OK, so I’m being more than a little melodramatic to get your attention, but if you are guilty – you’re making a really big mistake. Not only in regard to my health, but your own networking and marketing health are suffering. Mark my words!

Look, I’m all for breaking rules to be avant garde  and stake a claim in cyberspace. But misusing profiles isn’t the way to do that.. it just makes you look like you don’t know what you’re doing. The rules of social engagement call for respect of user agreements.

Some ‘Don’ts’ from the LinkedIn User Agreement (10. LINKEDIN USER “DOS” and “DON’TS.”) 

• Don’t create a user profile for anyone other than a natural person
• Don’t upload a profile image that is not your likeness or a head-shot photo
• Don’t invite people you do not know to join your network (this one is just plain asinine, against the rules of social engagement and doesn’t count – must be a left over April Fool’s Day prank )

What would better suit your needs is a Company Page.

LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook have specific provisions for company pages. Twitter on the other hand functions quite differently and the best solution is to create separate personal and business accounts to strategically engage the twittersphere.

What’s wrong with networking as a business rather than as a person?

When you ‘hide’ behind a company profile, rather than present yourself as a representative of the company, you’ll find that you have to constantly police your attitude, sense of humor, distribution of content and personal relationships – because you are acting as the company. I can’t say how many times I have seen a ‘company’ post something not in its best interest because the individual behind the posts had a ‘personal’ hat on and missed an opportunity to represent the company in the best possible light.

When you wear the company hat the content character must be purposeful, selective, targeted and engaging to the right audience – often meaning the general public. Think of it as being a billboard with potentially immense global reach (depending on how good you, your strategy and execution are). It should be the company’s character that is promoted not the individual’s. That’s a heavy responsibility.

Managing your personal online presence is also critical matter – if you care, and you should. It’s expected an individual – regardless of how high up the food chain they are, has a unique personal style, character, sense of humor, off the cuff comments, candid moments, personal conversations, photos, etc. You can be the CEO and post about your family, vacation, what you had for lunch, and personal opinion, and it can crystallize the essence of ‘social networking’ and make you human and approachable – something that hiding behind a logo cannot do.

Can you see now why posting personal content directly under the company banner just doesn’t do the company any justice at all and it’s important to have both personal and corporate identities?

P.S. Don’t bother considering that I am being inappropriate with the inhaler here… I’m all too familiar. 

Anyone who belongs to a few groups and actually visits them or receives email updates (you know you can control those right?) knows that spam and off topic conversations are pervasive and even the most liberal of group moderators needs stock in flyswatters or it starts looking like Get Rich Quick Boulevard real fast. Real people, or at least ones who were genuinely interested in the group to begin with – start to change their settings to not receive updates, and leave.

If all group members had appropriate behavior, policing wouldn’t be necessary of course – but that wouldn’t be very indicative of human nature now would it?

Certainly you want to be seen as a good group citizen and have people take you seriously if you are going to be an effective networker. So, here are 5 tips to help:

1. Introduce yourself to the group – Most groups have a thread going where people introduce themselves. If the one you belong to doesn’t start one! Name it something innocuous but exciting like ‘Introductions”. Don’t post your resumé – just a few sentences about who you are and why you joined the group. Say what your expertise is and how you are willing to help others.

2. Do not make posts like this –> “Hey all Im Ken. Does anyone know of any jobs in mass communications here? have 2 masters from Syracuse and need a job now. If u know of anything, pleas write me at (email address)”. <– Seriously?

• Install and use spell check
• Use punctuation and capitalization
• This is not networking, this is lazy and no one is even going to reply except to tell you to use punctuation and capitalization and spell check

3. Be professional if you want to be taken like a professional.  Whining, flirting, harassing, and any other type of inappropriate comments are just going to sabotage your efforts and make you look like a clown. A benevolent group owner will warn you once and then kick you out if you do it again.

4. Do not mispost. That means jobs and job conversations go in the jobs tab. Promotions like B2B offers, discounts, whatever the group allows – should be posted in the promotions tab. And if the group is about XYZ don’t post ABC, you’ll stick out like a weed.

5. Read the the group description and rules. If you can’t stay on topic and be professional – don’t join, or risk looking like a fool and wasting the group’s time – and your’s too.

Do you have a tip for good LinkedIn group citizenship to add to the list?

One of the recurrent conversations that perked my ears was that even though the group is still relatively small, it is the largest in northeastern PA, and with such growth it isn’t as easy to know who’s a member anymore. As with every group, there are a handful of members who are very active, more who are occasional contributors, and a whole lot who are followers, lurkers – whatever you want to call them.

I offered to write some instructional posts to help people understand how to get the most out of the group experience. Today’s post is a shorty (happy Friday!!) explained almost entirely by a pictographic.

1) Click on the members tab

2) Search whatever type of individual you are looking for by keyword. Some ideas are searching by profession, city, company, skill or competency, alma mater, foreign or computer programming language, etc. Or, maybe you want to know how many members are named Bob. Whatever the case may be, the results are sure to be interesting.

3) Voilá – Sit back and scroll through the results!

After all, sometimes we all need help getting out of our rut. Know that if the current way you are searching for a job isn’t yielding the results you expect, it’s time to change your strategy. If your job search consists mainly of scouring the big job boards and registering on your state’s one-stop-shop website, know that there is so much more you can do to improve the odds of getting off unemployment or into your first professional gig post graduation.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

Here is the 10 step strategic job search plan I discuss when I go out to talk to college students, job clubs and with individuals I coach on their job search.

1. Identify the position you seek (be realistic or this will just be a futile exercise in fantasy and frustration). You may be open to or skilled in multiple jobs but pick the one you are most qualified for and most would like to be employed in.
2. Pull up your resumé on the screen and tailor it to this position. Mentally assume the position you have selected and review your resume to see that the professional you are in that role is talking. It must look, smell and feel like it’s you, the Forensic Accountant, Account Executive, HR Coordinator etc. in charge and talking. Note that most people simply do not do justice to their own resumé. If you cannot hire a professional resumé writer then at least go to book store to the business books section and find something like Resume Magic: Trade Secrets of a Professional Resume Writer by Susan Whitcomb. And don’t stop there… by all means have a couple of friends who who are managers and hire people (doesn’t have to be in your field) review, proof read and critique it for you. Remember, opinions are like #$$&()^!@ - literally everyone has one – just make an informed decision based on the critiquing and edit accordingly. The last two letters in resumé are ME so don’t be a template be you.
3. Think about 10 companies you would really like to work for – not 10 companies you ‘would’ work for if a carrot were dangled in front of your face. If you don’t know 10 companies that hire people to do what you do then you have a huge area of opportunity for research, and you will have increased your competitive  industry knowledge significantly – only to your benefit. Search on Google, LinkedIn, Hoovers if you have a subscription, etc. Check out this short instructional video for tips on How to Research Companies Online- Power Prospecting with Google Search. Yes, it is geared toward client prospecting for sales… I’m certain you can figure out how to adjust to your needs as a job seeker. You’re prospecting too!
4. Start a shareable spreadsheet (I love Google docs). The first tab is the summary sheet with the 10 companies on it. Then create a tab for each company. On each company sheet plot the following across the header row fields: company, contact 1, contact 2, contact 3, date resume sent, date response received, date of interview, next step, notes. Customize as you see fit but the idea is to chart a process and be deliberate not hari-kari, shot in the dark or random hit and miss.
5. Contact a few people you admire professionally and who are good networkers you think could help you with intelligence on or connections into these companies. Share the spreadsheet with them and give them access to edit it. In the email to send them the link, attach your resumé, let them know how much you admire their careers and value their expertise and assistance and you are asking that they be part of your personal advisory board during your job search. Ask that they help you fill out the contact information in the spreadsheet and make introductions for you via LinkedIn, email, phone, coffee, however they can. Ask them for their ideas on how you can network into these companies. Ask if they know of other companies who could use your talent. Research their suggestions and if you like them, add them to your spreadsheet.
6. Spend 2 hours Monday – Friday (except holidays) researching, networking, connecting, and charting your progress daily on the spreadsheet until you A) Get a job or B) Exhaust all options with your advisory board and the companies. That means until you receive a rejection from each company and rule it out. Don’t delete the row, highlight it in red and sort the row to the bottom of the list. Spend the rest of the day volunteering and taking care of and being good to yourself/family.
7. Keep 10 companies on the list at all times. When one is ruled out research others to replace it. This way, you’ll never run out of options until you get a job but never have more on the list than you can focus on. It’s strategic, it’s a plan. It’s doable.
8. Send a weekly progress summary in an email to your personal advisory board with the link to the spreadsheet and ask them to review your work and make suggestions. Doing this each week without fail (except if you are in a coma) keeps you and your advisory board committed. If your advisory board members all know one another then send a group email and revel in the groupthink that begins to take place. If not, ask for permission to make the introductions to one another. The advisory board members can get a lot out of this too!
9. Be gracious to your advisory board members, thanking them profusely for their time and energy and be patient and kind to yourself as your network grows and you begin to get more interviews and chart progress in your job search. No more blindly surfing job boards, just calculated actionable and measurable steps to success…
10.  Get your job and then spend time teaching this method to others. Forward this post to other job seekers, get your personal advisory board to do a panel presentation with you at a job fair or job club, blog about your own job search and what worked and what didn’t – to help others. Be a personal advisory board member for someone else, the way others did for you.

P.S. I didn’t post about HOW you should network -you have to do what works for you. I suggest a combination of in-person and on-line networking – neither exclusive of the other. That means LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, online communities, professional mixers, job clubs, association meetings, professional community events where you live. You know, stuff like that.

In the upper right hand corner of every page on LinkedIn is a site search with ‘people’ as the default. The common use of the search field is to look for people you know or would like to connect with. Many people don’t realize the box drops down to 7 fabulous search features, each with their unique benefits.

Even the busiest, most time constrained person can upgrade their online networking activity by spending even 15 minutes a week with my drop down technique on LinkedIn.

It’s great for people who need a little guidance and structure to their online networking to optimize their LinkedIn experience. I hope you’ll like it and find yourself with a new coffee ritual in the morning.

1. People – Take the business cards you collected during the week and check your calendar for the upcoming week’s meetings and connect. Personalize the invitations by letting your new contacts know you would like to stay updated on their activity via LinkedIn. Your network and access to the network of your new contacts will grow quickly.
2. Updates – When you search updates you are searching the global LinkedIn network. Use keywords for your industry, professional interests, someone in the news, technology – anything you would like to see the network perspective on. Click on profiles of people you would like to know more about and if you’re interested – connect.
3. Jobs – Search jobs even if you love yours. Stay abreast of positions at the competition, learn who could use your services as a consultant during a gap, see where the turnover is – in short, job posts reveal a lot of information even for non job seekers. If you are looking for a new opportunity you’ll see who you’re connected to that could give you insider info and walk your resume to the hiring manager or HR.
4. Companies – The company profile is the perfect place to find consolidated information on news, recent company and employee activity, demographics, who you are connected to there, job openings and stock info if applicable. It’s a great way to help prepare for an interview or upcoming meeting.
5. Answers – Search keywords to find conversations you can participate in with the global LinkedIn network. Crowdsource information and opinions, help build your reputation as a subject matter expert, find experts and – connect.
6. Inbox – You might notice from the screenshot in this post that I have a lot in my LinkedIn inbox. I don’t delete everything. The inbox is searchable by name and keyword so for example, if I search ‘human resources’ anyone who has that in their profile or a message they sent me will return in the results. Keep your conversations unless they are junk, one day you’ll be glad you did.
7. Groups – LinkedIn allows everyone to belong to 50 groups. This is a huge benefit because when you belong to a group you are indirectly connected to all its members and have access to them without having to connect directly. Groups can be searched by industry, occupation, university, geography, company/organization, natural resource, etc. You can join and leave groups, and not so long ago group owners were given the option of opening to the public. That means the content of groups that are open can be viewed and commented on by non group members. To start a discussion you’ll have to become a member of the group however. Groups also have free job boards and many recruiters post there versus paying for posts on LinkedIn jobs.

Are you one of the one in six? If not, you have an area of opportunity to work on. Although you’ll find jobs posted on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, job posts are not the power of social networking.  The power is in building relationships enabled by these vehicles. It takes some learning and finesse to understand how to be truly effective – or, you can slog through it by trial and error, key and click and hope you land on your feet at an interview.

Before you can be effective in a web 2.0 social job search it’s crucial to have a working foundational understanding of social media, reputation management, etiquette, and a strategy.

If you live in northeast PA and want to increase your level of digital literacy, build your 2.0 social skills to help with your job search, help market your business, recruit employees, promote jobs opportunities or your nonprofit, meet others with similar interests, manage an online community, or just demystify the web of tools available today to enhance communication and quality of life, I have news to share:

Luzerne County Community College has invited me to conduct a  series of 4 workshops on Tuesday evenings in March, Facebook and Beyond with Karla Porter. It’s a hands on workshop in a computer lab that will be held from 6-9pm at the Corporate Learning Center on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

From the course guide:

This hands-on novice series of four workshops is designed to build a foundation for using the social webs most popular applications like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, for the purpose of creating conversations, building relationships and reputation management. The workshops will provide hands on experience with account management, basic and advanced features, third party applications and the creation of a ‘social media strategy’ to help you effectively engage in virtual communities, target interests, promote ideals and events and manage your online personality. You will experience a variety of tools that allow you to participate in the key activities of social media: listening, connecting, contributing, communicating, community, and measuring. The workshops will take place in a computer lab for hands-on exploring the social web, learning and application of the tools. You will leave the workshop with a solid basic understanding of social media / Web 2.0 concepts, key skills for implementing social web initiatives and knowledge of how to build an effective presence and strategy. Target Audience: Students with keyboarding skills that are comfortable using a PC and the Internet that are interested in using social media tools for listening, connecting, contributing, communicating, building community, and measuring.

 This is a hot opportunity to tap 12 hours of my time and expertise for $109.  - a crazy unheard of deal at $9.08 per hour of instruction.

Go ahead, search social media seminars and courses and see if you come up with something comparable. I’m partnering with the college to do it because I’m committed to increasing the use of this type of technology in the region to help bring the community up to par in its use with other metro areas across the country, increase our market competitiveness and suck us into the age of modernity.

If you’re an executive who blocks social media in your company because it’s ‘scary’ I hope to see you there, and bring your marcom peeps too.

P.S. This is a community service not my consulting fee – so catch it while you can!

I went and did as I was told and true to his word, amazingly that’s how it happened. I filled out what amounted to be a formality of an application, Mr. Someone shook my hand and bestowed upon me the title of Rubber Band Packaging Machine Operator. I went to work the the following morning.

There were good things and areas of opportunity about that day. The company had a commitment to hire veterans and would ‘find’ a job for them. The process at the unemployment office was well-meaning but as I look back knowing what I know now, it was fraught with failure.

Day one was interesting, I job shadowed and was marveled by the machinery, how the boxes were automatically folded, the timing of the assembly line and how whistles ran the place. Day two I mastered my job by lunchtime and in the cafeteria looked at faces more than twice my age who had never had another job, doing the same thing day in and day out forever. Day three I went in halfheartedly and resigned at the end of my shift. I’m as much a fit for a rubber band packaging machine as I am for ragweed farming – not. I’ll bet I was a grand disappointment. I may have even appeared to be ungrateful, though I wasn’t.

There have been milestone improvements in what was once called the unemployment office, renamed by the US Department of Labor as one-stop shops, with a different moniker in each state.  The unemployment claims process was separated out and relegated to call centers and the Internet, leaving state employed career specialists the opportunity to source jobs, prepare candidates and make the match. It’s still not swanky, clearly not cutting edge and still very blue collar oriented – but it has improved greatly. I’m sure there are centers of excellence – depending on the leadership and I know there are centers that still operate as if we were in the 80′s. I won’t give addresses.

One of the best advents to come out of the Department of Labor is O*NET, the nation’s primary source of occupational information. Central to the project is the O*NET database which provides the basis for Career Exploration Tools, a set of assessment instruments. It has been recently retooled for veterans as My Next Move for Veterans. It’s useful to military personnel and new veterans researching civilian careers. You can browse careers by industry or keyword and something new and super helpful is the ability to enter the name or code of your military classification for translation to civilian careers with similar work. You can learn more about DOL employment initiatives and opportunities for veterans here.

Three major forces of the Internet, Google, Facebook and LinkedIn have all stepped up in 2011 with products for transition to civilian life and career.

Recently, Google donated 600 Chromebooks to Walter Reed  Hospital that can be checked out from the Red Cross so wounded members of the military can communicate, research and help plan their future. This past week they helped launch the Veterans Job Bank in collaboration with the National Resource Directory. And then they did something else equally as awesome and beautiful. They created Google for Veterans.

The Google Veterans Network is our employee volunteer community that strives to make Google a great place to work for those who have served, their families and their friends. We also aim to be a positive contributor to the veteran community at large. Google products and services have made our lives a little easier – whether we are still in the service, transitioning out, or on a new path in our civilian lives. We wanted to give back to the community and help other veterans and their families discover how useful these tools can be. So we created Google for Veterans and Families – a collection of free and useful tools from our veterans’ community to yours.

The description is humble to say the least. They have assembled a very powerful suite of tools – some you are already familiar with and others that are new, based on Google technology. The site is made up of four main tools.  VetConnect allows vets to find other vets with similar experiences. Google Veterans Channel is a YouTube channel for videos and discussions related to military service. Resume Builder powered by Google Docs provides auto-formatted resumes, and Tour Builder powered by Google Earth (coming soon) will display “3D maps of veterans’ service histories, complete with photos and videos”. Visit, you won’t be disappointed.

Facebook recently rolled out U.S. Military on facebook. There are many, many pages on Facebook that are military related but until the launch of this page there has been no consolidated effort.

Our goal is to bring together resources and information to help the millions of military personnel, veterans, and families stay connected and informed.

The page’s Career Resources are still slim in variety but I expect – hope – they will grow. Right now they rely on BranchOut and Military.com, a Monster Company and the largest military and veteran membership organization — 10 million members-strong. Facebook is of course the great friend finder, it’s where I found my Air Force buddy Debbie after a 28 year loss of contact. Search the word military on Facebook and you’ll find enough affinity groups and pages to keep you busy for a long time.

Not to be outdone, LinkedIn and the White House have joined forces to kick off the first ever Veterans Hackday. They invited hackers to put together projects that can improve any aspect of a veteran’s life. For encouragement, they assembled a phenomenal lineup of judges; Sumit Agarwal, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media, and Jeff Weiner, CEO LinkedIn. Wow…. I am following the action at @LinkedInEng and simply cannot wait to see what they come up with!

In the meantime, visit LinkedIn’s new microsite for Veterans  tailored with tips, tools and information to help veterans find new opportunities across LinkedIn, including a free one-year Job Seeker subscription for all US veterans and current service men and women. Be sure to knock out a a great profile and join groups like  U.S. Veteran and U.S. Military Veterans Network, to find profiles of veterans who have made the transition to civilian careers.

I’m filled with joy that now, more than ever before, military personnel can start exploring and preparing for their M2C career transition from wherever they have an Internet connection.

P.S. I read a ton of Veterans Day posts but 100 Ways to Honor a Veteran by Breanne Harris  won my heart. It’s timeless and full of splendid ideas big and small for honoring veterans every day of the year. You should read it.

It seems to me the odds of posting a job on LinkedIn resulting in just a handful of candidates are near nill – assuming of course it is a real job that pays real money and not a get rich quick scheme. I would bet a wad of money on that and I don’t generally bet my green. In fact, in 2011 – when the US average number of resumes received per opening is 200 , I’m trying to figure out what would prompt LinkedIn to ‘guarantee’ only 10 applicants?

I don’t expect LinkedIn will have a queue of refund requests, considering its wimpy and almost comical wager.  I do think they made a brand management error in not showing some confidence in their services and should have upped the ante to be at the very least closer to the national average.

What guarantee do you think LinkedIn should have made?

I don’t know what made me go to TED when I woke up. I clicked on science and then around the visual map of talks. Daniel Tammet: Different ways of knowing tugged strongly at the cursor. I had a side conversation with myself as I got up to let Nena out, give her and the cats breakfast and make coffee.

“I’ve had the LinkedIn app installed on my Blackberry forever and never received a notification of an update.. They would let me know right? Let me check while the café lungo brews. I need to chart the fifty-eight facets of self. They’re screw ups, I knew it.. can’t believe they didn’t let me know. I think it’s horrible that people push cake into your face on your birthday or wedding, wonder how that tradition started, I’ll have to look it up. I need to review the employer documents for the internship program. Whose right, Zuckerberg or the Winklevoss twins? Wonder if it’s really true that we’re done evolving because we’re too numerous and spread out? It’s a shame I won’t be here to find out. When are we going to have a presidential candidate who is a rational and doesn’t buy into fantasy? 11 (plastic forks), 3 (cinnamon rolls), 2 (bags of cat food), 12 (pleats in the curtain).  It won’t happen, they’ll all pander to the superstitious belief of the masses and drop hints of supposed spiritual guidance like a secret handshake or outright claim to have a bat phone connection to a god who requires adoration in this life for a magical eternal life after death and promise to help us all by invoking divine intervention. Maybe I won’t be able to vote this time. Fourth of July in Boston. Great, now I have this to think about  for a year and a half. Wonder if I would do as well in public as the man with the severe face trauma in Target the other night, I really admire him. This house should have a build in Roomba. I need to move ideas out of my head and into implementation faster. ‘My baby takes the morning train, he works from 9 to 5 and then…’Why is Sheena Easton in my head?”

Coffee done, dog back in the house. TED talk on…

I watched Daniel Tammet speak and at the same time, and surprisingly for the first time, thought deeply and purposefully about how my senses process stimuli, how I interpret the results, what I do with the data and about how I express the impact of the results externally.

I’m fine with the multiple rapid fire conversations that merrily go on in my head concurrently, but sometimes when I speak I’m conscientious of the staccato sounds coming out of my mouth as my brain works furiously to painfully funnel only one of them to my tongue. Sometimes I’m good, sometimes I say the wrong word. Sometimes it’s in the wrong language. Sometimes I can’t decide between several so I move one to another thought.  I can see how much effort it takes sometimes by the screwy faces I make when I watch myself on camera or in the mirror. If I’m very busy in my head it doesn’t come out right at all so I just don’t talk. I don’t like talking with a lot of people at the same time, only one or two.

We size up and judge most every aspect of an individual in a matter of seconds from physical characteristics to attitude. Human nature is to judge and we clearly all have preferences shaped by our own will, by our environment and formation by others. Yet, how we are wired is not up for judgement. In some things, we just are. Daniel’s talk on perception is exemplary not because he is autistic or a savant, but because he demonstrates that our perceptions often do not adhere to any type of standard but our own.

In the office, at the gym or on the street, next time you are tempted to judge someone’s expression of thought or actions remember that your perceptions of them are based on how you are wired, not they. When it comes to humans, X = green is not algebraic. It has different answers.

p.s. Do you have one minute conversations with yourself like mine? I want to know.

p.s.s If you click on this particular talk on the TED site, you’ll see the comments are as interesting if not more so than Tammet’s talk. Be careful how you judge.