Tag: self-improvement | Artisan Creative

Social Networking While Social Distancing

Wednesday, September 1st, 2021|

Most businesses have had to adapt their processes to fit with the social distancing requirements made necessary by COVID-19. And while we have made immense progress in the last year with the development and distribution of vaccines, the battle against COVID-19 is not over.

However, social distancing does not have to negatively impact social networking and the ability to grow and develop our connections.

In this article, we are going to discuss ways to social network while keeping our social distance by

Expanding Our Digital Network
Recreate the In-Person Networking Environment, Digitally
Tailor Our Online Presence
Get Creative!

Expanding Our Digital Network

Digital communication presents greater opportunities to expand our social network than in-person networking can. We are no longer limited by travel, commute, time, or cost.

Online networking has the ability to connect us with others across the country and around the globe. We can take advantage of this ability to transcend geographical boundaries and connect with people and opportunities not located in the same time zone. This not only helps create a diverse network it will also provide exposure to new ideas and new cultures that can positively impact our outlook.

Additionally, an online network can be infinitely large, and we can continuously expand our network without excessive maintenance. Joining an online group or forum can instantly connect us. Social media platforms, interest-based groups, and meet-ups enable us to stay connected and relevant in our field of interest.

Recreate the In-Person Networking Environment, Digitally

It is important to recreate the in-person environment as much as possible. So, hop on that video call to create a more personal, connected experience. Change your background to fit the theme of the meeting and dress up as if you were in person. Turning off the “self-view” side of Zoom may make it easier on the eyes so you don’t have to look at yourself the entire time. Platforms such as Virbella or Hopin allow for some online networking fun and learning.

Approach networking with an altruistic and servant leadership mindset. Share, be open, be empathic and connect digitally.

Tailor Your Online Presence

Optimizing and updating our online profile is key. Your social media platforms are often someone’s first glimpse of you and your expertise. Keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date, have accurate information about your current role, education, and employment status. Your profile should reflect openness to new work because this will alert recruiters and hiring managers that you are looking for new opportunities. Simply have the “open to new opportunities” feature turned on. Additionally, have a detailed bio that states your strengths and what you are looking for in a future position or company. You also want to maximize the SEO of your profile by using industry keywords throughout your profile that match the words employers are searching for.

Check out our blog post on updating your LinkedIn to learn more about 7 ways for curating the perfect online profile.

Get Creative!

Go beyond social media to socialize. Explore online courses, meet-ups, and industry groups to connect with groups and like-minded people.

The key is to be open to growth, learning, and sharing your ideas. Networking, like any relationship building, is a two-way street. If you connect with someone, do so to add value to their life and work as well as your own. Share posts, write articles, join groups and showcase your expertise.

From staying active on networking sites and job boards to creating personal online spaces for communication, there are myriad of o[portunities to continue our connections and social networks while social distancing.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our 592nd a.blog.

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4 Tips for Resignation Best Practices

Tuesday, August 17th, 2021|

Handing in your resignation may feel like a daunting task, regardless of the reason you’ve decided to leave your current position. Whether you are taking on new endeavors, your current position is no longer the right fit, or you are embarking on a sabbatical, it is important to leave respectfully and professionally, allowing your team to transition smoothly.

No matter your reason for resigning, let’s review 4 tips of resignation best practices.

Speak to Your Manager
Write a Two-Week Notice
Answer Exit Interview Questions
Maintain Professionalism

Speak to Your Manager

First and foremost, be sure to speak to your manager or supervisor in person vs. resigning via email or text. In this day and age of WFH, in-person may mean a Zoom or Teams meeting, so be sure to schedule a video meeting to discuss before handing in your written notice of resignation letter.

Since you have built a relationship with your manager, you owe them more than a quick email if you decide to resign from your job and share gratitude for the opportunity they have given you.

Additionally, be sure to tell your supervisor before you tell other members at the company or on your team. You do not want your boss finding out from someone else that you are quitting.

It is good professional conduct to speak to your manager to ensure that you leave on good terms and share feedback necessary for uninterrupted workflow.

Write a Two-Week Notice

As you may already know, giving your company a two-week notice before leaving your position is common courtesy and standard best practice.

By giving a two-week notice, you allow your manager to find a suitable replacement. Don’t leave your team hanging, and provide a well-thought-out notice of your resignation, with recommendations on who on the team can take over some of your tasks. This will give everyone some time to take over your deliverables without falling behind.

So, you might be asking, “What is the proper way to write a two-week notice?”

The following outlines the elements to include when writing a professional two-week notice.

First, begin by stating that you are resigning from your position. This statement should include the name of your position and the company you work for.

For example, “I would like to inform you that I am resigning from my position as XYZ Associate at Company X.”

Next, please state the date of your last day of work, whether it is two weeks from when you are writing the letter or list a specific date.

Although you do not have to explain why you are leaving your position, you should provide a statement of gratitude. This could be a sentence or two explaining what you learned in the position, how working at the company has provided you with an opportunity to grow, or gratitude for the personal connections you have made.

End your letter by offering any help while your company transitions. This may include recommending other employees for your position or offering to train whoever takes on the position next.

You should format your resignation letter in business letter format, with your name and contact information at the top, and maintain a positive tone overall.

Answer Exit Interview Questions

Your exit interview allows the company to understand why you are leaving your position and, if needed, improve other employees’ experiences in the future. Be honest and offer constructive feedback that the company can implement and grow.

Respond to exit interview questions respectfully and objectively. Think about how your answers can improve the culture or processes rather than focusing on personal experiences that may not be relevant.

Maintain Professionalism

Maintaining professionalism throughout your resignation process is key. It allows you to preserve the professional and personal relationships you cultivated and upholds your reputation, especially if you choose to remain in the same industry or seek references in the future.

Keep your high work ethic until your very last day of work. In other words, work as hard as you always have and do not use your resignation as an excuse to ease off. Your team is counting on you.

Conclusion

It is up to you to take charge of your career, growth, and success. This sometimes means resigning from your current position to pursue other opportunities.

Resigning from a position that no longer serves you should not be scary. It should be empowering. Follow the tips we presented in this article to ensure that you resign in a stress-free and professional manner!

If you are looking for new opportunities, check out our open jobs page. Wishing you the best in your next career move.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our 591st a.blog.

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Shoshin: The Olympics of Business

Thursday, July 29th, 2021|

We’ve been engrossed in the Olympics this past week as we watched athletes who had put their lives on hold to continue training for an additional year, finally take center-stage in Tokyo to compete in their chosen sport.

Each athlete speaks about their perseverance, determination, and unwavering focus on becoming better and stronger in their field. Even those who are at the top of their ranking in their nation, or have won previous Olympic medals, continue with the same determination and focus to better themselves each time they enter their respective arenas. For many, it means 6+ hours of training each day—every day, even though they are already masters in their sport.

They understand that a one-second improvement can be the difference between standing on the podium, or not. These athletes have accepted the Shoshin mindset, a Zen Buddhist philosophy of a beginner’s mindset that fosters openness and acceptance for continued learning and growth.

This made us think about business and the importance of ongoing training for our teams. How often are companies and employees incorporating the Shoshin mindset?

Many firms start new hires with an intensive orientation and training, and then only provide feedback or additional training when something isn’t going right. Even worse, if the candidate hasn’t performed well by a specified timeframe, it’s assumed they are not a right fit for the role. A lack of proper training by the company is rarely taken into consideration.

What if, as hiring managers, we created a continuous training program, an investment in growth and learning to encourage all employees to adopt the Shoshin mindset in their daily routine? And, as candidates what if we created an opportunity to go back and review the basics, shore up our foundational knowledge, add new skills and embrace new technologies? Even if we’ve been doing our craft for years, how much more successful would we be if we improved our skills and became just a little bit better, faster, stronger?

At Artisan Creative, we’ve embraced continued learning and have implemented the following into our workflows over the years:

Training on Processes

Hold on-going bi-weekly one-hour trainings to continue learning together
Create short Loom Videos for all tasks, so new hires have a quick visual reference
Use Trello to house docs and references
Utilize Slack for quick questions if someone is stuck

Self-development

CliftonStrengths assessment to learn more about our peers
Toastmasters to become a better presenter and speaker
As needed Coursera or Udemy classes

In a market where it’s a challenge to find candidates, continuous investment in our teams can make the difference between success and failure.

In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few. ~ Shunryo Suzuki, Zen master

How do you implement ongoing training and the Shoshin Mindset in your business?

We hope you’ve enjoyed our 589th a.blog.

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10 Tips for Building a Freelance Business

Tuesday, November 10th, 2020|

At Artisan Creative, we work closely with our freelance talent to help them create success in the creative, marketing, and digital fields and best market their services to maintain an on-going freelance business. Especially, during the current state of the economy, freelancing can provide a needed respite in between interviews and job searches. Below are 10 tips to help launch or enhance your freelance business.

Update your Linkedin presence and ensure hiring managers know you are open to new freelance and full-time opportunities. Focus your expertise, use SEO keywords, and ask for endorsements.
View your freelancing as a business. Revisit your resume or website to review all clients and brands served, list all new accomplishments, update software proficiencies, and highlight your client and/or project management skills.
Create your Portfolio. Be sure to update your most recent work, and present your best pieces first. Your design samples should be representative of the type of work you like to do, as well as showcase your range of skills. It must be well-organized with good UI, simple navigation, and include a description of the project and your role. If you are unable to build a portfolio, use some of the great free tools such as Krop or Behance.
Represent your Brand. Let your personal style shine through your presentation and create a consistent thread via the color palette, font, and imagery on your portfolio, resume, and social media assets.
Be a Subject Matter Expert. Join an online discussion, share articles, write blogs, become engage on Twitter. If you have the bandwidth, create your own blog or podcast, guest blog, or write articles to industry publications. These tools enable you to get your name and profile in front of a larger group of people to help establish your credibility and brand.
Volunteer. Volunteering for non-profits is a way to give back to an organization that can benefit from your services. All will help improve your portfolio/skillset and offer built-in opportunities to network as well.
Build your Network – In-person networking may be on pause currently due to the pandemic, however greater opportunities exist online. Join existing social media groups and discussions, and attend online industry events and expand your circle of like-minded creatives who can become collaborators on projects or be a great source for referrals.
Get Listed. Create your freelance business pages. Create profiles on directories, portfolio & resume portals as well as freelance portals where you can list your work and advertise your services.
Work with Recruiters. Recruitment agencies have access to opportunities that are not listed on job boards. This expands your marketing efforts for free by enlisting teams of connected specialists who also benefit from you getting work.
Perfect your pitch. As a freelancer, everyone you meet may be a potential client (or knows someone who could be a client). Work on your presentation and perfect your elevator pitch. Representing yourself professionally will speak volumes about your abilities, so don’t be shy about sharing how can be a great freelance resource.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the 573rd issue of our a.blog.

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7 Ways To Revamp Your LinkedIn Profile

Tuesday, October 13th, 2020|

Linkedin continues to be a great resource for job seekers. If you have ever applied for a position through LinkedIn or used it to search for an employee, client, or friend then you know that similar to other ‘social media,’ platforms, LinkedIn allows a prospective hiring manager to quickly assess one’s expertise, availability, and experience for a role.

Although it is not the platform to post your vacation pictures and funny cat videos, LinkedIn functions as an intermediary between job seekers and employers who are looking for talent, and a hub for professional networking.

A well-crafted LinkedIn profile is often the first impression you make with potential employers and collaborators. Therefore, your online presence should be as crisp, concise, and professional as any job application you formally submit.

Here are some ways you can revamp your LinkedIn profile:

Highlight the Portfolio Section

Add a featured section to your profile to highlight recent work or blogs to draw attention
Add your online portfolios, articles, podcasts, and other work that has been published online.
If you work in a creative field, this a fantastic way to show off your work, and it easily accessible to hiring managers.
Add industry-specific keywords in your headline and throughout your LinkedIn profile including the description of past experiences and your summary.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Your Headline

Your headline is the first element of your profile an employer sees.
Communicate more than your current position. Considering that you have a whole 120 words, it should include the skills you have, and titles of the positions you hope to have in the future.
Maximize SEO for keywords that align with your skills, and experience

Update your skills

Highlight skills that are relevant to the positions you are applying for.
List your subject matter expertise
Skills and relevant keywords will help your profile with SEO and increased visibility
Change the order in which skills appear on your profile to ensure that the most relevant ones come first.

Join Groups

Join groups on LinkedIn based on your interests and affiliations.
Network with those in the same industry or who have similar interests as you.
Communicate with like-minded people, keep up-to-date with industry changes, and even bolster your network for a future job search.
If you are unsure about where to start, LinkedIn recommends groups for you to join.

Activate Open To Work feature

Under your profile photo, you can Let Recruiters Know You Are Open To Work:
Make your profile discoverable by recruiters and hiring managers
Once you have chosen this option, you can share your tailored career interests with recruiters. Additionally, you can share this information with only recruiters, or share it with the whole LinkedIn community, to increase your pool of opportunity.

Get Recommendations

Testimonials are one of the best ways to increase efficacy.
If you have just completed a freelance project, make it a practice to ask for a testimonial
Ask your employer or client to endorse you on LinkedIn or add a recommendation.
By doing so, you show that your work is valued by a diversity of people, and helps verify the skills you claim to have.

Update Your Summary

This is your elevator pitch and needs to be clear, concise, and demonstrate the skills you have and what you are looking for in a future position.
Keep it engaging, and use an active voice to write it
Detail education, work experience, certificates, and volunteer experience.

Your LinkedIn profile should be curated for the job you want, not the job you have. It should reflect how your experiences make you stand out from others applying for the same position. In today’s highly-competitive, technology-driven job market, tailoring your LinkedIn profile will make all the difference.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the 571st issue of our a.blog.

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How to Discover Your Core Values

Tuesday, July 7th, 2020|

“Our values are at our core, and are an expression of how we act every day.”

Warren Rustand.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my core values, how I define them, and how I remain true to them.

Warren Rustand, a successful entrepreneur and the Dean of Leadership for The Entrepreneurs’ Organization, says our values carry us through good and bad times. “Our values are everything we do, our acts, and behaviors. It tells people what we actually value, they define our character, they create and compose our integrity.”

Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People defines these as our three moments of truth:

Discovery of our values. We realize what our core beliefs and values really are.
Discovery of what we stand for when we commit to those values.
The moment we act on those core beliefs and values.

In the corporate world, it is common-place that companies define and share their core values and display them in their offices, on their website where customers, employees, and candidates can see them.

We did the same at Artisan Creative and I’m proud that our a.team helped articulate ours after several conversations together. They are Accountability, Agility, Trust, Communication, and Enthusiasm. These are the core values we embrace every day, and how we conduct ourselves in business year over year.

If companies take the time to discover and articulate their core values, why don’t we do this for ourselves? For our families? How can we better share what we stand for and what our values are to others and to our children?

It’s often during difficult times that we need to evaluate what is important to us. Today, with one of the highest unemployment rates on record, many are going through challenging times. Candidates are evaluating and contemplating what their next step can be, and what type of company they want to work for. I’ve heard from many who no longer want to commute long hours, no longer want to work for a company without a purpose, no longer want to travel just for work. They no longer want to work for someone whose values don’t align with theirs.

We live our lives by a certain internal compass, a moral code, and although many times we may not know how to articulate these actions as values, it is in challenging times that we can rely on them.

So as we are in this time of reflection, it’s important to determine and articulate our own personal core values and share them with one another.

Here are three steps to help define yours. This is a process of putting together seemingly disparate puzzle pieces until finally, an image emerges. It requires patience, thoughtfulness, and reflection.

Write down your answers to the following questions:

Reflect back to a time when you were faced with an important decision and ask:

How did I behave?
How did I feel?
What did I want?
What was important to me?
What was I willing to stand for?
What did I NOT stand for?
What was my non-negotiable?

Reflect back to a time when you were faced with a challenge in your life and ask:

How did I behave?
How did I feel?
What did I want?
What was important to me?
What was I willing to stand for?
What did l I NOT stand for?
What was my non-negotiable?

Reflect back to a time when someone needed your help:

How did I behave?
How did I feel?
What did I want?
What was important to me?
What was I willing to stand for?
What did I NOT stand for?
What was my non-negotiable?

Additional questions to bring clarity:

How do my friends describe me?
What gives me joy?
What brings meaning to my life?

Once you’ve answered all the questions, look for common themes, phrases, and words.

Circle those words, or search for other words that resonate with you.

What emerges? Who emerges from those words? Do they resonate with you, and are they who you are at your core?

Once you know them, share this with others. Then, add them to your website and your resume. Let potential employers and employees know how you live by these values.

In the words of Gandhi, “Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.”

Please connect if you are looking for your next opportunity or your next hire.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the 564th issue of our a.blog.

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5 Steps to Building Resilience in Your Job Search

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020|

If you’ve recently lost a job or are getting frustrated with the long application or interview cycles, a key attribute that will help you stay in the game is resilience. Studies have shown, that with the right habits and mindset, you can develop a more resilient approach to your job search. Here’s how to do it:

1. Reflect, Then Keep Moving

In the aftermath of a job loss or during a difficult job search, it is normal to experience sadness, anger, and loss. Acknowledging these feelings is the best way to move through and continue on. Avoid getting stuck in the past, learn from your previous experience, develop a positive mindset, and become more conscious of new opportunities and things to be grateful for.

2. Take Stock of Yourself

Now is the time to be a good friend to yourself and emphasize your strongest qualities. Gather evidence of your past achievements, think about the things you love to do and are best at, and do some research to discover what new avenues may be open to you in a changing marketplace. If you haven’t updated your online portfolio or your LinkedIn profile in a while, make sure they showcase your best work in a way that’s exciting and relevant. (This may make you feel more optimistic and become more resilient, too.)

3. Try New Things

A sudden job loss or a long job search can give you the needed time to build new skills or to experiment with new hobbies and interests. If you read books and articles about subjects you want to learn about, attend virtual events that look interesting to you, and get out of your comfort zone, you may find yourself drawn to fresh subjects and opportunities you didn’t notice before. Be yourself, make connections, and grow your grit. New experiences can help you put things in perspective and develop a more broad-minded outlook, which is powerful for building resilience.

Masterclass, Udemy, Creative Live, or General Assembly are great places to brush up on your skills or develop new ones.

4. Express Gratitude

Our inherent negativity bias makes it easier to dwell on the negative and ignore the positive. To become more resilient, refocus your mindset and go overboard with positivity for a while. When you make a daily gratitude list, or simply remind yourself to look for the silver lining in situations, you train your brain to notice the good things around you, which will make it easier to spot your next big opportunities.

5. Reach Out

Being independent doesn’t mean being alone. Your peers, mentors, and friends will understand what you’re going through, and many will be eager to help if you give them a chance to do so. Join online platforms, browse groups on Linkedin, Groupspace, or Creative Mornings can connect with your other likeminded individuals for collaboration, connection, and communication.

You can start by contacting Artisan Creative. We have experience helping creative professionals connect with amazing companies and tune into new opportunities in a changing world of work. Let’s keep the conversation going!

We hope you’ve enjoyed the 563rd issue of the a.blog.

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The Power of Gratitude

Tuesday, May 26th, 2020|

“Today I choose to live with gratitude for the love that fills my heart, the peace that rests within my spirit, and the voice of hope that says all things are possible.” – Anonymous

It’s easy to be grateful when things are going well. We count our blessings, and express gratitude for all the good we have. It takes effort when things are not.

In those moments when life challenges us, it becomes even more important to count the good that is still around us, even though we may not be fully aware of it.

Martin Seligman, an American psychologist, and the founder of positive psychology says “When we take time to notice the things that go right – it means we’re getting a lot of little rewards throughout the day”.

It’s a choice to take time every day to notice the beauty around us, things that are right with the world, even in the midst of a pandemic, even in the midst of one of the highest unemployment rates in our history.

What if amongst these hardships we could seek the good and express our gratitude for it, and shift our mindset towards happiness?

Warren Rustand, the Dean of Leadership at the Entrepreneur’ Organization (EO), a long time friend and mentor shared his 10-10-10 morning routine with me a few years back. He starts each day with 10 minutes of reading positive writings from a selection of well-known books, followed by 10 minutes of thinking positive thoughts and ending with10 minutes of journaling about gratitude.

Based on this learning, I personally have been using the Day One app to write down my own daily gratitudes. When personal tragedy struck a few years ago and I lost several family members over a short time due to illness, it was the gratitude journal that helped me heal. Even in the darkest of times, I could be grateful for the time we had together, grateful for the memories I was left with, grateful for the lessons they had taught me. Although I could not change the outcome of their illness, I could change my mindset.

David Steindl-Rast in his widely viewed Tedtalk talks about the connection between being grateful and being happy. He says we can be grateful in every given moment.

I’ve chosen to embrace the power of gratitude and have shared these learnings with my team here at Artisan Creative. We’ve started a gratitude Slack channel and each day share them with each other.

So today, at the start of our 10th week of Safer at Home I’m hoping you’ll also join me in expressing gratitude for all that you have.

This week my ten are:

Grateful for health
Grateful for weekly family zoom calls with family across the world
Grateful for my pets and spending so much time with them at home
Grateful for expanding my culinary skills
Grateful for the jacarandas that paint LA a beautiful purple this time of the year
Grateful for early morning walks in our neighborhood
Grateful for the Artisan Creative team helping candidates who are looking for work
Grateful for Yoga with Adriene!
Grateful Southern California beaches are open again
Grateful to you for reading this.

Will you please share yours?

with gratitude,
Katty

We hope you’ve enjoyed our 561st issue of our a.blog.

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3 Tips to Navigate Your Job Search

Tuesday, May 12th, 2020|

The current massive unemployment rates have many talented candidates out of work and searching for new opportunities. Additionally, the impact of stay-at-home measures is clearly exasperating the job search efforts for many.

As we navigate these unchartered waters and contemplate what the next version of what “work” is going to mean, it becomes important to take a moment and reflect. Julio Vincent Gambuto calls this moment “The Great Pause”.

We are indeed in a (prolonged) moment of pause—which is not comfortable. However, since we are unable to rewind and go back to what once was, we can be more fully present and work on evaluating the future and possibilities that we can create.

To do so, here are three tips on how to evaluate what you really want to do next.

Define your Core Values

Take the needed time to think about what you want to do next and how that may align with your core values and purpose. If you haven’t had a chance to define your core values yet, now is a good time to partake in core values or visioning exercises to discover what is important to you.

Focus on Upskilling

As you re-imagine what that future of work will be for you, now is also a great opportunity to upskill. Many well-known universities around the world are offering free online classes. If you’ve been thinking of pivoting into other fields such as UX or product design, now is your chance. Ideo offers Design Thinking classes, as well as Leadership and Innovation classes. Masterclass is another great resource to try out a new hobby, learn something new, or write the story you’ve always wanted to tell.

Give Back

Volunteering is a great way to keep busy, make new connections in a new field, and help others in need. If you’ve always wanted to help out a non-profit what better time to share your expertise? It also provides a great opportunity to enhance your resume. More importantly, giving back is a great mood enhancer as it boosts oxytocin levels by creating levels of engagement, productivity, and usefulness which leads to gratitude.

We wish you the best as you embark on your job search. For additional tips on resume writing and interviewing please check our a.blog. We hope you’ve enjoyed our 560th issue.

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20 Remote Meeting Best Practices

Tuesday, April 28th, 2020|

By staying safe at home, and seeing nearly all interviews and meetings transitioning online, we wanted to share twenty remote meetings best practices we’ve learned over the past ten years of working exclusively as a remote team.

Whether you are having ongoing daily team huddles, interviewing for a new opportunity, meeting a client or prospect via video for the first time, it’s important to keep the following pointers top of mind:

Equipment

Ensure your device and headphones are fully charged or plugged in prior to your meeting.
Whether you are Zooming, using Facetime, Google Hangouts, or another tool, test your device’s audio and video connections before the actual meeting.
Look right at the camera when you speak. If you only look at the screen itself it’ll appear as if you’re not making eye contact with the attendees.
With everyone working from home, combined with homeschooling for many others, ensure that you are in a quiet place with enough wifi bandwidth.
Adjust your device screen to ensure your head and shoulders appear in the frame – don’t get too close or move too far away from the camera.
Be stationary and mount any handheld devices such as your mobile phone or iPad so you aren’t “traveling” with your device. It’s distracting and disrespectful.

Environment

Let your family or roommate know you’ll be on camera to avoid unexpected noise or interruptions.
Practice your on-screen time and record yourself if possible.
Adjust the lighting so your face is front-lit without any shadows.
Keep an eye on your posture. Adjust your lighting as needed.
Pay attention to your surroundings—especially your background. Select a clean, neutral, and distraction-free backdrop like a wall, a screen, or a panel of curtains. Close closet doors, make your bed and clean the clutter. If you are unable to do so, use zoom’s virtual backgrounds to create a branded look. You can find many examples on Canva.
If you are presenting or screen sharing, make certain you have a clean, uncluttered desktop and if needed, change your desktop wallpaper to something creative and professional.

Engagement

Confirm time zones in case you are meeting with someone in another state or country.
Speak clearly and succinctly. Use your voice, tone, and body language to communicate and connect. Use modified hand gestures as needed or gently lean in when making a point.
There can be a slight delay in communication, so be mindful not to talk over the other person.
Mute when not speaking (just remember to un-mute when it’s your turn to talk).
Dress and groom as if you are meeting in person. Working from home still requires being professional.
If in a larger gathering, become familiar with layout views so you can fully engage with everyone.
If you are making a pitch or presenting your work, have your portfolio or presentation loaded on your desktop to screen share as needed. Practice Zoom’s presentation tools such as whiteboard, and annotation to create a bigger impact on your audience.
Be friendly and smile while talking. It lifts and warms your voice, which helps you to connect with the group.

In 2009, we decided that the benefits of a successful remote environment outweighed the stresses of the daily commute. We love it and firmly believe in the life/work integration that being a remote company provides our team. If working in a remote setting is new for you, please check out this video and our additional blogs on the subject matter.

WE hope you’ve enjoyed the 559th issue of our a.blog

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