Photo Credit: Anton Diaz

 

Can you believe it? American Pharaoh won American horse racing’s elusive Triple Crown. Affirmed last accomplished this feat 37 years ago. Wow.

Exciting stuff and I hope you enjoy these additional selected articles for your Sunday Brunch Reads (along with Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week) . Eat well and have a great Sunday.

Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week: Solutions That Scale / We’re All About Scalable Solutions.

1. LinkedIn Pulse: 7 Best Ways to Customize A “Connection Request. J.T. O’Donnell, CEO of CareerHMO and CAREEREALISM Media is a LinkedIn Influencer for a reason: She writes and shares brilliant and valuable articles like this one. Her article teaches us how to differentiate and customize our LinkedIn Invitation when we’ve never met someone in-person (IRL). 

She transforms a constraint into an asset with her customization method. What do we do?

Go to LinkedIn and research the LinkedIn Profile of the person we’d like to connect with. Look for:

• Mutually Shared Connections
• Mutually Shared Groups
• Websites, Blog Posts, Tweets, etc. This Person Person Publishes (and Read Up on Her Work)
• LinkedIn Publishing Platform Posts (and Study Up on Her Work Their Too)

After completing our research, jot down some notes and apply that knowledge using one of the Seven (7) LinkedIn Invitation Angles described in J.T.’s article.

Does J.T.’s advice work? I sent her the following customized, LinkedIn Invitation using a combination of the “Respect” and “Mentor” Angles from her post:

 Even though I didn’t spend the night in a Holiday Inn Express last night, J.T. accepted my LinkedIn Invitation. I must have done something right.

2. ExcelJet.net: 222 Excel keyboard shortcuts for PC and Mac.

I’m a Mac. The generous folks at ExcelJet.net provide this comprehensive list so Mac users can be faster and more efficient versus painfully scrolling when navigating around our Excel spreadsheets. This helpful website is a brilliant example in specialized, niche positioning with a content marketing strategy focusing on Efficiency and Speed.

Check out how the authors embedded a search tool to speed up finding the Excel Shortcut you’re looking for. You can also download these helpful Excel Mac Keyboard Shortcuts as a PDF document.

I’ll be referencing this website a lot for Excel shortcuts now that I’ve saved it in Evernote.

Here are some of the Mac Keyboard Excel Shortcuts I can’t live without:

* Toggle Through Absolute Cell or Relative Cell References: COMMAND + T     

* Format Anything (A Number or Text): COMMAND + 1; Makes getting to the Format Cells and “Wrap Text” command a snap         

* Create a Bullet Point List in a Single Cell or Start a New Line in a Single Cell: SHIFT + OPTION + ENTER    

* Mac Version of CTRL + ALT + DELETE (because sometimes crazy stuff happens in a big Excel sheet ): ALT + COMMAND + ESC    

* Drag and Copy a Cell (Selection of Cells): OPTION + DRAG CELL(s):    

* Select an Entire Block of Cells and GoTo the Last Cell with Something In It: SHIFT + COMMAND + DIRECTION ARROW / DIRECTION KEY

• Comes in handy when you don’t want to select an entire row or column but just want to select a chunk of cells for formatting

 

3. The New York Times: The 24/7 Work Culture’s Toll on Families and Gender Equality. Claire Cain Miller wrote this informative article on the pressures both women and men face in traditional high paying, high status professional services careers (i.e., management consulting, legal services, and investment banking).

How does a rising star differentiate herself / himself beyond publishing dazzling project deliverables? Billable Hours. Lots and Lots of Them.

How does a high powered / thought leader reputation, management consulting firm, law firm, or investment bank make lots of money beyond delivering superior work product? Billable Hours. Lots and Lots of Them.

The ingrained industry culture and golden, financial handcuffs, and high status imposes a strain on the personal lives of the people working in these firms. I know and understand these pressures first-hand when I worked for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGEY) Management Consulting after graduating from MBA school.

You can’t get around the link to revenue generation and billable hours. It’s impossible.

Read Claire’s article. It’s a personal life and work balance issue that’s gotten worse because we’re connected 24/7 by technology. People aren’t working smarter. People are working more. It’s a badge of honor in these industries.

I’m a Dad of two, still very young girls. Sadly, I don’t see this work issue changing in my lifetime (or my daughters’ lifetimes). But, that’s okay. Technology opens doors for new career options beyond the traditional, post-MBA career path I originally chose.

 

Your Turn

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE.   Comments are open. So let’er rip!

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