Reflections of a Square Peg

Are you NOT on LinkedIn? - So What!

I have just been made aware of a potentially career damaging (or at the very least heart stopping!) action that may happen with your LinkedIn profile - IT COULD DISAPPEAR!

Fellow Personal Brand Strategist - Jason Alba at Jibber Jobber has just put a posting out about the threat of losing your Linked In profile - and more importantly what to do about at least preserving your contacts and profile - and those all important recommendations.

Check out his blog posting here at Jibber Jobber.com

Cross posted at Career Hub

Employers & Social Networking Sites

I was contacted today regarding a survey being conducted by Personnel Today - the leading HR publication in the UK regarding the use of social networking sites at work and employers reactions to them and their use by employees.

If you are an employer you can take the survey by clicking here.

It is certainly a hot topic and one that is not going to go away anytime soon.

If you are an employee what do you think?

Is it right for an employer to use social networking sites to check up on prospective candidates or current employees?

Should your employer limit your access to social networking sites at work?

If you make a comment about your employer on a social network site in your own time, should they be allowed to censure you?

How far should it go?

I would be interested to hear your views.

26 Experts on How to Make Money Not Cold Calling

I don't know many people who like to cold call, I know it has never been that successful for me. Not only is it so impersonal and intrusive, but it just doesn't work, how many times do you put the phone down or screen the telesales call at home? For every 50 cold calls you make, only 2 will result in an appointment.

My friend, Leesa Barnes, hates cold calling. She relied on cold calling to get clients for her web development business in 1997. Two years later and heavily in debt, Leesa gave up on self employment and got herself a full time job.

When she was laid off in 2004, Leesa decided to try self employment again. But this time, she did things a little differently. Leesa decided to use social media to find new clients and make money.

Four years later, Leesa has published a book, is a recognized expert in podcasting and has tripled her income in just 12 months - all without cold calling.

If you think Facebook, MySpace, blogs and podcasts are only used by teenagers, you're missing out on one of the easiest ways to find new clients.

If you want to learn how to use social media as a business tool and do it right the first time, I invite you to check out a virtual event taking place this month that's hosted by Leesa.

It's called the Social Media Telesummit and it features 26 amazing speakers who will teach you
how to use social media for business.

There's no fluff at this event. Each speaker will teach you a specific tip based on their practical, in the trenches experiences.

So, if you want to say goodbye to cold calling and use a fun and profitable way to find new
clients, click on the following link to read more about how this event will help you:

Social Media Telesummit

Watching You Watching Me

There had to be a ROI with Facebook at some stage and the new approaches in targeted advertising would appear to be getting some people upset according to an article in the Globe & Mail today.

Just this week I bumped in to someone who is helping parents (and their children) understand the implications of Facebook and allowing access, not switching on filters etc etc - it pays to check it out.

Lost for words? - Well I am just in the pink!

How do you get 70+ MBA students and a room full of alumni talking if its not immediately about jobs?

Hold a networking event where there are 4 chairs like this that are sold for $10,000 each!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to work with one of the current Ivey MBA classes on personal branding , time just flew by as we talked about personal brands and how they might start to look at the way they are communicating and portraying their brands differently. I feel that we shifted, I was certainly energized by the students interest and enthusiasm for the subject and certainly the feedback was positive - many liked the fact that the presentation included references to pop culture and related to them much more.

It was then enhanced when we got to spend a few hours in the evening at Ultra Supper Club on Queen Street in Toronto where they had just taken delivery of the Verve Cliquot loveseats designed by Karim Rashid. The full story on the chairs can be read in this Globe & Mail article.

A fun conversation piece, an ice breaker even - it just went to show that sometimes you do not have to worry aobut what you are initially going to say when you have a fibreglass chair in the room!

Build Your Network

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to be speaking in Rochester, New York to a group called Rochester Asian Networking, which is a getting together of Asian employees from the principal employers in the city - namely Xerox, ITT, Kodak and Bausch & Lomb.

There was an enthusiastic turnout on a Saturday morning and the day created quite a buzz. The message of using personal branding to manage your career in a corporate setting was well received. In particular several of us had an interesting discussion around this approach for a culture that typically might be considered more conformist than individual.

The emphasis of authenticity was particularly welcomed, there is always a discomfort in the expectation of having to be someone you are not - the right approach to personal branding is certainly not all about pizazz and no substance - quite the opposite.

Telecommuting? - Another good reason to consider personal branding

  If you are currently telecommuting or feel that telecommuting is an ideal part of your next job you are going to want to consider some strategies to make yourself more visible.

According to a recent Korn Ferry survey 61% of executives believe that telecommuters are less likely to advance compared to employees working in traditional office settings.

If that is the perception then you will want to look at ways to raise your brand profile so that you do get forgotten.

Three personal brand actions for the telecommuter to get noticed:

1. Do not rely on just email to keep in touch internally. It is sometimes too easy to send an email when taking a few extra minutes to connect by telephone or just to leave a voicemail reminds people of who you are and makes the connection that bit more personal.
2. Offer to bring departments and groups up to date with what you are doing and to hear where they are at next time you are in the office. Suggest a brown bag lunch update or bring in the coffee and donuts.
3. Volunteer for committees or in projects that you can add value to remotely. With the abundance of various technologies just because you are hundreds or thousands of miles away does not mean you cannot be involved, its just going to take a little more effort.

Its sometimes hard enough to be memorable to the people that matter when you are in an office, telecommuting can add to that 'invisibility' - good personal branding career management means raising your visibility and being memorable.

Cross posted on the Career Hub blog - go there to get your free copy of their latest ebook - "Insiders Guide to Resume Writing"

Internal Networking Using Technology

The next phase of the social networking advance is now upon us - Enterprise 2.0 - as reported in this recent Globe & Mail article talks about how we will be seeing the use of various social networking technology, such as forums, blogs etc, inside companies.

Forward thinking companies are already taking the notion of personal branding and applying it to employees internally to improve,  amongst other things, communication - the availability of a suite of tools aiding this communication is a natural extension and I think something you wil lstart to see more of as companies look to engage employees and share knowledge more rapidly and globaly for competitive advantage.

Making Connections

Whenever I travel I always take the opportunity to see if I can connect with people in my network, or look to meet with others that potentially can become part of my network. Ferrazzi talks about this in his book Never Eat Alone and its a habit that is very worth forming.

This trip to Montreal has been no exception as I have been able to connect with one colleague and two new potential connections.

I met with Danielle Silverman, a fellow personal brand strategist and we were able to catch up on each others businesses and developments.

We then both met with a great lady Joanne Duchastel of JED New Media, a company that is really carving a place ofr itself in the elearning space and creating a library of every topic you can think of through its JEDlets.

And then I was able to meet Mitch Joel of Twist Image, a rapidly growing digital marketing agency, at a really funky cafe in one of the neatest office spaces I have seen for a long time. Mitch has been speaking on the topic of personal branding and I always find its great to meet with like minded people and see where that leads.

Take a moment next time you are going on a trip to see who you might want to connect with - you'll be glad you did.