Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Gamify Your E-mail for Better Organization

Imagine a world in which cleaning your e-mail inbox felt like the first day you got your hands on that new Super Mario Brothers game for your Nintendo.

Okay, maybe Baydin’s E-mail Game isn’t that exciting, but it does provide some entertainment relief for professionals who spend their days slogging through hundreds of never-ending messages.  And at The Fast Track, we’re all about finding ways to keep e-mail (or anything else!) from killing your productivity.

A Simple Tutorial

Here’s how it works.  By hooking up your Gmail account to the E-mail Game, you get access to an alternate interface that launches a competition each time you open a new message.

For each e-mail message, you have to decide immediately what to do.   You can respond right away by replying or forwarding it, you can delete or archive it, you can boomerang it to return at a later time of your choosing, or you can skip it completely.  You just have to do something with the message by the time the clock runs out or you will lose points, and you get the most points for replying to a message within the allotted three minutes.

The idea is to accumulate points over time by keeping your inbox as close to empty as possible.  The E-mail Game tracks your progress and efficiency, and has nifty features like the ability to respond with canned text, and reply now but send the message later.  It has a “More Time” icon in case you have to respond to an e-mail like this.   And finally, you can add a signature line that says “excuse my brevity, but I’m trying to win the E-mail Game,” which may be clever or borderline inappropriate depending on your audience.

For more on what I thought about the E-mail Game, check out the full post at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Lessons from a Startup Junkie

My friend Chris Guillebeau has become an expert at helping people opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue ideas they find meaningful.  He is joined by people like Jun Loayza, the co-founder of RewardMe, a digital rewards program for restaurants and retailers.  Jun is something of a startup junkie.  Through his career, Jun has raised over $1M in funding, failed at two startups, and successfully sold one startup.

I thought it might be useful for those of us considering startups to learn from Jun’s experiences, so on the Fast Track blog, we distill some of the most critical lessons he derived from his success and failures. Hope you'll check it out.

How to Make LinkedIn Work for You

I receive at least one question a month from readers who want to know why and how they should bother with a presence on LinkedIn.

First, the why.  As you probably know, LinkedIn is an online network of millions of experienced professionals from around the world, representing hundreds of industries. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments and helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners.

By establishing a network consisting of your connections and your connections’ connections, you are automatically linked to thousands of qualified professionals.  It’s a painless means to get introduced to advantageous contacts through people you already know and to create new relationships with people who may be in a position to help you down the line.

Now, the how. In his book, I’m on LinkedIn – Now What???, Jason Alba suggests the following best practices for making the most of your LinkedIn participation.

Share information freely

Make sure you are showing enough information on both your public and private profiles.  If you want to promote who you are and why you are valuable, make it easy for people to learn about you without having to sign up or log in.

Advertise your profile

If you don’t have your own website, use your LinkedIn profile as an online resume.  Put the URL in your e-mail signature and in blog comments or online articles you write.

Collect recommendations

Request endorsements from people you’ve worked with successfully in the past, and write them endorsements in return. Potential clients and employers are much more likely to contact you if you can prove that others have been satisfied with your work, product, or services.  Don’t go too crazy with recommendations, though, as too many will diminish their value and credibility.

Join relevant groups

Search for and become active in groups to expand your search visibility.  The ability to search for new contacts within a LinkedIn group is particularly useful if you have a small or non-diverse network.

Use the Answers feature

LinkedIn’s Answers feature allows you to ask a question and invite your network to respond.  Asking a question once a month provides an opportunity to probe your contacts in a creative way.  In turn, if someone asks a question that you can answer intelligently, do so, as this increases your visibility in the broader LinkedIn community.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

How to Develop a Social Media Policy

Social media use by employees can actually be a good thing, for employees are often your organization's most loyal and vocal advocates in public, the very individuals who strengthen an organization's ties to and place within the community. However, they MUST be educated about what is appropriate to say about the organization in social media, and what is not.  Otherwise, it is a very real possibility that they could unintentionally reveal confidential information or get you into legal hot water.  Every organization should have a written social media policy that includes the following points:

• Define what you mean by social media - for most, social media means an online forum for two-way communication - and list examples of the various types of forums (profile sites like Facebook, micro-conversation sites like Twitter, video sites like YouTube, blogs like Huffington Post).
• Clarify who will own work product created on social media sites
• Spell out the type of information considered proprietary or confidential (customer details, company financial data, etc.), and say that it should never be shared on these sites.
• Spell out the type of potentially damaging information that should never be shared on these sites (offensive comments, libelous statements, illegal activity, etc.)
• Determine which employees should be contributing to social media sites on behalf of the company and what activities these individuals should be engaged in. You should to have someone - or multiple someones - in the communications department monitoring what is being said in social media - both from an internal and external perspective.  It is the same thing as having a staff member monitor what is said in the press.  The conversation will take place with or without you and it's always best to be informed.  It's not as easy to dictate your image as it used to be, but strategic social media monitoring and participation can help you shape it.

Many organizations are providing organized training to ensure that employees not only understand these guidelines, but also comprehend the consequences of not following the guidelines (for example, they could create serious negative publicity for the company, their job could be in jeopardy). 

You don't want to talk down to your employees, but you should ensure that they are aware of the instantaneous nature of social media - once something is said, it can't be taken back - so usage related to work and the company must be thoughtful and carefully considered ahead of time.

Earn More Money Today

According to Steve Kaufmann of LingQ, a company that provides web-based language tutoring, the most accurate predictor of earning power is literacy.  Literacy is not just being able to read – it also refers to your command of written language.  By improving yours, you can increase both your IQ and the amount of cash in your pocket.

How can you do it without single-handedly raising Kaplan’s stock price? Kaufmann suggests copying a sample page from a source or article that interests you and pasting it into Google Documents.  You can find several readability indicators under File/Word Count, including the Automated Reader Index, which indicates the number of years of schooling required to understand a text.  The beauty of the web is that you can keep challenging yourself with harder and harder material until you are comfortable with content that is at an index of 12 or 15 or higher. 

You should also measure the richness of your vocabulary.  Cut and paste a sample article into a web-based Vocabulary Profiler.  Using this kind of tool, you can see how many of the piece’s words are within the 1000 most frequently used words, how many are “academic” (AWL), and how many are “off-list.”  Kaufmann recommends getting to the point where you are comfortable reading material that has 10 percent or more words in the AWL and the off-list categories.  

Don’t forget that you can use online dictionaries and word learning programs to increase your vocabulary.  When you come across a word that you don’t know, get into the habit of looking it up immediately, and also check out the related words in man’s other best friend – the thesaurus!

Who Do You Follow on Twitter?

Who do YOU follow on Twitter?  Lately, this has been a quandary for me.  I know that having lots of Twitter followers is important to many people, and I don't want to insult people who follow me by not following them back.  However, the truth is that I am simply unable to read the tweets of tens of thousands of people, even if I use a service like Tweetdeck to organize them.  So here's how I personally make the decision:

1) I follow people who have a photo in their profile.  This assures me that they are serious about using Twitter as a personal branding tool.

2) I follow people who have a real person's name in their profile.  I prefer to communicate with an individual rather than a company or business.

3) I follow people who write in English.  This one pains me the most, but if I can't understand what you're writing, I can't be sure it's not spam or offensive content.  It's nothing personal!

4) I follow people who have tweeted in the last 24-48 hours.

5) I follow people who have re-tweeted me or engaged in a conversation with me.  Doing these things helps interesting followers get noticed, because unfortunately sometimes they get lost in the shuffle of spammers.

6) And last but not least, I follow people who aren't trying to sell me something directly, but are in my space (business and career advice) and have valuable insights and information to share.

Now, it's your turn, Twitter users.  How do you decide who to follow?  And for those not on Twitter, I'd love to know why you've chosen not to use it.

Social Media is a Must for Job Seekers

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Shama Kabani, a brilliant and personable author who has written the new book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing.   I asked Shama about her best tips about social media marketing for the career-minded individual, and here’s what she recommended we focus on:

Purpose: Build your personal brand with purpose. Want to be the next CFO? Build your profile AS a future CFO. Tweak your profiles to show your interest within the area. Before you write a status update, ask yourself – “Does this showcase my brand as an authority in the area and does it provide value to my network?”

Content: Your personal brand is defined by what you say online – and how you say it. If you are looking to build your expertise in a particular field, you must create compelling content and distribute it using the medium of your choice – blogging, video, or audio.

Community: How do you know you have a solid personal brand? When it has attracted a community around it. Employers look more and more at an individual’s social capital. Want to lead the PR department? It helps if you have relationships with bloggers and participate in social media channels.

I especially like this third point.  Anyone who wants to work in the communications field today must have a working knowledge of – and comfort with – social media.   It’s no longer a specialty or a unique skill – it’s expected.  So if you’re job searching and are not certain that your social media savvy is up to par, consider picking up Shama’s book or Chris Brogan’s Social Media 101. 

Service Helps You Control Your Online Identity

Microsoft released a study in January that showed 70% of HR recruiters in the U.S. use online profiles and social networks to determine employment, while only 7% of U.S. consumers thought this was true. This discrepancy is significant -- and points to the clear fact that in order to be successful job seekers have to recognize the importance of their online reputations and the impact this information can have on their careers. 

I came across a great service that was developed expressly for this purpose.  ReputationDefender helps people take control of their identities and reputations online.  The service scours the deep web recursively to ensure you know not only what is being said about you online, but who is saying it.  If it finds content you deem to be false or negative, or perhaps just irrelevant, Reputation Defender can help you make it become less prominent in searches, and in some cases, disappear. The service protects your privacy by removing personally identifiable information from databases that sell your information.

I thought ReputationDefender would be great for organizations but prohibitively expensive for individuals, but the packages actually start at just $9.99/month.  And no, I'm not a spokesperson for the company.  I just think it's useful and cool and am thinking about signing up myself.  Seems a lot more thorough then doing my periodic Google scans.

Book Review: The Twitter Job Search Guide

One of the most common questions I get asked during speaking engagements is 'Tell me why I should be on Twitter.'  Well, if you're a job seeker, this book answers that question and many more.  The eminently readable Twitter Job Search Guide: Find a Job and Advance Your Career in Just 15 Minutes a Day will have you excited to leverage Twitter's potential for your own professional gain before you finish the last page.

 

The book was packed with so much valuable information, I almost felt like I was getting several books for the price of one (disclosure: I did get a free review copy so that I could share my thoughts with you).  I thought I knew a lot about Twitter already, but I learned a ton from this book.  Some of my favorite gems?  How to write the most effective Twitter bio, how to write tweets that show up in the search engines, how to stay out of legal hot water, and how to attract recruiter and employers’ attention with strategic tweets.

 

Since I’m writing a book on business myths right now, I particularly liked this section that busts the current myths when it comes to Twitter and the job search:

Myth: There’s one right way to use Twitter for your job search.

Myth-buster: There’s no “one-size fits all” rule for using Twitter for your job search. Use the best approach that fits your needs. (It’s also up to you as to when and how you disclose that you are actively seeking employment.)

Myth: Twitter works for job search only in certain professions: You need to be a public relations guru, tech savvy, or experienced in using social media to land a new job through Twitter.

Myth-buster: Nonsense! Employers and hiring managers across industries and professions—from the National Hockey League to Tasty D’Lite—are finding new ways to integrate Twitter into their communication strategies. From Fortune 500s to mom-and-pop companies, organizations are finding new ways to increase consumer interest and advertise through Twitter. Police departments share public alerts and safety tips through Twitter. Nonprofit organizations and schools use Twitter to disseminate knowledge, share best practices, gather community support, and raise awareness of resources and needs. Politicians, government officials, and NGOs are increasingly using Twitter as a tool for public policy and diplomacy, from Congressmen to the White House to the Consulate General of Israel and Canada’s National Aboriginal Health Organization.

Myth: Twitter can only help you meet people online.

Myth-buster: Your Twitter job search is not limited to online connections. Although several Twitter accounts interact with users through “bots” (automated code that generates responses to users), the majority of Twitter handles are used and maintained by real people. Relationships that begin electronically can translate into powerful connections in person. Many Twitter users regularly broadcast local networking and professional events. You can expand your circle both on- and offline through “tweetups” (community gatherings), charity fund-raisers (Twestivals), and other events you learn about through Twitter.

Thou Shall Not Slander

In the last few months, I have spotted no fewer than three examples of one person in our social networking community slandering another person in our social networking community.   I use the word slander, although technically it's more like libel because the articles are written by bloggers who are read by thousands.  I am not going to tell you who they are because A) I will not stoop to their level and B) that would send even more attention their way, which is exactly what some of them want.

Personal blogs and social networks make it way too easy for us to spout off malicious judgments and/or hurtful falsehoods about other people.  Did someone wrong you?  Do you hate his work or what he stands for?   Why bother to approach the person and share your views in a civilized manner when it makes you feel powerful and vindicated to rant in a public online forum where you can see just how many people agree with you?

I'll tell you why.  Because even if it makes you feel better for the time being, it's not worth it.  First of all, there's the issue of your personal brand.  Everything published online has a long life, even if you later change your mind and try to delete it.  Whether they have cause or not, people who slam others online are perceived by most observers to be petty, immature, and even cruel.  Imagine that a few years down the road, an employer is searching for you.  Do you want them to come upon your rant and drop your resume in the recycling bin, fearing that you'll shoot your mouth off the second the company does something that's not to your liking?

In our litigious society, it's also a dumb idea to cut someone down using their real name.  I guarantee that person will find out, either through word of mouth or via a Google search.  And they might be mad enough to sue you.  It doesn't really matter if they don't win (most libel suits get thrown out eventually, especially if the plaintiff is well-known).  You'll still have to pay big bucks to a lawyer to defend yourself. 

Even if the person doesn't sue you, you've probably burned a bridge.  The fact is, you never know when that person might cross your path again, and god forbid he's ever in a position to get back at you (he gets famous, becomes a client, etc.).  Then you could really be in trouble.

Prefacing statements that are downright mean or compromising by saying they're "just your opinion" does not take away from the damage they may do to you and your reputation.  Please people, just think before you type.