environmental compliance to employee relations. Consider the Wells Fargo scandal where employees created unauthorized customer accounts to pad performance metrics.

To successfully navigate the regulatory environment and deliver on core values, companies need to make compliance a priority in 2018. As Sehested put it, “In many organizations, compliance has a bit of an image problem and is thought of as a ‘crisis intervention team’ that simply waits for something bad to happen. In reality, the affirmative effort of leadership in compliance and the technology they use helps to prevent regulatory pitfalls.”

By empowering compliance teams to be a more integral part of operations, companies can develop a stronger culture that will help prevent mistakes, protect employees and respect the rules in regions where they operate.

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12 Jan 2018

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Artificial Intelligence, News Permalink

Is AI Really the Future of User Interface?

Sticky Post By andrew On January 12, 2018

The internet is always speculating and wondering about what’s to come, in terms of access modes, once mobile and screens have ceased to be the latest shiny new thing.

The theory is that artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be the next evolution; and precisely because of that prediction about AI (plus its other uses), we witnessed an unprecedented technology gold rush in 2017.

The craze about AI had people investing millions of dollars into new products and services, and hand-wringing skeptics forming think tanks to postulate about the end of the world. But, for all of the speculation, what did AI actually do in 2017? What’s it doing now? And, what’s it poised to do in the coming year?

First, AI broke through the legitimacy barrier.

AI had its first victory as an up-and-coming technology when it broke through a crucial legitimacy barrier, proving to everyone that it is not only viable but also a competitive advantage when deployed well.

A report by PwC estimated that by 2030, AI could contribute upwards of $15 trillion to the global economy – more than the outputs of China and India today, combined. PwC’s statistic is one of many that suggest that our future with this technology is almost unimaginable. AI will destroy and create jobs, invent new industries, accelerate innovation to a new level and fundamentally change the way business is done across the board.

En route to that point, there are questions being posed: How does AI actually create value? What applications of the technology have worked so well that we believe it will change the future in such radical terms?

Interestingly, applications for sophisticated tasks like smoothing out supply chains or detecting risks are still maturing. What AI already does well and what we can expect to see a lot more of in the coming years is helping humans to interface with increasingly complex computers.

Sean Nolan, founder and CEO of Blink, weighed in on these issues during a chat we had the other day.“Humans in the workplace experience ‘technology fatigue’ because the computer they interact with all day is robotic — oddly organized, clunky, impersonal, and slow,” Nolan told me. “The reality is that computers are so powerful and store so much information, and we need them to do so much, that our ability to utilize them with just a mouse and a keyboard is becoming insufficient.

“AI comes along and opens up the possibility of creating a new interface between the complex, impersonal nature of the computer, and the intelligent, complex nature of its human operator.”

Next, AI is poised to take on immensely complex tasks.

By utilizing simple AI applications, like chatbots and micro applications, immensely complex tasks will — one day soon — be able to be reduced to simple commands. For example, instead of spending an hour searching a company’s servers, shared folders and cloud drives for every relevant document pertaining to a specific task, you’ll be able to simply ask a smartbot to do it for you. The task will be completed in seconds, saving valuable time — which PwC estimates will add up to $6.6 trillion in added efficiency by 2030.

While the benefits of added human productivity carry an obvious financial upside for the market, reducing AI to the role of human-computer mediator seems like a demotion for a technology that is supposed to change the world. This view does not properly account for the magnitude of that accomplishment. In fact, AI’s role as a mediator between humans and technology is perhaps its greatest triumph.

The myth that humans use only 10 percent of their brain power has been soundly debunked, but we know for a fact that we use only a fraction of our computers’ potential at any given moment. Afterall, our interactions with them are analog in nature; and, as a result, fall far short of achieving maximum potential.

AI’s untapped potential

AI as a user interface opens up vast untapped potential. This year, it’s chatbots and voice recognition. In 10 years it will be some version of Elon Musk’s Neuralink (one of his new companies, which is working on linking the human brain to a computer).

Today — right now — there are available a number of tools to help you interface with customers and users by implementing AI. They include:

1. Chatbots. Chatbots can provide the additional layer between you and your consumers to answer their questions, and to interact with potential or current customers.

2. Website builders. There are now new platforms like Grid, which use AI to build your entire website.

3. Smartbots. Smartbots are another form of machine, which can be used internally, like a personal assistant, to handle tasks like scheduling your calendar. This is how X technology works.

“What businesses need to know about AI is that the application they need to use it for first is workforce productivity,” said Nolan. “This single competitive advantage will determine which companies survive the first round of AI and which ones do not. Thinking about AI as UI [user interface] and a means to access the untapped potential of our computers is what we can expect to see in 2018.”

Meanwhile, the urgency to adopt AI is very real. Companies that successfully incorporate it as UI in their businesses will reap enormous dividends while their competitors will struggle to modernize. In a new report titled AI is the New UI, Accenture made the following observation, summing up my point perfectly:

“Getting started can be as simple as using AI to bring more human-like interactions into existing interfaces,” the report stated. “But if businesses want to do more than just keep pace, there’s no time to waste . . . The early adopters are already pulling ahead, but many of the necessary tools are openly being shared. The question to answer is simple: What could a company accomplish if every interaction with technology was an intelligent one?”

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12 Jan 2018

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Ambition, News Permalink

Here's How to Sell Your Business for $100 Million-Plus

Sticky Post By andrew On January 12, 2018

Andrew Medal chats with friend Wayne Chang about how he sold his latest company to Twitter for more than $100 million.

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09 Jan 2018

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Initial Coin Offering, News Permalink

What Your Startup Needs To Know About Launching an ICO

Sticky Post By andrew On January 9, 2018

Startups are always on the lookout for good opportunities. For many, this means raising money through an initial coin offering (ICO), as opposed to the more traditional venture capital route. In the simplest terms, an ICO is a fund-raising means in which a company releases its own digital currency in exchange, typically, for ethereum or bitcoin. The point is to attract investors looking for the next big cryptocurrency score.

With this trend picking up steam, your startup might be wise to investigate whether an ICO would be right for you.

Some considerations are in order One is that individual investors are growing tired of initial public offerings (IPOs). Sure, there’s plenty of opportunity to make money that way, but it’s nothing like the excitement surrounding a hyped-up ICO.

With hundreds of millions of dollars spent on ICOs over the past few months, there is no slowdown in sight. In fact, because more startups are considering the benefits of an ICO, don’t be surprised if 2018 is even bigger in this area than 2017 was (and that’s saying a lot).

Here is what your startup needs to know about ICOs.

1. They represent a different approach (so get in the right frame of mind).

In the past, raising funds was all about pitching your idea to venture capitalists. This opportunity still exists, but it’s no longer the only game in town.

As a different approach, wrap your head around the idea that an ICO could be the best way to obtain the cash you need to realize your goals. Maybe you’re the founder of a technology startup that develops super-cool iPhone apps. Once you realize that you need to raise funds, to hire new talent or kick-start your marketing efforts, you’ll realize that it’s time to consider your options.

VC firms and angel investors are worth a shot, of course, but an ICO may be you best strategy. However, I’m not here to tell you that it’s easy to succeed with an ICO, which can be every bit as challenging as securing venture capital; but you do have more control over the process.

Tip: A variety of tools, such as DropDeck, are available, to aggregate and rate funding opportunities, whether you’re an investor, ICO or SME. DropDeck, in particular, uses artificial intelligence to rate companies for investors choosing where to invest. “Everyone wants to fund promising companies,” DropDeck’s CEO Alon Vo said in a press release published on Bitcoin.com.

“DropDeck wants to remove the barriers that keep average funders away from the greatest opportunities,” Vo continued. “There are a lot of existing platforms for you to do that, but we want to build your favorite one.” The difference between DropDeck and its competitors, the CEO claimed, is that his company is using sophisticated algorithms and artificial intelligence to sort through the companies for you.

2. Competition is fierce.

Remember: There’s more to success with an ICO than meets the eye. You can’t assume that investors will flock to your ICO. Instead, your success (or failure) is directly tied to your marketing.

Still, some ICOs have been quite successful: The total amount of money raised via ICOs each month, according to a CNBC.com special report, is in excess of $100 million. This means two things: Individuals are willing to invest, and investors have options.

While this surge means that ICOs are receiving more media attention, it also means that competition for investor support will only increase. Companies that want to distinguish themselves among the saturated ICO playing field have to educate themselves on best practices and execute at a level that is as mature as that of companies vying for IPOs.

Matt McGraw is founder and CEO of Dispatch Labs, a blockchain protocol (blockchain being the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies); his company set to initiate its own ICO in early 2018. In a call to me, McGraw said he believes that professional execution will be the key to ICO success going forward.

“Going into 2018, we have larger enterprises jumping on the ICO train, so the market for mindshare is oversubscribed — at least in relation to the sophistication of ICO execution,” McGraw said. “Up to now, many ICO projects simply haven’t been very professionally executed. We see more sophisticated and professional ICO advisory firms, PR firms and financial firms as the key differentiator for a successful ICO going forward.”

I also recently chatted with Nadav Dakner, founder and CEO of InboundJunction, a marketing firm for startups and blockchain projects, for my podcast (In The Trenches with Andrew Medal). Dakner said he believes that because the competition is tough, and the market is getting extremely saturated, companies contemplating an ICO need a lot of budget to stand out; they also need to employ growth-hacking tactics and a lot of creativity.

“We have advised and helped the marketing and business development of many ICOs in 2017, and one thing we’ve noticed about projects that succeed is the integrated marketing approach,” Dakner said.

Because there are literally hundreds or even thousands of ICOs that launch every month, you will hear only of the good ones. A combination of PR, ICO listing websites, YouTube reviews and perhaps a TV interview or two is a good start, but not enough. A solid advisory team and some entrepreneurial background among your founders are the elements that will truly convey to investors a sense of trust that you can build a company.

Apart from that, there are no shortcuts. ICOs need to first grow a huge Telegram community (a social-chat tool that most crypto companies use to communicate) over several months, invest in a great-looking website and video and understand that there are no shortcuts.

The easy days of just putting out a white paper explaining your project’s technical aspects and the composition of your team are over. You must now establish a real use case for the token you intend to promote and the blockchain technology that will fuel it.

3. Communication is key.

No two companies or investors are the same, and an ICO is no exception. This is what makes effective communication just as important as your marketing strategy.

The way you communicate with investors is essential to your success. Have you outlined the details of your ICO, such as the technical information that investors are sure to mull over before making a final decision? How about your vision for the future, including where you see your company moving to in the next year?

“We communicate with hundreds of ICOs that want to list themselves on our website and community,” Alex Buelau CEO of CoinSchedule told me. “Based on what we see, teams that have a very clear and well-defined road map and a not-too-heavy marketing white paper do well. It’s also extremely important to have an attractive one pager Sure, you could fund-raise via VCs and angel investors. But how about an initial coin offering, instead, a strategy that is new and super-cool? and website, because people buy with their eyes.”

A clear marketing message puts you in a good light with investors. They want to see a clearly defined company strategy, and possibly a serious lock-up on token bonus for the founders, to create ithe sense that the company is in it for the long haul. Alternately, a cloudy message can lead to your business (and ICO) being overlooked, in favor of the (heavy) competition.

The upshot? If your startup has hopes of raising funds without following the “same old” traditional path, an initial coin offering is an idea to consider. This is a new way of funding a company, with many entrepreneurs taking notice. This year, 2018, is set up to be the year of cryptocurrency and ICOs, so now’s the time to learn as much as you can.

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05 Jan 2018

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in News, Search Permalink

Why Google May Not Always Be King of the Mountain

Sticky Post By andrew On January 5, 2018

The highest point for any tech company isn’t when it launches its first product, or closes a big round of funding. It’s the moment when the company name makes that magical transition from noun to verb.

Think about when “Have you heard of Uber?” became “I’m Ubering home.”
Or, when “Look it up on Google” became “Google it.” That is true success.

It’s easy to assume that companies that have completed the transition from noun to verb are untouchable — that they will never be toppled from their position of market dominance. But this isn’t always the case. Uber’s market share has shrunk by nearly 20 percent since 2014 — a fall that can be attributed more to corporate scandals and declining public opinion than any flaw in its product.

Companies that enjoy near-monopolistic power over their market become vulnerable when their reputation begins to decline. This is precisely why the search engine market is poised for disruption. Google — which today enjoys a cool 75 percent share of the search engine market — has seen its reputation shaken over the past year by a series of issues. And this should not be a surprise: Search is not a solved problem; there’s still plenty of room for innovation and disruption.

Here are three reasons why the search industry is ripe for disruption.

Filter bubbles

Filter bubbles are the byproduct of social algorithms utilized by Google and most other search platforms. When a user enters a term into a search engine, the engine’s algorithms take into account what they know about that user’s preferences and interests based on his or her online activity. The algorithms then prioritize search results that are tailored to that particular user’s preferences.

The result? Conservatives are fed conservative content, liberals are fed liberal content, millennials are fed millennial content and, in general, everyone lives in a personalized bubble where his or her own ideas and prejudices are continually reinforced and never challenged.

The term “filter bubble” was coined back in 2011 by Eli Pariser, chief executive of Upworthy and board president of MoveOn.org. “Even if you’re logged out,” said Pariser in his now-famous TED Talk, “there are 57 signals that Google looks at — everything from what kind of computer you’re on to what kind of browser you’re using, to where you’re located — that it uses to personally tailor your query results.”

Moreover, the relevance of these “filter bubbles” has increased over the past 12 months as their dangers have begun to manifest more seriously in public life. Leading figures like Bill Gates and Angela Merkel have spoken up about the problem, which has been blamed for increasing political polarization and for harming civic conversation in democratic countries.

Sanjay Arora, founder and CEO of Million Short, a customizable search engine, believes, however, that filter bubbles can be popped if people are given more options and control over how they search for information online.

“Why do we let a tiny number of companies control the information that we access on the internet?” Arora asked during a phone interview we had when I was prepping for my new podcast (In The Trenches with Andrew Medal). “The world,” Arora said, “needs more search engine options.”

Rather than feeding results from opaque algorithms, Million Short allows users to tailor its search results, he pointed out. This happens through a variety of custom filters, and through the option the viewer has to actually filter out the top 100 to 1,000,000 sites on the internet.

The results can be eye-opening for the user, Arora claimed, noting: “Every day, we get feedback from users telling us how Million Short allows them to discover content online that they couldn’t find with traditional search engines.”

Fake news

“Fake news” was one of the highest-profile social issues of 2017. Malicious groups, including political extremists and Russian hackers, used the internet’s biggest platforms to circulate untrue stories in order to stoked partisan conflict and influence national elections.

Google’s search algorithms carry much of the blame for the widespread circulation of those stories. At various points last year, Google actually displayed a neo-Nazi Holocaust denial website at the top of its search results, promoted fake news tweets that mischaracterized the Texas church shooter as a Muslim extremist and suggested that President Obama was planning a communist coup de’etat.

The real problem is that Google’s algorithms are vulnerable: They can be taken advantage of by fake news propagators. “I think the reason fake news ranks is the same reason why it shows up in Google’s autocomplete,” said Joost De Valk, founder of Yoast. “They’ve been taking more and more user signals into their algorithm.

“If something resonates with users, it’s more likely to get clicks,” De Valk continued, “Google is quick to promote you to number one . . . Nothing in their algorithm checks facts.”

Of course, this isn’t an easy problem to solve. Even if algorithms get better at separating fact from fiction, the humans that design those algorithms bring their own biases into the equation. Are we comfortable giving one company the authority to make decisions about what news is worthy of distribution? “They’re really skating on this ice,” said Michael Bertini, a search strategist at marketing agency iQuanti, “They’re controlling what users see. If Google is controlling what they deem to be fake news, I think that’s bias.”

So, who’s out there working on this? Any company that can solve this puzzle is certain to create a serious buzz, considering that the issue of fake news continues to be a hot topic for 2018.

Data security concerns

Fake news isn’t the only issue: As digital platforms like Google become increasingly ubiquitous and sophisticated, concerns about data security and privacy are also on the rise.

Google has been criticized for the various ways that it tracks and stores information about online behavior. And the search giant hasn’t exactly been apologetic about this practice. Its former CEO Eric Schmidt once said, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time.”

Other search platforms disagree: They’ve rejected the inevitability of user data tracking. Duck Duck Go, for example, built its entire platform around the idea that search engines shouldn’t track or store user data. This principled stance has won Duck Duck Go a loyal following and the seventh largest market share in search.

So, these are some of the reasons why search is far from a solved problem. They’re why the number of players in the space — Quora, Million Short, Duck Duck Go and the revamped Ask.com, to name a few — is increasing.

There are still serious challenges that need to be solved, and bold entrepreneurs are out there trying to solve them, taking advantage of opportunties for innovation that Google seems unable or unwilling to pursue.

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29 Dec 2017

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in News, Personal Branding Permalink

5 Reasons Personal Branding is Non-Negotiable for 2018

Sticky Post By andrew On December 29, 2017

Why is everyone all of a sudden trying to become LinkedIn-famous? Is anyone else tired (like me) of reading about all of the branding “hacks” out there? After all, there’s a lot more to achieving great personal branding than tricking algorithms.

And,make no mistake: Achieving great personal branding is important. In fact, when it comes to being a truly innovative entrepreneur or industry professional, having a personalized online footprint is essential to your business strategy.

Research has confirmed this. Kredible found that 52 percent of vendors it surveyed said they’d lost business because of information customers found, or didn’t find, online, about them.

That’s alarming, because entrepreneurs and startup founders can’t afford to have potential customers stumbling upon the wrong information; and no information at all can be just as problematic. The same goes for job-seekers surfing the web to check out a prospective employer. According to a Jobvite survey of recruiters, 95 percent of those polled viewed a competitive personal brand as an essential differentiator for attracting the best applicants in today’s workplace.

I’ve found this to be true:My personal brand has afforded me unlimited opportunities, from earning me big business deals and partnerships, to reasons to travel, to everything in between.

So, make 2018 your own year for upping your game:Here’s a list of reasons why entrepreneurs, solopreneurs (and everyone else) should focus on personal branding in the new year:

1. Image is everything.

If you believe the old axiom that you need to put your best foot forward, a more modern version would be that you have to put your best face forward. While numerous HR-driven applications are pushing for photos and names to be removed from the hiring or sourcing process, to lower the possibillity of racial and gender bias, people use photos and visual branding for positive reasons, too.

That’s because there is a good deal that professionals can glean from your visual brand online. As Claire Bahn, CEO of Online Profile Pros, a profile photo provider, shared with me about my own personal brand, “Experts estimate it takes less than one-tenth of a second for someone to make an impression of you from your photo. They don’t bother reading your profile or digging deeper if their initial impression is negative.”

2. Personal banding is content you control.

Let’s face it. A lot of us have some sort of content out there — whether it be photos or an angry Facebook rant — that we might not be comfortable with potential employers, business partners or dates seeing when they Google our names.

Previously, I was the target of an online slander campaign, and I had to deal with negative press about my background. So much of the online world is outside of our control; so it’s important to flood the web with as much positive content as possible. That’s why having an active personal branding strategy is a crucial part of controlling your image online. I learned that if I wasn’t writing my own story, somebody else would, and it wouldn’t be the story I want to share.

The more content you put online, the more that effort will help your good content rise above any negative content that may be out there.

Beyond that, when people search for you or topics related to your work, and they find high-quality content, they’re much more likely to turn to you as an expert over a competitor. A Bahn explained, “It’s always a plus when someone finds content that demonstrates your expertise, interests and capabilities. If someone finds a blog, pulse post, etc. that shows you’re an effective communicator, they’re much more likely to look into you further.”

The same goes for applicants. An HR rep comparing two candidates is more likely to select the one that has lots of high-quality content online, beyond whatever he or she has shared on a resume.

3. Make yours a profile-centric world.

As Bahn put it, “People used to have one or two online profiles, but these days the average is closer to nine, if you include dating profiles.There’s just a lot more for people to research about you these days.”

With so many social profiles, it’s important to carefully select and manage which ones people will see. LinkedIn’s recent acquisition by Microsoft is just another sign that the professional world is recognizing the importance of social profiles.

4. Influencer marketing gives way to sponsored content.

A trend that rose out of the popularity of content platforms like YouTube and Instagram, influencer marketing, has created an influx of brands using popular accounts to push their product. As such, every platform has been bombarded by “influencers” trying to subtly market products without making those efforts look like ads.

Consumer tolerance for this behavior is slipping, however, and platforms like Instagram and even the U.S. government, are considering how to control these subtle ads that cut into brands’ advertising revenue while dodging FTC regulations.

What’s likely to emerge as a result is a push for more open and honest content marketing on these platforms. If you are an entrepreneur trying to get your product or service in front of consumers, you’re probably better off creating authentic and honest sponsored content that also gives you back-end data into ad performance. Relying on an “influencer” to casually mention how much he or she likes your product is dicey, at best.

5. Realize that building a brand takes time.

Whether or not you’ve considered managing your personal brand, the fact is, it’s not something you can do overnight. Sure you can brush up your LinkedIn profile, delete those embarrassing pictures from Instagram or make some of your profiles private, but that’s only a small part of the overall branding process.

Effective personal branding can help build new relationships, and get you noticed for a job, or by a new customer. It can help you build community, establish your authority and ultimately make you more money.

Putting in the effort to develop a strong online presence, along with a series of consistently branded social profiles, will help you develop a digital footprint that tells people all the right things when they’re considering working with you.

As you kick off planning for 2018 growth, think about clearly defining what you bring to the table as a professional, and what your business offers consumers. Then double-down on spreading that message in the right places online.

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21 Dec 2017

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Mobile Apps, News Permalink

Today’s Shortage in Code Development Presents Entrepreneurs With a Massive Opportunity

Sticky Post By andrew On December 21, 2017

Mobile apps are essentially a digital gateway drug: While one app is not addictive on its own, each one can be habit-forming and lead to the use of other addictive apps. What starts as a tween love for Candy Crush quickly turns to an obsession, with Instagram “likes” five years later. Even former Facebook vice president of user growth Chamath Palihapitiya has expressed a sense of guilt about what mobile apps like social media have done to society.

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” Palihapitiya recently said in a speech at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

While Palihapitiya’s remarks may signal the start of a trend toward social media and app-use criticism, mobile shows no signs of slowing. Cisco’s annual report on mobile traffic growth reported that by 2020, more people will have a cell phone than electricity. Not to mention that mobile apps will be a $188 billion global market.

From an enterprise perspective, Gartner predicts that by the end of this year, the demand for mobile-app development expertise will grow up to five times greater than most organizations’ internal IT departments can currently serve. So, if you’ve got a business, now, more than ever, it’s important for you to also have in place a solid mobile app strategy.

So, how, exactly, do you implement that app strategy?

Entrepreneurs often struggle to develop apps because they lack the in-house teams necessary to do so. Even if a company has a development team on hand, those teams rarely have the resources and tool kits needed to develop apps that meet their end goal. And without the proper tools, the stages from conception to development can take a long time.

Of course, time means increased costs, and potentially a competitor making it to market sooner. Even when developers finally have a minimum viable product (MVP), that product has to go through countless layers of administrative approvals and feedback, which can delay the process even further.

App development doesn’t have to be so complicated, however. With the right approach, companies can develop apps at a faster rate, and resolve issues before they become serious problems.

Here are a few steps every entrepreneur can take to upgrade his or her strategy for facilitating app development:

1. Reduce the amount of code.

Most entrepreneurs these days are familiar with coding at its most basic level, but cursory knowledge does little when it comes to building and launching a mobile app. Not to mention, the code that these apps are built on is often more complicated than it needs to be. This is because companies try to develop their own proprietary code, rather than rely on tried and true methods that can help simplify the process.

I recently spoke with Anders Lassen, CEO of Fuse, who explained, “People work incredibly inefficiently today, and we simply can’t afford that when demand for enterprise apps outstrips supply by six-to-one.

“Simplifying the code that makes an app run is one of the best ways to ensure its continued performance and speedy development,” Lassen continued. He recommended using development tool kits based on simplified code, rather than wasting time trying to develop proprietary solutions.

2. Use visual interfaces.

For people looking for a more user-friendly app-development experience, here’s a tip: Visual-development interfaces make for a much simpler design process. With this method, developers, instead of burying their noses in code all day, select options from a visual interface that looks a lot like the apps they’re used to using on a day-to-day basis.

“Having a consistent look, behavior and brand-identity across their different platforms and apps is important, and that’s only achievable through focused collaboration between designers, developers and stakeholders,” Lassen said. “My experience is that being able to do this on a single, unified platform is key, as it eliminates friction and frustration for everyone involved.

“Overall, it makes zero sense to invest in an expensive prototype that you then ask someone to look at, interpret and then re-implement in a native language.”

3. Employ full app-lifecycle support.

Make no mistake: Low-code development platforms don’t focus solely on the initial building phase. Instead, these options support the entire app-delivery lifecycle, from design, to build, to deployment and iteration.

Iteration is probably the most important factor in app development, because of the feverish speed at which consumer demands change. Being able to integrate user feedback into your application without the help of outside developers or an IT team means your app updates get to market faster and can be seamlessly updated throughout the app lifecycle.

Entrepreneurs cannot afford to be held back by apps that don’t serve their business’s and customers’ needs.That’s why they need better support throughout the entire lifecycle of their app. Jason Bloomberg, an analyst at Intellyx, recently reported that business leaders “can be even more successful with their digital transformations if they do away with hand-coding altogether, adopting Low-Code/No-Code across their organizations instead.”

Integrate analytics

Once your app is deployed, and users start installing it, you’ve only just begun the process of maintaining a successful app. Efficient iteration is impossible without being able to analyze behavior, predict trends and quickly integrate user feedback. Analytics provides insight on how people navigate through the app once they leave it, where they upgrade and how they behave in terms of dozens of other behavioral patterns.

With these details, entrepreneurs can analyze and compare campaigns, adjusting their resource allocation in response. Popular tools for integrating analytics and tracking into app development include Google, Firebase and Flurry.

No matter what industry you’re in, the landscape is likely changing rapidly, as people move from obsession-riddled social media apps to zero-friction utility apps. In order to stay competitive, entrepreneurs need to explore all app platform options before prematurely investing in expensive developers, designers, and IT teams.

So, what path will your app journey take?

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15 Dec 2017

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Gaming, News Permalink

How User Behavior Is Scoring Points in the Gaming Industry and Could Score You Points Too

Sticky Post By andrew On December 15, 2017

If you think the gaming industry is represented by the somewhat pathetic image of a 35-year-old male playing Age of Empires in his mother’s basement, you are sorely mistaken, because gaming is so much more than that.

In fact, this $78.61 billion industry is a poster child for modern engineering, typically adopting new technologies before other sectors do and showing itself to be one of today’s most successful industries when it comes to understanding its customers (who, yes, are typically 35-year-old men).

Indeed, gaming is a technology powerhouse constantly investing in more and more powerful machines and infrastructure. That investment has created a global ecosystem of gamers and communities responsible for generating for this sector more earnings than either movies or music.

So, what does the future hold for gaming? “Strong growth will continue as more online casinos open in China and other Asian countries,” predicts NewZoo, an online games market research group. “Established markets have reached maturity and have less room for revenue growth, [meaning that] new markets will open up and increase access to gaming activities.”

Today’s gaming industry, in short, is still managing to grow those margins by getting smart with data. And while big data in gaming has been around for years, only recently have AI-powered SaaS platforms been able to achieve user-focused behavioral analysis.

The next phase of gaming software advancements, then, will likely rely heavily on integrating behavioral analytics to understand gamers’ tendencies and preferences. Games empowered with that kind of information can be calibrated in real time to hold user attention, increase purchases and grow the bottom line, all of which are tactics I’ve covered on my podcast.

Behavioral analytics

The goal of behavioral analytics is to identify what behaviors cause what actions. What steps did the user take before he or she made an in-app purchase? Was there a point in the game that turned the user off or caused a loss in interest? How long will a user play without winning before he or she quits?

This type of path analysis, attached to a time frame, is allowing game marketers to create better user experiences.

Reated: 3 Growth Strategies for Mobile Gaming

“Today’s current measure of KPIs in gaming are only the headlines about your players,” Dan Schoenbaum, CEO of Cooladata, a behavioral analytics platform for online gaming, said on my podcast. “The people who manage games today already need to leverage behavioral analytics. They experience a large number of players who play on free, so the ability to convert them to a paying player is huge. If you understand user behavior, you can drive up retention, which is absolutely crucial.”

Optimization for retention

Game-developers don’t just want someone to download or play their game once; they want the game played again, and again, and again. Long-term engagement creates loyalty, and that is the best way to gain a competitive edge.

To achieve long-term engagement, analytics and tools must be in place to measure player engagement over a period of days, weeks or other time period; they must also be accessible and easy to understand.

Schoenbaum recommends looking at user behavior through the lens of product optimization: “Following user paths, combined with specific time frames, allows game managers to glean new insights for different players, optimize their path and increase conversion rates,” Schoenbaum told me.

Predicting, to be proactive

At this point, gaming companies’ data warehouses and customer databases contain a wealth of data. Not only is that data valuable for analyzing past user behavior, but it’s valuable for game marketers, to shine a light on consumer patterns. Insights like these indicate who will purchase again, how much they’ll spend and the churn rate for those customers overall.

A recent illustration of the future of predictive analytics comes from the partnership between Zodiac, a cloud-based software platform provider, and Tophouse Media, a digital media company. A match-up like theirs aims to bring predictive analytics to game marketers so they can better understand their customers and fine-tune their planning and forecasting.

Moves like this across the industry also allow gaming operators to be more accurate and precise in their marketing strategies, while reducing spend and maximizing return.

Identifying issues

Another intriguing aspect of predictive analytics is its capability to predict abuse or addiction — related to gaming in terms of the problem of gambling addiction. Understanding customers with this problem, in fact, is one of the top uses for today’s analytics activity.

A leading money-gaming company in Europe, Pentaho, is an example: It’s using big data and predictive analytics to create a “360-view of customers, which, among other things, helps to identify those customers who show signs of gambling addiction.”

As our world becomes increasingly more digital, identifying technology will play a significant role in moderating game mechanics.

Leveraging data to stay ahead

Online games must have a unique user experience, but they also need back-end support to iterate quickly and cater to individual users.

“Gaming is a hyper-competitive industry, and those who succeed are implementing unique identification capabilities, people-based approaches, and proactive behavioral campaigns,” Schoenbaum said.

In sum, deploying analytics has transformed most brands and entire industries into tech companies. This billion dollar industry is expected to generate 2,857 petabytes of data per month in 2018. So, game marketers that take the time to understand that 35-year-old man in his mom’s basement will actually cross the threshold into a lucrative online gaming platform.

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11 Dec 2017

Sticky Post By andrew Posted in Cryptocurrency, News Permalink

10 Incredible Uses for Cryptocurrency and Blockchain You Probably Haven’t Thought of

Sticky Post By andrew On December 11, 2017

Now, more than ever before is a time to be thinking about cryptocurrencies. Over the past few years, cryptocurrency has grown exponentially because of its attractiveness to people looking to use this alternative money. Bitcoin, the best known of the new cryptocurrencies, is one of those words surrounded by automatic buzz, in part because everyone’s so excited about its potential.

And it’s no surprise that cryptocurrencies are exciting, overall. Because they’re decentralized (no banks!), anonymous and electric, they’ve got the potential to change the world as we know it.

Interestingly, that change will extend beyond the finance sector: Cryptocurrency, it turns out, has a huge number of uses, many of which will surprise you. Just take a look at these ten:

1. Wealth management

Wealth management is one of the most exciting ways cryptocurrency can be used. That’s why companies such as SwissBorg — a company that’s created its own tokens for investment solutions — are giving investors some great opportunities to manage their wealth without boundaries or restrictions. According to the SwissBorg website, “Whether you are an individual, a DAO [decentralized autonomous organization] or a financial expert, SwissBorg is a democratic ecosystem where you can manage a portfolio of crypto assets.”

2. Digital publishing engagement

Digital publishers and advertisers are scrambling to find ways to increase their relevancy with one another. Today, traditional banner ads that have almost nothing to do with an article are simply ineffective with users. To fix the irrelevance problem, SolidOpinion has introduced a new type of pay-per-article advertising where advertisers can pay for valuable ad real estate just above a relevant article that a target audience member is consuming on a publishing site.

This technology utilizes a proprietary form of cryptocurrency, Engagement Token, to fuel engagement; both publishers and audience members can earn tokens by commenting and publishing original content, and advertisers buy tokens to select their ad placements among relevant articles.

A great cryptocurrency is the ability to take advantage of its trackability. So with advertising, this technology makes sense: SolidOpinion, for example, has created its own digital currency (engagement tokens) that track engagement and the viral spread of information, which gets online advertisers the information they need and the capability to use it efficiently.

3. Ethical business practices

Cryptocurrency can also be used to encourage ethical business practices. Because blockchain makes it possible to track every transaction with complete transparency, businesses with a record of human rights abuses — the fishing industry, for instance, — will (hopefully) take on more ethical business practices.

4. Battling electoral fraud

Another ethical application of cryptocurrency will be its ability to help battle electoral fraud. Santiago Siri is the co-founder of Democracy Earth, a non-profit that’s designing an app to combine voting with blockchain technology. Siri says that with cryptocurrency, electoral fraud — or any other kind of corruption involving money — will no longer be possible.

“The blockchain is incorruptible; no one can modify or subvert how the votes are stored, and that’s vital for democracy,” Siri has said.

5. De-corrupting charities

Additionally, cryptocurrency can be used to avoid corruption in charitable organizations. Because of its ability to keep companies accountable, blockchain can eliminate many problems occurring with charities, such as fund leaks. That’s why the World Food Programme (WFP) is using blockchain to securely distribute cash assistance to the hungry.

6. Going green

If you’re an environmentalist, you’ll be happy to hear that cryptocurrency can be used to make the world greener, too. For example, there’s the Brooklyn Microgrid. With this system, people who already have solar panels are able to sell environmental credits through a phone app, to residents who don’t have direct access — which means using less carbon-based power and more solar-based energy.

7.Travel

As Bitcoin becomes accepted by more and more retailers, people are going to have the chance to use them for a huge number of transactions. Travel transactions are just one category. The website cheapair.com, a travel agency where you can purchase flights, hotels, car rentals and cruises, has been accepting Bitcoin since 2013.

8. Education

More and more, schools are accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. According to Futurism.com, universities in Switzerland, Germany, Cyprus and the United States have started to accept Bitcoin as payment. This form of payment will surely grow as this currency becomes more and more popular.

9. Fund-raising

Many startups are now using cryptocurrencies in order to fund their ideas, services and products. Instead of using traditional VC funding, or using fund-raising websites such as IndieGoGo or Kickstarter, startup leaders are looking to cryptocurrency as a way to raise money for what they need. Because it’s easy to track and obtain money this way, it’s revolutionizing the entire fund-raising process.

10. Augmented reality

I saved the best for last as I have a slight bias because of my company Blendar, which rewards users for viewing AR experiences with cryptocurrency. Thanks to the Pokemon Go craze and companies like Candy Lab, which have paved the way for location-based AR, a whole new breed of startups has evolved. Location-based augmented reality experiences will be the future of experiential marketing.

And here, Fluffr.io, is another company to keep your eyes open for, as it has partnered with Blendar and Candy Lab to drive revolutionary in-person experiences, using a social currency based on the blockchain.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways that cryptocurrency is changing every single aspect of our lives. As cryptocurrencies gain popularity in the business world and in our daily lives, more and more uses will come about, revolutionizing the world as we know it.

Do you use cryptocurrency in your business or everyday life? What are the pros and cons?

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I'm The Blog

Turning to cloud-hiring solutions

Solving for sourcing

Solving for hiring

Keeping up with demand

1. A unified compliance strategy

2. Compliance platforms to the rescue

3. Forward-thinking to head off potential risks

4. Making your values known

First, AI broke through the legitimacy barrier.

Next, AI is poised to take on immensely complex tasks.

AI’s untapped potential

1. They represent a different approach (so get in the right frame of mind).

2. Competition is fierce.

3. Communication is key.

Filter bubbles

Fake news

Data security concerns

1. Image is everything.

2. Personal banding is content you control.

3. Make yours a profile-centric world.

4. Influencer marketing gives way to sponsored content.

5. Realize that building a brand takes time.

So, how, exactly, do you implement that app strategy?

1. Reduce the amount of code.

2. Use visual interfaces.

3. Employ full app-lifecycle support.

Integrate analytics

Behavioral analytics

Optimization for retention

Predicting, to be proactive

Identifying issues

Leveraging data to stay ahead

1. Wealth management

2. Digital publishing engagement

3. Ethical business practices

4. Battling electoral fraud

5. De-corrupting charities

6. Going green

7.Travel

8. Education

9. Fund-raising

10. Augmented reality

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