The way it used to be -Do you remember the old boys network’? I do. Because I’m a girl (and an old one at that) – the boys network wasn’t really open to me. Yes, I had excellent experience and yes, I had a Master’s Degree but… I was still a girl.

But I never let anything stop me. I just kept trying, learning, sharing, being myself. And I’m happy to report that due to circumstances beyond their control, the network (while still alive and well) isn’t what it used to be.

I also had a little help from my friends, kind and generous mentors and the great equalizer, the internet and it’s child – social media came along.

The way it is now – When you want information about a company, you can turn to sites like Glassdoor.com. This site allows real people to give information about their employer. The good news is that it’s anonymous. That’s also the bad news. The site has input by company, job type, salary and even interview questions.

Like any other ‘crowd-sourced’ site, you need to be careful. One disgruntled person can make the numbers look bad so it’s important thing is to read all the comments. Check out all the data. Particularly around salary. (there are so many helpful sites!) I know it’s an ‘employer’s’ market right now, but that won’t last and this probably isn’t the last job you’ll negotiate a salary for. (booyah!)

Image credit – This child’s mother and father… and LoveAmourLove.com

You may know the online shoe retailer Zappos.com – they make a big deal out of using technology to give customers what they want and need 24 x 7. This is NOT because Zappos thinks that technology is cool. Their culture is totally built around superior customer service.  Check it out here.  Here’s an example of their twitter feed…

“Oh whoa! Truly sorry about that. We will try not to let that happen again. We had some slight hiccups in out Tweets today. ”

Check out Zappos employees communicating here.  And they are not alone.  Check out this tweet from a satisfied Southwest Airlines customer:  “Southwest completed my name change within 2 hours of my faxing them the info! #customerservice #newlywedtweet”

What about when an employee goes on Glassdoor,  Facebook  or twitter to complain about your company, whose responsibility is it to monitor and follow up?  HR? Marketing?

When things go wrong with a sale, who hears about it? The sales person? Customer service? Marketing? Maybe the IT department if it’s a web sale? Is response via social sites in your organization’s workflow?

Is a company’s Facebook or Twitter pages the responsibility of marketing, advertising, customer service or public relations? Smart companies are actually co-creating products with customers in real time. So now do the product development folks need to monitor twitter too?

What if I need to  download a 3rd party app to my desktop and cell phone to monitor twitter for my job… Does IT support that? Across which platforms (Apple, Blackberry, Droid or tablets?)

If you manage marketing, sales, customer services, human resources, IT or finance; are you paying attention? The head in the sand thing isn’t going to work any more.

Image Credit: All News Wire

The stereotype of a freelancer is a geek with a laptop sitting at home on their sofa in their sweats. You might be surprised that freelancers, like entrepreneurs, come in all shapes, sizes and are from many different fields. Think for a minute of consultants; engineering, management,etc.

I have a strategic marketing consulting practice that is supplemented by teaching at the Masters level and an active speaking schedule so I consider myself both an entrepreneur and a freelancer.  As more  folks aged 50+ lose their jobs (and have lost significant value in their retirement plans) — more of us will need to find work wherever we can.

This week I had the opportunity to visit NYS Senator Joe Robach with a group of freelancers and representatives from the Freelancers Union . (If you are an independent worker, you may want to check out their site. It’s free to join!) At issue is the right for freelance workers to have the same protection to ‘get paid’ as ‘regular’ workers;  83% of freelancers have experienced delayed, reduced or non-payment. Senator Robach was very supportive of the bill.

If we are going to adapt to a global marketplace, we are going to need keep up our legal and regulatory supports for new kinds of work. Are you working freelance? I’d love to hear from you.

Photo credit: Freelance Switch.com

I don’t mean “oops”— I mean whoa, that did not work out the way I thought.

No one likes failure –  BUT, I know if I’m not occasionally failing and — failing fast, then I’m not taking enough risk.  Most of the good stuff in my life came to me because I could not get what I needed or wanted via  ‘the safe road.’

But remember this. I’m a Capricorn; the goat. We do not leap or pounce; we plod.

So for all you who are thinking… yeah, it’s easy for her.  STOP RIGHT THERE.  Taking risks is hard, scary, unsafe at any speed.

Here’s what helps me take more risk:

– My mentors are in their 20′s & 30′s.  I am eager to learn from them & they are patient and generous.

– I gravitate to people who are trying new stuff and look for opportunities to associate with entrepreneurs.

– I try to read books that challenge my thinking. (I know, books are long and take a lot of time to read but I skim.) I visit the library. You can add your review to your Linked In profile. Here are a couple of suggestions that I’m going for:

Thomas Friedman’s new book, That Used to Be Us or Burg and Mann (Go-Giver), It’s Not About You.

Change is good, timing is everything, patience is the key. However… the good Lord helps those that help themselves. If you always do what you always did… you’ll always get what you always got. How’s that working out for you?

— A CEO described interviewing a young man and liking him. After the young man left, the CEO decided to go online and ‘Google’ him. (Yes, that’s a verb now, to Google.) Here’s what he read on Facebook. “I just had an interview at xyz company. The company is a dog but I’m sure they are going to make me an offer which I’ll take while I keep looking.” He didn’t get the job and probably to this day doesn’t know why.

– A graduate student getting his Master’s in teaching began doing his student teaching. After about 3 weeks, he was called by HR and told he was being terminated. When he asked why, he was told that photos ‘unbecoming’ a teacher were found online. They found pictures of him on his Facebook page  drinking a beer (he was over 21) in a public park.

I live in New York, an ‘at will’ employment state, which means that any employer can ‘let go’ any employee without cause. (ok, that’s not the legal terminology).

Bottom line: Pay attention folks. It’s not a conspiracy but they are out to get you.

Photo credit: Random Good stuff.com

However, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) helped to change that in May when it  gave a background checking company, Social Intelligence,  the right to look at 7 years of our internet and social media background. This article from Gizmodo is a real eye opener for all of us, not just job seekers.

The company is looking for publicly available information on site like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and Craigslist.  It isn’t looking for ‘dirt’ per se but to find out whether you, as a potential employee, would give the potential employer heartburn or worse. In other words, are you trustworthy?

If the company … “finds out you’re pregnant, or gay, or a Muslim, or newly married, or a newly gay married to a pregnant Muslim, it leaves that out of its report. All an employer sees is, basically, that you passed or failed.”

So how will this change how we post, rant  or connect?  The roller coaster ride just got a little bumpier. What do you think?

Photo credit: many thanks to Steve John, found via Escape into Life.com — from the iPhone of New Media Artist Steve John

I really like glassdoor because you can get the inside scoop on a company. The site consists of reviews by employees who rate their job, the organization, their salary and the CEO. Of course you need to take each review with a grain of salt. I scanned through the company reviews of those listed in Rochester and I have to say that I agree with the overall ratings of the CEO’s where some are as low as 17% and others as high as 86%.

But the one that made me write this post is Branchout.com. Here’ s how the article describes it,  “BranchOut is a new career networking site that integrates with Facebook, so it’s very easy to set up. You can also import your LinkedIn profile, which eliminates the need to double-enter information….it’s an option for people trying to utilize Facebook in both a personal as well as professional way — just make sure your Facebook profile is well-maintained.”

Here’s my concern. First of all, I can’t look at the site unless I give them access to my Facebook information. Remember, every time you give another site permission to access your Facebook data; the site gains access to all your information and cam potentially expose things that are posted to your wall. The next issue I have is;  make sure your ‘”Facebook profile is well-maintained.”  The article then links to an article from summer 2010. This is very outdated information for keeping your Facebook information private.  If they really cared, they’d at least make sure to give us up to date information on such an important issue.  I can only say, beware. A little research reveals a problematic situation.  Do what you think is best, but please be careful.

Photo credit: deevista.com

But as a rule, the idea of paying someone to change, improve or alter your digital reputation or “digital footprint” sounds crazy to me.

I know a lot of people don’t like Google but the reality is that Google’s search algorithms (their own self interest notwithstanding) are designed to give real people who are creating real content the best chance possible of being found by other real people.

Before I came across this article,  A Primer on Online Reputation Management, I didn’t even know these companies existed. While I appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, I question whether this is a viable alternative for 99% of the population.  Here is one of the tactics employed by such organizations; they “include things like “astroturfing,” or the creation of anonymous commenter accounts to buttress a positive piece of content or lash out against a negative one.” Another tactic is to “sneak a client’s name into a site with a lot of rank with Google, such as IMDB.com.”

The whole point of a reputation is that it be a true reflection of who you are. Trust is built by being consistent and ethical. What many of us love about ‘social’ networking/media/business/commerce is the transparency. You can manage your own online presence by paying attention, reading and commenting on blogs, posting to Linked In and so forth. For heaven’s sake be genuine because if you get exposed as a fraud– you WILL need to pay someone to help you get rid of that and good luck doing so!

Photo credit: sarahmelnychuk.blogspot.com

Everyday, people tell me how wonderful/stupid Facebook and Twitter are. What’s interesting is that the people with the least knowledge are the ones with the strongest opinions. I ask my friends, colleagues, students, clients and anyone else who will listen to:

• Understand that social media is about building relationships (just like in real life)
• Know that if you act like an idiot (or a bigot or company that doesn’t care), people will find out about it much faster than ever before

People ask me if they should:

• Connect to people they don’t know on Linked In
• Combine their personal and professional Facebook accounts
• Say yes to the offer to get 2,000 twitter followers in 3 days

Let’s see. In real life would you invite 2,000 strangers to your house for coffee? Probably not. Would you invite everyone from your office to your house for a barbeque? Hmm, no. So why would you do any of the above? Twitter isn’t stupid if you follow smart people. Facebook can be a wonderful way to connect to people you care about.

If you follow the simple idea that you are looking to build trust, then the decisions about who to follow, friend, fan, like, or connect to becomes clearer.

But let’s face it. Stupid is as stupid does. If you act like the people in the stories below, things probably will turn out badly for you and you know what… you deserve it.

Evesham Township PA posting photos of suspects on their Facebook page.

Woman with an Order of Protection gets help when “friended” on Facebook.

Company shows it’s incredible insensitivity and loses (thank goodness).

What's a Rolodex?

I like Linked In. I think it has done a lot of things right and I appreciate all the forward thinking people who have created this terrific tool.

Everything in social media is changing all the time and while it makes it challenging for us to stay on top of those changes, it’s logical because there are financial, technological and practical reasons for the constant upheaval.

I am surprised by job seekers who know little about how the power of Linked In can help them in their job search. It continues to be the #1 tool I recommend for people looking to build their network contacts and find work. There are so many ways to use it to attract recruiters and hiring managers; particularly now that the job market is picking up. For more tips on using Linked In, check out this article, Ten Tips for Getting the Most Out of Linked In.

There are a few negatives in using Linked In that in no way outweigh the benefits. However, in recent months, these issues have become more problematic and if you are just starting with Linked In,  you may benefit from understanding these things.

1. Large groups can be full of spam now. Don’t let this discourage you from using groups. They are a fantastic way to meet people. You may have to work a little harder to find groups that are just professionals talking to one another.
2. I’ve noticed that some people are sending out unsolicited emails about events or their groups. When I replied to one person that it was spam, they started arguing with me. I said, “if it comes to my in box and I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it it’s spam.” Period.
3. I’ve noticed that when I look at the connections for one of my contacts, they are no longer in alphabetical order. This isn’t a big deal but…

Asking and answering questions, uploading presentations, looking for jobs and searching for contacts at key companies are all incredibly useful parts of Linked In.

Here’s my funny Linked In story. I was giving a talk at an entrepreneurial conference on social media. The crowd was great. As I left the venue, a young man stopped me and said, “I’m sorry I missed your talk on social media. Can you tell me about Linked In?”  I said, “Sure, it’s like an electronic Rolodex.”  He looked at me blankly and said, “What’s a Rolodex?”