Feature Update: Added "Share With a Friend"

So, you saw a cool/funny/interesting profile on Coworkers.com, and you thought to yourself, "gee, it would be nice to share this cool/funny/interesting profile with my friends who appreciate cool/funny/interesting stuff, but I'm too lazy to switch to my mail editor and write a message?" No problem! You can now just click on the "Share" link, tweak the message if you like, enter your friends' addresses, and presto! - they'll get your message right away. You can thank us later.

You can't read minds, but...

Coworkers.com is all about identifying areas for improvement in people's professional lives, and probably the most common weakness we come across is the inability to "read" other people's cues, but overt and nonverbal. That's why this article caught our eye...

A company called SpeedReading People has developed a program to pick up on cues to help communicate with different personalities

By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff | July 23, 2007

CAMBRIDGE -- We've all been there. Locking horns with a colleague who focuses on the nitty-gritty instead of the big picture, or who likes abstract ideas but ignores details. Impatient with a friend who speaks painfully slowly, or who talks too quickly and too much. Frustrated with a spouse who is overly sensitive, or who can be blunt and unemotional.

In the workplace, social settings, and family situations, effective communication is key to productive relationships. But different personality types communicate in different ways, often causing communication breakdowns when opposing styles clash. Marriages chafe. Friendships falter. Work product suffers as office mates conflict. Article continues...

Feature Update: Streamlined "My Coworkers" Page

"My Coworkers" is the dashboard to your account on Coworkers.com. We've recently made some updates to streamline the presentation of information available on this page. It's now even easier to:

• See your public profile link
• Create a badge that links to your profie
• Get a snapshot of your account settings with ability to make edits
• See an overview of review activity
• View a summary of your watchlist

Login and check it out.

Showing Bad Customers the Door

Inc. - Women in Business: "Conventional wisdom says 'the customer is always right'; entrepreneurial need often compels you to take any client that pays. Living by these beliefs can cause you to overlook or excuse a customer's bad behavior, but when your business begins to suffer, it's time to take a page from Trump's playbook.

Following is a guide to firing those who pay you, including the types of clients to watch out for and some subtle (or not-so-subtle) tactics for letting them go:"

The article goes on to categorize axe-worthy customers into the following categories: The Bad Seed; The Toddler; The Narcissist; The Felon. An interesting read for consultants and other soloists. Don't forget to review your clients and customers as well. You can also look up a prospect on Coworkers.com to see if they might already have been identified as fitting any of the categories above.

Mashable! highlights new Coworkers.com feature

Mashable is the world's largest blog focused exclusively on social networks.

The site is a great place to follow social networking business news. They were kind enough to share the news about our new badges feature.

Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

We've just installed a little tool on the Coworkers.com blog called Snap Shots. It enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out. If you absolutely hate it, let us know and we'll consider its fate.

Feature Update: Coworkers.com Badges

Looking for a cool addition to your home page, blog, online resume, or email signature? By simply inserting a couple lines into your HTML source, you can quickly display one our "badges" wherever your like... you can even show your Coworkers rating inside any web page! Each badge links directly to your public Coworkers.com profile page. Just go to our "Tools" page, login, and get your code.

Seth Godin: "The honor system"

Notable Marketing Guru Seth Godin has a hand in the online publishing and community website Squidoo.com. Recently squidoo suffered from a large-scale spamming 'attack' that violated the rules of the site, but nevertheless was able to be carried out before being dealt with. Squidoo has responded well and kept people up to date. What may be even more interesting is Seth's personal perspective on the situation:

Excerpt: "...So, online, you're between a rock and a hard place. The first opportunity is to treat your friends better than ever, because word of mouth online is incredibly powerful. The Net brings significant leverage--you can spread ideas farther and faster.

The temptation is to embrace only the advantages of the web and insist on eternal vigilance against the possiblity of getting ripped off. To act as if everyone online is a criminal. To assume that the moment you are generous or trusting, squadrons of bad actors will exploit your generosity. I don't think that's the answer. If you treat people like criminals, the good ones will leave, because people have a choice.

There's a different path. Awareness of the potential problem helps you keep your eyes open. You can watch the trends, be aware, but still embrace the honor system. Realize that the vast majority of your customers will always want to do the right thing. Look both ways before crossing the street... but still cross..."
Read the full article.