How do you find a job? Ask the Algorithm!

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Doug Neeper

DFN: I don’t know whether to laugh, or to cry. The state of New York is putting $ into helping people find jobs (GOOD), but, its putting the $ into an avenue which at best will surface 25% of the jobs potentially available. Seems to me the state’s $ could be better spent, subsidize ‘networking groups’, kind of like EDD does in the State of California. These groups, networking in general, get at 75% of the jobs available, the state would clearly get a better return for its efforts and $.

How Do You Find A Job? Ask The Algorithm
http://kosu.org/2009/11/how-do-you-find-a-job-ask-the-algorithm/

The state of New York is looking for ways to reduce the time the unemployed spend looking for jobs, and it’s turning to a mathematical formula for help.

The state’s Department of Labor is touting the new tool as a major leap forward in the search for jobs. The formula is designed to direct resumes to the employers most likely to make a hire.

So far, Minnesota is the only other state to use this kind of fancy math to try to connect workers with jobs. There are no hard data, but a spokesperson for the state says the program has been working well.

A New York State Of Mind

Lisa Berger is one of the very first New Yorkers to test what this computer program can do. She has a couple of decades of experience as a publishing executive and, more recently, as a nonprofit fundraiser.

Berger is self-assured, but she says being jobless for nearly a year has rattled her. So, she says, she’s willing to try something new: “If there’s something out there that can help, I think the environment out there is really bad. I have never in my entire life had trouble getting a job like this — ever.”

So Berger went to a job center in Manhattan. After meeting with employment counselor Emily Aponte, she sends off her resume. Five minutes later, Aponte announces that a reply has come in by e-mail: 15 job matches were generated by Berger’s resume.

Assistance From An Algorithm

The listings for Berger were selected from the state job bank by a computer running a complex mathematical formula, or algorithm. These kinds of equations are also the key element behind Google’s Internet search results, and the movie recommendations made by Netflix.

Matt Sigelman, the chief executive officer of Burning Glass, a Boston company that developed the job search formula that Berger tested, says the beauty of algorithms is that they see patterns.

“It’s actually studying how real people — by the tens of millions — get the jobs that they move into,” Sigelman says. “The technology is designed to learn from past patterns of placement.”

For the user, it’s different from a keyword job search on Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com, because the algorithm actually registers whole sentences from resumes. Sigelman says this program mimics the human activity of reading and digesting information. Coca-Cola, Accenture, and Google are some of Burning Glass’ clients — a list that now includes the state of New York.

But in the case of New York, the program is being used on behalf of job seekers — people like Berger.

Mixed Results

She isn’t overly impressed with the jobs the algorithm recommends. Only one opportunity really interests her — the director of strategic planning at a sports public relations company. The description says this position is “nontraditional.”

“Yeah, I like that because they might then consider a nontraditional candidate,” she says.

“And it might be a little bit more interesting,” Aponte responds.

Berger also likes the sound of the position because it reports to the managing partner. “It does what I like doing best in the corporate world, which is coming up with a strategic plan,” she says.

Berger says she’ll probably apply. And she did learn something: If she wants to work at a nonprofit organization, she needs to beef up that part of her resume.

“It’s highlighting much more of what I used to do versus what I want to do,” Berger says. “And that’s the biggest thing I think I’ve learned.”

New York is trying job-seeker algorithms as a one-year pilot program. If enough people say they got something out of it, the state labor department says it will make the program permanent. Copyright 2009 WNYC Radio

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Social networking media enchance your job search

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Doug Neeper

DFN: Nice article about the interplay between meeting people in person and the use of social media sites / tools, both for the purposes of furthering your job search.

Social networking media enhances your job search
By Cindy Kibbe
Friday, November 6, 2009
Cindy Kibbe can be reached at ckibbe
http://nhbr.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091106/PEOPLE/911049978/-1/NEWS05&dsq=22058912#comment-22058912

Editor’s note: This is the third article in a series focusing on the job-search and application process.

The days of simply answering a help wanted ad in the newspaper with a faceless resume to find a new job are long gone. And e-mailing your information to a Web site isn’t enough anymore, either.

To land a job in today’s market, you’ve got to meet people, both in person and through social media sites on the Internet.

“Clearly, there is a need to network for work these days,” said Deb Titus, managing director of Dale Carnegie Training in New Hampshire. “There is a lot of activity in people being asked to be introduced to another.”

According to Allen Voivod of Gilford Web content strategies firm Epiphanies Inc., social networking is fast becoming the primary way people are finding jobs.

“Today, there are some jobs where this is a necessity, others, less so, but it is where the trend is going,” he said.

Voivod said the terms “social media,” “social marketing,” and “social networking” are often used interchangeably, but do have differences.

He said social media is the channel you’re putting information into, such as a blog, microblog like Twitter, or video on YouTube. Social marketing is the act of marketing using social networking tools, he said.

“Networking specifically gets people together to connect and converse. ‘Social,’ in terms of the Web, means it’s interactive,” he said.

Voivod also said there is a distinction between professional, personal and private information in social networking.

“Professional sites or content is mainly job-related information. Personal is more friendly in nature, for example, discussing the latest Red Sox game. Private is what happened at your last doctor visit.”

Most experts recommend keeping your professional life on a site like LinkedIn, or possibly Twitter. Information that is deeply personal — photos from your family picnic, your raves about a new pair of shoes — should be kept separate on another site, such as Facebook.

Using a social networking site such as LinkedIn as a springboard to discussions on topics you’re well versed in is an excellent way of communicating to potential employers your competence.

“Hiring managers may be part of that online discussion. As you pose questions and comments, they may think, ‘Wow, look at that person,’” said Titus. “Participate and be visible. Social networking sites give you an opportunity to demonstrate how active you are in your thinking.”

Build up contacts

Voivod also suggested that starting a professional or business-related blog is a great activity to begin when you’re looking for a job. Sites such as WordPress, Blogger and the new NHBR Network are among the many that offer free blogging tools.

“It’s all about creating that personal brand. Take the steps to act how you want to be viewed. Create an online presence that supports that,” he said. “Put out information that you are passionate about and want the world to see. This also gives your network the tools to promote you. Hiring managers today are looking to hire the personal brand as well as the person.”

Voivod said it was also important to completely fill out your profiles on professional sites.

“And write your profile with an eye toward the jobs you’re looking for, just like you do your resume,” he added.

And as obvious and simple as it may sound, let your network know that you’re looking and what kinds of positions you’re interested in.

“You may want to build up and refresh your network or contacts,” he said.

But the broad reach social networking sites have across the Internet can be a pitfall if you’re not careful. In other words, be courteous and professional at all times when posting comments.

Titus said to ask yourself what you want people saying behind your back.

“Come up with your list, and make every action supportive of what you want those people to say about you,” said Titus. “Be sure to never criticize, condemn or complain. And don’t sound desperate.”

That advice also goes for blogs and personal pages like Facebook as well as more professional sites.

For those who currently hold positions but are looking for another job, Voivod said to “tread cautiously” when signaling such information on social networking site. In fact, he said, take the conversation off-line.

“Share this information privately, or contact your network by phone or in person,” he recommended.

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The Zen of Raising Start-up Funding

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Doug Neeper

DFN: Interesting point of view, valid points about minimizing your requirements and try to avoid the need for outside sources of funding, outside of your ability to control.

Pharazon’s Blog
Start-up Entrepreneur on Software Engineering, Usability and Start-Up Business

The Zen of Raising Start-Up Funding
2009 November 6 by pharazon
http://pharazon.blog.com/2009/11/06/the-zen-of-raising-start-up-funding/

I started recently to offer Financial Advisory consulting services for other Start-Ups due to my succesful track record in raising funding for my own companies. To leverage my combined experience in Financing and Start-Up business I’m looking for good business ideas to mentor, advise and to invest in. The idea is that if I get personnally convinced of the Start-Up’s potential, I can increase the value of my Business Angel investment 10-fold by pitching in government grants, other business angels and VCs :) .

However, before you should contact me, you should first reconsider at least these two aspects:

1) Is your idea organized as a proper Growth Start-Up?

I recently read the magnificient book by Timmons, Spinelli and Zacharakis: “How to Raise Capital” that I suggest every entrepreneur wishing to join the Start-Up funding game should read first. I will post an article about screening of the growth start-up requirements later, but to mention one, you should never for example say in your pitch that it’s enough for you to get 1% of the world’s market to be profitable. The VC would think that he would rather invest in the market leader who gets 50% of the market. Secondly you shouldn’t bother to invent a better mousetrap (an incremental improvement, where corporations thrive in), but look for distruptive market innovations (as defined by Clayton Christensen) that the large corporations are unable to follow or cope with. Mark Twain once said:

“The best swordsman in the world does not need to fear the second best swordsman in the world, but rather the man ignorant of swords but knowledgeable about gun powder.”

2) Minimizing the need for capital

According to Timmons, Spinelli and Zacharakis, the difference between an entrepreneur and a corporate manager is that the latter one tries to maximize the amount of resources available for him, and yet thereafter to acquire a little extra to cope a downturn, while an entrepreneur seeks the opposite: to minimize the amount of resources required to run the business. From this truism, you can see many fundamental implications to the daily life of a Start-Up and why corporate managers will ruin your business.

From the financing point of view (and my Financial Advisory) the first step is thus not to raise the maximum amount of capital that you can, but the opposite minimize the capital requirements in the first place. Raising the money for a good idea is not the problem – the world has today (even after the financial crisis) an excessive amount of capital floating around and unable to find better yields than you get from the bonds and the interest (2-5%). Thus if you can tell a believable investment story (please contact me for help in converting your business plan to a fundable Investment Story and the “Investor”-language), there is no limit to the capital you can raise. One famous example is the Swedish fashion Start-Up Boo.com that raised 188M USD and burned it all in just 6 months by flying in First Class and living in 5-star hotels.

To launch a succesful Start-Up is like the Zen of Raising Finance – you should raise funding without getting any investments. Here are a few basic tricks that you should consider first.

1. Staging

The reason why the entrepreneurs should first consider substituting their intellect to the capital is that the longer you can manage keeping your business on the growth track without getting external funding the more your personal valuation will grow, or lower dilution. For example personally when I started CMAX.gg I invested the bare minimum capital for shares (0,01 EUR per share), applied two government grants and got the hosting marketplace launched in 3 months (using Agile/Lean Product Development methods; Extreme Programming). After proving that the idea is working, I managed to get the first extrenal investors to invest in at over 30x valuation to the price of my initial investment in just 9 months. Please calculate the ROI for my invested initial capital :) .

The staging of the required investments is important from the entrepreneur’s personal valuation point of view, but also to practice the discipline of limited resources that gets you to think hard about the foundations of your business model. The more you think how you can run the business a few months longer without taking the bank loan, the lower capital cost you have and the higher valuation you can have, given that you progress in lowering the sunken costs, overall costs and the risk. In addition by executing the option to not purchase any resources you gain the flexibility to decommit quickly. You should keep all the time your multi-staged fund raising plan and the alternative options up-to-date for at least the next 3 years.

2. Bootstrapping

Bootstrapping is the process of resource minimization until the end of each stage or decision point (or raising the company up from the boot straps). A succesful entrepreneur Greg Gianforte (McAfee etc) stated:

“a lot of entreprenreurs think they need money,… when actually they haven’t figured out the business equation“.

To avoid the faith of Boo.com, you should check first that you are thinking like an entrepreneur and your team is thinking the same way. If you nevertheless do have a corporate manager (who can be very valuable if used properly, please read Geoffrey Moore: Crossing the Chasm) or other non-entrepreneurs such as an investor on your team or board, follow the advise by Art Spinner: i) Treat your board members as individuals ii) Always be honest to your directors iii) Found an audit & compensation committee iv) Never found an executive committee.

Personally I managed for example to utilize my government subsidied Student Loan to raise the R&D capital for CMAX.gg. Secondly I managed to gain the experience how to run and fail an Extreme Programming R&D -project on a university project, so I got the skill how to avoid the largest tar-pits for free. Also our 5-member coding team used the university premises for the first month until we managed to rent an office from the local business incubator.

At least in Finland you can easily access a wide range of government subsidies for hiring all kinds of consultants. Unfortunately the Start-Up logic is the opposite – you can’t outsource the skill how to run your own business. The art of using consultants is also Zen-like: when you need consultants you should not use them, but do the work yourself. Only thereafter you know the tasks for which you should have needed the consultants for, but often you realize that there is no need for the consultants anymore. If you use the consultant without first being knowledgeable about the topic yourself, you are just wasting your scarce financial resources for no gain, and demonstrating mental laziness from practicing the entrepreneurial bootstrapping.

3. OPRs

The OPR stands for “Other People’s Resouces” meaning all the different ways how you can barter, acquire, consult and loan all kinds of valuable resources for your business. If you bother to deeply analyze and understand the business you are in, this is probably the most significant method, how you can manage to lower your capital requirements footprint the most. The alternative is to pay huge amounts of money to consultants (and ignore their advice) as what the large corporate managers do daily to avoid the mental stress and political risk of taking responsibility. By being knowledgeable about your industry you can easily tune your business model so that you can substantially minimize your capital requirements. The basic MBA -way is to find different ways how you can negotiate longer payment times and shorter invoicing durations. The best alternative is actually to get your customers to pay in advance, for example by having an advance customer account like on the #CMAX.gg marketplace.

Find different ways how you can loan money without interest from your FFFs, clients and suppliers. Try to get advance payments, postponing of government obligations, talk and ask for bids from consultants (for free advise), utilize people at trade associations and the tax office to investigate on your business plan details, and every smartly think all possible ways how you can avoid from using your most scarce resource the cash. The most suprising method to raise capital for your business is to actually to pitch your business case to and ask your customers to pay for you of the product or service you are providing :) . Consider always starting your business as a consultancy to bring in early cash flow, filling out your CRM prospect list, learn the domain industry details in a safe manner, and investing your excess cash flow in product development. If you don’t have any skills that your prospective customers would value, it is unlikely that you can leverage them by developing products either.

4. Lean Operations

Amar Bhide has said:

“a startup is like zero inventory in a just-in-time system: it reveals hidden problems and forces the company to solve them.”

Invest your personal time in learning the Lean principles by your heart. After knowing of the Lean, Kaizen, Kanban and all the related methods, study next the Six Sigma, which is the second sub-school of the TQM and allows you to find even more fundamental ways how to avoid waste and minimize your capital requirements in every operation from sales funnel to product development.

Summary

In another words, instead of first sending your business plan to the venture capital, think about the ways how you tune your business model so that you don’t need any capital in the first place, and the business model is generating large amounts of free cash flow when it grows. If your business is draining capital as it grows, you should not probably be growing.

The 99% of the world can afford mental laziness and avoid thinking very hard how they can manage their daily lives. The entrepreneurs however, do not have this luxury, but require the mindset of trying to always minimize the capital commitments for lower dilution and lower personal risk. The main tools for a succesful entrepreneur are the Staging of investments, Bootstrapping or minimizing the capital footprint, the Other People’s Resources and the Lean operations. Instead of hiring a consultant to do the thinking, you should invest your own brain capacity to do a small excersice in Excel and trying to simplify your business idea in a formula that tells yourself and the investors a success story.

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From Software to Solar

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Doug Neeper

DFN: Lot of people worry about the transferability of skills, not sure what the similarities are between Software and Solar, except they both begin with S. Here’s a case in which the company thought there was suck a thing a transferable skills. In my experience, this receptiveness is symptomatic of a company / culture that is open minded. Who wouldn’t want to work in a company that was open-minded? So, if you’re rejected for an opportunity because you lack industry experience, count your blessings, you been turned down by a company which is most likely ‘close-minded’, would you really want to work in such an environment? So, its kind of like natural selection, they reject you, you wouldn’t to work there, so it works nicely.

Solar power developer Premier Power names Frank Sansone as new CFO
6th November 2009
http://www.newenergyworldnetwork.com/renewable-energy-news/by_technology/solar-by_technology-new-news/solar-power-developer-premier-power-names-frank-sansone-as-new-cfo.html

US-based solar technology developer Premier Power Renewable Energy has appointed Frank Sansone as CFO, replacing Teresa Kelley who is leaving the company to pursue other interests, according to a statement.

Sansone is said to have 15 years of financial management experience in both public and private companies. Most notably, Sansone served as CFO at Guidance Software where he oversaw the company’s worldwide financial planning and analysis, accounting, treasury, investor relations and tax functions. Sansone helped lead the company through a successful initial public offering and organic revenue growth from 2002 to 2008 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44 per cent.

Dean Marks, president and CEO, Premier Power, said, ‘Sansone’s experience in the strategic financial planning and management of a multinational organisation will directly benefit Premier as we continue our growth in the US and Europe.’

Frank Sansone, CFO, Premier Power, added, ‘Premier Power’s focus on profitability and its proven ability to move rapidly into new markets to capture worldwide opportunities truly set the company apart. I look forward to working with the team to take the company to its full potential.’

Founded in 2001, Premier Power Renewable Energy is a global provider of large and small-scale solar power systems, serving the commercial, residential and governmental sectors throughout North America and Europe. The company, based in El Dorado Hills, California, is publically traded on the OTCBB.

Copyright © 2009 NewNet

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Evergreen moves production to China

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Doug Neeper

DFN: What interesting to me, is Evergreen in the last couple of years, spent $M on building a plant in Massachusetts, demand is down, prices are down, yet their building another plant in China? Doesn’t make a lot of sense; perhaps their trying to set themselves up for lower cost of production and higher profit margin, for when the solar market comes back?

Also, the State of Massachusetts, offered to pay $23M (GRANT) to subsidize a new plant, in MA, China offered $33M (LOAN), sure the cost of labor is cheaper in China, I guess this was enough to swing the NPV on the business case proving this in to be positive? I’d be curious about how more positive it was, it be curious if there was in fact a business case.

There’s a lot of talk about leadership, and its decision like this one that speak to the quality of a company’s leadership. To me, it puts me on the fence in regards to Evergreen, and if I were looking at ‘investments’ in this industry, I’d also be evaluating other companies.

Evergreen Solar to Move Solar Panel Production from Massachusetts to China
Ryan McBride 11/5/09
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/11/05/evergreen-solar-to-move-solar-panel-production-from-massachusetts-to-china/

[Updated and corrected---8:30 pm ET on 11/05/09]Marlboro, MA-based Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ:ESLR) said it will move its solar panel production from Massachusetts to China—dealing a blow to the clean technology economy in the commonwealth.

Evergreen plans to begin migrating the manufacturing of solar panels out of its Devens, MA, plant to a facility under construction in Wuhan, China, in mid-2010, the company announced in an earnings statement on Wednesday. A lull in demand for solar cells globally and other factors have caused the price of solar panels like the ones that Evergreen makes to plunge by more than 30 percent since mid-2008, when its Devens production facility opened, the firm said. However, the company said it does plan to continue producing its silicon wafers and cells in Devens. It will also produce the silicon wafers in China beginning next year.

An Evergreen spokesman was not immediately available for comment this afternoon, and it was unclear how relocating panel production would impact its work force in Massachusetts.

Manufacturing in China is intended to reduce overall production costs, and Evergreen said it is receiving a $33 million loan from Chinese government to help cover the expenses of moving into a new plant that the company will lease from a contract manufacturing firm called Jiawei Solar. Evergreen’s move may sting some Massachusetts politicians and taxpayers; the state committed $23 million in grants to the firm, behind considerable support from Gov. Deval Patrick and his administration, to support its manufacturing in Devens. And Ian Bowles, the state’s secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said in a statement about two years ago when construction of the Devens plant began that “we are breaking ground not only on a factory, but on the commonwealth’s clean energy future.”

Evergreen said it will manufacture its “String Ribbon” wafers at the facility it is building and will own in China, and that the wafers will then be sent to the the plant that its partner Jiawei Solar is building to convert the wafers into solar cells, which are used to make solar panels. The worldwide solar panel market has taken a beating over the past year or so due to reduced government spending or subsidies for the products in Spain and Germany, both of which are big solar panel users, as well as lower-than-projected demand in other countries such as the U.S., according to a recent report by Lux Research, which has an office in Boston. [Editor's note: the above paragraph was corrected to say that Evergreen, not its Chinese manufacturing partner, will build and own the facility where its silicon wafers will be produced in China. There are also added details from the company about the overall production process.]

Ryan McBride is Xconomy’s correspondent. You can reach him at rmcbride, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Ryan_McBride.

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