Dots2Connect

Inspiring Women Like You

2010-12-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my husband and I had dinner at a friend’s house and I brought them a copy of my book “Connecting My Dots” as a gift. As soon as we opened a bottle of red wine I heard the already familiar question: What motivated you to write the book?

Those that have read Connecting My Dots already know the answer. My motivation for writing the book was to inspire young women to balance their priorities and achieve multidimensional success. The Five Leadership Lessons from the book show them examples on how to connect their different dots in a Priority Wheel to achieve success in their own terms.

The best way to summarize the impact of my mentoring lessons is to say that nothing have been more rewarding to me as an author and mentor than to hear personal stories directly from many women who were inspire by my book to achieve their goals.

I want to share their stories of personal success hoping that YOU too will be inspired by their resolutions. I selected five stories from women who had different goals and dreams.

By mentioning these women here I hope that their stories will inspire many other women to achieve their goals.

1- Having a Baby: This young professional woman overcame her fears of having a baby and learned to be a mom while at the same time she continues to advance in her professional career as a financial analyst.

2- Becoming an Author: This season executive woman was inspired to write and publish two books while she continues to have a very successful career as a bank executive. Check her first book Person of Interest currently available at Amazon.com

3- Opening a Business: This young woman who is a mother of two boys decided to follow her longtime dream to open her on boutique while learning to balance priorities between business and family. Check her store Sanaryalba

4- Playing Sports: Looking after my own example of overcoming personal fears, a mother of two decided break with her indecision and started playing tennis in sport club.

5- Losing Weight: A mother of two boys and a very athletic woman could not keep her weight down. After reading my last article about 2010 resolution she finally was inspired to create her own personalized plan and achieved her goals.

Just like these women have done you too can achieve your goals. Use the Priority Wheel and empower yourself to achieve Multidimensional Success on Your Own Terms!

Happy New Year!

Planning Your Next Career Move

2010-07-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

People often get tired of working on the same place or doing the same job over and over again for long period of time. In some instances, maybe you have outgrown your current role and want to look for new challenges. I see this happening every day. I had happened to me as I just went through a career change - after working for over 10 years in the eCommerce business I wanted to do something different and test my leadership skills in a different area doing something new where I could mobilize all the experience I have accumulated through my entire professional career.

Although I am not a career coach - I am a mentor and often people ask for my advice about career planning.

For some people the first step in the career planning process is to understand the relevance of their career goals in terms of their multidimensional Priority Wheel. But if you are like me and have already determined to make a change then let’s talk about some fundamental things that you should do.

1) Define your career goals. What are the things you want to do next? What attributes are you looking in your next role?
Sometimes career coaches in the organization will ask to mention what specific role you want next. However, I prefer to think in terms of attributes of the role rather than the specific roles because some of the roles you will enjoy could exist in another area of the organization that you are not aware of or will become available in the future.

2) Perform a self assessment of your abilities. Do you have the skills needed to perform this next role?
Good if you are already but if you don’t have all necessary skills then you will need to set realistic expectations and timeframes to develop these abilities or you will need to revise your goals.

3) Network with a career goal in mind. Do you know people that can help you or guide you to get into this new role? Do you have a mentor?
Do not underestimate the power of networking. Do your homework, develop a professional network and find connections that can help you get into your next role.

Last week attended the HITEC Latina IT Executive panel in Disney World where I shared my formula for success which I call the “4 P” and has helped me achieve multidimensional success.

4 P= Planning, Preparation, Perseverance and Passion

Develop a formula for success that will help you to connect your dots and plan for your next career move.

Success - The Art of Aligning Priorities

2010-03-26T16:31:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with a group of professionals about the importance of aligning career, personal and family priorities around a goal that you want to achieve.

The problem of balancing competing priorities is very relevant in today’s society and in efforts to minimize complexity we tend to prioritize 1 or 2 priorities often forgetting that the key to achieve Multidimensional Success is to find proper alignment across priorities in each important aspect of our lives.

But how can we be successful when we need to balance so many different priorities at the same?

We all define SUCCESS in different ways because we have different ways to Connect Our Dots.

As I was trying to explain my definition of success and how I use the Priority Wheel to align my priorities to what is important to me at this point of my career and my life, I realize that SUCCESS is a result of finding alignment across your priorities.

The goal is not always to achieve a perfect balance or to maximize one dimension (e.g. career) but to align and calibrate according to significant life events.

Every time we move to a new life stage we need to calibrate the Priority Wheel and the relationship between the priorities and apply the Five Lessons of Leadership to keep these priorities in alignment.

Lesson 1- Define Success on Your Own Terms: Achieving your dreams begins with a definition of what success and happiness mean for you.

Lesson 2- Don't Wait Too Long for What You Want

Lesson 3- Find the Right Partner

Lesson 4- Play Multiple Roles

Lesson 5- Don’t Give Up during Bad Time

What Makes Successful Women Happy?

2010-01-12T08:57:00.000-08:00

As I was reading a series of articles in Business Week about women, leadership and happiness I became very disappointed with some of the conclusions presented in the article.

Let’s take the following article “Why Are Women Unhappier than They Were 40 Years Ago?”, which is an excerpt from Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham. I disagree with the article’s claim that modern successful women are not happy with their life and success based solely on the premise that modern women are unhappier than women 40 years ago.

First, I think that setting realistic expectations for multidimensional success is an important aspect that will influence the level of happiness that women will find in their life as they get older and more mature. A large number of successful women I interviewed while I was gathering material for Connecting My Dots felt very happy and satisfied with both their career and personal success. Another important aspect to consider is that given the overall placement of women in the 1950’s and 1960s, women at that time didn’t have high expectations or goals to succeed as CEOs or Senior Executives, and if they did, society wasn’t too encouraging towards women to help them reach such achievements. It wasn’t until World War II when women were beginning to shift from stay at home mom to a working mom. Even then reaching the status of a Senior Executive wasn’t on the mind of women because in reality it wasn’t very plausible.

My grandmother was one of the first three women who graduated from the Medical School at the University of La Habana in 1920. She was one of the few who had the courage and self-determination to do such a thing even though society did not expect this type of achievement from women nor did it make it easy for women to gain such an achievement. She provided an example of women that wanted to have a professional career even when the society at that time did not encourage women to do those things. Was she happy ?

I wondered about what my 23 year old daughter would have to say. I talked to her and she asked if I was happy with my life and career achievements. In my book, Connecting My Dots, I introduced a tool called the “The Priority Wheel” that you can leverage to align your career, life and personal needs.

When I look at the female role models I had in my family and alone my career and I do encourage you to find role models that will inspire you to achieve your dreams and to Connect Your Dots !

Beyond Mobile Payments

2009-11-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

I recently was invited to write an article for FST and I have selected the topic of the future of mobile payments. I will add a link to the article later but in the meantime I am going to share a short preview.

Celent predicts that by 2015, the U.S. market alone could encompass between $1.8 and $5 billion in mobile payments related revenue. With such revenue potential, financial institutions that embrace early and actively move to provide mobile money wallet solutions will become the provider of choice for consumers.

However to reach the mainstream and transform the way people shop and pay for their purchases, industry players will need to look at the behaviors and needs of the most sophisticated mobile consumers to design services that meet the future needs of consumers.

Consumers are looking for the cool factor (I can't wait to use the Starbucks new mobile app to pay for my Latte) as well as convenience and flexibility of payment options.

Offering mobile payments as standalone capability will not be enough to become a market leader. Rather than solving for today’s needs innovative companies should consider key emerging trends and look at the future opportunities.

The list of Key Trends impacting mobile payments includes:

* Alternative Payment Models.

* Mobile Apps with mash-ups that integrate payment capabilities with location-based advertising and customer analytics.

* Mobilizing Payments:
Bill Pay & Invoicing
P2P Money Movement
POS payments with contactless
Micropayments
Stored value card (like the Starbucks mobile apps)

Once again in today's User Driven World the consumers are driving innovation. Mobile Apps built on the top of open source software such as Google Android will dictate the way people use mobile devices rather than the other way around where consumers had to wait for companies to bring innovation into the market place.

Priority Wheel - A Tool for Career and Family Alignment

2009-09-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

The ability to "Connect The Dots" across career, family and children is one of the most pressing problems that professional women and men are facing today.

Guess what? There is not a simple answer.

After a long race trying to find a perfect balance between career and family, people came to the conclusion that a perfect balance does not exist. Rather than trying to achieve a BALANCE we need to have a goal of achieving ALIGNMENT between our top priorities.

ALIGNMENT means that the weight across your Priority Wheel will change according to the particular needs of your life stage.

The "Priority Wheel" is a tool for aligning priorities through change. Think about a wheel - Wheels are always moving.

Remember that success is a wheel of continuous improvements. Your wheel is always in motion. We all have many dots2connect and having a "Priority Wheel" will help you to be ready to achieve success when the opportunity comes. It will empower you to create opportunities to achieve success on your own terms and have the right person near you to share success with.

Success (like a wheel) is always in motion and the meaning of success changes according to what is most important for us. As you go through different life stages your priorities and needs change. Hence, your "Priority Wheel" needs recalibration in order to reflect new dimensions. Multiple life events can affect the dimensions of your "Priority Wheel", for example the following is a list of the most common life changing events:

o First job after college graduation
o Going back to graduate school
o Engage in a serious relationship
o Job displacement
o Leadership promotion (at all levels)
o Marriage
o Having kids
o Elder parents
o Opening your own business
o Community involvement
o Family lost or serious illness
o New job or career opportunity
o Personal interest / hobby

Once when you develop your "Priority Wheel" with the important dimensions you will need to be prepare to make trade-offs between the time and energy you dedicate to your career development and success and the time and effort you put on rising your children a nurturing your family relationships. My book Connecting My Dots offers multiple examples of how successful women of different ages use their "Priority Wheel" to plan for success.

One more important lesson from Connecting My Dots is an advice that many successful women have shared with me while I was writing the book. One of the lessons from the Five Leadership Lessons for Multidimensional Success is to find the right partner.

Lesson #3 Finding the Right Partner

is quite important if you want to achieve multidimensional success with your career, family and personal life.

Only you and time can tell if you found the right partner that will work with you to put "Your Priority Wheel" in full motion.

Web 2.0 Check List

2009-09-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

The terms Web 2.0 and Social Networking continue to hit the top of the emerging technologies list for corporate executives, small business owners, non-profit organizations and individual consumers.

In every business networking meeting I have attended over the last four months people get asked if they are using Twitter. Adding the address of your LinkedIn profile has become one of the new best pratices for professional job seekers. Others have created consulting practices to teach organizations and individuals on how to leverage the power of these tools. Since 2006, the Gartner Group identified Web 2.0 technologies in their key emerging technologies watchlist.

I compiled a list that I plan to use during my presentation about Social Collaboration at Duke University. I want to share this list to help you to connect the dots across all the different Web 2.0 tools and technologies:

1) Blogs
2) Collective Intelligence (Crowdsourcing)
3) Mash-ups (Aggregation of Content)
4) Peer-to-peer fiel sharing
5) Podcasts
6) RSS (Syndication of Content)
7) Social Networking
8) Web Services
9) Wikis

Mentoring Programs Toolkit

2009-07-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

Mentoring continues to be a high priority for me and with the publication of my book "Connecting My Dots", I have been able to inspire many leaders to dedicate time and effort to mentor junior associates and emerging leaders across their organizations.

Now that I am taking a short time off from Corporate America, I can advise organizations on how establish successful mentoring programs.

Few weeks ago at the LISTA 2nd Annual Technology forum on the Hill, I had the opportunity to award a copy of "Connecting My Dots" to US Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis. During the event we discussed the importance of setting mentoring programs to promote STEM careers and develop emerging leaders for the new global economy. We talked about the importance of role models for Latinas and emerging leaders in STEM professions.

On June 2009, we successfully launched the NCTA WISE professional mentoring program for women in STEM in the Charlotte region. The program is running as a pilot this year and women from over 10 different organizations are participating in the program. Through the mentoring program we have identified the right mentoring relationship based on needs, preferences and career goals.

If you are looking to establish a mentoring program in your organization here is a summary of the critical steps you will need to consider:

1) Problem Definition
a. Initial step to define the need, goals and objective of the mentoring program
b. Define success metrics and expectations

2) Data Gathering
a. Survey managers and potential pool of participants to understand expectations for the program

3) Determine mentoring model
a. The mentoring model must fit the needs of the organization and participants. Mentoring programs that are tailored to the needs of one department tend to have more structured than mentoring programs that go across organizational boundaries.
b. Questions to ask when developing the model:
i. Duration of the formal program and Frequency of the interactions
ii. Level of engagement from Human Resources (career coaches, training courses)
iii. Mentor/mentee ratio
iv. Roles and responsibilities of Executive sponsor, Program manager, HR consultant, mentors and mentees
v. Select training materials (e.g. Personality tests, Career assessments, etc)

4) Recruiting participants
a. Self-selected
b. Nomination by managers

5) Application process
a. Both mentors and mentees need to submit an application requesting the participation in the program. Mentees will need to obtain approval from the direct line manager to dedicate time to the program during working hours.
b. The application form should contain the following information:
i. Career objectives and expectations from the program
ii. Preferred communication style
iii. Personal preferences
iv. Approval from line manager (for mentees)

6) Matching process
a. This is a critical step in the process and should be conducted by the mentoring program managing team (e.g. program sponsor, program manager, HR consultant)

7) Implementation and Communication
a. Develop a communication plan to executive sponsors and participants

Post a question to Get additional advice about connecting with a mentor.

10 Trends from Emerging Technologies Outlook

2009-06-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

Last week on the Hill, I had the opportunity to address representatives of the goverment during the LISTA Technology Legislative Forum where I provided an outlook on emerging technologies.

I want to share the main points of the briefing:

Intro:
Innovation and the Democratization of technology are driving the growth of our economy. Retention in technology, science, energy professions and the creation of green jobs propel innovation and position our country to compete in the new global and "connected" economy.

Solid understanding of the emerging technologies trends will position us to anticipate the needs of our economy and the consumer market.

Trends and Technologies:

1) Electronification of transactions (financial transactions, medical records), migration from paper to electronic medium.

2) User-generated content and democratization of information and knowledge ( adoption of web 2.0 technologies). Impact of user-generated trends to digital media and adversiting.

3) Mobile technologies ( mobile payments, P2P services, location - based services)

4) RFID, NFC impacting manufaturing, retailers, logistics

5) Adoption of Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, wikies, tagging)

6) Social networking

7) Collaboration technologies (teleconferences, videoconferencing) enable global collaboration and accelaration of innovation.

8) Cloud Computing

9) Nanotechnologies

10) Open Source Architecture

Innovation and Customer Experience

2009-05-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

Today I want to start this blog with a question: What is impact of introducing innovative services to the customer experience?

I thought about the relationship between innovation and customer experience reading a post in LinkedIn. While innovation is a cornerstone of web interactions - too much innovation too fast can negatively impact the customer experience.

When we were ready to launch the beta version of the first mobile banking service to Wachovia customers many members of the project team felt that introducing a beta version of the service could have a negative impact to the overall customer satisfaction with the web site. As a result of this concern they wanted to wait to launch mobile banking until the service was fully tested.

However, the beta version of mobile banking was a result of the “Test and Learn” approach to propel innovation across the organization and to engage customers in the innovation process.

The team did 3 important things to mitigate the risk of launching a beta service:

1) Telling customers the TRUE about our intentions for launching a beta version that was not fully developed.
2) Making sure business requirements for security and protection of the account data were taken into consideration during the development of the new services since the beginning.
3) Implementing a customer feedback form to allow customers to participate in the innovation process.

Last but not least, understanding the behaviors of target customer segments should be part of the design of the “Test and Learn” strategy. While some customers are always looking for the next innovative capabilities others like a website that seldom changes.

Invite customers to participate, design a virtual center of innovation where your customers can share ideas and test drive new products and services. Capturing customer feedback allows companies to connect the dots and design products that meet the needs of their customers.

Framework for Doing Business in Social Networks

2009-04-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Summer 2007, as part of managing a portfolio of internet emerging technologies I became interested in exploring social networks and virtual worlds for business purposes.

Second Life was the buzzword back then (just like now everyone is talking about Twitter) so in collaboration with IBM partners we conducted a POC in Second Life. My goal was to test virtual worlds as a viable solution for internal collaboration for distributed teams of employees. The name of my avatar was Noemi and all avatars met at the IBM Business Center.

My ENTP mind always has the tendency to conceptualize things and created a framework to classify the different type of business opportunities within social networks. I wanted to use the framework for a conference but at the last minute the topic of my presentation changed and never used it.

Yesterday, I was cleaning old files when I found this framework. The classification still as relevant as it was in 2007. Perhaps even more relevant now when we look at the success with Twitter gaining broad media popularity and micropayments becoming the backbone of World Warcraft like gaming sites.

Just like the User-driven World matrix helps organizations to understand the behavioral motivations behind the consumerization of emerging technologies, the following framework will help organization in the identification of business opportunities to leverage and monetize social networks.

Let me know if the framework was helpful. And I will embrace the practice of checking my old files for new sources of information.

Social Networking Personality

2009-04-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

We all have many dots2connect but we connect our dots in a different way making multidimensional connections.

I wrote about social networking personality types last year in a blog discussing the top 6 reasons why people join Linkend. Since then I have been observing social behavior in the Twitter community and found the same 5 social networking personality types.

Who are you? Do you hide your network / tweets from the broad community? Are you just a Spectator? Or do you fall into Malcolm Gladwell's categories? Are you a Connector with million of connections in your network? Are you the knowledgeable Maven who provides helpful insights but doesn't really spend much time connecting, or the Salesman with the perfect profile and persuasive recommendations?

Controllers are typically those with a few protected connections / messages and no additional engagement outside their own network. Even more extreme are those that I call Spectators with a lonely profile and no connections at all.

So, what is your social networking personality?

Are a Connector? Maven, Salesman, Controller or a Spectator?

What is the connection between your social networking behavior and your personality type?

Are active Twitter Connectors always Extraverts?

Take this online version of a personality test and find out what is your personality !

Managing Success during Recession

2009-03-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

We tend to think about success when things are going well in our lives, but when things go bad we shift to the survival mode and forget to develop a plan and pay attention to our key priorities.

Planning for success becomes even more important during times when we are facing economic hardships and personal problems. During the years of my illness I did not stop making plans. Focusing on the future gave me the hope and strength to overcome obstacles. I began to understand a simple rule: “Success means to be ready when the opportunity comes”.

Successful companies have created new business models during times of economic downturn and many people have found their passion and a new career as a result of loosing their jobs.

How were they able to accomplish this? I think because of these two reasons:

1) They see opportunities when others see problems.
2) They never stop making success a top priority.

Over the years of learning from my success and failures, I have developed my own formula for success, which I call the 4P Formula:

4P = Planning, Preparation, Perseverance, and Passion

Your plan starts with a dream. The power of a dream is endless; however, you need tools that will help you in achieving your goals. In my book Connecting My Dots I share Five Leadership Lessons and a tool called the Priority Wheel which will help you define and achieve success on your own terms by keeping your key priorities in motion.

When I think about success, I think about a wheel that is always in motion because what will make you successful today will not make you successful in the future. Here is where the Priority Wheel will help you identify and focus on your key priorities so you can connect your dots at each stage of your life.

Success is always a moving target and we need to recalibrate our priorities or the weight of each priority within the wheel. Using the Five Leadership Lessons and the Priority Wheel, you will be to stay focused on your goals and also be flexible and willing to try different approaches.

Do you have a formula for success that you use to connect your dots?

Mobile Trends Predictions

2009-03-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

Innovation is not about the latest technology invention but about the value of the technology to the user and the society in the form of a service. (Read Peter Drucker’s classic book Innovation and Entrepreneurship). The degree of which the new technology produces a service that fulfills one of the basic human-needs from my 2X2 matrix is what defines the value of the invention. The value to the end user and the ease of use of the new technology is what differentiates innovation from invention.

On my last trip back from San Francisco I spent 4 hours writing down my thoughts about promising mobile trends to discover later that I had left my notes in the airplane.

Instead of trying to remember everything I wrote, I decided to share my predictions about mobile services that will bring value to consumers.

1) Acceptance of 2-way SMS messages with a location-based customer loyalty component: Consumers will get discount coupes via SMS when they are shopping at a particular retailer. (check Clairmail)

2) Deployment of mobile payment interoperability for mass-transit transportation across different geographic locations: People will use a mobile phone to pay for the subway in NY and the Bart in San Francisco.

3) Deployment of speech recognition features with natural language processing on the mobile phone: Finally, I will be able to talk to my phone in a combination of English, Spanish and Russian and my phone will understand what I am saying.

4) Acceptance of micro payments via mobile phones and combined billing capabilities: Consumer’s purchases will be included in the phone bill. I bet the telecoms are going to like this one.

5) Increasing convergence between PC and mobile browsers: iPhone-like browsers will become the standard.

6) Acceptance of the Chief Mobile Office role in financial services: the mass adoption of mobile payments and the growing importance of the mobile channel as a source of revenue generation will require that this channel get dedicated attention rather than continue to be viewed as part of internet / ecommerce channel.

7) Mobilizing the POS: retailers will accept mobile payments at the POS.

Making Predictions is a risky business and most of the time we get them wrong !

Mobile Banking – What is Next?

2009-03-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

There are many dots2connect with over 3.3 billion people worldwide carry a mobile phone. And so it is time I write my viewpoints about mobile as well as my predictions.

“Does your phone come with mobile banking?” – This was the title of my presentation when we were introducing fully functional mobile banking services to the US market.

I remember the excitement when, in 2006, our Wachovia internet group launched the next generation of mobile banking for Blackberries and Palm Treos. Back then (and not so long ago) the iPhone only existed in Apple’s R&D labs. Although the service was in a beta, it allowed users to check account balances, transfer money between accounts and provide feedback.

I got the first interview with American Banker to announce the product launch and at the time many of the industry analysts were full of doubts about the consumer market readiness to adopt mobile banking. While others at a rountable with Banking Strategies believed that mobile banking was real.

Nonetheless, vendors were calling all the time and every day new companies were jumping to the mobile banking train. Clairmail, mFoundry and Firethorn were the top picks among the large number of other vendors. Of course, Monitise, m-Com, and Yodlee were also on the list.

A year later, we launched a mobile application in partnership with AT&T in November of 2007 and Verizon a month later using the Firethorn application (Firethorn was acquired by Qualcomm). The new service enabled mobile banking and bill-pay services and transfer features.

The question is not about the stage of the mobile technology or the ability of banks to provide mobile banking services. After all, 2008 was the year for all large US banks to introduce mobile services and the coexistence of the three delivery methods (browser, SMS, and downloadable applications) for mobile banking services became common practice.

Today, the question is about the ability for building a critical mass of users - and this takes time. While early adopters are ready to try every new gadget, it typically takes much longer for the average consumer base to get comfortable with new technology, or new ways to utilize it. To maximize the rate of adoption, the service needs to fulfill most, if not all, of the dimensions from the 2x2 matrix.

But, true mobile commerce is still in its very early stages. Mobile Payments continue to be at the top of the agenda. Even after the efforts of PayPal and Google Mobile with the Android, mobile payments have not yet seen the green light in the US market. For one, any payment guru will tell you that for a new payment method to be widely accepted, it will need to somehow improve upon the methods that already exist. Thus, mobile payments will need to be better in some way than plastic cards, or possibly just fuse the two.

Many questions loom about how to reach the next generation of the m-Wallet and enabling payments:
• On what applications will contactless operate?
• How will the current applications evolve to support multiple payment accounts at different institutions?
• What are the implications of the competing mobile platforms on this development? And what role will carriers play? Is there a need for a new payment network?
• As carriers open their networks to be device agnostic and allow applications, how will this affect the competitive environment for financial services?
• What is the profit model? Will banks and carries share the profit? What about the risk?

And finally the question about “Invention versus Innovation”: What is the decisive mobile payment service that will enable U.S. banks to bring convenience to their customers’ daily life?

What is your prediction? I will tell you my mobile predictions in my next blog.

My Top 6 Emerging Trends Predictions

2009-02-19T10:39:00.000-08:00

After reading the latest predictions from the latest Trendsspotting predictions, I decided to contribute and share my personal predictions on the Top 6 emerging technology trends that are impacting consumer behavior.

As you read these trends and think about opportunities for new product development and/or opportunities to create a new marketing position for your product, keep in my mind that the greatest innovation as well as the major threats comes from the convergence of multiple technologies coming together to address the main human needs from the 2X2 matrix.

Convergence of technologies and interoperability across different services and platforms become key drivers for mass adoption and consumerization of emerging technologies across all consumer demographic segments.

1) Community Advice and Growing importance of Peer Review: consumer review sites like Consumerist combined with built-in peer review features on online retail giants like Amazon and BestBuy.com have emphasized the peer review functionality to the point where it is becoming integral part of the purchasing process. The same trend applies to financial services as investment sites like Cakefinancial and Tradeking allow for community discussion, advice, and even monitoring the investment behavior of top-performing peers.

2) Increasingly opportunistic purchasing: emphasis on peer networks for retail purchases has created a sub-market of deal sites like Slickdeals.net and Fatwallet.com where consumers aggregate coupon and discount offers. This interest could become a key driver for the acceptance of mobile alerts with discount offers based on GPS/geolocation.

3) Experiential marketing and new realms of Customization: technological improvements are offering solutions for online clothing retailers’ greatest challenge: the inability for potential buyers to try things on. Sites like Victoria's Secret offer the ability to change the colors and styles of featured swimsuits on demand, and places like myshape.com take it one step further and allow users to input measurements to customize clothing to body shape and size. Technological improvements at physical locations, for example with RFID technology being able to detect the clothing being worn in a dressing room, allow for customized suggestions for alternative colors/styles, as well as potentially complementary items and accessories.

4) Retail giants becoming more "mobile friendly": more emphasis on mobile experience as mobile technology improves and as consumers become more comfortable using mobile devices for reviews, store locators, price comparisons, and even purchases. Target and Wal-Mart have both made customized mobile sites over the last 6 months (m.target.com and m.walmart.com respectively). Next on the horizon are mobile payments.

5) Proliferation of video advertising: companies have been exploring the use of embedded video into their websites and now they are adding YouTube to their multichannel marketing strategy. An interesting question to ask is how the proliferation of user-generated video will impact advertising agencies? People find user-generated videos more engaging that traditional ads.

6) Adoption of Web TV: with broadband and 3D capabilities TV is coming back and growing in importance. Web TV will impact media ad consumption. Giants like Google, Apple and AT&T are investing in new TV technology. Adoption of 3D could bring a new impulse to the advertising.

Also let’s keep an eye on video gaming, the gaming industry is experiencing an explosive growth and during these times of economic crisis, gaming and virtual reality offer to consumers a way to escape from their “real life” problems.

Are You Connecting these Dots?

Five Leadership Lessons

2009-02-10T18:20:00.000-08:00

We use leadership skills every day at work. Why not apply these same skills to our personal lives?”

How can we draw the correlation between leadership skills and personal effectiveness in balancing career, family and relationships?

In the book “Connecting My Dots”, I am sharing lessons that will empower you to apply your leadership skills that make you successful at work to your personal live. I will also tell you that there is not a formula you can flawlessly replicate to achieve success, because life is complex, relationships are unique, and each situation is different. Sometimes we need to make mistakes in order to learn how to assess a situation the next time it comes around.

I once thought that career success would be the main challenge I would have to face in my life. With that said, I was ready to focus my energy and strengths into achieving professional excellence. However, life showed me that raising two kids and preserving a cross-cultural marriage for twenty-five years, which entailed two immigrations and the numerous hardships caused by distinct personalities and backgrounds, could be at least as challenging as achieving career success.

Here are two of the Five Leadership Lessons for Multidimensional Success:

Lesson 1- Define Success on Your Own Terms: Achieving your dreams begins with a definition of what success and happiness mean for you.

Lesson 2- Don't Wait Too Long for What You Want

Lesson 3- Find the Right Partner

Lesson 4- Play Multiple Roles

Lesson 5- Don’t Give Up during Bad Times: How you handle difficult situations is what defines who you are. During bad times, couples have the opportunity to really show commitment to each other, to their relationship and their children. While marriage life is not a “perfect picture”, marriage is full of memorable and unforgettable moments. However, those priceless moments will come with a daily price tag.

Read this book at learn how to increase your personal effectiveness and use simple tools to balance career, family and relationships.

What is the Color of Your iPhone?

2009-02-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

Every morning when I put the watch on my left arm, I ask myself the same question: Do I need to continue wearing a watch when I always look at my blackberry to check the time?

I have tried not to wear a watch to go to work but the next day before I leave my bedroom I put it back. Why? One answer is because of a habit of wearing a watch which of course is true, but the other answer is because I like my watch. My watch has a personal meaning.

The same is happening with mobile phones. For many of people the mobile device is a symbol of personal freedom and accessibility to value-added services. And, when I think about the time my daughter and I spent selecting the color and the style of our blackberries I go as far as saying that the mobile device has become a Personal Statement.

Technical innovations are transforming consumer behaviors, with the mobile phone being by far the most ubiquitous personal technology. The mass adoption of a mobile phone has far outpaced the adoption of the PCs. And, while there are parallels between adapting to the rise of the mobile channel and the advent of the Internet channel, this time the changes in consumer use and adoption are happening faster pushing innovation forward.

Coincidentally, the other technology that I can think about it that has achieved this astronomical level of consumer adoption is the watch. A watch is very easy to use, serves an important purpose, and it is a personal statement. A good watch is also a “statement of luxury”, just ask this question to people who pay substantial amount of money for a Rolex or Patek Philippe.

The mass adoption of mobile devices is connected the 2X2 matrix of four human-need drivers of Consumerization of Emerging Technologies: Social, Personal, Mobility & Convenience, and Security.

For example, let’s talk about Security and the mobile phone. First, many of the security protection solutions for strong authentication use out band authentication. In other words, the mobile phone is used as an alternative channel for consumers to get a secret PIN. But also think about how do you feel when your children are away from home or driving a car if they just got their driver license and you know they carry a phone? What a sense of security!

In the world of personal mobile devices, carrying an iPhone is personal statement about style and usability. Personally, I like the look of the iPhone and the same day when the iPhone first became available one of our developers had my approval to get one so we could play with it. Or in other words, so we could “test the functionality of the new device.” And how many different apps you can add now to your iPhone - it 's amazing!

The usability and integration with the native applications represent the future of convergence between PC and mobile browsers and the practicality of the touch screen. But regardless of how much I like the iPhone, I continue to use a blackberry for three main reasons:

1) I can’t access my corporate email through the iPhone
2) I have problems using the touchtone screen, maybe my fingers are too wide
3) I can’t choose a color that goes with my personality

Black or Silver? Both are very elegant colors but think about it, if the mobile device is a Personal Statement people want to be able to choose a color for their iPhone according to their personality.

Wait until Steve Jobs realizes that iPhone sales could increase even more if the devices come in different colors. Hope someone from Apple is reading my blog…

So what is next? How about being able to buy a watch with your phone--and no, I’m not talking about trading your phone for a watch; I’m talking about mobile payments like you can do in Japan!

Mentoring 2.0

2009-01-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

Mentoring is a 2 way street.

In today’s world of constant change and evolving opportunities, women need role models and real personal stories of women from diverse groups who have achieved their goals and overcome barriers along the journey, providing with their actions, tangible examples to women looking for the path to success.

Leadership training is one area of opportunity to address the needs of emerging women leaders. For the most part, corporate leadership training provides women with career development guidance, but the majority of training curricula continue to emphasize the male model of leadership and are not designed to meet women’s needs. Current leadership training is unilateral and does not teach women how to become contextual leaders and to switch between work and personal life.

Like many of you, I have also attended numerous leadership training programs through my career. And recognize that, while some gender issues women face in corporate America are the same across cultural groups, other issues have their roots in cultural traditions.

As women are trying to develop their success plans or revise the ones they have, I encourage them to seek the advice from several mentors. Sometimes you need to connect with a mentor for career development that is different from the mentor for personal and family success.

Mentors can act as a sounding board and role models. They can also point out opportunities and inspire you with their examples. Establish Mentoring relationships that last are based on common understanding and personal connection.

“Connecting My Dots” provides mentoring by telling personal stories of success and failures.

Do you want to share a story that will provide guidance to young high achieving women trying to connect their dots and achieve career, family and personal goals success?

User Driven World

2009-01-17T09:32:00.000-08:00

A User Driven World increases the speed of adoption of those emerging technologies that accelerate the fulfillment of basic human needs.

The “User Driven World” can be explained using a 2x2 framework that evaluates emerging trends as a way to fulfill a combination of basic human needs. In this framework, the speed of adoption of emerging technology has a direct correlation with the degree that the use of the service can facilitate the fulfillment of basic human needs. This framework can help us predict and understand the drivers of consumer adoption of emerging technologies.

I also believe that Cultural Differences impact the world-wide adoption of emerging technologies. For example, Mobility is a global emerging trend with specific manisfestations of adoption in local markets.

What is going to be the impact of the Democratization of Content for countries or cultures were people are used to protect knowledge from the general public?

Does a person in Japan use Google Maps in a different way than a person in US? Yes, just the same way I like to eat mangos more than I like berries.

Do You Have a Role Model?

2009-01-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

On Dec 31st, I sat down with a cup of strong Cuban coffee and began to reflect on my defining moments this past year. I wanted to connect my dots from 2008 and look forward to 2009.

Mentoring has been a major focus for me and an important aspect of my life that provides inspiration and sense of purpose. It is also a way to follow the legacy of my mother Dr. Noemi Perez who passed away last February (her wiki is available in spanish). At the time, we were working together on the book “Connecting My Dots”. She was a great supporter of this work because the book is about mentoring and the challenges of having a successful career while balancing family and marriage. She was a role model not just to me, but also a role model and mentor to many young women and men.

The year 2008 was a year of personal loss, but also a time of personal growth. First, I had the unique opportunity to sponsor the 2008 Mentoring program for the eCommerce organization and to collaborate with two fantastic women – Lori and Siobhan – who were the driving force behind the success of this program. I met Miriam, a young dynamic woman, who is developing a framework for a Mentoring program targeted to Latino employees. And I began working with a group of women from NCTA WISE organization, developing a Mentoring program for STEM professionals that we plan to launch as a pilot this year for the Charlotte region under the theme: “Geek is Chic”.

Passion and motivation lead to success. People, particularly young people, need to have role models that inspire them. The need for successful role models is even more important among young high achieving women.

Even more, the feedback of many participants in our mentoring program told us that women like to learn from real personal stories of other women that have achieved their goals and overcome barriers along the journey. That’s why I decided to talk about mentoring through personal stories of success and failures. And by the way, men also like to make connections to personal stories.

Mentoring young women, particularly in the IT profession helped me recognize even more, the relevance of the dilemma I had personally faced many times during my career, including the pressure and sacrifices imposed on women in balancing a career and family.

To achieve career success many women make substantial trade-offs: staying single, getting a divorce, or not having kids. Young high achieving women are put onto a successful, yet demanding career development path with very little guidance or leadership training on how to apply these success principles to their personal lives. When they see that a large percentage of high-achieving women do not have children or long-lasting relationships, these young women fear that they will not be able to have a family if they choose a leadership career.

As a mentor and a mother, I always ask myself a question: what are we doing to provide guidance to young women in their path to achieve multidimensional success on their own terms?

More women are choosing an executive and leadership career path, but at the same time career success requires that we make trade-offs and learn how to prioritize across career, family and personal demands. Recently through the Anita Borg group on LinkedIn, I became aware of Mentoring-in-a-Box toolkit available at NCWIT. This toolkit provides an excellent mentoring curriculum and tools for women in IT that are trying to balance the demands of a success career and family needs. I suggest you check out this toolkit. You can also join Women 2.0 LinkedIn group for professional networking.

When I think about Mentoring, I think about the importance of role models in the professional and personal development of young women.

When I think about Success, I always remember a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “You must do the things you think you cannot do”

Take Away: To achieve success you need to enlist your family and spouse to support your goals. You also need to have the courage to make trade-offs and the determination to make sacrifices.

Predicting the Consumerization of Emerging Technologies

2009-01-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

My first job after college (long time ago when programmers used punched cards for data entry) was working as a scientific researcher doing macro economic forecasting. Early in my professional career, I learned that making predictions is a very a difficult task and that most of the time people get their predictions wrong - just check "Worst Predictions About 2008".

So, I don’t know why or how 25 years later I am still in the business of making predictions. Just this time, instead of developing complex econometric models I “evaluate” predictions for the Consumerization of Emerging Technologies in financial services.

Maybe because I always have many dots2connect to make predictions !

For the purpose of this post, my view on emerging technologies focuses on the widespread consumer adoption of the services that these technologies enable rather than the actual technological innovation-- a concept that Gartner calls the “Consumerization of IT.”

Generally speaking, you can find extensive literature describing the process and methodology to select and deploy emerging technologies. Less has been written, however, pertaining to the selection process of emerging business applications from the business point of view of the perceived value to the companies that are adopting these applications. As a result, the quantification of the business strategic value of emerging applications presents a challenge for most companies.

As you can imagine, the definition of “emerging” has a certain degree of relativity since business applications that are considered as emerging to one company might be viewed as core technology by another more advanced company. In practice, most emerging business applications are the result of using established technologies in new ways or the disruptive impact of new entrants like was the case with eBay. A simple way to track new entrants and learn about banking technology innovations in financial services is to attend Finovate.

Now back to Emerging Technologies and according to Gartner: “Successful deployment is more about incremental adoption of technologies used in new ways than about technology breakthroughs”

I believe that the business value of emerging applications is derived more from incremental adoption of technologies used in new ways or convergence of technologies to create innovative business applications than from a sudden technological discovery.

Let’s talk about evaluating Emerging Trends and discuss a user needs-driven approach that considers the degree of market penetration of the new technology for the evaluation and analysis of Emerging Technology Trends.

Look around and you will see that today the speed of Consumerization of Emerging Technologies is impacted by a “User Driven World” trend.

The “User Driven World" can be explained using a 2x2 framework that evaluates emerging trends as a way to fulfill a combination of basic human needs. The speed of adoption of emerging technology has a direct correlation with the degree that the use of the service can facilitate the fulfillment of basic human needs. This framework can help us understand the drivers of consumer adoption of emerging technologies.

The speed of technological change and the rapid market adoption of emerging technologies accelerate the fulfillment of four basic human needs: Social & Communication, Personalization, Speed & Convenience, and Security.

Find more about the "User Driven World" in the context of the following topics:

1) User Generated Content

2) Aggregation of Content

3) Social Communities

4) Mobility and Convenience

I also recommend to check Trendsspotting, Netbanker, and 2009 Web Predictions from ReadWriteWeb, three of my favorite blogs to read about internet trends, marketing research and predictions.

And my last thought, every time you need to predict the adoption of new technology keep in mind that:

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future consumer’s adoption of emerging technologies.” my interpretation of Yogi Berra’s original quote.

Why did I join LinkedIn?

2008-12-15T17:37:00.001-08:00

Does your manager think that you are looking for a new job if you are in LinkedIn? Well, not necessarily. As I have learned, LinkedIn can been valuable in many ways.

I wrote this post for TrendsCast - an internal corporate blog on Emerging Trends. It generated a good amount of dialogue and I decided to share in my blog.

For those whom the word is new or have heard about LinkedIn but have not used it yet, let’s first check Wikipedia for a simple definition.

“LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site” - to be clear this is an external website not hosted by your company.

If you are already in there then you know the value of a professional social networking site where members can make professional connections, join multiple groups, discover new business ventures and yes, search for career opportunities. I say this because as a mentor, I view LinkedIn as a great tool for future career planning and a way to be informed with what is happening on the job market and to gain insights into any industry.

There are also other social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace where you can connect with friends, make new connections or join different groups. But LinkedIn’s value proposition is unique in the ever-expanding world of social networks for its professional and career focus.

Plaxo is another example of a business-oriented social networking site. I opened an account with Plaxo, but never used it and ended up closing it. I realized that if I make time to join a social community, I want to be actively engaged - not just have a profile hanging out there. Otherwise, I ask myself: What is the value you get from the community or you bring to the community if you are not engaged?

My secret goal is to reach a point when I am connected to all members within the “Six Degrees of Separation” rule. Ah, well I guess it is not a much of a secret anymore!

Interestingly, how people engage in social communities for different reasons. In the book “The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (which I enjoyed reading), he breaks the people that “build the communities” into three categories: Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.

For example, Mavens are the people who own and share information. They are the subject-matter experts who know every detail about every little thing.

I joined LinkedIn in 2005 and did exactly what I have told you not to do, I was opposite of the Maven. I posted a short profile and never engaged with the community. It was just a checkmark.

I rejoined in 2006 and since then my view on how to get and add value to social networks has changed. My engagement level has increased exponentially. At first my new intention was to connect with people I already knew from other organizations, but slowly I began to make connections with people I did not know from other professions and began to explore new topics and openly, I have let my curiosity see what business opportunities are out there.

It is also important to me to add value to the community and I want to use my network to help people connect with each others. So now, compared to my original intentions, my purpose for using LinkedIn has made a 360 degree turn and today my main goal is to establish new connections with professionals from different fields and to participate in discussion forums.
One of my favorite features is the personal network calculation. In LinkedIn people are connected by degrees of separation. “Six Degree of Separation” still counts as the magic measurement within a social network but in LinkedIn the common denominator is “Three Degree of Separation”.

Connectors are the people who link us with the world and introduce us to social circles. In other words, we are the ones that turn the “Six Degrees of Separation” into the “Three Degrees of Proximity”.

In my last blog, I talked about trust and employee engagement in social networks. Some people are half-way there – meaning they are not yet willing to have an open profile and share their network information. On LinkedIn if you want to protect the privacy of your network you can use a feature that blocks others from having access to your personal contacts.

Of course, in every community we have such participants, I call these Controllers. Typically they have a few protected connections and no additional engagement. Even more extreme are those that I call Spectators with a lonely profile and no connections at all. Just like I was when I first joined.

Gladwell’s last group, the Salesmen, are well, the people with the power of persuasion. Do you know of any these?

Another significant value I get from LinkedIn is the unique opportunity to collaborate with people on topics of personal and professional interest of mine.

I recently posted a question to the Women 2.0 group that generated a very insightful dialogue among the group members.

Yesterday, I connected with a woman and found out about a 4 week summer program at MIT labs for high school girls. The objective of the program is to spark their interest in future study in engineering and computer science. Can you imagine? I wish I could attend the program too! (As a side note, if you know of any high school girl who wants to attend, tell her to apply before January 15th.)

My point is not to persuade you to join LinkedIn but to share how I have personally benefitted from it and learned how to effectively use it in my professional life. It removed preconceived notions I had about social networks and has created a bridge between career and personal life.

I could share more about my engagement, but I first would like to hear back from YOU. Tell me about what you have experienced so far using LinkedIn or don’t hesitate to tell me about the reasons why you are not part of this social network. Do you hide your network if you are a member? Why? Are you a Maven or a Connector?

If you are you ready to join don’t forget to send me an invitation to be a part your network!

Trust, Employee Engagement and Social Collaboration

2008-12-01T17:00:00.000-08:00

I want to connect the dots on a controversial topic: How can organizations build TRUST using social networks for collaboration among employees?

Before I dive into the topic let me tell you how I became engaged in social web 2.0.

My first official step into the social web 2.0 world was last year when we launched TrendsCast - one of the first corporate-wide blogs at Wachovia dedicated to discuss the impact of emerging technologies to the marketing strategy of the organization. The blogger is quite verse in the matter of writing blogs and I just enjoyed reading the articles instead of writing them.

All good, but nothing too exciting since I lead emerging trends for the bank and it‘s part of my job to drive transformational change using emerging technologies.

Later on this year, looking at the growing significance of this emerging trend and the opportunity for marketing organizations to leverage the power of online communities, I decided to immerse myself into the online social world. First, in April I invited Google to participate in our Emerging Trends forum. The second step was to engage and grow my LinkedIn network. I have been watching my 3rd degree “proximity” network growing everyday. By the way, I like to use the phrase “degree of proximity” rather than the more traditional definition of “degree of separation”. Most recently we launched our corporate presence on Twitter and in order to personally learn more about the dynamics of the community, I opened my own Twitter profile under Curiosidad.

Through my participation on Twitter I began to think about the differences and similarities on how I participate in corporate communities versus external communities. At the same time, my colleague the Director Enterprise and Web Services posted a blog about crossing the lines that divide home and work, personal and professional, private and public world.
I became extremely intrigued by topic and couple of weeks ago I launched a study to research the following questions:

What is the perceived danger in crossing the lines that divide home and work, personal and professional, private and public world?

How can organizations build trust using social networks for collaboration among employees?
The potential for tools like social networks, blogs, and wikis for collaboration, communication, and information sharing are rarely questioned, but all require one key ingredient: people’s participation. Yet, while many businesses of all shapes and sizes have begun adopting such technology for business uses, driving user adoption can be a challenge. With literally hundreds of millions of users on the broader internet, garnering the participation of even a fraction of a percent is more than enough to create a vibrant social network, blog, or wiki-style crowd sourced database.

Trust, first and foremost, is paramount to employee engagement in social Web 2.0 communities. Employees may be deterred simply out of fear that what one does or says on an internal network or tool may later come back to haunt them.

Moreover, employees may be less concerned that the manner of their participation will be judged, but even that their participation itself would be judged. Most managers within the company view blog’s participation as distracting and having a negative impact to employee’s productivity. Web 2.0 tools are sometimes considered childish distractions instead of valuable technology, and thus employees may believe that their reputation within the company could suffer as a result of their active participation. Thus, a lack of trust that one’s participation will not harm one’s career aspirations is a key inhibitor to employee participation

Many people, though, are disturbed or uncomfortable with the blending of the professional and personal spheres. Increasingly, people are facing the precarious decision of whether or not to accept a coworker’s – or worse, a boss’—friend request on Facebook or MySpace. Some people often fail to release the amount of personal information that is available on their profile, and who is really paying attention. Even others, who may be more careful about the type and amount of information they put on their profile, cannot control what others within their network post on their message board or wall. As a result, both Facebook and MySpace (though to a lesser extent) have enacted new privacy settings that allow users to customize who is able to see what information on their profile. Some have complained, however, that these settings are cumbersome and difficult to use, and are both insufficient and underused.

While one might think that this might be an argument in favor of an internal business network, some may see it as a step in the wrong direction. Employees who are trying to keep business separate from the other parts of their life might perceive this as yet another potential intrusion as opposed to an opportunity to distinguish the two realms. Others might refrain from participating simply because they do not want another social network to have to update and check regularly.

The blending of the personal and professional is already having implications in the workplace, beyond just companies tracking employees’ profiles and policies on using these tools in the workspace. Both the authenticity that is so conducive to engagement in these tools and the persistent availability and connectedness they provide have real world consequences. Perhaps most notably, the social dynamics of the workplace has the potential to change significantly (and is already changing in many places, one could argue) as a result of the ability instant message leaders carry on conversations in a much less formal fashion than would be normal in, perhaps, an email. These informal conversations can lead to a greater comfort in approaching leaders, more candid responses, and a “horizontalization” of social dynamics.

Trust, Relevance and Authenticity are the drivers of engagement in social networks. Social collaboration tools are connecting people that otherwise will never connect and while this is happening a new behavioral trend for increasingly blurred lines separating home and work, personal and professional, private and public is emerging!

A version of this blog was posted last week to TrendsCast internal blog.

Publishing my first book

2008-11-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

Finally I accomplished a major milestone! I sent the final copy of my book to the publisher.

I like to write and I also love to hear personal stories because I believe that each person has a unique story to tell. In case you are thinking about writing your story and publishing a book I will let you what I have learned about this exciting process:

There three options for publishing a book:
1- Relax on the beach: Find an agent and they will take care of the process.
2- Half-way: For an upfront fee a publisher will help you publish your book.
3- Wash the dishes: Self-publishing where you will need to take care of everything but printing.

Here is what I did:

First, I decided to find an agent. Many first time writers try this option first with hopes and aspirations.

The best way to get an idea of who are these agents and what type of book they are looking for is to sign up for Writer Markets. The monthly registration fee is $3.99 and you can query the site and get list of agents by name, area of expertise and type of literature. Or you can also try Agent Query which offers free search services.

I began actively contacting agents and publishing houses that matched the profile of my book.

Please don’t be discouraged by all the requirements listed in their websites. Writers need to have A LOT of patience. Sometimes you will find an agent only after you get 100 rejections. Yes, it could take 100 query letters before you can find an agent. I wrote 15 letters and got 15 rejections.

At least, most of the agents and houses treated me with respect and responded back to my letters. Even two agents expressed some level of interest and requested additional information. However, nothing happened.

At this point, I lost my PATIENCE. And I decided to find a self-publishing agency that will guide me through the process.

I checked three agencies including Authorhouse, iUniverse, lulu and a handful of other sites. I selected authorhouse.com because of the great interaction with the publishing agent.

Of course, there are two negative side of this model:
1- You need to invest money at front
2- You need to take care of formatting the final manuscript which is cumbersome and time consuming process.

Last but not least, here few more things for you to consider when you are doing self-publishing.

- ISBN Registration
- Bar Code Generation
- Library of Congress Registration
- Copyright

Good Luck Publishing Your Book!

Connecting with a Mentor

2008-11-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

I said that I will update the blog once a week. However, I just posted my first entry yesterday and I am back again.

Today first thing in the morning, I met with a young associate to talk about mentoring. He is in a mentoring relationship with a senior manager and both of them are learning and getting value from the interaction. They are crossing the lines and connecting instead of watching from their side of the road.

Mentoring is a two way street.

Later, I attended a Women Executive lunch where I met several women who shared with me the importance of developing role models for young women. Young women and men can benefit from a mentoring relationship because mentors can serve as a sounding board or even become role models.

In particular, today young women are faced with an overwhelming number of options and they could benefit from strong role models that can inspire them. The lack of role models for women in the IT profession is one of the areas of focus of mine.

Together with many other women in NCTA WISE , we organize networking events and programs for women in the Charlotte NC and provide the opportunity to meet and talk with role models who have achieved career success while balancing their career and personal goals.

Just read about a study conducted with more than 25,000 students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). More than 70 percent of women responding said they did not have a consistent source for advice and support.

My last though for today is that Mentoring and Networking can be very valuable only when first you have an objective or a goal in mind. In other words, do not come to a Networking event or ask for a Mentor waiting for a miracle to happen.

COME with a purpose in mind!

Dots2Connect

2008-11-12T10:56:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my Blog: “Dots2Connect”
I am calling my Blog “Dots2Connect” because this conversation is about You and Me and We all have many dots to connect in order to plan and achieve our goals and dreams.

First let me tell you few things about me that my professional and leadership profile will not tell you. I like to travel and discover new things. I have traveled extensively and lived in three countries. I also enjoyed writing including writing poetry. In my 25 years of a professional career I have worked across many different sectors and enjoy roles where I need to overcome obstacles and can create new things.

I am passionate about many topics and I will write about them in my blog. Sometimes I will talk about emerging trends, social media, mobile, and emerging technologies but most of the time, I will share my thoughts about Mentoring.

The last two weeks, I have been very busy reviewing, editing and formatting my book: "Connecting My Dots" - A woman's leadership guide to multidimensional success. This is because I decided to do “self-publishing” instead of waiting for an agent to knock on my door.

Women and Multidimensional Success - I think it is important to talk about multidimensional success because many young women want to achieve career, family and personal success but are afraid that they will not be able to have a family if they choose an executive career when they see that a large percentage of high achieving women do not have children or a long lasting relationship. For many women success means achieving not just professional recognition but also a fulfilling family life and personal happiness.

But the question is at what cost? Success does not come without making trade-offs or personal sacrifices. However, with every obstacle you find in your road it comes an opportunity to define your plan and determine what achieving multidimensional success means for you.

From my involvement in mentoring I have learned that people like to connect lessons and advice with real life stories. My inspiration for the book came from mentoring young women who want to plan for career success, but to my surprised I found out that many men also expressed interest in reading the book.

The way I plan to host this blog is to do small posts on different topics. I will probably update the blog once a week. And for a quick update you can always find me on Twitter under: twitter.com/curiosidad

I hope that you will find my Thoughts = helpful and my Perspectives = refreshing.

I would also like to hear your personal stories on how you are “Connecting Your Dots.”

Dots2Connect

Inspiring Women Like You

Planning Your Next Career Move

Success - The Art of Aligning Priorities

What Makes Successful Women Happy?

Beyond Mobile Payments

Priority Wheel - A Tool for Career and Family Alignment

Web 2.0 Check List

Mentoring Programs Toolkit

10 Trends from Emerging Technologies Outlook

Innovation and Customer Experience

Framework for Doing Business in Social Networks

Social Networking Personality

Managing Success during Recession

Mobile Trends Predictions

Mobile Banking – What is Next?

My Top 6 Emerging Trends Predictions

Five Leadership Lessons

What is the Color of Your iPhone?

Mentoring 2.0

User Driven World

Do You Have a Role Model?

Predicting the Consumerization of Emerging Technologies

Top 6 Reasons To Join LinkedIn

Why did I join LinkedIn?

Trust, Employee Engagement and Social Collaboration

Publishing my first book

Connecting with a Mentor

Dots2Connect