Sunday, March 21, 2010

How to Manage Stress at Work

Being in the consulting industry, John was under tremendous pressure to deliver and strategize. The day at work use to start by 8.00 in the morning and finish at wee hours of night. Some nights were spent in office sleeping on the desk and presenting papers to clients the next morning.

Recession! Recession! All over the place - the buzz word has been creating havoc with job cuts, downsizing, salary and budget cuts and many more. With four people being asked to resign due to low performance and clients complaining about the quality being delivered, John has been over stressed. Slowly it's starting to wear on him.

Job stress is like an epidemic and spreads very fast. It starts affecting one's productivity and reduces physical and emotional health. Some of the common symptoms of work stress are -

1. Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed

2. Apathy, loss of interest in work

3. Problems sleeping

4. Fatigue,

5. Trouble concentrating

6. Communication patterns

7. Muscle tension or headaches

8. Stomach problems

9. Social withdrawal

10. Loss of libido

11. Using alcohol or drugs to cope

12. Behavior at work

Not all kind of stress is over bearing. Some healthy stress like anxiety, irritation etc. is required at work place to think gainful activities and plan work in a better way. Sometimes companies purposely design stressful situations and make employees perform in order to see their survival instincts. So people have to work against stress rather them getting affected by its consequences. It is necessary to maintain a large measure of self control and confidence at work place. One of the ways which every can practice is think positive and be an optimist. You should be able to manage your thoughts in a constructive and positive way. A lot of it depends upon how you communicate with others at work place. Your body language, verbal and non verbal communication styles indicate a lot about your stress. It's about communicating with others in ways that draw people's attention to you, overcome differences, repair wounded feelings, and defuse stress and tension.

A lot of times people get stress due to old negative habits, predetermined notions about things at work commonly called as self defeating habits. Perfectionism, punctuality, job dissatisfaction, lack of incentives and promotions, employees' attitude towards commitment, integrity issues all are primes motivators to one's stress.

What is that one can practice is being at ease with oneself and understanding the fact that not all are equal and perfect at work whether situation or people. Creating allies, opinion groups, self motivating quotes, positive attitude, take time away, create humor at work, delegation, prioritizing etc are all few ways to relieve stress.

At the end tell you heart and mind - All Is well and it will be over. Nothing is permanent.

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Career Options and Job Opportunities in Game Designing

If we had spoken about a career in Game Designing about two decades back, nobody would have thought it to be a serious line of profession. But today, Game design not only has many institutions providing serious training on the subject but also very well paid jobs and a bright future.

The great news about the video game design industry is that it's growing at a firm, fast pace. Wide access to the World Wide Web or the internet has created a huge demand for online games. Also, popularity of gaming consoles such as PS, XBOX, Wii, etc. have also generated limitless demand for innovative games. And these may come with a big price tag as well. The gaming industry is worth an exploding $11 billion. A big commercial game might take as much as $500,000.

Many movie makers are also going the gaming way to popularize the characters or let's say cashing on the popularity. Cell phones are another major engine for video game demand generation. Someone's got to trap this rapidly growing market for games and not just supply what is required but also show what all can be made available for buyers.

Game design refers to various aspects of development of the game like- outlining the concept, documenting rules and principles, development of graphics, etc. An avid player of online or video games is not a pre-requisite to build a career in this industry. But it could definitely be a stepping stone toward it.

There are innumerable schools of graphic design that train and give certifications in game design. A degree in computer engineering (for game developers) or a major in arts focusing on computer generated graphics (for designers) might be the basic qualification one needs to pursue a career in game designing.

Freelancing is what many youths are opting for now after course completion. After all, creative minds cannot be asked to work in a 9-5 jobs at some mundane work place. Creativity needs no boundaries and that's why freelancing is more popular.

Some of the common job titles in this domain are:

Design: Level Designer, Game Designer, Senior Level Designer, and Lead Animator, User Interface Artist, Environment Artist

Programming: Programmers, Engineers, Audio Engineer, Graphics Engineers, Network Programmer

Others: Computer Game Producer, Quality Assurance, Associate Producer, and Game Tester

Animation studios and gaming companies are open to pay well.

Remuneration and growth depends on how well one can conceptualize and develop the program. Takers are there. All one needs to do right now is meet the demand at the right time. Starting salary may range from $50,000- $75,000 depending on skills.

As the industry is maturing, breaking into it is not easy any longer. The mantra for success now is to be a master of multiple trades of game designing and not just one. To have an edge, the designer must think like an artist and work like an engineer to bridge the gap between technology and art. Managerial capability and clarity in communication of ideas may lead way to endless growth.

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Project Management Initiatives

Project management is related to organising, planning and resource management for the successful completion of some specific assignments and projects and at the same time achieving goals of the organization. A project is an endeavour which is temporary, it has a defined beginning and an end, and is undertaken to meet some goals which bring about a beneficial change. It can also be said that project management is a set of practices, principles, and technique applied to desired project and schedules of project, its cost, and manage risks to result in satisfied customers. A business in contrast is continuous which works to produce products or services. The management of the two systems is quite different, and requires the adoption of separate management and development of distinct technical skills.

The challenge project management has to face is to achieve all desired goals and objectives while keeping in mind the constraints. Typical constraints are time, budget and scope.

Project management as a discipline takes into consideration many economic related activity. It can be used in industries like pharmaceuticals, aerospace and software. And in the public sector, an effective project management is the one which helps in keeping up with promises and achieve the target which is set that improve everyday life. In today's world the business always tries to diversify their own resource into area which bring in profit; accordingly the plans are chalked out. The risks at any step in business life mean pitfalls and dangers. To avoid the failure often these business management take the help of management consultants to put the things in place. Project management is basically avoiding pitfalls and calculating the risk and creating ways to avoid consequences. Every project shares a common goal. Following are the ideas and activities to put them in proper use. Even if the project is planned well and carried out properly still there are possibilities of encountering a danger.

The idea of managing a project is all about bringing in consistency in achieving stated targets within a certain limit of time and budget by planning and coordinating human and material resource. Project management is a way of life for successful collaboration, governance, responsibility deciding, and alignment of organizational element and defining procedures with the features of products and services. Project management technique is quite different from a normal design or engineering or technical skills usually associated with many projects, and cover aspects which are outside the scope of these technical areas that have to be managed well, if the project objectives are to be timely met. Project management also pretty much differs from a traditional management that is it brings in coordination, execution-discipline, responsiveness, and alignment of organizational elements which is cross functional and gives a better end product.

This discipline can also bring in some amazing benefits for an individual at a particular level in organizations. For example, through project management:

An executive gets timely and accurate information so that they can make effective business decisions and make course of actions quickly so they can maintain their reputation in the market.

People executing the project understand their roles and responsibilities and how they have to work as a whole with organisation. When the communication amongst employees increases the chances of the occurrence of a conflict decreases.

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Monday, March 15, 2010

Difference between Merger and Acquisition

The term "merger" literally means merging of two organizations into one; term "acquisition" means to takeover or something acquiring. Merger and acquisition is also referred to as M&A. The concept behind this combining is a fact that the value of shareholder is above than that of the sum of two companies alone. Both the terms are used alternatively, but they have a slight difference in their meaning.

An acquisition is buying one organization by another. It can be a friendly takeover or hostile takeover. In friendly acquisition, companies executives negotiate whereas in hostile acquisition, if the bidder continue to seek it even if the company (or target) is unwilling to agree. Usually larger company takes over the smaller company. However in some situations a smaller company might overtake the larger one and only keeping its name for the new firm which is the result of acquisition. This type of acquisition is called reverse merger.

A merger is said to be when two organizations agree on the decision of being one; it's the mutual decision. In a merger, organizations agree to be as one organization and continue as one rather than as two separate organizations. As a result the newly merged firm's stocks are issued and stocks of old companies (the stocks of two companies before merging) are surrendered. The merger can be horizontal merger, conglomerate (or congeneric) merger or vertical merger; it depends on the merging companies nature. If the two companies which have decided on merging compete in same product line it is said to be horizontal merging. If two companies of different product line agreed on a merger such that there products together enhances the company's value is said to be vertical merger. At last, the companies that do not have similar product lines at all decided to merge; this type of merger is called conglomeration merger. Depending on how merger has been financed it can be categorized as purchase mergers and consolidation mergers. The former is defined as a merger in which a company (target) is purchased by the bidder; the latter is defined as a merger in which a new firm is established by bringing together both the firms.

The kind of purchase done decides whether the purchase is a merger or acquisition. The purchase could be friendly purchase or hostile purchase; however this alone is not enough. Even if the top management agrees on the fact that this combining of two firms is in favor of both then also the purchase is said to be a merger.

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