After the announcement that I’d joined Layered Technologies, several of you mentioned that you’d be interested in our affiliate program once I got it rolled out at work, so I wanted to let you know that we just launched it and invite everyone to sign up! Just sign up at Share-a-sale and join the Layered Tech program. (Oh, drop a comment that you’re an OMB reader when you sign up so the team will let me know!)

For those of you not entirely familiar with LT, we are a dedicated server hosting company. We don’t do shared hosting, though we do Virtual Private Servers starting at about $50 per month. Unlike shared hosting, VPS provides actual dedicated resources so some other person’s Web site on the same server won’t affect the performance of your own.

Anyway, we’re offering 30% commissions for all referrals that result in sales, and we routinely sell services that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. So even referring just one sales every month or two could generate more money than an entire Google AdWords campain for most people.

I hope you guys will sign up for the program and help us grow Layered Technologies while also earning a little coin. Oh, and we’ve got a lot of banners available when you sign up, but if you need something custom just let me know and we’ll create it for you. You can drop a comment here, or use my contact form.
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Leading worldwide provider of “on demand” IT infrastructure continues rapid growth

Plano, TX (February 18, 2008) - Layered Technologies, a leading worldwide provider of “on demand” IT infrastructure, continues its rapid growth by announcing the appointment of John Pozadzides as Chief Marketing Officer. Pozadzides will be responsible for leading Layered Technologies’ branding, as well as driving the company’s sales and product marketing initiatives. He will oversee all enterprise and partner marketing initiatives, from product planning and positioning, to the execution of customer acquisition and retention strategies. Pozadzides will report to President and COO Todd Abrams.

“John brings a wealth of experience and a customer-centric attitude that make him a strategic asset for Layered Technologies,” said Abrams. “He has a proven track record of building successful sales organizations, as well as a deep understanding of the hosting marketplace. In addition to his expertise and leadership in the IP services arena, John has a well documented background of innovation and integrity, having founded HTMLHelp.com, the leading Web authoring reference site; and later building a loyal following with his personal site OneMansBlog.com.“
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Sensationalist title, I know. But apparently it’s true.

The Economist cites a study by Dr. Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas:

The accumulating evidence suggests that physical characteristics do give clues about intelligence, that such clues are picked up by other people, and that these clues are also associated with beauty. And other work also suggests that this really does matter…. [Dr Hamermesh] has collected evidence from more than one continent that beauty really is associated with success—at least, with financial success. He has also shown that, if all else is equal, it might be a perfectly legitimate business strategy to hire the more beautiful candidate.

Even more unfairly, Dr Hamermesh found evidence that beautiful people may bring more revenue to their employers than the less-favored do.

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Attitude is everything…

Courtesy of our good friend Colby Jones.

Did you ever have one of those days at work when someone was all up in your face really ripping you a new one and you wanted to just shoot yourself in the head (or them… either one would do)?

Well, Laith Bahrani made this video called Crush just for you! Oh, and he’s got 13 others like it over on his site that really deserve attention…
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As a follow up to my post from a few days ago about 7 Skills of Change Masters, this article is going to focus on a context for change management - again as laid out by Dr. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a recognized expert in the field of change management and Professor at Harvard Business School.

In her book e-Volve, Dr. Kanter set forth a framework for managing change which she dubbed The Change Wheel. It’s appropriate that she treats the concept of change as one which has no real beginning or end, because the process needs to be continually taking place.

In other words, once any change process is coming to completion, another change process should be beginning anew.
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Folks, I’ve attended a few courses at Harvard Business School. I don’t say that to brag, just to provide a little legitimacy to the following managerial theory I’m about to dish out which came directly from Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a recognized expert in the field of change management.

In her book e-Volve, Dr. Kanter laid out the following characteristics of true change masters. She argues that if we all study and emulate the processes followed by change artists, we will become better managers of change ourselves.

And who needs that? We all do! In just about any business environment the only thing you can really count on is that everything will change. So, it’s best to be prepared for it and if you follow this list - you will be.
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Believe me - leaders are made, not born. And this is good news for anyone that truly wants to improve their leadership skills.

If you want to step up to the plate and help shape the future at work, in an organization, as a teacher or anywhere else, you need to master the 10 traits I’ve listed right here. I should state that this is not some list I’ve regurgitated from elsewhere. This is my own personal list that I’ve lived by my entire career.

Do they work? Well, given the fact that I’d attribute all of my past successes to the teams I’ve led, I’d say so. But perhaps if we’re lucky a few of my old employees will stop by and let us know.
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The other day I was explaining to someone what a Wiki is, though I didn’t do a very good job because it’s something that is a bit difficult to explain off the top of your head.

Well, now I can redeem myself by posting this excellent video about Wikis which simplifies and demystifies the entire subject.
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Here is some exciting breaking news! My former boss, and head honcho over at SAVVIS Communications, Jack Finlayson just took on the role of CEO and Chairman at Layered Technologies, a good sized Web hosting company that also happens to host WordPress - which as we all know is the software I use to run One Man’s Blog!

Folks, this is pretty amazing because Jack is a $Billion company CEO, and he chose to go to Layered Tech. I believe the reason is that one of this companies specialties lies in Grid Computing, which in essense takes a giant farm of computers, straps them together, and sells you as much or little of the power as you need. Kind of the same philosophy as a utility company. You plug in, use what you need, and only pay for that much.
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Folks, I just wanted to pass along a tip for a free PDF Printer Driver in case anyone was ever looking for one, or in case you don’t know what this even is!

A PDF Printer Driver is a little piece of software that installs just like a printer would, but instead of converting your printed output it saves the exact printed format as a PDF file. You might want to do this for any of the following reasons:

• To e-mail a document in a universal format which preserves the exact page layout. For example, if you create a form using MS Word, you can convert it to PDF.
• To preview exactly what a document is going to look like when printed before wasting paper and ink.
• To post a printable version of a document on a Web site that people can access using any computing platform.
• If you want to print something, but you aren’t near a printer you can print it to a PDF and then later print a hard copy. VERY useful for offline work on a laptop while traveling.

The only problem is that up until relatively recently the only way to accomplish this was to own a very expensive piece of Adobe software. But now there are a few free alternatives on the market, and I wanted to recommend Bullzip PDF Printer.
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A couple of weeks ago I decided to order some business cards that I could hand out instead of having to write down my domain name on pieces of paper for people when my blog comes up in conversation. So, I went over to VistaPrint.com and gave their process a whirl.

It took me about 45 minutes to search through all of their different designs until I had finally decided on and customized my new cards. By the time I was done I ordered two sided, full color, glossy cards on the heaviest weight paper. Yeah, I’m a sucker for upgrades.
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