Here are some basic things to consider when using a photo on Linkedin:
1. It is not optional. Weird ideas fill a void. If you don't have a photo, then viewers of your profile will use their imaginations to create their own image of you. Leaving people to their imaginations usually is not in your favor. You will inevitably disappoint in person.
2. About disappointing in person, use a realistic image of you that is relatively current. Over ten years? Hair dyed a new color or fell out?  Gained or lost 40 pounds? It is time for a new photo as you will most definitely shock in an in-person meeting. This is definitely a "what you see is what you get" situation.
3. Dress appropriately for the audience and the business demographic you are targeting. If you are looking for business or a job in tech then dressing in a formal dark suit and red silk tie might be off-putting when the business dress code for the company is yoga pants, jeans, and hemp shirts. This is probably the most important tip as to how you are dressed creates a first impression that is hard to erase. Plus, take off your tint-adjusting glasses when outdoors.
4. The setting and pose is a question of relevance. If you are in law enforcement, outdoor sports, or any risky business then a skydiving shot of you at 9,000' might be a great pose . In chartered accounting, banking, brain surgery, maybe not so much. Same could be said for the really cute pose taken at Burning Man or Coachella. Keep your personal life off Linkedin.
5. Look forward at the viewer or towards the center of the screen. This is crucially important now that Linkedin has moved photos to the left side of the screen as you view it. If your body and head are facing out to the left as well, the portrait image creates an unconscious psychological dissonance with the rest of the layout.
6. In the same vein, the background color and view can add or detract. An all white background ranks higher than the ubiquitous corporate photo gray or worse Hollywood black. White is young, edgy and won't fight with your Linkedin background banner that hopefully, you have customized (a topic of another article).
7. Finally, look happy...not cool, inviting, engaging, business-like, professional, or a leader (whatever that is),  Just be happy when the shutter snaps. Happiness is contagious and welcoming to everyone. 

​Trust in the portrait-making process,and hire a professional photographer, not your wife or partner. Pick a decent background and outfit. Don't worry, be happy..

I was thinking about a potential client's request to see samples of professional websites that I have done. They thought that building their brand was as easy as copying a site of someone one in the same profession. I guess that's half true. Nowadays, anybody can build a website for free as exampled by a 10 year old using Weebly http://addiesrainforest.weebly.com/.  Wix, webstarter, Yolo, Squarespace can also do the job.

Of the 100+ websites I have done for professionals since 2009, My fee was never for the actual building of website, though it was included with the end product. Actually, the need was for unique branded content that put them on the cyberweb in the most favorable light.
 
This is the crux of Web 2.0 and online personal branding that has someone wanting to talk to me. Today, a faxed, mailed, or emailed resume is the mere beginning of a brand, and cannot begin to address personal branding. Linkedin and social media have been the game changers in the past 10 years.

The Internet has birthed online branding as a complimentary adjunct to a networked job search. This has challenged everybody, especially executives, in today’s global economy to step up their game and tell a good story. A good brand combined with a solid network are the real job security across companies, borders, and industries.

How many articles, webinars, and eBooks are out there now on personal branding? Fortunes have been made telling you what to do. But, what to do is not how to do it. Content and telling a good story is strictly personal.  Looking at other people’s self-marketing won’t help you determine and create your own unique value proposition that articulates solutions to re-position or better position you in the marketplace.

A well done, integrated brand tells your story in an engaging and appropriate way across digital platforms. Thus, your website's solutions page echoes your accomplishments on your resume and longer story on Linkedin, and they all are further elaborated on in your blog postings. It is a orchestrated effort to build thought leadership, make you stand-out, and be differentiated from others seeking the same opportunities. Bottom-line, why should you be considered? Your brand tells that story.

This sophisticated positioning and personal branding is where a good career coach should be able to help you build and tell your story, and it is why executives seek my services. I help you to develop your branded content across platforms, and rebrand yourself to vie for new opportunities. And, you can’t afford to not get it right the first time. There are no second first-impressions on the Internet.

Rarely do I promote an event especially to global readers. But, this one is cool and will be recorded to watch later from wherever. The news is that companies are going to hire you now based on comprehensive set of data points gathered about you online that are nowhere to be found on your resume.

Forget transferable skills, folks. This is far more comprehensive, intrusive and penetrating into your personality/style, mannerisms, predictable behaviors, competencies/abilities, and unstated accomplishments. None of these are even touched on your resume but they are online.

What if they knew the articles and quotes you shared on social sites? What if they could scrutinize the people you interact with all over the Internet? What impact would that have on how you present yourself for employment opportunities.. 

The solution? Manage your message and your privacy settings. They will be searching for the most recent information on you.My guess is less than a year and two years max. Start now and build a brand/marketing image/ reputation online that delivers the message you want them read.

Algorithm Alchemy: Turning Talent Search into Gold
Thursday, June 19, 2014
LOCATION:
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Knight Management Ctr - Cemex Auditorium, Zambrano Hall
641 Knight Way, Stanford, CA
(Parking and Directions) 
6:00 pm – Registration, Networking Reception & Demos
7:00 pm – Panel Discussion (Q&A) 

Startups are turning the tables on recruiting  with targeted prospecting algorithms.  Applicant search is transformed intoprecise talent-matching through the collection and curation of data from numerous sources. The new platforms level the playing field, reshaping the interaction between job seekers, recruiters, and hiring managers. 

There is a new gold rush in the global talent acquisition market! According to Bersin by Deloitte, the global talent acquisition market is now worth over $150B annually. While online job boards and aggregators continue to hold the largest slice of the pie, new entrants are poised to take away significant market share.

Join us on Thursday, June 19th to find out how today’s alchemists are exploring new frontiers in the job market, disrupting an industry that has become inefficient and unwieldy:

• Will resumes and cover letters become obsolete?
• Do the new tools threaten the work of today’s recruiters or augment their value?
• Will behavioral assessment tools shift the perception of who is considered the most qualified candidate?
• Will new marketplaces replace online job postings in an era of powerful employment matchmaking?

   Panelists:Dan Shapero, Vice President of Talent Solutions, Linkedin
Alex Dévé, Founder and CEO, Whitetruffle
Sheeroy Desai, Co-founder and CEO, Gild
Steve Krausz, General Partner, U.S. Venture Partners
  
Demo Companies:
Readyforce | Venturocket | Whitetruffle

** More panelists and demo companies to be announced soon.  Please continue to check back. 

** Follow (@VLAB) on Twitter and Event Hashtag #VLABtalent

And when I moused over the image it said "Happy Birthday Patti"! How cool is it to have a Google Doodle personalized for you? Is this brilliant marketing? Indeed it is as I am blogging about it.

But, there's more. They gave me a present, too!

They offered me a personalized URL and of course I snapped it up: 
https://www.google.com/+PattiWilson

Not to grouse over this, but it is about time because a personalized URL is the best way to help drive people to Google+. 

I haven't seen Google in a hurry to pass them out. In  their typical style, they offer products selectively and roll out new services by word of mouth and invitation only. Compare this to the land rush Facebook conducted when it opened up their URLs on a first come first serve basis in one day.

Why are these personalized URLs important to individuals beyond mere status symbols? Why have I made a point to get my name in every URL that I can and in every email service offered? Yes, I own pattiwilson in Yahoo, Outlook, and Google email.  Well one's name is part of one's brand isn't it? It is how you are found in a Google search.

People, hiring managers, headhunters, customers, networking contacts, blind dates will all search on your name in Google not your company.  Think about it. You do it yourself when you want to find out about somebody. Moreover, Google's search algorithm gives preference to someone's name + a URL like pattiwilson.com or pattiwilson.net.  It really doesn't matter what specific domain comes after it. It could be .me, .ca, .us, .whatever. The name attached to the domain is of key importance.

If you have a common name, like mine, then owning multiple URLs in required to hold your place at the top of the first screen in a Google name search. If you share a name with someone famous who is in IMDB or Wikipedia, for example, then it is crucial to have multiple social sites and URLs with your name to compete against the big databases.

It all adds up to greater visibility and a bigger digital footprint. What is the point of good branding if nobody can find you online? Thanks Google!


 

Well we just couldn't keep calling it mobility as in "mobile phone" when it is all pervasive, ubiquitous, and omnipresent in how we live, do business, and search for meaning.

I know a couple who never use the ATM, and do not own smart phones nor a  computer. They have no clue about Facebook, GPS, Yelp, Amazon, and Google. Seriously. I used to call them Luddites, but now I call them Neanderthals. They are about to go extinct.

There is a lot of content noise on the web arguing about the need or ROI of a college degree. While that debate can rage on, I know that there is no debate over the need to have our young people fully wired, connected, and technically savant. 

Regardless of training, diploma, or degree if they can't access and fluently use the Internet of Things, they will be unemployable.

BUSINESS INSIDER
INFOGRAPHIC: How The Internet Of Things Connects Everything And Everyone
May 8, 2013, 3:20 PM

In just seven years, there will be anywhere from 24 to 50 billion Internet-connected devices. That's three to 6.5 devices for every man, woman, and child on the planet. 

Those devices aren't just PCs, smartphones, and tablets, but also smart watches and eyewear, along with a lot of “things” we don’t usually think of as connected to the Internet: TVs, cars, appliances, shipping containers, and jet engines, to name a few.

We're starting to live more connected lives through these “things.” Consider this example: A woman jogging through a park gets thirsty. She does a voice search on her smartphone for bottled water and is directed to a nearby vending machine, where she buys water using a mobile payment account on her phone.

Sensing its supply is low, the machine alerts the distributor, whose automated supply chain management system adds that machine to the route of a passing delivery truck. Meanwhile, the jogger stops at a grocery store. Based on her recent activity, the beverage company sends a promotion to the jogger’s smartphone. She gets it just as she is deciding what drink to buy.

Check out the infographic below for more ways in which the Internet of Things is changing our personal and corporate lives. And if your company wants to stay ahead of the curve, find out how to take advantage of the mobile technology that's connecting devices by unlocking exclusive content from the Harvard Business Review.

Read more at the site:

No the title is not my line. I am not that clever or cool. But I was impressed by the top executive search consultant based in Dallas who did use it.

And the point she was making? In searching for candidates for positions, she is able to recover much data and information that people leave in their wake online. Some of it is good and some of it is preferable to be gone.

Your reputation is a piece of your brand, and anything found online that would tarnish it would be better removed or buried down multiple search pages in Google.  Unflattering or uncomfortable Facebook photos are obvious culprits. But other items are more stealthy like political donations, real estate sales of multi-million dollar homes, complaints to the City Health Department by your neighbors, prayer meditations you led, lawsuits, participation in sports and events. You get the picture and so do the hiring managers.

You have to decide how much you want to show to the world of your private life. If the answer is not much, then you must systematically and persistently work to push down the offending content. How is this done? The easiest way is to put brand-building content up that is fresher and newer, thus older material is pushed down. This will not work for listings in Wikipedia and IMDB but one assumes they have value for you.

Posting  content on sites like Quora, Vimeo and Tumblr would be helpful as well as profiles on the Linkedin competitors such as Viadeo, Xing, Apnacircle, Tianji and Orkut. They will give you a global reach as well. Of cours Google is top billing thanks to its algorithms to a named website and a named blog. What do I mean by named? Look at the URL name at the top of this blog. It is mine and therefore when Google sees it it gives it preference over other types of posted content.

I did not mention how much work it is to put up good content and keep it there but it is a really small price to pay for being screened in for a job and not out.

I met Adam over lunch years ago at the height of the dotcom boom. My first impression was that I was talking not just to a really smart (Cal Tech educated) guy but incredibly insightful too. He has a unique ability to extract the essence of a topic, distill it down to the essentials and easily create a system or set of rules to apply it or use it.

The same is true for his take on networking. I have advised clients for years to grow the biggest networks they can and forget about the "trust" slogan Linkedin uses. If you don't then when you need to extend your reach to access help then you end up paying Linkedin to reach out to strangers.

The other two points he made about how to use a network: often and with those worth working with are the keys to making all your contacts and time spent count.  Too often people don't network until they need something. They never think that possibly giving in advance might be a good thing to do for the purpose of reciprocation. But, giving to the right connections matters. As Adam says, we must keep our network cleaned up and weeded out of less supportive connections.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The Basics of Power Networking
By Adam Rifkin
www.linkedin.com/in/adamrifkin/

Two years ago Fortune magazine identified me as the best networker on LinkedIn; this in turn led to some wonderful stories in Adam Grant's excellent book, GIVE AND TAKE.

Since then, every day people ask me about things I’ve learned about networking on Twitter, PandaWhale, and in real life.

I feel fortunate to have learned networking from many excellent teachers, and the greatest of these teachers was actually the Internet itself. The top three lessons of Internet computer networking serve as valuable lessons for human networking, too:

1. Networks add value by getting bigger
2. Networks add value by being used more
3. Networks add value by being fault tolerant

Let's briefly explore each of these points, with some tactical advice on how to apply them.

1. Networks add value by getting biggerIt seems uncontroversial now, but that’s because our thinking has been so inflected by many years of access to a public, open, scalable Internet. Back in the day, many computer scientists argued that networks would maximize their value by being made out of nodes that were more tightly controlled by a single owner. Similarly, until recently, human networks were small, tightly connected, and controlled by gatekeepers such as elite colleges, social clubs, and prestigious professional organizations. The Web has been a great example of how technology — in the form of apps such as LinkedIn — can help foster more connections than can be maintained in real life.

TIP: Since networks add value by getting bigger, use every day as an opportunity to grow the quality of your connections. I am often asked how I created my network, especially given that I am naturally introverted. It turns out that building a network is not hard; with time and patience, you can do it, too. The key is to tend to your network a little bit at a time, over the course of many years.

A good rule of thumb is to connect with at least 1 and up to 3 people every day. More than 3 means you're not connecting deeply enough.

Each interaction need not take long; you can get started with just a single five minute favor each day. It's not about time; it's about authenticity. The main way to deepen a connection is through genuine interactions that share knowledge and stories and emotions. 2. Networks add value by being used more
There are many obvious downsides of heavy network usage: slowness, conflicts, lack of prioritization, lossiness, and low signal to noise ratio immediately come to mind. But the corresponding upsides include plenitude, ubiquity, rapid growth, and habituation. They don’t call them network effects for nothing! The same lessons apply to human networks: the more we reach out to our acquaintances, the more value we create not just for ourselves but for all of them, too.

TIP: It is important to connect EVERY day. Let's repeat that: EVERY SINGLE DAY. Some connections can be new (and, ideally, with a warm introduction from a mutual connection). Some connections should be re-connections with "dormant ties" that deepen a connection already made.

Relationships are progressions and re-connections are the fuel for that progress. Deepening 1-3 connections every single day makes you healthier, happier, and it's good for your career.

3. Networks add value by being fault tolerantIn many ways the Internet is the very worst designed network of all time (think about how often things fail when you're surfing The Web!) but paradoxically that is also its greatest strength. Every part of it was designed to fail early, often, and hard without impacting any other part too negatively. On the human level, I have learned that communities must also be designed to deal with messiness, loss, and failure. Unlike the architecture of the Internet, we also have the ability to learn and grow from the error conditions of life -- which ultimately makes the whole network stronger if we all share what we’ve learned.TIP: Tend to your network like a garden, a little every day, by weakening connections. Weed your garden: If someone demonstrates s/he is not worth growing a connection with, do not invest more time with that person. Instead, invest that time in someone who IS worth knowing better. Over time, your network will dynamically reflect your efforts, and be wonderful and helpful not just to you, but to your connections, too. We distill these lessons into 3 rules of thumb:

1. Every day improve the quality of 1-3 of your best connections. Every single day.
2. What you get out of your network depends on what you put into your network. Therefore, invest your time generously.
3. We become more like the people with whom we spend time. Choose wisely.

Happy networking!

All resumes are digital, but people still don't seem to get that.  I don't care if you are CEO or a Barrista at Starbucks. Nobody will see your resume on a piece of paper unless : A. you carry it into them, or B. you walk in for an interview. Your resume gets passed around from computer, to tablet, to cloud database. If you are going to be networked, connected, and screened for jobs online then why not think out of the box and emulate the best at the same time?

I give you the madly gone viral "resume" for Philippe Dubost that is a direct send up of an Amazon product page. And, yes, it is being called a resume in an article by Will Oremus at Slate.com

I think Philippe is funny, brilliant, and creative. I'd buy him.
View Phil's resume here

Who said you can never be too thin or too rich or have too many diamonds? The whole goal of personal branding is not to limit your exposure online but to expand and control it. Linkedin, other social networks, a personal website are not either or choices. This is not a zero sum game. 

Self-marketing online (and where else is it nowadays?) is best done by delivering your message using as many platforms, tools and devices as possible. This also includes a "Presume" on Sliderocket.com and a personal Prezi presentation too. Then link them altogether. 

How weird would it be if Coca Cola used only billboards for advertising and not TV, online and magazines? Same goes for us.

When someone puts your name in google search...not only Linkedin should come up but a whole plethora of branded links about you that you own and control: website, blogs, etc.

But, like everything else online, websites are now commodities and therefore cheap, if not free.  You can build your own with little talent for design and no money and still have a passable result. I will be better than Linkedin because it is uniquely you. A personal website enables us to truly express our uniqueness compared to template-driven social sites. They all have different purposes. Linkedin and other social sites are first and foremost  connectors rather than a branding instrument. 

There are several cloud services for websites where the building and hosting is free as well is the maintenance. Try www.weebly.com . I build all my client's sites there...since 2009 almost 80. My own business and personal websites and blogs are on Weebly: www.pattiwilson.com, www.pattiwilson.net, www.santacruzcalifornia.us, www.joyousdancer.com, 

I don't think it matters in a Google search which site is point as people (especially search consultants) are curious enough to look at everything. When I sign my name in an email, I list my title, company, Linkedin, SKYPE, website URLs, my phone number. People usually copy all of it for their Outlook files or whatever. 

The web is moving towards image driven content and curated content. How better to provide both images and curated content of ourselves than a website? Although I do have my business on Pinterest too.

in addition... 
www.about.me is an online business card that will link and point to all other sites online where your profile and dossier exists. If you can only put one link under your name in an email, then use that site. It is free. The only competitor that I know of to about.me is www.flavors.com . You can do both. About.me is one page and they will provide you will a print business card that matches your about.me profile too.

Send me an email if you want to see a rainforest research science project website that a 9 year old built by herself using Weebly or some of the sites I have done. [email protected]

This is a new twist. I have been saying for several years now that recruiters and hiring managers are looking in Linkedin first for potential hires and then Google searches. They bypass resume searches out of their own website databases in favor of prowling through online profiles. 

Now some HR experts, notably the esteemed Dr. John Sullivan,  have realized to require an employee to submit someone's resume to make an employee referral is a really dumb idea. And he tells you in this article all the good reasons why. 

Time to just burn that resume and build a professional website instead? I think so.

Why “Name-only” Employee Referrals Produce Dramatic Results
by Dr. John Sullivan Oct 29, 2012, 5:42 am ET

Employee referrals provide the highest quality and the highest volume of hires, but you won’t receive as high a level of results if you don’t minimize roadblocks to referrals. Requiring a current resume for employee referrals is a major “under-the-radar” detriment to reaching the goal of having referrals exceed 50% of all hires.

 Requiring a resume to start a referral process might not seem like a big deal (because the resume is “the currency” of recruiting) but it can be. Although “active candidates” all have current resumes, employed people who are not actively looking (some people call thempassives) don’t have an updated resume available and they may have little interest in creating one.

Requiring an updated resume in order to move forward slows down and occasionally stops employee referral efforts. Consider an alternative approach, which is offering an option to employees, so that all they must submit is a prospect’s name and contact information in order to begin the referral process. This approach is known as a “name-only” referral.
read more

You do the math: 150 thought leaders is far less than 1% of its 175 million members. 

LinkedIn Rolls Out Redesigned Profiles, 'Thought Leader' Feature
By Damon Poeter
October 16, 2012 
PCMagazine 
LinkedIn also introduced a new feature for users with the redesign--the ability to follow 150 of "the world's most respected thought leaders" (pictured above). The company called the addition of a "follow" mechanism, which allows users to keep up with this select group of individuals, "a natural extension" of existing tools for following companies and news feeds, but said it had no current plans to monetize the new feature.
Read more

Linkedin has decided for us who these people are. They will be expanding the list and add people who are experts in their field. You can apply at http://partner.linkedin.com/influencer/

Linkedin is doing a one-off from the Google+ style of posts where we can freely put anybody in our circles and follow them and comment on their posts. Linkedin has artificially set-up 150 follows with the same intention. But, how can millions of us get any kind of visibility with a Thought Leader to have a conversation?

There has always been a huge culture difference between Linkedin and Google+. Linkedin is very template-driven, structured and rule bound while Google offers the, "I'm feeling lucky" feature for  search. Google Circles and Follows have grown organically from the bottom up while Linkedin Thought Leader Follows are obviously trickling down.

What do you think of the Linkedin Thought Leader Follows? Do you have a problem with being provided a highly controlled and limited list of chosen elites?

Follow me on Google+ 

I came to appreciate the hidden value of SKYPE as the sum total of all its features: screen sharing, file transfer, conference calls, revamped dial pad, address book management, group video calling  

As my business has grown globally, SKYPE has become a low cost/free option when making calls to remote (from the USA) areas like Vietnam.  

I have gone through numerous GoToMeeting, and other screen sharing websites,paying exorbitant money with my clients struggling to log in and hear me. I came to rely on the file sharing and screen sharing features. When talking to potential and current clients, I could share my screen and show them real time examples and resources as we talked. 

SKYPE's file sharing and IM features quickly transferred data during and in between conversations while keeping a history of all exchanges. Each client contact's profile became a centralized place to maintain a history of what data has been exchanged and content shared and when.   Adding on apps enables me to record video and audio calls as well.

Certainly that all adds up to a client tracking and management system and I have come to rely on it for all my clients not just those off shore. But what is the most interesting is how much more accessible it is to be able to drop a random IM message in somebody's chat box while in SKYPE to engage with someone else. 

It makes keep up and staying in touch a whole lot easier because it keeps of history of what you sent and said most recently. I don't know about you but I can't keep the onslaught of data coming at me in short-term memory anymore.

 

What to do with QR Codes?

By creating your own QR Codes (called "qurifying") you can make whatever you want more interactive.
- Put one on your business card, on flyers for a party or poster to promote your products or services.
- Or use them to help sorting your books or CD's, put them on your keys or tools so you know what they are for. 
(from the Qurify website)

Tools? Really?

So I put this code on my screwdriver and I always know what it's for? Ok, I am having fun. But these QR codes are pretty cool and Qurify has probably the simplest site to use to make codes for use by the executive, professional, solopreneur and small business owner.

What am I talking about?

QR or Quick Response code is a bar code that can be read by an app in your iPhone, Droid or my Blackberry. Putting the code on any real life object enables it to transmit whatever information is embedded in the code. Typically most services limit you to a certain number of characters to embed in a QR code. Qurify said 255 characters but some QR codes hold up to 7000 characters.The code above has my business card information embedded in it.  I used all but 37 characters of the 255.

What do you do with them?

Look at them as an interactive bridge between the digital universe and the bricks and mortar world. Put in the QR code information from a v-card, business card, links to Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, eBook, a resume, and your website.  Apply the code to a piece of paper, a card, a flyer, a tee shirt, a book to enable the coder reader to receive extended information about you online or any topic or site you want to send them to..

Is it worth adding to your business card, resume, and other documents?

Sure, why not? You have nothing to lose and much to gain with the increased visibility. I think the best use would be to build a great website and use the QR code on the back of your business card to get networking contacts to the website's landing page. That would be the best brand message delivery compared to sending code readers to linkedin or other template-driven apps and sites. You could offer a special deal on an ebook you have written and use the code to send users to an Amazon.com page to buy it. The applications are endless. Just think of it as the simple little wireless connector between the world and the interweb.

In my universe there is nothing better than leading the pack compared to following the herd when it comes to new and wonderful technology gadgets. QR codes are easy to create, and the uses are limited only by your creativity, strategic vision, and brilliant imagination.

Start with your business card as code.