Content Creator

This is not a blog post but a job description for the role of an content creator that I am looking for my LinkedIn Profile. To begin with let me explain you my school of thought behind the content. There are 4 forms of content namely written, images, video and audio. Now the most I use on my LinkedIn profile is written and images. This role will be mostly about writing. I could have asked for only content writing but I want you to put on your marketing/sales cap too.

I don’t want a keyboard junkie, who is expert in writing 1000 words per minute and slam me 20 blog post under 20 minutes.

That brings me to the first requirement of this role to you. You will have to write 20 blog posts per month. The idea here that It would be intresting to post 1 per day and we can experiment which 5 days we pick for the week. Don’t worry you won’t have like daily deadlines. We will plan a week in advance so you will be alway writing for the following week. How do I know about planing ahead of time. I wrote 63 articles for my LinkedIn.

If you wonder where will you get the content to write the blog post, that’s a good question. Here are few guidelines to find them:

  1. The content is for Sustainability benchmarking & assessments Experts
  2. We have written an ebook Benchmarking Innovation. (Read Introduction)
  3. You can go through my LinkedIn Profile for recent posts and articles.

Now that brings me to your first Test.

Interview Test No 1 You will have to send me the topic on which you will write the first blog post. You will have to write a short description of 3-5 lines about what you are going to write.

Interview Test No 2 If I think it looks like a good blog post idea and I haven’t written anything like that before. I will ask you to write a summary with 1300 character or less roughly around 200 words. It has to be around 1300 characters including space because LinkedIn post has that limit. I will post it on LinkedIn. We won’t see at the vanity metrics.

Side note: If you get this job. The next step would be to write a blog post based on the vanity metrics. Which means if there is any comments or likes. Write a 1000 words blog post. So the initial 3-5 lines becomes a tweet. 200 words becomes a LinkedIn post and 1000 words becomes a LinkedIn article.

Now this will be your pillar content, you will create images using the text of your content. Few examples are shown below

1) Quotes created by the comments on one of the LinkedIn post

2) Caption image for an article we wrote here

3) Screen shot with the brand from instagram of related industry topic

There are more than dozen such ideas that I will share with you in order to make your work easy. You can find 100s of them on Internet too.

The tool you may have to learn is https://www.canva.com/. Its a free tool and you can find good tutorials online.

Now your second job requirement is to create 5-7 content per day and keep a check if I am posting them at regular interval.

Interview Test No 3 The last test would be to create an image or pdf document using canva. Here are 8 examples to get inspired from. List Document, Infographics, Quote, Power point Deck, Data Point, Flow Chart, Question of the day and Screen Capture

The outcome of your job should be, that your content makes atleast 20 people per month reach out to me and ask what I do. I understand that it will be practically difficult to measure this. However this is the experiment which I want to test and recently some one reached out to me and I normally ask them how did they came to know about me. He said it was because of a piece of content I posted.

I know I am making it sound all mechanical but this is an hard problem and I welcome you to solve this together. So if you are still reading this post then welcome to this experiment of remote content creation with a sales cap on your head. I will be waiting for your email to confiablesolutions@gmail.com

Thank you! If you agree with this idea but not intrested in this job. Please feel free to share this idea with your friends and family.

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 0

Digital Collaborator – Job 001

My last post got an overwhemling response and I got many questions. One of the student reached out to me showing intrest in doing the role. I thought it would be great if we run an experiment along with the help of the student and see the practical implementation, challenges and learning.

I will document the whole experiment and the outcome of the exercise in the post. You can use this as a refrence guide and also ask question in the comments below. I would be happy to reply them.

Let’s begin, If you have not read my previous article, I would suggest read it to have a better understanding of what we are trying to do here. (click here to read my previous post) You will play the role of Digital Collaborator for this article.

Let’s go step by step for the question “What do you have to do and how can you make your side money? ” from the previous post.

  • Pick a niche – Software is the business niche I picked for “The Digital Collaborator” (you can email me at vikramshetty.cancer@gmail.com and I will guide you with next steps) for this experiement.
  • Select 1 skill – Illustration (I picked it for you)
  • Format of content – Cartoon Strips for educating customer (I picked it for you)
  • Content with business – Since in this case the business is mine www.73bit.com.
  • Contact wih Digital Creator – This is the part where you will be working
  • Find the right fit – Now based on the previous points the right fit will be illustrator doing cartoon strips will be right fit. (In actual end to end work the digital collabrator has to figure this out on thier own)
  • Once post is live – We will wait for this in future to update with the work of “The Digital Collaborator”

The Task

To create a comic strip explaning a concept from my older posts. Here is an 2 examples. The output will be 1 single image that will be posted in LinkedIn. It will should have the link text http://www.73bit.com in the image. Like in the example below there is @garyvee. (DONOT COPY the theme from this example, it’s only for inspiration and idea, use your creativity on this brief). The message has to be positive or growth.

View this post on Instagram

Expectations are poison ☠️ I’m desperate to get people to consider the audacity of expectations, we need so much more humility in the business world, let alone life. I listen to people complain in DM, in the office, text (1-212-931-5731) and so much of it is based on their expectations of others. So many lack the simple characteristics of empathy to consider maybe the world 🌍 doesn’t revolve around you or at least not at this moment. Too much expectations from many who have no leverage in the first place and are looking for something from that person in the first place. How can you expect when you are asking for something in the first place !!!!!! Perspective up! More humility less audacity

A post shared by Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk (@garyvee) on

For 73bit Limited, we would like something similar but the topic of conversation should be based on any of the following topic

  1. Name and Shame vs Name and Fame – 498 views (read comments)
  2. Bees – 404 views
  3. Tell your friend about climate change – 1039 views
  4. Waste Management – 681 views
  5. 61 days left in 2019 – 513 views
  6. Less then 2 dollars – 770 views
  7. Co-author – 390 views (read comments)
  8. Sustainbility Community – 1068 views
  9. Analyst Carrer Advice – 225 views
  10. Individual vs Team player – 332 views

Let me explain you how to work with any one topic from above list. There is a story in each post and it conveys a message. Let’s take the 1st example from it. Name and Shame vs Name and Fame.

For the cartoon strip image. There will be 2 colleagues talking to each other. First person tells to second person “Name and Shame is a great driver of change” the second person replies “Is that ethical?” (this could be the top part or the left part). The First person asks “Do you have a better solution?” and the second person replied “How about Name and Fame?” (this could be the botton part or the right part)

I could suggest 3 types of theme to create your comic strip image

  1. Problem vs Solution
  2. Do you know vs Ahh! moment
  3. Pure humor

You can pick your creativity that sends in positive and progressive message to the audience.

How will you connect with the Digital Creator (Comic Strip Illustrator)?

Step 1 – Read this method and understand it well : https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/instagram-for-business-180-strategy-grow-business-brand/

Step 2 – Search the hashtag with following for this experiment #comicstrip #CartoonStrip #CartoonistOfinstagram #comicpanel #comicartists

Step 3 – Pick the images which you think are close to the requirement we have above as 2 examples.

Step 4 – Put a comment in it, first genuinely appreciate the work and ask “Would you be intrested in collabration?” or “Would you like to collabrate with a software business?” or “How about a collabration for more awareness to your work?”

Step 5 – Once they agree to collabrate, DM this article to them and ask them to go through The Task section. Answer any question they may have. If you don’t know the answer ask me on the email and reply back to them.

Step 6 – Once the Digital Creator understands the task. Ask them to send across a short write up on what it would look like in case I have any feedback.

Step 7 – Share the final copy with me at vikramshetty.cancer@gmail.com.

You can use the above steps for your own niche, 1 skills, format and connect the correct business. Configure the steps according to your needs.

What did “The Digital Collaborator” do and what was the outcome and timelines of this experiment?

Now it’s upto “The Digital Collaborator” to carry out this activity. I would like him to record the time spend and the dates on which you sent a message and got replies. You can use pen and paper to record it.

Let’s start with the first one image from the list“The Digital Collaborator”

Statistics to record for him for each digital creator

  1. How much time it took for searching the creator? (time in minutes)
  2. When was the first message sent? (date)
  3. How much time it took to explain the task? (time in minutes in case you did back and forth to answer any questions)
  4. When was the writeup sent to you on the final work? (date)
  5. When did the final post sent to me? (date)

Disclaimer: I am not sharing how much I am paying “The Digital Collaborator” to do this job because I think it will block your creative mind when it comes to pricing. I will ask him to write in the comments if you are happy with payment.

I will update this post after we are done with the experiment. If you want to become “The Digital Collaborator” email me at vikramshetty.cancer@gmail.com

Annexure

Other ideas that came during the conversation. Including them below as side notes of this experiment

This is one of the collabration I personally did using the above method along with Artist Mehna – It was viewed and reached more than 1500 in all platforms(LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter). In LinkedIn alone it was 700+

This is another collabration I did using the above method along with Artist Vranda. She created 2 images. The collective viewed and reached more than 1300 in all platforms(LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter)

View this post on Instagram

Photo credits to @nolikeearth Do you think kindness work like an asset in the business? How much kindness matters to you? . . . The human part of the business seems to be back again. Business is often lead by profits and revenue. Purpose-driven business is heard more these days. . . . Social media platform are playing a major role. You can easily tell if the person connecting with you on LinkedIn is a person or an automated message/bot. . . . You start developing the relationship as a good citizen of the internet world. You will get instant value or have an insightful conversation. . . . There could be 1 or 2 recommendations that will give you a great outcome. Isn't it a good idea to have a long term relationship with your community. Community thinking over transactional thinking is a good idea. I know the work will be more and you will have to put in a lot of heart. . . . Do you support kindness? Type Yes below. . . . Thank you Vranda Agarwal for this great image. . . . #SDG #SDG2030 #Inclusion #globalgoals #sustainabledevelopment #sustainability #green #gender #paygap #UN #ClimateStrike #ClimateChange #environmental #resposible #photooftheday #kindness #heart #World

A post shared by Vikram Shetty 🌍 (@shettyvikram) on

Example of a good illustration:

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 1

Digital Collaborator

Digital Collaborator is a person who facilities collaboration between graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, videographers, copywriters (digital creator) with small businesses or consultants

– It’s my definition about this role

I am really not sure if there is something that exists, but when you are in the business where you keep looking for new ways fill in the gap and create business development opportunities. You can come up with these ideas.

When you see something working and more people can use the framework why not share this with rest of the world.

I got inspired by youtubers, technical nomads, Instagram influencers, remote work and growth of internet. I never knew these roles and work will start popping up here and there.

Problem statement 1: Small businesses and consultants have to constantly create content which is time-consuming, expensive and most importantly creative.

Problem statement 2: Digital creators have to keep getting more awareness on thier work and keep finding new paid gigs.

There has been a surge of a concept called free collaboration that many think could get you some big paid work.

This is how it could work for you the digital creator

  • You connect with small business or consultants who are most likely your future customers (Your tribe)
  • You offer them your service for free, it should take you around 1-2 hours to do
  • Asking in return to tag you or put your handle/email/phone in your digital work
  • You do a dozen of such free collaboration per month
  • If your work is really good people will contact you
  • The cumulative reach of your work in your space will be more than you can do individually

How do you know if as a digital creator this is a good 12-24 hours of your time spent?

The short answer is you don’t. The long answer is if you have Instagram/Facebook/LinkedIn account and your view per post is around 100 to 300. It’s better to collaborate with your future client and start building a relationship. You learn about thier pain points what is a good stats for them in terms of awareness, likes and share. You also connect with the people who take care about the business social media marketing. You add up some body of work in your portfolio which is used by businesses.

Yes, I know there are few people who hate doing free work. This is not for everyone. This is the for those who have big ambitions and are ready to sacrifice today for the brighter tomorrow. If you have paid work that you are happy with this is not for you. But, if you want to go to next level or big league this free work can be a leap. You can experiment with work that no one is doing in your industry.

What’s in it for the business?

You are in the year 2020. I don’t need to explain you the importance of social media in the todays business world. If you are NOT in the online world even if you are in offline business. It’s difficult to get new leads which means less new business. Content Marketing is the one which could help you in long term. If you are the one who is vocal and have ideas why customers should buy from you. The digital transformation of your idea could be very useful in telling your story.

When the only costs you pay little money to the digital collaborator to post a graphic, photo, text or video on your social media page. It’s worth the experiment. The reason it’s worth is because you don’t have to spend hours finding digital creator for free collaboration. Yes, you can also ask someone from your team but I am sure you hired them for some specific business work. A seasoned digital collaborator could have good contacts that bring you up to the speed.

Hello Digital Collaborator, if you are still reading. Congratulations!!!

Why should you be a Digital Collaborator?

  • You will make good connection with digital creators in the area of your interest (networking skills)
  • You will learn more about content marketing in practice without learning any digital skills. (You can choose to learn it later)
  • You will get a chance to connect with small business owners and consultants. It could give you some break. (a bit of Sales skills)
  • You can create your own content after sometime documenting your experiences. (personal branding skills)
  • You will improve in problem solving, answering difficult questions, getting comfortable with rejections and handling objections (interpersonal skills)
  • You can turn this into a full fledged scalable business model. Email me at vikramshetty.cancer@gmail.com for learning how to do that.

Who according to me is a good candidate for becoming a digital collaborator?

  • College Students with free couple of hours per day
  • Someone starting thier career and exploring options
  • Home makers
  • Retired people
  • Anyone looking for some extra money

What do you have to do and how can you make your side money?

  • Pick a niche in your career. Pick something you love either on the digital creator side or business side. This is very important for the long term gain
  • Select 1 skills of digital creator that you believe will work for the business. Is it photography, graphic design, illustration, blog writing, video etc
  • Search for as many examples in the format of the skill that do well so you can write an article like this to explain your Framework of the digital content.
  • Content with 100 businesses (preferrably on LinkedIn, use the LinkedIn Opportunity section an change it according to your strategy) and send them this article to explain what you have reached out for. Once connected Send your personal article explaining why you have chosen that business and what kind of content they could do. Once they agree decide on how much they will pay for 10 free digitl content.
  • Reach out to 250 digital creator via Instagram (using this method) or blog post and pick the post that you think is relatable with the free collaboration. To begin with they should have less than 500 followers and 100 to 300 likes or views. Put a comment explaining in detail what you liked about that content. Ask a question Would you like to collaborate?
  • Find the right fit and communicate the requirements between the digital creators and businesses over the email.
  • Once the post is live send your invoice to the business. Calculate the time you spend to connect with 100 businesses + 250 digital creators along with the total money earned.
  • If you are happy with the work and money continue it.

What do you need to be a Digital Collaborator?

  • Mobile Phone
  • Internet connection
  • 1-3 hours per day
  • Social media user
  • Not afraid of hearing No (embracing rejections)

How much time do you need for one collabration (Rough Estimate)?

  • Connecting with creators- 1 to 5 minute
  • Connecting with businesses – 1 to 5 minutes
  • Understanding & documenting business requirement – Around 15-30 minutes
  • Explaining it to creators by sending the email – 1 to 2 minutes
  • Total time – 18 to 42 minutes

Guesstimate the time for this experiment

  • Total time for connecting with 250 creators – 4 to 21 hours
  • Total time for connecting with 100 businesses – 1.5 to 8 hours
  • Assuming 10% conversion from businesses so requirement time – 2.5 to 5 hours
  • Total time – 8 hours to 34 hours
  • Average of 2 hours per day will end up into 4 days to 17 days

I hope you find this post useful. I hope this narrows the gap and create some business opportunities to Digital creators, small businesses and digital collaborators. If you have any further questions do not hesitate to ask me at vikramshetty.cancer@gmail.com

If you want a step by step guide on how this can be done you can read it here “Digital Collaborator – Job 001”

If you think that this job role is legit, leave a comment or like this post.

It would mean a world to me if you can share this article with one person who needs to make some side money and has in them to what it takes to be a Digital Collaborator. They will thank you for sharing it with them.

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 2

Blueprint for More Work in 2020

This article is mashup of multiple ideas for an artist, freelancer, or solopreneur. This is a suggestion given to a dancer (you can make this relavent to your work). There are couple of platform which are taken as example in this article, because I heard a lot about them.

Disclaimer: This is a one person thoughts, I am not a social media expert or a sales person.

The Happy Path

  • Create more content
  • Get more collaboration
  • Create network and connections
  • Get some work (Free)
  • Get paid

The Salesman Path

  • Decide what you want to do? (Corporate events or Being a teacher in studio or paided shoot)
  • Target the customer list very niche accurately. (Like Corporate HR or Event management or dance studio)
  • Connect (DM) with them via prop channel like Instagram, Facebook, I think LinkedIn and Twitter could be powerful too.
  • Pitch a personalized message and not a generic one. Like I see your event company have recently done this kind of work. I am so and so and i have done similar work in past with examples
  • Measure your sales number. Total messages per week -> Total reply per week -> Total positive reply -> Total jobs/work (Keep biweekly follow up with all positive reply with the ongoing work you do)

Content is the Centerpiece 

You will have to publish content on social media. It’s the fact of your line of work in 2020 is content.

You will have to figure out to create 100 content per week.

Some ideas for creating 100 content per week:

  • Selfie style video answering questions students don’t ask but should ask (same for corporate)
  • Any thing you did unique that day in practice (learning video selfie style)
  • Your daily struggle for finding work, again a selfie style video talking about the challenges (being vulnerable)
  • Photos on random neighborhood.
  • Practice video
  • Photoshoot collaboration (find people near your residence where you can walk to some place, use Instagram feature of location search. Female photographer in case you are uncomfortable) Guide to do that by Gary https://youtu.be/vcEvDpYhM3U
  • Create text quotes and message using Canva (download the free app and use the free templates)
  • I think you should come up with 200/250 types, strategy for content

Volume Startegy by Gary Vaynerchuk

Here are few ideas in different context you can pick what you can do for your work. Convert writing into video or pictures with caption writing

LinkedIn Opportunity (One of my crazy idea)

This could turn out to be more profitable and comfortable work you may end up doing.

  • LinkedIn is currently like Facebook in 2012 every post is working
  • Target: Company HR and Employee engagement professionals within company for any semi classical/classical Corporate Shows.
  • Medium #1 Create selfie style video to explain how connecting to artist directly could be more beneficial for them. Not only in terms of cost but also to create innovative shows around Indian art and classical dance.
  • Medium #2 Search for the relevant designation on LinkedIn –> Send a custom connection request mentioning that you have something free to offer –> Once connected tell them you will be ready to do a show for free only they have to take care of travel and food.
  • Create a 5-7 choreographed dance to offer them that they can pick from. (Do what you already know and have done)
  • If you can think of some creative performance then this could be a viral opportunity. More people will come to know.

You send 3000 invitation in LinkedIn so play it out fully nothing to stop you there. However pick the person wisely and target company with size 50 to 100. Bi-product of this work is all the travel and traffic time to your make productive by creating selfie style video about the work you are going to do. You can answer the below questions for each act.

  • What all ideas you have?
  • What you manage to implement?
  • What went wrong?
  • What did you learned and how will you do it differently?
  • What questions normally you get asked?
  • How do you reply?  

I hope this has been useful for you. Please share this with 1 person who needs to know about this.

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 2

The Art of Failing

Photo by https://pixabay.com

The fear of failure is the biggest mental challenge you have to overcome.

You may not love failing like the rest of the world (including me) but you have to understand that it is a part of the process. If you are on the path of progress you will have to get comfortable with failing. As the famous saying goes the baby that learns to walk will start with a fall. That’s how it is done.

I know it is easier said than done. Only if we could see our failure as a learning step and been an observer to the sad event.

I had my first public failure in my school. There was a speaking activity (I don’t recollect the exact name) after morning prayer at school. Each day one student choose diffrent topic to speak in morning assembly in front of the whole school. On the last day of the week news was read.

Each division from A to E was picked from standard VII to X. There was a pattern our class teacher use to pick, it was only the bright top rank holders from the class were choosen. I was not comfortable because I never got a chance. I felt everyone should get a chance, atleast those who want it. I protested with my teacher. If I remeber correctly she was like it is the reputation of our class and we cannot make mistake by take chances with new students who have never done this before.

If you are thinking of becoming an entrepreneur or for that matter a business person. You will have to take chances.

I persuaded her to give a chance to rank holders 11 to 20. I suggested few names and had to influence few of them. They agree to be a part of this revolt. There wasn’t much support, however our teacher looked of the papers and text that we were suppose to speak the next week.

You guessed it right, it did not went well. When it was my day to speak on the stage. I had to tell the news of the week. In which I was suppose to mention about the recent novel written by Arundhati Roy named “The God of Small Things“.

After the week was over, my class teacher called me infront of the class. I was sure, I am going to get bashed. But she made the point clear of all the things that went wrong. She wan’t so harsh. The biggest mistake was I read the book’s name as “The God of Small Wonder“. It was a serial named “Small Wonder” that came during that time with a robotic girl name Vicky.

Photo by https://pixabay.com

That was humilating but I also felt a sense of pride (I didn’t show anyone). I was very poor in English lanague (I still am, but that’s not stopping me from sharing my story with the world). However I took this scare with pride. As of today, I am confident to speak in front of large audience (on topic I am expert in). I often write articles like this one. I have even co-author and self published an ebook.

The conclusion of this story (my point of view) is that it started with failing and I am still in the journey of learning to do some meaningful work. It may so happen that it will be a never ending process. However the best part is each article is better than last one. Each talk I give, I am more confident.

I have developed a super power “the ability to talk and introduce my self to anyone”. I guess by nature I am extrovert but I had to discover it slowly after my higher studies.

The reason I am writing this story is because I saw a recent movie in which the title of losers was celebrated. The journey of winning a general championship (GC) was thrilling. It was a story of underdog. The most celebrated stories are always of underdog. The part I loved in the movie was in the end they lose. I think the movie was truly made for everyone.

It gives a good example because they are more happier than before. That makes winning and losing insignificant. The effort they put in and the belief they carry to win is what matters.

They won desire to dream, happiness, friendship, memories & confidence.

This was taken 10 years ago. If you can read the print on my T-shirt, it will bring you a smile.

I am still learning to get over micro failures and transform it into learning. It’s an ongoing process and I will continue my journey.

Share this if you think failure is the part of the process.

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 0

Skills for a successful consulting career

In today’s economy because of internet and social media, solopreneurs, gig economy and remote work is becoming a viable career option. If you dig a little deeper, your role becomes that of a consultant. The key for you is to become a successful consultant.

You can find much information on becoming a successful consultant. Here is my take of providing business value to become a successful consultant.

Find your niche
Photo by Noah Näf on Unsplash

Find your niche When you start your career as a consultant it looks easy to serve everyone and anyone in your domain. Let’s pick sustainability as a career option. You will find there are many roles you can play like in Corporate Social Responsibility, Circular Economy, any of the Sustainable Development Goals, Life cycle Assessments, Materiality Expert, Sustainability Reporting Specialist.

I would recommend picking a niche and try to solve the micro niche problem. You have to walk into a client having a problem and should be able to assure them that you can solve it in x number of day and your charge will be y amount. You will require you to know the problem domain and how to provide the solution.

If prospects come to your online profile or learn about you via a referral, they should be able to explain your work in a few sentences — a powerful and one of the most challenging things to do. Think of 5 famous consultants: Aren’t they expert only in one topic?

Share your journey
Photo by Taylor Nicole on Unsplash

Share your journey You can reach to practically anyone in the world. There are dozens of social media platform to share your work. LinkedIn works for professional network. I know you know that however you may not know is currently (May 2019) the organic reach of the platform is very high. Which means If I post a good article or share an article (you can share this article), I get 1000 to 5000 views on my post.

If you are hesitant to share or don’t know what to share, one thing you can do is share your daily work experience, your current challenges or any meetings you had that is worth sharing.

Your post should provide value to the community you serve. It can be in the same industry. For example, let take the case of 73bit.com. We are a benchmarking and assessment platform for company-wise benchmarks.

Our clients are Rating companies, Non-profits, Think tanks and Environmental consultancy. However, most of my post revolves around sustainability, climate change, diversity, gender and technology. Your post can be a medium to share your passion and the person you are.

Design your service
Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

Design your service: You have to be a systems thinker because the system produces results. Your service should yield specific outcomes and deliverables. Clients should be able to measure progress and throughput. The method of consultancy can attract the right clients and also retain them for life.

There are many examples of structuring the service. One of them I can remember is from the book Build to Sell. The story is about a struggling entrepreneur in small business and how his mentor helps him to become a successful company. The business they turn out to be is a Logo making agency.

One of the steps I would like to highlight from their 5 step process is creating the logo only with black colour. They explain one of the advantages of this step is to make the client focus on the structure, ratio and concept of the logo. This step avoids the conversation of detailing on the logo.

Create a community
Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Create a community Create a community Being a consultant can be a lonely journey at times; it is always good to have likeminded people to get inspiration. It never hurts to have a mentor in the same field too. To create a community you need to bring value to them. You may take time to understand; however, your best friend is experimenting.

If you choose LinkedIn as a platform for creating your community, you can create groups in it and build it. To begin with, you can always participate in groups where you can contribute and start developing relationships. These relationships can also help you bring clients.

I feel that if the community is in the space of your work, but they are not your direct clients. It becomes effortless to serve, and you can go all in. For example, I do Daily Introduction. Not everyone I introduce is my potential customer; thus there is no agenda with this service. Good Karma comes back, is what I think.

Keynote Speaker
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Keynote Speaker This could be a tough one. If you can speak about your work to a large audience it shows that you have the authority to talk about the topic and it increases your confidence. Both of these qualities are important for sales. The talks can be a great source of lead generation and client relationship.

You can start small by talking about your subject to a nearby school or college. It can be short talk like TED. If you think you are not comfortable talking to a larger audience start by talking with few people. You can start by talking to one person. You can do that by being a guest in a Podcast.

Your confidence can alone be powerful skills to have. It will come if you are great at your work and proud of what you are doing. You can also have a Free talk at your clients’ place on the topic that is currently a concern to them.

I hope this article was useful and I wish you a successful career. If you found this valuable the least you can do is share this as a post. Add two lines while you post mentioning why did you liked it or why don’t you liked it.

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 0

In the age of digital shared economy, You need to rewire your thought about the job.

Do you spend more time in Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat and you are work in the tech world? If your answer is yes, you should continue reading.

You are developing, testing, configuring or maintaining software. You are in the knowledge business and you are in charge of creating systems.

Before software can be reusable it first has to be usable.
– Ralph Johnson

The story of a young developer

I will tell you the story about our newly joined team member Pooja. It’s her first job and was hired after interviewing around 100 talent. We started with Test Driven Development, we make it clear that it will take time to learn new skills in software development.

While I was pairing with her on one of the user stories, there was a point we were writing a failing test. I asked her to write the production code to fix it. She took the keyboard and tried to quickly type the fastest solution possible. While doing it she accidentally cut paste a wrong piece of code.

Me: Why are you in a rush?

She: I want to complete this task fast.

Me: Why?

She: ………………………………………..silence…

I have observed this repeatedly. Be it Leadership, Creatives, Fresher or others. Most of us are in a hurry to complete the task.

Good software is never measured ONLY ON how quickly it was delivered. It is measured on many other factors too, like

  • Solving Real Problems
  • User Experience
  • Clean Design
  • Ease of Use
  • Runs Faster

When you rush, you add bugs and it slows you down. A software with bugs makes it more difficult to deliver on time. When the software is very brittle, team and customers STOP having confidence in the software

 One man’s crappy software is another man’s full time job.
– Jessica Gaston

You end up doing the same work again and again. You are in firefighting mode and you won’t learn new software skills.

Build your personal brand

The reason that learning new skills and doing new work or a new way of work is important because you can build your brand using any of the popular social media platforms.

You share why you do what you do, you share your new learning with the world and help you build your career.

Your personal brand can be a valuable asset for you to find your next job.

You can have a story to tell, WHY YOU DON’T HATE MONDAYS

The superpower of a good professional

Till now you read about a problem and an opportunity that will help you build a great career.

If you study all the successful people, you will learn that they do their best work with complete ease. It’s an effortless activity and they love to do it.

Here are my two advice that can be your superpower to get more time at work and do some meaningful work that you love and enjoy doing.

1) Discard 50% of your task

Are you shocked? With my experience, I have seen that any task can be broken down. You can get rid of many of them. Ask these questions

  • Can we get the outcome without doing this task?
  • What does the user really wants from this feature?
  • Can we ask the customer and remove this feature?
  • Is there a way to get the result using other features?
  • Will the customer use this at all?

You can discard all the waste that is not required.

Another story

It’s about a feature we recently added to our platform. It is based on the first question above Ajeet and me asked.

We had to create a progress bar that showed the status for a background process to the scorecard. It was processing data between half million to 4 million data points for all the entities. Each data point may have a complex function that can have multiple steps.

So the initial natural design/plan was to put the counter at each data point for each entity. It was a crude solution but an initial thought. The bigger pain to us was to put the counter in the database and read it periodically and damage the performance further.

We asked, “Can we get the outcome without doing this task?“

We came up with a solution to calculate the number of entities processed irrespective of the data points in each entity. We also counted the progress only at 5% increment. Thus measuring it only 20 times per cycle.

It took us a few lines of code at the iteration point of entities. The solution was implemented in an afternoon and the client verified it the next day.

Estimated 4 days of work completed in 4 hours

It gives me an idea of where the background proccess currenlty is and when it may expect it to complete – Our Client

2) Automate

You should make the computer work for you. You can’t imagine how much you can automate. I will only list a few and you can figure it out.

  • Automated Testing
  • Continuous Integration
  • Logging your time tracker
  • Regular Maintenance Work
  • Ad-hoc reports
  • Auto Start require tools on Startup
  • Refactoring
  • Script any operational activity
  • many more…

The main thing with a superpower is you have to use them daily, rather hourly to make a real impact.

I hope you enjoyed this article If you plan to only share 1 article per day consider this one.

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 0

Open Letter for your first tech job

gq_hero_new-series-season-1Before telling good bye to 2017. I want to put this request for your first Tech Job. Thirteen years back I was looking for my first job. My name is Vikram Shetty and I have a Masters of Science (Information technology) degree with me. In 2004 I was looking for my job to become a Microsoft Dot Net programmer. I was an average programmer but I found my interest in programming. The epiphany hit me when I discovered C# Web service can talk to a web page using XML. It was as simple as creating it in 5 minutes. The Information Technology was recovering back after 2001 slow down. There wasn’t much job in the market and one of the option was campus placement, which I never came across. The other option was a job as a Tech Support (its like a Call Center). Every job has its own merits but I did not got selected in any one of those, I consider it as blessing in disguise. Information Technology industry has changed over a decade now, but young girls and boys are searching job as if it is 2005, even the format of the resume has not changed 🙂

In today’s market you if you are not getting job from normal channel. You should hack your way into the office, if you are passionate about programming or find it interesting.

#3 Crazy Hacks, you wouldn’t dare to do if you are not passionate 

  1. Find a startup you like and offer them to work for FREE. This is actually not risky if you are at home for last two months, what is stopping you from working and adding experience. If you are don’t have money for travel and lunch here is how you can earn for it. Watch this video, in India you can use OLX or Quikr
  2. Stop searching job the main job portals. Try other avenues like LinkedIn, Interview Fox, or AngleList with recent programming language like NodeJs, Ruby or Go
  3. Look for a remote job, It is 2018 and the world is your playground and you can work from anywhere with Laptop + internet. Remote Work

[Edited: 31/12/2017]

After this article was viewed by 45 people over 7 countries. Few of my friends suggested more hacks. Thank you Kritul, Piyush and Maunish. I am listing it down with my 0.2 cent to it.

#3 BONUS Hacks

  1. Meetup to collaborate with other developer and search for job. My 0.2 cent is find a meetup of Startup and Investor meet. Entrepreneur will go for funds there, if you can observe and find the one who are positive about getting funds ask them for job.
  2. https://github.com/ for participating in open source project to put it in your resume and https://stackoverflow.com/ to show your technical skills and gain points on your profile thus updating it in your resume. Your real work will be out in public. My 0.2 cent is find the people who have great work already and ask them for a job.
  3.  Product Hunt to find tech product (India), search a cool company and connect to the founder or contact us on there website. They often have few incoming emails so the possibility of reading your resume is high.

Hope this rant helps at least one person who reads this. Best of Luck!

Have an Epic 2018! 

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 0

75 constraints used in 2015 across the Globe for Global Day of Code Retreat

Tomorrow on 18th November 2017 is Global Day of Code Retreat 2017 #GDCR17 This will be my 3rd year in a row to attend and practice my craft. After 13 years of experience writing code it still feels like a ride in a theme park to attend Global Day of Code Retreat. In year 2015 I copied all the constraints from the website www.coderetreat.org

Image result for code retreat

Here are the 75 unique constraints that was used on that day

  1. Introduction to the problem
  2. Pair Programming
  3. Test Driven Development
  4. Small methods (<=5)
  5. No side-effect methods.
  6. No if-else
  7. No conditional statements
  8. No loop
  9. Ping Pong
  10. No constraints
  11. Babysteps
  12. Mute ping-pong
  13. Brutal refactoring game
  14. Zombies!
  15. Tell don’t ask
  16. Hexagonal board
  17. Simplicity
  18. No boolean flag
  19. No array
  20. Explore, Stabilize, Implement
  21. Pure Functions Only
  22. One Level of Indentation Per Method.
  23. No TDD, Honeymoon round
  24. TDD, keyboard only
  25. On paper
  26. TDD focus on behaviour
  27. TDD Like you mean it
  28. Code swapping
  29. No language primitives across method boundries.
  30. Make a test list No code in first 0 minutes, make a list of tests, then decide in which order to implement them
  31. No touchpad, no mouse.
  32. Intention, naming convention.
  33. Extreme OO
  34. First 0 minutes paper only, no arrays and no lists
  35. Acceptance tests only
  36. Use no matrix
  37. No Return statements!
  38. Pair programing, 0 min test paper only
  39. Fixed roles one writes tests, the other implements and swap 0 minutes before end all of the sudden 😉
  40. Maxlines per method
  41. No predefined datastructures
  42. Four Rules of Simple Design
  43. Closing Circle
  44. Commit every 5 minutes, delete the rest Reduce the time to 3 minutes Last round 1 minute
  45. Taking baby steps write exactly one test within 2 minutes and commit it if you are in time, if not revert the changes
  46. Clean code
  47. Everything is represented by an immutable object, objects cannot change state.
  48. Primitive Revulsion.
  49. Three Laws Compliant.
  50. Total Ego Annihilation.
  51. So Fresh, So Clean.
  52. Cells talking to cells De-emphasis on the GoL world / board.
  53. Pairs can only communicate via tests
  54. Round Robin dojo
  55. Legacy code! This is a longer  where devs unknowingly write untested legacy code with no restraints and halfway through they need to switch partners and maintain and refactor that code
  56. Driver gets keyboard
  57. Shortcuts are not allowed (e.g. ALT-TAB)
  58. Muted pair!
  59. Switch to 3 dimensions
  60. Object Calisthenics
  61. TDD + Simplicity + Immutable + Hive Board
  62. Noun Avoidance / Verb It Up, Verby Mc. Verberson
  63. Procedural (no tests) OR immutable objects
  64. Mob programming (basic Game of Life, no other constraints)
  65. Hive board (cell only has 6 neighbors instead of 8, a grid can be represented as a beehive) + mute mode (nobody can talk)
  66. 4 Verbs Only
  67. With graph constraints
  68. Extreme OO
  69. Evil Coder!
  70. Tell, don’t ask Only void methods
  71. Extract ’til you drop
  72. Exploratory testing
  73. Healing grid
  74. Let’s see how many alive cells you have on a 100X100 matrix after 1000 iterations ?
  75. No exceptions

Hope this list helps you tomorrow…

Constraint: Share this post Now!!! 😉 

Posted on by Vikram Shetty 0