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The top real estate broker in the US says a single strategy helped him sell an average of 92 homes per week https://read.bi/2MwJBRE Ben Caballero
Texas-based real estate broker Ben Caballero sold 4,799 homes in 2017. That's an average of 92 homes per week. In total, he sold $1.9 billion worth of real estate that year (the most recent year data is available), making him the top real-estate agent in the US, according to Real Trends, a residential brokerage industry publication. He was recognized by Guinness World Records for selling 3,556 homes in 2016. And although his portfolio might suggest that he sells Los Angeles megamansions or New York City luxury penthouses, Caballero only sells houses in Texas. Caballero says he owes his success to one main strategy: specialization. "Specialization is critical to be successful," Caballero told Business Insider. "Attorneys [and] doctors have specialties within their professions. And I count 40-something different specialties in the real estate business: leasing, commercial, residential, industrial, hospitality, vacation homes..." The first way Caballero has specialized his business is by selling only new-construction residential properties. He also only works with "volume builders," or companies that build several hundred homes per year, or sometimes up to 3,000. These builders include Toll Brothers and CalAtlantic Homes. Caballero doesn't sell all of the homes they build because some of them sell before they even start construction, he said. Caballero created an online platform, HomesUSA, exclusively for volume home builders to track these hundreds of homes. The platform streamlines the process of creating a listing, tracking the progress of a house's construction, and updating the listing when photography is added and when the home is complete. Through this online service, Caballero's team is able to create a listing in an average of 13 minutes, saving the home builders a huge chunk of time. "If they didn't have our system, they would have to have multitudes of spreadsheets ... and they'd be entering it manually," Caballero said. "Instead of being able to initiate a listing request in a minute or two, it'd probably take them anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. And if they are dealing in hundreds of listings, that's a lot of time that they would be spending doing that." NOW WATCH: Meet Usain Bolt's personal barber who owns the most in-demand barbershop in London See Also:
Business via Business Insider https://read.bi/1IpULic January 25, 2019 at 09:39AM
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10 healthier alternatives to your favorite snacks — including cookies, chips, and gummy bears https://read.bi/2MxNLbU The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.
Whether I'm at school, at work, or traveling, I've never been one to go from breakfast to lunch to dinner without snacking on something in between. It's a good idea to keep your stomach occupied in order to maintain energy levels throughout the day. Snacking is also understandable if you simply love food. However, it's still important to be mindful of what you graze on because many traditional snack foods — chips, cookies, candy, and trail mixes — are filled with excessive amounts of sugar, salt, oils, and artificial ingredients. I love indulging in that junk as much as the next person, but it's not a sustainable dietary option that will help me become an octogenarian. To enjoy the same flavors and textures of my favorite snack foods while treating my body to healthier ingredients, I fill my office filing cabinet and apartment pantry with the following alternatives. There's no need to vilify the habit of snacking when you're enjoying these 10 better-for-you alternatives to chips, cookies, candy, and more:Chips: Food Should Taste GoodFood Should Taste GoodShop Food Should Taste Good chips at Amazon, Walmart, and Thrive MarketLet's not go so far as to think celery and carrots will ever be proper replacements for crunchy, salty chips. Instead, snack on Food Should Taste Good's multigrain, blue corn, sweet potato, and black bean tortilla chips, which are all gluten-free and made with a simple selection of natural ingredients. They're also low in fat, sodium, and carbs, but so packed with flavor you wouldn't be able to tell. In no time, you'll find yourself preferring these over traditional junk food chips. Marshmallows: SmashmallowSnackapade/InstagramShop Smashmallow marshmallows at Amazon, Target, Thrive Market, and BoxedThese indulgent marshmallows come in fun, creative flavors like Mint Chocolate Chip (one of our favorites) and Cinnamon Churro. The indulgence comes with fewer consequences for you because they're made with certified kosher, non-GMO gelatin and organic cane sugar, and they have less than one gram of fat per serving (which includes four marshmallows). Use them any time you would normally — for s'mores and hot cocoa, for example — or as a substitute for heavier treats like ice cream and cookies. Cheese puffs: HippeasHippeas/InstagramShop Hippeas puffs at Amazon, Target, and Thrive MarketFrom its age-old use in hummus and falafel to more recent incorporations into alternative pasta, the chickpea is truly a versatile legume. Yet another way to consume them is in a Hippeas puff — try it in a vegan White Cheddar or spicy Sriracha Sunshine. The light and crunchy snacks are USDA-certified organic and gluten-free, plus they contain three grams of fiber and four grams of protein per one-ounce serving. See the rest of the story at Business Insider See Also:
Business via Business Insider https://read.bi/1IpULic January 25, 2019 at 09:21AM
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A new luxury cruise will take guests around the world to 6 continents in 117 days — here's a look inside the ship, where suites cost up to $165,999 per person https://read.bi/2MvRV3W Courtesy of Regent Seven Seas
The time is now for luxury cruises: Many luxury cruise lines are catering to the 1% with 100-plus day cruises around the world. The latest to launch? Regent Seven Seas' World Cruise, set to begin its journey on January 5, 2021. Over the course of 117 nights, the cruise will navigate the globe, checking 56 UNESCO World Heritage sites off its bucket list and hitting every continent, save for Antarctica. Its four-month journey from Miami to Barcelona doesn't come cheap — the prices currently range from $61,999 to $165,999. It takes place on the Seven Seas Mariner, a recently refurbished ship that's as luxe in details as the journey it promises is adventurous. Take a look at what the Regent Seven Seas' 2021 World Cruise has to offer — on shore and on board. The Regent Seven Seas World Cruise aboard the Seven Seas Mariner will kick off on January 5, 2021.Courtesy of Regent Seven SeasSource: Regent Seven Seas Passengers will spend four months and 117 nights nearly circling the globe.Courtesy of Regent Seven SeasSource: Regent Seven Seas Over the course of 38,551 miles, the ship will visit 30 countries across six continents.Courtesy of Regent Seven SeasSource: Regent Seven Seas See the rest of the story at Business Insider See Also:
Business via Business Insider https://read.bi/1IpULic January 25, 2019 at 09:21AM Police arrest mother after her dead newborn was found in an Amazon warehouse bathroom trashcan1/25/2019
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Police arrest mother after her dead newborn was found in an Amazon warehouse bathroom trashcan https://read.bi/2Dyct97 ABC15
Police in Arizona have arrested the mother of a newborn baby which was found in a restroom trashcan in an Amazon warehouse. The Phoenix Police Department arrested Amazon worker Samantha Vivier on on Tuesday, they told USA Network's AZ Central. It came a week after janitors found a dead newborn girl in an Amazon warehouse washroom in western Phoenix. Vivier will now be charged with unlawful disposal of human remains, AZ Central quoted police as saying on Tuesday. Google Maps The discovery was made when police were called to the warehouse at when cleaners searched a "heavier than usual" trash bag, AZ Central quoted from court records and the police statement. They found a baby wrapped up inside, "unresponsive" and "cold to the touch," the court records reportedly stated. A witness told police that Vivier told him she had been sick in the restroom for two hours, and that she needed new pants, court records quoted by AZ Central said. When investigators contacted Vivier after the witness came forward, police say she told them she had given birth during her shift, sometime after she went on her lunch break at 11:30 a.m, according to the cited court records. Google Maps Court record said Vivier disposed of the corpse "to hide the birth from the father of the baby" and that she was "confident" the baby was dead when she gave birth, AZ Central reported. After Vivier was arrested on Tuesday, she told police she had no idea she was pregnant and felt no movement from the baby, but had noticed putting on 15 pounds, according to the reported court records. An Amazon spokesman told Business Insider on Friday: "This is a terribly sad and tragic incident. We are working with local authorities to support their investigation. The safety and wellness of our team is our top priority." Police say that the investigation into the death is still ongoing with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and the Medical Examiner's Office. Cliff Owen/AP Images NOW WATCH: Japanese lifestyle guru Marie Kondo explains how to organize your home once and never again See Also:
Business via Business Insider https://read.bi/1IpULic January 25, 2019 at 09:15AM Facebook to reportedly unite Messenger WhatsApp and Instagram messaging add end-to-end encryption1/25/2019
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Facebook to reportedly unite Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram messaging, add end-to-end encryption http://bit.ly/2B46PtT Facebook will reportedly make it easier for users across its family of apps to message one another, by uniting the messaging infrastructure of Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and adding end-to-end encryption across all of the services. The move — which is expected to take at least a full year — is reportedly being done at the request of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the New York Times reported this morning. Users could still download each app separately but as a result, a WhatsApp user would be able to send a message to a friend who has Facebook or Intagram, but not WhatsApp. Zuckerberg reportedly also wants all of the apps to enable end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp is the only one of the three messaging services that uses end-to-end encryption by default, though it can be enabled on Messenger. The change comes at a time when Instagram and WhatsApp in particular have become more popular among some demographics than the original Facebook app. A report from AppAnnie last week found that in September of last year, WhatsApp had more monthly active users on Android and iOS than Facebook. Facebook at the time declined to comment on the finders or share new monthly active user figures. And a Pew survey last spring found that Instagram is more popular among teens than Facebook. WhatsApp had 1.5 billion monthly active users as of December 2017, while Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly active users as of last quarter. Instagram hit 1 billion monthly active users last June. The Times’ reports that Zuckerberg’s request to unite the three messaging services has in particular caused strife at WhatsApp, where ‘dozens’ of employees have argued with Zuckerberg about the request. What’s unclear is how the integration would effect how Facebook shares and store data of users who don’t use all of Facebook’s family of apps. WhatsApp does not store user data or messages, but the other Facebook apps do. A Facebook spokesperson told the Times that “we’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks.” VentureBeat has reached out to Facebook for additional comment, and will update this story if we hear back.
Business via VentureBeat https://venturebeat.com January 25, 2019 at 09:09AM
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Unity game engine launches support for Kin cryptocurrency in indie games http://bit.ly/2FQFEGI Unity Technologies‘ game engine is used widely by independent game developers, and now it will be easy for Unity developers to incorporate the Kin cryptocurrency in their games. Messaging app Kik and its Kin Ecosystem Foundation created the cryptocurrency in September 2017, raising nearly $100 million from a token sale. It has used that money to encourage developers to create apps that use the cryptocurrency. The companies are launching the Kin software development kit (SDK) for Unity today as part of their mutual aim of democratizing game development. For Unity, the world’s largest gaming engine, this means providing tools designed to let developers make, promote, and monetize their games with ease. Kin is focused on building a thriving ecosystem of games and amplifying social interaction to help developers grow more sustainable social communities in the games they create. The Kin SDK for Unity is now available in the Unity Asset Store. Now, Unity developers can easily integrate Kin into their mobile games, enabling them to create user experiences that reward social interaction and create ‘stickier’ social networks. This move is a major step forward for the overall strategy of driving mainstream adoption of Kin in gaming. Kin will enable easy peer-to-peer transactions in games focused on creating social communities and high interactions between users, while the developers creating them can spark user interest and incentivize players — starting with Unity. The Kin SDK for UnityThe Kin SDK for Unity gives developers more freedom and flexibility when creating their user interface and custom Kin gaming experiences. Developed with Prime 31, the leading Unity Asset Store publisher, the Kin SDK for Unity offers Unity developers access to the Kin Blockchain, cutting the backend complexity of technology so they can focus on development. The Kin SDK for Unity allows developers to do the following:
For players, it enables:
Learnings from Unity developersKin’s aim is to give game developers a unique way to monetize their apps in ways that enhance, not interrupt, the user experience. To provide the best solution for Unity developers, however, Kin needed to ensure that it specific needs and addressed their pain points. The companies collaborated to remove barriers. As game developers focus on prioritizing against acquisition, retention, and monetization, the companies consistently heard that Unity developers wanted to:
These were the three guiding principles for building Kin for Unity developers. Additionally, Kin found that 58 percent of developers surveyed acknowledged having “below average” expertise with blockchain, the decentralized, transparent and secure ledger that underpins cryptocurrencies. But nearly half of developers viewed cryptocurrency and blockchain technology as an area of interest, or a potential strategy or solution for their business. This signals that Unity developers are considering the benefits of a premium digital currency, but haven’t had experience with the technology to fully realize them. These insights are encouraging, since Kin will be one of, if not, the first cryptocurrencies these developers test, and they’ll be able to do it with ease. Adding Kin to a Unity gameThe Kin SDK for Unity is designed to help developers create a more engaged experience in multiplayer gaming environments. Some examples of how Kin can work in a game include:
Kin operates on the Kin Blockchain, which is can process more than 100 transactions per second, solving many of the latency issues that coins on other blockchains such as Bitcoin face. Once connected to exchanges, this secure blockchain will also offer developers liquidity, allowing them to use Kin to refuel their in-app Kin economies, or support the continued viability of their business model. What’s NextThe Kin SDK for Unity is currently available for Android developers. Together, with Unity, Kin will work toward releasing the SDK for iOS developers in the coming weeks. The companies are also working on the upcoming launch of a Kin and Unity Developer Program. Details will come later. Additionally, there a several joint marketing initiatives on the horizon that will help raise awareness of Kin with Unity developers. Kin will run educational sessions throughout the U.S., and at Unite Events around the world, while continuing to work with Prime 31 and other Unity Asset Store publishers. Business via VentureBeat https://venturebeat.com January 25, 2019 at 09:09AM
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Shelley Zalis Makes Sure That 'Women's Work' Gets the Respect It Deserves http://bit.ly/2FMNcKF Shelley Zalis has been an advertising research pioneer and a trailblazer for the equality of women in the workplace. I’ve had the privilege of seeing her work firsthand with The Girls’ Lounge, the "pop-up" part of The Female Quotient, which Zalis founded to help advance equality, through collaboration and activation. She was the first female chief executive ranked in the research industry’s top 25. She’s continued to break barriers and raise awareness as a member of the Washington Speakers Bureau, and a skilled moderator who has interviewed such top influencers as Katie Couric, Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sheryl Sandberg and Arianna Huffington on topics related to equality and leadership.
Image credit: The Female Quotient
Zalis's commitment to innovation and to raising the status of the work of women has always been an inspiration to me. I hope you will glean as much wisdom from her interview as I did. Related: 4 Areas That Need to Change for Women to Achieve Equality in Business The FoundationWhat have you built? What inspired you to build it? I’m one of the pioneers of online research, which means I migrated research from offline to the internet in a day and age when only affluent men with broadband connections were online. I was always told it was not the right time, but I thought, "When is the right time?" If I waited for the "right time," someone else would do it for me. So I had to make it the right time, and create a new ecosystem that today is the new norm for market research. Were you born a builder or did you have to learn to be one? I actually built the online testing system, OTX as a non-tech person so I could create something that was easy for anyone to use. I wanted to create a research platform that was not just for early adopters, but for mainstream respondents all over the world. I knew that creating something that had never been done before required a diverse set of people from marketing backgrounds, people backgrounds, tech backgrounds. It also required getting clients to open their minds to new opportunities rather than rely on a typical, textbook-style education. Who was the first woman you looked up to? Why did you want to be like her? I had two female role models in my life: one [an early boss] who taught me what I didn’t want, and one [an early mentor] who taught me what I did want. The one who taught me what I didn’t want lived her life as all or nothing; it was either all work, or all family. I knew when I had a family, I wanted to do it all and not have to make those choices. She taught me to live life with no regrets: I never wanted to look back and say, "Shoulda, woulda, coulda." I lived every day in the moment, finding ways to integrate my whole life together, which included my work, my family, my community, my girlfriends and myself. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you can’t do it all every day. The game is finding ways to do what is most important to you on most days. My other role model was a woman who was a legend in the agency world, Penelope Queen, [a specialist in psychological & cultural research & brand development] who brought her femininity to the table. She taught me to be myself and not conform to be like others. That’s when I realized Sarah Jessica Parker was right when she said, “Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman.” From that moment on, I knew I had to be me. There was plenty of room to bring my strengths to the table. We say that diversity is good for business, and it’s true. Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” If we were all the same, we wouldn’t be necessary. What’s the greatest risk you’ve taken? Leaving the corporate world to follow my heart and start OTX. I looked in the mirror and knew I was moving in the right direction but that I was a little ahead of the curve. That’s when I realized I had to be "the first," the one who gets the idea off the ground. [I also had to be] "the second," the copycat who recreates what the first did, but has no idea what is under the hood, "The third" is always the sweeper who is fixing the problems after people have already invested in it, and then they win. There was no one that was going to beat me at my own game. When have you broken down, personally or professionally? How did you break through? Women have these voices in our heads pushing us to do it all and be perfect, but it’s impossible. I adopted the philosophy that perfection is boring. I realized I couldn’t do it all, but I could do it all my way. What makes you doubt yourself? How do you manage it? We all have self-doubt, but you have to shut off that negative voice in your head. Arianna Huffington calls that voice in our heads the “obnoxious roommate.” My mom always taught me that confidence is beautiful, and that you have to believe in yourself first before anyone else can. How do you know when to leave someone or something? I think that relationships are all built on trust, respect, communication and being better together. If you don’t have those aspects, it’s probably not the right relationship. When was your bravest moment? How do you practice being brave? Leaving a big corporate job where I was running global innovation for 83 countries in order to take the Girls’ Lounge from a hobby into a full-time career and then launch The Female Quotient. But I always had my family encouraging me to take that next step, and holding my hand, which made everything less scary. Knowing what you know now, was it worth it? Yes. Innovation requires you to be bold and brave so you can go where no one has gone before. It’s a heck of a lot better when people come with you, inspiring you to push the envelope and create the new norm. I don’t know any other way. I can’t live in a status quo world when I know that evolution and innovation are what’s required to open new doors. You can’t experience what’s next if you’re not willing to open a new door, and then walk through it. What can you see yourself building next? I got the nickname “Chief Troublemaker” because I wasn’t afraid to break the rules that make no sense. I want to continue to rewrite the rules for the modern workplace by helping Fortune 500 companies create an equality workplace where everyone can thrive, feel like they belong and bring their best selves to work. I want to help women at every age and every life stage to find the power of confidence, believe in themselves and imagine all possibilities. When you flip the balance, you transform culture. Related: 10 Working Women Pioneers Who Changed the World for Good BiographyShelly Zalis is CEO of The Female Quotient, which works to advance gender equality across industries. Its Girls' Lounge presents pop-up experiences at top global conferences such as the World Economic Forum, Cannes Lions and the Consumer Electroncs Show. Zalis has led initiatives within corporations through the Female Quotient's Equality Bootcamps. Zalis has also had considerable experience working in traditional marketing and advertising research. She has held senior positions at ASI Maraket Research (now Ipso-ASI) and Nielsen Entertainment. In 2000, Zalis founded OTX, which grew to become a top global research agency and the pioneer of innovative online research products, including the multi-sourced, blended sample approach. In 2010, OTX was acquired by Ipsos. Zalis is the co-founder of #SeeHer, a movement led by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) to increase the percentage of accurate portrayals of women and girls in advertising and media. Recently, Zalis was honored with a New York Women in Communications Matrix Award for her work as a mentor, role model and game changer in her industry Zalis, who appears through the Washington Speakers Bureau and has interviewed many influencers, was the recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008.She was the first female chief executive ranked in the research industry’s top 25. She is a wife and mother of three. Related: Business via Entrepreneur http://bit.ly/1V7CpeP January 25, 2019 at 09:07AM
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A 31-year-old startup CFO who dropped out of Harvard Business School halfway through explains how she knew leaving was the right choice https://read.bi/2S6UG0S Andrea Blankmeyer
Dropping out of Harvard Business School is a difficult decision to make. After all, the school is one of the most prestigious and exclusive business schools in the world, accepting just 11% of the more than 10,000 applicants it gets each year. But for Andrea Blankmeyer, leaving Harvard was exactly what she needed to jump-start her career in finance. Blankmeyer, now the 31-year-old chief financial officer for the startup Transfix, left HBS in 2015 after completing just one year of her two-year MBA program. That summer, she interned at SoFi, a personal-finance startup that gave Blankmeyer her first taste of finance operations. She had spent the previous four years working as an associate consultant at Bain & Company and as a private equity associate at Hellman & Friedman. Her experience at SoFi was so rewarding that when summer ended and the startup offered her a full-time job, she chose to stay at the company rather than complete her Harvard MBA. "I found that the job energized me more than I had ever been energized before, and I was happier every day waking up and eager to go in," Blankmeyer told Business Insider. "I realized that frankly, I would have more FOMO if I went back to business school." A bonus just for you: Click here to claim 30 days of access to Business Insider PRIME Not everyone in her family took the news well, at least initially. Blankmeyer's parents have strong attachments to Harvard — they both attended the business school, Blankmeyer said, and they first met when they were placed in the same section. "When I told my mom what I was doing, she was, I think, shocked that anyone would make that decision," Blankmeyer said. Blankmeyer spent three years working in SoFi's San Francisco office, working her way up to vice president of finance and corporate development at the company. Last summer, she moved to New York City and was hired as the chief financial officer for Transfix, a logistics startup that connects truck drivers to shipping companies. The company has raised $78.5 million in funding since it was founded in 2013. Even though she didn't complete her MBA, Blankmeyer said business school benefited her in several ways. For one, it gave her time outside the pressures of a nine-to-five job to consider her professional future. But more importantly, she said, Harvard's name recognition was enough to get her foot in the door with companies that may not have noticed her otherwise. "Everyone is looking for business-school interns in the summer, and everyone is willing to talk to students in a way they wouldn't be able to talk to someone who's a professional in a not-quite-tangential industry," she said. "So it was easy and fun to do a job search out of business school. People are willing and open to spending time with you." The important thing, Blankmeyer said, is for people to consider the best decision for themselves, rather than what they think others want from them. "Where people often get kind of stuck in education is just, they're more concerned with the résumé stamps than they are with the benefits they're getting out of it," Blankmeyer said. "So somebody's in a graduate school program, whether it's business school or anything else, and you're just doing it because there's external expectations upon you to finish that. And you know in your heart, it either isn't supporting your ultimate goal, or may actually be detrimental to taking the right opportunity for yourself, or you're more excited about something else." She continued: "My advice is always to go with your gut on that, to try to release yourself from external expectations." If she ever changed her mind, Blankmeyer could return to Harvard this year — students who withdraw from the MBA program can petition for readmission within five years — but she said she has no desire to do so. "It was the most fun year of the last decade of my life, but personally, I really enjoy working, and I'm lucky in that I've found a job where I actually enjoy showing up every day," Blankmeyer said. "That's hard to find." See Also:
SEE ALSO: The 50 best jobs in America for 2019 Business via Business Insider https://read.bi/1IpULic January 25, 2019 at 08:57AM Proof That We Can Teach People To Be Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/2Tebqkh Because a majority of new jobs come from new or young companies, it’s a bad sign that entrepreneurship in the U.S. has been receding over several decades and still has not matched its pre-recession levels. It’s similarly foreboding that the innovation gap between the U.S. and global competitors is closing fast. To reverse those trends, we need more entrepreneurs. But entrepreneurs don’t just start businesses, they work in them too. And employers are increasingly seeking applicants with noncognitive, social and emotional skills – people with the creativity, persistence, communication and problem-solving skills that entrepreneurs demonstrate. In other words, we need more entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, simply going to school leaders and education policy makers and ordering up more entrepreneurs has not been plausible. That’s partly because there’s a common misbelief that entrepreneurs, like rock stars or professional athletes, are born instead of made – that you can’t teach “it.” Even at a practical level, though, just ordering more entrepreneurs has also been implausible because entrepreneur-ism has been difficult to define and, until very recently, impossible to measure. But a few months ago, that quietly and significantly changed. Now, there’s isn’t just research on entrepreneurship or teaching, there’s actually good research on teaching entrepreneurship. Culminating years of work, Dr. Thomas Gold, Research Director at The Acceleration Group, may finally have some answers about whether teaching entrepreneurship works and how it can be measured. Gold developed the EMI, the entrepreneurial mindset index, “an assessment with the psychometric properties to measure the entrepreneurial mindset in young people,” Gold said. The tool initially measured six of the eight distinct and important components of the entrepreneurial mindset. They are: communication and collaboration, creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, future orientation, opportunity recognition and comfort with risk. Metrics for the other two skills, initiative and self-reliance and flexibility and adaptability, are in development. Whether it sounds like it or not, that’s a big deal. “Just developing an accurate, science-based assessment of skills that are difficult to quantify is exceptionally challenging,” said Dave Saben, President & CEO of Assessment Systems, a private company that helps academic and business clients measure and assess candidates with specific skills, abilities and aptitudes. Assessment Systems did not work on the entrepreneurship project with Gold. But, Saben said, “Good metrics are the most important part of good decision-making. If you can’t measure it, you can’t possibly know what to cut and what to keep and doing that with entrepreneurial thinking is big in education and in business.” If developing the instrument was big, the findings are potentially enormous. Most importantly, Gold found “suggestive evidence that a focus on entrepreneurial mindset in schools may have a positive effect in getting youth to see entrepreneurship and self-employment as a possible career path and something that can be learned and developed.” In other words, Gold’s research found that if you teach it, they can learn it. For example, Gold found that students whose entrepreneurial mindset improved over the course of a year-long or semester-long entrepreneurship education program, “were twice as likely to think about entrepreneurship as a skill that can be applied in any career,” For employers desperately seeking job candidates with strong noncognitive skills, that’s a very promising outcome. But, Gold cautioned, it’s not that easy. Like most things, the quality of the program and the quality of the teaching matters. “The finding that was the most important was the relationship between entrepreneurial knowledge and mindset. I found that the greatest gains in entrepreneurial mindset happened in classrooms with the highest growth in entrepreneurial learning,” he said. “As expected, we found the lowest entrepreneurial mindset growth occurred in the lower-performing classrooms … the classes where there were stronger gains in entrepreneurial knowledge were most likely classrooms where there was better instruction, more opportunities for student growth.” While Gold’s research could have major downstream consequences, it will impact schools and education institutions most directly. “Schools and universities are already starting to develop curricula and experiences that build the characteristics and skills in youth that will help them navigate the ever-changing economy of the 21st century,” Gold said. “We need to shift our education policies so that they build on or at least match what we are learning about how to teach these hard to measure skills and characteristics. “What we cannot do,” said Gold, who is currently leading an effort to measure impacts of social entrepreneurship at Acceleration Group, “is simply rely on programs to teach these skills without evaluating them; we need to put their feet to the fire with rigorous research to build evidence on what works and what does not.” He’s right. We need entrepreneurs to be innovators, business creators and productive employees and we can’t afford to keep guessing at what we need to do get them. Perhaps, finally, we won’t have to. Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/dTEDZf January 25, 2019 at 08:53AM Please Get To Know Your Values http://bit.ly/2G1o8iC When we know our core values life becomes far easier to navigate. If we think about how we live life, in a very stripped back way, it takes the form of a decision tree. Every single day we have to make countless choices ranging from the incredibly important to the mundane and barely noticeable ones that we wouldn't even categorize as choices. Our decision trees are often highly effective. We adeptly weigh up consequences and outcomes, consider costs and resources and make our choices like the pro decision makers we are. Whether we realize it or not many of the decisions we make are often based on our values. But what are values? It is a term that gets used a lot but many of us might struggle to define it. Simply put values are our puppet masters. They are core beliefs that underpin and guide our decision making and behaviors. We are often most comfortable, content and without internal conflict when we are able to stick close to our values making the inverse true too. We can feel extremely uncomfortable and unhappy when we are not able to act according to our values. This discomfort can take many forms, from anger to anxiety, and can feel confusing if we’re not aware of where it’s coming from. The benefit of knowing our values is two-fold. When we are clear about our values they offer us a solid and guiding foundation which we can rely on during tough times, when important decisions need to be made or when we’re being tested. They can also help us live well and authenticly. Being guided by values may give us the courage to change situations which leave us misaligned and inspire us to stay true to who we are or who we want to be. So if you’re now sold on the idea of getting to know your values on a first name basis how can you do that?
Values tend to be rather stable but they aren’t by any means fixed. Values grow and change with us. Living close to our values is ideal but obviously not always possible. There will forever be people and situations in life where we have to compromise our values or fight to stick by them. Knowing our values, even when we’re not able to live and behave in alignment with them, allows us to know ourselves. At the very least it helps us remain honest and aware and when life's big decisions come calling for us we can rely on this knowledge. Making those big choices well usually hinges on one main thing; us knowing what we value most. Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/dTEDZf January 25, 2019 at 08:53AM |
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