More On Personal Branding and Platform

Once again, my daily email from Pink Magazine proved timely and informative. Today’s topic, personal branding, fits well with all the talk about platform development in last week’s workshop.

One informative link was to an online identity calculator. This short query uses a Google search of your name to determine your digital distinctness.

It helps to be “Pascale Lane” and not “Jane Doe.” It also helps to be online actively managing what people associate with you. Owning your own domain, blogging, and other digital interactions will help increase your digital brand immensely. Most importantly, you can move your brand in the direction you desire rather than passively allowing others to determine your image.

In this day and age, when a Google search about you may make or break a job search, overlooking your online brand would be short-sided. I encourage everyone to use the link and determine their online identity score.

Think it doesn’t matter? Better think again.

Increasing Sensations of Incompetence

I am learning to write creative nonfiction.

I have this book idea. I finally “gave” myself this conference to try and get my act together and WRITE THE DAMN BOOK!

Among this group of mostly middle-aged healthcare workers, I am way ahead of the online media curve. I have a blog (no link because you’re reading it right now). I am on FaceBook. I am on LinkedIn. I even Tweet!

The first day of the conference discussed preparing the book proposal and pitching it. I felt smug then because I had began developing “platform” with my traditional and social media work (see Thursday’s post).

Yesterday we talked about actual writing. Michael Palmer presented his insights from the beginning and growth of his writing career.

This morning focuses on public relations for budding authors. And I feel so far behind. I just now registered my domain name. I just signed up for HARO (help a reporter out). I have bought my Flip videocamera, but have yet to upload to my YouTube Channel (no link because THERE IS NOTHING THERE YET). So much to do… and I haven’t yet factored in the book proposal! Or actually writing THE DAMN BOOK! Or my day jobs.

Sigh!

The good news is I have a lot of new blog fodder. And I have to write; I don’t know why. It is part of who I am. So hang on- it may be a bumpy ride, but it won’t be boring. At least not every day…

Poken Fun!

Faithful readers know that my daughter is majoring in Communication with a focus on public relations. Friday she went to a conference, and mid-morning texted me from the social media session:

We need pokens! Google it, and order!

Really, it takes much less than that to get me shopping.

Pokens take the place of business cards (click here for great video explanations). These electonic gizmos, when you click the hands together, will exchange all electronic contact information and maintain a timeline function as well. So if you are trying to remember someone you met at a meeting 2 weeks ago, you can scroll back to that date to pull up their information.

Another cool feature: the poken information is updated every time the person in question updates it. So if I change my email address, my poken contacts automatically get the new one!

Of course, choosing a poken must be the hardest part:

After much deliberation (accompanied by a fine Malbec blend from Chile), my offspring and I made our choices. She went with the dragon (It's hard tell if he's a good boy or bad boy. He's got the horns, but the smile, too.), while I purchased the pink alien (A recent addition to the Zoo's Area 54, we think she's a she), although it was a tough race with the green alien and voodoo pokens. 

They also sell less “cute” pokens:

In addition to serving their poken function, they act as flash drives with up to 2GB of storage. The colored versions are sleek and cool, although all are black with just the poken 4-fingered hand to give them away when capped. The plain one can be custom branded as well.

I may get one of these plainer devices for my more “professional” online persona. My snarky “personal” online self will be the pink alien for now.

So snap a poken on your lanyard. It makes adding online friends and acquaintances easy. If you see me and my alien, let’s do the “high four" to exchange data!

Career Maintenance in the 21st Century

Today I heard a story on NPR’s Morning Edition about social media and applying for jobs. That resume printed on heavy bond in a matching envelope is so 20th century… and we are almost a decade into the 21st! Sending a printed job application makes you look, well, old, or at least out of touch.

Some folks have found jobs through FaceBook or Twitter, but the most popular professional networking site is LinkedIn. This site allows you to set up a resume with current and past positions, education, more detailed descriptions of interests and job responsibilites, and a short status update similar to those on FaceBook.

The fun is just beginning! You can add links to your blog or other web pages. Apps let you share travel plans, books you are reading, and PowerPoint presentations or other documents.

The real power of LinkedIn is its networking. Using your places of education and employment, email address book, and interests, the site locates people you may know. You then ask them to “join your network” which is like being a “friend” in FaceBook. You can also ask your primary network contacts (your “friends” to continue the analogy) for recommendations. These can be viewed by others on LinkedIn to support your online resume. My public view is shown below:

Those who have joined LinkedIn can generate a bare-bones resume in PDF format as well.

Once you have set up your primary network and, perhaps, joined some groups, you can then arrange “introductions” via the service. Say you want to meet someone from Company X. You can search for Company X and identify people. The service reports those who are linked to your network. Secondary links are those connected to your primary network, and tertiary networks are one more step removed. You can request introductions via these links and eventually make contact with people.

A number of companies and headhunters use the service to find contacts who may want jobs they have or may be able to suggest appropriate candidates. When you sign up you specify what you want to hear about and how you want to be contacted. I am not actively job hunting, but I get at least one inquiry a month this way.

LinkedIn has been called “FaceBook for Professionals.” It is a useful tool for job hunting and career maintenance. If you are over the age of 18, you probably need a profile!

Follow you, follow me...

I admit that I joined Twitter not having a clue what it was all about. For approximately a month now I have been tweeting, trying to figure it out.

My first followers were an SEO and other techies. I signed up to follow them, and I have learned a lot from what they post. They are currently at SXSW, a social networking conference in Austin (thank you Google for that information), and I've gotten ideas about how I can use this tool in various aspects of my life.

I then figured out how to make my tweets update my status on Facebook. This accomplishment led to the stream of "Pascale is..." posts that have increased the breadth of my followers. One night I posted that I was sitting down to enjoy a great old flick on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Next thing I know, TCManiacs is following me. I signed on as a follower, and found out that all sorts of interesting sites and the daily theme and schedule are posted. What a great idea! As a classic film buff, this service alone makes me happy to be one of the tweeple!

Of course, as I look at what I post, I realize how mundane most of it is. As a physician-scientist many of my friends and family members think my professional life is exciting. Not true! Most of it comes out like, "finished at first hospital; now time for second institution." Or today's question: "Is anyone in Omaha still peeing?*" Yet people read these and sign up to follow. Makes me worry about some of them, cause I wouldn't generally follow the stuff I am writing.

Which makes me wonder why I'm writing it. In part, it's because I am still feeling my way through microblogging. Part of me still doen't entirely "get it," so I just keep plugging away. On the other hand, I've gotten a feel for some utility in just about a month, so maybe someday I will understand the rest of it!

Last week, there was a newstory in the tweets of one of my followees. A guy had been arrested, and he was described by his job titles followed by "He has 1,800 followers on Twitter." Is this a new factoid for our bios? Is it good to have 1,800 souls hanging on your every 140 character utterance?

One thing I did learn quickly was NOT to have every tweet SMS'd to my Blackberry. Instead, I pull up my feed periodically and read it when I feel like it. Otherwise I think I would go mad. I mean, do I really want to know that Bell, Book, and Candle was on this afternoon while I was working? When I can't do anything productive with the information?

If you have any other good uses of Twitter, please comment! I'm still learning about this phenomenon. In the meantime, remember that I am a Professor of Pediatrics with 15 followers on Twitter! (I finally made double digits this week!)

*I am a pediatric nephrologist, so this is a highly relevant professional question.

It's been an interesting 2 weeks since I last updated my blog. First, I've experienced every respiratory virus in the area since returning from vacation. At least they didn't spoil Hawaii!

Next, I spent a week on the clinical service. Lots of patients wanted my immediate attention last week, even though my head was imprisoned in snot!

I am beginning to explore other web venues for use in pleasure and business. I now have a page on FaceBook, primarily for personal stuff, and my page on LinkedIn for professional postings. I also signed up with Twitter (see tweets at right) although I must admit I don't quite get it. "They" keep saying how addictive it is, but it hasn't pulled me in the way FaceBook did.

I will keep playing with all of this stuff, because I am a bit of a techno geek. Maybe someone out there will share with me their use of Twitter (or similar microblogs) and how it makes their life better.

BTW, the photo above is a red-crested or Brazilian cardinal. Got a shot of this guy while we were climbing up Diamondhead.