Phil Simon's Blog, page 36

Zoom Tip #1: Understanding Channels and Channel-Specific Notifications

I’m about 90 percent finished with the manuscript for Zoom For Dummies. What I thought would be a 250-page book at most will now come in at more than 370 pages.

The obvious question is, Why?

The short answer is that Zoom contains a freakin’ boatload of useful functionality, most of which relatively few people seem to understand. In this way, Zoom follows a power law—like most software applications do

I’d bet my house that most people think of Zoom exclusively as a videoconferencing tool.

It is, but it’s so much more.

Case in point: Watch the video below. Not only can you create channels for more targeted messages à la Slack, but you can set up keyword-specific notifications on public channels. Both of these tools help you stay informed without being overwhelmed.

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Understanding Zoom Channels and Channel-Specific Notifications

I’m about 90 percent finished with the manuscript for Zoom For Dummies. What I thought would be a 250-page book at most will now come in at more than 370 pages.

The obvious question is, Why?

The short answer is that Zoom contains a freakin’ boatload of useful functionality, most of which relatively few people seem to understand. In this way, Zoom follows a power law—like most software applications do

I’d bet my house that most people think of Zoom exclusively as a videoconferencing tool.

It is, but it’s so much more.

Case in point: Watch the video below. Not only can you create channels for more targeted messages à la Slack, but you can set up keyword-specific notifications on public channels. Both of these tools help you stay informed without being overwhelmed.

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Publication of HBR Book on Agile Methods

A few months ago, I announced that Harvard Business Review was including one of my contributions in its forthcoming book Agile: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review (HBR Insights Series).

I’m pleased to announce that that book is now out and available for pre-order. 

I can’t tell you what an honor it is to be included in the same book as Jeff Sutherland, the freakin’ co-creator of Scrum.

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An Update on Slack For Dummies

We’re in the home stretch on Slack For Dummies. The near-final page proofs arrived yesterday.

To paraphrase George Costanza and at the risk of being immodest, they’re fabulous.

Here’s the book at a glance:

If I had to guess, Slack For Dummies required the most work out of all of my books. Last December, I discovered that Slack was blowing up its UI. The end product looks great, but the changes meant that I had to rewrite more than 50 percent of the book. 

The effort was well worth it, though.

We’re just a few weeks out now.

PRE-ORDER

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Zoom For Dummies Now Available for Pre-Order

I’m pleased to announce that you can now pre-order Zoom For Dummies.

On a related note, I’m working feverishly to crank out the manuscript. I just signed the contract last Wednesday and I’m roughly 20,000 words into it.

More news on the book to come soon.

AMAZON

BARNES & NOBLE

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CMU Webinar on Remote Work

Over the years, I’ve been able to give back to my alma mater in a number of different ways. A few things most readily come to mind:

I hosted a webinar on Message Not Received in 2015.
Last year the Alumni newsletter interviewed me.
I spoke at the CMU Silicon Valley campus in 2014 on The Visual Organization as well.
I’ve been able to interview aspiring Tartans as part of the Carnegie Mellon Admissions Council.

Today I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be hosting another webinar on April 27, 2020 at 2 pm EST. The title is Effective Remote Work: An Overview of Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. I’ll spend most of the hour answering people’s questions about what these tools can do. These days, I spent a great deal of time in each of them and I probably will until things return to a quasi-normal state.

Click here to register.

 

 

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An Note on Slack For Dummies Pre-Orders

If you’re preordering Slack For Dummies, please do so from an indy book store or a site that supports them. The stores need all the help they can get right now. You might even get it faster; $AMZN is backed up w/ other orders. For USA: https://t.co/v4BxqdBypA h/t @sarahfrier

— Phil Simon (@philsimon) April 3, 2020

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Never Waste a Good Crisis

“In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognize the opportunity.”

— John F. Kennedy

Tell me about a time when…

If you’ve never heard those words from a recruiter or hiring manager, trust me: You will.

For decades, human resources departments have practiced behavior-based interviewing (BBI). The basic premise is simple: the best predictor of the future is—wait for it—the past. Put differently, people who have demonstrated grit, problem solving, critical thinking, and the like in prior jobs are likely to do so in the future. If you think that research supports this claim, trust your instincts.

But how can recruiters discern who’s got the chops from the poseurs?

The short answer: By asking for specific examples of when applicants demonstrated desired traits. Consider the following two questions:

When confronted with a challenge, how would you respond?
Tell me about a time when you overcame a significant work challenge. What was the background and specifically did you do?

Which question do you think provides a better window into your personality and work ethic?

Rather than ask hypothetical questions, recruiters who practice BBI probe. Yes, expect them to interrupt you during your interviews. You won’t have the floor for five minutes. They’re not trying to be rude; they simply want to home in on specific traits. Put differently, they know what they’re doing.

That’s all fine and dandy, but what about the elephant in the room: How does behavior-based interviewing relate to now: the greatest work- and learn-from-home experiments in history?

Funny you should ask.

What you can do right now to prepare for the future

At this point in your careers, you probably don’t have a great deal of work experience. Don’t feel bad. I sure didn’t a million years ago when I was in college interviewing for internships and full-time placement. Knowing now what I didn’t know then and faced with COVID-19 and all that it entails, I’d embrace the challenges.

Fast-forward a year. You’re interviewing for that internship or job. A recruiter asks you these two questions.

Tell me about a time in which you faced a significant challenge. What specifically did you do to overcome it?

Think back to right now. Did you find creative ways to complete your assignments, study, and work with your classmates? If so, then what were they?

Tell me an event that required you to quickly learn a new technology or application.

Now that all of your classes have moved online, are your professors forcing you to use new tools such as Slack, Zoom, and others? Are you embracing or fighting them? Even better, are you suggesting new tools to your professors and classmates? If so, then what are they?

Simon Says

Things are going to be challenging for a while. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Use this opportunity to learn new skills and develop new habits. Be flexible. Be creative. You may find that your new skills will help you stand out from other candidates during future interviews and land your first job.

I originally wrote this piece for Carnegie Mellon’s Dietrich College Diaries. This is the longer version.

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Looking for Zoom For Dummies Case Studies

Few tools are exploding as much these days as Zoom.

I’m curious about how people and organizations are using it—particularly Zoom Rooms. I’m a big believer in case studies. I use them in all of my books, and Zoom For Dummies will be no exception.

Click on the button below if you’d like to tell me more and then we can chat about it—maybe even over Zoom.

I

Talk to me about how you use Zoom.

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Announcing My Next Book: Zoom For Dummies

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”

—Sun Tzu

At the risk of stating the obvious, collaboration tools are all the rage right now. We are living in the middle of the greatest remote work experiment in history. Companies and laggards who for years clung to their inboxes are suddenly left with no choice. Yeah, #WFH is a thing.

Against this backdrop, Slack For Dummies couldn’t arrive at a more opportune time. The text would already be out by now but the recent UI change put the kibosh on those plans.1 As I write in Slack For Dummies, Slack plays quite nicely with many third-party apps. Perhaps none is more important and popular today than Zoom. In case you hadn’t noticed, the stock has been on fire.

Slack and Zoom complement each other nicely. It’s not uncommon for organizations to pay for both. As I’ve learned over the years, if you think there’s an opportunity to write a book, trust your instincts.

Zoom For Dummies

Brass tacks: Wiley asked me to crank out a definitive guide to today’s most powerful videoconferencing tool and I agreed. Yeah, this will be another book in the For Dummies series. Expect it in July—give or take.

Strike while the iron’s hot, I suppose.

I’ll put up proper pre-order links soon.

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