This is a partial solution to a question that’s been in my mind for some time. Since I created a Social Media Resume (SMR) a few months back, the point that I didn’t enable comments directly on the page has been bothering me.
Part of the reason for that is because I wanted to keep the resume page, clean and under control. However, a “Social Media Resume” by definition requires interaction – some kind of social aspect. Without that component, it’s merely a multi-media resume.
So this post will be the catch-all for the comments on the resume page – I’ll add a link to add a comment which will bring people to this page. So if you’ve got a comment on my SMR, by all means – leave one below!
The post went up sometime before 10am (Central Time), and Jeremiah Tweeted about the post on Twitter shortly thereafter. Within just a few minutes, there were over 20 comments on this post with people giving feedback and sharing their Twitter profile links, inviting others to follow them and join in their conversation.
Within three hours the comment count had climbed to over 160 with more streaming in constantly. This desire to interact, to connect, share ideas, and communicate is nothing new, but what followed on Twitter is the bigger story.
We can talk numbers, and its at least someplace to start. For example I found nearly 100 new people to follow, and about 80 people have chosen to follow my Twitter postings. Fellow Twitters had similar experiences today and in some cases doubled their follower counts.
However, what’s at the root of this enormous expansion in Twitter following is the desire to build community. To interact with more people, from different places and expand our peer networks. The numbers are simply a statistic to track, but the real important part is that I was able to find 100 or more interesting, intelligent, fun people that I wanted to add to my daily or weekly conversations. I’m also flattered to have so many people interested in what I bring to the table as well.
The net result for the next few days will be learning how to deal with a fire hose of Twitters, a constant barrage of information. Currently I’m trying to read as much as possible as it passes by, but I’m quickly learning to skim and watch for the topics I should read and not absorb it all.
The post itself is a great piece about why Twitter is a useful tool, and should be read simply on it’s own. But I bet if you go read the post, the comments will pull you in and soon you too will be a part of the community-building exercise that has morphed out of a good blog post.
By the way, at the time of this writing, there were in excess of 300 commenter’s, sharing and building their communities. Are you?
I’ve been talking with a number of people in differing areas of companies while drumming up consulting or contract gigs, and something is becoming very apparent. While there is a huge amount of misunderstanding regarding social media, there is also a growing interest in online professional networking.
What intrigues me is how the growing interest in social networking can’t address the biggest problem facing these tools in corporate settings. That is, the need to provide a business case that is benefited by these tools and technologies. Fine, sure, yeah, I know that there are many business situations that simply do not require new ways to do their jobs, but there are many other situations that do.
Communication is one of the obvious ones, but I remember a number of individuals who could not look past the continuing arguments of “its a time waster” or “it’s a security hole”. Sure, they can be that – but no worse than email. This problem and these arguments are as old as technology itself. No matter what the new idea/tool/concept is, it requires a new generation to prove it’s worth.
What we need to do to help foster corporate uptake of social media is to provide learning opportunities. This might be by sending articles addressing the professional and productivity aspects to key decision makers. It may also be done by providing “brown bag” lunches with an agenda of exploring online and hosted social tools. One could also use themselves as an example of how to use social media to leverage their personal brand within an organization – I think many of us are already doing that.
At any rate, I’m going to continue to look for those opportunities for companies to leverage new media/social media tools to their advantage.
Have you discovered innovative uses for social media in your organization?
ICYMI: 357 members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat voted AGAINST our resolution to make public the sexual harassment and misconduct records of Congress.
357 Members voted to protect predators. 357 Members voted to protect themselves. 357 Members voted to take part in a
