Mind Your Knowledge Gap: Why Social Media is Essential to Your Career
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Crisis Leadership, Marketing, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth
This is a wake-up call to my mid to late 30 to 40 something (and older) contemporaries. It’s time to figure out what all the noise is about social media and how to leverage it for yourself, your career and your organization.
It’s not going away. It may change and morph, but there’s a whole new world of conversations and interactions going on and if you are not plugged in, you are tuned out and wandering aimlessly.
Do You Tweet?
If I had $100 for every conversation that included something like (with a tone of disdain), “Twitter sounds ridiculous. Why do I want to know that someone is taking a shower or what they ate for breakfast,” I would be well on my way to recovering a few losses in my 401K.
I’m two months new to Twitter and amazed at the quality of the conversations and the number of great professionals that I’ve met. I’m also flabbergasted to think about the conversations, resources and talented professionals that I was missing out on prior to joining.
Are You LinkedIn?
Or another exchange that I had with a brilliant and talented and dear friend the other day, “I only signed up for LinkedIn because I was looking for someone. I hope this isn’t a mistake.”
Sigh. Instead of a mistake, in the right hands, this is a remarkably powerful research tool and the most efficient way to-date to connect with and maintain a dialogue with former and current colleagues. The only mistake is not to take advantage of it.
Thought About Marketing Lately?
I chat with many experienced marketing professionals that still view their jobs and their profession through the eyes of individuals that grew up and never left the teaching and prevailing wisdom of the 80’s.
Meanwhile, Seth Godin (Tribes) and Guy Kawaskai (Reality Check) and David Meerman Scott (World Wide Rave) and others are serving up powerful arguments that the processes of reaching people, building visibility, building brands and establishing credibility are all different.
The Younger Generation, Blogging and On-Line Learning:
As the MySpace/Facebook generation asserts itself in the workforce (see my post: In Hopeful Praise of the Millennials), the relevance of old approaches of working, leading and promoting will fade into history.
In my own case, a mere two years ago, I wasn’t certain about blogging and the prospective value from the time it would take in my daily schedule. Now, I’m a raving advocate for the medium as a means of establishing a dialogue with sharp people and for building your brand. The time commitment is down to less than one hour several times per week. I’m also curious about what’s next.
I am an education junkie (and passionate about great universities and great educators) and love the chance to bring a heavy dose of pragmatism into my MBA classrooms. I was slightly cynical about the potential of on-line education and wondered what all of the noise was about. In following the old adage, “if you want to learn something, sign up to teach it,” I did. Three times.
Once you rethink and acclimate to the communication dynamics, the potential to integrate on-line and live education is remarkable. In my hybrid class (one week face to face the next on-line) in Project Management this past winter, the on-line portion provided the ability to research and share perspectives much broader and deeper than any I’ve ever witnessed in a straight classroom setting.
The Bottom-Line For Now:
I’ll be back on this topic sometime soon.
My advice to you or for your doubting colleagues is to show them the networking and research power of social media. Highlight examples of brand-building and thought leadership development that cost nothing but time. Showcase the savings from eliminating many interruption-marketing techniques in favor of the new approaches. Invite them to Twitter and show them how to filter out the noise and focus on connecting with the many, many sharp people.
There are no silver bullets in life or business, but there are sure-fire ways to fail. One of the best is to start acting like some of our parents and avoid what we don’t understand.
Hey, by the way, join me on Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn. The conversations are great.
Now, if I could just figure out what all of the fuss is about Facebook. I just don’t get it…
Feeling the Economic Deep Freeze? Ten Actions that You Can Take to Thaw Out and Combat Your Blues
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth
The thermometer here in Chicago this morning indicates that it is -12 degrees outside. Fahrenheit. That’s cold. We get a deep freeze like this every winter, and it gives the local newscasters something to blather about for the few days that the world here looks like a scene from the movie, Dr. Zhivago.
As the economy continues to crumble around us, one of the common themes that I am hearing from people at all levels and in all forms of positions and professions is that they “don’t know what to do.” Much like the weather outside, people are frozen in place. Fear will do that, and it’s definitely not healthy.
The best way that I know to combat fear and unfreeze your mind from the “what might happen” or “what just happened” mentality is to start moving by taking action. Actions generate energy, push out the negative emotions and provide hope.
Here’s my randomly generated and in no specific order list of 10 ideas for anyone seeking to thaw-out and start moving forward in spite of the sub-zero headwinds. This list is good for anyone…employed or unemployed. I’ll be back in a future post on things to do in the workplace while the rest of your colleagues are frozen in fear.
1. Don’t Preoccupy on the News-it’s mostly bad. It’s amazing how traumatizing it can be to have the “nattering nabobs of negativity” (thanks, Spiro Agnew) blathering on incessantly about how bad things are and how much worse they might be in the coming months. Turn it off.
2. Update your professional resume/cv
This seemingly onerous task feels great once you get going. For many, the resume is a core marketing tool, and the intellectual effort of thinking through where/how you created value for your organizations serves to remind you that you do have something good to offer prospective employers.
Get help with this task if you need it. Ask colleagues and former managers to review a draft and provide you with ideas and feedback. Use my recent posts: Marketing Yourself, The Irreverent Opinions of a Resume Hobbyist and Marketing Yourself Part II: Defining Your Professional Value Proposition to jump-start your process.
3. Jump-start your networking activities.
For business professionals, LinkedIn is a great tool to facilitate this task. Creating your LinkedIn profile is a natural part of the resume update process, and developing your list of former and current colleagues will help you recognize how many people you know. Not everyone is on LinkedIn however, so don’t restrict your communication activities to just those that you find in this environment. (For those of you out there that would like to connect, click here to go to my profile and send me a note with your invite. If you are new to this tool, I will be happy to offer my two cents worth on using it effectively.)
Remember that networking works best if you give more than you get, so carry this philosophy forward by helping others connect with colleagues in your network that might offer help. Start reaching out and connecting with people. Most actually appreciate the contact.
4. Read or listen to something by Seth Godin. Seth is a popular marketing author and guru, and every time I read or listen to Seth, he reminds me that many of our most ingrained patterns of thinking are just plain obsolete. Spend some time with Seth and stretch your brain a bit.
A great starting place is the recent podcast: Seth Godin Thinks You’re Boring, that Seth conducted with another of my favorite and provocative gurus, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. Seth and John help you make sense out of some powerful new approaches to thinking about the world, about marketing yourself and about competing in this environment. He’s got a new book out: Tribes, We Need You to Lead Us, and I expect to finish it this weekend.
5. Do something physical. Hit the gym, chop some wood, clean the basement, paint a room, or do anything else that gets you moving. (Yep, that too.) You will feel better.
6. After doing something physical, start a blog. I’ll agree with Seth here. I don’t care if there are 190 million blogs worldwide. The act of setting up a blog and the discipline imposed by writing and publishing regularly will change you for the better. Drop me a note if you want some ideas on getting started.
7. Figure out how to leverage Twitter for business purposes and send me a note. OK, this one is a bit self-serving, but I am new to Twitter and while I find it exciting and fascinating and socially very cool, I have not yet cracked the code on this popular new form of communication. Join and let’s “follow” each other and see where this thing takes us.
8. Sign up for that class that you’ve put off or get going on the degree. Tough times are a great time to get to work on improving your skills and advancing your education. There’s nothing on TV you can’t record, you shouldn’t be Twittering and blogging more than a few minutes a day, so evenings are a great time to be in class or on-line in a class.
9. Volunteer. Someone in your community needs help. Your school, your library, your church or the many shelters and nonprofits.
10. Connect with people in person. Limit your time on the computer and increase your face time with real people. It’s too easy to sit behind the screen in this world. Find a networking group, join or start a book club, attend an occasional seminar. Push away from the keyboard.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Do something. Anything. Stop worrying, start taking action and success will breed success. Maybe my list will prompt some ideas of your own. If that happens, remember to share. Pay it forward.
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