Personal Public Persona

Earlier this week I authored a piece about social media in potential hire profiling. The responses have been varied but one point has become certain:

Without your boss sitting on your lap at all times, the choices you make are your own!


This sentiment is not specific to social media but it may be the area in which it is most prevalent. Tony Bruno was suspended this week for his choices and many others have suffered an even worse fate. As Erica Albright stated, "the Internet is written in ink". So unavoidably true. Your company cannot police your every thought, your opinions may fall into the wrong inbox, and interpreting the mood of the written word is very difficult. We are not governed by the platform or the organization with which we are affiliated. We can only monitor ourselves. This is a massive responsibility!

I don't believe that Tony Bruno is a racist, he just got caught up in the moment. This week I saw that a person trying to help another revealed confidential mental health information about that person. The intention was good but the after effect served to further limit the person she was trying to help. I saw another post asking sorority women to disable their facebook pages during their recruitment period..? That's a super secret society.

I don't know about you but I'm not willing to give up that easily. I strongly believe that every company should be aligned with their core values (from CEO to Intern). The most prominent core value of any company is: TRUST! If you want a productive and empowered workforce...trust is essential. Everyone appreciates being given the club with the power to swing it as they wish. No one likes rules, restrictions and/or regulations (necessary as they may be).

This social media thing is not going away. In fact, more people communicate through facebook than email these days. We have an opportunity to use the power of our personal influence for good...why ignore it or attempt to regulate it. Like anything else, we learn from our mistakes in social media. We stop putting down others in blog chats, we stop voicing our opinions after 4 beers, and we refrain from jokes that may be conceived as bullying.

For the first time in my professional lifetime the villagers have more influence than the king. The voice of the people has never been stronger. Twitter is the voice of the NFL players union, blogs speak louder than the New York Times and Facebook has more citizens than most countries. We must understand that with great power comes great responsibility. We need to be aware that our words have consequences and that they cannot be erased. Accept the privilege and proceed with riotous intent!

It is certain that social media will improve our communication. We will learn what to say and when to say it. We will stop protecting our words and share them. We will grow, in honesty, together!

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave

Collaborate

Welcome to the first installment of the Employee Purpose Perspective. This is a 7 part blog series that will challenge you to breath the winds of change into your organization.

Salesforce.com has become one of the most profitable companies in the world over the last five years. The interesting thing about Salesforce.com is that they have developed camaraderie in the cloud. First, they developed a world class CRM tool, then they invited potential competitors to create apps to compliment their service suite.

Imagine that...an industry leader focused on collaboration not competition...?

In the advent of social media we have seen a shift from company logos to personal brands. We have found ways to share ideas instead of locking them away. An individual (who may not have a leadership position within the walls of their company) has an opportunity to reach far more people through their blog, twitter or facebook page.

We drive ourselves nuts worrying about the competition. What if that didn't matter? What if we could work freely without paranoia of giving away secrets? What if we could look our competitors in the eye and say, "this is what we do, try to stop us". What if we could coexist in an industry space without having blood money circumstance? My contention is that the transparency of open business practices forces us to have better customer service, better relationships and tailored solutions. We are not fighting for the same customers, we are developing lifelong partnerships. There is no blood in the water because we are all sailing in our own direction.

Companies like LinkedIn and Zappos have created a space on Twitter to address customer issues. Completely out in the open. It would seem that you would have to have great confidence in your customer service to open a complaint file for millions to view. Either that, or you are willing to share the hiccups and your ability to cure them. Honesty driving business efficiency....another shocking development!

There are 3 Principles to Collaboration:
1. Shared Vision
2. Profitability
3. Rewarded Resource Allocation

Vision
Everyone wants to work with the Fortune 500. If you run a 5 employee start up, you may not have the bandwidth to service GE. 'Tis better to understand your limitations than to drain the bucket pretending it can contain a big fish.

Profits
Would you rather spend all day trying to please one customer or service 100 customers with organic efficiency?

Our most difficult customers are difficult because we bent over backward pretending we could please them...and have been performing back flips ever since.

Rewards
Thank You is a great thing to hear. Great expectations and their according challenges are any customer's right to business elevation. But, this has to be an empowered process. If you are always asking for more by the entitlement of a paid invoice, you are missing the point of partnership. Say Thank You after every challenge is over come....and learn to forgive if the effort is there and human error wins over once in a while.

The first step in making the career you want out of the job you have is finding the right customers. If you force partnerships you will....drain your resources, piss off your co-workers, spend your days checking your phone and spend your nights awake.

Define your target market and utilize your time accordingly!

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave

If You Really Knew Me...

...you would know that I am Super Awesome!

Before this concept became a hit show on MTV, my friend Mike Robbins was work shopping it as a form of conflict resolution with some of the world's most prominent companies.

It always seems that our best intentions get misinterpreted...especially in Social Media forums. It seems without exception that every time I post on a blog or tweet something, emotions surface and the defenses go up.

So in today's blog post let's workshop a little conflict resolution by touching on some key points:
* Words are Just That
* Emotion is an Evil Mistress to Contrary Opinion
* Does it Really Matter?

Interpretation is in the eye of the beholder
Sometimes you see a blog post with which you agree. You voice an excited opinion and the author writes to the forum that you are attacking him/her...? What gives...?

Blogging is mostly based on opinion. We build our network of trusted advisers and reciprocate like minded verse. Because there is strength in numbers we tend to come to our friends defense when he/she has been embarrassed by someone. Social Media is not a popularity contest, as the golden rule goes, the more friends you have online the fewer you have in REAL LIFE! Be advised that there is an obligation to free speech that means reeling your friends in if they are off base. You don't HAVE TO agree with someone just because they are your friend online. You don't HAVE TO defend someone if you don't agree with them.

That's how this things work. Promote new thought and allow your detractors to help you consider all the angles.

Don't Be A Sissy!
No one likes to be told they are wrong. Just because your opinions are challenged doesn't mean they are wrong. Where we get ourselves in trouble is by ganging up on someone because they feel differently than we do. We are all entitled to our Thought Leadership, there is no right answer and if we ignore contrary thought we are defeating the purpose of participation.

Take the emotion out of it! You can be wrong and do not have to apologize to the world for it.

Stay Level Headed! Don't let emotion based defense mechanisms drive you to a self preservation campaign.

Take a Breath! Before you let your anger prompt a forever documented tirade...take a breath, soak it in, consider the rival opinion and grow from it.

It's Twitter People....
Come on, do you really care what a recruiter in Australia says about your Best Practices case study? You will probably not meet any of the people with whom you share a network, their thoughts may be taken out of context and they might live in their Mom's basement. The best way to protect your personal brand is to have thought promotion strategy that includes avoiding unnecessary bickering.

Just because one person disagrees with your thoughts doesn't mean that the other 32,000 do. The way to compromise your brand with everyone is to get defensive and get into a war of egos.

We live in an exciting time! We can now share ideas with billions of people in real time. We do not work with them directly so they are usually more candid in their communication.

Participate, Learn From Your Detractors and Grow Your Collaborative Strategy!

Don't Forget to Remember!

Dave