It’s the time of year where gifts are given and received, and the Stepcase Lifehack team wants to be one of those doing the giving. Well, starting on Thursday December 8th at 1 pm Eastern Time, we’ll be offering the first giveaway in our holiday promotion, Stepcase Lifehack’s 12 Days of Giveaways! This is our way of…

If you work in a large organization and are ambitious for career progression then here are a number of things that you can do to assist your journey. 1.  Do your job well. I know that this is stating the obvious but it is the starting point.   For promotion it is a necessary but not a…

Most people don’t take the time to discover their own personal brand. I believe the reason for this is because of the very many influences we have on our lives, from our parents, to our teachers to our managers and even our friends.  I have many friends who are instructed to become lawyers…

Social media is becoming completely integrated in our lives.  It has altered the way we communicate as human beings and changed the way we do business.  It has flattened corporate hierarchies and tightened our relationships.  Of course, traditional ways of networking and messaging still hold true, such as text messaging, email, phone calls and…

People you know or have never met yet are googl’ing you. Let’s face it, you’re even google’ing yourself! At the end of 2007, the Pew Internet Research Team found that 47% of people search for information about themselves online (Self-Googling), which was more than double 5 years ago. It’s a…

Twitter is clearly the Next Big Thing. In the past couple of months, we’ve seen CNN adopting it as a way of giving living feedback during their shows, celebrities from Britney Spears to Demi Moore opening accounts, and hundreds of thousands of new users join the ranks of Tweeters. Businesses are getting into the Twitter game…

Personal branding has been very hyped up lately, and for good reason. Many people who feel marginalized by the idea of branding themselves now understand that it is inescapable. We all exist as brands, whether we like it or not. That means you Mr. Postman and you Mr. Lawyer! The first…

Why should I listen to you? I have successfully pitched to local and national media outlets, ranging from the Albany Times Union, where I blog, to The Christian Science Monitor, MSNBC.com, E! Online, Newsweek, The LA Times, and others. Working as a blogger and journalist for the past eight years provided me with insight on how…

Ever wonder where journalists and other writers find the experts they quote in their stories? In the past, reporters counted on their own networking, and on a service called ProfNet. ProfNet lets journalists search their database of experts and contact them individually to see if they’d be interested in being interviewed. Until recently, ProfNet has…

In my last post, I talked about how to get the most out of social media sites and services like Digg, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Entirely coincidentally, Thursday Bram write a post about marketing yourself shortly after. Unfortunately, any medium that makes itself so easy to use to promote yourself as today’s social media…

You have a product or service to promote. You’ve heard great things about “conversational marketing”, “viral marketing”, and the like. On the surface, it seems easy: identify a few big bloggers, schmooze with them a little, and wait for the flood of sales as your chosen bloggers start talking up your product. It’s a good…

A couple months ago, I wrote a newbie’s guide to blogging to help you get started with blogging. If you’ve been blogging for a little while now, you might be looking at how you can take the next step. To that end, this post offers 10 ways to “pimp” your blog, both in the…

These days, everyone has too much on their minds. Gone are the days when woke up, went to the factory, put in your time, came home, and sat down with a selection from the three TV shows on that night. Gone, too, are the days when a long-distance call from grandma in Wisconsin was an…

It’s no secret: to get ahead, you have to promote yourself. But for most people, the thought of promoting themselves is slightly shady. Images of glad-handing insurance salesmen or arrogant know-it-alls run through our heads. The reality is that we all rely on some degree of self-promotion. Whether you want to start your own business…

When you’re not good at telling people how good you are it can be hard to get the recognition you want. People aren’t going to assume you’re the best at something; you’ll have to let them know. And we’re not talking about bragging. If you’re a freelancer you may already be knowledgeable in the fine art…