1. Visit HR to deal with health benefits, 401k and non-compete/non-solicit or other legal documents related to your employment
2. Continue to be professional and positive
3. Keep deadlines and finish projects
4. Build your network and get references from co-workers
5. Don’t take anything that doesn’t belong to you– this should go without saying
6. Prepare for your exit interview
7. Say goodbye– keep it short and sweet
8. Stay in contact after you’ve left

Read the entire FINS Finance article by Jeremy Greenfield here.

What struck me the most about Thompson’s response in this CNNMoney’s article was that he was sorry for the effects of his lie, but not the lie itself.  Everyone involved will take a hit here including Thompson, Yahoo employees and it shareholders and the Board of Directors.  What will be the long-term leadership implications for Yahoo?  Only time will tell.

Read Kara Swisher’s All Things D post about Patti Hart, the Yahoo director in charge of the search that resulted in the hiring of Scott Thompson as its CEO.

Let me be more specific, it is the relationships you have with the people around you—your colleagues, managers, customers and clients– that determine your professional success.  And LinkedIn is the most powerful tool for helping you manage and grow your professional relationships.

All social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Myspace and Twitter and are relatively new in the world of business with none of these sites being more than 10 years old according to a Fast Company online article.

Even though LinkedIn launched less than a decade ago, the underlying theory upon which the company is based can be traced back nearly a century.  The underlying theory that forms the foundation of LinkedIn is commonly referred to as “Six Degrees of Separation.”  As many of you know, the theory says “everyone in the world is connected by no more than six people.”

The theory was originally proposed and researched in 1929 by a Hungarian author named Frigyes Karinthy who is regarded as the originator of the concept of six degrees of separation according to Wikipedia.

Here are some key facts about the growth of LinkedIn according to the company’s website:

• the site launched on May 5, 2003
• at the end of the first month of operation, LI had 4,500 members
• as of August 2003, it had 36,000 members.
• at the end of 2003, it had about 150,000.
• at the end of 2004, approximately 18 months after it launched, LinkedIn had about a million members
• today, LI has over 120 million members in 200 countries;
• if LI were its own country, it would be the 11^th largest in the world. . . larger than Mexico
• people are joining LI at a rate that is faster than 2 people per second; to put that in perspective, in the time I will speak with you today, close to 1,000 people will join.
• what if I told you that in 2010, there were more than 500 million people searches on LinkedIn?  That is impressive, right?  Here is what is even more impressive. . .  the actual number is 4 times that.  In 2010, there were nearly two billion people searches on LinkedIn.

If you don’t already have a LinkedIn profile, are you ready to get started?  There are three basic steps :

1. Create your profile.

• Your Profile page includes information about your current job, past jobs, your education, a professional summary, groups and associations, interests, and contact information.
• When setting up your Profile for the first time you can import your resume to populate most of the fields.
• On your Home Page, there is an option to Share an Update.  This is similar to Update Status on Facebook; however, do not use it in the same manner. Remember, LinkedIn is your professional network, so communicate only significant, work-related information on a reasonable frequency.
• On LinkedIn, I don’t want to see that your Chihuahua is dressed up as one of Santa’s elves for Christmas. . . unless . . . you are sell clothes for dogs, you are a dog breeder or veterinarian.
• On LinkedIn, I don’t want to see that your child dumped a bowl of spaghetti on his head . . . unless . . .  you sell stain resistant baby clothes, you’ve designed spill proof bowls or you’re a photographer who specializes in candid family photos.
• You get the point. . .  LinkedIn updates should be about your profession.

2. Invite people to connect.
Once you’ve set up your Profile, you are ready to start connecting with your friends, classmates, current and former colleagues, fellow alumni, and others who are part of your professional network.

• When connecting with people on LinkedIn,  you have the option to use a standard message or add your own personal message.
• Always choose to add a personal message. Remember, networking is about building relationships, not mass marketing. Use the opportunity to wish people well, happy holidays or to offer them assistance in their careers or business.
• LinkedIn Groups is another way to connect with people who share similar interests, such as former employers, alumni, and professional associations.

3. Update and improve your profile.
Once you have a profile on LinkedIn, you want people to look at it.  LinkedIn provides apps to enhance your profile such as a WordPress blog, Amazon Reading List, Portfolio Display for artists and creative professionals and Twitter.  These apps will add interest and allow you to included additional information that doesn’t fit on your profile section.

For additional information about using LinkedIn, I recommend these two books.

• I’m On LinkedIn, Now What? By Jason Alba
• How to Really Use LinkedIn by Jan Vermeiren
• Mastering LinkedIn in 7 Days by Jan Wallen

Also, check out the Career-ology Resources Page for two free tools that will help you harness the power of LinkedIn.  The first is for newer users and is an overview of the features and functions of LinkedIn.  The second is the Interview & Meeting Prep form that will help everyone utilize LinkedIn to prepare for a meeting with someone you don’t know very well.

Are you utilizing the power of LinkedIn?

If so, then you will agree with me that it is one of the most powerful business tools ever invented.

If not, I encourage you to sign up today and experience the power of LinkedIn for yourself.

. . . if you’re different somehow and have made yourself unique, people will find you and pay you more, Godin says.

Instead of waiting around for someone to tell you that you matter, take your career into your own hands. In other words, don’t wait for someone else to pick you and pick yourself! If you have a book, you don’t need a publisher to approve you, you can publish it yourself. It’s no longer about waiting for some big corporation to choose you. We’ve arrived at an age where you choose yourself.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/if-youre-an-average-worker-in-this-forever-recession-youre-going-straight-to-the-bottom-2012-1#ixzz1jzugiTPG

Thanks again for the wise words, Seth.

The important thing to remember is that there is not one method that will work for everyone.  The way you use email for your work is a function of many things including your job function, your colleagues, your managers and customers or clients, therefore, the solution for emptying your email box on a regular basis will vary.

This is how I approach the task.

First, I scheduled one hour on my calendar at the end of each day– Monday through Thursday.  And I schedule two hours at the end of the day on Friday to deal with the backlog for the week.  This first step alone has multiple benefits and most people can do this.   Maybe you schedule time in the middle of the day or first thing in the morning.  Or perhaps, you schedule to blocks of time throughout the day.

Whichever way you choose, you will be more productive by focusing on the task of dealing with each email in your inbox.  As difficult as it might be to schedule a block of time on your calendar, the most difficult part will be to not look at your email throughout the day.  Don’t even glance at your inbox.  In fact, turn your email off, if possible.  The other benefit of this approach is that you will quickly learn how much time per day is required to process your email.  You might learn that one hour per day isn’t sufficient, so schedule more time.

The most revealing part of this approach is that for many people, sending/reading emails can consume an entire work day.  If the previous sentence applies to you, ask yourself two questions:

1. is sending/receiving emails for an entire workday the best way for me achieve the top objectives for my job?
2. would another approach be more efficient, more effective or produce additional benefits such as developing personal relationships with your colleagues?

Based on your own responses above, adjust your use of email accordingly.

At the scheduled time each day, I review my email box.  For me, most of my email (>90%) can be categorized into one of  five types.  For each category of email, there is a specific action to take.

1. RESPOND –  Upon reading the email, I will immediately reply or forward the message if I can.  If I can’t respond, I will take the next action I need in order to reply.  Examples include make a phone call, schedule another appointment, find a file folder, etc.
2. HOLD – For these types of email, I am waiting for someone else to reply or take action.  If I expect a response by Friday, I leave it in my Inbox.  If not, I add a note to my to do list or my calendar for a specific date in the future.
3. FILE – These are the inbox-clogging messages that contains information you may need in the future.  These emails often include an attached document, a hyperlink, an address or information about a meeting such as time and location.  The key with this type of email is to file the important information in a place that you can find it when you need it.  I save attachments to the appropriate folder on my hard drive; I add hyperlinks to my browser bookmarks and tag them with key words including the name of the person who sent me the link; I add addresses to my contact list and information related to an appointment into my calendar. Once I’ve captured the important information, I delete the original email.  For any other emails that I want to save that don’t fit into any of the above, I move those to an email folder labeled “Reference”.
4. SAVE – For the emails that are transaction-based such as hotel and travel confirmations, conference registrations, purchase receipts and electronic statements, I move all of these into my “Confirmations/Receipts” folder.
5. AUTOMATE – For emails such as blogs posts, Twitter feeds, and electronic newsletters that I will read when I have the opportunity, I created an email rule that automatically moves these to a folder labeled “To Read”.

Here are some other general tips:

• sort your Inbox by the From or Subject columns; you can immediately delete email threads where the entire discussion is captured in the most recent message;
• if you combine your personal email and work email into one email client, create an email rule that automatically moves all messages forwarded from your personal address to its own folder.  Or better, don’t combine them to begin with;
• don’t use too many folders for sorting; keep the buckets high-level and don’t use sub-folders; the search capabilities on most email clients are sufficient that you will find what you need;

Email is a powerful tool, however, it is not the right tool for managing your to do list or your projects.  Don’t fall into this trap.  There is a better way.

Read the related post: Why I Emptied My Email Inbox?

The reason is simple: I feel like I have been losing the battle with my email . . . and it doesn’t seem to be getting better and there is data to support this uneasy feeling.  According to The Radicati Group’s Survey: Corporate Email, 2011-2012:

The number of emails sent per day continues to increase, despite growing use of social networking and instant messaging. In 2010 users were receiving an average of 72 emails per day, and sending an average of 33 emails per day.

The data is alarming, but what is more concerning is the underlying cause of the rapid and seemingly endless increase.  Chris Anderson‘s Washington Post piece, How to stop email overload? Think before you hit send, provides some insight into the root cause of this phenomenon.

Why is e-mail volume getting ever worse? I believe it’s because of a simple fact: E-mail is easier to create than to respond to. This seems counterintuitive — after all, it’s quicker to read than to write. But reading a message is just the start. It may contain a hard-to-answer question, such as “What are your thoughts on this?” Or a link to a Web page. Or an attachment. And it may be copied to a dozen other people, all of whom will soon chime in with their own comments. Every hour spent writing and sending messages consumes more than an hour of the combined attention of the various recipients. And so, without meaning to, we’re all creating a growing problem for one another.

In a recent article, Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, said that information overload is stopping people from concentrating on tasks as they search for what he terms “pellets of social interaction.”  Mr Carr, who wrote a book called The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, says that our basic human instinct to search for new information makes us addicted to our inboxes.

The non-stop information overload also makes it impossible to think deeply in a syndrome that has been named Divided Attention Disorder, or DAD.  In another article, Mr Carr told Esquire magazine: ‘Our gadgets have turned us into hi-tech lab rats, mindlessly pressing levers in the hope of receiving a pellet of social or intellectual nourishment.

Check out this very interesting video of Nicholas Carr discussing the consequences of information overload at 2011 Economist conference.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a hi-tech lab rat.  So I decided to tackle this problem head on.

Read the next post: How I Emptied My Email Inbox?

Read the tip.  Follow Jan’s advice (or one day you may be sorry).  Then, get Jan’s book for more great tips and advice.

You’ve spent a lot of time and given a lot of attention to your LinkedIn Profile. And when you’re using LinkedIn to network and build your business, enhance your career with a new position, or find your next superstar employee, you have valuable information and connections at your fingertips.

Theoretically, everything on LinkedIn should be OK and you shouldn’t have to back up your contacts and profile. However, it’s come to my attention that a LinkedIn member’s account was accidentally deleted from LinkedIn. And that meant her Profile, Contact and Connections were lost. Yes, lost. Wow! All that time, effort and information – gone.

Yes, you can start over. Though it may not be easy unless you’ve kept the same information in your contact manager, taken good notes, and have an excellent memory. And have a lot of time.

Here’s what you can do to be sure that information in your LinkedIn account is not lost, even accidentally. This is a must-do, ASAP! Don’t wait until the end of the day or “tomorrow”. It can be the most important 10 minutes you ever spend on LinkedIn. Do it now!

1. Export your Contacts. Log in to LinkedIn and hover your mouse over Contacts and click on [My Connections]. Go down to the bottom of the screen and click on [Export Connections]. Follow the steps until your contacts are exported. Don’t change any of the defaults – leave everything as it is. When you’re finished, you’ll have a .CSV file that you can open in Excel. (You can export your contacts in several formats. The easiest is the .CSV file. The default for this says, “Microsoft Outlook”.) After you export your contacts, you’ll be able to see the instructions for importing your newly exported file to:

• Microsoft Outlook
• Outlook Express
• Yahoo! Mail
• Mac OS X Address Book

You now have the Contact information for all of the people you’ve connected with, including their email addresses. WOW! A real loss if something happens!
The Recommendations you’ve received are also captured here. These are priceless!

2. Save your Profile. Go to your Profile, and look for the icons above the Summary section (it’s below the number of connections you have). You’ll see an icon for a printer, one for Adobe PDF, and one to Share. Click on the Adobe PDF icon. A box appears. Choose “Save” (rather than “Open”). Select the directory where you want to save your Profile. Change the name of the file if you want to. The automatic format for mine is: jan_wallen.pdf. This saves your Profile to a PDF document that’s formatted very nicely.

Your Call to Action:

Go now to LinkedIn and back up your priceless network. “Do not pass Go!
Do not collect $200”. Do it now!

You’ve just read one of Jan’s easy LinkedIn tips. You’ll love the others. To be sure you don’t miss any tips, go to www.LinkedInWorks.com and sign up for Jan’s ezine.

Jan Wallen wrote the book on LinkedIn – literally. She’s the author of Mastering LinkedIn in 7 Days or Less. She leverages her corporate and Big 4 sales, sales management and CRM expertise to show professionals how to maximize LinkedIn for sales and business development. Jan writes for several sales-related blogs, and has been featured in Business News Daily.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ © Copyright 2008-2012 Jan B. Wallen. All rights reserved. LinkedIn Works!    (203) 545-6104 www.LinkedInWorks.com    info@linkedinworks.com

13.  Am I angry? (If so, save as draft and come back to the note in one hour).
14.  Could I do this note better with a phone call?
21.  Could this email be shorter?
22.  Is there anyone copied on this email who could be left off the list?
23.  Have I attached any files that are very big? (If so, google something like ‘send big files’ and consider your options.)
25.  Are there any or other emoticons involved? (If so, reconsider).
27.  Am I forwarding someone else’s mail? (If so, will they be happy when they find out?)
29.  Did I hit ‘reply all’? If so, am I glad I did? Does every person on the list need to see it?
35.  Bonus: Does the subject line make it easy to understand what’s to come and likely it will get filed properly?
36.  If I had to pay 42 cents to send this email, would I?

Read Godin’s entire list here.

Related Career-ology Posts:

• Save Our Inboxes!  Adopt the Email Charter

1. Schedule time on your calendar to process all of the messages in your email inbox.  Your goal each week is to leave the office on Friday with an empty inbox!
2. Don’t mistake your email inbox for a “to do” list (or worse) a project management tool.
3. Professional relationships are not built via email.  Do you spend time face-to-face with the people who can help you be a successful professional– clients, managers, mentors?

The Email Charter was created in response to widespread acknowledgement that email is getting out of hand for many people. It started life as a blog post by TED Curator Chris Anderson and TED Scribe Jane Wulf. The idea struck a chord. More than 45,000 people read the post and it generated hundreds of tweets, comments and suggestions. That is how the final Charter was shaped. Some of the key contributors are listed here.

The Charter is a private, non-commercial initiative, a simple ‘idea worth spreading’.