Dreams

Does anyone put any stock in dreams?  I am not talking about aspirations for where you see yourself in five or ten years.  I am talking about those images that appear to you in your sleep.

I was speaking with someone the other day from my past.  Neither of us were close friends twenty years ago; we were acquaintances at best and each of us were pre-occupied with the activities in our own little worlds.  That being said, we had a rather meaningful dialogue, discussed the past and where we find ourselves now, and we each deal with reconciling how things have turned out.

I woke up the next morning with images and people from 20 years ago mingled with issues and matters of today.  Most times I can put the pieces together and say to myself, “that image was there because I thought of that at some point yesterday”.  But when the issues of today are thrown into the mix, I can’t help but wonder if my mind is putting familiar images together in a way to help me deal with those issues or matters. 

Even Small-Town Community Groups Need Marketing

Most of us, when we spend a considerable amount of time in a community, become aware and involved in various civic and fund raising efforts.  Perhaps supporting fire and rescue companies or helping out a little league team.  In my neck of the woods, perhaps yours as well, activities revolving around food bring the greatest interest.  Those events that are frequent or annual become the easiest to manage as they have a built-in anticipation to their marketing.  I know that when the phone rings and it is a certain person that he is calling to see “how many?” and not to talk about the weather or politics.

Recently, with the help of a local expert on the operations end of a successful hoagie sale, another group attempted to put on a hoagie sale.  The scope was about 1/3^rd of the size and from an operations stand point it was flawless.  But one thing that cannot be duplicated is the marketing effort or built-in demand.  Thankfully, this smaller operation did sell out, but not without having to set up a few road side stands.

It started me thinking, how could this newbie group have done things differently?  Both the project coordinator and the head of the group are moderately social savvy.  One has a Facebook profile and the other operates the Facebook account for the group.  A mis-step of sorts here is that the group on Facebook is set up as a personal profile and not as an organizational page.  However, given that error, each could have set up an Event in Facebook.  Each could have, at any point in time, set up a Facebook Group forum.  Either would have helped to spread the word.  Furthermore, via other group forums that each potentially could have belonged, the word could have been spread.  

 

Other apps and media outlets could have been utilized as well.  Foursquare and Google Plus come to mind.  Google Plus has a “local” feature where events can be created and Foursquare, via check-ins and comment posts, could spread the word to others. Pictures and posts of the days activities could have sparked followers to take an interest in supporting the endeavor.

Marketing, as we know, is critical and no less so because it is a grass-roots, small community organization selling a $5 hoagie.  I would imagine most organizations, when they meet to discuss their fund raising activities, focus on the operations end and making sure that everything is ordered or physically in place.  Perhaps a separate committee should be created to focus on marketing; everything from posters, flyers and phone trees to social media campaigns.

The Role of Social Media in the Hiring Process

When the realms of Social Media and Human Resources are combined it could lead to a very lengthy meandering of topics.  Unfortunately, there is no short answer to the timely topic of an employer asking a potential employee for their social media passwords.  If I were to give a short answer in reply to this line of questioning, it would be in haste and without contemplation.   An answer to this issue needs to be framed in its proper context with regard to other issues such as the employment market, corporate culture, corporate image, and content management just to name a few.

If we consider the employment market to have similarities to that of the housing market, then we know that there are times when it is a buyers’ market and times when it is a sellers’ market.  The same is true when it comes to employment.  When unemployment is low, companies are less picky with whom they hire as they are happy to get whomever they can.  The opposite is true during times of rather high unemployment.  With so many people looking for work and so many qualified applicants, employers can exercise more discretion and sometimes go a little overboard exploiting their advantage with reduced pay, retraction or reduction of benefits, etc. 

Having hired people and having been hired myself, I understand that at least equal to qualifications is the aspect of how well a person will mesh with the culture of the firm as well as how will this person hinder or enhance the image of the firm.  If it were all about the qualifications then we could all just mail in our resume’s and wait for the call to say you are hired.  However, because of these two other issues, the firm has to make sure that they hire the right person.  There are tangible and intangible costs to the hiring process.  Tangible are the costs associated with first, the loss or lack of a person fulfilling a position; hence, the need to hire someone.  Additionally, is the cost associated with advertising for the position, reviewing resume’s, contacting potential candidates for interviews, the time to interview itself, the background checks, extending the offer, and ultimately filling the position.  Additionally are the costs associated with new hire orientation and training.  What is mostly intangible are the costs associated with hiring the wrong person.  If the person turns out to be disruptive or just not fitting into the culture then you have to start the process all over again.  If the person cannot properly reflect the image of the firm then the process starts over again. In either case, the detrimental, intangible cost to the firm may have lingering and ultimately tangible costs and consequences.

It is interesting that employers utilize social media to advertise for employment opportunities and that inherent in the advertisement is a statement on the firm itself.  So it serves a dual purpose in promoting itself as well as seeking qualified applicants.  So the role of social media is not inherently good or bad, but rather good or bad in the context of its utility.  Social Media as well as search engines like Google can be used to search for employment opportunities, research on a firm with whom one might have an interview, as well as to make connections with others at a firm in order to gain “the inside track”.  So if social media can be gamed in searching out an employer, can it not also be gamed in searching out a qualified candidate?

The firm, in my mind, should have more power to exercise discretion and discernment in making the right hire.  That being said, there are limits to how much power they can exercise and how much advantage they can exploit during the hiring process when the market conditions are in their favor.  I believe a business can use whatever research they desire that they are willing to pay for or that they can find that is freely available.  If they can freely conduct a Google search, click the links that take them to various sites such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn then they can take into consideration whatever they find.  I believe they could even ask candidates if they utilize social media and if so, for the links to the accounts.  But I do not believe that a potential employer has the right to ask for passwords to anything.

 

If a user and potential hire have privacy settings low then the employer can certainly glean from what they find in their decision making process.  If privacy settings are high then the employer can only glean what little info they can.  From this stand point there are pro’s and con’s.  The more that is available the more they can use against a candidate.  However, if the employer likes what they see it could benefit the candidate over another candidate whose information was kept private.  The premise here is that a firm would rather hire based on known information.  A firm that makes a business decision based on what is unknown probably is poor in other areas of decision making as well.

Does this mean that privacy settings should be lowered or that one has to temper their content?  The answer is maybe and yes.  Understanding that women are usually more guarded then men when it comes to social media, I could see a hiring bias develop.  But this is “SOCIAL”.  I am not saying it is an all or nothing proposition, but to be completely private with your info in a social setting is not in keeping with the spirit of the medium.  I am not saying that one exposes so much information that they make themselves susceptible to stalkers and identity thieves, but there needs to be enough out there that a search can be conducted and that there is enough information to confirm that what an employer finds is actually that of the candidate.  As unique as I think my name is, I know there is a health and fitness authority as well as someone in the movie and television industry with my name.  If all an employer can find is based solely on my name then it does both of us a disservice.  Additional, corroborative information must be available.

As for tempering ones content, well you have to be yourself.  I hear that all the time, “I have to be me”.  True, but everyone’s true self has consequences.  I also hear, “don’t judge me, you don’t know me”.  Again, nice sentiment and somewhat true, but what is also true is an employer does have to pass judgment and they do so, within social media, based on content.  There is a philosophical way of life that states “everything in moderation”.  Same is true with Social Media.  If every status update is a condensed bitch session or negative, then an employer can certainly take that into consideration.  Same thing goes if every picture post is of a bar scene with drunken activity.  People are human and businesses know this, so a party picture or a negative rant mixed in with status updates that reveal a more well-rounded and balanced life is not going to adversely impact their decision.

So given that one concedes to background checks and drug testing or screening, it is not unreasonable for a firm to access social media.  But just as they cannot ask for, nor should they be given, banking passwords, credit or debit card passwords, voicemail passwords, or email account passwords, they should not be given social media account passwords either.

I am decidedly more on the side of the employer, but I do feel there are limits.  Now how does this impact legislation?  I feel it shouldn’t.  I feel it could be litigated.  It could even be specifically detailed in industry associations and self-regulatory organizations such as the Society for Human Resource Management, the National Human Resource Association, the Professionals in Human Resources Association, or something similar.   However if, on a state by state basis, there is a need to legislate it then so be it. Some states are right to work states and others are not. Every state has acceptable hiring practices that are different.  This is really no different.  For it to rise to the level and attention of Congress is just too much.  I feel the federal level has too much say in our lives already.

I hope you found this to be beneficial.  Thank you for the opportunity to fully express my thoughts on this matter. It was something I had been mulling over and just needed to gather my thoughts.  

Pirate Looks At 40: What do you do when your skill set is not valued?

This past week marked the point in my life when I officially am closer to turning 40 than I am to the point when I turned 39.  With that in mind, I found my ole’ buddy Jimmy to help work through my crisis.  What I found was something altogether different…

Pirate Looks At 40:  What do you do when your skill set is not valued?

When I was in college, and throughout my 20’s, I caught Buffet fever and envisioned a comfortable life filled with warm weather and margaritas.  Furthermore, the lyrics to his 1970’s song ring true.  In the paragraphs below I will parse through them and reveal my circumstances.

“…Wanted to sail upon your waters 
since I was three feet tall…”

I grew up with a father who spent his life in sales, sales training, and sales management. Not that all three are mutually exclusive, but I did have the pleasure of being on the job with him on several occasions and heard the stories from his salesmen about his training and development initiatives.  One such initiative was to have his men read a book on dressing for success.  Combine this outlook with a mother who instilled etiquette and good manners, I was well on my way to conducting myself professionally.

“Yes, I am a pirate
Two hundred years too late.
The cannons don't thunder there's nothin' to plunder
I'm an over forty victim of fate; arriving too late
Arriving too late.”
 

I went on to earn two Bachelors Degrees and a Masters Degree.  These credentials combined with a good upbringing prepared me for success.  But just like the lyrics, I arrived too late. The common decency and business structures of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s gave way to angst, abruptness, and a shortened attention span of the 90’s, 00’s, and the beginning part of this decade.  All the devices that are designed to bring us closer together, have resulted in private conversations and communications and heads looking at their laps instead of looking at others around them.

It use to be that you would be introduced to someone.  You never walked up and introduced yourself, rather a mutual party would provide an introduction.  Of course this added a hurdle, especially to a sales person, who would have to do business with individuals.  However a professional sales person would seek out a mutual connection and receive that introduction.  Over the years, this custom has disappeared.  People will walk up and introduce themselves and the person being sought out doesn’t punish this behavior, but ignores the etiquette and rewards the act.  Right now you are probably thinking, “what century is this person living in?”  I am just arriving too late.

That being said, LinkedIn does provide for this social grace.  Have you taken advantage of it?  Social Media makes it easier to connect with others and you can do it in a professional way.

“I made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast 
Never meant to last, never meant to last”

Yes, I have had financial success and financial failure.  Looking back it would have been nice to have the “slow and steady wins the race” mentality but it is not me.  I like to think I am cautiously risky.  I understand the risk, choose to accept it or decline it.  I have known people that have made and lost their fortune 3 or 4 times in their life.  The way I see it, I am halfway there. 

“I go for younger women, lived with several awhile 
Though I ran 'em away, they'd come back one day 
Still could manage to smile”

I have been married and divorced.  Over the past decade you could call me a serial monogamist.  Approaching 40 and having the notion of children, I suppose younger women are in the cards.  It is just amazing how this song does seem to mimic my life. 

“My occupational hazard being that my occupation’s just not around”

And we come to the point where we finish with where we began.  My upbringing, education, experience, and skill set is such that my occupation is just not around.  However I can’t end this on such a down and out tone.  My occupational hazard is true in that my occupation is just not around, but not because it is relegated to the past.  It is being recreated in the offspring of technology.  The “old” ways have value, but need to be brought into the “new” ways of conducting business.  

For 18 years now I have been a student of Business & Professional Development.  I embraced electronic communication from its earliest uses and have adapted it and other new media for Business Development purposes.  So if your endeavor needs a more polished, professional image or if your sales and client relations could benefit from an Organizational Behavior Analysis along with Professional training and development, feel free to contact me.  You know where I’ll be…

“gonna head uptown”

The American Work-Year

On this Labor Day I was thinking about the American work-year.  Coupled with some statistics I heard over the weekend, I thought it would be worthwhile to review and post my thoughts.

We know that are 52 weeks in a year and we often think of Americans as getting two weeks vacation bringing our work-year down to 50 weeks.  When calculating hourly rates and salaries this 40-hour week multiplied by 50 weeks per year, works nicely to a 2000 hour-year.  But do Americans work 50 weeks per year?  Let’s take a look at my Holiday schedule. (some would call it “generous”, but I call it “practical”)

New Years Day 

Presidents Day*

Easter Monday

Memorial Day

Fourth of July

Labor Day

Columbus Day

Wed. Before Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 

Fri. after Thanksgiving

Christmas Eve

Christmas Day

Day after Christmas

New Years Eve

A persons Birthday

*Lincoln and Washington have been condensed into Presidents Day.  You could through in MLK Day as an extra day or alternate the years in which you switch the day that the company observes.

Some might say that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is not a real day off.  Well try telling it to the person that is trying to drive or fly a good distance to be with family.  Moreover, is there any real work getting done on this day?  The day after Thanksgiving has historically been extended as part of the Holiday. 

Christmas Eve is also included for practical reasons. Thoughts are not really on work.  The day after Christmas I will accept legitimate criticism over, however I include it just for the additional family time. 

Even though the activities for New Years Eve do not take place until evening, it is an international day of celebration that takes place throughout the day all around the world.  In addition, if you are really doing something special, your mind is probably not on work and you would be leaving early to get ready for the evening anyway.

A company providing their employee with their Birthday off is just good policy.  A person should not have to work on their Birthday.

So we, arguably, have 15 days off.  In a statistic I heard, it was said that Americans get 13 paid days off per year.  Moreover, only half of all Americans take all their time off.  What this means is that most Americans do not even get all the days off mentioned above, let alone time off for vacation.

Furthermore, the 50-week work-year, by my Holiday schedule, is now down to 49 weeks.  Throw in another 3 weeks of actual vacation time along with 5 sick days, you have 20 days of paid time off (PTO). PTO is a concept that enables the employee to take time off at their discretion without having to provide exaggerated, falsified, or completely made up rationales.  However, the company may still have policies in place for what qualifies as ample notification as well as restricted times based on historic “heavy” work periods.  That being said, it overall brings the American work-year down to 45 weeks.

My rationale for breaking down the PTO into 15 days off for vacation and 5 for sick days is as follows:  I figure two family vacations a year for a week each (10 work days total) and 5 days to take separately, as needed for possibly a long weekend, making a Holiday weekend longer, or for just family/household matters.  However, as expressed above, PTO is just that, paid time off and how an employee actually uses their time is up to them.

Now if anyone out there knows me, they know I am not a socialist or a supporter of Labor or Unions. However, as a person that studies Organizational Behavior, Labor Economics, and is Pro-Family, I think a 45-week work-year is good for the health of the business, good for the wellbeing of the employee, and good for the institution of the family.

With technology tethering us more and more to work, the time we are away we are not truly off.  So by providing more time away from work, even if not completely in mind and spirit, makes up for less time away and truly being away; a concept that appears to be less and less realistic.

In all, we can take our 2000 hour work-year and shave it down to 1800.  In the whole scheme of things, I do not think that 200 hours off, spread out over 12 months, is going to hinder the American Spirit or the concept of American Exceptionalism. In fact, I think it strengthens and solidifies both.

Enjoy your Labor Day.  Summer is unofficially over.  It is time to get back into “work” mode and prosper.

I have been on Google+ for 48 hours now. I believe Google has a quality brand. I have a gmail account, I use Chrome, you are reading this via Blogger, we all enjoy YouTube, some of my pictures were sent to me and viewed on Picasa, I utilize Buzz, Images, and Maps. So when I got my Google+ invite I set up my profile, got my “makeshift” vanity url (http://gplus.to/dws) , sent out some invites of my own, got some circles populated, and put it to work.

I read an article by Mike Elgan at http://computerworld.com that essentially anointed Google+ as the “end all, be all” of shared communication. He was very deliberate in not calling it another Social networking site, but rather a Shared Communication site. He went on to say that Google+ is where you can send an email, send a message to a group, blog, microblog, share photos and videos, group chat, video conference, et al. And the potential is certainly there but is it the interface that we want? Are we looking for a one-stop shop?

Each of the big three (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) has their own unique look, feel, following, and purpose. I don’t know if the “Friends” I have on Facebook, and the “Connections” I have on LinkedIn are going to equally embrace Google+. As a result, I don’t know if this one platform is going to enable me to reach all those “friends, followers, and connections” respectively. Can I reach, for instance, a middle-aged person that just discovered email 5 years ago and set up a Facebook account 2 years ago via Google+? And will the “C-suite” executive that I have connected with on LinkedIn via a professional group embrace the Google+ circles?

Mike Elgan sees Google+ as the end of email writing, e-newsletters, and blogging as he knows it. He views the circles as an end around the Spam filter of the company network email server. Perhaps he is right. However it is interesting that one of those in my circles is already complaining of being spammed and is posting to find solutions around it.

As a business development consultant, messaging is critical. My clients look to me to find the best utilization of Social Media to project their message. Each of the big three has enough features and tools, that clients can obtain a tailored presence. That presence can be managed as humanly or as automated as they want. I think Google+ can certainly aide in the efficiency of shared communication, but as the saying goes, “Jack of all trades, master of none”, the Google universe should be wary of mediocrity. Yes, it has the potential to be the end all be all, but in doing so may only do it adequately.

Obviously this is an on-going paradigm shift. Perhaps in a year or two, Google+ will have realized the potential that Mr. Elgan envisions. I personally like to see my handyman work with a hammer, saw, and screwdriver; not a Swiss army knife. That being said, I think Google+ will hold its own and will find its own, true, best utilization.

Earlier this week, a connection of mine on Twitter and LinkedIn sent me an article from Business Insider regarding Social Media Management. The article entitled, “Why I will never ever hire a “Social Media Expert” by Peter Shankman, is satirical yet thought provoking. It is satirical because Mr. Shankman is in the social media/public relations business. So having him publish an article on a site that has twitter and facebook links as well as a link to Mr. Shankman’s own site with its own Social Media profile, all the while harshly criticizing the role of a social media specialist, is like reading something out of National Lampoon.

It is thought provoking in that there are many avenues one can take in calling themselves a “Social Media Expert”. Does your business have the need for the services of such a person or firm? If so, how do you go about choosing the right one? To get to that point, let me just lay out the expertise as I see it.

In my mind there are three ways to arrive at becoming a Social Media Expert. The first way is by becoming a specialist. A person can be viewed as a specialist by offering one of two services. The first service is by becoming a guru of one particular platform. There are LinkedIn experts, there are Twitter experts, and there are Facebook experts. These people do know a great deal about their particular platforms. If you are lucky enough to link up with them or follow them or friend them or like their professional page you can gain tremendous insight into each platform. The second service one can provide and still be considered a specialist is in understanding code. Web design is one thing, but setting up a great looking Facebook page with all the bells and whistles is something else. Codes change and update frequently and keeping up with those changes can be daunting. Having access to this type of skill set could be very valuable.

The second way that one arrives at becoming a Social Media Expert is from the field of marketing or public relations. Someone with a strong PR background understands that social media outlets could be a great way to get their message out. However, they too are a one trick pony in that their specialty is in PR, not New Media.

This brings me to the third way of becoming a Social Media Expert. Like Mr. Shankman above, you can arrive at a certain level of expertise by approaching social media from the perspective of an entrepreneur. By understanding the various outlets, how they work, and managing a well crafted message, you do not have to be myopic with platforms, marketing, or public relations.

It is from this perspective that I assist my clients. I do not claim to be a Social Media Expert nor do I claim to have spent a career in the PR business. But I do strongly claim to be a Social Media educator, a curator of social media sites, and a manager of content. I do this from the perspective of understanding the clients’ corporate culture and organizational behavior and projecting the desired image onto a marketing strategy that utilizes social media. Everyday new outlets and tools are percolating onto the social media scene. The key is finding the ones that are relevant for your business. Having a social media presence is one thing, but understanding how they can work together and work for you is something else.