Personal Branding

Significance of personal branding is chiefly surrounded with confidence. According to Schawbel (2009), Personal branding refers to the picture of what is true and unique about you and allow others to know about that. Personal branding is specially emphases on giving a bit of advantage over the others. This helps job seekers to create the career path which connects with the skills and interests which able to map to the right position in the industry one day. 


Personal branding is useful to differentiate between  crowd by identifying the value proposition (Schawbel , 2009) whether its professional or personal (Schawbel , 2009). Also people can enhance the skills in the particular section by highlighting the expertise knowledge (Schawbel , 2009) while building the reputation and credibility. When building a brand it should be authentic (Schawbel , 2009).

Class Activity

In Sri Lanka although there are 3750+ graduates per year only 7/8 companies hire them from universities where the people have high brand of personality with confidence about the expert area. Mainly education qualification is affecting to get a better job. And think about the rest of the people? They wait poorly because they don't have own personal brand image.

Because of the rapid change of the technology the job seekers have to adapt to them also in order to get a job in the industry one day. Also they should be multi-task or should make use of multi-discipline approach. Then the job scope can e satisfied with breath and depth of the job. In order to build a personal branding people should look in the view of a company or a quality product. This means person should be able to sell the own skills, experience and potential.




These are some of the examples of companies which have identified an uniqure advantage over many others. Nike, Star buck, Harley Davidson, Coca Cola are some of the companies that have improved the branding. Today, Coca Cola is a world renowned brand and critics call it the sign of civilization as people in urban as well as rural areas are aware of it !  These can be used in the career plan.

Class Activity
While discussing about the quality of the product gave an activity to utter which brand each student like from mercedes-benz  and maruti. Here the functionality were compared in mercedes-benz with maruti and finally each student came to a conclusion. In my point of view mercedes-benz is best and it is a way which represents authors personal branding. The below table presents the comparison between the 2 brands and it proves why am i following mercedes-benz although its expensive.

Maruti	Mercedes-Benz
Less comfort -Air conditioner -Power Steering -Double horn	More comfort -Heated exterior mirrors, electrically adjustable -Outside temperature display -Automatic climate control and outstanding engine heat utilization -Speed-sensitive power steering -Rain sensor
Less Exterior -Body colored bumpers -Internally adjustable manual ORVM -Hub caps	More Exterior -Headlamp Assist -Luggage cover -Multifunction steer wheel -Tyre pressure loss warning system
Less Interior -Foldable grip assistant -Front/ Rear seat head restraint -Roof antenna -Cup holder in console -Clock	More Interior -LED brake lights -Navigation system -Cup holders -Foot-well lighting for driver and front -passenger -Parcel net in passenger foot-well -Seat belt tensioned and belt force limiter for driver and passenger
Less Safety -Rear fog lamp -Child lock	More Safety -Adaptive brake light -Airbags for driver and passenger -Anti-lock braking system (ABS) -Electro hydraulic brakes -Seat occupancy sensor in front passenger seat -Central locking -Tinted windows all round

What is doing by the personal branding?

•   Taking control of the image
• Knowing that you are capable to offer the service to world and market (Knowledge and Attitude)
• Knowing what makes different from rest of the people (Interpersonal Skills)
• knowing what makes standout and be recognized remembered.

Developing the personal branding

• Take time to know yourself
• Not about building a special image fro other people to see or trying to be what employees want
• If you are creative prove that with the  available skills

Class Activity

Authors Personal Brand statement:

I facilitate individuals and companies to build the most of talent on time while growing revenue and increasing profit while dedicating to apply the new technology. I work as a part of the team.  I am a straight shooter who isn't scared to have the strong conversations with anybody.  I also accept as true that people are more competent and valuable.  

One thing people hate about myself
Most of the people hate about myself because i spend more time with the books surrounding me every time. 
This is for to learn new technologies and to improve myself with knowledge. But most are jealous of this.  

One love thing by myself
I love that I’m learning to be more tactful with full determination.

The strengths and weaknesses that author identified can be presented as below.

Strengths: Organized, Perfectionist, Hard worker, Able to get along with people, Time management, No fear to speak large audience who is not known

Weaknesses: Can't say the word "no"

01-01-2013

Class Activity

Personal Philosophy

My personal brand denotes the following Proprieties:

Courage, Power, Wisdom

• Courage represents the quality of dealing with or facing danger, fear when conducting any kind of work
• Power represents the ability to do something or act in a specific way in some work
• Wisdom represents the experience, knowledge, judgement or quality of being wise in any kind of work

Reference
SCHAWBEL, D. (2009). Me 2.0: build a powerful brand to achieve career success. New York, Kaplan Pub.



http://books.google.lk/books?id=Od4BZ-ojHR4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=personal+branding&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q3XQUMDDNcuzrAeWoYHICA&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBQ
Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success
 By Dan Schawbel

http://books.google.lk/books?id=ZIt0rdXb7y0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=personal+branding&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q3XQUMDDNcuzrAeWoYHICA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ

The Personal Branding Phenomenon: Apply the Personal Branding Techniques of ...

 By Peter Montoya, Tim Vandehey

http://books.google.lk/books?id=qRvTLxO8ChEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=personal+branding&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q3XQUMDDNcuzrAeWoYHICA&ved=0CFoQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=personal%20branding&f=false

The Brand Yu Life: Re-Thinking Who You Are Through Personal Brand Management

 By Hajj E. Flemings

Development Methodologies

What is a Method?
A method is a specific technique defined by a person in a way where a particular process can be carry on (Kinash, 2012). As an example the survey questionnaire. Also this contain model and life cycles. Method chosen depends in part on the Methodology used.


What is a Methodology?

A methodology is used to define how a method apply to conduct research (Kinash, 2012). It has body of knowledge which uses the methods (Kinash, 2012).

Why use a method?
- Define what you need to do
- Define the order in which you do it
- Improve your productivity
- To provide milestones

Other models and life cycles
- spiral model

- waterfall model

- V life cycle

- throwaway prototyping model

- evolutionary prototyping model

- incremental/iterative development

- reusable software model

- automated software synthesis 

17-12-2012
Sequential Methodology

1. Waterfall Project Life Cycle

The waterfall model prescribes a sequential execution of a set of development and management processes, 
with no return to an earlier activity once it is completed. Some variants of the waterfall model allow revisiting the immediately preceding activity if inconsistencies or new problems are encountered during the current activity.

Stages: 

Disadvantages of Waterfall Model

• Very difficult to go back to any stage after it finished
• No feedback loop
• No testing/ quality assurance

Advantages of Waterfall Model

• Easy to explain to the user
• Establishes milestones

Concurrency Methodology

2. Evolutionary Project Plan

3. Spiral Life Cycle

Barry Boehm devised the spiral model to address the weaknesses of the waterfall model, especially its lack of resilience in the face of change. The spiral model focuses on addressing risks incrementally by repeating the waterfall model in a series of cycles or rounds:

• Concept of Operation
• Software Requirements
• Software Product Design
• Detailed Design
• Code
• Unit Test
• Integration and Test
• Acceptance Test
• Implementation

Unit Test: Developer has access to code itself and do changes in it

Integration Test: QA don't have access to code only can use execution

RMMM (Risk Monitor, Measurement, Management)

Reactive                                                                     Proactive

When employee leaving the organization hire 

Kinash, S. (2012) Paradigms, Methodology & Methods . [e-book] http://www.bond.edu.au/prod_ext/groups/public/@pub-tls-gen/documents/genericwebdocument/bd3_012336.pdf [Accessed: 11 December 2012].

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/112380032/Software-Life-Cycle-Models-%28PowerPoint%29

Project Management

What is a project?
According to Usbr (2012), project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service or result. Endeavor undertaken is mean by temporary important the time is defined for starting and end point (Usbr , 2012). Based on this the success of the project is available.Unique product or service or result can be named as unique deliverable because there is no blueprint and  not innovating the same wheel again  (Usbr , 2012).

According to Managementhelp (2011), project can be defined as a time effort that produces a specific result. 

According to Pmi (2012), project is temporary and it has beginning and end time defined with the scope and resources.Therefore it is unique with a specific goal to be achieved at the end. 

What is a project management?

According to Usbr (2012), project management is an application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. The team who are involve in the project have different abilities to tackle with in order to accomplish success in the project (Usbr , 2012).

According to Tennessee  (2012), project management also can be defined as series of steps which is iterating to complete a particular task with specifics of who will do what and when.

According to Managementhelp (2011), project management is a organized effort to complete a successful project.

Process groups of a project in project management

1. Initiation
2. Planing
3. Executing
4. Monitoring & controlling
5. Completing

(Pmi , 2012)

The relationship between each other can be shown as the following figure. 

Usbr (2012)

Breath range of project management begins with initiation and goes till completing the project. And monitoring and controlling occur during the time period same as execution. Planning, monitoring and control has a collective depth similar to execution to require effort and implication of building the product.

1. Project Initiation - An idea for a project will be carefully examined in this stage in order to determine whether project will be feasible to the organization and will it be beneficial to the organization (projectinsight, 2012). During this phase, decision making team will identify if the project can realistically be completed in the given schedule with the technology and resource allocation (projectinsight, 2012). In this stage a "Project Charter " which is a legal document between the company and client is developed.


2.Planning - The start of the project plan is writing in the planning stage by outlining the work to be performed (projectinsight, 2012). During this phase, team should prioritize the project, calculate a budget and schedule, and determine what resources are needed. According to Pmi (2012), there are 9 steps to be carried out in this stage. The content is

• Integration
• Time Management
• Quality Management
• HRM Management
• Procurement Management
• Cost Management
• Risk Management
• Communication Management
• Scope Management

After this stage is completed a "Project Plan" is developed.

3.  Executing - This is the time to update through the plan by performing coding, designing and testing task which are needed to execute the process (projectinsight, 2012).After this stage is completed a "Status Report" is developed.

4. Monitoring & Controlling - Project managers will compare project status and progress to the actual plan (projectinsight, 2012). Here the scope and the plan of the project is checked according to the scheduled work (projectinsight, 2012). This is carrying on parallel to all above mentioned stages.

5. Closing/ Completing - After project tasks are completed and the client has approve the outcome of the project whether is is fulfilling the predicted outcome or not (projectinsight, 2012). Also here the client is trained to use the  program and also paying employees also done in this stage. 

Skills needed for project management
There are two types of skills need to project management which are known as hard and soft. Hard skills include the technical experienced skills such as numerical problem solving, generally problem solving, risk management, scheduling etc (Gillard, 2009).The soft skills are related to interpersonal skills such as communication, writing, leadership skills etc (Gillard, 2009).

Why manage project?
In order  to ensure success of the project that has been assured in the scheduled time line by meeting dead line to optimize resource (Usbr ,2012).

Project manager manages the expectation of stakeholder. A stakeholder is a person who is interested in a project. There are 2 types of stakeholders such as Direct and Indirect. 

 The expectations can be listed as below.

Triple Constant

All projects are carried out under constraints such as traditionally cost, time and scope. These factors enable to ensure the quality of the project. According to  projectsmart (1950),  the project must balance the 3 features which are listed below. 

• projects must be delivered within cost.
• Projects must be delivered on time.
• Projects must meet agreed scope, no more - no less.
• Projects must also meet customer quality requirements.

In present the four aspects of this tangle have been reduced to three because non of the clients expectations are same for the other (projectsmart , 1950).

pmhut (2012)

Cost - Projects have a finite budget

Time - Projects have a deadline date for delivery

Scope - Many projects fail on this constraint because the full scope of the project is not fully defined or understood at the start.

(projectsmart , 1950)

Project scope and feasibility

The main aims and objectives/ deliverable of this project is define the scope of the project. Also analyzes why a organization need an Information system to business case such as increase sales, more awareness etc. The deliverable will be card payment method. Although the content of the project is done, the content will not be covered within the project.

Content of Project plan 

- Work Break-down Structure

- Deliverable per stage (gives feedback for milestones by reviewing the progress)

- Project estimation (time)

- Scheduling (sequence of activities)

- Tools and techniqures

In order to clearly design the gannt chart PERT technique (Project Evaluation Research Technique) can be used to estimate the duration. In order to calculate this the following formula can be used. 

d= (a+um+b)/6

Also the critical path is very important to project management person. 

Resource Allocation

- Project proposal form

- Project specification form

- Midpoint interview

References

Tennessee (2012) Project Management. [e-book] U.S.: University of Tennessee. https://utworks.tennessee.edu/research/pdt/Mentoring/project_management.pdf [Accessed: 10 December 2012].

Usbr (2012) An Introduction to Project Management . [e-book] U.S.: http://www.usbr.gov/excellence/Finals/FinalIntroPM.pdf [Accessed: 11 December 2012].

Managementhelp (2011) All About Project Management. [online] Available at: http://managementhelp.org/projectmanagement/index.htm [Accessed: 11 Dec 2012].

Pmi (2012) What is Project Management? | Project Management Institute. [online] Available at: http://www.pmi.org/About-Us/About-Us-What-is-Project-Management.aspx [Accessed: 11 Dec 2012].

Gillard, S. (2009) Soft Skills and Technical Expertise of Effective Project Managers . Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology , 6 Available at: http://iisit.org/Vol6/IISITv6p723-729Gillard599.pdf [Accessed: 10 December 2012].

Little, P. (2012) Project management and management of design: Teaching and tools. AI EDAM, 12 (1), p.49-50. Available at: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=38575&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0890060498121054 [Accessed: 12 December 2012].

Projectinsight (2012) 5 Basic Phases of Project Management. [online] Available at: http://www.projectinsight.net/project-management-basics/basic-project-management-phases.aspx [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].

Projectsmart (1950) Understanding the Project Management Triple Constraint. [online] Available at: http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/understanding-the-project-management-triple-constraint.html [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].

Pmhut (2012) The Triple Constraints Model and Its Disappearance . [online] Available at: http://www.pmhut.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/triple-constraints.png [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].

http://www2.ds.psu.edu/AcademicAffairs/Classes/IST260W/topic0A/topic_0116_02.html
http://www.col.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/SuccessProjMgt.pdf

Library and Electronic Resources for Technical Reporting and Communication from Staffordshire University

Effective Library Usage
Library is  a collection of materials providing for public access to reading purpose in order to enhance the knowledge in any area (Librarylaws , 1996). Many of the libraries focus on a specific category.In order to look for library resources of your project please consider the below points.

• Always use locally available material first   (Staffordshire University library and Public libraries like Colombo Public Library, BC, American Center)    
• Other local University libraries (Colombo, UCSC)
• Use electronic resources that you can access on- and off-campus (IEEE, ACM, Athens)

Types of Libraries

As stated in Ala (2012), major types of libraries are as below.

• Academic libraries:  Colleges and universities, their students, staff and faculty have academic libraries which are dedicated to fields as Law, Business, IT and Mathematics libraries (Ala , 1997). Many academic librarians become specialists in an area of knowledge and can have faculty status. 
• Public libraries: Provide service to all communities of all sizes and types (Ala , 1997). Public libraries often have departments that focus on areas of service, such as youth, teens and adults. 
• School libraries: Usually part of a school system, and serve students between Kindergarten and grade 13 (Ala , 1997). 
• Special libraries: Tender unique opportunities to work in a specialized environment of interest (Ala , 1997)  such as corporations, private businesses, and the government (Ala , 1997)  Can serve particular populations, such as the blind and physically handicapped.

The following image represent the percentages of library types across the globe. Public library and academic library usage is the highest than all other things. 

Blog.webjunctionworks (2012)

005.133. C++ 118/8 is code of APIIT Library for a particular book in programming category. In this 005.133 is representing the subject and c++ is the extension of subject in alphabetic order and 118/8 is the item number and the edition of the book. 

A class activity was conducted to arrange some library catalog coded in sequence order. And also talked about how to map the ideas to do a project. For the below topic the diagram is being driven and discussed.

Is offering inducement to exchange gambling ethical

Building strategy

• Synonyms
• Acronyms
• Spelling variations
• Regional variations

Search Techniques
There are different ways to search articles on a particular topic. The main thing is to use a search engine first to get an idea what is expecting as the outcome. Search Engines will always return good results depending on the use of proper syntax and it is good for well defined topics to search. The keyword searching can be done using different search engine showing in the figure.

Designmission (2012)

Searching Strategies

Cloudfront.bostinno (2012)

• Keywords
• Searching operators (AND, OR, NOR)
• Nesting (Used to group synonymous spelling variations or other alternate terms)
• Phrase searching (Searches on the root of the word adding different word endings or  plurals)
• Truncation and wildcards (used with "?". Wildcards are used to pick up words that have different) 

Refernces

Librarylaws (1996) The Definition of a Library. [online] Available at: http://www.librarylaws.com/ [Accessed: 4 Dec 2012].

Ala (1997) Types of Libraries | American Library Association. [online] Available at: http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/careers/librarycareerssite/typesoflibraries [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].

Designmission (2012) Simple Search Engine Optimization . [online] Available at: http://www.designmission.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/search-engines.gif [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].

Cloudfront.bostinno (2012) Online Searchers Want More From Small Businesses . [online] Available at: http://cloudfront4.bostinno.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/onlinesearch-300x298.jpg [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].

Blog.webjunctionworks (2012) [online] Available at: http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/library-type-breakdown.jpg [Accessed: 14 Dec 2012].

Final Year Project

The final year project is conducting in the third year of the degree independently by selecting a company or current country problem. These projects are subsequently can be said as Micro/ Macro. Anyway at the end need to develop  novel solution. For that a documentation and an artifact where a solution is designed using a programming language with the design interface. Therefore the main aspect which is improtant is the topic and identification of the problem area.

Initiation of the Final Year Project

• Project proposal
• Project specification
• Project plan - 33 weeks

To handle the tasks of the Final Year Project a supervisor is named according to the interest of the perosn to the particular area where the student is being carrying on. The project also should include the elements or the features such as

• Feasible: Able to complete in the given time period
• Useful: will result in the usable model
• Balanced: Combination of the feasible and useful with the qualitative and quantitative sources

Ideas of the project

The project should have the section which is mainly we willing the interest and also somebody can use the coming up or new technology in the world. As well as the m module should be based on the modules which we are favoring to complete with successful grades. Also the grade which  you determining to get at the end of the Final Year Project  is displaying the attempts which you really put. Also can use the existing skills while extending them further. In order to go ahead with the project students should look whether they have correct access to data or is there constraints. Also have to consider whether students have righ knowledge or can they learn something new with the time available currently. 

Structure of the Project Proposal

• Identify the study area and importance of the subject. 
• Specify objectives of project.
• Methodologies going to use and assumptions.
• Explain the possible solutions.
• Identify the time available to complete the project.

Good Proposal should have what?

• The accuracy of the title
• The clarity of the objectives
• Familiarity with the current relevant literature 
• Whether the research methods are clearly described
• Whether the plan of work clearly reflects the aims
• Whether the research can be done in the time available
•  Whether the project is feasible academically and technically

In students view corner dissertation will have to analyse your data to show that you have :

• Performed a novel piece of investigation 
• Worked independently
• Attained an adequate academic standard
• Used appropriate techniques
• Made critical use of existing material 
• Placed your findings within the wider field of knowledge 

The main thing as students we need to consider is that adequate depth of study, adequate evaluation of subject area, adequate references and adequate software in order to complete the project successfully.

Do you know the content of the project?

• Abstract 
• Introduction
• Body
• Conclusions
• List of references 
• Bibliography 
• Appendices