General Assembly Blog

Content Strategy: How to Shape Your Narrative

Everyone is a publisher. You, your organization, your new business, your clients; as traditional media struggles and technology advances, everyone has the opportunity to publish content. But, just like great power, publishing comes with great responsibility. Each piece of content you publish defines your story and controls the narrative around the topics you care about. You have a responsibility to your business and audiences to tell your story in a way that is consistent, realistic, and responsible. To do that, you need a content strategy.

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12 Signs You’re Ready to Go Freelance

By Lindsay Van Thoen

Escaping the 9-5 prison and voyaging into the Great Unknown can be a bit intimidating. Many people who want to freelance take years to make the leap (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing).

But how do you know you’re ready? Here are 12 serious and not-so-serious signs it’s time to make the leap.

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All of Your Web Development Immersive Questions Answered

By Emily Pope

There’s never been a better time to start a career as a web developer. From startups to Fortune 500 companies, there’s consistent demand for web developers who can creatively solve problems and implement robust, sustainable solutions.

Whether you’re a career-changer serious about becoming a full-stack web developer, an entrepreneur with an idea you want to build from scratch, or a recent undergrad ready to ramp up your technical skill set, you likely have a number of questions about the best way for you to learn web development.

Here we’ve compiled a list of most frequently asked questions about our flagship Web Development Immersive course — also available online — to help give you a better sense of what this full-time, 12-week program is all about.

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3 Ways Your Internship Can Actually Hurt Your Career

By Sean Little

I’m sure you’ve heard many times that without an internship, you’re not going to find a job in your desired field. While there is some truth to this (without experience it’s much harder to find a full-time job), there may also be ways that your internship is actually preventing you from getting the necessary experience.

Before you commit to a business and become their summer or school year intern (or if you already are), watch out for these signs that the position may actually hurt your career.

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4 Everyday Sales Techniques (For People Who Hate Sales)

By KeriLynn Engel

Whatever your notion of sales and sales people, the reality is it’s impossible to survive in business without making sales. But all sales tactics don’t have to be pushy, or take advantage of the gullibility or ignorance of others. In fact, the best ones do neither.

Sales, at its core, is all about connecting to those who need what you offer, and building mutually beneficial relationships. You can do this without being sleazy or unethical; you just have to find sales techniques that are comfortable for you. Here are some you can start putting into practice today.

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6 Steps to Advance in the Job You Already Have

By Lauren McGoodwin

There is an overwhelming amount of advice out there for job seekers, but what about advice for those looking to advance in their current jobs? Back when the economy tanked and so many people were suddenly looking for work, the focus on career advancement took a backseat to finding a job. Now that the economy is stabilizing, it makes sense to also focus on how to succeed once you land the job.

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Create an Awesome Business Model Canvas in 3 Steps

By Alex Cowan

The Business Model Canvas’s chief virtue is its transparency, and that transparency helps create focus. That said, to create a meaningful and worthwhile take on the Canvas, you want some depth. Here we’ll walk through 3 steps that will help you dig deep into what your business is about and how to frame that using the Canvas.

What is the Canvas

The Business Model Canvas is a tool for articulating and innovating business models. It has the nine blocks shown below. You can probably sit down right now and fill out a version of it for your business.

If you’re prefer something printable, here’s a PDF.

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Online Learning Is a Boon for Small Towns and Small Startups

By Melissa Phipps

Depot Town, Michigan. Image source: Cmadler via Wikimedia Commons

In today’s virtual world, the next great business idea need not come from California’s Silicon Valley or New York City’s Silicon Alley. It could come from a silicon cornfield, digital bayou, or mobile rustbelt in any one of thousands of tiny rural regions or small towns across America, towns that may have lost a past glory or never thrived because of a lack of employment opportunities. With online learning programs offering the ability to train adults to do in-demand careers, people throughout the country now have the same inroads to specialized learning and potential innovation available to residents of big cities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, and Boston.

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A Guide For Non-Technical Startup Founders In Need of Web Development

By Jesse Podell

As one of the partners of a Ruby on Rails software development agency, I speak with dozens of non-technical startup founders every week who are in various stages of building their first web or mobile application. The range of technical acumen, willingness to learn, and time and resources varies widely among the group.

As a firm, we’re not just competing with other NYC based agencies for their business, but also offshore devshops, freelancers, and in some cases, the prospective client who may want to execute internally.

At the end of the day, a non-technical founder who has decided that they must build something has two options: Pay someone else, or partner with people. Below are the pros and cons.

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Why You Need a Mentor Early in Your Career

By General Assembly

As young careers get going, it’s a great idea to seek the advice of mentors when faced with new obstacles. Arthur Woods, co-founder and COO of Imperative, certainly learned this as he transitioned from the non-profit to for-profit sector early in his career. Watch his interview here to learn more about how he made the most of his time at Google and how his mentor taught him how to let his personal and professional identities healthily coexist.

Arthur Woods is the co-founder and COO of Imperative, a career management platform that helps both individuals and companies foster professional development. Prior to co-founding Imperative, Woods led operations at YouTube EDU, as well as co-founded Compass Fellowship.

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