Motivation is sometimes hard to come by, but it’s essential to keeping forward momentum in your career.
If anyone knows this, it’s online marketing strategist Tommy Walker, who went from being fired over pair of pants 3 years ago to writing a magnum-opus guest post “106 Excuses That Prevent You From Ever Being Great” on Chris Brogan’s web site. Brogan, known for almost never accepting guest posts, took a chance on Walker’s piece, and in the process threw any editorial guidelines he might have had out the window, posting all 7,000+ words of it.
The response the post received so far has been phenomenal, with 329 retweets and 1,260 likes on Facebook as this is being written. We’ll talk to Walker about his journey from fired cell phone salesman to successful online marketing strategist and guest blogger, and get tips for knocking down excuses and staying motivated.
This segment was pre-recorded, and will air Friday, October 28, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. ET. To listen, follow this link or use the player in the right sidebar.
Networking is a skill that comes naturally for some, and less so for others. And it takes many forms. But ask most people if it’s essential to getting ahead in your field, and moving up, and you will get a resounding “yes” from most.
In a recent edition of the #sasearch Twitter chat, which I host each week with Laura McGivern of theSASearch.Org, we talked about networking and tried to give people some good tips on how to network, in person and online. You can find the full transcript of the chat at thesasearch.org/chats, so I encourage you to go there and download the pdf.
I think that networking is a skill that must be learned by doing. So while it was definitely nice to talk about how to network, and to learn about what people struggle with, I also want to help people move from processing and reflecting and into action. (And, as Mallory Bower pointed out in the networking chat, we often network without realizing that were are doing it.)
It also occurred to me that staying motivated is one of the hardest parts of any job search. It can be hard to keep your spirits up in the face of uncertainty. At times like these it’s useful to have a strong support network, and these days that extends oftentimes to online networks. Twitter in particular is one place where modern professionals find regular support and encouragement.
But there is something to be said about taking networking relationships off-line, and dialing back the use of technology. Some great example that comes to mind are the “good luck” cards that many of us make a point to put in candidate mailboxes at Placement Conferences, and those times when people who have connected online send each other cards and faxes, or schedule phone calls or Skype dates. Bringing in a human element to your online relationships makes them feel more real, and can reaffirm the possibility of these virtual relationships resulting in long-term friendships, mentoring relationships, and even potential career opportunities. (My favorite example of this was the “parking lot pep talks” that Stacy Oliver and Shannon Healy discussed on a previous episode of my podcast.
In this vein, I would like to create an opportunity for readers and colleagues to engage in positive networking, to bring relationships off-line and into the real world, and to share a little bit of themselves and their talents with a broader audience.
I am a big fan of the simple artwork by Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid.com, and of the simple cartoons by Mike Davenport of stickfiguresimple.com, who I worked with to create a brief video last year as part of the “What Higher Education Needs to Learn” series. These two artists post regular updates to their blogs in the form of simple drawings that creatively illustrate simple and powerful lessons for life and for work.
As the father of 2 small children I am also a big fan of arts and crafts. This was true before I ever had children and is a common affliction among many in student affairs. A while back, I came across an article about artist trading cards in Disney Family Fun magazine. You can find the article online at familyfun.go.com, but I’ll explain the concept briefly here.
Artist trading cards are tiny works of art on rectangles of paper, either cut by hand or bought in an art supply store. The artist trading card movement, also called ATC movement, began in Zürich Switzerland, and has become a favorite activity of many. The idea is that artists swap work in their communities and online and then kids and family discover art, and learn about trading, while expressing themselves, and developing a love for art.
There are just 2 rules in ATC. First, the cards must be 2.5″ x 3.5″ and second, they may be traded but not sold. I think that the ATC movement, crashed together with the kind of inspirational and motivational messages in MacLeod and Davenport’s art, could lend itself toward the creation of the great experiment in positive networking that could forge new off-line connections between members of the online student affairs community that might otherwise not happen.
You may have noticed that a while back, I posted some random cartoons that I drew on my Facebook business page and on Twitter. This was the mysterious project that I was beginning to work on. And now I need your help.
I’d like to feature artist trading cards designed by readers and other members of the student affairs communities that exist online on this blog. But I want to take it a couple of steps further as well, by not only sharing the art here, but by acting as an intermediary in the creation of potential real life relationships. If you would like to participate, here’s what you need to do:
Draw an artist trading card with your own original message and art on a 2.5 x 3.5 piece of paper or index card stock.
Mail the artist trading card, a copy of your current business card (if you do not have one, include a piece of paper with your name, telephone number, physical mailing address, and e-mail address written clearly on it), and a pre-addressed, stamped envelope to Cook Coaching and Consulting LLC, 191 E. Broad Street, Suite 217, Athens Georgia 30601
When I receive your card, I will scan it, and upload the images to a gallery that will be linked to my Facebook company page.
In your pre-addressed stamped envelope, I will return to you someone else’s art card and business card, in the hope that you will connect off-line. (Please remember to pre-address and pre-stamp the return envelope!)
This project will continue through the end of the year (if not longer), and the art contributed to this project will be considered for inclusion in upcoming products, including postcards, posters, online videos, presentations, and a possible motivational book for job seekers in higher education. Ideally, I’d like to choose a few of the best and make some cards that you can send to friends, colleagues and students to help them stay motivated in their search, or to
All submissions shall become the property of Cook Coaching and Consulting LLC. Artists will not be compensated for their contributions.
Proceeds from the sale of any products developed as a result of this project will go toward providing free or reduced-cost coaching, resume services and other career assistance to job-seekers in higher education, and to support other worthy efforts that benefit higher education job-seekers. Updates about proceeds collected, and services/assistance provided will be posted periodically on this site and the Facebook page.
Many educators struggle with networking. Some see networking as something people do in the corporate world, but not in academia. They don’t always understand why they should network, or how to do it if they want to. Mary Vogl-Rauscher has taught Leadership Development and business courses at Moraine Park Technical College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin for the past 15 years. The Leadership Development program offers training in leadership; human relations; budgeting; quality, legal and safety issues; problem solving and team building; and diversity and change management. MORE INFO ON PROGRAM: (http://bit.ly/q8DMpk )
Prior to Moraine Park, Mary was Director of Executive Staffing and Development at Shopko for ten years and also worked in Human Resources and Operations at Proctor and Gamble and Corporate McDonald’s.
With her experience in higher education, career transitions, human resources and leadership development, Mary was able to offer some great perspectives on networking, how to do it, how to get started, and stumbling blocks to avoid when networking. Vogl-Rauscher credits networking for helping her successfully make the transition from the corporate world to academia.
This edition of the podcast was pre-recorded. The show will return live next week, with an interview of Laurence Shatkin from JIST Publishing. We’ll be discussing how to go about researching and planning a career outside of higher education. Please listen and call in!
Twitter hashtag chats are a great way to get people talking about different topics, and there are great examples out there (#sachat and #jobhuntchat come to mind) that have brought people together to talk about professional development and job searching.
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be helping to moderate a new Twitter chat, devoted exclusively to job search issues in Student Affairs, with “Sarah Searcher” (not her real name) from TheSASearch.Tumblr.Com. “Sarah,” who has until recently been job-searching herself, created the blog as a place where candidates could share their experiences, perspectives and advice about the Student Affairs job search.
We crossed paths on Twitter, and I sent her a message a while back asking if she’d be interested in getting this chat going. So we will be having our first one this week, and weekly after that, on Wednesdays from 11:30.-12:30 Eastern time!
How to join in the fun? Log on to Twitter or use a program like TweetGrid or TweetChat to search for the hashtag #sasearch. We’ll post questions, listed as “Q1, Q2, Q3, etc.” Write in and join the conversation. Afterwards, visit TheSASearch or this site for transcripts.
What value do you place on free professional development and networking events, like free webinars, hashtag chats on Twitter, and free in-person career events?
We’ll talk about some of these ideas and hopefully share perspectives on free professional development and networking, in contrast to specialized help you pay for, formalized mentoring, short courses, books. etc.
Call in and let me know what you think!
I’ll be talking about a new upcoming hashtag chat I am putting together with #SASearch which will be entirely devoted to job search issues in student affairs. We’re hoping to start next week and have a weekly opportunity to discuss job search issues. We’ll be using the hashtag #sasearch and
Also, I’ll share of my experiences with webinar platforms, especially those that are free, including BigMarker, which I used this week, and others.
And finally, I am going to talk a bit about Hiring for Hope, a great non-profit here in Georgia which I volunteered for recently and about my fundraising campaign on FirstGiving to support this charity.
Until this week, Greg Meyer was the Customer Experience Manager at Gist. In part 3 of a 4-part interview with writer and career coach Sean Cook, Meyer talked about managing your reputation using Social CRM tools. Meyer began a new job at Assistly earlier this week.
I give career advice to college students, both in my private practice and with a small school here in Georgia, Wesleyan College, and talk to them about what they put out on social media, especially on Facebook. You know, college students think they are tricky. They’ll set up one for their mom and dad and for employers to look at, and then they’ll set up a second one, where they post their party photos and talk to their friends about drinking and whatever else.
What I think is interesting is that tools like Gist can confound that, because all of the relational data allows it to see the related e-mail addresses under which they registered and to kind of “mine” that data in some ways. And so I’ve shown job seekers kind of how to do a “social media audit” using Gist, where they can kind of see that what they think they aren’t putting out there, they still are. So I talk to people about using privacy filters wisely. The other thing is “Don’t think you can really get away with anything these days, because the network is almost becoming self-aware, because of tools like this.”
=I would say in response to that is that we honor the privacy controls set by the browser. So if you have locked things down on Facebook or other web service, we wouldn’t see that. And we’re not mining private data. We’re only mining public data. So your advice about having them understand that anything they put online could be seen by someone else is good.What I usually tell people who read newspapers is that if you don’t want to show up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, or USA Today, then don’t post it. If they don’t read newspapers, and don’t want to read it on TechCrunch, then don’t post it. If you are owning your own brand and understanding that when people do a search on Google, or do a search on these other services, that they are going to find you, then that gives you additional power, because you can say, “this is what I want to present.” And if all my social media waypoints are saying the same thing, then it’s going to ring true, and people are going to have a consistent view of me. That’s probably the best defense you have against being seen in the wrong way.
And, as far as having your friends post pictures of you that you would rather not like them to post, I can’t help you with that.
Yeah, there are some people who couldn’t make their friends stop, no matter what. I think that’s a point I always like to drive home. Some people have said to me “This really feels ‘Big Brother,’ and my thought is “it’s in the public stream.”
Yeah, it is really all out there, already, and tools like Gist, tools like Google Reader, tools like Rapportive or Xobni, or any of these other tools are just revealing things that search engines have really known for a long time and you can now search them all in one place. It’s out there, and you may just not realize it’s out there.
I think that in today’s marketplace, and today’s career marketplace, the truth is that it’s harder to spin things, because reputation management is a two-way street. What I tell job-seekers is that you can put anything you want out on the internet, as long as you are willing to stand by it, as how you are, or what you meant to put out there, or explain what your rationale was, or what your thinking was, and maybe even admit your mistakes if people don’t perceive it correctly or if it just wasn’t a case of good judgement.
Sure. You are the best person able to tell the story of you. So the better the story you tell, and the more consistent it is, the more believable it is.
I think that’s probably one of the best things to make people aware of: it’s not a private place. The internet is “public, in overdrive.” If you wouldn’t be doing it on your front porch, you probably shouldn’t be doing it on the internet.
Work with Sean. I help higher ed professionals take control of their careers with tailored services including resume and CV development, LinkedIn profile optimization and networking strategy, interview coaching, and one-on-one career guidance.
