Book Review: "Balancing Work & Life in a Crazy, Connected World" by Cathy Newton

Balancing Work & Life In a Crazy, Connected World:

Recently on a train from Milano to Rome I started reading a book written by my Aunt and Godmother Cathy Newton. She is a loving aunt, great listener, and an awesome teacher. She is a professional keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, and author. 

While growing up I loved to be in front of a crowd delivering a speech or being the center of attention and she is the one who helped guide me in how to deliver to an audience and captivate a room, forever teaching me valuable presentation skills. While reading her book I thought back to the many times she helped edit a speech, conducted games and workshops for my school, and worked with me on presentation and memory techniques. And in her writing I can see and feel all of that. 

Her book ‘Balancing Work & Life In a Crazy, Connected World is a fun, easy, and quick read that helps bring you back to the basics on engaging your creativity and giving simple easy techniques on how to better manage stress in your everyday life and finding a good center balance in all you do. As a “hurry up” “type A” person myself this was a great read on how I could implement a few simple steps in my life to help be more productive and positive every day. 

Through the pages I couldn’t help but laugh at how I could feel the passion in her writing and also I could picture her expressions and gestures as if she was speaking directly to me. Now I know where my writing style of storytelling like I am presenting comes from. 

For anyone who is always feeling stressed, that they have too much to do, or are constantly re-prioritizing their everyday tasks, I challenge you to read this book and I promise you will walk away with a few simple take aways to help better balance both your professional and personal lives in today’s crazy and connected world. 

You can find more information on Cathy Newton at her website at cathynewton.com!

As always feel free to connect with me on Twitter @RobbyNap, on Facebook: Robby Napoli, on LinkedIn: https://it.linkedin.com/in/robert-napoli-a5839119.

Or you can drop me a note at robbynap87@gmail.com

Ciao ciao!

Grad School Adventures: Week 9: "Product Management and Market Trends"

Week 9: November 17-22nd

Lesson of the Week: "Do not let yourself get stagnant, make sure you read and know what is happening in the marketplace and the world around you."

“Innovation” “New” “Creative” “Differentiation” “Disruption” “the Customer Experience” - there are many buzzwords in business and Marketing. But what do they mean? How can they be applied? In a world filled with messages, ads, noise; it is hard for your consumers to hear your message. So how do you stand out? That is always the million dollar question in Marketing.

This week we had some fantastic classes around the 3 C’s of pricing; Customers, Competitors, Company. Our lectures were focused around Customer and Competitor pricing as these 2 drive a lot of the pricing decisions in the current market. We worked with Nielsen Company to look at some real case examples as well as were tasked with certain objectives and had the ability to use one of their pricing tools to do so. Both cases were very interesting and fun to play around with the pricing simulator. When approaching pricing there are many questions to look at from the price, distributions, competitor’s pricing offering, etc and to be able to look at in the sense of should we introduce a new product line? If so how and at what price to increase revenue as well as market share. Definitely skills that we as Master’s students can take with us as we look for internships and jobs.

The other class that I found extremely interesting was based around the Product Management focusing on the current Market Trends. We had a professor give a great presentation and discussion around The Unicorn Club- Companies that achieve $1 Billion + in Market Valuation and how it has become increasingly crowded with notable companies such as Facebook, Snapchat, Uber, etc. (photo attached). We discussed the 4 Keys to Success that really hit home for me:

1. Quickly build a customer base- this is very important as customers drive everything
2. Experience- in todays world the customer experience is even more important than the product
3. Pivoting- the ability to change your product, even radically, based on what your customers are saying
4. BE FAST- now more than every you have to be fast, fast to deliver, fast to enhance, fast to change, if you don't you will be left behind

Customer Experience is one of the things that I appreciate and am passionate about when it comes to digital strategy. In today’s world with so many social media outlets where people can talk about your product, you have to be visible, and not just be visible but be active. Talk to your customers, listen, react if needed to provide them with a great experience. And not only the experience but from a Branding and Brand Equity perspective having a strong presence will help foster that Brand Community and increase your brand awareness, strength, and equity. I truly believe that for companies to continue to grow and thrive in the new and ever growing digital economy, you have to be active to be relevant.

Another very interesting topic that we dived into are the 8 Market Trends that we are seeing:

1. Sharing Economy and Collaborative Consumption
2. Do-It-Yourselfers and the Makers Revolution
3. Startups & the New Entrepreneurs
4. Phenomenon Crowd & Co-Creation
5. Always On and Multichannel
6. Quantified Self
7. Gamification
8. Internet of Things

So many great new companies fall into these categories and I could probably write a whole post on each topic, but some companies I find interesting that make up the new sharing economy include the explosive growth of Uber, the redefining music consumption company Spotify, and AirBNB. Amazing companies with very interesting platforms that offer low overhead and an amazing service and customer experience (there is that term again). 

It was a great week of classes and starting to get into some of the exciting but ever difficult tasks of Marketing Managers!

I had made a goal for myself that everyday to read 4-5 articles, 2-3 (I usually read more) on Marketing trends, goings ons, etc, 1 in regards to financials, company acquastions, buyouts, etc, and 1-2 current events. It is very important as a Marketer to read and now what is going on not just in your industry but in business around the world. This was instilled in me by one of my Marketing Professors back at Simpson College and re-affirmed from every Professor that has lectured us this year. This is a list of websites that I like to use to check for articles, there are many great places to look but these have been suggested by multiple leaders that i have meet with, in the industry. 

• Advertising Age
• Fast Company
• LinkedIn
• INC
• Wall Street Journal 
• The Atlantic
• Food 4 Brains (this is a website by one of our professors and colleagues that are snapshots of major articles that were published from some of the biggest sources in the world)
• I like to also browse Yahoo and MSN 
• Twitter is also a very good tool for finding great content depending on who you follow

As always I hope that there is a takeaway or two in here for everyone. If you have any questions or would like to discuss some of these issue more in depth feel free to write a comment or shoot me a note at robbynap87@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @RobbyNap and connect with me on LinkedIn at https://it.linkedin.com/in/robert-napoli-a5839119

Ciao Ciao 

Grad School Adventures Week 3- "Communication"

Week 3- October 4-11

Lesson of the week:

When walking on the sidewalk you have to keep your head on a swivel, and be looking left, right, up, and down, all at the same time!

Reason being: 1) the sidewalks are never even, 2) they are never the same size, 3) there are a ton of cafes and bars with patio furniture and patrons to be aware of, 4) there a ton of people walking, with animals, and 5) poop, there is not a lot of green space and aforementioned about people walking pets. Oh and pigeons, they are everywhere!

Week 3 has started to level off from being a blur to a feeling of normality. It is still crazy at this point to think that I am not just vacationing in Milan, I LIVE here! Milan is a beautiful city full of energy, fashion, and culture. Being the center of the fashion world it is not uncommon to see a photo shoot happening, oh say on the steps coming out of the metro. It is not uncommon for a guy in sweats on his way to a workout to walk through said photo shoot due to not paying attention to my full surroundings as I try to figure out exactly where I am going. 

By this point we have had the ability to see some of Milan's famous sights including the Duomo Cathedral and checked out a few of its trendy shopping districts. But Milan has a hidden sense of culture, for example in Rome, pretty much everything is historical and has a story. In Milan you could pass a building or church with beautiful architecture and say "oh that's cool" but not be fully aware of what it is you are looking at. I am really looking forward to learning more about this city and all of its secrets and Christine has signed us up for a city tour in early November to do just that!

Growing up I played football throughout high school and in college, and then proceeded to play 5 years of Semi-Professional football for a team called the Des Moines Blaze where we recored a recored of 56-2 with 5 Midwest Football Alliance League Titles and 1 National Championship. So after reading "Playing for Pizza" by John Grisham it was only natural for me to explore that option here in Milan. Milan has 2 American Football Teams, the historic Milano Rhinos, and the current Back to Back Italian Football League Champion Milano Seamen. Unfortunately the Rhinos never called me back, but the Seamen did, and although they already have their 2 imports (former Division 1 Sacramento State QB, and a SS from New Mexico) I am able to continue my love for the game by training with them and helping out on the Coaching Staff. It is amazing that I get to help a culture who does not embrace American Football and help promote it within my small (soon to be large) network in Milan. I also think it will be a great way to use football to help lower the language barrier and improve my Italian. I have a goal to leave Italy speaking the language. 

Week 2 in class has been straight into working in groups and getting our hands dirty. We have a visiting Professor from Germany in for a few days teaching a lesson on STP or Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning. Over 3 days we went through the process to first segment a market into opportunities, then choose a target(s) market, and our overall positioning. This was done through choosing a specific product. Our group chose the GoPro camera and broke down our STP. I felt like this was a great project, and it was fun to use a hip product as GoPro to learn and create. I tried searching for our presentation so that I could attach as an example, but am unable to find on my Mac. 

One of the challenges in the group work was communication. As English is the universal language of business, and the language used in class we can all communicate effectively. But as you know if you have worked with folks form other backgrounds what you say is not always what is heard or perceived and of course there are language barriers within the language based on how you learned and what you do or do not know. This first lesson was very eye opening and really something you cannot replicate in a classroom, unless your classroom has many different backgrounds. I learned that this is and will always be a challenge of working in International Business and one that I am getting the opportunity to learn, adapt, and hone this skill first hand. 

When it comes time to interview with a International or Global Company and they ask what your experience is working with or in other countries/cultures, how will you be able to answer? What does your Global Network (if you have one) look like? Where and in what field do you want your career to look like?

*Attached are a few photos of our Week 3 adventures including the Basilica of Sant' Ambrogio which is absolutely gorgeous! We also went out to a club with a few of our friends from class and got to see what the Milanese Night Life was all about!

Basilica of Sant'Ambrigio

An old church that was transformed into a beautiful night club

Nightclub Il' Gattopardo