Twitter and Social Networking: Job Search Power Tools or Time Killers?

One of the best lessons that I’ve learned from working on about two million fix-it and improvement projects with my Dad is to match the right tool to the job at hand.  This is particularly true in searching for a job, which can be one of the more vexing projects for many people.

Fortunately, there are a number of interesting new power tools available in the form of social networking platforms, to help today’s job seeker.  However, unlike the tools in the picture, there are few guidelines on how and where to to use these tools to good effect.

Sidebar 1: Most of us probably know more than a few great people looking for work, and hopefully, you are providing your help and support in the form of networking contacts and moral and morale support.

Sidebar 2: A friend indicated that she now knows what it might feel like to suddenly be the person that no one is comfortable interacting with anymore. It seems her friends have responded to her lingering unemployment by doing what many people do when someone gets sick or suffers a personal loss…they disappear. Please don’t do that.

OK, back on topic. One of the issues that I make it a point to always ask my job searching colleagues about is their social networking strategy. I’m both curious how people are using the tools and whether they are finding them helpful or distracting. The feedback is mixed and interesting.

My informally captured, non-scientific research findings indicate the following about the use of social networking tools in the job search:

• Use and enthusiasm for social networking seems to vary by age and experience, with younger job seekers comfortable leveraging a broader swath of the social media spectrum than the more experienced (translated: older) professionals. No surprise here.

• LinkedIn is the most common tool that senior managers opt for initially. Again, no surprise.

• The minority of people that I’ve spoken with are Twitter users, and the perceptions of what Twitter is/can do are all over the map. Again, not surprisingly, there’s a great deal of ignorance about Twitter and a fair amount of cynicism. It usually goes something like, “I don’t know how telling people what I had for breakfast will help me find a job.” That’s certainly one point I agree with…, there’s no chance that telling people what you had for breakfast is correlated with landing a job!

On the positive side, I’m also hearing some interesting ideas and uses of the various media coming from some of the more adventurous job seekers.

The tone/theme of this feedback is: I don’t expect social networking to replace the hard work of researching, live networking and effective marketing and selling, but it is a valuable supplement and source of ideas, leads and contacts.

That’s a good, well-grounded perspective.

Some of the best uses that I’ve heard are (paraphrased):

• Targeting: I target the firms that I’m interested in working for, then I leverage the social media platforms to learn as much as I can about the company and the people.  I’ve openly shared with people that I’m interested in their company and have received some great insights and suggestions.

• Culture Assessment: I look at how involved a company and its employees are in social media as one indicator of culture.  I don’t want to work for a firm that is restrictive or paranoid.

• Pure Networking: I use the tools to meet people and learn about exciting new firms.

• Research: I use the tools to find people writing about or offering advice for job seekers.

• Power Research: I use the research capabilities of Tweetdeck (an application to help organize your twitter world) to search on key terms and find firms and people talking about things related to the type of work that I do.

• Introductions: Several times I’ve asked for help from my LinkedIn colleagues for an introduction to a contact of a contact, and they’ve come through for me every time.

• Rest, Relaxation and Rejuvenation: Social networking is my life-saving coffee break.  I let myself jump into the conversations twice a day for about 15 minutes each time, and I come out rejuvenated.  I meet great people and we exchange ideas and then I get back to work.

The Bottom Line for Now:

My two-cents suggests that it’s critical to use all of the tools available in securing a new opportunity. Social Networking may not hold the easy answer, but it certainly can be part of finding the answer. Savvy job seekers recognize the information and research power of social networking and are leveraging these new power tools to help get the job done.

Leadership Caffeine: Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me When I First Became a Leader

Note from Art: this one’s with a little help from my friends.  I’ve been working a great deal with first-time leaders recently (my favorite groups!) and I posted a tweet to the extremely talented group of great people that I follow on Twitter asking what they wish someone would have told them when they started out in their leadership careers. Here are a few of their insightful thoughts with attribution, commingled with thoughts of my own.

Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me When I Became a Leader

One of the motivations in writing Practical Lessons in Leadership a couple of years ago was to take a stab at leaving behind that letter we all wish we would have received when we first became leaders.  You know the letter…it’s the one that if we had read it and actually followed the advice, we might have short-circuited a few years of learning things the hard way.

The short-story on what my letter to early career leaders includes:

• Not everyone should lead. It’s OK to be an individual contributor, although you will still need to develop and draw on your leadership skills to succeed.
• You need to realize sooner than later that your role as a leader is about creating the environment and providing the support for others to do great things and prosper.
• Leading is hard work. As one wise man indicated, it’s a profession, with a body of knowledge waiting to be discovered.
• Credibility is your most valuable currency as a professional and a leader. Everything you do must reinforce your credibility.
• Treat everyone with respect. All of the time. No exceptions.
• Leading is all about everyone but you. Get over yourself.
• You’ll spend too much time with the wrong people. Focus on the people that want to grow, develop and succeed.
• The highest respect you can pay someone is to truly pay attention by supporting their development.

And from some of my colleagues on Twitter

-From: @GinaAbudi on influence and communication:

“Even as a leader you STILL must be able to influence others effectively.”

On communication: (paraphrased): Keep your communication open.

-From @DavidWLocke on the power of a thank you

“Years ago, I almost fell over when an engineer thanked me for working on his project.”

-From @wallybock:

“I wish I knew the importance of role models and mentors.”

“People in my classes talk about skills they wish they had or knew to get training in. The most desired skill clusters were (in order) talking to team members about performance/behavior and dealing with the boss.”

-From @mjasmus

“I wish I knew that the people part of leading would be the most complex, messy and difficult.”

I wish I knew that leading isn’t about the push. It’s more about the pull.”

-From @rseres

“Leadership is not about control.”

“As a leader, you don’t have to have all the answers.”

-From @SherpaDe

“Good listening is a skill to be taken seriously.”

“Learn to ask great questions and stay curious.”

–

Some smart, experienced people with great advice for early career leaders!  Thanks to all.

The Bottom Line

If you are an experienced leader with responsibility for supporting the development of leaders around you, remember to pay forward the lessons that you’ve learned over time and frequently learned the hard way.

While we will all have our own unique leadership experiences, we owe it to the next generation to do everything in our power to help them along. Never mind that no one was there to help you. You’ve learned that you are better than that.

And for those of you embarking on your leadership careers, read, listen and learn. Oh, and while you are at it, heed Wally’s advice and seek a role model or mentor. There are more than a few experienced leaders out there happy to help you along your journey.

Leadership Caffeine for the New Week: Leadership Lessons from Twitter

It’s a great week of slowly rising temperatures here in Chicago, but still not prime time for iced coffee in the morning. Today’s cup is a dark, bold Papau New Guinea, roasted locally of course.

Now before you skewer me for suggesting in the title of this post that there are leadership lessons to be learned from people reporting on what coffee they are having for breakfast and what the weather in Chicago will be like this week, have another sip and read on.

As just a bit of background, I jumped into Twitter like I did into blogging…with one toe and very, very cautiously. Blogging has become a part of my daily dna and a rich part of my professional life, and Twitter has served to remind me of some important lessons that we as leaders tend to lose track of as we move through our careers.

Leadership Lessons & Reminders from Twitter:

-It takes a certain amount of curiosity and yes, even courage for forty-something corporate types to even admit that there might just be something to a social networking tool like Twitter. Many of my contemporaries scoff and mock the tool and anyone participating.

As leaders, we often lose our intellectual curiosity and courage as we move through our careers. We’ve seen it all before and we’re well aware in our own minds that when you take risks and do something a bit edgy, most of the time, bad things happen. We’ve seen fads come and go, and to many of us, this is just one more fad.

To those involved, it is part of the fundamental rewriting of the rules of how people engage and converse. And while the lessons of networking and the exchange of ideas are as old as humanity, the reach and speed here are remarkable and unprecedented.

-Twitter is a meritocracy of ideas and the lack of hierarchy and internal politics ensures a much more open exchange than you get in the traditional workplace. There are some truly rich conversations and great ideas being exchanged here daily. Imagine if we can create systems with our customers and even internally in our own organizations by cutting out the natural stifling of great thoughts due to politics and hierarchy. The opportunities for idea generation and ultimately innovation are endless.

-Talk with smart people and you learn a great deal. I’ve managed to expand my professional network of smart people from around the globe considerably and I learn everyday from reading the posts and gaining feedback from some great professionals that I’ve met here on Twitter. A year’s worth of conferences and networking events would not have allowed me to equal the networking quality or quantity in just a few months of 15 minutes per day.

-In life and in business, there are incredible opportunities to waste time and energy, and the same potential exists in the social networking arena. I choose to tune out the infomercials and ignore those that appear not to be genuine in pursuit of giving ideas to gain insights.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

• Participate in the events of your times or you will be relegated to the past.
• Keep moving and keep growing or you will rust in place.
• With new tools come new rules and if you are involved in the business of creating value for customers and leading others in the process, you must understand the new tools and rules. Your customers and your employees are engaged in a whole new universe of conversations that you might just be missing.
• Passive participation is the same as non-participation.
• Don’t mock what you don’t know.
• Don’t waste your time with the time wasters.

Oh, and by the way. How is it that you are planning on leading teams of globally dispersed, multi-generational professionals when you don’t even understand how entire groups communicate, collaborate and socialize?

New Leaders, Twitter and the Volunteer Management Conundrum

A collection of sound bites and developmental suggestions for busy professionals: 

The Challenges of New Leaders: Feedback on Practical Lessons In Leadership:

Thanks to Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership for featuring my book with Rich Petro, Practical Lessons in Leadership, on his blog today.  Dan features material from the book focusing on: The Top Ten Challenges of the New Leader.  Please click over to Dan’s site to remind yourself of these challenges and importantly, check out his consistently outstanding blog content.

–

Networking, Collaborating & My Twitter Experience

What started out as a bit of marketing curiosity has turned into a great and productive networking experience for me on Twitter.  I continue to meet new and talented professionals on a daily basis and to share ideas and even identify opportunities to collaborate.  Share a good idea or thought and watch it spread like wildfire.  Have something new to offer in your business, as long as you are genuine and credible, watch the community jump on your idea and spread the news.

I know a number of marketers that I really respect that don’t have a seat at the Twitter Table yet.  Fair warning, that this is a potent tool for professional networking, research and brand building.  It’s time to pull up a chair and join the discussion.

–

Managing Volunteers: A Non Profit Management Conundrum

One of the more rewarding activities that I am involved with, includes working with a great group of professionals to help change the shape of volunteering in our community. 

Volunteerism is certainly popular in our culture thanks to the encouragement of our leaders in Washington and in response to the many societal challenges that we face.  The fact that more people have time on their hands due to a sudden outbreak of unemployment is a factor as well.

A paradox that I find fascinating is the fact that so many nonprofits truly need the help of volunteers in pursuit of their mission, yet it is fairly common for volunteers to report having had a poor experience.  It seems that many non profit organizations struggle to create the processes and infrastructure that allow for effective selection, on-boarding and management of volunteers. 

In a Fast Company article titled: Why Volunteers Don’t Come Back, the author highlights research suggesting that as many as one-third of the volunteers from a prior year don’t return—a loss of labor worth an equivalent of $40 billion.  The biggest competitor to volunteering?  According to the author, studies indicate that watching television is the number one alternative use of time.  

At a high level, it seems like there are two issues.  As part of our local community efforts, we need to help our community nonprofits develop efficient and effective systems for managing the volunteer process and improving the overall experience and outcome for all parties. This is an eminently solvable management task!

The second issue is a fundamental reality check on how we prioritize our time.  The advent of low cost DVRs makes it pretty hard to explain why people need to sit at home at night glued to the tv screen.  It’s time to get out into the community and help solve some problems.  

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I’ve offered three suggestions here for you to help make a difference. No charge!  

1. Pay attention to the developmental needs of new leaders

2. Get started on Twitter and figure out what it can mean to you and your organization

3. Become part of the solution in your community and volunteer. 

In particular on the last point, let’s put our heads together and help our non profits do a better job managing their talented and enthusiastic volunteer resources, before they lose them to the latest episode of Lost.

 

 

Mind Your Knowledge Gap: Why Social Media is Essential to Your Career

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…

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