10 ways to get noticed at work

Do you find yourself slipping into an obscure job role?  Does your opinion just seem insignificant when offered?

We often get complacent in our jobs, it is human nature after all to get your feet under the table and get comfy.

If you want to be less of a passenger and climb into the spotlight here are 10 tips to put you on the right track.

1. Increase your visibility.  Make a concerted effort to visit others in your office.  Use the first coffee in the morning productively and take it on a tour of the office everyday.  By doing this you can see what others are working on, see where you can offer help and just simply have a chat about stuff.  It doesn’t have to be the first coffee and you don’t need an excuse to walk around.
2. Dress the part.  Getting noticed can be as simple as adjusting the way we dress.  This can have both a negative impact and a positive one.  Think for a minute about your office.  Who is the scruffiest?  Who is the smartest?  Does it have an impact on their role and how it is perceived?  Do you go to the scruffy person for creativity and the sharp one for marketing?  More on this here.
3. Give your reputation a kick.  Your name needs to be seen and heard.  Try to start putting your name to more stuff.  Does your company have a blog or a forum?  If so start posting regularly.  If your company is large enough to have an internal publication start offering stories for it.  Get in touch with marketing and offer some hot stories for external press releases.
4. Step up to the plate.  If an opportunity is offered and you have the ability to get the job done then raise your hand high.
5. Learn to learn.  The world is in information overload, if you don’t know how to do something it is now as easy as opening up a new browser window on your computer and searching for the answer.  We should all be striving to learn something new every day no matter how small or big it is.  The opportunity is there.
6. Keep in tune with the world at large.  Know exactly what your company’s competitors are doing. Are you reading the right blogs? Do some market research. What opportunities are out there? Is there a gap that could be filled? When an opinion is asked for you may be just the person to supply the answer.
7. Show respect of others.  If somebody is doing a good job tell them. Also mention this to people higher up the chain.  Being fair and showing you care is a great way to set an example.
8. Be a mentor. Don’t be selfish with your own knowledge.  Sharing is a great way to be noticed. Sharing regularly with the same people may not have immediate benefits but in the long-term you will reap the rewards and so will they.
9. Find your niche.  What are you really good at?  Find out and make yourself the expert on the subject. Become the “go to” person in the office for that particular thing.
10. There is no try only do. Just like Yoda said in his syntax error filled Jedi speak, there is no 2nd best. It’s no good moaning to your colleagues about not being noticed unless you are prepared to work hard at your job and be the absolute best you can be.

Site of the Day

In the interests of furthering our edumacation(?), today we have stumbled over a site called Teacher Tube. The site pretty much does what it says on the tin and is basically a version of YouTube for teachers.

It features an interesting array of videos that are primarily designed as classroom aids but if you dig a little deeper you’ll find top tips for software like Word and Excel.

Check it out.  You might not find that video on leadership you were looking for but you might find a video which looks at leadership from an alternative angle.

On the end of your Tippy Tongue

How many times today have you been left fumbling around for a word which you know instinctively is rattling around somewhere inside that void of a mind?

Lifehacker points us to this video which claims to be able to help us.

Dimensional Learning

Picking up from The Gorv’s comment on yesterdays post I think there is more to “learning 387.0″ than meets the eye.

Generally everyone loves a term, something catchy, a container that describes what’s inside in a quick, snappy phrase.

Does “learning 387.0″ cut the mustard?

I quite like it.  It has a certain lovely, meaningful yet sarcastic ring to it.  Ok, so probably not quite the buzzwords we are looking for.  

Let’s have a look at learning’s journey (a bit like the title of this blog may suggest), and give it a scientific twist.

Imagine a classroom filled with pupils and a teacher at the front with a blackboard. The teacher has a set lesson plan and teaches the class by telling and showing. There is no listening from the teacher, no questioning allowed and no feedback on whether the training works or not. As an alternative the teacher could wheel in a TV and video to the front of the class, stick a tape in, press play and walk out again.  

This is one way learning.  It’s one dimensional with information only traveling outwards from the assumed subject expert.

Adding another dimension means information suddenly goes both ways in the form of questions from the students and answers from the teacher.  It may also feature tests which are an obvious and effective way of measuring learning. This is effectively 2D but as with anything 2D it’s a rather flat experience.

3D learning occurs when we have information going both ways on the 2D plane and there is a third source which is referred to from within the classroom and delivered from the outside.  Think of this as every student having a computer connected to the internet and using it as a library to support and increase the knowledge given within the class.  This form of learning has a much greater depth.

In science terms the forth dimension is all about space and time.  This is similar for learning too. 4D learning is all about the ability to bend and distort the learning experience and sometimes fold it all the way back into itself.  It’s about coming at learning from all angles.  Now in our classroom we still have our teacher and our students but the teacher isn’t the only expert in the room and they are also open to furthering their knowledge on a particular subject.  Learning here is all about sharing.  What happens in the class doesn’t stay in the class and on the outside the whole world can share, participate and add to the learning experience.  

Let’s take an example of a wiki on dog training.  The teacher kicks the wiki off by adding some core content.  The students then begin to add to the wiki maybe with what they already know, maybe with what they discover en route.  This wiki can be seen by the whole world and suddenly you have other dog handlers and trainers adding to it.  Sometimes information given can be incorrect, maybe not now but maybe in the future.  Say for example a chihuahua will always perform a trick for a juicy bone, somebody makes a note of this on the wiki and the information is shared.  Maybe in 100 years time the whole chihuahua breed has become vegetarian and that information is void but the wiki still exists.  No problem, time is bent, the wiki is adjusted and then the information is up to date again.  The beauty is that everyone who is subscribe to this wiki via RSS will be updated when a change happens so the learner is never left behind.

So you see 4D Learning is all about being user driven.  It’s about a multi-way experience which is constantly changing, evolving and responding to learners input and support.

Can you get any better than 4D Learning?  Will there be a fifth dimension?  Absolutely not.  By it’s very nature 4D Learning in itself is also constantly changing, evolving and improving.  As a result it is a term that adapts and grow as and when necessary.

This is obviously just my opinion, not news.  Is it just fluff or do we actually need a term to create hooks?  If I’m going into a client meeting with either the term “learning” or “4D learning” I know I’d have much more success with generating excitement from the latter.

Marton House’s patent for the term “4D Learning” is pending… in my mind at least.

Image from wikipedia

The Idea Vault

Remember these?

 

The humble filofax was the ultimate status symbol of the 80’s.  If you had one you were either regarded as a top business person by some or as a dreaded yuppie by others. 

Filofax’s are still around just nowhere near as popular as they once were.  Maybe it’s that in this technologically wonderful age it has been replaced by things like mobile phones, Blackberries, iPhones, iPods etc.  The great thing is all of those things are smaller but they all do roughly the same thing as a Filofax – they store data.  Dates, times, appointments, meetings, notes, memos and most importantly ideas. Heck you can even scribble on most of them with a fake pen or a finger.

Have we all lost the ability to store those great ideas that sneak up on us?  If we don’t write them down somehow we’ll forget them.

How do you know if an idea is worth storing?  The answer is you don’t but the trick is if the thought is interesting, jot it down.  You may come back to it later and think it’s a load of old rubbish but it’s only relative to your current state of mind and who knows tomorrow it may be a real gem!