Like Death and Taxes, Change is Certain to Happen in the Work Place

Like Death and Taxes, Change is Certain to Happen in the Work Place | By Yetta Blair

Death, taxes and change. There’s never a convenient time for any of them, but we can take steps to prepare for each.  Here are a few tips on how to prepare for change when it is happening in your work place.

1.  Acknowledge Change Happens.  Stand up and admit to yourself that change happens. Things can not and will not stay the same.  For an organization to advance there must be change. So the first step in preparation for change is to acknowledge change happens and will happen in your organization.

2.  Stop fearing change.  Stop fearing change. Embrace it. If you are afraid ask yourself what would you be doing if you were not afraid? Take fear out of the equation and you will open up your mind to the possibilities that change brings. Once you embrace the change in your organization, you will feel free and maybe even excited and refreshed. Trying something new invigorates us. Challenges us. So the second step is to stop being afraid of change. 

3.  Anticipate Change.  Since we have acknowledged change happens and we no longer fear it, we must now start to look for change and anticipate it happening. Look at what you are doing and start asking yourself questions.  Is it still relevant?  Does it bring value?  Is there a better way to do it?  What are your competitors doing?  Time to update?  When you start monitoring for change, you will notice the small changes early, and in doing so, we no longer will be taken by surprise when change happens.

4.  Change your course.  If you keep doing the same thing, you will continue to get the same results. You must move in a new direction to be successful with change.

5. Be flexible.  The better you are able to adapt to change, the greater your chances of being successful. Look at the requirements of the new situation that change created. Maybe your current skills do not fit exactly, so ask yourself what skills from the old situation can you apply to the new one.  In other words, instead of focusing on differences the change brought on, focus on similarities.

6.  Adapt to change Quickly.  The quicker you let go of the old and embrace the new change in your organization, the sooner you can enjoy the new.  Change can make things better. 

7. Communicate the change with others.  Good communication is always important, but especially so when you face change in your organization.  A lack of communication from others can have a negative impact, while effective communications can have a positive one. Part of the fear of change involves dealing with the unknown.  So start talking.

8.  Change – You must change with the times.  Saying, “but we have always done it this way”, will not cut it.  Dinosaurs remind us we are not too big to fail.  IBM reminds us we should never think we are too big for change.  Change really can lead you to a new and better place.

9.  Stay positive and Enjoy change.  Keeping a positive attitude can help you deal with the uncertainties of change and will not go unnoticed by staff, co-workers or customers.  Savor the adventure and enjoy what change brings you.

Social Media Self-Promotion: Do it Right Designers

Social Media Self-Promotion: Do it Right Designers By Amber Hyde In the past 5 or so years the impact of social media has changed the world and the way we communicate. It is a platform that has reshaped how our ideas, thoughts, news, and relationships are formed. Individuals, businesses, and even large corporations can now become more engaged and build relationships with friends, customers and clients. Social media has also entered the advertising realm, making it a terrific way to promote businesses and personal projects at very little cost. The problem is businesses have become too self-promotional in social media and this can have a negative effect on a businesses image. To be appealing to your followers your page cannot be all about you and your success. Posts need to be about interesting topics, inspiring quotes, news stories, or fun events going on around town, even talking about the weather gets people interested in what you have to say. Design companies on the other hand have an advantage. They can self-promote with out becoming too self-promotional. This is what I mean: As a designer I have learned to utilize my skills for social media posts that engage followers, but also have an underlying self-promotional aspect! If I find a quote, or if it is a holiday, or even just asking a question, I have given myself a blank canvas to create an illustration that can accompany the post and also highlight design skills. This is not throwing our business in everyone’s faces, it is simply showcasing our design in an appealing “non-business” related manner, while allowing us to display our skillset without saying “hey check out our designs”.  This is a great way to promote design work while still adhering to the minimal self-promotion aspect of social media. Your followers will appreciate you more for being real and not shoving yourself down their throats. Designers and Business', what are your thoughts about self-promotion on social media? And are there any other ways that you have found that work for promoting your business without being too self-promotional?  Below are a few examples of what we have designed for our Facebook. Getting our design skills out there through engaging content.

A Great First Impression

A Great First Impression | By Sarah Gaither

As a communication major in college who’s focus was in body language, I learned to watch.  You can learn so much about someone just by knowing how to read the way they present themselves.  While watching I have noticed something that confuses me.  All introductions these days seem to be missing a handshake.  If I do see it, it’s only between two older men.  My question is why?  Why are women, and the younger business generation not shaking hands? The handshake started as a symbol of peace between men.  As time passed, it has worked its way into all of our business deals.  It was used to solidify an agreement, whether it be for a herd of cattle, baskets of grain or building a house, the handshake has had its place in history and for good reason.  Today a handshake conveys trust, respect, balance and equality. It is also the easiest way to make a great first impression. As a young businesswoman it was a struggle for me to realize that I needed to be the one extending my hand in both business and social

scenes, regardless of who I was extending it to.  Once I got over that struggle, I was not only showing my respect for those that I had met, but I was receiving respect in return and creating an equal playing field between us.  Next time you are introduced to someone new, will you offer your hand first?  We would love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Are you teaching your young ones to shake hands when first meeting someone?  What are your thoughts about the younger generation and women of any generation not shaking hands?  Leave us your comments/feedback/ thoughts below!

File Formats 101: What do they all mean?

File formats 101: What do they all mean?

.jpg .gif .png .pdf .tif .bmp .psd .psp .raw

By Yetta Blair

Anyone working on a computer, which basically means nearly everyone, has a basic working knowledge of file formats.  If you are like most however, this knowledge means you sort of kind of have a feeling of which file format you should use, but are not exactly sure how it works and why it should be your choice.

With this in mind, I created a cheat sheet, so to speak, of the most highly used file formats and hints of when to use them.

.jpg – Great to use for web sites and email. This file format is optimized for photographs and compresses continuous-tone images that contain many colors down to a size that can be downloaded quickly on the internet. This is the format of choice for nearly all photographs on the web. You can achieve excellent quality even at rather high compression settings.  However, the downside to this format is that compressing the image too much will cause it to look jagged.  The JPG file extension is used interchangeably with JPEG.  JPEG stands for “Joint Photographic Experts Group” who created the standard.  JPG files can be opened by most image editing software from Microsoft Paint to Adobe Photoshop.

.gif –  Another good file type for the Internet and emailing. GIF’s do a great job of compressing images and making them suitable for fast downloads. If your image has fewer than 256 colors and contains large areas of uniform color, GIF is your choice. The files will be small yet perfect and is well suited for some cartoons or clip art. Do NOT use GIF for photographic images, since it can contain only 256 colors per image. An added bonus is that GIF images can be placed on a web page with a clear background, so you can layer them. However, the downside is that sometimes the artwork has a sharp, unattractive border when the image's background is invisible. When this happens, try the PNG format. GIF stands for “Graphics Interchange Format”.

.png – “Portable Network Graphics”. If you want to display a photograph exactly without loss on the web, PNG is your choice. Its strategy is similar to that of GIF, but it supports 16 million colors, not just 256. PNG is the only lossless format that web browsers support. (A lossless compression algorithm discards no information. All image information is restored when the file is decompressed during viewing. In contrast, lossy algorithms accept some degradation in the image in order to achieve smaller file size.)PNG’s are usually larger in file size than jpg and gif files but they allow people to save artwork to be layered on web pages or other artwork without any sharp or disruptive border. PNG’s are extremely versatile, but they usually result in larger files and longer download times.

.eps – "encapsulated post Script". EPS is used in vector-based images in Adobe Illustrator. An EPS file can contain text as well as graphics. Professional printers and printable advertising media, like a magazine, will typically ask that the artwork be saved as an EPS file but a TIF or PDF are also good choices.

.tif – The TIF is an image format file for high-quality graphics. TIF files are also called TIFF, which stands for “Tagged Image Format File .TIF files originally only supported black and white. However, the update in 1988 added a color palette. Now owned by Adobe, the .TIF format is used for high color-depth images. TIF files can be converted to JPEG, GIF or PDF format. Printers and advertisers will often permit final artwork to be designed in a TIF. TIF is not widely supported by web browsers, and should be avoided for web use.

.pdf – "portable document format", Adobe's native file format that is read by a program called Adobe Acrobat. Most computer users have Acrobat on their system, if they don't, they can download Acrobat Reader for free. The PDF has a wide range of uses, including a lot of usage on web, and they can even be used for printing when saved as a high resolution PDF.

.bmp – is an uncompressed proprietary format and there is really no reason to ever use this format.  BMP stands for “Bitmap”.

.psd, .psp – are proprietary formats used by graphics programs. Photoshop's files have the PSD extension, (PSD stands for Photoshop Document) while Paint Shop Pro files use PSP (PSP stands for Paint shop pro). These are the preferred working formats as you edit images in the software, because only the proprietary formats retain all the editing power of the programs. These packages use layers, for example, to build complex images, and layer information may be lost in the nonproprietary formats such as TIF and JPG. However, be sure to save your end result as a standard TIF or JPG, or you may not be able to view it in a few years when your software has changed.

.raw – The RAW file format is digital photograhpy’s equivalent of a negative in film photography: it contains untouched “raw” pixel information straight from the digital cameras sensor. Use RAW only for in-camera storage.  Copy or convert to TIFF, PNG, or JPG as soon as you transfer to your PC. You do not want your image archives to be in a proprietary format since you can’t be sure you will be able to read that format in 5, 10 or 20 years.  Most believe that JPG is the format most likely to be readable in 50 years. Thus, it is appropriate to use RAW to store images in the camera but be sure to create a TIFF, PNG or JPG, for archival storage.