Use your LinkedIn Account to instantly Sign up for Coworkers.com

We're excited to announce that new website visitors can now use their LinkedIn account information to sign up instantly for a Coworkers.com account. This is made possible thanks to the recently announced LinkedIn API.

How does the sign up process work?

If you have not yet registered with Coworkers.com, you can do so quickly, without a password, by signing in to your LinkedIn account. Simply visit our Free Registration page, and click on the "Connect via LinkedIn" link at the top of the page. We will import some information from your LinkedIn profile, such as your name, location, and work experience - so you won't need to enter it again. After you have registered, you can log back in to Coworkers via LinkedIn.

What about people who already have a Coworkers.com account?

If you have already signed up with Coworkers.com but have not yet filled out your profile, you can do so quickly by clicking on the "Import from LinkedIn" link on the Account page. This will instantly transfer information such as your industry, company, and work experience from LinkedIn.

Over time, we plan to add tighter integration with LinkedIn to include features that will benefit existing Coworkers.com users. We will continue to develop simple and effective tools for analyzing and improving your work, while leveraging the networking and messaging capabilities of LinkedIn, as well as other sites. We will keep you updated as we roll out new integration features, so be sure to login in to your Account Settings and sign up for our newsletter by selecting the "Send me periodic web site announcements" option - if you haven't already done so.

What is the difference between Coworkers and LinkedIn?

We realize that professionals use a portfolio of online services and tools to advance their career. Coworkers.com and LinkedIn work well together. LinkedIn is primarily used for networking – finding and connecting with other professionals, with whom you may or may not have work experience. Coworkers is focused solely on the people you have close working relationships with.

While LinkedIn has the concept of "recommendations" which are focused on personal marketing, Coworkers greatly expands the range of collegial input you can receive and share, giving you privacy control, the option for anonymity, templates, analytics, and other features focused on professional development. Bottom line: LinkedIn and Coworkers have different missions and serve different purposes, and we think you should use both – which is why we've made it incredibly easy for you to do so!

Five tips for incorporating work feedback into your daily routine

The most effective individuals and companies share a common trait. They encourage frequent, honest feedback. The key to evolving beyond the dreaded periodic performance review, is to make workplace feedback more granular, recurring, and measurable. Here are some tips for leveraging professional feedback in order to improve the work you do.

1. Foster a feedback-friendly work environment. Tell your colleagues that you think an ongoing, open, honest, and informal peer review process is good for everyone. Don't be afraid to get the ball rolling without a formal process. Lead by example and start off by requesting feedback on a recent meeting, project, presentation or other current bit of work you have been involved with. Something specific and timely may be an easier starting point than than requesting a general work performance evaluation. Feedback should be exchanged frequently in all directions. When asking for feedback, focus on results and quality, not just on how hard you work or how nice you are.
2. Anonymity is your friend. When requesting feedback, try to share your request with as many people as is relevant to the question at hand. If possible, let people know that they are not the only one being asked, and allow them to respond anonymously. This helps people open up and underscores the non-threatening nature of the process. You are looking to gather unbiased constructive input, so do what you can to make people comfortable.
3. Be quick and proactive. If problems are exposed, don't let them fester, deal with them early. Don't complain about coworkers behind their backs. It is better to discuss concerns with them directly and get issues out in the open. Always try to resolve problems unofficially first. Only go to HR as a last resort, because then it becomes a matter of record.
4. Be honest with yourself. Get in the habit of doing regular self evaluations. You will often be your most honest and thorough critic. Taking the time to reflect on your work, a few times a week or month, is a lot easier than waiting every quarter or longer. No one is perfect, and your boss(es) will appreciate that you take the time to set the bar for yourself.
5. Analyze and learn. You can't manage what you don't measure. Repeat the process frequently, track the results. In reviewing your feedback over time, you will be able to spot strengths and weaknesses. You can keep an eye on trends, and set personal development goals more effectively. When you have greater insight into your abilities, you can present yourself with a confidence that gives you an edge.
   

Coworkers.com Announces Professional Edition

Coworkers.com Releases Professional Edition of its Career Management Social Network Site; Subscription Version Provides Advanced Features, Including Tools for Workplace Collaboration

Coworkers.com today announced the launch of a subscription-based Professional service to complement its free, web-based suite of career management tools. The new enhancements give users the ability to attach documents for specific feedback, access more detailed performance analytics, and share materials and feedback within a group. They can be especially valuable to multi-site or global workgroups, virtual teams, and consultants.

“Our new Professional edition maximizes the site’s capabilities by providing Coworkers.com users with the premium experience that we've been planning for all along, including advanced and time saving features such as access to workgroup interactions, scheduling tools, and more sophisticated analytics,” explained Coworkers.com founder and president Jonathan Clay. "And of course Coworkers.com will continue to offer a powerful set of free tools that anyone can use to manage and advance their career, including the recently introduced Sharing and Network Activity features.” The Professional offering introduces the following new features:

• Workgroup Feedback Requests: Professional users can send out requests to a group of people and collect feedback that allows every participant to automatically access and track incoming responses.
• Scheduled Requests: Professional users can schedule recurring requests. For example, a user might schedule a feedback request to be sent out after a weekly status meeting.
• Attach Files to Requests: Professional users can attach files to their requests, such as: documents, presentations, spreadsheets, images, etc.
• Advanced Analytics: Professional users can access additional analytic charts and have the ability to view the underlying data used to develop the analytics.
• Ad Free: While Coworkers.com subsidizes its free user accounts by displaying a modest amount of advertising, Professional users do not see any ads.

An annual subscription to the Coworkers.com Professional edition is $39.95. For a limited time, users can receive a 25% discounted rate of only $29.95 for a one-year subscription. "The Coworkers.com Professional edition comes at a price that is nominal when you consider the potential return on your investment - landing that dream job, getting a promotion, closing on a big contract, or improving the dynamics in your workplace," continued Clay.

• See Coworkers.com Plans & Pricing
  
• Subscribe or Upgrade to Coworkers.com Professional Edition Today

NY1's Employment reporter Asa Aarons features Coworkers.com

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Asa Aarons of NY1, New York City's 24-Hour News Channel...

New Websites Provide Inside Look Into Jobs

"The Internet is where practically all of the good employment information is showing up these days. Two new companies are promising ways to help job seekers land their dream job...

...Staying with the idea that feedback is a good thing in the career world, check out Coworkers.com, which is based partly on the idea that successful people thrive on honest feedback...

"Coworkers.com is all about the question 'How's my work?'" says James Young of Coworkers.com. "We provide tools that let you get feedback so that you can figure out what your strengths are and promote them, and also figure out where your weaknesses are so you can improve them and advance your career."

• Watch a video of the full segment on NY1.com

Data-Driven Feedback: Analytics For The Work You Do

With our unique analytical capabilities, you can get immediate, quantifiable and chart-able feedback on a report, presentation, campaign, or other work event or milestone, gaining an assessment of your effectiveness while building a comprehensive dossier of career accomplishments and marketable skills.

As you accumulate feedback (both private, and shared), you will be able to quickly visualize and identify aspects of your work that need improvement.


Our basic account has 8 distinctive chart types:

• Breakdown By Feedback Type
• Breakdown By Attribution
• Visibility (private vs. public)
• Score Distribution
• Overall Performance Over Time
• Category Performance Over Time (work performance, document, event, etc.)
• Breakdown By Subject Type, Visibility
• Breakdown By Group (grouped by respondents the user categorizes)

Gain greater insight into your career.
Get started with Coworkers.com Analytics today...

Coworkers.Com Launches Career-Managing Site For Competitive Times

We're out of beta and officially launching!

Flexibility, Honest Feedback And Performance Analytics Put Pro-Active Tools In Users’ Hands

"New York, NY, August 26, 2009 – A new web-based career development and reputation management solution, Coworkers.com (http://www.coworkers.com/), launches today with fresh, innovative features that enable users to build a powerful, authentic professional profile grounded in honest feedback, performance analytics, and focused networking. The analytical approach is a more practical and reliable career enhancement tool than periodic reviews or sporadic feedback.

Coworkers.com gives professionals at any level, those in transition, consultants, and small businesses, the tools to instantly create a personal dashboard to manage their work, analyze their performance, gain feedback on overall performance and get reaction to specific deliverables, events, and job milestones. Companies can use the site to monitor and analyze employee performance, and recruiters can gain access to detailed candidate profiles. Businesses with virtual teams or multiple offices will find a complete suite of tools to communicate, share feedback, and monitor workgroup performance without costly enterprise software..." Full press release below.
Coworkers Com PR 2009-08-26

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE COWORKERS.COM LAUNCHES CAREER-MANAGING SITE FOR COMPETITIVE TIMES: FLEXIBILITY, HONEST FEEDBACK AND PERFORMANCE ANALYTICS PUT PRO-ACTIVE TOOLS IN USERS’ HANDS New York, NY, August 26, 2009 – A new web-based career development and reputation management solution, Coworkers.com (http://www.coworkers.com/), launches today with fresh, innovative features that enable users to build a powerful, authentic professional profile grounded in honest feedback, performance analytics, and focused networking. The analytical approach is a more practical and reliable career enhancement tool than periodic reviews or sporadic feedback. Coworkers.com gives professionals at any level, those in transition, consultants, and small businesses, the tools to instantly create a personal dashboard to manage their work, analyze their performance, gain feedback on overall performance and get reaction to specific deliverables, events, and job milestones. Companies can use the site to monitor and analyze employee performance, and recruiters can gain access to detailed candidate profiles. Businesses with virtual teams or multiple offices will find a complete suite of tools to communicate, share feedback, and monitor workgroup performance without costly enterprise software. “The current environment demands a more robust and authentic solution to career and reputation management,” said founder Jonathan Clay. “Coworkers.com puts career advancement into the user’s hands. You no longer have to wait for your boss to tell you how you’re doing, or what you need to do to address any issues. With Coworkers.com you can find out quickly and painlessly, straight from the people who know you best – the colleagues that you interact with every day.” The easy-to-navigate, intuitive home page features four built-in tools including Get Feedback, where users can tailor a survey to get honest, anonymous feedback from colleagues and coworkers (requests can be sent via email or links embedded in social networks, blogs, etc.); Give Feedback, which lets users give fellow employees or colleagues public kudos or private viewpoints on their work; and Improve and Share, which analyzes feedback data, and offers unique, and powerful graphics tools to generate analytic charts and graphs that visually map and measure performance. “For a generation of professionals that has learned to build careers using social networking tools like LinkedIn®, Coworkers.com opens an important channel of communication between coworkers and potential employers,” noted Jason Whaley, COO of Fitzgerald Analytics, an IT/strategy consulting firm. “Coworkers could become an indispensable tool for managing the 21st century career.” During its Beta period, Coworkers.com responded to market demand by evolving from a simple performance rating system to a customizable assessment and feedback tool that helps individuals take greater control of their career development. “We’ve made the site truly flexible and adaptable to individual needs,” said Clay. “Both public and private data can be managed throughout a person’s career. Social networking can be as much or little as you want. The depth of feedback can be quick and top-line, or in-depth depending on the project. Do you want a quick assessment of your presentation, or a comprehensive take on your at-work image? The site was designed to meet your work needs regardless of the matter at hand or the stage you’re in.” About Coworkers.com Founded in 2008, Coworkers.com Inc. is a privately funded company based in New York City focused on creating on-line solutions that apply web 2.0 and social technologies to facilitate career development and enhancement. # # # Contact: Suzanne Mannion Newsmaker Group Office 201-445-8451 Mobile 201-725-0471 smannion@newsmakergroup.com 

Visit our Coworkers.com Press Kit Page for additional media information.

How to "Tweet" (or otherwise link to) Your Requests for Feedback

Have you ever wanted an easier, more organized way to gather feedback from your online & social networking contacts?

We've recently made improvements to our Feedback wizard so that you can quickly share your requests via shortened link on: Twitter, Facebook, or any other online source such as a website, blog, email newsletter, etc.



Simply step through our "Get Feedback" Wizard and choose the option that gives you a custom shortened URL for sharing online. After you make this choice, you will see the options shown above, including a handy link that will populate your Twitter status with one click.

The screen cap above illustrates a request for input on a speech. You can choose to get feedback on a wide variety of topics among our three high level categories of: Work Performance, Event or Milestone, and Document or Deliverable. Use a pre-designed template or craft your own questionnaire. Now, go Tweet your way to better work!

Tools to Manage Your Reviews & Feedback for Greater Insight

As part of our ongoing efforts to ease and improve the management of reviews and feedback that you send and receive via Coworkers.com, we've recently made some enhancements to the "My Reviews & Feedback" tools.



The icons in the first column make it easier to quickly see the attributes of a given review...



In addition to these helpful cues, the ratings column is now colored to reinforce the overall rating (green = 10-7, yellow = 6-4, red = 3-1).

Login to see your Reviews & Feedback, or Signup for free to get started. Keep your eyes out for additional management and analytics features coming soon!