The Wall Street Journal covered an interesting topic today.  It was the concept of interviewees going into situations with prospective employers and providing a great idea or even drafting some sample work or projects, which the company later uses without hiring the interviewee or paying them for their efforts.

In the modern information age, this is a growing problem and one that is readily solved. 

About a half dozen years ago, I sat down in job interview with BankOne(at the time) and outlined a strategy to merge and Acquire Wachovia’s Credit Card Division.  BankOne made me a job offer, but the offer was extremely low and I literally couldn’t afford to remain financially solvent (even with my BankOne debt) if I accepted the job offer.

BankOne later went on to acquire Wachovia’s Credit Card Division and I took a job for a different company.  I of course received nothing for my strategy and did not even receive the opportunity to follow up on the idea and be a part of the team that put the deal together.

I would not have to worry about that same problem today if I properly harness the power of the internet.  In today’s world it is easy enough to provide your information and offer your services or knowledge to the highest bidder online.  Anyone foolish enough to give away their services or knowledge in an interview will be rewarded with the compensation of not receiving the position. 

Many companies act and move from a position of strength during interviews taking information, ideas and concepts and freely applying them long after the interviewee has left the building and often times without a follow up email or phone call.  Interviewees need to wise up and take some simple steps to benefit from what they know.

1. Copyright your plan
2. Don’t give away the crucial elements until you have a contract
3. If examples are required, give historical examples
4. Draft up concepts and publish them online without providing the crucial components and then await contract offers to get the final goods.
5. Sell the information to a companies competitors.  If a company is not bright enough to seize a valuable asset up front, there’s a good chance that their competitor might!

Bottom Line

The job market is highly fluid these days.  Unemployment is still extremely low by historical standards and knowledge can be provided for a premium as long as you don’t short change yourself and give it away for free.  Protect the brand and product that is you and the services you can provide, don’t let a company wheedle down your value by providing a free sample.  You are not a food product to be tasted and passed around in a Sam’s Club!

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Have you been thinking about jazzing up your Icon list in MindManager?

IconGalore provides a number of great XP Style Icons ready made for MindManager and many other applications. Professional XP Style Icons like the ones below, can quickly be added to you MindManager Pro 6 Library of Icons giving you greater categorization and filtering powers right away.

How to Add Icons to MindManager Library?

Simply navigate to the library folder on your system. If you are running XP Pro this will likely be found at an address similar to the following:

C:\Documents and Settings\your_unique_user_name\Local Settings\Application Data\Mindjet\MindManager\6\Library\ENU\Icons

Simply paste the Icons with the .ico extension in this folder, then go to your library in MindManager, select the Map Marker Icons button and right click anywhere in between the existing icons, and select ‘Refresh’ from the drop down menu that appears!

You can get up and running with some great new icons fast!

IconGalore offers a number of free icons for download. They have some great icons for purchase covering a number of useful topics from Accounting Software to network Database Icons and if you would like they will also create custom Icons upon request!

MindManager is offering an icon pack as a promo with new sales, but for all the existing MindManager Users out there this is a nice way to jazz things up and get a fresh feel out of the user experience.

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Identify Improvements in Progress

• Testing the benefits of Message Boards to Help Cancer Patients get Medical advice from Nurses

Why is the owner making the changes

• University of Pittsburgh is studying the benefits of 24/7 access for patients of fighting cancer.

What is the expected impact of the Change

• Patients get 24/7 access for questions
• Patients can ask questions that don’t come up during Chemotherapy sessions when they aren’t physically up to having conversations.
• Wealth of Knowledge can be made available and the community can benefit from the questions asked by other patients

Is the improvement on Target or a mis-direction

• The Improvement is an excellent use of technology and helps connect patients with medical support and a community focused on fighting the same problem, Cancer.

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I am astounded by the perception of a real estate glut.  I suspect that the true glut is a mortgage glut and not a true real estate glut.

Consider

The US population is rapidly on the rise.  The population just hit 300 million people and will hit 400 million in another 15-25 years.  That’s not much time at all to find a place for an additional 100 million people, especially in terms of the Real Estate market.

Now is an excellent time to invest in real estate.  The price for real estate is dropping and the demand  is going up.  Those are excellent conditions to make money!

A recent trip to my home town of Peoria Illinois helped bring home the fact that Chicago is spreading and before you know it cities like St Louis and Chicago, Atlanta and Charlotte and many others will start to merge, just like LA and San Diego and so many others already have.

Investing in Chicago Real Estate is a great option to consider bar none.  Chicago unlike many large cities has an uncanny ability to adapt and improve with the times.  The city continues to revitalize itself and avoid the malady of many large cities in the Midwest and Northeast. 

Chicago has embraced new technology, new industries and continues to find new way to recycle its land and real estate to remain relevant and connected to the rest of the world.

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Since early 2005 I’ve been using a Canon Digital Elph.  My current camera is a 3.0 mega pixel variety.  It takes great pictures and even does very good with short movies complete with full sound. 

Over the last couple years I have put this camera through its paces and its done great.  In fact the damn thing refuses to die.  I am ready for an upgrade but I still have this great 3.0 mega pixel camera.  So this year, I have finally had enough.  I will upgrade but I do not want to get something that will die fast or put me through warranty service hell.

So I am going to stick with my Digital Elph and upgrade to the Canon Digital Elph SD700 in the 6 Megapixel variety!

CANON Powershot Digital ELPH SD700 IS 6 Megapixel Digital Camera Kit - $289.88

A couple years back, I had a SD card with 128 megabytes of flash and purchased a second card with 512mb.

This time, I will buy a half dozen cards with 1GB each. I could buy just one big card, but I find it very handy to have extras for my Treo and other gadgets and at $14.99 each its just too cheap to pass up.

PNY 1GB SD Secure Digital Memory Card P-SD1G-RF3 - $14.99

It seems like just yesterday I was paying the same amount for a 3.0 Megapixel and I was paying $100 for 512mb of flash.  Don’t you just love it when the prices on your favorite stuff comes down that much, sure makes me glad I don’t sell cameras.

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