Archive for the 'Social Media' Category

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There’s a thin line between mavens and evangelists.

We trust mavens to recommend movies, restaurants or even dry cleaners. We fear incurring the wrath of evangelists who contend that it’s a huge mistake (or worse) not to drive a Volkswagen, buy an iPhone or skip reading The Kite Runner. (It’s on my list of things to do, really.)

Perhaps we’re just a little wary of evangelists (and I don’t mean the religious kind). A case in point: hard-selling corporate recruiters. I can empathize with them, though, because not all jobs or companies are an easy sale.

Mavens tend to feel strongly, even passionately that their advice is ideal for their friends, readers or acquaintances. Speaking as a maven and connector, I can tell you that it’s pretty hard to switch it off. When a friend asks: “Seen any good movies?” We’re not the types who reply, “Who has time?”

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If my friends hear me utter the word Facebook one more time they are going to excommunicate me from their buddy lists.

I’m adding to the noise only because Facebook demands the immediate attention of all 30 million of us members. Today’s poll reads: Which brand is the best toothpaste?

Frankly, if I could entice 30 million people to take a poll, that wouldn’t be it. At first glance, it may seem improbable that a site serving up this kind of fluff could advance your career or put you back in touch with a funny former co-worker, but there you have it.

Sometimes I feel that Facebook is AOL on steroids, or that I’m having a Prodigy flashback. Weren’t there about 30 million AOL members back in the dial-up days?

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I’d like to announce the launch of AfterRusty, a social networking site for my friends, fans, relatives, creditors and associates.

You may have heard about corporate alumni networks where ex-employees bitch about their old company. AfterRusty is for people who know me, wish they knew me, or thought they did.

For a limited time, I will waive the $50 annual fee, at least until my viral campaign escalates to Facebook proportions. So-called “alumni social networking” sounds hip and trendy, but by the time I die it will “tip” to an epidemic.

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Groucho Marx once famously informed a group of his show business contemporaries that “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”

That’s a sentiment a curmudgeon could love. But the simple truth is that, when you need it, a support group serves a useful purpose. Unemployed workers and job seekers have career clubs, Internet forums or social media sites that provide advice, mentoring and other forms of encouragement.

So why does layoffspace.com seem like a bit of a stretch to me? It’s a social media site primarily for the unemployed. That’s a novel concept, although arguably there are more underemployed workers than unemployed ones. At 4.5% unemployment, it’s a niche idea, certainly. But is it also a timely one?

No doubt, there’s something to be said about owning up to a negative experience. Losing a job can involve a grieving period. Unemployed workers may want to network with one another, but my hunch is that they would prefer to meet recruiters, hiring managers and people working in their chosen profession.

You have to put the past behind you, right?

By contrast, on Linked-in, home to millions of passive and active job seekers, recruiters can generally sniff out who is available even if it’s not always apparent to the rest of us. Job seekers can also choose to have job listings made available to them. (Speaking of which, here are some cool tips about maximizing your Linked-in profile, courtesy of recruiter Dave Mendoza.)

I leave you with some parting wisdom from the layoffspace.com blog: “We all have daydreams about what we’d do if we won the lottery, how we’d spend our days if we didn’t have to work for a living. But the reality is that most of us do have to work.” Yes, we do.

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While social media such as blogs, wikis, RSS, social networking and tagging technologies have transformed the interactive web experience, corporations have been slow to adopt these ideas to enhance employee communications and collaboration.

Most of us know social media through blogs or social networking sites such as Linked-in (I’m a member), Xing (ditto), MySpace or others which house members’ personal and professional  bios and enable efficient networking, recruiting and job searches. Many executive recruiters scout these sites looking for local or global-ready talent.

I believe that this suite of Web 2.0 technologies and social networking software will be nothing less than transformational to multinational companies. Here’s why:

• Social media is a critical Gen Y retention tool
• Social media is a knowledge management tool
• Social media much improves team collaboration
• Social media is a mentoring tool

Retention. The retention issue is one that points to a potential generation gap between executives who run enterprises and younger workers who insist upon feeling connected - beyond email.

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Until now, the one thing you could never say about immersive, 3-D cyberworlds is that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Bain & Co., a global consultancy, said Wednesday that it intends to start recruiting for summer interns in Second Life, a virtual world with nearly five million residents.

Some of Bain’s recruits may be relieved to know that opportunities exist in the real world, too.  

Why recruit in Second Life? Because the bright minds Bain covets aren’t hanging out at gyms, libraries or discos.  Apparently, some of the really clever students create avatars to attend classes for them while they spend their days and nights roaming Second Life. Among the myriad things to do in Second Life: watch movies, build a dream home, fall in love, try a new career, go back to school - in short - become an entirely different person.  

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A few months before his company announced a merger, B. Lee Jones began building a network of contacts in case of a possible transition. In a matter of months, Jones, a 58-year-old CIO of a midsize, multinational company in Silicon Valley formerly known as Stratex Networks, amassed a whopping 500 connections on Linked-in, one of the largest social media networks.

The transition to job seeker didn’t catch him flat-footed. “A month ago, I hadn’t solicited any recommendations,” from friends or colleagues, Jones explains, “today I have eighteen.” And he’s sent several hundred invitations - mostly to strangers such as executive recruiters and HR executives. “That way I had a pipeline [of contacts] when I was ready to make a change.”

Jones, who says he is fluent in seven languages and conversational in sixteen, would like to find a job with global responsibilities. But, at the moment, he’s exploring all channels in search of the best opportunity. He’s checking job boards, talking to executive recruiters, placing calls and sending e-mails to colleagues, but mostly he prefers social media because it enables him to take action without relying upon others.

Just this week he kicked his job search into a kind of social media hyper-drive. First, he saw a job listing he liked on Yahoo! HotJobs.  ”I did some research about the company,” he says, seeking answers to questions such as “where are they, what do they do, how long have they been around?  Who is the existing person in the position?”