The 2009 Personal Avatar Size Reference Guide

The 2009 Personal Avatar Size Reference Guide 19 You've read the 11 Rules for Personal Branding Success with Avatars, have a perfect image for your avatar and want to get started visually improving your personal brand online. This handy referencewill help you do just that. What you need to know before spreading your avatar Most sites only use square images If your chosen image is rectangular, some sites will crop it automatically and probably not in a flattering way. Bearing in mind that brand reinforcement is about repetition, keep things simple by using the same square image everywhere. Sites only let you submit one image per account However, sites will typically use at least 3 different sizes of your image. If the image you upload is too small, it will appear blurry when blown-up on some pages. If the image is too big, the reduction will sometimes look pixelated. How do you choose?eval Image submission rule of thumb Submit large images to the sites where profile pages are more likely to be seen often, such as on LinkedIn. Or, avoid this problem altogether by choosing an image *per site* that looks good at all the sizes cited in the guide below.eval Recommendations for your social media profiles LinkedIn's sidebar images measure 40×40 pixels and profile page images can be 80×80 pixels. Recommendation: with the emphasis here on the latter, submit an image of 80×80 pixels. Twitter profile pages display images at 73×73 pixels (go figure) while showing avatars at 48×48, 31×31 and 24×24 pixels elsewhere. Recommendation: 48×48 pixels if you put a larger image as part of your Twitter background, otherwise 73×73 pixels. Facebook's profile page lets you display a rectangular image no wider than 200 pixels while showing avatars of 50×50 pixels elsewhere. Recommendation: bearing in mind how profile-heavy Facebook is, use an image of 200×200 pixels for maximum recognition. Skype is one place where rectangular images can be used, but don't do it. Both 96×96 pixel and 48×48 pixel images are used on Skype. Recommendation: prioritize the chat window by submitting an image of 96×96 pixels. Ning will take your GIF, JPG or PNG file and display it at 120×120, 48×48 and 32×32 pixels. As a platform for social networks, Ning also allows you to have a different avatar per network but don't fall into this trap. Instead, choose only one avatar as the Ning default, which will then cascade to all the Ning social networks you join. Recommendation: 120×120 pixels, because profile pages are so often visited here. Although Google's Gmail (96×96 pixels) and Friend Connect (both 82×82 and 40×40 pixels) use different images, the image sizes aren't too different. Recommendation: use an image of 96×96 pixels for your Google profile. FriendFeed is like Google in that the different avatar sizes used aren't too different at 75×75, 50×50 and 25×25 pixels. Recommendation: 75×75 pixels. Gravatars are universally-used for blog comments, like here below. Although the Gravatar website will preview your avatar for you at 192×192 and 80×80 pixels, webmasters can choose a size that fits their design and that is usually something smaller, closer to 50×50 pixels. Recommendation: 50×50 pixels. Also used here on JobMob, MyBlogLog is a great way to see who is visiting a site. Files must be in JPG or PNG format, 5MB or under but will be reduced for the avatars to appear at 96×96 pixels, 48×48 pixels and even 24×24 pixels on some sites. Recommendation: 48×48 pixels is the avatar size that seems to be most widespread. BlogCatalog is like MyBlogLog and almost as useful. Making things simple, there's only one possible size here for your GIF or JPG avatar image. Recommendation: 50×50 pixels. Myspace allows up to 158×158 pixels for an image on the profile page, and uses 28×28 pixel icons everywhere else. Recommendation: with visitors heading to your profile page often, 158×158 pixels is the way to go. Digg is one of the less important social media for professionals but most people do have an account there. A heavy user of avatars, you can see images in 16×16, 48×48, 60×60 and 120×120 pixels on Digg. Recommendation: 120×120 pixels. StumbleUpon lets you use a large 185×185 image on your profile page but will settle for any size you submit, while using avatars of 48×48 pixels everywhere else. Recommendation:48×48 pixels. A tool to make it all happen: mypictr Not a graphic designer? Don't know how to resize your beautiful portrait for these sites and any others? Not to worry. With mypictr, upload a large avatar image and choose the destined website or social network. mypictr then suggests the default avatar size for the chosen website and lets you zoom and crop your uploaded image until you have a match. Once you click ‘pictrit', you can download your image or email it to someone else. Perhaps in the future, mypictr will even update your profiles for you directly. Which other sites would you like to see in this reference guide? I originally published this article on the terrific Personal Branding Blog.

3 Tech Companies Visualising the Future of Work

3 Tech Companies Visualising the Future of Work Its 2017. The year when cars started to drive by themselves, hamburgers can be made in a factory and Alexa is ruling your home environment. This might sound like a science fiction movie to you but we are at the cusp of something bigger than we have ever imagined. We’re going to dive into the future, visualized by the worlds leading tech companies. How do they see the world in the future what effects do these changes have on the way that we work? Let’s find out! Microsoft or Macrosoft? We believe the future of work will be centered around people. Microsoft Bringing people together in better ways, both in-person and remotely is the main focus. Microsoft wants to create a smart multi-user space that allows team members to work together on projects. Video live streams in high quality with real-time translation and annotations, which will have educational purposes as well as business purposes. Team members can join and share information with each other, whilst not even being in the room together. I hear you: we can already do that with video calling, Whatsapp, Skype or what not. Agreed. But, combining all of the above in a smoothly operating mixed reality is the very next step! Living smarter, that’s what we all want, right? We’ll even be more flexible while still being a productive as ever. Your personal professional life become one, as you make up your own daily calendar. Shared workspaces and real-time data will make jobs easier accessible you’re able to quickly match an expert with the right criteria. The content you make can automatically be composed into a document, full of live data and interactive content. The intelligence will adapt to you, instead of the other way around. Naturally switching between platforms, like 3D holograms, seem to be really futuristic. However, these things exist or operate on their own already. The ‘organic’ part comes in when all of these are connected with each other. vitality and the real world come together if data information are automatically organised in your actual world. Basically, we get a smart-ass assistant, who doesn’t need to be paid. Win-win! Conversations and environments are going to shift according to Microsoft. ‘The office’ is no longer an actual office. You’re able to switch from a phone conversation in earpieces to video chats and even holographic visuals. As soon as you enter a space, you’re connected to your own projects, so you can resume where you left off. Transferring files is going with ease because everything is connected with each other. Flexible devices also give you multiple ways to showcase content and interact with it. Endless possibilities! Intel(ligence) Intel is taking a different route in their future vision. They’re comparing the current work environment with the future work environment. Intel is bringing more to the table than just a vision about the future. We can actually see the difference since they’re literally shown alongside each other. Both ‘Nates’ are competing with each other, but the future Nate is clearly winning when it comes to time, professionalism and accessibility. Intel is showing us the following tech specs: Secured facial login Voice assistant Wireless docking charging Wireless data transfer Cloud-based Services Real Sense Technology You basically have all of these separately, except for the last one. Real Sense Technology is standing out from the crowd. That’s the one you’re actually quite curious for: what does it even mean? They also made this ad with Sheldon, from the show the Big Bang Theory, which is quite funny to watch! An Apple a day Of course, we should be talking about the elephant in the room, Apple, a brand that has really opened our eyes to the possibilities of technology. But to be honest, Apple has never released a video of the future of work like Microsoft and Intel, however, they turned it around with the following one: APPOCALYPSE  App. Apocalypse, see what they did there? Even though this might be an ‘old’ one, it’s still pretty funny, so give it a watch! Blurred lines To conclude; our ratio is going to change or probably already changing. There’s no longer a straight line between work life and personal life. When we adopt new technologies. we become more dependent on them. This can be a good thing; working from home may be the standard and virtual office meetings definitely decrease your daily commute. Yet we have to wonder: would technology be worth it? Could there be a downside on any of this, or is it all well and wonders? Privacy, advertising data usage are a few of these topics where we should definitely keep an eye on. NOT a digital eye.

The Evolution of Work Permalancers, Slashers the Career Pivot Marla Gottschalk

The Evolution of Work Permalancers, Slashers the Career Pivot Marla Gottschalk Change is inevitable, and when a strained job market has to flex with the increasing pressure of a sluggish economy, something has got to give. Not necessarily to the betterment of organizations. Not necessarily to the advantage of employees. What occurs is simply Darwinian theory applied to work. Jobs evolve and mutate. The structure of work and its evolutionary past Often the impetus for the change comes from the external environment, and over the course of time jobs have changed to meet the state of the world. From the inception of the role of apprentice to effectively transfer needed skills through the generations to the needed presence of women in the workforce during World War II the world of work has changed to adapt to the state of the world. In our current economy, organizations can be fragile and funds are often tight limiting the number of full-time employees that can be supported. In response, changes have occurred to the structure of work to deal with these imposed constraints. Whether these changes are transitory in nature, or here to stay remains unclear. Trends to note observe: Permalancing The notion of permalancers, those freelancers who spend long periods of time at an organization without actually being considered a full-time employee, raises all sorts of legal and ethical questions. Of particular concern is the obvious lack of job security and its eventual impact upon job satisfaction and performance. In a nutshell, these employees do not enjoy the same benefits or security as other employees within the organization. Some have viewed the positives of the arrangement, as flexible and realistic.   However, are these employees able to fully commit to organizational goals? Are freelancers distracted by their search for a permanent home? Slashing When full-time jobs are few in number, employees might have to take on more than one role to meet their financial obligations and fill a 40+ hour work week. Slashing, a type of career multi-tasking, has provided some workers the opportunity to pay the bills and stay afloat. Many may actually enjoy the variety of their roles others may prefer a less dissociative career path. Sometimes, slashing can allow an individual to pursue an entrepreneurial dream, while still working at another role. But, how many of these individuals will choose to stick with this option when the economy stabilizes? What are the long-term ramifications for careers and pay? Career Pivoting Pivoting often entails a change in work setting or industry, where components of the current skill set are applied to a new role. These more controlled career path revisions seem to be occurring more and more often. Often the pivot emerges out of the need to follow the work, in other cases to pursue an improved career fit. How pivoting is actually accomplished will be a research focus, as vehicles such as mid-career internships become more popular. How many career changers are choosing a pivot instead of a more drastic career change? Are there opportunities for career pivoting within organizations? Will internships be available for those who require a mid-career revision? The evolution of our world of work will continue in the coming years.   Learning how these changes impact employees and organizations is certainly the next step. Dr. Marla Gottschalk is a Workplace Psychologist. You can find her on Twitter and Linkedin.