If you have logged into LinkedIn, the popular business networking site, over the past few months, you may have been asked to endorse some of your connections’ skills. Or perhaps you have gotten email notification that a connection has endorsed your skills. So what does this all of this mean, and how does this differ from a LinkedIn recommendation? Here are some tips:

What is a skill endorsement?

LinkedIn describes a skill endorsement as being “a great way to recognize your 1st-degree connections’ skills and expertise with one click.” The endorsements can also be reciprocal in that they “let your connections validate the strengths found on your own profile.”  The site claims that “skill endorsements are a simple and effective way of building your professional brand and engaging your network.”

Here is what that means for you: take a look at the skills & expertise section of your LinkedIn page. LinkedIn may have come up with your skills by pulling keywords to your profile. Or you can add skills to your profile on your own. At any rate, the more people endorse you for a skill, the more of an expert you can look to be. It is a quick shorthand for seeing what other people consider to be valuable in a LinkedIn connection.

I have written a blog since 2006, so the top-ranked skill I have on my profile is blogging. Other skills that I have been endorsed for include SEO, WordPress, and writing.

Why should I endorse others’ skills?

You cannot ask for others to endorse your skills and expertise, but if you endorse others’ skills, they will see that you did via an email from LinkedIn and via their photo appearing on your profile. It is also the right thing to do, if you believe that the person has good skills  in a particular field.

Another way you might have the opportunity to endorse other people’s skills and expertise, aside from visiting that person’s profile, is when you log into LinkedIn. You may be asked a question as to whether a connection has skills at a specific thing, like writing, editing, project management, or some other skill. If you agree and click the item, you are endorsing that person’s skill, and they will receive a note telling them so.

Needless to say, do not endorse a skill that you do not believe the person has, or that they are not very good at. On the other hand, if you feel that somebody has additional skills that are not on the profile, you can suggest some skills for their profile. They can add the skills to their LinkedIn profile if they agree with your assessment.

What is the difference between LinkedIn skill endorsements and recommendations?

They are not the same thing. You can ask for, or be asked for a recommendation – a written endorsement describing your or their work – from a supervisor, colleague, or subordinate. You can also write one up without them requesting it. A LinkedIn recommendation is still more valuable than a skill endorsement, because it is more like a traditional letter of recommendation than the quick thumbs up that a skill endorsement is.

If you are not sure what your skills are, you can ask friends or co-workers, or talk to a career coach about your skills. To learn more about what a career coach does, click here. Another option is to look at a LinkedIn profile of somebody in a similar career to you, and see what skills they have listed.

One other note about LinkedIn skill endorsements — if you do not want them on your profile, you can hide individual ones, or people given them to you, from your profile. However, at this time, you cannot completely opt-out of skill endorsements, so you may want to spend a little time on them to make sure they show you in the best light.

By Kristen Carter
Career Services Contributor

According to Dictionary.com, the act of being aggressive is defined as “making an all-out effort to win or succeed, boldly assertive and forward, and vigorously energetic, especially in the use of initiative and forcefulness.” All in all, an aggressive approach to your job search is not necessarily a bad thing. Several career resources advocate aggressive job search strategies, advising you to be creative, proactive, and persistent in your search methods. 

Being aggressive is certainly appropriate in particular situations. I remember loudly proclaiming “Be Aggressive!” as I cheered during my middle school years to help those basketball players step it up on the court. But, is there a point when you can go too far? When does persistence cross the line into aggressiveness? At what point does an overly-aggressive job search strategy undermine one’s chances of landing the job of one’s dreams? Jessica Holbrook Hernandez tackles this very issue in her article titled, “Are You Too Aggressive in Your Job Search?” encouraging job seekers to adhere to the following tips:

1. Be confident, not cocky! You in no way want to convey to a hiring manager through your cover letter that you are entitled to a job. Sending this negative message will most certainly hurt your chances of landing a position. Instead, establishing a tone of gratitude, as well as confidently stating your qualifications, will send the context appropriate message that you are a competent professional with the ability to do the job well.
2. Don’t burn bridges! Following up with companies is an essential part of the job search process, but not to the point where you are perceived as being annoying. As the article mentions, initiate the follow up communication, but then, remember, the ball is in their court. Allow the employer to make the next move, instead of reaching out multiple times like a jealous boyfriend/girlfriend.
3. Limit your focus. While you initially may be overzealous and apply for multiple positions within the same organization, this technique could work against you. It sends the message that you are not committed to a particular position, which also does not highlight how your skills will add value to a particular role. Instead, show your assertiveness and commitment to the one position you connect with the most.

Remember, you don’t want to cause a potential employer to lose interest you. So, when you are being aggressive in your job search, don’t act in a way that would seem to offer evidence that you are a poor fit for a company.

By J. Mason
Online Career Tips Editor

Making yourself available to colleagues is all part of the job. With the feeling of needing to belong there’s also the desire to please others. For most of us this may mean promising more than we can capably deliver. These types of promises ultimately result in over extending ourselves, and can pile on unnecessary stress.

For this type of bad habit there’s no game plan to apply to get past the hurdle of being over extended. What it takes to overcome it is time, patience, and better planning. Most office workers use Outlook to schedule their appointments and meetings, and other types of businesses may use similar paid or free tools, like Google Calendar. This is where you should ALWAYS list meetings, calls, and scheduled appointments. As for tasks, if it requires some concentration then block that time out on the calendar. It tells your co-workers that you’re too busy to chat, and they should back off when they see your busy sign is up. Giving yourself the time to work on the tasks in front of you can be the difference between successful completion, and pulling out your hair.

Patience is an acquired skill not many people have in the fast paced world of business. Everybody needs something immediately, and if you’re not the person to do it they’ll bypass you to get it done. This shouldn’t scare you into submitting, but it could help you in becoming more tactful. When someone approaches you about helping out on something with a quick turnaround time, make sure to take the time to review it well. Look at the scope of the task or project, the deadline, and all the deliverables that you may need outside assistance for. If you can’t realistically complete it in that amount of time without pushing other items out, then it may not be worth it. What you can do instead is over assistance for part of it, and include another team member to lead the other half. This way you’re not letting your co-worker down, but you’re not piling on top of your already full plate.

In the end remember that it’s better to be prepared. You won’t know how available you are without a sound schedule in place. If your tasks are all over the place with no deadlines, then it may be easy to push things off until infinity. Make time for recurring items, ongoing projects, and also leave in some space for impromptu discussions and tasks. This way you’re not missing out on a great opportunity, but you also won’t be losing any sleep, or hair, in the process.

How did you do with last week’s bad habit, avoiding networking opportunities? With event season coming up you’ll need to put your best handshake forward. Being shy is quite alright, but avoiding new people altogether should not be an option.

For many, the term “social media” conjures up cute cat videos and the latest celebrity meme. But memes can take many forms. Increasingly, businesses are taking advantage of social media channels to create buzz about themselves, their brands and their products and services. According to a 2012 survey by small business online community Manta, small businesses have caught the bug: 90% of owners are now networking online, with 74% believing it to be equal to or greater than in-person networking.

Why are these businesses engaging on social media? Simply put, because it allows them to reach millions of consumers easily and cheaply. In September 2012, Facebook reached a milestone number: 1 billion monthly active users, CNET reported, with 618 million daily active users reported by the end of 2012. The mind-boggling numbers reflect a 25 percent increase in monthly users from the year before and a 28 percent rise in daily users. And Forbes reports a 500-fold increase in registered users for Twitter over the past five years. These users represent legions of potential business customers.

Large companies are on the social media band wagon, too. According to the Burson-Marsteller Global Social Media Check-Up 2012, the majority of the Fortune Global 100’s companies—87%—are using one or more of the major social media platforms to communicate with online stakeholders, with Twitter being most popular both for companies and users talking about the companies. Big corporations are also using Facebook, YouTube, Google Plus and Pinterest.

So, businesses increasingly gravitate to social media to pitch their products by interacting with audiences and sharing content that educates, entertains, and enlightens. But have you ever wondered who’s behind  those accounts in this brave new world of social media marketing? The infographic below will look at the marketing wizards behind the curtain of this virtual world, possible pathways toward a career in social media marketing, and what the real-world outlook may be for these virtual marketers.

While the channels for promoting a company’s products may have changed—from a print-based environment to one that is becoming increasingly digital-based—the fundamentals of a marketing and public relations position have not.

This infographic was originally featured on Schools.com

A few weeks back, I had the honor to emcee the closing awards dinner at the Education Innovation Summit in Scottsdale.  The evening took a sour note though as the dinner keynote, which Andy Kessler delivered, stunned and offended the majority of the audience by essentially arguing that as digital learning rises, we won’t need teachers anymore.

The audience took to Twitter to voice vehement disagreement, and my co-emcee and I—we were just as surprised as everyone else—did our best to distance ourselves from the remarks and hit the reset button on the evening.

To be clear, inviting controversial and provocative comments with which one may disagree is entirely appropriate at an education conference. Open debate and free speech are important. In my opinion though, they belong in the context of the conference—in which people have the opportunity to debate them—not at a closing awards dinner meant to cap a once-again successful and high-spirited conference on innovation in education. For an education technology sector struggling to fight the erroneous claim by some that it’s “tech or teachers,” choosing Kessler to deliver the closing keynote at a feel-good awards dinner was tone deaf and felt like an endorsement of his message, not a speech meant to provoke debate and discussion.

What’s clear to many of us who work in the edtech field is that we need to replace the word “or” with the word “and.” As former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise often says, “Digital learning erases the line between high tech or high teach.”

With that all said, Kessler’s keynote got me thinking. He made some points with which the edtech sector—and the field of education more generally—should grapple and not simply sweep under the rug.

Kessler argued that whenever a truly transformational disruptive innovation has come along, it hasn’t just wiped out a whole set of businesses, it wipes out a whole sector of jobs. One example he gave was switchboard operators. When computerized dialing systems were introduced, they replaced the need for manual telephone switchboards and, consequently, the switchboard operators that ran them.

But what was unfortunate was the part of the story Kessler left out of his talk. Even as the shift to computerized dialing systems famously wiped out the jobs of switchboard operators, it created enormous job growth in new types of jobs that often involved more skill and paid better. There were of course the direct jobs—the people who built the switches and the switching systems and those who designed, integrated, and managed the software. But the new, better phone system also enabled new applications—ranging from simple touch-tone ordering systems to, ultimately, the Internet—which supported an entirely new set of commercial opportunities and jobs.

The omission is a big mistake because although the analogy is imperfect, there are parallels to education. As blended learning grows in K–12 education, it is not eliminating teachers, but eliminating certain traditional job functions of teachers. This change in the role of the teacher is, as others and I have noted, in part about allowing computers to do what computers do well to free up teachers to do what only humans can do.

Teachers—or whatever people in the future want to call mission-critical adults who guide and inspire students—will remain vital. But they will likely be doing different things. And we’re still learning about what those things will be.

It appears likely that there will be more room for teachers to focus on deeper learning by working with students on higher-order skills and the application of knowledge in rich projects. Teachers should spend less time handling mundane administrative tasks that suck up time and less time delivering one-size-fits-none lesson plans. Teachers will have far more time to work with students one-on-one and in small groups and target their interactions in more meaningful ways.

In many blended-learning schools today, the roles of teachers are also being unbundled. Some teachers serve as content experts and others as mentors and learning coaches. Some focus on tutoring, whereas others specialize in small-group projects or on making the learning relevant to the outside world. Still others act as case workers or counselors (but actually spend the majority of their day in the learning environment with students) to focus on the non-academic problems—like food, health, or emotional issues—that too often trip up students (and sadly receive short shrift in many schools today).

At Rocketship Education, the unbundling of a teacher’s job has helped pay teachers more. And at Summit Public Schools, they talk about teaching as a team sport. Gone are the days of isolating teachers; in are teachers working together with students in large learning environments that look nothing like classrooms.

The recent infographic, Blended Learning & The Teaching Profession, from Digital Learning Now!, nails the point when it says that “blended learning can create new career opportunities and improved conditions for teachers. As student roles evolve within a more personalized, tech-rich learning environment, teacher roles should evolve accordingly.” Most teachers in blended-learning settings say that there is no way they could go back to teaching in a traditional classroom.

So maybe Kessler isn’t completely wrong. Teaching, as we know it in today’s factory-model education system, may go away. What seems clear though is that we will need teachers, just in new roles. And to transition successfully to a student-centric system powered by digital learning, those teachers will need to be contributing in more meaningful and rewarding ways than ever before.

By Jill Kurtz
Online Career Tips Contributor

Can your readers understand what you have written? This is a bigger challenge than you might think. The 2003 national Adult Literacy Survey found that 43 percent of Americans rank at a basic or below basic level for prose literacy and 34 percent were at those levels for document literacy.

Of course, not all audiences will represent the national averages. When gauging the comprehension of your target readers, consider factors like age, native language, and profession. Keep in mind that most readers, no matter their level of education, are busy and tend to scan more than they read.

Your message will be more likely to be understood if you focus on making your text highly readable. Depending on the purpose of your writing, this can save time or money, increase sales, help you to improve service, and/or move readers to action.

To increase understanding:

• Use short words. Words of 5 or fewer characters are generally easiest to understand.
• Keep sentences short. Strive for an average of 10 or fewer words per sentence, but vary sentence length to keep a flow in your writing.
• The best target length is 600 words or fewer.
• Use the active voice. These are sentences that generally follow a subject, verb, object format. Watch for verbs ending in “ing” as a sign that you are writing in the passive voice.
• Organize your writing into short paragraphs and use subheads as appropriate.

Keeping these techniques in mind will help you to be conscious about the level of reading comprehension required by your readers. You can modulate the complexity up or down in order to effectively reach your intended audience.

There are also free online tools that you can use to assess your writing. Here are a few:

• Edit Central readability calculator, http://www.editcentral.com/gwt1/EditCentral.html
• Juicy Studios website readability assessment, http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php
• Okapi!, http://www.lefthandlogic.com/htmdocs/tools/okapi/okapi.php
• StoryToolz, http://storytoolz.com/readability

By Courtney Bousquet
Career Services Contributor

Are you trying to reenter the working world after a hiatus, or are you an older individual who wants to change careers? There are a few tricks that you can utilize when developing your resume to show employers that you have what it takes to work for them. Careerealism writer, Robin Schlinger, writes about some of these tricks in a recent article, Resumes for People Over 50+, but her advice can be used to benefit any job seeker.

1. Chronological versus functional. The first suggestion I recommend to those I work with, and something that Robin also mentions, is to try and follow a chronological resume format rather than a functional resume. The functional resume can raise red flags to an employer and make them wonder what you are trying to hide. That is not to say functional resumes cannot be used, but try to consider all options before employing it.
2. I have enough experience to fill 10 pages! The second suggestion for those of you with many years of experience or who have held a multitude of jobs, making the task of fitting that experience into two pages seem impossible, is to consider grouping jobs that are related together. To do this, you can list the bullet points of two or three similar jobs together, thus creating space, but still showing the trail of employment and skills. For those of you who have held multiple jobs that do not seem to relate, you can go with the old standby and list experience from the previous 10 years, if you’d like.
3. For the not-so recent grads. Another tip is that if you are not a recent graduate- that is, if you have graduated in the last 10-15 years- I recommend omitting your graduation date from your resume. You can leave the degree and university listed, but omit the month and year of graduation, each of which can be provided  if requested by the employer on a later date. Don’t forget to omit your high school information (some government jobs may ask for it, but majority of them do not!).

In addition to all of these tips, perhaps one of the most important is to remember that experience can be your admission ticket to a great job. Employers are looking for someone that has what it takes to enhance their organization and get the job done. To do this, you will want to make sure that you relate your experience to the position description by, if possible, using the same language used in the position description. Transferable skills are another great way to show the employer that you have the experience and can benefit the organization right away, if hired.

Remember: In the end your resume is more about the position and how you’ll benefit the company and less about you!

By Humberto Coronado
Manager, Corporate and Strategic Relationships in Transportation and Logistics at American Public University

Most modern day businesses have IT departments. In the early years of information technology, an IT department would consist of one computer operator storing data on magnetic tape and then boxing it in a basement. Nowadays, IT departments have many employees with a variety of skills that include systems administration, database administration and information technology management. Instead of using magnetic tape, there are now sophisticated computers, servers, database systems and cryptography that help store data. Advanced IT systems have made businesses more competitive around the world, so businesses of all types are trying to stay ahead of one another with their information technology.

A good example of IT driven competitiveness can be found in the logistics industry. Logistics information systems are used in every big company. This system help companies improve operational efficiency by tracking resources from when they are first obtained, such as raw materials, to their point of consumption. Companies leverage these systems to gain end-to-end visibility of their products or raw materials. Logistics information systems also help companies track internal information within a company by providing reports on inventory costs that determine how much more inventory needs to be purchased (Ballou, 2013). This feature allows companies to be more efficient by providing optimal lot sizes and lead times.

Logistics depends on a high quality level of management within the supply chain in order to be effective. These logistics managers are in charge of purchasing goods and making sure they’re transported correctly to their destinations. Logistics managers rely on advanced information systems to manage and track materials, starting from when they’re first made in the factory to when they’re sold in retail stores. Because of the increase in volume and complexity that businesses face, information systems are the only way to accurately manage the product flow within an organization. Information technology specialists are always coming up with specialized solutions that are suitable for their company, like finding the right goods to market or finding the right routes for their shipments (Business.com, 2013). That is their job and they communicate with the logistics managers to accurately convey information back and forth.

Businesses depend on shipping products and knowing where those products are at all times. If a shipment has not arrived at its destination, their freight tracking system will let a company know where their shipment was last scanned. The drivers transporting these goods have it easy with information systems as well. With the use of GPS mapping software, a driver can receive real time driving directions while heading towards their shipping destination. Newer GPS software even allows drivers to get real time information regarding the amount of traffic along their scheduled route. If their route is jammed with traffic then it may suggest an alternative route with less traffic on it. This is a huge advantage for a company’s transportation needs because businesses thrive on having items arrive within a certain timeframe.

Sometimes though, the amount of items that needs to be shipped can be overwhelming for a company to deal with. So, they’ll implement a third party logistics system which outsources their transportation and logistics needs to other companies. It is no surprise how businesses simply cannot afford to be without information technology in this day and age.

About the Author:

Humberto Coronado is a member of the Corporate and Strategic Relationships team at American Public University. His area of specialization is Logistics and Supply Chain Management. He holds a Master of Professional Studies in Supply Chain Management from The Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. He is also a Certified Professional in Transportation and Logistics (CTL) and a Certified professional in Logistics and Supply Chain Management (PLS) by the American Society of Transportation and Logistics. A current board member of the American Association for Operations Management, Humberto is also a passionate teacher. He is an APICS certified instructor.

His Logistics industry experience included operational responsibilities with American President Lines (APL), European West Indies Lines (EWL), Frontier Liner Services in Colombia and Evergreen Marine Taiwan’s Colombian General Agent. His experience at Evergreen Marine included Port Operations Management and Quality Assurance Management. His entrepreneurial spirit lead him to co-found First Priority Cargo Colombia, a small freight logistics services provider based in Colombia, where he held the position of Operations Manager.

If there’s a ticking bomb in your personal or professional life, you already know it’s better to defuse it than to let it explode. If you don’t face it head on, you risk fallout that can last months, years—or even a lifetime.

Is it a conversation with your partner about where you should live, or with your child about how she’s doing in school, or who his friends are? Perhaps at work you’ve locked horns with your boss over your own vision and priorities – and you sense it’s beginning to affect your career trajectory. In any of these cases, the odds are that you don’t want to deal with it; and they don’t either.

But the longer you put it off, the fewer ticks are left before the bomb goes off. When it does, a lot of heat gets released, and things get said that can’t be unsaid. Bad goes to worse. And sometimes, worse goes to radioactive.

Why hazard that kind of damage when some thoughtful preparation, and cool-headed discussion, can disarm many confrontations before they happen? Here are a few strategies that can turn tension into progress:

1. Atmospherics matter. Pick a good moment, and a good place. Make things as easy as possible on the other party. Try to catch them in an even mood. People don’t respond well when they’re hungry or exhausted, or in a location where they feel vulnerable. And have the talk in private, without eavesdroppers or referees.

2. Don’t bury the lede. Resist the temptation to start the conversation by asking how the other person is feeling. Vague overtures may seem like a good way to “test of the waters,” but may only make you seem hesitant or ill at ease. If it’s a colleague, launch the conversation with a straightforward, “I’ve been wanting to talk with you for a while about something that’s getting in the way of our working well together. I’d like to discuss how we might fix what’s causing it.”

3. Listen (first), listen (well), listen (generously). After opening the conversation with a clear statement of your intentions, offer to let the other party share his or her perspective before you do. It’s a gesture of goodwill and respect – and getting off to a good, unselfish start means a better chance of a good, unselfish outcome.

Then, listen like it’s your job. Have the discipline to repeat what you’ve heard (“What I hear you saying is…”). Your work isn’t done until the other person feels that you’ve understood her perspective. Beware: You may feel the explosion coming on before you get to this point. That’s normal, and in fact it’s likely why the conflict exists in the first place. But stay cool, and don’t interrupt except for clarification, or to gently ask your counterpart not to wander too far into ancient history. Good listening alone can go a long way toward solving a conflict.

4. Your turn: Be clear. Be calm. When it comes time to give critical feedback, express it in the form of concern. If you want to talk to your teenager about his behavior, try something like, “You know how much I care about you. My own experience with how the world works makes me feel that I owe you some guardrails. I’m going to ask you to trust me on this.” Granted, teens aren’t likely to jump into your corner, even with this approach. But it sets the tone for your longer-term goal — to nourish a trust relationship where you still have some influence over an increasingly free agent.

The same goes for charged conversations with a supervisor or employee. If you’re giving negative feedback, do it in a spirit of growth and forward movement, discuss a fair plan for addressing the issue, and set up a time to reconnect and check in.

5. Don’t be the one to pull the pin. If things get heated, you may hear things like “I’ll see you in court,” “You’re such a jerk,” or “That’s it! I’m outta here!” But don’t let it be you who goes there.

The jujitsu of high-stress conversations means you want to move toward the other party if the rhetoric turns hostile. The louder, more aggressive, more threatening he becomes, the lower your volume must be, and the more you must absorb. This doesn’t mean capitulating or accepting abuse; it means being the bigger person. Instead of answering a legal threat with, “I hope you’ve got a good lawyer, then,” try something like, “I’m sad you feel that way. I’d hate for that to be where we end up. Let’s explore a less destructive course of action.”

Stressful conversations are worth having sooner than later. Conducted with care, they can release pressure before it builds to the breaking point, and even make relationships stronger. Don’t put off what’s difficult now in favor of what will be impossible down the road.

—

Follow Joel on LinkedIn, or on Twitter at  @JoelCPeterson.

When I was a student (once upon a time I thought I was to be a clinical psychologist), and broke, and spending time in New York City (when I decided I was not to be a performing artist, choreographer for my career after all), I used to make extra money volunteering for psychological studies at Columbia University. I arrived one day and was told to wait in a small room for the study to start. The room started to fill up with other people, also waiting, until it was jammed and people were sitting on the floor shoulder to shoulder. Things got testy, arguments broke out, there was jostling. After 45 minutes the researchers came in and announced that the study was over: they had been measuring how we reacted when we were crowded into a small space.

I love this story from my past because it perfectly illustrates the power of our environment to influence our mood and actions. Anyone who has ever worked in a fluorescent-lit, gray-carpeted cubicle wasteland knows exactly what I’m talking about. It’s depressing, deadening, and you feel like the bosses don’t really care about your comfort and wellbeing. That is no way to design a 21^st century company. In this economy, talent is your most valuable asset. And talented people don’t want to work in a soul-killing office space. They’ll take their special gifts elsewhere, thank you.

Well-designed office spaces ignite creativity, create team collaboration, and drive peak performance. They show respect, lift our souls and make people want to dig deep and give their all. Your workspace is a physical manifestation of your leadership culture. Make it unique.

How can you make your space a dynamic part of your vision and mission, and a driver of success? Here are 5 habits and how to make this happen:

1) Think urban. Cities are hotbeds of creativity and enterprise for a reason. People are social beings, and cities provide the perfect balance of inspiration, contact, and privacy. Provide spaces for all of these: kitchens are great places for folks to hang out and connect (and share ideas on current projects). Outdoor space gives a sense of freedom and possibility, and contact with nature is always enlivening. Cities surprise us with their diversity and spontaneity. Celebrate everyone’s idiosyncrasies by encouraging them to decorate their personal spaces with pictures, objects and toys that make them feel at home. The goal here is to create a buzzing microcosm of urban energy in your workplace.

2) Keep it moving. Sitting at a desk all day is a downer. It’s stagnant and unhealthy and breeds lethargy and eyestrain. Encourage people to move around, to take the stairs, to go out for a short walk. Have a yoga, stretching, exercise room. Have informal work areas, couches and chairs with plenty of nearby power outlets. Make conference rooms available to everyone for meetings, even one-on-ones and informal brainstorming sessions.

3) Play at work. Put in a ping-pong table, foosball, Legos and other games. They are great for building bonds, relieving tension, engaging in playful competition, and renewing our psyches. We all hit a wall at work now and then — a quick game can be the play that refreshes.

4) Bon appetit! Coffee shops like Starbucks and Peet’s have become embedded in our culture and psyche. They are defacto town squares, places where employees can hang out, grab a bite, do a little texting, work, flirt, have fun, whatever – you get the idea. Consider creating one in your workspace. Design it to be comfortable, warm and welcoming. Serve healthy food at great prices. People love getting a good deal, and having a coffee shop at work makes everyone feel like they’re part of the bigger world. And work inevitably gets done over those mochachinos.

5) One size fits no one. Some of the most talented people in the world are introverts who like to be left alone to work their magic. Other talented people thrive with almost constant contact and stimulation. You want to design a space that is yielding and flexible – and has room for all personality types to thrive. So while you’re creating a vital environment that encourages connections, make sure there are quiet spaces where talent can go and work in peace.

Great design nurtures talent. It’s as simple as that. Look around at your workspace. How can you make your culture a talent magnet?