Category Archives: Passion + Purpose

Are You Keeping the Main Thing, the Main Thing?

I don’t know about you, but this is a question that I make myself answer everyday. Of course, that means that you need to know your main thing. Preparing for marriage over the past year, I’ve found that my main thing has changed. And for me, that’s a good thing because it represents the type of person I want to be, it keeps me more focused, and in in the end, makes me better at everything else.

During one of those moments–you know, the times where you feel like everything is coming at you from all directions and you’re just not sure how you’re going to make it all work–I reached out to my friend Qui, who simply said: “Keep the main thing, the main thing.” Seven simple words that got my head to the ground working, only this time, I was healthier, happier and more productive.

Thus, I want to recognize some colleagues that I know have worked hard this past year to keep the main, the main thing.

Main Thing Keepers

  • Andre Blackman: When I first met Andre, he was living in DC as a newlywed working to balance life, marriage, work and his pursuits in public health. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him I was engaged, and he said: Just you wait, things will change. (How right you were friend, and I’m a better woman for it!) Fast forward to today, he’s living closer to family, moving the public health field forward and leading the charge in his role at RTI. Nice job Andre!
  • Geoff Livingston: I greatly respect Geoff’s approach to work and life. For one, I like how he integrates his love for social change pursuits into his work–nice balancing. Further, if you read his blog or follow him on Twitter, you often hear him give props to his wife. In fact, this past year, Geoff sold his company and joined the CRT/Tanaka crew. In his blog post announcing the big move, Geoff acknowledged his appreciation and renewed relationship with his wife! Even better–His first descriptor in his Twitter bio for the longest time was “husband.” To me, for someone who is so accomplished in our field, to wake up everyday and say he is a husband first, that deserves mad respect.
  • Rosetta Thurman: Admittedly, I don’t know Rosetta as well as the other two. But just read her latest post on her own personal revelations when it comes to life, love and the lure of the “career.’ Rosetta, I feel you. I use to deny kids and used to think I was destined to be single–and in fact, I was quite comfortable with that. Now, I’m in love and getting married in a couple months. Thus, I encourage you girl.
  • Bonus: Seth Godin. I don’t know him personally, but I feel it’s very easy for us in the social media field to get thrown off-course. In this video, Seth shares these sentiments and challenges us with the question: “Where are the real relationships?…Networking is so important when it’s real, and it’s always a useless distraction when it’s fake.”

Your turn. Who do you know that is keeping the main thing, the main thing? And better yet, how are they doing it?

Forget Personal Branding: What About a Sing-A-Long Resume?

I have lot more to report from the World Social Marketing Conference, however, this news bit is too good not too share. Last week, I connected with Holly Grande on Twitter, and this girl is smart. Not only is she a rising public relations star, but you may not know that she is also rising singing sensation.

So I might have exaggerated a bit (though she has done voice overs for Radio Disney), but Holly took the usual ‘resume’ section on her blog, and instead of posting her actual resume, Holly provided a new range in entertainment. Literally. Check out Holly’s “Sing-A-Long Resume” below. Who wouldn’t hire someone with this innovative creativty (and bravery)?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w35SnjFoYco

You can get catch more of Holly on her blog and at BrazenCareerist. What other unique ways have you or your friends done to re-frame and refresh your resume?

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New Career Finding Strategies for Job Searchers

My now-fiance had a great blog post idea: How social media is transforming the job search and recruiting field – Thus, here we are, and below I hope you find some great helpful resources and add to this developing list.

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Social Networking Sites

Linkedin – Not only does Linkedin allow people to post jobs, but you can also post jobs yourself, or send jobs to your connections. In addition, you can search for jobs at certain firms, see who posted them, and see if you know anyone who works there. Very informative for the investigative types.

Facebook – Certain Facebook group and fan pages are used for recruiting potential job candidates. For example, the U.S. Department of State uses its fan page as a recruiting tool into foreign policy, public affairs, foreign services officer, or even offers to help navigate a career path.

MyWorkster – MyWorkster offers its users a professional presence online. You can create a profile, resume and even a video resume. This network also has a job listing database, blogs, and more.

Twitter Recruiter’s/Job Postings

Many people post job openings they’ve either heard about or are currently trying to fill in a tweet, with a link to the job posting. (One great reason alone to become a Twitter-er!) However, more companies and individuals are creating Twitter-streams to post jobs and recruit talent. Some include:

  • Jim Stroud
  • Jason Alba
  • InfoSourcer
  • IMC2
  • Interactive Jobs

Jim Stroud over at the Recruiters Lounge has posted about recruiters and Twitter…surprised that he could only find 85 recruiters in a Twitter search! In my opinion, that’s 85 reasons right there to start a twitter feed.

To find information on a particular industry or job field, use Twitter Search to conduct a search query for certain keywords like “job positions,” “recruiter” or “career advice.”

TwitHire is also a Twitter application that lets you bundle your job postings into 140 characters. It’s also a great resource to look at current job openings.

Blogs

Jeremiah Owyang has created a blog series “On the Move,” highlighting individuals moving within the social media profession. The series also lists great resources to getting plugged into a social media job, as well as listing current high-profile movers and shakers in the social media world (those who work at Fortune 5000 firms with 1000 employees or more).

Alltop.com, a blog aggregate service by topic, has a ‘career‘ page, which features numerous blogs about how to get a job, keep a job, recruit for jobs and more.

Search for blogs based in the city you want to work. For example, KCRecruiting is a Kansas city blog that works to connect job seekers with KC opportunities or author Jim Durbin’s other more general blog, Social Media Headhunter.

More

There’s also other, perhaps more traditional, job search and recruiting strategies too:

  • Monster,
  • Job Fox,
  • Job-Hunt ( who has a list of Fortune 500 career sites and employers by state!),
  • Careerbuilder,
  • the Web site of the firm you want to work for,
  • employee blogs or Twitter account,
  • CEO blogs of the firm(s) you want to work for,
  • researching the firm’s social media use/presence,
  • industry-specific list servs,
  • your college/University network,
  • your schools network (i.e. Mizzou Mafia for Missouri Journalism),
  • fraternity and sorority networks,
  • professional organization networks and Web sites,
  • Honorary organizations (i.e. Delta Sigma Pi, Omicron Delta Kappa)
  • listen to career advice and industry news podcasts
  • Word of Mouth (friends, parents, mentors)

Basically, my research has shown that social media is revolutionizing now only business – but how to get employees, find employees and to become an employee.

I know this is a huge, developing topic. And, there’s lots to add, so I look forward to hearing from you all and your experiences. =)

*Note: I didn’t make this information industry specific, but I could if you guys would like. It does lean a bit towards those in social media….course, I’ve also noticed that for social media job searchers, in a way, you have the easiest of jobs because those are the jobs people are posting in the social media space. Other fields/industries are a bit slow to catch on…are
am I wrong?

photo credit: rockronie on flickr

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Your Facebook Professionalism Policy: Balancing Your Relationships On and Off the Clock

For many Gen-Yers and young professionals, Facebook started out as a social network. Then, high-schoolers were allowed in. Now, understandably, more and more people are joining that range in age – and in relationship to you. Point in case:

  • My friend recently helped her mom create a Facebook account.
  • Another commented that all her co-workers want her to become a Facebook friend.
  • According to Quantcast, in July 208, 46% of Facebook users are 18-34.
  • in July 2007, ComScore reported a 181% growth of users ages 25-34, and a 98% growth in users 35+.

Thus, with Facebook going from social status —> professional network, it begs the question, what are the new the rules of thumb for one’s Facebook account? So I asked followers on Twitter. The results:

  1. All or nothing. One of the most popular answers was to go all access with everyone. This route shows to your co-workers and professional network that you own who you are. Nothing to hide. Some also responded that this helps increase the office culture and camaraderie.
  2. Oil and water don’t mix. It gets murky. Best to keep Facebook separate. One person commented that you can come to know too much about someone and that can distract from business.
  3. Go Half and Half. Others answered saying they prefer to keep professional work colleagues and co-workers at bay by using the ‘limited profile’ feature on Facebook. Or, setting privacy settings so only certain friends or groups can see certain applications, photos or the wall.
  4. Work It. Lee Aase, on his blog, Social Media University, suggest a shortcut. While waiting for Facebook to devise a way to better differentiate relationships with a system more sophisticated than the limited profile graph, Aase suggest creating a group for your professional contacts and name it “FirstName LastName Professional Contacts.” Aase explains further on his blog. Or, use Facebook’s friend lists to differentiate Aase also suggests.

No matter what you prefer, it’s best to adopt a strategy early, be wise, cautious and careful. Even those that believed in full access agreed that in the past year, they’ve tweaked their their own personal guidelines. i.e. Adopting the self-policy that one must meet someone in their professional network in person before they cozy up on Facebook.

For me, currently, I adopt a mix between the full access and the limited profile. This is largely for one reasons:

  • I want you to get to know me. I have nothing to hide. But, I’d prefer someone get to know me in person, before just reading my profile and making assumptions or place me into some category or description of who they think I might be. It’s one thing to know someone in the office, but it’s another to befriend a person.

Some other guidelines friends mentioned through my Twitter survey. Don’t post:

  • Inappropriate pictures (nudity, over-drinking, kissing, dancing, etc.)
  • Clean up those pictures from college frat days
  • Represent who you are, but be keen to what information sparks controversy
  • Don’t use foul language
  • Review your privacy settings
  • Understand what happens to your profile when you add an application
  • When you ‘become a fan’ or join a group, understand some may not get your inner circle’s inside jokes or may think you are endorsing certain ideas/services/products
  • If you wouldn’t show it to your mom, you probably don’t want your boss to see.
  • Don’t make your profiles busy or hard to read if you want to use it for networking.

What’s your Facebook Professionalism Policy? or, what do you think of mine?

photo credit: Flickr, Amit Gupta (from Newsweek article)

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What’s Your Calling? What’s Your Response?

This past Thursday, fellow bloggers Evange.List, Spare Change, Pulse and Signal and I checked out the early screening for the rockumentary: Call+Response, about international slavery and the modern abolitionist movement.

The film combined top music artists (Five for Fighting, Switchfoot, Natasha Bedingfield, ImogenHeap and more!), performing a plethora of heart-awakening music to the footage of modern day slavery images and video that evoke a response.

Collecting testimony from modern day activists ranging from Madeleine Albright to Ashley Judd and Nicholas Kristof and many more, the film calls attention to 27 million of the world’s dirtiest secrets. The film culminates and begs the question: How will YOU respond?

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The aspect of the film I find most inspiring is the person behind the film: musician Justin Dillon. According to the film’s website:

“Justin Dillon came across the issue of Human Trafficking while touring in Russia. Justin met scores of girls whose ambition to come west was being preyed upon by traffickers. The young girl assigned to interpret for him would share about the many “opportunities” that were being offered to her to come to west.

Justin looked into the phoney opportunities being offered to these girls and became incensed at how easy it was to trick them. After sharing with them the dangers of these proposals, he vowed to do something about this issue once he returned home.”

And so he did. Justin, with no connections or leverage into the entertainment industry, began on a quest to call attention to the issue. He showed how one man with a strong conviction could inspire a movement. A year and a half later, there is now the film Call+Response with thousands responding to the issue of slavery.

At the live screening, Justin spoke to the crowd and said the sole question he asked himself was: What is he good at, and how could he use that talent to solve the issue? Thus, I ask you. Like Justin, what’s your calling?

What are the talents you have, and how are you being called to respond to the modern day issues plaguing humanity?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS-0CHXfyIk&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]

Be Moved.

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Unlock Your Inner Batman

Everyday, I venture out into my day with a healthy dose of idealism. I like to believe that people are good, and I work to see the good in people, even when most difficult.

This is why I struggled with the Batman movie: The Dark Knight. I love Batman. I grew up watching the tv series with jumping bananas Batman and Robin.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3JtIkTktz0

Batman/Bruce Wayne is an ordinary man. The joker is an ordinary man. Two face is an ordinary man. Gordon is an ordinary man. Yet, Gotham is havocked by crime and despair. The movie paints Gotham (as it should according to plot) as a very bleak and dismal city.

I walked away from the movie with a heavy heart, searching for optimism. These weren’t superheroes who ravaged a city and killed for pleasure. Just men. These weren’t superheroes whose hearts were hardened by bitterness, anger and unfair circumstances, but fellow, ordinary, human beings.

Indeed, the Joker, as Batman and Gordon state, got the best of them by showing that even a great man, Gotham’s White Knight, Harvey Dent, can be hardened.

I walked out of the theater finding it hard not to be hardened as well. All the work we do in social marketing, nonprofits, social change…where’s it all going and what’s it doing? What’s the solution? How do we inspire others not to let their hearts become hardened?

Though I left the movie more torn about life’s deeper issues than I have in a long time, I refused to be give in. Instead, I see it as a new challenge to rise above and as a community, address and solve. For Batman was an ordinary man. So was Gordon. and Alfred. and Mother Teresa. Ghandi. Martin Lurther King, Jr.

Perhaps the reality is, is that we ALL have a little Batman inside of us, just waiting to melt the world.

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Another Turn on the 29-Day Giving Challenge

The 29-Day Giving Challenge movement was started by Cami, when she was faced the diagnosis of the chronic illness multiple sclerosis during a major move. A spiritual teacher of hers, Mbali Creazzo, suggested that she give away 29 things in 29 days in an effort to get outside her own struggle each day.

According to Mbali, the 29 gifts originated as an African tradition. Today, over 2,000 people have participated in the challenge so far. And, I am joining them.

The challenge focuses on giving, anything – from clothes, to money, to smiles, hugs, compliments, time and energy, love, compassion, empathy or an extra hand – any way to GIVE. The challenge does come with a set of rules, mainly, to have fun, relax and reflect.

I joined this challenge for a variety of reasons.

First, I connected to Cami’s story as my best friend has multiple sclerosis. Secondly, that same friend continues to teach me, and give to me, AND give to others on a daily basis. She is continually reading and sharing her joy for life, her keen insight into the human spirit and her enthusiasm and love for life.

So, I’m taking the challenge, and taking it another turn: I want to concentrate my giving on those that are close to me, to show appreciation and love for what they do. Often time, I think it’s easy for us to focus on trying to help others, especially in the nonprofit and social marketing fields. Sometimes, we overlook those right in front of us in the process. (Note: It’s still important to give to others, but u pickin’ up what I’m putting down, right?) Thus, I plan on doing the 29-Day Giving Challenge:

  • With my boyfriend. My mom. My best friend. My roommate.
  • And groups of people including coworkers, friends who live far away, the homeless, nonprofits, etc.

Imagine what we could do if we TARGETED not only our financial giving, but the gifts that take extra time, extra thought and that extra step…to say thank you, you are loved, and I care.

I invite you to join us! The 29-Day Giving Challenge also has an online community here.

I will share my reflections on my experience at the end of each time period.

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If you’ve participated in the 29-Day Giving Challenge, share your experiences with us in the comments section, =).


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