What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day

How much does the first hour of every day matter? As it turns out, a lot. It can be the hour you see everything clearly, get one real thing done, and focus on the human side of work rather than your task list.

Remember when you used to have a period at the beginning of every day to think about your schedule, catch up with friends, maybe knock out a few tasks? It was called home room, and it went away after high school. But many successful people schedule themselves a kind of grown-up home room every day. You should too.

The first hour of the workday goes a bit differently for Craig Newmark of Craigslist, David Karp of Tumblr, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, career writer (and Fast Company blogger) Brian Tracy, and others, and they’ll tell you it makes a big difference. Here are the first items on their daily to-do list.

Don’t Check Your Email for the First Hour. Seriously. Stop That.

Tumblr founder David Karp will “try hard” not to check his email until 9:30 or 10 a.m., according to an Inc. profile of him. “Reading e-mails at home never feels good or productive,” Karp said. “If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me.”

Not all of us can roll into the office whenever our Vespa happens to get us there, but most of us with jobs that don’t require constant on-call awareness can trade e-mail for organization and single-focus work. It’s an idea that serves as the title of Julie Morgenstern’s work management book Never Check Email In The Morning, and it’s a fine strategy for leaving the office with the feeling that, even on the most over-booked days, you got at least one real thing done.

If you need to make sure the most important messages from select people come through instantly, AwayFind can monitor your inbox and get your attention when something notable arrives. Otherwise, it’s a gradual but rewarding process of training interruptors and coworkers not to expect instantaneous morning response to anything they send in your off-hours.

Gain Awareness, Be Grateful

One smart, simple question on curated Q & A site Quora asked “How do the most successful people start their day?”. The most popular response came from a devotee of Tony Robbins, the self-help guru who pitched the power of mindful first-hour rituals long before we all had little computers next to our beds.

Robbins suggests setting up an “Hour of Power,” “30 Minutes to Thrive,” or at least “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment.” Part of it involves light exercise, part of it involves motivational incantations, but the most accessible piece involves 10 minutes of thinking of everything you’re grateful for: in yourself, among your family and friends, in your career, and the like. After that, visualize “everything you want in your life as if you had it today.”

Robbins offers the “Hour of Power” segment of his Ultimate Edge series as a free audio stream (here’s the direct MP3 download). Blogger Mike McGrath also wrote a concise summary of the Hour of Power). You can be sure that at least some of the more driven people you’ve met in your career are working on Robbins’ plan.

Do the Big, Shoulder-Sagging Stuff First

Brian Tracy’s classic time-management book Eat That Frog gets its title from a Mark Twain saying that, if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you’ve got it behind you for the rest of the day, and nothing else looks so bad. Gina Trapani explained it well in a video for her Work Smart series). Combine that with the concept of getting one thing done before you wade into email, and you’ve got a day-to-day system in place. Here’s how to force yourself to stick to it:

Choose Your Frog

"Choose your frog, and write it down on a piece of paper that you'll see when you arrive back at your desk in the morning, Tripani advises."If you can, gather together the material you'll need to get it done and have that out, too."

One benefit to tackling that terrible, weighty thing you don’t want to do first thing in the morning is that you get some space from the other people involved in that thing--the people who often make the thing more complicated and frustrating. Without their literal or figurative eyes over your shoulder, the terrible thing often feels less complex, and you can get more done.

Ask Yourself If You’re Doing What You Want to Do

Feeling unfulfilled at work shouldn’t be something you realize months too late, or even years. Consider making an earnest attempt every morning at what the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a graduating class at Stanford to do:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Customer Service” (or Your Own Equivalent)

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark answered the first hour question succinctly: “Customer service.” He went on to explain (or expand) that he also worked on current projects, services for military families and veterans, and protecting voting rights. But customer service is what Newmark does every single day at Craigslist, responding to user complaints and smiting scammers and spammers. He almost certainly has bigger fish he could pitch in on every day, but Newmark says customers service “anchors me to reality.”

Your own version of customer service might be keeping in touch with contacts from year-ago projects, checking in with coworkers you don’t regularly interact with, asking questions of mentors, and just generally handling the human side of work that quickly gets lost between task list items. But do your customer service on the regular, and you’ll have a more reliable roster of helpers when the time comes.

 

Author: Kevin Purdy

Hon’ble Apex Court -Interim Order –Basic Wage _EPF Act

Dear Friends,
We take special pride in sending our Independence Day Greetings to our Linked In connections.

Legal Update:
In this update we are referring to the Hon’ble Apex Court Interim Order relating to Basic Wage _EPF Act - special allowance, dearness allowance, conveyance allowance and other allowances.
By *Interim Order dated 13-7-2012 in the matter of SURYA ROSHNI LTD Vs EPF where the matter in issue before the Hon'ble Supreme Court was whether certain allowances like conveyance allowance, transportation allowance and special allowance when uniformly paid to all employees should be treated as part of Basic wages under the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (‘EPF Act’) and whether provident fund (‘PF’) contributions should be remitted on such allowances, the Apex Court granted partial stay of the demanded amount and directed deposit of 60 % of the demanded amount subject to credits of amounts already deposited. Further the Hon'ble Apex Court stayed the order of the High Court on compliance of the condition.*
The question whether the decision of the MP High Court holding that Section 2(b) and 6 of the Employees’ Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act define basic wages and HRA, overtime allowance, bonus, commission or any other similar allowance are not covered in the definition of basic wages but when special allowance, dearness allowance, conveyance allowance and other allowances are paid universally to all the employees, they would be treated as part and parcel of basic wages by grant of Stay * is now a Substantial Question of Law of General Importance before the Apex Court under Article 133 of the Constitution of India .

Till date the Department has not issued any Circular based on this Interim Order or any further orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court which presumably leads to the inference that the Department probably wants this Substantial Question of Law of EPF Law Compliance Importance to be decided by the Hon’ble Apex Court.

Our inference is purely personal and subject to any clarification or circular by the EPF Authority.

(Refer to Interim Order & its terms as contained therein)
With Regards
V.Sounder Rajan
Advocate -Labour & HR & Consumer Law Consultant -Chennai
Legal Consultant for Indian Staffing & Recruiting Industry

Courtesy & thanks to  V.Sounder Rajan, Advocate -Labour & HR & Consumer Law Consultant -Chennai, Legal Consultant for Indian Staffing & Recruiting Industry 

Highlights of SBI’s Recurring Deposit Scheme

A Long Put vs. Vertical Put Spread

This article will focus on comparing a long put versus a vertical put spread.

In a recent Options class at our Minnesota center, we looked at the general market and noticed that it was approaching previous supply zones.  Based on past price action performance, we forecasted that there was a high probability that the markets might fail to break to the upside and consequently roll over.  So next we looked at the (I.V.) implied volatility of IWM, the exchange traded fund that tracks the Russell 2000. After checking out the current I.V. reading against its 52 week historical volatility high and low, the conclusion was made that the majority of the Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that are tracking the general US market low I.V.

Low I.V. means that we should be a buyer of options. The fact was that I.V. was not necessarily at its lowest reading but just inside its lowest range, which means that we could do either a simple option strategy such as a long put or a more complex strategy such as a vertical put spread.

PART I: A Long Put

Before we explain how the more complicated vertical put spread works, we will go slowly over the long put. Figure 2 below breaks down a put option into pieces.

At the time, the IWM was trading at $79.94 per share, with resistance right above that.

The selected long put will expire in November after the election on the 3^rd Friday. The logic for going that far out is that time decay is not as rapid on a longer term option as it is when a front month option is bought. The strike selection 81 means that the option contract at the time of purchase had a whole dollar of intrinsic value, while the 3.50 extra was the price for the time value. Those three and half points of fluff, extrinsic value, will be gone at expiration if the stock stays where it is. However, that is not the reason why we bought the option. The put option was purchased because we forecasted that IWM will roll over much sooner than expiration. Nonetheless, a long option, in this case a put, is a decaying asset and the mere passage of time works against us. If the IWM does not roll over, then every single passing day during the upcoming months, our option premium will lose its value. One thing is certain when trading options – time value will eventually go out of them. To overcome this disadvantage, we need to turn the tables around: hence, a vertical put spread is the correct choice.

PART II: A Vertical Put Spread (Debit Spread)

This strategy is also known as a Bear Put and involves the simultaneous buying and selling of puts at the different strike levels. In our case, the stock was sitting near its supply zone, which was coincidentally a round number. Our technical analysis told us that there was resistance above this. We chose to buy the 81 put and the next logical thing is to forecast how far down the IWM might go. There is virtually no chance that the Russell 2000 ETF would go down to zero, so realistically speaking we located the first level of demand around 76. Hence the idea was to sell the 76 put strike price because most likely the price will not puncture through 76 at the first try. Hence, the vertical put spread was built in the following way.

The first step, buying the 81 put is the same as the trade discussed above.  But now there is a second step: selling the 77 put. When the math is done the cost of the trade is only a 2.00 debit to us, which is much better than what the cost of just the long put was. Also notice that the Break Even Point is now much easier to be reach. By selling the OTM option, the trader has received a discount in the amount of the premium sold, 2.50.

Let us sum up by comparing the two breakeven points. The long put’s BEP is 76.50 while in the case of the spread trade, the BEP is 79, which is much easier to reach.  Time decay still works against us in a spread but it is somewhat minimized.  Spread trading is the way to go. Have a green trading.

Taken from: Online Training Academy.

Marketing Is Dead

Traditional marketing — including advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications — is dead. Many people in traditional marketing roles and organizations may not realize they're operating within a dead paradigm. But they are. The evidence is clear.

First, buyers are no longer paying much attention. Several studies have confirmed that in the "buyer's decision journey," traditional marketing communications just aren't relevant. Buyers are checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, and often from sources outside the firm such as word-of-mouth or customer reviews.

Second, CEOs have lost all patience. In a devastating 2011 study of 600 CEOs and decision makers by the London-based Fournaise Marketing Group, 73% of them said that CMOs lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient business growth, 72% are tired of being asked for money without explaining how it will generate increased business, and 77% have had it with all the talk about brand equity that can't be linked to actual firm equity or any other recognized financial metric.
Third, in today's increasingly social media-infused environment, traditional marketing and sales not only doesn't work so well, it doesn't make sense. Think about it: an organization hires people — employees, agencies, consultants, partners — who don't come from the buyer's world and whose interests aren't necessarily aligned with his, and expects them to persuade the buyer to spend his hard-earned money on something. Huh? When you try to extend traditional marketing logic into the world of social media, it simply doesn't work. Just ask Facebook, which finds itself mired in an ongoing debate about whether marketing on Facebook is effective.

In fact, this last is a bit of a red herring, because traditional marketing isn't really working anywhere.

There's a lot of speculation about what will replace this broken model — a sense that we're only getting a few glimpses of the future of marketing on the margins. Actually, we already know in great detail what the new model of marketing will look like. It's already in place in a number of organizations. Here are its critical pieces:

Restore community marketing. Used properly, social media is accelerating a trend in which buyers can increasingly approximate the experience of buying in their local, physical communities. For instance, when you contemplate a major purchase, such as a new roof, a flat screen TV, or a good surgeon, you're not likely to go looking for a salesperson to talk to, or to read through a bunch of corporate website content. Instead, you'll probably ask neighbors or friends — your peer network — what or whom they're using.

Companies should position their social media efforts to replicate as much as possible this community-oriented buying experience. In turn, social media firms, such as Facebook, should become expert at enabling this. They can do this by expanding the buyer's network of peers who can provide trustworthy information and advice based on their own experience with the product or service.

For example, a new firm, Zuberance, makes it easy and enjoyable for a firm's loyal customers to advocate for the firm on their social media platform of choice. At the moment one of these customers identifies himself as a "promoter" on a survey, they immediately see a form inviting them to write a review or recommendation on any of several social media sites. Once they do, the Zuberance platform populates it to the designated sites, and the promoter's network instantly knows about his experience with the firm.
Find your customer influencers. Many firms spend lots of resources pursuing outside influencers who've gained following on the Web and through social media. A better approach is to find and cultivate customer influencers and give them something great to talk about. This requires a new concept of customer value that goes way beyond customer lifetime value (CLV), which is based only on purchases. There are many other measures of a customer's potential value, beyond the money they pay you. For example, how large and strategic to your firm is the customer's network? How respected is she?
One of Microsoft's "MVP" (Most Valuable Professional) customers is known as Mr. Excel to his followers. On some days, his website gets more visits than Microsoft's Excel page — representing an audience of obvious importance to Microsoft, which supports Mr. Excel's efforts with "insider knowledge" and previews of new releases. In return, Mr. Excel and other MVPs like him are helping Microsoft penetrate new markets affordably.
Help them build social capital. Practitioners of this new, community-oriented marketing are also rethinking their customer value proposition for such MVP (or "Customer Champion" or "Rockstar") customer advocates and influencers. Traditional marketing often tries to encourage customer advocacy with cash rewards, discounts or other untoward inducements. The new marketing helps its advocates and influencers create social capital: it helps them build their affiliation networks, increase their reputation and gives them access to new knowledge — all of which your customer influencers crave.
National Instruments used an especially creative approach with its customer influencers, who were mid-level IT managers at the companies they did business with. NI engaged with them by providing powerful research and financial proof points they could take to senior management, showing that NI solutions were creating strategic benefits. That got NI into the C-suite. It also increased the reputation of the mid-level advocates, who were seen as strategic thinkers bringing new ideas to senior management.
Get your customer advocates involved in the solution you provide. Perhaps the most spectacular example of this comes from the non-profit world. Some years ago, with the number of teen smokers nation-wide rising to alarming levels, the State of Florida thought anew about its decades-long effort to reduce the problem. What could be more difficult than convincing teen smokers to quit — a problem that Malcolm Gladwell had said couldn't be solved. Using the techniques for building a community of peer influence, Florida solved it. They sought influential teen "customers" such as student leaders, athletes, and "cool kids," who weren't smoking or who wanted to quit — and instead of pushing a message at them, they asked for the students' help and input.
Approached in this new way, some 600 teens attended a summit on teen smoking, where they told officials why anti-smoking efforts in the past hadn't worked — dire warnings about the health consequences of smoking, or describing the habit as "being gross," left them unimpressed. On the spot, the teens brainstormed a new approach: they were outraged by documents showing that tobacco company executives were specifically targeting teens to replace older customers who'd died (often from lung cancer). And so the teens formed a group called SWAT (Students Working Against Tobacco) who organized train tours and workshops, sold T-shirts and other appealing activities to take their message into local communities. The result: despite a vicious counterattack by Big Tobacco lobbying firms, teen smoking in Florida dropped by nearly half between 1998 and 2007 — by far the biggest success in anti-teen-smoking in history.
Put another way, Florida won half of the "non-buyers" of its anti-teen-smoking "product" away from its much bigger, much better funded competitor. They did so by tapping the best source of buyer motivation: peer influence.

So can you. Traditional marketing may be dead, but the new possibilities of peer influence-based, community-oriented marketing, hold much greater promise for creating sustained growth through authentic customer relationships.

By: Bill Lee, Bill Lee is president of the Lee Consulting Group. Featured on HBR.

10 Job Interview Tips From A CEO Head-hunter

Whether you're being interviewed to be an intern or a CEO, you're going to run into a few notoriously tricky questions--here's a road map of what you'll be asked, and how to craft impressive answers to even the toughest questions.

No two situations are ever exactly the same, but as a general guide, these are the types of questions that could come up in a typical interview.

1. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?

This question, often the interview opener, has a crucial objective: to see how you handle yourself in unstructured situations. The recruiter wants to see how articulate you are, how confident you are, and generally what type of impression you would make on the people with whom you come into contact on the job. The recruiter also wants to learn about the trajectory of your career and to get a sense of what you think is important and what has caused you to perform well.

Most candidates find this question a difficult one to answer. However, the upside is that this question offers an opportunity to describe yourself positively and focus the interview on your strengths. Be prepared to deal with it.

There are many ways to respond to this question correctly and just one wrong way: by asking, “What do you want to know?” You need to develop a good answer to this question, practice it, and be able to deliver it with poise and confidence.

The right response is twofold: focus on what interests the interviewer, and highlight your most important accomplishments.

Focus on what interests the interviewer

Do not dwell on your personal history--that is not why you are there. Start with your most recent employment and explain why you are well qualified for the position. The key to all successful interviewing is to match your qualifications to what the interviewer is looking for. You want to be selling what the buyer is buying.

Highlight Important Accomplishments

Have a story ready that illustrates your best professional qualities. For example, if you tell an interviewer that people describe you as creative, provide a brief story that shows how you have been creative in achieving your goals.

Stories are powerful and are what people remember most.

A good interviewee will memorize a 60-second commercial that clearly demonstrates why he or she is the best person for the job.

2. How long have you been with your current (or former) employer?

This is a hot-button question if your résumé reflects considerable job-hopping. Excellent performers tend to stay in their jobs at least three to five years. They implement course corrections, bring in new resources, and, in general, learn how to survive--that’s why they are valued by prospective employers.

If your résumé reflects jobs with companies that were acquired, moved, closed, or downsized, it is still viewed as a job-hopper’s history. Volunteer and go to events where hiring authorities may be found. Ratchet up your networking to include anything that exposes you to hiring authorities who can get past your tenure issue because now they know you. Your networking efforts have never been so important.

3. What is your greatest weakness?

An impressive and confident response shows that the candidate has prepared for the question, has done serious self-reflection, and can admit responsibility and accept constructive criticism. Sincerely give an honest answer (but not a long one), be confident in the fact that this weakness does not make you any less of a great candidate, and show that you are working on this weakness and tell the recruiter how.

4. Tell me about a situation where you did not get along with a superior.

The wrong answer to this hot-button question is, “I’ve been very fortunate and have never worked for someone I didn’t get along with.”

Everyone has had situations where he or she disagreed with a boss, and saying that you haven’t forces the recruiter to question your integrity. Also, it can send out a signal that the candidate is not seasoned enough or hasn’t been in situations that require him or her to develop a tough skin or deal with confrontation.

It’s natural for people to have differing opinions. When this has occurred in the past, you could explain that you presented your reasons and openly listened to other opinions as well.

5. Describe a situation where you were part of a failed project.

If you can’t discuss a failure or mistake, the recruiter might conclude that you don’t possess the depth of experience necessary to do the job. The recruiter is not looking for perfection. He or she is trying better to understand your level of responsibility, your decision-making process, and your ability to recover from a mistake, as well as what you learned from the experience and if you can take responsibility for your mistakes.

Respond that you’d like to think that you have learned something valuable from every mistake you have made. Then have a brief story ready with a specific illustration.

It should conclude on a positive note, with a concrete statement about what you learned and how it benefited the company.

6. What are your strengths?

Describe two or three skills you have that are relevant to the job. Avoid clichés or generalities; offer specific evidence. Describe new ways these skills could be put to use in the position you are being considered for.

7. How do you explain your job success?

Be candid without sounding arrogant. Mention observations other people have made about your work strengths or talents.

8. What do you do when you are not working?

The more senior the position, the more important it is to know about the candidate’s qualities that will impact his or her leadership style: is the person well adjusted and happy, or is he or she a company zealot?

Discuss hobbies or pursuits that interest you, such as sports, clubs, cultural activities, and favorite things to read.

Avoid dwelling on any political or religious activities that may create conflict with those of the interviewer.

9. Why did you leave your last position?

At high levels, issues that relate to personality and temperament become more important than they might otherwise. The recruiter wants to know if you will fit in with the client company. The recruiter may also be fishing for signs of conflict that indicate a potential personality problem.

Be honest and straightforward, but do not dwell on any conflict that may have occurred. Highlight positive developments that resulted from your departure, whether it was that you accepted a more challenging position or learned an important lesson that helped you to be happier in your next job.

10. Why do you want to work in this industry?

Think of a story to tell about how you first became interested in this type of work. Point out any similarities between the job you’re interviewing for and your current job. Provide proof that you aren’t simply shopping in this interview. Make your passion for your work a theme that you allude to continually throughout the interview.

Adapted from Heads: Business Lessons from an Executive Search Pioneer by Russell S. Reynolds, Jr., with Carol E. Curtis, ©2012, McGraw-Hill Professional

10 Tips for Improving Your Wildlife Photography

10 Tips for Improving Your Wildlife Photography:

A Guest Post by Wildlife Photographer – Morkel Erasmus

Ever since digital SLR technology has become more readily available, more and more people have become photography enthusiasts, and more and more photography enthusiasts have started venturing into a genre previously reserved for only a select few…Wildlife Photography. It seems that this field, in conjunction with Landscape Photography, has really seen a huge growth spurt in these last few years…at least as it pertains to the amount of people practicing them as serious hobbyists or budding professionals. This is especially true in my native country of South Africa, where it’s long been many a family’s tradition to visit legendary self-drive safari locations such as the Kruger National Park. Having neighbouring countries like Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe also doesn’t affect this trend negatively!

Yet, spend some time on your favourite online photography forum (at least those that allow the posting of photos) or on other sites like Facebook, Google+ or Flickr where photo-sharing is common…and you might notice that not every photo taken of a wild animal really speaks to you. I’m not sure whether many folks just snap away and hope the image comes out half-decent, or whether many just think that they’re doing their subjects justice when the truth cannot be further from it. Let me say outright that no offence is intended and I also take photos that fall into these categories – in fact I do it on every photographic trip that I undertake. Yet, it’s stepping beyond that and getting that rare image that ticks all the right boxes that we all need to strive for, and to be prepared when the opportunity comes along to capture it.

In today’s article, I will attempt to provide you with some easy-to-apply tips or advice for improving your Wildlife Photography. Some of them might seem like common sense, and you’ve probably read a similar list of “how-to’s” elsewhere, but remember that common sense is not so common at all these days and that everyone has their own take on things, however similar they may be. I do think I will cover a few points that are not just based on pure technical skill – photography is after all an art-form, and sometimes we need to be freed up to put down the vision we have in our mind’s eye rather than stick to conventions and norms.

Here is a quick overview of the points I will cover in this post:

1. Know your gear
   
2. Know your subject
3. Know the “rules” | Break the “rules”
4. Work the light
5. Shoot wider | Shoot Closer
6. The More, the Merrier
7. How low can you go???
8. The Content-Technicals Dichotomy
9. Patience isn’t a virtue…it’s a necessity
10. BE THERE & ENJOY IT!

These are the points I try to cover when leading a photographic safari or presenting a workshop as well. Take note that I include the genre of Bird Photography in my definition of Wildlife Photography.

Let’s get cracking, shall we?

1. KNOW YOUR GEAR

This sounds like the biggest cliche?…but you know it’s true. The really great action-packed moments in wildlife photography last on average (based on my experience) between 5 and 20 seconds. If you are not intrinsically familiar with the settings of your camera or the abilities of your chosen lens, you WILL either miss it or blow the images you do manage to capture.

• Know what the minimum shutter speed is at which you can obtain a sharp image with your camera/lens combo;
• Know the added margins that the in-camera or in-lens stabilisation gives you;
• Know how to quickly toggle between focus points or focus modes;
• Know how high you can push your camera’s ISO setting and still achieve acceptable results…

In general, I like to say you need to be able to make most, if not all, of the necessary adjustments to your exposure/focus settings without lifting your eye from the viewfinder. The action you see between the cheetahs in the following image lasted all of 10 seconds, even though we sat with them for more than an hour.

2. KNOW YOUR SUBJECT

Goes without saying, right? Since much of wildlife photography is based upon capturing fleeting moments of natural history (read: interesting poses or behaviour), it pays to be able to somewhat predict your subject’s behaviour beforehand. Given, not every species is as predictable as the next, but there are patterns of behaviour ingrained into every animal species. Knowing your subject can make the difference between being ready and prepared for capturing that “golden moment” and watching it fly by you in agony. There is only one way to get to know wildlife…spend time with them. Don’t just hang around for a few minutes and seek out the next subject if the one you are observing or photographing isn’t delivering the goods. Sit with them. Watch them. Wait. This also ties into patience, which I will discuss in more detail later. The image below was captured by knowing what the Lilac-Breasted Roller was going to do to its grasshopper-lunch, and being ready for it.

3. KNOW THE “RULES” | BREAK THE “RULES”

There are certain unwritten rules that form the foundation of good photography – regardless of genre. And of course then there are certain “rules” that find their application mostly in the genre of Wildlife Photography. Understanding proper exposure and the use of the histogram, for example…and proper composition using a guideline like the “rule of thirds” are all important aspects to ingrain in your subconscious and to incorporate in your ability to instantly capture that fleeting moment properly.

In this genre, much is made about eye contact with the subject, as this gives “life” to the image. In the case of Avian Photography (Birds), this gets taken a step further in the sense that the “head angle” in relation to the camera’s imaging sensor needs to be at least perpendicular to it, but ideally turned a few degrees towards the sensor (and obviously thus turned towards the viewer who ultimately gets to view the image captured by the sensor).

The image below, for example, follows strong “rule-of-thirds” compositional guidelines.

Once you know the “rules” and the guidelines, and once you know when and how to apply them, it’s time to start breaking out from them. Test the boundaries a bit, you know? You don’t want your photos to always look like stock-standard images that every second photographer is getting. Take a look at the image below. I mentioned the “need” for eye contact. Yet sometimes it can work to shoot an image in which the subject is not giving the photographer eye contact, as this often means the animal is busy with something else, too busy to turn its attention to you.

4. WORK THE LIGHT

The first piece of advice I got from a professional wildlife photographer when I started shooting, is to stick to the hours of golden light. This means getting up early in the morning and being in the field before sunrise, and going out in the afternoon to make the most of the last hours of sunlight. The light over midday (mostly between 11h00 and 16h00, at least where I live) is generally harsh and robs images of that spunk that it needs. The exception is an overcast day, when the clouds act like a massive soft-box to filter out the light evenly. On days like that I shoot all day as long as there are willing subjects!

Since photography is all about painting with light, you need to know how to use the light to your best advantage in wildlife photography as well. Often we will find ourselves in a position where the light isn’t ideal, or, heaven forbid, the light is sweet but from the wrong direction…and we also aren’t always in a position to move around to a better spot. The good news is that light from the wrong direction can add lots of mood to an image. Shooting into the light is tricky to pull off, but if you adhere to tip #1 (Know your Gear) you can get some pretty interesting images from a less-than-ideal light position. The image below is one such a photo.

5. SHOOT WIDER | SHOOT CLOSER

Too many wildlife photographers get fixated on what I call the “focal-length debacle”, where it becomes an obsession to have the longest/biggest lens possible. Now I know this is location-dependant as you might need more than 600mm just to get any shot at all in certain wide-open spaces, but the issue I want to tackle is more related to our obsession to get as close as possible to the animals and isolate them totally from their environment. The result is often an image that looks like it could be taken of a captive subject in a controlled location, with a perfect smooth background and no idea of the real environment in which it finds itself.

Challenge yourself to shoot at a wider angle to give the viewer a better idea of where you took the image and where your subject has to carve out a living in the wild. This is applicable to any species you photograph – from the squirrel to the deer to the elephant. The elephant below was photographed with a wide-angle lens and a polarising filter to give you a sense of the environment as well as to make the most of the clouds and sky.

The flip side to shooting wider is – you guessed it – shooting closer…and I mean REALLY CLOSER. Get in-your-face close (by moving your position or by changing effective focal length by using a longer lens with optional teleconverter) to create different and interesting studies of the animals/birds you photograph. This will also help you think in terms of more abstract compositional arrangements. Have a look at this photo of a Cape Buffalo for example.

6. THE MORE, THE MERRIER

No real intricate explanation needed on this one. In wildlife photography – one is company, and two is often a crowd, especially when there’s food or shelter involved. If you have a good view of more than one member of a species – stay a while! Look at the images below. First up – a solitary African Spoonbill, minding its own business on a perch, happy as can be. Throw another Spoonbill into the mix, and you have a recipe for good interaction.

7. HOW LOW CAN YOU GO???

This is not a trick question, nor is it a call to be “Jack-be-nimble-Jack-be-quick” and do the limbo. The point-of-view of a wildlife photograph is just about everything. How you portray your subject can make all the difference in the world. In short – try to get an eye-level perspective (even lower if you can). This brings the viewer of your image right into the scene and confronts them with the view of the world from your subject’s perspective. Obviously “eye level” is relative (you will pretty much always be at a lower perspective than for example a giraffe), but you get the idea. Always bear in mind the constraints of your environment. In most reserves in South Africa you are not allowed to get out of your vehicle in the field. This restricts you to a certain perspective.

Look at these images for illustration. The first African Painted Dog was photographed from an open game viewer. The result is a somewhat bland shot – nothing special in my eyes. The second one, however, was taken lying flat on my stomach in a sandy riverbed not 20 meters from the pack of canines, and the Alpha Male was checking me out…this perspective makes the image come alive.

8. THE CONTENT-TECHNICALS DICHOTOMY

This is an interesting one. Does great content trump a technically great image with average content every time? It may be different where you live, but I am relating this one particularly to the African safari experience. Every tourist wants to see the “Big 5” or at least a lion. If you’ve ever spent time around wild lions in the daytime, you will know they are actually shoddy models for photography. They sleep up to 20 hours per day. Conversely I have had great photo opportunities from Impala, who are the most common ungulate you come across down here in the bush. My advice to the discerning photographer would be to look for great opportunities regardless of species when the light is good!

Have a look at the contrast between these 2 images – an impala jumping gracefully, and a “standard” portrait of a male lion, both in good light. Which do you prefer?

Let’s use a second example, lest it look like I am becoming blase? about the subjects I am fortunate to be able to photograph in our wonderful part of the world…squirrels. Everyone photographs squirrels, right? The one on top – munching something, nice soft light, nice low angle…while at the bottom a mommy is carrying her youngster at a precarious height over a large branch at speed by biting down on his stomach flap with him grasping for dear life. The light in the canopy of the tree wasn’t the best – but clearly a case of content trumping a technically good image.

The jury is still out on this one. The awesome sightings like lions won’t always provide the awesome images. Learn to see the potential in the mundane to create amazing photographic moments, and go out and make good images. The obvious ideal is for an image with great content in great light shot with just the right settings – the Utopia shot that most of us will never get right.

9. PATIENCE ISN’T A VIRTUE…IT’S A NECESSITY

As a wildlife photographer, your images are predicated on the fact that things in nature are unpredictable. Anything can happen at any time…but most things happen only rarely, or at the very least, they rarely coincide with the exact time that you are in that specific spot. It is therefore imperative that you become patient…very patient. Now, I catch myself out frequently enough being very impatient out in the field. It’s something you constantly have to graft at. Essentially it’s almost a culmination of many of the things we’ve discussed so far. Observing your subjects, getting to know their behavioural patterns, requires a great deal of patience. Often the implications are that you need to return to the same spot for days before things start to happen…and even then you run the risk of nothing happening and having wasted your time. The image below was captured after staking out the tree with the impala kill for more than 5 hours. I had also driven past this tree many times earlier that day to see if there was any action. I knew the leopard would return…but I had no guarantee that it would return before nightfall.

10. BE THERE & ENJOY IT

I will conclude this lengthy article with the following advice (I do hope you haven’t been bored to tears reading this!)…”be there” and enjoy it!!

By this I don’t just mean you need to physically show up and you need to be at the right place at the right time – of course that applies – but I actually mean you need to be in the moment and don’t get caught up so much with the technical issues and your settings that you don’t take in the moments you are witnessing while out photographing birds and wildlife. We need to be mindful of the privilege of spending time in nature and being in places where the hand of man hasn’t quite exerted its full force yet. Maybe for you it’s just the most isolated spot in your local park where you can sit and observe and photograph squirrels and birds, or maybe it’s facing a wild kodiak bear on the Alaskan floodplains. Regardles, enjoy what you are doing! Have fun doing it! What does it help us to spend so much time on this amazing hobby-cum-artform if we are not enjoying the time spent?

I hope these tips will stand you in good stead out there in the field. They have for me. Good light and good sightings to you all!

About the Author: Morkel Erasmus

After having been an avid naturalist from a very young age, picking up a camera for the first time early in 2009 proved to be a pivotal moment in the life of Morkel Erasmus. Since then has been infused with an unbridled passion for capturing forever fleeting moments of natural history and sharing it with people to showcase the wonderful natural heritage of his native Southern Africa, and to create awareness to conserve this heritage for future generations.

“I absolutely love being in the wild and unspoiled places of this world,” says Morkel, “and living in South Africa means there are plenty of those to choose from.” An Industrial Engineer by profession and an accomplished artist across many genres, from music to poetry, Morkel has always enjoyed whatever allows him to express his creativity to the fullest. Photography turned out to be the perfect ‘marriage’ between his engineering brain and artistic soul. Showing off God’s glorious creation is something he enjoys immensely. He is also a Nikon South Africa ambassador.

Besides being widely published, Morkel has been honoured for his commitment to his craft with various awards in the short span of his photographic career, the most notable being receiving a “Highly Commended” for one of his images in the 2010 BBC Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Morkel is a devoted husband and a proud father of a beautiful daughter and soon-to-be-born son.

See more from Morkel at his homepage, blog and connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, 500px and on Instagram at ‘morkelerasmus’.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.



Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

10 Tips for Improving Your Wildlife Photography

You Can't Do Your Job if You Don't Sleep

The first morning I met Kevin Crain, a Managing Director at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, he was feeling tired, as he did most days.

We were at a conference Kevin was hosting for the institutional retirement team and a group of their corporate clients. He'd invited me to the event to speak about managing personal energy.

Before my talk, we got to chatting and Kevin mentioned that he'd gotten less than six hours of sleep the night before, and that he didn't often get much more.

That's not too different from the average American, who gets between six and six and a half hours of sleep a night, or the thirty percent of working Americans who get less than 6 hours. And yet the research suggests that nearly all of us require between 7 and 8 hours of sleep a night to feel fully rested, and only a tiny percentage of us feel rested with less than 7 hours.

The costs show up physically, emotionally, and cognitively.

Kevin wasn't overweight, had no history of heart disease in his family, and worked out regularly — in fact, he had once been a competitive marathoner. And yet five years earlier, at the age of 46, he had suffered a mild heart attack.

Two factors were likely at play. First, sleeping less than 6 hours a night increases the risk of developing or dying from heart disease by an astonishing 48 percent. Second, Kevin worked very long hours, at very high intensity, and he experienced a high level of stress much of the time.

I offered to try to help. Two weeks after his conference, we caught up by phone and I quickly focused in on his sleep habits. He typically went to bed around 1:00 am, he said, but there was no good reason for staying up that late. It was just habitual.

He woke up before 6:00 am, in order to be at work by 7:15. Once again, he acknowledged that there was no compelling reason to start that early. It was just something he'd always done. My suggestions were very simple. "What if, as an experiment, you chose a highly specific time to go to bed — say 11:30 pm — and you began winding down at least a half hour before that? And what if you woke up an hour later than you do now?"

Kevin did exactly that, and dutifully from day one. There is no single behavioral change we've seen in our work with thousands of executives that more quickly and powerfully influences mood, focus, and productivity than a full night's sleep.

In Kevin's case, the impact was also rapid and dramatic. In the mornings, he stopped rushing out the door and instead sat down for breakfast, spending a half hour chatting with his wife and two teenager daughters and flipping through the newspaper.

In the past, he'd find himself exhausted by mid-morning. Now, when he got to work around 8:30 or 8:45 am, he felt a higher and more consistent level of energy. In turn, he had more focus and more clarity all the way through to lunch, even if his meetings ran back to back. In the evenings, when he got home, Kevin felt less drained and more present with his family. The effects of sleeping more cascaded through his life.

After a month, we added a new behavior to his life at work. At 12 noon every day, Kevin gets up from his desk and takes a half hour walk outside. He doesn't bring along his Blackberry and he's realized the world doesn't end. Instead, he uses the time to clear his head or to think through key issues that arose in the morning meetings.

In the past, when he felt something didn't go right at one of his meetings, his inclination was to fire off an email to a direct report right away. "Ninety-five percent of my reactions were negative and counterproductive," he told me.

Now, the walk gives him time to take a step back. He's sending far fewer emails, and instead he's asking himself, "What do I need to do to get this to a better place?" By the time he addresses the issue with anyone else, he's calmed down.

Between sleeping longer, coming into work later, and taking a half hour walk, Kevin is actually working an hour and a half less each day than he did in the past. "I'm actually more productive than I used to be because I'm more attentive to the issues I should be focusing on," he says.

"In the past, I'd come in to work already feeling tired, and I'd put my energy into getting small tactical things done, rapid fire. That allowed me to feel productive without expending too much energy, but it was like eating chocolate. The satisfaction didn't last. Now I'm putting my energy into longer-lasting, strategic activities. They take more intellectual energy, but they're more satisfying, they add more value, and they're what I really should be doing as a leader."

The lesson: Two behaviors we've devalued and sometimes even demonized — rest and renewal — have a profound impact on people's productivity at work and their satisfaction across their lives.

Author: Tony Schwartz is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything

AIMA’s Workshop on “Risk Management”

20-21th September (Thursday &Friday), 2012 at AIMA, New Delhi

It is my pleasure at AIMA to present a two day workshop on “Risk Management” on the 20-21, September, 2012 at New Delhi.

This workshop intends to update the participants with the various kinds of risks faced by the companies with special emphasis to companies in the financial sector. It would be highlighting the approaches and regulatory requirements formulated to protect against the different risks.

We take this opportunity to request you to participate and nominate colleagues for the workshop.

Please refer to the attached brochure for details or visit http://www.aima-ind.org/19th_Facutly_Development_Program.html for details. Online registration can be done at http://aima-ind.org/eventmgmt/

We will appreciate your participation and an early confirmation.

With regards,

Prof Sarah Nasim

Faculty & Program Director 

Centre for Management Education, All India Management Association

Management House,14, Institutional Area, Lodi Road, New Delhi-110 003

Ph.No.011- 24608519 / 24608531 (D) 24645100,43128100, Ext. 724 & 706

Fax No.011-24626689/24643035

3 Interview Questions That Reveal Everything

Employee fit is crucial. Here's a simple way to know if a job candidate is right for your business.

Interviewing job candidates is tough, especially because some candidates are a lot better at interviewing than they are at working.

To get the core info you need about the candidates you interview, here's a simple but incredibly effective interview technique I learned from John Younger, the CEO of Accolo, a cloud recruiting solutions provider. (If you think you've conducted a lot of interviews, think again: Younger has interviewed thousands of people.)

Here's how it works. Just start from the beginning of the candidate's work history and work your way through each subsequent job. Move quickly, and don't ask for detail. And don't ask follow-up questions, at least not yet.

Go through each job and ask the same three questions:

1. How did you find out about the job?

2. What did you like about the job before you started?

3. Why did you leave?

"What's amazing," Younger says, "is that after a few minutes, you will always have learned something about the candidate--whether positive or negative--that you would never have learned otherwise."

Here's why:

How did you find out about the job?

Job boards, general postings, online listings, job fairs--most people find their first few jobs that way, so that's certainly not a red flag.

But a candidate who continues to find each successive job from general postings probably hasn't figured out what he or she wants to do--and where he or she would like to do it.

He or she is just looking for a job; often, any job.

And that probably means he or she isn't particularly eager to work for you. He or she just wants a job. Yours will do--until something else comes along.

"Plus, by the time you get to Job Three, Four, or Five in your career, and you haven't been pulled into a job by someone you previously worked for, that's a red flag," Younger says. "That shows you didn't build relationships, develop trust, and show a level of competence that made someone go out of their way to bring you into their organization."

On the flip side, being pulled in is like a great reference--without the letter.

What did you like about the job before you started?

In time, interviewees should describe the reason they took a particular job for more specific reasons than "great opportunity," "chance to learn about the industry," or "next step in my career."

Great employees don't work hard because of lofty titles or huge salaries. They work hard because they appreciate their work environment and enjoy what they do. (Titles and salary are just icing on the fulfillment cake.)

That means they know the kind of environment they will thrive in, and they know the type of work that motivates and challenges them--and not only can they describe it, they actively seek it.

Why did you leave?

Sometimes people leave for a better opportunity. Sometimes they leave for more money.

Often, though, they leave because an employer is too demanding. Or the employee doesn't get along with his or her boss. Or the employee doesn't get along with co-workers.

When that is the case, don't be judgmental. Resist the temptation to ask for detail. Hang on to follow-ups. Stick to the rhythm of the three questions. That makes it natural for candidates to be more open and candid.

In the process, many candidates will describe issues with management or disagreements with other employees or with taking responsibility--issues they otherwise would not have shared.

Then follow up on patterns that concern you.

"It's a quick way to get to get to the heart of a candidate's sense of teamwork and responsibility," Younger says. "Some people never take ownership and always see problems as someone else's problem. And some candidates have consistently had problems with their bosses--which means they'll also have issues with you."

And a bonus question:

How many people have you hired, and where did you find them?

Say you're interviewing candidates for a leadership position. Want to know how their direct reports feel about them?

Don't look only for candidates who were brought into an organization by someone else; look for candidates who brought employees into their organization.

"Great employees go out of their way to work with great leaders," Younger says. "If you're tough but fair, and you treat people well, they will go out of their way to work with you. The fact that employees changed jobs just so they could work for you speaks volumes to your leadership and people skills."

Author: Jeff Haden, learned much of what he knows about business and technology as he worked his way up in the manufacturing industry. Everything else he picks up from ghost-writing books for some of the smartest leaders he knows in business.