Here's what's happening in the IT world today.

Facebook sets richest tech IPO in motion
NEW YORK: Facebook on Thursday announced a price of $38 per share for its record-setting initial public offering, which gives the leading social network a market value of $104 billion.

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Forrester outlines 5 rising, 5 declining security technologies
Security technologies rise and fall in popularity, and Forrester Research in its TechRadar report puts its bets on five it thinks are in a growth mode and five it thinks are dying away.

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VSee will change the future of video, collaboration with its safe and secure, software-only solution
Put video conferencing + collaborative work + safe and secure transmission of information + simplicity of use together, and you’ll get VSee.

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The Inexperience Advantage
Instead of forging the impression of experience, I'd rather we turn the tables and use our inexperience as an advantage in the organizations we work for and the companies we start. In other words, we need to start playing to our strengths.

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How to get Feedback when You’re the Boss
The higher up in the organization you get, the less likely you'll receive constructive feedback on your ideas, performance, or strategy. No one wants to offend the boss, right? But without input, your development will suffer, you may become isolated, and you're likely to miss out on hearing some great ideas. So, what can you do to get people to tell you what you may not want to hear?

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The higher up in the organization you get, the less likely you'll receive constructive feedback on your ideas, performance, or strategy. No one wants to offend the boss, right? But without input, your development will suffer, you may become isolated, and you're likely to miss out on hearing some great ideas. So, what can you do to get people to tell you what you may not want to hear?

What the Experts Say
Most people have good reasons for keeping their opinions from higher ups. "People with formal power can affect our fate in many ways — they can withhold critical resources, they can give us negative evaluations and hold us back from promotions, and they can even potentially fire us or have us fired," says James Detert, associate professor at the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management and author of the Harvard Business Review articles "Debunking Four Myths About Employee Silence" and "Why Employees Are Afraid to Speak". The more senior you become, the more likely you are to trigger this fear. "The major reason people don't give the boss feedback is they're worried that the boss will retaliate because they know that most of us have trouble accepting negative feedback," says Linda Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and coauthor of Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader. While you may be tempted to enjoy this deference, the silence will not help you, your organization or your career.

Acknowledge the fear
As the boss, you have to set the stage so people feel comfortable, says Hill. You need to break through their fear. Detert suggests being explicit. Tell them that you know everyone makes mistakes, including you, and that they should call out those errors without feeling embarrassed or threatened. Explain that you need their feedback to learn.

At the same time, you should recognize how hard it might be to hear this tough feedback. "It's human to feel bad when people criticize and no matter how senior you become, you're still human," Hill says. Still, you can't let that anxiety hold you back.

Ask for it, constantly
Ask for feedback on a regular basis, not just at review time. "You need to be the one who is actively collecting and soliciting information all the time," says Hill. You can say something like, "I know that these are the goals that we set together. What can I do to help you achieve those goals?" You shouldn't assume your team members will be upfront the first time you ask. "You have to do it for awhile and then the information will flow and you can ask more pointed questions," says Hill.

Request examples
In the same way that you want to give concrete examples when giving feedback, you should also request them when you are receiving it. When someone tells you, "You run our team meetings really well," or "You don't delegate enough," follow up by asking for an example. This allows you to better understand the feedback and ensures that what you're hearing is true. "I tend to think the more people can back up their assertions and input with concrete examples or numbers, the more it's probably honest," says Detert. >>Read more

Source: Harvard Business Review

Ever been shut down by someone who supposedly knows more than you? It happens to me daily. I get denied by people that are more senior, more polished, and more knowledgeable than me. I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed professional rejection, but I try my best to dust myself off and move forward, reminding myself that that a series of controlled failures are necessary for eventual success.

Not surprisingly, I'm not the only one getting ignored because of my inexperience, and the rejections can be downright vicious. Just last week, Kate called me in tears after attending a media conference with well-known industry bigwigs. After spending months anxiously anticipating meeting her professional heroes, she couldn't have been more disheartened on the day of the event. Noting that she had been working in the industry for less than a year, most executives simply refused to engage in conversation with her, and the ones that did spoke to her in a condescending, suspicious manner that made her "feel like a kid who was inconveniencing a gathering of distinguished adults." She flew home categorically disillusioned.

As a proud supporter of the young, I was disgusted at the extent to which she was repeatedly shunned for, essentially, being too inexperienced. Yes, young and ambitious people with bright eyes and open hearts need to learn to accept the cold shoulder of established industry gatekeepers, even when it seems like the only goal of the latter is to prevent new ideas and innovation bubbling to the surface of their tired companies and low-growth industries. But a line needs to be drawn between not fully engaging with the inexperienced (painful, but understandable) and making them feel like they've committed a crime with their lack of knowledge and years under their belt (not okay, ever).

More importantly, though, I'm disheartened at the response — at how those with limited experience beef up resumes, wear expensive suits, use industry jargon liberally, name-drop awkwardly, and generally try to paper over cracks in an effort to mask inexperience and appeal more to bosses, investors, or interviewers. Why are we playing dancing bear in the circus of the experienced? Everyone knows that you don't have "deep expertise in retail" when you're only three years out of grad school. Trying to sound more experienced than you are is a flawed strategy, so you need to change the way you compete.

Instead of forging the impression of experience, I'd rather we turn the tables and use our inexperience as an advantage in the organizations we work for and the companies we start. In other words, we need to start playing to our strengths. >>Read more

Source: Harvard Business Review