Archive for the 'Transparency' Category

OK, take that swank bluetooth dangle-dongle berry outta your ear and read’up! That plan of yours to have you’re next professional Sears photo-session for your “Avery print-at-home business card” sporting that killa’ bluetooth headset of yours is a bad bad very very bad bad idea. Bad idea. True story. Bad idea. Here’s some other tips you should know/consider:

#1: ‘Get Yo’ Global Look On’ your business card

A 44-year-old unemployed ’seasoned senior executive vice president of sales’ person says to me, “Why’s there a plus sign in your phone number? Is that a typo?” Nooooo!

Business cards that are “global friendly” immediately communicate that you have a passport and are capable of surviving outside the US on your own. Or that you’re aware that the US is not the only place in the world that has phones. That maybe you actually know/interact with someone outside the US.

More than likely, you are experienced/capable of interacting with other professionals outside of the US and you do that frequently enough that it’s important to have a global-friendly phone numbers that include the country-code. I can run through a pile of 1,000 business cards from folks I’ve met recently and immediately tell you who has gold/platinum status on United and is capable of speaking in front of large audiences by this simple little trait alone. (For now, I guess. I just blew the secret!)

The international seasoned professional simply includes the mobile-phone friendly country code, i.e: +1.775.555.5555. The key here is to simply include the County Code (CC). Here in the US it’s “1″. +1 on mobile devices. We do this because phone numbers in pretty much every country outside of the US and Canada are totally f’n confusing. Want to send a txt to someone in another country? You have to use the +CC.86.311.456.12345

(BTW, seasoned globe-trotters carry ATT or T-Mobile phones. Sprint & Verizon largely don’t work outside the US.)

#2: UPPER CASE EMAIL ADDRESS IS BAD. lowercase everything communicates way emo-hip-startup-with-not-a-lot-of-revenue

You’re email address should always be all lower case. BAD: DAVID@IMADORK.COM. Weak: David@ImADork.com. good: david@imadork.com. Punctuation still matters on everything. Typically well designed business cards that are in all lower case shouts: Hey! I work at a small start-up where we jobbed our corporate collateral to an emo identity designer/we’re trying waaaayyyyy to hard to be hip and cool!!! Companies over 10million in revenue largely care about proper punctuation on their business cards. Startups that are too cool for school are less than 1 million in revenue.

#3: No mobile phone number on the business card.

This guy interviewing with us sporting a sweet Motorola Star-Tac said to me: “I’m sorry, I keep my mobile phone number private and only give it out to my close friends and family.” That was in 1994.

Sorry to bust out the big news on some of you: <cough> It’s 2007. If you still have a land-line, you’re getting kinda weird. I absolutely think it’s quaint of those folks that still think of their mobile phone a private luxury only to be used to call AAA for a flat tire or to let their honey know they’ll be late for dinner. Yeah, back in 1992 when I paid CellularOne $1.25 a minute with “no free anytime minutes” (yeah, shocking!) I was kinda stingy too. Now I chaw down 2000 minutes, 3000 sms and an all-u-can-eat data plan for ~$100.00/month. And guess what? You can too! 

Seriously, get over it. Give it up. There’s nothing gained by being stingy with that mobile phone of yours. And guess what, it get’s stranger: I actually don’t want to call you! I’ll be more likely sending you a text message.

No text messaging plan? Great! I can’t think of a better way to nonverbally tell someone, “Hello. I stopped evolving as a functional part of the professional business world in 1999 and please consider me to be unemployable. Dude, let’s trade voicemails and faxes!!!” C’mon. 33% of the kids 12 and under are more freakin’ connected than you. Get with the ’00’s.

#4: Print-at-home says “Unemployable”

Word.

#5. Kill your FAX number.

Get rid of the fax. Shoot it. Blow it up. And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t put it on your card business card unless you’re a lawyer who still uses Word Perfect 5.1.

Fortunately the folks who still send/receive fax’s don’t read blogs so I don’t need to hammer down this point to much. I’m pretty sure I’ve “faxed” two people in the last year. One was a practical joke. I typed up an email, printed it, and then faxed it to a friend who works for a prominent US Senator who employes interns to print his email for him and then called him and left a long voice mail asking him if he got my email. hahaha!

In a world where we send/receive hundreds of email, + txt, IM, facebook, myspace, do we really need to send/receive faxes? Replace that with your Yahoo!, AIM, Skype, Gtalk!

#6. Holy-mother-of-all sweet receding hairlines/sick vertical bang factor 10x! Dump that photo!

This is rather narrow nit and aimed particularly at my black-turtleneck-wearing real-estate/insurance/human resources bro’s. Leave the photo off the business card. Seriously. That Sears model look you’re sporting ultimately does you more harm than good unless you moonlight at Tao in a bathtub. Replace that photo and reclaim that space with links to your facebook/MySpace/LinkedIn/Flickr/Tumblr/WordPress/Typepad/etc. so we can see some better photos of you and your family/friends and validate you’re not a total dangleberrier freak.

Oddly enough, not having an online avatar/profile photo on the social networking sites says “I’m a freak/lurker.” Again, it’s 2007. Something’s wrong if you don’t have a digital photo of yourself at all. One that’s semi pro looking or minimally visually complimentary says a lot about to the degree to which you clean up and care to function professionally.

#7. Serif Type Face or an ignorant use of MS Comic Sans, Hobo or Arial Black

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of serif types that kick-ass and I love it and it looks awesome. But on a business card that will more-than-likely be scanned, serif gets hard to read and is totally the civil engineer, tax attorney or banking/finance look. That’s OK if you’re one of them kind of folk. If you don’t know why using Hobo is like writing “I’m a dumbass” on your forehead and hanging out in front of Hot Topic at the mall with an OrangeJulius in your hand then go right ahead and use it. Or hire a trained professional identity designer. Best case: copy as close as you can that card from Deloitte.

#8. Test Drive that sucka on Card-Scan and make sure it scans 99% accurate.

Word.

#9. Quality says quality

Business cards printed on nice recycled stock with a matte/gloss finish say “I’m a clean, contemporary and professional.” Some people complain that gloss scratches. That was back in 1992. They fixed that. Now it protects that card. 

If you’re coated cards are getting bent/scratched then you don’t give out enough cards/party/meet people. Certain businesses can get away with rough, uncoated stock — like a concrete manufacturer, dog-groomer or the carrot-juice supervisor at Wild Oats.

Anything that can easily be confused with print-at-home stock is simply a business card personal branding death sentence. If you can’t be bothered with getting professionally printed business cards, you’re killing your professional brand. C’mon, there’s like 5,000 places on the Web (Flickr has a cool service) that can do this in 1 week or less and you won’t look like a total goober dangleberry!

#10. Some random nits for people looking for employment or a sales pitch appointment beyond the business card but related enough for this post:

• Got a sooper slick resume and absolutely no Google Juice? You’re either spooky, strange, of no social relevance or just plain out-of-date.
• Don’t be stupid. Get your Google on. Google me. See what Page 1 looks like. I own my Page 1. And Page 2…
• Google yourself before you go meet a potential employer or sales prospect. What you see (or don’t) is what they see (or don’t).
• Research who you’re talking to! I have pretty much laid out my whole personal life online; you should be able to find something to talk about/have in common.
• Resume’s are dead. Don’t send me a resume. Point me to your Facebook/Myspace/LinkedIn/ClaimID/OpenID/etc.
• I had a 55 year-old former CFO/business executive complain I was hard to reach. hahahahah! I had a 17 year old high school kid reach me out of the blue about an internship in 60 seconds flat.
• If you want employment at my company, it’s not my responsibility to conform to how you communicate best.
• Don’t EVER EVER EVER EVER be anything but sweet, humble, gracious and courteous with anyone at the Company — especially my assistant or the receptionist. Here’s how they relay your message to me: “Some total ass-wipe dickhead just called you from Wall Street Mergers & Acquisitions. Do you want me schedule him to call you in January of 2032?”
• Talk to the people who talk to me. Talk to the people who talk to the business leaders. It’s not so important that you talk to me more than anyone else…or even exclusively. Do you honestly believe I walk out after meeting with someone and give a unilateral order: “Hey, you in that cube. I just hired this guy. He reports to you know.” hahaha! I look to my team to be the social filters. How someone interacts with my team is 99% more important than how much they interact with me. It really doesn’t matter if I like you. If my team can’t like you, that’s an insurmountable problem.
• I ultimately look to my team that I trust to filter and opine their impressions of anyone. Getting a glowing recommendation from Steph at the front-desk is worth more than an hour my time telling me your five-year plan and your summa-cumma-humma claude thingy you did in college.
• Overt attempts to hide your personal life and go for the Sears model look work against you these days. Businesses are more than ever not interested in homogenized drones with no personality. Birds of feather flock together. Everyone at my company is sooper cool. I love hanging out with everyone at my company. They’re all cool. You’d better be too! We want real people with really cool/interesting personal lives that make our lives richer and more interesting. But don’t tell us how cool you are, show us!
• What are you hiding that can be all that negative today that Google can’t find? By the way, we do a standard 10-year background checks on pretty much everyone. The HR Scare-mongers of the 80’s got everyone all screwed up on union-driven fear. All the old hangups (you’re gay, you’re divorced, you’re a single mom, you’re pagan, you like to go to burning man, you have tats all over you, you accidentally voted for GW, you were in a Sorority, you hunt, you support PETA, it’s not your natural hair color, you drink soy milk) have soooo little bearing on what really matters. Great companies are filled with great people who could largely give a crap about whether any of that. What matters? (a) Are you congruent with the company’s brand? (b) Do you present any significant HR issues/risks? (c) Will you attract other good people to the team instead of driving good team members away? (d) Are you really good at what you do and willing to learn to do other things? (e) Are you socially conscious and willing to invest in and give back to your community?
• Get a Gmail account for personal email and get it out of the work email. ’nuff said.

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So I’m posting this transcript of an AIM between Ryan Jerz and David Torch (whom I’ve not met as of yet however he wants to meet with me, we traded a ‘couple txts). I received this transcript from a Flickr email he sent to me earlier this week, however, I’ve had such a jacked-up week of meetings I’m just now seeing it. No matter. This dude hunted down my cell phone and sent me a text message while I happened to be at the Imperial Bar & Lounge with my whole senior management team having dinner. With some degree of irony, the purpose for our get-together was to lament our recruiting woes and why it’s so easy for some people to connect and for others its so hard.

I thought that this was such an excellent transcript of the resourcefulness of using social networking tools to make a connection that I couldn’t help but post it.

AIM IM with ryan jerz <mrjerz>.
2:51 PM
hey ryan… hows the job?
solid
2:55 PM
word. you like it?
yeah i do. i’m currently rewriting the stuff that’s on the website…not too bad so far. i’ll get a chance to do some fun stuff
cool. working at the office now?
yes
know anyone hiring?
can you do design?
web? what i learned in teh master’s program. which means i could probably fake it pretty well.
places like 12 horses are always looking…the rgj is hiring a business reporter
eh, already worked at the RGJ.
plus, they just sent a photog to the grad program
yeah, that’s right
i saw
12 horses… do they need photographers?
designers
any photo work?
photographers i never hear about
dave laplante, right?
yes
maybe i’ll flickrfriendrequest him. i’ve seen his name on there. isn’t he friends with nick van woert too?
i have his mobile…text him
“sent from my iphone”
totally
that reminds me, i should probably change my outgoing signature on that thing.
i’ll check to see if it’s ok to give it to you.
say, my buddy jerz said you guys are hiring…who do I talk to?
ok, really?
3:05 PM
ask about jobs…yeah, i’d do it
there may be nothing he can do, but he’ll know your name.
and flick friend him too
this will be fun.
well, when I wanted to meet him to go over thisisreno, he had me text him to set a time…i had never really done it. it’s how he communicates
he sounds like a cool guy. ok, i’ll do it. i’m going to bombard him with media.
he doesn’t like email as much
you have nothing to lose
amen
4:10 PM
k, doing it now. i should probably send him my websites, though i guess he can just find them through flickr. for the text, what’s a good one liner?
good question. what’s your site again?
davidtorch.com
and
thesupermarket.us, but that’s more of a collaborative thing with nick and i.
wait! actually, i think i’m just going to copy this text and send it to him. (with your permission, of course)
what text
3:15 PM
this ichat conversation. don’t worry about it. if it gets me a job, we’ll both be stoked that things like this actually work. if not now, it seems like a good way to get a job in the future. you know, the kind of thing you hear about…
did you say anything you regret? anything you wouldn’t want him to see?
heh, no
k, this conversation is pretty long - his phone might explode if i tried to text it to him. i’ll sms and flickr just to be safe….
i’m not going to fix the typos
adds more mojo.
here: i’ll type out my phone number so he can atleast text me back with a heartbreaking “no.”

this conversation will be a record of social networking realized. it’s pretty much our graduate project from last year, right?
at the very least, we could use this to supplement the research paper:

“Example of Social Networking and Job Application at 12 Horses, appendix C”
cool, i think we have another week to turn it in.

Technorati tags: ryan, jerz, ryan jerz, davidlaplante, davelaplante, Twelve Horses, 12horses, 12 horses, interviewing, networking, social networking

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“My foster parents told me that I could be anything I wanted to so I became me.” - Mickey Avalon

So the Kathy Sierra maelstrom online over the last two days came across like a feeding frenzy of angst and pent up fear. Seems to me as if a whole lotta’ emotion got spilled and sloshed about. All in all, I guess the world is a better place. I didn’t lose any sleep over it, yet my hair continues to fall out…

I’m sure a lot of “Mean People Suck” bumper stickers have been sold this week. Many people–especially the blogosphere–are a little tighter. A few more will rethink the degree they tweak out on each other. A little mob effect I guess is a good thing from time to time. At the end of the day, Kathy got terrified…freaked out. Any one of us — if we could –would easily assist in shutting down the dumbasses involve. Hate speech isn’t free…

So this got me thinking about anonymity. I made a false start at blogging back in 1999. While it felt right at the time to be as transparent as I am today, the conventional wisdom from which I was mentored from in traditional marketing/advertising/branding was very control-oriented and this presented a conundrum for me: Would business leaders take a personal brand seriously if they knew the “real me”?

Conventional wisdom then was tight. Very tight. Folks like Dave Winer and Justin Hall inspired me by jumping out early. Fray was waaaaay ahead of its time. The Web’s first digital storytelling site. I remember going out to Dana Atchley’s Digital Story Telling Festival back in my hometown of Crested Butte every summer between 1996 and 1999 and meeting folks like Magdalena Donea and Justin Hall and thinking, “Wow…these folks are way ahead of the curve!” Yes they were…and still are I guess. (Thankfully Mike Bonifer has returned to my life…more about that later…)

So as much as I identified with Justin Hall back then, my business frame of reference left me thinking that the only way I could weblog (as it was called then) was to do it anonymously. That just has never worked for me since the 8th grade when I found some identity to hold on to and never looked back. Voted “Most Unique” in my class…which is the polite way of saying “one weird dude that does not fit in” I guess…

Anonymous has never been me. Anonymous to me has always meant hiding. I’ve always been the center of jokes, the guy everyone makes fun of. I enjoy it. I’ll pick up on a theme that gets people talking and play with it. Presently I’ve been drinking fruity martini’s (Cosmo’s in particular) and that’s got my entire base of friends harassing me constantly. At least they think of me

That said, I see plenty of great “case-studies” of where anonymity is effective online. Sometimes what needs ot be said can’t be said any other way but anonymous. Or an anonymous brand is better that a real personal one. (Superman v. Clark Kent). Seems like most folks are keen to be anonymous.

Our own local blogger-herione-media-maven Myrna the Minx is anonymous. I have absolutely no idea who she is. And, in general, I dont really care. I’d like to secretly know…but that’s purely to mess with Robert and Josh’s heads. Her anonymity is an effective part of her brand and lets her get away with things that I could never ever write. She’s effective at rattling everyone to keep herself relevant and on the minds of the northern Nevaday bogoshphere. At least she does it with taste and style. I may not always agree with her, but I appreciate her effectivemenss at building a brand by it. Even the Jerz v. Myrna banter seems almost approaching a contrived setup to keep me reading.

Anonymous posters without a brand are just ultimately ineffective and waste our time. Kind of like the dudes that scream, “Hey, if you got something to say, come and say it to my face!” as they speed out of the parking lot in their car away from the bar. I delete most anonymous comments except for my friends ’cause I know who they are — even if they’re too wuss to put their real names down. Doctors and lawyers are seem to be the biggest wusses online.

So with transparency comes an equal a responsibility of restraint. Fortunately I’m not a complaining bitter old spice wearing kind of conservative baby boomer or a patchouli smelling meadow muffin whiny liberal looking to bitch and moan all the time. I’m just me.

Technorati tags: anonymity anonymous blogging kathy sierra kathysierra personal branding personalbranding privacy transparent transparency

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A short while back I had the unique and rewarding experience to participate in panel interviews to assist in the selection of a new CEO to head up a large public enterprise. Finalist candidates from all over the nation were brought in and plunked down in front of a bunch of us “community folk” and slow-roasted about until cooked medium-well.

It was interesting, amusing, maddening, informative, creative and above all – educational — to say the least. Unfortunately I am bound by an NDA which prevents me from disclosing anything really juicy! [Side note on this process: Actually – there’s not much to tell despite what the mainstream media trying to sell papers may want you to believe. And despite what the hyperbole-mongrels of community conspiracy theory would have you believe, there isn’t anything going on behind closed doors other than giving some decent folks from out of town a little privacy, respect and comfort.]

Since I am a student of the “personal branding” and “relationship marketing”, I enjoyed dissecting relationship development under the stress of an executive interview. I managed to keep some notes in the margins of these interviews that are “general enough” that they should be of assistance to any executive in the hotseat interviewing for a leadership position:

1. Understand the rules and expectations of the “game”. Understand how much time you have for the interview and establish the goals of the interviewees. Only one candidate out the gate asked up front what I hoped to accomplish in the interview and that stood out positively.
2. Pay attention to the time. Take the time available and divide it in to 4 parts and query the interviewer “how am I doing, how’s the pace?” If given an hour, query at 15 minute intervals. Two reasons: One, this ensures that the pace is correct and that everyone will get to ask the questions that are most important to them. Second, this gives you an opportunity to get some feedback on how you’re doing. Forcing an interviewer to say, “You’re doing great!” reinforces that you are doing just that…great!
3. Answer in thirds. Give a 33% condensed and to the point answer. Solicit feedback on whether that covers it. If favorable, then proceed to embellish the answer with a STORY or EXPERIENCE for the next 33%. If the panel/interviewers are still interested in more, give additional perspective or dialog or extend to hypothetical situations you may encounter.
4. Tell stories. (Here we go again, David LaPlante wanting you to use stories!) Entertain. But know the moral of the story you tell. Anyone who knows me knows that I believe life is about making and telling stories. The best answers to questions are told from a story.
5. Be conversant. Be humble. Speak from EXPERIENCE not OPINION. OPINION = BAD: “I think this community should pave the parks!.” EXPERIENCE = GOOD: “It’s been my experience that when we paved our community park we enjoyed a substantial cost reduction lawn trimming services.”
6. Dress for success and don’t be afraid to stand out. But don’t go overboard. MEN: A loud pinstripe suit may be OK if it’s New York and you’re interviewing at Goldman Sachs. Once you get the job, the pinstripe is a good thing. Pinstripes have ego. This can be dangerous. Someone with a very strong and overpowering personality may actually want to choose for something more subtle. The opposite is true. Wear sharp solid suit and embellish it with bright colors in the short – not the tie. If you’re interviewing for a job that pays over $100,000 a year, you can afford to wear a suit made in the last freakin’ decade! In fact, it would be your best bet to buy a new suit.
7. Stage presence. Practice your stage presence.
8. Hedge your criticisms with your reasoning and explore the other alternatives. Example: “From the knowledge and experience I have, this is my observation. It’s not an effective campaign. However, I’ve been a leader long enough to know that in any organization with smart folks that my observation may not be drawn hastily. There’s reasoning for everything and usually more to the story than what meets the eye.”
9. Body language does not lie! Make frequent eye contact. Say people’s names. Get their attention and keep it. I kept chickenscratch notes on eye contact alone. My “strongest” candidate made eye contact with me almost 3x more than the second. The worst interviewee ranked only made eye contact 6 times. That’s only 10% of the “average”. Crazy yet amazing and true!
10. AND FOR GOD’S SAKE SMILE!

Do you have any items/thoughts to add? I’d really like to get a thread going on this one!

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