Successful Unemployment

Dear All,

I recently gave an interview to an editor of Magazine for Professional Engineers (from NSPE), about how engineers and other technical professionals can further their careers by utilizing various social media tools. The interview was published in the May 10th, 2010 issue of the magazine.

During the interview,  I gave a number of specific examples of how Linkedin, Twitter and blogs have helped me become better-known as an expert in my field of work.

I also gave advice on how various social media outlets can help technical professionals get a new business of the ground, or simply further their professional career. Now I’d like to share these tips with you!!

Here are some excepts form the interview article:

“If you enter into social networking trying to sell [yourself] of every blog post, tweet and Facebook update..you will fail miserably..and then complain that social networking is a waste of time.”

“If you use social tools to provide relevant, interesting information to the community you serve, she says, you will increase your company’s credibility or your standing as an expert in the field.”

If you would like to read more about how to get started with social media, in order to grow as a professional scientists or engineer, the  PDF of the entire article is here:

http://mvpmodelingsolutions.com/PE_Mag_Interview.pdf

And in case you’re wondering, my company  ”dedicated to improving engineering R&D processes” is MVP Modeling Solutions (not sure why the editors decided to remove that from the article).  I also have no idea why the editor choose to use YouTube snapshot of prison inmates dancing to “Thriller”…or why they decided to plop it next to my photo.  A bit disturbing,  if you ask.  I am still thankful to have been interviewed by the magazine!

Please let me know your thoughts!

Cheers,

Masha

Announcing the Lucky Winners of the Successful Unemployment Toolkit!

The winners will receive an e-mail from me with instructions on downloading the toolkit in the .zip file.  They can start listening to the mp3 tracks and reading the Reference Guide today, and can begin to Increase their Professional value by the end of the day!

If you are one of the 5 Winners listed at the end of this post, here is what you will receive as part of your Toolkit:

1. An mp3 recording of my seminar Successful Unemployment—10 Steps You Need to Take NOW to Increase Your Professional Value

During this seminar, I will give you 10 specific action itemsthat you can start implementing immediately. These steps are guarantied to:

• Get the skills that set you apart from the rest of the job seekers in your field
• Greatly increase your interviewing skills
• Help dramatically improve your resume
• Increase your opportunities for professional development
• Provide many more opportunities for employment

2. Successful Unemployment Reference Guide (pdf format)

• Includes over 25 websites and references
• These are URLs of organizations that you NEED to know about and become a part off, in order to grow professionally.
• Publications referenced in this guide will give additional information on ways to increase your professional development in a technical field as well as help inspire and motivate you.

If you did not win this time, you can still begin to develop yourself as a science, engineering or technology professional by purchasing the toolkit here:  http://successfulunemploymenttoolkit.com/wpmain/order-now/

And Now for the WINNERS:

1) Fa-Gung Fan

2) Suleiman Oloriegbe

3) Fulufhelo Masithulela

4) Karna Barquist

5) Waldemir Queiroz

If your name is on this list, you are a subscriber to this blog AND have connected with me via Linkedin OR Twitter. Within the next few hours you will be receiving a download link from me. Congrats to all of the winners!

Apology, Giveaway and Masha’s Update…

Dear Readers,

Apology:

If you follow me on Twitter or Linkedin, you might have noticed my status updates about some serious troubles that we’ve been having with this website.

Shortly after posting my previous article on Geek Excuses for Bad Presentations a few weeks ago, this website has been hacked, as have numerous other WordPress sites hosted by NetworkSolutions.com. I caught the problem within the first few days, but unfortunately some visitors to this site might have gotten a Trojan Horse virus.

If you visited this site in the last month or so, and do not have an anti-virus software installed on your computer, please download www.avast.com (the Free version works great) and check your computer for viruses!

I sincerely apologize to those of you who might have been affected by this issue! My website hosting company assured me that they are doing everything possible to prevent any hacking attacks in the future.

Giveaway:

So as a way of saying “I am sorry for any troubles this website glitch might have caused you” I am giving away 5  Successful Unemployment Toolkits absolutely FREE!! My Toolkit is completely downloadable, so 5 lucky winners will be able to start increasing their professional value as soon as they receive the download link!

How to win: In order to win you need to be a subscriber to my blog/newsletter updates (you can subscribe on the side bar on the right) AND either follow me on Twitter OR be my contact on Linkedin (if you’re currently not a contact, just send me a request to join my network).

I will send the download link to FIRST 5 people who fit the above criteria and who respond to me either by direct message on Twitter or Linkedin!

One entry per person please! Good luck!

Update:

I have just come back from a week-long Speaking Tour sponsored by the American Chemical Society. I got a chance to tour the beautiful state of Wisconsin and give 6 talks in 5 days. Remember my advice on speaking on any subject of interest to you, not just topics in your technical area? I try to practice what I preach, so here are the 4 topics I covered during this tour:

“A Wife, a Mother, and a PhD”

“Economic Crises and the Need for Computer Modeling”

“Importance of Perception, or Why You Should Care What People Think”

And of course, “10 Steps to Increasing Your Professional Value”

I am currently trying to figure out how to make some of the videos of these talks available to my readers, so stay tuned!

Cheers,

Masha

Geek Excuses for Bad Presentations

Dear Readers,

Today’s topic of this blog/newsletter is on importance of making good presentations. Yes, the ability to present in public will definitely increase your professional value. Think you don’t need to work on your presentation skills? Answer the following:

• Have you ever given a presentation to your company management, only to notice that the CEO was dosing off and the Marketing VP was playing solitaire on his iPhone?
• Have you ever presented important technical information to your peers, who you felt should be eager to hear about your findings, only to notice that a few of them were leafing through the SQL Server magazine under the table, while the others were yawning, or transfixed on your slides with a glazed-over stare?
• Have you ever started off your talk with “I’m going to make this as short as possible, so I will not take up too much of your time”, only to apologize an hour later with “Looks like I’m running over my time, but I’ll just quickly show you the rest of the results…”? Have you seen desperation spread across the faces of your audience in response?
• Do you hate presenting in public?

If you and answered “yes” to any of the above, read this article in Simple-Talk. Please, let me know what you think on this subject in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,

Masha
(http://www.simple-talk.com/content/article.aspx?article=990/)

Write to Keep Your Job, or Get a New One (Plus, a writing opportunity with a technical magazine!).

Dear Readers,

If you’ve read my Free Special Report, Increasing Your Professional Value (see the sidebar ——–>>>>>>), you know that I consider good writing skills to be essential for any technical professional. The ability to write clear and to the point e-mails, reports and articles, can put you far ahead of your peers.

How?

Sales folks in your current (or future) organization will want to keep you around (or push to hire you) because you can actually explain to their customers the importance of your company research or a technical product via e-mails, without confusing them.

Marketing department will love you because you can provide technical information for company briefs, marketing brochures and white papers, in way that’s understandable to the general public.

Management will consider you to be a valuable asset to the team, because you are able to explain technical projects in laymen’s terms in company reports or presentations to the Board of Directors.

If you are in the midst of a job search, use this time to develop your writing skills. If you’re working, take a few hours during the weekend…and write! In my special report I give you an easy way to jump-start your writing by creating a blog.

If you are ready to move on to the next step, you might want to publish an article in a magazine or on-line publication. Here is where I would like to help!

For a while, I have been a regular columnist for an on-line magazine, called Product Design and Development, http://www.pddnet.com/. The economy seems to be stabilizing, because my business has grown to the point where I no longer have time to be a contributing author for this publication.

I asked, David, my editor at PD&D, if he would be interested in hearing from some new writers in the technology industry and he said “yes.” So this is your chance! Contact David, let him know that Masha Petrova told you about this opportunity and suggest a topic for an article.

When you present your article idea to PD&D, keep these 5 Tips in mind:

1)      Read some of the past articles. They are free and on-line. You have no excuse not to be familiar with the types of articles that PD&D publishes. Make sure that your article idea fits in with the general theme and feeling of the magazine.

2)      If you have ever written for a peer-reviewed, technical journal – forget everything you learned from that experience (aside from checking your grammar and spelling,). Although PD&D is a magazine aimed at a technical audience, you should be writing in a way that is understandable to a very broad spectrum of people.

3)      Avoid technical jargon. You want the article to be understandable by the 10, 000+ magazine readers. As an example, using a phrase like “internal combustion engine” is OK in context, but a phrase like “Arrhenius parameter of the bi-molecular decomposition” is probably not.

4)      Try to add a personal experience story. You might be writing about global impart of alternative energy development, but it makes a reporting article much more interesting when you can talk a bit about a project on alternative fuels that you were personally involved in.

5)      When in doubt, cut it out. My most favorite editing rule. Write your article proposal  (keep it at about 1 paragraph), then re-read it and if you’re not sure whether to keep a word, a phrase, or a sentence, delete it!

Good luck and I hope to see some of your work in PD&D soon!

Masha

Dear Readers,

Many of you who have listen to the audio part of the Successful Unemployment Toolkit, know the importance of public speaking, when it comes to finding or keeping a job as a science or engineering professional.

Now I would like to offer You an opportunity to be a presenter at the American Chemical Society Fall 2010 National Meeting and Exposition in Boston.

I am organizing a session at 2010 ACS Fall meeting, titled: Computer Modeling – The Wave of the Future. The session is co-sponsored by the Division of Computers in Chemistry, Division of Chemical Information, and Division for Small Chemical Business.

Why you should care:

I am selecting speakers for this session and it is a wonderful chance  for many of you to:

-Present yourself as an expert in chemistry, biochemistry, engineering and/OR small business development area

-Network with industry professionals in chemical, biochemical and engineering industry

-Grow professionally

-Boost your resume

-Learn what’s new in the chemistry field

-Develop you communication skills

Why might you want to do any of these things? (If you do not know the answer already, you REALLY need the info in my Toolkit!) All of the above can be instrumental in helping you get a job, grow your business, or help you become a more valued industry professional.

What you need to qualify:

- Ability to travel to Boston and attend ACS meeting on August 22-26 (you’ll be responsible for your own travel expenses).

-Be working (or have worked) in area of computer modeling that has something to do with chemistry, biochemistry, biology or chemical or bio engineering

- Be able to say something about how modeling and simulation can help small businesses (I’d be happy to help you with this part, just contact me at masha@mvpmodelingsolutions.com, if you’re stuck on this one)

I am interested! What to do next:

If you have any questions for me about presenting at ACS, please submit them in comments below. I promise to answer all of them! If you are seriously thinking of presenting, please contact me at masha@mvpmodelingsolutions.com.

Finally, please pass the link to this post to any of your colleagues or friends who are looking to grow as a technical professional!

Best of luck!

E-mail: Make it Work for You, Not Against You

It was September of 2007, and I was writing a technical-support e-mail to an important client of the software company where I was working at the time. Client was unhappy, so I had to be very delicate in my e-mail response and was trying hard to concentrate.

Right in the middle of the writing process a “Ping!” sound chimed from my PC. Outlook has dutifully informed me of an incoming e-mail message. I stopped writing in mid-sentence and checked the Inbox. My boss needed an “urgent” answer to an engineering question for a client. I typed up a response and attempted to get back to my e-mail.

In order to regain my train of thought, I had to re-read the first part of my response and then spend about 3 more minutes remembering what I was planning on writing next. It took a total of 5 minutes to get back into the grove of writing. I managed to create another sentence when “Ping!!” Outlook yet again notified me of another in-coming e-mail. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi Guys,

Hope everyone’s job search/ professional improvement is moving along!

The download option for the Toolkit has been a hit! No need to wait for it to arrive in the mail – now you can download the audio MP3 tracks and the pdf Guide, right to your desktop!

This week I have been asked to write a guest post on Sales Aerobics For Engineers (http://blog.salesaerobicsforengineers.com/).

I am frequently asked where I received my education and training that helped me launch a successful business and understand sales/marketing and customer relations. On this post I answer the following questions:

-How well equipped were you, as a PhD engineer, to undertake a business development role in past companies you worked for as well as your current consulting company?

-As an undergraduate, how many courses did you take that cross-trained you to speak the language of business, as well as engineering?

-As a graduate student, were you encouraged to take marketing, sales or economics courses as well as grad engineering courses?

-What is the biggest disconnect, then, in terms of undergraduate engineers coming out of school and entering the workforce? Is this disconnect different after receiving a graduate degree? Why or why not?

-Should the structure of engineering education be amended in the future to create more engineers who are capable of assuming business development functions in today’s global economy?

-What advice would you give undergraduate engineering students in terms of preparing their skillset for a successful entry into the workforce?

(If you can’t read the embedded article below,  take a look at this site:

http://blog.salesaerobicsforengineers.com/2010/02/what-they-didnt-teach-you-in-engineering-school.html)

I am watching the snow fall on the outstretched cornfields of the American Midwest. It is 10° F outside, and after seven years in Southern California, living here seems inhumane.

After my husband’s new job brought us to Illinois a year ago, I needed employment that would not depend on my physical location. Something that would allow me to follow my husband around the country (his new job requires traveling) and at the same time let me to make money, expand my mind, and use my technical experience.

“I know!” I thought. “I will start my own company!” I’ll just have to do a bit of marketing, a bit of sales, and a bit of engineering. I have done all three successfully before, so how hard would it be to do it all again? Except this time, it would be on my own terms. The idea seemed brilliant. MVP Modeling Solutions, LLC was born, followed closely by the Successful Unemployment Toolkit.

There has been a substantial increase in technical consultants over the past year. As layoffs became more frequent and search for jobs more difficult, many technical professionals decided to become consultants, or start their own companies.

Like most of these budding entrepreneurs, I was not prepared for what was to come. Just as I planned, there were marketing, sales, and engineering activities…but there were also extreme emotional swings that I did not consider before starting to work for myself.

There are times while running my business when I feel on top of the world. When I land a consulting project, or run a successful marketing campaign, or a happy customer lets me know how much he appreciated my help – that success is purely mine. There was no boss to guide me in planning, no co-workers to make corrections. It is a very different kind of “high” that you would never feel when working for someone else.

Unfortunately, with the very high “highs” come very low “lows”. There are days, like today, when I am watching the falling snow thinking about business plans for 2010 and doubting every single idea that comes into my head. I am not smart enough to run a whole company… I am not creative enough to figure out how to tie it all together… I don’t have enough sales/marketing/engineering experience and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter…Do I even want to do this?… Whoever decided that it was legal to make people live in 10°F weather?

I can’t go to my non-existent boss and ask him to help me define my business goals, because I am the boss. I can’t meet a co-worker at a water cooler and moan about how the cold weather sucks and should be illegal. I am my co-workers. This makes it much harder to pull myself out of the self-employment “lows”.

When you are working for yourself and you don’t feel like getting up in the morning, no one will drag you out of bed. Sleep all you want. You do not have to explain yourself to anyone. And that can be exhilarating and excruciatingly difficult at the same time. If you are thinking of becoming a consultant, or starting your own company, be prepared for this emotional rollercoaster. There are days when I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning because the idea of how much there is do to and how difficult it will be to do it, is overwhelmingly daunting.

During those days, there is one thought that keeps me going. That thought is that tomorrow will be a better day. Maybe even one of those exhilarating days – all I have to do it get up, open up my calendar, and start checking things off my to do list one step at a time. If you have recently become self-employed and are experiencing similar doubts, I recommend you do the same. Before you know it, your business coach calls with some great ideas, happy customers let you know that you are making a difference, a consulting contract gets accepted, and you are back on a “high” again.

During those times it seems that freezing at the 10°F is well worth it to see the beautiful snow cover the cornfields.

This article is a must-read for everyone hoping to advance their career. I recently wrote it for www.Simple-Talk.com, an on-line magazine for System Administrators and Programming professionals.

If you can’t see the article here, simply visit this link:
http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/general/the-art-of-dealing-with-people/