In an attempt to open up a new revenue stream for shareholders the social network is bringing videos to the newsfeed.

fastcompany:

Exec founder Justin Kan dishes on what startups look for in a resume and perhaps more importantly what you should leave off.

In your resume you need to 1) demonstrate that you are exceptional at the thing you do, and 2) not be disqualified by seeming crazy or imbalanced.

A simple rule: if something on your resume isn’t achieving one of the aforementioned two things, leave it off.

fastcompany:

How often do you and your boss have a real conversation about your work?

Feedback is a powerful management tool. But it’s often misused. Here 15Five CEO David Hassell discusses why every employee should spend 15 minutes per week answering four short questions.

Could the end of the annual review be near?

For many of us, it’s likely a once-a-year-sit-down to parse your list of accomplishments and areas that need improvement, otherwise known as the annual performance review. Yes, the dreaded annual review. Dreaded because managers acknowledge that they don’t maintain an ongoing dialogue with individual team members and it’s tough to give and get good feedback when you’re only meeting once a year.

He may not be looking to completely eradicate the annual review, but David Hassell, CEO of 15Five, believes there is room to improve (or in some cases begin) dialogues between supervisors and staff. To do so, his firm has built conversation-starting software that it now sells to some 400 companies across industries…

Check out the full story here.

Do you think that this concept could benefit you/your employees?

fastcompany:

Inside the making of Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Taco:

Since it launched in early 2012, Taco Bell has sold more than 450 million Doritos Locos Tacos.

But its creation started back in 2009 with a trip to Home Depot. To show executives how the companies could fuse the flavor of Doritos with taco shells, the dev teams “basically went out to Home Depot to buy a paint-spray gun, and then sprayed [Doritos] flavoring onto our existing yellow corn tacos,” recalls Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed. “It was pretty funny watching people from behind glass spraying our tacos with a paint gun. But it was enough for us to know conceptually that we had a big idea.”

In order to create the DLT, the teams had to consider everything from seasoning mechanics to the taco’s structural integrity throughout 2010 and 2011. “Frito-Lay wanted what’s called a ‘teeth-rattling crunch,’ so they wanted it to snap and crunch more than the current Taco Bell shell snaps and crunches,” Creed says. “So we had to get that formula changed, then we had to find a way to deliver the flavoring, and then the seasoning. I mean, it was actually important that we left the orange dusting on your fingers because otherwise, we’re not delivering the genuine Doritos [experience].”

Keep reading…

theatlantic:

The Best Career Advice You’ll Never Hear in a Graduation Speech

“Follow your passion” is the stupidest career advice I’ve ever heard. Why? Because my passion in life is for singing bad karaoke. My friend Dodgy Dave’s passion is for dealing crack cocaine. Some of my friends have many passions. Most of my friends have none.

“Do what you’re good at” is better, but still stupid. It gets things the wrong way around. For almost all activities, being “good at” something is the result of thousands of hours of practice and learning (pdf). In choosing a career, you’re almost always making the decision about what to become good at, not the other way around.

How, then, should you find a job you’ll love?

Here’s my slogan: ”Do something valuable.”

Read more. [Image: Getty]

fastcompany:

The Sex Panther Formula For Finding Your Brand’s Secret Sauce

Anchorman’s Brian Fantana may have been off the mark with his Sex Panther cologne, but his head was in the right place. Every brand could use a simple lesson in setting itself apart.

Brian Fantana, Ron Burgundy’s friend and Channel 4’s field reporter, brings home the importance of having a “secret sauce” to make your product stand out in the movie Anchorman. Talking about Sex Panther, the best cologne in his arsenal when he’s on the prowl, Brian tells Ron that the cologne’s secret is that “It’s made with bits of real panther.” He then hits Ron with some research-based evidence, “They’ve done studies, you know. Sixty percent of the time it works, every time.”

While Brian eventually ends up striking out (the target of his desire, co-worker Veronica Corningstone, likens the cologne’s aroma to that of “a used diaper”) the iconic scene does make the point: Every offering needs to have a secret sauce. And it has to have that something inside that leads to a differentiating benefit.

For example, Gatorade helps athletes recover faster in the heat by having ingredients that replenish their fluids and electrolytes quickly. Under Armour sportswear keeps athletes comfortable and dry because its high-tech fabric wicks away moisture from their bodies. Moving to a different arena, Walmart helps value-conscious shoppers live better by giving them the lowest prices every day.

One way to test if your brand has a secret sauce is to apply the tried-and-true “brand promise” format:

• For (target customer)
• Who needs (what they need)
• The (offering name)
• Is a (category)
• That provides (primary differentiation benefit)
• because (secret sauce/reason to believe)

For example, Sex Panther’s brand promise would be:

• For young men
• who want to attract women
• Sex Panther
• is the cologne
• that works sixty percent of the time, every time
• because it’s made out of bits of real panther.

When I speak with marketers it’s that last part, the secret sauce, the reason-to-believe, that their brands struggle with. Sometime it’s not clear, what, if anything, makes them special. Oh sure, there’s vague references to “quality” or “better performance” but too often there’s no understanding of what’s unique about the brand.

So what to do?

1. Find out what’s different about your brand. 

2. Scope out the competition.

3. Find a gap in the market.

Here’s the full story.

jkottke:

A short piece of fiction by Pierce Gleeson about the people behind corporate Twitter accounts.

‘We are not building anything here,’ stated one morose-sounding detergent brand. ‘All those marketing guys pushing Twitter think you can build something on it. Awareness or brand or something. But…