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How to Make A Calendar in Excel: A Step-By-Step Guide

May 10, 2022 No Comments

While Microsoft offers users an array of calendar templates, learning how to create a calendar in Excel gives you more autonomy over your entire spreadsheet. If you’re interested in mastering Microsoft Excel or at least being able to efficiently use it in your daily tasks, one of the basic tasks you’ll have to learn is how to make a calendar in Excel. This will let you customize your calendar with all the features your specific needs require.

Calendars allow us to better organize all aspects of our lives. By simply learning how to make a calendar in Excel, you can easily streamline your work tasks and meet your deadlines more regularly. This article provides you with a step-by-step guide on how to make a calendar in Excel. We also go over why learning how to make a calendar in Excel can help improve your work performance.

What Is A Calendar in Excel?

A calendar in Excel is a spreadsheet that is made up of customized tables containing the days, weeks, and months of a given year. It looks like a basic calendar layout. Microsoft Excel can be used to prepare an interactive and automatic calendar containing possible events and tasks. An entire calendar’s date range can be compressed into a single spreadsheet or multiple separate worksheets.

You can create a calendar sheet in Excel by using Visual Basic, Microsoft’s programming language for basic coding. You can also use a pivot table to create a calendar grid or insert a premade yearly calendar template. Formatting data in rows and columns to create a calendar from scratch or using power query add-in allows for greater freedom and flexibility in how the data you input is presented to you.

Why Learning How to Make A Calendar in Excel is Useful

It Boosts Team Collaboration. Learning how to make a weekly or monthly calendar in Excel provides you with the opportunity to have clearer communication with your teammates. You can easily review each other’s schedules on a daily or weekly calendar in Excel, make adjustments, and leave calendar notes without having to contact any particular teammate directly.
It Makes it Easier to Measure Project Progress. Learning how to make custom calendars in Excel helps with project management. Using Excel, you can build a workflow board that details how tasks will be prioritized and tackled over a certain period. You can easily monitor project timelines on the tasks you’ve been assigned and adjust them accordingly based on their completion rates.
It’s a Major Requirement for Administrative Roles. If you’re interested in becoming an accountant, secretary, or executive assistant, you need to be able to schedule events and tasks on the go. You’ll likely use a calendar management tool like Microsoft Excel, which comes with impressive features and add-on functions for easy calendar planning.

How to Make A Calendar in Excel: A Step-By-Step Guide

Step 1: Install the Microsoft Excel Application

To make a calendar in Excel, you’ll first need to install the Excel app, which you’ll be using for this project. Make sure you install the newest version, as it comes with upgraded features. Microsoft 365 houses all of Microsoft Office’s apps. If you have an earlier version of the Microsoft Office suite such as Microsoft 2021 or 2019, you’ll still be good to go.

Step 2: Create a New File

You’ll then need to create a file to house your calendar. To create your calendar file, launch the Excel application and go to the “New” button to open a blank workbook. At this point, you have to decide if this is a monthly or yearly calendar.

For this project, we will be creating a yearly calendar. We recommend you save the file as “Calendar 2022” or something similar. Then, you’ll want to create a sheet tab and name it after the month of the year you want your calendar to start on.

Step 3: Input Calendar Dates

First, select the seven cells in the first row and click on “merge and center” to create a title field in the merged column header. Once you’ve done this, input the days of the week in the second row of your worksheet, then count the days of the month serially under the seven rows to produce a table of seven columns by six rows, including the row containing the weekdays.

Step 4: Format the Calendar Cells

Next, you’ll need to format the table to give it a structure as well as proper spacing. This is done by highlighting the seven cells from the numbered cell borders option, then adjusting the width of the cells with the first data using the arrow that turns into a “plus sign” to automatically proportion all the other cells to the same width and height sizes.

Step 5: Align the Date Digits in the Cells

Highlight the columns and rows that contain the dates for the current month, then right-click on “format cells”. Once a box opens up, click on “alignment”. There, you’ll find “text alignment” for horizontal and vertical drop boxes. Select the format type you want. You can select “right or left” for the horizontal and “top or bottom” for the vertical. Click “ok” and input your digits to see the results.

Step 6: Repeat the Same Process for Each Month.

To recreate this process, go to the “Sheet tab” to replicate your calendar grid for the other months. Right-click on the “Sheet1”, which you’ve renamed to the month of your choice in step 2, and select the “move or copy” option. Once a Dialog Box opens up, you’ll see the “move to end” and “create a copy”. Click on “create a copy” and “ok” to replicate it. You can then customize the dates and background colour if you wish.

How to Make A Calendar in Excel at Once

To make a calendar in Excel at once, you need a pre-made calendar template. First, decide if it’s a yearly or monthly calendar template. Open your Excel worksheet and click “New” to access the search field and browse monthly or yearly calendar templates on the web. Download the calendar layout that suits your needs, click “Create” and proceed to customize your calendar.

Benefits of Making A Calendar In Excel

Excel Comes with Plenty of Design Features. Excel makes it easy to organize your schedule with functionality and aesthetics. You’ll find features in Excel that allow you to implement automatic colour coding in a calendar grid and easily insert template images from multiple sources into a spreadsheet. You can also adjust cell sizes or customize font sizes and styles to suit your preference.
Excel Calendars Are Flexible. There are very few limitations to what your Excel calendar can do for you. You can use it as a printable calendar or an offline calendar, you can use your dynamic calendar to store information by leaving notes in the cells for future reference, or you can use it to track your workflow by assigning schedules for a given time period.
Excel Calendars Can Be Shared. Excel calendars can be shared with external users when you save them on the cloud. This is especially beneficial for teammates who need to periodically review their calendar events for work purposes while away from the office. Excel also comes with security features that allow you to restrict external access to your calendar.

Importance of Learning How to Use Excel Sheets

Microsoft Excel is one of the most popular calendar apps available. Many companies have adopted this tool for project management and hiring managers often give preference to candidates who can competently use Excel. With this multipurpose tool, you can perform simple tasks like data entry and complex projects.

How to Make A Calendar In Excel FAQ

How can I create a calendar in Excel?

To create a calendar system in Excel, start by ensuring you have installed and subscribed for Microsoft 365. This gives you access to the updated versions of all the applications. Then, you can decide if you want to create your calendar from scratch or use a premade template. This article contains step-by-step instructions on how to create a calendar from scratch in Excel.

Where is a calendar in Excel?

Excel comes with calendar templates that users can customize to suit their specific project needs. You can find a wide range of calendar templates in Excel by simply selecting the “File Menu” and choosing the “New” button. It will lead you to a search box where you can search through the different types of calendar template options.

How do I add a calendar in Excel without add-ins?

Start by adding the developer ribbon using the “customize ribbon”. Open the “Developer Tab”, click on the “insert” drop-down menu, then “more controls’. Click on the Microsoft Date and Time Picker Control and the cell you want to add the date picker to. Lastly, click on “properties” on the design menu to customize it to your liking. If you’re using the 64-bit Excel version, use an external date picker plugin.

How do I create a calendar from a date in Excel?

Start by choosing the date and writing it in a cell, then go to the home tab to click on the “number menu”. It will give you a drop-down box, from which you’ll choose “date”. From there, click on the “more number format” to select a date format. You can then follow the rest of the steps in this article to finish creating your calendar from scratch.

By Mercy Ugonna Njoku

Mercy, a tech enthusiast from Nigeria, holds a BSc in Business Management from Abia State University. Prior to launching a freelance writing career, she worked in finance as an assistant accountant at a coffee house, where she was sometimes tasked with content creation, sparking her interest in writing. As a writer, she seeks clients with altruistic goals and takes pride in helping others. At Career Karma, Mercy aims to help people navigate unfamiliar and complex situations in their professional lives so they can thrive. Her hobbies include drawing, working on startup projects, and engaging in discussions.

Sourced from Career Karma

Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.

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This 1 Number Explains Why Amazon’s New Ad Business Is Going to Be Huge

May 10, 2022 No Comments

By James Brumley

Brands have only begun to explore the potential of this new feature for an old sales platform.

Investors keeping close tabs on e-commerce giant Amazon ( AMZN -2.11% ) will likely know it’s getting into the web advertising business. Indeed, it’s already deep in the market, driving $31.2 billion worth of ad revenue last year. For perspective, Alphabet‘s ( GOOGL -1.91% ) ( GOOG -1.80% ) Google brand — when including YouTube — collected $209.5 billion worth of advertising dollars in 2021. Alphabet’s been doing it a lot longer and had more time to tweak its offering than Amazon has, of course, but Amazon’s lesser tally is still an impressive figure.

Furthermore, Amazon has only scratched the surface of its opportunity in this segment of its business. Early users of Amazon’s promotional platform are finding a shockingly high return on their investment in the advertising program. Other companies that regularly run ads should achieve similarly strong results once they try it out.

Yes, Amazon is in the ad game

If you’re not familiar with Amazon’s newest project, it’s not complicated. Amazon.com is one of the world’s busiest websites (the 11th most-visited site, according to Alexa). The company is simply looking to monetize all that traffic by selling a bit of space on its web pages to advertisers looking to draw attention to their products.

It’s not exactly a new business; the company’s allowed advertisers to “sponsor” a particular product for some time now. Back in 2020 though, Amazon really started to turn the idea into a major profit center. Jungle Scout suggests the company did $21.5 billion in advertising business that year, up more than 40% from 2019’s tally, en route to 2021’s 45% growth. And the stage is set for more of the same.

In its recently published report “Brands, Amazon, and the Changing Landscape of E-Marketplaces,” e-commerce consulting outfit Feedvisor lays out some compelling information regarding Amazon’s advertising product. One of these data nuggets is the fact that, according to its findings, Amazon.com is the most commonly used sales venue for all brands surveyed, including e-commerce sites owned and operated by that brand itself.

All told, 45% of companies that sell physical goods count on Amazon’s reach. That’s near twice the 25% of brands that utilize Walmart‘s or Google’s online-selling tools.

And well they should. An incredible 64% of the consumer goods companies using Amazon.com to sell their products say they’ve seen increased sales because of it.

Perhaps the most impressive piece of information from Feedvisor’s study, however, is this: More than half the companies selling goods through Amazon.com that also advertise their goods at the site say the return on investment is seven times their cost, if not more. In other words, for every $1 spent on promoting their product on Amazon, that company gets at least $7 back in increased revenue.

That’s impressive. It puts Amazon right up there with the venerable Google when measuring their fiscal upsides to advertising. Indeed, the two companies are tied for top honors in terms of making the most of money spent on digital ads.

Room and reason to keep growing

Don’t look for this rate of return on advertising dollars deployed through Amazon.com to persist indefinitely. A little less than half of all the brands Feedvisor reviewed use any sort of digital marketplace to sell their goods right now.

More are sure to step into the fray, though. In fact, Feedvisor’s report indicates that 74% of the brands finding success with advertising at Amazon.com say growing competition for consumers’ attention at the e-commerce site — through ads — is their biggest concern going forward. It’s not an unmerited worry. That competition for Amazon’s ad inventory, however, is ultimately good news for Amazon itself.

All of a sudden, eMarketer’s expectation that Amazon’s advertising revenue could grow on the order of another 30% this year and 24% more next year doesn’t seem far-fetched at all. That’s especially true given eMarketer’s figures suggesting Amazon’s ad revenue growth so far has largely come at the expense of Google’s share without even requiring any actual net market growth. Google, meanwhile, has a lot more business it could end up giving up to Amazon.

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Feature Image Credit: Getty Images.

By James Brumley

Sourced from The Motley Fool

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Smart Devices Are Spying on You Everywhere, And That’s a Problem

May 10, 2022 No Comments

By ROBERTO YUS & PRIMAL PAPPACHAN, THE CONVERSATION

Have you ever felt a creeping sensation that someone’s watching you? Then you turn around and you don’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Depending on where you were, though, you might not have been completely imagining it. There are billions of things sensing you every day. They are everywhere, hidden in plain sight – inside your TV, fridge, car and office. These things know more about you than you might imagine, and many of them communicate that information over the internet.

Back in 2007, it would have been hard to imagine the revolution of useful apps and services that smartphones ushered in. But they came with a cost in terms of intrusiveness and loss of privacy.

As computer scientists who study data management and privacy, we find that with internet connectivity extended to devices in homes, offices and cities, privacy is in more danger than ever.

Internet of Things

Your appliances, car and home are designed to make your life easier and automate tasks you perform daily: switch lights on and off when you enter and exit a room, remind you that your tomatoes are about to go bad, personalize the temperature of the house depending on the weather and preferences of each person in the household.

To do their magic, they need the internet to reach out for help and correlate data. Without internet access, your smart thermostat can collect data about you, but it doesn’t know what the weather forecast is, and it isn’t powerful enough to process all of the information to decide what to do.

But it’s not just the things in your home that are communicating over the internet. Workplaces, malls and cities are also becoming smarter, and the smart devices in those places have similar requirements.

In fact, the Internet of Things (IoT) is already widely used in transport and logistics, agriculture and farming, and industry automation. There were around 22 billion internet-connected devices in use around the world in 2018, and the number is projected to grow to over 50 billion by 2030.

What these things know about you

Smart devices collect a wide range of data about their users. Smart security cameras and smart assistants are, in the end, cameras and microphones in your home that collect video and audio information about your presence and activities.

On the less obvious end of the spectrum, things like smart TVs use cameras and microphones to spy on users, smart lightbulbs track your sleep and heart rate, and smart vacuum cleaners recognize objects in your home and map every inch of it.

Sometimes, this surveillance is marketed as a feature. For example, some Wi-Fi routers can collect information about users’ whereabouts in the home and even coordinate with other smart devices to sense motion.

Manufacturers typically promise that only automated decision-making systems and not humans see your data. But this isn’t always the case. For example, Amazon workers listen to some conversations with Alexa, transcribe them and annotate them, before feeding them into automated decision-making systems.

But even limiting access to personal data to automated decision making systems can have unwanted consequences. Any private data that is shared over the internet could be vulnerable to hackers anywhere in the world, and few consumer internet-connected devices are very secure.

Understand your vulnerabilities

With some devices, like smart speakers or cameras, users can occasionally turn them off for privacy. However, even when this is an option, disconnecting the devices from the internet can severely limit their usefulness.

You also don’t have that option when you’re in workspaces, malls or smart cities, so you could be vulnerable even if you don’t own smart devices.

Therefore, as a user, it is important to make an informed decision by understanding the trade-offs between privacy and comfort when buying, installing and using an internet-connected device.

This is not always easy. Studies have shown that, for example, owners of smart home personal assistants have an incomplete understanding of what data the devices collect, where the data is stored and who can access it.

Governments all over the world have introduced laws to protect privacy and give people more control over their data. Some examples are the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Thanks to this, for instance, you can submit a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) to the organization that collects your data from an internet-connected device. The organizations are required to respond to requests within those jurisdictions within a month explaining what data is collected, how it is used within the organization and whether it is shared with any third parties.

Limit the privacy damage

Regulations are an important step; however, their enforcement is likely to take a while to catch up with the ever-increasing population of internet-connected devices. In the meantime, there are things you can do to take advantage of some of the benefits of internet-connected without giving away an inordinate amount of personal data.

If you own a smart device, you can take steps to secure it and minimize risks to your privacy.

The Federal Trade Commission offers suggestions on how to secure your internet-connected devices. Two key steps are updating the device’s firmware regularly and going through its settings and disabling any data collection that is not related to what you want the device to do. The Online Trust Alliance provides additional tips and a checklist for consumers to ensure safe and private use of consumer internet-connected devices.

If you are on the fence about purchasing an internet-connected device, find out what data it captures and what the manufacturer’s data management policies are from independent sources such as Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included. By using this information, you can opt for a version of the smart device you want from a manufacturer that takes the privacy of its users seriously.

Last but not least, you can pause and reflect on whether you really need all your devices to be smart. For example, are you willing to give away information about yourself to be able to verbally command your coffee machine to make you a coffee?

Feature Image Credit: Colin Anderson Productions pty ltd/Getty Images

By ROBERTO YUS & PRIMAL PAPPACHAN, THE CONVERSATION

Roberto Yus, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Primal Pappachan, Postdoctoral Scholar in Computer Science, Penn State.

Sourced from Science Alert

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Reach launches digital tech platform Neptune and in-house Ad Tech Workshop in Ireland

May 9, 2022 No Comments

Reach announced the launch of its newly named digital tech platform Neptune, bringing together Reach’s existing first party data platform with its growing slate of data matching capabilities and custom-built AI contextual tools.

As part of the latest push to boost ad tech capability, Reach also announced the creation of a dedicated in-house Ad Tech Workshop, unique in the publishing space in that the team will sit in the Commercial division and focus entirely on commercial product development – both for in-house use, and to license to other publishers.

Reporting into Reach Group Digital Director Terry Hornsby, the Ad Tech Workshop will be made up of developers, testers and Product Managers, and will expand to enhance and grow Reach’s innovation of digital products and publishing tools.

The move is the latest in a series of early ad tech successes for Reach, beginning in late 2019 with Mantis – an AI-powered brand safety and contextual tool spearheaded by Terry and developed in partnership with IBM Watson. Terry later established a small team to develop Reach’s Plus products that offer a unique approach to customer matching, and developed Ocean, Reach’s first party data platform.

Both Neptune and the Ad Tech Workshop come as part of Reach’s wider Customer Value Strategy announced in 2020, which has fast-tracked the company’s efforts in bolstering their data and technical capabilities, with a target of reaching 10 million registered customers by the end of 2022.

Terry Hornsby, Reach Group Digital Director, commented:

“At Reach, we were among the first in developing our own digital tools to solve problems facing both advertisers and publishers.

“Being ahead of the curve on first party data has given us a great opportunity to continue to experiment and innovate.

“This latest investment in our in-house workshop and the Neptune platform underpins our approach – trying new things, finding new opportunities for growth, and taking our destiny into our own hands. When we need a tech solution, we roll up our sleeves and create it.”

Jonathan Eakin, Commercial Director of Reach Solutions Ireland, added:

“Reach’s unique position in Ireland as a publisher of this scale gives us a fantastic window into consumer behaviour and interests, together with the ability to apply this knowledge in real terms to the products we develop.

“Continuing to boost our ad tech capabilities will set us in great stead as we look to the future and enhances our reputation as the most innovative publisher in the market.”

In News

The rise of TikTok: why Facebook is worried about the booming social app

May 9, 2022 No Comments

By Mark Sweney

Chinese-owned video platform is set to overtake the advertising scale of Twitter and Snapchat combined

TikTok is on track to overtake the global advertising scale of Twitter and Snapchat combined this year, and to match mighty YouTube within two years, as trendsetting teens and young adults make it the hottest social app of the moment – and Facebook is worried.

The Chinese-owned video-sharing platform is forecast to catch up with YouTube by 2024 when both are predicted to take $23.6bn (£18.2bn) in ad revenue, despite TikTok being launched globally 12 years after its Google-owned rival.

Helped by unparalleled moments of cool at the height of the pandemic – Idaho labourer Nathan Apodaca skateboarding along to Dreams put Fleetwood Mac’s album Rumours back in the top 10 more than four decades after its release – TikTok’s surging growth belies the metronomic pace of its name.

Last year, it overtook the global ad take of Snapchat, previously the digital hangout of choice for teens and twentysomethings, and by the end of this year it will have surpassed that of Twitter. This year it is predicted to triple worldwide ad revenues, to $11.6bn, more than the $10.44bn for Snapchat and Twitter combined.

“TikTok’s user base has exploded in the past couple of years, and the amount of time users spend on the app is extraordinary,” says Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, which compiled the ad spend forecast. “It has moved well beyond its roots as a lip-syncing and dancing app. It creates trends and fosters deep connections with creators that keep users engaged, video after video.”

TikTok landed its billionth user in 2021, four years after global launch, half the time it took Facebook, YouTube or Instagram, and three years faster than WhatsApp. Earlier this week, analysts at data.ai revised a prediction that TikTok would hit 1.5 billion monthly active users this year, after its analysis revealed it had surpassed that milestone by 100 million users within the first three months.

The company is winning the battle for the “sweet spot” of social media users, those in the 18- to 25-year-old demographic where Facebook is seeing its biggest declines, with parent company Meta trying to stem the exodus by attracting them to stablemate Instagram.

TikTok is also becoming increasingly addictive. Despite the platform supposedly being restricted to those aged 13 and over, about 16% of three- and four-year-olds view TikTok content, according to research commissioned by media regulator Ofcom. This rose to 29% of all children in the five- to seven-year-old age group.

Last year the typical TikTok user spent 19.6 hours on average per month on the app, according to data.ai – equalling Facebook, the global leader in time spent by users on social media. For TikTok, this represents an almost fivefold increase in just four years, up from 4.2 hours in 2018.

“Facebook has always been the biggest competitor in this space for dominating users,” says Sam O’Brien, the chief marketing officer at performance marketing company Affise. “But it seems it can’t quite tap into convincing TikTok’s loyal users to revert back to its platform. TikTok has figured out its own way to give the platform an addictive quality.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta still dominates the market – Facebook has 2.9 billion monthly active users, and Instagram another 2 billion, with Insider Intelligence putting their 2024 ad revenues at $85bn and $82bn respectively. Even so, it emerged last month that fear of TikTok had led it to hire a lobbying firm to paint the company as the “real threat, especially as a foreign-owned app”.

“Meta clearly sees itself in a battle against TikTok for the hearts, minds and attention spans of millennials, a significant chunk of the social media market,” says O’Brien. “TikTok has experienced a staggering growth of users since the onset of the global pandemic, taking over a huge chunk of its competitor’s audience.”

Meta’s tactics aim to exploit the suspicion promoted under the Trump administration that Chinese companies, from telecoms giant Huawei to TikTok’s parent ByteDance, pose a national security threat as potential conduits of personal data to Beijing.

Two years ago, India, one of the world’s biggest markets for social media usage, banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok. However, Trump’s plans to force ByteDance to sell its international operations to a US firm, such as Microsoft or Oracle, petered out after he lost the US presidential election.

Nevertheless, suspicions remain among many users including those in the UK, which has banned Huawei equipment from being used in mobile phone networks. Last year, research found that almost a third of all Britons were concerned that TikTok might share their personal data with the Chinese government. Among those aged 18 to 34, a third believed it would hand over their data on request from China.

ByteDance has also come under pressure at home as Beijing has looked to rein in the power of the country’s tech titans. Billionaire co-founder Zhang Yiming unexpectedly announced in May that he would step down as chief executive, and in November relinquished the role of chairman, as ByteDance underwent a major restructure breaking it into six business units.

Nevertheless, the company remains in rude health and last December was named the world’s largest unicorn with a valuation of $353bn – up from $80bn a year earlier – with the markets hopeful of a blockbuster initial public offering in the future. ByteDance saw its total revenues, including its Chinese operation and substantial in-app and ecommerce business, grow by 70% last year to about $58bn, up from $34.3bn in 2020.

While Meta remains a much larger business and revenues rose 37% last year, to $118bn, Zuckerberg has felt the need to launch a commercial counterattack to shore up and diversify his advertising-based business model.

Always quick to ape the successful innovations of rivals, Meta is exploring launching virtual coins, nicknamed “Zuck bucks” by staff, for users of Facebook and Instagram to buy and use, in a very similar strategy to that already employed highly successfully by TikTok.

Earlier this week it emerged that TikTok is now the most lucrative app in the world for in-app purchases. TikTok users spent $840m on its virtual “coins” currency, which can be used to “tip” creators and promote videos, in the first quarter – up 40% year on year.

“It’s the biggest quarter for any app or game ever,” says Lexi Sydow, head of insights at data.ai, which published the report. “It’s the first app ever to beat a game in consumer spend in a given quarter.”

Zuckerberg’s revenue diversification plans follow an ill-fated launch of direct TikTok copycat Lasso in 2018, which shut after just 18 months. Meta is persevering with rival short-form video product Reels, which launched on Instagram in 2020 and Facebook last year, but despite its efforts TikTok’s momentum shows no signs of slowing down.

“Some young people have switched off Facebook entirely,” says Jamie MacEwan, senior media analyst at Enders. “In the UK, 18-to-24s spend as much on TikTok as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp combined. There is rampant competition for time. TikTok is the one growing fastest right now, and has scale, it’s the one to watch.”

Feature Image Credit: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

By Mark Sweney

Sourced from The Guardian

In News

People Who Have a Good Work Ethic do These 7 Things Regularly

May 9, 2022 No Comments

By Anouare Abdou

Having a good work ethic is likely something you strive for. It’s also what you look for while hiring. But what exactly does a strong work ethic entail? Ideally, everyone should do their job well, so it’s a fair question to ask.

“Work ethic is more than showing up on time. Showing up on time is part of the job,” says Kristin Heller of HR Creative Consulting. According to her, most of the principles and habits that make up a good work ethic are timeless, and work ethic is a spectrum. “Work ethic is like performance – you will have employees on every level of the work ethic scale.”

But the pandemic has also affected how we perceive that term. “Before the pandemic, my clients were much more focused on visibility and climbing the rungs of the ladder to get promoted,” says Lauren LeMunyan, founder of The Spitfire Coach, a leadership development organization. “Now I see my clients looking to make the most impact and preserve their time outside of their roles and working time so that they can bring their best selves into the workday.”

Wondering what that looks like in practice? Here are seven things that people who have a good work ethic do regularly, according to Heller and LeMunyan.

1. They show that you can count on them

Reliability is a pillar of a good work ethic. “A good work ethic in 2022 is about doing what you say you will do, not in a people-pleasing way, but with a discernment that can evaluate priorities, impact, resources, and capacity,” says LeMunyan.

Heller says that weak work ethic employees tend to be “repeat offenders of unplanned time away from work,” which does the opposite of demonstrating that you’re reliable. On the other hand, people with a strong work ethic let others know in advance when they are coming in late, leaving early or out of the office.

2. They take initiative

They also take initiative. “Those employees see what needs to be done and do it. Once an employee fully understands their role, they do not need to be told every little move but rather take initiative to move forward and oftentimes help lead others in moving forward as well,” adds Heller.

3. They make their time count

Additionally, professionals who have a good work ethic understand the value of time, and they make their time count.

“My clients ask themselves, ‘What would be possible with the time I have available today and who do I need to communicate with to bring more ease into my day?’” says LeMunyan. She adds that those professionals know when to say no or “not right now” to things that are not important and urgent, and tend to focus on tasks where they can be in their zone of genius.

4. They seek to grow and learn

A desire to grow is a key indicator that someone values doing a good job too. Heller says that people who want to constantly learn and grow more, whether it be in their role or in their eagerness to take on new challenges, tend to have a great work ethic. “They want to grow and learn and it is up to leaders to allow it to happen.”

5. They love to make an impact

According to her, those are the same people who tend to jump on the opportunity to support others and make an impact because they want to bring value to their team: “They share their knowledge with others by teaching and training willingly because they want others and the business to be better.”

6. They are intentional about meetings

Being intentional about meetings is a more underrated habit of professionals who shine on the work ethic front, but it’s a particularly relevant one in the age of back-to-back Zoom calls and meeting-heavy work cultures.

For example, LeMunyan says that having a good work ethic can look like “adding time buffers in between meetings for at least 10 minutes to allow for bio breaks, action item planning, and follow-up items.” Or ending meetings earlier than scheduled: “These professionals value time and freely give it back to people so that they can get ahead of the day.”

7. They have a positive mindset

Finally, people with an amazing work ethic know that every organization has challenges. They don’t wear rose-coloured glasses and are not afraid to be honest about what is not working, but they do focus on bringing solutions rather than complaining.

They are “employees that bring issues and questions forward but do not complain about every little imperfection in business,” explains Heller. “They understand that to get better, leaders must be aware, but they also understand that no business is perfect.”

Most of all, they maintain positive energy and attitude while embracing all the habits above.

By Anouare Abdou

Sourced from Hive

In News

Turning point for artificial intelligence: Will the large cloud providers dominate?

May 9, 2022 No Comments

By Joe McKendrick

Could the tech giants take control of the AI narrative and reduce choices for enterprises? Experts weighed the pros and cons in a recent online conference.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning requires huge amounts of processing capacity and data storage, making the cloud the preferred option. That raises the specter of a few cloud giants dominating AI applications and platforms. Could the tech giants take control of the AI narrative and reduce choices for enterprises?

Not necessarily, but with some caveats, AI experts emphasize. But the large cloud providers are definitely in a position to control the AI narrative from several perspectives.

That’s part of the consensus raised at a recent webcast hosted by New York University Center for the Future of Management and LMU institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization, joined by Daron Acemoglu, professor at MIT; Jacques Bughin, professor at the Solvay School of Economics and Management; and Raffaella Sadun, professor at Harvard Business School.

There’s more to AI than cloud. The complexity and diversity of AI applications go well beyond the cloud environments where they are run — and therefore reduce the dominance of a few cloud giants.

Certainly, “AI will require more capacity in storage, of the information flow,” says Bughin. At the same time, “cloud is only one part of the total pie of the platform. It’s part of infrastructure, but the platform layer is what you develop in house and through a third party. This integration is going to be hybrid, even more important than the cloud itself. Let’s be very clear, it’s not about operation, it’s a lot of algorithms, it’s a lot of different data, that integration piece, that will require system integration, architecture and design. That means that different types of firms will be involved in that work.”

What Bughin worries about more is the innovation potential from AI startups that may be squashed by larger players gobbling up smaller companies and startups through mergers and acquisitions. “Companies like the big internet or AI guys are going and buying a lot of very small and very clever AI firms.”

At the same time, Sadun points out that smaller companies may be in a better position to leverage AI innovations — but need help with training and education to prepare them. “This issue of who benefits from AI is really important,” she says. “On the one hand, we might think the smaller firms may be able to use these technologies more effectively, because they are more nimble, more agile. Companies that have already digital can exploit and scale AI.”

Where the large cloud providers may also make their dominance felt is in the monopolization of the data that feeds AI systems, says Acemoglu. Cloud architecture itself can be based on price-sensitive and competitive cloud services, he explains. “But the cloud architecture will not enable you to exploit data. The area, where I worry about the future of AI technologies are those that enable firms to monopolize data. That’s where firms have an oversized effect on the future direction of technology. That means a few people in a boardroom are going to determine where a technology’s going to go. We want more people focused and people-centric AI. That’s not going to be possible if a few firms that have a different business model dominate the future of technology. ”

The value of an AI-driven enterprise “does not reside in the cloud that enables it,” Bughin believes. “I think there’s enough of competition for the price point not to destroy the value. The value will come from the fact that you have integrated these technologies where you work, and the way your company works, in your own back end. The back end is not going to be the battlefield. The value is from generating productivity and revenue, at a rate faster than what we’ve seen in traditional digital transformations.”

And, for the first time, we see the terms traditional and digital transformation used together in the same sentence. As these thought leaders relate, such transformations are moving to the next phase, enabling autonomous, software-driven operations and innovation through AI. It’s a question of whether large tech vendors control the momentum, or if it remains a market and practice with a diversity of choices. Stay tuned.

Feature Image Credit: Joe McKendrick

By Joe McKendrick

Sourced from ZDNet

In News

How To Start An Online Boutique In 2022

May 6, 2022 No Comments

By Kathy Haan, Kelly Main

Retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. will reach $1.06 trillion in 2022. With more people buying online than ever, starting a boutique is a great side hustle idea; the average income for e-commerce boutique owners is $6,013 per month. Getting started is easy, but it takes time to have all the pieces in place for a successful online boutique. We’ll even show you how to start an online boutique on a budget.

Step 1. Decide on a Niche

A niche is a specific type of product you focus on. When starting an online boutique, it’s important to choose a niche so you can stand out in the enormous sea of e-commerce businesses. Do some research and figure out what type of products you want to sell. Consider your interests, what’s popular in the market and which gap you can fill.

Some niche ideas include:

Cashmere clothing and gifts
Vintage-style costume jewellery
Children’s wall art
Plants and gardening tools
High-end stationery
Ship and boat model kits
Custom-fitted shapewear

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when deciding on a niche is chasing saturated markets. The niche you choose needs a captive audience, but yours must have an edge to compete in a dominant category. How will your products differentiate from the hoard of the same products sold by other boutiques?

Before choosing a name, it’s best to check to see if the domain is available to purchase. You can do this using a site such as GoDaddy. Otherwise, you can check its availability but wait to purchase the name in step five through your e-commerce platform.

The name you choose must be easy to spell, memorable and catchy. While you can choose a domain name ending in something other than .com, it’s easier for customers to remember your site when using .com instead of .biz or .info.

Step 2. Set Up Your Legal Entity

Setting up your legal entity will determine how you’re taxed and what liability you have as the owner of the online boutique. The most common legal entities for small businesses are sole proprietorships and limited liability companies (LLCs).

Sole Proprietorship: As the name suggests, this is a business owned by a single person. There’s no paperwork required to set up a sole proprietorship, but you will need to register your business with the state and get a tax ID. This is the simplest way to set up a business, but you’re personally liable for any debts the business accumulates.

LLC: An LLC offers some liability protection for the owner, and it’s easier to get bank loans and other funding as an LLC than as a sole proprietorship. To set up an LLC, you’ll need to file Articles of Organization with your state and get an employer identification number (EIN) from the IRS. Most states offer this ability 100% online with little to no wait time to incorporate. You can also use an online business filing company, such as BetterLegal or Inc Authority, to do the filing for you.

Step 3. Make a Business Plan

Many small business owners skip the step of creating a business plan. While not required, it’s a good idea to have one in place to track your progress, determine the feasibility of your boutique, understand both your customer and competition, pivot and secure financing.

Your business plan can include sections such as:

Executive Summary
Business Description
Products and Services
Market Analysis
Target Market
Marketing Plan
Financial Plan
Business Structure and Ownership
Legal Requirements
Operations and Management

You can find templates for your business plan by visiting the U.S. Small Business Administration site. Not only can you access help online, but the SBA also has Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) to assist you on your entrepreneurial journey. These networks provide advice, mentoring, workshops and small business grant opportunities.

Step 4. Source Suppliers and/or Materials

Finding reliable product suppliers for a price you can afford is half the battle of running an online boutique. Find a supplier or wholesaler who offers quality products, on-time delivery and excellent customer service.

To find suppliers, search for terms such as “wholesale” or “product supplier” and include the type of product you’re looking for in your search, such as “clothing supplier.” You can also check out trade shows in your industry to meet with suppliers and get product ideas.

Sources for products include:

Alibaba
DHgate
Mable
Oberlo
Tundra
Abound
Boutsy
Handshake

Etsy Wholesale
Faire
Bulletin
IndieMe
RangeMe
LA Showroom
FashionGo
Stockable

DHgate can be a great source of wholesale goods for your boutique.

Step 5. Create an Online Store

To establish your store, you first need an e-commerce platform. You can either use a hosted platform, which is a turnkey solution that includes everything you need to launch and maintain your store, or an open source platform, which requires a bit more technical know-how to set up and maintain. Open source platforms provide far more customization options than what you’d find with a hosted platform.

The platform you choose will determine the features and functionality of your store, so it’s important to choose one that offers the features you need to run your business. Read our e-commerce platform guide for recommendations.

For ease, we’ll show you how to set up a Shopify boutique. It offers a free 14-day trial.

Go to Shopify.com and create an account
Install product apps (e.g., print-on-demand apps)
Select a theme and customize it with your branding
Add products
Add, delete and customize web pages
Organize your menu
Set up a custom domain name
Set up shipping
Create a test order
Choose a plan and publish

Please note that while it’s free to create an online boutique with Shopify’s free 14-day trial, you will need a plan in order for your site to be professional with its own custom domain name and ad-free hosting. This is the case for every quality ecommerce site builder, including Weebly, Wix, Squarespace and WordPress.

Step 6. Market Your Online Boutique

Now that you have your online store up and running, it’s time to start marketing it. There are a number of ways to market an online store, and the best approach depends on your budget, target market and goals.

Common marketing strategies for online stores include:

Search engine optimization (SEO)
Paid advertising (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc.)
Social media marketing
Content marketing
Email marketing
Affiliate programs
Influencer marketing
Loyalty programs (create buzz through existing clients)
Trade shows
Press coverage

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Kathy Haan, Kelly Main

Sourced from Forbes Advisor

In News

How to Make Passive Income in the Creator Economy

May 6, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Alfonso Cobo, founder of Unfold, outlines trends and opportunities for digital creators.

Who are you and what is your business?

I am Alfonso Cobo, founder of Unfold, a social storytelling app that lets you create photo templates and bio sites for selling anything.

What are the biggest trends you’re seeing in the creator economy?

The biggest trend we’re seeing is creators diversifying their income streams — users who sell products are starting to explore content, content creators are selling physical goods, and creators are dipping their toes into Web3. There’s an emphasis on becoming less reliant on any one platform, while also setting up passive income streams that bring in steady revenue so the creators have more space and stability to focus on their craft. Most influencers currently still rely on brand deals, and most are looking to diversify.

What are the top trends in social and digital selling?

Social commerce will soon exceed social advertising — it will quickly grow to be a huge chunk of global ecommerce. Universally, we’re seeing that brands and businesses who embrace social selling are seeing great returns and are also realizing that it’s an opportunity to build a stronger relationship directly with the consumer.

We’re creating and seeing smarter monetization tools, and the real key is that there are so many touchpoints and platforms, you want to remove friction points along the way. Bio Sites are a huge trend in social selling because they provide creators with a unified ecommerce link that they can share across their platforms and communities. And coming next, sellers are looking at Web3 as a way to drive new revenue channels, more transparent business models and higher engaged communities.

What are the biggest challenges that creators are facing?

Creators have to manage a presence on a bunch of different platforms because there is no central hub that aggregates all the tools and data that they need in one place. Each tool and platform in the market has its own niche and goes deep into a specific use case or vertical.

This also makes it challenging for creators to truly own and monetize their audiences in a way that is platform agnostic when they may have very different followings or content styles from Instagram to TikTok.

Smart creators understand that their audience is made up of different types of fans with different levels of passion and willingness to pay, but this requires high levels of focus, providing different levels of offerings like editions, 1/1s, and auction mechanisms to meet fans where they are and convert them from casual and active fans to super fans.

Unfold became a part of Squarespace in 2019. What insights do you have for entrepreneurs about integrating into a bigger ecosystem?

I asked myself three questions about becoming part of their ecosystem, and all of the answers were yes:

Do you provide something with a similar goal but in a different lane? We found that what Squarespace provides for online, Unfold provides on social. So yes.
Do your customers’ goals overlap? There is a lot of overlap within our customers’ goals, which is to start creating and monetizing their brands with the highest quality design alignment across all digital selling. So yes.
Will we approach integration thoughtfully and patiently? We gave ourselves a few months to watch our products grow independently, which illuminated ways to build new releases that were completely complementary. Around that time, Squarespace’s mission was evolving to provide creators with everything to sell anything, and because we gave ourselves a discovery period our natural role presented itself – providing ways to monetize social in the broader ecosystem.

What’s next for you?

Monetization tools will continue to be a priority for us as we expand how our customers can set up and test new revenue streams. We’ll continue to release products that help creators to tell their stories in a consistently beautiful way across all social platforms – this consistency across platforms and channels will help build long-term customers. And creators want the ability to roll out multiple Bio Sites so that they can have flexibility to add more link-in-bios as they acquire new audiences. We want to empower creators to be successful in telling their story exactly the way they want to, and we’ll be focusing on new video content creation and monetization tools to help them do that.

Feature Image Credit: Unfold

Sourced from Entrepreneur

In News

Forcing WhatsApp and iMessage to Work Together Is Doomed to Fail

May 6, 2022 No Comments

By Matt Burgess

Europe’s Digital Markets Act requires interoperability between popular messaging apps. But experts warn encryption could be compromised.

The newest law designed to rein in Big Tech aims to make all your favorite messaging apps work seamlessly together. Sounds great, right? Well, we have some bad news.

Every day, billions of messages are sent using end-to-end encryption. Millions of people use iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal to chat with friends, family, and colleagues, and those conversations are all automatically protected by strong encryption. But it’s not possible to send a message from one encrypted app to another. If you use Signal and your friends only use WhatsApp, someone has to compromise.

Under the European Union’s wide-ranging Digital Markets Act (DMA), which European lawmakers approved last week and is expected to be implemented this year, the owners of messaging apps will be required to make them interoperable if another company requests that they do so. As a result, the largest messaging platforms—including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage, which the DMA designates as gatekeepers—will have to open up to rivals.

“Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files, or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice,” the lawmakers said in an announcement. Under the plans, Signal could ask to work with Messenger, for instance. Or Meta could request that WhatsApp be made compatible with iMessage—a logistical challenge even if Meta and Apple weren’t actively feuding, but one EU lawmakers say is worth solving.

Proponents of interoperability say the law will give consumers more choice and will allow third-party clients to build out extra functions. And while MEP Andreas Schwab, the lead negotiator for the DMA, says that the politicians are not looking to weaken encryption, cryptography experts are concerned the proposals will not be technically possible without compromising end-to-end encryption, potentially putting those billions of messages we send each other every day at risk.

While end-to-end encryption has become seamless for people using messaging apps, no two apps implement encryption identically. WhatsApp uses a custom version of the Signal encryption protocol, for example, but users still can’t message each other across the apps. And while Apple’s iMessage is interoperable with SMS, these standard text messages aren’t encrypted.

Many cryptographers and security experts have already pointed out flaws in Europe’s plan. “Interoperable E2EE [end-to-end encryption] is somewhere between extraordinarily difficult and impossible,” Steve Bellovin, one of the world’s leading cryptographers and a former chief technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, tweeted on Friday.

“When you start talking about different companies exchanging encrypted communications with one another, there are many serious considerations here that are extremely difficult to resolve,” says Nadim Kobeissi, an applied cryptographer and founder of decentralized publishing platform Capsule Social. “It is very likely that there will be a serious degradation of the cryptographic techniques that will be necessary in order to accommodate this proposal,” Kobeissi says.

The proposals put forward as part of the DMA—which has yet to be fully published—don’t include technical details on how interoperability would work, but officials say the changes should be rolled out over a number of years. Basic features such as messages between two people should be implemented three months after a tech company is asked to provide them; audio and video calls have a four-year deadline.

“Making end-to-end encrypted messaging apps interoperable is technically challenging and creates real risks for privacy, safety, and innovation,” Will Cathcart, Meta’s head of WhatsApp, said in a statement. “Changes of this complexity risk turning a competitive and innovative industry into SMS or email, which is not secure and full of spam,” he says. In an interview with tech journalist Casey Newton, Cathcart said the move could cause misinformation problems and moderation issues for WhatsApp. “I have a lot of concerns around whether this will break or severely undermine privacy, whether it’ll break a lot of the safety work we’ve done that we’re particularly proud of, and whether it’ll actually lead to more innovation and competitiveness,” he said.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment about encryption but said it has general concerns that parts of the DMA will create “unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities.” Signal did not respond to a request for comment.

Not everyone is against interoperability and end-to-end encryption. Matrix, a nonprofit that’s building an open source standard for encryption, has published multiple blog posts outlining how it believes the EU’s proposals could work. “The main challenge is the trade-off between interoperability and privacy for gatekeepers who provide end-to-end encryption,” the team behind Matrix say.

There are broadly two routes that could allow encryption to work across apps operated by different companies. The first involves tech companies allowing access to APIs that connect to their messaging services—this is the option Schwab and lawmakers are leaning toward. The second involves more radical change: All companies would have to adopt and implement one universal encryption standard.

Neither is easy.

Connecting to an open API could involve a company using a “bridge” that joins the two platforms together. Signal would, for instance, have to implement multiple bridges if it wanted to work with different apps. “Every device has to speak every language, but at least users have the building blocks to get at each other’s messages, rather than then being arbitrarily locked away by the gatekeepers,” Ian Brown, a visiting professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School in Rio de Janeiro, wrote for Interoperability News.

Using a bridge would involve decrypting messages, potentially on someone’s device, and then making them appear in the destination app. Removing the end-to-end encryption would open up a new layer that could be attacked by hackers or malicious actors. “How do you guarantee that the things sitting next to your messaging app are benevolent and not malicious,” says Robin Wilton, director of internet trust at the Internet Society. Kobeissi adds that it’s unclear under the proposals who would manage the exchange of public encryption keys and how cryptographic metadata would be shared between companies. If Signal and iMessage become interoperable, which one changes its encryption to match the other?

One of the biggest unanswered questions is how interoperability would ensure you are chatting with the people you think you are. People use different usernames on each platform, and not knowing who someone is could lead to identity issues, explains Alan Duric, cofounder of encrypted messaging app Wire. “If you’re communicating across Wire and WhatsApp, how can the Wire user be certain that the person they are talking to on WhatsApp is authentic?” he says. “How can they be sure the person they’re talking to is even using WhatsApp at all?” Duric says this can be combated by verifying each user’s identity, which can then help reduce abuse and spam.

Those in favour of interoperability say the best way to do this would be for all companies to adopt one encryption standard and stick to it. These standards already exist—for instance, the Matrix messaging protocol, the XMPP standard, and the upcoming Messaging Layer Security. “If every player in the field—so the gatekeepers but also the smaller player—all connect to the same standard, it ends up being a big glue between the different services,” says Amandine Le Pape, a cofounder of the Matrix standard. This would avoid companies implementing APIs via a piecemeal process, although this isn’t what the European Union has opted for at the moment. “The DMA is just the first step,” Le Pape says.

Getting all messaging apps to use one standard would be a significant, time-consuming challenge. “Potentially, you could just have a situation where everyone switches to Matrix,” Kobeissi says. “But Matrix is a fundamentally different security architecture, not just from an end-to-end encryption perspective, but also from a threat modelling perspective.” Each app faces different potential attacks against it—based on its user base and operations—so moving to one model would require companies to reassess how their users could be compromised.

Companies would have to rebuild their entire encryption systems and change multiple features in their apps, a process that could take years. Take Meta: In 2019, the company said it was going to make Instagram DMs and Messenger end-to-end encrypted by default and integrate their infrastructure with WhatsApp. Three years later, the company is still trying to untangle its systems and add safety features. The transition has been harder than expected—and Meta controls all of the technology involved.

Ultimately, how much companies change may come down to the technical realities and the degree of pressure the European Commission, which will enforce the DMA, puts on them. Like GDPR, the DMA could lead to multimillion-dollar fines for businesses that don’t comply. However, GDPR has been poorly enforced—including a provision that says people should be able to transport their data from one app to another. Tech companies may have no choice if the European Commission enforces the DMA—but that could be the least of their worries.

Feature Image Credit: Sam Whitney; Getty Images

By Matt Burgess

Sourced from WIRED