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nytech · 3 years

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Teaching Entrepreneurship with Shaun Johnson

This interview is part of our “Getting to Know You” series, featuring brilliant entrepreneurs from the NY Tech community.

Shaun Johnson is an experienced entrepreneur who has worked across the fields of technology acceleration, early-stage investment, and ecosystem development. He lives in New York City and teaches entrepreneurship at Fordham University & Parsons School of Design. Shaun is also a Board Member of the NY Tech Alliance. He agreed to speak with us about his career journey, the lessons learned along the way, his take on diversity in tech, and what makes a successful entrepreneur.

“One piece of advice I’ve been given and still sticks with me in a perplexing way would be to say that perception equals reality. Even though this isn’t always a universal truth, I often wonder if it’s true, untrue, or sometimes true — as there are times one can influence the other, and other times, not at all.”

Tell us about yourself

I like to describe myself as a helper of people, and that has taken a lot of different shapes and forms. I actually started my career in the federal government, then as a management consultant, and finally transitioned into the world startups as an early employee at Techstars, where I ended up spinning out a company called Startup Institute — a career accelerator aiming to equip people with the network skills and mindset to be immediately impactful in the startups that they join.

You teach entrepreneurship ー according to you, what are the skills one must develop to become a successful entrepreneur?

In teaching entrepreneurship, there are a lot of things that are important, especially at the university level because there’s always this tension between “can entrepreneurship be taught?” or “should you just go out and do it?”

The mentality of doing and learning through action is definitely a skill worth acquiring, whether in the field or the classroom.

There will always be a lot of little failures along the way, and that’s actually a good thing, but it can be counterintuitive for folks who aren’t used to accepting failure on their way to success. Grit is also another important factor. And then the last one, just because I want to leave it at three, is empathy. To have a deep understanding of your customer, the mission that you have, and the people that you’re building around helps you to build exceptional teams, exceptional products, and ultimately, address your market in an exceptional way.

What’s your favorite thing about teaching entrepreneurship?

The people. Students are always so different. People come from multiple backgrounds, different parts of the world, different industries, and with different perspectives. Even if you are teaching one specific course on entrepreneurship, it’ll never look the same because it’s always dependent on the people who are there. Everyone brings their unique personality, and the diversity and plurality come together to create a unique experience.

My desire and appreciation for plurality reflect my sentiments about New York City itself. The city is made of 8 million people coming from different backgrounds and places, who all have unique personalities, desires, hopes, and dreams.

We all have to interact with each other and try to build a better future. Whether it’s through entrepreneurship or just our own coexistence, I think that there’s something productive and meaningful about that.

How do you think the tech industry can become more diverse?

I think one of the challenges is that we tend to take one shade or one arc of diversity, drill in on that and assume that we’ve done our job. For example, one aspect of diversity can be ensuring your company hires people of color, or getting women into the tech ecosystem and make sure that there’s equal pay and that gender rights are respected.

But can you actually look at this kaleidoscope and not just say, ‘Hey today we want to focus on, like, LGBTQ rights?’ Or ‘today we want to focus on Black people or women.’ But instead, the dialogue has to answer the question of: “How can we actually approach inclusion and value creation that is accessible to all?”

Rather than trying to identify a specific group on its own, let’s actually think about how we can lift everyone up together while also valuing their uniqueness.

Is this part of the reason or the reason why you wanted to become involved with the NY Tech Alliance?

I’ve been a huge fan of the NY Tech Alliance since my career in startups has begun. Before I was living in New York City, I would take a bus from out of state to attend NY Tech Meetups, to see that the energy in the room with so many different people there.

It just felt like a panorama of what the startup ecosystem has to offer. It was a great entry point for me. And the NYTA still serves in that capacity for others and provides a jumping-off point, an entry point, and a point of connection, learning and motivation for people.

When given the opportunity to serve on the board, it was something that I couldn’t pass up.

Which trends do you think will emerge in the tech industry in the near future?

You know, I never pretended to be a fortune teller, but I think the year we just survived showed us that despite quarantine and isolation, we still need to connect with each other and be productive. It has been great for Zoom but so many people are zoomed out and looking for different ways of connecting with people that may not just be from the shoulders up.

You’re also seeing some trends around climate tech. The conversation is now rightly shifted from climate change to the climate crisis, and it is attracting a lot of bright minds and big dollars. And I think that’s great because it’s imperative for our survival as human beings.

How has a past failure set you up for success?

I mean, I guess I’m always failing at something. If you’re not failing, you’re probably not trying hard enough. I think the little failures along the way are indicative of trying to do something audacious or something that you’re unsure of. I couldn’t point to one specific failure because there’s just a butterfly effect of one thing leading to the next thing. But overall, the lesson in failure is really to process it and move on to the next thing, ideally in an upward fashion.

As New Yorkers, there may not always be the time or space to do that. You know, we move so fast. We break things, we execute, and there’s so much going on that we can forget to stop and reflect for a minute, look objectively at failure and ask “What could I have done better? What did I learn here? What would I do next?”

It’s important to reflect in a way that builds off of that failure rather than just repetitively coming right back at the same scenario, which is likely to lead to the same outcome.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced in your career?

Walking away from something that just wasn’t for me at the time. With an early career as a management consultant, a lot of things about that job were great: the prestige, the nice fancy suits, the travel.

But then you start to just understand what your calling is, what motivates you or what nourishes you. Changing your career to pursue your calling can be risky, but it ultimately is good for the soul. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what my calling was going to be. And it took courage and conviction to just say “Ok, all these things are good and everyone else loves them for me. But I just don’t love them as much, and I’m willing to look out into the abyss and seek out something that actually is more aligned with who I am and who I want to be.”

It was really scary and that’s one of the biggest moves I’ve made. That’s the advice I give to my students. Do what you love. Life’s too short!

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given?

One piece of advice I’ve been given and still sticks with me in a perplexing way would be to say that perception equals reality. Even though this isn’t always a universal truth, I often wonder if it’s true, untrue, or sometimes true — as there are times one can influence the other, and other times, not at all.

I apply that saying as a prompt for a lot of different things, from looking at analytics and wondering what’s going on with your company, checking in with your mental health and wondering if all of this anxiety or depression is actually real or if your perception influences what you’re feeling. And it’s also a way to keep yourself grounded.

Any final words?

Yeah. If Alicia (interviewer) says or types anything that makes me sound stupid, that was her edit. Everything that I said was brilliant (laugh). And she’ll make sure that it comes across!

To connect with Shaun on LinkedIn, click here.

To learn more valuable lessons from Founders, watch our NYTA Founder Spotlight series on YouTube.

#entrepreneurship #teaching #nytech #education #entrepreneur #startup lessons #nytechalliance

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divingtotheunknown · 3 years

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Living In Uncertainties

To anyone who continues to resist like me, you may not realize it now but you are ever so lucky to not have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. A huge part of people’s lives was swiftly taken from them as the virus raged across the country. Who would have thought that the one week suspension we heard on the news last year would last until now.

Most of the time, it felt unreal how the entire thing was. It was as if my world stopped and I was confined to one of its corners. I can’t say for myself how terrible the experience was, just that it was. It brought out the worst in the society, in men; selfishness, greed, indifference and above all, fear. Fear was the biggest of the four. It influenced all the others to terrorize the hearts and minds of people.

The virus was very unpredictable for a long time. It is actually testing the technology to stave off the virus. It could appear anywhere, anytime without us knowing and it could’ve meant life or death.

Which means to say that the possibility of anyone we loved or us ourselves getting the virus was high and that could very well be the end of the line. I can’t stress enough how badly that fear affected the mental and emotional well-being of a lot of the people I knew. Personally, I never expected this pandemic would let social media affect my own thinking. The same goes with the mindset of the public with what and how they consume information online. The fact the fake news is everywhere, undeniably a lot of people became victims of it, even some members of my family - which is why it is really important how important it is to be a responsible user nowadays. It was evident that during the first few days, we were vigorously trying to find ways to take off the looming dread from that thought but it seems that no matter how far we ran, that thought kept close on our tails.

People spoke up about the stress this entire thing would cause on society. In particular, the working class and the poor were the most affected. A lot of them needed to work daily just to get paid and earn a living. They had to stop so that they could be safe and also to stop the number of infected people from increasing. There was nothing they could do. When they left, it seemed as if society had stopped as well. To be honest, our business was affected as well. Luckily, I was able to help my parents continue the business through the use of e-commerce using different platforms online but I know and it is sad that not everyone has the access and ability to move forward using the same resources we had. Only a few workers were allowed to be outside of their homes, they were the medical workers and frontliners like those who worked in groceries. A lot of medical workers lost their lives to the virus. How painful it must have been for their colleagues to watch as the people beside them fell ill and succumbed to death. A friend of mine shared to me how hard it was for them not to see her father personally after dying due to a virus. He ended his life fulfilling his duty as a Doctor. Saying the last words for her Dad through video call is different from the usual but again, what can we do? I can only imagine all the pain they carried during those days. How brave they all were, risking their own safety for the sake of others. They did not want to be part of that front and yet there they were.

This stress was also put on students. Universities decided to conduct online classes completely. I did not see the fairness in that. While it’s true that we students should give value to our time by spending it on education, we too felt the weight of the situation. A lot of us were still coping with the madness that seemed to take on the world. But what could we do? Over a year, we have been so hopeful that one day, we can still go back to the campus but despite all that, I am still grateful for the power of media and technology. Applications like Facebook allows us to keep in touch, Twitter and Instagram reminds us to be updated, Blackboard, Zoom, Discord and other articulations of social media allows us to continue pursuing our dreams despite all the limitations and challenges brought by the pandemic. We had no choice but to resign to our fate of finishing the academic year against our wishes.

During these days, the government seemed to be at its worst. It turned out that hospitals all over the country were underprepared because they were not funded properly. What’s worse was that the government deployed the police and troops to “ensure public safety”. Just like what we always see in different social media applications, police do not protect the public, instead the people behind all the shortcomings in the country. How ironic it was to see the military well-armed. It added nothing more than fear to the people. There were several incidents where the military unjustly shot people down for being suspicious or unruly. They did not even hesitate to point their guns! Good thing is, with the continuous innovation in terms of technology, there was much evidence online that would prove the blasphemy of the abusers of power.

It did not take long for people to realize that they would be stuck at home for so long. Everyone needed to stay home and so they needed as many supplies as possible. However, it came to a point where people got greedy and all they could think of was themselves. People tend to hoard whenever they see news about the possible shift of quarantine and this is actually a situation I can connect with the lesson about substantivism wherein technology has a capability to affect or mold the people and even the society. I understand the need to look for one’s own welfare, I understand the need to care for our loved ones but what I did not understand was why people had to cross the line towards being greedy and hoarding far more than they needed.

As far as man has evolved, its progress is still so little. In the midst of a global crisis, they found time to claw at each other’s throats by pointing fingers to pass the blame. It came to a point where Asian people were discriminated against as carriers of the disease. Perhaps the worst case was that of the American president calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus. I felt ashamed of these people. There were a lot of others trying to help build more unity and yet these people were insensitive enough to cause more divisions. I dream that such connectivity has been brought to us by the media, hopefully time will come it will also apply to the society, country even as one nation.

It was truly a terrible time. Imagine the reality of a global scale crisis paired dawning on you from behind and before you are the immoral choices made by the society you live in. It was one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. I felt crushed by the immense weight of the situation we were all in.

I missed the outdoors, I missed my friends, I missed school. I missed the joys that I could only experience outside of my home, I missed the fresh air, I missed the sunlight. realized that I took a lot of these for granted. We can only see our loved ones on our screens and it is heartbreaking that we can no longer do the things we are used to. It’s true what they say: you only realize the value of some things once they are gone or taken away from you.

All I could wonder then, was if life would ever be back to the way things were.

They say that during the direst of situations, the worst and best in man shows. I’ve had my fair share of seeing just how bad a man can get. Yet, there were times when man’s goodness prevailed. In fact, you’d be surprised just how many of them there are.

A lot of people held volunteer work that reached out to poor communities so that they could be given food and supplies. Some people hosted online charity events from their homes to raise funds to donate to the medical effort, online donations drive and they even use media as their means of communication for community pantry. It was those moments that gave me hope and reminded me of how morally good people can be. During those moments it felt like not everything was wrong with the world.

Those days really made me realize how difficult it was to really put a finger on what morality is. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that we may never really be completely good or bad. Sometimes, we’re a little bit of each other. Indeed, people are constantly changing, even technology and society. It’s unbelievable how new media changes our lives, our way of living and how we use these innovations although there’s always pros and cons. It’s hard to juggle that thought because we are so limited, so small compared to the universe we live in.

The message I leave with you now, dear reader, is to live. To live means to learn. To live means to see. To live means to understand, to appreciate, to feel, to live is everything. Get rid of the distractions caused by these changes. Concern yourself with the world so as not to be selfish but also devote time to yourself when you need it.

REFERENCES:

Soriano, P. N. (2021, August 31). Nueva Ecija records 14 new COVID-19 Delta variant cases. Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/nation/covid-19-delta-variant-cases-nueva-ecija-august-27-2021?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR20YsXyEhuxFMu7Y4P5uWon2xRnYZ7tqpQWSCJxxaaCdpFsTKtasfe5zI8#Echobox=1630055399

Pangue, J. (2021, January 9). In 2021, communities can prove that fighting disinformation isn’t just media’s role. Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/moveph/communities-prove-fighting-disinformation-not-just-media-role

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remotesellingmastery · 3 years

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How to be more effective selling virtually

Some organizations are beginning to move their sales teams back to work in the company office in staggered shifts to avoid overcrowding of the office space.

The question is, are salespeople more productive working from home or in the office? The answer may surprise you.

There is a lot of value in the water-cooler effect for salespeople in working in an office with easy access to SME knowledge, meeting people in different departments and sharing stories with colleagues. However this social aspect aside, salespeople are more productive working from home, and part of the problem is the office itself.

From Open Plan, to Partitions and Back Again

Open plan has been around since commerce began in London in the 18th century.

Open plan was sold as an innovative concept for offices back in the 1940’s, a Frank Lloyd Wright idea implemented first at SC Johnson Wax. Wright’s innovative design was well spaced, but open. The original idea was slowly degraded over the ensuing decades without regard for workers in the typing pool and other clerical roles. This excellent Vox video Open Offices are Over-rated gives a brief history of office design.

For those who were not around before word processing systems were invented, Mad Men was an echo-back to the noisy and impersonal work environment of the typing and clerical pool of those times from the 50’s to the 70’s.

Then came cubicles, an idea from furniture manufacturer Herman Miller in the 60’s. I started selling in 1981 and the cubicles were 6’ high and covered in brown sound absorbent carpeting and they were a big advance on open plan from a privacy perspective. You could have a normal conversation with someone next to you having a phone conversation without overhearing what was being said at normal volume.

Then the height of the cubicle was reduced several feet and glass was fitted to provide a feeling of connectedness. But the noise level went up drastically as the partitions dropped and the modern surfaces while looking cool, reflected noise instead of absorbing it.

Then came an open-plan work desk with the idea that salespeople use conference room or booth for making calls. I don’t know who the genius was who came up with this format, but the idea was sold as a collaborative environment in high density tech-hubs in Boston, San Francisco and New York, when actually, it is a terrible environment for any customer-facing professional making calls. It was cheap though. All of these environments have drawbacks, but from a sales perspective, the open desk setup of today’s tech companies really sucks.

Then COVID hit and now everyone is working from home. While a fraction of the population has always worked from home, now nearly everyone is.

Improving Virtual Selling Productivity

The first and foremost skill salespeople must master is communication. Great salespeople are great communicators.

Whether salespeople work from home or in an office, CEO’s and CFO’s should be budgeting to equip each salesperson’s workspace to enable high-fidelity communication with customers and prospects. The fact that I am even having to mention this shows how little thought has gone into this subject from company leaders.

A quality working environment for a salesperson, whether working from home or in the company office should consist of the following:

Their own decent quality 4’ x 3’ desk

A top quality ergonomic chair

A standing desk-riser (salespeople should make calls standing up)

An external high quality monitor

A quality whiteboard drawing surface either mounted directly behind the salesperson or a portable whiteboard sufficient in size to share ideas and readable by the buyer in the Zoom call.

A quality microphone, camera and lighting to illuminate the salespersons face and the drawing surface without reflection.

Sound damping to eliminate echoes from hard surfaces and from neighboring salespeople if in an office environment.

Salespeople should be more productive working from home as they don’t have to leave their workstation to make calls in a small office or booth to avoid the boiler-room buzz of neighboring salespeople.

Family members make appearances from time to time in WFH Zoom calls as does the family cat for a smooch, or the dog with intrusive barking, but with zero commuting to an office and zero travel to in-person calls, it is perfectly reasonable to expect improved productivity.

How to Become more Effective Selling Virtually

Now that we have set up an office environment where salespeople can become more productive, how can we help them to become more effective?

According to several recent surveys, between 50% and 70% of salespeople surveyed believe they are more effective selling in person than virtually. This is a huge red-flag after 6-months WFH and this is an urgent problem for sales leaders to address. Could it be that 50% of your salespeople are underperforming on every call?

Virtual Selling Change Drivers

We have interviewed dozens of sales leaders in the past 6-months about the challenges they are facing with a WFH sales team. Here are the key drivers of change raised more than a few times:

Weak Pipeline

Low win-rates

Leading with product

Leading with Powerpoint instead of having a conversation

Low quota attainment

High attrition (voluntary and involuntary)

Poor differentiation v competition

Discounting to close

Deals slip from quarter to quarter

Long sales ramp time

Future State Vision

When asked what their vision or goals from an effective WFH enablement program we captured these comments:

Salespeople learn to use empathy to develop rapport and trust faster

True dialogue vs PowerPoint pitch

Acumen + insights + stories to connect

Create clarity in articulating value and influence buyer vision

Align with the buyer in their buying-process

Create aids to sell when you are not there and asynchronously

Qualify opportunities better and improve forecasting accuracy

Faster sales ramp.

Impact

When asked what the impact of those changes would be, we get the same answers from nearly everyone,

Differentiate in HOW we sell

Improved win-rate

Pipeline acceleration

Increased quota attainment

The good stuff that comes from these impacts up and down the management chain.

Introducing a Visual Dimension to the Virtual Conversation

As mentioned, salespeople are firstly great communicators. Sometimes simple ideas can make a huge difference in communicating and that is what we have learned as a result of introducing a whiteboard drawing surface to capture virtual sales conversations.

Remote Selling Mastery’s co-founder Corey Sommers wrote the book on Whiteboard Selling. Corey’s latest idea on the use of whiteboards in virtual meetings, combined with conversational frameworks that naturally guide the conversation is a breakthrough that sales leaders need and are embracing to improve virtual selling outcomes from every call.

Here is a whiteboard capture of the conversations we have had with buyers. When this image is embedded in the meeting summary and sent to the buyer post-meeting, it has the potential to walk around the organization and create mindshare when you are not there.

Where to From Here

Remote Selling Mastery is working with leading technology companies today to introduce what we are calling Customer Storyboarding which teaches salespeople the conversational storyboard technique and the conversational framework for each step in the buying process.

As a starting point for each engagement, we ask our customers to equip their sales teams with the equipment mentioned above to create an effective home environment for Remote Meeting Mastery.

Discuss Customer Storyboarding & Remote Selling Mastery

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diaryofaspookykid · 3 years

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January 7th 2021

I began this day like any other, falling asleep at around 4am, unable to get comfortable with anxiety riddled through my bones, so many thoughts passing through my mind, enabling me to rest. I put on my white noise rain playlist which is a total of 36minutes and somehow somewhere in that timeline, fall asleep. As i awake, i can see out my balcony a blanket of eerie fog so thick i cannot see past my backyard. I sign into a zoom class (because we are still closed until further notice at the salon) and begin my day. i spent about an hour of my time looking for birria tacos in my area, and crossing my fingers they deliver to my house. I struck gold as there was a place in gilroy called “Los Juniors Mariscos” and it was only around 12 min away and they doordashed. Doordash prices doubled the amount of my order for delivery so i decided to pick it up myself and it was well worth the drive. These damn tacos were amazing. Tender in all the right places, dripping in consome they have been bathing in.

In pop culture news of the day, Jeffree Starr has posted a youtube video responding to the allegations regarding him and Kanye West fucking. Which is the “reason” for Kim and Kanyes divorce. After watching his video, i have came to the personal conclusion that i feel this may be a clout chase to keep all parties in the mainstream media as they are all quite frankly dying down. Regarding this same topic you have people “clout chasing” and saying they “hooked up with kanye” to try and become relevant. People such as Cole Carrigan. This kid has tried to start so much drama with the community and we know him on a personal level from the Allstar cheerleading world where he used to essentially stalk athletes and just quite frankly be a drama starting pest. not a single thing has changed....not to mention the fact that he tried to start a “beauty house” and completely fucking flopped.

Moving on to conspiracies as i heavily invest myself in the crazy but completely intriguing and potentially real stories going around, i call my friend Gabrielle mother fucking Clark and Nancy and tell them about a recent conspiracy i have learned about. In summary, this conspiracy states that the entire year of 2020 we were shifted into a different dimension, everything negative that had happened, all was a result of us being placed in this different dimension. On new years 2021 the ball dropped 1minute late. Globally. At first youd think this is just a mistake by news stations etc, until you hear the theory. Apparently the ball dropping a minute late was due to our world clicking back into “our reality” our dimension. Thus, this year of “2021″ actually being the true start of 2020 in our dimension. On any apple device with siri, you can ask “How many days are their until 2021?” and siri responds “358 days until the year 2021″..... How is it that we are so advanced in technology and this mistake is just at random. Something else is afoot.

A Few weeks ago the covid bill was passed, this bill was 15 pages and signed and approved by the senate, but in this bill states that the pentagon and government of the United States must release all classified documentation, proof, footage, truth about alien life/extraterrestrials within 180 days of the bill being signed. Which means, by august of 2021 we should have some insight or truth on the mysteries of above that the entire world has been wondering since the dawn of time. i believe that all forms of government in every country know what lies in the stars, they just have an oath on not speaking about it. There has to be some reason all countries signed to protect Antartica, as it is rumored to be the threshold of bases for Alien life research and experiments. Only time will show the truth.

I ended my day with coaching, with covid-19 still ruining everything, i believe that this season will come to an end. Just as it ended last season. Every event is getting cancelled left and right aside and we have yet to have a shot at competing. Especially in this state. This was the first week seeing the kids in almost 6 weeks from being closed, and its so bittersweet as i love seeing them but it seems as if we are working toward nothing. As i arrived home, me and Nancy started watching our new favorite show “Pen15″ and we are hooked, but not trying to binge it all at once so we can savor the joy we get from this show. 10/10 reccomend.

Today i am feeling, clouded. Any time i had a thought to myself today, for some reason i would feel the anxiety crawl under my skin and creep toward my brain, like those beetles in the mummy movie franchise. I cannot seem to sleep anymore, but i will make an attempt now.

Goodnight,

Spookykid x

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pooma-unvolunteers · 3 years

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Work Life Balance during Pandemic

• By:Shelly Bisht

💗

“Work-life balance” is not a new phrase added to our lexicon during pandemic but it has been a regular corporate terminology for years, and the crux is that employees should avoid letting work overtake their personal lives. It is all about our skills to balance family life, mental health, exercise, and hobbies with our profession.But,ever since the Demon Pandemic has shaken the entire world since 2019 ,work life balance has gone for a toss and became a taboo,an integral part of our life.

The pandemic has led to a sudden shift in the dynamics of workforce behavior. Work-from-home policy became ubiquitous. Offices also have very less physical staff,rest all are operating from home, children have switched over to online classes, businesses are closed, and normal events and gatherings are restricted or canceled. All and sundry has now become virtual.

It has created a new normal .

It has altered what a good work-life balance looks like. Parents have to take care of their children as schools have closed and become virtual. Employees are now working from home, making it even more challenging to separate work life from home life. Kitchen tables have turned into workspaces, and Zoom calls can be interrupted by noise at home, home deliveries, and frequent power cuts.

Work-life balance has never been more challenging. What’s worse is that no one knows when things will return to “normal.” Employees, parents, families, educators, and business owners are tasked with redefining the balance between work and their personal life.

Because many workplaces were already shifting to remote work, it’s likely that some changes will be permanent. New communication technologies will continue to be used for convenience, and businesses are discovering new ways to increase flexibility for their staff and save money with remote work environments.

Many people are dealing not only with these challenges but also health issues, demise of their kith and kin to the pandemic. Mental health is the most effected area of everybody. People are going through stress, pain ,agony, restlessness and constant fear.

Thus, mental health will likely be an even bigger consideration for proper work-life balance long into the future. The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

Every coin has two sides.If we have seen the dark side of pandemic why not to celebrate the brighter side too and consider Pandemic as a boon and spread optimism and positivity among your folks.

People today really value workplace flexibility and remote work because it allows them to focus their energies on work and life as opposed to commuting or other complications due to geography. To reach a port we must set sail –Sail, not tie at anchor, Sail, not drift. Challenge and adversity are meant to help you know who you are. Storms hit your weakness, but unlock your true strength.Be open to adjustments. There's nothing about this current moment in history that allows for stubbornness. Technology now allows people to connect anytime, anywhere, to anyone in the world, from almost any device. This is dramatically changing the way people work, facilitating 24/7 collaboration with colleagues who are dispersed across time zones, countries, and continents.We fall we break we fail but then we rise we heal we overcome.

Ultimately, the greatest lesson that COVID-19 can teach humanity is that we are all in this together. Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient. No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That’s the only way to keep the roads clear. We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in. Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.

Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else.

While there are certainly benefits to working from home, the transition can be difficult and finding balance within your life can become more complicated.

Despite the challenges, it’s possible to stay healthy and positive.

If COVID-19 has left you feeling burnt out, overworked, and stressed, here are some ways you can manage your work-from-home environment to create a better work-life balance.

• Find new ways to exercise-So what if you can’t hit the gym or your regular zumba classes.Rope in your family for a yoga session.

• You can go for introspection, meditation, breathing exercises in your garden, terrest, balcony or your favourite corner according to your comfort zone.

• Buddies!!! you can even have virtual sessions with your near and dear ones. So,what are you waiting for.

• Quickly step into it.

• Find outlets for laughter.

• Set strict boundaries at home Create a structured but flexible schedule.

• Establish dedicated spaces for certain activities

• Stay social on your free leisure hours and get connected to all Virtual Happy clubs to quote a few “Speak your mind, Rhythm lounge, let’s chat over coffee, Express to destress”

• Know when to unplug Establish boundaries so that you are not taking on extra burdens.

• Establish a routine with clearly defined working hours.

• Keep work emails to work hours.

• Adapt your attitude.

• Acknowledge your feelings—positive, negative, and neutral—they are all valid and need to be expressed.

• Lower your expectations—“perfection” does not exist, and it is okay if you are not as productive as you think you should be.

• Be okay with just doing your best with the resources you have.

• Practice self-compassion

Engage in self-care.

• Prioritize a relaxation or self-care activity as you are able—taking care of yourself will help you function best in your roles.

• Participate in teletherapy if desired and available.

• Become more organized

• Simplify your task list into what is the highest priority, allowing for flexibility.

• Stay connected

• Evaluate who you want to invest your energy in and which all social medias are most rewarding for you.

• Have a weekly check-in meeting with a friend or family member who is experiencing similar challenges at home.

• If you have children, involve them in your planning, Create a structured but flexible schedule and allow your children to make choices about that structure so they have buy-in.

• Have children video call their family members and play games like Ludo, Puzzles and reward them often with a small gift.

• Let go of the idea that things should be the same as they were before the pandemic.

• Use your non-working time for something creative and active.

• Between socializing, parenting, running errands, and working, the coronavirus has significantly altered the way we live our lives. For many people, the public health crisis has meant a sudden shift to remote work environments as officials stress the importance of social distancing.

• Manage Your Expectations and give yourself understanding and forgiveness.

• Approaching your new working environment and your ability to be productive with a little extra grace and patience will help you navigate the transition more smoothly.

• Communicate Your Needs, Be Kind to Yourself, Focus on your mental health

• Consider talking to a professional therapist on the phone or in a video conference.

Keep moving! Finally, remind yourself that this pandemic will not last forever. And while not everything will go back to the way it was before, many things will. Take another deep breath and consider the perks of the life you are leading now.Cherish it. Define what’s positive for you and the people around you. Spread positivity and mental endurance which can be enhanced by willingness and acceptance. Be happy, be optimistic, be a learner, be courageous, be stronger, be a fighter, be resilient. And I bet, if we all are together in this mission, INDIA will rule the world.

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easyhairstylesbest · 3 years

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Cancer Monthly Horoscope

MONTH OF January

Monthly Snapshot

Ready for a little fun in ’21, Cancer? Here it comes! Your ambition’s been on fire since the second half of 2020 started, and you could have made serious headway on some key goals. Relationships have been percolating, too—and given the conditions of the world, it’s amazing how unstoppable you’ve been in the face of things.

That said…are you edging into burnout, or just ready to mix things up? This January, your social life sparks up once again. True, much of it may be virtual. But once the collaborative camaraderie starts heating up, you’ll still get the warm-fuzzy feeling of bonding with supportive and like-minded people. Join a mastermind, initiate a daily or weekly group call or hop into virtual workshops.

Another part of you will savor having more privacy because Jupiter and Saturn are spending their first full month (of a long visit) in Aquarius and your intimate eighth house. While Mars has you branching out to new connections, this cosmic duo also wants you to stock your innermost circle with power players, perhaps even teaming up for a potent business or romantic connection.

As one Cancer friend of ours sheepishly confessed, “I don’t really mind having to stay home. Is that bad?” Not to make light of the pandemic, but home IS your happy place. You love nesting and working in your comfiest clothes—at least from the waist down, where the webcams don’t pan (“business on the top, party on the bottom,” anyone?).

Speaking of webcams, you’ll want to back up your data and devices before Mercury, the planet of all things digital and communicative, turns retrograde on January 30. Since the quicksilver planet will impact some of your closest ties, you’ll want to make sure you have everything clearly spelled out between you before the end of the month.

Week 1: January 1-10

A social life reboot

Commune with your Crab crew! A nearly two-month cycle of networking and collaboration begins this week, and you couldn’t be more ready for it. Much as you love your solo time, you equally enjoy bonding with kindred spirits. And the feeling is mutual—as you could soon find yourself in high demand for every meeting or Zoom game night. Even if you can’t get together IRL with people, you can make generous use of online platforms and virtual groups to forge new connections and strengthen existing ones.

What’s causing this spike in your popularity…not to mention the strong urge to branch out beyond your usual clique? On Wednesday, January 6, go-getter Mars wraps up an extended six-month visit to Aries and your career-driven tenth house, which has kept many Cancers focused on professional goals at the expense of your personal life. Next up: Mars will pay a visit to Taurus and your teamwork sector until March 3, and the invitations will start rolling in again.

With Mars in Aries since June 27, 2020, you may have felt excess pressure around work and other responsibilities. This transit also amplified job stress—or gave you anxiety about finding or keeping a job. Long hours and short deadlines may have had you burning the candle at both ends. Perhaps there were weighty duties on your shoulders as you kept your squad afloat during the pandemic.

On the upside, it’s possible you achieved some important recognition for all your hard work. You may have been totally fired up about a project, even happy to put the blinders on and obsessively work on your pet project. But at times you may have felt like the burden was too great to carry alone.

From January 6 until March 3, Mars will blaze through Taurus and your eleventh house of collaboration and technology. Even if you keep working away, you don’t have to do it alone! Now’s the time to create new friendships and build your dream team. With all this hyped-up energy in your group sector, it’s less about what you “do” and more about “who you know.”

Could your tech skills use an upgrade? Invest in getting current on apps, social media or any digital platforms that can increase efficiency. Are you ready to launch that podcast you’ve been thinking about? Dive in! Freshen up your online profiles too; you could draw attention from a powerhouse group so you’ll want to put your best and most current face forward.

Week 2: January 11-17

A shell of a dilemma

Commune with your clique or hibernate in your cozy shell? You’ll be torn between dueling desires for group hangs and private encounters this week, which could create some stress. Balancing alone time and together time will be key. Make sure you don’t overbook yourself with meetings and meetups, whether virtual or IRL. But don’t leave your calendar so blank that you plummet into the post-holiday winter blues.

This week, activators Mars and Uranus are both making moves in Taurus and your eleventh house of group activity. But they’ll run into resistance from expansive Jupiter and staunch Saturn in Aquarius and your private, controlling eighth house. As Mars and Uranus push you into the public eye or a team setting, Jupiter and Saturn are feeling more controlling than democratic, cautioning you not to give away your power too readily.

It all begins on Wednesday, January class=”body-el-link standard-body-el-link” 13, when speedy Mars locks into a tense square with cautious Saturn. The effect can feel like having one foot on the gas, the other on the brake. While you may be tempted to rush into a collaboration, Saturn warns you to read all the fine print. Make sure you’re not signing away your rights or leaping too quickly into a situation that’s hard to pull out of if things go south.

Have you been feeling isolated—or, on the flip side, overwhelmed by too much group or screen time (hello #ZoomFatigue)? This Thursday, January 14, changemaker Uranus ends a five-month retrograde in Taurus and your eleventh house of teamwork and technology. A collaboration that stalled mid-August could pick up speed, especially on a virtual basis. You could be inspired to re-engage with the world, perhaps getting involved in a cause you care about. Don’t overthink it! With zero planets retrograde for the next two weeks, it’s a great time to make decisive moves.

Also on Thursday, the Sun and powerhouse Pluto make their once-a-year meetup, communing in Capricorn and your seventh house of partnerships. Being part of a dynamic duo could seriously build your cache. Look for people whose skills complement yours, but beware coming across as opportunistic—and steer clear of anyone who gives you “user-friendly” vibes!

Do you think you’re better off alone? The pull between going deep in one direction versus keeping things open-ended gets extra strong this Sunday, January 17, when two of the most freedom-seeking planets, Jupiter and Uranus, move into an embattled square. This only happens every seven years (the last Jupiter-Uranus square was in 2014).

Should you hold your cards close to your vest and wait for a bigger, better opportunity? Jupiter in your strategic eighth house could have you thinking this way. But impulsive Uranus in your group activity zone makes you want to leap into a collaboration and let the chips fall where they may.

Neither is right, as tends to be the case with planetary squares. Weigh your options before deciding which direction to take. This could play into a business partnership, a friendship or a romantic relationship. By keeping things exclusive, there’s opportunity to grow—but there’s a whole other adventure waiting if you give yourself breathing room and DON’T commit. The losses and gains seem equally stacked in either direction. When in doubt, wait it out!

Week 3: January 18-24

Temper your emotions before you act

Hunker down and set your notifications to “do not disturb,” Cancer. On Tuesday, January 19, the Sun shifts into Aquarius and your private, internal eighth house until February 18, joining Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn in the Water Bearer’s lair. Although your social sector is revved up, make sure to set aside quality one-on-one time for that special person or pet project.

But good luck getting any uninterrupted time on Wednesday, January 20. That day, hyperkinetic Mars and radical changemaker Uranus link up in Taurus and your eleventh house of group activity, making all collaborations extra dynamic. But you’ll also be a bit of a live wire, which could rub people the wrong way.

The energy is fast, sharp and erratic, and if you get too caught up in that, you could come across as overwhelming or even as a loose cannon. (Think of fellow Cancerian Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire…or on Oprah’s couch.) If you feel suppressed in a group, that could bring out an explosive or reactive side of you. Don’t let your ego get the best of you, Crab. Demanding to be heard might get you the floor, but it could also leave other people feeling strong-armed into doing things your way. You’ll win the battle but lose the war when they’re left feeling bulldozed and resentful.

Another day to keep your emotions in check arrives class=”body-el-link standard-body-el-link” on Saturday, January 23. Rash Mars and impulsive Jupiter lock into a tense square (https://astrostyle.com/aspects/square), which could bring out your inner know-it-all. There could be power struggles and ego trips. But before you engage, ask yourself: What are you really trying to achieve here?

A bit of temperance arrives today as the “me first” Sun makes its annual conjunction with sober and restrained Saturn. As these two connect in Aquarius and your intimate eighth house, you could get a harsh reality check. Perhaps someone you trusted, even poured emotional or financial resources into, is turning out to be a less-than-stellar investment. Maybe you rushed to confront someone or got swept up in the excitement of an idea before conducting your research.

The Sun-Saturn conjunction is often a harsh or pessimistic day, a moment that can feel like you’ve been put in the penalty box. But during such a volatile week, this transit could act like the “adult in the room,” stopping you from doing something self-destructive based on raw emotion. Better to request a few more days to think something over than rush into a bad decision. (Our advice: Set your sights on the illuminating full moon of January 28!)

Week 4: January 25-31

Sharing is caring—up to a point

Intensity is afoot this week, with a big batch of cosmic action brewing in Aquarius and your eighth house of intimacy, shared resources and investments. The Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn are all crowded together in this loyal sign, placing unusual emphasis on the chart zone where you deeply merge or join forces with others.

On Tuesday, January 26, the Aquarius Sun will square off against disruptor Uranus in stubborn Taurus, echoing the tension of the January 17 Jupiter-Uranus square. Once again, you could feel pulled between your desire for privacy in a tight, intimate circle and the adventurous allure of collaborating with a larger, more inclusive group.

Do you cave to the crowd or follow your inner GPS? Early this week, your intuition could send frantic signals to not go along with the herd or share your state secrets with someone who hasn’t proven themselves trustworthy. And why should you, Cancer? You don’t have to divulge private information to anyone—not even your closest confidantes—until you’re ready. But make sure you’re not being SO secretive that you miss an opportunity to team up with a powerful person who can advance your cause.

Here’s an idea: Sit tight until Thursday, January 28, when the first full moon of 2021 arrives in lucky Leo and your second house of work and money. La luna will rev up your revenue and bring a potentially profitable project to a turning point. If you’ve been job-hunting or in line for a raise or promotion, these moonbeams could manifest that with a roar! Ready to ditch a self-defeating habit and get your resolutions in gear? Start now.

Even better? This Thursday, the Sun will conjunct expansive Jupiter for its once-a-year meetup, now dubbed the Day of Miracles and considered by astrologers to be one of the luckiest days of the year. As these luminaries unite in innovator Aquarius, they could bring news of a joint venture, an investment or a large financial windfall. In your personal life, the Sun-Jupiter conjunction might herald an engagement, a sexy soulmate connection or a move toward more permanent status. The sky’s the limit with these two abundant and confident planets in sync!

Strikeclass=”body-el-link standard-body-el-link” while the iron’s hot though, because on Saturday, January 30, Mercury, the planet of communication and technology, will turn retrograde in erratic Aquarius until February 20. As Mercury scrambles signals in your intimate eighth house, old embers of mistrust or jealousy could flare up. With Aquarius’ independent, free-ranging energy at play, an ex (yours or your partner’s) could make an unexpected guest appearance. Tempting? Maybe. Toxic? If so..step away.

LOVE & ROMANCE:

Love has been all about goals since the beginning of summer, thanks to passionate Mars marching through Aries and your tenth house of long-term plans since June 27. This extended visit (four times longer than usual!) ends on January 6. If you’ve been anxious about where things are going or overly fixated on the future, that should change after the first week of the year.

From January 6 to March 3, Mars will freestyle through Taurus and your eleventh house of platonic and casual connections. The vibe should lighten up, and you could be attracted to someone in your friend group or who you meet online. Even if you have to keep things virtual with COVID restrictions, you won’t mind as much. Right now, you don’t feel like being overly pinned down with anyone!

And yet…things could get deeper than you expect after January 8, when romantic Venus shifts into Capricorn, igniting your committed relationship house until February 1. Even if you’re just getting to know each other, you’ll still be able to playfully and candidly talk about the future.

For couples, spending time together can be lighthearted and fun after January 8—and that’s a good thing since it’s likely you’ll be together a lot. Give each other lots of space and respect the other’s autonomy, which you’ll also be needing in large doses.

On January 9, Venus and Mars form a supportive 90-degree trine. Sparks could fly with a friend and you might get more experimental with your mate. With the love planets aligned in grounded earth signs, as long as you talk about your feelings and respect your partner’s needs, there’s almost no limit to how far you can stretch.

Key Dates:

January 9: Venus-Mars trine

Bring on the lasting love! As affectionate Venus and passionate Mars harmonize in stable earth signs, you could have true romance with all the trimmings—sensuality and stability. Skip the “come here now go away” players and their mixed messages. A partner who makes you feel secure is suddenly the most attractive catch in town. Coupled? Mark a long-term relationship with a thoughtful gift to let your mate know how much you cherish them.

MONEY & CAREER:

Dear Reader: To bring you cutting-edge financial and career astrology, we’ve replaced ourclass=”body-el-link standard-body-el-link” monthly Money & Career horoscope with an expanded new offering. And we’re bursting with excitement to announce it!

We invite you to join the waitlist for our Astropreneurs community, where we’ll be sharing tools, trainings and cosmic career coaching in 2021 and beyond! Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a dreamer with a side hustle or just looking for deeper satisfaction from your work, we’ll guide you to your path and purpose by the stars.

2021 Vision Board Experience: January 28 class=”body-el-link standard-body-el-link” with The AstroTwins Ready to design a path that truly fulfills you in 2021? Join us for a star-powered live online event to create success, leadership and impact on January 28, 2021. Tickets available at https://astrostyle.com/visionboard21

Love Days: 8, 11

Money Days: 19, 28

Luck Days: 26, 16

Off Days: 24, 10, 13

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Cancer Monthly Horoscope

#cancer astrology

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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Five Predictions For Early Stage Startups In 2021

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/five-predictions-for-early-stage-startups-in-2021/

Five Predictions For Early Stage Startups In 2021

2020 has been a year we’ll all remember, for better or worse. As it comes to a close (finally), we’re all wondering, what comes next? Which of the changes that will take place post pandemic will be fleeting, and which ones are here to stay?

Below are my predictions for early stage startups in the year ahead.

My focus is on the trends and changes within early stage startups and venture capital. If the pandemic has taught us anything, technology is not just a future engine of growth, but also a bright spot that has enabled billions of people across the globe to continue working and building for the future.

#1: Pre-seed Will Become The Hottest Stage In Venture

Over the past decade, seed rounds have become bigger and more institutionalized. Many seed funds started out focused on “first check,” but as they have seen success, they have raised bigger funds and are now leading three to five million dollar seed rounds. The seed round today looks a lot like a Series A round a decade ago in terms of both size and traction.

This shift has created a growing gap at pre-seed. And today’s pre-seed round typically isn’t just one fundraise; instead it is often a couple of rounds over the course of one to two years. Not every talented ambitious founder is able to easily pull together hundreds of thousands of dollars from friends, family and angels to get off the ground. For founders who do not come from privileged networks, the pre-seed round can take longer and be much harder to raise.

Over the past few years, seed rounds have gotten more competitive. According to Pitchbook, there were 1,162 venture funds focused on Seed in 2019 and only 126 focused on Pre-seed. More multi stage funds are also dipping down into seed, writing small “option” checks. But this trend has happened less in pre-seed. While seed rounds have gotten incredibly competitive, pre-seed rounds rarely are.

In 2021, I expect more investors to wake up to the pre-seed opportunity. It will become its own distinct stage. We’ll see many more investors focused on it. We’ll see a more institutional approach to pre-seed start to emerge, with consistent terms, valuations and platforms for founders. This will help founders to be more fully capitalized from the start so they are set up to hit venture-style inflection points. Examples of funds focused on institutionalizing pre-seed include Precursor, Hustle Fund, Seven Seven Six, Notation Capital, Unshackled Ventures and my fund January Ventures.

Pre-seed will come into its own in 2021. It will no longer be in Seed’s shadow. We call ourselves January Ventures because of our belief in the opportunity at the earliest stage.

#2: Founders Will Choose Challenger Funds Over Large, Established Funds

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of different venture fund models: micro funds, operator funds, rolling funds, syndicates and scout programs. This trend is positive in that it is giving founders a wider range of options for raising capital. Many founders are placing increased value on adding operators to their cap table who have a diverse range of experiences, from marketing to sales to product. There is growing recognition that this operational expertise can add real value.

These new venture capital models are also giving a broader range of people the ability to invest at the early stage. The New York Times reported that the IPOs in 2019 were making the same group of men rich. An increased variety of fund models can hopefully begin to break this cycle, so that in the future, a more diverse range of people will be able to invest in early stage startups, see returns, and re-invest bigger amounts.

In 2021, I expect challenger funds to become their own established category. Founders will see the benefit of the unique expertise and networks they bring, without the signalling risk of multi stage funds. Challenger funds will win competitive deals against established blue chip funds; the up and comers will become the preference for founders.

#3: Investment Rounds, And Venture Funds, Will Be Closed Without Lawyers

One of the things driving the trend towards the rise in challenger funds is the standardization of early stage investments. One example of this is the YC SAFE: it has become standard at pre-seed (at least in the Bay Area), making the legal and operational work of raising a round fast and simple for both founders and investors. The biggest benefit to founders is their ability to get a round signed, closed and wired within days (instead of weeks or even months).

In a similar vein, AngelList and Carta have automated much of the fund set up, operations and reporting for emerging managers. “More funds are using automation and tooling for the venture value chain: deal sourcing, investment decision making, fund and portfolio management, and continuous operations,” said Philipp Moehring, early stage investor from Berlin and partner for Europe at AngelList. “This is enabling new entrants, as overhead becomes cheaper, and allows existing investors to focus on what they do best: working with entrepreneurs to build the future.”

The automation of round documents, special purpose vehicles, syndicates and venture capital funds means early stage investors see more standard terms. In addition, it has removed barriers to allow more people, especially rising investors and operators, to cost efficiently and quickly set up mico funds and write checks.

In 2021, I expect the standardization of early stage investing to mean that rounds and funds are closed without lawyers. This is a sign that the startup industry is maturing, and the efficiency gains will enable accelerated growth

#4: The Hot Tech Hubs In 2021 Will Be Online Communities, Not Physical Locations

Pre-pandemic, early stage startup ecosystems were hyperlocal. Founders typically raised from local investors, hired local talent and learned best practices from their local networks. People thought early stage investors needed to be on the ground to get their hands dirty and help founders.

In 2020, the perception has been shattered that you have to be in person to hire someone, collaborate, close a sale or raise a round. Doing all of this via Zoom has rapidly become the norm.

This decoupling of geography from financial and human capital is powerful. Going fully virtual means startups can hire the best people regardless of their physical location, close the ideal customers and find the optimal investors, rather than being constrained by who happens to be close by. For early stage investors, this year has proved that location doesn’t matter so much as expertise, empathy and connection with founders.

“In the first weeks of the pandemic, I was in a Clubhouse room where an investor was waxing on about how he didn’t know anyone who had written a check via Zoom and he did not advise it,” said Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Partner at Magma Partners in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “I found this a laughable and highly privileged take. I was used to Zoom checks, and I said so. We need them, I explained, to increase VC funding to female, underestimated founders and founders from non-Tier 1 ecosystems. I invest across LatAm [for Magma] and also angel invest throughout the world.”

The potential for cross pollination of ideas across markets is also powerful. Better flows of information within the investor and tech community more generally about trends, insights and opportunities makes the startup environment more efficient overall.

I predict that the world will never go back to the inefficiency of always needing to meet in person to make a decision, close a sale or write a check. In 2021, I expect to see investors and startups increasingly embrace fully remote or hybrid remote, which enables rising tech hubs to accelerate in growth across the world from Austin to Pittsburgh to Amsterdam to Lisbon.

But more powerful than these physical locations are the online communities within tech: both the established ones like Twitter and new ones springing up like Transact (a community of 90 female General Partners of venture funds), Clubhouse and Elpha. These networks, completely virtual, will be the hottest tech hubs of 2021.

#5: Personal Brand Will Become The Most Sought After New Superpower In Tech

Now that venture capitalists can’t run into startups at conferences, in SoMa or on Sand Hill Road, where do they get their deal flow?

Investors have to rely more on online channels. This means brand, word of mouth and community matter more. Getting in front of founders through content, social media, virtual events is more important than ever. Marketing and community are the new VC superpowers for creating a deal flow engine.

The same is true for early stage founders. When we’re all stuck in our houses, online visibility has never been more important. This trend will continue long after the pandemic ends.

There used to be the perception that brand didn’t matter in tech. But as the industry grows up, many are realizing the power of brand for both scalable customer acquisition and defensibility. With more founders and investors than ever before, the ones with powerful rising brands will be the ones to watch. They will win at attracting talent, capital and opportunities.

“Sharing our story with customers, investors and the public has been a rewarding way to experience the ups and downs of running a startup,” said Kristen Anderson, Co-Founder and CEO of Catch Benefits. “The value of my network made itself very clear this year. We raised about $1.5M from people who first ‘discovered’ me through Twitter. Investors were able to build confidence that they understand my values and how I think — some of the key investment criteria in early stage investment.”

I’m optimistic about the year ahead and expect to see more activity than ever at the early stage. Startups built in 2021 will have the advantage of being built for a post-Covid world from day one, versus the later stage startups and incumbents that have been challenged to quickly pivot this year. The pandemic has accelerated technological adoption, and I believe some of the next decade’s iconic companies will be founded in the year ahead.

Note: Maren Thomas Bannon is a partner at January Ventures, which is an investor in Elpha.

From Venture Capital in Perfectirishgifts

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eknowledgetree2015 · 4 years

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Connections in the Time of Covid19

A pandemic is a time which often requires hindsight to process. One is left coping as it takes place. As the world is in a state of the global health crisis in the times of Covid19, people across the world are employing different ways to incorporate and deal with social distancing, sheltering, and quarantining in different measures. The measures to stay at home and indulge in movement across the streets only for essential goods and services is in the best interest of flattening the fatality curve. It is then no surprise that millions of people find themselves at home for periods longer than they are used to under normal circumstances. However, the circumstances are extraordinary and, therefore, the strategies to survive these times (and find ways of hope) are also above normal. One player that has emerged overall helpful in this situation is a digital connection. Technology is shining brighter than ever in the most fruitful ways at this time of dire need. It is connecting families, businesses, and also playing a great role in the medical services at this time of emergency. This is the whole point of technology. It creates an appetite for immortality on the one hand. It threatens universal extinction on the other. Technology is lust removed from nature. - Don DeLillo The fields of professional services, education, and the arts are delivering with the use of technology. The DeLillo quote especially rings true at this moment when people are cordoned off at their homes by themselves, with partners, or larger families. The areas of the personal, professional, and private meet in the limited physical space of a home. The following is as much a witness to the technological truths at play at this moment of human history as much as some ways in which these intersections can meet most meaningfully.

Professional Front

Working remotely is not a new concept. The rise in the number of people working remotely is worthy of note-making. The systems of communication, relation, delegation have been reconstrued to accommodate remote working, especially in spaces which had not experimented with remote working until this point in time. In this context, video conference platforms have emerged as a solution, albeit riddled with extreme amounts of scrutiny and privacy concerns. Zoom is the most popular due to the interface. Google Meetings, Duo (for a very small number of people), Microsoft platform, and Skype are some of the alternatives. It would also be interesting to see what this change due to necessity would do for global work culture once the pandemic is in the past. Some pointers to increase productivity and efficacy while working remotely Creating a workspace for oneself can be extremely important in a manner that is symbolic and literal. Symbolically, the division of space marks the zone that one needs to get into even if one is working from one’s own home. In a literal manner, it has been seen that using spaces of relaxation like beds and couches to work decreases productivity as they promote associations of lounging. One should learn the different benefits of using a particular video conferencing platform. It can also be useful to see which version of a video conferencing platform suits the purpose of one’s business the most. This can be based on the number of employees, the amount of time that the meeting ensues for, and the kind of tasks that need to be delegated. Screen fatigue is an important and negative by-product of connecting through screens for various of our current needs. It should be observed that meetings over the screen and video conferencing platforms should be called only when the communication cannot happen over an email or a phone call. More than ever, it is important to discern if ‘this meeting could have been an email’. Lastly, it is a reflective time for managers and supervisors (anybody who has work to delegate) to see what kind of management might be best to carry out at a time of mass remote working. Overmanagement might be taxing for oneself while under management can lead to a slump in productivity.

Educational Front

A statewide closure of public schools and universities has seen the shift to online educational systems. While many institutions took an initial break to rearrange the systems for maximum usefulness, now many of them are continuing their teaching and learning through online forums. The assignments, classes, and homework has remained similar to the normative structure, but what is missing is the ready availability of peers and teachers to help students to accelerate their learning curve. At this moment, it is technological and e-learning spaces that students are turning to. E-learning has been developing for many decades and this seems like the (un)opportune moment to test their success. Along with audio and video props for learning that are used in physical classrooms, spaces like Bartleby have become of use; spaces where students can find help to excel at subjects and find a reservoir of similar questions that might help catalyze the pace of learning. Educators are also uploading explainers and how-to videos at a higher frequency to aid their students to learn concepts. Some pointers to make the online educational experience most consequential As a student and a teacher, it is important to create a space of the least amount of distraction. It is advisable to keep all other gadgets in another room for the duration of classes. It is important to learn together at this time of isolation. Create smaller groups of peer learning where you share the workload but also check up on each other and keep bonds alive. Keep the channels of communication regarding feedback open as an educator, especially if one is new to it. It is of higher chance that students are more adept at the technology and could give valuable suggestions. In lieu of education, it is not only STEM educational material that is available online but many other alternative learning platforms like art, theatre, academic organizations are making museum tours, lectures, articles, performances, and talks available free of cost. One has much to learn from all of these too.

Where to, next?

In the current moment of shift in every form in our lives, it is important to acknowledge that self-care is important. This would look different for different people but taking a break from technology at times to rejuvenate is one such self-care tip. Technological advancements in these ways have made it possible for us to be professionally, personally, and pedagogically connected. This pandemic might also result in seismic shifts in the way we learn, play, and work. This is for the times to come to prove true. Read the full article

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maryanntorreson · 4 years

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What it Takes to Reimagine Remote Work

Even before COVID-19, distributed and remote work has been on the rise. According to a 2020 Gartner survey, 74% of CFOs plan to shift at least 5% of their previously on-site employees to ongoing remote positions, even after the pandemic has subsided.

A new Professional Certificate program from UBCx arms learners with human-centered design skills and tools to transform their work-at-home experience for the better, and help their teams and organizations do the same. In this Q&A, program instructor Dr. Patrick Parra Pennefather shares insights into what it means to truly reimagine remote work and how to create remote work environments that empower individuals and teams to perform at their very best.

What does it mean to reimagine work at a distance?

To reimagine work at a distance for me involves first thinking about the types of work interactions I used to have that were in-person, whether with customers, clients, or colleagues. Then, reflecting on those interactions and being open to trying to reinvent how they can be transformed at a distance. It also requires being open to changing the work that I do. In some cases, this might mean some minor adjustments to the workflow and the amount of time spent with others. At other times it might mean being open to radically transforming how I interact, what I do, and how I create value. More extremely it might require me to acquire new skills to change the work that I do completely.

What’s the difference between short-term adapting to working from home vs. setting up for success in a ‘new normal’?

Minor and short-term changes to working from home might involve small technological updates, like investing in a better mic and headphones, getting used to being on a Zoom call, and taking more time to manage relationships. Setting up for success in a new normal means accepting that ‘normal’ might no longer be possible. What it means is that while we adapt to working at a distance with others, we have to simultaneously work on the assumption that things will not go back to how they were. Knowing that may motivate some to secure their future work by finding ways to innovate on how they can continue to work remotely and in person. It might also mean having a backup plan if there is no new normal and the expectations of your job have changed or are in the process of shifting.

What’s an example of a design tool that helps people build their at-home toolkit?

A key human-centered design (HCD) tool in the course are variations on the Empathy visual model. Understanding your own needs and finding alignment with the needs of those you work with is key in being able to work. This is equally true whether you work at a distance or you work in-person or a combination of the two. The empathy visual models I propose are a beginning, a map that I hope inspires people to develop their own, to iterate on the components of the model and to deepen their awareness of the needs of their customers, clients, and colleagues. Doing so is essential when you work at a distance because it’s easier to be more detached from what others feel, think, and perceive when you don’t have to.

How can managers and organizations leverage this program?

If you are responsible in any way for the work of others, or if you depend on the work of others to support your product or service, then this course will benefit you as it will provide you with the tools and processes that are often put aside or considered not as important in the development of team cultures. When you invest time and money focused on developing your team culture the benefits are numerous. With increased support and buy-in, employees will eventually exceed what you imagined they could deliver. Managing others is also about managing relationships within an organization and being able to identify problems, get to their root cause, and be able to propose solutions. While you may not find all the solutions to solve all the problems that come up, you’ll definitely learn a different process for solving them.

What’s at stake as companies continue to navigate increasingly distributed teams?

Whenever I’m asked what’s at stake I like to break the idea of ‘stakes’ down to two important questions that can help me provide a clearer answer: What actions are you willing to take to change what is not working? And if you do nothing then what are you prepared to lose?

How each organization answers those two questions will determine how well they future proof. Especially now. We’ve all been hit hard. Change is the only constant. Adapting to changing work conditions is not temporary. There will be losses. We will need to create new value propositions. There will be gains, but only if we can shift nimbly and quickly. It comes down to re-evaluating what you as a company offer the world (or your target customer) and what you are able to and willing to change in this newly emerging world.

So, what’s success look like for your distributed team? Project that first, then you’ll be able to work with them to manifest that. That, combined with a persistent dedication to create the right environment for individuals to perform at their very best. That environment needs to be organized and facilitated. Companies in many cases need to completely change the environments they were dependent on before. Communication patterns are different at a distance. Working from home needs practice. Navigating the stormy seas of distributed teams will involve parting with team members who are unwilling to adapt. It will also demand that you create multiple opportunities for those who do adapt to contribute beyond what you thought possible. Everything might be on the table from roles to value proposition to a transformation of the business model itself. Top-down hierarchy might still work but you’ll lose people faster. At a distance people need more affirmation. They need persistent communication. They will starve to work with teams whose vision becomes entwined with the nurturing of a strong team culture.

Gain Practical Tips and Tools in UBCx’s Human-Centered Design for Work at a Distance program

Design methodology and skills are in high demand, and particularly valuable in a climate of disruption. According to Rutgers research using Burning Glass Labour Market Data, between 2016 and 2018 there was a 200% increase in jobs requiring design thinking skills, compared with a 6% increase in all positions.

Learn more about the value of human-centered design tools and skills and if UBCx’s practical two-course Professional Certificate program, Human-Centered Design for Work at a Distance, is right for you.

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ncmagroup · 4 years

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by Mathew Sweezey

Change was coming all along, but the coronavirus has expedited a number of key facets of consumer behavior

Our world has been upended and has gone virtual: Education, work, and even casual hangouts with friends are now all conducted online. Yes, the world will eventually revert back to physical interaction, but there will be serious lasting changes to all consumer behavior. Here is what we should expect.

The World Was Primed for Massive Change

Our world has undergone a radical change in the past few years. For many of us, this change has flown under the radar, but when you pull back to look at the numbers it becomes clear. We were a world ripe for radical change. Here are a few stats to consider:

There are 25 times more connected devices today than there were in 2007.

There are 30 times more broadband connections in the world than in 2007.

There are 100 times more people each day connecting on Facebook than in 2007.

We as a world create 500 times more data each day than we did in 2007.

There are more devices connected at lightning speeds and enabled with more capabilities than we could even imagine just a few years ago. This isn’t about more technology, it’s about what people can and will derive from instant access, connectivity, and openness.

No Consumer Is Left Out

In 2019, 84% of consumers said the experience a brand creates is just as important as the physical product or service they sell. While the data was clear, many brands have yet to embrace the notion of experience because they simply believe their consumer hadn’t changed. The world is on lockdown; virtual is now the global standard.

Microsoft is tracking 9 billion minutes of engagement every week on their MS Teams. There were 14.5 million combined new subscribers to the tools Slack and MS teams in the first half of March 2020. There was a 1,000% spike in the use of Facebook group calls. All consumers were forced into a new existence overnight. The foundation was there—this was the spark to set a new fire ablaze.

A New Baseline of Expectations

When we normally look at technology adoption and consumer behavioral change, it follows a standard bell curve. There are the early adopters, then the early majority, late majority, followed later on by the laggards. That’s what happens when things follow their normal path—but this isn’t normal. Entire populations were forced into new behaviors overnight.

Humans are creatures of habit, and these new behaviors will become new habits for many, but not all. Many will return to their prior way of life. However, knowledge of what is possible will remain. The fear of change is gone. This is a big impact.

Consumers will return to their prior lives armed with this new reality. They will see their old lives and routines through new lenses and begin to operate in new ways. Consumers know what is possible, have the tools in their hands to live that new reality, and are comfortable using them. This creates a new baseline of possibilities for all consumers.

Experiences That Win

Consumers’ time is precious. Consumers are going to begin to notice just how much time they waste by operating in their old ways. The experiences that win are going to be the ones that help them put time back in their day. This will hold true for all experiences across the customer journey.

For retail, online experiences are a must. Ecommerce was already 15% of total retail and expected to climb to 30% by 2025. Now that consumers have eCommerce as one of their only options for retail shopping, we should expect that prediction to happen much sooner. Brands will win in those moments if they optimize the entire experience from how customers engage, find products, evaluate them, purchase them, and return them.

Brands that focus on real-time commerce experiences such as dynamic websites, headless commerce, and social commerce, will see the highest engagement rates. Brands that combine AI with tools that help evaluate their items—such as Zappos ensuring every product has a video review, or IKEA’s Place app, which allows you to see the furniture in your home before you buy it—will see increased purchases. Brands that refine the delivery of those experiences, letting customers know where their shipment is in real-time and make returning items an effortless experience, will create the greatest customer satisfaction.

Local businesses that require people to make appointments and expect people to wait to be seen will have to reimagine those experiences. Scheduling is going to move online for a wide range of businesses because it will simply be faster for people to book time. Many professionals will also have to realize their value isn’t in face-to-face conversations, but rather their expertise. This can be delivered over FaceTime, Zoom, or plenty of other methods. Get ready to have a video call with your mechanic!

Communication with all businesses is going to be affected. Consumers will expect real-time communication. Chatbots and messaging applications are simple ways brands can deliver that. Brands should not see chatbots as a replacement for a human, rather the fastest way to be connected to the correct human, and the ability to answer simple questions that don’t require a human touch (hours, locations, product availability, etc.).

Our current situation is a major and lasting change that has brought the entire world to a new baseline of expectations. New habits are being formed, but—more importantly–new expectations have been set. Marketing, now more than ever, is about experiences. Businesses that are currently looking at every customer interaction and identifying how they can make those experiences better are going to win.

Go to our website: www.ncmalliance.com

The Big Shift: A Prediction of What’s to Come Post-Pandemic by Mathew Sweezey Change was coming all along, but the coronavirus has expedited a number of key facets of consumer behavior…

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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How Coronavirus Has Changed Consumer Attitudes Toward Beauty – WWD

https://pmcwwd.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/reset-consumer-1.jpg?w=640&h=415&crop=1

Beauty consumers will never be the same.

On the heels of a global health crisis and social uprising demanding true justice for all, everything from how we buy to what we expect from the brands we use has been permanently altered.

“We’ve been seeing remarkable behavior changes across so many categories as a result of the pandemic, and beauty is no exception,” says Kristopher Hull, senior vice president, senior client officer at Ipsos.

“The pandemic has had an impact on what [people] buy, where they buy it, their openness to new brands,” he continues. “Also, it’s having an impact on how they think about shopping after the pandemic eases up and as the economies reopen.”

As confinement is being rolled back in countries around the world, people’s appearance remains important to them. Just under 60 percent of those recently polled worldwide by Mintel reported no change in terms of how that’s prioritized, while 50 percent to 60 percent said they haven’t altered how much money they’re spending on beauty products.

Sarah Jindal, associate director, global beauty and personal care at Mintel, says if you peer into consumers’ beauty bags, they’re as full as before.

“It’s just the composition of what’s in it has shifted,” she explains. “It’s more skin care, more self care. Maybe they are trading down in certain categories with regard to price, but they are still spending.”

“Skin care started to grow to the point where it captured almost half the volume of the total industry,” says Larissa Jensen, the NPD Group’s vice president, industry adviser, beauty, referring to the U.S. market. “This is unprecedented.”

Consumers, adds Jindal, are “still engaged.” Yet the complexion of their engagement differs markedly from generation to generation.

Generation Z

Sales of makeup declined in the U.S. during the pandemic. Jensen pins much of that to younger people wearing less of it.

“Add to that the fact that the younger consumer is more likely to be shopping online, and you stir in the pandemic, where online became the only channel for consumers to use, and you’re starting to see the preferences of the younger generation potentially,” she says.

Additionally, many Gen Zers are missing some of their big life events, such as an 18th or 21st birthday, prom or graduation, due to the lockdowns. In other words, why get dressed up when there’s nowhere to go?

A recent GlobalWebIndex study showed that in numerous product categories, delays for making purchases were led by Gen Z. More than four in 10 said that was the case in buying clothing, for instance. They were also the demographic to most likely delay buying a smartphone, smart device or personal electronic device.

“How are brands going to build these long-term relations over time and actually make connections to keep Gen Z interested, if Gen Z are going: ‘Actually, I’m feeling a bit cautious about what we’re going to spend our money on,” Bishop says.

For a generation that’s somewhat in the doldrums there’s an opportunity today for a brand to connect, inspire and even just entertain. As an example, Bishop cites E.l.f.’s virtual TikTok challenge.

“That tapped into the mind-set of ‘We’re looking for brands to be there for us, even if we’re not buying right now,” Bishop says.

Another key is go “to the places and spaces where Generation Z exists,” in other words omnipresent branding that might involve brands sending text messages to consumers or having them create user-generated content.

“It’s not trying to replicate what you would experience in store, but to use technology to your advantage, to have virtual-reality experiences, gaming experiences that will resonate more with younger generations because they are more open to technologies,” says Michael Nolte, creative director at BeautyStreams.

Well-being is another key focus. Ipsos asked consumers in the U.S. about what matters more to them since the pandemic began. “For both Gen Z and Millennials, safety is the most important; about 40 percent of them said safety matters more to them since COVID-19,” says Hull, adding mental health was second, at 35 percent, followed by family, at 34 percent.

Masks being worn gave the biggest reassurance for all age groups queried. “But Millennials and Gen Z were more interested in how deep [stores’] cleaning protocols were and how frequently [stores were] cleaned,” Hull says.

In keeping with a pre-COVID-19 trend, Gen Z’s being open and vocal on social media about brands’ messaging or marketing is not expected to diminish. They are among the loudest voices calling for change during the protests around racial injustice, and it is clear that they expect transparency from the companies they spend money on. “That will extend moving forward,” Jindal says.

Millennials

While the U.S. was in lockdown, about 15 percent of Millennials told Ipsos that they’d tried a new beauty product, and that was split pretty evenly between cleansing items and facial care.

“They were three-times as likely to have tried a new product than Gen X or Boomers,” says Hull, adding such behavior tends to have stickiness. “Probably on average 50 percent to two-thirds of people who have tried a new brand are willing to continue using it after the pandemic.

Many expect to see Millennials trading up when it comes to beauty. “Maybe they want premium experiences, like taking an appointment with a brand and experiencing new items in a very small group,” Nolte says.

“A holistic approach to life will probably resonate a lot among Millennials and the Gen X — so everything that is healthier, cleaner, has an approach from inside-out, body and soul is key, without excluding the other generations,” he continues.

Kathryn Bishop, foresight editor at The Future Laboratory, says the pandemic has been a massive period of digital connection for Millennials, who have embraced connection with beauty brands over platforms such as FaceTime and Zoom in their quest for a personal experience, education and guidance.

With Millennials’ mind-set skewing toward wellness, brands might focus more on self-care products and services.

That was a takeaway for Hershesons, for instance. While the company’s salons remained shuttered in the U.K., it introduced Zoom appointments for clients. Many Millennials who signed on for those didn’t actually want hair-related advice, but instead to chat with a hairstylist.

“It turned into a bigger mental-wellness and well-being conversation, and that says a lot around the potential future services we could start to see from beauty and wellness brands. There is an opportunity to tie wellness, layer that conversation, that human layer back into digital service,” says Bishop, who also expects Millennials’ penchant for DIY products probably to continue post-pandemic.

Generation X

During the pandemic, Generation Xers have tended to turn to their trusted brands.

“They do trust advisers from brands and also word of mouth, like with their peers,” Bishop says. “For brands who want to speak to Gen X [nowadays they] need to be thinking: ‘How do we tap into the kind of word of mouth of this generation?’”

When Ipsos asked older U.S. consumers about what matters more to them since the start of the pandemic, while safety remained important, physical health entered into the discourse.

Mintel’s numbers showed that Baby Boomers became increasingly concerned about their risk of exposure to COVID-19 as the pandemic continued.

“So that fear factor, especially for the older Gen X and Baby Boomer generation, is going to stay for a long time, and that will have an impact on how quickly they are ready to get out in the world and get back to ‘normal,’” Jindal says. “Starting to think about how to cater to some of those consumers from a retail and a brand perspective is going to become really important.”

“[Gen Xers] are going to be the ones who really champion the return to stores,” Bishop says. “Most of them are still very much focused on this idea of browsing and buying in store.”

There, Nolte suggests sales people might take on an even more important role for the demographic that might be sensitive to the added value of speaking with an expert.

Bishop suggests Gen Xers will be looking for products with greater benefits in sync with positive aging and renewal.

“It’s also going to be around an emergence of antibacterial claims woven into some products,” she says. “Gen X has this quite cheeky, fun, ironic, sarcastic streak that is sometimes overlooked, and actually brands need to play into that a little bit.”

Baby Boomers

Ipsos reports that during the pandemic, Baby Boomers in the U.S. went from buying about 14 percent to approximately 44 percent of their high-end beauty online.

“The older consumers were more likely to stick with [such online purchases],” says Hull, citing 38 percent of Boomers, 53 percent of Gen Xers and approximately 26 percent of Gen Zers and Millennials.

Still, for older consumers, visits to brick-and-mortar stores will remain paramount.

“A lot of these older Boomers — or even older elders — are often a little bit isolated from the other generations, so shopping for them is also a way to get in contact with people,” Nolte says. “To have real trained salespeople, who are good communicators, who are not just there to sell you something but also exchange, will have a real added value in offline retail.”

Industry experts are noting a hankering in Boomers wanting pampering in hair salons post-lockdown.

Bishop cited a Mintel report saying that the 65-plus set was the demographic most likely to first race to British salons once they reopened.

Regarding product preferences, she says: “They want formulations that are going to be tailored to their skin, the changes in the way that they look and how they’re feeling.”

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