There has been questions recently about what can you share on social networking sites while being a professional. I've heard this issue brought up before and it has perplexed me because I don't see a pronounced difference between who I am at work versus who I am at home.
I think there's a concept buried in people's heads that when they show up to work, or begin acting in some professional capacity, their name changes to "Representative of ..." I've always looked at it as more spending that time to accomplish the goal of furthering the interests of your employer (for which they gratefully compensate you). What this means, in my mind, is that you don't have two different personas that you change just like your work clothes, but rather that when you're accomplishing a "professional" goal your demeanor might shift some, but it's not like you have to completely pack your personality away.
I understand there is a question about what content is appropriate to communicate. On this my answer is it depends on what the name of the account is. If it is a library account, then it is not the right venue to share your love of knitting scarves for kittens, however if it is an account in your own name, then you are free to communicate anything you like.
The other issue that comes up is when you are trying to build a personal brand does what you can communicate change. I don't believe it does. Even if it doesn't seem like it, your "brand" is a result of your love of dogs who swim in lakes that have 5 letter names. Personal things do affect your approach to professional matters, and, unless you are a robot, they should. So if you want to share about your love of 80's martial arts movies with Hispanic protagonists (are there any?), then by all means please do.
Related posts:
I'm not narcisitic, you're eavesdropping by Bobbi Newman - an older post but a good take on social networking
Personal Accounts, Work Accounts - What to do? by David Lee King
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A Bright Idea of using DimDim.
Last week I had my first time of using DimDim as a tool for providing a presentation. Let me say at the beginning, I did not use this tool to it's full potential, or even half of it's potential.
The Situation
I finished writing the software for our new online meeting room management system and needed to demonstrate it to the managers who had rooms at their branches. The issue I'd had in past training sessions was that some of the managers were... less adroit at using a web browser. Since this session was more demonstration than training, I did not need them to remember which options to select, I only needed to show them the different options that were available. I wanted a tool to put everyone on the same page at the same time.
Using DimDim
I had the idea to use DimDim's desktop sharing even though it was a face to face meeting. That way, rather than telling them to look for a specific button and click on it, I could tell them just watch where the mouse went. Since the view could be made full screen, I could show them my desktop but it would look fairly close to what they would see when they did it for real. The idea worked with only two hitches which I'll explain below.
Issues
The issues I experienced during the live presentation somehow didn't happen when I did my full practice the day before. The first actually happened before the meeting began; the computers they were to sit in front of went into screen saver mode. This was easily solved by disabling the screen saver and putting the desktop sharing back to full screen. The second was more entertaining. DimDim is an online meeting platform with voip capabilities and so I started hearing myself echo from their computers. It took me a minute to realize why, but that was also quickly solved.
Future Use?
This first use was very much an experiment, but it was successful which has me wondering when I'll be able to use it again. Currently, I'm planning to use it to do the actual training on the system with the managers at their own branches as a further experiment. Right now, I consider DimDim to have a major drawback that might inhibit it's usefulness for training: it cannot let me turn desktop control over to another user (e.g. I can't say now you show me where to click to do X). Despite its drawbacks I think DimDim could be useful in providing future training.
The Situation
I finished writing the software for our new online meeting room management system and needed to demonstrate it to the managers who had rooms at their branches. The issue I'd had in past training sessions was that some of the managers were... less adroit at using a web browser. Since this session was more demonstration than training, I did not need them to remember which options to select, I only needed to show them the different options that were available. I wanted a tool to put everyone on the same page at the same time.
Using DimDim
I had the idea to use DimDim's desktop sharing even though it was a face to face meeting. That way, rather than telling them to look for a specific button and click on it, I could tell them just watch where the mouse went. Since the view could be made full screen, I could show them my desktop but it would look fairly close to what they would see when they did it for real. The idea worked with only two hitches which I'll explain below.
Issues
The issues I experienced during the live presentation somehow didn't happen when I did my full practice the day before. The first actually happened before the meeting began; the computers they were to sit in front of went into screen saver mode. This was easily solved by disabling the screen saver and putting the desktop sharing back to full screen. The second was more entertaining. DimDim is an online meeting platform with voip capabilities and so I started hearing myself echo from their computers. It took me a minute to realize why, but that was also quickly solved.
Future Use?
This first use was very much an experiment, but it was successful which has me wondering when I'll be able to use it again. Currently, I'm planning to use it to do the actual training on the system with the managers at their own branches as a further experiment. Right now, I consider DimDim to have a major drawback that might inhibit it's usefulness for training: it cannot let me turn desktop control over to another user (e.g. I can't say now you show me where to click to do X). Despite its drawbacks I think DimDim could be useful in providing future training.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Reporting Your Success - How to Do It and Why It Matters
The why should be fairly obvious, but just in case here goes:
Your place of work has made an investment in you, reporting your success whether in the form of a monthly report, or simply face to face during employee evaluations and review is your chance to show them the value they are receiving from their investment and asserting that they made the right choice in picking you to fill the position, and that the job they hired you for warrants the scale of the investment they made. This is in essence the same principle as when you were applying for the job, but, hopefully, with less competition.
How to toot your own horn, without getting off-key
The process of how to go about this is actually much simpler than it seems. Your objective is to show how well you're fulfilling the requirements of your position, and then how far beyond those requirements you go.
Use all your accomplishments
Let's start with your to-do list. As items move from to-do to done, they magically become what are known as accomplishments. An item might be a small accomplishment, but it is one all the same. Make a list of all your done items over the time period. Some items you'll group together (e.g. I don't list out each website edit in my final report, I group them all together under "updated public website"). If something was a major item such as a project that lasts a week (for a monthly report), it doesn't get grouped; When you're finished you can adjust which items you group together for length.
Let other people play too
I love it when someone e-mails me to say thank you, or to tell me how great a job I did. Not only is it nice to know you're appreciated, but when it's typed out, it becomes something that you can pass on. These might point out a few little things that you skipped adding to your to-do list, and it lets your boss see how highly your coworkers think of you. It's even better when you can produce an e-mail from someone who is over your boss complimenting your work.
Just remember this should never cause you stress; this is the time to pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
Your place of work has made an investment in you, reporting your success whether in the form of a monthly report, or simply face to face during employee evaluations and review is your chance to show them the value they are receiving from their investment and asserting that they made the right choice in picking you to fill the position, and that the job they hired you for warrants the scale of the investment they made. This is in essence the same principle as when you were applying for the job, but, hopefully, with less competition.
How to toot your own horn, without getting off-key
The process of how to go about this is actually much simpler than it seems. Your objective is to show how well you're fulfilling the requirements of your position, and then how far beyond those requirements you go.
Use all your accomplishments
Let's start with your to-do list. As items move from to-do to done, they magically become what are known as accomplishments. An item might be a small accomplishment, but it is one all the same. Make a list of all your done items over the time period. Some items you'll group together (e.g. I don't list out each website edit in my final report, I group them all together under "updated public website"). If something was a major item such as a project that lasts a week (for a monthly report), it doesn't get grouped; When you're finished you can adjust which items you group together for length.
Let other people play too
I love it when someone e-mails me to say thank you, or to tell me how great a job I did. Not only is it nice to know you're appreciated, but when it's typed out, it becomes something that you can pass on. These might point out a few little things that you skipped adding to your to-do list, and it lets your boss see how highly your coworkers think of you. It's even better when you can produce an e-mail from someone who is over your boss complimenting your work.
Just remember this should never cause you stress; this is the time to pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Dealing with Rejection (and Failure)
Recently, I was a guest on the podcast "T is for Training"; one of the subjects discussed was dealing with failure which sparked a discussion on how do you get over the fear of failure. Somewhat flippantly I suggested "practice, practice, practice," and I wanted to take a minute to dig a little deeper into what I meant.
Practice your presentation.
Lifehacker had a great post about how to improve your presentations. All you need to remember now, is that everything is a presentation. From the time you present your idea to get permission or buy-in, through every moment of it's execution, to the "debriefing", or to explaining why it failed, you are in the middle of a presentation. This means your actions during this entire period should ideally be planned almost to the point of being scripted. Of course you can't anticipate and script every little thing, but the more things you have planned for, the fewer things can catch you by surprise. The key focus of this type of practice is so that regardless of what comes, you can maintain your demeanor and poise. Many people are impressed when someone demonstrates the ability to keep their equilibrium when things fall apart.
Practice handling failure
Not only do you want to be able to keep your head when things spin out of control. You also want to demonstrate that you can handle failure, rejection, and criticism gracefully. I want you to visualize being told "no" or worse being told your idea is a bad idea. How humiliating it is to hear that, especially if it comes from someone you expect. Did you cringe? Then do it again. And again. And again. Until you can visualize hearing those words and still visualize yourself gracefully accepting the words and moving on, repeat the exercise. Then, for good measure, repeat it some more. A majority of times this is your worst case scenario and you just showed yourself how to get through it repeatedly. You might note this is an implementation of "expect the worst and all your surprises will be pleasant." Repeat this step through implementation of the project, figure out what ways it could fail, then try to address those weaknesses, and finally prepare for them to fail anyway.
Practice letting go
Most AA style programs have as a step believing that your fate is in the hands of a higher power. I am not going to be so cruel as to suggest that the deity of your choice might want you to fail; however, the reason for this is that you need to realize there are things you cannot control. Flip a coin and try to make it land on heads 100 times in a row. Sure if you do it enough it will happen, but it's more likely that was the law of averages happening. The truth is you cannot prepare for everything. When I worked for a radio station we had an Italian engineer who, when things went wrong that he didn't predict, would say "f***ing Murphy," referring to Murphy's Law. You need to realize that if you did your homework and prepared for as much as you could expect, if things go wrong then it was just "f***ing Murphy." Take a deep breath and say to yourself "Oh, I didn't realize that could happen like that," and prepare to take the lumps you practiced for earlier.
No, the gut wrenching feeling when things slide out of control will never go away. No, the gut wrenching feeling that things might go wrong will never go away. Accept that practice doing your best when faced with the worst.
Practice your presentation.
Lifehacker had a great post about how to improve your presentations. All you need to remember now, is that everything is a presentation. From the time you present your idea to get permission or buy-in, through every moment of it's execution, to the "debriefing", or to explaining why it failed, you are in the middle of a presentation. This means your actions during this entire period should ideally be planned almost to the point of being scripted. Of course you can't anticipate and script every little thing, but the more things you have planned for, the fewer things can catch you by surprise. The key focus of this type of practice is so that regardless of what comes, you can maintain your demeanor and poise. Many people are impressed when someone demonstrates the ability to keep their equilibrium when things fall apart.
Practice handling failure
Not only do you want to be able to keep your head when things spin out of control. You also want to demonstrate that you can handle failure, rejection, and criticism gracefully. I want you to visualize being told "no" or worse being told your idea is a bad idea. How humiliating it is to hear that, especially if it comes from someone you expect. Did you cringe? Then do it again. And again. And again. Until you can visualize hearing those words and still visualize yourself gracefully accepting the words and moving on, repeat the exercise. Then, for good measure, repeat it some more. A majority of times this is your worst case scenario and you just showed yourself how to get through it repeatedly. You might note this is an implementation of "expect the worst and all your surprises will be pleasant." Repeat this step through implementation of the project, figure out what ways it could fail, then try to address those weaknesses, and finally prepare for them to fail anyway.
Practice letting go
Most AA style programs have as a step believing that your fate is in the hands of a higher power. I am not going to be so cruel as to suggest that the deity of your choice might want you to fail; however, the reason for this is that you need to realize there are things you cannot control. Flip a coin and try to make it land on heads 100 times in a row. Sure if you do it enough it will happen, but it's more likely that was the law of averages happening. The truth is you cannot prepare for everything. When I worked for a radio station we had an Italian engineer who, when things went wrong that he didn't predict, would say "f***ing Murphy," referring to Murphy's Law. You need to realize that if you did your homework and prepared for as much as you could expect, if things go wrong then it was just "f***ing Murphy." Take a deep breath and say to yourself "Oh, I didn't realize that could happen like that," and prepare to take the lumps you practiced for earlier.
No, the gut wrenching feeling when things slide out of control will never go away. No, the gut wrenching feeling that things might go wrong will never go away. Accept that practice doing your best when faced with the worst.
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