Friday, March 29, 2013

Expensify Adds Bitcoin Support To Reimburse International Workers Without PayPal Fees


March 27, 2013 8:00 AM


Popular expense report startup Expensify now lets employers reimburse international workers with virtual currency Bitcoin, another step that shows Bitcoin’s influence is growing.

Expensify was founded in May 2008 with the promise of offering “expense reports that don’t suck.” It makes the expense report and reimbursement process easier for companies with simple-to-use iOS, Android, and web apps. The company has attracted 1.4 million users across more than 200,000 companies to date.

But one of the company’s biggest issues is with reimbursement for international employees — PayPal and wire transfers to employees outside of the United States can entail fees of 4 percent or more. Bitcoin — a completely virtual currency that is decentralized — can solve that problem because it doesn’t cost anything to make transfers.

“Bitcoin is perfect for international transfers,” Expensify CEO David Barrett told VentureBeat. “It’s secure, instantaneous, and totally free. We support PayPal, but it is expensive. A four percent charge on a large reimbursement can really add up.”

Bitcoin support and prices have surged in the past few months, with several major newly-announced business deals giving it a boost. Mt. Gox, the largest Bitcoin exchange, struck a deal to let Seattle startup CoinLab handle its U.S. operations to give Bitocin a bigger foothold with institutional investors. On top of that, news-sharing site Reddit started accepting Bitcoin as payment, the Internet Archive began accepting Bitcoin donations, and Bitcoin startup Coinbase announced it is selling more than $1 million in Bitcoins per month.

Barrett said Bitcoin might not be well known just yet, but he doesn’t mind being on the forefront.

“Hardly any Expensify users know what Bitcoin is, but we believe this is a really great option for them,” Barrett said. “Bitcoin is clearly on the rise.”

San Francisco-based Expensify has raised $6.7 million in funding to date from investors including Hillsven Capital, Baseline Ventures, SV Angel, and Travis Kalanick.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/27/bitcoin-expensify/#S5MIpDoDgj2wJ2Xw.99 

Friday, March 22, 2013

10 Years In Your Current Role? You’re Stale!!



10 years in your current role, your stagnant.  Your resume probably reads like a job description.
When recruiters and hiring managers stop being human, they’ll stop having biases.  Biases are all over the place, legal and illegal — we just don’t know about them.
My biases are centered on wanting to see candidates who have gotten bored in their roles and made the choice to move on.  Not because they were laid off and had to move on.  I’m looking for the folks who are hungry to do more — striving to be that rock-star with an organization.  (I broke my own rule there — I hate the word “rock-star.”  Sorry ’bout that.)
Now if you’ve spent 10 years with the same organization but have progressed within the company and held different roles — that’s good to see!  Please read carefully:
When you don’t step out of your comfort zone, you don’t grow. Period, end of story.
When you get too comfy in a job, that’s all it is — a job.  You show up for work every day, do what’s expected of you, don’t make waves and your bills get paid.  It’s all good.
Or is it?
It just shows that you can do what many Americans are already doing every day.  But as a prospective hiring manager I’ll take the liberty of stealing Ms. Jackson’s lyrics and ask you, What have you done for me lately?“   Or what have you done for your current organization that you can bring to mine?  Can you show what your accomplishments are?  If you can, you’re on track. 
You’re only as good as your last gig and the accomplishments under your belt within that gig.
Am I condoning job hopping?  No.  And my definition of job hopping might be different from yours.  I view job hopping as folks who change jobs within a one-year period.  I think people who change jobs every 2 to 3 years is a good sign.
Here’s why different job experiences are good for you:
  • You’re exposed to different working styles and personalities of several managers and co-workers.   
    This comes in handy when navigating the waters of corporate politics — which you will encounter at some point.
  • It’s good for your self-esteem and will keep you sharp within your industry. 
    When you bring your awesome talent to a new organization, you bring fresh eyes and new ideas.  They’ll appreciate that and you’ll feel valued because you’ll be valued.
  • Varied workplace environments give you the best education — experience. 
    You can be in the same occupation and industry but it doesn’t mean that every company does the same thing in the same way.  They don’t.  Learning new ways of doing your work and being more productive is always something you can build on with a new organization.  Staying at one place too long puts you in a silo and you risk being viewed as not being flexible or easily adaptable to change.  It’s no secret in business that the only thing that stays the same is CHANGE.
  • You can decide what types of companies you like to work in.
    Do you like big corporate organizations or do you prefer smaller companies?  Being exposed to several organizations that have different protocols will allow you to continue learning.  And while some employees never catch a glimpse of their company’s CEO, others can mosey on in to their CEO’s office and chat about the weekend.  You decide which one fits you best.
  • This goes for CEOs too. 
    Just because you’re the head honcho doesn’t mean you don’t get stale.  You do.  You can ride on the coattails of a successful project for only so long before you’ll be looked upon to come up with the company’s next big thing.  My personal bias is that CEOs should be flushed out every 5 to 7 years just for the perspective of bringing fresh eyes to the table.
So, get out and do something different and grow. 

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Mapping the Passage to an Upside Down Organization


by JENNIFER MILLER on FEBRUARY 28, 2013
Guest post by Marilyn D. Jacobson, Ph.D
To be competitive in this global environment, leaders must go against the tide to ignite and maintain momentum. I believe that organizations benefit from an engaged workforce, and the only way to achieve that is to flatten the organization structure.  The hierarchy gets in the way of change with its concentration on numbers, promotions and bonuses.  Maintaining silos and layers of management suppresses creativity, and ultimately is more costly than investing in newness, innovation and international exposure. Competitive advantage in a global marketplace depends on major change.  So the big question is: how do you get from here to there?
The primary task is to discern what is needed to anticipate the future and what must be done to position the organization to capitalize on, rather than resist change. This is where effective leaders can be proactive.
Anticipate the Future
Anticipating requires transformation, which sets the stage for informed and inclusive positioning.
The revelation that anticipating and positioning is critical came early in my career when a large corporation selected 10 of the best and brightest to consider what the organization would look like in 2020 (this was in 2000).  Getting started was difficult, and one after another, the members were redirected to provide leadership in different areas.  The brightest of the best went on to have major roles in the company, and when there was a serious downturn, he restructured to a matrix organization which saved the day. My lesson was drawn from the intent, more than the execution. Planning ahead does make a difference because forecasting leads to informed positioning.
Subsequently, my work with clients led to other insights: attention must shift from what we do to attain today’s numbers and the organization’s bottom line, to assessment of what is on the horizon that will affect the future of the organization.  Developing scenarios or “what ifs” is a good start. Once the possibilities have surfaced, an analysis can proceed in reference to what must be done to allocate financial and human resources.
Streamlining, breaking down silos, and creating cross-functional teams replaces contentious conflicts of interest or competition for resources that has become a norm for many corporations. When people start to collaborate, goals are set that all commit to.
I have seen the progression from offices to cubicles, and have lamented the depersonalization at exactly when the reverse was needed. Getting rid of cubicles and creating an environment that is conducive to continuous interaction is essential.  If not doable immediately,  it can be introduced in stages to demonstrate to the workforce that sharing ideas and working together, rather than in tandem is preferable and will  lead to problem identification, enriched decisions, and solutions. In time, architectural alterations should provide multiple conference rooms of varying sizes to accommodate meetings from 2 to 25. Similarly, work stations that support teams during various stages of a single project encourage mutual interaction.
I also recommend reducing, if not abandoning, the use of traditional “slide deck” presentations.  Time spent on report production and delivery can be spent more effectively.  Lengthy PowerPoint presentations actually deny participants the opportunity to get involved, offer suggestions or start a dialogue.   Written reports and computer summaries transmit data; meetings are for interpretation, analysis and discussion. A hospital administrator and a top executive in a manufacturing organization both revealed that simplifying reports saves time than can be utilized elsewhere, and has accomplished their goals for engaging employees.

Position Your Company to Embrace Change

Once hierarchy is gone or greatly diminished, a highly committed workforce can move with vigor toward mutual goals and hold themselves and their team(s) accountable.
Leadership should not be based on position, power, or belief that one person or executive group has all the answers.   Instead, strategy is incumbent on the growing capacity to partner, build relationships, find synergies, inspire innovation, and enable creativity and bold thinking.  Asking questions, promoting openness and discovery, continuous learning, and fostering both right and left brain thinking are what will make the competitive difference.  Diversity ensures consideration of a broader range of possibilities.  Leaders need to think like entrepreneurs in respect to seeing promise and acting on it, and mobilize others by getting buy-in and energizing the team.
Often the catalysts for change, the expertise required emerges out of the workforce as evident in the organization where a matrix was substituted for a top-down, floundering, organization.  The teams persisted and were resilient, even as obstacles appeared.  The decision to pursue or jettison a project is best determined collectively.
Creativity is often thought to be limited to those few who have special genes or some unusual capabilities.  We are learning that is not the case. Twyla Tharp, in The Creative Habit; Learn it and Use it for Life, suggests that creativity happens when there is discipline and commitment. Being a visionary and identifying opportunities takes the creative process to a higher level.
Making continuous learning a mandate shared across the organization is vital; as is circulating books and articles, bringing in speakers, and encouraging membership in associations. Sending people to conferences and other events where it is possible to learn what competitors are doing and what other industries are doing that may transfer. Development usually means training. I have discovered that peers have a major role in helping each other to grow.
Having a global assignment is not for everyone.  A noted psychologist has said it can be brutal, and play havoc with people’s lives. Learning a new language and adjusting to new cultures is not for everyone. However, a global perspective is a necessary component in today’s marketplace.

Benefits of the Flattened Organization

The passage to a flat organization does not occur sequentially.  It is part of a simultaneous equation.  Leadership for the quest to restructure is not drawn from any one source, but it is those with vision and determination who will get the process started.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Every Challenge Is A New Opportunity!!!


Find this hard to believe?  Stay with me for a few minutes and just open your mind to the possibilities that there is a new opportunity regardless of the challenge you are facing today!

Now my head is not in the sand…I read the newspaper, listen to my friends, family, coaching clients and colleagues all facing insurmountable challenges in their life with major loss such as job, income, decline in their 401k, lost homes to foreclosure, serious illness, loss of a loved one, divorce…you name it…it is not good news!  Hopelessness, sadness, depression, fear, doubt and obstacles keeping us stuck!

Then you have some “optimist” that says…there is an opportunity here really!!!   Think about it-what goes up must come down, without success there is no failure, no pain- no gain, without bad you don’t experience good…you get it!  These things are the same just opposite sides of the spectrum and it is all how we perceive them…without one, we wouldn’t have the other!
This is not the view of an optimist (although we live by it) it is the “Law of Polarity”….a matter of fact no two ways about it.  It’s a universal law and like all universal laws…you cannot change that fact that they exists.  You cannot manipulate, fool or escape it so work with it!    So how do we create opportunity?

First step is awareness…really what is happening here?  Take a few minutes to assess your situation and ask yourself what do I want instead?  If I have what I want instead, what does that look like for me?  How will I feel if I experience the opposite of what I am experiencing today?  Now decide on what you want and make the choice….yes, it is that simple to make the choice to change your current outcome.  It all starts with this step!

The fastest and least painful path is the power of acceptance.  Did you know that acceptance of what you currently are experience acts as the polar opposite of resistance and will help you attract more of what you consciously desire!   One of my favorite sayings is ‘what we think about comes about’.   It starts with our thoughts, beliefs, feelings and actions.  And, I also believe our state of mind and thoughts change our outcome the second you change your thoughts.  There are times when I act “asif” it has already happened by working from the end result.I naturally assume it is happening and more times than not….the results show up!  It’s one of the major gifts of life that works like magic..really!

You have the power of choice to how you experience life.  Consider the possibilities, opportunities and change in your life you want and put your Intention, Attention and Action to changing just ONE thing that is challenging you today.  Write down all your beliefs about the situation and include all the frustration, anger and disappointment and release the negative thoughts.  Get a new piece of paper and create your desired outcome as if the choice is all yours (because it is!) and start creating what you want.

a repost from Caole M. Sacino's blog