Fani Kiran Vulapalli

As chief HR officer for a professional services company, I’m focused on providing our clients the talent they need when and where they need it. Doing this means I often spend time analyzing key data -- from chargeability and payroll costs to talent supply/demand forecasting and retention. Then there’s a metric many might be surprised to learn I also keep a close eye on: vacation time used. Why? Certainly, a company’s balance sheet can benefit from employees using their paid time off. But to me, the advantages lie in innovation and productivity. I’ve been giving this some thought as I prepare to head on my vacation this week. There is no shortage of research that shows the strong correlation between downtime, creativity and productivity. When the brain takes a prolonged rest, creativity goes up – enabling fresh ideas, better and faster problem solving and ultimately, increased efficiency and productivity. I emphasize prolonged rest because the length of time away from work matter...

Anything is possible in the world of gaming. In the real world, however, your game can get obliterated in no time if you don’t listen and talk the language of your users. You might have a fantastic product on your hands. But communicating this on the right channels, at the right time, in the right tone is the order of the day. The gaming world has definitely tapped marketing in a big way. However advertising dollars can only get you that far if you are a small game developer. More importantly, smaller game developers are mostly cash strapped. Therefore, the right amount of media attention could actually be a huge ‘game changer’ in their overall success. As a PR professional and an avid gamer, here are top 5 things that come to mind when you want to garner the right amount of positive media attention to your gaming app. Compelling Hook Whether you are a game developer or a pin manufacturer, you definitely need that one compelling hook for consumers to engage with you. Since th...

Don’t watch the movie Halloween when you are seven years old. It was a bad idea then and it’s a bad idea now. That mask is why I started sleeping with my bedroom door closed. Some twenty-odd years later, I still see that lumpy-white face when I look out into a dark hallway. Fear is a very strong emotion but I am sure I don’t need to tell you that. I wanted to understand exactly how fear was processed in the brain and what makes it so different from other emotions we can more easily control. What I found out will hopefully give you some better insight for how you can overcome and control your own fears. Fear 101 Fear is not anxiety. Fear is an emotional state that exists in the presence of danger and ends once that danger has passed. Anxiety exists when we anticipate a danger or threat, regardless if one is present or not. “Human anxiety is greatly amplified by our ability to imagine the future, and our place in it, even a future that is physically impossible.”—Joseph LeDou...

Let's say you're feeling unmotivated, unsure of yourself, aimless, can't find your passion, directionless, not clear on what your purpose in life is. You're in good company—most people are in the same boat. This post originally appeared on Zen Habits. Now, there about a million things online telling you how to find your passion in life, and that's a good thing. It's a search worth undergoing. I'm not going to give you a fool-proof method, or a 5-step method, nor share my passion manifesto with you today. I'm going to give you a one-step method. However, that one step is a doozy. The One Step to Finding Your Purpose How to Find Your Life Purpose? Escape Your Bubble EXPAND It's simply this: learn to get outside your personal bubble. Your personal bubble is the small world you live in (we all have one), where you are the center of the universe. You are concerned with your wellbeing, with not wanting to look bad, with succeeding in l...

Behind every great product is a great team. These are the people who will be standing at your side through the ups and downs and everything in between. It’s not enough to just lead, you have to be the right kind of leader for your team. That’s why generic leadership advice can be so hard to parse through. No two teams are the same. Your brand of leadership has to respect that. Want to build a great team? You’ve got to know who you are and that means acknowledging what flaws you have. Think of your team as a mosaic. You’ve got all these seemingly disparate pieces, each functional, each capable in their own right but when you pull back, you get this full, rich image. One that would have never been possible without each piece working together. What am I really saying here? It’s as simple as this: Before you build your first product–before you build anything–you need to build your team. Here’s some tips on how to do it: The New Science of Building Great Teams HBR.ORG Yes, th...

Last Tuesday, after running errands, sitting in traffic, and finishing a normal work day--I still had time to read for nearly 2 hours and 45 minutes. In just one day, I finished nearly half of Essentialism by Greg McKeown. With this kind of speed, my Amazon Wish List would be toast within weeks. Now comes the confession: I wasn’t actually reading. I was listening. Essentialism was my first audiobook. It felt a bit like cheating, like audiobook listeners couldn’t really call themselves hardcore readers. Another problem? While I easily finished the book, I doubt I remember half of the information. This led me to explore the science behind reading retention. It’s easy to blame technology for what appears to be our growing lack of retention. But perhaps we've been asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking on what we should be reading, we're much better off solving the issue of retention by asking how we should be reading. Flipping, Scrolling, and Skipping, Oh my! In 2...