Closing out the end of a great year!

2010 is at its end and I want to take some time to close it out and set the stage for the upcoming year.

Thank you to everyone who make this year great. I'd like to bid farewell and future success to our outgoing board members (Jen, Roxanne and Nancy) while welcoming our newest board members (Michael, Sherwin and Jenafer). Congratulations to David Eam and Hang Chen in their new Board roles. David is our VP of Operations, while Hang will take on a larger role as National Representative.

I would like to highlight some of the major accomplishments our organization (locally and nationally) delivered and it amazes me at the dedication and generosity of this community.

• Congratulations to the nominees and winners of our scholarships and NAAAP 100 awards and the committee selecting them. We gave $8000 in scholarships this year.
• Thanks to the NAAAP San Francisco Chapter and the convention planning team organized a stellar convention at The Palace Hotel with our first diamond sponsor, Macy's. Our inspiring keynote speakers included CIA Director Leon Panetta, banking executive Doreen Woo Ho, IT leader John Chen, fashion retailers executive Jenny Ming, and so many others.
• We partnered with great organizations that fosters diversity and leadership: the Executive Development Institute, NHSMBA, NBMBAA, Microsoft and State Farm among many others.
• We connected members and leadership opportunities and made a difference in our community.

In 2011, our team is coming up with exciting new programming and we'll roll out our plans soon. So please look out for our invitations.

With that, if you missed out, then catch up with NAAAP Seattle with this educational video created by our Marketing Committee led by Julie Pham. See you in 2011!



Best Regards,
Gil Gido
NAAAP Seattle
President

Toot your horn

Toot your horn. Photo by Ev0073

We were for the most part instilled by our parents to work hard. And when it comes to acknowledgement and recognition we are humble and do not want to take recognition for our hard work. Do you agree?

In your workplaces, you will need to take credit and toot your horn. No one is going to do this for you. The benefits of this are many. For example, groups are always on the search for talent and they'll admit that it's hard to find the right person. They're on the search for people that get the job done. If they run into a person who can share about their accomplishments, they are very interested in continuing the conversation. If they run into a person who can't share about their accomplishments, then they move on to the next person. If you're currently searching for a job, then this is very important. You need to show your value to a potential company and you show this through your past accomplishments. If you don't have a history of past accomplishments and successes, then it becomes very simple and that's to go out and accomplish something.

As people, we can't read minds and to communicate we need tools.  Two fundamental tools I will talk about is the status report and the other one is sharing through conversations.

Weekly Status Reports
This tool is a weekly summary of the activities on a project. It includes what's been accomplished in the last week and what is the plan for the next week. It also identifies milestones, deliverables, risks and issues. It also provides a sense of the cost of the project. From the perspective of the manager, they get visibility into the entire project. From the perspective of the team, they get visibility into other areas that can potential have an impact on them.  They also feel included and part of a team.  From the perspective of the project manager, it's your best friend.  You not only toot your own horn, but you toot the team for their accomplishments. If you're the manager, you can toot the project team's accomplishment to their manager and up the chain giving you and the project team visibility. The CEO can see your accomplishments.  You might be asking, "what if I'm not the project manager?"  The answer to that is to send your status to the project manager in time for the project manager to update the entire project.  You'll get some added bonus points from the project manager because now s/he doesn't have to ask you for it.

I am a fan of the weekly status report as you can tell. By review time, you have a year's worth of accomplishments. In a sense you are actually building content for your performance review throughout the year.

Sharing
Have you been in a conversation with people and they don't share at all? You might as well be stuck by yourself or talking to a wall.  It's as if they don't trust you to share anything with you. You might think that they've got something to hide. Now, if you've been in this situation in either position, what could you do to ensure that people know what you're up to? Hmm. Share? Yes, share everything, not just the good but also the bad. You could get insight into what you did that helped you have a great result or insight into what you could have done better.

I'll leave it at this for now. Thanks for reading and hope to have you back here soon.

Regards,
Gil Gido
NAAAP Seattle
President

On Recommendations

Whether you are applying for a job, scholarship, or admissions to a degree program, recommendation letters are important tools. While important, it is a personal decision to write a letter of recommendation for a business, a former employee or co-worker; however, take into consideration that it may benefit you in simple ways like building relationships, being seen as approachable and making you a better communicator, even for someone you aren't as willing to recommend over another. As my experience tells me, receiving a recommendation letter is always exciting. As a recipient, I get acknowledged and see what others think of what skills of mine are the strongest and if written thoughtfully, where I can improve. I experience a feeling of appreciation and gratefulness to whomever can give me a recommendation.

When writing a recommendation letter, keep your comments specific to your experience with whom you are recommending and highlight results, strengths and weaknesses positively. This is your perspective and as I mentioned earlier, you can give constructive feedback, if applicable. You can use various tools like a word processor for more formal or traditional recommendations or LinkedIn's recommendation functionality. In fact, it's now becoming more relevant to use LinkedIn for recommendations as in the example of searching for a job and in combination with the more traditional methods.

In terms of managing your professional brand, recommendations, like performance reviews, can indicate if you're a team player, how you contribute to other's success, and if writing one, demonstrate your writing skills.

Now, if you are in the process of writing a recommendation, here are a few examples that others have written for me and one that I've written. And to sum up, a well-written recommendation opens up opportunities and possibilities for one another and I encourage those of you reading this to write one today.

Example 1 (Traditional)

I am pleased to have the opportunity of providing a reference for Kerri A. Rogers. As the program manager responsible for application portfolio management in XIT, my job was to minimize the impact of the next wave of Microsoft products across our line of business applications. During the last 12 months from October 2005 to September 2006 Kerri was part my project team that achieved outstanding results. With Kerri’s help, we:

• Tested 500+ applications across Exchange, Internet Explorer, Security Update, Office, Vista, and Managed Solutions.
• Accepted 27 builds.
• Submitted product feedback in the form of 104 bugs.
• Achieved minimal impact to our application portfolio. Roughly 19% of all feedback sent to product group resulted in a change to an application (CR).
• Increased year-over-year cost savings for the program.

In the beginning of the project, Kerri had a huge learning curve. For example, Kerri had products in the Managed Solutions space that she hadn’t even heard of and that was to be expected. She had to conduct research in a short amount of time while at the same time write test cases for our apps. Her primary duties were to understand the changes related to a specific build, apply the build to the test environment, perform the testing and write a bug if it was necessary. And if it was necessary, she would be responsible for reporting on the status of the bug until it closed.


As we neared the end of the project, I was reticent of the day Kerri had to leave because she brought with her a positive attitude and a willingness to achieve results. So in closing, I have no reservations about recommending Kerri for your organization. If I can provide additional information, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Regards,
Gil Gido
Microsoft IT Program Manager

Example 2 (Traditional)

As the Executive Director of the Executive Development Institute (EDI) I have had the privilege of knowing Gil Gido and calling him a friend of EDI for the last few years. The mission of EDI is to develop culturally diverse leaders starting first with Asian Pacific professionals and then, reaching out to other ethnicities. We do this by offering culturally tailored leadership programs.


EDI was approved as a nonprofit organization in July 2002 and over the last six years it has emerged as a financially sound and successful organization. We have grown our program offerings for Asian Pacifics geographically to Portland, Oregon and through offering a higher tier program, and now in 2009 EDI has expanded to the Hispanic community with like programs. It is individuals like Gil that have been helpful in making this success happen and quite honestly, without them it may not have.


Gil Gido has a deep seeded caring for all people which is rooted in his value system. He is a role model of integrity, a sense of community and selfless giving of his time, talents and treasures for the greater good. These are not just empty words however, demonstrated through his actions. As examples, Gil volunteered his time to EDI’s Tastes of Asia Benefit. He was instrumental in the preplanning phase and spent considerable volunteer hours in the EDI office procuring auction items and supporting processes.


Further, I’ve also observed Gil as in the role of Co-Chair, Microsoft Asian Pacific Society (MAPS). Gil and his colleagues volunteered their time to host in April 2009 the 2nd MAPS Leadership Conference for Microsoft Asian Pacific employees. This is a very large undertaking in that over 1000 employees attend as well as several senior executives present at the event. Gil with ease and levity was effective with all stakeholders in communicate, influence and motivate them which resulted in a exceedingly successful and memorable conference.


To have Gil, an honorable, competent, dependable, trustworthy and reputable community citizen, volunteering his valuable time, talents and treasures to our agency helps to assure EDI’s future stability.


I cannot thank Gil enough for making the world a better place and for being such a strong example of the enduring human spirit and heart so much needed in leadership today.


Sincerely,

Starr Macdonald
Executive Director

Example 3 (LinkedIn)

Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, Good Value

When Gil became President of NAAAP Seattle, he immediately reached out to as National Chairwomen of Women in NAAAP. After our initial phone conversations, we realized that Gil's company Ulysses Social Media could launch Women in NAAAP's social media platform. With his experience working at Microsoft, Gil specializes in start-ups and intrinsically understands the needs and budgetary constraints that emerging businesses may have in their beginning phases. He gives personalized attention and focus to each individual business while producing results beyond a customer's wildest expectations. I really appreciate Gil for all of his work in creating Women in NAAAP's NING social network. I highly recommend his company Ulysses Social Media Marketing Company (USMMC) to any budding business that is looking for a guide through navigating the social media jungle.

       - Judi Rhee Alloway, Women in NAAAP National Chairwoman, April 22, 2010

Regards,
Gil Gido
NAAAP Seattle
President

Links:

Women in NAAAP
Executive Development Institute (EDI)

Calibration

Calibration is one of those things that organizations go through to ensure their workforce is optimized or running as productively as it can. This usually happens on an annual basis as part of a review cycle.  Organizational leaders during calibration undergo a formal process of evaluating each team member reporting up through their organization and evaluates them on several areas, such as performance and long-term potential with the group or company.  (Note: This will vary depending on what a company finds as valuable.)

What also happens in calibration is that individuals in similar career bands are compared so entry-leveled employees aren't compared to ones that are more senior.  Moreover, companies might go so far as to compare developers with developers or managers with other managers. 

Each company will typically have a grading scale and specific criteria in which they will have for their employees and once their evaluations are complete each individual in the organization will have a composite score. The scores can then be analyzed statistically placing individuals in categories, which oftentimes the category individuals fall in are used for incentives and rewards. 

For example in one model that exists, individuals will either fall in the lower 10%, indicating lower than average performance and lower than average contribution, in the middle range (70%) indicating individuals meet performance requirements and have a satifactory contribution to their organization and lastly in the top 20% of the range. These individuals are top performers with higher-potential for opportunities and promotions.  As you can see, most individuals would like to avoid being in the lower 10% as it could determine actions taken against you or you could see your career slow down or lessening opportunities for you.

You might be wondering what are tips to score high or to avoid low calibration scores.  Here are some to start:

• Talk to your manager and check in periodically on your performance. Since Calibration happens within management, it's good to know what your manager is going to say about you during that process.  Remember other managers have individuals that need to evaluation too.
• Performance is not a one-day event. Think long-term (3-5 years) and steadily build a record of success around you.
• Be honest about your performance, too. Surely, working hard 4 months right at calibration won't make up for the 8 months 'slacking' off.
• Toot your horn once in awhile and acknowlege other people's accomplishments.
• Get out of that cubicle or office. Be visible and network.  It's not only what you say about you, but how you are percieved.  Participate in team events, write an article, publish a book, or conduct a webinar.  These activities will only help to estabilish you as credible and build other skills.
• Talk to your HR department about the calibration (or review) process and adhere to them. (Note: Not all processes are 100% accurrate, so if you find an opportunity to improve on the process, then by all means, say so. )
• Get training in the areas that you need improvement on. This will demonstrate your willingness to contribute to the organization. Technology and processes and people will change and so you need to change along with the organization. 
• If you're a manager, resolve issues, most importantly, employee-related issues immediately leading to higher organizational health indicies and improved performance.

With that, I hope I gave you some clarity on how calibration works.  If you have more tips and strategies, please let me know and I'll add them to this list.

Regards,
Gil Gido
NAAAP Seattle
President