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Posted January 7th, 2010 By Erik | 1 Comment |
Joined Meltwater in 2009 after six years as a business consultant, specializing in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). A former professional motorcycle racer, Erik currently works as an Associate in the New Ventures group.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Education: BS in Business Administration (Finance and MIS) from Boston University and MIT
Fanatical about: Motorcycle racing, cycling, skiing, ice-cream, and driving
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Starting a budget and staying on budget is a common New Year’s resolution, and I think it’s a great one in this economic environment. But just like every year when you decide to get in shape, continuing those gym visits come March is really difficult. The same is true for budgets – how do you stick with your resolution?
The trick to successfully sticking to your budget is simple - have a budget that is reasonable and that you can stick to. Look through your financial statements and group your expenditures into buckets that your spending habits fall into (e.g. dining…
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Category: Career Reflections, Uncategorized
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Posted November 2nd, 2009 By Erik | No Comments |
Joined Meltwater in 2009 after six years as a business consultant, specializing in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). A former professional motorcycle racer, Erik currently works as an Associate in the New Ventures group.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Education: BS in Business Administration (Finance and MIS) from Boston University and MIT
Fanatical about: Motorcycle racing, cycling, skiing, ice-cream, and driving
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In a recent blog post, Gina Trapani, founding editor of Lifehacker.com, described ways to shorten meetings and increase efficiency.
Here’s a summary of her “extreme” techniques and my thoughts on why I agree:
1. Keep everyone standing
A bit extreme, yes, but keeping everyone standing means people have a vested interest in finishing the meeting early. The meeting will only finish early if you reach your objectives. I have also found that most people think better when standing or slowly pacing.
2. Ban distractions
No mobile devices and no laptops means people aren’t checking email or doing online shopping during a lengthy meeting.
3. Schedule 30-minute…
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Category: Professional Advice
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Posted October 5th, 2009 By Erik | 1 Comment |
Joined Meltwater in 2009 after six years as a business consultant, specializing in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). A former professional motorcycle racer, Erik currently works as an Associate in the New Ventures group.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Education: BS in Business Administration (Finance and MIS) from Boston University and MIT
Fanatical about: Motorcycle racing, cycling, skiing, ice-cream, and driving
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In 2008, 210 billion emails were sent. Daily. Beyond just receiving far too many emails, I find myself dreading the idea of reading long emails. And, after reading, I often come out confused (probably because I skipped straight to chapter 3). With today’s reliance on writing and reading emails, it’s critical to write effective emails.
Good emails should be informative, concise, and actionable. Unless the email is a quick FYI, here are some simple guidelines I try to follow:
1. Write a clear and descriptive subject
Make sure the reader knows what to expect before reading your email. If your reader has a lot of…
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Category: Professional Advice
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Posted September 2nd, 2009 By Erik | 1 Comment |
Joined Meltwater in 2009 after six years as a business consultant, specializing in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). A former professional motorcycle racer, Erik currently works as an Associate in the New Ventures group.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Education: BS in Business Administration (Finance and MIS) from Boston University and MIT
Fanatical about: Motorcycle racing, cycling, skiing, ice-cream, and driving
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Let’s face it, unless you’re working on an assembly line, your job requires you to multi-task and juggle many balls at once. If you’re like me, you probably have more things to keep track of than your productive mind can handle alone (in my case, that’s whenever I have more than two things at once). You resort to keeping track of your to-do’s in multiple places: emails, notebooks, to-do lists, and asking Aaron sitting next to you to remind you of the blog post you have to write. I’ve found the solution is effective task tracking and efficient time management.…
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Category: Professional Advice
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Posted August 13th, 2009 By Erik | 3 Comments |
Joined Meltwater in 2009 after six years as a business consultant, specializing in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). A former professional motorcycle racer, Erik currently works as an Associate in the New Ventures group.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Education: BS in Business Administration (Finance and MIS) from Boston University and MIT
Fanatical about: Motorcycle racing, cycling, skiing, ice-cream, and driving
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When I joined the workforce years ago, I was at the bottom of the corporate totem pole. I had a manager, my manager had a manager, his manager had a manager, and so on. I was well managed. Six years later, I still have a manager who has a manager (…), but I’ve learned who the real manager is in this hierarchy - you. You have to manage your manager.
I come from a background in business consulting, in which managing your manager, or upward management, is not only an important tool, but critical in getting projects completed successfully. It may seem obvious that your manager should…
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Category: Professional Advice
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