Online Communities

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Reaching Out

31 January, 2010 in Rant, The Story | 6 comments

It is the question I am continually asked. Yes, me, the beginner! I don’t believe it but I am. Suppose I am seasoned now in these very fast paced lives of ours, Data Analytics?!!. I actually called myself a social media person the other day :grin: .

Oh dear… we have this tragic love affair with our technology and it is having a snowballing affect on our lives everywhere. Now we need to social network to find a dollar. It is not what you know, it is who you know. But even now, it is not just who you know, you still have to be able to show the what you know or otherwise you are at a standstill. And social networking is the way people are doing it.

How do I do it? How do I social network? You are feeling very frustrated. There you are sitting in front of the computer, filled in your profile and connected to the colleagues you know. Then comes the question, how do I build up that network so I can reach out to people and people will reach out to me to help me in my situation?

Number 1. The most important thing is you must keep remembering, why am I social networking? Why am I here in this space? Am I here to find a job, to build up my business, to be an open networker, to find like minded people, to find a mentor, or just to stay connected with my colleagues and friends? And do consider why these people are networking as they may not be networking for the same reason as you.

Number 2. Your profile. No dodgy photos, we must be able to see your face and think about who you want to attract with your photo. If you are out to find a partner, then go for it but remember others are also looking at your photo and those connected to you who have to see your network updates all the time. Luckily for “hide network updates” and “stop following”, not that I have any of these on my network :lol: .

Fill in every section of your profile, do not leave any of the sections empty or missing. Summaries of your achievements in your jobs. There is no use just putting where you worked and your recommendations. What are you being recommended for? If you have other interests, include them. Tell people what you want them to know about you.

If these are not done then who are you? A slice of profile amongst the other 55 million you are competing against? I go into detail about building a profile in LinkedIn, The Campaign Begins and My Personal Brand. Read them, over and over again if you must. These are the questions you must ask yourself.

This will not take a day, a weekend or even a week for that matter. This will take time, you do have to do some deep thinking and maybe even some soul searching. Who do you want to portray and can you do it in real life. No use saying you are upbeat when you are a grumpy bastard :roll: . Focus on the positives and your achievements. Once you get there, there will be a clear direction and you will know :-) .

Number 3. Invitations. DO NOT send generic invitations. I don’t know how many posts I have seen about this topic, it is sooo…boring but I have to bring the topic a front as well :-| . Yes, I have been an offender but I have learnt and now I am teaching you. Do send these to your colleagues and your friends but nobody else. Think about it this way, would you want to connect to somebody without even knowing who they were? You may have nothing in common and may not fulfil each others needs. We are being social here, there is always give and take. Whether the satisfaction of reaching out to helping others or to have shared interests or a business relationship with monetary value.

So how do I connect to people? You can go in cold. Introduce yourself, why their profile interested you, why you want to be connected to them and how you can help each other. Many people will accept these invitations and will appreciate your initiative.

Recruiters. Aim only for those in the local area. Send them a note asking if they would preview your profile so you could send them your resume. Once you have been able to send the resume, ask if you can meet with them. Meeting is good, they are always going to remember you. And always remember if you have met a recruiter offline to ask if you can send them an invitation. If you cannot meet with them ask if you can send them an invitation and reasons for connecting with them.

Those who maybe able to help you on your quest. Interact. This why others are social networking, to connect to people of interest. If you don’t interact, how are people going to know that you are interesting? Send offline notes before asking if you could send them an invitation. You never know they may send you the invitation first. Or you find that you have nothing in common and lose interest. Hmmm, that’s probably why I have some unaccepted invitations, I don’t practice what I preach :-| .

The easiest way is to become an open networker or send invitations to open networkers and usually they will accept your generic invitations. These people are easy to find as they have their email address or LION as part of their headliner. If you want to expand your network quickly then go this route. I am connected to open networkers but these are people I have met.

I am a business analyst struggling to find that job and telling my story along the way, I am not trying to find other business. The satisfaction I receive from being in the social media is knowing I have been able to reach out to people in my blog with my story, my data analytics and my rants. This is my reward, if other things occur with my social media efforts then this will be a bonus.

Number 4. Interact. How do I find these people and how do I interact with them? Join groups, join as many groups as possible, doesn’t matter what size they are, actually the smaller the better, a more attentive audience. Follow the discussions. Get weekly email for updates from your groups so you can scan through the discussion list, you will eventually find a topic of interest.

You have searched for weeks, which means you have not tried hard enough, and you finally find a topic you can comment on but you don’t want to leave a comment. Think first what type of comment it is going to be. Are you going to agree with the author or disagree? If you agree with the author then reply privately. If you disagree, find somebody who has left a comment with the same conclusions as your own and reply to them privately. Then continue the conversation offline.

Please do reach out to people that have the same interests as your own. No good reaching out to business analyst if you are not one or you believe the person may be able to help you but they are social networking for their own purposes. You must have common interests and benefits that each can perceive. If you want people to reach out to you then you will have to leave a comment. Doesn’t matter if it is a failed comment like mine, Being Proactive. The connection I made then, this person still mentors me today :cool: .

The best way to have people reach out to you is to post your own discussions. But what type of discussion will I post? Think about what makes you passioned. I am passioned about finding that job so I am posting my story about finding that job and my data analytics to show people what I have been doing and can do. Doesn’t matter what you post, even if you are wanting to connect to like minded people, as long as you have passion for it. There are groups out there that cater for everybody’s needs.

Do not be afraid to post, do direct your posting to the correct group and the correct space, discussions, news or jobs section. Do not SPAM in one group, people will start ignoring your postings. If the group leader says something about your posting, shrug your shoulders and move on. There are so many postings out there that your one is not going to make a difference. Do not be disappointed if nobody responds. If you post in enough groups then you a bound to get a response somewhere.

I have been very lucky, I have had many, many people reach out to me through my postings. Each person has had a positive effect on my journey and I thank them all very much. Posting your own discussions will attract like minded people and those who are willing to help.

This is only a small glimpse into what I have learnt along this journey of mine. I could go on forever and I have gone well past my 1500 words. I am sure there is so much advice in the cyber world that this little post will also get lost in the many other postings but this is what I have experienced on my journey, some good, some bad.

Good luck with your social networking efforts. Enjoy this new journey you are on, there are so many interesting people out there ready and willing to reach out to you but you have to make the effort. No good putting a partial profile up and then just sitting there expecting something to happen for you. It doesn’t work that way, you have to be social and work hard at it. You will make mistakes but that is part of the learning process, in the end, all the pain will make this one of the most rewarding journeys you will travel ;-) .

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Becoming a Blogger

25 January, 2010 in The Story | 2 comments

Me? A Blogger? I didn’t read blogs, why would anybody want to read what is coming out of my head? Several months later I am still blogging and people are enjoying what I write about whether the story, data analytics or even my rants. Hopefully, I can keep this up and the sentences do not stop flowing out of my head. Does this surprise me? Very much so. This person who does not like words has strung together nearly 20 posts and has a small following which I never thought I would have, ever, so thank you again for all of your support. I must admit though, it has not been smooth sailing through this part of the journey but very rewarding.

I had problems from the very beginning with social media and I needed a good kick on the bum to get myself motivated to start (Online Presence). I had struggled with social networking and I had been an extremely private person. Blogging meant that I would be losing more of my privacy to the public domain. I would have to be really out there to promote my blog so eventually that job will be mine.

I had read a few blogs and most of the posts were less than 500 words. I can’t fit what I want to say in 500 words or less, what can I tell people? I write The Story Begins and I make it fit on an A4 size, 500 odd words. That was my benchmark, fit on an A4 size and it won’t be too long, those are the rules.

I was ready to post in all my groups and my networks. I was nervous. I timidly post onto my networks then to my groups. I had installed a flag counter on the website, I had my 4 friends in Australia and my connection from the US who knew about the site. I was looking at the flag counter and saying to myself, “This is going to depress me watching these flags not move”. As I login to delete the script, the flags start moving with additional flags! My first post and people are hitting my site, unbelievable! Though the data from the flag counter does not compare to the data coming from GA but from my understanding different analytics packs calculate data differently.

You have to post every week, I had been told. Every week! I don’t have that much to say, let alone write! I post the next 2 parts of my story in a very feverish state. Then I decide to build my own website, (Online Presence) it takes 3 weeks, which means something I suppose in social media circles, a long time between postings. This is my first posting in more than 6 weeks :-? .

The next posting is JobCAMP, I also post my first rant, After Sales Service…. I only post details of the rant on my wall in FB, my one friend knew how I felt about hanging on the phone forever. I had not posted in the LI network, it was sitting there on my blog so I could get it off my chest. I receive my first comment for a rant on the blog then the comment from Sheryar, I could not believe my little rant had stirred someone to write such a conscientious comment. I was extremely flattered.

I’ve reached my 500 words, that’s it, no more words :lol: .

The next couple of posts, not much was happening, I was losing my engaged audience :cry: then The Campaign. I post in my groups, titled, “Social Networking and the faux pas of a Beginner”. I had just finished my postings and the visitors to my LI profile and my blog were incredible. My blog visits had surpassed any other posting by more than 10 fold, an overwhelming response. Yeah, I had 2 before, now I have 20 :lol: .   When I woke in the morning, my mailbox was bombarded with comments from groups. I had never seen so many! :-)

Since blogging, I have received online and offline comments giving me a pat on the back, saying I was brave for telling my story. This is all really nice but not what I am blogging for. I am not brave, I only assume everybody else would feel the same way if they were in my position. I just want to increase my chances of finding that job, if people can get a smile out of my story then all the better ;-) . I have also received notes from others who said that I had encouraged them to get their act together. This is always heartening. But all comments I receive, online or offline,  make it all worthwhile as I have been able to reach out to someone who I would not have touched before blogging :-D .

Where are the rough waters? Blog is running smoothly and I have all this attention. The Campaign ends with “But what now?”. I had arrived at another “but what now” moment, not only in the story but also in real life. I was not enjoying blogging at all. Communicatons had stopped from the first posting. I struggled from then on as I just did not know what I was doing. I was not enjoying the self promoting and I was not enjoying writing about myself as said before I had been an extremely private person.

I reached out because of my confusion as to what to do with the blog. Advice was given and I decided to stop blogging. I did not feel I had the passion. I started to write my final post, introduction, draft of the body and conclusion when I received one of these heartening notes. Which made me stop and think again, always dangerous :lol: . There is a reason why I am blogging, to increase my profile so I can find that job. I cannot stop, I haven’t found that job!

When I first started blogging, I did the Wikipedia lookup,

The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read.

I wanted to take pride of my blog. I was not happy with some of my postings. I could see that I was not holding my new visitors so I went back and rewrote the one’s I had feverishly posted including the first one, more than 500 words now . After another 3 week hiatus, I wrote Online Presence and managed to keep the following I had achieved with the previous posting.

I have this sense of renewed energy and passion for my blog. I start writing my data analytics posts, same response but a different group people reading my posts. I said I was not going to rant but I am and another different crowd. With this new energy, my blog and I are now in harmony and my readership continues to grow with every posting. The blog is also recieving new visitors via direct entries, don’t know where these people are coming from as I only promote my blog in the LI network. I also decided that I was not going to post every week and not have a limit on my words as I would prefer to produce quality over quantity. Why don’t you subscribe to the blog using the above FeedBurner just enter your email addresss so you don’t miss out on any posts :-) .

The blog has three channels to increase my profile and find that job. I now call myself a blogger and even have a business card noting that I blog :-) . I have received leads and many more leads since I started posting data analytics on the blog. I am really, really enjoying reaching out to people and knowing people are enjoying my blog. I am now at the stage of my story where I am today, a business analyst and blogger, still looking for that job. I know there will be more stories to tell of my journey and hopefully, soon, I will be posting the day I got that job ;-) .

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Online Presence

15 October, 2009 in The Story | 6 comments

LinkedIn is the first social network I joined but not the only one I have joined since then. My public profile is not only LinkedIn, it is what a person finds when they do a search on your name, this is what I learnt at JobCAMP.

I do a Google and Yahoo search on my name. There are so many Colleen Chan’s but nothing on me. The only Colleen Chan in Sydney ran in the City to Surf fun run. Anybody who knows me would laugh as I do not even know the word exercise! Colleen Chan the business analyst does not have an online presence.

At JobCAMP we were taught that if we hit our own links enough then eventually increase your ranking during the searches. But I am nowhere, the only online profile I have is my LinkedIn. I now realise my LinkedIn profile will never rank above any other Colleen Chan’s in LinkedIn in the Google search as my public profile URL is colleenchan and Google searches on ‘colleen chan’ so does not even recognise me as Colleen Chan but Yahoo does, I’m nowhere in Bing.

We were told to create profiles in all social networks and make sure that we create a public URL as it is all free to join. So many social networks out there that it is hard to know where to start. I had read that XXXXX is “to connect with people you do know but don’t want to know”, (probably why they have lost 50% of their market share in the past year). Facebook is “to connect with people you do know and do want to know” and Twitter is “to connect with people you don’t know but do want to know”. I join Facebook and Twitter since then I have also joined Naymz and Plaxo.

Since joining all these networks, I must say I am not a big fan of Twitter, it is all too much for me, can’t keep up. I watch all the tweets and the thousands of followers people have. I am usually a quiet person, I don’t have that much to say, some may disagree ;-) , and these Twitterer’s tweet so much, so much to say. The only tweets you see from me are when I am posting on my blog. My little voice gets lost in the thousands of tweets already out there. It is a different way of reaching out to people by giving their connections short assiduous pulses of information. Many have grown their brand successfully using Twitter as part of their marketing strategy. I am sure there are many people that I do and probably need to know out there but it is just not for me :???: .

Facebook is a totally different kettle of fish. You must realise the only social network I have seen is LinkedIn which is very straight and no bright lights flashing at you when you press buttons. I start connecting to people I already know who are on FB as these are the people telling me I have been missing out. Yes, I have been hidden from the world of social networking, I did not know that if somebody wrote on your wall that a) Everybody on your network sees and that b) you are suppose to reply via comment and not by writing on your wall again, :???: , it’s like ignoring a conversation. Sorry friends.

I start getting these notifications and every time I start something, I have to send to a group of friends. I mean some of this stuff is really stupid, more fool me I answer everything and send to my friends as well. But eventually I realise my friends don’t want to see all this stuff and I see a skip button amongst all the flashing lights. During this time somebody sends me a kiss. So I think which friend of mine is playing silly games with me? When I get through the flashing lights, the name that appears is laughable. Ignore. I go to my wall 2 days later and there it is, I have inadvertently joined a dating site and the application had posted it automatically! :oops: . Mind you it was not the only time I had been fooled by spam, I had also gone into depth about my friends to a new connection as the spam said this person is new so introduce your friends. Duh! I basically ignore everything now, I don’t know where I might end up. FarmVille?!

Yes, FB is different and I am still trying to get the hang of it. So much advice about who you should be connecting to in this network. I am still struggling, as I have been told every connection is a good connection, but FB is for friends so where do I stop accepting invitations on networks. Is there not a space where I can keep private? Or does social networking mean that I have to be open to everybody? I want a job, I know having a lot of friends is good but a lot of friends verses a group of friends you know personally? I would prefer a group of friends I know personally and I am sure most people would feel the same way. :-)

I open a Wordpress.com account but do nothing with the account for nearly 8 weeks. I don’t even know why I opened the account as I do not know how to write, I did poorly in English at school and had not written anything creative since then but it is to increase my online presence. I struggle for weeks. Do I want to be the 1% of internet users that becomes a content creator? I have nothing to write about, I needed a tag line and I needed a theme. I ran past my ideas across many people but I did not seem to be getting any traction. Everybody was telling me I had to write about data analytics but I can’t write and then trying to put my numbers into words is basically impossible, I needed someone to write my resume, I had to win a competition to get my personal brand done. How can I write about numbers and who wants to know about data analytics?

What I did receive was a good swift kick on the backside by one of my connections who had answered one of my group discussions during the campaign. And for that same person to agree that writing my story would be a good to start for my blog and move onto data analytics when I get the confidence in my writing. All I needed was somebody to agree with me and I was ready to go. So here I am communicating to you through my blog another way of reaching out to people.

I want to look at the numbers from my blog but to do this I have been told to use Google analytics but to do this I need to build my own website. Sigh… This is after I had started blogging. I had already been told I had the skills to do it but I didn’t know where to start. I put up a discussion in a couple of my IT groups to get help. The feedback I receive is very encouraging with new connections happy to help me through my process.

I start building this website, it takes me 3 weeks to get it together. In those weeks I was looking at words and acronyms I had never seen before, extreme headaches and my chiropractor said my body had not been that stressed since I had been out of work. More accounts, usernames and passwords and lots and lots of learning. I now know how to setup my own website and understand all the different layers I have to control and still learning about new layers :-| .

Building my own website for my blog increased my online presence without even knowing it. My blog did not rank in the first few pages before I built my website but once the blog was running from my own site, the blog is ranking on page 1 in Yahoo and sometime makes page 2 in Google. The numbers? I have been told by connections to ignore the numbers as 1. all cool websites do not get massive traffic and 2. I should not be worried about the numbers but an engaged audience. But I do look at the numbers, I can’t help myself. My traffic against benchmarks in GA show the blog is doing above average and I do have an engaged audience. So thank you all for your support. :-)

My online presence is now there. My LinkedIn profile has made No.1 using Yahoo search and my “Check with Chan” advertisement has made No.1 using Google search. With all the other social networks I have been able to make more than 2 of my links to be on page 1 using both search engines. This is due to the blog without the blog my rankings would not be up there.

digitally-distinct_badge120pxDigitally Distinct You are digitally distinct!
This is the nirvana of online identity. A search of your name yields lots of results about you, and most, if not all, reinforce your unique personal brand.

          

           

             

            

There are many social networks to join and many different ways to communicate with your connections. Some of my social networks do not even get touched as they are all linked some how to the handful of accounts that I use regularly. Creating my online presence has been an important part of my personal brand, people can do a search on my name and find me easily. Now all I am waiting for are my long lost friends to find me :lol: .

 

Next post in The Story -> Becoming a Blogger

 

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The Campaign

22 September, 2009 in The Story | 8 comments

It is Friday evening and I am feeling very anxious. I had been an extremely private person in the past and was very reluctant in the beginning to even join LinkedIn and now I was having a complete campaign focused on my personal brand. :-?

I start uploading all my stuff on to my profile. My new head shot, new headliner, my personal brand and my resume has been summarised into my LinkedIn profile.

Now I am ready to post a new discussion on all my group boards. You can imagine how nervous I was feeling. I was already overwhelmed with the response to my original discussion and now the whole campaign was going to be there for all to see. My stomach was churning. You know what I really wanted to do was to turn the clock back and be a vegetable about the whole situation but no chance of that happening. You can see how my brain was not functioning correctly through this blog and all the emoticons.

My discussion announcing the launch of the campaign.

Over the past few days some of you would have seen my discussion on personal branding. Is it going to work? Will I have a career self destructing moment like an Australian football star? Will I get my 15 minutes like the British lady on a reality talent show? Or will I float away like a leaf in the autumn breeze?

You be the judge.

Tomorrow, 23rd May, there will be 2 campaigns running concurrently.

1. Paper campaign. There will be an ad in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald, general news section.

2. Digital media campaign. From Saturday through to Monday (local Sydney time), the campaign will be on the home page of www.MyCareer.com.au

I would like thank Job Camp, ‘Getting Australia Working” for inspiring me to think differently about my career and work, The Face Euro RSCG for the campaign and to the sponsors MyCareer.com.au.

And thank you to all who have taken an interest in my campaign.

Please check out my campaign, “Check with Chan”.

The online campaign was to begin at midnight which means the rest of the world is still awake or even just starting their day. I wake in the morning and head to the corner shop for the weekend paper. I am excited wondering what the campaign looks like in the paper and the placement of the ad. This is the whole of the SMH page 4 for the 23rd May. The young man says, “This is only the beginning, you will be on page 1″, yeah right :-| .

The email inbox is next. I am not overwhelmed there are a few comments on my discussions and they were all new people, nobody from my previous discussion. I start getting emails, text messages from my friends, a couple of recruiters and a call from one very excited gentleman from our southern highlands who was very animated about the ad in the paper. I now had 2 online ads, a paper ad and my online discussions but compared to the posting of my first discussion the response was quiet.

Saturday passes, Sunday comes along, something is not right but I don’t know what. I feel like I am floating away like a leaf in the autumn breeze. Sitting, waiting, waiting for something to happen. It is late Sunday afternoon, then, it all of a sudden dawns upon me, OMG! 8O I know it was the dumbest thing I have done since being on my journey. You know when they talk about people talking to themselves, well, the swear words just flowed. I could not believe want I had done. I had deleted the first discussion! So all those people following my discussions were all gone! :x

I don’t know what was in my head when I was deleting the original discussion. I had stopped at one stage but thought ‘why do I need this first discussion?’ I did not think about when I posted my first failed comment I received email for comments following mine. What was I going to do! :cry: I pace and pace and pace then I realise I have the LinkedIn emails from those who posted or wrote to me offline, I can save some :| .

I spent Sunday night sending a personal LinkedIn note to all those who posted a comment or sent me a thread offline. The following grovelling personalised email was sent to everybody.

I must apologise for deleting my initial discussion. It was very rude of me especially when you had taken an interest and had gone into the effort to write something on my discussion.

I am very new to networking no MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or anything else like that. LinkedIn is the first network group I have joined and only since the end of March. But have now realised the benefits of connecting.

I did not realise the payback of adding onto my original discussion and how it would always be on top if there was enough interest, hits or comments.

So please accept my apology and I hope you still get a chance to catch my campaign at www.mycareer.com.au , homepage, the ad is in an advertisement box on the right hand side, the ad may take a bit of time to stream through.

I would love your feedback and thank you for taking an interest in my campaign.

Since the campaign was running until Monday midnight (it was only extended a further 24hrs on Monday), many people would not see the note until after it had finished. So I had a strategy, if they answered and saw the online ad, they got a generic invitation and then a thank you note afterwards.

Then there were those who answered after the online ad ended. I sent them a following note but it was even more personalised with their name in the middle of the paragraph and a generic invitation to my network. I start copying, pasting, send the notes and then the invitations to my network. Copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, then I realise I have personalised the note in the middle as well. So all these people are getting notes with the name ‘Tim’ in the middle of the paragraph :oops: . So I have to send another apologetic note, saying this is what happens when you do a copy and paste.

Out of all the notes I sent, only 2 did not accept my invitation. I realise now I should have sent a personalised invitation after they answered but because I was new, everybody answered my note accepted my invitation. How do I know this? I was told by many. But since then I have accepted many generic invitations myself, I believe in expanding my professional network and sharing my network with others. Though I do like the personalised invitations, it does make one remember who one is. :-)

I have sort of saved the connections that I have reached out to through my discussions. But where are the people wanting to hire? Was it because I stuffed up the original discussion note. This should not be a reason as the original campaign was only based on the local paper advertisement. The week begins and I get further feedback from those who saw the ad in the paper. I also have a couple of interviews with recruiters but none with direct leads :-| .

What I do find out though, much later, like weeks and weeks, is that people have written about the campaign. This is what happens when you google your name which I had not done until well after the campaign launch. Mentions in comments on other blogs, and the following and surprising links about the campaign.

 
Bandt.com – cutting edge, must read news that the advertising and marketing professional cannot live without, Jobseeker becomes the brand, on page 3.

Turning Leaf Blog, Fantastic Marketing – Of A Person!

My friend, Dr Nancy Dailey, Bragging Rights, Women and Personal Branding, where I also receive a mention in the Future Women Leaders blog. :?

 
From my friends at JobCAMP :

Raz Chorev, JobCAMP supervisor, Check With Chan – Personal Branding Campaign;

Luke Harvey-Palmer, JobCAMP creator, JobCAMP WIN a Personal Brand Campaign;

The Face, which I only found today, the Check with Chan campaign including complete Sydney Morning Herald advertisement and placement.

 
Notice I have not commented on any of the blogs or any others where I should have to get more coverage. I didn’t know how to. Not like I didn’t know how to type in the square. It was that fact that I had never encountered web 2.0 and just didn’t know what do to. Like what I did with my first discussions :-? .

Time passes, I have learnt from my faux pas and I am still working my network. I have my coverage with the help of my JobCAMP family, I have my growing connections and I have many interviews but no job. I arrive at another, ‘But what now?’ point.

 

Next post in The Story -> Online Presence

 

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The Campaign Begins

2 September, 2009 in The Story | 2 comments

I’m getting ready for my week ahead, listing all the things that have to be done.

  1. My headliner has to be changed.
  2. Daily status updates on my LinkedIn profile.
  3. New head shot as my profile photo was the only recent one I had and had been cut out from a distant sisters’ shot. (Thanks Jai for sneakily taking that photo at Chinese New Year otherwise I would have had none).
  4. Posting discussions on all my group boards.
  5. My Personal Brand.

1.  Headliner
Currently my headliner is boring, Business Analyst seeking Opportunities. I have to make the title so it attracts people to my profile. I take slices out of the introduction that The Face had produced for the advertisement. “Analyst, can take complex problems and data, making them understandable to financial people and to everyone in the business”.

2. Daily Status Updates
I can be a very talkative person but I am not the type of person who is likely to tell all my connections what I am doing on a daily basis. It is to remind my connections that I am around and something is about to happen. So I do daily update status reminding my connections I have won a personal branding campaign and that it will be launched on Saturday in the SMH.

3. Profile Photo
Isn’t it always the way it goes. I am so stressed about the campaign I have a giant pimple in the middle of my cheek! I can’t even remember the last time I had a pimple on my face and it has to come up the only time when I don’t want one to! Photographer, Paul Kennedy, whom I met at JobCAMP, made the session fun. I usually feel very self conscious when posing for photos but we had laughable moments. Ok, I admit to photoshop but only the pimple was removed and now longer exists :-) . Paul would not photoshop anything else as he said it would take the character out of the photo. Oh, so I can’t remove the bags under my eyes and my freckles… ok… :-(

4. Group Discussion Boards
I’m ready to be a content creator, not really. Then I realise there is only an ad in the local paper therefore only the essence of the personal brand campaign will be in my LinkedIn profile and not the complete campaign with the ad. Thought I could get away with it but it was confirmed that MyCareer.com.au who were sponsoring the ad were also going to include an online campaign on their homepage and the homepage of TheBigChair.com.au.

Now I have to create a discussion. I am very scared. I see all the discussions on the group boards, sometimes the discussions get heated and sometimes there are no comments at all. What do I write about so I can get people’s attention and not be beleaguered or left feeling unnoticed.

Below, my very first posting on a discussion board.

Personal Branding. What is it? How does it apply to me?

These are the exact questions that have been haunting me since the GFC. All the recruiters are talking about it, now it is not good enough just to have a good resume but now you need a Personal Brand! But how?

So off I headed to JobCamp, “Getting Australia Working”. JobCamp is the idea of Luke Harvey-Palmer, to inspire people to think differently when it comes to career and work.

The conference was fantastic with speakers including Iggy Pintado, author of “Connection Generation”, Laurel Papworth also known as SilkCharm and the most connected in AP, Stan Relihan.

So what does this all have to do with personal branding? I won my own personal branding campaign by The Face!

So how will The Face give someone in my line of work a personal brand? My job title isn’t the most exciting job title in the world, business analyst.

To see what The Face can do for my personal brand stay tuned, my campaign will begin on the 23rd May.

I was overwhelmed by the response. I received at least one comment online or offline from each group and more than 5 in some, some 50 responses. I had never posted anything on the internet before and did not know what to do with it all. Comments were all very heartening, with good advice, requiring deep thought, asking friends and knowing oneself. I had not thought about my personal brand other than the flurry at JobCAMP. I replied the best I could and very poorly at that, I know now.

There were 2 comments that stood out though. One person sent me a link to Gary Vaynerchuk, Building Personal Brand within the Social Media Landscape at the Web 2.0 Expo. First thing I thought was check out his last name out I am never going to forget that. I watch the video and was left in awe with his enthusiasm, he was so passionate about personal branding and building a business with a good brand. I do occasional go back to watch this video when I need some inspiration.

The other comment mentioned my headliner which was my first attempt at my personal brand. Hmmm, first attempt not very successful :-(   The person said the title appeared as if I was bragging that I was smarter than management as I could talk to everybody in the business about their business. This is not what I am like at all and actually had a chuckle when I read the comment. I can understand the numbers for you to make the right decisions for your business. Have to redo my headliner before the launch. I suppose without the rest of the personal branding, it didn’t work.

Last thing to do before the launch is My Personal Brand…

 

Next post in The Story -> My Personal Brand

 

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Being Proactive

27 July, 2009 in The Story | No comments

I had been in LinkedIn for about a month and was getting very disheartened by it all. I had dug into the deep, dark recesses of my brain to remember names from the past. Oh, I remember that person, they were really nice. What was their last name? How do I spell it? I had maxed out my connections at 60.

My career consultant suggests I start being active in my discussion groups. Discussion groups? That means I have to write, I’m a numbers person, I don’t write. I couldn’t even do my own resume and that is about me. How was I going to participate in discussion groups? So I start scouring my groups for a topic I could write about. I search and search, I find topics from statistics, IT processes to personal development and so many acronyms but nothing that I could write about. I know I was just avoiding the writing.

I finally find a topic I could understand ‘Non – IT Projects’. I am a non-IT BA so I’ll put up a comment. I started my comment by saying this was the first ever comment I had posted on a discussion board, I think I was doing the ‘please be kind’. I did not answer the question, I answered the question relating to my previous role which was not project driven. Over excitement about the topic.

Great, the first comment I post has made me look silly! Oh well, its all out there in ether land and nobody has said I didn’t answer the question. Phew! Then somebody answers my comment privately, they actually took notice of what I had to say and had sent me an invitation to join their network! Wow, my first outside network connection. We continued the discussion offline and agreed that we agreed.

I recently wrote to this connection asking why they had sent me the invitation even though I had not answered the question. The reasoning was my “jump in and splash approach” in a “normative behaviour surrounding it”. The approach was similar to themselves, whom they hadn’t thought about for 20 years. They had also told me they had been following along (the campaign) as a lurker. Every connect can bring a smile to your face whether just as a connection or in general conversation.

Elbow on table, head on hand, I scour some more. There in the corner advertising box is a conference ‘JobCamp – Getting Australia Working’, Win Personal Branding Campaign. Let’s look at the speakers, the only speaker I knew was Iggy Pintado, author of the Connection Generation, we had more than 10 shared connections, through colleagues in my previous role but we did not know each other. Conferences, expensive, price $495 but due to the Global Financial Crisis nominal contribution. Ok, this sounds good, This will be a good chance to meet with a shared connection, allow me to network with more people and be able to create my own discussion for my groups if I can win the prize.

I have registered for the conference, now I have to put something together to try and win the prize. Personal branding, I had been hearing about it since I had been out of work but what was it and what could I say to win the prize? I had to write again! What was I going to write about!!??

 

Next post in The Story -> First Impressions

 

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The Story Begins

15 July, 2009 in The Story | 8 comments

I was enjoying my job at Lenovo the work was complex and I could use my modelling skills in Excel. I knew my time was coming up as the hyperion system was going online in the following quarter. I was sent over to Malaysia for 3 weeks, the guys over there were really nice I was able to train them and also enjoy the shopping as well. :-) Though I was sick for the whole 3 weeks and could not enjoy the food as much as I would have liked to :-( .

When I came back, it was nice to have a break. I had been working 60 – 70 hours a week trying to get these models out and was happy to let my brain have a rest and had not had a holiday in a long time. I don’t usually take notice of what is really happening in the economy, all I knew was we were having a mining boom and China would keep the Australian economy buoyant.

Then the GFC. I started looking for work but by that stage the market had already decided to shut down. Summer came along, nothing happens in the summer, everybody is on holidays and the feedback from recruiters now is that it was one of the quietest summer’s they have ever seen. My resume was being presented to prospective employees but that is as far as it got.

I received a break when I got through to the interview stage with a Telco company. I got excellent feedback from my recruiter, Louise Pope, and from the interviewees but realised at the end of the interview that I was not going to be offered the job. The line was “we used the agent as only a backup as we have done our own advertising internally, you will hear if you get a second interview”. I knew then that was the end of that prospect.

My recruitrer ask how all other prospects had gone so I told her my story, she told me that I should be working and it was because my resume was not “cutting it“ when it got to the managers stage. So she introduced me to a career consultant, Kim Seeling Smith, who had already seen my resume due to previous applications to the agency and her response was that my resume was “ok”. She re-did my resume and introduced me to LinkedIn, which was at the end of March.

I had never social networked before, I did not see not see the benefits of joining any social network of any sort. I am a very private person and did not want to loose my privacy into the public domain. I had not even joined Facebook even at the request of many friends. Joining LinkedIn would mean I would have to tell everybody what I did for a crust. My friends at work did not know what I did or even my education. I am not one to brag. :roll:

So I join LinkedIn. I only put a summary of my role at Lenovo and I include all my other jobs. I start inviting people who I thought knew my work and me, I was omitting people who knew me, those who knew my work and those who had been at the end of many conference calls. I invited my Mr.P and Mr.VP but then withdrew the invitations as I had not met them in person eventhough I had received many emails and pings directly from them, I don’t know what I was thinking. And even sent a couple of I don’t knows as LinkedIn said only to accept inviations from people you know.

One of my ex-managers from Lenovo did not want to join LinkedIn to give me a recommendation. I thought that only managers could give you recommendations. My career consultant came to the rescue, she told me I had to connect with everybody I knew and recommendations were only a bonus. I also had to load everything on my profile but I didn’t want everybody to know about me. She told me that everything was in the public domain anyway so I had nothing to fear. I was reluctant but agreed with her.

So off I went connecting to everybody I knew. I wrote back to my ex-Mr.P and Mr.VP apologising for withdrawal as I just didn’t know how it worked. I recieved sincere replies from both of them and invitations to their networks. I appreciated their genuine responses. And sent back invitations to the people I sent ”don’t knows” and they kindly accepted.  It is amazing to see the support network you have out there without knowing it. Just having the small network I had, made me feel that I was not alone in my quest to find my dream job.

The next thing was to get my recommendations. So I looked at how LinkedIn had setup the recommendations. I thought this is pretty easy, just choose from the list, maximum 50, and see what you get back. I received a great response from my ex-colleagues at Lenovo and the recommendations were so nice, I did not know my work had received the acknowledgment it had. :-)

My profile is complete, I have connected to as many people as I can without having their email addresses, have recommendations and have started joining groups to connect to more people with the same interest and backgrounds. But what now?

 

Next post in The Story ->  Being Proactive

 

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