Building Business − A Regular Anthology of Professional and Business Development Articles

A collection of article summaries from various sources (with links to actual articles) focused on Professional and Business Development.  We’ve collected them in one spot, so you can easily scan, review and apply to your career and business.

Buying a Company for Its People (From Dealbook) − Sometimes you buy a company for its product, and sometimes for its people. Tech companies in Silicon Valley are snapping up start-ups to get their founders and engineers, then jettisoning what they actually make, The New York Times reports.

How to find spare minutes in your busy schedule (From SmartBrief) – Do you go to the bank during lunch breaks? Schedule meetings without a definite end time? Power through busy days without breaks? Changing just a few habits can add precious minutes to your day, Dawn Foster writes.

Why good leaders use guidelines, not rule books (From SmartBrief) - West Point’s disciplinary code listed hundreds of infractions until officials realized it was more effective to outline broad criteria for distinguishing “minor” and “major” offenses, and let leaders use common sense in implementing the guidelines. Most organizations could benefit from a similar willingness to issue flexible guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules, writes Mike Figliuolo. “You hire people because they’re smart. Try giving them a little latitude to demonstrate their smarts and judgment.”

The reason you shouldn’t turn down a committee assignment (From SmartBrief) – Participating in a professional organization is important to developing valuable relationships that can help your career, Lyan Fernandez writes. Being on a committee “puts your appetite for involvement, initiative and leadership in the spotlight among potential prospects and employers,” Fernandez writes.

Richik Sarkar is a partner at Ulmer & Berne LLP, a Cleveland based law firm with a national practice.  In addition to practicing law, Richik is trying to reactivate the Cleveland Chapter of Net-IP.  For more information about Richik, visit his LinkedIn Profile.

Happy One Year Anniversary “Primetime with NetIP” — One Year Later…

15 amazing show, 12 tireless months, 20 big-name personalities (including the NetIP Executive Team), a valuable alliance partnership & thousands of man-hours of prep later, we are at the one year anniversary of our most successful visibility campaign- Primetime with NetIP. About a year and a half back we got together and dreamed of creating a radio show dedicated to NetIP listeners and covering topics & speakers that would be valuable to our diaspora. After bringing on our first guest (Saira Mohan on May 25th, 2009), little did we know that we had created a “monster” that instantly attracted globally admired and recognized personalities. A show that propelled NetIP’s visibility to a whole new level. A show that attracted over 200,000 listeners both on the radio and through live internet streaming. A show that helped us acquire key sponsors. A show that helped us build one of the strongest Alliance Partnerships  in NetIP’s history with World  Band Media and Hum Desi Radio.

Join me in wishing  ”PRIMETIME WITH NETIP” a Happy One Year Anniversary

This unbelievable success is owed to the support of the NetIP Executive Team, the many tireless NetIP-NA volunteers, the support of the NetIP Chapters who participate and promote  the show, support of World Band Media and Hum Desi Radio and most of all to the efforts of Pooja Dhawan, Brand Strategist for the NetIP External Affairs Team!
What’s next? NetIP on Public Television and Radio?
Stay tuned…

Hello Seattle

As Seattleites planning to celebrate NetIP’s 20th anniversary at an exclusive conference in our dear hometowm, we pondered various ways to build hype/promote our unique metropolitan.  “Hang an obnoxious banner from the Space Needle?”  No.  “What about getting Ichiro Suzuki to replace his Mariners’ hat with a NetIP one?”  Not gonna happen.  So we went back to the drawing board, outlining the benefits of holding said conference in our city.  What we found was astounding, things we’d never thought of, things we realized set the Northwest corner of the country apart from everywhere else.

Many refer to Seattle as being  ‘metronatural’, the perfect blend of city and nature.  We prefer to think of Seattle in the summertime as the perfect mix of temperature and scenery.  While most parts of the country are slogging through the dog days of summer, Seattle is graced with clear skies and temperatures hovering in the pleasant mid-70s.  This pleasant setting extends to the balance of metro and environment, as Seattleites don’t just respect the environment, we embrace it.  Call us green, call us tree-huggers, we love Mother Nature.  This is another element we’ve melded into the conference, as we’ve made sure this conference is not just informative, but sustainable.  The hotel we’ve booked for our conference will employ a number of green practices, but specifically less paper being used for materials (as most collateral will be electronic).

Seattle in August is not just a destination, but an experience – a locale we encourage you arrive early to and leave late.  Bordered on three sides by breathtaking water views (Puget Sound to the West, Lake Washington to the East, Salmon Bay and Lake Union to the North), it’s hard to get bored with the landscape of our town.  Known for being extremely tourist-friendly, Seattle boasts a number of ‘must-sees’ within its city limits, from the infamous Space Needle and Pike Place Market to lesser-known landmarks such as the Experience Music Project and Queen Anne Hill.  If one chooses to venture outside of the city, to the east one can find Leavenworth (a traditional Bavarian village), and to the north, the 2010 Winter Olympics host, Vancouver, BC.

As the first NetIP conference to be held on the west coast in over 10 years, this year’s event, “unique.by.nature”, promises to be the most memorable.  Would you expect any less from a conference held near the home of Starbucks, Nordstorm, Amazon (Seattle), Microsoft and Nintendo (Redmond), and T-Mobile (Bellevue)?  The conference agenda is also set to include the topics of: sustainability (a Seattle favorite), the future of technology, healthcare, entrepreneurship, and much, much more.   This year, our Conference Chairs are also adding a new type of session–the “Interactive Skill Building Workshop”–with the promise that attendees leave the session with a new life skill.

This conference pledges to be Unique by Nature – due to the organization (NetIP), the host city (Seattle), and the mix of people that’ll make this conference NetIP’s best ever.  This is an EXCLUSIVE CONFERENCE, so attendance will be limited to the first 500 which sign up (last year’s conference hosted over 1000 attendees).  Stay tuned for more conference details at  www.netipconference.org, and drop us a line at conferenceinfo@netip.org.

See you August 20th,

NetIP Conference Team
conferenceinfo@netip.org
www.netipconference.org

Network of Indian Professionals 7th Annual Officers Leadership Conference

The City of Angels welcomes the Network of Indian Professionals

7th^th Annual Officers Leadership Conference

Celebrating 20 years of South Asian Empowerment

Los Angeles, CA, Feb 10^th 2010: The Network of Indian Professionals’ (NetIP) 7^th Officer’s Leadership Conference (OLC) was held Feb 5 to Feb 7, 2010 at the Wilshire Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles. The OLC served as the national kick-off for the 2010 NetIP calendar year. It provided an open forum for leadership to be recognized, for officers both new and returning to network and form good working relationships. The goal of the OLC has always been to provide an opportunity for NetIP chapter leaders to discuss opportunities and challenges, as well as to collaborate on leading practices as an organization. NetIP North America is the parent organization to its 24 chapters.

“The main goal of this leadership conference was to Inspire and Motivate all our chapter leaders from 24 cities. Based on the overwhelming response, I believe we surpassed our highest expectations. NetIP as an organization has incredible potential, and we’re on our way to becoming a household name, not just in the South Asian community but across North America.” -Shubha Rao, VP Internal Affairs, NetIP North America. Rao’s team put together and managed the conference and logistics in less than 8 weeks.

Attendees from NetIP’s 24 chapters, from coast to coast graced the conference to give feedback and learn about the goals and vision for the organization as a whole. Day one at the conference included a surprise live on-air segment with Brand Strategist Pooja Dhawan and NetIP’s media partner, Hum Desi Radio.

Sundip Arora, President, Network of Indian Professionals of North America was pleased with the conference and the performance of his board. “20 years on, NetIP has made unbelievable strides and leaders from chapters around the continent got a first-hand feel of our progress at our Officer’s Leadership Conference. My goal this year for the OLC was for Chapter Officer’s, new and returning, to Learn, Share, Inspire and Be Inspired. We achieved this through two days of intense collaborative sessions and workshops. NetIP North America is very proud to be part of the biggest OLC in our history and to have set another defining moment for our 20th anniversary.”

Along with ambitious plans to streamline technology across the 24 chapters and the North America parent Organization, NetIP revealed its new intranet which uses google collaboration to make internal communication and reporting seamless. The new VP of Technology, Anish Mistry, explained his efficient plan for the year ahead which included a revamped NetIP.org website and his goal to increase back-end content management efficiency.

Sri Narasimhan, NetIP North America’s VP of Finance and Administration, and his team went over legal, tax and financial reporting requirements for the incoming Chapter Officers. Latha Nehru, VP External Affairs, and her team explained NetIP’s Grameen Foundation initiative in Haiti as well as their plans to forge alliances with other non profits in an effort to raise visibility for NetIP.

The Los Angeles-Orange County (LA-OC) chapter of NetIP helped manage logistics and hosted the evening socials for the weekend. “I was very excited to see that months of hard work had culminated in a successful OLC. The conference setting and venues allowed chapter leaders to network and share ideas in a both professional and social environment.“ -Sapan Shah, President, NetIP LA-OC. The Los Angeles Orange County chapter of NetIP was the host for the conference.

Director of Operations, Santosh Perla, kept the momentum going right from the weeks before the conference with an eagle eye on deadlines. At the conference he kept attendees motivated and energized during a packed presentation schedule.

“More than a forum to share ideas, the OLC was a showcase of the many resources NetIP-NA provides to individual chapters seeking to make an impact in their respective communities.  Our chapter left the OLC with a greater understanding of the tools available to mobilize our membership and enhance the value of the NetIP brand locally.” Ashwin Janakiram, President NetIP Chicago

This year NetIP’s largest event, the Annual Conference is being held in Seattle on August 20-22, 2010. Conference Co-chairs Neha Sharma and Sarika Punjabi presented their conference strategy and theme “Unique by Nature”.

“This OLC was my first NetIP conference experience and I was blown away by the professionalism of the organization. The high caliber of the young professionals in leadership positions in NetIP was very inspiring. It was a great opportunity to connect with people across North America and share experiences. I hope to bring the insight, enthusiasm and strength of NetIP National and other local chapters back to NetIP San Francisco Bay Area. NetIP has great potential for national and local impact on the young professional South Asian community.” Purvi Patel, President NetIP San Francisco Bay Area.

At the conclusion of a weekend packed with valuable take-aways, action items and resources, NetIP and its chapters are uniquely positioned to forge ahead amongst its demographic. NetIP provides the only platform for South Asians in North America to network and grow in their professional and personal lives.

About NetIP

The Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP) is a professional, non-profit organization dedicated to the overall achievement and advancement of South Asian professionals. The primary focus of the organization is to foster a bond among South Asian professionals to unite and support each other locally, as well as to give back and contribute positively to the communities in which they live and work.

Today, the organization includes over 5,000 members and more than 40,000 subscribers in 24 cities across United States and Canada. NetIP has become a premier networking brand over the years. It is the unequivocal voice for an emerging group of South Asians, who excel in every aspect of western society, from business to politics to the arts. The rise of NetIP and its affiliated chapters reflects a general “Coming of Age” by South Asian professionals.

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If you’d like more information about this topic or to schedule an interview contact Pooja Dhawan, Brand Strategy for NetIP North America, by email at pooja@netip.org

Introducing the 2010 NetIP North America Team

VP of Internal Affairs: Shubha Rao, Atlanta
After successfully serving two years on the Atlanta board, Shubha stepped up to the National team this year as the Strategic Relations Chair on the Internal Affairs team. Her vision for this new role in 2010 is to encourage collaboration across chapters and NetIP NA, and empower and support each chapter to help them become influential organizations in their local communities.


VP of External Affairs: Latha Nehru, Dallas
Under Latha’s leadership in 2009, the Dallas chapter was completely transformed and went on to win two Boscars for the Most Improved Chapter and Best Large Chapter President. Her effervescent personality, involvement in the NetIP NA’s Volunteer Community Service Committee and other professional alliances make Latha uniquely positioned for this role next year.


VP of Finance & Administration: Sriram Narasimhan, Pittsburgh
Sri founded the Phoenix chapter under NetIP NA’s chapter startup pilot program in 2007. Under his leadership, the chapter won the Boscar for Best New Chapter last year. Midway through 2009, Sri stepped into the role of VP of Finance and Admin and ably took over the reins in this new position. We wish Sri the best and look forward to his expertise in running a tight ship.


VP of Technology: Anish Mistry, Columbus
In 2009, Anish completely revamped the Columbus chapter website, and helped transition it to the new NA chapter web platform and branding initiative. In 2010, Anish plans to successfully transition away from HarrisConnect to a new integrated system that empowers the local chapters and provides user-friendly tools they need and want.