Guest Blogs
Knowitall.ch often invites local experts in their field to contribute to their own blogs on our site. This means not only you will benefit from the useful recommendations that we make on our News pages, but you can also profit from some of the great advice and tips that these experts have to make on their favorite subjects. Whilst each of these bloggers has been recommended to us at some point during the evolution of Know-it-all passport and knowitall.ch, obviously we are not able to test out all the suggestions they make on their blogs, nor do we necessarily agree with all their opinions. So if you do find one of their tips useful (or not!), do let us know!
To make these blogs more accessible to you, we have now decided to group them altogether in one section, entitled Guest Blogs, accessible from our main menu bar. We will also post the most recent blogs on the home page of our site in the right hand column.
We are still building up this area of the site, and are looking for bloggers in a number of sections, including Your Home, Travel, and Leisure, so if you feel you have a useful contribution to make in either of these areas, and have the time to submit blog entries approximately every month, then please get in touch!
By Hiba Giacoletto, Healthwise
This Crustless Spinach-Feta Pie makes the perfect healthy, easy addition to your picnics this summer!
This recipe uses frozen spinach. Frozen vegetables (without anything added) are a convenient and healthy alternative to fresh vegetables as they are flash frozen just hours after being picked, ensuring the greatest amount of nutrient is retained.
The beauty of this recipe is that you can have all the ingredients handy and whip it together last minute. I always make sure I have frozen vegetables like spinach in the freezer and Feta is one of my staples as it lasts for months in the fridge. I also always have eggs, as they make the perfect healthy fast food and often keep my garlic peeled in a jar in the fridge.
Quick, simple, tasty and with no extra grocery planning needed – what more to ask for from a recipe?
INGREDIENTS
- 500g frozen spinach leaves (with nothing added)
- 2 medium-large eggs or 3 small eggs
- 2-3 cloves garlic (depending on their size and your love of garlic)
- 1 block Feta cheese, chopped into small pieces
- Salt, pepper & ground nutmeg to taste
METHOD
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Take frozen spinach from the freezer and place in a pot with 2 tablespoons water. Cover pot and leave on medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- While the spinach is cooking, chop the Feta and peel the garlic.
- Once the spinach is cooked, crack the eggs in a bowl and whisk to mix, adding the salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the mixture to the spinach and stir, then add the chopped Feta and pressed garlic and stir well again.
- Transfer to a pie dish and press down the mixture with a spatula so that it is well packed. Try to include as little liquid as possible when you transfer the mixture to the pie dish.
- Place in the oven for 30 minutes then take it out and leave to cool before serving.
Author's bio
Hiba Giacoletto is a Certified Health Coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) with a Masters Degree in Psychology
Hiba helps people lose weight, feel more energetic or take control of their eating without diets or deprivation. She believes that no one way of eating or living works for everyone and that it is about experimenting to find what truly works for you. She uses a unique blend of NUTRITION + PSYCHOLOGY + COACHING to help people start trusting their body's wisdom to make food and lifestyle choices that enable them to look and feel their best. She is convinced that regardless of what you might have tried in the past, she can help you get unstuck, overcome self-sabotage behavior and find your mojo!
You can book a FREE 45 minute Health Chat via her website, www.healthwise.ch to find out whether Health Coaching is right for you.
www.healthwise.ch
www.facebook.com/healthwise.ch
www.twitter.com/HibaGiacoletto
www.pinterest.com/healthwisech/
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Heard, a member of GAOS and PYP Coordinator at GEMS World Academy-Etoy
Last week, I was back in the UK for my sister’s wedding. It was a magical day, the weather was perfect and everyone dressed the part. As I reflected on this, I started to think about how the way we dress helps us to assume a role and find the confidence which often eludes us in our daily lives. Doesn’t every little girl crave the fairy-tale wedding where she finally gets to take centre stage and become a princess for the day?
Our fascination with dressing up starts at an early age. Our imaginations as children run free. A lack of inhibitions allows us to play dress-up games both at school and at home, assuming characters and roles which transport us to fantasy worlds and allow us, above all, to have fun. For some, this continues into adult life: my thoughts are now swiftly directed towards the world of amateur dramatics. I haven’t been in Switzerland for very long, but some eight years ago I came to Geneva as an actor to perform at the Casino Theatre. Here I met many local expats who spoke enthusiastically about their participation in the local amateur theatre scene.
This year my blog is dedicated to interviewing leaders and subject matter experts to help promote healthier work-life balance. With any luck this will enable us to create better relationships, productivity and performance. I am convinced that this is an idea that needs to reverberate from the top and therefore will devote this year focusing on just that.
This month, I have been lucky enough to interview the brilliantly talented Nicolette de Joncaire. Nicolette joined l’AGEFI in December 2010 as a journalist, specialising in economic and financial affairs. Since summer 2012, she is chief editor of WORK, a magazine focused on women's achievements, www.workmag.me. She is keen to reiterate that WORK is not for women but refocuses attention on women. With over twenty-five years of business experience in finance and Information Technology, Nicolette has held various management positions and is a regular speaker on the topic of Risk.
I really hope you enjoy her interview as much as I did.
Enjoy!
Sunita
Sunita Sehmi: How did you get to where you are today?
Nicolette de Joncaire: I was in the banking industry for many years in London and then I decided to move to Geneva in 2002 to be closer to my extended family.
SS: How and why did you become a journalist?
NDJ: I wanted to do something different from banking…I did not have much journalistic experience but I did have extensive financial systems experience, so I knew what I was talking about. When I decided to choose a new career path, I contacted ten newspapers and got two replies. One of the replies was for a possible position at AGEFI. At that time AGEFI was the only business economic paper in the area. I was very lucky and was put on a two-weeks trial. It really made me realise just how open-minded the Swiss are, giving me an opportunity like that with no previous journalistic experience. I don’t think that happens everywhere.
SS: What is WORK magazine about?
NDJ: I was asked to be Chief Editor for WORK. WORK is a magazine in French for businesswomen, because women are underrepresented in business media. My original mandate was to create a “light” magazine for women. But I was determined to make it a very serious magazine, and not another frivolous one. I wanted to take a completely different angle. The assumption being is that society has moved on. We are 50 years down the line and still talking about equality. The legal framework for equality is in place and yet we are still complaining. I believe that the media has a very critical role to play and unfortunately still maintains an image of women, which is extremely out-dated. It portrays women on the basis of their looks and as consumers and not on their achievements. Women who are achieving incredible things are getting very little exposure. We are lacking strong successful female role models in business, sports, sciences, and art, in brief in all areas. BUT women are very visible in the feminine press. So here at WORK, we focus on content and emphasize on exceptional female role models. We want to raise consciousness of women’s achievements and not looks and fashion. One can’t expect to sell millions of copies of my type of magazine but some key people believe in us and support our vision.
SS: In your opinion why are people finding it hard to balance work and life?
NDJ: I may be very controversial but I don’t believe that work/life balance is such a huge issue. Life is about passion. And so is work. Make this the centre of your life and all falls into place. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn't care for your family but you can do both; it’s just a question of how you manage it. I am still unsure as to what people are talking about when they discuss work/life balance and I am not being facetious. It seems like a “disease” that exists in the wealthy nations. I think to be happy at work and at home you need to make sure that you are getting recognition from both sectors and not just one.
SS: All the literature tells us to communicate with more compassion and more empathy but how can we practice that in the work place?
NDJ: Mmmm.. I am really concerned about the “tyranny of nice” and the damage it is doing. I really don’t understand why this is being discussed in business media. Good leadership and management decodes that we should behave and respect one another. Being decent at work is normal not exceptional! We all need to remember that!
SS: Could you share some of your strategies that we could use to keep more balanced?
NDJ: I always have lots of back up plans!
SS: What is the best piece of advice you were ever given?
NDJ: The best two pieces of advice that I have ever received were from my father:
“Have a serious career; you never know who’s going to bring up your children.”
“Always be prepared.”
SS: Describe a situation that frustrates you.
NDJ: The women I interview have done it all, there are few challenges left for them as they are on top of their game. There are those women who want to and can be the chief of police, CEO of large organisations etc. And then there are those women who choose to stay at home. This is the group whom I am more concerned about from an economic perspective. The work performed by stay at home women has never been economically quantified. We all look at these women very differently and that in my mind is discriminatory.
SS: What's the next challenge for us?
NDJ: I think the new generation of women has it slightly easier. I am not convinced that they appreciate how lucky they are. They have so much more freedom, autonomy and independence than their predecessors. Therefore, I truly believe it is especially important for these women to dare and take up challenges. Like many women I probably took more risks over my career than a man with the same qualification and at same level. Subsequently I want to remind the new generation of women that they are lucky, be careful not to waste opportunities and pay attention it could all slip away….
SS: What's next for you?
NDJ: Don’t know what’s in store for me tomorrow. Today is enough! Tomorrow seems like a century away!
Reference:
AGEFI: Quotidien des affaires et de la finance, www.agefi.com
WORK Magazine, www.workmag.me
Bio
Nicolette was a partner at Arubis Sarl where she was responsible for the financial systems consulting practice. Previously, she was Product Marketing Director at System Access, in charge of marketing their flagship product, Symbols. She is also the former European Representative of Trading Edge, an Internet high yield bonds brokerage firm; and maker of BondLink, the first web-based, high yield bond exchange.
Prior to joining Trading Edge, Nicolette was with Credit Suisse First Boston as Director responsible for Global Reference-Business Processes and Technical Architecture, as well as the management of the Corporate Data Warehouse. She was previously Head of Information Systems for San Paolo Bank in London.
Nicolette holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Paris. She lives near Geneva with her family.
Bio
Sunita has a passion for helping individuals, teams and companies to maximize their potential. With over 20 years experience both in the UK & Switzerland, she created Walk The Talk, with the sole aim, to help professionals improve their Business Communication Skills. She is of Indian origin but was born and raised in Britain before she moved to Geneva in 1991. She has a Psychology background, (specializing in Occupational Psychology) and a Post Graduate in the Development and Training of Adults from the University of Surrey. Furthermore, she recently completed a Masters of Advanced Studies in "Gestion des RH et des Carrières," (Specialising in Career Management and Coaching), at the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchatel & Fribourg.
Having successfully worked and operated in different cultures and languages, Sunita's strength lies in her ability to totally empathize with her clients and help them to perform their best.
By Sarah Santacroce at Simplicity
Your LinkedIn profile is like your CV, your elevator speech and your business card all in one place. It’s a mini-website that is supposed to drive traffic to your maxi website.
If you want to use LinkedIn to get more business, it all comes down to your LinkedIn profile. If it’s not optimized, you won’t get found & contacted.
There are many tips on how to improve your profile and many of them we’ve heard a million of times: ‘upload a photo, enter your experience, create a compelling summary, ’ etc.
In this post I tried to come up with new tips, that are just as important but often overlooked. Find them below:
How easy do you find it to switch off when you leave work and make the most of your leisure time?
This is something that has always been a personal challenge. Having spent my 20’s and early 30’s working in the world of finance and investment banking, my work became my life. Of course, I had time off and fantastic holidays, but did I fully appreciate them? To be honest, without the photographs I would barely remember them; my mind was usually elsewhere.
Today, thanks to my acting training, I have learnt to appreciate my leisure time a little more. I was reminded of this earlier this week.
